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Turmoil   /tˈərmˌɔɪl/   Listen
Turmoil

noun
1.
A violent disturbance.  Synonyms: convulsion, upheaval.
2.
Violent agitation.  Synonym: tumult.
3.
Disturbance usually in protest.  Synonyms: agitation, excitement, hullabaloo, upheaval.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Turmoil" Quotes from Famous Books



... across a college campus. The following morning students were thrown in a turmoil of excitement by word that Coach Edward's office had been rifled during the night and nothing disturbed but the team plays. It was rumored that two detectives had been employed by the college to determine, ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman

... the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... must give up the pleasure of waiting on Y.R.H. this evening, but shall not fail to do so to-morrow at half-past four o'clock. As for the affair itself, I know that I shall be treated with indulgence. May Heaven at length bring it to a close! for my mind suffers keenly from such a painful turmoil. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... the battle at a distance of about 2,000 yards from the enemy's line, the stillness of what one sees is in marked contrast to the turmoil of shells passing overhead. The only movement is the cloud of smoke and earth that marks the burst of a shell. Here and there long white lines are visible, when a trench has brought the chalky subsoil up to the top, but the number of trenches seen is very small compared to the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... they neared the camp, a great host more rushed forth, and turned the battle backwards, and in the turmoil, Sir Bors and Sir Berel fell into the Romans' hands. When Sir Gawain saw that, he drew his good sword Galotine, and swore to see King Arthur's face no more if those two knights were not delivered; and ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... down upon her bed and lay there trembling like a terrified creature caught in a trap. Her brain was a whirl of bewildering emotions. She knew not which way to turn to escape the turmoil, or even if she were glad or sorry for the step she had taken. She wondered if Hill would tell Jack and Adela the moment her back was turned, and dreaded to hear the sound of her sister-in-law's footsteps ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... of all the reek and turmoil Of the dreadful battle-plain, Came a voice insistent, calling, Calling, calling, but in vain;— "Through Me only Shall the world have ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham

... voice ringing high above the turmoil, "away with you, and do not leave their decks ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... he went on deck, he paid out more chain and rope. Joe lay in his blankets and listened, the while vainly courting sleep. He was not frightened, but he was untrained in the art of sleeping in the midst of such turmoil and uproar and violent commotion. Nor had he imagined a boat could play as wild antics as did the Dazzler and still survive. Often she wallowed over on her beam till he thought she would surely capsize. At other times she leaped and plunged ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... From timberline I surveyed the prospect ahead and hesitated. Clouds and snow whirled up in a solid mass, blinding and choking me. The cold penetrated my heavy clothing. I went on. In a few minutes I was in the midst of the turmoil, utterly lost, buffeted about. I tried to keep the wind in my face for compass, but it was so variable, eddying from all directions, that it was not reassuring. Near the top of the mountain a blast knocked me down, and half smothered me with flying snow. I arose groggily, uncertain which ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... turmoil of her soul, and her words were as tiny April showers sizzling on a red hot cannon. By and by she picked up Dottie's dropped stitches. After all, what did such things matter when there was war and men were giving ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... she was a victor. She was almost too satisfied. She had no shame, no contrition; she merely knew that if she might still keep Toby her marriage with Gaga would be bearable. She had none of the turmoil of the conventional married woman who takes a lover; but then she had never been trained to be scrupulous. She was still young enough to be intoxicated by her own prowess. She could manage Gaga; she could manage Toby; she could manage the business—there was no end to her power. More than anything ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton

... at the window, and turmoil and bitterness were beginning to burn in her heart again. Maybe the priest had not found Dannie. Maybe he was not coming. Maybe a thousand things. Then he WAS coming. Coming straight and sure. Coming ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... the turmoil of Rome? slander and insolence and gluttony, flatterers and false friends, legacy-hunters and murderers? And what wilt thou do here? thou canst not endure these things, neither canst thou escape them! Thus reasoning, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... kept him in a continual turmoil, and he earnestly wished for an opportunity that might divert both the court and himself from a subject of which he was so ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... I rode straight from Hassenhausen, Across the stream of battle as it boiled Betwixt that village and the banks of Saale, And such the turmoil that no man could speak ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... fire Or gem from a volcano, we to-day When drums of war reverberate in the land And every face is for the battle blacked— No less the sky, that over sodden woods Menaces now in the disconsolate calm The hurly-burly of the hurricane— Do now most fitly celebrate your day. Yet amid turmoil, keep for me, my dear, The kind domestic fagot. Let the hearth Shine ever as (I praise my honest gods) In peace and ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... and stared out at the sun-lighted street. It was very beautiful out there—very warm and gentle and peaceful. And at her back all this turmoil. Once again the unspoken cry that sprang to her lips was ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... and Badr Basim meeting them, questioned them of their case and they told him what had happened. But when he heard that the King was a prisoner, Badr feared for himself and fled, saying in his heart, "Verily, all this turmoil is on my account and none is wanted but I." So he sought safety in flight, security to sight, knowing not whither he went; but destiny from Eternity fore-ordained crave him to the very island where the Princess had taken refuge, and he came to the very tree whereon ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... dusk, and there is still the same bustle and turmoil on deck. All are busy; everybody is in a hurry. At about nine the noise seems to subside; and the deck seems getting into something like order. As we are not to weigh anchor until five in the morning, some of the passengers land for a stroll on shore. I decide ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... also the complex of origins and inducements behind it. Always, he throws about it a probability which, in the end, becomes almost inevitability. His "Nostromo," for example, in its externals, is a mere tale of South American turmoil; its materials are those of "Soldiers of Fortune." But what a difference in method, in point of approach, in inner content! Davis was content to show the overt act, scarcely accounting for it at all, and then only in terms of conventional romance. Conrad penetrates to the motive concealed ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... struggle in the House of Commons, had it not finally brought about such great consequences, would be disgusting and discouraging in the extreme. The struggle in England for liberty of conscience and for government of the people through Parliament went on through turmoil and disgrace for two centuries. It was king against the people, Catholic against Protestant, and, within the latter group, Anglican, Presbyterian, and independent, each against one another. All sorts of unjust and inhuman practices were indulged in. It would seem that the spirit of Magna ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... came upon him, as it had too often for his tranquillity since he had been at Silverdale, to taste, for a short space of time at least, a life of leisure and refinement. This woman who had been born to it could, it seemed to him, lift the man she trusted beyond the sordid cares of the turmoil to her own high level, and as he waited for her to speak, a fit of passion shook him. It betrayed itself only by the sudden hardening ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... ask you, reader, this week, to compel your fancy to take a further flight, and kindly imagine yourself a worthy merchant, who has exchanged the turmoil of City-life for the elegant leisure of a suburban villa—let us say at Norwood. You are in your dining-room, examining the sky, and thinking that, if the weather holds up, you will take your big dog out presently for a run before lunch, when you are told that a gentleman ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various

... and at the Renaissance period the Popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for their own family and territorial advantages, and they kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the Reformation,—in fact, just as long as they could,—in the wars of religion. They did everything they could ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... her voyage up the river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling through the throng in the Boreas' saloon calling her mother and father, but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her and she came ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... turmoil and dust and wrath and madness of that tremendous conflict, and his poetic vision gazes away over peaceful ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge

... got a great bargain, but Bulteel received what for him was a large capital, and settling far to the south, this lineal descendant of le philosophe sans savoir carried his godliness, his cleanliness, and his love of peace, out of the turmoil, and was happier than ever, since now he could compare his placid existence with one year ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... a valley which had been the bed of a great river in the far-off days when Ireland, Wales and Brittany were joined together and the Thames flowed into the Seine. The place had never known turmoil or stir. For generations it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the volley of shots from the stage director's weapon sounding high above the clamor. Indeed, much of the racket had died down, showing that the actors themselves were looking for it, and did not want to do anything to smother the welcome sound that would mean their release from further toil and turmoil, for the ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler

... element in it is still more conspicuous. As society becomes highly organized the importance of the moral element in all labor increases till the further progress, or even the existence, of the social order may be said to depend on it. In the world of business there is now distrust and turmoil, and revolutions are feared, because of the unfaithfulness of a class of men to trusts ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... enough to carry it through? The three servants were terrified also, their eyes rolling in their sockets, their hands nervously fingering their weapons. Suddenly another voice, Caesar's, broke through the turmoil, reaching even the ear of the desperate man on the other side of the heavy mahogany door. ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... of all this turmoil is to purchase a heronry! Much good may it do you, cousin Marvel. You understand your own affair best: you will make great improvements, I grant, and no doubt will be the richest of us all. The ten thousand ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... that is, in our taste for variety, for change. Much as we admire the country, lovely as it is, it would not suit many to live there all the year round. The peace and quiet of our woodland scenes make us enjoy the town life all the more, while the unceasing turmoil of the season makes us hail with delight the idea of once ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren

... sweet to be remembered In the turmoil of this life, While toiling up its pathway, While mingling in its strife, While wandering o'er earth's borders, Or sailing o'er its sea,— 'T is sweet to be remembered Wherever we may be. What though our path be rugged, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... commend,—their absolute truthfulness. She never asked how this would sound, nor whether that would do, nor what would be the effect of saying anything; but simply, 'Is it the truth? Is it such as the public should know?' And if her judgment answered, 'Yes,' she uttered it; no matter what turmoil it might excite, nor what odium it might draw down on her own head. Perfect conscientiousness was an unfailing characteristic of her literary efforts. Even the severest of her critiques,—that on Longfellow's ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... as she went, her mind still in the turmoil of a glad confusion, she rose and tripped upstairs to a little loft, lighted by four panes in the gable, where she slept with one of her nieces. The niece, who followed her, presuming on "Auntie's" high spirits, was flounced out of the apartment with small ceremony, and ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... industries, and also given the means by which single minds can direct them. Invention gives these gifts, and compels man to use them. Man is as much the slave as the master of the machine, as he turns to the telephone or the telegram. In this fierce turmoil of the modern world he can only keep his judgment intact, his nerves sound, and his mind secure by the process of self-discipline, which may be equally defined as restraint, control, or moderation. This is the price which must be paid for the ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... shock Sir Henry, than his inability to add a cubit to his stature. It is pleasant to know, that the 'admiral and general at sea' never outgrew a tenderness for literature—his first-love, despite the rebuff of his advances. Even in the busiest turmoil of a life teeming with accidents by flood and field, he made it a point of pride not to forget his favourite classics. Nor was it till after nine years' experience of college-life, and when his father ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various

... engaged in battle with all their strength. The sky seemed to fall suddenly on the earth, fields and woods to sink into the ground; all things were confounded, and old Chaos come again; heaven and earth mingling in one tempestuous turmoil, and the world rushing to universal ruin. For, when the spear-throwing began, the intolerable clash of arms filled the air with an incredible thunder. The steam of the wounds suddenly hung a mist over the sky, the daylight was hidden under the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... feelings to their outward condition, and with our religious spirit imbue all the ongoings of animated and even inanimated life. There is always a shade of melancholy, a tinge of pensiveness, a touch of pathos, in all profound rest. Perhaps because it is so much in contrast with the turmoil of our ordinary being. Perhaps because the soul, when undisturbed, will, from the impulse of its own divine nature, have high, solemn, and awful thoughts. In such state, it transmutes all things into a show of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... all behind, All the turmoil and the tears, All the mad vindictive blind Yelping of the heartless years! Ride—the ringing world's in chase, Yet we've slipped old Father Time, By the love-light in your face And the jingle of ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... end my story that way for Americans. There must be a grand moral revolt. There must be resistance, triumph, and not only spiritual, but also financial recovery. And this, likewise, is sentimentality. Even Booth Tarkington, in his excellent "Turmoil," had to dodge the logical issue of his story; had to make his hero exchange a practical literary idealism for a very impractical, even though a commercial, utopianism, in order to emerge apparently successful at the end of the book. A story such as the Danish Nexo's "Pelle the Conqueror," ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

... knives. He attempted to speak to them, being only slightly protected by some of the Sadducees. Suddenly he perceived Mannaeus at a distance and made him a sign to approach. The expression on the face of Vitellius indicated that he regarded all this turmoil as no concern ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... and peered up through the quick intervals of the revolving fan. As the fan swept round, a dim turmoil like the noise of machinery came in rhythmic eddies. All ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells

... Metcalf outran the fleet before noon, and at night had dropped it, entering the Golden Gate before daylight, still submerged, not only on account of the troublesome turmoil on the surface, but to avoid the equally troublesome scrutiny of the forts, whose searchlights might have caught him had he presented more to their view than a slim tube painted white. Avoiding the mines, he picked his ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... all blessing on the meal, and the coarse boisterousness of manners prevailing thereat. Hungry as she was, she did not find it easy to take food under these circumstances, and she was relieved when Ermentrude, overcome by the turmoil, grew giddy, and was carried upstairs by her father, who laid her down upon her great bed, and left her to the attendance of Christina. Ursel had followed, but was petulantly repulsed by her young lady in favour of the ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge

... upon than secondhand reports of wholly irrelevant atrocities committed by either one side or the other, and often by neither one side nor the other, but by irresponsible scoundrels who, in the natural turmoil of the greatest convulsion in the history of our civilization, escape temporarily here and there from ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome

... Miss Ashleigh was of an age to see a little of the world, she ought not to remain buried in the country; while, being of quiet mind, she recoiled from the dissipation of London. Between the seclusion of the one and the turmoil of the other, the society of L—— was a happy medium. He should be glad of my opinion. He had put off asking for it, because he owned his belief that I had behaved unkindly to his lamented friend, Dr. Lloyd; but he now found himself ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ties to France since independence in 1960, the development of cocoa production for export, and foreign investment made Cote d'Ivoire one of the most prosperous of the tropical African states, but did not protect it from political turmoil. In December 1999, a military coup - the first ever in Cote d'Ivoire's history - overthrew the government. Junta leader Robert GUEI blatantly rigged elections held in late 2000 and declared himself the winner. Popular protest forced him to step aside and brought runner-up Laurent GBAGBO ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... hills; multitudes of rooks inhabit its steeple and fill throughout the day the air with their cawing. The place wears a remarkable air of solitude, but presents nothing of gloom and horror, and seems just the kind of spot in which some quiet pensive man, fatigued but not soured by the turmoil of the world, might settle down, enjoy a few innocent pleasures, make his peace with God, and then compose himself ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... Barre ushered in an authoritarian socialist rule that managed to impose a degree of stability in the country for a couple of decades. After the regime's collapse early in 1991, Somalia descended into turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy. In May 1991, northern clans declared an independent Republic of Somaliland that now includes the administrative regions of Awdal, Woqooyi Galbeed, Togdheer, Sanaag, and Sool. Although not recognized ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... points, had it not been for our steamer's practice of resting by day, and only pursuing its voyage by night. The next morning we found ourselves in the harbor of Civita Vecchia, and, going ashore with our luggage, went through a blind turmoil with custom-house officers, inspectors of passports, soldiers, and vetturino people. My wife and I strayed a little through Civita Vecchia, and found its streets narrow, like clefts in a rock (which seems to be the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... brook the turmoil thou hast raised. I would, my lord Thomas of Canterbury, Thou wert plain Thomas and not Canterbury, Or that thou wouldst deliver Canterbury To our King's hands again, and be ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... when completed stood This horse, compact of maple wood, Fierce thunders, pealing in our ears, Proclaimed the turmoil of the spheres." CONINGTON, ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke

... nerves. The throb and spasm of the past still beat against his heart. Like a circular storm in mid-ocean, he told himself that the tempest had not wholly ended, but might reawaken, overwhelm him, and sweep him back into the turmoil again. As he thought, and his eye roved for a rider on a brown horse, the poor wretch was fighting still. Yesterday fixed determination marked his movements, and his mind was made up; to-day, after a night not devoid of sleep, it ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... this seclusion From the garish light of day,— All its turmoil and confusion Pushed, a little while, away! Neither men nor things shall try me Till to-morrow brings its light; Let my cares go drifting by me! I'll not ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... The hermit moaned. "Alas! we know not this, Nor surely anything; yet after night Day comes, and after turmoil peace, and we Hate this accursed flesh which clogs the soul That fain would rise; so, for the sake of soul, We stake brief agonies in game with Gods To gain ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold

... been the turmoil of the good Dame Elspeth and her coadjutors, to prepare for the fitting reception of the Father Lord Abbot and his retinue. The monks had indeed taken care not to trust too much to the state of her pantry; but ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... thrown on this phenomenon. On one occasion, a party ascending the ice slopes to the south met the wind blowing at an elevation of four hundred feet. At the same time snow could be seen pouring over the "Barrier" to the west of the Winter Quarters, and across a foaming turmoil of water. This was evidently the main cause of the seething roar, but it was mingled with an undernote of deeper tone from the upland plateau—like the wind in a ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... regard the writings of Count Leo Tolstoy as the epitome of the doctrine of non-resistance. Tolstoy arrived at his convictions after a long period of inner turmoil, and published them in My Religion in 1884. In the years that followed, his wide correspondence introduced him to many others who had held the same views. He was especially impressed with the 1838 statement of Garrison, and with the writings of Ballou, ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... battles have the Gods of the woods been heard to speak, and in troublesome times, when the affairs of governments have gone wrong, and been in disorder and turmoil, voices have been known to steal upon the ears of persons, that came as it were from a corner, but they knew not whence, and told them important truths. Of which kind there are out of a great many, two examples, and those indeed very rare and extraordinary. For ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey

... the hope that his offer might cause her to abandon her resolve Delaherche declared that he would go with her at least as far as the Balan gate, but just then he caught sight of the sentry, who, in all the turmoil and confusion of the time, had been pacing uninterruptedly up and down before the building that contained the treasure chests of the 7th corps, and suddenly he remembered, was alarmed, went to give a look and assure himself that the millions were there still. In the meantime ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... which went forth from them. She felt herself lifted up and strengthened, and felt an increased power of seeing through every leaf and through every fibre of the root. Amid all the noise and the turmoil, the colors and the lights, she knew herself watched ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... in his little house, he had been happy enough in his sheltered and perhaps rather selfish existence. Dwelling in the center of a great struggle for life, he had enjoyed it because he had had nothing to do with it. His own calm had been agreeably accentuated by the turmoil which surrounded and enclosed it. How many times had he blessed his thousand a year, that armor of gold with which fate had provided him! How often had he imagined himself stripped of it, realized mentally the sudden and fierce alteration in his life ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... not spoiled—you may take my word for it," her companion said, with decision. And then he added, "I suppose he gets too much of that petting; he is kept in such a turmoil of gayety that its evil effects have no time to sink into him. He is too busy—as he said ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... end of Culver Street he turned into Williams Avenue and hurried along through its din and turmoil, and past its tawdry shops until he came to one which he had not seen in many a day. The sight of its dirty window, filled with a disorderly assortment of familiar articles, took him back to the old ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... English character what it was, the race a race of empire builders; it was because of each blood there came to Britain only of the most adventurous. And through the centuries it has been the constant stress and training of the perpetual turmoil in which the people have lived that have kept the stock from degeneration. There has never been a time in English history, save when the people have been struggling in wars among themselves, when there has been an English family that has not at any given moment had ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... little Copenhagen palace this turmoil was hardly known; the preparations certainly were not comprehended; and the quiet family were preparing in the most simple way for the great occasion—not the least excitement of the moment being ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins

... valley. He stood staring before him, frowning, forgetting what he had come out to do. He told himself that coming from that yelling confusion inside, and the glare of those garish lamps, he was stupefied by the great silence of the night. There was nothing clear in his mind, only a turmoil of eddying sensations which he could not name. He walked down to the huge dark pine, the pine which 'Gene Powers loved like a person, and which his wife wished were cut down. What a ghastly prison marriage was, he thought, a thing as hostile ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... green meadows with hedgerows—a tangle of holly, hawthorn, and bramble—and old trees, surviving giants of a forest long uprooted and forgotten. It was a rich and placid scene, infinitely soothing to one fresh from the turmoil of the city, and weary of the tireless motion, the incessant sound and tumult of the sea. When Beth looked out upon the meadows first, she sighed and said to herself, "Surely, surely one should ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... most beautiful; yet she says she will not marry. I tell her that when once her eyes are opened to the loved one, they will be closed to all the world beside, and this desire to enter the great world of turmoil and strife will flee like dew-drops before the summer's dawn. I also quoted her what I told Chih-peh many moons ago, when he refused to marry the wife thou hadst chosen for him: "Man attains not by himself, nor woman by herself, but like the one-winged birds of ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... little over four years old at the time of the "Sioux massacre" in Minnesota. In the general turmoil, we took flight into British Columbia, and the journey is still vividly remembered by all our family. A yoke of oxen and a lumber-wagon were taken from some white farmer and brought ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... alias Copperheads, such as the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the Coxes, the Biddles, &c. The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a compromise. The masses of the people, staggered by all this bewildering turmoil and impure factiousness, are nevertheless, stubbornly determined to persevere and to ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... conscience stung me a little for reading a book, or playing with children in the grass, when there were so many better things for an enlightened traveller to do,—while, at the same time, it gave a deeper delight to my luxurious idleness, to contrast it with the turmoil which I escaped. On the whole, however, I do not repent of a single wasted hour, and only wish that I could have spent twice as many in the same way; for the impression in my memory is, that I was as happy in that hospitable garden as the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... protection, all flowed in one deep, strong current; but the very depth made her diffident. She could imagine the whole reciprocated, and she feared to be importunate. If the day was no better than a weary turmoil, save when his voice was in her ear, his eyes wistfully bent on her, the more carefully did she restrain all expression of hope of seeing him to-morrow, lest she should be exacting and detain him from projects of his own. If it was pride and delight to her ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Seward but a surface blemish. Though in '61 he advocated a foreign war as a means for bringing together North and South, and desired to shelve practically Lincoln while he himself stood at the front to manage the turmoil, he made no more mistakes than statesmen in general. He had been powerful for good before the war, and during its course, with what virile stiffness of the upper lip did he face and foil the frowning foreign world! He had the insight and candour to do full justice at last to Lincoln, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer

... of the officers and more substantial rewards later on. With her jib hoisted, the Southern Cross made better weather of it, but the seas were fast becoming more mountainous and threatening. The wind screeched through the rigging like a legion of demons. To add to the turmoil some casks got loose and went rolling and crashing about till they finally went overboard as a great ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... During the turmoil, the horror and the bringing aboard of pillage, Dickory Charter had kept close below deck, his face in his hands and his heart almost broken. It is so easy for ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... people is remarkable, but not more remarkable than the fact that they almost invariably lose this power over the individual, while they have as yet retained it over the race; for of all the multitude which does homage at the shrine of the poet few linger long, and fewer still, after the turmoil of life has yielded room for thought, renew their homage. Most of those who make the attempt are surprised—some of them troubled—at the discovery that the shrine can work miracles no more. The Byron-fever ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... is thrown away upon Tessie, who is not equal to these drags upon her intellect, and as a fact Rylton is scarcely listening to her; his whole soul is in a turmoil. He scarcely knows what he wants or what he does not want—whom he loves or hates. Only Tita—Tita is always before him; and as hate is stronger than love, as some folk have it (though they lie), he believes that all his thoughts grow with a cruel persistence of detestation ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... effect on Wilhelm. His self-torture grew less poignant, the memory of Paris receded into the background, and in proportion as it paled the red returned to his cheeks and the light to his dull eyes. He still held aloof from the busy turmoil of the world, and was still dominated by a profound consciousness of the aimlessness of his life, and yet, for the first time for years, perhaps since he took his degree, he entertained a desire, a hope, that he might be permitted ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... mattress on the poop, and the awnings over it surrounding with the blows of the spray, and the fire forcing its way out of the hearth-stones, and a pot upon them with empty turmoil of bubbles; and let me see the boy dressing the meat, and my table be a ship's plank covered with a cloth; and a game of pitch and toss, and the boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... Blois was in great turmoil—the cattle lowing in the streets, the churches full to the doors of men-at-arms, waiting their turn to be shrived, for the Maid had ordained that all who followed her must go clean of sin. And there was great wailing of light o' loves, and leaguer lasses that had ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... but in spite of careful selection he could never get an overseer combining the qualities necessary in a good manager. "They were generally on extremes; those celebrated for making large crops were often too severe, and did everything by coercion. Hence turmoil and strife ensued. The negroes were ill treated and ran away. On the other hand, when he employed a good-natured man there was a want of proper discipline; the negroes became unmanageable and, as a natural result, the farm was brought into debt," The owner then entered residence himself and applied ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... Irish Unionist party to make itself an effective force in Irish national life. The great misunderstanding to which I have attributed the unhappy state of Anglo-Irish relations kept the country in a condition of turmoil which enabled the Unionist party to declare itself the party of law and order. Adopting Lord Salisbury's famous prescription, 'twenty years of resolute government,' they made it what its author would have been the last man to consider ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett

... There had in fact been a thousand blacker deeds in the England of that dreadful period, but never one that touched the heart and imagination of the whole people in the same way. Furthermore, it came after a long pause, a serene interval of many years in the everlasting turmoil—the years of the reign of Edgar the Peaceful, whose early death had up till then been its one great sorrow. A time too of recovery from a state of insensibility to evil deeds; of increasing civilisation and the softening of hearts. For Edward was the child ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson

... his travels, returned to Athens to find it in turmoil. Pisistratus, a political adventurer and a favorite with the people, had gained despotic power by a cunning trick. He wounded himself, and declared that he had been attacked and wounded by his political enemies. He asked, therefore, for a body-guard for his protection. This was granted ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... importance of doing something for mankind. Enthusiasm, love, friendship, sentiment of any kind, were valuable in his estimation only as sources of inspiration for telling activity. As matters of mere private ecstasy, of froth and foam rising and falling to no effect in the turmoil of the individual soul, they were for him objects of mild derision. And the idea that lay nearest his heart as a student of Kant was the idea of freedom. And so, as Schiller worked upon his play at Dresden, Posa was made the exponent of the new point ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... no writing done that evening; it had been an exciting day, and my mind was all in a turmoil still. I thought and reckoned it out; for Fruen's sake I would not write directly to the Captain, and risk causing her unpleasantness as well; no, I would send a line to my comrade, Lars Falkenberg, to keep ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... in active being on the soil of France, a second literary language is there a reality. Whether permanent or evanescent, this glorification of poetry, this ardent love of the beautiful and the ideal, is a noble and inspiring spectacle amid the turmoil and strife of ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... deck and looking always to leeward. Two of them were at the steering oar with my father, for Arngeir was worn out, and I had left him in the cabin, sleeping heavily in spite of the noise of waves and straining planking. Maybe he would have waked in a moment had that turmoil ceased. ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler

... the struggling mutiny Falls quiet, unendurably rebuked: And the whole strength of life is free to serve Spirit, under the regency of Love. The quiet that is in me! The bright peace! Instead of smoke and dust, the peace of Love! Truly I knew not what a turmoil life Has been, and how rebellious, till this peace Came shining down! And yet I have seen things, And heard things, that were strangely meaning this,— Telling me strangely that life can be all One power undisturbed, one perfect honour,— Waters at noonday ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... children to come in and keep her company. There's no sense in putting yourself into such a state. It makes you a trouble to yourself and everybody else. And in the end, a thousand to one if anything comes of all the turmoil and fuss—Mrs. Cooper, to be only fair to her, when she's in a reasonable humour, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... sweat flung on them by the rapid advance. Soon there was such confusion and excitement that all order was lost, until the Americans began filing out again, and the native troops were pushed to the northern line of defences. In the turmoil and delight everything had been temporarily forgotten, but the growing roar of rifles had at length called attention to the fact that there might be more fierce fighting. Every minute added to the din, and soon the ceaseless patter of sound showed machine-guns ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... government of Augustus was disturbed by some troubles upon the frontiers, still never before, perhaps, did the world enjoy so long a period of general rest from the preparation and turmoil of war. Three times during this auspicious reign the gates of the Temple of Janus at Rome, which were open in time of war and closed in time of peace, were shut. Only twice before during the entire history of the city had they been closed, so constantly had ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... of Fishes Shudder through each nerve and fibre, Heard the water gurgle round him As he leaped and staggered through it, Sick at heart, and faint and weary. Crosswise then did Hiawatha Drag his birch-canoe for safety, Lest from out the jaws of Nahma, In the turmoil and confusion, Forth he might be hurled and perish. And the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Frisked and chatted very gayly, Toiled and tugged with Hiawatha Till the labor was completed. Then said Hiawatha to him, "O my little friend, the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... to the fullest extent,—all this is, in my opinion, no proof that ordinary men, given perhaps to squabbling with each other, and to being mutually distrustful, will achieve the like or even approximately similar results on poorer land and in the midst of the turmoil of the world's competitive struggle. My doubts upon this point will appear the more reasonable when it is remembered that in America we have witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of social experiments which have all either proved to be in a greater or less degree miserable fiascos, or at least ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... kind little letter of the 30th. Matters are very critical and all Van de Weyer has told us n'est pas rassurant. With such an extraordinary man as Louis Napoleon, one can never be for one instant safe. It makes me very melancholy; I love peace and quiet—in fact, I hate politics and turmoil, and I grieve to think that a spark may plunge us into the midst of war. Still I think that may be avoided. Any attempt on Belgium would be casus belli for us; that you may rely upon. Invasion I am not afraid of, but the spirit of the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... second the room and the occupants were lost in a fiery mist and only Christopher's voice lived in the chaos. Then Aymer found himself struggling to maintain hold of something in the mental turmoil, he did not know what at first: then that it was his own voice. It amazed him to hear it ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... other side was a barbed wire fence. Beyond it lay flat fields on which the snow had settled evenly. In one of the fields was the dim form of a farm-building, barely visible through the rush and turmoil of dancing snowflakes. ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... descry those dismal forests over which they sailed, dark and dizzying masses full of wavering black holes, through which sometimes a blunt-nosed bronze fish sank like a bolt, and again where sting ray darted, and jellyfish palpitated with that wavering of fringe which produced the faintest of turmoil at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... ardor that filled the young hosts that waited in leash on the green hills of the Potomac those months of turmoil, when Scott and McDowell were straining the crude machinery of war to get ready for the vital lunge. Jack and his Acredale squad, as the college fellows were called, lived in a perpetual dream, from which the hard realities of drill, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... the turmoil and disgrace, The voice was clear from first to last, Of one who, in the desert place Of barren counsels, held him fast His shepherd's crook, and ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland

... Are "conditions of turmoil, stress and adversity" strong forces in the production of great men, as has often been claimed? There is no evidence from facts to support that view. In the case of a few great commanders, the times seemed particularly favorable. Napoleon, ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... set up on all occasions. I think, however, that these precautions are due not so much to a fear of pilferers as to a feeling of the instability of conditions in a country that has always been subject to turmoil. ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... wish of my heart that is unsatisfied. I am full of ceaseless yearnings for the beautiful home of my youth. Would that we could return there. But it may not be. France is in a state of turmoil. I know not what fate has befallen either my uncle, or his estate. He may be dead. Or, if living, he may no longer be the proprietor of beautiful Rossillon. We cannot ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife! Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell

... of all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us along mysteriously crept away, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... catching hold of the sun or moon. On such occasions, in Eastern towns, the whole population assembles with pots, pans, and other equally rude instruments of music, and, with the aid of their lungs, make a din and turmoil which might suffice to drive away a whole army of evil spirits, even at so great a distance." [320] We have reached three general conclusions. First, when the moon is occulted by the earth it is believed ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... gashes in the green and swelling billows, yet eagerly sought in the race for wealth and the greed for gold, because of the treasures they wrested from the bowels of the everlasting hills. Afar down the winding valley a turbid stream went frothing away to the foot-hills, telling of labor, turmoil, and strife. Beside it twisted and turned the railway that burrowed through the range barely five miles back of the town, and reappeared on the westward face of the Silver Bow, clinging dizzily to heights that looked down on rolling ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... restoring to my consciousness all that just before had been engulfed in gloom, then a deeper breath swells my breast, and my lungs fill with the purer and lighter air of the heights. Up there, alone and in silence, no hint can reach me of the turmoil below, and I feel myself one with the great aspect of nature spread before me. The surges of the sea come and go, the tree-tops in the forest bow and rise, fog and mist roll away and part asunder hither and thither, and up there I feel ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... day was then itself a little life; No care was clamorous, and the future slept. Me and my happy bark the flowing stream, Without an oar, drew with light ripple down. Now—in the turmoil of the present hour, The future wakes, and fills the startled ear With ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... value, and omit to look around and see how much is done by those who are more careful. A man can be young but once, and, except in cases of a special interposition of Providence, can marry but once. The chance once thrown away may be said to be irrevocable! How, in after-life, do men toil and turmoil through long years to attain some prospect of doubtful advancement! Half that trouble, half that care, a tithe of that circumspection would, in early youth, have probably secured to them the enduring ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... lad," he whispered; "faster, faster, or they'll have us." And then the whisper, unheard in the turmoil of yell and echo, became a cry of agony embodied in the simple homely words which told of the boy's suffering and the despair now gripping him by the heart, for out of the black darkness came a fresh burst of yells that were horrible in their intensity, ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... with a face which gave no sign of his inner turmoil. Mr. Pat looked after him, stirred and bewildered, and addressed his friends the ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... snare has never caught their feet. They hold that a man's first duty is to his own soul. Never think that you can do good to others at the same time as you injure yourself, and the greatest good for your own heart is to learn that beyond all this turmoil and fret there is the Great Peace—so great that we can hardly understand it, and to reach it you must fit yourself for it. The monk is he who is attempting to reach it, and he knows that he cannot do that by attempting to rule his fellow-man; ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding

... sweep of the continually rising wind and the wash of the gathering waves. So long as these struck the canoe, which now began to roll ominously, on the starboard side, he must, he thought, be keeping a right course. But in the turmoil of the rising gale and the confusion of the night, this was no very satisfactory guide. At length, however, a broad and brilliant flash sprung out across the sea, almost straight ahead of him. It was ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... long interval of years, the incidents of the siege, with its continual strife and ever-recurring dangers, come back to me as in a dream. Often in fancy has my mind wandered back to those days of turmoil and excitement, when men's hearts were agitated to their profoundest depths, and our cause appeared wellnigh hopeless. Then it was that a small body of men in a far-away part of North-West India, entirely ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... many bees. "I see that your experience is limited to impostors. I, Mademoiselle, am proud of my country, the great, free land which stands aside from the turmoil and laughs at your petty squabbles, your kings, your princes. Laugh at me; I deserve it for not minding my own business, but do not laugh at my country." His face was flushed; he was almost angry. It was not her words; it was the contempt with which she had ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath

... surpasses the finest pages of Sordello in close-packed, if somewhat elusive, splendour; the soil, as he wrote of Italy, is full of loose fertility, and gives out intoxicating odours at every footfall. Moreover, he can now paint the clash and commotion of crowds, the turmoil of cities and armies, with superb force—a capacity of which there is hardly a trace in Paracelsus. Sordello himself stands out less clearly than Paracelsus from the canvas; but the sympathetic reader finally admits that this ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... 23d) were excellent for "putting great fear and terror in the souls of the besieged." Every night the mortars would play upon the town: "it keeps them in constant turmoil, due to the thought that some ball will fall upon their house." Mortars were designed like pedreros, except much shorter. The convenient way to charge them was with saquillos (small bags) of powder. "They require," said ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy

... thinking over his frowardness to the wife of his father, after which he said, "The slave meditateth and the Lord determineth, nor doth the meditation of the slave accord with the determination of the Lord." And while thus drowned in care he heard the sound of the Darabukkah-drum[FN14] and the turmoil of work and the shiftings of voices whilst the house was full of forms dimly seen and a voice cried out to him, "O youth, be hearty of heart and sprightly of spirits; verily we will requite thee the kindness thou wroughtest ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... much fatigue, and the storm does not awaken her; but it can disturb the slumbers it does not possess the power to destroy entirely. The turmoil of the elements wakes the senses, although it cannot entirely break the repose they ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... the joy of life? When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light—so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be Alderman from the Fifth Ward; they have been thinking about politics, great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds, they have bought calico at five cents or six, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... understanding, an admirable virtue, matchless learning, invincible courage, unimitable sobriety, certain contentment of mind, perfect assurance, and an incredible misregard of all that for which men commonly do so much watch, run, sail, fight, travel, toil and turmoil themselves. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... frightened, stumbling Allee and the trailing robe through the turmoil of the street, Peace managed to land on the opposite walk without mishap, but how she ever did it was a marvel to the big, brawny policeman shouting warnings to them as he tried in vain to reach the little figures dodging so recklessly under horses' noses, in ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown

... office their headquarters. His moderate temperament and his ill-health kept him from joining in the revels of some and the political dissipations of others. 'I seem to see Laurier as he was at that time,' wrote his close friend, L. O. David, 'ill, sad, his air grave, indifferent to all the turmoil raised around him; he passed through the midst of it like a shadow and seemed to say to us, "Brother, we ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton

... this rate, it were better for a man to take a wife, and have children, and mix himself up in all the turmoil of carnal affections, in order to have as many as possible to love, and fear ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... Indians commanded by a few French were firing from behind every rock and tree. The regulars were thrown into confusion. This type of warfare was new to them. They did not know how to answer it. The front ranks recoiled upon the others, throwing all into wild turmoil. ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... nevertheless, drag on to the end of the war, when all these apron farmers were brushed off their farms, as one would brush from off one's leg a fly that was stinging it. These gentry long since quitted the turmoil and difficulty of agricultural pursuits. Those that purchased have given up their land to the mortgagee; and those that rented have had their stocks sold to pay their creditors; and many of them, cursing the evil hour when they were ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt



Words linked to "Turmoil" :   flutter, disturbance, hurly burly, commotion, to-do, kerfuffle, hoo-hah, disruption, hoo-ha, upheaval



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