"Giant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The major was a giant, with broad shoulders, and a long, fair-like beard, which hung like a cloth on his chest. His whole, solemn person suggested the idea of a military peacock, a peacock who was carrying his tail spread out on to his breast. He had cold, gentle, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... decipher the manuscript, and he himself, with all his pains and pleasures, be resuscitated in some later day; and the thought, although discouraged, must have warmed his heart. He was not such an ass, besides, but he must have been conscious of the deadly explosives, the guncotton and the giant powder, he was hoarding in his drawer. Let some contemporary light upon the Journal, and Pepys was plunged forever in social and political disgrace. We can trace the growth of his terrors by two facts. In 1660, while the Diary was still in its youth, he tells about it, as a matter of ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... and the girl opened her eyes to find that the tiny man had suddenly grown to a giant and was holding both her and Toto in a tight embrace while in one step he spanned the lake ...
— Little Wizard Stories of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... long ago into the ditch, and covered with the all-receiving earth and a green coat of turf. You could but tell were they lay, by the undulations of the ground, and the grassy hillock here and there. The great gate still stood firm, however, with its two tall towers, standing like giant wardens to guard the entrance. There were the machicolated parapets, the long loopholes mantled with ivy, the outsloping basement, against which the battering ram might have long played in vain, the family ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... ragged cleft of the desert, with shelving rock and giant bowlder on every side, without a sign of leaf, or sprig of grass, or tendril of tiny creeping plant, a little party of haggard, hunted men lay in hiding and in the silence of exhaustion and despond, awaiting the inevitable. Bulging outward overhead, like the counter of some ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the house got out the calicoes and hardware which they had brought over the hot hills and through the forests of giant cacti from Tucson. The smugglers spread blankets, unbuckled broad money-belts from their waists, and stripped out the dobie dollars, letting them fall in clinking heaps upon the cloth. ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... atmosphere seemed filled with a clear, cold sunlight whose brilliance irradiated the giant sphere ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... legs luxuriously. He was in no hurry to continue his journey. Now that he and the desert were alone together, haste and Casey Ryan held nothing in common. For awhile he watched a Joshua palm that looked oddly like a giant man with one arm hanging loose at its side and another pointing fixedly at a distant, black-capped butte standing aloof from its fellows. Casey was tired after his night on the trail. Easy living in town had softened his muscles and slowed a little that untiring energy ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... such a boy, this big giant of a millionaire who had half the rich men of San Francisco afraid of him. Such a boy! She had never imagined ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... aunty some day. Charlie trembled at the thought; Cecil pondered profoundly how, by the judicious arrangement of a trap-door in the middle of his room, he might carry out the original idea of Jack the Giant-Killer. ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... been bowed and broken—perils by storms at sea, and the knives of robbers upon land—and I have looked upon it with a quiet eye. But you, Morton Devereux, you I always feared. I had seen from your childhood others whose nature was far stronger than mine yield and recoil at yours; I had seen the giant and bold strength of Gerald quail before your bent brow; I had seen even the hardy pride of Montreuil baffled by your curled lip and the stern sarcasm of your glance; I had seen you, too, in your wild moments of ungoverned rage, and I knew that if earth held one whose passions were ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mothers; and as soon as they begin the journey they hear a thousand things in regard to the evils of the country where they are going. Even if nothing more is said of it than that there is neither bread nor wine therein, that is enough to daunt a giant. Then those who by their strength of character overcome these difficulties at the edge of the water are frightened at the sea, and at the dismal prophecies that are usually current, that the fleet will be lost on account ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... no one," cried the giant, struggling hopelessly and desperately. "Take my bags an you will; I was but bearing them to ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... to ourselves the gray mountain massed high about the narrow entrance of Santiago Bay, the picturesque Morro Castle, squatting like a grim giant above the strait, and outside, tossing and bobbing upon the swell of a restless sea, the mighty semicircle of drab ships waiting, yearning for the outcoming of the Dons. We of the "Yankee," I repeat, were in an agony of dread that we ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... the centuries immediately preceding the thirteenth, is revealed by the assertion of Carlyle that "in Dante ten silent centuries found a voice." To state what history now regards as fact, it must be said that while Dante by his giant personality and sublime poetic genius could alone ennoble any epoch he was not "a solitary phenomenon of his time but a worthy culmination of the literary movement which, beginning shortly before 1200, produced down to 1300 ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... deer, a giraffe, a woolly horse, a five-legged calf and a moose. In the back yard there are two white bear cubs, a baby elephant, a nest of pythons, half a dozen ostriches, a learned pig, several alligators and crocodiles, and a giant sloth from South America. The stable is well stocked with monkeys, parrots, eagles, lizards, tortoises and other curiosities, and in the watering trough are a sea serpent and a mermaid (said to be the only specimens of these marvels ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... possible giant oil and gas fields on the continental margin; manganese nodules, possible placer deposits, sand and gravel, fresh water as icebergs; squid, whales, and seals - none exploited; ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... adventurous fluff-ball of gray-gold-and-white fur, Bruce swiftly developed into a lanky giant. He was almost as large again as is the average collie pup of his age; but, big as he was, his legs and feet and head were huge, out of all proportion to the rest of him. The head did not bother him. Being ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... is yours, For whence upon you falls this giant robe? Child, whom beforehand they have robbed of glory, Pale Prince, so pale against your sable suit, Why ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... threshold abide. So he stands awhile and marvels; then the baleful light of the Wrath Gleams bare in his ready hand as he wendeth the inward path: For he doubteth some guile of the Gods, or perchance some Dwarf-king's snare, Or a mock of the Giant people that shall fade in the morning air: But he getteth him in and gazeth; and a wall doth he behold, And the ruddy set by the white, and the silver by the gold; But within the garth that it girdeth no work of man is set, But the utmost head of Hindfell ariseth higher yet; And below in the very ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... in childhood amidst those turfs and shades-memories, more agitating, of the last visit (childhood then ripened into blooming youth) to the ancient dwelling which, yet concealed from view by the swells of the undulating ground and the yellow boughs of the giant trees, betrayed its site by the smoke rising thin and dim against the limpid atmosphere. She bent down her head, closing her eyes as if to shut out less the face of the landscape than the images that rose ghost-like up to people it, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ti-trees showed the sandy bed of the creek, which, at first, to Lady Bridget's fancy, had the appearance of a broad shallow stream. On this side, low rocks with ferns growing in their crannies, edged the stream. On the opposite shore, one giant eucalyptus stood by itself and cast its shadow across. Beyond, lay the gum-peopled immensity of the bush. The stony walls of the knoll, curving inward and sheltering a thick growth of ferns and scrubby vegetation, closed in the bridal chamber. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... had brought home rare and unknown blossoms from under the icy lips of glaciers. But as he did this when his time was supposed to be occupied in looking after the cows in the higher pastures and making cheeses, there was trouble in that hard-working, practical family. A giant with the tastes and disposition of a schoolgirl was an anomaly in a Swiss village. Unfortunately again, he was not studious; his record in the village school had been on a par with his manual work, and the family had not even the consolation of believing that they ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... malignant one went on, his words searing Karl's soul. "You will realize that she could have given you wings, that she is the warmth, the color—her glowing passion the inspiration of your work. All this you will realize when she has slipped through your fingers. You might have become a master—a giant. Not by loving your art, but by loving her. Oh, to be kissed by her, to look into her burning eyes and to kiss her ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... you think it incongruous, impossible, the picture of happy-go-lucky, ridiculous Bobbie, with his slang and his grin and his outlook on life, and Ruskin, the great critic, the master of style, the intellectual giant. But then you reckon without Bobbie's quality of Penguinity, and without Ruskin's humanness. It is alike impossible to withstand the contagion of Bobbie's Penguinity, and to fancy a genius so great that he does not at times yearn for the common walks and the common talks of his ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... prologue to the customary marriage in its last chapter, with all the smoothness incidental to ordinary life. I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse. I would as lief have to do with a giant in my book—a real giant, such as Goliath—as with a murdering monk with a scowling eye. The age for such delights is, I think, gone. We may say historically of Mrs. Radcliffe's time that there were ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... disengaged himself from his opponent, and snatching up the musket, as he attempted to rise, laid him dead by a blow from the butt-end of it. Manning was of inferior size, but strong, and remarkably well formed. Joiett was almost a giant. This, probably, led Barry, who could not have wished the particulars of his capture to be commented on, to reply, when asked by his brother officers, how he came to be taken, 'I was ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... Laying bare in truthful teaching Treach'rous breakers round the bay, That the good old barque of England May in safety sail away: Though the tongue of fiercest Faction In its Folly may deride, Still he stands in lofty learning Like a giant o'er the tide, While the murmuring wavelets passing Far beneath his kingly hand, Looking upward, blindly babble Where they ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... I! Nay, thy love has given me kinship with the deities! Sleep? Ay, when Nature naps, and God looks for a bed! When yonder moon forgets her starry whirl and nodding falls from heaven! When Ocean's giant pulse is weary and grows still! When Earth heaves up no seasons with their buds! No, no, we will not sleep! But see—there gleams the river—and yonder rise the hills touched new with Spring! Wilt go there with me, ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... elaborate salutations and linger long to gossip, and bare-headed girls with long plaited pigtails present their baskets and bundles to be peered into or prodded suspiciously by the customs officer stationed at the Baden frontier-post, striped in brilliant crimson and yellow, like a giant sugarstick. Over on the little Laufenplatz children were playing about amongst the big iron salmon cages, and old people were sitting in the sunshine on the seats by the fountain, where from time to time a woman would fill her shining tin pails, or a man come to rinse out a tall wooden ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... you, Ida. I did not mean to tell you, but—but, I can't keep anything from you, even though it will go against me. One night the drinking led to fighting and I stood up to a son of Anak, a giant of a fellow; and we fought until both of us were knocked out; but I remember him going down first, just before I fell, I went from bad to worse. The owner of the run—it was called Salisbury Plain—spoke a word of warning, and I tried to pull up, tried to take to ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... of counties began. The third on the list—Bartholomew—was the first to say what the people longed to hear. A giant farmer, fiery and freckled, rose and in a voice like a blast from a bass horn bellowed: "Bartholomew casts her solid vote ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... not the only medicinal property attributed to "the food of the gods," for the Aztecs used to prescribe as a cure for diarrhoea and dysentery a potion prepared of cacao mixed with the ground bones of their giant ancestors, exhumed in the mountains. Such a very active principle was sure to make its enemies too, and several amusing attacks have survived to witness their own refutation. It was regarded by some as a violent inflamer of the passions, which should be prohibited to the monks; for, as one ...
— The Food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa • Brandon Head
... not of course on account of their actual literary merit, but because of the great events of which I was the actual witness, though but a child at the time. As a child, I was able to penetrate into the secrecy of the great man's private room. At nights I have heard the groans and wailings of this 'giant in distress.' He could feel no shame in weeping before such a mere child as I was, though I understood even then that the reason for his suffering was the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the commercial world, possesses a power that enforces a grave responsibility. She has the force to civilize. She is the natural colonizer of the world. In the short space of three centuries, America, sprung from her loins, has become a giant offspring, a new era in the history of the human race, a new birth whose future must be overwhelming. Of later date, and still more rapid in development, Australia rises, a triumphant proof of England's power to rescue wild lands from barrenness; to wrest from utter savagedom those mighty tracts ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... offshoot of the Lutheran heresy, acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of a temporal prince, and calling the Pope anti-Christ.... We find them intemperate in their language, rabid in their religious prejudices, and instead of towering giant-like above the intellectual average of their age, we see them buffeted by the same passions and identified with all opinions of the men by whom they were environed. The voice which addresses us behind the mystical mask of the Rose-Croix ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Hurry up, Ike!" cried this young person, consulting his silver watch, and casting a look of mingled commiseration and envy upon the giant, locked in the arms of the two women, who hardly reached to the second button of his coat. Isaac caught the glance, and started to tear himself away. But his mother laid her gnarled hand gently upon his arm, and led him ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... Marvellous, 'Impossible' you cry in surprise. But it is done. Realise through study and investigation the importance of your thought-life and avoid vitiating it by fear-thoughts, hate-thoughts, sensual and sensuous thoughts and vanity thoughts. Because, mark you, these four giant-weeds poison the roots of the Tree of Life. All humanity suffers pain in diverse ways, on account of these four bad thoughts and their millions of off-springs. Now you will say this is all ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... yet to make. Watt found that no less than four-fifths of all the steam used was lost in heating the cold cylinder, and only one-fifth performed service by acting on the piston. Prevent this, and the power of the giant is increased fourfold. Here was the prize to contend for. Win this and the campaign is won. First then, what caused the loss? This was soon determined. The cylinder was necessarily cooled at the top because it ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... dear, dismiss thy fear Of phantoms haunting sleep!' 'The giant knight, Sir Konrad hight, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... upon the unseen assailants behind the mantlets, and soon the blows of cross-bow bolts against the wall and the sharp tap of arrows told that the enemy had also betaken themselves to their arms. A number of giant torches had been prepared, consisting of sheafs of straw soaked with pitch, and one of these was now lighted and elevated on a pole some fifteen feet above the battlement. Its light was sufficient to enable the scene beyond to be ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... its preservation to the munificence of a private individual,—when stone-circle or round-tower, camp or dolmen, are destroyed to save a few shillings, and occupation-roads are mended with the immemorial altars of an unknown God. "Speak, Giant-mother! Tell it to the Morn!"—how strongly does the heart re-echo the solemn invocation which calls on those abiding witnesses to speak once of ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... 'all the fashionable Squares' ringing in his ears, we may leave Mr Pasquin. Fielding's first venture as political dramatist and theatrical manager had proved brilliantly successful; his little theatre, like his own Tom Thumb, had assailed a dozen giant abuses, an all-powerful Minister among them, and the town had applauded the courage and wit of the performance. In the following season, those same boards were to witness the author of Pasquin "laying about him" with ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... yourself, miss; as for me, I'm the very girl that has had my experience. No less than three did I manfully refuse, in spite of both father and mother. First there was big Bob Broghan, a giant of a fellow, with a head and pluck upon him that would fill a mess-pot. He had a chape farm, and could afford to wallow like a swine in filth and laziness. And well becomes the old couple, I must marry him, whether I would or not. Be aisy, said I, it's no go; when ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... de gospel," said the preacher, standing his ground without a quaver, in face of the threatening aspect of the giant Haitian, "an' I tell you"—he pointed a finger accusingly—"dat, for ebery oath you make hyar in de face ob de sun, you is goin' to pay, an' pay heabily, before ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Jan. 17. Chaikovsky's "Suite for Giant Orchestra" given by the Symphony Society, ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... octopus, or giant squid, as some people call it. It is very similar to the ordinary cuttlefish, only, of course very much larger. And, so far as I could see, it appeared to spring from the hull of the wreck. If you will excuse me for a moment, ladies, I will go to the pilot-house and endeavour ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... any form.' But the great change for him was that he could now find intellectual comradeship. There was a debating society, in which he first learnt to hear his own voice, and indeed became a prominent orator. He is reported to have won the surname 'Giant Grim.' His most intimate friend was the present Dr. Kitchin, Dean of Durham. The lads discussed politics and theology and literature, instead of putting down to affectation any interest outside of the river and the playing-fields. Fitzjames not only ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Niccola. She drove on sunward. She had left one frozen outer planet far behind. She had crossed the orbits of three others. The last of these was a gas giant with innumerable moonlets revolving about it. It was now some thirty millions of miles back and twenty to one side. The sun, ahead, flared and flamed in emptiness against that ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... feet for the spread of a man's arms, would be about ninety-six feet in circumference, or thirty-two feet in diameter; larger, probably, than the largest tree known in Europe. Yet it falls short of that famous giant of the forests mentioned by M. de Humboldt as still flourishing in the intendancy of Oaxaca, which, by the exact measurement of a traveller in 1839, was found to be a hundred and twelve feet in circumference at the height of four feet from the ground. This height may correspond ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... Mazechazz resembled the delegation far more than he did his own officer, for he, too, had remotely reptilian forbears. Indeed he still sported a flexible tail and, save for his own orange and blue uniform, ablaze with precious stones, resembled nothing so much as a giant Terrestrial chameleon. The uniforms were no accident. Surveymen wore anything or nothing as the case called for it, and the Falsethsa admired bright colors, having few of their own and a good color sense. The gleaming jewels on Mazechazz's uniform stressed his superiority ...
— Join Our Gang? • Sterling E. Lanier
... no more than a string of spaghetti to an Italian. Kelilah, the famous dancer of the Nile, whose graceful contortions have delighted the eyes and moved the hearts of kings. See Major Wee-Wee, the smallest man in the world, no bigger than a two-year-old baby, and Tom Morgan, the giant who stands seven feet three inches in his stocking feet. They are all there—every kind of human freak from the living skeleton to the fat woman who weighs four hundred pounds. The price is the same to one ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... an operator?" Mel questioned. "We ought to make this automatic." He grinned. "Giant computer ... can see it now: the brain comes alive, tries to destroy anyone turning ...
— Question of Comfort • Les Collins
... of that scene was still present with her—must remain so present with her till the end of her life, she thought. Those two men grappling each other, and then the fall—the tall figure crashing down with the force of a descending giant, as it had seemed to that terror-stricken spectator. For a long time she sat thinking of that awful moment—thinking of it with a concentration which left no capacity for any other thought in her mind. Her maid had come to her, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... his contemporary, having been born the same year, spoke of him with sincere admiration, and called him the giant of music. Haydn wrote: "Whoever understands me knows that I owe much to Sebastian Bach, that I have studied him thoroughly and well, and that I acknowledge him only as my model." Mozart's unceasing research brought to light many of his ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... Zada that her mate should not suffer either death or publicity. But chiefly her love of him made outcry now. She could not endure the vision of her beloved receiving the hammering of the giant Dyckman. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... hovering Sylphs! aerial Quires, And sweep with little hands your silver lyres; With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings, Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings; 5 While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead.— From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, To the dwarf Moss, that clings upon their bark, What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, 10 And woo and win their vegetable Loves. How Snowdrops cold, and blue-eyed Harebels blend Their tender tears, as o'er the stream they ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... trees (ALSTONIA SCHOLARIS) which need great flying buttresses to support their immense height, their roots being mainly superficial. For many generations two ospreys have had their eyrie in one of these giant trees, fit nursery for imperial birds! With annual additions, the nest has attained immense proportions, and as years pass it will still further increase, for blacks capable of climbing such a tree and disturbing the occupants are few and far between. Great distinction and pride, however, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... The Giant, in the Upper Geyser Basin, has a peculiar crater, which has been likened to the stump of a hollow sycamore tree of gigantic proportions, whose top has been wrenched off by a storm. This curious cup is broken ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the Trent, And the stream is in its strength,— For a surge, from its ocean-fountain sent, Pervades its giant length:[8] Roars the hoarse heygre[9] in its course, Lashing the banks with its wrathful force; And dolefully echoes the wild-fowl's scream, As the sallows are swept by the whelming stream; And her callow young are hurled for a meal, To the gorge of the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... days when he was not so quiet, when all her strength and that of Morris, who, at her earnest solicitation, came to her aid, was required to keep him on his bed. He was going home, he said, going back to Katy's; he had punished her long enough, and like a giant he writhed under a force superior to his own, and which held him down and controlled him, while his loud outcries filled the buildings, and sent a shudder to the hearts of those who heard them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the room with him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... triumphal arch. Like all the innumerable fountains of the city, the Meta Sudans stood dry; around the base of the rayed colossus of Apollo, goats were browsing. Thence they went along by the Temple of Venus and Rome, its giant columns yet unshaken, its roof gleaming with gilded bronze; and so under the Arch of Titus, when, with a sharp turn to the left, they began ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... would chatter with fear. And if some deadly snake chanced to appear the Wanderers would greet him as a brother, and the snake would seem to give his greetings to them before he passed on again. Once that most fierce and lethal of tropic snakes, the giant lythra, came out of the jungle and all down the street, the central street of Nen, and none of the Wanderers moved away from him, but they all played sonorously on drums, as though he had been a person of much honour; and the snake moved through the midst of ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... gentleman, extremely well-bred, totally divested of the vile Austrian manners, and speaks good German instead of the jargon of Austria. While he was staying here, the Fair of Saint-Germain commenced; a giant, who came to Paris for the purpose of exhibiting himself, having accidentally met M. Pentenrieder, said as soon as he saw him, "It's all over with me: I shall not go into the fair; for who will give money to see me while this man shows himself ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... is such a giant among his fellows that he may allow the life-works of the greatest geniuses of this world to be spurned underfoot? 'Take thou a book into thine hands,' wrote Thomas a Kempis, 'as Simeon the Just took the Child Jesus into his arms to carry him ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... The giant head moved from one side to the other, while two gigantic eyes peered around. It didn't know enough to draw back from the danger zone, but muscular reaction finally moved ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... rolling gait; he came forward muttering to himself. "Hurrah!" cried the boys. "Here comes the 'Great Power.'" But the man did not hear; he came to a standstill by the fighting group and stood there, still muttering. His giant figure swayed to and fro above them. "Help him, father!" cried Morten. The man laughed foolishly, and began slowly to pull his coat off. "Help him, then!" bellowed the boy, quite beside himself, shaking his father's arm. Jorgensen ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... women; "the very gables," says an enthusiastic contemporary, "seemed to laugh with ladies' eyes." The market-place was filled with waxen torches and with blazing tar barrels, while in its centre stood the giant Antigonus—founder of the city thirteen hundred years before the Christian era—the fabulous personage who was accustomed to throw the right hands of all smuggling merchants into the Scheld. This colossal individual, attired in a "surcoat of sky-blue," ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... courtship to each new friend whom he found capable of feeling its beauty or worthy of hearing it. Naturally, her father had hesitated to give her into the keeping of the young strange Westerner, who had risen up out of the unknown with his giant reputation of burlesque humorist, and demanded guaranties, demanded proofs. "He asked me," Clemens would say, "if I couldn't give him the names of people who knew me in California, and when it was time to hear from them I heard from him. 'Well, Mr. Clemens,' he said, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Nevertheless, he has retained the characteristic incident of the chivalrous behaviour of Roland in sending for a new sword for his enemy and in giving him time for rest, a trait which finds a parallel in many other Chansons, notably in the story of the battle of Roland with Ferragus, a Saracen giant. When Ferragus is worn out with fighting, Roland watches over him while he sleeps, and on his awakening enters into a theological discussion with him in the hope of converting him to Christianity. When this pious desire fails, the ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... mortals, and he replied: 'No; the forms are swathed not from sense of propriety so much as to protect the body, which is often incomplete at the extremities.' The wife and Jacob told me that at one of their meetings a naked Hercules suddenly appeared before the curtain. The Pole declared: 'He was of giant size and strength. I felt of his muscles (he was clothed only in a loincloth), and I closely studied his tremendous arms and shoulders. The medium, as you know, is a small, thin man. We called this figure "the man from Mars." ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... smooth tiled floor, comfortably bestrewn with rugs, was on a level with the path outside. There were low easy-chairs here, and a little wicker table bearing books and a lady's work-basket. Further on, giant chrysanthemum blooms were massed beneath the clusters of pale plumbago-flowers on the trellis. Directly in front, across the dozen feet of this glazed vestibule, the broad doorway of the house proper stood open—with warm lights glowing richly upon ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... ancient faith, and her site was popularly christened "Hell-Fire Corner,"—when, later, the Hanover-Street Church was known as "Beecher's Stone Jug" and the firemen refused to play upon the flames that were destroying it. There were giants on the earth in those days, and they wrestled in giant fashion. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... insertion of the things to be conveyed. When filled it is slung over the shoulder, one end in front and the other behind, so as to balance. Without knowing the shape of a wallet the story of Jack the Giant-Killer stowing away such enormous quantities of pudding is scarcely to be understood: children nowadays never see such a thing. Many nursery tales contain allusions of this kind, the meaning of which must be obscure ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... even more typical in the personality of our driver—a giant of a man named Charles Wilcken—a veteran of the German army who had been decorated with the Iron Cross for bravery on the field of battle. He had come to Utah with General Johnston's forces in 1858, and had left the military service to attach himself to Brigham Young. After Young's death, my father ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... mackerel clouds that stretched across were of the faintest yellow and lightest gray; and into that shining gray rose the black stems of the trees that were just over the outline of these low heights. St. Michael's-Mount had its summit touched by the pale glow: the rest of the giant rock and the far stretches of sea around it were gray with mist. But close by the boat there was a sharper light on the lapping waves and on the tall spars, while it was warm enough to heighten the color on Wenna's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... tended to soften his opposition. When parliament met, indeed, he took his place in the house of lords, vigorous and more eloquent than ever, and the administration was doomed to feel his power, like that of a giant refreshed with wine. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Gawayne and the Green Knight, "the jewel of English medieval literature," tells how Sir Gawayne, Arthur's favorite, fought with a giant called the Green Knight. The romance might almost be called a sermon, if it did not reveal in a more interesting way a great moral truth,—that deception weakens character and renders the deceiver vulnerable in life's contests. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... was "the worst used-up man" he ever saw.[117] Whether Douglas took the field as on this occasion, or directed the campaign from headquarters, he was cool, collected, and resourceful. If the sobriquet of "the Little Giant" had not already been fastened upon him, it was surely earned in this memorable campaign of 1840. The victory of Van Buren over Harrison in Illinois was little less than a personal triumph for Douglas, for Democratic ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... bat—or a man. Jane loves country life because she's young and growing; but there's a subconscious sense which tells her that she's simply fitting herself to be carried off by that handsome giant, Jim Jarvis. She doesn't know it, but it's the truth all the same, and it will come as sure as tide; and when it does come, her life will be run into other moulds than we have ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... A red giant genie broke his vessel with its Solomon's seal, freed himself, and stood on the edge of the town; he laughed soundlessly yet repugnantly. His breath was like the smoky breath of a forest fire. But he made sentimental ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... diving, up he rose, clear almost from the water, his head first, seeming, as his immense bulk appeared against the sky, like some giant of the deep. We thought he was going to leap on to the floe; but, suddenly plunging his head beneath the water, his tremendous tail was lifted above us. I thought all was over. One blow from it would have annihilated us, and dashed our boat into a thousand ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... here and there small spreads of tarpaulin lend their aid in keeping out the snows of winter and the storms of summer. It occupies its place, a queer, squat sentry, standing midway between the cattle ford and the newer log wagon-bridge lower down the river toward its mouth, where it joins the giant Missouri some two hundred miles distant. It backs into the brush fringing the wood-lined river bank, and is dangerously sheltered from the two great Indian Reservations on the other side of the river. Dangerously, because it is at all times dangerous to live adjacent to woods when so near ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... the place was in very truth phantom-ridden. I must say its appearance favoured that theory. The path by which we descended was almost perpendicular, and filled with shadows. Precipices hemmed us in on every side; and here and there a huge fragment of rock, standing like a petrified giant, its summit gleaming white in ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... Delambre and Grant have said, this fiction only retarded the progress of pure science. It had no sort of relation to the more modern, but equally misleading, "nebular hypothesis." While many were talking and guessing, a giant mind was needed at this stage to ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... up a long train of freight cars. Their shouts, punctuated by the rumbling reverberations from the long train as it alternately buckled up and stretched out, was the one discord in the soft night. All else was hushed, even to the giant chimneys in the steel works. One solitary furnace lamped the growing darkness. It was midsummer now in these marshy spots, and a very living nature breathed and pulsed, even in the puddles between the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... must be deferred till long after her body should have mouldered to dust in the grave. She courted the most intimate alliance with Francis I., King of France. She contemplated the merging of her own little kingdom into that powerful monarchy, that the infant Navarre, having grown into the giant France, might crush the Spanish tyrants into humiliation. Nerved by this determined spirit of revenge, and inspired by a mother's ambition, she intrigued to wed her son to the heiress of the French throne, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... "Queen Esther" stood a specimen of the native inhabitants of the land. A man of tall stature, nobly developed in limbs and muscles, he looked in his native undress almost of giant proportions. His clothing was only a long piece of figured native cloth wound about his loins, one end falling like a train to the very sloop's deck. A thorough black skin was the only covering of the rest of his person, and shewed his breadth of shoulder and strength of muscle to good advantage; ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... even the Squire himself was apt to get puzzled. With such a household, and with an heir impending over his head like Jack, it may be supposed that Mr Wentworth's anxiety to get his younger boys disposed of was great. Cuthbert and Guy were arrows in the hand of the giant, but he had his quiver so full that the best thing he could do was to draw his bow and shoot them away into as distant and as fresh a sphere as possible. They were sworn companions and allies, but they were not clever, Mr Wentworth believed, and he was very glad to consult over New Zealand ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... miles of ditches or wooden flumes must be built, so the first expense is large. The water usually comes from higher up in the mountains, and is forced under great pressure through iron pipes, the nozzle or "giant" being directed at the hillside, which has already been shattered by heavy blasts of powder. The water tears thousands of tons of earth and gravel apart, and the muddy stream flows through sluices, where the gold is left. In this kind of mining a great quantity of ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... self-contemplation. He belongs to the men whom the Germans call subjective, whose eye is always turned inwardly; who think only of themselves, of their own character, and of their own fortunes. Secondly, his jealousy of able men. He wishes to be what you called him, a giant, and as Nature has not made him positively tall, he tries to be comparatively so, by surrounding himself with dwarfs. His third defect is the disproportion of his wishes to his means. His desires ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... no doubt that these Londoners could sing. It was as if a giant voice hummed the sonorous melody, rising to enthusiasm till the music of massed bands followed it as a flag follows a flag-stick. The hymn was one composed ten years before, and all England was familiar with it. Old Mrs. Bland lifted the printed paper mechanically to her eyes, ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... decaying vegetation the hush fell upon our souls which comes upon us in the twilight of the Abbey, and even Professor Challenger's full-chested notes sank into a whisper. Alone, I should have been ignorant of the names of these giant growths, but our men of science pointed out the cedars, the great silk cotton trees, and the redwood trees, with all that profusion of various plants which has made this continent the chief supplier ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stood waiting for the girl, whose motions were marvellously graceful, especially if her large and vigorous physique be considered. No sylph could have glided with less awkwardness, and yet a spindle more closely resembles the bole of a giant oak than Maggie Windsor the frail damsels who bent beneath the keen blasts of New England a hundred years ago. Her countenance disclosed all the sprightly intelligence which her great-grandmother may have possessed, but her glowing cheeks and bright blue eyes told of a constitution against which ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... gray Prime, Lost in some desert, far from Time, Where noiseless Ages gliding through, Have only sifted sands and dew, Yet still a marble head of man Lying on all the haunted plan; The passions of the human heart Beating the marble breast of Art, Were not more lone to one who first Upon its giant silence burst, Than this strange quiet, where the tide Of life, upheaved on either aide, Hangs trembling, ready soon to beat With ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Grass-tree of the mainland, the Richea dracophylla, R. Br., N.O. Epacrideae, found on Mount Wellington, near Hobart, is also known by that name, whilst the Richea pandanifolia, Hook., found in the South-west forests, is called the Giant Grass-tree. Both these are peculiar to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... was fragrant as a garden with spices, and fruit scents, and the melting, delectable perfume of brown, freshly-baked dough, sugar-coated. There was one giant platter devoted wholly to round, plump cakes, with puffy edges, in the center of each a sunken pool that was all plum, bearing on its bosom a snowy sifting of powdered sugar. There were others whose centers were apricot, pure molten gold in the sunlight. There were speckled expanses ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... debris of years, and so was forced to leave this room as I had the other, without gaining any thing beyond a sense of hopelessness and the prospect of a weary back. And so on and on I went for an hour, and was beginning to realize the giant nature of my undertaking, when a sudden low sound of running water broke upon my ears, and going to one of the many windows that opened before me, I looked out and found I was at the very back of the mill, and in full sight of the dark and sullen stream ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... drunkard is mentioned, and the crowd cheers as he stands forth to testify. He tells how drink cursed his life, and how God has changed him. A hush steals over the meeting as the Adjutant rises with God's Word in hand, and calls for reverence if only for seven minutes! A great giant of a man, standing up, waves his heavy first and declares, 'I'll fling out the first man that speaks; listen to the Captain!' How they listened! Now there is a move, a man is pushing his way through his mates; he throws himself ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... castle belonging to Giant Despair in the "Pilgrim's Progress," which only one key could ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... then fastened to the head of the tree, and the welkin resounded with the rapid strokes of the hatchets. It was a task of some difficulty, but such zeal and energy were displayed by the woodmen that ere long the giant trunk lay prostrate on the ground. Its hollows were now fully exposed to view, but they ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... rock-hewn cauldron poured the holy water clear, Within whose depths reflected, by the torches' flickering rays, Beneath the surface glimmering my own face met my gaze; And when I thus beheld it, so small it seemed to me, That yonder stone-carved giant looked on with mocking glee. Ay, laugh, if that's your pleasure, Goliath huge and old, I soon shall fare forth singing, you ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... he bustled away before I had time to get back at him. I was rather touchy about my size; I could n't help being a giant, and the little ferret of a sawbones knew it. I had only one means of revenge. He was a great stickler for maintaining the dignity of his profession, and I always ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... lightly pranced Three captains out; nor ever had I seen Such thews of men: the midmost and the highest Was Arac: all about his motion clung The shadow of his sister, as the beam Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, That glitter burnished by the frosty dark; And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, And bickers into red and emerald, shone Their morions, washed ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... once a giant ogre, and he lived in a cave by himself." From "The Giant and Jack-straws," David ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... he had hoped for war. He understood very well that, born of war, he could exist only by war. He seemed to foresee that a poet would arise and call him "The Giant of War." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... carefully, without much clatter, on the hearth. Then he thought how it would turn red under those ashes, where the big coals were, and how it would shine and sparkle when he pulled it out again, like the red-hot, hissing iron Jack-the-Giant-Killer struck into the one-eyed monster's eye. So he shoved it in; and forgot it there, while he told Luke—very much twisted and dislocated, and misjoined—the leading incidents of the giant story; and then lapsed off, by some queer ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... is too wide and variegated for any other habitation. Yet, if it would be vain to attempt an accurate and exhaustive account of Rabelais' philosophy, the main outlines of that philosophy are nevertheless visible enough. Alike in the giant-hero, Pantagruel, in his father, Gargantua, and in his follower and boon-companion, Panurge, one can discern the spirit of the Renaissance—expansive, humorous, powerful, and, above all else, alive. Rabelais' book is the incarnation of the great reaction of his epoch against ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... have Nine Worthies made; But poet Decius, more audacious far, Making his mistress march with men of war, With title of "Tenth Worthy" doth her lade. Methinks that gull did use his terms as fit, Which term'd his love "a giant ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... wise man to the Giant, the foole to the Dwarfe. Set the Giant deepe in a dale, the dwarfe vpon an hill, Yet will the one be but a dwarfe, th'other a giant still. So will the wise be great and high, euen in the lowest place: The foole when he is most aloft, will seeme ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... highest point in the peninsula is only about eight thousand five hundred feet above the sea,—an elevation which is reached only by Jotunfjeld, or Giant Mountain,—still no highlands in Europe surpass those of Scandinavia in terrific grandeur. Mont Blanc (Switzerland) is nearly twice as high as this Giant Mountain, but being less abrupt is hardly ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... "Clouds o'ertake the brightest day" and "Crystal streams in murmurs flowing"; and the tenderness of "Would custom bid," with the almost divine refrain, "I then had called thee mine," might surprise us, coming as it does from such a giant, did we not know that tenderness is always a characteristic of the great men, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, and that the pettiness, ill-conditionedness, and lack of generous feeling observable in (say) our London composers to-day stamp them more unmistakably than does ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... was which, parted from the rest, Stood where the eastern water curved a-west. Silent and passionless it stood. I thought I saw a scar upon its giant breast. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others silently acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was headed for the beach. The correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower, and if then they never looked seaward. This tower was a giant, standing with its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the individual—nature in the wind, and nature in the vision ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... four metopes from a temple at Selinus. They represent (beginning at the left) Heracles in combat with an Amazon, Hera unveiling herself before Zeus, Actaeon torn by his dogs in the presence of Artemis, and Athena overcoming the giant Enceladus. These reliefs would repay the most careful study, but the sculptures of another temple have still ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... of the night passed without anything unusual happening. Early in the morning Whopper and Giant appeared and were ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... bayonets of the one company of infantry left at the fort, found not a sympathetic eye among the lookers-on. An ambulance had carted off to the hospital four or five, whose battered skulls bore witness to the hammering powers of big Milligan and his bung-starter. That redoubtable giant himself, weak from the shock of having involuntarily gulped more water in a second than ever before he had swallowed in weeks, was flattened out in a baggage-car. Two more of the arriving reinforcements ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... subdue them, failed through over-caution, and was slain in the field. His lieutenants, Galitzin and Michelson, proved more active, and frequently defeated the impostor, though only to find him rising again with new armies as often as the old ones were crushed, like the fabulous giant who sprang up in double form whenever ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the steam locomotive—the material transformer of the world—our Iron Horse, had just been born. It was not however born on the rails, but on the common road, and a tremendous baby-giant it was, tearing up its cradle in such furious fashion that men were terrified by it, and tried their best to condemn it to inactivity, just as a weak and foolish father might lock up his unruly boy and restrain him perforce, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, And found it sweeter than his honied bees, And that the giant wave Democracy Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... nature to want to have a pet of some kind and, as it was forbidden to take dogs into the lines, the soldiers turned to the cats. Of course they were of some use in killing mice, but the real scourge of the trenches, the giant rats, were too big and strong for any cat to tackle. There were literally millions of these rats. At night they appeared to be everywhere. They would eat up any rations that were left within reach and, boldly entering the dug-outs, would run about all over the sleeping men. It is decidedly unpleasant ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... Winnipeg, we enter a prairie wheat-field one thousand miles long and of unknown width, into which the nations of the world are pouring. "The sleeping nation beyond," is what General Sherman in a moment of pique once called Canada. The sleeping giant has awakened. We are on the heels of the greatest economic trek this world has ever seen. The historian of to-morrow will rank it ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... figures were the centre of attention,—the figure of the young King in his raised chair, and the forms of the Dane and the Angle who fronted each other before his footstool. Shielded from the heat by his palm, Canute's face was in the shadow, and the giant shape of the son of Lodbrok was a blot against the flames, but the glare lay strong on Sebert of Ivarsdale, revealing a picture that caused one spectator to catch her breath in a sob. Equally aloof from English thane and Danish noble, the Etheling in ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz |
