"Explosion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two voices were heard, whose echoes blended. Then but one remained, and alone sustained a note as brilliant as a thread of light. The priest bowed his face, and above his gray head appeared the host. At that moment the note which Maese Perez was holding began to swell and swell, and an explosion of unspeakable joy ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... The explosion of a cracker startled Moppet from the meditative mood. It was the signal for the rifling of the Christmas tree. The crackers—the gold and silver and sapphire and ruby and emerald crackers—were being ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... mail to England will carry home the tidings of fresh disasters to this once flourishing colony. The fast growing embarrassments of 1841, and the 600 insolvencies of 1842, have been crowned in the first third of the year 1843, by the explosion of the Bank of Australia, then by the minor explosion of the Sydney Bank, and, last of all, by the run on the Savings Bank. These three latter calamities have come in such rapid succession, that before men's minds recovered from the stunning effect of one shock, they were astounded by ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... laughed loudly. When he laughed it was under protest, as it were, with closed doors, his mouth shut, so that the explosion had to seek another respiratory channel, and found its way out quietly, while his eyebrows and nostrils and all his features betrayed the "ground swell," as Professor Thayer happily called it, of the half-suppressed convulsion. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... with a kind of fierceness; his eyes scintillated a white heat, but he suppressed the imminent explosion and began with forced mildness, "My, yes. But you imagine a man trying to locate with ninety-five per cent. of the country reserved. First you've got to consider the Coast Range. The great wall of China's nothing but a line of ninepins to the Chugach and St. Elias wall. The Almighty ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... sound of an explosion reached their ears, but more than an hour went by before the smoke and fumes would allow them to enter the place, and then it was to find that the results did not equal their expectations. To begin with, the slab was only cracked—not shattered, since the strength of the powder had been expended ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... decision, rendered March 21, 1898, after a four weeks session, reported as follows: "That the loss of the Maine was not in any respect due to the fault or negligence on the part of any of the officers or members of her crew; that the ship was destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine which caused the partial explosion of two or more of her forward magazines; and that no evidence has been obtainable fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... of all Clarissa's movements from the obsequious Warman, who took care to question Mrs. Granger's coachman in the course of conversation, in a pleasant casual manner, as to the places to which he had taken his mistress. She waited and made no sign. There was treason going on. The climax and explosion would come in ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... "Explosion in a Larder: Cook and Policeman Blown to Bits"; "The Girl That Poisoned Half a Parish"; "Weather Harder And Death Rate Rising"; "Poacher Brains an Earl"; Why blazon blackly forth such blighting news, Nor give a glimpse of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... shoulder before a looking-glass to see that I threw it up straight. Another and better plan was to get a friend to wave about a lighted candle, and then to fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and if the aim was accurate the little puff of air would blow out the candle. The explosion of the cap caused a sharp crack, and I was told that the tutor of the college remarked, "What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr. Darwin seems to spend hours in cracking a horse-whip in his room, for I often hear the crack when I pass under ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... violent explosion is heard above the confused noises on deck. A midshipman goes above ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... properly wasted, the noble lord on the one side and the noble lord on the other duly explained, paid each other the highest possible compliments, and Lumley was left to conclude his vindication, which now seemed a comparatively flat matter after the late explosion. He completed his task so as to satisfy, apparently, all parties—for all parties were now tired of the thing, and wanted to go to bed. But the next morning there were whispers about the town, articles in the different ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... but the most amusing is surely that in a letter from Private Watters. "One of our men," he relates, "has got a ripping cure for neuralgia, but he isn't going to take out a patent for it! While lying in the trenches, mad with pain in the face, a shell burst beside him. He wasn't hit, but the explosion rendered him unconscious for a time, and when he recovered, his neuralgia had gone. His name is Palmer, so now we call the German shells ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... teeth, some with pieces of food in their fingers, and one at least—a pale young German, from Pennsylvania—with a miniature of his sister in his hands. Horses fell, shrieking such awful cries as Cooper told of, and writhing themselves about in hopeless agony. The boards of fences, scattered by explosion, flew in splinters through the air. The earth, torn up in clouds, blinded the eyes of hurrying men; and through the branches of trees and among the gravestones of the cemetery a shower of destruction crashed ceaselessly. As, with hundreds of others, I groped through this tempest of death ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... trigger with her right hand and the result was that she could not even hit the tree on which the paper was fastened. She screwed her face up into a frightful grimace and turned her head away when she fired, as if she expected the explosion to blow her head off. But Ned gallantly assured her that she would be a good shot in time and never made one remark about "the way girls do such things." Hinpoha persisted until she had hit the paper once and then left to put her slumgullion over the fire, assisted ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... last letters will have taught you to expect an explosion here: it was primed and loaded, but they hesitated to fire the train. One of the cities shirked from the league. I cannot write more at large for a thousand reasons. Our 'puir hill folk' offered to strike, and raise the first ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... We have taken stock of Mr. STOCK's picture, and fail to understand it. Is it LULU or ZAZEL? There seems to have been an explosion, and one person, lightly attired, is blown up; and another, more warmly clad, is blown down. They will both probably catch cold. Nothing hazy about Mr. HAYES's pictures. On the contrary, fresh and brilliant—notably, "A Grey Sunset." If ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 8, 1890 • Various
... settled down upon one side, so that they could scarce keep their footing upon the sloping platform. Gazing over the edge, they looked down upon the horrible destruction which had been caused by the explosion. For forty yards round the portal the ground was black with writhing, screaming figures, who struggled up and hurled themselves down again, tossing this way and that, sightless, scorched, with fire bursting from their tattered clothing. Beyond ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... explosion in applied information and other technologies is the American free enterprise system and its entrepreneurial character. This drive is needed to translate this technology into military hardware. The nature of the U.S. market and its competitive basis reinforce this element. ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... is to change saltpeter into powder, and the Homeric brain of the great Goethe had sucked up, as an alembic, all the juice of the forbidden fruit. Those who did not read him did not believe it, knew nothing of it. Poor creatures! The explosion carried them away like grains of dust into the abyss ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... scraped fer Neddy, We wanted him to have a education. We sent him to High School, An' then he went up to Boston to Technology. He was a minin' engineer, An' doin' real well, A credit to his bringin' up. But his very first position ther was an explosion in the mine. And I'm glad! I'm glad! He ain't here to see me now. Neddy! Neddy! I'm your mother still, Neddy. Don't turn from me like that. I can't abear it. I can't! I can't! What did you say? Oh, yes, Sir. I'm here. I'm very sorry, I don't ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... fair reader, apropos of our remark that the only way to improve the so-called human race is to junk it and begin over again, "when does the junking begin? Because...." Cawn't say when the big explosion will occur. But look for us in a ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... fuel to the flame which would ultimately consume me, yet some perverse influence altogether beyond my control seemed to urge me to speak as I did, whether I would or no. And, strangest circumstance of all, my words, instead of evoking from my questioner the white-hot explosion of wrath that I fully expected, seemed to gratify the man rather than otherwise, for he grinned appreciation as he gazed into my flashing eyes. Then a thought seemed ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... of Crumville was a large jewelry factory, owned by Mr. Oliver Wadsworth. Mr. Wadsworth had a beautiful young daughter, named Jessie, and one day through an explosion of an automobile gasoline tank, the young miss was in danger of being burned to death when Dave came to her rescue. This so pleased the Wadsworths that they came not only to the aid of the boy, but also assisted Caspar ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... the force of an explosion. It wasn't the water pressure. Mr. Hooper; you'll notice that the stones there are forced in against the water; not out with it. And the cracks—they're further evidence. We heard the explosion about eleven o'clock; saw the light ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... when applied to newspapers, but it was not found to answer. A joke of the time was a supposed order to the type-founder for some words of frequent occurrence, which ran thus: "Please send me a hundredweight, sorted, of murder, fire, dreadful robbery, atrocious outrage, fearful calamity, alarming explosion, melancholy accident; an assortment of honourable member, whig, tory, hot, cold, wet, dry; half a hundred weight, made up in pounds, of butter, cheese, beef, mutton, tripe, mustard, soap, rain, etc., and a few devils, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... bandage across his mouth so tight; but he could see out of one eye. And lying there, Cadger watched the two yeggs go through the whole operation of getting nitroglycerine planted, and using all sorts of clothes and even the rugs off the floor of the president's room to deaden the sound of the explosion." ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... boots with side-elastics resting against the lower bar of the railings. His rumpled grey hair stood up above his forehead like the crest of an angry bird, and the leather-brown of his veined cheeks was blotched with red. Charity knew that those red spots were the signs of a coming explosion. ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... Balchristie's objurgation, sounds in themselves by no means uncommon, but very remarkable, in respect to the early hour at which they were now heard. He turned himself on the other side, however, in hopes the squall would blow by, when, in the course of Mrs. Balchristie's second explosion of wrath, the name of Deans distinctly struck the tympanum of his ear. As he was, in some degree, aware of the small portion of benevolence with which his housekeeper regarded the family at St. Leonard's, he instantly conceived that some message from thence was ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... sister - was subject to uncontrollable fits of laughter at improper seasons. For the last half-hour he had suffered severely from the torture of suppressed mirth, and now, as he saw Mr. Verdant Green's climax of fright at the anticipated branding, human nature could not longer bear up against an explosion of merriment, and Mr. Bouncer burst into shouts of laughter, and, with convulsive sobs, flung himself upon the nearest seat. His example was contagious; Mr. Blades, Mr. Foote, and Mr. Flexible Shanks, one after another, joined in the roar, and relieved their pent-up feelings ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... couple—an old man and his idiot son. The father was of a fierce, savage temper, but seemed very fond, although capriciously so, of his child. Sometimes he would treat him with the greatest tenderness, then again, at some wayward action of the idiot, he would burst upon him with an awful explosion of passion. The old man had evidently been a reckless desperado in other days, and many in the village suspected strongly that he had once been a pirate. He was addicted to drinking, and now and then, when bitten by the adder, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... events of the evening were whirling through our heads. As yet we could make neither head nor tail to them. Bit by bit we began to see the significance of things, although, of course, the whole story was not clear to us until a day later, when things came to a head and the resulting explosion cleared up ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... not the slightest disturbance. It was pathetic to see this beautiful ship torpedoed and in thirty-two minutes at the bottom of the sea. I believe the only lives lost were those of men injured by the explosion. Meanwhile five destroyers came up from Helles at a terrific speed, the water curling from their bows; they and all the other destroyers circled round and round the bay, but the submarine lay low and got off. Her commander certainly ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... as stupid, as devilish, as basely born as godfathered. It is an exploded forgery, and the explosion leaves dead and torn upon the field the author and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... woman, and after the first explosion of her fury she regained enough self-control to speak connectedly. She turned round, in spite of the ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... possible. A group of men of the Seventy-seventh were behind the breastwork, stretched out upon the sand, resting upon their elbows and amusing each other with jokes, when a shell came shrieking into their midst. Its explosion threw them in every direction. One went high in the air and fell twenty feet from the spot where he was lying when the shell exploded. Strange to tell, not a man was killed, yet three had each a leg crushed to jelly, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... Christianity, but the worship of the god of war.... Unless something is done, the condition of the poor in Europe will grow worse and worse. It is no use shutting our eyes. Revolution may not come soon, not probably in our time, but come it will, and as sure as fate there will be an explosion such as the world has ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... noises there are many explanations, the most plausible being that they are caused by the explosion of the species of stone known as the geode, fragments of which are frequently found among the mountains. The geode has a hollow cell within, lined with beautiful ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Roman Catholic Association began to exercise authority such as the Irish Parliament, in the days of its independence, had never possessed. An agitator became more powerful than the Lord Lieutenant. Violence engendered violence. Every explosion of feeling on one side of St George's Channel was answered by a louder explosion on the other. The Clare election, the Penenden Heath meeting showed that the time for evasion and delay was past. A crisis had arrived ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet, prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... wife, meanwhile, sat sullen and defiant, daring, rather than deprecating, the menaced explosion of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... lying in the hammock on the porch when her brother's yell had broken forth. It was a lovely, calm, moonlight night, and she had been revelling in the peace of it, when suddenly this outcry from above had shot her out of her hammock like an explosion. She ran upstairs, fearing she knew not what. She found Nutty sitting on the bed, looking like ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the new heading toilsomely beneath the fall, working in rock fissured by the last explosion, through which the water poured in on them, while the river rose when the frost broke up and was succeeded by a week or two of torrential rain. The water swirled high among the boulders, and had crept almost ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... has been another explosion. I held in as long as I could, and then flew into ten thousand pieces. Ernest had got into the habit of helping his father and sister at the table, and apparently forgetting me. It seems a little thing, but it chafed and fretted ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... thus amicably composed, I begged leave to look at his pistols, which I found so crazy and so foul, that I believe it was happy for him neither of them was discharged, for one of them would certainly have split in the going off, and he would, in all probability, have lost his hand in the explosion; but what gave me a lively idea of the man's character was, to find, upon examination, that one of them had been loaded without being primed, and the other primed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... gives us. The violent-tempered man becomes once more a primitive, when he yields to wrath. A starved and repressed side of his nature—the old Adam, in fact—leaps up into consciousness and glories in its strength. He obtains from the explosion an immense feeling of relief; and so too with the other great natural passions which our religious or social morality keeps in check. Even the saints have known these revenges of natural instincts too violently ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... was towed alongside, at Tadcaster's urgent request, and then the power of the explosion was seen. Confined, first by the bottle, then by the meat, then by the fish, and lastly by the water, it had exploded with tenfold power, had blown the brute's head into a million atoms, and had even torn a great furrow in its carcass, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... plenty of sentiment in the explosion. That was the splendid, blinding part of it. That was the part of it which even to-day makes us veil our eves before the nobility of such women as Emma Willard and Mary Lyon. They made Troy Female Seminary in the twenties and ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... She looked for an explosion and she was not disappointed. The hot blood rushed to the man's bloated cheeks. His eyes lit furiously. He had looked for prompt acquiescence. It had been his habit to browbeat the woman who had followed him throughout a long career of crime, and it drove him ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... to fear and regret. The enemy promptly accomplished its purpose. A redhot ball reached the powder magazine of the fort. A terrible explosion followed, destroying the fort and bringing instant death to two hundred and seventy of ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... women told their story clearly enough. They had been aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been followed a minute later by a second one. They slept in adjoining rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in to Saunders. Together they had descended the stairs. The door of the study was open and a candle was burning upon the table. Their ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were confined to one district. I saw the brave fellows march into the buildings upon the edge of the swirling flames to lay the fuse. A moment after their return the bugle would sound; then came the explosion, and the men were off to another building to repeat the work. All was done by bugle call, with military precision. Ten thousand times more "glory" in this march to save than in all the charge at Balaklava. Had equal pluck been shown on the field of battle, the flag of that splendid regiment ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... no words to tell her how lovely we thought it. Cedar Lake, which we passed before reaching Minneanopolis, could not bear the comparison. An old man, pointing out some large flour-mills near the road, told us of a terrible explosion there in 1877, when many lives were lost. The machinery and mills were shattered to pieces, and thousands of pounds' worth of damage was done; yet in 1878 they were again in full working order, and as celebrated as ever for the fineness of ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... Winton's packet of mail was not the only one which was delivered by special arrangement that morning to the incoming Limited at the yard registering station. There had been another, addressed to Mr. Somerville Darrah; and when he had opened it there had been a volcanic explosion and a hurried dash for the telegraph ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... commonplace tricks, such as unhooking and changing signs, ringing bells, flinging casks left before one house into the cellar of the next with a crash, rousing the occupants of the house by a noise that seemed to their frightened ears like the explosion of a mine. In Issoudun, as in many country towns, the cellar is entered by an opening near the door of the house, covered with a wooden scuttle, secured by strong iron hinges and ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... right and left under them. These were charged with eight thousand pounds of powder. When all was ready, masses of troops were brought up to take advantage of the confusion which would be caused by the explosion, and a division of black troops were to lead the assault. At a quarter to five in the morning of the 30th of July the great mine was exploded, blowing two guns, a battery, and its defenders into the air, and forming a huge pit two hundred feet long and ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... hurled in any direction, and with any velocity short of that which would for ever release them from the solar sway, would continue to describe elliptic orbits round the sun, all passing through the scene of the explosion, and thus possessing a common ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... before very long there would be a great explosion; and in the hot days of August it came. The Duchess and the Princess had gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the King himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament, paid a visit at Kensington Palace in their ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... 343 above her water-line and pretty well aft. Those on her deck who saw her make that last leap out of water hoped for the best, though waiting for the worst. But the resulting explosion was nothing tremendous—so officers and men say, and so adding a little more data to U-boat history. The bark of one of their own little 4-inch guns was more impressive. There was a flame and an up-shooting cloud of black smoke, followed instantly by another explosion, that of ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly
... concluded, he informed us that Tristan's symptoms were simply those of a general physical shock such as would be expected in the case of a man standing close to the center of an explosion, though from our description of the affair he could not understand how my brother had survived at all. The glimmering of an explanation of this did not come until a long time afterward. So far as physical condition was concerned, ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... on the poop, chronometer in hand, counting the minutes; Shandon and the doctor were with him. At eight thirty-five a dull explosion was heard, much less loud than any one would have supposed. The outline of the mountains was changed all at once as if by an earthquake; thick white smoke rose up to a considerable height in the sky, leaving long crevices in the iceberg, ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... all the time. He had to transact some important business with a nephew in Orange, New Jersey. He went there first, under guard. Then he went home, to Pleasantville. There was no one there; the house had been closed up. About three or four minutes after he got there there was an explosion that blew the entire dwelling to kindling wood. The two guards, one of them a state trooper, and one of them a Federal man, were killed with him. There wasn't enough left of him or them to put in ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... There was an explosion in Farmer's brain. This was too much—Garf had gone too far! The burly editor plunged across the deck, swinging a fist. To his surprise, Garf did nothing to stop him; probably, John Andrew figured later, the fishman expected no further trouble from the humans after ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... members all international diplomatic transactions which concern the alliance. Germany and Austria failed to do this during the earlier stages in July, when they were preparing for the war. Only after they had laid their train so surely that an explosion was almost inevitable did they communicate the documents to Italy and call upon her to take her place in the field with them. But Italy refused; because, after examining the evidence, she concluded that Germany and Austria were the aggressors. Now, ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... dashed along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost naked retiarius with his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... concluded but not signed, when the Letters from the Mountain appeared. The terrible explosion caused by this infernal work, and its abominable author, terrified the company, and the ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... German account of the Holt and of Miss Charlecote's book, for which she was called upon. Bertha meanwhile, to whom waggishness was existence, was carrying on a silent drama on her plate, her roll being a quarry, and her knife the workmen attacking it. Now she undermined, now acted an explosion, with uplifted eyebrows and an indicated 'puff!' with her lips, with constant dumb-show directed to Maria, who, without half understanding, was in a constant suppressed titter, sometimes ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... act of venom. It was known that in the basement a considerable quantity of petrol had been stored. The contents had probably been carefully distributed over the most inflammable materials in the top rooms. The fire broke out, as one witness described it, "almost like an explosion." Orming must have perished in this. The roof blazed up, and the sparks carried across the yard and started a stack of light timber in the annexe of Messrs. Morrel's piano-factory. The factory and two blocks of tenement buildings ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... going to sail at last. The first and second whistles, sounding raucously, sent the company officials and the family of the young officer of reserves ashore. The plank was lowered; between the ship and the looming pier a thread of black water appeared and grew; a flash and an explosion indicated that the possibly doomed liner had been filmed according to schedule. "Evviva l'Italia!" yelled the returning braves in the steerage—a very decent set of fellows, it struck me, to leave ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... lamps, lights in all the rooms, torches in the hall, illuminations along the windows, stores of fireworks, such a display as only he could have dreamed of. The fire had broken out at dusk, from an explosion of fireworks at one wing and some inexplicable mismanagement at the other. But the house must have been like a mine, what with the powder, the torches, the devices in paper and muslin, and the extraordinary decorations fitted up to celebrate our return in harmony ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... explosion came. For a minute I thought one of them 'Frisco ague spells had come east. The Major turns plum color, blows up his cheeks, and bugs his eyes out. When the language flows it was like turnin' on a fire-pressure hydrant. An assistant district attorney summin' up for the State in a murder trial ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... explosion to drink to the new superintendent of the Oriel mine," he said. Johnny looked at him surprised, and then at the others, and the faces were bright with the same look of something which they knew and ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... great a patriot as any of the old Saxons. In a burst of enthusiasm he joined the Special Constables; in an explosion of wrath, following the bombardment of Scarborough, he enlisted in the Kentish Fencibles, and in a wave of self-sacrifice he enrolled himself in the Old Veterans' Fire Brigade. And he had badges upon each lapel of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... 1914, the Germans began the bombardment of Fort Suarlee. This fort repeated the heroic resistance of Fort Boncelles at Liege. It held out until the afternoon of August 25. It was apparently then blown up by the explosion of its own magazine, thus again repeating the end of Fort Loncin at Liege. Meantime the Germans had succeeded in reducing Forts Cognelee ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... of dynamite was procured and the fuse lighted. After the explosion he returned to the spot and found the result satisfactory. The blast had released the woman, who was alive and sitting upon a rock. He approached her cheerfully ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... off quietly enough; but you can't have air charged with electricity, and your back-cellars filled with dynamite, without danger of explosion. Burst to-day in unlooked-for place, in unexpected circumstances. HALDANE brought in Bill providing that ratepayers should share with Duke of WESTMINSTER and other great landowners benefit of unearned increment. Prospect alluring, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... do him the greater credit with the consul when he should show it him, but the carriage had been broken in his pocket, on the way home, by an unlucky thrust from the burden of a porter, and the poor toy lay there disabled, as if to dramatize that premature explosion in the secret chamber. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... and closed the door behind him. All the Germans stood up and waited, their faces wreathed in childlike smiles of curiosity, and as soon as the explosion shook the Chateau, they hurried in all ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... has also succeeded in establishing a traffic in gunpowder, by inventing a carriage of sheet iron, lined with wood, in which four-and-a-half tons of gunpowder can be conveyed without fear of explosion either ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... "to lay to his soul the flattering unction" that he might, after all, be of use to Mrs. Vavasour, by using his power over her husband: but he knew in his secret heart that any move of his in that direction was likely only to make matters worse; that to-day's explosion might only have sent home the hapless Vavasour in a more irritable temper than ever. And thinking over many things, backward and forward, he saw his own way so little, that he actually condescended ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... over head, Then, growling, wears away to silence dread. Now waking from afar in doubled might, Slow rolling onward to the middle height; Like crash of mighty mountains downward hurl'd, Like the upbreaking of a wrecking world, In dreadful majesty, th' explosion grand Bursts wide, and awful, o'er the trembling land. The lofty mountains echo back the roar, Deep from afar rebounds earth's rocky shore; All else existing in the senses bound Is lost in the immensity of sound. Wide ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... No one could tell exactly how the flight of an aeroplane would be affected when the weight of the machine should be suddenly lightened by the release of a large bomb; no one could be sure that a powerful explosion on the surface of the sea would not affect the machine flying at a moderate height above it. In 1912 a dummy hundred-pound bomb was dropped from a Short pusher biplane flown by Commander Samson, who was surprised and pleased to find that the effect on the flight of the machine was hardly ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Stephen, in spite of the last stormy interview, and your attitude since, I know that I have no firmer friend than you, and you know well that my affection for you has not lessened because of anything so trivial as what has passed. Old friends are like old wine in more than one respect—the explosion made by the blowing out of the cork does not affect the quality. Come to me first, and let me tell you ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... you the truth, Mr. Kent, I read very little fiction nowadays. I'm rather worried about that gas-man downstairs. Do you suppose your daughter can be in any danger? There might be some sort of explosion—don't you think I had better run down to see if I ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... ascending the ladders, and several passengers are described as having rushed up with their clothes in flames. In twenty minutes all was over but the last cruel agony. So rapid was the ravage, that it seems to have been more like an explosion than the ordinary progress of fire. The alarm and despair were almost simultaneous. The number of persons destroyed in this most pitiable and frightful catastrophe was 115, and among them was the accomplished author, Mr. ELIOT WARBURTON. His career in literature ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... new republic was about concluded, Upshur was accidentally killed by the explosion of a gun on the ship Princeton. Calhoun, whose ardent candidacy for the Democratic nomination had failed, was called to the State Department to take up the unfinished work. Meanwhile the campaigns ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... about the need of stopping it," said the Vicar-General, continuing his own train of thought aloud, "but how are we to do it? The feeling is a perfect dynamite factory now, and the least stumble on our part will bring an explosion. If we tried to give them the money back—and you know women have a tight grip on money —we shouldn't know where to give it. Positively we're like the family of the poor fellow who had the fit—one doctor said ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... was a difference, the difference apparent when out of the flat farmlands seismic explosion has thrown up a range of mountain peaks. For the expansion of the country which the middle nineteenth century had wrought, the Thorleys, Mastermans, Willoughbys, and Brands had been on the alert, with eyes watchful and calculations ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... her own as he is ushered in to the feast. The mountain-laurel welcomes the twilight moth with an impulsive multiple embrace. The desmodium and genesta celebrate their hospitality with a joke, as it were, letting their threshold fall beneath the feet of the caller, and startling him with an explosion and a cloud of yellow powder, suggesting the day pyrotechnics of the Chinese. The prickly-pear cactus encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller. The ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... weather, the waves got into the habit of breaking over the funnel of the steamer and thereby causing a steam explosion down below. This so worked on the nerves of the stokers that they got up a mutiny, in which the other sailors joined, the object being to force the captain to return the steamer to England. They thought that if this was not done they would share the fate of the horses, and ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... on the young sergeant; he was calm, and had not even quivered at the explosion. That event decided his fortune. He remained attached to the commander of artillery, and returned no more to his corps. At a subsequent time, when the town surrendered, and Bonaparte was appointed General, Junot asked no other recompense for his brave conduct during the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... fire as coolly as if it were only a snow-balling scrape, though many a poor fellow lost the number of his mess in the boats that day. When he left us, we cheered him again. He had not left us long, before we heard an awful explosion on shore. Stones as big as my two fists fell on board of us, though nobody was hurt by them. We cheered, thinking some dire calamity had befallen the enemy. The firing ceased soon after this explosion, though one English gun held on, under the ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... intensity of their alarm preventing them from giving utterance to their feelings. Among them a young woman, superior to the rest in appearance, went hurrying on towards the pit's mouth, her hand held by a little boy, who had evidently grasped it, refusing to be left behind, when startled by the explosion, she had quitted her cottage. Her fair hair, escaping from beneath her cap, streamed in the wind; her countenance exhibited the most intense anxiety. Her boy, among the oldest of those who had remained that morning in ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... conscience, think that I deprive you of anything of consequence in not being at present connected with you in literary business. My reputation with the world is something like a high-pressure engine, which does very well while all lasts stout and tight, but is subject to sudden explosion, and I would rather that another than an old friend stood the risk of suffering ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... open to me here, with a chance to rise?" exclaimed Ferd, looking aghast at this unexpected explosion of his hopes. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... suddenly into full consciousness, with the din of some appalling explosion of thunder in his ears, and sat up in bed with racing heart. Then for a moment, as he recovered himself from the panic-land which lies between sleeping and waking, there was silence, except for the steady hissing of rain on the shrubs outside his window. But suddenly that silence was ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... but at that moment the whole brig was shaken, and the councilors startled from their dignity by a tremendous explosion which drove them from their seats, while the air was rent by yells and shrieks in various tones and degrees, and a stifling smoke and smell of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... might be deceived and bankrupted a hundred times, and would toe the mark the next time with undiminished confidence. He was continually, and in the quietest way, having the most astonishing and cataclysmic adventures; he would be blown up, as it were, by a dynamite explosion, and presently would return from the sky undisturbed, with only a slight additional sparkle in his soft eyes, and with the lock of hair that fell gracefully over his forehead only a trifle disordered. The ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... substitute had fled to the town where he hid in a cellar. He went to sleep there and awoke the next morning inside the rebel lines. He was sent south to a prison and when returning north after the close of the war lost his life in the explosion of ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... the wisdom of such a policy; but, let me add, I may not, perhaps, have the means of judging correctly. We cannot, however, disguise the fact we are standing alongside a loaded mine. Let us be prepared for the explosion. It may come at any moment. Vigilance, readiness and promptness must be our watchwords. Might I ask you to remember my family motto, 'He who guards never sleeps.' Even to-morrow may bring surprises—such stormy weather ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... through the air, rapidly followed by three others. Then about two hundred yards to our left in a large field, four columns of black earth and smoke rose into the air, and the ground trembled from the report,—the explosion of four German five-nine's, or "coal-boxes." A sharp whistle blast, immediately followed by two short ones, rang out from the head of our column. This was to take up "artillery formation." We divided into small ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... together, and the time went by as pleasantly as possible till Madame Rancour came for her little charge, who went away with a sad heart. Thus I was left alone with my Pauline who began to inspire me with such ardent desires that I dreaded an explosion every moment. And yet I had not so ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... constitution.—REMUSAT, Correspondance, October 11, 1818. A ses yeux loin d'avoir rompu le cours naturel des evenements, ni la Revolution d'Angleterre, ni la notre, n'ont rien dit, rien fait, qui n'eut ete dit, souhaite, fait, ou tente cent fois avant leur explosion. "Il faut en ceci," dit-il, "tout accorder a leurs adversaires, les surpasser meme en severite, ne regarder a leurs accusations que pour y ajouter, s'ils en oublient; et puis les sommer de dresser, a leur tour, le compte des erreurs, ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... on diversion, came up to me, making the hard stool seem harder, the bare walls more bare, and increasing a hundredfold the solitary gloom in which I sat. For as sunshine deepens the shadows which fall athwart it, and no silence is like that which follows the explosion of a mine, so sadness and poverty are never more intolerable than when hope and wealth ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... who retired into Valachia at his approach. Meanwhile the grand vizier invested Belgrade, and carried on his attacks with surprising resolution. At length a bomb falling upon a great tower in which the powder magazine of the besieged was contained, the place blew up with a dreadful explosion. Seventeen hundred soldiers of the garrison were destroyed; the walls and ramparts were overthrown; the ditch was filled up, and so large a breach was opened that the Turks entered by squadrons and battalions, cutting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... explosion, a man's yell of rage, followed by a choking gulp of mortal anguish. Druce was seized and flung ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... blood-hounds of imaginary fraud had yelled their notes thro' the county, the quivers of malice had been exhausted of their poisoned arrows, and "the book," that great gun of a falling faction which they had been loading during the whole Summer past, had gone off with a harmless explosion. ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... Mrs Ottley, fearing an explosion, which happened rather frequently when Bruce and his father were together, combined their united ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... were at work. A man came into port No. 5, where little Wallis was, and said that the enemy was sinking, and had released him and the other prisoners. But we had no orders to stop firing. Afterwards there was a great explosion. It began at the main hatch, but came back to me and scalded some of my No. 2 men horribly. Afterwards Mr. Wallis came and took some of No. 2's men to board. I tried to bring both guns to bear with No. 1's crew. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... numbers and to be massing as if for a charge, and before we realised it, we were unlimbering the guns and the horses were struggling through the mud back to the waggon-lines. In a few seconds the roar of an explosion proclaimed that the guns were firing their first shots against an enemy, and presently over the waggon-lines came a persistent whining sound indicating that the enemy had a few remarks to make on ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... everybody—out in the middle of the street. It all happened so quickly of course. I heard vaguely that some one was shouting and I think a policeman started forward, but anyhow the man raised his arm and in an instant there was the explosion. It went off before he was ready I suppose, but the ground rocked under one's feet. Two soldiers fell, unhurt, I have learnt since. There was a hideous dust, horses plunging and men shouting and then suddenly silence. The dust cleared and there was a hole in the ground, stones rooted up ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... catastrophe resulting from change in its gaseous nucleus. If, under some condition of pressure and temperature eventually reached, the components of this suddenly entered into one of those proto-chemical combinations forming a new element, there might result an explosion capable of shattering the entire planet, and propelling its fragments in all directions with high velocities. If the hypothetical planet between Jupiter and Mars was intermediate in size as in position, it would ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... at him, pressed his lips, wrote down the number, shaken all the while with a disturbance which promised to lead to another explosion. Finally, after a deal of pantomime, and whispering and laughter with the notary behind the wire screen, the deed was made out, signed, attested, and delivered. Stephen counted out the money grimly, in gold ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... day, my father and the relative so often mentioned quarrelled; quarrelled by letter, for I took the letter from my father to him which caused the explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely. It was about me. It may have had some backward reference, in part, for anything I know, to my employment at the window. All I am certain of is that, soon after I had given him the letter, my cousin ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... Mawruss, I think the reason why them anarchists which explode bombs is never discovered, y'understand, ain't up to the police at all, but to the contractor which cleans up the scene of the explosion," Abe said. "If he would only instruct his workmen to sift the rubbish before they cart it away, they might anyhow find a collar-button or something, because next to windows, Mawruss, the most breakage caused by anarchistic bomb ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... young lad was for going down on his knees again, with another explosion of gratitude, but that we heard the voice from the next chamber of the august sleeper, just waking, calling out:—"Eh, La-Fleur, un verre d'eau"; his Majesty came out yawning:—"A pest," says he, "upon your ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the woman came in, she began a perfect torrent of abuse. Bok could not piece out, try as he might, what it was all about. But he did gather from the explosion that the woman considered him a hypocrite who wrote one thing and did another; that he was really a thief, stealing a woman's money, and so forth. There was no chance of a word for fully fifteen minutes and then, when she was almost breathless, Bok ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok |
