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Cataract   Listen
noun
Cataract  n.  
1.
A great fall of water over a precipice; a large waterfall.
2.
(Surg.) An opacity of the crystalline lens, or of its capsule, which prevents the passage of the rays of light and impairs or destroys the sight.
3.
(Mach.) A kind of hydraulic brake for regulating the action of pumping engines and other machines; sometimes called dashpot.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Cataract" Quotes from Famous Books



... much of the anti-rent feeling to provincial education and habits. This term has given the deepest offence to those who were most obnoxious to the charge. Nevertheless, our opinion is unchanged. We know that the distance between the cataract of Niagara and the Massachusetts line is a large hundred leagues, and that it is as great between Sandy Hook and the 45th parallel of latitude. Many excellent things, moral and physical, are to be found within these limits, beyond a question; but ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper

... us, not daring to come in contact with the inhabitants of the supreme abodes. Then from the summit of the terrific precipice we darted down, like two stars falling from the firmament of heaven, a thousand million of miles, over many a brimstone crag, and many a furious, ugly cataract and glowing precipice, every thing that we passed looking always frowningly downward; yet every thing noxious avoided us, except once, when having thrust my nose out of the veil, I was struck by such a suffocating, strangling exhalation as would have put an end to ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... considerable distance; but I could not observe that the neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and was as easily heard by them as I heard them. The mist that rises from this fall of water may be seen much farther than the noise can be heard. After this cataract the Nile again collects its scattered stream among the rocks, which seem to be disjoined in this place only to afford it a passage. They are so near each other that, in my time, a bridge of beams, on which the whole Imperial army passed, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo

... The cataract expends itself in spray and foam; the deep river, more slow, bears its tribute of wealth to ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams

... district. At that time the bottom of the lake must have been a smooth cavity, and it must have been surrounded by small narrow glens, pouring their streams into the lake, as they now do into the valley. As the river gradually wore away the rock, over which it must have been precipitated in a cataract, the water in the lake would subside, and the various streams running from the glens would form deep excavations in the soft matter that had formerly been deposited by the water; and this operation would go on, till the ledge of rock was entirely worn away, and a stop was put to the sinking of ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... looped back the heavy lace curtains from the windows which looked over the river. But the snow was falling so fast that he could not see far into the dense, white cataract. The stream was completely hidden, and so, of course, was the hospital camp beyond. Yet through all the driving storm came a faint moan, a light pulsing of the air, which he knew to be the far throb ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... aforesaid, for he opens his window and prepares to discharge the contents of his jug on the heads of the devoted minstrels. If the ancient ophicleide player, with the brandy bottle protruding from his great coat pocket, might but know of the impending cataract which more immediately threatens himself, he would convey himself from the dangerous neighbourhood with all the alacrity of which his spindle shanks are capable. A younger neighbour on the opposite side of the street awaits the catastrophe with amused interest, whilst ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... liquidly, freezing into and clogging up jets and orifices. The little ship was hurled hither and yon, in the grip of forces she could no more resist than can the floating leaf resist the waters of a cataract. And Cloud's brain was as addled as an egg by the vicious concussions which were hitting him from so many different directions and so nearly all at once. Nevertheless, with his one arm and his one leg and the few ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith

... she called down. But Great Taylor seemed not to hear. A child ran out with a bundle in her arms. "Rags," called the child, then stepped back out of the way, wondering. Great Taylor was passing on. An elevated train sent down a cataract of noise, but her song rose above it: "Rags ... old iron...." And when she reached the avenue a policeman with a yellow emblematic wheel embroidered on his sleeve held up his hand and stopped the traffic of the Devil's Own city ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... they be compelled to get out into the cold water for half an hour at a time, and guide them with their hands down the whirling and rapid current, and now and then even to carry them and their loads by land around some foaming cataract to the smoother water below. After an irksome little voyage, they reached Venango, fully satisfied that to go further by water was ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady

... he so lately occupied was empty. I was not forewarned of his disappearance or directed to the course of his flight by any rustling among leaves. These, indeed, would have been overpowered by the noise of the cataract. The place where he sat was the bottom of a cavity, one side of which terminated in the verge of the abyss, but the other sides were perpendicular or overhanging. Surely he had not leaped into this gulf; and yet that he had so speedily ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... his work unfinished lies? Half bent The rainbow's arch fades out in upper air, The shining cataract half-way down the height Breaks into mist; the haunting strain, that fell On listeners unaware, Ends incomplete, but through the starry night The ear still waits for ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... to the west of that island and not far distant he came upon a strong current flowing from east to west.[5] It ran with such force that he compared its violence to that of a vast cataract flowing from a mountain height. He declared that he had never been exposed to such serious danger since he began, as a boy, to sail the seas. Advancing as best he could amongst these raging waves, he discovered a strait some eight miles long, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... don't suppose there will be much demand for the canoe on that day; in fact, it astonishes me that Americans, who appreciate the good things of our country better than we do ourselves, practically know nothing of this superb cataract right at their own doors. I suppose your new canoe is not finished yet, and as the others are up in the woods I write so that you will keep this particular craft for me. I do not wish to take any risks, as I leave so soon. Please drop me a note to this hotel ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr

... manner; some of the wretches on the footsteps exclaiming: 'Next year you shall be behind the carriage and we inside.'" At the close of the year 1788, the stream becomes a torrent and the torrent a cataract. An intendant[5320] writes that, in his province, the government must decide, and in the popular sense, to separate from privileged classes, abandon old forms and give the Third-Estate a double vote. The clergy and the nobles are detested, and their supremacy is a yoke. "Last July," ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... of his people and then he heard of their opportunities in the free States and in Liberia. He, therefore, made his escape in July, 1851, and reached Canada in safety. After remaining two years in Canada he decided to enter the employ of the proprietor of the Cataract House on the American side of Niagara Falls. What happened then is best told in his ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... only with their smiles The fabled valleys and Elysian isles; He who is wearied of his village plain May roam the Edens of the world in vain. 'T is not the star-crowned cliff, the cataract's flow, The softer foliage or the greener glow, The lake of sapphire or the spar-hung cave, The brighter sunset or the broader wave, Can warm his heart whom every wind has blown To every shore, forgetful ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... his reeking hide They stretched the cataract beside, Whose waters their wild tumult toss Adown the black and craggy boss Of that huge cliff whose ample verge Tradition calls the Hero's Targe. Couched on a shelf beneath its brink, Close where the thundering torrents ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... sight than to witness two or three hundred persons so gaily occupied, and in such a scene, is not easy to imagine. How beautiful was the stern old castle, softened by the moonlight, the illumined lake, the richly-silvered foliage of the woods, and the white brilliant cataract! ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... which was visible in front had the appearance of a muddy cataract, through which ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... throughout Egypt when we read of the great national rejoicing which followed the triumph of Usertesen III (c. 2660-22) over these hordes. He drove them back and attempted to confine them to the edge of the Nubian Desert above the Second Cataract. Hemmed in here, they set up a state about ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois

... with a sudden, hurricane-like and whirling impetus, making the solid rock tremble over which it rushed, came thundering down, swinging over one half of the narrow trace, bounding from one side to the other along the gorge, and with the headlong fury of a cataract sweeping everything from before its path until it reached the dead level of the plain below. The involuntary shriek from those who beheld the mass, when, for an instant impending above them, it seemed ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... more of intermittent firing passed in the suspense of listening to a trickle of water undermining a dam. Then, with the roar of waters carrying away the dam, a cataract of shell fire broke and continued in far heavier volume than that ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... chapter (p. 156), represents a slab of sandstone containing impressions of the foot of a bird and of rain drops. This slab is from a sandstone basin near Turner's Falls, a fine cataract of the Connecticut river in the State of Massachusetts, and is described by Dr. Deane in a recent number of the American Journal of Science. "It is rare," says that gentleman, to "find a stratum containing ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous

... after discovering the treasure and the skeletons of the pirates in the cave near the Cataract, that we heard the doleful sound of some bird while ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... from the false and counterfeit peace in which so many are content to live, and content to die! The world's peace is all well, so long as prosperity lasts—so long as the stream runs smooth, and the sky is clear; but when the cataract is at hand, or the storm is gathering, where is it? It is gone! There is no calculating on its permanency. Often when the cup is fullest, there is the trembling apprehension that in one brief moment it may be ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... another time," thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... long before the Count heard the increasing din of the approaching multitude, the first ranks of which rushed on with the rapidity of a cataract. ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... He swallowed great mouthfuls of tepid water which the wind drove down his throat. The brig seemed to sail through undulating waves that passed swishing between the masts and swept over the decks with the fierce rush and noise of a cataract. From every spar and every rope a ragged sheet of water streamed flicking to leeward. The overpowering deluge seemed to last for an age; became unbearable—and, all at once, stopped. In a couple of minutes the shower had run its length over the brig and now could be seen like a straight ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... the worst is yet to be told. The drain from the privies connecting with the sewer in the street had a man-hole, which was open, at the place where the yard was broken for a descent into this infernal cellar. This man-hole was about four feet wide and three feet deep, forming a small table for a cataract of night soil and other fecal matter, which poured over this artificial table in a miniature and loathsome Niagara and into a cesspool at the bottom, and from thence was conducted under the rotten boards ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervousness, and when he has burst forth, as he does constantly, with a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on his left cheek almost to his collarless ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... she was embarrassed by the heartiness of the cheering group. From the vestibule she waved to them, but she clung a second to the sleeve of the brakeman who helped her down before she had the courage to dive into the cataract of hand-shaking people, people whom she could not tell apart. She had the impression that all the men had coarse voices, large damp hands, tooth-brush mustaches, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... The fiery cataract no longer spread its glowing covering over the mouth of the grotto. Lieutenant Procope leaned through the aperture. The pool, hitherto kept fluid by its proximity to the lava, was already encrusted with a ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... which is now named Fajardo, which was the farthest point he reached upon the Orinoco. This island lies at the mouth of the Caroni, the great southern artery of the watershed, and Raleigh's final expedition was made up this stream. He reached the foot of the great cataract, now named Salto Caroni, and his description of this noble natural wonder may be quoted as a favourable instance of his style, and as the crown of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... respectable amusement,—puts on the seven-league boots of self-opinion, and strides at once from an illustrator into a supreme judge, and blind and deaf, fills his three-ounce phial at the waters of Niagara; and determines positively the greatness of the cataract to be neither more nor less than his three-ounce phial has been able ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... jolly time at the Cataract. It was full of smart people, for only the suburbs, the demi-monde, and Germans go to the Riviera nowadays. It's so terribly played out, and the Carnival gaiety is so ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... the arch of the boulders below was shaped so peculiarly that the scent of her breath and body was sucked into a cavity and carried down-stream, and, passing beneath the stone, mingled, at the raging cataract near the rock, with air in the bubbles formed by the tumult of the waters. These bubbles, instead of bursting, were drawn into the vortex of a little whirlpool; and the keen-nosed hounds, though suspicious, could form no definite opinion as to the presence ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... was slain; his reeking hide They stretched the cataract beside, 80 Whose waters their wild tumult toss Adown the black and craggy boss Of that huge cliff, whose ample verge Tradition calls the Hero's Targe. Couched on a shelf beneath its brink, 85 Close where ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... holy sage possesses magic power In virtue of his penance; she, his ward, Under the shadow of his tutelage Rests in security. I know it well; Yet sooner shall the rushing cataract In foaming eddies re-ascend the steep, Than my fond heart turn back ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... pretensions; and to spend the best part of another year in futile efforts to recal that phrase; if all this had been recklessness and haste, then, surely, the most sluggish canal in Holland was a raging cataract, and the march ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... and musketry was heard above the roar of the cataract. On both sides repeated and bloody charges had been made. While the action was raging an old man wandering near was seen to throw down suddenly a bundle he was carrying and to seize a musket from a fallen soldier. He plunged headlong into the thick of the fight, and bore himself as valiantly ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... up the rapids of Niagara into about two hundred just such falls, to say nothing of the big cataract itself," added Scott. "It is pleasant, this walk along the river, but you can't call the Falls of ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic

... A cataract began to form on Uncle Willie's eyes, and every day he could see just a little less plainly than the day before. The prospects were that he would soon be blind, and without his eyesight he could neither hunt ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace

... deference," said Mr. Sebright, "I dispute that conclusion. The cataract, in Miss Finch's case, is ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins

... in the mist, and here, Half in the air, like[5] creatures of the place, Trusting the elements, living on high boughs That sway in the wind—look at the silver spray Flung from the foam-sheet of the cataract Amid the broken rocks! Shall we stay here With the wild hawks? No, ere the hot noon come Dive we down—safe! See, this is our new retreat Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, Dark, tangled, old and green, still sloping down To a small pool whose waters lie asleep, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... lady's face indeed transcended, I rather thought, the bounds of prose, did much to refer her to the realm of fantasy, some fairy-land forlorn; an effect the more marked as the wrapper she appeared hastily to have caught up, and which was somehow both voluminous and tense (flowing like a cataract in some places, yet in others exposing, or at least denning, the ample bed of the stream) reminded me of the big cloth spread in a room when any mess is to be made. She apologized when I said I had come to inquire for Miss Talbert—mentioned (with play of a wonderfully ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo

... bath-salts and towels. "From Ben," she continued, flicking a lightning glance at the face which, went suddenly rosy pink as it rested against her knee. "Written from the Oasis of Kurkur near the First Cataract. He hasn't seen lion yet, but has heard a lot about the one which is causing a panic amongst the dragomen in Luxor. Oh! how nice for him! Do you remember fat Sybil Sidmouth, the ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... was the second son of the Earl of Maynooth, at that time governor of one of the Australian colonies. Adair's mother had returned from Australia to undergo the operation for cataract, and she, her son Ronald, and her daughter Hilda were living together at 427 Park Lane. The youth moved in the best society—had, so far as was known, no enemies and no particular vices. He had been engaged to Miss ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... falling perpendicularly down, for above a minute, but with such incredible swiftness, that I almost lost my breath. My fall was stopped by a terrible squash, that sounded louder to my ears than the cataract of Niagara; after which I was quite in the dark for another minute, and then my box began to rise so high that I could see light from the tops of the windows. I now perceived I was fallen into the sea. My box, by the weight of my body, the ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... himself in his mountain home by taking upon him his favorite form of a salmon, and lying listlessly, beneath the waters of the great Fanander Cataract, which fell from the shelving rocks a thousand feet above him. One day while thus lying, he bethought himself of former days, when he walked the glad young earth in company with the All-Father. And among other things he remembered how he had once borrowed the magic net of Ran, the Ocean-queen, and ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... begrimed with powder, sixty feet in air, he hung like Apollyon from the extreme tip of the yard over the fated abyss of the hatchway. As he looked down between the eddies of smoke into that slaughterous pit, it was like looking from the verge of a cataract down into the yeasty pool at its base. Watching, his chance, he dropped one grenade with such faultless precision, that, striking its mark, an explosion rent the Serapis like a volcano. The long row of heaped cartridges was ignited. The fire ran horizontally, like an express ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... fairy pebbles round; And over were the solemn ridges strewn Of a dark rock, that, like the wizard throne Of some sea-monarch, stood, and from it hung Wild thorn and bramble, in confusion flung Amid the startling crevices—like sky, Through gloom of clouds, that sweep in thunder by. A cataract fell over, in a streak Of silver, playing many a wanton freak; Midway, and musical, with elfin glee It bounded in its beauty to the sea, Like dazzling angel vanishing away. In sooth, 'twas pleasant in the moonlight gray To see that fairy ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... cataract of animal spirits! I am afraid, Hephaestus, that you do not escape, even here, from the echoes ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse

... cataract nearing the fall are difficult to guide. Three parties were forming in the National Assembly: the Girondists, the party of genius and eloquence and of moderation; the Jacobins, the party of the extremists and radicals; ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele

... home!—the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it;— This little speck the British Isles? 'Tis but a freckle,—never mind it! He laughs, and all his prairies roll, Each gurgling cataract roars and chuckles, And ridges stretched from pole to pole Heave till they ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... shook his head sadly, and Shivers buried his head on Zoraya's shoulder, pressing his painted cheek close to hers, while the dull roar of the circus, off under the big top, drifted to them faintly, like the sighing of a distant cataract. ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... long stillwaters of the mighty stream that rushes from Lac Saint Jean to make the Saguenay—below the Ile Maligne and above the cataract of Chicoutimi—two birch-bark canoes are floating quietly, descending with rhythmic strokes of the paddle, through ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke

... a material belief, a blind miscalled force, 192:12 the offspring of will and not of wisdom, of the mortal mind and not of the immortal. It is the headlong cataract, the devouring flame, the tempest's 192:15 breath. It is lightning and hurricane, all that is ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... Nan-Shan lifted her bows and leaped. The flames in all the lamps sank, darkening the engine-room. One went out. With a tearing crash and a swirling, raving tumult, tons of water fell upon the deck, as though the ship had darted under the foot of a cataract. ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad

... he cried, and, as we backed away from the maddened whale, it turned and, with one sweep of its flukes, sent a cataract of water over us that almost filled the boat, and drenched us to the skin. It dived, then, and the whale line ran out of its tub so rapidly that the loggerhead in the stern, around which was a turn of the line, smoked ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... outlet, then its level remained stationary. I floated on the top quite easily, with as little exertion as was necessary to keep me in that position. If I raised my head, my brow struck the ceiling. The next cell to mine, lower down, was possibly empty. I heard the water pour into it like a little cataract. The next cell above, and indeed all the cells in that direction were flooded like my own. Of course it was no trouble for me to keep afloat; my only danger was that the intense coldness of the water would numb my body beyond recovery. Still, ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... dollars, and include the largest and finest examples in the world. When he wears them all, as he sometimes does, on great occasions, his front from his neck to his waist is covered with pearls netted like a chain armor. His turban is a cataract of pearls on all sides, and upon his left shoulder is a knot as large as your two hands, from which depends a braided rope of four strands, reaching to his knee, and every pearl is as large as a grape. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... surface with an ominous hiss; they resembled meteors, and their brilliancy was augmented by the surrounding gloom. Rain also began to descend, not in drops, but in broad sheets and with the roar of a cataract; in a moment everybody on the Alcyon's deck was drenched ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg

... a cataract of water from his hat brim in a chill trickle down the back of his neck, and barked a shrilly staccato command at the placid horse. The creaking ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... stood back some little way from the street, two being occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and there a "To Let" card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly plants separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the beeches and soaring pines of the avenues. Far up the extended hollow there was a basin first to receive the water from the conduit supposed to tap the aqueduct leading down from the forest of Belgrade. The noise of the little cataract there was strong enough to draw a quota of visitors. From the front gate to the basin, from the basin to the summit of the promontory, the company in lingering groups amused each other detailing what of fortune good and bad the year had brought them. The main features of such meetings are always ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... could have seen the old place before he went to college," observed the Judge, adroitly seizing upon a pause in this cataract of words, and making a desperate effort to change the subject. "He will find Harvard rather dull, I ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... much of the blood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) there remains in our mixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, and Picard stock is a matter only interesting to wild antiquaries. And how much of that diluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of America into which a cataract of Swedes, Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italians is perpetually pouring, is a matter only interesting to lunatics. It would have been wiser for the English governing class to have called upon some other god. All ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... it from Coleman Heights, with its neat cottages, its maple groves, and apple orchards, is remarkably beautiful," writes one appreciative author. The "wide-spreading pond," the "mill," the "dairy-house," the "rock where the cataract fell," and even the "old well," if not the original "moss-covered bucket" itself, may still be seen just as the ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... seething, roaring caldron of strife, the mad waters seeming to pounce with ever- increasing fury from one imperturbable antagonist to another, now leaping clear over the head of one, only to dash itself into a cloud of spray against another, or pour like a cataract against its base in a persistent, endless struggle to undermine it; while over all tower the dark, shadowy rocks, grim witnesses of the battle. This spot is known by the appropriate name of "The Devil's Gate." Wherever the walls of the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... Campsie, the ruins of which still occupy a striking situation on the Tay. It arose on the summit of a precipitous rock, which descends on the princely river, there rendered peculiarly remarkable by the cataract called Campsie Linn, where its waters rush tumultuously over a range of basaltic rock, which intercepts the current, like a dike erected by human hands. Delighted with a site so romantic, the monks of the abbey of Cupar reared a structure ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... watching the stones plunge into the water, that threw up its white spray high in the air as it received them, and returned a sullen sound, which the echoes of the mountains prolonged. Under the bridge was seen a perspective of the valley, with its cataract descending among the rocks, and a cottage on a cliff, overshadowed with pines. It appeared, that they could not be far from some small town. St. Aubert bade the muleteer stop, and then called to the children to enquire if he ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... dim flat plain, while, in the far distance, the mighty domes and towers of Rome dwindle to an unreal mirage in the warm haze of the western sky; then advancing again, he feels the breath of the mountains upon him, and hears the fresh plunge of the cold cataract, till at last, when his strength is almost failing, it is renewed within him, and the dust and the heat of the day's journey are forgotten in the fulness of refreshment. So Corona d'Astrardente, wearied though not broken by the fatigues and the troubles and the temptations of the ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford

... very rich, her dress was not gaudy or in ill taste. But what was remarkable in the lady was, that although her features were handsome, and upon the whole pleasing, the pupil of each eye was dimmed with the whiteness of cataract, and she was evidently stone-blind. I was for some seconds so surprised at this unaccountable apparition, that I could not find words ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... other and racing past the ship in sport, sending their flying scud high over the foreyard, or else trying vainly to poop her; and, when foiled in this, they would dash against her bows with the blow of a battering-ram, or fling themselves bodily on board in an angry cataract that poured down from the forecastle on to the main-deck, flooding the waist up to the height of the bulwarks to leeward, for we heeled over too much to allow of the sea running off through the scuppers, these and our port gunwale as ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Ess Ruaid: Assaroe; a cataract on the River Erne near Ballyshannon, in the south of the County Donegal. It constituted part of the old boundary between Ulster ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown

... cataract glancing brightly, Dashed and sparkled; and beside Lay a broken marble monster, Mouth and ...
— Legends and Lyrics: First Series • Adelaide Anne Procter

... storms in hilly districts in Yorkshire; and at their riotous climax, while the sky was all cataract, the earth all flood, I have ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... Broidered with gold and glittering with gems, Unfurled its azure field; and, as it caught The sunbeams and flashed down upon the throng That filled the forum, there arose a shout Deep as the murmur of the cataract. In that spontaneous outburst of applause Rome spoke; and as the echo smote the hills It woke the slumbering memory of a time When ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various

... exposed, and if not bare, clothed only in clumsy slippers with toe pieces, and neither heels nor uppers. Women carry burdens on their heads, and walk erect and posed as if for snap photographs. The young girls are fond of long hair, black as cannel coal, and streaming in a startling cataract to the hips. It seems that the crop of hair is unusually large, and it shines with vitality, as the breeze lifts it in the sunshine. The Philippine boys are still more lightly clad than the girls, who have an eye to queer combinations of colors, and the revelation ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... Striding over moor and meadow, Through interminable forests, 60 Through uninterrupted silence. With his moccasins of magic, At each stride a mile he measured; Yet the way seemed long before him, And his heart outrun his footsteps; 65 And he journeyed without resting, Till he heard the cataract's thunder, Heard the Falls of Minnehaha Calling to him through the silence. "Pleasant is the sound!" he murmured, 70 "Pleasant is the voice that calls me!" On the outskirts of the forest, 'Twixt the shadow and the sunshine, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... where Queen Elizabeth slept—is quite a dull old hole compared to Mrs. Ess Kay's splendid room. Mine, at home, has all the furniture covered with faded chintz, and the curtains are made of plain white dimity. But I love the deep window seats where I can curl up among cushions, with a cataract of roses veiling the picture of the terrace with its ivy-covered stone balustrade, the sun-dial, the two white peacocks, and far away, the park with a blue mist among the trees. And I haven't learned yet to love my beautiful room at Mrs. Ess Kay's, though I admire it immensely—admire ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... as he could he seated himself near Janet, who told him of the welfare of their father and mother, and how she had been restored to sight by the removal of the cataract from her eyes by a skilful oculist to whom Lady Elverston ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... go up to the second Cataract as fast as possible, and return back at leisure. Hekekian Bey came to take leave yesterday, and lent me several books; pray tell Senior what a kindness his introduction was. It would have been rather dismal in Cairo—if one could be dismal there—without a soul ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... Piccadilly Circus—so called, no doubt, from the number of horses and the skill of their drivers. Here are the whirling pools of pleasure, merry wheels of laughing waters, where your hansom glides along with a golden ease—it is only when you enter the First Cataract of the Strand that you become aware of the far-distant terrible roar of the Falls! They are yet nearly two miles away, but already, like Niagara, thou hearest the sound thereof—the fateful sound of that human Niagara, where all the great rivers ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... Diablo just when he was ready to win a big race." With a tinge of bitterness the girl thought how much her mother's opposition was to blame for this narrow missing of a great victory. She was glad to get away from the cataract of voices that smothered her like great falling waters. There was little exultation. If it had been any solace to her, she had much companionship in her dashed hopes; for Diablo, the winner, had not ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... never presumed to think of such a piece of impertinence as to offer it to you as a gift! I only make free to beg you will take it as an advance on account of young Ishmael's wages, as he'll be sure to earn; for, bless you, miss, work is a-pouring in on top of me like the cataract of Niagara itself! And I shall want all his help. And as I mayn't have the money to pay him all at once, I would consider of it as a favor to a poor man if you would take this much of me in ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... what I dreaded happened. A vast mountain of green water lifted up its bulk and fell upon us in a ravening cataract. I clutched at Masters, but trying to save him and myself handicapped me badly. The strength of that mass of water was terrible. It seemed to snatch at everything with giant hands, and drag all with it. It tossed a hen-coop high, and carried ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various

... be ashamed of it, and, above all, do not let us, for the sake of easing our shoulders, be unfaithful to our Master. 'In the world ye have tribulation'; and the Christian man's peace has to be like the rainbow that lives above the cataract —still and radiant, whilst it shines above the hell of white waters that are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... and to this he resolved now to drag himself. To crawl across the space that separated him from the pool required all the strength he could summon. The sun was already well up and its rays shot like spectrum arrows through the spray of the dainty cataract, which spurted in a jewelled sheet over a rocky ledge twenty feet above and poured noisily down from the broad pool along ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... stranger within his gates," she had felt the presence of a tangible God, and when, at last, she followed the fortunes of the chosen one of her heart far into the great North Woods, nature spoke to her from the forest and the cataract, deepening each early impression and intensifying each early belief, until she realized as a living fact that the "Lord was ever in his holy temple" and that his temple was ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... From this basin it flows away into tanks in an other building, where four to five tons of ice are consumed daily to keep it at a low temperature, so that the vapor and breeze produced by this ice-water, at the foot of the cataract, refreshes the air and keeps it cool and pleasant during the warm summer evenings. The admittance is fifty cents, and 5,000 to 10,000 persons enter every night, during the height of the season. Here meets "youth and beauty," and the wealth, gayety and ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... the canon slopes away from the rim and instead of the storm water running directly into the river it flows in the opposite direction. Only after a long detour of many miles does it finally reach the river by the Little Colorado or Cataract Creek. ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... eyes, for instance, the much-dreaded cataract, are caused by defective circulation and the accumulation of impurities and poisons in the system in general and in the mechanism of the eyes in particular. All such cases yield readily to our combination of natural methods of treatment, ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... varying depths. Suppose a low cone to be flooded only occasionally, as in the case of the Old Faithful geyser. The cooled water falling from the upper air builds up, under the terrible drench of the cataract, walls three or four inches high, making pools of every conceivable shape, a few inches deep, in which are the most exquisite and varied colors ever seen by mortal eye. You walk about on these dividing walls and gaze into the beaded and impearled pools of a hundred shades of different colors, ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... god! The rocks dripped around them—the torrent dashed at their very feet. Down—down, in thunder, for ever and for ever, dashed the might of the maddening element; above, all wrath; below, all blackness;—there, the cataract; here, the abyss. Not a moment's pause to the fury, not a moment's silence to the roar;—forward to the last glimpse of the sun—the curse of labour, and the soul of unutterable strength, shall be upon ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... I am hungry,' said Dane, drawing his hand over his face. 'Mr. Falkirk is going off toward the cataract—just run after him and tell him that his ward is come home;—has ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... name of Umber, who was called after the celebrated navigator Cook. These two words when united soon became corrupted, and the magnificent sheet of water was designated 'the Cucumber Lake,' while its splendid cataract, known in ancient days by the Indians as the 'Pan-ook,' or 'the River's Leap,' is perversely called by way of variation 'the Cowcumber Falls;' can anything be conceived more vulgar or more vexatious, unless it be their awkward attempt at pronunciation, ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... troops in the desert, or in one of the many deserts; there were yet more columns waiting to embark on the river; there were fresh drafts waiting at Assioot and Assuan; there were lies and rumours running over the face of the hopeless land from Suakin to the Sixth Cataract, and men supposed generally that there must be some one in authority to direct the general scheme of the many movements. The duty of that particular river-column was to keep the whale-boats afloat in the water, to avoid trampling on the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... revengeful, he became an alien to his father's house, and with gun and dog passed months in the wildest regions of that wild country. With the savage he slept in his wigwam, he threaded the forest and stood upon the verge of the cataract; or penetrated up to the stormy regions of the White Mountains; and anon, hushed the tumultuous beatings of his heart in accordance with the stroke of his paddle, as he and his red companions glided over that loveliest of lakes, Winnepisoge, or "the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... next, what will happen to me or to her, I cannot say. My life might have run on quietly towards that ocean where all life is absorbed,—now it may run like a cataract down to a precipice. Let it be so. At the worst I can only be a little more unhappy, that is all. Until now I have not been lying on a bed of roses, with that consciousness of my ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... were glad enough to have it eight bells, and the wheel relieved. We turned-in and slept as well as we could, though the sea made a constant roar under her bows, and washed over the forecastle like a small cataract. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... been produced in a healthy eye by cataract in the other eye, or by neuralgia, or by a wound of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... his human air. On the narrow pathway, just before. I saw the back of him, no more— He had left the chapel, then, as I. I forgot all about the sky. No face: only the sight Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, With a hem that I could recognize. I felt terror, no surprise; My mind filled with the cataract, At one bound of the mighty fact. "I remember, he did say Doubtless that, to this world's end, Where two or three should meet and pray, He would be in the midst, their friend; Certainly he was there with them!" And my pulses leaped for joy Of the golden thought without ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... a stream of men and women poured from every door, and went to swell the main cataract which had risen suddenly in full flood in the Strand. The donkey-barrow of a costermonger passed me, loaded with a bluejacket, a flower-girl, several soldiers, and a Staff captain whose spurred boots wagged ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson

... for a better life was remarkable with the younger generation. The stormy period of her own existence was past, and like a silvery rivulet twinkling in the sun at the mountain crest, speeding downward until it roars and foams in an angry cataract, then emerging into the cool, placid stream, lazily flowing past the village cottages and on through the silent woodland, she had reached a stage where only ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... then came the sweeping bend in the river, and the roar of the distant falls. This meant to put ashore and to portage the canoe, duffle, guns and gold bags around to the foot of the falls, for no canoe could possibly live through such a cataract, and there was no record, even among the Indians, of anyone ever having "run" it. All the morning Jack had paddled bow, and worked like a nailer, so the other two lifted the canoe to their shoulders, scrambling up the steep, rocky ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... give something to yonder sham cripple; give to that cadger who pretends to have lost an arm; and be sure you don't forget that blind young man leaning on his father's arm! A medical man of my acquaintance offered yesterday to restore his sight, by operating for the cataract. The father cried aloud with indignant horror at the proposal; the boy is a fortune to him. Drop an alms for the son into the father's bowl; the Pope will let you into Paradise, of which he ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About

... splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... plumage droops O'er mosses, crisp and gray, Where on the shaded crags I sit, Beside the cataract's spray, And watch the far-off, shining sails Go down ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... itself. The weight, W, and the angle of the lever, L, are such, that when the valve, V, is once opened it goes full open. A small hole in the can C, acts like a cataract, and brings matters to a normal state very soon after the ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... foliage, whose green appears almost black against the sunset, are reflected in the water below, its dark surface broken by an occasional ripple and little masses of foam which have drifted down from the cataract hundreds of miles away. Beyond the belt of trees the minarets of some distant village are clear cut against the sky, for the air is so pure that distance seems to be annihilated. Looking east, the bold cliffs face the full glory of the sunset, and ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly

... its volume and its power, now rushing rapidly, now moving along in deep and tranquil water, until it swells into a bold stream, coursing its way over the shallows, dashing through the impeding rocks, descending in rapids swift as thought, or pouring its boiling water over the cataract. And thus does it vary its velocity, its appearance, and its course, until it swells into a broad expanse, gradually checking its career as it approaches, and at last mingles with the ocean of Eternity. I have been led into this somewhat trite metaphor, to account to the reader ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... bury itself in deep, still pools. Afterward it went steadily on for a while, like a good grown-up person, till it came to another big rock, where it misbehaved itself extremely. It turned into a cataract, and went tumbling over and over, after a fashion that made the prince—who had never seen water before, except in his bath or his ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... along the scarped rock's side, until it seemed as if the few dwarf pines which clung in odd crannies here and there trembled in unison, and once more the white smoke of a fall or rapid rose up close before us. Then I could see the smooth lip of the cataract held apart, as it were, by one curved glittering ripple from the tumult beneath, and I remembered having heard the Indian packers say that when shooting a low fall one has only to keep the craft straight before the current, which is not always ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... "feature for feature, down to the very 'cataract leaping in glory,' the scene might have been got up, apres coup, to illustrate it." And he began to repeat the beautiful hackneyed ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... had spoken hesitantly and cautiously. Now like the epileptic or the mad dog, he burst into a volcanic outpouring in which wild words tumbled upon themselves in a cataract of boiling abandon. His fists were clenched and veins stood out on ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... sound burst from the cave. Following it, Semitzin appeared at the entrance, dragging a heavy metal box, which she grasped by a handle at one end. Immediately in her steps broke forth a great volume of water, boiling up as if from a caldron. It filled the cave, and poured like a cataract into the gorge. The foundations of the great deep ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne

... it was written Shakespeare had been deceived by his mistress, betrayed by his friend; his eyes had been opened to the fraud and falsehood of life; but, like one who has just been operated on for cataract, he still sees realities as through a mist, dimly. He meets the shock of traitorous betrayal as we should have expected Valentine or Antonio or Orsino to meet it—with pitying forgiveness. Suffering, instead of steeling ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... a passion, Mr. Dodd," he replied. "'And the tall cataract haunted me like a passion,'" he quoted. "I never weary of the sea, sir. This is my first ocean voyage. I find it a glorious experience." And once more my disbarred lawyer dropped into poetry: "Roll on, thou deep and dark ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it, for our only chance was to run with the storm until the rough edge was taken off, and then heave to. I cried, "All hands down!" as the gale struck us with the force of a thunderbolt, carrying a wall of white water with it which burst over us like a cataract. I thought we were swamped as I clung desperately to the tiller, though thrown violently against the boom. But after the shock, our brave little boat, though half filled, rose and shook herself like a spaniel. The mast bent like a whip-stick, and I expected ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... with his temper his last chance of finding his road. When he had stumbled for what seemed hours he sat down on a boulder and whistled dismally. The stream belonged to another watershed. If he followed it, assuming that he did not break his neck over a dry cataract, he would be through the mountains and near Taghati quicker than he intended. Meantime the miserable George would wait at Nazri, would rouse the Khautmi garrison on a false alarm, and would find himself irretrievably separated ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... each other. Wait a moment, how would this do? Let the ship reach Chennu with the prisoners, but, by a secret order to the captain, pass the quarries in the night, and hasten on as fast as possible as far as Ethiopia. From Suan,—[The modern Assuan at the first cataract.]—the prisoners may be conducted through the desert to the gold workings. Four weeks or even eight may pass before it is known here what has happened. If Ameni attacks thee about it, thou wilt be very angry at this oversight, and canst ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the purpose of explaining to a phlegmatic ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... they cut away my tallest Pines— My dark tall Pines, that plumed the craggy ledge— High o'er the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Fostered the callow eaglet; from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn The panther's roar came muffled while I sat Down ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... prosperity and aggrandizement of a State is to be seen in its increase of inhabitants, and consequent progress in industry and wealth. Of the vast tide of emigration, which now rushes like a cataract to the West, not even a trickling rill wends its feeble course to the Ancient Dominion.—Of the multitude of foreigners who daily seek an asylum and a home, in the empire of Liberty, how many turn their steps toward the regions of the ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown

... at Niagara, the voice of the cataract not only roared night and day through every chamber of the house, but the whole building vibrated incessantly with the shock of the mighty fall. I have still health and nerve and spirits to cope with the grand exhibitions of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... it trickled in a half-cataract down the cliffs. Donald and Dugald hurried away to this and brought back Highland bonnetfuls of water. Then we washed Archie's face and made him drink. How we rejoiced to see him smile again! I believe the London accent of his voice was at that ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... reach the first rows in the orchestra first, and ripple in laughter back to the standees against the wall, and then with a fine resurgence come again to the rear orchestra seats, and so rise from gallery to gallery till it fell back, a cataract of applause from the topmost rows of seats. He was such a practised speaker that he knew all the stops of that simple instrument man, and there is no doubt that these results were accurately intended ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... toilsomely over the portage which led past the great cataract of Niagara and launched his canoes on Lake Erie. From its south shore, during seven days of heart-breaking labor, the party dragged the canoes and supplies through dense forest and over steep hills until they reached Chautauqua Lake, the waters of which flow into the Allegheny ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... must pay me a little more attention," expostulates the teacher. "What does the operation for cataract resemble in a familiar point ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... and Meryl stood on Danger Point alone, when they took their first long look at the amazing cataract of waters. Neither spoke for many seconds, and then Diana breathed, "I'm glad Aunt Emily didn't come. She would have called it ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... too well its fatal import, sprang from their berths. Then came the cry of "Cut away," followed by the crash of falling timbers, and the thunder of the seas, as they broke across the deck. In a moment more, the cabin skylight was dashed in pieces by the breakers, and the spray, pouring down like a cataract, put out the lights, while the cabin door was wrenched from its fastenings, and the waves swept in and out. One scream, one only, was heard from Margaret's state-room; and Sumner and Mrs. Hasty, meeting in the cabin, clasped hands, with these ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... marched they that plough The fertile lands above that town which lie Up to the place where Nilus tumbling low Falls from his second cataract from high; The Egyptians weaponed were with sword and bow, No weight of helm or hauberk list they try, And richly armed, in their strong foes no dreed Of death but great desire ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... of Dr. Arnold's letters there is the following passage. "'Too late,' however, are the words which I should be inclined to affix to every plan for reforming society in England; we are ingulfed, I believe, inevitably, and must go down the cataract; although ourselves, i.e. you and I, may be in Hezekiah's case, and not live to see the catastrophe." Similar forebodings were uttered on other occasions by this eminently good man in the latter years of his life. I quote the passage to show how deep must have been the apprehension ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... joys of heaven while her fond arms enfold me? O let her kindling bosom hold me! Feel I not always her distress? The houseless am I not? the unbefriended? The monster without aim or rest? That, like a cataract, from rock to rock descended To the abyss, with maddening greed possest: She, on its brink, with childlike thoughts and lowly,— Perched on the little Alpine field her cot,— This narrow world, so still and holy Ensphering, like a heaven, her lot. And I, God's hatred daring, ...
— Faust • Goethe

... so as not to get their feet crushed between them. There was not a dry thread on them. Juell, who lay asleep in the "Grand Hotel," as we called one of the long-boats, awoke to hear the sea roaring under him like a cataract. I met him at the cabin door as he came running down. It was no longer safe there, he thought; best to save one's rags—he had a bundle under his arm. Then he set off forward to secure his sea-chest, which was floating about on the fore-deck, and dragged it hurriedly aft, while ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... are pleasing shades about it, with a constant spring that supplies a cold bath. We then went out to see a cascade. I trudged unwillingly, and was not sorry to find it dry. The water was, however, turned on, and produced a very striking cataract."[1] ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi



Words linked to "Cataract" :   eye disease, Cataract Canyon, posterior subcapsular cataract, nuclear cataract, falls, cortical cataract, waterfall



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