"Explosion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Pope of Rome and the Emperor Napoleon, both may be destroyed at the abolition of systems which they, each in his sphere, represent, notwithstanding this we labour most earnestly, that their lives may be preserved and they come into our New Jerusalem and draw millions of others into it. At the explosion of the percussion shells, in which others have been killed at the entrance to the theatre, but Napoleon's life was preserved, peculiar manifestations took place. The explanation of that mystery will ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar
... second day of the voyage the two boys got something of a scare. They heard an explosion and then a great cloud of steam spread ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... pandemonium broke loose. The crowd went mad with shouting. Hats, handkerchiefs, canes, umbrellas, flew into the air as if blown upward by the mad explosion of the crowd's enthusiasm. The ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... circumstance of being left under the command of such a man as Sennit almost as sensibly as I felt the loss of my ship. He and the mate established themselves in my cabin, within the first hour, in a way that would have brought about an explosion, had not policy forbade it, on my part. Sennit even took possession of my state-room, in which he ordered his own cot to be swung, and from which he coolly directed my mattress to be removed. As the lockers were under locks and keys, I permitted ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... saturated with nitroglycerine, the fuse lighted, and the primer dropped into the well. In about 45 seconds there was a perceptible tremor of the ground, immediately followed by a slight sound of the explosion. After an interval of a second or two there was a gurgling noise, and a magnificent black fountain shot up twice as high as the derrick, upon which all the spectators ran for shelter from the impending shower of oil and water. The well not being a flowing one, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... only warning I had before I was fighting away something scrabbling up my back. I whirled and ripped the creature away, and saw dimly that the clearing was filled to the rim with an explosion of furry white bodies. I cupped my hands and yelled, in the only trailman dialect I knew, "Hold off! We ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... rest," O'Grady said, as the officers threw themselves down on the grass, "but it is the starting that bates one. I feel that my feet have swollen so that every step I take I expect my boots to burst with an explosion. Faith, if it comes to fighting I shall take them off altogether, and swing them at my belt. How can I run after the French when ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... from the hills the Emperor gave audience to the first ambassadors of Bajazet, and opened the hostile correspondence of complaints and menaces, which fermented two years before the final explosion. Between two jealous and haughty neighbors, the motives of quarrel will seldom be wanting. The Mongol and Ottoman conquests now touched each other in the neighborhood of Erzerum and the Euphrates; nor had the doubtful limit been ascertained by time and treaty. Each of these ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of the autocracy at the top, and one saw that Russia would emerge from the War changed and purified. What one could not foresee was that, under the awakening of the people, Russia could pass, in a day, through a Revolution as profound in its character and consequences as the great explosion in France. It would be almost a miracle if so complete a Revolution, in such a vast, benighted empire, were not followed by decades of recurrent chaos and anarchy. If Russia avoids this fate, she will present a unique experience in history. ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... thing; I'd give my other leg to be rid of mine!" and in the warmth of his self-reproach the sailor struck his wooden one against the hearth with such violence as to make Alie start in terror that some fierce explosion was ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... like Mr Clay, and not all his wealth could make her think him a fit host for her young lady; and, indeed, after his explosion in the back-yard she had taken it upon herself to write to Lady Grace Cunningham, and said: 'I feel sure, my lady, that if you knew the people we are with, you would never let us stay; for not but what this is a palace fit for a king, and we eat like fighting-cocks. Still, they are not what ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... Somers and his little vessel must be, and in course of time they saw a light rapidly moving as if some one were carrying a lantern from one end of the vessel to the other. Then in less than a minute there was a blaze and a roar, and the whole harbor of Tripoli was lighted up as if there had been an explosion of fireworks. Sparks and fiery fragments flew into the air, and the waters seemed to be shaken as if by an earthquake. Then all was ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... little past midnight when, tired from the fatigues of the day, I had fallen asleep beneath a tree, an explosion, louder than any which preceded it, burst suddenly forth, and as I awoke and looked about me, I perceived the whole heavens illuminated by one bright glare, while the crashing noise of falling stones and crumbling masonry told ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and Hungary, the plundering of Bulgaria, Roumania, and Bosnia, the final subjection of China and its southern tributaries must be added to complete the tale of Mongol triumph. The sphere of Mongol influence extended beyond this large portion of the earth's surface, just as the consequence of an explosion cannot be restricted to the immediate scene of the disaster. If we may include the remarkable achievements of his descendant Baber, and of that prince's grandson Akbar, in India three centuries later, not ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... morning, August 23, 1914, the Germans began the bombardment of Fort Suarlee. This fort repeated the heroic resistance of Fort Boncelles at Liege. It held out until the afternoon of August 25. It was apparently then blown up by the explosion of its own magazine, thus again repeating the end of Fort Loncin at Liege. Meantime the Germans had succeeded in reducing Forts Cognelee ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... and dogmatists rapidly declines. Reason, common sentiment, the liberal air, the best and strongest tendencies of the people, are against them to day, and will be more against them in every coming day. Every successive explosion of the Second Adventist fanaticism will leave less of that element behind. Its rage in America, under the auspices of Miller, in the nineteenth century, was tame and feeble when compared with the terror awakened in Europe in the fifteenth century by Stofler's prediction of an approaching ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... please you, that thus far your chronicles had narrated a very different story, had your population been pressed and packed, like that of your old sire-land Dominora. Then, your great experiment might have proved an explosion; like the chemist's who, stirring his mixture, was blown by ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... David, seeing further resistance was useless, calmly drew back the bolts, to the mob's amaze, and, as it poured in, he cried: 'Back! back! They have bombs!' and rushed into the street, as if to escape the explosion. The others followed wildly, and in the panic David ran down a dark alley, and disappeared in search of a new post of defence. Though the door stood open, and the cowering inhabitants were at their mercy, the assailants, afraid to enter, remained ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... very eyes of these leaders and their hireling legal minions. The tenseness of the whole scene, the power of restraint so put forth, the volcano smouldering underfoot waiting the slightest extra jar to loose out its explosion, all are revealed in the little sentence so pregnant in its concealed dynamic meaning, Jesus "hid Himself from, them." There's an exquisite blending of restraint over them and boldness with cautious prudence. He was walking very close to ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... consternation filled the Assemblymen, who, through long experience, were convinced that Truth was too precious to be exhibited in public. Worldly wisdom came to the aid of the veteran Republican leader who wished to treat the assault as if it were the unripe explosion of youth. The callowness of his young friend must excuse him. He doubtless meant well, but his inexperience prevented him from realizing that many a reputation in public life had been shattered by just such ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... the commanding situation whence they have been accustomed to view things, they look down at themselves as only a part of the whole, and can abstract their minds from the pressure of misfortune, by the aid of its very violence. They are projected, in the explosion of events, into a different sphere, far from their former thoughts, purposes, and passions. The greatness of the change anticipates the slow effects of time and reflection:—they at once contemplate themselves from an ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... part fall to men who in some measure deserve them, or who at least are not conspicuously undeserving of them and unfit for them. So that it is almost impossible that the great news should elicit merely some unworthy explosion of gratified self-conceit. The feeling would in almost every case be deeper and worthier. One would like to be sitting at breakfast with a truly good man, when the letter from the Prime-Minister comes ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... will try to escape by; therefore, Mr. Herbert, you will lead your men round here with four scaling ladders. You will post them along at the foot of the wall, and when you hear the explosion of the powder bag or an outburst of musketry firing, you will scale the wall and advance to meet me, keeping as wide a front as possible, so as to prevent fugitives from passing you and getting out here. The cavalry will cut off those who make ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... to-day, and the immense and various constructive forces at work are saturated now with the conception of evolution, of secular progressive development, as opposed to the revolutionary idea. Only a very vast and terrible war explosion can, I think, change this ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... would have either destroyed or succeeded in removing our car. Nor were we wrong, for just as we breasted the hill that brought the scene of yesterday's engagement into view, we saw the smoke of an explosion and the men running back into the village. We cleared the village with the help of a squadron of the Twenty-First cavalry, and found that the car had been almost freed during the night. It was a bad wreck, but we were able ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... more effect than such things generally have in face of a suppressed revolution and on the night of March 15th, 1883, a dynamite explosion took place at the Local Government Board. Sir Charles, however, did not take a very ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... partly due to their individual insignificance, though their combined effect may be very powerful when a multitude work in the same direction. Moreover, a trifling pressure at the right spot suffices to release a hair-trigger and thereby to cause an explosion; similarly, with personal and social events, a trifling accident ...
— Noteworthy Families (Modern Science) • Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster
... to splutter and all watched it as if fascinated, and the girls put their hands to their ears in anticipation of a fearful explosion. Then came a tiny flash, a strange clicking, and off flew the top of the cannon cracker, sending a shower of confetti of various colors in ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht • Edward Stratemeyer
... her as the Devil. To prevent an explosion, I was obliged daily to represent to him that he would dishonour himself, as well as his son, by exposing her conduct, and would infallibly bring upon himself the King's displeasure. As no person ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... the vessel," the E11 goes on, "smoke was observed to the eastward." It was a steamer who had seen the explosion and was running for Rodosto. E11 chased her till she tied up to Rodosto pier, and then torpedoed her where she lay—a heavily laden store-ship piled high with packing-cases. The water was shallow here, and though E11 bumped along the bottom, which ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... explosion of derisive mirth on the seat above them. "Ladies," the driver looked down with red cheeks and watery eyes, "if you expect to see 'Rome' Wellington's people, you 'd better drive round 'till eleven o'clock. And at that they won't have the sleep ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... the story varies. For some reason the fuse used for the guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before the explosion destroyed the howitzer. When it came it came very thoroughly, but it was a weary time in coming. Then our men descended the hill, but the Boers were already crowding in upon them from either side. The English ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the part of incendiaries in town, they set fire to the building containing a great quantity of our ammunition, shells, etc. The consequence was a tremendous explosion, which broke half the windows, and many of the frames, in town, rattled down ceilings, unsettled foundations, and spread general dismay. Women and children screamed, and rushed like maniacs into the streets, and fell fainting with terror there. For several hours the shells continued to burst, ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... monster Truphemy: "In a hall," says he, "of the Palace of Justice, opposite that in which I sat, several unfortunate persons persecuted by the faction were upon trial, every deposition tending to their crimination was applauded with the cries of 'Vive le Roi.' Three times the explosion of this atrocious joy became so terrible, that it was necessary to send for reinforcements from the barracks, and two hundred soldiers were often unable to restrain the people. On a sudden the shouts and cries of 'Vive ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... by submarine cables. It is easy to see how the torpedo may be so arranged that when struck by a ship the electric current will be closed, and, if the battery on shore is connected at the same instant, an explosion will take place; on the other hand, if the battery on shore is disconnected a friendly ship may pass in safety over the torpedoes. Many ingenious contrivances have also been devised by which the torpedo may be made to signal back to the shore station either that it has been struck or that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... circle. He is not emphatic; he is typical, but not individual; he seeks seclusion in the mass. It is not so with the more dynamic personality of the over-sea citizen. For a time at least he remains in the old civilisation an entity, an isolated, unabsorbed fact which has capacities for explosion. All this was in my mind when The Trespasser was written, and its converse was 'The Pomp of the Lavilettes', which showed the invasion of the life of the outer land by the representative ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... got full discipline of your nerves, just the same. You're a little afraid of the sound and the explosion, and you flinch back—just a little movement of your hand—when you pull the trigger. If it is only an eighth of an inch here, it's quite a miss by the time the bullet gets out there. Try again, but convince yourself first that you won't flinch. You won't jerk or throw ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Ranger lit the fuse, the explosion came with the first gush of inflammable liquid from the Fowler farm at Burkburnett. Then, indeed, a conflagration occurred, the comprehensive story of which can never be written, owing to the fact that no human mind could follow the swift ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... treachery on board resulting in the ship being taken over by German plotters, with the prediction that she would emerge from oblivion as a well-armed "raider" cruising in the North Atlantic; then the generally accepted theory that she had been swiftly, suddenly rent asunder by a mighty explosion in her hold. All opinions, all theories, all conjectures, however, revolved about a single fear;—that she was the victim of a German plot. But in the course of events there came a day when the German Navy, ever boastful of its ignoble deeds, issued the positive ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... pirate. However, only one ball took effect; it touched the end of the bowsprit, and sent the jib-boom into the air in splinters. Manton applied the match to the brass gun almost at the same moment, and the heavy ringing roar of her explosion seemed like a prolonged echo of the broadside. The gun was well aimed; but the schooner had already passed so far behind the point that the ball struck a projecting part of the cliff, dashed it into atoms, and, glancing upwards, passed ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... discouraged by this failure, nor by the discovery of its secret printing-press by the police, the Executive Committee next tried to attain its object by an explosion of dynamite in the Winter Palace when the Imperial family were assembled at dinner. The execution was entrusted to a certain Halturin, one of the few revolutionists of peasant origin. As an exceptionally clever carpenter and polisher, he easily found regular employment in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... there are many explanations, the most plausible being that they are caused by the explosion of the species of stone known as the geode, fragments of which are frequently found among the mountains. The geode has a hollow cell within, lined with beautiful ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... bodies of Englishmen? It is almost too absurd to be named even as a casual supposition. So far has fraternity spread. Now, if we go on perfecting dynamite shells which can destroy one thousand men by one explosion; if we increase the range of our guns from twelve miles to twenty, and fight our pieces according to directions signalled from a balloon, we shall be going the very best way to make all men rise with one spasm of disgust, and say, "No more ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... we have added to this condition an unusual tax in a long run of hot weather, business worries or unusual mental, physical or digestive strain, following which acute intestinal indigestion manifests with a sudden explosion; or there takes place a transformation of the contents of the bowels into an intense putrefaction which infects a portion of the mucosa that has been rendered susceptible by pressure from fecal impaction, concretions, or any ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... the matter. There were two more soldiers at the door of the state-room, and their muskets seemed not to be loaded, for they never fired upon us, and they were shot while trying to fix their bayonets. Then we rushed on into the captain's cabin, but as we pushed open the door there was an explosion from within, and there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of the Atlantic which was pinned upon the table, while the chaplain stood with a smoking pistol in his hand at his elbow. The two mates had both been seized ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... amidst all the events which have lately smiled upon my ambition, none is so favourable as that which assures me of your countenance and friendship. In truth, I require some armed alliance. Would you believe it, our friends, so bold in private meetings, yet shrink from a public explosion. They fear not the patricians, but the soldiery of the patricians; for it is the remarkable feature in the Italian courage, that they have no terror for each other, but the casque and sword of a foreign hireling make ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... required to produce a perfect plot without doing violence to the ordinary events of an every-day life. It is all a matter of arrangement. Mrs. Gaskell can make a perfect little plot out of a sick lad and a canary bird; and another can do nothing with half a dozen murders and an explosion; and of arranging my materials so as to build up a story, I was quite incapable. It is still my great deficiency; but in those days I did not even understand that the attempt was desirable. Criticism was a more thorough thing in those times than ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a crash and a splintered debris—plates that rolled like hoops to the four corners of the room, shivering as they landed; a great ringing explosion of heavy stoneware, and herself drenched with ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... convenient distance. At a certain point during the conference Rosenblatt would leave the cave on the pretext of securing a paper left in his cabin. A pile of brushwood at some distance from the cave would be burning. On his way to his cabin Rosenblatt would fire the train and wait the explosion in his own shack, the accidental nature of which could easily be explained under the circumstances. In order to remove suspicion from him, Rosenblatt was to appear during the early evening in a railway camp some distance away. The plot was so conceived and the details so arranged ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... flame such as a lantern, candle or match near a battery and do not go near the battery with a lighted cigar, cigarette or pipe, especially while the battery is charging. Hydrogen and oxygen gases form a highly explosive mixture. An explosion will not only injure the battery, but will probably disfigure the one carrying the light, or ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... after the founding of the colony and mission the sudden explosion of a conspiracy, which for a long time had been secretly preparing, revealed the true value of the allegiance of the Indians to the Spanish government and of their conversion to Christ. Confounding in a common hatred the missionaries and the tyrannous conquerors, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... accidents of which I had read; when men unfastened their wire-gauze lamps, so that they might do that which was forbidden in a mine, smoke their pipes. The match struck or the opened lamp set fire to the gas, when there was an awful explosion, and after that the terrible dangers of the after-damp, that fearful foul air which no man could breathe ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... struck, against the foreign domination of a people alien in faith as in blood from Mohammedan and Buddhist and Brahmin, and apt to treat all alike with the scorn of superiority. A trivial incident, which was held no trifle by the distrustful Sepoys, proved to be the spark that kindled a vast explosion. The cartridges supplied for use with the Enfield rifle, introduced into India in 1856, were greased; and the end would have to be bitten off when the cartridge was used. A report was busily circulated among ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... began to anticipate the scene now so immediately impending more uncomfortably than before. The 'notice' was, indeed, so outrageous in its spirit, and so intolerable in its language, that, knowing something of Stanley's wild and truculent temper, he began to feel a little nervous about the explosion he was about ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... question of national Churches and the monarch's right of interfering in their administration. This was tantamount to flinging a burning torch into the powder-magazine of Huguenot and Lutheran grievances. In order to save themselves from the disaster of explosion, they urged harmonious action with the Papacy upon their envoys. The Spanish Court, through Pescara, De Luna, and D'Avalos, wrote dispatches of like tenor. It was now debated whether a congress of Crowned heads ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... at Lord Dreever enlightened her. That miserable creature was wearing the air of a timid child about to pull a large cracker. He seemed to be bracing himself up for an explosion. ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the European war, avowedly dreaded by Liverpool,[513] was thought not impossible by Castlereagh and Wellington; while conditions in France already threatened an explosion, such as Bonaparte occasioned in the succeeding March. "It is impossible," wrote Wellington, "to conceive the distress in which individuals of all descriptions are. The only remedy is the revival of Bonaparte's system of war and plunder; and it is evident that cannot be adopted during the reign ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... encampments. I watched, late one afternoon, the young engineer officer as he connected the wires for the night—perhaps his hand trembled as he made connections, or perhaps some mistake was made. Anyway, there was an explosion. Great masses of desert sand shot into the air like a cloud, and when it fell again, the mangled body of the engineer fell with it; but the mines were laid, connections made for the night, just the ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... ages, and a movement towards that ideal of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity which has in all times been the ideal of the popular masses. Fettered in its free development by despotism and by the narrow selfishness of the privileged classes, this movement, being at the same time favoured by an explosion of popular indignation, engendered the Great Revolution which had to force its way through the midst of a thousand obstacles both ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... Elster open, and the retreat was consequently retarded. Leipzig was stormed by the Prussians, and, while the French rearguard was still battling on that side of the bridge, Napoleon fled, and had no sooner crossed the bridge than it was blown up with a tremendous explosion, owing to the inadvertence of a subaltern, who is said to have fired the train too hastily. The troops engaged on the opposite bank were irremediably lost. Prince Poniatowsky plunged on horseback into the Elster in ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... to block our going on, I take it," ventured Tubby, watching Anthony, who showed evidences of having been considerably excited by the explosion, though Tubby could not tell whether it was fear that influenced the man, or an overmastering desire to join the army, and engage in some of this obstructive ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... and "broke in" an animal with a whip would have invented the explosion engine instead could he have foreseen the curse he was laying on his race. For men and women learnt thereby to enslave and break in their children by the same means. These children, grown up, knew no other methods of training. Finally the evil that was ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... sufficiently enigmatical; but her meaning had at length, more through his own reflection than her exposition, dawned upon Duncan. He leaped up with a Gaelic explosion of concentrated force, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... eyes this scene of activity, as city idlers watch the laborers at work in a cellar excavation, a shell burst on the crowded hillside, perhaps five hundred yards away. There was a crash like the explosion of a giant cannon-cracker; the ground leaped into flame and dust. A few minutes afterward I saw an ambulance go tearing up ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... resembled that of a thousand furnaces. Ever and anon, it was broken by a sound like thunder, occasioned by the fall of some mighty edifice. Then there would come a quick succession of reports like the discharge of artillery, followed by a shower of fiery flakes and sparks blown aloft, like the explosion of some stupendous firework. Mixed with the roaring of the flames, the thunder of falling roofs, the cracking of timber, was a wild hubbub of human voices, that sounded afar off like a dismal wail. In spite of its terror, the appearance of the fire was at that time beautiful beyond ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wind did not go down with the sun. It seemed to increase with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking the willows round us like straws. Curious sounds accompanied it sometimes, like the explosion of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the island in great flat blows of immense power. It made me think of the sounds a planet must make, could we only hear it, ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the morning. I am taking my tea while idly turning over the leaves of a book, when the noise of an explosion causes me to suddenly raise my head. Explosions are not of rare occurrence at the fortress of X——, of which the outer wall encloses several hundred barrack rooms and places where the garrison are exercised, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... behind Mike, but it didn't give. Mike's apartment was reasonably soundproof, but it wasn't built to take the kind of explosion that would shake the door that Mike the Angel had just closed. It was a two-inch-thick slab of armor steel on heavy, precision-bearing hinges. So was every other door in the suite. It wasn't quite a bank-vault door, but it would do. Any explosion ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... danced with malice and mischief, but her mouth shut like a vice. Patton leaned forward on his stick, shaken with a sort of inward explosion; his plaintive wife laughed under her breath till she must needs sigh because laughter tired her old bones. Mrs. Brunt gurgled gently. And finally Mrs. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hand for silence as a strange, low sound rolled out from the works. Was it the roar of fire or an explosion of steam? But no sign of fire followed, and nothing shook or broke. Only there came a second roar, louder than the first, and then the great gates of the great yard burst open, and out poured ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... The only fire-arms on board were a pair of swivels of one-inch calibre; but it is quite surprising how much the sound is lost in foggy weather, as the report was heard but at a very short distance. The sound from the explosion of gunpowder is so instantaneous that the effect of the small guns was not so good as either the blowing of a horn or the tolling of a bell, which afforded a more constant and steady direction for ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it was still several cable-lengths from the bark I saw the group upon her forward deck separate, and a long cannon was revealed. Its muzzle was slewed a little over the port bow and the next instant it spoke. The explosion sharply echoed across the sea, audible to my ears despite the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... applied to the rock the piston of a cylinder made to rotate with great rapidity by the pressure of air reduced to one-twentieth of its ordinary volume; then when they had made holes sufficiently deep, they withdrew the machines and charged the mines with dynamite. Immediately after the explosion, streams of wholesome air were liberated which dissipated the smoke; then the debris was cleared away, and the borers returned to their place. The same work was thus carried on day and night, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... readers are so impatient with Enoch Arden, is because Tennyson refused to satisfy the all but universal love of a fight. The conditions for a terrific "mix-up" were all there, and just when the spectator is looking for an explosion of wrath and blood, the poet turns away into the more heroic but less thrilling scene of self-conquest. Mr. Masefield may be trusted never to disappoint his readers in such fashion. It might be urged that whereas Tennyson gave a picture of man ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... thing in it. Kerosene is the oil most largely used for lamps; and the light from either a student-lamp, or the lamp to which a "student-burner" has been applied, is the purest and steadiest now in use. A few simple rules for the care of lamps will prevent, not only danger of explosion, but much breakage of chimneys, ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... boom—a deep murmur as of ten hundred million million moths humming away on a still evening in autumn! On a nearer view it is more like a Tower-of-Babel concern, with its click and clatter. The explosion of voices, the confused clamour, the dreadful disorder—cars, wagons, omnibuses—it makes you feel religious and rather cold down the back. What a needle in a haystack a poor girl must be here if there is nobody above to keep ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... in suspense. The action was like touching flame to powder; the resulting explosion was all but simultaneous. With a snort, the head went high in air, tossing the grain about like seed, and down the inclined plane of the neck thus formed the long-legged Benjamin slid to the slippery back. Once there, an instinct told him to ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... at first thought of postponing its publication. On the one hand, it seems as though the dreams of a spiritual renaissance, which promised so fairly but a little time ago, had perished in the sudden explosion of brute force. On the other hand, the thoughts of the English race are now turned, and rightly, towards the most concrete forms of action—struggle and endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and long-continued effort—rather ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... and the Protector more closely together about this time was the explosion of a new plot against the Protector's life. At the centre of the plot was that "wretched creature, an apostate from religion and all honesty," of whom Cromwell had spoken in his opening speech as going between Charles II. and the King of Spain, and ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Southwell undertook the management of the mortar himself, and soon succeeded in dropping a shell upon the roof of the building, which proved, as he had suspected, to be in use as a magazine. There was a tremendous explosion, the chapel was shattered into fragments, Caraccioli and three other officers were killed, and a great breach was blown ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... he always does, whenever he hears the sound of eating," said Germain. "The explosion of a cannon would not rouse him, but if you work your jaws near him, he opens his eyes ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... explosion and she was not disappointed. The hot blood rushed to the man's bloated cheeks. His eyes lit furiously. He had looked for prompt acquiescence. It had been his habit to browbeat the woman who had followed him throughout a long career of crime, and it drove him half ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... story clearly enough. They had been aroused from their sleep by the sound of an explosion, which had been followed a minute later by a second one. They slept in adjoining rooms, and Mrs. King had rushed in to Saunders. Together they had descended the stairs. The door of the study was open and a candle was burning upon the table. Their master lay upon his face in the centre of the room. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Julia; she flung her book aside and sat up erect in bed. Her heart was thundering with fear; the silence of the house was like that that follows an explosion. ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... rarer than men; but then, if I were a woman myself, I daresay I should hold the reverse; and at least we all enter more or less wholly into one or other of these camps. A man who delights women by his feminine perceptions will often scatter his admirers by a chance explosion of the under side of man; and the most masculine and direct of women will some day, to your dire surprise, draw out like a telescope into successive lengths of personation. Alas! for the man, knowing her to be at heart more candid than himself, who shall ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ship. It was a crashing shot, but it had come too late to serve justice, or to wreck the ship of mystery; for Karl had let the hydrogen into the cylinders unchecked, and with a mighty rush of flame, and a terrific explosion, the craft of gold gave her "Vale!" And in a cascade of fire, lighting the sea for many miles, and making as day the newly-fallen night, the golden citadel hissed over the water for one moment, then plunged ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... sight of his country's flag in a foreign port, the sound that we hear is but the conclusion or completion of the series of happenings. It is not the initial happening at all. On the instant when his eyes caught sight of the flag something took place inside the man's nature. This spiritual explosion was telegraphed to the mind, the mind, in turn, issued a command to the body, and the sound that was noted was the final result. In a general way, education is the process of training mind and body to obey ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... second Parisian International Exhibition, 1867, an atmospheric engine, invented by Otto & Langen about this time, was shown. In this engine a free piston was used in a vertical cylinder, the former being thrown up by the force of the explosion. The only work done on the up-stroke was that to overcome the weight of the piston and piston rod, and the latter being made in the form of a rack, engaged with a toothed wheel on the axle as the piston descended, causing the ...
— Gas and Oil Engines, Simply Explained - An Elementary Instruction Book for Amateurs and Engine Attendants • Walter C. Runciman
... was finally roasted whole in the bull-ring, bonfires and public illuminations concluding the feast. On the Bank was exhibited a magnificent transparency, an original design, showing the Queen in a crimson glory which rose from the smoke produced by the explosion of a Green Bag, underneath which was represented Majocci in a fright, saying, "Non mi ricordo" his invariable answer at trial. In the Corn Market was displayed another huge Green Bag fixed upon a pole and bearing the inscription: "Green ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... paying off, in which case the flames would have been swept forwards by the wind; but fortunately the after-braces were burnt through, and the main-yard swung round, which kept the ship's head to wind. About nine P. M., a fearful explosion took place in the port magazine, arising, no doubt, from the one or two barrels of powder which it had been impossible to remove. By this time the ship was one body of flame, from the stern to the main rigging, and thinking it scarcely possible to save her, Captain ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... uncomfortable rumors, started doubtless by Carhart's talk, shivered through the ship, its vibrations even reaching the widow lying awake in her cabin. This said that some hundreds of barrels of turpentine had broken loose and were smashing everything below. If any one of them rolled into the furnaces an explosion would follow which would send them all to eternity. That this absurdity was immediately denied by the purser, who asserted with some vehemence that there was not a gallon of turpentine aboard, did not wholly allay the excitement, nor did it stifle the nervous anxiety which had now taken possession ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the Ilsenstein shepherd, is obtained, according to Pliny, by stopping up the hole in a tree where a woodpecker keeps its young. The bird flies away, and presently returns with the springwort, which it applies to the plug, causing it to shoot out with a loud explosion. The same account is given in German folk-lore. Elsewhere, as in Iceland, Normandy, and ancient Greece, the bird is an eagle, a swallow, an ostrich, ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... Ichthyologer assured them that he had put some eels' eggs into the head waters of the Sacramento River not two weeks previously. But the country was very beautiful at that time of the year, and the people would not wait. So when the explosion really occurred, there wasn't anybody in the vicinity to witness it. It was a stupendous explosion all the same, as the unhappy gymnotus discovered to ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... cc. of carbon monoxide and 50 cc. of oxygen was exploded in a eudiometer, (a) What gases remained in the tube after the explosion? (b) What was the volume ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... of the train had tired me to such an extent that I placed a pillow on the ledge of the open window, and was fast asleep with my head half outside the carriage, when I woke up startled by the sound of an explosion. I found myself covered with quantities of debris of rock. A huge stone, as big as a man's head or bigger, had been thrown with great force at the passing train by the strikers, and had hit the side of my window only ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... situation that the Med Service should have caught and cleaned up generations ago! But it's not only a Med Service obligation; it's a current mess! Before I could begin to get at the basic problem, those idiots on Orede—It'd happened before I reached Weald! An emotional explosion triggered by a ship full of dead men that ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... for the doctor had just glanced at his watch to see if it was time to repeat the medicine under whose influence he was keeping his patient, when all at once there was a tremendous shock as if there had been an explosion, a crashing sound heard for the moment above the tempest's din, and then the doctor was conscious of a change, and he knew what it meant. The thrill and vibration of the screw had ceased, and that could only mean one thing, the falling off of the propeller or the breaking ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... a gentleman!" she flared back at him, like an explosion of one of the cylinders of her car. "He would never dream of acting as you are now, even if he is a ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... movement no longer appertains exclusively to the higher classes, to the ecclesiastics, or to the members of the Parliaments; vaguely as yet, and retarded by apathy in the government as well as by disorder in affairs, it propagates and extends itself imperceptibly pending that signal and terrible explosion of good and evil which is to characterize the close of the eighteenth century. Decadence and progress are going on confusedly in the minds as well as in the material condition of the nation. They must be distinguished and traced without ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the story of the burial of Montcalm in a grave partially formed by the explosion of a bomb, rests only on the assertion in his epitaph, composed in 1761 by the Academy of Inscriptions at the instance of Bougainville. There is, however, other evidence of the fact. The naval captain Foligny, writing on the spot at the time of the burial, says in his Diary, under the date of ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... 31 had deplorable consequences with regard to the armistice negotiations. This explosion of sedition alarmed the German authorities. They lost confidence in the power of the National Defence to carry out such terms as might be stipulated, and, finally, Bismarck refused to allow Paris to be revictualled ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... there was intense silence as the picture showed the funeral of some well-known man of the East, when there came a sudden splutter from the operator's booth in the back gallery. This was followed by several flashes of light and then a small explosion. ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... of strenuous toil and adventure John Smith went back to London. An explosion of powder, whether accidental or intentional was never known, wounded him seriously just before he left Jamestown, and he did not recover ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... up from the bed of the ocean, in tremendous explosions, vast quantities of pulverized rock mixed with clay, which, slowly subsiding, and covering up, as it sank, shells, stone-lilies, and trilobites, formed the Silurian rocks. A second explosion brought up the vents of the volcanoes to the level of the ocean; and while the Old Red Sandstone, thus produced, and charged with fish killed by the heat, was settling on their flanks, they themselves, as if seized by black vomit, began to disgorge ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... little more is known. It has been said that he studied under Karel Fabritius (also of Delft), but if this is so the term of pupil-age must have been very brief, for Fabritius did not reach Delft (from Rembrandt's studio) until 1652, when Vermeer was twenty, and he was killed in an explosion in 1654. One sees the influence of Fabritius, if at all, most strongly in the beautiful early picture at The Hague, in the grave, grand manner, of Diana? but the influence of Italy is even more noticeable. Fabritius's "Siskin" is hung beneath the new Girl's ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... the undermentioned, hereinafter called the Accused—the Assured, I mean—has paid blank pounds, shillings and pence Premium or Consideration ... to insure him/her from loss or damage by Lightning, Explosion, Earthquake, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... means of general comparison, especially with the practice at the experimental battery at Washington. For shells, the distances should suit the ranges of their fuzes, or time of burning, that the degree of certainty of explosion in direct or ricochet fire may ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... some hours when they were suddenly aroused by the sound of a terrific explosion. Instantly they sprang to their feet, wide awake, and Mother De Smet came rushing from the cabin with the babies screaming in ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... dispute with an awkward bicyclist, in which it appeared he had become involved, Marcus quivered with rage. "'Say that again,' says I to um. 'Just say that once more, and'"—here a rolling explosion of oaths—"'you'll go back to the city in the Morgue wagon. Ain't I got a right to cross a street even, I'd like to know, without being run down—what?' I say it's outrageous. I'd a knifed him in another minute. It was an outrage. I ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... and chameleon-like, Jerry reflected her tepor, her supineness and femininity. She recounted his virtues with pride, while I questioned her, hoping against hope to hear of some prank, the breaking of window-panes, the burning of a haystack or the explosion of a giant cracker under the cook. But all to ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... body by sneezing, are considered; the slightness of the cause must excite no little astonishment; for this action is occasioned by the muscles of the scapula, abdomen, diaphragm, thorax, lungs, &c. and if the sneezing continues, an universal explosion of the liquids ensues: tears, mucus, saliva, and urine, are excreted. Thus, without any moist, cold, hot, dry, sulphur, salt, or any other internal or external application, an involuntary motion of all the solids and fluids is produced by a feather touching, in the slightest manner, the inside ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... was given, and then as if by magic a great gun was directed towards the distant object. A few seconds later there was a tremendous explosion, and the windmill ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... came to what had been the center of the savanna, I came across something that had survived the blast, being unearthed from its previous burial hole by the force of the anionizer's explosion. It was a two foot by two foot box, made of a strange metallic substance with an intricate etching along its top. Written there in its center ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... a disappointed storekeeper, whose small offerings were thrown out, would inveigh bitterly against the directors, calling hard names, and prophesying "a grand explosion one of these days;" but these invectives and predictions hardly ever found a repetition beyond the narrow limits ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... upon his lips. In that close-cropped head of his, along with many other such secrets, was that of the cause of the catastrophe in Havana harbour. In all the chancellories of Europe, it was agreed that the Maine had been destroyed by the spontaneous explosion of her own magazines. Four men knew the truth, and Delcasse was one of them. There had been a fifth, but ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... automatically-generated control messages! Transformed by this stroke of programming ineptitude into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to {spam} news.admin.policy with a recursive explosion ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... am mistaken the old gentleman cowered before the directness of his daughter's gaze,—and endeavoured to conceal the fact by an explosion of passion. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... terrible voice, which the echoes of the vault gave back from side to side. "Did I not give thee up my soul that thou mightest not compass my death? Hark ye! thus die my slavery and all our secrets!" The explosion of his pistol half swallowed up the last word, and with a single groan the traitor fell on the floor, pierced through the brain—then there was a dead and grim hush as the smoke rolled slowly along the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... he let it run past the designated floor. Blount swore impatiently, and instead of waiting to be carried back, darted out and ran to the stairway. When he reached the lower corridor and was hurrying toward his suite in the corner of the building, there was a dull crash, as of a muffled explosion, and two or three of the glass doors in the street-fronting suite were shattered. Blount quickened his pace to a run, let himself in by means of his latch-key, and, cautiously opening his desk, groped in an inner drawer for the revolver which ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Horracks was killed by the explosion of his gun at the head of Spencer's Gulf soon after the start ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... I could?" Dr. Lavendar said. "I have a notion to try it. I don't know that I'll succeed. But suppose they met, and things shouldn't run smoothly, and there should be an explosion—would there ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... between the sections during twenty-five years, had effected every portion of the Federal system, and created conditions favorable to a violent explosion. Sectional differences of a political and industrial complexion, forty years had sufficed to develop. Sectional differences of a moral and social character forty years had also sufficed to generate. To kindle all those differences, all that mass of combustible feelings and forces into ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... vos cotes l'objet de plus d'une tentative d'assassinat; independamment de cela, je dois vous confier que des complots serieux se fomentent dans l'armee. J'ai l'[oe]il ouvert de ce cote et je compte bien d'une maniere ou d'autre prevenir toute explosion; le moyen sera peut-etre la guerre. La encore il y a de grandes chances de ruine pour moi. Vous voyez donc bien que vous ne devez pas avoir de scrupules pour partager mon sort, les mauvaises chances ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... time that this has happened to your lecturers, and it ought to be your last. It certainly will be the last for me." Then followed the whole incident, including the Immaculate's protest about my being late, my explosion, etc., etc., even to ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an explosion of laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the shoulder—an action which caused a slight frown on the part of Charles. "You always would have your jest, Monsieur the American! Tease me and scare me as much as you like: I like these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. Hold that," he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... himself to be persuaded, the more easily, no doubt, because after his explosion he must have perceived that his pride itself stood in the way of what his pride had threatened. He contented himself with his wife's promise that she would never again present that offensive view of the case, and she did not remain ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... unlucky whipster showed an early propensity to mischief, which he gratified in a small way, by playing tricks upon the frequenters of the Wild Goose; putting gunpowder in their pipes, or squibs in their pockets, and astonishing them with an explosion, while they sat nodding round the fire-place in the bar-room; and if perchance a worthy burgher from some distant part of Pavonia had lingered until dark over his potation, it was odds but that young Vanderscamp would slip a briar under his horse's tail, as he mounted, and send him ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... soleil est beau quand tout frais il se leve, Comme une explosion nous lancant son bonjour! —Bienheureux celui-la qui peut avec amour Saluer son ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... Serapis and had dropped a hand grenade. The grenade plunged through a hatchway and fell upon some loose powder and a row of charges for the cannon that had been placed on deck. The roar of a terrific explosion followed, and Englishmen, screaming for quarter, could be seen running through the smoke and flame of their own vessel with every vestige of clothing burned from their bodies. The battle was ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... assault on her adopted creed to provoke in Madame de Chantelle an explosion of pious indignation; but to his surprise she merely murmured: "I don't know what ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Charles went from one window to the other, drawing down the heavy linen shades. Then he crossed to the other side, the shady side, and opened the blinds. There was a general exclamation of joy—a formidable explosion of gaiety. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola |
