"Giant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said scathing things of the Germans, he was half laughing, and it required a very great deal of annoyance indeed to rouse his passions. Yet the smallest hint of disloyalty to Great Britain, the smallest slur cast on his country's people, roused the giant in this fellow; then those muscles of his were braced for action. And if Henry and Jules had previously had any doubts as to his prowess, these were set at rest after they had witnessed his manner ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... stout hands. In terror a child's hand has the grasp of a giant. Agony makes a vice of a woman's fingers. A girl in her fright can almost bury her rose-coloured fingers in a piece of iron. With hooked fingers they hung on somehow, as the waves dashed on and passed off them; but every wave brought them the fear ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... group paused, a deep, melodious whistle re-echoed from the towering heights and the great night boat came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up midstream. The Good Turn bobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white giant passed. The girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... pilot, lay motionless in his acceleration couch. His face was distorted by the acceleration. His breathing was labored. Compressed-air bladders in the legs of his gee-suit alternately expanded and contracted, squeezing him like the obscene embrace of some giant snake, as the gee-suit tried to keep his blood from pooling in his legs. Without the gee-suit, he would have blacked out, and eventually his brain would have been permanently damaged from the lack of blood to carry oxygen ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... late on these occasions, as a man still detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival. Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a little. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... I first started the idea in my pamphlet—that the thing is to sleep on a pile of hemlock branches. I think I told them to listen to the wind sowing (you know the word I mean), sowing and crooning in the giant pines. So there they are upside-down, doubled up on a couch of green spikes that would have killed St. Sebastian. They stare up at the sky with blood-shot, restless eyes, waiting for the crooning to begin. And there isn't a sow ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... climbing its elbows by a path more or less distinctly marked, so that after a half hour they were perhaps a mile ahead. The agility of Mr. Plade during this episode was the marvel of his companion. He scaled the rocks like a goatherd, and his foot-tracks in the snow were long, like the route of a giant. The ice could not betray the sureness of his stride; the rare, thin atmosphere was no match for his broad, deep chest. He shouted as he went, and tossed great boulders down the mountain, and urged on his flagging comrade by cheer and taunt and invective. No madman set loose from ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... moment, gazing at them with wide-open eyes, ears, and nostrils, then shook his broad horns, wheeled, and dashed for the shore. Van fired and the bull went down with a mighty splash among the lilies. Rolf and Skookum let off a succession of most unhunterlike yells of triumph. But the giant sprang up again and reached the shore, only to fall to Van Cortlandt's second barrel. Yet the stop was momentary; he rose and dashed into the cover. Quonab turned the canoe at once and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... overflowing with vegetation and extending for miles in every direction, whilst all round about rose the mighty domes and pinnacles of snow-clad mountains. I stood in the midst of the sublimest mountain scenery in the world. I could look down upon the beautiful lake, and up at the giant peaks, and all about me upon the fruitful verdure, whilst the atmosphere was charged with delightful odors, and a pleasant breeze tempered ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks—about the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did. And in the Odyssey (that's a beautiful poem) there's a more wonderful giant than Goliath—Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning, got a red-hot pine tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him roar ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... who has a giant's strength can draw that sword,' he cried. After that, guests came and went, came and went, tried and tried; but none could draw the sword. So there it cleaves until this day. Ah! if thou couldst draw it out and save thy life! He who draws that sword ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... fact, a Frenchman's spirit never exhales, however his body may dwindle. It rather rarefies, and grows more inflammable, as the earthly particles diminish; and I have seen valor enough in a little fiery-hearted French dwarf, to have furnished out a tolerable giant. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... off again, but he hadn't gone much farther through the woods before he heard another noise. This noise was a real loud one, like some giant tramping up and down, and stamping his feet, and suddenly there came a great snort, and the earth seemed to shake, and a big, black thing jumped up in front of Buddy, ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... looked around for a famous general, and managed to agree upon Zachary Taylor, who had made an exceedingly brilliant record in the war with Mexico. He was sixty-five years old at the time, a sturdy giant of a man, reared on the frontier, hardened by years of Indian warfare, whose nickname of "Old Rough and Ready" was not a bad description. He caught the popular fancy, for he possessed those qualities which appeal to the plain ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... dead. Almost immediately it began to blow again, but now from the land and as though this land wind were spreading a pall over the sky darkness fell suddenly and with the darkness she could hear the rain coming with the sound she had heard once before like the murmuring of a great top spun by a giant. ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... rolled over both the fugitives—a groan, or rather howl, of rage, and despair, and agony, appalled even the hardest on whose ear it came. Morton sprang to his feet and looked below. He saw on the rugged stones far down, a dark, formless, motionless mass—the strong man of passion and levity—the giant who had played with life and soul, as an infant with the baubles that it prizes and breaks—was what the Caesar and the leper alike are, when the clay is without God's breath—what glory, genius, power, and beauty, would be ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... many have fancied between the superiority of the moderns to the ancients, and the elevation of a dwarf on the back of a giant, is {126} altogether false and puerile. Neither were they giants, nor are we dwarfs, but all of us men of the same standard; and we, the taller of the two, by adding their height to our own. Provided always that we do not yield to them in study, attention, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various
... close of the Middle Ages, when politics became secular, the art of government has advanced by giant strides. Invention has followed invention, and experiment experiment, till to-day skilled specialists in the Old World and the New are at hand to watch and to record the latest devices for dealing with a hundred difficult special problems—whether it be the administration of justice ...
— Progress and History • Various
... nearest him seemed about to swoop down and touch the ice, he moved to a position beneath it, and, with tongue lolling, stood on his haunches again and swinging his giant paw to accompany the swing of the plane, struck out as it approached him. To his surprise, the plane did not come within twenty feet of the ice surface. He sank back on his haunches ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... This Giant Despair, who carried the keys at his girdle, did not often get so swell a pilgrim into his castle, and was secretly flattered by his familiarity, and cheered by his devilish gaiety, and was quite willing to make rules bend a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... distrust were on one side, mere physical force on the other. And even in fiction, the opponents of virtue, in order to be romantic, must have sublimity mingled with their vice. It is not the knave, not the ruffian, that are romantic, but the giant and the dragon; and these, not because they are false, but because they are majestic. So again as to beauty. You feel that armor is romantic, because it is a beautiful dress, and you are not used to it. You do not feel there is anything romantic ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... of Zeus; and in the spirit of the ancient mythus, a motive for it is assigned in a divine legend. The sea-goddess Thetis, who was, according to the Phthiotic mythus, wedded to the mortal Peleus, saved Zeus, by calling up the giant Briareus or AEgaeon to his rescue. Why it was AEgaeon, is explained by the fact that this was a great sea-demon, who formed the subject of fables at Poseidonian Corinth, where even the sea-god himself was called AEgaeon; who, moreover, was worshipped ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... sceptre over distant lands, ceased to be an island, and became a world-wide empire. Her trade increased enormously; her manufactures developed. By his invention of the "spinning-jenny," Arkwright placed England's cotton manufacture among the most giant industries of the world.[2] The land grew vastly rich. It was her reward for political progress, for having been able so to "get the start ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... only an instinctive love. It isn't like the love of a husband, which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve the weakest woman to do a giant's task. The mere fact that you are all in all, the only woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or out of the house when he comes in will make him miss you till his heart aches—this ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... constitution gave him the staying-power, while his fiery Titanic spirit gave him the energy, to carry out and perfect his mighty frescoes and statues at the same heat that the creative hour yields other men for the production of a sketch alone. This giant son of Time was able to live for days and weeks together in a state of mind two or three consecutive hours of which exhaust the average master even. Considering the rapidity and intensity of his mental process, it is a miracle that, in so many ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... hillocks of stones, that rise up singly or in clusters, here and there; presenting sometimes the fantastic appearance of old ruined castles or giant graves, the ...
— Dream Life and Real Life • Olive Schreiner
... mist that lay in dense billows resembling those of the sea, through which hills and temple tops started up like islands. By slow degrees as we passed upon our downward road the vapours cleared away, and the lakes of Tezcuco, Chalco, and Xochicalco shone in the sunlight like giant mirrors. On their banks stood many cities, indeed the greatest of these, Mexico, seemed to float upon the waters; beyond them and about them were green fields of corn and aloe, and groves of forest trees, while far away towered the black ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... for another section the ancient creations, and again there were the financial peers, men accustomed to reserve, and their big lawyers, accustomed to—well, qualified statement. And below the giant personalities of the party were the young bloods, young, adventurous men of the type of Lord Tarvrille, who had seen service in South Africa, who had travelled and hunted; explorers, keen motorists, interested ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... are so still— Ah, you tired madcaps, you lie still; But were you at the window now, To look forth on the fairy sight Of your illumined haunts by night, To see the park glades where you play Far lovelier than they are by day, To see the sparkle on the eaves, And upon every giant bough Of those old oaks whose wan red leaves Are jewelled with bright drops of rain— How would your voices run again! And far beyond the sparkling trees, Of the castle park, one sees The bare heath spreading clear as day, Moor behind moor, far far away, Into the heart of Brittany. ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... any one with or for me," said George. "If you will lend me your vehicle and direct me, I will drive alone to the next stand. Jim is a giant in strength, and brave as death and despair, and so ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... snow, not a living thing is visible. The ghostlike hills that pen in the glen have ceased to echo to the sharp crack of the sportsman's gun (so clear in the frosty air as to be a warning to every rabbit and partridge in the valley); and only giant Catlaw shows here and there a black ridge, rearing his head at the entrance to the glen and struggling ineffectually to cast off his shroud. Most wintry sign of all I think, as I close the window hastily, is the open farm-stile, its poles lying embedded in the snow where they were last flung by ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... ancestors, this consciousness of God had most absolutely descended. Never for a moment did he question the facts that his father told to him. He grew into a giant of health and strength, and those who, in those old days, saw them tell that it was a strange picture to watch the little wizened man, walking with odd emotional gestures, with little hops and leaps and swinging of the arms beside the firm long stride ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... weak. I urge the adoption of reciprocity with Cuba not only because it is eminently for our own interests to control the Cuban market and by every means to foster our supremacy in the tropical lands and waters south of us, but also because we, of the giant republic of the north, should make all our sister nations of the American Continent feel that whenever they will permit it we desire to show ourselves disinterestedly and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... delightful resort of jaded summer tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and Diamond Bluff, impressive and preponderous in its lone sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and anon we see bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant young chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride in the van of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and newest civilization, carving his beneficent way with the tomahawk of commercial enterprise, sounding the warwhoop ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and Dr Handscombe stood on the granite wharf at Nordoe, high up among the Norwegian fiords, talking to Captain Hendal, a sturdy, elderly, ruddy-bronze giant, who acted as a sort of amateur consul and referee for shipping folk who came and went from the little hot-and-cold port, and who was now frowning heavily at the trio whom ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... they did, though without any apparent effect. The only result was the impossible suggestion that if I would give the names of my guilty classmates I might be let off. I had made an early call upon the "Little Giant," Senator Douglas, to whom I had no letter, and whom I had never met; had introduced myself as a "citizen of Illinois" in trouble; and had told my story. He said he was not on good terms with that administration, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... distorted, and bent, with hairy, moss-grown trunks from which the decaying bark peeled like the mouldering cement on some old and forgotten ruin, the kings of the forest stood silent and grim, their branches stretched out in grisly menace—giant arms that threatened death ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... probable large and possible giant oil and gas fields on the continental margin; manganese nodules, possible placer deposits, sand and gravel, fresh water as icebergs; squid, whales, and seals - none ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, one walks, in the giant city of London, through literally empty (buchstaeblich leere) streets. From the oldest duchess to the youngest chimney sweep, all are seized with the same mad enthusiasm for this event.—H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... Mun Bun were making another snow-man, which was to be a regular "giant," so the girls had the coasting hill to themselves. They took two sleds, for Vi wanted to go by herself. But Margy was almost too ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... the distance, came to his ears with an eerie wildness. All at once he felt very small and alone among alien creatures. Kobuk had turned back without him and was bounding out of sight around Skeleton Rib. The giant balls of stone suddenly took on fearsome suggestions from the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... France, crowded with ships-of-the-line, Paul Jones, in his small craft, went forth in single-armed championship against the English host. Armed with but the sling-stones in his one shot-locker, like young David of old, Paul bearded the British giant of Gath. It is not easy, at the present day, to conceive the hardihood of this enterprise. It was a marching up to the muzzle; the act of one who made no compromise with the cannonadings of danger or death; such a scheme as only could have inspired a heart which ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... in conflict. In proportion as he meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... ghost-like obelisk, emerging between its four candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry. The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and only the jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising like slim phantoms ever on the move, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... are determined to catch hold of his disorder somehow, if not by one thing then by another. To tell the truth I think they know not at all what is the matter with him. They have taken near thirty ounces of blood from him too, to-day. If the King were not a giant for health he would have died of his ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... stunned; the back of his head has found out that the stones of Poitiers pavements are harder than it is, poor fellow! As for me, my thick club was broken short off by an immense stick in the hands of that giant they call Herode, and my shoulder so badly hurt that I sha'n't have the use of my ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... in garb of lowliest texture hid. Beings of gentlest life, ye murmuring streams, Lull of our waking, music of our dreams, Ye things of artless merriment, that throw Around you gladness, wheresoe'er ye flow— And ye dark mountains, down whose changeful sides The mystic guardian, giant shadow strides, Whose kindly frown, howe'er the storms prevail, Peace and repose ensureth to the vale— Ye tall proud forests, that forever sway In kingly fury, or in graceful play— Ye bright blue waters whose untiring ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... of a temple bell rolled down the hillside and echoed through the giant cryptomerias. It stirred to action the creatures of the early dawn and passed out with infinite sweetness to the ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... "Gabriel Weltstein," said the giant, in the same stern, loud voice, "each person in this room will now pass before you,—the officers last; and,—under the solemn oath you have taken,—I call upon you to say whether the spy you saw last night in the council-chamber of the Prince ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... my Patty Blossom!" he murmured, and then, with his first kiss on her quivering, scarlet lips, Patty knew that she "cared for" this big, tender giant, with her whole heart, and she began to ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... and concentration of these waves by our perceptive powers, aided with the giant powers of the telescope, that we obtain the information given, or become cognizant of the nature and existence of the varied lights, colours, tints, and ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... Origin of the Species of Animals." Thus we must acknowledge that already at Edinburgh Darwin was fairly started in the paths of zoological inquiry, and the northern university must be admitted to share with Cambridge, the distinction of being the foster-parent of this giant-child. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... and let us feed him luxuriously. B., a delightful scapegrace, who came once a week to confess his sins, beat his breast in despair, vow awful vows of repentance, and then cheerfully depart to break every one of them in the next twenty-four hours. S., the gentle-hearted giant; J., the dandy; sober, sensible B.; and E., the young knight ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... the time George Dyer was fished out of New River in front of Lamb's house at Islington, after he was resuscitated, Mary brought him a suit of Charles's clothes to put on while his own were drying. Inasmuch as he was a giant of a man, and Lamb undersized; inasmuch, moreover, as Lamb's wardrobe afforded only knee breeches for the nether limbs (Dyer's were colossal), the spectacle he presented when the clothes were on—or as much on as they could ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... found—in the book itself; it is too wide and variegated for any other habitation. Yet, if it would be vain to attempt an accurate and exhaustive account of Rabelais' philosophy, the main outlines of that philosophy are nevertheless visible enough. Alike in the giant-hero, Pantagruel, in his father, Gargantua, and in his follower and boon-companion, Panurge, one can discern the spirit of the Renaissance—expansive, humorous, powerful, and, above all else, alive. ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... said of literature, and I became a silent actor till M. de Voltaire retired, when I approached Madame Denis, and asked her if she had any commands for me at Rome. I went home well pleased at having compelled the giant of intellect to listen to reason, as I then thought foolishly enough; but there was a rankling feeling left in my heart against him which made me, ten years later, criticise all he ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... origin of the myth be, or be not, founded on solar phenomena, the yearning Greek mind formed on it an unconscious allegory of the course of the Victor, of whom the Sun, rejoicing as a giant to run his course, is another type, like Samson of old, since the facts of nature and of ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before the door, he captured it, and put that in his pocket also. Soon after he set out boldly on his travels; and, as he was light and active, he felt no fatigue. His road led him up a hill, and when he arrived at the highest point of it he found a great Giant sitting there, who was ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... Transfiguration lies at its foot, and it has been commonly accepted as the Sinai of Scripture. In the description of my journey through Arabia Petraea I have endeavored to bring fresh proof of the view, first introduced by Lepsius, that the giant-mountain, now called Serbal, must be regarded as the mount on which the law was given—and was indeed so regarded before the time of Justinian—and not the Sinai ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fell and they grew weary. Now Christophe is too far away for the cries of those standing on the water's brink to reach him. Through the roar of the torrent he hears only the tranquil voice of the Child, clasping a lock of hair on the giant's forehead in his little hand, and crying: "March on."—And with bowed back, and eyes fixed straight in front of him on the dark bank whose towering slopes are beginning to gleam ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... all the impious race of titans, enemies of the gods!" said Mavering solemnly, as the boy fell sprawling. "Pick the earth-born giant up, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of profundity. There were some fawning and complacent people who pretended to consider him a great man, the reservoir of learning, the encyclopedic giant of the age. Perhaps he was a well, but one at whose bottom one often could not find ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... on the morrow morning, strange rumour spreads over Paris City: Danton, Camille, Phelippeaux, Lacroix have been arrested overnight! It is verily so: the corridors of the Luxembourg were all crowded, Prisoners crowding forth to see this giant of the Revolution among them. "Messieurs," said Danton politely, "I hoped soon to have got you all out of this: but here I am myself; and one sees not where it will end."—Rumour may spread over Paris: the Convention clusters itself into groups; wide-eyed, whispering, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... found her. Up in the familiar old garret that she had loved so well, close by the great gray chimney which seemed to be shielding her with its giant strength, there lay Katharine on the shabby old sofa, sobbing as if her heart must break. To the young lad, these unrestrained tears were much more alarming than her former quiet, and he dared not speak, as he sat down on the floor by her side, and ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... showing that his mind was as clear as his courage was high. He seemed to take in everything at a glance, and in breaking my hold of papa's hand he almost the same as saved my life twice. And then his leap into the sinking boat, and the almost giant strength with which he flung papa into his own!—oh, I see it all so often, and my heart always seems to go down with him when, in fancy, I see him sink. It was all so heroic, so in accord with my ideal of a man! Why, Cousin Sophy, he was so sensible about it all! He did just the right thing and ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... thirty seconds. Then suddenly he seemed to come to life. "Neutrons! Neutrons—and water tanks! Old Nichols was right—" He turned to his friend. "Cole—the tender—quick." He darted a glance at the screen. The giant ship still lay alongside. A wash of ions was curling around her, splitting, and passing on. The pinprick explosions of the Garnell shells dotted space around ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... the region about the Gold Bible Hill had not been idle while these things were occurring in Susquehanna. William Van Camp relates that he and all the other boys believed Hen Pack Hill, a mile east of Palmyra, would open to allow a giant to step forth and place his foot upon Palmyra to crush it. This would be the end of all disbelievers in Mormonism, and the Saints would at once be gathered together in that vicinity. "I did not know then," says Mr. Van Camp, "how easy it is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... rude chamber crossed with unhewn beams and roofed above with unconcealed tiles, whose fastening pegs were visible. A great heap of golden scales lay in one corner, the hops fresh from the drying. Up to his waist in a pocket let through the floor a huge giant of a man trod the hops down in the sack, turning round and round, and now his wide shoulders and now his red cheeks succeeded. The music twirled him about as a leaf by the wind. Without the rich blue autumn sky; within ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... shore, and with a frail reed in my hand, I wrote in the sand, 'My Country, I love thee;' a mad wave came rushing by and wiped out the fair impression. Cruel wave, treacherous sand, frail reed; I said, 'I hate ye I'll trust ye no more, but with a giant's arm, I'll reach to the coast of Norway, and pluck its tallest pine, and dip it in the crater of Vesuvius, and write upon the burnished heavens; 'My Country, I love thee! And I'd like to see any ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... experimental stage rather than a perfectly finished model. In the earlier part of the Ring he began with a purely conventional conjunction of a musical strain with a tangible and visible object—a ring, a giant, a goddess, etc. This is wrong method, and, although generally his instinctive sense of dramatic propriety kept him from going very far astray, the effects of his wrong procedure are occasionally visible. Why, for example, should a given melody in thirds ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... brush, and gave a peculiar whistle. Thrice had this sounded, when a man came cautiously out of the ravine, or rather out of its mouth. He was tall, slender, yet seemed to possess the bone and muscle of a giant. His eyes were jet black, fierce and flashing, and his face had a stern, almost classic beauty of feature, which would have made him a model in the ancient age of sculpture. He carried a repeating rifle, two revolvers, and a knife ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... inflexible mathematician: they are always right lines, the shortest possible between two points. The rows of trees on each side of these never-ending avenues are of the ugliest sort and figure possible: tall poplars stripped almost to the top, as you would strip a pen, and pollarded willows: the giant poplar and the dwarf willow placed side by side alternately, knight and squire. The postillions have badges like the badges of charity schools, strapped round their arms; these are numbered and registered, and if they ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... pitch him headforemost into the ocean, though he who so rushed must needs go over with him. My blood seemed clotting in my veins; I felt icy cold at the tips of my fingers, and a dimness was before my eyes. But through that dimness the boatswain's mate, scourge in hand, loomed like a giant, and Captain Claret, and the blue sea seen through the opening at the gangway, showed with an awful vividness. I cannot analyse my heart, though it then stood still within me. But the thing that swayed me to my purpose was not altogether the thought that Captain Claret was about ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... better impulses. It does not seem to have occurred to him that he would himself have been a much more favorable subject for the predatory arts than any of his neighbors, if his shipmate, the unknown companion of his researches for Mr. Hapford, had been at all so minded. But the faith of the gaunt giant upon which he reposed was good, and the contributor continued to wander about with him in perfect safety. Not a soul among those they asked had ever heard of a Mr. Hapford,—far less of a Julia Tinker living with him. But they all listened to the contributor's explanation with interest ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... length, groping about among the rocks, we espied a crevice into which it appeared The Missionary would just fit. But, oh! what a place for the night! High, slippery rocks, piled about us by some giant hand, no wood for a fire, no grass, no place for a camp—nothing but sharp ledges and points of rocks. The boys clambered about with their shoeless feet like cats, and we heard them shouting,—"This is where I am going to sleep! This is where I shall sleep!" The ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... innocent 170 Are safest there where trials and dangers wait; Innocent Queens o'er white-hot ploughshares tread Unsinged, and ladies, Erin's laureate sings it, Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still, Walked from Killarney to the Giant's Causeway, 175 Through rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry, White-boys and Orange-boys, and constables, Tithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured! Thus I!— Lord Purganax, I do commit myself 180 Into your custody, and am prepared ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the giant spider, the horror from Surinam, which the Chinaman had reared and fed to guard his treasure and to gratify his lust for the strange and cruel. The insect, like everything else in that house, was unusual, almost unique. It was one of the Black Soldier spiders, by some regarded as a native myth, ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... down the Euxine, and the wave Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades; 'T is a grand sight from off "the Giant's Grave"[274] To watch the progress of those rolling seas Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease: There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in, Turns up more dangerous breakers ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... the Giant's Staircase and the Bridge of Sighs, and took a last farewell of St. Mark—we were surprised to see the church hung with black—the festoons of flowers all removed—masses going forward at several altars, and ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... could still defend The wretch with felon stains upon his soul; And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole Who could not bribe a passage to the skies; And vice, beneath the mitre's kind control, Sinned gayly on, and grew to giant size, Shielded by priestly power, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... took up a position where the trunk of a giant oak almost concealed him from observation. He was delighted at his sagacity, and was almost in a good humor; for now that he had reflected, the danger did not seem by any means so great, for to whom could Norbert have lost his heart? To some little peasant girl, perhaps, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... also timber, and this was found abundantly in the new country where thousands of giant trees covered ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... rolling, restless mass of waters, each wave seeming to buffet its neighbour with an angry determination to put it down. In the midst of all this chaos, one monster wave rose superior to all the rest, and rolling forward with giant strength and resistless impetuosity, threatened instant destruction to the vessel. A cry, a terrific roll, a shudder through the vessel, and again we were in the valley of waters; and during the comparative lull the captain ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... pavilion, Like eastern bridegroom clad, Hailed by earth's thousand million, The sun sets forth; right glad, His glorious race commencing, The mighty giant seems; Through the vast round dispensing ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... her as irresponsible as if she had been hanging up by the hair all this time in a giant's larder," ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... accepting as his rightful function the saving of them from all roughening and coarsening drudgeries, first discovers that they are corrupt, greedy, unjust and treacherous. The shock drives a ray of prophetic light into one giant's mind, and gives him a momentary eloquence. In that moment he rises above his stupid gianthood, and earnestly warns the Son of Light that all his power and eminence of priesthood, godhood, and kingship must stand or fall with the unbearable cold greatness of the incorruptible law-giver. ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... of the rich is long and long— The longest of hangmen's cords; But the kings and crowds are holding their breath, In a giant shadow o'er all beneath Where God stands holding the scales of Death Between the ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... gentleman of any impropriety at all. He was speaking of a fact in history, of which his State was an example. He was referring to a plain principle in the nature of things. The State of Ohio had now grown to be a giant. She had a large delegation on that floor; but was she now in favor of granting lands to the new States, as she used to be? The New England States, New York, and the Old Thirteen were all rather quiet upon the subject; and it was seen just now that a member ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... bigger the initial majority, the bigger the collapse. It is not enough that Goliath shall fall: he must bite the dust, and bite plenty of it. It is not enough that David shall have done what he set out to do: a throne must be found for this young man. Away with the giant's body! Hail, King David! ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... great blockade-breaking corporations, like the Bee Company, Collie & Co., or Fraser, Trenholm & Co. With capital and credit unlimited; with branches at every point of purchase, reshipment and entry; with constantly growing orders from the departments—these giant concerns could control the market ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... boy does nothing but shoot," growled the old man, who was a giant in body if not in spirit. "Who all ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... backwards, seems as though it may weaken the onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off in ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... acquainted with the grim realities of life. She did not know that while there are certainly hard men in Canada, the small farmers and ranchers of the West—and, perhaps above all, the fearless free lances who build railroads and grapple with giant trees in the forests of the Pacific slope—are, as a rule, distinguished by a splendid charity. With them the sick or worn-out stranger is very seldom turned away. Still, watching her companion covertly, she understood ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... They were pretty thick and stout, however, and had remarkably large heads and faces. I do not think the tallest of them was much, if any, over five feet. Donovan, who was about six feet, looked like a giant beside them. They stood huddled together, looking just a little wistful at being cut off from their fellows, and casting fearful glances at Guard, who stood barking excitedly at them from the companion-way. Though used to dogs, they had very likely never seen a jet-black Newfoundland ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... nowhere came these grim, cold, black-clad men, to kidnap three Earth people and carry them to a weird and terrible world where a man could be a giant at will. ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... that it was like Holland in the jewel-box neatness of little streets and little houses—behold the Riviera, with groups of palms among tropical flowers, and feathery pepper-trees, graceful and large as giant willows! Then, when she had decided on Italy or Southern France as a simile, far-off, sharp mountain peaks, a dark, grotesquely branching pine in filmy distance, and a doll's house with a red pointed roof, suggested a sketch on a ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... bard, is the highest honor paid to any other great poet. Glory enough is it if admiration can lift Dante so high as to take him into the same look that beholds Shakespeare; what though the summit of the mighty Englishman shine alone in the sky, and the taller giant carry up towards heaven a larger bulk and more varied domains. The traveler, even if he come directly from wondering at Mont Blanc in its sublime presence, will yet stand with earnest delight before the majesty of the Yungfrau and ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... of his life even Kant's giant intellect left him. Do you suppose that in these various archetypes of intellectual man the soul was worn out by the years that loosened the strings, or made tuneless the keys, of the perishing instrument on which the mind must rely for ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the British troops. General Petain turned to me and said, "You must indeed be proud in England of your new army. Please tell your English people of our admiration of the magnificent effort of England. The raising and equipping of your giant army in such a short time was indeed a colossal task. How well it was carried out all the world now knows and ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... the flames. Muspel or Muspelhem, the fire world, lay south of the abyss Ginnungagap and was guarded by the flame giant Surt. ...
— Fritiofs Saga • Esaias Tegner
... Chama ought to have—is up to date American development. People and conditions are in a primitive state. When men like you get possession of the Moreno and similar tracts New Mexico will move forward with giant strides to its great destiny. Time does not stand still. The day of the indolent semi-feudal Spanish system of occupancy has passed away. New Mexico will no longer remain manana land. You—and men like you—of broad ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast And the woods against a stormy sky Their giant branches tossed." ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... spread over the whole world (except Australia), and to develop an immense variety and number of individuals throughout the tertiary series in spite of their ungainly size. It is only the yet bigger brain of man which (would it were not so!) is now at last driving this lovable giant, this vast compound of sagacity and strength, out of existence. The elephant—like man standing on his hind legs—has a wide survey of things around him owing to his height. He can take time to allow of cerebral intervention in his actions since ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... retaining the water, the mountains lay in the belly of Vritra." By degrees Vritra stood out more prominently as a dmon, and he is described as a "devourer" of gigantic proportions. In the same way Rkshasas obtained corporeal form and individuality. He is a misshapen giant "like to a cloud," with a red beard and red hair, with pointed protruding teeth, ready to lacerate and devour human flesh. His body is covered with coarse bristling hair, his huge mouth is open, he looks from side to side as he walks, lusting after the flesh ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... them. At length the sun set, and a thick veil of darkness was cast over the face of the earth. The ugly bat came forth, the mournful night-bird began his song, the wise owl hooted on the limb of the tree, and the dazzling little fire-fly twinkled in the glades, and among the trunks of the giant oaks. Then it was that a distant sound of music came to the ears of Apaumax the Nanticoke, who is myself. He listened, and caught the words, of a song issuing from a valley near the hillock upon which he sate. Softer than ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... voted dreary and a failure. Of another "speaking pantomime," called "Harlequin Pat and Harlequin Bat; or, The Giant's Causeway," produced at Covent Garden in 1830, Leigh Hunt writes: "A speaking pantomime is a contradiction in terms. It is a little too Irish. It is as much as to say: 'Here you have all dumb-show talking.' This, ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... had heard a great deal about Miss May Sutton (who made her first appearance in England in 1905) beating everybody without the loss of a set. I had also heard she was a giant of strength, and that the harder one hit the more she liked it. The first time I met her was at Liverpool in 1907—I did not play the previous season. I was determined to introduce unfamiliar tactics, giving her short balls in ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... German guns as they were brought to bear on Dead Man's Hill, paving the way for an infantry advance, which was to come a few hours later. It was risky business upon which the lads were bent, for the great shells struck on all sides of them, throwing huge masses of dirt in the air like giant fountains and digging immense ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... and the breaking of the bottles and glasses scattered glass all over the place, causing many bloody hands and heads. The giant bled from a wound on his forehead, and, turning to his comrades, he ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... your thought is to be absolutely concentrated in it, undistracted by anything whatever irrelevant to the matter in hand—pounding away like a great engine, with giant power and perfect economy—no wear and tear of friction, or dislocation of parts owing to the working of different forces at the same time. Then when the work is finished, if there is no more occasion for the use of the machine, it must stop equally, absolutely—stop entirely—no worrying ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... Fleury de Chaboulon. "A merry humor was at the foundation of his character," says Gourgaud. "He abounded in pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty," says Benjamin Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was he who called his grenadiers "his grumblers"; he pinched their ears; he pulled their mustaches. "The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on us," is the remark of one of them. During the mysterious trip from the island of Elba to France, on ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... of the coria road where the giant fernland met the edge of the cavern's ruby floor, hundreds of the Akka were stationed in ambush, armed with their spears tipped with the rotting death and their nail-studded, metal-headed clubs. These were to attack when ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... willing to fight for liberty," cried Gotzkowsky, "such a people have the strength of a giant even without cannon and bayonets. God has given them hands and paving-stones. If we cannot shoot down the enemy who threatens our liberty, we can ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... copse of scrub oak an unskilful train crew was making up a long train of freight cars. Their shouts, punctuated by the rumbling reverberations from the long train as it alternately buckled up and stretched out, was the one discord in the soft night. All else was hushed, even to the giant chimneys in the steel works. One solitary furnace lamped the growing darkness. It was midsummer now in these marshy spots, and a very living nature breathed and pulsed, even in the puddles between the house and ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Paris, in which he continued until the arrival of Napoleon from Elba, when he was gratified by a glimpse of that extraordinary man. When he landed in France, although he had barely completed his fourteenth year, his stature was so tall and athletic as to give him the appearance of a young giant; and on being asked his age at the police office, that it might be inserted in his passport, his reply was received with a smile of astonishment and incredulity, which afforded much subsequent amusement to his elder fellow travellers. At the age of sixteen his strength ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... good to me," admitted the Major. "These Indians of the Little Sticks are a fierce and cruel people, full of superstitions, and living up to the old law of 'blood revenge.' There's only one thing in our favor: they have a superstition about a giant creature, known as the Thunder-bird. The stories of this terrible bird are known to almost all Indian tribes, but the Little Sticks believe them literally. From the tracks I should judge that they ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... end of the century we suddenly get one man—a young Scottish giant, named James Bruce, thirsting for exploration for its own sake. He cared not for slaves or gold or ivory. He just wanted to discover the source of the Nile, over which a great mystery had hung since the days of Herodotus. The Mountains of the Moon figure largely on the Old World maps, but Bruce ...
— 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
... A great black giant threw one arm over the gunwale and shouted something that sounded as if it were spelt Owah, Owah, as the boat carried him ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Then there was the giant of an Irishman ... who, working side by side with me in the hold, shovelling out cattle-ordure there with me, informed me that I looked as if I had consumption ... that I would not be able to stand the terrific heat for many days without keeling over ... but, his prediction ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... till evening wood was burning in the oven, and the red glow of the fire gleamed and flickered over the walls of the bake-shop, as if silently mocking us. The giant oven was like the misshapen head of a monster in a fairy tale; it thrust itself up out of the floor, opened wide jaws, full of glowing fire, and blew hot breath upon us; it seemed to be ever watching ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... his giant figure, bowed gravely, and walked from the arbour. Holmes lit his pipe ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... giant trees, still green with their summer foliage, Paul gave the command to halt ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... passenger carriage was built after our engineer's design. It was, however, a very modest, and indeed a somewhat uncouth machine, more resembling the caravans still to be seen at country fairs containing the "Giant and the Dwarf" and other wonders of the world, than a passenger-coach of any extant form. A row of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long deal table was fixed in the centre; the access being by ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... again the Bosch birds come over disguised as clouds and spit mouthfuls of red-hot tracer-bullets at it, and then the observers hop out. One of them "hopped out" into my horse-lines last week. That is to say his parachute caught in a tree and he hung swinging, like a giant pendulum, over my horses' backs until we lifted him down. He came into "Mon Repos" to have bits of tree picked out of him. This was the sixth plunge overboard he had done in ten days, he told us. Sometimes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... paddling up alongside he again looked at the struggling creature, then felt the line which was vibrating with the tension. Stepping out of his own craft into that of the young man, the line was placed in his hands without an inch of it being payed out, for once one of these giant eels can get his head down he will so quickly twine the line in and out among the rugged coral that it is soon chafed through, if of ordinary thickness. But the ancient knew his work well, as we were soon to see. Taking a turn of ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... last wound, with many a steep and slippery bend, down the almost perpendicular crags, to the shore, at the foot of a giant isolated rock, having a natural arch through it, eighty feet in height. We followed the narrow strip of beach, having the bare crags on one side and a line of foaming breakers on the other. It soon grew dark; a furious ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor |
