"Overwhelm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exceedingly anxious to pose as the conqueror of France. To strengthen his dynasty, the Kaiser was also anxious that his son should take a prominent part. Accordingly it was planned to gather an enormous army under his command, overwhelm Verdun and smash through to Paris. Thus Prince Wilhelm would be enrolled among the great commanders of history. Von Hindenburg was opposed to this plan, he wanted to finish up his work so happily begun in Russia. But the Crown Prince had his way; and immense supplies of guns, ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... Leonard coldly, "but please understand that we are still surrounded by many dangers, which any treachery might cause to overwhelm us. Therefore I warn you that should I detect anything of the sort my answer to it will be ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... relaxed morality as can well be imagined.-. 'tis a large quarto, and in general a very superficial one. His philosophy may be new in France, but is greatly exhausted here. He tries to imitate Montesquieu, and has heaped commonplaces upon commonplaces, which supply or overwhelm his reasoning; yet he has often wit, happy allusion;, and sometimes writes finely: there is merit enough to give an obscure man fame; flimsiness enough to depreciate a great man. After his book was licensed, they forced him to retract it by a ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... and the Marguerites no doubt. Do not be in the least uneasy on my account. If the present is cold and bare and poverty-stricken, the blue distant future is rich and splendid; most great men have known the vicissitudes which depress but cannot overwhelm me. ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... spectacle was to see him in the drawing-room, 'dancing,' as Danjou said, 'before the Ark.' He stretched and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism. Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he repeated ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... air, or the gyro-knife barrier beneath the surface. At the same time, from scouting parties and deserters at other points we learned that rumors are rife throughout the enemy forces of some scheme now on foot that will overwhelm us within a very short time. No details have been given, but so widespread is the gossip, and so consistent, that we have been forced to the conclusion that it cannot be reasonably dismissed as ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... which reflected honor upon him as the architect of greatness, he was delightfully impatient of it, and he was most amusingly dramatic in reproducing the consciousness of certain ineffectual alumni who used to overwhelm him at Commencement solemnities with some such pompous acknowledgment as, "Professor Child, all that I have become, sir, I owe to your influence in my college career." He did, with delicious mockery, the old-fashioned intellectual poseurs among the students, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... our heads, and the waves of shame and sorrow seemed fairly to overwhelm us; and while our sobs filled the little room, Mr. Ellsler rose and laid two playbooks on the table. Then, while standing there, staring into space, I heard his far, faint voice saying: "So great—so good a man destroyed, and by the hand of that unhappy boy! my God! my God!" He wiped his brow ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... fourteen years before, advancing down the pass by which alone they could approach us with a small portion of my force, and stationing the remainder in two equal companies upon either brow of the beetling cliffs that overhung the road, having command to overwhelm the Spaniards with rocks, hurled upon them from above, so soon as I should give the signal by flying before them down the pass. Other measures I took also, for seeing that do what I would it well might happen that we should ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... about Gerald had been as of old, she really did not know how she could have endured them in addition to all this; but while she was at ease about him nothing could quite overwhelm her. And she was very happy about him; Mr. Lyddell had readily consented to the Highland plan, and Gerald was so enchanted that he forgot all his former fears of Edmund, saw in him only a fellow-sportsman, and when he wrote to tell his sister ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... startled by her friend's vehemence, "you quite overwhelm me. I wish, though," she added; with a sigh, "that I could doubt the truthfulness ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... little tended, and weeds grew rank where flowers had once been planted. Jan threw himself on the neglected grave. "My poor mother!" he cried, almost bitterly. For a moment the full sense of their common wrong seemed to overwhelm him, and he shrank even from Lady Adelaide. But when, kneeling beside him, she bent her face as if the wind that sighed among the grass stalks could carry her words to ears long dulled in death,—"My POOR child! I will be a mother to your son!"—Jan's ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... fate, would wonder over each inequality of spirits I betrayed, condemn every tear I shed, read every letter I received, and, at the slightest appearance of equivocation or deceit, would banish me from his heart, and overwhelm me with his just anger. But it was too late, I said to myself—too late to retract, too late to think. I mentally closed my eyes, and passed through the next twenty-four hours like some ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... music, if unconfessed, was not less real. "I assure you," he said to the Westminster Teachers, "I am not at all a harsh judge of myself; but I know perfectly well that there have been much better inspectors than I." Once, when a flood of compliments threatened to overwhelm him, he waved it off with the frank admission—"Nobody can say I am a punctual Inspector." Why then do we call him the greatest Inspector that we ever had? Because he had that most precious of all combinations—a genius and a heart. Trying ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... mother of this second Nero, Francis-Joseph. You know that one hundred and fifty years ago, Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, the bravest of the brave, foreseeing the growth of Russia, and fearing that it would oppress and overwhelm civilization, ventured with a handful of men to attack its rising power. After immortal deeds, and almost fabulous victories, one loss made him a refugee upon Turkish soil, like myself. But, happier than myself, he succeeded in persuading Turkey of the ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... of religion with the political constitution of a state:—"What purpose [he asks] can it serve, except the baleful purpose of communicating and receiving contamination? Under such an alliance corruption must alight upon the one, and slavery overwhelm the other." ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... bloom of spring— The cuckoo yonder from an English elm Crying 'with my false egg I overwhelm The native nest:' and fancy hears the ring Of harness, and that deathful arrow sing, And Saxon battleaxe clang on Norman helm. Here rose the dragon-banner of our realm: Here fought, here fell, our Norman-slander'd king. O Garden blossoming out of ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... temptations are, the more the secret sins overwhelm the soul, and the more airs of peace and holiness are put on. The more foul the secret emanations of the heart, the more the fair and refined penitent surrounds herself by an atmosphere of the sweetest perfumes of a sham piety. The more polluted the inside of the sepulchre is, the more shining ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... allowed for cultivation, and space given for growth. It seems to me that, even should such space and facilities be denied by stringent circumstances and a rigid fate, still it should do you good fully to know, and tenaciously to remember, that you have such a capacity. When other people overwhelm you with acquired knowledge, such as you have not had opportunity, perhaps not application, to gain—derive not pride, but support from the thought. If no new books had ever been written, some ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... fleet, manned by Phoenician sailors, and a huge army, under the two satraps Datis and Artaphernes, were on the opposite side of the AEgean Sea, ready to overwhelm little Attica first, and then all Greece. Nobody had yet stood firm against those all-conquering Persians, and as they came from island to island the inhabitants fled or submitted. Attica was so small as to have only 9000 fighting men to meet this host. They sent to ask the aid of the Spartans, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dish I mentioned to Mrs. Larder, Sir Wycherly's cook, was lobscous; and, would you believe it, gentlemen, the poor woman had never heard of it! I began with a light hand, as it might be, just not to overwhelm her with knowledge, at a blow, as Sir Jarvy captivated the French frigate with the upper tier of guns, that he might take ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... here, The black clouds dragging near, Against this lonely elm Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm In ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Mokatto—a very shrewd fellow by all accounts—had entered into friendly communication with the rulers of the other nations whose countries bordered on Izreel, and had pointed out the folly of fighting each other for no particular reason, when, by uniting their forces, they could attack the Izreelites, overwhelm them, and divide their country equally among the victors. This counsel, there was every reason to believe, had been accepted; for reports were almost daily coming to hand of preparations which pointed to nothing less than an impending attack upon Izreel ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... tremendous fury; the waves grew higher and mightier, and became rushing hills of water, overwhelming, irresistible. To me, quailing in my frail bark, in all the consciousness of helplessness and ruin, it seemed as though the winds and the waves were really sentient beings combining to overwhelm me, and increasing their ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... designs they had, and thus for a long time after the outbreak of hostilities standardisation was an impossibility. The versatility of a Latin race in a measure compensated for this; from the outset, the Germans tried to overwhelm the French Air Force, but failed, since they had not the numerical superiority, nor—this equally a determining factor—the versatility and resource of the French pilots. They calculated on a 50 per cent superiority to ensure success; they needed more nearly 400 per cent, for the German fought ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... with the miniature landscape at his feet in the wan starlight, the panic-stricken tiny city, the island with its monsters rising to overwhelm this microscopic world—it seemed to Alan then that if he let her go it was the end for him ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... lord of help, cut off his sovereignty; judge not his judgment; carry away his path; annihilate the march of his armies; cast an evil look upon him to uproot his rule, and fix for him the loss of his land. May the evil sentence of Shamash quickly overwhelm him; deprive him of life among the living above; and below in the earth, deprive his ghost of water. May Sin, the lord of the sky, the god who creates, whose ray is splendid among the gods, deprive him ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... like a criminal at the place of execution ready to expire. At the moving of the earth, I was, as it were, sea-sick; and very much afraid lest the rock, under which was my fence and habitation, should overwhelm it and myself ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... innocence, the defender of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make him fairly irresistible. Even an ordinary law argument, coming from him, seldom failed to produce the impression that he was profoundly convinced of the soundness of his position. It is not surprising ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... listens below in silent prayer and praise. Great peace of God, be with us all! Great peace of God encompass us! Speak to the waves tonight, Father, that they stand. Stretch forth Thy hand and stay their power, Calm them, that they overwhelm not. For Thy voice is "mightier than the noise of many waters, Yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." This Thou ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... resisting her eagerness to overwhelm him with questions concerning the one man of all the world she most desired to learn about. "I can spare you but ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... and gambling joints; an eager, excited mob crowding on the loose sidewalks, floundering knee-deep in the mire of the streets, struggling and squabbling and cursing over their outfits—that is all I remember of Skagway. The mountains, stark and bare to the bluff, seemed to overwhelm the flimsy town, and between them, like a giant funnel, a great wind ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... measured, and sententious style of enunciation which characterized his eloquence, appeared to English ears cold and stiff: unfortunately, too, for Flood, one of his own countrymen, Courtenay, instantly Opened on him such a battery of ridicule and wit, as seemed to overwhelm the new Member. He made no attempt at reply, and under these circumstances began the division. It formed a triumphant exhibition Of ministerial strength, the Coalition numbering 208; while only 102 persons, of whom I was ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... other purpose guiding her footsteps than that of finding some place where she could reflect, without disturbance, upon the fate before her. In that heated hall she must have died; but it might be that in the cool, open air, she could conquer the delirium which threatened to overwhelm her, and could thus regain her self-control. If only for five minutes, it might be well. With her quick energy and power of decision, even five minutes of cool, deliberate counsel with herself might suffice to shape and direct her ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... defence, controlled by one master-hand upon the levers, would count for nothing against that overwhelming onrush of armed thousands, that flood of men dammed up above the town, and waiting the signal to roll down and overwhelm her, and——Cripps! what a chance to make a glorious, heroic splash in Greta's sight! Die, perhaps, in saving her from them Dutchies. To be sure, she, divine creature, was a Dutchy too. But no ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... completely change the aspect of the war. It was while pondering his masterstroke, and deliberating on the choice of the path across the Alps that was to lead to it, that Bonaparte gave his approval; while elaborating a scheme to overwhelm the armies of Austria in an abyss of carnage, that he expressed the wish that, as the expedition would come in contact with ignorant savages, care should be taken to make it appear that the French met them as "friends ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... desire. It was to test the strength of their love that he left them in the forest. They have survived this stringent test and convinced him of their love. The girls are in no mood to query his explanation and 'uniting with him' they overwhelm him with ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... not alto ether like herself; unsettled a little, as it appeared; and Michael's illness, befalling so soon, brought her into a nervous state such as she had not known for a long time. The immediate effect of the disclosure made to her by Michael whilst he was recovering was to overwhelm her with a sense of responsibilities, to throw her mind into painful tumult. Slow of thought, habituated to the simplest views of her own existence, very ignorant of the world beyond the little ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... and the pass might have been defended by a score of resolute men against an army. Halfway up we received a check. O'Brien, going forward with a handful of men, got in touch with the enemy, who immediately turned about and threatened to overwhelm ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... said the young man, "I have said sufficient to induce your highness not to overwhelm before his majesty my poor friend, De Guiche, against whom all the malevolence of a party bitterly opposed to your ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... pace, was always tiring, as Rose knew to her cost, but also by the turmoil of spirit she had been in. All the toils, disappointments, and drudgery of the life which lay before her seemed suddenly to press upon her and overwhelm her, and before she knew what she was doing she was sobbing behind her handkerchief. She had one grain of sense left, she turned her back; but her heaving shoulders and the muffled sound of a "good cry" were not ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... sometimes in another. But he is armed after such fashion that he laughs all of them to scorn; and even if the novelty of his opinions prevents entire persuasion, he at least convicts of emptiness most of the arguments with which his adversaries endeavour to overwhelm him. He was particularly admirable on Monday last in the house of Signor Frederico Ghisilieri; and what especially pleased me was, that before replying to the contrary arguments, he amplified and enforced them with new grounds of great plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... not to laugh, and Maurice swallowed his impatience long enough to say, "Jacobus, you overwhelm me!" Then he took his departure, holding the gift between a reluctant thumb and finger. "Funny little beggar," he said to himself, and pitched the stub into the gutter from which Jacky had salvaged it; he didn't look back to see his son hanging over the palings, watching the fate ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... the voice parental Cry, "my youngster shall not row!" Then my wrath is transcendental, Then my words with vigour flow. Sires, with hearts of alabaster, Your stern "vetos" yet you'll rue, When ye see a sixth disaster, Overwhelm your loved light-blue. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... strata too harsh, hard, and solid, for their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a fresh spot that works more freely ? Or may they not in other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and mouldering, liable to flounder, and threatening to overwhelm ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... of China. The wild tenants of this wilderness, the various tribes of Tartars, once the terror of East and West, were like a vast ocean of human beings swayed to and fro by nomadic and predatory instincts, which for centuries threatened to overwhelm and efface every vestige of ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... external fact. So long as a belief in propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of truth as such is not possible, any more than it is possible for a man who is swimming for his life to make meteorological observations on the storm which threatens to overwhelm him. The sense of alarm and haste, the anxiety for personal safety, which Dr. Cumming insists upon as the proper religious attitude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough, calm thinking no truly noble, disinterested ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... Watch of the Night, or Three in the Morning these poor Innocents overwhelm'd with heavy Sleep, ran violently on that place they named, set Fire to their Hovels, which were all thatcht, and so, without Notice, burnt Men, Women and Children; kill'd whom they pleas'd upon the Spot; but those they preserv'd as ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... the Trojans overwhelm; And Mnestheus lays hard load upon his helm. Sick sweat succeeds; he drops at ev'ry pore; With driving dust his cheeks are pasted o'er; Shorter and shorter ev'ry gasp he takes; And vain efforts and hurtless blows he makes. Plung'd in the flood, and made the waters fly. The yellow god the ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... religion does not propose to overwhelm the old Adam by singleminded devotion to one selected interest, nor does it refer vanity to an accidental error. On the contrary, it conceives that any special interest, any claim made by a finite and mortal creature upon an infinite world, is bound to be defeated. It is not special acts, it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... rivers, and upon the plantations on the south side of the James. The savages could not penetrate to the older and more populous communities of the lower peninsula. For this reason the disaster, horrible as it was, did not overwhelm the entire colony and threaten its destruction as ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... round the Earth once in every twenty-four hours. The Primum Mobile enclosed, as if in a shell, all the other spheres, in which was included the created universe, and, although of vast dimensions, its conception did not overwhelm the mind in the same manner that the effort to ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... mountain, he abode, And thenceforth oftentimes they rode Into the fair land once called his, And yet but little came of this, Except more woe for Heaven to see Some little added misery Unto that miserable realm: The barbarous foe did overwhelm The cities and the fertile plain, And many a peaceful man was slain, And many a maiden brought to shame. And yielded towns were set aflame; For all the land was masterless. Long dwelt the King in great distress, From wood ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... always looks well for a lawyer or an agent confidentiel to keep a client waiting for a moment or two while he attends to the enormous pressure of correspondence which, if allowed to accumulate for five minutes, would immediately overwhelm him. I signed and folded the letter, threw it with a nonchalant air into a basket filled to the brim with others of equal importance, buried my face in my hands for a few seconds as if to collect my ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was to follow. No sooner was the storm over than another danger loomed up. The ship's crew included a number of renegade English sailors who conspired to mutiny, to overwhelm the officers, and to kill the crew and passengers. By including in their confidence an American sailor, whom they mistook for an Irishman, their plot came to naught. Lafayette summoned the whole crew, put thirty-three mutineers in chains, and thus saved himself from capture and the ship ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as with the people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or with the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently expected the Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their children's children, but never themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case of perverse optimism here to be considered will end in such disaster, while there is every ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... reading; in his excitement he even recommended some slight study of Patristics. There was nothing like getting to the sources—Polycarp and Irenaeus were important; or he could lend her Lightfoot. But he did not want to overwhelm her with dogmas—mere matter for the intellect—he would prefer her to accept some truths provisionally and see how they worked out. After all, the working out was everything. He wanted her to see that it was a question of will. In the crisis of ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... world at peace. In every discussion of the peace that must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man must take that ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... Catholic priest will dare to deny what I say on this matter; for they know that it would be easy for me to overwhelm them with such crowd of testimonies that their grand imposture would ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... see you have left the young gentleman behind, just go yourselves to taste Mistress Boris's pies, or she will overwhelm me ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... tails, those new beasts—a little tail behind, in the usual place, and a very big tail in front, which they use as a hand. They are very many, and very terrible. Do you think it is they who are driving all these other beasts upon us to overwhelm us?" ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... ranks of the common people. Burke's "Vicissitudes of Families" strikingly exhibits the rise and fall of families, and shows that the misfortunes which overtake the rich and noble are greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the poor. This author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many of the old nobility and dispersed their families. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... weighs me down, and I implore you on my knees, my dear, generous friend, quick—quick—before I go over the sea—wire that you will agree to correct our mutual mistake, remove then the only burden on my wings, and my father, who will be responsible for the whole business, has promised me not to overwhelm you with formalities. So, then, I am free of ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... eagerness to arrive at the scene of action would not wait to provide artillery and the various engines required in a siege. "The multitude of my forces," said he, confidently, "will be sufficient to overwhelm the enemy." ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... King One doom shall overwhelm! The oaken cell Shall lodge him well Whose sceptre ruled a realm— While he, who never knew a home, Shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... declaring, that the state is in the most calamitous situation; that the springs of government are almost broken, that the public treasure is exhausted, and that they are threatened with evils, which may overwhelm the republic. Decreed, that a forced loan shall be levied of 600,000,000 in specie upon a million of citizens. It is computed that by means of three hundred millions in specie, thirty milliards of assignats ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... objection to letting his defeated antagonist discharge his venom against the absent colonel, who would never know of it, and who was already breasting the waves of a sorrow so deep and so strong as almost to overwhelm him. For he had loved the boy; all his hopes had centred around this beautiful man child, who had promised so much that was good. His own future had been planned with reference to him. Now he was dead, and the bereaved father gave ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "the principle of beauty in all things." It is that to which all I have said has been leading, as many roads unite in one. We must try to use discrimination, not to be so optimistic that we see beauty if it is not there, not to overwhelm every fling that every craftsman has at beauty with gush and panegyric; not to praise beauty in all companies, or to go off like a ripe broom-pod, at a touch. When Walter Pater was confronted with something which courtesy demanded that he should seem to admire, he used to say ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of whom we speak are of two classes, the leaders and the dupes. The latter, careless of the fact that even if a sudden peace could be brought about it must overwhelm the country in financial ruin, believe in a restitution of the status quo ante bellum. They think that their leaders will, in unison with DAVIS and his colleagues, reunite, annul Emancipation, disavow ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Felicia, blushing, "you overwhelm me with your kindness. I know that you are my mother's sister, and that by your art you turned the soldiers who were sent to kill me into cabbages, and my nurse into a hen, and that you do me only too much honor in proposing that I ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... desertion. Dear, there are very deep recesses in a woman's heart; how deep in my own heart, I did not know myself until to-day, as I did not know the whole extent of love. The greatest misery which could overwhelm us is a light burden compared with the mere thought of harm for him whom we love. And how if we cause the harm, is it not enough to make one die?... This is the thought that is weighing upon me. But it brings in its train another thought that is heavier far, ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... was responsible for the noisiest fun of the farce, the purely American performance of Miss MARGARET MOFFATT at the opening of the First Act was as good as anything in the play. But happily this is not one of those imported creations that overwhelm my uninstructed intelligence with exotic colour and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... leaving Andre and crossing to M. de Kercadiou, "you make me ashamed of you! To allow a feeling of peevishness to overwhelm ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... My father had thought much over all the deeds which the Lord had done for Israel; he had thought over the passage of the sea when Israel could not find any way open before them, and the very waves which were to overwhelm them rose like a wall and became their safeguard. But he himself had seen nothing of this kind, and he almost doubted if the tales were true, and if times had not always been as they were then, all events happening alike to ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... enchantments? That, like many another disturbing thought, had to go unanswered, to be driven into the closed chambers of Carley's mind, there to germinate subconsciously, and stalk forth some day to overwhelm her. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... cast a rapid glance over this fortunate brevet, the good lady clasped her hands, an unspeakable expression of envy and despair contracted her countenance, and she was obliged to sit down to avoid fainting. Montalais was not malicious enough to rejoice extravagantly at her victory, or to overwhelm the conquered enemy, particularly when that enemy was the mother of her friend; she used then, but did not abuse her triumph. Malicorne was less generous; he assumed noble poses in his fauteuil and stretched himself out with a familiarity which, two hours earlier, would have drawn upon ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... declared, in earnest terms, that he was fully bent on remaining where he was rather than seek to return to his former miserable greatness, as he called it: where the seeds of pride, ambition, avarice, and luxury might revive, take root, and again overwhelm him. "Let me remain, dear sir," he said, in conclusion—"let me remain in this blessed confinement, banished from the crimes of life, rather than purchase a show of freedom at the expense of the liberty of my reason, and at the future happiness which I now have in my view, but ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... moment. "I am a godless man," he said. "The stars and space and time overwhelm my imagination. I cannot imagine ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... cried the old squaw, Nashola's grandmother. "Call up a storm that will break their wings and shatter the sides of those giant canoes. Bring wind and rain and thunder and all the spirits of the sea to overwhelm them." ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... Mount of Gold Quartz-mining Company was to strike a reef five yards wide, composed entirely of gold, and to overwhelm its various parents with contrition on account of past lambastings by making them suddenly rich beyond the dreams of Oriental avarice. Time had served to dim the ardour of its hopes in this direction; but the ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary, with your ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... eyes and parted lips at the door by which he had gone. Having remained with suspended breath in this attitude for a few seconds she turned round, bent her head upon the table, and burst out weeping anew with thrice the violence of the former time. It really seemed now as if her grief would overwhelm her, all the emotions which had been suppressed, bottled up, and concealed since Bob's return having made themselves ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... "You overwhelm me with grief," cried Delvile, "by finding you thus distressed, when I had hoped—Oh cruel Cecilia! how different to this did I hope to have met you!—all your doubts settled, all your fears removed, your mind perfectly ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... morphological and cultural, existing between certain pathogenetic bacteria are in some cases so great as to completely overwhelm the differences; again the same bacterium may under varying conditions assume appearances so different from those regarded as typical or normal as to throw doubt on its identity. In each case a simple inoculation experiment may decide the point at once. As a concrete example ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... moments of vague misgivings, that leave the soul as it were in utter darkness, come to overwhelm you, call upon GOD, as a child in terror cries ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... vanish. If a man be born blind, deaf, a cripple, a slave, an idiot, it is because in a previous life he abused his privileges and heaped on his soul a load of guilt which he is now expiating. If a sudden calamity overwhelm a good man with unmerited ruin and anguish, it is the penalty of some crime committed in a state of responsible being beyond the confines of his present memory. Does a surprising piece of good fortune accrue to any one, splendid riches, a commanding position, a peerless friendship? It is the reward ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the sidewalk in his excessively long-tailed frock-coat, shiny stump-toed boots, and with dainty little slouch hat tipped over left eye, the small-fry roughs made room for his majesty; when he entered the restaurant, the waiters deserted bankers and merchants to overwhelm him with obsequious service; when he shouldered his way to a bar, the shouldered parties wheeled indignantly, recognized ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... remembrance of a common doom, To soft compassion melt the hardest heart? How much more mine! in them I see myself. I trembling kneel'd before the altar once, And solemnly the shade of early death Environ'd me. Aloft the knife was rais'd To pierce my bosom, throbbing with warm life; A dizzy horror overwhelm'd my soul; My eyes grew dim; I found myself in safety. Are we not bound to render the distress'd The gracious kindness from the gods receiv'd? Thou know'st we are, and yet wilt thou ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... back. "There is destruction, treachery, and murder outside. Crime may break in here and overwhelm us, but we ought not to ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... am young—youth can bear so much better. And, besides, I don't think that my sadness would ever be like mama's. You see, in a way, I have so much more in my life. I should never sit down in my sadness and let it overwhelm me. I should use it, always. It is strange that grief should so often make people selfish. It ought, rather, to open doors for us and ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... it is almost certain that not one man would ever get back again, as by that time the people would have been roused and excited, armed and sufficiently disciplined; and their numbers, independent of their bravery, would overwhelm three or four times the number I ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to go to work in earnest, to boldly grasp at every means of honorable warfare, as France or England would do in our case, and overwhelm the South, or are we going to let it alone? Are we, for years to come, to slowly fight our way from one small war-expediency to another, as it may please the mongrel puppies of Democracy to gradually get their eyes opened or not? Are we to arm the blacks by and by, or wait till they shall have planted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... informed himself, "even if he is gone a little in one particular. He certainly does believe in himself for fair! Wonder where he got his education—notice the English he writes? And, say—going blind! Fancy that! Santa Claus, you overwhelm me, you are too bountiful, you are too generous—you'll have nothing left for the next chimney! Deaf and dumb—and blind. Really, I do not deserve this—I really don't—let me at least tip the hat-boy, or ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... the governor of Blentz hastened toward the gate, pausing for an instant to overwhelm Butzow. In the fierce scrimmage that followed the lieutenant was overthrown, though not before his sword had passed through the heart of the rat-faced one. Deserting their fallen comrade the two dashed through the gate, ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... words, to think effectively one must have had, or now have, experiences which will furnish him resources for coping with the difficulty at hand. A difficulty is an indispensable stimulus to thinking, but not all difficulties call out thinking. Sometimes they overwhelm and submerge and discourage. The perplexing situation must be sufficiently like situations which have already been dealt with so that pupils will have some control of the meanings of handling it. A large part of the art of instruction lies in making the difficulty of new problems ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... tranquillizing the universal disappointment, for facing the relapse from infinite excitement, and for propitiating the particular fury of those who will now hold themselves to have been defrauded of their money. Leave this tempest to itself, and it will go near to overwhelm the man: or if the local separation of the parties most injured should be so managed as to intercept that result, assuredly it will overwhelm the cause. In the estimate, therefore, of O'Connell, we may rely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... perception of her sex she felt it, and drew back a step, not knowing but the next moment might overwhelm her with an accusation. But Bigot was not sure, and he dared not hint to Angelique more ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... told him—that Ali Partab was Mahommed Gunga's man. Apparently, then, Ali Partab—a prisoner in Jaimihr's palace-yard—was the only connecting link between him and the Rangars whom he wished to win over to his side. He was as anxious as any to help overwhelm the British, but he naturally wished to come out of the turmoil high and dry himself, and he was, therefore, ready to consider the protection of individual British subjects if that would please the men whom ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... variety of secondary problems could also be expected. Search and rescue operations—requiring heavy equipment to move debris—would be needed to free people trapped in collapsed buildings. It is likely that injuries, particularly those immediately after the event, could overwhelm medical capabilities, necessitating a system of allocating medical resources to those who could be helped the most. Numerous local fires must be expected; nevertheless, a conflagration such as that which followed the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, or the San Francisco ...
— An Assessment of the Consequences and Preparations for a Catastrophic California Earthquake: Findings and Actions Taken • Various
... forever, and in her face the bridal joy outshone the bridal terror. She would do this and that; thought to play with her joy to taste the sweetness of its savor; but suddenly all her thought was lost in the flood of love triumphant which rose to overwhelm her. She ran forward, her arms ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Nothing was to be seen through the mists save the mad foam-rush of the waters that leaped and bounded like white-maned horses in a race of death. Bold as the man was, he dared not look for long. Dizziness threatened to overwhelm him with sickening lure, its invitation to the plunge. So, realizing that nothing was to be gained by staying there, he drew back and once ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... hath lost his hope, and yet desires to live, He that is overwhelm'd with woe, and yet would counsel give; He that delights to sigh, to walk abroad alone, To drive away the weary time with his lamenting moan; He that in his distress despaireth of relief, Let him ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... for a great actor to express his simplest thoughts with conviction. No, it was when he expressed them best that he was least convincing, since an emotion that can be adequately presented is not a very big emotion; at least it does not overwhelm the soul. Inadequacy, helplessness, gaucherie, prove that the feelings are bigger than the eloquence. They "get across the footlights" between each player on the human stage ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... service. It matters not which of the kings amongst men we choose, we find that his kingship was only gained and kept after he had passed through the school of grief. It is a glad world for most of us—else indeed we might wish that one cataclysm would overwhelm us all; but our masters, those who teach us and guide us, have all been under the dominion of a nameless something which we can hardly call Melancholy, but which is a kind of divine sad sister to Melancholy. There is no discontent in the sorrow of the great ones; they ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Spanish army never landed in England. When its sails appeared, and it seemed as though it must overwhelm the small English fleet that was opposed to it, Queen Elizabeth on horseback rode among her soldiers, encouraging and cheering them, and urging them to fight to their last drop of blood in defense of their country. ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... fortifications, but the great mass of the people were safe on their inland farms and in their untrodden forests. The Americans may not have been unconquerable, but English troops were not numerous enough to overwhelm them in their scattered settlements. It would not pay to send army after army to be lost in swamps or drowned in rivers or ambushed and destroyed ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... show of the summer softness—a contact of something unseen—an amour of the light and air, I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness, And will go gallivant with the light ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... O Lord, in might victorious, Rise and give Thy people aid; Come, O come in triumph glorious, Overwhelm Thy foes dismayed. Circled with a thousand wonders, Girt with all Thy power and strength, Mid ten thousand thousand thunders Save, redeem Thy own, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... kernel in a thick shell; and not merely concealed: it was divided, and then the divisions were themselves divided. It was condensed, compressed, bound, and at the same time subterranean. It was created to rise from its depths, rejoice, and overwhelm: "But clothe the lonely one in thy clouds of gold! Enshroud with ivy until the roses bloom again, oh Love, the dampened hair of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann |
