"Overwhelm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thanked, they and their schemes are vanished, and "their places shall know them no more." When I think of that inundation of atheism, infidelity, profaneness and licentiousness which were like to overwhelm us, from what mouths and hearts it first proceeded, and how the people joined with the Queen's endeavours to divert this flood, I cannot but reflect on that remarkable passage in the Revelation,[9] where "the serpent with seven heads cast out of his mouth ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... followed during the next few days. But the patrol was not withdrawn; nor was war declared. The Earth Council knew that Tarrano had not ordered the model back—nor would he destroy it. Yet if the Earth forces were to overwhelm Tarrano, and the model were lost, a revolution upon Earth could easily take place before Georg could convince the people that he was able to ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... doubt. Do not be in the least uneasy on my account. If the present is cold and bare and poverty-stricken, the blue distant future is rich and splendid; most great men have known the vicissitudes which depress but cannot overwhelm me. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... peoples, one in language, in blood, in heroic early traditions, and the common heirs of the grandest literature the world has ever seen, yet severed by a deep, wide, angry-flowing stream of strife, which, dammed up for a time, was about to burst forth in a desolating flood that should overwhelm and destroy some of the fairest fruits of civilization in both countries. As he gazed northward, he beheld, on the eastern bank of the river, the snowy walls and grass-grown ramparts of Fort Niagara, above which floated ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... on the square. And if we were to shoot or cut down Miranda, he not resisting, that would be a scandal I might have difficulty in suppressing. It would spread surely, go over the country, get to the ears of the Central Government, and return to New Mexico with a weight that might overwhelm me. Besides, amigo mio, it would spoil my plan in several respects—notably, that with the nina and others too numerous to mention. Of course, we'll kill him if we can, with fair pretext for doing so. But unless he show fight, we must take him alive, his guests ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... tremendous concussions, and the water rushed into the hold in the most terrific manner, but the pumps would not work. We had now no alternative but to abandon her for the frail boats, which any single wave would overwhelm. Frightful gulfs environed us; mountains of water raised their liquid summits in the distance. How were we to escape so many dangers? Whither could we go? What hospitable land would receive us on its shores? My thoughts, then reverted to our beloved ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... enough under the circumstances, to overwhelm me with questions. But no—the hospitable impulse was the uppermost impulse in the old servant's mind, when a member of the family appeared (no matter how!) as a visitor at ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... wisdom over the island of Espanola in the early days of Columbus were all dead, wiped out by the wave of wild death and cruelty that had swept over the island. The gentle Guacanagari, when he saw the desolation that was beginning to overwhelm human existence, had fled into the mountains, hiding his face in shame from the sons of men, and had miserably died there. Caonabo, Lord of the House of Gold, fiercest and bravest of them all, who first realised that the Spaniards were enemies to the native peace, after languishing ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... said Keats, "the principle of beauty in all things." It is that to which all I have said has been leading, as many roads unite in one. We must try to use discrimination, not to be so optimistic that we see beauty if it is not there, not to overwhelm every fling that every craftsman has at beauty with gush and panegyric; not to praise beauty in all companies, or to go off like a ripe broom-pod, at a touch. When Walter Pater was confronted with something which courtesy demanded ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... about Gerald had been as of old, she really did not know how she could have endured them in addition to all this; but while she was at ease about him nothing could quite overwhelm her. And she was very happy about him; Mr. Lyddell had readily consented to the Highland plan, and Gerald was so enchanted that he forgot all his former fears of Edmund, saw in him only a fellow-sportsman, and when he wrote to ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... very hair-line of the magic circle, which seemed to assure their placid sunny peace. An upheaval of splintered granite often tossed and tumbled in the abandon of an unrestrained passion that seemed irresistibly to overwhelm the sanities of a whole region; but somewhere, in the very forefront of turmoil, was like to slumber one of these little meadows, as unconscious of anything but its own flawless green simplicity as a child asleep in mid-ocean. Or, away up in the snows, warmed by ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... in high glee at his freedom from maternal thraldom, watching the battle of the elements and the struggle of the ship against the supremacy of the wind and waves, that were vying with each other to overwhelm her. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... ever had, but she soon ceased from such promises as these. Her perceptions were keen, and she discovered that the difficulties of which he was afraid were those which he must overcome before his marriage, not any which might be expected to overwhelm him after it. "A cheap and nasty menage would be my aversion," he said to her. "It is that which I want to avoid,—chiefly for your sake." Then she promised him that she would wait patiently for his time—"even though it should be for seven years," she said, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... General Stuart, and was very near capturing that officer himself. Among the papers taken was an autograph letter of General Robert E. Lee to General Stuart, dated Gordonsville, August fifteenth, which made manifest to me the disposition and force of the enemy and their determination to overwhelm the army under my command before it could be reenforced by any portion of the ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... is likely to overwhelm you with civilities. Pray don't refuse if he gives you an invitation to his soiree next Saturday; I am going to it. One meets there the notabilities most interesting to study,—artists, authors, politicians, ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of 800 Mamelukes at Chebreiss, the army made its way up the banks of the Nile to Embabeh, opposite Cairo. There the Mamelukes, led by the fighting Bey, Murad, had their fortified camp; and there that superb cavalry prepared to overwhelm the invaders in a whirlwind rush of horse (July 21st, 1798). The occasion and the surroundings were such as to inspire both sides with desperate resolution. It was the first fierce shock on land of eastern chivalry ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the summer softness—a contact of something unseen—an amour of the light and air, I am jealous and overwhelm'd with friendliness, And will go gallivant with the light and ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... adapt herself at once. She will be uncomfortable, she will be awkward, she will be embarrassed, she will be without her full value. But I think from what I discovered while talking with her that she will soon grow oblivious to her surroundings. They will not overwhelm her; she will finally overwhelm them. She will soon forget you and me and the studio; the one ruling passion of her life will sweep back into consciousness; and then out upon her features will come again that marvelous look which has almost ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... his father and his father-in-law. But oftenest on his lips was the name of Halcyone. To her his thoughts cling. He prays that the waves may bear his body to her sight, and that it may receive burial at her hands. At length the waters overwhelm him, and he sinks. The Day-star looked dim that night. Since it could not leave the heavens, it shrouded its ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... while the imperial City's din Beats frequent on thy satiate ear, A pleased attention I may win 75 To agitations less severe, That neither overwhelm nor cloy, But fill the hollow ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... storms of the Atlantic; all night they were obliged to scud under bare poles, at the mercy of the elements; as the morning dawned there was a transient pause and they made a little sail, but the wind rose with redoubled fury from the south and increased in the night, threatening each moment to overwhelm them or dash them ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... reason right," Answered his chum with winking sight. "For Athens was the seat of learning. Academicians were discerning. They placed us on Minerva's helm, And strove with rank to overwhelm Our worth, which now is quite neglected,— Ay, a ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer; all my energies being devoted to a struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I can compare the feeling to nothing except the struggles of a man against the overpowering nausea of the Channel passage—only my agony was of the spirit and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... be supremely good and supremely reasonable, therefore supremely just and equitable. From him certainly is all power; he is unquestionably King of kings, and Lord of lords. By him kings reign and magistrates decree just things. He may, at his will, set up or pull down kings, rear or overwhelm empires, foster the infant colony, and make desolate the populous city. All this is unquestionably true, and a simple dictate of reason common to all men. But in what sense is it true? Is it true in a supernatural sense? Or is it true only in the sense that it is true that ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... this people; thou who disturbest the happy estate of the Egyptians, and gavest us the opportunity of flying away from our under them, and madest the dominion of Pharaoh inferior to my dominion; thou who didst make the sea dry land for us, when we knew not whither to go, and didst overwhelm the Egyptians with those destructive waves which had been divided for us; thou who didst bestow upon us the security of weapons when we were naked; thou who didst make the fountains that were corrupted to flow, so as to be fit for drinking, and didst furnish us with water that came out of the ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... of his labor he found enough of work to overwhelm his spirit. The several collieries and the Carron Ironworks furnish a population who are, for the most part, either sunk in deep indifference to the truth, or are opposed to it in the spirit of infidelity. Mr. M'Cheyne at once saw that the pastor ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... the receipt of the grape-roots,—Charles is n't to blame, I told him I would write,—because I waited for the cider to come, that wife and I might overwhelm you with a joint letter of thanks, laudation, and praise. But I can wait no longer. That is, the cider does n't come, and I begin to think it is a myth. Poets, you know, deal in such. They imagine, they idealize, nay, it is said they create; and if we were poets, I suppose we ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... not break prison to burst like a Levanter, to sweep the earth with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of the great deep to overwhelm us! ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... boarding-house, and these he showed me before he told me the result of his errand. They settled all doubts. What is to be my fate? Surely this man has no real claim on me, after all these years, when I thought myself your true and honest wife. He may ruin your campaign, defeat your hopes, overwhelm me with calumny and a loss of repute, but surely, surely he can not separate us. The law will not uphold him in that; will it, Henry? Say that it will not, say—oh, say that—it—will not—do—that, or we shall live to curse the day, not when we were born; but when our ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... planting a vicious kick in the side of the slave girl. "Come! Would you wait here all day while the forces of darkness overwhelm the City of Light?" ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... in rest and vizor down, upon the slightest rumour of wrong or cruelty. No woman suffering, or alleged to be suffering, from the cruelty of a husband, would ever call for his sympathy in vain. It was, however, cases of cruelty to little children that most tended to overwhelm his judgment. His burning horror at the mere idea of such deeds knew no bounds. A wife might to some extent be able to protect herself from the brutalities of her husband, but what chance had a helpless, friendless, terrified child, incapable even of running away from its tormentors, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of the subject. I will point out to you how little encouragement the youth of this country receive from those who are above them in social station. In every one of your counties there is a hunt, cricket clubs, golf clubs in such numbers that their statistics absolutely overwhelm me. Everywhere one meets young men of leisure, well off, calmly proposing to settle down and spend the best part of their lives in what they call country life. They will look after their estates; they will hunt a little, ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... concurrence with the Duke of Portland's and Lord Fitzwilliam's opinion, have maintained the true grounds of the Revolution Settlement in 1688. He lamented all the defeats of the French; he rejoiced in all their victories,—even when these victories threatened to overwhelm the continent of Europe, and, by facilitating their means of penetrating into Holland, to bring this most dreadful of all evils with irresistible force to the very doors, if not into the very heart, of our country. To this hour he always speaks ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... spirit of insubordination. The fiery population of Naples, in the mean time, like the volcano in it's vicinity, though at present apparently tranquil, might be expected suddenly to burst forth, and overwhelm every obstacle to the progress of it's destructive torrent. In this state of things, it was judiciously resolved that Captain Troubridge should proceed to the Bay of Naples; for which purpose, Lord Nelson—who had, by the general promotion of admirals, on the 14th of February, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... was: What is this will of God of which Jesus speaks? Here he found himself in difficulty. The theology of his grandmother rushed in upon him, threatening to overwhelm him with demands as to feeling and inward action from which his soul turned with sickness and fainting. That they were repulsive to him, that they appeared unreal, and contradictory to the nature around him, was no proof that they were not of God. But on the other ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... have heard all my words and seen all my thoughts in regard to you. I have not abated in my kind feeling for and confidence in you. I have seen most of your despatches to General Halleck—probably all of them. After Grant invested Vicksburg I was very anxious lest Johnston should overwhelm him from the outside, and when it appeared certain that part of Bragg's force had gone and was going to Johnston, it did seem to me it was exactly the proper time for you to attack Bragg with what force he had left. In all kindness ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... preserve our fellow-countrymen from ever having to endure such calamities that we have undertaken this work, in which it is proven conclusively that the "Reds," unless quickly thwarted, will overwhelm us with unspeakable horrors of crime, ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... his insistence upon total excellence of result. It should be observed, however, that he has carried stage garniture to an extreme limit. His investiture of Faust was so magnificent that possibly it may have tended in the minds of many spectators, to obscure and overwhelm the fine intellectual force, the beautiful delicacy, and the consummate art with which he embodied Mephistopheles. It ought not to have produced that effect—because, in fact, the spectacle presented was, actually and truly, that of a supernatural being, predominant by force of inherent strength ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Jennings's pace, was always tiring, as Rose knew to her cost, but also by the turmoil of spirit she had been in. All the toils, disappointments, and drudgery of the life which lay before her seemed suddenly to press upon her and overwhelm her, and before she knew what she was doing she was sobbing behind her handkerchief. She had one grain of sense left, she turned her back; but her heaving shoulders and the muffled sound of a "good cry" were not ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... preparing to overwhelm the big Hollander with a rush of questions long sizzling in his brain. "You can tell me a lot of things now. But what's the gateman doing? I thought he was shadowing Leyden; and hoped to find him to get some dope on Miss ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... containing familiar amino compounds. Our metabolism was designed around them. And since our geneticists have learned how to put aggressiveness into the genes of terrestrial-origin plants—why nowadays they briskly overwhelm the native flora wherever they are introduced. And it's rational to let it happen. If people are to thrive and multiply on new worlds as they are colonized, it's more convenient to modify the worlds to fit the colonists than the colonists to fit ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... his worshipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered by His enemies. Such is the protection of God. Billions of prayers have been uttered; has one been answered? Who sends plague, pestilence and famine? Who bids the earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm? ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... between him and it. In this disorder of his nervous and mental condition, with a doubting conscience and a shrinking heart, is it any wonder that the terrors which lay before him at the gap in those bristling walls, should draw near, and, making sudden inroad upon his soul, overwhelm the government of a will worn out by the tortures of an unassured spirit? What share fear contributed to unman him, it was impossible for him, in the dark, confused conflict of differing emotions, to determine; ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... at first, that the enemy, reinforced from Caimanera or Guantanamo city, would assemble in force on the slopes of the eastern hills, creep up through the scrub until they were within a short distance of the camp, and then overwhelm the marines in a sudden rush-assault. They were known to have six thousand regulars at Guantanamo city, only about fifteen miles away, and it was quite within the bounds of possibility that they might detach a large part of this force for offensive operations on ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... tongue; control the tongue. Beware of anger of the mind; control the mind. Practice virtue with thy tongue and with thy mind. By reflection, by restraint and control, a wise man can make himself an island which no floods can overwhelm. He who conquers himself is greater than he who in battle conquers a thousand men. He who is tolerant with the intolerant, mild with the fault-finders, and free from passion with the passionate, him I call indeed ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... the evils which are to overwhelm the believer. I look round upon my little flock of hearers, and I seem to see them led as lambs to the slaughter—poor, defenceless creatures, set upon by worse than lions and wolves. And you, lady of Piso, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... better, may recover in an instant, as he did last time, or remain in his present sullenness. I am far from expecting he should ever be perfectly in his senses; which, in my opinion, he scarce ever was. His intervals expose him to the worst people ; his relapses overwhelm me. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... might have been defended by a score of resolute men against an army. Halfway up we received a check. O'Brien, going forward with a handful of men, got in touch with the enemy, who immediately turned about and threatened to overwhelm us ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... the joy and satisfaction his friends and relations would experience upon his return; sometimes upon the congratulations and embraces of those who, being neither the one nor the other, would, nevertheless, overwhelm him with impertinent compliments: All these ideas passed quickly through his head; for a man deeply in love makes it a scruple of conscience not to suffer any other thoughts to dwell upon his mind than those ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... horse and fifty thousand foot, and in his eagerness to arrive at the scene of action would not wait to provide artillery and the various engines required in a siege. "The multitude of my forces," said he, confidently, "will be sufficient to overwhelm ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... a violent wind is blowing on to the coast, are usually of about the same size. When, however, in times of calm an old sea, as it is called, is rolling in, the surges may occasionally undergo very great variations in magnitude. Not infrequently these occasional waves are great enough to overwhelm persons who are upon the rocks next the shore. These greater surges are probably to be accounted for by the fact that in the open sea waves produced by winds blowing in different directions may run on with their diverse courses and varied intervals ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... city of Manoa. Raleigh believed, and after all disappointments continued to be sure, that in the heart of the swamps of the Orinoco there existed a citadel of magnificent wealth, an emporium of diamonds and gold, from which Spain was secretly drawing the riches with which she proposed to overwhelm civilisation. He struggled for nearly a quarter of a century to win this marvellous city for England. James I. chopped in with his cold logic, and declined to believe that any golden mine existed in Guiana "anywhere in nature," ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Middle Ages, Mosheim says: "Nearly all the theologians were Positivi and Sententiarii [that is, they taught what the Church ordered to be taught], who deemed it a great achievement, both in speculative and practical theology, either to overwhelm the subject with a torrent of quotations from the fathers, or to anatomize it according to the laws of dialectics [that is, the laws of reasoning, logic]. And whenever they had occasion to speak of the meaning of any text, they appealed ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... loomed in the distance. Far off, among their quiet adobe villages, in the sun-scorched lands by the Rio Grande, the slow Indo-Iberian peons and their monkish masters still walked in the tranquil steps of their fathers, ignorant of the growth of the power that was to overwhelm their children and successors; but nearer by, Spaniard and Creole Frenchman, Algonquin and Appalachian, were all uneasy as they began to feel the first faint pressure of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... were parading their mystic reveries through Holland, Flanders, and France. Luther had essayed his powers against Munzer, imagining that by his fiery language, his Pindaric wrath, his flames and thunders, he would soon overwhelm the chief of the miners, as he had defeated, it is said, those theological dwarfs who were unable to stand before him. From the summit of the mountain he had appeared to Munzer in the midst of lightnings, but those lightnings did not alarm ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... past the equipoise of nature was lost, and the elements breaking the chain of laws that bound them ran riot over the universe, involving all life in one mad havoc and desolation, so in the future we have to expect that day of doom, when the ocean tides shall obey no shore, but overwhelm the continents with their mountainous billows, or the fire, now chafing in volcanic craters and smoking springs, will leap forth on the forests and grassy meadows, wrapping all things in a winding sheet of flame, and melting the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... thus giving vent to his opinion thereon: "He considers its learning very ill bestowed, its researches worse than useless, and that its tendency is to strike down one of the pillars on which the fabric of Christianity is supported." "Its tendency is to shock the pious,—confound the unlearned,—overwhelm those who are but moderately versed in the recondite investigations of theology, and above all to open an arsenal whence all the small wits of the infidel army may supply themselves with arms. Its greater evil is to disarm the power of public opinion." ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... rose, sighing fitfully; the clouds gathered and formed an army which stormed the zenith and threatened to overwhelm the pure light of the planet. The lesser stars vanished, two or three falling in their haste and losing themselves forever in infinity. The night thickened; snow began ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... scalping-knife is biggest of all—have come to our rescue alone. Whitewing tells me there is no one at their backs. If our foes discover their mistake, they will turn again, and the contempt which they ought to pour on themselves because of their own cowardice they will heap on our heads, and overwhelm us by their numbers—for who can withstand numbers? They will scatter us like small ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... made as a single man; and that it renders absolutely necessary the entire re-assertion of his testamentary intentions in the character of a husband. The statement of this plain fact appeared to overwhelm Mr. Vanstone. Declaring that his friend had laid him under an obligation which he should remember to his dying day, he at once left the cottage, at once returned home, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... good lady clasped her hands, an unspeakable expression of envy and despair contracted her countenance, and she was obliged to sit down to avoid fainting. Montalais was not malicious enough to rejoice extravagantly at her victory, or to overwhelm the conquered enemy, particularly when that enemy was the mother of her friend; she used then, but did not abuse her triumph. Malicorne was less generous; he assumed noble poses in his fauteuil and stretched himself out ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of concentration which is the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. But because the precise ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... And charitable favours overwhelm me. If I were of your blood, you could not be More tender of me: what then can I pay (A poor Boy and a stranger) but a heart Bound to your service? with what willingness I would receive (good Sir) your noble offer, Heaven can bear witness for me: but alas, Should I ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... gaiety and gallantry, and the latter perhaps of a kind, which in England would not be deemed very innocent. The champagne then goes round, and the ladies drink as much as the gentlemen, that is to say, enough to exhilarate, not to overwhelm the animal spirits. A French woman with three or four glasses of wine in her head, would certainly make an English one stare; but France is the land of love, and it is an universal maxim that life ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... O foolish youth! Thou seek'st a greatness that will overwhelm thee. Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity Is held from falling by so weak a wind, That it will quickly drop; my day is dim. Thou hast stolen THAT, which after some few hours Were thine without offence; and at my death ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... of the greater part of these vigorous men cut down in the strength of their youth were going to survive! Nothing would remain but the memory which would from time to time overwhelm some old countrywoman driving her cow along the French highway, murmuring between her sobs. "My little one! . . . I wonder where they buried my little one!" Or, perhaps, it would live in the heart of the village woman clad in mourning who did not know how to solve the problem of existence; ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a foregone conclusion; the king and his brother made common cause in order to overwhelm the accused, "an earnest of a peace which was not such as God announced with good will to man on Christmas day," writes Madame de Motteville, "but such as may exist at court and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... waited until the King came. At one o'clock William arrived from Vandresse, and consented to receive Bonaparte. He received him badly. Attila has not a light hand. The King, a blunt, straightforward man, showed the Emperor a pity involuntarily cruel. There are pities which overwhelm. The conqueror upbraided the conquered with the victory. Bluntness handles an open wound badly. "Whatever was your reason for declaring this war?" The conquered excused himself, accusing France. The distant hurrahs of the victorious German army cut ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... a long letter to Charity Lomax, in which he said, among many other things, that if she knew how hard he was working, and under what difficulties, to accomplish something serious for her sake, she would no longer keep him in suspense, but overwhelm him with ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... this divine gift of saying, or, better still, of singing, what he suffered made Tegner, during this period, master of his sufferings. They did not overwhelm him and ruin his usefulness. On the contrary, these were the most active and fruitful years of his life. But it was the deep agitation which possessed him—it was the suppressed tumult of his strong soul which ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... to moral justice vanish. If a man be born blind, deaf, a cripple, a slave, an idiot, it is because in a previous life he abused his privileges and heaped on his soul a load of guilt which he is now expiating. If a sudden calamity overwhelm a good man with unmerited ruin and anguish, it is the penalty of some crime committed in a state of responsible being beyond the confines of his present memory. Does a surprising piece of good fortune accrue to any one, splendid riches, a commanding position, a peerless friendship? It ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... barn-door outlook I behold meadows with their boundary line of stone fences that are like lakes and reservoirs of timothy and clover. They are full to the brim, they ripple and rock in the breeze, the green inundation seems about to overwhelm its boundaries, all the surface inequalities of the land are wiped out, the small rocks and stones are hidden, the woodchucks make their roads through it, immersed like dolphins in the sea. What a picture of the plenty and ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... remains of two dynasties that had passed away, the ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish fortresses, were around and above him;—the dark and heavy thunder clouds that advanced slowly, seemed like the shrouds of these specters of departed greatness; they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or conceal them, as if Nature herself was for once awed by the power of man; and far below, the lovely valley of Valencia blushed and burned in all the glory of sunset, like a bride receiving the last glowing kiss of the bridegroom before the approach of night. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... their tales of adventure, their remarks upon women who pass by, all reveal that they have been caught in the toils of an instinct so powerful and primal that when left without direction it can easily overwhelm its possessor and swamp his faculties. These young men, who do no regular work, who expect to be supported by their mothers and sisters and to get money for the shows and theatres by any sort of disreputable undertaking, are in excellent training for the life of the procurer, ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... earth's bowels, growing rank like weeds, but art for all that." He made several sketches of them, in which the buildings seemed to sway in a drunken abandonment of power. "Wicked things," he named them, and saw them menacing but fascinating, titanic engines that would overwhelm their makers. He and Mary had quite an argument about this, for she ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... found upon no heroic roll, nor is it on the page of any history that men have since written, although she made heroes of cowards, and helped to stay the wave of desolation which, in the dark days of '76, threatened to overwhelm the land. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... this world has no ear for their sorrows, if at each moment fresh tidings overwhelm them, reverberating from Poland like a graveyard bell; if their jailers wish them an early doom and their enemies beckon them from afar like grave-diggers; if even in Heaven they see no hope—then it is no marvel that they loathe ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... a week after sending his despatches to the council Rutherford set forth at the head of twenty-five hundred men to protect the frontiers of North Carolina and to overwhelm the foe. Leading the South Carolina army of more than eighteen hundred men, Colonel Andrew Williamson directed his attack against the lower Cherokee towns; while Colonel Samuel Jack led two hundred Georgians against the Indian towns at the heads of the Chattahoochee and Tugaloo Rivers. Assembling ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... have been in love at all at his age struck him as humiliation enough; but to have been in love with that sort of woman came very near mental malady. He said "that sort of woman," because the vagueness of the term gave scope to the bitterness of resentment with which he tried to overwhelm her. It enabled him to create some such paradise of pain as that into which the souls of Othello and Desdemona might have gone together. Had he been a Moor of Venice he would doubtless have smothered her with a pillow; but being a New York banker he could only try to slay the image, whose ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... whole manner evidenced the strain he was enduring. Gorham noted all this, and in a measure it surprised him. If Covington was so constituted that he could play the hypocrite, he would not have supposed his sensibilities acute enough to overwhelm him in the unmasking. ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... should you fall in his way and be unprotected, direful, indeed, might be the consequences. Sudden disease, like a pestilence at mid-day, might seize you, and on those lovely shores you might pine away and die. Dreadful accidents might overwhelm you and bury all your happiness forever. Therefore ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... of the Gospel to arouse all that was noble, and divine in every heart. The Moderator reverently led the Assembly in prayer and constituted the court most solemnly in the name of Jesus Christ. Such a prayer should overwhelm the soul with God's presence, burden the conscience with responsibilities, make the spiritual world dreadfully visible, and bring God's servants close to ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... was concealed like a hard kernel in a thick shell; and not merely concealed: it was divided, and then the divisions were themselves divided. It was condensed, compressed, bound, and at the same time subterranean. It was created to rise from its depths, rejoice, and overwhelm: "But clothe the lonely one in thy clouds of gold! Enshroud with ivy until the roses bloom again, oh Love, the ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Palais-Egalite, fourteen Breton conspirators, men, women, old men, youths, masters, and servants. The crime was proven, the law explicit. Among the guilty was a girl of twenty, adorable in the heyday of her young beauty under the shadow of the doom so soon to overwhelm her, a fascinating figure. A blue bow bound her golden locks, her lawn kerchief ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... to a far different use when, in the Civil War, it was the fortress against an attack from the east, and stones were piled on its top to overwhelm any invader ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells
... confidence to the raw Irish levies, but it was more than offset by the German troops brought over by William. The weakness, indecision, or worse, of James before Derry, his chicken-hearted failure to overwhelm Schomberg when he lay at his mercy before the arrival of William, ruined his chances. Remember that the Irish army, if defeated at the Boyne, was not broken, and was strong enough, when pursued by William, to repulse him with 500 killed and 1,000 wounded and to compel him to raise the siege ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... of ants, or by plundering their hereditary foes and oppressors, the frontier Boers. In seasons when every green herb is devoured by swarms of locusts, and when the wild game in consequence desert the pastures of the wilderness, the Bushman finds a resource in the very calamity which would overwhelm an agricultural or civilized community. He lives by devouring the devourers; he subsists for weeks and months on locusts alone, and also preserves a stock of this food dried, as we do herrings or pilchards, for ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... Gods' will; they envied us the bliss 250 Of undivided union sweet enjoy'd Through life, from early youth to latest age. No. Be not angry now; pardon the fault That I embraced thee not as soon as seen, For horror hath not ceased to overwhelm My soul, lest some false alien should, perchance, Beguile me, for our house draws num'rous such. Jove's daughter, Argive Helen, ne'er had given Free entertainment to a stranger's love, Had she foreknown that the heroic sons 260 Of Greece would bring her to her home again. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... maritime supremacy. The great military machine of the French army was then turned eastward against the armies of the coalition which England, under Pitt, was forming; and in a series of astonishing campaigns it was used to beat down the Austrians in 1805 at Austerlitz; to overwhelm the Prussians in 1806 at Jena and Auerstadt; and to force the Russians, after {190} a severe winter campaign in East Prussia, to come to terms in 1807. Napoleon and the Tsar, Alexander, meeting on ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... law was the caprice of the supernatural. In the temples the sorcerers mix themselves up with the popular idea, and scythes cut the grass without being held, brass serpents move, and one hears bronze statues laugh and wolves sing. Immediately the saints reply and overwhelm them. The Host is changed into living food, sacred Christian images shed drops of blood, sticks set upright in the ground blossom into flower, springs of pure water appear in dry places, warm loaves of bread multiply themselves at the feet of the needy, a tree bows down before some holy person, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... for us all. But we must be watchful to-day, lord, for that storm covers many miles of country, and the rain is falling in torrents; and, unless I am greatly mistaken, most of it will find its way into this river. Therefore must we be on our guard against a sudden spate, which may overwhelm us if we are ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... work begun, and avoid whatever perils may threaten. This surpasses human nature: for sometimes it is not in a man's power to attain the end of his work, or to avoid evils or dangers, since these may happen to overwhelm him in death. But the Holy Ghost works this in man, by bringing him to everlasting life, which is the end of all good deeds, and the release from all perils. A certain confidence of this is infused ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... sat down on the side of her husband's bed and began to overwhelm him with loving words and tender caresses. It was a long time before the thread broke, but at ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... thought; the institutions they bequeathed to our times; yea, even those vices and follies which they originally despised, and which, if allowed to become dominant, must, according to all those laws of which we have cognizance, ultimately overwhelm any land in ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... "Dear Mrs Perkins, you overwhelm me!" exclaimed the Judge, bowing still lower than before. "I think higher than ever ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... him he had preserved that through all his life. But the latter, at least in its devastating power, was new. Lee recognized it as passion, but passion to a degree beyond all former experience and comprehension. Why had it been quiescent so long to overwhelm him now? Or what had he done to open himself to such an invasion? A numbing poison couldn't have been very different. Then, contrarily, he was exhilarated by the knowledge of the vitality of his emotion; Lee reconsidered it with an amazement which ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... flew in and out among the trees and tents, now swooping low near the Indians or the travelers. At such times clubs would be used, often with the effect of killing or stunning the flying pests. For a time it seemed as if the bats would fairly overwhelm the camp, so many of them were there. But the increasing lights, and the attacks made by the Indians and the white travelers turned the tide of battle, and, with silent flappings of their soft, velvety wings, the bats flew back to the ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... how thy maternal heart was oppressed when thou beheldest with thy pure eyes that fair face so piteously marred, so that there was no beauty in it, and nothing by which He could be distinguished. How did the wave of affliction beat against and overflow and overwhelm thy soul! Truly, if even a devout man cannot without unspeakable sorrow and pity revolve in his mind the Passion of thy Son, what must have been thy Cross, thy affliction, who wast His mother and sawest it all with thine eyes? ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... home for ever on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness of my condition overwhelm'd me. It was like passing from life into Eternity. Every year to be as long as three, i.e. to have three times as much real time, time that is my own, in it! I wandered about thinking I was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of the Catholic faith against the errors which in his day threatened to overwhelm Gospel-truth, Athanasius (the last of those ante-Nicene writers into whose testimony we have instituted this inquiry), was born about the year 296, and, after having presided in the Church as Bishop for more than forty-six years, died in 373, on the verge of his ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... continued three days he would have experienced a more favourable chance than that which he ought reasonably to have expected than asserted that the Emperor was dead, but an estafette from Russia would reveal the truth, resuscitate Napoleon, and overwhelm with confusion Mallet and his proclamation. His enterprise was that of a madman. The French were too weary of troubles to throw themselves into the arms of, Mallet or his associate Lahorie, who had figured so disgracefully ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... his lips to speak. Yes, he could overwhelm her with statistics and figures, all worked out; of shipping and disasters to shipping; of wealth and senseless waste of wealth. He could bury her beneath evidence taken by Royal Commission and Parliamentary ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thing that the air and the seas bring forth and nourish, birds of the air and beasts of the field. But thou, and thy sons with thee, shall have mercy when the black waters, the dark, destroying floods, shall overwhelm the hosts of sinful men. Begin to build thee a ship, a mighty seahouse, and in it make abiding-room for many, and set a rightful place for every tribe of earth. Build floors within the ark, dividing it in stories. And thou shalt build it three hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... his habitual circle, the patient escapes the too-attentive care of his relatives, and the incessant questions about his complaint with which they overwhelm him. The results of this regime with semi-insane wrecks are marvellous. It is a very drastic but very successful "rest-cure", and while it cannot be undergone at home, neurasthenics will benefit by following its principles as far as they can ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... make, to remain away. It was the first time she had entered an English Protestant church since she had last sat in it, there, with Mr. Carlyle. Can you wonder that the fact alone, with all the terrible remembrances it brought in its train, was sufficient to overwhelm her with emotion? She sat at the upper end now, with Lucy; Barbara occupied the place that had been hers, by the side of Mr. Carlyle. Barbara there, in her own right his wife; she severed from ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... first line and killed a color bearer. In five minutes their heavy lines were fearfully torn, but still closing up and keeping up a wonderful alignment they moved right on. To us spectators, it seemed that they would overwhelm our own lines of battle. The enemy had not stopped to fire a rifle, neither had our infantry discharged a piece. Suddenly a change came over the wonderful scene. The Twenty-third Corps opened with terrific volleys, followed closely by the Ninth. The lines of the ...
— Campaign of Battery D, First Rhode Island light artillery. • Ezra Knight Parker
... at the critical moment, fearful that the Comanches, realizing the straits of himself and companion, would overwhelm them before resistance could be offered. Thus his head was turned away from the mortally hurt horse of the captain, which, instead of sinking helpless to the earth, made a frantic leap and fell upon ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... me. The honor of your visits—" "The honor of my visits! That's admirable! I wish to obtain a portion of your friendship, and to testify to the king that I am sincerely attached to him." "You overwhelm me, madame," cried I, much delighted, "and I beg you to give me your confidence." "Well, now, all is arranged between us: I suit you and you please me. It is long since I was desirous of coming to you, but we are all under the yoke of the must ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... have been susceptible of aggravation, but which invariably the relays through all the subsequent periods affirm their own contemporaries to have attained. Every decennium is regularly worse than that which precedes it, until the mind is perfectly confounded by the Pelion upon Ossa which must overwhelm the last term of the twenty-five. It is the mere necessity of a logical sorites, that such a horrible race of villains as the men of the twenty-fifth decennium ought not to be suffered to breathe. Now, the whole error arises out of an imbecile ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... chagrin to find in that apartment a pupil gone to bed indisposed,—greater when I recognised, amid the muslin nightcap borders, the "figure chiffonnee" of Mistress Ginevra Fanshawe; supine at this moment, it is true—but certain to wake and overwhelm me with chatter when the interruption would be least acceptable: indeed, as I watched her, a slight twinkling of the eyelids warned me that the present appearance of repose might be but a ruse, assumed to cover sly vigilance over "Timon's" movements; she was not to be ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Ethiopia; this army almost perished by famine, insomuch, that they repeatedly slew every tenth man to supply the remainder with food. He sent another army to plunder the temple of Jupiter Ammon, which perished overwhelm'd with sand.] ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... those words I left the shop, determined to overwhelm the unbeliever with proof, and put him to shame before his own soul, whence, I thought, would come even more good to him than to his son. For there was a great deal of self-satisfaction mixed up with the man's honesty, and the sooner that had a blow the better—it might prove ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... wind's impetuous course, T' enrage the flame: It spreads, it soars on high, Swells in the storm, and billows through the sky: Here winding pyramids of fire ascend, Cities and deserts in one ruin blend; Here blazing volumes wafted, overwhelm The spacious face of a far distant realm; There, undermin'd, down rush eternal hills, The neighb'ring vales the vast destruction fills. Hear'st thou that dreadful crack? that sound which broke Like peals of thunder, and the centre shook? What wonders must that groan of nature ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... terrific cloud effects, as the clouds gushed over the summit and down the slope a little way like the smoke of enormous guns; and again a pyramid of mist was like a false mountain before him, a mountain that took on movement and rushed to overwhelm him, only to melt away and become simply a shadow among shadows above ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... for this, O King! is sent On thee a double chastisement: Thee and thine, thy crown and realm, One last wreck shall overwhelm. Woe ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... dropped, and the writer spoke out earnestly his opinion upon the matter. "We beg to assure Lord Brock," said the article, "that such alliances as these will not save him from the speedy fall with which his arrogance and want of judgement threaten to overwhelm it. As regards himself we shall be sorry to hear of his resignation. He is in many respects the best statesman that we possess for the emergencies of the present period. But if he be so ill-judged as to rest on such men as Mr. Harold Smith and Lord Brittleback ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... refuting current theories, suggesting lines of reading; in his excitement he even recommended some slight study of Patristics. There was nothing like getting to the sources—Polycarp and Irenaeus were important; or he could lend her Lightfoot. But he did not want to overwhelm her with dogmas—mere matter for the intellect—he would prefer her to accept some truths provisionally and see how they worked out. After all, the working out was everything. He wanted her to see that it was a question of will. In the crisis of his own ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... however, gather and follow us from the market-place, swelling gradually by reenforcements to a multitude that surges in and out of the shanty-like office in such swarms that the frail board walls bulge and crack with the pressure. When the crowd overwhelm the place entirely, the officials clear them out by angry gesticulations and moral suasion, sometimes menacingly shaking the end of their own queues at them as though they were wielding black-snake whips. Having driven them out, no further notice is taken ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... dear, that was one of the things you most wanted, but I thought it best not to overwhelm you quite this morning; so while you were on an exploring expedition round the store I chose and furnished ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Providence in a mortal's hand,' is frantic and wicked; but Moor has a force of soul which makes it likewise awful. The interest lies in the conflict of this gigantic soul against the fearful odds which at length overwhelm it, and hurry it down to the darkest ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... Hedwig could not be induced to study, but would overwhelm Nino with questions about his wonderful cousin who sang, so that he longed with his whole soul to tell her it was he himself who had sung. She saw his reluctance to speak about it, and she blushed when she mentioned ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... believe in a future life with the like strength. It is behind these truths, Cleoras, that I entrench myself at this hour; these make the shield which defends me from the assaults of fear and despair, that would otherwise, I am sure, overwhelm me.' ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... outstripping what we gave, and then for us to love even yet more and more and more rapturously, and again, and again, and again to have it so returned, and still the great waters of God's love to flow over us and overwhelm us until the vehemence of our impassioned peace and the daring vigour of our yearning adoration reach beyond the sight of our most venturous imagining; what is all this but for our souls to live a life of the most intelligent ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... through long, rank grass, waist-high and water-rotted with sea-fog. Here they launched their boat of sea-lion skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the farthermost hunting-grounds. Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin with kindness. The Russian keeps his sentinels as {91} vigilant as ever pacing before the doors of the hut; but he goes unguarded and unharmed among the native dwellings. Perhaps, poor Drusenin was not above swaggering ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... than had been anticipated. Mrs. Wiggins was undoubtedly a "peculiar female," as had been expected, but she was so elderly and monstrous that Mrs. Mumpson felt some embarrassment in her purpose to overwhelm Holcroft with a sense of the ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... an intense artillery fire. It was to be the fiercest rain of shells since the Americans had come to the front lines. Then the infantry, supported by tanks and aeroplanes, would follow, going over in waves which it was hoped would overwhelm the Germans. ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... world, which is not supermundane. Look there for your unchallengeable upper class! You feel that you are one of this our civilized community, that you cannot escape from it, and would not if you could. Good hope sustains you; weariness does not overwhelm you; in isolation you see no charms for vanity; personal pride is greatly moderated. Nor shall your title of citizenship exclude you from worlds of imagination or of devotion. The Comic spirit is not hostile to the sweetest songfully poetic. Chaucer bubbles with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... can bear so much better. And, besides, I don't think that my sadness would ever be like mama's. You see, in a way, I have so much more in my life. I should never sit down in my sadness and let it overwhelm me. I should use it, always. It is strange that grief should so often make people selfish. It ought, rather, to open doors for us and ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... "flee from what?" "From the prince of this world, who reigns in the children of disobedience," said the watchman; "flee from the pollutions which are in the world through the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the vanities of life; flee from the wrath which is coming to overwhelm you!" "What," exclaimed the other watchman, "is your beloved city but a vast glowing roof cast over Hell, and if you were here, you might see the fire on the farther side of your walls kindling, to ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... mine, 1 should scarcely have been so moderate. I could not have satisfied myself with the life of one woman; I should have sacrificed a thousand to my fury. I now cease to wonder at your melancholy. The cause was too afflicting and too mortifying not to overwhelm you. O heaven! what a strange adventure! Nor do I believe the like ever befell any man but yourself. But I must bless God, who has comforted you; and since I doubt not but your consolation is well-grounded, be so good as to inform me what it is, and conceal ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... Liszt that a crowd intimidated him, that he felt suffocated by all the quick breathing and paralyzed by the inquisitive eyes turned on him. "You were intended for all this," he adds, "as, if you do not win over your public, you can at least overwhelm it." ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... of those women who appear to have been born women by mistake—who are always chafing at their unfortunate fate, and endeavouring to emulate—even to overwhelm—men; in which latter effort they are too frequently successful. She was a tall elegant woman of about thirty years of age, with a decidedly handsome face, though somewhat sharp of feature. She possessed a powerful will, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... gyro-knife barrier beneath the surface. At the same time, from scouting parties and deserters at other points we learned that rumors are rife throughout the enemy forces of some scheme now on foot that will overwhelm us within a very short time. No details have been given, but so widespread is the gossip, and so consistent, that we have been forced to the conclusion that it cannot be reasonably dismissed ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... in a philosophical doctrine of the unity of God which was inconsistent with a real incarnation. Even the noble work of Origen had helped to strengthen the philosophical influences which were threatening to overwhelm the definite historic revelation. Tertullian had long since warned the churches of the danger; but a greater than Tertullian was needed now to free them from their bondage to philosophy. Are we to worship the Father of our spirits or the Supreme of the philosophers? Arius put the question: ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... rose on the horizon and threatened to overwhelm the gallant King, who, unshaken by the approaching peril, firmly stood his ground. The Austrians gained an excellent general in the Livonian, Gideon Laudon, whom Frederick had refused to take into his service on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... dangerous and uncertain mission. Should that mission prove successful and restore the fortunes of my house, I will return and claim my daughter. Should fate overwhelm me with disaster, I must beg that you will continue to regard her and love her as your own. The issue will have been decided within five years. Permit me to add but one thing more,—in the event that I ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... noiselessly steps out into the night, pacing the verandah to and fro, or leaning against one of its columns, thinks on of the past and present, when in the dim future, the vast unknown, he feels the necessity of calm; else this scandal will so overwhelm him in the waves of unrest, as to cause his life to be a wreck, and Vaura to be indeed, and in truth, lost to him forever more. In the determined quiet of a man controling self, he now again, this time undressing, takes to his bed and gains an hour's ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... another form, indeed; Built for freight, and yet for speed, A beautiful and gallant craft; Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast, Pressing down upon sail and mast, Might not the sharp bows overwhelm; Broad in the beam, but sloping aft With graceful curve and slow degrees, That she might be docile to the helm, And that the currents of parted seas, Closing behind, with mighty force, Might aid and not ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall show them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and little regard is due ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... indifference and apathy into which I had sunk; and though I had never loved my wife, the moment I knew she was lost to me for ever was exquisitely painful. Astonishment, the sense of disgrace, the feeling of rage against that treacherous parasite by whom she had been seduced, all combined to overwhelm me. I could command my voice only enough to bid Turner leave the room, and tell no one that he had spoken to me on this subject. "Not a soul," he said, "should be told, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... American young woman whom he sees abroad, and from what he reads in our papers about "free love," Indiana divorces, abortion, and what not, conclusions with regard to American chastity very different from those of the Union; and, if you sought to meet him in discussion, he would overwhelm you with facts and cases which, looked at apart from the general tenor of American life and manners, it would be very hard to dispose of. He would say, for instance, that we are not, perhaps, guilty of as many violations of the marriage vows as Europeans; but that ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... that I may overwhelm Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed. Then will I pass the countries that I see In long perspective, and continually Taste their pure fountains. First the ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... thought of anything, and, stifling with rage, she watched all these people placidly eating. At first, ill-suppressed wrath shook her whole person, and she opened her lips to shriek the truth at them, to overwhelm them with a volley of insults; but she could not utter a word, so ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... military science they had only what they had learned by experience. There was no harmony among the generals—not even a preconcerted plan of operation. Accordingly the mass of the French army was directed toward Burgos to cut off and overwhelm Blake, while two corps under Soult were directed ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... I answered, speaking very low, for my voice was choked; "but thy songs are not good for the sons of men to hear—of a truth they overwhelm me!" ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... indeed, as though of all present Joam Garral was the only one whom this fearful thunderbolt, which had fallen so unexpectedly on his head, had failed to overwhelm. ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... Mexican people will never accede to the terms of this treaty but through the impulse of absolute necessity, and the impression made upon them by absolute and irresistible force, therefore we purpose to overwhelm them with another army. We purpose to raise another army of ten thousand regulars and twenty thousand volunteers, and to pour them in and ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... which these men are engaged has too many elements of strength to be contemned by any far-seeing liberal. Blindness or sluggishness to-day means slavery to-morrow. Radicalism must pass now from thought to action, or it will deserve the oppression that lies in wait to overwhelm it." ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... Mademoiselle was evidence of the bitter struggle, though she did not know this. If he had someone to love, she had said mentally, he would not be so stern. She deceived herself. It was because he wrestled with a passion that threatened to overwhelm his reason that he wore so ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... her somewhat bashfully. And Lenore returned the greeting calmly, watching him steadily and waiting for the nameless sensations she had imagined would attend this meeting. But whatever these might be, they did not come to overwhelm her. The gladness of his voice, as he had spoken so eagerly to her father about the debt, had made her feel very kindly toward him. It might have been natural for a young man to resent this dragging debt. But he was fine. She observed, as he sat down, that, once the smile ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... ought to have proved to McClellan two facts: that neither in discipline nor in any other respect were the Southern troops more formidable than his own; also that the Southerners were clearly not able to overwhelm him with such superior numbers as he had supposed; for in two days they had not been able to overwhelm much less than half of his army. These considerations should have encouraged him to energetic measures. But no encouragement could counteract the discouragement ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... that the lamp was lighted. Alea jacta est! Seized by the instinct of self-preservation, he thought then of saving himself. It might occur to any of the guests through curiosity to tamper with the wick and then would come the explosion to overwhelm them all. Still he heard Simoun say to the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... ground, and betraying the struggle between bashfulness and love by alternate blushes and paleness. Then, in a low sweet gentle voice, she uttered these words: "O gracious sir, why do you, having just delivered me from a terrible death, now overwhelm me in a sea of love whose waves are the agitations of anxiety driven by the wind of passion? My life, saved by you, is entirely at your disposal. Take pity on me; regard me as your own. Let me be your servant, your slave; I would endure anything ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... overwhelming, irresistible. To me, quailing in my frail bark, in all the consciousness of helplessness and ruin, it seemed as though the winds and the waves were really sentient beings combining to overwhelm me, and increasing their efforts the more ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the shore with songs and mirth, for a bright sky and a calm sea promise them good fortune. But, alas, tempests and snow-storms too often overtake the unfortunate boatmen! The sea is lashed into foam, and mighty waves overwhelm boats and fishermen together, and they perish inevitably. It is seldom that the father of a family embarks in the same boat with his sons. They divide themselves among different parties, in order that, if one boat founder, the whole ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... past Tarsus, where he assists Creon, the governor of a helpless city, to Pentapolis, where, shipwrecked and a stranger, he wins the tournament and the hand of the Princess Thaisa, the waves of chance carry the Prince. They overwhelm him in the great storm which robs him of his wife, and gives him his little Marina; but they bear the unconscious Thaisa safely to land, and in after years their wild riders, the pirates, save Marina from death at the hands of Creon, and bring her to Mitylene. Here, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... Gessner's house first closed upon him and the vision of wonderland burst upon his astonished eyes. The weeks had been those of unending kindness, of gifts showered abundantly, of promises for the future which might well overwhelm him by their generosity. Let him but consent to claim his rights, Gessner had said, and every ambition should be gratified. No other explanation than that of a lagging justice could he obtain—and no other had he come to desire. ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... highlands south of the Connecticut, and all the intermediate country would be recolonized by "construction." We therefore invoke the sympathy of all New England, with New York besides, to unite against this progressive claim—this avalanche which threatens to overwhelm them ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... heavily, the point of the arrow has been pressed deeper. Flint—an arrow-head of flint with notched edges—tears; the muscles do not close about the intruder. The blood flows into the chest; it fills the lungs; he suffocates. Yet all consciousness has not vanished, although pain and oppression overwhelm the physical instruments of consciousness, and deprive the will of its connection with its tools. The will longs to see him who has destroyed its abode, but it no longer controls the shattered tissues; the nerves shiver like the broken springs of clockwork ere ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... avenue which distracts you from the varied commonplace of the commercial structures on either hand is the loveliness of Grace Church; but in the Strand and Fleet Street you have a succession of edifices which overwhelm you with the sense of a life in which trade is only one of the incidents. If the day is such as a lover of the picturesque would choose, or may rather often have without choosing, when the scene is rolled in vaporous ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... of producing beautiful melody may now almost be considered as lost; and when a composer is so fortunate as to throw forth a passage that is really melodious, he is sure, if he be not sensible of its excellence, to overwhelm and destroy it by the fullness and superfluity of his instrumental parts." [Compare Mozart's words as addressed to Michael Kelly: "Melody is the essence of music. I should liken one who invents melodies to a noble racehorse, and a mere contrapuntist ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... fears With ringings in my ears, And wondered why the glaring moon Swung round the dome of night With such stupendous might. Next came, like the sweet air of June, A treacherous calm suspense That bred a loathly sense, Some nameless ill would overwhelm us soon. ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner |
