"Avalanche" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flankers had gained the rear, And flew on the trail of the flying herd. The shouts of the riders rang loud and clear, As their foaming steeds to the chase they spurred. And now like the roar of an avalanche Rolls the bellowing wrath of the maddened bulls They charge on the riders and runners stanch, And a dying steed in the snow drift rolls, While the rider, flung to the frozen ground, Escapes the horns by a panther's bound. But the raging monsters ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... constant play of countenance: first he smiled, then looked grave; now raised his eyebrows, till they rose like rainbows, to the horizon of his pale, straw-coloured hair; and next darted them down, like an avalanche, over the twinkling, restless, fluttering, little blue eyes, which then became almost invisible. Mr. Douce had, in fact, all the appearance of a painfully shy man, which was the more strange, as he had the reputation of enterprise, and even audacity, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... roar and a huge splash beneath the stern of the Tremendous. A cold avalanche sluiced the boy. He staggered blindly back, something crashing on ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... impossible he could have uttered a sound. He had slipped eastward towards the unknown side of the mountain; far below he had struck a steep slope of snow, and ploughed his way down it in the midst of a snow avalanche. His track went straight to the edge of a frightful precipice, and beyond that everything was hidden. Far, far below, and hazy with distance, they could see trees rising out of a narrow, shut-in valley—the lost Country of the Blind. But ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the Red Bone warriors, taking heart from the cessation of firing, poured an avalanche of arrows into the spot where they had been. And as the canoe, last in the escaping line, was swallowed up in the impenetrable blackness of the forest a hair-raising screech of diabolical fury blended with a swift succession of splashes back ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... they were so elated with their primitive power that, although their forces were not able to cope with those of foreigners in the open, they were very powerful in the thickets, mountains, and mouths of the rivers; and were accustomed to burst like an avalanche upon the villages, and compel their inhabitants to pay them tribute, as if they were the lords of the land, who were inhabiting it. And if the people refused to give it willingly, they killed right ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... feasible that, looking down on his left to Scarlett's poor six squadrons—his two following regiments were then some distance off—and seeing those squadrons as yet without accompanying artillery, he should have judged them his easier quarry and ordered the wheel that should bring his avalanche ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... the maddened millions of insane murderers and his heart is torn as He sees the avalanche of tears shed ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... himself, the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon by some dominant memory, groped under the bed until ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... then the sun came forth from the veil of clouds and cast its southern rays across the white expanse with an effect that drew exclamations of delight from all who had eyes to see. No wind stirred the air, but ever and anon a bright avalanche would slide from bough or bush, sparkle and gleam as the sun caught it, and then sink gently into the deep lap spread below. The bough would spring as if to catch its beautiful load, and, failing in this, would throw up its head and try ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... upon the war-path with all his might. The forest trembled as he trode, the earth bent like thin ice beneath his heel. Birds, beasts, serpents, and poachers fled affrighted to the right and left of his course. He came down upon the unsuspecting assassins like a mild Spanish avalanche. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... and dumb at the foot of the steps. The whole situation had rushed upon him like an avalanche. Harbert had filed his charges and the hasty visit of the reporter proved that David Cable was an instrument in them. The blood surged to his head; he staggered under the shock of ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... assistant found an avalanche of new material and old on their hands. (The Q.M.S.'s are those individuals who keep ALL the new clothing in store and by only the wiliest of Tommies can such material be wangled.) The Q.M.S. of the Ten Hundred was not exactly popular among the ranks. N.B.—Neither Q.M.S.'s nor C.Q.M.S.'s ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... even contemplated such a bit of splendid but reckless daring. Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing. It was a voluntary movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and suspense. As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said, "It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... performance, her horse was brought to the front of her hotel, and when mounted, with affected difficulty, made to rear and pitch as if he never before had felt the saddle or bit, and then to dash off as if upon a race-course or to escape an avalanche. The letters to her husband, with much tact but without any necessity displayed to the public, in her answer to his process for divorce, were admirable as compositions, and seemed to have been written in the very phrensy of passion; but their effect upon the reader was changed ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... a "father" and "mother" should be found. On this subject "the Golden Shoemaker" had talked much with his minister. He shrank from the thought of advertising his need. He was afraid of bringing upon himself an avalanche of mercenary applications. His idea was to fix upon some excellent Christian man and woman who might be induced to accept the post as a sacred and delightful duty. They must be persons who loved children, and who were not in search of a living; and it would be none the worse if it were ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... had bunglingly prepared lay untouched on the table. Now and then the crash of an avalanche of snow from the overburdened branches emphasized the stillness. Dreading he knew not what, Crossman waited—and loneliness is not good ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... smoothness and rapidity that Stephen, proudly enthroned at the wheel, had almost forgotten that any shadow rested on the hilarity of the day. He had been dubbed a good fellow, a true sport, a benefactor to the school—every complimentary pseudonym imaginable—and had glowed with pleasure beneath the avalanche of flattery. As the big car with its rollicking occupants had spun along the highway, many a passer-by had caught the merry mood of the cheering group and waved a smiling salutation in ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... of the numerous jars and jolts which daily minister to my faculties. The loftier and grander vibrations which appeal to my emotions are varied and abundant. I listen with awe to the roll of the thunder and the muffled avalanche of sound when the sea flings itself upon the shore. And I love the instrument by which all the diapasons of the ocean are caught and released in surging floods—the many-voiced organ. If music could be seen, I could point ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... was a crash, and the very house shook. There was a wheezy shout of alarm, the sound of another voice in wild laughter, and some heavy body slid down the long side of the roof with the noise of an avalanche. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... too, writhed beneath this avalanche of pain; perhaps remorse and the consciousness of the anguish he had entailed upon them both tore and lacerated him. He had gone away at last, out of her life, back to the home and the ties that were hateful to him. ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... From faithless France he danced his way Where Alban's thousand islands lay, The kelp-strown ridge of the lone Hebrides:— How down each strath they stream'd as springtide rills, When he to Finnan vale Came from Glenaladale, And that snow-handful grew an avalanche of ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... contribute to the peace of their country by passing judgment upon certain angrily mooted questions of a political character. The effort was a failure and brought upon their heads, and upon Chief Justice Taney in particular, an avalanche of ...
— Our Changing Constitution • Charles Pierson
... Water, the cattleman thought of a short-cut, through a little used timber-trail, which would save him several miles; but it was crossed by a ravine cut by a winter avalanche like the slash of a gigantic knife. To descend into this ravine and ascend on the farther side would be a tortuous process, which would take more time than to continue by the longer route. But if the gelding could jump the narrow cleft in the ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... remained clutched into his flesh, choking his life out of him. There was a thin, guttural, sawing noise mixed in with the sobbing. Then all in a moment the sobbing ceased, he felt the hands relax, and then an avalanche of darkness crashed down on him, and ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... march, which at every step of the ascent threatened to become a funeral march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and we went up ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... early one winter morning that two tall, raw old farmers drove up to the 'West India Goods and General Emporium' establishment, and emerging from an avalanche of buffalo robes, made good their way into the back part of the store, where the customary knot of hangers-on was gathered around the stove, to drag through the day, doing nothing and talking politics. A single look convinced the proprietor ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... destroyed me like an avalanche; One night turned all my summer back to snow: Next morning not a bird upon my branch, Not a lamb ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... thunder-peal, Came raindrops, falling near, A rain one could not feel, A rain that smote the ear. And we turned to look again Towards the mountain wall, When a deep tone shook the fane, Like the avalanche's fall. Loud piped the wind, fast poured the rain, The very earth seemed riven, And wildly flashed, and yet again, The smiting fires of heaven. And cheeks that wore the light of smiles When slowly ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... behind the curtain she was aware of many cries and questions hurled at her like an avalanche, but, ignoring them all, she sprang past the noisy, excited group of young people, darted through the dressing-room to the right and out into the night and coolness. Her head was swimming, and things went black before her eyes. She felt that her breath was going, going, ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... these birds have a retreat where no enemy can come near them, and where they may bring forth their young, and rear them in perfect security. Still more, they can go to rest at night without fear of being disturbed, unless by the crash of the falling avalanche, or the roar of the loud thunder that often reverberates through these Alpine regions. But the condor is not in the least afraid of these noises; and he heeds them not, but sleeps securely, even while the red lightning is playing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... interrupted. There was a sharp crack overhead, followed by a tremendous rattle and crash. Then down upon the buggy descended what, to Graves, appeared to be an avalanche of scratching, tearing twigs and branches. They ripped away the boot and laprobe and jammed him back against the seat, their sharp points against his breast. The buggy was jerked forward a few feet ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... rose awkwardly. The cats fell in an avalanche to the floor. Long Otto, in his haste, trod on the dog, which began barking, a process which it kept up almost without a pause during ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... talking with Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door, which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with marvellous alacrity for a man ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... similitudes so far used in describing Saul. In his agony he is like the king-serpent. His rage is like the earthquake that may tear open the rock but at the same time sets the gold free. His final release from the evil spirit is described by the sudden fall of the avalanche from the mountain summit. The look in his eyes as he comes back to life, yet seeing nothing in life to desire, is compared to pale autumn sunsets seen over the ocean, or to slow sunsets seen over a desolate hill country. All the figures ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... brief ten months' detention, the adherence to him of the French army, and the consequent dethronement of Louis XVIII. The Congress at once dispersed, forgetting all its differences, while the great monarchs united once more in pouring such an avalanche of troops into France and Belgium that Napoleon stood no chance of retaining his throne, whatever military genius he might display. After his defeat at Waterloo the allies occupied Paris, and this time exacted a large war indemnity of L40,000,000, and left an army of occupation of one ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... universal. It is too late for a peaceful solution. The classes are divided more and more sharply, the spirit of resistance penetrates the workers, the bitterness intensifies, the guerilla skirmishes become concentrated in more important battles, and soon a slight impulse will suffice to set the avalanche in motion. Then, indeed, will the war-cry resound through the land: "War to the palaces, peace to the cottages!"—but then it will be too late for the ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... recede. Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned Eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche, the thunderbolt of snow! All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to heaven, yet ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... and mind and conscience, stricken and bowed by a calamity whose pathos penetrates every house-hold in Christendom, cries to these warning words, "Amen! Amen!" Like the slight sound amid the frozen silence of the Alps that loosens and brings down the avalanche, the solitary pistol-shot of the 2d of July has suddenly startled this vast accumulation of public opinion into conviction, and on every side thunders the rush and roar of its overwhelming descent, which will sweep away the host of evils bred of ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... Edgham to be entirely balked of any purpose which she might form. There was something at once impressive and terrible about the strength of this beautiful, smiling creature's will, about its silence, its impassibility before obstacles, its persistency. It was as inevitable and unswervable as an avalanche or a cyclone. People might shriek out against it and struggle, but on it came, a mighty force, overwhelming petty things as well as great ones. It really seemed a pity, taking into consideration Ida's tremendous strength of character, that she had not some great national purpose ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Paul. In the midst of the seance, he appeared almost inspired, and recited "La Charite dans Bordeaux"—the grand piece of the evening. The assembly rose en masse, and cheered the poet with frantic applause. The ladies threw an avalanche of bouquets at ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... and, whenever the ubiquitous, dry celibacy of the Thespian smoking-room oppressed him, his thoughts drifted to Agnes Waring and a doll's house somewhere on the Eaton estate, with one table, two chairs and an avalanche of green silk cushions in the drawing-room. . . . He was not in love with her; but, when Sybil telephoned to find whether he was coming to the country for the week-end, he had resolved to retouch his conception of Agnes. For the first time in his life he could not only afford to marry; ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... roar of the rifles drowned even the noise of the artillery. All the deployed battalions began to suffer. But they and the assaulting columns, regardless of the fire, bore down on the zeriba in all the majesty of war—an avalanche of men, stern, unflinching, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... a tropical flood, heralded by drops as large as marbles. It churned the still waters into a phosphorescent foam which rendered the darkness only more oppressive. The rain came down as it can come only in the Bight of Benin. The avalanche cooled us, reducing the temperature ten or fifteen degrees, giving us new life, and relieving our fevered blood. I told Mr. Block to throw back the tarpaulin over the main hatch and let our dusky friends get some benefit of it. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... had made the proper bow with deadly precision, there was not a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they called banzai, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish songs we used to sing. They promptly put to rout all legends of their excessive modesty and shyness. They were just young and girlish. Plain happy. Eager and sweet in their ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... large scale. Where mountains are sufficiently elevated to raise their heads above the snow line we know they are white all the year around with snow. What is not blown away, evaporated, or, as an avalanche, precipitated to lower heights, must accumulate from year to year. But the weight pressing on the lower portions of this snow-field must soon be considerable, and at length become so great, that the snow changes to the form of ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... successful rival, whom he must kill or be killed by, usurping the authority to which he had himself expected to succeed, his interests were reversed. If he could not rule, he could wreck, and the promiscuous succession of tragedies that would follow in the wake of such an avalanche had no terrors to give Bas pause. Many volunteers would arise to strike down his enemy and leave him safe on the outskirts of the conflict. He could stand apart unctuously crying out for peace and washing his hands after the fashion of ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... quell with his eye the sonorous youth whom the claret punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... hunting the wood beneath like the eyes of a young setter at heel. But when at last he was out of sight he slipped his leash and was off, running recklessly, headlong. The hill rose up behind him and sent him down its hillocky slopes as though before the horns of an avalanche. The wind blew the scent of trees and flowers and young grass against his burning face. It was like draughts of a cold, clear wine. It was like running full-tilt down ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an avalanche loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon the English bow-men. From that moment, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Nicholl, "on a flat ground, the projectile will remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a declivity it would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we should not come out safe and sound. So it is ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the Belgians, was merely a screen, which defective air-work failed to penetrate, and the frequent engagements were merely the brushes of outposts. Within a week from the fall of Fort Loncin half of Belgium was overrun and the real menace revealed. Belgium was powerless before the avalanche, and its only hope lay in France. But the French Army was still mobilizing on its northern front, and its incursions into Alsace and Lorraine did nothing to relieve the pressure. The Belgians had to fall back ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... afraid. It was a white heavy rage, when his blue eyes shone unearthly, and his mouth opened with a curious drawn blindness of the old Furies. There was something of the cruelty of a falling mass of snow, heavy, horrible. Maria drew away, there was a silence. Then the avalanche was finished. ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... the bulletin boards. She knew by heart that first list after Las Guasimas. One glance had burned it in forever. It had become one of the indelible scars of a lifetime. Yet those were the names of strangers. If a whiff from an avalanche can fell trees a mile away, how if ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... were too busy at the moment to notice him. One of the men had thrust a short tent pole between the bars. Bengal was upon it like an avalanche. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... terror and confusion—a condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on their foes literally slew them by thousands. Many hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... yourself for this situation, Merle—to lose caste, and take your place among menials? It is enough to make my poor brother rise in his grave, and your poor, dear mother too, to think of a Fenton stooping to such degradation." But I will forbear to transcribe all the wordy avalanche of lady-like invective that was hurled at me, accompanied by much wringing ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... the consequences. Bounding across the room, he seized Ogden in a powerful grip, and the next instant the latter's education, in the true sense of the word, so long postponed, had begun; and with it that avalanche of sound which, rolling down into the drawing-room, hurled Mrs. Pett so violently and with such abruptness from the society ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Moszkowski concerto of great difficulty. The next day the music stores exhaust their stocks of this work, and a dozen misses, who might with difficulty play a Mendelssohn Song With Words, are buried in the avalanche of technical impossibilities ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... made the old maid so alert. For the last eight days, strange events and bitter feelings agitated the minds of the chief personages who frequented the Rogron salon. These hidden matters, carefully concealed by all concerned, were destined to fall in their results like an avalanche on Pierrette. Such mysterious things, which we ought perhaps to call the putrescence of the human heart, lie at the base of the greatest revolutions, political, social or domestic; but in telling of them it is desirable to explain that their subtle significance cannot be given ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... described accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a country may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and boulders shift their places under the coercion of frost or avalanche. The young men separated, shoulder deep in the high brakes and alders of a creek bottom, climbing tiny among great trees on the open slope of a distant hill, clambering busily among austere domes and pinnacles, fading in the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would shout loudly. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... of the barometer to 'set fair' will not keep off the thunderstorm, and no negligence or dislike of divine threatenings will arrest the slow, solemn march, inevitable as destiny, of the consequences of our doings. Things will be as they will be. Believed or unbelieved, the avalanche will come. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the woman who had so suddenly entered his life was merely the opening of vials of emotion hitherto held sealed. It was no radical transformation. All that had been his before still remained, buried perhaps for the moment under the avalanche of feeling, but nevertheless still occupying its place. These things could not be swept away. They could not be destroyed. They would remain when the passionate fires had completely ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... hangs over the Alpine passes so that a loud word will bring it whirling down upon the hapless traveller. The avalanche of ruin, impending over Mr. Allen, was so delicately poised that a whisper could precipitate its crushing weight, and that whisper ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... complacency his accomplished task, the spite of the arch-fiend Gravitation was raised against him, and, finding the impish slates (hadn't Luther something to say about "as many devils as tiles"?) ready to cooeperate, an avalanche was the result, making the last state of that sidewalk worse than the first, and sending the divine into the house with a battered hat, and an article of faith supplementary to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Asiatic cholera fell upon Baltimore like an Alpine avalanche upon a quiet Italian village, the colored creoles suffered more, relatively, than any other portion of the population, probably because they lived in the more confined streets in the centre of the city. The venerable physician who furnished ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... premises cautiously, since the roof was in a rickety condition, and any slight concussion might dislodge an avalanche of stones and plaster. While M. Durant stood glancing round him rather impatiently, M. Hersant made a careful scrutiny of ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... an avalanche of reproach! (Aloud) Let us try, Gertrude, both of us, to behave wisely in this matter. Above all things, let us try to avoid base accusations. I shall never forget what you have been to me; I still entertain towards you a friendship which is sincere, unalterable and absolute; but ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... Travels, seventy reams of writing-paper, and artists' materials. They had nine wagonloads of instruments, carrying telescopes fifteen feet long. A surgeon, two landscape painters, one instrument maker, five surveyors accompanied them, and "the convoy grew like an avalanche as it worked its way into Siberia." Behring seems to have moved this "cumbersome machine" safely to Yakutsk, though it took the best part of two years. Having left Russia in 1733, it was 1741 when Behring himself was ready to start from the harbour of Okhotsk for the coast of America ...
— 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
... turn to offer suggestions. A stage-driver is always a person of importance, especially in California. For the past six days Mat had found his public importance rather embarrassing. Every trip past the robbers' hiding-place had brought an avalanche of questions from curious passengers. Probably Mat Bailey had been forced to think of the tragedy more constantly than had any other person. His ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... talk with the brilliancy which had astonished Philip when first he made his acquaintance. His proofs were corrected; and the volume was to come out among the publications of the early spring, when the public might be supposed to have recovered from the avalanche of Christmas books. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... been converted into Rebel arsenals, were appalled as though an earthquake had opened at their feet.... Who can picture the horrors to follow the letting loose of nine thousand Rebel prisoners upon a sleeping city, all unconscious of the coming avalanche? With arms and ammunition stored at convenient locations, with confederates distributed here and there, ready for the signal of conflagration, the horrors of the scene could scarcely be paralleled in savage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... they vanquished. Like an avalanche from the mountains, they fell upon their foes, beat them with clubs, and drove them into the river. Their progress was one series of triumphs, till they placed Gustavus Vasa on the throne ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... anyone who might be watching them off the trail, they changed the name of the publishing company to the Right Cause Publishing Co. and issued an avalanche of Nazi propaganda. It was through this secretly organized and secretly functioning propaganda center that Harry A. Jung, ultra-"patriot," distributed printed attacks on Roosevelt just ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... is a reply to the contumely that sought to smother Turner under an avalanche of abuse; but since the enemy inspired it, and it made the name and fame of both Ruskin and Turner, why should they not hunt out the rogues in Elysium ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... and crevasses is always shifting, so that the next person who makes the ascent may find a comparatively easy path. We had other dangers too, such as this: twice the guides said to me, "Ne parlez pas ici, Monsieur, et allez vite," the fear being of an ice avalanche falling on us, and we heard the rocks and ice which are detached by the wet falling all about. The view from the top, if the day is fine, is about the most magnificent in the Alps; and as in that case I should have descended easily on the other side, the excursion would not ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unsuccessful. At last, however, he resolves to make a mighty effort—to besiege the Lord with his prayer, to wrestle with him, as Jacob did of old, and not to release him, until he has granted his petition. While he lies thus before the altar calling upon the Lord in sacred rapture, a tremendous avalanche sweeps down the mountainside, but divides, leaving the church and parsonage unharmed. The rumor of this new wonder spreads like fire in withered grass, and among thousands of others a number of clergymen, with their bishop, on their ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche.—Macaulay. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... them were running toward him. His finger pressed the trigger and four of them died before the avalanche of their bodies bore him down and overwhelmed him. Nrana had been first in ...
— Happy Ending • Fredric Brown
... prisoner. Guarding against sudden starts, the Epeira casts her armfuls of bands on the front-and hind-parts, over the legs and over the wings, here, there and everywhere, extravagantly. The most fiery prey is promptly mastered under this avalanche. In vain, the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothed arm-guards; in vain, the Hornet makes play with her dagger; in vain, the Beetle stiffens his legs and arches his back: a fresh wave of threads swoops down ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the left hand 28.0 (the normal being 30.0). There was, however, great variability in the individual pressures which sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Quelques Donnees Experimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation Sexuelle," Archivio di Psichiatria, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Nature, a question asked in things rather than in words, and so conditioned that no uncertain answer can be given. Nature says that all matter gravitates, not in words, but in the swing of planets around the sun, and in the leap of the avalanche. And men have devised ingenious machines through which Nature may tell us the invariable laws of gravitation, and give some hint as to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... rest, in the higher Alps, through many winters still secretly gaining bulk and encroaching inch by inch all unobserved upon the doomed valley below; then, at the dropping of a mere pebble, the ice begins to slide, nor does the dread avalanche pause for the sobs of the dying. So behind Bismarck's amazing preparedness his ofttimes long deferred but inevitable destruction of his enemies seems to be something that he borrows from the avalanche. It is at once massive and inexorable, the power ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... mountain ranges, Where nothing haps save vast AEonian changes, The slow moraine, the avalanche's wings, Summer and Sun,—the elemental things, Pulses of Awe,—Winter and Night and the lightnings. Land of the pines that rear their dusky spars A ready midnight for the earliest stars. The land of rivers, rivulets, and rills, Straining incessant everyway to the sea With their white thunder ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... all bounds. He let forth a perfect avalanche of thanks, using large words, the meaning of which he had little idea. Even young ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... over taut membranes (vocal cords) stretched in the larynx. It is an interesting fact that for millions of years there was upon the earth no sound of life at all, only the noise of wind and wave, thunder and avalanche. Apart from the instrumental music of some insects, perhaps beginning in the Carboniferous, the first vital sounds were due to Amphibians, and theirs certainly was the first voice—surely one of the great ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... that popular writer. The criticisms cut him like a whip. He wondered why he had rebelled at the previous silence. He felt like a man who had heedlessly hurled a stone at a snow mountain and had been buried by the resulting avalanche. ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... reach a millennium, though we may considerably improve the value and dignity of human life. Democracy has a role in the world of great importance,—but the spread of education and opportunity to the mass may make it more difficult for the best ideals and customs to survive in the avalanche of mediocrity that becomes released by the agencies that profit by appealing to the mass. So, too, the rise of the woman and child bring us face to face with new problems, which I think are less difficult problems than those they have superseded and replaced, but which ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... Sometimes the road is blasted out of perpendicular walls of rock, and heavy masses of mountain hang like a vault above us. At dangerous slopes, where the road is exposed to avalanches in spring, it runs through tunnels of masonry. When an avalanche dashes furiously down the mountain it leaps over these tunnels and continues down on the other side without doing ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... had been hanging over Marion all day slipped and engulfed her like an avalanche. She ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... and stopped. There was that in Jimmy's eye that would have stopped an avalanche. His lordship twiddled his fingers ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... of Illinsky, to the Kremlin and the Moskwa, were consumed. The river alone arrested the destruction. A powder magazine took fire, and with a terrible explosion its towers were thrown into the air, taking with them a large section of the walls. The ruins fell like an avalanche into the river, completely filling up its channel, adding the destruction of a deluge ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... before, Hannibal had led his army across the great mountain barrier of the Alps, and poured down like an avalanche upon the fertile plains of Italy. The Corsican determined to repeat this brilliant achievement and emulate Hannibal's career. Several passes across the mountains seemed favorable to his purpose, especially those of the St. Bernard, the ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... family life, the ruthless destruction of every social barrier, the shattering of every tribal law, the introduction of criminal practices which struck the chiefs of the people dumb with horror—in a word, a veritable avalanche of filth and immorality overwhelmed ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... down rushed the black wavering pillar in a watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark, heaving billows rolled o ver the spot whereout it arose, as if no such ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... melting away in panic. Then a little red-faced trooper came tearing down the line shouting, "Face the other way boys; face the other way." And those panic-stricken men turned and rolled an irresistible avalanche of heroes upon the Confederate lines. What made them turn about? It was something which I can neither define nor analyze—the personal power of Sheridan. It is the secret of every great leader of men. Now Sheridan had imparted more than information to these men. Is it too much to say that he put ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... on like an avalanche; the race improves, the conditions of life become easier, but men are still the same —faithless, unthankful, criminal; and he just as well as the unjust go to hell. I do not dare to put down on paper the conclusions to be drawn from this ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... the Negro soldiers by Colonel Roosevelt started up an avalanche of additional praise for them, out of which the fact came, that but for the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry (colored) coming up at Las Guasimas, destroying the Spanish block house and driving the Spaniards off, when Roosevelt and his men had been caught in a trap, with a barbed-wire ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... chief with the flankers had gained the rear, And flew on the trail of the flying herd. The shouts of the riders rang loud and clear, As their frothing steeds to the chase they spurred. And now like the roar of an avalanche Rolls the sullen wrath of the maddened bulls. They charge on the riders and runners stanch, And a dying steed in the snow-drift rolls, While the rider, flung to the frozen ground Escapes the horns ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... That was a very avalanche. The snow-winds preach charity to all who have roofs overhead—towards the houseless and them who huddle round hearths where the fire is dying or dead. Those blankets must have been a God-send indeed to not a few families, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... wants her!" broke from Christie like an involuntary cry of pain; then she hid her face by stooping to gather up the avalanche of hosiery which fell from her lap ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... alone through the elephant trails, and now and then rooted up great trees just to try his strength. Sometimes he went silently, and sometimes like an avalanche. He swam alone in the deep holes, and sometimes shut his eyes and stood on the bottom, just keeping the end of his trunk out of the water. One day he was obliged to kneel on the broad back of an alligator who tried to bite off his foot. He drove the long body down into the muddy bottom, and no living ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... head Bloom'd with the snow-drops of Man's narrow bed, 595 Last night, while by his dying fire, as clos'd The day, in luxury my limbs repos'd, "Here Penury oft from misery's mount will guide Ev'n to the summer door his icy tide, And here the avalanche of Death destroy 600 The little cottage of domestic Joy. But, ah! th' unwilling mind may more than trace The general sorrows of the human race: The churlish gales, that unremitting blow Cold from necessity's continual ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... break; and the spectator loves him and is sorry for him and would avert the destiny of woe that is darkly foreshadowed in his condition. McCullough gave the invectives—as they ought to be given—with the impetuous rush and wild fury of the avalanche; and yet they were felt to come out of agony as well as out of passion. The pathos of those tremendous passages is in their chaotic disproportion; in their lawlessness and lack of government; in the evident helplessness of the poor old man who hurls them forth from a breaking ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Farintosh, in the same quiet voice. "Hold the mouth open." He emptied an avalanche of diamonds into the receptacle. "Here are some notes and gold. We may as well have them too. Now, tie it up carefully. That's the way! If we meet any one on the stairs, take it coolly. Turn that lamp out, Williams, ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... evidence of nature's power to mould is to be found in the contrasted characteristics of the great religions. The hardy peoples of northwestern Europe were nurtured under stormy skies, were girt in by stern, avalanche-swept mountains, and struggled strenuously against the hardships of rigorous and lengthy winters. What wonder that they filled their heaven with Sturm und Drang—with titanic conflicts of the gods—and ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... spirit, which you may prove by getting under an avalanche; but I do most emphatically agree that spirit cannot exist without matter. 'Divorced from matter, where is life?' asks Tyndall, and ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... The losing team, accompanied by its host of volunteers, was dragged in a rush over the ground and disappeared under the avalanche of battling forms ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... river to a great height but loosened the surface of the mountain so that a great landslide took place. The house was in the track of the slide, and the family rushed out of doors. Had they remained within they would have been safe, for a ledge above the house parted the avalanche so that it was diverted into two paths and swept past the house on either side. Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children, and two hired men were crushed under the weight of ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and led her to the eastern window. A flash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!" Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise into chaos. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... interrupted by the avalanche of boys which came tumbling down the front stairs, as Tom, Dick, and Harry shouted in a ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... steadying himself with his hand against the smooth wall. Before he had gone more than a few steps, the anger that pushed him began to ebb away. Of a sudden, the mountainous and incredible fact of his being here, in this place, this time, this ship, came down on him like an avalanche from which the hypnopedic pre-conditioning would no ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... the cavernous basin in the cliffs leaves only just room for the line of houses between the lake in the middle and the precipice behind. Only a few years later an avalanche overwhelmed the house of Captain Williams, and he and his family perished in it. During the days I was at the mine the news travelled by grapevine telegraph that the Mission doctor from England had come to the village, and every one took advantage of it. The plan there was to pay so much per month, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... assent, though Abud seemed startled. Many times had Keston and I speculated on the danger of an avalanche at this point, and wondered why the Station had been built in such an exposed place. Once indeed we had ventured to suggest to the aristo Council the advisability of removing the Central Control to some other point, but the cold ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... victim, trying to dodge the avalanche. But instead of heeding his pleadings the other students proceeded to ram a quantity of the stuff into his ears and down his collar. Nat squirmed and yelled, but ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... cavities, through which you looked and saw square patches of the sky if your eyes inclined upward, or else blackened masses of ruination if you gazed straight in at the interiors. Once in a while one had been thrown flat. Probably big guns operated here. In such a case there was an avalanche of broken masonry cascading ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... slipped. Her feet flew up, her head went down, and she tripped the grocery clerk. His long pole crashed into the neat pile of boxes arranged on the shelves and a shower of oatmeal, cornstarch, macaroni and other cereals fell in an avalanche. ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... battle. It came with a wild headlong rush, that recked nothing of the storm of fire with which it was met. A dozen lifeless bodies piled themselves before the staunch resistance. It made no difference. The avalanche swept on, and over the human barricade, till it reached striking distance ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... wrappages of comfort, and scarcity almost pinches, what forms of humanity, with lungs, and nerves, and hearts, and every capacity for suffering, are scraping the moss of subsistence from the barest rocks of life, and struggling every day through an avalanche! Think what this Sabbath has been in the dwellings of the poor, you who have had time to listen to the Gospel, and have heard it comfortably—so comfortably, perhaps, that you have fallen asleep under it—think what this Sabbath ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... for it kept constantly hopping to shake the corn down through a hole in the middle of the upper stone, which went round and round against the lower, so that between them they ground the corn to meal, which, in the story beneath, he saw pouring, a solid stream like an avalanche, from a wooden spout. But the best of it all was the wheel outside, and the busy rush of the water that made it go. So Willie would now ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... right at this time that the idea that seems to be prevalent in the minds of many that the German is not a good fighting man is a lamentable mistake; he is a good fighter. He has not perhaps the initiative of the British, or the avalanche-like ardor in a charge of the French soldier, but with his officers pressing him behind and in mass formation, he is as formidable a ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... guarded silence. There are ice fields, on Mont Blanc, where a whisper precipitates an avalanche, and McLean had no intention of starting anything in his friend's slippery field ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... "it is rather difficult to say how it happened. I was, I think, occupied in collecting my plants, when I heard a noise like an avalanche falling from a very tall tree. I scarcely had time to look round. This unfortunate man, who was without doubt concealed in a tree, rushed upon me in less time than I take to tell you about it, and ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... they could escape and slain or wounded almost to death. For it will be remembered that perhaps not fewer than two thousand people were gathered on this market-place, attending the horrid midnight sacrifice and discussing the unnatural weather when the storm burst upon them suddenly as an avalanche. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... is reported to have been overwhelmed by an avalanche of snow, and at Easter-time a number of patriotic English people were offering, in view of the usefulness of the stuff for military purposes, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various |
