"Sweeping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... utter defeat in two sanguinary engagements. More than a thousand of their warriors fell, and the swarms of the victors poured continuously over the whole country between the Lakes Baringo and Naivasha, sweeping all the Masai before them, and getting an immense booty in women, children, and cattle. This was at the beginning of May; and the Masai, who knew not how to escape from their exasperated foes except by our aid, sent couriers ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... hold on now with one hand, and relax the muscles of the other a little. She tried with one hand presently to do something with that sweeping pennant of hair that lashed her in the face so unexpectedly now and then, but could only succeed in twisting it about her neck and tucking the ends into the neck of her riding habit; and from this frail binding it ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... the first quarter of this century, it is hardly too sweeping an assertion to say that, with a single exception, there was little that was important in the way of painting outside of France and England. There were local reputations in all the other countries, ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... known harbour. Deceived by this, the ship which chased him followed on, and before even Jose himself was aware of the outlying reefs of coral, they struck almost together. The next minute Spaniard and Feringhee were struggling for their lives, while tremendous seas were sweeping over the two ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... them what I think of them," replied I, sweeping him aside. For my blood was up, and I was enraged ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... prevented by the surf. The surf ran so high on the 5th, that no boats could land: at two o'clock the Supply parted her cable, and stood off and on during the night. The Supply's boats were employed during the 6th, in sweeping for her anchor, as no landing could be attempted; but the surf abating on the 7th, we received every article on shore that was ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... The French Emperor, boldly avowing his intention to crush England, forbade by a series of decrees, issued from Berlin, Milan and Rambouillet, the importation of her commodities into any part of Europe under his control; and England, equally sweeping in her acts, declared all such ports in a state of blockade, thus rendering any neutral vessel liable to capture, which should attempt to enter them. The legality of a blockade, where there is not a naval power off the coast competent to maintain such blockade, has always been denied by the lesser ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... siege, Ctesias said, had lasted two full years, and the third year had commenced—success seemed still far off—when an unusually rainy season so swelled the waters of the Tigris that they burst into the city, sweeping away more than two miles of the wall. This vast breach it was impossible to repair; and the Assyrian monarch, seeing that further resistance was vain, brought the struggle to an end by burning himself, with his concubines ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... than usual that day, for he wished to catch a glimpse of the brownies. He went softly downstairs. There was Johnny sweeping the floor, and Tommy trying ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... leaving you alone. But it was necessary. I've done good work this winter." He made with one hand a stiff and sweeping movement that expressed his peculiar kind of arrogance, which stated that his was the victory, now and for ever, and yet took therefrom no pride for himself. "I've pulled it off," he said jeeringly, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... wheeling in a flock round an round any spot, their flight is beautiful. Except when rising from the ground, I do not recollect ever having seen one of these birds flap its wings. Near Lima, I watched several for nearly half an hour, without once taking off my eyes: they moved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending and ascending without giving a single flap. As they glided close over my head, I intently watched from an oblique position the outlines of the separate and great terminal feathers of each wing; and these separate feathers, if there had been the least vibratory movement, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... success in his art or praise from her lips that gave her listener such an exquisite thrill of pleasure? He did not stop to consider, for he was not in an analytical mood at that time. He was on the crest of the spiritual wave that was sweeping him heavenward, or towards some beatific state of which he had not dreamt before. His face glowed with pleasure ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... his mind let down its guard for a brief instant. It was like touching the surface of a whirlpool. He was sucked into the sweeping depths of the dream. He sensed that he cried out in terror as he plunged. But there was no one to hear. He was alone ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... had the existence of one properly authenticated. I was told that if I fired a pistol through a ghost only a small particle of dust would remain which could be swept up. I was not aware that even so much would remain. Fancy "sweeping up" a Higher Spirit! ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... hurried forward and repelled, meeting, and mingling—their troubled surface boiling and spouting—and, even in a summer calm, in an eternal state of agitation"; and then fancy the calm changing to a storm: "the wind at west; the whole volume of the Atlantic rolling its wild mass of waters on, in one sweeping flood, to dash and burst upon the black and riven promontory of the Dunnet Head, until the mountain wave, shattered into spray, flies over the summit of a precipice, 400 feet above the base it broke upon." But this was precisely what we did not want to see, so we turned ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and bathos, each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired disorder of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging to the same school, is Burly. ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... some distance from the road, and is reached by a broad, sweeping drive and two footpaths that approach from ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... there isn't time, anyway," said Jessie, sweeping the suggestion aside with a sang-froid that aggravated Phil. "The thing I'm most interested in now is that will and the letters her father left her. Oh, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... obstacles to his progress, bows politely to the opposing mountain-range, and, bowing, passes around the base, saying, as he looks back, "You see, friend, we need have no hard feelings,—the world is large enough for thee and me." To the broad-sweeping river he gently hints, "Nearer your source you are not so big, and, as I turned out for the mountain, why should I not for the river?" till mountain and river, alike aghast at the bold pigmy, look in silent wonder at the thundering train which shoulders aside ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... restoring parson and architect, standing amid an island of shapely trees and flower-beset cottages of thatched grey stone and cob, amidst the narrow stretch of bright green water-meadows that wind between the sweeping Wiltshire downs, so well beloved of William Cobbett. Or some new-seen and yet familiar cluster of houses in a grey village of the upper Thames overtopped by the delicate tracery of a fourteenth-century church; ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... was far down the hills when he awoke. He lay blinking at the low-sweeping boughs above him for a little without realizing where he was; then, as the midsummer stillness which surrounded him took hold of his senses, he turned his head to recall to himself the conditions under which he had been sleeping. Only the hamper under a tree close ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... left the kitchen immediately upon this warning, by a door leading into the yard. It was broad daylight by this time; a chilly sunless morning, and a high wind sweeping across the fields and fanning the flames, which now licked the front wall of Wyncomb Farmhouse. The total destruction of the place seemed inevitable, unless help from Malsham came very quickly. The farm servants were running to and fro with buckets of water from the yard, and flinging ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... Slight check in career. Sister Bond ate Sister Westhaven's egg! Grand row! Wardmaid clearly to blame! Inattention in such important matters cannot be too highly censured. Mop and pail again! How are the mighty fallen! Ninth month: Promoted to sweeping out wards, where I found a friend of my childhood in Lieutenant Thomas Beresford (bow, Tommy!), whom I had not seen for five long years. The meeting was affecting! Tenth month: Reproved by matron for visiting the pictures ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... sentry might be placed in the hall, but my short pike ought to soon rid me of him. The floor might be of double or even of triple thickness, and this thought puzzled me; for in that case how was I to prevent the guard sweeping out the room throughout the two months my work might last. If I forbade them to do so, I might rouse suspicion; all the more as, to free myself of the fleas, I had requested them to sweep out the cell every day, and in sweeping they would soon discover what I was about. I must find ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for Victor Dorn had trained his men to tell the exact truth—the difficulty of doing anything for the people at any near time or in any brief period because at a single election but a small part of the effective offices could be changed, and sweeping changes must be made before there could be sweeping benefits. "We'll do all we can," was their promise. "Their county government and their state government and their courts won't let us do much. But a beginning has to be made. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... abide their time. They feel—they know indeed—that the time is coming in spite of all opposition, all persecution, when this emancipating gospel will spread among all the peoples, and when this minority will become the triumphant majority and, sweeping into power, inaugurate ...
— The Debs Decision • Scott Nearing
... in the early spring, when the snows were melting in the hills, and freshets were sweeping down the valleys far and near. That night a warm heavy rain came on, and in the morning every stream and river was swollen to twice its size. The mountains seemed to have stripped themselves of snow, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... told him that she spoke truly. There was less pressure to the wind, and the seas rose and fell, sweeping past them like moving hills of oil. Moonlight shining through thinning clouds faintly illumined her face, and he saw the expressionless weariness of her voice, and a sad, dreamy look in ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest ever invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their best—to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history—but only the Christian civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two or three centuries from now it will ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... crews, finding this the easiest way of getting rid of them. Bonnet took these men on board with the avowed intention of taking them to St. Thomas, and then he set sail upon the high seas as free and untrammelled as a fish-hawk sweeping over the surface of a harbour with clearance papers ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the direction which he had been following for several rods, Lige turned and made a sweeping detour, fanning the ground with his torch, as he picked ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... prepared speeches—speeches against the Queen's being disdainful, enraged, or dissolved in tears. She had read in books all night from Aulus Gellius to Cicero to get wisdom. But here there were no speeches called for; no speeches could be made. The significance of the Queen's gesture of sweeping dust from her ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... wondering all the way here what you looked like," cried the little girl, dancing on her toes, and sweeping the embarrassed Nancy from head to foot, with her eyes. "And now I know, and I'm glad you look just ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... upon the head make a great man, a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional encumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess my eyes are wholly ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... morning, with the wind rushing past her, bringing the odor of the grasses, of the flowers, of the earth to tingle her nostrils; no more to follow the hounds on a winter's day, with the pack baying beyond the hedges, the gay, red-coated riders sweeping down the field; no more to wander through the halls of her mother's birthplace and her own! Like a breath on a mirror, all was gone. Why? What had she done to be flung down ruthlessly? She, who had been brought ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... had one experience of this sort myself that shows how even the noblest man may suddenly suffer an infatuation capable of sweeping him on to disaster. It was at the time of my husband's death—during days when he lay half conscious in the hospital following his automobile accident. A distinguished clergyman, Dr. B——, who had known Julian slightly, visited him ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... beams of pale red flared out from the giant and bathed the pigmy craft. As they reached it, the white ray that had been sweeping up suddenly vanished, and for an instant the ship hung poised in the air; then it began to swing crazily, like the pendulum of a clock—swung completely over—and with a sickening lurch sped swiftly ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... the common uses of the temple, for adorning the altars and sweeping the pavement, was supplied by a tree near the fountain of Castalia; but upon all important occasions, they sent to Tempe for their laurel. We find, in Pausanias; that this valley supplied the branches, of which the temple was originally constructed; and Plutarch says, in his Dialogue on Music, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... minute when he saw this terrible thing, he was suddenly beset by more than two hundred yelling, dancing savages, who were sweeping down upon him as if believing he was in their power beyond any chance. The Indian guide, who appeared to be terribly frightened, although it might have been that he was in the plot to murder my master, would have run away; but that Captain Smith ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... and the low-sweeping clouds and the closed motor, on our drive of the next day! I remember little more of it than occasional glimpses of the tall cliffs that stand sentinel along the river, a hasty look at a fine church above a steeply built town, an army lorry stuck deep in the snow-drifts, and ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... into two groups, fighting like wild-cats. Most of them, powerfully built Scandinavians, were sweeping aside the natives before them, but the odds were overpowering. The negroes shouted and yelled as they tried to beat the sailors down. Already the main hatch had been forced open and a stream of men was pouring down, for the wreckers knew of valuables ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sweeping away all the dead leaves from the clearing, and then we will all sit down and ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... wind. By and by Jason imagined that he could distinguish words, but very confusedly, because each separate leaf of the tree seemed to be a tongue and the whole myriad of tongues were babbling at once. But the noise waxed broader and deeper until it resembled a tornado sweeping through the oak and making one great utterance out of the thousand and thousand of little murmurs which each leafy tongue had caused by its rustling. And now, though it still had the tone of a mighty wind roaring among the branches, it was also ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... the author is sometimes rather bewildering, as where he defines "universal suffrage" to mean that "every sane adult white male citizen, not a felon, may vote at every election." (p. 349.) His general statements, too, are apt to be rather sweeping. For instance, he says, in two different passages, that, "so far as we know, the climate of San Francisco is the most equable and the mildest in the world." (pp. 29, 431.) Yet he puts the extremes of temperature in this favored climate at 25 deg. and 97 deg. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... knew more about boat-sailing than his naval friend, expressed his opinion that she was beating up for the little boat-harbour of Penmore, about two miles to the eastward. How anxiously they watched her, as the tide sweeping her along she drew nearer and nearer! The wind, having—as the expression is—backed into the south-east, enabled her to lay up well along shore, or their hope of being seen would have been small indeed. For some minutes longer she stood on almost ...
— Adrift in a Boat • W.H.G. Kingston
... the traditional freaks of a Dame of Ephesus, or a Wife of Bath, or a Queen of Denmark, to cast so broad a shadow over a whole sisterhood. There must be, methinks, some more general infirmity—common, probably, to all Eve-kind—to justify so sweeping a stigma. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... better if I had more time, but I must go to my sweeping and dusting, or Mr. Schwartz will be down on me, and he is pretty heavy, you know. I never saw such a man—he can see a grain of dust half across ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... royal figure with a sweeping gesture of his hand made a sign of dismissal to Noel, who bowed respectfully and withdrew into the tower. The king then beckoned to the mighty figure in the palmer's weed, and Thibaut advanced slowly until he was within touch of his prey, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... slavery in a modified form was applicable to men or women of any age. But for "minors" a more speedy and more sweeping methods was contrived by the law-makers of Alabama, who had just given their assent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. They made it the "duty of all sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other civil officers of the several counties," ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... a large part of the audience consisted of boys, who would not take up much room. But how much clearing and sweeping and moving of chairs was necessary before all could be made ready! It was late, and some of the people had already come to secure good seats, even before ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... under sail, and as she closed with the batteries, she opened her fire with tremendous effect; then, putting down her helm, she came about and stood off once more, amid showers of shot and shell which came sweeping over and about her; though, close as she was, not a shot touched her. Greatly to the disappointment of her gallant captain, he saw the signal made from the flagship for his return. Thinking that he might shut one eye, as Nelson did at Copenhagen, he however once more stood ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... amphitheater of valley and mountain and rock, and I said to my companion, "What an appropriate place this would be for the last judgment. Yonder overhanging rock the place for the judgment seat. These galleries of surrounding hills occupied by attendant angels. This vast valley, sweeping miles this way and miles that, the audience-room for all nations." But sacred geography does not point out the place. Yet we know that somewhere, some time, somehow, an audience will be gathered together stupendous beyond all statistics, and just as certainly ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... there arose the sounds of the exulting of victorious men, and the panting of those that fled, and the sword singing softly to itself as it whirled dripping through the air. And the last that I saw of the battle as it poured into the depth and darkness of the ravine was the sword of Welleran sweeping up and falling, gleaming blue in the moonlight whenever it arose and afterwards gleaming red, and ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... bedposts. A slight groove in the deep pile carpet showed clearly enough that the bed had been pushed back a few inches. The change in position was so trifling that it might have been attributed to the act of a servant in sweeping the room if a closer examination had not revealed the continuance of the groove under the bed. The inference was unmistakable: the bed, in the first instance, had been pushed much farther back on its castors, and then almost, but not quite, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... ground, destined ultimately to produce the changes in national temper which made plain the duty and expediency of adopting the changes in political systems in which the years 1832 and 1867 are epochs. In after years, Lord Cochrane himself clearly saw that he had been rash in his advocacy of the sweeping reforms which the excited people deemed necessary for their welfare in the years of trouble and misgovernment consequent on the tedious war-time ending with the battle of Waterloo. But he never had cause to regret the honest zeal and the generous sympathy ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... much pleased with what we saw of Arles; it is a clean, well-built town, the streets generally rather narrow, but the houses good. In walking about, we found many of the outer doors open, and neat-looking female servants employed in sweeping the halls and entries. With what I hope may be deemed a pardonable curiosity, we peeped and sometimes stepped into these interiors, and were gratified by the neatness and even elegance which they exhibited. We found the people remarkably civil, and apparently too much accustomed to English ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... again the star of this "man of destiny" shine in glorious splendor at Maringo, Wagram, Austerlitz, Jena, Leipsic and Ulm, and then as First Consul and Emperor, sweeping with his unconquerable columns over the sands of Egypt and snows of Russia, until at last the fires and smoke of Moscow bedimmed the horizon of his glory, and lit up the funeral pyre of five hundred thousand of the best soldiers ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... was sweeping away the cobwebs with a vengeance. "I hope you're wrong," he replied, "for those are the lines on which I've been writing, however badly, for ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... everything they say from the beginning is false. According to your idea, there was never any hidden menace, or secret society, or Valley of Fear, or Boss MacSomebody, or anything else. Well, that is a good sweeping generalization. Let us see what that brings us to. They invent this theory to account for the crime. They then play up to the idea by leaving this bicycle in the park as proof of the existence of some outsider. The stain on the windowsill ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... architect who knew the mathematics of his art, and who saw that the foundation laid by Saint Bernard, Saint Victor, Saint Francis, the whole mystical, semi-mystical, Cartesian, Spinozan foundation, past or future, could not bear the weight of the structure to be put on it. Thomas began by sweeping the ground clear of them. God must be a concrete thing, not a human thought. God must be proved by the senses like any other concrete thing; "nihil est in intellectu quin prius fuerit in sensu"; even ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... Gripir, seated in a chair made from the sea-horse's teeth.[EN9] And the son of the giants held in his hand an ivory staff; and a purple mantle was thrown over his shoulders, and his white beard fell in sweeping waves almost to the sea-green floor. Very wise he seemed, and he gazed at Siegfried with ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... of the Renaissance and the Reformation sweeping over Russian Jewry reached even the sacred precincts of the synagogues, the batte midrashim, and the yeshibot. The Tree of Life College in Volozhin became a foster-home of Haskalah. The rendezvous of the brightest Russo-Jewish youths, it was the centre ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... on occasion with tongue and fists. She was so full of life and strength that, when she had no playing to do, she took pleasure in helping her mother about her work. It warmed Saul Matchin's heart to see the stout little figure sweeping or scrubbing. She went to school but did not "learn enough to hurt her," as her father said; and he used to think that here, at least, would be one child who would be a comfort to his age. In fancy he saw her, in a neat print dress and white ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... had just got up, and who was sweeping the room, stopped his work, got into a corner behind the tables, put down his broom, and held his breath. He plunged his fingers into his hair, and scratched his head, a symptom which indicated attention to ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... leading Platoon was now covering the ground at such a pace that it was impossible to catch up with them. As the ground was open the whole line could be seen sweeping forward to engulf the enemy. The long dotted lines of brown advanced steadily and inexorably. Line upon line of them breasted the crest, and followed in the wake of the leading wave. It was scarcely a spectacular sight, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... I remember, too, the intense and breathless sense of excitement in the hush and suspense of the multitude, and the sweeping by ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... again, season of peace; Return, sweet Ev'ning, and continue long! Methinks I see thee in the streaking west With matron-step slow-moving, while the night Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employ'd In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charg'd for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day: Not sumptuously adorn'd, nor needing aid, Like homely-featur'd night, of clust'ring gems; A star or two, just twinkling on ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... time; but politely turning the attention of the company from the unfortunate colonel, by addressing himself to the laughing sportsmen, "Gentlemen, you seem to value these," said he, sweeping the artificial flies from the table into the little basket from which they had been taken; "would you do me the honour to accept of them? They are all of my own making, and consequently of Irish manufacture." Then, ringing the bell, he asked ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... mothers, with babes in their arms, came bursting out of the houses, and little girls, hugging kittens or cages with canary-birds, clung weeping to their skirts; shouting men, shrieking women, crying children, barking dogs, gusty showers sweeping from nowhere down upon the distracted fugitives, and above all the ominous, throbbing, pulsating roar as of a mighty chorus of cataracts. It came nearer and nearer. It filled the great vault of the sky with a rush as of colossal wing-beats. Then there came a deafening creaking ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... vast surge, higher than the highest mast-head, rolled nearer, its top crested with foam. The men clung to the rigging and bulwarks. Suddenly the King Solomon rose more rapidly, tossed upward on the towering wave, and the next moment lay on her side with her masts in the water and wave after wave sweeping over her decks. In a few minutes the ship righted again, the water rolling from her as it drips from the plumage of a swan, and the crew, drenched to the ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... sudden impact, as of a fist or a club; a stroke is a sweeping movement; as, the stroke of a sword, of an oar, of the arm in swimming. A shock is the sudden encounter with some heavy body; as, colliding railway-trains meet with a shock; the shock of ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... imminent Return to Simplicity—Socialism the unwise it call. If it be really true, what good news for the grave humorous man, who hates talking to anything but trees and children! For, if that Return to Simplicity means anything, it must mean the sweeping away of immemorial rookeries of talk—such crannied hives of gossip as the professions, with all their garrulous heritage of trivial witty ana: literary, dramatic, legal, aristocratic, ecclesiastical, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... is 'over there', boss," returned the darky lazily. "Mighty swift tide sweeping around de head ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... the other States, perpetuated the worst features of the acts of Congress. It disqualified all the respectable whites from any active part in the government, leaving the negroes and "carpet-baggers" full sway. So sweeping was this disqualification that in many parts of the State not a native Virginian, white or black, could be found who could read or write, and who would be eligible for election or appointment to any office. ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... this declaration was called forth by the statement that the legal advisers of the American Commission had been, at my request, preparing an outline of a treaty, a "skeleton treaty" in fact, the President's sweeping disapproval of members of the legal profession participating in the treaty-making seemed to be, and I believe was, intended to be notice to me that my counsel was unwelcome. Being the only lawyer on the delegation I naturally ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... their way through Howieson's division, receiving severe punishment from balls fired at a distance of a few feet, and then, in spite of the efforts of their officers, who fought till they were black and blue, but chiefly red, the enemy rushed down the home street and, sweeping the rearguard of Howieson's before them like straws in a stream, made for their respective schools. The Seminaries in one united body, headed by the three commanders and attended by the whole junior school, visited the Pennies' school first, whose gates were ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... tribes and partly castes, whose function consists in hunting or fishing, or in acting as butcher for the general community, or in rearing swine and fowls, or in discharging the meanest domestic services, such as sweeping and washing, or in practicing the lowest of human arts, such as basket-making, hide-tanning, etc. Thus throughout the whole series of Indian castes a double test of social precedence has been in active force, the industrial and the Brahmanical; and these two have ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... who had been trailing the grizzly for half an hour and waiting for light enough to secure a sure shot. With something like awe in his face he came, and knelt down, with hands gripping cautiously, and peered over the dreadful brink. "Gee! But that there cat was game!" he muttered, drawing back and sweeping a comprehensive gaze across the stupendous landscape, as if challenging denial of his statement. Obviously the silences were of the same opinion, for there came no suggestion of dissent. Carefully he rose to his feet and pressed on towards ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... newspaper! How McLean will chuckle!" And she seized the sheet which Mrs. Laudersdale had abandoned in sweeping from ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... while you count "one, two, three" for the accompaniment, "one, two" will suffice for the melody above it. The effect of this device has been described as indicative in this waltz of the loving, nestling and tender embracing of the dancing couples. It is followed in the music by sweeping motions free and graceful like those of birds. The prolonged trill with which the piece begins, seems to summon the dancers to the ballroom, while the waltz itself, is an intermingling of coquetry, hesitation and avowal, with a closing passage that is like an ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... Sigmund's fellows! they fall like the seeded hay Before the brown scythes' sweeping, and there the Isle-king fell In the fore-front of his battle, wherein he wrought right well, And soon they were nought but foemen who stand upon their feet On the isle-strand by the ocean where the grass and ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... from the south revived for a moment, sweeping in light, fitful puffs over the bay. Favoured by this last flickering current of the morning's breeze, the Petrel had succeeded in making her way half across the bay, though returning less steadily than she had gone on her errand an ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... promontory, that projected athwart the beach. There was now a sudden pause in the music, and then one female voice was heard to sing in a kind of chant. Emily quickened her steps, and, winding round the rock, saw, within the sweeping bay, beyond, which was hung with woods from the borders of the beach to the very summit of the cliffs, two groups of peasants, one seated beneath the shades, and the other standing on the edge of the sea, round the girl, who was singing, and who held in her hand ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a strange thing. She pointed, under the water, out towards the depths and with a broad, sweeping motion of her arm, indicated the shore, as though to say that she intended to return. With a last swift, smiling glance up into my face, she turned. There was a flash of white through ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... doubt among the principal directors of the whole affair. They affected to issue their orders from time to time in an Indian jargon, the interpreter communicating what the chiefs said; attended to the procuring of keys and lights, the raising of the derricks, trampling the tea into the mud, sweeping the decks at the close of the scene, calling up the mate to report whether everything (except, of course, the tea) was left as they found ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... rather large, and the work was bold. One kept to large, bold, and simple forms—water-lilies and broad leaves, swans, scallop shells, and zigzag borders. Forms which can be readily produced by the brush would generally answer well for inlay, since they would have simple and sweeping boundaries and flat silhouette. And for inlay one is practically designing in black, white, or tinted silhouette. This makes it very good practice for all designers, both for the invention it tends to call out, owing to the limited resources and restriction as to forms, ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... human barricade. A cage containing a tiger, which has been trapped in the jungle for the occasion, is hauled forward to the circle's edge. At a signal from the Sultan the door of the cage is opened and the great striped cat, its yellow eyes glaring malevolently, its stiffened tail nervously sweeping the ground, slips forth on padded feet to crouch defiantly in the center of the extemporized arena. Occasionally, but very occasionally, the beast becomes intimidated at sight of the waiting spearmen and the breathless throng beyond them, but usually it is only a matter of seconds before ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... bright, blazing fire there all day. The cook had made some strong coffee, but even that did not make them any warmer. An icy cold crept through the whole house; it was as though the ice and snow from outside had come in, as though the chill breath of frozen nature were sweeping through the house too, from attic ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... close under the sharp crest of the range, are densely wooded canons. The fair weather is passing, and it is necessary to find the trail and descend. Clouds are sweeping across the ridges and peaks, and soon the whole summit will be ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... Mississippi and put on Mr. Fetler's ox-cart. After breakfast we followed on foot. The walk in the woods was so delightful that all were disappointed when a silvery gleam through the trees showed the bayou sweeping along, full to the banks, with dense forest trees almost meeting over it. The boat was launched, calked, and reloaded, and we were off again. Towards noon the sound of distant cannon began to echo around, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... Winter, sweeping Peters aside, was within ten feet of the maniac, who turned and ran into the shop. The door, a solid one, fitted with a spring lock, slammed in the Chief Inspector's face, and resisted a mighty effort to burst it open. A few yards away stood an empty, two-wheeled ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... study the machinery. Reblong gave the place a single sweeping glance, then strode to a short, black-bearded chap who ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... schoolroom and sat down, the girl who was sweeping the floor having informed him that Mrs. Phillotson would be back again in a few minutes. A piano stood near—actually the old piano that Phillotson had possessed at Marygreen—and though the dark afternoon almost prevented him seeing the notes Jude touched them in his humble ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... has been pretty clean sweeping already," wrote Lord Chesterfield on the 15th; and I do not remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new board of treasury, and two new secretaries, etc. Here is a new political arch built; but of materials of so different ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... honour, madam,' he answered, with a sweeping bow; 'unless I err in taking you for ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... the shack. Already the mere fact of a woman's presence beneath its roof seemed, to him, to give it a different aspect. Through the open door he observed that Rose was sweeping. How he had always hated the thought of any one handling what was his! He dumped another bucket of slops into the home-made trough. Why couldn't she just let things alone and get supper quietly? Heaven only ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... startled into saying, and bowed to her. It was not the stiff, martial bow she had before noted, but the sweeping, ingratiating bow of the Frenchman. Ruth walked on, but she ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert, but that I never deserted her. I know that the great volcano at Washington, aroused and directed by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belching forth the lava of political corruption in a current broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful velocity over the whole length and breadth of the land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot or living thing; while on its bosom are riding, like demons on the wave of Hell, the imps of the Evil Spirit, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... in the lock, and then the door opened—to let in Volney. His hat was sweeping to the floor in a bow when he saw me. He stopped and looked at me in surprise, his lips framing themselves for a whistle. I could see the starch run through and take a grip of him. For just a gliff he stood puzzled and angry. Then he came in wearing his ready dare-devil ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... that language wherein a creature holds correspondence with his Creator; and wherein the soul of a saint gets near to God, is entertained with great delight, and, as it were, dwells with his heavenly Father."1 God, when manifest in the flesh, hath given us a solemn, sweeping declaration, embracing all prayer—private, social, and public—at all times and seasons, from the creation to the final consummation of all things—"God is a Spirit, and they that worship him MUST WORSHIP HIM IN SPIRIT ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the S. and S.W. by the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean, and on the E. by Yukon Territory and British Columbia. It consists of a compact central mass and two straggling appendages running from its S.W. and S.E. corners, and sweeping in a vast arc over 16 degrees of latitude and 58 degrees of longitude. These three parts will be referred to hereafter respectively, as Continental Alaska, Aleutian Alaska and the "Panhandle.'' The range of latitude from Point ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... side of the rules of the jail. By comparing the two you may calculate the amount of lawless cruelty perpetrated here in each single day; then ask yourself whether an honest man who is on the spot can wait four or five months till justice, crippled by routine, comes hobbling instead of sweeping to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... of reflection save for practical purposes. Just then, however, he was departing from his usual custom. Strange ghosts of a strange past were flitting through his mind. Old passions, which had long lain undisturbed, were sweeping through him, old dreams were revived, old memories kindled once more smoldering fires, and aided at the resurrection of a former self. The cold man-of-the-world philosophy, which had ruled his life for many years, seemed suddenly conquered by this upheaval of a stormy past. Under the influence ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the Oudenarde tower, which was falling, and which some wished to pull down, and others to prop up; apropos of the police regulations issued by the council, which some obstinate citizens threatened to resist; apropos of the sweeping of the gutters, repairing the sewers, and so on. Nor did the enraged orators confine themselves to the internal administration of the town. Carried on by the current they went further, and essayed to plunge their fellow-citizens into the ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... sternness, far less ferocity—the face was much too impassible for either; and yet its listlessness could never be mistaken for languor. The thin short lips might be very pitiless when compressed, very contemptuous and provocative when curling; but the enormous mustache, sweeping over them like a wave, and ending in a clean stiff upward curve, made even this a matter of mere conjecture. The cold, steady, dark eyes seldom flashed or glittered; but, when their pupils contracted, there ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... in the soft and comparatively unbroken slopes of these Yorkshire shales which must give the water a peculiar sweeping power, for I have seen Tay and Tummel and Ness, and many a big stream besides, savage enough, but I don't remember ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... anything else? Have you sat up all night to have the pleasure of accusing me of cruelty? Are there sweeter or more delightful children in the world, and isn't that a little my merit, pray?' Selina went on, sweeping away her tears. 'Who has made them what they are, pray?—is it their lovely father? Perhaps you'll say it's you! Certainly you have been nice to them, but you must remember that you only came here the other day. Isn't it only for them that I am trying ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... officers abundant opportunity for practice in the infant service. The French war flurry after a while blew over, as the Directory, the mainspring of these aggressions, lost power; peace was patched up, and Jefferson shortly after inaugurated an unwholesome pacific policy by a sweeping reduction of the navy, as if it were not small enough already. In this mutilating operation the elder Perry was dropped, the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... hardly have a stronger effect than this. A very intense emotion will often bring with it—especially where some future action or some undecided issue is involved—powerful compelling images which may determine the whole course of life, sweeping aside all contrary solicitations to the will by their capacity for exclusively possessing the mind. And in all cases where images, originally recognized as such, gradually pass into hallucinations, there must be just that "force or liveliness" ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... sprawling in the snow outside, sweeping the lean woman down with me. It was very like a dime novel. Three lone women who, for purposes of intensification, may be called enemies, staring with white faces at a wall of dirt, and trying to realise that a minute before it had been a black hole. And at the other ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... high lonely tower, Where I might oft outwatch the Bear With thrice-great Hermes, or unsphere The spirit of Plato, to unfold What worlds or what vast regions hold Th' immortal mind, that hath forsook Her mansion in this fleshy nook. . . . Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy In sceptred pall come sweeping by, Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, Or the tale ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft |
