"Shocking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with a hot heart upon events which are still recent one is apt to lose one's sense of proportion. At every step one should check one's self by the reflection as to how this may appear ten years hence, and how far events which seem shocking and abnormal may prove themselves to be a necessary accompaniment of every condition of war. But a time has now come when in cold blood, with every possible restraint, one is justified in saying that since the most ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that he voted on the strength of Mr. Bunce's representation. Voted for whom? For Mr. Cowen? O no.—But he voted for a committee, who were to meet a committee, to make out the county nomination!—And shocking to relate, poor Dr. Child was galled into a vote for three of the most respectable men in the town of Milton!!—viz: Daniel Couch jun. Esq. Joel Keeler Esq. late a member of the legislature, and Thomas Palmer Esq!!!—It is derogatory to no man in that town, to say that a more ...
— A Review and Exposition, of the Falsehoods and Misrepresentations, of a Pamphlet Addressed to the Republicans of the County of Saratoga, Signed, "A Citizen" • An Elector
... with any kind of rags that offered themselves. Peters then arranged my face, first rubbing it well over with white chalk, and afterward blotching it with blood, which he took from a cut in his finger. The streak across the eye was not forgotten and presented a most shocking appearance. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... more serious in my life. A shocking crime has been committed, and I think I have now laid ...
— The Adventure of the Cardboard Box • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sometimes in the arduous task of being merry by force. And, strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, and, but for that saddest mood, perhaps had never been written at all. To say truth, it would be but a shocking vagary, should the mariners on board a ship buffeted by a terrible storm, employ themselves in fiddling and dancing; yet sometimes much such ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... soundness of Martin's verdict, for my part I feel that my experiences during that week left me with memories not perhaps more shocking, but certainly more humiliating and disgraceful to England, than the picture burnt into my mind by the Westminster Riot. I will mention ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Anne, at last her mute devotions o'er, Perceived the feet she had forgot before Of her too shocking nudity; and shame Flushed from her heart o'er all the snowy frame: And, struck from top to toe with burning dread, She blew the light out, and escaped ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... this girl. She felt the intensity of her excitement, and shared it; yet at the same time there was something in Jessie that resented it. She did not wish to be upset about things like this, which she could not help. Of course these unfortunate people were suffering; but—what a shocking lot of noise the poor thing was making! A part of the poor thing's excitement was rage, and Jessie realised that, and resented it still more. It was as if it were a personal challenge to her; the same as Hal's fierce social passions, which so ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... wish the rest of you would take Judith's room as a model. You may thank your lucky star, Sally May," she continued as Sally May joined them, "that Miss Watson hadn't time to inspect your room. It's in a shocking state. Run along now and have ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... frantic manoeuvres. She used to be followed with many attendants, who had each a thyrsus with [459]serpents twined round it. They had also snakes in their hair, and in the chaplets, which they wore; so that they made a most fearful appearance. Their cries were very shocking: and the whole was attended with a continual repetition of the words, [460]Evoe, Saboe, Hues Attes, Attes Hues, which were titles of the God Dionusus. He was peculiarly named [Greek: Hues]; and his priests were the Hyades, and Hyantes. He was likewise styled Evas. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... he lives, I'm afraid in shocking lodgings—it must be, so unhealthy—just to become acquainted with the life of poor people, and be helpful to them. Isn't it heroic? He seems to have given up his whole life to it. One never meets him anywhere; I think ours is the only house where he's seen. A noble life! He ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... and naval forces and forts within the Province proper. All administrative, legislative, judicial, and military powers were concentrated in his person and wielded by his hand. No more shameful tyranny or shocking despotism was ever endured in America, than, in "the dark and awful day," as it was called, while the Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was scattering destruction, ruin, terror, misery and ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... have some such effect upon some of the lady-part (male or female) of their listeners but possibly the members of the men-part, who as boys liked hockey better than birthday-parties, may feel like shocking a few of these picture-sitters with something stronger than their ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... embroideries. These pictures would have served the purpose of decoration better as medallions in the centres of arabesque panels, than framed and glazed in imitation of oil paintings. Some of the followers of this school produced works that are shocking to all artistic sense, especially as seen now, when the moths have spoiled them. They can only be classed with such abortive attempts at decoration as glass cases filled with decayed stuffed birds, and vases of faded and broken ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... her so impossible and painful, so humiliating and shocking, that she sprang from her bed and for a long time paced with bare feet the sleeping-room, which was but dimly lighted by the lamp. Yet all her thoughts and pondering were futile, and when she lay down again she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... things have happened inside natural laws, and don't depend on beings in some unknown fourth dimension. That is your affair, and I am very sure, as you say, that you can give good reasons for what you did at a future inquiry, though the results are so shocking. Poor Peter was taken back to London last night, you tell us, according to directions. If he's in the same case as this unfortunate gentleman, then there's not much doubt about his being dead. We must begin at the beginning, though for us, naturally, Hardcastle's operations and their ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... which hastes directly home; an old custom, to give an early notice to the keeper and others, of the turning off or death of the criminal; and that of the executioner smoking his pipe at the top of the gallows, whose position of indifference betrays an unconcern that nothing can reconcile with the shocking spectacle, but that of use having rendered his wretched office familiar to him; whilst it declares a truth, which every character in this plate seems to confirm, that a sad and distressful object loses its power of affecting by ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the 23rd of December 1684 he was brought up again before the high court on the charge of treason. He was pronounced guilty on the following day and hanged the same afternoon at the market cross at Edinburgh with all the usual barbarities. His shocking treatment was long remembered as one of the worst crimes committed by the Stuart administration in Scotland. Bishop Burnet, who was his cousin, describes him as "in the presbyterian principles but ... a man of great piety and virtue, learned ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... doubt. Radiocarbon dating places its age at ten thousand plus or minus one hundred cycles, which would place it at the very beginning of the Intellectual Emergence. Its importance is beyond question. Its implications are shocking despite the fact that they conform to many of the early legends and form a solid foundation for Dannar's Thesis which has heretofore been regarded as implausible. In the light of this material, the whole question of racial origins may well ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... centres the tables of mortality show that the proportion of nerve deaths has multiplied more than twenty times in the last forty years, and that now the nerve deaths number more than one-fourth of all the deaths recorded. What is most shocking in these returns, this fearful loss of life occurs mainly among young people ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... little hostess, "why will thee always use such shocking slang? How can I teach Jamie English with his father's example before him?" She shook a tiny finger ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... "Solomon, I bring shocking news. God knows what the next few hours may reveal!" cried the judge, mopping his brow. "Miss Malroy has disappeared from Belle Plain, and Hannibal ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... flitted across my mind, uncle, but I have never allowed it to rest there; it was too shocking to believe." ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... they have caused to be imprisoned, and who would recognize them. They inspire less pity on account of the vile trade which they follow. One sees with surprise, and with still more pain, that these fellows are very young. Spies, informers at sixteen!—O! what a shocking life does this announce!" exclaims MERCIER. "No; nothing ever distressed me more than to see boys act such a part.... And those who form them into squads, who drill them, who ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... committing all kinds of horrors, an impossible state of affairs has been brought about in many districts of both Republics, an instance of which took place lately in the district of Vryheid, where fifty-six burghers were murdered and mutilated in a shocking ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... every one engaged on either side, to use their utmost Efforts to prevent the Unnatural Carnage, but the Importance of the Cause on the side of America has made War necessary, and its Consequences, though in some Cases shocking, are yet unavoidable. But to Evidence that the Virtues of humanity are carefully attended to, to temper the Fortitude of a Soldier, I have to summon you in the Name of the United Colonies to surrender the Fort now under your Command, to the Army ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... Chouhans, Byses, and other families of higher grade, though they cannot obtain theirs in return for their sons, commit less murders of this kind than others; but all the Rajpoot clans commit more or less of them. Habit has reconciled them to it; but it appears very shocking to us Brahmins and all other classes. They commonly bury the infants alive as soon as possible after their birth. We, sir, are helpless, living as we do among such turbulent and pitiless landholders, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... at them. I, for instance, have all my life been expected to be lady-like, just because when I was little I hadn't strength enough to be naughty. And many and many a time I have felt like doing something wild and shocking!" ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... only to the bodies of their offspring, during infancy and childhood, and then send them abroad to follow nature!—Uncultivated nature! Living at large like the brutal inhabitants of the forest! Can we form an idea of ought more shocking? Surely such a people would be ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... him as something shocking and strangely new that his friend Durrance, who, as he knew very well, had been wont rather to look up to him, in all likelihood counted him a thing of scorn. But he heard Ethne speaking. After all, what did it matter whether Durrance ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known, and therefore best understood. At first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear: the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking; and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians assert: the hiss also of the gander is formidable and ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... security, which is worse than all former errors under the Pope have been." (C. R. 26, 9.) Agricola considered these and similar exhortations of Melanchthon unfriendly and Romanizing, and published his dissent in his 130 Questions for Young Children, where he displayed a shocking contempt for the Old Testament and the Law of God. In particular, he stressed the doctrine that genuine repentance (contrition) is wrought, not by the Law, but by the Gospel only. In letters to his friends, Agricola at the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... below them was almost unbearable. In the cabin the six doors kept up a continuous ear-shocking fusillade, as though half a dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by side. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... an effort: "I'm afraid I didn't respect his sincerity, and I ought to have done that, though I don't at all agree with him on the other points. It seems to me that what he said was shocking, and perfectly—impossible." ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... without the help of any kind of science, a certain intuition, vague perhaps, but altogether indisputable, of the Absolute. There was a man of science, possibly a great one, who declared that he had not discovered God under his scalpel. What a shocking mistake for an able mind to make! Where was the need of a scalpel, when the joy and the thrill of our senses are all-sufficient to convince us of the purpose commanding our whole evolution? The ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... Yes, just as she was. He would speak. He would speak bluntly. He would chide sternly. He had the right. The only friend in the world from whom she had not escaped beyond reach,—he would speak the friendly, angry word that would stop this shocking— ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... clutched me that night, I went to my window and looked abroad over Our Square, as Willy Woolly's memorial clock was striking four (it being actually five-thirty). A shocking sight afflicted my eyes. My bench was occupied by a bum. Hearing the measured footsteps of Terry the Cop, guardian of our destinies, I looked for a swift and painful eviction. Terry, after a glance, passed on. Nothing is worse for insomnia than an unsolved mystery. Slipping ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... only knows the things which a man mustn't do. It would be interesting if women would tell us what no real lady ever does. I have heard a woman classified contemptuously as one who does her hair up with two hair-pins, and no doubt bad feminine form can be observed in other shocking directions. But again it seems to be that the semblance of poverty, whether of means or of leisure, is the one thing which must ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... face, harsh unfeminine features, and muscular, masculine arms, give me the idea of a washerwoman, (con rispetto parlando!) an infant Saviour with the proportions of a giant: and what shall we say of the nudity of the figures in the back-ground; profaning the subject and shocking at once good taste and good sense? A little farther on, the eye rests on the divine Madre di Dio of Correggio: what beauty, what sweetness, what maternal love, and humble adoration are blended in the look ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... that the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been accomplished ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... sentenced to penal servitude December 18, 1873, for mutilating her husband in a shocking manner.—At Warwick Assizes, December 19, 1874, one man was sentenced to 15 years, and four others to 7 years' penal servitude for outraging a woman in Shadwell Street.—George Moriarty, plasterer, pushed his wife through ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... the trouble to contradict me; let me do the talking for a minute. You're so critical and so conventional and so correct! No matter how much you say you aren't, you are. And while we're like this I don't have to care. I rather enjoy shocking you. And while I'm none of your business, you don't have to care what I do or what I'm like. We can have our fun and be awfully fond of each other, and it's all serene and right. But if I were Mrs. Gerald ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... true that I was getting the best of the argument, and yet I was sorry for Aunt Agatha. I felt how I was shocking all her notions of decorum and propriety, and giving pain to the kindest and gentlest heart in the world; but one cannot lead a new crusade without trampling on some prejudices. I knew all my little world would shriek "fie," and "for shame" into my ears, and all because I was bent on working ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 353, October 2, 1886. • Various
... as a tramp—in his own account of himself he used the word "tramp" with a shocking lack of pride—led him inevitably into the far Northwest. Men were doing things up there. The country fairly seethed with the activity of live, virile men who were taking the first staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to their own account. Every ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... his really shocking rudeness. Rachel bit her lip and began to fold up the cloth. Mrs. Maldon's head slightly trembled. Louis alone maintained a perfect equanimity. It was ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... days spent at Nanci. To the two young sisters the condition of things was less evident. To Margaret their presence was such sunshine, that they usually saw her in her highest, most flighty, and imprudent spirits, taking at times absolute delight in shocking her two duennas; and it was in this temper that, one hot noon day, coming after an evening of song and music, finding Alain Chartier asleep on a bench in the garden, she declared that she must kiss the mouth ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Marta pressed her nails tighter into her palms. Abruptly as the inferno of the guns had commenced, it ceased, and the steady, passionate, desperate blasts of the rifles, now uninterrupted, were more deadly and venomous if less shocking to the ear. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... numberless Poor, that not only singly, but in Companies, implore your Charity. Spectacles of this Nature every where occur; and it is unaccountable, that amongst the many lamentable Cries that infest this Town, your Comptroller-General should not take notice of the most shocking, viz. those of the Needy and Afflicted. I can't but think he wav'd it meerly out of good Breeding, chusing rather to stifle his Resentment, than upbraid his Countrymen with Inhumanity; however, let not Charity be sacrificed to Popularity, and if his Ears were ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... one after another a series of doleful suburbs, for which it was the old gentleman's chief claim to renown that he had been the sole contractor, and too often the architect besides. I have rarely seen a more shocking exhibition: the brick seemed to be blushing in the walls, and the slates on the roof to have turned pale with shame; but I was careful not to communicate these impressions to the aged artificer at my side; and when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... neither. If a man used a bad word Joe would pull 'im up the fust time, and the second he'd order Bill to 'it 'im, being afraid of 'urting 'im too much 'imself. 'Arf the men 'ad to leave off talking altogether when Joe was by, but the way they used to swear when he wasn't was something shocking. Harry Moore got clergyman's sore throat ...
— Light Freights • W. W. Jacobs
... Recreation Islands, east of the Navigator Archipelago, Roggewein's crew had been attacked and stoned to death; at Traitor Island, which was now in sight, Schouten's crew were the victims; and in the south was Maouna Island, where we ourselves had met with so shocking a calamity. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... in any national language; but here they met on common neutral ground. No one's accent was "foreign," and none of the spectators possessed that mother-tongue acquaintance with Esperanto that would lead them to feel slight divergences shocking, or even noticeable without extreme attention to the point. Other theatrical performances were given at Geneva, as also at Boulogne, where a play of Molire was performed in Esperanto by actors of eight nationalities with one rehearsal, and ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... At this shocking speech—imagine a village girl crying out that an offer of employment from the Vicarage is of no good to her!—Mrs. Veale drew such a breath of horror that the hair of the late Canon rose in ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... legible characters. In public life, we see chicanery in the law, apathy in the Church, corruption in Parliament, brutality on the seat of justice; trade burdened with a great variety of capricious restrictions; the punishment of death multiplied with the most shocking indifference; the state of prisons so dreadful, that imprisonment—which might be, and in those days often was, the lot of the most innocent of mankind—became in itself a tremendous punishment; the press virtually shackled; education ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... his aunt, Mrs. Rae, of Edinburgh, suggesting that his wife should stop with her. Mrs. Watson, having "been told things," then called on Mrs. James in Covent Garden. "I spoke to her," she said, "of the shocking rumour that Captain Lennox had passed a night with her there, and pointed out the unutterable ruin that would result from a continuance of such deplorable conduct. I begged her to entrust herself to the care of Mrs. Rae. My entreaties were ineffectual. She ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... afterwards; of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always stumbling on instances of that power of subtle criticism which was the young foreigner's prime claim to be "a most awfully interesting" and perhaps a rather shocking person. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enterprise; and they deemed so irregular and lawless a deed best fitted to such irregular and lawless instruments.[**] But the generals were too wise to load themselves singly with the infamy which, they knew, must attend an action so shocking to the general sentiments of mankind. The parliament, they were resolved, should share with them the reproach of a measure which was thought requisite for the advancement of their common ends of safety and ambition. In the house of commons, therefore, a committee was appointed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... preceded by a description of Tom Jones as a novel "calculated to recommend religion and virtue, to shew the bad consequences of indiscretion, and to set several kinds of vice in their most deformed and shocking light." The reviewer declares that "after one has begun to read it, it is difficult to leave off before having read the whole." And he concludes, "Thus ends this pretty novel, with a most just distribution of rewards and punishments, according to ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... had always been hard to manage. She had never really conquered him even in the days when she had made him stand in the corner and go without sugar in his tea. She well remembered the shocking occasion on which he had flung sugar and basin together into the fire so that the others might be made to share his enforced abstinence. She believed he was equal to committing a similar act of violence if baulked even now. But he never was baulked. At thirty-five ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... "A most shocking outrage was committed in Kentucky, about eight miles from this place, on the 14th inst. A negro driver, by the name of Gordon, who had purchased in Maryland about sixty negroes, was taking them, assisted ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... the worse for you"; but fundamentally it means the same thing: that if you compel an adult and a child to live in one another's company either the adult or the child will be miserable. There is nothing whatever unnatural or wrong or shocking in this fact; and there is no harm in it if only it be sensibly faced and provided for. The mischief that it does at present is produced by our efforts to ignore it, or to smother it under a heap of sentimental ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Atkins and the shopboy, and even with Mrs. Bull and his son J. Wellington Bull, and caused it to be generally known that he would knock Dubois's head off for sixpence if he got the chance. Then Paddy Gilhooly, who is a tenant of the Bulls', in Hibernia Road—and a shocking bad tenant, too, who never pays any rent when he can help it, and keeps his premises in a disgraceful condition, with a lot of pigs and poultry running about in the front parlour—this Paddy must needs put his finger ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... owl began to hoot in the wood. There were many unpleasant things lying about, that had much better have been buried; rabbit bones and skulls, and chickens' legs and other horrors. It was a shocking place, ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... fact dexterously. Well, Higginson knows this young person's name; my sister wrote to me about her disgraceful conduct when she first went to Schlangenbad. An adventuress, it seems; an adventuress; quite a shocking creature. Foisted herself upon Lady Georgina in Kensington Gardens—unintroduced, if you can believe such a thing—with the most astonishing effrontery; and Georgina, who will forgive anything on earth, for the sake of what she ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... proposed to let Billy take a quarter at Dodworth's; had statues in their parlor without any thought of shame at their lack of petticoats, and did multitudes of things which, in their early married life, they would have considered shocking. . . . They would greatly have liked to see Daniel shine in society. Of his erudition they were proud even to worship. The young man never had any business, and his father never seemed to think of ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... trustworthy, very capable and excellent governess; as if Fyne were a widower and the children not her own but only entrusted to her calm, efficient, unemotional care. One expected her to address Fyne as Mr When she called him John it surprised one like a shocking familiarity. The atmosphere of that holiday was—if I may put it so—brightly dull. Healthy faces, fair complexions, clear eyes, and never a frank smile in the whole lot, unless perhaps from ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... as possible, is the better method. The plants are spread even on the ground and cured; bound up in convenient handfuls and shocked up, and bound around the top as corn. It is an improvement to shake off the leaves well before shocking up. If stacked after a while, and allowed to remain for a year, the improvement in the lint is worth more than the loss of time. There are two methods of rotting—dew-rotting, and water-rotting—one by spreading out on grass-land, and the other by immersing in water; the ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... balls in their privities, some having two and some three, being put in below the skin, which is cut for that purpose, one on one side and another on the other, which they do when 25 or 30 years of age. These were devised that they might not abuse the male sex, to which shocking vice they were formerly much addicted. It was also ordained, that the women should not have more than three cubits of cloth in their under garments, which likewise are open before, and so tight, that when they walk they shew the leg bare ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... sail, I cruised on into the night. The wind had fallen somewhat, but it kept the canvas filled. The crooning of the water, the rustling of the sail, the thin voices of bugs on shore, and the guttural song of the frogs, shocking the general quiet—these sounds only intensified the weird calm of the night. The sky was cloudless, and the moon shone so brightly that I wrote my day's notes by ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... whether it has not happened to him as to others, to be praised most, when praise is not most deserved. That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well contrived to strike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But some parts are trifling, others shocking, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... blood to freeze, the flesh to melt, the bones to drop from their places—yea, the spirit to faint. What is empaling or sawing men alive, tearing off the flesh piecemeal with iron pincers, or broiling the flesh with candles, collop fashion, or squeezing heads flat in a vice, and all the most shocking devices which ever were upon earth, compared with one of these? Mere pastime! Here were a hundred thousand shoutings, hoarse sighs, and strong groans; yonder a boisterous wailing and horrible outcry answering them, and the howling of a dog is sweet, delicious music, when compared ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... to, have been the darkest side of native life. The sorcerer has usually been the enemy of the missionary, who threatens his gains; but his power is now generally declining, and the British Government forbids the practice of smelling out witches, as well as many other shocking and disgusting rites which used to accompany the admission of boys and girls to the status of adults, or were practised at sundry festivals. Of the faith in minor and harmless spells one finds instances everywhere. In Matabililand, for instance, a boy was pointed out to me who had ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... a suddenly released curiosity. There was a barrier and officials guarding the rear part of the train; no one was allowed to press towards it. They were guarding and hiding something; perhaps death in some too shocking form, perhaps something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up with human mystery and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of sanctity; perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough into the streets and saw ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... marvellously realistic!" and would glow with enthusiasm and smile with gratitude for the perception which these words expressed. Others would say "merely realistic"; and the words would convey, if not disapprobation for something shocking, at least indifference. In both cases the word "realistic" would, I take it, mean that the objects which the pen, brush, or charcoal strokes represented were described with great particularity. And in the first ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... not so long ago that in any respectable community, a woman who painted her face, smoked cigarettes, drank cocktails and gambled with the men, would have been considered a shocking spectacle of depravity that no self-respecting wife, or mother, ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... some time swinged alongside of each other; for ours being a fire-ship, our grappling-irons caught the Lynne every way, and the yards and rigging went at an astonishing rate. Our ship was in such a shocking condition that we all thought she would instantly go down, and every one ran for their lives, and got as well as they could on board the Lynne; but our lieutenant being the aggressor, he never quitted the ship. However, when we found she did ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... to appear, they would discard their woolen garments for ones of goat skin. The Gerns would regard them as primitive inferiors at best and it might be of advantage to heighten the impression. It would make the awakening of the Gerns a little more shocking. ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... uneasy, at last; and presently they set out to search for the lad. Neither child nor seal did they ever see again; but they came upon the shocking ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... in for it," cried Villon, swallowing his mirth. "It's a hanging job for every man Jack of us that's here—not to speak of those who aren't." He made a shocking gesture in the air with his raised right hand, and put out his tongue and threw his head on one side, so as to counterfeit the appearance of one who has been hanged. Then he pocketed his share of the spoil, and executed ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... silent: then he said in an agitated voice, "It will be a sorrowful day for that house when you leave it: I never knew such a transformation as you have effected. Until this winter my only associations with it have been of dirt, gloom and disorder: the children were neglected and fretful, the dinners shocking and ill served; and this with an army of servants and money spent ad libitum. Now, on the contrary, the rooms are fresh, cheerful and agreeable; there are pleasant odors, bright fires, attractive meals; the children perfect both in appearance and manner; and all this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... guests, and were present at this scene. After this they dispersed, and Vindicius came out from his hiding-place. He was at a loss what use to make of the discovery which Fortune had thrown in his way, for he thought it a shocking thing, as indeed it was, for him to make such a fearful revelation to Brutus about his sons, or to Collatinus about his nephews, and he would not trust any private citizen with a secret of such importance. Tormented by his secret, and unable to remain quiet, he addressed himself ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... close to them, knowing that the shocking sight of men who have met with a violent death is apt to shake the nerves of any one unaccustomed to such a sight, ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... crime, yet it was known that many in the department winked at all sorts of vice, providing they were properly paid for so doing. Saloons and worse resorts were kept open in defiance of the law, and wickedness flaunted itself in the face of the public in a manner that was truly shocking. Occasionally a private citizen would try to do something to mend matters, but his complaint was generally "pigeon-holed," and that would be the end of the matter. The rottenness, as it was well called, extended from the highest places in the department ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... be impossible to convey to the reader, without going into the most shocking and disgusting details, any clear idea of the sufferings and indignities to which the unfortunate captain and crew of the Aurora were subjected during the next three weeks. Suffice it to say that during the whole of that time they were never released ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... followed are ample. In private corporate trusts that have been mismanaged a basis of appeal has been found only when some favorable circumstance has brought to light conditions so shocking as to cause those people who have possessed political power, as a matter of self-protection, to demand a thorough reorganization and revision of methods. The same motive has lain back of legislation for the Indian. ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... with 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
... his own opinion as to where the true remedy lies for the shocking state of public morality in connection with the drink traffic. Almost invariably his remedies for social evils are based on specialization. In this case he advises Licensing Boards in large towns. ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... unfailing affection; a hope that was, perhaps, in scarce a single instance fulfilled. And how could any but those in whom love had swallowed up reason once imagine that where the dead were heaped fathoms deep, mangled by every shocking mode of death, and now defaced yet more by the processes of corruption, they could identify the forms which they last saw beautiful in all the bloom of health? But love is love; it feels ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... of 75 per cent water; and when unduly retained in the colon much of this fetid percentage is absorbed into the system. Then drugs are prescribed to liquefy the hardened putrid remnant and absorption begins again: a fact very shocking to ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... was known to be extremely venemous. He applied the mouth of the animal to the tip of his tongue, which began to swell so very rapidly, that in a few minutes the mouth was no longer able to contain it. The intumescence continued till it seemed to burst, and exhibited a shocking sight of foam and blood, during which the quack appeared in extreme agonies, and excited the commiseration of all the bye-standers. In the height of the paroxysm he applied a little of his powder to the nose and the inflamed member, after which it gradually subsided, and the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... to the dismal mansions of those who are in the most horrid state of incurable madness. The clanking of chains, the wildness of their cries, and the imprecations which some of them uttered, formed a scene inexpressibly shocking. Harley and his companions, especially the female part of them, begged their guide to return; he seemed surprised at their uneasiness, and was with difficulty prevailed on to leave that part of the house ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young with dessous troublants. (He clacks ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... "it is a great relief to me to feel that you think as you do in this matter. Now, that being disposed of, there is a further point to be considered; and it is this. The shocking fate of Mr Purchas leaves us with no navigator on board save myself. I have no great desire to proceed in this brig all the way to Valparaiso; but, nevertheless, there are reasons that, to me, seem to make it desirable that I should do so. I may tell you that we are now very near the Line; ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... when conjoined with that latter faculty, and to observe that they bestow on the ideas they present to us a force superior to what attends any other. Every one knows, there is an indirect manner of insinuating praise or blame, which is much less shocking than the open flattery or censure of any person. However he may communicate his sentiments by such secret insinuations, and make them known with equal certainty as by the open discovery of them, it is certain that their influence is not equally strong and powerful. One who lashes me ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Effingham and Mr. Morpeth, who knew her abroad, I understand is entirely broken off; some say the father objected to Mr. Morpeth's want of fortune; others that the lady was fickle, while some accuse the gentleman of the same vice. Don't you think it shocking to jilt, in either sex, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a dreadful anachronism, shocking to architects, for it had been tacked on to the house in the eighteenth century by some member of the family who had made the "grand tour" and fallen in love with Italy. Seeing no reason why a classic addition with a high-pillared ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... ownership of Dan was formally transferred to Vincent. Dan was wild with delight when he heard that Vincent was now his master, and that he was to accompany him to the war. It had been known two days before that Vincent was going, and it seemed quite shocking to the negroes that the young master should go as a private soldier, and have to do everything for himself—"just," as they said, "like de poor white trash"; for the slaves were proud to belong to an old family, and looked down with almost contempt upon ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... shocking to the moral sense is the wild ferocity which sometimes breaks out in the language and conduct of both men and women. The horrible practice of mutilating the dead after a battle is viewed with indifference, and even with complacency, by the bravest warriors. Even Patroclus, ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... think old ladies after 85 years not come to evening party, that much better. Why for take so much trouble? Some other thing rather bad. Very beautiful young lady she got ugly fellow for husband, that not very good, very shocking. I ask Sr Gore [Sir Gore Ouseley] why for this. He says me—"perhaps he very good man, not handsome; no matter, perhaps he got too much money, perhaps got title." I say I not like that, all very shocking. This all bad I know. Now I say good. English people all very good people. All ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... whole town was abroad that evening, on its doorsteps and in its garden beds, repairing the ravages committed by the band of the pilgrims. Never had the town, as a town, been so dirty; never had the street presented so shocking a collection of abominations; never had flowers and shrubs been so mercilessly robbed and plundered—these were the comments that flowed as freely as the water that was rained over the dusty cobbles, thick ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... certainly planning another supper, and, what is far worse, are adding to the discredit of such an act by resorting to dishonest means of procuring the wherewithal for it. Oh, it is shocking, shocking! And yet Marion cannot be convinced that her girls are capable of deceit. Poor child, poor child, it is fortunate for her that there is someone at hand to come to her rescue at such a crisis," and Mrs. Stone reached the bottom of the stairs just ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... battlefield. "Roy, snatched away in an instant by a dreadful God, and laid out there in the wet and snow—in the hideous wet and snow—never to kiss him, never to see him any more." Her Gates Ajar when it appeared was considered by some to be revolutionary and shocking, if not wicked. Now, we gently smile at her diluted, sentimental heaven, where all the happy beings have what they most want; she to meet Roy and find the same dear lover; another to have a piano; a child to ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... deservedly popular as ecclesiastic. Women adored him; he adored women. He passed for an unrivalled preacher; his golden eloquence made converts everywhere, greatly to the annoyance of the parroco, the parish priest, who was doubtless sounder on the Trinity but a shocking bad orator and altogether deficient in humanity, and who nearly had a fit, they said, when the other was created Monsignor. Don Francesco was a fisher of men, and of women. He fished AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM, and for ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... against the advice of Bassanio, who, notwithstanding all the Jew had said of his kind intentions, did not like his friend should run the hazard of this shocking penalty for his sake, Antonio signed the bond, thinking it really was (as the Jew said) ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... Vernisset, on his knees before Madame de la Chanterie and kissing the hem of her dress. If the sky had fallen, and shivered to atoms like glass, as the ancients thought it was, Godefroid could not have been more astonished. Shocking thoughts came into his mind, and then a reaction more terrible still when, before the sarcasm he was about to utter had left his lips, he saw Monsieur Alain in a corner of the ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... way of answer: "I have wondered, when you make Such a shocking, senseless clatter, Whether you ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... point they differed widely from the poor child below stairs. They seemed to recognize a universal motherhood in womankind, and cared not which individual might be the mother of the moment. I found their tameness as shocking as did Alexander Selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... reprimands of the Emperor that he was sent, perhaps in order that he might have time to calm himself, to the army of England. It was not only in gaming-houses, however, that the governor thus compromised his dignity; for I have heard other stories about him of a still more shocking character, which I will not allow myself to repeat. The truth is, General Junot prided himself much less on respecting the proprieties than on being one of the best pistol-shots in the army. While riding in the country, he would often put ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... deity of my adopted habitat—has handed down to shuddering posterity a definition of the act of eating which might have been framed by a dyspeptic ghoul. "Eat: to devour with the mouth." It is a shocking view to take of so genial a function: cynical, indelicate, and finally unforgivable by reason of its very accuracy. For, after all, that is what eating amounts to, if one must needs express it with such crude brutality. But if "the ingestion of alimentary substances"—to ring a modern ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Kate standing alone on the summits of the Andes, in solitude that is shocking, for she is alone with her own afflicted conscience. Twice before she had stood in solitude as deep upon the wild—wild waters of the Pacific; but her conscience had been then untroubled. Now, is there nobody left that can help; her horse is dead—the soldiers are dead. There is nobody that she ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... be—that is, to see the other thing. Can you undertake to show me everything shocking ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... (in his first play), which seemed so shocking to Thackeray, what more do they express than the green cynicism of youth? When Mr. Leslie Stephen speaks of his 'gush of cynical sentiment,' he speaks unsympathetically, but the phrase, to be an enemy's, is just. It is cynical sentiment, and ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... shuddered. "I don't think I ever heard of anything so shocking in my life. For twenty years, Mr. Dockwrath, think of that. Twenty years!" and his face as he spoke became almost black ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... know? Though he had tried hard not to, he had been forced to admit that It was d——d disgraceful. He had never, he reflected aloud, seen anything like it during an active army existence that had provided many shocking sights. And he opined that there would be fatigues and C.B.s and court-martials and shootings-at-dawn if It continued. He was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... of the train. Women, old and young, lined the curbs, smiling and throwing kisses, waving handkerchiefs and aprons and begging for souvenirs. If every request for a button had been complied with, our battery would have reached the front with a shocking shortage of ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... several variations in the last century. In the Edinburgh Review of 1816 (No. liii. pp. 163-180), is an article with which the present biographer can agree. Several passages from Knox's works are cited, and the reader is expected to be "shocked at their principles." They are certainly shocking, but they are not, as a rule, set before the public by ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... with you in admiring him as a prodigy of genius, though I find the most shocking absurdities in his plays—absurdities which no critic of my ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... was a shocking sight After the field was won— For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... with face absolutely swollen with weeping, asking me to go and see baby who was very ill. She had dropped him four times that morning, but had no idea that could have done him any harm. The carelessness is ignorance. Their form of it is not half so shocking as that of the mother who will tremble at the slightest sign of suffering in her child, but will hear him lie against his brother without the smallest discomfort. Ah! we shall all find, I fear, some day, that we have differed from each other, where we ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... saying, "How shocking such things were!" and Thorn, with a smile which did not, however, light up his face, ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... instruct the head, and those who only dress it! The imitations that are shamelessly commended are only those of Blackwood's Magazine; while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking to every sense of virtue,—to head with IMPORTANT INFORMATION, and to stamp with triple marks of wonder, as FRAUDULENT COUNTERFEITS—are imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn from this announcement of Reprint's, that there ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... do. Jerry forgetting of his manners and all. [Calling at the garden door.] John, John, come you here quickly, there's shocking goings on. [JOHN, in best ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... after I had retired to rest, effectually banished sleep from my pillow. The 'uncomfortable situation,' coupled with 'I dare say no more,' gives the worst suspicions of their treatment in Borneo; while the chance of the party at Sirhassan falling into the hands of the pirates is extremely shocking. I instantly, on the receipt of the letter, sent to the rajah to request that he would dispatch a boat for Sirhassan, with a person competent to treat with the pirates; and on the morning of the ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... amazed him. "Yes, it is a shocking habit of mine, Mr. Conniston. I learned to smoke in the East. Is it so very ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... handkerchief—and was refused. So, like some great blubbering boy, he used his fists, while Mrs. Pennycook looked coldly on, working her lower lip and the tip of her nose, rabbit-fashion, for all the world like one who, having anticipated a sniff of the spices of Araby, has detected instead a shocking aroma of ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... be still more naughty and shocking," continued the doctor, resolutely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, "for I shall prescribe not only a dose of mountain air, but a dose of mountain exercise, to be taken—and the patient to be well shaken while taken—every ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... Boswell was too fond of seeing criminals and hangmen. He was frequently present at executions. In his "Life of Johnson" he records, under date of June 23rd, 1784, "I visited Johnson in the morning, after having been present at the shocking sight of fifteen men executed before Newgate." He once persuaded Sir Joshua Reynolds to accompany him, and they recognised among the sufferers a former servant of Mrs. Thrale's. He describes Mr. Akerman, the Keeper of Newgate, as his esteemed friend. According ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... was exactly what he expected, yet he did not see the grim, stern old man present himself thus suddenly without emotion; especially when he recollected, what to a youth of his pious education was peculiarly shocking, that the grizzled hypocrite was probably that instant arisen from his knees to Heaven, for the purpose of engaging in the mysterious transactions of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... down to play cards together with her and Gedeonovsky, and Marfa Timofyevna led Lisa away up-stairs with her, saying that she looked shocking, and that she must certainly ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... disturbed about her sister's illness that she paid little attention to Pat and Anne. The children, left to their own devices, wandered about the streets in a way that would have been thought shocking had any one ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... do. That the provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile, inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory of religious liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said in their defence is this; that they removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice; that they put an end, at once and for ever, without one division in either House of Parliament, without one riot in the streets, with scarcely one audible murmur even from the classes most deeply tainted with bigotry, to a persecution which had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... disagreeable thing I ever saw,' said Dora. 'You can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... remarkable. His hat was what might have been truly called "a shocking bad one." He generally wore an old and very much patched brown coat, corduroy breeches, and thick, slovenly shoes; but his underclothing was always of the finest description, and faultless in cleanliness and ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... it out. In chap. 47. (and see note 26.), Gibbon was too happy to make the most of the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia, by a Christian mob at Alexandria. But the account which he gives is more shocking than the fact. He seems not to have been familiar enough with Greek to recollect that [Greek: haneilon] means killed. Her throat was cut with an oyster-shell, because, for a reason which he has very acutely pointed out, oyster-shells were at hand; but she was clearly not "cut in pieces," ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 24. Saturday, April 13. 1850 • Various
... went to the quay. I heard a sweet young voice remark, "What a shocking bad hat!" I fell in love with her at once. She was with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... silent disgust. This exhibition of joy was a shocking contrast to the scene in which he had just been an actor. He was humiliated at being the tool of such a heartless scoundrel as he now ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... experiences of life, friendship, love, nature, art, become big with uneasy speculations and surmises; from the rampart-platform by the sea until the peal of ordnance is shot off, as the poor bodies are carried out, every moment brings with it some shocking or brooding experience. Hamlet is not strong enough to close his eyes to these things; if for a moment he attempts this, some tragic thought plucks at his shoulder, and bids the awakened sleeper look out into the struggling light. Neither is he strong enough to face the situation with resolution ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... always associated with some simple view of morals. The end of Bill Sikes exactly in the way that the law would have killed him—this is a Hogarthian incident; it carries on that tradition of startling and shocking platitude. ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... are considered, we realise why the homey head of the great cassowary, the layer of the largest of Australian eggs, is carried so low as she bursts through the jungle; why the pair converse in such humble tones and why, on the other hand, the megapode exults so loudly so coarsely and in such shocking intervals, careless of the sentiments and of the sense of melody of every ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... "Thursday, 13th June.—Here in town very unhappy and shocking scenes were exhibited. On Munday night some men called Tories were carried and hauled about through the streets, with candles forced to be held by them, or pushed in their faces, and their heads burned; but on Wednesday, in the open day, the scene was by far worse; several, and ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... there rose the spectre which he had been striving to lay; the spectre that had for the men of that day so appalling, so shocking a reality. Witchcraft! The word rang in his brain. Witchcraft would account for this, ay, for all; for her long submission to vile behests and viler men; for that which he had heard in this house at midnight; for that which the Syndic had whispered of Basterga; for that which he noted in her now! ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of her family—all deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness, which makes them love to shovel mud with those shocking ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... by a conspicuous tenderness, seasoned by those impertinent attentions the secret of which belongs to the French savages who dwell in the depths of the provinces, and whose manners are very little known, despite the efforts of the realists in fiction. It was, it is said, this shocking situation,—one perfectly appreciated by a discerning jury,—which won the prisoner a verdict softened by ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... little womanly ornaments overturned and broken, her piano battered to pieces, and, worst of all, her poor kangaroo shot dead, lying in the verandah. "Oh!" said she to Major Buckley, "you must think me very wicked to think of such things at a time like this, but I cannot help it. There is something so shocking to me in such a sudden BOULEVERSEMENT of old order. Yet, if it shocks me to see my piano broken, how terrible must a visitation like the Mayfords' be. These are not the times for moralizing, however. I must see ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... especially under this state of facts —nothing could excuse or palliate that shocking and disgraceful and barbarous crime against humanity; and the human mind is incapable of understanding how such savagery can be accounted for, except upon the theory that "He that nameth Rebellion nameth not ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... ourselves with the ardour of conviction and the intemperance of ignorance. In this matter of Ireland I believed in the accusations of brutality, injustice, and general insolence of tyranny from modern landlords to existing tenants, so constantly made by the Home Rulers and their organs; and, shocking though the undeniable crimes committed by the Campaigners were, they seemed to me the tragic results of that kind of despair which seizes on men who, goaded to madness by oppression, are reduced to masked murder as their sole means of defence—and as, after all, but a sadly natural retaliation. ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... the Canadians to British institutions, and how justly the governor-general appraised the 'mass of the people.' Not less clearly did he judge the politicians of the day, their pettiness, their naive selfishness, their disregard of rule and form, shocking all the instincts of the British man of business and {49} the trained parliamentary hand. 'You can form no idea,' he continues, 'of the way a Colonial Parliament transacts its business. I got them into comparative ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... or sixty imaginary waltzes in my lady's dancing-room, there was scarcely a brute left among the whole Millionaires. But what produced the most beneficial effects on the new people, and excited the greatest indignation and despair among the old class, were some volumes which the Government, with shocking Machiavelism, bribed some needy scions of nobility to scribble, and which revealed certain secrets vainly believed to ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... Such was the shocking state of things in this country in 1856. It was a great deal too bad for such champion reformers as Mr. Pretorius and his lieutenant, Mr. S.J.P. Kruger, as we shall see later. Shortly after these meetings were held, a Representative Assembly, consisting of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... I, "has the merit of having rendered his subject-matter pleasant, without pandering to the tastes of his readers by saying things shocking to modesty and piety. So thinks my ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... subserviency or to making overtures, she succeeded in winning general esteem by an exquisite tact; the sensitive warnings of which enabled her to follow the delicate line along which she might satisfy the exactions of this mixed society, without humiliating the touchy pride of the parvenus, or shocking that of her ...
— The Recruit • Honore de Balzac
... open hill-side had been shocking enough, but in that narrow room it was too horrid to be borne. The minister stuck his fingers in his ears, and, advancing to the maniac, bade him be silent before God should blast him. But what could his thin old voice do against Gib's bellowing? The mariner went ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... him friendship and a large sum of money, in the sincerity of his heart. And here they stand like two sworn enemies—ha, ha, ha! You all hate Burdovsky because his behaviour with regard to his mother is shocking and repugnant to you; do you not? Is not that true? Is it not true? You all have a passion for beauty and distinction in outward forms; that is all you care for, isn't it? I have suspected for a long time that you cared for nothing else! ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... selling books I took to writing of 'em, and tried to write you into a novel, why, Lord, what a poor thing that there novel would be! Who'd want to read it?—why, nobody! Oh, I can see as you've been throwing away your opportunities and wasting your chances shocking, you 'ave." ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... censure?—And yet I am so angry both at my brother and sister, that I should not have taken this liberty with my dear friend, notwithstanding I know you never loved them, had you not made so light of so shocking a transaction where a brother's life was at stake: when his credit in the eye of the mischievous sex has received a still deeper wound than he personally sustained; and when a revival of the same wicked resentments (which may end ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... it would be difficult to overestimate it. It is no exaggeration to say that the United Empire Loyalists changed the course of the current of Canadian history. Before 1783 the clearest observers saw no future before Canada but that of a French colony under the British crown. 'Barring a catastrophe shocking to think of,' wrote Sir Guy Carleton in 1767, 'this country must, to the end of time, be peopled by the Canadian race, who have already taken such firm root, and got to so great a height, that any new stock transplanted will ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... under the chin, and he'd say, With his "Fal, lal, lal"— "'Oo doosed fine gal!" This shocking precocity drove 'em away: "A month from to-day Is as long as I'll stay— Then I'd wish, if you please, for to ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But—no: the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... he said, "I am doing what I can. I have written to the proprietaries and to the government at home. I have told them that the conduct of the Assembly is to me shocking beyond parallel. I am asking for fresh powers to deal with this horrible crisis. But I cannot look for an answer for long; and meantime are all our helpless settlers in the west to be butchered? You men of the city, rise you and make a solemn protest to these obstinate rulers of yours. I have ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... 1815 has been compared, as a whole, with the Republican Reign of Terror twenty-two years earlier. But the comparison does little credit to the historical sense of those who suggested it. The barbarities of 1815 were strictly local: shocking as they were, they scarcely amounted in all to an average day's work of Carrier or Fouche in 1794; and the action of the established Government, though culpably weak, was not itself criminal. A ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... of their member goes. If the man elected can take the public money, is not the temptation too great for most men? In short, what can be more absurd, what can be more revolting to reason, what more shocking to common sense, than the idea of a man's being a guardian of the public purse, while, at the same time, he votes, in that capacity, part of the people's money into his own pocket? In all the other situations of life we ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... contemplating the alternate, but never contemporaneous, glories of snuff and tobacco, and note the sage's curious, but strictly truthful, account of the advantages and disadvantages of smoking. "Smoking has gone out. To be sure it is a shocking thing, blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us. Yet I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exertion and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity has gone out." ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... You have a friend; you trust her fully; nothing can shake your faith in her. Suddenly, she does a thing, shocking, incomprehensible, and, in doing it, asks you not to question, for she can not explain; asks you to think of her kindly; to trust her still. Here is a test for your friendship. Others may pry, drag her name about, torture her with their curiosity; ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... bystanders, witnesses of this shocking spectacle, good folk with primitive and crude manners, but full of pious sentiments, made the sign of the cross, and I who knew not then, even by name, of the terrible magnetic power of the will, began to tremble, believing that ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... in his chair. He said, his voice low, "We needn't look beyond our own borders. The manner in which our people conducted themselves against the Amerinds from the very beginning of the white occupation of North America was quite shocking." ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... which a man is preappointed from all Eternity either to salvation or the opposite (which is Fritz's notion, and indeed is Calvin's, and that of many benighted creatures, this Editor among them), appears to his Majesty an altogether shocking one; nor would the whole Synod of Dort, or Calvin, or St. Augustine in person, aided by a Thirty-Editor power, reconcile his Majesty's practical judgment to such a tenet. What! May not Deserter Fritz say to himself, even now, or ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... account could be kept of the number of their scalps, whilst their blood flowed in rivers. The Amerindians being what they were, addicted to warfare, and only recognizing the right of the strongest, it may be that this gospel of force was not quite so shocking and unchristian as it reads to us nearly 250 years afterwards, though it jars very much as coming from the lips of a missionary of Christianity. However, it must be remembered that but for the valour of the French soldiers in the awful period between 1648 and 1666 (when the Mohawks received a ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... all, Charles: I see that something or other shocking has happened," said Miss Aubrey, in a low tone, with a look of the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... to hear that, Milly, for I have something shocking to tell her about myself, that will surprise her, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne |
