"Avalanche" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rosy feather-clouds were floating in a crystal air, beneath a dome of pale blue. Light mists rose from the forests and the course of the river, and above them shone the dazzling snows, the hanging glaciers, and glistening rock faces, ledge piled on ledge, of the Selkirk giants—Hermit and Tupper, Avalanche and Sir Donald—with that cleft ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... made the reward of a pure life, this judge is a trader, bending under the weight of enormous enterprises, and at the head of some large commercial house. The sine qua non condition in the election of this functionary, whose business it is to pass judgment on the avalanche of commercial suits incessantly rolling through the courts, is that he shall have the greatest difficulty in managing his own affairs. This commercial tribunal, far from being made a useful means of transition whereby a merchant might rise, without ridicule, into the ranks of the nobility, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... The method of Model I consists of overwhelming the enemy with an avalanche of examples. The method of Model II is to define the words used by an opponent and, by analyzing the meaning of what he asserts, to prove that he does not see his way ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... itself, and Jaimihr on the other side. And, swooping—shooting—sliding down the trail like a storm-loosed avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... plans for a bear raid. Watch him. Send word of his first move. The time is ripe for an avalanche." ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... resolute of men are influenced by tactful suggestions, which quietly "tip-toe" on to the margin of consciousness, awaken ideas which link up more and more associations, until an avalanche is started which forces itself on to the field of consciousness, the subject thinking the idea ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... the Irusian mountains came in sight, nursing the villages of Pen-Kai and Blut, and the wandering streets of Mlo, where priests propitiate the avalanche with wine and maize. Then night came down over the plains of Tlun, and we saw the lights of Cappadarnia. We heard the Pathnites beating upon drums as we passed Imaut and Golzunda, then all but the helmsman slept. And villages scattered along the banks of the Yann heard all that night ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... me, is that under several of these criticisms there is a HATRED against me, against me personally, a deliberate slandering, the cause of which I am seeking. I do not feel hurt, but this avalanche of foolishness saddens me. One prefers inspiring good feelings to bad ones. As for the rest, I am not thinking any more about Saint-Antoine. That ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Duchess, being overwhelmed with debt, laid it upon herself to give no more than a moment's thought to the avalanche of cares, and to take her resolution once and for all; Napoleon could take up or lay down the burden of his thoughts in precisely the same way. The Duchess possessed the faculty of standing aloof from herself; ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... one. His looks, and all the expressions of his face, were but images of the love within. His denunciations against Pharisaical hypocrisy, cloaked under the guise of outward rectitude, were like an avalanche of snow and ice, unlocked by the rays ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... stricken and bowed by a calamity whose pathos penetrates every house-hold in Christendom, cries to these warning words, "Amen! Amen!" Like the slight sound amid the frozen silence of the Alps that loosens and brings down the avalanche, the solitary pistol-shot of the 2d of July has suddenly startled this vast accumulation of public opinion into conviction, and on every side thunders the rush and roar of its overwhelming descent, which will sweep away the host of evils ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... of Governor Seymour was rebuked in New York by the thirty thousand majority given to the Republican State ticket, which was headed by the brilliant Chauncey M. Depew, then but twenty- nine years of age; while in Ohio the Democratic party was overwhelmed by an avalanche of popular indignation which responded to the nomination of Vallandigham with a majority of a hundred and one ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... its readers to write to their congressmen and they did by the thousands. Every congressman and senator was overwhelmed. As one senator said: "I have never seen such an avalanche. But thanks to The Ladies' Home Journal, I have received these hundreds of letters from my constituents; they have told me what they want done, and they are mostly from those of my people whose wishes I am bound ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... floor to ceiling. The higher ones are fetched down by means of a long pole provided at one end with a sort of inverted hook. It is a most dexterous and pleasing trick, only to be attempted by an old hand. An inexperienced practitioner would certainly bring down an avalanche of hat-boxes on the heads of the customers. On one side of the room there is a patent stove in which several irons were heating, not for torture, but for the improvement of hats. Several aproned attendants were bustling about, and one or two customers with bare ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... branch! Beware the whelming avalanche!" "Thanks!" he replied. "I know, I know. But—well, I rather like the snow! Excel ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... explosion of a thirteen-inch gun there was a thundering crash in the bushes behind the porters, then a perfect avalanche of terrified porters, a dropping of bundles, a wild dash for the protection of the tree, and a bunch of the most startled white men ever seen on Mount Kenia. I reached the tree in two jumps, and three would have been a good record. The crashing of bushes and small trees ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the guests, the row was terrific, a thorough Family Scene, like an avalanche, devastating and without reticences. Babbitt thundered, Mrs. Babbitt wept, Ted was unconvincingly defiant, and Verona in confusion as to ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche,[380:1] unheard, 71 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 75 In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... forms, lifting like the crest of a yellow wave, plunged out and down in rounded billow over the canyon rim. With din of hoofs and bleats the sheep spilled themselves over the precipice, and an awful deafening roar boomed up from the river, like the spreading thunderous crash of an avalanche. ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... more sharply, the spirit of resistance penetrates the workers, the bitterness intensifies, the guerilla skirmishes become concentrated in more important battles, and soon a slight impulse will suffice to set the avalanche in motion. Then, indeed, will the war-cry resound through the land: "War to the palaces, peace to the cottages!"—but then it will be too late for the ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... occasions there was shot from the crater of each volcano a thick and heavy cloud of incandescent ashes and steam, which rushed down the mountain side like an avalanche, red with glowing stones and scintillating with lightning flashes. Forests and buildings in its path were leveled as by a tornado, wood was charred and set on fire by the incandescent fragments, all vegetation ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... was lashing furiously and trying to turn the animal, which, frenzied by terror, and maddened by the stinging sleet, refused to obey, and would only rear and kick. Suddenly the ice under the sleigh sank down, and a flood of water rolled over it, followed by an avalanche of ice-blocks which had tumbled from the ridge. With a wild snort of terror, the horse turned, whirling round the sleigh, and with the speed of the wind dashed back toward the shore. As the sleigh came near, I saw the driver upright and trying to regain his command of the horse, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on their foes literally slew them by thousands. Many hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. Few succeeded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... The noise suggested an avalanche of falling boxes. The Elder blew out his candle, lit a bull's-eye lantern which he kept handy by his bed, and, throwing up the window, challenged ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... among them. "Surrender!" cries La Mouche to Anahotaha. "I have given my word to the French, I shall die with them," replies the bold chief. Already some stakes were torn up, and the Iroquois were about to rush like an avalanche through this breach, when a new Horatius Cocles, as brave as the Roman, made his body a shield for his brothers, and soon the axe which he held in his hand dripped with blood. He fell, and was at once replaced. The ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... General Alexis could never be anything but dominating. There was a hush of admiration from every man or woman inside the fortifications whenever their leader's name was mentioned. If he could not hold the German avalanche in check, then the world must weep for Russia. So Mildred became a kind of heroine among the nurses because she had received a few moments of the great ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... flour bin nearly empty, slipped. Her feet flew up, her head went down, and she tripped the grocery clerk. His long pole crashed into the neat pile of boxes arranged on the shelves and a shower of oatmeal, cornstarch, macaroni and other cereals fell in an avalanche. ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... signs of danger, and signalled for their withdrawal. But the lust of blood was awake in them, and they were drunk with the joy of fighting. They followed and followed till the Turks, out of that awful avalanche of death, became conscious that a thousand Thetian horsemen were not an invincible force. Their fight was checked, they were almost immediately surrounded, their leader fell shot through the heart, and a miracle was required to save the flower of ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... that he invariably discovered them); Myra, in the position of safety in the middle, profited by Samuel's frequent object-lessons; while I, at the back, was ready to help Myra up, if need arose, or to repel any avalanche which descended on us from above. On the level snow at the bottom ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... was very destructive to the Mission house, or rather the Mission premises. A slip of the earth (somewhat like that of an avalanche), took place on the bank of the river near my house, and gradually approached it until only about ten feet of space were left between that and the house; and that space soon split. At last two fissures appeared in the foundation and wall of the house itself. ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... had the effect of a clog. A pebble may stop a log, the branch of a tree turn aside an avalanche. The carronade stumbled. The gunner, taking advantage of this critical opportunity, plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels. The cannon stopped. It leaned forward. The man, using the bar as a lever, held it in equilibrium. The ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... as to fall down the hill.[45] In their fall these giants throw down the trees standing immediately below them on the hillside; these, falling in turn against their neighbours, bring them down. And so, like an avalanche of widening sweep, the huge disturbance propagates itself with a thunderous roar and increasing momentum downwards over the whole of the prepared area; while puny man looks on at the awful work of his hand and brain not unmoved, but dancing and ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Mount! with they sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... lively little colony of bees, birds, and butterflies which have been seen disporting themselves about the bright white cauldron. There was not a breath of the threatened wind. Manoel pointed out Mount Bermeja as the source of the lateral lava-stream whose 'infernal avalanche,' on May 5, 1706, [Footnote: Preceding Ca da Mosto's day another eruption (1492) was noted by Columbus, shortly before his discovery of the Antilles. Garachico was the only port in Tenerife, with a breakwater ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... alpine pools and lakelets are in like manner obliterated from the winter landscapes, either by being first frozen and then covered by snow, or by being filled in by avalanches. The first avalanche of the season shot into a lake basin may perhaps find the surface frozen. Then there is a grand crashing of breaking ice and dashing of waves mingled with the low, deep booming of the avalanche. Detached masses of the invading snow, mixed with fragments of ice, drift ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... Averni."—It is wonderful how easy the descent really is, when once the first false step is taken. As the avalanche, which at first becomes slowly loosened from its lofty position, gradually descends with greater and greater rapidity till it is dashed into the abyss, so does the frail mortal, who at first shudders at the bare thought of an immoral act, rush headlong into sin till her desperate career ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... winter more than one man and many a dog lost his life in the quiet performance of his duty, gliding to death over the slippery snow-shelves, or overwhelmed beneath an avalanche of the warm, suffocating white: "smoored," as they call it. Many a deed was done, many a death died, recorded only in that Book which holds the names of those—men or animals, souls ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... proper bow with deadly precision, there was not a smile or a sound. That ceremony over, they charged down upon me in an avalanche of gaiety. They waved their lanterns, they called banzai, they laughed and sung some of the old time foolish songs we used to sing. They promptly put to rout all legends of their excessive modesty and shyness. They were just young ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... us; hit it knees first, just as I'd gone through, and—I sprawled in icy slush that rose no higher than my waist. I was in a sort of pocket between two rocks that were holding up the lolly. There was an avalanche of caving snow and ice all round me, but I was not drowned or likely to be,—only I barely thought of it. For I could not see Paulette. Suddenly, past belief, I heard her ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... was a sharp crack overhead, followed by a tremendous rattle and crash. Then down upon the buggy descended what, to Graves, appeared to be an avalanche of scratching, tearing twigs and branches. They ripped away the boot and laprobe and jammed him back against the seat, their sharp points against his breast. The buggy was jerked forward a few feet and ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which, if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury Athalie ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... king, in his distant camp, beheld with joy the intrigues and factions which deprived the emperor of his best and last defender, and prepared for a new invasion of Italy. He descended like an avalanche upon the plains of Italy, and captured the cities of Aquileia, Concordia, and Cremona. He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic, and following the Flaminian way, crossed the Appennines, devastated Umbria, and reached, without obstruction, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... the first pebble of the avalanche, Malone knew suddenly—the avalanche that was somehow going to destroy him. "You forced your thoughts into my mind, then," he said as coolly as he could. "Just as you forced decision ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Street, listening to the roar of the passing traffic and brushing shoulders with living, companionable men? Ah well, what good purpose would it serve to think about it! He had chosen his own fate. Here he was at Murder Point, and he would soon be married to Peggy, after which, no matter what avalanche of good luck befell him, there would be no return. What would his proud old mother say to a little half-breed grandchild? The mere thought made him smile. In cynical self-derision, he pictured himself accompanied by his Indian tribe, knocking ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... them—and he swears he did—and went and sat by his wife's bedside, and felt unutterably, as I believe all good men do under similar circumstances; and lo!—proh!—to his wonderment and delight, in the middle of it all, the sense of the north came back like a tide, like an overwhelming avalanche. He declared he all but fainted in the double ineffability of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... composure of the negro, who sat perfectly silent upon the bank watching with a solemn air the grotesque capers of his companion—the red light reflected upon the savage figures of the two men—reflected also upon the foaming cataract, which appeared to roll over the cliff like an avalanche of fire—all combined to form a scene in which the ludicrous and the sublime ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... and merely stared until he dipped away among the hills. For one thing she was quite assured that she could not overtake that hard rider; and, again, she felt that it was useless to interfere. To step between Lord Nick and one of his purposes would have been like stepping before an avalanche and commanding it to halt with a ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... In doing this, the spurs accidentally came in contact with his sides. He gave one tremendous leap forward—the ground sank under his feet—the horse was thrown over his own head—I was jerked into the air—and, amid an avalanche of earth and stones, we were hurled down a perpendicular bank into the brown, swollen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... columns form and again advance To firmer ground, tho' the redoubt hurl'd like an avalanche In quick succession, bursting bombs and canister shot, But with closed ranks the column, fearing not Unheedful of the iron hail bent its way, Following Butler to New Market heights ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... Hemstitch was upon the war-path with all his might. The forest trembled as he trode, the earth bent like thin ice beneath his heel. Birds, beasts, serpents, and poachers fled affrighted to the right and left of his course. He came down upon the unsuspecting assassins like a mild Spanish avalanche. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... She herself was tempted to scream first, so as to see what would happen. She thought that all work would be instantly thrown down, and that everybody would answer her cry, and then begin noisily to sob. Even miserable as she was, the thought of this avalanche of feminine excitability made Sally snuffle with amusement. She pictured Gaga running out of his room, distraught, looking yellow and bilious, his eyes staring wildly out of his head, as do the eyes of prawns. And ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... the curtain she was aware of many cries and questions hurled at her like an avalanche, but, ignoring them all, she sprang past the noisy, excited group of young people, darted through the dressing-room to the right and out into the night and coolness. Her head was swimming, and things went black before her eyes. She felt that her breath ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... scarcity almost pinches, what forms of humanity, with lungs, and nerves, and hearts, and every capacity for suffering, are scraping the moss of subsistence from the barest rocks of life, and struggling every day through an avalanche! Think what this Sabbath has been in the dwellings of the poor, you who have had time to listen to the Gospel, and have heard it comfortably—so comfortably, perhaps, that you have fallen asleep under it—think what this Sabbath has been in the dwellings of ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... small spark commences the conflagration that destroys cities; the broad river that flows with irresistible majesty through our plains commences in a rivulet leaping and sparkling on the green hill-side; the almighty avalanche that sweeps with the roar of thunder through the Alpine ravines commences in a handful of loosened snow. Thus to a thought, a guilty desire uncontrolled, may be traced ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... some thousands of miles away. The wind was fair, almost dead astern, although the sea was high; and as the ship was rather light, she rocked and rolled considerably, the waves washing over her decks, and occasionally running over the poop in an avalanche of water, that swept right forward and made any one hold on that did not wish to be washed off their feet. The sea had a most winterly look. It appeared like a vast hilly country with winding valleys, all covered with sloshy snow just melted, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... with a ferocious chorus from throats hoarse with their song of battle. It came with a wild headlong rush, that recked nothing of the storm of fire with which it was met. A dozen lifeless bodies piled themselves before the staunch resistance. It made no difference. The avalanche swept on, and over the human barricade, till it reached striking distance for its crude ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... she referred to her lover, who had been lost in an avalanche the eve before their wedding morning. That was four years ago, but Catharina was still waiting. Allitsen remembered her as a bright young girl, singing in the Gasthaus, waiting cheerfully on the guests: a bright gracious presence. No one could cook trout as she could; many ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... taken off her mantle, and Jean could admire, in all its exquisite perfection, a figure marvellous for suppleness and grace. Miss Percival then removed her hat, but with a little too much haste, for this was the signal for a charming catastrophe. A whole avalanche descended in torrents, in long cascades, over Bettina's shoulders. She was standing before a window flooded by the rays of the sun, and this golden light, falling full on this golden hair, formed a delicious frame for the sparkling beauty ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... Copley had risen and kicked his own chair away, seized Ruth about her waist as he did so, and so dragged her out from under the avalanche. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... beginning to feel somewhat relieved from the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm till ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... company commander, followed by the Colonel, the Staff officer and the Great One. Immediately behind, the Adjutant (taking notes), the platoon commander (partially dazed), the machine-gun officer (not essential), and the Sapper (if he's been caught by the human avalanche) advance in echelon. At intervals the procession halts, and the same ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... full blast, and every one of the hundred and twenty-five girls worked with frenzied energy as the avalanche of clothes kept falling in upon us and were sent with lightning speed through the different processes, from the tubs to the packers' counters. Nor was there any abatement of the snowy landslide—not a moment to stop and rest the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... why they were walking in such a dangerous place. Perhaps they were gathering fuel to keep them warm; and very likely when they left home the weather was mild, and that they did not anticipate a storm. However that may be, they were overtaken by an avalanche, the mother was buried beneath it, and the child saw her no more. But I must tell the remainder of the story in the language ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... talking with Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door, which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... will ne'er come back to me again. I see you on the frozen mountain steeps, Missing, perchance, your leap from crag to crag. I see the chamois, with a wild rebound, Drag you down with him o'er the precipice. I see the avalanche close o'er your head, The treacherous ice give way, and you sink down Intombed alive within its hideous gulf. Ah! in a hundred varying forms does death Pursue the Alpine huntsman on his course. That way of life can ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... rose awkwardly. The cats fell in an avalanche to the floor. Long Otto, in his haste, trod on the dog, which began barking, a process which it kept up almost without a pause during the ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... haughty maiden, swept a cloud bright and fair; but passing, trailed long shadows on the ground, black like despair. Again the mode was changed; Peiwoh sang of war, of clashing steel and trampling steeds. And in the harp arose the tempest of Lungmen, the dragon rode the lightning, the thundering avalanche crashed through the hills. In ecstasy the Celestial monarch asked Peiwoh wherein lay the secret of his victory. "Sire," he replied, "others have failed because they sang but of themselves. I left the harp to choose its theme, and knew ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura
... time to account for the workings of Fate or to follow the course of its agents. The track of an earth-worm destroys a dam; the parting of a wire wrecks a bridge; the breaking of a root starts an avalanche; the flaw in an axle dooms a train; the sting of a microbe depopulates a city. But none of these unseen, mysterious agencies was at work—nothing so trivial ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with emeralds. Her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and behind her ears, as an orphan's should be. Parted somewhere at the side, it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... was a crash, and the very house shook. There was a wheezy shout of alarm, the sound of another voice in wild laughter, and some heavy body slid down the long side of the roof with the noise of an avalanche. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... an exciting sight to see the cars come in, to see the long rows of strange faces, and to catch glimpses of the new fashions at their open windows. Besides, at rare intervals, a real city lady would actually alight at the rustic station of Hilltop, followed by an avalanche of trunks, "larger than hen-houses," the girls would afterwards affirm to their astonished mothers, when it was discovered that the city-lady, in her languishing necessity for country-air, had really condescended to come in search of a remote country-cousin. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... regard to our position and purpose. What! Is it to forsake the slave when I cease to be the aider and abettor of his master? What! When the North is pressing down upon four millions of slaves like an avalanche, and we say to her, 'Take off that pressure—stand aside—give the slave a chance to regain his feet and assert his freedom!' is that turning our backs upon him? Here, for example, is a man engaged in highway robbery, and another man is acting as an accessory, without whose ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... proportions. He had visions of himself at the end of four years hustling to "make good" "over two thousand dollars." For the first time he questioned the wisdom of promoting himself. But he could n't back out now. He almost damned Honey's thrift. He would be piling up a debt which threatened to become an avalanche and swamp him, and for which he would get no equivalent but temporarily increased adulation. How could he nip this awful thing in the bud? He did n't see any way out of it unless it were to throw up his job and cut ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... maddened millions of insane murderers and his heart is torn as He sees the avalanche of tears shed by bereaved ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... handicapped by the obstructions and the darkness that he could do little more than hold his own. His enemies were too near for him to hide himself from them. Had he attempted to do so the whole lot would have descended upon him like an avalanche. ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... elbow to the hand. I could reach the latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche! ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... valour, the air of England became charged with an ominous feeling that something was wrong at the front. The German advance in the west had been well nigh triumphant. Reckless bravery alone could not prevail against the avalanche of Teutonic steel. ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... arrived, and Cornelius placed his chin on the cold damp block. But at this moment his eyes closed involuntarily, to receive more resolutely the terrible avalanche which was about to fall on his head, and to ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... plain, And 'twas Home, for the bravest there would never be again, The raw recruits were restless, and they counted not the cost, And the Colonel shouted, 'Steady lads, stand fast, or else we're lost.' A rush! 'twas like an avalanche! a clash of steel and red! A shock like mountain thunder, then the reg'ment turned and fled. 'Give me the drum, take the fife,' said Jake, 'And with all your might and main, Play the old step now, for the reg'ment's sake ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... Afric brain, whose story fills the centuries with its glory, Moulding Gaul and Carthaginian into one all-conquering band, With his tusked monsters grumbling, 'mid the alien snow-drifts stumbling, Then, an avalanche of ruin, thundering from that frozen land Into vales their sons declare ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... was no order for this glorious charge. The commanding generals had not even contemplated such a bit of splendid but reckless daring. Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing. It was a voluntary movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and suspense. As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said, "It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... great metropolis and plays a Moszkowski concerto of great difficulty. The next day the music stores exhaust their stocks of this work, and a dozen misses, who might with difficulty play a Mendelssohn Song With Words, are buried in the avalanche of technical impossibilities that ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... here,—or follow! But my heart is cold To tears and lamentations.—Friends, behold How bright the full moon in the west declines! When next that full moon in its orient shines, An avalanche of fire shall sweep the state And all its golden glory terminate. A thousand years from now, when it shall light Mere crumbling ruins in the desert night,— One pillar in the dust of yonder dome Shall tell the weary wanderer: ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... room, tipped over a table, and deluged an artist and his affinity with hot chocolate before they could escape from the avalanche. Chairs went over like ninepins. Stands collapsed. Men grunted and shouted advice. Girls screamed. The Sea Siren was being wrecked by a cyclone from the ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... clothing the ground occupied by the enemy. Yet, if the gallant poilus manning the French trenches were not in evidence, if, indeed, life was being stamped out of a number of them by this terrific avalanche of bursting metal, they were yet for all that not entirely unsupported, for already those guns behind the advance lines of our ally were thundering, while, overhead, fleets of aeroplanes were picking up the positions of German batteries, and were signalling back to those ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... but, once formed, it binds as with a chain of iron. The small events of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimportant, like snow that falls silently, flake by flake; yet accumulated, these snow-flakes form the avalanche. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Once—twice Ladd raised the long rifle, but each time he lowered it. Gale divined that the ranger's restraint was not on account of the Mexican, but for that valiant and faithful horse. Up and up he went, and the yellow dust clouds rose, and an avalanche rolled rattling and cracking down the slope. It was beyond belief that a horse, burdened or unburdened, could find footing and hold it upon that wall of narrow ledges and inverted, slanting gullies. But he climbed on, sure-footed as a mountain ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... well down the eastern slope of the mountains. These huge sheds have been built at great expense to protect the track from the vast quantities of snow that fall every winter on these mountains. They wind around the mountain-sides, their roofs built so slanting that the mighty avalanche of rock and snow that comes thundering down from above glides harmlessly over, and down the chasm on the other side, while the train glides along unharmed beneath them. The section-houses, the water-tanks, stations, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... to your country friends as very little inferior, if at all, to Mr. Burke's. Beside this one are some half dozen others, among whom the question of superiority is, you understand, strongly mooted. It puzzles you to think, what an avalanche of talent will fall upon the country at the ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... emotional force which underlies German movements. Luther, for good and for evil, is the most typical of Germans, and the Luther who made his mark in the world—the shrewd, coarse, superstitious peasant who blossomed into genius—was an avalanche of emotion, a great mass of natural human instincts irresistible in their impetuosity. When we bear in mind this general tendency to emotional expansiveness in the manifestations of the Teutonic soul we need feel no surprise that the present movement among German women should be, ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... a flat ground, the projectile will remain motionless when it has once touched; whereas on a declivity it would roll like an avalanche, and not being squirrels we should not come out safe and sound. So it is all ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... at the bottom of the bank again, and so on. If the bank is one hundred and fifty feet high, the mass of earth that tumbles down is of course immense, and the pipemen must stand far off, for fear that they will be caught in the avalanche. Such accidents are of daily occurrence, and the deaths from this cause probably are not less than threescore every year in the state. Often legs are broken; still more frequently the pipemen have warning, and escape in time. When men are buried in the falling dirt, ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... march. The bearers all had bare feet, feet twice as long as the steps were broad, so that they practically went upward on their toes. A single misstep would have caused disaster—nothing less than an avalanche of coolies, chairs, and pilgrims. But my secretary guarded me, the missionary guarded my wife, and we went up ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... in that boat held his breath till the great white avalanche of cotton, rushing by so unpleasantly near, had passed quite ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... story of the old campaigner, and may teach some of you caution in selecting your assistants. A chaplain told it to two of our officers personally known to myself. He overheard the examination of a man who wished to drive one of the "avalanche" wagons, as they call them. The man was asked if he knew how to deal with wounded men. "Oh yes," he answered; "if they're hit here," pointing to the abdomen, "knock 'em on the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the work they had finished with so much toil, a snow man, down the slope, rejoicing with his playfellows over its swift descent towards the valley, until they noticed with what frightful speed its bulk increased as it sped over its snowy road, till at last, like a terrible avalanche, it swept away a herdsman's hut—fortunately an empty one. Now, also, his heedlessness had set in motion a mass which constantly rolled onward, and how terrible might be the harm it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... desolation at any moment. Mute and anxious, we crept along in breathless haste, scarcely venturing to raise our eyes, much less to give vent to the least expression of alarm, for fear of starting the avalanche of stone, of the impetuous force of which we could form some idea by the shattered rocks around us. The echo is very remarkable, and gives back the faintest whisper ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... melancholy pine. And many a denuded avenue Of varying and considerable width, Cut through the growth of balsam, spruce and pine, Which stands erect and proud on either hand, Attests the swift and desolating force Of fearful, devastating avalanche. ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... flings over the entangled prisoner. Guarding against sudden starts, the Epeira casts her armfuls of bands on the front-and hind-parts, over the legs and over the wings, here, there and everywhere, extravagantly. The most fiery prey is promptly mastered under this avalanche. In vain, the Mantis tries to open her saw-toothed arm-guards; in vain, the Hornet makes play with her dagger; in vain, the Beetle stiffens his legs and arches his back: a fresh wave of threads swoops down ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... pumped upon their nerves," she good-naturedly overlooked their grimances and groans, and continued the hydropathic treatment even in her second book, hoping some good effects from the shock. Of one intensely gratifying fact she could not fail to be thoroughly informed, by the avalanche of letters which almost daily covered her desk; she had at least ensconced herself securely in a citadel, whence she could smilingly defy all assaults—in the warm hearts of her noble countrywomen. Safely sheltered in ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... subservient to thee; the shoreless ocean is thy slave! Thou sweepest over the earth, and oaks, the growth of centuries, submit to thy viewless axe; the snow-drift is scattered on the pinnacles of the Alps, the avalanche thunders down their vallies. Thou holdest the keys of the frost, and canst first chain and then set free the streams; under thy gentle governance the buds and leaves are born, they flourish nursed ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Stuart allowed his men to sleep until one o'clock and then rode with desperate speed to Yellow Tavern. He reached his chosen battle ground at ten o'clock the following morning. He had won the race and at once deployed his forces to meet the coming avalanche. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... sounds that do not seem to be musically rhythmic. I have seen where an avalanche broke from the mountain side and buried a hapless city; have seen the face of a cliff shattered to fragments by the weight of its superincumbent mass, or pierced by the fingers of the frost and torn away. All these thunder down the valley and are pulverized to sand. Is this music? ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... dropped their bundles and scurried to one side, their eyes gleaming with fear. The canvas avalanche swept past them. They leaned, faint and dumb, against trees and listened, their blood stagnant. Below them it struck the base of a great pine tree, where it writhed and struggled. The three watched its convolutions a moment and then started terrifically ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... with heavy plash, From the cliffs invading dash Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Till white and thundering down they go, Like the avalanche's snow On the Alpine vales below; Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, Corinth's sons were downward borne By the long and oft renewed Charge of the Moslem multitude. In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell, Heaped by the ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... if he who can climb with them is a good guardian, well then indeed was Rudy. Why he climbed even higher than they! He loved to take the bird's nests from the trees, high in the air, for he was bold and daring; and he only smiled when he stood by the roaring water-fall, or when he heard a rolling avalanche. ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... and piercing cold. When half-way up the summit, a rumbling noise was heard among the cliffs. The guides looked at each other in alarm; for they knew well what it meant. It grew louder and louder. "An avalanche! an avalanche!" they shrieked, and the next moment a field of ice and snow came leaping down the mountain, striking the line of march, and sweeping thirty dragoons in a wild plunge below. The black forms of the horses and their riders were seen for an instant struggling for ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... disaster was to befall the palace and the people. The dweller amongst mountains must be always exposed to their dilapidation; and a season of unusual rain, continuing to a much later period than usual, produced an earth-avalanche. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... weight lay in all directions, which had fallen from the impending heights. I examined these, and found some that were comparatively recent; I had also observed upon our entrance to the valley that a great portion of the cliff face had lately fallen, forming an avalanche of rocks that would have destroyed a village: this my guide informed me was the result of last year's excessive rain. I examined the heights above us with my glass, and observed some crags that Polyphemus would have ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... than any action of his life to feel that he had stirred up this movement. It pleased him still more to know that he could now step back and watch the work of ruin go on. It was like disturbing the one small stone which starts the avalanche, which ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the presence ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... in catalogues, and other anonymous publications; this makes the quoting of an authority impractical, but there is provision in the Code for writing the raiser's or introducer's name in brackets after the cultivar-name if so desired, thus: Weigela 'Avalanche' (Lemoine). ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... glad to be freed from a sentimental friendship not at all to his taste, prepared to carry out his long-contemplated design. In July of 1812, by way of Poland, he entered Russia with an army of over 678,000 souls. It was a human avalanche collected mainly from the people he had conquered, with which he intended to overwhelm the Russian Empire. It was of little consequence that thirty or forty thousand fell as this or that town was captured by the way. He had expected victory to be costly, and on he pressed with diminished numbers ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... the Poker, as the mountain trembled beneath them. "There's going to be an avalanche, and we're ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... Such a strain was too great to be long endured. Just as Feodor was almost within reach of the helpless man, the ice-floe upon which the latter lay split in two with a deafening crash, and the pent-up masses behind, all breaking loose at once, came down upon Feodor like an avalanche. ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... can come near them, and where they may bring forth their young, and rear them in perfect security. Still more, they can go to rest at night without fear of being disturbed, unless by the crash of the falling avalanche, or the roar of the loud thunder that often reverberates through these Alpine regions. But the condor is not in the least afraid of these noises; and he heeds them not, but sleeps securely, even while the red lightning is playing around ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... stuck just at a rather difficult point in it, where there ought to be a quite imperceptible transition to something fresh, then a subdued gliding finale, a prolonged murmur, ending at last in a climax as bold and as startling as a shot, or the sound of a mountain avalanche—full stop. But the words would not come to me. I read over the whole piece from the commencement; read every sentence aloud, and yet failed absolutely to crystallize my thoughts, in order to produce this scintillating climax. And into the bargain, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... they were saved, and a wild cheer arose from the breathless multitude. Just at that instant, with his foot on the threshold, an avalanche of fire seemed to fall on his head from the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... the way," Beatrice heard some one behind her say. "We dance on the crust of a volcano or under a threatening avalanche. Sooner or later the one gives way or the other falls. There is no real safety ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman's hut in the forest less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... secret of Napoleon's power lay in his marvelous ability to concentrate his forces upon a single point. After finding the weak place in the enemy's ranks he would mass his men and hurl them upon the enemy like an avalanche until he made a breach. What a lesson of the power of concentration there is in that man's life! He was such a master of himself that he could concentrate his powers upon the smallest detail as well ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... at him, she saw that he was not better, as she hoped, but that his face had a shrunken look, betokening the rapid failing of the vital forces. The poor girl felt that trouble was coming like an avalanche, and in spite of herself she sat down, and, burying her face in her father's bosom, sobbed aloud. But she soon realized the injury she might do him in thus giving way, and by a great effort controlled herself so as to tell him the softened outlines of the accident. ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe |
