"Whirling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the bleeding, crumpled bodies and the teeming swarms beyond, I saw as through a red mist the glittering, whirling maze of Leider's wondrous generators, and began ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... come from the cold and stormy North, With a rush and a roar I hurry forth, I toss from the trees the dead leaves down, The withered leaves all sere and brown, And sway the branches to and fro As on my way I whirling go. At crack and crevice I slip in, And make a lively sounding din. Swift I come and swift away, With you I can no longer stay, For I am wanted elsewhere now, And so good-bye, I ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... he was fortified for the occasion, as the Fifteen Mile Falls proved about as rough an experience as he had ever gone through. At Holbrook's Bar, the last pitch of the falls, M'Indoe's Dam, Barnet Pitch and other place, he encountered many dangers in the way of whirling currents and jagged rocks. He suffered but a slight bruise in the descent though his dress was cut and he was obliged to stop and repair it at Lower Waterford where he remained over night. At a little settlement above that village, someone in ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... campaign suddenly yielded a victory. Lady Cressage appeared on her balcony, clad in some charming sort of morning gown, and bareheaded. She had nothing in her hands, and seemed indifferent to the birds, but when Thorpe flung forth a handful of fragments into the centre of their whirling flock, she looked up at him. It was the anxious instant, and he ventured upon what he hoped was a decorous compromise between a bow and a look ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... native men and women, many in mixed costume of cloth and skin. Zulime's artistic joy in them filled me with complacent satisfaction. I had the air of a showman rejoicing in his exhibition hall. With keen interest we watched the young warriors as they came whirling in on their swift ponies, each in his gayest garments, the tail of his horse decorated with rosettes and ribbons. Possessing the swiftness and the grace of Centaurs, coming and going like sudden whirlwinds, they were superb embodiments of a race which was passing. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Phoebus fayrest childe, That did presume his father's fiery wayne, And flaming mouths of steeds unwonted wilde, Thro' highest heaven with weaker hand to rayne; ... He leaves the welkin way most beaten playne, And, wrapt with whirling wheels, inflamed the skyen With fire not made to burne, but fayrely ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... discussing together the chances of the coming scholarship examination, when they found themselves near a place called Gower's Mill, and heard a sudden cry for help. Pressing forwards they saw a boat floating upside down, and whirling about tumultuously in the racing and rain-swollen eddies of the mill-dam. A floating straw hat was already being sucked in by the gurgling rush of water that roared under the mighty circumference of the wheel, and for a moment they saw nothing more. But as ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... warm them. Ben had a large and sharp knife in his pocket, and he began to whittle the board like a typical Yankee. Deck put his staff into the scull-hole, and made an effort to steer the tender, and thus prevent her from whirling. As a rudder it was a failure; but as an oar, heaving around the stern, he succeeded with much exertion in ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... people had their principal dancing-place. John lay quite still from ten till twelve at night. At last it struck twelve. Immediately there was a ringing and a singing in the hills, and then a whispering and a lisping, and a whiz and a buzz all about him, for the little people were now, some whirling round and round in the dance, and others sporting and tumbling about in the moonshine, and playing a thousand merry pranks and tricks. He felt a secret dread come over him at this whispering and buzzing, for he could see nothing of them, as the caps ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... sorts of whirling thoughts in his mind—fragments cast up by the waves of desolate experience he had been passing through—inarticulate cries of warning, judgment, pain. But he ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... off the whale the writhing cloud changed its appearance—and changed so rapidly that I was held spellbound. It was sweeping over the seas so close, it seemed that the topmasts of the bark could not have cleared it. Now whirling tongues of cloud shot downward while dozens of spiral columns of water leaped up to meet these gyrating tongues. Thus sucked up by the whirling cloud the waterspouts were formed, and dozens of them swept on across the sea beneath ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... springy turf. Sometimes the engineer would curb his iron horse and hold him back against the "down-grade" impetus of the heavy Pullmans far in rear; sometimes he would open his throttle and give her full head, and the long train would seem to leap into space, whirling clouds of dust from under the whirring wheels, and then Van would almost tear his heart out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the money, Uncle John?" Beth whispered, when at last they were whirling along and skirting the base of Mt. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... which was waving in the wind, though the place they occupied was comparatively sheltered. I turned my eyes upon their Sahib, and the blood in my veins stood still. The veil of somebody's topi, which hung beside him, tied to a pillar, was simply whirling in the wind, while the hair of the Sahib himself lay as still as if it had been glued to his shoulders, not a hair moved, nor a single fold of his light muslin garment. No statue could be more motionless. What is this then? ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... Mylitta, Cotytto, and many immemorial figures from before the Flood streamed by and melted into the woven paces of Debora—this new Jephtha's daughter dancing to her doom as her father fingered the Tune of Time. In the whirling patterns of her dance, Ferval discerned, though dimly, the Veil of Maya, the veil of illusion called Space, on the thither side of which are embroidered the fugacious ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... were stationed, waving long-lashed whips, plunge! ahead went the wild horses, jumping into the wheat-sheaves breast-high, rearing, squealing, kicking, lashing out their hoofs, their eyes starting from their heads, while each driver stood firm in one spot, whirling his whiplash and keeping his team within a circle one half of which was in the wheat and the other half outside. Thus there were three circles, one of wheat and the other two described by the horses as they dashed wildly around, the drivers shouting, the wheat flying and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and show signs of breaking away, the boys would run, with wild whoops, back to shore, the very danger seeming to add to their enjoyment. Then, with poles and "prys," they would work upon the cracking mass until it floated clear and went whirling ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Giants War, has given full scope to that Wildness of Imagination which was natural to him. He tells us, that the Giants tore up whole Islands by the Roots, and threw them at the Gods. He describes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his Arms, and whirling it to the Skies, with all Vulcan's Shop in the midst of it. Another tears up Mount Ida, with the River Enipeus, which ran down the Sides of it; but the Poet, not content to describe him with this Mountain upon his Shoulders, tells us that the River flow'd down his Back, as he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... restless network of gold whose meshes constantly succeeded each other. This was the reflection of the invisible water. When his ship was immovable in the ports, there always came in through his window the whirling noise of the cranes, the cries of the stevedores and the voices of those who were in the neighboring vessels. On the high sea the cool and murmuring silence of immensity used to fill his sleeping room. A wind of infinite purity that came perhaps ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... he had taken assured him that no one could approach the villa, to which he himself dared not advance. At length, in a paroxysm of energetic despair, he had rushed forward, met them instantly, and confessed with a whirling brain, and almost unconscious of his utterance, that 'they could not hope to see ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... other side of the steps a black figure rose, a fist shot out, and Mr. Max went spinning like a whirling dervish down the snowy path, to land in a heap five feet away. The next instant the mayor of Reuton and the black figure were locked in terrific conflict. Mr. Magee, astounded by this turn of affairs, could only stand and stare through ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... the sound have been more distinctly heard. His eyes and ears were directed intently forwards; and I could feel through the saddle the palpitations of his heart. With red dilated nostrils he snorted violently, and whirling round, would have dashed off at full speed, had I not prevented him. The distension of the nostrils is not for the sake of scenting the source of danger, for when a horse smells carefully at any object and is not alarmed, he does not dilate his nostrils. Owing to ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... brackish and unwholesome, or maddening, slow dribbles in a thirsty soil. Here you find the hot sink of Death Valley, or high rolling districts where the air has always a tang of frost. Here are the long heavy winds and breathless calms on the tilted mesas where dust devils dance, whirling up into a wide, pale sky. Here you have no rain when all the earth cries for it, or quick downpours called cloud-bursts for violence. A land of lost rivers, with little in it to love; yet a land that once visited must be come back to inevitably. If it were not ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... that great poet on this account. But if I see fewer exceptions, I can find infinitely more beauties in him; as he has. I think, scarcely an action, circumstance, or description of any kind whatever, relating to a spear, which I have not seen and recognized among these people; as their whirling motion, and whistling noise, as they fly; their quivering motion, as they stick in the ground when they fall; their meditating their aim, when they are going to throw; and their shaking them in their hand, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... breach, while Ned took part in the front row of its defenders. Frau Plomaert was slow, but she was strong when she chose to exert herself, and when the conflict was at its thickest she lighted the balls at the fires over which caldrons of oil were seething, and whirling them round her head sent them one by one into the ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... from his nervous grasp the lightnings flew, Reiterated swift; the whirling flash, Cast sacred splendor, and the thunder-bolt Fell. Then on every side the foodful earth Roared in the burning flame, and far and near The trackless depth of forests crashed with fire; Yea, the broad earth burned ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... perplexing were the lights, the motions, the toilets, the full-dress uniforms of officers and the harmonies of sound. Yet light, sound, and movement were not so much the essence of that giddy scene as an intense aim at obliviousness in the beings composing it. For two or three hours at least those whirling young people meant not to know that they were mortal. The room was beating like a heart, and the pulse was regulated by the trembling strings of the most popular quadrille band in Wessex. But at last his eyes grew settled enough to ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... light made him feel less forlorn, and for a moment his soul again responded to his high purpose. But now he was to seek necessary repose. In vain. His heated frame and anxious mind were alike restless. He turned, he tossed in his bed, but he could not banish from his ear the whirling sound of his late conveyance, the snore of Mr. Macmorrogh, and the voice of Tom Rawlins. He kept dwelling on every petty incident of his journey, and repeating in his mind every petty saying. His determination to slumber made him even less sleepy. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... course he did, Rex ceased to think of him, not feeling any curiosity to go and see with whom his late fellow-lodger might be quarreling. He sat and watched instead, as he lounged in the sunshine, some smart carriages whirling past, their horses stepping high, the lackeys muffled from the mountain air in winter furs, crests on ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... to be wrong in the chicken house, and when Dorothy looked through the slats in the door she saw a group of hens and roosters huddled in one corner and watching what appeared to be a whirling ball of feathers. It bounded here and there about the chicken house, and at first Dorothy could not tell what it was, while the screeching of the chickens ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Cambon's attitude has been admirable?" remarked the British Ambassador to me, in the train that was whirling us far away from the German capital on August 6th. "Throughout these terrible days nothing has been able to affect his coolness, his presence of mind, and his insight." I cannot express my own admiration better than by repeating this verdict of so capable a diplomat ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the elm-clad green; His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene; Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, Swings from its brim the swollen ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... all the African vices, one dare not dwell upon such avowals. "Lord," he says, "I was loathsome in Thy sight." And with pitiless justice he analyses the effect of the evil: "It stormed confusedly within me, whirling my thoughtless youth over the precipices of desire. And I wandered still further from Thee, and Thou didst leave me to myself; the torrent of my fornications tossed and swelled and boiled and ran over." And during this time: "Thou saidst nothing, ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the wild demands of the lady, Euphemia and I contrived to make her understand the true state of the case, and that her child was probably at our lodgings. Then there were great exclamations and quick commands; and, directly, four of us were in a carriage whirling to our hotel. All the way, Pomona sat silent with her child clasped tightly, while Euphemia and I kept up an earnest but unsatisfactory conversation with the lady; for, as to this strange affair, we could tell each other but little. We learned ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... Gosh, "They shall not escape! Am I set at naught by a crazed buffoon?" But in fifty fathoms of thin red tape The Lord Swank swaddled his portly shape, Like a large, insane cocoon. Then round and round and round and round. The Swanks, the Swanks, the whirling Swanks, The twirling Swanks they wound— The swathed and swaddled, molly-coddled ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... and tried to resummon the vision, to rehear those rhythmic words so fraught with wisdom. But all she saw was a sort of heterogeneous mass of whirling colours, and her thoughts, too, seemed to be just a confused and meaningless jumble. Only her FEELING seemed to remain. She could hardly bear it; why is it that you can feel with that intolerably fecund kind of ache while THOUGHTS refuse ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... with bits of it now and then but grubstake old Snowstorm Hickey, who'd been scratching mountainsides all his life and never found a thing and likely never would—a grouchy old hardshell with white hair and whiskers whirling about his head in such quantities that a body just naturally called him Snowstorm without thinking. It made him highly indignant, but he never would get the things cut. Well, and what does this old snow-scene-in-the-Alps do after about a year but mush along up the canon past Mullan and find ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... shawl and the pitcher, and slipped out into the street where the wind lay in ambush and promptly bore down on her in pillars of whirling dust as soon as she appeared. But the sun that pitied her bare feet and little frozen hands played a trick on old Boreas—it showed her a way between the pillars, and only just her skirt was caught by one and ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... strengthen the lungs through the child's play, supply him with the brightly colored paper wind-mills that he can set whirling by blowing lustily; also the rubber balloon toys, even though the torturing squeak of the toys is only heard by those in the vicinity and not by himself. An especially good exercise for the gentle and long-continued control of breath results from the toy blow pipes with conical ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To have fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed have been obvious and tame. But to have avoided them all has been one whirling adventure; and in my vision the heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... The Dine looked down with his arms folded, evil-smiling. She looked up and I saw her spit at him. The man took her by the shoulder, laughing still, and spun her up standing. Half a bowshot away I heard Tse-tse-yote. 'Down! Down!' he shouted. The girl dropped like a quail. The Dine, whirling on his heel, met the arrow with his throat, and pitched choking. I came as fast as I could between the boulders—I am not built for running—Tse-tse had unbound the girl's hands and she leaned ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... was a wild, tempestuous day: there was a strong north wind, with a continual storm of snow drifting on the ground and whirling through the air. My friends would have had me delay my departure, but fearful of prejudicing my employers against me by such want of punctuality at the commencement of my undertaking, I persisted in keeping ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... too, affected his vision, for at one moment thin clouds stretched across his face, and the next he was whirling through perfectly clear air again with no vestige of a cloud in sight. The same reason doubtless explained the sudden presence of sheets of light in the air that reflected the moonlight like particles of glittering ice, and then ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... with brown leaves whirling and grey grass rustling in the hedges, the hum of the fly-wheel sounds afar, travelling through the mist which hides the hills. Sometimes the ricks are in the open stubble, up the Down side, where ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... of the Hoopoes' crowns was known, every one turned fowler and began to hunt the precious birds. In all the land of Israel was heard the twang of bows and the whirling of slings. Bird lime was made in every town, and the price of traps rose in the market so that the trap-makers became rich men. Not a Hoopoe could show his unlucky head without being slain or taken captive, and the days ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... magnificent figure—for she really had a splendid figure in spite of Mrs. Belgrove's depreciation—she looked like a gigantic Norse goddess. With a flashing display of white teeth, she came along swinging her stick, or whirling her shillalah, as Mrs. Belgrove put it, and seemed the embodiment ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... associations, with venerable beauty, at every turn! The moonlight falls through the tall oriel of the Hall, and the armorial shields burn and glow with rich points of colour. I pace to and fro, wondering, musing. All here seems so permanent, so still, so secure, and yet we are spinning and whirling through space to some unknown goal. What are the thoughts of the mighty unresting Heart, to whose vastness and agelessness the whole mass of these flying and glowing suns are but as a handful of dust ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... said there was just emptiness up above," Dhuva recalled. "And some other worlds whirling around, like islands adrift ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... severe, and the thaw did not set in quickly. Now, one Sunday, on their way to mass, the farmers noticed a great flight of crows, who were whirling endlessly above the open field, and then, like a shower of black rain, descended in a heap at the same spot, ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... another day, then turned to snow, choking the city with such a fall as had not been seen since the great blizzard—blocking avenues, barricading cross-streets, burying squares and circles and parks, and still falling, drifting, whirling like wind-whipped smoke from cornice and roof-top. The electric cars halted; even the great snow-ploughs roared impotent amid the snowy wastes; waggons floundered into cross-streets and stuck until dug out; and everywhere, in the thickening obscurity, battalions of emergency men ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... once a certain woman who did not pay due reverence to Mother Friday, but set to work on a distaff-ful of flax, combing and whirling it. She span away till dinner-time, then suddenly sleep fell upon her—such a deep sleep! And when she had gone to sleep, suddenly the door opened and in came Mother Friday, before the eyes of all who were there, clad in a white dress, and in such a rage! And she went straight ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... and attractive, was interrupted, every quarter of an hour or so, by more tumultuous movements. The mass of whirling vapour then rested motionless for a moment—even making a jerking motion of return, as if inhaled by the crater, from the bottom of which the lava rose more strongly as if to encounter it. Then the ground trembles, and the walls of the crater ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... filling the universe; the heavens rest upon his head; earth cannot hold him; earth and heaven tremble at his breath; he is king of all; the mountains are to him as valleys; he goes forth a bull, raging, and rushes through the air, whirling up the dust; he breaks open the rain-containing clouds, and lets the rain pour down; as the Acvins restore the light, so he restores the rain; he is (like) fire born in three places; as the giver of rain which feeds, he creates the plants; he restores or ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... Dante in his mountain solitudes invoked the Emperor, and Italy beheld the powerless march of Henry VII. Neither Pope nor Emperor was strong enough to control the currents of the factions which were surely whirling Italy into the abyss of despotism. Boniface died of grief after Sciarra Colonna, the terrible Ghibelline's outrage at Anagni, and the Papal Court was transferred to Avignon in 1316. Henry VII. expired, of poison probably, at Buonconvento, in 1313. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... mine, a dear foolish, very French heart and soul, is coming presently—his poor brains are whirling with mesmerism in which he believes, as in all other unbelief. He and I are to dine alone (I have not seen him these two years)—and I shall never be able to keep from driving the great wedge right through his breast and descending ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... deep and doggedly for days, hardly noticing who came in or out. When the Grey One entered with him, I felt myself bobbing, whirling up into light surface water. I hardly spoke the first half hour. I remembered the night before, when he told that fine story straight into your eyes. I thought him wonderful then, and it occurred to me that you were in for it. But it was different when he came into my shop—something ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... me is like a whirling Dervish," said Uncle Denny, "with both of you needing me so. You'll ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Hollings?" questioned Mr. Burton, whirling round in his swivel chair and extending ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... sooty guide, who nimbly jumped out of reach, and, when it turned, Mr. Hume was on his feet swinging his rifle-strap over his head. Quick as a trained boxer the long black arm shot out and sent the rifle flying through the air, but as its fierce eyes followed the whirling flight of the weapon, the hunter, putting forth all his great strength, smote the animal full on the ear, a blow that would have felled the strongest man. Then he leapt back, just in time to escape a terrific sweep of ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... while I stood there. At the first word he started, looked at me, seemed satisfied from my expression that I had not read far enough to realize its nature, and, whirling slowly around in his chair, devoured the remainder in silence. I waited a moment, then withdrew to my own desk. One minute, two minutes passed in silence; he was evidently rereading the letter; then he hurriedly rose and left the room. As he passed me I caught a glimpse of ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... apparition of galloping steeds and flying carriage, hurled upon the vessel out of the tempest, flung, a piece of whirling chaos, from the chaotic skies, had almost as startling an effect upon the defenders. For a moment they paused, with weapons uplifted, and stared. Where an enemy had been, there was nothing. So doubtful Greeks or Trojans might have paused ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... intervals quite a dozen of the enemy were trailing along now to cut him off, and victory was bound to be to the most swift. But the enemy were clever enough not to trust to the result of this race, for several hundreds of yards out another line of horsemen was tearing over the plain, whirling their bows and spears over their heads and using them mercilessly upon the flanks ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the latter to foundering that the bow wave of the rescuing craft completed the disaster by surging in over the gunwale in sufficient volume to fill her; and down she went, at the precise moment when some half a dozen ropes, hurled by the sailors above, came whirling down about the shoulders of ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... informing him of the result of the battle, and General Crook conducted me to the home of Miss Wright, where I met for the first time the woman who had contributed so much to our success, and on a desk in her school-room wrote the despatch announcing that we had sent Early's army whirling up ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... a single dollar of all Markland had cast so blindly into the whirling vortex ever came back to him. Fenwick disappeared from New York, leaving behind conclusive evidence of a dark complicity with the specious Englishman, whose integrity had melted away, like snow in the sunshine, ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... so deepened the water from 11 to 32 fathom. The next day, being September the 6th, we could but just discern the land, though we had then no more than about 30 fathom, uncertain soundings; for even while we were out of sight of land we had once but 7 fathom, and had also great and uncertain tides whirling about, that made me afraid to go near a coast so shallow, where we might be soon aground and yet have but little wind to bring us off: for should a ship be near a shoal she might be hurled upon it unavoidably by a strong tide, unless there should be a good ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... a moment or two before following the direction of the officer's pointing hand. Then catching sight of his fellow black he uttered a yell, raised his hoe in both hands, and sent the heavy iron implement whirling along the path, to be brought up with a crash against a good-sized tree. But before it came in contact with the trunk the black at whom it was aimed sprang in among the bushes and disappeared, while the guide trotted on to where the hoe had fallen and picked ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... as she was concerned. To catch the boat express they had made an early start, and they breakfasted in the train between London and Dover. It was fun to sit in comfortable padded armchairs, eating fish or ham and eggs, and watching the landscape whirling past; fun to see the deft-handed waiters nipping about with trays or teacups; and fun to observe the occupants of the other tables in the car. There was a fat, good-natured Frenchman who amused Irene, a languid English lady ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... under the flap of the envelope and threw his letter over the wall. It went like a soaring bird, whirling horizontally, and it must have fallen far out in the middle of the road near the tramway. For the third time that morning the prisoner drew a sigh. He said, "You may turn round now, my friend," and the old Michel faced him. "We have shot our last arrow," said he. "If this also fails, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Ox. "We don't mind it. Never mind doing our kind of work. Wouldn't like to pull the binder with its shining knives and whirling arms, for whoever does that has to walk fast and make sudden turns and stops. Wouldn't like being hitched to the carriage to carry the farmer's family to town. Wouldn't like to take care of the Sheep, like Collie, or to grow feathers like the Geese—but we can draw stone-boats and all ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... reads "meritote," and explains it from Spelman as a game in which children made themselves giddy by whirling on ropes. In French, "virer" means to turn; and the explanation may, therefore, suit either reading. In modern slang parlance, Gerveis would probably have said, "on the rampage," or "on the swing" — not very far from ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... from the plain, stirred by the thundering hooves of horses. And the lord Agamemnon, ever slaying, followed after, calling on the Argives. And as when ruinous fire falleth on dense woodland, and the whirling wind beareth it everywhere, and the thickets fall utterly before it, being smitten by the onset of the fire, even so beneath Agamemnon son of Atreus fell the heads of the Trojans as they fled; and many strong-necked horses rattled empty cars along the highways of the battle, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... spoke the animal dashed straight for the whirling carousel, and Bunny's face, showing some fright, was turned toward his ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope
... the mountain range. Great masses of black rock show among the trees on the hillsides, and under the fringe of fallen trees that hang from the steep banks. Two hours after leaving Njole we are facing our first rapid. Great gray-black masses of smoothed rock rise up out of the whirling water in all directions. These rocks have a peculiar appearance which puzzle me at the time, but in subsequently getting used to it I accepted it quietly and admired. When the sun shines on them they have a soft light blue ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... entire affair could roll, after a jolting, slab-sided, flopping fashion. Inside were curious engines, and sturdy machines designed to throw the cannon-shells they had seen; no explosive was employed, apparently, but centrifugal force generated in whirling wheels. Apparently these cars, or ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... warm-tinted ears before the breeze, but now and then broad cool shadows sped across it as the white-edged clouds drove by. Behind him followed two more teams and machines, half covered by falling sheets of yellow grain, while their whirling wooden arms flashed in the dazzling sunlight as they flung out the sheaves. Bare-armed and very scantily attired men came after them, piling the stocks together. Disturbed as he was, Prescott felt cheered by the prospect ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... seaboard towns one often comes upon strange foreign inheritances, and the soul of a Spanish grandmother might still survive in Nancy, as far as her light feet were concerned. She danced like a flower in the wind. She made you feel light of foot yourself, as if you were whirling and blowing and waving through the air; as if you could go out dancing and dancing over the deep blue sea water of the bay, and find floor enough to touch and whirl upon. But Nancy had always seemed to take her gifts for granted; she had the simplicity of genius. ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... my bow with as good a grace as possible under the circumstances, I take leave of the governor and am escorted by an aide-de-camp, resplendent in white and gold, through innumerable vestibules, and down the great marble staircase, to where my sleigh awaits me in the cutting north-easter and whirling snow. Gliding swiftly homewards along the now brilliantly lit boulevards, I realize for the first time that mine has been but a wild-goose chase after all; that, if India is to be reached by land, it is not via Merv and Cabul, but by way of ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... interfere. I am sure you would be amazed if you knew what a good hand I am at keeping my temper, talking people over, and giving reasons which are not my reasons, but calculated for the meridian of the particular objection; so soon does falsehood await the politician in his whirling path. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then," said Kenneth; and in a moment they were whirling in the waltz, and the boy's momentary embarrassment was ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... ..." His voice, husky, uncertain, brought both his visitors to a halt; and for a wild moment he fancied that after all they were no real beings, only more than usually vivid shadows, projected visions from the whirling phantasmagoria of his brain. The light behind them, streaming in through the open door, confused him, made him feel as though this were all a trick of the nerves, a kind of chaotic nightmare; and with a muttered curse at his own folly in imagining for one ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Bauchles, brogues, old shoes. Bauld, bold. Bees in their bonnet, eccentricities. Birling, whirling. Black-a-vised, dark-complexioned. Bonnet-laird, small landed proprietor, yeoman. Bool, ball. Brae, rising ground. Brig, bridge. Buff, play buff on, to make a fool of, to deceive. Burn, stream. Butt end, end ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... homeward drive, hedgerow and fence gliding by us like slides in a magic lantern. Archer's horse did not belie the character he had given of him. With head erect, and expanded nostril, he threw his legs forward in a long slashing trot, whirling the light tilbury along at the rate of at least eleven miles an hour; and fortunate it was that he did not flinch from his work, for we had between thirteen and fourteen miles to perform in an hour and ten minutes in order to reach the appointed spot by five o'clock. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... once, a new-born world cohered out of the nebula, and the sight of its measured, orderly whirling dazed him. He had been seized with a wish—almost an intention, so stunning in its audacity that he all but reeled under the shock. It seemed to him that the thing must have been germinated in his mind without his knowledge; it had lain there, gathering force while he rested, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... a bitterly cold night and St Agnes' Eve; the snow fell heavily, caught into whirling eddies by the keen north wind. Hilarius and the Friar, crossing an empty waste of bleak unprotected heath, met the full force of the blast, and each moment the snow grew denser, the darkness more complete. They struggled on, breathless, ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... of France, where intrigues, foreign and domestic, conflicting ambitions, stratagems, and hopes, were whirling in never-ceasing tumult, was it strange if the plain Netherland ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... forces in Siberia and his chief bid for distinction was a noisy dislike for the Worker's & Peasants' Republic of Russia, and the I.W.W. which he termed the "American Bolsheviki". During the 1918 raid on the Centralia hall Grimm is said to have been dancing around "like a whirling dervish" and waving the American flag while the work of destruction was going on. Afterwards he became prominent in the American Legion and was the chief "cat's paw" for the lumber interests who were capitalizing the uniform to gain their own unholy ends. Personally he was ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... very bitter weeping of some angels round the Crucifix. But what is most worthy of consideration, above everything else, is to see those spirits visibly cleaving the air with their shoulders, almost whirling right round and yet sustaining the motion of their flight. This work would bear much stronger witness to the excellence of Simone, if, besides the fact that time has eaten it away, it had not been spoilt by ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... to my sickened sight,—a face which I dimly thought I had seen before,—a flood of curls and a rain of kisses showering upon me,—sobs and devouring caresses,—Flora's voice calling me passionate names; and I lying so passive, faintly struggling to remember, until my soul sank whirling in darkness, and I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... my burning breast, With silence balm my whirling brain. 70 Oh, Brandan! to this hour of rest That ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... we crossed a small river at Doniford, where a man was wading the stream below the bridge and fly-fishing for trout; we passed the farmhouses of Rydon, where the steam-thresher was whirling, and the wheat was falling in golden heaps, and the pale-yellow straw was mounded in gigantic ricks; and then we climbed the hill behind St. Audries, with its pretty gray church, and manor house half hidden in the great ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... go to bed early. He had more to do next day than could possibly be done. As he sat on the front steps, having his after-supper smoke, he heard the beat of hoofs, and looked up to see Wilfred whirling by. Lily Marshall sat beside him, all color and radiance, in her youthful bloom. As Wilfred looked over at him, with a nod, Jim threw out his arm in ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... shoulder, bent him slowly, slowly back. The two breathed in short, painful gasps; their swollen muscles trembled under the strain as with ague. Back—back—the Stetson was falling; he seemed almost down, when—the trick is an old one-whirling with the quickness of light, he fell heavily on his opponent, and caught him by ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... Hinpoha admiringly. "We'll be so proud——" Then came a fiercer gust of wind and drowned the remainder of her sentence in its shriek, and they plodded on in silence, covering their faces to shield them from the whirling sand. Only a little way farther they came upon the beach patrol sitting on the ground and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... but what are we after all? Only two whirling atoms, blown on winds of Fate. What difference does it make whether we cling together, or are hopelessly sundered, as ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... the simultaneous rattle and spatter of opposing machine guns made talk impracticable. Blaine was below, the Boche above, each whirling, diving, spiraling as dexterous pilots do ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... cobwebs from the ancient lore, And turn again the book of withered flowers. Within the dusty chambers of the past, Old pictures hang upon the crumbling walls; Dim shadowy forms are in the twilight cast, And many a dance is whirling through the halls. There are bright fires blazing on the hearth, The merry shout falls on the ear again; And little footsteps patter down the path, Just like the coming of the summer rain. I hear the music ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... when, as it happened, Miss Violet bethought her of looking round the corner of the boiler to see whether they were getting near Ryde; and at the same moment it also happened that a heavy wave, striking the bows of the steamer, sent a heap of water whirling down between the paddle-box and the funnel, which caught the young lady on the face with a crack like a whip. As to the shout of laughter which then greeted her, that small party of folks had heard nothing like it for ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... he attributed to a coming change in the weather, wind perhaps, when the sea, instead of being soft blue and calm, might be lashed by a storm to send the waves thundering in upon the rocks, to break up into cataracts of broken water and send the glittering foam whirling aloft ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... reminds me of your awful typhoons. I passed through one of those whirling storms, just as I approached these islands of beauty," I exclaimed. "Can you explain that great ...
— Fil and Filippa - Story of Child Life in the Philippines • John Stuart Thomson
... most diverse costumes, from working smock to middle class overcoat, those endless rows of heads, which the hour and the circumstances endowed with an expression of fanatical energy and enthusiasm, gradually appeared to the girl like a whirling, impetuous torrent. At certain moments she fancied they were not of themselves moving, that they were really being carried away by the force of the "Marseillaise," by that hoarse, sonorous chant. She could not distinguish any conversation, she heard but ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... the day's too long, be gone, The silent nights, the fittest time for moan; But stay this once, unto my suit give ear, And tell my griefs in either Hemisphere. (And if the whirling of thy wheels don't drown'd) The woeful accents of my doleful sound, If in thy swift Carrier thou canst make stay, I crave this boon, this Errand by the way, Commend me to the man more lov'd than life, Shew him the sorrows of his widowed wife; My dumpish thoughts, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... whirlwinds, and the roaring of the waves, as, utterly unable to help ourselves, we drove furiously onward. In a few hours, or in a few minutes even, where should we be? Again, before we could answer the question, the wind changed, with redoubled force it seemed. It came off the land, whirling us round before it. Its force seemed to drive back the waves to their proper level. On a sudden, without a moment's warning, the topsail gave a flap against the mast, the schooner rocked to and fro in the yet troubled sea, and then all was still, and the schooner ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... forgotten and in their stead sprang a passionate desire to kill and be done with this evil thing that defiled the earth in man's shape. So back again sped I, and with every step this murderous desire grew until my mind held no other purpose. I remember snatching up the bludgeon he had let fall, whirling it aloft in both hands and striking for his bullet head, but in that instant (and well for him) he espied his danger and, loosing the girl, stooped and taking the blow across the broad of his back was beaten to his knees; but, as I swung again, he sprang in ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... yet up the bluff when the Old Man climbed painfully into the covered buggy, took the lines and the whip and cut a circle with the wheels on the hard-packed earth as clean and as small as Chip himself could have done, and went whirling through the big gate and across the creek and up the long slope beyond. He shouted to the boys and they rode slowly until he overtook them—though their nerves were all on edge and haste seemed to them the most important thing in the world. But habit is strong—it was their Old Man ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... Terry heard a sharp out-cry from one of the guards, followed by the sharp crack of a rifle. Whirling, he saw the brush on his right agitated by the movements of a figure that crashed unseen through the tangle of vegetation. Two soldiers flung themselves off their ponies and leaped in pursuit, pausing fruitlessly for sight of the fleeing form and dashing on with trailed rifles. The ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... dotted with the planes of the rival forces and the hum of the motors of the giant birds of prey was continuous. They fought not only in single combat but in sauacfrons, and the sight of one or more whirling down in flames was so common that it ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had changed ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... home, too?" King managed to ask. His brain was whirling with the shock of this astonishing revelation. He wanted to get off by himself and think ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... Within thirty seconds perhaps 50,000 persons were killed, and the streets of St. Pierre were heaped with dead bodies, soon to be incinerated or buried in the ashes that fell from the fountain of flame. Within ten minutes the city itself had disappeared in a whirling flame vomited from the mountain, though for some hours the inflammable portions of the buildings continued to burn, until all was consumed that could be. The volcano whose ancient crater for more than fifty years had been occupied by a quiet ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... and will have to get along without them until they come. We don't lique the loox ov this variety ov spelling any better than our readers, but mistaix will happen in the best ov regulated phamilies, and iph the ephs and c's and x's and q's hold out we shall ceep (sound the c hard) the Cyclone whirling aphter a phashion till the sorts arrive. It is no joque to ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... up the sky-steep in a chariot, the wheels of whirling fire and the horses of galloping fire, and the charioteer drawing reins of fire on bits of fire; but Christ will need no such equipage, for the law of gravitation will be laid aside, and the natural elements will be laid ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... tempest of wind it rolled on, dragged everything into its eddying circle of awe and fright, rushed howling through the night and penetrated into the brilliantly lighted palace of Count Schwarzenberg, even into the ball-room, where the tired couples were whirling in the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... direction. Then she would quicken her pace a little and in a minute or two would arrive at the Kennington Station of the South London Railway. In a minute or two more she would be in one of the electric trains whirling along under the street on which your omnibus was crawling. She would get out at the Borough Station, or she might take a more risky chance and go on to the Monument; but in any case she would wait for your omnibus, hail it and get inside. I suppose you took up some passengers ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... keen vibrations, tremulous and shrill; Aloft, suspended in the morning's fire, Crash the vast cymbals from the Southern spire; The Giant, standing by the elm-clad green, His white lance lifted o'er the silent scene, Whirling in air his brazen goblet round, Swings from its brim the swollen floods of sound; While, sad with memories of the olden time, Throbs from his tower the Northern Minstrel's chime,— Faint, single tones, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... your new world; I have visited your camp at night, and looked upon the restless swarms upon whose necks you ride to power! I saw all: I detected the old crimes peering through the thin veils of new draperies, shining under new shams, whirling to new tunes, circling in new dances—but the end was ever the same which it has been for centuries, which it will forever be: adultery, license, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... jostle and crowd upon him. Already violent hands were upon him, when Eliab Hill dashed up the inclined plane which had been made for his convenience, and, whirling himself to the side of Nimbus, said, as he pointed with flaming face and imperious gesture to the hustling and boisterous crowd about the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... surprised at the question; "they would need a lang spoon would sup with her, I trow. Always there is something put for her into the Tower, as they call it, whilk is a whigmaleery of a whirling-box, that turns round half on the tae side o' the wa', ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... very pavements had a weary appearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must be hours of night to temper down the day's distraction of so feverish a place. As yet the worry of the newly-stopped whirling and grinding on the part of the money-mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quiet was more like the prostration of a spent giant than the repose of one ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... destiny, alas, is found Whirling upon the gods' swift wheel around, And changing still, and as the moon's fair frame Cannot continue for two nights the same, But out of shadow first a crescent shows, Thence into beauty and perfection grows, And when ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... The whirling, soft, and tender sound That meant I knew not what of lore,— I dream its mystery now no more: Its ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... desert, when he has not beheld York Minster or travelled on the Road! Our little Ferdinand amid all this novelty heartily enjoyed himself, and did ample justice to mine host's good cheer. They were soon again whirling along the road; but at sunset, Ferdinand, at the instance of Glastonbury, availed himself of his inside place, and, wearied by the air and the excitement of the day, he ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the humour of the morning. He raged at the thought of his facility; he paced the dining-room, forming the sternest resolutions for the future; he wrung the hand which had been dishonoured by the touch of an assassin; and among all these whirling thoughts, there flashed in from time to time, and ever with a chill of fear, the thought of the confounded ingredients with which the house was stored. A powder magazine seemed a secure smoking-room alongside of ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... to a rose. O Sea! wouldst thou not better be Mere violet still? Who knows? who knows? Well hides the violet in the wood: The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood, And winter's ill is violet's good; But the bold glory of the rose, It quickly comes and quickly goes — Red petals whirling in white ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the end of the second parlor, were playing a waltz; and the two friends stopped at the door to look at them. A score of couples were whirling-the men with a serious expression, and the women with a fixed smile on their lips. They displayed a good deal of shoulder, like their mothers; and the bodices of some were only held in place by a slender ribbon, disclosing at times more than ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... "fool head," his brain whirling under its carroty thatch, was hurrying blindly up the main street, bound ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... gentleman, whirling around from his table, and putting himself in a lounging attitude. "Well, sir, what can I do for you this evening? Anything in the ...
— Three People • Pansy
... the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window, which had been left open; the horrible, glowing tool disappeared into the night, whirling as it flew, and fell ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... leaning on the arm of Lissac, after throwing a glance backward, however, at the girls whirling about there, and where in the presence of their stiff, ancient superiors, the young sub-prefects still hid their faces behind their opera hats. Granet with Molina went to take leave of Vaudrey, leaving little Marie Launay smiling artlessly because the financier, the Tumbler, had said ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... of life," said Lermontoff. "I have no greater certainty than the kaisers and czars or your great men, Morgan and Rockefeller; but, at least, theirs are not worth while for the race of man. I hold that man is the greatest product of life so far, and not government or trade. That the whirling spheres are made for man I disbelieve, but on this planet, and in our ken, he is the object we most prize, and rightfully. Therefore to build him in health and character, in talent and happiness, is all of existence. The ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... muddy road leading on again into the country. She felt that if she didn't stop at once, she would miss the town entirely. The driving-instinct sustained her, made her take corners sharply, spot a garage, send the Gomez whirling in on ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... prodigious activity. All the extraordinary life that was in him leaped and sang in his veins. He rushed back and forth, uttering continuous shouts, whirling each torch until it made a perfect circle of fire. Doubtless to the heavy eyes of the buffaloes the single human being seemed twenty, every one enveloped in bursts of flame which they dreaded most of ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Hours, charmingly personified by twelve female figures whirling round in so mad and swift a dance that three little Loves perched on a pile of fruit and flowers could not stop one of them; only the torn skirts of Midnight remained in the hand of the most daring cherub. The group stood on an admirably treated base, ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... pine, tough and supple, but it bent in the force of the wind like a willow twig. Again and again it bowed, rose with a fling, only to be borne down again. At last it broke with a crash; the upper half, whirling down, struck the roof, opening a ragged hole through which the rain streamed ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... reins of that most difficult and dangerous administration, the man who was now to rule was by far the ablest and the best fitted for his post. If there were living charioteer skilful enough to guide the wheels of state, whirling now more dizzily than ever through "confusum chaos," Alexander Farnese was the charioteer to guide—his hand the only ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... cataract, and the tortured breast of the gulf that raved below low. And the sounds that filled the air were even more fraught with terror and menace than the scene;—the waving, the groans, the crash of the pines on the hill, the impetuous force of the rain upon the whirling river, and the everlasting roar of the cataract, answered anon by the yet more awful voice that burst above it ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... planter on a neighbouring islet. All the signs pointed to a coming cyclone, and suddenly it shot from the mountains, furrowed the sea, and ruled supreme for two days. From the director's house I watched the whirling squalls gliding over the water, lifting great lumps of spray, that shot like snow over the surface and disappeared in the misty distance. Rain rattled in showers on the roof; everywhere was a hissing, rushing, thundering; the ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... silence and darkness. A player steals up to the center man, calls "Chickadee-dee!" and darts back again as quickly as possible, the center man whirling his bag around in a circle and hitting out with it in the direction of the voice, trying to hit this player. While he is doing this, another player from some other direction repeats the call of "Chickadee-dee!" close to his ear, and darts back or dodges. Any tactics may be used for dodging, ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... the foremost of all was Tamdoka; From crag to crag upward he sprang; like a panther he leaped to the summit. Too late!—on the brave as he crept turned the maid in her scorn and defiance; Then swift from the dizzy height leaped. Like a brant arrow-pierced in mid-heaven, Down whirling and fluttering she fell, and headlong plunged into the waters. Forever she sank mid the wail, and the wild lamentation of women. Her lone spirit evermore dwells in the depths of the Lake of the Mountains, And the lofty cliff ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... rhythmic manner in which his arms and shoulders worked at the oars. Obviously he had no chance to escape him by flight, and drawing his second pistol he fired. The bullet struck the boat but did no damage. The man came on faster than ever. Harry took a desperate resolution, and, whirling his boat about, he rowed it straight at his pursuer, who was now almost level with him. He intended to ram and take his chances. His movement was so quick and unexpected that it succeeded. The bow of his boat, helped perhaps by a wave, struck the other with ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he remarked to Pierce. There was a quick flash of motion behind them that sent them whirling to one side. Pierce stood aside with the small needle gun in his palm waiting to see if it would be needed, while Bryce finished the downstroke of his hand that sent the knife and the junky reeling ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... bare, worn bell-rope dangled from the ceiling near the confessional, and ended in a big knot greasy from handling. Again and again, with regular jumps, she hung herself upon it; and then let her whole bulky figure go with it, whirling in her petticoats, her cap awry, and her blood rushing to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... But as she whirled and whirled, new moods and figures seemed to force themselves upon her. She lifted her hands and swayed them about above her head gracefully. She was posturing she knew, but why she had no idea. It all came upon her as suddenly and as uncontrollably as a blush. She was whirling around the room, now slow, now fast, but always with her arms held out lissom, like a dancing-girl's. Sometimes her body bent this way, and sometimes that, her hands keeping time to her movements meanwhile in long graceful curves, but all as if ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... occasionally determined in him the clutching instinct we have glanced at; very much as if he had said to her, in default of her breaking silence first: "Everything is remarkably pleasant, isn't it?—but WHERE, for it, after all, are we? up in a balloon and whirling through space, or down in the depths of the earth, in the glimmering passages of a gold-mine?" The equilibrium, the precious condition, lasted in spite of rearrangement; there had been a fresh distribution of the different weights, but the balance persisted ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... prefer to, go on with the two-step, but the majority go through an intricate series of motions, resembling more fancy skating than a dance. The climax of it is a furious prestissimo, at which the couples seize hands and begin a mad whirling. This is quite irresistible, and every one in the room joins in, until the place becomes a maze of flying skirts and bodies quite dazzling to look upon. But the sight of sights at this moment is Tamoszius Kuszleika. The old fiddle squeaks and shrieks in protest, but Tamoszius ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... you mean—you mean you WON'T! Damn ye!" The captain raised his clenched fist, quivered for an instant as if struggling against something beyond his control, dropped it slowly to his side and whirling suddenly, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... watched the window for some sign that the storm was abating. The snow that had seemed so beautiful at first filled her with a vague fear now; it no longer fell softly and silently; the wind bore it by in whirling masses, that hid the river and the pond and the changing sky, and then laid it down in the valleys and on the hill-sides, to lie there, Sophy knew, till April showers and sunshine should come to melt it away. It was vain to look for any one coming with the expected food. ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... to so favor you," replied the eagle, politely; so Policeman Bluejay led the way and the eagle followed with such mighty strokes of its wings that the air was sent whirling in little eddies behind him, as the water is churned by a ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... his room at eleven o'clock, his head was whirling with statistics and other newly acquired facts, which he spent an hour ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... infinite effort, Perry felt himself returning to consciousness, though he had no clear conception of his surroundings. His brain was as yet but a whirling vortex of confused sounds, colors and—yes, odors. A temporary rift came in the mental cloud which fettered his faculties, and things began to take definite shape. He became aware that he was lying upon his back at some elevation from the floor. Again the cloudy incubus closed ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... Virginia, "came the dreaded snow. Around the camp-fires under the trees great feathery flakes came whirling down. The air was so full of them that one could see objects only a few feet away. The Indians knew we were doomed and one of them wrapped his blanket about him and stood all night under a tree. We children slept soundly on ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to the door beside him. Ten paces away the light of the binnacle was burning, and by it I saw two men lying huddled on the deck, and the ship's wheel whirling backwards and forwards as the waves ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... and committed him to the earth unto the mercy of Allah Almighty. Then he made for the ship but found that she had already weighed anchor and set sail; nor did she cease to cleave the seas till she disappeared from his sight. So he went back to whence he came heavy-hearted with whirling head; and neither would he address a soul nor return a reply; and reaching the garden and sitting down in cark and care he threw dust on his head and buffeted his cheeks.—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stream do now? For a moment the water leaps into the air, all foam and sparkle, as if it would jump over the barrier, and find its way to the sea at any rate. But this proves entirely unsuccessful; and at last, after whirling and tumbling, trying to creep under; trying to leap over, it settles itself quietly in its prison, as if ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... Big Ben said as he came up to the last round of his hardest fight, and won. Is there a man of that temper in either crew tonight? If so, now's his time. For both coxswains have called on their men for the last effort; Miller is whirling the tassel of his right-hand tiller rope round his head, like a wiry little lunatic; from the towing path, from Christchurch meadow, from the row of punts, from the clustered tops of the barges, comes a roar of encouragement ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the impulse to increase rapidity. The uniformity of the movements, and especially of the revolving movement, produces a state of half dizziness and half numbness with ecstatic elements. We know the almost hypnotic state of the whirling dervishes and the raptures in the savage war dances; all this in milder form is involved in every passionate dance. But nothing is more characteristic of such half-hypnotic states than that the individual loses control of his will. He behaves like a drunken ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... first glance it almost always happened that a springing, vaporous-looking quoit would appear without one's seeing the man whose hand had sent it on its way. It was a refined pastime, immortalized by the Discobolus, which, however, cannot give the charm of the whirling quoit. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop |
