"Thaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... severe one, but early in March came a rapid change and in a few days the spring thaw began in earnest, flooding the banks of the creeks and rivers and causing not a little damage to such buildings as were located close to the water's edge. The forest in that vicinity was still heavy, so that the ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... when it, too, leaned to fall. It hung for a moment over the steep slope, and I could not save myself. The frost had not clamped the over-hang to the solid ground. The last fall rains had cut it under; the first spring thaw would have brought it down, had not my weight been ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... I suppose he'll thaw out a little now, when he sees his class of children whom they wouldn't let him prepare ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... asserted itself,—there came a whiff of wind from the south and a feeling of thaw. The sled-runners began to cut through to the frozen ground, and about the tree-trunks, where thin crusts of ice were sparkling, came a faint musical sound of trickling drops. The sun was regnant, and little brown birds flew cheerily over the ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... if in one moment he saw the whole of his life summarised in a single symbol, and understood its vanity and its folly. Ah, there was nothing for him, no wife, no life.... The tears welled up in his eyes; the shock which in its suddenness had frozen his heart, began to thaw, and grief fell ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... the women of Holland are noble, loyal, active, and chaste. A few authors venture to doubt their much-talked-of calmness in affection. "They are still waters," wrote Esquiros, and all know what is said of still waters. Heine said they were frozen volcanoes, and that when they thaw—But, of all the opinions I have read, the most remarkable seems to me that of Saint Evremont—namely, that Dutch women are not lively enough to disturb the repose of the men, that some of them are certainly amiable, and that prudence ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... more drear and desolate than that of a burnt prairie. The ocean when its waves are grey—a blighted heath—a flat fenny country under a rapid thaw—all these impress the beholder with a feeling of chill monotony; but the water has motion, the heath, colour, and the half-thawed flat exhibits variety in its mottling of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... comfort is, I tell you! A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow! The paw he holds up there's been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle (This out-door business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... things, and it was only with much difficulty that I was able to prevent myself from laughing. At last I got rid of all these people, and we sat down to dinner. I tried my best to converse with those at table, but it was useless. At last I touched on agricultural topics, and then they began to thaw. I was at once informed of all their different farmsteads and herds of cattle. An almost interesting discussion took place as to whether the oxen in the upper part of the country were fatter than those ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... strength of a strong man. If it should fall upon him, where then would be his hope and outlook? His day would be done, his night would be closed in, he would be no more than a helpless log, rolling in an ice-bound sea, and when the thaw came—if it ever came—he would be only a broken, rudderless, sailless wreck. Sometimes he would swear at nothing and fling out his arms wildly, and then with a look of shame hang down his head and mutter, "No, no, ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... came to thaw their memories, that the words of Christ, like the voice in Plutarch that had become frozen, might at length become audible."—Hammond's ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 71, March 8, 1851 • Various
... eye alone; but presently, despite the random noises of the street, they became aware of a dull, continuous sound, and knew that the stream which intersected the park on its way to the river had been freed from ice by the January thaw, and was pouring its swollen waters over the dam. The note was deep and full, like a solemn recitative, as if Nature's diurnal harmonies had sunk to this one transitional key. Above all, the mildness of the air, full of the alluring witchery ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... congeal'd, &c.] Some report in Nova Zembla, and Greenland, mens' words are wont to be frozen in the air, and at the thaw may heard. ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... circulate freely, and Nature to every man is a double of himself, so that the universe seems also cold in extremities, as though there were too little original life to fill her veins. The poet is not fire on the hearth to thaw this numbness by foreign heat. He rubs and rouses us to activity, drags us to the open air, puts us on a glowing chase, provokes us to race and climb with him till we also are thoroughly alive. No other gift of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... mediums, and spoke in monosyllables. Sitting bolt upright, grim and silent, they drew up to the table, and when the phenomena began they displayed no signs of interest. Their 'detective' attitude was so objectionable that even those who had endeavored to thaw out these self-constituted Sherlock Holmeses, gave up the attempt, and, in consequence, what had promised to be a really enjoyable evening, proved one of the most uncomfortable it has ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... frost. Sudden changes in the barometer are followed by like changes in weather. The slow rise of the mercury predicts fair weather, and a slow fall, the contrary. During the frosty days the drop of the mercury is followed by a thaw and ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... in 1916, new activities began on the Eastern front, and the Russians threatened a vigorous attack on the German lines in the north "after the thaw." By the middle of the summer the Russians expected, according to semi-official reports, to have twelve million men armed, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... Jessica and I indulged in the luxury of a long, comprehending gaze into the depths of each other's eyes. Katrina returned, and we all talked at once; for five minutes reminiscences and confidences flowed with the freedom of a mountain stream after a thaw. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... about, and fowls rear up their heads as if still denizens of the poultry-yard. A true Russian winter is only to be found at Moscow or in the interior. At Saint Petersburg, owing to the neighbourhood of the Baltic, the wind which blows over it frequently produces a thaw or a partial thaw, even in the middle of winter. Thus, as the wind shifts, so does the temperature rise and fall. With a west wind comes rain, and with a north-east a bitter cold; other winds bring fogs, and some, cheerful, bright frosty days, so that the inhabitants of that ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... Thaw was front-paged on the newspapers and gibbeted in the pulpits as the shocking example of youthful depravity. He seems never to have had a fighting chance to become a man. He seems to have been robbed of his birthright from the cradle. ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... this great biographical mass by skilful hands, and, like the succeeding pages, will stand for centuries unshaken by the bombardment of the critic, while succeeding years shall try them with frost and thaw, and the tide of time dash high against their massive front, only to recede, quelled ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... for tea. While he was speaking to me, there was one peculiarity about him that I observed. Almost all men, when they stand on their own hearths, in their own homes, instinctively alter more or less from their out-of-door manner: the stiffest people expand, the coldest thaw a little, by their own firesides. It was not so with Mr. Mannion. He was exactly the same man at his own house that ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... chatty. Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of the day go about looking as if they lived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat small children on the head and to talk to them—vaguely—about sixpences. Serious men thaw and become mildly cheerful, and snobbish young men of the heavy-mustache type forget to make ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... February night. After a long frost, and a grudging thaw, westerly winds were setting in, and Spring could be foreseen. It had been pouring with rain during the concert, but was now fair, the rushing clouds leaving behind them, as they passed, great torn spaces of blue, where the ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... probability of the dory turning over, or a gunboat dropping on to you. Then there was a good deal of very genuine excitement to be got out of placer-mining in British Columbia, especially when there was frost in the ranges, and you had to thaw out your giant-powder. Shallow alluvial workings have a way of caving in when you least expect it of them. After all, however, I think I like the prairie ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... he murmured. "I'd need ear-muffs and mittens to handle her. I think I'll build me some bonfire and thaw out. She must own ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... his body, a terrible relaxing, a thaw, a decay of strength. Without knowing, he had let go his grip, and Gudrun had fallen to her knees. Must he see, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... he seem?" said the doctor, going closer to the fire to thaw the frozen rime from his beard, which was quite a bush of ice from the chin downward, before taking off his heavy ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... subject (which should only be broached in the wilds of Cornwall, or other equally primitive spots), of course you can speak of a hard frost being "an ice day for a hunting-man, although he is sure to swear at it." If the weather breaks, you may observe, "You thaw so," but not when you have to shout the quibble through the ear-trumpet of a deaf old maid. And this, with the other witticisms recorded above, should carry you (by desire) into ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... gill-nets let down through holes in the ice, captured them in fabulous numbers. On the heels of the retreating perch and cat-fish came the denizens of the salt water, and codfish were taken ninety miles above New York. When the February thaw came and brought up the volume of fresh water again, the sea brine was beaten back, and the fish, what were left of them, resumed their ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... Miss Hazy returned. With her was a bright-faced little woman whose smile seemed to thaw out the frozen places in Lovey Mary's heart and make her burst into tears ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... the leaders had hoped to fall upon the Mohawk villages and to destroy them before the tribesmen could either make preparations for defense or withdraw southward. Foiled in this plan, and afraid that an early thaw might make their route of return impossible, the French gave up their project and started home again. They had not managed to reach, much less to destroy, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... the blinds so's they'd roll up, and cleaned out the gas burners. She didn't unbend any. Discouraged all my efforts to make conversation. Thanked me all over the place, and gave me to understand that I needn't build on it, you know. But I swear I'll make her thaw out. I've thought of a scheme. I tried all her burners—to gain time, you understand—and the one she mostly uses whistles like a peanut stand. So I'm going out to get her a swell gas mantle to-night, and say Carmen sent ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... proceeded for two or three miles; but the effort did not promise any really useful result. The conditions did not change materially during the rest of that week. The position on Sunday, October 10, was lat. 69 21 S., long. 50 34 W. A thaw made things uncomfortable for us that day. The temperature had risen from -10 Fahr. to 29.8 Fahr., the highest we had experienced since January, and the ship got dripping wet between decks. The upper deck ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... good parts, bedecking them with verses and commendatory songs, as we do statues with gold, that they may be remembered and admired of all." Ancient men will dote in this kind sometimes as well as the rest; the heat of love will thaw their frozen affections, dissolve the ice of age, and so far enable them, though they be sixty years of age above the girdle, to be scarce thirty beneath. Jovianus Pontanus makes an old fool rhyme, and turn ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... ride alone, some carle shall find Dead in my arms in the half-melted snow, When all unkindly with the shifting wind, The thaw comes on ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... had come over her,—a feeling that she was one of the great human family after all, and the icy mountain of reserve began to thaw just a little. Her purchases made, she concluded to take another road home. This route lay past a church. It was lighted, though early, and a few real worshipers had met to pray ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... hour Pierre and the girl were on their way, leaving Borotte quarrelling with the brothers, and all drinking heavily. The two arrived at Throng's late the next afternoon. There had been a slight thaw during the day, and the air was almost soft, water dripping from the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... blessed child, without care, without fear, made for enjoyment, and knowing only fruition. But the mother is gone; and as that flame-lighted room would appear to the passing eye, without the fire, and with but a single candle to thaw the surrounding darkness and cold, so its that child's heart without the ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... them moaning under the snow, which by some curious chance of circumstances was just below him. But the odd thing was that they did not seem to mind it much, only moaning piteously and impatiently, as if they were in a hurry for a thaw to come and set them free. Then one of them began to ring the bell for dinner; and another did the same; and Saxe felt that he ought to be doing something to take them food to eat—coarse bread, butter, cheese like Gruyere, full of holes, and a jug of milk, but ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... though it was only half-past two o'clock, and the sun would not set for more than half-an-hour yet; for if Robert had lifted his head and looked up, it would have been at, not through, the skylight. No sky was to be seen. A thick covering of snow lay over the glass. A partial thaw, followed by frost, had fixed it there—a mass of imperfect cells and confused crystals. It was a cold place to sit in, but the boy had some faculty for enduring cold when it was the price to be paid for solitude. And besides, when he fell into ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... hagyard, would see the same Larry's handiwork so beautiful and illegant, though his own was in such brutheen.* Even his barn to wrack; and he was obliged to thrash his oats in the open air when ther would be a frost, and he used to lose one-third of it; and if there came a thaw, 'twould ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... without: a mountain stood Threatening from high, and overlooked the wood: Beneath the lowering brow, and on a bent, The temple stood of Mars armipotent; The frame of burnished steel, that cast a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air. A straight long entry to the temple led, Blind with high walls, and horror over head; Thence issued such a blast, and hollow roar, As threatened from the hinge to heave the door; In through that door a northern light there shone; 'Twas all it had, for windows there were ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... Then came a thaw, with mist and fog so thick that people were lost in their own streets, and knocked at their next-door neighbor's gate to ask the way home. All day long, down by the Thames drums beat upon the wharves and bells ding-donged to guide the ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... ladyship appeared in the same turban, put on sedulously in the same manner. Lord George seated himself beside her; and as she observed that he paid her unusual attention, she fancied that at length his icy heart would thaw. Always more intent upon making cages[6], Lady Augusta bent her mind upon captivating a new admirer. Mr. Mountague she saw was displeased, but she now really felt and showed herself indifferent to his opinion. How variable, how wretched, is ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... steaming hot, the viands sizzling, truly the feed is most beneficial. One even sweats in this intensity of cold."—"Of course," was the matter of fact reply of the wise. "Thus does the heat of spring thaw out the cold ground into a perspiration; thus does the frozen body burst into a sweat with the hot food and drink." All accepted the explanation without argument. They were in haste to end this meeting, even at cost of swallowing whole the tanuki ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... of medicine. It can clear up the most terrific eruption with scarcely a scar, and transform a bed-ridden patient into a seemingly healthy man or woman, able to work, in the course of a few weeks or months. Symptoms often vanish before it like snow in a thaw. This naturally makes a decided impression, and often an unfavorable one, on the patient. It is only too easy to think that a disease which vanishes under the magic influence of a few pills is a trifle, ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... and vanity was satisfied: the easier, therefore, to stop. Would you like to make the woman unhappy, Tommy? You know you would not; you have somewhere about you one of the softest hearts in the world. Then desist; be satisfied that you did thaw her once, and grateful that she so quickly froze again. "I am; indeed I am," he responds. "No one could have himself better in hand for the time being than I, and if a competition in morals were now going on, I should certainly take the medal. But I cannot speak for ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... inhabitants are obliged from famine to change their habitations in winter, the old and feeble are frozen to death, standing and resting their chins on their staves; remaining as pillars of ice, to fall only when the thaw of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... all over ever after. We cannot neglect any conviction of what we ought to do, without lowering the whole tone of our characters and laying ourselves open to assaults of evil from which we would once have turned shuddering and disgusted. A partial thaw is generally followed by intenser frost. An abortive insurrection is sure to issue in a more grinding tyranny. A soul half melted and then cooled off is less easy to melt than it was before. And so, dear brethren, remember this, that if you do ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... four columns, each one of which was a gilded figure representing Victory, covered the throne on which their Majesties were seated. A most fortunate precaution, for on that day the weather was dreadful; the thaw had come suddenly, and every one knows what ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... Jangled,' for he had now decided to make his coup with that, but in other respects he was unproductive. He had begun several little things in pursuance of his engagements, but somehow he did not get on with them, and had to lay them aside until the intellectual thaw he expected. Pecuniarily his position was much improved; his uncle had kept his word, and put an allowance at his disposal which made him tolerably easy about his future. He removed to more fashionable quarters in South Audley ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... hers. Richard K. Fox might have designed her jewelry; she glistens with diamonds until she makes you think of the ice coming out of the Hudson River in the early spring. But about her complexion there is no suggestion of a March thaw. For it is a climate-proof shellac. Her eyebrows are the self-made kind, and her lips were done by hand. Her skirt is too short for looks and too tight for comfort; she is tightly prisoned at the waistline and not sufficiently ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... report that in Nova Zembla and Greenland men's words are wont to be frozen in the air, and at the thaw may be heard." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... froze hard twelve or fourteen hours every day, while from eleven o'clock in 'the morning till nearly four, the sun shone as brightly as possible, and it was too hot about mid-day for walking! Yet in the shade it did not thaw for an instant. This cold weather was all the more sharp because the air was purer and clearer, and the sky continually of the most ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... position and put his feet, that were still swollen, gingerly to the floor. He drew them up again with a jerk and sat with his teeth chattering hunched on the edge of the bed. Lyaeus burrowed into the blankets and went back to sleep. For a long while Telemachus could not thaw his frozen wits enough to discover what noise had waked him up. Then it came upon him suddenly that huge rhythms were pounding about him, sounds of shaken tambourines and castanettes and beaten dish-pans and roaring voices. Someone ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... wheels—on the same road, at the same hour, same man, same everything, except the wheels. You agree to go out next week in a sleigh with Mr. Vancouver; but when the day comes, if it has happened to thaw and there is no snow, and he comes in a buggy, you couldn't possibly go with him, because it would be quite too improper. But I mean to, some day, just to see what they will say. I wish you would come! We would do a lot of driving ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Sunday afternoon, after days of rain and penetrating January thaw, when sun and air combined to cheat the earth with an illusion of spring. The buds and the mould breathed of April, and gay crowds flocked to the Park, to make the most of winter's temporary repulse. Just when things were at their gayest, with children's ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... answering she began to question: this With her was rare; and Adeline, who as yet Thought her predictions went not much amiss, Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette— So very difficult, they say, it is To keep extremes from meeting, when once set In motion; but she here too much refined— Aurora's spirit ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... deep into the snow. We glissaded down the first few hundred feet, till we brought up standing at the head of an incipient gorge, likewise smothered in snow. Round the boles of the trees the snow had begun to thaw, which gave me a chance to measure its depth, by leaning over the rim of the cup and thrusting my pole down as far as I could reach. The point of it must have been over seven feet from the surface, and it touched no bottom. My investigations ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... that dreadful night I cannot tell. Morning came at last; the snow had ceased to fall as thickly as before, allowing the light to penetrate through the veil drawn over the earth. Faint as was the light, it gave me a glimpse of hope. I might still reach the wood, and by obtaining a fire thaw my benumbed limbs. My first efforts were directed towards breaking out of my icy prison; but the hole in front of me was so small that it was not till I had made several attempts that I could ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... it must be somethin' she done that she's took umbrage at, as the feller says, an' the best thing we can do is to overlook it. I don't know as I'd advise tellin' her so, but we might just kind of blend into the scenery onobtrusive 'til the thaw comes. In view of which I'll just take a little drink an' sing you a song I heard down on the Rio Grande." Thrusting his arm into the end of his blanket roll, the Texan drew forth his bottle and, taking a drink, carefully replaced it. "This here song is The Old Chisholm Trail, ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... chilled by an imprisonment, and witnessing some of his party condemned, and some executed, after having long sustained the most elevated and rigid tone, suddenly let his alp of ice dissolve away in the gentlest thaw that ever occurred in political life. Ambitious he was, but not of martyrdom! His party appeared once formidable,[410] and his protection at Court sure. I have read several letters of the Earl of Leicester, in MS., that show he always shielded Cartwright, whenever in danger. Many of the ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... thinking that, to-night, if not before, There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton[12] roar? It's brewing up down westward; and look there, One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair; And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on, As threats, the waters will be out anon. That path by th' ford's a nasty bit of way— Best let the young ones bide ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... bombarded the German fortifications on the Belgian coast, from Zeebrugge to Ostend, for two hours on November 30, 1915. The weather suddenly changed on the entire western front. Rain, mist, and thaw imposed a check on the operations, which simmered down to artillery bombardments at isolated points. For the next three months the combatants settled down to the exciting monotony of a winter campaign, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... in this; and flattery (we are told) will warm the most austere of authors—which Staff was not. He said "Oh!" and smiled his slow, wry smile; and Mr. Iff, remarking these symptoms of a thaw with interest ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... for thaw. And no better advice can be given than Doc Robertson's: "Keep your feet dry and your ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... we will still call her, for simplicity, in spite of her promotion,—had become somewhat afraid of Mrs. Houghton; but now, seeing her husband's courtesy to her guest, understanding from his manner that he liked her society, began to thaw, and to think that she might allow herself to be intimate with the woman. It did not occur to her to be in any degree jealous,—not, at least, as yet. In her innocence she did not think it possible that her husband's heart should be untrue to her, nor did it occur to ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... eleven—we encamp for the night, or rather for the day, because it is considered better to travel at night and sleep at day, on account of the glare of the sun on the snow. We used to travel journeys of about ten hours, and then encamp, light our spirits-of-wine, put our kettle on it to thaw our snow-water, and after we had had our supper—just a piece of pemmican and a glass of water—we were glad to smoke our pipes and turn into bed. The first thing we did, after pitching the tent, was to ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... will not tell you they do it on account of the beauty of the upper world. Frankly, I do not believe them, and think they are deceived. I would as willingly credit a fox-hunter if he told me he hunted on account of the beauty of midland landscapes in thaw-time. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... bodies of cavalry, and heavy artillery, cannot venture on the ice unless it be of great thickness and strength. An army can never trust, for any length of time, to either fords or ice; if it did a freshet or a thaw would place it in a most critical state. Military bridges will, therefore, become its only safe reliance for keeping ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... two minutes after rising before Lieut. Greely could speak, so great was the outburst of enthusiasm which greeted him. He remarked that he was surprised to learn that the ground did not thaw lower at Lieut. Ray's station, which was ten degrees farther south than his own, where the ground thawed to a much greater depth—namely, twenty to thirty feet. In regard to an open polar sea, he differed from Lieut. Ray. He did not believe there was a navigable sea at the pole, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... consummation? The hours flew by and he thought of no plan. The hard weather still held and grew harder, colder, until the great drifts blocked all the roads, and St. Ignace was cut off from the outside world. Still, any hour a thaw might set in and, at the worst, the railway was hardly ever impracticable for more than a couple of days. Delay there might be, but one could see that Crabbe would not refuse to welcome even delay; he sat at the head of the chief table clad in the regulation tweeds of the country gentleman, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... Hyacinth, clapping her hands in the exuberance of her joy. "Then we can go to London to-morrow, if horses and coaches can be made ready. Give your orders at once, Fareham, I beseech you. The thaw has set in. There will be ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... report of Ormond to give encouragement to Charles; his last hopes were soon afterwards extinguished by the vigilance of Cromwell. The moment the thaw opened the ports of Holland, a squadron of English frigates swept the coast,[a] captured three and drove on shore two flutes destined for the expedition, and closely blockaded the harbour of Ostend.[2] ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... old fellow, in an exceptionally fine way, and I guess you'll find that he can thaw out. Mr. Thurston is probably just like other men who have to employ folks. When he finds that a man can really do the work that he's paid to do I imagine that Thurston is well satisfied and not afraid to ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... will arise buoyantly to ask whether you cannot do better?—whether you cannot devise some expedient whereby the heart of your worthy father may be melted and become as other men's hearts. I don't demand a permanent or even a protracted melting—all I ask is a temporary thaw, just long enough to let me extract a promise from him to let me insure those car barns and power houses. Then he can revert to adamant and be—and welcome, so far as I am concerned. Now, Miss Maitland, have you nothing ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... the landlady's hideous husband and children enshrined on the mantelshelf; looked at the abomination of desolation surrounding him until his soul sickened and cried out like a child's for something more like home. It was as if a spring thaw had melted his ice-bound heart, and on the crest of a wave it was drifting out into the milder waters of some unknown sea. He could have laid his head in the kind lap of a woman and cried: "Comfort me! Give me ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... system was arranged whereby a courier from Fort Snelling and one from Prairie du Chien set out at about the same time, meeting at Wabasha's village where the packs were exchanged and each returned to his own post. On one occasion a spring thaw overtook the carrier from Prairie du Chien, who had proceeded beyond the meeting place because the messenger from the north was late. Suddenly the ice groaned and cracked, and the postman with difficulty found safety on a small island where, to his ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... of all spontaneity. Before the indispensable ease can exist, certain relations of equality must be established. But there are some whose fountains of speech, in letters as in conversation, lie forever above the line of perpetual snow. They never thaw out. Bound by a sort of viscosity of spirits, that peculiar stamp of the Anglo-Saxon temperament, they are incapable of getting their thoughts and emotions under way; with the best will in the world, genuine warmth of feeling, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... long—waited to dole out to a frenzied public all available cash and close the doors too late for solvency. But not so with the Bank of Adot. Aaron Logan got his order for receivership before his public went frantic and while cash was yet available. Under court order he was proceeding to thaw out the frozen items of assets, and planned to open the institution to those who would limit their withdrawals to stated amounts. He made progress in these endeavors until he bumped into the stone wall of the Barrow loan. ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... carried the wall to its full height, they make it to incline or bend in gradually till it form a regular vault. They are little incommoded with rain in this country; as the climate is so extremely cold, that the first snow that falls does not thaw for nine months. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... end of December, generally, they experience their first thawing. Those which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and quite unpalatable to the civilized taste, such at least as were frozen while sound, let a warmer sun come to thaw them, for they are extremely sensitive to its rays, are found to be filled with a rich, sweet cider, better than any bottled cider that I know of, and with which I am better acquainted than with wine. All apples are good in this ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... girls had a hard time convincing her that Nyoda was not a myth, although they began to wonder if she had not turned into one. Gradually Pearl began to thaw out under their persistent cordiality and was really not such a bad companion after all. She still furtively watched the road behind them as if she feared pursuit, but some of the scared rabbit look was going out of her eyes when she began to realize that the width of a whole ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... night we thought we heard some one coming and we got into the trunks? That was the time Angela fell down-stairs and had hysterics. It was initiation night, too, wasn't it? My, but wasn't Miss North furious! I thought she'd freeze into an icicle. It took her weeks to thaw out." ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... voice sweetened to all the tenderness it was possible to put on, and so easy and natural to Sylvia: and if before the old gentleman were seized with some unusual pleasure, which before he never felt about his icy and insensible heart, and which now began to thaw at the fire of her eyes——l say, if before he were surprised with looking, what was he when she spoke—with a voice so soft, and an air so bewitching? He was all eyes and ears, and had use of no other sense but what informed those. He gazes upon her, as if he waited and listened ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... borrowed L10, and so to my office, and was able to pay my money. Thence into the Hall, and meeting the Quarter Master, Jenings, and Captain Rider, we four went to a cook's to dinner. Thence Jenings and I into London (it being through heat of the sun a great thaw and dirty) to show our bills of return, and coming back drank a pint of wine at the Star in Cheapside. So to Westminster, overtaking Captain Okeshott in his silk cloak, whose sword got hold of many people in walking. Thence ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... that Russia was ill supplied with railways, and hardly supplied at all with hard roads (in a climate where the thaw turned her deep soil into a mass of mud) is political rather than geographical, but it must be remembered in connection with this difficulty ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting, may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon society. But as this faculty is not given to many, so the average man may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: Is there ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... eye traveled up the face of the white mountain to the great snow-comb that yawned over the edge of the rock-rim far above. It had snowed again heavily all night, and now showed symptoms of a thaw. Not once nor twice, but a dozen times, the man's anxious gaze had swept up to that great overhanging bank. Snowslides ran every year in this section with heavy loss to life and property. Given a rising ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... that this too, too solid flesh would melt, (Pat, went the right hand,) Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew," (Pat, went the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... our first-line emplacements. The snow has followed us, but alas, the thaw too. Happily, in this emplacement we don't live in water as we ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... 'Cavalier,' Just as Koutousow's most 'forlorn' of 'hopes' Took like chameleons some slight tinge of fear, Open'd the gate call'd 'Kilia,' to the groups Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thaw'd into a marsh ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Thaw, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Company, writes: "This work is wholly good, both for the men and the roads which they serve." Mr. C. Vanderbilt, first vice-president of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, writes: "Few things ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... Upso-Gee's taciturnity and anxiety grew apace. He was little more talkative than the painted devil chaser on the blackened canvas of his tepee, but he gave David to understand that he would have a hard time getting back with his dogs and sledge from Fond du Lac if the thaw came earlier than he had anticipated. David marvelled at the old warrior's endurance, and especially when they crossed the forty miles of ice on Wollaston Lake between dawn and darkness. At high noon the snow was beginning to soften on the sunny slopes even then, and by the time they ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... trade. Undoubtedly these were able men, but not impartial jurists. In the words of an American newspaper, 'the chances of convincing them of the rightfulness of Canada's claim are about the same as the prospect of a thaw in Hades.' ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... glance, but he made no advances. "He thinks I am angry because of his keen criticism of my picture. For the sake of my own pride, I must not let him think that I care so much about his opinion;" and Christine resolved to let some of the ice thaw that had formed between them. Moreover, in spite of herself, when she was thrown into his society, he greatly interested her. He seemed to have just what she had not. He could meet her on her own ground in matters of taste, and then, in contrast with her cold, negative life, he was so earnest and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... But neither was the studio anything better than a dismal den, with its marble shapes shivering around the walls, cold as the snow images which the sculptor used to model in his boyhood, and sadly behold them weep themselves away at the first thaw. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... With the spring thaw came a freshet. It came suddenly, at the end of the week; every river and stream rising into a full tide of insurrection with the melting snows of Saturday, and Saturday night bridges and mill dams went by the board. Among the rest, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Dark, is all I find for metaphor; All else were contrast,—save that contrast's wall Is down, and all opposed things flow together Into a vast monotony, where night And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life, Are synonyms. What now—what now to me Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers That clutter up the world? You were my song! Now, let discord scream! You were my flower! Now let the world grow weeds! For I shall not Plant things above your ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... fighting for the morrow and more and more poisoned by hard and bitter thoughts. The days and weeks passed and soon I felt the breath of warmer winds. On the open places the snow began to thaw. In spots the little rivulets of water appeared. Another day I saw a fly or a spider awakened after the hard winter. The spring was coming. I realized that in spring it was impossible to go out from the forest. Every river overflowed its banks; the swamps became impassable; ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... shone through the tiny window in the grandfather's house, on the quiet child. The daughters of the sun-beams kissed him, they wished to thaw him, to warm him and to carry away with them the icy kiss, which the queenly maiden of the glaciers had given him, as he lay on his dead mother's lap, in the deep icy gap, whence he was saved ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... another thaw, and a freeze followed some days later, making good skating. One afternoon Bert proposed to Harry that they go for a trip on ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... find something in it to like; it touches, in a dry enough manner, upon most things under heaven, and if you like me, I think you ought to like this intellectual—no, I withdraw the word—this artistic dog of mine. Thaw—thaw—thaw, up here; and farewell skating, and farewell the clear dry air and the wide, bright, white snow-surface, and all that was so pleasant ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1795, after a long continued fall of snow, a sudden thaw raised a heavy flood in the Severn, which carried away many bridges—amongst others one at Bewdley, in Worcestershire,— when Telford was called upon to supply a design for a new structure. At the same time, he was required to furnish a plan for a new bridge near the town of Bridgenorth; "in short," ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... few branches to provide them with food and shelter. They passed by the way armies of those who had set out upon the perilous enterprise, who stood frozen stiffly, without sense or motion; but Prince Mannikin strictly forbade that any attempt should be made to thaw them. So they went on and on for more than three months, and day by day the Ice Mountain, which they had seen for a long time, grew clearer, until at last they stood close to it, and shuddered at its height and steepness. But by patience and perseverance ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... him. He was polite, but monosyllabic and gloomy, and his interest in the play was obviously feigned. Douglas wisely left him to Cicely, and devoted himself to her little friend, and he soon had the pleasure of seeing Drexley thaw. Cicely only laughed at his momentary lapses, and she was far too charming a companion to be ignored. Before the first act was ended she had conquered. Drexley was watching her with a quiet smile upon his lips, amused at her eagerness, answering her many questions readily. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim |
