"Looming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to go over things Guy Franklin had told her about Chicago, until I seemed to see it all looming up out there under the stars that kept watch over our little sleeping town. We had neither of us ever been to a city, but we knew what it would be like. We heard it throbbing like great engines, and calling to us, that far-away world. Even after we had opened the windows and scurried into bed, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... thin veil which hides the fountains of volcanic fire, and the sweetest spices of the world breathe incense on the air. The uncertain tenure of earthly joys gives them redoubled zest and poignancy, the passionate love of life becomes intensified by the looming shadows of Death, and the light glows with clearer radiance against the ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... off without a word, my heart dancing with joy that such a mission should be mine. I looked at that long, solid line of red and blue looming through the smoke of the guns, and I shook my fist at it as I went. "We shall crush them and not a ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unresistingly, allowed himself to toy with it, to sink beneath it. Just, however, as he was sinking, sinking, he was roused, suddenly, as from sleep, by the vivid presentiment that something was about to happen to him: it seemed as if an important event were looming in the near distance, ready to burst in upon his life, and not only instantly, but with a monstrous crash of sound. His pulses beat more quickly, his nerves stretched, like bows. But it was very still; everything around him slept, ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... of thought was perplexing, and not altogether pleasing. Flint was not sorry to have it interrupted by a call upon his attention in the appearance of two figures below, looming dim and ghostlike in the fog. Just beneath his window, they paused in their walk, and their voices came up to him first indistinctly, then with more and more clearness. The tones Flint recognized at once ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... hear her gasp as she stopped short and turned sharply. She was staring hard now at the tall figure looming above her. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... did Jenny shrink from the running tide. Her one thought was to get home; and she had no inclination to think of what lay between her and Kennington Park. She hardly understood what Keith said as he rowed to the steps. She saw the bridge looming, its black shadow cutting the water that sparkled so dully in the moonlight; and then she saw the steps leading from the bridge to the river's edge. They were alongside; she was ashore; and Keith was pressing her hand in parting. Still she ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... among the clogging clay. An hour went by, but there was no change, except a continued accession to the crowd. It was wonderful how patiently they stood under the watery hurricane; helplessly embedded in a slimy swamp; feverish and anxious; with no thought but the looming gallows, towards which all eyes were turned, and the miserable culprit, whose sudden end they were ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... but always keeping her sails full and plenty of way on her. At last they were through the swashway; and though the sea was again heavier, and the waves frequently swept over the decks, Jack gave a sigh of relief. They could make out the hull of the vessel now looming up black over the white surf that surrounded it. She had ceased firing, either from the powder being wetted ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... among the reeds and sedges at the side; far away in the broad marshes, that, bathed in dim vapor, now lay all about her, the cry of a bittern boomed; she saw a pair of herons flapping inland over the gray swell of the water; there were some great purple phantoms, darkly imagined monsters; looming near at hand:—all the phantasmagoria drifted by,—and then, caught in the currents playing forever by noon or night round the low edges of sand-bars and islets, she was sweeping ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... out all prospect but that of the ocean, was a tall cliff, covered with ragged yellow pines and stunted cedars, from which on stormy nights many a quivering flame had shot upward, luring ships to their ruin. Still, with this grim protest against the name looming behind it, the lonely old house was called "The Sailor's Safe Anchor," and was known all along the coast as a ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... found ourselves on the great white winter-prairie of the grand St. Lawrence, upon which I strode forward with renewed energy, steering my course, like the primitive steeple-chasers of my boyhood's home, upon the highest church-tower looming up from the heterogeneous huddle of motley houses that just showed their gable-tops over the low ring of mist which mingled with the smoke of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... for breath, almost too fagged to rise, with the black bulk of the enemy looming through the dust cloud before him, he suddenly realized the source of the other's ...
— Hellhounds of the Cosmos • Clifford Donald Simak
... put before it, but earnestly followed and reverently enjoyed by many. Have not truth, benevolence, purity, and, above all, pure affection, been, to many, positive ends of action for their own sakes, without any thought, as Dr. Tyndall says, 'of any reward or punishment looming in the future'? Is not virtue followed in the noblest way, when its followers, if asked what reward they look for, can say to it, as Thomas Aquinas said to Christ, 'Nil nisi te, Domine'? And has not it so been followed? and is not the ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... when the man who was the shrewdest and sharpest and cunningest in taking advantage of others got the biggest salary; but to-day the man at the other end of the bargain is looming up as never before. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... and had not found Juarez at all. I am sure this whole movement was got up for the purpose of getting General Grant away from Washington, on the pretext of his known antagonism to the French occupation of Mexico, because he was looming up as a candidate for President, and nobody understood the animus and purpose better than did Mr. Stanton. He himself was not then on good terms with President Johnson, and with several of his associates in the Cabinet. By Christmas I ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... sustains the most inquiring glances, invites them, and never wearies them. Now and again ideas are generated in swarms, one evolves another; they interlace and entice, they abound and are dalliant; now and again, they arise pale and looming, and perish through want of strength or nourishment—the quickening substance is insufficient. And, last of all, on certain days they plunge into the abysses, lighting up their depths; they terrify us, and leave us in a soul despair. Our ideas have ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... could easily see the tree-tops again, outlined against the gray heavens; yes, they were closer than for some time, and to his excited imagination seemed to be even looming ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... a taxicab—one of the many reminders that a war is going on. London had been reeking in a green-yellow fog, but here the mist was white, and through it I caught glimpses of the silhouettes of stately trees in a park, and presently saw the great house with its clock-tower looming up before me. A fire was crackling in the hall, and before it my hostess was conversing amusedly with a well-known sculptor—a sculptor typical of these renaissance times, large, full-blooded, with vigorous opinions on all ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the fickle sand bag, we did not at first notice that our whole conveyance was practicing the same unhandsome maneuver. But we soon became aware that we had changed allegiance also. We had started with the earth at our feet and the moon looming up on one side of us, but here we were now riding with the moon under us and the earth away ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... pontificis, who had seduced one of them, was beaten to death by the pontifex maximus. Such a violation of the pax deorum was itself a prodigium, and again the books were consulted, and an embassy was sent to Delphi with Fabius Pictor as leader.[679] Greece is looming ever larger in the eyes of ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... fair, and hazy. At about nine it began to blow, and gradually rose to a gale, causing our river ripple to mimic ocean waves, and the dust and sand to fly before us in clouds, obscuring earth and sky. About ten we approached a mountain range, which had been for some time looming on the horizon. We found we had to pass through a channel of about a quarter of a mile wide; on our left, a series of barren hills, bold and majestic-looking in the mist; on the right, a solitary rock, steep, conical-shaped, and about 300 ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... place to Westminster Abbey; and to the National Gallery, if we should find time. . . . . The fog darkened again as we went down Regent Street, and the Duke of York's Column was but barely visible, looming vaguely before us; nor, from Pall Mall, was Nelson's Pillar much more distinct, though methought his statue stood aloft in a somewhat clearer atmosphere than ours. Passing Whitehall, however, we could scarcely ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the Minstrel, for his heart was sad. Death had bereaved him of his bride, while youth, And looming years of future trust and truth, Knit them together, till their souls were clad With joy ineffable. Love's great High Priest Sacrificed in their hearts to Him that doeth All things well; and such rare, perpetual feast Of love and truth no mortals ever had, To keep their memories ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... the oars was now more plain. "Be silent and ready," whispered the informer, and the whisper was passed round. In another minute a large lugger-built boat, evidently intended for sailing as well as pulling, was seen through the fog looming still larger from the mist, pulling into ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... corridor that, they told him, was about twenty feet long, and took no more than five seconds to traverse—with the priest. Until they changed his cell, the gaunt, terrible Thing in the next room edged every day nearer, nearer, nearer, looming, growing, broadening before his morbid vision until it seemed to have cut off from his sight everything else in the world—closer, closer until it was only seven incredible hours away! Then had come the commutation of his sentence from death ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... and with that pleasant drawl of his which was so well known in the fashionable assemblies of London; but there was a ring of earnestness in his voice, and his lieutenants looked up at him, ready to obey him in all things, but aware that danger was looming threateningly ahead. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Palaces, along the edge of the vast, dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges looming uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the fountains. At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of observation, and looked up to encounter ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... Mr. Brewster, looming over the table like a thundercloud, regarded Archie with more than his customary hostility. Life was no pleasant thing for the proprietor of the Cosmopolis just now. Once a man starts building hotels, the thing becomes like dram-drinking. Any hitch, any sudden cutting-off ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... town and village to a wood, stript bare, As they of their possessions, see them throng. Above them grows a cloud; it moves along, As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare. Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair, The looming of their life of cruel wrong For countless ages? No; their faith is strong In their Jehovah; that huge ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... not now that tumult loud, Ye Wardens of the Coast, Though looming large, through dawn's dim cloud, Like an invading host The Barks of France are bearing down, One crowd of sails, while high Above the misty morning's frown Their streamers light the sky. Up!—greet for once the Tricolor, For once the lilied flag! Forth ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. The bell again; the glare of light and heat dispelled; the factories, looming heavy in the black wet night - their tall chimneys rising up into the air like ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... and shut safely in the byre with the cows for the night, but for an incautious remark of the farmer. With the first scent of the native heather the horse quickened his pace, and, at sight of the purple slopes of the Pentlands looming homeward, a fond thought at the back of the man's mind very naturally ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... And the proprietor had been heavily fined and heavily warned, yet here he stood to-night, silent, respectful, hands up his sleeves, waiting. For once in his life, Lawson's imagination worked. He foresaw something portentous looming in the background of that impenetrable mind, revealed in the steady, unblinking stare of those slanting Chinese eyes, fixed steadily and ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... there was a giant hull looming overhead. They stepped out onto a landing ladder and climbed interminably up the ship's metal side. Then there ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a large, shadowy room, through which the single candle shed such a faint, uncertain light that at first Capitola could see nothing but black masses looming ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... blades, and to have replaced her—a little carelessly—with the profoundest sigh. For that I cannot vouch. For an hour or so he watched people fighting for places in the omnibuses at the end of Piccadilly. He was seen looming over Kennington Oval for some moments in the afternoon, but when he saw these dense thousands were engaged with the mystery of cricket and quite regardless of him he went his way with ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... point, now partly veiled by mist, lay beyond, and it was toward that looming half-shadow that the spinning disk hurtled. Now the mist curled away to display its bulk—larger, blacker and four or five times Thorvald's height. Both men stopped short, for the disk no longer played pathfinder. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... tide-waiters on social success, the fair, artfully mingling expectation with compliment, only extract from him the laughing statement that this one waltz was the single exception allowed him from the rule of his professional conduct, and he refers them to his elder critics. A single face, loutish, looming, and vindictive, stands on among the crowd—the face of Seth Davis. He had not seen him since he left the school; he had forgotten his existence; even now he only remembered his successor, Joe Masters, and he looked curiously ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... before going to classes at Tech, Frank Nelsen, with the possibility of bitter disappointment looming in his own mind, spotted Glen Tiflin, the switch blade tosser, standing on the corner, not quite opposite the First National Bank. Tiflin's mouth was tight and his eyes ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... swelling hills, covered on their tops with woods, and sloping down to the shore, but were too far distant to distinguish very plainly any sign of human habitation. By nightfall we had sunk the land, but were astonished in the morning to see looming through the air, at an immense distance, a mountain, which in height seemed more like one of the Andes than any summit that Hayti could afford. Its actual height, I presume, may not have been less than 8,000 feet, but in my memory it ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... outsailed the launch with ease, and were forced to reef in order not to part company. When the sun set, we were more than twenty miles from the land, seeing no more of the coast, though the mountains inland were still looming up grandly in the distance. I confess, when night shut in upon us, and I found myself on the wide ocean, in a boat much smaller than that with which I used to navigate the Hudson, running every minute farther and farther into ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... walked along that those late words, yet hanging in his ears, had really been spoken, that still visible scene enacted. He could not even recollect for a minute or two how the final result had been produced. Did he himself first enter upon the long-looming theme, or did she? Christopher had been so nervously alive to the urgency of setting before the hard-striving woman a clear outline of himself, his surroundings and his fears, that he fancied the main impulse ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... However, Gillian encountered the fog in vain, though she walked up and down the path till her clothes were quite limp and flabby with damp. All the view that rewarded her was the outline of the shrubs looming through the mist like distant forests as mountains. Moreover, she got a scolding from Aunt Ada, who met her coming in, and was horrified at the misty atmosphere which she was said to have brought in, and insisted on her going at once to change her dress, and staying by the fireside all ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thought was looming, A loon, I thought was looming: Why! it is he, my lover, Why! it is he, my lover; His paddle, in the waters gleaming, His paddle ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... painfully impressed with what constantly seems to me the short-sightedness of the clever worldly-wise people I hear talking upon these subjects, and the deep despondence of those who see a great cloud looming up over the land. Our narrow room and redundant population make any sudden violent political movement dangerous, perhaps; but I have faith in the general wholesome spirit of our people, their good ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... There seemed to be no room for his arms and legs, though he had the whole seat to himself; his mouth was dry and sticky, his head was heavy and his clouded thoughts seemed to wander at random, not only in his head, but also outside it among the seats and the people looming in the darkness. Through the turmoil in his brain, as through a dream, he heard the murmur of voices, the rattle of the wheels, the slamming of doors. Bells, whistles, conductors, the tramp of the people on the platforms came oftener ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... were off. We went very very slowly, and waited an interminable time at each station. When evening came on we had only arrived as far as Louvain, and were interested to see two Zeppelins looming clear and black against the sunset sky, in the Malines direction flying towards Antwerp. It was not too dark to see the fearful destruction that had been dealt out to this famous Catholic University, only built and endowed during the last eighty years by great and heroic ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... day of the chase. They had seen, the evening before, St. David's Head, and then the Welsh coast round Milford Haven, looming out black and sharp before the blaze of the inland thunder-storm; and it had lightened all round them during the fore part of the night, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... bridle rein, wheeled, placed one foot into the stirrup, intending to mount, when he became aware of a shadow looming near him. He pulled the foot out of the stirrup, dropped the reins with the same movement, and turned in ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the ball with fierceness, but Jack took it for a line drive, and that inning was over. The ninth was looming up and the game still undecided. Indeed, they were no better off than when making the start, save that they had had considerable practice ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... near to it with the stern of our big ship as though she were a canoe. To one used more to ocean than to Congo traffic it was somewhat bewildering to see the five-thousand-ton steamer make fast to a tree, a sand-bank looming up three fathoms off her quarter, and the blades of her propeller, as though they were the knives of a ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... meanwhile finds matters not so pleasant at the factory. His bright mood is confronted with an evident cloud looming up much larger than a man's hand. The main hall is filled with workmen standing about in groups, with lowering brows and lips set in unflinching resolution, as if their wills were strongly centred upon some ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... in the afternoon when the Sacramento, slowly feeling her way southward, had come within view of El Fraile and Corregidor, looming up like sentinels at the entrance to the great, ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... stag coming leisurely up the slope! How grand he looks!—with his proud carriage and shaggy, massive neck, sauntering slowly up the rise, stopping now and then to cull a berry, or to scratch his sides with his wide, sweeping antlers, looming large and almost black through the morning mists, which have deepened his dark brown hide, reminding one of Landseer's picture of 'The Challenge.' Stalking sambar is by far the most enjoyable and sportsmanlike way of killing them, but more are shot ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... keep pace with us, for we were dropping steadily now—down, down through the most beautiful savannas, with fine spring brooks rushing from the mountain's side. Flowers increased; the days grew warmer; it began to feel like summer. The mountains grew ever mightier, looming cloudlike at sunset, bearing glaciers on their shoulders. We were almost completely happy—but alas, the mosquitoes! Their hum silenced the songs of the birds; their feet made the mountains of no ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... a little clamour, a misty sea of sound in which individuality appeared and disappeared. For a time a distant cuckoo was very perceptible, like a landmark looming up over a fog, like the ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... entrance into public life, was an excellent commentary upon his real character. The State House, however, appealed to his imagination very strongly as he walked up its unfinished lawn, amid the heaps of huge limestone blocks, his eyes upon the looming facade of the west front. He walked the echoing rotunda with a timid air; and the beautiful soaring vault was so majestic in his eyes, he wondered if Washington could be finer. There were a few other greenhorns, like himself, looking the building over with the same minute scrutiny. ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... but already he had begun to pant and falter, when he perceived looming upon his left the ruins of that ancient castle which had so attracted him on his first visit. On that occasion, it had made merely an aesthetic appeal to Mr. Bennett; now he saw in a flash that its practical merits also were of a sterling order. He swerved ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Twinkling lights ahead meant rest. The melancholy desert twilight rapidly succeeded the sunset. It accentuated the forlorn loneliness of the gray, winding river of sand and its grayer shores. Night shadows trooped down from the black and looming mountains. ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... western plain, looming up against the yellow sky, was a dark mass, that upon examination presented the outlines of an elephant. Its rounded back was easily distinguished over the low bushes; and its broad hanging ears were moving as it marched. All saw at a glance that it was coming towards ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the silence and darkness of the rooms, and he shivered to see the temptation he had conquered looming again before him. He knocked loudly with a trembling hand, and the noise of iron on iron went rolling and echoing up the staircase and came back in a hollow, lonely, sounding murmur from the rooms within. His heart sank, ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... had been looming darker, and the thudding of waves upon the sand sounded louder every instant upon my ears. I could already see the quick dancing gleam of the surf in front of me. Suddenly, as I peered through the deepening shadow, a long dark boat shot out from it, like a trout from under ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of her, although the fog had cleared up a little. The soldiers were now ordered to load their muskets. I was on the poop with Bramble, when, happening to turn and look aft (the very opposite direction from which the privateer was to be expected), I saw her three lug-sails looming in the mist, just on the quarter, not half a cable's length from us. I jumped down to where the captain was standing, and said to him, "There she is, sir, close on our lee quarter." The captain sprang on the poop, saw the vessel, and ordered the men to come aft in ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... figure seemed real, looming above the vast and motionless mirage where a continent stood watching the parapets of ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... Towering hulls were ranged down each side of a lagoon that ended in vacancy. The rigging and funnels of the fleet were unrelated; those ships were phantom and monstrous. They seemed on too great a scale to be within human control. We felt diminished and a little fearful, as among the looming urgencies of a dream. The forms were gigantic but vague, and they were seen in a smother of the elements; and their sounds, deep and mournful, were like the warnings of something alien, yet without form, which we knew was adverse, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... the hideous, shadowy gods, looming up out of the darkness, their outstretched arms interlaced. And there upon the platform was the Atom Smasher, a little thread of violet light seeping out ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... which, as it did brute's work, might be brutishly handled. So far well—he might trust Amilcare to wreck himself. Unfortunately, it seemed only too likely he might involve Molly in the mess. That danger was looming; already he set her to decoy-work which the girl herself (Grifone could see) did not relish. The ladies of Nona were gay and free—too free. Molly recoiled visibly, more than once. The men were worse. Incredible as it seemed to Grifone, they actually ravaged this tender honeysuckle spray to drench ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering another room, taking up some ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... inert palsies, to his sides. His eyes seemed about to start from his head, for, looming dully to his aching gaze, in place of the coin he had so confidently hidden away, was a rayless, squalid ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... is erroneous or not—but I know I should like to punch this man's head," said the Curate, who had taken the paper to the window, where there was just light enough to make out the paragraph. He stood looming over Miss Dora, a great black shadow against the fading light. "All the mischief in the world comes of these villanous papers," said Mr Wentworth. "Though I did not think anybody nowadays believed in the 'Chronicle.' Gerald has ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the storm. But how get into the harbor? That was the crucial effort in which so many came to grief. Ahead, just visible through the rain, the spray and the mist, the Breakwater could already be seen, its back looming above the water like a whale driven aground by the gale. How ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Monday morning, Bannon, looking out through the dusty window of the trolley car, caught sight of the elevator, the naked cribbing of its huge bins looming high above the huddled shanties and lumber piles about it. A few minutes later he was walking along a rickety plank sidewalk which seemed to lead in a general direction toward the elevator. The sidewalks at Calumet are at the theoretical grade of the district, ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... efficiency made insolent, in glass and chrome and polished steel, mirrors and windows and looming electronic clerical machines. Most of one wall was taken up by a TV monitor which gave a view of the spaceport; a vast open space lighted with blue-white mercury vapor lamps, and a chained-down skyscraper ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... gazing eagerly towards the land; although, as yet, it seemed hardly more substantial than the clouds, amidst which the mountains were looming up. Once or twice, he fancied that he saw a glare of some bright object, a long way off, flinging a gleam across ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... realize that this four-part plan is easier to describe than it will be to enact. But the looming deficits that hang over us and over America's future must be reduced. The path I've outlined is fair, balanced, and realistic. If enacted, it will ensure a steady decline in deficits, aiming toward a balanced budget by the end of the decade. It's the only path that will lead ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... daybreak as, having climbed that rocky stair I have mentioned, we came upon the cliff and stood, hands tight-clasped, where we might behold the infinity of waters; and after some while, looming phantom-like upon the dawn, we descried the lofty sails of a great ship standing in towards the land and growing ever more distinct. And as we watched, and never a word, her towering canvas flushed rosy with coming day, a changing ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... an altogether indescribable expression. "Do you imagine your conduct towards the lovely Ada was not observed and commented upon by our mother and stuck-up sisters? If so, pray rid yourself at once of such a delusion, for I tell you, Win, there's a storm looming in the distance ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... seventh, especially abound in that even, full, mellow gravity of tone which is so rare in literature, because the deep absorption of spirit which is its source is so rare in life. They reveal Rousseau to us with a truth beyond that attained in any of his other pieces—a mournful sombre figure, looming shadowily in the dark glow of sundown among sad and desolate places. There is nothing like them in the French tongue, which is the speech of the clear, the cheerful, or the august among men; nothing like this sonorous ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... filled the sky now, for even through the miles of clouds the intense sun was able to force some direct rays, and all the city was lighted with that warm radiance. The floodlights had not yet been turned on, but the great buildings looming high in the ruddy light were wonderfully impressive, the effect being heightened by the planned construction, for there were no individual spires, only a single mass that grew from the ground to tower high in the ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... Hawkins & Hawkins that morning, the senior member of the firm found a man waiting for him. This man was the emissary of his mighty chief, and upon this chief rested the whole structure of a "deal" which was just then looming large on the horizon of Hawkins & Hawkins—and in which the oblong bit of paper in Jasper's pocketbook had ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... deserted gulls' nests, and gather wild asparagus—which I can only describe as bearing no resemblance at all, that I could discover, to the garden species. Then, the guide points to another perpendicular rock, farther out at sea, looming dark and phantom-like in the mist, and tells me that he was the man who built the cairn of stones on its top: and then he proposes that we shall go to the opposite extremity of the ridge on which we stand, and look down into ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... the slum is right if we let it be. We cannot get rid of the tenements that shelter two million souls in New York to-day, but we set about making them at least as nearly fit to harbor human souls as might be. That will take a long time yet. But a beginning was made. With reform looming upon the heels of the Lexow disclosures came the Gilder Tenement-House Commission in ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Very elaborately he devised a funding scheme which, taken in connection with his system of issues, was in effect what in these days would be called an "interconvertibility scheme" By various degrees of persuasion or force,—the guillotine looming up in the background,—holders of assignats were urged to convert them into evidence of national debt, bearing interest at five per cent, with the understanding that if more paper were afterward needed more would be issued. All in vain. The official tables of depreciation ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... The question, therefore, looming before Farragut was precisely that which had been debated before the President in Washington; precisely that on which Fox had differed from Porter and Barnard. It was, again, closely analogous to that which divided ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... went blindly with the blood-red light of the glorious sunset full in her hard-set face, the great fortress-crowned hills looming up before her, a barrier between herself and the beyond! They looked grey, dark, mysterious as her ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... left, the crest of the ancient castle, over grand shaggy altitudes of pine—and the place of my home, with its delicious garden—and the long blue roofs of the schools. These, too, swiftly pass out of vision. Then only faint blue water, faint blue mists, faint blues and greens and greys of peaks looming through varying distance, and beyond all, towering ghost-white into the east, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... who had been provided with some of the captured rifles and swords. As soon as we were clear, Captain A——, who was a tiny man, even among a tiny race, drew a little sword, and pointing to the enemy's barricades now looming up very close, ordered his bugler to sound the charge once more. The notes ripped out, and giving a mixed attempt at a European cheer, we quickened our pace, running as rapidly as we could over the rubbish which covered the ground and taking advantage ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... all became aware of a solid black mass looming in front of the bull's-eye window. An instant later the submarine came to a jarring stop, as if she had struck some soft, yielding substance. There was a confused shouting throughout the craft, the noise of machinery, a trembling and vibration, and ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... counts and barons, and princes not serene, but with fine German fortunes looming for them in the future, though none amounting to L1000 a ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... our evidence, and by the search for this alone we may be led to the rejection of all that is base, and the accepting of all that is good and great, for the paths of wisdom are all peace. We shall see by this light three colossal images standing up side by side, looming in their great rest of spirituality above the whole world horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of Faith, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... leaves the Doom, but in others Jeremiah leaps in a moment from the vague and far-looming to the near and exact. He follows a line which songs of vengeance or deliverance often take among unsophisticated peoples in touch with nature. They will paint you a coming judgment first in the figure of a lowering cloud ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... roughly calls corruption. This will lead him towards the little Church of the Left-centre; but there again—for there's always a but—he finds only a collection of ambitious minds and eunuchs unconsciously smoothing the way to a revolution, which he, for his part, sees looming on the horizon with great regret, because, he says, the masses are too little prepared, and too little intelligent, not to let it slip through their fingers. Legitimacy he simply laughs at; he doesn't admit it to be a principle in ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... in his opinion, all spirits are not equally malignant, all are more or less to be dreaded. The silent surroundings of primaeval forests in which the Dyak spends most of his time, the mountains, the gloomy caves, often looming mysteriously through cloud and mist, predispose him to identify them with supernatural influences, which in his imagination take the form of monsters and genii. With no better guide than the untutored imagination of a mind which in religious matters ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... What ruder sound this soft air ever smote Than a bird's twitter or a bugle's note? What darker crimson ever splashed these walks Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks? And yet—what means that charred and broken wall, That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall, Looming among the trees there? . . . And you say This happened, as it were, but yesterday? And here the Commune stretched a barricade, And there the final desperate stand was made? Such things have been? How all things change and fade! How ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... harbour, sheltered deep From access of the winds, but looming vast With awful ravage, AEtna's neighbouring steep Thundered aloud, and, dark with clouds, upcast Smoke and red cinders in a whirlwind's blast. Live balls of flame, with showers of sparks, upflew And licked the stars, and in combustion massed, Torn rocks, her ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the slides, skilfully guided by their hardy and experienced navigators. Around you is a splendid expanse of waving field and sombre forest, far as the eye can stretch, and bounded towards the north by mountains looming and half lost in distance, whence comes the mighty Gatineau—a watery highway for forest treasure, threading its course like a stream of liquid silver as the sun's rays dance upon its bosom,—the whole forming one of the most ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... publishers make a very pleasant sort of reading. They offer, as it were, a distant prospect of the great works of the future, looming in a golden haze of expectation. A gentleman or lady may acquire a reputation for wide research by merely making a careful study of the short paragraphs in the ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... thou sayest, O father, is perfectly true. But in view of the evil that is looming on the future as regards thyself, if we conciliate the people with wealth and honours, they would assuredly side with us for these proofs of our power. The treasury and the ministers of state, O king, are at this moment under our control. Therefore, it behoveth thee now to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Piedmont, the old agricultural center of Frederick has begun to come under the changeful, expansive influence of Megalopolis as a result of easier access from both Baltimore and Washington, and has been brought abruptly face to face with a looming water shortage. Recent studies by the Maryland Department of Water Resources indicate that the dependable flow of the Monocacy will not serve the town for more than another seven or eight years ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... over the boat's side to the black piled precipices of the shore, as they stood like an iron wall looming along the weather-beam.—"Look there, sir; look at the Bloody Gobbins, and hear me—When a setting moon shall cease to fling the mourning of their shadows over the graves of my butchered ancestors, and when a rising sun shall cease to bare ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... kiln, which supplied Belem (Para) with most of its building materials, had been established there. Alongside the island could be seen a lot of steamers belonging to the Amazon River Company. Beyond was the bay of Guajara, with the city and many ocean steamers looming in ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... path and bewildered his calculations. One night about this time a party of us, including Hunt and 'Doctor' Rockall, the medical corporal, who had accompanied me round the front posts, lost its way hopelessly in the dark. Shapes looming up in the distance, I enquired of Hunt as to his readiness for hostile encounter, whereupon the reassuring answer was given that 'his revolver was loaded, but not cocked.' I leave the point (if any) of this story to the mercy of those whose fate it has been to lose their way on a foggy ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... a gallery above the diners; courted by heroines of by-gone horse shows, the hem of whose garments she had never dreamed to touch; with the White House looming mistily through the sheen of silver and crystal and napery under tinted lights, Cora viewed the taking spectacle as a personal apotheosis. A silly periodical for "ladies" had recently printed an article about her which ascribed Shelby's making to ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Fastolfe's frantic battle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of the dead stretching far behind; no tarrying, no slacking rein, but on! on! on! far yonder in the distance lay our prey—Talbot and his host looming vast and dark like a storm-cloud brooding on the sea! Down we swooped upon them, glooming all the air with a quivering pall of dead leaves flung up by the whirlwind of our flight. In another moment we should have struck them as world strikes world when disorbited ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... an occasional pair of lovers or a group of sauntering students. Lights from the dignified old houses—among which was Rodney Temple's—overlooking the embankment and the Charles threw out a pleasant glow of friendliness. Beyond the river a giant shadow looming through the mist reminded him of the Roman Colisseum seen in a like aspect, the resemblance being accentuated in his imagination by the Stadium's vast silence, by its rows upon rows of ghostly gray sedilia looking down ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... his way along to the first house in the row—he could just see them looming up in the darkness. He poked his head inside the door. 'Mrs. Clover-leaf!' cried he, 'are you in there? My lantern has gone out, and I cannot tell which is ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... concerning the young woman of the cross-roads increased as he peered at the wall of blackness looming up beyond the circle of light. He could not see the towering hills, but memory pictured them as they were revealed to him in the gathering darkness before the storm. She was somewhere outside that sinister ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... itself, looming like a great black rock above the surface of the sea. Just parting from its side was the little Catamaran, with its sail set, and its crew,—consisting of two men and a boy,—the little Portuguese girl appearing ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... came from either hand A sense of change upon the land; A brooding stillness rustled through With creeping winds that hardly blew; A shadow from the looming west, A stir of leaves, a dim unrest; It seemed as if a ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... in the little room over a saloon that served as strike headquarters. A dozen or more of the leaders were there, faintly distinguishable through clouds of tobacco smoke. Among them sat the great R—— D——, his burly figure looming up at one end of the table, and his strong, rough, iron-jawed face turning first toward this speaker and then toward that. The discussion, which had evidently been lively, died down soon after I appeared at the door, ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... leader, and we neither of us thought of saying a word, but sat and listened to the low plash and roll of the oars of some big boat that seemed to be very close in; and so it proved, for at the end of a few minutes we could distinctly see something large and black looming up out of the darkness, and before long make out that it was quite a large vessel that was being worked with sweeps or large oars till it was close in; and then there was the noise of the oars being laid inboard, and the ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... Pompeiian room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon when doubtful and roving-eyed matrons in kolinsky capes are wont to congregate to sip pale amber drinks. Actors grew to recognize the semi-bald head and the shining, round, good-natured face looming out at them from the dim well of the parquet, and sometimes, in a musical show, they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out the critics as they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... profession; and he determined to give to his son that kind and degree of education which he so much desired for himself. He would thus, he knew, secure a hearty and generous co-worker in the elaboration of the great ideas now looming before him, and with their united practical and scientific knowledge he probably felt that they would be equal ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Gaff were standing by the man on the look-out, who was on the heel of the bowsprit, they fancied they observed something looming up against the dark sky on the ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... by. Snooky slept in her little white bed. The Very Young Wife half dozed in her bed, so near the little one. In the hall, her stout figure looming grotesque in wall-shadows, sat Blanche Devine pretending to read. Now and then she rose and tiptoed into the bedroom with miraculous quiet, and stooped over the little bed and listened and looked—and tiptoed ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... manned; sail was rapidly made; and, two or more reefs having been taken in, away we stood, close-hauled as near to the north-west as the wind would allow. I soon learned the reason of this proceeding. To my great joy, on looking eastward, I discovered the frigate looming through the darkness, about half gun-shot distance from us. Whether the lugger was seen by those on board or not was a question. I rather suspected that Captain Collyer had stood back to look for Toby and me, though it was almost as hopeless as looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the Upper Mississippi is separated in a great part of its extent from that of the Missouri, by an elevated plain; the appearance of which, seen from the valley of the St. Peter's or that of the Jacques, looming as it were a distant shore, has suggested for it the name of Coteau des Prairies. Its more appropriate designation would be that of plateau, which means something more than is conveyed to the mind by the expression, ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... the look of it, either. It had now rolled up to the zenith—a leaden mass, looming over them most threateningly. And there was a rumble of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... the project and some indifferent topics. It was rapidly growing dark and cool. Looming through the thickening dusk, somewhat diagonally across the dock from us, was the figure of a young fellow with his head reclining on the shoulder of a young woman. A little further off and nearer to the water I could discern a white shirt-waist ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... walked down the hill towards Les Artaud. The priest had not opened his lips; but gradually he raised his head erect: he was no longer trembling. As in the distance he caught sight of the Solitaire looming blackly against the purplish sky, and the ruddy glow of the tiles on the church, a faint smile came to his lips, while to his calm eyes there rose an expression of ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... fire. It fell on the bright colors and the dark faces of the bare-footed crowd, on the pallid yellow backs of the half-naked jostling coolies, on the accouterments of a tall Sikh trooper with a parted beard and fierce mustaches on sentry before the gate of the police compound. Looming very big above the heads in a red haze of dust, the tightly packed car of the cable tramway navigated cautiously up the human stream, with the incessant blare of its horn, in the manner of a steamer groping ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... Day (I can feel it looming; Yes, it will be in a month or less), When all the flowers in the world are blooming And Nature flutters her fairest dress— Then I, my friends, I too shall wear A blazer that will make them stare, And brush—this is official: I shall also brush ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... man gives when he gets a sudden and severe twinge of toothache. It instantly passed away. Still, as in the case of toothache, it left behind an uneasy impression that there might be something very sharp and difficult to bear looming in the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... and gazed out into the darkness, and saw the looming of the great Temple rearing its majestic form in sable gloom, darker than the night; and she looked into the great unfathomable depths of the skies, and sighed like the deep moaning of the wind. But the heavens were as brass, and the great sigh died ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... to be able to make them all comfortable; to set them down in the charming dining-room overlooking the smooth, curved crescent of sandy beach, with the long rollers breaking white, and the shoals looming on the far sea-line.... But oh, how tired we all get! I shall be quite ready for ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... Ws. had been put out of business in American City, but the Socialists were still active, in spite of prosecutions and convictions. Also there was a new peril looming up; the returned soldiers were coming back, and a lot of them were dissatisfied, presuming to complain of their treatment in the army, and of the lack of good jobs at home, and even of the peace treaty which the ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... There was one thing, he wished he had his gun with him, but then—! And he swung on down for two miles, going faster and faster, seeing nothing but white still road, and quiet sleeping trees, with looming mountains against the sky everywhere. Then, suddenly, across the way in the blare of his lights a white face flashed into view, and a body, lying full across the road, with a bicycle flung to one side completing ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... presence as to his prospects for a second entanglement, and were heard with complacent undenial. Ever since the day of his aspersion of Ray he had been losing ground, however, and now, confound it! here was Ray looming up as a hero again, making a wild night-ride with despatches. He felt that things must be brought to a crisis speedily. He knew that, properly handled, he had the means of clouding Ray's name with something ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... similar tragedies; the crowd I was in at the unveiling of the statue on the column of the Place Vendome, where I felt as one may suppose Giles Corey did when, in his misery, he called for "more weight" to finish him. But there was always a deus ex machina for us when we were in trouble. Looming up above the crowd was the smiling and encouraging countenance of the ever active, always present, always helpful Mr. Smalley. He cleared a breathing space before us. For a short time it was really a formidable wedging together of people, and if a lady had fainted in the press, she might have ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... to say, there is a church, far inland, of height and magnitude sufficient to be seen some leagues at sea, and that, favored by our position and the mists that hung above the low grounds, we had seen its upper works, looming above the fogs, and lighted for some brilliant ceremony; but we were all too old in seaman's experience to credit so wild a tale. I know not but a church may loom, as well as a hill or a ship; but he, who pretends to say, that the hands of man can thus pile stones among ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... Blenker's obituary notice in the Old Country Gazette was a masterpiece of tactful eulogy, ostentatiously loyal, yet extremely not unmindful of the widowed proprietor, and of all the possible changes of ownership looming ahead. Mr. Brumley, reading it in the Londonward train, was greatly reminded of the Hostels. That was a riddle he didn't begin to solve. Of course, it was imperative the Hostels should continue—imperative. Now they might run them together, openly, side by side. But then, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... tradition, and I am far more inclined to question the evidence which proves the falseness of any authenticated tradition than I am to trust all the statements which do duty for history. It is not only the traditions looming largely in popular interest, but some of the smallest local traditions which throw light on great historical events. They may tell us not merely of the great historical event, but of the peculiar relationship ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... at Frank Corson and Les King. They looked up at him sullenly, looming over them as he did, from the position of authority. A little like two schoolboys being punished by the principal, they lowered their eyes. Defiantly, each told himself that he was a free citizen and didn't have to take this from Taber, even if ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... you know anything about it? Your log cabin was your capitol. Your little family was your council of state. Even the rest of us, proud of our university culture, were too blind, in those late Victorian days, to see the looming menace of Prussian paganism and the conquer-lust of the Hohenzollerns, which has plunged the whole ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... Roland's horn at Roncevaux. Peering in the direction of the sound, Dante descries what he takes for lofty towers, until Virgil informs him that when they draw nearer still he will discover they are giants standing in the lowest pit but looming far above it in the mist. Ere long Dante stares in wonder at chained giants seventy feet tall, whom Virgil designates ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... reckoned. These symptoms are not easily analyzed away. But if one asks oneself, or asks one's patients, what conditions might, if they had been present from the outset, have prevented this narcistic outcome (Jehovah type, etc.), the influence that suggests itself—looming up in large shape—is just this broad sense of ethical obligation to which repeated reference has here been made. If these patients could have had it brought home to them in childhood that they belonged, ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... almost ideal one. Within easy reach of a great city, with its literary and social clubs, its theaters, lecture courses, public meetings, dinner parties, etc., he yet lived withdrawn in an academic retirement among elm-shaded avenues and leafy gardens, the dome of the Boston State-house looming distantly across the meadows where the Charles laid its "steel blue sickle" upon the variegated, plush-like ground of the wide marsh. There was {476} thus, at all times during the quarter of a century embraced between 1837 and 1861, a group of brilliant men ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers |
