"Explosion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Arthois, which he sacked and then levelled with the ground. Such was the wretched condition of frontier cities, standing, even in time of peace, with the ground undermined beneath them, and existing every moment, as it were, upon the brink of explosion. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Explosion as an Unknown Fire Hazard. A suggestive review of the conditions of explosions, with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... performance of "Fra Diavolo," or "The Daughter of the Regiment," or "Frou Frou." On these occasions the buffo did not get drunk, the barytone rested from the torments of his lawsuit, the alto had a charming smile for the sympathetic house, the soprano was as peaceful as a mine immediately after an explosion. Not one of the chorus stayed too long in the cafe; and since Wurzelmann directed, and the orchestra did not have to feel the burning, basilisk eye of Kapellmeister Nothafft resting on it and floating over it, it played with more precision and produced a more pleasing feast for the ears ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... not, Sir? Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have its General Assembly, and the Church of England be denied its Convocation?' He was walking up and down the room while I told him the anecdote; but when he uttered this explosion of high-church zeal, he had come close to my chair, and his eyes flashed with indignation.[1366] I bowed to the storm, and diverted the force of it, by leading him to expatiate on the influence which religion derived from maintaining the church ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... 'There, a good explosion does one good! But why must idle people interfere with busy men? I used to make it up by sitting up and getting up very early indeed; but somehow I feel fit for nothing but sleeping ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it and glanced at front page; and, as he did do, a flaring explosion of headlines smote ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet, prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... the meantime there is just one thing I am afraid of—and that's the thing that you and most of my friends want to do first—suppressing free speech; if you suppress it, we won't know who wants what. Then you really do get an explosion." ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... in triumphant procession. Beside me was the stranger who had spoken to us in the afternoon, and I said to him: "The coast seems clear. Let's go down and swim the Hellespont, where Leander and Byron swam." But at that moment there was a loud explosion near us, and a sound as of particles of earth falling ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Jan. 25 the enemy began to shell Bethune, and at 8 A.M. a strong hostile infantry attack developed south of the canal, preceded by a heavy bombardment of artillery, minenwerfers, and, possibly, the explosion of mines, though the latter ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... gasometer back of the church, and the night I speak of the building was for the first time to be lighted in the modern way. The church was, of course, crowded—not so much to hear the preacher as to see how the gas would burn. Many were unbelieving, and said that there would be an explosion, or a big fire, or that in the midst of the service the lights would go out. Several brethren disposed to hang on to old customs declared that candles and oil were the only fit material for lighting a church, and ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... stuff was on Danny as well as on the wheel, and we smelt like a procession of dead whales. For after the first choking explosion of the thing it reeked of nothing but corruption. It was the Skunk's Misery brew all right, ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... everything in it! There's a whole box-car load of dynamite and caps out here in the yard—sub-contractors' supplies waiting for the freighters' teams from the west end. If they smash us, the chances are ten to one that there'll be a sympathetic explosion out yonder in the yard somewhere that will leave nothing but ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... were masters of twenty-two prizes. It was a difficult task to carry them off at the ebb-tide, and it was not achieved without loss. Hein's own ship, the Amsterdam, grounded and had to be burnt, and another ship by some mischance blew up. The total loss, except through the explosion, was exceedingly small. The captured vessels contained 2700 chests of sugar, besides a quantity of cotton, hides and tobacco. The booty was stored in the four largest ships and sent to Holland; ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... the plain truth, things at last came to such a pass that I told him, up and down, that I had no notion to put up with his pretensions; if he were going to play the gentleman, I was going to follow suit; and then there would quickly be an explosion. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... of the Gold Coast," he wrote to Lord Russell, "I will send home a million a year," but in reply, Russell, with eyes unbewitched [200] observed caustically that gold was getting too common. Burton's comment was an explosion that terrorised everyone near him. He then amused himself by compiling a pamphlet on West African proverbs, one of which, picked up in the Yorubas country, ran, oddly enough: "Anger draweth arrows from the quiver: good words draw ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... in judgment on all souls, in the reactions of their own acts. The divine retribution for every deed is the kick of the gun, not an extra explosion arbitrarily thrown in. The thief, the liar, the misanthrope, the drunkard, the poet, the philosopher, the hero, the saint, all have their just and intrinsic returns for what they are and for what they do, in the fitness of their own characters and their harmonies or discords with the will ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... monster's open jaws, down his throat. It gave him pain and made him turn about, so that I could level the second at his back-door, which, indeed, I did with wonderful success; for it flew in, met the first flint in the stomach, struck fire, and blew up the bear with a terrible explosion. Though I came safe off that time, yet I should not wish to try it again, or venture against bears with no ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... metal in a state of fusion, but as it flows it carries a kind of scum, which gradually hardens into scoria and rolls like fire-balls to the bottom of the mountain. We thought ourselves pretty secure in this spot, and had no wish to retire; but shortly a most terrific explosion which launched to an inconceivable height in the air, immense fragments of burning rocks, &c. reminded us of our dangerous situation. We lost not a moment in retreating, and driven on by fear almost with miraculous speed, cleared ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... action, to which the people of the United States were unaccustomed. Already a justice of a circuit court had decided in opposition to instructions issued by the President himself. The new legislation was followed by an explosion of popular wrath and street demonstrations. These were most marked in the Eastern states, where the opposition party and the shipping interest were strongest. Feeling was the more bitter, because the revolt of Spain, and the deliverance of Portugal, had ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... known all the morning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound by such strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time, or say between four and five o'clock in the afternoon, too late for the morning papers and too early for the evening ones, there is not a general explosion heard up and down the street, scattering a legion of antiquated and house-bred notions and whims to the four winds for an airing,—and so the evil ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... seemed to lull, and Mr. Stacey mounted the bulwarks, and cried out: "You have cleared their decks, my hearties!" Aloft, a man was seen to clamber from our mainyard into the very top of the Englishman, where he threw a hand-grenade, as I thought, down her main hatch. An instant after an explosion came like a, clap of thunder in our faces, and a great quadrant of light flashed as high as the 'Serapis's' trucks, and through a breach in her bulwarks I saw men running with only the collars of their ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to dine with them and go to the woods to look for mushrooms. I bow and sit down again. My soul is boiling with rage, and I feel that in another moment I may not be able to answer for myself, that there may be an explosion, but gentlemanly feeling and the fear of committing a breach of good manners compels me to obey the ladies. And I ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and it was on one of these broad terraces, half-way up and facing towards the rising sun, that the ruin-like remains were heaped. I examined them through my glasses. Undoubtedly it was a cyclopean ruin built of great blocks of coloured stone which seemed to have been shattered by earthquake or explosion. There were the pillars of a mighty gateway ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... dressing station." I went back to the station. For nearly a mile the wounded and gassed men were lying on each side of the road waiting for conveyances to remove them. I spoke to a Tommy who had met with a peculiar accident; he had two plates in his mouth and the concussion of a shell explosion in his immediate vicinity had broken the plates into four pieces, leaving him ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... bag, clutching her parasol, holding Archer's hand, and telling the story of the gunpowder explosion in which poor Mr. Curnow had lost his eye, Mrs. Flanders hurried up the steep lane, aware all the time in the depths of her mind of ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... great English lady, known under the name of Lady Beltham. This Englishwoman was the mistress and accomplice of the notorious Fantomas.[9] But at the precise moment when Juve was about to arrest him, a frightful explosion occurred, and the building, blown up by dynamite, collapsed in ruins, burying the two friends and some fifteen ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... account of their affording the whitest marble within reach, and this mortar was employed in the construction of miserable huts. At one period the Parthenon was converted into a powder magazine by the Turks, and in consequence suffered severely from an explosion in 1656, which carried away the roof of ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... increasing public strength and national prosperity. They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought under ground a mine that will blow up, at one grand explosion, all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of Parliament. They have "the rights of men." Against these there can be no prescription; against these no argument is binding: these admit no temperament and no compromise: anything withheld from their full demand ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the two fleets were now clearly seen, for it was almost as light as day, and the fight went on with unabated fury until about ten o'clock, when, with a terrific explosion, the L'Orient blew up. So tremendous was the shock that it seemed to paralyse the combatants for a little, for both fleets ceased to fire, and there ensued a profound silence, which continued for some time. The first sound that broke the solemn stillness was the splash of the falling ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... said Sir Roger. "We're too late," and there was a touch of disappointment in his voice, as he turned and shouted to the others, "Keep your seats! It's all over. Only an explosion." ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... followed suit, and we soon all became spellbound at the dramatic contrasts, for every now and again a fresh pile of Georgia pine would be devoured by the flames, the sudden flare coming like a noiseless explosion, making the air fragrantly resinous, while at the same time the outer boundaries of the doomed lumber yard were being draped with a fantastic ice fabric from the water that froze as ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... too much for my sense of humour, and although sympathising very tenderly with poor Mrs. B., I cannot help bursting into a little roar of laughter. Laughter and fear are deadly enemies, and I can see at once that Mrs. B. is all the better for this explosion. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... things. I have seen them so often at Newport, where they wash down the decks even when it is pouring cats and dogs. The poor dear was rather red in the face, by which I recognized the fact that he was holding himself in for fear of an explosion. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... to go to the front, but Pasquale said that this evening I might stay behind during the performance if I liked and I accepted his invitation, for I had a toy theatre of my own once and used to do The Miller and His Men with an explosion at the end; it had to be at the end, not only as a bonne-bouche, but also because my audience, not being composed of Sicilian facchini, were driven out of the room by its effects. Smokeless explosions may be possible now, but we did not then know how to ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... get up, or imitate, or ... what is it you fancy I do? ... an utterly distinct, unnecessary, inconsequential regard for you, which should, when it got too hard for shamming at the week's end,—should simply spoil, in its explosion and departure, all the real and sufficing elements of an honest life-long attachment and affections! that I should do this, and think it a piece of ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... volcano, for, with a roar that made the timbers of the boat vibrate, the gray whale spouted not six feet from where the boy was sitting. Dimly he saw the harpoon hurtle through the spray and the sharp crack of the explosion ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... was for going down on his knees again, with another explosion of gratitude, but that we heard the voice from the next chamber of the august sleeper, just waking, calling out:—"Eh, La-Fleur, un verre d'eau"; his Majesty came out yawning:—"A pest," says he, "upon ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Conciliation Boards cannot permanently restrain. The drift of any Servile State must be towards a class revolt, paralysing sabotage and a general strike. The more rigid and complete the Servile State becomes, the more thorough will be its ultimate failure. Its fate is decay or explosion. From its debris we shall either revert to the Normal Social Life and begin again the long struggle towards that ampler, happier, juster arrangement of human affairs which we of this book, at any rate, believe to be possible, or we shall ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of jubilee to the literary labourer. The injury done by gas is so generally acknowledged by the heads of our national libraries, that it is strictly excluded from their domains, although the danger from explosion and fire, even if the results of combustion were innocuous, would be sufficient cause for ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... Orlando saw with disappointment that neither explosion nor panic was to ensue. Yes, Jeremiah remembered Prochnow; he recalled the bold, brainy young fellow, so full of vigour and vitality. He himself had reached an age when such things made their impression, and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... and advanced it by gentle thrusts, twisting it as he pushed to clear the forks. There was not a sound from the den. The feeler would go no farther. He grasped it flat between the palms of his hands and twirled the cable rapidly from right to left. There was a sudden spitting explosion of baby snarls from the depths of the hole. The man gave one tentative tug and felt resistance, then hauled the feeler in hand over hand and drew forth a fighting pup, the three tines twisted firmly into his soft fur. The hound opened up excitedly; ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... communication touching the action-at-law. There ensued a little mutual misapprehension, followed by a few emphatic words of denial from Dr. Ashton; and the countess-dowager walked away with a scarlet face, and an explosion of ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... So far as the expression goes. (Aside.) It isn't in her nature to take things quietly. There'll be an explosion yet. ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... thrilling the house; but, when it happened that this Greek (so suitable to the occasion) was also the one sole morsel of Greek that everybody in that assembly understood, the effect, as may be supposed, was overwhelming, and wrapt the whole house in what might be called a fiery explosion of laughter. Meantime, as prizes in the matrimonial lottery, and prizes in all senses, both young ladies were soon carried off. Miss Smith, whose expectations I never happened to hear estimated, married ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in the school? It shows itself by "propositions" in the wrapper. Is any body aggrieved or injured? I learn it through the wrapper. In fact, it is a little safety-valve, which lets off what, if confined, might threaten explosion—-an index—a thermometer, which reveals to me, from day to day, more of the state of public opinion in the little community than ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... of the way. Two or three shots from the revolver—and Philip's appearance in the corral—would shake their confidence. It would at least warn them that Celie was not alone, and that her protector was armed. For that reason Philip thanked the Lord that a "stocking" gun had a bark like the explosion of a toy cannon even if its bite was like that of ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... up the wireless mast and the store in which spare cable and cable gear was kept; a third explosion wrecked the wireless hut, and completed the destruction of the installation. The dynamo rooms and workshops were destroyed with flogging hammers and axes, everything breakable, including clocks, being smashed to atoms. Their next proceeding was to cut the shore ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... from face to face of the silent circle. Not one showed a sign of any knowledge of the affair. They had heard the explosion and had run from their homes to see ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... in question. The apathy of the government at this crisis is scarcely to be accounted for, as it must have been clear to its members that the train was laid, and that it only required the application of the match to occasion a most terrible explosion. The only remarkable declaration which ministers substituted for active measures, consisted in a private letter sent by the Duke of Wellington to Dr. Curtis, Catholic primate of Ireland. In that letter ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... men, after their first fright, had recovered sufficiently to pursue the captive so strangely released by the explosion. ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... furnishes a severe test of a speaker's wisdom. To be trivial on a serious occasion, to be funereal at a banquet, to be long-winded ever—these are the marks of non-sense. Some imprudent souls seem to select the most friendly of after-dinner occasions for the explosion of a bomb-shell of dispute. Around the dinner table it is the custom of even political enemies to bury their hatchets anywhere rather than in some convenient skull. It is the height of bad taste to raise questions that in hours consecrated to ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... With an explosion of terrifying oaths Lighthouse Harry thrust a shell into the breech of the quick-firing gun. Without waiting to aim it, he tugged at the trigger. Nothing happened! He threw open the breech and gazed ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... passengers. The Effinghams are very decided, though so purse-proud and grand; Sir George Templemore declares it is quite extraordinary, and even the French lady is furious. To be as sincere as the crisis demands, public opinion is setting so strong against you, that I expect an explosion." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... him—and the chapel before you came?" Letitia queried cautiously, as if fearing the explosion she felt ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... residence. On the 28th of January 1562, lightning fell on one of the towers, then used as a magazine, and set fire to fifteen or twenty thousand barrels of powder. Several lives were lost, and another effect of this explosion was that it killed all the fishes in the river. Charles IX, Henry III, and Henry IV rebuilt the Arsenal, and augmented it considerably. Before the revolution, the founderies served for casting bronze ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hand, for service in the Indian war then raging, a considerable store of gunpowder. This she placed under the room in which her master and mistress slept, laid a long train, and dropped a coal on it. She had barely time to escape to the farm-house before the explosion took place, shattering the stately mansion into fragments. Saltonstall and his wife were carried on their bed a considerable distance, happily escaping serious injury. Some soldiers stationed in ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a certain point; which point Forms the most difficult in punctuation. Appearances appear to form the joint On which it hinges in a higher station; And so that no explosion cry "Aroint Thee, witch!"[684] or each Medea has her Jason; Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)[mm] "Omne tulit punctum, quae ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... bright light, and a slight explosion, interrupted the half-laughing girl, and Mulford, turning on his heel, quick as thought, saw that a rocket had shot into the air, from a point close under the bows of the brig. He was still in the act of moving toward the forecastle, when, at the distance of several leagues, he saw ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... discerned by much less acute optics than those of the archbishop; but his were blinded by the arrogance of success. At length, in this inflammable state of public feeling, an incident occurred which led to a general explosion. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... the midst of an action, suspended there, frozen to stone. They waited for that poised hand to drop, for the slender fingers to clutch the butt of the gun, for the convulsive jerk that would bring out the gleaming barrel, the explosion, the spurt of smoke, and Buck Daniels lurching forward to his ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... breath that swelled him dangerously. He opened his lips and the air rushed out with roaring sound. Again he inspired, raised his clenched hands above his head, stood like some great tottering image upon the brink of internal explosion. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... A sudden explosion shook the room and blent with the cheers of the populace. Grodman had shot himself—very scientifically—in the heart. He fell at the Home ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... hid in the bushes, waiting for the house and Dr. Pigg to be blown up, so he could go in and take whatever he wanted. The string on the firecracker burned slowly, but surely. And the fox knew it would be a perfectly tremendous explosion, for the firecracker was as big as a hundred ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... changes in which the Motor Rangers figure. They have experiences "that never were on land or sea," in heat and cold and storm, over mountain peak and lost city, with savages and reptiles; their ship of the air is attacked by huge birds of the air; they survive explosion and earthquake; they even live to tell ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... foretaste of Milton's Pandemonium. The faces of those still capable of drinking wore a hideous blue tint, from burning draughts of punch. Mad dances were kept up with wild energy; excited laughter and outcries broke out like the explosion of fireworks. The boudoir and a small adjoining room were strewn like a battlefield with the insensible and incapable. Wine, pleasure, and dispute had heated the atmosphere. Wine and love, delirium and unconsciousness possessed them, and were written upon all faces, upon ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... (it was estimated by the engineers) from 800 to 1000 tons. Fifty cases of highly explosive powder were suitably placed all around it. Excursion steamers took hundreds of people from all parts of the Lake to see the explosion, and at the proper moment, while everybody held his breath, the fuses were fired, the blasts took effect, the rock flew down to the level beneath, shattered into four great masses. A new El Capitan now ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... He kissed me on both cheeks. "Go, my Philippe," said I; "go to glory." He did; for a mine was sprung, and he with many others was blown to atoms. I had watched the advance of the column and was able to distinguish the form of my dear Philippe when the explosion with the vast column of smoke took place. When it cleared away, I could see the wounded in every direction hastening back; but my husband was not among them. In the mean time the other columns entered the breach—the ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... be nowhere. His last idea is to resign the Presidentship of the Municipal Council. Why, we are the Council, and we should have kicked him out if he hadn't! Very funny, but it's hard to laugh when one's within an ace of a massacre or an explosion. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... board. The company thereby wantonly caused the death of so many passengers. According to the express report of the submarine commander concerned, which is further confirmed by all other reports, there can be no doubt that the rapid sinking of the Lusitania was primarily due to the explosion of the cargo of ammunition caused by the torpedo. Otherwise, in all human probability, the passengers of the Lusitania ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the very bad weather, the waves got into the habit of breaking over the funnel of the steamer and thereby causing a steam explosion down below. This so worked on the nerves of the stokers that they got up a mutiny, in which the other sailors joined, the object being to force the captain to return the steamer to England. They thought ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... forgotten. Dimly she realized that this strange, almost physical soreness, which made him shrink from her presence as a man with weak eyes shrinks from the light, was the outward sign of a secret violence in his soul, yet she ministered helplessly to each passing explosion of temper as if it were the cause instead of the result of his suffering. Introspection, which had lain under a moral ban in a society that assumed the existence of an unholy alliance between the secret and the evil, could ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... rocks, or were swallowed up by the invisible gorge. Then a thick cloud surrounded everything, and we realized that our post at the mouth of the crater, on an overhanging ridge, was dangerous; indeed, a part of the edge, not far off, broke down and was lost in the depths. Another and another explosion followed; but when we turned, we overlooked a peaceful landscape, green forests, palms bending over the bright blue water, and far off the islands of ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... bandages; the other has a great white turban on his head, with a red patch on it that spreads and spreads. They stare dully, but make no sound. As I crank the car there is a shrill screaming noise. . . . About thirty yards away I hear an explosion like a mine-blast, followed by a sudden belch of coal-black smoke. I stare at it in a dazed way. Then the doctor says: "Don't trouble to analyze your sensations. Better get off. You're only drawing ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... while, and were very quiet. The girls whispered together, and kept right near the tents, waiting for the explosion. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... sitting. Yet while there is so much to suggest the operation of central forces, bringing and keeping the members of the cluster together, the attentive observer is also impressed with the idea that the whole wonderful phenomenon may be the result of explosion. As soon as this thought seizes the mind, confirmation of it seems to be found in the appearance of the outlying stars, which could be as readily explained by the supposition that they have been blown apart as that they have ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... the night, however, there were none passing save Naval officers on duty. None other than the lieutenant himself had lately passed in the corridor. How, then, had this electric light bulb been shattered and made to give forth the sound of the explosion? ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... through the Martian night toward Ultra Vires, Dark was remembering, with something of awe, that emotional explosion within him that had occurred on his first sight of Goat Hennessey at the Canfell Hydroponic Farm. It was this sudden, overwhelming recognition that had wrung from his lips the ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of all the buildings? The wild thought swept me. But it was not that. I could see light stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko had dared to send some men to attack our ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... I think!" she cried, springing up with an explosion of relief. Lansing stood up also, but there was no answering light in ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... abstractedly into the water under my boat, hurried into the tent, and in an instant reappeared with the gun I had given him in his hands. He slowly pointed it at the spot in the water where my boat had been moored during the night, and drawing the trigger, an explosion followed, while the water flew upward in fine jets into the air. Then, to the astonished gaze of the party on the bank, an alligator as long as my boat arose to view, and, roused by the shock, hurried ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... part the defection of the servants I have just mentioned. Those who were sufficiently attached to their masters and mistresses to endure the confinement and privations of a Maison d'Arret, tremble at the thoughts of being involved in the common ruin of a gunpowder explosion; and the men seem to have less courage than the women, at least more of the latter have consented to remain here.—It was atrocious to publish such a conception, though nothing perhaps was intended by it, as it may deprive many people of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... needed for happiness is to kill the will, to destroy the wish to be.—But this would be the end of existence?—And in fact to be no more or not to be at all is the true happiness and it would be necessary to blow up the whole world in an explosion for it to escape unhappiness. At least, as Buddhism desired and, in some degree, though less, Christianity also, it is necessary to make an approach to death by a kind of reduction to the absolute ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... hammer, will divide of themselves, and make way for the little tender sprout which proceeds from the kernel. There are instances, it is said, such as in the Touch-me-not (impatiens), and the Cuckoo-flower (cardamine), in which the seed-vessels, by an elastic jerk at the moment of their explosion, cast the seeds to a distance. We are all aware, however, that many seeds—those of the most composite flowers, as of the thistle and dandelion—are endowed with, what have not been inappropriately called, wings. These consist of a beautiful silk-looking ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the boys who meant to make trouble, but they could not give up their contemplated fun. Nevertheless, by tacit agreement, they preserved perfect propriety for the present. They were not ready for the explosion. ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... told him that the fire was almost at the powder horn. Giving his fire ship a mighty shove he sent it directly between the scows and then he made a great dive down and away. He swam under water as long as he could, and just as he was coming to the surface he heard and saw the explosion. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... could do was to lie still, see my shot-gun handy, and wait for the explosion. But it was a solemn kind of a business. The blackness of the night was like solid; the only thing you could see was the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood, and that showed you nothing but itself; and as for sounds, I stretched my ears till I thought I could ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wiping his face with one hand and shaking the other after the retreating dust. "Mean old scoot! I'll teach him to insult one of our boys,—'Lincoln vandals' indeed! I'd like to have whanged him!" with a final shake and a final explosion, cooling off as rapidly as he had heated, and continuing the interrupted conversation with recovered temper ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... bit of a blue cloak down that hole? The colonel is underneath that stone, and the bayonets sticking out of the rubbish belong to the men he was leading. The explosion buried them ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... sea behind us burst into a flame, followed by the sound of an explosion so frightful that we were almost stunned by it. A huge mass of water, torn up in a solid block, was hurled into the air, and there it broke into a hundred roaring cataracts. These, in the brilliant search ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... dream. I was in a big, well-furnished, airy room, with people moving about in it; I knew none of them, but we were on friendly terms, and talked and laughed together. Quite suddenly I was struck somewhere in the chest by some rough, large missile, fired, I thought, from a gun, though I heard no explosion; it pierced my ribs, and buried itself, I felt, in some vital part. I stumbled to a couch and fell upon it; some one came to raise me, and I was aware that other persons ran hither and thither seeking, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Christmastide has long been the "cracker." The satisfaction which young people especially experience in pulling the opposite ends of a gelatine and paper cylinder is of the keenest, accompanied as the operation is by a mixed anticipation—half fearful as to the explosion that is to follow, and wholly delightful with regard to the bonbon or motto which will thus be brought to light. Much amusement is afforded to the lads and lassies by the fortune-telling verses which some of the crackers contain. But the cracker of our early days was something far different from ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery—"a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan's secret thoughts ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... one that is full of gunpowder, and fires off every ten minutes," said grandpapa; "but I told Uncle Roger we would have none of them here unless he was prepared to see one of his boys blown up at every third explosion." ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the gun is fixed in regular style, and the company condemned to smell powder for twenty minutes to come! To the telling of this gun story, it is not, you see, at all necessary that there should be an actual explosion and report; it is sufficient that there might have been something of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... Hebecourt and his soldiers also left the fort at last, escaping in boats, and leaving a match burning in the magazine. One of the bastions of Ticonderoga blew up with a tremendous explosion, and then the victorious army marched in. Ticonderoga, such a looming and tremendous name in America, a fortress for which so much blood had been shed, had fallen at last. Robert did not dream that in another war, less than ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... think it necessary—feeling, I suppose, that she had met him without her father's knowledge, and not forgetting that I had had the start of her as the favored object of Mr. Armadale's good opinion—to assert herself by an explosion of virtuous indignation. She wondered how he could think of such a thing after his conduct with Miss Gwilt, and after her father had forbidden him the house! Did he want to make her feel how inexcusably she had forgotten what was due to herself? Was it worthy of a gentleman to propose what he knew ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... seized her, and with a quick explosion of feeling she dropped on her knees, and looking into his eyes, as though hungering for the words she so often yearned ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... more destructive and must be handled with much greater care to be sure that it does not explode accidentally or prematurely. The bomb usually contains from 100 to 500 pounds of tri-nitro-toluol, or T.N.T., as it is usually called, the most powerful of all explosives. The explosion of a ship loaded with it in Halifax harbor, December 6, 1917, caused almost as great a loss of life and ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... At the moment the explosion took place, two people came upon the scene, one from the barn and one from the house. They were Uncle Jack and Mrs. Posset. The latter had happened to look out of the window just as the grand turn-out came round for the ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... himself in, to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed—that cat's hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake—a sudden explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect boil-over of ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... open track. I clambered until out of breath; for a continued spattering fire, in which every shot was multiplied by a thousand echoes, the hissing of the kindled fusees of the grenades, and the successive explosion of those missiles, mingled with the huzzas of the soldiers, and the yells and cries of their Highland antagonists, formed a contrast which added—I do not shame to own it—wings to my desire to reach a place of safety. The difficulties of the ascent soon increased ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... tightly; two words from me would have produced an explosion. So I clapped him on the shoulder and sent him off to bed. He went sulkily, without looking round, and his shoulders drooped like those of an old man; but I reflected that that would all be changed after ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... towards the town. The weary and disheartened sentinels, weakened by famine and tired of war, maintained a doubtful vigilance along the ramparts. The subsiding waters of the river had left a bare gap between the White Nile and the wall. Perhaps there was treachery besides. On a sudden the loud explosion of musketry broke the stillness of the night and the slumbers of the people; and with a continual shouting thousands of Dervishes swarmed through the unprotected ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... abrupt, nothing violent. And moreover this phenomenon, if we consider only our senses, is rather painful than agreeable, for the nerves of our sight and those of our hearing are each in their turn painfully strained, then not less violently relaxed, by the alternations of light and darkness, of the explosion of the thunder, and silence. And in spite of all these causes of displeasure, a storm is an attractive phenomenon for whomsoever is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... comprehended the whole thing. Now the true state of mind between the quondam Windham and Miss Lorton became evident. Now he began to suspect how desperately they had been in love. A thousand little incidents occurred to his memory, and each one brought on a fresh explosion. Even his own proposal to Zillah was remembered. He wondered whether Windham had proposed also, and been rejected. This only was needed to his mind ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... started to return. But when they had got 500 feet down Priestley found that he had left a tin of exposed films on the top instead of the record. Gran said he would go back and change it. He had reached the top when there was a loud explosion: large blocks of pumice were hurled out with a big smoke cloud; probably a big bubble had burst. Gran was in the middle of it, heard it gurgle before it burst, saw "blocks of pumiceous lava, in shape like the halves of volcanic bombs, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... and the soldiers took in the situation by instinct—and Johnson's rage was drowned in the universal explosion ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... the last sentence with such an air of blank humility that we all had to cram our pocket handkerchiefs into our mouths to prevent a universal explosion. The master looked over his spectacles again at Doddle with an expression of unutterable amazement. We looked on with breathless interest, not unmingled with awe, for we expected some awful outbreak on the part of the master, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... with all his secrets and most of his bad intentions. But the motionless figure and the smiling face not only surprised—it alarmed—Ujarak. It seemed so unnatural. What powers of sudden onslaught might not lie hidden within that calm exterior? what dynamitic capacities of swift explosion might not underlie that ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... excitement and is wearying as a natural result, since excitement, means a physical discharge of energy. A child laughs all over and weeps with his entire body; his anger involves every muscle of his body and his fear is an explosion. The ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... She just sat down and stared at me, and I stared back at her. Then a miserable alarm clock on the table suddenly went off like an explosion, and Bella began to laugh. I knew what that was—hysteria. She always had attacks like that when things went wrong. I was quite despairing by that time; I hoped they would all hear her and come downstairs ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the number and caliber of the guns, and the amount of damage done to inanimate material on both sides, especially to Fort Sumter, nobody was injured on either side by the bombardment. The only casualty attendant upon the affair was the death of one man and the wounding of several others by the explosion of a gun in the firing of a salute to their flag by the garrison on evacuating the fort the day after ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... healed. Now, he took command. In the meantime, Seguis's men, having secured a goodly supply of provisions, were making all speed into the forest. Fitzpatrick, dazed at the audacity of the free-traders, gave vent to an explosion of fury. ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... is so simple in its mode of operation that there is less danger of error than with a muzzle-loader; yet the anatomical construction of the limbs and joints secures a degree of strength equal to that of a solid mass of iron. The force of the explosion causes so perfect a closing of the joint as to prevent any possible escape of gas, yet the breech may be removed by as simple a process as that of cocking the gun; and we have in the course of experiment fired the gun three hundred times, and have since seen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... ordered the Portuguese out of the building, and with the help of an English sergeant, he carried out, piece by piece, all the wood which they had set on fire. Now, imagine what that must have been. An explosion might happen at any moment, yet they had to walk steadily, slowly, and with the utmost caution, in and out of this place several times, lest one spark ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young man been swept to a little distance by a wave, when the ship blew up with a tremendous crash. The shattered ruins were carried aloft to an immense elevation: Bertram was stunned by the explosion: and, upon recovering his senses, he saw no object upon the surface of the waters: the ship had vanished; and nothing remained but a few spars floating in ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... about with the menacing, shrapnel look, and it seemed that there might be an explosion of sharp-pointed small ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... IX. The explosion of the hand-grenade; shattered hopes and happiness.—A winter evening's gossip at the Aubrey Arms, among Yatton villagers, and its ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... know that Mrs. Clemens liked the Parlor Car—enjoyed it ever so much, and was indignant at you all through, and kept exploding into rages at you for pretending that such a woman ever existed—closing each and every explosion with "But it is just what such a woman would do." —"It is just what such a woman would say." They all voted the Parlor Car perfection—except me. I said they wouldn't have been allowed to court and quarrel there so long, uninterrupted; but at ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... for the sound of the explosion, but all we were vouchsafed was a torrent of blasphemy ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... from the contact of his master's hand; and, as if anticipating an explosion, began to stammer forth his excuses. Theodora's countenance was suddenly overspread with a deadly paleness, and the timid girl wrung her hands in an attitude of despair. Her critical situation, and the duenna's alarm, at first staggered Gomez Arias, but with the start of resolution which immediate ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... now made to secure the ships from the effects of the expected explosion.—The ports were lowered down, the magazine secured, the sails handed, and water placed in various parts to extinguish whatever flames might be communicated. The unfortunate ship was now in a blaze; at half-past eleven she blew up, and the tremendous ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... appreciate you; but I had reason to think that—that there were other views—for—' and here the olive cheeks grew crimson, and he stammered himself into a hopeless entanglement, whence Felix recalled him charitably to an account of the explosion as it had ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... formed to raise funds, and then came the explosion, striking evidence of the enormous difference between the American and the Continental point of view in morals. With characteristic Russian impracticability, Gorki had come to America with a woman whom he introduced as his wife; but it appeared that his legal ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... woman resided in the outskirts of St. Louis, whose name was Brainerd. Her husband had been a mechanic, noted for his ingenuity, but was killed some five years before by the explosion of a steam boiler. He left behind him a son, hump-backed, dwarfed, but with an amiable disposition that made him a favorite with all with whom he came ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... Professor Valeyon, who was there? Cornelia was quite at a loss. To think of being obliged to give up the whole explosion, merely for want of a match to touch off the powder, that was unendurable! She would not give it up; she would let herself be guided by circumstances; something would be sure to turn up that would serve her purpose; she must be on the alert, that was all, and let things take their course. One ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... inveterate disposition to republicanism, and (however for some time past quiet) is as liable to explosion as its own Vesuvius. Sicily, I think, has these dispositions in full as strong a degree. In neither of these countries exists anything which very well deserves the name of government or ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... affected lightness in these remarks that the young woman was cut to the very quick. She had expected an explosion of anger, but not this calm contempt. Her revolted ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... to comprehend the political explosion of the passage of this Bill all over the country, for it so happened I made a lecturing trip through the South and South-west during the ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... mischief and engaging roguery as any tortoiseshell kitten—with elfin glee her favourite sport was to fill her grandmother's bed with "ouliaries" (Good God! berries, so called because on sudden contact with bare flesh they burst with a loud explosion causing the victim to shout "Good God!" from sheer surprise). For three months this winsome game went undetected until one day her mother—Kia-oopoo—discovered her creeping in at her grandmother's door with a basket full of "ouliaries." Catching ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... surrounding lands. These tremblings of the earth continued at intervals for sixteen years, doing much damage. At length, on the 24th of August of the year 79, came the culminating event. With a tremendous and terrible explosion the whole top of the mountain was torn out, and vast clouds of steam and volcanic ashes were hurled high into the air, lit into lurid light by the crimson gleams of ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the lieutenant seized a loaded pistol. Instead of shooting his brutal commander on the spot, he rushed down the steps into the after part of the vessel, and undoubtedly discharged his weapon among the powder in the magazine! A tremendous explosion followed, which blew the privateer to fragments, scattering the timbers and planks, and the legs, arms, and bodies of the crew, in every direction! The shrieks of the wounded, the struggles of the dying, and the spectacle ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... columns of smoke, thick, oily, and black as night. It might have come from the center of the world, this smoke, where the fires of the ages still smolder. It came as if self-impelled, driving all before it, a perpetual explosion. It was inexhaustible; one stared, waiting to see it stop, but still the great streams rolled out. They spread in vast clouds overhead, writhing, curling; then, uniting in one giant river, they streamed away down the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the result of a kerosene explosion. So instant had been the ignition of everything combustible that nearly the whole interior was in flames before assistance could arrive. Stout engines played but upon useless debris, and ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... my companion, "keep clear, and look out for yourself when I fire at this reptile; most likely it will make for one of us." He drew right close to it, and thrusting the barrel of his pistol between its eyes touched the trigger. The explosion shook the hut, its effect upon the spider being to cause it to rush frantically about the floor, dragging the Maw-Sayah as if he were some slight burden ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... shouted so loudly that we all jumped to our feet and Aunt Deel covered her face with her apron and began to cry. It was like the explosion of a blast. Then the fragments began falling with a ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... old road, and jumped into the saddle. He worked the pedals preparatory to turning on the gasolene and spark to set the motor in motion. As he threw forward the levers, having acquired what he thought was the necessary momentum, he was surprised that no explosion followed. The ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... lightning. There was a crash like the bursting of a cannon. The shop was filled for a moment with a shower of brilliant sparks, that flew like meteors to every corner of the place. Everyone was prepared for the explosion except Yates. He sprang back with a cry, tripped, and, without having time to get the use of his hands to ease his fall, tumbled and rolled to the horses' heels. The animals, frightened by the report, stamped around; and Yates had to hustle on his hands and knees to safer quarters, ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... now the nearest ship had arrived within gunshot. The long gun was loaded after some trouble, and pointed directly at the corsair vessel. Ranadar and his men cried out in tones of defiance. At last the shot came. A loud explosion thundered around, a ball came whizzing by, and passed through the sails, but ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... cried, and there was a little explosion; a cork spurted out and struck the ceiling; there was smoke and the crackling of glass. He turned round and faced me, a smudge of ink on one of his cheeks, and that customary nervous unhappy smile on ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... into a horse-laugh by way of reply; and being pressed by the ladies to explain, did so when the explosion of hilarity was over. "He fancies he can play at billiards," said he. "I won two hundred of him at the Cocoa-Tree. HE play, the young flat! He'd have played for anything that day, but his friend Captain Dobbin carried him ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to her father, in a playful way, although it was a serious sort of playfulness, "I have a vague feeling that there is a little too much electricity in the atmosphere of this place just at present. I am afraid there may be an explosion; and you know my nerves can't stand much of a shock. I should ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... raised himself on an elbow. 'The explosion,' he said, examining his watch, 'occurred at about five minutes to eleven—we are advancing into the morning—last night. I received on your behalf the congratulations of friends Loftus, Alton, Segrave, and the rest, at that hour. So, my dear Richie, you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rotation of the earth on its axis, as might have been suspected, had all these strata been parallel with that axis. They may, indeed, have been thrown up by explosions, as Whitehurst supposes, or have been the effect of convulsions. But there can be no proof of the explosion, nor is it probable that convulsions have deformed every spot of the earth. It is now generally agreed that rock grows, and it seems that it grows in layers in every direction, as the branches of trees grow in all directions. Why seek further the solution of this phenomenon? Every ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... few moments the terrified occupants of Avonlea school did not know whether it was an earthquake or a volcanic explosion that had occurred. The innocent looking parcel which Anne had rashly supposed to contain Mrs. Hiram's nut cakes really held an assortment of firecrackers and pinwheels for which Warren Sloane had sent to town by St. Clair Donnell's father the day before, intending ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... continue her voyage up the river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling through the throng in the Boreas' saloon calling her mother and father, but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the school to order, he always rapped on the table with a heavy ruler. Under the green baize table-cloth, on the exact spot where he usually struck, certain boy, whose name I withhold, placed a fat torpedo. The result was a loud explosion, which caused Mr. Grimshaw to look queer. Charley Marden was at the water-pail, at the time, and directed general attention to himself by strangling for several seconds and then squirting a slender thread ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... he was suffering, weakens all the tissues of the body, and this weakness is aggravated by drinking wine and still more by drinking spirits. Suddenly, as the two friends sat by the bedside in sorrowful anxiety, there was a loud explosion: mucus poured out of Oscar's mouth and ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... first days of March all was prepared for a coming explosion, and in spite of the departure of the Prussians, the Socialist party determined that it should take place. (Guerre des ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... who had a high opinion of him; but like many of his lordship's contemporaries, his Majesty strongly deprecated the frequent outbursts of temper on the part of his Chief Justice. "At a levee, soon after an extraordinary explosion of ill-humour in the Court of King's Bench, his Majesty said to him: 'My Lord Chief Justice, I hear that you have lost your temper, and from my great regard for you, I am very glad to hear it, for I hope you ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... he was talking the old woman sat nodding approval as the circumstances he was relating were recalled to her memory. His name is Ogzeuckjeuwock, and he is an aruketko, or medicine-man, in his tribe. The recollection of the boat place was somewhat impressed upon his mind by the explosion of a can of powder with which he and another lad were playing after the articles were found there. The effects of the explosion came near proving fatal at the time, and when I met him during the fall ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... the penny; he knew with which side he wished to fight. He joined the cavalry of the North, and hammered and fought his way to a captaincy. He was wounded five times and imprisoned twice. His right eye was still weak from the effects of a powder explosion; and whenever it bothered him he wore a single glass, abominating, as all soldiers do, the burden of spectacles. At the end of the conflict he returned ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... tottering erection. But this I shall say, that Germany is at this moment on the verge of insurrection; and that the first French flag which waves on the right bank of the Rhine will be the signal of explosion. I say more; that if the effect is to be permanent, pure, or beneficial, it will not be the result of the tricolor. The French conquests have always been brilliant, but it was the brilliancy of a soap-bubble. A puff of the weakest lips that ever breathed from a throne, has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... language, is this:—A voluntary action is a sequence distinct and sui generis; a human being avoiding the cold, searching for food, and clinging to other beings, is not to be confounded with a pure material sequence, as the fall of rain, or the explosion of gunpowder. The phenomena, in both kinds, are phenomena of sequence, and of regular or uniform sequence; but the things that make up the sequence are widely different: in the one, a feeling of the mind, or a concurrence of feelings, is followed by a conscious muscular exertion; ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... Mr. Burton, skimming some dust from the last explosion out of his coffee cup. "Amusing is the word. Funny, I call it. Funny as a ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... interrupted the meditations of the priest was the explosion of a rifle. As Ethel started up another followed. This excited the men themselves, who now listened intently to ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille |
