"Terrific" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... storm of thunder and lightning, the hail-stones were as large as hens' eggs, and desolated the whole range over which it swept. It was immediately followed by a second, less furious, but which did immense damage; and others, little less terrific, followed in the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... to throw into prominent and startling relief the death-bed and its occupant. The light was nearly approximated to, and fell with horrible clearness upon, the blue and swollen features of the drunkard. I did not think it possible that a human countenance could look so terrific. The lips were black and drawn apart; the teeth were firmly set; the eyes a little unclosed, and nothing but the whites appearing. Every feature was fixed and livid, and the whole face wore a ghastly and rigid expression of despairing terror such as I never saw equalled. His hands were crossed ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his later years was the formation and spread of the International Working Men's Association. From 1849 onward the greater part of his time was spent in the British Museum, accumulating, with German patience, the materials for his terrific indictment of capitalist society, but he retained his hold on the International Socialist movement. In several countries he had sons-in-law as lieutenants, like Napoleon's brothers, and in the various internal contests that arose ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... for dispute behind him when he died. Half Bletchingley church is dominated by his monument. Mr. Jennings was appalled by it; "a fearful neighbour" he calls it, and is of opinion that whatever may have been the misdeeds of the dead, "he never could have done anything bad enough to deserve his terrific monument." As a matter of fact the dead man designed his own memorial, after the serenely contemplative fashion of his time. Is the monument, after all so appalling? It cannot but be interesting, for it is an index to the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... him in the belief that a great injustice had been done, are shown by the fact that his second important work, El Filibusterismo, written about 1891, and miscalled by himself a "novel," for it is really a series of word-paintings constituting a terrific arraignment of the whole regime, was dedicated to the three priests executed in 1872, in these words: "Religion, in refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime imputed to you; the government, in surrounding your case with mystery and shadow, gives reason for belief in some error, committed ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... I wish you to carefully note the significance of the strange event which soon followed. Christmas Eve, 1903, found me here alone, seated at my desk, alternately reading, musing and writing. All day a terrific snow storm had been raging, at nightfall it continued with increased severity. I could hear the fierce gale shriek as it lashed the tree tops furiously. I shuddered when I thought what danger such a gale might mean to the good steamer, bearing my father homeward bound across the rough, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... his lean face grave. "We were faced with a terrific problem. Once we returned to a time-area, we had no way of knowing to what extent we could effect people and events that had already happened. We had to go back, to fit in, somehow, in an area where we never had been, to make things ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... the noise of cannonading was terrific. During the previous few minutes, the ship had been hit by a large number of shells, which had ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... had finished, a terrific racket of drums and trumpets, horns and clarionets, was suddenly heard in the shrubbery; guns were fired at intervals, loud cheers were given, the little girls began to dance again, and heads appeared among ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... innumerable tragedies of those days, let one be mentioned illustrative of the terrific wrongs to which all are exposed under a despotic government. There was a young prince, Dmitri, a child, grandson of Vassili the blind, whose claims to the throne were feared. He was thrown into prison and there forgotten. For ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... comprehension and insight the author shows a terrific contrast between the woman whose love was of the flesh and one whose love ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... they can bend the knee to the ground, according to their method of fighting, when the case demands it. They wear a plume of feathers above the forehead, such as is seen on mules. They leave nothing unarmed, even to the eyes, which are armed by fierceness—both because of the terrific appearance of their arms, and by the fierceness which they affect. It is the fitting dress, among them, for princes and braggarts. When they put it on they generally take some opium, [80] and, rendered furious and insensible [to danger] by it, they enter amid the vessels ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... sea side the Yan-Shan presented a bad enough picture of desolation and destruction, but here on the land side the sight was terrific. ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... lay thus ruminating in extreme agitation, momentarily expecting to have her ears assailed with some terrific sound, a pale light dimly illuminated her chamber. It grew brighter. She raised herself up to look towards the door;—the first object which met her eye, was a most horrible form, standing at a little distance from her bedside. Its appearance was tall and robust, wrapped in a tattered white ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... throw off some of the electrons of the atoms of which it is formed. There are several ways that this can be done but in any event each atom must be given a good, hard blow. A simple way to do this is to heat a metal to incandescence when the atoms will bombard each other with terrific force and many of the electrons will be knocked off and thrown out ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... no Suke, seizing his sword, tried to sweep the ghosts away with a terrific cut; but a loud peal of laughter was heard, and the visions faded away. Kotsuke no Suke, terrified, sent his retainers to the temples and shrines to pray that the demons might be cast out; but the noises were heard nightly, as before. When the eleventh month of the year came round, ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... in the most terrific crushing pain, I laugh, at the thought that my steady years of drive and struggle to help a lot of people to get justice, or a chance, should be gloriously crowned by an ironical God with an end that would make a sainted Christian, in Nero's ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... grand collision of yawl at full speed and a rakish cutter at anchor. Profane language in the cabin; sleepy crew, half awake, rush up the hatchway, and denounce Irrepressibles. Irrepressibles sing "Smuggler's Life," etc.; terrific noise of hens; half-the-crew invite the Irrepressibles to "be as decent as they can." No moon yet; everybody ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... aspect of the moon goddess, and well might the Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which fright us in the dim light; the causeless sounds of night or its more ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... penknife, which served no other purpose, inasmuch as he never mended a pen himself. His secretaries were charged with that duty, and they mended them in the best manner possible, mindful of the fact that they would have to copy that terrific writing, which, as we know, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... bursting of the topsail was like the explosion of a large cannon. In a breath the brig was smothered with froth torn up in huge clouds, and hurled over and ahead of her in vast quivering bodies that filled the wind with a dismal twilight of their own, in which nothing was visible but their terrific speeding. Through these slinging, soft, and singing masses of spume drove the rain in horizontal steel-like lines, which gleamed in the lightning stroke as though indeed they were barbed weapons of bright metal, darted by ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... you to your inmost depths!" says the Secretary of Special Commissions, kissing her hand near the bracelet. "Your sensitive, responsive soul is seeking to escape from the maze of —— Yes, the struggle is terrific, titanic. But do not lose heart, ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... had gathered, and Carl felt very much in the limelight, waiting in the nacelle of the machine for the time to start. The propeller was revolved, Carl drew a long breath and stuck up his hand—and the engine stopped. He was relieved. It had seemed a terrific responsibility to go up alone. He wouldn't, now, not for a minute or two. He knew that he had been afraid. The engine was turned over once more—and once more stopped. Carl raged, and never again, in all his flying, did real ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... it steadied; rose with terrific acceleration. And Chris hauled himself up onto the undercarriage and clung to one of the wheel-stanchions, breathing, hard, hidden by the fuselage ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... explosives. It was then 6.28. The ladder was crowded with sailors who were also returning to their ship. "Run, run for your lives," shouted Paolucci. At last his foot touched the deck, and then he and Rossetti ran as fast as they could to the stern. Hardly had they got there than a terrific explosion rent the air, and a column of water shot three hundred feet straight up into the sky. Paolucci and Rossetti were again in the water, and looking back they saw a man scramble up the side ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the time when burst this frightful war, a terrific earthquake occurred, so that mountains were cleft asunder and showers of great stones poured down from heaven. But they, fighting vigorously, perceived none of these things. At last so great a multitude of Roman warriors fell that Hannibal, the general, in sending ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... have been one. But the boiling fury cut knots from the steamer's speed, while the Federals sent after her only their sailing vessels, which with all canvas spread bent low to the chase. They had, however, used up time to unreef; and with the terrific rolling they would not dare cast loose ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... potentates, in all the supercilious pomp of majesty. The images of Asiatic despotism and voluptuousness have scarcely been wanting to crown the exaggerated scene. We have been taught to tremble at the terrific visages of murdering janizaries, and to blush at the unveiled ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Saxon Ulrica was for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing her arms abroad with wild exaltation as if she reigned empress of the conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole turret gave way and she perished in the flames ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... change called evil, you can form only the vaguest idea of the reaction you will provoke. All you can be sure of is that it will not be what you expected, and that you cannot possibly escape it. Banquo's story, if truly apprehended, produces this impression quite as strongly as the more terrific stories of the chief characters, and perhaps even more clearly, inasmuch as he is nearer to average human nature, has obviously at first a quiet conscience, and uses with evident sincerity the ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... horizon in the form of the great Winged Disk, for which reason he is called "Great god, lord of heaven," unto this day. And when he saw the enemies in the heights of heaven he set out to follow after them in the form of the great Winged Disk, and he attacked with such terrific force those who opposed him, that they could neither see with their eyes nor hear with their ears, and each of them slew his fellow. In a moment of time there was not a single creature left alive. Then Heru Behutet, shining with very many colours, came in ...
— Legends Of The Gods - The Egyptian Texts, edited with Translations • E. A. Wallis Budge
... one motion at me, I'll smash your head like an eggshell!" His voice was low but terrific. There was a tone m it that made his own blood stop in his veins. "If you think I'm going to roll around on this ground with a hyena like you, you've mistaken your man. I'll kill you, but I won't fight with such men as ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... class of vindictive Southerners who will fight to the last. The squabbles in Richmond, the howls in Charleston, and the disintegration elsewhere, are all good omens for us; we must not relax one iota, but, on the contrary, pile up our efforts: I world, ere this, have been off, but we had terrific rains, which caught us in motion, and nearly drowned some of the troops in the rice-fields of the Savannah, swept away our causeway (which had been carefully corduroyed), and made the swamps hereabout mere lakes of slimy mud. The weather is now good, and I have the army ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... of England Shall yet terrific burn, Till danger's troubled night depart And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean-warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... me across the hill of ice and the sea of glass,' said the Prince; but almost before the words had passed his lips a second thunderclap, louder and more terrific than the first, was heard. The Princess sank half fainting on the ground. When she again opened her eyes, Prince, palace, everything had disappeared. She was alone, quite alone, on a barren moorland, night coming on, and a cold cutting wind freezing the blood in ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... strike me in the dark—the same hand that had struck my father? When she summoned up all her strength in her last moments, that she might destroy this correspondence, what was the clue which she supposed the letters would furnish? A terrific light shone upon me; what my aunt had perceived beyond the plain purport of the letters, I too perceived. Ah! I dared to entertain this idea, yet now I am ashamed to write it down. But could I have escaped from the hard logic of the situation? If my aunt had handed over those ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... to answer, but thought better of it. I reckon he remembered the sacred edifice. At any rate he went past John a Hall with a terrific turn of speed, and old Grandison after him: and the next news was the vestry-door slammed-to behind them both, as 'twere with the very wind ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... not quite equal in its engravings—The Sisters' Dream, by Davenport, from a drawing by Corbould, is, however, placidly interesting; the Bridal Morning, by Finden, is also a pleasing scene; and the Seventh Plague of Egypt, by Le Keux, from a design by Martin, though in miniature, is terrific and sublime. In the literary department we especially notice the Sun-Dial, a pensive tale, by Delta, but too long for extract; and the Sky-Lark by the Ettrick Shepherd, soaring with all the freshness and fancy of that extraordinary genius. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... case, he concluded that "the love of risk and adventure must be a very widely-spread instinct, seeing that so many people are ready to expose themselves to such fearful casualties." He was grateful to think that he had never been exposed to such terrific hazards. What the worthy clerk would have said concerning the risks of motoring ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... three goddesses who punished crimes by their secret stings. The heads of the Furies were wreathed with serpents, and their whole appearance was terrific and appalling. Their names were Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... with a beautiful model of a fountain in silver as an ornament to his study. Never was there a place where such a measure would be more important; if cleanliness be akin to godliness, Edinburgh stands at great disadvantage in her devotions. The impure air, the terrific dirt which surround the working people, must make all progress in higher culture impossible; and I saw nothing which seemed to me so likely to have results of incalculable good, as this practical measure of the Simpsons in support of ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... on another occasion, he said, in a sermon of terrific power: "O the hardness of the human heart! Yonder is a man in hell. He is told that there is one condition on which he may be delivered, and that is that lie must get the consent of every good being in the universe. A ray of hope enters his soul, and he sets out to comply ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... terribly declare the truth "with power and great glory." "How long O Lord, how long!" Not long, we think, O friends!—not long now shall we wait for the Divine Pronouncement of the End. Hints of it are in the air,—signs and portents of it are about us in our almost terrific discoveries of the invisible forces of Light and Sound,—we are not given such tremendous powers to play with in our puny fashion for the convenience of making our brief lives easier to live and more interesting,—no, there is some deeper reason,—one, which ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... wearing a reindeer crest and belt is surrounded by the men dancers, girt in armlets and fillets of wolf skin. They imitate the pack pulling down a deer, and the din caused by their jumping and howling around her shrinking form is terrific. ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... plunging over the falls, the waters enter an immense canon or gorge, nearly 40 miles long and 300 yards wide, the perpendicular sides of which rise to a height of from 300 to 500 feet. The sides of this canon show it to be hollowed out of solid Archaean rock. Through this canon the water rushes with terrific rapidity, making passage by boat wholly impossible. Many erroneous stories have been told in regard to the height of these falls, all of them greatly exaggerating the descent of the water. The Indians of this locality of the tribe of ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... ensued. All the passengers attempted to rush upon deck, and many succeeded in doing so, until the heaving of the vessel knocked down the ladders, when the shrieks from below, calling on those on deck to assist them were terrific. The crew were on deck the moment the ship struck, and were instantly employed in handing up the passengers. Up to the time the vessel began breaking up, the crew succeeded in getting upwards of three hundred passengers on deck. But a terrible fate ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... darkness of his all but unimaginably depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke humanity in the fantoccini of his wayward art. No dramatist has shown more consummate ability in heightening terrific effects, in laying bare the innermost mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, combined to make men miserable. It has been said of Webster that, feeling himself deficient in the first poetic qualities, he concentrated his powers upon one point, and achieved success by ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... such terrific potency to the power we use from our puranium," Hitler Number Three says, "that we purify the air every few seconds with formula XYB and Three-fifth. The basis of the gas ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... involving the relation of solid bodies to the attraction of gravitation prevents. Nor did I indeed desire to turn back. My one desire was to go. I dropped and dropped, as though for miles. I struck with terrific force upon a grass-covered but hard and unyielding surface. A pang of agony, poignant in its intensity, darted in an upward direction through my lower right limb and I dropped ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... steeds, the guns, the weapons of the Spaniards, were all new to the Cholulans. Notwithstanding the novelty of the terrific spectacle, the flash of arms mingling with the deafening roar of the artillery, the desperate Indians pushed on to take the places of ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... friends prepared to leave the hunters and resume the chase of Petawanaquat, but they were arrested by one of those terrific thunderstorms which occasionally visit the prairies. They were already mounted and on the point of taking leave, when the air darkened suddenly, the sky became overcast, lightning began to flash in vivid gleams, and a crash of thunder seemed to ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... and kept on making for a conical rock needle, evidently the remaining portion of a mass of the crater edge when it was fifty feet or so higher, and being wider had remained, when other portions were blasted away by the terrific explosions ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... from a part of Europe where what we call a common-law marriage is an ordinary relationship.) It was from the language of her father that Libby first gained acquaintance with bad sex ideas, we are assured by the mother. After a terrific time of stress Libby's mother was rescued from her miserable conditions by the man who later lived with her and finally married her, and who has supported her and been true to her ever since. He is a sympathetic ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... hand to mouth, without intervention of a banker and property to cry truce to the wolf, he would have shone under a different aspect enough to send them to the poets to solve their perplexity, had the knowledge been subjoined that this terrific devastator swinging the sanguinary stick was a slave of love, who staked his all upon his love, loved up to his capacity desperately, loved a girl, and hung upon her voice to hear whether his painful knocking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... in darkness," said Jimmy, "and blue and green rays falling on the stage from above. Through the blue, we send a great dazzling beam, from over there, lighting up every inch of the house, a terrific light, the light of ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... greatest taking of scalps they had ever known, pressed closer and closer, and sent sheets of bullets into the huddled mass. Many of them leaped in and scalped the fallen before the eyes of the horrified soldiers. The yelling never ceased, and it was so terrific that the few British officers who survived declared that they would never forget ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... three o'clock, and the sound of a terrific bombardment could be heard from some miles to the left. This puzzled them, as it was naturally expected that the battle would develop from the north-east. The regiment on the right had been occupying a small copse; ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... musicians earned their living violently in the midst of the gaily dressed idlers, who heard them with indifference, and saw them as wound-up marionettes. The drummer hammered on his blatant instrument with all the crude skill of his tribe, producing occasional terrific noises with darting fists, while his face remained as immovable as that of a Punchinello. A flautist piped romantically an Arcadian measure, while his prominent eyes stared about over the chattering audience as if in search of some one. Suddenly he gave a "couac." He had seen ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... might pass by, but which opens out, to the true explorer, into vista after vista of strange recesses rich with inexhaustible gold. But, sometimes, the phrase, compact as dynamite, explodes upon one with an immediate and terrific force— ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... Indeed it seemed surprising that anybody could manage to exist in the oven-like heat which prevailed in the lower part of the ship. "Sound slumber to you, Burton," said Esse, and he and I before a minute passed were fast asleep. How long we had slept I do not know, but I was awoke with the most terrific roar I had ever heard. I felt myself lifted right up into the air, and then, as it were, shoved off with tremendous violence from the deck on which I was lying, and plunged into the water. Down! Down! I sank. My ears seemed cracking with the continued roar. My breath was going. ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... if he let the idol fall then would he be killed upon the spot to save the sky from falling too. Wondering what this meant and where he was going, the cut of thongs upon his legs surprised him into a halt. Immediately a terrific ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... befel them, and almost unconscious of what they were doing, that the authorities, hitherto so patient, for the first time determined to use force against them.... The scene here altogether appears to have been terrific in the extreme. The violence and ferocity of the ruffians, armed with sledge-hammers and other instruments of destruction, who burst into the houses—the savage shouts of the surrounding multitude—the wholesale desolation—the row of bonfires blazing in the street, heaped with the contents of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... into the adjoining bedroom, and dived under the bed. He reappeared with his arms full of human bones, and shot across the room, muttering something like thanks. As he fled down the dark hall, he collided with a piece of furniture, his burden fell, and with a terrific clatter rolled from the top of the stairs to the bottom. John rushed out to help gather up the fallen, and Elizabeth ran across the room and hid her face shudderingly in the folds ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... this grilling work had kept up, the perspiring cowboys yelling, their ponies squealing under the terrific punishment they were getting from both ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... swept a lady with an extraordinary flashing eye, a masculine and muscular outside. Pounding the book with terrific energy, as if she wished to knock the stuffing out of it, she announced ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... not very well posted on what is taking place over in Belgium, but it's said the bombardment of Antwerp began yesterday and it's impossible for the place to hold out for long. Perhaps even now the city has fallen under the terrific bombardment." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... alarm—'turn out and be ready to march off at once.' We heard that the Hill—the famous Hill 60—had gone up and that we had been successful in holding it, but the rumours were that the fighting was terrific. We were soon marching on the road past battered Vlamertinghe. Shells of heavy calibre were falling on all sides, and we made for the Convent by the Lille gate, by a circuitous route—round by the Infantry Barracks. We ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... and floods were high the loud roaring of the wind through the wild mountain gorges and the terrific raging of the torrent over its rocky course gave to this savage locality its ill-omened names of Devil's Hoof, Devil's ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... dashed by, scarcely observing what had taken place, the Indians taking the lead. It was impossible to calculate how many miles we had gone. Night was coming on, making the glare to the eastward appear brighter and more terrific. The mules were still instinctively following us, but we were distancing them fast, though we could distinguish their shrieks of terror amid the ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... spirit of the populace could not but carry with it a reminder that wars have to be paid for. Six or seven months later I saw the return to Florence of the first troops from the war, and their reception was terrific. In the mass they were welcome enough; but as soon as units could be separated from the mass the fun began, for they were carried shoulder high to whatever destination they wanted, their knapsacks and rifles ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... requires of us greatness; Of his least creature A high angelic nature, Stature superb and bright completeness. He sets to us no humble duty. Each act that he would have us do Is haloed round with strangest beauty. Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks Of his plainest child he asks. When I polish the brazen pan I hear a creature laugh afar In the gardens of a star, And from his burning presence run Flaming wheels of many ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... shell had reached them, for a clump of aloe trees stood a hundred yards away, which the English presumably had taken for Boers, judging by the terrific bombardment these trees ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... you are able to gather, a terrific fire has broken out in one of the most congested tenement districts. You can hear the engines coming and the hook-and-ladder trucks clattering over the cobbles. Ambulances come, too, clanging their gongs, and one of them runs over a dog; and a wall falls, burying ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the reply from above, and the next instant I heard a terrific crash; the door had at last been burst open, either from within or without, I could not tell which, and suddenly all the din, the cries, the groans, the hideous laughter and bibulous songs which had sounded muffled up to now burst upon us ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... bound by our covenant. Since 1856, in the North, we have had infidelity to the Union, more insidious infractions of the Constitution than by open rebellion. Now, sir, as a consequence, in part, of these very infractions, we have rebellion itself, open and daring, in terrific proportions, with dangers so formidable as to seem almost remediless. * ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... an immense flaming brand, from the middle of the altar, and on the right side breaks through the temples of Charaxus, covered with yellow hair. His locks, seized by the violent flames, burn like dry corn, and the blood seared in the wound emits a terrific noise in its hissing, such as the iron glowing in the flames is often wont to emit, which, when the smith has drawn it out with the crooked pincers, he plunges into the trough; whereon it whizzes, and, sinking in the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... that!" exclaimed the Squire, bending his heavy brows on her with a terrific frown. "Do you think this is a time to play the fool—with me? Off her oats! How dare you speak like that? We shall ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... advanced again only to find that the Turks were evacuating the whole of the Gaza position. After the Battle of 19th September, 1918, many Infantry commanders of Divisions, Brigades and Battalions have told me the Turks appeared crushed by the terrific artillery bombardment (under cover of which our men advanced) and offered a resistance which, in comparison with our experiences of Gallipoli, ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... had taken made me realize that I had to be careful, for I was indeed endowed with a terrific strength—an extraordinary strength and lightness. One of these three new people was obviously dead, for his neck was broken. The other two still breathed. The first of the two was a short man, a Japanese by the look of him. His ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... squarely in the wrist, rendering his fingers useless. But Kid Wolf kept firing, although he did not aim for Modoc's head or body. His gun flashed and stuttered twice, three times, four—five—six! Dust flew from Modoc's coat sleeve as the bullets landed with a series of terrific smashes. As he had torn the rattlesnake bit by bit, Kid Wolf ripped ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... of the Triton was beforehand with a celerity which matched the up-to-date speed of his craft. He was bellowing through the huge funnel which a quartermaster was holding for him. His language was terrific. He cursed freighters in most able style. He asked why the Nequasset was loafing there in the seaway without steering headway on her! That amazing query took away Captain Wass's breath and all power to retort. Asking that of a man who had obeyed ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration; they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us, and our sins become that worst kind of sacrilege which tears down the invisible altars of trust. If you are not good, none is good. Those little words may give a terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity for remorse." Will anyone dispute it? Moreover, it is the teaching of the only true philosophy by which men should regulate their interior selves: that we "love one another," that we mutually assist ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... break the silence of the forest when all other voices are hushed, but he frequently answers the sounds of other animals, as if in mockery or defiance. ... Although diurnal in habit, the chimpanzees often make the night reverberate with the sounds of their terrific screaming, which I have known them to continue at times for more than an hour, with scarcely a moment's pause,—not one voice but many, and within the area of a square mile or so I have distinguished as many as ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... ludicrous with the awful and even the horrible. No poet, with the exception of Shakespeare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions. His humorous description of death in the poem on Dr. Hornbrook, borders on the terrific; and the witches' dance in the Kirk of Alloway is at once ludicrous and horrible." Sir Walter, I believe, is right, and the world has sided with him in his judgment about Tam o' Shanter. Nowhere in British literature, out of Shakespeare, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... are situations, in female life, that require as much patience and magnanimity, as were formerly exerted in the fiery torments of the virgin martyr. It is more difficult to support an accumulation of minute infelicities, than any single calamity of the most terrific magnitude. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... terrific hand-shaking accompanied by squawking inquiries which were never answered, uproarious laughter, back patting, brazen and baseless charges that each was growing fat, and Sanders watched ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... have acted more wisely if he had held his tongue. When he went on an important diplomatic mission to Paris in 1822, she requested him to buy her a blouse—a commission which he faithfully executed. All went well until 1848. Then a terrific explosion occurred. It is no longer "My dearest Lady! Mind you bring the blouse! Ever yours most affectionately, Wellington," but "My dear Lady Shelley," who is addressed by "Her Ladyship's most obedient humble servant, Wellington," ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... on a rugged rock, of great height, offering tremendous difficulties to the assailants. The Jews stood upon the summit, rolling down great stones and darts upon the Romans, as they strove to ascend. But the very heavens seemed to fight against the unfortunate Jews, for a terrific tempest suddenly broke upon the city. So furious was the wind that the Jews could no longer stand on the edge of the crag, or oppose the progress of the enemy; while the Romans, sheltered from the wind by the rock, itself, were ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... twenty voices together, the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen can encounter. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rumbled and mounted the rail. The others were with him, and as all three poised to jump, the foremast fell with a terrific smash, erupting sparks and flame, covering the decks and the water around with fragments of fiery splinters, charred blocks, and smoking serpents ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... monstrous birth, Voltaire informed thine infant mind. Well-chosen nurse, his sophist lore, He bade thee many a year explore, He marked thy progress firm though slow, And statesmen, princes, leagued with their inveterate foe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly The morals (antiquated brood), Domestic virtue, social joy, And faith that has for ages stood; Swift they disperse and with them go The friend sincere, the generous foe— Traitors to God, to man avowed, By thee now raised aloft, now ...
— English Satires • Various
... sickish feeling. To see Tracy Gray Joyce lay his hand upon the left side of his cravat and cast his eyes upward always made Luck shiver; yet Tracy Gray Joyce would he have for leading man, and none other. To see Lenore Honiwell throw back her head, close her eyes, and heave one of those terrific motion-picture sighs always made the camera man snort; yet Luck, who before had considered her scarcely worth a civil bow when he met her, had actually coaxed her away from a director who really admired her ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... ready to go to bed like a good child, Aunt Katherine," she said, "supported by your assurance that my side of the house is no longer rendered terrific by wind and rain. But—I am so distressed to trouble you—but all the lamps are out, and I am none too sure of my way. It would be a rather tragic ending to my happy visit if I incontinently lost myself and wandered till dawn, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... man; I am only an intense one. Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge—transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me. To be sure, they are quiet and concealed ones, coiled serpents that make no stir till aroused; but then, deadly in their spring and relentless in their action. Those who have known me best have not known this. My own mother was ignorant of it. Often and often have I heard her ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... and here they and the dog nestled and waited for the storm to burst. A few large drops that cracked smartly upon the rocks and stones, was the herald of the coming deluge; and then, at the same moment, with a terrific flash and report, ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... their sole remnant being the left shoe of my trusty second in command, Captain GLIMDOWSE. I trained the two turret-guns until I had got them into perfect condition, and gave the word. The crash that followed was terrific. One of the massive missiles went home, and stayed there, no amount of inducement availing to bring it out again to face the battle. The other, however, behaved as a British missile should, and exploded ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... feet of them, Swann drew a small automatic pistol. But before he could raise it, Lane had leaped into startling activity. With terrific swing he brought his gun down on Swann's face. Then as swiftly he turned on Thesel. Swann had hardly hit the floor, a sodden heap, when Thesel, with bloody visage, reeled and fell like a log. Lane bent over them, ready to beat either ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... possessed a weakness, it was the unshaken courage of our troops, who faced the most terrific odds and endured defeat upon defeat with an intrepidity rarely seen on the actual field. An attempt was made to correct this with the dice, but the innovation was so heart-breaking to the loser, and so perpetual a menace ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... angler at Southend-on-Sea fished up a silver chain purse containing four one-pound notes. His claim that a large leather wallet containing several fivers and a diamond ring broke the line and got away after a terrific struggle is being received with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... loses courage suddenly, and, seeing a reinforcement which had come to assist us, the ardor for conquest yields to the dread of death. They gain their ships, they cut their cables, they utter even to heaven terrific cries, they make their retreat in confusion and without reflecting whether their kings can escape with them. Their fright is too strong to admit of this duty. The incoming tide brought them here, the outgoing tide carries them away. Meanwhile their kings, combating amongst us, ...
— The Cid • Pierre Corneille
... inveterate peering liking for personal emotion, which they seemed to honour according to its intensity even if that intensity progressed towards the disagreeable. She remembered how the neighbours had all respected Mrs. Ball in the house next door for the terrific manifestations of her abandonment to the grief of widowhood. "Tits, tits, puir body!" they had said with zestful reverence, and yet the woman had been behaving exactly as if she was seasick. She preferred the impersonal pang. It was right. Right as the furniture in the Chambers Museum was, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... spoken the word "dynamite," and it was that terrific explosive which he and his companions dreaded unspeakably. If the charge were fired, it would not only blow the massive safe apart, but was likely to wreck the building itself and probably inflict death to more than ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... was come. Beat on him, rain; And roar about him, O thou voice of thunder. But what are ye to him? O more to him Than all besides. To him ye are himself, He knows it and your voice is lovely to him. Hath brought the warfare to a close. The storm is over; one terrific crash Now, now he feels it, and he turns away; His arms are now unfolded, and his hands Pressed to his face conceal a warrior's tears. He flings himself upon the springing grass, And weeps in agony. See, again he rises; ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... destruction. There are agencies at work in a locomotive of which the maker of it probably never dreamed, but which nevertheless may be sufficient to convert it into an engine of death. When we reflect on the intellectual condition of the people who work in our coal mines, those terrific explosions which occur from time to time need not astonish us. If these men possessed sufficient physical knowledge, from the operatives themselves would probably emanate a system by which these shocking accidents might be avoided. Possessed of the knowledge, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... terrific scenes of turbulence and carnage, the frequent dynastic changes, and the fearful scourgings of the French empire since the days of Louis the Fourteenth, the nation itself has not been destroyed, because, after all, there was and is a vast deal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords released their tongues and filled their mouths with awkward simultaneousness. However, after a time the general awe abated, and soon the Rye Quartet was swamped in a terrific noise of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... fell beside me and only caught this side a little. . . . It tore off coat, shirt and skin, you know, from this side. . . . The force of it was terrific. I was unconscious after it. They got me out and sent me to the hospital. I was there four months, and the doctors there said I should go into consumption. I always have a cough now and a pain in ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... she lives chiefly as a terrific poisoner, an appalling artist in venenation. It is remarkable that this should be the case, for not even the scandal of her day so much as suggests that she was connected—directly or even indirectly—with a single case of poisoning. No doubt that popular conception owes its being entirely ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... vieing with one another. envie, f., envy; porter — , to envy. envier, to envy. environner, to surround. envisager, to review, consider. envoyer, to send, send forth. pars, scattered. perdu, bewildered, helpless. pier, to spy. plor, weeping. pouse, f., wife. pouvantable, terrific. poux, m., husband. pris, enamored. prouver, to feel, put to the test. ener, to wander. erreur, f., error. esclave, m. f., slave, esprance, f., hope. esprer, to hope, trust, espoir, m., hope. esprit, m., mind, spirit, angel. essaim, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... The Heroine of Honey Creek, who July 6, 1881, crept across the trembling bridge in the darkness of a terrific storm, and stopped the ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... force. The flashes from the heavens were not in quick succession; but the few that did break upon the gloominess of the scene came in majesty, and with dazzling brightness. They were accompanied by the terrific thunder of the tropics in which it is scarcely profanation to fancy that the voice of One who made the universe is actually speaking to the creatures of his hand. On every side, was the appearance of a fierce and dangerous struggle in the elements. The vessel of the Rover ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... spirit, yet spiritualised, vaporised Fact unparalleled in Biography: The river of his History, which we have traced from its tiniest fountains, and hoped to see flow onward, with increasing current, into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific Lover's Leap; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray! Low down it indeed collects again into pools and plashes; yet only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... all very good, but he is so awkward and stupid that he constantly stumbles into trouble, thereby causing his acquaintances much unnecessary discomfiture and himself no end of embarrassment. He is, furthermore, a terrific boaster, as you will learn when you read of his many declarations of the pummeling he would give the ferocious Robber Fly, if ever he chanced to meet that devouring assassin. What Buster actually does when the unexpected encounter ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... came up. A terrific swirl, carrying clouds of dust and leaves, swept over the country and battered down the crops, uprooting plants and shrubs in its mad fracas. Perrine could not withstand this whirlwind. As she was lifted off her feet, a deafening crash of thunder shook ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... a German pianist, were mild in comparison; and the mighty voice, dominating the anguish of the cracking keys, had the full diapason of a chorus. Certainly I am no judge of music, but to my ear the discord was terrific,—to the ears of better informed amateurs it seemed ravishing. All were spellbound; even Mrs. Poyntz paused from her knitting, as the Fates paused from their web at the lyre of Orpheus. To this breathless delight, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The wind now was terrific, coming in deafening gusts, and more than once making Dick stagger. In fact if he had set off to run inland it would have almost ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... and by terrible bombardment of the citadel brought Mulraj to surrender. General Whish then joined forces with Lord Gough in his final struggle with Sher Singh. At Guzerat, on February 22, Lord Gough achieved the crowning victory known as "the battle of the guns." For two hours a terrific artillery duel was maintained, the Sikhs firing with all their sixty pieces. Finally the British stormed their batteries in a combined charge of bayonets and cavalry. The Sikh forces were scattered, and their camp, with most of their standards and guns, were captured by the British. Dost Muhammad ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... so—not only in what he brings, but in what he ceases to bring. Thus the time was, and not so many years ago either, when the newsman constantly brought home to our doors— though I am afraid not to our hearts, which were custom-hardened— the most terrific accounts of murders, of our fellow-creatures being publicly put to death for what we now call trivial offences, in the very heart of London, regularly every Monday morning. At the same time the newsman regularly brought to us the infliction of other punishments, which were demoralising ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... all the compassion of the world. He had no horror of himself, but only a horror of that Fate to which mortals have to submit and which had overtaken him in a shining moment of happiness. The gun accident of which his little son had been the victim presented itself to his erring mind as a terrific stroke from above, or from beyond, falling equally upon father and child. He was not responsible for it. The start of a frightened pony, its sudden attempt to bolt, the pulling of a rein which had brought the animal against him just as he was lifting ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... the great army of the wounded she moved to Fredericksburg. Extensive as had been her preparations, and wide as were the circle of friends who had entrusted to her the means of solace and healing, the slaughter had been so terrific that she found her supplies nearly exhausted, and for the first time during the war was compelled to appeal for further supplies to her friends at the North, expending in the meantime freely, as she had ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett |
