"Horror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must confess that I have an instinctive horror of being dragged to the Morgue, as happens whenever there is some doubt about a suicide. It is on account of this I now write to you, so that, thanks to your intervention, all the mistakes justice is liable ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... share it. We were yet drifting seaward, and for hours together our utmost exertions only enabled us to hold our own. I can easily fancy the interest we excited on shore, yet nothing could be thought of to help us. We could hear the cry of horror and commiseration which rose from the crowd as the boat with our companions in misfortune drifted past the spot whence there was any hope of escape, and the old man and lad sat down and gave themselves up to despair. The intense cold would, I guessed, soon deprive ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... live bullocks for the fleet. Jack did not join his ship very willingly, but he had promised the Governor to remain in the service, and he went on board the evening before she sailed. He had been living so well that he had, at first, a horror of midshipman's fare, but a good appetite seasons everything, and Jack soon complained that there was not enough. He was delighted to see Jolliffe and Mesty after so long an absence; he laughed at the boatswain's cheeks, inquired ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... looked with horror at the face of the clock; his only fear was lest the hands should move too rapidly, and forbid him to utter in spacious periods all he had on his mind. By half-past eight he was in the midst of a vehement plea for an enlargement of female ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... from the unknown, whence himself he came, appears an angel to deliver him from this horror—this stony look—ah, God! of soulless law. The woman is on her way whose part it is to meet him with a life other than his own, at once the complement of his, and the visible presentment of that in it which is beyond his own understanding. The enchantment of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... breath, clutching tight hold of one another by the hand, in terror of finding that we so eagerly searched,—a hood, a woman's skirt clinging to the stones, a stiffened hand thrust up from the lapping waters. Never may I forget the sickening horror of the moment when, creeping out amidst the rocks, Dawson twitches my hand, and points down through the clear water to something lying white at the bottom. It looked for all the world like a dead face, coloured a greenish white by the water; but presently ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Brieuc," he said solemnly and sadly, "holy men and servants of the poor, lie cold and still in their dormitories, brother by brother, saint by saint. And the sun looks in on them and sees their faces agonized in death, and the blind eyes staring with horror at the fate that woke them but for death. In such wise the Sarrasin's devils fear holy ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... resolved to follow Mr. Sanderson's advice, and begin to watch quite early in the afternoon. My man finished his arrangements by about midday, and, after breakfasting at home, I returned with him to the spot at about three o'clock. Horror of horrors, the carcase was gone again. My head shikari—the Rama Gouda, whom I have previously noticed as being such a cool and daring fellow—was enraged beyond measure. He at once, without saying a word, cut a creeper from the nearest tree, and without ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... I don't believe Solomon was so rich after all?" observed a sharp boy to his mother, who prided herself on her orthodoxy. "My child!" she exclaimed in pious horror, "what does the Bible say?" "That's just it," he answered. "It says that 'Solomon slept with his fathers.' Now, surely, if he had been rich he'd have had a bed ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... for his own merits — Henry Adams heard her say to herself in her languid and liberal way, with her rich voice and musing manner, looking into her tea-cup: "I don't think I care for foreigners!" Horror-stricken, not so much on his own account as on hers, the young man could only execute himself as gaily as he might: "But Lady Margaret, please make one small exception for me!" Of course she replied what was evident, that she did not call him a foreigner, and her genial ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... not. Mickle wrack was it soothly for the friend of the Scyldings, 170 Yea heart and mood breaking. Now sat there a many Of the mighty in rune, and won them the rede Of what thing for the strong-soul'd were best of all things Which yet they might frame 'gainst the fear and the horror. And whiles they behight them at the shrines of the heathen To worship the idols; and pray'd they in words, That he, the ghost-slayer, would frame for them helping 'Gainst the folk-threats and evil So far'd they their ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... a second time, frozen with horror at the sight of her poodle lying upon its back among ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... while the servants waiting upon the table did not fail to observe that Governor Serrano was not in all respects a model of the temperance usually characteristic of his race. They carefully counted and afterwards related with admiration, not unmingled with horror, that the veteran Spaniard drank fifty-two goblets of claret, and was emptying his glass as fast as filled, although by no means neglecting the beer, the quality of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon. Yet ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the pupils of our eyes so as to make them very sensitive, and we could just see at times the outlines of the road. Finally, just as a faint gleam of daylight arrived, we entered the captain's yard and delivered the message. In my whole life I never spent such a night of horror as this, but ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... saw, what she had not seen before, the woman and child on the opposite side of the street. She saw the baby stretch out wistful hands after the dog lying in the snow. Then an automobile honked past, and she felt again the thrill of horror as it ran over the poor old toy. At the same moment the child screamed, and she saw it point tearfully at the Flanton tragedy. The mother, who had seen nothing of all this, stooped and ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... touched. Far from pleasant was this vehemence of devotion; the approach of it oppressed her; she comprehended Luigi as a creature of another species, another race, than herself; she shrank before him now with a kind of horror. That night in a nervous excitation she did not close an eye, and in the morning she was wan as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of the post, and its departure before its arrival, saved me some days of anxiety for Lady Ailesbury, and prevented my telling you how concerned I am for her accident; though I trust, by this time, she has not even pain left. I feel the horror you must have felt during her suffering in the dark, and on the sight of her arm;(222) and though nobody admires her needlework more than I, still I am rejoiced that it will be the greatest sufferer. However, I am very ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... Kramar declared that "the Czech nation is stronger to-day than ever before. There is no worse policy than that which gives in before danger. I am sure that our people will not give way. We have suffered so much that there is no horror which could divert us from the path we follow. Happily enough, we see that what we want is also desired by the whole world. We see that we are not alone. To-day the representatives of other nations, which have suffered ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... they let him weep a little, like his fathers before him? His plans stiffened, his views grew cold; behind that merry mask was the empty mind of the atheist. At last, to keep up his hilarious public level, he fell back on that dram-drinking he had abandoned long ago. But there is this horror about alcoholism in a sincere teetotaler: that he pictures and expects that psychological inferno from which he has warned others. It leapt upon poor Armstrong prematurely, and by this morning he was in such a case that he ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... slip from him, and he sprang back just in time to see the two warriors sink into a narrow but icy gulf, from which they never rose again. Uttering a cry of horror, he picked up his rifle and ran for the forest. He knew that chance, or perhaps the will of the greater powers, had saved him again, but, as he ran, he shuddered many times, not from the cold, but at the ghastly fate that had overtaken the warriors. The impression faded by and by. When one is ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... into the thick of it until sure also from the presence of tree growth that they would find water not far away. Will was the first to dismount and as he went over the crest and down the slope in search of a stream or pool, he uttered a cry of horror. ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... or from temperament, resolved to associate the whole nation in a great act of justice on a man of princely lineage. The sentence, which excited no horror at the time, was probably passed without a dissentient voice. David was sentenced, as a traitor, to be drawn slowly to the gallows; as a murderer, to be hanged; as one who had shed blood during Passion-tide, to be disembowelled ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... and it isn't sold. Better than that, it can't be sold, and I don't think any one knows where it is. I'm sure I don't.... And yet more and more wives, on the north side of the square. Observe the virtuous horror of the lions!' ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... roar of horror the executioners fell on him and he died. When there was silence I looked up, and saw that the king, who had turned a dirty yellow hue with fright, for he was very superstitious, was trembling and wiping ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... most beautiful and virtuous romance that ever was written, I mean Telemachus, landed on the island of Cyprus, he unfortunately lost his prudent companion, Mentor, in whom wisdom is so finely personified. At first he beheld with horror the wanton and dissolute manners of the voluptuous inhabitants; the ill effects of their example were not immediate: he did not fall into the commission of glaring enormities; but his virtue was secretly and imperceptibly undermined, his heart was ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... voiceless while she looked. In that tense half-minute when she stared at the objects he held it seemed to him that her heart-strings must snap under the strain. Then she drew back from them, her eyes filled with horror, her hands raised as if to shut out the sight of them, and a panting, sobbing cry broke from between ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Rid of a thousand torments. O vile earth, Worse for us devils than hell itself for men! Dread Pluto, hear thy subject's just complaint [BELPHEGOR kneeleth to PLUTO. Proceeding from the anguish of my soul. O, never send me more into the earth! For there dwells dread and horror more than here. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the brain. Hence he is apt to become narrative and admonitory, that is to say, fond of telling long stories, and of doling out advice, to the small profit and great annoyance of his friends. As I have a great horror of becoming the oracle, or, more technically speaking, the "bore," of the domestic circle, and would much rather bestow my wisdom and tediousness upon the world at large, I have always sought to ease off this surcharge of the intellect by means of my pen, and hence have ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... said the General gently. He had a horror of anything approaching sensation or a scene, a feeling which Spaniards share with Englishmen. 'That is the Queen for the time being,' added Vincente, pointing ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... something contagious in her enjoyment of life, and with all her strong religious faith, the thought of death, of any final pause and silence in the whirr of the great social machine, was to her a thought of greater chill and horror than to many a less brave ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in horror. "Him smoke! You blinkin' well barmy?" he demanded, looking Malcolm Sage up and down as if meditating an attack upon him. "I'd like to see the man who'd so much as dare to strike a match here," and he glared about ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... than two weeks after the destruction of the Terror, I knew the extent of the damage wrought upon our earth by those deadly green light pencils we had seen issuing from the huge ring up there in the skies. The horror of it all was fresh in my mind, but my own ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... long her body and limbs swelled to a great size; and she lay on a mat in the kitchen, till the water burst out of her body and she died. All the slaves said that death was a good thing for poor Hetty; but I cried very much for her death. The manner of it filled me with horror. I could not bear to think about it; yet it was always present to my mind for many ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince
... scene fired the fancy of the solitary spectator; but soon his nerves, disordered by the rout and fatigued by the spoor of so many odours, warned him that something disquieting was at hand. He felt a nameless horror as the sinister bitter odour of honeysuckle, sandalwood, and aloes echoed from the sacred grove. A score of seductive young witches pranced in upon their broomsticks, and without dismounting surrounded the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... morning's affair in the park with a conscience not altogether easy. To have stood by whilst her father had struck Caron, and moreover, to have done so without any sense of horror, or even of regret, was a matter in which she asked herself whether she had done well. Certainly La Boulaye had presumed unpardonably in speaking to her as he had spoken, and for his presumption it was fitting that he should be punished. Had she interfered she must have seemed to sympathise, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... provocation the patient experiences the greatest difficulty in breathing. When warning is given, there is usually a sense of fullness in the stomach, flatulence, languor, and general nervous irritability. The countenance is a picture of anxiety and horror. The difficulty of breathing increases and the struggle for air commences. Windows and doors are thrown open, fans used, and, utterly regardless of consequences, the sufferer passes the whole night in exposure and torture, even though the temperature be below ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... dead! Oh, Grey!" and Jack nearly leaped from his chair in his first surprise and horror; then he sat down again, and there was silence between the two for a moment, when he said, in a voice Grey would never have known as his: "When did she die? Tell me all about it, please, but tell it very slowly, word by word, or I shall not understand you. I seem to ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... cold with horror at the knowledge that Minnetaki was in the clutches of Woonga himself. The terrible change in Wabi was no longer a mystery. Both Minnetaki and her brother had told him more than once of the relentless feud waged ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... second it looked like Gladys was goin' to freeze with horror; but she just gives Valentina the once-over and indulges in ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... safe-keeping of her treasures, as she exemplified by telling us a story while exhibiting a little silver case. This once contained a portion of the heart of Louis XII. (how the devil it was got I know not), and she was showing it one day to Strickland, Dean of Westminster, when, to her horror and astonishment, she saw him open the case and swallow the royal heart! Ate ever man such a morsel before! It was a symptom of insanity in the dean, and I believe he is since dead, insane." It was after this interview with the countess that we visited Old Boston, and when my ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... and wealth: Guiltless of greatness thus he always pray'd, Nor knew nor wish'd those vows he made, On his own head should be repaid. Soon as the ill-omen'd rumour reach'd his ear, (Ill news is wing'd with fate, and flies apace,) Who can describe the amazement of his face! Horror in all his pomp was there, Mute and magnificent without a tear: And then the hero first was seen to fear. Half unarray'd he ran to his relief, So hasty and so artless was his grief: Approaching greatness met him with her charms Of power and future state; But look'd ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... compassion than with horror, gave to this shocking beggar the two florins which he had received from the honest Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... the letter: "I had forgotten to tell you that it was not the way to set me right in the eyes of the people to impress upon their mind that I am the cause of all the evils they suffer, and of all the disorders of the realm, in such sort that my ministry will be held in horror forever." ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that cur, my lady," says he, cold as an icicle, and his head bare. Her two white hands trembled at his sleeve and she turned her face from the groaning man in horror, and then she raised her great blue eyes in one long look, and then her little foot but ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... snakes will drop from trees and bushes or spring from the ground. Some places I think I'm sinking, and whenever a bush catches my skirts it seems as if something dreadful is reaching up for me; there is a possibility of horror lurking behind every ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... ask what the trouble was. The poor are born with a horror of organized charity. It obliges them to be looked over in all their misery; it presumes a worthiness, or its pretence, which they resent almost as much as they do the intrusion of the visiting committee. This disinclination is as old as poverty, ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... Revolution has been the subject of more books than any secular event that ever occurred, and two books by English writers have brought the passion, the cruelty, and the horror of it for all time within the shuddering comprehension of English-speaking people. One is a history that is more than a history; the other a tale that is more than a tale. Dickens, no doubt, owed much ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... qualities that give men distinction. We have not been our own makers: it is no fault in you that nature has placed him above you, and, surely, it is no fault in him; and would you punish him on account, and only on account, of his pre-eminence! If you have read this book you will startle with horror at the thought: you will, as to public matters, act with zeal and with good humour, though the place you occupy be far removed from the first; you will support with the best of your abilities others, who, from whatever circumstance, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... and stately tree," she said, as if at the sight of it she had been rapt away from the present scene, and had overcome the horror which had oppressed her at the first approach to Crookstone, "there thou standest, gay and goodly as ever, though thou hearest the sounds of war, instead of the vows of love. All is gone since I last greeted thee—love and lover—vows and vower—king and kingdom.—How ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... French were doing well and taking many prisoners on the Somme, as were the Russians on their front while the Roumanians began their offensive and swept far over the country much to the horror of the critics ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... not looked for by them on the Elgon—namely, gold, and that in large rich veins. It was accidentally discovered by one of the engineers engaged in the examination of the caves, who, significantly, was at first seized with horror at his discovery. He was an enthusiastic young Spaniard, who had only recently reached Freeland, and he saw in his discovery a great danger for those Freeland principles which were so passionately worshipped by him, and he therefore at first resolved to keep it secret. He reflected, ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... went on. The victims were led or carried out. The sight that met the public eye made the crowd literally groan with horror and shout with indignation. "We saw," wrote the editor of the "Advertiser" next day, "one of these miserable beings. The sight was so horrible that we could scarce look upon it. The most savage heart could not have witnessed the spectacle ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... huts crept stealthy figures of women and children. When Eustace opened his eyes he found himself lying flat on his back with these people crowding inquisitively around. He looked up into their repulsively heavy faces with a horror of realization. For some moments he was too paralyzed to stir. No more awful fate could have befallen him than this—it was the sort of thing that might come to one in a nightmare. But he knew it was no dream. There stood Bolter ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... propose a solution which is engaging, logical—and insufficient. They are the philosophers and the aesthetes among teachers, who see, what the Formalists miss, that he who thinks well will in the long run write as he should. Their special horror is of the compulsory theme, extracted from unwilling and idealess minds. Their remedy for all ills of speech and pen is: teach, not writing and speaking, but thinking; give, not rules and principles, but materials for thought. And ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Christ and liberty to all your faculties, your understanding, will, and affections, (which are no better than slaves and captives, non sui juris, while they are under these tyrannous passions of fear and horror,) to attend the obedience of Christ and the drawing of his yoke. This will relieve your souls out of prison, and then you will be fit for employment. Besides this, there is furniture and help brought into the soul, which enables ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... always bring it up when anyone begins to lecture and it works wonders. Uncle Mac turns pale, the aunts hold up their hands in holy horror, and a general panic ensues. Then I magnanimously promise not to disgrace the family and in the first burst of gratitude the dear souls agree to everything I ask, so peace is restored and I go on ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... d'Egmont heard this recital with horror. At the same instant, her mother entered, and, on her knees, besought her daughter to avert her eternal damnation. Madame d'Egmont tried to calm her own and her mother's mind. 'What can I do?' said she, to her. 'Consecrate yourself ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... elements. I was then in a state of health which furthered me sufficiently in all that I would and should undertake; only there was a certain irritability left behind, which did not always let me be in equilibrium. A loud sound was disagreeable to me, diseased objects awakened in me loathing and horror. But I was especially troubled with a giddiness which came over me every time I looked down from a height. All these infirmities I tried to remedy, and, indeed, as I wished to lose no time, in a somewhat violent way. In the evening, when they beat ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... better than anybody who knew him would have imagined he could do; he seemed to have made up his mind to behave himself, sure enough. Yet his being there was a trial to Edward in several ways: he had a great horror of being called "Tip;" that name belonged to the miserable, ragged, friendless, hopeless boy who used to wander around the streets in search of mischief, not to the young man who was a faithful clerk in one of the finest stores in Albany, besides being a teacher in Sabbath school, and a very ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... and told him that though they fully explained the magnificence of the wedding supper, some turned upon their heels with a flimsy excuse, others rudely laughed outright in the messengers' faces, and—oh, the horror of it!—still others actually stoned and beat some of the messengers to death!—and their bodies were even at that moment lying in the street, ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... increase. I placed the point in one of the joints, and gave a push up—it would not enter. I exerted my strength, when—I shall never forget that moment—it ran up to the hilt!—a heavy groan followed; I drew it back covered with blood! I stood upon the table stupified with horror, gazing upon the ensanguined blade; two or three heavy drops of blood fell upon my face and went into my eyes. I leaped from the table, and placed the knife where I had found it. The noise ceased; but heavy drops of blood continued to fall and coagulate upon the floor at my ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... hear the tongueing of the dogs when other and nearer sounds alarmed him. Langdon and Bruce came rushing around the bulge in the mountain wall, and at sight of the dead dogs they stopped. Langdon cried out in horror. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... from the tall, splendidly-poised figure, as firm and erect as he had ever seen it. He did not realize yet the blow that had fallen upon him, the blank in his life that would come later; but he felt as though he were struggling in a sea of horror, and was unable to disguise his shrinking from her, his avoidance of her, the woman to whom yesterday he had offered his love humbly, and whom he had besought to be his wife. He asked coldly, not looking ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... lying huddled on the couch turned her face to the wall and covered it with her hands in a burst of uncontrollable horror. ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... eastern bank of the stream was a clump of small trees and reeds which I walked up to examine with a desire to recognise any trees belonging to known species, but to my horror, on looking into the reeds, I saw what appeared to be a huge alligator fast asleep. The men now peeped at it and all agreed that it was an alligator. I therefore retreated to a respectful and suitable distance and let fly at it with a rifle; ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... had asked her to read "Mug's letter," and Alice had read the brief lines written by 'Lina: "Hugh must send the money, as I told him before. He can sell Mug; Harney likes pretty darkies." There was a cold, sick feeling at Alice's heart, a shrinking with horror from 'Lina Worthington, and then she came to a decision. Mug should be hers, and so, as skillfully as she could she brought it around, that having taken a great fancy both to Lulu and Muggins, she wished to ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... lads, wrecked at St. Malo, are persecuted as Aristocrats. They see the Reign of Terror in all its horror, but fortunately escape to the chateau of an uncle in La Vendee. A quarrel with a cousin ensues, and fighting occurs at the same time with the Republicans. As a scout the elder does gallant service till captured and taken ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... large brown eyes to mark her horror, and Allen, made a gesture of exaggerated sympathy, which his sister took for more earnest than it was, and she said, scornfully, "I should like to see him literally rolling in gold. It must be like Midas. Do ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appealed to they brought the case before their king, whose wisdom and fitness to judge a great kingdom were now to be tried. As the spectators of the dramatic scene looked on, it was with anxious curiosity, which in a moment was turned into horror as Solomon ordered a stalwart attendant to take a keen sword and cut the living little one into two parts and give to each mother a half. One of the women appeared stolidly satisfied with this arrangement, but the other sprang between the babe and its executioner, and, weeping, pleaded that its ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... the deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the impassive round cheval-de-frise that was the hedgehog, in a blind access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines that showed no life and said no word, and defied all. It was a siege of the wild, and a ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... while nothing happened, and then all at once there occurred something which Donnington will never recall—and that however long he may live—without a sensation of unreasoning, retrospective horror welling up within him. ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... some and agony and grief to others, compared with the green and golden trophies of the honest Husbandman whose bloodless blade makes no wife a widow, no child an orphan,—whose office is not to spread horror and desolation through shrieking cities, but to multiply and distribute the riches of nature ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... lastly, we have Weissnittle, as a splendid young prince, publicly shaming his brothers-in-law by exposing their branding marks. In India this branding with red-hot pice was the punishment for stealing. Compare in Taylor's Confessions of a Thug, p. 411, Amir Ali's horror at being so branded by the Raja of Jhalone. It was, he says years later, a punishment worse than death, as the world would think him a thief, and he would carry to his grave "a mark only set on the vile and ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... pull lustily, that they might get home before the gathering storm. The old negro made no reply, but shaped his course so as to skirt the rocky shores of Gibbet-Island. A faint creaking overhead caused Vanderscamp to cast up his eyes, when, to his horror, he beheld the bodies of his three pot companions and brothers in iniquity dangling in the moonlight, their rags fluttering, and their chains creaking, as they were slowly swung backward and ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... herd for some distance, until he thought himself tolerably near, when he looked round the corner of a hillock, and then to his horror found he had been carefully approaching five Indians, who were congregated round a dead buffalo, their horses close by, and the men occupied ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... He has shown us the Father, or there is no knowledge of Him possible. We do not need to dread the alternative; we can face it, and overcome it. And in far-off lands men are groping in twilight uncertainty, worshipping, with a nameless horror at their hearts, gods capricious, gods cruel, gods terrible—tamely believing in gods far-off and mysterious, cowering before gods careless and heartless, degrading their manhood by imitating gods foul and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... since I have brooded over our situation, till it seems as if I shall go mad. There's an awful gulf before us, and every day we are being pushed nearer to it;" and Laura's large blue eyes were dilated with horror, as ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... much longer. It was very significant that in a formal note just received from St. Petersburg by the hand of a Russian officer, Alexander advised peace. To this messenger, when speaking of the chances for renewing hostilities, Napoleon exclaimed in undisguised horror, "Blood, blood, always blood!" And then, with a sudden change of manner, he said: "I am anxious to get back to Paris." Like his generals, the Emperor of the French was plainly sick of war. His sad countenance, like theirs, was an ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... is war! Its ravages cause us horror. Luckless Filipinos succumb in the confusion of combat, leaving behind them mothers, widows and children. America could put up with all the misfortunes she brings on us without discomfort; but what the North American people are ...
— True Version of the Philippine Revolution • Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy
... I passed, not only motionless, but bereft of thought; then, recovering my senses, I began to think that the hand I touched was imaginary. In that conviction I stretched out my arm once more, only to encounter the same hand, which, with a cry of horror, I seized, and let go again, drawing back my own. I shuddered, but being able to reason by this time, I decided that while I slept a corpse had been laid near me—for I was sure there was nothing ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... war. It is easy to talk of glory and heroism when one is away from it, when memory has softened the gruesome details. But here, in the presence of the mutilated and tortured dead, one can only feel the horror and wickedness of war. Indeed it is an evil harvest, sown of pride and arrogance and lust of power. Maybe through all this evil and pain we shall be purged of many sins. God grant it! If ever there were martyrs, ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... and horror. They were standing above their knees in the water, and they no longer saw the little craft, which had become a veritable ship of refuge to them. They peered about frantically in the dusk ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... coloured workmen dared not proceed. My friend persevered coolly; and Madame, finding that the Government official considered himself Obeah-proof, tried to bribe him off, with the foolish cunning of a savage, with a present of—bottled beer. To the horror of his workmen, he accepted—for the day was hot, as usual—a single bottle; and drank it there and then. The Negroes looked—like the honest Maltese at St. Paul—'when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly': but nothing ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... nonsense to her to pass away the time,—told her she was pretty and all that,—and made her a few presents—and—" He paused and took a long breath. "I thought she was very queer. The first thing I knew, I found she was—out of her mind. Well, I stopped and soon came away, and, to my horror, she took it into her head that she was my wife. She followed me here. I had to go abroad, and I heard no more of her until, not long ago, I heard she had gone completely crazy and was hunting me up as her husband. You know how ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... glanced at Issachar, who all this while had stood like one stricken to the soul, woe stamped upon his face, and a stare of horror in his eyes. "Jew," he said, "I had forgotten you, but you also are on your trial, who dared against the law to hold secret meeting with the lady Baaltis. For this sin the punishment is death, nor, as I think, would any ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... forces one's way into the crowded bazaar, while the ghulams of the Consulate—without whom it would be indecorous to go anywhere—shove the people on one side or the other without ceremony, drive the donkeys, laden with wood or panniers of fruit, into the shops—much to the horror of the shopman,—and disband the strings of mules and the horsemen to make room for ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... three learned tomes on the same subject! though, perhaps, scepticism in an American, in his discriminating mind, would have been deep erudition correcting the upstart islanders. The great interest which he evinces for holy localities—accompanied as it is by an expression of horror at some English traveller, who, he asserts, thought that David picked up his pebbles in a brook between Jordan and the Dead Sea, whereas he knew it was in an opposite direction—doubtless earned for him the patronage of The Christian Advocate; and the pious indignation he expresses at ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... were assembled at your brother's to spend a joyous evening in dancing. We were all in the height of our merriment,—he himself remarkably cheerful, and partaking of the amusement, when the alarm was given that the dear little angel was dying. It is impossible to describe the confusion and horror of the scene:—he was quite frantic, and I knew not what to do. Happily there were present several kind, good-natured men, who had their recollection, and pointed out what should be done. We very soon had every possible assistance, and for ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... her life waste—to meet the vindictive hatred that looked furtively at her out of his eyes—at the moment when sentence of death had been pronounced on him, was an ordeal from which every finer instinct in her nature shrank in horror. ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... in his remarks to a height of moral sublimity. "We talk of freedom," said he, "while slavery exists in this land; and speak with horror of the tyranny of the Turk. We foster an evil which the highest interests of the community require should be removed, which was denounced as the bans of our happiness by the Father of the Commonwealth and to which we trace the cause of the lamentable depression of Eastern Virginia. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... intrusted to Mrs. M. by the young companion of the woman. A feeling of horror came over the aged woman, who had been thus suddenly entrusted with such responsibility. A few doors from her lived an old friend of the same religious faith with herself, well known as a brave woman, and a friend of the slave, ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... said, "I never saw any one dead; I cannot bear it," and going from her he took a seat in the kitchen as far as possible from the bedroom which held so much horror for him. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... fashion. He had no ambition to be discovered in this melodramatic attitude, and once more made an effort to escape. The grasp on her wrist was gentle, but withal wonderfully strong, and to Esmeralda's horror she found it impossible to struggle against it. The thought that the thief was escaping after all was too humiliating to be borne, and as one hand after the other was forced back she grew desperate, and raised her voice in ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... against the wall like the trunk of a tree. All the timber in the long frame-work of the cave, those heavy black vertebrae, cracked with an ear-splitting noise, and all the prisoners in the dungeon shouted together in horror. ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... was dabbing at her eyes, this time with the sleeve of her jacket. A suffering woman stood before him. She who had always shown herself so competent to meet trouble with laughing looks was being overthrown by this nameless horror. Suddenly he knew that to him it didn't matter so very much what crime ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... on her with a sharp cry of horror.] — Don't strike me. I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... comical, for she had been so absorbed in her own affairs she had suspected nothing; and horror fell upon her when she learned how near dear Philip had been to the fate from which she jealously guarded him, that his property might one day ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... horror to the minds of the people of a highly civilized nation at the close of the nineteenth Century by the actual commission of a similar deed, struck horror to the hearts of the people, and they were worked up to a pitch that had never been witnessed in ...
— The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan - or: the Headless Horror. • Unknown
... cigarette, of one teaspoonful of liquor, of anything, though it were deadly poison, that could rest his agonised nerves for a single hour, for ten minutes, for an instant, offering his life and soul for it, parching for it, burning, sweating, trembling, vibrating with horror, and sick with fear for the ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... of all proportion to the act which produced it held him speechless while he gazed at her. He felt at first merely a sense of physical revolt from the brutality of her self-revelation—from the nakedness to which she had stripped the horror of her marriage under the eyes of her daughter. Nothing, not even the natural impulse to screen one's soul from the gaze of the people with whom one lived, had prevented the appalling indignity of this exposure. ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... since thought was perhaps a silly thing. But, after all, these freaks were my friends in a way; and I had a horror of their thinking I refused them for the real reason, which was that they were so impossibly ugly. So I made up some gas of another sort, about never meaning to marry anyone who hadn't carved his way in the world. I said it was a point of principle with me not to live on money that was just ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... reform. I insisted upon the iniquity of abandoning men from their birth to an irremediable state of contempt, from which no virtue could exalt them. The Brahmins looked upon my Brahmin with ineffable horror. They called me the most wicked of vices; they saw no distinction between Justice and Atheism. I uprooted their society—that was sufficient crime. But the worst was, that the Pariahs themselves regarded me with suspicion; they ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had been ordered in the foreigner's name to avoid raising suspicion). Castanier saw that he had his bills and his passports, stepped into the carriage, and set out. But at the barrier he saw two gendarmes lying in wait for the carriage. A cry of horror burst from him but Melmoth gave him a glance, and again the sound ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... For it is incredible to see how our nation and religion is maligned, and the awful obedience that all the kingdom stands in unto the Romish priests, whose excommunications are of greater terror unto them than any earthly horror whatsoever. Until of late, although the townsmen have ever been obstinate Papists, yet /pro forma/ the mayors and aldermen would go to the church. But now not so much as the mayors will show any such external obedience, and by that means the queen's sword is a recusant, which ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... came behind, and Mary pinched Annette's arm so sharply that she must have cried out aloud had it been possible for her to feel pain at that moment, instead of a personal exultation, flying wildly over the clash of astonishment and horror, like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 'O, horror! Tell Alice to come directly and rub Mrs. Barton's dress,' said the Countess to the trembling John, carefully abstaining from approaching the gravy-sprinkled spot on the floor with her own lilac silk. But Mr. Bridmain, who had a strictly private ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... is Hanway-Harley, and this is my daughter, Dorothy Harley. Hanway is my own family name; I always use it." Then she thanked Richard for his saving interference in her child's destinies. "Just to think!" she concluded, and a curdling horror gathered in her tones. "Dorothy, you might have broken ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... never been a witness at a death scene. I have seen thousands hurried out of life since then; and though even now I should find an execution ugly and repellant, I recall with some astonishment the agony of horror which this commission cost me. I had an introduction to the sub-sheriff and another to the governor of the gaol; and I presented these at the gaol itself on a night of rainy misery which was in complete accord with my own feelings. I went hoping with all my heart that ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... where wallow the inventions of Nature's infancy, when, like a child of untutored imagination, she drew on the slate of her fancy creations in which flitting shadows of beauty serve only to heighten the shuddering, gruesome horror. The sweet sun and air, the hand of man, and the growth of the ages, have all but swept such from the upper plains of the earth. What hunter's bow has twanged, what adventurer's rifle has cracked ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... bundle of rags thrown down at the foot of the gallows began suddenly to move, and turned towards us the wizened face of an aged woman, so marked with evil passions and so malignant in its expression that it inspired us with even more horror than the unclean thing which dangled above ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... they say that there is yellow fever among the Yankee troops in Louisiana. It would be like them to bring that horror into the ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... monotone of voices, the dreary pelting of the drum never ceased; and the soul of the unbeliever was worn slowly away. The evening of the seventh day the Grand Inquisitor, standing at his side, noticed with horror the resemblance to the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... a hand to his chest. Grim horror settled in the little cabin as the cough convulsed him. And over it the wind shrieked again, swallowing up the yapping of the foxes and the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... morning for the last time. I went with Aunt Caroline, as usual, but, as I knelt beside her on entering the pew, I was seized with a great horror of myself. There was I, hypocrite, with silent lips and silent heart, feigning to share in the simple fervour around me, denying my own faith, insulting that of another. However, I sat and knelt and stood and went through all the forms along ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... his reward in that cry of dismay, almost of horror, which burst from Curtis's lips when he heard the true name ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... of horror Attila fled from the cave. For a time he thought of giving up his idea of becoming a great man. But he was young and full of spirit, and very soon he remembered only what had been said to him about his becoming a great and famous conqueror ...
— Famous Men of The Middle Ages • John H. Haaren, LL.D. and A. B. Poland, Ph.D.
... unworthy potions. Shall Egypt lend out her ancients unto chirurgeons and apothecaries, and Cheops and Psammeticus be weighed unto us for drugs? Shall we eat of Chamnes and Amasis in electuaries and pills, and be cured by cannibal mixtures? Surely such diet is miserable vampirism; and exceeds in horror the black banquet of Domitian, not to be paralleled except in those Arabian feasts wherein ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... calling them cowards, and at once they climbed to the perilous place; but scarcely had they reached it when there was an explosion of gases; the roof heaved and fell in, carrying with it sixteen men down into a pit of gaseous flame, and a shriek of horror went up from the fifty thousand people who stood looking on, unable to give the least assistance to ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... only preparatory to going down. Still I held on. The water rolled away, and disappeared from above and beneath me, and I was able to obtain a clear view along the deck. What a scene of destruction and horror met my view! Of all those living men who lately peopled her decks, not a soul was there—not a mast was standing—not a boat remained—as if the destroying sword of the Archangel had swept over them. The decks were swept clear of everything; while ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... spoke like a person who had really obtained an insight into the divine philosophy of the New Testament, and who considered Christianity as a noble scheme of government, tending to promote the happiness and to elevate the moral nature of man. The horror which the sectaries felt for cards, Christmas ale, plum-porridge, mince-pies, and dancing- bears, excited his contempt. To the arguments urged by some very worthy people against showy dress he replied with admirable sense and spirit, "Let us not be found, when our Master ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that I have said to you. If Harry has spoken to you already I have lost—that's all. I didn't know," she said. Her cheeks were white, her eyes suddenly grown large with a horror in them ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... better against these vows; this veneration, this incense ought to be declined, and in order to undeceive them more effectively, you should yourself have rendered this homage to me in their presence. You found pleasure in this error, from which on the contrary you should have shrunk with horror. Your haughty temper, proud of having rejected a thousand kings, has carried the extravagant ambition of its choice ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... he said, "to tell you something which, a few years ago, I should have scrupled to tell. With all deference to your opinions, my dear Dick, I doubt if they quite allow you to understand the clergy's horror of chancing a heresy; indeed, I doubt if either of you quite guess what a bridle a man comes to wear who preaches a hundred sermons or so every year to a rural parish, knowing that nine-tenths of his discourse will assuredly be lost, while at any point in the whole of it he ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
