"Torrid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taken her place between her father and mother, the wise woman lifted her cloak from the floor, and threw it again around her. Then everybody saw her, and Agnes felt as if a soft dewy cloud had come between her and the torrid rays of a vertical sun. The wise woman turned to ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... its extreme of sweetness pressed out beneath the torrid sunbeams as under flaming hoofs. Lucina passed between the wilting ranks and flattened beds of flowers, and the breath of them in her face was like the rankest sweetness of love, when its delicacy, even for itself, is all gone. The pungent odor of box was like a shameless ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed—in breeze or gale or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity—the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... bethought themselves of coasting all Africa, and one part of Arabia and Persia; by taking this compass, the Indies are distant from Portugal about four thousand leagues, and the passengers are constrained to suffer twice the scorching heats of the torrid zone, in going under the equinoctial line, which divides Africa ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... the general temperature, this sense is relative and is much modified by habit, for what is cold to an inhabitant of the torrid zone would be warm to one accustomed ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... of the opera that Gaston could recall had been played and sung twice. The convert sat in his chair no longer, but stood singing by the piano. The potent swing and flow of rhythms, the torrid, copious inspiration of the South, mastered him. "Verdi has grown," he cried. "Verdi is become a giant." And he swayed to the beat of the melodies, and waved an enthusiastic arm. He demanded every note. Why did not Gaston remember it all? But ...
— Padre Ignacio - Or The Song of Temptation • Owen Wister
... in the climate. At first the temperature of the earth was much warmer than now, and uniform in all parallels of latitude, as is shown by the fossil remains. Now we have a great diversity of climate, whether we contrast the polar with the torrid regions, or the different seasons of the temperate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... one, but ten thousand of the most stupendous miracles, and entirely unnecessary ones. This, the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith saw, when he said, "We cannot represent to ourselves the idea of all land animals being brought into one small spot, from the polar regions, the torrid zone, and all the other climates of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, Australia, and the thousands of islands,—their preservation and provision, and the final disposal of them,—without bringing up the idea of miracles more stupendous ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton
... us to the black water-pit lying deep and dark at the foot of the rocky hill. Ten fathoms deep was it and full to the brim with icy water. Many times had we drank from it, for though all around the land lay parched in the torrid heat the black water-pit was always full to the brim. . ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... from here and take a trip south we find it constantly growing warmer. At last we come to a place where it is extremely warm in both summer and winter. That region is called the Torrid Zone because "torrid" means "hot." This hot zone extends right around the middle part of the earth. The very hottest part through the middle is the Equator. Notice on the drawing that we live in a zone between the very cold region, ...
— Where We Live - A Home Geography • Emilie Van Beil Jacobs
... his voice, the same yet not the same, "elevation does not always give coolness, and one may be torrid and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... of the room was open. A torrid heat entered along with the clouds of dust; the flames of the four candles were flickering in the direction of the immobile corpse, and upon the cloth which covered the face, the closed eyes, the two hands stretched out, small flies alighted, came, went, and careered ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... deep despair summoned death to their relief. Men began to look on each other with eyes of enmity" (i. 105). "The sun exhibited signs of decay, its surface turned pale, and its beams were frigid. The northern nations dreaded perishing by intense cold ... and fled to the torrid zone to court the sun's beneficial rays" (i. 120). "The reign of Time was over, ages of Eternity were going to begin; but at the same moment Hell shrieked with rage, and the sun and stars were extinguished. The gloomy night of chaos enveloped ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... weird Druid held his mistletoe; There, for the scorched son of the sand, coiled bright, The torrid snake was hissing sharp and low; And there the Western savage ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... Revolution, like a torrid stream flowing undiscernible amid the waters of a tumbling sea, is a new way of understanding life. The social changes desired by the various assailants of the old order are only the expression of a deeper ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... scorn'd by Pallas; and of old Rejoiced the virgin, from the brazen prow Of Athens o'er AEgina's gloomy surge, [X] 150 To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming all The Persian's promised glory, when the realms Of Indus and the soft Ionian clime, When Libya's torrid champaign and the rocks Of cold Imaues join'd their servile bands, To sweep the sons of Liberty from earth. In vain; Minerva on the bounding prow Of Athens stood, and with the thunder's voice Denounced her terrors ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... his fiercest rays, Parching with heat intense the torrid zone: No fanning western breeze his rage allays; No passing cloud, with kindly shade o'erthrown, His place usurps; but Phoebus reigns alone, In this unfriendly clime a woodland shade, Gloomy and dark with woven boughs o'ergrown, Shed chearful verdure on the ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... have every horror of the heathen religion incongruously mingled with every horror of the Christian—gorgons and harpies and chimaeras dire are tormenting the wicked under the eyes of the Madonna; centaurs are shooting and prodding them before the God of Love from the torrid banks of fiery lakes; furies with snaky heads are directing their punishments; Minos and AEacus are superintending their tasks; and, in the centre of all, a huge Moloch demon is devouring them bodily in his fiery jaws, with hideous tusks as of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... of the Equator has had also something to do with staying the onward march of civilization from without. The world learned first to think only of the enervating influence of a torrid sun upon the inhabitants of the great continent, and this ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... that the sun shines nowhere on an equal area which combines so many of the conditions requisite for the support of an opulent and prosperous people. Lying between 18 deg. and 49 deg. north latitude, her climate is alike exempt from the fierce heat of the torrid zone and the killing cold of the frigid regions. There is not one of her provinces in which wheat, rice, and cotton, the three staples of food and clothing, may not be cultivated with more or less success; but in the southern half wheat gives place to rice, while in the north cotton ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... We have made repeated and resolute incursions in various directions into his torrid zone, but have always come out greatly scorched and stunned and affronted. Never before did we come across such an amount of energetic and tremendous words, going "sounding on their dim and perilous way," like a cataract at midnight—not flowing like a stream, nor leaping like a clear waterfall, ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... A drummer on the dais was sounding the long-roll crescendo. At the culminating crash the lights were everywhere darkened save for an orange-coloured spot-light set in the ceiling immediately above the dancing floor. Into that circular field of torrid glare bounded a woman wearing little more than an abbreviated kirtle of grass strands with a few festoons of artificial flowers. Applause roared out to her, the orchestra sounded the opening bars ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... km, Somalia 58 km Coastline: 314 km Maritime claims: Contiguous zone: 24 nm Exclusive economic zone: 200 nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Disputes: possible claim by Somalia based on unification of ethnic Somalis Climate: desert; torrid, dry Terrain: coastal plain and plateau separated by central mountains Natural resources: geothermal areas Land use: arable land 0%; permanent crops 0%; meadows and pastures 9%; forest and woodland NEGL%; other 91% Environment: vast wasteland ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... In the torrid regions between the Vaal and the Zambezi rivers, we find traces of a race of a civilization different from that of the savages conquered by the English. At Natal the gradual progress of these unknown people ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... investigate, they found Vessons preparing a tremendous meal, hot and savoury as a victorious and penitent old man could make it. He showed in his manner that bygones were to be bygones, and night came down in peace on Undern. But it was a curious, torrid peace, like ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... view One who has travelled more than you, Quite round the world, through each degree, Anson and I have ploughed the sea, Torrid and frigid zones have past, And safe at home arrived ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... and torrid, Isles of green in deserts horrid Once thy home, thy likeness ever! We with sword no less divine Would the good and evil sever, In a larger ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere, Friendship! 'tis all cold duty now allows. And when you read the simple artless rhymes, One friendly sigh for him—he asks no more, Who, distant, burns in flaming torrid climes, Or haply lies beneath th' ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... rite intended to rekindle the sun. In the southern hemisphere, where the order of the seasons is the reverse of ours, the rising of Sirius or the Dog Star in July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat of midsummer to that brilliant star,[804] so the modern savage of South Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of the sun. How he does ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... thy wavelets as they slide upon the shingly shore or lip among the caves and hollows of the rocks! Or is it in the loud roar of thy billows, as they dash and fume and lash in fury on the coasts that dare to curb thy might?—that might which, commencing, mayhap, in the torrid zone of the south, has rolled and leaped in majesty across the waste of waters, tossed leviathans as playthings in its strength, rushed impetuously over half the globe, and burst at last in helplessness upon a bed of sand! Or does the charm lie in the yet fiercer ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... of September spent in torrid New York were a strange period of time to have projected itself into the calm life of Miss Patricia Adair of Adairville, Kentucky. Suddenly she found herself a cog screwed tight into a rapid-fire piece of machinery that was running ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... in several Countries in America under the Torrid Zone, but chiefly at Mexico, in the Provinces of Nicaragua and Guatimala, as also along the Banks of the River of the Amazons[n]. Likewise upon the Coast of Caraqua, that is to say, from Comana to Cartagena[o] and the Golden Island. Some also ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... the seed of beauty ripened rapidly within them. Dreams came like a wind through, their souls, drifting off with the seed-dust of beautiful experience which they had ripened, to fertilize the souls of others withal. In them the sea and the sky and ships had mingled and bred new blossoms of the torrid heat of their love. And the seed of such blossoms was shaken as they slept, into the hand of God, who held it in His palm preciously; then scattered it again, to produce new splendid ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... In torrid heats of late July, In March, beneath the bitter bise, He book-hunts while the loungers fly,— He book-hunts, though December freeze; In breeches baggy at the knees, And heedless of the public ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... says this author, "that animal food is proper and necessary for health in polar regions, and that a vegetable diet is equally proper and necessary in the torrid zone, we may conclude that in winter, in our own climate, an animal diet is the best; while vegetables are more conducive to ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... in some animals within even a few generations, but he attributes the effect produced to the direct influence of climate. Buffon concludes his sketch of the animals of the new world by pointing out that the larger animals of the African torrid zone have been hindered by sea and desert from finding their way to America, and by claiming to be the first "even to have suspected" that there was not a single denizen of the torrid zone of one continent which was common also ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... history in the West, with its manners and customs so worn into the national character that they almost form the character itself, with its fertile plains, its sandy deserts, its lofty mountains, its mighty rivers, its torrid heat and arctic cold, its devastating floods, its cruel famines and loathsome epidemics, represents a mass, the contemplation of which staggers the mind and makes one ask, "What is Europe trying to do here? Does she hope to conquer, ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... fitted to our appetite for change? It may seem as if it would be pleasant to have it always sunshine; and yet when fruit and plant are dying from lack of moisture, and the earth sleeps exhausted in the torrid air, who ever saw a summer morning more beautiful than that when the clouds muster their legions to the sound of the thunder, and pour upon us the blessing of the rain? We repine at toil, and yet how gladly do we turn in from ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... Osmanli Baths in Cork Street four or five recumbent individuals, in a state of moist nudity and self-respecting inertia, were smoking cigarettes or making occasional pretence of reading damp newspapers. A glass wall with a glass door shut them off from the yet more torrid regions of the further swelter chambers; another glass partition disclosed the dimly-lit vault where other patrons of the establishment had arrived at the stage of being pounded and kneaded and sluiced by Oriental-looking attendants. The splashing and trickling of ...
— When William Came • Saki
... cattle, fowls, and other animals which Captain Cook left on some of the islands have bred." He was to examine attentively "the north and west coasts of New Holland, and particularly that part of the coast which, being situated in the torrid zone, may enjoy some of the productions peculiar to countries in similar latitudes." In New Zealand he was to ascertain "whether the English have formed or entertain the project of forming any settlement on ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... slowed along After the torrid hours were done, Though still the posts and walls and road Flung back their sense of the hot-faced sun, And had walked by Stourside Mill, ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... day of waiting. Gradually got known that we shan't land to-day, though it is possible still we may to-night. Torrid, windless day, and very hot work 'mucking out' and tramping round with the horses, which we did all the morning, and some of the afternoon. News sent round that we had captured Cronje and 5000 prisoners; all the ships dressed with flags, and whistles blowing; ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... that bound the Rapids below, they furnish a rich repast for the vulture, the raven, and the bald eagle, the subject of the present account. He has been long known to naturalists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met with from a very high northern latitude, to the borders of the torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea, and along the shores and cliffs of our lakes and large rivers. Formed by nature for braving the severest cold; feeding equally on the produce of the sea, and of the land; possessing powers of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... excellent fit; and closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... obscure bonds to sympathy to forsake its old home and creep away, under leagues of shimmering sea, towards the fiery heart of the volcano; there to undergo some alchemic process of readjustment, some ordeal, some torrid nuptial rite which would result in the birth of a flaming monster ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... very same pond or river as himself. Nobody can have any wish to undervalue the adventurous gallantry of Mr. G. Cumming. But, in the single case of the Cape lion, there is an unintentional advantage taken from the traditional name of lion, as though the Cape lion were such as that which ranges the torrid zone.] ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... a girl like Pauline always wants to dance, no matter how torrid the night," explained Chester. "Win and I have to consider our guest's wish. But you can bet Pauline isn't getting her wish—not with R. P. Burns running around the country all the evening and only making five-minute stops at ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... had ventured along the coast of Africa beyond the arid region of Sahara. The country was forbidding, there were no ports, and mariners were, moreover, hindered in their progress by the general belief that the torrid region was uninhabitable. In 1445, however, some adventurous sailors came within sight of a headland beyond the desert and, struck by its luxuriant growth of tropical trees, they called it Cape Verde (the green cape). Its discovery ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... was pleased to hail that last morning of the great council, and beamed with torrid tolerance upon the ceremony of kindling the greatest of the fires. On this morning Colonel Clark did not sit alone, but was surrounded by men of weight,—by Monsieur Gratiot and other citizens, Captain Bowman and the Spanish officers. And when at length the brush crackled ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... homothetic islands, peninsulas and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence in seaquakes, waterspouts, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... through into the torrid glare. The leper cut short his snarling oration. But without looking at him, the young man took the bridle from the coolie. There had been a test. He had seen a child, and two women. And yet it was with a pang he found that Mrs. ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... ascended the Andes and crossed them, in spite of inexpressible suffering. The men had lost most of their clothing in the marshes below; very few soldiers had even a pair of trousers in good condition. Leaving the torrid climate of the plains, these men had to climb up the Andes almost naked, on foot,—because they could not use their horses,—and to suffer the freezing cold of the summits. Many died, but the faith of Bolvar sustained the rest. The Liberator himself suffered all the fatigue of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... took inland the conviction forced itself upon us that we were in a country differing essentially from any hitherto visited by civilized men. We saw nothing with which we had been formerly conversant. The trees resembled no growth of either the torrid, the temperate, of the northern frigid zones, and were altogether unlike those of the lower southern latitudes we had already traversed. The very rocks were novel in their mass, their color, and their stratification; and the streams themselves, utterly incredible as it may appear, had so little in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... which they have of us in swimming through the air. Taproban hath seen the heaths of Lapland, and both the Javas and Riphaean mountains; wide distant Phebol shall see Theleme, and the Islanders drink of the flood Euphrates. By it the chill-mouthed Boreas hath surveyed the parched mansions of the torrid Auster, and Eurus visited the regions which Zephyrus hath under his command; yea, in such sort have interviews been made by the assistance of this sacred herb, that, maugre longitudes and latitudes, and all the variations of the zones, the Periaecian people, and Antoecian, Amphiscian, Heteroscian, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... torrid climate on so large a scale will strike the visitor as one of the most curious triumphs of ingenuity in the whole exposition. Moisture is an essential only second in importance to heat. The two must be associated to create the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... spear—to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand— He walked with, to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, not like those steps On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire. Nathless he so endured, till on the beach Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... ancients, particularly some part of the eastern, most of the southern, and all the western hemisphere; from them we have learned that the earth is surrounded by the ocean, and that all the countries under the torrid zone are inhabited, and that, quite contrary to the notions that were formerly entertained, they are very far from being the most sultry climate in the world, those within a few degrees of the tropics, though habitable, being much more hot, for reasons which have been elsewhere explained. By their ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... overhanging the pool which the crocodile is known to frequent, being so arranged that the carcass swings a foot or so above the surface of the stream at high water level, the end of the rattan being planted in the bank. Lured by the smell of the bait, which in that torrid climate quickly acquires a bouquet which can be detected a mile to leeward, the crocodile is certain sooner or later to thrust its long snout out of the water and snap at the odoriferous bundle dangling so temptingly overhead, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... prisoner; "draw near to the window; it is open. Between high heaven and earth the wind whirls on its waftages of hail and lightning, exhales its torrid mist or breathes in gentle breezes. It caresses my face. When mounted on the back of this armchair, with my arm around the bars of the window to sustain myself, I fancy I am swimming the wide expanse before me." The countenance of ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in her spotty Globe. His Spear, to equal which the tallest Pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand, He walkt with to support uneasie steps Over the burning Marle, not like those steps On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire; Knotholes he so endur'd, till on the Beach Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call'd 300 His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intrans't Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks In Vallombrosa, where ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... blacker the huddling thunder-caps spotted across the brilliant, sunny sky. Gaspier and gaspier in each lulling tree-top, in each hushing bird-song, in each drooping grass-blade, the whole torrid earth seemed to be sucking in its breath as if it meant never, ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... of the generality of manhood. It is surprising, too, that Byron, though he revelled in the sea, was also under a delusion as to the more vitalising element, for he fancied the scorching rays to be "impregnate with disease," whereas the sun, the sea, and, in lesser degree, the torrid sand do actually represent "the spice and salt which season a man," and are the elements whence are derived many ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... the imagination of Europe, and to reach it became at once the desire and the problem of adventurers and merchants. But how could this El Dorado be reached? Not by sailing round Africa; for to sail South, in popular estimation, was to encounter torrid suns with ever increasing heat, and suffocating vapors, and unknown dangers. The scientific world had lost the knowledge of what even the ancients knew. Nobody surmised that there was a Cape of Good Hope which could be doubled, and would ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... in the meantime had become very hot. The southern sun beat down on Bellerivre, parching its hillsides, and tanning its people to a dusky brown. But the peasants complained not of the high temperature, for was not this torrid sun that burned so fiercely the very factor they were calculating upon to complete for them the final preparation of their cocoons for the market? This consisted in killing the chrysalis, or sleeping worm inside the cocoon, ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... Velasco, in this Nueva Espana, which is to rail through the Western Sea of this kingdom toward the continent and certain of the islands that lie between the equator and the Arctic and Antarctic poles, and below the region of the torrid zone itself—to the end that according to right reason and the benign counsels of Christian piety, both at home and abroad as will best seem consonant with the purpose of his royal majesty, you may control the fleet and troops of the Spanish army. Especially too that the most brilliant ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... question was addressed to General Grant." Some other things were spoken which I can't Distinctly now recall, but I infer, By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead, Posterity's environment is torrid. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... and seven-story profitable houses, packed to overflowing and cheap, on top of which are erected still other sorry bug-breeders of roof iron, something in the nature of mansards; or more exactly, bird-houses, in which it is fearfully cold in winter, while in the summer time it is just as torrid as in the tropics. Liubka with difficulty clambered upward. It seemed to her that now, now, two steps more, and she would drop straight down on the steps and fall into a sleep from which nothing would be able to wake her. But Lichonin was saying ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the salt of the sea and redolent of the romance of strange people and distant lands. In listening, one becomes almost dizzy at the rapidity with which the scene and personnel change. The icebergs and the aurora borealis of the Arctic give place to the torrid waters and the Southern Cross of the South Pacific. A volcanic island, an Arabian desert, a tropical jungle, and the breadth and width of the ocean serve as the theatre, while a Fiji Islander, an Eskimo, and a turbaned Arab are actors in a half-hour's tale. In interest they rival Verne, Kingston, ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... poor animals who are used to the Torrid Zone?" replied Capt. Noah, shouldering the crowbar and climbing up the rope ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... four torrid days with the thermometer at 75 degrees, winding up his pipes in straw "against" the winter. I had seen his purple face as I hammocked it with an iced drink. He had seen and heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... the play to Frohman on a torrid night in midsummer. Frohman, as usual, sat cross-legged on a divan and ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... also to be larger as they dwell nearer to the Equator; and from this it would appear that the elephant is essentially a tropical animal, and thrives best in the climate of the torrid zone. ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... piled their boxes of hard bread and stacks of tinned meat at the ends and their scant soldier goods and chattels in the rude sections, then tumbled out again upon the platform to enjoy, while yet there was time, the freedom of the outer air, despite the torrid heat of the ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... pure and bright, As in that well-remember'd night, When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper'd love. Since then, how often hast thou press'd The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin which peopled hell; A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean, Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion!—O, if ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Yankees are born business men; everywhere that destiny takes them, from the glacial to the torrid zone, their instinct for business is usefully exercised. That is why simple visitors to Florida for the sole purpose of following the operations of the Gun Club allowed themselves to be involved in commercial operations ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... fain be her lord and master. He left home with a settled determination to be extravagant in his behavior; he would say that it was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head, that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would rather surrender upon the ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... medicine (and in putrid fevers there is, perhaps, no better known) or a ferment. It will be well worth the attention of the physician, the brewer, the distiller, the merchant, and the housekeeper, whether resident in the temperate, or in the torrid zone. ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... of man were isolated, and the isolating power was the rise of the great mountains of the Old World, which took place previous to the glacial period. One pair, or perhaps a few pairs, of those progenitors were driven away from the luxurious climate of the torrid zone to the northern half of the globe, and found their return cut off by glaciers and high mountains; in place of a comfortable life on the trees, necessity urged them to gain support from conditions less favorable to existence, and necessity, this mother of so many virtues and achievements, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... just as Tyope wanted. He disliked the idea of passing a day concealed under cliffs and crags where a torrid sun shone, and where there was water only in the river beneath and at a great depth. But he wanted to be sure of what Those Above intended, ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... and travelled on horseback to Seville and Cadiz, and thence in the 'Hyperion' frigate to Gibraltar. The horses are excellent—we rode seventy miles a day. Eggs and wine, and hard beds, are all the accommodation we found, and, in such torrid weather, quite enough. My health is ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... Passing out of the Torrid Zone, the two steamers proceeded to the north, obtaining a long view of Formosa, and hearing a lecture about it. Their next port of call was Shang-hai, reached by ascending the Woo-Sung. From this port they made an excursion up the Yang-tsze-Chiang, which was an exceedingly interesting trip ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... the boulder-strewn river that Saturday, we found the heat so oppressive that it seemed to us we had got into the torrid zone instead of up to within a few hundred miles of the Arctic Circle. We resolved, however, that the obstacles interposed against our advance by the unfeeling wild should make us fight only the harder, George and I receiving much inspiration from Hubbard, ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... Decade and the Bayonnaise,'' says Taine, "the miserable prisoners, suffocated by the lack of air and the torrid heat, bullied and fleeced, died of hunger or asphyxia, and Guiana completed the work of the voyage: of 193 taken thither by the Decade 39 were left alive at the end of twenty-two months; of 120 taken by the ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... coast, to escape the cold of January and February—these she could endure; for she was certain there to find, if not Rome, at any rate Romans; but Balbilla's wish to venture in a tossing ship, to visit the torrid shores of Africa, which she pictured to herself as a burning oven, she had opposed to the utmost. At last, however, she was obliged to put a good face on the matter, for the Empress herself expressed so decidedly her wish to take Balbilla with her to the Nile, that any resistance would ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hear of a desert island that wasn't a lovely spot!" answered Max. "Why, your regular desert island should combine the richest productions of the temperate, torrid, and frigid zones—a choice selection of the fruits, flowers, vegetables, and animal; of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This would by no means come up to the average standard. I doubt if you could find upon it so much ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... carnivores introduced direct body-to-body conflicts, and their concomitants, a quick and versatile nervous system. During the Tertiary epoch the earth basked in the heat of a tropical sun nearly everywhere on its surface. The luxuriant vegetation of the torrid zone flourished and swarmed, for the temperature all over was what it is today at the equator. Gigantic vegetarians were the animals, creatures like the dinosaurs, enormous, gargoylean monsters, of an incredible size and strength, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... initiation into a week of difficult adjustments. When he was not in the arctic region surrounding Miss Isobel and Miss Enid, he was in the torrid zone of Madam's presence. New and embarrassing situations confronted him on every hand, and when he was not breaking conventions he was breaking china. But Quin was not sensitive, and, in spite of the fact that he was being silently ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... more we've struggled on, Through torrid heat and winter's chill, Nor bated aught of steadfast will, Though ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... added, "what has been the result since men have almost entirely annihilated this useful race? That the putrefied weeds have poisoned the air, and the poisoned air causes the yellow fever, that desolates these beautiful countries. Enormous vegetations are multiplied under the torrid seas, and the evil is irresistibly developed from the mouth of the Rio de la Plata to Florida. If we are to believe Toussenel, this plague is nothing to what it would be if the seas were cleaned of whales ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... relaxation are passed in wild and extravagant frolics amongst the lofty forests of palms and spicy groves of the Torrid Zone, and amidst the aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable productions of that region. He has fruits delicious to taste, and as companions, the unsophisticated daughters of Africa and the Indies. It would be supposed that his wild career ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... different aspects, according to the climates in which they take place. Those which have spread over a terrible space in northern countries assemble into one single cloud under the torrid zone—the more formidable, that they leave the horizon in all its purity, and that the furious waves still reflect the azure of heaven while tinged with the blood of man. It is the same with great passions. They assume strange aspects according ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... not unlike the metallic ringing cry of a sort of blackbird which I heard in the torrid plazas of Mexico. He was very difficult to distinguish, for the reason that he sat so high in the tree and was so wary. He was very shy of approach. He was a plump, trim little fellow of a plain brown color, not ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... through the heavy fog that had trailed upon the moon's track and smothered the island in its soft pestilent brooding; and in one mighty pouring out of cold pure ether changed earth and sky from torrid to temperate zone. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... spell, one of those torrid mood of continental weather which we have telegraphed us ahead to heighten our suffering by anticipation. But the farmsteads and village houses are safe in the shade of their sheltering trees amid the fluctuation of the grass that grows so tall about them that the June roses have to strain upward ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... about seven hundred miles, forms a great peninsula, which crosses the tropics and terminates in the torrid zone. It is separated from the mainland by the Gulf of California, sometimes called the Vermilion Sea; into this gulf empties the Colorado of the West, the Seeds-ke-dee, or Green River, as it is also sometimes called. The peninsula ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... spring. Men tell me they have seen in a single week the snows disappear, ice break in the streams, the grass spring up, and the trees beginning to bud. Nature adapts herself to all her conditions. In the Arctic as in the Torrid zone she fixes her compensations and makes her laws for the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... habits were consonant with the customs of the discriminating patrons of the Hotel Lotus. To enjoy that delectable hostelry one must forego the city as though it were leagues away. By night a brief excursion to the nearby roofs is in order; but during the torrid day one remains in the umbrageous fastnesses of the Lotus as a trout hangs poised in the pellucid sanctuaries of ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... a torrid day with a promise of storm, and Kate would have preferred to go to the Settlement House to do her usual work, which chanced just now to be chiefly clerical. But she was urged to meet the Englishwoman and to discuss with ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... if she had taken it. Shortly afterwards, a man in a blue cotton frock, much soiled, came in and bought a pipe, filling the whole shop, meanwhile, with the hot odor of strong drink, not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere of his breath, but oozing out of his entire system, like an inflammable gas. It was impressed on Hepzibah's mind that this was the husband of the care-wrinkled woman. He asked for a paper ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... breeze soon became more precious to us than anything else, and if we could have bathed without the fear of a shark, we should have equally appreciated that most refreshing of all luxuries under the torrid zone. It was therefore with pleasure that we received the information that we were to sail the next day to cruise off the French island of Martinique. Captain Kearney had been so much on shore that we saw but little of him, and the ship was entirely under the control of the first lieutenant, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... themselves, the sun poured down sheets of liquid flame upon the ground and kept the sea and the rivers boiling day and night with the fiery heat. So any sailors would of course be boiled alive as soon as they got near to the Torrid Zone. ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... only in name but in fact. Its area, including Tasmania, is almost 3,000,000 square miles, which is about the area of the United States exclusive of Alaska, and only about one fourth less than the area of the continent of Europe. Fully two fifths of this area lie within the torrid zone, and of the rest, even in Victoria, the part farthest from the equator, the climate is so warm that it corresponds with that of Spain, southern France, and Italy. But over so vast a territory great differences ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... first, as I have heard, that ventured to tack about and sail aloof from the beaten track of the schools; who, upon the discovery of so apparent an error as a torrid zone, intended to proceed in an inquisition after more solid truths; till the mediation of some whose livelihood lay in hammering shrines for this superannuated study, possessed queen Elizabeth that such doctrine was against God ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and numbed by the icy water; but in that fierce sunshine it was wonderful how soon our wrung-out garments dried; and warmth was rapidly restored to our limbs by rocks that soon grew heated in the torrid rays. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... lava became resistless. They snapped like pipe stems the trunks of chestnut trees hundreds of years old and blighted with their torrid breath the blooms on the peach trees before the trees themselves had been reached. The molten streams did not spare the homes of the peasants, and when these have been razed they dash into the wells, as though seeking to ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... jet boat in a long sweeping dive to the surface of the satellite. Stepping out of the air-cooled jet boat onto the torrid unprotected surface of the flat plain was like stepping into a furnace. Even with space suits as protection, the five Earthmen were forced to work in relays in the digging of the hole ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... instead of it, I saw the enchanter flying through the world, pursued by the evil spirit and that dreadful woman. Through all the world they seemed to go. The scenes changed with marvellous rapidity. Now the picture glowed with the wealth and gorgeousness of the torrid zone; now the ice-fields of the North rose into view; anon a pine-forest; then a wild seashore; but always the same three flying figures; always the horrible three-formed harpy pursuing the enchanter, and beside her the evil spirit with the dragonfly wings. At last this succession of images ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... argument; hunt us with hippogriffs, transfix us with concentrated sunbeams, demolish our cities with moonstones; until having by main force converted us to the true faith, they shall graciously permit us to exist in the torrid deserts of Arabia, or the frozen regions of Lapland, there to enjoy the blessings of civilization and the charms of lunar philosophy, in much the same manner as the reformed and enlightened savages of this country are kindly suffered to inhabit the inhospitable forests of the north, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... trade-winds, you are amply repaid for all disappointments and inconveniences. The trade-winds prevail about thirty degrees on each side of the equator. This part of the ocean may be called the Elysian Fields of Neptune's empire; and the torrid zone, notwithstanding Ovid's remark, "non est habitabilis aestu," is rendered healthy and pleasant by these gently-blowing breezes. The ship glides smoothly on, and you soon find yourself within the northern tropic. When you ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... Buenos Ayres during the rainy season is not an enviable one. The Englishman who finds himself in that city when the rain falls for weeks at a time becomes a victim to the spleen, the American to "the blues," the Frenchman to ennui. The houses, built with a view mainly to protection against the torrid heats of summer, are not adapted to shelter their inmates from the dampness of winter, which penetrates through doors that do not fasten and windows that do not fit as snugly as they should. The ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... February - northeast monsoon, moderate temperatures in north and very hot in south; May to October - southwest monsoon, torrid in the north and hot in the south, irregular rainfall, hot and humid ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... general struggle for the harvest. The Atlantic roar hides all minor pipings. The breed of fisher-folk from these deep-sea voyagings consist of the toughest specimens of human endurance. All other dangers which lure men to venture everything for excitement or for fortune, the torrid heat or arctic cold, the battle against man or beast, the desert or the jungle, all land adventures are as nothing compared to the daring of the hourly existence of the heroic souls whose lives are cast upon the banks of Newfoundland. The fishermen ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... broil, blaze, flame; smolder; parch, fume, pant. heat &c (make hot) 384; recalesce^; thaw, give. Adj. hot, warm, mild, genial, tepid, lukewarm, unfrozen; thermal, thermic; calorific; fervent, fervid; ardent; aglow. sunny, torrid, tropical, estival^, canicular^, steamy; close, sultry, stifling, stuffy, suffocating, oppressive; reeking &c v.; baking &c 384. red hot, white hot, smoking hot, burning &c v.. hot, piping hot; like a furnace, like an oven; burning, hot as fire, hot as pepper; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... came along duly, and Flint clambered into it as quickly as the impediment of his luggage permitted. He stowed away his belongings in the car-rack,—his bag, umbrella, and the overcoat which seemed a sarcasm upon the torrid heat of the car. A flat, square package which formed part of his luggage he treated with more respectful courtesy, giving it the window-seat, and watching with care lest it slip from the position in which he had ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... degrees, as the tide of sensation, thinned itself, lying back with closed eyes, while the long train swept on through the torrid day, separate pictures came before his inner sight. Just as keen and clear were they as when they first fell on his vision. He had not blurred nor dimmed their outlines with frequent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... had come upon the city. June was going out in a wave of torrid heat such as August might have boasted. The day had seemed endless and intolerably close. I was feeling very limp and languid. Perhaps, thought I, it was the heat which had wilted Blackie's ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... command of men and money, are the common dreams of every Nebuchadnezzar. What we know if we know anything of his intentions is that he was about to set out on a campaign against the Parthians in whose plains this prototype of Napoleon might perhaps have found a torrid Moscow. No great advance of humanity can take place without a great moral effort excited by higher moral desires. The masters of the legions can only set in action by their fiat material forces. Even ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... were seated, others paced Incessantly around; the latter tribe More numerous, those fewer who beneath The torment lay, but louder in their grief. O'er all the sand fell slowly wafting down Dilated flakes of fire, as flakes of snow On Alpine summit, when the wind is hush'd. As, in the torrid Indian clime, the son Of Ammon saw, upon his warrior band Descending, solid flames, that to the ground Came down." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... predominant passion are the main cause of the strength of Unamuno's philosophic work. They remain his main asset, yet become also the principal cause of his weakness, as a creative artist. Great art can only flourish in the temperate zone of the passions, on the return journey from the torrid. Unamuno, as a creator, has none of the failings of those artists who have never felt deeply. But he does show the limitations of those artists who cannot cool down. And the most striking of them is that at bottom he is seldom able to put himself in a purely esthetical mood. ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... for which the weed is esteemed. The conditions of growth are less powerful in winter, when the temperature is ten degrees lower, and the fall of rain small. At the same time, there is more sunshine to impart those aromatic qualities which are so much relished by smokers of tobacco. In Virginia the torrid heat and thunder showers during the summer months are by no means favorable for developing the mild aroma of a good smoking leaf. Such atmospheric conditions are better suited for cotton and Indian corn than tobacco, which ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... upon a single throw. Not but that the forces we neglect are permanent. It is that the strategic condition has passed out of them. The sluggard driving his plow into the field in July has sun, soil and seed, but the torrid summer refuses to perform the gentle processes of April. The man who in youth's strategic days denied to memory the great facts of nature and history, in maturer years still has his memory, but the ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Upington was transformed in those days. Around the Dutch Reformed Church, standing peaceful and dazzling white in the torrid sun, were tents, wagons, horses, motor-cars, signalling-parties, despatch-riders and infantry. Away over the hard red sand dunes to the north was the action zone, and from that direction every five minutes came sweating motor despatch-riders, who tore along to Headquarters. ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... ten minutes of their acquaintance. On him her beauty fell flat. He evidently failed to recognise her supreme loveliness. It might be that she was the wrong type for Cuba. Every nation has its own Venus; and that far away spot beyond the torrid zone might have a somewhat barbarous idea of beauty. At any rate, Don Gomez was apparently unimpressed. And yet Lesbia flattered herself that she was looking her best to-night, and that her costume was a success. She wore a white satin ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... tropical Zambesi regions and the torrid Kalahari plains, down to the 34th parallel at Cape point, a great diversity of climatic conditions is met with. To the north and north-east are the steaming, death-breeding low lands, abounding with dank virgin forests and scrubby stretches; and to ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas |
