"Bombshell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... charge, and it blew all to pieces. I'll know better next time. There are lots more chunks of meat, and we'll soon have a feast. I'll make another bombshell." ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... interests known to act with or to be actually controlled by the Colossus had been desperately combating the effects of the sudden arrest of Lucas Hahn, and the exposure of his plundering of the Hahn banks. This bombshell, in its turn, had fallen at a time when the market had been 'boosted' beyond its real strength. In the language of the place, a slump was due. Reports from the corn-lands had not been good, and there had been two or three railway ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... amusing themselves; the aesthetic young man recovered now, polished his shoes and put a lavender handkerchief in his breast pocket. The hostages were in a fair way to annex the deserted village, when a bombshell burst in the shape of a despatch from the American ambassador that permission had been obtained for ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... and the country-people were all assembled with their baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postilion had no sooner lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a great cabbage came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at which my lord laughed more, for it knocked my lady's fan out of her hand, and plumped into Father Holt's stomach. Then came a shower ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... of ink and as still as if congealed; not a movement or a sound, save now and then a terrific volley from the cloud batteries now fast approaching. By nine o'clock little puffs of wind began to steal through the woods and tease and toy with our fire. Shortly after, an enormous electric bombshell exploded in the treetops over our heads, and the ball was fairly opened. Then followed three hours, with only two brief intermissions, of as lively elemental music and as copious an outpouring of rain as it was ever my lot to witness. It was a regular meteorological carnival, and the revelers were ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... following Devereau's unsatisfactory laconism nothing developed. And then a bombshell exploded. Hughie Gay made a statement. He took oath, solemn oath (and cheap, too, for it cost Dunham but two hundred dollars), that he had sold out. Blair had realized that he was no champion; he had feared even him, Gay. So before ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... Hiding had any honest motive, they'd not be hidden in the first place and they'd have taken their cure to the Medical Center in the second. Well, I had a bit of something listed against them, so I decided to let my bombshell drop. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... austere. She prepared a surprise for him, now, calculated to put a heavy strain upon those disinterested protestations of his; and thus she delivered it, burning it away word by word as the fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... end of the blue calico skirt disappeared in the hall. "The little raven have actually begun to sprout cupid wings," she said to herself as she went around the corner of the house toward the Doctor's office. "Co'ting are a bombshell that explodes in the big Road of life and look out who it hits," she further observed to herself as she paused to train up a shoot of the rambler ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... (scarlet fruit), Cucumis Anguinus (Serpent Gourd), Cucumis Dipsaceus (Teasel Gourd), Cucumis Dudaim (Balloon Gourd), Cucumis Erinaceus (Hedgehog Gourd), Cucumis Grossularoides (Gooseberry Gourd), Cucumis Perennis, Cucurbita Argyrosperma, Cucurbita Melopepo, Cyclanthera Explodens (Bombshell Gourd), Cyclanthera Pedata, Eopepon Aurantiacum, Eopepon Vitifolius, Lagenaria Clavata (Club Gourd), Lagenaria Enormis, Lagenaria Leucantha Depressa, Lagenaria Leucantha Longissima, Lagenaria Plate de Corse, Lagenaria Poire a Poudre, Lagenaria Siphon, Luffa Cylindrica, ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... among them like a bombshell the restless Atkinson happened to be taking a turn nearer to the house front; and the doctor clutched him by the collar in a convulsive grip. "Foul play!" he cried; "what have you been doing to ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... to ask Ralph Conway to come and stay for a time with me." The announcement was a simple one, but it fell like a bombshell in the midst of the party at breakfast at Penfold Hall. The party consisted only of the speaker, Herbert Penfold, and his two sisters. The latter both exclaimed "Herbert!" in a tone of shocked surprise. Mr. Penfold was evidently prepared for disapprobation; ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... throw a kind of bombshell friendship into the camp of her prejudices, Miss Phyllis," he said with his mouth twitching with a laugh, as if he didn't know whether we ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... A blond bombshell slithered down the bar and ground herself against my leg. "Wanna buy me a drink, honey?" she gasped. I smuggled a lift and slipped all four of her garters off the tops of her hose. A funny, stricken look replaced the erotic face she had made at me. ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Billee's long speech. The veteran rancher had thrown a veritable bombshell into camp. Delton—the man lying asleep upstairs—the head of the smugglers! Two thousand dollars' reward! Why, all they had to do was to tie him up and carry him to town—over to the deputy's house. Capturing the smuggling king the first night ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... letter, which, had it contained a bombshell, could scarce have wrought more damage in so short a space of time. Tearing it across and across, he flung it into the fire, and derived a gloomy satisfaction from watching it burn. But though paper and ink were reduced to ashes, neither fire nor steel could annihilate ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... in the air except a balloon. Every bet I ever made I lost except when I coppered it. Every boat I ever sailed on sank except the submarines. Everything I was ever interested in went to pieces except a patent bombshell that I invented. Everything I ever took hold of and tried to run I ran into the ground except when I tried to plough. And that's why they call me Bad-Luck Kearny. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... of the guests, and the bride fell dying, and, wrapped in her white wedding robe, her betrothed kneeling at her side, in two hours she expired. And there has been many as bright a union of hearts as that proposed that the bombshell of outrageous parental indignation has ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... set firmly under his mask. There was a way to save the man. It was something he had never intended to do again—but it was worth the price—to save this man. It would be like a bombshell exploded in the underworld; it would arouse the police to infuriated activity; it would stir New York to its depths—but, after all, it could not touch Smarlinghue. It would only instill the belief that somehow Larry the Bat had escaped from the tenement fire; it would only mean ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... out early one morning and, while the sleepy millionaire was rubbing his eyes and still dodging the bombshell that a dream anarchist had hurled from the pinnacle of a bedpost, urged him in excited, confidential tones to take time by the forelock and prepare for possible breach of promise suits. Brewster sat on the edge of the bed and listened to diabolical stories of how conscienceless females had fleeced ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... comment on that point. Brent waited a moment and then threw the bombshell. "We are quite sure that these creatures are of ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... days everybody had known of this bombshell in the air, and had trembled with that remnant of hope which is founded only upon desire; all the Court as well as all Paris waited in a dejected sadness to see what would happen. People whispered to each other, and even when the project was rendered public, no one dared ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... garrison; and to allow an implacable and formidable enemy to possess herself of either, within range of our fire-sides, when we can prevent it, is what we should call courting the presence of a bombshell on our borders, that may at any moment be ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... and skilfully put a little bombshell under the colonnades of the Bourse, and towards four o'clock in the afternoon it exploded.—'Here is something serious; have you heard the news?' asked du Tillet, drawing Werbrust into a corner. 'Here is Nucingen gone ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... Crawford, decidedly ladylike—which the other is not, however pleasant a companion. I should as soon think of falling in love with a handsome bombshell, as with her. No knowing when she might explode. Now if I had met Miss Crawford at Newport two years ago, who knows but affairs might have been different? Heigho!" And so Walter Harding went on to his business; while Tom Leslie, the member of the party who was "peckish," accompanied the ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... had about enough of this thing," continued the rough visitor. "You insist on keeping the whelp here, when you know he is a bombshell in your path and mine. Why don't you send him to sea, ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... hundred days, they reached Fontainebleau, July 11. No one expected them and no preparations had been made for their reception. Their departure from Turin had been so recent, and it resembled a flight. The Emperor did not wish to be recognized on the way, and burst into Fontainebleau like a bombshell. The palace porter was an old servant, named Guillot, who had been Napoleon's cook in Egypt. "Well," the Emperor said to him, "you must go back to your old business and cook us some supper." Fortunately the porter had in his sideboard some mutton-chops and eggs. He set to work, and ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... the announcement of Lord Tancred's engagement! No one had heard a word about it. There had been talk of his going to Canada, and much chaff upon that subject—so ridiculous, Tancred emigrating! But of a prospective bride the most gossip-loving busybody at White's had never heard! It fell like a bombshell. And Lady Highford, as she read the news, clenched her pointed teeth, and gave a ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... that locality had received wires to defer their departure. Instantly, I recollect, my thoughts flew back to the Tantallon Castle and the dark words we had heard whispered, so it was not as much of a surprise to me as to the residents at Kimberley; to them it came as a perfect bombshell, so well had the secret been kept. The next day the text of the Manifesto, issued by Mr. Leonard, a lawyer, in the name of the Uitlanders, to protest against their grievances, appeared in all the morning ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... vanished, leaving the captain about as comfortable with this piece of intelligence as he would have been with a bombshell ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the Iron King's marriage was told by Sylvan. Had a bombshell fallen and exploded among the servants, they could not have been more shocked. There was a simultaneous exclamation of surprise and ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... "you love this girl." If a bombshell had exploded under his feet our middy could hardly have been taken more by surprise. But he had been put on his mettle now, and scorned to ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... When Mr. Noble's bombshell fell, in Senator Dilworthy's camp, the statesman was disconcerted for a moment. For a moment; that was all. The next moment he was calmly up and doing. From the centre of our country to its circumference, nothing was talked of but Mr. Noble's terrible revelation, and the people were ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... himself as a Southerner as surely as if he'd had the Stars and Bars tattooed on his forehead. We followed him down a short hall into a room furnished, with a couple of couches, an easy-chair, several small but delightful tables, and a piano. Here was the music. A blond bombshell was drumming box chords on the ivories, and grouped around her on side chairs were four young men, playing with her. It was jazz, if that's what you call the quiet racket that comes out of a wooden recorder, a very ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... of the vice-chancellor's lady burst, nevertheless, like a bombshell in the cottage. It was to this effect:—The Palmers were known, if not just in the best, yet in very good society; the sons bore sign of a defective pedigree, but the one daughter out was, thanks to her mother, fit to go ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Andre-Louis now advanced very deliberately. He took his stand there, dominating the entire assembly. He removed his hat, and launched the opening bombshell of that address which is historic, marking as it does one of the great stages ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... bird sitting upon the water. Then it too disappeared, and when the old one returned and called, it came out from the shore. On the wing overhead, the loon looks not unlike a very large duck, but when it alights it ploughs into the water like a bombshell. It probably cannot take flight from the land, as the one Gilbert White saw and describes in his letters was picked up in a field, unable to launch itself ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... unconsecrated ground. No burial rite could be more solemn than that hurried evening service performed by torchlight under the dilapidated roof of a sacred asylum, where the soil had been first laid bare by one of the rude engines of war—a bombshell. The grave tones of the priests murmuring the Libera me, Domine were responded to by the sighs and tears of consecrated virgins, henceforth the guardians of the precious deposit, which, but for inevitable fate, would have been reserved to honour some proud mausoleum. With gloomy ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... in the most casual and innocent way; he hadn't the faintest notion in the world that what he had said was like a bombshell bursting beneath the structure of Mr. Cumshaw's composure. He was intelligent enough to realise that it was more than probable that Cumshaw possessed knowledge of that almost forgotten episode which was not shared with anyone else, ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... After the intoxicating drink he had swallowed Fumichon did not know what he was talking about any longer, and his apoplectic face was on the point of bursting like a bombshell. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... venue—it was passing strange! Straight to his editor he went And that ingenious person sent A Negro to impersonate The fugitive. In adequate Disguise he took his vacant place And buried in his arms his face. When all was done the lawyer stopped And silence like a bombshell dropped Upon the Court: judge, jury, all Within that venerable hall (Except the deaf and dumb, indeed, And one or two whom death had freed) Awoke and tried to look as though Slumber was all they ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... with the old plan to know how this new system would upset the entire political machine of his State. That folio of document was a bombshell. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... principles of this so-called liberalism. In a recently published work, there are enumerated only two demerits of polygamy and six of monogamy. These six demerits which the author is pleased to term a "bombshell," he introduces on account of his moral convictions no less than humanitarian considerations. The same author terms monogamy a "worm-eaten and rotten-rooted tree." The worm that is devastating the fairest tree of Eden and draining its richest juices is what ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... the midst of all this, fell, like a bombshell, the intelligence of his engagement with Maggie Browne; a good sweet little girl enough, but without fortune or connection—without, as far as Mr. Buxton knew, the least power, or capability, or spirit, with which to help ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... two streets, and embracing a citizen-world within their large court- yards, built round with lofty walls, are like large castles, nay, even half-cities. In one of these strange places I quartered myself; namely, in the Bombshell Tavern (/Feuerkugel/), between the Old and the New Newmarket (/Neumarkt/). A couple of pleasant rooms looking out upon a court-yard, which, on account of the thoroughfare, was not without animation, were occupied by the bookseller Fleischer during the fair, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... would be to try to take one nation and secretly ally himself with it, leaving the other out in the cold. Then began the intrigues which planned the isolation of France, an amazing situation, a bombshell in present day international diplomacy, that I shall discuss fully in ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... especially those with rising young families. The doctor and she thought a good deal of this catch they were making in the person of Ernest Le Breton. Poor souls, they little knew what sort of social qualities they were letting themselves in for. A firebrand or a bombshell would really have been a less remarkable guest to drop down straight into the prim and proper orthodox ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... ran. Wheeler kept wagons ahead of him so that when one was crippled the other would replace it. He says he imagines he hears the voice of Sherman now, saying: "Tell Wheeler to go on to South Carolina; we will mow it down with grape shot and plow it in with bombshell." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... The bombshell came at the end of the third week. It came in the form of a message crouched in the flamboyant phraseology beloved of the Communist fraternity. It was conveyed by a small youth some ten years of age, as though its authors were fearful lest a full grown bearer should be made to suffer ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the bombshell. It was Big Tom who cast it, figuratively speaking, among the supper plates. He had come scuffing his way in, his look roving and suspicious—if not a little apprehensive. But what he had to say he had saved, as was his habit, for meal ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... told a different tale, however, and when explanations were duly made, the two visitors were invited inside and given seats. The class in reading was then dismissed and that in spelling called to what was now seemingly to them an unexpected misery. A bombshell, or a ghost at the window, would not have produced any more consternation than those two strange visitors. This class, that one by one filed up in front of the teacher's desk, and ranged themselves in line, stood trembling, and the boy at the head, to ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... fell on the little group crouched among the boulders. Bob's statement that he had to go back through the fire zone—to Houck—had fallen among them like a mental bombshell. ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... Of course, nobody will believe him. Yet he is dangerous, and if he denounces us in the Duma it will come as a bombshell. I called upon Anna Vyrubova early this morning, and she has gone to the ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... towards Woodbury, he thundered out in a tone of indignant scorn, as he shook his fist over his head: "I employ no scavengers;" and the poor New Hampshire Senator ducked his bald head as if struck by a bombshell. The closing passage of that memorable speech could not have been extemporized. No mortal man could have thrown off that magnificent piece of Miltonic prose at the heat, without some deep premeditation. It is well known now that Mr. Webster afterwards ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... Stolypin threw a bombshell into the Duma by accusing the Social Democrats of having conspired to form a military plot for the overthrow of the government of Nicholas II. Evidence to this effect had been furnished to the Police Department by ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... Well, I seem to have accidentally dropped a bombshell among you! Will any lady or gentleman kindly oblige with some particulars——? [To OTTOLINE, who checks him with an imperious gesture—changing his tone.] I beg your ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... answer I expected. I flung the announcement like a bombshell and was ready for almost any sort ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... again for the captain, who had counted upon this discovery as an effective bombshell ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the first Earthman to reach and return from New Mu in a flying saucer, threw a hydroactive bombshell into the meeting of the leading cosmogonists at the University of Cincinnatus today. The amazing Spink, uninvited, crashed this august body of scientists and laughed at a statement made by Professor Apsox Zalpha as to the origin of Earth ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... in the harness of the carpenter-shop when, in the middle of July, the news struck down in our quiet community like a bombshell that France had declared war on Prussia; also that Denmark was expected to join her forces to those of her old ally and take revenge for the great robbery of 1864. I dropped my tools the moment I heard it, and flew rather than ran to the company's ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Twain had an impulse like that it was possible for it to result in something dangerous, especially in those earlier days. This time it produced a bombshell; not just an ordinary bombshell, or even a twelve-inch projectile, but a shell of planetary size. It was a sort of hoax-always a doubtful plaything—and in this case it brought even quicker and more terrible retribution ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... this tragedy of a noble young life cut short had hardly time to filter into the public mind, when a fresh sensation absorbed it. Tom Mortlake had been arrested the same day at Liverpool on suspicion of being concerned in the death of his fellow-lodger. The news fell like a bombshell upon a land in which Tom Mortlake's name was a household word. That the gifted artisan orator, who had never shrunk upon occasion from launching red rhetoric at society, should actually have shed blood seemed too startling, especially as the blood shed was ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Like a bombshell the news suddenly burst upon the anxious and doubting capital: "The emperor has been received by the people in Grenoble with exultation, and the troops that were to have been led against him have, together with their chieftain, Charles de Labedoyere, gone over to the emperor. The gates of ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... it with the ei. This moment of general alarm at Lyons had been chosen by certain ingenious persons (I credit them, perhaps, with too sure a prevision of the rise of the rivers) for practising further upon the appre- hensions of the public. A bombshell filled with dynamite had been thrown into a cafe, and various votaries of the comparatively innocuous petit verre had been wounded (I am not sure whether any one had been killed) by the irruption. Of course there had been arrests and incarcerations, and the "Intransi- geant" and ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... is, I suppose, that there are different ways of serving up the news and we each get used to our own. Some people like the news fed to them gently: others like it thrown at them in a bombshell: some prefer it to be made as little of as possible; they want it minimised: ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... confidence in Pauline's executive ability and her tendency not to get ruffled. She had been his good angel, domestically speaking, and, indeed, in every way, since they had first begun to keep house together, and it had rather amused him to let fall such a bombshell as the contents of his telegram upon the regularity of ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... melted by Philip's ardent pleadings, was yielding to the extent of letting Foxy's family sit with him in relays and cheer him as much as they liked, when Grandmother dropped her bombshell. At least, that was what John called it when they talked it over afterwards. Joy always spoke of it as "the time Grandmother said the ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... A bombshell could scarcely have produced greater effect. Each individual leaped up and darted out, flushing deep red or turning pale, according to temperament. They were not long in verifying the statement. A ledge of rocks concealed the entrance to the cavern from the sea. Over its edge could be ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... circumstances. A comparatively innocent though psychologically highly interesting and characteristic Socialist new formation has recently occurred in that ally of the Socialists, the Women's Social and Political Union. "In September 1907 a bombshell was thrown into the camp of the Women's Social and Political Union by the extraordinary action of Mrs. Pankhurst, who, as 'the founder,' announced that she had discharged the Executive Committee of the Union."[1172] In the words of an opponent: ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... a thing of joy. Mr. Westonhaugh was a griffin when he gave Mr. Isaacs that historical rupee." I cast my little bombshell into the conversation, and placidly went on manipulating ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... bombshell in their midst was only the beginning; a mere herald of what was to follow. Excitement after excitement ran riot, until the public mind was dazed, and the only thing that remained clear to it was that ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... a bombshell to the Baron as it was to the neighbours in Cheshire, perhaps even more than Therese herself had bargained for. It was a piece of amazing good fortune, but it entailed restrictions which soon grew tedious. Country life in the North Midlands proved a crushing bore. Tennis she cared little ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... a bombshell in the pure and tranquil atmosphere of the Archer dining-room. Mrs. Archer raised her delicate eye-brows in the particular curve that signified: "The butler—" and the young man, himself mindful of the bad taste of discussing such intimate matters in public, hastily ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... of Jutland fell like a bombshell in the camp owing to the pessimistic reports first given of it in the papers. A witty Frenchman once remarked that in all our campaigns we had only won one battle, but that was the last, and we felt that however black things appeared ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... the document that made Nathan Matthews supreme boss of Boston Gas was conveyed to him, there came an explosion. Like the premature bursting of a bombshell at a Fourth of July celebration, the transaction "leaked," and the press announced in sable head-lines that Mayor Matthews had sold out, that Addicks was on top, and that Rogers and "Standard Oil" ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... bombshell had exploded in the court. Even his Honour was aghast, and I am sure the lady next to me only recovered from the shock of the surprise in order to wonder whether she need put off ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... along the railway lines, half a dozen of the railwaymen pressed around Radek, and almost fought with each other as to who should walk next to him. And Radek entirely happy, delighted at his success in giving them a bombshell instead of a bouquet, with one stout fellow on one arm, another on the other, two or three more listening in front and behind, continued rubbing it into them until we reached our wagon, when, after a general handshaking, ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... she had stood erect and smiling! With exclamations of alarm and distress we lifted and bore her within the room and laid her tenderly down upon the nearest sofa. At that moment a deafening, terrific thunder-clap—one only—as if a huge bombshell had burst in the air, shook the ground under our feet; and then with a swish and swirl of long pent-up and suddenly-released ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Bombshell number two, and a worse one than the first. For the moment Jim's head swam. If he had been asked just then in so many words where he had been at that time, it is likely that he would have admitted everything. By some miracle the Head ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... recollected that he still owned it. He had so many irons in the fire now that he had no time to waste his brain tissues thinking about a paper like Peaceful Moments. It was one of his failures. It certainly paid its way and brought him a small sum each year, but to him it was a failure, a bombshell that ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... poising the bombshell with its appalling threat, had murmured a sardonic "Well?" Davidge would probably have ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... treble little giggle, for on the whole it answered better not to be dignified with Barbara, whenever he could remember not to be; and Lady Ashbridge, still nursing Petsy, threw a bombshell of the obvious ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... and waste—particularly when it's dangerous. Docked Lani are the height of stupidity. Just because someone wants a pet that is an exact duplicate of a human being is no reason to risk a court action. Those Lani, and a few others whose tails have been docked, could be a legal bombshell if they ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... they get their glasses in hand, the refectory door is once more opened; this time with a hurried violence that causes them to start, as though a bombshell had rolled into ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... profound esteem, and I know not whether this had anything to do with the fact that he chose, for his impetuous experiment in reaction, the field of geology, rather than that of zoology or botany. Lyell had been threatening to publish a book on the geological history of Man, which was to be a bombshell flung into the camp of the catastrophists. My Father, after long reflection, prepared a theory of his own, which, as he fondly hoped, would take the wind out of Lyell's sails, and justify geology to godly readers of 'Genesis'. It was, very briefly, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... one hot hand she carried, by their heads, a bunch of lilac and pink and white sweet peas. It cost her no trouble at all, and about half a minute of time, to charge the atmosphere, so full of sweet peace and rest, with a saturated solution of bitterness and disquiet. Her presence alone was a bombshell, and with a sentence or two in her clear, innocent voice, the fell deed was done. Fielding stopped smoking, his cigar in mid-air, and stared with a scowl at the child; but Eleanor, delighted to have found the Bishop, saw only him. ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... little cocked hat; imagine "God Save the King" ending with a jig; fancy a polonaise, or procession of slim, stately, elegant court beauties, headed by a buffoon dancing a hornpipe. Marshal Gerard should have discharged a bombshell at that abomination, and have given the noble steeple a chance to be finished in the grand style of the early fifteenth century, ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... what had been happening in this country in those fateful years before the bombshell of war exploded in ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... dear, it was a regular bombshell," she concluded after she had fluttered some of the November freshness into Mrs. Van Geist's room, and breathlessly ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... since then, and the so-called Americanisation of the world has not conduced to gallantry. Fortunate are we that there is no white man's audience to watch us impassively, and to witness the effects of this bombshell of an ultimatum which has come to-day. There is nothing so humiliating as abject fear. Curiously enough, the women bear it much better than the elder men, who are openly distraught; and when I say women, I mean all the women, both those belonging to the Legations ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... all was quiet save the scratching of pens through the room. Yet Old Dut, expert reader of pupils' eyes and glances, presently cast a bombshell by declaring ...
— The Grammar School Boys Snowbound - or, Dick & Co. at Winter Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... think what we may put into our bulletin to tell the people HOW we have gained it. For ten years past Bonaparte has issued such high- sounding accounts of his victories that I always felt in my anger as though my heart were a bombshell ready to burst. Well, this time, let us also draw up such a bulletin of victory, and show that we have learned something. Let us proclaim that we have conquered, and draw up the document as soon as we ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... could utter another syllable his attention was drawn to the doorway. The view to the outer office was blocked by a bundle of curves. The most alluring female bombshell his eyes had ever beheld put everything ...
— The Observers • G. L. Vandenburg
... men, was also killed. On the 16th, Wolfe pushed forward some grenadiers and Highlanders, and took possession of the hills in front of the Lighthouse battery, where a lodgement was made under a fire from the town and the ships. On the 21st one of the French ships was set on fire by a bombshell and blew up, and the fire being communicated to two others, they were burned to the water's edge. The fate of the town was now almost decided, the enemy's fire nearly silenced and the fortifications shattered ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... spent over her toilet, for as she turned the corner she began to run. Lecoq waited till she was out of sight, and then bounding from his place of concealment, he burst into the Hotel de Mariembourg like a bombshell. ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... he struck the floor with his spurred heels. Every thing around him seemed to vibrate; the very curtains waved like trees in a storm. At length the pent-up rage found vent, and burst forth like a bombshell which explodes, "Comedian, say you? Ah, ha! I am he that will play you comedies to make you weep like women and children. Comedian, indeed! But you are greatly mistaken if you think you can play off ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... June, and in that latitude, was only the burnished gate-way to a beautiful twilight that lingered as if loath to leave the land it loved. The city lay as tranquil as if no bombshell had ever burst over it, or no alien force now held possession of it. Soldiers were everywhere; but order reigned. Voices were heard, and laughter; but not even rudeness assailed the inhabitants, who, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... in which did meet The paving blocks from some old street; The staircase, floating fancy-free, With steps of Cubic liberty. A perfect lady, nobly built, Constructed like a crazy quilt. Or a volcano on a spree, Or herd of elephants at tea. The staircase, by a bombshell wrecked, With something of a ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... had exploded his bombshell by asking Squire Richard for his daughter's hand, the lover was forbidden ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... Gerrit Smith, Mrs. E.C. Delavan, Antoinette L. Brown and nine others, vice-presidents; Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer, secretaries. In accepting the presidency, Mrs. Stanton made a powerful speech, certain parts of which acted as a bombshell not only at this meeting, but in press, pulpit and society. The two points which aroused ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... absent on the Angers expedition when the Prior of Paray sent such a bombshell among his accomplices; and the dates of his return and arrest remain undiscoverable. M. Campaux plausibly enough opined for the autumn of 1457, which would make him closely follow on Montigny, and the first ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sameness. I remember passin' a blurred life-savin' station, with three—or maybe thirty—blurred men jumpin' and laughin' and hollerin'. I found out afterwards that they'd been on the lookout for the bombshell for half an hour. Billings had told around town what he was goin' to do to me, and some kind friend had telephoned it to the station. So the life-savers was full of anticipations. I hope they were satisfied. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Had a bombshell burst—but I forbear. That comparison is, I believe, somewhat hackneyed. The reader will therefore be good enough to appropriate the point of it, and understand that the shock of this intelligence was so overpowering, that ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... came as a bombshell to Rand, Frapley, Poole, and their cohorts, and it was equally surprising to all of the others who had ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... circulated off and on, the secret of the understanding arrived at in the Plombieres interview was well preserved, and the words spoken by Napoleon to the Austrian Ambassador at the New Year's Day reception fell on Europe with the effect of a bombshell. Turning to Baron Hubner, he said: 'Je regrette que les relations entre nous soient si mauvaises; dites cependant a votre souverain que mes sentiments pour ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... had a vague idea of 'bearing testimony' as her father would have borne it in like circumstances. But she turned very pale. Even to her the word 'Christian' sounded like a bombshell in that room. The great traveller looked up astounded. He saw a tall woman in white with a beautiful head, a delicate face, a something indescribably noble and unusual in her whole look and attitude. She looked like a Quaker prophetess—like Dinah Morris ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... this only with the faintest hope of its ever reaching you. If by any chance it does, I beg of you to inform me of your whereabouts at once. Your letter came upon us like a bombshell. I do not wish to reproach you for the hurt we have suffered. I only want you to believe now in my desire to stand by you, however terrible the mistake ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... has just scored a propaganda bombshell!" he reported. "In a news announcement released less than half an hour ago, they stated that their Navy ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... If a bombshell had dropped into Sellersville, consternation could not have been more complete. But it became quickly apparent that not all of the gang would surrender without a fight. The leaders retreated ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... at the same instant something was thrown into the tent, like a bombshell, passing the table, knocking over the candle, and ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... birds, it is fond of building in holes, and will generally obtain them ready-made if possible. Burroughs has said of the wren that it "will build in anything that has a hole in it, from an old boot to a bombshell." In similar whim our little solitary hornet has been known to favor nail-holes, hollow reeds, straws, the barrels of a pistol, holes in kegs, worm-holes in wood, and spools, to which we may now ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... is a bombshell exploding in the right place, while spleen and discontent are a gun that kicks over the man who ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... forward, we heard among the hills a loud crashing report like the bursting of a bombshell. What could it mean? We knew there were some shells along with the howitzers. Were our comrades attacked by Indians, and was it one of the cannon they had fired upon them? No; that could not be. There was but one report, and I knew that the discharge of ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... were not aristocrats, only—what does your history book say? Oh, I have it—'from the middle and humbler walks of English life;' not blue Mayflowers, but common colors—can't you see that it will be such larks for me to use this little fact like a little bombshell, when Mrs. Arkwright, or Maud, or Flo Aplin, or any of these Mayflower braggers ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... rich Italian, illustrated by analogy, by experiment, and with cultured wit; taught not to a few scholars here and there in musty libraries, but proclaimed in the vernacular to the whole populace with all the energy and enthusiasm of a recent convert and a master of language! Had a bombshell been exploded among the fossilized professors it had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... a bombshell exploded and blown to pieces the temple that formed the top story of the House of Legislature, or unroofed the palace, it could scarcely have produced a more tremendous effect, or created greater consternation, than did this simple announcement. ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... stage an army order, retrospective in its operation, was issued which cancelled the original monetary conditions of service for Officers and non-commissioned Officers, and increased the rates of pay to which their respective ranks entitled them. This order was only less effective than a bombshell in crushing a dignity already injured; and the gusto with which the Colonel and the Civil Commissioner were relegated to Connaught ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the shocks and changes coming to these households over. Not two weeks had the millionaire been sleeping his last sleep, when there burst like a bombshell on the business world the startling news that his millions had vanished into vapor, or perhaps it would be speaking more properly to say into poison. Strange, wild speculations, that the acute, far-sighted business man would never have touched for ...
— Three People • Pansy
... and steeples of Charleston were black with expectant crowds, straining their eyes down the harbor where the silent castle loomed up through the dim morning light. Boom! From a mortar battery to the south a bombshell rises high into the air, describes its graceful trajectory and falls within Sumter's enclosure. It is the signal gun. One battery after another responds, until in less than an hour the stronghold is girt by an almost continuous circle of flashing ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... scarcely three years since our veteran novelist cast this bombshell into a delighted, albeit disapproving Press; but as memories are so short nowadays, perhaps a brief recapitulation of the circumstances might not ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... stare; four faces, and all dismayed as though a live bombshell had dropped through the doorway. To the priest, whom my impact had flung aside against the wall, I paid no attention. My eyes fastened themselves on the table at which, with a lantern and some scattered papers between them, sat two men—the Prince, and a grey-haired ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... time,' he answered, wondering why he told her. 'I had a grandfather, who made a will. He had a fancy to wrap up a bombshell in the will. Now—the ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... Billy. You will be Prime Minister," flashed out Miss Greeby, at which there was a general laugh. Then Garvington threw a bombshell. ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... Bending delivered his bombshell. "Nope. Water. Plain, ordinary aitch-two-oh. See those little vents at the side? They exhaust oxygen and helium. It burns about four hundred milligrams of water ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... It exploded like a bombshell, for it was a terrific arraignment of the whole state. Her statements were denounced as untrue and slanderous, but a little investigation proved their truth, and with such men behind her as Channing, Horace Mann, and Samuel G. Howe, it was soon apparent that something would ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... remainder of the evening in more cards and more drink. In this manner the best part of a week was beguiled. Then the skipper announced the fact that the last drop of liquor on board had gone, and that, according to the compact, the hour had arrived to commit suicide. Had a bombshell fallen in their midst, it could not have caused a greater consternation than this announcement. The men had, by this time, become so enamoured with their easy and irresponsible mode of living, that the idea of ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... the father of the first grip germ must have been a bombshell and his mother was some relation ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... quiet time on the Fourth with the exception of my ankle, which was somewhat dislocated because my foot stepped on an infant bombshell which ...
— Skiddoo! • Hugh McHugh
... bombshell exploded at Ralph's feet he would have been no more astonished than at ...
— The Young Bridge-Tender - or, Ralph Nelson's Upward Struggle • Arthur M. Winfield
... the main feature in the case remained undiscovered. The fact that a Union scout had been hidden and permitted to depart would have been another bombshell, and the consequences of its explosion would have been equally hard to predict or circumscribe. As it was, Miss Lou and Aun' Jinkey received a certain remorseful sympathy which they would have forfeited utterly had the truth been revealed. And the secret did tremble ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... this bombshell into the Socialist camp, the miserable, ragged-trousered crew around him could scarce forbear a cheer; but the more intelligent part of the audience ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... bombshell burst over my head the effect could have been no greater. Cold perspiration began to ooze out on my forehead. In a flash I saw the significance of the entire situation. That was why Norris had been so insistent that we always return to the ship before dark. He didn't want us to see the ...
— The Long Voyage • Carl Richard Jacobi
... the woman, wholly unaware of the bombshell she had exploded. "I am a widow and quite alone in the world. My husband died a number of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... has fortunately found a record in the diary of a British officer posted there when the news of Washington's coming fell like a bombshell in their camp. It is ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... well sifted by friendly rebels, and under the new administration it is likely their further publication will be edited by men who will gladly shield Davis at the expense of a Union soldier. The letter of Stephens to Johnson is an extraordinary one. Its publication will be a bombshell in the Confederate camp. I will deliver the copy to Colonel Scott to- morrow. One or two paragraphs from it go far to sustain your stated opinion of ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped both. I almost thought I didn't quite like it and was going to read it over again to see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor John's and I laid the bombshell down ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... first flash from the mortar battery near old Fort Jackson, on the south side of the harbor, and an instant after a bombshell rose in a slow, high curve through the air, and fell upon ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... "Life will no longer be tranquil with a girl of nineteen round the place. You may fool yourself, but you can't fool me. A girl of nineteen doesn't REACT toward things. She explodes. Things don't 'react' anywhere but in Boston and in chemical laboratories. I suppose you know you're taking a human bombshell into the arsenal?" ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... even the smile in her welcoming dark eyes could make him quite forget the Widow. She was an uncertain quantity, like a stick of frozen dynamite that will explode if it is thawed too soon; and there was a bombshell to come which gave more than even promise of producing spontaneous combustion. So Wiley sighed as he fired his cook, and told his men that they would ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... up. Yet you want battles, you want your frontiers defended. A moment, sir! there is no need for heat, no need for any words. The matter may be said to be at an end." He smiled—a thought viciously, be it confessed—and then played his trump card, hurled his bombshell. "Since the views of your Council are in such utter opposition to the views of the Commander-in-Chief, you will no doubt welcome Lord Wellington's proposal to withdraw from this country and to ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... electric forces of the atmosphere, a large ball of fire appeared suddenly at the extremity of the horizontal parent branch, as thick as a man's wrist, and surrounded with black smoke. This ball, after turning round and round for a few seconds, burst like a bombshell, and with so much noise that the explosion was distinctly audible above the general FRACAS. A sulphurous smoke filled the air, and complete silence reigned till the voice of ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... form an astonishing story, will no doubt come as a complete surprise to almost everybody. I can imagine them, indeed, dropping like a bombshell into some circles; but they are founded, not only upon conversations with Mr. Payne, but upon Burton's own letters to Mr. Payne, all of which have been in my hands, and careful study of the two translations. The public, however, cannot ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... hap'n nex'?" groaned Chunk, as he disappeared toward the mansion. He burst like a bombshell into the kitchen, a small building in the ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... must put a piece of more tragic eloquence, which I took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling harangue of Corporal Adam Ashton, one of our most gifted prophets, whose influence over the men was unbounded. "When I heard," he said "de bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de Judgment Day, I said to myself, 'If my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in de torments, perceps [except] God was my enemy!' And when de rifle-bullets came whizzin' across ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... which he made those threats. He had too great a knowledge of affairs not to know that the commission would be a packed one, too great an acquaintance with the strategy of James to believe that his lonely evidence, unless of bombshell nature, would have a chance of carrying weight in a court of his Majesty's picking. And, then, he was of too big a mind to put forward evidence which would have no effect but that of affording gossip for the scandal-mongers, and the giving of which would make him ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... insisted that Madelinette should partake. In another hour from their arrival they were on the road again, with the knowledge that Tardif had changed horses and gone forward four hours before, boasting as he went that when the bombshell he was carrying should burst, the country would stay awake o' nights for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
