"Sweeping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... allies, and recalling his wife, Justinian displayed some sense of honor and gratitude; [1114] and Terbelis retired, after sweeping away a heap of gold coin, which he measured with his Scythian whip. But never was vow more religiously performed than the sacred oath of revenge which he had sworn amidst the storms of the Euxine. The two usurpers (for I must reserve the name of tyrant for the conqueror) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... words rushing forth like a flood suddenly released after breaking through the dam, sweeping everything before it,—resistless, devastating, cruelly rapturous. She thought nothing of the hurt she was inflicting upon the man beside her; he was an atom in the path of the torrent, a thing that went down and was left behind as the flood swept over and by him. As suddenly as ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... venture to say that that is the charm which has preserved your beauty," said the young tutor, gravely bowing to Aunt Marcia, who, sweeping a low courtesy, acknowledged the courtly speech which was uttered in such ...
— Randy and Her Friends • Amy Brooks
... windows beneath the sweeping curve of white letters in which the name of the owner of the bakery was set forth was added in smaller letters the words "Cafe Nuernberger." Gottlieb and Aunt Hedwig and the man who made the sign (this last, however, for the venal reason that more letters would be required) had stood out stoutly ...
— A Romance Of Tompkins Square - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... too narrow and sweeping a judgment? The art of portraiture certainly did not die with the Venetian painters of 1550, however great their work; and if there be but "one living painter" who can treat portrait art like the early ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes by way of twitting; till at last I told her that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling.' I asked him ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... that in thy noontide beam were born, Gone to salute the rising morn: Fair laughs the morn,[10] and soft the Zephyr blows, While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm, Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... been a time in history when breastworks had been charged by artillery? Twenty-four men in the crew of one gun, and only two unhurt! One iron sponge-bucket with thirty-nine bullet holes shot through it! And then blasts of canister sweeping the trenches, and blowing scores of living and dead men to fragments! And into this hell of slaughter new regiments charging, in lines four deep! And squad after squad of the enemy striving to surrender, and shot to pieces by their own comrades as they clambered over the blood-soaked walls! ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... the more it struggled to free itself, so much the more the string twisted about it, and thus the bird was quickly entangled, and became an easy prey. In this manner numbers of wild fowl of the largest species were taken at night at the moment of sweeping over the ground at very slow flight, just before alighting; and it would appear that this method of fowling was particularly successful in taking plovers, which generally alight on ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... rather a greater man than even reform mayors generally fancy themselves. He was at that state of development in the lives of aspiring persons which compels the average spectator to debate whether the swelling of the cranium should be met by a larger hat-band or by a sweeping haircut. En passant, Addicks' Panama had had its fifth enlargement to accommodate the successive ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... these two estimable women, without acknowledging how harsh and unjust are often the sweeping censures pronounced on those who are termed old maids?—a class in whose breasts the affections instinct in woman, not being exercised by conjugal or maternal ties, expand into some other channel; and, if denied some dear object on which to place them, ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... to countries which subsequently became Protestant. There were many sincere Catholics in Italy, Austria, France, and Spain who complained of the scandals and worldliness that afflicted the Church at the opening of the sixteenth century: they demanded sweeping reforms in discipline and a return of the clergy to a simple apostolic life. They believed, however, that whatever change was desirable could best be achieved by means of a reformation within the Catholic Church—that is, without disturbing the unity of its organization or denying the validity ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... were daring words to address to the tyrant Asad, and still more daring was the tone, the light hard eyes aflash and the sweeping gestures of contempt with which they were delivered. But of his ascendancy over the Basha there was no doubt. And here now was ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... will probably seem sufficient to prove that the introduction of the institution was at least premature, but before adopting this sweeping conclusion it will be well to examine the phenomenon a little more closely in connection with Russian criminal procedure as ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... are gone, and what are they? Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray; But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... as I can remember it was on August 20th that the climax came. Liege had fallen. The English Expedition had landed, and was marching on Belgium. A victorious German army had goose-stepped into defenseless Brussels, and was sweeping out toward the French frontier. The French advance into Alsace had been ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired, perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fan her as they fly. Their outstretched gaze sees only the island. But the princess, as she lies facing backward, sees the danger. In despairing, motionless silence, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to the stairway. It was still night within the house, and the one electric light left burning drew forth dull gleams from the wrought-metal arabesques of the splendidly sweeping balustrades. When, on the ringing of the bell, the door opened and she went down, she had the strange sensation of entering on a new era ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... a disappointment to me, Wulf," he said as he picked up the battle-axe that had been struck from his hand and sent flying across the hall by a sweeping blow of Wulf's weapon. "I have really worked very hard, and I did think that I ought to have caught you up, seeing that I am two years the elder. But you have gained more than I have. I did as well as the other youths who were taught with me by the house-carl Harold sent ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... Halleck it is quite likely that he merely meant to say that the troops hurriedly collected at Harrisburg were untried, and therefore ought not to be entrusted with any critical service. But the words, as they stand, carry with them a sweeping detraction and are nothing less than calumnious. The Brooklyn Twenty-Third—or rather the Division, taken as a whole, with which it was incorporated—has only to point to its record as given very imperfectly in the following ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... visitors—here comes a gay four-in-hand heavily loaded sweeping by on its road to that summer town. There is much ironstone in the soil round about. At the edge of the park stands an old farmhouse of timber and red tile, with red oast-house beside it, built with those gables which our ancestors seemed to think made such ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... the wood fire had nearly gone out, and sat down to her task of needlework. In reality, she was a very tired little girl. Madam was daintily neat and vigorous for a woman of her years. Never very robust, she still exercised what strength she had in a ceaseless round of sweeping and dusting. All the empty old rooms were as orderly as when there had been many servants to attend them, but this was accomplished at a cost of incessant labor and watchfulness, which the mistress really enjoyed since it filled her days with "things to do," but which ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... observations, been particularly alluding to the lowest and broadest portions of it. I trust I shall be understood as not wishing to over-rate this discovery on the one hand, or on the other, to include its whole extent in one sweeping clause of condemnation. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... was an hour high, we bade farewell to the Blackfoot Agency and were doubling back over the trail, with Lovell in our company. Our first night's camp was on the Muddy and the second on the Sun River. We were sweeping across the tablelands adjoining the main divide of the Rocky Mountains like the chinook winds which sweep that majestic range on its western slope. We were a free outfit; even the cook and wrangler ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... help us or hinder her. See, we are going better now that the reefs are out and the topgallantsails set. But it's a fearful strain on our spars. They look new—pray God they be good ones," he continued, gazing over the side at the masses of green water tossed aside from the bows and sweeping aft under ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... and Count Schwarzenberg paid no further attention to him, but followed the Electoral pair, who were making the circuit of the hall, here and there addressing a friendly word to some member of the nobility, sweeping past before an answer could be stammered forth. The circuit was completed; a thrice repeated nourish of trumpets resounded; the Chamberlain von Lehndorf rushed to the window, and with a white handkerchief made a signal down to the pleasure ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... Edward took sweeping measures for a general reform of the Anglo-Norman lords, or, more probably, he hoped, by threats of such measures, to obtain subsidies for his continental wars. The colonists, however, were in possession, and rather too powerful ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... repent, I may recall it, But in a moment not: a little spurt Of burning fatness, and then nothing but The fire itself can put it out, and that By burning out, and before it burns out It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle— Done so much and I know not how much more I mean it shall not do if I can bind it. Well if it doesn't with its draft ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... huge ships and rend the clouds, Or, eddying wildly down, bestrew the plains With mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops With forest-crackling blasts. Thus on they rave With uproar shrill and ominous moan. The winds, 'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping through The sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky, Vexing and whirling and seizing all amain; And forth they flow and pile destruction round, Even as the water's soft and supple bulk Becoming a river ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... were unloaded, the packs piled in the form of a wall in front of a broken piece of ground, the horses picketed close beside them, and our three travellers peeping over the edge, with their rifles cocked, while the savages—about thirty in number—came sweeping down towards them. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... of very pale green, right athwart the horizon ahead, their colours being brilliantly reflected in the softly rippling, slowly moving undulations that came creeping up after us, heaving us gently up on their ample breasts and then sweeping on ahead of us straight toward the sinking luminary. The wind had just strength enough in it to keep the sheet of our single lug from sagging into the water, and the gig was sliding smoothly along, with the small sound of lapping, gurgling water under her, at the rate of about three knots in ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... frozen speech and recover some portion of its imprisoned essence. This is seldom a necessity with Byron. His words tell us all that he means to say, and do not merely hint nor suggest. The matter with which he deals is gigantic, and he paints with violent colours and sweeping pencil. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... that day. He moved obediently from his room for the awful aftermath of a death, for the sweeping and dusting and clean curtains, and sat in Dick's room, not reading, not even praying, a lonely yet indomitable old figure. When his friends came, elderly men who creaked in and tried to reduce their robust voices to a decorous whisper, he shook hands with them and made brief, courteous ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... proved itself in the warfare of movement leading down to the Marne and sweeping back later to the Aisne, so it proved itself in the French warfare which was so unexpectedly to follow. When the two opposing lines were so close together that they locked almost in a death grip, each side kept such strict watch that ground observation was greatly ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... just at the edge of the aisle, a lady, clad in velvet, brushed against her, then gathered her costly garments with a hand ringed and dazzling with diamonds, shrinking as if she had touched some accursed thing, and sweeping by. ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... it twice in silence, and as silently returned it. Nick, realizing that Ten-Ichi and Patsy would also fall under the sweeping hatred of Black Madge, tossed it over to them with the direction ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... spectacle of these multitudinous billows of life, rolling down the long, broad, avenue. It is an inspiring lyric, this inexhaustible procession, in the misty perspective ever lost, ever renewed, sweeping onward between its architectural banks to the music of innumerable wheels; the rainbow colors, the silks, the velvets, the jewels, the tatters, the plumes, the faces—no two alike—shooting out from unknown depths, and passing away for ever—perpetually sweeping onward in the fresh air ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... has enjoyed the precedency to all others from the reign of good old Saturn. I could say much to the defamation and disgrace of your family; as, that your relations Distaff and Broomstaff were both inconsiderate mean persons, one spinning, the other sweeping the streets, for their daily bread. But I forbear to vent my spleen on objects so much beneath my indignation. I shall only give the world a catalogue of my ancestors, and leave them to determine which ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... sight of Barney at the bottom of the lawn sweeping leaves into a heap for his son to lift them between two ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... abode with the old man, who rested and took his ease, what while the youth [did his service in the mosque], celebrating the praises of God and calling the faithful to prayer and lighting the lamps and filling the ewers[FN28] and sweeping and cleaning ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... and gliding steps that kept perfect time to the music, and turned and went back, and wound mazy figures with the rest, under the waxen light of the waxen torches, and returned to their places with deep curtsies on the one side, and sweeping obeisance on the other. The dresses of the women were richer by far with gold and silver, and pearls and other jewels, than those of the men, but were generally darker in tone, for that was the fashion then. Their skirts were straight and barely touched the floor, being made ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... "He lightened, he thundered, he turned Hellas upside down." Such metaphors as thunder, lightning, and chaos and confusion could not be used of abbreviated and compressed oratory, but only of oratory on a sweeping scale, pitched in a ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... drowning were joined by the terrific slogan of two bands of Scots. The one with Wallace toward the head of the river, while the other, under the command of Sir John Graham, rushed from its ambuscade on the opposite bank upon the rear of the dismayed troops; and both divisions sweeping all before them, drove those who fought on land into the river, and those who had just escaped the flood, to meet its waves again, a ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... resigning, he again entered the U.S. Senate in 1823; five years later he became President, and in 1832 was again elected; his Presidency is associated with the readjustment of the tariff on a purely protective basis, which led to disputes with S. Carolina, the sweeping away of the United States Bank, the wiping out of the national debt in 1835, and the vigorous enforcement of claims against the French for damage done during the Napoleonic wars; his imperious yet honest nature led him to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... flakes that the Polar shakes From his shaggy coat of white, Or hunting the trace of the track he makes And sweeping it from sight, As he turned to glare from the slippery stair Of the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... clean sweeping already," wrote Lord Chesterfield on the 15th; and I do not remember, in my time, to have seen so much at once, as an entire new board of treasury, and two new secretaries, etc. Here is a new political arch built; but of materials of so different a nature, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... net fruit- nets for the walls at Cuxhaven Park. Lady Cumnor's woman was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one small wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear much light to her weakened eyes); I and the great leafless branches of the trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by the ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... has been the highest in Eastern Europe. Annual GDP growth slowed to less than 1 percent during the 1985-90 period. The country is deficient in energy and in many raw materials. Moreover, its aging capital plant lags well behind West European standards. In January 1991, Prague launched a sweeping program to convert its almost entirely state-owned and controlled economy to a market system. The koruna now enjoys almost full internal convertibility and over 90% of prices are set by the market. The government is planning ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to die. She almost knew she could not see him; yet it seemed like some amends to her conscience for having slept through so many hours of the night if she made the attempt. She went up to the porter's lodge, and asked the little girl sweeping out the place if she might see Abraham Dixon. The child stared at her, and ran into the house, bringing out her father, a great burly man, who had not yet donned either coat or waistcoat, and who, consequently, ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... herself unseen, had listened to the tale with an interest that chained her to the spot where she stood. She unconsciously identified herself with the cruel maiden, and in after years she remembered the long, sweeping locks of the knight, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... modulation into flat keys, contents itself with running passages and a series of iterated notes. Of organic and sustained development, such as Haydn indeed sometimes attained, there is little trace. Even so we must be chary of sweeping condemnation; for there are well-planned dynamic contrasts and the instruments are used in such a natural way—especially the figure in the double basses (measures 149-153)—that the scene is one of animation, though perhaps no more ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... have exclaimed, "I would not give five shillings a ream for such poetry as that." Southey himself would only smile, (he had probably heard Wordsworth express himself to the same effect a hundred times); but some insidious hearer catches at the phrase, and reports it as Wordsworth's sweeping denunciation of all the poetry that his friend has ever written, in defiance of all the evidence to the contrary to be met with, not only in Wordsworth's every-day conversation, but in his published works. There is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... group near the door that we readily take in, in our first sweeping glance round the room. Mrs. Mountainhead, a lady prodigiously inclined to embonpoint, looking exceedingly warm and uncomfortable, is the central figure. Her two daughters and their attendant cavaliers are also there. But it is plain to see that Mrs. Mountainhead ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... an infidel with that kind of petulant bitterness which possesses an old lady in a country village, who has just heard that some wicked people dispute the story of Balaam's ass. And, as a corollary, he combined the whole French people in one sweeping censure, and utterly despised their morals, manners, literature, and political principles. He was a John Bull, as far as a man can be who is of weakly, nervous temperament, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... one to play with! So I look out, and get her a dog, frisky and young, who abhors sedentary occupations,—a spaniel, small, and coal-black, with ears sweeping the ground. I baptize him "Juba," in honor of Addison's "Cato," and in consideration of his sable curls and Mauritanian complexion. Blanche does not seem so eerie and elf-like while gliding through the ruins when Juba barks by her side ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man next him Shorty reached and raised his arm. Dave saw the blue barrel of the revolver sweeping down, but could not free a hand to protect himself. A jagged pain shot through his head. The power went out of his legs. He sagged at the hinges of his knees. He stumbled and went down. Heavy boots kicked at him where he lay. It seemed ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... the world to him since the time that looked so far away! With how much larger a life in his heart would he now sit in the orchestra while the gracious forms of music filled the hall, and he seemed to see them soaring on the pinions of the birds of God, as Dante calls the angels, or sweeping level in dance divine, like the six-winged serpents of Isaiah's vision high and lifted up—all the interspaces filled with glow-worms and little spangled snakes of coruscating sound! He was more blessed now than even when but to lift his eyes ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... volume of Lamour's great monograph to her breast as though to protect it from him—from him who was threatening her, enthralling her, thrilling her with his magic voice, his enchanted youth, the masterful mystery of his eyes. What was he saying to her? What was this mounting intoxication sweeping her senses—this delicious menace threatening her very will? What did he want with her? What was he asking? What was he doing now—with both her hands in his, and her gaze deeply lost in his—and the ninth volume of Lamour on the floor between them, sprawling there, abandoned, waving its helpless, ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... His sweeping mustache was black; and such hair as was visible showed none of the iron gray of advancing age in it. He wore gold rings in his ears and to cap his piratical-looking figure was a red bandana worn turbanwise ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... and which the First President of the Parliament of Paris (whose extreme haste to pay his court to his new master was such that, being unable immediately to procure a carriage, he proceeded to the Louvre on foot) designated his happy deliverance.[286] Nothing, in short, but plumed hats sweeping the marble floor, flexile forms bending to the earth, and lips wreathed in smiles, was to be seen in the kingly hall in which Henri IV had loved to discuss grave topics with his sturdy minister, the Duc de Sully, and which Marie de Medicis, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Conversely you can indicate the smallness of objections by moving your fingers only, as if you were picking up a tiny object. Demolish unfavorable points with a strong gesture of negation, as by sweeping your arm horizontally. Give life to the ideas on the favorable side of the scale by accompanying your words with up and ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... house and no expense in Dayton—go there next. Sandy Baldwin says I have made the most sweeping success of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... effort," but tends to the coordination of the psycho-muscular organism. Such are the activities which are not directed to the production of objects, but to their preservation, as, for instance, dusting or washing a little table, sweeping the floor, laying or clearing the table, cleaning shoes, spreading out a carpet. These are the tasks performed by a servant to preserve the objects belonging to his master, work of a very different order to that of the artificer, who, ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... I was to be trained for an assistant-astronomer; and by way of encouragement, a telescope adapted for 'sweeping' (or rapidly surveying a wide extent of space), consisting of a tube with two glasses, was given [to] me. I was to 'sweep for comets;' and I see by my journal that I began August 22nd, 1782, to write down and describe ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... oblige him, his noble host immediately led the way through a gallery, and opening the door of an apartment, discovered to him Bruce, lying on a couch; and a venerable figure, whose silver beard and sweeping robes, announced him to be the sage of Ercildown, was bathing the wounded chief's temples with balsams. A young creature, beautiful as a ministering seraph, also hung over the prostrate chief. She held a golden ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... system, where every man knows what he is to pay and why he is to pay it, tends to restore stability by the very evenness of its operation, by its making national interests familiar to all, and by removing any sense of injustice. Any sweeping confiscation, such as has sometimes been proposed in Congress with more heat than judgment, would render the South less available for revenue, would retard the return of industry to its legitimate channels, by lessening ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... axe aloft and brought it slowly down, staying it just ere the edge touched the flesh. There, for an instant, he held it, measuring his distance, while the sunlight flashed along its polished face. Suddenly it rose again, and sweeping in a wide circle of shimmering steel fell with the speed ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... ranks well closed up, without music, and almost noiselessly, they moved in the gray light of the early December morning, out of the cedars, across the open fields, hurling the full weight of their advancing columns upon our right, with all the dash of Southern troops, sweeping on with rapid stride, and wild yells of triumph, to what appeared to them an easy final victory; or, later in the afternoon, when our troops that had been driven from the field early in the morning, were reformed under the eye of the commanding general, met and threw back from ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... stood in Park Lane, and after dinner we all went out on to the broad balcony which opened from the drawing- room. There was a strong wind blowing that night, and I remember well the vague, disquieted feeling of unreality that possessed me,— sweeping through me, as it were, with each gust of wind. Then, suddenly, a servant stood behind me, saying that the lady had come for me, and was in the drawing-room. Shocked that my aunt should have troubled herself to come so far, I turned quickly, stepped back into the room, and found myself face to ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... that day he was in a daze—with bursts of rapture sweeping over him. She was interested in him! She had smiled upon him! She ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... Chester had returned to his men and took charge of the rapid-fire gun himself. He turned it this way and that, sweeping the roadway clear, where the foe ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... people who do the work merely substitute adjectives and adverbs. Occasionally, I'm told, a more daring hack will substitute a verb, or even a noun. But that is rare. The editors of such periodicals frown upon sweeping innovations." ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... of his colors only being borne, to paint a new built house from base to battlement, was not one to shun labor, it is the pouring in upon him of glorious thoughts in inexpressible multitude that his sweeping hand follows so fast. It is as easy to know the slightness of earnest haste from the slightness of blunt feeling, indolence, or affectation, as it is to know the dust of a race, from the ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... to get lost in! That had been her husband's phrase. And now, with the whole machinery of official investigation sweeping its flash-lights from shore to shore, and across the dividing straits; now, with Boyne's name blazing from the walls of every town and village, his portrait (how that wrung her!) hawked up and down the country like ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... eyes with a feeling of helpless misery. She could hardly give a thought to Felix and the words he uttered; yet it was those words which brought a flood of hidden memories and fears sweeping over her shrinking soul. It was so long since she had thought much of Roland! She had persuaded herself that as so many years had passed by bringing to her no hint or token of his existence, he must be dead; and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... it, and especially of the harbour. An area of many acres, covered with a grotesque variety of flat boats, keel boats, and water craft of every description, that had floated down from the valley above, lined the upper part of the shore. Steam-boats, rounding to, or (like our own) sweeping away, cast long horizontal streams of smoke behind them; while barques and brigs, schooners and sloops, ranged below each other in order of size, and showing a forest of masts, occupied the wharfs. These and a thousand other objects, seen as they were under ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... I remember a disturbance in the room, and dominating it, as it were, the rich sound of a woman's voice and the rustle of a woman's silks sweeping the stone floor. I opened my eyes and saw that it was she who had helped to rescue us, who had rescued us in fact, a tall and noble-looking lady with a beauteous, weary face and liquid eyes which seemed to burn. From the heavy cloak she wore ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... suffered, the room must continue to be free. The great mass of well-behaved people must not be annoyed by measures intended to exclude a few rogues. The result vindicated the sagacity, as well as the charity, of this view. The officers in charge, not being permitted to adopt any sweeping measures of prevention, simply redoubled their vigilance, and finally caught one or two offenders and "made examples of them;" and the nuisance was immediately abated, though perhaps not entirely and ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... the wind that is sweeping now O'er the restless and weary wave, Were swaying the leaves of the cypress bough O'er the calm of my early grave— And my heart with its pulses of fire and life, Oh! would it were still as stone. I am weary, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Astronomer-Royal for Ireland, Sir Robert Stawell Ball (now Lowndean Professor of Astronomy in the University of Cambridge), has done good service in the same department. For besides verifying approximately Struve's parallax of half a second of arc for 61 Cygni, he refuted, in 1811, by a sweeping search for (so-called) "large" parallaxes, certain baseless conjectures of comparative nearness to the earth, in the case of red and temporary stars.[1580] Of 450 objects thus cursorily examined, only one star of the seventh magnitude, numbered 1,618 in Groombridge's Circumpolar ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... are, and gave them such grandeur of appearance when in action, and put such an eagle-like spirit between their ribs, so that, quitting the plodding motions of the ox, they can fly like that noble bird, and come sweeping down the course as on wings ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... Sinking and creeping, Swelling and sweeping, Showering and springing, Flying and flinging, Writhing and ringing, Eddying and whisking, Spouting and frisking, Turning and twisting, Around and around With endless rebound; Smiting and fighting, A sight to delight in; Confounding, astounding, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... first her claws, and then her teeth, into the white arm that hung over the side of the couch.... Josephine's terrified victim gave a fearful cry, everyone in the room got up and rushed forward, and at that exact instant Betty came into the drawing-room. Sweeping a piece of embroidery off the piano, she threw it over the cat's head, took up the now struggling, helpless bundle, and rushed out of the room ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... up in her crib, tumbled, red-cheeked, tears hanging on her lashes. The room was darkened for her nap; she wore a worn little discoloured wrapper; she clung to her rag doll. Martie, with deathly weakness sweeping over her, smiled, and spoke to her. The baby eyed her curiously, but she was not afraid. Martie picked her up, and stood there holding her, while the knife turned and ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... man is a sweep, and was sweeping the chimney," I cried, pointing to his brushes and sticks; and after a lot of explanations the man was told to get up and his Majesty, followed by the others, retired to his bedroom, evidently greatly disappointed that it was not a real burglar that ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... of the most illustrious deeds recorded in history, an event which has rightly been called the Thermopylae of Canada. The facts were as follows:—In 1660 the Colony was on the eve of extinction by the Iroquois, the whole of the tribes being on the war-path with the intention of sweeping the French from the St. Lawrence. Dollard des Ormeaux and sixteen young men of Montreal determined upon a deed which should teach the savages a lesson. They bound themselves by an oath neither to give nor take quarter. They made their wills and took the sacrament in ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... serve any purpose, in the face of this work from the pen of the acknowledged inventor of state-craft, to describe Cesare's conquest of the Romagna by opprobrious epithets and sweeping statements of condemnation and censure—statements kept carefully general, and never permitted to enter into detail which must destroy their own ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Confederates burst through the thick woods upon the Union pickets and drove them in. It was at least partially a surprise. Grant in person was nine miles down the river. The Union officers hastily got their men into line, as the attacking columns came sweeping in after the pickets. Three of the five Union divisions were raw recruits, many of whom fled at the first fire. Some colonels led their entire regiments off the field. Later in the day Grant saw 4,000 or 5,000 of these runaways cowering under the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... was far down the hills when he awoke. He lay blinking at the low-sweeping boughs above him for a little without realizing where he was; then, as the midsummer stillness which surrounded him took hold of his senses, he turned his head to recall to himself the conditions under which he had ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... have been his amaze? Dick Avenel rail against competition! Think there could be too much of it! "Of course heaven and earth are coming together," said the spider, when the housemaid's broom invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other cobwebs; but he certainly thought heaven and earth coming together when he saw a great Turk's-head besom poked up ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lucky purchases of stock, created in no long time an estate of twenty thousand a year. This commercial grandee, who in wealth and in the influence which attends wealth vied with the greatest nobles of his time, was Sir Josiah Child. There were those who still remembered him an apprentice, sweeping one of the counting houses of the City. But from a humble position his abilities had raised him rapidly to opulence, power and fame. At the time of the Restoration he was highly considered in the mercantile world. Soon after that event he published his thoughts on the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... children; but then he was a poor creature, and even was so unkingly, and so little like what a Plantagenet should have been, that he actually disliked war! He might with absolute propriety have worn the lowly broom-corn from which his family-name was taken, while it was a sweeping satire on almost all others who bore it. His heir, Edward I., was a king of "high stomach," and as a prince he stood stoutly by his father in the baronial wars. He, too, though the father of sixteen children, dispensed with family dissensions, thus showing that "The more, the merrier," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... suddenly I saw through one of the windows a sight which I thought must surely be my last. The car had been sweeping through a dense cloud of boiling vapors, and these had without warning split open before my eyes—and there, almost in contact with the car, was a glittering precipice of solid ice, gleaming with wicked blue flashes, and we were rushing upon it as if shot ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... the meaning of it," cried the lady, sweeping into the room with a proud, set face. "You have forced me against my own judgment to tell you, and now we must both make the best of it. My husband died at ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... stare at "Tenby"—"Tenby" with the local charwoman already there, throwing up the windows and sweeping away the dust of ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... "That's it—foam, and fleeting. All man's toil upon the planet was just so much foam. He domesticated the serviceable animals, destroyed the hostile ones, and cleared the land of its wild vegetation. And then he passed, and the flood of primordial life rolled back again, sweeping his handiwork away—the weeds and the forest inundated his fields, the beasts of prey swept over his flocks, and now there are wolves on the Cliff House beach." He was appalled by the thought. "Where four million people ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... heard the sound of the rain on the slanting roof. To a tired boy in bed, and longing to have some excuse for absence from school, what music is sweeter than the sound of rain on the roof? Let it be a real north-easter sweeping in from the sea, pushing along a fleet of many clouds packed with a heavy cargo of rain, and, as it advances, let this wind sound many big, hoarse trumpets all about the houses and barns, up and down the streets! An organ ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... at my horse's head, dressed in a sweeping robe, so white that it shone dazzling against the white snow, I saw a lady, her back turned to me, her head bare; her hair dishevelled and strayed, showing sharp and black against her ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... floating in the sky, sweeping in great circles with his mighty wings, suddenly remains poised in air, in one spot, and thence darts down like an arrow upon the shrieking quail, so Taras's son Ostap darted suddenly upon the cornet and flung a rope about his neck with one cast. The cornet's red face became a still deeper ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... conversation with British and French fur-traders of the Northwest Company's posts, they secured information about the western country they were to explore.[187] Similarly the trade of the early Jesuit missions at La Pointe near the west end of Lake Superior annually drew the Indians from a wide circle sweeping from Green Bay and the Fox River in the south, across the Mississippi around to the Lake of the Woods and far north of Lake Superior.[188] Here Marquette first heard of the great river destined to carry French dominion ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... struck them before they were fairly round, smashing in the bulwark and sweeping everything before it, and the boys both thought that the Susan was sinking under their feet. However she recovered herself. The water poured our through the broken bulwark, and the boat rose again ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... defence, but, strong as his arm was from constant exercise, he had some difficulty to save his head from the sweeping blows that ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the little cries and ejaculations which came from the brothers, he caused the aerostat to rise higher, slowly sweeping that extended ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... or ripening fruit, nor gorgeous frost-tints upon the leaves, I look through the bare branches of the trees better than I could in spring, summer and autumn, and lo, how beautiful are the stars that spangle the heavens and twinkle in the pale light of the moon, with maiden face sweeping through the heavens, veiled with fleecy clouds, like the bridesmaid of heaven, to direct our thoughts to the celestial city to meet the great Author of our creation. For the spirit came from God, and to God it must return, it being ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... little thirsty after their long pull, some bottles of champagne were provided for each boat. After the boats had been sufficiently admired by the spectators on the Brocas, off they started, as fast as the pullers could bend to their oars, with long and sweeping strokes towards Surly, accompanied by a boat with a band of music ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... sweeping away the litter, when he heard these last words, said to himself, "Perhaps I could make a mat." And all the way home, as he trudged along whistling, he was thinking over a scheme for making mats, which, however bold it may appear, he did not despair ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... No earthquakes, such as are commonly known in the West-India islands, have ever been felt here; but whirlwinds sometimes have made avenues through the thick forest, by levelling the loftiest trees, or sweeping them away before them like chaff. These terrible blasts are generally confined to a narrow tract, and run in an oblique and crooked direction. Hurricanes have also often visited the country and through such low and flat lands have spread their ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... during the longsome length of seven years. At last one day of the days that Sultan went forth disguised in Darwaysh-garb and toured about town unattended, and ceased not walking until he reached and passed before the palace of the Wazir, where he found a gathering of much folk, some sweeping and others sprinkling water, and others spreading[FN333], whilst the Harem and household were in high glee and gladness. He stood there amongst the spectators and presently asked what was doing, and they informed him, saying, "The Wazir returneth from abroad this ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... charlatan of France! Yes, gentlemen, I am a charlatan—a mountebank; it is my profession, not from choice, but from necessity. You, gentlemen, created that necessity! You would not patronize true, unpretending, honest merit, but you are attracted by my glittering casque, my sweeping crest, my waving plumes. You are captivated by din and glitter, and therein lies my strength. Years ago, I hired a modest shop in the Rue Rivoli, but I could not sell pencils enough to pay my rent, whereas, by assuming this disguise—it is nothing else—I have ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... were written all over with the tracks of birds, and rabbits and other wild animals; and the stillness of the great woods was so deep and solemn that our love-talk was silenced, and we rode on singing hymns. Then out of the woods, and sweeping down into a hollow where pleasant farms were nestled snugly together, and so up to Ephraim's door. Mr. Jacob Allen was a forehanded farmer, and the house was by far the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... only mothers feel. Children knelt by their mothers, and learned the story of God's pity in appearing upon earth as a little child, to save mankind from their sins. The dark Huron setting his snares in the forest and the fishers on the shady stream stood still. The voyageur sweeping his canoe over the broad river suspended his oar as the solemn sound reached him, and he repeated the angel's words and went on his way ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... few moments, there was a crashing of glass and china, and a clatter of furniture and a chaos of struggle. At its center, he stood wielding his impromptu weapon, and, when two of his assailants had fallen under its sweeping blows, and Farbish stood weakly supporting himself against the table and gasping for the breath which had been choked out of him, the mountaineer hurled aside his chair, and plunged for the sole remaining ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the orders made by the judge in that and the kindred case of Antoine were illegal. But while they are so held and considered, it is not to be forgotten that the mandate of his court had been contemptuously defied, and they were made while wild scenes of anarchy were sweeping away all restraint of law and order. Doubtless the judge of this court made grave mistakes; but the law allows the chancellor great latitude, not only in punishing those who contemn his orders and injunctions, but ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... may judge from the very limited discussion of this measure in Congress, the sweeping effects of it upon the administration of the public lands could hardly have been fully realized. From the beginning of the Government the administration of the public lands and the issuing of patents under the land laws have ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 255,191; area, 1937 sq. m. The greatest length of the province is about 85 m. from E. to W.; its average breadth is about 22 m. from N. to S. The Serra de Malhao and the Serra de Monchique extend in the form of a crescent across the northern part of the province, and, sweeping to the south-west, terminate in the lofty promontory of Cape St Vincent, the south-west extremity of Europe. This headland is famous as the scene of many sea-fights, notably the defeat inflicted on the Spanish fleet in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... pound foolish she called to the driver and got in. The car passed by the little brick street where the Saunders lived, and when Esther pushed the door open she could see into the kitchen and overhear the voices of the children. Mrs. Saunders was sweeping down the stairs, but at the sound of footsteps she ceased to bang the broom, and, stooping till her head looked ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... case. And when the Havanas were well alight, and the talk had circled down upon the political situation in the State, he was able to bear his part with a fair exterior, giving Ormsby an impressionistic outline of the late campaign and the conditions that had made the sweeping triumph of the People's ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... came, the wind came on them with it, and the noise of the waves increased, and the lightning was flashing, and a rough storm came sweeping down, the way the children of Lir were scattered over the great sea, and the wideness of it set them astray, so that no one of them could know what way the others went. But after that storm a great quiet came on the sea, and Fionnuala was alone on Sruth na Maoile; and when ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... highest rock, was a family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky; she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling, holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses. Beyond the group ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... federation that culminated in the Colonial Congress and then blossomed into the United States." We to-day, to whom the salt grass of Cohasset is little more than a fringe about the two harbors, may find it difficult to agree fully with such a sweeping statement, but certainly this spot and boundary line should always be associated with the respect for property which has ennobled ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... night's sleep on a bed for nearly three months, and I wished never to rise again. I wished to be immensely lazy for a long period—not to have to move or think or act. But that could not be. All sorts of marauders were sweeping the city and working their wills in a hundred different ways. Half a dozen times, as soon as daylight had come, shots had been fired through my gateway. European soldiery, who had broken away from their corps, and native vagabonds and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... whole argument applicable to B and C; not as any debt that rested particularly upon him to public justice; but as a debt to the integrity of his own book. That book is now a fragment; admirable as regards A; but (by omitting B and C) not sweeping the whole area of the problem. There yet remains, therefore, the dissatisfaction which is always likely to arise— not from the smallest allegatio falsi, but from the large suppressio veri. B, which, on any other solution than the one I have proposed, is perfectly unintelligible, now becomes ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Granger asks if he ever saw anyone so lovely as Ethelyn and bids him kiss her quick, he starts and hesitates, and finally kisses Susie instead. He might, perhaps, have done the same with Ethelyn if she had not stepped backward to avoid it, her long train sweeping across the hearth where that morning she had knelt in such utter desolation, and where now was lying a bit of blackened paper, which the housemaid's broom had not found when, early in the day, the room was swept and dusted. So Ethelyn's ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... together, the feet at an angle of 45 deg., and hands at the sides, bring the arms to a horizontal position in front, little fingers touching and nails down. From this position raise the hands straight over the head, bringing the palms gradually together. Then with a backward sweeping movement, return the hands again to the sides. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... to him. That was the word which again ran through the babel of conjectures. And when a man has had the luck which had been Drennen's for the years which the North had known him, and that luck changed, the change would be sweeping. Men might follow in his wake to ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... the gates was wonderfully imposing. Nothing could be more fanciful. In every aspect it presented some striking combination of natural and artificial beauties, admirably calculated to fascinate the imagination. I have a vague recollection of shady and undulating walks, winding over sweeping lawns dotted with masses of flowers and copses of shrubbery, and overhung by wide-spreading trees, sometimes gradually rising over gentle acclivities or points of rock overhung with moss and fern. Rustic cottages, half hidden by the luxuriant foliage, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... fastened on the rocket now, a feeling of awe sweeping through him. He suddenly realized how puny man was against the forces man could unleash. Forces that here were being utilized to scientific ends, but forces that upon a moment's notice, could in turn be unleashed upon the rest of humanity in ...
— The Monster • S. M. Tenneshaw
... is! but I had not thought of it before," exclaimed the maiden, with a lovely flush sweeping into her cheeks. "And," with a far-away look in her eyes, "I ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... safely transferred to the good steamer Cincinnati, and sweeping up the river under ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... half-a-million than they were. Pleasant as it is to contemplate the destruction of those restless and disloyal infidels, it cannot be said that we have gained any advantage from it, for the Russians have taken Erzerum and are sweeping through Armenia in a mighty and irresistible torrent, while our Turkish armies are scattered to the winds of heaven. Strong as you are and prodigal of promises, here you have failed to make good your pledges of help, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... defeat at the General Election, had taken but a lukewarm interest in the constituency and was now wandering in the Far East. But Paul, confident in his destiny, did not doubt that he would be selected. And then, within the next fortnight—for bye-elections during a Parliamentary session are matters of sweeping swiftness—would come the great battle, the great decisive battle of his life, and he would win. He must win. His kingdom was at stake—the dream kingdom of his life into which he would enter with his loved and won Princess on his arm. He poured splendid foolishness through the telephone ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... That the music wearied her was painfully evident long before the end of the one scene in which Brnnhilde takes part in "Siegfried." Never did her voice have the lovely quality which had always characterized it in the music of Donizetti and Gounod. It lost in euphony in the broadly sustained and sweeping phrases of Wagner, and the difference in power and expressiveness between its higher and lower registers was made pitifully obvious. The music, moreover, exhausted her. She plunged into her apostrophe with most self-sacrificing vigor at the beginning ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel |
