"Towering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the windows. And now began to appear, in this scene of splendour, groups of knights and nobles, arrayed in velvet and cloth of gold, and attending upon fair dames, sparkling with jewels, and bearing nodding plumes upon their braided hair. Conspicuous amidst these, and towering above all in stature, appeared the haughty mistress of Strasolda, attired in a robe of dark green velvet, which well relieved the fairness of her complexion, and displaying upon her finely moulded neck and arms a collar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... ebbed, his fury had dashed itself against a rock. His towering rage had shrunk to nothing in the face of this awful presence. The Dark Spirit had gone before him and snatched his victim out of his hands. He had come out to kill this man, and here he met ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... possible for the imagination of man to conceive. They stood at the further end of a sort of recess, formed by the hills, which are here broken into a circular valley, cut off, to all appearance, from the rest of the habitable world; behind them rose a towering crag, as perpendicular as the drop of a plummet, from the top of which a little rivulet came tumbling down, giving to the scene an appearance of the most delightful coolness, and amusing the ear with the unceasing roar of a waterfall. From the very face of the cliff, where there ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... difficult transition to a more modern open-market economy. The government has taken measures to curb violent crime and to spur economic activity and trade. The economy is bolstered by annual remittances from abroad of $600-$800 million, mostly from Greece and Italy; this helps offset the towering trade deficit. Agriculture, which accounts for about one-half of GDP, is held back because of frequent drought and the need to modernize equipment, to clarify property rights, and to consolidate small plots of land. Energy shortages and antiquated and inadequate infrastructure make it ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... my child, the tidings that met me there were such as to drive the strongest mind distracted. The landlord told me that my wife had fled with the butler of the house. At first I laughed in his face at anything so absurd, but when he flew into a towering passion and accused me of having brought disgrace upon his house by living there unlawfully with a woman who was not my wife, I began to think there must be some truth in his statements. In vain I denied the charge; ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... of awe. Not a bark dimpled the waters. No living thing was to be seen but the wild tenants of the wilderness, the unwieldy boa, and the loathsome alligator basking on the borders of the stream. The trees towering in wide-spread magnificence towards the heavens, the river rolling on in its rocky bed as it had rolled for ages, the solitude and silence of the scene, broken only by the hoarse fall of waters, or the faint rustling of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... been here since he sold it; but even Charon saw that something was strangely amiss. He bounded off, and soon cleared the inclosure of the herd which had become accustomed to grazing here. Beulah walked slowly up the avenue; the aged cedars whispered hoarsely above her as she passed, and the towering poplars, whose ceaseless silvery rustle had an indescribable charm for her in summers past, now tossed their bare boughs toward her in mute complaining of the desolation which surrounded them. The reckless indifference of tenants has deservedly grown into a proverb, and here Beulah beheld ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... struck, and, in so far as we can tell, will for ages strike, with its greatness multitudes of widely different degrees of cultivation whose intellectual capacity is as far apart as their critical faculty. I mean the matchless Campanile or bell-tower 'towering over the Dome of Brunelleschi' at Florence, formed of coloured marbles—for which Giotto framed the designs, and even executed with his own hands the models for the sculpture. With this lovely sight Dean Alford's description ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... the above engraving claims the attention of the antiquarian researcher, not as the lofty sculptured mansion of our monastic progenitors, or the towering castle of the feudatory baton, for never has the voice of boisterous revelry, or the tones of the solemn organ, echoed along its vaulted roof; a humbler but not less interesting trait marks its history. It was here that the zealous pilgrim, strong in bigot faith, rested his weary ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... that Scott's towering fame should not draw the nobler sort, and his immense gains the baser, to follow in his track: and they promptly did so. But, as he himself quoted in the remarkable comments (above alluded to) on his early imitators in the Diary, they had "gotten his fiddle, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... interval we were the invited guests of a district kadi, a venerable-looking and genial old gentleman whose acquaintance we had made in an official visit on the previous day, as he was then the acting caimacam (mayor). His house was situated in a neighboring valley in the shadow of a towering bluff. We were ushered into the selamluek, or guest apartment, in company with an Armenian friend who had been educated as a doctor in America, and who had consented to act as interpreter ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... on deck with a heavy heart, and, on looking in the direction indicated, I beheld the towering Blue Mountain peak rising high above the horizon, even at the distance of fifty miles, with its outline clear and distinct against the splendid western sky, now gloriously illumined by the light of the set sun. We stood on ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered wooden houses—with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia—flung down ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... gleam in De Lloseta's dark eyes which Fitz did not fail to notice. The Count looked around over the dark wild faces of his countrymen and met no glance of recognition, for he had been absent forty years. Then he raised his eyes to the old city towering on the hillside above them, the city that has not changed these six hundred years, and he smiled ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... good out of these successive human experiments. I know not what to say in answer to this, except to ask the reader to look at the modern man, as I have just looked at the modern man—in the looking-glass. Is it really true that you and I are two starry towers built up of all the most towering visions of the past? Have we really fulfilled all the great historic ideals one after the other, from our naked ancestor who was brave enough to kill a mammoth with a stone knife, through the Greek citizen and the Christian saint to our own grandfather or great-grandfather, ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they are out of place in the high society of the passions; when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but towering above circumstance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... faith and genius; from the pulpit came in sonorous English the interpretation of the scene as a gifted mind perceived it; about the altar the ancient ritual enacted the holy drama, whose sublime enchantment holds every age. Around rose the towering arches, the steady columns, the broad walls, lighted from the storied windows, of the first really great temple of ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... even more remote from the world of greed and competition than Portsmouth. Here at last you discover what so often eludes you in America—the real countryside. The rough pleasant roads like English lanes, the beautiful wooden houses half hidden amid towering trees, and the gardens (or yards as they are called) not trim, like our English gardens, but of an unkempt beauty all their own,—these, with the memory of a gracious hospitality, will never fade ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... villages. Father Brebeuf was bound to a stake, and around his neck was thrown a necklace of red-hot tomahawks. They cut off his lower lip, and thrust a heated iron rod down his throat. It was doubtless their delight to force a groan or complaint from this stalwart priest, whose towering and noble figure had always been the admiration of the Canadian Indians, but both he and Lalemant, a relatively feeble man, showed themselves as brave as the most courageous ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... the waste and the fire-blast made them vain. Then he casteth the reins to his brother, and Gunnar praiseth his gift, And springeth aloft to the saddle as the fair sun fails from the lift; And Sigurd looks on the burden that Greyfell doth uprear, The huge king towering upward in the dusky Niblung gear: There sits the eager Gunnar, and his heart desires the deed, And of nought he recketh and thinketh, but a fame-stirred warrior's need; But Greyfell trembleth nothing and nought of the fire doth reck: Then the spurs in his flank are smitten, ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... Squire Eben Merritt, towering over him, with a long string of trout at his side, looked at him with a puzzled frown; then he reached down and pulled him to his feet with a mighty and gentle jerk. "How old are you, sir?" he demanded. "Thought you were a man; thought you were going to learn to fire my gun. Guess you ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of wood and elaborately carved. In the Choir were the fixed stalls with towering canopies, and other seats, which were ranged along the north and south sides and at the west end. Chapels were marked off by wooden screens, ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... It is only the Powow that makes the dividing line here. Blocks of offices and stores on both sides of the street, among them the post-office, common to both towns, hide the narrow stream at that point, and further up and down the towering walls of the factories make it unobserved. It is not here that one sees the Powow. But there is, or a little time ago there was, a place not far off from this main street where the river is still harassed, yet as it slips past in its silent toil with a few trees ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... picture, the immensely tall trees, elms most of them, towering and feathering away up into the black mistiness that trees seem to gather about them at night; the silhouettes of those two upon the seat; the beams of light coming from the Casino, the woman all in black peeping with fear behind the tree-trunk. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... morning star hangs splendid; when in the end of that miracle the landscape is fully revealed, and one finds into what country one has come; then a great hill before one, losing the forests upwards into rock and steep meadow upon its sides, and towering at last into the peaks and crests of the inaccessible places, gives a soul to the new land.... The sun, in a single moment and with the immediate summons of a trumpet-call, strikes the spear-head of the high places, and at once the valley, though still in shadow, is transfigured, and with ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... word disbelieved was the one thing fatal to Gammon's temper. He strode off in a towering rage, determined to hold no more communication with Miss Sparkes, and blaming himself for having got into such an ambiguous position towards her. As if he had ever really cared one snap of the fingers for the red-headed ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... But laugh in the light of their memories bright, And treasure them all for the morrow; Then roll the song in waves along, While the hours are bright before us, And high and hale are the spires of Yale, Like guardians, towering o'er us. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... she dressed like a Duchess, but there was less unanimity on this point. Her handsome oval face and towering grey hair induced her to cultivate an antique pose, with a view to resembling "La Pompadour." La Pompadour stood for something courtly and powdered. She certainly dressed better and on far less money than Madame ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the full height of her slender majesty, towering like some dark angel of defiance above the troubled Gerty, who could only falter out: "Lily, Lily—how can you laugh ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... threat of deluge, the explosions throw livid sunshine in all directions. From one end to the other of the visible world the fields move and descend and dissolve, and the immense expanse stumbles and falls like the sea. Towering explosions in the east, a squall in the south; in the zenith a file of bursting ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... skirt fell to the knees. The arms and legs were adorned with bracelets and anklets of ivory, while the straps of the heavy sandals were bordered with snail-shells. On the left arm he bore a round shield of rhinoceros hide embossed in brass; in the right hand, a pointless lance. Towering high above the heads of the crowd which opened before him with alacrity, the admiration received by the Prince's ally and friend was but a ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... (also for the first time) a doubt of his spiritual destiny. He looked round on a towering landscape of frozen peaks and plains, and said, "Is this hell?" And as the child stared, but did not answer, he knew ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... Alton Wood. His features wore their characteristic stamp of deep awe and enthusiasm, and even as he slowly and calmly moved, sustaining the chief of the weight with scarcely an effort of his giant strength, his head towering high above all those around, his eyes might be observed to be seeing, though not marking, what was before them, but to be fixed as though the soul were in contemplation, far far away. He did not see in the present scene four princes rendering homage to a royal saint, who, from personal connection ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... food of his household being sure; With the fields of waving grain; with the towering tassell'd maize; With the herds, moving homeward, bearing their creamy nectar; He saw, and gather'd it, giving thanks to the bountiful Father. Among the lambs sporting in green pastures, among the feathery people, Among the fruit-laden branches, he beheld it also; Under the earth, on the ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... at the tall, dark-haired young man, towering at his side, and smiled ruefully. "Hello, Tiger! As a matter of fact, it did leave. I'm waiting ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... was a small, wiry man who had the reputation of being a first-rank mountaineer. He had been a member of the eighteenth Mount Everest Party, and had been the second of that party to reach the summit of the towering peak. ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... I turn again To where the pathway enters in a realm Of lordly woodland, under sovereign reign Of towering ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... and remarked also that the Irish were the chief element among the straining roustabouts, on the steamboats of that day.[33] Likewise Olmsted noted on the Alabama River that in lading his boat with cotton from a towering bluff, a slave squad was appointed for the work at the top of the chute, while Irish deck hands were kept below to capture the wildly bounding bales and stow them. As to the reason for this division of labor and concentration of risk, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... and just at my feet cornfields thick with cornflowers. Then I saw rather a wonderful thing. I came to the edge of my hill and looked down into a cup of a valley, quite a little valley with the green waves towering on every side of it. Through the mist there shimmered below me a blue lake. I was puzzled—there was no water here that I knew, but by this time the Forest has so bewitched my senses that I'm ready ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... no sight but the moon reigning in the heavens, or starlight falling upon the lake, till all the lights were out in the island grove of men beneath my feet, and felt nearer heaven that there was nothing but this lovely, still reception on the earth; no towering mountains, no deep tree-shadows, nothing but plain earth and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Marsh"—so that her waggons went forth upon the roads very much as the old men o' war of King Edward's fleet had sailed over that same country when it was fathoms deep under the seas of Rye Bay.... With their towering, decorated poops they were more like mad galleys of a bygone age than sober waggons of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... became so overbearing as to threaten the freedom and safety of the Popes. It was again reserved for Sixtus and Alexander to undo the work of their predecessors and to secure the independence of the Holy See by the coercion of these towering nobles. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the tower of one of those great temples of trade and shouting to the throng to lift up their heads from the stones below and beyond the line of towering steel and granite see the Glory of God. And as he thought how little that crowd would heed it if he did, he felt himself in the grip of Titanic forces of Nature sweeping through time and eternity, and that he was but an atom tossed by ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... whirlwind enveloped a derrick that stood on the hill on the opposite side of the valley, another storm of fire descended from the sky, wrapping the heavy timbers in flames without shattering them, and flinging angry tongues of fire on nearly every timber in the towering pile. ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... I, Radicofani," and the tapestries parted, disclosing the form of the Captain, towering beyond a camp-bed which had been ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... sweeping out over that desolate expanse, had a moment's vision of him as he would appear toiling across those towering cliffs, minute as a fly, and her heart grew small ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... him her red lips, and for a moment it seemed as if the earth had gone from under his feet. The next thing he knew he was standing in line, with Reub on one side, and George Fennell on the other and Abner Rathbun's six feet three towering at one end of the line, while Parson West was standing on the piazza of the store, praying for the blessing of God on ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... of low shrubbery. Leila was silent, half aware that he was hard to entertain, and then mischievously wilful to give this indifferent cousin a lesson. Presently he stood still, looking up at the towering cones of the ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... some of them seemed plunged in unfathomable abysses of disgrace and disaster, they have suddenly emerged. They have begun a new course and opened a new reckoning; and, even in the depths of their calamity, and on the very ruins of their country, have laid the foundations of a towering and durable greatness. All this has happened without any apparent previous change in the general circumstances which had brought on their distress. The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, his ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... last suspicious. Had he any ulterior motive in leading me hither? What had become of him? Where was he? I got up and approached the margin of the stream, and then for the first time I felt frightened. The illimitable possibilities of that enormous mass of castellated rocks towering above me both quelled and fascinated me. Were these flickering shadows shadows, or—or had Kniaz, after all, spoken the truth when he said this valley was haunted? The moonlight rendered every object I looked upon so startlingly vivid, that not even the most trivial detail escaped my ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... evening, and saw Mount Hood in its snow-capped majesty, when the stars seemed to be set as jewels in its crown. If you ask me by what force that giant was lifted from the level of the sea till its dome touched the sky, I cannot answer you, but I know it stands there, a towering sentinel to traveler on land and sailor on the sea. So mother love, which no one can solve, exists as unchanging as the love of God; broad enough and strong enough to meet all the changing conditions ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... wild visions—of herself marched through the village by Watson, as she had once seen him march a poacher who had mauled one of Mr. Forrest's keepers—of the towering walls of Frampton jail—of a visible physical shame which would kill her—drive her mad. If, indeed, Isaac did not kill her before any one but he knew! He had been that cross and glum all these last weeks—never a bit of talk hardly—always snapping at ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... least idea where the home of the Genii was; but Yun-Ying took him out into the garden, and showed him, in the far distance, a range of snow-capped mountains, with one peak towering above the rest. ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... publish you as a coward!" cried Denis, in a towering rage; "a poltroon who has insulted a lady and refused to hold ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... this of ours. Great events occur in it. Great things are to be found in it. Where shall we find another Niagara? Where a cave of dimensions equal to those of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky? Since California has been added we have her gigantic pines, towering above all other trees in the world. We can not make war, but we must carry it on upon a scale unknown since the days of Xerxes. Our women, too, it would seem, catch the spirit of the country. Until now they ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... go," she said, turning away. She followed him with her eyes, however, as he crossed the room, his head and shoulders towering above the native men and women. She had never seen him so resplendent, and she noted, with an eye that considered trifles, the orders, and his well-fitting white gloves, and his manner of bowing in the Continental fashion, holding his opera-hat on his thigh, as though his hand rested ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... surf. From over his shoulder, the head-man watched the charging seas with animal intentness. Then with a sudden shriek he gave the word, and the paddles stabbed the water into spray. The heavy boat rushed forward again, and a great towering sea rushed after her. It reared her up, stern uppermost, and passed, leaving her half swamped by its foaming passage; and then came another sea, and the boat broached to and spilt. The Krooboys jumped like black ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... very unceremoniously slammed the door in Mr Vanslyperken's face, and left him to digest the communication with what appetite he might. Mr Vanslyperken, notwithstanding the cold weather, hastened from the door in a towering passion. The perspiration actually ran down his face, and mingled with the melting snow. "To be or not to be"—give up the widow or give up his darling Snarleyyow—a dog whom he loved the more, the more he was, through him, entangled in scrapes and vexations—a dog whom every one hated, and ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... all I caught sight of two figures—one that I knew very well, towering, bareheaded, a hand's-breadth above the throng; the other, something below the middle height, but shaggy, vast-chested, and double-jointed as a red Highland steer—M'Diarmid of Trinity, glory of the Cambridge gymnasium, and "5" in the University eight. They were not shouting like ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... a great wave, towering above all its brethren. Onward it comes, swift as a race-horse, graceful as a great ship, bearing right down upon us. It strikes 'The Rips,' and is there itself struck by a wave approaching from another direction. The two converge ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... the Targhee's absence, he took his gun to "play at powder," and using English material, succeeded in splitting the machine near the lock. When the Targhee returned, and found what damage had been done, he began first to whimper, and then working himself up into a towering passion, swore he would shoot the culprit. Scarcely with that weapon, O Targhee! When his excitement was over, I offered to make a collection among the people to indemnify him; but he shook his head, laughed, and refused. The gun was nearly all his property, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... However on a subsequent occasion I was told that this folk-song was of great poetic interest. As I was returning home late one night on the gloomy canal, the moon appeared suddenly and illuminated the marvellous palaces and the tall figure of my gondolier towering above the stern of the gondola, slowly moving his huge sweep. Suddenly he uttered a deep wail, not unlike the cry of an animal; the cry gradually gained in strength, and formed itself, after a long-drawn 'Oh!' into the simple musical exclamation 'Venezia!' This was followed by other ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... it had been scathed by lightning and the white wood laid bare. About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road; and as he drew near he beheld—on the margin of this brook, and in the dark shadow of the grove—he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... Annunciation in relief by Robbia. From the culminating point of the ridge, the Prato al Soglio, is one of the finest views in this part of Italy. About 14 miles from Camaldoli, on Mons Alvernus, alofty rock towering above the neighbouring eminences, and split into numberless pinnacles of fantastic forms, full of grottoes and galleries hollowed out by nature, is situated the convent of Alvernia, founded by St. Francis in 1213, and ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... prisoners blinked in the sun and listened to the organ-note of the surf, and brooded on the most beautiful picture I have ever seen: masses of bare rock towering into the bright sky, and an endless pageant of seas rolling grandly homeward from the south, from the infinite purple and blue of the Indian Ocean, grounding at the edge of the green lawn and showering snow upon ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... uniqueness of Man among the animals and the uniqueness of the Church among religions? Because they do not really look at either. Familiarity has dulled the edge of awareness. Men must be made to see them as though for the first time; and it is the towering achievement of this book that reading it we do so see them. "I desire to help the reader to see Christendom from the outside in the sense of seeing it as a whole against the background of other historic things; just as I desire him to see humanity as a whole against the background of natural ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... tree-trunks, quite a hundred yards from the beach seawards. To the west, one sees a long shanty-built structure running out to sea like a jetty; it is the shore market. The panorama could not be more charming and curious. Still farther west, towering above every other, stands the Bad Tumantangas peak (Mount of Tears), the last point discernible by the westward-journeying Joloano, who is said to sigh with patriotic anguish at its loss to view, with all the feeling of a Moorish Boabdil bidding ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... your advice," replied Farr, towering over the policeman and vibrating his finger at his Honor. "If you hadn't found law so handy in your own case you wouldn't forget yourself in your excitement and recommend it to others. If we've got to fight the devil we'd better ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... incredible bulk. It is much superior to down for the couch, and, from its elasticity, might be of great utility in the manufacture of hats. This tree is in great estimation among the Africans, and is frequently regarded by them as their Fetish. Every town almost has a tree of this species towering over its huts, which its chief tells the traveller with exultation he or his ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... stood there, the vast dome towering above the trees, her amber sides bright with decorations and her shapely globe held in leash by the white network—but bless me! here's more than four pages used up, ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... gear aboard the "Anglo-Franc," and away we went in the lovely moonlight, scouring the bottom of the Perchee between the head of Jethou and the tail of Herm. The latter island looked delightful in the pale greenish light of the moon, while Crevichon towering up against the sky, with the moon behind it, caused it to look like a silhouette cut out of ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... moon hung her lantern over the brow of the hill. Never was tent raised in a spot lonelier or lovelier. We chose for our camp the shelter of a moto tree, one of the most lordly of all the growths of these islands. Not ten of them were left in all the Marquesas, said Le Brunnec as I admired its towering column and magnificent spread of foliage. "The whites who used the axe in these isles would have made firewood of ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... forms the southern boundary of the Mesa Verde. If the observer turns to the north he sees the arid Montezuma Valley 2000 feet below. A few green streaks and patches in the brown and barren low country denote streams and irrigated areas. To the northeast beyond the low country the towering peaks of the San Miguel and La Plata mountains rise more than 4000 feet above the vantage point on the North Rim at 8000 feet. To the northwest, in the hazy distance 90 miles away in Utah, lie the isolated heights of ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... imagined her a created being that the ocean had been ordered to receive, as if fashioned by the Divine Architect, to add to the beauty and variety of His works; for, from the huge leviathan to the smallest of the finny tribe—from the towering albatross to the boding petrel of the storm—where could be found, among the winged or finned frequenters of the ocean, a form more appropriate, more fitting, than this specimen of human skill, whose beautiful model ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... of the Grand Turk or with privates from Pisa, Genoa and Vizcaya; wars in Sardinia, assaults on Bujia and on Tedeliz, and in every one of these enterprises a Febrer was leading the combatants or distinguishing himself for his heroism, the knight commander Don Priamo towering above them all, he who had been both the glory and ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... dusty day is done. Lo! from afar the freshening breezes sweep Wide over groves of balm, Down from the towering palm, In at the open casement cooling run; And round thy lowly bed, Thy bed of pain, Bathing thy patient head, Like grateful showers of rain They come; While the white curtains, waving to and fro, Fan the sick air; And pityingly ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... you think happened? Why the people gave him a towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position. And what do you think it was? What should you say it was, children? It was Senator of the United States! That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School became ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... My King crown'd me! Wild ocean sang for my Coronation, With the jubilant voice of a mighty nation!— 'Mid the towering rocks he set my throne, And made me forever and ever his own! My King crown'd me, And I and he Are one till the world shall cease to be! Oh sweet love story! Oh night of glory! The night when my King ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... these lumbering great Stands! And how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed that people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for it there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte—whose brothers Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton —towering up on the top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a dark-blue flag with the other, and shouting "Etroow-Harrton!" Just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always been; and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to wear any colour or take any notice. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lonely one, lonely with that oppressive solitude always to be found where the great hills of ages rear their towering heads. It was utterly cut off, too, from the outer world, by a monstrous abutment of hill which left the track a mere ribbon, like the track of some invertebrate, laboriously making its way through surroundings all uncongenial and antagonistic. Yet the station ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... short by a cry of jubilee in the court. Workmen, boys, and all were thronging together, Kit Smallbones' head towering in the midst. Vehement welcomes seemed in progress. "Stephen! Stephen!" shouted Dennet, and flew out of the hail ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Rockies, with towering, pine-fringed, snow-sprinkled crests looming dimly about them in the moonlight, two young men stood waiting by a switch-target of the Transcontinental. Facing westward, they could see the huge bulk ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... voice, with the result that before another five minutes had passed we were all gabbling and laughing together like so many children, although neither side understood a word of what was said by the other. In the midst of it all Mafuta sprang from his chair in a towering rage, and, addressing a few remarks to the king which seemed to make the latter feel rather uncomfortable, took himself off to his fetish-house, within which he vanished. Then the king shouted something to his women-folk which caused them to scuttle ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... iron built town, exceedingly unlovely, but habitable. Its two great towering sea-front hotels look American, but they are a great deal more substantially built. There are two rivals for popular favour, the Grand and the Metropole. They are much alike in all their appointments, but there are fewer tea-drinkers and after-dinner sleepers (and snorers) at ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... other harshly. "You have but to signify your change of mind to your committee, and your name is up. The governorship—the governorship is not all! It is but a step from Richmond to Washington. There's field enough for even a towering ambition." He looked around him. "And Roselands. This place has always had a charm. In the old days it was famed for hospitality—for hospitality and for the beauty of ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... in gentle undulations, toward the mists of dawn; the Manzanares meandered along, as narrow as a band of silver; it sought the Los Angeles hill, crossing barren fields and humble districts, finally to curve and lose itself in the grey horizon. Towering above Madrid the Guadarrama loomed like a lofty blue rampart, its summits ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... silent as the two ships towering pyramids of sails, making them marvels of beauty, swept onward with slow dignity across the mouth of the York River, at this point nearly three miles wide, toward the Gloucester shore. Before they had gone ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... would have reached Kimberley sooner. We were not so far away from Orange River, where thousands of troops had been massing for weeks. We were not so far out of the way as Mafeking. Nor were we like the defenders of Ladysmith entombed within towering kopjes. No; to snap our bonds was a relatively easy task. Little provision had been made for a prolonged investment, and we had fifty thousand stomachs to cater for. So much was plain. If Kimberley were to be sacrificed to the "interests," forsooth, of ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... traffic generally was of limited character after we left the pass. Occasionally we overtook coolies hurrying along with their precious loads of white wax insects, or bending under long, thick pine or cypress boards, sometimes towering high above their heads or else strapped across their shoulders, forcing them to move crab-fashion along the narrow trails. On inquiry I learned that deeply embedded in the soil of the hills are found huge trees, ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... discerned an incredible figure—like that of a tall cowled monk, towering over me. I struggled to retain consciousness—there was a rush of feet ... the throb of a motor. It stimulated me—that sound! I must get to the telephone and cause the yellow ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... the whole enormous construction, towering there above him. He saw rows of lighted windows, each cased in shining metal; a V-pointed pilot-house—the same where the still figure had dropped over the sill of the open window—a high-raised rudder of artful curve, vast as the broadside of a barn; railed galleries running ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... towering spirits among men, Rush to their aim on wild and stormy wings, And far beneath them view the world, whose form For ever varies on from hour to hour. What would they ask of love? That, volatile, In changeful freshness it may charm their ears With proud, triumphant songs, when high in air Victorious ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... replied Mr. Ellis. "He is as black as a man can conveniently be. He is very wealthy; some say that he is worth half a million of dollars. He owns, to my certain knowledge, one hundred brick houses. I met him the other day in a towering rage: it appears, that he owns ten thousand dollars' worth of stock, in a railroad extending from this to a neighbouring city. Having occasion to travel in it for some little distance, he got into ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... sea, 190 And thou hast lingered there Until the sun's broad orb Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean, Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold That without motion hang 195 Over the sinking sphere: Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds, Edged with intolerable radiancy, Towering like rocks of jet Above the burning deep: 200 And yet there is a moment When the sun's highest point Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge, When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea: 205 Then has thy rapt imagination soared ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... own destiny. He hesitated for several months, and then settled down by the Lake of Geneva. There the fires, which had lain smouldering so long in the profundities of his spirit, flared up, and flamed over Europe, towering and inextinguishable. In a few years letters began to flow once more to and from Berlin. At first the old grievances still rankled; but in time even the wrongs of Maupertuis and the misadventures of Frankfort were almost forgotten. Twenty years passed, and the King of Prussia was submitting ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... words in a towering rage, but Will was not overwhelmed by them. He stood for a moment staring in surprise, as if wondering if it was really that which had overtaken him, then a light seemed ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... splendour that he wished Joanne might have seen. Then it began sinking into the west; slowly at first, and then more swiftly, its radiance diminished. He looked at his watch before the yellow orb effaced itself behind the towering peak of a distant mountain. It ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... should become necessary. Their goods were to be loaded on a boat manned by twenty of the best men who could be selected, and who would meet them at Prairie du Chien: "And from thence we will wend our way like larks up the Mississippi, until the towering mountains and rocks shall remind us of the places of our nativity, and shall look like safety and home; and there we will bid defiance to Carlin, Boggs, Bennett, and all their whorish whores and motley ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... the picture of a tree towering to the ceiling and a-glitter with lights and ornaments. Even Carl, despite his fourteen years, could not entirely banish the vision. But the dinner, the dinner! After all the tree would only be a thing ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... appeal to Heaven, he assured his audience that they "need not be afraid." He would "never betray the people of Birmingham!" Here, too, last, but certainly not least in any way, might almost nightly be seen the towering figure of John Walsh Walsh: his commanding stature; his massive head, with its surrounding abundant fringe of wavy hair, looking like a mane; his mobile face, his bright—almost fierce—eye; his curt, incisive, and confident style of speech, showing him to be, beyond ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... Coblenz. Lower Town huddles in artistic chaos at the foot of the sheltering cliff, and, as aforetime, the overhanging fort protrudes its protecting muzzles. Spires and antique minarets which looked down upon a French settlement struggling with foes in feathers and war-paint, still gleam from the towering rock on which their stable foundations are laid; and after five sieges and the passing of two and a half centuries the mother city of the continent remains a faithful survivor of an heroic age, on historic ground sacred to the ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... the door of the house from which the alarm proceeded, I lifted the latch in great trepidation, when I saw a man just about to strike a woman (who proved to be his wife) with an uplifted chair. The fellow was vociferating loudly, and appeared in a towering passion. My first impulse was to cry out "Drop it!" when, lo! as if I had, like Katerfelto, the by-gone professor of legerdemain, cried "Presto," the scene changed, and both man and woman, who were Americans of the lower class, commenced bullying me in right earnest. I made my retreat with ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... who accompanied her. The escort was a person Beardsley had never seen before, quite handsome and quite aware of it, with an impudent world-wisdom centered about his sharp eyes. He turned immediately to Mandleco with a bluster as phony as it was towering: ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... from human view, She spent long hours beneath the cedar shade, The stately trees that in the garden grew, And, overtwined, a towering shelter made; She mused among the flowers, and birds, and bees, In winding walks, ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... of the sealer, according to a beautiful form of speech already introduced in this narrative, "considerably exercised," on the several subjects that so naturally presented themselves to a man in his situation. In the first place, he was in a towering passion at the impudence of Bob in presuming to offer himself as a candidate for the great council; and having offered himself, the rage of the Captain was in no degree abated by the circumstance of the young ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... way?" Reynolds repeated, as he stopped and looked far away upon some towering mountain peaks which just then were visible through an opening among the trees. "Take the steam-engine for example. Repress the power, and what do you get? Destruction. But give that power expression, and how beneficial it becomes. So it is with man. There is a mighty power within him. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... came up with the morning air across the cliff-bound uplands; and far away, from headland to headland of Craydle Bay, the waters glowed and sparkled in the sunlight. Inland, too, along by the river, the woods were musical with newly-awakened birds, and the downs waved softly with early hay. And towering above all, amid its stately elms, and clad from end to end with ivy, stood the old school itself, glowing in morning brightness, as it had stood for two centuries past, and as those who know and love it hope it may yet stand for centuries ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... else; if she had not been, she would have seen what an effect her new cap produced upon the boys. The good lady owned that she did "love a dressy cap," and on this occasion her head gear was magnificent; for the towering structure of lace was adorned with buff ribbons to such an extent that it looked as if a flock of yellow butterflies had settled on her dear old head. When she trotted about the rooms the ruches quivered, the little bows all stood erect, and the streamers ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... the cloud-capped peek of Knockmany rising in lofty eminence above them; these, as they extended towards the south, became gradually deeper in their hue, until at length they assumed the shape and form of heath-clad mountains, dark and towering. The prospect on either range is highly pleasing, and capable of being compared with any I have ever seen, in softness, variety, and that serene lustre which reposes only on the surface of a country rich in the ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... of such rare English insects as the Camberwell Beauty, the Northern Brown, and others. Now you enter a dark pine-forest, to find yourself before long emerging on to an open stretch of wild moorland; and so you cross the col, and commence to drop down into another valley, narrow and shut in by towering mountains. Waterfalls sparkle in the sun as they tumble over the cliffs, and the still unmelted snow stands out white and glistering on the distant hill-tops. The road swings from side to side of the valley, crossing the torrent in its ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... horizon, that had seemed to him no promising moment to try for an escape. With high curiosity, eyes amused and alight with delectable danger, he had studied Judge Harvey a moment, and then the duchess-like Mrs. De Peyster in her most magnificent towering attitude of wrathful hauteur. Then quickly and soundlessly the heavy door ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... behind. What a minister was intended for, was to stand head and shoulders above other men. God seems to have planned the universe in such a way that everywhere the spiritual shall be supreme. He was meant to be a towering leader. Who, in other realms, has excelled Moses, Joshua, Elijah, ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... his head?—What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... quite so big and formidable as Snagsby, towering up to receive her, upon the steps of the home her husband was ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... and concern that they at last debouched upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a towering pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children, with here and there a ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... room for the fleeing pair to pass, though so narrow was the space left that Frank felt his loose white robe brush against the house upon his right as they passed the ass, their horses taking the centre directly after. Then away they tore again, but only to see amongst the people in front, towering above them, the figure of a black mounted upon a camel, whose burden projected far ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Capo di Bove. [Four words, and two initials, compose the whole of the transcription which, whatever was its ancient position, is now placed in front of this towering sepulchre: "CAECILIAE. Q. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... The sunshine is sad or joyful according to our moods. We read threats and promises in the smiles of others as our own heart is hopeful or distrusting. And for Travers, with the bloodstained hand, the poor lifeless body of his enemy had become the towering shadow ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... the vines, now in the first tender spring green, scarlet fields of clover, and patches where the young corn was just showing its waving blades above the brown soil. Here and there rose tufts of stone-pines with their dark umbrella-tops towering above all other foliage, while far off in the blue distance a silvery belt of glittering spangles showed where the sea closed in the horizon-line. So high was the perch, so distant and dreamy the prospect, that Agues felt a sensation of giddiness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... marks of honour long before the introduction of Heraldry. The helmets and crests of the Greek and Trojan warriors are beautifully described by Homer. The German heralds pay great attention to crests, and depict them as towering to a great height above the helmet. Knights who were desirous of concealing their rank, or wished particularly to distinguish themselves either in the battle field or tourney, frequently decorated their helmets with plants or ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Orcades The wanderer comes, he marvels to find there A stately palace, towering new and fair, Bedded in flowers, though unbanked by trees, A feudal dream uprisen from the seas: And when his wonder asks,—Whose magic rare Hath wrought this bright creation?—men reply, Balfour's of Balfour: large in mind and heart, Not only doth his duteous ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... altogether new to us, were anchored to the ground by bush-rope, convolvuli, and parasitical plants of every variety. The flowers of these cause the woods to appear as if hung with garlands. Pre-eminent above the others was the towering and majestic Mora, its trunk spread out into buttresses; on its top would be seen the king of the vultures expanding his immense wings to dry after the dews of night. The very peculiar and romantic cry of the bell-bird, or campanero, would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... upon him. Over the trees and the grass and the stream there was a film of red, the colour of blood, and through this film—which grew thicker and thicker as he gazed—he saw nothing but just opposite to him, across the width of the arena, towering high above everything around, the tall figure of Dea Flavia with her white dress falling straight from the shoulders, her fair hair crowned with diamonds, her face white as her gown and her lips parted as if ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... evening. The soft, plaintive notes of the night-hawk and prairie-owl mingled with the prolonged cry of the wolf in the distant foothills. The night breeze sprang up, fanning the parched desert with its cool breath. The stars came forth and the silver rim of the moon emerged above the dark towering mass of the Sierra Madres, outlining their crests in broken silvery lines as its full white disk swept into view; flooding the valley and ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... disorder. Military carriages of all sorts, and' multitudes of groups unemployed, occupied spaces that ought to have been left for manoeuvring or observation. I attribute this to the various nations who bore arms on that great day in their own manner; though the towering generalissimo of all cleared the ground, and dispersed what was unnecessary at every moment that was not ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... man a kind of waft of the sea as he threw off his great-coat and clattered his cutlass in a corner—a fine figure of a man, towering up to the rafters, and his voice held in as though it would be more comfortable to hurl an order in the teeth ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... winding, that, as he looked round bewildered, he could not even imagine how he came there. To retrace his steps, seemed quite as difficult as to proceed. The sun too had declined, or was effectually concealed by the towering rocks, for sudden darkness seemed around him. There was but one way, and Stanley prepared to scale the precipitous crag before him with more eagerness than he would a beaten path. He threw off his cloak, folded it in the smallest possible compass, and secured it like a knapsack ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... the whole western side of the town, and cleared away half a hundred ramshackle dwellings; and here were long rows of coke-ovens, and two huge rail-mills, and a plate-mill from which arose sounds like the crashing of the day of doom. Everywhere loomed rows of towering chimneys, and pillars of rolling black smoke. Little miniature railroad tracks ran crisscross about the yards, and engines came puffing and clanking, carrying blazing white ingots which the eye could not ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... which the sovereign summits of the great mountain range rise, or, as is rather suggested by the accompanying similes from the vegetable world, it may refer to the cedars growing there. Their roots are anchored deep and stretch far underground; therefore they rear towering heads, and spread broad shelves of dark foliage, safe from any blast. Our lives must be deep rooted in God if they are to be strong. Boots generally spread beneath the soil about as far as branches extend above it. There should be at least as much underground, 'hid with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... is beautiful for situation, in the midst of groves of young pine, on a considerable plateau sloping southward, overlooking the valley of a little creek with the grand old mountain towering above them on the farther side. A quiet restful spot removed from the temptations of town life, four miles from the village station; just the place for the great family home school which I found on this occasion, Wednesday ...
— American Missionary, Volume 50, No. 8, August, 1896 • Various
... Rue's eye. And, every now and then, slowing down to traverse some village square and emerging from the further limits, the great river flashed into view, sometimes glassy still under high headlands or along towering parapets of mountains, sometimes ruffled and silvery where it widened into bay or inland sea, with a glimmer of distant villages ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... direction whence we had come. The captain glanced his eye round, and then ordered the courses to be brailed up, and the main top-sail to be backed, so as to lay the ship to. I soon discovered the cause of these manoeuvres; for before the ship had quite wore round, I perceived close to us a towering mass with a refulgent appearance, which the look-out man had taken for the white sails of a ship, but which proved in reality to be a vast iceberg; and attached to it and extending a considerable distance to leeward, was a field or very ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... A ceaseless stenographic click resounded from behind an eight-foot partition; the telephone girl seemed to be engaged conjointly on a novel and a dozen plugs; the office boys were diligent with their chewing gum; all was activity. Mary felt at a loss, but the great McEwan, towering over the switchboard like a Juggernaut, instantly compelled the operator's eyes from their multiple distractions. "Good morning, Mr. McEwan—Spring ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... Gradually the towering cliffs enclosing the creek became distinguishable against the loftier background of gaunt hills. Into the gap the submarine crept with the utmost caution, until it seemed as if she were on the point of running her nose ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... we might pause to congratulate them and ourselves upon the very reasonable and natural costume which they have enjoyed for some time. The portraits of the present day are not disfigured by the towering head-gear, the long waists and hoops against which Reynolds had to contend, nor by the greater variety of hideous fashions, including the no-waist, the tight clinging skirt, the enormous bows of hair, and the balloon or leg-of-mutton sleeves, which at various periods interfered with ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... inclined to be truculent, Borrow's coat was off in a moment, and the challenge to decide there and then who was the better man flung forth. I have never seen such challenges accepted, for Borrow was robust and towering." {375a} ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... along by the river winding at its base, lifted again to the broad shoulder of the mountain, and lost only in the distant vista of death-like, overcrowning snow. Behind and above where she stood the towering woods seemed to be waiting with opened ranks to absorb her with the little cabin she had quitted, dwarfed into insignificance in the vast prospect; but nowhere was there another sign or indication of human life and habitation. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... various cheroots over them. So far we go in train, I understand, towards the coast and the wild west, then we get into tongas and creep down and under jungle day after day, an immensity of trees towering above till the wholesome light of the sky is shut out and you breathe in the damp depths of the primeval jungle, and see huge mosquitoes and diminutive aboriginal men with bows and arrows hiding from you like the beasts in the ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... Peterkin, and it was in a towering rage that he stood in the long depot, denouncing everybody, and swearing he would sell out Lubbertoo and every dumbed thing he owned in Shannondale and take his money away, 'and then see how they'd ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... cheering prospect. Through the growing gloom there pulsed the red glow of the furnaces on the sides of the hills. Great heaps of slag and dumps of cinders loomed up on each side, with the high shafts of the collieries towering above them. Huddled groups of mean, wooden houses, the windows of which were beginning to outline themselves in light, were scattered here and there along the line, and the frequent halting places were crowded with ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... bright, but with a headwind, we made slow progress. We accomplished twelve miles across Lakes Jessie and Maria and pulled up for dinner at Split Rock portage. Here was some of the grandest scenery we had yet witnessed—high, towering rocks, their crests clad with fir and birch-trees, the rapids rushing in a white foaming torrent over the rocks in two rushing, roaring streams, divided one from the other by a high, precipitous, rocky island. I made a sketch, and we had dinner, ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson |
