"Towering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the head of these was he who wore the blanket; a tall warrior on whom rested the startled eye of every officer and soldier who was so situated as to behold him. His face was painted black as death; and as he stood under the arch of the gateway, with his white turbaned head towering far above those of his companions, this formidable and mysterious enemy might have been likened to the spirit of darkness ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... beautiful and diversified works. The grave and golden clouds, the dark and rosy tints of the sunset sky, the gorgeous rainbow and the modest Aurora, the flashing flower and the lowly heather, the towering pine and the creeping vine, the rich green field of summer and the calm gray forest of winter, the thousand million forms of the hill-and-dale landscape, and the equally diversified colors and forms of birds ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... philosophy, first occurred to me in August 1881. I made a note of the thought on a sheet of paper, with the postscript: 6,000 feet beyond men and time! That day I happened to be wandering through the woods alongside of the lake of Silvaplana, and I halted beside a huge, pyramidal and towering rock not far from Surlei. It was then that the thought struck me. Looking back now, I find that exactly two months previous to this inspiration, I had had an omen of its coming in the form of a sudden and decisive alteration in my tastes—more particularly in music. It would even be possible ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... seated themselves around their queen and Captain Church. An interesting and perilous interview now ensued. Awashonks accused the English of provoking her to hostilities when she had wished to live in friendship with them. At one moment these children of nature would seem to be in a towering rage, and again perfectly pleasant, and almost affectionate. Captain Church happened to allude to one of the battles between the English and the Indians. Immediately one of the savages, foaming ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... them to take his body down the river to this his favorite haunt, and on the pinnacle of this towering bluff to bury him on the back of his favorite war-horse, which was to be buried alive under him, from whence he could see, as he said, "the Frenchmen passing up and down the river in their boats." He owned, amongst many horses, a noble white steed, that was led to the top of the grass-covered ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... rollers on board the truck. The freshly painted boat was growing dim in the gathering darkness and the lordly hills across the river were paling into gray again. As the little group paused, a deep, melodious whistle re-echoed from the towering heights and the great night boat came into view, her lights aloft, plowing up midstream. The Good Turn bobbed humbly like a good subject as the mighty white giant passed. The girl watched the big steamer wistfully and for ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship like a towering fragment of the everlasting night. On that enormous mass of blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It was gliding irresistibly toward us and yet seemed already within reach of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist, gazing ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... dared to advise, he would have overturned her undoubtedly, and established a fresh instance of the impertinence, the uselessness and weakness of women. Mrs. Mel topped him by half a head, and in addition stood three steps above him; towering like a giantess. The extreme gravity of her large face dispersed all idea of an assault. The old gentleman showed signs of being horribly injured: nevertheless, he put his hand to the trunk; it was lifted, and the procession ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... daughter's marriage with myself would give, his recall is improbable. By the heaven above us, it shall be impossible!" The count rose as he said this,—rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly fallen from the visage of crime; rose tall and towering, a very image of masculine power and strength, beside the slight, bended form and sickly face of the intellectual schemer. And had you seen them thus confronted and contrasted, you would have felt that if ever the time should come when the interest of the one would compel him ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was following close behind, with the very reluctant Miss Mary towering over his petty head. "No wonder that Mr. Harper is not ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... creature, setting forth this beauty by all means in his power, and depending upon it for much of his authority over his fellows. So that the ruddy cheek of David, and the ivory skin of Atrides, and the towering presence of Saul, and the blue eyes of Coeur de Lion, were among chief reasons why they should be kings; and it was one of the aims of all education, and of all dress, to make the presence of the human form stately and lovely. Now it has become ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... sorcery! But to me now listen! I hasten'd unto Hortha's gloomy forests, To glut myself in Roman blood; then look'd I Down from the thunder-cloud in which I journey'd, And on these towering hills my eyes I fastened; Then saw I Denmark's Hother, prince of battle, Like the rock-pine, which o'er the ocean beetles; He stood, and storm-winds with his locks were playing, Then from the brake a wolf sprang, ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... don't know that it's much of a game," was the answer. "But I just have an idea that a big fire in a towering building can be fought from above with chemicals, as well as from the ground ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... billows into the heart of the country. Work is continually going on to reinforce any weakened dykes, to fortify the downs by cultivation, to throw up fresh embankments where the downs are low—works towering like immense spears brandished in the midst of the sea, ready to break the first onset of the waves. The sea thunders eternally at the doors of the rivers, ceaselessly lashes their banks, roars forth its eternal menace, raises the crests of its ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... earlier days men bent on sport, on prospecting or on adventure, pure and simple, climbed light-heartedly down the steep mountain stairs at all times and seasons little reckoning that it would have saved them much needless misery if they had, instead, leaped headlong from the towering cliffs. For from November to May, fever stalked abroad over the plains and among the foothills, seeking human prey, and hardly any who ventured during these months into the dominion of the fever king escaped his blighting grip. The few who managed to ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... who come that way. 60 When first my Muse, perhaps more bold than wise, Bade the rude trifle into light arise, Little she thought such tempests would ensue; Less, that those tempests would be raised by you. The thunder's fury rends the towering oak, Rosciads, like shrubs, might 'scape the fatal stroke. Vain thought! a critic's fury knows no bound; Drawcansir-like, he deals destruction round; Nor can we hope he will a stranger spare, Who gives no quarter to his friend Voltaire.[85] 70 Unhappy ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... of his companions to his side and they also saw the light clearly. But again it disappeared. At two o'clock in the morning a sailor at the look out on the mast head shouted, "Land! land! land!" In a few moments all beheld, but a few miles distant from them, the distinct outline of towering mountains piercing the skies. A new world was discovered. Cautiously the vessels hove to and waited for the light of the morning. The dawn of day presented to the eyes of Columbus and his companions a spectacle of beauty ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... coarse lips, flaming eyes, illuminated by torches, the heads ornamented with a three-colored thing stuck into the caps. My hand stretched out for support, and met the tight clip of my mother's fingers. I knew that she was towering between Marie-Therese and me a fearless palpitating statue. The devilish roaring mob shot above itself a forced, admiring, piercing cry—"Long live the queen!" Then all became the humming of bees—the vibration ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the men at the braces in mournful monotone. Bang went the wet sail against the mast, and the second mate from his vantage point watched her slowly come up to wind. Slowly—slowly—the towering seas came pouring aboard—she took it in by the deck-house by ton loads, and the men all hung on to the nearest thing handy for dear life. Slowly, slowly her nose came up to the wind. Would she go round? Would ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... of fifty feet in a few hours in the narrow channel of the Dalles. Sometimes the rise exceeds seventy feet, and an effect most extraordinary in character results. From many points along the river banks, Mount Hood can be seen towering away up into the clouds. The bluffs themselves are marvels of formation, very difficult to explain or account for. When the water is low, there is an exposure of almost vertical cliffs. The bluffs ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... attempted before, but never with any success; and the farthest point which had been reached, called Caley's Repulse, was a spot that almost seemed to forbid man's footsteps to advance beyond it. Nothing was to be seen there in every direction but immense masses of weather-beaten sandstone-rock, towering over each other in all the sublimity of desolation; while a deep chasm, intersecting a lofty ridge covered with blasted trees, seemed to cut off every hope of farther progress. But all these difficulties have now long since been got over, and stage-coaches ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... husband's arms and already was turning willing and responsive lips to his, when her eyes fell upon the porthole, through which the distant lighthouse was sending her a message—it seemed like a message of love and encouragement. She saw the mighty shaft towering serenely above dark rocks and crashing waters, and watched it change with beautiful gradations of light into a rugged cross to which a woman was clinging desperately. The waves beat against her, the winds buffeted her, but she cried to God ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... mouth with water, made offerings on the fire, created the terrible Vritra, and spoke to him, saying, "O destined slayer of Indra, grow in might even from the strength of my austere rites." And that Asura grew in might, towering towards the firmament, and resembling the son of fire. And he asked, "Risen like the doomsday sun, what am I to do?" "Kill Indra," was the reply. And then he departed towards the celestial regions. And next ensued a great fight between Vritra and Indra, both fired with wrath. And ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... surprise and concern that they at last debouched upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a towering pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children, with here and there a beneficent ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... guess that's the Honourable," said the voice we had heard—such a nice voice; it was enough to make you laugh with pleasure just to hear it—and the head we could see towering over the sunbonnets began to move towards us. The girls edged away good-naturedly, and there was a man almost as fine-looking as Mr. Brett, smiling at us, and holding ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... for further parlance, the earl turned suddenly away, threw his cap on his towering head, and strode right through the centre of the whispering courtiers, who shrunk, louting low, from his haughty path, to break into a hubbub of angry exclamations or sarcastic jests at his unmannerly bearing, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Indian stockade, modernized by the American engineers from time to time, half-lighthouse, half-fortification, glaring with whitewashed walls, that may be seen almost at Toronto, with a flag-staff towering to the skies, and a flag which would cover the deck of a first-rate, displayed from morn to night, speaks of the new nation, whose pretensions must ever be put in plain view, and constantly tell the tale that America is a second ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... his title from his great height, towering as he did above every man in the company, nodded drowsily as he settled himself upon the ground. He was lithe and hardy as a young hickory, and his abundant hair was of the colour of ripe wheat. At the call ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... most attractive details of them—their fauna, their sylva, and their flora. But here, my reader, we have only space to speak of a few of the more salient points, that may enable you to form some idea of the Titanic grandeur of these mighty masses of snow-crowned rock, which, towering aloft, frown or smile, as the case may be, on our grand empire ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... sea and land, The pastures rolling wide, The mountains towering, grand, The streams that ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... rose the towering task, And with it rose the sun, Until at last on one wild day, Wind-whirled, cloud-swept and terrible I stood beneath the burning shadow Of the peak, Beneath the whirring of almighty wings, While downward from my feet Streamed the long line of dusky faces And the wail of little children ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... clear and transparent, the changing tints on the autumnal foliage so rich, the sun so bright and warm, that we seemed surrounded by an enchanted atmosphere, and the very consciousness of existence was delightful; but, with those descending floods of light towering above us, and filling the echoing shores with their sublime melody, we were ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... only delicacy was duff, his only comforts were rum and tobacco, and to explore some unknown island, and discover therein a goodly river of the famous Jamaica spirit, flowing deep and fragrant between towering mountains of "pig tail," is commonly reputed to have been the cherished wish of his heart. With tobacco the Navy Board did not provide him, nor afford dishonest pursers opportunity to "make dead men chew," [Footnote: Said ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... but no amount of colonization could much alter its most striking scenery, geological and general. I had some sense of awe and mystery as I gazed down into a sort of "Dead Sea" depths at the southern end of salt, salt Korangamite, and then up at the abruptly towering "Stony Rises," capped by volcanic Porndon in my near vicinity. I passed the Manifolds', where a sprinkling of fat cattle left hardly an impression ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... prepossessions;" and of course in complete ignorance of Mr. Laing's indubitable conclusions about the antiquity of Egyptian civilization. Unfortunately, even the best scientists have not that perfect freedom from bias, which gives Mr. Laing such a towering advantage over them all. "An authority like Prestwich," who "cannot be accused of theological bias," influenced, however, by a servile astronomical bias, "reduces to 20,000 years a period to which Lyell ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... right, even then when yet he could not see the reason of his actings and dispensations towards them. The same reason is good as to our present case. And hence it is that the apostle teacheth, the spiritual armour of Christians should be much exercised against those high-towering and self-exalting imaginations, that within our own bosoms do exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. That every thought, or carnal reasoning, may be not only taken, but brought as captive into obedience to Christ; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... whole plain seems a vast brown sea streaked here and there with green: and the smaller hills rise like islands from it, their feet folded in the mist which creeps across the levels. To the north beyond the larger ranges which encircle the valley the peak of Harischandragad is dimly visible, towering above the Sahyadris; and across the plain to eastward the Suleman range ends in the huge rounded shoulders ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... with mirrors exactly the same size as the windows, so that the whole room was walled in with windows and looking-glasses. Through the three windows that looked to the north could be seen far distant mountains, towering high above the surrounding country. From the three windows that faced the south could be seen the great ocean, tossing and moving and gleaming with white and silver. The eastern windows gave each morning a glorious view of the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... sky, the zenith. In order even to see the masts and funnels of the ship one has to go far forward or far aft and crane one's neck upward. Not a single human being have I ever descried on the "shade-deck" or on the towering bridge. The genii of the hundred-league boots remain not only inaccessible but invisible. The effect is inhuman, uncanny. All the luxury of the saloons and staterooms does not compensate for the lack of a frank, straightforward deck. ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive congregation of vapours, forming ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... But his towering ambition remained unsated. He realized that he lived in a progressive age, and his superior talents enabled him to take a stand far ahead of his fellows. By diligent application to his noble profession, he was now a member of that exalted Institution, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... mountain rose darkly against the evening sky; lights glittered behind the network of thin branches and fluttering leaves along the sidewalk, and the dome of the cathedral bulked huge and shadowy across the square. Downhill, toward St. James's, rose towering buildings, with the rough-hewn front of the Canadian Pacific station prominent among them, and the air was filled with the clanging of street-cars and the tolling of locomotive bells. Once or twice, however, when the throb of ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... spake, a great wave came up from the windward, and brake over us, and half filled the craft, and lifted her bows up towering, and then down we went into the trough; and I sat cowed and quaking, and spake ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... miserable Frenchmen who have committed murder and suicide with a view of making their exit striking from a world in which their appearance had been contemptible, would all sink into insignificance beside the towering infamy of baseness which—for the mere love of producing an effect on the minds of men, and thus drawing their attention upon him, which otherwise would never have marked him at all—could scheme and execute crimes so horrible and inexcusable. In common charity to human nature, let us suppose ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... if I determine to do something that I should be sorry to do every time that an oath comes from my mouth, it would assist me to remember my duty.' I resolved to break my pipe the first time that I swore; and I've never uttered an oath from that day to this, not even in my most towering passions! Now I'll try the same cure again; not to punish a sin, but to prevent it. If I fly into a fury, I'll break my pipe! There Jonas Colter, I give you fair warning!" and the old sailor smiled grimly to himself, and stirred the fire with an ...
— False Friends, and The Sailor's Resolve • Unknown
... to carry that picture clearly in his mind—the figure that moved unhurriedly on, towering above the others, men and women, who scurried fearfully from his path. But he was to retain yet more vividly the recollection of a group of red-clad bodies that were severed at their waists as a slim tube swung—then a bursting cloud ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... though distant. Knobs rose here; there a flat spread. Mountains frowned in the distance, but so far away that they seemed like papier-mache shapes towering in a sea of blue. Like a map the country seemed as Miss Radford and Ferguson looked down upon it, yet a big map, over which one might wonder; more vast, more nearly perfect, richer in detail than any that could be evolved from the ...
— The Two-Gun Man • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of waving cotton, but no Daisy came. "Here's a pretty go," she cried, turning into the room where her brother sat calmly finishing his morning meal, "a pretty go, indeed! I promised Miss Pluma those white mulls should be sent over to her the first thing in the morning. She will be in a towering rage, and no wonder, and like enough you'll lose your place, John Brooks, and 'twill serve you right, too, for encouraging that ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... repeated, as he stopped and looked far away upon some towering mountain peaks which just then were visible through an opening among the trees. "Take the steam-engine for example. Repress the power, and what do you get? Destruction. But give that power expression, and how beneficial it becomes. So it is with man. There is ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... and irregularities in outline. Others, again, of considerable area, as, for example, the Mare Serenitatis and the Mare Imbrium, are bounded more or less completely by curved borders, consisting of towering mountain ranges, descending with a very steep escarpment to their surface: thus in form and other characteristics they resemble immense wall-surrounded plains. Among the best examples of enclosed Maria is the Mare Crisium, which is considered ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... wooded hills arise, Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, The creek goes twinkling through long glows and glooms Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes: The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... new abode. Beneath them was a vast continent variegated by chains of lakes and rivers stretching away in all directions except toward the equator, where lay a placid ocean as far as their telescopes could pierce. To the eastward were towering and massive mountains, and along the southern border of the continent smoking volcanoes, while toward the west they saw forests, gently rolling plains, and table-lands that would have satisfied a poet or set an agriculturist's heart at rest. "How I should like to mine those hills ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... of historic association that I am sure, if I could drag my beloved but conscientious Salemina from some foreign soup-kitchen which she is doubtless inspecting, I could make even her mourn the vanished past with me this morning, on the Beacon's towering head. For Salemina wearies of the age of charity sometimes, as every one does who is trying to make it ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... advanced works, and passed through the zigzag earthen bastions. Then we dressed our ranks and marked the step, as we usually did when approaching a town. At the corner of a sort of demilune we saw the frozen fosse of the city, and the brick ramparts towering above, and opposite us an old, dark gate, with the drawbridge raised. Above stood a sentinel, who, with ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Roman Catholic Church. We are only in the very beginning of a great Roman Catholic revival. The diversified countryside of the coming time will show many a splendid cathedral, many an elaborate monastic palace, towering amidst the abounding colleges and technical schools. Along the moving platforms of the urban centre, and athwart the shining advertisements that will adorn them, will go the ceremonial procession, all glorious with banners and censer-bearers, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... a pile of glaciers in Switzerland, lay this Staten Land, gleaming in snow-white barrenness and solitude. Unnumbered white albatross were skimming the sea near by, and clouds of smaller white wings fell through the air like snow-flakes. High, towering in their own turbaned snows, the far-inland pinnacles loomed up, like the border of some other world. Flashing walls and crystal battlements, like the diamond watch-towers along ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... and two of the assailants fell as falls an ox to the butcher's blow. With his left hand he wrenched a knife from a third of the foes, and thus armed with blade and buckler, he sprang on the table, towering over all. Before him was the man with the revolver, a genteeler outlaw than the rest-ticket-of-leave man, who had been transported for forgery. "Shall I shoot him?" whispered this knave to Cutts. Cutts drew back the hesitating arm. "No; the noise! bludgeons safer." Pounce, as Cutts whispered—pounce ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... coast, the waters of the river Halys pour forth with a terrible roar; and after it his flowing near, but smaller in stream, rolls into the sea with white eddies. Onward from thence the bend of a huge and towering cape reaches out from the land, next Thermodon at its mouth flows into a quiet bay at the Themiscyreian headland, after wandering through a broad continent. And here is the plain of Doeas, and near are the three cities of the Amazons, and after them the Chalybes, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Like the buffalo of the plains stung with Indian arrows, or the great mysticetus of the deep goaded by the harpoon of the whaler, all the angry energies of his nature appeared suddenly aroused from their lethargy; and he sprang to his feet, towering erect in the presence of his tormentor. "Damnation!" cried he, striking the floor with his heavy heel, "she won't do it—she ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... the tranquil voice of the Child, clasping a lock of hair on the giant's forehead in his little hand, and crying: "March on."—And with bowed back, and eyes fixed straight in front of him on the dark bank whose towering slopes are beginning to gleam white, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... reasons for this collapse. First of all, the Abolitionists, for the moment, were a faction by themselves. Six weeks had sufficed to intoxicate them with their opportunity. The significance of the Proclamation had had time to arise towering on their spiritual vision, one of the gates of ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... Military carriages of all sorts, and' multitudes of groups unemployed, occupied spaces that ought to have been left for manoeuvring or observation. I attribute this to the various nations who bore arms on that great day in their own manner; though the towering generalissimo of all cleared the ground, and dispersed what was unnecessary at every moment that was not ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... rises three stories in a stately pile of soft red brick, flanked by two ancient tulip trees towering twenty-five feet above the pavilion roof, while a great box hedge partially hides the front facade and large garden. Five generations of the same family have called ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... exclaimed under his breath. "It is he! Moorsdyke! My mortal enemy!" But his meditations were interrupted by the stern nature of the work before them. Their route led them along the foot of a line of towering and trembling seracs. The vibration of a whisper might send them crashing down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 5th, 1914 • Various
... they had caught his distress signal, and the entire camp was thrown into confusion, for but few of the men had returned from the daily hunt. As fast as they came in, the warriors hurried away upon their best horses, singing and yelling. When they reached the well-known butte, towering abruptly in the midst of the plain, they could distinguish their enemies massed behind the hanging rocks and scattered cedar-trees, crawling up closer and closer, for the large warparty reached the hill just as the scouts who held Antelope at bay discovered ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... charming of places, in its narrow leafy valley, surrounded by towering cliffs, is celebrated as having been the home of Petrarch for sixteen years during the thirteen hundreds. We may hope that his worshipped Laura sometimes brightened his home there with her presence. The famous Fountain of Vaucluse rushes out from ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... own request, Lady Elgin chose a spot for his grave in the little cemetery which stands on the bluff above the house where he died, "he gently expressed pleasure when told of the quiet and beautiful aspect of the place chosen, with the glorious view of the snowy range towering above, and the wide prospect of hill and plain below." During this fatal illness he had the consolation of the constant presence of his loving wife, whose courageous spirit enabled her to overcome the weakness of a delicate constitution. He died on November 20th, 1863, and was buried ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... liked to have, only his presence was necessary with the waggon, he being the most trustworthy of their followers—they rode on at a brisk canter through the crisp long grass, and amongst the bushes, and always onward towards the head of the valley, where, towering up, stood the twin mountains, which were like the ends of a couple of ridges ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... Adele rose and left the room. As the door was closing behind her she turned and looked back. Before the crucifix, on their knees, were her aged father and mother, while towering above them, with hands outstretched toward the cross, was the white-haired priest, invoking blessings on those bowed at his feet. She knew it was her duty to be by their side. Stifling the choking tears, she was about to ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... anxiously around. He was in the midst of an almost bare sun-baked plain, the new-sown fields awaiting the rains to spring into verdure. Here and there were clumps of trees—the towering palmyra with its fan-shaped foliage, the bamboo with its feathery branches, the plantain, throwing its immense leaves of vivid green into every fantastic form. There was no safety ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... when their numbers began to diminish, a superb-looking warrior stooped the towering plumes of his head-dress beneath the low portal, and entered the house. I saw at once that he was some distinguished personage, the natives regarding him with the utmost deference, and making room for him as he approached. His aspect was imposing. The splendid long drooping ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... Stella, under date October 10th, 1711, Swift complains that "The Protestant Post-Boy" says "that an ambitious tantivy, missing of his towering hopes of preferment in Ireland, is come over to vent his spleen on the late ministry," etc. (vol. ii., p. 258, of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... every hand by giant tree trunks, dimly revealed in the green twilight which penetrated with difficulty the vast overarching masses of foliage, the space between the enormous trunks being choked with undergrowth of a thousand varied forms, conspicuous among which were immense ferns towering high above their heads, while above these, and drooping in many cases right down to the ground, was an inextricable maze and tangle of lianas, or "monkey rope," intertwined with which were countless ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... standing straight up from it. The cliffs of the Great Canyon, as it is called, stretch up for more than a mile above the river which flows in the gorge below! Fancy yourselves for a moment in a boat on this river, as shown in Figure 27, and looking up at these gigantic walls of rock towering above you. Even half-way up them, a man, if he could get there, would be so small you could not see him without a telescope; while the opening at the top between the two walls would seem so narrow at such an ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... he paused under the towering entrance vines, a mauve and a white, forgot his troubles. He filled his lungs with the delicious fragrance, and years after the consciousness of it would come upon him suddenly. And then coming ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... The demonstration, however, seems, thus far, to be successful—judging by the movement of Rebel troops toward Blackburn's Ford. The lull continues until 11 o'clock. At that time Miles arrives at his front, in a towering rage. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... was true, not merely expedient, to the end he meant it to serve. But all passion may be called madness, because therein the mind is absorbed with one idea; 'anger is a brief madness,' and he was in a 'towering passion': he proclaims it madness ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... back, her hands behind her head, her fingers outstretched among the long, cool grasses. A hum of insects surrounded her. The grasses towering above her eyes were a forest. She turned her head to watch a lady-bug industriously ascend one side of a blade of grass, and with equal enterprise immediately descend the other side. With the office always in her mind as material for metaphors, Una compared the lady-bug's ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... a sloping hill, in the center of a large yard, whose finely laid rows of china trees, interspersed with clusters of towering oaks, formed delightful vistas. On the declivity of the hill the orchard displayed its wealth of orange, of plum and peach trees. Farther on was the garden, teeming with vegetables of all kinds, sufficient for the ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies
... trying. Besides, there was the delicate explanation to be offered to the ladies, who were relatives of one of the influential members of the board of trustees of the Lawrenceville School, John C. Green Foundation. As a consequence, in a towering rage, he summoned the ringleaders, chief among whom he had recognized Dink Stover and, corraling them in his study that night, exposed to them the enormity of their offense against the sex of their mothers and sisters, common ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... maid came with us, talking and singing incessantly, like a sweet-voiced starling. We rested on the farther side and looked back at the towering city, glorious in the sunset, its spires aflame, its long lines of palace and convent clear in the level rays, its ruins softened in the gathering shadows, the lofty bridge hanging transfigured over ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Alas! thy towering spirit ill accords with the fond wishes of my heart. Should fortune favor thy attempt—shouldst thou obtain dominion—alas! I then shall be but the more wretched. Condemned to misery shouldst thou fail—if thou succeed, to misery still greater. Here is no choice but ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Aye floundering on, And on, I stray'd, finding no pathway, save The runlet of a wintry stream, begirt With shelvy barren rocks; around, o'erhead, Yea every where, in shapes grotesque and grim, Towering they rose, encompassing my path, As 'twere in savage mockery. Lo, a chasm Yawning, and bottomless, and black! Beneath I heard the waters in their sheer descent Descending down, and down; and further down Descending still, and dashing: Now a rush, And now a roar, and now ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... vast resources which yield so much in excess of our own requirements that we can relieve the wants of older lands; and how great is the difference between the bygone traffic from the new world to enrich Europe and what we now witness! In other days the southern seas were covered with the towering galleons of Spain, bringing the ingots of gold and silver, wrought in the mines of America through the cruel labour of thousands of enslaved Indians. This was the wealth which poured into the treasuries of a nation whose riches reared ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... heavens in summer appear far higher, more distant, and (if such a solecism may be excused) more infinite; the clouds by which chiefly the eye expounds the distance of the blue pavilion stretched over our heads are in summer more voluminous, more massed, and are accumulated in far grander and more towering piles; secondly, the light and the appearances of the declining and the setting sun are much more fitted to be types and characters of the infinite; and thirdly (which is the main reason), the exuberant and riotous prodigality of life naturally forces the mind more powerfully upon the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... snake of a Brahmana, 'As the irresistible Durvasa proceeded on the car, Rukmini tottered on the road and frequently fell down. At this the regenerate Rishi became angry and began to urge Rukmini on by striking her with the whip. At last, filled with a towering passion, the Brahmana leapt down from the car, and fled towards the south, running on foot, over a pathless ground. Beholding that foremost of Brahmanas flying along the pathless ground, we followed him, although we were smeared with frumenty, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... year of the jack-knife that there lived in our neighborhood a bad boy whose name was Elmer. I would have quite forgotten him except that I met him on the pavement a few weeks ago. He was the bully of our street—a towering rogue with red hair and one suspender. I remember a chrome bandage which he shifted from toe to toe. This lad was of larger speech than the rest of us and he could spit between his teeth. He used to snatch the caps of the younger boys and went off with our baseball across the fences. ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... mouse-coloured donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman—THE old woman, in person, with her red cloak and her black bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside her decent placid cheeks—the towering ploughman with his white smock-frock puckered on chest and back, his short corduroys, his mighty calves, his big red rural face. We greeted these things as children greet the loved pictures in a storybook lost and mourned and found ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... white birds at the base of the laurel and vine-clad hills that lave their verdant feet in the blue waters, Regina watched the sunshine falling across the placid bosom of the lake. Far away, on the sky-line opposite, and towering above the intervening mountains, glittered the white fire of the snowy Alps, as if they longed to quench their dazzling lustre in the peaceful ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of Christ I glory, Towering o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... least idea where the home of the Genii was; but Yun-Ying took him out into the garden, and showed him, in the far distance, a range of snow-capped mountains, with one peak towering above ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... the night before, and was beginning to be conscious of his weakness. But he strode on, doggedly enough, for more than an hour, until he found himself at a part of the coast he had not seen before—a theatre of black rocks, with dark towering walls, and a hissing sea whitening at ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the branch stream, as also along the banks of the river, is a dense growth of tropical vegetation—mostly underwood, with here and there a tall moriche palm towering above the humbler shrubs. Through this they who travel so gleefully are making their way; but cannot yet be seen from the spot where Halberger has halted. But just on the opposite bank, where the trail goes up from the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... seeks to live his best at all times, that determination is visible in every moment of his living, no trifle in his life can be too insignificant to reflect his principle of living. The sun illuminates and beautifies a fallen leaf by the roadside as impartially as a towering mountain peak in the Alps. Every drop of water in the ocean is an epitome of the chemistry of the whole ocean; every drop is subject to precisely the same laws as dominate the united infinity of billions of drops that make that miracle ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... another, it was a sneak. On one occasion, when a steerage passenger, in order to curry favour, was prostrating himself before him after this fashion, assuring the Captain, "That his thoughts coincided exactly with his own," he burst out in a towering passion, "D—— you Sir! haven't you got an opinion of your own? I don't want such a sneaking puppy as you to think my thoughts, and echo my words. I should despise myself, if I thought it possible that we could agree ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... mantle of fog, they drifted slowly away, watching with bated breath the misty outlines of the towering spars grow feinter and fainter, and then vanish altogether, till, although they were but forty yards away, the position of the Brekenbridge was discernible only by a dull blurr of sickly light that came from her stern ports. Then suddenly there came the sound of a splash, followed by tramping ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... with the text of an impressive epitaph, and there I see the delicate and elaborate workmanship of a skillful master. Here my heart is touched by the sweet simplicity of a simple slab bearing some touching lines, there I stand in silent admiration before the magnificent proportions of a towering monument, or sit down to study the meaning of some obscure design. A mere sketch of all that I saw there would fill a volume, but I found one monument which I cannot pass by without some notice. It stands ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... followed only recently by Santiago. The water is brought from a stream a little over a mile away. The ride there is a beautiful one but it goes to prove that the movement for good thoroughfares has not yet extended to the roads. From all parts of Puerto Plata Mt. Isabel de Torres is seen towering behind the city. The view obtained from the slopes of the mountain, over miles of shoreline and a broad expanse of ocean, is of ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... owes its origin to the scenery of Palestine. The wild cliffs of the eastern region where Peniel lay, or the savage fastnesses in the southern wilderness, a day's march from Hebron, where he lived so long, came back to his memory amid the flat, clay land of Egypt; and their towering height, their immovable firmness, their cool shade, their safe shelter, spoke to him of the unalterable might and impregnable defence which he had found in God. So there is in this name the same devout, reflective laying-hold ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... series of disastrous atomic wars of several thousand years before; the Akor-Neb people had come to love the wide inter-vistas of open country and forest, and had continued to scatter their buildings, even after the necessity had passed. But the slim, towering buildings could only have been reared by a people who had banished nationalism and, with it, the threat of total war. He contrasted them with the ground-hugging dome cities of the Khiftan civilization, only a few ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... reality, the hog's back or ridge of a lofty spur of the mountains. Except for the vast bluish canyons and gorges far below, the view was somewhat restricted here, since towering summits, in a conclave of peaks, arose ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... car window at Sleepy Cat may be seen, stretching far down into the southwest a chain of towering peaks, usually snow-clad, that dominate the desert in every direction for almost a hundred miles. In two extended groups, separated by a narrow but well-defined break, they constitute a magnificent rampart, named ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... and listened. There was something doing. It was a Welsh rhapsodie that he was playing. It was all there—the mountains and the rivers, and the towering cliffs with glimpses of the sea where waves foam on the rocks, and sea-fowl wheel and scream in the wind, and then a bit of homely melody as the country folk drive home in the moonlight, singing as only the Welsh can sing, the songs of the heart; songs of love ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... aggregate to four hundred and forty-seven pounds. Then, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we inspanned the oxen and trekked in a north-easterly direction, with the range of hills cut through by the curious gorge about a quarter of a mile on our left and the Drakensberg range of mountains towering aloft on our right some fifty miles distant. We trekked until within half an hour of sunset, by which time we had rounded the north-eastern spur of the range of hills, passed the northern extremity of the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Rockies, with towering, pine-fringed, snow-sprinkled crests looming dimly about them in the moonlight, two young men stood waiting by a switch-target of the Transcontinental. Facing westward, they could see the huge bulk of the mountain range rolling up between them and the starry sky-line, black ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... are wonderfully blended in the summons which rings from the lips of the Levites without: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates! and be ye lift up, ye doors (that have been from) of old!" as if even their towering portals were too low, "and the King of glory shall come in." What force in that name here, in this early song of the King! How clearly he recognises his own derived power, and the real Monarch of whom he is but the shadowy representative! The newly-conquered city ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... roses; once again the roses call up the sweet countenance of Fanny; and she, being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful host of semi-legendary animals—griffins, dragons, basilisks, sphinxes—till at length the whole vision of fighting images crowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human loveliness that have perished, but quartered heraldically with unutterable and demoniac natures, whilst over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... how difficult it is to cope with the calm and resolute manner that the devil gifts him with on such occasions; but I was determined he should not carry the day this time. I saw no chance for it, however, but to put myself into a towering passion, which, thank Heaven, I can always do on short notice.—I charged him with having imposed formerly on my youth, and made himself judge of my rights; and I accompanied my defiance with the strongest ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... hills Do suddenly uprear their towering heads Amid the plain, while from beneath their crests The ground receding sinks; the trees, whose stem Seemed lately hid within their leafy tresses, Rise into elevation, and display Their branching shoulders; yonder streams, whose waters, Like silver threads, ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa
... moments following the path, I found that the field ended abruptly, and the solid walls of the forest rose once more like green cliffs towering on every side. And at their base I saw a house of logs, enclosed within a low brush fence, and before it a ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... of wood and elaborately carved. In the Choir were the fixed stalls with towering canopies, and other seats, which were ranged along the north and south sides and at the west end. Chapels were marked off by wooden screens, often of ...
— Life in a Medival City - Illustrated by York in the XVth Century • Edwin Benson
... wholly without parallel for terror. Many fires had occurred in London, but none that raged with such fierceness as the present conflagration, or promised to be so generally destructive. It gathered strength and fury each moment, now rising high into the air in a towering sheet of flame, now shooting forward like an enormous dragon vomiting streams of fire upon its foes. All at once the flames changed colour, and were partially obscured by a thick black smoke. A large warehouse filled with resin, tar, and other combustible matters, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... never appears to so good advantage as when set off by simplicity of dress. No artist ever decks his angels with towering feathers and gaudy jewelry; and our dear human angels—if they would make good their title to that name—should carefully avoid ornaments, which properly belong to Indian squaws and African princesses. These tinselries may serve to give effect on the stage, or upon the ball room floor, ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... history and mark epochs in the career of races and nations must put here a towering, gigantic, century stone, as marking the passing of one and the ushering in of another great era in the history of the colored people of the United States. Rebellions, for one cause or another, broke out in almost every one of these ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... that she was afraid! She stood a few steps above him; her little candle, flashing its rays into the darkness of the upper and lower halls, made walls and balustrades seem vast by its flickering impotence to oust the darkness. Surely this girl, towering in her sweeping robe and queenly pose, was made to be loved of men and gods! Hero, carrying her vestal taper in the temple recesses, before ever Leander had crossed the wave, could not have had a larger or more noble form, a more noble and ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... changes in the pathway of future civilization. Its obstruction will delay and cripple our advancement. The trinity of principles which Lord Chatham called the "Bible of the English Constitution," the Magna Charta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of Rights, are towering landmarks in the history of our race, but they immediately concerned but few at ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... born, while others seem to grow From out the soil, like towering trees that spread Their strong, broad limbs in shelter overhead When tempest ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... upon their sloping, even surfaces, gave them a prepossessing appearance. Mount Chappell is five or six hundred feet above the water, a very conspicuous object until, by the clearing away of the haze the high mountains of the great island behind it became visible: their white, towering peaks, bathed in the late showers, reflected the gleaming sunshine with great splendour, and presented a spectacle so magnificent, that the circular, gently sloping Mount ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... whole valley. The fields and vineyards, the groves and orchards, the broad river, the zigzag paths leading up the mountain sides, the steamers and canal boats gliding up and down over the surface of the water, and the mountains beyond, with the rocky summit of Drachenfels, crowned with its castle, towering among them, combined to make the whole picture appear like a scene ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... present him with four bars of amber. Near Sullo, the eyes of the jaded and weary travellers were a little revived by the picturesqueness of the scenery, which presented all the possible diversities of rock, towering up like ruined castles, spires, and pyramids. One place bore a very striking resemblance to a ruined Gothic abbey,—the niches, windows, and staircase, having all counterparts in the natural rock. Mr. Park describes the banks of the Ba-Fing and Ba-Lee, two tributaries ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... doubt you were close by, but had got separated from her by the pressure of the crowd. However, she began to squall so loudly that the marquis looked round. He was already in a towering rage, and he asked angrily, 'What are you making all this noise about?' and then looking round exclaimed, 'Where is Inez?' 'She was here a moment since!' the old lady exclaimed, 'and now she has got separated from me.' Your father ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... if by force of some attraction, towards a strange and quite unusual thing, which, less than a mile away along the river, on the Arabian bank, rises upright in the midst of the mournful plains. At first it looks like a mass of towering rocks, which in this hour of twilight magic have taken on a pale violet colour, and seem almost transparent. And the sun, scarcely emerged from the desert, lights them in a curious gradation, and orders their ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... sure; he does not think that he has lost her. He has no suspicion of the truth. He has lived too long shut up in his towering supremacy, seeing her, a patient gentle creature, in the path below it, to have any fear of that. Shaken as he is by his disgrace, he is not yet humbled to the level earth. The root is broad and deep, and in the course of years its fibres have spread out and gathered nourishment from everything ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... for ever State with a towering capital. State, properly republic, here specifically and pointedly means Reigning City. The ghosts walked in the city, not in the republic."—Vide "Dies Boreales," No. ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... from savagery and slavery—throughout the nearly 2,000 years of the Christian calendar, the nearly 6,000 years of Jewish reckoning—there have been many deep, terrifying valleys, but also many bright and towering peaks. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... them to do these things as irresistibly as it will drive us to do similar things tomorrow if we find ourselves attacking a town in which the highest point from which our positions can be spotted by an observer with a field glass in one hand and a telephone in the other is the towering roof of the cathedral. Also let us be careful how we boast of our love of medieval art to people who well know, from the protests of Ruskin and Morris, that in times of peace we have done things no less mischievous and irreparable for no better reason than that ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... "Niagara is grand, but it is a single, solitary grandeur. Here, our vision encompasses a boundless expanse of dread, terrific sublimities; a sea of towering Alpine summits on every hand, with fearfully-yawning gulfs and chasms; tremendous precipices, over whose dizzy edges, as we look down, and down, and down into the abysmal depths of bright green valleys, starred over with tiny white cottages, and graced with winding rivers and waving ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the forest shades, until the night was nearly gone, and it was no longer possible to finish the work. The architect was none other than a redoubtable Hrim-thurs, in disguise, and he now returned to Asgard in a towering rage at the fraud which had been practised upon him. Assuming his wonted proportions, he would have annihilated the gods had not Thor suddenly returned from a journey and slain him with his magic hammer Mioelnir, which he hurled with terrific ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... you were led into a shade, to see a part of it, in the form of a river, rush amongst the fragments of rocks and roots of trees; nothing seemed forced. One recess, particularly grand and solemn amongst the towering cliffs, had a rude stone table and seat placed in it, that might have served for a Druid's haunt, whilst a placid stream below enlivened the flowers on its margin, where light-footed elves would gladly ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... here is plain enough, although it is not always detected. Great genius and force of character undoubtedly make their own career. But because Walter Scott was dull at school, is a parent to see with joy that his son is a dunce? Because Lord Chatham was of a towering conceit, must we infer that pompous vanity portends a comprehensive statesmanship that will fill the world with the splendor of its triumphs? Because Sir Robert Walpole gambled and swore and boozed at Houghton, are we to suppose that gross sensuality and coarse ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage which was superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they might well have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted swiftly. Though its western waterway—the roaring Juniata, which entered the Susquehanna ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... of these the artist shows himself in a new capacity, that of illustrator. Nothing could better express the thirst of that vast assembly in the wilderness than this picture. From a mighty, towering rock the coveted water gushes forth in a generous, crystal stream, by its very abundance making a pool beneath. All degrees of thirst are represented in man and beast, from that which is not pressing to that which, in its intensity, makes a mother seize the cup from ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... afforded for reflection and solitude. Sitting on the broad stone railing he leaned back against a pillar and looked into the night for his thoughts. Once more the moon was gleaming beyond St. Valentine's, throwing against the sky a jagged silhouette of frowning angles, towering gables and monstrous walls, the mountain and the monastery blending into one great misty product of the vision. Voices came up from below, as they did on that night five weeks ago, bringing the laughter and song of happy hearts. ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... I, Radicofani," and the tapestries parted, disclosing the form of the Captain, towering beyond a camp-bed which had been ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... to where, several miles away, a long, mesa-topped mountain showed black against the blue of the more distant hills. The edge of this high table-land broke abruptly in a long series of vertical cliffs, the formation known to Arizonians as rim rocks. The deep shadows of the towering black wall of cliffs and the gloom of the pines and cedars that hid the foot of the mountain gave the place a ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... after dawn, they went on donkeys to the Temple of Edfu. The morning was mysterious and foreboding. Over the whole country a weird silence reigned and wrapped the towering walls of the ancient temple in eeriness; there were no clouds, but the sun was like a great red moon, and all the landscape enveloped in an orange gloom. They rode in silence, awed strangely by Nature's will. Animals were restive and gloomy too. They returned to ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... day she meant it to be, and of the most approved sort. Alma had chosen for herself a rustic sofa, with a round stone table before her, and behind her the trunk of a huge linden, with its branches towering high over her head. Opposite her was Nono, on a long bench, awaiting the opening of the Bible and the big book that lay beside it. Alma, tall, and fair, and slight, looked seriously at Nono, small, and dark, ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... only portions of its colossal magnitude can be observed. On all sides it is hemmed in by houses, which, pygmies though they be, prevent an uninterrupted view of the architectural giant. But from the middle of the Thames, the cathedral is seen in all its glory; towering above the surrounding marts of trade, it stands out the grand point ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... Answer.—"What's the use of telling now that I really am very sorry it has happened. It's not any good confessing to Aleck that I might have prevented it. After all, it was Frisk who did it, and I did not even see Frisk do it. And Aleck's in such a towering passion; I could never face him and have him ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... Toby did not mean to obey him, he sprang to the door of the caravan in a towering passion, seized the whip from Toby's hand, and then beat the poor horse unmercifully, causing it to start from side to side, till nearly everything in the caravan was thrown to the ground, and Rosalie and her mother trembled ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... speech, with K. Le Moyne towering five inches above him and growing a little white about ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
