"Booming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have to be. Nobody 'll dance much—except the old-fashioned affairs. You see, everybody 's supposed to represent people of the days when things were booming around here. There 'll be a fiddle orchestra, and a dance caller and everything like that, and a bar—but of course there 'll only be imitation liquor. But," she added with quick emphasis, "there 'll be a lot of things really real—real keno and roulette and everything like that, and everybody in ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... wind whistled and blustered with increasing loudness through the rigging; and as the craft plunged more sharply I caught the sound of an occasional clatter of spray upon the deck forward. This went on for some considerable time, and then I became aware of the sound of surf booming distantly, but rapidly increasing in strength and volume, until after a period of perhaps ten minutes its thunder seemed to suddenly fill the air, as the brigantine brought it square abeam; then it rapidly died away again until it was lost altogether in the tumult of wind and sea that now stormed ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... into the wardroom, drew a cup of near-coffee, and sat down. The screen showed a beach with booming surf. The sound track picked up the crash and hiss of the breakers. Considering the red plague that now covered the scene, I thought it was a poor choice. I dialed for a high view of ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... this proposition is put to us in the form of a demand of our Government upon our patriotism?" asked Uncle Cradd in a booming voice, while father only looked uncertain and ready to say, "With you, Cradd." I sat speechless for a moment, with a queer pain in my heart that I did not ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... amid smiles and tears, amid bells and drums, and waving flags and merry song, amid noisy shout and booming guns, that double bridal day was kept; and when the sun went down it left a glory on the western clouds, as if they, too, had donned their best attire in ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... headland, and rushed at foaming speed over the long swell of the Atlantic. With the gale fairly on her quarter, there was nothing that could touch the "Polly." There was no fear of a chase, although the heavy booming of the alarm-guns could still be ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... penny gone, in Rochester, near the Ohio line, that the firm established communication with me at last. Their instructions were brief: to come home and sell no more tables. They sent $10, but gave me no clew to their curious decision, with things booming ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... thunder-notes, The booming billows shoreward surge; By times a silver laugh it floats; By times a low, ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... presides over the tiny kitchen in the rear of the room devoted to public service and family affairs. Soft-voiced Rita, with her demure air and her resemblance to Evangeline, with her crossed apron, strings and delicate features, takes your order, and soon comes the booming sound from the neighborhood of the range, that announces to all patrons, as well as to some who may be in the vicinity on the street, that your order is ready, and then everybody knows what you are eating. As you sit, either in curtained alcove or at the ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... now that I know what is going to happen to me, that I had last week on shipboard, with Richard Hall bombarding my cardiac regions with his honest eyes and booming voice discreetly muffled to accord with the moonlight and the quiet places around the deck. I may never get that sort of a joy-drink again, but it was so well done that it will help me to administer the same to others ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... sat at the wheel, and when the lights at the village faded astern, he lit the lamp, in order to thread a passage by its light through the dark waters. As the noise of shouting, the drumming, and the report of fire-arms died down, other sounds reached their strained hearing—the booming of the Congo bittern, the harsh roar of a bull crocodile, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... anti-Clericals adorn it. The Christians bemoan within it the wickedness of the times. The Atheists are baptized in it, married in it, denounced in it, and when they die are, in great coffins surrounded by great candles, to the dirge of the Dies Ir, to the booming of the vast new organ, very formally and determinedly absolved in it; and holy water is sprinkled over the black cloth and cross of silver. The pious and the indifferent, nay, the sad little army of earnest, ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... the first Sunday, and the first sermon of the Head Master, with its plain teaching about the opportunities and perils of Public School life. John found himself mightily affected by the singing, and the absence of shrill treble voices. The booming basses and baritones of the big fellows made him shiver with a curious bitter-sweet sensation never ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... spoken of as "the Dutch goat," no other term existing for it in Malay parlance. Monkeys chatter and rustle in forest trees, gorgeous birds flit past on jewelled wings, and frogs in this rainy season make a deep booming like the tuning of numerous violoncellos. At length the little town of Garoet appears in a green valley, encircled by a diadem of peaks which suggest a tropical Engadine. Volcanic mountains replace Alpine crests, but the white battlements of Papandayang's smoking crater give the ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... for big man tell!" broke in another voice; a deep, booming voice that could only proceed from ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... get in position to watch the entrance at Hong Kong. Captain Finch said that for fifteen years he always went down from the bridge as soon as he could to see the wonderful display of curious junks and craft of every conceivable kind that swarmed about the boat, some advertising their wares, some booming hotels, some fortune-telling in hieroglyphics which only the Chinese ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... be about, though possibly half asleep. He also believed that the suspected youth, by the way he advanced, must know the ways of the watchman. Roger, the big Saint Bernard, let out a booming roar and came bounding down the driveway; the fellow spoke to him and that was all there was to that. Gus stayed well behind, fearing the friendly beast might come to him also and thus give his presence away, but Roger was evidently coaxed to remain ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... he cried, "If I may yet be gone!" And but the booming shots replied, And fast the flames ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... were still hurrying home into the depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked quickly past. The Hills—there were two middle-aged sisters of them, with an old mother, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... companies marching out. They are trampled over by the fleeing host, they turn and mingle with the frightened mob in one struggling, terror-stricken mass! Come, let us be into the projectile and after them. With a few booming shots above their heads, we will make them think their ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... facilities for obtaining free private boxes and orchestra chairs not only at his own theatre, but often at Wallack's in Broome Street and the old Bowery. Simmons was almost always sure to have tickets when the new piece needed booming, or when an old play failed to amuse and the audiences had begun to shrink. Indeed, the mystery of Mrs. Schuyler Van Tassell's frequent appearance in the left-hand proscenium box at the Winter Garden on Friday nights—a mystery unexplained among the immediate friends ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the old town was terrific; Great Tom was booming sullenly over the uproar; the bell of Saint Mary's was clanging with alarm; St. Giles's tocsin chimed furiously; howls, curses, flights of brickbats, stones shivering windows, groans of wounded men, cries of frightened ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lucky place.' Davies thumped the table in disgust. 'Pah! It makes me sick to think of having to trust to an accident like that, like a lubberly cockney out for a boozy Bank Holiday sail. Well, just as I foresaw, the wall of surf appeared clean across the horizon, and curling back to shut me in, booming like thunder. When I last saw the Medusa she seemed to be charging it like a horse at a fence, and I took a rough bearing of her position by a hurried glance at the compass. At that very moment I thought she seemed to luff and show some of her broadside; but a squall blotted ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... did not go so clear with us. For she found the manse rookit and herrit, and there was such a supply of plenishing of all sort wanted, that I thought myself ruined and undone by her care and industry. There was such a buying of wool to make blankets, with a booming of the meikle wheel to spin the same, and such birring of the little wheel for sheets and napery, that the manse was for many a day like an organ kist. Then we had milk cows, and the calves to bring up, and a kirning of butter, and a making of ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... up and down the deck, and by degrees their conversation drifted into a discussion of such recent plays as were familiar to both of them. At the far end of the ship she clung to him once or twice as the wind came booming over the freshening waves. She weighed and measured his criticisms of the plays they spoke of, and in the main approved of them. When at last she stopped outside the companionway and bade him good night, ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the fog began slightly to lift. As Kerry crossed the bridge over Limehouse Canal he could vaguely discern the dirty water below, and street lamps showed dimly, surrounded each by a halo of yellow mist. Fog signals were booming on the railway, and from the great docks in the neighborhood mechanical clashings ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... much as a glass of water, in any house to which they are called. The Florentines well know how much they owe as a community, and how much each man may some day come to owe personally to the Misericordia; and when the doleful clang of their well-known bell is heard booming over the city, women may be seen to cross themselves with a muttered prayer, while men, ashamed of their religiosity, but moved by feeling as well as habit, will ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... loaves and fishes. made man, lucky dog, enfant gate[Fr], spoiled child of fortune. upstart, parvenu, skipjack[obs3], mushroom. V. prosper, thrive, flourish; be prosperous &c adj.; drive a roaring trade, do a booming business; go on well, go on smoothly, go on swimmingly; sail before the wind, swim with the tide; run smooth, run smoothly, run on all fours. rise in the world, get on in the world; work one's way, make one's way; look ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... after all," said the Onondaga, "or, at least, if a storm should come it will not be until after night is at hand, when the great gods are through talking. Listen to the heavy booming, always like the sound of a thousand big guns at one time. Now the lightning grows and burns until it is at a white heat. The great gods not only talk, but they are at play. They hurl thunderbolts through ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and ere the words were fairly uttered, their meaning, as was indeed inevitable, changed to this,—"A Northern 'mudsill' has no rights that a Southern gentleman is bound to respect"; and soon guns were heard booming about Sumter, and a new chapter in our history and in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... for the Hole-in-the-Ground Theater, as the Canadians called their amphitheater. For this performance, of course, I had no piano. Johnson and the wee instrument were back where we had left the motor cars, and so I just had to sing without an accompaniment—except that which the great booming of the ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... continued little over half an hour, and with the return of sunlight the surface water rapidly disappeared. Demoralized tents were then set up, baggage and bedding examined, and the wet articles exposed to the sun; and before night, except for the booming of the river, little remained to remind us that we had been ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... premonitory noises had run across the shivering surface of the ice. Through the foggy nights, a muffled intermittent booming went on under the wild scurrying stars. Now and then a staccato crackling ran up the icy reaches of the river, like the sequent bickering of Krags down a firing line. Long seams opened in the disturbed surface, and from them came a harsh sibilance ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... but before their contents were quaffed, the company were startled by the loud report of a cannon, which came booming across the land. At this moment another vessel, which had fired the gun, was seen coming round the point, following closely in the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... the enemy's works at first, had proven a failure, and now the wonderful siege began. For forty-six days the digging and mining went patiently forward, while screaming shells and booming shot produced a reign of terror in the city, until at last, Pemberton could hold out no longer and surrendered his starving garrison to the superior prowess and strategy of Grant. It was the morning of the fourth of July when our troops took possession of Vicksburg, ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... blessed by the Pope himself. If we do but sprinkle the walls with that and bid the daring fiend cease, all will be well. It is no work of God; it is a work of the devil, striving to turn us aside from our laudable and righteous purpose. Prove me if it be not so. If yon booming bell sounds again after this holy water has been sprinkled, then will I own that it is God fighting against us; but if it cease after this has been sprinkled, then shall we know that heaven is on our side and only the powers of darkness ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... worldly possessions, embarked to cross the lake on the first stage of their "flitting." All vexations were forgotten in the hearty send-off, and as the boat glided across the silent lake it was followed by music, cheering, jodling, and the booming of mortars. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... are brothers, though at times Our flashing swords obscure the sun. We ring aloud our Christmas chimes, But louder sounds the booming gun, And brother is by brother slain, And kindred ties ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... Emile was speaking now. She heard the deep, booming sound of his powerful voice, that seemed expressive of strength ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... face of the cliff, she turned her head to announce to Caleb that she could not go on, and, in turning, looked down. Before this she had felt no fear, only perplexity; but the sight of those cruel rocks below,—the hollow booming of the waves, as they lashed the foot of the cliff,—the consciousness that a fall of a hundred feet awaited her, should she let go her hold,—all this struck terror to Mysie's heart; and while a heavy, confused noise came throbbing and ringing through her head, she shut her eyes, and fancied ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... the rate of five and a half miles an hour, and the next day they saw, as it was running out, the "bore," or tidal wave, booming in to meet ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... bresh her long hair and bathe her feet in cool water; she said I was gentle and didn't never hurt her. One day I was a standing by the window and I seen smoke—blue smoke a rising over beyond a woods. I heerd cannons a-booming and axed her what was it. She say: "Run, Mittie, and hide yourself. It's the Yanks. Theys coming at last, Oh lordy!" I was all incited (excited) and told her I didn't want to hide, I wanted to see 'em. "No" she say, right firm. "Ain't I always ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... opened his heart to me and showed me the kind of man he is. Since then I have visited him in France and Flanders. I have been with him down near La Bassee, and Neuve Chapelle. I have talked with him while great guns were booming as well as during his hours of well-earned rest, when he was in a garrulous mood, and was glad to crack a joke "wi' a man wearin' a black coat." I have also been with him up at Ypres, when the shells were shrieking over our heads, and the "pep, pep, pep" of machine ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... brought a story of the passing hours. It breathed low of fighting men and praying women. It sang clearly the song of love. That ever was the burden of its tidings—youth in the shady woods, waders through the wet meadows, boy and girl at the hedgerow stile, bathers in the booming surf, sweet, idle hours on grassy, windy hills, long strolls down moonlit lanes—everywhere in far-off lands, fingers locked and bursting hearts and longing lips—from all the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the battle opened at El Caney, and the Rough Riders could hear the booming of cannon. At once all was activity, and the men prepared to move ahead ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... now David perceived that she was young, and possessed of pathetic and appealing beauty. He was startled from the contemplation of her forlorn loveliness by the booming voice of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to his landing, and watched boatload follow boatload, until the river was swarming with little craft pulling directly for Beauport. He looked uneasily toward Quebec. The old lion in the citadel hardly waited for Phips to shift position, but sent the first shot booming out to meet him. The New England cannon answered, and soon Quebec height and Levis palisades rumbled prodigious thunder, and the whole day was black with smoke ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... booming minute-gun Had pealed along the deep, And mournfully the rising sun Look'd o'er the tide-worn steep, A bark from India's coral strand, Before the rushing blast, Had vailed her topsails to the sand And bowed her noble mast. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... the sombre vistas of this phantom-evoking solitude, faint and far comes a strange sound—a low, vibrating, booming hum, above which, now and again, arises a shrill, long-drawn wail. The effect is indescribably gruesome and eerie—in fact, terror-striking—even if human, for there is an indefinable something, in sight, and sound, and surrounding, calculated ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... away with white, wretched face, and strode back toward the tent. He must get away from them for a little, he must try to think, he must find something to do. And as he turned a yell of derisive triumph from two hundred throats went booming and thundering ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... to climb for a moment, to impress the frightful yet grandiose spectacle upon his mind. Far off toward the stone bridge, now a mile or more northeast of them, they could see the Union flags waving, and mark the white puffs of smoke that preceded the booming of the cannon. Every instant the clouds of smoke came southward, where the rebel lines were concealed by the thick copses. But they were breaking—always breaking back anew. In twenty minutes more, at the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... wind strengthened and the softly booming summer shower came on apace, the heavy cloud lifting as it advanced and showing under it the dark gray sheet of the rain, Pere Beret and Alice sat under the clapboard roof behind the vines of the veranda and discussed, what was generally uppermost in the priest's mind upon such occasions, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... nothing but limitless plains on which cattle and sheep grazed, a crude ferry and a road house. It was beyond her present comprehension that in a dozen years a city could have sprung up harboring twenty thousand souls and booming with prosperity. Nor did she reflect upon the possible consequences these unknown facts ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... one street, and that deserted and in ruins. Behind its double row of houses, away from the enemy, lay the fields, a muddy canal and more poplar trees. And from far away, toward Ypres, there came constantly that somewhat casual booming of artillery which marked the first ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was one of the royal ancestors of the eminent novelist. Close to the skeleton was a long bronze trumpet, from which Professor Quellin, after several ineffectual efforts, ultimately succeeded in eliciting a deep booming note. Mr. HALL CAINE, who has taken the liveliest interest in the discovery, is at present studying the instrument, and will, it is hoped, give a recital shortly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... waiting was over; suddenly the Chautauqua bells began to peal; strains of martial music, and the roll of drums, mingled with the booming of cannon; and almost before they were aware, even after all their waiting, twenty thousand people stood face to face with their ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... with the noise of warning guns. As if released by a single switch, a dozen searchlights sprang into the sky, crossing and blending in a swerving glare. There was the piercing warning of bugles and the heavy booming of maroons. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... heard the booming of guns, and we'd hear 'em at four miles, we'd know that General Jackson himself was engaged. But as there's no sound, Shields hasn't come up, and we'll wait here a while to see if we can't have something important ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... chat with Lane a few moments, helped along his readjustment to the truth of the strange present. Almost all kinds of business were booming. Most people had money to spend. And there was a multitude, made rich by the war, who were throwing money to the four winds. Prices of every commodity were at their highest peak, and supply could not ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... filled with streams of light like falling stars; the booming sound of humble-bees was heard, as fairy knights and ladies came hastening to the call through the moon-lit air; the knights pricking their chargers with their wasp-sting spurs, and the ladies urging theirs quite as fast with their sweet, ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... Undoubtedly she would have gone to the bottom very shortly had not the wind moderated. Even then, it was almost a miracle that she should win through, but win through she did, and at four o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday, March 8, as she was passing Cape Henry, Captain Worden heard the distant booming of guns. As darkness came, he saw far ahead the glare of the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... brooding, with the pall straight before us, the funeral guns are heard indistinctly booming from the far forts, with the tap of drums in the serried street without, where troops and citizens are forming for the grand procession. We see through the window in the beautiful spring day that the grass is brightly green; ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... late afternoon sun still lay hot. The booming plunge of the tideless sea, breaking upon the rocks below, quivered in the quiet air. Henrietta Frayling withdrew her hands from her muff, unfastened the collar of her sable cape. The change from the shadowed woods to this glaring ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... streets and avenues were silent and deserted. The retreat proceeded cautiously for a little way, unmolested, when suddenly a deep, booming sound roared like thunder over the heads of the Spaniards, through the black night, filling their hearts with alarm. Cortes recognized it at once. The Aztecs were awake and ready. The priests in the great teocallis, or temple pyramids, were beating the great ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... received a terrible mauling, especially from the large guns of the England and the Scotland—sisters of the Britain, and the flagships respectively of the North Sea Squadron and the Home Fleet—and the totally unexpected and inexplicable loss of their reserve; but the guns booming to the south-westward could only be those of Admiral Durenne's victorious fleet. He would bring them reinforcements more than enough, and with him, too, would come the three Flying Fishes, which had been commissioned to destroy Portsmouth and the battleships of the ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... glacier, which had been on my mind all night, but by a grand flood-storm. The wind was blowing a gale from the north and the rain was flying with the clouds in a wide passionate horizontal flood, as if it were all passing over the country instead of falling on it. The main perennial streams were booming high above their banks, and hundreds of new ones, roaring like the sea, almost covered the lofty gray walls of the inlet with white cascades and falls. I had intended making a cup of coffee and getting something like a breakfast before starting, but when I heard ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... countless tossing fragments. The cake on which the terror-stricken party cowered swirled dizzily in an eddy of the released foaming waters. On all sides the inky waves seethed up among the crevices of the sundering floes. To the south Ootah heard the breakers booming against the ice cliffs, which perilously barred the currents of the angry sea. The caps of the curling waves took on a pale white ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... there were pillars and banks of dust on the north-west horizon, and the flashes of lyddite and the booming of artillery told patient Gueldersdorp that the hour of deliverance was near. A few hours later the Relief had lamp-signalled brief details of the battle with Huysmans, ending with "Good-night" and the promise ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... trees, showed them that the procession was collecting in front of the hall. The rain had now entirely ceased; the thunder muttered from afar, and the lightning seemed only to lick the moisture from the trees. The bell continued to toll, and its loud booming awoke the drowsy echoes of the valley. On the sudden, a solitary, startling concussion of thunder was heard; and presently a man rushed down from the belfry, with the tidings that he had seen a ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... even on those of them who knew enough of Sam Hollis not to take his talk just as he wanted them to take it. Withrow's vessel had beaten the Johnnie Duncan with Maurice Blake sailing her—they had to believe that part of it, and that in itself was bad enough. Sam Hollis's stock was booming, you may be sure—and the race right ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... confused and unceasing mutter. The spires of churches, numerous, scattered haphazard, uprose like beacons on a maze of shoals without a channel; the driving rain mingled with the falling dusk of a winter's evening; and the booming of a big clock on a tower, striking the hour, rolled past in voluminous, austere bursts of sound, with a shrill vibrating cry at the core. He ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... public opening of these lines were often of an interesting character. The adjoining population held general holiday; bands played, banners waved, and assembled thousands cheered the passing trains amidst the occasional booming of cannon. The proceedings were usually wound up by a public dinner; and in the course of the speeches which followed, Mr. Stephenson would revert to his favourite topic—the difficulties which he had early encountered in the promotion of the railway system, and in establishing the superiority of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... coming loose from the cleats, came down on the run. The effect was to lower the sail so quickly, and in such a fashion, with the wind blowing hard against it, that there was a crash, a banging and booming of the canvas, and the boom and gaff. The first mate, who was standing near the mast, was knocked down, ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... reform and privatization quickened, resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector. Kazakhstan enjoyed double-digit growth in 2000-01 - and a solid 9.5% in 2002 - thanks largely to its booming energy sector, but also to economic reform, good harvests, and foreign investment. The opening of the Caspian Consortium pipeline in 2001, from western Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield to the Black Sea, substantially ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... have I not sat about here in the shade sketching, and watched the blue upon the mountains which Titian watched from under the chestnuts of Cadore. No sound except the distant water, or the croak of a raven, or the booming of the great guns in that battle which is being fought out between man and nature on the Biaschina and the Monte Piottino. It is always a pleasure to me to feel that I have known the Val Leventina intimately before the great change ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... with sticks and ropes and blocks enough, might as well stay ashore, Mr. Dodge, and publish an hebdomadal. And so, my dear young lady, by looking along the land, the day after to-morrow, in the northern board here, you may expect to see a raft booming down upon you that will cheer your heart, and once more raise the hope of a Christmas dinner in New York, in ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Fort Erie on the memorable 13th of October, 1812. At daybreak, having returned with my escort as visiting rounds, after a march of about six miles in muddy roads through the forests, and about to refresh the inward man, after my fatiguing trudge, I heard a booming of distant ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... had no place in this new world. Even the masters' lessons, coming in from outside and making a kind of framework of appointments over the otherwise fortuitously occupied days, were, she soon found, not always securely calculable. Herr Kapellmeister Bossenberger would be heard booming and intoning in the hall unexpectedly at all hours. He could be heard all over the house. Miriam had never seen him, but she noticed that great haste was always made to get a pupil to the saal and that he taught impatiently. He shouted and ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... Ben's booming tones had already warned him it was a quarter past eight, when, suddenly, so close to him he could almost touch it, loomed the ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the bell were booming out their landing signal as the steamer shot into the shadow of a high, rocky cliff. Far aloft on the overhanging piazzas of a big hotel, fluttering handkerchiefs greeted the passengers on the decks below. Many eyes were turned thither in recognition of the salute, but not those of the young ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover—meaning by that thickets such as you may find in the upper end ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... conviction that we had, as my neighbors say, "echappe bien." I suppose it is human. It was like the first days of a real convalescence—life is so good, the world is so beautiful. The war was still going on. We still heard the cannon—they are booming this minute—but we had not seen the spiked helmets dashing up my hill, nor watched the walls of our little hamlet fall. I imagine that if human nature were not just like that, Life could never be beautiful to any thinking person. We all ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... we had sailed a whole week with a steady and favorable wind towards the Isle of Bourbon, when on one clear day whilst all were assembled on the deck, we were startled by a cannon shot fired at no great distance, and came booming over the waters like the voice of thunder. The captain was hastily summoned from his cabin, but ere he made his appearance a second report broke upon the deep stillness that succeeded the first. At the same ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... this devoted pair have been? Why, of course they would have fallen out long ago. Mrs. Sarrasin would soon have seen that her husband was a ridiculous old Don Quixote sort of person, whom she was puffing and booming to an unconscionable degree, and whom people were laughing at. Captain Sarrasin would have seen that his wife was unconsciously 'bossing the show,' and while professing to act entirely under his command was really doing everything for him—was writing his ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... night fell, and the boy's hair began to stir. A wolf was "yapping" on a swell, and a far-off heron was uttering his booming cry. Over the ridges, which cut sharply into the fleckless dull-yellow sky, lay unknown lands out of which almost any variety of fierce marauder might ride. Surely this was the wild country of which he had read, where men could talk so glibly of murder ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... looks about.] Well! Here in the fourth court the drums that maiden fingers beat are booming like the thunder; the cymbals are falling, as the stars fall from heaven when their merit is exhausted;[54] the pipe is discoursing music as sweet as the humming of bees. And here, again, is a lute that somebody is holding ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... garden party or an evening "at home" without attracting unpleasant notice. Many biographical sketches have I read, during the last decade, making personal introduction of young Mr. This or young Miss That, whose book was—as the sweet language of the day will have it—"booming"; but never one in which there was a hint of stern struggle, of the pinched stomach and frozen fingers. I surmise that the path of "literature" is being made too easy. Doubtless it is a rare thing nowadays for a lad whose education ranks him with the upper middle ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... wet with their bath of dew the booming of artillery and the clattering of small arms dispelled that peace which partook of no harsher discord than the purling of streams and the still, small voices of the forest. Through the groves where the spirit ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... performed upon the chirimiya, a shrill wooden pipe. It was the first time we had really heard a huehuetl. The player used two sticks with padded heads, beating with great force in excellent time. The booming of the instruments was audible to a great distance. The whole village had gathered, and in a momentary lull in the music, I told the people of the ancient use of the huehuetl; that Bernal Diaz, in his history of the Conquest of Mexico, tells us what feelings filled the hearts ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... in close and narrow keep, Pent, with scorned and faded toys, Mourn we for the glassy deep, Sigh we for our early joys! What has earth like ocean's treasures? More than craving avarice measures, More than Fancy's dream enchants, Deck the booming caves below, Where green waters ever flow Under groves of pearl, that grow In the mermaid's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... thought they would not be seen retiring, they returned to supper. Some of them who had been on duty in the rearguard had had no breakfast (it so happened). However, the enemy never ceased rolling down their stones all through the night, as was easy to infer from the booming sound. ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... for writing in what may be called a sustained effort outside of the scenes between Tosca and her lover in the first act. Thus the first finale has a pompous church office as its background, with tolling of bells, the booming of cannon, the pealing of a great organ, through all of which surges a stream of orchestral melody bearing the declamatory shrieks of Scarpia. All of this is purely irrelevant and external, and the device is cheap, but it serves. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... which spread out in great white curves and circles as the currents drifted. The wind had backed, and came in sharp, cold puffs. The blow-hole, which ran under the Flagstaff Rock, from the rocky bay without to the harbour within, was booming at intervals, and the seagulls were screaming ceaselessly as they wheeled about the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... days know nothing from our own experience! We read about the sad battles and sieges which have taken place in other countries, but can hardly imagine the time when hostile soldiers were riding through our village lanes, and the noise of the cannon was booming in the distance, as on that famous Sunday morning in October, 1642, when Richard Baxter was disturbed in his preaching at Alcester by that strange sound, and knew that the terrible conflict had begun between the king and Parliament. Our English villages suffered very much. All farming ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... appeared to be broken. His hat was gone. His body ached from the tremendous dispersion of air. But that he could still hear he discovered when through his shocked auditory nerves he distinguished, as if far off, faint booming ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... Above him bats darted in short circling flights. In the corn-field and pasture-lot the fireflies lifted from their day-long sleep, showing pale points of light in the half darkness, while from some distant pond or stagnant watercourse came the booming of frogs, presently to swell into a resonant chorus. These were the summer night sounds he had known as far ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... of no use. The sound is now become like the booming of a great church bell. It reminds me of the bell at St. Lambart on that ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... a few days ago a number of students, who had completed their studies at foreign universities, were admitted to the third degree (or [Page vii] D. C. L.) in the scale of literary honours, which means appointment to some important post in the active mandarinate. If the booming of cannon at the grand review proclaimed that the age of bows and arrows is past, does not this other fact announce that, in the field of education, rhyming and caligraphy have given place to science and languages? Henceforth ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... limestone, in which are found "blowholes"—that is to say, circular holes two to four feet in diameter, which go down vertically to a depth never yet ascertained. They derive their name from the curious booming noise which they emit, probably caused by the wind. Judging from the growth of saltbush and other herbage it would seem likely that the rainfall on these elevated plains is considerable, and apparently runs to waste down blow-holes and cracks in ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... the vicinity of Fort Johnson was then called, camping, now and then, in deserted farm-houses or putting up at village inns. They arrived at Albany in the morning of July fourth. Setting out from their last camp an hour before daylight they had heard the booming of cannon at sunrise, Solomon ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... man, a host in himself, came upon the field. Grant, who had been on foot for two days, endeavoring to get his army through the thickets and morasses, heard the booming of the cannon and he knew that the vanguards had clashed. He borrowed a cavalry horse and, galloping toward the sound of the guns, reached the field at mid-morning. Grant was not impressive in either figure or manner, but the soldiers had learned ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I tremble,—I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... cry I, crossly, making a spiteful lunge, as I speak, at a startle-de-buz, which has lumbered booming into my face. "Who on earth ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... "leader," the last of three, presenting Neil Paraday to the human race. His new book, the fifth from his hand, had been but a day or two out, and The Empire, already aware of it, fired, as if on the birth of a prince, a salute of a whole column. The guns had been booming these three hours in the house without our suspecting them. The big blundering newspaper had discovered him, and now he was proclaimed and anointed and crowned. His place was assigned him as publicly as if a fat usher with a wand had pointed ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James
... know that the people of Brussels, whenever a strong wind carries the booming of heavy guns miles in from the front, think that French and English are going to recapture the city? Any day that we can hear the guns faintly, we know that there is an undercurrent of nervous expectancy running through the whole city. It goes down alleys and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... carriage drove into the Rue du Chevalier Bayard—the dull gray gloaming of February—and the great bell of Notre Dame was booming five. She had been paying visits of duty, talking banalities in fashionable drawing-rooms, and she was weary. She seemed to breathe a new life as she approached her brother's dwelling. Here there would be the free reckless utterance of minds that harmonised, of ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... very sedate, Yet fond of amusement, too; And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch, While the captain tickled the crew. And the gunner we had was apparently mad, For he sat on the after rail, And fired salutes with the captain's boots, In the teeth of the booming gale. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... "Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment, Little souls who thirst for fight, These men were born to drill and die. The unexplained glory flies above them, Great is the battle-god, and his kingdom— A field where a thousand ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... her with her standard. She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of torches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end. Everywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... "Well, the natural-gas country is worth seeing. I don't mean the Pittsburg gas-fields, but out in Northern Ohio and Indiana around Moffitt—that's the place in the heart of the gas region that they've been booming so. Yes, you ought to see that country. If you haven't been West for a good many years, you haven't got any idea how old the country looks. You remember how the fields used to be ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that they had forgotten whether it was three or four days and nights; wounded on their stretchers enjoying a smoke. And as I stepped in the door there were the feminine voices singing the good old tunes we all know so well, and not a sound in the church but as an accompaniment the distant booming of big guns, the rattle of small arms, the whirl of air craft, the passing of the ever-present column of trucks with rations and ammunition going up, and the wounded coming back; the shouted directions of the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... then, as his fingers stiffened to press the electric button there sounded to the ears of all a dull, booming sound. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... west, yes! But it is a God-forsaken country! I don't know much about it, I confess. I know they are booming town lots all over the land. I believe they have gone quite mad in the business, but from what I hear, the main work in the west just now is jaw work; the only thing they ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... grew and expanded; many new states were added to the Union; many immigrants were attracted to its fertile fields and booming cities, very few of their number hailing from either Minnesota or Connecticut. Among them, however, was a gentleman of most attractive mien. He went into the real estate business, and greatly prospered. His varied accomplishments soon made him the most popular ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... although brilliant flashes of lightning several times lighted up the queer room, gleaming upon the gayly-painted lid of an Egyptian sarcophagus or throwing into horrid relief some anatomical specimen in one of the cases, the thunder crashed no more over the house. But its booming reached my ears from away upon a remote spur of the hills. I became aware of a growing uneasiness in the company of my chance host, who sat by the oddly littered table, watching ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... square-sterned American half-clippers, clumsy, square-bowed "Dutchmen," coasting-brigs of any nation, lumber-schooners from "'Frisco," hide-carriers from Valparaiso, pearl-boats and fishermen, and even a couple of homesick Malay proas from the west crowded the roadstead; for the guano trade was booming, and Callao prosperous. Nearly every type of craft known to sailors was there; but the postman and the policeman of the seas—the coastwise mail-steamer and the heavily sparred man-of-war—were conspicuously absent. The Pacific Mail boat would not arrive for a week, ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... friends, a selection of elderly aunts, and even that only sister who had so far acted as buffer between herself and the storms of life. At this very moment the mole-coloured toque was probably reclining comfortably on the tweed shoulder, and a smile was replacing tears as a big booming ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... because it has been starved, or hurt, or laughed at—but always when a certain current of thought or sound sweeps by, that wonderful part of our souls upon this little altar is set a-quivering. Old soldiers feel its pulsing at the booming of a cannon; old women feel it at the laughter of a child; others know it is there while beneath the spell of an orchestra, a breeze in the pines, a bird's note, the fragrance of certain flowers, the caress of a voice. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... ancestor to appear, till at last he found himself in the deepest cellars of all. Down there he could hear but faintly the sound of the fighting; yet it seemed to him that through the stone he could hear the slow booming of the sea, and as he went deeper into the castle's foundations the louder had grown its note. "Does the sea come in all the way under the castle?" he wondered. "Oh that it would sap the foundations and sink castle and all, rather ...
— The Blue Moon • Laurence Housman
... the King sat in his palace listening very anxiously for the sound of the cannon which was to announce this new murder; and that, when he heard it come booming on the air, he rose up in great spirits and ordered out his dogs to go a-hunting. He was bad enough to do it; but whether he did it or not, it is certain that he married Jane Seymour the ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens |
