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More "Avalanche" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before the show, which was to be on a Saturday, it began to dawn upon me that I might be buried under an avalanche of quilts. The old ones were terribly large. They were made to cover a fat feather bed or two and to hang down to hide the trundle bed underneath, and, though the interlining of cotton was very thin and ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... skirting the open abyss at the right. The Arve, wending its course like a silvery ribbon, seemed at times to recede, while the ridges of the perpendicular rocks stood out more plainly. At times, the noise of a falling avalanche was repeated, echo after echo. A troupe of German students below me were responding to the voice of the glaciers by a chorus from Oberon. Following the turns in the road, I could see through the fir-trees, or, rather, at my feet, their long Teutonic frock-coats, their ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... Gailor had been editor of the Memphis "Avalanche," a paper which was suppressed when the Union troops took the town. After the War the "Avalanche" was started up again, and had a stormy time of it, because it criticized a Carpet-bag judge who had come to Memphis. In 1889 the "Avalanche" was consolidated with the "Appeal," another famous ante-bellum ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... on and listened with an amused smile, highly diverted at the avalanche of courtiers that came rushing on them from corridor and staircase. Meanwhile the sovereigns pursued their way in solemn silence until the brilliant throng had descended the marble stairs that led from the terrace to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... niceties of literary expression. It widens the horizon of life to him and gives him a deeper and closer sympathy with every form and manifestation of life. Every phase of life makes an appeal to him, from bird on the wing to rushing avalanche; from the blade of grass to the boundless plains; from the prattle of the child to the word miracles of Shakespeare; from the stable of Bethany ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... companionable men? Ah well, what good purpose would it serve to think about it! He had chosen his own fate. Here he was at Murder Point, and he would soon be married to Peggy, after which, no matter what avalanche of good luck befell him, there would be no return. What would his proud old mother say to a little half-breed grandchild? The mere thought made him smile. In cynical self-derision, he pictured himself accompanied by his Indian tribe, knocking ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... du captif! sainte rage! Effraction enfin plus forte que la cage! Que faut-il a cet etre, atome au large front, Pour vaincre ce qui n'a ni fin, ni bord, ni fond, Pour dompter le vent, trombe, et l'ecume, avalanche? Dans le ciel une toile ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... crash, and the Lupetea shook and quivered in every timber, as the mighty avalanche of water fell upon and buried her; smashing the wheel to splinters, snapping off the rudder head, and sweeping the deck clean of ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... her surprise at perceiving the son of her late benefactor. An avalanche of doubt rushed through her mind, and she could not conjecture the occasion of this visit. She had left him at his father's house. Had he forsaken his new-born repentance? Was he again the minister of Maxwell's evil ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... beyond which blue sky appeared. The first step I took the place began to move. A boulder crashed into the fall, and tore down into the abyss with a shattering thunder. I lay flat and clutched desperately at every hold, but I had loosened an avalanche of earth, and not till my feet were sprayed by the water did I get a grip of firm rock and check my descent. All this frightened me horribly, with the kind of despairing angry fear which I had suffered at Bruderstroom, when I dreamed that the treasure was lost. I could not bear the ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... evil-doers.' For my part, I cannot blame them, for without their assistance much that is known would not have been known, and, although numbers of possibly innocent, inoffensive and non-hostile people may have been overwhelmed in this last year's avalanche of disaster, there are still at large a lot of men whose punishment would probably have been a good thing for the future. One can only hope that their good luck in escaping may lead them to take a new departure, and with their heads ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... taking up the cry; and that brown avalanche of eager, helmeted men poured on clear of the smoke into the bright sunshine, which glinted on ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... before I leave the subject of Belgium, what have we done for Belgium? Have we saved her soil from invasion? Were we at her side with half a million men when the avalanche fell on her? Or were we safe in our own country praising her heroism in paragraphs which all contrived to convey an idea that the Belgian soldier is about four feet high, but immensely plucky for his size? Alas, when the Belgian soldier cried: "Where are the English?" the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... bowing like a dancing-master; nor does he disdain to produce a small book of testimonials, in which the subscribers have agreed to give him a poetic character, and compare him to a torrent, to a nightingale, to an eagle, to an avalanche. They who love flattery as a bee loves honey, are all captivated, and almost make love to him. Their albums are rich in the spoils of his poetry, and she is happy who, by her blandishment, can detain him in conversation for five minutes. Yet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... were swept up in it to be as mad as the rest, while the galleries screamed and shouted. All round the old man the fury was greatest; his head sank over his desk and rested on his hands as it had the night before; for he dared not lift it to see the avalanche he had loosed upon himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut out the egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his bent head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible vision of the attack that strove to reach him. He remembered ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... finished with so much toil, a snow man, down the slope, rejoicing with his playfellows over its swift descent towards the valley, until they noticed with what frightful speed its bulk increased as it sped over its snowy road, till at last, like a terrible avalanche, it swept away a herdsman's hut—fortunately an empty one. Now, also, his heedlessness had set in motion a mass which constantly rolled onward, and how terrible might be the harm it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the old Temple stood melancholy where the heavy stone wall, built by a man who believed in broad, firm foundations, had split an avalanche, but without avail, for the walls had given way and let the roof beams drop in. No less certain had been the fate of the congregation; they, too, were scattered or dead. There remained but one dwelling in the little valley, ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... loudly beating heart. He realized that he had found an opening to the surface, and was wildly exultant over the discovery, but could hardly believe that the noise of the sliding material, which had sounded to him like an avalanche, should not have aroused the savages. So, for some minutes, he listened, and then, reassured by the continued silence, ventured to climb up to the open air. He had but a few feet to go, and once at the surface ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... party moved upward over the great slope of ice into the recess, looking for steps abruptly ending above a crevasse or for signs of an avalanche. They came level with the lower end of a long rib of rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise bisects the glacier. Here the search ended for a while. The rib of rocks is the natural path, and the guides climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier and spread out once more, roped ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... the Golden Gate. There were rumours of strange plots and counter-plots, also of a new great army of invasion that was about to set sail from Kiel. Evidently the Germans must have more men if they were to ride safely on this furious American avalanche that they had set in motion, if they were to tame the fiery American volcano ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... were three attendants, one securely braced under each armpit, and the third with a more precarious grip under the mountain's chin. Every thirty seconds or so the heaving, sliding mass would emit one of those explosive groans: "O-o-o-o-o-oh!" Then it would collapse, an avalanche would threaten to slide, and the living caryatids ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... of the cliff, of course. It must have made a big drift there and tumbled down—regular avalanche, you know—just as I tried to look out. Why! the place out there is filled up yards deep! We'd never be able to dig out in ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... no longer see his comrades, or catch a sound of their voices. This disagreeable idea caused him to hurry, and no doubt he became less cautious in navigating some of the various narrow paths, for before he realized that he had started a small avalanche, he was caught up in its gathering swoop, and found himself being carried swiftly down a rather steep declivity, ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... social system. Tall and lissom, she was sheathed from the bosom downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with emeralds. Her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and behind her ears, as an orphan's should be. Parted somewhere at the side, it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Untarnished flower of Eastern chivalry; A moment paused with level-fronting spears And moveless helms before that shining host, Whose gay attire abashed the morning light, And then struck spur and charged, while from the mass Of rushing terror burst the awful cry, GOD AND THE TEMPLE! As the avalanche slides Down Alpine slopes, precipitous, cold and dark, Unpitying and unwrathful, grinds and crushes The mountain violets and the valley weeds, And drags behind a trail of chaos and death; So burst we on that field, and through and through The gay battalia brave with ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche,[380:1] unheard, 71 Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low 75 In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... can exist without spirit, which you may prove by getting under an avalanche; but I do most emphatically agree that spirit cannot exist without matter. 'Divorced from matter, where is life?' asks Tyndall, ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... inexhaustible. John had seen them turned back in those long days of fighting on the Marne, and more than a million had been killed or wounded since the war began, but that avalanche of men and guns still poured out of the heart of Germany. He felt more deeply than ever that the world could not afford a German victory, and the sanguinary spectacle of a Kaiser riding roughshod over civilization. The fact that so many German people were likable ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Icelanders designate their highest mountain peaks by the name of Jokul, a modification of the word "Joetun." In Switzerland, where the everlasting snows rest upon the lofty mountain tops, the people still relate old stories of the time when the giants roamed abroad; and when an avalanche came crashing down the mountain side, they say the giants have restlessly shaken off part of the icy burden ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... opening in the foliage below, giving the occupant of the hut an unobstructed view of the winding road that led up from Edelweiss. The door faced the Monastery road down which the two men had just ridden. As for the door yard, it was no more than a pebbly, avalanche-swept opening among the trees and rocks, down which in the glacial age perhaps a thousand torrents had leaped, but which was now so dry and white and lifeless that one could only think of bones bleached and polished by a sun that had sickened of the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... always better paint such a scene, than could the feeble pen describe it. The deep and gushing eloquence of human nature, when thus long pent, bursts forth, sweeping the meagre devises of the pen before it, like snow-flakes before the mighty mountain avalanche. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the effect of a clog. A pebble may stop a log, the branch of a tree turn aside an avalanche. The carronade stumbled. The gunner, taking advantage of this critical opportunity, plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind wheels. The cannon stopped. It leaned forward. The man, using the bar as a lever, held it in equilibrium. The ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the rain coming. At first the sound of it was like the pattering of ten million tiny feet in dry leaves; then, suddenly, it was like the roar of an avalanche. It was an inundation, and with it came crash after crash of thunder, and the black skies were illumined by an almost uninterrupted glare of lightning. It had been a long time since Carrigan had felt the shock of such ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... reported to have been overwhelmed by an avalanche of snow, and at Easter-time a number of patriotic English people were offering, in view of the usefulness of the stuff for military purposes, to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... one our school-boys unitedly rolled up in the back-yard. It was a snowball, round, symmetrical, just such a magnified copy of the backyard one as might be expected to follow a boy in dreams after too much Johnny-cake for supper. And that was an avalanche. We have stood since then under the shadow of the Jungfrau, on the Wengern Alp, at the selfsame spot where Byron beheld the fall of so many. We had the noble lord's luck, (as most people have.) and saw dozens, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... day when they told me he had gone down in the avalanche, and could not be found until the snow melted in Spring, I did nothing. I could not cry. Why should he die? Why should he die and his child live? His little child alive in me, for my comfort. No, Good God, for my misery! I cannot face the shame, to be a mother, ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... of Kalidasa it is evident that this very magnificence of wealth and enjoyment worked against the ideal that sprang and flowed forth from the sacred solitude of the forest. These poems contain the voice of warnings against the gorgeous unreality of that age, which, like a Himalayan avalanche, was slowly gliding down to an abyss of catastrophe. And from his seat beside all the glories of Vikramaditya's throne the poet's heart yearns for the purity and simplicity of India's past age of spiritual striving. And it was this yearning which impelled him ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... whole army was in a state of wild terror and confusion—a condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on their foes literally slew them by thousands. Many hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. Few succeeded in effecting their escape from what was little ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he made a collection in aid of the Conference of Saint-vincent de Paul. In the midst of the seance, he appeared almost inspired, and recited "La Charite dans Bordeaux"—the grand piece of the evening. The assembly rose en masse, and cheered the poet with frantic applause. The ladies threw an avalanche of bouquets at the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... After this astonishing avalanche a discomfited Austrian general said: "This young commander knows nothing whatever about the art of war. He is a perfect ignoramus. There is no doing anything with him." But his soldiers followed their "Little Corporal" with an enthusiasm which ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... forward, Adrian, covering himself well with his buckler, directed his care less against the combatant, whom he felt no lance wielded by mortal hand was likely to dislodge, than against the less noble animal he bestrode. The shock of Montreal's charge was like an avalanche—his lance shivered into a thousand pieces, Adrian lost both stirrups, and but for the strong iron bows which guarded the saddle in front and rear, would have been fairly unhorsed; as it was, he was almost doubled back by the encounter, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and swept on forward in a wave that nothing could have stopped this time—but their charge was too late. The entire rocky projection collapsed with a final sickening lurch, and slid to the pit's floor, carrying Joan and Powell with it in a miniature avalanche of rocky rubble. ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... his hands beneath his head gazing vacantly at the ceiling. He did not wonder that his sacred father passed his time at the altars of the gods, but he could not understand how Herhor was able to manage the avalanche of business, which, like a storm, not only surpassed the strength of a man, but might ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... crevasses is always shifting, so that the next person who makes the ascent may find a comparatively easy path. We had other dangers too, such as this: twice the guides said to me, "Ne parlez pas ici, Monsieur, et allez vite," the fear being of an ice avalanche falling on us, and we heard the rocks and ice which are detached by the wet falling all about. The view from the top, if the day is fine, is about the most magnificent in the Alps; and as in that case I should have descended easily ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... do for it, but to run and jump. We took steps as long as if we had worn seven-league boots. When the whole party got in motion, the entire slope seemed to slide a little with us, and there appeared some danger of an avalanche. But we did n't stop for it. It was exactly like plunging down a steep hillside that is covered thickly with light, soft snow. There was a gray-haired gentleman with us, with a good deal of the boy in him, who thought ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the left to escape the edge of the trap and plunged recklessly to the bottom. Not until he saw where Scottie Deane and the team had dragged themselves from the snow avalanche did he breathe freely again. Isobel was safe! He laughed in his joy and wiped the nervous sweat from his face as he saw the prints of her moccasins where Deane had righted the sledge. And then, for the first time, he observed a number of small red stains on the snow. Either Isobel or Deane ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... later the Red Bone warriors, taking heart from the cessation of firing, poured an avalanche of arrows into the spot where they had been. And as the canoe, last in the escaping line, was swallowed up in the impenetrable blackness of the forest a hair-raising screech of diabolical fury blended with a swift succession of ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... pine upon some Alpine height, Torn by the winds and bent beneath the snow Half overthrown by icy avalanche, The lone of soul throughout the ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... across the Strait, he at first gave his entire attention to picking a pathway. Indeed this was quite necessary, for here a great pan of ice, thirty yards square and eight feet thick, glided upon another of the same tremendous proportions to rear into the air and crumble down, a ponderous avalanche of ice cakes and snow. He must leap nimbly from cake to cake. He must take advantage of every rise and fall of the heaving swells which disturbed the great blanket winter had cast upon the bosom ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... Rosinante, who was a subject for crows to mourn over, (because they could hope for nothing in trying to pick him,) and in an ambling, scrambling pace, composed of a trot, a canter, and a kick, we made a descent like an avalanche into the station yard. There Richard was himself again. I assumed at once the air of a gentleman who had seen the review, and walked about with composure and dignity. No doubt I had seen the emperor and all the troops. I succeeded in getting home just in the middle of dinner, ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... An avalanche of rolling barrels rolled wildly across the deck of the pier. The top one on which the hoops were cut landed with a smash in the centre of an explosive spray of flour. The atmosphere was suddenly white dust.... ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... passage in a book you have read, or a beautiful tone in a picture you have seen; just so the Ranz des Vaches bears the exile to the timber house, with shady leaves, corbelled and strut-supported, whose very weakness appeals to the avalanche that shakes an icicly beard in monition from ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is finally buried in the ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... so distrustful of one another that they forgot the wolf. During that time, in his den at the Elysee, Bonaparte was working. He was busily employing the time which the Assembly, the majority and the minority, was losing in mistrusting itself. As people feel the loosening of the avalanche, so they felt the catastrophe tottering in the gloom. They kept watch upon the enemy, but they did not turn their attention in the true direction. To know where to fix one's mistrust is the secret of a great politician. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... avalanche of destruction, and all is tumult, dismay, and death. The very crags of the mountain side, loosened in preparation, come bounding, thundering down. Trunks and roots of pine trees, gathering speed on their headlong way, are launched down upon the powerless foe, mingled with the deadly ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... was at the end of the wet season and the flow was at maximum strength. The mist was so great that at first I could scarcely see the Falls. Slowly but defiantly the foaming face broke through the veil. Niagara gives you a thrill but this toppling avalanche awes you into ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... furnished free transportation for two-thirds of the Latham team, carrying them on his back, legs, and neck, as he strode down the field; a writ of habeas corpus could not have stopped the blond Colossus. Anyone would have stood more show to stop an Alpine avalanche than to slow up Thor, and the stretcher was constantly in ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... gate itself, and Jaimihr on the other side. And, swooping—shooting—sliding down the trail like a storm-loosed avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creature ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... you blend with the soul, as it were, and impart something of their own vastness to it. You feel yourself carried into the very presence of that Power which sank the foundations of the mountains in the depths of the earth, and built up their giant masses above the clouds; which hung the avalanche on their brow, clove their unfathomable abysses, poured the river at their feet, and taught the forked lightning to play around their awful icy steeps. You seem to hear the sound of the Almighty's footsteps still echoing amid these hills. There passes ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... to say right at this time that the idea that seems to be prevalent in the minds of many that the German is not a good fighting man is a lamentable mistake; he is a good fighter. He has not perhaps the initiative of the British, or the avalanche-like ardor in a charge of the French soldier, but with his officers pressing him behind and in mass formation, he is as formidable a foe as ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... too much a man of the world to believe in such ideal trash as love: and next, he totally forgot that his "boy, or boys," had human feelings. So, when his wife one day gave him a gentle and triumphant hint of the state of affairs, it came upon him overwhelmingly, like an avalanche: his yellow face turned flake-white, he trembled as he stood, and really seemed to take so natural a probability to heart as the ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... streets, rousing echoes with their laughter; but for the most part they were as much alone as if the world had ceased to hold any beings but themselves. The pine-trees scented all the air, the snow dripped reluctantly, and sometimes far off they heard the distant boom of an avalanche. They sat together for long sunlit hours on the rickety wooden balcony of a friendly hospice, drinking hot spiced gluewein and ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... Beau-Sejour:—my cousin, Caspar von Hazenfeldt, took to wandering alone over the Swiss mountains; and before three months had elapsed, from the time he met the old gentleman, was buried in the fall of an avalanche, near the ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... not'ing I never see, Blow lak le diable he was mak' grande tour; De snow come down lak wan avalanche, An' cole! Mon Dieu, it is cole ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... such a vast sum of money for so slight a service; but Mr. Checkynshaw's mandate was imperative, and he departed, leaving her bewildered at the sudden fortune which had come down like an avalanche upon her. Leo went back to school, as delighted at her good luck as his own in finding himself entirely freed from the charge of ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... look at your garden, where you labored with so much skill to graft in these wild olive plants, cutting off your sleep with watchings by night, that they should not be rooted up by the desert wind. Thus you watched them, till they became as noble forest trees that not even the avalanche can overturn. Your garden, now, not only gives a shade pleasant to the traveller, but it yields sweet fruits; clouds rise from it that give us the early and the latter rain; they empty themselves,—the plain rejoices, and ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... a "father" and "mother" should be found. On this subject "the Golden Shoemaker" had talked much with his minister. He shrank from the thought of advertising his need. He was afraid of bringing upon himself an avalanche of mercenary applications. His idea was to fix upon some excellent Christian man and woman who might be induced to accept the post as a sacred and delightful duty. They must be persons who loved children, and who were not in search of a living; ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... both girls had danced through one London season in different ball-rooms, Rachel's parents died, her mother first, and then—by accident—her father, leaving behind him an avalanche of unsuspected money difficulties, in which even his vast ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the old man again fell into a vacant contemplation of the dead body before him, until a stronger blast swept down like an avalanche upon the cabin, burst through the ill-fastened door and broken chimney, and, dashing the ashes and living embers over the floor, filled the room with blinding smoke and flame. Fairley rose with a feeble cry, and then, as if acted upon ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... next morning. In the cool of the day they would see the cemetery; they would return, and eat the evening meal. It would then be time to sleep. And with a gesture he indicated the rugs and cushions, under which the beetles were now buried like mountain-dwellers beneath an avalanche. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... serpents are allowed to live? Let them live, but let us defend ourselves against their teeth and fangs. Are the overseers of God's people, in a world of shame, to be mere philosophical Gallios, indifferent to our higher interests? Is it a Christian duty to permit an avalanche of evils to overwhelm the Church on the plea of toleration? Shall we suffer, when we have the power to prevent it, a pandemonium of scoffers and infidels and sentimental casuists to run riot in the city ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... the mighty hills echoed with scornful laughter, yet the icy-hearted beauty took no heed. Lovely, serene, she smiled on all through the long summer's day; only once or twice from her snowy sides would rise a white puff of smoke, showing where some avalanche had swept ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... corrected, wrote a book embodying the amendments needed. Modest as his criticisms were, they raised a STORM of protest and angry denunciation, which even led to his deposition for the time being from his bishopric! While at the same time an avalanche of books to oppose his heresy poured forth from the press. Lately I had the curiosity to look through the British Museum catalogue and found that in refutation of Colenso's Pentateuch Examined some ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. He scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his feet and half burying the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... mighty Alps (o'er the tempest's angry god Careering on the avalanche) should be my bless'd abode. There, where Nature lowers more wild Than her most uncultured child, Revels beauty—as one smiled ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... illusion not unfrequent in mountains, seemed close to us, and yet how many weary hours it took to reach it! The stones, adhering by no soil or fibrous roots of vegetation, rolled away from under our feet, and rushed down the precipice below with the swiftness of an avalanche. ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... and west, then round and round, up and down, in every imaginable direction, everything crashing about them, "and the trees thrashing as if torn by a strong rushing wind." He and others sat on the ground bracing themselves with hands and feet to avoid being rolled over. They saw an avalanche of red earth, which they supposed to be lava, burst from the mountain side, throwing rocks high into the air, swallowing up houses, trees, men, and animals; and travelling three miles in as many minutes, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... of Terror, France was plunged into a reckless round of unrestrained gayety that can come only from love of life and youth and laughter long pent-up. It was as though an avalanche of joy had been released; it was in reality the reaction from the terrors and nightmares of those two years of horror. The people were free, free to do as they pleased without the fear of the guillotine ever present; and all France went ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... birds, and butterflies which have been seen disporting themselves about the bright white cauldron. There was not a breath of the threatened wind. Manoel pointed out Mount Bermeja as the source of the lateral lava-stream whose 'infernal avalanche,' on May 5, 1706, [Footnote: Preceding Ca da Mosto's day another eruption (1492) was noted by Columbus, shortly before his discovery of the Antilles. Garachico was the only port in Tenerife, with a breakwater of rocky isle and water so deep that the yardarms of ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... sentinels, on a ridge of the mountain, in the very path of the storm, turn over like nine-pins, one after the other, and tearing up the soil with their roots, slip down the mountain-side, dragging with them an avalanche of earth. His eye darted to the cottage with a sudden fear. Even as he looked, the wind was lifting some of the slates on the roof, rattling them, loosening them, and in a few moments would scatter them around like chaff, chaff that would bring death to any on whom it should chance to light. With ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... difficulties, losing men and animals at every step. But these troubles were trifling compared with those which they were now to endure. They suddenly found that the track before them had entirely disappeared. An avalanche had carried it bodily away for about three hundred yards, leaving only a steep and impassable slope covered with loose rocks ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... great favorite from the autumn and winter months, when it is made, on until May. The making starts in October, a month earlier than most Brie, and it is off the market by July, so it's seldom tasted by the avalanche of ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... chambers, but the roof had sunken till it was steep and slippery. One instant he was toppling over backward, the next, by a mighty effort, he had recovered his equilibrium, and finally managed to reach a safer place. As he hurried on another pillar went down. The roof sagged lower, and an avalanche of mortar and tiling slid into the court below. Yells, groans, and cries ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... drawing the boy's hand into his own, "we will go and find Gluck, who knows, no doubt, all that has passed today, and is waiting for us at the monastery." "We must ford the torrent," said Augustin; "the bridge was carried off by last year's avalanche, but with six of us and the dogs it will be easy work." Twilight was falling; and already the stars of Christmas Eve climbed the frosty heavens and appeared above the snowy far-off peaks. Filled with gratitude and wonder at all the strange events of the day we betook ourselves to the ford, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... rested in the snow, munching, that he heard the sound for the first time. It was faint and far away, and it sounded like thunder, or like an avalanche beginning, and that puzzled him, for this was not the time of year for either. As he listened, he heard it again, and this time he recognized it—negatron pistols. It frightened him; he wondered if the thieves had met a band of hunters. No; if they were fighting ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... spluttered the victim, trying to dodge the avalanche. But instead of heeding his pleadings the other students proceeded to ram a quantity of the stuff into his ears and down his collar. Nat squirmed and yelled, but it did ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... smoothness and rapidity that Stephen, proudly enthroned at the wheel, had almost forgotten that any shadow rested on the hilarity of the day. He had been dubbed a good fellow, a true sport, a benefactor to the school—every complimentary pseudonym imaginable—and had glowed with pleasure beneath the avalanche of flattery. As the big car with its rollicking occupants had spun along the highway, many a passer-by had caught the merry mood of the cheering group and waved a smiling salutation in ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... listen attentively, and do at first detect a phrase here and a phrase there which vaguely recall the work of Donizetti, or of Rossini, or of Meyerbeer; but in an instant the virtuoso himself forgets all about them. You have nothing but volley after volley of notes, a musical storm, tempest, avalanche; the primitive idea is fathoms deep under water, and when it is caught again it is drowned. Now Monsieur Jules Janin has had for the last five-and-twenty years the business of executing brilliant variations upon the piano of dramatic criticism. He acts like the virtuosos you hear at ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration—upward from thy base Slow-travelling with dim eyes suffused ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... until the nation Shall more wise and thoughtful grow Than to staunch a stream of sorrow By an avalanche ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... who had been hanging over a flour bin nearly empty, slipped. Her feet flew up, her head went down, and she tripped the grocery clerk. His long pole crashed into the neat pile of boxes arranged on the shelves and a shower of oatmeal, cornstarch, macaroni and other cereals fell in an avalanche. ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... Whene'er we part my trembling heart forebodes That you will ne'er come back to me again. I see you on the frozen mountain steeps, Missing, perchance, your leap from cliff to cliff; I see the chamois, with a wild rebound, Drag you down with him o'er the precipice. I see the avalanche close o'er your head, The treacherous ice give way, and you sink down Entombed alive within its hideous gulf. Ah! in a hundred varying forms does death Pursue the Alpine huntsman on his course. That way of life ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... repeated ideas which literature has rendered trivial; but what matter where the whip comes from, or how it is made, if it touches the sensitive spot of a horse's hide? The emotion was in Flavie, not in the speech, just as the noise is not in the avalanche, ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... grimances and groans, and continued the hydropathic treatment even in her second book, hoping some good effects from the shock. Of one intensely gratifying fact she could not fail to be thoroughly informed, by the avalanche of letters which almost daily covered her desk; she had at least ensconced herself securely in a citadel, whence she could smilingly defy all assaults—in the warm hearts of her noble countrywomen. Safely sheltered in their sincere and devoted love, she cared little for the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... beckoned to Ralph, and then opened the outer door. He had to use considerable strength to do this, and a gust of wind and a small avalanche of snow roared in, and sent the lighter articles flying from the table. Elsie gave a little scream, and Mrs. Snow exclaimed, "For the land's sake, shut that door this minute! Everything ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... an avalanche, I, pressed on all sides, have got frozen into the midst of the most frightful speculations ever devised by a usurer's brain. My departed uncle was good enough to make me heir to his ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... either a fresh party of the enemy were waiting for them, or the others had by taking a short cut reached an eminence commanding the path; and as soon as the company came in sight they were saluted with an avalanche of stones, on a spot where they were terribly exposed, there being no shelter that could be seized upon by a few picked marksmen to hold the stone-throwers in check ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... to the Negro soldiers by Colonel Roosevelt started up an avalanche of additional praise for them, out of which the fact came, that but for the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry (colored) coming up at Las Guasimas, destroying the Spanish block house and driving the Spaniards off, when Roosevelt and ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... just then, he devised an ingenious canal that incidentally flooded Lady Wondershoot's ice-house, and finally he dammed the river. He dammed it right across with a few vigorous doorfuls of earth—he must have worked like an avalanche—and down came a most amazing spate through the shrubbery and washed away Miss Spinks and her easel and the most promising water-colour sketch she had ever begun, or, at any rate, it washed away her easel ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... ground and soon had him bound hand and foot. They then drove a stake into the ground and tied Mike to it, and began to gather brush for the fire. This did not suit him a bit, but all he could do was to hurl an avalanche of words at them, which, of course, they did not understand and to which they ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... far beyond the confused discomforts and uneasiness of to-day, and the changes and complications of human life will remain as they are now, very like the crumplings and separations and complications of an immense avalanche that is sliding down a hill. And in this tremendous work of human reconciliation and elucidation, it seems to me it is the novel that must attempt ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... the smooth wall. Before he had gone more than a few steps, the anger that pushed him began to ebb away. Of a sudden, the mountainous and incredible fact of his being here, in this place, this time, this ship, came down on him like an avalanche from which the hypnopedic pre-conditioning would no longer ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... out to sea again. Seems to me they might keep hold of us even if they don't get along much." Perry ducked before the hissing avalanche of spray that was flung across the deck. "There's one thing certain," he added despondently. "We've got to stay on this old turtle as long as she'll let us, for we couldn't get that dingey off now ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... may be days before I can see him again, and I don't think it will be needful for you to confirm my statements. I fancy the fight is all out of him—it came upon him too suddenly—if he had known that I was here he might have braced himself up, but coming down like an avalanche upon him it stunned him. Now, Mr. Harford, you must permit me to draw a check for ten pounds for your expenses down here; when I come to my own again I shall be able properly to show my gratitude for the inestimable ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... measurements, and during the last seven days it has shot forward nineteen feet more. If next winter should bring a heavy fall of snow, the nether edge may break off, without the slightest warning, and an avalanche may sweep down upon you, carrying houses, barns, and the very soil down into the fjord. I sincerely hope that you will heed my words, and take your precautions while it is yet time. Science is not to be trifled with; it has a power ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Berthier, a little confused by this avalanche of seemingly irrelevant facts hurled at him at a moment when the whole map of Europe was being changed by destiny and her future trembled in the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... blooming in summer and winter. But it said that one of God's own great angels comes once in every month at midnight to bless the Monte Vergine, and that he stands on that rock. And of course wherever the angels tread there are flowers, and no storm can destroy them—not even an avalanche. That is why the people call it the Punto d'Angelo. It will please you to see it, eccellenza—it is but a walk of ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... curse at my own mad folly, I drove the spurs deep into my horse's side in a vain endeavor to fling myself between them and the girl. Hardly had the startled animal made one quick plunge, when we were locked in that human avalanche as if gripped by a vise of steel. A dozen dark hands grasped my bridle or clutched at me, their swarthy faces fierce with blood-lust, the eyes that fronted me cruel with passion and inflamed by hate. I heard shots not far away; but we were all too closely jammed to do more ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... possess hardly any information of a trustworthy nature. It is with his career as with that of other saints: they become overlaid—encrusted, as it were—with extraneous legendary material in the course of ages, even as a downward-rolling avalanche gathers snow. The nucleus is hard to find. What is incontestably true may be summed up almost ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... interrupted. There was a sharp crack overhead, followed by a tremendous rattle and crash. Then down upon the buggy descended what, to Graves, appeared to be an avalanche of scratching, tearing twigs and branches. They ripped away the boot and laprobe and jammed him back against the seat, their sharp points against his breast. The buggy was jerked forward a ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... on the top of a bastion-like terrace, thrust avalanche-wise and immense between its pinnacled mountain walls; the site is not only of great beauty, but of great natural strength, like nearly all the other considerable settlements we saw on this journey. The two ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... he saw a hideous turmoil in the black fabric—just wind—an avalanche of wind that gouged the sea, that could have shaken mountains.... The poor little Truxton stared into the End—a puppy cowering on the track ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... brain to the types it would all be mighty agreeable; and the world would be very considerably more overwhelmed with authorship than it is. It is the "grey goose quill" work, the necessity for incarnating the creatures of the brain in black and white, that is the world's protection from this avalanche. And I for one do not understand how anybody who, eschewing the sunshine and the fields and the song of birds, or the enjoyment of other people's brain-work, has glued himself to his desk for long hours, can say or imagine that his task is, or has been, aught else than hard and distasteful work, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... living person within twelve miles of it. There used to be a populous village named Aralik, with 5000 inhabitants, a little above it, but in 1840 an earthquake shook Mount Ararat, and in four minutes an immense avalanche had buried this place so completely as to leave scarcely any vestige of its site. Not a single person escaped, which is not to be wondered at, considering the mass that fell. Stones of twenty or ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... and established another tradition for British valour, the air of England became charged with an ominous feeling that something was wrong at the front. The German advance in the west had been well nigh triumphant. Reckless bravery alone could not prevail against the avalanche of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... force that sent me spinning out through the open doorway to bring up prostrate with a crash in the cabin of the doctor opposite, half stunned by the concussion of my skull against the bulkhead and by the avalanche of ponderous tomes that came crashing down upon me as the worthy medico's tier of hanging bookshelves yielded and came down by the run at my wild clutch as I stumbled over the ledge ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... the Board of Education—that beautiful timber-headed, timber-hearted, timber-souled structure—could come down on me with an avalanche of statistics. "Look at our results," they cry. I look. There are certain brains that even our educational system cannot benumb. A few clever ones, at the cost of enormously expensive machinery, are ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... he was interrupted by an avalanche of words that must have been dammed up in me for all the fifteen years of my life for that special occasion, and I delivered them with an eloquence that must have equaled that famous valedictory of Colonel Stockell's at the Byrd Academy, the year he left for ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dance-let joy be unrefined! The fall of the Roman Empire was the bounce of a rubber nursery ball, compared with this New York avalanche of luxurious satiation! Now, my child, old Da-da, is going to become too intoxicated to talk three words to any of these gallants and their lassies. Grimsby did not write a monologue for me, so I must pantomime: you will have to carry the speaking ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... flames drowned his cries, and the boats, which had moved out to windward, could not see him. Foot by foot crept the fire; but the stiff wind which finally came over the stern did its work well, and the red avalanche began to slant toward the bow. This meant respite. But he knew that at the very best it could be only a ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... of action, sending their couriers flying to countermand their first orders. They reached the scene at the moment Bee's and Evans' shattered lines were taking refuge in a wooded ravine and Jackson had moved his men into a position to breast the shock of the enemy's avalanche. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... authority to which he had himself expected to succeed, his interests were reversed. If he could not rule, he could wreck, and the promiscuous succession of tragedies that would follow in the wake of such an avalanche had no terrors to give Bas pause. Many volunteers would arise to strike down his enemy and leave him safe on the outskirts of the conflict. He could stand apart unctuously crying out for peace and washing his hands after the ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... was shot from the crater of each volcano a thick and heavy cloud of incandescent ashes and steam, which rushed down the mountain side like an avalanche, red with glowing stones and scintillating with lightning flashes. Forests and buildings in its path were leveled as by a tornado, wood was charred and set on fire by the incandescent fragments, all vegetation was destroyed, ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... happened nobody quite knew. Down came the stones, rattling like an avalanche, and down with them came Miss Roberts, falling with a heavy thud upon a piece of rock below. It was so utterly sudden and unexpected that the girls stood for a moment in speechless consternation, then Hilda, Elspeth, and one or two others ran to the teacher's assistance. Miss Roberts lay ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... parts tinted red in this light whose intensity was doubled by the reflecting power of the waters! We scaled rocks that crumbled behind us, collapsing in enormous sections with the hollow rumble of an avalanche. To our right and left there were carved gloomy galleries where the eye lost its way. Huge glades opened up, seemingly cleared by the hand of man, and I sometimes wondered whether some residents of these underwater regions would ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... theory that "a strong offensive is the best defense," the terrorists took immediate steps to conceal all traces of their crime and to shift the blame onto the shoulders of their victims. The capitalist press did yeoman service in this cause by deluging the nation with a veritable avalanche of lies. ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... Tread the mountains over; Rude is the path thou'st yet to go; Snow cliffs hanging o'er thee, Fields of ice before thee, While the hid torrent moans below. Hark, the deep thunder, Thro' the vales yonder! 'Tis the huge avalanche downward cast; From rock to rock Rebounds the shock. But courage, boy! the danger's past. Onward, youthful rover, Tread the glacier over, Safe shalt thou reach thy home at last. On, ere light forsake thee, Soon will dusk o'ertake thee: O'er yon ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... on. The carriage pursued its way, and was lost to view in the mist. When it was seen again, it was disinterred from the bottom of a precipice—the men, the horses, and the vehicle all crushed together under the wreck and ruin of an avalanche. ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the avalanche. Up the aisle, with pale faces, many with tears streaming from their eyes, walked the young men and the old. Mothers, with joy in their hearts and a prayer on their lips, saw their sons fall prostrate before ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... schooner were sickening as she forged along. She would almost stop, as though climbing a mountain, then rapidly rolling to right and left as she gained the summit of a huge sea, she steadied herself and paused for a moment as though affrighted at the yawning precipice before her. Like an avalanche, she shot forward and down as the sea astern struck her with the force of a thousand battering rams, burying her bow to the catheads in the milky foam at the bottom that came on deck in all directions—forward, astern, to right and left, through the hawse-pipes ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... of the ship, raised his hand to show that he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on like an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, poles, rope-ends—whatever they could find—the men on board beat down upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery side. One man after another sank wounded ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... diplomatic documents that at the last moment, when the spectre of a general war definitely arose, Austria hesitated and entered upon a hopeful negotiation with Russia. It was Germany's criminal ultimatum to Russia which set the avalanche on its terrible path. Now Germany is notoriously a land of religious criticism and Rationalism. Church-going in Berlin is far lower even than in London, where six out of seven millions do not attend places of worship. It is ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... little human animals are! An avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. A knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and I can't believe this was simply because I'm female. I shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... was on him quick as an avalanche. The Mayor, in his haste to get out of the way, toppled backward against the anvil. Phil's left arm shot out and finished the job. He caught Brenchfield straight on the point of the chin, sending him hurtling head first over the anvil and on to ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... the numerous jars and jolts which daily minister to my faculties. The loftier and grander vibrations which appeal to my emotions are varied and abundant. I listen with awe to the roll of the thunder and the muffled avalanche of sound when the sea flings itself upon the shore. And I love the instrument by which all the diapasons of the ocean are caught and released in surging floods—the many-voiced organ. If music could be seen, I ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... seemed, Copley had risen and kicked his own chair away, seized Ruth about her waist as he did so, and so dragged her out from under the avalanche. ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... up of these Theses that the history of the Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... raged on like an avalanche toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... by an agile leap that landed him on his enemy's back. They went to the ground together, and rolled clear of the avalanche of planks and snow. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... to the eastern window. A flash greeted them, creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!" Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... one may hear the night bird singing in the storm; amid the glitter of the mica I caught the glint of gold, for theirs was a parable of hill-born power that fades when it finds the plains. They told of the giant redwood's growth from a tiny seed; of the avalanche that, born a snowflake, heaves and grows on the peaks, to shrink and die on the level lands below. They told of the river at our feet: of its rise, a thread-like rill, afar on Tallac's side, and its growth—a brook, a stream, a ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... such an avalanche of news, I don't know where to begin. First, I must thank you for your dear letter and the wild flowers. They are lovely. We were immensely interested in hearing about your school, it is all so different from ours. ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... wind walked on the dry leaves with a sound like a thousand wapiti trooping down the mountain. Every little while, for want of something to do, I charged it. Then I carried a pine, which I had torn up, on my tusks, until the butt struck a boulder which went down the hill with an avalanche of small stones that set all the ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... that such clan-people were not Tribe-People, and thus could not know the meaning of Council, nor weigh consequence, nor realize in their new-found cleverness that a single arrogant act would trigger the first and final avalanche.... ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... while the cannon which threw those shells were still hidden by the tangled woods clothing the ground occupied by the enemy. Yet, if the gallant poilus manning the French trenches were not in evidence, if, indeed, life was being stamped out of a number of them by this terrific avalanche of bursting metal, they were yet for all that not entirely unsupported, for already those guns behind the advance lines of our ally were thundering, while, overhead, fleets of aeroplanes were picking up the positions ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... sense, was much easier than had appeared, for the reason that once started we moved on sliding beds of weathered stone. Each of us now had an avalanche for a steed. Frank forged ahead with a roar, and then seeing danger below, tried to get out of the mass. But the stones were like quicksand; every step he took sunk him in deeper. He grasped the smooth cliff, to find holding impossible. The ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... story too soon did I hear— An avalanche, loosed from the near mountain's side, Our cottage o'erwhelmed in its thundering career, And beneath it my wife and my children ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... rushing sound, which seemed as if all the snow on the slope was moving. Their ears had by this time become sufficiently well acquainted with the peculiar sound of the rushing snow-masses to know that this was the noise that heralded their progress, and to feel sure that this was an avalanche of no common size. Yes, this was an avalanche, and every one heard it; but no one could tell where it was moving, or whether it was near or far, or whether it was before or behind. They only knew that it was somewhere along the slope ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... of cavalry and guns going through the darkness—towards the enemy. No sound of firing rattled my window panes. It still seemed very quiet—over there to the East. Yet before the dawn came a German avalanche of men and guns might be sweeping across the frontier, and if I stayed a day or two in the open town of Nancy I might see the spiked helmets of the enemy glinting down the streets. The town was not to be defended, I was told, if the French troops had ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... forgotten that any shadow rested on the hilarity of the day. He had been dubbed a good fellow, a true sport, a benefactor to the school—every complimentary pseudonym imaginable—and had glowed with pleasure beneath the avalanche of flattery. As the big car with its rollicking occupants had spun along the highway, many a passer-by had caught the merry mood of the cheering group and waved a smiling salutation in response ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... heavily into an ample rocker, and Helen propped herself upon the table, while Kate, upon whom had descended an avalanche ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Afric brain, whose story fills the centuries with its glory, Moulding Gaul and Carthaginian into one all-conquering band, With his tusked monsters grumbling, 'mid the alien snow-drifts stumbling, Then, an avalanche of ruin, thundering from that frozen land Into vales their sons declare are Sunny as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... a coward, it was not for myself this time. The avalanche of ill-words I knew must fall—but it should not fall on him, if I could ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... off his legs by an avalanche of return boys who had cluttered the deck with the first squall. The squirming mass, of which he was part, slid down into the barbed wire of the port rail beneath the surface ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... half-breed woman who has second-sight. Monsieur, it is a gift unmistakably. For as soon as the hag clapped eyes on me in the hut, she said: 'There is the man that wrote you the letters.' Well— what! Paulette Dubois came down on me like an avalanche—Monsieur, like an avalanche! She believed the old witch; and there was I lying with an unconvincing manner"—he sighed—"lying requires practice, alas! She saw I was lying, and in a rage snatched up my gun. It went off by accident, and brought me down. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Malook. Sure, if left to himself, the ghost that loved it would haunt the place! But he could not surely be permitted! for it might postpone a thousand years his discovery of the emptiness of a universe of such treasures. Now he was moldering into the world of spirits in the heart of an avalanche of the dust of ages, dust material from his hoards, dust moral and spiritual from his ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... summons and hastened fast, And floated hither before the blast, To wave thy white banner o'er tower and town, O'er the level plain and the mountain brown. I have crowned the woods with a spotless wreath, And loaded the avalanche with death; I have wrapped the earth in a winding sheet, And Nature ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... entire alluvial basin of the river from the gulf to Cairo. People were in despair as to what to do to prevent the breaking of the levees (the results of which are as "terrible to the dwellers on those flats as the avalanche to people who live on the sides of steep mountains"), and the distress and prostration created by the awful spring floods. Most people thought there were two possible remedies,—to build more and higher levees, and to drain off some of the volume of the river through the Louisiana bayous. But ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... taught that "an avalanche of children" should be brought into the world regardless of consequences. God is not mocked; as men sow, so shall they reap, and against a law of nature both the transient amelioration wrought by philanthropists and the subtle expediences of scientific politicians ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... God! The Son of God! Set Him free! It is the Son of God who hangs on the cross!" The cry rolled through the crowd like the dull noise of an avalanche; like a shriek of terror, like the inward consciousness of a fearful mistake, the most fearful that had been made since the world began. He who hangs yonder on the cross is the Son of God. Far below in a cleft of the rock is a poor sinner. ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the sodden earth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage. Only on a single mountain top had a blur of mist settled like an arrested avalanche, and was resting there with its edges steaming. The sea too had grown calmer under the rain, and was splashing with more gentle mournfulness, even as the blue patches in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmer look, and stray sunbeams were touching upon land ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the king-serpent. His rage is like the earthquake that may tear open the rock but at the same time sets the gold free. His final release from the evil spirit is described by the sudden fall of the avalanche from the mountain summit. The look in his eyes as he comes back to life, yet seeing nothing in life to desire, is compared to pale autumn sunsets seen over the ocean, or to slow sunsets seen over a desolate hill country. All the figures ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... compromises of any kind whatsoever; but in the absolute conquest of the whole North—not conquest even in any sense now understood among civilized people; but conquest with more than all the horrors which fourteen centuries ago were visited on Southern Europe by the overwhelming avalanche of Northern barbarian invasion?—that in that event, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of locomotion without question, freedom in any sense which makes life valuable to the man once educated ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of the Sattel Mountain opposite, waiting its opportunity. The time for action had come. The Austrian cavalry of the vanguard was in a state of frightful confusion and dismay. And now the mountaineers descended the steep hill slopes like an avalanche, and precipitated themselves on the flank of the invading force, dealing death with their halberds and iron-pointed clubs ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... rising, and drawing the boy's hand into his own, "we will go and find Gluck, who knows, no doubt, all that has passed today, and is waiting for us at the monastery." "We must ford the torrent," said Augustin; "the bridge was carried off by last year's avalanche, but with six of us and the dogs it will be easy work." Twilight was falling; and already the stars of Christmas Eve climbed the frosty heavens and appeared above the snowy far-off peaks. Filled with gratitude and wonder at all the strange events of the day we betook ourselves ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... That expression of hers never failed to make me wish that I had never been born—born into this miserable world where I had to toil as a child, and could not go to dances or even read without receiving a torrent of abuse and an avalanche of blows. What harm had I done by my reading? True, I had not heard my mother calling, but how often had I spoken to her without being heard, when she was engrossed in some ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... which her dogged and continuing resistance was wrought. That isn't the mettle which for two weeks stopped up the German tide before the Liege forts, giving the allies two weeks to mobilize, and all they had asked the Belgians for was two or three days of grace. But before the German avalanche hurled itself on Liege it was this peasant population which bore the ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... reason what he was doing he began to run. He did not know or care where—anywhere away from those colossal figures who with a single step would crush the very hills and rocks about him and bury him beneath an avalanche of golden quartz. ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... his turn to offer suggestions. A stage-driver is always a person of importance, especially in California. For the past six days Mat had found his public importance rather embarrassing. Every trip past the robbers' hiding-place had brought an avalanche of questions from curious passengers. Probably Mat Bailey had been forced to think of the tragedy more constantly than had any other person. His opinion ought ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... ashes, he quickly scrambled from the debris, and listened with loudly beating heart. He realized that he had found an opening to the surface, and was wildly exultant over the discovery, but could hardly believe that the noise of the sliding material, which had sounded to him like an avalanche, should not have aroused the savages. So, for some minutes, he listened, and then, reassured by the continued silence, ventured to climb up to the open air. He had but a few feet to go, and once at ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... to consider the futility of the action—nay, the direct confession implied thereby—he instinctively grabbed at the pipe, and rammed it back into his pocket; and then an avalanche of mingled understanding and bewilderment, fear and joy, swept Mivanway's brain before it. She felt she must do one of two things, laugh or scream and go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal after peal of laughter she sent echoing among the rocks, and Charles springing to his feet ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... Did I? He was my partner, my bunkee for many years and on many prospecting trips, a better bunkee no man ever had, but he is dead now, dead! dead! dead! been dead for a dozen years. He was killed by an avalanche. A better partner no man ever had," he murmured ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... Another avalanche of resolutions praising Gibson followed the publication of this statement. The mayor was hotly condemned for his failure to remove Chief Sweeney at Gibson's request and the commissioner was hailed as a man whose very name was enough to intimidate criminals and whose presence in the city was ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... question put to Nature, a question asked in things rather than in words, and so conditioned that no uncertain answer can be given. Nature says that all matter gravitates, not in words, but in the swing of planets around the sun, and in the leap of the avalanche. And men have devised ingenious machines through which Nature may tell us the invariable laws of gravitation, and give some hint as to why it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... of recognition crossing their faces. Suddenly the old Indian sprang up. He thrust his arms out, and made, as if unconsciously, some fantastic yet solemn motions. The player smiled in a far-off fashion, and presently ran the bow upon the strings in an exquisite cry; and then a beautiful avalanche of sound slid from a distance, growing nearer and nearer, till it swept through the room, and imbedded all in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a boating crew, and another of a group in front of some ruins, which was taken when the Carisbury Field Club made an expedition to Wydcombe Abbey. Besides these, there were conventional copies in oils of a shipwreck, and an avalanche, and a painting of still-life representing a bowl full ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... with his eye the sonorous youth whom the claret punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... her tens of thousands of sword and spearmen down upon our weakened squares and squadrons; Sorais herself directing the movement, as fearless as a lioness heading the main attack. On they came like an avalanche — I saw her golden helm gleaming in the van — our counter charges of cavalry entirely failing to check their forward sweep. Now they had struck us, and our centre bent in like a bow beneath the weight of their rush — it parted, and had not the ten thousand men in reserve charged down to its support ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... alas! all but trampling her down, yet unseeing and unseen though with her in every leap of his heart, he who despite her own prayers was more to her than a country's cause or a city's deliverance flashed by, while in the dust and thunder of the human avalanche that followed she stood asking whose battery was this and with drowned voice crying, as she stared spell-bound, "Oh, God! is it only Bartleson's? Oh, God of mercy! where is Hilary Kincaid?" A storm of shell burst directly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... point in it, where there ought to be a quite imperceptible transition to something fresh, then a subdued gliding finale, a prolonged murmur, ending at last in a climax as bold and as startling as a shot, or the sound of a mountain avalanche—full stop. But the words would not come to me. I read over the whole piece from the commencement; read every sentence aloud, and yet failed absolutely to crystallize my thoughts, in order to produce this ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... another said he had plagiarized from that popular writer. The criticisms cut him like a whip. He wondered why he had rebelled at the previous silence. He felt like a man who had heedlessly hurled a stone at a snow mountain and had been buried by the resulting avalanche. ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... lying among the smashed up gear to leeward. She had been lying down, reading in a sort of bunk which had been rigged up for her on the locker-top. The shock had flung her clean out of the bunk on to the deck. At the same moment an avalanche of gear had fetched to leeward. A cask had rolled on to her left hand, pinning her down to the deck, while a box of bottles had cut the back of her head. A more complete picture of misery you could not hope to see. There was all the ill-smelling jumble of ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... seen, they were saved, and a wild cheer arose from the breathless multitude. Just at that instant, with his foot on the threshold, an avalanche of fire seemed to fall on his head ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... again,—in stout affairs of outposts in sheltered banks and secret nooks; in swift, amazing sallies of violet and daffodil and primrose; in multitudinous clamour of all her buds in May; and last in her resistless tide and flood and avalanche of beauty to triumph ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Ayrton; Mr Harold Jones; Mr Max Dalison, formerly of the Egypt Exploration Fund; and myself. Wriggling and crawling, we pushed and pulled ourselves down the sloping rubbish, until, with a rattling avalanche of small stones, we arrived at the bottom of the passage, where we scrambled to our feet at the brink of a large rectangular well, or shaft. Holding the lamps aloft, the surrounding walls were seen to be ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... glaciers; and reached at last the high and melancholy valleys of the Upper Alps; where even the pines become scanty, and no sound is heard but the wheels of one's carriage, except when there happens to be a storm or an avalanche, neither of which entertained us. There is, here and there, a small stream of water pouring from the snow; but this is rather a monotonous accompaniment to the general desolation than an interruption of it. The road itself is certainly very good, and ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... know our table; he didn't know those balls; he didn't know those warped and headless cues; he didn't know the southeastern slant of the table, and how to allow for it. I judged it would be safe and profitable to offer him a bet on my scheme. I emptied the avalanche of thirteen balls ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... now be subservient to his will? He wondered. Everything depended upon that. If not, then he might as well try to stay the forces of a mighty avalanche with his breath, as halt the cube-army ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... me kept up a fearful shouting, "Khanjunov! We want Khanjunov! Down with him! Shut up! Down with the traitor!" The whole place seethed and roared. Then it began to move, like an avalanche bearing down upon us, great black-browed men ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... mariner's beacon. Night and day, when the sun was hot, came the boom-boom as of artillery from the mountains. The voyageurs thought this the explosion of stones, but soon learned to recognize the sound of avalanche and land-slide. The river became narrower, deeper, swifter, as the explorers approached the mountains. For five miles rocks rose on each side twelve hundred feet high, sheer as a wall. Into this shadowy canon, ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... though Abud seemed startled. Many times had Keston and I speculated on the danger of an avalanche at this point, and wondered why the Station had been built in such an exposed place. Once indeed we had ventured to suggest to the aristo Council the advisability of removing the Central Control to some other point, but the cold silence that greeted our diffident advice deterred ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Montreal. Down came around the boats a complete avalanche of burning timbers, huge guns, masts, spars, and blocks, rattling, and crashing, and hissing into the water. The seamen, already almost exhausted with their exertions, could scarcely attempt even to escape the fiery shower. Many of the poor fellows sank down at ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... the Crichton type with one of his simple garden-roller remarks—plain, solid, and heavy, which there was no possibility either of meeting or avoiding. He was very successful in argument, and yet he never fenced. He simply came down. It was, so to speak, a case of small sword versus the avalanche. His moral inertia was tremendous. He was never excited, never anxious, never jaded; he was simply massive. Cleverness broke upon him like shipping on an ironbound coast. His monument is like him—a plain large obelisk of coarse granite, unpretending in ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... But in all this—the recollection of bitterness, and more especially of recent and more home desolation, which must accompany me through life, have preyed upon me here; and neither the music of the shepherd, the crashing of the avalanche, nor the torrent, the mountain, the glacier, the forest, nor the cloud, have for one moment lightened the weight upon my heart, nor enabled me to lose my own wretched identity in the majesty, and the power, and the glory, around, above, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... there very recently and left in a great hurry. A cloth partially laid and left hanging. Drawers of the buffet left open. A broom lying directly in the middle of the floor where it had been dropped. An upset work-basket, disgorging spools, needle packets, and an avalanche of stockings awaiting darning. A lamp with the chimney standing beside it on the table. These were some of the signs denoting sudden and important interruption of a ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... altered demeanour, embarrassed by an avalanche of words. A hundred questions were burning upon his lips. It was by a great effort of self-control ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Steele rebounded from his weakness and could no more have been stopped than an avalanche. For all I saw, he did not use his guns again. Here, there, everywhere, as Morton and his squad cornered a rustler, Steele would go in, ordering surrender, promising protection. He seemed to have no thoughts of bullets. I could not hold him back, ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... as Sydney relaxed her hold on the boy the willow stump gave way and toppled over with an avalanche of clay and stones. Happily Sydney had already unfastened her grasp, and so fell, or threw herself backwards on the bank, scratched, battered, bruised, and feeling half buried for an instant, but struggling up immediately, and shrieking with horror as she missed John and the boy, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... German legions seemed inexhaustible. John had seen them turned back in those long days of fighting on the Marne, and more than a million had been killed or wounded since the war began, but that avalanche of men and guns still poured out of the heart of Germany. He felt more deeply than ever that the world could not afford a German victory, and the sanguinary spectacle of a Kaiser riding roughshod over civilization. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Conference of Saint-vincent de Paul. In the midst of the seance, he appeared almost inspired, and recited "La Charite dans Bordeaux"—the grand piece of the evening. The assembly rose en masse, and cheered the poet with frantic applause. The ladies threw an avalanche of bouquets at the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... quick decisions or disquieting activity. The storms that sweep over it contribute to his admiration without wetting his feet, and his high estimate of its beauty and greatness may be enjoyed without apprehension of an avalanche. So the historian is like a picturesque spectator cultivating his sense of the sublime upon a distant prospect of the Himalayas. It is easy for him to admire, and the appreciation of a far-off heroic movement gives him quite a pleasant time. At his leisure ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... only sleep—sleep to be welcomed as the surest herald of life and strength! How she longed to touch the blue-veined wrist upon the coverlid, but once, just for a certainty of a beating pulse, however faint! She dared not, even when a heavy avalanche of melted snow from the eaves without, that made her start, left the sleeper undisturbed; even when a sudden faggot in the fireplace, responsive to the snowfall, broke and fell into the smouldering red below, and crackled into flame without awakening her. For Gwen knew the shrewd ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... after a brief ten months' detention, the adherence to him of the French army, and the consequent dethronement of Louis XVIII. The Congress at once dispersed, forgetting all its differences, while the great monarchs united once more in pouring such an avalanche of troops into France and Belgium that Napoleon stood no chance of retaining his throne, whatever military genius he might display. After his defeat at Waterloo the allies occupied Paris, and this time exacted a large ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... preventing the formation and fall of destructive avalanches, and in many parts of the Alps exposed to this catastrophe, the woods are protected, though too often ineffectually, by law. No forest, indeed, could arrest a large avalanche once in full motion, but the mechanical resistance afforded by the trees prevents their formation, both by obstructing the wind, which gives to the dry snow of the Staub-Lawine, or dust-avalanche, its first impulse, and by checking the disposition of moist snow to ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... knowed it!" Dropping Lone Wolf's chain, he ran forward, waving his arms and shouting angrily. But that red onrushing bulk was quite too dull-witted to understand that it ought to obey. It was in the mood to charge an avalanche. Deeply humiliated, Timmins hopped aside, and reluctantly ran for the woods, trusting to elude ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... rang through the tent they were followed by the awful roar of the descending avalanche, and all awoke on the instant. But no one could do anything to save himself. They could only cower and pray to Heaven to ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... advise you. It isn't always considered patriotic when the people want war, for a Senator to want peace too hard. I shall strive to point that out to twenty million people or so tomorrow morning. Make your will, Senator. The avalanche is coming. You'll be the loneliest voice that ever came out of the wilderness. I prophesy ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... branch! Beware the awful avalanche!" This was the peasant's last good night;— A voice replied, far ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... humbled, depressed. Where I had been accustomed to look up with respect, I could not bear to look down in pity, it was so strange, so unexpected. I was stunned, bewildered. The mountain had lost its crown,—it had fallen in an avalanche at my feet. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... disaster would be to bring an avalanche upon himself which, if it wounded, isolated, even marooned him, would certainly bury Athalie ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... necessary to remove. A lively altercation between us (in which Percival, previously instructed by me, refused to interfere) served the purpose in view. I descended on the miserable man in an irresistible avalanche of indignation, and ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... at his side, was standing at the edge of the stockade. Not a sound came from the plateau, and not a glimmer of light appeared in the darkness. Then the great, wide, black night suddenly opened its jaws and launched forth an avalanche of blinding, white light. The two men bounded in their places; then came a roll of mighty thunder, as if it were moving on tremendous wheels and ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... that few of these images are present in our minds except in combination—the sight and sound of the crashing avalanche are one; so are the flash and report of the huntman's gun that came so ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... arose a tremendous commotion between the pillars of the Brandenburg Gate, and the host of marshals and generals, resembling a star-spangled avalanche, entered the city. Nothing was to be seen but golden epaulettes, orders glittering with diamonds, embroidered uniforms, and long white ostrich-plumes. Not on them, however, were the eyes of the crowd ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... when the Asiatic cholera fell upon Baltimore like an Alpine avalanche upon a quiet Italian village, the colored creoles suffered more, relatively, than any other portion of the population, probably because they lived in the more confined streets in the centre of the city. The venerable physician who furnished most ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... General sends for swords, pistols, muskets. But now the clash of arms, the trampling of feet and the shiver of broken glass fill the building. The troops of the Convention sweep by like an avalanche across the Hall of Deliberation, and pour into the Council Chamber. A shot rings out; Gamelin sees Robespierre fall; his jaw is broken. He himself grasps his knife, the six-sous knife that, one day of bitter scarcity, had cut bread for a starving mother, the same knife ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... thro the mountains Where the pines in proud procession Climb like a hardy host To halo-heights of sun. I'm listening for the sallies Of the avalanche's Hessian Hurl of ice and granite Into ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... better it is true, and the same can be said of all of us—but they certainly did a great deal. Major Elliott was never himself except when encompassed by difficulties—when there was really some excuse for failure, when supplies were really hard to obtain, then he became great. The avalanche of curses which invariably descend upon a Commissary, at all times, never disturbed his equanimity, except when he was in a barren country—then he would ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he went souse ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... players, Teeny-bits and two brothers by the name of Williams who were from a camp a quarter of a mile down the valley. They planned to go up over the shoulder of Whiteface in the brilliant moonlight and shoot down a long, bare slope which was known as The Slide, where years before an avalanche had torn its way downward leaving bare earth in its wake. This V-shaped scar on the face of the mountain was now covered with a smooth expanse of snow—an ideal avenue for a swift and thrilling descent ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... support of the South. This he undoubtedly sought to do when he introduced on January 4, 1854, a bill organizing the Nebraska territory on the principle of the Compromise of 1850; namely, that the people in the territory might themselves decide whether they would have slavery or not. Unwittingly the avalanche was started. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... light on a large scale as soon as we reached the open hills and mountains of the Sierra del Cristal, and had to pass over those fearful avalanche-like timber falls on their steep sides. The worst of these lay between Efoua and Egaja, where we struck a part of the range that was exposed to the south-east. These falls had evidently arisen from the tornados, which from time to time have hurled ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... down for several minutes and then ceased abruptly. Evidently the warrior had realized the futility of his avalanche and must now be seeking some other mode of attack. It caused Will chagrin that he had not seen him once during all the long attack, but he noticed with relief that the sun would soon set beyond the great White Dome. The snow on the Dome itself was tinged now with fire, but ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the nailing up of these Theses that the history of the Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme for ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... of the door in a jiffy. Two men fled before us at the stable, scrambled over the fence, and went tumbling downhill. We bridled our horses with all speed, leaped upon them, and went rushing down the steep road, our swords in hand, like an avalanche. They tried to stop us at the foot of the hill, but fell away as we came near. I could hear the snap of their triggers in passing. Only one pistol-shot came after ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... could hear; but until to-night it had always been like the fall of the snow flake. You could never be quite sure you heard, though there was no mistaking a mass of several million years of snow flakes when they thundered down in avalanche or broke a ledge with the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... he trode, the earth bent like thin ice beneath his heel. Birds, beasts, serpents, and poachers fled affrighted to the right and left of his course. He came down upon the unsuspecting assassins like a mild Spanish avalanche. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... come as near my exit a time or two before, though always in fair fight; and thereupon was whelmed in an avalanche of questions such as only simple-hearted ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... moments a thunderous roar was heard that echoed through the abyss and paralyzed the hands of those who were attacking the gates. The men who had run to the walls, on hearing the shouts below, had let loose, into the depths, a deadly avalanche of earth, rocks, and timber. When the dust of it had drifted out, scores, hundreds, of dead and dying were seen half-buried in the fallen mass. Armed with spears, knives, and axes, a little company sprang over the parapet, and, running down the narrow trail to the bottom, despatched the survivors,—all ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Memphis Avalanche swoops thus mildly down upon a correspondent who posted him as a Radical:—"While he was writing the first word, the middle, dotting his i's, crossing his t's, and punching his period, he knew he was concocting a sentence that was saturated with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... be able to upset some of my arrangements," said Peter, "but in upsetting them, his own would be under the avalanche." ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... the foreign gentlemen become alarmed. Their credits in London, Paris, and Amsterdam are running out; they are anxious to make remittances; and then ensues one of those dry-goods panics so characteristic of New York and its mixed multitude; an avalanche of goods descends upon the auction-rooms, and prices drop ten, twenty, forty per cent., it may be, and the unlucky or short-sighted men who made early purchases are in desperate haste to run off their stocks ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... creatures we little human animals are! An avalanche of love hadn't destroyed my hunger. A knife-thrust in my vanity killed it in an instant; and I can't believe this was simply because I'm female. I shouldn't be surprised if a man might feel exactly the same—or ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... and admiration, they said "Oh, how sublime! Oh! how grand!" as they see the enormous body of water sweepin' down that immense distance. The hull waters of the hull chain of Lakes, or inland Seas, sweepin' down in one great avalanche of water. ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... assailants stopped to cheer them, and to disable themselves by laughing at the fury of the foe. A detachment of the young men at last stormed the castle and so weakened its walls that they toppled inward; then the defenders, to save themselves from being buried under the avalanche, swarmed out into the open and made the entire force ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of his lucid intervals; but there was that in his uncertain eye, and strange unnatural voice, which showed that a breath might dissolve the avalanche. Lord Vargrave looked anxiously round; none were near: but he knew that the more public parts of the garden were thronged, and through the trees he saw many forms moving in the distance. He felt that the sound of his voice could ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book XI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... yon filmy smoke, that from thy crest Continual issues like a morning mist The sun disperses, there would be no sign That from thy mighty breast bursts forth at times The sulphurous storm—the avalanche of fire; That midnight is made luminous, and day A ghastly twilight, by thy lurid breath. By thee tormented, Earth is tossed and riven: The shuddering mountains reel; temples and towers The works of man, and man himself, his hopes His harvests, all a desolation made! Sublime ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... such a dangerous place. Perhaps they were gathering fuel to keep them warm; and very likely when they left home the weather was mild, and that they did not anticipate a storm. However that may be, they were overtaken by an avalanche, the mother was buried beneath it, and the child saw her no more. But I must tell the remainder of the story in the language of ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... "impossible" in the slang use of five or six years ago, in the sense, that is, of its being utterly useless and mischievous, the sense in which Norman Angell employed it and so brought upon himself an avalanche of quite unfair derision. No nation ever embarked upon so fair a prospect of conquest and dominion as the victorious Germans when, after 1871, they decided to continue to give themselves to the development of overwhelming military ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the hills. For one thing she was quite assured that she could not overtake that hard rider; and, again, she felt that it was useless to interfere. To step between Lord Nick and one of his purposes would have been like stepping before an avalanche and commanding it to halt ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... riding smartly but with military order and precision. The man at their head, the officer in command, no doubt, spurred on and began to shout at the oncoming northerners. He might as well have spoken fair words to an avalanche, and the men behind him began to waver and most of them pulled up. It was useless. The torrent swept into them and bore them backward, tumbling some of them over, men and horses together, but incorporating most of them in ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Journal urged its readers to write to their congressmen and they did by the thousands. Every congressman and senator was overwhelmed. As one senator said: "I have never seen such an avalanche. But thanks to The Ladies' Home Journal, I have received these hundreds of letters from my constituents; they have told me what they want done, and they are mostly from those of my people whose wishes I ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... Sails to Pat Doolan, on seeing that worthy shivering while trying to re-light the fire—which an avalanche of snow, descending from a precipitous rise above the site of our tent, had suddenly buried, along with the cook's pots and pans, just as he was preparing our morning meal, on the fourth day of the storm—"how about that Manilla guernsey o' yourn now, old flick? ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as were one or two about him. Portman looked grave, and so did Breen. Nothing of that kind had ever soiled their hands; everything with them was open and above-board. They might start a rumor that the Lode had petered out, throw an avalanche of stock on the market, knock it down ten points, freezing out the helpless (poor Gilbert had been one of them), buy in what was offered and then declare an extra dividend, sending the stock skyward, but ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for a fair fight. One of the animals happened to get "up hill" and at the next charge the lower goat was lifted completely off its feet and came tumbling down the steep descent with the speed of an avalanche. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... difficult at any time to account for the workings of Fate or to follow the course of its agents. The track of an earth-worm destroys a dam; the parting of a wire wrecks a bridge; the breaking of a root starts an avalanche; the flaw in an axle dooms a train; the sting of a microbe depopulates a city. But none of these unseen, mysterious agencies was at work—nothing ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... flow down together?— No, 'tis a sound more terrible Than tho' a thousand rivers fell. The everlasting ice and snow Were loosened then, but not to flow;— With a loud crash like solid thunder The avalanche came, burying under The village; turning life and breath And rest and joy ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... Alpine meadows Pours its avalanche of Light And blazing flowers: the very shadows Translucent are and bright. It seems a glory that nought surpasses— Passion of angels in form and hue— When, lo! from the jewelled heaven of the grasses Leaps a lightning of sudden blue. Dimming the sun-drunk petals, Bright even ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley
... for another stone, but Bartley had no intention of playing ping-pong with a roaring red avalanche. Bartley made for the side of the gulch and, catching hold of the bole of a juniper, drew himself up. Cheyenne stood to his guns, shied a third stone, scored a bull's-eye, and then decided to evacuate in favor of ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... glance filled the poor cripple with joy unspeakable. "She is not in love!" he whispered to himself, rubbing his hands till the skin was nearly peeled off. At this moment Exupere tore through the garden and the house, plunged into the salon like an avalanche, and said to Dumay in an audible whisper, "The young man is here!" Dumay sprang for his pistols and ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... cousin talking with Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door, which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... in 1843 Beckwith offered to restore the temple at Rodoret, which was in a most deplorable state. The temple was not alone in its need; the parsonage-house, a very crazy building, was destroyed by an avalanche on the 16th of January, 1845, burying beneath its ruins the pastor, his wife, their little child, aged five months, and servant, the only living creature escaping being the pastor's dog! The new temple being ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... nine o'clock. There was a commotion at the front door and Maxwell came in. He was followed by an avalanche of Smiths. There was our Smith, and a tall, lean Smith, and a Smith who waddled when he walked. They were all dirty and dusty; they all wore our pink-and-blue pledge ribbons on their coat lapels and when they got in the house they gave the Eta ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... in the snow, munching, that he heard the sound for the first time. It was faint and far away, and it sounded like thunder, or like an avalanche beginning, and that puzzled him, for this was not the time of year for either. As he listened, he heard it again, and this time he recognized it—negatron pistols. It frightened him; he wondered if the thieves had met a band of hunters. No; ...
— The Keeper • Henry Beam Piper
... entered the white room that afternoon, the small sister was ready with an avalanche of queries. "Why ain't the hospital big enough as 'tis? What do they need an edition for? Why won't Robinson Danbury give them any money, and why do they think he ought to? What's the matter with the churches and how do ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... bereft him of the power of speech when, on succeeding in this effort, he found that his feet came in contact with a perfect hillock of empty bottles, oyster-shells, and broken crockery, heaped under the table. "Good gracious me! I hope I'm doing no mischief!" exclaimed Valentine, as a miniature avalanche of oyster-shells clattered down on his intruding foot, and a plump bottle with a broken neck rolled lazily out from under the table-cloth, and courted ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... with smiling complacency his accomplished task, the spite of the arch-fiend Gravitation was raised against him, and, finding the impish slates (hadn't Luther something to say about "as many devils as tiles"?) ready to cooeperate, an avalanche was the result, making the last state of that sidewalk worse than the first, and sending the divine into the house with a battered hat, and an article of faith supplementary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... and lakelets are in like manner obliterated from the winter landscapes, either by being first frozen and then covered by snow, or by being filled in by avalanches. The first avalanche of the season shot into a lake basin may perhaps find the surface frozen. Then there is a grand crashing of breaking ice and dashing of waves mingled with the low, deep booming of the avalanche. Detached masses of the invading snow, mixed ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... like an avalanche; One night turned all my summer back to snow: Next morning not a bird upon my branch, Not a lamb ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... plans for a bear raid. Watch him. Send word of his first move. The time is ripe for an avalanche." ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... the other. There are some books, such as "Ben Hur" and "David Harum," for instance, that make a market for themselves, and the demand for such successes, though starting perhaps in a rather circumscribed locality, moves onward and outward, gathering force all the time like an avalanche. These are rare exceptions, however, and for most books a market must be created. No matter how good the book, it is not enough to view the finished product with satisfaction and expect that the public will buy it in the proportion that it deserves. It ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... critical moment, Gonsalvo, whose eagle eye took in the whole operations of the field, ordered a general charge along the line; and the Spaniards, leaping their intrenchments, descended with the fury of an avalanche on their foes, whose wavering columns, completely broken by the violence of the shock, were seized with a panic, and fled, scarcely offering any resistance. Louis d'Ars, at the head of such of the men-at-arms as could follow him, went off in one direction, and Ives ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... write of these things now that many days have passed between, for events followed each other with the swiftness of a mighty avalanche. ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... The state of the ice and crevasses is always shifting, so that the next person who makes the ascent may find a comparatively easy path. We had other dangers too, such as this: twice the guides said to me, "Ne parlez pas ici, Monsieur, et allez vite," the fear being of an ice avalanche falling on us, and we heard the rocks and ice which are detached by the wet falling all about. The view from the top, if the day is fine, is about the most magnificent in the Alps; and as in that case I should have descended easily on the other side, the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... creating a momentary world, which started from the womb of night, and vanished again before one could say "It is there!" Then followed a long-drawn, intermittent rumble, as if the fragments of the spectre world were tumbling avalanche-wise into chaos. ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... on the left, and I seized the wheel and wrenched it round, at the same time opening the throttle as wide as I dared. I fancy we took the corner on two wheels. As we did so, a pale blue racer streaked by our tail-lamp with the roar of an avalanche. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... thrown over so as to form a rude bridge? No one would probably have ever thought of making a bridge out of his own unaided imagination, more than any monkey that we know of has done so. But an avalanche or a flood once swept a pine into position and left it there; on this a genius, who was doubtless thought to be doing something very infamous, ventured to make use of it. Another time a pine was found nearly across the stream, but ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... at the maddened millions of insane murderers and his heart is torn as He sees the avalanche of tears shed ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... brought us out of bed in one movement. I must have been dozing. Someone cried, "My children!" Another rending uproar interrupted my effort to shepherd the flock to a lower floor. There was a raucous avalanche of glass. We muddled down somehow—I forget how. I could not find the matches. Then in the dark we lost the youngest for some eternal seconds while yet another explosion shook the house. We got to the cellar stairs, and at last there they all were, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... mad as the rest, while the galleries screamed and shouted. All round the old man the fury was greatest; his head sank over his desk and rested on his hands as it had the night before; for he dared not lift it to see the avalanche he had loosed upon himself. He would have liked to stop his ears to shut out the egregious clamour of cursing and yelling that beset him, as his bent head kept the glazed eyes from seeing the impossible ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... sight of the shabby figure at the gate, but before she could finish her sentence, Peace, following the direction of her eyes, wheeled about on her perch, surveyed the man with big, almost somber, brown eyes, and poured forth an avalanche of questions: "Are you a tramp? Do you want some work, or are you just begging? Can you chop wood? Do you know how ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... strange dullness of comprehension with regard to our position and purpose. What! Is it to forsake the slave when I cease to be the aider and abettor of his master? What! When the North is pressing down upon four millions of slaves like an avalanche, and we say to her, 'Take off that pressure—stand aside—give the slave a chance to regain his feet and assert his freedom!' is that turning our backs upon him? Here, for example, is a man engaged in highway robbery, and another man is acting as ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... bombardment started at 5 p. m., the beginning of which was immediately followed by the explosion of two mines which were under a hillock that was a part of the British front at the southeast of St. Eloi. The artillery attack was followed by such an avalanche of German infantry that the British were driven from their trenches. This German success was followed up by the enfilading of the British lines to the right and left, with the result that that entire section of the British ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... contact with God. Brand is a king of souls, but his royal dignity is marred, and is brought sometimes within an inch of the ridiculous, by the prosaic nature of his modern surroundings. He is harsh and cruel; he is liable to fits of anger before which the whole world trembles; and it is by an avalanche, brought down upon him by his own wrath, that he is finally buried in the ruins ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... heard a roar, which drew impetuously nearer; the face of the lagoon was seen to whiten; and before they had staggered to their feet, a squall burst in rain upon the outcasts. The rage and volume of that avalanche one must have lived in the tropics to conceive; a man panted in its assault, as he might pant under a shower-bath; and the world seemed whelmed in ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was now under full blast, and every one of the hundred and twenty-five girls worked with frenzied energy as the avalanche of clothes kept falling in upon us and were sent with lightning speed through the different processes, from the tubs to the packers' counters. Nor was there any abatement of the snowy landslide—not a moment to stop and rest the aching arms. Just as fast as the sweating negroes could unload ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... eyes on the bulletin boards. She knew by heart that first list after Las Guasimas. One glance had burned it in forever. It had become one of the indelible scars of a lifetime. Yet those were the names of strangers. If a whiff from an avalanche can fell trees a mile away, how if the ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... therefore beginning to feel somewhat relieved from the tension of their anxiety, when a huge mass of rock was seen to slip from the face of the cliff and descend with the thunderous roar of an avalanche. The incident gave those in the boat a shock, for the landslip occurred not far from the spot which Van der Kemp had reached, but as he still stood there in apparent safety there seemed no cause for alarm till it was observed that the climber remained quite still for a long time and seemed to ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... woods clothing the ground occupied by the enemy. Yet, if the gallant poilus manning the French trenches were not in evidence, if, indeed, life was being stamped out of a number of them by this terrific avalanche of bursting metal, they were yet for all that not entirely unsupported, for already those guns behind the advance lines of our ally were thundering, while, overhead, fleets of aeroplanes were picking up the positions of German ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... more than one man and many a dog lost his life in the quiet performance of his duty, gliding to death over the slippery snow-shelves, or overwhelmed beneath an avalanche of the warm, suffocating white: "smoored," as they call it. Many a deed was done, many a death died, recorded only in that Book which holds the names of those—men or animals, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... atmosphere floated wild sentences from the sick tent, which showed that the patient was back again in Nevada, quarreling over the price of a horse which was to carry him beyond the reach of some threatening avalanche. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... square, legitimate seat in the saddle was usually impossible, so steep was the incline; and hence, when going down, I braced my feet and lay back on the haunches of the beast, and, in coming up, had to lean forward and clutch the pommel, to keep from sliding off, as a human avalanche, on the head of the next in line. In many places, however, riding was impossible, and we were compelled to scramble over the rocks on foot. The effect of hours of this exercise on muscles unaccustomed to such surprises may be imagined; yet, owing to the wonderfully restorative air ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... the first signs of danger, and signalled for their withdrawal. But the lust of blood was awake in them, and they were drunk with the joy of fighting. They followed and followed till the Turks, out of that awful avalanche of death, became conscious that a thousand Thetian horsemen were not an invincible force. Their fight was checked, they were almost immediately surrounded, their leader fell shot through the heart, and a miracle was required to save the flower ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... that a certain listener treasured up all this ingratitude in his heart; and the following Sunday at both Masses, the walls of Kilronan chapel echoed to a torrent of vituperation, an avalanche of anger, sarcasm, and reproach, that made the faces of the congregation redden with shame and whiten with fear, and made the ladies of the fringes and the cuffs wish to call unto the hills to cover them and the mountains ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... for France. "He has gone," writes Callieres, "after quarrelling with everybody." The various points in dispute were set before the king. An avalanche of memorials, letters, and proces-verbaux, descended upon the unfortunate monarch; some concerning Mareuil and the quarrels in the council, others on the excommunication of Desjordis, and others on the troubles at Montreal. They were all referred ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... landscape come forth in a night. Here the god of erosion works incessantly and rapidly, dissecting the earth and the rocks. During a single storm a hilltop may dissolve, a mountain-side be fluted with slides, a grove be overturned and swept away by an avalanche, or a lake be buried forever. This rapid erosion of slopes and summits causes many changes and much upbuilding upon their bases. Gulches are filled, water-courses invaded, rivers bent far to one side, and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... verega. Authenticate verigi. Author auxtoro. Authorise (permit) permesi. Authorities (of town, etc.) estraro. Authority auxtoritato. Autocrat auxtokrato. Automatic auxtomata. Automobile auxtomobilo. Autumn auxtuno. Auxiliary helpanto (noun), helpa (adj.). Avalanche lavango. Avarice avareco. Avaricious avara. Avaunt for de tie cxi! Avenge vengxi. Avenue aleo. Average (n.) mezonombro. meza kvanto. Averse antipatia, kontrauxa. Aversion antipatio, kontrauxo. Avert deturni. Avidity avideco. Avid avida. Avoid eviti. Avow konfesi. Avowal ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... the other had shut after him the door of the landing, the colonel leaped out with a fling of both feet in an avalanche of woollen coverings. His spurs having become entangled in a perfect welter of ponchos he nearly pitched on his head, and did not recover his balance till the middle of the room. Concealed behind the half-closed jalousies he listened ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... evidence in the official publications of diplomatic documents that at the last moment, when the spectre of a general war definitely arose, Austria hesitated and entered upon a hopeful negotiation with Russia. It was Germany's criminal ultimatum to Russia which set the avalanche on its terrible path. Now Germany is notoriously a land of religious criticism and Rationalism. Church-going in Berlin is far lower even than in London, where six out of seven millions do not attend places of worship. It is almost as low as at Paris, where hardly a tenth of the population ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... at her in the futility of comprehension he had felt years ago, when Caddie, who had been "a great reader," as the neighbors said, before the avalanche of household cares had overwhelmed her, propounded to him, while he was drawing off his boots for an hour of twilight somnolence before going to bed, problems that, he knew, no man could answer. Neither were they to be illumined by Holy Writ, for he had offered ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... "Say an avalanche," interrupted Frank; "for, when once my heart is shaken, it will be as irresistible in its course as one of these 'thunderbolts ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... to be freed from a sentimental friendship not at all to his taste, prepared to carry out his long-contemplated design. In July of 1812, by way of Poland, he entered Russia with an army of over 678,000 souls. It was a human avalanche collected mainly from the people he had conquered, with which he intended to overwhelm the Russian Empire. It was of little consequence that thirty or forty thousand fell as this or that town was captured by the way. He had expected victory to be costly, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... There was, however, great variability in the individual pressures which sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Quelques Donnees Experimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation Sexuelle," Archivio ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... day, calves trampled to death, and steers scattered far and wide over the prairie. By night bunches of tethered cow ponies disappeared. The exasperated cowboys could only tell that suddenly out of the darkness had swept down on their quiet camps an avalanche of wild horses. And generally they caught glimpses of a great black branded stallion who led the marauders at such a pace that he seemed almost ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... commanding generals had not even contemplated such a bit of splendid but reckless daring. Even now, so hopeless did it seem, they would have stopped it if they could; but they might as well have tried to arrest the rush of an avalanche by wishing. It was a voluntary movement of men goaded beyond further endurance by suffering and suspense. As one of the foreign military spectators afterwards said, "It was a grand popular uprising, and, like most such, ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... of squalls, another of wet; January with its gales, February with its rains—that's all the winter we Asturians get. Our rain even is warm. We've no snow but on the mountains. Ay, ay; look out for the avalanche. The avalanche is no respecter of persons. The ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... under full blast, and every one of the hundred and twenty-five girls worked with frenzied energy as the avalanche of clothes kept falling in upon us and were sent with lightning speed through the different processes, from the tubs to the packers' counters. Nor was there any abatement of the snowy landslide—not a moment to stop and rest the ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... blend with the soul, as it were, and impart something of their own vastness to it. You feel yourself carried into the very presence of that Power which sank the foundations of the mountains in the depths of the earth, and built up their giant masses above the clouds; which hung the avalanche on their brow, clove their unfathomable abysses, poured the river at their feet, and taught the forked lightning to play around their awful icy steeps. You seem to hear the sound of the Almighty's footsteps still echoing amid these hills. There passes before ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... up, as it were, to energetic proceedings by the screams with which Miss Patty had now begun to shrilly echo Mr. Roarer's deep-mouthed bellowings - waited for his approach, and then, as the bull rushed on him - like a massive rock hurled forward by an avalanche - he leaped aside, nimble as a doubling hare. As he did so, he threw down his wide-awake, which the irate Mr. Roarer forthwith fell upon, and tossed, and tossed, and tore into shreds. By this time, Verdant had reached the bank of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... highest mountain peaks by the name of Jokul, a modification of the word "Joetun." In Switzerland, where the everlasting snows rest upon the lofty mountain tops, the people still relate old stories of the time when the giants roamed abroad; and when an avalanche came crashing down the mountain side, they say the giants have restlessly shaken off part of the icy burden from their ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... hissing roar filled the air. Jan knew that he did not strike—but he scarcely knew more than that in the first shock of the fiery avalanche that had dropped upon them from the rock wall of the mountain. He was conscious of fighting desperately to drag himself from under a weight that was not O'Grady's—a weight that stifled the breath in his lungs, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... over the great slope of ice into the recess, looking for steps abruptly ending above a crevasse or for signs of an avalanche. They came level with the lower end of a long rib of rock which crops out from the ice and lengthwise bisects the glacier. Here the search ended for a while. The rib of rocks is the natural path, and the guides climbed it quickly. They came to the upper glacier and spread ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... as the solid ridge of rock behind them on the land. And with its weird, wild, rushing scream of grinding and breaking ice, it was traveling toward them. It had the speed of the wind, the force of an avalanche. When ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... burning lava crushing irresistibly every opposing object in its fatal path. Onlookers at a distance could perceive the walls of houses bulging outward under pressure of the moving mass, until the roof collapsed in an avalanche of tiles upon the ground, whilst with a final crash the whole structure—cottage, farm, church or stately villa—succumbed to ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... comes, he moves like an avalanche, carrying destruction in his path. The peasantry sink before him. The country, too, is too poor for plunder, and too rough for a valuable conquest. Nature presents her eternal barrier on every side, to check the wantonness of ambition. ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... was a factor in his very keen indignation at the Tory levity in Ireland, in his disgust with many things that irritated or estranged Indian feeling. It bored him; there it was, a danger, and there was no denying it, and yet he believed firmly that it was a mine that would never be fired, an avalanche that would never fall. It was a nuisance, a stupidity, that kept Europe drilling and wasted enormous sums on unavoidable preparations; it hung up everything like a noisy argument in a drawing-room, ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... asleep again. His long face, now brightly red, barred by the sweeping mustache that fell across it like a snowy avalanche, was scarce distinguishable on the pillow. Mme. Delaherche had placed a newspaper before the lamp and that corner of the room was lost in semi-darkness, while all the intensity of the bright lamplight was concentrated on her where she sat, uncompromisingly ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... evidences that people had been there very recently and left in a great hurry. A cloth partially laid and left hanging. Drawers of the buffet left open. A broom lying directly in the middle of the floor where it had been dropped. An upset work-basket, disgorging spools, needle packets, and an avalanche of stockings awaiting darning. A lamp with the chimney standing beside it on the table. These were some of the signs denoting sudden and important interruption of ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... his boat-boys, and before their master could interfere, beat at the delirious wretch with their oars. He hung on tenaciously, enduring a perfect avalanche of blows. But mere flesh and bone had to wither under that onslaught, and at last, by sheer weight of battering, he was driven from his hold, and the beer-colored river covered him then and ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Stephen, proudly enthroned at the wheel, had almost forgotten that any shadow rested on the hilarity of the day. He had been dubbed a good fellow, a true sport, a benefactor to the school—every complimentary pseudonym imaginable—and had glowed with pleasure beneath the avalanche of flattery. As the big car with its rollicking occupants had spun along the highway, many a passer-by had caught the merry mood of the cheering group and waved a smiling salutation in response to ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... Mount! with they sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... sound, which seemed as if all the snow on the slope was moving. Their ears had by this time become sufficiently well acquainted with the peculiar sound of the rushing snow-masses to know that this was the noise that heralded their progress, and to feel sure that this was an avalanche of no common size. Yes, this was an avalanche, and every one heard it; but no one could tell where it was moving, or whether it was near or far, or whether it was before or behind. They only knew that it was somewhere along the slope which they ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, with blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, holding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the comparison of the avalanche in his "Prometheus Unbound") ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the story of the old campaigner, and may teach some of you caution in selecting your assistants. A chaplain told it to two of our officers personally known to myself. He overheard the examination of a man who wished to drive one of the "avalanche" wagons, as they call them. The man was asked if he knew how to deal with wounded men. "Oh yes," he answered; "if they're hit here," pointing to the abdomen, "knock 'em on the head,—they can't ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... capatir con cristiano," [91] followed by an avalanche of untranslatable phrases. He talked of the soul, of Hell, of "mahal na santo pintacasi," [92] of the Indian sinners and of the virtuous ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... sleep, through whose hazy atmosphere floated wild sentences from the sick tent, which showed that the patient was back again in Nevada, quarreling over the price of a horse which was to carry him beyond the reach of some threatening avalanche. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... ever-receding wall of solid blackness, beneath which rose and spread from the high bow, to starboard and port, two huge, moving snowdrifts, lessening in size as the bow lifted over the crest of a sea it had climbed, and increasing to a liquid avalanche of foam that sent spangles up into the bright illumination of the masthead light when the prow buried itself in the ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... destructive eruptions of great masses of subterranean mud. (At such times access to the Solfatara is prohibited.) We shall understand such an eruption rightly if we picture it as the counter-pole of an avalanche. The latter may be brought about by a fragment of matter on a snow-covered mountain, perhaps a little stone, breaking loose and in its descent bringing ever-accumulating masses of snow down with it. The levity-process ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... the Assembly, and the Machine now gave heed. The corporations saw that it would be suicidal to bring down on themselves the avalanche of fury which was accumulating. The bill passed. Roosevelt had set a precedent ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... incessantly. In the dark they were here, there and everywhere, and Eric, filled with the spirit of the service, was on the jump. He was busy in the storehouse shortly before eleven o'clock in the morning when a man groped his way in, saying that he had just escaped an avalanche and that several men were marooned in a steamer lying off the cannery wharf half a mile below the dock. This was Eric's chance. So often had he made the trip from the ship to the storehouse that morning that even in the dark and through the flying spume of yellow horror he made his way ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Nature, a question asked in things rather than in words, and so conditioned that no uncertain answer can be given. Nature says that all matter gravitates, not in words, but in the swing of planets around the sun, and in the leap of the avalanche. And men have devised ingenious machines through which Nature may tell us the invariable laws of gravitation, and give some hint as to why ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... Washington, New Orleans, all through the South. And Congress was about to consider the new territory which had come as a result of the Mexican War and the Oregon settlement. How would Douglas react to these world movements? How would he interpret them? Who could stand against this world-wide avalanche? With the North now greatly the superior of the South in wealth, in railroads, mines, in agricultural productiveness, what could the South do for her slaves and her cotton? What would the Titans—iron, coal, gold, copper, wheat, corn—do to the ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... the night, The flaming lightroom circles me: I sit within a blaze of light Held high above the dusky sea. Far off the surf doth break and roar Along bleak miles of moonlit shore, Where through the tides the tumbling wave Falls in an avalanche of foam And drives its churned waters home Up many ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enough to all appearance, crushed to powder beneath my unwary tread. Even the stone walls deserted me. I made use of one as a bridge, one day, to reach a golden cowslip that grew temptingly in a swamp; but a treacherous stone rolled off with me, and a perfect avalanche of huge rocks followed, splashing the muddy water all over me as I sat, helplessly, buoyed up by the tall grass. I regret to ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... that, although their forces were not able to cope with those of foreigners in the open, they were very powerful in the thickets, mountains, and mouths of the rivers; and were accustomed to burst like an avalanche upon the villages, and compel their inhabitants to pay them tribute, as if they were the lords of the land, who were inhabiting it. And if the people refused to give it willingly, they killed right and left, collecting the tribute in the heads of those who were decapitated; as was written by ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... be subservient to his will? He wondered. Everything depended upon that. If not, then he might as well try to stay the forces of a mighty avalanche with his breath, as halt the cube-army with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... eyes; I could have rushed through the air to meet him. But, alas! exaltation of feeling lasts only a moment; it drops us where it finds us. If it were not so, how easy to be a hero! The dull reaction of the present, like a slow avalanche, crushed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... dire reality. Suppose that we could see the huge planets and the ponderous stars whirling their terrific masses with awful, and if it might be so, clamorous velocity, and thundering through the fields of unresisting space with furious gigantic momentum, such as the mighty avalanche most feebly figures, and thus describing with chafing eccentricities and frightful deflections, their mighty centre-seeking and centre-flying circles, we should behold in the nakedness of its tremendous operations the Divine law of gravitation. Thus in like manner should we ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution. From one insignificant misunderstanding hatred and separation may finally issue. An enormous avalanche begins by the displacement of one atom, and the conflagration of a town by the fall of a match. Almost everything comes from almost nothing, one might think. It is only the first crystallization ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... them bowing and smiling, the red blood surging into her unrouged cheeks, her dark eyes flashing like two diamonds. Again and again the house rose to her, the noise of greeting was deafening, and a perfect avalanche of flowers covered the stage. From boxes, from parquet, from crowded balcony, from top-most gallery the enthusiastic outburst came, spontaneous, ever growing in volume of sound, apparently never ending. She looked out upon them almost appealingly, her hands outstretched in greeting, her eyes filling ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose[168] feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast— Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That, as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration—upward from thy base Slow-travelling ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... together with a note asking each president to send one copy to the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, in which Barry's article had appeared, with her own personal protest, and the other to the editor of some paper in her vicinity. The result was a perfect avalanche of protests to the editor of the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... eye the sonorous youth whom the claret punch made loquacious, or smash with lemon squeezer the obstreperous, or hurl gutterward the cantankerous without a wrinkle coming to his white lawn tie, when he stood before woman he was voiceless, incoherent, stuttering, buried beneath a hot avalanche of bashfulness and misery. What then was he before Katherine? A trembler, with no word to say for himself, a stone without blarney, the dumbest lover that ever babbled of the weather in the presence ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... side of the ship, raised his hand to show that he wished to speak to the chief. But the island men rushed on like an avalanche and started to storm the ship. Snatching up arms, poles, rope-ends—whatever they could find—the men on board beat down upon the heads of the savages as they climbed up the ship's slippery side. One man after another sank wounded on the deck. The fight grew more obstinate, but ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... for the cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. He scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his feet and ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... eyes, convinced that it was all a dream. But the noise drew nearer, thundered in his ears. In terror he got to his feet, tried to cry out. The words froze on his lips, for just then the wall before him crashed in as though struck by an avalanche. Then came a grinding, splitting jumble of sounds, the solid ground shook under the passage of some mighty force which increased for a moment followed by ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... now his turn to offer suggestions. A stage-driver is always a person of importance, especially in California. For the past six days Mat had found his public importance rather embarrassing. Every trip past the robbers' hiding-place had brought an avalanche of questions from curious passengers. Probably Mat Bailey had been forced to think of the tragedy more constantly than had any other person. His opinion ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... in his eagerness to obtain his prize. He recovered himself, however, in a moment, and, balancing his feet at the bottom of the tossing boat, fired. An instant afterwards a vast mass began to descend, at first slowly, then it passed rapidly through the air like a huge piece of snow cast before an avalanche, and down it came with a loud ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... his men to sleep until one o'clock and then rode with desperate speed to Yellow Tavern. He reached his chosen battle ground at ten o'clock the following morning. He had won the race and at once deployed his forces to meet the coming avalanche. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... and son quarreled again, for of a sudden a perfect avalanche of lawsuits was released, the mysterious origin and purpose of which completely mystified Old Bell. The Nelsons, like everybody else, had unsuccessfully dabbled in oil stocks and drilling companies for ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... might fairly be called a constant play of countenance: first he smiled, then looked grave; now raised his eyebrows, till they rose like rainbows, to the horizon of his pale, straw-coloured hair; and next darted them down, like an avalanche, over the twinkling, restless, fluttering, little blue eyes, which then became almost invisible. Mr. Douce had, in fact, all the appearance of a painfully shy man, which was the more strange, as he had the reputation of enterprise, and even audacity, in the business ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... provi; (criminal) atenco. attention : atento, ("pay"—) atenti. attitude : sintenado. attract : altiri, logi. auction : auxkcio. audit : kontkontroli. author : auxtoro. authority : rajto, auxtoritato. avalanche : lavango. avaricious : avara. avenue : aleo. average : meznombro, mezakvanto. avert : deturni. avoid : eviti. award : aljxugxi axis : akso. axle : akso. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... the Victoria Bridge, the difficulties of executing such a work across a wide river, down which an avalanche of ice rushes to the sea every spring, were pronounced almost insurmountable by those best acquainted with the locality. The ice of two thousand miles of inland lakes and upper rivers, besides their tributaries, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... dullness of comprehension with regard to our position and purpose. What! Is it to forsake the slave when I cease to be the aider and abettor of his master? What! When the North is pressing down upon four millions of slaves like an avalanche, and we say to her, 'Take off that pressure—stand aside—give the slave a chance to regain his feet and assert his freedom!' is that turning our backs upon him? Here, for example, is a man engaged in highway robbery, and another man is acting as an ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... of the desert or scorpions and serpents are allowed to live? Let them live, but let us defend ourselves against their teeth and fangs. Are the overseers of God's people, in a world of shame, to be mere philosophical Gallios, indifferent to our higher interests? Is it a Christian duty to permit an avalanche of evils to overwhelm the Church on the plea of toleration? Shall we suffer, when we have the power to prevent it, a pandemonium of scoffers and infidels and sentimental casuists to run riot in the city ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... and then set out for the town of Santa Elena, which was burnt to the ground. In December of that year over a thousand pulajanes besieged the town of Taft (formerly Tubig), held by a detachment of native scouts, whilst another party, hidden in the mountains, fell like an avalanche upon a squad of 43 scouts, led by an American lieutenant, on their way to the town of Dolores, and in ten minutes killed the officer and 37 of his men. After this mournful victory the brigands went to reinforce their comrades at Taft, swelling their forces en route, so that the besiegers ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... covered with loose fragments of soft volcanic stone, and Riggs and I had to be careful in making the ascent to the top of the ridge, for every time we sought a foothold we threatened to bring down an avalanche of debris, and, not knowing what Rajah had seen, or how close the pirates might be, we were afraid of giving the alarm with a ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... had the effect of a plug. A pebble may block a log; a branch sometimes changes the course of an avalanche. The carronade stumbled, and the gunner, availing himself of the perilous opportunity, thrust his iron bar between the spokes of the back wheels. Pitching forward, the cannon stopped; and the man, using his bar for a lever, rocked it backward and forward. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... their visions of future achievement! An avalanche of wealth had overwhelmed Hilland. His letters to his friend had grown more and more infrequent, and they contained many traces of the business cares and the distractions inseparable from his possessions and new relations. And now for causes just the reverse Graham also was forsaking ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... after both girls had danced through one London season in different ball-rooms, Rachel's parents died, her mother first, and then—by accident—her father, leaving behind him an avalanche of unsuspected money difficulties, in which even his vast fortune ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... was new boots. The door opened, and Mr. Vickers, with a slice of bread arrested half-way to his mouth, sat gazing in astonishment at Charles Vickers, clad for the first time in his life in new raiment from top to toe. Ere he could voice inquiries, an avalanche of squeaks descended the stairs, and the rest of the children, all smartly clad, with Selina bringing up the ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... she admitted, as with a clatter and a bang that, she was sure, could be heard a mile away, an evident avalanche of tools tumbled to the floor. Her crowbar had struck a box ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... construct an inter-weaving system of wide-gauge and narrow-gauge roads that served to victual and munition the entire front and further serve to deliver at top speed whole army corps. It was this network of strategic railways that enabled the French to send an avalanche clad in horizon-blue to the relief of Amiens when Hindenburg made his ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... lashing furiously and trying to turn the animal, which, frenzied by terror, and maddened by the stinging sleet, refused to obey, and would only rear and kick. Suddenly the ice under the sleigh sank down, and a flood of water rolled over it, followed by an avalanche of ice-blocks which had tumbled from the ridge. With a wild snort of terror, the horse turned, whirling round the sleigh, and with the speed of the wind dashed back toward the shore. As the sleigh came ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... the pleasant room with its clutter of costly futilities disappeared and this agreeable woman ceased to be. The avalanche of the modulated announcement sent Lennox reeling not merely out of the room, but out of ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... The wind was fair, almost dead astern, although the sea was high; and as the ship was rather light, she rocked and rolled considerably, the waves washing over her decks, and occasionally running over the poop in an avalanche of water, that swept right forward and made any one hold on that did not wish to be washed off their feet. The sea had a most winterly look. It appeared like a vast hilly country with winding valleys, ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... the form of ice. In some cases nature does this on a large scale. Where mountains are sufficiently elevated to raise their heads above the snow line we know they are white all the year around with snow. What is not blown away, evaporated, or, as an avalanche, precipitated to lower heights, must accumulate from year to year. But the weight pressing on the lower portions of this snow-field must soon be considerable, and at length become so great, that the snow changes to the form of ice. But as ice it is no longer fixed ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... not been at Labajos a week, during which time we were remarkably successful, when the Carlist chieftain, Balmaseda, at the head of his cavalry, made his desperate inroad into the southern part of Old Castile, dashing down like an avalanche from the pine-woods of Soria. I was present at all the horrors which ensued,—the sack of Arrevalo, and the forcible entry into Martin Munoz. Amidst these terrible scenes we continued our labours. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... women have thought more and accepted the responsibilities of voting to a greater extent than was ever expected of them. During the week I was accorded a welcome home in the old Academy of Music, Rundle street, where I listened with embarrassment to the avalanche of eulogium that overwhelmed me. "What a good thing it is, Miss Spence, that you have only one idea," a gentleman once said to me on my country tour. He wished thus to express his feeling concerning my singleness of ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... our social system. Tall and lissom, she was sheathed from the bosom downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with emeralds. Her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and behind her ears, as an orphan's should be. Parted somewhere at the side, it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the little ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... The black avalanche had disappeared. There were women weeping behind the coffin carried by the black phantoms, who wore ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... hastened forward, amid loud cheers, and took position in pairs behind the wagon, which advanced heavily and slowly, like an enormous avalanche. ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... was a sharp tug behind, and he felt himself arrested by the brambles that had twisted round one of his legs—a slight tug, but enough to stop him in his perilous position. The tangle of hazel boughs to which his legs were clinging came away with a fierce rush, an avalanche of earth fell, and Philip Hexton was once more swinging to and fro over the awful pit, listening with closed eyes to the rustle and rush of the great rooted-up hazel, as it ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... forgave Kate her Westlake, for the pleasure she took in guying him, and the loyal frankness with which she let them into all the moves of the game. He was "The Avalanche" to her and to them, because of his avoirdupois, his slow movements, and the imperviousness to a joke with which he was credited; because he could not take in all the little infinity of homely facetiae in which the Madigans lived and had their being. Besides, it was pleasant and exciting, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... mountain tops covered with perpetual snow and ice—a world dead and deserted, where the familiar voices of nature were almost unknown; where no bird carolled its love-song from the waving branch; where no sound was to be heard save the muttered thunder of the avalanche, the roaring of the cataracts which poured forth from the melting glaciers and made courses for themselves through heaps of rough stones; and now and again the harsh and discordant scream of a solitary vulture that with outspread wings circled slowly ...
— Harper's Young People, November 11, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... staggered under the crisis. For a horrible moment he saw Mrs. Roderick Magsworth Bitts approaching like some fatal mountain in avalanche. She seemed to grow larger and redder; lightnings played about her head; he had a vague consciousness of the audience spraying out in flight, of the squealings, tramplings and dispersals of a stricken field. The mountain was close ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... where I had left my cousin talking with Uncle Mo and Aunt Maria was all but darkened, and the place was a cloud of dust. I could see that Uncle Mo was wrenching open the street-door, which seemed to have stuck, and then that it opened, letting in an avalanche of rubbish, and some light. Cries came from outside, and Aunt Maria called out that it was Mrs. Burr. Thereon Uncle Mo, crying 'Stand clear, all!' began flinging the rubbish back into the room with marvellous alacrity for a man of his years, and no consideration at ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... most inspired rival in these things. He lacks Griffith's knowledge of what is photoplay and what is not. He lacks Griffith's simplicity of hurdle-race plot. He lacks his avalanche-like action. The Italian needs the American's health and clean winds. He needs his foregrounds, leading actors, and types of plot. But the American has never gone as deep as the Italian into landscapes ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... an impressive landscape come forth in a night. Here the god of erosion works incessantly and rapidly, dissecting the earth and the rocks. During a single storm a hilltop may dissolve, a mountain-side be fluted with slides, a grove be overturned and swept away by an avalanche, or a lake be buried forever. This rapid erosion of slopes and summits causes many changes and much upbuilding upon their bases. Gulches are filled, water-courses invaded, rivers bent far to one side, and groves ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... leaves and flowers when the bees are busy and wafts of fragrance are drifting hither and thither from miles of wild roses, clover, and honeysuckle; the swaths of birch and willow on the lower slopes following the melting of the winter avalanche snow-banks; the bossy cumuli swelling in white and purple piles above the highest peaks; gray rain-clouds wreathing the outstanding brows and battlements of the walls; and the breaking-forth of the sun after ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... left to 'governors' the 'punishment of evil-doers.' For my part, I cannot blame them, for without their assistance much that is known would not have been known, and, although numbers of possibly innocent, inoffensive and non-hostile people may have been overwhelmed in this last year's avalanche of disaster, there are still at large a lot of men whose punishment would probably have been a good thing for the future. One can only hope that their good luck in escaping may lead them to take a new departure, and with their heads in ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... with her tongue and her frying-pan. Speak to his tall, shaggy neighbour of the "bonny Jocks," and you will call up a flush of pleasure on the harsh-featured Scottish face; for he was a trooper in the Greys on that self-same Balaclava day when the avalanche of Russian horsemen thundered down upon the heavy brigade. He was among those who heard, and with sternly rapturous anticipation obeyed Scarlet's calm-pitched, far-sounding order, "Left wheel into ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Dorcas had no dreams so happy that such an avalanche could not sweep them aside. "Now, do! Why, you don't want me to think you go to church just because I save you ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... with his attractive colour and markings, he is a cross-bred dog. From the records of old writers it is to be gathered that to refill the kennels at the Hospice which had been rendered vacant from the combined catastrophes of distemper and the fall of an avalanche which had swept away nearly all their hounds, the monks were compelled to have recourse to a cross with the Newfoundland and the Pyrenean sheepdog, the latter not unlike the St. Bernard in size and appearance. Then, again, there is no ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... way," Beatrice heard some one behind her say. "We dance on the crust of a volcano or under a threatening avalanche. Sooner or later the one gives way or the other falls. There is no real ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... relentless forces of the ice and buried deep under mountains of moraine matter, but added to the present desolation. We could not enjoy; we could only endure. Death from overturning icebergs, from charging tides, from mountain avalanche, threatened us. ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... the old maid so alert. For the last eight days, strange events and bitter feelings agitated the minds of the chief personages who frequented the Rogron salon. These hidden matters, carefully concealed by all concerned, were destined to fall in their results like an avalanche on Pierrette. Such mysterious things, which we ought perhaps to call the putrescence of the human heart, lie at the base of the greatest revolutions, political, social or domestic; but in telling of them it is desirable to explain that their subtle significance cannot be given in a ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... unexpected on the rear of the Wassmuss men, taking ourselves by surprise as much as them, for we had thought the fight yet miles away. Echoes make great confusion in the mountains. It was echoes that had kept the Wassmuss men from hearing us, although we made more noise than an avalanche of fighting animals. Straightway we all looked for Wassmuss, and none found him, for the simple reason that he was not there; a prisoner we took told us afterward that Wassmuss was too valuable to be trusted near ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... you why — The palace, the hovel next door; The insolent towers that sprawl to the sky, The crush and the rush and the roar. I'm trapped like a fox and I fear for my pelt; I cower in the crash and the glare; Oh, I want to be back in the avalanche belt, For I know that it's ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... advance was checked, the savages gathering together in a hesitating fashion, when crash, crash, another mass of rock which had been set at liberty far up the hillside came bounding down, gathering impetus and setting at liberty an avalanche of great stones, from which the savages now turned and fled for their lives, leaving the valley free to a single black figure, which came climbing down from far up the steep slope, waddy in hand; and on reaching the level advanced towards ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... upon yourself—a shock of electricity is nothing in comparison to a shock from a pair of bright eyes—such eyes as hers. The truth of the case was here, of a sudden, apparently from out the clear sky, came down, with not a moment's warning, a perfect avalanche of rain-drops—all expressly got up, or down, for my benefit, else why did I happen to have an umbrella in my hand? "A Wise man—" you remember the rest. My beautiful incognito was away up those long stairs, and walking leisurely around the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... were coming like some machine- controlled avalanche of armed men. Every report brought them a little nearer Paris. Ah, monsieur, they had numbers, those Germans! Every German mother has many sons; a French mother only ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... surface huge rocks and immense boulders of tons' weight as water would carry a toy-boat. The whole front edge was one bright red mass of solid rock incessantly breaking off from the towering mass and rolling down to the foot of it, to be again covered by another avalanche of white-hot rocks and sand. The whole mass at its front edge was from twelve to thirty feet in height. Along the entire line of its advance it was one crash of rolling, sliding, tumbling red-hot rock. We could hear no explosions while we were near the flow, ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... itself, and Jaimihr on the other side. And, swooping—shooting—sliding down the trail like a storm-loosed avalanche, they could see the nine go, led by Alwa. No living creature could have ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... above the adjacent banks, was sweeping by and onward, like the serried lines of an army advancing to the charge; while the broad valley around even back to the summits of the far-off hills, was resounding with the deafening din that rose from the extended line of the booming avalanche, with the deep rumblings of an earthquake mingled with the tumultuous roar of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... had any knowledge has it apparently had the contrary effect. The zest of living seems heightened. Not long ago Mr. Galsworthy wrote to the Times a letter in which he spoke with pity of the unhappiness of the blind, and there promptly descended on him an avalanche of protest from the blind themselves. I suppose there was never a man who seemed to have a more intense pleasure in life than the late Dr. Campbell, the founder of the Normal School for the Blind, who worked wonders in extending the range of the activities ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... half asleep, and landing against me with a force that sent me spinning out through the open doorway to bring up prostrate with a crash in the cabin of the doctor opposite, half stunned by the concussion of my skull against the bulkhead and by the avalanche of ponderous tomes that came crashing down upon me as the worthy medico's tier of hanging bookshelves yielded and came down by the run at my wild clutch as I stumbled over the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... out their range by the flashes of the automatic the previous evening were making the most of the occasion. "Uk-ung-n-ng!" the breaking jackets whipped out their grists. A crash on the roof brought a small avalanche of slate tumbling down. A concussion in the dining-room was followed by the tinkling of falling window-glass. The engineers had work immediately when two of the infantrymen and their rifles and the sand-bags ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... was thoroughly unnerved and appalled, and much less able to consider than the usually quieter and more timid Armine. Suddenly there was a frightful thunderous roar and crash, and with a cry of "An avalanche," the brothers clasped one another fast and shut their eyes, but ere the words "Have mercy" were uttered all was still again, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... theatre introduced movable scenery. There is an attempt toward elaboration of stage effect. "To the King's playhouse—" says Pepys, "a good scene of a town on fire." Women take parts. An avalanche of new plays descends on it. Even the old plays that have survived are garbled to suit a change ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... summit of the Sattel Mountain opposite, waiting its opportunity. The time for action had come. The Austrian cavalry of the vanguard was in a state of frightful confusion and dismay. And now the mountaineers descended the steep hill slopes like an avalanche, and precipitated themselves on the flank of the invading force, dealing death with their halberds and iron-pointed clubs ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... is nothing,' said Madge, whose pink cheeks showed what she had faced. 'I left a whole avalanche in the hall. The streets are a foot deep already. Not a cab to be got. We had to fight our way from the theatre arm in arm; the wind and snow were like to lift us off our feet altogether. Frank said it reminded him of Canada. All the gentlemen are below; Tom would ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... along the Alps And an avalanche falls in my wake... I feel in my quivering length When ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... course, to give you only some glances at and slight insight into what Serbia has represented with her soul, her efforts, ideals and hopes. The time is short, yea, our time to-day is more empty than the events which surprise us every day, every night, and overwhelm us like an avalanche of snow and ice from the Alps. How poor and insufficient is our human language to-day, even the language of the most eloquent mortals from this island like Burke, Macaulay and Carlyle, to describe the events which our eyes are seeing and our ears listening to at ...
— Serbia in Light and Darkness - With Preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, (1916) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... the ghost that loved it would haunt the place! But he could not surely be permitted! for it might postpone a thousand years his discovery of the emptiness of a universe of such treasures. Now he was moldering into the world of spirits in the heart of an avalanche of the dust of ages, dust material from his hoards, dust moral and spiritual ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... high: it beat against the unfortunate vessel, and dashed over her. The people on shore thought that they heard cries of distress—cries of those in the agony of death; and they saw the desperate, useless activity on board. Then came a sea that, like a crushing avalanche, fell upon the bowsprit, and it was gone. The stern of the vessel rose high above the water—two people sprang from it together into the sea—a moment, and one of the most gigantic billows that were rolling up against the sand-hills cast a body upon the shore: it was that of a female, and every ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... Age is a fool to advise Youth. Why should I expect you to abide by my silly counsels? Who am I to interfere with the dominant fates! Says the snail to the avalanche: ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the first line it snapped under the blow, as did the second, which he clutched with his hands, and the third, which he doubled over, limply, and the fourth, which cut up under his arm-pit. But as he went downward he carried that ever-growing avalanche of cotton and woolen and linen with him, so that when his sprawling figure smote the stone court it fell muffled and hidden in ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... enigmas entangles me again and again. That rough syllable which begins the name of Griselda, "Gries," "the stone;" the roar of the long fall of the Toccia seems to mix with the sound of it, bringing thoughts of the great Alpine patience; mute snow wreathed by gray rock, till avalanche time comes—patience of mute tormented races till the time of the Gray league came; at last impatient. (Not that, hitherto, it has hewn its way to much: the Rhine-foam of the Via Mala seeming to have done its work better.) But ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... response. This is the reason why Oedipus King is a better play than Ghosts. The two pieces are not dissimilar in subject and are strikingly alike in art. Each is a terrible presentment of a revolting theme; each, like an avalanche, crashes to foredoomed catastrophe. But the Greek tragedy is nobler in tone, because it leaves us a lofty reverence for the gods, whereas its modern counterpart disgusts us with the inexorable laws of life,—which are only the old gods divested ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... the types it would all be mighty agreeable; and the world would be very considerably more overwhelmed with authorship than it is. It is the "grey goose quill" work, the necessity for incarnating the creatures of the brain in black and white, that is the world's protection from this avalanche. And I for one do not understand how anybody who, eschewing the sunshine and the fields and the song of birds, or the enjoyment of other people's brain-work, has glued himself to his desk for long hours, can say or imagine that his task is, ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... on the bulletin boards. She knew by heart that first list after Las Guasimas. One glance had burned it in forever. It had become one of the indelible scars of a lifetime. Yet those were the names of strangers. If a whiff from an avalanche can fell trees a mile away, how if the ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... smoke." The wonders of mountain signaling. Friends or enemies? Overwhelmed by an avalanche of ice. A roar and ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... "The Demon Lover," and didn't intend to until every one stopped talking about it. As a matter of fact, she had no time to read now, for the presents were pouring in—first a scattering, then an avalanche, varying from the bric-a-brac of forgotten family friends to the photographs of ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... as if forcibly detaching itself, flown off from the avalanche and buried itself in the ground only a few feet beyond Harry and Pearl, and more than one uprooted tree lay near them. Death had missed them by only a ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... spoken of the numerous jars and jolts which daily minister to my faculties. The loftier and grander vibrations which appeal to my emotions are varied and abundant. I listen with awe to the roll of the thunder and the muffled avalanche of sound when the sea flings itself upon the shore. And I love the instrument by which all the diapasons of the ocean are caught and released in surging floods—the many-voiced organ. If music could be seen, I could point where the organ-notes go, as they rise and fall, climb up and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... level-fronting spears And moveless helms before that shining host, Whose gay attire abashed the morning light, And then struck spur and charged, while from the mass Of rushing terror burst the awful cry, GOD AND THE TEMPLE! As the avalanche slides Down Alpine slopes, precipitous, cold and dark, Unpitying and unwrathful, grinds and crushes The mountain violets and the valley weeds, And drags behind a trail of chaos and death; So burst we on that field, and through and through The gay battalia brave with saffron silks, ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... does war become, but it will make war "impossible" in the slang use of five or six years ago, in the sense, that is, of its being utterly useless and mischievous, the sense in which Norman Angell employed it and so brought upon himself an avalanche of quite unfair derision. No nation ever embarked upon so fair a prospect of conquest and dominion as the victorious Germans when, after 1871, they decided to continue to give themselves to the development of overwhelming ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... from every throat, Jim Reddin dropped beside him as swiftly and almost miraculously as a sparrow-hawk flashes upon its prey. With a terrific surge he swung Goodine backward and outward into the raging current, but away from the face of the impending avalanche. Then, as the logs all went with a gathering roar, he himself sprang outward in a superb leap, splashed mightily into the stream, disappeared, and came up some yards below. Side by side the two men ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and we were again overtaken by the storm, which hurled itself upon us, fairly rocking the car in its violence. The train, which had been proceeding slowly and jerkily, now came to a full stop. An avalanche of snow, earth, and loose stones had fallen at the end of a deep cut. Had we been going at any speed an awful catastrophe would have resulted. As it was we were barely moving when we ran into the obstruction. It ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... secure from observation, he tremblingly opened the letter, which he hoped contained the first instalment of wealth and fame. It was, indeed, from the editor of the periodical, and, remembering the avalanche of poetry and prose from beneath which this unfortunate class must daily struggle into life and being, it was unusually kind and full; but to Haldane it was cruel as death—a Spartan short-sword, only long enough to pierce his heart. It was to the ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... of ice-water had been thrown over Jean he could not have cooled off more suddenly. He was dazed. Another marquis? This was a complication he had never dreamed of. It overwhelmed him like an avalanche. He must have time to dig himself ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... Down came around the boats a complete avalanche of burning timbers, huge guns, masts, spars, and blocks, rattling, and crashing, and hissing into the water. The seamen, already almost exhausted with their exertions, could scarcely attempt even to escape the fiery shower. ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... our necks to watch the result. Not a man spoke; we hardly dared to breathe, so keen was our anxiety. Would our fellows stand firm before that human avalanche? If they gave way ever so little, our right wing must be tumbled ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... room, tipped over a table, and deluged an artist and his affinity with hot chocolate before they could escape from the avalanche. Chairs went over like ninepins. Stands collapsed. Men grunted and shouted advice. Girls screamed. The Sea Siren was being wrecked by a cyclone from the ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... way to the spot where the pathway was suddenly cut short by the avalanche of rock and rubble and soil. It happened to be the exact spot where Colonel Gilbert's heavy horse had stumbled months before, where the footpath crossed the bed of a small mountain torrent. A few loosened stones had come bowling down the slope, set free ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... now!" he shouted aloud; and leaping from crag to crag he galloped by valley and chasm, by torrent-bed and scar of avalanche, until he came to the wandering leagues of the plain, and left behind him ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... and the very house shook. There was a wheezy shout of alarm, the sound of another voice in wild laughter, and some heavy body slid down the long side of the roof with the noise of an avalanche. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... consequences. Bounding across the room, he seized Ogden in a powerful grip, and the next instant the latter's education, in the true sense of the word, so long postponed, had begun; and with it that avalanche of sound which, rolling down into the drawing-room, hurled Mrs. Pett so violently and with such abruptness from the ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... binds as with a chain of iron. The small events of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimportant, like snow that falls silently, flake by flake; yet accumulated, these snow-flakes form the avalanche. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... the caribou like a brigade of charging cavalry, tramping all before them. Forward they swept in blind panic, as relentlessly destructive as an avalanche, and no more easily ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... descends the wild avalanche of destruction, and all is tumult, dismay, and death. The very crags of the mountain side, loosened in preparation, come bounding, thundering down. Trunks and roots of pine trees, gathering speed on their headlong way, are launched down upon the powerless foe, mingled with the deadly ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... the whole army was in a state of wild terror and confusion—a condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on their foes literally slew them by thousands. Many hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. Few succeeded in effecting their escape from what was little less ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... pulling at his pipe, and the huskies sleeping in the snow like German babies under the eiderdown. Sometimes, out of the love of bygone days, he tells of long toilsome journeys with the sun hiding behind clouds out of which an avalanche of snow falls, with nothing but the needle to tell where he hides; of hungry dogs and half starved horses, and lakes and rivers fifty and a hundred miles out ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
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