"Overpower" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fishmen, who are more expert on the water. They are also subject to great danger from some runaway blacks, who infest the coast near the rock Cestus, going out in canoes, and watching their opportunities for plundering any boat or vessel that they are able to overpower. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... of singing arose from the other side of the garden, apparently trying to overpower the noise of the child's cry, ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... older theology than he professed, that might justify him in recurring to his original sense of his unfitness for his sacred calling, as he would hardly ham called it: He had allowed his levity to get the better of his sympathy, and his love of teasing to overpower that love of helping which seemed to him his chief right and reason for being a minister: To play a sort of poor practical joke upon that melancholy girl (who was also so attractive) was not merely unbecoming to him as a minister; it was cruel; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... surrendered only after a struggle." Glancing at the three men the ruffian had brought with him, I was confirmed in my impression that the affair was by no means to their taste. If they had made a rush all together it would have been the easiest matter in the world to overpower me, but ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... sincere faith. But, contrary to what he had expected from the two feverish days through which he had just gone, from the extraordinary and agitating surroundings amidst which he had spent the last few hours, nothing moved him nor touched his heart. He had hoped that a great commotion would overpower him at the moment of the communion, when the divine mystery is accomplished; that he would find himself in view of Paradise, steeped in grace, in the very presence of the Almighty; but there was no manifestation, his chilled heart did not even throb, ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... solar chemistry. Owing to the scattering of light by matter floating mechanically in the earth's atmosphere, the sun is seen not sharply defined, but surrounded by a luminous glare. Now, a loud noise will drown a whisper, an intense light will overpower a feeble one, and so this circumsolar glare prevents us from seeing many striking appearances round the border of the sun. The glare is abolished in total eclipses, when the moon comes between the earth and the sun, and ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... woman-like sobriety. Hand in hand, they would wander amid the aisles of mossy-trunked trees, plucking the flowers that carpeted the earth; now digging for ground-nuts, now turning over the leaves for acorns; sometimes they would watch the nibbling squirrel as he nimbly sprang from tree to tree, or overpower, with their boisterous laughter, the gushing melody of the bobolink; they mocked the querulous cat-bird and the cawing crow, started at the swift winging of the shy blackbird, and stood still to listen to the sweet song of the clear-throated ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... that the palace I saw before me was yours; and, though the gates were closed, I knew that I could reach it through your garden that joins to my father's land. I had none in Rome to ask mercy of but you; so I set forth hastily, ere my weakness should overpower me, remembering that I had inherited much misery at your hands, but hoping that you might pity me for what I had suffered when you saw me again. I came wearily through the garden; it was long before ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... overpower you. For a day or two you must rest, and do nothing but breathe the sweet air. I have to be busy getting things in order and looking after my garden. Lisa will take her work on the piazza, and you can lie in one of the easy-chairs. Joe is to wait on you, and do a little weeding, and keep the ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... his path and adopting football tactics—tackling him low as soon as he stumbled upon me. But that way had its dangers, for he would undoubtedly have his knife and would make short work of me before I could overpower him. ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... suddenly you find a heavy dragging weight upon your hands, and again you hear the moans of a dying man close to you—almost in your arms. A republican soldier has fallen on your bayonet. The struggles of the wounded man nearly overpower you; you twist and turn and wrench, and drag your musket to and fro, but it is no use; the weapon is jammed between his ribs; you have not space nor time to extricate it; you are obliged to leave it, and on ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... grief—the death of children, of a parent, or of a wife—move him either to real or simulated agitation.[1] Nor will intense physical suffering overpower this habitual stoicism. He has seen unmoved the agony of many victims. He will himself endure the like without any outward manifestation of pain. In yonder bed he will one day suffer tortures surpassing those to which he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... man as Mr. Noddy, any day in the week. As this announcement seemed the prelude to a recommencement of the dispute, there was another interference on the part of the company; and a vast quantity of talking and clamouring ensued, in the course of which Mr. Noddy gradually allowed his feelings to overpower him, and professed that he had ever entertained a devoted personal attachment towards Mr. Gunter. To this Mr. Gunter replied that, upon the whole, he rather preferred Mr. Noddy to his own brother; on hearing which admission, Mr. Noddy magnanimously rose from his seat, and proffered his hand to ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... them if, as the pedants will have it, with a distressing inaccuracy in particulars, with a general and genial fidelity of which the pedants do not even dream and could not comprehend, or they would not be pedants. He was thus furnished with infinite stores of illustrative matter, never to overpower, but always to accompany and season, his knowledge of life. In a few instances this felicity of adoption has been recognised, but not a tenth part of it has ever been systematically put on record. The more widely and the ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... recently been made a Confederate camp. To succeed in our enterprise it would be necessary first to capture the engine in a guarded camp with soldiers standing around as spectators, and then to run it from one to two hundred miles through the enemy's country, and to deceive or overpower all trains that should be met—a large contract for twenty men. Some of our party thought the chances of success so slight, under existing circumstances, that they urged the abandonment of the whole enterprise. But Andrews declared his purpose to succeed or ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... Joyfully, therefore, at last, did we discern clearings, culture, and habitations at the lake-head. There was no tavernous village of Rangeley; that would have been too great a contrast, after the forest and the lakes, where loons are the only disturbers of silence,—incongruity enough to overpower utterly the ringing of woodland music in our hearts. Rangeley was a townless township, as the outermost township should be. We had, however, learnt from Killgrove, feller of forests, that there was a certain farmer on the lake, one of the chieftains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... that the principal figures and chief action in the Raising of Lazarus, by Sebastian del Piombo, are crowded into a corner. He would have had them "pyramid;" so does received quackery overpower the judgment of men of sense, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... do so. The muskets can be loaded and laid by the bulwarks, but they are not to be touched until I give the order. No doubt they also are armed. I am anxious not to fire a shot if it can be helped, and once alongside we are strong enough to overpower them with our cutlasses only. With the five blacks we are now double their strength, and even Carthew may see the uselessness of ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... sublime passion may be produced. Sounds have a great power in these as in most other passions. I do not mean words, because words do not affect simply by their sounds, but by means altogether different. Excessive loudness alone is sufficient to overpower the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror. The noise of vast cataracts, raging storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in the mind, though we can observe no nicety or artifice in those sorts of music. The shouting of multitudes has a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... incidents deal with the capture, during the war between Chili and Peru, of an armed cruiser. The heroes and their companions break from prison in Valparaiso, board this warship in the night, overpower the watch, escape to sea under the fire of the forts, and finally, after marvellous adventures, lose the cruiser among the ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... anger, surprise, alarm, and at last positive fear. But one thought possessed his mind, to win at any cost, by fair means or foul. His rushes, which had slackened, grew more violent. He came at Percy head down; he tried to crowd him into a corner, to throw his arms around him, to overpower ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... son as split because his father was in question." Then Michael spat twice upon the floor, showing the extremity of the disgust which in such a case would overpower him. ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... thousand years, deeply ensnared by a heavenly queen, in one day was completely shipwrecked in faith; thus those enticing women, by their power, overcame the Brahman ascetics; how much more may ye, by your arts, overpower the resolves of the king's son; strive therefore after new devices, let not the king fail in a successor to the throne; women, though naturally weak, are high and potent in the way of ruling men. What may not their arts accomplish in promoting in men a ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... mastered the temptation to dash after the spy, overtake and overpower him, expose and give him up to justice. Only the knowledge that by remaining quiescent, by biding his time, he might be enabled to redeem his word to the Brooke girl, gave him ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... you try it, we won't shoot you. We'll just overpower you and start mind-probing right away. Now; you feel that suppressing Merlin was worth any sacrifice. We're not unreasonable. If you can convince us that Merlin ought not to be brought to light.... Well, you can't do any harm by talking, and you may ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... And you will suffer for it. For, stiff and blank as you may determine to be, circumstances will overpower you. Under their influences you will not be able to avoid becoming softer and more redundant. But you will resist the process, I see, and you will make it ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... his way, hostile officers watched him, and reported what was going on in the camp of the new Wallenstein. Twice the Jacobins attempted to avert the peril. They invited Dumouriez to Paris, that he might place himself at their head and overpower the Girondin majority, and they employed men to assassinate him. At last they sent the minister of war, accompanied by four deputies, to arrest him. There was to have been a fifth, but he did not arrive in time, and his absence saved France. For Dumouriez ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... regarded the coming of the Spaniards with an evil eye. It was scarcely possible he should do otherwise. His soft messages had only been intended to decoy them across the mountains, where, with the aid of his warriors, he might readily overpower them. They were entangled in the toils which the cunning ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... 43 "Quail"; to overpower. Well might the abettors of Antichrist wonder at the Christian's support under the most cruel tortures. While "looking unto Jesus" and the bright visions of eternal glory, like Stephen, he can pray of his enemies, and tranquilly ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in the spring of the same year at Paris. The guards shut the gates of the Tuileries, and would not allow the King's carriage to pass. Even though a large sum of money had been expended to form a party to overpower the mutineers, the treacherous mercenaries did not appear. The expedition was, of course, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 6 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... appropriate verse to write on the soles, and it is: "A good song must keep time!" But Beckmesser does not stop for him. Beckmesser disdainfully goes on, as if he and the lady were alone in the world, and he sang thus loud to overpower some such thing as the sea-surf. In his engrossment he fails to take account of various ominous signs. He does not see David appear at his chamber-window. In spite of Eva's clothes which she is wearing, the boy recognises Magdalene at the casement ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... invent. And it is fascinating to watch the infinite variety of graceful forms assumed by the curling smoke from a cigarette, full of suggestions for beautiful line arrangements. If this variety of form in your work is allowed to become excessive it will overpower the unity of your conception. It is in the larger unity of your composition that the imaginative faculty will be wanted, and variety in your forms should always ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... affrighted; yet considering what I had lately heard made out by Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is more good in God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is the greatest good and sin the greatest evil, yet the first Being of evil cannot weave the scales or overpower the first Being of good: so considering that the authour of good was of greater power than the authour of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me from ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... one has felt, but has not dared to think; all that one has thought, but has not dared to say; all the terrible whispers from the unspeakable margins; all the horrible wreckage and silt from the unsounded depths, float in upon us and overpower us. ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... true, Susan feeling that it was not the whole truth, made but faint response. However, the Countess went on, expecting to overpower her with gratitude. "The gentleman I mean is willing to take her in her smock, and moreover his wardship and marriage were granted to my Lord by her Majesty. ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... suspected. The newspapers began to print wild stories. The Legislature of Ohio authorized the governor to take proper measures to prevent acts hostile to the United States. The governor promptly seized the bateaux which were being constructed at Marietta and called out the militia to overpower Blennerhassett and his followers. On the Virginia side of the river, the militia were in readiness for a descent upon the island. On the night of December 10, Blennerhassett and a handful of men left the island in such boats as they could find. Wild rumors followed the expedition ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... of these nights of sincere enthusiasm that the two friends heard an unexpected, astonishing piece of news. "They have killed Jaures!" The groups were repeating it from one to another with an amazement which seemed to overpower their grief. "Jaures assassinated! And what for?" The best popular element, which instinctively seeks an explanation of every proceeding, remained in suspense, not knowing which way to turn. The tribune dead, at ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... were soon asleep. Alexander refused to go to bed, and Rachael, who was not in a disciplinary mood, led him out into the open to watch for the boats of the Governor and his militia. There was no moon; they could cross and land near Hamilton's house and overpower, without discharging a gun, the negroes packed in Charles Town. If the Governor were prompt, the blacks, even had they dispersed to fire the estates, would not have time for havoc; and she knew ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... one of the bits that most strangely moved his listener. Her eyes were moist when he had finished, and some strong emotion seemed about to overpower her, but she had recovered command of herself, and become again ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... harmless in appearance at first, which in the end may choke the seed of grace in your heart. If you are rich, the pleasure which wealth may purchase, or love of the wealth itself, may become the bitter root, which in its maturity may overpower all spiritual life within you, and leave only chaff, to be driven away in the great day of the Lord. Watch and pray: these cares and pleasures present themselves at first in humble and submissive guise; it ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... veins of their arms opened with the same stroke. As the blood flowed slowly from the aged body of Seneca, attenuated as it was too by scanty sustenance, he had the veins of his legs and hams also cut; and unable to bear up under the excessive torture, lest by his own sufferings he should overpower the resolution of his wife, and by witnessing her anguish be betrayed into impatience himself, he advised her to retire into another chamber. His eloquence continued to flow during the latest moments of his existence, and summoning his secretaries, he dictated many things, which, as they have ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... better of, gain the best of, gain the upper hand, gain the ascendancy, gain the whip hand, gain the start of; distance; surpass &c. (superiority) 33. defeat, conquer, vanquish, discomfit; euchre; overcome, overthrow, overpower, overmaster, overmatch, overset[obs3], override, overreach; outwit, outdo, outflank, outmaneuver, outgeneral, outvote; take the wind out of one's adversary's sails; beat, beat hollow; rout, lick, drub, floor, worst; put down, put to flight, put to the rout, put hors de combat[Fr], put out ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rest or of sleep. His attention was needed, too, and so he kept wide awake, and his ears were ever on the stretch to hear the slightest sound. But at last the intense excitement and the long fatigue began to overpower him. Still he struggled against his weakness, and still ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... to-day, and the fighting in the streets has commenced. They are fighting like mad in the Faubourg St. Honore. When I open the door of the vestibule I can hear the yelling and screaming of the rushing mob; it is dreadful, the spluttering of the fusillades and the guns overpower all other noises. We hope deliverance is near at hand; but who knows how long before we have peace ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... eyes of the nuns there were few offences so heinous as that which she was going to commit. "But I am not a nun yet," thinks the poor child, clasping and unclasping her hands in her perplexity, and struggling with the conscience-stricken sense of naughtiness, which threatened at this last moment to overpower all her foregone conclusions, and disconcert her in spite of herself— "I am not a nun yet, so it cannot be so very wrong in me; and then there is Monsieur Horace——" and with the thought of him all Madelon's courage returned. The rush of associations linking his name with a ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... went along the Niemen at Grodno, with a view to repass it at Bielitza, to overpower the right of Bagration, put it to ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... hope born of confidence in the strength of the Confederate ironclad, and her ability to overpower completely the Union flotilla, boats filled with sight-seers had gone out from Norfolk, but with the first terrible onset of the armored combatants speedily made their ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... prevent scurvy,—"the cabbage campaign" it was derisively called,—and waiting for Gorham's rangers to reconnoiter Louisburg. Gorham's scouts brought back word that the French admiral had come in with twenty-four men-of-war and seven thousand men. To overpower such strength meant a prolonged siege. It was already August. Loudon sailed back to New York without firing a gun, while the English fleet, trying to ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... this time, had forcible assurance of our ability to overpower him, and finding he had by far the worst of it, was obliged to grow tamer, using the first breath he got to cry out, "A barley, ye thieves! a barley! I tell ye, give me wind. There's not a man in ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... be," he replied, "still they may have been in the bluffs, or sand hills watching their opportunity to surprise one of the many small trains of pilgrims, thinking to overpower them, run off their cattle and ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... inform her. "A strange prince penetrated the Cave of Darkness, a short time since. For reasons of his own, the Wizard sought to overpower him with the spell of his Urn of Vapors, but the prince, who had come upon him without warning, suddenly flashed about him a magic weapon, the Sword of Flames, that instantly took from my master all power to protect himself. ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... the sound of his voice and the determined action by which it was accompanied; for the ecstasy of real desperation seldom fails to overpower the less energetic passions by which it may be opposed. The clergyman was the first to speak. "In the name of God," he said, "receive an overture of peace from the meanest of His servants. What this honourable person demands, albeit it is urged with over violence, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... flung him into the ditch below. Gompachi, seeing his companion's discomfiture, attacked the beggar, who, drawing a sword from his staff, made such lightning-swift passes that, crippled though he was, and unable to move his legs freely, Gompachi could not overpower him; and although Seibei crawled out of the ditch and came to his assistance, the beggar, nothing daunted, dealt his blows about him to such good purpose that he wounded Seibei in the temple and arm. Then Gompachi, reflecting that after all he had no quarrel with ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... turning again to this dream with an instinct of self-preservation. To-morrow he would take up again the fight for his daughter's freedom and happiness, but now he was in sore need of some narcotic influence, of something beautiful and permanent, as a refuge from the passions that had threatened to overpower him. Felicity would live this down; it would ultimately seem but a stormy day in the retrospect. Meanwhile, what could he do about this chapel? Here, in this envelope, was a promise of half the money needed, if he could raise the balance ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... score of men with him, and they will cut down the guard when they enter. The moment that is done let a pistol-shot be discharged as the signal to us above, and proceed immediately to take up the bridge and overpower the Swiss who should still be at table. Landi has his orders and knows how ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... personal degradation in the mere feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for the time did Trevanion's generosity and eloquence overpower me that I could only falter out my thanks and my promise that I would consider and ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brief sleep of death, when thou art permitted to throw off for ever thy garb of clay, and when by thine own ceaseless love and longing thou hast won the right to pass the Great Circle, thou shalt find thyself in a land where the glories of the natural scenery alone shall overpower thee with joy—scenery that for ever changes into new wonders and greater beauty. Thou shalt hear music such as thou canst not dream of. Thou shalt find friends, beyond all imagination fair and faithful. Thou shalt read and see the history ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... to overpower and astonish the little dark-brown dog, and wounded him to the heart. He sank down in despair at the child's feet. When the blow was repeated, together with an admonition in childish sentences, he turned over upon his back, and held ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... posterity of the righteous generation not to believe Noah when he proclaimed the flood. How can we harmonize God's promise to Adam and Eve, "You shall rule the earth," and his words here to Noah, "The water shall overpower all men, and destroy them all." So the unbelievers decided that Noah's preaching was ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... avenge their death; but, while he was raising his forces, Marius, angry that the patricians had hindered the plebeians and Italians from gaining more by the Social War, raised up a great tumult, meaning to overpower the patricians' resistance. He would have done more wisely had he waited until Sulla was quite gone, for that general came back to the rescue of his friends with six newly-raised legions, and Marius could only just contrive to escape from Rome, where he was proclaimed a traitor and a price set ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... understand that this state of affairs misled Paul into the belief that there was no justice in heaven or earth, no hope for Israel, no reward and no punishment, that the balance of justice was destroyed. It is quite natural that under such circumstances such a scepticism should overpower young and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... something affrighted; yet considering what I had lately heard made out by Mr. Mitchel at Cambridge, that there is more good in God than there is evil in sin, and that although God is the greatest good, and sin the greatest evil, yet the first Being of evil cannot weane the scales or overpower the first Being of good: so considering that the author of good was of greater power than the author of evil, God was pleased of his goodness to keep me from being out of measure frighted. So this noise abovesaid held as I suppose about ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... Long, and in a few words he learned that from two points the Malays had suddenly commenced their attack, which was now being carried on in so fierce a manner that unless they received a sufficiently severe check to quell their courage, they would force the defences, and overpower the little garrison by sheer ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... livery of his motley garb; the high-born beggar acts the part of insanity; and both, were they even in reality what they seem, would still be enviable in comparison with the King, who feels that the violence of his grief threatens to overpower his reason. The meeting of Edgar with the blinded Gloster is equally heart-rending; nothing can be more affecting than to see the ejected son become the father's guide, and the good angel, who under the disguise of insanity, saves him by an ingenious and pious fraud from the horror and despair ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... make you a camphor-bag," said my mother, "that ought to overpower any faint smell, and it is a ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... believed that this Indian still continued in the neighbourhood, there were some who strongly suspected he might have gone off to the island of Chiloe, where they feared he would alarm the Spaniards, and would soon return with a force sufficient to surprise or overpower the Anna. The master was therefore prevailed upon to discontinue firing the evening gun, and there is a particular reason for attending to this circumstance, to be explained hereafter; for he had hitherto, from an ostentatious imitation of the men-of-war, fired a gun every evening at setting the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... be moving, and pretty quickly, or the fellow may return, with some of his friends, and overpower us. Where ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... bankruptcy. Only a victorious war could avoid a national catastrophe; she played her last card, and lost despite her gigantic power, the greatest ever displayed by any nation. The leading European states were not able to overpower her for a long time. This writing is not intended as an apology for Germany, much less to praise her or her war lords. German purposes were nationally narrow and nationally selfish to the root; her methods were inhuman but ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... they had to fear: for they had reason to expect that the Governor of Guam, when he should be informed of their situation, might send a force sufficient to overpower them and to remove them to that island; and then the most favourable treatment they could hope for would be to be detained prisoners for life; since, from the known policy and cruelty of the Spaniards in their distant settlements, it was rather to be expected ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... the colony on Venus he would receive medical attention, of course. But they must first overpower the ship's crew, and it would take approximately two hours to reach the colony. Could ...
— No Hiding Place • Richard R. Smith
... their towns were attached to the United States; but, in general, they were under the influence of the British. Many of the loyalists had taken refuge among them, and had added to their strength without diminishing their ferocity. It was determined to lead a force into these villages, sufficient to overpower any numbers they could possibly bring into the field, and to destroy the settlements they had made. To guard against reinforcements from Canada, means were used to inspire that colony with fears ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... for ingenuous youth, is an encouragement of good manners on its part:—"I behave myself orderly." Just at those points, scholarship attains something of a religious colour. And in that place, religion, religious system, its claim to overpower one, presented itself in a way of which even the least serious by nature could not be unaware. Their great church, its customs and traditions, formed an element in that esprit de corps into which the boyish mind throws ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... with your sophistry, Julian," replied Alice Bridgenorth, "any more than you can overpower me with your passion. Had the patriarch destined his son to death upon any less ground than faith and humble obedience to a divine commandment, he had meditated a murder and not a sacrifice. In our late bloody and lamentable wars, how many drew swords on either ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... wisdom and knowledge; for thus they are gifts of the Holy Ghost, as stated above (Q. 68, AA. 1, 4). But they are numbered amongst the gratuitous graces, inasmuch as they imply such a fullness of knowledge and wisdom that a man may not merely think aright of Divine things, but may instruct others and overpower adversaries. Hence it is significant that it is the "word" of wisdom and the "word" of knowledge that are placed in the gratuitous graces, since, as Augustine says (De Trin. xiv, 1), "It is one thing merely to know what a man must believe in order to reach everlasting life, and another ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... holds. They are really seeking general and subjective states in part for their own sake. Psychologically it is all one and the same whether we realize this power by actually killing an enemy, or believe we overpower him by the performance of some mystic and ecstatic act, or in some more modern way become confident in our own power and prestige. National life, in order to maintain its integrity, must move upon a plane of intense feeling. It must have objectives, but these objectives ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... might come to his rescue, or "the boys," who had been waiting at the rendezvous, might have learned in some unexpected way what had befallen him. Even if they were his enemies, they would first be obliged to overpower Babe, and, he told himself, in the "ruckus" he ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... the St. Vitus' dance by sympathy, Paracelsus, in his peculiar language, expresses himself with great spirit, and shows a profound knowledge of the nature of sensual impressions, which find their way to the heart—the seat of joys and emotions—which overpower the opposition of reason; and while "all other qualities and natures" are subdued, incessantly impel the patient, in consequence of his original compliance, and his all-conquering imagination, to imitate what he has seen. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... prevented the Emperor and his general from acquiring a footing on the Baltic, or effecting a landing in Sweden. But if they could succeed in dissolving this union, and especially securing the friendship of the Danish king, they might hope to overpower the insulated force of Sweden. The dread of the interference of foreign powers, the insubordination of the Protestants in his own states, and still more the storm which was gradually darkening along the whole of Protestant Germany, inclined the Emperor to peace, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... therefore, of the facts of the catastrophe which was to overpower poor little Fly and injure Dr. Maybright, she rushed off to find Polly. Polly was feeling intensely happy, playing with and fondling her sweet little baby sister, when Flower, pale and excited, rushed into ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... thought. When the commandant of the prison, Major von Doo, pays the customary Sunday-morning visit to Trenck's cell, and while he is carefully examining every nook to assure himself that the captive nobleman has not been endeavoring to make a pathway to liberty, Trenck will suddenly overpower him, deprive him of his sword, and rush past him out of the cell. At the door he will be met by the soldier Nicolai, who is in our confidence, and will not seem to notice his escape. Once over the palisades, he will find a horse, which we have placed in readiness. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... silence and a great drowsiness began to overpower Dorothy. Her day had been long and most eventful and the sea air was strong. Presently, her head drooped against the back of her chair, the Judge grew indistinct in her sight, ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... wagon for you, officer, only I'm afraid these people might overpower you and get away with that trunk of pictures. You see what a nice mess they've been making of my picture gallery. Why, if I hadn't happened in to-night they would have walked off with half a million dollars' ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... summary measures, and ordered twelve grenadiers, with fixed bayonets, to advance to the cabin door, break it open, and overpower ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much destruction was accomplished on either side, however. Occasionally a stray bullet would carry off one of our men in his sleep. Sometimes these naked savages would stealthily creep in upon our sentries and with their sharp knives would overpower them and mutilate them ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... stacked arms in the open square preparatory to mounting, some ten or twelve officers, under the lead of Col. Ralston, the powerful head of some New York regiment, were to ask for exit under pretense of getting water, and then to overpower the opposing sentries, while the balance of the prisoners, previously drawn up in line at the head of the short staircase leading direct to the exit door, were to rush down into the square, seize the stacked arms and march through the Confederacy to ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... their lives and those of their families are now at the mercy of the Spaniards, take to their ships with those dear to them and continually harass the Spaniards, they could work them great harm, and it would need a large fleet to overpower them, and that with great difficulty, seeing that they know the coast and all the rivers and channels, and could take refuge in shallows where the Spaniards could not follow them. At present it seems to me the people are in such depths of despair, ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... trying to take up my daily cross, and to watch the motions of my mind; but ah! how fitful. I am nothing;—helpless and undone without Christ, my only hope is in his atonement. Precious refuge! Come Lord, come now; I thirst, I long for Thy coming. Now baptize, and overpower me with Thy love. If there is lurking in my soul, any secret and undiscovered evil, tear it away. 'Show ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... practice of exposing new-born infants, which outraged nature, and yet did not touch the heart nor the understanding of a Numa, an Aristotle, a Confucius, was first proscribed by the holy religion of Christ. If shame and misery still sometimes, in the hearts of poor outcast mothers, overpower the horror which Christianity first inspired, it is still the same religion which has opened sheltering places for the unhappy victims of such a practice, and provided means for rearing ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... guilty! When I got over the shock, I said to Zeke: "You are caught with the goods on. No excuses will go. The Democrats of this district ain't used to dukes and princes and we wouldn't feel comfortable in your company. You'd overpower us. You had better move up to the Nineteenth or Twenty-seventh District, and hang a silk stocking on your door." He went up to the Nineteenth, turned Republican, and was lookin' for an Albany job the last I ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... of labourers they had passed before, the colonel saw four Negroes, in response to an imperative gesture from the overseer, seize one of their number, a short, thickset fellow, overpower some small resistance which he seemed to make, throw him down with his face to the ground, and sit upon his extremities while the overseer applied the broad leathern thong vigorously to ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... fruits and roots, and the produce of the chase. The forest too is full of dangers, and abounds with reptiles and beasts of prey. It appeareth to me that ye will certainly have to suffer much privation and misery there. The sufferings of the Brahmanas might overpower even the gods. That they would overwhelm me is too certain. Therefore, O Brahmana, go ye back ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... one chieftain to another till he reached the Caspian Sea, and then went on beyond that sea for thirty or forty days more. In one place the party came to a tract of low black land, which exhaled an odor so offensive that they were obliged to use perfumes all the way to overpower the noxious smells. They were ten days in crossing this fetid territory. After this they went on a month longer through a desert country, and at length came to a fertile land which was covered with the ruins of cities that the people ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... I have not a word to say in answer. I am silenced. Let them record the votes. I fain would know at once what I must suffer or must pay. (10) Only (he added) let them vote in secret. (11) I am afraid your wealth and his (Antisthenes') combined may overpower me. ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... rely upon. Unfortunately he was still much too weak from the effects of his wound to be able to deal with the situation singlehanded; and there were, as yet, quite enough of the barge's men remaining alive to overpower and murder him in a moment if he were foolish enough to attempt any ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... eminently successful; no vehemence of manner accompanies the desperate resolution he expresses, the recollection of the misery he has suffered, and the dread of the greater misfortunes which his present intentions must bring upon him, seem wholly to overpower him, and his countenance, marked with the utmost dejection and wretchedness, appears still to appeal for mercy to the power which persecutes him. Everything in his appearance and voice conveys the impression of a person overwhelmed ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... in the proposed letter you sent me, of Coleridge producing valuable works if his mind were relieved by the certainty of a present income, you suffered your feelings to overpower your memory. Coleridge had that income for many years. It was given him expressly that he might have leisure for literary productions; and to hold out the expectation that he would perform the same conditions, if a like contract were renewed, is ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... but the journey was long and apparently roundabout, perhaps in order to avoid attention. The officer sat rigidly upright, with his sword drawn, keeping keen watch and ward as if I had been a most desperate criminal. There was, however, small chance of escape, even if I could overpower my guard. The soldiers rode on each side of the coach, and I should have ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... chief fair of Lucania on the day of St. Cyprian. This must by all means be suppressed, and your Respectability should quietly collect a sufficient number of the owners and tenants of the adjoining farms[568] to overpower these freebooters and bring them to justice. Any rustic or other person found guilty of disturbing the fair should be at once punished with the stick[569], and then exhibited with some mark of infamy ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the publick curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detection; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... shadow, with instructions to seize—without noise it possible—and detain any one who might emerge from the building. In the event of an alarm being given and the garrison aroused, two of the men were to rush in and overpower the officers, while the remainder were to rally round the door of the larger room and prevent a sally until a signal-whistle should inform them that the work of spiking was completed, when the whole were to give leg-bail and make for the beach. ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... instead of stopping and firing at a distance beyond that which at their slugs were effective, they were to charge down upon the English and fire their pieces when they reached within a few yards of them, they would overpower them at once by their enormous superiority of numbers. At ten paces distant a volley of slugs is as effective as a Snider bullet, and the whole of the native troops would have bolted the instant such a charge was made. In the open such tactics might not be ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... distinguished from that of the Kouretes by its less restrained, and more orgiastic character; it was a wild and whirling dance resembling that of the modern Dervishes, accompanied by self-mutilation and an unrhythmic clashing of weapons, designed, some writers think, to overpower ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... would live. Come: we can overpower the porter—if nothing less will save us, we can ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... condescension confers upon us both; but so deep is the impression which the misfortunes of her mother have made on my heart, that she does not, even for a moment, quit my sight without exciting apprehensions and terrors which almost overpower me. Such, Madam, is my tenderness, and such my weakness!-But she is the only tie I have upon earth, and I trust to your Ladyship's goodness not to judge of my feelings ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... in any relation, and on all occasions, eminently amiable; but when they are found in an adversary, and found so prevalent as to overpower that zeal which his cause excites, and that heat which naturally increases in the prosecution of argument, and which may be, in a great measure, justified by the love of truth, they certainly appear with particular ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Bob in a low whisper, "you stay here, and when I call out 'Advance, squad,' come up briskly and surround Dodd, so as to be ready to overpower him if he shows the least disposition to ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... Tom whether he knew them, for fear of his voice being heard. The plan he at once formed was to rush out on them, seize and bind them, and hold them as hostages till Margery should be given up; for it did not occur to him that a young lad like himself and a one-armed man were scarcely likely to overpower two stout, hardy ruffians like those before him. He drew Tom back a little distance where it was safe to speak, and asked him if he would make the attempt. The old sailor was ready for anything. It would certainly be a grand matter ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... torches began to burn out, and drowsiness to overpower the strongest heads. Most of the robbers rolled themselves up in the rugs, and covering their heads, went to sleep. A few still sat with their backs to the wall, nodding drowsily or leaning on one side, and too stupefied with opium and hemp ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... the store with its goodly stock of money taken in during the day, and he felt an irresistible craving for it. There might be one or two hundred dollars, and no one in charge but a boy whom he could easily overpower. ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... have we no proof that the fountain of moral life in the nation's heart is not exhausted. In the progress of temperance, of education, and of religious sensibility, in our land, have we no proof that there is among us an impulse towards improvement, which no temporary crime or calamity can overpower. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... they can be brought together! And to that end, seeing how few there are upon any one plantation, upon the day when they rise, they must raise with them servants and slaves. Then will they overpower masters and overseers, and gathering to one point, form there a force which will beat down all opposition. It is simple enough. We will but do that which it was proposed to do ten years ago. You know the instructions given by the Parliament to the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the province of a warlike tribe of Indians who, instead of flying and hiding themselves, came forth to the attack. They set upon the Spaniards with furious yells, thinking to overpower them at once. They were armed with bows and arrows, and clubs made of palm-wood almost as hard as iron. But the first shock of the report from the fire-arms of the Spaniards struck them with terror. They took to flight, but were closely pursued by the ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... end of Siegfried's visit, it is reported that the kings of Saxony and Denmark are advancing with four thousand men. The dismay of the Burgundians is such that Siegfried proposes to go forth and overpower the enemy with a force of merely one thousand men. Only too glad to accept this offer, Gunther allows Siegfried to depart, and is overjoyed when the young hero comes back with two prisoner monarchs in his train. The messenger who announces Siegfried's ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... was beginning to overpower her watchers, the princess kept silence, and, stretching herself on the couch, shut her beautiful eyes as if she ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... but the light lingered a while, and Hoek Matts kept right on working. He felt that if he were to leave off while still able to drag a foot, his grief would overpower him. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... on the Eagle was seen to be in a mass of swirling, tumbling waves which seemed anxious to overpower the stanch craft. ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... Sir, you overpower me with good-breeding.—He is the very pine-apple of politeness!—You are not ignorant, captain, that this giddy girl has somehow contrived to fix her affections on a beggarly, strolling, eaves-dropping ensign, whom none of us have seen, and nobody ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... typical epileptic anomalies—asymmetry, vaso-motor disturbances, impulsiveness, ferocity, etc. At the age of twenty, while serving in the army, for some trivial motive he suddenly attacked and killed his superior officer and eight or ten soldiers who tried to overpower him. Finally he was bound and placed in a cell, where he fell into a sound slumber and on awaking had entirely forgotten what he had done. He was condemned to death, but my father, who examined him medically, was ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... yielding a reluctant consent to the flight, we are invited to contemplate the agony of his soul. The form which it takes is curiously characteristic. No vehement pangs of remorse, or desperate hopes of escape, overpower his faculties in any simple and straightforward fashion. The poor minister is seized with a strange hallucination. He meets a venerable deacon, and can scarcely restrain himself from uttering blasphemies ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... weapons, that they would be able to keep their pass, and fence off all assaults of conviction: and this last way the victory would be altogether as hopeless, as if two persons were engaged of so equal strength, that it were impossible any one should overpower the other. ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... seemed familiar to him. He entered a narrow gallery, where he paused, overcome by some sudden and overwhelming emotion. The dog stood too, looking back with a low and sorrowful whine. With a sudden effort he grappled with and shook off the dark spirit that threatened to overpower him. A low murmur was heard apparently from a chamber at no great distance. Without reflecting a moment on the impropriety of his situation, he hastily approached the door. His guide, with a look of almost irresistible ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... the accompanying idea of an external cause. Pleasurable excitement, therefore with the accompanying idea of an external cause, is love, and therefore love may be excessive. Again, desire is greater as the emotion from which it springs is greater. Inasmuch, therefore, as an emotion may overpower the other actions of a man, so also the desire which springs from this emotion may also overpower the other desires, and may therefore exist in the same excess which we have shown (in the preceding proposition) ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... introduce me into the garden to-night, in about an hour's time through a small postern in the wall of which he has the key. He is going to conduct me to the summer-house where Marian is. There it may be necessary to use force to overpower the eunuchs in charge of the place, but if we succeed in doing that, as I think there is little doubt we shall, we have nothing to do but to carry her off and retire by the way we came. I have provided a safe retreat afterwards to ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... began to grow fearful that we were making more prisoners than we could safely hold, and on the knowledge of this fact they might try to overpower us. ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... of life, down to the very gates of death itself, before we shall be ready and worthy to win victories. Yet it is not so, for the hardest fights the earth has ever known have been made by the delicate-handed and purple-robed. So, in the ultimate analysis, it is neither gold-lace nor rags that overpower obstacles, but the fiery soul that consumes both in the intensity of its furnace-heat, bending impossibilities to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... at them rapidly. In contemplating them we are transported into immensities both of space and time, for the stellar periods measured by these distant universes often overpower in their magnitude the rapid years in which our terrestrial days are estimated. For instance, one of the double stars we spoke of above, [gamma] of the Virgin, sees its two components, translucent diamonds, revolve around their common center of gravity, ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... council—Pitt, Hagthorpe, Yberville, Wolverstone, Dyke, and Ogle—a proposal to storm the fort from the landward side. Crossing to the island under cover of night, they would take the Spaniards by surprise and attempt to overpower them before they could shift their ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... breath we hesitated. To disobey meant certain and instant death at the hands of this soulless maniac. But to obey—to drop through this trap-door—also meant death. I took a step forward. Could we overpower him? But what if we did? There were others here beside Fraser. How many others I had no idea, but surely enough to make things impossible for Foulet and me. Yet we dared not even hesitate. To hesitate implied thinking—and a man robbed of his brain cannot think! There was ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... burly politician was depending upon his greater brawn to overpower his antagonist. He advanced with a sidling, spread-legged gait, his knife hand against his right hip and his left hand extended in front. Verkan Vall nodded with pleased satisfaction; a wrist-grabber. Then he blinked. Why, the fellow ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... as a treatise on the Constitution and on government. Those who opposed the Constitution were called Anti-Federalists, and they wrote pamphlets and elaborate series of letters in the newspapers, signed by such names as Cato, Agrippa, A Countryman. They declared that Congress would overpower the states, that the President would become a despot, that the Courts would destroy liberty; and they insisted that amendments should be made, guaranteeing liberty of speech, freedom of the press, trial by jury, no quartering of troops in time of peace, liberty of conscience. Read McMaster's ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... thou cantest never. Finally we have not—a dull word. Never was there a style so rapid as yours,—which no reader can outrun; and so it is for the most intelligent. I suppose nothing will astonish more than the audacious wit and cheerfulness which no tragedy and no magnitude of events can overpower or daunt. Henry VIII loved a Man, and I see with joy my bard always equal to the crisis he represents. And so I thank you for your labor, and feel that your contemporaries ought to say, All hail, Brother! ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... done before at Atlanta, and after full consultation, it was agreed to let these citizens give the signal. This was to be the cry of fire, and when it was heard, we were all to rush upon the guards, and overpower them. There were only about thirty guards in the building, and we had over a hundred and fifty men concerned in the plot. We were, therefore, sure of success if every one performed his part—at least in getting out ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... him by as a middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight, and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade again; his voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... suspected that the malice of his enemies would overpower him. He therefore betook himself to that true support of greatness in affliction, a bottle; by means of which he was enabled to curse, swear, and bully, and brave his fate. Other comfort indeed he had not much, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... apprise the privateer of our direction and bring her on our track. But the distance between us and the leading smack grew less and less, and knowing that we dare not allow them to close in upon us (for doubtless their crews vastly outnumbered ours and would overpower us if they got the chance to board), I at length, when our enemy was within about half a cable's length of us, called to the bosun to fire, aiming to hull her ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... to move; the fatigue he had for a time shaken off returned with puzzling suddenness and threatened to overpower him. His head was very heavy, he could hardly hear the people talk, and every now and then his eyes shut. He could not keep them open, but after a few minutes he straightened his bent shoulders with a resolute jerk and clenched his fist. It was not fatigue that was mastering ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... recollection, or, at least, would render them less painful. They now felt at a loss how to undeceive her even in her misery, lest the sudden recurrence of happiness might confirm the estrangement of her reason, or might overpower her enfeebled frame. They ventured, however, to probe those wounds which they formerly did not dare to touch, for they now had the balm to pour into them. They led the conversation to those topics which they had ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... and, under his protection, was safely conveyed to a further part of the room. Her intention and desire were to quit it immediately, but at the remonstrance of her conductor, she consented to remain some time longer. "The conflict at the door," said he, "will quite overpower you. Stay here but a few minutes, and both parties will have struggled themselves tired, and you may then go without difficulty. Meantime, can you not, by this faint light, suppose me one of your guardians, Mr Briggs, for example, or, if ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... faithful to battle; for twenty of you standing fast shall overpower two hundred, and a hundred of you shall put to flight thousands of the unbelieving, for they are a people that ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... assistance he thought of her who should be his help-meet, and mentally began to question her continual absence from home. This evening he was feeling a little more tired than usual, and an ill-selected luncheon in town had depressed him. When he found that the weeds were likely to overpower him he arose and decided that Nannie must be called upon. She was not at home, but he could fetch her. To be sure that might not be easy, but Steve was now fully roused. Prolonged warfare had developed in his nature a trace of pugilism hitherto unsuspected by his nearest friend. Every man has ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... previous Lent, he had seen 600 strangers shooting together at the popinjay. He also insisted on the fact of the foreigners banding in fraternities, and clubbing together so large a fund, that they could overpower even ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... with our weapons, we shall be able to give them a terrible lesson. If we attack at night they will soon find out how few are our numbers, and having no particular dread of our weapons, may rush at us, and overpower us in spite of them. Another thing, boys, is, I want to give them a lesson. They must know that they shan't come and murder and steal on our place ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... the existing state of the times. In Westphalia the Hessians and Swedes rove about, rendering the roads unsafe. Even should I take my way over the flats, along the strand, yet the Swedish and Hessian troops could easily catch up with me, and overpower the escort promised me for safe-conduct by the counts of East Friesland and Oldenburg and the Bishop of Bremen. Or should I bend my course through Upper Germany and Franconia, there, again, other hindrances present themselves, for throughout ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... all of Mytor's guards and the priests to overpower him, but they were too late to save Mytor from the knife that left him gasping out his life ...
— Bride of the Dark One • Florence Verbell Brown
... At 2 o'clock, when the advance of Canrobert's 6th corps towards Vionville threatened to sweep away the wearied Brandenburgers, six squadrons of the 7th regiment of Cuirassiers with a few Uhlans flung themselves on the new lines of foemen, not to overpower them—that was impossible—but to delay their advance and weaken their impact. Only half of the brave horsemen returned from that ride of death, but they gained ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... me not. I would allay that grief, Which else might thy young virtue overpower; And in thy converse I shall find relief, When the dark shades of melancholy lower; For solitude has many a dreary hour, Even when exempt from grief, remorse, and pain: Come often then; for haply, in my bower, Amusement, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... "You overpower me and yourself with such a multitude of questions," the girl answered languidly, "but since you ask me permissions which I grant a great many others, I ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... and more, as the impetuous torrent slashed its way down, till it finally seemed to me as if we were actually sailing into the inner heart of the world. The sensation on the first expedition, when each dark new bend was a dark new mystery, must have been something to quite overpower the imagination, for then it was not known that, by good management, a boat could pass through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, and survive. Down, and down, and ever down, roaring and leaping and throwing its spiteful spray against the hampering rocks the terrible ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... monuments, the altars ornamented with pictures,—and those pictures not painted in oil, but copied in mosaic, so that they will neither decay nor fade, but last till destroyed by violence. What feelings overpower the poetic mind when the glories of that interior first blaze upon the brain; what a world of brightness, softness, and richness; what grandeur, solidity, and strength; what unnumbered treasures around the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... one which circumstances overpowering morality and decency might at any time call into existence. It is known to have arisen in the native Indian army.' The question now is, what are the circumstances that overpower morality and decency, and so produce polyandry, with its necessary consequences, when it is a recognised institution—the absence of the patriarchal family, and the recognition of kinship through women? Any circumstances which cause great scarcity of women will conduce to those results. Mr. M'Lennan's ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... and start. At night we will encamp in a quiet, out-of-the-way part of the woods, and slip back to the village in the dark a short time before midnight. The whole village will at that time be assembled, probably, at the spot where the execution is to take place; so we can rush in, overpower the guard, free Okandaga, and make our escape to the cave, where they will never ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... more enthusiastic spirits in the Northern States beheld in it a strife between Michael and Satan, the Spirit of Darkness hurling himself against the Spirit of Light in a vain and presumptuous hope to overpower him; and their irritation was great when an eminent English man of letters was found describing it scornfully as "the burning of a dirty chimney," and when English opinion, speaking through very many ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... still full of fight. "Come on, fellows, wade into them," he shouted hoarsely. His tried and true comrades needed no second bidding, and now began a battle compared to which the other seemed mild. The three thugs who had been trying to overpower Tom were brutal fighters, and withal were men of muscle. But it did not take long to decide which side would win. The three friends, every fighting instinct in them aroused, and the lust of battle hot within them, fought with a fury and concentrated power ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... delight on which they repose, meditates the future capture of a mouse, or surprisal of a plate of bread and butter: so Adams lay by the side of Fanny, ignorant of the paradise to which he was so near; nor could the emanation of sweets which flowed from her breath overpower the fumes of tobacco which played in the parson's nostrils. And now sleep had not overtaken the good man, when Joseph, who had secretly appointed Fanny to come to her at the break of day, rapped softly at the chamber-door, which when ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... staid, and hesitated for a moment whether he should blow out his brains, and try to accomplish the queen's deliverance by force; but a little reflection showed him that the noise of fire-arms would bring up a crowd of enemies beyond his ability to overpower, and it soon appeared that it would tax all his resources to secure his own escape. He achieved that, hoping still to find some other opportunity of being useful to his royal mistress; but none offered. The Assembly did him the honor to set a price ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... fire-wheel!" The people heard the wild shouting, and a crowd began to gather. In the midst of them towered the advocate Coppelius, like a giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone straight to the market-place. Some were going up to overpower and take charge of the madman, but Coppelius laughed and said, "Ha! ha! wait a bit; he'll come down of his own accord;" and he stood gazing upwards along with the rest. All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I thought," Lisle said. "The Ashantis have crossed the river, somewhere, and are now attacking the convoy. They will not, of course, overpower it; but they will continue to follow it up till they get near camp, and there is little chance of our being able ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... were producible on this point? How comes it to pass that the two Codexes, [Symbol: Aleph] and B, have obtained such a mastery—rather exercise such a tyranny—over the imagination of many Critics as quite to overpower their practical judgement? We have at all events established our first proposition: viz. that from the earliest period to which testimony reaches, the incident of 'the woman taken in adultery' occupied its present place in St. John's Gospel. The Critics eagerly remind us that in four cursive ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... that often has occurred, of deer, or hares, or foxes, and the pack of hounds in pursuit, chaser and chased, all going headlong over a precipice together. Depth or height does not readily manifest itself to them; so that any strong motive is sufficient to overpower the sense of it. Man only has a natural function for expanding on an illimitable sensorium, the illimitable growths of space. Man, coming to the precipice, reads his danger; the brute perishes: man is saved; and the horse is saved by ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... man who lodged up stairs, whose death he had only just heard of, had been his patient for some months, and was in the last stage of consumption. He had no doubt the death had ensued from perfectly natural causes, as he explained in such technical language as completely to overpower the jury, and satisfy them accordingly. They quitted the parlor, and proceeded to the public house, where, after a brief consultation, they delivered their verdict, as the astute policeman had foretold, "Died by the visitation of God;" took pipes and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... at home! Think how much more attractive it would make these places. He would have more money to spend upon himself, upon his own beer and his own pretzels, and in time, no doubt, a lonely feeling, a feeling of sentiment, would overpower him, and the vacant chair would be filled by one of these vivacious little women who might teach him in time that blood was meant to flow, not to ooze ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... week, Sundays not excepted. Oh, my dear, dear hearers, can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping and bumping against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full of molten lead? My feelings overpower me, I must conclude. Go in peace, and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay your sixpences at the doors.—Exeunt omnes, piping their eyes, and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott |
