"Whirlwind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spun a whirlwind by Where Jenny's clothes wer out to dry; An' off vled frocks, a'most a-catch'd By smock-frocks wi' their sleeves outstratch'd, An' caps a-frill'd an' eaeperns patch'd; An' she a-steaeren in a fright, Wer glad enough to zee em light Where we did keep ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... poignant scene would have lasted, one cannot say. It is a pity that it was cut short, for I should have liked to dwell upon it. But at this moment, from the regions downstairs, there suddenly burst upon the silent night such a whirlwind of sound as effectually dissipated the tense emotion in the room. Somebody appeared to have touched off the orchestrion in the drawing-room, and that willing instrument had begun again in the middle of a bar at the point where Jane Hubbard had switched ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a whirlwind: when it passed, what would be left? The fight went on in the quiet hills—a man of no great stature or strength, against a monster who racked him in a fierce embrace. A thousand scenes flashed through Valmond's brain, before ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... she lived in a dazed nonchalance. Could it be true that she had resided with Mrs. Maldon only for a month? Could it be true that her courtship had lasted only two days—or at most, three? Never, she thought, had a sensible, quiet girl ridden such a whirlwind before in the entire history of the world. Could Louis be as foolishly fond of her as he seemed? Was she truly to be married? "I shan't have a single wedding-present," she had said. Then wedding-presents began to come. "Are we married?" she had said, when they were married and ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... just then paying court to one of the celebrated Phrynes or Laises of the day—classical names were still in vogue at that time. The peace of Tilset was only just concluded,[A] and every one was hastening to enjoy himself, every one was being swept round by a giddy whirlwind. The black eyes of a bold beauty had helped to turn his head also. He had very little money, but he played cards luckily, made friends, joined in all possible diversions—in a word, he sailed ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... torn and tossed like spray Before the whirlwind of the fray, That waged in fury till the sun Sank, and the day's last loops were spun— Then terrible was Goll ... He rose A tempest of increasing blows, More furious and fast, as dim, Uncertain twilight fell ... More grim And great he grew as, looming large, He fought, and pressing ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... when the Guard comes clambering round to mark the tickets while we are at full speed (a really horrible performance in an express train, though he holds on to the open window by his elbows in the most deliberate manner), he stands in such a whirlwind that I grip him fast by the collar, and feel it next to manslaughter to let him go. Still, when he is gone, the small, small bird remains at his front wires feebly twittering to me—twittering and twittering, until, leaning back ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... extravagant, ever went ungratified, and right up to the hour of her death old Henry never said no to her—partly out of a spirit of amusement, I dare say, and partly because she was the only unbridled extravagance he had ever yielded to in all his life. Well, having sowed the wind, he reaped the whirlwind in Alicia. She combined the distinguishing traits of both parents, and she grew up more ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... almost no exception to this rule, though sometimes the ornamentation is of a brownish color with a metallic luster. Along the Rio Grande and the Gila some changes are noticed. The ornamentation is not strictly confined to two colors. Symbolical representations of clouds, whirlwind, and lightning are noticed. The red ware has disappeared, and a ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... Manuel like a whirlwind, and Manuel had no choice in the matter. So they fought, and presently Manuel brought the vermilion knight to the ground, and, dismounting, killed him. It was noticeable that from the death-wound came no blood, but only a flowing of very fine black sand, out of ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... itself in belching torrents of flame upward and downward, and began to absorb in its devouring heat the very sea. Then came a sound of many thunders, mingled with the roar of rising waters and the turbulence of a great whirlwind,—and out of the whirlwind came a Voice saying—"Now is the end of all things on the earth,—and the whole world shall be burnt up as a dead leaf in a sudden flame! And we will create from out its ashes new heavens and a new earth, and we will call forth ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... are you doing?" If you had asked what are we not doing I would have told you, but what we are doing covers acres of ground. We are in a whirlwind of duties and pleasures, dinners, soirees, and balls. It would bore you to death to hear about them. Many of my old friends are still in Paris; those you knew are Countess Pourtales (just become ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... from Faenza, and is off like a whirlwind to sweep unexpectedly into the Bolognese territory, and, by striking swiftly, to terrify Bentivogli into submission in ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... two minds, Neptune sent a terrible great wave that seemed to rear itself above his head till it broke right over the raft, which then went to pieces as though it were a heap of dry chaff tossed about by a whirlwind. Ulysses got astride of one plank and rode upon it as if he were on horseback; he then took off the clothes Calypso had given him, bound Ino's veil under his arms, and plunged into the sea—meaning to swim on shore. King ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... braggart trumps that dinned Their futile triumphs, monarch, pawn, Wild tribesmen, kingdoms disciplined, Passed like a whirlwind and were gone; ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... men, that we shall prosper in our wickedness, does God leave us alone to listen to those evil voices without warning? No! He sends His prophets to us, as He sent Micaiah to Ahab, to tell us that the wages of sin is death—to tell us that those who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind—to set before us at every turn good or evil, that we may choose between them, and live or die according to our choice. For do not fancy that there are no prophets in our days, unless the gift of the Holy Spirit, which is promised to all who believe, be a dream and a lie. There are prophets ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to portray the god of love, it offers another instance of his independence of classical tradition. No Greek would have thus represented Eros. The lyric poets, indeed, Ibycus and Anacreon, imaged him as a fierce invasive deity, descending like the whirlwind on an oak, or striking at his victim with an axe. But these romantic ideas did not find expression, so far as I am aware, in antique plastic art. Michelangelo's Cupid is therefore as original as his Bacchus. Much as critics have written, and with justice, upon the classical tendencies ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... this freedom, ye observers of human nature! Erected upon the sandy, crumbling foundation of our present public school culture, its building slants to one side, trembling before the whirlwind's blast. Look at the free student, the herald of self-culture: guess what his instincts are; explain him from his needs! How does his culture appear to you when you measure it by three graduated scales: first, by his need for philosophy; second, by his instinct ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... then, emprizing band; May He, who in the hollow of his hand The ocean holds, and rules the whirlwind's sweep, Assuage its wrath, and guide you ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... of four votes to Lincoln. Then a teller shouted a name toward the skylight, and the boom of a cannon from the roof announced the nomination and started the cheering down the long Chicago streets; while inside delegation after delegation changed its votes to the victor in a whirlwind of hurrahs. That same afternoon the convention finished its labors by nominating Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for Vice-President, and adjourned—the delegates, speeding homeward on the night trains, realizing by the bonfires and cheering crowds ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... crushed for awhile. The consciousness of strength not his own, of the still small voice that could subdue the fire, the earthquake, and the whirlwind, was slow in coming to him; and when it came, he, like his grandfather, had hope rather of final repentance than ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... what would happen when the time of the end should begin. The "time of the end" means a specific period at the end of gentile dominion. "And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him; and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter also into the glorious land, and many ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... temper, and exercising his sternest self-control in the untiring effort to suppress them and put them to death. "It requires," John Adams truly said, "more serenity of temper, a deeper understanding, and more courage than fell to the lot of Marlborough, to ride in this whirlwind." Fortunately these qualities were all there, and with them an honesty of purpose and an unbending directness of character to which Anne's great general ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of detecting and measuring a rotatory movement of the whole spot round the black nucleus at the rate of 100 degrees in six days. "It appeared," he said, "as if some prodigious ascending force of a whirlwind character, in bursting through the cloudy stratum and the two higher and luminous strata, had given to the whole a movement resembling its own."[406] An interpretation founded, as is easily seen, on the Herschelian theory, ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... can control the elements, and regulate a spring freshet, a whirlwind or a cyclone, they will find that red tape is not strong enough to hold their ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... them, the node taking the place of the paper. Note, however, the difference. The string is single, and there is no attrition. If there were two strings, the bit of paper might be caught and twisted in the miniature whirlwind of opposing vibrations. But the vocal cords are wedded in phonation, and by their attrition the node is formed. Very often strands of tough mucus appear spanning the chink or slit between the cords when they are drawn up in tone-production. The presence ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... Eastern churches. It is also a fact that, in the midst of this abounding heresy, the church of Philadelphia was preserved as was no other church of Asia. When the followers of Mohammed were sweeping like a whirlwind over the Eastern empire, ravaging everything before them, Philadelphia remained an independent Christian city, when all the other cities of Asia Minor were under the power of the Saracen sword. It held out against the Ottoman power until the year 1390 A.D., when it surrendered ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... a fiercer tempest, Known a louder whirlwind blow; I was wrecked off red Algiers, Six-and-thirty years ago. Young I was, and yet old seamen Were not strong or calm as I; While life held such treasures for me, I felt sure I ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... we are come to the infinitely difficult task of relating in a whirlwind manner the story of a whirlwind campaign—a campaign that was to make the oldest resident sit up and take notice. In the space of four short weeks a miracle had begun to show itself. First, there was the Kingston meeting, with the candidate, his thumb in his watch-pocket, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... them both a gentleman was standing in the shade, watching the whole affair, and just as Charlie was rushing upon Bob like a little whirlwind, he stood out in front of them in the lamplight. Bob dropped the dish in his fright, and stood with his hands hanging down and his mouth open, staring in dismay ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... sea-fog this evening unfavourable to the usual promenades, and we elders, including the tutor, were sitting with my mother, when, in her whirlwind fashion, in burst Jane, dragging her little sister Chattie with her, and breathlessly exclaiming, "Father, father, come and help! They are gambling, and I can't ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... princess, Burggraf Friedrich's daughter, she said nothing that we hear; silently became a Nun, an Abbess: and through a long life looked out, with her thoughts to herself, upon the loud whirlwind of things, where Sigismund (oftenest an imponderous rag of conspicuous color) was riding and tossing. Her two brothers also, joint Burggraves after their father's death, seemed to have reconciled themselves without difficulty. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... a new thought came to him. Swiftly as a whirlwind forms and sweeps across the land, it took on form and motion and swept through the channels of his mind. He sprang to his feet, dashed the tears from his face, and looked down on his ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... blood, and feeling that in this way he would be entirely freed from the page of life which did not now trouble him much. He was still Crompton of Crompton, with his head as high as ever. The Civil War had swept over the land like a whirlwind. Tom Hardy had been among the first to enlist in the Southern army, and been killed in a battle. The Colonel had heard of his death with a pang, and also with a certain feeling of relief, knowing that he was about the only one who possessed a knowledge of his folly, or his whereabouts. There ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Mary" replied within a few moments of each other, and the second of the two shots exploded right on the top of "Tom's" earthworks, but he fired again within a few minutes, aiming at the new balloon, the old one having been torn to pieces in a whirlwind nearly a week ago. When the balloon soared out of reach, he turned a few shots upon the town and camps, ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... to the freedman a literal Coming of the Lord. His fervid imagination was stirred as never before, by the tramp of armies, the blood and dust of battle, and the wail and whirl of social upheaval. He stood dumb and motionless before the whirlwind: what had he to do with it? Was it not the Lord's doing, and marvellous in his eyes? Joyed and bewildered with what came, he stood awaiting new wonders till the inevitable Age of Reaction swept over the nation and ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... laughed again, and to the ruffian Andrew it seemed as though suddenly he had fallen into the power of a whirlwind. At least Margaret was wrenched away from him, while he spun round and round to ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... Alan, every other feeling lost in the whirlwind of passion, and springing on the earl, with his drawn sword. "'Tis thou who art the false and faithless—thou who art lost to every feeling of honor and of truth. Thy words are false as hell, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... where, the leaf-shedding season being now at its height, red and golden patches of fallen foliage lay on either side of the rails; and as the travellers passed, all these death-stricken bodies boiled up in the whirlwind created by the velocity, and were sent flying right and left of them in myriads, a ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... habits retained by the people. Indian names of towns. Security of travellers in Nicaragua. Native flour-mill. Uncomfortable lodgings. Tierrabona. Dust whirlwind. Initial form of a cyclone. ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... battle-song To the heroes of our land; Strike the bold notes loud and long To Great Britain's warlike band. Burst away like a whirlwind of flame, Wild as the lightning's wing; Strike the boldest, sweetest string, And deathless glory sing— ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... feeling his feet entangled, wrenched at their fastenings, rolling himself over on his side and off the body of the prostrate boy. Perry, well-nigh smothered, had barely strength enough to crawl out of reach of the whirlwind fight which ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... befallen him, is enough; he needs no more to reconcile seeming contradictions, and the worst ills of outer life become endurable. Even if Job could not at first follow his argument of divine probability, God settled everything for him when, by answering him out of the whirlwind, he showed him that he had not forsaken him. It is true that nothing but a far closer divine presence can ever make life a thing fit for a son of man—and that for the simplest of all reasons, that he is made in the image ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... illustrious which are preserved for pious pilgrims, but whether to go this way or that I had no notion, nor was there anyone to ask. I therefore turned to the left and, just after being half-blinded by a dusty whirlwind, stopped an errand-boy and was told by him I had done right, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... always in my heart and in my thoughts. I told mamma that if the storm continued I would dine at the pension. You can imagine with what joy I listened to the wind all day, and watched the rain and leaves falling, arid the dead branches waving in the whirlwind. Thank God, the weather was bad enough for mamma to believe me safe at the pension; and here I am. But we must not fast. I shall go and buy something to eat, and we will play at making dinner by the fire, which will be far more amusing ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the illustrious chieftain the famous name of "Stonewall" did not live long enough to see the name applied, for in a short time he fell, pierced through with a shot, which proved fatal. Hampton, with his Legion, came like a whirlwind upon the field, and formed on the right, other batteries were brought into play, still the enemy pressed forward. Stone Bridge being uncovered, Tyler crossed his troops over, and joined those of Hunter and Heintzelman coming from Sudley's Ford. This united the three divisions ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... soft the east wind blows, And then there comes the whirlwind wild. When anxious fears pressed round you close, Your bosom held me as a child. Now happy, and in peaceful state, You throw me ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... de Stael, that she was an exacting and disagreeable woman, is unjust. Schiller, who shrank from her impetuous eloquence, and Heine, whose reckless satire depicts her as going through Europe, a whirlwind in petticoats, both do her wrong. William von Humboldt, who knew her well, pronounces a glowing eulogy on her exalted traits, and says that Goethe, from prejudice and ignorance, was very unjust to her. Madame Mole says, "Women ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... youth's frenzy—but the cure Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... the morn, and soft the zephyr blows While proudly riding o'er the azure realm In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm; Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That hush'd in grim repose, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... apparition of Nyssia had dazzled his eyes like the keen zigzag of a lightning flash. He beheld her floating before him in a luminous whirlwind, and felt that never through all his life could he banish that image from his vision. His love had grown to vastness; its flower had suddenly burst, like those plants which open their blossoms with a clap of thunder. To master ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... hurricane, ouragan, orkan, was adopted into European marine languages as the native name of the terrible tornado of the Caribbean Sea.[51-2] Mixcohuatl, the Cloud Serpent, chief divinity of several tribes in ancient Mexico, is to this day the correct term in their language for the tropical whirlwind, and the natives of Panama worshipped the same phenomenon under the name Tuyra.[52-1] To kiss the air was in Peru the commonest and simplest sign of ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function,—fathers torn from children, husbands from wives,—enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities: but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... popular adulation, he has been sunk into obscurity ever since by historic contempt. Both were mistaken. He was the man made for the time—precisely the middle term between the reign of the nobility and the reign of the populace. Certainly not the man to "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm;" but as certainly altogether superior to the indolent luxury of the class among whom he was born. Glory and liberty, the two highest impulses of our common nature, sent him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... by no means all of reproof nor was her reproof ever harsher than the more or less pointed selections from the moral verses could inflict. Under the watchful care of Martha she flourished and was happy, her mother in little, a laughing whirlwind of tender flesh, tireless feet, dancing eyes, hair of sunlight that was darkening as she grew older, and a mind that seemed to him she called father a miracle of unfoldment. It was a mind not so quickly receptive as he could have wished to the learning he tried ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the better for it,—and come to aid me in my garden, and I will teach thee the real French fashion of imping, which the Southron call graffing. Do this, and do it without loss of time, for there is a whirlwind coming over the land, and only those shall escape who lie too much beneath the storm to have ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... clash of material interests is so noisy. They will need the spirit of religion more than ever to guide them, but will find less time than before for its doctrine. This change was to me, who am tired of the war of words on these subjects, and believe it only sows the wind to reap the whirlwind, refreshing, but I argue nothing from it; there is nothing real in the freedom of thought at the West, it is from the position of men's lives, not the state of their minds. So soon as they have time, unless they grow better ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... assault with the violence of despair, and his impetuous onrush enabled him to get into some small elements of our front line; but counter-attacks immediately organised drove him out. Over the greater portion of the front the advance was stopped dead, but in some places the enemy tried a whirlwind rush and used bomb against bomb. He ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... conscious of rectitude a man may be, it is exceedingly disagreeable for him to see the dead-walls and pavements covered with posters proclaiming that he is a liar and a fool. If he recoils, the enemy laughs in triumph; if he is indifferent, there is a fresh whirlwind. ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... the window where Marcia left her. She is very glad to be alone, and thankful that Cecil is at the Latimers' for the day, although she is due there for a kind of nursery tea-party. A whirlwind seems to have swept over her, to have lifted her up bodily and carried her out of the sphere she was in two hours ago, and in this new country all is strange; on this desolate shore where she is stranded the sea moans in dull lament, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... with the music, and there is never any slackening of the pace. On the contrary, the evolutions seem to increase till very early in the morning, and it sometimes happens that one of the dancers shoots off rapidly from the gyrating group, and speeds away like a spent top, and, whirlwind-like, disappears through paddy-fields and ditches till he falls entirely exhausted. Of course it is the devil who has taken possession of him. One can well imagine in what state the dancers are at the first crow of the cock, and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... found him soon after. Thus did he speak to me—even in these words: 'The blood of women and children shed here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' These were his last words to me then. As his life ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought hither to one"—he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Vice-Admiral Keyes; Phoebe, North Star, Brigadier, Trident, Mansfield, Whirlwind, Myngs, Velox, Morris, Moorsom, ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... me the way." And He showed me the way. He brought me to this house, and He raised up the believing multitude around me. But in that hour I failed Him, I failed Him. He has smitten me, as His enemies are smitten.—As a whirlwind He has scattered me and taken ...
— The Faith Healer - A Play in Three Acts • William Vaughn Moody
... their places the Hare arrived. "Are you ready to start?" asked the Hare. "Yes," answered the Hedgehog, and each took his place. "Off once, off twice, three times and off!" cried the Hare, and ran up the field like a whirlwind; while the Hedgehog took three steps and then ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... full instructions; so I just came over this morning, and made free with your linen cupboard, an' your bazaar account. For I know how it feels to come back to a dead house at this time of year.—Lord, there's that Theo man off again; incarnate whirlwind that he is! He'll get Major Wyndham over here to-morrow, sure as fate; though the good man refused my pressing invitation a week ago. And 'tis the first time one o' me own brother officers has denied ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... my arm, sir!" cried he, and suddenly I felt a whirlwind of rage answering the rage in his eyes. The pent-up exasperation of three weeks rushed to its violent release. He struck me in the face with the hand that was gripped about his umbrella. He meant to strike me in the face and then escape into his club, but before he could get away from me after ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... sublime significance. This drama does, it is true, embrace a considerable period of time: but does its rapid progress leave us leisure to calculate this? We see, as it were, the Fates weaving their dark web on the whistling loom of time; and we are drawn irresistibly on by the storm and whirlwind of events, which hurries on the hero to the first atrocious deed, and from it to innumerable crimes to secure its fruits with fluctuating fortunes and perils, to his final fall on the field of battle. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... mountains; grey mist rests on the hills. The whirlwind is heard on the heath. Dark rolls the river through the narrow plain. The leaves twirl round with the wind, and strew the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... Muncaster went to woo, And he rode with the whirlwind's speed, For the lady was coy, and the lover was proud, And he hotly ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... German Emperor's chief joys is to break things. To bewilder people by the suddenness of his resolutions, to court all risks, to proclaim his power, to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind: these are the pleasures of the German Emperor, King of Prussia. There is no need for me to repeat the strange Neronian stories that are whispered in Germany concerning certain incidents of William's sea-voyages and journeys in Norway. A number of mysterious ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... stream. There are few sights more appalling than a sandstorm in the desert, the "Zauba'ah" as the Arabs call it. Devils, or pillars of sand, vertical and inclined, measuring a thousand feet high, rush over the plain lashing the sand at their base like a sea surging under a furious whirlwind; shearing the grass clean away from the roots, tearing up trees, which are whirled like leaves and sticks in air and sweeping away tents and houses as if they were bits of paper. At last the columns join at the top and form, perhaps three ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... forward, keeping her eyes fixed on the Great Dane sitting motionless at the farther end of the bridge of peril. Then, suddenly the dog grew impatient and began to leap and bark like a foolish puppy. It was too much for Ardea to have her eye-anchor thus transformed into a dizzying whirlwind of gray monsters. She reached backward for the reassuring hand: it was not there, and the next instant the hungry pool rose up ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... avengeth and is full of wrath; the LORD taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear the guilty: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebuketh the sea, and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers: Bashan languisheth, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth. ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... eagerness with which men listened to the old, old story of Eastertide, and the overwhelming heartiness with which they sang our triumphant Easter hymns. There is a capital Wesleyan choir in Bloemfontein; but they told me they might as well whistle to drown the roaring of a whirlwind as attempt "to lead" ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... going to be a tragedy!' he shouted, and burst into a whirlwind of hideous curses, coupled with the names of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... east. But the wind increased in force, the little cloud rose rapidly, became larger and thicker, at last covering the whole sky. The snow began to fall lightly at first, but soon in large flakes. The wind whistled and howled; in a moment the grey sky was lost in the whirlwind of snow which the wind raised from the earth, ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... leaving us none to question as to Ranjoor Singh's late doings. But Bagh, Ranjoor Singh's charger, being a marvel of a beast whom few could ride but he, was fresh enough and Ranjoor Singh led us like a whirlwind beckoning a storm. I judged his heart was on fire. He led us slantwise into a tight-packed regiment. We rolled it over, and he took us beyond that into another one. In the dark he re-formed us (and few but he could have done that then)—lined us up again with the other squadrons—and ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... had stopped short when the girl raised her head to face them; and when she presently vanished into his friend's room like a whirlwind, he neither finished his sentence ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... expected to be here, but he isn't. So now I'm going to try it alone. I never could wait until evening to start my new boat. And isn't it lovely that you have arrived in time to take the initial run? I remember you both took the first spin with me in my auto, the Whirlwind, and now here you are all ready for the trial performance of the motor boat. Now Belle, don't refuse. There is ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the murdered man; as if endeavouring to prove to himself that he feared not that fixed gaze, those fast-dimming eyes—that fast-freezing blood. It would be difficult to understand—'twere impossible to express the thoughts which rolled like a whirlwind through his breast. Saphir Ali rode up at full gallop; and fell on his knees by the colonel—he laid his ear to the dying man's mouth—he breathed not—he felt his heart—it beat not! "He is dead!" cried Saphir Ali in a tone of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... in direct combat; instead, they had been evaded, stated with skilful ambiguity, or beclouded with ignorance and prejudice. Politics had been concerned with the offices—the plunder of government. It could not be that the whirlwind would ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... tribe whose name has been a terror to other tribes and to trader and trapper for many and many a year. Who and what are these wild dusky men who have held their own against all comers, sweeping like a whirlwind over the sand deserts of the central continent? They speak a tongue distinct from all other Indian tribes; they have ceremonies and feasts wholly different, too, from the feasts and ceremonies of other nations; they are at war with every nation that ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... permit; and was thus at once cut off from the company and opinions of the self-respecting. To retain any dignity in such an abject state would require a man of very different virtues from those claimed by the not unvirtuous Laupepa. He is not designed to ride the whirlwind or direct the storm, rather to be the ornament of private life. He is kind, gentle, patient as Job, conspicuously well-intentioned, of charming manners; and when he pleases, he has one accomplishment in which he now begins to be alone—I mean that he can ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sporting season over, he grew tired of the place, and having got down a great architect for the house, and an improver for the grounds, and seen their plans and elevations, he fixed a day for settling with the tenants, but went off in a whirlwind to town, just as some of them came into the yard in the morning. A circular letter came next post from the new agent, with news that the master was sailed for England, and he must remit L500 to Bath for his use before a fortnight was at an end; bad ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... futile were these endeavors to stop the whirlwind of desolation that was Sherman's march. He spent his Christmas Day in Savannah. Then the center of gravity shifted from Georgia to South Carolina. Throughout the two desperate months that closed 1864 the authorities ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... in the dance, while nearly every one of the men who did not dance had found their way into the harness room. The two groups rivalled each other in their noise. Out on the floor of the barn was a very whirlwind of gayety, a tempest of laughter, hand-clapping and cries of amusement. In the harness room the confused shouting and singing, the stamping of heavy feet, set a quivering reverberation in the oil of the kerosene lamps, the flame of the candles in the Japanese lanterns flaring ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... and crackled as they flew, throwing up huge masses of black smoke, and casting a peculiar reflection around. Not a sound was heard save the hissing and roaring of the flames, which seemed like the approaching of a furious whirlwind. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... light of youth display'd! Health on her form each sprightly grace bestow'd; With life and thought each speaking feature glow'd. Fair was the flower, and soft the vernal sky; Elate with hope, we deemed no tempest nigh; When lo! a whirlwind's instantaneous gust Left all its beauties withering in the dust! All cold the hand, that soothed Woe's weary head! And quenched the eye, the pitying tear that shed! And mute the voice, whose pleasing accents stole, Infusing balm into the rankled soul! O Death! why arm with cruelty thy ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... escape, for others have before, Why should I fear to view the storm-cloud's form? I answered to the Voice. In One I trust, Upon whose blazing path the clouds are dust, Why should I cower 'neath the whirlwind's roar? God's chariot is the whirlwind and ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... short note of thanks to Beswick. Then for some weeks, while the discussion of his case in its various aspects, old and new, ran raging through England, he went about his work as usual, calm in the centre of the whirlwind, though the earth he trod seemed to him very often a strange one. He prepared his defence for the Court of Arches; he wrote for the Modernist; and he gave as much mind as he could possibly spare to the unravelling of Philip ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... head. An even larger group of Florentine housewives in all their finery disfigures the "Birth of the Virgin," which is further spoiled by a bas relief to show off the painter's acquaintance with the antique, and by the figure of the serving maid who pours out water, with the rush of a whirlwind in her skirts—this to show off skill in the rendering of movement. Yet elsewhere, as in his "Epiphany" in the Uffizi, Ghirlandaio has undeniable charm, and occasionally in portraits his talent, here at its highest, rises above mediocrity, ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... witnessed the execution of a criminal. It is in vain that we rebel against the inconsistencies and crudities of the work: its faults are redeemed by the living energy that pervades it. We may exclaim against the blind madness of the hero; but there is a towering grandeur about him, a whirlwind force of passion and of will, which catches our hearts, and puts the scruples of criticism to silence. The most delirious of enterprises is that of Moor, but the vastness of his mind renders even that interesting. We see him leagued with desperadoes directing ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... footsteps shrink And tremble and are still. O God! when thou Dost scare the world with tempest, set on fire The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill, With all the waters of the firmament, The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods And drowns the villages; when, at thy call, Uprises the great deep and throws himself Upon the continent, and overwhelms Its cities—who forgets not, at the sight Of these tremendous tokens of thy power, His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by? Oh, from ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... forgiveness of sins;' ah, it is all forgiven up there—in heaven one has a Father;" and with trembling lips Nea turned away. Her punishment had been great, she told herself: she had deserted her earthly father, and now her son had deserted her. "One sows the wind to reap the whirlwind," she thought, as she mused bitterly over her ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... in her bare hand, Henrietta and I also eddied down the street and were lost to view for a few moments in the whirlwind which struck us at the crowded ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... that he hoped to reach Khartoum in eighteen days. Mr Power's comment on that message is as follows: "Twenty-four days is the shortest time from Cairo to Khartoum on record; Gordon says he will be here in eighteen days; but he travels like a whirlwind." As a matter of fact, Gordon took twenty days' travelling, besides the two days he passed at Berber. He thus reached Khartoum on 18th February, and four days later Colonel ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... rulers. It was one of those dread popular convulsions common to crowds wholly ignorant, half free and half servile, and which the peculiar constitution of the Roman provinces so frequently exhibited. The power of the praetor was a reed beneath the whirlwind; still, at his word the guards had drawn themselves along the lower benches, on which the upper classes sat separate from the vulgar. They made but a feeble barrier; the waves of the human sea halted for a moment, to enable Arbaces ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... her emitted an unearthly and uncultured yell and rose to his feet. She saw him spring over the front seat, leap to the broad rump of the wheeler, and from there gain the waggon. His onslaught was like a whirlwind. Before the bewildered officer on the load could guess the errand of this conventionally clad but excited-seeming gentleman, he was the recipient of a punch that arched him back through the air to the pavement. A kick in the face led an ascending policeman to follow ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London |
