"Torrential" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sand-bottoms between the hills. And the sand-bottoms were bare, save for spots of scrub, with here and there short tufts of dry and withered grass. Water there was none, nor sign of water, except for washed gullies that told of ancient and torrential rains. ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... streets. All the while she kept looking out of the cab window, as though amid the passing myriads she might happen already to recognize one of those acquaintances she hoped to meet. At last she was in London! And London in early spring; London with the smuts washed off by torrential showers and then flooded with glorious sunshine; London with the young leaves like a thin veil of green on the limes and elms, and the tassels hanging from the poplars, and the sycamores and horse chestnuts already casting grateful shade; London with the mowing machines whirling in the parks ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... Cloudbursts and floods are common; for the whole country is high in altitude, with rising peaks, where electric storms play and rage, and the clouds drop, with a sudden sweep, their whole burden of water to the earth beneath. At other times, the waters are allowed to pour down in torrential rains which quickly deluge the land, and as there are no barriers to hinder or detain, they sweep down the inhospitable slopes to the stream beds, carrying with them all the sand, silt, rock debris, vegetable ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... and smiled disdainfully. The torrential rain beat upon her bare head and shoulders, causing her to glisten and shine like a golden goddess; but she heeded it not at all; her eyes sought out what Stumpy had indicated. And there, in the next lightning-flash, flying seaward, was the sloop. Rufe had taken alarm, and had foregone ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... Cary. The two walked on, now in sun, now in shade, upon the quiet road. The drouth was broken. There had been a torrential rain, then two days of sunshine. A cool wind now stirred the treetops; the mountains drew closer in the crystal air, and the washed fields renewed their green. So bright and sunny was the morning that the late summer wore the air of spring. Cary stood still ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... unexpected tricks of ornamentation. That tropical redundancy for which her person was renowned reflected itself likewise in her temperament—in nothing more than the exuberance of her untruths which were poured out in so torrential a flood, with such burning conviction at the opulence of detail that persons who knew her well used to stand aghast (Catholics had been known to cross themselves) at the fertility of her constructive imagination, while the most ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... was not the faintest chance of gaining the least shelter. All round them the earth was covered with low-growing bushes; there was neither tree nor hedge nor fence to break the force of the torrential downpour. A mile in front the road ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... and too well balanced to risk its loss. So Mrs. Croix might be driven to rest her hopes on a trick of chance or a coup de theatre. But she was a very clever woman; and she was not unlike Hamilton in a quite phenomenal precocity, and in the torrential nature ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... what you say," the Easy Chair confessed. "Our popular failure as a critic is notorious; it cannot be denied. The stamp of our disapproval at one time gave a whole order of fiction a currency that was not less than torrential. The flood of romantic novels which passed over the land, and which is still to be traced in the tatters of the rag-doll heroes and heroines caught in the memories of readers along its course, was undoubtedly the effect of our adverse criticism. No, we could not in conscience compile ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... night I was awakened by a torrential downpour and by the roar of a heavy gale as it swept over the cliffs high above our heads. Despite the tarpaulins the wet found its way in and soaked us to the skin, so that with daylight we were glad to make preparations ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Precautions against fires and their control. Reforestation. Maintenance of forests on what are called essential areas, such as high altitudes and slopes, as tending to prevent floods and erosion. (France here gives most impressive example in planning to bring under conrol about three thousand torrential streams in the Alps, Pyrenees, Ardennes, and Cevennes by means, partly at least, of afforestation, $14,000,000 out of $40,000,000 being provided for this purpose. [Footnote: Van Hise, p. 247.] Italy, because of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... belts of wooded hills were barrier enough. Even a few years ago their passes were dreaded by cartmen; most of the carriage of the country was effected by pack-bullocks. Even when roads were cleared through the forests, they were likely to be rendered impassable by torrential rains.[1223] ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... in the midst of the cyclone scene, as the dust storm was ending and the torrential rain succeeded. For the storm, a miniature village had been constructed in break-away fashion, partially sawed through and tricked for the proper moment. Many objects were controlled by invisible wires, including an actual horse and ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... well-nigh impassable country and lost touch with the Commander-in-Chief. One after another seven officers were dispatched to carry the necessary orders, but all returned without effecting their purpose. But at midnight, in the midst of a torrential storm Lee arrived from the front, having overcome all difficulties—an achievement which Scott subsequently described as "the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any individual in my ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... though we suffered dire Hardships! What torrential rains Fell upon us at the peak Where was neither ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... separately in waterproof paper, pack them in half-dozens in soldered-up tins, and enclose the whole in a stout wooden case, by which means I hoped to preserve effectually my entire stock of powder from the ordinary accidents of travel in a country subject at certain seasons to torrential downpours of rain, and intersected at pretty frequent intervals by rivers deep enough to flood a wagon during its passage across. The case of powder, which also contained the necessary complement of wads and percussion caps, arrived ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... herself away on the first man that offered! This was his chance, I told him; the one chance of his life; he was letting a piece of idiotic pride wreck the probable happiness of years. He agreed with me with moans and weeps. He had the candor of a child and the torrential sentiment of a German musician. Three hundred and four dollars and seventy-five cents stood between him and eternal bliss, and yet he waved my pocketbook from him! And all the while ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... rain. We were then walking along the weather shore of the island, which was strewn with loose slabs of coral stone, pure white in colour and giving forth a clear, resonant sound to the slightest disturbing movement On our right hand was a scrub of puka trees, which afforded no shelter from the torrential rain; on our left the ocean, whose huge, leaping billows crashed and thundered upon the black, shelving reef, and sent swirling waves of whitened ...
— Susani - 1901 • Louis Becke
... These were the premises upon which he set out to build. But he would not have been a child of his time had he not seen life through the temperament of his generation. With all his sturdy mental and moral fibre he could not withstand the torrential current of skepticism and revaluation that swept through the intellectual world and uprooted its spiritual mainstays. Though the action of his plays was based upon eternal conflicts of the human tragi-comedy—the irreconcilable contrast between ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various |
