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Tumult   /tˈuməlt/   Listen
Tumult

noun
1.
A state of commotion and noise and confusion.  Synonyms: garboil, tumultuousness, uproar.
2.
Violent agitation.  Synonym: turmoil.
3.
The act of making a noisy disturbance.  Synonyms: commotion, din, ruckus, ruction, rumpus.



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"Tumult" Quotes from Famous Books



... started slowly forward. The cadet sprang to the wheel, his mind in a wild tumult as he strove to think ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair

... of the cabin and plunged into the thicket. As he ran on and on, the tumult behind him faded away. The recent cold snap had formed a crust on the snow, and he made pretty good progress. Now and then, however, he struck weak spots and broke through to his knees. At the end of half-an-hour he ventured to stop. He seated himself on a log and strapped his snowshoes on securely. ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon

... I said, we must try them with enchantments—that is the third sort of test—and see what will be their behaviour: like those who take colts amid noise and tumult to see if they are of a timid nature, so must we take our youth amid terrors of some kind, and again pass them into pleasures, and prove them more thoroughly than gold is proved in the furnace, that we may discover whether they are armed against all enchantments, ...
— The Republic • Plato

... attempt to raise the veil which hides from the world the strongest and purest affections of our nature: they were never intended for the common eye. But now, after the first rapture of meeting had subsided, there arose a tumult within the soul of our affectionate and grateful little Maggie: her heart urged her in two opposite directions. She felt, in an ardent and uncommon degree, that instinctive love of kindred which is implanted in our ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... lady, some naked, some dressed, and which she used for exhibiting fashions upon. But, greatly to the horror of the spectators, who accounted these figures to be magical devices, there was, on their being shown, "heard a crack from the scaffold, which caused great fear, tumult, and confusion, among the spectators and throughout the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the devil had been present, and grown angry to have his workmanship showed to such as were not his own scholars." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... wide, deserted stretches of open veldt, the roar of Adderley Street seemed to Weldon like the maddening tumult of Piccadilly. The noise stunned him; the hurrying crowd filled him with terror. Even inside the cab, he still clung to the arm of the faithful Kruger Bobs. Still clinging to that faithful arm, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... of Zwingli's warmest adherents—"we know your ways of doing justice. That unhappy pastor made an appeal and you referred him to the executioner." The rash word was spoken. "Funk! you had better been silent," one of his companions called out to him. A fearful tumult arose; the troops put themselves in motion. The more considerate warned the Zurichers to retire without delay, and secured them by a ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... prefect, together with the chief commanders, tribunes, and officers of the treasury, came to the church [in Nicomedia], and when the gates had been forced open they sought for an image of God. The books of the Holy Scriptures were found and burnt; the spoil was given to all. Rapine, confusion, and tumult reigned. Since the church was situated on rising ground, and was visible from the palace, Diocletian and Galerius stood there as if on a watch-tower and disputed long together whether it ought to be set on fire. The opinion of Diocletian prevailed, for he feared lest, when so great a fire should ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... the same consistency, the same strange tale. The owner of these possessions lived in the by-gone time; lived among old recollections and old associations—a voluntary recluse from all that was connected with the passing day. In Miss Welwyn's house, the stir, the tumult, the "idle business" of the world evidently appealed in vain to sympathies which grew no longer with the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... was about to mount his horse, to return to the outposts, a tumult broke out at some distance, in the part of the camp reserved for the prisoners. Shouts were heard, and two or three shots fired. Perhaps it was an attempt at revolt or escape, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... held it, and pushing back the bolt, he silently opened the door. Whether the darkness within was greater than that without, or whether the preternaturally quickened ears of the patients detected the manipulations of the fastenings, he did not know, but he was conscious at once that the tumult within was hushed. It was apparent that they had been visited in the night before, and that the accustomed intruder had come on no gentle errand.. There was not a sound as Jim felt his way along from stall to stall, sickened almost to retching ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... virtue superior to both. He found her untainted by that giddiness, vanity, and affectation, which distinguish the fashionable females of the present age. He found her uninfected by the rage for diversion and dissipation; for noise, tumult, gewgaws, glitter, and extravagance. He found her not only raised by understanding and taste far above the amusement of little vulgar minds; but even exalted by uncommon genius and refined reflection, so as to relish the more sublime enjoyments of rational pleasure. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... Heathen, was in part, covered with pens for sheep, goats, and cattle, for the feast and the thank-offerings. Sellers shouted the merits of their beasts, sheep bleated, and oxen lowed. It was, in fact, the great yearly fair of Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult, till the services in the neighboring courts were sadly disturbed. Sellers of doves, for poor women coming for purification from all parts of the country, and for others, had a space set apart for them. Indeed, the ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... with powerful lungs, and four or five hundred paid men," scatter themselves around the Tuileries, "yelling furiously," and, gathering under the windows of the Assembly, "move resolutions to assassinate."—"Our ushers," says a deputy to the Assembly, "whom you ordered to suppress this tumult, heard reiterated threats of bringing you the heads of those the crowd wished to proscribe. That very evening, in the Palais-Royal, "I heard a subordinate leader of this factious band boast of having charged your ushers to take this answer back, adding that there was time enough yet ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... this reason that the gift of old age is unwished for, and the prospect of future life without encouragement. It is the modern conviction that there will be some kind of work in it; and even though what we shall be set to do may be 'wrought with tumult of acclaim,' we have had enough of work. What follows, almost as a matter of course, is that the thought of possible extinction has lost its terrors. Heaven and its glories may have still their charms for those who are not wearied out with toil in this life; ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... aperture hurled themselves back into the abyss, and down into the great chasm at the bottom of the bay, which had been made when the motor sent its shock along the great rock beds. Down upon, and into, this roaring, boiling tumult fell the tremendous cataract from above, and the harbour became one wild expanse of leaping maddened waves, hissing their whirling spray ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... the night, like the tumult of a river when it races between the cliffs of a canyon, in my sleep I could hear the steady roar of the passing army. And when early in the morning I went to the window the chain of steel was still unbroken. It was like the torrent that swept ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... dressing for dinner," one said, "when we heard a shouting on deck. Almost immediately there was a great bump, which knocked most of us off our feet, and we thought that we had been run into, but directly afterwards we heard a great tumult going on above us, and we guessed that the ship had been attacked by pirates. The clashing of swords and the falling of bodies went on for two or three minutes, and then there was a loud savage yell that told ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... now once more he could say with the eager sincerity of the old time, "If the thought of leaving him breaks my heart, the thought of leaving him is wrong!" As that nobler conviction possessed itself again of his mind—quieting the tumult, clearing the confusion within him—the house at Thorpe Ambrose, with Allan on the steps, waiting, looking for him, opened on his eyes through the trees. A sense of illimitable relief lifted his eager spirit ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... four hundred years ago, in the sad silence that had followed the comparative failure of the noble effort of the Middle Ages, there came upon all Europe a storm out of the south. Its tumult is of many tongues; one can hear in it the laughter of Rabelais, or, for that matter, the lyrics of Shakespeare; but the dark heart of the storm was indeed more austral and volcanic; a noise of thunderous wings and the name of Michael the Archangel. And when it had shocked ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... Pope in effigy," notes Scott—in his reprint of what Swift called "the Grub Street account of the tumult"—"upon the 17th November, the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, was a favourite pastime with the mob of London, and often employed by their superiors as a means of working upon their passions and prejudices." ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... their myriad lights that the fun reached its highest pitch. Then there was true Sicilian dancing, true Sicilian joking, love-making. Eyes were bright, cheeks were flushed, lips were parted, and the halls of Terranova echoed to a bacchanalian tumult. ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... Ruth heard Singleton's shots. She broke away from Shorty, noting with dull astonishment that Shorty seemed almost to have permitted it, and ran down the street toward Warden's office. As she ran she heard a tumult behind her, and steps close beside her. She glanced swiftly over her shoulder, to see Shorty beside her. The giant was taking steps that dwarfed hers, and while she looked at him he drew past her. She heard him muttering as he ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... wild tumult and of fierce delight. The warriors on the prairie retired before their enemies until all of their associates were clear of the forest, when the circle swiftly closed again, until it had brought the bears to something like close quarters. Bear's Meat, as became his appellation, led off ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... inner life since that New Year's night had been strangely serene, in spite of its frightful outward turmoil and stress. He had taken the tumult of Neuve Chapelle calmly, and had come through it and all the beginning of the Ypres battle without a scratch. He had felt that he was looking upon it all from some detached standpoint, and that it in ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... do in the midst of this tumult? A few more moments would tell; for his axe was dealing tremendous strokes, before which the key-piece, stout though it was, must soon yield. Ah, it is almost severed. The foreman pauses for an instant and glances keenly around, evidently ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... cultivate on the banks of Lake Windermere. Bell, too, became a disciple of Isaac Walton, and to indulge their love of sport, and to enjoy each other's company where, removed from the busy haunts of men, they might "hear the tumult and be still," they were accustomed to spend whole days and nights on the banks of Loch Awe, and amid the gloomy and impressive scenery of Glen Dochart. At other times they would plan walking excursions. It was no unusual thing for them to walk upwards of thirty miles at a ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... of horses and the tumult of combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their curiosity; but those who heard them by ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... their abode in their towns; and, withal, because of a report that was newly raised at that time, and that indeed was not very improbable, viz., that the poor people in London, being distressed and starved for want of work, and by that means for want of bread, were up in arms, and had raised a tumult, and that they would come out to all the towns round to plunder for bread. This, I say, was only a rumor, and it was very well it was no more; but it was not so far off from being a reality as it has been thought, for in a few weeks more the poor people became so desperate by the ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe

... runners with royal dispatches to his governors and vassal rulers. Turning his head as he heard in the outer court a sudden and great commotion, his face grew troubled and anxious as he saw the cause of the tumult to be his favorite son, Ixtlil', bound, and in the hands of his officers of justice. For, spite of the lad's wild ways, the good 'tzin loved this unruly young cacique, and saw in his excesses and troublesome pranks the promise of a courage that might make him, in the years ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... strength."—"Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." These Divine assurances sooth and encourage the Christian's disturbed and dejected mind, and insensibly diffuse a holy composure. The tint may be solemn, nay even melancholy, but it is mild and grateful. The tumult of his soul has subsided, and he is possessed by complacency, and hope, and love. If a sense of undeserved kindness fill his eyes with tears, they are tears of reconciliation and joy: while a generous ardour springing up within ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... 'free suffrage to all!' Why, forsooth, should we rather be confined to the narrow circle of home than our friends of the other sex? Are we not as capable of sounding the loud alarm of war, of mingling in the strife and tumult of the battle-hour, as the ladies of antique Amazonia, or the warrior-men of our own day? Have we not intellect enough to cope with the WEBSTERS, the CLAYS, and the WRIGHTS, in the halls of Congress? Is not our dignity sufficient to maintain, with honor to our country and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... o'er the angry waters, lashed by the sable keel to a yeasty madness,—to look afar upon the disturbed billow, presenting its crested head like the curved neck of the war horse,—then to mark the screaming sea bird, as, his bright eye scanning the waters, he soars above the stormy main—its wide tumult his delight—the roaring of the winds his melody—the shrieks of the drowned an harmonious symphony to the hoarse diapason of the deep! All these things may awake reflections, which are alike futile and transitory; but they are accompanied by a mental excitement, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... tumult of soul in which he was addressed, shut up his bureau without a word, and hurried off with his distressed comrade, giving up for that benevolent purpose the precious time he had refused himself to spare for a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay

... the floor, as I sought to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... the first emotions of the mind often burst out before they are considered. In the tumult of business, interest and passion have their genuine effect; but a friendly letter is a calm and deliberate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness of solitude, and surely no man sits down by design to depreciate ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... tumult, uproar. Douglas, I, 117, 9. O.N. dyra-domr, "doordoom, an ancient tribunal held at the door of the house of the suspected person, which often was followed by uproar and bloodshed" (Small). The word appears ...
— Scandinavian influence on Southern Lowland Scotch • George Tobias Flom

... When the tumult had somewhat subsided, the senator resumed his sad recital. At sound of the Frenchman's cruel mandate, the Burgomaster Wengelin had risen from his knees, and raising his head proudly, had cried out: "Give us back that of which you have robbed us, and we ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... then used no prayer-book, but, by the royal commands, the bishop and dean of Edinburgh were reading certain new prayers in the church of St. Giles' on Sunday, July 23, when 'the serving-maids began such a tumult as was never heard of since the Reformation.' This 'tumult' was no sudden burst of feeling, but 'the result of a consultation in the Cowgate of Edinburgh, when several gentlemen recommended to various matrons that they should give their first affront to the [prayer] book, assuring them ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang

... him for me, Phyllis?" asked Allan when the tumult and the shouting had died, and the caracoling Foxy had buried his hideous little black pansy-face in a ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... her reflection on the glass when she herself has moved away. She sees in her dream the world like passing shadows thrown on an illuminated cloth. She thinks of her soft, white, and opulent beauty which fills her white dress; her chin is lifted, and above her face shines the golden tumult of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... again. I snatched it from him with great indignation, and retired to my room, where I threw myself on the bed in a fit of despair. "You should rather have thrown yourself on your knees," says Adams, "for despair is sinful." As soon, continued the gentleman, as I had indulged the first tumult of my passion, I began to consider coolly what course I should take, in a situation without friends, money, credit, or reputation of any kind. After revolving many things in my mind, I could see no other possibility of furnishing myself with the ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... louder it grew until it became like the din and roar of some mighty tempest, or like the ocean surging upon the shore. In the midst of the tumult a tinkling bell was heard; another answered, then another, and the storm paused as if to listen. The bells grew bolder; they rang out loud and clear. Other deep-toned bells joined in; they were tolling in solemn concert—ding, dong! ding, dong! The storm ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge

... took my seat, to preserve perfect silence whatever the members said or did. They were very orderly, and it is creditable to them that they were so. If public opinion will not avenge our cause, violence and tumult will not help us." The irony of fate had decreed that this admirable sentiment should not find a permanent lodgement in the ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... canoes close to the far shore, might run the rapids with safety. But no boat, once caught in the vicious grip of the main current between the comparatively still waters of The Bend and that wild, roaring tumult at Elbow Rock, ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright

... splashing sound, as of many oars, and the war-cry of a host of combatants broke on the air. A brief interval had sufficed to change the silence into a frightful uproar of sound and the restful peace into the fast growing tumult of ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... for as the words grew about me, there wakened a memory-dream how that I had made these same words to Mirdath the Beautiful in the long-gone Eternity of this our Age, when she had died and left me alone in all the world. And I was weak a little with the tumult and force of my emotion; but in a moment I called eagerly with my brain-elements to Naani to give some explaining of this thing that she had spoken to the utter troubling ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... gathering, gathering for stirring events, for the development of new mysteries and the solving of old ones. Soon, all unknown to one another, Dave and Jarvis, Pant, Johnny Thompson, Cio-Cio-San, and Mazie would be in the same city—a city seething in the tumult of revolt. ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... his face. He rode rapidly—appearing and vanishing, so that Sylvia scarcely saw him—really did not see him with her conscious mind at all. Her thoughts were still busy with dreams, and the clatter of boys and girls; but deep within her had begun a tumult—a trembling, a pounding of the heart, a clamouring under the floors of ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... she had felt the tumult of his heart while he answered her so calmly; it made her realize what it cost him to deny her prayer; it assured her that a staunch sense of duty underlay his strength; pitilessly it assured her also that he would not change, and the very ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... and threaded the irregular runways of the hunting-camp, a vast tumult, as in a wave, rose to meet them and rolled on with them—cries, greetings, questions and answers, jests and jests thrust back again, the snapping snarl of wolf-dogs rushing in furry projectiles of wrath upon Smoke's stranger dogs, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... this play bred all this tumult: What was there in it could so deeply offend And stir so ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson

... sound of their cries, guests, men-at-arms, ladies, servants, and, in a word, all the inhabitants of that great house, came flying from every direction, and began to join their voices to the tumult. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Sheila stopped, with a terrible dread falling over her. What had she not said? The pride of her race had carried her so far, and she had given expression to all the tumult of her heart; but had she not betrayed her duty as a wife, and grievously compromised the interests of her husband? And yet the indignation in her bosom was too strong to admit of her retracting those fatal phrases and begging ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... but his footsteps left behind Along the byways of life, Where he patiently walked, striving the while To quiet its tumult and strife. But the peddling pilgrim has laid down his pack And gone with his earnings away; How small will they seem, remembering the debt Which the world too late ...
— Three Unpublished Poems • Louisa M. Alcott

... field, from a fount ever hidden their birth, Four rivers in tumult rush roaringly forth; They fly to the fourfold divisions of earth— The sunrise, the sunset, the south, and the north. And, true to the mystical mother that bore, Forth they rush to their goal, and ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... she thought, that, whatever revelation Woodward was about to make concerning him, it was one which would occasion himself great pain as his brother, and that nothing but the necessity of saving her from unhappiness could force him to speak out. In fact, her mind was in a tumult; she felt quite nervous—tremulous—afraid of some disclosure that might destroy her hopes and her happiness, and make her ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... many believed on him, yet they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; John xii, 42, 43. Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they could prevail nothing, and fearing a tumult, they determined to release Barabbas and surrender the just man, the poor innocent slave to be stripped of his rights and scourged. In vain will such men try to wash their hands, and say, with the Roman governor, "I am ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... me pierced by one of those bombs, and the room in which I lay engulfed in the chaos of this wing of the Hotel du Rhin. Many times I said, "To hell with it all... I'm going to sleep," and then sat up in the darkness at the renewal of that tumult and switched on the electric light. No, impossible to sleep! Outside in the corridor there was a stampede of heavy boots. Officers were running to get into the cellars before the next crash, which might fling them into the dismal ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... upon this beechen spray! Spring wakes thy harp! I hear—I see—again, Thy wild steeds foaming thro' the crimson fray, The raven on the white breast of thy slain, The tumult of thy chariots, far away, The weeping in the glens, the lustrous hair Dishevelled over the stricken eagle's fall, And in thy Druid groves, at fall of day One gift that Britain gave her valorous there, One gift of lordlier pride ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes

... a tired and disheartened army which was gathered under the walls of Burgos early in November, but a body of picked and energetic veterans. Joseph, to be sure, had done little in the interval to take advantage of the foolish and careless tumult into which the joy of victory had thrown the Spanish people. In spite of the minute directions which had been received almost daily from Napoleon, Jourdan, who, having been the King's military adviser in Naples, had come in the same capacity to Spain, gradually lost ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... stronger physical man than I ever was or ever will be. The struggle that bound him to the woods and to research, that made him the master of forces that give back life, when a man like Carey says it is the end, proves him a master. The tumult in his soul must have been like a cyclone in his forest, when he turned his back on the world and stuck to the woods. Carey told me about it. Some day you must hear. It's a story a woman ought to know in order ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... were having their revenge. Tears had their way until she was worn out, and then the angel of sleep came down upon her. There upon the pine-needle bed, with tear-wet cheeks she lay, and slept like a tired child come home to its mother from the tumult of ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... faithful to me; the others want to keep me in a state of tutelage." "Firmness," said Madame de Pompadour, "is the only thing that can subdue them." "Robert Saint Vincent is an incendiary, whom I wish I could banish, but that would make a terrible tumult. On the other hand, the Archbishop is an iron-hearted fellow, who tries to pick quarrels. Happily, there are some in the Parliament upon whom I can rely, and who affect to be very violent, but can be softened upon occasion. It costs ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... the annoyance, nor the dignity, nor the ridicule of the supposed victim—not Julie's angry eyes, nor all her mocking words from tremulous lips—had availed in the least to silence the tumult of alarmed affection in the Duchess's breast. Her Julie had been flouted and trifled with; and if she was so blind, so infatuated, as not to see it, she should at least be driven to realize what other people felt ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... vague than the ocean, glimmered before Emma's eyes in an atmosphere of vermilion. The many lives that stirred amid this tumult were, however, divided into parts, classed as distinct pictures. Emma perceived only two or three that hid from her all the rest, and in themselves represented all humanity. The world of ambassadors moved over polished floors in drawing rooms lined with mirrors, round ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... impossible for him to speak. He could only lay his hand over hers with a brotherly clasp. By this time they were at the foot of the stairs, and he led the way up, Madame de Chateauvieux following in a tumult of anxious conjecture. When they reached his rooms he put her carefully into a chair by the fire, made her take some sandwiches, and set the kettle to boil in his handy bachelor way, that he might make her some tea, and all the time he talked about various nothings, till at last Marie, ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... The nurse whom Dr Marjoribanks had sent to assist them was visible through an open door, sleeping very comfortably in the adjoining room. Mr Wentworth came into the silent chamber with all his anxieties throbbing in his heart, bringing life at its very height of agitation and tumult into the presence of death. He went forward to the bed, and tried for an instant to call up any spark of intelligence that might yet exist within the mind of the dying man; but Mr Wodehouse was beyond the voice of any priest. The Curate said the prayers ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... filled with an orderly crowd awaiting events. There was noticeable the same absence of excitement, impatience, or tumult so characteristic of the popular gatherings of that time, except perhaps when the meetings were conducted by the partisans of Law and Order. After a long interval one of the Committee members ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... Baptist Church, who for my sake was cast out. This young sister was baptized about four miles from here, in a river, about eight o'clock in the evening, by moonlight, as the dear brethren feared the tumult and concourse of the opposers in the day time. I advised her father to baptize her, in order that at once, even in this respect, there might be nothing in the judgment of the dear saints, as if ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... brothers and asked their advice as to what course to adopt. T'ien Yuean-shuai had a large boat built, called 'Spirit-boat.' He assembled in it a million spirits, and ordered them to beat drums. On hearing this tumult all the demons of the town came out to listen. T'ien Yuean-shuai, seizing the opportunity, captured them all and, with the help of the Grand Master, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner

... tumult a grave procession issued from the deanery, and took its way across the lower quadrangle, which was thronged with officers and men-at-arms, in the direction of the lower gate. Just as it arrived there a distant gun was heard, and an answering peal was instantly ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... driven snow. The vapor rises high into the air, and is gathered there, visible always as a permanent white cloud over the cataract; but the bulk of the spray which fills the lower hollow of that horseshoe is like a tumult of snow. This you will not fully see from your seat on the rail. The head of it rises ever and anon out of that caldron below, but the caldron itself will be invisible. It is ever so far down—far as your own imagination ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... hull of the vessel, until her timbers cracked and made strange noises. It was discovered that the vessel was leaking badly, and all hands were ordered to the pumps. The hurricane continued to roar, and the parson became alarmed at the tumult. He at last appealed to the captain to know whether the danger was of a serious character. The captain informed him the danger was great; but, if he desired to be assured of his safety or otherwise, he ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman

... all this served to set in tumult the pulses of at least one who saw Miss Lady, fresh as a little white cloud, warm as a tiny spot of yellow sunlight, cool and mysterious as the morning, thus framed as a picture on ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... but contributed its freshness. The younger Pliny built a study in the garden of his Laurentine villa near Ostia, which he describes (II, 17) with enthusiasm: "horti diaeta est, amores mei, re vera amores": and here he found refuge from the tumult of his household during the festivities of the Saturnalia, which corresponded with our Christmas. In the ante bellum days every Virginia gentleman had such an "office" in his house yard where he pretended to transact his farm business, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... When the tumult had partly subsided, Joe Blunt rose and said,—"Have the Pawnee braves turned traitors that they draw the knife against those who have smoked with them the pipe of peace and eaten their maize? The Pale-faces are three; the Pawnees are thousands. If evil has ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... suddenly that a disease has fatally stricken him, deep in the springs of life. After struggling some days against conviction, and clinging to false hopes, he has at length acknowledged that sentence of death has been passed. When the first tumult subsides, a species of calm succeeds,—the calm of earnest occupation with one over-riding and absorbing theme. The world, with its hopes and fears, is conclusively cut off: his business with time is closed. He has bidden farewell to the crowd that he has left behind, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... solemn man with brown side whiskers, let the reins droop on his mare's neck and sat unwinking in the tumult. His mien was copied by his staff. Only one of them, a very young boy who was new to the colony and his post, changed colour under his gaudy cap, went from white to pink and from pink to white again; while at each fresh insult ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson

... The tumult continued, growing louder and louder. The schoolmaster kept still and let them rage. Bullet Gunner, Ljung Bjoern, and Krister Larsson led the attack. Hoek Matts, who was the innocent cause of all the trouble, rose to his feet time and again and begged them to ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... disagreeable duty to record here, that the acts of Benjamin now became violent; for he darted his sledge-hammer violently on the anvil of Mr. Doolittles countenance, and the place became in an instant a scene of tumult and confusion. The crowd rushed in a dense circle around the spot, while some ran to the court room to give the alarm, and one or two of the more juvenile part of the multitude had a desperate trial of speed to see who should be the happy ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... she felt a tumult in her bosom which almost overcame her. Her heart palpitated almost audibly, and her knees became feeble under her. There was something so terrible associated with the idea of a Rapparee that she took it for granted that some frightful transformation of person and character must have ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... mo'!" It was the voice of her short companion rising above the tumult. "Ax him whut he done wid de funds of de s'ciety he 'stablished at Little Rock, Arkansaw, all of w'ich he absconded wid dis ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... hour struck ere he knew it was meridian and time to cross the playground and into Kate Bell's for his glass of waters. "Silence till I return!" he would say, whipping on his better coat and making for the door that had no sooner shut on him than tumult reigned. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... mother consented; but little rest had the poor princess that whole night, for the pain of having her mind touched with guilt, and the fear she was under of losing her dear companion, kept her thoughts in one continued tumult and confusion. The fairy's gift now became her curse; for the power of seeing what was right, as she had acted contrary to her ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... shiels of de Gideonites, an' aftah while, wid de powah of de Lawd behin' him, de man Gideon triumphed mightily," and swaying then and wailing in the dark woods, with grim branches waving in the breath of their own excitement, they could hear above the tumult the clamor of the fight, the clashing of the spears, and the ringing of the shields. They could see the conqueror coming home in triumph. Then when he cried, "A-who, I say, a-who is in Gideon's ahmy to-day?" ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... dream. Where once the brambled meads and orchardlands, Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands Of summer; and the birds of field and wood Called to me in a tongue I understood; And in the tangles of the old rail-fence Even the insect tumult had some sense, And every sound a happy eloquence: And more to me than wisest books can teach The wind and water said; whose words did reach My soul, addressing their magnificent speech,— Raucous and rushing,—from the old mill-wheel, That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein

... Thorneycroft's Works, which rose black into the low, wet sky. The roadway of the huge suspension bridge quivered under the grind of the ceaseless traffic, while the wind cried in the massive pea-green painted iron-gearing above. There was a sense of hardly restrained tumult, of conflict between nature and the multiple machinery of modern civilisation, the two in opposition, alike victims of an angry mood. And Iglesias stood watching that conflict among the crowd of children, and loafers, and decrepit, who to-day—as ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... government were monarchical, we might be more sanguine of the success of any proposed measure of amnesty, because of the immediate power of the government to suppress summarily any disorder arising from too great leniency; but to delegate to the States themselves the quelling of the tumult which they have themselves raised, is, to say the least, a doubtful experiment. Many thinking Carolinians have said that they preferred that the government should first itself demonstrate the system of free ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz

... day of Wyclif's appearance the cathedral and streets surrounding it were crowded, to such an extent indeed that Wyclif had much trouble in getting through, and when Gaunt was seen, accompanied by his large body of retainers, a wild tumult ensued; the mob attacked Gaunt's noble mansion, the Savoy Palace, and had not Courtenay intervened, would have burnt it down. The Black Prince's widow was at her palace at Kennington, with her son, the future Richard II., and her great ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham

... at once checked the tumult—even the stewardess and Mrs Negus hushing down their wailing outcry to an occasional moan or faint muffled sob, which they could not quite stifle; but the strange rocking motion of the ground, which seemed as if they were again on shipboard, prevented the ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... But that is not the hazard Which I would shun: I rather feare the men We must offend in this, being great, rich, wise, Sided with strong friends, trusted with the guard Of places most important, will bring forth Rather new births of tumult, should they be Calld to their Triall, then appease disorder In their just punishment; and in doing Justice On three or four that are delinquents, loose So many thousand inocents that stand firme And faithfull patriots. Let us leave them therefore To the ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... seldom missed a Wake, Dance, Cockfight or any other place of amusement or tumult, were not present, we need scarcely assure our readers, at the wake-house of Mrs. M'Mahon. On that night they and Teddy Phats were all sitting in their usual domicile, the kiln, already mentioned, expecting Hycy, when the following brief dialogue took place, previous ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh. A star goeth out of Jacob, and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and smiteth the borders of Moab, and destroyeth all the sons of the tumult. Ver. 18. And Edom shall be a possession, and Seir shall be a possession—his enemies, and Israel acquireth might. Ver. 19. And a Ruler shall come out of Jacob, and destroyeth what ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... saw the lines of red splotches which gleamed in the early sunlight, and he knew these were British troops. The rattling musket-fire became a grinding roar, and the deeper note of artillery boomed into the tumult. A battle had begun, yet the Connecticut Brigade was stewing in the heat hour after hour, impatient, troubled, wondering why they had no part to play. As the forenoon dragged along the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... "Yellow Cap wins!" "Yellow Cap wins!" rent the air. He did win by a head, and with a well-pleased flush on my face at my friend's marvellous good fortune, I turned to congratulate him. He was gone. The tumult and confusion were excessive; but looking toward the exit gate, I just caught a glimpse of the book-maker passing rapidly through it, and then of Richard in pursuit ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... home, and the revenue of the government to be improved by the decay of our manufactures. We are to owe henceforward our power to epidemical diseases, our wealth to the declension of our commerce, and our security to riot and to tumult. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... more he sought The learned council, nor the battlefield; But wore his soul away, and only pined For the fierce joy and tumult of the fight. ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... Reedshires were out to kill, and they killed. In the black shadow of the German redoubt Dennis Dashwood watched one of the finest fights of the war, every fibre of his being itching to be in it. But between him and that raving, raging tumult stretched the tightly packed files of the enemy, thrown into panic-stricken confusion by the unexpectedness of the attack, and after a mad few minutes, in spite of the efforts of their officers to hold them up, the vaunted Prussians broke and streamed back to ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... struck furiously every way, they could not settle the tumult, and ever the mass of folk swayed more wildly to and fro. Nor do I know what might have happened at that moment but for a cry that arose ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... hereafter some traveller like myself will sit down upon the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder Zee, where now, in the tumult of enjoyment, the heart and the eyes are too slow to take in the multitude of sensations? Who knows but he will sit down solitary amid silent ruins, and weep a people inurned and their greatness changed into an empty name?—VOLNEY: Ruins, ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... world was awake that night, and throughout Christendom a sombre murmur hung in the keen air over the countryside like the belling of bees in the heather, and this murmurous tumult grew to a clangour in the cities. It was the tolling of the bells in a million belfry towers and steeples, summoning the people to sleep no more, to sin no more, but to gather in their churches and pray. And overhead, growing ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... the angels soon would call You, my beloved, to the other shore, And I should never see you any more, I love you so I know that I should fall Into dejection utterly, and all Love's pretty pageantry, wherein we bore Twin banners bravely in the tumult's fore, Would seem as shadows idling on a wall. So daintily I love you that my love Endures no rumor of the winter's breath, And only blossoms for it thinks the sky Forever gracious, and the stars above Forever friendly. Even the fear of death Were ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world, and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune, like a step-mother, has so long detained me. But, nevertheless, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... yourself contented to relinquish? If so, have you not perceived, that, in proportion as his presence and communication either revived old memories, or brought before you new pictures of "the bright tumult" of that existence of which your guest made a part,—you began to compare him curiously with yourself; you began to feel that what before was to rest is now to rot; that your years are gliding from you unenjoyed and wasted; ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... convention. The bridal pair stood before him, the groom with a slight flush on his cheeks and a bright glitter in his black eyes, which were not nice to see; the bride with bowed head and bosom heaving as in response to inward tumult. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... journals to the mere populace; for the position I have since attained makes me, I conceive, a public character, and this was certainly the most extraordinary incident in a not uneventful and perhaps not an unimportant career. I am by no means without experience in scenes of civil tumult. I have faced many a political crisis in the old Primrose League days at Herne Bay, and, before I broke with the wilder set, have spent many a night at the Christian Social Union. But this other experience was quite inconceivable. I can only describe it as the letting loose of a place ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... This magnificent but terrible idea was not examined in its details—it was taken for granted as a thing not only possible but probable; and the far-distant region of Hindostan, separated as it was by deserts, mountains, and rivers from the tumult that agitated Central Asia, was stirred by conflicting feelings of terror and exultation. British India, from the Himalaya to the sea, is dotted here and there with native states, which the inconsistent policy of the Company in Leadenhall Street has preserved ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various

... in which she lives, Mrs. Brown is fairly well off. She rents one floor to an Italian family, one to some labourers, and one to an Irishman and his wife who get drunk from time to time and rouse us in the night with tumult and scuffling. She has a way of disappearing for a week or more and returning without giving any account of herself. Relations are strained, and Mrs. Brown ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst

... the summons usually addressed to cashiers in haberdashers' shops. Finally there was a piercing yell of "Mam-ma-a-a-a-ah!" apparently in explanation of the demand for Byron's attendance in the drawing-room. The doctor reddened. Mrs. Byron smiled. Then the door below closed, shutting out the tumult, and footsteps ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... Euphrosyne McNulty. She found the household in a state of suppressed tumult. The servant who opened the door was all at sea; obscure sounds of sobbing came from somewhere above; and when Euphrosyne finally washed in she was like the ocean half-subsided after a storm. She had just learned that Preciosa had refused ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... perpendicular salute, then all together dashed into the water with the full strength of the voyageurs wielding them. The canoe fairly leaped through the cloud of spray. Another rounded the bend, another double row of paddles flashed in the sunlight, another crew, broke into a tumult of rapid exertion as they raced the last quarter mile of the long journey. A third burst into view, a fourth, a fifth. The silent river was alive with motion, glittering with color. The canoes swept ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... literature is called 'poetry' by those narrow-minded fellows. By that word they indicate everything that savours of a more elegant doctrine, that is to say all that they have not learned themselves. All the tumult, the whole tragedy—under these terms he usually refers to the great theological struggle—originates in the hatred of bonae literae. 'This is the source and hot-bed of all this tragedy; incurable hatred of linguistic study and the bonae literae.' 'Luther provokes those enemies, whom it ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... stormy water waileth, E'en the human tumult faileth; Stars their silent torches light, To conduct ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore

... day broke still and clear. The dawn was yet a pale promise in the East when from Independence, out through the dripping woods and clearings, rose the tumult of breaking camps. The rattle of the yoke chains and the raucous cry of "Catch up! Catch up!" sounded under the trees and out and away over valley and upland as the lumbering wagons, freighted deep for the long trail, swung into ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... at the close of the week of tumult that the dreadful beckoning came. One of the two trained nurses installed at Mereside had been called away to the bedside of a sick father. Another had been wired for immediately, but between the going and the coming a night would intervene. So much Griswold got ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde

... prerogatives of the clergy, at once caused a tremendous excitement. Loud cries of "Throw her down!" "Drag her out!" "She's an infidel!" resounded in all parts of the building. She, however, held her ground, calm and collected while the tumult lasted, and after quiet was restored, continued her remarks in a most dignified manner, making a deep impression upon all present. Certain religious papers declared it a forewarning of some terrible calamity, that a woman should call a minister to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... Charles Frohman. At that time, for it was scarcely more than a decade after the Civil War, there were many parades in New York, and all of them passed the little Broadway cigar-store. To get a better view, Charles frequently climbed up on the roof and there beheld the marching hosts with all their tumult and blare. Here it was, as he often later admitted, that he got his first impressions of street-display and brass-band effects that he used to such ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... impact from distant northerly winds. And as they moved, they shrieked and groaned, the thunderous voices hailing from far up the lake and pealing past the solitary figure to the black wastes beyond. This tumult of the lake increased in fury, yet with solemn pauses of absolute silence between the reports. At first Alves stood still and listened, fearful, but as she became used to the noise, she walked on calm, courageous, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... into your arms, whatever way I try. Something remains that I cannot express. Believe, dearest, that the half has not yet been spoken, neither of my love for you, nor of my trust in you,—nor of a wish that seems sad, but comes in a very tumult of happiness—the wish to die so that some unknown good may come ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous



Words linked to "Tumult" :   flutter, ado, disruption, disturbance, hurly burly, to-do, stir, hoo-hah, flurry, hoo-ha, bustle, combustion, kerfuffle, agitation, hustle, fuss



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