"Gigantic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but twenty pairs of eyes followed the committeeman as he disappeared in the hotel on his way to Jimmy Grayson's room. Then Alvord, the town judge, a man of gigantic stature, rose to his feet and said, in a ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... comparison in its greatness. His keen eye, educated to desert distance and dimension swept down and across, taking in the tremendous truth, before it staggered his comprehension. But a second sweeping glance, slower, becoming intoxicated with what it beheld, saw gigantic cliff steppes and yellow slopes dotted with cedars, leading down to clefts filled with purple smoke, and these led on and on to a ragged red world of rock, bare, shining, bold, uplifted in mesa, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... the chapel; and the nearer they got to it the louder the sounds became. Regarding each other with looks of mingled fear and curiosity, they reached the chapel, opened the door, and there stood the innocent cause of their fright, Domenico Dragonetti, immersed in the performance of some gigantic passage, of a range extending from the nut to the bridge, on his newly-acquired Gasparo. The monks stood regarding the performer in amazement, possibly mistaking him for a second appearance of the original of Tartini's "Sonata del Diavolo," ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... were hardly out of his mouth before there was a loud hissing sound, and right out of the centre of the precipitous slope facing them something like a gigantic rocket shot high into the air and burst into ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... and a thousand dismounted knights. The Saracen lines fall back before the charge, while in bold defiance the sword of the emperor gleams above his crest. As if in acceptance of his unproclaimed challenge, a gigantic Saracen emir, sheathed in complete armor, strides out before the pagan host, and the fiercely raging battle stops on the instant, while the two great combatants face each other alone. Their great swords gleam in the air. With feint and thrust, and stroke and ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... gigantic sum we all stared at one another open-eyed. Miss Morstan, could we secure her rights, would change from a needy governess to the richest heiress in England. Surely it was the place of a loyal friend to rejoice at such news; yet I am ashamed to say that selfishness ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... A stripling of fourteen, I was very naturally regarded as the head of the household; so,—with many misgivings, I advanced to the door, which I slowly opened, holding the candle tremulously above my head and peering out into the darkness. The feeble glimmer played upon the apparition of a gigantic horseman, mounted on a steed of a size worthy of such a rider— colossal, motionless, like images cut out of the solid night. The strange visitant gruffly saluted me; and, after making several ineffectual efforts to urge his horse in at the door, dismounted and followed me into ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... commands the castle. It is approached from the new and rather pretentious lodge in which the keeper of the castle now resides, through one of the finest and loftiest avenues in France. But the tallest trees are dwarfed by the gigantic donjon tower. This rises to a height still of at least 180 feet. It is 150 feet in circumference at the base, and slopes very gradually to the summit. The hall on the ground floor measures more than forty feet in diameter, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... substances in general, or any organic refuse which may be at hand. The various bacteria seize it all, and cause the decomposition which converts it into plant food again. The rotting of the compost heap is thus a gigantic cultivation of bacteria. ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... their names,—as in the famous story he set afloat in '29 of four Jerries attaching to the names of a noted Judge, an eminent Lawyer, the Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions, and the well-known Landlord at Springfield. One of the four Jerries, he added, was of gigantic magnitude. The play on words was brought out by an accidental remark of Solomons, the well-known Banker. "Capital punishment!" the Jew was overheard saying, with reference to the guilty parties. He was understood as saying, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... peaches from France, and dates from Tunis. The supper consisted of a roast pheasant garnished with Corsican blackbirds; a boar's ham with jelly, a quarter of a kid with tartar sauce, a glorious turbot, and a gigantic lobster. Between these large dishes were smaller ones containing various dainties. The dishes were of silver, and the plates ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his inaugural that he would gladly follow in "the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor." The country was still prosperous and the wheels of industry were running at full speed. Foreign Governments looked on with envy as the young Western Republic stretched her limbs and rose to gigantic proportions. ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... which had been brought alongside. They were sperm whales, which produce the oil so much valued for making candles. The head, as it was lifted out of the water, looked very much like the bottom end of a gigantic black bottle. This, the mate told him, was called the snout, or nose, and formed one-third of the whole length of the animal. At its junction with the body was a huge protuberance, which the mate called the "bunch" of the neck; immediately behind this was the thickest part of the body, ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... stories of astronomical and geological research. The vastness of distances and periods always impressed him. He had no head for figures, but he would labor for hours over scientific calculations, trying to compass them and to grasp their gigantic import. I remember once finding him highly elated over the fact that he had figured out for himself the length in hours and minutes of a "light year." He showed me the pages covered with figures, and was more proud of them than if they had been the pages of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... we close this slight sketch of the life of the good Bishop, and speak of its last scenes, we must say a word about the gigantic literary labours which occupied him more or less from the time of his retirement to the Abbey of Annay, in 1628, ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... the statute a dead letter for more than a decade and, had its full force remained unmodified, the Act today would be a weak instrument, as would also the power of Congress, to reach evils in all the vast operations of our gigantic national industrial system antecedent to interstate sale and transportation of manufactured products. Indeed, it and succeeding decisions, embracing the same artificially drawn lines, produced a series of consequences for the exercise ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... summons of the Emperor our people are preparing for an unprecedented struggle, which it did not invoke and which it is only carrying on in its defense. Whoever can bear arms will joyfully hasten to the colors to defend the Fatherland with his blood. The struggle will be gigantic and the wounds to be healed innumerable, therefore I call upon you women and girls of Germany, and all to whom it is not given to fight for our beloved home, for help. Let every one now do what lies in her power to lighten the struggle for ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... And flocks of peacocks and Datyuhas and Chakoras and Varhins and Kokilas, seated on the tops of the tallest trees of that forest were pouring forth their mellifluous notes. And the king also saw in that forest mighty herds of gigantic elephants huge as the hills, with temporal juice trickling down in the season of rut, accompanied by herds of she-elephants. And approaching the beautiful Bhogavati (Saraswati), the king saw many ascetics crowned ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that in the earliest periods of the world's history the lives of the inhabitants were more youthful and perfect; that these primitive men had gigantic size, incredible strength, and most astonishing duration of life. It is to this tendency that we are indebted for the origin of many romantic tales. Some have not hesitated to ascribe to our forefather Adam the height of 900 yards and the age of almost a thousand ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... barked sharply out in the Warren. Beetles droned, flying conspicuously upright, straight on end, through the warm air. The churring of the night-jars, as they flitted hither and thither over the beds of bracken and dog-roses, like gigantic moths, on quick, silent wings, formed a continuous accompaniment, as of a spinning-wheel, to the other sounds. And Dick Ormiston laughed consumedly, doubling himself together now and again and holding his slim sides in effort to moderate his explosive merriment. He was in uproarious spirits.—Back ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... know I have what you call the side that is safe. From my American wife I have many of your excellent speech figures. But now! The launch is big. Remain happy in Naples—happy as Vesuvio will let you—and watch his vast, his gigantic exhibition. If danger come, you all enter my launch and be saved. If no danger, you have a marvelous experience." The serious look glided from his face, and was replaced by a smile as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... This gigantic monument was the most prominent object in sight, with the exception of the sacred temple, which Sah-luma presently pointed out,—a round, fortress-like piece of architecture ornamented with twelve gilded towers from which bells were now clashing and jangling ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... animates me in all my gigantic labours, Sir,' replied Pott, with a calm smile: 'my country's good.' 'I supposed it was some public mission,' observed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... have been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size—though he ate eels—might care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier—and the same might have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk—who flapped up like some gigantic moth, and dogged his steps, only waiting—he felt sure of it—for the polecat to slip, or meet a foe, or have an accident, or something, before breaking its own avine neutrality. Then, too, there was the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... not obliged to double the teams again. The last ascent of the Cumberland Mountains toward Big Creek Gap was over bare rock much of the way, the sandstone strata lying horizontal, and the road being a gigantic staircase in which the steps were sometimes a foot each, but oftener more, with an occasional rise of fully four feet in the edge of the rocky outcrop. In the road the sharp edges of these stairs had been rounded off, partly by wear and a little ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Cape Henlopen form, as it were, the upper and lower jaws of a gigantic mouth, which disgorges from its monstrous gullet the cloudy waters of the Delaware Bay into the heaving, sparkling blue-green of the Atlantic Ocean. From Cape Henlopen as the lower jaw there juts out a long, curving fang of high, smooth-rolling sand dunes, cutting sharp and clean against the ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... morning sunshine the terrors of last night seemed a thing far removed from us. We sat at breakfast in our little sitting-room, and as though by common though unspoken consent we treated the whole affair as a gigantic joke. We ignored its darker aspect. We spoke of it as an "opera-bouffe" attempt never likely to be repeated—the hare-brained scheme of a mad foreigner, over anxious to earn the favour of his mistress. But beneath all our light talk was an undernote of seriousness. I think that Mabane ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and two-handed swords; quaint old cannon, made of copper tubes covered with coils of rope, which usually burst at the fifth shot; and last, but certainly not least, an enormous helmet, as heavy and almost as big as a wash-tub, said to have been worn by a gigantic knight of the order, who, after defending the gate of Fort St. Elmo single-handed against a whole battalion of Turkish Janizaries, had at length to be ...
— Harper's Young People, May 4, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... grotesquely twisted, seemed to have mounted with painful efforts, like scouts sent in advance of the multitude in the rear. When we turned round, we saw the entire forest stretched beneath our feet, like a gigantic basin of verdure, inclosed by bare rocks whose summits ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... quartermaster in the midst to transmit the orders of the pilot at the prow to the pilot at the stern, and half a dozen sailors to handle poles or oars. Peacefully the bark glided along the celestial river amid the acclamations of the gods who dwelt upon its shores. But, occasionally, Apopi, a gigantic serpent, like that which hides within the earthly Nile and devours its banks, came forth from the depth of the waters and arose in the path of the god.[*] As soon as they caught sight of it in the distance, the crew flew to arms, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... very different from the active, living thing that she was destined to become within the next twenty-four hours. The tide ebbing past her iron sides, the fresh, strong smell of the sea, the tall masts pointing skywards like gigantic fingers, the chime of the bell upon the bridge, the sleepy steward, and the stuffy cabin, were all a pleasant variation from the every-day monotony of existence, and contributed towards the conclusion that life was still partially ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... rule were making roads and building jetties for coal-smacks to lie at. There was constant influx of strange men and women—men of stunted growth and white faces, and who had an insolent, swaggering air, intolerably vulgar when contrasted with the Doric simplicity and quiet gigantic ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... ages, have suddenly blazed into violent action, and poured forth overwhelming floods of fire. It is known that more than a thousand years of cool calm have intervened between violent eruptions. Like gigantic geysers spouting molten rock instead of water, volcanoes work and rest, and we have no sure means of knowing whether they are dead when still, ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's) that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully, and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... Strutts' smaller factory at Melford. Passing this, the extensive but straggling and picturesque town of Belper, covered the eastern hill. What remains of the old town, is not a tithe of the present one, and the whole is now supported by Messrs. Strutts' gigantic mills. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... of animal life? Is it possible that, in two or three hundred years, a few lean and half-naked fishermen may divide with owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest European cities—may wash their nets amidst the relics of her gigantic docks, and build their huts out of the capitals of her stately cathedrals? If the principles of Mr Mill be sound, we say, without hesitation, that the form of government which he recommends will assuredly produce all this. But, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to use up all the gunpowder without delay, a perpetual display of fireworks is inaugurated at Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Paris, and London, the show in the last-named capital including a gigantic set-piece of the Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, which is given five times successively every evening at the Crystal Palace for three months, Piccadilly being illuminated from 6 P.M. to 3 A.M. by the continuous discharge ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... when our prospects grew so fair, And Sabbath bells announc'd the morning pray'r; Beneath that vast gigantic dome we bow'd, That lifts its flaming cross above the cloud; Had gain'd the centre of the checquer'd floor;— That instant, with reverberating roar Burst forth the pealing organ——mute we stood;— The strong sensation boiling through my blood, Rose ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... destroyed one masterpiece after another. For him the great interest in the aspect of man and woman was not so much the form of the body as the expression of the face. What was fantastic and weird fascinated him. At Windsor are designs he made for the construction of an imaginary beast with gigantic claws. He once owned a lizard, and made wings for it with quicksilver inside them, so that they quivered when the lizard crawled. He put a dragon's mask over its head, and the result was ghastly. The tale gives us a side ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... exaltation of suffering virtue. Single against the universe, to appeal to the primary law of the stronger, to 'grasp the scales of Providence in a mortal's hand,' is frantic and wicked; but Moor has a force of soul which makes it likewise awful. The interest lies in the conflict of this gigantic soul against the fearful odds which at length overwhelm it, and hurry it down to the darkest depths ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... opposition to which nature forces it to submit. On each side rise the romantic hills, piled on each other to a tremendous height; and between them are deep, abrupt, silent glens, which at a distance seem inaccessible to the human foot; while the whole is covered with timber of a gigantic size, and a luxuriant foliage of the deepest hues. Throughout this scene there is a pleasing solitariness, that speaks peace to the mind, and invites the fancy to soar abroad, among the tranquil haunts of meditation. Sometimes the splashing of the oar is heard, and the boatman's song ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... of the country was fast becoming such as had seldom, or perhaps never been recollected by living man. The confederation, conspiracy, opposition, rebellion, or what you will, had risen to a gigantic height. In point of fact, it ought rather to have been termed an unarmed insurrection. Passive resistance was the order and the practice of the day. The people were instructed by the agitators, or rather by the great agitator himself, to oppose the laws ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... lumps." Of the other vermin, including multitudinous snakes, and hairy spiders the size of toy terriers they took no particular notice. The amenities of the place were wonderful orchids, brilliantly coloured parrots and gigantic butterflies with great prismy wings. The Burtons kept a number of slaves, whom, however, they paid "as if they were free men," and Mrs. Burton erected a chapel for them—her oratory—where the Bishop "gave her leave ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... the Centennial, ancient garrets and modern household art stores, all tumbled together in hopeless confusion, and over all an emerald, golden halo that grew more and more concentrated till it burst into gloom as one gigantic sunflower, which, suddenly changing into the full moon just rising above the top of a neighboring roof, put an end ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... a corrupt society by eradicating from it the cancer of privilege and falsehood, especially when these desperadoes, few as they are, and with neither three-hundred-pounders nor ironclads, fling themselves against a power believed to be gigantic, like that ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the evil in our land and rating system, and without attempting to control the output and supply of materials and building in the way in which munitions were controlled during the war, the Government brought forward gigantic schemes to be financed from the supposedly bottomless purse of the tax-payer. At the same time the demand for building materials and labour in every direction was at its maximum, and unfortunately both employers and employed in the building and allied industries ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... there is the eye-brow (ciglio) of a ditch, the eye of heaven, a vein of metal, the entrails of a mountain. The Alps are bald or bare, the soil is wrinkled, objects are sinister or the reverse (sinistra, destra),[24] and a mountain is gigantic ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... window-glass intact, and paintings of St. Dunstan and the devil, pincers, crucibles and all. To-day most of the ruins have fallen flat. There is some beautiful vaulting left, and massive heaps of stone show the corners and boundaries of the church and other buildings. Ivy-stems, coils of green gigantic pythons, climb about the walls and broken doorways; pigeons nest on the window-ledges and clatter like frightened genii ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... The first is a gigantic precipice, reached by a few hours ride from the city by horse. As one reaches the precipice, there spreads out before him at a dizzying depth below a verdant plain, bounded in the distance by an emerald sea. The wind ...
— An Epoch in History • P. H. Eley
... fallacy that he puts it as far behind him as possible, and sets his conflicts amid scenes that it cannot penetrate, save as a palpable absurdity. Love, in his stories, is either a feeble phosphorescence or a gigantic grotesquerie. In "Heart of Darkness," perhaps, we get his typical view of it. Over all the frenzy and horror of the tale itself floats the irony of the trusting heart back in Brussels. Here we have his measure of the ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... even to try penetrating it. It stands on the left of the road by which you leave the villa, and to the right on the grassy incline in full view of the casino was something that puzzled us at first. It did not seem probable that the gigantic capital letters grown in box should be spelling the English name Mary, but it proved that they were, and later it proved that this was the name of the noble English lady whom the late Prince Pamfili Doria had married. Whether they marked her grave or merely commemorated ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... trees, O Salmali, I am always delighted at thy sight! O charming tree, delightful birds of diverse kinds, and elephants and other animals, cheerfully live on thy branches and under their shade. Thy branches, O wide-branched monarch of the forest, and thy trunk are gigantic. I never see any of them broken by the god of the wind. Is it, O child, the case that Pavana is pleased with thee and is thy friend so that he protects thee always in these woods? The illustrious Pavana possessed of great speed and force moveth ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... in those fields deserted of man. He passed on down the trench and never knew whose trench it once had been. Frightful shells had smashed it here and there, and had twisted iron as though round gigantic fingers that had twiddled it idly a moment and let it drop to lie in the rain for ever. He passed more dug-outs and black fungi, watching them; and then he left the trench, going straight on over the open: again dead grasses ...
— Unhappy Far-Off Things • Lord Dunsany
... deep into his pockets, he puffed fiercely at his pipe and surveyed the scene before him. He stood on the gigantic quay overlooking the seething activity of the inner Tandjong Priok harbor, and beyond this stretched the two monster jetties and the outer port. Eyeing the trading craft that lined the quays, Barry frowned and cursed his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... flowers and of new-mown hay. In a tree at the edge of the terrace a blackbird was singing to a faint crescent moon. There was still enough daylight to show the shadows deepening toward Bridge and over Broadwater Down, while on the sloping crest of Bishop's Down Common human figures appeared of gigantic size as they towered through ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... volcano. This place forcibly reminded me of a similar sight on a grander scale,—the site of the ex-Bandaisan Mountain on the main island of Nippon in Japan, after that enormous mountain was blown to atoms and disappeared some few years ago. A huge basin was left, like the bottom part of a gigantic cauldron, the edges of which bore ample testimony to the terrific heat that must have been inside before the explosion took place. In the Persian scene before us, of a much older date, the basin, corroded as it evidently was by substances ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the Gorge d'Outremont. In the fast gathering darkness, the place was horrible and gloomy. As in a former description we have said, the mountain seemed at this gorge to have been cleft in twain by a gigantic hatchet. ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... the women wore flat straw hats, like a dinner plate, hair plastered down, head-dresses of gigantic black ribbons, aprons of gay stripes, and ten petticoats coming only a little below the knee. The men wore farce-comedy costumes, not ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... a melancholy, weak figure without any hair, but often covered with feathers, and is intended to typify the red Indian. The red Indian is generally supposed to be receiving comfort; but it is manifest that he never enjoys the comfort ministered to him. There is a gigantic statue of Washington, by Greenough, out in the grounds in front of the building. The figure is seated and holding up one of its arms toward the city. There is about it a kind of weighty magnificence; but it is stiff, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... how to make the stew. After long delay there was a commotion. In strode the chef, followed by two assistants, bearing aloft a gigantic silver tureen which was placed on the table and opened with great ceremony. Inside was a huge quantity of consomme with two ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... 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 ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... to be a gigantic golden coated cat had moved stealthily out upon the snow, and was gliding toward ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... of adventure stories carried her family through all sorts of perils by land and sea. At one time they were shipwrecked and lived like the Swiss Family Robinson. At another time they were exploring Central Africa, and traveled about with three years' supplies in a gigantic caravan with fifty elephants. Yet another little girl had for her family any characters out of books that particularly fascinated her. Thus, when she was reading The Heroes, her family was reduced to one daughter, Medea, a rather terrible daughter, ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... yet exist, ranges like those of the Alleghanies and the Jura belong to this division of the world's history. During this time, the general character of the animal and vegetable kingdoms was higher than during the previous age. Reptiles, many and various, gigantic in size, curious in form, some of them recalling the structure of fishes, others anticipating birdlike features, gave a new character to the animal world, while in the vegetable world the reign of the aquatic Cryptogams was over, and terrestrial Cryptogams, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of some machine: nothing was too great or too small for his audacity or his patience. To achieve the work, tact was needed as well as courage; at times he condescended to disguise his real opinions, striving to weather the storm by yielding to it. In 1765 his gigantic labours were substantially accomplished, though the last plates of the Encyclopedie were not issued until 1772. When all was finished, the scientific movement of the century was methodised and popularised; a barrier against the invasion of the past was erected; the rationalist ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... perhaps be unfair to the French Minister to believe that he actually desired to kindle a war on this gigantic scale. Talleyrand had not, like Napoleon, a love for war for its own sake. His object was rather to raise France from its position as a conquered and isolated Power; to surround it with allies; to make the House of Bourbon the representatives of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... rises above the moss, with radical, heart-shaped leaves, and a blossom precisely like the liverwort except in color, but which is not put down in my botany,—or to observe the ferns, of which I count six varieties, some gigantic ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... the castle in which the wonder-stone was concealed lay on the other side of the hill; but still no one knew anything of the stone, nor had the inhabitants a satisfactory idea of the castle. But he was informed that so many extraordinary and gigantic masses of stone were standing in the various clefts of the mount, that their appearance was certainly that of a castle, and that the lofty crowning point in ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... universities) "satisfied with her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... sturdy, thickset young plants, many with bunches of fruit hanging above the strange purple flower of the plant, choked with a rank undergrowth and set with the roots in sluggishly running water. Here and there the gigantic leaves of the great taro[42] spread out—a dark, shining green. It was too much for Louis, who fell to clearing on the spot, while I went on to the end of the plantation. Once or twice I was nearly stuck in the bog, but managed to drag myself from the ooze ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... immensely large gooseberries in the garden; and in this particular berry, the English, I believe, have decidedly the advantage over ourselves. The raspberries, too, were large and good. I espied one gigantic hog-weed in the garden; and, really, my heart warmed to it, being strongly reminded of the principal product of my own garden at Concord. After viewing the garden sufficiently, the gardener led us to ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in a stroll, such as I have described, I approached this deserted mansion of the dead, I was somewhat surprised to hear sounds distinct from those which usually soothe its solitude, the gentle chiding, namely, of the brook, and the sighing of the wind in the boughs of three gigantic ash-trees, which mark the cemetery. The clink of a hammer was, on this occasion, distinctly heard; and I entertained some alarm that a march-dike, long meditated by the two proprietors whose estates were divided by my favourite ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... in Brooklyn, we used to stay in New York and drive over that wonderful bridge every night. There were no trolley cars on it then. I shall never forget how it looked in winter, with the snow and ice on it—a gigantic trellis of dazzling white, as incredible as a dream. The old stone bridges were works of art—this bridge, woven of iron and steel for a length of over five hundred yards, and hung high in the air over the water so that great ships can pass beneath it, is the work of science. It is like ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Jowler was a dog of preeminent abilities and exceptional virtues, we but faintly echo the verdict of a bereaved Universe. Endowed with a gigantic intellect and a warm heart, modest in his demeanour genial in his intercourse with friends and acquaintances, and forbearing towards strangers (with whom he ever maintained the most cordial relations, unmarred by the gross familiarity-too common among dogs of inferior breeds), inoffensive ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... supplies whatever were procurable short of it, we held on our course. After leaving our halt, the path led us close to the torrent's edge, and the gorge narrowing very much, we were completely towered over in our march by gigantic peaks of rock, blocks of which had come down from their high estate at some remote period of their existence, and now occupied equally prominent though humbler positions in the torrent's bed below. Occasionally ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... hear something derived from a newspaper which was quite unknown to him or to her yesterday. Of all those restless crowds that have this day thronged the streets of this enormous city, the same may be said as the general gigantic rule. It may be said almost equally, of the brightest and the dullest, the largest and the least provincial town in the empire; and this, observe, not only as to the active, the industrious, and the healthy ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... negro woman clad in a calico wrapper and a bright red turban, pushing a wheelbarrow in which sat a negro baby somewhat larger than its mammy. In the wheelbarrow beside the baby stood a feeding bottle of gigantic proportions, being in very truth a three-gallon flask designed to hold a solution to spray trees with; six feet of garden hose constituted the tube, and a black rubber diving cap at the upper end of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... range. And in the early light of the morning he found his judgment vindicated, for stretching before him, still in a northeasterly direction, he saw a great, green-brown level sweeping away from his feet and melting into some rimming mountains—a vast, natural basin of gigantic proportions. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... over the earth, it appeared to Martin that the thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands of fragments of mist, had the shapes of men, and were like an innumerable multitude of gigantic men with shining white faces and shining golden hair and long cloud-like robes of a pearly grey colour, that trailed on the earth as they moved. They were like a vast army covering the whole earth, all with their faces set towards the west, ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... became sources of great attraction to the men, and the publicans did their best to make what they could out of the well-paid Canadian troops. The maintenance of discipline under such circumstances was difficult. We were a civilian army, and our men had come over to do a gigantic task. Everyone knew that, when the hour for performance came, they would be ready, but till that hour came they ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... apparent singularity and mystery to disappear. We are surprised only because we see a familiar fact under a new aspect, and do not at once recognize it. What we see before us in this great event is only an underlying fact of every individual's personal experience, expanded into the gigantic proportions of a nation's experience. In every child of Adam are the seeds of good and of evil. Side by side they lie together in the same soil; they are nourished and developed together; they become more and more marked and individualized with advancing years, swaying the child and the youth, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... from the lowlands into the upper regions, he loomed up a gigantic figure against the clear, moonlit horizon. His picturesque foxskin cap with all its trimmings was incrusted with frost from the breath of his nostrils, and his lagging footfall sounded crisply. The distance he had that day covered was enough for any human endurance; ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... had drawn down the admiration and applause of the multitude. He was an African from Mauritania; of gigantic strength and stature. But his skill seemed equal to his strength. He wielded his short sword with marvelous dexterity, and thus far ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... If you take an orange and stick a knitting-needle through it, and hold it so that the needle is not quite straight up but a little slanting, and then twirl it round, you will get quite a good idea of the earth, though of course there is no great pole like a gigantic needle stuck through it, that is only to make it easy for you to hold it by. In spinning the orange you are turning it as the earth turns day by day, or, as astronomers express it, as it ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... look at the reason of this carefully, and we shall see that this state of things is the direct result of an irresponsible employment of the gigantic power of thought. Some few excitable brains start an idea, the circulation of which is made possible by the modern facilities for expression in the press. And because the majority of readers do not think ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... are there any living creatures visible at this late hour save the bats which flit restlessly in and out of the weed-grown piles of brick or stone that once were stately monuments of wealth or piety. Above our heads the tall sombre cypresses shoot upward like gigantic spear-heads into the crystal-clear air, pointing heavenward like our own church spires in a rural English landscape. This Street of the Dead in the City of the Dead is in truth a solemn and a soothing spot; nor can we find its precincts ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... followed, for all the tombs of a later age on the Appian Way had their exteriors sheathed with a veneer of marble. The beautiful sarcophagus which contained the remains of the noble lady for whom this gigantic pile was erected, and which is now in the Farnese Palace, was also formed of this material. Most beautiful examples of Parian marble may be seen in the three elegant columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux in ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... the Strand, picturesquely varied with bridges, and flanked to the right by the embattled halls of feudal nobles, or the inns of the no less powerful prelates; while sombre and huge amidst hall and inn, loomed the gigantic ruins of the Savoy, demolished in the insurrection of Wat Tyler. Farther on, and farther yet, the eye wandered over tower and gate, and arch and spire, with frequent glimpses of the broad sunlit river, and the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... flocks into the place and cast off from his shoulders a load of young trees for firewood. Then he lifted and set in the entrance of the cave a gigantic boulder of a door-stone. Not until he had milked the goats and ewes and stirred up the fire did his terrible one eye light ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... moon, however, had now risen higher, and the clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms. ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... they were allowed to don the brilliant livery which they wore only at long intervals, and in which they did not feel altogether at their ease, stood each in the arcade of his doorway, their splendid pomp tempered by a democratic good-fellowship, like saints in their niches, and a gigantic usher, dressed Swiss Guard fashion, like the beadle in a church, struck the pavement with his staff as each fresh arrival passed him. Coming to the top of the staircase, up which he had been followed by a servant with a pallid countenance and a small pigtail clubbed at the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... understand that they had suddenly come upon some huge beast which was on the point of springing on them. We advanced, in consequence, cautiously, expecting every moment to meet the monster. In a short time we caught sight of a gigantic tiger-wolf, or spotted hyena, sitting under a bush, and growling fiercely at us. I raised my rifle to fire, expecting the beast to spring; but it sat without moving. On getting nearer, what was my horror to see that his forepaws ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... character; nevertheless, it is overlooked in almost every direction by villas, monasteries, or villages, and if one escapes from these (as, indeed, I only suppose I may, for I have not yet been able to do so), one stumbles among the ruins and gigantic remains of the great race that has departed, and recollections of men, their works and ways, pursue one everywhere, and surround one with the vestiges of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the contribution of some 12,000 troops—more or less[5]—from the greater remote {p.084} dependencies does not indeed loom very large alongside the truly gigantic figure of 166,277 officers and men, who, between the 20th of October and the 31st of March, were despatched for South Africa from the ports of the United Kingdom; in which number are not included those drawn from India and from England prior to the ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... the frozen speech and recover some portion of its imprisoned essence. This is seldom a necessity with Byron. His words tell us all that he means to say, and do not merely hint nor suggest. The matter with which he deals is gigantic, and he paints with violent ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... it for him, and, since he considers the whole thing from the purely personal point of view, their excuses for failing to do so are of no avail. The fact that half a million other people want houses is nothing to him. He ignores it. He believes that the house-agentry of the country has hatched a gigantic conspiracy to keep him, Higgins, ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... wolfish glee, he dropped the instrument from his grasp, and cast his eye upwards as if appealing to Heaven. But every drop of blood seemed frozen in his frame as he beheld an enormous claw thrust through the roof, member as it seemed of some being too gigantic to be contained in the chamber or the tower itself. Cold, poignant, glittering as steel, it rested upon a socket of the repulsive hue of jaundiced ivory, with no vestige of a foot or anything to relieve its naked horror as, rigid and lifeless, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the more than Stygian night Descends with slow and owl-like flight, Silent as Death (who comes—we know— Unheard, unknown of all below;) Above that dark and desolate wave, The reflex of the eternal grave— Gigantic birds with flaming eyes Sweep upward, onward through the skies, Or stalk, without a wish to fly, Where the reposing lilies lie; While, stirring neither twig nor grass, Among the trees, in silence, pass Titanic animals whose race Existed, but has left no trace ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the meaning of the words, and he understands them a great deal better than his so-called successors have done. For we may surely take the text as the Apostle's own disclaimer of that which the Roman Catholic Church has founded on it, and has blazoned it, in gigantic letters round the dome of St. Peter's, as meaning. It is surely legitimate to hear him saying in these words: 'Make no mistake, it is Jesus Himself on whom the Church is built. The confession of Him which the Father in heaven revealed to me, not I, the poor sinner who confessed it—the Christ whom ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... good deal to say. But little Denmark must take care what it is about, and not run counter to the moon; that great realm, that might in an ill-humor bestir itself, and dash down a hail-storm in our faces, or force the Baltic to overflow the sides of its gigantic basin. ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... man sat in his high grey arm-chair very near an enormous coal fire. In this house there was no coal-rationing. The finest coal was arranged to obtain a gigantic glow such as a coal-owner may well enjoy, a great, intense mass of pure red fire. At this fire Alfred Bricknell toasted ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... hand. On seeing the lantern Jess's first impulse was to fly, but Jantje by a motion made her understand that she was to stop still. The man with the lantern advanced towards the other man, holding the light above his head, and looking dim and gigantic in the mist and rain. Presently he turned his face, and Jess saw that it was Frank Muller himself. He stood thus for a moment waiting till the sentry was near ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... ornaments, exquisite in workmanship and of great antiquity; sombre Servians, and white-clad Albanians, whose trousers are embroidered with black braid in fantastic tracing; fez, head-cloth, and neat little Montenegrin cap; trousers of red, pink, blue and black; gigantic Albanians in high riding-boots, sitting their horses like Life Guardsmen; Macedonians, Greeks, and even pure-blooded Turks; Montenegrins in creamy white frock-coats worn over gold-braided crimson jackets; and dark-blue costumes with red worsted tassels of the poor Dalmatian peasants—all ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... unhappily correspond too well in their unexampled magnitude with the physical character of our magnificent country. Civil war has sacrilegiously usurped the mighty instrumentalities of modern peaceful life; and the bloody and destructive work of these vast armies is not less gigantic in scale than have been the ordinary operations of our wonderful industry and our ever-increasing commerce. The sacrifice of life, the destruction of property, the desolation of extensive regions of beautiful and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... color, time, mind and dimensions, were coalescing into one gigantic vortex, that was a thing neither of time, nor space, nor mind, but all three somehow ...
— Subjectivity • Norman Spinrad
... and Nabresina. Between these two places the railway rises steadily, giving fine views over the sea and plain. Looking forward and back the pale-grey line of the viaducts winds round and about the slopes like some gigantic snake, or like the aqueducts of the Campagna of Rome. Here the grey limestone breaks through the vegetation more and more, for the line is approaching the lofty stony plateau of the Karst, and enormous heaps of debris accentuate ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... London were the largest towns of the vanishing order of things. Very rarely, except in China, did they clamber above a quarter of a million inhabitants, even though to some of them there was presently added court and camp. In China, however, a gigantic river and canal system, laced across plains of extraordinary fertility, has permitted the growth of several city aggregates with populations exceeding a million, and in the case of the Hankow trinity of cities exceeding five ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... very inequality of wealth, that accumulation of vast masses of it in a few hands, against which we have heard so much said lately, as if it were something inconsistent with the liberties, the happiness, and the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind. Gigantic fortunes are acquired by a few years of prosperous commerce—mechanics and manufacturers rival and surpass the princes of the earth in opulence and splendor. The face of Europe is changed by this active industry, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... seen before. In the proud and boastful exultation, the starts of anger, the quick resentment, and ardent friendship, the sudden alternation of storm and calm, and, in a word, the medley of eccentric vices and virtues which compose this gigantic offspring of Lee's bright but fevered brain, the severest criticism must concur with the public opinion, which ranks Mr. Cooper's Alexander high among the first specimens of the art exhibited in the English language. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... own partiality for Oxford; and one day, at my house, entertained five members of the other University with various instances of the superiority of Oxford, enumerating the gigantic names of many men whom it had produced, with apparent triumph. At last I said to him, "Why, there happens to be no less than five Cambridge men in the room now." "I did not," said he, "think of that till you told me; but the wolf don't count the sheep." When the company ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... creature, simply because it is so huge! It actually does nothing remarkable, unless specially instructed; but it is this inertia that renders it so valuable to man. If the elephant were to be continually exerting its natural intelligence, and volunteering all manner of gigantic performances in the hope that they would be appreciated by its rider, it would be unbearable; the value of the animal consists in its capacity to learn, and in its passive demeanour, until directed by ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... of gold dust, and the Ojibwe Indians, having discovered this, and attempting to bring some away, they were disturbed by a supernatural being of amazing size, sixty feet in height, which strode into the water and commanded them to deliver back what they had taken away. Terrified at his gigantic stature, they complied with his request, since which time no Indian has ever dared to approach the haunted coast. Henry, however, with his men, finally discovered this Island of Yellow Sands in 1771, in the north-east part of Lake Superior. It was much smaller than ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... contemplated more as an affecting memorial of the past, than as a strength which should be available in time to come, has of late, while tyranny made progress, been somewhat approached, as it stands begirt with its gigantic bulwarks, surmounted with the banner of the Covenant, manifestly high above all other means of defending the Church; and it faithfully promises a vantage-ground, noble from its commanding altitude, and unassailable within its high defences, to which all in the land who ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... have wearily toiled by day and by night; have made bricks without straw; helped ourselves and taken advantage of small opportunities; though these are days of increasing combinations of capital, growing corporations and gigantic trusts, which greatly lessen the possibilities of individual success. Surely there is in the black man the same capacity for business, the self-same spirit, purpose and aspiration that there is to be found ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... lone and unusual tenants of the sea-birds' home were obviously, from their motions, much agitated. A heavy driving shower, for a few minutes, wrapped it in mist. When this cleared off, the black and dreary front of the Wolf-stone became dimly visible through the tumultuous assemblage of gigantic breakers, that were every instant grappling with the steep which defied them. Another minute's observation and I was running at my utmost speed back to Landwithiel. The captives could be no other than Sam and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... grip he sought, but a wrestler he found, for arms of a gigantic strength went round him, clasping his own to his side and rendering his knife futile; a Gaelic malediction hissed in his ear; he felt breath hot and panting; his own failed miserably, and his blood sang in his head with the pressure of those tremendous arms that caught him to a chest like a cuirass ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... treated very well, as became a noble swell, But we couldn't leave him loose, not in Europe anywhere, For we knew he would be making some gigantic undertaking, While the trustful British lion was reposing in ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... beneath the Arctic circle, thay have pervaded the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south: nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of the poles; while some of them strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others pursue their gigantic toils on the shores of the Brazils. There is no climate that is not a witness of their labours. When I contemplate these things; when I know they owe little or nothing to any care of ours, but that they have arrived at this perfection through a wise and salutary neglect; I feel the pride of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... certain symptoms of an intention, on the part of Fid and the boatswain, to settle their controversy by the last appeal. During this moment of suspense, the former had squared his firm-built frame in front of his gigantic opponent, and there were very vehement passings and counter-passings, in the way of gestures from four athletic arms, each of which was knobbed, like a fashionable rattan, with a lump of bones, knuckles, and sinews, that threatened annihilation to ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Mars plans to add the Earth to his domain. Unless we can do something to stop it, in a few years the world will be overrun with gigantic robot-machines, controlled by force from across the gulf of space. Humanity cannot resist them. Imagine a battleship pitted against that green annihilating ray, and all the other science ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... in his chair. Brave as he was, there was something in this man's manner which made his skin creep with apprehension. His eyes glanced to right and to left, but his weapons were gone, and in a struggle he saw that he was but a child to this gigantic adversary. The count had picked up the claret bottle and ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... brothers are, really, but mere children, and will you just for a slight mistake, go on preaching to him! what's the use of coming out with all you've said? Let him go wherever he pleases; for there are still our lady and Mr. Chia Cheng to keep him in order. But you go and sputter him with your gigantic mouth; he's at present a master, and if there be anything wrong about him, there are, after all, those to rate him; and what business is that of yours? Brother Huan, come out with you, and follow me and let us go ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Judge, therefore, what pangs it will cost me when obliged to come to the terrible resolution to separate from you, my guardian angel! But I belong to my people—I belong to my glory! My power has assumed such gigantic proportions that I must support it with foundations that cannot be overthrown. The Emperor Napoleon must have a successor; if you had given birth to one, I should never have parted from you. Now all hope is gone, and I shall, ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... A gigantic commissionaire flings wide the doors for us and, passing reverently inside, we are confronted by the magnificent equestrian statue of Mr. Bookham Pryce, the founder of the firm. This masterpiece of the Post-Cubist School was originally entitled, "Niobe Weeping for her Children," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... the setting of the sun to enrich men who were created out of the same sod, and in the construction of whose mysterious mechanism, mental and physical, the great God expended no more time or ingenuity. Up to the close of the Rebellion, of that gigantic conflict which shook the pillars of republican government to their center, the great black population were truly the "mudsills" of Southern society, upon which rested all the industrial burdens of that section; truly, "the hewers of wood and the drawers of water;" a people ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... just emerged from a gigantic struggle of physical force of four years duration between the two great Northern and Southern sections. That struggle had been from its inception to its close, a continuing exhibition, on both sides, of stubborn devotion to a cause, and its annals had been crowned with illustrations ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... questioning he learned enough to open his eyes. The French lines had indeed passed northward, leaving this ruined hamlet in its wake. But for several months prior to yesterday's engagement the Germans had been working on gigantic subterranean operations, beginning at the levels of the cellar floors and penetrating downward until the entire village sub-area had been converted into a kind of catacomb. Here a great number of ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... predatory, carried on by the more energetic Greek highlanders against the Turks, flocked to the English standards. The operations in which they were engaged were desultory, and of no great account in the general result of the gigantic contest; but they made Colonel Church's name familiar to the Greek population, who were hoping, amid the general confusion, for an escape from the tyranny of the Turks. But his connection with Greece was for some time delayed. His peculiar qualifications pointed him out as a fit man to be ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... lies With Carcasses and Arms th' ensanguind Field 650 Deserted: Others to a Citie strong Lay Siege, encampt; by Batterie, Scale, and Mine, Assaulting; others from the Wall defend With Dart and Jav'lin, Stones and sulfurous Fire; On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds. In other part the scepter'd Haralds call To Council in the Citie Gates: anon Grey-headed men and grave, with Warriours mixt, Assemble, and Harangues are heard, but soon In factious opposition, till at last 660 Of middle Age one rising, eminent In wise deport, spake much of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... sometimes said, that the States, by their flagrant treason, have forfeited their rights as States, so as to be civilly dead. It is a patent and indisputable fact, that this gigantic treason was inaugurated with all the forms of law known to the States; that it was carried forward not only by individuals, but also by States, so far as States can perpetrate treason; that the States pretended to withdraw ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... of a chamber nearly opposite her opened, and a man stood in the aperture. He was very tall, gigantic even; and apparently surprised by what he beheld, he stepped out to look at the benches, whereat the light fell upon him and she saw he was black. His appearance called for a roar of groans, and he retired, closing the door behind him. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... bubbling with dimples, fairly foaming with curls,—light-footed, light-hearted, most ecstatically light-headed, she tripped down into the sunshine as though the great, harsh, granite steps that marked her descent were nothing more nor less than a gigantic, old, horny-fingered hand passing her blithely out to some ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... rascality, pure and simple, under the existing conditions, to accomplish this scheme, and he found in the results nothing left to be desired. They furnished him with a capital of ready money, but his old acquaintances discovered the foul trick he had played, and gave him a wide berth. No more gigantic combinations were possible to him, save with swindlers like himself, who would not hesitate to sacrifice him as readily and as mercilessly as he ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... a gigantic and wonderful ship, appropriately named the Flying Fish, which is capable of navigating not only the higher reaches of the atmosphere, but also the extremest depths of ocean; and in her the four adventurers make a voyage to the North ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... carrying away the chips, and I got out of my tree, forgetting all about the view I had discovered; and the unexpected scene I had looked at ran in my mind so constantly that, during the night, I dreamed that Markson stood in the hemlock-tree, with a gigantic brace and bit, and bored holes in the hills beside the river, while I kneeled in the second story window-frame, and kissed my contract with Markson, and prayed that I might make a hundred thousand dollars out of it. It is perfectly astonishing ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... fields of martial glory Where the slain are ne'er bemoaned; There are victories though silent, Where grim monarchs are dethroned; There are scenes of strife and foray Where gigantic forces strive For the mastery and triumph Of the ends ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... world. The collection has been enriched by valuable contributions from Mr. Selous, the distinguished African traveller, and sportsman, his donations consisting chiefly of big game, including two gigantic elands, (male and female), buffaloes, antelopes, &c. The series of birds comprises the large number ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... good fellow," and the whole thirty thousand joined in the song. After that it took some minutes for them all to settle down again, and still there went on that undercurrent of murmuring talk which seemed to make the attempt of anyone to address the gigantic meeting hopeless. But suddenly Mr. Gladstone raised his hand, and it was almost as if a miracle had happened. In an instant there was a deathlike silence in the hall, and every man in it seemed to be holding his breath. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... floated up and pressed the pack against the floor of the bridge, forming, for a half-minute, an impassable barrier against the torrent rushing down. The flood rose behind it like a tidal wave, tossing on its crest a gigantic floe, standing waist-deep in which I saw, for the second during which it flashed in the sun, a frozen man, whom I recognised, who gazed upright towards me with his arms upstretched—only for a second, then the bridge went ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... which we can derive the fear of death; and yet the longest enjoyment which we can hope for of this kind is of so trivial a duration, that it is to a wise man truly contemptible. Few men, I own, think in this manner; for, indeed, few men think of death till they are in its jaws. However gigantic and terrible an object this may appear when it approaches them, they are nevertheless incapable of seeing it at any distance; nay, though they have been ever so much alarmed and frightened when they have apprehended ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the Cherokees for purchasing the trans-Alleghany region." In organizing a company for this purpose, Henderson chose men of action and resource, leaders in the colony, ready for any hazard of life and fortune in this gigantic scheme of colonization and promotion. The new men included, in addition to the partners in the organization known as Richard Henderson and Company, were Colonel John Luttrell, destined to win laurels ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... sufficient notwithstanding some considerable disasters. At the same time they had indicated one special place of danger, which might be avoided, if proper measures were taken. Xerxes, in the four years which followed on the reduction of Egypt, continued incessantly to make the most gigantic preparations for his intended attack upon Greece, and among them included all the precautions which a wise foresight could devise in order to ward off every conceivable peril. A general order was issued ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... the Rhine flows through hills covered with vineyards, there is a steep rock, round which many a legend has been woven—the Lurlei Rock. The boatman gazes up at its gigantic summit with awful reverence when his boat glides over the waters at twilight. Like chattering children the restless waves whisper round the rock, telling wonderful tales of its doings. Above on its gray head, the legend relates that a beautiful but false nymph, clothed in white with a wreath ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... south of England. In winter the cold is never severe, and only at intervals of several years does snow fall to any depth, so as to risk the destruction of cattle. The most remarkable production is the tussac, a gigantic species of grass, which grows to the height of ten feet, and is capable of sheltering and concealing herds of cattle and horses. The core of this grass is of so nutritious a nature, that people have been known to live for months on it, and to retain their ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, shattering his mood of joyous self-satisfaction. His feet slopped in the puddles, breaking through the thin ice, as he walked up the road towards the barracks. He felt as if people were watching him from everywhere out of the darkness, as if some gigantic figure were driving him forward through the darkness, holding a fist over his head, ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... course that nought may stay, Death follows after with gigantic stride; Ills past and present on my spirit prey, And future evils threat on every side: Whether I backward look or forward fare, A thousand ills my bosom's peace molest; And were it not that pity bids me spare My nobler ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... thing—that accident," said Seton thoughtfully. "It's odd that Americans always manage to do that sort of thing on such a gigantic scale." ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the remainder of the banana by one gigantic and triumphant bite but the desperate expedient did not work; his mouth with all its long practice, could not keep up with his hand; it became clogged while yet a considerable length of banana projected out of ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... as I have said, a great philosopher, and the heart and mystery of his philosophy was, to look upon the world as a gigantic practical joke; as something too absurd to be considered seriously, by any rational man. His system of belief had been, in the beginning, part and parcel of the battle-ground on which he lived, as you ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... left, on the opposite side of the harbour, were wide bungalows shining in the sun, and flanking the side of the ancient aqueduct, the gigantic tomb of an Arab sheikh. In the harbour were the men-of-war of all nations, and Arab dhows sailed slowly in, laden with pilgrims for Mecca—masses of picturesque sloth and dirt—and disease also; for more than one ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his subject is selected with the fullest understanding of the utmost possibilities of the detective-story. At the core of it is a strange, mysterious, monstrous crime; and M. Anatole France was never wiser than when he declared the unfailing interest of mankind in a gigantic misdeed "because we find in all crimes that fund of hunger and desire on which we all live, the good as well as the bad." Before a crime such as this we seem to find ourselves peering into the contorted visage of primitive man, obeying no law ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... circle—the wedding-ring. We say, seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked eye, is a tiny hoop made for the third feminine finger. Alack! like the ring of Saturn, for good or evil, it circles a whole world. Or, to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region: it may be Arabia Felix, and it ...
— Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures • Douglas Jerrold
... 80 A.D., was the largest theatre and one of the most imposing structures in the world. It was inaugurated by 100 days' gladiatorial combats, in which 5000 wild animals were killed. It contained seats for 87,000 spectators. Only one-third of the gigantic structure now remains, yet the ruins are still stupendously impressive. The Colosseum has ever been a symbol of the greatness of Rome, and gave rise in the eighth century to a prophetic saying of the pilgrims: "While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand; when falls the ...
— Shepp's Photographs of the World • James W. Shepp |
