"Overwhelming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not know that he had fallen in at the same time as I; and though once or twice I had heard him whining, I did not realise that he was also in danger; in fact the horrible overwhelming selfishness of the desire for self-preservation had swept away everything but the thought of how I was to get out ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... spasm of terror passed over the Indian's features as memory returned. He sprang to his feet, looking wildly round and saw Garman. Then he cowered, shrinking together as if striving to sink into the ground, to return to unconsciousness, terrified by some overwhelming, incomprehensible horror. ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... prodigious display of wealth imaginable. For the whole queer place was simply sprinkled with gold. Gold—gold everywhere; large nuggets of it, as big as one's fist! Not embedded in rock, not scattered through sand, but lying loose upon the surface of that unbelievable orange snow! It was overwhelming. ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... vegetation possessing a character of tropical luxuriance, to support such large animals, and the impossibility of reconciling this with the proximity of perpetual congelation, was one chief cause of the several theories of sudden revolutions of climate, and of overwhelming catastrophes, which were invented to account for their entombment. I am far from supposing that the climate has not changed since the period when those animals lived, which now lie buried in the ice. At present I only wish to show, that as far as QUANTITY of food ALONE is concerned, the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... such terms as these:—"Owing to dyspepsia affecting my system, and the possibility of an additional disarrangement of the stomach taking place, consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and prevent me from attending to matters of overwhelming importance, if you do not remember to cut the mutton in a diagonal, rather than ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... stunned and bewildered, saw his faithful subjects falling round him without fully comprehending his situation. The litter on which he rode heaved to and fro, as the mighty press swayed backwards and forwards; and he gazed on the overwhelming ruin, like some forlorn mariner, who, tossed about in his bark by the furious elements, sees the lightning's flash and hears the thunder bursting around him with the consciousness that he can do nothing to avert his fate. At ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... arguments to press upon us the fulfilment of our daily duties. How incomprehensible are the ways of God. His love is proved by bitterly convicting us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Like Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle, sometimes so overwhelming as to drive us to the verge of despair and self-destruction. We fall not down the precipice, for still there is hope and pardon in his bosom, and at the proper time it ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... travelers in regard to customs, cultures, and behavior of people of different races and nationalities. Their later more systematic investigations were, on the whole, inspired by intellectual curiosity divorced from any overwhelming desire to change the manner of life and social organizations of the ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... influence two thousand four hundred miles long. Some have seen the Danube, and think they have seen a great river. So they have; but the Russian giant is seven hundred miles longer. A vast yellow stream, moving on to the distant sea—slow, gentle, inexorable, overwhelming. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... mischief to mortals, by liberal gifts of petun, or collars of beads, or ears of maize, or skins of animals. When their feet stood upon the edge of the mighty cataract, then was the most valued dog precipitated, then was the most valued drink poured into the overwhelming torrent, to appease the angry spirit of the abyss. And thus, performing their duties to the Great Master and their fellow-creatures, lived the two good ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of laws aimed at securing the purity of an electorate exposed to the danger of corruption by the overwhelming influence of wealth. Laws against bribery, unknown in an earlier period,[93] become painfully frequent from the date at which Rome came into contact with the riches of the East. Six years after the close of the great Asiatic campaign the people were asked, on the authority of the senate, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... revealed it, as she knew it must be. If there was any subconscious emotion in her heart or mind from which might spring chaotic impulses that would cloud her mental vision, she was not aware of it. Her thoughts ran straight and true to the one outstanding, vivid, and overwhelming fact that she could not marry Kane Lawler because to marry ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... number of living persons, who had unfortunately survived him. It is difficult to conceive in any case, how these memoirs written at Venice, when his heart was torn with grief and bitterness, could possibly have been silent as to the injustice and calumny overwhelming him, or even as to the pusillanimous behavior of so-called friends; while even writers generally hostile no ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... descendants of old English and Normans combined. They came to "high mettle" the blood of our race, and when the conquerors and the conquered were moulded into one people, the result was the Englishmen who won Crecy and Agincourt against overwhelming odds, whose very name was a terror to continental ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... thoughts at that moment. Surprize had mastered my faculties. My frame shook, and the vital current was congealed. I was conscious only to the vehemence of my sensations. This condition could not be lasting. Like a tide, which suddenly mounts to an overwhelming height, and then gradually subsides, my confusion slowly gave place to order, and my tumults to a calm. I was able to deliberate and move. I resumed my feet, and advanced into the midst of the room. Upward, and behind, and on each side, I threw penetrating glances. I was ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... but her neck, legs and the hair at the bottom of her belly. I was several times in the same room with her, and was permitted the same liberties, but no others. I lent her Aristotle, which I had borrowed, and one day recollect my prick stiffening, and a strange overwhelming, utterly indescribable feeling coming over me, of my desire to say to her "cunt," and to make her feel me, and at the same time a fear and a dread overtook me, that my cock was not like other cocks, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... bills of home rule are fundamentally bad and should be withdrawn, in order that a new attempt may be made to reach a settlement by general consent in accordance, as I believe, with the wishes of the overwhelming majority ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... situation, the richness of its soil, the variety of its products, the intelligence, activity and civilization of its inhabitants, and the fact that it is the seat of the colonial government, makes Java by far the most important unit of the Insulinde. Because of its overwhelming importance in the matters of position, products and population, it is administered as a distinct political entity, the other portions of the Dutch Indies being officially designated as the Outposts or the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... flood of inarticulate, passion-laden thought that beat upon his brain telling of Beatrice? Wave after wave it came, utterly overwhelming him, like the heavy breath of flowers stirred by a night wind—like a message from another world. It was real; it was no dream, no fancy; she was present with him though she was not there; her thought mingled ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... adroit in managing men as armies, as wise in planning political moves as campaigns, using tact and diplomacy as effectually as artillery, he assumed the whole direction of the European war; managed every negotiation, planned every battle, and achieved its great and overwhelming success. ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... and to the famous Conrad of Marburg. Finally, to quote but one more instance, Gregory IX, in 1233, wrote an eloquent letter to the bishops of southern France in which he said: "We, seeing you engrossed in the whirlwind of cares, and scarce able to breathe in the pressure of overwhelming anxieties, think it well to divide your burdens, that they may be more easily borne. We have therefore determined to send preaching friars against the heretics of France and the adjoining provinces, and we beg, warn, and exhort you, ordering ...
— The Inquisition - A Critical and Historical Study of the Coercive Power of the Church • E. Vacandard
... nation, lent an added thrill to the proceedings. At noon both Houses met in joint session to listen to the Governor's message. Dealing with the ratification he reminded the members that in 1910 the electors had adopted woman suffrage by an overwhelming vote and said, "The State has done well under the management of both men and women." A marked feature of their proceedings was the gracious courtesy accorded to the old suffrage leaders and workers, who were present ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... a high-bred woman, but even high breeding could not prevent her from being overwhelming, especially as there was a great deal more of her than there had been at the last meeting of the friends, so that she was suggestive of Hawthorne's inquiry, whether a man is bound to so many more pounds of flesh than he originally wedded. However, it was prime condition, ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the surrounding nations, and the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, favoured by the long peace and the abundant resources of the country, reached their highest excellence. The reversal of all these signs of prosperity was so overwhelming, that the Egyptians of subsequent ages looked back upon this period of subjection under a foreign yoke which lay upon them for five hundred years, with bitter resentment. When the hated dynasty was at ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... minister, but he was appointed a judge in 1870, and Mr. George E. King, a judge of the supreme court of Canada some years later, became his successor. In Nova Scotia, Mr. Hiram Blanchard, a Liberal and unionist, formed a government, but it was defeated at the elections by an overwhelming majority by the anti-unionists, and Mr. Annand, the old friend of ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... strike him. Three months have passed since I entered the mountains, and yet I cannot say that I am nearer the end than I was when I began. I have lost three thousand men, of whom half are spearmen. The gladiators have suffered but slightly, for they always burst down in overwhelming numbers, slay, and retire. At least twenty times my camps have been attacked; and although I have lost but one convoy, the difficulty and labour of victualling the troops is enormous. If the gladiators ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... to the mantel, where he stood with his back to Jannie, looking down absently at the fringed gray asbestos of a gas hearth. An overwhelming oppression crept over him when there was a sudden cold sensation at the base of his neck, and a terrific blow fell ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... unselfish—all the things, in fact, that no one had the least right to expect it to turn out to be. Two or three thousand men looked to him as their hereditary chieftain who alone could help them hold their chins high amid an overwhelming Hindoo population; his position was delicate, and he might have been excused for much hesitation, and even for a point-blank refusal to do what he might have preferred personally. He and his stood to lose all that they owned—their honor—and the honor of their ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... Somerset manors, with all other lands escheated, was conveyed by the Crown to trustees for Lady Ralegh and young Walter, should Ralegh so long live. This boon, following the rest, went far towards remedying the overwhelming pecuniary consequences of a judicial crime. The King is entitled to share the credit with Cecil. He was not incapable of caprices of beneficence. Pity, rather than a sense of justice, moved him. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... from," and Mrs. Sterling laughed. Her spirits were rising now, and all the doubts she was beginning to feel overwhelming her as to the wisdom of inviting these boys in for the evening, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... into the great family, and were never able to succeed in creating for themselves an Archbishopric. All their efforts and all their innocent deceits to attribute that title to the Churches of Dol and St. Davids were wrecked on the overwhelming divergence of their past; their bishops had to resign themselves to being obscure suffragans of Tours ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... points of interest were strongly marked. Not only was there the kindred geniality of disposition, and the kindred interest in the history and fortune of France: there was in each an overwhelming love of country; strong, indeed, in Gambetta, and in Dilke so strong that it can best be described in the words of a French friend who, watching him, said to Sir Charles's second wife: "That man is a great patriot, for with ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... who finds such material before him as the lives and characters of the Bronte family need have no anxiety as to the interest of his work. Characters not only strong but so uniquely strong, genius so supreme, misfortunes so overwhelming, set in its scenery so forlornly picturesque, could not fail to attract all readers, if told even in the most prosaic language. When we add to this, that Miss Robinson has told their story not in prosaic language, but with a literary ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... fought single-handed against overwhelming odds, but he was destined soon to have help from two of the most remarkable and antithetical personages connected with this early movement against slavery; namely, Benjamin Lay and Anthony Benezet.[182] Lay represented the revolutionary type of reformer. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... king and to open his eyes to Sibich's falseness; but as they availed nothing, they mounted their horses and rode with all speed to Verona. At midnight they reached the city and told Theodoric the evil tidings, that on the next day Hermanric would burst upon him with overwhelming force determined to slay him. Then Theodoric went into his great hall of audience and bade the horns blow to summon all his counsellors and men of war to a meeting there in the dead of night. He told them all the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... habit, the modern sympathy, the intelligent, flexible attitude, the latest fruit of time, adjust themselves to the great gilded, relinquished shell and try to fill it out. A Venetian palace that has not too grossly suffered and that is not overwhelming by its mass makes almost any life graceful that may be led in it. With cultivated and generous contemporary ways it reveals a pre- established harmony. As you live in it day after day its beauty ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... paramount the fact that housing construction and financing for the overwhelming majority of our citizens should be done by private enterprise. They contemplate also that we afford governmental encouragement to privately financed house construction for families of moderate income, through extension of the successful system of insurance ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... sixth stroke? He lost them all in the very flower of their age. You know how very overwhelming are untimely bereavements, and productive of grief on many scores. The instance we are contemplating was not only untimely, but also violent; so that here was a seventh stroke. For their father did not see ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of terrible and shattering surprise—a moment when he realized that there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet him—a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness, blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have spared ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... never heard of the Holy Ghost." "The man of sin "—which of us is without it? To these French missionaries at Grand Lac I was the bearer of terrible tidings. I carried to them the story of Sedan, the overwhelming rush of armed Germany into the heart of France, the closing of the high-schooled hordes of Teuton savagery around Paris; all that was hard home news to: hear. Fate had leant heavily upon their little ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... grasp a brace. He got his fingers on one. Then came a sudden rush of water, caused by a sharp decline in the level of the sluiceway, and Jack was torn from the cross-piece. At the same time his plank was swept from under him, and he was buried in an overwhelming rush of water. Over and over he was rolled along the bottom of the flume. Then he was tossed to the surface. For an instant he had a glimpse of Nat also struggling in the murky flood, on which the ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... was again met with the overwhelming weight of the evidence in favour of structure and habit being mainly due to memory. I accordingly gathered as much as I could second-hand of what Lamarck had said, reserving a study of his "Philosophie Zoologique" for another occasion, ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... swaying shaft. As the whirl comes nearer, the roar of the disturbance, which at a distance is often compared to the sound made by a threshing machine or to that of distant musketry, increases in loudness until it becomes overwhelming. When a storm such as this strikes a building, it is not only likely to be razed by the force of the wind, but it may be exploded, as by the action of gunpowder fired within its walls, through the sudden expansion of the air which it contains. In the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... was because of his very versatility, which absorbed his talent in so many directions that it could not be concentrated in any. His imagination outran his achievement, and the most famous of his works, his statue of Cleopatra, owes its reputation not so much to its own merit, which is far from overwhelming, as to the ecstatic description of it which Nathaniel Hawthorne included in "The Marble Faun." A master of literature is not necessarily an inspired critic of art, and it is to be suspected that Hawthorne permitted some of the fire of his imagination ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... tear! The magic charm that swayed the sense With strong resistless influence Is broken, and its votary left, Of the soul's talisman bereft! In vain the tones of music steal Upon the ear in soft appeal, Or friendship with its soothing voice Bids the hushed tongue again rejoice, So overwhelming is the grief— Death only brings a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 551, June 9, 1832 • Various
... on the instant, and his face expressed such overwhelming pain that Elena was stricken to ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... records, and carried off even the church plate, and the books from the library, of Upper Canada's capital, acts avenged by the burning of Washington later in the war. Flushed with success, the Americans now prepared to attack Fort George in overwhelming force. The 49th, Nairne's regiment, were the chief defenders. The attack came on May 27th, 1813. There was sharp and bloody fighting. Greatly outnumbered, the British were beaten; so hastily did they evacuate the fort that Nairne and others lost their personal effects. ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... the best among the newspapers have confused and misled the sound judgment of the people; so it is in relation to the overwhelming numbers of the rebels, and by spreading absurdities concerning relations with Europe. The reporters of the Herald and of the Times are peremptorily instructed to see the events through the perverted spectacles ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... marked improvement over the old-fashioned methods; but to my mind it is a shocking combination of impiety and mock-philanthropy. The truth is, that, in this vast, over-crowded city, man is a drug,—a superfluity,—and I think many men and women end their lives out of an overwhelming sense of their own insignificance;—in other words, from a mere weariness of feeling that they ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... shifted. The month after the McKinley bill became law, the Congressional elections (November, 1890) returned an overwhelming Democratic majority in the House, altho this was a period of business prosperity, a fact usually favoring the party in power. In 1892, Cleveland, being again a candidate, was successful over Harrison by a largely increased plurality of the popular vote, and received almost double the electoral ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... remain to marvel among the overwhelming displays of barbaric profusion. Akbhar, the imperial Mogul, who on his birthday caused himself to be weighed in golden scales three times,—first against gold pieces, then against silver, and lastly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... More overwhelming than all were the few direct words from Colonel Buchanan himself; a tall, hard-featured Scot, so entirely absorbed in his profession that he never, save of dire necessity, set foot in a ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... morning after she has dreamed of a rose, while the paysanne of Normandy dreads disappointment and vexation for the very same reason. The Switzer who dreams of an oak-tree does not share in the Englishman's joy; for he imagines that the vision was a warning to him that, from some trifling cause, an overwhelming calamity will burst over him. Thus do the ignorant and the credulous torment themselves; thus do they spread their nets to catch vexation, and pass their lives between hopes which are of no value and fears which are ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... pervading thought in the tragedies outgoes the simple artistic needs of the case. In OTHELLO we have indeed a very strictly dramatic array of the forces of wrong—weakness, blind passion, and pitiless egoism; but there is already a full suggestion of the overwhelming energy of the element of evil; and in LEAR the conception is worked out with a desperate insistence which carries us far indeed from the sunny cynicism and prudent scepticism of Montaigne. Nowhere in the essays do we find such a note of gloom as is ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... and at the first movement he made, he felt the grasp of the powerful Indian who directed the band, pressing his shoulder like a vise. Immediately conscious how unavailing any struggle against such an overwhelming force must prove, he submitted to his fate, encouraging his gentle companions by a few low and tender assurances, that the natives seldom failed to threaten ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... was the first time he had ever been restrained, even by bolt or bar, much less by manacles, and the effect on his young mind was at first overwhelming. ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... of this virulent malady is incontestibly substantiated by an overwhelming amount of evidence, which cannot be adduced at full length here, but which may be classified under the following heads: first, the constant spreading of the disease from countries in which it rages to others which, previously to the importation of diseased animals, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... decadence of conversation is natural to those who have specially cultivated Links with the Past; who grew up in the traditions of Luttrell and Mackintosh, and Lord Alvanley and Samuel Rogers; who have felt Sydney Smith's irresistible fun, and known the overwhelming fullness of Lord Macaulay. It is not unreasonable even in that later generation which can still recall the frank but high-bred gaiety of the great Lord Derby, the rollicking good-humour and animal spirits of Bishop Wilberforce, the saturnine epigrams of Lord Beaconsfield, ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... 55,000 men, of whom it is said 14,000 were killed, wounded, and taken. Marshal Marmont put himself so forward in the heat of the battle that a dozen of men were killed by the bayonet at his side, and his hat was perforated by a ball. But what was to be done against overwhelming numbers! ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... messengers of death, but the Alamo had none." These were the words with which a United States senator referred to one of the most resolute and effective fights ever waged by brave men against overwhelming odds in the ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... let us suppose, of our second month of war. The fleet has been neglected, and has been overwhelmed, unready and unprepared. We have been beaten twice at sea, and our enemies have established no accidental superiority, but a permanent and overwhelming one. The telegraph cables have been severed, one and all; these islands are ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which Rogers sometimes extricated himself from extreme peril is illustrated by his conduct on one occasion, when pursued by an overwhelming number of savages up the mountain, near the south end of Lake George, which now bears his name. Upon reaching the summit he advanced to the very verge of the precipice, on the east side, which descends 550 feet to the lake. Having here reversed ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... became too overwhelming. Grey multitudes were sweeping khaki multitudes before them. High-explosives, shrapnel, grenades, bombs, bullets were rending, piercing, and shattering the living flesh and muscle and bone. Towns and villages were being turned into heaps of brick and wreckage. Hordes of old men, ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... embarrassment and distress. In both countries we have witnessed the same redundancy of paper money and other facilities of credit; the same spirit of speculation; the same partial successes; the same difficulties and reverses, and at length nearly the same overwhelming catastrophe. The most material difference between the results in the two countries has only been that with us there has also occurred an extensive derangement in the fiscal affairs of the Federal and State Governments, occasioned by the suspension ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... no pity on herself, but he had pity for her—abounding, overwhelming pity; the brave little white-faced girl, who did not moan, nor fling herself about, nor talk nonsense; who had ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... another party, had boarded her at the stern. Several of the Chinese fought stoutly, but the greater part lost heart at seeing themselves attacked by the "white devils," instead of, as they expected, overwhelming them by their superior numbers. Many began at once to jump overboard, and after two or three minutes' sharp fighting, the rest either followed their example or ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... with the overwhelming expression of physical fatigue, almost exhaustion, that Fraser gives to his Indian in "The End of the Trail." It is embodied in rider and horse. Man and beast seem both to have reached the end ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... depended upon deliverance from this bondage. The record of that deliverance is one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of thought. Could one be surprised if, in the resentment which long oppression had engendered and in the joy which overwhelming victory had brought, scientific men now invaded the fields of their opponents? They repaid their enemies in their own coin. There was with some a disposition to deny that there exists an area of knowledge to which the methods of metaphysicians and ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... replied unto Maitreya, saying 'by good luck, thou art endued with knowledge. By good luck, thy understanding is of this kind! They that are good highly applaud all righteous attributes. That personal beauty and youth and prosperity do not succeed in overwhelming thee is due to good luck. This favour done to thee is due to the kindness of the deities. Listen to me as I discourse to thee upon what is even superior (in efficacy) to gift. Whatever scriptures and religious treatises there are, whatever (righteous) inclinations are observable ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... similar circumstances, when every heart and hand is anxiously and zealously engaged, for the artificers wrought at the erection of the beacon as for life; or somewhat like men stopping a breach in a wall to keep out an overwhelming flood.' ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... of oppressions, my dear lady, to be an argument for longer bearing them? Had I, and other Scottish nobles, dared to resist this overwhelming power after the battle of our liberties, kept our own unsheathed within the bulwarks of our mountains, Scotland might now be free; I should not have been insulted by our English tyrants in the streets of Lanark; and, to save ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... After overwhelming me with a torrent of imprecations which I should be ashamed to write down, he ordered me to tell him how I had got into his garden. Being well assured that nothing could make my position worse than it already was, and having some experience of the Nabob's ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... sank down upon her knees before the long mirror on the wardrobe floor. This was her twenty-ninth birthday, and the world was melting away before her eyes. She tried to think that it had been the make-up, but her emotions were too profound, too overwhelming for any consolation that the ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... not here, as P. Langen in his Plautinische Studien (Berliner Studien, 1886; pp. 90-91) has conclusively proved that the inconsistent is a feature absolutely germane to Plautine style, and has collected an overwhelming mass of "Widerspruche, Inkonsequenzen und psychologische Unwahrscheinlichkeiten" that would question the "Plautinity" of every other line, were we to follow Weise's precepts. Langen too uses the knife, but ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... as well as Raisuli and the Young Turks, were ruled out. They would be given a week in which to leave the country. Resistance would be useless. The combined forces of the Germans, Russians, Swiss, and Monacoans were overwhelming, especially as the Chinese had not recovered from their wanderings in Wales and were far too footsore still ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... difficult a position as it is possible to imagine. The enemy he was to disperse were flushed with victory, having for years been able to defy all who had attempted to suppress them. Their numbers were overwhelming as compared with the handful of men the merchants of Shanghai were able out of their private resources to put into the field; and, as if these were not sufficient advantages, they had possession of all the large cities and places of importance ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... are this evening. The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The poor fellow, the cornet-player, had been in the neighbourhood barely a month. Old Mr. Bishop, who kept the 'Jolly Sand Boys' at the time, and from whom I had the story, said he had never known ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... concerning him. She was quite sure that he was in love with her. Her idea of that universal emotion was that it was a matter of clothes and propinquity and loveliness and that if one were at all clever one got things one wanted as a result of it. Her overwhelming affection for Bob and his for her had given her life in London and its entertaining accompaniments. Her frankness in the matter of this desirable capture when she talked to her husband was at ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... comers were the instruments of that more overwhelming destruction for which the Goths had but prepared the way. To resist Alaric, the Roman legions had been withdrawn from all the western frontiers, and thus more distant and far more savage tribes of the Teutons beheld the glittering empire unprotected, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... simply the final decomposition of impoverished, tainted, bourgeois blood, the sudden disappearance of a poor, mediocre being who, despite a facade of seeming health, had been ailing since childhood. But what an overwhelming blow it was both for the mother and for the father, all whose dreams and calculations it swept away! The only son, the one and only heir, the prince of industry, whom they had desired with such obstinate, scheming egotism, had passed away like a shadow; ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... seemed to have such a kind of idea with it; for it was courteous, and yet forcible; pleasant, yet overwhelming; facetious, yet austere; sententious, and yet vehement: like Socrates, in the description of Plato, who seemed outwardly to those about him to be but a simple, talkative, blunt fellow; whilst at the bottom he was full of such gravity and ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the Tories in the first general election under the Reform Act was overwhelming. They mustered less than one-fourth of the House of Commons. It seemed to most cool political observers that the Whigs who now assumed office could not be displaced for a decade at least. The spirit of change was alive in all ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... would they attend to their duties as citizens, to find their efforts of no avail on account of the sharp practices of their neighbors of the Marsh and Point, who would reverse their action at an adjourned meeting. At length, in overwhelming numbers, they assembled once upon a time, and voted a new Town House, near the site of the present Catholic church. As a consequence, North Chelsea was set off in 1846, and Chelsea shrank to its present boundaries. ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... on her sister, overwhelming her in a flurry of pink kimono and white arms. "Tell me!" she cried. "Tell me this minute, you aggravating thing! You're getting to be a regular miser of your news—you won't give up till it's dragged out of you. Speak, or I'll have ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... was to the artisans of England what Burns was to the peasantry of Scotland. His Corn-law Rhymes contributed not a little to that overwhelming tide of popular opinion and feeling which resulted in the repeal of the tax on bread. Well has the eloquent author of The Reforms and Reformers of Great Britain said of him, "Not corn-law repealers alone, but all Britons who moisten their ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... inexhaustible reservoir of her population. The struggle with the colossus of the North, despite the vaunted technical superiority of the German army, would in all likelihood have ended in the triumph of overwhelming might. In the France of 1917, again, the three years' term of service would have begun to produce its full results, and her first-line troops would have been both more numerous and better ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... out his hand to put his cup back upon the tray. As her own hand was extended to take it, her fingers touched his. Then her face flushed, and a warm cloud seemed to bedim her eyes. There flashed into her mind the deep, overwhelming fact that for three long years a rough, heavy hand had held her captive by day, by night, in a pitiless ownership. She got to her feet suddenly; her breath came quickly, and she turned towards the door as though she meant ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... not be stirred up. He had a notion, for the rest, that if Mr. Caryll were left to go his ways, he would not be likely to give trouble touching that same matter. And he was right in this. Before his overwhelming sense of loss, Mr. Caryll had few thoughts to bestow upon the manner in which that loss had been sustained. Moreover, if he had a quarrel with any one on that account, it was with the government whose representative had issued the ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... and a southward route, finally diffused itself over Western Asia, Northern Africa, and the greater part of Europe; or whether, as others suppose, the Celtic race belongs to a still older stock, and was itself driven down upon the south and into the west of Europe by the overwhelming force of the Indo-Europeans, is a question which we have no time at present to discuss. However it may be decided, it would seem that for the first time, as far as we are acquainted with the fortunes of this interesting race, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... great, great sorrow and loss have made me painfully sensitive, but as my feelings and pecuniary comforts were never regarded or even recognized in the midst of my overwhelming bereavement—now that I am pressed in a most startling manner for means of subsistence, I do not know why I should shrink from an opportunity of improving my ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... have not only brought over the Great Invincible, but through him a dozen more of the opposition. Shall be re-elected to-day by an overwhelming majority." ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... retreat to the cabin, there to consult together, in such shelter as it afforded, regarding the most desirable steps to be taken. It was soon found, however, that the sea surged into the cabin in such overwhelming deluges that they ran the utmost risk of being drowned if they remained there, and they were, therefore, compelled to turn out again and seek for safety on the poop. There the day-dawn found them, shivering with cold, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... who had done all, and more than all, that was required of her, probably because she had entirely forgotten herself. She was not even then sensible of a swift reaction, an overwhelming tide of embarrassment. She continued more than half unconscious of the number of eyes which, now that the operation was over, were fixed upon her, marvelling, admiring, condemning, or ridiculing. For what act is there, let it be ever so disinterested or self-sacrificing, against ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Then it is my overwhelming desire to do some act of kindness, but my clothes are in rags; my face is a horrid mask, and I smell of the dead ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... from fear but from an overwhelming sense of the whole world gone mad, the shattering of tradition and the overthrow of natural laws. The chaos in his mind sent him flying from this insane place within six seconds after his first attack. A mating she-wolf ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... Nay the sudden sight of me might overpower her, and even have dangerous effects. Such at least were the whisperings either of my tenderness or my vanity. And yet to miss this opportunity, to acquaint her with none of those overwhelming sensations that were all thankfulness, love, and adoration, and not so much as to inform her that I was still living, still perhaps capable of all the good that she had ever supposed of me, was in every view of it tormenting. How had she struggled ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... spirited but ineffectual fire; their shot, directed principally against the lofty eminence of the Upper Town, fell almost harmless, while a vigorous cannonade from the numerous guns of the fortress replied with overwhelming power. When night interrupted the strife, the British ships had suffered severely, their rigging was torn by the hostile shot, and the crews had lost many of their best men. By the first light of morning, however, Phipps renewed the action with pertinacious courage, but with no better ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... in which they arise, are themselves a manifestation of the marvelous and luxuriant fertility of the human mind,—to do this is not only one of the most pernicious, but one of the most foolish acts that can possibly be conceived. Nevertheless it is an undoubted fact that an overwhelming majority of religious persecutors have been men of the purest intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals. It is impossible that this should be otherwise. For they are not bad-intentioned men who seek to enforce opinions which they believe to be good. Still less ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... exhaustion for himself. But now, the moment that he faced the problem fairly, he saw he could never get that real and honest sense of exhaustion again. He was dragged up to the issue and forced to face it instantly. The pressure of circumstances upon him was overwhelming; and he had to make up his mind to do something he had never done before—instead of really writing his books, to do the best ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... United States in their right to freedom and the elective franchise, against any and every interference on the part of the several States. And again and again, have the American people asserted the triumph of this principle, by their overwhelming majorities for Lincoln ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous
... these stratagems of the fish are of avail when once a hungry black is on its track. The science of war, we are bidden to believe, is not designed for the slaughter of mankind, but so to impress the enemy with a demonstration of overwhelming power, force, and majesty, that he may become mentally unable or unwilling to offer resistance, because of its obvious futility. So it is with the black in pursuit of a fish or turtle in shallow water. By noise and bluster he works on the senses of the fish until ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... words. But the pictures were a constant astonishment to her. They opened up before her a clear, almost tangible world of new and marvelous things. Huge cities arose before her, beautiful structures, machines, ships, monuments, and infinite wealth, created by the people, overwhelming the mind by the variety of nature's products. Life widened endlessly; each day brought some new, huge wonders. The awakened hungry soul of the woman was more and more strongly aroused to the multitude of riches in the world, its countless beauties. She especially loved to look through the great folios ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... that with one man standing erect in the stern with a steering oar, and the others paddling like demons, the Ivory Coast boatmen invariably land their passengers, in a smother of foam which seems overwhelming, without spilling a drop of water on them. Not a visitor to this coast but has been impressed ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... is a drunkard. Instead of that bloated face, now distorted with passion, now robbed of every gleam of intelligence, if the wife could look on an affectionate countenance, which had, for years, been the interpreter of a well-principled mind and faithful heart, what an overwhelming load would be lifted from her! It is a husband, whose touch is polluting, whose infirmities are the witness of his guilt, who has blighted all her hopes, who has proved false to the vow which made ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... woke with a sudden start, all her consciousness filled with an overwhelming desire to love and be loved, to be all of life to some one who would be more than life to her. She sat up, panting, pressing her hand to her heart. At once ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... war with the vigor and determination, and with such formidable armies as they collected and armed for four years, making at times the destiny of the Union well nigh doubtful, if they had not had the Southern heart with them, if they had not been most heartily supported by the overwhelming mass of the people. They led a popular, not ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... relief. They would not fear to encounter ten times as many as themselves in the open ground during the day, but it would be madness to attempt to march through the country when they would be certain to be attacked at night by overwhelming numbers. With grateful hearts they welcomed the appearance of the dawn, which as it rapidly increased exposed to their view the surrounding country and the hill-side, on which lay the bodies of four Indians, ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... was attributed to him, and found himself greatly embarrassed by mine. For even supposing for a moment that what he stated was true, how could he justify so public an attack, wantonly made, without obligation or necessity, for the sole purpose of overwhelming in the midst of his greatest misfortunes, a man to whom he had shown himself a well-wisher, and who had not done anything that could excite his enmity? In a short time afterwards the 'Dialogues of Phocion', in which I perceived nothing but a compilation, without shame or restraint, from ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... another overwhelming blow at Avdeyev: at an extraordinary meeting of the town council all members who were on the staff of the bank, Avdeyev among them, were asked to resign, on the ground that they were charged with a criminal offence. In the morning he received a request to give up immediately his ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... above our heads. Dead! dead! and though no man there knew how, the terror of their doom and the retribution it seemed to bespeak went home to our hearts, and we bowed our heads with a simultaneous cry of terror, which in that first moment was too overwhelming even for grief. ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... were exhausted, and the stoutest hearts entertained the most gloomy forebodings as to the final issue, Catholic France stepped gallantly forth to the rescue of our infant freedom, almost crushed by an overwhelming English tyranny! Catholic Spain also subsequently lent us her aid against England. Many of our most sagacious statesmen have believed that, but for this timely aid, our Declaration of Independence could ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... think we have the franchise in Ireland. Nothing of the kind. There may be a hundred thousand in the North who vote as they think proper, but an overwhelming majority of the South are absolutely in the hands of the clergy, who in many cases lead or drive them in hundreds ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... on condition that the latter should content himself with the prefecture of Gaul, and should not invade the territories of the younger Valentin'ian. 25. Ambition hurried the faithless usurper to his ruin; having by perfidy obtained possession of the passes of the Alps, he led an overwhelming army into Italy, and Valenti'nian, with his mother Justi'na, were scarcely able, by a hasty flight, to escape to ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... in life. Then he caused a straw-vote to be taken among a selected list of thousands of his subscribers in large cities and in small towns. The result of all these inquiries was most emphatic and clear: by far the overwhelming majority of the women approached either were opposed to the ballot or were indifferent to it. Those who desired to try the experiment were negligible in number. So far as the sentiment of any wide public can ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... a perfectly simple step—the sale of an estate. She cannot do this, is ruined, and thrown out into the unsympathetic world. Chekhov is the dramatist, not of action, but of inaction. The tragedy of inaction is as overwhelming, when we understand it, as the tragedy of an Othello, or a Lear, crushed by the wickedness of others. The former is being enacted daily, but we do not stage it, we do not know how. But who shall ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... that he was a student, who, at the conclusion of term, was about to make holiday for a few weeks at his parents' house near Prague. Alas, poor youth! he had studied so much, and yet knew so little. He had not even an idea of the overwhelming importance of the document in question. For this trifling omission he forfeited the fare to Prague, which had been ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... my thoughts, we were steadily descending into the ground under Venia—dropping out of sight while above us, perhaps by now, the eager warcraft of Earth were overwhelming the city. Tarrano had not spoken; but when at last our little car bumped gently at the bottom, he said smilingly: ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... this overwhelming artillery reverse, the British army remained a week in camp, a respite of which every hour was priceless to Andrew Jackson, for his mud-stained, haggard men were toiling with pick and shovel to complete ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... modesty, and reserve; I forgot the customs of your country, the decencies of my own; I forgot everything in this world, but you,—you suffering and in danger; my very sense of existence seemed to pass from me, and to be supplied by a breathless, confused, and overwhelming sense of impatient agony, which ceased not till I was in your chamber, and by your side! And—now, Morton, do not despise me for not having considered more, and loved ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... formed, well led, went through without trouble—indeed, with real pleasure. Nevertheless the overwhelming testimony is on the other side. Probably this was due in large part to the irritability that always seizes the mind of the tenderfoot when he is confronted by wilderness conditions. A man who is a perfectly normal and ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... and the coal that move armies. France lacked these, and the Germans thought she was doomed. They cut the French railroads that would have brought the troops and munitions to defend Verdun. Then the Germans attacked this point in overwhelming numbers. But the French troops went to Verdun without the aid of railroads. The Germans did not dream that such a thing was possible. But America had given the world a new form of transportation, trains that run without rails and with-out coal. Motor-trucks, driven by ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... these people is beyond description. One cannot fail to realize the stupefying horrors of such a deep and overwhelming national calamity. The strokes of fate have come down upon the people of Poland with a most merciless cruelty. Shall we gaze upon these horrors with indifference? Can the Russian people remain neutral witnesses of the sufferings ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the Elements And frenzy Nature. Yet the wizard her, Arm'd with Torngarsuck's power, the Spirit of Good,[135:1] 110 Forces to unchain the foodful progeny Of the Ocean stream;—thence thro' the realm of Souls, Where live the Innocent, as far from cares As from the storms and overwhelming waves That tumble on the surface of the Deep, 115 Returns with far-heard pant, hotly pursued By the fierce Warders of the Sea, once more, Ere by the frost foreclosed, to repossess His fleshly mansion, that had staid the while In the dark tent within a cow'ring ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... swords in a world of fighters can avail not for ever against overwhelming numbers of fierce and savage brutes that know not what defeat means until cold steel teaches their hearts no longer to beat, and so, step by step, we were forced back. At length we stood against the giant tree that we ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... after an instant's hesitation. "I have perfect confidence in Mrs. Carew; and in you too," she added, with what she meant for a kind look. She was by nature without coquetry, and this attempt to please, in the midst of an overwhelming distress absorbing all her faculties, struck me as the most pitiful effort I had ever seen. My feeling for her made it very ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... to bear it!—shall I? Jane?" said he, his enthusiastic temperament kindling as he spoke—"Oh what, my dearest, my own dearest, if this should not last, will it not consume me? Will it not destroy me? this overwhelming excess ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... flatteringly of his visage; he knew himself a very homely-featured man, and accepted the fact, as something that had neither favoured nor hindered him in life. But it was his conviction that no man's eye had a greater power of solemn and overwhelming rebuke, and this gift he took a pleasure in ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... classes of inhabitants were excluded from the rights, blessings, and duties of citizenship; and the institution of slavery was recognized as existing by sanction of law. But the constitution was rejected by the people, by an overwhelming majority; not, however, on account of the fifth article, but because the instrument was obnoxious to them on ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... with the artillery and rearguard. The confederates had given an evasive answer, for they were pondering whether they ought to jeopardise the whole Italian force in a single combat, and, putting all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King of France and his army together, so overwhelming the conqueror in the ruins of his ambition. The messenger found Charles busy superintending the passage of the last of his cannon over the mountain of Pontremoli. This was no easy matter, seeing that there was no sort ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
