"Recoil" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... France, and call it freedom! Long time in timid guilt the traitor plann'd His fearful wiles—success embolden'd sin— And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd, Lest France awaked, should rouse her from her dream, And call aloud for vengeance. He, like Caesar, With rapid step urged on his bold career, Even to the summit of ambitious power, And deem'd the name of King alone was wanting. Was it for this we hurl'd proud ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... question of bail. If I can see any chance of your success I will speak to Parkman; for, indeed, my dear child, I honor your motive, and share your hope; but unless I find more encouragement than I expect, I will not complicate matters by a futile attempt, which would certainly recoil disastrously." ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... remained for some moments a prey to the most horrible suspense. They could neither retreat nor change their position. Their chests rested upon the earth; their backs touched the rocks. They dared not make a movement of recoil for fear of drawing the reptile in pursuit of them. The air, more and more impregnated by the infectious odor of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... sea of blue, and in the still weather the streams called to each other from the mountain sides, as in some fantastic cosmic harmony. High on the ridge shoulder the lights of Etterick twinkled starlike amid the fretted veil of trees. A sense of extraordinary and crazy exhilaration, the recoil from the constraint of weeks, laid hold on his spirit. He hummed a dozen fragments of song, and at times would laugh with the pure pleasure of life. The quixotic, the generous, the hopeless, the successful; laughter ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... sea. As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall, The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall. Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath, And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death. Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy, Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy. For the central crest ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another. Let us thrust this creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to some place of shelter and let the county police know ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... centralized it in Lauzanne, picturing him as symbolical of good acts and evil repute. Patently it was difficult to become interested in such a young woman; actually she monopolized their thoughts. Inconsistently the fair offender felt no recoil of this somewhat distressing situation; her mind busied itself chiefly over the ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... kinds of game, such as elephants and buffaloes, experienced sportsmen mostly prefer guns of immense Bore, carrying round bullets that weigh a quarter of a pound. The recoil is tremendous, and would injure the shoulder if the sportsman did not use a pad against which he rests the gun. The guns must be strong, because very large charges of powder are invariably used where great power of penetration is required. African ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... on him and it. Chevalier de Belleisle judges that, however difficult, it can and must be possible to French valor; and storms in upon it, huge and furious (20,000, or if needful 30,000);—but is torn into mere wreck, and hideous recoil; rallies, snatches a standard, 'We must take it or die,'—and dies, does not take it; falls shot on the rampart, 'pulling at the palisades with his own hands,' nay some say 'with his teeth,' when the last moments came. Within one hour, he has lost ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... untidy hair, and pale grey-blue eyes that showed the dreamer, the idealist and the harsh fanatic. She looked as though a moderate breeze would have overthrown her, but she also looked, to the enlightened observer, as though she would recoil before no cruelty and no suffering in pursuit of her vision. The blind dreaming force behind her apparent frailty would strike terror into the heart of any man intelligent enough to understand it. Edward Henry had an inward shudder. "Great Scott!" he reflected. "I shouldn't like to be ill and ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... neglected putting up back-boards to their guns, so that, horrible to relate, at each discharge the recoil threw back pieces of burning flesh, bespattering the men and covering them ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... the impetuosity and savageness of the attacks must necessitate a recoil; and though it was difficult to be patient under such circumstances, she waited ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... prohibit us from doing; you shall not, behind our backs, do things you would despise us for doing; you shall not bring into our society characters from which you know every honest and pure woman ought to recoil as she would from a basilisk; you shall not breathe into our faces the pestiferous breath of the drunkard, nor burden our ears with the hateful sound of the blasphemer; you must be what you would have us, or you must be out of our society." Let young women talk thus and act thus, and true ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... ever true of sins against the human brotherhood. The recoil of a blow struck at another's interests has often the retributive wrath of heaven in it, and the selfish soul that would destroy a fellow-creature for its own pleasure ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... no refuge. She had been too much tired to hear anything the night before, but to-night there was scratching, nibbling, careering, fighting, squeaking, recoil and rally, charge and rout, as the grey Hanover rat fought his successful battle with his black English cousin all over the floors and stairs—nay, once or twice came rushing up and over the bed—frightening its occupant almost out of her senses, as she cowered under the bed-clothes, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sleep,—a holy rest! Like that of wing-borne cloud, that, in the west Laves his aerial image, till afar The sunlight leaves him, melting into star. Did Phidias from her brow the veil remove, Uncurtaining the peerless queen of love? The fluent stone in marble waves recoil'd, Touch'd by his hand, and left the wondrous child, A Venus of the foam! How softly fair The dove-like passion on the sacred air Floats round her, nesting in her wreathed hair, That tells, though shadeless, of its auburn hue, Bathed in a ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... the age of twenty, having meantime studied alone with diligence and perseverance, she went with me to an establishment on the continent. The same suffering and conflict ensued, heightened by the strong recoil of her upright heretic and English spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system. Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution: with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of the Sultan against his rebellious subjects; but the Sultan, unlike Ferdinand of Spain, was not a Bourbon nor even a Christian; and in a case where the legitimate prince was an infidel and the rebels were Christians, the conscience of the most pious Legitimist might well recoil from the perilous task of deciding between the divine rights of the Crown and the divine rights of the Church, and choose, in so painful an emergency, the simpler course of gratifying the national love of action. There existed, both among Liberals and among Ultramontanes, a real ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... soil! That marks success (though near to foil) Of one who with prophetic ken, With honest zeal and ceaseless toil, Opposed the vandal wish to spoil This lovely bit of vale and glen; Who, 'mid discussion and turmoil Of adverse minds, did not recoil From vigorous stroke of tongue and pen; And then, till passion ceased to boil, On troubled waters poured out oil And to his ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... and nothing moved but pickets of soldiers and Red Guards grimly intent. In front of the Kazan Cathedral a three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street, slewed sideways from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs. Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low tones and peering down toward the Police Bridge. I heard one voice saying: "It is possible that we have done wrong...." At the corners patrols stopped ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... its effects, under peculiar circumstances, are so singular, that an attempt to explain them may perhaps be excused. If a gun is loaded with ball it will not kick so much as when loaded with small shot; and amongst different kinds of shot, that which is the smallest, causes the greatest recoil against the shoulder. A gun loaded with a quantity of sand, equal in weight to a charge of snipe-shot, kicks still more. If, in loading, a space is left between the wadding and the charge, the gun either recoils violently, or bursts. If the muzzle of a gun has accidentally been stuck ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... bulls. Our revenge was complete, and I had proved that the four-ounce was perfectly irresistible if held straight with the heavy charge of twelve drachms of powder. Since that time I have frequently used sixteen drachms (one ounce) of powder to the charge, but the recoil is then very severe, although the effect upon an animal with a four-ounce steel-tipped ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... DREADS THE FIRE.—As a "burnt child dreads the fire," and the more it is burnt, the greater the dread: so your affections, once interrupted, will recoil from a second love, and distrust all mankind. No! you cannot be too choice of your love—that pivot on which turn your destinies ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... equivalent to two army corps. Between Oct. 30 and Nov. 6 Ypres was several times in danger. The British lost Zandvorde, Gheluvelt, Messines, and Wytschaete. The front of the Allies, thus contracted, was all the more difficult to defend; but defended it was without a recoil. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... fondness. [182] Phaedra, love-sick, feverish, in bodily sickness at last, raves of the cool woods, the chase, the steeds of Hippolytus, her thoughts running madly on what she fancies to be his secret business; with a storm of abject tears, foreseeing in one moment of recoil the weary tale of years to come, star-stricken as she declares, she dared at last to confess her longing to already half-suspicious attendants; and, awake one morning to find Hippolytus there kindly ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... mistakes may be ruled out from the beginning. For example, we agree that we want superior mind; but we need not fall into the football club folly of counting on this as a product of superior body. Yet if we recoil so far as to conclude that superior mind consists in being the dupe of our ethical classifications of virtues and vices, in short, of conventional morality, we shall fall out of the fryingpan of the football club into the fire of the Sunday School. If we must choose between ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... longer an area. There was clash and groan and rush and retreat, there was dark endless rock and a darker sky, from which the very stars seemed to recoil in darkest wonderment at man's senseless assault. The valley-rim yawned, and there Mai-ak made his ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... children of wrath, even as others'; not of a wrath which is unloving, not of a wrath which is impetuous and passionate, not of a wrath which seeks the hurt of its objects, but of a wrath which is the necessary antagonism and recoil of pure love from such creatures as we have made ourselves to be. To speak as if the New Testament taught that 'reconciliation' was lop-sided—which would be a contradiction in terms, for reconciliation needs two to make it—to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... always been easy—tonight he was wrestling in a hell of his own making. Why had it come to him? He knew that his life had been comparatively blameless. Why should this one sin, so common throughout the world, recoil on him so terribly? Why should he, among all the thousands of men who had sinned similarly, be reserved for such a nemesis? Why of him alone should such a reckoning be demanded? Surely the fault was not his. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... with its heavy, old-fashioned trail and no recoil cylinder was never meant to play any part in an army of movement. You could picture how it had been dragged up into position back of the German trenches and how a crew of old Landsturm gunners had been allowed a certain number of shells a day and told off to fire ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... from it. Unfortunately, it was not terminated, but interrupted. What interrupted it I need hardly tell you, as you will guess that it was the tide. Yes, it was the tide, which, as soon as it had fairly begun to cover the stones, seemed to rush over them all at once. It did not recoil, as I have often seen it do upon the beach. There it flows in gradually, wave after wave; but upon the reef—the surface of which was nearly of equal height—the water, at the first rush, swept all over the rocks, and was soon ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... of the mob was sweeping our horses along and grinding our knees together. Some fanatic had fallen, and I could feel my horse recoil and half rear as it tramped on him, and I could hear the man screaming and the snarling menace from all about rising to a roar. But my head was over my shoulder as I called ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... provision for the support of your prisoners in our hands, nor accommodation for the mere existence of ours, who are now languishing in your prison-ships, it becomes my duty, Sir, to state these pointed facts to you, that the imputations may recoil where they are deserved, and to report to those, under whose authority I have the honor to act, that such measures as they deem proper ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... appreciated them all—was found again, here, in the gray robe of a Sister of Charity, content to endure real, bitter hardships, and to witness daily sights from which womanhood, with all its bravery, must needs recoil. The motives that had urged her to such a step would be hard indeed to define. The same weariness and impatience of inaction that have been alluded to in the case of Royston Keene may have had much to do with it; to this, ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... insisted upon putting immense loads in his gun, the results were sometimes disastrous to him and ridiculous to us. He often sprang back after a shot, as if he had been kicked by a horse, or wrung his hands, which had borne the recoil. His misses and misfortunes, however, never made him angry or dejected. After each failure, out came the red bandanna to wipe his brow, and as a shout of laughter greeted the performance, he would say calmly, with only ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... integrity of the State to which it is applied, because a territory so occupied can scarcely be left by the occupying force in the same state in which it was when the occupation took place. But, moreover, such a practice may recoil upon those who adopt it, and, in the ever-varying course of events, it may be most inconveniently applied to those who, having set the example, had flattered themselves it never could be applied ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... hard up for something to write about that we would even undertake so trifling a subject as haberdashery; but as we went downstairs again to our kennel, au dixieme, as Mr. Wanamaker would call it, we thought seriously about this and decided that we would cause Pete's light-hearted suggestion to recoil violently upon his friendly brow, and that we would write a little essay about this tie and tell its story, which, to be honest, is very interesting to us. And this essay we are now endeavouring to write, even if it has ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... been said it is clear that we must not seek too high for Jeremiah's rank as a poet. The temptation to this—which has overcome some recent writers—is due partly to a recoil from older, unjust depreciations of his prophetic style and partly to the sublimity of the truths which that mixed style frequently conveys. But those truths apart, his verse was just that of the folksongs of the peasants among whom he was reared—sometimes of an ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... these suggestions for their suppression. Poor pigeons! if you only knew what a sorry sportsman it is who fires at you, you'd never flutter a wing. Be of good heart, I say. Even if Williams's gun go off at all, the recoil may hurt himself, but it will never damage you. Take my word for it, "the smooth-Bore of Lambeth never hit anything yet." This assurance of mine—I have given it scores of times personally—never gives the comfort that it ought; for these timid souls, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... battery, placed just north of the church, had opened; the cavalry in the meadow could see them—see the whirl of smoke, the cannoneers moving with quick precision amidst obscurity—the flash, the recoil as gun after gun jumped back, buried ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... the else unwelcome necessity of leaving the tent, and for a while doing without the mansion. It is that which the Apostle is speaking of in subsequent verses, on which I cannot enter now. He says—and therein speaks a universal experience—that men recoil from the idea of having to lay aside this earthly body and be 'naked.' But we know that we have that glorious mansion waiting for us, and that till the day comes when we enter upon it we may be lapt in Christ instead, and, in that so-called intermediate state, may have Him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Muhammad Anim's plans. Bull-with-a-beard believes himself a statesman, yet he told me all he knows! He has told me how Germany plans to draw Turkey in and to force Turkey to proclaim a jihad. As if I did not know it first, almost before the Germans knew it! Fools! The jihad will recoil on them! It will be like a cobra, striking whoever stirs it! A typhoon, smiting right and left! Christianity is doomed, and the Germans call themselves Christians! Fools! Rome called herself Christian—and where ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... to call for a sentence severe as this!— And I said to myself, as I heard with a sigh The poor lone victim's stifled cry, "Well, I can't understand How any man's hand COULD wall up that hole in a Christian land! Why, a Mussulman Turk Would recoil from the work, And though, when his ladies run after the fellows, he Stands not on trifles, if madden'd by jealousy, Its objects, I'm sure, would declare, could they speak, In their Georgian, Circassian, or Turkish, or Greek, ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Saint-Cloud. Plans for the execution of this idea may have been the cause of many of her past actions, but having been initiated, after the peace of Amiens, into the conspiracy of the men who expected to make the 18th Brumaire recoil upon the First Consul, she had thenceforth subordinated her faculties and her hatred to their vast and well laid scheme, which was to strike at Bonaparte externally by the vast coalition of Russia, Austria, and Prussia (vanquished at Austerlitz) and internally by the coalition ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... beautiful wife and she loved him. She loved him just as all good women love, with a complete abandon—with heart, mind and strength. He at first had periods of such abandon, too, but his conscience soon made him recoil from an affection of which God might be jealous. He believed that a man should forsake father, mother, wife and child in order to follow duty—and duty to him was the thing we didn't want to do. That ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... drinking coffee with his two sons. At this moment, a torrent of the wild cavalry of the Tartars, headed by the khan in person, poured forth from the Moslem lines, and thundered upon the right of the Poles, only to recoil in disorder before the lances of Iablonowski and the Lithuanians, who pushed in pursuit close to a deep ravine, which covered the redoubts of the Turks. But the khan had recognized in the melee the well-known figure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Monsieur Le Merquier, but my mother is still alive, and it is for her sake, for her repose, that I have recoiled, that I still recoil from making public my justification. Thus far the filth that has been thrown at me has not splashed upon her. It does not extend outside a certain social circle, a special class of newspapers, from which the dear woman is a thousand ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... there, only dimly conscious of the scene about them, the sight of the boat bringing Phebe to the shore with the covered coffin beside her, extinguished in his heart the last glimmering of the hope which had been little more than a natural recoil from despair. He was not taken by surprise, or hurried into any vehemence of grief. A cold stupor, which made him almost insensible to his loss, crept over him. Sorrow would assert itself by and by; but now he felt dull and torpid. When the coffin was ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... a triumph which history would report to the latest posterity, the Courier added—"Rulers will henceforth recoil from the virtuous indignation of the people, as the reptile recoiled from the touch of Ithuriel's spear." It was supposed by Wilmot that this not very lucid prediction conveyed a gross and personal insult, and that it attributed to him the artifices and loathsome habits of the fiend. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... I recoil from no hypothesis: let us see, let us investigate. It is already a great point that the opponents confess that, during the first period of civilization, things could not have gone otherwise. It remains to ascertain whether the institutions of this period are really, as has been said, only ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... force together Thoughts so all unlike each other; To mutter and mock a broken charm, To dally with wrong that does no harm! Perhaps 'tis tender, too, and pretty, At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil of love and pity. And what if in a world of sin (O sorrow and shame should this be true!) Such giddiness of heart and brain Comes seldom save from rage and pain, So talks as it's ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... at a glance, e'en as it fell, (And so much differs from the stone, that falls Through equal space, as practice skill hath shown; Thus with refracted light before me seemed The ground there smitten; whence in sudden haste My sight recoil'd. "What is this, sire belov'd! 'Gainst which I strive to shield the sight in vain?" Cried I, "and which towards us moving seems?" "Marvel not, if the family of heav'n," He answer'd, "yet with dazzling radiance dim Thy sense it is a messenger who ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the rock he threw his whole weight upon it in the attempt to save the canoe. The shock was tremendous, the canoe was turned violently broadside-on to the current, and at that critical moment Dick's pole snapped clean in two, the recoil sending the youngster headlong into the boiling current, while the next moment the canoe swept up against the submerged rock, was rolled over and over, and her remaining occupants were ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... not keep still; her body was full of strange sensations, of involuntary recoil from shock. She was tired, but restless. All the time Siegmund lay with his hot arms over her, himself so incomprehensible in his base of blue, open-eyed slumber, she grew more breathless ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... bestow the crown? Why! no one would tolerate their choosing so much as a centurion or a tribune for themselves. Are you going to allow this precedent, and by your acquiescence make their crime your own? You will soon see this lawless spirit spreading to the troops abroad, and in time the treason will recoil on us and the war on you. Besides, innocence wins you as much as the murder of your emperor: you will get from us as large a bounty for your loyalty as you would from ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... commotion, but eventually cools down and settles and becomes tranquil. For the union of lovers is indeed a complete union, whereas the union of those that live together without love resembles only the friction and concussion of Epicurus' atoms in collision and recoil, forming no such union as Love makes, when he presides over the conjugal state. For nothing else produces so much pleasure, or such lasting advantages, or such beautiful remarkable ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... least excited, continuing to uncoil his rope and recoil it again into larger loops. "Hold your hands over ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... it, the man, with his all too light burden, halted. A flame shot through him as Molly turned her head to gaze too: he shook with a brief agony of jealousy—jealousy of the dead! The next instant he felt her recoil, look up pleadingly and cling to him again, and he knew into the soul of his soul that the words spoken by those loyal lips—now clay beneath that clay—were coming true, that, out of his house laid desolate to him was to rise a new and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... heart that he must not sicken at the spectacle of those miserable forms lying at our church doors and in our streets, their faces disputed, and all their members hideously consumed with putrifying sores; so that the mind is horror-struck at the thought and the senses recoil from the sight! And what does God intend, through these lamentable specimens of our flesh and brotherhood, but to open the eyes of our mind, that we may see in how much more dreadful a guise the soul of the sinner shows forth its disease and decay, even though he himself go in purple ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... driven back behind his head; and then with a rearward spring the lieutenant disengaged and brought his edge clean down on his adversary's left shoulder and breast, narrowly missing his ear. The cut itself, delivered almost in the recoil, had no great weight behind it, but the blood spurted at once, and the wounded man, stepping back for a fresh guard, swayed foolishly for a moment and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of late been strengthened with bars of iron in anticipation of some such occasion, they would have been broken in with the onset of the fierce and now yelling crowd who rushed against them with the force of a battering-ram, to recoil in baffled rage from the vain assault. No sign, no sound from within, in ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... spirit of their teaching was empirical, but the logical consequence of taking experience as the sole foundation of belief was evidently to cut off the hidden springs of moral consciousness, and to support the derivation of ethics from utility. In philosophy, as in politics, there was a sympathetic recoil from extremes. So common sense was brought in as capable of certain intuitive or original judgments which were in themselves necessary, and which luckily coincided with some of the firmest convictions among intelligent mankind. As Carlyle ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... ore leaping in the crucibles, The ore communicant, Sending faint thrills along the leads... Fire is running along the roots of the mountains... I feel the long recoil of earth As under a mighty quickening... (Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron...) All palpitant, ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... part of the Civil War the United States purchased a great quantity of these arms, and before their worthlessness became apparent a considerable number was issued. The calibre of most of them was .75; the rifling was very deep; the recoil and trajectory were abnormal, and accuracy of shooting was conspicuous by absence."—Sawyer, "Our Rifles." ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... not need them. And in the recoil of my insight the clump of cottonwoods came into my mind, black and grim. No other trees high enough grew within ten miles. This, then, was the business that the Virginian's letter had so curtly mentioned. My eyes went into all corners of the stable, but no other ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... been satisfaction to him to see how I was staggered by this. I had never thought that what I had done to-day might recoil on the head of my own brother. However, I affected not to be greatly ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... disgrace was certain. In vain he said to himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a chastisement, a preparation; he recoiled from the imagined burning; and he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should escape dishonor. That recoil had at last urged him to make preparations for quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt of his old neighbors; and in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... keep them down by the terror with which I inspire them. I must prove to all those revolutionary elements fermenting in Germany—to insurgents, from the throne to the cottage—to all those miserable conspirators and demagogues—that I stand as firm as a rock, from which their fury will recoil. United with Russia, I will make all Europe tremble. The echoes of the festivities of Erfurt shall penetrate everywhere, from London to Constantinople; the whole world looks upon us and sees the Emperors of Russia and France side by side. Amid these enchantments I believe I shall succeed ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... humour, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil? Five years from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies your way; nor can anything but death avail ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... then grown so hideous that my sight Withers the roses on a warrior's cheeks, And makes his steps recoil! In Moorish battles He gazed undaunted on death's frightful form, But shrinks to view a monster ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... heard the crackle of twigs, and the swishing recoil of the branches, as its huge body swung from ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Charles, with its muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-hole crossed. A piece of match lay beside it. She caught it up, lighted it at her candle, and fired the gun. The tower shook with its roar and recoil. She had fired the first gun of the siege: might it ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... spirit; Personality unique: for with manner anarchic He carved up the text; and absolute-monarchic Was his wrath at mistakes; but soon it subsided, Or, controlled, into noblest pathos was guided, Which oft turned in recoil into self-irony And a downpour of wit letting no one go free.— So he governed his "horde," so we went through the country, The fair land of the classics, that we harried with effront'ry! How Cicero, Sallust, and Virgil stood in fear On the forum, in the temple, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... had been shown in the Diary returned on Mr. Crisparkle's mind with the force of a strong recoil, and he asked Mr. Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville was to be harassed by the keeping ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... we were then near a high rocky lee shore, on which a heavy surf was beating. The wind being on the beam, the canoes drifted fast to leeward; and, on rounding a point, the recoil of the sea from the rocks was so great that they were with difficulty kept from foundering. We looked in vain for a sheltered bay to land in; but, at length, being unable to weather another point, we were obliged to put ashore on the open beach, which fortunately was sandy at this spot. ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... curving line pours a merciless fire, and the charging men in blue recoil—all but one. (War is full of grim humor.) On comes one lone Yankee, hatless, red-headed, pulling on his reins with might and main, his horse beyond control, and not one of the enemy shoot as he sweeps helplessly into their line. A huge rebel ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... her recoil had drawn him to his side. His cruel, mirthless grin seemed to her to carry inexpressible menace. Very slowly, while his eyes taunted her, he ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... mind he waited the Indian's attack. The attack came swift as a serpent's dart, a feint to strike, a swift recoil, then like a flash of light a hard drive with the knife. But quick as was the Indian's drive Cameron was quicker. Catching the knife-hand at the wrist he drew it sharply down, meeting at the same time the Indian's chin with a short, ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... they had eight pieces of artillery which played incessantly with round and grape shot on our brigade, and the fire was extremely hot. Yet Gen. Cadwalader led up the head of the column with the greatest bravery to within 50 yards of the enemy, but this was rashly done, for he was obliged to recoil; and leaving one piece of his artillery, he fell back about 40 yards and endeavored to form the brigade, and some companies did form and gave a few vollies, but the fire of the enemy was so hot, that, at the sight of the Regular troops running to the rear, the militia ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... the recoil of Orestes—the remonstrance of Pylades—the renewed passion of the avenger—the sudden recollection of her dream, which the murderess scarcely utters than it seems to confirm Orestes to its fulfilment, and he pursues and slays her ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... been free, you would not have felt the recoil, which, even in a heavy, well-made gun, is equal to the fall of a weight fifty to sixty pounds from a height of one foot, and in overloaded or defective guns, exceeds twice and even three times that. It is a wonder that your shoulder was not broken, and a still greater wonder that ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... This recoil of fear interferes with the circulation in the functioning organs, just as fear blanches the face or hinders digestion. There is several times as much blood in the stomach when it is full of food as there is between meals, but we do not for this reason fancy that we have ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... onslaught, and used their war-clubs in the most gallant manner. Jimmy, too, seemed to be transformed into as brave a black warrior as ever fought; and it was the gallant resistance offered that checked the enemy and made them recoil. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... perhaps here and there one will think that Dudley Venner was all wrong,—that he was too hasty,—that he should have been too full of his recent grief for such a confession as he has just made, and the passion from which it sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the sudden recoil of a strong nature long compressed. Perhaps they have not studied the mystery of allotropism in the emotions of the human heart. Go to the nearest chemist and ask him to show you some of the dark-red phosphorus which will not burn without fierce heating, but at 500 deg. Fahrenheit, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... answers, "Toil!" He sighs for Nature's treasures: with reserve Responds the goddess, "Woo them from the soil." Then fervently he cries, "Thee will I serve,— Thee only, blissful Love." With proud recoil The heavenly boy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... turmoil of winds and seas around him, which usually lifted his spirits, was sad, feeling lonely and wretched; he was suffering from the recoil of his little friend's charming presence. Pearl came on deck again looking for him. He did not see her, and the child, seeing an opening for a new game, avoided both her father and mother, who also stood in the shelter of the charthouse, and ran round behind it on the weather side, calling a loud ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... a violent exercise like bicycling! Where one gets so hot! So unbecomingly hot! You'd be simply stifled, darling." I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words and which made Ettie recoil into the recesses ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... quickly, as the others recoil in horror). We must stop him. He's coming by the bog, ye ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... private feelings. Concerning the race, the six—among themselves—enjoyed exceedingly the unexpected recoil of their little joke. I say six, for in this matter Ed Tyler was unanimously suspected by the others of being on the fence. They never could tell whether he was laughing at them or with them. Donald ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... The mind is riveted, the gaze is spent Where lavish Nature pours her richest spoil, The tongue is voiceless with bewilderment, Far, far below the ocean's ceaseless toil Makes bosoms inly shudder and all eyes recoil. ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... our interests take part with our blood. If any doubt arises, if the veil of our implicit confidence is drawn aside by any accident for a moment, the shock is too great, like that of a dislocated limb, and we recoil on our habitual impressions again. Let not that veil ever be rent entirely asunder, so that those images may be left bare of reverential awe, and lose their religion; for nothing can ever support the desolation ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... It may be imagined he was received with great glee by men to whom the late uniformity of their military life had rendered any change of society an interesting novelty. Allan M'Aulay alone seemed to recoil from his former acquaintance, although, when challenged by his brother, he could render no other reason than a reluctance to be familiar with one who had been so lately in the company of Argyle, and other enemies. Major Dalgetty was a little alarmed by this ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... behind the scenes, and we observe how the Capitalists in 1894 had already endeavoured to lower and vitiate our public life by methods which did not even recoil before the criminal law of the land, to ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... with pikes, hurling grenades from the tops; while the swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, and chain, and the great main-deck guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, made both ships quiver and recoil, as they smashed the round shot ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... own breast, she said to herself, and there was no hope of escape from the fever of its wound. A curious physical fear took possession of her, parching her throat and robbing her of breath. It was a recoil from the conviction that she must continue to suffer because her son, so young even for his twenty-three years, had openly flouted her for one of the harpies of the city and delivered over his manhood to ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... wind did not affect the sail, but the boat went backward in an opposite direction from the nozzle of the bellows. There is probably no better illustration of reaction than the "kick" of a gun, which most persons know about. The recoil of a six-pound field piece is usually from six to twelve feet. It can be understood by supposing a gun to be loaded with powder and an iron rod longer than the barrel to be left on the charge. If the outer end of this rod were then placed against a tree, and the gun were fired, it ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... embrace is the necessity of our deepest being. That foiled, we hate. Instead of admonishing ourselves that there is our enchained brother, that there lies our enchanted, disfigured, scarce recognizable sister, captive of the devil, to break, how much sooner, from their bonds, that we love them!—we recoil into the hate which would fix them there; and the dearly lovable reality of them we sacrifice to the outer falsehood of Satan's incantations, thus leaving them to perish. Nay, we murder them to get rid of them, we hate them. Yet within ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... possibility that Keats may be tempted to bring it into a sonnet. Yes, if a Beef-Essence-Merchant has only provided sustenance for an Explorer he has not lived in vain, however much the poets and the painters recoil from his wares. But of the scientist I am less certain. I fancy that his invention of the telephone (for instance) can only be counted to his credit because it has brought the author into closer ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... its secret habitation. Nor yet for spring;—a couchant leopard has posed itself with horrid intent; murder glitters in its fixed golden eye, quivers in the tense loins, creeps in the tawny glitter of the skin, clutches the keen claws, that recoil, and grasp, and recoil again from the velvet ball of that heavy foot; murder grins in the withdrawn lip, the white, red-set teeth, the slavering crunch of the jaw: but nothing of all these fired the quiet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... natural element, out of which she could not breathe; she was almost in love with misery. And in so sad a world was there not something ignoble about happiness, a selfish aloofness from the life of humanity? And, illogically blent with this questioning, and strengthening her recoil, was an obstinate conviction that there could never be happiness for her, a being of ignominious birth, without roots in life, futile, shadowy, out of relation to the tangible solidities of ordinary ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... occupy his throne. The final words of Thoth comforted her greatly, for he told her that he would take charge of the case of Horus in the Judgment Hall of Anu, wherein Osiris had been judged, and that as his advocate he would make any accusations which might be brought against Horus to recoil on him that brought them. Furthermore, he would give Horus power to repulse any attacks which might be made upon him by beings in the heights above, or fiends in the depths below, and would ensure his succession to the Throne of the Two Lands, i.e., Egypt. Thoth also promised Isis that ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... of all our movements, and using their property whenever they can to aid and comfort the cause of treason. We are too forcibly reminded of the fable we used to read in our schoolboy days, of the Farmer and the Viper. We are only warming into new life and strength this virus of Rebellion, to have it recoil upon ourselves. We hope our authorities will soon discover their error, and ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... we're going to open up on her," the voice from the Gaucho announced. "She has two 90's to our one; we'll try to disable them, first." The vision-screen lit with the indirect glare of the gun-flash, and the image in it jiggled violently as the ship shook to the recoil, then steadied again, with the enemy ship visible in the middle of it, growing larger and larger as the Gaucho rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screen with momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoil shook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... something not too intimately connected with his own household, he told himself. The next moment he remembered that there had been some suggestion—what his blurred recollection of it could not tell him—that she might be being courted by Archelaus; but the slight recoil of distaste stirred within him fell away before her frank eagerness, her kindly warmth, as she pattered into the room, her skirts swaying around her. She sat primly down beside the couch while Vassie stayed by its foot, determined not ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... the diaphragm (dia.) contracts and becomes flatter; the air is consequently sucked, in as the lungs follow the movement of the thorax wall. In expiration the intercostals and diaphragm relax and allow the elastic recoil of the lungs to come into play. The thoracic wall is simultaneously depressed by the muscles of the abdominal area, the diaphragm thrust forwards, as the result of the displacement and compression of the alimentary viscera thus brought about. ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... and social sympathy. From their own sable colour, a pall falls over the whole of God's universe to them, and they find themselves stamped with a badge of infamy of Nature's own devising, at sight of which all natural kindliness of man to man seems to recoil from them. They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs; debarred from all fellowship save with their own despised race—scorned by the lowest white ruffian in your streets, not tolerated as companions even by the foreign menials in your ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... apologetics towards the ground of religious experience, a recoil produced by the pressure of scientific criticism upon other ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... some such unconscious recoil from judgment that Lois acted now. At any rate, she slowly rose from her sofa, and Madge, rejoicing, threw off her cloak and put it round her, and fastened its ties. Then Mr. Dillwyn himself took the hood and put it on her head, and tied the strings ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... wreak his revenge on Essex and Manchester, though the blow would probably recoil upon himself.[b]He proposed in the Commons what was afterwards called the "self-denying ordinance," that the members of both houses should be excluded from all offices, whether civil or military. He would not, he said, reflect ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... the chaos of contradictory inclinations, the voice of duty or the will of God. The want of simple faith, the indecision which springs from distrust of self, tend to make all my personal life a matter of doubt and uncertainty. I am afraid of the subjective life, and recoil from every enterprise, demand, or promise which may oblige me to realize myself; I feel a terror of action, and am only at ease in the impersonal, disinterested, and objective life of thought. The reason seems to be timidity, ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... most exalted saints as shrinking instinctively from suffering. In the prophecy announcing the violent death of Peter, it is intimated that even the intrepid apostle of the circumcision would feel disposed to recoil from the bloody ordeal. "When thou shalt be old," said our Lord to him, "thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." [423:3] Paul mentions with thankfulness ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Fear his hand, its skill to try, Amid the chords bewilder'd laid, And back recoil'd, he knew not why, E'en at the sound ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the light infantry in front, and the Highlanders and cavalry forming the reserve. As soon as formed the line was ordered to advance rapidly. Exhausted by running, it received the American fire at the distance of thirty or forty paces. The effect was so great as to produce something of a recoil. The fire was returned; and the light infantry made two attempts to charge, but were repulsed with loss. The Highlanders next were ordered up, and rapidly advancing in charge, the American front line gave way and retreated through an open space in the second line. ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... his movement she drew back sharply, with a gesture of such instinctive, such involuntary recoil, that in an instant she knew that she had betrayed that which she had sought ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... high to bring about radioactive changes, the effect of which would be to expel helium and other disintegration products at cathode-ray velocity—(Kathoden-Strahlen-Fortpflanzung-Geschwindigkeit)—from the surface of the earth; and the recoil exerted by this expulsion would add itself to the force of the ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... domestic infelicity. The "mistress" sips the sweet nectar that is denied to the deceived wife. Legislators have battled with intemperance, but have done comparatively little to banish from our midst this necessary (?) evil. They recoil with disgust from this abyss of iniquity and disease. Within it is coiled a hydra-headed monster, which invades our hearthstones, contaminates our social atmosphere, and whose very breath is laden with poisonous vapors, the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... not easily lose his way in the most extensive or ill-digested library. And though he tells Atterbury, that at one time he abused his opportunities by reading controversial divinity, we may be sure that his own native activities, and the elasticity of his mind, would speedily recoil into a just equilibrium of study, under wider and happier opportunities. Reading, indeed, for a person like Pope, is rather valuable as a means of exciting his own energies, and of feeding his own sensibilities, than for any direct acquisitions ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... be used in naval warfare. The heaviest gun manufactured in Germany was of 4-1/4-inch calibre, throwing a shell of forty pounds weight. This could be mounted directly over the rear axle of a heavy motor truck. To protect the structure of the car from the shock of the recoil these guns are of course equipped with hydraulic or other appliances for taking it up. They are manufactured also in the 3-inch size. Germany, France, and England vied with each other in devising armored motor cars equipped with guns of this type—the British using the makes ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... all his best men he put into his wings; and in the body, which was somewhat more advanced than the wings, placed the worst and the weakest of his army. He commanded those in the wings, that, when the enemy had made a thorough charge upon that middle advanced body, which he knew would recoil, as not being able to withstand their shock, and when the Romans, in their pursuit, should be far enough engaged within the two wings, they should, both on the right and the left, charge them in the flank, and endeavor to encompass them. This appears to have been the chief cause of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... bravely defended themselves. Never, according to Livingstone, never was the spirit of battle carried farther, either among men or beasts! With their tenacious jaws, which tear out the piece, these sirafous make the bravest man recoil. The largest animals—even ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... innocent as well as the guilty, so I am not with you there, though, like you, I recoil in horror from the perpetration of that fiendish attack upon peaceable troops. I was there myself, and did what I could to quiet the tumult, receiving more than one brickbat for my interference. One word more, Cousin Hugh, I am not going to Europe to be rid of the trouble, or for pleasure ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... lover submits to all the caprices of a woman; and as a man is never vile while he lies in the arms of his mistress, he will take the means to please her that a husband would recoil from. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... there is a man in that town in whose hand your good name and your freedom lie. If he but takes a fancy, he can drag you in the mud. You can count on no happiness, no security, without his consent. Remember, too, there is a woman with him who has smitten you in the face and made you recoil, who is perhaps even now laughing at you, who is the object of my deadly hatred, and during whose lifetime the door is closed to me into the world I wish to enter. So long as that woman lives the sun does ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... stretched to the utmost was quite within the possibilities when one recollects that the basis of all this wealth was crude rubber, a substance of pronounced elasticity. This, too, accounts for the vim and suddenness of the final recoil attending the final collapse—a recoil which smashed everything ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... your neglect of them: as soon as you began to care for them, deputies of members of this house were sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them; men whose behavior caused the blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them: men who were often glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the bar of justice in their own. They 'protected by your arms'?—They have, amid their constant and laborious industry, nobly taken up arms for the defense of a country whose frontier was drenched ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... The recoil sent Blaine, now at the last physical gasp, plunging forward over the almost perpendicular machine. He struck the earth heavily, and lay there almost insensible, while the vanquished plane fell sideways, striking wall and ground, then, with a last respiration ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... Nor did the child recoil any longer from the ugly task which milor, with suave speech and tender voice, was so ardently seeking to ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... should unintentionally run against you, would he not ask your pardon with the politest possible bow? If a German should encounter you in the same unintentionally unceremonious way, would he not in all probability, after the recoil, look at you with inquiring eyes, with a mixture of phlegmatic coolness and curiosity, and partly as an exclamation, partly as an interrogation, utter the monosyllable "So!"? He would not be so much occupied in trying to parry the blunder gracefully as in thinking of its cause, with that love ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... trail. One of them undermined the gunner's (Henry's) footing and injured him so as to necessitate his leaving the field. Even the old Irish hero, Tom Martin, was demoralized, and, in dodging from a Yankee shell, was struck by the wheel of our gun in its recoil and rendered hors de combat. We had been kept in this position for two or three hours, while a flank movement was being made by Taylor's Louisiana Brigade and the Second Virginia Regiment through the brush ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... Mike raised the gun. He heard the monster roar, far away, and then he heard another sound that must be the gun's discharge, and something hit him in the shoulder and knocked him down. Recoil? Yes, because the elephant wasn't there any more; he could hear the crashing and thrashing down below, over the rim of the ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... darted at the stick, throwing itself its entire length. Hazel retreated, the snake coiled again and again darted. By repeating this process four or five times, he enticed the creature away; and then, availing himself of a moment before it could recoil, he struck it a smart blow ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... tenures to remain in the field, were often more formidable to their own prince than to foreign powers, against whom they were assembled. The sovereigns came gradually to disuse this cumbersome and dangerous machine, so apt to recoil upon the hand which held it; and exchanging the military service for pecuniary supplies, enlisted forces by means of a contract with particular officers, (such as those the Italians denominate "condottieri,") whom they dismissed at the end of the war.[*] The barons and knights themselves ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... instance, with 1,000 francs there might be three or four honest though unfortunate workmen restored to their families from a prison whither petty debts of 250 or 500 francs had driven them; but these sums being tripled by a shameful exaggeration of costs, the most charitable persons often recoil from doing a good deed at the thought of two-thirds of their bounty merely going to sheriffs and their officers. And yet, there are few hardships more worthy of relief than those befalling such unfortunate people ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... in crime thinks himself ready to act when he is not; as appears from his hesitancy and reluctance when the moment for action arrives. If, however, this unexpected recoil of his nature does not induce him to change his purpose altogether, he knows but too well how to supply the defect in training for sin. If we could look into his heart, we should find him at his accursed rehearsals again. A few more lessons, and the blush and the shudder will pass away, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... upon them haughtily, and such was the power of his prompt defiant attitude, and his eye, which flashed black lightning, that there was a slight movement of recoil among the actual speakers. They recovered it immediately, strong in numbers; but in that same moment Little also recovered his discretion, and he had the address to step briskly toward the gate and call out the porter; he said to him in rather a loud ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... give the noise of war; Sulphureous clouds rise reddening round the height, And veil the skies, and wrap the sounding fight. Soon from the skirts of smoke, where thousands toil, Ranks roll away and into light recoil; Starke pours upon them in a storm of lead; His hosted swains bestrew the field with dead, Pierce with strong bayonets the German reins, Whelm two battalions in their captive chains, Bid Baum, with wounds enfeebled, quit the field, And Breyman ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... fifty yards. He moved his piece from its first position en barbette on the right of the fort, to an embrasure that more effectually commanded the rebel advance. Here he fired with great rapidity, until the enemy appeared to recoil. He had his gun loaded with double canister and ceased firing. At this time a rebel officer climbed out of the ditch, and standing at the muzzle of the cannon placed his sword upon it and said: "Surrender this gun." The man who held the ...
— Campaign of Battery D, First Rhode Island light artillery. • Ezra Knight Parker
... Confederates attacked me furiously, advancing almost to my intrenchments, notwithstanding that a large part of the ground over which they had to move was swept by a heavy fire of canister from both my batteries. Before they had quite reached us, however, our telling fire made them recoil, and as they fell back, I directed an advance of my whole division, bringing up my reserve regiments to occupy the crest of the hills; Colonel William P. Carlin's brigade of Mitchell's division meanwhile ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... settle down over the land, the Queen Elizabeth seemed to feel the time had come to give full vent to her wrath. An order from the bridge, and, in the twinkling of an eye, she shook from stem to stern with the recoil from her own efforts. The great ship was fighting all out, all in action. Every gun spouted flame and a roar went up fit to shiver the stars of Heaven. Ears stopped with wax; eyes half blinded by the scorching yellow blasts; still, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... working. I had almost completed the sequence when I felt the powered grip of the suited man on my arm. I twisted, jammed the needler against his hand, and fired. The arm flew back, and even through the suit I heard his wrist snap. My own hand was numb from the recoil. The other arm of the suit swept down and struck my wounded arm. I staggered away from the door, dazed with ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... another bow, and addressing the son of Hridika, said, "Wait, Wait." Then, O monarch, Shikhandi sped at his foe ninety shafts of great impetuosity, all equipped with golden wings. Those shafts, however, all recoiled from Kritavarma's armour. Seeing those shafts recoil and scattered on the surface of the Earth, Shikhandi cut off Kritavarma's bow with a keen razor-headed arrow. Filled with wrath he struck the bowless son of Hridika, who then resembled a hornless bull, in the arms and the chest, with eighty ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... diameter, and the piston has a stroke of 6 inches, causing the screw (which is 31/4 feet diameter) to make 200 revolutions per minute. The screw, although it has a wide surface of thrust, gives, nevertheless, a recoil of about 30 per cent., because of its location between the hulls and its oblique ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... fortified retreat, whence she issued only under escort and upon service strictly obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless reached her by the post; and Lindsay felt it an anomaly in military tactics that the same agency should bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters with which he strove to assault her position. Nor could Alicia induce any sortie to Middleton Street. Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in reticence and the palest ink, always with the negative of a formal ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... violent recoil, abandon Mathematics and Philosophy and commit our faith to Music? Music is, above all things, harmonious: Music has the emotion in which Mathematics and Philosophy have been found wanting. Music can ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
