"Avalanche" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognition crossing their faces. Suddenly the old Indian sprang up. He thrust his arms out, and made, as if unconsciously, some fantastic yet solemn motions. The player smiled in a far-off fashion, and presently ran the bow upon the strings in an exquisite cry; and then a beautiful avalanche of sound slid from a distance, growing nearer and nearer, till it swept through the room, and imbedded all in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... from observation, he tremblingly opened the letter, which he hoped contained the first instalment of wealth and fame. It was, indeed, from the editor of the periodical, and, remembering the avalanche of poetry and prose from beneath which this unfortunate class must daily struggle into life and being, it was unusually kind and full; but to Haldane it was cruel as death—a Spartan short-sword, only long enough to pierce his heart. It was ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... hazy atmosphere floated wild sentences from the sick tent, which showed that the patient was back again in Nevada, quarreling over the price of a horse which was to carry him beyond the reach of some threatening avalanche. ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... madly, furiously, as if rejoicing in the work of destruction, while the white foam of its eddies presents a fearful contrast to the prevailing blackness of the surface. Over the last declivity it leaps, hissing, foaming, crashing like an avalanche. The stone wall for a moment opposes its force, but falls the next, with a mighty splash, carrying the spray far and wide, while its own fragments roll onwards with the stream. The trees of the orchard are uprooted in an instant, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was a sharp crack overhead, followed by a tremendous rattle and crash. Then down upon the buggy descended what, to Graves, appeared to be an avalanche of scratching, tearing twigs and branches. They ripped away the boot and laprobe and jammed him back against the seat, their sharp points against his breast. The buggy was jerked forward a few feet and ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... moves like an avalanche, carrying destruction in his path. The peasantry sink before him. The country, too, is too poor for plunder, and too rough for a valuable conquest. Nature presents her eternal barrier on every side, to check the wantonness of ambition. And Switzerland ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... for France. "He has gone," writes Callieres, "after quarrelling with everybody." The various points in dispute were set before the king. An avalanche of memorials, letters, and proces-verbaux, descended upon the unfortunate monarch; some concerning Mareuil and the quarrels in the council, others on the excommunication of Desjordis, and others on the troubles at Montreal. They were all referred to the king's privy council. [Footnote: ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... this gentle and mournful music may be heard in gushes the whole night through. This music, of course, ceases when each tree becomes laden with snow; but yet there is sound, in the midst of the longest winter night. There is the rumble of some avalanche, as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow, too heavy to keep its place, slides and tumbles from the mountain peak. There is also, now and then, a loud crack of the ice in the nearest glacier; and, as many declare, there is a crackling ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... inspired rival in these things. He lacks Griffith's knowledge of what is photoplay and what is not. He lacks Griffith's simplicity of hurdle-race plot. He lacks his avalanche-like action. The Italian needs the American's health and clean winds. He needs his foregrounds, leading actors, and types of plot. But the American has never gone as deep as the Italian into landscapes that are their own tragedians, and into Satanic ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... the night, The flaming lightroom circles me: I sit within a blaze of light Held high above the dusky sea. Far off the surf doth break and roar Along bleak miles of moonlit shore, Where through the tides the tumbling wave Falls in an avalanche of foam And drives its churned waters home Up ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her in the futility of comprehension he had felt years ago, when Caddie, who had been "a great reader," as the neighbors said, before the avalanche of household cares had overwhelmed her, propounded to him, while he was drawing off his boots for an hour of twilight somnolence before going to bed, problems that, he knew, no man could answer. Neither were they to be illumined by Holy ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... know Don Mullen? Did I? He was my partner, my bunkee for many years and on many prospecting trips, a better bunkee no man ever had, but he is dead now, dead! dead! dead! been dead for a dozen years. He was killed by an avalanche. A better partner no man ever had," he ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... you know," said Tom. "We may be glad of any sort of a shelter. I am afraid we are interfering with your comfort, Philip; but really, we couldn't help it. The storm's awful outside. Mrs. Caruthers was sure we should be overtaken by an avalanche; and then she was certain there must be a crevasse somewhere. I wonder if one can get anything to eat in ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... be subservient to his will? He wondered. Everything depended upon that. If not, then he might as well try to stay the forces of a mighty avalanche with his breath, as halt the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... before; for he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like anything that drives headlong over ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... she, no doubt, her love no longer hiding, Waked by some chance word her father's jealousy; Slips her disdain—as an avalanche down gliding Sweeps flocks and kin away—to clear ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Temple stood melancholy where the heavy stone wall, built by a man who believed in broad, firm foundations, had split an avalanche, but without avail, for the walls had given way and let the roof beams drop in. No less certain had been the fate of the congregation; they, too, were scattered or dead. There remained but one dwelling in the little valley, with a lone occupant, who was wrestling ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... He himself saw the phantasm seven or eight times in his bedroom, and twice in the library. On one occasion it lifted up the mosquito curtains and stared at Mr. Harry. As in the case of meeting an avalanche, 'a weak-minded man would pray, sir, would pray; a strong-minded man would swear, sir, would swear'. Mr. Harry was a strong-minded man, and behaved 'in a concatenation accordingly,' although Petrus Thyraeus says that there is no use in swearing at ghosts. The phantasm ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... by the imperial troops, and his hereditary domains of the Palatinate were overrun by twenty thousand Spaniards. His subjects, alarmed at his utter inefficiency, and terrified by the calamities which were falling, like avalanche after avalanche upon them, became dissatisfied with him, and despairing respecting their own fate. He was a Calvinist, and the Lutherans had never warmly received him. The impotent monarch, instead of establishing himself in the affections of his subjects, by vigorously driving the invaders ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... reckoning when the end would be reached. Without time to make it fast, he hitched it twice round his waist and chest, once round an arm, and, grasping it above his head to ease its constriction when the tug should come, leaped on the combing and overboard. A green roaring avalanche swept down upon him and the luckless cat-boat, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... tired of his ragouts, Covets the meat that Teutons use, And charges like an avalanche ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... returned from Leeson Butte at the head of a small convoy. He had contrived his negotiations with a wonderful skill and foresight. His whole object had been secrecy, and this had been difficult. To shout the wealth of the camp in Leeson Butte would have been to bring instantly an avalanche of adventurers and speculators to the banks of Yellow Creek. His capital was limited to the small amount he had secretly hoarded while his comrades were starving, and the gold he had taken from his claim. The latter was his chief asset ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... front caved in, turned round, and fled. At the same instant the last of the Shenandoahs—Kirby Smith's brigade, detrained just in the nick of time—charged the wavering flank. Then, like the first quiver of an avalanche, a tremor shook the whole massed Federals one moment on that fatal hill: the next, like a loosened cliff, they began the ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... he saw a hideous turmoil in the black fabric—just wind—an avalanche of wind that gouged the sea, that could have shaken mountains.... The poor little Truxton stared into the End—a puppy cowering on the track ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... was probably the first stylographic press sheet. This sheet, which contained news of the various attractions that Frohman booked, was sent to the leading newspapers throughout the country and was the forerunner of the avalanche of press matter that to-day is hurled at dramatic ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Moszkowski concerto of great difficulty. The next day the music stores exhaust their stocks of this work, and a dozen misses, who might with difficulty play a Mendelssohn Song With Words, are buried in the avalanche of technical impossibilities that the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... a score, compact, riding smartly but with military order and precision. The man at their head, the officer in command, no doubt, spurred on and began to shout at the oncoming northerners. He might as well have spoken fair words to an avalanche, and the men behind him began to waver and most of them pulled up. It was useless. The torrent swept into them and bore them backward, tumbling some of them over, men and horses together, but incorporating most of them in its own madness. In less ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... mainly around the village of Elverdinghe, as the enemy had close observation and overlooked us from Pilkem Ridge. We did not take long to discover that our opponents were well acquainted with the situation of our new homes, for the majority of the batteries were subjected at once to an avalanche of shells as soon as they opened fire in order to register the guns. It became imperative for us to build alternative positions or go elsewhere, while other sections moved forward and undertook most of the firing. ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... "not uninteresting, but ungracious. But I like an ungracious man better than one like Philip, who hangs over young girls like a soft-hearted avalanche. This Lambert will govern Emilia, which is what ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... find waiting tedious, went back to the car for his small bag, after which he and Pete set off for the hotel. They had some trouble to cross the path of the avalanche and then spent some time getting past the men who were unloading a row of flat cars. The single-line track was cut out of the rock and one ran a risk of glissading down to the river by venturing outside its edge. Once, indeed, a heavy beam, ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... their nearest camp came up at a double. There was no water, no means whatever of extinguishing the flames, but the active little Frenchmen did not lose a minute. At the word of command, they broke their ranks, and swarmed into the houses, and in a minute a perfect avalanche of goods was thrown from the windows. Some stood along outside the houses, others climbed upon their shoulders, on these again others took their places, and so on until living ladders were formed, up which a ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... posted on the summit of the Sattel Mountain opposite, waiting its opportunity. The time for action had come. The Austrian cavalry of the vanguard was in a state of frightful confusion and dismay. And now the mountaineers descended the steep hill slopes like an avalanche, and precipitated themselves on the flank of the invading force, dealing death with their halberds and iron-pointed clubs until the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... Crawling Water, the cattleman thought of a short-cut, through a little used timber-trail, which would save him several miles; but it was crossed by a ravine cut by a winter avalanche like the slash of a gigantic knife. To descend into this ravine and ascend on the farther side would be a tortuous process, which would take more time than to continue by the longer route. But if the gelding could jump the narrow cleft in the trail, the distance saved might decide the issue with ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... for several minutes and then ceased abruptly. Evidently the warrior had realized the futility of his avalanche and must now be seeking some other mode of attack. It caused Will chagrin that he had not seen him once during all the long attack, but he noticed with relief that the sun would soon set beyond the great White Dome. The snow on the Dome itself was tinged now with fire, ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... hurry and disorder. One characteristic of the time was to be unintelligent in matters relating to the Church, and they did not know how far the clergy was affected by the levelling principle, or that in touching tithe they were setting an avalanche in motion. At one moment, Lally, much alarmed, had passed a note to the President begging him to adjourn, as the deputies were losing their heads. The danger arose, as was afterwards seen, when the Duke du Chatelet proposed the redemption ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... behind intervening spurs or ridges of the mountain, or becoming hidden in the cloud-mists which lay heavily about its base; but the sound continued to roll back upon us for some time, like the roar of distant artillery. I could no longer wonder at the terror with which the cry of an avalanche is said to fill ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... his armoured tail. All this the eye perceived in the hilt of Sacnoth, who smote suddenly sideways. Not with the edge smote Sacnoth, for, had he done so, the severed end of the tail had still come hurtling on, as some pine tree that the avalanche has hurled point foremost from the cliff right through the broad breast of some mountaineer. So had Leothric been transfixed; but Sacnoth smote sideways with the flat of his blade, and sent the tail whizzing over ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... satisfied suspense in regard to Bea's technique in serving, before Kennicott cried from the bay-window in the living-room, "Here comes somebody!" and Mr. and Mrs. Luke Dawson faltered in, at a quarter to eight. Then in a shy avalanche arrived the entire aristocracy of Gopher Prairie: all persons engaged in a profession, or earning more than twenty-five hundred dollars a year, or possessed ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... incomprehensible enigma of the resignation of a deputy, the very legitimate desire of the general-secretary to get elected to the place, and the secret opposition of the minister to this wish of a man who was one of his firmest supporters and most zealous workers. This, of course, brought down an avalanche of suppositions, flooded with the sapient arguments of the two officials, who sent back and forth to each other a wearisome flood of nonsense. ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... in, like eternal clouds. The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain's-side, each tiny dot a home, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... condition greatly assisted by the slippery nature of the ground. Then, with wild shouts, and brandishing their iron-studded clubs and their formidable halberts and scythes, down the mountain-side rushed, with the fury of their native avalanche, the heroic Confederates; and falling on their foes literally slew them by thousands. Many hundreds of the Austrians perished in the lake, the men of Zurich alone making a stand, and falling each where he fought. Few succeeded in effecting their escape from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... arrived behind the curtain she was aware of many cries and questions hurled at her like an avalanche, but, ignoring them all, she sprang past the noisy, excited group of young people, darted through the dressing-room to the right and out into the night and coolness. Her head was swimming, and things went black before her eyes. She ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... the rungs. But some men who were below us were thrown off. The fall of water had turned into a veritable avalanche. ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... flower of Eastern chivalry; A moment paused with level-fronting spears And moveless helms before that shining host, Whose gay attire abashed the morning light, And then struck spur and charged, while from the mass Of rushing terror burst the awful cry, GOD AND THE TEMPLE! As the avalanche slides Down Alpine slopes, precipitous, cold and dark, Unpitying and unwrathful, grinds and crushes The mountain violets and the valley weeds, And drags behind a trail of chaos and death; So burst we on that field, and through and through The gay battalia ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... culture. And their farming is carried on in the face of difficulties and discouragements of no ordinary character, for sometimes the soil of many of the little farms will be swept away in a night by an avalanche of snow in winter or of stones in spring. The wrecks of fields are visible all along the valley, especially at its upper part. Lower down it widens, and affords greater room for culture; the sides of the mountains become better wooded; and, as we approach the fortress of Briancon, with ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... child," answered St Aubyn, rising, and drawing the boy's hand into his own, "we will go and find Gluck, who knows, no doubt, all that has passed today, and is waiting for us at the monastery." "We must ford the torrent," said Augustin; "the bridge was carried off by last year's avalanche, but with six of us and the dogs it will be easy work." Twilight was falling; and already the stars of Christmas Eve climbed the frosty heavens and appeared above the snowy far-off peaks. Filled with gratitude and wonder at all the strange events of the day we betook ourselves to the ford, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... seemed inexhaustible. John had seen them turned back in those long days of fighting on the Marne, and more than a million had been killed or wounded since the war began, but that avalanche of men and guns still poured out of the heart of Germany. He felt more deeply than ever that the world could not afford a German victory, and the sanguinary spectacle of a Kaiser riding roughshod over civilization. The fact that so many German people ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... railed at conscription, and when the war smote her had seen her little army of a quarter of a million almost annihilated under the first avalanche of the German descent toward Paris. England had gathered volunteers and trained them behind the bulwark of her navy and the red wall of the bleeding French nation. And England had given up volunteering and gone into the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... maimed were attended to, and wherever possible those who were still living in the ruins were dug out and set free. But, as you may imagine, this was a work of great danger, because dragging out a beam or stone often sent a shattering avalanche down on the ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... perfectly silent upon the bank watching with a solemn air the grotesque capers of his companion—the red light reflected upon the savage figures of the two men—reflected also upon the foaming cataract, which appeared to roll over the cliff like an avalanche of fire—all combined to form a scene in which the ludicrous and the ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... undoubtedly sought to do when he introduced on January 4, 1854, a bill organizing the Nebraska territory on the principle of the Compromise of 1850; namely, that the people in the territory might themselves decide whether they would have slavery or not. Unwittingly the avalanche was started. ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... work they had finished with so much toil, a snow man, down the slope, rejoicing with his playfellows over its swift descent towards the valley, until they noticed with what frightful speed its bulk increased as it sped over its snowy road, till at last, like a terrible avalanche, it swept away a herdsman's hut—fortunately an empty one. Now, also, his heedlessness had set in motion a mass which constantly rolled onward, and how terrible might be the harm ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... studious trance for a month, emerging mentally with the freshness of a snake that has shed its skin. What had happened in Pennsylvania must happen all along the great Alleghany chain in the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee. Some day the avalanche must sweep south, it must—it must. That he might be a quarter of a century too soon in his calculations never crossed his mind. ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... been delivering addresses urging the application of the same system to the entire alluvial basin of the river from the gulf to Cairo. People were in despair as to what to do to prevent the breaking of the levees (the results of which are as "terrible to the dwellers on those flats as the avalanche to people who live on the sides of steep mountains"), and the distress and prostration created by the awful spring floods. Most people thought there were two possible remedies,—to build more and higher levees, and to drain off some of the ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... sentences fell upon deaf ears. Like an avalanche, the mighty mob swept down upon him, carrying him along upon the ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... whose story fills the centuries with its glory, Moulding Gaul and Carthaginian into one all-conquering band, With his tusked monsters grumbling, 'mid the alien snow-drifts stumbling, Then, an avalanche of ruin, thundering from that frozen land Into vales their sons declare are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... valour, the air of England became charged with an ominous feeling that something was wrong at the front. The German advance in the west had been well nigh triumphant. Reckless bravery alone could not prevail against the avalanche of ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... 'wives,' 'women,' lifted them into an atmosphere of awe and solemnity, and his tone in speaking of 'rape' and 'torture' gave them an ineffable loathsomeness. It seemed as if so much soul had never been put into a Saxon speech. Keen satire, rasping rebuke, an avalanche of indignation, rapier-like thrusts to the vital fibre of the situation, and withal the invincible cogency of argument against the Turkish Government, gave the oration a primary place amongst the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... this day the Icelanders designate their highest mountain peaks by the name of Jokul, a modification of the word "Joetun." In Switzerland, where the everlasting snows rest upon the lofty mountain tops, the people still relate old stories of the time when the giants roamed abroad; and when an avalanche came crashing down the mountain side, they say the giants have restlessly shaken off part of the icy burden from their brows ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... shadow among shadows. The wild and solitary ice-peaks he sometimes scaled seemed to him the unsubstantial phantasmagoria of a troubled sleep. He wondered with a dull amazement if the crevasses which yawned before him would swallow him up, or the shuddering violence of an avalanche bury him beneath it. His life had been as a tale that is told, even to its last ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... clung to each other in terror, the goats trembled, and Bello crept farther under the rock. "The avalanche!" gasped Leneli, shaking with fright. "Father thought there wouldn't be any more this spring! Oh, ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... peering eagerly into carriages in the search for seats. Piercing cries ordered unknown "Tommies" and "Ernies" to "keep by aunty, now." Just as Ukridge returned, the dreaded "Get in anywhere" began to be heard, and the next moment an avalanche of warm humanity poured into the carriage. A silent but bitter curse framed itself on Garnet's lips. His chance of pleasant conversation with the lady of the brown hair and the eyes that were either gray or ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... Another avalanche of resolutions praising Gibson followed the publication of this statement. The mayor was hotly condemned for his failure to remove Chief Sweeney at Gibson's request and the commissioner was hailed as a man whose very name ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... whether it was the onslaught of the enemy or the firing of our troops, we knew not. But we had not long to wait. Soon stragglers, few in numbers, began to appear, emerging from the woods into our clearing, and then more of them, these running, and then almost at once an avalanche of panic-stricken, flying men without arms, without knapsacks, many bareheaded, swearing, cursing, a wild, frenzied mob tearing to the rear. Instantly they began to appear, General Couch, commanding our corps, took in the situation and deployed two divisions to catch and hold the ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... their pinnacles, and every snow-wreath which slipped from their ledges, would descend at once upon the inhabitable ground, over which no year could pass without recording some calamity of earth-slip or avalanche; while, in the course of their fall, both the stones and the snow would strip the woods from the hill sides, leaving only naked channels of destruction where there are now the sloping meadow and the chestnut ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... preponderance of weapons determine. It was not yet perceived that such clan-people were not Tribe-People, and thus could not know the meaning of Council, nor weigh consequence, nor realize in their new-found cleverness that a single arrogant act would trigger the first and final avalanche.... ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... giving the occupant of the hut an unobstructed view of the winding road that led up from Edelweiss. The door faced the Monastery road down which the two men had just ridden. As for the door yard, it was no more than a pebbly, avalanche-swept opening among the trees and rocks, down which in the glacial age perhaps a thousand torrents had leaped, but which was now so dry and white and lifeless that one could only think of bones bleached and polished ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... possible to cut off long corners by scrambling over the steep black rock and smooth ice, and all the while the cold, soft mist wisped in and out around me. After a thousand feet of this I came to the top of the Grimsel, but not before I had passed a place where an avalanche had destroyed the road and where planks were laid. Also before one got to the very summit, no short cuts or climbing were possible. The road ran deep in a cutting like a Devonshire lane. Only here the high banks ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... method of Model I consists of overwhelming the enemy with an avalanche of examples. The method of Model II is to define the words used by an opponent and, by analyzing the meaning of what he asserts, to prove that he does not see his ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... seen since he disappeared from the ball room of Beau-Sejour:—my cousin, Caspar von Hazenfeldt, took to wandering alone over the Swiss mountains; and before three months had elapsed, from the time he met the old gentleman, was buried in the fall of an avalanche, near the pass of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... wonderful how easy the descent really is, when once the first false step is taken. As the avalanche, which at first becomes slowly loosened from its lofty position, gradually descends with greater and greater rapidity till it is dashed into the abyss, so does the frail mortal, who at first shudders at the bare thought of an immoral act, rush headlong ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... had the effect of a plug. A pebble may block a log; a branch sometimes changes the course of an avalanche. The carronade stumbled, and the gunner, availing himself of the perilous opportunity, thrust his iron bar between the spokes of the back wheels. Pitching forward, the cannon stopped; and the man, using his bar for a lever, rocked it backward and forward. The heavy mass upset, with the resonant sound ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... Chevalier and his friends were without resources. In consequence of leading a wild life and sacrificing himself for his party, he had spent his entire fortune, and was overwhelmed with debts. The lawyer Vanier, who was entrusted with the management of his business affairs, lost his head at the avalanche of bills, protests and notes of hand which poured into his office, and which it was impossible to meet. The lawyer Lefebre, a fat and sensual free-liver, was equally low in funds, and laid on the government the blame of the confusion into which his affairs had fallen, though it had been ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... o'clock. There was a commotion at the front door and Maxwell came in. He was followed by an avalanche of Smiths. There was our Smith, and a tall, lean Smith, and a Smith who waddled when he walked. They were all dirty and dusty; they all wore our pink-and-blue pledge ribbons on their coat lapels and when they got in the house they gave the Eta Bita Pie yell and sang about half of the ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... An avalanche! and the ceremony was as yet incomplete! Ermentrude never forgot Carleton Roberts' look. Doubtless he never forgot hers. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... perspective, of absolutely unlimited codfish, Miss Jelliffe," I told her. "Some day these people will bury me under an avalanche of quintals. Still, it is also possible that they may come on the installment plan. One hundred and twelve pounds of fish may seem an unusual fee for a rather protracted case, but consider how far it will go in the feeding of a lone bachelor. Even though it ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... too, writhed beneath this avalanche of pain; perhaps remorse and the consciousness of the anguish he had entailed upon them both tore and lacerated him. He had gone away at last, out of her life, back to the home and the ties that were hateful to him. He had gone away to take up his share of their joint burden, and he would ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... eyes, convinced that it was all a dream. But the noise drew nearer, thundered in his ears. In terror he got to his feet, tried to cry out. The words froze on his lips, for just then the wall before him crashed in as though struck by an avalanche. Then came a grinding, splitting jumble of sounds, the solid ground shook under the passage of some mighty force which increased for a moment followed by a ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... of Mount Shasta, I discovered the path of a hurricane strewn with thousands of pines of this species. Great and small had been uprooted or wrenched off by sheer force, making a clean gap, like that made by a snow avalanche. But hurricanes capable of doing this class of work are rare in the Sierra; and when we have explored the forests from one extremity of the range to the other, we are compelled to believe that they are the most beautiful on the face of the earth, however we may regard ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... for weeks there had been accumulating evidence, which we could see pointed to a monumental success or an avalanche failure. The copper market was literally boiling, and investors from one end of America to the other and throughout Europe were on the qui vive for the anticipated announcement. At intervals in history great "booms" are started, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... if left to himself, the ghost that loved it would haunt the place! But he could not surely be permitted! for it might postpone a thousand years his discovery of the emptiness of a universe of such treasures. Now he was moldering into the world of spirits in the heart of an avalanche of the dust of ages, dust material from his hoards, dust moral and spiritual from ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... great landslide took place. The house was in the track of the slide, and the family rushed out of doors. Had they remained within they would have been safe, for a ledge above the house parted the avalanche so that it was diverted into two paths and swept past the house on either side. Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children, and two hired men were crushed under the weight of earth, ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... desperation in his appeal, like that of the hermit who stands on a mountain crag and warns the gay and thoughtless of the valley of the coming avalanche. Had they heard him at last? There were a few moments of tense silence, during which he stood gazing at them. Then he raised his arm in benediction, gathered up his surplice, descended the pulpit steps, and crossed swiftly the chancel . ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in comparison to a shock from a pair of bright eyes—such eyes as hers. The truth of the case was here, of a sudden, apparently from out the clear sky, came down, with not a moment's warning, a perfect avalanche of rain-drops—all expressly got up, or down, for my benefit, else why did I happen to have an umbrella in my hand? "A Wise man—" you remember the rest. My beautiful incognito was away up those long stairs, and walking leisurely around the immense basin, when the rain came down. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... you. It isn't always considered patriotic when the people want war, for a Senator to want peace too hard. I shall strive to point that out to twenty million people or so tomorrow morning. Make your will, Senator. The avalanche is coming. You'll be the loneliest voice that ever came out of the wilderness. I prophesy ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... daughter. Imagination may always better paint such a scene, than could the feeble pen describe it. The deep and gushing eloquence of human nature, when thus long pent, bursts forth, sweeping the meagre devises of the pen before it, like snow-flakes before the mighty mountain avalanche. ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... after both girls had danced through one London season in different ball-rooms, Rachel's parents died, her mother first, and then—by accident—her father, leaving behind him an avalanche of unsuspected money difficulties, in which even his vast ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... are within hailing distance of each other; the field of her battle, where Simon de Montfort defeated Henry III., is in view from her north-west slopes; while the new martyrs' memorial on the turf above the precipitous escarpment of the Cliffe (once the scene of a fatal avalanche) reminds one of what horrors were possible in the name of religion in these streets less than four ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... quick to pass away that one might have thought oneself the victim of a fancy. His was the next chuckle, and "Do you remember that day when——?" and so forth, Mr. Fullerton's healthy roar following, avalanche-like, upon the reminiscence. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... waist being thus within the cave, immediately over the vase, his body and legs outside. The cliff above the opening was nearly perpendicular, and had been much split and shaken by the frosts since an avalanche had deprived it of its crown of snow; but of his danger he was heedless or unconscious. One morning while lying prone, repeating for the fiftieth time his daily counting of the old coins, a portion of the rock detached itself slowly, and falling ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... I took two steps forward, when, bringing up his pack, Esau made a desperate plunge and got before me, sending quite an avalanche of ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... yards, and then they instantly formed up, such as were left of them, for out of two companies of the Black Watch only fifty men escaped. A more tragic scene than that at the onset of the battle cannot be conceived. From all directions came an avalanche of lead, sweeping south and east and west in the gloaming, and flecking the whole visible universe with red. Cries and groans and curses and shouts intermingled with orders innumerable. "Advance," shouted ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Cleggett, who had been getting more and more excited, it was loud as an avalanche. He stopped and held his breath; he fancied that he had heard another noise besides the one which his pebble made. But ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... far-away world,—a world where the three waiting men knew that all had turned to a white hell of wintry fury; where the grim, forbidding mountains were now the abiding place of the snow-ledge and the avalanche; where even steel and the highest product of invention counted for nothing against the blast of the wind and the swirl of the tempest. Then finally, as from far away, a strained voice ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... flankers had gained the rear, And flew on the trail of the flying herd. The shouts of the riders rang loud and clear, As their frothing steeds to the chase they spurred. And now like the roar of an avalanche Rolls the sullen wrath of the maddened bulls. They charge on the riders and runners stanch, And a dying steed in the snow-drift rolls, While the rider, flung to the frozen ground Escapes the horns by a panther's bound. But the raging monsters are held at bay, While the flankers ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... plenty of both," said Khlobuev, and with that went on to deliver himself of a perfect avalanche of projects. Yet those projects proved to be so uncouth, so clumsy, so little the outcome of a knowledge of men and things, that his hearers could only shrug their shoulders and mentally exclaim: "Good Lord! What a difference between worldly ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... "Prosperity Dinner," San Francisco was always ready to insist that everything was going well. It was the same spirit which inspired a whole city, the day the Exposition opened, to rise early to walk to the grounds, and to stand, an avalanche of humanity, waiting for the gates to part. It was the same spirit which inspired the whole city, the night the Exposition ended, to stay for the closing ceremonies until midnight, and then, without even picking a flower from the abundance they were abandoning, ...
— The Californiacs • Inez Haynes Irwin
... the slipping, indeed, of a single flake, may begin the movement, which at first is gradual and only involves a little of the snow. Gathering velocity, and with the materials heaped together from the junction of that already in motion with that about to be moved, the avalanche in sliding a few hundred feet down the slope may become a deep stream of snow-ice, moving with great celerity. At this stage it begins to break off masses of ice from the glaciers over which it may flow, or even to move large stones. Armed ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... influence of light on a large scale as soon as we reached the open hills and mountains of the Sierra del Cristal, and had to pass over those fearful avalanche-like timber falls on their steep sides. The worst of these lay between Efoua and Egaja, where we struck a part of the range that was exposed to the south-east. These falls had evidently arisen from the tornados, which from time to time ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... of the avalanche, Malone knew suddenly—the avalanche that was somehow going to destroy him. "You forced your thoughts into my mind, then," he said as coolly as he could. "Just as you forced decision ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lying in my writing-table this week—expecting, most unreasonably, that I should have the grace to open them? We are always punished for our indolence, as your friend Dr. X—— said the other day: if we suffer business to accumulate, it drifts with every ill wind like snow, till at last an avalanche of it comes down at once, and quite overwhelms us. Excuse me, Clarence," continued her ladyship, as she opened her letters, "this is very rude: but I know I have secured my pardon from you by remembering your friend's wit—wisdom, I should say: how seldom are wit ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... trees with a wild cheer came tearing a squad of the old Thirty-seventh, with Wilson at their head, and fell like an avalanche on ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... spluttered the victim, trying to dodge the avalanche. But instead of heeding his pleadings the other students proceeded to ram a quantity of the stuff into his ears and down his collar. Nat squirmed and yelled, but ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... acts may seem in themselves trivial; but so are the continuous acts of daily life. Like snowflakes, they fall unperceived; each flake added to the pile produces no sensible change, and yet the accumulation of snowflakes makes the avalanche. So do repeated acts, one following another, at length become consolidated in habit, determine the action of the human being for good or for evil, and, in ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... their large, full, eye, is very expressive, and their intelligence has saved many persons from death, when overtaken by cold on the Alpine passes. One of these noble creatures wore a medal, in commemoration of his having preserved twenty-two lives, and he at last lost his own in an avalanche, together with those whom he was endeavouring to protect. They carry food and wine with them; and followed by the monks, who have vowed themselves to the task, seek those who ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... strong, straight riders, hungry for battle, hot to retrieve the losing fortune of the day. The road was too narrow for a concentrated rush, so they streamed into the fields on either side, re-formed, and swept like an avalanche of blue upon their prey. The guns in the woods now thundered forth afresh, their echoes rolling out across the hills, and the attacking Rebels turned and fled, like ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... close to the corner a large lump of rock and earth was breaking away, a cleft was opening, so that presently, it seemed possible at any moment, the mass would fall headlong into the blue deeps below. This impending avalanche was not in my path along the Bisse, it was no sort of danger to me, but in some way its insecurity gave a final touch to my cowardice. I could not get myself round ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... one or two about him. Portman looked grave, and so did Breen. Nothing of that kind had ever soiled their hands; everything with them was open and above-board. They might start a rumor that the Lode had petered out, throw an avalanche of stock on the market, knock it down ten points, freezing out the helpless (poor Gilbert had been one of them), buy in what was offered and then declare an extra dividend, sending the stock skyward, but anything so low as—"Oh, very ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... climbing, night by falling; hence the night is so much swifter. Happiness takes years to build; but misery swoops like an avalanche. Such, and even more depressing, are the thoughts young folk give way to when their first great trouble rushes and sweeps them into a desert, trackless to the ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... (which has the very human failing of "putting off" or postponing) cannot break down the veto power of the president, by pouring an avalanche of bills upon him within the last few days ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... smashed up gear to leeward. She had been lying down, reading in a sort of bunk which had been rigged up for her on the locker-top. The shock had flung her clean out of the bunk on to the deck. At the same moment an avalanche of gear had fetched to leeward. A cask had rolled on to her left hand, pinning her down to the deck, while a box of bottles had cut the back of her head. A more complete picture of misery you could not hope to see. There was all the ill-smelling ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... the services rendered by these noble dogs of Saint Bernard in saving life among the snowy regions of the Alps. It is recounted that one of these dogs preserved twenty-two lives. He at length lost his own in an avalanche, when those he was endeavouring to ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... the ocean, and go back To their mysterious caverns,—mountains rear To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow Their tall heads to the plain,—new empires rise, Gathering the strength of hoary centuries, And rush down like the Alpine avalanche, Startling the nations,—and the very stars, Yon bright and burning blazonry of God, Glitter a while in their eternal depths, And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train, Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away [2] To darkle in the trackless void,—yet Time, Time, the tomb-builder, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... The cabin must have been air-tight—it was as close as possible—yet we heard the shrieking of the wind as it tore through the rigging, and the long hiss of the waves rushing past us with lightning speed. Sometimes an avalanche of foam buried us for a moment, and the Petrel trembled like a living thing stricken with sudden fear: we seemed to be hanging on the crust of a great bubble that was, sooner or later, certain to burst and let us drop into its vast, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... distant camp on the confines of Italy, beheld with undissembled joy, the intrigues and factions which deprived the emperor of his best defender, and which placed over his last army incompetent generals. So, hastening his preparations, he again descends like an avalanche upon the plains of Italy. Aquileia, Altinum, Concordia, and Cremona, yielded to his arms, and increased his forces. He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic; and, following the Flaminian way, crossed the passes of the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of Umbria, and reached without ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... millions of insane murderers and his heart is torn as He sees the avalanche of tears shed by ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... by the lower branches. In doing this, the spurs accidentally came in contact with his sides. He gave one tremendous leap forward—the ground sank under his feet—the horse was thrown over his own head—I was jerked into the air—and, amid an avalanche of earth and stones, we were hurled down a perpendicular bank into the brown, swollen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... an avalanche, their voices making hideous the rapidly falling night, while the wounded defender waited, waited, all his purpose concentrated, husbanding his ebbing strength as a starving man might husband the last crumbs of food. He knew that not ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... the scene at the front. There the third act of the drama was beginning. After half an hour of the heaviest cannonade ever known, Wellington's faithful troops were threatened by an avalanche of cavalry, and promptly fell into the "chequer" disposition previously arranged for the most exposed division, that of Alten. Napoleon certainly hoped either to crush Wellington outright by a mighty onset of horse, or to strip him bare for the coup de grace. At the Caillou farm in the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... than a spider's web; but, once formed, it binds as with a chain of iron. The small events of life, taken singly, may seem exceedingly unimportant, like snow that falls silently, flake by flake; yet accumulated, these snow-flakes form the avalanche. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... not tell you the avalanche of abuse, insult and invective that he hurled upon my defenseless head. He accused me of more crimes than I had ever heard talk of. He told me that my condition was an impossible one unless I had been false ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the June sun was sinking to the horizon, the bugles sounded and the finest body of horsemen in Europe started to its doom on the squares of Wellington. The grim horsemen rode to their fate like heroes. The charge rolled on like an avalanche. It plunged into the sunken road of O'Hain. It seemed to roll over. It rose from the low grounds and broke on the British squares. They reeled under the shock, then reformed and stood fast. Around and around those immovable lines the soldiers of the Empire ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... more than average length, I heard no particular complaints, and at last adopted Tichatschek's view that, if he could stand it, so could the audience. For six performances therefore, all of which continued to receive a similar avalanche of applause, I let the matter run ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... clutched him were the hands of murderers, and the lawyer's puny figure could not stand up against the avalanche of human terror, relentless fury, and mad vengeance which now rolled in upon it. As I bounded to his relief he turned his ghastly face upon me. But the way between us was blocked, and I was preparing myself to see him sink before my eyes when an unearthly ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... garden-girt villas dotting the green hills around are more suggestive of a tropical country than of a bleak Arctic land. An interesting landmark is the mighty landslip of rock and rubble which defaces the side of a steep cliff overlooking the city, for this avalanche of earth is said to have entombed some fifty or sixty Indians many years ago, and is of course therefore, according to local tradition, haunted. Notwithstanding its remoteness Dawson may almost be called a gay place. Stroll down the principal street at mid-day and you will ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... timbering that supported the gallery roof. Loose stones rained down. Dry, cold and brittle wood sagged under strain. Both wild shots had taken shattering effect. Timbers yielded, slowly at first, then faster. Showering of loose stones became a steady stream. A minor avalanche. ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... me, is that under several of these criticisms there is a HATRED against me, against me personally, a deliberate slandering, the cause of which I am seeking. I do not feel hurt, but this avalanche of foolishness saddens me. One prefers inspiring good feelings to bad ones. As for the rest, I am not thinking any more about Saint-Antoine. That is ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... an avalanche of reproach! (Aloud) Let us try, Gertrude, both of us, to behave wisely in this matter. Above all things, let us try to avoid base accusations. I shall never forget what you have been to me; I still entertain towards you a ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... national spirit by means of the daily press; the promulgation of national propaganda has become a fine art; modern statesmen have learned that national feelings, rightly directed, have the force of an avalanche. The problems of Race and of Nationality, then, are by no means new, but in their modern form they are new. The far-flung lines of the British Empire and the mobilization of the popular spirit by means of the press and propaganda have ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... Damascus, was falling into ruins, a movement of these against Lebanon in the time of Jeroboam II. opened to Israel the alarming prospect that sooner or later they would have to meet the full force of the irresistible avalanche. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... his turn to offer suggestions. A stage-driver is always a person of importance, especially in California. For the past six days Mat had found his public importance rather embarrassing. Every trip past the robbers' hiding-place had brought an avalanche of questions from curious passengers. Probably Mat Bailey had been forced to think of the tragedy more constantly than had any other person. His ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... note asking each president to send one copy to the editor of the Ladies' Home Journal, in which Barry's article had appeared, with her own personal protest, and the other to the editor of some paper in her vicinity. The result was a perfect avalanche of protests to the editor of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... eyes of a young setter at heel. But when at last he was out of sight he slipped his leash and was off, running recklessly, headlong. The hill rose up behind him and sent him down its hillocky slopes as though before the horns of an avalanche. The wind blew the scent of trees and flowers and young grass against his burning face. It was like draughts of a cold, clear wine. It was like running full-tilt down Acacia Grove ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... from the nailing up of these Theses that the history of the Great Reformation dates; for the hammer-strokes which fixed that parchment started the Alpine avalanche which overwhelmed the pride of Rome and broke the stubborn power which had reigned supreme ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... little essay. I had stuck just at a rather difficult point in it, where there ought to be a quite imperceptible transition to something fresh, then a subdued gliding finale, a prolonged murmur, ending at last in a climax as bold and as startling as a shot, or the sound of a mountain avalanche—full stop. But the words would not come to me. I read over the whole piece from the commencement; read every sentence aloud, and yet failed absolutely to crystallize my thoughts, in order to produce this scintillating climax. And into the bargain, whilst I was standing labouring ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... at his feet, cursing softly in his helplessness. To him came the last terrible cries of the perishing animals. He saw head after head go under. Out of the white spume of a great rock against which the flood split itself with the force of an avalanche he saw one horse pitched bodily, as if thrown from a huge catapault. The last animal had disappeared when chance turned his eyes upstream and close in to shore. Here flowed a steady current free of rock, and down this—head and shoulders still high out of the ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... apparently simple thing as how one knows anything—or of simple consciousness? Every philosopher that has attempted to explain consciousness or how we know, takes refuge in assumptions. At any Philosophical Society, if you ask for the explanation of simple Consciousness, the avalanche of answers, each differing from the other, will bewilder you. We know the outward appearance of an object, of which we say that we know it, but what is it in itself? Of that we are as much in the dark as we are of the mind that knows. We say, each of us—I know, but in ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... for the cliff, where a fall had constituted a steep ramp. He scrambled up it, an avalanche of chalk slipping away from beneath his feet and half ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... bottom, and then the shelf had melted away, leaving the icicles in an apparently reversed condition. We passed one place where vast masses of ice had rolled down from above, and we saw how a breath might start a new avalanche. We were up in ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... the causeway, we were obliged to pass an open plain in which the ground dipped for about a hundred yards; the column moved on, and though it descended one hill, not a man ever mounted the opposite one. A very avalanche of balls swept the entire valley; and yet amidst the thunder and the smoke, the red glare of the artillery, and the carnage around them, our grenadiers marched firmly up. At last, Marshal Ney sent an aide-de-camp with orders to the troops to lie flat down, and in this position the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... mystery; but understood, she is a simple and beautiful piece of mechanism; and the earthquake may not be more disastrous than the flood or the avalanche when science and experience have taught men to avoid the localities of danger, and to watch the hour of its approach, that they ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... and stopped. There was that in Jimmy's eye that would have stopped an avalanche. His lordship twiddled his fingers ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... lunch the automobilists had brought from Avalanche was ample and as yet untouched. The hotel waiter, who had attended to the packing of it, had fortunately been used to reckon with outdoor Montana appetites instead of cloyed New York ones. They unpacked the little hamper with much gaiety. Everything was frozen solid, ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... constantly hopping to shake the corn down through a hole in the middle of the upper stone, which went round and round against the lower, so that between them they ground the corn to meal, which, in the story beneath, he saw pouring, a solid stream like an avalanche, from a wooden spout. But the best of it all was the wheel outside, and the busy rush of the water that made it go. So Willie would ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... avalanche of tramping horses had come perceptibly nearer. Soon they would sweep by the bundle of hay which marked the carefully measured range within which our fire was terribly effective. Suddenly the mad stampede came to an abrupt standstill, and then the Cossacks ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... preceded them had doubtless instructed them as to the position of the whites. For a moment an indecision seemed to reign among them, but the truce did not last long. After a short interval of silence, a hundred voices at once shrieked out the war-cry; the earth trembled under an avalanche of galloping horses; and amidst a shower of balls, stones, and arrows, the camp was surrounded on three sides by a disorderly multitude. But a well-sustained fire proceeded from the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... and heavy, which there was no possibility either of meeting or avoiding. He was very successful in argument, and yet he never fenced. He simply came down. It was, so to speak, a case of small sword versus the avalanche. His moral inertia was tremendous. He was never excited, never anxious, never jaded; he was simply massive. Cleverness broke upon him like shipping on an ironbound coast. His monument is like him—a plain large obelisk of coarse granite, unpretending in its simple ugliness and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... them saw Thor, and the deep, grating bleat of warning that rattled out of his throat a hunter could have heard a mile away. As he gave his danger signal he started down the slide, and in another moment an avalanche of hoofs was clattering down the steep shale slope, loosening small stones and boulders that went tumbling and crashing down the mountain with a din that steadily increased as they set others in motion on the way. This was all mighty interesting to Muskwa, and ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... rude independence of their primitive national character, others softened and disciplined by the aspect and contact of the manners and institutions of civilized life; for it is to be borne in mind that the Roman Empire in the West was not crushed by any sudden avalanche of barbaric invasion. The German conquerors came across the Rhine, not in enormous hosts, but in bands of a few thousand warriors at a time. The conquest of a province was the result of an infinite series of partial local invasions, carried ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... suddenly as it had been formed the vacuum was filled by a cyclonic rush of air. There was a detonation as of a hundred vicious thunderclaps made one, and, through the howling, shrieking blasts of wind, there rained down upon the valley, plain and metaled mountain a veritable avalanche of debris: bent, twisted, and broken rails and beams, splintered timbers, masses of concrete, and thousands of cubic yards of soil and rock. For inertia and gravitation had not been neutralized at precisely the same instant, and for a moment everything within the radius of action of ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... torture his mind long with efforts to seek the solution of this riddle. The old doctor came back with the lawyer, and for more than half an hour he had to answer an avalanche of questions. But the investigation had been carried on with such rare sagacity, that Daniel could furnish the prosecution only a single new fact,—the surrender of his entire fortune into the hands of ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau |
