"Smashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my beacons. I have had to put up a few to help me in and out of the rivers. Early this year a Celebes trader becalmed in a prau was watching him at it. He steamed the gunboat full tilt at two of them, one after another, smashing them to pieces, and then lowered a boat on purpose to pull out a third, which I had a lot of trouble six months ago to stick up in the middle of a mudflat for a tide mark. Did you ever hear of anything ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... for the first time since 1861 the House of Representatives passed into the control of that party. The financial depression plainly operated to the great advantage of the Democrats, but in allowing Tilden to pre-empt the reform issue when men were intent upon smashing rings, the Republicans opened the door for their destruction. "They [the Republican leaders] have apparently believed the people would submit to anything and everything," said the Times, "and that the party was indestructible. If a newspaper warned them in a friendly but firm spirit ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the passionate smashing of the negative as before; but that did not happen again; and then he wondered if it was being put straight into the rack with the others, if the damage to the locker had been discovered at last. He never knew. The door opened. The red glow showed for a moment ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... that they could not rush the house, kept up a siege from the ambush of the pines. Bullets rattled like hailstones against the thick brick walls of the house, and several times the smashing of glass told that windows had been shot in. Harry's blood now grew feverishly hot and his anger mounted with it. It was intolerable that these outlaws should attack people in their own homes. Lying almost flat on the floor of the portico he reloaded his ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and the Russian girl: dust and smoke obscured the place where the mob raged from floor to floor in a frenzy of destruction, tearing out fixtures, telephones, window-sashes, smashing tables, bar fixtures, mirrors, ripping the curtains from the windows and the very carpets from the floor in their overwhelming rage against this ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... such words as "capitalism," "proletariat," "class-consciousness"—and he spoke with fluency of "economic determinism" and "syndicalism." It was quite wonderful! And from time to time, he would bring in a smashing quotation from Aristotle, Napoleon, Karl Marx, or Eugene V. Debs, giving them all equal value, and he cited statistics!—oh, marvellous statistics, that never were on sea ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... a policeman, trying to look stoical beside the scab driver. A line of fifty trucks from the Zenith Steel and Machinery Company was attacked by strikers-rushing out from the sidewalk, pulling drivers from the seats, smashing carburetors and commutators, while telephone girls cheered from the walk, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said, "was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day"—a thing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Stradiotes, seeing the baggage alone and undefended, rushed after that in hope of booty, instead of following up their advantage. A great part of the troop nevertheless stayed behind to fight, pressing on the French cavalry and smashing their lances with their fearful scimitars. Happily the king, who had just repulsed the Marquis of Mantua's attack, perceived what was going on behind him, and riding back at all possible speed to the succour of the centre, together with the gentlemen of his household fell upon the Stradiotes, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... soul. Yes, he had reached the end. There was nothing left for him, except to annihilate himself, except to smash the failure into which he had shaped his life, to throw it away, before the feet of mockingly laughing gods. This was the great vomiting he had longed for: death, the smashing to bits of the form he hated! Let him be food for fishes, this dog Siddhartha, this lunatic, this depraved and rotten body, this weakened and abused soul! Let him be food for fishes and crocodiles, let him be chopped to bits ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... the girl's head as though endeavouring to hide up the radiant framing of the sweetest, most beautiful face he felt he had ever seen, dealt all his preconceived purpose for the interview one final, smashing blow. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... a final despairing shriek from the two unfortunate men as they were dragged overboard, carrying with them a length of the stout rail to which they had been desperately clinging, the smashing blows upon the deck ceased, together with the turmoil in the water alongside, and presently four men came hesitatingly along the deck, carrying lighted lanterns. With still greater hesitation they at length permitted themselves to creep up the poop ladder, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... that the kitchen part escaped the smashing fire, and still stands," observed Jack. "I warrant you this is the only part of a building left around here. Tom, would our spy be likely to take up his headquarters in such a place as this, do ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... "What a smashing argument really is! You see that you really are not for peace, but for war. But won't you ask Partow to do one thing, if he still insists that he is for peace? I wonder if he will chuckle or laugh at my suggestion, or will he grin or roar? Though you know that he will do them all, ask him ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... responsibility of disobeying the law, and that they were not fired by his orders. However that may be, flames broke out in various parts of the city, while a miscellaneous mob, inflamed by excitement and by the alcohol which had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store to store, smashing in the doors and indulging all the wantonness of pillage and greed. Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... the infection, we had seen the typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja—whichever you prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his hospitals by smashing the windows—one had been a child again for a moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... melody, 'twill do. [While the WITCH starts back full of wrath and horror.] Skeleton! Scarcecrow! Spectre! Know'st thou me, Thy lord and master? What prevents my dashing Right in among thy cursed company, Thyself and all thy monkey spirits smashing? Has the red waistcoat thy respect no more? Has the cock's-feather, too, escaped attention? Hast never seen this face before? My name, perchance, wouldst have ...
— Faust • Goethe
... to hear of your luck, by-the-by," said the gentleman in question, not noticing his companion's wish to avoid the subject. "I heard of it from Old Blinks. Smashing's the thing, if one's a presentable cove. You'd do deuced well in it. You've only to get nobby togs and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... time when the Boche were smashing their way toward Paris. It takes more courage to face a foe when he is on the aggressive than when he is being held or driven back. Our hero's company was meeting an attack. He had previously lost a brother, victim of a Boche bullet. The spirit of vengeance had stealthily entered his very ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... the furtherance of His purpose. That has been the history of the world ever since. 'The floods, O Lord, have lifted up their voice.' And what have they done? Smashing against the breakwater, they but consolidate its mighty blocks, and prove that 'the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters.' It has been so in the past, it is so to-day; it will be so till the end. Every Judas is unconsciously the servant ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... buccaneer. In the roar and tumult of that disastrous day, what would have been in calmer moments a spectacle of astonishment passed much unnoticed. The stock world was busy saving itself out of the teeth of destruction, and the smashing and slugging in Northern Consolidated ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to get even with the practical jokers from whose brutality he himself had suffered on previous New Year's eves, had devised a sort of thick leather hat-lining, armed with long and sharp prongs, pointed outward like the quills of a porcupine. The emperor, on smashing the hat, naturally had his hand dreadfully lacerated. The citizen was kept under arrest for twenty-four hours, during which the question was discussed as to whether he should be prosecuted and punished for inflicting personal injury upon the sovereign, or not. Finally, William himself, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... mountain, proceeded speedily, making the earth tremble with his tread, even as doth a hurricane at the equinox; and frightening herds of elephants and grinding lions and tigers and deer and uprooting and smashing large trees and tearing away by force plants and creepers, like unto an elephant ascending higher and higher the summit of a mountain; and roaring fiercely even as a cloud attended with thunder. And awakened by that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... woman applied to the bladder of spirits, and offered some to me; I refused. I had had enough, and by this time she had had too much, and after an attempt to bale she dropped down in the stern sheets, smashing pipes and everything beneath her, and ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... was characteristic of Petrograd in those times of Russia's decadence, when Germany was preparing for war. The fight with Japan had already been engineered through Kouropatkine as a preliminary to the betrayal and smashing ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... wood a puff of icy wind suddenly stirred the grass. The harsh rustle it made was followed by a deafening crash, and a jagged streak of lightning fell from the leaden clouds; then the air was filled with the roar of driving hail. It swept the wood, rending leaves and smashing twigs, while the men crouched inside the straining tent and a constant blaze of lightning flickered about the grass. By and by the thunder died away and the hail gave place to torrential rain, while the slender trees rocked in the blast and small ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... ice, left to starboard as the steamer ascended, and which projected close alongside the upper, or boat-deck, as she fell over, had caught, in succession, every pair of davits to starboard, bending and wrenching them, smashing boats, and snapping tackles and gripes, until, as the ship cleared herself, it capped the pile of wreckage strewing the ice in front of, and around it, with the end and broken stanchions of the bridge. And in this shattered, box-like structure, dazed by the sweeping fall through an arc ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... else. Are we to spend twelve hundred millions, and raise six hundred thousand soldiers, in order to protect slavery? It really does seem to me too simple for argument. I am anxiously waiting for the coming Columbus who will set this egg of ours on end by smashing in the slavery end. We shall be rolling about in every direction until that is done. I don't know that it is to be done by proclamation. Rather perhaps by facts. . . . Well, I console myself with thinking that the people—the American ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stove-pipe hat as an article of armour, I have never had the slightest doubt since then. There was a great flash and rattle of canes. Then the air was full of us. In the heat of it all prudence went to the winds. We hit out right and left, on both sides, smashing hats and bruising heads and hands. The canes went down in a jiffy and then we closed with each other hip and thigh. Collars were ripped off, coats were torn, shirts were gory from the blood of ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... get in at the first rush. The flight of the Indians threw them into a momentary disorder; and Captain Drake, instant in appreciating an opportunity, turned a gun a little wide of the cluster, and sent a ball smashing into the rallying place of the foe. Covered by the armed gentlemen, the workers retreated to their boat; arrows and a few musket balls flew after them, but the ship's guns again spoke out, and no Don dared show himself. The boat was reached at the cost of a few wounds. At the ship's side ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... how he had dropped in at the hall on Armistice Day and stood watching the parade from the window. In words all the more startling for their sheer artlessness he told of the events which followed: First the grimacing faces of the business men, then as the soldiers returned, a muffled order, the smashing of the window, with the splinters of glass falling against the curtain, the crashing open of the door ... and the shots that "made his ears ring," and made him run for shelter to the rear of the hall, with the shoulder ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... soft thud of a hard fist on fat flesh, the crash of a heavy bulk against the door. After that things moved fast. Hull's body reacted to the pain of smashing blows falling swift and sure. Before he knew what had taken place he was on the landing outside on his way to the stairs. He hit the treads ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... moment the captain was plunging through the scrub of huckleberry and bayberry bushes, bumping into pines and smashing the branches aside as he ran in the direction of ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... armed with these advantages Cynthia's son went his way, smashing hoary precedents and the mossy conventions that will spring up and grow fibrously strong even in so sunny a ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... as we know in reason she must have, to run so far in a twelvemonth. Why, the smallest yaw—and, for a hooker of her keel, a thousand miles wouldn't be a broader yaw than a hundred feet in a ship—the smallest yaw would send her aboard of the Jupiter, or the Marcury, when there would be a smashing of out-board work such as mortal never ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... own, to the forest and its ways. This army, as it marches, looks before and behind, and to right and to left. It will not stick its head in a trap, and when its cannon thunder against your Chillicothe, smashing down your houses and your lodges, what will you do? Clark, who leads the men from Kentucky, has beaten our allies, the British, at Vincennes and Kaskaskia. Hamilton, the governor at Detroit before de Peyster, was captured by him, and the Yengees held him ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... forearm to parry the blow. But he was too late. With all the force of some seven hundred pounds of rage, avenging rage, behind him, these great hoofs, with their cutting edges, came down upon his side, smashing in several ribs, and gashing a wide wound down into his loins. The shock was so terrific that his own counter stroke, usually so swift and unerring, went wild altogether, and he was sent rolling clear of ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... he gasped, "you have it, Kirk. Now I understand the smashing of the portraits of General Wayne. There was something of value hidden behind one of them—between the picture ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... magistrate, and take his advice. No one ventured upstairs. How the stranger occupied himself is unknown. Now and then he would stride violently up and down, and twice came an outburst of curses, a tearing of paper, and a violent smashing of bottles. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... Still, something might be done in Committee, in the autumn Session—if there were one—or in the following year. There was a simmering in the Suffragist ranks rather than any alarming explosion. In March, before Vivie went to Brussels, Mrs. Pankhurst had carried out a window-smashing raid on Bond Street and Regent Street and the clubs of Piccadilly, during which among the two hundred and nineteen arrests there were brought to light as "revolutionaries" two elderly women surgeons of great distinction and one female Doctor of Music. In revenge the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... complying, a third bullet from the commissary porch tore high through the car, smashing one of the gas globes. Adair crawled to a broken window and the cheap revolver roared like an ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... being clearly convinced that it is and ought to be on the brink of ruin. With such advantages in the worthy doctor's favor, he might have kept the field until some newer extravaganza had made his own obsolete, had not one ugly turn in political affairs given so smashing a refutation to his practical conclusions, and called forth so sudden a rebound of public feeling in the very opposite direction, that a bomb- shell descending right through the whole impression of his book could not more summarily have laid a chancery ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... get away and have to be hunted down, and retaken after they had killed a lot of dogs. If the elephants, some of them, had gone crazy, it would have been something, for then they would have roamed up and down the turnpike smashing buggies and wagons, and had to be shot with the six-pound cannon that was used to celebrate ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... backward, sprang upon the window-seat, and smashing the pane with his powerful hand disappeared before the startled men thought ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... rage came upon Simmons and held him till he trembled all over, while he thought in how many different ways he would slay Losson. Sometimes he would picture himself trampling the life out of the man with heavy ammunition-boots, and at others smashing in his face with the butt, and at others jumping on his shoulders and dragging the head back till the neckbone cracked. Then his mouth would feel hot and fevered, and he would reach out for another sup of ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... soldier there knew that General Hood's army was scattered all the way from Jonesboro to Atlanta, a distance of twenty-five miles, without any order, discipline, or spirit to do anything. We could hear General Stewart, away back yonder in Atlanta, still blowing up arsenals, and smashing things generally, while Stephen D. Lee was somewhere between Lovejoy Station and Macon, scattering. And here was but a demoralized remnant of Cheatham's corps facing the whole Yankee army. I have ever thought that Sherman was a poor general, not to ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... back with flames dancing before his eyes. The soldier lunged after his toppling man with gorilla-like blows. Hot pains shot through Peter's body. His head roared like a gong. The sunlight danced about him in flashes. The air was full of black fists smashing him, and not five feet away, the bullet head of Tump Pack bobbed this way and that in the rapid shifts of his attack. A stab of pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense and paralyzed, making convulsive ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... The smashing of that ball flung by Josh, who was pitcher on the Lenox baseball team, and a fine shot, was the first intimation the three tormentors of the old man had that the ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... the militant woman, one by which she scored most heavily, was her flinging off of this tradition and displaying a shining armor of indifference toward man as man. This startled the men almost as much as the window smashing, and made other women, living out their little lives under the frowns and smiles of the dominant male, think and ponder, wonder if their small rewards amounted to half as much as the untasted pleasures ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive I would be on the offensive. Instead of guessing at what he means, he would have to guess at my plans. I prefer to march through Georgia, smashing things, to the sea." And again, "When you hear I am off, have lookouts at Morris' Island, S.C.; Ossabaw Sound, Georgia; Pensacola and Mobile bays. I will turn up somewhere, and believe me I can take Macon, Milledgeville, Augusta, and Savannah, Georgia, and wind ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... between the Vrouw Prinsloo and the slayers, smashing the lifted assegai of one of them and hurling him to the earth. Down it came, and lay there a mere mass of pulp ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... Tinman took her advice, and came in bent on smashing, but stopped short on receiving a ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... I know; but you'll forgive me—you'll forgive me, dear lady," he added to Hylda, "for I've been listening to your husband making a smashing speech ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... together. I heeded nothing of their din and smashing, and the uproar of the men, but I scrambled all wet into my cabin, nervously shaking with excitement and a chattering of teeth. Then I sat down to sum up my bruises,—a barked shin, sprained thigh, and bleeding cheek-bone; and a hapless ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... must be kept for breakers ahead. The fires must be kept up by a constant addition of the fuel of affection. The boilers must be kept full and the machinery in order, and all hands at their posts, else there will be a smashing up, or life will go hobbling or jolting along, wearing and tearing, breaking and bruising, leaving some heads and hearts to get well the best way they can. It requires skill, prudence, and judgment to lead this life well, and these must be tempered with forbearance, charity, and integrity. Individual ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... shell from the "Grigsby" struck the same enemy's mast, smashing the crow's-nest and hurling German seamen, dead or crippled, into ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... you," Pete repeated. "That skiff we lost the other night didn't get loose. It was taken by somebody who knew what he was doing and brought down here. Here's where the party landed," he added, as he pointed to the shore. "But the boat wasn't 'wrecked,' unless you call smashing it ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... adversary's shoulder. Then something happened that made the cowmen gasp with astonishment. The slender lad lifted the big mountain boy clear of the ground, hurled him over his head, and still clinging to the wrist, brought him down with a smashing jolt, flat on his back in the middle of the village street. Phil Simms narrowly escaped being struck by the heels of the mountain boy's boots as they described a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... and another wounded. And this youth—he was but that in years—managed to break through the first line of Indians like a football player with the ball smashing the interference of ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... and then some one would cry out, and then a horse would whinny. All the time there was a good deal of unnecessary talk and babble; the voices and laughter of the seamen came in bursts as the wind lulled. Every now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the sea without ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... in some fresh water, Joe, and you, Jane, fill him another jug. I'll own up to Mistress Kate for smashing ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... time is short, but I think the subject will suit you, and I am greatly pressed—a party of rioters (with Hugh and Simon Tappertit conspicuous among them) in old John Willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage, smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; John Willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... successfully be paired and bred after the manner of dogs or horses. He no longer holds that view. Not only does he no longer hold that view, but he has written about it in "Mankind in the Making" with such smashing sense and humour, that I find it difficult to believe that anybody else can hold it either. It is true that his chief objection to the proposal is that it is physically impossible, which seems to me a very slight objection, and almost negligible compared with the others. The one ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... under the beds. At dawn—it was the very morning when the long vacation began—he had pulled the string and skedaddled down the three flights of stairs with this frightful tail of crockery bounding and smashing to pieces behind him. ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... they could get from the old company. They have to keep up the pretence that they mean legitimate business. That's the way these things are always worked. But you'll find that they won't object to pocketing their cheques when the time comes for smashing up Tim's machine and suppressing ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... I've had a drop! When work's plentiful one must grease the wheels. It's not you, nor your friends, who would have carried down the stiff 'un of forty-seven stone whom I and a pal brought from the fourth floor to the pavement, and without smashing him too. I like ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... mean—smashing down out of the clouds, bustin' up my pig pen, and scatterin' 'em to the four winds?" he yelled. "I'll have th' law on you for this! I'll make you pay damages! You killed a lot of my ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... mass of turbulent, ruthless rock, all dark red—hopeless, shapeless chaos. It all looked just as if there had been a smash up yesterday. No beyond, no nothing, nothing alive, nothing dead, every step of the way almost impassable and the feeling that every minute more rock could come smashing down. On the way there Mr. Whiterill, our guide, fell over with his horse when it was impossible to keep balance. He got loose, the horse fell over backwards several times, broke its neck, slid down sheer rock and fell about 50 feet ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... fifties, when that old sea-dog stood between England and Invasion? Had he not lived to see Napoleon's Eagles brooding over the cliffs of France, intent on the same enterprise?—And between the two, what men, what deeds?—Hawke smashing Conflans in a hurricane; Rodney, gloriously alone, fighting his ship against a fleet; Duncan hammering the Dutch; Sam Hood, Jack Jervis, Nelson, Cuddie Collingwood; and all that grim array of big-beaked, bloody-fisted fighting men who for fifty years had held ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... to this show of violence. It was said by a close observer of Parliamentary institutions that "When the Government of the day and the Opposition of the day take the same side, one may be almost sure that some great wrong is at hand," and so it was now. On July 10th our fleet bombarded Alexandria, smashing its rotten forts with the utmost ease, and killing plenty of Egyptians. I remember to this day the sense of shame with which I read our Admiral's telegraphic despatch: "Enemy's fire ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... into Tom's mind something he had heard about German artillerymen being chained to their guns. So that was it. And some French gunner, or an American maybe, had unconsciously set this poor wretch free by smashing his ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... in the drive at Medlicote she could see the tennis courts. She could see Jerrold playing in the men's singles. He stood up to the net, smashing down the ball at the volley; his back was turned ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... rained, drenching us to the skin, and driving us to shelter in an island cove. Once a sudden storm swept the lake, and we barely made land in time to save us from wreck, Chevet's canoe smashing an ugly hole in its bow, and a soldier dislocating his shoulder in the struggle. The accident held us for some hours, and later, when ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... a sound as of something smashing was heard upstairs, and a woman's shriek. Mrs. Blakeston, in an effort to tear herself away from her husband, had knocked up against the wash-hand stand, and the whole thing had ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... after the other, as the rescuing ship went drifting rapidly to leeward, when a perfect mountain of a sea came roaring down upon the wreck, sweeping unbroken in over her bows and right aft until it reached the front of the poop, against which it broke with terrific violence, smashing in the entire front of the structure, as I judged by the tremendous crashing of timber that instantly followed. Checked for the fraction of an instant by its impact with the poop, the sea piled itself up in a sort of wall, and then came surging and foaming along the deck toward ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... nothing over there." I noticed that my friend Quiller, who is a war correspondent, or, I should say, a war editorial writer, took three cocktails and talked all the more brilliantly for it through the opening courses of the dinner, about the story of the smashing of the Hindenburg line. He decided, after his second Burgundy, that it had been simply a case of sticking it out. I say "Burgundy" because we had substituted Burgundy, the sparkling kind, for champagne at our dinners as one of ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... never did. Any man, of course, likes the excitement once he's into it, but what man enjoys smashing another man in the face? What fights I've been into I couldn't side-step—not without crawling, I mean. No, no, I wouldn't make good on your job. I'd go along all right in your office back in New York for awhile,—for a month, two months, six months,—who knows, ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... him back the money he was supposed to have lost in the smashing of the firm?" murmured Helen. "Do—do you think he was paid twice—that he got money from ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the aeroplanes arrive from Tenedos. Last night at dinner various subjects were discussed, such as the duration of the war. The views of all were very depressing, although no one had the slightest doubt as to the ultimate complete smashing up of Germany, and the longer the war lasted the more complete would the smashing be. One man was sure it would be ended by next spring, another, who had lived long in Macedonia, is positive it will take two ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... his idol-smashing with an ax. He did not regard the feelings of the worshippers, and they, with similar indifference to his, promptly ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... Fothergill shaking his fist at him. As they neared the junks the fire of those on board redoubled, and was aided by that of many villagers gathered on the bank of the creek. Suddenly from a bank of rushes four cannons were fired. A ball struck the pinnace, smashing in her side. The other boats gathered hastily round and took her crew on board, and then dashed at the junks, which were but a hundred yards distant. The valour of the Chinese evaporated as they saw the boats approaching, and scores ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... nervously toying. There was a quick snap. The stem broke and the wine flowed over the cloth. He started, and with a flash the old Adrian came back, manifesting itself in his smiling dismay, his boyish apology to Mr. Jornicroft for smashing a rare glass, spoiling the tablecloth and wasting precious wine. The incident served to disequilibrate, as one might say, the two discussions on Wilmot and Abyssinia. Coffee came and liqueurs. I bade farewell to Lusitanian dreams and found ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... exaggerate points of likeness,—to be fanciful. It may be so considered to point out that as the sailing-ship had guns of long range, with comparatively great penetrative power, and carronades, which were of shorter range but great smashing effect, so the modern steamer has its batteries of long-range guns and of torpedoes, the latter being effective only within a limited distance and then injuring by smashing, while the gun, as of old, aims at penetration. Yet ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... only tremblingly, and with contortions and efforts, that he lifts the slight burden. He is afraid of smashing the youngster, who knows this, and thence bawls with all the force of his lungs. He expands more strength, poor man, in lifting up his child than he would in bursting a door open. If he kisses him, his beard pricks him; if he touches him, his big fingers ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... suggesting either—not a scrap, please believe—that I should make you any sort of scene about it. Of course in the first place she knows perfectly that anything like a scene would be no use. You couldn't make out even if you wanted," Nanda went on, "that THIS is one. She won't hear us—will she?—smashing the furniture. I didn't think for a while that I could do anything at all, and I worried myself with that idea half to death. Then suddenly it came to me that I could do just what I'm doing now. You said a while ago that ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... drew her chair over to the window and sat there long quarter hours, watching the electric cars. They announced themselves from a great distance by a low singing on the overhead wire; then with a rush and a rumble the big, lighted things dashed across the void, and rumbled on with a clatter of smashing iron as they took the switches recklessly. The noise soothed her; in the quiet intervals she was listening for sounds from upstairs. The night was still and languorous, one of the peaceful nights of large spaces when the heavens brood over the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... that, without any apparent interval of time, he was surmounting a heap composed of a newspaper boy, a sandwich man, and a hospital nurse, while his hands held nothing save a red-hot memory of where the rope had been. The smashing of glass and the clatter of hoofs on the pavement filled in what space was left in his ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... be at the side of the room next to the magazine. I crawled along it on my hands and knees, looking into every crevice, but no sign could I see. Two bullets flew through the door and flattened themselves against the wall. The thudding and smashing grew ever louder. I saw a grey pile in a corner, flew to it with a cry of joy, and found that it was only dust. Then I got back to the side of the door where no bullets could ever reach me—they were streaming freely into the ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as it would have been to expect peace and order in the England of the seventeenth century, when churchwardens—as at Banbury, for example—went about breaking at night into the churches confided to their care, and smashing the statues of the saints and defacing the glorious monuments ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... late Mr. Curwen, then M. P. for Workington, which was meant, apparently, to account for this feeling. The story amounted to this; that, when a freshman at Cambridge, Mr. Pitt had wantonly amused himself at a dinner party in Trinity, in smashing with filberts (discharged in showers like grape-shot) a most costly dessert set of cut glass, from which Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued a principle of destructiveness in his cerebellum. Now, if this dessert set belonged to some poor suffering Trinitarian, and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... The "smashing" was done in extreme privacy behind the stone wall of the pasture. Cyrus was bound over to secrecy, as was also Jonas Hicks, who, after some haggling, sold them his finest turkey for two dollars ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... their class, my dear!" her husband said leniently. "You need some country air. You'll get down to Clark's Hills in a week or two and blow some of these notions away. Meanwhile, why don't you run down to the club every morning, and play a good smashing game of squash, and take a plunge. Put yourself through a little training!" ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... heart, Roarin' Russell opened his fingers wide, judging implicit obedience his greatest safety. Sandy did not move position, he hardly seemed to move wrist or finger as his guns spat fire, left and right, eight shots blending, eight bullets smashing their way through the door between the "V's" of the bully's fingers while the crowd held their breath ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the Throg ship, not swinging now in serene indifference to Warlock's gravity, but whirling end over end across the sky as might a leaf tossed in a gust of wind. Its rim caught against a rust-red cliff, it rebounded and crumpled. Then it came down, smashing perhaps half a mile away from the smoking crater in which lay the mangled wreckage of the Terran ship. The disabled scout pilot must have played a last desperate game, making of his ship bait ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... drop by tacit agreement during the meal, and soon after it was over a shout from the crest of the ridge above, followed by a smashing of underbrush, announced that their packer was making for the camp. Lisle answered, ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... darkness behind shot another car, hooting violently to them to get out of the way. Unable to stop the oncoming car in time, Dick tried to move aside, failed, and in less than a minute the newcomer, in spite of brakes swiftly adjusted, crashed into them, smashing their lamp, and badly damaging the back ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... head slowly. "It came near smashing me, Jimmie. It seemed so unnecessary; so hideously out of tune with everything. I thought at the time that I should never get over it and be myself again, and I still think so, though the passing years have dulled the sharp edges of the hurt. There never was another girl like ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... bad. He could go back and smash him one that would knock him clear across the bar. On the other hand, he wanted to get on his horse and ride out into the silence and darkness of the desert and think. After all, smashing that red spot on Reedy's cheek would not save his ranch. He turned quickly down the street to where his horse ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... amid which Tom and Hunter descended. Near the bottom of the third ladder Reade found that the rest of the way down the shaft had been blocked by the smashing ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... first-line trenches and the British front at this point the distance was something under half a mile. Between the various German lines of defense, the distance was almost an even mile. As the British tanks advanced across the open ground, smashing down barbed-wire entanglement and crawling in and out of shell craters as though they did not exist, defenders sprang to their positions. Rapid-firers opened upon the British from every conceivable ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... they sometimes dream queer dreams in which wild-eyed men went around smashing everything in sight and a little cottage stood lonely and desolate and ghostlike amid ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... arm encircled his neck, and rammed an elbow into the newcomer's midsection. Then he jerked his head back, smashing the back of his skull into ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... twins, in charge of Sam, came to the edge of the cut. They could look down to the railroad tracks and see the wreck. Surely enough, two trains had come together, one engine smashing into the other. Both trains were on the same track, and had been going in opposite directions. There was a curve in the cut, and neither engineer had seen the other train coming until it was ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West • Laura Lee Hope
... not have availed against it if he had been exposed to the fire. As it was, several inches of water stood between, a more effective armour than a two-inch steel plate on a battleship. Of course the shock carried through, a smashing blow that caused the reptile to release his hold on Singhai's leg; but before the native could get to his feet he had struck again. The next instant both men were ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... I can't," said the weasel; "and what is the use of smashing me, for all my bones ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... for us: As they were shooting off the cannon the horses took fright and ran away into the timber, smashing up the new buggy and tearing the harness to pieces. That ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... know, Aylward, I don't know," replied Haswell, shaking his white head. "Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her? Also I don't like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn't right, and it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he has left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good, honest stick to lean on, and we want ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... was tried. The man on the floor, working with desperate energy to replace the base-board, coughed in an asthmatic, wheezing way, as there came the imperative smashing of a fist upon the door panels, coupled with a gruff, curt demand for admittance. Again the man coughed—to drown perhaps the slight rasping sound as the base-board slid back into place—and, rising to his feet, shuffled hastily to the door ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... swung at Bartley, smashing in with right and left, fighting like a wild-cat, forcing his weight into the fight, and kicking wickedly when he got a chance. Finally, after taking a straight blow in the face, Hull clinched—and the minute Bartley felt those tough-sinewed arms around him he knew ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... my acquaintance named Judd is in the ramping stage of delirium tremens. He requires a couple of men to hold him down so as to prevent him from getting out of bed and smashing his furniture and his wife and things. I was going to relieve one of the fellows there now, so that he can get a few hours' sleep, and if you like to come and relieve the other, you'll be doing a good action. But I warn you ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... chapter too much stress has been laid upon the smashing of our own boat and consequent sufferings, while little or no notice was taken of the kindred disaster to Mistah Jones' vessel, my excuse must be that the experience "filled me right up to the chin," ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... reading, without any experiment," retorted Skipper Jack. "Close your conning tower and go down a little way, and the temperature would gradually rise a few degrees. That's because of the absence of wind and draft. But, if you could go down very, very deep without smashing the boat under the water pressure, you'd find the temperature ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... breast pocket. I drew it forth, and as I did so, something fell to the deck at my side, and I saw it was a piece of lead. Then I saw that Andrews's bullet had jammed itself into the joint of the hilt, smashing flat on the steel and breaking up, part of it falling away as I drew it forth. The knife had saved my life; for the shot had been true, and would have been instantly fatal ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... rushing, hurrying tides Along the sloping deck. And the bobstay smashing the big blue deep, While under my hand The kicking tiller groans Its oaken soul out ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... into the town like a torrent, hacked down the vedettes, rode over the guard, and were smashing in the doors of the Mayor's house before they understood that there was a Frenchman within twenty miles of them. We saw horrid heads at the windows—heads bearded to the temples, with tangled hair and sheepskin caps, and silly, gaping mouths. 'Hourra! Hourra!' they shrieked, and fired ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... says Waddy, "I tried to tell her that I'd had very little to do personally with smashing the Hindenburg line. But she wouldn't listen to a word. Besides, my French was rather lame. So we—we—Well, we became very dear to each other. She was charming, utterly. And so full of gratitude to all America. She could not do enough for our boys. All day she was going ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... evening, however, matters ripened, and after a joyous display of heavenly pyrotechnics and thunder all round the blackening, heavy sky, we were subjected to a violent downpour, accompanied by lurid lightning flashes. Tremendous hailstones came down, smashing through the few remaining flimsy blanket shelters that were still standing, so that we were left in our nakedness to bear the full fury of the storm. We felt that God's spectacular display on the mountains for Elijah's benefit had been at least emulated, but it was the still, small ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... them—at the thicket's edge, it seemed—a frightful roar and a furious pounding of hoofs brought them to their feet with a bound. A second later the rifle was lying among the bushes, and a panic-stricken hunter was scratching and smashing in a desperate hurry up among the branches of a low spruce, as if only the tiptop were half high enough. Mitchell was nowhere to be seen; unless one had the eyes of an owl to find him down among the ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... appreciate to the full the daring exemplified in these great crushing rolls, or rather "rock-crackers," without having watched them in operation delivering their "solar-plexus" blows. It was only as one might stand in their vicinity and hear the thunderous roar accompanying the smashing and rending of the massive rocks as they disappeared from view that the mind was overwhelmed with a sense of the magnificent proportions of this operation. The enormous force exerted during this process may be illustrated from the fact that during its development, in running ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... away his earnings. So 'ee goes on, and his woife doan't care about taking pains about a house when t' maister ain't never at home but to his meals, and his children get to look for him coming home drunk and smashing the things, and when he gets old he's just a broken-down drunkard, wi'out a penny saved, and nowt but the poorhouse before him. Now, that's the sort o' life o' a man who can't read, or can't read well enough to take pleasure ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... restraint on the roaring lusts of the sea. And yet I have known the sea too long to believe in its respect for decency. An elemental force is ruthlessly frank. It may, of course, have been Hermann's skilful seamanship, but to me it looked as if the allied oceans had refrained from smashing these high bulwarks, unshipping the lumpy rudder, frightening the children, and generally opening this family's eyes out of sheer reticence. It looked like reticence. The ruthless disclosure was in the end left for a man to make; a man strong and elemental enough and driven to unveil ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... away back, but was too busy trying to stop without smashing something to answer. Say, has the trestle caved in, or what in the name of thunder is ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... bored in resolutely, though his blows were weak, and the Ground Hog's pig eyes gleamed. He abated his own blows, standing with arms relaxed and waiting; and when he saw the opening he struck. It was aimed at the jaw, a last, smashing hay-maker, such a blow as would stagger an ox; but as it came past his guard the young Apollo ducked, and then suddenly he struck from the hip. His whole body was behind it, a sharp uppercut that caught the hurtling ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... furnace doors shining like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam—and as Jim went overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said Pierre, expressing himself so artificially because he was ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the Death-Fight has roared, (Gun-deck and berth-deck blood-wet!) Her mainmast's gone by the board, Down come topsail and jib! We're smashing her, rib by rib, And the pirate yells grow weak,— But the Black Flag flies there yet, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... place for a war correspondent is where he can see what he is supposed to describe," allowed to live among the troops in the front line. As a result of this unusual privilege, his pictures of the great fights in the last stages of the War have the reality of personal experience. The actual smashing of the Line, for example, is an epic of heroism and achievement still hardly realised by people at home, who cling to an idea that the final victories were gained over an enemy enfeebled and at disadvantage. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... perhaps, than a Spartan army was the genius of Miltiades, one of the Athenian generals. Relying on Greek discipline and Greek valor to win the day, he decided to take the offensive. His heavy armed soldiers made a smashing charge on the Persians and drove them in confusion to their ships. Datis and Artaphernes then sailed back to Asia with ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... each man in turn, and seemingly undecided which to attack first; and its hesitation or cowardice was fatal. The two men fired almost together, one bullet drilling a hole in its skull, and the other smashing in at one side of its body and out at the other. It did not live long enough to raise even a whimper, but dropped dead where it stood, a pool of blood immediately welling out from beneath ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... really regain his footing Max stepped in and, with left and right, landed full on his opponent's face, the last of the two punches coming flush on the nose with smashing force. It rocked the amazed Pelle back ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... of his lovely wife, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Burke, Walpole, the dictator of Strawberry Hill, and immortalized the hats worn by the smashing, dashing Duchess of Devonshire. One of these pictures of Her Grace comes very close to us Americans, as it was cut from the frame one dark, foggy night in London, sealed up in the false bottom of a trunk and brought to New York. Here it lay for more ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... owing to an increasing demand for it in the arts the value of it greatly exceeded that of gold, while at the present time it is on a par with silver, owing to the government selling it in the market of the world for what it will bring and smashing any gambling ring that would attempt to corner the market. We entered a cage and were lowered to the one thousand-foot level; then we got out of the cage and, walking about twenty yards, we entered a chamber where there was another shaft and ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... You blessed idiot, there's no use of both of us smashing. If anybody's got to stay—I can bluff it out a good deal better than you ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... action on foot, on October 24, at Ramscapelle, near the Yser, recaptured the village from the Germans. Dismounting near by, they charged the enemy lance in hand, driving him from his trenches. Following up their success, they then forced their way into the village, smashing in doors and windows and storming house after house in spite of fierce resistance until, assisted by other troops, they forced the enemy out, capturing guns and many prisoners. ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... humble truckle-bed, is full of prayers and tears, uneasily listening to the indistinct and noisy talk, and hearing, now and then, some louder oath of Ben's that made her shudder. Yes, she heard, too, the smashing sound, when the poacher flung the money down, and she feared it was a mug or a plate—no slight domestic loss; and she heard her father's strange cry, when he gave that wondering shout of joyous avarice, and she did not know what to fear. Was he ill? or crazed! ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
