"Smashing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... matthers, I'll neither meddle nor make, nor will you, mind; so listen to that, girls; and as to Moylan, he's a dacent quiet poor man—but it's bad thrusting any one. Av' he's her agent, however, I s'pose he'll look afther the estate; only, Barry'll be smashing the things up there at the house yonder in his anger and dhrunken fits, and it's a pity the poor girl's property should go to rack. But he's such a born divil, she's lucky to be out of his clutches alive; ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... while a shower of splinters of wood and metal flew from the slide, wounding and maiming at least four more men. And then, as though that were not enough, the shot glanced and swept the boat fore and aft, crushing in the side of one poor fellow's head like an egg-shell, smashing in the ribs of another, and whipping the captain's sword out of his hand, with all four of his fingers, as it flew over his head into the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... Sarpedon, hitting him with a jagged stone that lay by the battlements at the very top of the wall. As men now are, even one who is in the bloom of youth could hardly lift it with his two hands, but Ajax raised it high aloft and flung it down, smashing Epicles' four-crested helmet so that the bones of his head were crushed to pieces, and he fell from the high wall as though he were diving, with no more life left in him. Then Teucer wounded Glaucus the brave son of Hippolochus as he was coming on to attack the wall. He saw his shoulder ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... very moment when the battery had finished as it seemed to me its work of smashing my head into pulp the ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... house, the old cook, under the impression that the cat had got into the pantry, and was smashing the crockery, entered the lobby in her nightdress, shrieked "Mercy on us!" on beholding the major, and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... The boy came near smashing the lieutenant with his fist, and then, seeing who it was, he gave a gasp and nearly fainted ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... thought that possibly they might help out at pumping, or doing something of the sort. At a fire in a country town every one assists to carry out furniture, or work the machine, while the regular members of the organization enjoy the exclusive privilege of carrying the hose and smashing in windows. ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... mean—smashing down out of the clouds, bustin' up my pig pen, and scatterin' 'em to the four winds?" he yelled. "I'll have th' law on you for this! I'll make you pay damages! You killed a lot ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... in the passage at last. David, every nerve tense, held her down to it. On the right seethed the Devil's Tea Kettle, sending forth a continuous deafening roar. On the left was Comfort Island with a boom! boom! of thundering breakers smashing against its high, sullen bulwarks of black rocks. The boat was so near that spray from the breakers fell over it in ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... we lost the other night didn't get loose. It was taken by somebody who knew what he was doing and brought down here. Here's where the party landed," he added, as he pointed to the shore. "But the boat wasn't 'wrecked,' unless you call smashing it wrecking it." ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest and efficient. If you will help, this can be done. I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... into the window, and what do you suppose I saw? I saw the biggest and best-looking man of the three walk up to the girl who'd just told me she loved me, and I saw her put up her face and give him the kiss she wouldn't give me. Well, I went smashing down to the woods, making such a rumpus that if those officers had been half awake they'd have been after me twice over. I was so maddened at the sight of that kiss that I didn't realize what I was doing or that I was endangering ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... his chest and went through the cavity of his body, but he neither swerved nor flinched, and at the moment I did not know that I had struck him. He came steadily on, and in another second was almost upon me. I fired for his forehead, but my bullet went low, entering his open mouth, smashing his lower jaw and going into the neck. I leaped to one side almost as I pulled the trigger; and through the hanging smoke the first thing I saw was his paw as he made a vicious side blow at me. The rush of his charge carried him past. As he struck he lurched forward, leaving a pool of ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... leaned back in his chair and took to wondering what the six fellows who started that afternoon for Richmond were doing. Smashing the windows of the "Star and Garter," perhaps, or fighting the bargees on the river, or capturing a four-in-hand drag, or disporting themselves in some such genial and truly English manner. And as Tom conjured up the picture he half envied ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... exonerate the ostrich from being the most stupid bird in the creation. This has been proved by the experiment of taking an egg away, or by putting one in addition. In either case she destroys the whole by smashing them with her feet. Although she does not attend to secrecy, in selecting a situation for her nest, she will forsake it if the eggs have been handled. It is also said that she rolls a few eggs thirty yards distant from the nest, and cracks the shells, which, by the time her young come forth, ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... in dull fury, thought of smashing the window, picked up a stone, remembered just in time that it would be his window, so flung the stone and a curse ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... Committee, in the autumn Session—if there were one—or in the following year. There was a simmering in the Suffragist ranks rather than any alarming explosion. In March, before Vivie went to Brussels, Mrs. Pankhurst had carried out a window-smashing raid on Bond Street and Regent Street and the clubs of Piccadilly, during which among the two hundred and nineteen arrests there were brought to light as "revolutionaries" two elderly women surgeons of great distinction and one female ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... did, and now ventured to approach the Kingsdown lifeboat. Though handled with skill and caution, being light, she took a sea; and she came right on top of the gunwale of the Kingsdown lifeboat, smashing her oars, which were run out to steady her, like so many pipe-shanks, ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... tearing around in there and growling. So Bartholomew and the others got into the cellar, and as the bear crossed the floor they would fire up through it at about the spot where they thought he was. But the bombardment only seemed to exasperate the animal, and after each shot they could hear him smashing something. ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... in which only the eyes lived—eyes that watched with darting intensity for the chance to close. And when that chance came he took it so suddenly and so unexpectedly that not one of the hard-breathing, silent crowd around him saw exactly how he gained his hold. One moment he was avoiding a smashing, right-handed blow; the next he had his adversary locked in a grip of iron, the while he bent and ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... arose, which rolled up and down the line. Again it rose, then, even before it had died out, with wild yells the Serbians sprang over their breastworks and swept madly across the intervening space to the Austrian lines; smashing through cornfields, over rocks, through the tall grass of orchards. At their heels followed the reenforcing soldiers, though they had that day marched nearly sixty miles. Over the Austrian breastworks they surged, like an angry wave from the sea, their bayonets gleaming in the sunset ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... believe that, just as in peace times big business was his romance and the wealth which he gained from it was often incidental, so in France the job as a job impels him, quite apart from its heroic object. After all, smashing the Pan-Germanic Combine is only another form of trust-busting—trust-busting with aeroplanes and guns instead of ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... and a half Will, in his hiding-place, heard the sound of smashing panels and furniture, and the pulling up of floors. At the end of that time the troopers left the house and mounted, the officer saying: "You have deceived us this time, old traitor, but we ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... larcenies fewer than in Leeds, our highway robberies about half compared with Manchester, malicious damage a long way under Sheffield, and robberies from the person not more than a third of those reported in Glasgow; while as to smashing and coining, though it has been flung at us from the time of William of Orange to the present day; that all the bad money ever made must be manufactured here, the truth is that five-sixths of the villainous crew who deal in that commodity obtain their supplies from London, and not ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... further into the cellar. The splintering blows were repeated; the sound of them was deafening. Glaring light entered suddenly through a great crack, and the smell of smoke. Then the door fell in half, one board of it across the steps, the other smashing back to the wall upon its hinges. Sparks dripped from the torch, smoke eddied down, and upon the cellar steps were the legs of a man who rested a great axe upon the ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... he swerved to the side of the road, saw the open lane, and the next moment thundered into it, the broken wagon skidding across the lane and smashing into ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... objectives are clear; the objective of smashing the militarism imposed by war lords upon their enslaved peoples the objective of liberating the subjugated Nations—the objective of establishing and securing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... failed to get in at the first rush. The flight of the Indians threw them into a momentary disorder; and Captain Drake, instant in appreciating an opportunity, turned a gun a little wide of the cluster, and sent a ball smashing into the rallying place of the foe. Covered by the armed gentlemen, the workers retreated to their boat; arrows and a few musket balls flew after them, but the ship's guns again spoke out, and no Don dared show ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Maea for a long while yet; and indeed I thought there was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at all. I was the better pleased when, about an hour after daylight, I heard sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing and singing out to keep their ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... smashing blows which I delivered with my fists served to bring screams of agony from the several creatures immediately about me, and as one or two staggered and crashed to the floor, the others gave way a little. In a moment I was through the line to the pile of stalactites. And ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... bridge held for some time, until the weight behind forced some part down and crunched its way through in one irresistible push; the other part rose over the resistance and rolled like an avalanche over and over, smashing itself into huge blocks which were forced into a rampart fifty feet high, when the enormous weight broke the ice platform on which it was piled, and the whole moved majestically off towards the Volga. Then one experienced the peculiar ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... You've no idea! she's so jealous that life is not only a burden, it's a weight that's smashing me flatter every day. I'm getting a gray hair and a wrinkle, and all because of her. ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... were all more or less stuck together, and so I did not go in for separating them farther. They fitted exactly to the cavity in which they were stored, but by smashing down its front I was able to get at the foot of them, and then I hacked away through the bottom layers with the knife till I got the bulk out in one solid piece. It measured some twenty inches by fifteen, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... of the vessel there came a horrifying report. The Ernestina staggered sickeningly, listed to port, and commenced to limp around in a circle like a wounded bird. Terrible smashing and rending sounds succeeded the first crash. It seemed as if the frail little vessel must fly ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... requires a trained ear to pick it out. I slipped down into cover as he rushed back, and, judging more by sound than sight, I fired as he passed me. He came down heavily amidst a crash of breaking branches and the smashing of twigs. "I seem to be the only sure-footed man about to-night," I thought as the fellow thudded to the ground. At that precise moment, as if to give the lie direct to me, a deafening report sounded right in my ear, a pain as of a red-hot needle stabbed through my right shoulder, and I pitched forward ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... screens; forged bank notes. The cove was twisted for smashing queer screens; the fellow was hanged for ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... at the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys smashing the beautiful windows of cathedrals; Quakers riding naked through the market-place; Fifth-monarchy-men shouting for King Jesus; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag; all these, they tell us, were the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... side poles were brought down on the rump of the wild mule, most of which were promptly kicked through the side of the tent. Teddy, in the meantime, had landed in a performer's trunk, smashing through the tray, being wedged in so tightly that he could not extricate himself. Added to the din was ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... a perfect right to break into his house, and the chances they ran of 'doing a week' were anxiously debated as they searched for a piece of wood to serve as a ram. None of sufficient size could be found, much to the relief of the ladies and Dubois, who strongly advised Dick to renounce this door-smashing experiment. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... conscience. He was torn far beyond the emotional possibilities of weak men. The fact that, penniless and without a home, he had nothing to offer was lost in the beat and surge of his feelings. He went with the smashing completeness of a heavy body, broken loose in an elemental turmoil. He wanted her; her fragrant spirit, the essence that was herself, Rosemary Roselle. He couldn't take it; such consummations, he realized, ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... dodged the dreaded louse who carries the infection, we had seen the typhus dwindle and die with the onrush of summer. We had helped to clean and prepare six hospitals at Vrntze or Vrnjatchka Banja—whichever you prefer. We had helped Mr. Berry, the great surgeon, to ventilate his hospitals by smashing the windows—one had been a child again for a moment. Jo had learned Serbian and was assisting Dr. Helen Boyle, the Brighton mind specialist, to run a large and flourishing out-patient department to which tuberculosis and diphtheria—two scourges of Serbia—came in their ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... a violent movement from Rose. She has turned round and, in the gathering dusk, her whirling umbrella comes down furiously on a man's hat, smashing it in and knocking it off his head. A gentleman is standing before us, very well-dressed and looking very uncomfortable. He stammers out a vague excuse and tries to escape, but the indignant girl addresses him noisily. An altercation follows; the loafers stop to listen; a crowd gathers round us; ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... know, Aylward, I don't know," replied Haswell, shaking his white head. "Barbara is a strong-willed woman and she might choose to take the man and let the money go, and then—who can stop her? Also I don't like your idea of smashing Vernon. It isn't right, and it may come back on our own heads, especially yours. I am sorry that he has left us, as you were on Friday night, for somehow he was a good, honest stick to lean on, and we want such a stick. But I am tired ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... kept up a continuous screaming, as full of menace as the crash of a battle. Part of the time it swept straight ahead, cutting wide swathes, and then, turning into balls of compressed air, it whirled with frightful velocity, smashing everything level with the ground as if it had been cut ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more of them than Hatuey were anxious to be allowed to go to the other place. They did not at first dare to attack the intruders, for what could men avail against gods, and of what use were spears and clubs against their thunderous arms and smashing missiles? ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... to speak, for he was biting and clawing at that wire net window as hard as he could, and I could see that it was never going to keep him out, for it was beginning to give way, and all of a sudden it did give way, and his big old head came smashing right through into my house, and I expected in ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the explosion was followed by a great crashing and rending as an inner wall went down. That fall washed a solid mass of yellow flame across the front door, but the fire fell back, and then Dan saw the doll which he himself had made for Joan; it had been thrown by the smashing of the wall squarely in front of the door, and now the fire reached after it—long arms across the floor. It was an odd contrivance, singularly made of carved wood and with arms and legs fastened on by means of bits of strong sinew, and Joan prized ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... departed from the Park. A dry storm descended on the valley, and Marion lay awake while the wind howled around the corners of the ranch house, of which every timber seemed to be crying out in agony. She knew that high among the rocks the storm was smashing about in fury, and even in its sheltered hollow the house was hammered as if the elements were bent upon its annihilation. When each prodigious outcry had spent itself and died away there was still the moaning and fretting and troubled whimpering that reminded her of the plaints of an invalid pleading ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... have justified myself in smashing all the windows in the cottage, or even in burning the house to the ground. I thanked God that I had escaped, when I stood upon the roof; and without the loss of a moment, I made my way to the ground. I caught one glance of Tom's face as he came to the window before ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... same old manana burg. The trouble was that Joey is a better sailorman than he appeared to be. He cracked on all the way down and made a smashing voyage, and, of course, as soon as we got there he went ashore. Two other schooners were there ahead of us. One was loading general cargo and the other was discharging it, and when Joey heard they had been there a month he investigated conditions and saw where you had him. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... neighboring house, but as soon as we emerged into the street a cry escaped us. The current, which had again seized us, carried us back against our house. We were whirled round like a leaf, so rapidly that our cry was cut short by the smashing of the raft against the tiles. There was a rending sound, the planks were loosened and wrenched apart, and we were all thrown into the water. I do not know what happened then. I remember that when I sank I saw Aunt Agathe floating, sustained by her skirts, until she went ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... to the Portuguese, and was once a fine, handsome town, with splendid buildings. Unfortunately Macao lies in the track of the typhoons, which at times sweep over it with a resistless force, shattering and smashing everything in their career. These constantly recurring storms, and the establishment of other ports, have resulted in driving many people away from the place, and the abolition of the coolie traffic has also tended to diminish the number ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... hear it, for like a bull-dog in a fury he lunged at the quiet man's throat, laid hold of his collar, shoved him off to arm's length, and struck him, but the blow glanced and the man jerked away. And then amid loud cries, the over-turning of tables and the smashing of glasses, the furious youngster felt himself seized by many hands. But he was a tiger and they could not bear him to the floor. He broke loose and sprawled one man upon the saw-dust. Others rushed upon him and again he was ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... tumbling down the slope with a horrible uproar. Quick as lightning, l'Encuerado seized Lucien, and lay down with him along the foot of the rock; I and my friend immediately followed his example. The fallen giant came crashing down in rapid bounds, smashing every thing in its path, and accompanied in its descent by masses of broken rock. It struck against the block that sheltered us, which gave forth a dull sound, but fortunately resisted the shock; and then the tree, clearing the ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... was plunging through the scrub of huckleberry and bayberry bushes, bumping into pines and smashing the branches aside as he ran in the ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... said he, feeling of his head (the hoof had scraped, instead of smashing), "slightly disfiggered, but ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... lowers the will to fight even of the most cut-and-come-again:—don't I remember well when Sir George asked me if the Elandslaagte Brigade had it in them to storm Pepworth? I had to tell him they were still the same Brigade but not the same men. No use smashing in the impregnable sea front if we don't get a fresh dose of energy to help us to push into the, as yet, very pregnable hinterland. Since yesterday morning, when I saw our men scatter right and left before an enemy they would have gone for with a cheer on the 25th or 26th,—ever ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... shaking his fist at him. As they neared the junks the fire of those on board redoubled, and was aided by that of many villagers gathered on the bank of the creek. Suddenly from a bank of rushes four cannons were fired. A ball struck the pinnace, smashing in her side. The other boats gathered hastily round and took her crew on board, and then dashed at the junks, which were but a hundred yards distant. The valor of the Chinese evaporated as they saw the boats approaching, and scores of them leaped ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... glaring at each man in turn, and seemingly undecided which to attack first; and its hesitation or cowardice was fatal. The two men fired almost together, one bullet drilling a hole in its skull, and the other smashing in at one side of its body and out at the other. It did not live long enough to raise even a whimper, but dropped dead where it stood, a pool of blood immediately welling out from beneath ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the cudgel, and took to thumping and smashing, and knocked over ever such a lot of people. There they lay on the ground, strewed about like so many sheaves of corn. The fool got clear of them and drove home, heaped up the wood, and then ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... abandoned fury. In an instant the place resounded like a smithy, for there were no better swordsmen living than these two. The eavesdropper could see nothing clearly. Round and round they veered in a whirl of turmoil. Presently Prince Edward trod upon the broken flask, smashing it. His foot slipped in the spilth of wine, and the huge body went down like an oak, his head striking one leg of ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... continued on their way until they reached the Savoy, the splendid palace of the Duke of Lancaster, which was said to be the fairest and most richly furnished of any in the kingdom. With shouts of triumph they broke into it and scattered through the rooms, smashing the furniture and destroying everything they could lay hands upon. Some made for the cellars, where they speedily intoxicated themselves. Loud shouts were raised that nothing was to be taken. The silver vessels and jewels were smashed, and then ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... Burrell uttered a sharp cry of alarm. She threw the wheel over so suddenly that a wave smashing against the side of the sloop nearly turned them turtle. Captain Billy, with quick instinct, let go the mainsail, which swung out far to leeward, thus saving the little craft from being upset. Up to this moment he did not know what the sudden shifting meant, but just as ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... who was terribly frightened, got up at this threat, and began to ascend the ladder; he was about three steps up, when we heard from the deck a horrible miaw! The boy gave a scream of terror, and fell down on his back among us all, smashing the glass and flattening the tin cans against the men's legs, who halloed with pain. At last there was a dead silence again, and I could plainly hear the loud throbbing of more ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... his hands became a far-reaching club. And, swinging it like a fiercely driven flail, he rushed into the crowd of savages, scattering them like chaff in a gale. The smashing blows fell on heads that split under their superlative force, and the ground about him became like a shambles. In a moment he discovered another figure in the shadowy darkness, fighting in a similar fashion, and he knew by the crude, disjointed oaths which were hurled ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... his gavel, idle until now, and banged it on the table, smashing his spectacles thoughtlessly placed in front of him a moment before. This did nothing to appease his rising choler. "Silence, madam! We have perhaps been too lenient in deference to your, um, sex. I'll remind you that this body is vested with all the dignity of the state of California. Unless ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... of the front half, missing the part behind, began swinging back and forth across the street in an attempt to find the lost tail. It carromed into corner number two, smashing one perfectly good hand organ, freeing an excited monkey, and drawing forth a volley of lurid words from ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... pay for smashing my boat," went on the rich boy, after a pause. "And you'll have to pay for wetting my new suit," he added, gazing ruefully at the natty outing suit he had ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... perform in purple robes and masks; for some time the show was a great success, till at last an ingenious spectator brought some nuts in with him and threw them down. The apes forgot their dancing at the sight, dropped their humanity, resumed their apehood, and, smashing masks and tearing dresses, had a free fight for the provender. Alas for the corps de ballet and the gravity of ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... with flames dancing before his eyes. The soldier lunged after his toppling man with gorilla-like blows. Hot pains shot through Peter's body. His head roared like a gong. The sunlight danced about him in flashes. The air was full of black fists smashing him, and not five feet away, the bullet head of Tump Pack bobbed this way and that in the rapid shifts of his attack. A stab of pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense and paralyzed, making convulsive ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... a smashing blow on the stern port quarter and the Kilo heeled over at a dangerous angle, while, with a rending, splintering sound of wood, the big red motorboat swept on past Tom and Ned, her rubstreak grinding along the ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... has, Hood can constantly break my road. I would infinitely prefer to make a wreck of the road and of the country from Chattanooga to Atlanta, including the latter city; send back all my wounded and unserviceable men, and with my effective army move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea. Hood may turn into Tennessee and Kentucky, but I believe he will be forced to follow me. Instead of being on the defensive, I will be on the offensive. Instead of my guessing at what he means ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... it. He had spent his Sunday morning playing sixteen holes of golf at the Country Club, and would have easily made the full round but for slicing three new balls into the pond on the annoying seventeenth drive. This had provoked him into smashing his driver, as he had a score of only eighty-eight at that point, which was well below his personal bogey. Even mamma affected interest in her spouse's explanations ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... than three would take the three-volume by preference. More than this, still, there is a curious fact necessarily known to comparatively few people. Although it was improper of Mr. Bludyer to sell his novel, and dine and drink of the profits before "smashing" it, there were probably not many reviewers who did not get rid of most of their books of this kind, if for no other reasons than that no house, short of a palace, would have held them all. And, in the palmy days of circulating libraries, the price given by second-hand ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... his strength—too often his weakness. He must force the reader to believe: or rather he has an antagonist, a wilful infidel or heretic always and exclusively before his imagination; or if he thinks of the reader at all, it is as of a partizan enjoying every hard thump, and smashing 'fister' he gives the adversary, whom Skelton hates too cordially to endure to obtain any thing from him with his own liking. No! It must be against his will, and in spite of it. No thanks to him—the dog could not help himself! How ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Germans set up a most terrific bombardment of this prison. Shells exploded just outside the window-opening, causing quite a wind inside the room. It is going on still; shells keep striking the wall outside. There it goes—bang! And there are our guns smashing back at them. There again—debris scattering in the quad, the other side of the door. Whizz-bang! It is extraordinary that any walls in this city can remain standing at this rate. They say that this goes on day and night. ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... the top, ripping, tearing, smashing hinges, panels, and jamb. Jimmie Dale got a blurred vision of brass buttons, blue coats, and helmets, and, in the forefront, of a stocky, gray-mustached, gray-haired man in ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to-all?" he asked, smashing a spider-crab and picking it out piecemeal from the net. "Pretty fair catch to-day, id'n-a? spite of all the weed; an' no harm done by these varmints that a man can't put to ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... is undoubtedly by way of being a tough sort of place. Its inhabitants incline to a robust type of humour, which finds a verbal vent in catch phrases and expends itself physically in smashing shop-windows and kicking policemen. He feared that the meeting at the Town Hall might possibly be a ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... adversary's shoulder. Then something happened that made the cowmen gasp with astonishment. The slender lad lifted the big mountain boy clear of the ground, hurled him over his head, and still clinging to the wrist, brought him down with a smashing jolt, flat on his back in the middle of the village street. Phil Simms narrowly escaped being struck by the heels of the mountain boy's boots as they described a half ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... Success, however, we really had at times; in slight skirmishes pretty often; and once, at least, as the reader will find to his mortification, if he is wicked enough to take the side of the Philistines, a most smashing victory in a pitched battle. But even then, and whilst the hurrahs were yet ascending from our jubilating lips, the freezing remembrance came back to my heart of that deadly depression which, duly at the coming round of the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... unwilling to open the packing-cases without permission from somebody. I should have supposed that having already forced a door he would not have boggled at the lid of a packing-case; but he did. He evidently had some vague idea that the law takes a more serious view of smashing packing-cases than it does of housebreaking. He may have been right. But my record so far was clear. I had not forced the lock of ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... or not will be told in our next volume, entitled, "The Khaki Boys Fighting to Win; or, Smashing the German Lines." ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... fired by his orders. However that may be, flames broke out in various parts of the city, while a miscellaneous mob, inflamed by excitement and by the alcohol which had run freely in the gutters the night before, rushed from store to store, smashing in the doors and indulging all the wantonness of pillage and greed. Public spirit was paralyzed, and the whole fabric of society seemed crumbling to pieces, when the convicts from the penitentiary, a shouting, leaping crowd of party-colored demons, overcoming their guard, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Victor. In regard to the latter he felt easy; Victor could take care of himself, and was in good company, but his heart sank when he thought of his beloved Tony. What would he not have given to have had him smashing his pipe or operating on his ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... up a large old fan, and smashing it about his head). You softy—you piffler—you will never have had enough! Ah, you should be thrust in the fire, you should, to have the softness and the brittleness burnt out ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... it rage and roar From the West Virginia mountains to the California shore, O'er the Illinois prairies and the valleys of Mizzoo, Far across the plains of Kansas and of Oklahoma, too? 'Tis the people that are marching! They've a purpose that is just; They have left the reservation and are smashing at the Trust. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... he had another reason. When the steamer got out into the open bay, Bobby was seasick. He retired to his berth with a dreadful headache; as he described it afterwards, it seemed just as though that great walking beam was smashing up and down right in the midst of his brains. He had never felt so ill before in his life, and was very sure, in his inexperience, that something worse than ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... on the floor in front of him. Simultaneously the bull's head butted Basil in the chest, bringing him also to the ground with a crash, and the monster, with a Berserker roar, leaped at me and knocked me into the corner of the room, smashing the waste-paper basket. The bewildered Greenwood sprang furiously to his feet. Basil did the same. But they had ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... only this. "Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take all the prisoners you can. If they don't yield, kill the children to make them. Forward!" Then, they all came on at the gate, and in another half-minute were smashing ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... hummock of ice, left to starboard as the steamer ascended, and which projected close alongside the upper, or boat-deck, as she fell over, had caught, in succession, every pair of davits to starboard, bending and wrenching them, smashing boats, and snapping tackles and gripes, until, as the ship cleared herself, it capped the pile of wreckage strewing the ice in front of, and around it, with the end and broken stanchions of the bridge. And in this shattered, box-like structure, dazed by the sweeping fall ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... light bill for some people I know in town—and they consider themselves lucky to have the privilege of buying electricity at that rate. Your wheel is running all winter to prevent ice from forming and smashing it. It might just as well be spinning ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... up quite an education since you left the road and the tan," he said with the look of one who delivers a smashing blow. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... size of an omnibus was lying up there, in a good position to go down hill, once, started. They decided it would be a glorious thing to see that great boulder go smashing down, a hundred yards or so in front of some unsuspecting and peaceful-minded church-goer. Quarrymen were getting out rock not far away, and left their picks and shovels over Sundays. The boys borrowed these, and went to work to undermine the big stone. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... just and necessary to the national welfare as these claims were, it took us years of unwearied agitation before we were able to get them legislatively recognised. What we did, however, more promptly achieve was the smashing of the contract system by which the roads of the country were farmed out to contractors, mostly drawn from the big farming and grazier classes who, by devious dodges, known to all, were able to make very comfortable incomes ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... as best he could above the words of Breede, that she must be a pretty raw old party, going around, voting, smashing windows, leading her innocent young grandchild into the same reckless life. Nice thing, that! He was not surprised when he heard a match lighted a moment later, and knew that Grandma was smoking a cigarette. Expect anything of ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... key without seeking the lock, a short, venomous tussle was waged just near the door, till Hogarth, wringing his naked body free, tossed his antagonist by the knees to slide into the path of the two on-comers; at the same time, catching up his battered can, and smashing it into the face of the door-orderly, who now peeped in, he slipped through, and was gone into a yard, small, of irregular shape, and dim, with one wall-lantern, and but one egress (except the egress into the prison-hall), namely a blind-alley between the laundry ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... and closer line and stemming the tide of the German hordes rolling up to Paris. Gen. Pau, the hero of this war, after his swift return from the eastern front, where he repaired the deadly check at Muelhausen, has dealt a smashing blow at a German Army corps which was striking to the heart ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... first files have reached the centre of the cleared space he has sprung to the door, pulled the bar back, slammed open the slabs, almost smashing them apart, and rushed out; when outside sending forth a shout that causes every rock to re-echo it to the remotest corner of the valley. It is a grand cry of gladness like a clap of thunder, with its lightning ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... of metal actually hit him. But the tankette, sturdy as it was, could not hope to protect him entirely. He was thrown viciously into the air, his ribs first smashing into the side of the hatch, and then he was thrown clear, onto the rocky ground of the foothills; agonized, stunned to semi-consciousness, he lay feebly beating at his smoldering tunic while Dugald spun viciously by him, almost crushing him under one tread. ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... going and coming it, Smashing and dashing, and tipping it prime, Eastward and westward, and sometimes back-slumming it, He's for the scratch, and come up too in time; For the victualling-office no favor he'll ask it, For smeller and ogles he feels just the same; At the pipkin to point, or upset the ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... and now and then some one would cry out, and then a horse would whinny. All the time there was a good deal of unnecessary talk and babble; the voices and laughter of the seamen came in bursts as the wind lulled. Every now and then a wave would burst with a smashing noise, and the smugglers would laugh at those wetted by the spray. I saw that I had a better chance of landing unobserved on the port side; so I stole to that side, crawled over the gunwale, and slid into the sea ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... in my senior year and played on my freshman team in college. The next year I had to give it up, though. I'd like to come over some day and see you fellows play. I've always been intending to. I haven't seen a real smashing football game for years. That's funny, too, for I can remember the time when I used to think that if I could get on my 'varsity eleven I'd die happy." He laughed as he swept the searchlights around ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... British artillery had been cutting the barbed wire of the second line and smashing in the trenches; and the big guns which had been advanced since July 1st were sending their shells far beyond the Ridge into villages and crossroads and other vital points, in order to ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... blundering, scrambled beneath the desk, making frantic efforts to hide, but the secretary took a step forward and fired two shots in quick succession into his projecting legs, hitting first one ankle and then the other, and smashing them horribly. ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... a group of those merry imps, who, after smashing the glass in a window, had seated themselves hardily on the entablature, and from that point despatched their gaze and their railleries both within and without, upon the throng in the hall, and the throng upon the Place. It was easy to see, from their parodied gestures, their ringing ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... standing in the hall. He snatched this up and began smashing at the door, directing vigorous blows at the lock. The first leg broke off. Then the second. The third was smashed, but the fourth one did the trick. The door swung open, and as it did so a water pitcher, thrown with ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... a smashing blow on the lock of the door. Burleigh raised his pistol, and aiming at the height of a man's ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... missus heard him in his sleep conning over something to himself in slow, fearful whisper, "Two on 'em; one ahint t'other. The first big—bull-like; t'ither—" At which point Mrs. Mason smote him a smashing blow in the ribs, and he woke in a sweat, crying ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... to shell off the husks, with the help of his wife. But, instead of the gold pieces for which they looked, the rice turned into berries with such a horrible smell that they were obliged to run away, after smashing the mortar in a rage and setting ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... war because Russia thinks she has a mission on behalf of the Slavic world; she feels that mission can only be fulfilled by smashing Germany, ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the chest of drawers. I stood near the outer door. No one else was in the room at the time. White had hardly shut the cupboard doors when they flew open, and a large glass jar came out past me, and pitched in the yard outside, smashing itself. I didn't see the jar leave the cupboard, or fly through the air; it went too quick. But I am quite sure that it wasn't thrown by White or any one else. White couldn't have done it without my seeing him. The jar couldn't go in a straight line ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang |
