"Claps" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... another girl, and another. Then there was a fusilade of hand-claps started by the girls, and somewhat ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and Colonel Halkett left the room, and Blackburn Tuckham walked in, not the most entirely self-possessed of suitors, puffing softly under his breath, and blinking eyes as rapidly as a skylark claps wings on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... merrily, saying, "See my pretty kitten, that knows a hundred tricks! and see my brave mungooz, that can kill cobras in fair fight! My Persian kitten for your silver bells, Chinna Tumbe, and my cunning mungooz for your golden chain!" And Chinna Tumbe laughs, and claps his hands, and dances for delight, and all his silver bells jingle gleefully. And the pleasant peddler all the way from Cabool says, "Step without the gate, Little Brother, if you would see my pretty kitten play tricks; if you would stroke my cunning mungooz, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... release at once, on the ground that a mistake of identity had been made; but the stupid judge is of the opinion that the charge against our friend is valid. At any rate he refused to let him go. He wouldn't even argue the case at present. He issues a warrant on a charge of larceny, claps a man in jail whether innocent or not, and refuses to let him explain anything or prove his innocence until a formal examination ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... if he didn't down with another right bower! Emerson claps his hand on his bowie, Longfellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under a bunk. There was going to be trouble; but that monstrous Holmes rose up, wobbling his double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws, I'll lay down on him and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... did not venture to assent, but replied: "No; he is a sowakh" This was beyond his comprehension, and he went away with the impression that Mr. H. was much greater than a hakim pasha. I slept soundly on my out-doors bed, but was awakened towards morning by two tremendous claps of thunder, echoing in the gorge, and the rattling of rain on the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... exclaims: "In all the dangers I have been, such horrors I never knew. I am quite unmanned:" and when the Hermit says, that he had "beheld the ocean in wildest rage, yet ne'er before saw a storm so dreadful, such horrid flashes of lightning, and such claps of thunder, were never in my remembrance." And Don John's burst of startling impiety is equally intelligible in its motive, as dramatic in ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... drowned by the rolling thunder. This latter did not sound in ordinary explosions, or "claps," but traveled in rapidly repeated echoes across the skies. The thick cloud of ashes which obscured the sun and the whole sky was cut through occasionally by a sword of lightning; but mostly the electricity showed itself in a recurrent, throbbing glow upon the northern horizon, not unlike some ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... Burn's brave song, And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right, Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night, And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong, Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite, Still, be whole ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... The three claps were given at regular intervals amid the most profound silence; the wind itself seemed to pause and the rustle of the trees was hushed. The principals were calm, but ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... spread across the country for many miles, our post being on a high tableland four leagues from Challuanca. The weather was abominable. Frequent storms swept through the district, the rain fell in torrents, the thunder pealed in reverberating claps among the mountains, and many animals and some men were killed by the lightning. It was bitterly cold, too, and our only shelter was a cluster of miserable Indian huts, where we passed all our time when not on duty. Often I returned to my cheerless quarters ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... at a fearful pace, heeling over until the rippling water fingers the edge of the gunwale as if it were just getting ready to leap over and take possession. But the hilarious Koli balances himself on the sloping thwarts and jumps and sings and claps his hands, while the pipes screech and the drums rattle. Twice, or three times, does the whole fleet go out over the bar and wheel and return, each boat racing to be first, with no more sense of danger than a ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... far and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... pride and beggary meet in a family, they roar and howl, and cause as many flashes of discontents, as fire and water, when they concur, make thunder-claps in the skies. ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the glass down on the table; and for the next five minutes could do nothing but shake my head to and fro like a Chinese mandarin, amidst the loud and prolonged roars of laughter that burst like thunder claps from the huge jaws of Thomas Draw, and the subdued and half ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... this that the gods discovered what he had done. A volley of terrible thunder-claps at once shook the skies, and Zeus had Prometheus arrested. He was led off to Scythia—the Siberia of those times—without trial, and the police left him chained to a rock there, and hurried back home. ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... unbarring, Tramp of men and quick commands. "'Tis my lord come back from hunting," And the Duchess claps her hands. ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... tell you is a perfect lady, a nice, innercent young thing, and when the feller she's engaged to calls 'er an 'approved wanton,' you naturally claps yer 'ands to yer swords. A wanton is a kind of—well, you know she ain't what ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... I was, but now am old, But I am not yet grown cold; I can play, and I can twine 'Bout a virgin like a vine: In her lap too I can lie Melting, and in fancy die; And return to life if she Claps my cheek, or kisseth me: Thus, and thus it now appears That our love ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... spears, as the moss-troopers, by secret and desert paths, ride over into England to lift a prey, and the bale-fire on the hill gives the alarm to Cumberland. Men live and marry, and support wife and little ones by steel-jacket and spear; and the Flower of Yarrow, when her larder is empty, claps a pair of spurs in her husband's platter. A time of strife and foray, of plundering and burning, of stealing and reaving; when hate waits half a lifetime for revenge, and where difficulties are solved by the slash of a sword-blade. I open the German ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... that now On bush and tree, Near leaves so green Looks down to see Flowers looking up— He either sings In ecstasy Or claps ...
— Foliage • William H. Davies
... with the pain so loud that all the cavern broke into claps like thunder. They fled, and dispersed into corners. He plucked the burning stake from his eye, and hurled the wood madly about the cave. Then he cried out with a mighty voice for his brethren the Cyclops, that dwelt hard by in caverns upon hills; they, hearing the terrible shout, came flocking ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... CHARLOTTA. Right! [Claps her hands, the pack of cards vanishes] How lovely the weather is to-day. [A mysterious woman's voice answers her, as if from under the floor, "Oh yes, it's lovely weather, madam."] You are so beautiful, you are my ideal. [Voice, "You, madam, ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternized with the native troops. Who then was the agent among the latter that had blindly ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... work; when we enjoyed again our tea-supper, and skylarked afterwards till it was time to 'turn in,' which we managed to do now more comfortably as well as expeditiously than on the night before; while, I may add, my dreams happily were not disturbed by any storms and thunder-claps of ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... at all. He's shiftin' the cards around, tryin' to make 'em come out right, doin' it quick and nervous. All of a sudden the lackey claps his hand down on a pile and says, "Beg pardon, sir, but you ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... I can remedy that. (He claps his hands twice. The curtains are drawn, revealing the roof garden with a banqueting table set across in the middle for four persons, one at each end, and two side by side. The side next Caesar and Rufio is blocked with golden wine vessels and basins. A gorgeous major-domo is superintending ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... and opened a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for them to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to what they may be doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer's, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... meal, an' set an' warm meself. An' she was that cheerfle an' full o' pluck, she 'elped me to forget about the things that was makin' me into a madwoman. SHE was the answer— same as the book 'ad promised. They comes in different wyes the answers does. Bless yer, they don't come in claps of thunder an' streaks o' lightenin'—they just comes easy an' natural—so's sometimes yer don't think for a minit or two that they're answers at all. But it comes to yer in a bit an' yer 'eart stands still for joy. An' ever since ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the flight were terrible enough to deprive the imperial fugitive of the last spark of hope. The sky was overcast, and heavy black clouds hung close to the earth, the stillness of nature being occasionally broken by claps of thunder. The earth shook just as he was riding past the praetorian camp. He could hear the shouts of the mutinous soldiers cursing his name, while Galba was proclaimed his successor. Farther on, the ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... Shaddai, and so put an end to all these troubles." The old gentlemen, too, Mr. Conscience, the recorder that was so before Diabolus took Mansoul, began to talk aloud, and his words were now like great claps of thunder. Yea, so far as I could gather, the town had been surrendered before now had it not been for the opposition of old Incredulity and the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... of being attended by one servant well mounted, he will have two; and, not being able to purchase or maintain a second horse of value, one of his servants at least is mounted on a hired rascallion. He is not contented to go plain and neat in his clothes; he therefore claps on some tawdry ornament, and what he adds to the fineness of his vestment he detracts from the fineness of his linen. Without descending into more minute particulars, I believe I may assert it as an axiom ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... their dishes, than mistrusting their enimies, remembred to take the vse of any pleasure that the conuenientnesse of this present time might proffer; onelie as cookes among all their sawces doo mind nothing lesse than sobernesse: so these in the abundance of their ioies, thought nothing of after claps, which afterwards made them (like fooles) to sing an vnhappie had I wist. For the Frenchmen, perceiuing this their negligence, required licence of the French king to giue assault to the citie, ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... her song as well as she could. She finished it, and dropped the straight little curtsy she had been taught at school. "After all it had not been so bad," she thought with relief, as she turned to go away in the midst of an outburst of claps and stamps from the audience. But she was not allowed to go far, for it soon became evident that they wanted her to sing again; nothing in the whole programme had created so much excitement as this one ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... 'la bora, la bora!' and you are caught up in their whirl and landed in some interior, the man with the guitar on one side of you, and the boy with a cageful of little brown owls for sale, on the other—meanwhile, the thunder claps, claps, with such a persistence, and the rain, for a finale, falls in a mass, as if you had knocked out the whole bottom of a huge tank at once—then there is a second stop—out comes the sun—somebody clinks at his glass, all the world bursts out laughing, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... issuing from his hood, moves his head, and claps his wings, showing desire, and making himself fine; so I saw this ensign, which was woven of praise of the Divine Grace, become, with songs such as he knows who thereabove rejoices. Then it began, "He who turned the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... gras for horseflesh. And there were officers, too, who wanted a "look in," and who had been kept waiting at Cape Town for commissions, gladdening the guests of the Mount Nelson Hotel the while with their new khaki and gaiters, and there were Tommies who wanted "Relief of Ladysmith" on the claps of their medals, as they had seen "Relief of Lucknow" on the medals of the Chelsea pensioners. And there was a correspondent who had journeyed 15,000 miles to see Ladysmith relieved, and who was apparently going to miss that sight, after five weeks of travel, by a ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... think I'm going to use it in a tale. The annexe close by had its door sealed; poor Dowdney lost at sea in a schooner. The place is haunted. The vast empty sheds, the empty store, the airless, hot, long, low rooms, the claps of wind that set everything flying—a strange uncanny house to spend ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to ten o'clock was very stormy. About seven, the night became intensely dark, and a terrific squall of wind burst forth, which made the loose tiles fly over the housetops; to this succeeded lightning and stupendous claps of thunder, both nearly simultaneous. We had had several of these short and sharp storms during the past month. At midnight, when we embarked, all was as calm as though a ruffle had never disturbed air, forest, or river. The boat sped along ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... rush from the smoke. Wisely, he saves his Green Mountain boys by surrender. Thirty-five capitulate. The rest have escaped through the woods. Carleton refuses to acknowledge the captives as prisoners of war. He claps irons on their hands and irons on their feet and places them on a vessel bound for England to be treated as rebels to the crown. It is said those of Allen's men who deserted were French Canadians in disguise—which may explain why Carleton made such severe example ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... instant. When you think he's erect, he is down; and, when you think he is down, he is up. He drops his glove on the ice, and turns a somerset as he picks it up. Without stopping, he snatches the cap from Jacob Poot's astonished head, and claps it back again "hindside before." Lookers-on hurrah and laugh. Foolish boy! It is arctic weather under your feet, but more than temperate overhead. Big drops already are rolling down your forehead. Superb skater, as you are, you ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... planets, shone forth.* There were living beings devoid of intelligence, and from these living beings came intelligent beings, who were called Zophesamin, or 'watchers of the heavens.'Now the thunder-claps in the war of separating elements awoke these intelligent beings as it were from a sleep, and then the males and the females began to stir themselves and to seek one another on the land and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his voice. When he claps his hands, it will be all over, and the children will go away—Listen! he is telling them ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... stupor of astonishment; he knew that when this dull quiet had passed away, when little by little, and one by one, each horrible feature of the sufferer's sorrow became first dimly apparent and then terribly familiar to him, the storm would burst in fatal fury, and tempests of tears and cruel thunder-claps of agony would rend that ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... little battle, no dead left as luck had it, but many a gout of blood. The white gables clanged back the cries, in claps like summer thunder, the crows in the beech-trees complained in a rasping roupy chorus, and the house-doors banged at the back of men, who, weary or wounded, sought home to bed. And Splendid and I were on the point of parting, secure that the young ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... hanging weeds and trailing mosses. Flocks of wild birds are startled up as the boats draw near them, frightened by the noise and plashing of the oars. Black clouds of them hang over the boat of the old man at every turn among the labyrinth of islands. He claps his hands: ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,—his own pie that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he does it, ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... of the river is surpassed by the sound of the wind, and the waters seem to flow silently into the ocean. There the storm rages. Twice, thrice, flashes of pale blue lightning traverse the clouds in rapid succession: as often does the thunder roll in loud and prolonged claps through the firmament. Drops of rain fall. The plants begin to recover their natural freshness; it thunders again, and the thunder is followed, not by rain, but by torrents, which pour down from the convulsed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... Our guides then sit down in front of the chief and his counsellors, and both parties lean forward, looking earnestly at each other; the chief repeats a word, such as "Ambuiatu" (our Father, or master)—or "moio" (life), and all clap their hands. Another word is followed by two claps, a third by still more clapping, when each touches the ground with both hands placed together. Then all rise and lean forward with measured clap, and sit down again with clap, clap, clap, fainter, and ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... shouted Phormio, shaking his fists under the helpless creature's nose. "Honest men have their day at last. There's a gay hour coming before Zeus claps the lid over you ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... encampment. A shower threatened us, but we resolved to try if we could not visit it before it came on. We crossed a wide field on foot, and found them amid the trees on a shelving bank; just as we reached them the rain began to fall in torrents, with frequent thunder claps, and we had to take refuge in their lodges. These were very small, being for temporary use, and we crowded the occupants much, among whom were several sick, on the damp ground, or with only a ragged mat between them and it. But they showed all the gentle courtesy which marks them towards ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... giant, fasten on them; as God saith, "Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee?" (Eze 22:14). Now will the ghastly jaws of despair gape upon thee, and now will condemnings of conscience, like thunder-claps, continually batter against thy weary spirit. It is the godly that have boldness in the day of judgment (1 John 4:17); but the wicked will be like the chaff which the wind driveth away (Psa 1:4). Oh the fear, and the heart-aching that will seize them in their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... stroules, in the summer he turnes king of the gipsies: if not, some great man's protection is a sufficient warrant for his peregrination, and a meanes to procure him the town-hall, where hee may long exercise his qualities, with clown-claps of great admiration, in a tone sutable to the large eares of his illiterate auditorie. Hee is one seldome takes care for old age, because ill diet and disorder, together with a consumption, or some ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... and bows. But fatigue overcame him, and Zebulon took up his station at his brother's left hand, and mowed down eighty thousand of the enemy. Meantime Judah regained some of his strength, and, rising up in wrath and fury, and gnashing his teeth with a noise like unto thunder claps in midsummer, he put the army to flight. It ran a distance of eighteen miles, and Judah could ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... refuse to wash the feet of these women and this provokes quarrels. To meet such cases the new rule has been introduced. At the wedding the priest sits on the roof of the house facing the west, and the bride and bridegroom stand below with a curtain between them. As the sun is half set he claps his hands and the bridegroom takes the clasped hands of the bride within his own, the curtain being withdrawn. The bridegroom ties round the bride's neck a yellow thread of seven strands, and when this is done she is married. Next morning a black ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, Claps her tiny hands above me, Laughing all she can; She'll not tell me if she ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson
... my haid up wid de blanket—an' de bolster—an' de piller when hit's astormin'," said Hattie, in an awed undertone. "An' Ah squeals lak a pig ev' time hit claps." ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... her, Sir Rupert consented to spend some parts of every year there. It was a retreat to go to when the summer heats or the autumnal heats of London were unendurable—at least to the ordinary Briton, who is under the fond impression that London is really hot sometimes, and who claps a puggaree on his chimney-pot hat the moment there comes in late May a faint glimpse of sunshine. The Dictator was one of the party. So was Hamilton. So was Soame Rivers. So was Miss Paulo, on whose coming Helena had insisted with ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... "Labor laughs in this land; and claps his hands in the jubilee groves! methinks that Yillah will yet ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... could not bear the brightness of it; while the captain, looking at it, seemed to envy the spirit of the tempest. A terrible noise filled the air, a complex noise, made up of the howls of the crushed waves, the roaring of the wind, and the claps of thunder. The wind veered suddenly to all points of the horizon; and the cyclone, rising in the east, returned after passing by the north, west, and south, in the inverse course pursued by the circular storm ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... wind had eased up. I leaped out into it, swimming. The rocks slid by close under me in a swift sidewise drift. In a moment I would be carried out over the river. It was a chaos of green, windswept darkness. But there was bursting light now overhead and rumbling claps, ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... Mountero Caps at Fel-fares shoot: } Nay, some are so obdurate in their Sin, That they swear never to come up again; But all their charge of Clothes and Treat retrench. To Gloves and Stockings for some Country-Wench. Even they who in the Summer had Mishaps, Send up to Town for Physick, for their Claps. The Ladies too, are as resolv'd as they, } And having Debts unknown to them, they stay, } And with the gain of Cheese and Poultry pay. } Even in their Visits, they from Banquets fall, To entertain with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... The thunder-claps came at such frequent intervals that the speaker could with difficulty make himself heard. When he had ended, the deep voice of him who wore the ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... fellow who somehow or other has got inside B.'s tunic and is gesticulating and crying out and laughing; with a frank-eyed boy who claps me on the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... table-talk of his neighbour at another's board, to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter, whose choleric answer he returns to his first host enlarged with a second edition; so as it uses to be done in the sight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can no act pass without his comment, which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, dilatory. His ears are long and his eyes quick, but most of all to imperfections, which as he easily sees, so he increases ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... you see, our larder's pretty considerably well stocked at this season. So down he sits, rubbing his hands, and seeming as pleased as Punch, and orders a bottle of wine; but, before he'd been ten minutes at table, up he jumps, claps on his cloak and hat, and runs smack out o' the house, and never comes back again till past eleven at night, when he pays his bill, and orders horses for six ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... overloaded with huge, thick, dark masses, and claps of thunder warn us of the pending storm, then a gale of wind is roaring in space, doing battle with the bush, cowing down man and beast, sweeping away all manner of rottenness. This fury spares not, and desolation is the threat ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... rain came. It continued heavy and unremitting, for twenty-four hours, after which there was a glimpse of the blue sky. Two startling thunder-claps burst over the ship, at about 9 o'clock, A.M. Last night, at 10, a heavy plunge carried away both our chain bobstays at once, and all hands were turned up in the rain, ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... many that had not one word. For Hebrew roots, although they're found To flourish most in barren ground, He had such plenty as suffic'd To make some think him circumcis'd: And truly so he was, perhaps, Not as a proselyte, but for claps, He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in analytic; He could distinguish, and divide A hair 'twixt south and south west side; On either which he could dispute, Confute, change hands, ...
— English Satires • Various
... tendency to want to think twice, to make a man value you and like you for criticizing him and defend himself from you by at least knowing all you know and keep still and listen to you until he does, but his body all in a flash tries to keep him from doing this, hardens over his mind, claps itself down with its lid of habit over him. Then he automatically defends himself with you, starts up his anger-machine, and ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... through the motions of polishing the shoes up, and laying them at my feet. I smile at the brisk little woman in perfect satisfaction with her briskness; and the brisk little woman, amiably pleased with me because I am pleased with her, claps her hands and laughs delightfully. We are in the inn yard. As the little woman's bright eyes sparkle on the cigarette I am smoking, I make bold to offer her one; she accepts it none the less merrily, because I touch a most charming little dimple in her fat cheek, ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... [Greek: periaktoi], because in these places are triangular pieces of machinery ([Greek: D, D]) which revolve, each having three decorated faces. When the play is to be changed, or when gods enter to the accompaniment of sudden claps of thunder, these may be revolved and present a face differently decorated. Beyond these places are the projecting wings which afford entrances to the stage, one from the ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... and shouting below drowned his words; they came pouring in at the open window like the pealing tones of an organ, like the roar of the sea, like claps of thunder. ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... now! That inn-keeper has gone and made a complaint against me. Suppose he really claps me into jail? Well! If he does it in a gentlemanly way, I may—No, no, I won't. The officers and the people are all out on the street and I set the fashion for them and the merchant's daughter and I flirted. No, I ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... turning to Felix: "They belonged to an actor who hired half of my studio and left them to pay for his rent, which they didn't do, not by a long chalk, and—Oh, here's another hat—and, oh, such a lovely old cloak! Yes, take 'em all, missy—I'm glad to get rid of 'em—before Nat claps them on Jane and goes in for Puritan maidens and Lady Gay Spankers. Oh, I know you, Nat! I wouldn't trust you out of my sight! Take 'em along, I say." He stopped and ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Love beheaded on Tower Hill, in a delicate clear day about half an hour after his head was struck off, the clouds gathered blacker and blacker; and such terrible claps of thunder came that ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... the warm attachments of refined society? Here the dead was raised to his long-cherished hopes, and the lost was found. Here all doubt and danger were buried in the vortex of oblivion; sectional differences no longer disunited their opinions; like the freed bird from the cage, sportive claps its rustling wings, wheels about to heaven in a joyful strain, and raises its notes to the upper sky. Ambulinia insisted upon Elfonzo to be seated, and give her a history of his unnecessary absence; assuring him the family had retired, consequently they ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of being held there captive by a spell. The word ivory would ring in the air for a while—and on we went again into the silence, along empty reaches, round the still bends, between the high walls of our winding way, reverberating in hollow claps the ponderous beat of the stern-wheel. Trees, trees, millions of trees, massive, immense, running up high; and at their foot, hugging the bank against the stream, crept the little begrimed steamboat, like ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... possession more than ten minutes when I heard the most delightful music that can possibly be imagined, which was suddenly changed into a noise the most awful and tremendous, to which the report of a cannon, or the loudest claps of thunder could bear no more proportion than the gentle zephyrs of the evening to the most dreadful hurricane; but the shortness of its duration prevented all those fatal effects which a prolongation of it would certainly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... coalheaver. "So, my lords, this here persecutor goes to vork like a Briton, and claps this here thingamy in my fist, vich ain't not a bit like me, but a blessed deal more likerer a ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... of women, employed in reaping the extensive corn-fields through which we passed were raising their hoes and voices to heaven, and, yelling furiously, cursed 'Morimo' (God), as the terrific thunder-claps succeeded each vivid flash of lightning. On inquiry I was informed by 'Old Booy' that they were indignant at the interruption of their labors, and that they therefore cursed and menaced the cause. Such blasphemy was awful, even among heathens, and I fully expected to see ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... went on, all unsuspicious, wisely nodding in slow-mouthed gluttony. And in the stillness, between the claps of wind, they could hear ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... stone, or the stone hits the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.' All these, your worship must see, fit to a hair. Let no one meddle with the governor or his deputy, or he will come off the worst, like him who claps his finger between two eye-teeth, and though they were not eye-teeth, 'tis enough if they be but teeth. To what a governor says there is no replying, any more than to 'Get out of my house—what business have you with my wife?' Then ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... valiant Giw was sentinel that night, And marking dimly by the dubious light, A warrior form approach, he claps his hands, With naked sword and lifted shield he stands, To front the foe; but Rustem now appears, And Giw the secret tale astonished hears; From thence the Champion on the Monarch waits. The power and splendour of Sohrab relates: "Circled by Chiefs ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... class closed, no boy was more forcedly loud and lively than I: no boy shut his books with greater claps; no boy banged his desk more carelessly. Nor would I listen to sympathising friends, but laughed out in Fillet's hearing: "You don't ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... cataracts in the world, —the Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below. There, indeed, one could find ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... as you'll be glad enough to eat up every one of them words the day you claps eyes on Master William, for a more splendid gentleman nor he never ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... is the sort of quizzing he might use to a person who came to hire himself as a valet to him at Long's—the waiters might laugh, the public will not. In like manner, in the controversy about Pope, he claps Mr. Bowles on the back with a coarse facetious familiarity, as if he were his chaplain whom he had invited to dine with him, or was about to present to a benefice. The reverend divine might submit to the obligation, but he has no occasion to subscribe to the jest. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... despotism exercised over me, they have not improved by their demise. The peine forte et dure is, you know, nothing in comparison to being obliged to grind verses; and so devilish repulsive is my disposition, that I can never put my wheel into constant and regular motion, till Ballantyne's devil claps in his proofs, like the hot cinder which you Bath folks used to clap in beside an unexperienced turnspit, as a hint to be expeditious in his duty. O long life to the old hermit of Prague, who never saw pen and ink!—much happier in {p.007} that negative circumstance ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... party had sat during some long and anxious minutes, listening to the appalling thunder-claps, when Orpheus rushed into the banqueting-room, with the same frenzied and terror-stricken haste as before, among the revellers, crying: "It is the end-all is over! The world is falling asunder! Fire is come down from heaven! The earth is in flames already—I ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... marry a cousin. I thought he romanced when be said so, but I suppose they are the cousins. Well, pity to spoil two houses with them say I, but they are off. Both hug Melty, Mrs. Haughton waves hand in the direction of the dollar. By-by, step- momma. By the shade of Lincoln, how Melty claps her hands in glee on seeing her wages in gold; she hastily pockets; one or two pieces roll to the floor. Ellen, the cook, enters, lamp in hand, unsteady of gait; Melty stoops to conquer the gold, picks up a shower- stick to get it from a corner, knocks with one end the lamp ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... my lad. A continuous struggle against the dangers of landslips, fires, inundations, explosions of firedamp, like claps of thunder. One had to guard against all those perils! You say well! It was a struggle, ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... the devil prevails often; opponit nubem, he claps cloud between; some little objection; a stranger is come; or my head aches; or the church is too cold; or I have letters to write; or I am not disposed; or it is not yet time; or the time is past; these, and such as these, are the clouds ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... The Queen gives a sign to please the royal child. Forthwith, one can hear heavy cannon being rolled across the courtyard; and forty soldiers, halberds in hand, come and range themselves around the room: they are veterans, with gray moustaches. The little Dauphin claps his hands feebly as he sees them, and recognizing one he calls him by name, "Lorrain! Lorrain!" The old soldier takes a step towards the bed. "I love you well, my good Lorrain. Let me see your big sword. If Death comes to take me, we must kill him, must we not?" Lorrain replies, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... The whole company hereupon show the greatest interest; while the priest holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to them what he pretends the god is confidentially communicating to him. Some items intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one claps his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a third leaps to his feet and capers about ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... omnipotent, You have given us youth—and must we cast away The cup undrained and our one coin unspent Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray? They have forgotten that if we delay Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife Or cord or fever flouts the prayer we ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... The forces of the earthquake were let loose and the ground rocked so that it was almost impossible to stand. The roaring of the main crater was deafening, while the volcano poured forth its contents like a fountain, and the electric display was terrifying, constant claps of thunder following the lurid flashes of lightning, which gave the sky a ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... was Doctor Rank, but he doesn't come here professionally. He is our greatest friend, and comes in at least once every day. No, Torvald has not had an hour's illness since then, and our children are strong and healthy and so am I. (Jumps up and claps her hands.) Christine! Christine! it's good to be alive and happy!—But how horrid of me; I am talking of nothing but my own affairs. (Sits on a stool near her, and rests her arms on her knees.) You mustn't be angry with me. ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... second morning. Across the sand, a long way before them, something with very long legs is running, almost flying. She knows well what it is, for she has often seen them before, and she calls to one of the servants, "See, there is the ostrich!" and she claps ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... protestations might be got offered. Through threats and flattery he got that dismal affair effected; but not without a notable mark of divine displeasure: for, in that moment he arose to touch the act with the sceptre, a terrible flash of fire came in at the window, followed with three fearful claps of thunder, upon which the heavens became dark, and hailstones and a terrible tempest ensued; which astonished every beholder, and made the day afterward be called the black Saturday; because it began in the morning with fire from earth, and ended in the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... to Joetun-land, to seek Hymir's Caldron, that the Gods may brew beer. Hymir the huge Giant enters, his grey beard all full of hoar-frost; splits pillars with the very glance of his eye; Thor, after much rough tumult, snatches the Pot, claps it on his head; the 'handles of it reach down to his heels.' The Norse Skald has a kind of loving sport with Thor. This is the Hymir whose cattle, the critics have discovered, are Icebergs. Huge untutored Brobdignag genius,—needing only to be tamed-down; into Shakspeares, Dantes, Goethes! It ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... honest face of hospitality expand into a broader and more cordial smile, where is the shy glance of love more sweetly eloquent, than by the winter fireside? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, whistles about the casement, and rumbles down the chimney, what can be more grateful than that feeling of sober and sheltered security with which we look round upon the comfortable chamber and the scene ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... being near the full, it excited little apprehension at the Refuge. The wind was fresh, and kept increasing until eleven o'clock, at which time it blew very hard; the rain fell in torrents, accompanied with loud claps of thunder and lightning, which at every instant imparted to one of the darkest nights the brightness of day. The course of the wind was from south-west to south, south-east, east, and north-east, where it blew hardest between one and three in the morning, giving me an apprehension that the house, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... which had carried all the way offshore to the Rover cruisers had died away. And there were no more claps of thunder. Instead, there was now a thick ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear with their ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... satisfied with their ground. The provincial marksmen then rapidly advancing, flew each to his tree, and the action began. From wing to wing, quite across the defile, the woods appeared as if all on fire; while the incessant crash of small arms tortured the ear like claps of sharpest thunder. The muskets of the British, like their native bull-dogs, kept up a dreadful roar, but scarcely did more than bark the trees, or cut off the branches above the heads of the Indians. While, with ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... he has discovered that I drink harder than usual, that my faculties are wearing fast away, that once, indeed, I had some Greek in my head, but—he then claps the forefinger to the side of his nose, turns his eye slowly upward, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... moot cases. Most persons will awake naturally at the end of a few minutes, or will fall into a natural sleep from which in an hour or two they will awake refreshed. Usually the operator simply says to the subject, "All right, wake up now," and claps his hands or makes some other decided noise. In some cases it is sufficient to say, "You will wake up in five minutes"; or tell a subject to count twelve and when he gets to ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... but before the canvas could be handed, with claps like thunder, the main-topmast-staysail and jib were blown from the bolt-ropes, the topsails and courses were flying in shreds from the yards, the topsail sheets, clew-lines and bunt-lines were carried ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... is waiting me With smiles and pigeon-pie; And little Zi-Zi claps her hands With laughter loud and high; And if there's cause to growl, I fail To ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... really believe it is ever so glad That we planted it there to grow, And knows us and loves us and understands, For it claps them just like two little hands, Whenever the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... cursed, What matter if by famine scorched, or thirst, We die?' he saith. "And thick the warlock swarm Above his head, wide-spreading dark wings warm, Fast flitted by. The waiting fields he stands Among. And laughing, claps exultant hands. 'Good speed ye, Sprites! that bring the welcome cloud And pile the vapors thick,' he shouts aloud. Oh! sweet shall bloom again the bending grain, And clothe afresh the wide, the wasted plain. The clouds sweep black. Ha, ha! Against my cheek The big drops fall. Merry ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... through the shock her system had received the night she went riding, she had become in some mysterious manner an electric battery. His theory being, that invisible flashes of lightening left her person, and that the knocks which every body could hear distinctly, were simply minute claps of thunder. He lectured on his theory, and drew large audiences as he always does, no matter what the subject is. Perfectly satisfied that the manifestations are genuine, he has nobly defended Esther Cox from the platform and ...
— The Haunted House - A True Ghost Story • Walter Hubbell
... fountain's sliding foot Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root, Casting the body's vest aside My soul into the boughs does glide; There, like a bird, it sits and sings, Then whets and claps its silver wings, And, till prepared for longer flight, Waves in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... such strange beatitudes 355 Seize on my young anticipating heart When that blest future rushes on my view! For in his own and in his Father's might The Saviour comes! While as the Thousand Years[122:1] Lead up their mystic dance, the Desert shouts! 360 Old Ocean claps his hands! The mighty Dead Rise to new life, whoe'er from earliest time With conscious zeal had urged Love's wondrous plan, Coadjutors of God. To Milton's trump The high groves of the renovated Earth 365 Unbosom their glad ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... coast. It was in a shallow muddy sea, and three or four of us was trying to make out the trees ashore, and wondering whether there would be any chance of our getting some fresh fruit and vegetables before long; when, all at once, one of my mates claps his hand on my shoulder, and he says—'Lookye yonder, mate.' 'Why, it's the sea-sarpent!' says another. 'Well, that is a rum un,' says another. And then we stood looking at what seemed to be a great snake swimming, with twenty ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... affords, An endless thing. Who knows not Bremo's strength, Who like a king commands within these woods. The bear, the boar, dares not abide my sight, But hastes away to save themselves by flight. The crystal waters in the bubbling brooks, When I come by, doth swiftly slide away, And claps themselves in closets under banks, Afraid to look bold Bremo in the face: The aged oaks at Bremo's breath do bow, And all things else are still at my command, Else what would I? Rend them in pieces, and pluck them from the earth, And each way else I would revenge myself. Why, who comes ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... of wind howled round the house, and drowned his voice, and then he heard two tremendous claps, as if rocks had been hurled from heaven. He started up and went to the window, where the melancholy grey dawn was showing, in order to call the slaves. Soon they came trooping out, and the steward called out as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... at night, we rowed up the stream; but the current was so strong downwards, that we got but two leagues, all that time. We moored our pinnaces to a tree that night: for that presently, with the closing of the evening, there fell a monstrous shower of rain, with such strange and terrible claps of thunder, and flashes of lightning, as made us not a little to marvel at, although our Captain had been acquainted with such like in that country, and told us that they continue seldom longer than ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... Dem pickaninnies dey had de natural born art ob twistin' dey body any way dey wish. Dat dere ting dey calls truckin' now an' use to be chimmy, ain't had no time wid de dancin' dem chilluns do. Dey claps dey hands and keep de time, while dat old brudder ob mine he blows de quills. Massa he would allus bring de big tray ob 'lasses cookies fo' all de chilluns. Fast as de tray would empty, Massa send ta de barrel fo' more. De niggers do no ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... despots, she was subject to fits of cowardice - especially, it was said, with regard to a future state, which she professed to disbelieve in. Mr. Ellice told me that once, in some country house, while a fearful storm was raging, and the claps of thunder made the windows rattle, Lady Holland was so terrified that she changed dresses with her maid, and hid herself in the cellar. Whether the story be a calumny or not, it is at ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... imagine. What if the men of pleasure are forced one day in the week, to game at home instead of the chocolate houses?[10] Are not the taverns and coffeehouses open? Can there be a more convenient season for taking a dose of physic? Are fewer claps got upon Sundays than other days? Is not that the chief day for traders to sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers to prepare their briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended that the churches are misapplied? Where are more ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... to every word. The lecture is short, sharp, apposite, a model of all a lecture should be, stripped to the bare bones of fundamental truth, pared clean of every redundant word. As the clock strikes three he claps his hands to rid them of chalk, pauses for a moment to answer pertinent questions, and vanishes into his ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... claps her hands once and all exchange seats as rapidly as possible. The pupil in the aisle attempts to secure one of the vacant seats. If he succeeds the one left without a seat stands ...
— Games and Play for School Morale - A Course of Graded Games for School and Community Recreation • Various
... pictures, Mamma? I mean, what does the man do, when he goes behind that queer machine thing and sticks his head under the cloth, and then after a while claps in something that looks like my tracing-slate and then pops it out again? What ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... and huge unnatural wings, beside fearful jaws that poured out smoke and flame whenever they opened. He always came at dead of night, roaring, bellowing, and sparkling and flaming over the hills, and horrid claps of thunder were very likely to attend his progress. Concerning the nature and quality of his roaring, the honest copyholders of Wantley could never agree, although every human being had heard him hundreds of times. Some ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... claps his wings, No whit for grief, but noble heart and high, With loud glad noise he stirs himself and springs, And takes his meat and toward his lure draws nigh; Such good I wish you! Yea, and heartily I am fired with hope of true love's meed ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... stage-directions, "has many dreadful objects in it; several spirits in horrid shapes flying down among the sailors, then rising and crossing in the air; and when the ship is sinking, the whole house is darkened and a shower of fire falls upon the vessel. This is accompanied by lightning and several claps of thunder till the end of the storm." The stage-manager's notes proceed:—"In the midst of the shower of fire, the scene changes. The cloudy sky, rocks, and sea vanish, and when the lights return, discover ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... garments, contrasting oddly with the huge gold chain about his neck, waddles up, as if he had been born, and had lived ever since, in a gale of wind at sea. The upper half of his sharp dogged visage seems of brick-red leather, the lower of badger's fur; and as he claps Drake on the back, and, with a broad Devon twang, shouts, "be you a coming to drink your wine, Francis Drake, or be you not?—saving your presence, my lord;" the lord high admiral only laughs, and bids Drake go and drink his wine; for ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... suggestions of pity.—The minority, on the contrary, is determined beforehand to win at any price; its views and opinion are correct, and if rules are opposed to that, so much the worse for the rules. At the decisive moment, it claps a pistol to its adversary's head, overturns the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Nor time, nor death, shall ever part them more. Tis but a night, a long and moonless night; We make the grave our bed, and then are gone. Thus, at the shut of even, the weary bird Leaves the wide air, and in some lonely brake Cowers down, and dozes till the dawn of day, Then claps his well-fledged wings, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... new queen, and ended with a personal satire on Garrick: not very kind on his own stage To add to the judgment of his conduct, Cumberland two days ago published a pamphlet to abuse him. It was given out for to-night with rather more claps than hisses, but I think will not do unless they reduce it to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... gray fog of a winter morning, an army, which has left its intrenchments, is moving upon those of the enemy—creeping silently into position. In an hour the whole wide valley for miles to left and right will be all aroar with musketry stricken to seeming silence now and again by thunder claps of big guns. In the meantime the risen sun has burned a way through the fog, splendoring a part of the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... enliven the part by the mention of any recent theatrical transactions, he said, that he once thought to have introduced his lovers disguised in a mummy and a crocodile. "This," says he, "was received with loud claps, which indicated contempt of the play." Pope, who was behind the scenes, meeting him as he left the stage, attacked him, as he says, with all the virulence of a "wit out of his senses;" to which he replied, "that he would take ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... burst from his incumbent mound, Roams!—and the Slave of Terror thinks he hears A mutter'd groan!—sees the sunk eye, that glares As shoots the Meteor.—But no more forlorn He strays;—the Spectre sinks into his tomb! For now the jocund Herald of the Morn Claps his bold wings, and sounds along ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... And then done it. You should see her dance—ah! You should see her dance round the bear, when I bring him in! Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand—" And Ciccio stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows and his eyelids as if facially he were ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... yet so does wail? O 'tis the ravished Nightingale. Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries, And still her woes at Midnight rise. Brave prick song! who is't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear; Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The Morn not waking till she sings. Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat Poor Robin-red-breast tunes his note. Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing 'Cuckoo' to welcome in the spring, 'Cuckoo' to welcome in ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... She claps her hands with delight. 'Four shillings, as I'm a living woman!' she crows: never was a woman fonder of ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... continuance; sometimes for thirty or forty seconds, because of its various repercussions by the clouds and terrestrial obstacles. Hence it is, that in vales, which are surrounded by mountains of a different Height, there is a terrible and long continued Bellowing of thunder Claps. Whereas for one Explosion it has been observed that there is but one Clap. Yet however if the Flame set Fire to two, three, or more fulmineous Tracts, each of them at last will end in a Clap, and thus several Sounds may ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... profoundly carnivorous, bite you all night; and dogs howl eternally outside; and, when exhausted nature defies even these enemies of rest, then the doctor, who seems to be in the pay of Insanity, claps you on a blister by brute force, and so drives away sleep, Insanity's cure, or hocuses you by brute force as he did me, and so steals your sleep, and tries to steal your reason, with his opium, henbane, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... My heart almost burst with happiness within me, as those tiny hands, that had run through my hair and been so wonderful with me ... hands that I had kissed and fondled in secret—joined in unison with Penton's and Darrie's and Ruth's hand-claps. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... more than any that was left alive in the town of Mansoul, because, as I said, his words did shake the whole town; they were like the rattling thunder, and also like thunder-claps. Since therefore the giant could not make him wholly his own, what doth he do but studies all that he could to debauch the old gentleman; and by debauchery to stupefy his mind, and more harden his heart in ways of vanity. And as he attempted, so he ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to the dramatist's regard for unity of place, the play is full of absurdities. Yet Cato was received with immense applause. It was regarded from a political aspect, and both Whig and Tory strove to turn the drama to party account. 'The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party,' Pope writes, 'on the one side of the theatre, were echoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... we raise, I thank'd her for her courtesie; But aye she blush'd and aye she sigh'd, And said, "Alas, ye've ruin'd me." I claps'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne, While the tear stood twinkling in her e'e; I said, my lassie, dinna cry. For ye aye shall make the bed to me. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the accomplishment of his purpose that he gave no heed to the fact that the sounds ahead had ceased, and that only the soft patter of his own feet on the rocks broke the stillness between the loud claps of thunder. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... to shelter the emperor against the first fury of the tempest. From hence he shortly departed for Kowno, where the greatest disorder prevailed. The claps of thunder were no longer noticed; those menacing reports, which still murmured over our heads, appeared forgotten. For, though this common phenomenon of the season might have shaken the firmness of some few minds, with the majority the time of omens had ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... changed its lodgings; whilst others have lustily sworn that the soul was a vagrant, with no claim to any place of settlement whatever. Nevertheless, a vulgar notion has obtained that the soul dwelt on a little knob of the brain; and that there, like a vainglorious bantam-cock on a dunghill, it now claps its wings and crows all sorts of triumph—and now, silent and scratching, it thinks of nought but wheat and barley. The first step to knowledge is to confess to a late ignorance. We avow, then, our late ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... with so much sorrow, sounded like claps of thunder in his ears. "Mother," he cried ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... cried. "The youngster's cheeks flush red, Wide laugh his lips, and swiftly wags his head, He cheers, he claps, he chuckles. Can he, the languid lounger limp and faint Give way to mirth with the mad unrestraint Of boys with ribs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... spangled speeches, let alone the songs; Statesmen grow merry, young attorneys laugh, And weak teetotals warm to half-and-half, And beardless Tullys, new to festive scenes, Cut their first crop of youth's precocious greens; And wits stand ready for impromptu claps, With loaded barrels and percussion-caps; And Pathos, cantering through the minor keys, Waves all her onions to the trembling breeze; While the great Feasted views with silent glee His scattered limbs in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party, on the one side of the theatre, were ecchoed back by the Tories on the other; while the author sweated behind the scenes, with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case too with the Prologue writer, who was clapp'd into a staunch ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... grandees meet, the junior leans forward, bends his knees, and places the palms of his hands on the ground, one on either side his feet, while the senior claps hands over him six ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... nasty food? Surely I am more worthy than a whelp to enjoy a happy life, and to obtain the highest honor." While the Ass is thus soliloquising, he sees his Master enter the stable; so running up to him in haste and braying aloud, he leaps upon him, claps both feet on his shoulders, begins to lick his face; and tearing his clothes with his dirty hoofs, he fatigues his Master with his heavy weight, as he stupidly fawns upon him. At their Master's outcry the Servants ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... degradations, and uniting the prowess of her ancient life with the gentler arts of the present for the perfection of her own powers and for the welfare of mankind. The gleam of this vision had shone forth even amidst the thunder claps of the French Revolution; and now that the storm had burst over the plains of Lombardy, ecstatic youths seemed to see the vision embodied in the person of Bonaparte himself. At the first news of ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose |
