"Abyss" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... inhabitants," he explains, his thirst for knowledge unsatisfied. Some priest volunteers this explanation. On the frontiers of Egypt are two high mountain-peaks called Crophi and Mophi; in an unfathomable abyss between the two rose the Nile. But Herodotus does not believe in Crophi and Mophi; he inclines to the idea that the Nile rises away in the west and flows eastward right ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the spring is an abyss, in which water is continually seething, but never rises into the air. At a little distance, on a high rock, rising out of the river Sidumule, not far from the shore, are other springs. They are three ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... multitudes, the waves of lost humanity who ceaselessly are shattered on the shores of eternity. How despairing are they, how poor in love—their religion knows no joy, no pleasure, nor song. Once I heard a Chinaman say why he was a Christian. It seemed to him that he lay in a deep abyss, out of which he could not escape. Have you ever wept for the sake of the lost world, as did Jesus Christ? If not, then woe to you. Your religion is then only a dream and a blind. We see Christ test his disciples. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... structure firm enough in spite of its lightness and of its occasional oscillation in the somewhat vertiginous air, invited on occasion, in the interest of their nerves, a dropping of the plummet and a measurement of the abyss. A difference had been made moreover, once for all, by the fact that she had all the while not appeared to feel the need of rebutting his charge of an idea within her that she didn't dare to express—a charge uttered just before ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... a blinding flash of light. He felt himself falling; then he lay very still as a shower of little star-like sparks flowed upward from a black abyss. ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... was anxious to see his friend, and to hear the manner in which his success had been obtained, and, we might add, to remonstrate with Bluewater on a course that had led the latter to the verge of a most dangerous abyss. ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the fair earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built for ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... step or two. My foot felt for the floor but found only empty space. I had backed into the pit which had received Issus. For a second I toppled there upon the brink. Then I too with the boy still tightly clutched in my arms pitched backward into the black abyss. ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... his province, there he made a halt, pausing a little, and considering, we may suppose, with himself the greatness of the enterprise which he had undertaken; then, at last, like men that are throwing themselves headlong from some precipice into a vast abyss, having shut, as it were, his mind's eyes and put away from his sight the idea of danger, he merely uttered to those near him in Greek the words, "Anerriphtho kubos," (let the die be cast,) and led his army through it. No sooner ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... is full of indecent passages! 'Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it?' shouts Amos. 'I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things,' thunders Isaiah. 'This,' says Coleridge, 'is the deep abyss of the mystery of God.' Ay, and the profound of the mystery of genius also! Evil is part of the economy of genius, as it is part of the economy of Deity. Gentle reviewers endeavor to find excuses for the freedoms of geniuses. 'It is to prove ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... in the northern tower, Over yonder precipice, A lone, dim light at the midnight hour Shine down the dark abyss. And over the chasm's dungeon-gloom Shall a slender ladder hang; And if alone he dare to ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... dragon is striving to twist his tail round the legs of the angel, and seizes the cloak of the Virgin with one of his hands. Other infernal monsters are writhing with impotent rage, and falling with the dragon into the abyss.' ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... earned by her past life. But a day of reckoning was to come. A few years later France was involved in the uproar and conflagration of revolution. Noble families were scattered, beggared, decimated; and their dependants, often dragged along with them into the flaming abyss, in many instances suffered the last dire extremities of human ill. It was at this awful period that a retribution so frightful and extraordinary overtook Madame Marston, that we may hereafter venture to make it the subject of a separate narrative. Until then the reader will rest satisfied with what ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hair twining round his fingers; and then, that it slid smoothly round his neck, and tightened and tightened, and he could not draw his breath; and then he thought voices whispered to him,—whispers that chilled him with horror. Then it seemed to him he was on the edge of a frightful abyss, holding on and struggling in mortal fear, while dark hands stretched up, and were pulling him over; and Cassy came behind him laughing, and pushed him. And then rose up that solemn veiled figure, and drew aside the veil. It was his mother; and she turned away from him, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rock into the abyss. It gives back no sound. It falls on silence—the voice of its thunders cannot reach so far. It is not—it cannot be a mere, inert, unfeeling, brute fact—its grandeur is too serene—its beauty too divine! It is not red, and blue, and green, but, ah! the shadows and the shades ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... crowned with vastness, Night And Silence ruled the deep's abyss; And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white Breasts of the starry maids who kiss ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... was slowly walking towards the sage's abode, depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often illumine the profoundest abyss of affliction darted across his mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he remembered that he had seen that ornament of "The Asinaeum" receive sundry sums for his ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Prussia retains him a prisoner in his dominions. And while he suffers this inconceivable persecution from the enemies without, the faction which reigns within keeps me a hostage at one hundred and twenty leagues from the capital. Judge, then, at what distance I am from him. In this abyss of misery, the idea of owing to the United States and to Washington the life and liberty of M. de Lafayette kindles a ray of hope in my heart. I hope everything from the goodness of the people with whom he has set an example of that liberty ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... see—you shall know! But our balloon—we had no means of obtaining a further supply of gas. It was barely sufficient to take us across the gulf, with a few pieces of treasure. We struck against the side of the bluff—we were falling back into the abyss! Barely were we able to scramble out of the car and cling to the rocks. Then we saw the balloon rise a little, like a bird freed of burden; but it suddenly collapsed, fluttered downward, and the mists leaped up and clutched it like a thousand exulting demons, dragging ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... scene was a picture of wild confusion, and then—far on the horizon the cloud curtains were thrust aside for one brief moment. The sun, like a splash of blood, hovered waveringly over the rim of the black abyss and with a sudden plunge passed into oblivion. But, that short glimpse was enough. Siluk, the Storm-God, had plunged a knife into the heart of the heavens; no wonder the skies wept for months and months while the earth, wrapped in a dark pall of clinging mists also mourned, with streams and ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... unaccountable. Thus does young life glide on for a time. Then there comes a day—it is often a mystery why it should be that day of all days—when the innocent, and gay, and confident young creature finds herself in sudden trouble. The film on which she lightly trod has burst and she is in an abyss. It seems a mere trifle that plunged her there. Her friend did not come when she looked for him, or he is gone somewhere, or he has said something that she did not expect. Some such trifle reveals to her that she ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfumes of herbs, the perfumes of grass-wrack, which caresses the odor of the wild flowers, caresses the potato with its marine flavor, caresses the soul with a penetrating sweetness. We were going to the brink of the abyss, which overlooked the vast sea, and which rolled past us at the distance of less than a ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... feet are twelve, all fore-feet; six her necks Of hideous length, each clubb'd into a head Terrific, and each head with fangs is arm'd In triple row, thick planted, stored with death. Plunged to her middle in the hollow den 110 She lurks, protruding from the black abyss Her heads, with which the rav'ning monster dives In quest of dolphins, dog-fish, or of prey More bulky, such as in the roaring gulphs Of Amphitrite without end abounds. It is no seaman's boast that e'er he slipp'd Her cavern by, unharm'd. In ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... You who, through my means, have ten times crossed the abyss yawning at your feet, and in which, had you been alone, you would have been irretrievably swallowed up! You without belief! you who, from procureur-general, attained the rank of intendant, from the rank of intendant that of first minister ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... forward to the edge of the barranca, and looked over. It was a grim abyss, over a hundred feet in depth, and about the same in width. Its sides were less precipitous at this point. The escarpment rocks had fallen in, and formed a sort of shelving bank, by which a man on foot might have descended into its bed, and climbed ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... this potential ceremony, Ruth remained leaning against the doorway, looking upon the night, the bulk of whose profundity and blackness seemed to be gathered below him. The vault above was serene and tranquil, with a few large far-spaced stars; the abyss beneath, untroubled by sight or sound. Stepping out upon the ledge, he leaned far over the shelf that sustained their cabin, and listened. A faint rhythmical roll, rising and falling in long undulations against the ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... vouchsafed to save. This heard the raging ruler of the main; His spear, indignant for such high disdain, He launched; dividing with his forky mace The aerial summit from the marble base: The rock rush'd seaward, with impetuous roar Ingulf'd, and to the abyss ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... reader "sup full of horrors." The Buddhist "Books of Ceylon" 3 tell of twenty six heavens placed in regular order above one another in the sky, crowded with all imaginable delights. They also depict, in the abyss underneath the earth, eight great hells, each containing sixteen smaller ones, the whole one hundred and thirty six composing one gigantic hell. The eight chief hells are situated over one another, each partially enclosing and overlapping that next beneath; and the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... also on the following occasion. When David was digging the foundations of the Temple, a shard was found at a depth of fifteen hundred cubits. David was about to lift it, when the shard exclaimed: "Thou canst not do it." "Why not?" asked David. "Because I rest upon the abyss." "Since when?" "Since the hour in which the voice of God was heard to utter the words from Sinai, 'I am the Lord thy God,' causing the earth to quake and sink into the abyss. I lie here to cover up the abyss." Nevertheless David lifted the shard, and the waters of the abyss rose and threatened ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the moist atmosphere often reflects the lights, becoming tinged with this uniform glow, which shines without a flicker, he fancied that he was looking at the reflection of a vast fire. He accepted, without reflection, the idea that Paris was sinking into the abyss of a prodigious conflagration; he found it natural that the private catastrophe in which he had become involved should be merged into a public disaster and that this same night should be for a whole population, as for him! a night ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... preparation—for the giant trees hid the open sky—we rode right out to the edge of the tremendous chasm. At first I did not seem to think; my faculties were benumbed; only the pure sensorial instinct of the savage who sees, but does not feel, made me take note of the abyss. Not one of our party had ever seen the canyon from this side, and not one of us said a word. But Clarke ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... stand before the abyss. It is void of all the dreams with which our fathers peopled it. They thought that they knew what was there; we know only what is not there. It has enlarged itself with all that we have learnt to know nothing of. While waiting for a ...
— Death • Maurice Maeterlinck
... gigantic and imaginary creature, from the white whale, the terrible "Moby Dick" of sub-arctic regions, to the immense kraken, whose tentacles could entangle a ship of five hundred tons and hurry it into the abyss of the ocean. The legends of ancient ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... a manner the miracle. The brotherhood of the friends of the husband was as nothing to the brotherhood, or perhaps I should say the sisterhood, of the friends of the wife. Like the Kent Mulvilles I belonged to both fraternities, and even better than they I think I had sounded the abyss of Mrs. Saltram's wrongs. She bored me to extinction, and I knew but too well how she had bored her husband; but there were those who stood by her, the most efficient of whom were indeed the handful of poor Saltram's backers. ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... how it is apropos, I have not leisure to explain,) do you not know that I am almost in love with an acquaintance of yours?—Almost! said I—I am in love, souse! over head and ears, deep as the most unfathomable abyss of the boundless ocean; but the word Love, owing to the intermingledoms of the good and the bad, the pure and the impure, in this world, being rather an equivocal term for expressing one's sentiments and sensations, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with the quarrels of sectarianism, that the heart of it is really non-existent for the multitude. He speaks with impatience of the nonconformist churches and with contempt of the Anglican church. We are all wrong together. Organised religion, he feels, is hanging over the abyss of destruction, while the nation looks on with an indifference which ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... his perch above the abyss, the officer lowered his field glasses and turned his face. Then he rose and moved over to where she was sitting. ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... by him; yet at the same time she was aware of something delightful and alarming in letting herself be touched by this strong, comely young man. She seemed to be gazing down into a mysterious, unfathomable abyss, and thinking, "I could hurl ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... that were engaged in sharp conflict. As I beheld them darting against each other, and discharging the electric fluid in the violence of their collision, I was filled with trepidation and dismay, lest, meeting an adversary, I should be hurled into the abyss below, or be withered by the artillery of heaven. But I was fortunate enough to escape. The cloud which bore me descended to within a hundred yards of the earth, and then was hurried along by the wind with such velocity ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... poor creature who had fled, driven forth by her first wild impulse to escape from a false and terrible position? With every step she took down the dimly lighted street, the abyss into which she had fallen seemed to grow deeper and darker. She was overwhelmed with the magnitude of her misfortune. She shunned the illumined thoroughfares with a half-crazed sense that every finger would be pointed at her. Her final words, spoken to Ferguson, were the last clear promptings of ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... abyss of despair by the last events of Nicholas' regime, the Russian Jews suddenly received what may be called an earnest of civil emancipation. The Jewish "Pale" knew but vaguely what was taking place in the recesses of the St. Petersburg chancelleries during ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... That she could ever be weak enough, or vile enough, to sink into that dread abyss, whereto some women have gone down for the love of man, was not within the compass of her thought. But she knew that no day in her life was sinless now; that no pure and innocent joys were left to her; that her every thought of George Fairfax was a ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... soon on his way back to college. I knew of only one comfort in the world; that wonderful, "Lo, I am with you." Does anybody know what that means, who has not made it the single plank bridge over an abyss? ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Water Gap, and in the other direction towards the southwest till it sinks out of sight, a rocky wall of uniform height, with this opening in the midst, which looks as if part of the mountain had here fallen into an abyss below. Beyond the Wind Gap we came to the village of Windham, lying in the shelter of this mountain barrier, and here, about twelve o'clock, our driver stopped a moment at an inn to give water to his horses. The bar-room was full of ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... not run, for I was haunted by precipices. Over every height, every mound, one might be lying—a trap for my destruction. I no longer looked out in the hope of recognizing some feature of the country; I could only regard the ground before me, lest at any step I might come upon an abyss. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... endeavoured to gain political power, and to make all other forms of government and influence subservient to its own ends. The measure of its success can be clearly gauged by the fact that all South Africa is standing to-day on the brink of a great precipice, and may be hurled into the abyss before the ink on ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... armies; but God said, I will not measure my strength with that of a man. But God was incensed against Pharaoh, and resolved to punish him; and he opened a hole in the side of an enormous mountain, and he raised a raging wind, and drove before it Pharaoh and his armies to that hole, and the abyss received them, and the mountain closed upon them; but whosoever goes to that mountain on the night of St. John can hear Pharaoh and his armies singing and yelling therein. And it came to pass, that when Pharaoh and his armies had disappeared, ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... by a great river of melted lava, and while I was wondering from what mountain or vast abyss it came, suddenly the field of my vision was extended to the distance of several hundred miles, and I perceived that, instead of springing from a single source, this rolling torrent of fire was fed by numerous tributary streams, and these again ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... doubling the dangers of France, Spain would add nothing to its resources. With what contemptuous bitterness did Spain, in fact, watch the long train of disasters which from the pinnacle of power brought Louis XIV. to the brink of an abyss by one of those vicissitudes the effect of which is never more rapid upon the popular mind than when fortune deserts men who have been ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... return to Paris to-morrow? . . . to be the Chevalier du Cevennes till the end? Ah well!" How often man over-reaches himself in the gratification of an ignoble revenge! "We all have our pastimes," went on the marquis, deepening the abyss into which he was finally to fall. "You were mine. I had intended to send you about some years ago; but I was lonely, and there was something in your spirit which amused me. You tickled my fancy. But now, I am weary; the pastime ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... the generations of men were separated by a wide impassable gulf—the rich and ruling class, the godless, on one side; the poor, the suffering and lowly—the to-be-saved,—on the other, and none ever passed across the deep abyss. He would have challenged any man who counted him, Father Johannes, in his hempen garment studded with thorns, among the rulers ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... snowy promise of sweet leaves and fruit; Here all the scented tangle of the South Covers the boulders, calcined by the sun To pearly whiteness; thorn or asphodel Sprout from each cranny of the topmost ledge To nod against the deep blue sky, or peer Into the verdure-clad abyss below." ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... from sight beneath the dark waters. The tall masts, and spars, and sails followed: down, down they went, drawn by an irresistible force! It seemed like some dreadful dream. Before I could secure myself on the bowsprit, they had disappeared in the unfathomable abyss. Not a cry or a groan reached my ears from my drowning shipmates—unwarned, unprepared they died. Such has been many a hapless seaman's fate. One only escaped. He had hold of the dolphin-striker. I could just distinguish his form through ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... world, called the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the Holy Scriptures; first in Greek, the New Testament, with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge; for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study, thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercises of the field, the better thereby to defend ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the mild rays of the moon would fall on good and bad alike—would gaze on the beautiful, bright colored path over the dark and fearful abyss they were so soon to follow to the Happy Hunting Ground. The breaking of the waves against the rocks on the shore, the melancholy cry of the night bird, like soft music, partially subdued their tortured spirits, and each recalled with fond longing ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... she stoops at once Into the vast and unexplored abyss, What full-grown power informs her from the first, Why she not marvels, strenuously beating The silent boundless regions ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... witnessed. No thunderbolt had blazed forth from that dome of cloudless blue; no marksman had approached the inaccessible spot; yet, without vestige of hurt, the eagle dropped lifeless, falling sheer down into the unfathomable abyss below. At the same moment the bonds of the captive snapped asunder, and, projected by an impetus which kept him clear of the perpendicular precipice, he alighted at an infinite depth on a sun-flecked greensward amid young ash ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... stretched itself over the pool, forming a fork with its boughs at a short distance from the rock. Miss Susannah often sat on the rock, with her feet resting on this tree; in time, she made her seat on the tree itself, with her feet hanging over the abyss; and at length, she accustomed herself to lie along upon its trunk, with her side on the mossy bole of the fork, and an arm round one of the branches. From this position a portion of the sky and the woods was reflected in the pool, which, from its bank, was but a mass of darkness. The first ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... lord, I must inform you that I do not desire to trouble myself with the love of other persons, not that I despise the joys which are therein to be experienced (as supreme they must be, since so many ladies cast into the abyss of love their homes, their honour, their future, and everything), but from the love I bear my children. Never would I be the cause of a blush upon their cheeks, for in this idea will I bring up my ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... dust, the waters rose like liquid walls and left free between them a broad way which could be traversed dry shod. Through their translucency, as behind thick glass, were seen marine monsters twisting and squirming, terrified at being surprised by daylight in the mysterious depths of the abyss. ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... boundaries of the earth. A local heaven and a local hell are found in every mythology. In Greece, as to heaven, there was a universal agreement that it was situated above the blue sky; but as to hell, much difference of opinion prevailed. There were many who thought that it was a deep abyss in the interior of the earth, to which certain passages, such as the Acherusian cave in Bithynia, led. But those who with Anaximenes considered the earth to be like a broad leaf floating in the air, and who accepted the doctrine that ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... laboring and beseeching and waiting for its regeneration, upheld above the depths of suffering and regret by the immortal power of a love so fervent, so pure, so self-forgetting, that it will be a millstone about the necks that disregard its tender clasping now, to sink them into a bottomless abyss in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... whispered seemed but the logical conclusion of his entire career. He put his foot upon the edge of the wharf and looked down into the dark abyss. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the same way, and hence there was that rule. But now-a-days, princes bring their ministers forward as if they were going to take them on their knees, and send them away as if they would cast them into an abyss. If they do not treat them as their greatest enemies, it is well.— How can you expect the ancient practice to be observed in such circumstances [1]?' These instances may suffice to illustrate the character ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... Tem], who cometh forth out of Nu into the watery abyss. I have received [my habitation of Amentet, and have given commands] with my words to the [Khus] whose abiding-places are hidden, to the Khus and to the double Lion-god. I have made journeys round about and I have sung hymns of ...
— Egyptian Literature
... light went out on the instant and he felt that he was suspended in mid-air, poised between the abyss and ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... in a fear—I acted as if possessed by a spirit not my own; no one can understand my feelings who has not been so tried—left alone in the world, as if on the extreme verge of an abyss yawning beneath, and at the same time feeling something within that might merit a saving hand at ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... business, nor what I am myself, nor what has become of my other part; I had four limbs and a head, and whether I have left them at home, or whether the fairies, who have certainly not acted fairly with me, have cast me into some abyss, (for I remember to have passed over several horrid ravines,) I cannot tell, sir, though you should cause me to be hung." "Fairly indeed," said he, "they would have acted with you, if I had not come just in time to save you ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... conquest of his heart. Thus the very love which she bore him, as the person to whom her little family were to owe their preservation and happiness, inspired him with thoughts of sinking them all in the lowest abyss of ruin and misery; and, while she smiled with all her sweetness on the supposed friend of her husband, she was converting that friend into his ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... other spheres; that continuance of life after death was a truth; feeling all this, their concomitant influence was to make us positive that the human mind in an intelligent, satisfactory, self-illuminating way some day would reach mind everywhere in all its specific forms; and that the abyss of space would eventually thrill with the vibrations of conscious ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... upon the breaking out of the abolitionist reaction. And when the Union rose again, still clinging to liberty, on the ruins of slavery and dismemberment, we who had heard the earthquake, we who had witnessed the opening of the abyss, we who had seen swallowed up in it a million lives and an incalculable amount of wealth, and knew of the misfortunes and tears it had caused, were surprised by the divine dawn which finally appeared with the consoling victory of justice; ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... thankful; for if you were a student you would not sell earthenware pans, and would therefore lose the profit which you now make; and were you a student, you would at this moment be all of a tremble, for you would then know that we are at this present moment standing over a frightful abyss that will soon yawn to receive ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... day, whether Lenorme came or not, he would declare himself. That night he would go fishing with Lady Clementina, but not one day longer would he allow those people to be about his sister. Who could tell what might not be brewing, or into what abyss, with the help of her friends, the woman Catanach might not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... The mountain genii of space and atmosphere jealously guarded its seclusion and surrounded it with illusions; it never looked to be exactly what it was: the traveller who saw it from the North Ridge apparently at his feet in descending found himself separated from it by a mile-long abyss and a rushing river; those who sought it by a seeming direct trail at the end of an hour lost sight of it completely, or, abandoning the quest and retracing their steps, suddenly came upon the gap through which it was entered. That which from the ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... nothing henceforth, from this moment on, can give me joy, since, cruel woman, when thou couldst throw me a rope, thou leavest me, in dismay, to drink the bitter current—let death come, black hiding-place, bottomless abyss! let me plunge down ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer
... foothold—it was wonderful to see him. The sledge stopped and we leapt aside. The situation was clear in another moment. We had been actually travelling along the bridge [or snow covering] of a crevasse, the sledge had stopped on it, whilst the dogs hung in their harness in the abyss, suspended between the sledge and the leading dog. Why the sledge and ourselves didn't follow the ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... housekeeper, only they are of a different kind. Talk of labor, and look at the upper classes in London or in New York in the fashionable season. Do any women work harder? To rush from crowd to crowd all night, night after night, seeing what they are tired of, making the agreeable over an abyss of inward yawning, crowded, jostled, breathing hot air, and crushed in halls and stairways, without a moment of leisure for months and months, till brain and nerve and sense reel, and the country is longed for as a period of resuscitation and relief! Such is the release ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... and of commotions so favorable to the clergy, a weak and poor monarch, surrounded by a miserable nation, was at the mercy of a Roman pontiff, who could at any instant destroy his felicity, excite his subjects against him, and precipitate him into the abyss ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... the earthquake period, caused by internal convulsions, which suddenly modified the unsettled features of the terrestrial surface. Here, an intumescence which was to become a mountain, there, an abyss which was to be filled with an ocean or a sea. There, whole forests sunk through the earth's crust, below the unfixed strata, either until they found a resting-place, such as the primitive bed of granitic rock, or, settling together in a heap, they ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... morasses, where they had been found in the morning, shuddering as they told of a huge white monk, with clanking weapons, and a burning cross of fire printed on his shoulder and breast, who stood on the walls and hurled a shrieking babe into the abyss. Were such spectacles awaiting her? Must she bear them? And could her endurance hold out? Our Lady be her aid, and ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... night—I shudder as I recall it. For hours I tossed on the bed, rent by conflicting emotions, ashamed one minute of my ignoble thoughts, plunged the next into a black abyss of doubt. At the first flush of wintry dawn I dozed off into slumber; the sun was shining when I awoke, and the moonlight encounter seemed more a ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... he was—scarcely yet eighteen—the toils and sports that delighted his brother seemed to him like toys amusing infants on the verge of an abyss, and he spent his leisure either in searching in the Vulgate for something to give him absolute direction, or in going in search of preachers, for, with the stirring of men's minds, sermons were ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... the destruction of nearly fifty victims in the Murder Hole which they pointed out, and near which they suffered the penalty of their crimes. The bones of several murdered persons were with difficulty brought up from the abyss into which they had been thrust; but so narrow is the aperture, and so extraordinary the depth, that all who see it are inclined to coincide in the tradition of the country people that it is unfathomable. The scene of these events still continues nearly as it was 300 years ago. The remains ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various
... selfishness. Many a man that before the war made the acquiring of wealth or the gaining of the plaudits of his friends his chief aim, now finds that these things have no appeal for him. For he has been to the edge of life and looked into the abyss, and fear has stripped from him the rags of self-adornment; and standing naked between the worlds his soul has found that it needs no beautifying but the ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... darkness in the hope that our companion might be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly but no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to moan and lay without a movement. A chill draught was blowing out of the abyss. We felt that there was ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... high cedar tree at the head of our father's grave, its top shall reach up to the skies, its branches shall shade all the inhabitants of the earth, and its roots shall grow down deep into the earth, unto the abyss. For from him are sprung twelve tribes, and from him will arise kings and rulers, chapters of priests prepared to perform the service of the sacrifices, and companies of Levites ready to sing psalms ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... witness can prevail, If private reason hold the public scale? But, gracious God, how well dost thou provide For erring judgments an unerring guide! Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd, And search no farther than thyself reveal'd; But her alone for my director take, 70 Whom thou hast promised never to forsake! My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires; My manhood, long ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... that caused the fiery animal to give one tremendous spring, which brought him to the very brink of the precipice. In his efforts to stop himself, a portion of the earth was detached by his hoofs and fell with a loud noise into the abyss, bounding down its rocky sides, and crashing through bushes and branches of trees in its rapid descent to the bottom. The horse, frightened by the sound, and smarting under the blow of the lasso, reared so straight upon his hind legs that he seemed in imminent danger of toppling over into the ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... abyss of mystery, surmise, and metaphysics you fell into while I was eating my dinner! I used the phrase 'brown thrush,' only in reference to her dress and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... is repeated in the Universe, which consists of a corporeal world embraced and interpenetrated by a spiritual world. The former consists of the earth, as its principal and central constituent, with the subsidiary sun, planets, and stars. Above the earth is the air, and below is the watery abyss. Whether the heaven, which is conceived to be above the air, and the hell in, or below, the subterranean deeps, are to be taken as corporeal or incorporeal is not clear. However this may be, the heaven and the air, the earth and the abyss, are peopled ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... led by a bare and more forbidding route to the place where the big man had rescued him, and he knew it must be the one by which he had come. A sense of what had happened came over him terrifyingly, and he shrank from the abyss, his body quivering and his head reeling. He would not look down into the blue depth, knowing that if he did so, by that way his sanity would leave him, but he crawled cautiously around the projecting cliff and wandered down ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... hand, if the blind acceptance of authority appears to him in its true colours, as mere private judgment in excelsis, and if he have the courage to stand alone, face to face with the abyss of the eternal and unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by "Infallibility," but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... got into bed, but not to sleep; and when the dull daylight of Monday came, all support had vanished, and I seemed to be sinking into a bottomless abyss. I became gradually worse week by week, and my melancholy took a fixed form. I got a notion into my head that my brain was failing, and this was my first acquaintance with that most awful malady hypochondria. ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... matter," said Captain Wragge to himself, persisting, from sheer force of habit, in the old assertion of his relationship to Magdalen's mother; "I must consider it in all its bearings." He tucked the umbrella under his arm, crossed his hands behind him, and lowered himself gently into the abyss of his own reflections. The order and propriety observable in the captain's shabby garments accurately typified the order and propriety which distinguished the operations of the captain's mind. It was his habit always to see his way before him through a neat succession of alternatives—and ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... been brought by those very maxims and counsels which would now deter us from adopting the proposed constitution; and which, not content with having conducted us to the brink of a precipice, seem resolved to plunge us into the abyss that awaits us below. Here, my countrymen, impelled by every motive that ought to influence an enlightened people, let us make a firm stand for our safety, our tranquillity, our dignity, our reputation. Let us at last break the fatal charm which has ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... done something wonderful. Stupid fools! do you think our heart can beat for you? What do these wretched people know about it? Leave them alone, give them a kick with your foot, and come with me into the wide world, were it only to perish bravely, to die with a light heart in some abyss. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... bade defiance to the waves, which broke over the ship and wetted me all over, as though to cool my feverish heat. I could now form a clear and vivid conception of a storm at sea. I saw the waves rush foaming on, and the ship now diving into an abyss, and anon rising with the speed of lightning to the peak of the highest wave. It was a thrilling, fearful sight;—absorbed in its contemplation, I soon ceased to think ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... of that abyss into which he looked, flashing from his mind to my own, left me silent and helpless before him. Yet I longed to give him comfort; for, with the regal self-possession which had fallen from him, there had slipped from me too some undefined instinct of ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... Wood with grim finality. "There's a perfectly safe prison—down below." He glanced into the green abyss above which we were soaring. "I must ask Your Imperial Highness to decide quickly. The ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... this catastrophe, that they may once again rally around a more active chief, and try one further effort under the fortune of the ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such an enterprize would precipitate them into a new abyss of calamity and disgrace, it is not difficult to foresee; yet it might be attended with mutual loss, and it is our duty as legislators not to spill a drop of blood when our purpose may be ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... let him down toward the roaring abyss of furious waters, till the bateau—guided by the paddle, and held back now by the main strength ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... from the cradle fate's remorseless blows Baburin drove towards the abyss of woes! But as in darkness gleams the light, so now The conqueror's laurel wreathes his ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... cloister. Women often do the most idiotic things out of sheer obstinacy; possibly they deceive even themselves, and act in good faith; but unfortunately, when the veil falls from before their eyes, they see but the profound abyss into which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... fallen angels; Pandemonium, Abaddon[obs3], Domdaniel; jahannan[obs3], sheol[obs3]. hell fire; everlasting fire, everlasting torment, eternal damnation; lake of fire and brimstone; fire that is never quenched; worm that never dies. purgatory, limbo, gehenna, abyss. [Mythological hell] Tartarus, Hades, Avernus[Lat], Styx, Stygian creek, pit of Acheron[obs3], Cocytus; infernal regions, inferno, shades below, realms of Pluto. Pluto, Rhadamanthus[obs3], Erebus[Lat]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... man shall I come back again? Ah, shall I see Laurentum's walls, or see my camp once more? 671 What shall betide the fellowship that followed me to war, Whom I have left? O misery to die the death alone! I see them scattered even now, I hear the dying groan. What do I? what abyss of earth is deep enough to hide The wretched man? But ye, O winds, be merciful this tide, On rocks, on stones—I, Turnus, thus adore you with good will— Drive ye the ship, or cast it up on Syrtes' shoals of ill, Where Rutuli and tell-tale Fame ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... required more moral strength than Clare possessed, or was able to command. Early training he had none; and even now there was not a soul near to teach and warn him of the danger. So the unhappy poet kept gliding down the fatal abyss. ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... awaken, And with fear my breast is shaken, Thinking: O thou black abyss; All the toil and thrift of life, All the struggle and the strife, Shall it come at ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... to grasp my arm in one hand, but consciousness was gone. I put my hand to my side, my head, but felt nothing, and still I knew my limbs and frame were there. And then the scene would change! I was falling—falling swiftly as an arrow—far down into some terrible abyss; and so like reality was it that as I fell I could see the rocky sides of the horrible shaft, where mocking, jibing, fiend-like forms were perched; and I could feel the air rushing past me, making my ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... by Thy hand Wander unwearied through the blue abyss: They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss. What shall we call them? Piles of crystal light— A glorious company of golden streams— Lamps of celestial ether burning bright— Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams? ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... mind and does, yet has she never been able to attain to [the knowledge and understanding of] any of these things. But here we have everything in richest measure; for here in all three articles He has Himself revealed and opened the deepest abyss of his paternal heart and of His pure unutterable love. For He has created us for this very object, that He might redeem and sanctify us; and in addition to giving and imparting to us everything in heaven and upon earth, He has given to us even His Son and the Holy ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... more than ever. Sometimes he would descend with his blue devils into the abyss, and sit there all the evening in a dismal sulk. Sometimes he was gayer even than his old gay self; and sometimes in a bitter vein, talking enigmatical ironies, with his strange smile; and sometimes he was dangerous ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the smoke and choked by the vapor, could not be content without descending into the abyss and exploring the very penetralia of its mysteries. Steadying his way by means of a cord which he fastened to a firm projecting rock, he began slowly and painfully clambering downward. The wind was sweeping across the chasm from behind, bearing the noxious vapors ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... crumbled, and the bed of rotten wood supporting Fred, as he lay back with his face to the light, shook so that at any moment Scarlett expected to see it descend into the profound abyss below. But in spite of this, as he climbed down the short distance, he realised the state of affairs—that in its fall the oak had crushed in the masonry arch over some old well-like place, leaving this terrible hole securely covered till ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... Just think of his coming to this island and, on this high cliff above the azure sea, building this palace! And then to think of him on a night when the moon was full, and the nightingales were singing, coming out and hurling a shuddering slave into the abyss! ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... presume to measure the abyss that lies between the Intention and the Execution? Arnold's resolution to speak was as firmly settled as a resolution could be. And what came of it? Alas for human infirmity! Nothing came ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... felt that evil habits had thrown around him. He was like one who has been walking in a fog along the brink of a precipice, and discovers his position by setting a foot on the very edge and nearly falling over. He shrank from the abyss which he now saw yawning for him. At the same time he exerted himself to become popular, and since he was no longer anxious to thrust himself perpetually into the foremost place, he ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... some, with more face than fear, how it consists with a compleat victory of the Devil, which they say was at first obtained by the Heavenly Powers over Satan and his apostate army in Heaven, that when he was cast out of his holy place, and dash'd down into the abyss of eternal darkness, as into a place of punishment, a condemn'd hold, or place of confinement, to be reserved there to the judgment of the great Day; I say, how it consists with that entire victory, to let him loose again, and give him liberty, ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... must in its turn encroach upon the land, when the plains and valleys shall become bays and gulfs, or even unite in continuous expanses of water, and the greater mountains alone, diminished in bulk by continued abrasion, shall stand as islands in the vast abyss. The earth would then again be without form and void of inhabitants, as it was before the creation of man. Such, however, will not be the termination of the present order of things; we are taught to look for this in an igneous eruption, the source of which ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... often loitered, and in looking once more on the scene of her childhood. But, as she thought of this, she remembered the darkness of the stream, and the softly-gurgling but rapid flow with which it hurried itself on beneath the black abyss of the building. She had often shuddered as she watched it, indulging herself in the luxury of causeless trepidation. But now, were she there, she would surely take that plunge into the blackness, which would bring her to the end of all ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... could only exhibit this concept (of freedom) problematically as not impossible to thought, without assuring it any objective reality, and merely lest the supposed impossibility of what it must at least allow to be thinkable should endanger its very being and plunge it into an abyss of scepticism. ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... "falling in love," as though it were a pit or an abyss; but True Love is the light on the mountain-top, to which ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... determin'd will to burst the portals Past which in terror others fain would steal Now is the time, through deeds, to show that mortals The calm sublimity of gods can feel; To shudder not at yonder dark abyss, Where phantasy creates her own self-torturing brood, Right onward to the yawning gulf to press, Around whose narrow jaws rolleth hell's fiery flood; With glad resolve to take the fatal leap, Though danger threaten thee, to ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... Willock's descent, it dipped away in a narrow line that would not have admitted a man's body. At the other end, where he now stood, it suddenly gave way to empty space. It came to an end so abruptly that there was no means of discovering how deep was the narrow abyss beyond. Possibly it descended a sheer three hundred feet, the depth of the ridge at that place. On the smooth floor which melted to nothingness with such sinister and startling suddenness, the candlelight revealed the skeleton of a man ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... blazes. The deeper these strange beings sink into their anguish, the more remorseless their arguments become. They prove their horror in dreadful syllogisms; every inference plunges them farther into the abyss; and their intelligence flames upward to its highest point, ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... They quitted not their bodies, as thou deem'st, Gentiles but Christians, in firm rooted faith, This of the feet in future to be pierc'd, That of feet nail'd already to the cross. One from the barrier of the dark abyss, Where never any with good will returns, Came back unto his bones. Of lively hope Such was the meed; of lively hope, that wing'd The prayers sent up to God for his release, And put power into them to bend his will. The glorious Spirit, of whom I speak to thee, A little while returning to the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... are nothing to him now; there is nothing but the old man and the sky—nothing between him and the heaven now, and he knows it and is glad. A few months more, and those way-worn features shall have crumbled to their dust, and that strong, meek spirit shall be in the abyss of eternity, before the God from ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... contend; And still her bitter tears she blends with yours, In wretchedness that knows no end. Oh that some pity in the heart were born, For her, who hath all other glories won, Of one, who from this dark, profound abyss, Her weak and weary feet could guide! Thou glorious shade, oh! say, Does no one love thy Italy? Say, is the flame that kindled thee extinct? And will that myrtle never bloom again, That hath so long consoled us in our pain? Must all ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... the rebel leaders: the recklessness of a suicide is nothing in comparison; for here are eight millions of men intent upon their own destruction; fighting the North like fiends, because it would rescue them from themselves, and save both North and South from a common abyss of ruin!) The national government alone is strong at home and respected abroad. It alone can concentrate the energies and resources of thirty-four States, and of thirty-one millions of people, into any one or many ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... he dropped the last ten feet to the ground cries rose from the little group below. It was the unconscious recognition of an achievement that not one man in ten thousand was capable of, a combination of courage, skill, and perfect nerve which let him walk safely above the abyss across the perpendicular wall. It was more than human,—the projection of man's will in reckless daring ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... for ten minutes, his staring eyes fixed on the ceiling. He was thinking of the abyss he had ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... bubbles and foam-flakes show the obstacles against which it must have striven in its landward journey. At low water, on the contrary, "the Devil's Drinking Cup," for so it is named by the superstitious peasantry of the neighborhood, presents nothing to the eye but a deep, black abyss, which the country folks, of course, assert to be bottomless. But, in truth, its depth is immense, as can easily be perceived, if you cast a stone into it, by the length of time during which it may be heard thundering ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... what tones, What mazing sight is this! The spellbound forms Of my first youth rise up from the abyss Of opening time. I listen to a voice That bursts the sepulchre of buried hope ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... into the frozen chasms that yawned all round them. At last, however, they reached the mouth of the crater, and, crawling cautiously to the very edge, peered down into its gloomy depths. At the bottom of the abyss, which seemed to them to go down into the very heart of the earth, a lurid flame burned sullenly, sending up a sulphureous steam, which cooling as it rose, fell again in showers upon the sides of the cavity. Into this one of the brave explorers had to descend, and when they ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... is hurled by an angel's spear, Heels over head, to his proper sphere,— Heels over head and head over heels, Dizzily down the abyss he wheels,— So fell Darius. Upon his crown, In the midst of the barn-yard, he came down, In a wonderful whirl of tangled strings, Broken braces and broken springs, Broken tail and broken wings, Shooting-stars, and various ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... tower into the horrid abyss below I counted myself already dead; and Thurid must have done likewise, for he evidently did not even trouble himself to look after me, but must have turned and mounted ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the other side. But that wall was different. You see, the vacant lot was much higher than the level of the street. On my side the wall was low, but on the other side—well, as I came soaring over the top, all holds free, it seemed to me that I was falling feet-first, plump into an abyss. There beneath me, on the sidewalk, under the light of a street-lamp was a bull. I guess it was nine or ten feet down to the sidewalk; but in the shock of surprise in mid-air ...
— The Road • Jack London
... Kansas for servitude by tempting them to sacrifice their self-respect and their honor. Let these miscreants make haste to seize the price of their perfidy before popular contempt and loathing shall sweep them forever out of sight into the abyss of infamy and forgetfulness which is appointed for the traitors to Liberty. If the question of the real will of the people of Kansas had been referred back to them for settlement, it would have been humiliating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... taking to a straight one pontificed with iron. It had not been open a week, however, when, as two or three hurrying peasants were venturing it with their carts, it fell with a crash, and all were washed headlong in an instant over the precipice and into the boiling abyss below, from which not one vestige of their remains was ever returned for a sign to their awe-stricken friends. Supposing this bridge to be rebuilt,—which is not likely,—I do not believe that a habitant of all that region ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the man above the unlimited dominion of impulse and the instincts of nature; in a word, absolves him from nature's guardianship, so the necessity, which alongside of her he must recognize, is no mere natural necessity, but one lying beyond the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; consequently it exhibits itself as the unfathomable power of Destiny. Hence this power extends also to the world of gods: for the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature; and although immeasurably higher than mortal man, yet, compared with infinitude, they are on an equal footing ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... acts of the Turks since the appearance of the Goeben in the Dardanelles had been committed under the pressure of Germany, but the efforts of the Turks to evade responsibility for these acts could not prevent them from falling into the abyss into which they were rolling. The events on the Russo-Turkish frontier, while covering Russian arms with fresh glory, will bring Russia nearer to the realization of the political and economic problems bound up with the question of Russia's access ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... unseen, these clouds may scatter. I shall be in the sanctuary of the goddess from the first hour after sunset. I have some measurements to take there. When you say you know that the immortals will have pity on the innocent woman whom they have led to the verge of the abyss, perhaps you may be right. It seems as if matters here were combining in a way which would be apt to rob the story-teller of his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of May, 1853, I passed close on the heels of the great disaster. But that my lids were heavy on that morning, my readers would probably have had no further trouble with me. Two of my friends saw the car in which they rode break in the middle and leave them hanging over the abyss. From Norwalk to Boston, that day's journey of two hundred miles was a long ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... beyond, showing that the visual ray was not yet strong enough to fathom the mighty distance; but let the full aperture be applied and mark the result. Mist and haze have disappeared; the telescope has pierced right through the stupendous distance, and only the vast abyss of space, boundless and unfathomable, ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... pigeon-hole habit. He hates to see anything sink into the abyss of the waste-basket, but I am training him to throw away something every morning before breakfast. After a while he'll get so that he can dispose of several things at once, and the time may come when I'll have to look over the rubbish to be sure that ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... privations. He professed a worship, they said, for that gold that had cost him so much; and he would never give the hand of his daughter to a man who had no money. This last comment was useless. Above my actions, my thoughts, my hopes, higher than all, soars my pride. Instantly I saw an abyss opening between me and her whom I love more than my life, but less than my dignity. When a man's name is Genost de Tregars, he must support his wife, were it by breaking stones. And the thought that I owed my fortune to the woman I married ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... evaporation and impetuous rains, as if the flood-gates of heaven were opened; and, on the other, an irresistible dilation, which not only raised the waters from their depths, broke up the fountains of the GREAT ABYSS, and raised its powerful waves to the level of the highest mountains, but which caused immense stratifications of calcareous carbonate, under the double pressure of a great heat and a pressure equal to ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... tempest toss'd,— Its rudder gone,—its pilot lost; And no kind ray of light were giv'n, To cheer them, from the vault of heav'n, Save the vivid lightning's flash,— Pealing the deep ton'd thunder crash, Glancing upon the tow'ring wave, Above the seaman's yawning grave;— Glaring into that dark abyss, Where hideous monsters dart and hiss, And ship wreck'd seamen, far from home. Toss amid the briny foam; Till the proud wave, with one stern sweep, Buries the secrets of the deep; Revealing far, on upper land, A lawless bandits' ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna |
