"Overwhelm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first few days she was restless and miserable as human being could be. She had but one change of mood: either she would talk feverously, or sit in the gloomiest silence, now and then varied with a fit of abandoned weeping. Every time Dorothy came from Glaston, she would overwhelm her with questions—which at first Dorothy could easily meet, for she spoke absolute fact when she said she knew nothing concerning her husband. When at length the cause of his absence was understood, she told her he was with his friend, Dr. May, at Broughill. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... become a question of time. If Mahomed Jan could close with and overwhelm our small force, Kabul would be his; but if, by any possibility, his advance could be retarded until Macpherson should come up, we might hope to retain possession of the city. It was, therefore, to the Afghan leader's interest to press on, while ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, and looking with covetous eyes on the land between that river and the lakes, but which the Indians claimed had been reserved to them by treaty. The shrewder among the Indian leaders foresaw the time when they would have to fight and overwhelm the intruders or submit to their hunting grounds being spoiled by the white man. This feeling of uneasiness was spreading among the tribes, and the younger warriors were eager to fight and not infrequently were guilty ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... been overtaken by a sandstorm many miles from the camp, and had struggled on till absolutely exhausted, not daring to lie down to rest lest the fast whirling sand should overwhelm him; and when late at night the wind had fallen he was hopelessly and utterly lost, and had thrown himself down in a sheltered spot deep hollowed out by the wind between two gigantic dunes, and had at once fallen into the deep ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... wife, if you deserve it! Wait until you have borne the burdens of life in chastity and honor for thirty years, and have endured sorrow and death and every human adversity with uncomplaining patience; then let your son, who ought to stuff a soft pillow for your old head, come and so overwhelm you with disgrace that you would like to cry out to the earth: Swallow me, if it does not sicken thee, for I am muddier than thou! Then you may utter all the curses that I suppress in my bosom, then you may tear your hair and beat your breasts!—You ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... to say, "What a poor figure does the proudest man make, my dear Pamela, under the sense of a concealed guilt, in company of the innocent who know it, and even of those who do not!—Since the casual expression of a baby shall overwhelm him with shame, and make him unable to look up without confusion. I blushed for myself," continued he, "to see how you were affected for me, and yet withdrew, to avoid reproaching me so much as with a look. Surely, Pamela, I must then make a most contemptible appearance in your eye! Did you ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... preventing the passage of Longstreet, between Longstreet and Jackson. Ricketts was thus forced to yield the gap after having delayed Longstreet during the night of the 28th. Pope could now have retired to Washington without a battle, but he decided to overwhelm Jackson before Longstreet could reach the field, and attacked hotly on the ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... Emil Forster spoke, explaining to Jimmie the inner significance of terrific world-events. Russia was in the midst of a gigantic offensive, which was meant to overwhelm Austria; England at the same time was hurling in her new armies on the Somme; for these two giant movements they wanted shells—millions and millions of shells from America, which alone could make enough of them. The railroads were clogged with them, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... succeeded in driving them off it was only at the expense of almost their last cartridges and the loss of three more dogs. Joe spoke again of the heroism of Howling Wolf, who sat up in his sledge and shot at the wolves, though they threatened to overwhelm him and Joe on more than one rush that they made. Joe said nothing of himself but one's imagination can easily picture these two hardy hunters, sheltered only by their sledges, making a fight for life against a large ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... cheerfully accorded. When he moved along the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious service; when he shouldered his way to a bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized him, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... next, "all the guests in their evening attire, and the ladies in full dress, trembling with fear, with downcast eyes, between two rows of men, women, and children, who stare them in the face, and overwhelm them ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... leaves which fall at the destined period; and as a mountain-torrent swelled with numerous streams, and bursting its banks with roaring noise, with foaming crest and yeasty wave rising to the stars, by whose eddying currents our eyes are as it were dazzled, does with one of its billows overwhelm every obstacle in its way, so did our illustrious defenders vigorously drive our enemies' band beyond the sea, if any could so escape them; for it was beyond those same seas that they transported, year after year, the plunder which they ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... group, of which not the bride-elect, but Grandmother, was the precise centre. The moment Rhodora had reached Grandmother's side she had put herself in the background. Although she towered above the little old lady she did not overwhelm her, and Grandmother herself had never seemed a more gently dominating figure than now, in her sweeping black gown with its rare laces, her white hair, in soft puffs, framing her delicate face. And as, at a turn in the conversation, Grandmother looked up at Rhodora, and Rhodora, bending ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... agitated; then noticed a shimmer of Laura's dark eye as it wandered to Hedrick and so swiftly away it seemed not to dare to remain. Cora was quick: she perceived that Laura was repressing a constant desire to laugh and that she feared to look at Hedrick lest it overwhelm her. So Laura knew what had wrought the miracle. Cora made up her mind ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... held him back. "There is destruction, treachery, and murder outside. Crime may break in here and overwhelm us, but we ought not to go out ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... because he heard and loved them. To have his great, kindly eyes fixed on some poor soldier, or neighbor in distress, was in itself a lightening of the load of trouble. Unlike those professional or volunteer comforters, who overwhelm by dumping a whole cart-load of condolence upon the sufferer, who is unable to resist or reply, Carleton was often great in his power of encouraging silence, and ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... me to the tomb, from which a resurrection was impossible. That, in such a case, my limbs would have been confined to a coffin, and my coffin to a grave, and that I should instantly have been suffocated, did not occur to destroy my supposition. Neither did this supposition overwhelm me with terror or prompt my efforts at deliverance. My state was full of tumult and confusion, and my attention was incessantly divided between my painful sensations and ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... looking forth, will trouble all his Host, And craze their Chariot Wheels: when by command Moses once more his potent Rod extends Over the Sea: the Sea his Rod obeys: On their embattell'd Ranks the Waves return And overwhelm their War— ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... I think the resolution could be amended so as to offend no one. The ministers falsely construe the Scriptures. We can overwhelm them with arguments for woman suffrage—with Biblical arguments. We can hurl them like shot and shell. Herbert Spencer once wrote an article on the different biases which distort the human mind, and among the first he reckoned the theological bias. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... moveth the Members of a Common-wealth, by the terrour of punishments, and hope of rewards (which are the Nerves of it,) otherwise than by the Civill Power (which is the Soule of the Common-wealth) they ought to be moved; and by strange, and hard words suffocates the people, and either Overwhelm the Common-wealth with Oppression, or cast it into the Fire ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... dance till supper. Supper is all gaiety and gallantry, and the latter perhaps of a kind, which in England would not be deemed very innocent. The champagne then goes round, and the ladies drink as much as the gentlemen, that is to say, enough to exhilarate, not to overwhelm the animal spirits. A French woman with three or four glasses of wine in her head, would certainly make an English one stare; but France is the land of love, and it is an universal maxim that ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... loved," said Keats, "the principle of beauty in all things." It is that to which all I have said has been leading, as many roads unite in one. We must try to use discrimination, not to be so optimistic that we see beauty if it is not there, not to overwhelm every fling that every craftsman has at beauty with gush and panegyric; not to praise beauty in all companies, or to go off like a ripe broom-pod, at a touch. When Walter Pater was confronted with something which courtesy demanded that he should ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... You overwhelm me? Dare I speak? You have suspected? You know why I linger in this dear room—dear as the barrier that staves off guttery death? This kindness is sincere? I ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... though, that as they climbed up the steep narrow rocky slope there was a fierce yell and a rush, and they saw the light slightly obscured as the Apaches dashed by the entrance in a fierce charge, meant to overwhelm them. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... was my sense of responsibility awful: and from day to day it seemed to intensify. An arguing Voice never ceased to remonstrate within me, nor left me peace, and the curse of unborn hosts appeared to menace me. To strengthen my fixity I would often overwhelm myself, and her, with muttered opprobriums, calling myself 'convict,' her 'lady-bird'; asking what manner of man was I that I should dare so great a thing; and as for her, what was she to be the Mother of a world?—a versatile butterfly with a woman's brow! And continually now in my fiercer ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... went to war for Oregon, how long would it be before her starving millions would rise in infuriated masses, and overwhelm their bloated aristocracy! He would say, then, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... afterwards rose on all sides of me. They were evidently getting more confidence; a fact I ascertained with no slight apprehension, for they began to approach nearer, and their gambols threatened every minute to overwhelm my poor craft, that, light as a cork, bounced up and down the agitated waves, as if quite as much alarmed for our safety ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that, good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... in an angel's form. Endow us with an angel's principles. For ever hush the impure swellings of passion! lull the stormy tide of contending emotions! let not circumstances overwhelm! ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... in the vase with Europa, indicate the bottom of the sea: the same symbols of the submarine world appear on many other ancient designs. Thus in vase pictures, when Poseidon upheaves the island of Cos to overwhelm the Giant Polydotes, the island is represented as an immense mass of rock; the parts which have been under water are indicated by a dolphin, a shrimp, and a sepia, the parts above the water by a goat and a serpent (Lenormant et De Witte, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... foolish youth! Thou seek'st a greatness that will overwhelm thee. Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity Is held from falling by so weak a wind, That it will quickly drop; my day is dim. Thou hast stolen THAT, which after some few hours Were thine without offence; and at my death Thou hast sealed up my expectation; Thy life did manifest ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... by an ocean of trees, so vast, so full of endless billows, that it seemed to be pressing on every side to overwhelm them. Gnarled oaks, with branches twisted and knotted as if in rage, rose in groves like tidal waves. Smooth forests of beech-trees, round and gray, swept over the knolls and slopes of land in a mighty ground-swell. But most of all, ...
— The First Christmas Tree - A Story of the Forest • Henry Van Dyke
... and talks in long paragraphs and stilted language to Pravdin and Sophia, expressing the ideal view of life, conduct, service to the state, and so forth. He, as well as Sophia, Pravdin Milon, are quite colorless. The Simpletons overwhelm Starodum with stupid courtesies, and Mrs. S. gets Pravdin to examine Mitrofan, in order to prove to Starodum that her darling child is fit to be Sophia's husband. The examination is even more brilliant than the lesson. Mitrofan says that door, that is to say, the door to that room, is an adjective, ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... to pot, go to wrack and ruin; go by the board, go all to smash; be all over, be all up, be all with; totter to its fall. destroy; do away with, make away with; nullify; annual &c. 756; sacrifice, demolish; tear up; overturn, overthrow, overwhelm; upset, subvert, put an end to; seal the doom of, do in, do for, dish*, undo; break up, cut up; break down, cut down, pull down, mow down, blow down, beat down; suppress, quash, put down, do a job on; cut short, take off, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... provinces. Their country was upon the high road which led the Goths to Rome. Those low and barren tracts were the outlying marches of the empire. Upon that desolate beach broke the first surf from the rising ocean of German freedom which was soon to overwhelm Rome. Yet, although the ancient landmarks were soon well nigh obliterated, the Netherlands still remained faithful to the Empire, Batavian blood was still ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... truly when he said that all leave had been stopped, for now were beginning the final great assaults of the American and Allied armies that were, if not actually to overwhelm the Huns, at least to approach so nearly that state that there was a distinction ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... that still evening hour, oppressed me with a feeling unutterably sad. I could not bear it, at last. It seemed as though another deep was rising and breaking in my heart, the flood of proud, half-stifled passion waking in one awful moment to overwhelm me. No light upon that sea—but hope wronged, the mockery of death for yearning love, the unguided ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... that passed in and out of the lobby was continually shifting place and principles. One instant it would seem that Crutchfield triumphed in a majority sufficient to overwhelm the platform; a moment more and the Webb men were vociferously in the ascendant. At the time it resolved itself into a ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... of this infernal system are beginning to re-act upon the Christians, who are latterly kept in a constant state of alarm, fearing the number and disposition of the blacks, which threaten at no far distant period to overwhelm the south with some dreadful calamity.[12] Three incendiary fires took place at Orleans, during the month I remained in that city, by which several thousand bales of cotton were consumed. The condition of the slaves on the sugar or rice ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... in her planks—there were spots on her flag— So the fanatics said, as they seized on her helm; And from soft summer seas, turned her prow where the crag And the wild breakers rose the good ship to overwhelm. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... races, had always the pre-eminence intellectually and morally, might, in concert with the West, and making herself, so to speak, the organ of its views in the East, become a powerful barrier against that torrent of Slavism which for some time past has threatened to overwhelm ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... gleam of hope obtruded itself. It was not a tangible hope. It was not even a hope that could have found expression. It was merely a picture that ever confronted her, even when darkness seemed most nearly to overwhelm her. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... that soldier. During the sail he will stick to you like your shadow. If through your fault or by treason, a single one of the galleys grates her keel, he has orders to kill you and your companion on the instant. If, on the contrary, you carry the fleet to harbor safely, the general will overwhelm you with gifts. You will then give the most happy mortals ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... the seance of every species are his aiders and abettors—the unbeliever, whom believers overwhelm or bribe to acquiescence, the fair votaries who find prurient suggestions characteristic of the genuine medium, the lover of the lie through the natural love of it, the amateur, incapable of a real conviction, who plays safely with superstition, the literary man who welcomes a new ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... young man, "I have said sufficient to induce your highness not to overwhelm before his majesty my poor friend, De Guiche, against whom all the malevolence of a party bitterly opposed to your own will now ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the lighthouse, that is one thing. What do you think of the ocean waves that now and then overwhelm it?" ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... attract them in the form of pleasure and amusement: they forget the grave counsels of the thoughtful, till they find the path they have followed is beset with briers and thorns; and a thousand painful difficulties that were unseen, unexpected, overwhelm and bring them to a sad sense of their own folly; and, perhaps, the punishment of their errors does not fall upon themselves alone, but upon the innocent, who have unknowingly been made ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... get replacements quickly enough, the factories had to work on the designs they had, and thus for a long time after the outbreak of hostilities standardisation was an impossibility. The versatility of a Latin race in a measure compensated for this; from the outset, the Germans tried to overwhelm the French Air Force, but failed, since they had not the numerical superiority, nor—this equally a determining factor—the versatility and resource of the French pilots. They calculated on a 50 per cent superiority ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... such as this yellow curtain, which scatters its brightness and lets it fall more evenly throughout the room. He never painted such extreme contrasts as make manifest Rembrandt's power. Rembrandt's light had been so vivid that it seemed to overwhelm colours in a dazzling brilliancy. Peter de Hoogh's lights are just strong enough to reveal the colours in a milder illumination. In our picture the sunshine diffused by the yellow curtains mingles with the red of the woman's dress and creates a rich orange. Little does she ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... Gospel to arouse all that was noble, and divine in every heart. The Moderator reverently led the Assembly in prayer and constituted the court most solemnly in the name of Jesus Christ. Such a prayer should overwhelm the soul with God's presence, burden the conscience with responsibilities, make the spiritual world dreadfully visible, and bring God's servants close ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... times, saying at each kiss: 'To thee!—For thee!—With thee!' Reflect again, Violette, before undertaking this cure. If you are not prepared for the most difficult sacrifices, the greatest misfortunes will overwhelm you and my sister Furious will be the mistress of ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... that individuals settle their disputes—by rules of right and reason instead of by the law of might. It must be "some definite concert of power that will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again." In a memorable address to the Senate of the United States on January 22, 1917, the President urged that the United States enter into such a league after the close of the present war, and on the point of effectiveness ...
— The Spirit of Lafayette • James Mott Hallowell
... filling with water, but he dared not release his paddle to bail the water out. With each big sea that bore down upon him he held his breath in fear that it would overwhelm him. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... would have gone for much, and indeed it is not at all impossible that a leader of a different stamp from James might even then have so inspired the Highland clansmen, and so made use of his opportunity, as to overwhelm Argyll and the Hanoverian forces, and turn the whole crisis to his favor. But James was peculiarly unsuited to an enterprise of the kind. He had graceful manners, a mild, serene temper, and great power ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... not being at all intelligible as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a dram, brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce at him in a more than usually snappish manner, and to overwhelm ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... differ from your idea that the Marinere should have had a character and profession. This is a Beauty in Gulliver's Travels, where the mind is kept in a placid state of little wonderments; but the Ancient Marinere undergoes such Trials, as overwhelm and bury all individuality or memory of what he was, like the state of a man in a Bad dream, one terrible peculiarity of which is: that all consciousness of personality is gone. Your other observation is I think as well a little unfounded: the Marinere from being conversant ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... of my mother," she answered, in a grave voice. "You will never know, Jules, what I suffer in remembering my mother's dying farewell, said in a voice sweeter than all music, and in feeling the solemn touch of her icy hand at a moment when you overwhelm me with those assurances of your ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... a ruling clique of newspapers and politicians chooses to say or wants to do. "England" has always been, amongst us, a kind of counter token, or token of things to be resisted and repudiated. The "symbols," or "tokens," always have this utility for suggestion. They carry a coercion with them and overwhelm people who are not trained to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... will be possible for me to make her clothes." You observe her submissive, law-abiding spirit. The possibility of evading the law never even suggests itself. There is many a feeble mother of grown and growing "Sissys" to whom the spring or fall dressmaking appears like an avalanche coming to overwhelm her, or a Juggernaut coming to roll over her. She asks not, "How shall I escape?" but, "How shall I endure?" Let her console herself. These semi-annual experiences are all "mission." All sewing is "mission;" all cooking ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... in his route he was sure to encounter Forrest, who always attacked with a vehemence for which he must be prepared, and that, after he had repelled the first attack, he must in turn assume the most determined offensive, overwhelm him and utterly destroy his whole force. I knew that Forrest could not have more than four thousand cavalry, and my own movement would give employment to every other man of the rebel army not immediately present with him, so that he (General Smith) might safely act on the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... filled her trembling palms With coinage of the realm. The fairy said: "Take back your alms! My heart they overwhelm. Henceforth at every word shall slip A pearl or ruby from your lip!" And, when the girl got home that night,— She found the fairy's words were right! (I think there are not many girls Whose words are worth their ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... tramping through the dust, the lurid blue of all those soldiers' overcoats, the sparkle of all those gun-wheels. What does it all mean, this surging tide of armed men? What would it mean in a day or two, when another tide of men had swept up against it, with a roar of conflict, striving to overwhelm this France and to swamp over its barriers in waves of blood? How senseless it seemed that those mild- eyed fellows outside my carriage windows, chatting with the girls while we waited for the signals to fall, should be on their ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... through long, rank grass, waist-high and water-rotted with sea-fog. Here they launched their boat of sea-lion skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the farthermost hunting-grounds. Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin with kindness. The Russian keeps his sentinels as {91} vigilant as ever pacing before the doors of the hut; but he goes unguarded and unharmed among the native dwellings. Perhaps, poor Drusenin was not above swaggering a little, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... cloud, a little sultriness in the air, is all that betrays the coming khemsin, that by and by shall overwhelm and destroy man and beast in its sandy darkness. You have made one or two remarks lately that show little faith in human nature, and if you do not believe in human nature what is there left for you to believe in? You said ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... decidedly destructive of effect among the English lakes: first, because apparent altitudes are much diminished by them; and, secondly, because, whatever position they may be placed in, instead of combining with scenery, they occupy and overwhelm it; for all scenery is divided into pieces, each of which has a near bit of beauty, a promontory of lichened crag, or a smooth swarded knoll, or something of the kind, to begin with. Wherever the large villa comes, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... like to come to this canyon—to give up to its enchantments? That, like many another disturbing thought, had to go unanswered, to be driven into the closed chambers of Carley's mind, there to germinate subconsciously, and stalk forth some day to overwhelm her. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... individualities to be known, new classifications to be made. The world is so full of a number of things that no man with a grain of either poetry or the scientific spirit in him has any right to be bored, though he lived for a thousand years. Terror or tragedy may overwhelm him, but boredom never. The infinity of things forbids it. I once heard of a tipsy young artist who, on his way home on a beautiful night, had his attention called by a maudlin friend to the stars, where they twinkled like ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... that the House of Austria had once aspired to universal dominion? And would it be wise in the princes and commonwealths of Europe to lend their aid for the purpose of reconstructing the gigantic monarchy which, in the sixteenth century, had seemed likely to overwhelm them all? ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... subjects as he chose; but afterwards it was judged more suitable to his dignity to explain his sentiments in writing, than, being present, to be forced to blush, either at the recital of his favours to the state, or at the immoderate applause of the multitude, which would overwhelm his modesty with acclamations and other signs of approbation. In the letter which he sent, and which was read to the assembly, was contained first, a recapitulation of his acts of kindness to the state, as his ally; then, of the ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... neighbouring peoples, one in language, in blood, in heroic early traditions, and the common heirs of the grandest literature the world has ever seen, yet severed by a deep, wide, angry-flowing stream of strife, which, dammed up for a time, was about to burst forth in a desolating flood that should overwhelm and destroy some of the fairest fruits of civilization in both countries. As he gazed northward, he beheld, on the eastern bank of the river, the snowy walls and grass-grown ramparts of Fort Niagara, above which floated proudly the ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... had a great revival in our time of the cult of violence and hostility. Mr Henley and his young men have an infinite number of furious epithets with which to overwhelm any one who differs from them. It is not a placid or untroubled position to be Mr Henley's enemy, though we know that it is certainly safer than to be his friend. And yet, despite all this, these people produce no satire. Political and social satire is a lost art, like pottery and stained glass. ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... your recovery, in the first place," said the doctor, "you will thank Heaven; in the second, you will thank your young relation;" and for several days the convalescent did overwhelm the happy Isabel with her praises and caresses. But this change did not last long: the chaste Diana had been too spoiled by the prosperity of many years for the sickness of a single month to effect much good in her disposition. Her old habits ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a dash, singly, all around, upon the common enemy, as if by some silent agreement underwater, they would all rush on at once, with their loudest roar and shaggiest foam, and overwhelm poor bear so completely that nothing less might be expected than to behold him broken in four quarters, and floating helplessly asunder. Mistaken spectators! Although, by his momentary rolling and plunging, he was evidently aroused, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... first, that the enemy, reinforced from Caimanera or Guantanamo city, would assemble in force on the slopes of the eastern hills, creep up through the scrub until they were within a short distance of the camp, and then overwhelm the marines in a sudden rush-assault. They were known to have six thousand regulars at Guantanamo city, only about fifteen miles away, and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that they might detach a large part of this force for offensive operations on the eastern side of the lower ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... hat, but an iron pot instead, And under the chin the bail (I believe they called the thing a helm); And the lid they carried they called a shield; And, thus accoutered, they took the field, Sallying forth to overwhelm The dragons and pagans that plagued the realm— So this modern knight Prepared for flight, Put on his wings and strapped them tight; Jointed and jaunty, strong and light; Buckled them fast to shoulder and hip— Ten feet they measured from tip to tip! And a helm had he, but that he wore, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... justice and wisdom over the island of Espanola in the early days of Columbus were all dead, wiped out by the wave of wild death and cruelty that had swept over the island. The gentle Guacanagari, when he saw the desolation that was beginning to overwhelm human existence, had fled into the mountains, hiding his face in shame from the sons of men, and had miserably died there. Caonabo, Lord of the House of Gold, fiercest and bravest of them all, who first realised that the Spaniards were enemies to ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... you to the Jesuits, who make a specialty of retreats for men: but knowing you as I think I know you, I feel sure you would not stay there two days. You would find yourself among amiable and very clever priests, but they would overwhelm you with sermons, would wish to interfere with your life, mix themselves up with your art, they would examine your thoughts with a magnifying glass, and then you would be under treatment with good young people, whose unintelligent ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... Rachel, resisting her eagerness to overwhelm him with questions concerning the one man of all the world she most desired to learn about. "I can spare you but ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... into one of the big oceans," said Professor Henderson. "We would probably sink some vessels, and might overwhelm islands; but if this island in the air is as big as Australia it could easily fall into the Pacific and do no particular harm to any present existing body of land—save through the great tidal waves that would ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... It will look upon sin's stains as they stand out in contrast with His purity, its ingratitude in contrast with His compassion. He will be the atmosphere of the soul's existence. All the shame and dishonour, which in life the soul so complacently accepted, will then overwhelm it with self-reproach and very bitter compunction. This is what is meant by seeing sins as GOD sees them. It is to see them as the soul will see them under the sense of the Presence of the Holy Christ. Then will the soul know its guilt ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... of tongues, I have heard much, but little to the purpose. I wonder your people, that pretend to know so much, doe not know that love is the fulfilling of the law, & that against love there is no law." Howes forgot that what might cause only a ripple in London might overwhelm the tiny Colony in Boston. Two years later, he writes more philosophically, and perhaps with a gentle irony, concerning "two monstrous births & a general earthquake." He hints that the people of the Bay might perhaps as well ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... those sudden revulsions to materialism which is liable to overwhelm any man who delves too long at a time in the brutally unconventional issues of life and death, the Senior Surgeon stepped down into the subtle, hyacinth-scented sunshine with every latent human greed in his body clamoring for expression—before it, too, should ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... purpose merely. The experimenter, in this case, is one who looks with scientific forebodings, and not with hope only, on those storms of violent political revolution that were hanging then on the world's horizon, and threatening to repeat this process, threatening to overwhelm in their wild crash, all the ancient social structures—threatening 'to lay all flat'! That is not the kind of change he meditates. His is the subtle, all-penetrating Radicalism of the New Science, which imitates the noiseless processes of Nature in ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... to the state in which he found his realm, And left it; and his annals too behold, How to a minion first he gave the helm;[522] How grew upon his heart a thirst for gold, The beggar's vice, which can but overwhelm The meanest hearts; and for the rest, but glance Thine eye along ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... and the last time I cast a furtive glance behind me he had not recovered sufficiently to dash after me and overwhelm me with protestations of his uprightness, yay ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... be, yet there is a certain reverence sometimes due to what he is endeavouring to say, and even to his desire to say it. We do not think it very witty or tasteful or charitable to laugh at a man because he stammers; still less do we overwhelm him with the coarsest abuse. One may well shudder at most presentments of the Sacred Heart, but even apart from all consideration for the artist, a certain reverence for the idea there travestied ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... broad Pontus was seen, when suddenly a huge wave rose up before them, arched, like a steep rock; and at the sight they bowed with bended heads. For it seemed about to leap down upon the ship's whole length and to overwhelm them. But Tiphys was quick to ease the ship as she laboured with the oars; and in all its mass the wave rolled away beneath the keel, and at the stern it raised Argo herself and drew her far away from the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... they often had difficulty in avoiding. To the right was the burning mountain, towards which they cast many an anxious glance, for at any moment it might send forth a shower of stones and ashes, which might overwhelm them. As they reached the sea-shore, near the cave, they saw that their worst anticipations had been fulfilled. At the further end of the reef lay the wreck of a fine ship. The larger portion had been torn away by the fury of the seas. The masts, bowsprit, and upper works had all gone. Not a ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... the tired soldiers were sleeping in anticipation of another hard day's work ahead. Off to the right a fire was burning, perhaps some building in the process of destruction to prevent its falling into the hands of the Americans, who were in line to overwhelm it on their ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... Gods and men hath given thee might enow, O AEolus, to smooth the sea, and make the storm-wind blow. Hearken! a folk, my very foes, saileth the Tyrrhene main Bearing their Troy to Italy, and Gods that were but vain: Set on thy winds, and overwhelm their sunken ships at sea, Or prithee scattered cast them forth, things drowned diversedly. 70 Twice seven nymphs are in my house of body passing fair: Of whom indeed Deiopea is fairest fashioned there. I give her thee in wedlock sure, and call her all thine own To wear away the years with ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... both the cause and the continuance of the war upon the Republican party. "Four years ago," he said, "a convention met in this city when our country was peaceful, prosperous, and united. Its delegates did not mean to destroy our government, to overwhelm us with debt, or to drench our land with blood; but they were animated by intolerance and fanaticism, and blinded by an ignorance of the spirit of our institutions, the character of our people, and the condition of our land. They thought they might safely ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... valour: nothing at all comparable to the brilliant if sometimes hazardous operations of the great Plantagenets. Nothing more is heard of that once triumphant arm, the Archery: the English bowmen had not, it would seem, lost their cunning, but they could no longer overwhelm hostile battalions. Nor does this seem to have been owing as yet to the displacement of the bow by firearms, though cannon both for defence and destruction of fortresses were improving—as exemplified at Maynooth. In the Scots wars, the border ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... how He wants us to withstand Him and turn away His anger from one another [Ex. 32:11 ff.], as it is frequently written of the Prophet Moses, that he restrained God, [Num. 14:13 ff., 21:7] lest His anger should overwhelm the people of ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... reasons', he says, 'which our modern philosophers have employed to demonstrate that the accidents are not beings in reality distinct from the substance are not mere difficulties; they are arguments which overwhelm one, and which cannot be refuted. Take the trouble', he adds, 'to look for them in the writings of Father Maignan, or Father Malebranche or M. Calli' (Professor of Philosophy at Caen) 'or in the Accidentia profligata of Father Saguens, disciple of Father ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... cannot but feel greatly relieved that affairs have terminated so satisfactorily. But Mary? What is there in her manner that vaguely disappoints me? I cannot say. I only know that I felt a powerful shrinking overwhelm me when she turned her face to me and asked if I were satisfied now. But I conquered my feelings and held out my hand. She did not ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... veil; but at the time he was not sufficiently aware of this and, as with all true glamour, was unable to grasp where the true ended and the false began. He was caught momentarily in the same vortex that had sought to lure the cat to destruction through its delight, and threatened utterly to overwhelm the dog ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... best. But there were numbers of both men and women unexpectedly capable of extremes of heroism, who took the burden of misery upon themselves and exhibited high spirits based on no evident excuse. Nothing could overwhelm those, nothing ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... should I plead his extraordinary merit. Would the plea remove the load of affliction with which I should overwhelm those who love me best? At present they think well, nay highly of me. I sometimes have the power to influence them to good. What power shall I have when they imagine I have disgraced both myself ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... and rushed in tumult on Achilles, raging from on high, thundering with foam and blood and bodies of dead men. Then did a dark wave of the heaven-sprung River stand towering up and overwhelm the son of Peleus. But Hera cried aloud in terror of Achilles, lest the great deep-eddying River sweep him away, and straightway she called to Hephaistos, her dear son: "Rise, lame god, O my son; it was against thee we thought that eddying Xanthos was matched in fight. Help with all ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... is to the letter what the supporting army is to the line of attack. It stands just behind the men at the front, ready to strengthen a point here, reinforce the line there, overwhelm opposition finally with ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous |
