"Overset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... practice of war tends to strengthen the bands of society, and the practice of depredation itself engages men in trials of mutual attachment and courage. What threatened to ruin and overset every good disposition in the human breast, what seemed to banish justice from the societies of men, tends to unite the species in clans and fraternities; formidable indeed, and hostile to one another, but, in the domestic society of each, faithful, ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... girl, it chanced that certain things, being overset by a cat, fell with a noise that aroused the good woman, who, fearing that it might be a matter of more consequence, got up as best she might in the dark, and betook her to the place whence the noise seemed ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois and the muse." To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe some ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... for himself years ago, here at the Zoo; at the time when the snakes lived in the old house in blankets, because of the unsteadiness of the thermometer, and were fed in public. Now the snakes are fed in strict privacy lest the sight overset the morals of visitors; the killing of a bird, a rabbit, or a rat by a snake being almost a quarter as unpleasant to look upon as the killing of the same animal by a man in a farmyard or elsewhere. The abject terror ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... that they mean nothing but to alarm. Is it really the language of those men, who profess to be, who distinguish themselves by the self-assumed appellation of friends to order, that if they do not succeed in all their measures they will overset government—and have all their professions been only a veil to hide their love of power, a pretence to cover their ambition? Do they mean, that the first event which shall put an end to their own ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the prevoyance to purchase before I set out. I am worn out, but pass on to Barnby Moor to-night, and if possible to York the next. I know not what is the matter with me, but some derangement presses hard upon this machine. Still, I think it will not be overset this bout"—another of those utterances of a cheerful courage under the prostration of pain which reveal to us the manliest side of Sterne's nature. On reaching Coxwold his health appears to have ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... a situation for her; and Anne was too much shocked to find her mother actually making such arrangements to enter upon any inquiries. The perception that her mother was looking forward to passing away so soon entirely overset her; she would not think about it, would not admit the bare idea of the loss. Only there lurked at the bottom of her heart the feeling that when the crash had come, and desolation had over taken ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before I left it, and shall put this into the office here for the post to take as he comes along. On Friday, towards evening, we left Fishkill. It was dark and squally when we got to the landing, and we had nine horses in the boat, which made us a little uneasy, as a few days before a boat had been overset and some people drowned; however, we got safe over, and lay that night at Colonel Hawsbrook's, where you spent two or three days on your return from Bethlehem. The next morning we breakfasted with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... load Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft, His broad keen knife into the solid mass: Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands, With such undeviating and even force He severs it away: no needless care, Lest storms should overset the leaning pile Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight. Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, from, morn to eve, his solitary task. Shaggy, and ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... overset the former and defied the latter. His story was of the smoothest. He was a military strategist, he declared, and General Leborge had asked him to investigate the citadel, in order to determine its value as the site for ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... disappoint them? Is the paltry consideration of a little pelf to individuals to be placed in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present generation, and of millions yet unborn? Shall a few designing men, for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the expense of so much time, blood, and treasure? And shall we at last become the victims of our own lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, all and every State in the Union, by enacting and enforcing efficacious laws for ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... to the shore, and overcame Mrs. Pattison's repugnance to enter the boat. She stepped in, and he again rowed about half a mile, when suddenly he was seen by the men on shore to rise in the boat, and in an instant it was overset, and both were plunged in the lake. Mr. Pattison sunk at once, but his wife's clothes buoyed her up for a considerable time; ineffectually, however, for none of the bearers of the chaises a porteurs could swim; her cries were ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... turned, and then a good many articles of furniture were overset; and the Misses Hope, who resided beneath us, knocked up through the ceiling with the tongs, whereupon the landlady and her daughter came in armed with the poker and a long-handled broom ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... Jean drew a picture of a nature too horrid to be committed to paper. My pen could not trace it.——In a word, nothing could exceed the ferocity of the infuriate populace; and the sacking of the palace of the Trojan king presents but a faint image of what passed here on the day which overset the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... her head. "Poor dear Fred!" said she; "but it is quite impossible. I cannot bear it as he does; I should only overset him and do ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he overset his seat in his eagerness to get beyond my range, for I had him point blank, full in the left eye; and several persons starting to their feet, exclaimed that I must be crazy. So I was at that time; for otherwise I know not how to account for my demoniac ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... astonished as the rest; but, after all, much as the children tormented his bonfires, overset his haycocks, and disturbed his wood-pile, he did not like anyone to scold them but himself, much less the new London Lady; so he made up an odd sort of grin, and said, "No, no, Ma'am, it ain't that they do so ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... son of his father on a certain occasion, when the paper was overset, objected to adding two pages, but in a moment of economical inspiration agreed ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... the present state of copyright there is no help; we can, however, keep the American edition out of the Colonies, which is something. I have nothing more to say save to commend you not to go on the water without me; perhaps you would be overset; and do not go on the bridge again till I come. Take care of Habismilk and Craffs; kiss the little ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... me noght, Bot onliche of myn oughne thoght. For as it semeth that a belle Lik to the wordes that men telle 1950 Answerth, riht so ne mor ne lesse, To yow, my fader, I confesse, Such will my wit hath overset, That what so hope me behet, Ful many a time I wene it soth, Bot finali no spied it doth. Thus may I tellen, as I can, Wenyng beguileth many a man; So hath it me, riht wel I wot: For if a man wole in a Bot 1960 ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... moon may be 10 or 11 feet, with us it sometimes was 8 or 9 feet, and that in ye course of ye hour...At all times it is imprudent to carry sail on a boat in this sound; the puffs come so violent that before anybody could take in her sail she would to a certainty be overset; even ships, in my opinion, would do well before they enter this sound to take in all their small sails and keep all hands at the braces fore and aft as well as hands by the top-sail halyards, and it is necessary to handle the yards ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... months." With these he will besiege Dantzig, besiege Thorn; will plunge, suddenly, like a fiery javelin, into the heart of Poland, and make Poland surrender its claim. Whereupon King Sigismund bestirred himself in earnest; came out with vast clouds of Polish chivalry; overset Albert's 8,000;—who took to eating the country, instead of fighting for it; being indeed in want of all things. One of the gladdest days Albert had yet seen, was when he got the 8,000 ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... transported the two after guns forward to bring her more by the head, in order to make her hold a better wind; thus they got through the aftermost gun-port on the quarter-deck, and being all on her broadside, every moveable rolled to leeward, and as the vessel overset, so did the boat, and turned bottom upwards, her lashings being cast loose, by order of the captain, and having no other prospect of saving their lives but by the boat, Purnell, with two others, and the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... kept their form but never would move again; the melting away of skirmish points; the sudden gaps here and there; the sickening incurving of what a moment before had been a straight line—all these he saw in all their fatal significance. But even at this moment, coming upon a hasty barricade of overset commissary wagons, he stopped to glance at a familiar figure he had seen but an hour ago, who now seemed to be commanding a group of collected stragglers and camp followers. Mounted on a wheel, with a revolver in each hand and a bowie knife between his teeth—theatrical even in his paroxysm ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... support the government in its proposed action. He met with strong opposition. Fox and others in both houses maintained that our true policy was to be on good terms with Russia, and that Russia had an undoubted right to retain Ochakov. "The balance of Europe," it was urged, could not be overset by its retention; it was a matter which did not concern England; a war with Russia would be disastrous to English trade and manufactures; if Russia became a power in the Mediterranean so much the better, as its fleet would be a check on the fleets of France and Spain. Burke vehemently protested ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... part of the human character. An example of such eminence in himself, promoted exertion in others; which, when prudence guided the helm, led on to fortune: But the bold adventurer who crouded sail, without ballast and without rudder, has been known to overset the vessel, and ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... natural element to him, and he often amused himself in a manner which, to one less expert, would have been attended with the utmost danger. He would sometimes go out in a boat, and overset her by carrying a press of sail. Acts of daring like these must find their excuse in the spirit of a fearless youth. But he often found the advantage of that power and self-possession in the water which he derived from his ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... were broke loose, and carried through the bridge, it being ebbing water. And the greatest sight of all was, among other parcels of ships driven here and there in clusters together, one was quite overset and lay with her masts all along in the water, ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... moments before I could have struck him; but now I was so utterly overset by his frank manner, that it was not my nose which swelled up, but my throat, so that I could hardly speak as I caught hold of his hand and held it with ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... he seized the baby in both hands, and tried to nurse it as his two aunts nursed it. The infant's weight was considerable; it exceeded Tom's estimate, with the result that, in the desperate process of extracting the baby from the cradle, the cradle had been overset, and ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... of the walls of Babylon, and the other half along the opposite bank of the borough. So long as the bridge remains open, the people cross from side to side in small boats with much danger, by reason of their smallness, and that they are usually overladen, so that they are very liable to be overset by the swiftness of the current, or to be carried away and wrecked on the banks. In this manner-many people are lost and drowned, as ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... abroad are not less deserving of attention. Experiencing the fortune of other nations, the United States may be again involved in war, and it may in that event be the object of the adverse party to overset our Government, to break our Union, and demolish us as a nation. Our distance from Europe and the just, moderate, and pacific policy of our Government may form some security against these dangers, but they ought to be anticipated and guarded against. Many of our citizens ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... Hall some biscuit & cheese four qr Casks of wine three barrels & two hogs of punch the moment they found that the people had drank sufficiently means were taken to overset the two hogspunch this being done the company dispersed and the day ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... of these three associates, till Aristophanes joining them, broke down by wit the barrier that protected him. In the comedy of the Clouds he threw the venerable old man into such forcible ridicule as overset all the respect of the mob for his character, and all their gratitude for his services, and they no longer paid the least reverence to the philosopher whom for fifty years Athens had regarded as a being of a superior order. This accomplished, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... in preparing a particular brew of toddy, which needed a single oyster simmering in the saucepan to give it its perfection of flavour. About two o'clock of a June morning the spirit lamp on which the saucepan stewed had been overset; neither of the two confederates in drink had their wits about them at the moment, and the house was half burnt and the rest of it ruined by water before the ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... missing master, were going on the full run. Heeding the shouts of the troubled herder, I turned my wagon across the road, which, being at that point very narrow, was effectually barricaded by the vehicle. Although the rush was so wild that the brutes nearly overset my "outfit," they were brought to a full stop. Unhappily, on one side of the road and one hundred feet or so from it, there was a comfortably built southern house, with a broad gallery extending along the front; ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... gentleman seated himself at table with evident misgivings, and turning sharp round to pay attention to some observation of his loquacious neighbour, overset his bread. There was nothing very bad in this, and if he had had the presence of mind to let it go, and say nothing about it, nobody but the man who had laid the cloth would have been a bit the wiser; but the young gentleman in various semi-successful ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... me as vividly as though it had been enacted but yesterday. The open door, showing a brilliantly-lighted interior; cards scattered on the carpet; a young man—almost a boy—standing, as if frozen with horror, by an overset table; a large bowie knife, common to the country, apparently fallen from his ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... overset by the premature outbreak of the Balkan war. But she was bent on getting all she could out of it for her side, and dragged France along with her. At the beginning of the Italy-Tripoli war, Izvolsky had written: "We must even now not only concern ourselves ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... which I had not reckoned. I see now that when I left Saduko I should have left him dead. Thrice I had thought of it. Once I mixed the poison in his drink, and then he came in, weary with his plottings, and kissed me ere he drank; and my woman's heart grew soft and I overset the bowl that was at his lips. Do you ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... but rather it is homogeneously cosmopolitan; so that in this bearing there are, in effect, no national frontiers; with the exception, of course, that in a season of patriotic intoxication, such as the current war has induced, even the scholars and scientists will be temporarily overset by their patriotic fervour. Indeed, with the best efforts of obscurantism and national jealousy to the contrary, it remains patently true that modern culture is the culture of Christendom at large, not the culture ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... necessarily arise from some first cause. And thus it comes about, that the first principle of motion must arise from that thing which is itself moved by itself; and that can neither have a beginning nor an end of its existence, for otherwise the whole heaven and earth would be overset, and all nature would stand still, and not be able to acquire any force, by the impulse of which it might be first set in motion. Seeing, then, that it is clear, that whatever moves itself is eternal, can there be any doubt that the soul ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the houses stood open. The path was encumbered with the wreckage of their contents, and every now and then he smelt a whiff of paraffin, as though lamps had been broken or cans overset. Vaudere had been looted, but there were no Prussians now in ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... he will be seen to walk with a slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance—chance acquaintance very often—has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the consequence ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... mansion—and the groves in her garden!—O my friends! are ye all lost to me—must I never, never see ye more!' Tears rushed again to her eyes, and she continued to weep, till an abrupt turn in the road had nearly occasioned the carriage to overset, when, looking up, she perceived another part of the well-known scene around Tholouse, and all the reflections and anticipations, which she had suffered, at the moment, when she bade it last adieu, came with recollected force to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... one of you, or all of you, shall dare to say any thing disrespectful of Teutath, I'll defend its Cause to the last Drop of my Blood. The Quarrel grew warmer and warmer, and Setoc expected that the Table would be overset, and that Blood-shed would ensue. Zadig, who hadn't once open'd his Lips during the whole Controversy, at last rose up, and address'd himself to the Celt, in the first Place, as being the most noisy and outrageous. Sir, said he, Your Notions in this Affair are very just: Good Sir, oblige me ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... realized perhaps that intelligence must always be the handmaid of operations, and that it is in the interest of both that they should be kept quite distinct. It was natural that the first Chief of the General Staff to be appointed, Sir N. Lyttelton, should have hesitated to overset an organization which had been so recently laid down and which had been accepted by the Government as it stood, even if he recognized its unsuitability; but I have never been able to understand how his successors, Sir W. Nicholson and ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... you! You women are always thinking of men's being in liquor. Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this—that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a famous good thing ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... "Land!" and almost at the same moment the ship struck against a sandbank. We took to a boat, and worked towards the land; but before we could reach it, a raging wave came rolling astern of us, and overset the boat. We were all thrown into the sea, and out of fifteen who were on board, none escaped but myself. I managed, somehow, to scramble to shore, and clambered up the cliffs, and sat me down on the grass half-dead. Night coming on me, I took up my ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Hamilton and Knox, men who extended to the son the love they had borne to the father. But his first winter was to be given to his home, to his mother and sisters; and there, while pursuing too eagerly his favorite sport of duck-shooting from a canoe on the Savannah, his boat was overset, and, though his companion escaped by clinging to the canoe, he was borne down by the weight of his accoutrements and drowned. The next day the body was recovered, and the vault which but six years before had prematurely opened its doors to receive the remains ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... the Humber in company with Madame Skinner of Thornton College and a young beautiful couple who were going to be wedded; a speedy Fate prevented the designed happy union thro' a violent storm which overset the boat and put a period to all their lives, nor were there any remains of them or the vessel ever after found, tho' earnestly sought for ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... landing-place, which was about the breaking of the day. And so we landed, being New Year's Day, nine or ten miles to the westwards of that brave city of St. Domingo; for at that time nor yet is known to us any landing-place, where the sea-surge doth not threaten to overset a pinnace or boat. Our General having seen us all landed in safety, returned to his fleet, bequeathing us to God, and the good conduct of Master Carlile, our Lieutenant-General; at which time, being about eight of the clock, we began to march. ...
— Drake's Great Armada • Walter Biggs
... arrive at the same end. The levellers propose to subvert the King and parliamentary constitution by a rank and unqualified democracy—the friends of its abuses propose to support the King and buy the Parliament, and in the end to overset both, by a rank and avowed corruption. They are both incendiaries; the one would destroy government to pay his court to liberty; the other would destroy liberty to pay his court to government; but the liberty of the one would be confusion, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Hargreaves' spinning-jenny, invented in 1764. According to the traditional story James Hargreaves, a small master weaver living near Blackburn, on coming suddenly into the house caused his wife, who was spinning with the old high wheel, to spring up with a start and overset the wheel, which still continued whirling, but horizontally, and with its spindle in a vertical position. He was at once struck with the idea of using one wheel to cause a number of spindles to revolve by means of a continuous band, and by the device of substituting for the human hand a pair of ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... brother's—venting in two languages (for Monsieur Victor, whatever might be his proficiency in English, had recourse in this emergency to his native tongue) the different ejaculations of anger and astonishment which are pretty sure to accompany an overset: and on turning a corner of the lane, Susan caught her first sight of the britschka or droschky, whichever it might be, that had so much puzzled her simple apprehension, in the shape of a heavy-looking open carriage garnished with head and apron, lying prostrate against a gate-post, ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... was the question of the theologic controversy. What right had Brenton, or the nurse, or the meddlesome old doctor with his hair on end and without his cuffs, to come inside her house and overset her religion? To elevate their own, instead? It was her religion, just as it was her house, her child. And her religion was good. Else, she never would have adopted it. What matter if their cruder minds must have the crass physical details of bottles and spoons with which to fight sin-born ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... no sooner had he closed his eyes, than the bed began to move of itself and travelled all round the castle. "Just so," said he, "only better still"; whereupon the bed galloped away as if six horses pulled it up and down steps and stairs, until at last, all at once, it overset, bottom upward, and lay upon him like a mountain; but up he got, threw pillows and mattresses into the air, and saying, "Now he who wishes may travel," laid himself down by the fire and slept till day broke. In the morning the King came, and, seeing the youth lying ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... lambs, our calves! All is gone to ruin since my blindness, and especially since Angelique left me for the churchyard, never to come back.' He paused to my great relief. For every one of those phrases he modulated under the fig-trees more sadly than the Lamentations of Jeremiah on Jeudi Saint overset ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... returned. I found it difficult to sit in the canoe so as to balance it, though it contained only three people besides the rower. We had just landed on the East bank, when we observed the canoe, in which were the three soldiers, pushing off from the opposite bank. It shortly after overset, and though the natives from the shore swam in to their assistance, yet J. Cartwright was unfortunately drowned. The natives dived and recovered two of the muskets, and Cartwright's body; they put the body in the canoe and brought it ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... all you urge in the notes you have sent me, taking them as statements of theory, I entirely concur. But in practice, I feel sure that the present publishing system cannot be overset until authors are different men. The first step to be taken is to move as a body in the question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to obtain better. For that purpose I hold that the authors and publishers must unite, as the wealth, business ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... came into my head that it might be a stone thrown at me, and Robert went to Monaldini's to glance at it. Sure enough it is a stone. He says a violent attack. And let me do him justice. It was only the misstatement in the 'Athenaeum' which overset him, only the first fire which made him wink. Now he turns a hero's face to all this cannonading. He doesn't care a straw, he says, and what's more, he doesn't, really. So I, who was only sorry for him, can't care. Observe, Isa, if there had been less violence and more generosity, the ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... anxiety at the little intelligence I receive from Mir Jafar, and if he is not treacherous, his sang froid or want of strength will, I fear, overset the expedition. I am trying a last effort by means of a Brahmin to prevail upon him to march out and join us. I have appointed Plassey as the place of rendezvous, and have told him at the same time that unless he gives this or some other sufficient proof ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... shots. There were flashes like summer lightning; and then all the sky became a whirling confusion of battle that was still largely noiseless. Some of the Central European aeroplanes were certainly charged and overset; others seemed to collapse and fall and then flare out with so bright a light that it took the edge off one's vision and made the rest of the battle disappear as though it had been ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... suspicions were already aroused, was not thus to be evaded. As she handled the limb her fingers felt the well-known mark, and she let the foot fall with a loud cry. The vessel was overset, and the water ran over the floor. Half laughing and half weeping, the old woman fell upon his neck. "Thou art Odysseus, dear child!" she cried, "and yet I knew thee not till I had touched thee with ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... cool and beautiful. We had now been confined thirty-six days in a narrow boat, so unsteady that it would have been overset by any person rising imprudently from his seat, without warning the rowers. We had suffered severely from the sting of insects, but we had withstood the insalubrity of the climate; we had passed without accident the great number of waterfalls and bars, which ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... it, as I suppose these old soldiers did, for I have known many instances in which their children have contrived to make their way gallantly in the world, unaided by the patronage of the great, whilst others who were possessed of it were most miserably shipwrecked, being suddenly overset by some unexpected squall, against which it could avail ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... was a heavy and incessant rain. The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then as Col was a sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be blown up. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me afterwards that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could before the night should be worse. I now saw what I ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... would try to take it out. At last Caroline ventured, and just as she put her finger in, somebody spoke to her, and she forgot to take it out, till the pain she felt from one of my bites made her withdraw it rather hastily. The scream she gave so startled the alderman, that he overset the card table upon his lady; the girls jumped up, the boys laughed, I went round and caused a violent ringing: so that they, who before were so desirous that I should do it, were now more desirous I should stand still. The alderman ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous
... does the Minnow understand the Ocean tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses, by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (un-miraculously enough) be quite overset and reversed? Such a minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious course of Providence through AEons of AEons.'[10] The inalterable relativity of human knowledge has never been more ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... is the Calli who sits by the brasero, was spared; so we roamed about and choried and told baji; and it came to pass that once in the winter time our company attempted to pass a wide and deep river, of which there are many in the Chim del Corahai, and the boat overset with the rapidity of the current and all our people were drowned, all but myself and my chabi, whom I bore in my bosom. I had now no friends amongst the Corahai, and I wandered about the despoblados howling and lamenting till I became half ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Reason; so pure a Fountain emits no such troubled Waters: They must necessarily arise from the Passions, which are to the Mind as the Winds to a Ship, they only can move it, and they too often destroy it; if fair and gentle, they guide it into the Harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset it in the Waves: In the same manner is the Mind assisted or endangered by the Passions; Reason must then take the Place of Pilot, and can never fail of securing her Charge if she be not wanting to her self: The Strength of the Passions will never be accepted as an Excuse ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to all the commonplace reasons, I am convinced that peace will paralyze this country most completely, that all the violent means they have employed for war will return upon them like an humour driven in and overset entirely their weak and baseless constitution. This consequence of peace is so much more to be pressed, as the very best conditions we ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... nearly overset. But she maintained it, and only answered without the change of a muscle, "I have not the inclination, papa." Indeed her face was too quiet; and Mr. Randolph, putting that with its colourless hue, and the very sweet upward look her eyes had first given him, was not ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he would not get out and ask she would do it herself, and at this the dry little man jerked the reins in spite of her, and the horse suddenly pulled the carry-all to the right, and seemed about to overset it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be—of the reasons which force me to this very strange decision. They arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable to none of our faults; but, having once befallen, they are as fatal and irreparable as that shock which overset honest Alnaschar's porcelain, and shattered all his hopes beyond the power of mending. I write gaily enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mischance. We have not drawn the great prize in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... stones, and craggy cliffs, such as we had not seen the like of since leaving Cape St Johns. The tide being now in our favour carried our ships to the westwards against the wind, when suddenly one of our boats struck on a rock and overset, so that our people had to leap out and set it to right again. After going along this coast for two hours, the tide turned against us, so that it was impossible to advance any farther with all our oars. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... he had recourse to Larry's shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain: at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linchpin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... forty figures of monkeys would give the possessor a power over the divs and jinns, and having them at his command, he could easily overset the ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... all so stoically; she would smile upon him when he made a good hit, as upon an actor on the boards—she would, at times, even condescend to improve some of his compliments upon herself; and when her easy manners had perchance overset him at the very debut of one of his finest speeches, she would begin it again for him; taking up the dropped sentence, and then settle herself into a ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... us plenty of exercise in tacking; and the constant going aloft, with the brig rolling and a choppy sea under her, had overset the equilibrium of ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... I do. But sez I, "Folks must be megum even in goodness, Josiah Allen, and in order to set down and hold a half orphan in your arms, you mustn't overset yourself and come down on the floor on top of a hull ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... beams—they were stuffing a feather-bed too, and it was a drizzling warm night—got into his head. Before I could stop him—we were hiding in the bakehouse—he'd whipped up a storm of wildfire, with flashlights and voices, which sent the folk shrieking into the garden, and a girl overset a hive there, and—of course he didn't know till then such things could touch him—he got badly stung, and came home with his face looking like kidney potatoes! 'You can imagine how angry Sir Huon and Lady Esclairmonde were with poor Robin! They said the Boy ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... said Isabel, smiling; 'it seems that she trusted to making a grand appearance with the remains of yesterday's pudding, and that she was quite overset by the discovery that Ellen and Miss Catharine had been ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chamber, and her wretched parents dared not disobey the tyrant's order. From feelings of modesty Kleonike entreated the attendants at the door of his bedchamber to extinguish all the lights, and she then silently in the darkness approached the bed where Pausanias lay asleep. But she stumbled and overset the lamp.[307] He, awakened by the noise, snatched up his dagger, and imagining that some enemy was coming to assassinate him, stabbed the girl with it, wounding her mortally. It is said that after this her spirit would never let Pausanias rest, but nightly ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... carry six persons who however by no means must be unruly, but sit at the bottom of the canoe in the quietest manner possible lest the boat upset. They are narrow, round below, have no keel and may be easily overset. So when the wind is brisk the people make for the land. Larger dugouts were made for war-canoes which would ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... ancients. Aristotle has described the bird and its nest; which, according to him, resembled those concretions that are formed by the sea water, and fashioned in the shape of a long necked gourd, hollow within, but so narrow at the entrance, that if it overset the water could not enter. This nest was called Halcyoneum, and had medical virtues ascribed to it: it was also a floating one; and therefore it was necessary for the poets who have described it ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... pokerish cavern near Overset Pond, nine or ten miles to the northeast of the old Squire's place, about which ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... carefully studying the papers, to catch what this offensive tone of the Neapolitan Minister was, I have found it so evanescent that I really cannot discern it, and suppose there must be something in the manner, or in Lord Napier's state of mind at the time, which overset him. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... his feet with clenched fists. His father stood up so rapidly as to overset his chair, which fell ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... the texts, instead of being satisfied with the general sense of an author, men were able to base edifices of precise argument upon the verbal meaning of passages, in some confidence that their structures would not be overset. ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... through a long courtyard, with brewhouse and dairy on each side, and a pleasant smell of baking bread, and dogs winking in the sun, cats at the corners of doors, satisfied with life, and turkeys parading, and fowls, strutting cocks, that overset the dignity of Mr. Raikes by awakening his imitative propensities. Certain white-capped women, who were washing in a tub, laughed, and one observed: 'He's for all the world like the little bantam cock stickin' 'self up in a crow against the Spaniar'.' And this, and the landlady's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his dear relative's assistance, and Mrs. Merillia endeavoured to rise and to lean upon his anxious arm. After a struggle, however, in which the Prophet took part and two chairs were overset, ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... represent him to be; but why all these precautions? Only, mark my words, the Duke has an infallible way of detecting, or rather of preventing, any attempt at imposition. It is ever thus, the most trivial circumstance will overset the best laid plans, and the inevitable destroy the combinations of ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... increased," says his biographer, "even while he was solicitor, to be so much as to have overwhelmed one less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney-General, though his gains by his office were great, they were much greater by his practice, for that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset one that had not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps, which he wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I touched before, were now destined to lie in a drawer, to receive the money that came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Lord Cornwallis took off his hat, which was a signal for the line to give three hearty cheers, advance, and, when within a few yards of the enemy, fire a well-directed volley and charge: this was done with such effect that the first line of the Americans ran away and overset their reserve; the result was, that the British killed (mostly with the bayonet), wounded, and took prisoners 300 more than they had men in the field, took seven pieces of brass cannon, 150 waggons, full of all sorts of military ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... we got into a deep Bay, four Leagues N.W. from the two small Islands before mentioned. But the Night before, in a violent Tornado, our Bark being unable to beat any longer, bore away, which put us in some pain for fear she was overset, as we had like to have been our selves. We anchored on the South West side of the Bay, in fifteen fathom Water, about a Cables length from the shore. Here we were forced to shelter our selves from the violence of the Weather, which was so boisterous with Rains, and Tornadoes, and a strong ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... September 1782 (in the August of which year the Royal George (108 guns) was overset in Portsmouth Harbour with the loss of close on a thousand souls), and the other 'after reading Hume's ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... him—despising the very man he thus implored—the boy ruined his own cause. Indignant at the silence of Mr. Plaskwith, and too blinded by his emotions to see that in that silence there was relenting, he suddenly shook the little man with a vehemence that almost overset him, and cried: ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... bed, arms, and baggage.[46] It had risen a little shortly after the equinox, while the army was in Berber, and afterwards subsided more than it had risen. We find the sky every day more and more overcast; distant thunder and lightning, accompanied with violent squalls, (which have overset my tent twice,) are, within a few days, frequent, and drops of rain have fallen ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... delivery of his credentials, Lauriston went to the Admiralty, where St Vincent, the first lord, (albeit no lover of Frenchmen,) received the stranger with a good-humoured shake of the hand, and, on parting with him, made a little speech to the mob, recommending it to them "to take care and not overset ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... of them over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least motion was like to overset. The king's nephew thought this a proper time to have a peep into a tin box of mine that stood in the fore part of the canoe; and in stretching out his band for it, he unfortunately destroyed the equilibrium, and ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and that the battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and overset and fell. I remember that—though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know—flapping for a time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple—a black thing in ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... very insubordinate, always infringing some rule, the breaking of which he knew could not be overlooked. He was slovenly in his dress, and when spoken to about these and other irregularities, he was in the habit of making such extraordinary gestures, expressive of his humility under reproof, as to overset first the gravity and then the temper of the lecturing tutor. When he proceeded so far as to paste up atheistical squibs on the chapel doors, it was considered necessary to expel him privately, out of regard to Sir Timothy Shelley, the father, who came up at once. He and ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... it is odd that 'such a terrible Protector this; no getting of him overset!' should have been compelled to contend with the notorious and obstinate incredulity of the members of his Parliament regarding the late attempt to overset him? Yet Cromwell's speech of September 1656 is pervaded with expressions such as these, regarding ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... the surf is extremely great. I have known it to overset a country vessel in such a manner that the top of the mast has stuck in the sand, and the lower end made its appearance through her bottom. Pieces of cloth have been taken up from a wreck, twisted and rent by its involved motion. In ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss Sharp said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave the existence of Captain Dobbin one single ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... are!' said her cousin, 'I would not have taken you there if I thought it would overset you so much. Come into Mrs. Grey's, and sit down and recover ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... distance, in vast billows covered with foam; I called to the people to haul up the fore-sail, and let go the main-sheet instantly; for I was persuaded that if we had any sail out when the gust reached us, we should either be overset, or lose all our masts. It reached us, however, before we could raise the main tack, and laid us upon our beam-ends; the main tack was then cut for it was become impossible to cast it off; and the main sheet struck down the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... reasonableness of his proposal, and they consented, still entirely sceptical. But when they had made their examination they were utterly dumbfounded to find all their notions entirely overset. Master Baine, of course, drew up the required document, and signed and sealed it, whilst Sir Andrew added his own signature ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... succeeding in the expedition, and of doing some injury to the enemy before I died. You know how an excited spirit will overcome weakness of body. At length a disaster happened to our party which almost checked the expedition. By some bad management, and partly by accident, seven of our batteaux were overset; O'Brien, Johnson and myself were among the men thrown into the water, and we had a terrible time of it, clinging to the bottom of the batteaux. We pushed the boats ashore, and not a single man ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... judge, I and my boy by coach to Scheveling again, where we went into a house of entertainment and drank there, the wind being very high, and we saw two boats overset and the gallants forced to be pulled on shore by the heels, while their trunks, portmanteaus, hats, and feathers, were swimming in the sea. Among others I saw the ministers that come along with the Commissioners (Mr. Case among the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Count Ogier, whiles you overset the pillar, I will clap the dome on my shoulders and hale it down to ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... rather driven, about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us, and plainly bade us expect the coup de grace. In a word, it took us with such a fury that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave its not time hardly to say, "O God!" for we were all swallowed ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... gone but a few paces along the pier when we came upon an old man, who was evidently a watchman, for he sat in an overset barrel, close to a place where masons had been lately working upon a break in the pier, and had in front of him a fire such as one sees slung under tinkers' carts. I saw that he was also a voteen, as the peasants say, for there was a rosary hanging from a nail on the rim of ...
— Rosa Alchemica • W. B. Yeats
... smallest instance of kindness towards us, but healed the wounds of despair with the salve of consolation by means of his benevolent and kind behavior, never permitting one of us to sink in the pit of despondence. He supported every one by his goodness, overset the designs of evil-minded men by his authority, tied the hand of oppression with the strong bandage of justice, and by these means expanded the pleasing appearance of happiness and joy over us. He reestablished justice and impartiality. We were during his government in the enjoyment of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... malevolence in his fine malice. One fancied him in his adolescence taking part in one of the frequent revolutions of his continent, but humorously, not homicidally. He would like to alarm the other faction, and perhaps drive it from power, or overset it from its official place, but if he had the say there would be no bringing the vanquished out into the plaza to be shot. He may now have been on his way to France ultimately to study medicine, which seems to be preliminary to ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... not destined to beguile my mind, nor keep the winsome lands and pour forth thy fair waters. Nay, here shall my honour also dwell, not thine alone." So he spoke, and overset a rock, with a shower of stones, and hid her streams, the Prince, far-darting Apollo. And he made an altar in a grove of trees, hard by the fair-flowing stream, where all men name him in prayer, "the Prince ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... the first complete satisfaction in the discovery of their mutual love began to wane, or rather to be overset with the difficulties by which Norma, and many another more brilliant and older woman, must inevitably be worsted. Her meetings with Chris, innocent and open as they seemed, were immediately threatened by the sordid danger of scandal. To meet him once, twice, half-a-dozen times, even, was ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... lecturing on this strange appearance, and described the wisdom of this provision, to enable the animal to clear its way in the snow in search of its food below it; but Dr. Rae was able entirely to overset this theory, by stating that the whole horny appendages of this deer are always shed before any snow makes its ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... tempted to applaud. The people of that land were his abhorrence; he loathed Buonaparte like Antichrist. Towards the end he fell into a kind of dotage; his family must entertain him with games of tin soldiers, which he took a childish pleasure to array and overset; but those who played with him must be upon their guard, for if his side, which was always that of the English against the French, should chance to be defeated, there would be trouble in Baxter's Place. For these opinions he may almost be said ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that some engagement was in agitation on his own part, and that while she thought him so sedulous only to avoid her, he was simply occupied in seeking another. This painful suggestion, which every thing seemed to confirm, again overset all her schemes, and destroyed all her visionary happiness. Yet how to reconcile it with what had passed at their last meeting she knew not; she had then every reason to believe that his heart was in her power, and that courage, or an opportunity ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... said Dickory, "I shall fight for her; I shall show her that I am worthier than he is and that I love her better. I shall even strive for her if that mad pirate comes back and tries to overset everything." ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... falls and all is done. I might have mention'd several facts, Like episodes between the acts; And tell who loses and who wins, Who gets a cold, who breaks his shins; How Dan caught nothing in his net, And how the boat was overset. For brevity I have retrench'd How in the lake the Dean was drench'd: It would be an exploit to brag on, How valiant George rode o'er the Dragon; How steady in the storm he sat, And saved his oar, but lost his hat: ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... looked so much disappointed, that I thought it incumbent upon me, since the blunder must have been my servant's, to do what I could to comfort him. I therefore forced myself forward to talk to him, and pass over the embarrassment but he was modest, and consequently overset, and soon after took ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay |
