"Superhuman" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he traces for us the evolution of a man into a hero, the hero into a demigod, and the demigod into a divinity. By a slow process, the natural man is divested of all our common faults and frailties; he is clothed with superhuman attributes and declared a being separate and apart, and is lost to ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... is meeting with superhuman obstacles. In addition to his enemies he suffers all sorts of terrible bodily afflictions. Whenever the remittances from the Lapierres do not arrive the difficulties and ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... the control-board. He pointed to a microphone. He got at an oxygen-bottle and inhaled deeply. Oxygen, obviously, should be an antidote for panic, since the symptoms of terror act to increase the oxygenation of the blood-stream and muscles, and to make superhuman exertion possible if necessary. Breathing ninety-five per cent oxygen produced the effect the terror-inspiring gas strove for, so his heart slowed nearly to normal and his body relaxed. He held out his hand and it ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... a very unsuitable protection from the burning rays of the African sun, no doubt its comparative cheapness and the quickness of its erection are the reasons why this style was introduced, and has been adhered to. By dint of superhuman efforts, in spite of locust-plagues, drought, and heavy thunderstorms, the inhabitants have contrived to surround their little one-storied villas with gardens bright with flowers, many creepers of vivid hues covering all the ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... entire inexhaustible wealth over the world. Every vein in its leaves, every stamen in its cup, every fibre of its roots, is numbered, and no power on earth can make the number more or less. Still more, when we strain our weak eyes and, with superhuman power, cast a more searching glance into the secrets of nature, when the microscope discloses to us the silent laboratory of the seed, the bud and the blossom, do we recognize the infinite, ever-recurring form in the most minute tissues and cells, and the eternal unchangeableness of Nature's ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... serve two masters, ma chere. That's where the complication comes in, when an artist happens also to be a woman. The creative force, mental or physical, is a master-force. Only a superhuman vitality can accomplish both with any hope of success. Succumb to your womanhood, and there's an end of your ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... a favoured church: a plain case of monopoly and privilege, said some; a wise provision for the maintenance of religion, said others. And the shadow of bankruptcy was {40} hanging over the unhappy colony. The situation was one of the utmost difficulty, calling for an almost superhuman combination of ability, tact, and firmness. Here, as in Lower Canada, the governor-general's first effort was to obtain the consent of the people's representatives to the great change in the status of the province which the union would involve. He carried his point by ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... aretes—wounds and lacerations covered his body—after scorching he froze. The eagles whirled about his head and flapped their wings in his face. But on he went. His lungs, distended by the rarified atmosphere, threatened to burst with an explosion akin to a steamboat's. Finally, after superhuman efforts, bleeding, panting, gasping for breath, Milord sank exhausted upon ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... patience with a weakened manhood. With him it was only strength that counted. Morality was only for those who had not the courage to face a mysterious future unflinchingly. The future concerned him not at all. He had no fears of anybody or anything, either human or superhuman. Death offered him no more terrors than Life. And whichever was his portion he was ready to accept ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Heron's precautions for the safe-guarding of the most precious life in Europe were more complete than he had anticipated. What lavish liberality would be required! what superhuman ingenuity and boundless courage in order to break down all the barriers that had been set up round that young life that flickered inside ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... beauties from unhallow'd arms! Oh! may their suppliant steal a passing kiss? Alas! he pants not for superior bliss; Thrice-bless'd, his virgin modesty shall be To snatch an evanescent ecstacy! The fierce extremes of superhuman love, For his frail sense too exquisite might prove; He turns, all blushing, from th'Aoenian shade To humbler raptures, with a ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... idealists, let him who has fallen from on high with graceful majesty, without hysterical clutchings and desperate attempts at self-salvation in disregard of the safety of others—let either of these superhuman beings come forward with ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... in bed, raising his clasped hands above him, crying out, "Oh, help me! Why don't you help me? You can if you only will!" Who was it to whom he had cried with such unerring intuition? He gave no name to this mysterious "You," this strange supernatural being, this mighty superhuman power. It was the cry of a soul in torment that does not stop to reason, the wild last hope that feels its own helplessness, that responds to an intuition of a force outside of itself—the force that can save it ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... the Martians, or the master who sent them here, sent them here to win. For if they do not win, they cannot return to Mars, as they will have destroyed their vehicles! Their confidence is superhuman!" ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... days were as ten years crowded into as many hours. Down at his headquarters in the Gray Picket rooms he stood firm and met wave after wave of fluctuating excitement that surged around him with his head up, a ring in his laugh and an almost superhuman tact. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... beyond the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers. But having placed three-fifths of the slave population under the Constitution, having pledged the Constitution to the protection of slave property, it required an almost superhuman effort to confine the evil to one section of the country. Like a loathsome disease it spread itself over the body politic until our nation became the eyesore of the age, and a byword among the nations of the world. The time came when our beloved country had to submit to heroic treatment, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... of his arm. Once it reached inside the collar of his shirt and pulled out the scapular that hung around his neck, and looked at it so long, and with such apparent seriousness, that Rags was confirmed in his fear that this kindly visitor was something more or less of a superhuman agent, and his efforts to make this supposition coincide with the fact that the angel's parents were on Blackwell's Island, proved one of the severest struggles his mind had ever experienced. He had forgotten to feel hungry, and the knowledge that he was acutely ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... not denying that the notion may be true: I am literally the sceptic I profess to be: I know not—apart from special information from a superhuman source—whether it be true or false. I am only venturing to laugh at men, who, denying any such information, affect to speak with any confidence on the solution of this prodigious problem, the data for solving which I contend we have not: while those we have, apart from the direct assurance of supposed ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... was engaged in superhuman but futile efforts to release his foot, the sentinel of the passage, who had picked himself up, ran through the postern toward the palisade, followed by another soldier from the garrison. Together they fell upon Trenck, overwhelming him with blows with the butts of ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... them as being for the best; but before it is unrolled, it is another matter, for you would not say, 'I sat still and let things happen.' With this belief all I can say is, that amidst troubles and worries no one can have peace till he thus stays upon his God—that gives a superhuman strength." ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... where the offender is undiscoverable. That, however, is a trifle. These cases, he thinks, would be 'uncommonly rare' under a well-conceived system. The extent of evil in this life would therefore be trifling were superhuman inducements entirely effaced from the human bosom, and if 'human institutions were ameliorated according to the progress of philosophy.'[618] On the other hand, the imaginary punishments are singularly defective ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... life of ordinary men is the name not of the whole of things, heaven forbid, but only of the ideal tendency in things, believed in as a superhuman person who calls us to co-operate in His purposes, and who furthers ours if they are worthy. He works in an external environment, has limits, and has enemies. When John Mill said that the notion of God's omnipotence must be ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... that the world should know I serve her; I can only say in answer to what has been so courteously asked of me, that her name is Dulcinea, her country El Toboso, a village of La Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her; for her hairs are gold, her forehead Elysian fields, her eyebrows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of Disbelief) a miracle is no exception to that law. In every case of alleged miracle, a new antecedent is affirmed to exist; a counteracting cause, namely, the volition of a supernatural being. To all, therefore, to whom beings with superhuman power over nature are a vera causa, a miracle is a case of the Law of Universal Causation, not ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... the two lines closed. The strife grew hotter as it drew to an end; the last efforts of strength were mutually exerted, and skill and courage did their utmost to repair in these precious moments the fortune of the day. It was in vain; despair endows every one with superhuman strength; no one can conquer, no one will give way. The art of war seemed to exhaust its powers on one side, only to unfold some new and untried masterpiece of skill on the other. Night and darkness at last put at end to the fight, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... through weakness, the tragic hero becomes entangled in the meshes that Fate sets for the unwary; he struggles and struggles to get free, but his efforts are necessarily of no avail. He has transgressed the law of laws, and he is therefore doomed to inevitable agony. Because of this superhuman aspect of the tragic struggle, the Greek drama was religious in tone, and stimulated in the spectator the reverent and lofty mood ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... two regiments to where Calhoun and his little band of scouts were resisting the advance of the enemy. The show of strength made halted the Federals, and a precious hour and a half was gained. In this time, by almost superhuman efforts, Morgan had succeeded in crossing the prisoners and his men to the south side of the Cumberland. They ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... Richardet as well: but low On earth lies Aldigier, and there must rest. The two first champions towards Paris go, And the two others next pursue that quest. In other canto, Sir, I hope to show Of wondrous and of superhuman gest, Wrought to the damage of the Christian king, By those two couples of whose worth ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... Kingdom of God, he had cast into prison, saying during the night, in a sweet voice, "Why persecutest thou us?" The blood of Stephen, which had almost smothered him, sometimes troubled his vision. Many things that he had heard said of Jesus went to his heart. This superhuman being, in his ethereal life, whence he sometimes emerged, revealing himself in brief apparitions, haunted him like a spectre. But Saul shrunk with horror from such thoughts; he confirmed himself with a sort of frenzy in the faith of his traditions, and meditated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... are, nevertheless;—their superhuman strength enabling them to make terrible havoc wherever and whenever their fury becomes aroused. But without provocation this rarely occurs, and a man or woman who passes by them without making a noise, is ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... Britain to feel that no great indignity was suffered in admitting the claim to national existence of a people who had such a representative as Washington. What but the most eminent qualities of mind and feeling—discretion superhuman—readiness of invention, and dexterity of means, equal to the most desperate affairs—endurance, self-control, regulated ardor, restrained passion, caution mingled with boldness, and all the contrarieties of moral excellence—could have expanded ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... time the unhappy Simpson had shown an almost superhuman endurance. Now he bristled—and after looking up and down the board for a sympathetic face, and not finding one, he declared, loudly ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... serious matter and complicated proceedings to a degree apparently almost insurmountable. Lost in the destruction of the safe were some $900,000 in re-insurance policies. This meant restoration of this data from the records of the re-insuring companies and at that time this looked like a superhuman undertaking. However, I immediately detailed two employes with instructions to devote their entire time to this angle of affairs. The companies met the situation with every courtesy and finally after several months' exertion ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... vi. 1. 6, from C. Oppius et Iulius Hyginus. In his famous character of Scipio (xxvi. 19) Livy seems to think that Scipio did this to make people think him superhuman ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... are told of them. But in modern times, and in Protestant countries perhaps more than in Catholic, we have been too much inclined to identify the historical with the moral; and some have refused to believe in religion at all, unless a superhuman accuracy was discernible in every part of the record. The facts of an ancient or religious history are amongst the most important of all facts; but they are frequently uncertain, and we only learn the true lesson ...
— The Republic • Plato
... storage, and dough-kneading should not be rehearsed. Clothing, ornaments, and furniture served in like manner as a pretext for the introduction of spinners, weavers, goldsmiths, and cabinet- makers. The master is of superhuman proportions, and towers above his people and his cattle. Some prophetic tableaux show him in his funeral bark, speeding before the wind with all sail set, having started on his way to the next ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... extraordinary feats. Indeed, when Suyodhana showed no respect for the conciliatory words (I spoke), I caused all the kings to be assembled together and endeavoured to produce dissension (amongst them). Extraordinary and awful and terrible and superhuman indications, O Bharata, were then manifested by me. O lord, rebuking all the kings, making a straw of Suyodhana, terrifying Radha's son and repeatedly censuring Suvala's son for the gambling match of Dhritarashtra's sons, and once again endeavouring to disunite all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... myself was impossible, but with a superhuman effort I succeeded in slipping the noose from my hands and hooking my fingers in the cord around my throat. The fellow behind placed his knee in my back, and drew the cord with all his might to strangle me; but I cried hoarsely for help, and clung ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... overcame him. He swung round and seized the fellow by the collar, and in an instant, endowed as it were with superhuman strength, he hurled the man into the safe and turned the key ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... may be likened to a wondrous cyclopean eye, endued with superhuman power, by which the astronomer extends the reach of his vision to the further heavens, and surveys galaxies and universes compared with which the solar system is but an atom floating in the air. The transit may be compared to the measuring rod which he lays from planet to planet, and ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... here forbear quoting and translating what Anders Sorensen Vedel, the good old Editor of the first Edition of the Kiaempe Viser, which appeared in 1591, says concerning the apparently superhuman performances of the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... faintly reminds one of Christ's agony in Gethsemane. He foresaw that his innocent and only child would be taken from him. Soon after a messenger from heaven smote her to the earth by his side. Then, having drank this cup of sorrow, he entered the council and guided its deliberations with superhuman wisdom.[180] In citing this incident nothing more is intended than to call attention to some of the mysterious conceptions which seem to float dimly through the minds of the most savage races, and which show at the very least that the idea of vicarious sacrifice is not strange ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... whimsical faces which present themselves in a Gothic cornice. His voice also was high-pitched and querulous, so that, when smarting under Master Peter Young's unsparing inflictions, the expression of his grotesque physiognomy, and the superhuman yells which he uttered, were well suited to produce all the effects on the Monarch who deserved the lash, that could possibly be produced by seeing another and an innocent ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... bunk to sleep the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion. There were times when he felt that it would be better to return at once to Norada and surrender, for that he must do so eventually he never doubted. It was as well perhaps that he had no time for brooding, but he gained sleep at the cost of superhuman exertion all day. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... for the better, if, thought Ishmael, it was not the mere selfishness of the old generation which had ever made him feel Nicky needed improvement. This deepening, this added manliness, would after all have been superhuman in the boy who had gone away. Nicky had lived roughly among rough men, and he had stood the test well. He still had the delightful affectations of youth, but wore them with a better grace. He came back not only the heir and future master ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... it because a chance swimmer rests a few moments in somebody's boat?" she asked. "Is that chance swimmer superhuman or inhuman or ultra-human because she is not consciously, and simperingly, preoccupied with the fact that there happens to be a man in ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... lives are a real burden," continued Fuchsia; "they become indolent and slovenly; all they want in the whole world is more, and more, and more—cocaine. The effect on some is to clear and stimulate the brain and, for a short time, they seem superhuman; but soon this marvellous illumination that has flared up dies down like a fire of straw, and leaves them nothing but the ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... complete the day's work. In a little more than a month from this time he has to reap and stack his grain, oats, rye and whatever else he may have sown, and to sow his winter grain for the next, year. To add to the difficulty both grains often ripen about the same time and then it requires almost superhuman efforts on his part to complete his task before the first ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... must ask pardon," replied Christine, warmly. "After your superhuman exertions, your very life depended on rest. But I made a wretched watcher—indeed I have lost confidence in myself every way. To tell the truth, Mr. Fleet, I was lost in thought, and with your permission I would like to ask you further about ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Brown, as she plunged her pocket-knife into the orange. "Would you mind telling me—are you a fairy, or a third-floor-back, or anything of that sort? I won't register it, or put it on the case-paper, I promise, though if you are superhuman in any way I shall be ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Shakespeare that more impresses on me the belief of his genius being superhuman, than this scene between Brutus and Cassius. In the Gnostic heresy it might have been credited with less absurdity than most of their dogmas, that the Supreme had employed him to create, previously to his ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... hopeless ruin I have never seen nor imagined. Over an area of many square miles, there was nothing but heaps and mounds of broken stone, charred and crumbling brick, fire-scarred timbers, and huge contorted masses of rusting steel like the decaying bones of superhuman monsters. From the great height and extent of the piles of debris, and from the occasional sight of the splintered cornice of a roof or of some battered window-frame or door, I knew that this had once been a city, one of the world's greatest; but ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz
... old jewel-setter chooses gems. Because ambition, art, existence had come to be, for him, gray webs spun thin across the emptiness of his days, because all hope of earthly joy was gone, he had now the power to trace, with almost superhuman mimicry and skill, the ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... frequently to the waist, required, at any time, fearful exertion. The numb, fleshless fingers could hardly guide, or even wield the ax. Near the site of the Breen cabin, to-day, stands a silent witness of the almost superhuman exertions that were made to procure fuel. On the side of a pine tree are old seams and gashes, which, by their irregular position, were evidently made by hands too weak to cut down a tree. Hundreds of blows, however, were struck, and the marks of the ax-blade extend up and down the ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... new misfortunes were to come upon him. In 1826 he had lost his wife: his sorrows weighed upon him, and his superhuman exertions were too much for his strength. In 1829 he was seized with a nervous attack, accompanied by hemorrhages of a peculiar kind. In February, 1830, a slight paralysis occurred, from which he speedily recovered; this was soon succeeded by another; and it ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... dear Eva, things which appear very extraordinary, may often be explained by a chance resemblance or a freak of nature. Marvels being always the result of optical illusion or heated fancy, a time must come, when that which appeared to be superhuman or supernatural, will prove to be the most simple and natural event in the world. I doubt not, therefore, that the things, which we denominate our prodigies, will one day ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Spain had called for the suppression of the order, and the Pope had promised that it should be done; but the Jesuits did not think that such a blow could ever be struck, and felt almost secure. They did not think that the Pope's power was superhuman so far as they were concerned. They even intimated to him by indirect channels that his authority did not extend to the suppression of the order; but they were mistaken. The sovereign pontiff delayed the signature ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... come back into the case again, goaded by the papers, particularly by the Record, to efforts which he must have considered superhuman. The remarkable nature of the mystery, its picturesque and unique features, the fact that three men had been killed within a few days in precisely the same manner, and the absence of any reasonable hypothesis to explain these deaths—all this served to rivet public ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... been faithful; they were still faithful, but the stress of exhaustion was beginning to sap their morale; to drive them into irritability so that, under the strain of almost superhuman exertion, they threatened to break. Brent was not of their blood and knew little of how to handle them, and though Parson Acup was indefatigable, his face became more ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Spiritualism that I knew of, up to this time. This colony brought mechanics, merchants and musicians with them. I was in great confusion about this matter, not knowing what to think, for she did some superhuman things. Up stairs we had a large safe full of old books. I was looking over them one day, came to a little book called "Spiritualism Exposed". I immediately went to the orchard, sat under a tree, as my custom was, when I wished to read, for there I could be quiet. ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... disciples. Where man differs from man each will prefer his own view, and claim that his personal opinion is as deserving of respect and as likely to be right as his adversary's—which is practically what obtains among non-Catholics at the present day. Indeed, the only superhuman and infallible authority on earth recognised by them is the Bible; and that, alas! has proved a block of stumbling and not a bond of union, since, in the hands of unscrupulous men, it may be made to prove absolutely anything. The most sacred and fundamental ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... artificial sleep produced by gazing fixedly on a near, bright object, and differing only in degree from the nervous or imaginative control which has been known to arrest and cure disease, which chained St. Simeon Stylites to his pillar, and sustains the Hindoo fakirs in their apparently superhuman vigils. These children of Nature had probed with direct simplicity some of the deep secrets which men of science often fail to discern through tortuous devices. I was assured that this trance was merely the result of a concentrative energy of the will, which riveted ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... who heard Him, the supreme miracle took place.... For it seemed now in an instant that it was no longer man who spoke, but One who stood upon the stage of the superhuman. The curtain ripped back, as one who stood by it tore, panting, at the strings; and there, it seemed, face to face stood the Mother above the altar, huge, white and protective, and the Child, one passionate incarnation of love, crying to ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... Willoughby, her own feelings were so much awakened, that never had Mr. Woods seemed so evangelical and like a saint, as at that very moment; and it would not have been difficult to persuade her that he was acting under something very like righteous superhuman impulses. ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... she going to do? Was she going to do anything at all? Would it be possible for her hugeness, her power, her wealth to remain inert in a world crisis? Would she be content tacitly to admit the truth of old accusations of commerciality by securing as her part in the superhuman conflict the simple and unadorned making of money through the dire necessities of the world? There was bitterness, there were sneers, there were vague hopes and scathing injustices born of torment and racking dread. Some few were patiently just, because they knew something of the ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dejection at the important crisis which too often causes failure. After we had discovered the watch, and after Balsamides had traced it to the house of Laleli Khanum Effendi, it seemed to me that the end could not be far. It could not be an operation of superhuman difficulty to bribe some one in the harem to tell us what we wanted to know. In a few days this might be accomplished, and we should learn the ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... President and other high officials, and when they had seen some of his photographs, and had heard an outline of his plans, they readily followed the lead of England in accrediting him as a sort of unofficial peacemaker. Indeed, the Frenchmen looked upon Edestone as someone almost superhuman—a being who had come to establish on earth the dream of their philosophers, "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite"—and they gloried in the good fortune of their sister Republic in having produced and sent to ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... But there is no pleasure unmixed with alloy; no general happiness unaccompanied by particular exceptions. Among the workmen, was the father of one of the men who had disappeared in the mine. His paternal feelings seemed to have endowed him with superhuman strength. Night and day he never quitted his work but for a few minutes to return to it with redoubled ardor; one sole, absorbing thought occupied his whole soul; the idea that his son, his only son, was with those who were heard from within. In vain he was solicited to retire; in vain they ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... man!... I saw Cherbourg for the first time. This port, which Louis XVI. had designed simply for one of refuge, had been transformed by Napoleon into one from which an attack could be made. In those days of prodigies, however incapable of amazement I might have been, this roadstead, won by superhuman exertion from the ocean, this vast basin hewn to a depth of fifty feet in the granite, with accommodations for fifty men-of-war, for their building, for their repair, for their armament, filled me with an ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... a sense of a superhuman effort at control behind the words that the pain of it was almost intolerable. He wanted, there and then, to have left the room. It would have been better for him had he done so. But some force held him in ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... between them. On one hand the Grass, funneled and constricted to a strip of land absurdly inadequate to support its gargantuan might, on the other the combined resources of man, desperately determined to destroy the bridge before the invader. In tropic heat the work was kept up at superhuman pace. Gangs of native laborers fainting under their loads were blown skyhigh by impatient technicians unwilling to waste the time necessary to revive them. In selfdefense the South American states doubled their contributions. At the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Wilson had employed, and by definitely fixing the date for the Constituent Assembly elections, September 30th, while sternly repressing the Bolsheviki, it might be possible to save Russia. But it was too late. Despite his almost superhuman efforts, and the loyal support of the great majority of the Soviets, he was defeated. Day after day conditions at the front grew worse. By the beginning of August practically the whole of Galicia was in the hands of the Germans. Russian soldiers ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... dream of Superhuman Unselfishness. No one will be asked to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others or to love his neighbours better than himself as is the case under the present system, which demands that the majority shall unselfishly be content to labour and live in wretchedness ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... his hearers that, after this trip, many others still more wonderful would be undertaken. In fact, it was to be but the first of a long series of superhuman expeditions. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... them. They seemed weighty men, oppressed by a sad and stolid bovine-sort of integrity. A sober seriousness and enormous certitude characterized all of them. They appeared men without nerves and without fear, as though upheld by some overwhelming power or carried in the hollow of some superhuman hand. The captain, a sad-eyed, strong-featured American, was cartooned in the papers as "Gloomy Gus" (the pessimistic ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... divided the Christians and non-Christians was not the question whether or not Jesus existed; but the vastly more pertinent and essentially different question whether or not the obscure Galilean carpenter, executed by a Roman governor as king of the Jews, was really a superhuman being who had overcome death, the longed-for-savior of mankind, foretold by the Prophets, the only-begotten Son ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... little force. Whatever might be the feigned facts of the Grecian foretime, they were altogether outdone in antiquity and wonder by the actual history of Egypt. What was a pious man like Herodotus to think when he found that, at the very period he had supposed a superhuman state of things in his native country, the ordinary passage of affairs was taking place on the banks of the Nile? And so indeed it had been for untold ages. To every one engaged in recording recent events, it must have been obvious that a chronology applied where the actors are superhuman is ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... his best and I advised him to remain on shore while I took the boat. As we made the change we again observed the boat, bounding through the next rapid, whirling on the tops of the waves as though in the hands of a superhuman juggler. I managed to overtake her in a whirlpool below the rapid, and came to shore for her captain. He was nearly exhausted with his efforts; still he insisted on continuing. A few miles below we saw some ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... had come in during the day. The concierge related the tale of his return and the locksmith. The mother, heart-stricken, went back a changed woman. White as the linen of her chemise, she walked as we might fancy a spectre walks, slowly, noiselessly, moved by some superhuman power, and yet mechanically. She held a candle in her hand, whose light fell full upon her face and showed her eyes, fixed with horror. Unconsciously, her hands by a desperate movement had dishevelled the hair about her brow; and this made her so beautiful with anguish that Joseph stood rooted ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... almost superhuman efforts the party on the rock managed to get abreast of Roylance just as he was half-way between the boat and a patch of rugged boulders which had seemed to promise foothold till help could reach him from above, and still the brave fellow swam on with ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... last she smiled, and there was in her eyes a look of superhuman love. Dr. Coutras was startled by it, and amazed. And he was awed. ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... water. Could he get it aboard? Would he have the strength? These thoughts passed through his mind with lightning rapidity. But still he kept on, and ere long he had the joy of seeing the big hook loom in sight. Then an almost superhuman pull, and the warp was on deck, and securely fastened around the capstan. A shout went up from the tug when this had been accomplished, and Eben staggered back, exhausted by his mighty efforts. He saw the warp suddenly tighten, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... ain't all been took,—or, as you might say,—vanished away,—why the question as I ax's you is,—w'ot will she say? Oh Lord!" And here, Adam gave vent to his great laugh which necessitated an almost superhuman exertion of strength to keep the table from slipping from its precarious perch. Whereupon Miss Priscilla screamed, (a very small scream, like herself) and Prudence scolded, and the two rosy-cheeked maids tittered, and Adam went chuckling ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... mingling with the perfume of fading floral beauties; the pale dark-eyed girl presiding, upon her dusky hair a crown of laurel, set there, despite her protestations, by Phazma and Straws; the devotion of the count to his fair neighbor; the almost superhuman pride of noisy Barnes; the attention bestowed by Susan upon Saint-Prosper, while through his mind wandered the words of a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... thickest of the fight, by his example he encouraged and inspired his followers. His bravest warriors fell around him; his horses were slain under him; his burnoose was torn with bullets; but still he fought on. The world's record can show no more brilliant instance of almost superhuman heroism. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... power in the councils of his country, a voice in the destinies of the world—so we see him moving in a large and splendid orbit, complete in fine activities, dominant in his assured position, almost superhuman in success. And as he moves, he presses into the flesh of his left arm those sharpened points ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... to which no one contributed more than Constantine, the first Christian emperor, that was the real cause of the downfall of Rome, and the centuries of barbarism that followed, relieved only by the superhuman zeal and charity of the church to save ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... superhuman efforts in urging forward his chilled, water-soaked, foot-sore command; and when hunger added its torture to the already disheartening conditions, his courage and energy seemed to burn stronger and brighter. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... ground, but it could not be done, and we had to abandon them. Hescock also had lost most of his horses, but all his guns were saved. Bush's battery lost two pieces, the tangled underbrush in the dense cedars proving an obstacle to getting them away which his almost superhuman exertions could not surmount. Thus far the bloody duel had cost me heavily, one-third of my division being killed or wounded. I had already three brigade commanders killed; a little later I ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... certainly original—the means by which so narrow and so long a passage could be efficiently ventilated. The least I could do, however, was to appease Eveena's fear before turning my attention to the objects of my own curiosity. The presence of physical strength, which seemed to her superhuman, produced upon her nerves the quieting effect which, however irrationally, great bodily force always exercises over women; partly, perhaps, from the awe it seems to inspire, partly from a yet more unreasonable but instinctive ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... Peters is within ten miles of us, and is at this moment a mighty ill man—almost ready, in fact, to visit a land from which he will be little likely to return. I refer to 'The undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.' By superhuman efforts I have kept this man Peters alive now long past the time-limit set by his Creator for him to go—I mean, three score and ten years; but even I and science have our limitations, and the beginning of the end is ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... the things which had burst suddenly upon Meg's practical nature. He had been subconsciously prepared for the tomb to be one of unusual importance. The soothsayer's prediction had not been mere charlatanry to him. His secret thoughts were so constantly focussed on what is termed the superhuman, that Meg's wonder and horror formed only a minor part of ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... cry like the roar of a mad bull came from the young giant. In his rage, he seemed suddenly endowed with almost superhuman strength. Before a man of the startled company could do more than gasp with astonishment, he had shaken himself free from those who held him, and, breaking the rope with which he was bound, as though it were twine, had leaped ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... mind; (2) that since universals are the tools and criteria of thought, the human mind, in which alone these exist, is the judge of all truth,—a lesson which leads directly to pure rationalism, and indeed to the rehabilitation of the human as against the superhuman. No wonder that Roscellin came into conflict with the church authorities, and had to flee to England. Abelard afterwards modified his nominalism and behaved somewhat unhandsomely to him, but never escaped from the influence of his teaching. Abelard ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... out at the right ear clad in a suit of splendid armour. His gilded cuirass, his steel helmet inlaid with gold, and his sword and club made of him a complete warrior. Still more, he felt himself endowed with superhuman strength and bravery. When he stamped his foot and shouted the earth trembled and gave forth a sound like thunder, the very leaves ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... of a great city was full of interest to these country girls, and it required a superhuman self-control to go about with downcast eyes, noticing nothing. At the weekly conference one of the Sisters acknowledged that if she passed a troop of mountebanks or a peepshow, the desire to look was so strong upon her that she could only resist it ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... for you to know to what you expose yourself by betraying your Salamander. I do not want to interrogate you as to what intercourse you have had with that superhuman person I have been fortunate enough to make you acquainted with. I dare say you feel somewhat reluctant to discuss it. Possibly you deserve praise for that. If the Salamanders have not, m what concerns the discretion of their lovers, the same ideas ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... George, he saw the terrible struggle through which his beloved mother was passing, read her every thought, realised her every fear, and when he was not engaged at the shipyard with old Radlett, devoted himself strenuously to the almost superhuman task of allaying those fears, driving them out, and infusing some measure of hopefulness in their place. And so energetically did he strive that at length he actually succeeded in convincing not only Mrs Saint Leger, but also himself, that the expedition would certainly be successful ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... evening meeting in the Wallencamp school-house. A row of dingy, smoking lanterns had been set against the wall and afforded the only light cast upon the scene. Aunt Sibylla Cradlebow, the speaker, was tall and dark-eyed, with an almost superhuman litheness of body, and ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... attempting an outline of the Buddha's life if we begin by assuming that intense individuality, fervid earnestness and severe simplicity, combined with singular beauty of countenance, calm dignity of bearing, and almost superhuman persuasiveness of speech, were conspicuous in the great teacher." To believe that such a character was the product of a false religion, or that he was given over to believe a lie, savors too much of that worst agnosticism which would in effect deny the universality of God's ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... those who are most afraid that do the bravest deeds. I do not mean that the fact that they are afraid increases the difficulty of the doing, because it lessens it. It is fear that drives men to heroism! And many a man attempts the superhuman feat of courage not to show to others that he is no coward, but as evidence in the court of his own judgment, to disprove the accusations of conscience, which asserts he is craven. The old illustration of one soldier who accused another of having no bravery ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... Roquefort; but her opinion was that the person who did not prefer a good Cheshire to any other cheese, deserved to go without any. She had been twenty-one years in Paris, and seven times only had she missed morning service on Sundays. Hereupon, a particular history of each occasion, and the superhuman difficulty which had bound Mrs. Rowe hand and foot to the Rue Millevoye from eleven till one. She had a faithful note of a beautiful sermon preached in the year 1850 by the Rev. John Bobbin, in which ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... had died. The pigsty, a miserable lean-to run up of planks and thatched with branches, gave no protection against wind and weather. No one heard the helpless old man entreating for mercy in a voice trembling with despair. No one saw him creep to the closed door and raise himself with a superhuman effort to try and open it. He felt death gaining upon him; from his heels it crept upwards to his chest, holding it as in a vice, and shaking him in terrible spasms; his jaws closed upon each other, tighter and tighter, until he was no longer able to open them ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... national triumph; to Wallace we feel, as the Italians do to Garibaldi, as a demon of warlike power,—blending courage and clemency, enthusiasm and skill, daring and determination, in proportions almost superhuman,—and we cry with ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... chagrined and then irritated him. A beautiful woman might as well be a beautiful statue as to persist in behaving like one. A sudden rash desire took possession of the youth to test the quality of this superhuman indifference. The opportunity was tempting, the moment auspicious; he might never be so near her again. He laid one hand upon her arm, and bent his fair head till it reached her shoulder. Then ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... asceticism in the cause of science almost comparable to that of Saint Simeon Stylites. Yet they tell me he might live in luxury if he spent on himself what he spends on science. His knowledge is of that strange, remote character, that it seems sometimes almost superhuman. He knows the ridges and chasms of the moon as a surveyor knows a garden-plot he has measured. He watches the snows that gather around the poles of Mars; he is on the lookout for the expected comet at the moment when ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Voices and to the Silences;—and, on the whole, found that it was an adventure, in sorrowful fact, equal to the fabulous ones by old knights-errant against dragons and wizards in enchanted wildernesses and waste howling solitudes; not achievable except by nearly superhuman exercise of all the four cardinal virtues, and unexpected favor of the special blessing of Heaven. His adventure achieved or found unachievable, he has returned with experiences new to him in the affairs of men. What this Colonial Office, inhabiting the head of Downing Street, really was, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... a race between the two crews with the paddlers standing on the gunwales, which tested the skill of the girls to the uttermost. With superhuman effort they kept their balance and came sweeping in neck and neck, the watchers on shore cheering lustily. "Go it, Hinpoha!" shouted Nyoda, and Hinpoha raised her head to look at her, lost her balance, and upset the canoe, leaving ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... in his hollow eyes as he reflected on the fact that in all the unwritten history of his people he was the first man to survive the inexorable power of the wurali. As long as he lived this fact would lift him above the level of all his fellows. Even the chief could not boast of such a superhuman feat. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... husband; and no man's laughter, no, not even his father's— least of all his father's—could cover up the fact or avail against the revelations which must follow, now that the scent was on. Honouring as she did the man before her, understanding both his misery and the courage he displayed in this superhuman effort to hide his own convictions, she gathered up all her resources, and with a resolution no less brave ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... announce the stunning news that Germany has declared war against Russia. The report must be sufficiently authentic, for, as if by magic, the Belgian army is already gathering itself together with an almost superhuman rapidity, proof of which we have had in the masses of troops that have been passing the chateau all day. Yesterday, trouble was a newspaper rumor; today, deadly earnestness. And what excitement all about! The air is positively charged and the whole community is agog; people ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... waves of transplanted European peoples throughout the entire course of the eighteenth century is the history of the growth and evolution of American democracy. Upon the American continent was wrought out, through almost superhuman daring, incredible hardship, and surpassing endurance, the formation of a new society. The European rudely confronted with the pitiless conditions of the wilderness soon discovered that his maintenance, indeed his existence, was conditioned ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... thought of the past, durst not make fresh asseverations. James, in the supreme moment of the pure and innocent romance of which he was the hero, looked on love like his own as the highest crown of human life, and distrusted the efforts after the superhuman which too often were mere simulation or imitation; but a certain recollection of Henry's warnings withheld him from pressing the matter, and he returned to his own joys and hopes, looking on the struggles he expected with a strong man's exulting joy, and not even counting the years of his captivity ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... father of men who make of iron, constructed one city—enormous—superhuman; and while that he labored, his brothers in the plain drove far away the sons of Enos and the children of Seth, and put out the eyes of all who passed that way, and the night came when the walls of covering of tents were not, and in their place were walls of granite, every block immense, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... people had left her, she sought the shore, and, fastening the canoe, proceeded below the falls, where she found the body of the ill-fated "Eagle Eye," where it had washed ashore. With superhuman strength, she bore the mangled body to a thick grove of cedars, and, with her own hands, dug a rude grave, and covered his remains with dried leaves and earth. That night she kept her lonely watch beside the grave of all that she held dear on earth, save her boy, intending to ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... for life, and she knew it. There was not time to reach the gate; so she ran the shortest way to the fort, caught hold of the top of the pickets, and, by an almost superhuman effort sprung over to the other side. She did not fall to the ground as she expected, but into the arms of John Sevier, for he was standing at a loophole close by, and caught her. He had witnessed her danger ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... point, the most elevated of the Andes, the travelers were seized with a malady called by the Indians soroche, which deprives the most intrepid man of his courage and his strength. A superhuman will is then necessary to keep one from falling motionless on the stones of the road, and being devoured by those immense condors which display above their vast wings! These three men spoke little; each wrapped himself in the silence which these ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... imagined in connexion with, the passages enjoining certain actions. Hence the dharmasstras, itihsas, and purnas also, which are founded on the different brhmanas, mantras and arthavdas, clearly teach that Brahma and the other gods, as well as the Asuras and other superhuman beings, have bodies and sense-organs, constitutions of different kinds, different abodes, enjoyments, and functions.—Owing to their having bodies, the gods therefore are also ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... you please! I am afraid all these superhuman theories of yours. You will never get through ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... at him with her pale eyes, and there seemed to be something superhuman in her simplicity and grandeur as she sat there in her thin black gown. Her glance, in which the greatest bravery and the deepest sadness mingled, filled Guillaume with acute emotion. His hands began to tremble, and he asked: "Will you ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... You have said it," Lingard pronounced aloud, suddenly. He felt like a swimmer who, in the midst of superhuman efforts to reach the shore, perceives that the undertow is taking him to sea. He would go with the mysterious current; he would go swiftly—and see the end, the fulfilment both ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... new fields, and the minds of the people are called to God's down-trodden law, Satan is astir. The power attending the message will only madden those who oppose it. The clergy will put forth almost superhuman efforts to shut away the light, lest it should shine upon their flocks. By every means at their command they will endeavor to suppress the discussion of these vital questions. The church appeals to the strong arm of civil power, and in this work, papists and ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... him, and, as he walked home, he regretted the impulse that had led him to attend the funeral. For all the melancholy of valediction was his. The dead girl was free—and he had a sudden vision of her, as she had lain in the mortuary, with the look of superhuman peace on her face. Over the head of this, he was sarcastic at his own expense. For though she WERE being treated like a piece of lumber, what did it matter to her? Beneath the screening lid, she continued ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... with me the first time, and in broad day; but when thrusting up his own shirt and my shift, he laid his naked glowing body to mine... oh insupportable delight! oh! superhuman rapture! what pain could stand before a pleasure so transporting? I felt no more the smart of my wounds below; but, curling round him like the tendril of a vine, as if I feared any part of him should be untouched ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... to take our places in front of him and to bow down before him. For this is Senke Takanori, the Guji of Kitzuki, to whom even in his own dwelling none may speak save on bended knee, descendant of the Goddess of the Sun, and still by multitudes revered in thought as a being superhuman. Prostrating myself before him, according to the customary code of Japanese politeness, I am saluted in return with that exquisite courtesy which puts a stranger immediately at ease. The priest who acted as our guide ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... Five notable figures, Decamps, Ravachol, Vaillant, Henry, and Caserio, within a period of three years, performed a series of terrorist acts that cannot be forgotten. Their utter desperation and abandon, the terrible solemnity of their lives, and the almost superhuman efforts they made to bring society to its knees mark the most tragic and heroic period in the history of anarchism. At Levallois-Perret a demonstration was organized by the anarchists for May 1. They brought out their red and black flags, and, when ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... raised hands, and face turned heavenward, seemed to implore rescue. The dawn, casting light on her dark hair and white peplus, was reflected in her eyes. Entirely in the light, she seemed herself like light. In that pale face, in those parted lips, in those raised hands and eyes, a kind of superhuman exaltation was evident. Acte understood then why Lygia could not become the concubine of any man. Before the face of Nero's former favorite was drawn aside, as it were, a corner of that veil which hides a world altogether different from that to which she was accustomed. ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... blood had asserted itself and he had literally outdone himself. Slipping from Salt's back she tossed her bridle to Shelby who had hurried toward her, and taking Pepper's head in her arms petted and caressed him as she would have petted and caressed a child which had made a superhuman effort to perform ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... wail, almost superhuman in its power to shatter the silence of the night, and more startling than any human cry could be, struck disorganizingly through the drama. It may have hastened the catastrophe. Mr. Gilbert was unnerved for a moment, and in exasperation picked up a clod and threw it at the offending ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... that they to whom God has given, as He has to us, to be the founders of a new state as yet free from enmity—that they should create themselves enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be superhuman folly and wickedness. ...
— Laws • Plato
... "The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame of Mr. Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve and muscle strained to resist the coercion. Bending and straining against the overpowering numbers, he held every inch with surprising tenacity, and only surrendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain it. The sight—little of it as was seen from the outside—soon became sickening. The overborne man appeared almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of the warmth of the struggle, had an ominous pallor. The limbs barely ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... boy, just listen," said Risler, leaning over him. "I am at the end of my forbearance. Since this morning I have been making superhuman efforts to restrain myself, but it would take very little now to make my anger burst all bonds, and woe to the man on whom it falls! I am quite capable of killing some one. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... such. I was quite wrong. Tiresias is not anything so insipid. He is a study of a real type, and a type which all the tragedians knew. The character of the professional seer or "man of God" has in the imagination of most ages fluctuated between two poles. At one extreme are sanctity and superhuman wisdom; at the other fraud and mental disease, self-worship aping humility and personal malignity in the guise of obedience to God. There is a touch of all these qualities, good and bad alike, in Tiresias. He seems to me a most life-like as well ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... with increasing alarm, the rapid and enormous strides which France was making. The energy of the First Consul seemed superhuman. His acts indicated the most profound sagacity, the most far-reaching foresight. To-day the news reaches London that Napoleon has been elected President of the Italian Republic. Thus in an hour five millions ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... trace him were superhuman. Unhappily his groom had been killed, when Jonah was wounded, and, though all manner of authorities, from the Director of Remounts downwards, had lent their official aid, though a most particular description had been circulated and special instructions issued to all the depots ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... right-hand pocket of his fur coat; but each time he tried to recall what was in the telegram, it seemed that a hammer kept knocking at his head, dulling his senses. The grateful country boy had no inkling that close beside him was sitting a man who had to exert superhuman strength not to succumb to an attack of raving madness. As a matter of fact, the boy was in danger of a maniac's clutching him by the throat and drawing him into ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... him in silent admiration. To the man who with difficulty composed a letter to his family, the fact that Channing was writing something to be read by millions of people, and more rapidly than he could have spoken the same words, seemed a superhuman effort. He even hesitated to interrupt it by ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... her feeble head—her beautiful black hair streaming across her pallid, placid brow, and her countenance wearing a holy and religious calm, Mrs. Grantham presented an image of resignation, so perfect, so superhuman, that the disposition to a violent ebullition of grief, which at first manifested itself in the youths, gave place to a certain mysterious awe, that chained them almost spell-bound at the foot of her bed. A strict observer of the ordinances of her religion, she had had every preparation made for ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... condition; scathless^, intact, harmless; seaworthy &c (safe) 644; right as a trivet; in seipso totus teres atque rotundus [Lat.] [Horace]; consummate &c (complete) 52; finished &c 729. best &c (good) 648; model, standard; inimitable, unparagoned^, unparalleled &c (supreme) 33; superhuman, divine; beyond all praise &c (approbation) 931; sans peur et sans reproche [Fr.]. Adv. to perfection; perfectly &c adj.; ad unguem [Lat.]; clean, clean as a whistle. Phr. let us go on unto perfection [Hebrews vi, 1]; the perfection of art is to conceal ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... experience, seldom fail to command submission and respect. Troops fight with marked success when they feel that their leader "knows his job," and in every Army troops are the critics of their leaders. The achievements of Jackson's forces in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862 were almost superhuman, but under Stonewall Jackson the apparently impossible tasks were undertaken and achieved. General Ewell, one of Jackson's commanders, stated that he shivered whenever one of Stonewall's couriers approached him. "I was always expecting him to order me to assault the ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, "All for Her," where the hero, anxious ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... rapidity of its maneuvering, the manner in which men, at one moment scattered, were in another formed in a serried mass, against which all their efforts broke as waves against a rock, seemed to them to be something superhuman. In that part of Wessex, therefore, the invaders gradually withdrew their forces across the frontier; but in other parts of the country, the tide of invasion being unchecked, large tracts of country had been devastated, and the West Saxons could nowhere make head against them. One day ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... and that her mind was already slowly shutting itself up under the checks of its new surroundings. Hazard's speech, too, was unlucky in another way. If he had tried not to shock her by taking charge of her soul before she asked for his interference, she had herself made a superhuman effort not to shock him, and never once had she let drop a word that could offend his prejudices. Since the truth must now come out, she was the less anxious to spare his pride because he claimed credit for ...
— Esther • Henry Adams |
