"Sleet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never, I think, so great, as when the eye can pass undisturbed over the course of all its curvatures, and trace the dying of the shadows along its smooth and sweeping vaults. And I would rather, myself, have a plain ridged Gothic vault, with all its rough stones visible, to keep the sleet and wind out of a cathedral aisle, than all the fanning and pendanting and foliation that ever bewildered Tudor weight. But mosaic or fresco may of course be used as far as we can afford or obtain them; for these do not break the curvature. Perhaps the most solemn roofs ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... could stand upon a branch and attach the rope to the stump, pass the end over a higher bough and lower it down to the others. Then rolling his sleeves right up to the shoulder, he began to cut, the keen teeth of the saw biting into the soft, mahogany-like wood, and sending down the dust like sleet. ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... of storm and blackness they crossed the Saranac; dividing in two bodies they crawled unseen, one on each side of the battery. Three hundred British soldiers were sleeping near, only the sentries peered into the storm-sleet. ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... huddled rout: they had no heart to stand Before Eurypylus, for Hercules, To crown with glory his son's stalwart son, Thrilled them with panic. There behind their wall They cowered, as goats to leeward of a hill Shrink from the wild cold rushing of the wind That bringeth snow and heavy sleet and haft. No longing for the pasture tempteth them Over the brow to step, and face the blast, But huddling screened by rock-wall and ravine They abide the storm, and crop the scanty grass Under dim copses thronging, ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... it went, slowly at first, but faster and faster, the men on a run, the lower edge of the door sweeping the old cotton stalks. Faster, with a yell, and the men about the field stood ready to charge. Shot-guns blazed from the windows, and shot like sharp sleet rattled off the heavy nail-heads in the door. Faster, and with a stunning bim the ram was driven against the house. But the logs lay firm. Back again, thirty feet, another run and a ram, but the logs were firm. From the windows, almost directly ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... received a few interim payments it was, as Johnston said, even chances either way if we kept on top, because every day of enforced idleness cost us many dollars. However, floundering through snow-slush, swinging the axe in driving sleet and rain, or hauling the mossy logs through the mire of a sudden thaw, we persisted in our task, though often at nights we sat inside the shanty, which was filled with steaming garments, counting the cost, in a state ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... scudded for the land. Loud hiss'd the sea beneath her lee—my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... was this: Toward the end of the first year of the marriage, upon a bleak, forbidding March day—a day of bitter wind and icy sleet,—there rode one to the Overholt door who called upon Pap and Aunt Cornelia to hitch up and come with all possible haste to old Eph'm Blackshears, Cornelia's father—a man who had lived to fourscore, and who now lay at his last, asking for his daughter, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... rugged coast of Maine Stands the frugal farmer's cot: What if drive the sleet and rain? John and Hannah ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... stationed under the Hessian Colonel Rall at Trenton. It was a dark and bitter night, and the Delaware was covered with floating ice. Boats had been hastily procured, and with much difficulty against the swift current the troops were borne across. A storm of sleet and snow added to the hardship of crossing, and not until four o'clock in the morning did the little army stand on the opposite bank. The Americans advanced in two columns, one led by General Washington, the other by General Sullivan. The Germans ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... day and the next night the storm raged. Even the presence of Caribou bands did not stimulate us enough to face the sleet. Next day it was dry, but too windy ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... large for her, the steps slippery with sleet, and down went the little errand girl, from top to bottom, till she landed in the gutter directly ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... picked men. The current was swift, and the river full of floating ice; but the boats were handled by Massachusetts fishermen, and the passage was safely made. Then began the nine-mile march to Trenton, in a blinding storm of sleet and hail. The soldiers, many of whom were almost barefoot, stumbled on over the slippery road, shielding their muskets from the storm as best they could. Trenton was reached at eight o'clock on the morning of the 26th. An attack was made by ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... splendid mark. The rifles rattled at them as hard as possible, but the practice was as poor as ever. Of the first batch a dozen fell and began crawling and staggering away; but the next lot, although they ran and halted at first like dazed men under the sleet of nickel, rapidly became more cunning. All fell as if by some sudden signal on the ground, and crawling and jumping forward, they soon managed to push through without losing a single man, and immediately after this there was a droll incident such ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... raw and rainy, the atmosphere full of moisture which gradually turned to an icy sleet. This added greatly to the discomfort of the march, which was resumed after tearing up the track and taking down the telegraph wires and poles in the neighborhood of the station. The stop at Beaverdam Station was not worth mentioning so far as it gave any opportunity to men or ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... — N. cold, coldness &c adj.; frigidity, inclemency, fresco. winter; depth of winter, hard winter; Siberia, Nova Zembla; wind- chill factor. [forms of frozen water] ice; snow, snowflake, snow crystal, snow drift; sleet; hail, hailstone; rime, frost; hoar frost, white frost, hard frost, sharp frost; barf; glaze [U.S.], lolly [U.S.]; icicle, thick-ribbed ice; fall of snow, heavy fall; iceberg, icefloe; floe berg; glacier; nevee, serac^; pruina^. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... on a bitter night after a day of blizzard and sleet. Caleb Parish sat before his fire, and his eyes went constantly to the bed where his wife lay half-conscious and to the seated figure ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... the dying year, And December's winds blew cold and drear, Driving the snow and sharp blinding sleet In gusty whirls through square and street, Shrieking more wildly and fiercely still In the dreary grave-yard that ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... frequently. But I noticed that whenever the branches were wet with rain or sleet he never attempted it; and he never tried the return jump, which was uphill, and which he seemed to know by instinct was too ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... her lip. She shook her head and went out the rear exit provided for ex-war workers. Together we splashed into the broken-bricked alley that was sloppy with melting spring sleet. ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... that the family spent their first winter in Indiana. How very cold and dreary that winter must have been! Think of the stormy nights, of the shrieking wind, of the snow and the sleet and the bitter frost! It is not much wonder if, before the spring months came, the mother's ...
— Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans • James Baldwin
... twe-zee, twe-zee!' They are not leaves, but a flock of Kinglets forcing the bark crevices to yield them a breakfast of the insects which had put themselves comfortably to bed for the winter. Think of the work that these birds do, who not only fight the insect army in summer, but in sleet and snow are as busy as ever destroying the eggs that would turn in another season to worms and eat ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... by his lunch at the Schenley, McKann lit a big cigar, got into his taxi, and bowled off through the sleet. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... evening in January, when an icy sleet was driving over the town, as he came into the little hall, he found Rosamund at the foot of the staircase, with a piece of mother's work in her hand, about to go into the drawing-room which was on the ground ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the snowing and the blowing, In the cruel sleet, Little flowers begin their growing Far beneath our feet. Softly taps the Spring, and cheerly, "Darlings, are you here?" Till they answer, "We are nearly, Nearly ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... patrol-wagons were moving about the yard, filled with unwilling passengers, who sat or stood, packed together like sheep and with no protection from the sleet and rain. ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... God Himself, were against me," and giving way to a despairing apathy she followed the officer out of the store—out into the glaring lamplight of the street, out into the wild March storm that swept her along toward prison. To her morbid mind the sleet-lad en gale seemed in league with all the other malign influences that were hurrying her on to shame ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Uleaborg is, climatically, quite three weeks behind any of the southern towns. Before the beginning of June verdure and foliage have reappeared in all their luxuriance, and birds and flowers once more gladden field and forest with perfume and song. Even now an occasional shower of sleet besprinkles the land, only to melt in a few minutes, and leave it fresher and greener than before. May and June are, perhaps, the best months, for July and August are sometimes too warm to be pleasant. ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... the skies 'gan thunder, and in tail Of that, fell pouring storms of sleet and hail: The Tyrian lords and Trojan youth, each where With Venus' Dardane nephew, now, in fear, Seek out for several shelter through the plain, Whilst floods come rolling from the hills amain. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... weet, be it hail, be it sleet, Our ship must sail the faem; The king's daughter o' Noroway, 'Tis we must fetch ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... time that the truism began to assert itself as a truth to me. I was in a soldiers' club, one of those excellent places of refreshment and recreation run by societies and individuals for the benefit of our men. It was an abominable evening. Snow, that was half sleet, was driven across the camp by a strong wind. Melting snow lay an inch deep on the ground. The club, naturally under the circumstances, was crammed. Men sat at every table, reading papers, writing letters, playing draughts and dominoes. They stood about ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... day Friday, thanks to a merciful Providence, and the roofs were thoroughly soaked. Toward night it began to freeze, and the rain turned to sleet. By ten o'clock, when I went to bed the wind was blowing a terrible gale from the northwest, and everything loose about the building was banging and rattling. About two o'clock I suddenly started wide awake, with a bright light in my eyes. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... naked spirit hears The break of hearts, through stinging sleet of tears, I deem that God is not disquieted; Against all stresses am I ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... before that snow and sleet were falling heavily. It proved the dirtiest night imaginable. Companies moved in columns across the 1,000 yards of open fields between their old positions and the objective, against which our artillery kept up as severe a fire as possible. That fire was less ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... for himself and family in a ship, timber-laden, from Quebec, bound for Liverpool. It was late in the fall: the vessel was one of the last that sailed; consequently, they experienced very rough weather, accompanied with snow and sleet. Mid-way across the Atlantic, they encountered a dreadful storm, which left the ship a mere wreck on the ocean. To add to their misfortunes, a plank had started, owing, it was supposed, to the shifting of some part of the cargo during ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... over; and I came away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn, partly on the platform. When we got among the Lincolnshire fens it began to snow. That changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all gone as we neared London, and the mud has all come. At two or three o'clock in the morning I stopped at Peterboro' again, and thought of you all disconsolately. The lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon me, harder even than those ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... greater than at this moment. In going up the rigging it seemed absolutely to pin us down to the shrouds; and on the yard there was no such thing as turning a face to windward. Yet there was no driving sleet and darkness and wet and cold as off Cape Horn; and instead of stiff oilcloth suits, southwester caps, and thick boots, we had on hats, round jackets, duck trousers, light shoes, and everything light and easy. These things make a great difference to a sailor. When we got on deck the man at the wheel ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... we left the Staneshaw-bank, The wind began full loud to blaw; But 'twas wind and weet, and fire and sleet, When we came beneath ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various
... although the briars shone red along the hedgerows and the stunted oaks had not lost all their leaves, bitter sleet blew across the dale when Grace went up the muddy lonning to Mireside farm. Railton's daughter had for a time helped the housekeeper at Tarnside, and Grace, hearing that the farmer had been ill, was going to ask about him. It was nearly dark ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... it was any music, just music. Then for a while Wagner held him. Any Wagnerian concert, any mixed entertainment which included Wagner—it seemed as though he sniffed them upon the breeze—and lie would tramp for miles, wait for hours; biting cold, sleet, snow, mud, rain, all alike disregarded by that persistence which the very poor must bring to the pursuit of pleasure, the ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... of rock Jolly Roger found a huge snow drift. This drift was as long as a church and half as high, with its outer shell blistered and battered to the hardness of rock by wind and sleet. Through this shell he cut a small door with his knife, and after that dug out the soft snow from within until he had a room half as big as his cabin, and so snug and warm after a little with the body heat of himself and Peter ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... a day it is!' observed Jawleyford, turning the conversation, as the wind dashed the hard sleet against the window like a shower of pebbles. 'Lucky to have a good house over one's head, such weather; and, by the way, that reminds me, I'll show you my new gallery and collection of curiosities—pictures, busts, marbles, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... rode on. A thin sleet began to fall, and it drove hard into his face. The roads were crisp, and the horse sometimes stumbled; but the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth And the heart of ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... we hear the summons to get ready to stand post. We go out upon our shivering horses, to sit in the saddle for two hours or more, facing the biting wind, and peering through the storm of sleet, snow, or rain, which unmercifully pelts us in its fury. But it were well for us if this was our worst enemy, and we consider ourselves happy if the guerilla does not creep through bushes impenetrable to the sight, to inflict his mortal blows. The two hours expire, relief comes, ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... spring-tide's all-quickening glow; Hope's budding joy in the vale doth blow; Old Winter back to the savage hills Withdraweth his force, decrepid now. Thence only impotent icy grains Scatters he as he wings his flight, Striping with sleet the verdant plains; But the sun endureth no trace of white; Everywhere growth and movement are rife, All things investing with hues of life Though flowers are lacking, varied of dye, Their colors the motley throng supply. Turn thee around, and, from this height, Back to the town ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept T'wards the reef ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... ghosts can rest. So the corpses of their sisters, piling on them from above, press them outward, press them southward toward the sun once more; across the floes and round the icebergs, weeping tears of snow and sleet, while men hate their wild harsh voices, and shrink before their bitter breath. They know not that the cold bleak snow-storms, as they hurtle from the black north-east, bear back the ghosts of the soft air-mothers, as penitents, to their ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... march, after crossing the river, a furious storm of snow and sleet began to beat in the faces of the troops, to impede their progress. It was eight o'clock before the head of the column reached the village. Seeing a man ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... thine iron tread, The streams have ceased to flow, The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead, And keen the north winds blow: Nature lies in her winding sheet Of dazzling snow, and blinding sleet. ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... was not, a kitchen knave. He seemed not, and he was, a knight of valor and of purity and might, of purpose and of succor. Silly Lynette might rain her superficial insults on him like a winter's sleet—this hindered not his service. He knew to wait, and dare, and do. His fame was in him. A great life bears not its honors on its back, as mountains do their pines, but in his heart, as women do their love. In Tennyson's concept of manhood, worth ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... for an instant the fierce blasts drove him back—yet but for an instant. "I will not add cowardice to sorrow," he said to them, in reply to their entreaties not to go in the storm. With one strong effort he faced the chilling sleet, which so blinded him that he could not find the path which led to the highway; yet he went bravely on, till hunger and chill overcame him, and he could no longer see or even feel. He grew strangely dizzy, ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams
... the truant mechanic. But that trick of truly logical behavior seems harder to the man than to the child. For example, I climbed up to my den under the eaves last night—a sour, black sea-fog lying all about, and the December sleet crackling against the window-panes—in order to varnish a certain fly-rod. Now rods ought to be put in order in September, when the fishing closes, or else in April, when it opens. To varnish a rod in December ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... the 16th of April, broke cold and stormy. Notwithstanding the rain and sleet which rendered the cold weather uncomfortable in the extreme, the streets of Marblehead were filled with an excited throng of people. Wives and mothers and fathers and children were represented there in the dense crowd, all anxious to speak ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... speech of curt refusal for use when Quirk came to the tent and begged shelter from the weather. There would be nothing doing, Tom made up his mind to that; he tried several insults under his breath, then he offered up a vindictive prayer for rain, hail, sleet, and snow. A howling Dakota blizzard, he decided, would exactly suit him. He was a bit rusty on prayers, but whatever his appeal may have lacked in polish it made up in earnestness, for never did petition carry aloft a greater weight of yearning ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... out on the yards, each man striving to get in the sail as rapidly as possible. Sail after sail was taken in, but before the work could be completed the gale was upon them—not a soft breeze, such as they had been accustomed to, but a sharp cutting wind, with hail and sleet, which struck their faces and hands with fearful force, benumbing their bodies, dressed only in light summer clothing. It seemed as if on a sudden the ship had gone out of one ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... and windy day outside; there were even sleet-showers falling at intervals. Winter was coming on ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... is why I sit here tonight with the north wind and sleet rattling the one window of my little den, writing what I hope younger and stronger men will like to take into the woods with them and read. Not that I am so very old. The youngsters are still not anxious to buck against the ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... enthusiasm awakened by these Readings was entirely unparalleled. Simply to ensure a chance of purchasing the tickets of admission, a queue of applicants a quarter of a mile long would pass a whole winter's night patiently waiting in sleet and snow, out in the streets, to be in readiness for the opening of the office-doors when the sale of tickets should have commenced. Blankets and in several instances mattresses were brought with them by some of ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... and shell from Stafford Heights was frightful. It seemed to Harry—again his imagination was alive—that the very air was darkened by the rush of steel. Despite their earthworks and other shelter the Southern troops began to suffer from that dreadful sleet, but the little conference ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as is told in the story of the Gilla Dacar. On these western seas, near the land, Lir's daughters, singing and floating, passed three hundred years. On other seas, in the storm and in the freezing sleet that trouble the dark waves of Moyle, between Antrim and the Scottish isles, they spent another three centuries. Half the story of the Sons of Usnach has to do with the crossing of seas and with the coast. Even Cuchulain, who is a land hero, in one of the versions of his death, dies fighting the ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... over-fatigue or labour, and plenty of time. By-the-by, though in most respects they are incapable of improvement, I recollect that I thought to-day, as I was breaking last night's ice away from the rocks of which I wanted a specimen, with a sharpish wind and small pepper and salt-like sleet beating in my face, that a hot chop and a glass of sherry, if they were to be had round the corner, would make the thing more perfect. There was however nothing to be had round the corner but some Iceland moss, which belonged to the chamois, and an ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... at nine, as the mysterious letter had bid me. It was bitterly cold, and the air full of fog and sleet; not a shop open, not a window unshuttered, not a creature visible; the narrow black streets, precipitous between their, high walls and under their lofty archways, were only the blacker for the dull light of an oil-lamp here ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... was an unusually mild one, frost and sleet being unseen at Las Palomas. After the holidays several warm rains fell, affording fine hunting and assuring enough moisture in the soil to insure an early spring. The preceding winter had been gloomy, but this proved ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... Knight's bonnet, fur mantle, gloves, and muff; and with remarkably little delay the sisters and the manuscript started. First they had the window down because of the snow and the sleet; then they had it up because of the impure air; and lastly Aunt Annie wedged a corner of the manuscript between the door and the window, leaving a slit of an inch or so for ventilation. The main body of the manuscript she supported by means ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... manifested more temper than she was wont to do; and later, when her father rode away on his daily visit to Morristown, she felt strangely relieved. By noon the snow ceased, or rather turned into a driving sleet that again in turn gave way to rain. By this time she became absorbed in her household duties,—in which she was usually skilful,—and in her own thoughts that to-day had a novelty in their meaning. In the midst of this, at about dark, her room being in the rear of the house, she was ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... sickly grin Shane turned to the window and dully watched the slanting sleet blown by the gale. . . . Kayak's puffing snore came presently from the other room. Boreland ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... to Boston and to school. The long winter term—the term which Madeline Talbott, whose father was a judge, called "the extreme penalty"—began. Boston's famous east winds, so welcome in summer and so raw and penetrating in winter, brought their usual allowance of snow and sleet, and the walks from Pinckney Street to the school and back were not always pleasant. Mrs. Wyeth had a slight attack of tonsillitis and Miss Pease a bronchial cold, but they united in declaring these afflictions ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to Whitehall, his mind fully occupied with the momentous events of the day. It was a raw February evening, sleet was falling in the street, a piercing easterly wind drove even through his thick overcoat. In such doorways as offered protection from the bitter elements the wreckage of humanity which clings to the West end of London, as the singed moth flutters about the flame ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... death. It is best to die in battle, for then the mind is raised, and you taste all life in the moment before you go. If a man achieves not that, then struggle with earth or air or the waves of the sea is desirable. Driving sleet, armies of the snow, night and trackless mountains, the leap of the torrent, swollen lakes where kelpies lie in wait, wind on the sea with the black reef and the charging breakers,—it is well to dash one's force against the force of these, and to die after ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... and last day of the trial, was ushered in by a tempest of wind and rain, that drove the blinding sheets of sleet against the court-house windows with the insistence of an icy flail; while now and then with spasmodic bursts of fury the gale heightened, rattled the sash, moaned hysterically, like invisible fiends tearing at the obstacles that barred entrance. So ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... it all the inclement accompaniments usual in this bleak and bitter mountainous country: icy rains, which, mingled with sleet, washed away whirlpools of withered leaves that the swollen streams tossed noisily into the ravines; sharp, cutting winds from the north, bleak frosts hardening the earth and vitrifying the cascades; abundant falls of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... transported his body from St. Stephen's African Methodist Episcopal Church located on the Madison-Mayodan highway to a plantation grave yard several miles east of town, along roads slippery with sleet. He was buried by the side of his first wife on the 130 acre farm which Uncle Porter said he bought from Mr. Ellick Llewellyn to raise his family on and which he later swapped to Mr. Bob Cardwell for a town house in Pocomo (Kemoca, a suburb from first syllables of promoters' names, Kemp—Moore—Cardwell—Kemoca). ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... day we were in the blackness of despair—the whole village in the power of the demon of waters—hemmed in by sleet and ice, without fire enough to cook its little food. When the bell struck nine that night, there were seventy-five families on their knees before their blazing grates, thanking God for fire and light, and praying blessings on the phantom ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... wind which had been blowing all day long turned into a gale, a rascal wind, which slapped a handful of sleet and ice, hard as glass, on one side of your face, and scurried round the corner to come back and strike harder from ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... weary and worn,—I am hungry and chill, And cuttingly strikes the keen blast o'er the hill; All day I have ridden through snow and through sleet, With nothing,—not even a cracker to eat; But now, as I rest by the bivouac fire, Whose blaze leaps up merrily, higher and higher, Impatient as Roland, who neighs to be fed,— For Caleb to bring me my bacon and bread,— I'll warm my cold heart, ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... came back in an echo from the crag, and they seemed with their intense energy to pierce and shrivel the man before him into sleet. And the pirate would have fallen had not two huge, black, lignum-vitae paws grappled him about the body, pinioning his arms to his sides as if they had been bolted through and through, while at the same moment another ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... vision of a station and its lights, and the Paris train rushed on through cold showers of sleet and driving wind, a return of winter in ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of his bearing and expression, and Brent the timber-buyer, stood looking down from beetling cliffs rigidly bestowed with collossal and dripping icicles. To their ears came a babel of shouts, the grating of trees, long sleet-bound but stirring now to the thaw—the roar of blasting powder and the ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... cakes, which Tabby has been baking for us." You cannot beat that for pure simplicity of statement. There is another fragment that might have come straight out of Jane Eyre. "One night, about the time when the cold sleet and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snowstorms and high piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm, blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... line has some deeper meaning, which we are unable to fathom. We have seen a better picture than that of Goethe in the hour of inspiration, when his forehead was like a precipice dim with drifting sleet. "Schiller" is well drawn; evidently from Thorwaldsen's gigantic statue of the poet. Miss Barrett paints "Milton" in his blindness as seeing all things in God. But Mallebranche had already taught that God is the "sole vision" of all of us; and therefore, if that theory ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... the months of April and May had been uncommonly boisterous, and so cold that the thermometer seldom exceeded 40 degrees, while the barometer was generally about 29.50. We had not only hail and sleet, but the snow on the last day of May lay on the decks and rigging of the ship to the depth of about three inches; and, although now entering upon the month of June, the length of the day was the chief indication of summer. Yet such is the effect of habit, and such was the expertness of the landing-master's ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snugged everything on board the schooner and prepared to defy the storm. It came in the night, with a howl of blast and a fusillade of sleet like bird-shot. It stamped upon the throbbing sea and made tumult in water and air. At midnight they were wallowing with only a forestays'l that was iced to the hardness of boiler plate. But though the vast surges flung ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... directions for the Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When the wind blew hard against the windows,—it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as if the year were dying fitfully,—I pictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I painted their portraits ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... days of clear and benign weather a shrill wind broke out from beneath the North Star, and brought with it snow and sleet and piercing cold. And the woods howled for distress of the storm, and the grey stones of the mountain chattered with discomfort. Harsh cold and sleeplessness were their lot in the cave, and as he shivered, the Abbot ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Sinking into the attitude of prayer, she let her thoughts carry her whither they would; they showed her nothing but images of beauty and peace. It was with reluctance that she arose and went back into the dark street, where the world met her with a chill blast, sleet-laden. ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... sky like great black vessels on a foaming sea,—the lightning flashed incessantly, and the thunder reverberated Over the mountains in tremendous volleys as of besieging cannon. Stinging drops of icy sleet dashed his face and the front of his white garb as he inhaled the stormy freshness of the strong, upward-sweeping blast for a few seconds—and then, with the air of one gathering together all his scattered forces, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... some cases with apprehension. There was no going back then, however; there was nothing to do but advance. At the hour when the bells of Holy Church in their home land were ringing vespers, in a cold driving rain mingled with sleet, the little cortege entered the city, which they found as the French found Moscow, deserted of its inhabitants. With the ready instinct of a soldier, Pizarro led his force to the public square, or Plaza, which was in the shape of a rude triangle surrounded on two sides ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... statues, unique bric-a-brac, gildings, glass and ruby velvet produced the perfection of old-time splendour. And now, as the gallant beaux led in fair maidens, it gave the picture life. The great north window disclosed the ice-bound trees in all their primitive ruggedness. The snow and sleet were vigorously driven by the wind that howled continuously. The light from the forked-tree cast through the window rays that resembled moonlight, as they mingled with the radiance within, while outside it twinkled with the sprightliness ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... storm would serve to hold back the sheriff and give Jack time to get away somewhere. No one would dream of his traveling on such a day as this, she kept telling herself over and over. It was getting worse instead of better; the snow was coming thicker and the sleet was lessening. It was going to be quite a climb to the cave; the wind must be simply terrible up there, but she could see now that Jack would never expect her out in such weather, and so he would stay close ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... desert; hot, dry, sunny summers (June to August) and mild, rainy winters (December to February) along coast; cold weather with snow or sleet periodically in Damascus ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... though, with cold sleet swirlin' down . . . God! gimme Christmas day in Sydney town! I long to see the flowers in Martin Place, To meet the girl I write to face to face, To hold her close and teach What in this Hell I'm learning—that ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... law, will not permit the wholesale decapitation of prisoners, as might be done by a king of Ashantee or Dahomey, so it forbids the herding of captive men in a mere corral, leaving them utterly without shelter of any sort through the sleet and rain of winter, near the North Carolina mountains. It forbids starving them to death or leaving them to rot with scurvy because they are not supplied with wholesome food and medicines. It is the plain duty of a civilized government to parole and send home military prisoners who ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... that a soldier's life would suit me, but after a service of three years I can truthfully state that it was not what I desired. Life in camps at one place a little while, then at another place, winter and summer, rain, sleet and snow, with twenty men in one wall tent, is very disagreeable, unhealthy and unpleasant. I spent one month in camp in New Orleans during the hot weather, and all the pleasure I had there was fighting mosquitoes. We had a fierce battle ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... dreaming, Dreaming often of us all, (When the damp earth is his pillow, And the snow and cold sleet fall), Of the dear, familiar faces, Of the cozy, curtained room, Of the flitting of the shadows In ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... of sleet burst upon them, and after this new misery a torpor overcame Stella; at least, her shiverings grew less violent, and her head sank upon his shoulder. Morris put one arm round her waist to save her from slipping into the water at the bottom of the boat, making shift to ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... one of the most horrible episodes in all history. To the exasperating and deadly attacks of the victoriously pursuing Russians on the rear were added the severity of the weather and the barrenness of the country. Steady downpours of rain changed to blinding storms of sleet and snow. Swollen streams, heaps of abandoned baggage, and huge snow-drifts repeatedly blocked the line of march. The gaunt and desolate country, which the army had ravaged and pillaged during the summer's invasion, now grimly mocked the retreating host. It ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... 1799, was a bad day. General Washington, making the usual rounds of his farms, was not deterred by snow, sleet, nor the cold rain that followed. Coming in late to dinner, which was awaiting him, his clothes soaked, snow clinging to his hair, he did not take time to change his wet things. The next day he had a sore ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore |
