Sentence Examples:
Deny it as you will, the charm with which your imagination invested your home has vanished, must have vanished at the moment when you beheld the reality, and the chasm which formerly apparently divided you from us, yawned a gigantic abyss on the other side.
The river is divided by basaltic islands into three great streams, curving toward each other, and pouring their floods into a common basin, from which the united waters come surging and foaming to make their final plunge of sixty-five feet into the deep chasm below.
This Grand Canyon of the Colorado is one of the most wonderful constructions of nature in its stupendous size and extraordinary character; with the myriads of pinnacles, towers, castles, walls, chasms and profound depths it contains and the gorgeous coloring given most of the surfaces.
He moved on in an oblique direction for several feet, now creeping over the tops of the foundation arches, now skirting the extremities of the protrusions in the ruined brickwork, now descending into dark, slimy, rubbish-choked chasms, until the rift suddenly diminished in all directions.
He caulked the chasms with philosophic oakum, he 'payed' them with dialectic pitch, he sheathed them with copper and brass by means of audacious dogmatism and insolent quibbles, until the enemy seemed to have been silenced, and the vessel righted so far as to float.
Then the rocks sped past with increasing swiftness, and as the moon rose higher the three could see where the overflowing torrent sent out little streams that twisted and dashed themselves into leaping foam in the wildness of the chasm beyond the main channel.
Several fine springs burst out from the chasms of the rock, and contribute to increase the river, which has a strong current, but, very fortunately, we were able to overcome it with our oars, since it would have been impossible to use either the cord or the pole.
Hastily hiding the keg of powder in the scrub on the outer side of the chasm, Grenville returned to his post, and made another determined effort to check the advance of the enemy, feeling that every additional minute gained for his friends was of incalculable value.
We passed under a bridge thrown across the chasm, to preserve the communication with the fields on each side: this bridge was framed of the trunks of trees, and secured with side rails, to prevent the tottering passenger from falling in the abyss beneath.
Whence it proceeded was a mystery, but, as I followed the stream in my descent, I suddenly encountered a great chasm in the earth, before which was an enormous wooden wheel, revolved by the current which flowed beneath, and then disappeared to feed some subterranean river.
In less than twenty minutes from that time the fire was exhausted, and the pall of night had settled upon the lately so brilliant chasm, and no vestige of the truly marvelous scene remained but an occasional wreath of smoke fading away into the upper air.
Pym has given the figures of the chasms without comment, and speaks decidedly of the indentures found at the extremity of the most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful resemblance to alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being positively not such.
They are immense patches of clay soil, baked by the long and intense drought of that climate into chasms four or five feet wide and perhaps twenty feet deep, absolutely impassable for wagons, quagmires in the early spring, and a labyrinth of deep gullies in summer.
The cave, which had been gradually narrowing as Sir George advanced, instead of suddenly rising up into the ground above, or ending in a narrow opening, as the good knight had fervently hoped, terminated in a deep chasm, and far down below there rushed a tumultuous stream.
Close at hand and distinctly visible it towered before the Hebrews with its brown masses of rock, cliffs, and chasms, while above the seven peaks of its summit hovered a pair of eagles on whose broad pinions the young day cast a shimmering golden glow.
These arches were so treacherous that more than once they were on them before they were aware of it, and old Lion came very near ending his journey by breaking through one of them and being precipitated the full length of his trace into the yawning chasm.
While he was in the act of making this movement, the Indians, as if changing their purpose by a common impulse, broke away from the chasm in a body, and were heard rushing up the island again, toward the point whence they had originally descended.
Law and order are good enough things, but they have become the tools with which the smug rich keep themselves in luxury in the fat places of the world, while millions of others, gripping vainly at the outside of life, fall off into the bottomless chasm.
Several fine springs burst out from the chasms of the rock, and contribute to increase the river, which has now a strong current, but very fortunately we are able to overcome it with our oars, since it would be impossible to use either the cord or the pole.
There was a feeling over him that he had seen this warm, breathing woman, with the best of her life before her, standing on the brink of a terrifying chasm into which one little movement would have precipitated her beyond the help of any friendly hand.
It was not long before I found myself once more in the open country; and looking carefully for the twisted twigs that I had tied together the afternoon before, I soon discovered the chasm through which I had made my remarkable trip to the eastern hemisphere.
A remarkable feature is the number of basins enclosed on all sides by the hills, where the streams can find no visible outlet, and either form a lake or take a subterranean course through some chasm or crevices in the porous limestone, in many cases never to reappear.
They found it difficult to believe in the existence of such mountains, the configuration of which grew stranger and more fantastic as they drew nearer to them; sometimes exhibiting sheer precipitous declivities, sometimes overhanging masses, while sometimes each summit appeared cloven into deep and shadowy chasms.
Songs of labor are found everywhere; but there is a great chasm between the actual refrains, the survivals of communal or even solitary song which come from the real scene of labor and from the real laborers, and those songs which are made for the laborer.
Frequent landslips occurred, and in many places deep chasms rifted the ground; great gaps furrowed the fields, and trees, half uprooted, overhung the water, remarkable by the fantastic distortions of their gnarled trunks, looking as though they had been chopped by a hatchet.
It was like a thin, long party-colored snake, red, blue, and brown, trailing slowly through the depth of leaves, creeping round inaccessible heights, crawling over ridges, moving always in dampness and shadow, by rivulets and waterfalls, crags and chasms, gorges and shaggy steps.
On the one hand it has, as we have seen, degraded the English workers, removed them from civilization, and aggravated the hardship of their lot; but, on the other hand, it has thereby deepened the chasm between workers and bourgeoisie, and hastened the approaching crisis.
Appearing sometimes on the shores of the "seas," sometimes in the midst of broad plains, sometimes along the course of mountain chains, and sometimes in magnificent rows, following for hundreds of miles the meridians of the lunar globe, are tremendous, mountain-walled, circular chasms, called craters.
The rain volleyed into her pitilessly, the wind sought furiously to wrest her from the saddle, the lightning cracked open the heavens into ever more fiery chasms, and the thunder rattled and rolled and reverberated as though a thousand battles were waging in the valley.
Not clash but chasm, when parents and children find not so much that their ideals are so pitted against one another as to occlude the hope of harmonious adjustment, as that in the absence of ideals on one side or the other there has come about an unbridgeable gap.
If we are led by this evidence to admit that the cataract has cut back its way for four miles, we can have little hesitation in referring the excavation of the remaining three miles below to a like agency, the shape of the chasm being precisely similar.
A different nature might, perhaps, have utilized the printed statement as a bridge over the chasm gaping between her father and herself, but intense pride and yearning love prompted her to shield him from the great shame of knowing she had read the blistering libel.
Then it rolled sideways and lay across the entrance, leaving a wide chasm above, through which a couple of men, or even three, could enter abreast; and on the far side it exposed a crowd of jewelled Mexicans and five furious priests, whose faces showed their animosity.
And all the while, across the gulf out of which golden vapors curled more thickly as the sun's burning searchlight spread out across the world, the man in Swiss uniform stood on the chasm's edge, as though awaiting some further word or movement from McKay.
A hollow roar came, as the cavernous cleft of the Head was overcrowded with the breaker, and, gushing up, the mass of uprising waters overwhelmed the promontory and, spreading, mantled over its smooth surfaces and tore in many cataracts down its chasms to the sea.
At our feet lay the whole isle of Alphonso and its two rocky appendages, with the encircling sea boiling in the narrow chasms between them, with a fury which was the result of contrary currents, and which formed a singular contrast to its calmness elsewhere.
A scream of horror burst from his lips, but overcoming the paralysis that momentarily affected his bodily powers, he leaped like a cat from the main shrouds to the cutting falls, and, grabbing the bucket in one hand, slid down into the yawning chasm beneath.
York signified his approval of this plan, and dragging the poor Corporal into the dark passage which he had traversed in going to the cellar, he seized a large iron ring, opened a trap door, and violently pushed his victim into the dark and yawning chasm.
Grey with the ungenerous motives that induced her chagrin at his return; and, without permitting her to suspect that he had so accurately read her character, he endeavored as unobtrusively as possible to bridge by kindness and courtesy the chasm of jealous distrust which divided them.
The two parts of the sentence are only separated by a comma, but that pause may bridge over a chasm wide enough for the flow of numerous years, and between the childhood and the wilderness the narrative would almost compel us to put a considerable space.
There were vast chasms and receptacles with passages like tubes leading to them, all the length from the walls, with their mouths outside the walls, which Egyptologists call air passages, so that the men could get to them from the exterior by the steps.
Suddenly there was a shock as of many thunderbolts, from the direction of the mountain, which was now seen split, apparently from top to bottom, into a great chasm, from which in great quantities burst forth streams of lava and long forked tongues of lurid flame.
Also in many places the route had been made to pass specially over terrible chasms and ravines, since, by so doing, it enabled the defenders of the passes to construct drawbridges which could be lowered or raised at their own pleasure, or, in case of necessity, destroyed altogether.
Then boot in the stirrup again, onward, over the mountain's ridge, desolate rook defying the sun, downward, plunging through hanging forests, clearing the chasm, bridging ravines, and still at noon the eagles, circling and screaming above them, shook over them the dew from their plumes.
On its north side the outline is more uneven, and there is a slight hollow or chasm about one-fifth of the way down, from which constantly issue two columns of smoke, as well as a good deal from the rugged surface around and from some spots nearer the summit.
Speaking in the preface to the quarto of 1737 of the correspondence he reprinted from what he calls the surreptitious editions, he says "for the chasms in it, we had not the means to supply them, the author having destroyed too many letters to preserve a series."
In the grave-like calm of the night, under the pale light of the wan moon, which only partially illumined the funereal crags that hemmed in the dreary chasm, and rose in gloomy sadness over the vaults of the departed, the scene was mournful and impressive.
After a most fatiguing scramble over the rocks and among innumerable chasms, we found ourselves on the platform below the columnar mass, which rises perpendicularly thirty or forty feet, and then hangs over at the top all round in a most curious and fearful manner.
Thus, amid solitude and shade, we pursued our onward way, now plunging into the deep and gloomy chasms of the mountains, and anon rising to the opposite ascent, till the distant openings in the forest, restoring the welcome sunlight, revealed mountain and valley yet to be traversed.
On the right and left of the gorge were precipitous mountains, evidently broken by chasms, ravines, and covered with patches of wood, their elevation being so moderate that no snow was visible upon their tops, while the scene was wild and forbidding in the extreme.
And consequently the surface of the hill began to disappear, and there were chasms in the road, which caused those who travelled on wheels to sit still, staring across with angry eyes, and sometimes to apostrophize the doer of these deeds with very naughty words.
He laid his victorious sword across the gory, yawning chasm which had drunk the blood of both aristocrats and democrats; and of that sword he made a bridge over which society might pass from one century to the other, and from the republic to the empire.
And it is curious to see what a considerable dell, or green ascending chasm, this little thread of water, working at all moments for thousands of years, has hollowed out for itself in the sloping ground; making a great military obstacle, if you are mounting to attack there.
Now he discovered that the same idea was occurring to his assailants, for although the intervening space was almost devoid of bush, the grass was long and tangled from the bush line to the chasm, and it was shaking and quivering in a very suspicious manner.
And on the contrary, when a chasm of greater or less breadth of years yawns in the vast mass of evidence which is ready for employment, or when a tradition is found to have died out, upon such a fact alone suspicion or grave doubt, or rejection must inevitably ensue.
The wild trees which have taken root in the crannies and chasms of the rock are so intersected and entangled, that one can with difficulty catch a glimpse of the stream which wheels, flashes, and foams below, as if exulting in the surrounding silence and solitude.
The wild trees which have taken root in the crannies and chasms of the rock have so intersected and entangled, that one can with difficulty catch a glimpse of the stream, which wheels, flashes, and foams below, as if exulting in the surrounding silence and solitude.
The village, unlike the one across the chasm, was in a very exposed position, and rain and water had helped to work destruction; but over there in front of them and some hundred feet above their heads was the tantalizing fortress which they could not reach.
Showers of sparks rushed up in the midst of huge blue flames; chasms of glowing red showed themselves behind each of the gaping windows, while the smoke rolled gently away in a huge purplish cloud, like the smoke from Bengal lights set burning at some display of fireworks.
He had been sustaining her for some time past, and felt himself scarcely stronger, but roused by her danger he seized her in his arms and was about to leap the fiery chasm, when he stumbled and partially fell, with both their weights overhanging its brink.
Nor, when we consider how intermittent and often feebly active is the social instinct even within the domain of the family, the nation, and the race, is it to be wondered at that its action should cease almost entirely when the vast chasm of racial distinction is reached.
The league of the democratic leaders with anarchy had obviously created a breach between the former and the burgesses of the city; and the oligarchy sought, not without at least momentary success, to enlarge this chasm and to draw over the masses to their side.
Arrived at this stage of one hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the glacier, he peered through the twilight dimness and perceived that the chasm took another turn and stretched away at a steep slant to unknown deeps, for its course was lost in darkness.
Occasionally they have little gimcrack bridges apparently built of gin cases across these chasms, but, as a rule, if I could not jump as the wandering goats did, I had to make my way round, even though it involved a detour of at least a quarter of a mile.
Five hundred feet below him the over-running floods of spring were caught between the ragged edges of the two chasm walls, beating themselves in their fury to the whiteness of milk froth, until it seemed as though the earth itself must tremble under their mad rush.
The singularity of this scene is not perceived in merely passing over the bridge: to appreciate its character, and comprehend its awfully impressive effects, it is necessary to see the bridge, the chasm, and the roaring water, from different projecting crags which impend over the river.
Dripping rifts and chasms led off in all directions, and the promontory which gave its name to the Elbow, and which formed the northern anchorage of the dam, had been mined and tunneled by the water until it presented the appearance of a huge hollow tooth.
Presently flames leaped up into the darkness, and armed men were visible in silhouette against the bonfire they had kindled, so large a bonfire, indeed, that, in the shadows beyond, the stony outcrop of a rough, steep country seemed in contrast to be the threshold of titanic chasms.
It remained precisely as he had known it when he stood prosperously on the farther verge of that dreary chasm of time; and as each familiar object met his eye, such a flood of bitter recollection came upon him, that for a moment he bent his head upon his breast.
I do not mean to imply that at the end of this world there will be either a luxurious hotel or a railway station at the service of the weary traveler, but the appearance of finality of all things is complete when one is faced with that terrible chasm ahead.
It was easy walking, llama trains having made a pathway, and the country soon became more regular, for they had passed the region of gorges, precipices, and chasms; although still among the mountains, the high peaks towered behind, those in front becoming lower as they progressed.
The dangerous madman was he in whom this chasm or incoherence of judgment occurred between ideas and actions: it was he who cut off the head of a sleeping man, and concealed himself behind a hedge, to enjoy the perplexity of the dead body when it should awake.
From the outer wall, the rocks on which the edifice was perched sloped precipitously down on all sides; especially towards the south, where they descended in one unbroken line to the deep dark waters of the still but rapid stream, which wound through a chasm below.
On every third or fourth approach he stepped literally to the edge of the chasm, and glanced down, ten thousand feet to where the stream below looked like the finest silver thread, lighted by the dazzling light from the giant crater, reflected into every smallest fissure.
Not a tree, not a blade of grass to be seen in all the bare, blank, crumbling congeries of stony chasms; the pointed, jagged, indented masses of rock tower aloft all round in wonderful forms, often like monstrous animals turned to stone, often like colossal human beings.
This region is all cliff and ravine, and precipice and chasm; yet in every direction the eye is refreshed and delighted, and the mind takes pleasure alike in thinking that it is scarcely English scenery, and that it is yet strikingly unlike anything but England after all!
It stands upon a commanding elevation, it is buried in green woods, there is no level ground about it, but, on the contrary, there are wooded terraces upon terraces, and one looks down through shining leaves into profound chasms and abysses where twilight reigns and the sun cannot intrude.
The old wooden bridge, the blustering torrent falling with ponderous leap down into a chasm below, the serenity and peace of the distant snow range, and the placid lake far, far below, formed a combination which causes regret that it can never be adequately depicted on paper.
We continued on till we reached the end of the rope, fastened to the stump of a tree, and stretched across the chasm to the opposite side, where it was secured in the same manner, a platform being raised to the same elevation as the rock on which we stood.
Spent with my long, rough run, I naturally selected the most comfortable seat in which to rest; this chanced to be a cushion of heather-like plants along the side of a fragment of rock which effectually concealed my body from view from the other side of the chasm.
Presently she saw the girls ahead, as they reached a particular point, diverge sharply to the right with little cries and exclamations; and when she advanced, she found herself on the edge of a chasm deeper and darker than any of those which they had passed.
I visited the first on a misty day, which exaggerated the height of the mountains, and by filling their chasms with translucent blue atmosphere gave a rare loveliness to the whole, for it must be said that the beauties of Persian scenery are usually staring, hard, and unveiled.
However, shortly after noon, when they had reached a spot where a great rock impended above the trail, while below their feet the chasm sloped down to unknown depths, the blue-bloused figure stopped short in its tireless walk and waited for the boys to come up.
It may be inaccurate about details such as the title by which a baronet is addressed or the width of a mountain chasm which a baronet can conveniently leap, but it is not a bad description of the general idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in human affairs.
We now began to cross the glacier transversely, cutting steps with a hatchet, and after passing more than one deep chasm from six inches to two feet in breadth, we arrived at the crest of the mountain, so that I could stretch out my hand and touch it.
They all immediately plunged back into their kitchens; and from the dark chasm of the narrow courtyard all that ascended was the stench of the dirty sinks, like the exhalation of the hidden abominations of the families, stirred up there by the spite of the hirelings.
How long it took evolution to bridge the chasm between the vertebrate and the invertebrate, between the fish and the frog, between the frog and the reptile, between the reptile and the mammal, or between the lowest mammal and the highest, who can guess?
At last my hand closed upon the ship's rail and that very instant a horrid shriek rang out below me that sent my blood cold and turned my horrified eyes downward to a shrieking, hurtling, twisting thing that shot downward into the awful chasm beneath me.
The walls of the farm took an extensive sweep, the path crept round their entire basement, and to follow it to the end, in the darkness, only two paces from the edge of a perpendicular chasm, was no very easy task, even for as practiced a horseman as myself.
The chasm would be imperceptible to an eye that could take in the whole compass of nature, and pass from one end of creation to the other; as it is possible there may be such a sense in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at present more exalted than ourselves.
The darkness was increasing with every minute, but I should have twilight for another half-hour, so I went into the chasm (though by no means without fear), and resolved to return and camp, and try some other path next day, should I come to any serious difficulty.
Beyond this the chasm widened a little, until, at its higher end, it was nearly twenty yards broad; but, owing to the widening nature of the defile, the one opening could not be seen from the other, although they were little more than four hundred yards apart.
Had the price of sugar remained this year at a figure which would afford the planters a fair profit, it might have been the means of tiding over the chasm of bankruptcy which has long stared them in the face, and upon the brink of which they now stand.
The wish to give a possible basis for the existence of legend, by interposing a chasm between the events and the record of them, stimulated the pursuit of the branch of criticism slightly touched on by their predecessors, which investigates the origin and date of scripture books.
I believe if we could apply the rule of perspectives and throw our vanishing point far back beyond the chasm that separates man from his Simian prototype, that we would find one unbroken outline tangent to every circle of life from man to protozoa in language, mind, and matter.
We knew that resistance was useless, but I wondered if this was only a new form of torture, and if we were to be blindfolded as the pirates had blindfolded their victims, only to be led to some fearful chasm where we should step off into space and eternity.
Had the price of sugar remained this year at a figure which would afford the planters a fair profit, it might have been the means of tiding over the chasm of bankruptcy which has long stared them in the face, and upon the brink of which they now stand.
In some remote era a vast convulsion opened in the solid land a chasm through which the oceans poured their meeting waters, and separated our beloved island from the European continent; the sole condition under which, perhaps, it was possible for the English people to have accomplished their destiny.
Crossing a little dell to the west of the house, through which flow a couple of tinkling rills bordered with rank grass, and sheeted with flowers white and fragrant, I struck the foot of a small glacier, or chasm filled with perpetual snow, and commenced the ascent.
Just above the point where the chasm begins there is an old mill, once run by a wheel driven by a sluice connected with the river, but steam has superseded this natural power and detracted somewhat from the interest which would otherwise invest the place.