"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that we cannot with certainty determine whether these evils have been the effects of our trusting them with liberty, or of our neglecting previously to instruct them in the use of it:—upon the decision of this question rests your whole argument. In a most awful tone of declamation, you bid me follow the history of female nature, from the court of Augustus to that of Lewis XIVth, and tell you whether I can hesitate to acknowledge, that the liberty and influence of women have always been the greatest during the decline of empires.—But you have ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... anguished cry of pain, a loud, appealing call; As man—the dumb beast's next of kin—with gun, and whip, and knife, Went pleasure-seeking through the earth, blood-bent on taking life. From trap, and cage, and house, and zoo, and street, that awful strain Of tortured creatures rose and swelled the orchestra of pain. And then methought the gentle Christ appeared to me, and spoke: 'I called you, but ye answered not'—and in my fear ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... outside I couldn't see a thing. And so noisy I couldn't hear. But somebody was trying to help me off my horse. My foot caught in the stirrup, and away I went—right into somebody's arms. Then he did it, the wretch! He hugged and kissed me in a most awful bearish manner. I couldn't budge a finger. I'm simply boiling ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... any claim that this Creole climate might make to character, the hurricane leaves its awful trace upon the island. This rotating storm of wind has its origin to the east of the Caribbee Islands; its long parabolic curve sweeps over them, and bends to the northeast below Florida. In its centre, as it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears (The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth), Of tides obedient to external force, And currents self-determined, as might seem, 15 Or by some inner Power; of moments awful, Now in thy inner life, and now abroad, When power streamed from thee, and thy soul received The light reflected, as a light bestowed— Of fancies fair, and milder hours of youth, 20 Hyblean murmurs of poetic thought Industrious in its joy, in vales and glens Native or outland, lakes and famous ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the whole State commenced. He and Ovide were both of that State convention they mobbed in the 'July riot.' Some men were killed in that riot. Grandpere was wounded, also Ovide. Those were awful times to grand'mere, those years of the reconstruction. Grandpere he—" The girl glanced backward, then turned again, smiling. The four chaperons were going indoors ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... there was in him the awful conviction that he could not go and face her, wherever she was, so utterly a renegade had ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... And I shall take my holiday. Good-by, I'm going out!" Up spoke a Roman candle then, "The principle is right! Suppose we strike, and all agree we will not work to-night!" "My stars!" said a small sky-rocket. "What an awful time there'll be, When the whole town comes together to-night, the great display to see!" "Let them come," said a saucy pinwheel, "yes, let them come if they like, As a delegate I'll announce to them that the fireworks are going to strike!" "My friends," ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... prominence of the officers, however, was not due to peculiarity in their uniforms, they having discarded swords, revolvers, and belts, and adopted kharki aprons over their kilts. One of the Seaforth Highlanders wrote pathetically of the awful day's ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... things which he had to face he took with a relish of adventure. He has told me of situations in which he found himself, from which he only saved himself by entire coolness and decisiveness, the retrospect of which he actually enjoyed. "It was truly awful!" he would say, with a shiver of pleasing horror. But it was all worked into a rich and glowing tapestry, which he wove with all his might, and the fineness of his life seems to me to consist in this, that he made his own choices, found out the channels in which his powers ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... brought the vision of you to my waking eyes and into my dreams. I have seen you going from room to room in my old home at Lenfield, I have seen you descending the stairs, so vividly that I have found myself holding out my arms to you. Sometimes when the days were dark, and I was troubled, an awful sadness has crept into my soul. Doubts have come. Should I ever see you in those rooms, on those stairs? And then, dearest, I have touched this ribbon and hope has come again like sunshine after storm. Aye, you shall question me as you will, but ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... she took me for sort of company," said Salina. "I was a little gal then; Farnham hadn't made all his money, and he was glad enough for me to settle down and do his work. But it was awful lonesome, I can tell you, after she was gone; and I used to go down into the grave-yard and set down by her head-stone for company, day after day. But it was afore this then your sister came to help spin up the wool—wasn't she a harnsome ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... taken from the same receptacle and packed away in his bag. He walks to the door and turns to look back. Has he forgotten anything? No, nothing. But still he lingers. He wonders who will take his place at the desk, and for the first time in his pedagogue experience, perhaps, feels something of an awful responsibility as he thinks of his past influence over the wretched little beings who used to tremble at his nod, and whose future, ill or good, he may have helped to fashion. At last he closes the door, almost tenderly, and walks thoughtfully down the road. He has ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... tone appalling. His very frame shook. 'It was awful!' said Mr. Lear. More than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. Mr. Lear remained speechless—awed ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... A deep and awful silence fell upon her soul, and in it there suddenly opened one of those great gulfs into which the whole universe seems to be hurled at the touch of one thought. She heard nothing more. Andrea might writhe and supplicate and despair ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... blow for the liberty of the subject, he manfully held out against what he considered an unjust punishment for such diminutive frivolities as he had indulged in." . . . At times incidents of a disturbing and playful nature have roused the wrath of the Chairman and Secretary to a pitch awful to behold. At one time Mr. H. (a member who soon resigned) spent a considerable part of a meeting under the table, till he found himself used as a public footstool and a doormat combined. At another as Mr. Bentley was departing from the scene of chaos a penny bun of the sticky ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... an awful job getting a cab after that play, father, and it must have been nearly one o'clock when we got in. As we felt sure this side of the house was shut up we went up that queer little back staircase, and so past the open door of Mrs. ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... that mark the zenith hour, How great thy reach, how marvellous thy power, So lavishly outpouring all thy rotund gifts On mortal ways, in superhuman shifts That overtax the mind, and vex the soul of man, As would the details of some awful plan, Jocund, mysterious, complex, and yet withal Enmeshed with Joy and Sorrow, as a pall Envelops all the seas at eventide, and brings New meaning to the song the Robin sings When from her nest matutinal she squirms And hies ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... may be induced to leave. What with the shaking, the tapping, the clapping, the drums and the howls, the wretched "spotted" woman really begins to feel that she has something in her, and, possessed—not by the spirits—but by the most awful fright, she disburses the extra money required, after ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... tried to blow up the ship, and was going to out his throat, and so he rushed at him, and knocked him down and took his razor away, and begged him to be quiet; and Muddle, thinking it was a mutiny, nearly went into a fit, and straggled so desperately, and made such awful choking noises that two more men sat on him; and the navigating midshipman, thinking it was fire, told the bugler to sound to quarters, and then, seeing the captain being held down by three men, rushed to his assistance, but tripped ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... fancied indifference, and shaken her poise; and apart from this, the situation was grotesque and unseemly. She could no longer suffer it: she would tell Henry the whole truth to-morrow and ask him what she must do. His love almost terrified her. What awful responsibility lay in her hand? But civilization commanded her to dress in her best, and go down and dance gaily and play her part ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... complacently, 'That is just how I feel. But I must not think of myself. They are overhead, Ginevra. There is an awful scene taking place—up there. She ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... this fierce protest against the madness and violence of the French Revolution, the wisdom of Burke and of the English nation ended. The most experienced and sagacious man of his age, with all his wisdom and prescience, could see only one side of the awful political hurricane which he was so eloquent in denouncing. His passions and his prejudices so warped his magnificent intellect, that he could not see the good which was mingled with the evil; that the doctrine of equality, if false when applied to the actual condition of men at their ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... I might have had a wiser friend than he. The atmosphere in which alone he breathed was dense; his awful dread of death showed how much muddy imperfection was to be cleansed out of him, before he could be capable of spiritual existence; he meddled only with the surface of life, and never cared to penetrate further than to ploughshare depth; ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... she returned, "One might think from your awful seriousness that you were a preacher. Father Confessor, if you please—" she began mockingly, then stopped—arrested by the expression of his face. "Oh I beg your pardon, have ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... thou have me say, thou fiend abhorred? Show me no more thine awful visage grim. If thou obey'st a greater, tell thy lord That I have paid her wages. Cry to him! He has not much against me. None can say I have not paid her wages day ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... turn to wipe, so I got through quick. Ernie's awful mad," cried a small girl, scrambling ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... hitherto only claimed a few victims in the city, now began to make fearful progress; and every day enlarged the catalogue of the dead, and those who were labouring under this awful disease. People seemed unwilling to name the ravages of the plague to each other; or spoke of it in low, mysterious tones, as a subject too dreadful ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... the individual—(for is not the individual ever the rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the 'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and realized his awful position. Here was a situation which, on its face, seemed unescapable. Yet Locke ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... young man," said the rector, as Gifford silently took some of John's burden of shawls and cushions, and turned and walked beside him. "Here's Helen giving Ward an awful idea of her orthodoxy; come and vouch for the teaching you ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the top of a pair of steps with the Phenomenon in an attitude; 'FAREWELL,' on a transparency behind; and nine people at the wings with a squib in each hand—all the dozen and a half going off at once—it would be very grand—awful from the front, ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... that if we had the awful bad luck not to find Mrs. Wylie, we had better keep the cab, to take us to some hotel, otherwise it might be almost impossible to get another. And then we should be out in the street, with Margaret and her bundle, and ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... centuries, and even of this, it has been hero-worship that impelled the rank and file rather than any high sympathy with the cause they were striving for. And so it was with us that morning. Our commander was everywhere at once, encouraging us to work, and holding over us in impressive language the awful alternative of capture. For he had the art, in a high degree, of inoculating his followers with the spirit which animated him; and shortly, to my great surprise, I found myself working as though my life depended on it. I certainly did not care very much whether the Celebrity was captured or not, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was answered with a howl of execration. The flames of popular frenzy arose lurid and threatening above the house-tops of every town and village. The impending conflict could no longer be mistaken. The awful tragedy which the great watchman in the land had so long unceasingly predicted, was seen sweeping solemnly and steadily onward. The superstitious eyes of the age saw supernatural and ominous indications in the sky. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mountain streams of Switzerland, reappeared in the suburbs of that city. When Napoleon heard of it he grew furious, and gave orders to seize her as an intriguer, and to send her back to Geneva, by force if necessary. It was done, but an awful presentiment took possession of the Emperor that she had appeared like a crow foreboding a coming tempest. As if to compensate France for the loss of the exile's literary powers and those of her friends, many ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... scarcely able to see for the pain, and with an awful terror in his soul, Elzbieta helped him into bed and bandaged his injured foot with cold water and tried hard not to let him see her dismay; when the rest came home at night she met them outside and told them, and they, too, put on a cheerful face, saying it would ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... heard somebody enter the room, but he turned not the least in that direction, carried away by the awful whirlwind of his fury. He was even still going on, without looking round; but it was a woman's voice, the voice of a gentle, but noble-hearted woman that stopped him. Lady Laura, the moment she entered the room, recognised in the bending form of her who sat weeping ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... tell, of course—and now there are four of them, or perhaps five. But they are very wild and keep in the copses, and fly if they see anyone coming. They don't mind me, of course, but strangers. The mother remembers that awful day, I expect." ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... rage, and ready to burst out in awful maledictions; but at this summons he sprang to the ladder, and was on deck in a moment. At first, he felt a strong disposition to wreak his vengeance on Tier, but, fortunately for the latter, as the captain's foot touched the quarter-deck, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... twice and placed the note in her bosom—next the knife—and looked at Luis, the glitter gone from her eyes. She smiled a little. "I awful hongry," she said in her soft voice, and it was the second sentence she had spoken since they left the ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... beadle soundly for neglecting his duty towards it. He promised obedience for the future, dug out all the weeds that were creeping round the family vault, and (having charge of the key) entered that awful place, and swept and dusted the melancholy contents of ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... pillars that redden aloft and aloof, With never a branch for a nest, Sustain the sublime indivisible roof, To the storm and the sun in his majesty proof, And awful ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... year:—'On the 17th Mr. Chamier (ante, i. 478) took me away with him from Streatham. I left the servants a guinea for my health, and was content enough to escape into a house where my birth-day not being known could not be mentioned. I sat up till midnight was past, and the day of a new year, a very awful day, began.' Pr. and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and to college I did go, and that by the awful Powles' Hook Ferry, in the bargain. Near as we lived to town, I paid my first visit to the island of Manhattan the day my father and myself started for Newark. I had an aunt, who lived in Queen Street, not a very great distance from the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... comes from these far-away pages is full of the best wisdom of time or the timeless land. In these books we were indeed led by a schoolmaster, from beautiful maxims for children up to the best thoughts of a long line of sages, and poets, and naturalists. There we all first learned the awful weakness of the duel that took away a Hamilton; there we saw the grandeur of the Blind Preacher of William Wirt; there we saw the emptiness of the ambition of Alexander, and there we heard even the infidel say, 'Socrates died like a philosopher, ...
— A History of the McGuffey Readers • Henry H. Vail
... to a vast circle of many-colored spires that blazed and flickered like a burning rainbow at the inner edge of the ring of light. It was one of the most awful, and yet beautiful, sights that ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... does he?" muttered Thad. "So I rather guess he didn't get much satisfaction from the old deacon. But he's awful stubborn, is our efficient head of police; and if he can find any way to put that business on Nick's shoulders he will, take my ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... to my relief, As on a radiant dolphin borne; Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone The ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the superstition that life and virtue and power are resident in matter, mankind have swallowed nearly everything known to material sense, in the hope that it would cure them of their own auto-infection. You remember what awful recipes Luther gave for disease, and his exclamation of gratitude: 'How great is the mercy of God who has put such healing virtue in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... was down in a valley, in the midst of a country densely wooded and very desolate. There was an outcropping of the ore, and rather idly I put some of it in my pockets. Then we wandered on, and finally after awful suffering in terrific storms, were found by a searching party and brought back ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... you, I shall be in eternity. At first, it seemed awful to me; but I have thought about it so much now, that it has no terror. They say they will not bind me, nor blind me; but that I may meet my death like a man. I thought, father, it might have been on the battle-field, ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... grotesque beings, all bearing more or less resemblance to the little man of the clock, who were flying and bobbing, jerking and grinning through the air, beneath the great vault, as if madly revelling in the scene. Yet the good man all the while had a vague sense of some awful, impending calamity, which increased as he wandered around in great perplexity, exploring the countenances of the various groups ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... of the Church of England, that the Sabbath was a part of the ceremonial and transitory parts of the law given by heaven to Moses; and that our Sunday is binding on our consciences, chiefly from its manifest and most awful usefulness, and indeed moral necessity; yet I highly commend your firmness in what you think right, and assure you solemnly, that I esteem you greatly for it. I would much rather that you should have too much, than an ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... sorry, but can't help it. Born in me, I suppose. A few months ago he found out that I'd been paying Mellish a hundred pounds each time to decorate Park Street with flowers for my Wednesday evenings, and he created an awful scene. He's ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... have you seen a mighty king His child, I wis, to incest bring; A better prince and benign lord, That will prove awful both in deed word. Be quiet then as men should be, Till he hath pass'd necessity. I'll show you those in troubles reign, Losing a mite, a mountain gain. The good in conversation, To whom I give my benison, Is still at Tarsus, where ...
— Pericles Prince of Tyre • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... regretted, and at last restored to the people of Rome! Has it all come to this, that a Roman citizen in a province of the Roman people—in a federal town—is to be bound and beaten with rods in the forum by a man who only holds those rods and axes—those awful emblems—by grace of that same people of Rome? What shall I say of the fact that fire, and red-hot plates, and other tortures were applied? Even if his agonised entreaties and pitiable cries did not check you, were you not moved by the tears and groans which burst from the Roman citizens ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... particulars, will you? I don't go out much an' so I don't hear nuthin'. But an accident! Ain't it awful? But I always said it was risky to ride on the railroad; I told Jimmie so a hundred times. But he would go to Crawford an' now maybe he's a corpse. You are sure you didn't see a tall, thin young man, with a wart on his chin, that was ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... also, that this higher humanity resided in a man who was the human instrument partly responsible for an awful amount of slaughter and human anguish. He was not only the commander-in-chief of a great army which fought a long and bloody war, but he was the statesman who had insisted that, if necessary, the war should be fought. His mental attitude was dictated by a mixture of practical common sense with ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... them these awful cries, loud singing and laughing resounded, within the carriage that conveyed the royal family there was unbroken silence. The king sat leaning back in the corner, with his eyes closed, in order not to see the horrid forms which from time to time approached the window of the carriage, to stare ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... I can say now is that it was a spectacle to freeze the blood. Poor Almia could scarcely retain consciousness as she gazed upon the awful scenes of woe and suffering which spread out beneath her. And she could do nothing! Her labors would be useful only in cases of isolated woundings. If she were to mingle in the fray she would perish in the general slaughter; and if she were to go and offer assistance ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... took the little gifts to every bedside—but from rage against the devilish powers that unloosed this horror upon the world. One of the grim ironies of this war is that the Hohenzollerns and the junkers are so constituted mentally that they never will be haunted with awful visions like those that visited the more plastic conscience of Charles IX after St. Bartholomew; but at least it will be some compensation to picture them rending the air with lamentations over their own downfall and hurling curses at ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... drink it," cried Pinocchio, bursting out crying. "I won't drink this awful water. I won't. I won't! No, ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... was less fortunate. I could not and would not give up and become one of the ghosts below, and so I managed, by keeping on deck and trying to act as if nothing was the matter, to lead a very uncertain and precarious existence, though with a most awful undertone of emotion, which seemed to make ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... and Mr. Dinneford put out his hand and grasped that of the missionary with a nervous grip. "This is awful! I am sixty years old, but anything so shocking my eyes have not before ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... women. There was, indeed, a sad contrast between the gay, frivolous, haughty queen of the early days, and this captive queen—submissive, dignified, "majestic in her bearing, heroic, and reconciled to her awful fate." ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... sin, as it constantly did, the Church, through the sacrament of penance, reconciled him once more with God and saved him from the jaws of hell. For the priest, through the sacrament of ordination, received the most exalted prerogative of forgiving sins. He enjoyed, too, the awful power and privilege of performing the miracle of the Mass,—of offering up Christ anew for the remission ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... with her two children, all three of them hidden beneath the hood of a rickety cart, and lying amidst a heap of turnips and cabbages, not daring to breathe, whilst the mob howled, "A la lanterne les aristos!" at the awful West Barricade. ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... Omeyades; although the impulse then given carried them forward to still further advances, in the turbulent times which followed. This beneficent impulse is, above all, imputable to Alhakem. He was one of those rare beings, who have employed the awful engine of despotism in promoting the happiness and intelligence of his species. In his elegant tastes, appetite for knowledge, and munificent patronage he may be compared with the best of the Medici. He assembled the eminent scholars of his time, both natives and ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... here, I will go into the house and inquire,' said Mrs. Rewble. But it did not suit the others to remain there. For a moment the suggestion had been so awful that they had not dared to stir; but when the elder sister slowly moved towards the door which led into the house from the garden, they all followed her. Then suddenly they heard a scream, which they knew to come from their mother. 'I believe it is Dick,' said ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the hindrances that so long delayed the beginnings of a New France in the West. Incessant dynastic wars with near neighbors, the final throes of the long struggle between the crown and the great vassals, and finally the religious wars that culminated in the awful slaughter of St. Bartholomew's, and ended at the close of the century with the politic conversion and the coronation of Henry IV.—these were among the causes that had held back the great nation from distant undertakings. But thoughts of great things to be achieved in the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the lodging was like. Well, the board part of it corresponded to the rest of the picture in every way. Crusts of old dry bread, which they couldn't eat themselves, did for me and the dog, sometimes a little milk, varied by an occasional awful form of hard cake which the woman cooked, and which was impossible to eat unless first soaked in something. In the long hours of waiting between selling the newspapers I learned to spell, and then to read, very slowly at first, ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton
... passion by the enormity of the sin. He raised his eyes to heaven as if to invoke the mercy of God. Thence come the consolations, the infinite tendernesses of the Catholic religion,—so humane, so gentle with the hand that descends to man, showing him the law of higher spheres; so awful, so divine, with that other hand held out to ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... of the transept yielded to his hand. He came forward, lighted through the darkness by the gleam of the candles, which cast a huge and awful shadow from the crucifix of the rood-screen upon the pavement. Before it knelt a black figure in prayer. Ambrose advanced in some awe and doubt how to break in on these devotions, but the priest had heard his step, rose and said, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... marooned, gazing over the fields, down the road to Trenton, where still the rising dust-clouds showed the struggle toward vacation. He stood like a monument, gazing fixedly, struggling with all the might of his twelve years to conquer the awful feeling of homesickness that came to him. Homesickness—the very word was an anomaly: what home had he to go to? An orphan without ever having known his father, scarcely remembering his mother in the hazy ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... and the hundred and one misdemeanors. There is no crime that The Black One has not performed—faultlessly, as befits his nature. Therefore we imperfect beings model ourselves upon his perfections. And sometimes, The Black One rewards us by appearing before us in the awful beauty of his fiery flesh. Yes, Nephew, I have actually been privileged to see him. Two years ago he appeared at the conclusion of the Games, and he also appeared the ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... the baby of the family was simply awful. This fact seemed to grow with it each day. It began in the morning when she watched her sisters as they laughed ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... it all your sighs and tears, And while I moved your pitiful request, That you but only begged a last farewell, He fetched an inward groan; and every time I named you, sighed, as if his heart were breaking, But, shunned my eyes, and guiltily looked down: He seemed not now that awful Antony, Who shook and armed assembly with his nod; But, making show as he would rub his eyes, Disguised and blotted ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... the absence of legal protection, has to slay an assailant. In both cases the evil must be grave. In both cases all regular and peaceable modes of defence must be exhausted before the aggrieved party resorts to extremities. In both cases an awful responsibility is incurred. In both cases the burden of the proof lies on him who has ventured on so desperate an expedient; and, if he fails to vindicate himself, he is justly liable to the severest penalties. But in neither case ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... well, I suppose,' said Leonard; 'but he is an awful bother, and poor Ave gets the worst of it. One has no patience with finikin ways in ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hour, and then commenced the awful internal thunderings of the mountain. These continued with scarcely any intermission until the 11th of July, when they became more moderate, the intervals between them gradually increasing till the 15th of July, when they ceased. Almost all the villages for a long distance round the mountain ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... a time, in the pathetic town of Marbury, there lived a green and scrumptious lady with a wriggling troop of fantastic grandchildren, who made her life miserable. First of all was the eldest, the awful and weird William, who was quite intolerable. Next to him was the cute and sublime Archie, who was always jolly and superstitious. They had a sullen and sarcastic sister, the entrancing Edna, whom they delighted to tease. One summer their delightful ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... on that 90th of latitude, and plant an impious right foot on the head of the earth—just as it had been given into the absolute power of Adam to stretch an impious right hand, and pluck of the Fruit of Knowledge; but, said he—his voice pealing now into one long proclamation of awful augury—just as the abuse of that power had been followed in the one case by catastrophe swift and universal, so, in the other, he warned the entire race to look out thenceforth for nothing from God but a lowering sky, and ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... she shook her tawny head. "I figured to win or lose very promptly. But you, armored against degeneration, might live after me and be an awful problem to the Martians. Remember, I didn't make you give it back until I had done what I ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... Temple. The silence fell again. Not a ripple broke on the beach. Not a leaf rustled in the forest. Nothing moved but the reflected flashes of the volcano on the main island over the black sky. It was an airless and an awful calm. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... was a merited rebuke to the desire so prevalent, to witness these awful sights. [Footnote: Mrs. ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... without speaking. There was a shade of consolation in the thought that the awful "Ole Miss" was below the earth and beyond the possibility of pointing out ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... once that the most Respected and least suspected Personage in the Book committed the awful Crime, but you haven't the Heart to Track him down and ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... fashionable manners and their consequences: A public dinner: Emotions at the meeting of quondam acquaintance: Amenity without doors and anger within compatible: A discovery made by the Baronet: The contending passions of surprise, resentment, and pity: Ravages committed by vice: An awful scene, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... Sir Henry," Richard observed grimly, as he turned the handle of the car and they took their places in the little well-shaped space, "better say your prayers. I'm going to drive slowly enough but it's an awful job, this, crawling down the side of a mountain in the dark, with nothing between you and eternity but ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inviting their confidence. It will do beautifully well if givers and workers and helpers are moved by intelligent human pity, and they are with us abundantly enough if they feel themselves simply roused by, and respond to, the most awful exhibition of physical and moral anguish the world has ever faced, and which it is the strange fate of our actual generations to see unrolled before them. We welcome any lapse of logic that may connect inward vagueness with outward zeal, if it be the zeal of subscribers, presenters ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... "It's an awful big wolf, and its hide don't fit it. Its legs stick out of the skin, and I can see one of its feet. Gracious, it has a queer sort of a boot on it, and this wolf has ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... of her now, environed as it were by the new and awful possibilities which her state suggested, was a touch upon the young man's nature, which seemed to throw all its energies into a fiery fusion,—concentrating them upon a changed and poignant affection, which rapidly absorbed ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the phantom night that rushed by us. The horses might have been submerged in some swift Lethean stream; nothing but the top of the coach and the rigid bulk of Yuba Bill arose above them. Yet even in that awful moment our speed was unslackened; it was as if Bill cared no longer to GUIDE but only to drive, or as if the direction of his huge machine was determined by other hands than his. An incautious whisperer hazarded the paralyzing suggestion of our "meeting another ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... lots of fun this morning?' she said. 'Awful lot of fun to see a lady play Humpty-Dumpty. Pity nobody else could see. When people look funny everybody ought to see.' And Frederick said, as she didn't seem mad a bit, he thought she was going to tell them to run on home, when she turned to the dining-room servant, ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... perhaps no other terror so awful as that of an ill treated child at the approach of punishment. A man or woman, menaced by danger from law or from private foe, can either fight it out or run away from it. But there is no hiding place for a child from a brute parent. The punishment is as inevitable and ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... murderous fascination died suddenly away into darkness. The world was all black again—plunged in the Egyptian night which lay upon the face of the deep while the earth was yet without form and void. He was alone on it—alone among awful, planetary solitudes which ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... about everything now. She told me about her life at boarding school and the strange ideas some of the girls had about men and marriage. After leaving school she had been sent to a large millinery or drapery establishment to learn sewing and dressmaking. Here, she said, the talk was awful at times, and one girl had a book with pictures of men's organs of generation, which was passed around and excited their curiosity to the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "Take awful good care of him," he sneered, with so plain an implication of evil that her clean blood boiled. "But I know y'u will, and don't let him go ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... take offence then at my being so merciful? Does it provoke your envy to see a vile Gentile called at the eleventh hour, and made equal to yourselves, who profess to have been the people of God from the beginning, and to have borne the whole burden and heat of the day?" Some very awful words are then added, wherein it is implied, that they who are ready to make this objection, brought thereby their own religious character into suspicion; and that these very penitents of the eleventh ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... these truths, thou, Muse, with truths like these, Wilt none offend, whom 'tis a praise to please; Let others flatter to be flatter'd, thou Like just tribunals, bend an awful brow. How terrible it were to common-sense, To write a satire, which gave none offence! And, since from life I take the draughts you see. If men dislike them, do they censure me? The fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend, And Godlike an attempt the world to mend, The ...
— English Satires • Various
... is awful—your position!' I cried... and not knowing how to go on, I asked: 'and what of Vassily Polyakov?' A most stupid question ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... extreme acrimony the whole system of finance as being antagonistic to liberty, and, with all the passionate vehemence of conviction, charged its advocates with designing to subvert the republican institutions of America, we ought not to be surprised that the awful impressions, which usually restrain combinations to resist the laws, were lessened, and that the malcontents were emboldened to hope that those ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... Fanny and I walked to see Mrs. Napier, all in black for Lady Clare—the suddenness of whose death, scarcely a moment's interval between the bright flash of life and the dark silence of death, was most striking and awful. ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to look on the faces of my father and mother, and kiss them ere we went: their couches were empty save of the Little Ones who had with love's boldness appropriated their hospitality! For an instant that awful dream of desolation overshadowed ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... so awful. But, John, dear, hasn't been feeling well and the doctor gave him pills to take every four hours. I've been sitting up to give them to him, and now it's about time for the medicine, and John has fallen asleep. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... meditating this act of perfidy a double disaster fell upon them at home, demanding all their exertions to save them from ruin. Sparta was levelled to the ground by a terrible earthquake, in which twenty thousand of her citizens perished; and in the midst of the panic caused by this awful calamity the Helots rose in arms against their oppressors, and forming an alliance with the Messenian subjects of Sparta, entrenched themselves in a strong position on Mount Ithome. Here they maintained themselves ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... birds of prey hovered above. The ship heaved from its inmost recesses, and cracked from end to end as if it would burst. Jesus, pale-faced, his eyes sparkling with delight, held on to the railing. Joseph and Mary tried to protect him. He thrust them back, and without ceasing to gaze at the awful splendour, said: "Let me alone! Don't you see that I'm ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... Gone straying from my wholesome mind? What? Did I fall in some god's snare? —Nurse, veil my head again, and blind Mine eyes.—There is a tear behind That lash.—Oh, I am sick with shame! Aye, but it hath a sting, To come to reason; yet the name Of madness is an awful thing.— Could I but die in one ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... greater effect on the laity. This statute is a sad proof how much too cheaply sacred things were held, and how habit was leading even the clergy to debase them by over-frequent and frivolous use of the most awful emblems. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Hubert said; "and I can tell you it is only two or three things we can do well. Ducks and geese done like this, and chops and steaks, are about the limits. If we tried anything else, we made an awful mess of it: as to puddings, we never attempted them; and shall be very glad of something in the way of bread, for we are heartily sick of these ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... on the track. I tried bribery, corruption. I went to the wretch himself and abased myself in the dust before him. He only laughed at me and told me that his love for me had died long ago; he now was lavishing its treasures upon the faithful friend and companion—that awful woman, Simonne Evrard—who had stood by him in the darkest hours of his misfortunes. Then it was that I decided to adopt different tactics. Since my child was to be reared in the midst of murderers and thieves, I, too, would haunt their abodes. I became a street-singer, dancer, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the awful Alpine track Crawls up its rocky stair; The autumn storm-winds drive the rack, Close ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the hitch on the other. In this painful manner we learned the Squaw Hitch, which, for a long time, was to be the extent of our knowledge. However, we got on well enough, and mounted steadily by the turns and twists of an awful road, following the general course ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... terrified!" she whispered. "Every moment I think I can hear the click of that awful carriage. He will come back; I am sure he will ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Dodd—a thing no male does unless he is an awful snob—and grieved him, it was so unjust. He withdrew wounded to the little cabin he was entitled to as a passenger, and hugged his treasure for comfort. He patted the pocket-book, and said to it, "Never you mind! The greater Tartar he ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a case of love at first sight. From the moment the record of Richling's "little quantity" slid from the pen to the page, Narcisse had felt himself betrothed to it by destiny, and hourly supplicated the awful fates to frown not upon the amorous hopes of him unaugmented. Richling descended upon him once or twice and tore away from his embrace small fractions of the coveted treasure, choosing, through a diffidence which he mistook for a sort of virtue, the time ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... Ray. I'm all right. Yes, I like it here. And I guess you ought not to talk much, ought you? If you can sleep, I'll stay right here, and be awful quiet. I feel just as much at home with you ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... William Penn treating with them on his arrival in America. On the other side of the ledger must be recorded many a cruel and bloody conflict as the frontier rolled westward with deadly precision. The Pequots on the Connecticut border, sensing their doom, fell upon the tiny settlements with awful fury in 1637 only to meet with equally terrible punishment. A generation later, King Philip, son of Massasoit, the friend of the Pilgrims, called his tribesmen to a war of extermination which brought the strength of all New England to the field and ended in his own destruction. In ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... Davit, Mr. Dishart hadna felt the blow the piper gave him till he ascended the pulpit to conduct the prayer-meeting for rain, and then he fainted awa. Tammas Whamond and Peter Tosh carried him to the Session-house. Ay, an awful scene." ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... great rocks fallen; a pall Above us, an encumbering shroud About our feet, and over all The awful Form that bowed ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... think him so awful?" Lord John showed surprise—which might indeed have passed for harmless amusement; but he shook everything off in view of a nearer interest. He quite waved old Bender away. "My dear girl, what do ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... thousand feet before it will reach the bosom of the current; and you can only gain the water level by turning backward for scores of miles and winding laboriously down some subsidiary canon, itself a chasm of awful grandeur. ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... all of them. There is no doubt in this." After Ashvatthama had uttered these words, the entire Bharata army, united together, rushed against the Pandavas, and the latter also rushed against the former. The collision of brave leaders of car-divisions, O Bharata, became exceedingly awful. A destruction of life then set in at the van of the Kurus and the Srinjayas, that resembled what takes place at the last great universal dissolution. Upon the commencement of that passage-at-arms, various (superior) beings, with the gods, came there accompanied by the Apsaras, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... be an awful thing To be shut out from light of day!— From summer's grace, and bloom of spring In gladness ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... survey of the cavern was made to see that nothing was forgotten, and then all took their places in silence, the canoes swung slowly out from shore, and, caught by the current, shot off into the gloom on the first stage of the most awful journey ever made ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... General," stated Kit. "I heard Valencia say it must be something only a confessor could know,—but it must be rather awful at that! She was started north like an insane criminal, hidden and in chains. She explains nothing, but General, you have now the two men at Soledad who made the plan, and you have here Marto who was their tool—and perhaps—at ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... whirling them around forever without rest; through regions of chill rain and sleet, where the spirits of those who had been gluttonous in their lifetime were perpetually torn into pieces by a three-headed dog called Cerberus. And after many awful scenes that Dante could hardly bear to witness, he saw in front of him the towers of the dreadful city of Dis, or Satan, in which the spirits of the damned underwent punishments that were worse than any he had ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... it, Peter?" asked Leonore anxiously. "It's awful to think of people saying you are ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... Sweeter than music to the ravish'd ear, Sweeter than Maro's entertaining strains Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains. But how is Mneme dreaded by the race, Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace? By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears, Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears. Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe! Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know. Now eighteen years their destin'd course have run, In fast succession round the central sun. How did the follies of that period pass Unnotic'd, but behold ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... incense of his fame; he adored that life long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he raised his stature; he evoked his illusions to bid them farewell in a last Olympic feast. The magic had been potent for a moment; but now it vanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree to which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the two stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across his breast. He had come intentionally without a hat. He now went to the deep pool he had long selected, and glided ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... himself to believe it, yet it might at least be suggested that, if in a certain organism we find things so placed that a certain combination is bound to emerge in a certain generation, such a state of affairs might have been prearranged. Now, if it was prearranged, the awful fact emerges that there must have been an arranger; in other words, a creative power. This explanation is taboo in certain circles. But one may reasonably ask, "What then?" Is it really suggested that these orderly sets of occurrences may occur not once or twice only but ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... she said, between trips to the powder room, "It must take a lot of courage to sign up for something like that. Were you scientifically inclined in school? Don't you have to know an awful lot to be a space-flyer? Did you ever see any of those little monkey characters they say live on Mars? I read an article about how they lived in little cities of pup-tents or something like that—only they didn't make them, they grew them. Funny! Ever see those? That trip must have ...
— The Hated • Frederik Pohl
... are, of course they wear the badge, and everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that stole his sister's illness badge and wore it when he was expelled for a day. HE got expelled for a week for that. It must be awful not to go to school ...
— The Story of the Amulet • E. Nesbit
... these awful days. What does it matter? Your money will do you no good when we are all buried ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... something happened. Me an' my pardners were waitin' fer him to come back, but he never came. At last gittin' anxious, we went to see what was the matter, an' there we found Seth layin' on the ground dead. I tell you it was awful. I ain't ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody |
