"Overwhelm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... biggest of all—have come to our rescue alone. Whitewing tells me there is no one at their backs. If our foes discover their mistake, they will turn again, and the contempt which they ought to pour on themselves because of their own cowardice they will heap on our heads, and overwhelm us by their numbers—for who can withstand numbers? They will scatter us like small ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... such sad remembrance?" Forthwith he laid his hand on the cheek-bone Of one, his fellow-spirit, and his jaws Expanding, cried: "Lo! this is he I wot of; He speaks not for himself: the outcast this Who overwhelm'd the doubt in Caesar's mind, Affirming that delay to men prepar'd Was ever harmful. "Oh how terrified Methought was Curio, from whose throat was cut The tongue, which spake that hardy word. Then one Maim'd of each hand, uplifted in the gloom The bleeding stumps, that they with gory ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... had scarcely uttered that most exquisite passage in the second verse—"I have nourished and brougth up children, and they have rebelled against me,"—when the claims of God, and their violation and rejection of them; His forbearance, and their ingratitude, appeared to overwhelm them; they sobbed ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... were to shoot or cut down Miranda, he not resisting, that would be a scandal I might have difficulty in suppressing. It would spread surely, go over the country, get to the ears of the Central Government, and return to New Mexico with a weight that might overwhelm me. Besides, amigo mio, it would spoil my plan in several respects—notably, that with the nina and others too numerous to mention. Of course, we'll kill him if we can, with fair pretext for doing so. But unless he show fight, we ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... amuse myself. I hoped Mr. Hawthorne would come in. I have not seen him yet. Last night I took tea with Sally Gardiner and Miss Jackson, who are still enjoying your Flaxman drawings. Why do not you Salem folks have a hencoop and keep hens! five or six hens would overwhelm you with eggs all the year round. I like to hear the little items about Hawthorne. I had a nice talk with Mr. Capen about him to-day. He has him in his mind, and I hope it will come to some good ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... I'm at a loss to 'zackly determin whether they are a thousand years old or was bought recent. I can cry like a child over a jug one thousand years of age, especially if it is a Roman jug; but a jug of a uncertin date doesn't overwhelm me with emotions. Jugs and pots of a uncertin age is doubtles vallyable property, but, like the debentures of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, a man doesn't want too ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... for over their head was destruction without escape. And now to right and left broad Pontus was seen, when suddenly a huge wave rose up before them, arched, like a steep rock; and at the sight they bowed with bended heads. For it seemed about to leap down upon the ship's whole length and to overwhelm them. But Tiphys was quick to ease the ship as she laboured with the oars; and in all its mass the wave rolled away beneath the keel, and at the stern it raised Argo herself and drew her far away from the rocks; and high in air was she borne. But Euphemus ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... final resort that I dropped two of them with my rifle, bringing the others to a temporary halt. Again, I appealed to them to desist. But they only mistook my solicitude for them for fear, and, with shouts of rage and derision, leaped forward once again to overwhelm me. ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... omen!" she said. "It is a token of God's promise that yonder flood will not overwhelm us! That His hand will be raised as of old, to hurl it back from His ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... machinery of defence, controlled by one master-hand upon the levers, would count for nothing against that overwhelming onrush of armed thousands, that flood of men dammed up above the town, and waiting the signal to roll down and overwhelm her, and——Cripps! what a chance to make a glorious, heroic splash in Greta's sight! Die, perhaps, in saving her from them Dutchies. To be sure, she, divine creature, was a Dutchy too. But no matter—a ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... fleet, manned by Phoenician sailors, and a huge army, under the two satraps Datis and Artaphernes, were on the opposite side of the AEgean Sea, ready to overwhelm little Attica first, and then all Greece. Nobody had yet stood firm against those all-conquering Persians, and as they came from island to island the inhabitants fled or submitted. Attica was so small as to have only 9000 fighting men to meet this host. They sent to ask the aid of the Spartans, ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... may be a country girl, but she has her standards, too, and mere grace and attainment are not sufficient to win her. Have I the other qualities she demands? That remains to be seen. I have one she never dreams of. Will its shadow so overwhelm the rest that her naturally pure spirit will shrink from me just at the moment when I think her mine? I cannot tell, and the doubt creates a hell within me. Something deeper, stronger, more imperious than my revenge makes the winning of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... from the same general passions, and the same general views, in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity. Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes, who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power, proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former contests; or that they can make peace in the spirit ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... as much money—" Jim began again, trying to rally the arguments with which he had felt sure to overwhelm her. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... Caroline was hove-to to leeward, in order to avoid the showers of flakes and sparks, and to intercept any boats or rafts. The mate and four seamen pushed off in the jolly-boat, through a sea covered with floating spars, chests, and furniture, that threatened to crush or overwhelm the boat. When within a few yards of the stern, they caught sight of the first living thing—a wretched man clinging to a spar close under the ship's counter. Every time the stern-frame rose with the swell he was suspended above the water, and scorched by the long keen ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... cannot—I cannot," Bertrand said restlessly. "You are already much too good to me. You overwhelm me with kindness, and I—I make no return at all. ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... which had drawn the attention of the whole State to him. A coalition having been formed between the anti-war Democrats and a number of disaffected Republicans in his district to defeat his relection to Congress, it had seemed likely to overwhelm him and drive him out of public life, and one thing seemed for a time likely to prove fatal to him:—the "New York Tribune,'' the great organ of the party, edited by Horace Greeley, gave him no effective support. But the reason ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... all now: all the falsehood and treachery and corruption. He realised that Imshi Pasha had given him his hand that he might ruin himself, that his own schemes might overwhelm him in the end. At every turn he had been frustrated—by Imshi Pasha: three years of underground circumvention, with a superficial ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Dauphin, and of the fetes which accompanied that event. Neither she nor her 'numerous and brilliant acquaintance' had any prevision of the terrible days that awaited all their order, nor any knowledge of the existence of the irresistible forces which were soon to overwhelm them, and to put a tragical end to every hope cherished by the bride, except that of rejoining her English friends. For the present, she led a life of pleasure and gaiety; but that it did not make her forgetful of Steventon is shown by another letter to Phila, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... asked Paulus of himself, and he pressed his brow against a projection of the rock as tightly as if he would stem the rapid rush of his blood that it might not overwhelm his bewildered brain. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... coal-tar dyes been discovered by the English and exploited by the Germans now groaning over the wise tyranny of the provisions of the new Patent Act, to which ignorant people have applied the offensive term "Protectionist." Shoddy treated with aniline dyes can produce effects that overwhelm the colours of the honest old materials which owed their hues to the efforts of the vegetable and the insect. A modern manufacturer is proud when his scarlet shoddy shrieks like a steam siren. Unfortunately some of the managers seem to ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... however, in times of calm an old sea, as it is called, is rolling in, the surges may occasionally undergo very great variations in magnitude. Not infrequently these occasional waves are great enough to overwhelm persons who are upon the rocks next the shore. These greater surges are probably to be accounted for by the fact that in the open sea waves produced by winds blowing in different directions may run on with their diverse courses and varied intervals until they come near ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... pleased to say, "What a poor figure does the proudest man make, my dear Pamela, under the sense of a concealed guilt, in company of the innocent who know it, and even of those who do not!—Since the casual expression of a baby shall overwhelm him with shame, and make him unable to look up without confusion. I blushed for myself," continued he, "to see how you were affected for me, and yet withdrew, to avoid reproaching me so much as with a look. Surely, Pamela, I must then make a most contemptible appearance in your eye! Did you ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... after making you this reply, I could be at my ease with you in Camille's house, I could act out my natural self, and be what you ask of me; but I hardly need speak to you of the bitter ridicule that would overwhelm me if my eyes or my manner ceased to express the sentiments of which you complain. A second robbery from Camille would be a proof of her want of power which no woman could twice forgive. Even if I loved you, if I were blind to all else, if I forgot all else, I should still see Camille! ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... judged by a blind and senseless power! But that idiot power mercilessly condemns all the faults committed in its name! That power, which is making me tremble now with excitement, will tell you that you could have done nothing worse! Do you understand? Nothing, nothing! And it will overwhelm you with reproaches. For it is not your action that revolts me; it is your apathy, your flabbiness, your cowardice!... You gave yourself without knowing why! You did not surrender for the sake of the joy that makes us fairer and better! ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... and out among the trees and tents, now swooping low near the Indians or the travelers. At such times clubs would be used, often with the effect of killing or stunning the flying pests. For a time it seemed as if the bats would fairly overwhelm the camp, so many of them were there. But the increasing lights, and the attacks made by the Indians and the white travelers turned the tide of battle, and, with silent flappings of their soft, velvety wings, the bats flew ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... Allw. Your courtesies overwhelm me: I much grieve To part from this house, and yet, I find comfort; My attendance on my honourable lord, Whose resolution holds to visit my lady, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... headache, I was awakened from a light sleep by a sound of voices on the piazza outside of my window. It was some time before I was sufficiently wide awake to realize that the speakers were Kitty and the Jook, and when I did I was in a dilemma. To let them know that I was there would be to overwhelm them both with confusion and interrupt their conversation at a most interesting point, for the Jook had evidently just made his declaration. It was impossible for me to leave the room, for I was by no means in a costume to make my appearance in the public ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... for there is nothing that requires so much judgment and knowledge, so much certainty of movement and quick decision, as to meet a superior enemy at different points, force the fighting, and at each point to outnumber and overwhelm him. ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... HUSBAND A. (smiling)—Don't they overwhelm you all the time with their superiority? Vanity so dominates their souls that between you and them the effort ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed. Then will I pass the countries that I see In long perspective, and continually Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I'll pass ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... forward, purposing to overwhelm me, the Black Colonel's foot appeared to catch an uprising tuft that had been left unnibbled by the sheep, possibly on account of the coarse toughness of its grass. He lost his balance and shot heavily at me, holding his sword straight ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... annoying with her "my dears" and her gossip the great ladies whose maids were richer and ate better than she and her daughter. If some old gentleman took refuge beside her, the diplomat's wife tried to overwhelm him with the majesty of her recollections. "When we were ambassadors in Stockholm." "When my friend Eugenie ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... shoes, then he sank back into his chair, covered his face with his hands, and gave way to tears. He had lived in this world too long not to know that prosperity breeds forgetfulness, and he felt already in his heart a foretaste of the bitterness that should overwhelm him when this boy, whom he loved as his own child, ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... and would sit whole evenings through near his mistress, patiently and jealously awaiting her when Sonka through chance was taken by some guest. And when she would return and sit down beside him, he would, without being perceived, overwhelm her with reproaches, trying not to turn the general attention upon himself and without turning his head in her direction. And in her splendid, humid, Hebraic eyes during these conversations there was always a martyr-like ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... The world is so full of a number of things that no man with a grain of either poetry or the scientific spirit in him has any right to be bored, though he lived for a thousand years. Terror or tragedy may overwhelm him, but boredom never. The infinity of things forbids it. I once heard of a tipsy young artist who, on his way home on a beautiful night, had his attention called by a maudlin friend to the stars, where they twinkled like a million larks. He raised ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... having ceased, sank down fainting by the side of his officer. The danger of returning was as great as that which they experienced in approaching the wreck. The spray flew over them, and it seemed that every billowy wave would overwhelm the frail bark. All this time they were watched eagerly by the young ladies and their old friend from the cliff above. On the boat came; now a vast sea threatened her with instant destruction, but the fishwife and her brother, rowing till the stout oars bent with ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... was my sense of responsibility awful: and from day to day it seemed to intensify. An arguing Voice never ceased to remonstrate within me, nor left me peace, and the curse of unborn hosts appeared to menace me. To strengthen my fixity I would often overwhelm myself, and her, with muttered opprobriums, calling myself 'convict,' her 'lady-bird'; asking what manner of man was I that I should dare so great a thing; and as for her, what was she to be the Mother of a world?—a ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... power with all the more determination. Indeed, when a man is working through a hard state, in gaining his freedom from nervous fears, these imps seem to hold councils of war, and to devise new plans of attack in order to take him by surprise and overwhelm him in an emergency. But every sharp attack, if met with quiet "willingness," brings a defeat for the assailants, until finally the resistant imps are conquered and disappear. Occasionally a stray imp will return, and try to arouse resistance on what he feels is ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... more tasks than they could accomplish, and were kept employed by being always in arrears with their lessons. This pressed less heavily upon me than on most; but though I seldom incurred punishment, there was a sort of hard distrust of me, I believe because the master could not easily overwhelm me with work, so as to have me in his power. I know I was often unjustly treated, and I never ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be in a world such as this? We are surrounded by awful, mysterious, and merciless forces, that at any moment may overwhelm us. The fire may burn us, the water may drown us, the hurricane may sweep us away, friends may desert us, foes may master us. There is the depression that comes from failing health, from poverty, from overwork and ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... rushed in tumult on Achilles, raging from on high, thundering with foam and blood and bodies of dead men. Then did a dark wave of the heaven-sprung River stand towering up and overwhelm the son of Peleus. But Hera cried aloud in terror of Achilles, lest the great deep-eddying River sweep him away, and straightway she called to Hephaistos, her dear son: "Rise, lame god, O my son; it was against thee we thought that eddying Xanthos was ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... steel of the sword-forger. One was called the Jewel of the Flood-Tide, and the other the Jewel of the Ebb-Tide. Whoever owned them had the power to make the tides instantly rise or fall at his word, to make the dry land appear, or the sea overwhelm it, in the fillip of ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... iron boot, Iron breeches, and on the head No hat, but an iron pot instead, And under the chin the bail,— I believe they called the thing a helm; And the lid they carried they called a shield; And, thus accoutred, they took the field, Sallying forth to overwhelm The dragons and pagans that plagued the realm:— So this modern knight Prepared for flight, Put on his wings and strapped them tight; Jointed and jaunty, strong and light; Buckled them fast to shoulder and hip,— ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... boys felt, they could not suppress an exclamation of admiration at the magnificent scene before them. The sea was tossed up in great masses of water, which, as they neared the ship, threatened to overwhelm them, but which, as she rose on their summits, passed harmlessly under her, hurling, however, tons of water upon her deck. The wind was still blowing fiercely, but a rift in the clouds above, through which the sun threw down a bright ray ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... to play with emotions that are never to be allowed an active influence. They have a trick of growing by leaps and bounds, and before the will has time to realize that an enemy is at its gates, to fling their whole force against the citadel and overwhelm the dazed defenses. How near Archibald Travers came that morning to yielding to himself he never knew. Lois' happy, thankful face hovered constantly before his eyes. He felt very tender toward her. He felt ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... move, the Indians, thinking they had him, prepared to overwhelm the scouts by swooping down on one side of the island with about five hundred mounted warriors, while about two hundred, covered by the tall grass in the river-bottom attacked the other side, dismounted. But the brave little band sadly disappointed them. ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... more than had been anticipated. Mrs. Wiggins was undoubtedly a "peculiar female," as had been expected, but she was so elderly and monstrous that Mrs. Mumpson felt some embarrassment in her purpose to overwhelm Holcroft with a sense of the impropriety of ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... If we tolerate these exchanges, foreign nations will overwhelm us with their produce. We will have cotton goods from England, coal from Belgium, woolens from Spain, silks from Italy, cattle from Switzerland, iron from Sweden, corn from Prussia, so that no industrial pursuit will any ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... knew well what it would mean to return home in disgrace with the de Vignes. Her cheeks burned and tingled still with the shame of the discovery. She felt that another of the old dreadful chastisements would overwhelm her utterly. And yet that she would most certainly have to endure it if she were unruly now was conviction that pressed like a cold weight upon her heart. Had not the letter she had received from her mother only that morning contained a stern injunction to her to behave herself, as though ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... informed of the formidable coalition combining against him, and not aware of the feeble resources of the emperor, apprehensive that the armies of Germany, marching down and uniting with the roused States of Italy, might cut off his retreat and overwhelm him, decided that the "better part of courage is discretion;" and he accordingly abandoned his conquests, recrossed the Apennines, fought his backward path through Italy, and returned to France. He, however, left behind him six thousand ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... thunder was so continued, that it was conceived some ship was firing its guns for assistance. At other times there would fall such incessant and heavy torrents of rain for two or three days together as if an universal deluge were going to overwhelm the world. This almost unceasing war of the elements perplexed the men and reduced them almost to despair, so that they were continually wet and could not get half an hours rest at a time, always beating up to windward. In such terrible ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... accident. We were all sitting or standing about the stern of the vessel, admiring the magnificent dark blue billows following us, with their curling white crests, mountains high. Each wave, as it approached, appeared as if it must overwhelm us, instead of which, it rushed grandly by, rolling and shaking us from stem to stern, and sending ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... course you feel as if you'd gone into bankruptcy. Women invest in happiness as men do in property, and to 'go broke' the way you have is disconcerting. It would overwhelm some women; but it won't you—not if you're the same Honora I played with when I was a boy. You had pluck for two of us trousered animals—were the best of the lot. I want you to come here and stake out a new claim. You may get to be ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... up, as her misery threatened to overwhelm her again, and began swiftly to change her dress and arrange her hair. She pulled back the stiff curtains of one of the tall windows and leaned out. A soft blue haze, the first glimpse of September's tender eyes, ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the opposition to enforce an angry or irritable reply, and then to launch the arrows of his biting wit and sarcasm at whoever dared the response, in such rapid profusion, as to astonish the House, and overwhelm his antagonist. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... aggravation, but which invariably the relays through all the subsequent periods affirm their own contemporaries to have attained. Every decennium is regularly worse than that which precedes it, until the mind is perfectly confounded by the Pelion upon Ossa which must overwhelm the last term of the twenty-five. It is the mere necessity of a logical sorites, that such a horrible race of villains as the men of the twenty-fifth decennium ought not to be suffered to breathe. Now, the whole error arises out of an imbecile self-surrender to the first impressions from the process ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... of his name, Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame, And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd. Chains for a crown, a prison for a world Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there, He met the slow still march of black despair, Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom, And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb: Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes, Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise; He ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... suppressed rage; then, feigning profound affliction, he added: "My father, have you no pity—what can I say to you now? I do not seek to deny my faults—I only wish to explain to you the fatal cause of them. Ah, well! yes, should you again overwhelm me with cruel sarcasms, I will try to go to the end of this confession—I will try to make you understand this feverish vanity which has ruined me, because then, perhaps, you will pity me. Yes, for one pities a fool—and ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... growers of the northern part of this country and noting the hearty way in which they are ready to co-operate in solving the nut insect problems. The field of work is interesting because there appear to be in sight no insect pests that promise to embarrass or overwhelm the nut grower. We have a few quite serious insect problems, perhaps none more serious than that occasioned by our old acquaintance, the "chestnut worm." That problem, however, is being solved rapidly in many localities ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... on them, would completely change the aspect of the war. It was while pondering his masterstroke, and deliberating on the choice of the path across the Alps that was to lead to it, that Bonaparte gave his approval; while elaborating a scheme to overwhelm the armies of Austria in an abyss of carnage, that he expressed the wish that, as the expedition would come in contact with ignorant savages, care should be taken to make it appear that the French met them as ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... of those limbs, the power of using which you look upon with such thankless indifference. As it is with this youth to-day, so may it be with you to-morrow, if the decree goes forth from on high. Bid me not again return to your father to tell him you are weary of a blessing, the loss of which would overwhelm ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... his broad-sword, dashes along the French line as though to overwhelm it with his mighty blows, while many a wound sheds blood on his arms and many a cruel dint sinks into ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... destructive. It promotes war. It makes the individual helpless, and crushes him with a sense of his unimportance. It abets the injustice of capitalism. It excludes citizens from any participation in foreign affairs. We must indeed not let this incubus of state overwhelm us. We must keep it in its proper place, even in performing its necessary functions, such as preserving public health. It is better to take some risk, even in such matters, than to override too much the individual's personal rights. ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... children reverence only their errors and mistakes, but their excellences they either overlook, or conceal, or corrupt; so that it may truly be said to be their only study to collect dross from the midst of gold. Then they overwhelm us with senseless clamours, as despisers and enemies of the fathers. But we do not hold them in such contempt, but that, if it were consistent with my present design, I could easily support by their suffrages most of the sentiments that we now maintain. But while we make use of their writings, ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... France, with an immense host, came on toward the place where Edward was encamped, confident that, as soon as he could come up with him, he should at once overwhelm and destroy him. His army was very large, while Edward's was comparatively small. Philip's army, however, was not under good control. The vast columns filled the roads for miles, and when the front arrived at the place where Edward's army was posted, the officers attempted to ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another, in some place or another, the volcano will break out ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... said Keats, "the principle of beauty in all things." It is that to which all I have said has been leading, as many roads unite in one. We must try to use discrimination, not to be so optimistic that we see beauty if it is not there, not to overwhelm every fling that every craftsman has at beauty with gush and panegyric; not to praise beauty in all companies, or to go off like a ripe broom-pod, at a touch. When Walter Pater was confronted with something which ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... which a resurrection was impossible. That, in such a case, my limbs would have been confined to a coffin, and my coffin to a grave, and that I should instantly have been suffocated, did not occur to destroy my supposition. Neither did this supposition overwhelm me with terror or prompt my efforts at deliverance. My state was full of tumult and confusion, and my attention was incessantly divided between my painful sensations and my ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... Calenus, 'if the storm does come, and if it does overwhelm the accursed ships, have we not prophesied it? and are the barks not blest to be at rest?—for rest prays the mariner in the AEgean sea, or at least so says Horace—can the mariner be more at rest in the sea than when he is at the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... true God, and the whole thing was false; for he loved Helen with a love that was no invention or creation of his own, and if not his, then whose? Certainly not of one who, when it threatened to overwhelm him, was unable to uphold him under it! This thing also belonged to the God of his being. A poor God must he be for men or women who did not care about the awful things involved in the relation between them! Therefore even in his ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... truth be understood— Few can be great, all may be good. Power, pomp, ambition, envy, pride, Wrecked barks adown life's stream may glide, Ruined by some fierce passion throe, E'er, reckless, o'er Time's brink they go; But if fair virtue grasps the helm, Nor storm nor wave can overwhelm. ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... he wore them he would use them. The driving intensity of his desire to kill Warden, Singleton, and Slade would overwhelm him if he should find they had harmed Ruth. The deadly passion that held him in a mighty clutch would take no account of his position, of his duty to the state, or of the oath he had taken to obey and ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... real solution is offered anywhere, one would most naturally look for it in the speeches of Jehovah (xxxviii. ff.); and at first sight they are not very promising. Their effect would most naturally be rather to silence and overwhelm Job than to convince him; and to some they have suggested no more than that the contemplation of nature may be a remedy for scepticism. But their object is profounder than that. By heightening the sense of the mystery of the universe, they show Job the folly, and ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... it, as he plumed himself upon his adventure, was a certain pestering consciousness that all was not so well with him as observers might guess. But he resolutely put this away each time it threatened to overwhelm him. He would cross no bridge until he came to it. He even combated this undercurrent of sanity by wording part of an interview with himself some day to ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... aroused. But when he felt himself to be the protector of innocence, the defender of justice, or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed such unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make him fairly irresistible. Even an ordinary law argument, coming from him, seldom failed to produce the impression that he was profoundly convinced of the soundness of his position. It is not surprising that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... everything, large numbers turned to plundering. Now the bandit organizations on the mainland, being rather in sight of towns, which could thus perceive a source of injury close by, proved not so very difficult to overwhelm and were somehow broken up with a fair degree of ease; but those on the sea had grown to the greatest proportions. While the Romans were busy with antagonists they flourished. They sailed about to many quarters, adding to their band all of like condition, and some of these, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... operating in the upper valley and putting Sanders in command of those resisting Wheeler, Burnside was sure of vigor and courage in the leadership of both divisions. Longstreet kept Wheeler on the left bank of the Holston, directing him to overwhelm Sanders and move directly opposite Knoxville, taking the city by a surprise if possible. But Sanders opposed a stubborn resistance, falling back deliberately, and held the hills south of Knoxville near the river. Wheeler was thus baffled, and returned to Longstreet ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... colony on Hispaniola was an object of concern to the Jamaicans, not only because it served as a refuge for privateers from Port Royal, but also because it threatened soon to overwhelm the old Spanish colony and absorb the whole island. Under the conciliatory, opportunist regime of M. d'Ogeron, the French settlements in the west of the island had grown steadily in number and size;[393] while the old Spanish towns ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... an automatic—a battery of guns!" replied Lanstron. "This is where I will use any influence I have with Partow for all it is worth. Now, let the red-tapists dare to point to his past when I ask anything for him and I'll overwhelm them with the living present! Yes, and he shall have the iron cross. It is for such deeds as his that ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... to arouse all that was noble, and divine in every heart. The Moderator reverently led the Assembly in prayer and constituted the court most solemnly in the name of Jesus Christ. Such a prayer should overwhelm the soul with God's presence, burden the conscience with responsibilities, make the spiritual world dreadfully visible, and bring God's servants close ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... got within five or six feet of the bottom of the ocean. There the metal was still clearly visible, but even the most hardy miners would scarcely have ventured on an attempt to win another grain from the rock overhead, lest the water should rush in and overwhelm ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Therese must be wrong; but even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to overwhelm him, moved him ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... imparted life and grace to her every movement; her decks tenantless and wave-swept; her hull full of water, and the relentless sea leaping at her with merciless persistency, as though eager to drag her down and overwhelm her! Can you conceive ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... that the Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries was no longer the Roman Empire of the great Antonine and Augustan age; that it had lost its hold over its territories and its economic cohesion and was menaced by the barbarians who were in the end to overwhelm it. The territory of the Roman Empire had at its height stretched from the lands bordering the North Sea to the lands on the northern fringes of the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the central Asiatic Steppes; it comprised most of the regions of the former Hellenic, Iranian, ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... world, thickly settled in many places with natural men 'eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,' while the flood of wrath is hastening to overwhelm them, and none to warn them of their danger, nor point out the ark of safety; shall such men be reckoned of none account, and their labors of no value? No, the wealth of both Indies cannot balance their work; nor all the talents ever ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... temptation of returning to my former miserable greatness; there I am not sure, but that all the seeds of pride, ambition, avarice, and luxury, which I know remain in my nature, may revive and take root, and, in a word, again overwhelm me; and then the happy prisoner, whom you see now master of his soul's liberty, shall be the miserable slave of his own senses, in the full possession of all personal liberty. Dear Sir, let me remain in this blessed confinement, banished from the crimes of life, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... sometimes reaches a velocity of one hundred miles an hour, and has even been known to exceed one hundred and forty miles. These tremendous winds do a great deal of damage. They drive ships ashore or overwhelm them at sea; they devastate fields and forests and ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... new forces at work, and to bring some realisation of the great gulf which separates the thinking classes of to-day from the men of a few years ago; whilst, at the same time, it is sufficiently condensed not to overwhelm the reader with too great a multitude ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... and the Church; yet even he agreed with Arius in a philosophical doctrine of the unity of God which was inconsistent with a real incarnation. Even the noble work of Origen had helped to strengthen the philosophical influences which were threatening to overwhelm the definite historic revelation. Tertullian had long since warned the churches of the danger; but a greater than Tertullian was needed now to free them from their bondage to philosophy. Are we to worship the Father of our spirits or the Supreme of the philosophers? Arius put the question: ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... has been the only thoroughly pure nationality within our territories. The few stray Englishmen of education in the Southern colonies, the much greater number of convicts, the increasing immigration of French, Irish, Scotch, and German settlers, have not only failed to overwhelm this compact and thoroughly alive minority, but have been formed and moulded into shape by it. In protesting against New England, the Vallandighams and Coxes are only proving the nullity of 'expunging ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... naturally, the well-to-do, shading downward, but seldom reaching poverty. As playmate of the children I saw the homes of nearly every one, except a few immigrant New Yorkers, of whom none of us approved. The homes I saw impressed me, but did not overwhelm me. Many were bigger than mine, with newer and shinier things, but they did not seem to differ in kind. I think I probably surprised my hosts more than they me, for I was easily at home and perfectly happy and they looked to me just like ordinary people, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... gods; if the entrails of the victim are propitious, he raises a chant which all the army takes up in unison. Then they advance. With rapid and measured step, to the sound of the flute, with lance couched and buckler before the body, they meet the enemy in dense array, overwhelm him by their mass and momentum, throw him into rout, and only check themselves to avoid breaking the phalanx. So long as they remain together each is protected by his neighbor and all form an impenetrable mass on which the enemy could secure ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... dry-eyed and numbed, glad of any passing occupation that would prevent the aching sense of desolation at her heart from gaining force to overwhelm her; courting employment, and shunning pity and condolence, but she could not escape when her uncle took her hand, made her sit down by him, with 'I want to speak to you, my dear;' and told her briefly and tenderly what her mother's effort had been, and of the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fought their way back to the Residency. The rebels entered the town in triumph, and the city at once rose, the respectable inhabitants were killed, the bazaar looted, and then, assured of success, the enemy prepared to overwhelm the ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... wolves, and though they succeeded in driving them off it was only at the expense of almost their last cartridges and the loss of three more dogs. Joe spoke again of the heroism of Howling Wolf, who sat up in his sledge and shot at the wolves, though they threatened to overwhelm him and Joe on more than one rush that they made. Joe said nothing of himself but one's imagination can easily picture these two hardy hunters, sheltered only by their sledges, making a fight for life against a large ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... reigns in the quarters. Until now we have had no doubts as to the outcome of passing events. We knew about the too celebrated victory of Sarrebrueck, we do not expect the reverses which overwhelm us. The major examines every man; not one is cured, all had been too long gorged with licorice water and deprived of care. Nevertheless, he returns to their corps the least sick, he orders others to lie ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... Egyptians, and gavest us the opportunity of flying away from our under them, and madest the dominion of Pharaoh inferior to my dominion; thou who didst make the sea dry land for us, when we knew not whither to go, and didst overwhelm the Egyptians with those destructive waves which had been divided for us; thou who didst bestow upon us the security of weapons when we were naked; thou who didst make the fountains that were corrupted to flow, so as to be fit for drinking, and didst furnish ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... is really very decent. We have great smokes together, and talks. On all subjects he has very decided opinions, and in everything but religion, liberal views. I lure him into philosophic discussions, and overwhelm him with my newest and biggest metaphysical terms, which always reduce his enormous ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... destiny; anon we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know not how into the future." A good deal of what happens to us is brought upon us by the fact of what we are; the rest is drifted to us, uninvited, undeserved, upon the tides of chance. When disasters overwhelm us, the fault is sometimes in ourselves, but at other times is merely in our stars. Because so much of life is casual rather than causal, the theatre (whose purpose is to represent life truly) must always rely on melodrama as the ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... refined to the depths of her being, was wax in his hands. Often he would look at her to find that her eyes had been fixed upon him in a long, grave, meditative gaze. Then he would seem to himself a very sorry sort of person, and was compelled to admit that he who had once wished to overwhelm the girl with the infinite riches of a passionately loving soul, was a bankrupt, groping with empty hands in empty pockets. He ought to speak, ought to open the sluices on the other side of which the flood of his passionate love must have gathered and risen high; but all ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Should not the CONTRARY only be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A question worth asking!—it would be strange if some mystic has not already ventured on the same kind of thing. There are proceedings of such a delicate nature that it is well to overwhelm them with coarseness and make them unrecognizable; there are actions of love and of an extravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiser than to take a stick and thrash the witness soundly: one ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... every particle of strength he possessed to hold on. Now a sea would come and wash over the vessel, almost drowning him, and completely preventing him from seeing; then he felt that he was whirled round and round, till he looked up—but it was only to see another huge breaker rolling up ready to overwhelm him. He felt the terrific dash of the wave, its roar sounded in his ears—he was almost stunned. He prayed that he might be preserved from the terrible danger to which he was exposed. The roller passed on, leaving him still firmly clutching the wreck. Again he looked up. The blue sea danced ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... it novice to disobey reason? does not reason sufficiently declare, that there is no real good which you should desire too ardently, or the possession of which you should allow to transport you: and that there is no evil that should be able to overwhelm you, or the suspicion of which should distract you? and that all these things assume too melancholy or too cheerful an appearance through our own error? But if fools find this error lessened by time, so that, though the cause remains the same, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... side of the land; and, lastly, Pompey himself, with the immense army that was under his command, began to be struck with alarm at the impending danger with which they were threatened. Pompey little realized, however, how dreadful a fate was soon to overwhelm him. ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... will prove on oath that it was the intention of this arch-hypocrite, this angler for women's hearts, this perverter of men's understandings, before another moon to bury deep in blood the very people whom he now insidiously affects to protect! But to open your and the nation's eyes at once, to overwhelm him with his fate, I now ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... excitation of his nerves. The throb and spasm of the past still beat against his heart. Like a circular storm in mid-ocean, he told himself that the tempest had not wholly ended, but might reawaken, overwhelm him, and sweep him back into the turmoil again. As he thought, and his eye roved for a rider on a brown horse, the poor wretch was fighting still. Yesterday fixed determination marked his movements, and his mind was made up; to-day, after a night not devoid of sleep, it seemed that everything ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... been predicted, for it was a moving face, one that could not be looked upon quite coldly. And the Professor had come to the conclusion, from his experience of life, that the instinct of the average human being whom another has stirred to strong emotion, is to fasten upon and overwhelm that luckless person, to burden him with responsibilities, to claim as much of time, and energy, and existence, as can in any way be wrung from him, careless of the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and melting ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... some unknown realm, Mounting a summit whence he thinks to see On either side of him the imprisoning sea, Beholds, above the clouds that overwhelm The valley-land, peak after snowy peak Stretch out of sight, each like a silver helm Beneath its plume of smoke, sublime and bleak, 50 And what he thought an island finds to be A continent to him first ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and it cannot be builded anew: He shutteth up a man, and who can open to him? Lo, he withholdeth the waters and they dry up, He letteth them loose and they overwhelm ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Cloud God looking forth, will trouble all his Host, And craze their Chariot Wheels: when by command Moses once more his potent Rod extends Over the Sea: the Sea his Rod obeys: On their embattell'd Ranks the Waves return And overwhelm their War— ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... heavens to the other,—one moment dazzling us by its glare, and the next moment leaving us in darkness, relieved only by the red flames of the conflagration from which we were endeavouring to escape. Our first object was to proceed to a distance from the vessel, lest she should explode and overwhelm us; but, to our inexpressible distress, we discovered that the yawl had no rudder, and that for the two boats we had only three oars. All exertions to obtain more from the ship proved unsuccessful. The gig had a rudder; from this they threw out a rope to take us in tow; ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... soon as she had seized the significance of Monjardin's verses, had grown deathly pale; stricken by sudden disillusionment, she felt a glacial chill overwhelm her body to the very marrow; she feared that she would faint straightway and provide a spectacle for the guests, who were all drinking her health, their eyes focussed upon her. A veil of tears spread before her sight.... In vain she tried ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... years? We look back on them now, and smile at them as we think how small were their causes. Well, they were great to us. We were little creatures then, and little things were relatively very great. 'The sports of childhood satisfy the child:' the sorrows of childhood overwhelm the poor little thing. We think a sympathetic reader would hardly read without a tear as well as a smile, an incident in the early life of Patrick Fraser Tytler, recorded in his recently published biography. When five years old ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the war on their occupation of New York, when Washington and his relatively insignificant army were virtually in their power while in retreat. The history of the war is full of similar instances of lost opportunities to overwhelm the continental troops. All the efforts of the British generals appear to have been devoted to the occupation of the important towns in a country stretching for a thousand miles from north to south, instead ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... Mahomet, which had for ages remained immovable, should yield to him; or that, with all his numerous armies, he should be able to force the girdle of Opakka from the loins of an enchanter, who could in a moment overwhelm his troops by the power of his art. However, he determined the next morning to go with his Court on a public pilgrimage to Mecca, and to offer up the most solemn petitions to the Prophet of ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... to overcome the feeling, and I hid my suspicions from you. Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined to overwhelm you with reproaches, but at the sight of your beauty I forgot everything but that I loved you. My suspicions dissolved before a smile; one word from your lips charmed me into happiness. But when I was again alone my terrors revived, I saw my rivals at your feet, and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a tarantula in your dream, signifies enemies are about to overwhelm you with loss. To kill one, denotes you will be ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... sitting-room table. Prayer meeting and supper she had forgotten entirely. The minister had not come home for his evening meal, and food was furthest from the housekeeper's thoughts. What should she do? What ought she to do? How could she avert the disaster so certain to overwhelm those two young people the moment ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was chiefly due to the vacillation, if not the absolute treachery, of Kutusow. Moving on by roads well supplied with provisions, and perfectly acquainted with the movements of the enemy, he was able to outmarch them, and several times had it absolutely in his power to completely overwhelm the broken remains of Napoleon's army. But, in spite of the entreaties of the generals and the indignation of the army, he obstinately refused to give the order. The French army no longer travelled by a single road; sometimes the corps were ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... had been laid with care by my excellent parents; but, alas! from the time I quitted the paternal roof not one stone was added to the building, and even the traces of what existed were nearly obliterated by the deluge of vice which threatened soon to overwhelm me. Sometimes, indeed, I feebly, but ineffectually endeavoured to stem the torrent; at others, I suffered myself to be borne along with all its fatal rapidity. I was frank, generous, quick, and mischievous; and I must admit that a large portion of ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... art, literature, or business. Dates, details, facts, figures, and illustrations are at his ready command. His manner is natural, courteous, and genial, but in argumentation the whole man is so thoroughly aroused to earnestness and intensity as almost to overwhelm an opponent. His greatest quality in speaking is his manifest sincerity, and it is this particularly which has ingratiated him in the hearts of ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... purpose of getting possession of the Nashville pike, and though reinforced until two-fifths of Bragg's army was now at his command, yet he met with repulse after repulse, which created great gaps in his lines and taught him that to overwhelm us was hopeless. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Khalifah continued to pay frequent visits to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid, with whom he found acceptance and who ceased not to overwhelm him with boons and bounty: and he abode in the enjoyment of the utmost honour and happiness and joy and gladness and in riches more than sufficing and in rank ever rising; brief, a sweet life and a savoury, pure ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... Hopkins's 'avant toute chose' at a higher level of elaboration. 'Inscape' is still, in spite of the apparent differentiation, musical; but a quality of formalism seems to have entered with the specific designation. With formalism comes rigidity; and in this case the rigidity is bound to overwhelm the sense. For the relative constant in the composition of poetry is the law of language which admits only a certain amount of adaptation. Musical design must be subordinate to it, and the poet should be aware that even in speaking of musical design he is indulging ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... as other men! Had I but mine eyes!" he screamed, "I would overwhelm the place in an hour. Hundreds to one you are—and you ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... nay, royal, in his conduct, cannot forget that ambition led him farther than honour or loyalty warranted. Brave amongst the bravest, fair in presence and in favour, skilful to manage the most intricate affairs, to attach to himself those who were doubtful, to stun and overwhelm, by the suddenness and intrepidity of his enterprises, those who were resolute in resistance, he attained, and as to personal merit certainly deserved, the highest place in the kingdom. But he abused, under the influence of strong temptation, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... that of his tormentors? What white man would be less cruel in his situation? Truly I think myself of a humane disposition, that I love my fellow-creatures and detest the effusion of blood, but if ever a villain, white or black, should snatch me from my freedom, my family, and my friends, should overwhelm me with outrages and blows, to gratify his caprice, should extend his barbarities to my wife and children—my blood boils at the thought—perhaps in a transport of revenge.... If such vengeance would be lawful in me, what makes the Negro more guilty? Why should that be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... money-making land, if the spread of the dry rot of moral deterioration were to be prevented. The ampler horizon it presented, the loftier ideals it set up, the counteracting agency it supplied to the sordidness of motive and act which, left unchecked, was certain to overwhelm the national spirit—all these were enforced by him again and again with clearness and effectiveness. His essays of this kind will never be popular in the sense in which are his other writings. But no thoughtful man will ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... five more minutes she would know. They seemed an eternity. Suddenly a flood of emotion and thought threatened to overwhelm her. Leaving the office, she hurried forth to find her sisters, and not until she had looked everywhere did she remember that they were visiting a girl friend. After this her motions seemed ceaseless; she could not stand or sit still, and she ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... love to wield over your brother's back shall be laid upon your own by Him who whipped the money-changers from His temple. Listen! The day shall come when the condemnation you are accumulating against yourselves shall overwhelm you. Stop trying to steal the prerogative of heaven. Judge not. God ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... is not made on purpose to frighten superstitious people into fits of piety and devotion, nor to overwhelm devoted cities with destruction; a volcano should be considered as a spiracle to the subterranean furnace, in order to prevent the unnecessary elevation of land, and fatal effects of earthquakes; and we may rest assured, that they, in general, wisely ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... value of red and yellow pigments so overwhelm the lesser degrees of green and blue pigments that no balance is possible, and the colorist of fine perception must reject not alone the theoretical, but also the practical outcome ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... the Bell toll'd, and he was to take Leave of the Princess, as his last Work of Life, and the most hard he had to accomplish. He threw himself at her Feet, and gazing on her as she sat more dead than alive, overwhelm'd with silent Grief, they both remain'd some Moments speechless; and then, as if one rising Tide of Tears had supply'd both their Eyes, it burst out in Streams at the same Instant: and when his Sighs gave Way, he utter'd a thousand Farewels, so soft, so passionate, and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... are convinced that their religion demands that they should wear garments manufactured in India only and eat food only grown in India, decline to wear any other clothing or eat any other food. Lord Curzon set the fashion for tea-drinking. And that pernicious drug now bids fair to overwhelm the nation. It has already undermined the digestive apparatus of hundreds of thousands of men and women and constitutes an additional tax upon their slender purses. Lord Hardinge can set the fashion for Swadeshi, and almost the whole of India forswear foreign goods. There is a verse in the ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... Mr. Smart. He had shut the heavy outside door of his room before beginning to play, so that no one might enter unawares; and he told me afterwards that though he had naturally expected from the instrument a very fine tone, yet its actual merits so far exceeded his anticipations as entirely to overwhelm him. The sound issued from it in a volume of such depth and purity as to give an impression of the passages being chorded, or even of another violin being played at the same time. He had had, of course, no opportunity of practising during his illness, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... primary law of the stronger, to 'grasp the scales of Providence in a mortal's hand,' is frantic and wicked; but Moor has a force of soul which makes it likewise awful. The interest lies in the conflict of this gigantic soul against the fearful odds which at length overwhelm it, and hurry it down to ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... continual prayers and frequent fasts and more generous alms, and especially by forgiveness of those who sin against us, we diligently redeem our sins, lest by chance when collected together against us at once they make a great mass and overwhelm us. Whatsoever of these sins shall not have been redeemed by us is to be purged by that fire concerning which the Apostle said: "Because it will be revealed by fire, and if any man's work is burned he will suffer loss" (I Cor. 3:15). If in ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... thousand foot, and in his eagerness to arrive at the scene of action would not wait to provide artillery and the various engines required in a siege. "The multitude of my forces," said he, confidently, "will be sufficient to overwhelm the enemy." ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... deviation from that orbit, in which they were placed at creation's dawn; who "made the stars also," that innumerable multitude of fixed stars, or suns with their attending planets which inhabit the boundless regions of space; whose wonderful works are so numerous as to overwhelm the feeble mind of man, and to compel him to conclude at the commencement, by saying that they are infinite? And shall we be so impious as to hush the voice of reason, and disregard the words of holy writ enough to ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... to the nerve- racking occupation of gambling in stocks, who goes to his bed at night scheming how he may with impunity exploit his fellow-man, and who rises in the morning with a strained consciousness of possible fluctuations in the market which may overwhelm him in irretrievable disaster, lives in perils which easily bear comparison with those which threaten the precarious existence of primitive man. To masses of men in civilized communities the problem of the food supply is all-absorbing, and may exclude all other and broader interests. The factory-worker, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... AUSTRIA.—An Austrian attempt to overwhelm Serbia in the first weeks of the war met with disastrous failure. This was due to two causes: (1) the brave resistance of the Serbian troops; (2) the fact that the greater part of the Austrian forces had to be used for defense against the Russian invaders of Galicia. Serbia after severe fighting ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... the evils which are to overwhelm the believer. I look round upon my little flock of hearers, and I seem to see them led as lambs to the slaughter—poor, defenceless creatures, set upon by worse than lions and wolves. And you, lady of Piso, how can I sincerely rejoice that you have added your great name to ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... cold, and at any moment the snow might again come down and overwhelm me. The rough training I had gone through, however, had taught me never to despair, but to struggle on to the last. I had no thoughts of doing otherwise, though every limb ached, and I had scarcely strength to draw one ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... he returned, tired out with ceaseless wandering. He had eaten nothing all day and looked very old and haggard. She had expected a tender scene of confidence and was ready to overwhelm him with the consolations of her love; but even now he said nothing to her, and she dared not take the first step herself. From his silent misery she gathered that Gabrielle had not told him that she knew of the secret. Evidently, and very wisely, she ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... disappear among the ranks of the common people. Burke's "Vicissitudes of Families" strikingly exhibits the rise and fall of families, and shows that the misfortunes which overtake the rich and noble are greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the poor. This author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many of the old nobility and dispersed their families. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... moaned. All her eager desire to overwhelm Rose Cameron's rival with the shameful news of her bridegroom's previous marriage and living wife had evaporated, leaving only deep sympathy and compassion for the sweet young girl, who looked so ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a moment. "I am a godless man," he said. "The stars and space and time overwhelm my imagination. I cannot imagine anything above or ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... he said smiling. 'Wait till you are fit for it, and I will overwhelm you. Do you suppose I don't know all about the partisan literature you ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for that storm covers many miles of country, and the rain is falling in torrents; and, unless I am greatly mistaken, most of it will find its way into this river. Therefore must we be on our guard against a sudden spate, which may overwhelm us if ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with despondence one who (inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpracticed in the duties of civil administration) ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is that it has ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... political ambition by seemly and specious means. But it was necessary for him in the times in which he lived, to proceed with eclat, and in a way that should confound all opposers. The utmost resolution was required to overwhelm those who might otherwise have been prompted to contend against him. Hence it appears that he took a right measure of the understanding of his contemporaries, when he dragged the young king from the scene of his retirement, and brought him back by force into the assembly of ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... and delivered into his hands a box, which he strictly enjoined should not be opened till a tertain period which the Ba'al Shem specified, and in case of disobedience a torrent of fearful calamities would overwhelm the Goldsmids. The patriarch's curiosity was not aroused for some time; but in a few years after the Ba'al Shem's death, Goldsmid, the aged, half sceptic, half curious, forced open the fatal box, and then the Goldsmids began to ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... that a revelation from God to man would come with such force and clearness as to settle all uncertainties and overwhelm all opposition. A Greek philosopher, less despairing than others, had ventured to affirm that the coexistence of two forms of faith, both claiming to be revealed by the omnipotent God, proves that neither of them is true. But let us remember that it is difficult for men to come to the same conclusion ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper |
