"Climax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its words, phrases, or clauses in an order of increasing impressiveness. Its proper use gives an accumulative force to the sentence. No better illustration of the climax can be given than the well-known one in Cicero's oration against Verres: "To bind a Roman citizen is an outrage; to scourge him is an atrocious crime; to put him to death is almost parricide; but to crucify him—what shall ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... is centred in Issachar, and had the author devised some strong dramatic climax (such as occurs in that play of SARDOU'S where SARAH B. stabs PAUL BERTON) with which to finish the piece, when the Prefect should have been killed either by Issachar or by Miriam (SARDOU would have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... our anticipations of life. It was a season of Imperialism, the picturesque Imperialism of the earlier Kipling phase, and we were all of us enthusiasts for the Empire. It was the empire of the White Man's Burthen in those days; the sordid anti-climax of the Tariff Reform Movement was still some years ahead of us. It was easier for us at Harbury to believe then than it has become since, in our own racial and national and class supremacy. We were the Anglo-Saxons, the elect of the earth, leading ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... of the eighteenth century was completed, smuggling between England and the Continent was proceeding at a brisk pace, and by the middle of that century it had well-nigh reached its climax for fearlessness. We have already alluded to the establishment of hired smacks and sloops inaugurated towards the end of the seventeenth century. The sloop rig, as I have shown in another volume,[2] had probably been introduced into England from Holland soon after the accession of Charles ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... him back and royally permitted him to give her his first and, as it proved, only kiss. But he had not known that, and had rowed elated Oxfordwards between the hayfields, dreaming his ecstasy on into the future—when it had already achieved its climax, and slipped out of his life. Since then it had come to seem very simple and absurd, as do all love affairs, however august, which are lived down—for no love affair was ever outlived. So, because he had been fond of her, he was glad to listen to Strangeways, ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Daun and the cavalry back again, and Austrian battalions from the centre were hurried down to aid Nadasti's, but were impeded by the retreating troops; and the confusion thickened, until it was brought to a climax by Ziethen's horse, which had been unable to act until now. But fir wood, quagmire, and abattis had all been passed by the Prussians, and they dashed into the mass, sabring and trampling down, and taking ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... works of mine, the conductor has the chief part to play. He, as the chief virtuoso and artifex, is called upon to see that the whole is harmoniously articulated and that it receives a living form. In the rhythmical and dynamical climax, from letters B to E (repeated from H to L), as also in some of the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... estimated, in which were centred whatever wealth or power had craved. This capital had become rapidly ornamented with palaces, and temples, and works of art, with the subjugation of Greece and Asia Minor, although it did not reach the climax of magnificence until the time of Hadrian. In the time of Augustus, the most imposing buildings were the capitol, restored by Sulla and Caesar, whose gilded roof alone cost $15,000,000. The theatre of Pompey could accommodate eighty thousand spectators, behind which ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... her head, and topped with a huge cluster of false puffs, which made her look several years older than she had appeared in the afternoon, while her gown of blue satin was cut rather too low for a young girl, and had mere excuses in the way of sleeves. To cap the climax, however, it had a real train that persisted in getting in her way every ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... effect of Christ's resurrection. It was the resurrection that put heart into the disciples to go forth and tell its story. Sceptics would have us believe that the resurrection of Christ was an afterthought of the disciples to give the story of Christ's life a thrilling climax, a decorative incident which satisfies the dramatic feeling in man, a brilliant picture at the end of an heroic life. We reply: There would have been no beautiful story to put a climax to if there had been no resurrection of the ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... and the girls stopped whispering. BROTHER came on, and his brother as the MAN. The tempo was perfect, the acceleration blood-quickening. Laughs came at unexpected places, friendly and cordial. The girl was like a melody in low tones; she built up her climax cunningly, warming, coloring, kindling. ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... her up in his arms and smother and caress her, after that climax of tender admission, but she waved her hand as she saw him rising. He fell back then upon his ignoble habit of ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... accurate—she claimed the late Colonel Roseberry as her father. She told a tiresome story about her having been robbed of her papers and her name by an impostor who had personated her. She said the name of the impostor was Mercy Merrick. And she afterward put the climax to it all: she pointed to the lady who is engaged to be my wife, and declared that she was Mercy Merrick. Tell me again, is that ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... such words are truly spoken "in the Life," then when such words cease the uninterrupted silence and worship continue, for silence and words have been of one texture, one piece. Second and third speakers only continue the enhancement of the moving Presence, until a climax is reached, and the discerning head of the meeting knows when to ...
— An Interpretation of Friends Worship • N. Jean Toomer
... pervert his senses. For several years I had become progressively aware of Carse's melancholic attitude, and I had often recommended that he take a vacation from criminal cases. His indefatigable enthusiasm for research was all against my advice, and he had gone relentlessly ahead to the tragic climax which my greatest fears could not have imagined. This letter from Vienna, so eager with indomitable il faut travailler, confirmed my suspicion that Carse had descended into the depressing rut ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... nearing town: evening had begun to draw in, and from the wayside houses people saw the train roar by like a huge glowworm; but they could hardly guess that it was hurrying two real actors to the climax of ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... hastened to say. "I've an idea he's a sort of Jack-of-all-trades there, writing up news, setting type in an emergency, and even helping turn off the limited edition of about five hundred copies of the paper that are run every week. So, as Friday night is the climax to their week's work, we're likely to find Jim there with his coat off, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... your own columns. What, for example, was the lady from Szechuen doing but carrying on a customary [Page 299] form of the slave traffic? What was the case of those singing girls under the age of fifteen, of whom you spoke last week, but a form of slavery? Again, by way of climax, what will the Western world think of a country that permits a mistress to beat a slave girl to death for eating a piece of watermelon—as reported by your correspondent from Hankow? The triviality of the provocation reminds us of the divorce of a wife for offering her mother-in-law ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... he awoke trembling and confused, and could sleep no more. This dream was not one to put Mr Vanslyperken into good humour, and two severe cuts on his cheek with the razor as he attempted to shave, for his hand still trembled, had added to his discontent, when it was raised to its climax by the entrance of Corporal Van Spitter, who made his report of the mutinous conduct of the first officer. Never was Mr Vanslyperken in such a tumult of rage; he pulled off some beaver from his hat to staunch the blood, and wiping off the remainder of the lather, for he put aside the operation ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... recognized by Amendment I first came into prominence in the early 1830's, when petitions against slavery in the District of Columbia began flowing into Congress in a constantly increasing stream, which reached its climax in the winter of 1835. Finally on January 28, 1840, the House adopted as a standing rule: "That no petition, memorial, resolution, or other paper praying the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or any State or Territories of the United States in ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... inorganic restraints occurring in nature which at some previous period impressed itself upon the plastic organism. We may picture the seedling at Upsala, swayed by organic memory and the inherited tendency to an economical preparation for future events, gradually developing towards the aesthetic climax of its career. In some such manner only does it appear possible to account for the prophetic development of organisms, not alone to be observed in the alpine flowers, but ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... done it unto one of the least of these His Brethern, you have done it unto Him! (The ANGEL stands with one hand uplifted, as the music rises in a great crescendo of triumph. HOLGER, quite overcome, drops his face in his hands and as the climax of the singing is reached, the whole tableau is held for a moment, then blotted out ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... failure of his great climax. At first he regretted it, and a wave of annoyance, even contempt, passed unseen through his mind; then he was glad that the secret should be hidden for another four-and-twenty hours, to gain immensely in dramatic sensation by delay. Already he was planning the future, and ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... climax of Cappy's indignation over the disaster to the Valkyrie was not attained until a few months later when, in conversation on the floor of the Merchants' Exchange with the skipper of the schooner Tarus, who happened to have been in Papeete at the bombardment, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... is a singular coincidence, that Norway in these days, when it has brought the Consular question to a climax, has begun to carry out a general rise in the Fiscal rates; the mercantile interests of "the land of Free Trade" Norway evidently do not lie so very ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... the climax of the poem. The Emperor's army burst upon the scene, frantic with anxiety; but no eye was open to give them greeting. Roland was dead with his slaughtered rear-guard, and lying with his face to the foe. ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... In 1685, however, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes by which Henry IV a century earlier had guaranteed this toleration. All over France there had already burst out terrible persecution, and the act of Louis XIV brought a fiery climax. Unhappy heretics who would not accept Roman Catholic doctrine found life intolerable. Tens of thousands escaped from France in spite of a law which, though it exiled the Protestant ministers, forbade other Protestants to leave the country. Stories of plots were made the excuse to seize the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... process of cooking, was devoured with an eagerness and avidity, a keen, fiendish expression of impatience for more, from which scene, a memory too tenacious upon this subject will not allow me to escape; the kidneys and heart were in like manner immediately consumed, and as a climax to these revolting orgies, when the whole viscera were removed, a quantity of blood and serum which had collected in the cavity of the chest, was eagerly collected in handsful, and drunk by the old man who had dissected the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... clearly not prepared to withstand a campaign for supplies direct from Africa, especially after the accession of the youth Charles I in 1517. At that very time a clamor from the islands reached its climax. Not only did many civil officials, voicing public opinion in their island communities, urge that the supply of negro slaves be greatly increased as a means of preventing industrial collapse, but a delegation of Jeronimite friars and the famous Bartholomeo de las Casas, who had formerly ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... lover! What a shame! She had read so many books in which women, even mothers, had overstepped the bounds of propriety, to regain their honor at the pages of the climax, that she was not astonished beyond measure at finding herself enveloped in a drama similar to all those of her reading. The violence of her first grief, the cruel shock of surprise, had already worn off a ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Duhm's objection to this title as a mistake by an editor is groundless; for though the following lines are addressed to the land or people as a whole, their climax is upon the fate of the royal house, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... intense exhilaration, that this ugly hall which was at the end of his journey, with its stone corridors in which a stream of people wearing mackintoshes and carrying umbrellas made sad, noises with their feet, seemed an anti-climax. It was absurd; that he should feel like that, for he had known quite well why he was coming into Edinburgh and what a Suffrage meeting would be like. But he was angry and discontented, and impatient that no deflecting adventure had crossed his path, until he arrived at the door which ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... chronicle method is ignored. We are not aware that Shakspere ever followed it except in writing historical plays. Battles and armies are left out. This comedy, like others by the same cunning hand, presents a series of contrasted and interesting situations leading up to a startling climax. Need we call to mind the rash contract of the merchant, and its almost tragic result, the game of the caskets, the trial and defeat of the clamorous Shylock? The by-plot assists the main action, else why does Jessica keep house for Portia while she goes to play "A Daniel ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... strolling Longfellow minstrel," he continued, ignoring or not hearing my remark, "with his dreary hurdy-gurdy to cap the climax. Heavens! what a nasal twang the whole thing has to me. Not an original or cheerful note! 'Old Hundred' ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... in their strength, feeling the fierce eyes of the hungry bears below boring into his very heart, leaned forward and upward as the swing of the woman reached its climax. With a cry of warning, the woman launched herself and shot downward and forward, like a bolt to its mark, a very desirable lump of femininity as appearing in mid-air, but one somewhat forcible ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... in on and around Carlisle, upon her return to town on Monday, resembled the breaking of flood-gates. Her small and entirely private misadventure had become her world's sensation. And within a day there came a climax which secretly astonished and frightened her not a little. The primal blood-tie itself was severed for offended righteousness' sake. The proud old widower, Colonel Dalhousie, already sorely tried by his son's wildnesses, could not stomach his flagrant cowardice. It was shouted about the ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... astonishing, the politeness Andrew Malden assumed; how he overlooked all the gruffness of his guest and treated him like a prince. Job fairly stared in wonder. It capped the climax when one night—just as, tucked up snug in his bed, Job was dreaming of his last walk home from school with Jane—to feel a rude shake and to see Andrew Malden with excited ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... illustrating this quality of respect, we reach the climax in the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Job and following. The dramatic element of literature here reaches its zenith. God is the speaker, the stricken, outcast Job is the sole auditor, and the stage is a whirlwind. It is related of the late Professor Hodge that, on one occasion ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... very day when the Repeal of the Corn Laws passed the House of Lords, the ministry was defeated in the Commons. The moment of his fall, when Disraeli and the Protectionists were loudest in their exultation, was the moment of his triumph. It is the climax of his career. In the long debate on Repeal he had refused to notice personal attacks: he now rose superior to all personal rancour. In defeat he bore himself with dignity, and in his last speech as minister ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... moving on Towards its climax, brings the moment near After the lapse of many centuries gone For Christ in priestly ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... of the Song of Roland undertook, like Homer, to sing of one great event about which all the interest of the poem centres; but unlike Homer, his poem is out of all proportion, the long-drawn out revenge being in the nature of an anti-climax. The Song of Roland is a fair exponent of the people among whom it originated. It contains no ornament; it is a straightforward relation of facts; it lacks passion, and while it describes fearful slaughter, it never appeals to the emotions. Though the French army shed ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... chums, retrieve the fortunes of the Carden family in a way that makes some exciting situations. The secret of the mysterious Mr. Jordan is surprised by Annabel, while Will, in a trip to England with an unexpected climax, finds the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies' Mile the Horror was awaiting me. No other 'rickshaw was in sight—only the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the golden head of the woman within—all apparently just as I had left them eight ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... he's—dumb!" Cicely's climax was lost in a burst of laughter, in the midst of which she ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... saw little of the man who came from Birmingham and pushed curiosity to a climax by asking for a compass in the middle of the night. For one thing, he was a good deal with his friends upon the other side of Helouan, and for another, he slept ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... with regrets, took his hands from his face and gazed steadily at the tragedy nearing its climax. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... was not so angry as he was affecting to be. Like most leaders of men, he had a strong dramatic instinct, and he had just led Mrs. Wayne to the climax of her just violence when his manner suddenly completely changed, and he said with the utmost ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... within an ace of it," retorted Bixiou, "but you with your profanity have brought me to the climax." ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... sure, he said, and Dr. Parker agreed. "I'd be willing to bet that you are all right," declared the latter, "but I know Trumet, and if I SHOULD let you go and you did develop even the tail end of a case of varioloid—well, 'twould be the everlasting climax for you and ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to pounce upon a poor unfortunate fellow, like myself, and bear him off in triumph, to become a victim of the cat-o'-nine-tails at the gangway, or food for gunpowder." While I was shuddering at the idea of such a climax to my adventures, I saw a man coming towards me, whose countenance and demeanor aroused all my suspicions. He was a thick-set, swarthy individual, with enormous black whiskers and sparkling black eyes. He was dressed like a gentleman, but I thought his garments hung loosely about him; indeed, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... out for vengeance from the sod that soaked it up. With ten years more of youth and less of age I might have tried to hew my way to Falconnet's stirrup, and so to square accounts with him. But had I been a-mind to rush upon the stage without my cue, another climax in the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... I walked for a while alongside the team. They were drooping sadly. Then I got in again, driving them slowly till we came to the crossing of the ditch. I had no eye for the grade ahead. On the bush road the going was good—now and then a small drift, but nothing alarming anywhere. The anti-climax had set in. Again the speckled trunks of the balm poplars struck my eye, now interspersed with the scarlet stems of the red osier dogwood. But they failed to cheer me—they were mere facts, unable ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... into Mr. Mafferton's vacant place opposite Mrs. Portheris, and even before the carriages started I saw that he was going to have a bad time. His own version of the experience was painful in the extreme, and he represented the climax as having occurred just as they arrived at the hotel. The unfortunate youth must have been goaded to his fate, for his general attitude toward matters ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the Terrorists. To the dismay of the authorities, it was found that more than half the army and navy, officers and men alike, had obeyed the mysterious summons that had gone throughout the land the night before; and matters reached a climax when, as the clocks of Washington were striking twelve, the President himself was arrested ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... buzz- saw. The third act can introduce a spile-driver with which to drive his hat over his eyes and knock his brains down into his lungs. The fourth act can be at Niagara Falls, and we'll send him over the falls; and for a grand climax we can have him guillotined just after he has swallowed a quart of prussic acid and a spoonful of powdered glass. Do that for me, William, and you are forgiven. I'll play it for six hundred nights in London, for two years in New York, ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... and with such display of German profundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man—for at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the "Politics of hard fact." Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the Tubingen institution went immediately into ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the object of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major Fitz-David's admiration rose from one climax to another with such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical check to it. I trusted to those ominous words, "a favor to ask of you," to administer the check, and I did not trust in vain. My aged admirer gently dropped my hand, and, ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... themselves barred; whose brother had reigned as a magnificent dictator of dollars. They would come because they had heard of this beauty, and had glutted themselves with column upon column of yellow and sensational news recording untold opulence, and afterward of tragedy building on tragedy to this climax; herself standing there on exhibition in the pillory ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... effective bit of business for the charioteer (and he introduced a great many), the Baroness would remorselessly cut it out, or more often dovetail it into her own part, while Clovis retaliated in a similar fashion whenever possible. The climax came when Clytemnestra annexed some highly complimentary lines, which were to have been addressed to the charioteer by a bevy of admiring Greek damsels, and put them into the mouth of her lover. Clovis stood by in ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... was winging arrows of anger at the little teacher, and presently Pleasant rose lightly and with incredible swiftness swung across the floor just as the climax came. From the other side Polly too darted forward. Ham and King were glaring at each other over the teacher's pretty head—each claiming the next dance. Miss Mary was opening her mouth for a mild rebuke when the two boys sprang back, the ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... his Order, and obliged in consequence to change his residence. The spiritual guide into whose hands she nest fell, increased her perplexities by assuring her that she had hitherto been ill-advised, and pronouncing her heavenly favours delusions. Finally, as the climax to her trials, she seemed to have lost trust in the superintendence of Providence, that strong anchor of the troubled soul. It was the most painful form in which despair had yet assailed her, and as an apparent encroachment on one of the attributes of God, the supreme Object of her love, ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... nursed him myself, the summer after he came from Europe, and thought he would die. That was the last sickly season we have had for years, but this caps the climax of all I ever saw or heard of in America. Thank God, my wife and children are far away; and, free from apprehension on their account, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... A terrible climax was presently reached. One morning the servant of Madame Taboureau, the baker, came to the market to buy a brill; and the beautiful Norman, having noticed her lingering near her stall for several minutes, began to make overtures to her in ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Linburne's experience of life to make him think that any woman whom he had honored with his preference was likely to prefer another man to himself. So the pause was terrible to him, not because he doubted what the climax would be, but because he felt his dignity insulted by even an appearance of hesitation. Max, on the other hand, was still a good deal in doubt ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... "come round." At midnight Blake decided he must have a drink, and he offered Ray some whiskey, thinking to benefit him in some way. Ray heard, and said nothing, but put out his hand and gently pushed it away, shaking his head, and this capped the climax of Blake's perplexity. At one o'clock, seeing that Ray was still wide awake, he had decided to go and fetch the doctor. He was fearful of the effect of this long mental strain, but Ray seemed to divine his thoughts, and in a voice so soft and patient as to melt ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the whole emotion restless. An unconquerable curiosity lay at the very root of their lives. She thought him English and self-sufficient; he thought her foreign and a little superstitious. This ineffable criticism was constant, fretful, and ever nearing the climax of uttered reproach. Sara had inherited all the amazement, but she owned, as well, its comprehension. She adored passionately the mother she had never seen; she loved her father, whom she knew by heart. After exchanging an affectionate glance with his lordship, she ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... said, his jaw stiffening as he spoke; 'some of us have got to keep our sanity in this crisis. You know better than I, for you have described it to me, that this country has been darkened with ignorance just as Germany and the rest have been. This is the climax of it all—and you're going to help it on, instead of having the courage to take your stand. Elise, to-night I pledged my whole life to a crusade against the darkness that men are forced to endure. It is going to be a long fight, and perhaps a ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... answered by Macao with her heaviest ordnance as if a battle were raging, and, indeed it was a terrible battle, one between man and the elements, but man was victor and the water spout was broken. The force of the tornado however had yet to reach its climax and for fully five minutes swept over the terrified city and bay with fearful power. Sampans and junks were hurled like egg-shells upon the shore, where but for the low tide, thousands instead of hundreds of lives would have been ...
— In Macao • Charles A. Gunnison
... sped on ahead. At length Fraser slowed down, dropped behind, and, just when Midnight had steadied down, up he clattered again. This he did three times in quick succession, causing Midnight to quiver with excitement, and madly to champ the bit. At length the climax was reached, for the noble beast, hearing again the thud of her opponent's hoofs, became completely unmanageable. With a snort of excitement she laid low her head, took the bit firmly between her teeth, and started up the river ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... be heard from till the end of the week. Friday, Saturday came and not a word. That was the climax! When the consignment of cash, hitherto carried by Clarence to the Bank of England, was committed to another clerk, the very office boy sniggered, and the manager demonstratively waited to ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nation has ever experienced in a like degree—in which connection the lately much-disputed question as to whether the complete decay dates from the time of the Thirty Years' War or the latter merely marks the climax of a long period of decadence may be left to take care of itself. In any event, about the year 1700 the literature of Germany stood lower than that of any other nation, once in possession of a great civilization and literature, has ever stood in recent times. Everything, literally everything, had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... happens seems to increase the feeling, and so it was with Bridget; everything Miss Tasker said, or did, or even looked after this, made her feel more and more ill-used and injured, till one unfortunate day brought matters to a climax. ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... in Sandusky, Ohio, and spent an evening at a lecture given by Trask, the great anti-tobacconist. In his discourse he had reached the climax of his argument, proving as he thought that tobacco shortened life, when a well dressed man in the audience rose and said, 'Mr. Trask, will you pardon me if I ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... THE CLIMAX REACHED.—Retaliatory measures were at once adopted by the English government. General Gage was appointed governor of Massachusetts. The port of Boston being closed by act of Parliament, business was stopped and distress ensued. The Virginia assembly protested against ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... the fashion of some other amiable authors, heard her objections with approval, and soon Mr. Pope was again called into consultation. There was more hobnobbing, a change of diction, and the rehearsals continued. Then, to cap the climax of poetic condescension, little Alexander honoured "Cato" with a flowing prologue wherein he set ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the fair and agitated reader will pass a sleepless night in endeavouring to decipher the mutilated sentence. She will fail, and consequently call the book delightful. But should there not have been a marriage previously to this happy awful climax? ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... the boards of the San Francisco theaters in the character of "Old Pete" in Dion Boucicault's "Octoroon." So excellent was his delineation of that celebrated character that "Perry's Pete" was for a long time regarded as the climax ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... that is at once firm and soft beneath the feet. And in the midst stood the only apricot tree in Saint X. As few of us had tasted apricots, and as those few pronounced them better far than oranges or even bananas, that tree was the climax of tantalization. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... other-worldliness wells up suddenly in him and he is a Christian and a mystic full of echoes of old soul-torturing. In Maragall's most expressive work, a sequence of poems called El Comte Arnau, all this is synthesized. These are from the climax. ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." It is fitting that such a sublime theme should be reserved as the grand climax of the book ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... monstrous ambition, his extraordinary preparations. With mounting fear his captives listened to his well-modulated voice as it proceeded logically from point to point. He had fine feeling for the dramatic, knew well the value of climax and pause; but his use of them was here unconscious, for he spoke straight from his dark and ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... torture of teachers; at least, so Lancelot thought, but then he had never had any other pupils, and was not patient. It must be admitted, though, that Rosie giggled perpetually, apparently finding endless humour in her own mistakes. But the climax of the horror was the attendance of Mrs. Leadbatter at the lessons, for, to Lancelot's consternation, she took it for granted that her presence was part of the contract. She marched into the room in her best cap, and sat, smiling, in the easy chair, wheezing complacently and beating ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... began to fall and those persons riding in the open coaches, as well as the decorations and the spectators, got well drenched. Then there were delays on the turnouts while one train passed another; and as a climax to these discouragements, Mr. Hickson, a member of Parliament from Liverpool, got in the path of an approaching engine, became confused and was run over; and although Stephenson himself carried him by train to Liverpool ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... of a linen-draper, and a celebrated bootmaker measured him for shoes and boots. He bought a neat walking cane at Verdier's; he went to Mme. Irlande for gloves and shirt studs; in short, he did his best to reach the climax of dandyism. When he had satisfied all his fancies, he went to the Rue Neuve-de-Luxembourg, and found that Louise had ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the climax of their young lives. Whatever lay beyond they could not know. Whatever forces had driven them into this sanctuary they neither of them sought to question. It might be their ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... remembrancer, and hope to add M. A. and M. S. S. which signifies honour to you, as master of arts, and glory to your humble servant, Mark Supple Scout—always put my own initials against the gentleman's names whom I have attended, take notice." The singularity of the ancient's climax amused me exceedingly—there was something truly original in the phrase: the person and manners of the man were in perfect keeping. "You must have seen great changes here, Mark," said I; "were you always of Brazennose?" "I was born of Christ Church, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... The climax of her discomfort came with the pretty tinted fruit plates and finger-bowls. Candace's tumbler was empty, and without particularly thinking about the matter she took a drink out of her finger-bowl, which she mistook for some sort of lemonade, from ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... pretend to have power over spirits; maintains suspicious relations with Roman Catholic prelates, and keeps up a degree of state which exceeds both his rank and his means. Nay, it is even said, that he is about to bring this highly offensive conduct to a climax by apostacy to the Church of Rome! and in order to clear himself from this last charge he is required to return immediately. A banker at Venice, to whom he must make known the true amount of his debts, has received instructions to satisfy his creditors immediately ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Castle," continued the countess, now carrying up the list of Frank's advantages to its great climax, "will make the matter so easy for you, that really, you will hardly ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... conception is its exact counterpart, and exactly fits it. The heroine as completely as the hero has freed herself from any discernment between good and evil. She recoils from abnormal impurity no more than from normal, and the climax of the book is her full ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... require them for, and I can soon come at the sort of hinges you require," said the clerk, making an effort to come to a climax. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... to add to the keen distress he felt at the sight of the collie's discomfiture. And, indeed, his own personal distress had increased in a marked degree during the past minutes, and continued to increase steadily to the climax. He recognised that the drain on his own vitality grew steadily, and that the attack was now directed against himself even more than against the defeated dog, and the too ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... And, to cap the climax, a Royal maid in the first blush of budding womanhood grossly repulsed and physically attacked when she appeals to her mother for protection; that child locked in a room with her would-be ravisher and obliged to defend her honor by a threat ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... streets of the towns and villages, and hung out banners, and gazed their fill at the Indians and at the strange sun-burned faces of the crew. At Barcelona, where they arrived towards the end of April, the climax of these glittering dignities was reached. When the King and Queen heard that Columbus was approaching the town they had their throne prepared under a magnificent pavilion, and in the hot sunshine of that April day they sat and ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... 'upper work' of the organ reached a climax in the instrument built by Gabler, in 1750, for the Monastic Church at Weingarten, near Ravensburg. This organ comprised no less than ninety-five ranks of Mixture, including two stops of twenty-one and twenty ranks, respectively. Toward the close of the Eighteenth Century, the ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... closely upon that tramping of heavy feet would fulfil his promise and take her in his arms. And when he did her sense of personal responsibility left her, as well as her clearer comprehension of what had happened to bring about this climax so ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the preacher and the sinner, as many another has done. Lazenby's morals were not bad, however. He was simply fond of making them appear terrible; even when in London he was more idle than wicked. He gravely suggested at last, as a kind of climax, that he and Pierre should go out on the pad together. This was a mere stroke of pleasantry on his part, because, the most he could loot in that far North were furs and caches of buffalo meat; and a man's capacity and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... dignity of Massachusetts to allow United States troops to set foot upon her soil. When we reflect that the arsenal at Springfield, where the most considerable disturbance occurred, was itself federal property, the climax of absurdity might seem ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... his critics was due to a very complex system of causes. The English have always been the most self-complacent of peoples, and 1851 was perhaps the one year in the whole of our history when this little weakness reached its climax. The Oxford Movement, with Newman and Ward as its prophets, had been succeeded by the Manchester Movement, upon which Cobden and Macaulay had long been busily engaged in shedding the most brilliant rays of the prevailing Whig ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... to take a great fancy to him. He, a timid young freshman, was naturally flattered by the friendship of the dashing, fascinating sophomore and thus commenced that unfortunate intimacy which had brought about the climax to his troubles. The suave, amiable Underwood, whom he soon discovered to be a gentlemanly scoundrel, borrowed his money and introduced him into the "sporty" set, an exclusive circle into which, thanks to his liberal allowance ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... light something. He unfolded a bit of paper before us and triumphantly across its surface he directed the rays of a bull's-eye lantern. This was his climax. We studied ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... out of it and seek some other part of the house, or to go and pace the garden. Here, in the air heavy with roses and tremulous with June, as she walked rapidly up and down, late in the afternoon, at the time when the faraway farm-bells were calling men from the fields to supper, the climax of her restlessness came. That anguish and desperation, so old in her sex, the rebellion against the law that inaction must be her part, had fallen upon her for the first time. She came to an abrupt stop and struck her hands together ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... French—not Methuen; Codlin was the friend, not Short! The enthusiasm never slackened, and when late in the afternoon the General with some of his officers visited the Kimberley Club, the climax was reached. Cheer after cheer rent the air and shook the trees. The hand-shaking crusade shook the spheres. Nine o'clock struck; but much we cared; the warning notes had lost their terrors; they startled not the ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... knew that the battle between us had reached climax and victory simultaneously, and any question about who had won it ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... described the soldier's visit in detail to the few customers who came in. She went early to prayer-meeting in order to tell about it. And in the telling she subordinated everything to the dramatic climax: ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... changed my opinion of the man. For evil communications corrupt good manners, and a man is known by the company he keeps. The whole session has been a degradation of the British Parliament. Things have been going from bad to worse until we have reached the climax. If Mr. Gladstone remains in power we must change the qualifications of our members, and send the best fighting men and the hardest hitters. We must heckle candidates as to their 'science,' and ascertain if their wind is good, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... him. He has always been under the protection of the said father Leon, who has received his pay from the great amount which the other has obtained for him, during this last chapter, by means of secular and religious persons belonging to his party. As the climax of all this, he has appointed the said father Amorin prior of the convent of Tondo, in the sight of all this community. The common people have objected and murmured much, since in that village they have previously had special proofs of our ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... and he had no more than been installed and began his work with the usual celestial energy, till in rushed "Bues," as savage as a bear, and gave him more instructions in a minute than the frightened menial could have executed in a month. To cap the climax, he taught poor "Chino" to stand at attention, and ordered him to ever thus stand when in ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... will have a better illustration of anti-climax than the mountain which brought forth a mouse,...in the discoverer of the origin of species, who tried to explain ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... handkerchief. War and statecraft condense themselves into it. Armies and nations move with the chessman. Sally, leaguer, feint, flank-march, triumphant charge are one after another rehearsed. There, too, moves the game of politics in plot and counterplot. It is the climax of the subjective. From those lists the trumpet-blare, the crowd, the glitter, the banners, "the boast of heraldry and pomp of power," melt utterly away. To the world-champions who bend above the little board the big glass houses and all the treasures stared at by admiring ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... their emotions. When the energy and warmth of his own feelings had carried him into something like a flight of oratory, there was apt to follow, at the next moment, some plain matter-of-fact statement that brought the discussion back at once to its ordinary level. Such an anti-climax was often very effective: the obvious effort of the speaker to keep his emotions under restraint vouched for the sincerity of the preceding outburst. It should be added that he appreciated as few Germans do ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... which raged with destructive violence along the west coast of the whole Continent of Europe, and which drove the "Pinta" almost helplessly towards a lee-shore, the dangers of the voyage reached their climax. "I escaped," says the admiral, "by the greatest miracle in the world." Fortunately, however, his seamanship was equal to the emergency, and on the afternoon of the fourth of March he came to anchor in the Tagus. To the King of ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... author has produced a book which no one who has loved or hopes to love can afford to miss. The story fairly leaps from climax to climax. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... previous clause, you will see that we must expect something more than such a particular blessing as that:—'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants.' It is a great drop from that thought, instead of being a climax, to follow it with nothing more than, 'None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.' But the Revised Version accurately renders the words: 'None of them that trust in Him shall be condemned.' There we have something that is worthy to follow 'The Lord redeemeth the soul of His ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the views advocated in the Guardian on that question—therefore an appeal to "attachment for the Church of England" as the rule of judgment in this controversy, much less as a "badge of legitimate Wesleyan Methodists," is the very climax of absurdity. ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... be accomplished, as to appear a waste of effort, notwithstanding time enough would be spent in reading the newspapers, conversation, or sitting idly about, to do all this three or four times over. When confusion reached its climax, then he would go to work most vigorously, and in a few hours reduce all to order. But usually some important paper was lost or mislaid, and could not be found at the time when most needed. It generally happened that this great effort ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... Honourable Henry Boyle, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, called on him and communicated a project that had been concocted between Godolphin and Halifax. The Whigs were now again in the ascendant, and the battle of Blenheim, fought on the 13th August 1704, had brought their triumph to a climax. Halifax and Godolphin were mortified at the bad poems in commemoration of it which poured from the press. Their feeling was sincerely that which Byron affected in ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... are mentioned in the order of philosophical climax, and as we go from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, we advance farther and farther into the experience of motherhood. At the same time there is an increase in the dignity of the ...
— The Madonna in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... to be great once or twice in our lives, and that night I was wise enough to depart before the inevitable anti-climax. At the gate the Englishman pressed me warmly by the hand and begged me to honour his house with my presence again. His wife echoed the wish, and Monica looked at me with those vacant eyes, that but a few years ago I would have charged with the wine of my song. As I stood in the ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... week. But this is not all. For spring or June brides of the "swell London sassiety set," fine white silk stockings cost $22.50 a pair must go with a wedding gown and trousseau equally as extravagant, the climax of fashion's freakish ways being the rose-made garter worn over said stockings. Parisian society which smells to heaven in fashionable odors has now originated garters made of primroses, harebells, narcissus, violets and lillies, the same being worn by the ladies at balls and receptions ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... on the 15th of December, things reached a climax. When Ida came down to breakfast she found her father busy poring over some more ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... abandoned libertine—declared in loud and impassioned tones that he would "strip this jay of his borrowed plumes," and indignantly repudiated the notion that the man his client claimed to be had one single good quality about him, the humour of the situation may be said to have reached its climax. Yet Dr. Kenealy at least proved his sincerity by not only insinuating charges against the gentleman who disappeared with the "Bella," but by actually calling witnesses to contradict point blank statements of his own client which lay at the very foundation ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... especially in Tolstoy and Dostoievsky, with an intensity of moral conviction beside which the ethical fervour of George Eliot seems an ineffectual fire, was one of the roots of the Russian Novel; which also reached its climax in the third quarter of the century. But though it concurred with analogous movements in the West, it drew little of moment from them; even Turgenjev, a greater Maupassant in artistry, drew his inner inspiration from wholly alien springs of Slavonic passion ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... folly alternated with those of rage and brutality: Vandalism obtained the possession of the beautiful country of France. The fine tone of society was superseded by the rudest manners; and even the better sort affected them that they might not be suspected of favouring aristocracy. As a climax to their folly and madness, the republicans even assailed religion. First, the republican calendar was substituted for the Christian calendar; then, the celebration of the Christian festivals was restricted; and, finally, the ordinary worship gave place ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... is entertaining guests must remember two things: that she must not neglect them, and that she must not tire them out with too much attention. There is a "happy mean" to be attained, which is the climax of pleasure and ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... nothing but what they already practically knew—that the Marquis, the lady, and the captain of the schooner were working together. If they were responsible for Nancy's disappearance, as Dan was convinced, he had not succeeded in getting a scrap of evidence against them. And to cap the climax, he had stupidly allowed himself to be captured. The method of his capture seemed to him quite ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... world, they seem places to lie down on the grass in for ever, in the happy faith that life is all a green old English garden and time an endless summer afternoon. This charmed seclusion was especially grateful to my friend, and his sense of it reached its climax, I remember, on one of the last of such occasions and while we sat in fascinated flanerie over against the sturdy back of Saint John's. The wide discreetly-windowed wall here perhaps broods upon the lawn with a more effective air of property than elsewhere. Searle dropped into fitful talk and spun ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... and looked worriedly down into his glass. He said unhappily, "We need a gimmick to climax all this. Some kind of gimmick to bring you ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... days, of which there are generally two, with a third or off-day tacked on, things reach a climax. All business is curtailed or altogether suspended. Everyone wears colours, either his own or those of a friend, and at eleven o'clock the ladies are driven to the course in state by happy owners of various nondescript ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... satisfaction, communicated it to Congress, as a discovery and illustration of a conspiracy by the British Government to subvert the Constitution and Government of the United States, and by his message inflamed the Congress to the highest pitch of excitement, in the climax of which he got a vote in favour of a declaration of war against Great Britain. The President, in his message to Congress, referring to the Henry documents said: "They prove that at a recent period, while the United States, notwithstanding the wrongs sustained ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... of Aggravation the battle between the phagocytes and Nature's antitoxins on the one hand, and the poisons and microorganisms of disease on the other hand, gradually progresses, accompanied by a corresponding increase of fever and inflammation, until it reaches its climax, marked by the greatest intensity of ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... The air seemed to wave in his face, cool and relieving. Larry was there with the horses. Slingerland stood by with troubled eyes. Both men stared at Neale. He was aware of that, and conscious of his agitation. And suddenly, as always at a climax of emotion, he swiftly changed ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... ninety-three years ago this nation was brought into existence through the efforts of others, so upon this day six years ago I am disposed to believe through our own efforts, it dramatically touched the climax of its ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... likely that rival groups or factions had gone through a period of power-survival struggle which eliminated one rival after another until economic ownership and political authority were both vested in the same ruling oligarchs. This struggle for consolidation apparently reached its climax when Menes, a pharoah who began his rule about 3,400 B.C., in the south of Egypt, invaded and conquered the Delta and merged the two kingdoms, South and North, into one nation which preserved its identity and its sovereignty ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... the third day, they labored on, and into the fourth night. That night the storm seemed to have reached its climax, if, indeed, any climax could be found to a storm which at the very outset had burst upon them with such appalling suddenness and fury, and had sustained itself all along with such unremitting energy. But on that night it was worse for those on ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... appealed to, would have to be accepted. The leader of the Unionist Party, Mr. Bonar Law, made it clear in February 1914, as he had more than once stated before, that the support he and his party were pledging themselves to give to Ulster in the struggle then approaching a climax, was entirely due to the fact that the electorate had never sanctioned the policy of the Government against which Ulster's resistance was threatened. The chance of success in that resistance "depended," he said, "upon the sympathy of the British people, and an election ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... engage in any paid work. Polished after the similitude of a palace, what should the daughters do except stay at home to cheer father and mother, play and sing in the twilight, read, shop, sew, visit, receive their friends, and be young women of elegant leisure? If love, and love's climax, the wedding march, follow soon upon a girl's leaving school, she is taken out of the ranks of girlhood, and in accepting woman's highest vocation, queenship in the kingdom of home, foregoes the ease of her girlish life and its peril of ennui and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... we must be careful about the endings of stories. They must impress themselves either in a very dramatic climax to which the whole story has worked ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... will own, to my disappointment—that for him my story had but one moral—the treason of Henry P. Tobias, Jr. The treasure might as well have had no existence, so far as he was concerned, and the grim climax in the cave drew nothing from him but a preoccupied nod. And John Saunders was little more satisfactory. Both of them allowed me to end in silence. They both seemed to be ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... a change might lead to something better, Cervantes rejoiced. His gallant spirit, ever hopeful, looked for the open door in misfortune. But, alas! his increased sufferings with the Dey reached a climax almost beyond endurance. He made every struggle to escape; but even in the midst of all his own sufferings, he found ways of aiding his fellow-victims and inspiring them with the hopes denied to himself. Roderigo had escaped long before, and from ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... striking feature of Rabbi Ben Ezra's philosophy is his estimate of age. According to him the soul is eternal, but it completes the first stage of its experience in the earthly life; and the climax of the earthly life is attained, not in the middle of it, but at its close. Age is therefore a period, not only ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... nothing; or rather, proves our case. For what is bombast but a force of expression too great for the magnitude of the ideas embodied? All that may rightly be inferred is, that only in very rare cases, and then only to produce a climax, should all the conditions of effective expression ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... educated persons did not believe in grosser follies: such as this same spirit-rapping, unknown tongues, clairvoyance, table-turning, and all sorts of fanatical impositions, having for the present their climax in Mormonism. Herein all times are alike. There is nothing too monstrous for human credulity. I like the notion of the Aristophanic comedy. But it would require a numerous company, especially as the chorus is indispensable. The tenson may be ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... This climax of the series had been reached to-night on the aforesaid moor, and for the first time in the season its irregularities were forms without features; suggestive of anything, proclaiming nothing, and without ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... The climax of this message of Jesus is in its end: "Let down your nets for a draught." There is to be expectancy in service. Ideas of draughts changed that day. "Peter, what would you call a good draught?" "Well," the old fisherman says, as he sits stitching up the holes in his nets, ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon
... mother. "Yes," said she, "Miss Eudora has adopted a baby, and she has a baby-carriage, and she wheels it out any time she takes a notion." Ethel's speech was of the nature of an after-climax. The ...
— The Yates Pride • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... it? The heroine's introduction to horse-racing comes about through the unconscious agency of her husband, who takes her with him on a visit to Newmarket in search of local colour for a "sporting" novel. The resulting situation reaches its climax in what is the best scene of the book, when Geoffrey, returning from a race that he has visited alone, but upon which Olivia, unknown to him, has risked thousands, recounts its progress in the best manner of realistic fiction, wholly ignorant of the true cause of what seems such ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... in her—any revulsion at the vulgarity of this scene into which she had plunged Jerry Benham—she gave no sign of it. It seemed to me that she was in her element; as though in this adventure, the most unusual she had perhaps ever attempted, she had found the very acme, the climax of her experience. ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the only one possible—from the standpoint of the action it contains—at that stage of the plot's development. If, even for a moment, a scene appears to have been written in solely for effect, or merely to delay the climax of the story, the picture is open to criticism for padding. Not only should the denouement (the untying, the clearing up of the story at the close) appear to be the only one logically possible, but each successive scene should follow the one ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... of the Confederate leaders long before led them to believe that the struggle would be concluded, or would at least reach its climax, in the Piedmont region. From the coast to the mountains the Confederacy spanned, at this point, only two hundred miles. The country was open, accessible from three points upon the coast, at which lodgment was early made or might have been obtained, and ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world. It was equally beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic were those of a bereaved lover. Thus he worked himself up, or rather back, to the climax of the poem, for he wrote the last stanza, in which the climax occurs, first. His own analysis of the poem is like a chemist's analysis of some new compound he has produced; it is full of technical terms and subtle distinctions. Probably no other famous ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs |
