"Overpower" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suggestions of timidity overpower your better reason; the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the obligation, which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every day less. Open your heart ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... formidable seems the journey by land in the existing state of the times. In Westphalia the Hessians and Swedes rove about, rendering the roads unsafe. Even should I take my way over the flats, along the strand, yet the Swedish and Hessian troops could easily catch up with me, and overpower the escort promised me for safe-conduct by the counts of East Friesland and Oldenburg and the Bishop of Bremen. Or should I bend my course through Upper Germany and Franconia, there, again, other hindrances present themselves, for throughout all these provinces reigns the greatest ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... had been purchased, the greater justly were the expectations from those which the court of the Emperor entertained. But the duke was in no hurry to fulfil these expectations. Already in the vicinity of Bohemia, and at the head of a formidable force, he had but to show himself there, in order to overpower the exhausted force of the Saxons, and brilliantly to commence his new career by the reconquest of that kingdom. But, contented with harassing the enemy with indecisive skirmishes of his Croats, he abandoned the best part ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... not, he changed his plan. The true secret, he said, was this: he would consider himself in the light of a humming-top: he would make an apparatus (and he made it) for having himself launched, like a top, upon the ceiling, and regularly spun. Then the vertiginous motion of the human top would overpower the force of gravitation. He should, of course, spin upon his own axis, and sleep upon his axis—perhaps he might even dream upon it; and he laughed at "those scoundrels, the flies," that never improved in their pretended art, nor made any thing of it. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the rising moon gazed long at troops of musicians traversing the streets with guitars, flutes, tambourines, and the church choir, who were kept in the Setch to sing in church and glorify the deeds of the Zaporozhtzi. At length drunkenness and fatigue began to overpower even these strong heads, and here and there a Cossack could be seen to fall to the ground, embracing a comrade in fraternal fashion; whilst maudlin, and even weeping, the latter rolled upon the earth with him. Here a whole group would lie down in a heap; there a man ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... Lanyard mastered the temptation to dash after the spy, overtake and overpower him, expose and give him up to justice. Only the knowledge that by remaining quiescent, by biding his time, he might be enabled to redeem his word to the Brooke girl, gave him strength ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... what I said as a jest," she went on. "And don't think too lightly of the little things, Boy. Be a paladin if you must, but don't let it show on you. Most women are only very big children, and most men are only very little ones. Please us; don't try to overpower us. When we want a hero we can make one out of even a plain grocer the third time he catches our handkerchief before it ...
— Options • O. Henry
... and food, wife and children, become the thorn plants, harmless in appearance at first, which in the end may choke the seed of grace in your heart. If you are rich, the pleasure which wealth may purchase, or love of the wealth itself, may become the bitter root, which in its maturity may overpower all spiritual life within you, and leave only chaff, to be driven away in the great day of the Lord. Watch and pray: these cares and pleasures present themselves at first in humble and submissive guise; ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... hearers, can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping and bumping against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full of molten lead? My feelings overpower me, I must conclude. Go in peace, and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay your sixpences at the doors.—Exeunt omnes, piping their ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... brothers,—one and all of us being forced out to work so young that our feeble earnings would produce only 1s. a week,—cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me. They keep alive a deep anxiety for the emancipation of thousands of families in this great town (Birmingham) and neighbourhood, who are in a similar state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the instruction of the ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... self-importance. It is careful never to anathematize its opponents, by a misapplication of Scripture-texts or events, knowing 'that the sword of the Spirit,' must not be wielded by personal, or party animosity. Nor does it suffer the fervors of devout love and gratitude, to overpower the humility of conscious dust and ashes. Its approaches to the Holy One of Israel are made with reverence. The sanctity of a penitent heart revolts from every allusion to carnal passion, with more than virgin horror; and in its most elevated ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... was giving us this account, the armadillo, suddenly starting forward, ran off at a great rate into the forest, True made chase, but I called him back, and he came willingly, apparently convinced that he should be unable to overtake the creature, or overpower it ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... had lately heard made out by Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is more good in God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is the greatest good and sin the greatest evil, yet the first Being of evil cannot weave the scales or overpower the first Being of good: so considering that the authour of good was of greater power than the authour of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me from being out ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Janet. The third day, and the tenth found her still in her berth, altogether unable to stand up against the power that held her. In vain she struggled against it. The "Steadfast's" slightest motion was sufficient to overpower her quite, till at last she made no effort to rise, but lay there, disgusted with herself and all the world. On the calmest and fairest days they would prevail on her to be helped up to the deck, and there amid shawls and pillows she would sit, enduring one degree less of misery than ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... for the night-cloud had lower'd, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower'd, The weary to sleep, and the wounded ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... a great deal more afraid than you are. She's the bashfulest old lady you ever saw. All that I hope is that you won't overpower her." ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... constructing the bridge was his fear that, some time when the Ister was frozen, war might be made on the Romans across the water, and his desire to enjoy the easy access to them that this work would permit. Hadrian, on the contrary, was afraid that the barbarians might overpower the guard at the bridge and cross into Moesia, and so he removed ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... and she would be happy. Think of his tone and manner when he made her understand he was the master! He had told her the truth, moreover; there were no longer gendarmes or judges to whom she could apply for protection; might made right. Oh, to be the stronger! to seize and overpower him when he came, he who talked of seizing others! All she considered was the child, flesh of her flesh; the chance-met father was naught, never had been aught, to her. She had no particle of wifely feeling ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... past career that practically he did all the talking, and was the Council of War himself. It was to be an affair of boats, he explained. A boat's-crew would be told off to cut the cables, and two boats'-crews to climb stealthily on board and overpower the sleeping Frenchmen, and two more boats' crews to haul the doomed vessel out of the bay. This made rather a demand on my limited resources as to crews; but I was prepared to stretch a point in a case like this, and I speedily brought my numbers ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... minute we were speechless with astonishment. Then came a surge of excitement. What should we do? What could we do? Obviously nothing. Eleven hundred, sick, enfeebled prisoners could not even overpower their guards, let alone make such a diversion in the rear of a line-of-battle as would assist our folks to gain a victory. But while we debated the engine whistled sharply—a frightened shriek it sounded to us—and began pushing ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... attack did not come off for some time; nevertheless a fair amount of political skirmishing took place in both Houses, and every great question was a wager of battle in which the contending parties exerted themselves to the utmost to overpower their adversaries. Catholic Emancipation was expected to be a severe contest, but the increasing disturbances in the sister kingdom caused the friends of Ireland much anxiety, and rendered a coercive ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... be," he replied, "still they may have been in the bluffs, or sand hills watching their opportunity to surprise one of the many small trains of pilgrims, thinking to overpower them, run off ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... way to overpower a troublesome idea or impulse or emotion is to reenforce the opposite idea by breaking open the paths for its motor expression. The effort to hold the counter-idea before consciousness may be unsuccessful so long as it is only an idea which tries in vain to produce any motor effect; but ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... his arrest and at the evident incredulity of his hearers and judges was not a whit less hearty and genuine than his curses on their cowardice in postponing any attack or risk of fighting until the arrival of militia, or soldiers, or help of some kind, in strength to overpower the little band in the armory, to make resistance useless, and an attack, if that was necessary, safe enough to secure some valiant man to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... trouble on July 1st had been, as we know, that the Germans hiding in their dugouts had rushed forth as soon as the British curtain of fire lifted and sometimes fought the British in the trench traverses with numbers superior. Again, they had surrendered, only to overpower their guards, pick up rifles and man their machine guns after the first wave had passed on, instead of filing back across No Man's Land in ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... borne for long in silence the increasing pain in his shoulder and breast, and endeavoured to conceal from himself, as well as from others, feelings of feverish dizziness which seized his head. Even now, when it threatened to overpower him, he would not allow it to be of any consequence. With the help of the servant, he made several attempts to seat himself again upon his horse, but in vain. He could no longer lift up his fevered head. Lying ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... he—"don't give these Hungarians—who would be only too glad to quench their present rage in German blood—a chance to break your bones. Have you any arms to compel them to show you the wagons and their contents? And even if you were armed, the soldiers would overpower you, for most of you would run away as soon as a fight broke out, and the balance of you would be taken to the calaboose. I will do you the favor, however, to tell you all about those wagons. Do you want to ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... square preparatory to mounting, some ten or twelve officers, under the lead of Col. Ralston, the powerful head of some New York regiment, were to ask for exit under pretense of getting water, and then to overpower the opposing sentries, while the balance of the prisoners, previously drawn up in line at the head of the short staircase leading direct to the exit door, were to rush down into the square, seize the stacked arms and march through the Confederacy to ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... have had the pleasure of conversing with you, sometimes, upon the means of restoring them to their rights. When can it be better done, than when their enfranchisement may be made conducive to the public good, and be modified, as not to overpower ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... no doubt proud and ambitious. But if he was glad to gain glory for himself he considered the good of his people also. To unite them and overpower the palefaces was the end toward which ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... all arms, and 14 guns, had succeeded in forcing their way through that great city with a loss of 700, but only to be themselves immediately surrounded by the vast multitude of the enemy, who for three whole months had vainly endeavoured to overpower the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... her jailer his evident certainty that he had her in his power. Her father was dead. Was there anything in the law that could hold her, a girl, responsible for his debts? It was surely only a matter of days before she could make her escape and meanwhile she would try not to let disgust overpower her reason. She was not sorry to be asked to see the abode of the spider, in the center of which he sat and watched the approach from any direction of those who dragged themselves of necessity into his web. Let him ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... metaphysical; he is not devoured by philosophical curiosity; he has no desire to solve the riddle of the universe. All his life he was dominated and fascinated by beauty, one form of which in especial so appealed to him as at times almost to overpower him—the beauty of the face of woman.[11] But this beauty is not an end in itself; it is not the desire of possession that so stirs him, but rather an absolute thirst for the knowledge of the mystery which he feels is ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... but I might as well use three hundred, for the fact is all shades and no boundaries. Which part of it properly is in my consciousness, which out? If I name what is out, it already has come in. The centre works in one way while the margins work in another, and presently overpower the centre and are central themselves. What we conceptually identify ourselves with and say we are thinking of at any time is the centre; but our full self is the whole field, with all those indefinitely radiating subconscious possibilities of increase that we can ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... but a face—a face of flesh and blood, with soul behind. And this is not paint, but a faded brown silk. And this is not paint, but solid mahogany. You have done more than paint a picture. You have made concrete an inspiration. Your technique is all masterly, but it does not overpower. It gives only fitting body to a ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... Kouretes by its less restrained, and more orgiastic character; it was a wild and whirling dance resembling that of the modern Dervishes, accompanied by self-mutilation and an unrhythmic clashing of weapons, designed, some writers think, to overpower ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... stern-ports are all open; and I believe that, by assisting each other, we may manage to creep out through them on to the main-brace boom-iron, and thence make our way along the ship's side, outside the bulwarks, forward, when, by watching our opportunity, we may possibly manage to overpower the guard on the forecastle, throw off the hatch, and release our own lads, and then we must just make a fight for it. We may perhaps—we three—manage to take along with us a cutlass and a brace of pistols each; but the ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... is unusual for burglars to operate at so early an hour, it is unusual for burglars to strike a lady to prevent her screaming, since one would imagine that was the sure way to make her scream, it is unusual for them to commit murder when their numbers are sufficient to overpower one man, it is unusual for them to be content with a limited plunder when there was much more within their reach, and finally, I should say, that it was very unusual for such men to leave a bottle half empty. How do all ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... clinging to vines and monkey ropes. On all sides was a solitude so vast as almost to overpower the senses. The sounds of bird life seemed only to intensify the effect of solitude. Once in a while we came upon evidences of human habitation, little huts of twigs and leaves, where the Wanderobo, ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... arrived in the province of a warlike tribe of Indians who, instead of flying and hiding themselves, came forth to the attack. They set upon the Spaniards with furious yells, thinking to overpower them at once. They were armed with bows and arrows, and clubs made of palm-wood almost as hard as iron. But the first shock of the report from the fire-arms of the Spaniards struck them with terror. They took to flight, but were closely pursued by ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... people heard the wild shouting, and a crowd began to gather. In the midst of them towered the advocate Coppelius, like a giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone straight to the market-place. Some were going up to overpower and take charge of the madman, but Coppelius laughed and said, "Ha! ha! wait a bit; he'll come down of his own accord;" and he stood gazing upwards along with the rest. All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he bent down over the railing, and perceived ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... It was during the days of '61, when brother fought against brother and the Blue was striving to overpower the Grey. On this very plantation, while hardly more than a lad, I was attacked and badly wounded and would have fallen into the hands of the enemy if it had not been for Old Black Joe, who, at the risk of his own life, carried me to a place of ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... right and republicanism, stood opposed to one another. Suddenly, almost like a dream, the wave of a new and over-mastering impulse had risen and submerged them all. For the moment it was strong and deep enough to overpower all other currents. On its smooth surface, Charles had floated back to the throne. But the favouring wave had only covered for a time—it had not swept away—the rocks underneath. These were soon to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... stepped into the cab. And the latter, seizing upon that instant's slip, had turned the tables upon him so completely that he cursed himself in his chagrin. Here he was, headed for Dr. Hartmann's house, on the outskirts of the town. Once there, the latter's attendants could easily overpower him and carry him into the place helpless. There seemed no possible means of escape. He determined to brazen the matter out, and meet Hartmann on his own ground. Resistance would at this juncture be useless. He congratulated ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... splashed all over with clotted blood, as a storm overturns bushes and trees. Then followed a moment of terrific fright, in which it seemed that this terrible Mazovian, all by himself, would hew and slay all these people. Like a pack of barking hounds that cannot overpower a fierce boar without the assistance of the hunters, so were those armed Germans; they could not match his might and fierceness in that fight which resulted only in their ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... from personal Knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the publick Curiosity, there is Danger left his Interest, his Fear, his Gratitude, or his Tenderness, overpower his Fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an Act of Piety to hide the Faults or Failings of their Friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their Detection; we therefore see whole Ranks of Characters ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the loveliest flowers. They yielded so strong a perfume that the king commanded that the mice who stood nearest the chimney should stick their tails in the fire, in order that the smell of the singed hair should overpower the odour from the flowers, ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... him. He even commended the adroit way in which the Spaniards had entrapped him, adding that since the landing of the white men he had been made aware of all their doings, but had felt sure of being easily able to overpower them as soon as he thought fit to do so, and had allowed them to reach Caxamalca unmolested because he desired to see them for himself, and to obtain possession of their arms and horses. This, at least, was the interpretation of what the Inca said given by Felipillo; but ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... in silence, hoping that time would gradually wear the traces of it from her recollection, or, at least, would render them less painful. They now felt at a loss how to undeceive her even in her misery, lest the sudden recurrence of happiness might confirm the estrangement of her reason, or might overpower her enfeebled frame. They ventured, however, to probe those wounds which they formerly did not dare to touch, for they now had the balm to pour into them. They led the conversation to those topics which they had hitherto shunned, and endeavoured to ascertain the current of her thoughts ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... council—Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, and Ogle—a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossing to the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards by surprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift their guns ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... reach the island by reason of the channel which separates it from the land on the west. The only chance of success for such a raid was to make a surprise of it before Cedar Point could be fortified, to enter the bay and land a force sufficient to overpower the prison garrison ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Had he, too, been bereft in the hour of his proud and perfect joy? Had he, too, lost a virgin bride? His agony overcame him, the book fell from his hand, and he sighed aloud! Mr. Beckendorff started, and the Prince awoke. Vivian, confounded, and unable to overpower his emotions, uttered some hasty words, explanatory, apologetical, and contradictory, and retired. In his walk to the summer-house a man passed him. In spite of a great cloak, Vivian recognised him as their messenger and guide; and ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Bedouins strive to cut down and overpower the two champions; in vain did they urge their horses to ride over them. With each sweep of his axe the king either dismounted a foe or clove in the head of his steed, and a wall of slain around them testified to the tremendous power of their arms. Still, even ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... acquiring a footing on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden. But if they could succeed in dissolving this union, and especially securing the friendship of the Danish king, they might hope to overpower the insulated force of Sweden. The dread of the interference of foreign powers, the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states, and still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... to have Ching Tong stage a very realistic fight down in his cellar, in which Anthony can overpower eight or ten Chink giants, escape out of the window with the fainting Peggy ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... inveighing, against him, assured me that he had stolen away, and would never come back. It appeared to me, at the time, that in making these various statements they endeavoured to conceal from me some terrible disaster, lest the knowledge of it should overpower me. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... much cause she didn' never have nothin much, but a little changin of underclothes en bout one dress. Just had to starch bout one petticoat en one dress, but I can' hardly wash for myself dese days en I wouldn' never venture to do hers no more. No, honey, my conscience wouldn' allow me to overpower Miss Betty for dem little bit of somethin en dey ain' dirty neither. You see, since Miss Emma been stayin dere, she in charge de house en uses all her tablecloths en such as dat. Miss Emma, she mighty nice to me. Every time I go up dere en I ain' been doin nothin for her ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... end of a branch, floated erect the form of a woman, waving her arms in imperious gesture. The definiteness of these and other leaf masses first surprised and then discomposed me: what if they should overpower my brain with seeming reality? But the twilight became darkness; the wind ceased; every shape was shut up in the night; I ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... not myself how my fears were so far pacified as to yield to this, except that his energy seemed to overpower mine. Indeed I suffered dreadfully the rest of the way. I knew the youth's generous spirit, and my imagination was haunted with the idea, that the blood was flowing every foot of the road, and that he would rather drop from ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... Johnson in that court room jeoparded her newly-acquired freedom; for though Pennsylvania was pledged to her protection, it was questionable whether the slave power, in the person of United States officers and their ever ready minions, would not forcibly overpower State authority and obtain possession of the woman. It was an intensely trying hour for her and for all who sympathized with her. Among those who attended her through that perilous scene, were the president of this Society, Sarah Pugh, and several of its members. All those ladies ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... "and you had best take a pull out of my flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while you were ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pause ensued, and Lennard Sherbrooke gazed wistfully at the boy. A feeling of tenderness, which he could not repress, gained upon his heart as he gazed, and seemed to overpower him; for tears came up, and dimmed his sight. At length, he dashed them away; and taking the boy up in his arms, he pressed him fondly to his bosom; kissed him twice; set him down again; and then, turning to the Earl, with a brow on which strong resolution was seen struggling ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... to visit Concord and rest awhile from the strain of his solitary studies in the Sierra Nevada. But nothing could dislodge him from the glacial problems of the high Sierra; with passionate interest he kept at his task. "The grandeur of these forces and their glorious results," he once wrote, "overpower me and inhabit my whole being. Waking or sleeping, I have no rest. In dreams I read blurred sheets of glacial writing, or follow lines of cleavage, or struggle with the difficulties of some ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... This whirlwind carried away the electors. Never had any man had such a triumph. But, unfortunately, speech, a weapon only for close warfare, has only an immediate effect. Reflection kills the word when the word ceases to overpower reflection. If the votes had then been taken, Albert's name would undoubtedly have come out of the ballot-box. At the moment, he was conqueror. But he must conquer every day ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... I could not always keep awake. Sleep would in time overpower me, and I should have to yield to it in the end. The longer I struggled against it, the deeper the sleep that would follow; and perhaps I might fall into some profound slumber from which I might never awake—some terrible "nightmare" that would bind me beyond the power of moving, and ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... there meeting with some other ships, to re-cross the Atlantic with all possible speed, and liberate the fleets blockaded in Ferrol, Brest, and Rochefort. The junction of the fleets would give Napoleon a force of fifty sail in the British Channel, a force more than sufficient to overpower all the squadrons which Great Britain could possibly collect for the defence of its shores. Such a design exhibited all the power of combination which marked Napoleon's greatest triumphs; but it required of an indifferent marine the precision ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... had expected, the burly politician was depending upon his greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling, spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction; a wrist-grabber. ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... same moment a pistol flashed at my ear, and a report followed. This, however, produced no other effect than, for a short space, to overpower my senses. I staggered ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... went on rolling, rolling. Presently carriages with travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for facts. "He has cut the armies in two," it was said. "He is marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the English, and be here to-night." "He will overpower the English," shrieked Isidor to his master, "and will be here to-night." The man bounded in and out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some fresh ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... England—he pondered that problem of existence. He felt instinctively that it would be a useless proceeding for him to approach any human being for employment. He knew that even the freedom, which he realized through all his senses like an essential perfume, could not yet overpower the reek of the prison. As he walked through the clogging dust he thought of one after another whom he had known before he had gone out of the world of free men and had bent his back under the hand of the law. There were, of course, people in his little native village, people who had ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... know. I dare not trust myself to go through with to-day's work. I have such strange, wild, mad risings in my heart, in my nerves, in my brain! I want something to overpower all this, and keep ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... appearance in others and had a most wholesome laugh; but in himself there is no real merriment, only an ironic realization of the contrasts of life. When he writes, the smile which sometimes seeks to overpower the grim fixity of his features, is frozen before it can emerge to the surface. He lacks all the ingratiating arts which make a writer beloved. But if one enjoys a keen student of the intricacies of character, a bold and candid critic of human imperfections, a stimulating companion full ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the week. As this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamouring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment towards Mr. Gunter. To this Mr. Gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to his own brother; on hearing which admission, Mr. Noddy magnanimously rose from his seat, and proffered his hand to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... newspapers began to print wild stories. The Legislature of Ohio authorized the governor to take proper measures to prevent acts hostile to the United States. The governor promptly seized the bateaux which were being constructed at Marietta and called out the militia to overpower Blennerhassett and his followers. On the Virginia side of the river, the militia were in readiness for a descent upon the island. On the night of December 10, Blennerhassett and a handful of men left the island in such boats as they could ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... religious story a dead man only could reconcile heaven and earth. In a certain sense we always feel the past ages as human, and our own age as strangely and even weirdly dehumanised. In our own time the details overpower us; men's badges and buttons seem to grow larger and larger as in a horrible dream. To study humanity in the present is like studying a mountain with a magnifying glass; to study it in the past is like studying ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... plan. Hastening to the authorities, he had told them that the favorable moment had arrived for his Master's arrest; that he knew the lonely spot to which He was wont to resort for meditation and prayer; and that he had need of an armed band to overpower all possible resistance on the part of Himself or His followers. This they were able to supply from the guards and custodians of the Temple. They were going against One who was deserted and defenceless; yet the soldiers ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... great measure from the unavoidable situation of affairs; and scarcely any thing could have prevented those events, but such vigor of genius in the sovereign, attended with such good fortune, as might have enabled him entirely to overpower the liberties of his people. While the parliaments in those reigns were taking advantage of the necessities of the prince, and attempting every session to abolish, or circumscribe, or define, some prerogative of the crown, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... strengthen him in all the Southern States. He had, as might have been expected, thrown all his weight into the slaveholding scale; and that interest is so compact, so consolidated, and so fervent in action, that there is every prospect it will overpower the discordant and loosely constructed interest of the free states. The cause of internal improvement will sink, and that of domestic industry will fall with or after it. There is at present a great probability that Jackson's policy will be supported ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... orders that the promises, which he had graciously made, might be speedily executed. He represented, that if succours were not immediately sent into Germany, the Austrians, after vanquishing their enemies, would go and overpower the Duchess of Savoy the King's sister, and penetrate into France. He afterwards shewed that the Swedish army was in great danger of being overwhelmed, if a powerful diversion were not speedily made. After this speech, Grotius presented ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... and soon the roar of the guns was heard almost from one end of the little nation to the other. King Albert at once put on his uniform and took to the field with the Belgian army. The Germans laid siege to the Belgian fortress of Liege, expecting to overpower it easily. They advanced against it in mass formation, only to be met with such a hail of machine gun fire that they numbered their dead by thousands. The little Kingdom of Belgium had thrust a stick between the cogs of the great German war machine, and by doing so saved the world from ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... proposes to sell an estate. "Pray think," he writes, "what will happen to us. If the same ill fortune shall continue to pursue us, what will happen to our unhappy boy? I cannot write any more. My tears fairly overpower me; I should be sorry to make you as sad as myself. I will say so much. If my friends do their duty by me, I shall not want for money; if they do not, your means will not save me. I do implore you, ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... goods. The plebeian tradesmen, in the eyes of these patrician barons, had no rights which they felt bound to respect. Nor was the way to Italy by the Baltic and the North Sea beset with less peril. Piratical crafts scoured those waters, and made booty of any luckless merchantman they might overpower, or lure to wreck upon the dangerous shores. This state of things led some of the German cities, about the middle of the fourteenth century, to form, for the protection of their merchants, an alliance ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... for fear of attracting their notice. I cannot repeat all they said, for they frequently made allusions which they knew that each other understood; but I heard enough to convince me that they were hatching a plot to overpower the officers and passengers, and to take the vessel into Buenos Aires, or some other place on the banks of the River Plate. One of the men proposed killing them and throwing them overboard. Old Growles suggested that they should be put into a ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... dimensions of one of its parts. I have had ineffable joys, whole hours filled with delicious meditation, as I have recalled a single gesture or the tone of a word of yours. Thus there will be memories of which the magnitude will overpower me, if the reminiscence of a sweet and friendly interview is enough to make me shed tears of joy, to move and thrill my soul, and to be an inexhaustible wellspring of gladness. Love is the ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... brought together, and constrained to cease from their warfare and become friends and cooeperators. It is absurd to suppose that the war of the industrial classes can continue to be waged, as at present, each seeking to overpower the other. Such a condition of things is simply irrational. All warfare is illogical and unnatural. Human beings are not made to live together on any such terms. They are made to be friends and helpers of one another. The elimination ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... miserable folly of looking at one bit of a subject, take the patient's lungs and the Undercliff's air, and settle solemnly that they are fit for each other. But the whole influence of the place, never taken into consideration, is to reduce and overpower vitality. I am quite confident that I should go down under it, as if it were so much lead, slowly crushing me. An American resident in Paris many years, who brought me a letter from Olliffe, said, the day before yesterday, that ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... "Well, we will not overpower you. For a day or two you must rest, and do nothing but breathe the sweet air. I have to be busy getting things in order and looking after my garden. Lisa will take her work on the piazza, and you can lie in one of the easy-chairs. Joe is to wait on you, and do a little ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... office if the father is not living. After placing his daughter's hand in that of the clergyman, the father steps back a pace or two, awaiting the end of the service. Wedding music is played when the party is ready to enter, and may be continued, very softly, through the ceremony; it must not overpower the voices of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... can read the brilliant, patriotic editorials of Hon. Thos. E. Watson" for an entire year—granting, of course, that their Promethean brilliancy fail to set your shirt-tail afire in the meantime. There is no provision for the return of your money in case Tommie's exhuberant patriotism should overpower you. We are then assured that "no Roman Pope or American Cardinal can coerce" the architect of the "brilliant and patriotic editorials" aforesaid. Now that's the kind of a man I admire! Hang a Georgia editor, say I, who sells ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... and it did not matter. Once the little ones were safe with their friends he should have plenty of time to think about himself. Then he would be free to lie down in some quiet spot and sleep away some of the weakness and weariness which every moment threatened to overpower him. Sleep! oh, if he could only sleep until the racking pains in his chest were better! Sleep—sleep—sleep! and perhaps it might even be permitted him not to wake at all until he had reached that land whose inhabitants are never sick, and ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... be remembered that when the brave O'Neill and his handful of troops fell down the river from Fort Erie on the night of the first of June, to go into camp at Newbiggin's Farm, preparations were being made by the British not only to overpower him with superior numbers but to cut off his retreat upon the American shore and capture his whole command. In view of this, troops were being despatched against him from all points; while the tug Robb, black with artillery and men, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... I pray that thou wilt help me to overcome unhappiness. May I not let depression overpower me, but claim the promises of joy that are open to every life. May I be blest by my own cheerfulness and encourage others to ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... renegades had a fairly good idea of the situation, and I fully expected they would turn upon us, but each of them was a coward. If they wheeled about suddenly, taking the chances that one might be killed in the squabble, it would have been possible to overpower us, even though they were without firearms; but it was the probability of our doing some considerable execution before knocking under that prevented them from escaping ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... exertions a bewitching air of freedom and negligence. and made even their last efforts seem only the exuberances or flowering-off of a mind capable of higher excellencies, but unambitious to attain them. There was nothing to alarm or overpower. On whatever topic she touched, trivial or severe, it was alike en badinant; but in the midst of this sportiveness, her genius poured itself forth in a thousand delightful fancies, and scattered new graces and ornaments on every object ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... English Channel, to the number of thirty-five French ships-of-the-line. To these it was hoped to add a number of Spanish ships, from Cartagena and Cadiz. If the movements were successful, this great force would overpower, or hold in check, the British Channel Fleet, and secure control of the Straits of Dover long enough for the army to cross. It is with the Toulon squadron that we are immediately concerned, as it alone for the present touches the fortunes of Nelson. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... world as soon as I can." That had been spoken without any sort of fear of detection, without the least suspicion that she would have no choice in the matter of giving up her ill-gotten wealth. What he dreaded unutterably was the despair that must overpower her as he developed the long chain of evidence against her. As he came into her presence, overwhelmed with these thoughts, he was also anxiously recalling two mental notes. He must make her clearly understand that he had not betrayed her by one word or hint to Sir Edmund Grosse or any living ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... fellows, wade into them," he shouted hoarsely. His tried and true comrades needed no second bidding, and now began a battle compared to which the other seemed mild. The three thugs who had been trying to overpower Tom were brutal fighters, and withal were men of muscle. But it did not take long to decide which side would win. The three friends, every fighting instinct in them aroused, and the lust of battle hot within them, fought with ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in heaven, and soon in the pauses of her breath strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing, so as to drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound and were succeeded by the singing of sweet female voices, which in their turn gave way to a wild roar of laughter broken suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly confusion ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... authoritarian persuasion were encouraged and often liberally subsidized from Nazi funds. Control was covertly obtained over influential newspapers and periodicals and their editorial policies shaped in such a way as to further Nazi ends. In the countries Germany sought to overpower, all the highly developed organs of Nazi propaganda were utilized to confuse and divide public opinion, to discredit national leaders and institutions, and to induce an unjustified feeling of confidence in the false assertions ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... each other, were combined against him; all the Cavaliers, the great majority of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such, was his genius and resolution that he was able to overpower and crush everything that crossed his path, to make himself more absolute master of his country than any of her legitimate Kings had been, and to make his country more dreaded and respected than she had been during many generations ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... formed so as to enable a party to overrule its very government, and to overpower the people too, answers the purpose neither of government nor of ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... of residing there for life; promising them wives, and dwellings, and honors; for even now, if they attempted to retreat, they would be overtaken by thousands of armed men on fleet horses, that would overpower them by their numbers and subject them to a very ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... fearing that the Syrian forces would ultimately overpower him, sent an embassy to Rome to invoke protection. It was a long journey in those times. A century and a half later it took Saint Paul six months to make it. The conquests of the Romans were known throughout the East, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... between the "peculiar institution" and the principles of modern society. The nobler and more enthusiastic spirits in the Northern States beheld in it a strife between Michael and Satan, the Spirit of Darkness hurling himself against the Spirit of Light in a vain and presumptuous hope to overpower him; and their irritation was great when an eminent English man of letters was found describing it scornfully as "the burning of a dirty chimney," and when English opinion, speaking through very many journalists and public men, ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... possible, by introducing more food than can possibly be digested, to overpower digestion so that nothing is digested and absorbed, and starvation results, a fact that has been brought to the front in the most interesting manner in the writings ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... principles of solar chemistry. Owing to the scattering of light by matter floating mechanically in the earth's atmosphere, the sun is seen not sharply defined, but surrounded by a luminous glare. Now, a loud noise will drown a whisper, an intense light will overpower a feeble one, and so this circumsolar glare prevents us from seeing many striking appearances round the border of the sun. The glare is abolished in total eclipses, when the moon comes between the earth and the sun, and there ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... troublesome to their friends as to their foes; but there is good stock in them,—brain and brawn, and brain and brawn will yet carry the day over court and crown, in the name of the right, which shall overpower all things. We clamber down into arched passages, choked with debris, over floors tangled with briers, and join in the wild wassail of the bold outlaw, fired by his victorious career. We clamber up the rugged sides and wind around to the headland. Brilliant in the "morning-shine," exultant ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the St. Vitus' dance by sympathy, Paracelsus, in his peculiar language, expresses himself with great spirit, and shows a profound knowledge of the nature of sensual impressions, which find their way to the heart—the seat of joys and emotions—which overpower the opposition of reason; and while "all other qualities and natures" are subdued, incessantly impel the patient, in consequence of his original compliance, and his all-conquering imagination, to imitate what he has seen. On his treatment of the disease we cannot bestow any great praise, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... insects in a summer's day, Bask in the sunshine, but avoid the shower; Uncertain visitants, they flee away E'en when misfortune's cloud begins to lower. Into life's bitter cup true friendship drops Balsamic sweets to overpower the gall; True friends, like ivy and the wall it props, Both ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... it finally seemed to me as if we were actually sailing into the inner heart of the world. The sensation on the first expedition, when each dark new bend was a dark new mystery, must have been something to quite overpower the imagination, for then it was not known that, by good management, a boat could pass through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, and survive. Down, and down, and ever down, roaring and leaping and throwing its spiteful spray against the hampering ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... gods and of devils. All the evils of the time are embodied in individual tyrants. Some of these individuals control the social forces, others the political, still others the industrial forces. As individuals, they overpower and enslave their individual enemies. Remove a man and you destroy the source of tyranny. A judge commits a man to death, and the judge is dynamited. A Prime Minister sends the army to shoot down striking workmen and the Prime Minister is shot. A law is passed violating the rights of free speech, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... we ascend, is enough to overpower a lover of beauty. There is nothing equal to it for space and breadth and majesty. Monte Rosa, the masses of Mont Blanc blended with the Grand Paradis, the airy pyramid of Monte Viso, these are the battlements of that ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... but it is often different in form and in value from what the conscious purpose holds. They are really seeking general and subjective states in part for their own sake. Psychologically it is all one and the same whether we realize this power by actually killing an enemy, or believe we overpower him by the performance of some mystic and ecstatic act, or in some more modern way become confident in our own power and prestige. National life, in order to maintain its integrity, must move upon a plane of intense feeling. It must have objectives, but ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... gently to and fro, turning slowly to the right and then revolving again to the left, giving life in its gyrations to the intermingled figures on the walls. The atmosphere of the room was nauseating; it was beginning to overpower him.... ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... years, and kills many of the people. A soko alive was believed to be a good charm for rain; so one was caught, and the captor had the ends of two fingers and toes bitten off. The soko or gorillah always tries to bite off these parts, and has been known to overpower a young man and leave him without the ends of fingers and toes. I saw the nest of one: it is a poor contrivance; no more architectural skill shown than in the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the country of one chieftain to another till he reached the Caspian Sea, and then went on beyond that sea for thirty or forty days more. In one place the party came to a tract of low black land, which exhaled an odor so offensive that they were obliged to use perfumes all the way to overpower the noxious smells. They were ten days in crossing this fetid territory. After this they went on a month longer through a desert country, and at length came to a fertile land which was covered with the ruins of cities that the people of Gog ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... with a timid yet resolved step the terrors of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, she glided on by rock and stone, "now in glimmer and now in gloom," as her path lay through moonlight or shadow, and endeavoured to overpower the suggestions of fear, sometimes by fixing her mind upon the distressed condition of her sister, and the duty she lay under to afford her aid, should that be in her power; and more frequently by recurring in mental prayer to the protection ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the turnkey comes back we shall overpower, bind, and gag him—if he resists, strangle him. Then you will put on his clothes and don his sombrero, and as the moon rises late, and the prison is badly lighted, I have no doubt we shall run the gauntlet of the guard without difficulty.... That is ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... Half way up there seemed to be stretched a par-fleche (raw-hide), from which a dim light emanated. He still thought of Oglugechana, who dwells within a hollow tree, and determined to surprise and if possible to overpower this wonderworking old man. ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... double gain; first, what is written may be submitted to the judgment of others; and second, one has a better chance of working on the fears, if not on the conscience, of an arrogant and babbling despot, who would otherwise overpower ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... to overpower. Well might the abettors of Antichrist wonder at the Christian's support under the most cruel tortures. While "looking unto Jesus" and the bright visions of eternal glory, like Stephen, he can pray of his enemies, and tranquilly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... measures, and ordered twelve grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, to advance to the cabin door, break it open, and overpower ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of conceiving that the horror of seeing herself set up as an obstacle to Blanche's marriage might have been vivid enough to overpower all sense of her own wrongs, and to hurry her away, resolute, in her ignorance of what else to do, never to return again, and never to let living eyes rest on her in the character of Arnold's wife. "It's clean beyond my ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... acknowledge in some degree the spirit of precedence) our adept felt the disgrace of playing a secondary part, and dividing winnings with so mean an associate. His appetite for gain, however, was sufficiently sharp to overpower his offended pride, and though far more an impostor than a dupe, he was not without a certain degree of personal faith even in the gross superstitions by means of which he imposed upon others. Still, being accustomed to act as a leader on such occasions, he felt humiliated ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... she kneeling motionless, holding him, while he panted against her breast, struggling with dogged persistence to master the weakness that threatened to overpower him. It was terrible to see him so, he the arrogant, the fierce, the overbearing, thus humbled to the earth before her. She felt the agony of his crushed pride, and yearned with an intensity that was passionate to alleviate it. But there seemed nothing for her ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... breath we hesitated. To disobey meant certain and instant death at the hands of this soulless maniac. But to obey—to drop through this trap-door—also meant death. I took a step forward. Could we overpower him? But what if we did? There were others here beside Fraser. How many others I had no idea, but surely enough to make things impossible for Foulet and me. Yet we dared not even hesitate. To hesitate implied thinking—and a man robbed of his ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... Venetian painters, and knew the principles by which they produced those pleasing effects which at the first glance prepossess us so much in their favour; but he took only as much from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that manly strength and energy of style, which ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... a moment, reflecting on the dangerous situation. It certainly would not be safe to release Settimia yet; for if Corbario were really in the house, the two together could easily overpower one woman, though ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... prompted Dusautoy and Tritton to set themselves to overpower his resistance. Gilbert's feeble remonstrances were treated as a jest, and Algernon, who could brook no opposition, swore that he would conquer the little prig. Maurice found himself pinioned by strong arms, but determined ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their arms in plain sight on the level ground about twenty rods distant. Duffie's plan was to rush through the large open door when a water party returning with filled buckets should be entering, seize those muskets, overpower the guard, immediately liberate the thousand or fifteen hundred Union prisoners in the three other Danville prisons, and push off to our lines in East Tennessee. He had Sheridan's elan, not Grant's cool-headed strategy. With proper preparation ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... say he couldn't spare a man. How much more use I would be if I brought help than stayed here and perhaps shot a couple of Indians, who might overpower us by their numbers. I was wondering if Golightly and the woods would be a shorter way than ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... neck resist every effort of his enemy. Not a man of the group within the area comes to the assistance of his comrade. They watch the contest indeed with vigilant eyes, and should real danger to the man's life ensue they are ready to throw themselves forward and overpower or drive off the buffalo. But short of this the fight must be a duel. The man must throw his beast, or be thrown. Not unfrequently, the latter occurs; and then the city crowd, who were so loud in their plaudits of the victor—cruel ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... descendants of Cain as well as the wicked posterity of the righteous generation not to believe Noah when he proclaimed the flood. How can we harmonize God's promise to Adam and Eve, "You shall rule the earth," and his words here to Noah, "The water shall overpower all men, and destroy them all." So the unbelievers decided that Noah's preaching ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... all over the East and West, though their Greek subjects were only kept under by main force, still held to their own Greek Church, and looked to the Roman Emperor of the East, as they called the Palaeologus at Constantinople, as their head; nor was it easy to overpower people who had so many mountain fastnesses, nor to tame monks whose convents were nests on the top of rocks, some so steep that there was no way of entering them save being drawn up in a basket. Well was it for them that they had niched themselves ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Zminis the Egyptian should be punished with death, and had even encouraged him to give the reins to his righteous anger. He, if any one, was in the habit of being moderate in all things, if only as a good example to his sons; and he had proved in many a Dionysiac feast that the god could not easily overpower him. The amount of wine he had drunk to-day would generally have had no more effect upon him than water, and yet he had felt now and then as if he were drunken, and the whole festal hall turned round with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the desire that they showed of cultivating our friendship. At the Hawkesbury they were not so friendly; a settler there and his servant were nearly murdered in their hut by some natives from the woods, who stole upon them with such secrecy, as to wound and overpower them before they could procure assistance. The servant was so much hurt by them with spears and clubs, as to be in danger of losing his life. A few days after this circumstance, a body of natives having attacked the settlers, and carried off their clothes, provisions, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... younger. He wanted to come to this party, but— I didn't care to have him for obvious reasons, so I told Hammon to refuse him even if he asked. He bet me a thousand dollars that he'd come anyhow, and I've been expecting him to overpower those doormen or creep ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... suppressed tone. I cautiously drew near the spot from whence the noise arose, but the alarm was given, and I could see no one. I retired to rest, or rather to lie down; for I felt that heavy and foreboding sense of evil overpower me, which comes we know not how or wherefore; and I could not sleep, knowing that there had been disputes between the captain and his men, respecting some point of discipline, and I feared to think what might be the consequences. I lay a long time disturbed with these unpleasant reflections; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... unceremoniously, and easily. Ethelberta had let him go a second time; yet on foregoing mornings and evenings, when contemplating the necessity of some such explanation, it had seemed that nothing less than Atlantean force could overpower their mutual ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... not now extinct in the British Isles. Professor Parker writes: "It has been known to kill as many as sixteen turkeys in a single night; and indeed it seems to be a point of honour with this bloodthirsty little creature to kill everything it can overpower, and to leave no survivors on its battle-fields." According to Bell, a female Pole-cat, which was tracked to her nest, was found to have laid up in a side hole a store of food consisting of forty frogs and two toads, all bitten through the brain, so that, though ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... horse should neigh, it would be mistaken for one of the many brood-mares belonging to the farm. The march has been admirably timed; it still wants two hours to daybreak. It will take fully half this time to work along the ridge, overpower the picket if there is one, and ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... start. At night we will encamp in a quiet, out-of-the-way part of the woods, and slip back to the village in the dark a short time before midnight. The whole village will at that time be assembled, probably, at the spot where the execution is to take place; so we can rush in, overpower the guard, free Okandaga, and make our escape to the cave, where they will never think ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... boy's heart, and his face blanched, as he watched the stone thundering over the obstacles in its way until it disappeared in a cloud of dust. It seemed as if the whole mountain trembled beneath him; a mist bleared his eyes; and as the blood rushed to his head, a deadly giddiness threatened to overpower him. He felt an impulse to throw himself over, which he could scarcely resist; and it was only by falling on his face and shutting his eyes that he recovered his presence of mind. After thus lying for several minutes, with beating heart and ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... there be an energetic and watchful counter-action of the judgment (of which I have known more than one instance, in which the comparing and reflecting judgment has obstinately, though painfully, rejected the full testimony of the senses,) will finally overpower it. But when the organ is obliterated, or totally suspended, then the mind applies some other organ to a double use. Passing through Temple Sowerby, in Westmorland, some ten years back, I was shewn a man perfectly ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... most of them; and their king and most of his train, who were then in that house, fell victims to their fury, every creature of them being either smothered or burnt. All this while they never fired a gun, lest the people should awaken faster than they could overpower them. But the fire awakened them fast enough, which obliged our fellows to keep together in bodies. By this time the whole town was in a flame, yet their fury rather increased, calling out to one another to remember Tom Jeffery. The terrible light of this conflagration made me very uneasy, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... conveyed to a further part of the room. Her intention and desire were to quit it immediately, but at the remonstrance of her conductor, she consented to remain some time longer. "The conflict at the door," said he, "will quite overpower you. Stay here but a few minutes, and both parties will have struggled themselves tired, and you may then go without difficulty. Meantime, can you not, by this faint light, suppose me one of your guardians, Mr Briggs, for example, or, if he is too ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... between the British colonies in New England, and the Dutch settlements in New Netherland, still continued in dispute. The English, in numerical strength, were in the vast ascendency, and could easily overpower the Dutch. Very strenuous efforts had been made, by the States-General, to lead the British government to accept some boundary line. But all was in vain. It was very evident that the English intended to claim the ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... that we ought ever to be on the alert, that we may not induce our friend into evil. We should be upon our guard, that we may not from overweening arrogance and self-conceit dictate to another, overpower his more sober judgment, and assume a rashness for him, in which perhaps we would not dare to indulge for ourselves. We should be modest in our suggestions, and rather supply him with materials for decision, than with a decision absolutely made. There may however be cases where ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... tense moment. Bob and Hugh could feel their hearts hammering so that it seemed to the two boys the noise must be heard. Their faces were pale, and frankly they were frightened. Suppose the men in the room should outnumber them and overpower them? Certainly if they were the spies and plotters they sought, they would be desperate. Then again it was just possible that the men were peaceful citizens, and that the affair would turn out to be a farce; that would ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... that, even as it came to him, he could make it serve his turn. Though he grumbled at the President's unmilitary ways, he afterward admitted that the "cheering news" made him "confident" of being "sufficiently strong to overpower the large army confronting" him. There was no doubt of it. He immediately extended his right wing; May 24, he drove the Confederates out of Mechanicsville; May 26, General Porter took position at Hanover Junction only fifteen ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse |
