"Torrent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the raven, nor the lilies, whom the Most High feeds and arrays. Ye do not think upon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of boiled pottage, nor recollect Elijah who was delivered from hunger once in the desert by angels, again in the torrent by ravens, and again in Sarepta by the widow, through the divine bounty, which gives to all flesh their meat in due season. Ye descend (as we fear) by a wretched anticlimax, distrust of the divine goodness producing reliance ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... and nodding his head to show he understood, started boldly on a run toward the door. But the officers who guarded it brought him to an abrupt halt, and, much to Mr. Dwyer's astonishment, drew from him what was apparently a torrent of tears. ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... (taking ALBERT by the hand). Now mark me, Albert Dost thou fear the snow, The ice-field, or the hail flaw? Carest thou for The mountain mist that settles on the peak, When thou art upon it? Dost thou tremble at The torrent roaring from the deep ravine, Along whose shaking ledge thy track doth lie? Or faintest thou at the thunder-clap, when on The hill thou art o'ertaken by the cloud, And it doth burst around thee? ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... clenched her hands, and stiffened visibly. Had the man been her social equal or any other than her master, her pent-up wrath and indignation would have broken forth in a torrent of scathing abuse. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... necessary fate of a minister who, in a free country, had thwarted the popular will and whom fortune deserted in the struggle. The barriers which his single hand had upheld suddenly gave way, the torrent had free course, and he himself was the first to be swept away. In modern language, we should describe what took place as a change of ministry, the government being transferred to an opposition, who had been irritated by long depression ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... scarcely yet ceased to sound upon our ears, of the mighty march of her armed children over the war-fields of Europe, during that terrible time when England's cruel law, intended to destroy the spirit of a martial race, precipitated an armed torrent of nearly 500,000 of the flower of the Irish youth into foreign service. Irish steel glittered in the front rank of the most desperate conflicts, and more than once the ranks of England went down before "the Exiles," in just punishment for her terrible penal code which excluded the Irish ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... herself for having yielded in haste to the persuasions of the little ones, oblivious of the boots, thus sacrificing Jane's happy morning with Avice. My mother showed herself shocked by the tone in which Margaret had let herself be hectored, and this brought a torrent of almost tearful apologies from the poor dear thing, knowing she did not keep up her authority or make herself respected as would be good for her girl, but if we only knew how devoted Jane was, and how much there was to grind and try her temper, we should not wonder ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "This torrent came out in tones appalling. His very frame shook. It was awful said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless—awed into ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... concluded by a torrent of bouquets, which the audience threw at the feet of their favorite actress. The curtain fell. This was the moment expected by the associate of Monte-Leone. Faithful to his promise, the Count leaned forward in his box, naturally as possible, and looked around the brilliant assembly. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... cane-plantations.... The road by which you follow the north-west coast round the skirts of Pele is very picturesque:—you cross the Roxelane, the Rivire des Pres, the Rivire Sche (whose bed is now occupied only by a motionless torrent of rocks);—passing first by the suburb of Fond-Corr, with its cocoa groves, and broad beach of iron-gray sand,—a bathing resort;—then Pointe Prince, and the Fond de Canonville, somnolent villages that occupy wrinkles in the hem of Pele's lava robe. The drive ultimately rises ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... which seemed to annoy him as much as any of his more serious vexations. "What will become of me," said he, "if the English, who are cruising hereabout, should learn that I have landed in Corsica? I shall be forced to stay here. That I could never endure. I have a torrent of relations pouring upon me." His great reputation had certainly prodigiously augmented the number of his family. He was over whelmed with visits, congratulations, and requests. The whole town was in a commotion. Every one of its inhabitants wished to claim him ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... day, The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, "Darest thou, Cassius, now Leap in with me into this angry flood And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word, Accoutred as I was, I plunged in, And bade him follow: so indeed he did. The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it With lusty sinews, throwing it aside And stemming it with hearts of controversy; But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink! I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor, Did from the flames of Troy upon ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... life flows in a steady stream, and mine in a broken torrent. Yet I would have every detail ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... going? You are not going!" Matrena had already set herself to protest with all the strenuous torrent of words in her poor desolated heart, when a glance from the reporter cut ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... lightning flash of opposing scenes. But the talk deepened. Dahlia's martyrdom was near, and their tongues were hurried into plain converse of the hour, and then Dahlia faltered and huddled herself up like a creature swept by the torrent; Rhoda learnt that, instead of hate or loathing of the devilish man who had deceived her, love survived. Upon Dahlia's lips it was compassion and forgiveness; but Rhoda, in her contempt for the word, called ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... forced to give another selection, and a third. Allee came to her aid in the fourth, and sang to a whistled accompaniment, but the applause was more tremendous and insistent than before; and poor, weary Peace rose to her feet for the fifth time, but instead of pouring forth the torrent of melody they expected, she faced the audience belligerently, and cried in exasperation, "My pucker is tired out and my throat aches. Do you 'xpect me to stand here all night? Victor Sherrar will play on his cornet now and then you can ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... will not lead you into it," he said, a trifle roughly. "We are low in the valley and there are marshes yonder when the river is in its natural bed. The floods have covered the low grounds, and there is a torrent coming down from the hills. Here we are, your highness. This is the Inn of the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... average height, of darker hue than is usual among Indians, lithe as a panther, his muscles hardened by forest life and years of warfare against Indian enemies and the British. Like the rush of a mountain torrent the words fell from his lips. His speech was one stream of denunciation of the British. In trade they had cheated the Indians, robbing them of their furs, overcharging them for the necessaries of life, and heaping ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... rejoiced greatly that this earliest opportunity had been afforded to him of explaining the intentions of the Government with which he had the honour of being connected. In answer to this there arose a perfect torrent of almost vituperative antagonism from the opposite side of the House. Did the Right Honourable gentleman dare to say that the question had been ventilated in the country, when it had never been broached by him or any of his followers till after the general election had been completed? Was ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... ears became a rushing torrent. It was the waterfall, I told myself; how stupid of me! Of course I should be all right in a minute. But my friend must hurry. I collapsed on the rock and gasped for breath. I looked for Garnesk. Still he seemed to be as ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... which resulted in exciting once more the torrent of public opinion. From this moment all unlucky casualties which could not be otherwise accounted for were ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Mars-la-Tour as that in which the military superiority of the Germans was most truly shown. Numbers in this battle had little to do with the result, for by better generalship Bazaine could certainly at any one point have overpowered his enemy. But while the Germans rushed like a torrent upon the true point of attack—that is the westernmost—Bazaine by some delusion considered it his primary object to prevent the Germans from thrusting themselves between the retreating army and Metz, and so kept a great ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... cellar, which was barricadoed on the inner side, they heaped lighted fagots and combustibles against it, so that the staircase was soon one immense furnace. After a time the door gave way, and the fire poured like a torrent into the retreat of the unfortunate bandits. Still a profound silence reigned in the vault. Presently two carbine shots were fired; two brothers, determined not to fall alive into the hands of their enemies, had shot each other to death. A moment afterwards an explosion was heard; a bandit had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... over solid rock. Gradually the rims of the gorge rose, shutting out the light and the cliffs. It was a winding road and one not safe to tarry on in a stormy season. Lucy had seen boulders weighing a ton go booming down that gorge during one of the sudden fierce desert storms, when a torrent of water and mud and stone went plunging on to the river. The ride through here was short, though slow. Lucy always had time to adjust her faculties for the overpowering contrast these lower regions presented. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... we reached a sort of farm-house thatched with straw, which was filled with superior officers. It was not far from the main road, as we could hear the cavalry and artillery and baggage wagons rushing by like a torrent. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... then glanced at his companions. Miss Brooke paused in the act of taking off one woollen glove, and opened her mouth and forgot to shut it again. Maurice stood frowning, twitching his brows and biting his lips in the effort to subdue a torrent of rage that was surging up in his heart. He would have sworn, he said afterwards, if Lady Alice had not been there—he did not mind Doctor Sophy so much. All that he did now, however, was to mutter "Ungrateful rascals," and make as if he ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... rested, I ran forward. I thought as I did so that I heard the scrape of clothing on the iron balcony rail and the thud of a heavy object dropping on the grass below. Flinging open the glass doors, through which a torrent of wind poured into the room, and leaning out under the twisted branches of the vine, I tried in vain to penetrate the wall of blackness before me, and force my sight through it and down into the old garden, from which there arose only the rushing sound of the dry ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... style; bringing her nose and her forefinger together, with the difficulty I have described; standing with her head necessarily on one side, and, with one of her sharp eyes shut up, making an uncommonly knowing face—after ogling Steerforth for a few moments, broke into a torrent of words. ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... long thy pow'r has blessed me, sure it still Will lead me on; O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... along the dusty road in the direction of Dunster. Presently some great drops of rain began to fall, and in a few minutes it came down in a perfect torrent. Still she trudged on, her heart filled with dim foreboding fears. Such a thing had never happened before. It would soon be getting dark. Could it be possible they had kept the children at school as a punishment? If so, it was shameful to leave them ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... was at breaking-point. Another moment and I expected a torrent of tears. But they did not come. With a great effort she regained ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... had gone, after an hour of consultation on the various phases of the dinner, Betty sat for some moments striving to call up something from the depths of her brain, something that had smitten it disagreeably as it fell, but sunk too quickly, under a torrent of words, to be analyzed at the moment. It had made an extremely unpleasant impression;—painful perhaps would ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... rapidly swelling from the distance to the immediate vicinity, compelling every one, as with a magic power, to yield to the superior will of numbers and join in the cry. Even Melissa cheered. She, too, was as a drop in the tide, a leaf on the rippling face of the rushing torrent; her heart beat as wildly and her voice rang as clear as that of the rest of the throng, intoxicated with they knew not what, which crowded the colonnades by the roadway, and every window and roof-top, waving handkerchiefs, strewing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... when her feelings were ruffled. She had planned and waited till the last moment, afraid of herself and afraid of her husband. She looked at him as he paced back and forth, back and forth, with a torrent of longing swelling up in her and threatening to bring her tears. She must find a way to ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... world to its farthest part, I had bartered all to have had his share; Yet he died that night in the city square, With a scarlet lily above his heart. And she? Where the torrent goes by the slope, There rose in the river a stifled call, And two white hands strove with a knotted rope In the flood that runs by the ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... a rough torrent over Southern Europe they effaced civilization. But this Saracen wave of conquest bore on its crest—but only on its crest—art, refinements, and culture of a type unknown to Europe. The twilight of the Middle Ages was illumined by a revival ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... and yet attracted me. The doctor's phrase—an innocent—came back to me; and I was wondering if that were, after all, the true description, when the road began to go down into the narrow and naked chasm of a torrent. The waters thundered tumultuously in the bottom; and the ravine was filled full of the sound, the thin spray, and the claps of wind, that accompanied their descent. The scene was certainly impressive; but the road ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his ears].—I will hear no more. Be such a crime far from my thoughts! What evil spirit can possess thee, lady, That thou dost seek to sully my good name By base aspersions? like a swollen torrent, That, leaping from its narrow bed, overthrows The tree upon its bank, and strives to blend Its turbid ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... mankind merely from their situation in life, or from their incapacity for extraordinary exertions, are confined within a narrow circle of insignificant operations. Their days flow on in succession under the sleepy rule of custom, their life advances by an insensible progress, and the bursting torrent of the first passions of youth soon settles into a stagnant marsh. From the discontent which this occasions they are compelled to have recourse to all sorts of diversions, which uniformly consist in a species of occupation that may be ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... evening had set free the heart, and a torrent of feelings and memories surged up,—disordered, turbulent, yet strangely unified by the simple nature, the few aims of the being that held them. The waters of the past had been gathering these past weeks, and now she found peace ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over with the spray, everything of him and about him is from the throne. Is it for him to question the dispensation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... tedious benediction. Sir Asher did not even let them off with the shorter form of grace invented by a wise Rabbi for these difficult occasions, yet so far as was visible it was only the Jewish guests—comically distinguished by serviettes shamefacedly dabbed on their heads—who fidgeted under the pious torrent. These were no doubt fearful of boring the Christians whose precious society the Jew enjoyed on a parlous tenure. In the host's son Julius a superadded intellectual impatience was traceable. He had brought ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... this time spread throughout the city; but already a torrent of armed men was pouring through the streets. Pelistes sallied forth with his cavaliers and such of the soldiery as he could collect, and endeavored to repel the foe; but every effort was in vain. The Christians ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... prepared to respond to the tide of joy, her head again sank back and she exclaimed, "Oh! Oh! Delicious, oh! Dearest, oh! I can bear it no longer." Her ecstatic movements, while in the act of enjoyment, were all that was required to make me join in her delight, and pouring forth a torrent of bliss I sank motionless on her breast enjoying a happiness that may be conceived ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... lips, but the smile was as full of meaning as the man himself. With Nejdanov he behaved in a very peculiar manner. He was attracted to the young student and felt an almost tender sympathy for him. At one part of the discussion, where Nejdanov broke out into a perfect torrent of words, Solomin got up quietly, moved across the room with long strides, and shut a window that was standing open just ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... in a torrent of vituperation. When the abnormal sobber is suddenly corked up, these sobs rankle in the system and burst forth in the shape of vituperation. In the course of her remarks, she stated in a violent manner that she would denounce me throughout the country and retain ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... steps, to my after tale of misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to state those facts which led to my predilection ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... an awful figure, as he poured out a horrible torrent of curses and imprecations upon the traitor, grinding his teeth beneath his foam-flecked lips, and even the iron-hearted sailor, striving to staunch the blood, involuntarily ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... is one of the most beautiful in Europe. From Terni the road follows the sinuous course of the Velino, passes not far from the famous cascades, whose clouds of mist are visible, and then plunges into the defiles in whose depths the torrent rushes noisily, choked by a vegetation as luxuriant as that of a virgin forest. On all sides uprise walls of perpendicular rocks, and on their crests, several hundred yards above your head, are feudal fortresses, among ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... leaving the huts on White river the path leads across the hot, dusty desert; then it reaches the rim of White river canon and follows its edge so closely that a pebble tossed from the saddle would drop into the torrent more than a thousand feet below. How musical the roar of the stream, and how cool its waters look! As the trail passes some especially dizzy spot the Indian women lean away from the sheer edge in fear. For miles the trail traverses the bluff. At times the river is out of ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... High in the murky air; List to the tempest sweeping In chainless fury there. What moves the mighty torrent, And bids it flow abroad? Or turns the rapid current? What, but the ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... Beatrice! why is not thy succour lent To him, who so much lov'd thee, as to leave For thy sake all the multitude admires? Dost thou not hear how pitiful his wail, Nor mark the death, which in the torrent flood, Swoln mightier than a sea, him struggling holds?" "Ne'er among men did any with such speed Haste to their profit, flee from their annoy, As when these words were spoken, I came here, Down from my blessed seat, trusting the force Of thy pure eloquence, which thee, and all Who well ...
— The Vision of Hell, Part 1, Illustrated by Gustave Dore - The Inferno • Dante Alighieri, Translated By The Rev. H. F. Cary
... Marian began to give up all hopes of ever recovering her pet. The next morning our attention was attracted by the most extraordinary noises, arising from a flock of parrots at a little distance. Now all was hushed; then again there broke forth a torrent of screams, which reminded us of the noise made by a flock of crows gathered around a solitary owl found out of its ivy-mantled tower after sunrise. What was the cause of the noise? No one could decide. Arthur suggested that the tree-tops thereabout might form a parliament-house to the ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... at the story of Dr. Francia ordering an army contractor who had cheated the government of Paraguay to be promenaded for an hour under the gallows, and he wished that more of them might be treated in that manner. He thought the torrent of mendacity which accompanies our presidential elections must have a bad influence on the morals ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... feeling, our country owes her freedom. The first performance of the foreign ceremonies produced a riot. The riot rapidly became a revolution. Ambition, patriotism, fanaticism, were mingled in one headlong torrent. The whole nation was in arms. The power of England was indeed, as appeared some years later, sufficient to coerce Scotland: but a large part of the English people sympathised with the religious feelings of the insurgents; and many Englishmen ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... top to bottom, spreads apart. The path lies in this breach, between two gigantic walls. A roaring torrent flows through the gorge. The air is icy, the granite looks black, and high above one the glimpse of blue sky ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... - With what a torrent it has come at last! Up to now, what I like best is the first number of a LONDON LIFE. You have never done anything better, and I don't know if perhaps you have ever done anything so good as the girl's outburst: tip-top. I have been preaching your later works ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they came Like a torrent of flame— There were nineteen couple and over, And a huntsman grey Who blew them away With the note of a true hound-lover, While his Whip sat back On her rough old hack And called to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... nothing to risk, and I can't in conscience put the whole army to risk. My antagonist has wisely shut himself up in inaccessible entrenchments, so that I can't get at him without spilling a torrent of blood, and that perhaps to little purpose. The Marquis de Montcalm is at the head of a great number of bad soldiers and I am at the head of a small number of good ones, that wish for nothing so much as to fight ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... were pitch-pine and gave a fairish light, but not so much as tarred rope would have done; but it was enough for me to be able to make out the face of the cliff, and I saw a break by which I could get up for a good bit anyhow. It was where a torrent came down when the snows were melting, and as soon as I had got to the bottom I made straight up. There were rocks piled at its foot, and I got to the top ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... but all his philosophy was confounded, when jammed between the elephant's legs he perceived the head of a beautiful girl, and between her legs a baby-house, which with the wings extended thirty feet, out of the windows of which rained a torrent of sugar-plumbs, that had been placed there to make room. Then followed the bear, who had been pressed to the bales of gingerbread and was covered all over with it, and looked but uncouthly; and the monkey with a ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... Yon glacial torrent's deep, hoarse lute Its upward music flings— The great, eternal crags stand mute, And listen while it sings O mighty range! Thy wounds and scars, Thy weird, bewildering forms, Attest thine everlasting wars— Thy heritage of storms ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... white glacier-torrent unites with the black, and the milky stream is nearly as cold as ice, and is boiling along over huge rocks, its banks bordered with pine forest, I came upon a native fishing for trout. He was using a short rod and a weighted line with a small "grub" as bait. He dropped his line ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... high in the air, as to cause us both to watch the result in breathless silence. The plunge into the trough was in a just proportion to the toss into the air; and I felt a surge, as if something gave way under the violent strain that succeeded. The torrent of water that came on the forecastle prevented any thing from being seen; but again the bows rose, again they sunk, and ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... their shadows before. He could not drive the thought of Elfric from his mind; he slept, but again in wild dreams his brother seemed to appear; once he seemed to oppose Elfric's passage over a plank which crossed a roaring torrent; then he seemed as if he were falling, falling, amidst ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... sympathy. No, she would not think of that; she would not. When two are separated, one must love enough to bridge the gulf—what matter which one? It seemed now as if there were so much that she might have given, if all this torrent of love that nearly broke her heart might have been poured out and poured out at his feet—lavished on him, without regard to need or fitness or expense, as Mary lavished her precious box of spikenard on One ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and there showed a wider arch of still blue sky. Alexander stood and looked. Ian, behind him, was glad of the pause. The place dizzied him who for years had been away from hill and mountain, pass and torrent. Yet he would by no means tell Alexander so. He ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... with such sarcastic bitterness that I was irritated and stung to the quick, and overwhelmed her with a fresh torrent of reproaches. At this juncture she gave way to an uncontrollable fit of passion, and snatching up my hand, she thrust my little finger into her mouth and bit off the end of it. Then, notwithstanding my pain, I became quite cool and collected, and calmly said, 'insulted ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... pathway was suddenly cut short by the avalanche of rock and rubble and soil. It happened to be the exact spot where Colonel Gilbert's heavy horse had stumbled months before, where the footpath crossed the bed of a small mountain torrent. A few loosened stones had come bowling down the slope, set free by the landslip. These had fallen on to the pathway, and there shattered themselves into a thousand pieces. Mademoiselle stood among the debris. She ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... meeting, and had treasured them in her heart. Only with this discovery had Frina Mavrodin become fully conscious of all Captain Ellerey's companionship meant to her. The flood-gates were suddenly opened, and the rushing torrent of her emotions threatened to sweep away all thought of the cause she had worked for, and loved, and believed in. Almost had she told him her secret to-night by her eager questions, and the blood mounted to her cheeks as she remembered. How ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... muddy brooklets; the high-road beyond his hedge was transformed to a shallow torrent.... And, just at that moment, looking off along the highroad, he saw something that brought his heart into ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... seen I don't know, but we had gone all of one hundred feet before they spotted us. Fortunately we were on the edge of a shallow shell hole when the sentry caught our movements and Fritz cut loose with the "typewriters." We rolled in. A perfect torrent of bullets ripped up the dirt and cascaded us with gravel and mud. The noise of the bullets "crackling" a yard above us ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... may break a much harder one. The glacier, by its motion, grinds into powder the surface of the granite rock; and the Alpine torrents, that have their origin under glaciers, are always turbid, from the destruction of the rocks on which the glacier is formed. The effect of a torrent in deepening its bed will explain the mechanical agency of fluid-water, though this effect is infinitely increased, and sometimes almost entirely dependent, upon the solid matters which are carried down by it. An angular ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... spring birds sang on many a budding spray, When loud and high a thrilling cry dispelled the magic charm, And scouts came hurrying from the woods to bid their comrades arm. And bark canoes skimmed lightly down the torrent of the Sault, Manned by three hundred dusky forms, the long-expected foe. Eight days of varied horrors passed, what boots it now to tell How the pale tenants of the fort heroically fell? Hunger and thirst and sleeplessness, Death's ghastly aids, at length. ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... Gurowski was unsparing in his criticisms. He set down Seward as writing too much; Sumner as a pompous, verbose talker; Burnside as a swaggering West Pointer, and Hooker as a casual hero. He became so offensive to Mr. Sumner that one morning, after listening to a torrent of his abuse, the Senator arose from his desk, went to the door of his library, opened it, and said to the astonished Pole, "Go!" In vain were apologies proffered. Mr. Sumner, thoroughly incensed, simply repeated the word "Go!" and at ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the landing-place; but, before reaching it, I was overtaken by a tropical storm. I tried to find shelter under a tree, which was so thick that it would never have been penetrated by common English rain; but here, in a couple of minutes, a little torrent flowed down the trunk. It is to this violence of the rain that we must attribute the verdure at the bottom of the thickest woods: if the showers were like those of a colder climate, the greater part would be absorbed ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... purpose,' said I. 'Well, if you are lamed for life, and unfitted for any active line—turn newspaper editor; I should say you are perfectly qualified, and this day's adventure may be the foundation of your fortune,' thereupon I turned round and rode off. The fellow followed me with a torrent of abuse. 'Confound you!' said he—yet that was not the expression either—'I know you; you are one of the horse-patrol, come down into the country on leave to see your relations. Confound you, you and the like of you have knocked my business ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... amendments prevail," said the aged statesman, "I shall consider it as a renewed extension of the time of the lease, shall live in more confidence, and die in more hope." He complained of the "irresistible torrent of general opinion"; thought national appropriations for constructing roads and canals such a breach of the national compact as would warrant withdrawal from it; and wrote out for the Virginia Legislature a protest, as he ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... I tried to stop her, question her, then waited and let the torrent of entreaty run on and on. At last, exhausted and breathless, she lay quietly against my shoulder, her head fallen forward. The musty reek of shallavan mingled with the flower scent ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... philosopher, had thought to put him on his guard against the poison of anarchy. But all the old learning, all the happy texts of bygone days—in a word, all the theology of the worthy priest—was swept away like a fragile bridge by the torrent of wild eloquence and ungovernable enthusiasm which Patience had accumulated in his desert. The vicar had to give way and fall back terrified upon himself. There he discovered that the shrine of his own science was everywhere ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... July 20, 1554, he landed at Southampton. The atmospheric auspices were not cheering, for Philip, who had come from the sunny plains of Castile, from his window at Southampton looked out on a steady downfall of July rain. Through the cruel torrent he made his way to church to mass, and afterwards Gardiner came to him from the queen. On the next Sunday he journeyed to Winchester, again in pouring rain. To the cathedral he went first, wet as he was. Whatever Philip of Spain was entering on, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... affording relief or resource in the first intoxicating surprise—I had almost said terror—of such a revolution, that they render it more intense. The sources of thought multiply beyond calculation the sources of feeling; and mingled, they rush together, a torrent deep as strong. Because Portia is endued with that enlarged comprehension which looks before and after, she does not feel the less, but the more: because from the height of her commanding intellect ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... brink to brink, regardless of the destruction which awaits a faltering step. Such, according to tradition, was the fate of young Romille, who, inconsiderately, bounding over the chasm with a greyhound in his leash, the animal hung back, and drew his unfortunate master into the torrent. The Forester, who accompanied Romille and beheld his fate, returned to the Lady Aaliza, and with despair in his countenance, enquired, "what is good for bootless Bene," to which the mother, apprehending some great misfortune, had befallen her son, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... spirit of independence touch the limit of insubordination at every new command. Insults are freely exchanged; threats ring out on the tired ears. Frances is ubiquitous. She scolds the tailors with a torrent of abuse, she terrorizes the handsome manikin, she bewilders the kindly Mr. F., and before three days have passed she has dismissed the neat little Polish girl, in tears. This latter comes to me, her face wrought with emotion. She was receiving ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... of roasted coffee pervading the place. A sleepy German waiter first came up and glanced sullenly at the mud-tracks we left upon the floor; then he allowed his insulting gaze to trail our progress to the lunch counter by means of a perfect torrent of rain-water drippings. He went out of the room grumbling, to return a moment later with a huge mop. Thereupon he ordered us out of the place, standing ready with the mop to begin the cleansing process the instant we vacated the stools. It ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... friend, dear—" the poor man stammered. But he had not the strength to say more. This emotion of joy coming suddenly in the midst of his fury melted him into a sobbing torrent of tears, and stifled words. His face became purple. He motioned "Take me away." And, stumbling in his walk, leaning on de Gery's arm, he only managed to cross the threshold of his box before he ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... man a hatred crueller than that. Dumb, out of suffering now, as pale swoln corpses, the victims tumble confusedly seaward along the Loire stream; the tide rolling them back: clouds of ravens darken the River; wolves prowl on the shoal-places: Carrier writes, 'Quel torrent revolutionnaire, What a torrent of Revolution!' For the man is rabid; and the Time is rabid. These are the Noyades of Carrier; twenty-five by the tale, for what is done in darkness comes to be investigated in sunlight: (Proces de Carrier, 4 tomes, Paris, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... mind so to die, should it become necessary, we may take for granted, but we cannot bring ourselves to approve of the storm of abuse under which he attempted to drown the memory and name of his antagonist. So virulent a torrent of words, all seeming, as we read them, to have been poured out in rapid utterances by the keen energy of the moment, astonish us, when we reflect that it was the work of his quiet moments. That he ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... is calm, but dreary. The moon is in a cloud in the west. Slow moves that pale beam along the shaded hill. The distant wave is heard. The torrent murmurs on the rock. The cock is heard from the booth. More than half the night is past. The housewife, groping in the gloom, rekindles the settled fire. The hunter thinks the day approaches, and calls his bounding dogs. He ascends ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... light was thrown upon the mystery; for from the other end of the island from which the frigate had emerged a large schooner appeared. Every sail was set, and her course was directed toward this other end of the island upon which the watchers were standing. The two French sailors burst out into a torrent of oaths, expressive of surprise and alarm; for it was evident that from the course the schooner was taking she intended to intercept the two privateers, and engage them until the ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... and person were held up to odium[97];—hardly a voice was raised, or at least listened to, in his behalf; and though a few faithful friends remained unshaken by his side, the utter hopelessness of stemming the torrent was felt as well by them as by himself, and, after an effort or two to gain a fair hearing, they submitted in silence. Among the few attempts made by himself towards confuting his calumniators was an appeal (such as the following short letter contains) to some of those persons ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... porter's equanimity could bear. He looked about for a weapon with which to attack the Greek's face through the bars, heaping, upon him a torrent of ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... a torrent of loud talk, spiced with oaths, flowed out from the place. Before he had fairly passed the door a violent hand was laid upon him, seizing him by the collar with no gentle grasp. The ruffian had fallen upon him from the rear, and he could not see who it was that assaulted ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... She was astonished by the roar of a mighty oath, followed almost instantly by a thunderous thump on the barrel-like anatomy of the family horse. A second or two later Peggy's head came in for a resounding whack, and the stream of profanity increased to a torrent. ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... little justice; from the first glance at the timber-ends emerging past a leafy turn in the up-stream, and bounding onward with a momentary increase of impetus, until the strong raft becomes but as a bed of straw upon the torrent. Then there is the desperate plying of the oars, their hurried abandonment, with the in-gathering, of the bold crew clinging together with cheers round their bright flag, until the leap is made, and the assailing waves rise ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... she sighed, as her billowy Hair she unloosed in a torrent of gold That rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy, Graceful and fair as a goddess of old: Over her jewels she flung herself drearily, Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast, Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearily Clung in her hair like a dove in its nest—. And naught but her ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... saw a fanatical expression in his eyes. She thought of it as the look of the monk crushed down within his soul. He opened his lips again, as if to pour forth upon her a torrent of burning words. But the look died away, and they parted quietly like two good friends. Yet, as she went to the hotel, she knew that Father Roubier could not give her the kind of help she wanted, and she even fancied that perhaps ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... draw forth the tears. He had even taken part in one grand operatic rendition of the work, when the audience had been half strangled by the too realistic fumes from the altar, and the chorus, huddled at the back of the stage, had sung the Rain Chorus off the key, to the accompaniment of the torrent which poured down in a thin sheet just back of the curtain, raining neither on the just nor on the unjust, but falling accurately into the groove for the footlights between them. He had sung The Messiah and Arminius until they were a weariness to his flesh, and Hiawatha's ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... le pote. Et quels tristes amours as-tu donc dans le coeur, Si le bruit du torrent te trouble et t'inquite, Si le vent te ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... you to tell him that I cursed his son. I wish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for the sake of truth and justice." And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey that order, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even if the result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierre suffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between the act of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his own personal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the La Paz river. This it bridged in about half a dozen places for horse traffic, and while, for most of the year, there is scarcely any water in the river, when the snow melts it is converted into a veritable roaring torrent; and I happened to be present during one of the most serious accidents that had ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... huge clouds of smoke, would oscillate from one side of his mouth to the other; his talk would grow in earnestness, his voice grow louder, his words come faster and faster, until finally they would gush forth in a mighty torrent. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... to be dozing in earnest when, with a succession of jerks, the train rapidly slackened speed. Mr. Dunster let down the window. The interior of the carriage was at once thrown into confusion. A couple of newspapers were caught up and whirled around, a torrent of rain beat in. Mr. Dunster rapidly closed the window and rang the bell. The guard came in after a moment or two. His clothes were shiny from the wet; raindrops ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... water scene with a boat idly drifting, occupied by a solitary figure watching the play of variegated lights upon the tranquil waters. Then came a wild and rugged mountain scene with precipices and a foaming torrent. Then a concert of ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... excitement at its highest pitch, in the torrent of youthful sensations and ungratified desires is probably the most furious and elated experience of ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... seized upon Athanase, and began to lecture him with the queerest platitudes about royalist politics and religious morality. Not possessing, like the Chevalier de Valois, a snuff-box adorned with a princess, by the help of which he could stand this torrent of silliness, the poor poet listened to the words of her whom he loved with a stupid air, gazing, meanwhile, at her enormous bust, which held itself before him in that still repose which is the attribute of all great ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... minutes later the broad path they had discovered made another turn, and then in the distance they saw a neat log cabin, located on the bank of a small mountain torrent. From the chimney of the cabin a thin wreath ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... all truth," exclaimed the second Athenian, not at all angered by the praise. But Simonides, whose tongue was brisk, ran on with a torrent of flattery and of polite insinuation, until Cimon ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Juliette well protected in their midst, had not joined the general onrush as yet. The crowd in the open place was still very thick, the outward-branching streets were very narrow: through these the multitude, scampering, hurrying, scurrying, like a human torrent let out of a whirlpool, rushed down headlong towards ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Union, until your very name becomes a mockery and a by-word! And I call upon the people of Kentucky and Missouri to ring the loud knell of your infamy, from steep to steep, and from valley to valley, until their swelling sounds are heard in startling echoes, mingling with the rush of the criminal's torrent, and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... There are no words to describe this. One must see it for one's self. Down, down, back and forth zigzags that trail, jumping from crag to crag and mesa to mesa, finally running on to the mere thread suspended from wall to wall high above the sullen brown torrent. When once started down this last lap of the journey riverward, one finds that the trail is a great deal smoother than that already traveled. But the bridge! Picture to yourself a four-foot wooden road, ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... tumultuous tossing of leafy arms, and with what seemed the silent dissolution of the whole landscape in days of steady and uninterrupted downfall. It came extravagantly, for every canyon had grown into a torrent, every gulch a waterspout, every watercourse a river, and all pouring into the North Fork, that, rushing past the settlement, seemed to threaten it with lifted crest and flying mane. It came dangerously, for one night the river, ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... March shrank away before the keen, quickening sunbeams; the hills emerged, brown and sodden, like the chrysalis of the new year; the streams woke in a tumult, and all day and night their voices called from the hills back of the mill: the waste-weir was a foaming torrent, and spread itself in muddy shallows across the meadow, beyond the old garden where the robins and bluebirds were house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... withdraw himself from his service. He found him busy in loading a small vessel with smoked geese and kippered fish, and he was apparently in a very great passion. Before John could mention his own matters, Peter burst into a torrent of invectives against another of his sailors, who, he said, had given some information to the Excise which had cost him a whole cargo of Dutch specialties. The culprit was leaning against a hogshead, and was listening ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... umpire a team whose sole idea of tactics was to get there in any way that offered itself. Half an hour sufficed; then, appointing an understudy, he walked away in search of Paddy. From the midst of a torrent of instructions to his quartette of black subordinates, Paddy's voice ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... the silencing of wise doubters and the confirmation of ignorant faith. The brief anticipatory announcement of the miracle puts stress on the arrest of the waters at the instant when the priests' feet touched them, and tells what is to befall the arrested torrent above the point where the ark stood, saying nothing about the lower stretch of the river, and just hinting by one word 'heap' the parallel between this miracle and that of the passing of the Red Sea: 'The floods stood upright as an ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the work before her, the time that was passing, the necessity for action! All the tears that she might have shed during the last few weeks, if it were her nature to weep as most women weep, now rushed forth in one passionate torrent. She did not hear a step approaching; she was hardly conscious of the encircling arm that raised her from the ground, nor was she startled ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... upon age untold; Beheld his own meridian, And beheld his dark decline, His secular fall to nadir From summits of light divine, Till at last, amid worlds exhausted, And bankrupt of force and fire, 'Twas his, in a torrent of darkness, Like a sputtering lamp ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... immoral lives. At the same time it is not desired to palliate their real defects. It is admitted that a more active and earnest performance of their proper duties might have done much more than was done by the clergy to stem the torrent of iniquity. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... such respect; and poured round the painter dense showers of versified adulation, so infused with ideality and Platonism that the simple rules of right and wrong were quite washed away by the harmonious and transcendental torrent. Romney, weak, vain, selfish, suffered himself to be led down paths which, however flowery and pleasant, were yet mean and contemptible enough, and listening to the twanging of Hayley's lyre, turned a deaf ear ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... demonstrations, some of them very impressive demonstrations, of the powers that have come to mankind, but of permanent achievement, what will our descendants cherish? It is hard to estimate what grains of precious metal may not be found in a mud torrent of human production on so large a scale, but will any one, a hundred years from now, consent to live in the houses the Victorians built, travel by their roads or railways, value the furnishings ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... for a lengthy interval, his arms crossed on his breast, gnawing meanwhile at the fingernails of his left hand in an unattractive fashion he had of meditating. When words came it was in a torrent. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... their gates; all these sentiments caused so violent an emotion, that during the first moments of their agitation, the Romans were unable to come to any resolution, or do any thing but give way to the torrent of their passion, and sacrifice floods of tears to the memory of a city which fell the victim of its inviolable fidelity(720) to the Romans, and had been betrayed by their unaccountable indolence and imprudent delays. When they were a little recovered, an assembly of the people ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a torrent of foul words fell from her lips. She abused Mavis; she reviled the man; she accused the two of sin, the while she made use of obscene, filthy phrases, which caused Mavis to put ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... less polished, and less pointed. Pope stabs with a silver bodkin—Churchill hews down his opponent with a broadsword. Pope whispers a word in his enemy's ear which withers the heart within him, and he sinks lifeless to the ground; Churchill pours out a torrent of blasting invective which at once kills and buries his foe. Dryden was his favourite model; and although he has written no such condensed masterpieces of satire as the characters of Shaftesbury and Buckingham, yet his works as a whole are not much inferior, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... referred to, and it is delightful to see the skill with which he adapts his unusual height to the most petite damsel on the floor. Here the "Spree" is omnipotent, but it does not like Class Day, for then Boston and its suburbs pour forth their torrent of beauty and fashion, and Cambridge for the time being is left somewhat in ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... did write it," she cried, pouring out her soul in a torrent of words. "I did write it. Why should I deny it? I have no reason to be ashamed of it. I wished him to help me. I believed that if I had an interview I could gain his help, so I ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... success, however, was prodigious; all Albemarle Street blocked up with carriages, and such an uproar as I never remember to have seen excited by any other literary imposture. Every week I had a new theory about Conception and Perception, and supported it by a natural manner, a torrent of words, and an impudence scarcely credible in this prudent age. Still, in justice to myself, I must say there were some good things in them. But good and ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... to fight our quarrel out on the spot. But the advantage lay with me. All I had to do to blaze away was to tilt the point of my revolver at him without drawing it from the scabbard. Then words came, poured out of him in a torrent. He cursed me in Russian, in French, ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... was laid in ruins. In Roseau, 131 persons were killed or wounded, the greatest mischief being there caused by the overflowing of the river, which inundated the town in all directions, every house which obstructed its passage being swept away by the torrent. "No pen," says a witness of the scene, "can paint the horrors of that dreadful night! The tremendous noise occasioned by the wind and rain—the roaring of the waters, together with the shock of an earthquake, which was sensibly felt ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... increasing her usual difficulty in walking, compelled her to cling to him; and he could hardly persuade himself that he was not in a delightful dream, notwithstanding the torrent of musical abuse with which she overwhelmed him. The prince being in no hurry, they reached the lake at quite another part, where the bank was twenty-five feet high at least. When they stood at the edge, the prince, turning ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... with his enormous spear 705 in both hands brandish'd, stalking now in front Of Hector, and now following his steps. Him Diomede the bold discerning, felt Himself no small dismay; and as a man Wandering he knows not whither, far from home, 710 If chance a rapid torrent to the sea Borne headlong thwart his course, the foaming flood Obstreperous views awhile, then quick retires, So he, and his attendants thus bespake. How oft, my countrymen! have we admired 715 The noble Hector, skillful at the spear And unappall'd in fight? ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... catch a glimpse of the first white man they had ever seen. His appearance seemed to interest them amazingly, for they tittered and wished him well, and turned about to titter again. On returning, the crowd became more dense than ever, and drove all before them like a torrent, dogs, goats, sheep, and poultry were borne along against their will, which terrified them so much, that nothing could be heard but noises of the most lamentable description; children screamed, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Revolution of 1688. The writings of Hobbes and Locke have had a lasting influence, and Locke is really the source of the democratic stream of the eighteenth century. It rises in Locke to become the torrent ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... was spoken Steve recognized the slip. Watching Garry's eyes widen he knew that Garry had caught it also. For a moment a torrent of words trembled on the latter's lips. And then he swallowed and nodded shortly. The vague dreariness of his acceptance was fully as electrical as the threatened outburst ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... In this torrent of people which flowed forward and separated, in which men bought and sold, crying out in various tones, policemen were prominent. Each had a brownish tunic reaching to his knees, bare legs, an apron with blue and red stripes, a short sword at his side, and a strong stick in his hand. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... the left wing of the American position. In advance of the right wing, General Fraser had command of five hundred picked men. The Americans fell upon the British advance with fury, and soon a general battle was engaged in. Colonel Morgan poured down like a torrent from the ridge that skirted the flanking party of General Fraser, and forced the latter back; and then by a rapid movement to the left fell upon the flank of the British right with such impetuosity that it wavered. General Fraser noticing the ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... were a quiet, civil, obliging, simple-minded set—if not inviting strangers to settle amongst them, never rude or repelling to them; equitable in dealings, and strange to all disturbance or outrage. What they are now is no more easy to say than what a rivulet is when a torrent has carried away its banks and swept its bed. Two thousand navvies, the outsweepings of jails and the galleys, have come down to the works; a horde of contractors, sub-contractors, with the several staffs of clerks, inspectors, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... west to east, that is, in the same direction as the coast; but they are by no means considerable. To the east of the cape their strength is much increased, and their direction is N.E. towards Staten Land. They are rapid in Strait Le Maire and along the south coast of Staten Land, and set like a torrent round Cape St John; where they take a N.W. direction, and continue to run very strong both within and without New Year's Isles. While we lay at anchor within this island, I observed that the current was strongest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... it was too late. The very effort to change direction brought a greater weight upon his rear hoofs and now they crushed down through flying gravel and sand. He faced straight in, pawing the yielding bank with his forehoofs and suspended over the roar of the torrent. It was like striving to climb a hill of quicksand. The greater his struggle the more swiftly the treacherous soil melted ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... above That corresponded with his state of mind; We all know what it is to be in love, When all Earth's sweetest pleasures seem combined, When Life and Love both, both are intertwined, And the young blood is as the desert's thirst, A scorching wilderness, a torrid wind, A torrent with its flood-gates open burst; When Youth's most cherished hopes within ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... head of Newlands, almost under the bridge that crosses the fall. It was a sweet place in a great solitude, where the silence was broken only by the tumbling waters, the cooing of pigeons on the roof, and the twittering of ringouzels by the side of the torrent. The air was fresh with the smell of new peat. There was a wedge-shaped garden in front, and it was encompassed by chestnut-trees. As Hugh Ritson drew near he noticed that a squirrel crept from the fork of one of these trees. The little creature rocked itself on the thin end ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... sprang from the bank into mid-stream, whereon the river raised a high wave and attacked him. He swelled his stream into a torrent, and swept away the many dead whom Achilles had slain and left within his waters. These he cast out on to the land, bellowing like a bull the while, but the living he saved alive, hiding them in his mighty eddies. The great and terrible wave gathered about Achilles, falling upon him and beating ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... stranger to see how the spirit of the Revolution still lives in New England, and is voiced and acted by men bearing Revolutionary names—it is magnificent to behold the stream, grown to a thunder-torrent, roaring and foaming over the broad West. Hurrah! it still lives—that old spirit of freedom, its fires are all aflame, and it shall not again smoulder until the whole world has seen, as it did before, that it is the light of the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of perfection—a perfect mistress of her voice; she can do what she likes with it, she can sustain a note in any part of the soprano compass—swell, diminish, and keep it exactly to the same pitch for an incredible space of time. She can burst forth a torrent of sound expressive of our strongest passions, without losing an atom of tone, and she can diminish it to a whisper, in sotto voce, as distinct as it is thrilling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Hilda! what greater happiness could be conceived of? And that thoughtful Hilda had actually written to Gualtier! And she was alive! And she was in Naples! What a wonder to have her thus come back to her from the dead! With such a torrent of confused thoughts Zillah's mind was filled, until at length, in her deep gratitude to Heaven, she flung herself upon her knees and poured ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... him," said Bradley, leaning forward to absorb the speaker's torrent of impassioned utterance. When he sat ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... ever preparing to force their way upward through the mountain, and to carry with them dissolved rocks, and the stones which block their passage. Sometimes, while all is calm and beautiful on the mountains, suddenly deep-sounding noises are heard, the ground shakes, and a vast torrent tears its way through the bowels of the volcano, and is flung hundreds of feet high in the air, and, falling again to the earth, destroys every living ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... for several days. Heavy rains had caused the valleys and marshes to become flooded, and a haystack which had been carried off its bed by the water had lodged against the temporary sleeper buttress and swept the bridge away. The hay had held the torrent back till it became so high that it rushed over about two miles of the railway, destroying that also. The Japs would not repair the damage, nor for some time would they give a chance for the Russians to do so. I managed to get orders through to Major Browne so that no time ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... longer: he could not restrain the torrent of tears which was struggling to get free; he could not stay in that assembly of people; he must be alone, alone with God, alone with ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... passed in an exquisite joy, plucked out of shame like a rose from a torrent. He left her and went to the door, and leaning over the balustrade, called down ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Mr. George; "the village of Meyringen. This waterfall comes down out of the mountain just back of the village; and they have had to build up an immense wall, a quarter of a mile long and twenty or thirty feet high, to keep the torrent of mud and sand out of the streets. Once it broke through and filled up the church four feet deep all over the floor with mud, and gravel, and stones. Some of the stones ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott
... Henry Ellis. The causes leading thereto have been fully set forth, and we need not refer back to them. Enough, that the fall was complete. The wretched man appeared to lose all strength of mind, all hope in life, all self-respect. Not even a feeble effort was opposed to the down-rushing torrent of disaster that swept away every vestige of his business. For more than a week he kept himself so stupefied with brandy, that neither friends nor creditors could get from him any intelligible statement in regard to his affairs. In the wish of the latter for an assignment, he passively ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur
... sergeant stopped the countryman's torrent of words, and began to ask him questions as to his meeting with the strangers, eliciting the information that he had met them coming over on the ferry-boat from Jersey City, and that the business deal they had proposed was the betting of fifteen hundred dollars on a race horse ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... the theologians were Positivi and Sententiarii [that is, they taught what the Church ordered to be taught], who deemed it a great achievement, both in speculative and practical theology, either to overwhelm the subject with a torrent of quotations from the fathers, or to anatomize it according to the laws of dialectics [that is, the laws of reasoning, logic]. And whenever they had occasion to speak of the meaning of any text, they appealed invariably to what was called the Glossa Ordinaria ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... stretch down from the foot of the mountains to the sea, and that resemble huge highroads in the making, roads upon which the stones have been dumped ready for the steam-roller. In winter there is sometimes a torrent of water rushing through them, but in summer they are dry, and look like wounds gashed in the thickly growing lemon and orange groves. The trampling feet of beasts can do no harm to the stones, and these watercourses ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... you both, and behold the result! Nobody dreamed of convicting me, and this is voluntary confession, so I expect you all to respect it; the smallest unkindness will cause me to leave the room in a torrent of tears." ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... occupants. The Indians were now cleared away, not only about Ellisville but far to the north and west. The skin-hunters had wiped out the last of the great herds of the buffalo. The face of Nature was changing. The tremendous drama of the West was going on in all its giant action. This torrent of rude life, against which the hands of the law were still so weak and unavailing, had set for it in the ways of things a limit for its flood and a time for ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... with such speed, such an air of decision and purpose, that Madame von Marwitz, who had risen in her bewildered indignation and stood, her book beneath her arm, her white cloak caught about her, had found no opportunity to check the torrent of speech, and as these last words came as swiftly and as casually as the rest she could hardly, for ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... sermon likened it to a roaring torrent of flame. With all this talk about demons and fire and smoke, they had the same feeling as when trapped in a burning forest—when the fire creeps along the moss upon which you are treading, and smoke clouds fill the air you breathe, and the heat singes your hair, while the roar of the fire fills ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof |
