"Overpowering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hundred per cent, without finding any one quality which could be called genius; that the total of his character would be made up of the sum of the commonest qualities, the most ordinary virtues within the reach of the poorest youth in the land. There is no one quality in his entire make-up so overpowering, so commanding that it ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... himself out of the groove in which he was born, except by the rarest opportunity, unless specially favoured by fortune. As men were born so they lived; they could not advance, and when this is the case the idea of Fate is always predominant. The workings of destiny, the Irresistible overpowering both the good and the evil-disposed, such as were traced in the Greek drama, were paralleled in the lives of many a miserable slave at that day. They were forced to endure, for there ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... set the clock on the back landing to Canadian time, so that she might always know what he was doing abroad, and then straightway forgot all about him. Her moods followed each other rapidly, and were all of them overpowering and all sincere, but it was not until a year afterward that she fell in love, in the church vestry, with the pretty boy who stood opposite to ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... have held such a course far more commendable than the policy adopted. If either one had challenged him, given him a show for his life, and in the duel killed him, public sentiment would have condoned such a step and no jury in this county would award any penalty for the slaying. But the overpowering attack by three men was itself a mob attack—three may constitute a mob as well as ten or twenty. Of course there will be some to defend the trio of assaulters, but the consensus of public opinion will be against it and by the ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... lead directly to the lake across the fields. There was a small and scarcely traceable footpath, and a board to warn trespassers. However, I fastened the horse to the gate and proceeded. I soon arrived at the shore, and was overawed by a scene of overpowering magnificence. The day was just dawning. The water mirrored the isles, except where the mist floated on its surface and wreathed round their bases. The trees were massed by it into domes and towers that seemed ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... previously been explained, were either indifferent, or else maintained that the nation should fight only for its natural frontier. To the support of the latter sentiment came the general longing for peace which was gradually overpowering the whole country. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... which my mind is persistently filled. Despite an almost overpowering desire to sleep, despite the torpor that is coming upon me in this suffocating atmosphere, I am resolved not to close my eyes. I will keep awake till daylight, and there will be no daylight for me till it is let into my prison from the outside. Perhaps even if the door were open it would not penetrate ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... the horse's hoofs and heard her little exclamation of dismay. In the fraction of a second he realized she was falling and held out his arms to catch her. For a moment she lay on his breast, her soft cheek against his, the overpowering fragrance of her presence taking his breath away. Then she gently disengaged herself and stepped back. There was colour in her face now and something which might have been mischief, or annoyance, or sheer amusement, in ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... of this sinister merriment the woman suddenly became drowsy, and after a few ineffectual efforts to shake off the torpor that was overpowering her, sank into a profound sleep. This occurred in the anteroom, and, leaving the snoring amazon to the sole occupation of the apartment, Lucille hastened to the bedchamber, from which she commanded a ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... met Edward in Sicily that his home was desolate. His kind and generous uncle, Richard, his gentle, affectionate father, and his two young children, had all died during his absence. The grief that the stern Edward showed for his father's death was so overpowering, that Charles of Sicily, who probably had little esteem for Henry, and thought the kingdom a sufficient consolation, marvelled that he could grieve more for an aged father than for two promising sons. "The Lord, who gave me these, can give me other children," said Edward; "but a ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... it would develop into a powerful instead of an overpowering appetite, and reason would have some say in the choice ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... aloud—"In the King's name, Hold!" He lifted Dennet on his shoulder, and bade her wave her parchment. An overpowering roar arose. "A pardon! a pardon! ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... population the reaction was far more rapid. "Charles Stuart," writes a Cheshire correspondent to the Secretary of State, "hath five hundred friends in these adjacent counties for every one friend to you among them." But before the overpowering strength of the army even this general discontent was powerless. Yorkshire, where the Royalist insurrection was expected to be most formidable, never ventured to rise at all. There were risings in Devon, ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... of this, get some one to command you not to move your right arm or to wink your eye. You will find it almost impossible to obey for even a few moments. The desire to move your arm, which was not at all conscious before, will become overpowering. The prohibition acts like a suggestion, and is an implication that you would do the negative act unless you were commanded not to. Miss Alcott, in "Little Men," well illustrates this fact in the story of the children who were told not to put beans up their noses and ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... could be more thoroughly suggestive of the undiminished universality of the heat than the view, in every direction, from the position they then occupied. The stone houses of the city behind them glowed with a vivid brightness overpowering to the strongest eyes. The light curtains hung motionless over the lonely windows. No shadows varied the brilliant monotony of the walls, or softened the lively glitter on the waters of the fountains beneath. Not a ripple stirred the surface of the broad channel, that now replaced ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... The struggle was too powerful for her nature, and like the poor bird when under the magic influence of the serpent, yields itself to the destructive charm, Theodora, unable any longer to combat with her overpowering feelings, threw herself into her lover's arms, and exclaimed passionately upon his bosom—"No, no, dear Lope, we will not part. Let it be as you will." She paused, and then added with solemnity—"It is decreed that I must be wretched, ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... influence over her was such as it could scarcely have become under any other circumstances. Her long obedience to his will in the matter of Guy had brought her to a state of submission at which once she would have scoffed. And when at last, the worst of the battle over, she was overtaken by an overpowering weariness of mind and body, all things combined to place ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... in the opening of the shelter where the heat of the fire, reflected from the face of the rock, fell upon them in genial warmth, suffusing their faces with a most comfortable glow. The heat, together with the feast, were almost overpowering in their effects, and hardly was his supper completed when Rod felt creeping over him a drowsiness which he attempted in vain to fight off a little longer. Dragging himself back in the shelter he wrapped himself in his blanket, ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... bound alike in purple velvet, emblazoned with central suns of gold—an arch-hypocrisy that was not lost on its object. Freshly-gathered flowers were heaped in the vases of the floral stands, filling the close, cool room with an overpowering fragrance. The carpet of crimson and white seemed to the eye what it afterward proved to the foot—thick, soft, and elastic; and harmonized well with the rich, antique, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... battle, Murat dashed forward in one of his overpowering cavalry charges. Leopold, in the midst of the horrors of the fight, gazed with wonder and admiration at the plumed and jewelled officer, on his magnificent white horse, with its trappings of gold and azure. It was like a beautiful vision in that awful ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... I become interested in my drawing when Ruskin decided to move on to Chamounix, where we might hope to get really to work. When the first sublime and overpowering impression of Chamounix and the majesty and gloom of its narrow valley wore off, it began to oppress me, and long before we got away I felt as if I were in a huge grave. The geological interest was great, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... that in the "in-tune" system the electromagnetic effect on the armature should, when the armature is closest to the pole pieces, be of such an overpowering nature as to prevent whatever accelerating tendency the gongs may have from throwing the armature out of its "stride" in step with the current. For this reason it is usual in this type to so adjust the armature that its ends will actually strike against the pole pieces of the electromagnet ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... remained some apprehension of their turning up at some unguarded moment and unpleasant place, to make us trouble; for their absence did not remove the impression that they had come among us to gauge our desirability as prey and the feasibility of overpowering ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... went to supply another stone in that place which seems ever in need of repaving. Cheese succeeded the veal, a well-meaning but somewhat overpowering cheese, and neither the Brat nor I encouraged it. It was borne away, intact, and after a short delay appeared a dish of plums, with another of small and attractive cakes, evidently imported from ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... back from Killarney I remember nothing, but my being discomfited by Lady Jocunda's practical jests and overpowering gaiety. When she addressed herself to me, my answers were as constrained and as concise as possible; and, as I was afterwards told, I seemed, at the close of my reply to each interrogative of her ladyship's, to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through beautiful woods, high above the valleys ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... brought into play the overpowering influence he had exerted of yore over poor Esther; for he had, as has often been shown, the mode of speech, the look, the action which quell madmen, and he had depicted Lucien as having died with the Countess' image in ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... her honour; yet, for William, what would not Agnes forfeit? The dignity, the peace, the serenity, the innocence of her own mind, love soon encouraged her to fancy she could easily forego; and this same overpowering influence at times so forcibly possessed her, that she even felt a momentary transport in the contemplation "of so precious a sacrifice to him." But then she loved her parents, and their happiness ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... the Argonne. The enemy had cut its line of communication and was enforced both in front and in the rear. Yet the lost battalion, comprising two companies armed with rifles and the French automatic rifle known as the Chauchat gun, called by the doughboys "Sho Sho," held out against the best the overpowering forces of the Germans could send against them, and were ultimately rescued from ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... companions, no longer able to withstand the overpowering influence of the mysterious force that mastered them, intoxicated, more than drunk, burned by the air that scorched their organs of respiration, dropped at last, and lay flat, motionless, senseless as dabs of clay, on the floor of ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... marquis, somewhat notorious, and a lady of insolent, patrician bearing. The anticipated action was arrested, for at sight of the nobleman and his companion, Adrienne swayed slightly, as though moved by a new overpowering emotion. Only for a moment she hesitated, then fixing her blazing eyes upon the two and lifting her arm threateningly, the bitter words flowed from her lips with an earnestness that thrilled the audience. A pallor overspread the face of the marquis, while the lady drew back ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... defiance to the iron silences about him. Originally, as we know, he had shrunk from the thought of change in her corresponding to his own; now that his own foothold was strengthening, his longing for a new union was overpowering that old dread. The proselytising instinct may be never quite morally defensible, even as between husband and wife. Nevertheless, in all strong, convinced, and ardent souls it exists, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... entered. She was an actress, Rosalie felt sure of that the first moment she saw her; she was dressed in a faded, greasy silk dress which swept up the dust of the floor as she walked in, and she greeted her new lodgers with an overpowering bow. ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... Harry hurled Lopez to the floor; but the soldiers rushed up, and those without, hearing the noise, hurried in. All was the wildest confusion, in the midst of which was Harry struggling like a wild beast with overpowering numbers. He was at length held fast by the fierce soldiers, who wished to kill him on the spot, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... factitious animation, and the happiness which otherwise so undisguisedly possessed Maximilian at their unexpected reunion, it shocked Paulina to observe in her lover a degree of gravity almost amounting to sadness, which argued in a soldier of his gallantry some overpowering sense of danger. In fact, upon being pressed to say the worst, Maximilian frankly avowed that he was ill at ease with regard to their prospects when the hour of trial should arrive; and that hour he had no hope of evading. Holkerstein, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... claim the palm among the Presidents of those days, for sheer, deleterious insignificance. The favourite observation of his contemporaries upon him was that he was a gentleman, but his convivial nature made the social attractiveness of Southern circles in Washington overpowering to any brain or character that he may have possessed. A new generation of political personages now came to the front. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, a man of force and considerable dignity, began to take the leading part in the powerful group of Southern Senators; Stephen Douglas, of Illinois, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... is a ratio of two opposing factors: "I would have won except for my luck quotient." This could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor", but using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck overpowering good luck (or someone else's good luck overpowering ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... The overpowering sense of weariness and impatience which must have afflicted the prisoners, as in the case of Villemet, had its simplest and most direct antidote in occupation. A well known German poet has said, that occupation ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... came all the great thought-waves of the world which had been thought by men of all times who thought and acted out the Dreams of Power. These clouds settled down upon Him like a heavy fog, and their vibrations were almost overpowering. And also came the hosts of the disembodied souls of those who while living had sought or gained power. And each strove to beat into His brain the Desire of Power. Never in the history of man have the Powers of Darkness so gathered together for attack upon the mind of a mortal man. Would it ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... such as are to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on 'Paley's Natural Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect of turning attention from the solid irrefragable argument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But overpowering proof of intelligence and benevolent design lie all around us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird,[155] So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;[bq] The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why—an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... referred to Conkling's "haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell, his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut." Accordingly when Garfield disregarded Conkling's wishes in regard to the representation which New York should have in the cabinet, Conkling laid the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... and levels of government confronts average citizens in trying to solve even the simplest of problems. They don't know where to turn for answers, who to hold accountable, who to praise, who to blame, who to vote for or against. The main reason for this is the overpowering growth of Federal grants-in-aid programs during the ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... reader and I, better informed than any lamp post could be as to the prior sequence of events, would know at a glance it was no parsnip we beheld, but Mr. Algernon Leary, now suddenly enveloped, through no fault of his own, in one of the most overpowering predicaments conceivable to involve a rising lawyer and a member of at least two good clubs; and had we but been there to watch him, knowing, as we would know, the developments leading up to this present situation, we might have guessed what was the truth: That Mr. Leary was hot bent upon ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... time to permit of argument. Overpowering him with his great strength, Edestone simply dragged him back, and flung him into a corner of the car, where he sat crying like a baby with ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... my crumbs for the day. I'm going to have a good solid crust now to keep the balance. Do you know Lottie Bird?... Fourteen stone, if she's an ounce, and a tongue like a sixty-horse-power motor. There are times when she's so damned practical and overpowering she does me good. This is one of them. Good-bye. Don't kill the giant with a glance; and don't be silly enough ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... of the last year, Shirley returned from his bootless Oswego campaign, he called a council of war at New York and laid before it his scheme for the next summer's operations. It was a comprehensive one: to master Lake Ontario by an overpowering naval force and seize the French forts upon it, Niagara, Frontenac, and Toronto; attack Ticonderoga and Crown Point on the one hand, and Fort Duquesne on the other, and at the same time perplex and divide the enemy by an inroad down the Chaudiere upon the settlements ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... thinks. "Could his mother but have lived to see him now!" Perhaps Philip reads it all in the strong yet tremulous clasp of those sinewy brown hands, but for the moment neither speaks again. There are some joys so deep, some heart longings so overpowering, that many a man is forced to silence, or to a levity of manner which is utterly repugnant to him, in the effort to conceal from the world the tumult of emotion that so nearly makes him weep. Who that has read that inimitable page will ever forget the meeting of that genial sire and ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... The ladies steeped the blossoms in cocoa-nut oil and anointed themselves, placing them also in their long black hair, with wreaths of jessamine flowers threaded on a string. These perfumes were rather overpowering at first, but I learnt to like them after I had been some time in Sarawak. The large, bare, cool rooms were very refreshing after the little cabins of the Julia. And then the library! a treasure indeed in the jungle; books on all sorts of subjects, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... time, made vivid but very transient impressions. The conversation and writing of contemporaries trained among books, and with the faculty of speech more fully developed than that of thought, seemed colorless and empty to one with—whom natural objects and grandeurs were always present in such overpowering force. Excluded by his social position from taking an active part in the public events of the day, and repelled by the emptiness of the then fashionable literature, he turned to private and humble ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... under the influence and spells of the Demons, were still blind, and he cautioned Rustem particularly to conceal Rakush from the sight of the sorcerers, for if the White Demon should hear of the slaughter of Arzang, and the conqueror being at Mazinderan, he would immediately assemble an overpowering army of Demons, and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... overpowering. It sounded like the rattle of some immense factory; yet a voice was audible through the din, for Hozier was telling her not to abandon hope, as the fore part of the ship was firmly wedged into a cleft in the rocks: they might still have a chance ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... dead upon her ear, but a woman must be more than a heroine who can listen to flattery so evidently sincere, from a man who is pre-eminent among men, without being affected by it. To her, however, the great and overpowering fact was that she found herself unable to retreat or escape; her tactics were disconcerted, her temporary barriers ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Dreadnought, have kept a little ahead of their rivals in construction. With almost the gun-power of Dreadnoughts, better than three to two against the best battleships, with the speed of cruisers and capable of overpowering cruisers, or of pursuing any battleship, or getting out of range, they can run or ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... to him, and created within them a sort of feeling that he must, in common reason and justice, regard himself as their special property in all future time. When, therefore, they saw him wink, and heard him sigh, the gush of emotion that filled their respective bosoms was quite overpowering. Corrie gasped in his effort not to break down; Alice wept with silent joy as she continued to chafe the man's limbs; and Poopy went off into a violent fit of hysterical laughter, in which her "hee, hees" resounded with terrible shrillness ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... face, Barrent remembered. In an overpowering flood of memory he saw himself, a little boy, entering the closed classroom. He heard again the soothing hum of machinery, watched the pretty lights blink and flash, heard the insinuating machine voice whisper in his ear. At ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... voice attuned to praise. It is a sensation which is so nearly a foretaste of eternity, that participation alone can give the most distant perception thereof. To the entirely unprepared and highly sensitive Geraldine it was most overpowering, all the more because she was entirely out of sight, and without power of taking part by either gesture or posture— she was passive and had no vent ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... into Palace Yard. An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press: "The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame of Mr. Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve and muscle strained to resist the coercion. Bending and straining against the overpowering numbers, he held every inch with surprising tenacity, and only surrendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain it. The sight—little of it as was seen from the outside—soon became sickening. The overborne man appeared almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... portions. Close to the Nevada border in southern California, Death Valley, 250 feet below sea-level, is the hottest place in America. There alone among the American regions familiar to the writer does one have that feeling of intense, overpowering aridity which prevails so often in the deserts of Arabia and Central Asia. Some years ago a Weather Bureau thermometer was installed in Death Valley at Furnace Creek, where the only flowing water in more than a hundred miles supports a depressing little ranch. There one or two white men, helped ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... way along the Graded road in the centre of the position. On the first sound of firing the inlying picket of the 24th Punjaub Infantry doubled out to reinforce the pickets on the road, and in the water-gorge. They only arrived in time to find these being driven in by overpowering numbers of the enemy. Hundreds of fierce swordsmen swarmed unto the bazaar and into the serai, a small enclosure which adjoined. Sharpshooters scrambled up the surrounding hills, and particularly from one ragged, rock-strewn peak called Gibraltar, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... atmosphere of sorrow a little too overpowering, and had disappeared for a long ride; so Miss Cardross had been ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... under the dim hall-light, a girlish creature in her white dress, but with wonderful colour blooming in her cheeks. He could not know that hate had brought it there. She seemed to him the flower of her own beauty, rich, overpowering. She held the door open for him, and when he had followed her into the library, she turned and put both her hands upon his arm, her soft nearness like a perfume and a breath. To Reardon, she was immeasurably ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... ship. Though we had gained the battle, we were not allowed to sleep on beds of roses. Our prisoners considerably outnumbered our own crew, and our boatswain, who spoke French, having been taken during the earlier part of the war, overheard some of them discussing a plan for overpowering us and regaining the prize. As we could not put them all in irons, we had to keep a strict watch over ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... every thing seemed to go against Mary. Calais was defended by a citadel nearly as large as the town itself, and was deemed impregnable. In addition to this, an enormous English force was concentrated there. The French general, however, contrived, partly by stratagem, and partly by overpowering numbers of troops, and ships, and batteries of cannon, to get possession of the whole. The English nation were indignant at this result. Their queen and her government, so energetic in imprisoning and burning her own subjects at home, were powerless, it seemed, in coping with their enemies ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... mark the blunders of our vulgar cooks! See them prepare a dish of various fish, Showering profuse the pounded Indian grain, An overpowering vapour, gallimaufry A multitude confused of pothering odours! But, know, the genius of the art consists To make the nostrils feel each scent distinct; And not in washing plates to free from smoke. I never enter in my kitchen, I! But sit apart, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... infuriated Syrians, who organized a kind of Palestinian Vespers, convinced the people that they were engaged in a war to the death. The Herodian party, as the royal house and its supporters were called, endeavored to preserve peace, by dwelling on the overpowering might of Rome and the inevitable end of the insurrection, but in vain. In fear the priests withdrew to their duties in the Temple, and did not venture out till the Zealots were for a time dislodged. The Roman legate ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... sweat was overpowering in the little ante-room. Some of the men had hearts and anchors and ships and dancing-girls tattooed in blue on their chests and arms. Some were skinny and others too fat. Very few looked fit. I remarked upon the shyness they suffered in walking ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... impossibility of making an impression, or of leading poor Louisa from her frivolities, she recalled the sorrow of hearing her build on future schemes of pleasure, the dead blank when her prattle on them failed, the tedium of deeper subjects, and yet the bewitching sweetness overpowering all vexation at her exceeding silliness. Though full one-and-twenty years had passed, still the tears thrilled warm into Mrs. Ponsonby's eyes at the thought of Louisa's fond clinging to her, in spite of many an admonition and even exertion of authority, for she alone dared to control the spoilt ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Brunettes, or those ladies having dark complexions, silks of a grave hue are adapted. For Blondes, or those having fair complexions, lighter colours are preferable, as the richer, deeper hues are too overpowering for the latter. The colours which go best together are green with violet; gold-colour with dark crimson or lilac; pale blue with scarlet; pink with black or white; and gray with scarlet or pink. A cold colour generally requires a warm tint to give life to it. Gray and pale blue, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... been said upon the overpowering "lusciousness" of his poetry, and the magical "melody" of his verse: most of this is futile. There is in the former as much of fadeur as of lusciousness; and a certain tripping or trotting exactitude, not less fully reducible to the test of scansion than of a well-attuned ear, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... attitude I remained some time, perfectly unconscious. At length, by degrees, perception returned, and I lifted up my head. I felt somewhat dizzy and bewildered, but the dark shadow had withdrawn itself from me. And now, once more, I drank of the jug; this second draught did not produce an overpowering effect upon me—it revived and strengthened me—I felt a ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... glories of the starry firmament, the moon at the full fills the lower air with a soft, yet bright light, in which you can read without difficulty the smallest print. Under this milder illumination, the overpowering luxuriance of the landscape loses its oppressiveness, the hills assume more rounded forms, and from the general obscurity, the palms, a tree made for moonlight, stand out in soft distinctness. At such a time we forget the foul crimes which disfigure the past, and the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... so tall, so grand, so entirely overpowering," explained Mr. Weil. "One would think he might be the son of an African king. I never saw a black man that gave me such an impression of ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... trees, and the thick underwood upon which the nest rested, and of which it was formed, and finding they would support his weight, he grasped them firmly, and swung himself up from the ladder till his head and breast were above the nest, and then what an overpowering stench came from it, for in it lay the putrid remains of lambs, chamois, and birds. Vertigo, although he could not reach him, blew the poisonous vapor in his face, to make him giddy and faint; and beneath, in the dark, yawning deep, on the ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... pretty nearly the same kind of surface as they had passed before, but in some places worse. Sometimes two, and once three days, they were without finding a supply of water, which was generally muddy, bitter, or brackish. Nor is this the worst which sometimes befals the traveller; the overpowering effect of a sudden sand-wind, when nearly at the close of the desert, often destroys a whole kafila, already weakened by fatigue, and the spot was pointed out to them strewed with bones and dried carcasses, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... leave the kingdom. After a brief hesitation, he determined to bid defiance to the royal mandate, and set sail for Ireland. The day after his arrival he laid siege to Waterford. The citizens behaved like heroes, and twice repulsed their assailants; but their bravery could not save them in the face of overpowering numbers. A breach was made in the wall; the besiegers poured in; and a merciless massacre followed. Dermod arrived while the conflict was at its height, and for once he has the credit of interfering on the side of mercy. Reginald, a Danish lord, and O'Phelan, Prince of the Deisi, were ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... upon La Valliere, accompanied by a look that on one, from Socrates to Montaigne, could have exactly defined. The look and the king's remark succeeded in overpowering the unhappy girl, who, with her head upon Montalais's shoulder, seemed to have fainted away. The king rose, without remarking this circumstance, of which no one, moreover, took any notice, and, contrary to his usual custom, for generally he remained late in Madame's apartments, he took ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... smile—of which all three of his aunts took private notes, forming their own conclusions. It was, as may well be supposed, a very severe ordeal which the poor young man had to go through. When he was permitted to say good-night, he went away with a sensation of fatigue more overpowering than if he had visited all the houses in Wharfside. When he passed the green door, over which the apple-tree rustled in the dark, it was a pang to his heart. How was he to continue to live—to come and go through that familiar road—to ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... cornfield. And soon I found that even now in the glaring sunshine when they were considered innocuous, their perfume had a peculiar effect upon me, and long before we had half crossed to the pan I was seized with an overpowering desire to sleep. I nodded as I stumbled along nothing seemed to matter why should we worry to go farther, why not lie down and rest, ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... fingers already frozen with fright, but he stood firmly grasping it, ready to turn it noiselessly when he had quite made up his mind what to do. The first expedient that suggested itself with an overpowering sweetness of relief, was that of locking his door, going back to bed again, and pretending that he had heard nothing. But apart from the sheer cowardice of that, which he did not mind so much, as ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... inapplicability to Clara. In order to obtain some sleep, he consented to blame himself slightly, in the style of the enamoured historian of erring beauties alluding to their peccadilloes. He had done it to edify her. Sleep, however, failed him. That an inordinate jealousy argued an overpowering love, solved his problem until he tried to fit the proposition to Clara's character. He had discerned nothing southern in her. Latterly, with the blushing Day in prospect, she had contracted and frozen. There was no reading either of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Farwell was suddenly convinced of one overpowering fact: Priscilla Glenn was destined for—living! Hers was one of those natures that flash now and then upon a commonplace existence, a strange soul from an unknown port, never resting until it finds its ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the others the delirium of ecstatic wonder too overpowering to be borne alone—turned, to find his happiness shot through with a pang of regret. He saw Chet and Diane. They had been standing together at a wide forward lookout; and now she was holding one hand of the pilot to her breast in an ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... all, and compensating every defect, rose the overpowering beauty of the vegetation. The massive dark crowns of shady mangos were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings, amidst fragrant blossoming orange, lemon, and many other tropical fruit trees, some in flower, others in ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... Saunders stood at the door and wistfully looked in at Dolly. An impulse that was almost overpowering drew him to her, but ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... for the aversion that rooted itself ineradicably in my soul, and which now gloats over you, as you stand in the pillory where my own hands have fastened you? But can Nature be crushed forever? Did I not ruin my nerves, and seriously injure my temper, by the overpowering pressure I laid upon them to keep them quiet when you were by? Could I not, by the sense of coming ill through all my quivering frame, presage your advent as exactly as the barometer heralds the approaching storm? Those three months of agony are little atoned for by this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... heard it long ago. Your father was a forger! What do you suppose I care? He probably had some overpowering temptation and yielded, never dreaming but he would be able to make it right. You can't make me believe that any parent of yours was actually bad! And besides, if he was, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... had absorbed everything. It seemed to her that she had entered into her inheritance, and that in the possessions that throng the Quartier Latin she was born to be rich. In thinking this she had an Overpowering realization of the poverty of Sparta, so convincing that she found it unnecessary to tell herself that she would never go back there. That was the unconscious pivotal supposition in everything she thought ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... She repeated the viands named. There was a tiny tendril of her hair that curled low upon her neck at one side, caressing the pale satin sheen of the skin. He felt an overpowering desire to lean forward and press his lips to the ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... enemies. People are arrested, in nine cases out of ten, not because the police are astute, but because they themselves run short of money; and I had here before me in the despatch-box a succession of devices and disguises that insured my liberty. Not only so; but, as I felt with a sudden and overpowering thrill, with ten thousand pounds in my hands I was become an eligible suitor. What advances I had made in the past, as a private soldier in a military prison, or a fugitive by the wayside, could only be qualified or, indeed, excused as acts of desperation. And now, I might ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Upon the tide of this success came a strong temptation: Why not go to a distinctly literary atmosphere and make a business of literature? He felt an inward assurance of making good and a longing for the work which was almost overpowering. Money for the debt must continue to accumulate very slowly when so much time must be given to the daily business of teaching, for which he was very poorly paid, and he could not know freedom until that debt was paid. In literary work, too, ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... reply caused the minister to forget all his half-formed resolutions. His work, his life, the possible outcome, the world itself—were lost in the overpowering rush of the passion-flood that swept his being. His deep voice trembled. "Then you know ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... Cumaea would be disgusting, from her overpowering strength in the feminine form, if genius had not made her tremendous. Especially the bosom gives me a feeling of faintness and aversion I cannot express. The female breast looks made for the temple of sweet and ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Virginia, the star of hope leading him on, and finally approached his native village. No words are adequate to describe the meeting between the lonely widow and her long lost, but now returning and penitent son. When informed that his father had been for some years dead, the shock to him was great, overpowering, but he uttered no repining word. "I could not," said he, "expect the happiness of meeting both my parents again after causing them so much sorrow, and let me be humbly thankful that it is allowed me to cheer the declining years of my aged mother." "I well ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... bird,' said her mother, seeing that she was not herself, and knowing that the excitement and overpowering feelings of gratitude were too much for her-come here; you should be in bed, my foolish little puss, should ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... thoughtful person must earnestly desire that the waste and destruction of this greatest of wars should be stopped as soon as possible, there is an overpowering feeling that the war should go on until all the combatants, including Germany, have been brought to see that the Governmental regime and the state of the public mind in Germany which have made this war possible are not consistent ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... had been urged against him; so superior in his sallies and self-possession to the gloomy constraint of her suitor and the selfish petulance of her brother; so faithful to her, as it seemed, when her own stock was faithless; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering influence, were his that night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she had heard him vilified for her sake, and that she had suffered for his, and where the wonder that his occasional tones of serious interest (setting off his carelessness, as if it were assumed to calm her), that his lightest ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... I procured for her whatever advice England could afford; all was in vain. Night and day I was by her side, but she never, for a moment, seemed to recollect me: yet were there times of fierce and overpowering delirium, when my name was uttered in the transport of the most passionate enthusiasm—when my features as absent, though not present, were recalled and dwelt upon with all the minuteness of the most faithful detail; and I knelt by her in all those moments, when no other human being was near, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... bitterness of the years. Julia felt born again. Like a person long deaf, upon whose unsealed ears the roar of life bursts suddenly again, she shrank away from the rush of emotion that shook her. It was overpowering—dizzying—exhausting. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... raging, and the rain lashed continually against the little windows. Inside, the poisonous and fetid air was overpowering. I could neither hear nor see the cat. I tried to think about other things—but only one had power enough to draw my mind from my terrible position. That was the contemplation of my cousin's villainy, his unparalleled hypocrisy, his malignant hatred of me. Beneath that cheerful ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... posts remained erect. The sun had so thoroughly dried the boards of which it was constructed that it had burned like so much tinder, and the quantity of ashes that remained was very small. Here and there, however, were uneven heaps; and in perfect silence, but with a sensation of overpowering dread, Mr. Hardy and his friends tied up their horses, and proceeded to examine these heaps, to see if they were formed by the remains of ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... all. So on the whole it was a good trip and most interesting. But here we are now in a perfect pandemonium and the Czar has not yet come nor one-fifth even of the notables. It is a great city, immense and overpowering in its extent. The houses are ugly low storied and in hideous colors except the churches which are like mosques and painted every color. I confess I feel beaten to night by the noise and rush and roar and by so many strange figures and marvellous costumes. Our rooms ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... and eschewed any peculiarities of his own which might interfere with the greatness of his design. "These pictures are the fruit of the deepest thought which then stirred the mind of Duerer, and are executed with overpowering force. Finished as they are they form the first complete work of art produced by Protestantism.[229-[]] What dignity and sublimity pervade those heads of such varied character![230-*] What simplicity and majesty in the lines of the drapery! ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... were useless, gun-carriages overturned. Here a drummer fell wounded, but continued beating his drum to the last; there a Glasgow soldier struggled with a French officer for the flag of the invaders; yonder a handful of Malouins doggedly held the foot of La Pyramide, until every one was cut down by overpowering numbers of British and Jersiais. The British leader was conspicuous upon his horse. Shot after shot was fired at him. Suddenly he gave a cry, reeled in his saddle, and sank, mortally wounded, into the arms ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... our learned judges from the bench have perhaps astonished their auditors by impressing them with an old-fashioned notion of residing more on their estates than the fashionable modes of life and the esprit de societe, now overpowering all other esprit, will ever admit. These opinions excited my attention to a curious circumstance in the history of our manners—the great anxiety of our government, from the days of Elizabeth till much later than those of Charles the Second, to preserve the kingdom from the evils ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... we colored people, dey pull it right down, and run up de rag ob dere own." (Immense applause.) "But we'll neber desert de ole flag, boys, neber; we hab lib under it for eighteen hundred sixty-two years, and we'll die for it now." With which overpowering discharge of chronology-at-long-range, this most effective of stump-speeches closed. I see already with relief that there will be small demand in this regiment for harangues from the officers; give the men an empty barrel for a stump, and they will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... I stared in terror, I could see it closing in, the line of its upper edge coming steadily closer and lower. I looked wildly around with an overpowering impulse to run. In every direction towered this rocky wall, inexorably swaying in ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... as to why the general was alone with a condemned man at such an hour nor as to how the American had succeeded in overpowering him. He understood that his chief's wounded vanity was torturing the man enough to render curiosity unsafe. But the boyish sentry did not know this. He ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... was cloudy at first, with sprinkling rain, but cleared up about midnight into a clear, cold autumn night. The cold kept me from getting sleepy, but when I got warm from walking my sleepiness grew overpowering. Ted was more wakeful than I, and took the lead, while I stumbled along behind, aching in every joint with sleepiness. The night was clear and starry, and Ted steered our ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... the history of Philip Quentin's achievement. Instead of sailing for New York, he surrendered to his overpowering love and fell to work perfecting the preposterous plan that had come to him as a vision in the final hour of despair. There was but little time in which to act, and there was stubborn opposition to fight against. The ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... Before the fiery, overpowering torrent of eloquence of the man, the reason of the judges fled. There was but one will in that assembly, and that will was the will of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... too remarkable to be omitted in a general account of amphitheatres, is the awning by which spectators were protected from the overpowering heat of an Italian sun. This was called Velum, or Velarium; and it has afforded matter for a good deal of controversy, how a temporary covering could be extended over the vast areas of these buildings. Something of the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... line of strong forts before the town and upon Tuti island had been silenced by them and the gunboats the previous day. Although the dervishes had built stout works, and had plenty of cannon and ammunition, they made a wretchedly bad stand against the gunboats, injuring none of them. The overpowering weight as well as the accuracy of our steamers' fire ended the naval part of the battle almost as soon as it was begun. Quick-firers and Maxims were trained to bear into the embrasures of the Khalifa's forts. As a consequence, the enemy's gunners were only able to fire a few wild ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... lands of other nations. He would do battle in a foreign land, but the Highlands of Scotland was his abiding place. If he left his native glen in order to become a resident elsewhere, there must have been a special or overpowering reason. He never emigrated through choice. Unfortunately the simplicity of his nature, his confiding trust, and love of chief and country, were doomed to receive such a jolt as would shake the very fibres of ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... their clear white flashes, Wrong's shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o'er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O'er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood, 170 Whose dead hands clench defiance At the overpowering Good: And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light; It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, Blossom and fruit where now we see the bud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Areya, in the Lebanon, on the summit of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean, stands the house of retreat, where, during the summer months, the more than forty sisters stationed in Beirut, Alexandria, Cairo, and Jerusalem can take refuge in seasons of overpowering heat. ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... crowd, stupefied for a minute by the thunderbolt and the horror of the devastation it had wrought, presently recovered sense, and with a mighty shout hurled itself against the palisade, burst it, leapt over it and swarmed into the quadrangle, easily overpowering the unnerved guards. I was surrounded; eager hands unbound mine; arms were thrown about me; the people roared, and wept, and triumphed, and fell about me on their knees praising Heaven. I think rain fell, my ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... painter should be mentioned abroad and that the principal reviews in Europe should reproduce his works, bought canvases as objects of great luxury. The master, embittered by the poverty of his years of struggle, suddenly felt a longing for money, an overpowering greed that his friends had never known in him. His wife seemed to grow more sickly every day; her daughter was growing up and he wanted his Milita to have the education and the luxuries of a princess. They ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... cannot accept your too overpowering favor," said Helene, after a pause, "but your kindness in thinking at all of me ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... that dodged about so feverishly, untended and unguided, performed each some vital function. The great conglomerate body was dead, yet it pulsated with a life of its own. Its effect of being governed by a single indwelling mind of superhuman capacity was overpowering. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... shavings and an overpowering smell of paint, Beatrice followed to inspect the premises, which consisted of three rooms; one, very much the smallest, about ten feet square. Three workmen were busy, and one, fitting up shelves, whistled ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... passing along in the train of his predecessor forms the remaining part of the ceremony. During this time hundreds will have taken part in these proceedings, happy in the thought of having received a respectful bow from the grateful monarch in return for the deep and almost overpowering embarrassment that possesses the one taking part in those ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... directly overhead, they were staggering. At two-thirty the sun and the heat were so overpowering that they stopped involuntarily and tried to sit on the hot sand only to find that they couldn't ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... because I would be hated by my own countrymen and mistrusted by yours.' From that day he assumed a most acrid tone in his Express towards myself, and I was made full sorry at times by the tone. But that was the overpowering thought in ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... command. If he delayed coming to thee, I think that in no way betokens thy death, but rather a long life; but it may be that some heavy accident may occur to thee, as there was an unaccountable dread overpowering thee; but I foretell that thou will be the oldest of us, and ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... dignity. As he walked down the avenue with conscious and deliberate steps—admiring the view on the right of him and the view on the left of him—never looking back, though the desire for one glance was so overpowering that the nape of his neck actually ached, he conquered, and finally emerged from those great gates without any further satisfaction to the curiosity aroused by his first involuntary glimpse. But so long as he remained in Java he never paid another call before dusk, a more ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... looked up at the houses in the distance, then back again to the skull; the empty sockets shone more brightly than before. I felt that I must have some natural explanation for this appearance or I would go mad. I took up the head again—and never in my life have I had so overpowering an impression of the might of death and decay than in this moment. Myriads of disgusting clammy insects poured out of every opening of the skull, and a couple of shining, wormlike centipedes—Geophiles, the scientists call them—crawled about in the eye sockets. I threw the skull ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... action at a gallop and smothered enemy batteries with an overpowering volume of fire. He created a distinct materiel for field, siege, garrison, and coast artillery. He reduced the length and weight of the pieces, as well as the charge and the windage (the difference between the diameters of shot and bore); he built carriages so that many parts were interchangeable, ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... Windsor Hotel, Jan slipped away, and with Kazan at his heels, crossed the frozen Saskatchewan to the spruce forest on the north shore. He wanted to be alone, to think, to fight with himself against a desire which was almost overpowering him. Once, long ago, he had laid his soul bare to Jean de Gravois, and Jean had given him comfort. To-night he longed to go to Thornton, as he had gone to Jean, and to tell him the same story, and what had passed that ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... vapors, Mountains, Bleak, foreboding, Mountains, Stark and overpowering. Torrents, Tumbling, crashing, Dragging boulders In their rushing, Lakes, Forlorn and lonesome Heather In magenta patches, Sheep, and cattle Black and somber, Winding roads Through massive passes. Rain, Sun, Flowers, Mist, ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... little river Eure. Louviers remains in the memory as a town whose church is more crowded with elaborately carved stone-work than any outside Rouen. There is something rather odd, in the close juxtaposition of the Hotel Mouton d'Argent with its smooth plastered front and the almost overpowering mass of detail that faces it on the other side of the road. There is something curious, too, in the severe plainness of the tower that almost suggests the unnecessarily shabby clothing worn by some men whose ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... short winter days and long evenings, when all the west was a shrieking black fury, out of which hurtled blasts so overpowering that you could lean up against them as against a wall, and with no more fear of falling, and the roar of great waters was ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... the troubles are not yet over), the English in Upper Canada must fall a sacrifice to either one party or the other, unless they can succeed (which, with their present numbers and situation, will be difficult) in overpowering ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... perhaps, the first instance in which he had offended by an instance of petty knavery. He retired with the stealthy pace of a robber, anxious to evade detection, and stole back to his own apartments with an overpowering interest in the discovery he had made so accidentally, and with an anxiety to investigate it further, which absorbed for the time all other cares, and banished from his thoughts even The Masque himself, whose sudden appearance and retreat had, in fact, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... people, in which the interests and wants of another seem to annihilate for a time personal consciousness, and make the whole of one's being seem to dissolve in an intense solicitude for something beyond one's self. In such hours prayer ceases to be an act of the will, and resembles more some overpowering influence which floods the soul from without, bearing all its faculties away on its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... indeed seem to feel along the very lines and angles of the unholy bulk, the fall of time, drop by drop, hour by hour, leaf by leaf, with a gentle and implacable slowness. And a voiceless melancholy comes over one, invading, overpowering like a dream, ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... No, the old Republic retains to a great extent its ancient atmosphere of unspoiled beauty and remoteness from the bustling world. It is still a stretch of glorious and historic country wherein one can obtain a pleasant and valued respite for a time from the overpowering improvements ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... each other across Fred Elkin's somewhat mean and cruel face while Furneaux rated him in this extraordinary manner. Surprise, wrath, even fear, had their phases. But, dominating all other sensations, was an overpowering indignation at the implied hopelessness of his pursuit ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... enterprise. Factories are but slowly built, and the land is almost everywhere tilled in the same primitive manner as it was two thousand years ago. And then, too, take Rome—Rome, which didn't make Italy, but which Italy made its capital to satisfy an ardent, overpowering desire—Rome, which is still but a splendid bit of scenery, picturing the glory of the centuries, and which, apart from its historical splendour, has only given us its degenerate papal population, swollen with ignorance and pride! Ah! I loved Rome too well, and I still love it too ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... dread that was almost overpowering, yet realising the impossibility of resistance, Stella permitted him to touch her hand, and assist her to clamber over the wheel. The baffled, helpless rage in Moore's face was sufficient proof of the true power possessed by Cateras, that his was no idle boast. Under some conditions the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... to this speech for some minutes, but seemed to be struggling with intense and overpowering feelings; at length, turning toward Josiah, with a face burning with conscious shame, ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... was meant, the boys threw themselves down upon the ground and gave way to merriment that was none the less overpowering because it had to be indulged in "with the soft pedal on," ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... The overpowering grandeur of the fashionable lady chilled the household, and there was little conversation till she ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... virginia creeper was reddening on the wall; the casement windows open to the air and sunshine. Ponto ran out directly the gate was opened—first to bark at the carriage, and then to leap joyously about Clarissa, overpowering her ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... was overpowering. He drove in the Southern flank, taking four cannon and hundreds of prisoners, but the dauntless Confederate commander, withdrawing his men in perfect order, retreated to a second ridge, where he took up a ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... when some one found it was possible to obtain goose, but as our very limited supply of money was almost exhausted this had to be ruled out. The fish salad when it arrived was peculiarly nasty. It was almost raw and had an overpowering flavour of mud! Beer did not seem to be allowed, but a tip soon settled that, and we all received large glasses of light lager. The people in the hall were a funny-looking crowd but quite amusing to watch, mostly drinking quantities of beer and regarding us with sullen curiosity ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the Constitution, and by the laws which they are organized to oppose.[E] Their real object is the overthrow of the State governments and the return of the negro to bondage. And tell me, Cal, do you look upon these midnight attacks of overpowering numbers of disguised men upon the weak and helpless, some of them women, as manly deeds? Is it a noble act for white men to steal from the poor ignorant black his mule, his arms, his crops, the ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... Daisy was to sleep. Mrs. Holt conducted her into a large, high-ceilinged, old-fashioned room. To be sure, it was ill lighted and ill ventilated—giving on a court; but its furniture, from the marble-topped wash-stand to the great double bed, was very grand and overpowering. Daisy could only gape with wonder and delight. To call such a room her own, to earn three dollars a week—with a golden promise of more later on if she proved a good girl—it was all very much too wonderful ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... And as he read, a slight motion of the hand or a glance of an eye made us see, as he was seeing, that whole radiant drama. The wonder, the timid joy, the tenderness, the mystery of it all, were borne in upon us with overpowering effect. He closed the book, and in the same low, clear voice went on to tell us how, in his home years ago, he used to stand on Christmas eve listening in thrilling delight to his mother telling him the story, and how she used to make him see the shepherds and hear the sheep bleating ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... literature again, and the daydreams began once more over the familiar cases of type. A definite literary ambition grew up in me, and in the long reveries of the afternoon, when I was distributing my case, I fashioned a future of overpowering magnificence and undying celebrity. I should be ashamed to say what literary triumphs I achieved in those preposterous deliriums. What I actually did was to write a good many copies of verse, in imitation, never owned, of Moore and Goldsmith, and some minor poets, whose work caught ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... we got plenty of water by digging in the sandy bed of the river. I was very glad to reach here, for the horses were getting very weary, and Sweeney was also done up, and looked very ill and swollen up about the head. The walking was most harassing, for, besides the ground being soft, the sun was overpowering, and most excessively hot. We are now in safety again, and to-morrow being Sunday we ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... ceiling, while on a raised dais at the farther end of the room was an enormous squatting figure of the seven-handed god. Before it, in braziers, fire gleamed, giving off a heavy, pungent odor that was almost overpowering to ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... upon themselves and one another, until their combined brilliance bridged a great rainbow across the sky. Blending into all the colours of the prism, the bow became— for a moment—pregnant with an overpowering beauty, symbolical, portentous of something stupendous about to come out of the unknown to the Thomahlians. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... Reisebilder. "Woe to those who are standing near," says Leland, "when a humorist of this stamp is turned loose upon the world. He knows nothing of your old laws,—like an Azrael-Napoleon he advances conscienceless, feeling nothing but an overpowering impulse, as of some higher power which bids him strike and spare not." But, after all, the main cause of progress is agitation, and though the agitation may be "eminently disagreeable to many, even friends, who are brought within its immediate ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote |
