"Torrent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and here they rested, here they slept, many fathoms below that level over which navies used to sail. At times during the night Paulett fancied, when the wind abated, that he heard a sound like thunder, or like what used to be the rushing of a distant torrent; and occasionally he thought he felt a vibration in the earth as if it were shaken by some moving body. The region he was in was so strange that he knew not what might be here, or what about to happen; the sounds ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... war was now called. It was evident that the forces of the Spaniards were unequal to a contest with so numerous and well-appointed a body of natives; and, even if they should prevail here, they could have no hope of stemming the torrent which must rise against them in their progress - for the country was becoming more and more thickly settled, and towns and hamlets started into view at every new headland which they doubled. It was better, in the opinion ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... who had travelled so long and so far, could see it plainly from where he stood, and he did not need to be told that it was the fruit of happiness. But, after all, all he could do was to stand and look, for in front of them was a great raging torrent, without a bridge for ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... torrent that threatened to overturn everything and you gave no attention to the still water. There is, however, a proverb current in France relating ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is usually placed on the bank of a brook, or rather of a torrent, which supplies the fall of water necessary for the motive power by means of a flume about a hundred meters in length. In most cases the forge is surrounded on all sides with a forest which yields the wood necessary for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... Froude's History I have not yet seen. I hope now, as I write less, I shall have more time for reading. It seems to be somewhat paradoxical. By the way, is not Carlyle sadly gone off? I met him the other day, and he did nothing but blaspheme, and pour out a torrent of bad language against blackguards, fools, and devils that was ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... of that daughter's death. Thus the current of his home life changed, and responsibility came into it, while outside the mighty stream of public events changed too, and swept him along in the swelling torrent of ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... power have shown the soundness of these observations. No ordinary President would have staked himself against the Bank of the United States and the two Houses of Congress in 1832. It required President Jackson to confront that power—to stem that torrent—to stay the progress of that charter, and to refer it to the people for their decision. His moral courage was equal to the crisis. He arrested the charter until it could be got to the people, and they have arrested it forever. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... bound it, With cold winters, summers bleak, Curtly smiling, never meek, 'Tis the giant we must master, Till he work our will the faster. He shall carry, though he clamor, He shall haul and saw and hammer, Turn to light the tumbling torrent,— All his din and rage abhorrent Shall, if we but do our duty, Win for us a realm ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... remaining within the shadow of our own roofs, and gathering around the domestic hearth the thornless roses of existence; rendering home a haven of rest to the weary and care-worn; instead of slumbering idly, in the security of our mansions, when the torrent of war rolls over the land; instead of girding then our brothers for the stormy fight, bidding them GOD-speed; instead of ignobly bending before the tyrannical power of Man, thou, O! astute NEAL! wouldst have us pluck the laurel-wreath from our kinsman's brow, and bind it on our own. Thou wouldst ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of the most prodigious courage the world ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... the sewing-machine and the chattering of a child's voice, and from outside, on the pavement, was a furious rushing of coal. The big van had been backed up against the curb, and the cascading black torrent interrupted ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... shock of this torrent which rasped my soul, I was sent back to school in charge of my brother. I lost the dinner at the Freres Provencaux, and was deprived of seeing Talma in Britannicus. Such was my first interview with my mother after a separation ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... feed chiefly in the morning and the late afternoon. During the hottest part of the day they perch in trees and hold a concert, if such a term may be applied to a torrent ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... deadly hate, Sad Acheron of sorrow black and deep; Cocytus named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream. Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... with impetuosity into the Gulf of Florida. At the end of the Gulf of Florida, in the parallel of Cape Cannaveral, the Gulf-stream, or current of Florida, runs north-east. Its rapidity resembles that of a torrent, and is sometimes five miles an hour. The pilot may judge, with some certainty, of the proximity of his approach to New York, Philadelphia, or Charlestown when he reaches the edge of the stream; for the elevated temperature of the waters, their saltness, indigo-blue colour, and ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... The sound must seem an Echo to the sense: 365 Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, 370 The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... and bags of haricots. Covered with the debris of the food, bruised, tattered, lame, and blind, he took to flight, followed by the shop-boys, bakers, loafers, citizens, and hooligans whose number increased each moment and who kept shouting: "Duck him! Death to the traitor! Duck him!" This torrent of vulgar humanity swept along the streets and rushed into the Rue St. Mael. The police did their duty. From all the adjacent streets constables proceeded and, holding their scabbards with their left hands, they went at full speed in front of the pursuers. They were on the point of grabbing ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... appear in all directions, in and round the town, are as clear as crystal, and run glittering and murmuring through streets, roads, and promenades, as if the houses and squares had no business there to intercept its mountain-torrent. ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... of air, the muffled roar of a mountain torrent, rushed out of the forest, startling with the suddenness of its impact. Once a ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... or photos to copy from) but it was the first time in all my varied experiences that I had ever come upon a painter standing up to his armpits in a swift-flowing mill or any other kind of stream, the water breaking against his body as a rock breasts a torrent, and he working away like mad on a 3 x 4 lashed to a huge ladder high enough to scale ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Antitrinitarians, Arians, and Antiscripturists," where was the security that these might not at least print and publish their blasphemies and errors? "Our minds are astonished, and our bowels are moved, &c.!"—There is a story of an irascible and fluent man who, after a torrent of abusive words addressed to a cool-tempered friend with whom he had a difference, was brought to a stop by the calm request of his friend that he would be so good as to repeat his observations. Something of the kind happened now. The reply of the two Houses to the ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... next morning as I tarried beyond the reasonable hour for my departure, her wrath broke out in a torrent. "If ye dinna ken the way hame, Mr. Quirk, I'll show it ye," she said as she joined Esther and me at the hitch-rack, where we had been loitering for an hour. "And I dinna care muckle whaur ye gang, so ye get oot o' ma sight, and stay oot o' it. I thocht ye waur ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... choruses of the Greek drama displease him. The merit of his own poems he sees in the fact that they pass passion by, they abstain from pathos altogether—'there is not a single storm in them, no mountain torrent overflowing its banks, no exaggeration whatever. There is great frugality in words. My poetry would rather keep within bounds than exceed them, rather hug the shore than cleave the high seas.' In another place he says: 'I am always most pleased by a poem that does ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... them. But by advancing to the spot where the trapper had kindled the grass, they avoided the heat, and in a very few moments the flames began to recede in every quarter, leaving them enveloped in a cloud of smoke, but perfectly safe from the torrent of fire that ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "O Sir Henry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane! He might have prevented this. But he is a juggler, and has not common honesty himself." From Vane he directed his discourse to Whitelock, on whom he poured a torrent of abuse; then, pointing to Challoner, "There," he cried, "sits a drunkard;" next, to Marten and Wentworth, "There are two whoremasters:" and afterwards, selecting different members in succession, described ...
— 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
... the chimney. A scrap of paper torn from an envelope was floating idly on its current. Was it the overflow of the backed-up waters of the river? He was not left long in doubt. Another blow upon the gable of the house, and a torrent of spray leaped down the chimney, scattered the embers far and wide, and left him in utter darkness. Some of the spray clung to his lips. It was salt. The great ocean had beaten down the river bar ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... spoke, who listened and took notes as the words fell from Otis's lips. "With a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical events and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of tempestuous eloquence, he hurried away all before him. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... forth the "Notes on Virginia." His opposition to slavery is as fierce here as of old, but it takes various phases,—sometimes sweeping against the hated system with a torrent of facts,—sometimes battering it with a hard, cold logic,—sometimes piercing it with deadly queries and suggestions,—and sometimes, with his blazing hate of all oppression, biting and burning through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... an idea of sending her husband home, but after all what could Bill do? There was not much chance of his being able to persuade Philippa where she had failed, and, indeed, Bill had already made one effort in that direction, and was by no means over-anxious to undertake a second attempt to stem the torrent of a woman's will. ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... were not as warlike as themselves, two of the gig's boat's crew stood up, and went through the evolutions of the broad-sword exercise in a very creditable manner. After this performance one of the seamen danced the sailor's hornpipe, which brought forth a torrent of yells instead of bravos, but they certainly meant the same thing. By this time, the heat from a large fire, with the smell of humanity in so crowded a room, became so overpowering, that I was glad to leave the Head House to get a little fresh air, and ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... our travellers followed was nothing more than a narrow path or "trail" formed by cattle, or by some party of Indians occasionally passing up from the lower valleys to the mountain-heights. It lay along the edge of a torrent that leaped and foamed over its rocky bed. The torrent was no doubt on its way to join the greatest of rivers, the mighty Amazon—the head-waters of which spring from all parts of the Andes, draining the slopes of these ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... little water, on account of which they determined to separate, each one taking a different direction in search of the sea or the great lakes. One arrived, happily, at the sea by the Padada river, and from it came eels in the sea. The other descending a torrent, swimming and confining himself as well as he might, enclosed in these narrow places, said to himself 'I haven't the slightest idea of what the sea is, but it appears to me that when I see before me an extraordinary clearness on a limpid ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... been to present him with an address on his birthday; but the language they use is too tame for the occasion. Birthday addresses, like birthday odes, should not creep along like mildrops down a cabbage leaf, but roll in a torrent of poetical metaphor. I will give them a specimen for the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... difficult to procure enough water to drink less than 8 or 10 miles from the mouth of De Chelly, but occasionally the whole stream bed, at places over a quarter of a mile wide, is occupied by a raging torrent impassable to man or beast. Such ebullitions, however, seldom last more than a few hours. Usually water can be obtained anywhere in the bottom by sinking a shallow well in the sand, and it is by this method ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... torrent more of bitter words she poured out. She never knew till now the passion, the galling sarcasm, there was in her nature. She felt a longing to hate—a wish to wound. Every time she looked at her husband, there seemed a demon rising up within her—that demon which lurks strangely ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... time the road entered what looked like a pass among the mountains. On one side the hill rose, wooded in some places, in others rocky; while on the other side it went down steep for about thirty, feet, where a mountain torrent brawled, and dashed over its rocky bed. It was about here that the ass slackened his pace sufficiently for Bob to jump from his back; but just here it was impossible to jump without the risk of breaking some of his bones, and he was not yet ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... departed to Dena's house, and Dena's wife met them with a torrent of reproaches and wailings, for Dena too had gone off the evening before to Lena's house and ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... produced such a torrent of oaths from Major Hardy as was only stemmed by the M.L.O.'s assurance that there was no real doubt about the Redbreast's going to Suvla. We left the cabin to the sound of a long "Ha-ha-ha!" from its engaging occupant, who had been tickled, you ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Clovelly is built in what was once a torrent-bed, and the village tumbles down from the top of the cliff to the very edge of Hartland Bay. The droll, Italian-like cottages cling to the hillside, or seem to grow directly out of the gray rock. At first, the street descends rather gradually and straight, but after ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... answering signal seemed to issue from the invisible jaws of Hades; a wild, quivering sepulchral cry, as of a monster half throttled. Twenty feet beyond the spot where the party had halted, a steep descent led them to a shelving canon, once the bed of a broad mountain torrent, whose course some seismic upheaval had diverted to other channels. Following for a few yards the sinuous stony way, worn here and there into smooth circular cavities like miniature wells, by the eddying of the ancient current and the grinding of pebbles, the travellers ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent are dashing! ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... useless were the tears of the Brahmins, who besought him to take their treasures, but at least spare their idol. With his own hand, and with the mace which is the counterpart of Excalibar in Oriental legend, he smote the face of the idol, and a torrent of precious stones gushed out. When Keane's army took Ghuznee in 1839, this mace was still to be seen hanging up over the sarcophagus of Mahmud, and the tomb was then entered through folding gates, which tradition asserted ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... authorities and impeached the head of the State, made a profound impression; it was redoubled by the Southern intensity of his thought and expression. Disdaining all forms of rhetoric, he poured forth a torrent of ideas, clothing them in the first words that came to his facile tongue, enforcing them by blows of the fist or the most violent gestures, and yet, again, modulating the roar of passion to the falsetto of satire or the whisper of emotion. His short, thick-set frame, vibrating with ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the Dale girls found themselves in such a quandary. For a whole long hour they were prohibited by a code of honor from speaking. They were all just bursting with desire to launch forth in a fiery torrent, but they must none of them utter a single word. Verena, as monitress, could not encourage rebellion. There are some things that even untrained girls, provided they are ladies, understand by intuition. The Dales were ladies by birth. Their home had ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... and here I stayed the winter through—scarcely hoping to find her now, yet chained to Snowdon. After my labours during the day, scrambling among slippery boulders and rugged rocks, crossing swollen torrent-beds, amid rain and ice and snow and mist such as frightened away the Welsh themselves—after thus wandering, because I could not leave the region, it was a comfort to me to turn into the low, black-beamed room of the fishing-inn, with drying hams, flitches of bacon, ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... seemed to burst forth like a mountain cataract long locked in snow, which, melting suddenly under some unseasonable fiery influence, falls in an impetuous icy torrent, bearing the startling chill of winter into flowery meadows, where tender verdure sown thick with primroses and daisies smiles ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... terrible bonds of weakness, labouring to find expression for something which wrought him into a fever of excitement. While Mr Wentworth bent his ear closer and closer, trying to make some sense of the inarticulate torrent of sound, Lucy, inspired by grief and horror and indignation, leaned over her father on the other side, doing everything possible to calm him. "Oh, papa, don't say any more—don't say any more; we understand you," she cried, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... the keys of these things, Mrs. Maple?' said Uncle Oldys. His simple words let loose a torrent (not violent, but copious) of speech: had she been a shade or two higher in the social scale, Mrs. Maple might have stood as the ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... off started the doctor, but Aunt Ninette would not let him escape so easily. She followed close at his heels with a whole torrent of questions, which she asked over and over again, and she would have an answer. The doctor had fairly deserved this attack, by his astounding prescription. His little game of snapping it suddenly upon them, and then quickly making ...
— Uncle Titus and His Visit to the Country • Johanna Spyri
... which seemed to be directed against John's peace of mind. If I said that it is not unusual for the current of events to run very quietly before a great crisis, I should not be saying anything original, since the torrent's calmness ere it dash below has been remarked before now. But it certainly was so in this instance. John, I need scarcely say, did not present himself at Lady Mariamne's on the afternoon at five when ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... their brief year of marriage came surging over her in a torrent—Catherine's narrow-minded opposition and disapproval, Hugh's own moodiness and irritability and, latterly, his not infrequent censure. There had been times when Diane—rebuked incessantly—had fancied she must be the Scarlet ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... of parliament. And it is not to be wondered at, that, after such a warning, and with no hope of seeing a parliament assemble, even they who still retained their attachment to the true constitution of their country, should rather give way to the torrent than make ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... And at that moment, he felt that the promise had not been a vain one; for he knew that he could not go to her, that at sight of her his resolution would melt like snow in the sun, that his love for her would sweep him away on a torrent of passion, and that he would be as false to Maude Falconer as he had been ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... his room. He was lying down, looking very blue, very dismal, and utterly used up. At first, I did not notice this, but burst forth in a torrent of congratulations, shaking his hand most violently. He raised himself slightly from the sofa on which he was reclining, and his languid hand did not return my warm grasp, nor did his face exhibit ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... rest, and by the light of it—in the thousandth part of a second they were gone again—but he had seen them, he was certain of it—Three beautiful little white girls, with their arms twined round each other's necks, floating down the torrent, as they sang, "Down to the sea, down ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... gives Offence, The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense. Soft is the Strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth Stream in smoother Numbers flows; But when loud Surges lash the sounding Shore, The hoarse rough Verse shou'd like the Torrent roar. When Ajax strives some Rocks vast Weight to throw, The Line too labours, and the Words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain, Flies o'er th' unbending Corn, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... power, and a new world May sprout forth from it. Once already have I Proved myself worth an army to you—I alone! Before the Swedish strength your troops had melted; Beside the Lech sank Tilly your last hope; Into Bavaria like a winter torrent, Did that Gustavus pour, and at Vienna In his own palace did the Emperor tremble. Soldiers were scarce, for still the multitude Follow the luck: all eyes were turn'd on me, Their helper in distress: the Emperor's pride Bow'd itself down before the man he had injured. 'Twas I must rise, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the Palestine Exploration Fund in the lofty mound of Tel el-Hesi in Southern Palestine. Tel el-Hesi stands midway between Gaza and Hebron on the edge of the Judaean mountains, and overlooking a torrent stream. His excavations resulted in the discovery of successive cities built one upon the ruins of the other, and in the probability that the site was that of Lachish. The excavations were resumed by Mr. Bliss in the following year, and the probability was raised to practical certainty. ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce
... Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world,'" he said gently but firmly, and his strong faith and the words of Holy Writ were like a rock, at which, from out of the overwhelming torrent of her remorseful despair, she grasped as her one chance, her ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... flood. It came down the valley a torrent of yellow water, rushing madly between the rocks where the channel was narrow, spreading out far and wide over the low-lying meads, bearing with it the trunks of trees and other debris snatched up along its course. It had overflowed the lower bridge, and rendered it impassable to traffic; ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... get ready to move out. After an hour, they were changed to "Clean up the room." When we had accomplished this, an inspecting officer entered and began to sniff and snort until his eyes fairly blazed with wrath, and then in a torrent of words he expressed his private and official opinion of us. So fast and freely did his language flow that I couldn't catch all the compliments he showered upon us; but "Verdammte!" "Donnerwetter!" and "Schwein!" were stressed ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... As we were on foot we felt grateful, for the road was well kept. We passed for miles over planking hung on the cliff side or on roadway carried on embankments. On the suspended pathways there was now and then a plank loose or broken, and there was no rail between the pedestrian and the torrent dashing below. Where there was embanked roadway it was almost always uphill and downhill and it frequently swung sharply round the corner of a cliff. As the river increased in volume we saw many rafts ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... bear it no longer: he could not restrain the torrent of tears which was struggling to get free; he could not stay in that assembly of people; he must be alone, alone with God, ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... sympathy dictated at once the kindest course. Without attempting to control the torrent of grief in its full current, she gently sat her down beside the mourner.... She waited a more composed moment to offer her little stock of consolation in ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... this sorrowing night, The clanking of your chains may be The sign of vengeance, and the fight Of former times the world may see, When Hermann in that storied day As a wild torrent ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... ever dared to go straight for that beast with the sharp teeth and the terrible eyes that flashed lambent fire like those of Cynna,(2) surrounded by a hundred lewd flatterers, who spittle-licked him to his heart's content; it had a voice like a roaring torrent, the stench of a seal, a foul Lamia's testicles and ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... upper and narrowest part of a transverse valley, usually containing the upper bed of a torrent. Also, in fortification, a line joining the inner extremities ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... breaking; all the passion of her hot nature was roused; she felt herself unfairly, unjustly, treated; insulted on the very day that was to have crowned her pride. She could not control herself, nor could she accept her defeat: she stamped her foot on the ground, and poured out a torrent of objurgation, accusing Jean of treachery, demanding to know whence he had produced her rival, appealing to the elders to revise the judgment. Then, suddenly ceasing, as she saw by the looks of those around her that while in some her fate created pity, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... from its appearance and mode of construction, may be conjectured to be of the same age as the castle upon the mountain. It is surrounded by a broad ditch, and had a wall within the ditch. Several of its towers are still standing. A very solid bridge, which crosses the winter torrent, Wady el Kyd, leads to the entrance of the castle, over which is an Arabic inscription; but for want of a ladder, I could make out nothing of it but the date "600 and ... years (.... [Arabic])," taking the era ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... people; but I had been ever careless of my grammar, and in a moment of less excitement I might have hesitated in venturing on the native tongue of so fair a creature. But now my French poured from me in an angry torrent: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... perfection—a perfect mistress of her voice; she can do what she likes with it, she can sustain a note in any part of the soprano compass—swell, diminish, and keep it exactly to the same pitch for an incredible space of time. She can burst forth a torrent of sound expressive of our strongest passions, without losing an atom of tone, and she can diminish it to a whisper, in sotto voce, as distinct as it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... countenance of the great Onondaga emerged upon the star, and the blood of Tayoga ran in a chill torrent through his veins, though the chill was not the chill of fear. He was, in effect, meeting the mighty Onondaga of four hundred years ago, face to face. The forest around him glided away, Robert vanished, the solid earth melted from under his feet, and he was like a being who hung in the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the glacier of Rosenlaui less enveloped in snow than that of the Aar; and though the magnificent ice-cave, so well known to travelers for its azure tints, was inaccessible, they could look into the vault and see that the habitual bed of the torrent was dry. The journey was accomplished in a week ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... rather a torrent, of air rushes from the hinterland northward year after year, replenished from a source which never fails. We had reason to believe that it was local in character, as apparently a gulf of open water about one hundred miles ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... moment. I had never seen them before under such trying circumstances, and I thought them quite admirable, and their officers too,—the very embodiment of devotion. One day, the rear guard detachment had dropped some way behind the main column, and found itself stopped by an impetuous torrent, which was swelling visibly under a deluge of rain. The first men who tried to cross were carried off their feet, thrown down, and only pulled out with great difficulty. Without a moment's hesitation all the officers plunged ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... finally returning to the reckless determination to brave all and save her from herself. The soldier begged him to listen to reason, implored him to reconsider, at last turning in anger upon the stubborn American with a torrent of maledictions. Lorry heard him through and quietly, unswervingly announced that he was ready to leave the monastery at any time his guide cared to depart. Quinnox gave up in despair at this, gazing hopelessly at the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... philosophy—every such saying should come home with a thrill of joy and corroboration; he should feel each one below his feet as another sure foundation in the flux of time and chance; each should be another proof that in the torrent of the years and generations, where doctrines and great armaments and empires are swept away and swallowed, he stands immovable, holding by the eternal stars. But alas! at this juncture of the ages it is not ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... count's advocate would have lasted more than two hours if the court had not silenced him. He indulged in a torrent of abuse against the other barrister, the experts in hand-writing, and the peasant, whom he threatened with a speedy consignment to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... apologise at all for the words he had spoken,—but would speak them again somewhat more sharply than before. She would be very wrathful with him; there would be a silent enduring indignation, which, as he understood well, would be infinitely worse than any torrent of words. But was he, a man, to abstain from doing that which he believed to be his duty because he was afraid of his wife's anger? Should he be deterred from saying that which he conceived it would ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Gregory XIII., Benedict XIV., Julius III., Paul III., Leo X., Clement VIII., John XX., and a host of others, who must be looked upon as the preservers of science and the arts, even amid the very fearful torrent of barbarism that was spreading itself, like an inundation, over the whole of Europe. The principle of the Catholic Church has ever been this: "By the knowledge of Divine things, and the guidance of an infallible teacher, the human mind must gain certainty ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Karkacha Pass (7,925 feet alt.) at the right of which is Assin Kilo, thence through the Kotul defile, and ascending the Khurd Kabul [Footnote: The Khurd Kabul Pass is about five miles long, with an impetuous mountain torrent which the road (1842) crossed twenty-eight times.] (7,397 feet alt.) to the north reaches the high plateau on which Kabul is situated; the other leads over the short but dangerous Jagdallak Pass to Jagdallak, from which there are three roads to ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... was to be turned into joy, the appalling thought was alone present to them in all its fearfulness—"Lazarus is dead!" When He, the God-man Mediator, with the refined sensibilities of His tender heart, beheld the poignancy of that grief, the pent-up torrent of His own human sympathies could be restrained no longer. His tears ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... before the awful anger of his chief. He tried to make excuses. Then Washington's fury knew no bounds. He poured forth a torrent of wrath upon Lee till, as one of his officers who heard him said, "the very leaves shook on the trees." Then halting the retreating troops, he formed them for battle once more. Later in the day meeting Lee he sent ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... At that moment the presence of Henriette irritated her. She wanted to be alone, leaning to watch this ever-shifting torrent of humanity. This balcony belonged to her room. She had revenged herself for the upper berth by securing a room much better placed than Henriette's. But if Henriette intended ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... in the dam are getting larger. It will be a big flood when it does come. And I'm not altogether sure that we're safe up here," he added, as he looked down the sides of the hill to where the creek was now rapidly becoming a raging torrent. ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... bought a volume of Scott's poems for me, to match the Burns's and he found in "Marmion"—where he knew it existed—a verse about the torrent: ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... motioned me into the vehicle and took a place beside me. The driver touched the lever; a stream of coruscations flew from the ball down into the cylinder. The shell started smoothly, and as the tiny torrent of shining particles increased ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... him to speak of Egypt upon the last day of his visit. They were seated upon the hillside, on the edge of a stream which leaped from ledge to ledge down a miniature gorge of rock, and flowed over deep pools between the ledges very swiftly, a torrent ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... commands the southern bank. Ranges of high hills strewn with boulders and dotted with trees rise abruptly from the water, forming a mighty rampart for the enemy. Before this the river, a broad torrent with few and narrow fords and often precipitous banks, flows rapidly—a great moat. And before the river again, on our side stretches a smooth, undulating, grassy country—a regular glacis. To defend the rampart and sweep the glacis ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... groves, pasture and hillocks of the adjacent country. The prospects around us were beautiful and enchanting. Lofty trees threw a delightful, welcome shade, and the hill-side seemed covered with flowering shrubs, which grew irregularly except where a torrent from the summit, now dry, had during ages worn out a deep hollow bed for its rapid ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... best, Rebecca had gone to take tea with the Cobbs; but while crossing the bridge she was suddenly overcome by the beauty of the river and leaned over the newly painted rail to feast her eyes on the dashing torrent of the fall. Resting her elbows on the topmost board, and inclining her little figure forward in delicious ease, she ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Patty, had jested and laughed with her; and now he hesitated to call her up by telephone. No, he was not afraid of Patty; he was simply afraid of himself. For he realized this—that in the moment he spoke to her alone his love would spring from his lips like a torrent; nothing could stop it; and he was not of that supreme courage at present that spurs the lover to put it to the touch to win or ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... a spot among the foothills, about six miles away. Here was located a mountain torrent, said to be filled with the gamiest kind of specimens of the finny tribe. Sid Todd had told them of a particularly good bend in the stream, where fishing was bound to be excellent, and Belle said she knew the trail, having gone to the locality ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... of Three Eras Are Swept down the Torrent of the Sinister Cripple Tugh's Frightful Vengeance. (Part Two ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... could get in at their windows and then go up stairs. And we had a ladder in the boat; but the mounting to the first floor by this ladder, placed on the little deck of the boat, as she was rocked by the torrent, was no easy matter, especially for me, who went first. Eventually, however, Nicholson and I both entered the window, hospitably opened ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... now; the feelings so long pent up burst forth in a torrent that swept away every bond of restraint but that of love's ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... evident that this helped the good fellow to control himself. Marco remembered that at the time he had actually turned pale, and had struck his forehead and poured forth a torrent of Samavian dialect in penitence and terror. But, though he no longer saluted them in public, he omitted no other form of reverence and ceremony, and the boy had become accustomed to being treated as if he were anything but the shabby lad whose very coat was patched by the old soldier ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... overwhelmed, on a sudden, by such an inundation of licentious barbarians, who, though they pretended friendship, despised his subjects as unwarlike, and detested them as heretical. By all the arts of policy, in which he excelled, he endeavored to divert the torrent; but while he employed professions, caresses, civilities, and seeming services towards the leaders of the crusade, he secretly regarded those imperious allies as more dangerous than the open enemies by whom his empire had been formerly invaded. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... been only because he fancied himself in his blown vanity to be in love with her. It was too ridiculous, and despising him, hating herself, she decided that if it was acting he wanted, acting he should have, and she burst into a torrent of tears conjured up out of an entirely fictitious emotion.... At once Sir Henry had the cue he was waiting for.... He leaped up and came over to her with ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... north, and by the French and Americans in the south. Simultaneously with this wide and savage drive upon the Germans along the Belgian and French fronts, came the heaviest Italian attack of the war. Before it the Austrians were swept in a torrent that was irresistible. French, English and American troops co-operated in this thrust that extended from the plains of the Piave into Trentino. The immediate effect of the Italian offensive was to force Austria to her knees in abject ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... drunkards from the bondage of strong drink, could be produced indefinitely. There are Officers marching in our ranks to-day, who where once gripped by this fiendish fascination, who have had their fetters broken, and are now free men in the Army. Still the mighty torrent of Alcohol, fed by ten thousand manufactories, sweeps on, bearing with it, I have no hesitation in saying, the foulest, bloodiest tide that ever flowed from earth to eternity. The Church of the living ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... not to the objects of time and sense, that they are unaffected by the scenes of vice and of the misery which is its consequence, every where presented to their notice. It is not until the mind is under the gracious influence of the Spirit of God, that men feel any anxiety to stop the torrent of evil, and endeavour to become the humble instruments of converting the sinner and saving his soul. Many, in fact, who feel deeply interested in their neighbours' temporal comforts and prosperity, feel little anxious ...
— The Church of England Magazine - Volume 10, No. 263, January 9, 1841 • Various
... Tumwater passed from sight. The wind began to blow; the ever drifting sand of the Columbia came sifting in their faces. They passed the Dalles of the Columbia; and the river that, as seen from the heights the evening before, wound like a silver thread among the rocks, was found to be a compressed torrent that rushed foaming along the narrow passage,—literally, as it has been described, "a ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... this summons. The whole valley was then as suddenly lighted, as if a torrent of the electric fluid had flashed across its gloomy bed; a sheet of flame glanced from the attic of the block, and then came the roar of the little piece of artillery, which had so long dwelt there in silence. The rattling of a shot among the sheds, and the rending of timber, followed. Fifty dark ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... follows the torrent of that terrible criticism. Pope was not such a fool as to try to make out that Addison was a fool. He knew that Addison was not a fool, and he knew that Addison knew it. But hatred, in Pope's case, had become so great and, I ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... triumphant tones of the instrument rolled up from its recesses, and filled the apartment with a torrent of majestic sounds, as the musician swayed to and fro in the enthusiasm of his sublime inspirations, and enhanced the divine symphony by the crash of many thrilling and abrupt discords, the Rosicrucian gazed with awe upon the responsive grandeur of his countenance. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... across the heights at a turn of the valley. Beauchamp pushed along the valley for this visible projection; a towering mass of woodland, in the midst of which a narrow roadway, worn like the track of a torrent with heavy rain, wound upward. On his descent to the farther side, he was to spy directly below in the flat for Tourdestelle. He crossed the wooded neck above the valley, and began descending, peering into gulfs of the twilight ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
