"Overpowering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... other phantasms had now for an unmeasured time been tenants of the packer's brain, sharing and often overpowering the reality of the human step that went to and fro. To-day the shapes and relations of things were more natural, and the step ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... white, the effect of which has been good; and we have seen scarlet, which is very trying, and more suited for winter. It is effective when toned down with black velvet, but it looks rather heavy and overpowering. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... There is a famous spring at San Antonio, Texas, which is described by that excellent traveler, Frederick Law Olmsted. "The whole river," he says, "gushes up in one sparkling burst from the earth, with all the accessories of smaller springs,—moss, pebbles, foliage, seclusion, etc. Its effect is overpowering. It is beyond your possible conception of ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the records are silent. It probably arose in many places at the same time; for the terror of death, which pervaded all nations and suddenly set such powerful impulses in motion, might easily conjure up the fanaticism of exaggerated and overpowering repentance. ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... and wildest disproportions and distortions of more normal passion; the point is that the whole mood was overpowered and oppressed with a sort of congestion of imagination. As Bunyan, in his morbid period, described himself as prompted to utter blasphemies, I had an overpowering impulse to record or draw horrible ideas and images; lunging deeper and deeper as in ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... G. W.," said the nurse; and the child promptly obeyed. He could take in the great scene just as well from the bed, and there was less danger of falling all in a heap if it got too overpowering. ...
— A Little Dusky Hero • Harriet T. Comstock
... find original characters, queer combinations of events, surprising revelations of individual and family experiences and an unlimited fund of amusement, especially if he is disposed, perhaps even while he submits to an overpowering conviction that all life is tragic, to summon into prominence those humorous phases of social existence which, as in the best of artificial tragedies, are permitted to appear in real life as the foil of that which is truly sorrowful. To depict ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... from fright and exhaustion, with his hands chained, was being dragged along by a common-looking man. Just as we started out of Jackson the conductor led in a young woman sobbing in a heart-broken manner. Her grief seemed so overpowering, and she was so young and helpless, that every one was interested. Her husband went into the army in the opening of the war, just after their marriage, and she had never heard from him since. After months of weary searching she learned he had been heard of at Jackson, ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... no immediate cause for alarm, and when he realised that the beings in the room were apparently children, and only children, his rather mixed sensations of astonishment and fear gave place to an emotion of overpowering shyness. He became exceedingly embarrassed, for he was surrounded by children of all ages and sizes, staring at him just as hard as he ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... mastheads, as also over the fort, and that there were several smaller vessels. I thought that there would be more fighting, but instead of proceeding to that extremity, the commodore sent in a boat with a flag of truce, pointing out the overpowering force he had under him, and demanding the instant surrender ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... Assembly had listened to a hostile criticism of his own actions was sufficient ground in Bonaparte's eyes to charge it with Royalism and with treason. Three of the Directors, Barras, Rewbell, and Lareveillere, had already formed the project of overpowering the Assembly by force. Bonaparte's own interests led him to offer them his support. If the Constitutional party gained power, there was an end to his own unshackled rule in Italy; if the Bourbonists succeeded, a different class of men would hold ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... vapour-baths are often constructed on the banks of a river, throw themselves from the land into the water; or sometimes, by way of variety, plunge into snow, and roll themselves therein. This violent exercise and sudden transition of temperature is almost overpowering to persons unhabituated to the custom, and will oftentimes produce fainting,—though the patient, on recovering, finds himself refreshed, and experiences a delightful sense of mental, as well as bodily, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... reigns will not be two successive generations, because whilst the two reigns are distinct quantities, the two lives are coincident through a great part of their duration. Now, of course, Sir Isaac is very often open to serious criticism, or to overpowering doubts. That is inevitable. But on the whole he treads upon something like a firm footing. Others, as regards that era, tread upon mere clouds, and their authority goes ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of sight of the war party, they started upon a terrible journey through the thick bush, avoiding the beaten track, and every moment expecting a fresh attack by one of the scattered bands of the enemy. The heat was overpowering, the party had no food with them, and, to add to their troubles, Mr. Maples sprained his leg so badly as to make progress after sunset impossible. By morning, however, he was able to go forward, and there was another painful day's journey, still without food, save ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... may be stabled nearly two hundred horses. The Grand Ecuries at Chantilly are assuredly one of the finest examples extant of that luxuriant art of the eighteenth century French builder. Luxurious, excessively ornate and overpowering it is, and, for that reason, open to question. The work of the period knew not the discreet middle road. It was of Chantilly that it was said that the live stock was better lodged than its masters. The architect of this portion of the chateau was Jean Aubert, one of the collaborators ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... overpowering. Denver followed her inside and followed her sweet, poisonous witchery as the girl glided gracefully along the aisle between ranked tables. As she entered the glittering room talk died for a moment of sheer admiration, then began in swift whispered accents. ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... each other across Fred Elkin's somewhat mean and cruel face while Furneaux rated him in this extraordinary manner. Surprise, wrath, even fear, had their phases. But, dominating all other sensations, was an overpowering indignation at the implied hopelessness of his ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... matter—that I honestly believed the jewels to be the same that I brought to you yesterday," the young man said, with an earnest directness which convinced the gentleman that he spoke the truth. "I see now," he continued, "that they are not; and"—a feeling of faintness almost overpowering him as he realized all that this experience would cost him, aside from his pecuniary loss—"I have been outrageously deceived and hoodwinked, for I have already advanced the sum you named to the woman who wished to dispose of ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... again to the livery stable, hoping, as against vague but almost overpowering fears, that mere delay was the cause. The man told her that he understood that she had countermanded her order. She gave the order again, but now he said that he could not go for the price named, and when she offered ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... I began to think, with a vague but overpowering sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian directions ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... under this torpor there was a fierce battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never known or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with hideous, overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy, why should not Philip, suffer? She had had to suffer through many years of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And when something ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... kissed me, and we stood face to face, I recognized my likeness to him. "He has had experiences that I shall never know," I thought. "Why should I tell him mine?" But an overpowering impulse seized me to speak to him of Charles. "Father," and I put my hands on his shoulders. He set his candle ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... heaven, but likewise to enjoy the accidental glory wherewith God perfects the happiness of his elect. What, then, is this Beatific Vision? Is it an eternal gazing upon God? Is it an uninterrupted "Ah!" of admiration? Or is it a sight of such overpowering grandeur as to deprive us of consciousness, and throw us into a state of dreamy inactivity? We ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... eye rested on the familiar faces of his relatives. He calmly met their glances, which Frank thought were directed toward him rather suspiciously, but all attempts to draw him into the conversation that followed, about the war, and the certainty of speedily overpowering the Yankees, and driving them from the land, were unavailing. Once Frank thought he heard one of his sisters whisper, "How much he looks like George!" but he was not recognized, and the supper, which was enlivened by conversation on ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... the Border slave States the anti-slavery position of Mr. Lincoln might have been overthrown by a hostile House of Representatives. It is true therefore in a very striking sense that the five slave States which Mr. Lincoln's policy had held to their loyalty, were most effectively used by him in overpowering the eleven slave States which had ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... emphatically the man of the people, easy of access, social in his habits, free in his intercourse, without reserve or haughtiness, generous, magnanimous, and conciliatory. He was unsurpassed for logical acuteness, and for bursts of overpowering passion. He reached high political station, although his habits were such as destroyed, in many respects, the respect of those great men ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... execution of the condemned Indians there was great excitement throughout the Minnesota valley lest the president should pardon the condemned. Meetings were held throughout the valley and organizations were springing into existence for the purpose of overpowering the strong guard at Mankato and wreaking summary justice upon the Indians. The situation became so serious pending the decision of the president that the governor was compelled to issue a proclamation calling upon all good citizens not to tarnish the fair name ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... and had taken undisputed first place since she was a child. She was not a close student, but seemed to absorb her lessons in half the time that it took her friends to master them. Popular she certainly was, or rather she was feared by her schoolmates. Her masterful, overpowering spirit seemed ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... absorbed attention. As the last paper was laid with its fellows Madame's eyes met fearlessly the calm look of the superintendent. Slowly, laboriously at first, but gathering assurance with oblivion of self, she told the story of Elise's birth. With the intuition of an overpowering love, she felt that she was telling the story to one absolutely trustworthy, able and willing to counsel her with powers far beyond her own. Firmstone heard far more than the stumbling words recited. His eyes dimmed, ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... our love was now darkened by this tremendous cloud that lowered before us. The shock of this discovery was overpowering, and some time elapsed before I could rally from it. Though Almah's love was sweet beyond expression, and though as the time passed I saw that every jom she regained more and more of her former health and strength, still ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... the heavy branches, and out again into the freer air. Be that as it may, it was terrible enough to me, the approach to those woods. My companions were eager and gay, and shouted out, as we entered them. They little thought how overpowering were my feelings. And I little thought, myself, that I was then and there to receive a lesson that I should never forget; one, perhaps, that would do me more good than any other that I ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... terror, and made her shrink back. It recalled her to the world and the remembrance of yesterday. In the overpowering fears about to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca—jealousy—everything except that her husband was gone and was in danger. Until this dauntless worldling came in and broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have forborne to enter ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with many jests the men made their way to the road upon which the two knights of King Mark had made their return. And so we find that as the crafty king was making his way forward to the attack, believing that it would be an overpowering surprise, and already counting the fruits of victory, his intended victims were slipping through his clutches and making their way into the last of all places ...
— In the Court of King Arthur • Samuel Lowe
... of history and anecdote, and has also furnished phrases and current quotations familiar to all classes. It has furnished codes and standards which none dared to disavow, and the suggestion of which has been overpowering. The effect on popular mores has been ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... write but little, because of the awkwardness of our hands. Behold, thou hast not made us mighty in writing like unto the brother of Jared, for thou madest him that the things which he wrote were mighty even as thou art, unto the overpowering ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... were too unreal and deceptive to be depended on for a moment. The reaction from the passive state in which Mave had left her, was, to a temperament like her's, perfectly overwhelming. Her pulse beat high, her cheek burned, and her eye flashed with more than its usual fire and overpowering brilliancy, and, with the exception of one impression alone, all her thoughts were so rapid and indistinct as to resemble the careering clouds which fly in tumult and confusion along the troubled ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... self to a man who had no real affection for her. Hers was a nature, he well knew, requiring the full measure of tenderness to bloom in its fullest beauty. Believing her beyond his reach he felt a sudden overpowering sense of utter loneliness. Fully clad as he was, he flung himself upon his bed, but his arm, his breast, still tingled with the contact from the dance. Sleep held aloof from him. Darkness was no refuge from her tempting face, for, visible to his soul, it stood ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... the most sensitive and complicated ever bestowed on a human being; but it was now in the hands of its Maker, who knew how to touch it to fine issues. The Maker's design on this occasion was to produce in it an overpowering sense of sin; and what He did was to confront it with infinite holiness and majesty. These were brought so near that there was no escape. The poor, finite, sinful man was held at arm's length, so to speak, in the grasp of the ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... thoughtful consideration—as will we in the executive branch—to the views of labor, and of management, and of the general public. In this process, it is only human that each of us should bring forward the arguments of self-interest. But if all conduct their arguments in the overpowering light of national interest—which is enlightened self-interest—we shall get the right answers. I profoundly hope that every citizen of our country will follow with understanding your progress in this work. The welfare of all ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... one evening in the month of August; the heat all day had been overpowering; towards dusk a breeze had risen, the leaves rustled; there were signs of a ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... taking a dose of carping criticism. Unfortunately for me, however, when I had got fairly in with a writer who assures me "the design is weak and feeble," the "shadows are much too thin," this misleader left me in a worse condition than ever, for succumbing at last to the sweet overpowering charms of the structure as a whole, and apparently ashamed of himself for ever having dared to say one word against its perfections, he adds—just after he had bravely done the "design" and the "shadows"—"but ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... downward, that blood is to be shed for them. One duel on behalf of a woman is a reputation to her for life; two are notoriety. If she is very young, can they be attributable to her? We charge them naturally to her overpowering beauty. It happened that Mrs. Lovell was beautiful. Under the light of the two duels her beauty shone as from an illumination of black flame. Boys adored Mrs. Lovell. These are moths. But more, the birds of air, nay, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... programme; well conceived and backed by every appliance of means, men and material. To meet it we had but a small numerical force to defend an extensive and varied tract; and at the Capital grave fears began to prevail that the overpowering numbers and points of attack would crush the little ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... chamber, crossed by row upon row of white, desperate faces. Down the middle, by the ends of the benches, ran a gangway, along which three overseers paced leisurably, each with a tall, flexible wand in his hand. The stench in the place was overpowering, and Tristram was on the point of swooning when the fellow who was chained beside him growled a ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has struggled for the centuries, while mercy has veiled her face and all hearts have been dead alike to love and hope! The male element has held high carnival thus far, it has fairly run riot from the beginning, overpowering the feminine element everywhere, crushing out all the diviner qualities in human nature, until we know but little of true manhood and womanhood, of the latter comparatively nothing, for it has scarce been recognized as a power until ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... expected to be preliminary to the banker's previous hints. But Mr. Bulstrode had to-night followed the order of his emotions; he entertained no doubt that the opportunity for restitution had come, and he had an overpowering impulse towards the penitential expression by which he was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... stamped and directed, her physical powers gave way; such blank exhaustion ensuing that all she could do was to drag herself across the room, throw herself, half dressed, on the bed, draw the rezai over her, and yield to the heavy, overpowering ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... areas the environment gave specific characters to the religion. In the Arctic province the overpowering influence of meteorological phenomena manifested itself both in the doctrine of shades and in their shamanistic practices. The raven created the world. The Dene (Tinneh) myths resembled those of the Eskimo, and all the hunting tribes ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... chewed lazily, and heard the deaf telegraph clerk monotonously tapping on his apparatus in the next room. I had already drunk five glasses of drugged vodka, and, propping my heavy head on my fist, thought of my overpowering boredom from which there was no escape, while my wife sat beside me and did not take her eyes off me. She looked at me as no one can look but a woman who has nothing in this world but a handsome husband. She loved me madly, slavishly, and not merely my ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... less obvious shapes, is present always and everywhere in life. In the spectacle of Death, in the endurance of intolerable pain, and in the irrevocableness of a vanished past, there is a sacredness, an overpowering awe, a feeling of the vastness, the depth, the inexhaustible mystery of existence, in which, as by some strange marriage of pain, the sufferer is bound to the world by bonds of sorrow. In these moments of insight, we lose all eagerness of temporary desire, all struggling and striving for petty ends, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... you may not witness the overpowering influence sometimes exerted by this same rival," said Mr. Chester; "but honestly, Miss Hunter, there is serious danger that some of these light-footed young gentlemen may, ere long, be obliged to relinquish their places ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... and patches of timber and patches of grass and patches of barren earth and patches of rocks all jumbled up together—. Miss Allen gasped from something more than the climb, and sat down upon a rock, stricken with a sudden, overpowering weakness. "God in heaven!" she whispered, appalled. "What a place to ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... rather than a life of activity. But these works once finished it was impossible that this somewhat selfish and passive manner of achieving his own salvation should satisfy him long. At the memory of the appearance of the Crucified One his heart would swell with overpowering emotions, and he would melt into tears without knowing whether they were of admiration, pity, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... muffled thunder. And look up as you hear that screeching whistle. The enemy's shells burst in the depression behind us on both flanks— "Pa-ha-ha." They look like slabs of cotton wool against the brazen blue sky. And all afternoon the heat strikes up at you overpowering, like the breath of a wild animal. Then the wind rises, and the sand shifts in eddies. Veils and goggles are useless. They can't keep out that spinning curtain of grit. The horses rattle the hard, dry bits in their mouths, ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... two at a time—and nearly gagged as he reached the bottom. The smell of hot, rancid grease struck him like a solid wall. It was intermingled with an oily smell of boiled and parboiled coffee, overpowering in its intensity. By the time he reached the kitchen he was holding his nose, tears pouring from his eyes. "Ellie, what are you doing ...
— The Coffin Cure • Alan Edward Nourse
... but overpowering impulse was to possess myself of a spade and dash for the wreck of the Island Queen. Sober second thought restrained me. Merely to get there and back would consume much time, for the descent of the cliffs, and still more the climb up again, was a toilsome affair. Also, reflection ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... awakening of the unregenerate to grace, it was as irresistible as first love. And when the tailor said that only sloping shoulders were now being worn, that what I wanted was hopelessly out of date, the sense of loss was overpowering. I confessed to King that in my opinion nothing uglier in men's apparel was conceivable than the green plush hats that are just beginning to go out of style. And I told him that I was as certain as I am certain of anything in this world that some day in the very near future I ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... and St. Chrysostom. The man who closed his life at sixty-four, worn out not with age, but with labour and bodily pains, stands, beside the learning of St. Jerome, the perfect episcopal life and statesmanship of St. Ambrose, the overpowering genius of St. Augustine, as the fourth doctor of the western Church, while he surpasses them all in that his doctorship was seated on St. Peter's throne. If he closes the line of Fathers, he begins the period when the Church, failing to preserve a rotten empire in political existence, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... companion on his walks or upon the plateau where he was wont to lie and look into her wise eyes and talk to her without fear of contradiction, receiving that full measure of admiration and belief that only a dog gives. So much was his grief, but overpowering that simpler emotion was a sick rage. The knowledge that rough, brutal hands must have carried out this outrage, that in an agony of fear and astonishment she must have yielded up her breath, struck at his heart. He got to his feet, and carrying the body ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... short stretch of grey road and the tall trees at the end of it and the turn. These things appeared in a queer, vivid stillness, as if they were not there on their own account, but stood in witness to some superior reality. Through them you were somehow assured of Reality with a most singular and overpowering certainty. You were aware of the possibility of an ensuing agony and horror as of something unreal and transitory that would break through the peace of it in a merely episodical manner. Whatever happened to come round the turn of the road would ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... square, but at the side bends away at an obtuse angle down the street. As the whole facade was not visible at a single glance, only that portion which was most seen was sculptured, and that with overpowering richness, whereas the other portion in the street was left bare to baldness. Wind and rain and frost are engaged in rubbing down all the decoration, and flattening the surface of the decorated portion to the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... I had gone perhaps another couple of hundred yards along the road—Heaven knows that it seemed to me just then a couple of miles!—when there came over me again that overpowering giddiness which, I take it, was born of my agony of hunger. I staggered, helplessly, against a low wall which, just there, was at the side of the path. Without it I should have fallen in a heap. The attack appeared to last for hours; I suppose ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... they're good," he said. And, half laughingly: "I'm beginning to find out that you're a rather wonderful and formidable and overpowering girl, Ruhannah." ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... with labor, to make it without honestly working for it. It entails widespread ruin and degradation. Its consequences are often of the most appalling character. When the gambling spirit is once aroused, like drunkenness, it becomes an overpowering appetite, which the victim becomes almost powerless to resist. Gambling is in itself evil, apart from its deadly effects. (a) It proposes to confer gain without merit, and to reward those who do not deserve a reward, (b) It proposes ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... anything but one last desperate onslaught at the point of the bayonet, Garibaldi in the foremost ranks with sword unsheathed, while Medici from Villa Savorelli renewed the wonders of the Vascello. Twice the assailants were driven back to their second lines; thrice they returned in overpowering numbers; but, gaining the gate, they were received with volleys of musketry from the barricades at the ingress to Villa Spada and Savorelli. There fell the flower of the Lombards; boys of the "band of hope"; Garibaldi's giant negro, faithful, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... had he seen, but seized with sudden smart, Stung to the quick, he felt it at his heart; Struck blind with overpowering light he stood, Then started back amazed, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... everywhere else he was direct and simple. He awed and terrified jurymen; he convinced their reason; but he commanded rather than persuaded, and carried them with him by sheer force of eloquence and argument, and by his overpowering personality. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... generally of the teint which is wanted in the face; and care is then taken that these linings do not come into the direct view of the observer, and operate prejudicially on the face by contrast, overpowering the little color which by reflection they should heighten. The fronts of bonnets so lined, therefore, do not widen greatly forward, and bring ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... hardly say in the case of the stately liners which dwarfed her in the docks. I often blushed when admirals came down to see our ship, she was so very dirty. To begin with, her hold contained large blubber tanks, the stench of whale oil and seal blubber being overpowering, and the remarks of those who insisted on going all over the ship need not be here set down. However, the blubber tanks were withdrawn, the hold spaces got the thorough cleansing and whitewashing that they so badly needed. The bilges were washed out, the ship disinfected ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... searching glance down the hall and into the living-room. Then he held out his arms to her. She was gazing spell-bound into his eager, shining eyes. He waited. She came to him as if drawn by some overpowering magnet. His arms closed about her....She was crushed against his body, she seemed a part of him. His arms were like smothering coils that pressed the life out of her; his hungry lips were fastened upon ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... received as the common Christian tradition. But is there anything in it? Can we receive it simply on the authority of the primitive Church? Can we realise any such connection between death and sin as makes it a truth to us, an intelligible, impressive, overpowering thought, that ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... upon us when he gathered, from the conversation around the dinner-table, to what the evening was to be devoted, and became quite an overpowering nuisance with his pressing ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... being concocted for his birthday, but never dreamed of anything so grand as asking the whole school, Teacher and all. The effect of the invitation was seen with comical rapidity, for the boys became overpowering in their friendly attentions to Ben. Even Sam, fearing he might be left out, promptly offered the peaceful olive-branch in the shape of a big apple, warm from his pocket, and Mose proposed a trade in jack-knives which would be greatly to Ben's advantage. But Thorny made the noblest ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... an overpowering desire for pretty things came on me—for a piece of old lace, a pink ribbon. After sleeping by night in the clothes worn through the day, wearing the same two shirts for four months, no pajamas, no sheets, with spots of grease and blood on all the costume, I had a longing for frivolous things, ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... arrested, in nine cases out of ten, not because the police are astute, but because they themselves run short of money; and I had here before me in the despatch-box a succession of devices and disguises that insured my liberty. Not only so; but, as I felt with a sudden and overpowering thrill, with ten thousand pounds in my hands I was become an eligible suitor. What advances I had made in the past, as a private soldier in a military prison, or a fugitive by the wayside, could only be qualified or, indeed, excused as acts of desperation. And now, I might come ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Liberals precisely as the Hampshire Legislature or the Parliament at Westminster. Jealousies often arise between the County organisations and those in the cities. The influence of Birmingham might well become overpowering in the Warwickshire Legislature, whereby it would be difficult for any but a resident of Birmingham to become Governor of the County or to be elected to the House of Lords. If the Birmingham municipal organisation chanced to be controlled by a strong hand, it is not difficult ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... paced back and forth with clenched hands and teeth, his face ashen, his lips quivering, his whole being convulsed with emotion and remorse. For some minutes he was quite unable to speak, the longing to scream and seize her by the throat and throttle her was so overpowering. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... Southern landscape, a beauty which seemed to set free his latent powers. A night in the month of May on the wooded summits near Heidelberg called forth this song. The giant magnitude of the starry heavens awakened in the poet to an overpowering degree the feeling of the greatness of cosmic life; he feels the insignificance of his own individual existence, he feels as if it were in danger of being extinguished by the vastness of the great All; but then sleep comes as a kindly nurse and ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... just come along," said Dusenberry; and reaching his hand over to Dunn, took the handcuffs from him and attempted to put them on Manuel's wrists. The poor fellow struggled and begged for more than ten minutes, and was wellnigh overpowering them, when Dusenberry drew a long dirk-knife from his bosom, and holding it in a threatening attitude at his breast, uttered one of those fierce yells such as are common to slave-hunters, whose business it is to hunt and run down runaway niggers with bloodhounds. "Submit, you ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... a moment, but did not hear the minutest sound. The desire for light was overpowering. I generally did my writing in this room, and knew the exact whereabouts of everything in it. I knew that on the writing-table there was a silver box containing wax matches. It lay on the left of my desk. I ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... two, dressed in their long scarlet robes, and threaded the crowd in silence. There was a shout as they went, "There go true Romans, and fathers of their country!" "All those who saw this procession," says the advocate Barbier, "declare that it was something august and overpowering." The government did not accept the resignations; the struggle continued. A hundred and thirty-nine members received letters under the king's seal (lettres de cachet), exiling them to the four quarters of France. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... distress of uncertainty, and the strain of adhering to his resolve not to move without information to guide him, became almost unbearable—a condition not hard to be realized by those who have known, in suspense, the overpowering impulse to do something, little matter what. It is an interesting illustration of the administrative difficulties of the fleet, that three supply-ships joined him on the 5th of April, and their stores were transferred at sea while momentarily ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... this with such a grateful smile, and looked withal so sweet and womanly that I was seized with an overpowering impulse to take her in my arms. Instead of this I said with conscious feebleness: "I am more than thankful to have been able to give you any encouragement—which you must remember comes from me second-hand, after all. It is to Dr. Thorndyke that we ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... refreshment of a pipe; but, as a kind of compensation, he is not obliged to wear his dress suit when he is gardening! The joint wages are L50, with all found except clothes and beer; and the lucky recipients of this overpowering guerdon must be members of the Church ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... had a great, grand, overpowering Opera House, and carried on a theatre, in which women danced, like Black-crookers, and sang like—well, I can't tell what they did sing like, not having a comparison handy—but it was awfully interesting, Cousin Dempster ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Instead of British cheers, wild war-whoops resounded from the bateaux. The Indians had captured the convoy and were forcing their captives to row. In the foremost boat were four soldiers and three savages. Nearing the fortress one of the soldiers conceived the daring plan of overpowering the Indian guard and escaping to the Beaver, which lay anchored in front of the fort. Seizing the nearest savage he attempted to throw him into the river; but the Indian succeeded in stabbing him, and both fell overboard and were drowned. ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... dear—I heard it long ago. Your father was a forger! What do you suppose I care? He probably had some overpowering temptation and yielded, never dreaming but he would be able to make it right. You can't make me believe that any parent of yours was actually bad! And besides, if he ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... had called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to all this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may be understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled my whole soul with the play of its own multitudinous ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... rising from his seat, crossed over, and taking his hand, thanked him in broken accents for this overpowering expression of confidence in him. Then he walked back, and taking his whisky from the table, ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... delusions that can never do more than mislead us. The remedies for these evils must be sought for in Nature herself; it is only in the abundance of her resources, that we can rationally expect to find antidotes to the mischiefs brought upon us by an ill directed, by an overpowering enthusiasm. It is time these remedies were sought; it is time to look the evil boldly in the face, to examine its foundations, to scrutinize its superstructure: reason, with its faithful guide experience, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... of the farm were, the new manager found, three black fellows and two 'gins,'{*} all of whom were in a state of stark nudity; but they welcomed him with smiles and an overpowering smell of ants, the which latter is peculiar to the Australian nigger. One of the bucks, who when Denison entered was sleeping, with three exceedingly mangy dogs, in the ex-proprietor's bunk—a gorgeous affair made of a badly-smelling new green hide stretched ...
— Ridan The Devil And Other Stories - 1899 • Louis Becke
... light, and it was not an overpowering distance for Jodoque to walk from his house to Bertha's. He knew the household would not be up, but he determined to sit down before it,—besiege it, in fact,—and carry off the cloth, the wool, and the white rabbit, when the enemy should ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... low station or of an inferior standard of morals It is men, not methods, that really tell in education; the Roman schoolboy needed some one to believe in some one to whom to be wholly loyal; the very same overpowering need which was so obvious in the political world of Rome in the ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... every muscle strained, men would run into the stronghold, counting every minute a year till they were inside its walls, and heard the heavy door close between them and the pursuer. No matter how rough the road, or how overpowering the heat—no time to stop to gather flowers, or even diamonds on the road, when a moment's delay might mean the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... there was an almost overpowering amount of affectionate farewells. Mr Maguire was there as well as Mr Rubb, and both gentlemen warmly pressed the hand of the lady they were leaving. Mr Rubb was not quite satisfied with his evening's work, because ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... to encounter, to the end of time, if, instead of spending their vast advantages on merely their own state and indulgence, they had applied them in a mode of operation and influence tending to improve, in every way, the situation and character of the people? It is true, that such a wild triumph of overpowering violence would necessarily be short. A blind, turbulent monster of popular power never can for a long time maintain the domination of a political community. It would rage and riot itself out of breath and strength, succumb under some strong coercion of its own creating, and lie ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... vote, or that anybody ought to have the vote. But it would prove this: that there was, for some reason, a sacramental reality in the vote, that the soul could take the vote and feed on it; that it was in itself a positive and overpowering pleasure, capable of being pitted against ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... I remained some time, perfectly unconscious. At length, by degrees, perception returned, and I lifted up my head. I felt somewhat dizzy and bewildered, but the dark shadow had withdrawn itself from me. And now, once more, I drank of the jug; this second draught did not produce an overpowering effect upon me—it revived and strengthened ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... took to the desert. He was followed and overtaken by an armed detachment, or partida; summoned to surrender; the odds are overpowering. But this man bids defiance to the world; he is yet, in this very region, to rout well-appointed and disciplined armies with a handful of men; and he engages the partida. A sanguinary conflict is the result, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... your medicine, and may God have mercy on your dirty soul!" And, as Bradley screamed out and held up his hands in sudden, overpowering fear, Dixie sprang forward and wrested the weapon from ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... blood, he was strangely moved by that rigid form with the thin arms folded over the breast, by that white cloth concealing face and hair. A long keen examination of the prairie assured him that no human being was between him and the horizon. He turned again toward the woman. He felt an overpowering desire to look on ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... plaintive, yearning. The deep contralto notes brought full meed of meaning, although the words were German; low, deep, uncertain at first—the ponderings of love, of devotion, of doubt—then swelling loud and full and free at the end; love justified, undying, triumphant, overpowering. ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... well that the formation of the volunteers in respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... Mother, holy Mother!" What was the matter with her? What had happened? An accident? The blood suddenly rushed to his head; had [Pg 312] anything happened to Mrs. Tiralla? Of course not—he shook off the sense of oppression which was overpowering him—she did not know yet that he intended ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... so great, and the knowledge that we had come thus far undetected under the very eyes of a watchful enemy was so overpowering, that I could not for a moment make reply, and by the time I had gathered my scattered senses—scattered through very joy—we heard voices from the inside which told that the men were seeking to learn ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... about his room with tottering steps, and clattering with his cooking utensils close at hand. The smell of food, mingled with tobacco smoke and the odor of bedding, which crept through the thin board partition, and hovered, heavy and suffocating, above his head, became even more overpowering. His mouth watered. He shut his eyes and forced himself to think of other things, in order to deaden his hunger. Then a light, well-known step sounded on the stairs and some one knocked on the door—it was Morten. "Are you there, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... strange experience by virtue of which I was there, but they talked of it with an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to relieve the subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the uncanny which might so easily have been overpowering. One would have supposed that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century, so perfect ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... said disgustedly, "remind me to break off our engagement if I haven't already done it. I hate overpowering men. All I'm saying is that we'll have to give Don at least a ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... none have been more troublesome than trade monopolies, especially those which control the price of the necessaries of life; for, so far as I know, no people, approximately free, have long endured such monopolies patiently. Nor could they well have done so without constraint by overpowering physical force, for the possession of a monopoly of a necessary of life by an individual, or by a small privileged class, is tantamount to investing a minority, contemptible alike in numbers and in physical force, with an arbitrary and unlimited ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... on the breath, clothes, hair, and indeed the whole body, are most offensive. What is more overpowering than the stale smell remaining in a room where several persons have been smoking? When the practice is carried to excess, it causes the gums to become lax and flabby, and to recede from the discoloured teeth, which appear long, unsightly, and at length drop out. Dr. Rush, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... and threatening monsters with ponderous jaws and arms and chains that seemed all too light to control their sullen strength. The noise—roaring, crashing, clanking, moaning, shrieking, hissing—was overpowering in its suggestion of the ungoverned tumult that belonged to some strange, unearthly realm. Everywhere, amid this fearful din and these maddening terrors, flitting through the murky haze of steam and smoke ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... magic. But a few weeks previous there had been nothing here but the smooth green pavement of cheerful little plants that at a distance looked like jade or malachite. Now, all of a sudden, as it were, there was this forest of rank verdure, sprung with a kind of hideous rapidity, stifling, overpowering, productive with a teeming, incredible fecundity. Low down near the earth the full-grown fruit, green with the faintest tip of gold, hung heavy, indolent, luscious, derisively cool to touch and taste in this semi-tropical ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... the west wing she rushed, stumbling over hose lines, battling against the stifling clouds of smoke which rolled down the corridor. The room was gained, the picture secured, and she turned to make good her escape, all other valuables forgotten. But even in that brief moment the smoke had become overpowering. Her room was dense. For a moment she sought for the door, growing more and more confused and stifled, then with a despairing moan she fell senseless. Luckily the flames were eating their relentless way in the other direction, the firemen fighting them inch by inch until they felt that ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... pedant nor yet a revolutionary: his theories were Utopian and he had an extraordinary overpowering sympathy for ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... where were seated a certain foreign marquis, somewhat notorious, and a lady of insolent, patrician bearing. The anticipated action was arrested, for at sight of the nobleman and his companion, Adrienne swayed slightly, as though moved by a new overpowering emotion. Only for a moment she hesitated, then fixing her blazing eyes upon the two and lifting her arm threateningly, the bitter words flowed from her lips with an earnestness that thrilled the audience. A pallor overspread the face of the marquis, while the lady drew back behind ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... away with one strong hand, and take the only chance for escape. The shattered mill was dashing through the smoother waters now; the great beech-tree was hanging over their heads; an inexplicable, overpowering impulse mastered ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... piety on the part of the Swedes, when, having celebrated the festival of Trinity Sunday by whipping their fellow-Christians out of the fort, they commemorated the good work by naming it the Fort of the Holy Trinity. It was a fatal victory. The next year came Governor Stuyvesant with an overpowering force and demanded and received the surrender of the colony to the Dutch. Honorable terms of surrender were conceded; among them, against the protest, alas! of good Domine Megapolensis, was the stipulation of religious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... to place his hero of the novel where he pleases in the chapel, relieve him from the crowd, and give him all the advantages of position: still his perfect enjoyment of all that both the arts of painting and music can afford, and that overpowering sentiment which he finds in the great picture of the Last Judgment by Michel Angelo, (a picture which addresses itself far more to the artist than the poet,) strikes us as a description more from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... pink tries to outshine the blossoms of the alfileria; and above them soon stands the radiant shooting-star, with reflexed petals of white, yellow, and pink shining behind its purplish ovaries. On every side violets, here of the purest golden hue and overpowering fragrance, appear in numbers beyond all conception. And soon six or seven varieties of clover, all with fine, delicate leaves, unfold flowers of yellow, red, and pink. Delicate little crucifers of white and yellow shine modestly below all these; little cream-colored flowers on slender scapes look ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... are frequently of a serious character, and require careful watching, especially as they may lead to derangement of the mind. Thus, a lady, Mrs. X, was at one time under my professional care, who, at the beginning of her first pregnancy, acquired an overpowering aversion to a half-breed Indian woman who was employed in the house as a servant. Whenever this woman came near her she was at once seized with violent trembling, which ended in a few minutes with vomiting and great mental and physical prostration, lasting several hours. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... Lesson set me off, 1 John iii. How wonderful it is! But all the evening I had been reading my book of Prayers and Meditations. Do you know, Fan, at times the thought comes upon me with a force almost overpowering, that I am a Bishop; and that I must not shrink from believing that I am called to a special work. I don't think that I dwell morbidly on this, but it is an awful thought. And then I feel just the same as of old, and don't reach out more, or aim more ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that every fact you and Mr. Angelo have laid before me is true, and no vital part is kept back. Well, then, your present course is—Delay. Not the weak delay of those who procrastinate what cannot be avoided; but the wise delay of a general who can bring up overpowering forces, only give him time. Understand me, there is more than one game on the cards; but I prefer the surest. We could begin fighting openly to-morrow; but that would be risking too much for too little. The law's delay, the insolence of office, the up-hill and thorny way, would hurt Sir ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... again, lest my last letter should give you too much pain. If you are really oppressed with overpowering and involuntary melancholy, you are to be pitied rather ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the air pleasant; and the motion of the great wagon in which they drove, though not very easy, was agreeable for a change, and Christie enjoyed it all. I am afraid she did not enjoy the sermon better than usual. She had a great many wandering thoughts, and she had to struggle against overpowering drowsiness, which she did not quite succeed in casting off. But she enjoyed the kind greetings and looks of sympathy that awaited them in the kirk-yard, though they brought many tears to Effie's eyes, and sent them gushing ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... effected, and to this day Mrs. Bah's guest-room is the village church. She soon left her spinning-wheel to join the worshippers and gradually came to the triumphant belief, weak at first, but taking slow shape, that "the attitude of the soul to its Maker can be something more than a distant reverence and overpowering awe, that we can indeed hold converse with God, speak with Him, call upon Him, put—to use a human phrase—our hand in His, desiring only to be led according to His will." This was the ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... to protest or answer; all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the overpowering nausea of the Channel passage—only my agony was of the spirit ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... was much less comfortable than the bedroom which I had left so gaily such a very little time before. I had exchanged a good prison for a bad one. The smell of oranges, so near to the hold in which they were stored, was overpowering, mixed, as it was, with the horrible ship-smell of decaying water (known as bilge-water) which flopped about at each roll a few feet below me. My hammock was slung in a draught from the main hatchway. People came down the hatchway during the night to fetch coils of rope or tackles. Tired ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... man whose orchestral work was so tremendous: so filled with the rolling grandeur, the passion, the energy, the gigantic climaxes, the seething, troubled depths, of a nature titanic in its conceptions, overpowering ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... entered. She was an actress, Rosalie felt sure of that the first moment she saw her; she was dressed in a faded, greasy silk dress which swept up the dust of the floor as she walked in, and she greeted her new lodgers with an overpowering bow. ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... an establishment here for the manufacture of oil from putrid fish, which agreeable occupation announced itself in the shape of such an overpowering odour, that I seized a glass of cognac, and fled precipitately, taking my way towards the caravanserai of Ain Mokra. Poor old Nero, whom I had brought with me, got into a scrape here, and narrowly escaped being drowned. It appears that the putrid entrails of the fish are thrown into a kind ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... beauty. At the moment, I was stuffing the crumpled bank-notes into my pockets and collecting all the gold that was left on the table. Seizing up my last note for five hundred gulden, I contrived to insinuate it, unperceived, into the hand of the pale lady. An overpowering impulse had made me do so, and I remember how her thin little fingers pressed mine in token of her lively gratitude. The whole affair was ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... lion's den, but can hardly hope to sleep there quietly. Philippe listened attentively to every sound; his heart panted and throbbed at the very suspicion of approaching terror and misfortune; but confident in his own strength, which was confirmed by the force of an overpowering resolute determination, he waited until some decisive circumstance should permit him to judge for himself. He hoped that some imminent danger would be revealed for him, like those phosphoric lights of the tempest which show the sailors the altitude ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... especially in a desert, is sadly apt to find his presence of mind forsake him, the sense of desolation is so strange and overpowering; but he may console himself with the statistics of his chance of safety—viz., that travellers, though constantly losing their party, have hardly ever been ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... showing me thru the insane asylum at Weston, West Virginia, "You say you have nearly two thousand insane people in this institution and only a score of guards to keep them in. Aren't you in danger? What is to hinder these insane people from getting together, organizing, overpowering the few ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... the curtain, a "ten-strike." Her hearers did not pause an instant to determine whether the utterance was wit or humor or pure inanity. It fitted their mood; fitted it better than the actor or Hugh had believed it could. To the company's notion it was good nonsense offsetting and overpowering an otherwise invincible bad nonsense and snatching from it all right of argument, sympathy, or judicial appeal; laughing it out of court, to remain out at least until the completion of this voyage should give this jury, these hearers, an honorable discharge. The shrewd good sense of it, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... new order of things, and had expressed herself with great indiscretion in the presence of the Queen. But the Duchess was brought to her senses when she saw herself, and all the mad, democratical nobility, under the overpowering weight of Jacobinism, deprived of every privileged prerogative and levelled and stripped of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... clearing which still bore the stubble of the season's harvest. Another half-mile and he suddenly came upon a grass lean-to behind which two old Hillmen grimly stirred a simmering pot from which arose an overpowering stench: he fled the spot, knowing the sinister character of ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... bordered by small fruits, now out of season; then on to the third terrace, bordered by currant-bushes, beautiful now to look upon, hung as they were with a profusion of red tassels. And here there came to them an almost overpowering fragrance; for on the terrace above were great beds of lilies, now in their glory—lilies from many climes, lilies of many hues: great white spikes, small pink clusters, spotted, striped, variegated, ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... does not remember anything. He only feels an overpowering wish to restore his strength, fill out his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... mother, creeping back into the warm, summer life, watched for intelligence to awaken in the grim little face; the first flying signal of the overpowering intellect that was to make recompense for all that ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... OF FEUDALISM, ETC.: The English yeomen at Crecy, overpowering the mounted knights of France, took from feudalism its chief support,—the superiority of the mounted knight to the unmounted yeoman. Cf. Green, History of the English People, Book IV, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Then she tripped towards the door as quickly as she was able in her heavy clothing, and called out on the outside of it that the king would admit Madelon Cardillac; and she came back into the room weeping and sobbing with overpowering delight and gladness. ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... her were voices talking in a sort of mill patois concerning matters which she did not understand. But nobody, not even Gwendolyn, spoke to her, and a sudden, overpowering dismay seized her stout heart and made her head reel. Then she made a misstep and her foot slipped through the space between two stairs. This brought the hurrying procession to a standstill, and recalled attention ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... same calibre and pattern as that described in "The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia" as "the Baby." These were made by Mr. Holland of Bond Street, and are the most overpowering rifles I ever used. They were certain to kill the elephant, and to half kill the man who fired them with twelve drachms of fine-grain powder. I was tolerably strong, therefore I was never killed outright; but an Arab hunter had his collar-bone ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... were going at racing speed. No one could be long in a room alone with Sobrenski without being impressed by his overpowering personality. He affected her in a way that no one else ever did, in provoking her to futile outbursts of defiance and anger. She had never lost her head with anyone else, but he always made her incapable of reasoning, raging one minute, and ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... this. The fumes of giant-powder are apt to prove overpowering in a confined space, and in case of some men the distressful effects they produce last for several hours; but when Weston filled his pipe he scattered a good deal of the tobacco he had shredded upon the ground. A strike ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird,[155] So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;[bq] The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why—an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... reflection of the admiration which her son earned fell upon her, and her pride was greatly increased. Moreover, she could again devote herself without fear to her ardently beloved art, for even honest old Appenzelder declared that he liked to listen to her, though her voice still lacked much of the overpowering magic of former days. She was in a position, too, to gratify many a taste for whose satisfaction she had often yearned, yet she could not attain a genuine and thorough ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the perfume of the hayfields was wafted from the distant shores in almost overpowering force. The high right bank, called the Hills, and the low left shore, known as the Forests, sank into half-transparent vagueness, which veiled the gray log-built villages with their tiny windows, ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... rose heavily from his chair and stood trembling as though in an overpowering rage, and visibly struggling for his ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... happened to me; but such feelings have long, long passed away. If you could have lived as I have, and had seen the world change from what it was when I was young to what it is now, you would understand how a man of my disposition, a man of my overpowering love of knowledge, love of discovery, love of improvement, love of progress of all kinds, would love to live. In fact, if I were now to be told that at the end of five thousand years I must expire and cease, it would ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... remains to explain how our national debt has been beneficial to our commerce. Necessity, if it is not absolutely overpowering, must act as a stimulus to industry as well as interest: the desire to avoid evil, and the desire to obtain good, are equally powerful motives to the human mind. In the same manner as an increase of family, by creating additional expense, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... will!" said the Colonel, laying his hand tenderly on the old man's shoulder. "The Lord will forgive you, for the sake of the Christian example you've set your master, if for nothing else;" and here the proud, strong man's feelings overpowering him, his tears fell in great drops on the breast of the old slave, as they had fallen there in ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... She could not sit still and watch it coming, step by step; she could not even sit still and think about it. If she could have persuaded Mr. Falkirk, Hazel would have gone straight to Europe, and stayed there tillshe did not know when. She had an overpowering dread of going home, and seeing Mr. Rollo, and having herself and her secret brought out into the open day. So she rushed about from one gay place to another, and hid herself in the biggest crowds ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... but the moment the angelic nature is touched, we have the higher ideas of supernal intelligence and perfect holiness, to which all the charms and graces of mere form immediately become subordinate, and, though the beauty remain, its agency is comparatively negative under the overpowering ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... Notwithstanding the overpowering sun, there were certain advantages to the traveller at this season; it was unnecessary to carry a large supply of water, as it could be obtained at intervals of a few miles. There was an indescribable ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... others. I do not allude to the internal temperature (though I have been surprised to learn how many people carry a clinical thermometer and use it on themselves from time to time); I refer to the temperature of the room or of the outside air. The wish to feel a certain degree of warmth is so overpowering in some cases that neither work nor play can be carried on unless the thermometer registers the desired figure. A person with this tendency does not venture to mail a letter without donning hat and overcoat; the mere thought of a cold bath causes ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... lead-pencil and remorselessly correct the orthography, the capitalization, and the punctuation of the essay. I shall not feel hurt at seeing my treatise cut all to pieces; though I think highly of the production, not on account of its literary excellence, which I candidly admit is not overpowering, but because it was written years and years ago about Gypsy, by a little fellow who, when I strive to recall him, appears to me like a reduced ghost of ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... their own conclusions. It was, as may well be supposed, a very severe ordeal which the poor young man had to go through. When he was permitted to say good-night, he went away with a sensation of fatigue more overpowering than if he had visited all the houses in Wharfside. When he passed the green door, over which the apple-tree rustled in the dark, it was a pang to his heart. How was he to continue to live—to come and go through that familiar road—to go through all the meetings and partings, when this ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... walked with God. Instead of seeking God, as so many high-minded folk have done in vain, Thompson had the real and overpowering sensation that God was seeking him. The Hound of Heaven was everlastingly after him, pursuing him with the certainty of capture. In trying to escape, he found torment; in surrender, the peace that passes all understanding. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps |
