"Rain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of one of these sandy protuberances was La Platiere, the paternal inheritance of M. Roland, a low farm-house, with regular windows, covered with a roof of red tiles nearly flat; the eaves of this roof project a little beyond the wall, in order to protect the windows from the rain of winter and the summer's sun. The walls, straight and wholly unornamented, were covered with a coating of white plaister, which time had soiled and cracked. The vestibule was reached by ascending five stone steps, surmounted by a rustic ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... deposited their dead. They cultivated a few palms, and kept flocks; had no money, no writing, and kept tale of their flocks by bags of stones. They often committed suicide in age, sickness, or defeat. When rain failed they selected a victim by lot, and placing him within a circle, addressed prayers to the moon. If without success they cut off the poor wretch's hands. They had many who practised sorcery. The women were all called Maria, which the author regarded as a relic of Christianity; this De Barros ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... convinced me that there was sore need of reform in woman's dress, and I promptly donned a similar attire. What incredible freedom I enjoyed for two years! Like a captive set free from his ball and chain, I was always ready for a brisk walk through sleet and snow and rain, to climb a mountain, jump over a fence, work in the garden, and, in ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a bit of news he would fain get in. "Nae doot Glenfernie's brave, but he wadna be a sodger, either! I was gaeing alang wi' the yowes, and there was he and Drummielaw riding and gabbing. Sae there cam on a skirling and jumping wind and rain, and we a' gat under a tree, the yowes and the dogs and Glenfernie and Drummielaw and me. Then we changed gude day and they went on gabbing. And 'Nae,' says Glenfernie, 'I am nae lawyer and I am nae sodger. Jamie ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... as though it were empty Of all folk but us twain in the hush of the dawning. Then again, all was gone, and I sat there a smiling On the faint-smiling legate, as the hall windows quivered With the rain of the early night sweeping across them. Nought slept I that night, yet I saw her without sleeping:— Betwixt midnight and morn of that summer-tide was I Amidst of the lilies by her house-door to hearken If perchance in her chamber she turned amid sleeping: ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... part of June, and the weather was not at all cold. Plenty of rain had fallen, and the Cataract stream had risen so high that their water wheel had been out of commission for several weeks, and Harry's illness or indisposition had somewhat retarded the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Saturday, the 9th of September he called his secretary into his cabin and dictated to him some particulars of the siege of Toulon. On approaching the line they fell in with the trade-winds, that blow here constantly from the east. On the 16th there was a considerable fall of rain, to the great joy of the sailors, who were in want of water. The rain began to fall heavily just as the Emperor had got upon deck to take his afternoon walk. But this did not disappoint him of his usual exercise; he merely ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... what will be the age of the next deer that will be shot! I can only say that their faces look a little dark upon me, but it doesn't thunder every time a black cloud rises, nor does every puff of wind blow up rain. That's a question, therefore, much more ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the first week in September, when it was raining as hard as it could rain, and when the wind was blowing as hard as it could blow, and was driving empty boxes and barrels, and old tin pails, and wash-boilers, and castaway hats and runaway hats and lost hats, and other things across the prairie before it, Jack came into my office, where I was setting ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth
... afternoon in November, Brian was as usual making his way down Gower Street, his umbrella held low to shelter him from the driving rain which seemed to come in all directions. The milkman's shrill voice was still far in the distance, the man of letters was still at work upon knockers some way off, it was not yet time for his little girl to make her appearance, and he was not even thinking of her, when suddenly his umbrella was ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... it shines on millions of little drops of rain in the cloud, and makes them of all colors, like drops of dew on the ground, and all the colors together ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... reinforcement, it placed the powder-blackened, ragged, haggard men—soldiers and civilians—in a far better position, and they rushed to the batteries and loopholes, to help pour a rain of bullets on the advancing enemy, while the dismounted lancers worked guns which had been silent for want of help, and our six-pounders grew hot with ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... roaring of the thunder dies away, the rain begins to fall heavily, danger vanishes, and I feel my courage reviving. Such is man! or at all events, such was I at that moment. It was raining so fast that, if it had continued pouring with the same violence for a quarter of an hour, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... maid and the French valet, became equally insupportable to themselves and me; who could only repeat the same unheeded consolations, and protest our resolution of releasing them from this theatre of distraction the moment our departure should become practicable. Mean time the rain fell, and such a torrent came tumbling down the sides of St. Juliano, as I am persuaded no female courage could have calmly looked on. I therefore waited its abatement in a darkened room, packed up our coach without waiting to copy over the verses my admiration of the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... occasionally possible to feel you want to dance about the streets in thin costume during February. But in more northern countries during Carnival time I have seen only one sensible masker; he was a man who had got himself up as a diver. It was in Antwerp. The rain was pouring down in torrents; a cheery, boisterous John Bull sort of an east wind was blustering through the streets at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. Pierrots, with frozen hands, were blowing blue noses. An elderly Cupid had borrowed an umbrella ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... system. If he had had the discernment and sound judgment necessary for the permanent pacification of the lands explored, he would have remained there with the soldiers working thus night and day and through rain and wind; but at the very best time, he had to abandon all. Then, touching the mines of the Ygolotes, this serves also as a good relation, for the news of them that both Don Gonzalo Ronquillo and Don Luis Dasmarinas had received obliged each one to make his greatest ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... but the Saint took note of it. Half an hour had barely passed ere the sky grew cloudy. Moist drops began to fall. It was the first rain for many weeks, and foreign visitors, accustomed to think of Nepenthe as a rainless land, were almost as interested in the watery shower as in that of the ashes. Mud, such mud as the oldest midwife could not remember, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... grunt. I knew not what he thought of Bertrand's answer; but that brief dialogue aroused within me afresh the desire I had before expressed to see the maid, Jeanne of Domremy; and as the sun upon the morrow shone out bright and clear, after a week of heavy rain storms, we agreed that no better opportunity could we hope for to ride across to the little village, and try whether it were possible to obtain speech with the young girl about whom such interest had been aroused in ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... describe the sound, the earth shook with it, and it was like a thousand thunderclaps, continually rolling, and for miles along the enemy's trenches a sheet of flame was dropping as our liquid-fire shells fell in a ceaseless rain. For awhile the Germans shot their S.O.S. flares, ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... know," she cried, in the wildest excitement. "The snake made him eat an apple, an' then the rain came down, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... seconds; and this capacity is manifestly of service to the plant in capturing small insects. Even gnats, if they rest on the glands with their delicate feet, are quickly and securely embraced. The glands are insensible to the weight and repeated blows of drops of heavy rain, and the plants are thus likewise ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... softly down stairs. I stopped on the second floor, thinking I heard a noise. I felt my way down into the parlor, and looked out of the window. The night was so intensely dark that I could see nothing. I raised the window very softly and jumped out. Large drops of rain were falling, and the darkness bewildered me. I dropped on my knees, and breathed a short prayer to God for guidance and protection. I groped my way to the road, and rushed towards the town with ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... and walked hand-in-hand toward the door, but Frederick William alighted slowly, and thus obliged Napoleon, whose guest he was, to wait for him. The king frequently made his crowned companions stand, regardless of the rain; and it happened more than once that the emperors, while waiting for him, were thoroughly drenched. When he was conferring with Napoleon as to the future frontiers of his states, Frederick William did not assume a suppliant ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... play," said Sancho; "give me my dinner, and then let it rain cases and questions on me, and I'll despatch them in ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... very fast, as the little animal was unwilling to leave his own home, not guessing the comfortable quarters to which he was bound. The wind brought up a heavy shower of rain and hail; Dermot was doubtful whether he ought to shelter himself under the young lord's cloak. "Still," he thought, "it will not be the worse for being on my shoulders, and I shall be wet through and well-nigh frozen before I reach the castle, if I am to sit on this animal's back exposed ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... my father obstinately persisted in carrying out his plan; but when at last even the roof was partly removed, and the rain reached our beds, in spite of the carpets that had been taken up, converted into tarpaulin, and stretched over as a defense, he determined, though reluctantly, that the children should be intrusted for a time to some kind friends, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... scornful about weather signs, and summed up his doubts in such matters with sarcasm: "I reckon that the indications for rain are very similar to the indications for fine weather!" But the best epigram I ever heard from him was, "There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and folks most in general chooses the wrong un!" I should like to see those words ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... The Roof-Garden of the Settlement House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching panorama of New York, with its irregular sky-buildings on the left, and the harbour with its Statue of Liberty on the right. Everything is wet and gleaming after rain. Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right. Entrance from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy clouds through which thin, golden lines of sunset are just beginning to labour. DAVID is discovered on a bench, hugging his violin-case to his breast, gazing moodily at the sky. A muffled sound ...
— The Melting-Pot • Israel Zangwill
... fustian, and he had a cloth cap on his head. His face had a healthy hunger-nipt look. "Hollo," said my friend, "I thought you was working on the moor." "Ay," replied the young man, "Aw have bin, but we'n bin rain't off this afternoon." "Is there nobody in?" said my friend. "Naw, my wife's gone eawt; hoo'll not be mony minutes. Hoo's here neaw." A clean little pale woman came up, with a child in her arms, and we went in. They had not much furniture in the small kitchen, which was the only place we saw, but ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... when questions brought out the history of the dispossession of his people he grew very sorrowful. His round cheeks became rigid and his eyes were turned away. "Injun no like fight white man all time. Injun gotta fight. White man crowd Injun back, back, no game, no rain, no corn. Injun heap like rivers, trees, all same—white man no like 'um, go on hot plain, no ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... the gas developed by the combustion of 1,600,000 pounds of powder, and even if it did resist that pressure, it at least would not support such a temperature; it would melt as it issued from the Columbiad, and would fall in red-hot rain on the heads ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... drops of rain splashed against one window. The clouds were lower and denser. She had quite lost sight of that motionless figure, but it was all the more terrible to her now that it was unseen. She screamed with sheer terror, but her scream availed no more ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were faced, had shaken hands, and had finished with such topics as rain, prosperity, health, residence, and destination. Politics might have followed next; but I was ...
— Options • O. Henry
... an aspect indescribably desolate, and at the same time a formidable military obstacle to any invasion of Cape Colony on a large scale from the north. They are then mere wastes of sand and dead scrub, lifeless and waterless. The first fall of rain produces a transformation as rapid as any effected by nature. The vegetable life of the Karroos, which has only been suspended, not extinguished, is then released; the arid watercourses are filled in a few hours, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... and only infer, by symptoms, that it was not unsatisfactory. The sure fact, and the forever memorable, is, That on Wednesday, the third day of it, from 4 in the morning, when the Manoeuvres began, till well after 10, when they ended, there was a rain like Noah's; rain falling as from buckets and water-spouts; and that Friedrich (and perhaps most others too), so intent upon his business, paid not the least regard to it; but rode about, intensely inspecting, in lynx-eyed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... renown, conceived a haughty mind: "They would rather part with life itself," they said, "than with the relics of the Buddha"—so those messengers returned from the futile embassage. Then the seven kings, highly indignant, with an army numerous as the rain-clouds, advanced on Kusinagara; the people who went from the city filled with terror soon returned and told the Mallas all: that the soldiers and the cavalry of the neighboring countries were coming, with elephants and chariots, to surround the Kusinagara city. The gardens, lying ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... The altitude of 7000 feet is the usual limit of the rain-line on the west slope of the Andes. The condensation which produces rain takes place at the equator two or three times ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... and cry with which the learned world of Paris rang for months. Never was such a scandal, never such a rain of pamphlets and lampoons on one side and the other. One has only to glance at the contemporary portraits of Furetiere to see that he was not the man to yield a point; his wrinkled face looks the very mirror of sarcastic obstinacy and brilliant ill-nature. The Academy, in ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... settled down on the garrison when, undeterred by four unsuccessful and costly attacks, or by the terrors of unseen mines, the enemy again swarmed down on the weary but undismayed defenders. To add to their difficulties, a severe dust storm, followed by torrents of rain, fell on the camp, and at the height of the storm a most determined attack was made on the 45th Sikhs, but was repulsed with great loss. Sitting drenched to the skin the garrison patiently awaited ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... on to death serenely, day by day, Midst losses, gains, toil, and monotony, The ignorance of social apathy, And artifice which men to men display: Like one who tramps a long and lonely way Under the constant rain's inclemency, With vast clouds drifting in obscurity, And sudden lightnings in the welkin grey. To-morrow may be bright with healthy pleasure, Banishing discontents and vain defiance: The pearly clouds will pass to a slow measure, Wayfarers walk the dusty road ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... three dollars and thirty cents must be subtracted for rent—for shelter. This left six dollars and seventy cents for the other two necessaries, food and clothing—there must be no incidental expenses since there was no money to meet them. She could not afford to provide for carfare on stormy days; a rain coat, overshoes and umbrella, more expensive at the outset, were incomparably cheaper in the long run. Her washing and ironing she would of course do for herself in the evenings and on Sundays. Of the two items which the six dollars and seventy cents must cover, food came ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... comes, I fly to him. He gifs me back my store, he falls upon my neck and does not speak, then I know my little Kind will never come, for she has gone to Himmel before I could make a home for her on earth. Oh, my Ulla! it is hard to bear;" and, with a rain of bitter tears, poor Mr. Bopp covered up his face and laid it down on his empty plate, as if he never cared to ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... climate of North-Western Rhodesia in the dry season—which lasts from April or May to November, or even later—it is ideal. Never too hot to prevent travelling or doing business in the heat of the day, it is cold enough morning and evening to make fur coats by no means superfluous; rain is unknown, and of wind there is just enough to be pleasant, although now and then, especially towards sunset or before dawn, a very strong breeze springs up from a cloudless horizon, lasts about thirty minutes, making the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... acknowledgements from the Giver of every thing that contributes to render it agreeable? But does he not frequently offer up his thanksgivings for actions that overwhelm his neighbour with misery? Does not the husbandman on the hill, return thanks for the rain that irrigates his lands parched with drought, whilst the cultivator of the valley is imploring a cessation of those showers which deluge his fields—that render useless the labour of his hands? Thus each becomes thankful for that which his own limited views points out to him as his immediate ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... out of hand, and something of their panic began to spread among the party on the Plaza. Before Drake could do more than despatch his brother, with John Oxenham, to reassure the guard, and see how matters stood, the situation became yet more complicated. "A mighty shower of rain, with a terrible storm of thunder and lightning," burst furiously upon them, making such a roaring that none could hear his own voice. As in all such storms, the rain came down in a torrent, hiding the town from view in a blinding downpour. The men ran for the shelter of "a certain shade ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... comfort for the gentleman, especially as it was beginning to rain; but he didn't seem a bit cast ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... stays in the body of animals, while the clouds, the lungs of the sky, are never the same in form. They are sometimes very dense and separated from all others. Such are more furious in display. Then we see the softer clouds which cover all visible space above; they too give us rain but in a more quiet way and are more extended in space; they shade the sun, and form water by uniting oxygen and hydrogen, and supply vegetation and all demands for water. Now we see and know the uses for ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... A furious rain now came on almost horizontally, and the sailors arranged the tarpaulin so as to protect Mr. ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... has bargained with a Kaffir lady to wash one's suit for ninepence it comes back with all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp, anaemic look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone behind ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... refreshed by the sweet repose which innocence only knows, and although the day was ushered in with clouds, and an occasional rain-drop, she proceeded to put into execution the plans of yesterday; she had made no one a confidant of her designs, not even Winnie; and when that little lady met her in the hall, all armed and equipped as the weather directed, she exclaimed,—"where now? Miss ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... hammer has been lifted against this venerable ruin. You would think it was left for the special accommodation of rats! And when the glowing autumn sun, red as fire, showers golden rain upon the decaying walls and timbers; when, as daylight fades into evening, the angular projections stand out more boldly, and the shadows deepen; when all the tavern rings with songs, and shouts, and roars of laughter; when fat Sebaldus, in leathern apron, runs to and from the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... at a rapid trot down the road, which led to the pond. The sleigh went very easily, for the road was smooth. There had been rain and thaws lately, and cold weather after them, so that the surface of the road had melted, and then become frozen again; and this made it icy. They found the ice of the pond in the same state. The rain and the thaws had melted the snow, upon the top of the ice, and made it a sheet ...
— Jonas on a Farm in Winter • Jacob Abbott
... is dead," they say, While tears roll down their cheeks like rain, "Her eyes are closed, she's cold as clay," And then their tears ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her own authority. As she found her woman's attire too expensive, little suited for facing mud and rain, and in other respects inconvenient, she provided herself with a coat (redingote-guerite), trousers, and waistcoat of coarse grey cloth, a hat of the same colour, a large necktie, and boots with little iron heels. ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... that night about eight, and there sleep, so to go on to Lyons the next morning by train, and so, by the Bordeaux route, make Vauclaire. But by some chance for which I cannot to this hour account (unless the rain was the cause), I missed the chart-road, which should have been fairly level, and found myself on mountain tracks, unconscious of my whereabouts, while darkness fell, and a windless downpour that had a certain sullen venom in its superabundance drenched us. I stopped ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... this discriminating choice was that Guillaume Moget began to preach, and once when a great crowd had gathered in a garden to hear him hold forth, heavy rain came on, and it became necessary for the people either to disperse or to seek shelter under a roof. As the preacher had just reached the most interesting part of his sermon, the congregation did not hesitate an instant ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tum'les, For men in sic-like situations, Gude kens hae gey sma' stock o' patience! Yet fast the pain grows diabolic, A reg'lar, riving, ragin' colic, A loupin', gowpin', stoondin' pain That gars the sweat hail doon like rain. Whiles Tam gangs dancin' owre the flair, Whiles cheeky-on intil a chair, Whiles some sma' comfort he achieves By brizzin' hard wi' baith his nieves; In a' his toilsome tack o' life Ne'er had he kent sic ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... discussed last night, and Henry got abused among us; but papa defended him, and said it did not rain rifles. That's all—whatever Hector may have done was without a word to either of us—very likely on the moment's impulse. Did he ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Rasselas, who imagined that he regulated the weather and distributed the seasons, could never enjoy a moment's repose, lest he should not make "to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine."—Those who are entrusted with the government of nations must, if they have an acute sense of justice, experience something like the anxiety felt by this unfortunate ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... was in the garden! There had been a little rain in the night, but Valentia supposed it to be dew. Every little sound seemed the softest music, to the sound of which little dainty things seemed to be dancing in the air. The Green Gate, a red Georgian ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... I heard the notes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher has pursued his game within a few feet of my window, darting with a low, complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment between the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsal under a large leaf in the grape-arbor; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... seven times during a period of two weeks without seeing me, when one day I happened to be at home in the afternoon, owing to a pouring rain and a fit of doubt concerning Miss Abercrombie. For I had constructed a careful theory of that young lady's characteristics in my own mind, and she had lived up to it delightfully until the previous evening, when with one word she had blown it to atoms and ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... pensiveness of which defies description. The composer seems to be absorbed in the narrow sphere of his ego, from which the wide, noisy world is for the time being shut out. In No. 6 we have, no doubt, the one of which George Sand said that it occurred to Chopin one evening while rain was falling, and that it "precipitates the soul into a frightful depression." [FOOTNOTE: See George Sand's account and description in Chapter XXI., p. 43.] How wonderfully the contending rhythms of the accompaniment, and the fitful, jerky course of the melody, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... her forehead and which partially veiled her face. The lady from Virginia City, traveling with her husband, had long since lost all individuality in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils, furs, and shawls. There was no sound but the rattling of wheels and the dash of rain upon the roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became dimly aware of voices. The driver was evidently in the midst of an exciting colloquy with someone in the road—a colloquy of which such fragments as "bridge gone," "twenty feet ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... disadvantages, which now operate in their fullest extent, were formerly corrected by the labors of a numerous people, and the active protection of a wise government. The hills were clothed with rich beds of artificial mould, the rain was collected in vast cisterns, a supply of fresh water was conveyed by pipes and aqueducts to the dry lands. The breed of cattle was encouraged in those parts which were not adapted for tillage, and almost every spot was ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... falling steadily. The sparrows huddled under the eaves, or hopped disconsolately along the windowsills, uttering short, ill-tempered chirps. The wind was rising, blowing in quick, sharp gusts and sweeping the forest of rain spears, rank upon rank, in mad dashes ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... forced to move, with extreme difficulty, for the stalks of the corn were sometimes not above a foot distance, so that I could hardly squeeze my body betwixt them. However, I made a shift to go forward till I came to a part of the field where the corn had been laid by the rain and wind. Here it was impossible for me to advance a step; for the stalks were so interwoven that I could not creep through, and the beards of the fallen ears so strong and pointed that they pierced through my clothes into my flesh. At the same time I heard the reapers not above a hundred ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... calm, had changed and waxed tempestuous like the warrior's soul; and Boreas, his locks bristling with Thracian frosts, his cheeks puffed out, his arms folded upon his breast, smote the rain-freighted clouds with the ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... to administer the Lord's supper, before which he assured the people of a great communion, by a gracious and remarkable down-pouring of the Spirit, but that the devil would be envious about this good work, and that he was afraid he would be permitted to raise a storm or speat of rain, designing to drown some of them: but, said he, it shall not be in his power to drown any of you, no, not so much as a dog. Accordingly it came to pass on Monday, when he was dismissing the people, they saw a man all in black entering the water a little above them, at which they were amazed, as ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... in the winter. It was in the winter following, again by chance on a holiday, but Christmas this time, that I quit. They don't have much cold down in that country and usually but little snow; but this year there had been a lot,—soft, wet snow, half rain, that melted on the ground and made the roads almost impassable. For that reason we'd been getting behind in our contract. We simply could not make two trips a day; and Murphy, the boss, grew black and blacker. He swore that ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... be still; the stray leaf is to be flattened into its place like a truant curl; the limbs sway and twist, impatient of their constrained attitude; and the rounded masses of foliage swell upward and subside from time to time with long soft sighs, and, it may be, the falling of a few rain-drops which had lain hidden among the deeper shadows. I pray you, notice, in the sweet summer days which will soon see you among the mountains, this inward tranquillity that belongs to the heart of the woodland, with this nervousness, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... swarm of active Kaffir workmen, cleaving the 'hard blue' with pickaxes, piling it up on barrows, and carrying it off to the wide fields, where it is left exposed to the sun, and, during three months, to the rain. Having been thus subjected to a natural decomposition, it is the more readily brought by the pickaxe into smaller fragments before being sent to the mills, where it is crushed, pulverised, and finally washed to get at the stones. Nowhere in the world does the hidden wealth of the soil ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... a much-needed rain; now the coming night threatened one of those angry tempests of the autumn. It was already dark and the street was deserted as if every one had hurried to find cover. The lighted windows suggested warmth and protection; but outside the dust and flying, rustling leaves, the dancing shadows ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... of the unfinished wall, as it would be seen from above with all the joints, perhaps uncemented, or imperfectly filled up with cement, open to the sky; and small broken materials filling gaps between large ones, and leaving cavities ready for the rain to soak into, and loosen and dissolve the cement, and split, as it froze, the whole to pieces. I am much mistaken if his first impulse would not be to take a great flat stone and lay it on the top; or rather a series of such, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... our newly-acquired freedom, and praised everything from the warm sunlight that lay in a square on the matting of every room to the rain that splashed against the windows and trailed across the waving fields. It is true we had a servant now—Rosa, of whom I shall speak later—but even the responsibility (and it was that) of this acquirement did ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... gravity, "it's like the night and the morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the harvest—one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do arter all—the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n—they do, that they do; and I think you're in the right on it to keep ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... constructed for him a pelican of white glass (see Fig. XI., p. 88), with a stopper of glass. He cleaned, dried, and weighed this vessel; then he put into it rain-water which he had distilled eight times; he heated the vessel, removing the stopper from time to time to allow the expanding air to escape, then put in the stopper, allowed the vessel to cool, and weighed very carefully. The difference between the second and the first weighing was the weight ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... farm, and passed much of his later life in the country, and being thoroughly conversant with the writers on rural economy, he was admirably qualified to conduct such a journal. It was extensively circulated throughout New England, and may be said to have fertilized the soil like rain from heaven. Numerous papers on the same plan sprung up in various parts of the country; but none attained the standard of their prototype. Besides his editorial labors, Mr. Fessenden published, from time to time, various ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... awkward with the splitters' tools, nor did he know how to harness a horse. All this, he explained to me, was a penalty adherent to people who, by reason of their social-economic position, are emancipated from manual labour. But when a heavy, soaking pour of summer rain brought the ground into fencing condition, I noticed that he could handle the spade with a strength and dexterity rarely equalled within ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... fairly brought to the trial. Good harvests have prevented bad laws from producing their full effect. The Government has had a run of luck; and vulgar observers have mistaken luck for wisdom. But such runs of luck do not last forever. Providence will not always send the rain and the sunshine just at such a time and in such a quantity as to save the reputation of shortsighted statesmen. There is too much reason to believe that evil days are approaching. On such a subject ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... probably from the swell of some steamer that had passed it in the dark; otherwise the waves were harmless though restless. But it was piercingly cold, and there was, from time to time, a splutter of rain like the splutter of the spray, which seemed almost to freeze as it fell. MacIan, more at home than his companion in this quite barbarous and elemental sort of adventure, had rowed toilsomely with the heavy oars whenever he saw anything that looked like land; but for the most part had ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... for all of us. There was a sense of disaster in the air. Something irretrievable had fallen from our circle. But no one dared to name it. Night closed in upon the house with a changing sky. All the stars were hidden. The wind whimpered and then shouted. The rain swept down in spiteful volleys, deepening at last into a fierce, steady discharge. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock passed, and Keene did not return. By midnight we were certain that some accident had ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... conversation in which you and Lucilia both so much delight, and which indeed, in the present instance, are not unimportant in their bearing upon my future lot. But this I shall leave to your own conjectures. A tempest of rain makes me a necessary prisoner to the house, but the pleasant duty of writing to you spreads sunshine on all within my room. I trust in the gods ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... securely, and by the time it was accomplished, the storm, with all its fury burst upon them, while they were straining every nerve to fasten the tarpaulin covers on the wagons to protect the contents from the storm, should the rain penetrate the tent. The cover on Mrs. Duncan's wagon they had succeeded in fastening, and were proceeding to the next, when a terrible crash was heard near ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... Inspector was driven westward through the early morning traffic. Fine rain was falling, and the streets presented that curiously drab appearance which only London streets can present in all its dreary perfection. Workers bound Cityward fought for places inside trams and buses. ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... Indians; 'Doth not the cry of the poor succourless ascend unto the heavens? Hath God forgotten to be gracious to the work of his own hands. Or shall not his judgments in a day of visitation by the ministry of his chosen servant come upon these bloodthirsty butchers, like rain into a fleece of wool?' Poor Keymis! To us he is by no means the least beautiful figure in this romance; a faithful, diligent, loving man, unable, as the event proved, to do great deeds by himself, but inspired with a great idea by contact ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... at the close of summer, he has to drive his swine to market. From Debreczin, nay even from the Serbian frontier, he has to make a journey on foot more toilsome than was ever undertaken by the most adventurous traveler, pacing slowly over the interminable heaths in rain, storm, or under a burning sun, behind his pigs, which drive into his face hot clouds of dust. Every now and then a hog has stuffed itself so full as to be unable to stir from the spot; and there it lies on the road without moving, whilst the whole caravan is obliged to wait for ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... - Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire, They stepping steadily—only too readily! - Scarce as if stepping ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... believed to die from natural causes alone; if they are not killed in war they are commonly supposed to perish by witchcraft or sorcery, even when the cause of death might seem to the uninstructed European to be sufficiently obvious in such things as exposure to heavy rain, the carrying of too heavy a burden, or remaining too long a time under water. So when a man has died, his friends are anxious to discover who has bewitched him to death. In this enquiry the ghost is expected to lend his assistance. Thus on the night after the decease the friends will assemble outside ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... impressions made on his susceptible imagination by the phenomena of Nature: the subtly blended hues of a sunset, the changing rhythm of drifting clouds, the indefinite murmur of the sea, the dripping of rain. For Debussy, like Beethoven before him, is a passionate lover of Nature. To quote his own words, he finds his great object lessons of artistic liberty in "the unfolding of the leaves in Spring, in the wavering winds and changing clouds." Again, "It benefits me more to watch a sunrise ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... and occasionally more, and grass and clover at the rate of 1 or 2 tons per acre. The productiveness of the soil depends greatly on the sand content of the subsoil. If the quantity be large, the soil is porous and requires considerable rain to produce good yields. If the clay content predominates, a moderate amount of rain suffices and good yields are obtained. Apples, pears, and small fruits do ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... They made everything into a meadow and had more horses, cattle, and sheep than a county fair, and everything you ever knew with feathers, even peacocks. We could hear them scream whenever it was going to rain. Father said they sounded heathenish. I rather liked them. The man had stacks of money or they couldn't have lived the way they did. He came to our house twice on business: once to see about road laws, and again about tax rates. Father was mightily pleased at first, because Mr. Pryor ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... wandered over fields and meadows the whole day till evening. At last they found themselves in a large forest; it began to rain, and the little sister said, "See, brother, heaven and our hearts weep together." At last, tired out with hunger and sorrow, and the long journey, they crept into a hollow tree, laid themselves ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... finished the picnic supper he thrust his head out of the window and reported, "It's turned awful chilly, and I think it's going to rain. You don't want ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... come from a distance, were not due till one o'clock, and, as may be imagined, the interval was peculiarly trying to some of the inhabitants of Fellsgarth. The farce of morning school was an ordeal alike to masters and boys. If gazing up at the clouds could bring down the rain, a deluge should have fallen before 10 a.m. As the hour approached the impatience rose to fever heat. It was the first match of the season. For the last three years the two teams had met in deadly combat, and each time the match had ended in a draw, with not one goal kicked on ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... plenty of blaze, too," added Tom. "See the flames eating away! This stuff is as dry as tinder for there hasn't been any rain for months." ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... when incessant rain kept her indoors, she amused herself with a new freak. Making friends everywhere, as became The Queen of Hearts, she even ingratiated herself with the sour old housekeeper, who had predicted so obstinately that she ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the letter and from it at the cheque. The day before, on returning from the shower of millions that had caught and drenched her in Broad Street, she was not entirely dry. The glisten of the golden rain hung all about her. None the less on reaching the walk-up she forgot it. There were other matters, more important, that she had in mind. But only a philosopher could be drenched as she had been and remain unaffected. The bath is too voluptuous for the normal heart. On its waters float argosies crimson-hulled, ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... might in an hour's space, gather a pound or two of it, which resembling the finest silk, might doubtless be converted to some profitable use, by an ingenious house-wife, if gather'd in calm evenings, before the wind, rain and dew impair them; I am of opinion, if it were dry'd with care, it might be fit for cushions, and pillows of chastity, for such of old was the reputation of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... had located on the banks of the river. The only permanent sign of this ebb and flow was the tin-roofed shanty near the tracks of the Oregon Railway, and the proud name of Swallowtown, fast disappearing under the ravages of storm and rain, on the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... sence greens an' sparrer-grass wuz planted in de groun'. Dey look fine an' dey tas'e fine, an' long to'rds de shank er de mornin', Brer Rabbit 'ud creep thoo de crack er de fence an' nibble at um. He'd take de greens, but leave his tracks, mo' speshually right atter a rain. Takin' an' leavin'—it's de ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... beneath the awnings at the Taverne du Pantheon. The rain of confetti was getting to be a deluge. He asked them ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this miracle shines as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain." ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... said Mr. Leopold. "The rain has done us a lot of good; he was beginning to go a bit short a week ago. We shall want some more rain. I should like to see it come down for ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... speaking in Spanish. "Truly this Senor Americano is a lazy senor, that he rises so late, and keeps us waiting for his coming so long. But patience, Wise One. The Padre says that he is a good gentleman, in whose service we shall be treated as though we were kings. No doubt I now can buy my rain-coat. And thou, Wise One—thou ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... there three days, for there was good company, and a two-day rain had set in between midnight and dawn on the following morning. There was no hurry, and she was going nowhere. She had the whole family over to supper the second night, and she ate two ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... cheer then; let the compact stand thus: "Kisses for the beautiful, and for the good a rain of kisses." So now teach us ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts children to say "smart" things, and do absurd ones, and in other ways "show off" when company is present. It is what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them into perfect ecstasies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which he had learned nothing. He was on his way to his own house whither a matter relating to his military service called him, when he was overtaken in the rue Coquilliere by one of those heavy showers which instantly flood the gutters, while each drop of rain rings loudly in the puddles of the roadway. A pedestrian under these circumstances is forced to stop short and take refuge in a shop or cafe if he is rich enough to pay for the forced hospitality, or, if in poorer circumstances, under a porte-cochere, that haven of paupers or shabbily ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... Missouri Suffrage Association contributed nearly $2,000. She attended State suffrage and political conventions and the biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York. "And then came Chicago," the report said, "with its exciting surge, its march in the rain and its near-victory plank, followed by St. Louis with its 'golden lane' of suffragists and a plank a little less pleasing; another trip to Indianapolis with our Chief—and the most momentous June in suffrage history ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... days afterward we had the heaviest rainfall known in this section for half a century. The creeks rose to an almost unprecedented height. The sluggish pond became a seething, turbulent watercourse; gradually the angry element crept up the sides of these lake dwellings, till, when the rain ceased, about four o'clock, they showed above the flood no larger than a man's hat. During the night the channel shifted till the main current swept over them, and next day not a vestige of the nests was to be seen; ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... greatest drawbacks to the pleasure of travelling in Scotland, especially among the Highlands, is the rain. It usually rains more in mountainous countries than in those that are level, for the mountains, rising into the higher and colder regions of the atmosphere, chill and condense the vapors that are floating there, ...
— Rollo in Scotland • Jacob Abbott
... wonderful to see. But what will happen when all these are finished? When the last pane of glass in the stores has been broken, and the last fragments of carving in the Obreria used up? We shall have to put cheap white panes in the windows to prevent the rain and wind coming in. The Cathedral will look like an inn—may God forgive me the comparison—and the priests of the Primacy will praise God dressed like the chaplain of ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... that wanted to invest in a going concern, and before the week was over I'd buncoed one of 'em out of nine thousand in cash. Most of it's in a certified check, sewed inside of Phemey, and that's why we walked all the way up here in the rain. Do you suppose you could take me to some bank to-morrow where I could leave that and get a handful of green bills on account? ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... sweetly thyself dispose On this afflicted prince; fall like a cloud In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud Or painful to his slumbers,—easy, sweet And as a purling stream, thou son of Night, Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain, Into this prince gently, oh gently, slide And kiss him into slumbers like ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various |
