"Maelstrom" Quotes from Famous Books
... into a clean, respectable little restaurant and lunched off a lamb chop and boiled potatoes, regardless of the excellent lunch that awaited her at home. Then, like a restless and unclean spirit, out she blew once more into the howling maelstrom ... — Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... On the swift maelstrom of the eddying world We hurl our woes, and think they are no more. But round and round by dizzy billows whirled, They reach out sinewy arms ... — Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for the souls that come unwelcomed into birth, I'm sorry for the unloved old who cumber up the earth, I'm sorry for the suffering poor in life's great maelstrom hurled - In truth, I'm sorry for them all who ... — Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... red keel, propellers and rudder showing to the troubled troopers who sadly watched the demise of the famous old ship. A quarter of an hour longer she floated, sinking lower and lower, then, with an easy motion, she slid away from sight. For a few minutes a maelstrom of white, surging water foamed and spurted, then, sadly and slowly, the host of small craft which had rushed to the rescue made again for their stations. Destroyers manoeuvred in vain search of the submarine, while battleships ... — The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... purchase a doughnut and a cup of coffee almost anywhere, or we could eat a sandwich in the park, but the matter of a bed, the business of sleeping in a maelstrom like New York was something more than serious—it was dangerous. Frank, naturally of a more prodigal nature, was all for going to the Broadway Hotel. "It's only for one night," said he. He always was rather careless of ... — A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... There were acres upon acres of greensward set about and cut up with gravelled walks, great alleyed rows of trees, groves without number and galleries and colonnades innumerable. Without roared the traffic of a great city, a less noisy traffic than that of to-day, perhaps, but still a contrasting maelstrom of bustle and furor as compared with the ... — Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... The London Daily News.)—This week—a week of many significant things—has ended in the wildest whirl of weather imaginable. The rains have been terrific, blinding, tropical in their almost ceaseless roar and fury. Surely only madmen or fiends would fight in such an elemental maelstrom. We may be both, and perhaps we are, now that the whole world is topsy-turvy; for we are going savagely on at this dread business, half blind and wholly desperate. If the furious sky were to rain red-hot pitchforks the contending armies would ... — Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... Norway there is an extensive vortex, or eddy, which lies between the islands of Moskoe and Moskenas, and is called Moskoestrom, or Maelstrom; it occupies some leagues in circumference, and is said to be very dangerous and often destructive to vessels navigating these seas. It is not easy to understand the existence of a constant descending ... — The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... the center of an emotional maelstrom, watched the struggle from the prison of her own horror. At that moment she was physically, mentally and spiritually ill; a human being caught in the midst of forces ... — Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... account for its existence by a supposition like the above, the black gaps would remain unexplained, unless one could make a further draft on the imagination and suggest that the stars had been thrown into a vast eddy, or system of eddies, whose vortices appear as dark holes. Only a maelstrom-like motion could keep such a funnel open, for without regard to the impulse derived from the projectile, the proper motions of the stars themselves would tend to fill it. Perhaps some other cause of the whirling motion ... — Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... Sagasta-weekee? With laughter and song we saw them dash away, as under their skillful strokes their light canoes, like sea birds, glided along over the peaceful waters. Now, drenched and half dazed by the blinding glare of the terrific storm, they are battling for life in a very maelstrom of waters. Suddenly had the storm struck them. They had remarked the strange actions and the frightened cries of the birds, that all seemed hurrying in one direction. Then they had observed the dead calm that had settled down on everything. ... — Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... Mastery which comes to any man according to his powers and diligence in any direction? If not, why not have an end of the superstition which has caused our race to go on so long writing and reading of the difference between talent and genius? It is within the memory of middle-aged men that the Maelstrom existed in the belief of the geographers, but we now get on perfectly well without it; and why should we still suffer under the notion of "genius" which keeps so many poor little authorlings trembling in question whether they have it, or ... — Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... from some totally unexpected quarter when we've all but given up hope. I've seen that happen a score of times. There's no predicting it—no counting on it. But when it comes—then look out! A case that has been placid and smooth as a mill pond will suddenly develop the characteristics of a maelstrom!" He smiled encouragement at the troubled Jason. "If one starts in this case, we may reasonably expect that its gurgitations will yield us that missing notebook if ... — The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... midst of this musical Maelstrom I send you a voice, which, if heard instead of read, would be lamentable enough. We are lifted off our feet by the perfect torrent of engagements, of visits, of going out and receiving; our house is full, from morning till night, of people coming to sing with or listen to my sister. ... — Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... all Europe with tumult and disorder, the far-northern realms of Norway and Sweden and the far-eastern one of Turkey alone escaping from being drawn into the maelstrom of conflict. Denmark, the Scandinavian kingdom nearest the region of conflict, did not escape, but was made the victim of wars with which it had no concern to a ... — Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... strive as a floodtide to move them from the anchorage and peace of self-restraint. Beware of the deceitful stream of temporary gratification, whose eddying current drifts towards license, shame, disease and death. Remember how quickly moral power declines, how rapidly the edge of the fatal maelstrom is reached, how near the vortex, how terrible the penalty, how fearful the sentence ... — Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... tone partly brought the boy to himself, and he followed as closely as he could, but only to be beaten back again and again. That terrific chant was now at its highest and wildest, and he and the doctor were caught in the human maelstrom and swirled hither and thither like straws. They were swept far apart, and when they were quickly driven together again, they had lost sight of Ruth. They were tossed once more, and thrown outside the fiercest swirl. Standing still, ... — Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... opportunity of administering 'instant relief and speedy cure' to all complainers, stranger or friend, gentle or simple. Alas! it is with a bitter smile, a laugh of gall and bitterness, that I recall this period of unsuspecting delusion, and how I first became aware of the Maelstrom, the fatal whirlpool to which I was drawing, just when the current was beyond my strength to stem. The state of my mind is truly portrayed in the following effusion, for God knows! that from that time I was the victim of pain and terror, nor had I at any time taken ... — English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Sherlock Holmes?" has revived our old ambition to own a complete set of all the Sherlock Holmes tales, and we are going to set about scouring the town for them). Every time we pass through the Atlantic Avenue maelstrom, which is twelve times a week, we see, as plain as print, the beginning ... — Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... the sea in the Pentland Firth, or off the north-western coast of Norway, making a deep round hole, and the waters, rushing into the vortex and gurgling in the holes in the centre of the stones, produced the great whirlpool which is known as the Maelstrom. As for the salt it soon melted; but such was the immense quantity ground by the giantesses that it permeated all the waters of the sea, which have ever since been ... — Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... eternal solitudes of Guamoco to the whirring activities of New York was like a plunge into the maelstrom, and left her groping blindly in the effort to adapt herself to the changed order. There was little in her former mode of existence that could be transferred to her new environment, and she felt that she ... — Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and disused cannon; even that does not suggest a more anomalous association of ideas than the spectacle of a vine-clad cottage shaded by fig trees, basking peacefully in the sun, so close to what was at one time a veritable maelstrom of human passions. So far as the new Coloma is concerned, Marshall's discovery might never have been made. Nowhere else will you find a spot where gold and what it stands for would seem to mean so little, ... — A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... she discovered this new maelstrom in her sea of troubles; but here was Carmela herself speaking to ... — The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... clung to their heavy banner poles, trying to keep the banners above the maelstrom. But the police seized them, tore the pennants, broke the poles, some of them over our backs, trampled them underfoot, pounded us, dragged us, and in every way behaved like frantic beasts. It would have been so simple quietly to detain our little handful until after the President's speech, ... — Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... a dull leadenish hue, and there was nothing anywhere to be seen beyond sky and water save the poor Josephine tearing along through the chaotic maelstrom, labouring and groaning heavily as she rolled from side to side, dipping her yard-arms from time to time with each lurch, with the wind shrieking and whistling the most wonderful harp music through the rigging—nothing ... — The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... moonlight.... And then, suddenly, there was no moonlight at all, or just the faintest glimmer of it, like light seen through milky water. Instead, he had stepped into a swirling vapor that in an instant lost him completely from the door he had just left; a maelstrom of fog, that choked him, half blinded him, twisted about him like wet, coiling ropes, and in a dreadful moment he saw that through the fog were thrust out toward him arms of a famine thinness, the extended fingers of which groped at his throat, were obliterated by the fog, groped ... — The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the pleasures of vice as of the practice of cruelty; and it was said there were times when he became humanized amidst his debauchery, laughed at the terror which his furious declamations excited, and might be approached with safety, like the Maelstrom at the turn of tide. His profusion was indulged to an extent hazardous to his popularity, for the populace are jealous of a lavish expenditure, as raising their favourites too much above their own degree; and the charge of peculation finds ... — The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... among them were little clusters of bewildered tourists, labouring along with bags and bundles, and watching their luggage pushed before them on hand-carts—puzzled inarticulate waifs caught in the cross-tides racing to a maelstrom. ... — Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... of Norway, close to the Lofoden Islands, the current runs so strong north and south for six hours and then in the opposite direction for a similar period, that the water is thrown into tremendous whirls. This is the far-famed Maelstrom, or whirling-stream. The whirlpool is most active at high and low tide, and when the winds are contrary the disturbance of the sea is so great that few boats can live in it. In ordinary circumstances, however, ships can sail right across the Maelstrom without ... — Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... believe That pleasures are pitfalls prepared to deceive By wily old Satan (who constantly tries To catch you by throwing his dust in your eyes, Thus, blinding his victim, securing his prize); That the dance is a maelstrom, where sinners are whirled Around a few times, and then suddenly hurled From daylight to darkness, from pleasure to woe, From terrestrial regions, to regions—below: But now was afforded a fine opportunity For taking some pleasure with perfect impunity;— Ostensibly pleasing a worthy relation, ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... The drivers pressed close in on him, pinpointing him in the middle of the intersection. Shouts and jeers and horns; the roaring scream of fire engines; people running and shouting; Ventura at Laurel Canyon was a cacophonous maelstrom. ... — The Glory of Ippling • Helen M. Urban
... and wealthy family, the numerous children of which seemed to have been born to bloom for a few years in the rugged garden of this world, and then be transplanted to the better land. Only the youngest son survived. He entered the army and went to India—that deadly maelstrom which has swallowed up so much of British youth and blood and beauty! When the old couple became bankrupt and died, the old nurse found herself alone and almost destitute ... — The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... creature for what it was: a full-grown specimen of the giant carnivorous lemak, a seldom-seen, dying species, too clumsy, too slow, too huge to survive. His ray-gun came around, but he was caught in a feathered maelstrom and knocked too violently around to use it. Without pause the lemak's claws raked his suit. Unable to rend the tough fabric, it resorted to another method. With a strength so enormous that it could overcome the force of the gravity-plates and his forward ... — The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... the plane of romantic devotion and self-sacrifice. Her Camille seemed a victim of remorseless destiny, a pure soul struggling amid inexorable circumstances that racked and cajoled a diseased and suffering body into the maelstrom of sin. ... — Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... time he had dragged himself down to the street level a turbo-truck had slammed to a stop in front of the loading platform. Two Pyrrans were rolling out drums of napalm with reckless disregard for their own safety. Jason didn't dare enter that maelstrom of rolling metal. He found he could be of use tugging the heavy drums into position on the truck while the others rolled them up. They accepted his aid ... — Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... some almost forgotten lumber lands that his father had failed to heave into the Confederate maelstrom. Perhaps it had come a little soon for the very best upbuilding of the character of David Kildare, but he had stood shoulder to shoulder with them all in the fight for the establishment of the new order of things and ... — Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Sandy was actually in the express heading for London that he realised quite all the difficulties which lay ahead. He was just a big-hearted, impulsive boy, and, without wasting time in futile blame or vain regrets, he had plunged straight into the maelstrom which had engulfed his pal, determined to help her back ... — The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... musket, he leaped into the gangway so ferociously that the pirates scrambled over the side, brown men and white, preferring to take their chances in the sea. As he charged on, I lost sight of him in the maelstrom of struggling figures. On my left a Lascar was fighting for his life against one of our new crew. On every side men were splashing and shouting ... — The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... See those sandwich men down there! That third one's hat! Fair treat! You don't see poverty like that in Wimblehurst George! And many of them high Oxford honour men too. Brought down by drink! It's a wonderful place, George—a whirlpool, a maelstrom! whirls you ... — Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... change coming," he said, slowly. "We are going to drift no longer. We are going to be drawn into the maelstrom of life. What it may mean for you and for me and for the boy, I do not know. It will change us—it must change our work. I shall paint no more guesses at realism—after someone else; and you will write no more of princesses, or pull the strings of tinsel-decked puppets, so that they may ... — The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reached. People were fighting for the Belgians, but with their hearts instead of their hands. The stupendous wave of sympathy was at its height. It rolled across the land and then across the sea. People were swept along by its mighty rush. Anne Thorpe was caught up in the maelstrom of ... — From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... the great maelstrom of war, can cultivate humane sentiments and abolish the barbarism of dueling, which still holds its ground in France and Germany in the highest ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... numbing silence fell. A swish! A cat on a small bear's back. A scene impossible! A hairy tornado, rolling, twisting, flopping, yelling, screeching, roaring, and howling, tore, bit, scratched, clawed, and walloped all over the place. An epileptic nebula; a maelstrom that revolved in every way known to man at the same instant; a prodigy of tooth and claw. If that fight were magnified a hundred times, a glimpse of it would kill; as it was, myself and the clothing store boy clung weakly to the wall ... — Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor them and disgrace their independence." * But an invitation to enter the European maelstrom and battle for neutral rights made no ... — Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... constantly on the alert. At no time could they tell when to expect the attacks of the unseen forces below. Ten feet ahead the water might be running as smooth as oil, then—a single huge bubble, as if a great fish had sent up a gasp of air—and in an instant it would be boiling like a small maelstrom. ... — The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... to swim by being tossed into life's maelstrom and left to make his way ashore. No youth can learn to sail his life-craft in a lake sequestered and sheltered from all the storms, where other vessels never come. Skill comes through sailing one's craft amidst rocks and bars and opposing fleets, amidst ... — Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... believe that the passion of the American people for learning and for antiquity is a slight and accidental thing? Does any one believe that the taste for imitation old furniture is a pose? It creates an eddy in the Maelstrom of Commerce. It is a power like Niagara, and represents the sincere appreciation of half educated people for second rate things. There is here nothing to be ashamed of. In fact there is everything to be proud of in this progress of the arts, this importation of culture by ... — Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... He was a good waltzer, but not a graceful one. He steered his way well, and went with a strong swing that covered a great deal of ground; but there was a want of finish. Lady Mabel looked as if she were being carried away by a maelstrom. And now people began to move towards the supper-rooms, of which there were two, luxuriously arranged with numerous round tables in the way that was still a novelty when "Lothair" was written. This gave more room for the dancers. The people for whom a ball ... — Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... purple twilight, Blanche waited upon the walk, And beckoned her white hand to me— A lily swayed on its stalk. Soon my jealous pride was foundered In the maelstrom ... — Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... after his triumph over Billy Goodge, and the boy obeyed meekly. Paul believed in himself; the boy didn't. Almost from the beginning he usurped an ascendancy over the little household. For all their having lived in the great maelstrom of London, he found his superficial experience of life larger than that of mother and daughter. They had never seen machinery at work, did not know the difference between an elm and a beech and had never read Sir Walter Scott. Mrs. Seddon, thin, ... — The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... recluse, and call while I am here,' she had said as she was being drawn away from me into a sort of maelstrom of gaily coloured dresses, and laughing, compliment-paying men. And I blessed her ... — The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... breach more and more, till faster and faster poured in his bands, and the centre of Warwick's army seemed to reel and whirl round the broadening gap through its ranks, as the waves round some chasm in a maelstrom. ... — The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... us from destruction, Encolpius," he shouted; "restore that sacred robe and holy rattle to the ship! Be merciful, for heaven's sake, just as you used to be!" He was still shouting when a windsquall swept him into the sea; the raging elements whirled him around and around in a terrible maelstrom and sucked him down. Tryphaena, on the other hand, was seized by her faithful servants, placed in a skiff, along with the greater part of her belongings, and saved from certain death. Embracing Giton, I wept aloud: "Did we deserve this from the gods," I cried, "to be united only ... — The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Rights Platform. Gentlemen in distant seats were perhaps trembling to think that they had actually got that far into this dangerous place. They might think themselves well off—no, badly off—if the maelstrom did not draw them nearer and nearer and nearer in, as it did him. He began, like them, hesitating and smiling on the back seats; they saw what he had got to now, and he hoped they, too, might get into such noble company before long. He was prouder to train ... — History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... unconsciously came into the very centre of the suffragists' maelstrom of attack when he sent Bok his famous poem: "The Female of the Species." The suffragists at once took the argument in the poem as personal to themselves, and now Kipling got the full benefit of ... — The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... sudden host of memories. His eyes grew wistful. He felt something tugging at his heartstrings. Only a few years ago life here had seemed so wonderful a thing—only a few years, but with all the passions and struggles of a lifetime crowded into them. The maelstrom was there still, but he himself had crept out of it. What was there left? Peace, haunted with memories, rest, troubled by desire. He heard the sound of their voices in the rose-garden, and he turned away with a pain in his heart of which he was ashamed. These ... — A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the center of the maelstrom and laughed at him—a capitalist keeping pace with indigestion, racing against time. Little wonder that ... — The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... than that they were found, which is on the whole, perhaps, best—for them certainly. The others, the lost, drift from the tenements and back, a host of thousands year by year. The two I am thinking of were of these, typical of the maelstrom. ... — Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... The Maelstrom! Could a more frightening name have rung in our ears under more frightening circumstances? Were we lying in the dangerous waterways off the Norwegian coast? Was the Nautilus being dragged into this whirlpool just as the skiff ... — 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... and the cup from the terrible steep, That, rugged and hoary, hung over the verge Of the endless and measureless world of the deep, Swirl'd into the maelstrom that madden'd the surge. "And where is the diver so stout to go— I ask ... — The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the meshes of the net. So desperate had been the charge that our little craft was now actually a serious encumbrance to the monster. It struggled madly to free itself, leaping almost clear of the water and lashing the placid lagoon into a perfect maelstrom. ... — The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... brilliance shot up toward the zenith. Under it whirled a maelstrom of varied radiance, pale with distance, but marvellously beautiful. Forsythe passed them with a troubled face, on his way below to report, ... — The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... been tossed aside into eddies by the maelstrom of action. They were interesting because they were the first British wounded that I had seen; because the ... — My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... with a delicate and tender flush that came and went like the vibrating pink of early dawn. She had the divinest straight nose, tip-tilted the faintest, most alluring trifle, and a dimple cleft her chin, "the deadliest maelstrom in the world!" He thrilled through and through. He had been only vaguely conscious of the dimple in the night. It was not until he saw her by daylight that he really knew ... — The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... slipped out. Dinky-Dunk had tunneled through the drift in front of the door, but that tunnel was already beginning to fill again. I plowed through it, and tried to look about me. Everything was a sort of streaked misty gray, an all-enveloping muffing leaden maelstrom that hurt your skin when you lifted your head and tried to look it in the face. Once, in a lull of the wind when the snow was not so thick, I caught sight of the hay-stacks. That gave me a line on the hen-house. So I made for it, on the run, holding ... — The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... lightened. A river-wide froth, like a curtain, moved down, spreading mushroom-wise before it, a rolling, heaving maelstrom. Bostil ran to escape the great wave that surged into the amphitheater, up and up the rocky trail. When he turned again he seemed to look down into hell. Murky depths, streaked by pale gleams, and black, sinister, ... — Wildfire • Zane Grey
... buried in the swirling maelstrom, and then as the Halfmoon rose again, shaking the watery enemy from her back, the two men were disclosed—Theriere half over the ship's side—the mucker clinging to him with one hand, the other clutching desperately at a ... — The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... transient favorite of the fickle goddess. When gambling lost its power to drown the voice of conscience, there was the race, the play and the wine cup! To each of them appealing in turn, he went whirling madly around the outer circles of the great maelstrom in which so many brilliant youths were ... — The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... of view varied as the aftermath of the tragedy developed, the colonel alone pursuing his daily life without comment, although deep down in his heart a very maelstrom was ... — Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... checkered only by my departure and by the incident I shall presently relate. And even after I quitted that noble mansion, the kindness of its inmates still watched over me, and opened homes to me even in that great Maelstrom ... — The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... promised to go higher; there was something doing every minute and not enough minutes in a working day to accommodate half of these somethings. What more natural, therefore, than that Cappy presently should find himself caught in the maelstrom, even though he told himself daily that, come what might he would ... — Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... about an axis, turning aound an axis, circulation, roll; circumrotation^, circumvolution, circumgyration^; volutation^, circination^, turbination^, pirouette, convolution. verticity^, whir, whirl, eddy, vortex, whirlpool, gurge^; countercurrent; Maelstrom, Charybdis; Ixion. [rotating air] cyclone; tornado, whirlwind; dust devil. [rotation of an automobile] spin-out. axis, axis of rotation, swivel, pivot, pivot point; axle, spindle, pin, hinge, pole, arbor, bobbin, mandrel; axle ... — Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... be absorbed in a local paper, but in reality my thoughts were a maelstrom. Suppose he had ... — The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... contact with the paramount mystery of all, has broadened me, or benumbed me. I don't know. All I seem to see clearly—to clearly understand—is the dreadful brevity of life, the awful chances against living, the miracle of love in such a maelstrom, the insanity of one who dare not confess it, live for it, love to the uttermost with heart, soul, and body, ... — Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... he plunged into the maelstrom. The rushing water swept him back, again and again, but each time the struggle was renewed with increased determination; and each effort carried him a few yards nearer the goal. Just as it seemed the coveted spot had been attained, the breakers ... — The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... the animation of the Giaour—a penitential despair arising from a cause undisclosed. The Giaour, though wounded and fettered, and laid in a dungeon, would not have felt as Conrad is supposed to feel in that situation. The following bold and terrific verses, descriptive of the maelstrom agitations of remorse, could not have been appropriately applied to the despair of grief, the predominant source ... — The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... of successive defeats, Lincoln, almost fortuitously, was at the center of the political maelstrom. The clue to what follows is in the way he had developed during that long discouraging apprenticeship to greatness. Mentally, he had always been in isolation. Socially, he had lived in a near horizon. The real tragedy of his failure ... — Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Holland, the Hooley excitement, and the Barney Barnato South African mining furor in England, the Secretan copper corner, and the tremendous bonanza delirium in California; but none of these, save the first, is comparable with the magnitude of the copper maelstrom of 1899. The tulip craze could have been thrust in and withdrawn again without diverting one of its currents; the Barney Barnato affair was little more than an eddy on the surface of English finance in contrast. We were dealing in hundreds and five hundreds ... — Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... especially destined for your two youngest Dolorosi, who were just recovering from the measles, and needed something light and palatable) vanished in large rectangular masses within your throat, drawn downward in a maelstrom of coffee;—only that the original whirlpool is, I believe, now proved to have been imaginary;—"that cup was a fiction, but this is reality." The resources of the house also afforded certain very hot biscuits or breadcakes, in a high state of saleratus;—indeed, ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... that of an approaching express train, as Pat had suggested. Followed a smart blow on the shack. Then it reeled and the night was filled with a howling tumult that deafened the men inside; the blizzard had burst upon the mesa. Through the windows one could see nothing, for the air had become a black maelstrom of whirling snow and darkness where a choked roar persisted as steadily as the bass thunder of Niagara. The warmth had vanished; a cutting cold, as if striking direct from arctic ice, minute by minute ... — The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... just told you—" George plunged again into the maelstrom, and a pretty girl appeared from the firelit room behind to stir him to his highest flights of eloquence. A smell of savoury cooking came also, and out in the street night shut down dark and chill and sinister, as it does in all the best novels. John let part of the kit down on ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... are established, presses set up, and even churches appear. Post-office, banks, steamer and freight lines spring up within the year of the reign of gold. Disease raises its fevered head, and the physician appears by magic. The human maelstrom settles into an ebb and flood tide to and ... — The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... conscience. It has no more stability than a bad smell in a simoon. It has deified and damned every statesman by turn. It has been on every possible side of every public question, and wept bitter tears of regret because further change of policy were impossible. It is a perfect maelstrom of misinformation, the avatar of impudence, the incarnation of infamy—a social cesspool whose malodor spreads contagion like the rank breath of the gila-monster or the shade of a upas tree. Yet its editor, I am told, ... — Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a unique place in the maelstrom of vice and ambition which is sometimes called London life. Whilst at present he held no official post, some of the most momentous problems of British policy during the past five years, problems imperilling inter-state relationships and not infrequently threatening a renewal of the world ... — Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... pine-apples selling at the street-corners; till the ten-flounced dress has but three flounces, and it is felony to drink champagne; wait till these changes show themselves, the signs of deeper wants, the preludes of exhaustion and bankruptcy; then let us talk of the Maelstrom;—but till then, let us not be cowards with our purses, while brave men are emptying their hearts upon the earth for us; let us not whine over our imaginary ruin, while the reversed current of circling events is carrying us farther ... — Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... he called. "Wait for me, I'm going down!" But his voice was lost in the maelstrom of sound just as his body was lost in the maelstrom of motion. Besides, an automatic elevator cannot hear. It is merely a mechanism that goes up and down, just like the other mechanisms that go in and out, or around and around, and ... — This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... return of hope and courage came to Welch, and as his treacherous craft shot, crushing and grinding, into the maelstrom, he found his feet for a moment, and threw his arms above his head, his fingers clutching hungrily at the empty air. Then a corner of the ice fragment struck against the left-hand pillar and he lost ... — The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the crimes and wrongs of John C. Eno, but his father, with a sensitive pride not to allow innocent persons to suffer from the misconduct of his son, with a spirit really worthy of commendation, here or anywhere else, threw a large sum of money into the maelstrom and saved not only the credit of the bank and advanced his own credit, but to some extent, as far as he could at least, expiated the fault, the folly, and the crime of his son. The Metropolitan Bank is relieved from its embarrassments by its associate banks. The losses caused by the ... — Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... up to the dry sand and let the body of the girl slip from his shoulder. As he did so he heard a shout. Boreland and his wife were running down from the cabin trail. He did not pause but plunged back again through the drenching maelstrom. ... — Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... who feel that blast Which sweeps around that black forbidding coast! Fierce whirling storms and hurricanes here leap, With blasting lightnings maltalent and sweep The furious waves that lash around that shore, As the fierce whirl of some dread maelstrom's power! Above the cavern's arch! see! Ninip[10] stands! He points within the cave with beckoning hands! Ur-Hea cries: "My lord! the tablets[11] say, That we should not attempt that furious way! Those waters of black death will smite us down! ... — Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... supposed to be the site of constant whirlpools, such as Charybdis, the Maelstrom, and others. It means generally ... — The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... in their train—promote, with other evils, a pernicious development, with calamitous reaction upon him, of the aggrandizing instinct of the white, who would lure and entrap him into every kind of disastrous negotiation—its outcome, in truth, a very maelstrom of artful intrigue and shameless rapacity, looking to the absorption of the Indian's land, and of the few worldly possessions he now has. Nay, many would foresee for the Indian, through the consummation of his enfranchisement, naught but gloom and sorest plight. These ... — A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... flowed a steady current free of rock, and down this—head and shoulders still high out of the water—came the colt! What miracle had saved the little fellow thus far Aldous did not stop to ask. Fifty yards below it would meet the fate of the others. Half that distance in the direction of the maelstrom below was the dead trunk of a fallen spruce overhanging the water for fifteen or twenty feet. In a flash Aldous was racing toward it. He climbed out on it, leaned far over, and reached down. His hand touched the water. In the grim excitement of rescue he forgot his ... — The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... times lived only through memory and were misted with intervening years, while it came upon me during early nights, again and again, that this was Now, and that into the hour-glass neck of Now was headed a maelstrom of untold riches of the Future—minutes and hours and sapphire days ahead—-a Now which was wholly unconcerned with leagues and liquor, with strikes and salaries. So I turned over with the peace which passes all ... — Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... of his heroes, and of Lancashire origin, strangely!), flew to the South American station, in and about Lord Cochrane's waters; then as swiftly back. For, like the frail Norwegian bark on the edge of the maelstrom, liker to a country of conflicting interests and passions, that is not mentally on a level with its good fortune, England was drifting into foreign complications. A paralyzed Minister proclaimed it. The ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by reason of any particular fitness for survival, had won safely through a whirlpool. The next few years were a troublous time, a stormy era of transition, for most English people. For many besides myself the period was a veritable maelstrom of confusion, of blind battling with unrecognized forces, of wasted effort, neglected duty, futile struggles, and ... — The Message • Alec John Dawson
... women, human flower of all the maelstrom of urban toil, in their detachment seemed only to bring up a visualized picture of Mary. What would he not like to do for her! He wished that he could pick up the Waldorf and set it on the other side of the street as a proof of the overmastering desire that possessed him ... — Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the side of the submarine came a flash of red light. The destroyer staggered for a moment, and the entire central section of the ill-fated ship disappeared. The bow and stern came together with a rush and went down in a swirling maelstrom of water. The plane lurched in the air as a thundering crash rose from ... — Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... is a bit over 160,000 miles across, and it revolves in less than eleven hours. In other words we might find the ring a sort of celestial maelstrom, and if we once got into the whirl, and Saturn exerted his full pull on us, we might become a satellite, too, and go on swinging round with the rest for a ... — A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... rough if I were to say a word against an old friend. Besides what's the odds, if you come to think of it? all society is fast nowadays, or at any rate all society worth living in. And then again, Lesbia is just one of those cool-headed girls who would keep herself head uppermost in a maelstrom. She knows on which side her bread is buttered. Look how easily she chucked you up because she did not think you good enough. She'll make use of this Lady Kirkbank, who is a good soul, I am told, and will make the best ... — Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... in the chimney; he, who had always dwelt among the sand-hills, now saw a great city for the first time. How lofty the houses seemed, and what a number of people there were in the streets! some pushing this way, some that—a perfect maelstrom of citizens and peasants, monks and soldiers—the jingling of bells on the trappings of asses and mules, the chiming of church bells, calling, shouting, hammering and knocking—all going on at once. Every trade was located in the ... — Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... sinking into the cold deadly mass which surrounded us without the possibility of making an effort for life; too dense to enable one to swim, and yet too liquid to bear the weight of a person, it was as sure to destroy one as the treacherous quicksand or the furious maelstrom. Near us was another boat with an old man and a boy, likewise endeavouring to cross the harbour. We saw that they were exerting all their energies, but were not making better progress than we were. After some time the tide made down stronger, ... — Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... erring class, a large number of whom are the victims of mis-education—of the hereditary policy of the colleges, which is almost as difficult to change as a national church, or a national despotism. The young men who enter the maelstrom of college life are generally borne along as helpless as rowing boats in a whirlpool. It is impossible for even the strongest minds to be exposed for years, surrounded by the contaminating influence of falsehood, and come forth uninjured. But while we pity the victims of medical colleges and old-fashioned ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... the golden goblet of happiness into a maelstrom, and he alone, who walked unsinking the waves of Galilee, can bring back the lost treasure from the dark ... — Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... her and the opposite bank, and get across she must. There was only one way, so grasping the lantern between her teeth, she started across on her hands and knees. The stringers swayed back and forth in the wind, and her frail body, it seemed, would surely be caught up and blown into the mad maelstrom of waters below. No! No! she could not fail now. Away up the road, borne to her anxious ears by the howling wind, she heard two long and two short blasts of the flyer's whistle as she signalled for a crossing. God! would she ever get there. Straining every nerve, ... — Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... I relaxed. A feeling of delightful content surged through me. Approaching New York. Above the haze, out of all the hustle and bustle of the human maelstrom. That look of absolute futility I had seen on the faces in the subway, on the streets, in the early hours of 5 morning—these receded from memory. Life was good, after all. It was a wonderful thing if you viewed it correctly. And this was the way to ... — Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... the former in the town of West Egede, whence the name. Graduated in a single year from the University of Copenhagen, "at which," his teachers bore witness, "no one need wonder who knows the man," he became at twenty-two pastor of a parish up in the Lofoden Islands, where the fabled maelstrom churns. Eleven years he preached to the poor fisherfolk on Sunday, and on week-days helped his parishioners rebuild the old church. When it was finished and the bishop came to consecrate it, he chided Egede because the altar was too fine; it must have cost ... — Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... or direction—how men and women became factory workers and office workers without knowing why, most of them scantily educated, housed as the competing jerry-builders thought fit, and flung into the maelstrom of competitive labour. All this we knew in a certain sense, but it was Mr. Wells more than anyone else who made us aware of this national life by presenting it in the only possible effective way, the imaginative way. It ... — Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... His brain a maelstrom, Lance stared at the crumpled figure. It was the only way! He heard the motors above come roaring down again; desperately he carried the blood-choking Hay to his own plane; propped him limply at the controls. Bullets spat through a frenzy of noise. Weakly Hay ... — Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... maelstrom of frenzied murder-lust took courage of the highest order. But neither Bohannan nor the Frenchman had even paled. Not one of their ... — The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... She was so unconscious of everything but the maelstrom realization that she hated David that she did not remember that the hesitating man beside her was under the ban of her displeasure. Her only thought was that she wished he would leave ... — The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... upper deck, Emma McChesney beheld a sky line which was so like the sky line of her own New York that it gave her a shock. She was due for still another shock when, an hour later, she found herself in a maelstrom of motors, cabs, street cars, newsboys, skyscrapers, pedestrians, policemen, subway stations. Where was the South American languor? Where the Argentine inertia? The rush and roar of it, the bustle and the bang ... — Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... inviolate the Monroe doctrine. European or Asiatic complications scarcely even interested her. Those times have passed, Dicky. Cuba and the Philippines were the start of other things. We are being drawn into the maelstrom. In another ten years we shall be there, whether we want to ... — The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... events the Prince of Orange found his life cast. We may not choose our time to live, not yet our time to die; but some eras are spacious above others, not length, but achievement, making an age illustrious. William the Silent's age was a maelstrom of events, and there were no quiet waters; and this appears certain: The dominant force of those turbulent times was religious, by which I mean that religion is the key of all movements, politics being shaped by theological dogmas and purposes. These dates certify to the omnipresence ... — A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... There was one continuous, deafening roar, punctuated with a series of violent explosions as huge blocks of ice were shivered and shot into the air by that Titanic force. Nothing on earth could live in that wild maelstrom. It was one vast, pulsating, churning mass, and as the sun caught its irregular, crystal-like crest, a lawn-like mist, that glowed with every colour of the rainbow, hovered over it. It was indeed a wondrously beautiful, but ... — The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... fairly comfortable room, more within her means, on the North Side in the boardinghouse district. She unpacked and hung up her clothes and drifted downtown again, idly. It was noon when she came to the corner of State and Madison Streets. It was a maelstrom that caught her up, and buffeted her about, and tossed her ... — One Basket • Edna Ferber
... step he crossed to the window and looked out. A slender arc of silver hung above the trees, bathing the fields in mystic splendor. It was not late. Only the maelstrom of torture through which he had passed had transformed the minutes to hours, and the hours to years. Why, the evening was still young, young enough for him to go to Lucy and speak into her ear all the love that surged in his heart. They had been made ... — The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... him to regard all these things as sacrilege, and the last as downright criminal. He was lonesome for his Germany. That was plain. He hated it, and loved it, much as he hated and loved the woman who had so nearly spoiled his life. The maelstrom known as the southwest corner of State and ... — Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... futile enough, but the faculty-room was worse. American society feared total wreck in the maelstrom of political and corporate administration, but it could not look for help to college dons. Adams knew, in that capacity, both Congressmen and professors, and he preferred Congressmen. The same failure ... — The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... plunging into riotous and blind commotions, to keep his own judgment and emotions as free as possible from a power that seizes all it can reach, draws them into its current, and sweeps them round and round like the Maelstrom, until they are overwhelmed and buried in its devouring vortex. When others are heated, the only wisdom is to determine to keep cool; whenever a people or an individual is rushing headlong, it is the duty of patriotism and of friendship ... — Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the 22nd of June, 1867, these three men, who knew nothing of the past history of Captain Nemo, succeeded in escaping in one of the Nautilus's boats. But as at this time the Nautilus was drawn into the vortex of the Maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, the captain naturally believed that the fugitives, engulfed in that frightful whirlpool, found their death at the bottom of the abyss. He was ignorant that the Frenchman and his two companions ... — The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... burst, with an almost tropic vigor, into riotous growth. Flamboyant youth, calculating middle age, doddering senility, all these were there, all treading on one another's heels, to reap and be reaped. To-day a scene of marvelous activity, a maelstrom of bustling commissariat and fretting supply-trains, cut by never-ending counter-currents of hoboes to and from the front, to-morrow it would simmer down into the desuetude of a siding. ... — McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... he had sighted his prey—the ship in which sat a man-thing who had sent a terrible death to Danny's fellows. And, though his hands moved carefully and methodically, though externally he was cool and collected, within him was a seething maelstrom of hate. All he saw was that giant figure as he had seen it before; all he knew was that he must overtake that speeding ship and send it ... — The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... earth. Earth could not be their centre. Was the sun Their sovran lord then, as Pythagoras held? Was this great earth, so 'stablished, so secure, A planet also? Did it also move Around the sun? If this were true, my friends, No revolution in this world's affairs, Not that blind maelstrom where imperial Rome Went down into the dark, could so engulf All that we thought we knew. We who believed In our own majesty, we who walked with gods As younger sons on this proud central stage, Round which ... — Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... rise sheer and awful from, shall we say, this boiling caldron, this 'hell' of angry meeting waters—Threadneedle Street and Cornhill, Queen Victoria Street and Cheapside, each 'running,' again metaphorically, 'like a mill-race'—here in this wild maelstrom of human life and human conveyances, here is the true 'Niagara in London,' here are the most wonderful falls in the ... — Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... at Cassy, who, for added outrage, had flung herself at him and was smiling sweetly in his swollen face. About them the torrent poured. Then all at once, in a riot that afterwards seemed to her phantasmagoric, the policeman raised a forefinger in salute. From the maelstrom she was hoisted bodily into a car. Somebody, the policeman probably, was boosting her from behind. Never had she suffered such indignities! To accentuate them, somebody else was shouting in ... — The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... beyond his years wary as well as enterprising, calm as well as ardent, quite as rich in patience as in promptitude and vigour. But Alec Bolt was a headlong youth, volatile, hot, and hasty, fit only to fish the Maelstrom, or a torrent of new lava. And the moment he had laid that wager he expected his crown piece; though time, as the lawyers phrase it, was "expressly of ... — Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... rapids, and cataracts, quite without any physical reason for existence, were thought to roar and roll just beyond the horizon. It is only within a few decades that the geographies have abandoned the pleasing fiction of the maelstrom, and a few centuries ago the sudden downpour of the waters at the "end of the world" was a thoroughly accepted tenet of physical geography. Yet men, adventurous and inquisitive, kept ever pushing forward into ... — American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... like nothing on earth, and in it, upon the outer edge of a dead maelstrom of his entire wardrobe, ... — Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... resembled a maelstrom, for Wally and Jim were unpacking. Brownie, putting in her head, described it as "a perfick shambles," and affected great horror at the havoc occasioned by having boys in the house—beaming all the while in a manner ... — Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Vienna's silence was prolonged, a latent, ill-defined uneasiness took hold of us more and more. Yet we were far from anticipating that in the space of a few days we should be driven into the midst of a diplomatic maelstrom, in which, after a week of intense anguish, we should look on, mute and helpless, at the shipwreck of European peace ... — World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... destroy him. A forged letter in the Times classed him with assassins, while an legal Commission was sent to try his whole movement. It is history that his triumphant vindication was followed by a greater fall. The happiness of Ireland was sucked into the maelstrom of his ruin. He refused to retire from leadership at Gladstone's bidding, and Ireland staggered into civil war. The end is known—Parnell died as he had lived. Of his moral fault there is no palliation, but it may be said he held his country's honor ... — The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... reprobation of several public critics; some correspondents favoured me with their anonymous scurrility, and some bigots relieved me of their acquaintance. On the other hand, there were people who, in the midst of a maelstrom of passion, retained ... — Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... of the people were so miserably poor that they were scarcely elevated above the beasts of the field, and where the finances had long been in almost irreparable disorder. The years of peace, however, were very few. War, a maelstrom which ingulfs uncounted millions, seems to have been the normal state of Germany. But the treasury of Charles was so constantly drained that he could never, even in his greatest straits, raise more than one hundred and sixty thousand men; and he was often compelled to call upon the aid ... — The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... which forms the canopy—occasionally a gorgeous one—of the more than Babel city. Stretching before me, the troubled breast of the mighty river, and, immediately below, the main whirlpool of the Thames—the Maelstrom of the bulwarks of the middle arch—a grisly pool, which, with its superabundance of horror, fascinated me. Who knows but I should have leapt into its depths?—I have heard of such things—but for a rather startling ... — Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... writing serials for Hitch's;' 'Smith sold two novels on synopsis for thirty thousand dollars;' 'Green's signed up with Tagwicks for four years at two thousand dollars a month writing problem novels.' Into the maelstrom of 'Dollars, Dollars, Dollars,' the sensitive brains of all America were drifting, throwing overboard ideals and aspirations in order to keep afloat in ... — The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... of dust increased, enveloping the lower part of the procession, till the black heads and waving arms emerged as if from a maelstrom. The thunder of the drums was like the thunder of a cataract in which the singers, disappearing towards the village, ... — The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... earthquake in the South, And maelstrom in the sea; Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Hast thou ... — Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... petrified with fear, they lay among the mullet while the falukah raced along in its wild dance with death. Mohammed recalls seeing what he thought to be a great cliff rush by close beside them. The falukah plunged over a waterfall and was almost submerged, was caught again in a maelstrom, and went twirling on in the blackness. They all were deathly sick, but were too ... — The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train |