"Enormity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before he has acquainted them with what he would have them know; let the Subject, or the Occasion he preaches upon, be what they will. Besides, an artful Orator may mention frightful Things without giving Uneasiness to his Hearers. He may set forth the Enormity of any great Sin, and the Certainty of the Punishment, that is to follow it. He may display and dwell upon the Terrors of the Divine Vengeance for a considerable Time, and turn at last all the Weight of it upon their Adversaries; and having demonstrated to his Audience, that those ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... was reserved a few hours, that he might be sacrificed under circumstances of peculiar enormity. A hole being dug in the ground of a depth sufficient to enable him to stand upright, with his head only exposed, his arms were pinioned to his body, he placed in it, and the loose earth thrown in and rammed closely around him. He was then scalped and permitted to remain in that situation ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... mission, the choice of their members, everything announced that the states were not assembled as tax- payers, but as legislators. The right of regenerating France had been granted them by opinion, was devolved on them by public resolutions, and they found in the enormity of the abuses and the public encouragement, strength to undertake and accomplish this ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... had passed from her mind; and her father, while he was living, had been away from her so much that she hardly knew him as a parent. Her antecedents, therefore, did not qualify her to comprehend the loathsome enormity of the course she proposed to ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... shame. Leonora's flat refusal, her pitiless mockery of his speech, had brought him to realize the enormity of his baseness. She was avenging herself by bringing him face to face with the abjectness of his mad, hopeless passion, which made him capable of committing the ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 'to a nayle of a yeard in depth.' In the time of James I., they still continued of a preposterous size: so that, previous to the visit made by that monarch to Cambridge in 1615, the Vice-chancellor of the University thought fit to issue an order, prohibiting 'the fearful enormity and excess of apparel seen in all degrees, as, namely, strange piccadilloes, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoe roses, tufts, locks, and tops of hair, unbeseeming that modesty and carriage of students in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... act as I think best. Lestocq, I will be no nun, but an empress! You now have my word, and are at liberty to make all necessary arrangements. If it must be done, let it be done quickly and unhesitatingly. I have yet to-day the courage to dare any enormity, therefore let us utilize ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... incentives to the adoption of a virtuous career;—all, in themselves, both unexceptionable and praiseworthy, but, nevertheless, having a strange sound in the ears of those who recognized them as the utterances of one whose conversation was always flippant and puerile, and whose daily life, in the enormity and uninterrupted persistency of its profligacy, rendered him the acknowledged leader of all that was most disreputable and contaminating in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be possessed of a plantation, and my slaves treated as in general they are here, never could I rest in peace; my sleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of the frauds committed in Africa, in order to entrap them; frauds surpassing in enormity everything which a common mind can possibly conceive. I should be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet with on ship-board; of their anguish, of the despair necessarily inspired by their situation, when torn from their friends and relations; when delivered into the hands of a people ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... the Capitol of the Union, which would be an evidence wherever it should be known of the unconquerable love of liberty which the human heart may inherit, as well as a fresh admonition to the slave-dealer of the cruelty and enormity ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... looking around him with defiance and an assured contempt upon the circle of his schoolmates, who were, one and all, regarding him with suspicion and unconcealed scorn. The most careless and reckless among them were shocked at the enormity of the offence with which he stood charged, a theft of such magnitude, and then the scoundrelly attempt to make it appear that another had been guilty ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... 5 And now, Teancum saw that the Lamanites were determined to maintain those cities which they had taken, and those parts of the land which they had obtained possession of; and also seeing the enormity of their number, Teancum thought it was not expedient that he should attempt to attack them in ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... as if Hector had been guilty of some enormity. What, defy the wishes, the mandates, of Jim Smith, the king of the school and the tyrant of all the small boys! He felt that Hector Roscoe was rushing on ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... and assimilate safely new forms of thought when given enough time for digestion, as if he were assimilating food. If he be plied with new thought too rapidly he fails to digest. He has a surfeit, serious in proportion to its enormity. That is to say, his power of drawing correct conclusions from the premises submitted to him fails, and we have all sorts of crude experiments in sociology attempted, which end in that form of chaos which we call a violent revolution. The ordinary result is infinite waste fomented by fallacious ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... remember their youth will not be surprised to learn that after a day so filled with events and emotions, Oscar, in spite of the enormity of his offences, slept the sleep of the just. The next day he did not find the world so changed as he thought it; he was surprised to be very hungry,—he who the night before had regarded himself as unworthy to live. He had only suffered mentally. At his age mental ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... this subject was not any clearer moral teaching, but rather a stronger enforcement of the condemnation long since passed upon infanticide, and an increased protection for exposed infants.... The church labored to deepen the sense of the enormity of the crime."[975] Evidently infanticide was a tradition with serious approval from one state of things to another in which it was harmful and not needed in any view. In 331 A.D. Constantine gave title to those who rescued exposed children against the parents of the children.[976] This ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... continued I, 'which would dye still deeper the black annals of Nero or Caligula.' He attempted in vain to rally; for I pursued him with all the severity in my power, and ceased not painting the enormity of his crime till I stung him to the quick, and, in a voice of passion and impatience, he said, 'No more, Madam,-this is not a subject upon which I need a monitor.' 'Make then,' cried I, 'the only reparation in your power.-Your daughter is now at Clifton; send for her hither; and, in ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... mother, and of all saints, wherever they were, and (what is horrible to tell) to burn them in the fire in the middle of the city, and to whitewash all the painted churches. Because very many of the people of the city withstood the commission of such an enormity, they were subjected to punishment; some were beheaded, others lost a part of their body. For this reason also, because Germanus, the prelate of the church of Constantinople, was unwilling to consent ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... said something urgent in his unintelligible tongue. Farrell, dazed by the enormity of what had happened, followed without protest into an intersecting way that led through a bewildering succession of storage rooms and hydroponics gardens, through a small gymnasium fitted with physical training equipment in graduated sizes and finally into a soundproofed place that could have ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... about to introduce without reason a disgusting object, personally taking part in the proceedings without the intervention of the magician or his wand. Of the officials not one has raised his voice against it: of the Censors[666] not one has pointed out the enormity of such an act. Therefore your servant, overwhelmed with shame for the Censors, implores your Majesty that these bones may be handed over for destruction by fire or water, whereby the root of this great evil may be exterminated ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... PREVALENT.—We may observe that the crying sin of infanticide is most prevalent In those localities where the system of moral education has been longest neglected. This inhuman crime might be compared to the murder of the innocents, except that the criminals, in this case, exceed in enormity the cruelty ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... crudest ideas as to what housekeeping means. It has been pointed out many times, that many mothers bring their daughters up without instructing them in the elementary principles of keeping house. It is nevertheless necessary to repeat this statement over and over again, and to point out the enormity of the injustice done. Even if a daughter is fortunate enough to marry a man who is capable of supplying all the help necessary, a wife should know enough to intelligently discern if the work is properly done. If she does not understand the rudiments of housekeeping, and has no help, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... might have spoken a long time yet, and Malgat would not have thought of interrupting her. The fearful truth broke all of a sudden upon him; and he felt as if the whole world were going to pieces. He understood the enormity of the crime; he discerned the fatal consequences, and knew he was ruined. A thousand voices arose from his conscience, telling him, 'You are a thief! You are ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... which is that of a Broker, leading me often into Taverns about the Exchange, has given me occasion to observe a certain Enormity, which I shall here submit to your Animadversion. In three or four of these Taverns, I have, at different times, taken notice of a precise Set of People with grave Countenances, short Wiggs, black Cloaths, or dark ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... do—nay, after SHE herself, for he had heard her, had talked to Calvert about it, she wanted to know NOW if it was best." He looked at the floor and the ceiling, as if expecting the tongued and grooved planks to cry out at this crowning enormity. ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... scientifically and technically. Sometimes he had desperate, tragic, and even alarming cases to deal with; and here his fearlessness and toughness stood him in good stead. He never shrank appalled before any moral enormity. He told me once of a series of interviews he had with a man, not a Catholic, who appealed to him for help in the last extremity of moral degradation. He became aware at last that the man was insane, but he spared no pains ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... done is ever before them. From one victim to another their keepers pass unquestioned, and plunder, debauch, ruin and murder with an impunity frightful to contemplate. As was said by a distinguished author, speaking of a kindred social enormity, "There is not a country throughout the earth on which a state of things like this would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... we all agree; and weeping all but echo hard-hearted Nulli. Tears are not swords and wrongs seem almost natural as rights. For the righteous to suppress an evil, is sometimes harder than for others to uphold it. Humanity cries out against this vast enormity:— not one man knows a prudent remedy. Blame not, then, the North; and wisely judge the South. Ere, as a nation, they became responsible, this thing was planted in their midst. Such roots strike deep. Place to-day those serfs in Dominora; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... wi' him, but there's something verra wrang, verra wrang. It's nae manner of use asking me. I won't play." Our singers became mute because Jimmy was a dying man. For the same reason no chap—as Knowles remarked—could "drive in a nail to hang his few poor rags upon," without being made aware of the enormity he committed in disturbing Jimmy's interminable last moments. At night, instead of the cheerful yell, "One bell! Turn out! Do you hear there? Hey! hey! hey! Show leg!" the watches were called man by man, in whispers, so as not to interfere with Jimmy's, possibly, last slumber ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... were filled with rage, and having assembled with many others, connections of the parties, they concluded that the injury could not be tolerated without disgrace, and that the only vengeance proportionate to the enormity of the offence would be to put Buondelmonti to death. And although some took into consideration the evils that might ensue upon it, Mosca Lamberti said, that those who talk of many things effect nothing, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... "Bless us! Yes!" It was as if he had said: "Of course it's Lessways! And don't I know all about you!" And Hilda was overwhelmed by the sense of the enormity of the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... fair account of my journey and to relate facts I have witnessed as they have impressed themselves upon my mind. I have done so not to pass judgment upon some of my fellow-creatures at such times of overheated passions, but merely in order to present to Socialists and Pacifists the enormity of their task after the war, such as I ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... possessed me when I first gazed upon her through the chaste atmosphere that dwelt around her. It was degradation deep and unaffected—a sense of shame and undeservedness. I remembered with self-abhorrence the relation that had existed between the unhappy Emma and myself, and the enormity and disgrace of my offence never looked so great as now, and here—in the bright presence of unconscious purity. She reassured and welcomed me with a natural smile, and pursued her occupation with quiet cheerfulness and unconstraint. I did not wonder that her father ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... of complete exhaustion, I rose and looked about. All signs of the crime had been obliterated from the garage. "I must be crazy!" I thought, as the enormity of the thing rushed on me. "I wonder why I did it? And I wonder whether I can forget it some ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... why not a geisha? What difference can it make to me whether they are geishas or not?" Later, no doubt, when I understand Japanese affairs better, I shall appreciate myself the enormity of my proposal: one would really suppose I had ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the Constitutional commented as follows:—"Although we never for a moment suspected these respectable Unions of conniving at this enormity, yet it is satisfactory to find them not merely passive spectators, but exerting their energy, and spending their money, in a praiseworthy endeavor to discover ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... jewellery more prominent, his hat closer shaved and the flower in his mouth less like a flower than ever. How came I there? Why, because I was piqued, and hurt, and reckless. I was capable of almost any enormity. John's manner to me in the train had well-nigh driven me mad. So quiet, so composed, so cold, so kind and considerate, but a kindness and consideration such as that with which one treats a child. He seemed to feel he was my superior; he seemed even to soothe and pity me. I would have given worlds ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... fortune, made me what I am, left for me her country and her friends, adhered to me through good and evil report—and I prepared for her a cruel death! Dreadful contrast! Who shall describe the shame, the sorrow, the humiliation, of the ingrate whose crime has risen to the fearful altitude of this enormity; and who, by the tenderness and love of his devoted victim, is forced to turn his eye on the grim reward of death for love, riches, and life? Gentle, beloved, injured Espras! that emaciated form, these trembling limbs, these sunken eyes, and these weak and whispering sounds of pity and affection ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... enormity of his crimes he inspires horror and repulsion, but by his loneliness he appeals, for a moment, like the consummate villain ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... was wanted. "Won't do it again?" echoed the Squire. "No, you won't do it again. I'll take good care of that." He then went on to bring home to her the enormity of her offence, which seemed to have consisted chiefly in upsetting the whole house, which he wouldn't have, and so on. But when he had repeated all he had to say twice, and most of it three or four times, he suddenly took his seat in the chair opposite to her and said in quite ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... Cranch, but whether the next morning or a week later he did not know. He fancied, too, that Cranch had also confessed some trifling deception to him, but what, or why, he could not remember; so much greater seemed the enormity of his own transgression. He thought Cranch had put in his hands the letter he had written to the Father Superior, saying that his secret was still safe, and that he had been spared the avowal and the ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Mr. Adams, in presenting these petitions, was evidently misunderstood by many, and especially by Abolitionists. They construed it into a disposition on his part to sanction, or at least to succumb unresistingly, to the inhumanity and enormity of the slave institution. In this conclusion they signally erred. Mr. Adams, by birth, education, all the associations of his life, and the fixed principles of his moral and political character, was an opposer of slavery in every form. ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... a government messenger seemed to strike the host with More astonishment than any other enormity that had taken place on the road; and indeed it was the first time so wanton an outrage had been committed; the robbers generally taking care not to meddle with any thing belonging ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... capture of a Chinese store; he walked down the principal street of the town with an umbrella carried by one of his henchmen; and he ascended into the King's Balai with his kris uncovered by the folds of his sarong! The enormity of these proceedings may not, perhaps, be apparent; but, in those days, the wearing of shoes of a European type, and the public use of an umbrella, were among the proudest privileges of royalty. To ascend the Balai with an uncloaked weapon in one's girdle ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... she did, adding that it put them in a very painful position. Thereupon Shadrach, fearing that he had been guilty of an enormity, explained that if his letter had pained Joanna it must be owing to a misunderstanding, since he had thought it would be a relief to her. If otherwise, he would hold himself bound by his word, and she was to think of the letter as never ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... black skirt, made herself a tortilla, then went forth and swept the streets. The children mocked her sometimes, and she looked at them in wonder. Why should she be mocked or punished? She felt no repentance; neither the Alcalde nor her husband had convinced her of her sin's enormity; she felt only bitter resentment that it should have been so brief. Her husband, a blear-eyed crippled old man, loathsome to all the youth and imagination in her, had beaten her and made her work. A man, ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... specie-man, upon a fair division, having to his share the fleecing of about fifty-nine rag-men. In all candor let me ask, was such a system for benefiting the few at the expense of the many ever before devised? And was the sacred name of Democracy ever before made to indorse such an enormity against the rights of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... against my own will." Halldor went home after that, and the men he had sent for came crowding up to the place. Thorstein was of the wrothest, and wanted forthwith to make an onset on Halldor. Thorkell bade him not to do so, "for that is the greatest enormity at such a season as this; but when this season wears off, I shall not stand in the way of his and ours clashing together." Halldor said he was given to think he would not fail in being ready for them. After that they rode away and talked much together of this their journey; and ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... formal opening of the court, this young man was the first called upon, and, with trembling limbs, he rose to hear the sentence of the judge. After some remarks upon the enormity of his crime, and the clear evidence upon which he had been convicted, the judge sentenced him to five years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. When those words, five years, reached him, he dropped back upon the seat, as if struck with a bullet, and then raising his face to the ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... even more prodigious in the second of these cases than in the first. But one error I committed in both. I did not connect with the abstinence from opium, so trying to the fortitude under any circumstances, that enormity of exercise which (as I have since learned) is the one sole resource for making it endurable. I overlooked, in those days, the one sine qua non for making the triumph permanent. Twice I sank, twice I rose again. A third time I ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... desired such severity; but he might have told Captain Tugwell, with whom he had a talk almost every time they met, that his eldest son wanted a little discipline; and the Club might have served as a pretext for this, when the true crime must not be declared, by reason of its enormity. Dan closed his teeth, and English air grew bitter in his mouth, as this belief ran ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... having become an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... a subjugation; the strength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured something in themselves when they honoured the saint. In addition to this, the contemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion: such an enormity of self-negation and anti-naturalness will not have been coveted for nothing—they have said, inquiringly. There is perhaps a reason for it, some very great danger, about which the ascetic might wish to be more accurately informed through his secret interlocutors ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... appreciation of these should not be allowed to warp the judgement or prejudice the mind. Some there are who invest them with almost supernaturally noble qualities, while they attribute every conceivable enormity to their enemies the Turks. Each of these views is incorrect. The Osmanlis, whether it be from a consciousness of their own decrepitude, or some other cause, appear to have lost the spirit of cruelty which characterised their more successful days; and ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... kiosks, and turrets as grace the roofs of our office buildings! Architects evidently look upon such adornments as compensations! The more hideous the structure, the finer its dome! Having perpetrated a blot upon the city that cries to heaven in its enormity, the repentant owner adds a pagoda or two, much in the same spirit, doubtless, as prompts an Italian peasant to hang a votive heart on some friendly shrine when a crime lies heavy on ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... colored women hope to improve the social atmosphere by showing the enormity of the double standard of morals, which teaches that we should turn the cold shoulder upon a fallen sister, but greet her destroyer with open arms and a gracious smile. The duty of setting a high moral standard and living up to it devolves upon colored women in a peculiar ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... most wonderful of all the palatial buildings which Egypt produced, so he also constructed what is, on the whole, the most wonderful of the tombs. The pyramids impose upon us by their enormity, and astonish by the engineering skill shown in their execution; but they embody a single simple idea; they have no complication of parts, no elaboration of ornament; they are taken in at a glance; they ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... to this enormity. Truly may it be said that the world looks darker for it. In one way or another, here and there and all around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the picturesque, the poetic, and the beautiful out of human ...
— Fire Worship (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... This fellow Stanninghame was a lunatic. Mad, by Jove! Still gasping as he thought of the enormity of the situation, he left without another word, diving below to try and drown his confusion in a whisky and ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... had fallen upon him with the disclosure of a man's desires. His boyhood seemed suddenly to have gone from him like the light of a lamp blown out by a puff of wind. He felt old, and responsible to answer now for himself, since the enormity of his offense was ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... delinquency; indiscretion, lapse, slip, trip, faux pas[Fr], peccadillo; flaw, blot, omission; failing, failure; break, bad break |![U.S.], capital crime, delictum[Lat]. offense, trespass; misdemeanor, misfeasance, misprision; malefaction, malfeasance, malversation; crime, felony. enormity, atrocity, outrage; deadly sin, mortal sin; "deed without a name" [Macbeth]. corpus delicti. Adj. guilty, to blame, culpable, peccable[obs3], in fault, at fault, censurable, reprehensible, blameworthy, uncommendable, illaudable[obs3]; weighed in the balance ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... bestowed—His forbearance to inflict punishment, and the various methods He employed to bring us to repentance. And by the side of all this He will exhibit our conduct toward Him—our ingratitude, our disobedience, our perverseness. And with what enormity will these things then appear invested! So guilty will thy conduct then appear, O sinner, that thou wilt be constrained to exclaim: "Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be, because Thou hast judged thus." What an exhibition will he made ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The younger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a passage from the Bible, in which one of the circumstances was—that the Jewish army consisted of 120,000 men. 'Now,' said he, 'knowing as we all do the enormity of such a force as a peace establishment, even for mighty empires like England, how perfectly like a fairy-tale or an Arabian Nights' entertainment does it sound to hear of such monstrous armaments in a little country like Judaea, equal, perhaps, to the twelve counties of Wales!' ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... him to gather from them that his father had discovered everything, had suffered in consequence from an attack of palpitation of the heart, and had felt himself, on rising that morning, so unequal, both in mind and body, to deal unaided with the enormity of his son's offense, that he had just gone out to request the co-operation of the Reverend Aaron Yollop. On discovering this, Zack's penitence changed instantly into a curious mixture of indignation and alarm. He turned round quickly ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... faces, intent gray eyes; they packed guns, and one of them wore a bright star on his vest. These men took Hookey away with them. And after they were gone the cowboys told Pan that Hookey was wanted for horse stealing. Young as Pan was he understood the enormity of that crime in the eyes of cowboys. He felt terribly hurt and betrayed. Long indeed was it before he ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... were found for him, under his nose, and he was beginning to say that he was going out to lunch, when the enormity of his conduct made ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... All through this scene, Caesar is made to speak quite out of character, and in a strain of hateful arrogance, in order, apparently, to soften the enormity of his murder, and to grind the daggers of the assassins to a sharper point. Perhaps, also, it is a part of the irony which so marks this play, to put the haughtiest words in Caesar's mouth just ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... young natives had made complaint to the padre that a certain damsel had entered into vows or engagements to marry both; she was accordingly brought up before the padre, Mr. Sturges being present. The padre first lectured her most seriously upon the enormity of her crime, then inflicted several blows on the palm of her outstretched hand, again renewing the lecture, and finally concluding with another whipping. The girl was pretty, and excited the interest of our friend, who looked on with much desire to interfere, and save the damsel from the corporal ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... indifference. She had not even asked if he had escaped unhurt, but had concentrated all her interest upon the man who had insulted her. As to his own father's wrath—that he had expected. It was his way to break out, and this he knew would continue until he realized the enormity of the insult to Kate and heard how he and St. George had tried to ward off the catastrophe. Then he would not only change his opinion, but would commend him for ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... appreciation for a well executed enormity. In his story 'Markheim' he gives a skilful picture of a really deft assassination; and in the 'Suicide Club' he has created what I would class as a master criminal. The Russian writers have a power in this mood that is truly wonderful. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... the storm was his servant, and lent wings to his steed. When the talk at table or in company turned upon Bastide Grammont and his murderous crime, of which no one stood in doubt, Clarissa never occupied herself with the enormity of the deed, which must forever separate such a man from the fellowship of the good. Enveloped in a voluptuous mist, she was sensible of the influence of his compelling force, of the heroic soul that spoke in his gestures, of the reality of his existence and ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... demand was for "Mastika," a peculiar Greek drink distilled from mastic gum, and his second demand invariably was "Du beurre!" with the "r's" as silent as the stars; and if it failed to come at once the waiter was made to feel the enormity of ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... the place began to bring before Flora the full enormity and impertinence of her errand, but though her heart beat on her side as loud as the brass knocker upon the door, she had ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... least half a page to himself. Some had much more, the amount of space devoted to them being apparently regulated in accordance with the enormity of their offences. There was a note in italics at the end of each indictment ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... herds, Bow in submission to the tyrant's yoke, Round me I'll call the herdsmen on the hills, And there beneath heaven's free and boundless roof, Where men still feel as men, and hearts are true, Proclaim aloud this foul enormity! ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... the lodged grass beside a stone; and meantime those sympathetic girls held an indignation meeting. Their pity for the poor creature knew no bounds, and Ellen was despatched to call us boys to the spot, that the full enormity of our act might ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... did not appear in the least overwhelmed by the enormity of his crime or by the disgrace of being so ignominiously found out. From his precarious position across the bed St. Genis had a good view of the rascal's finely knit figure, of his earnest face, now softened by a smile full of kindly humour and ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... extravagant proceeding, for the reason that had I acted less impulsively I might not have detected Roger's selfishness until it was too late. But when just before my father went away he handed me a roll of bank-bills, the color rose to my cheeks, and I began to reflect upon the enormity of my offence. He told me that he had ordered a saddle-horse to be sent to me from town, which he hoped I would use regularly, and that in the autumn he proposed to take me with him ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... on to the edge of a bookshelf by the tips of her fingers and drew herself up from the floor, slowly, as it were by some mysterious unfolding process, not ungraceful. She turned on him the wide half-mischievous, half-frightened eyes of a child caught this time in some superb enormity. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... honestly, and stated them clearly and positively, when he felt it his duty to speak, although evasion or silence would have been the more comfortable alternative. "I doubt," says Mr. Chadwick,[129] "if Garrison or Parker had a keener sense than his of the enormity of human slavery. Before the first Abolitionist Society had been organized, he was one of the organizers of a committee for the discussion and advancement of emancipation. I have read all of his principal writings ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... on every sort of rustic enormity of which he accused Benjie. He had been suspected of snaring partridges—was detected by Joshua himself in liming singing-birds—stood fully charged with having worried several cats, by aid of a lurcher which attended ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... that no reward could induce him to be guilty of such an enormity, and followed it up by so skilful an allusion to the progressing youth of his master that the latter swore he was right, and that he could dance better than he could at thirty, and to prove it executed, with extraordinary agility for a man who rode at twenty stone, ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... at four in the afternoon. Always with the same inscrutable meekness of countenance, each night he methodically danced the cake-walk at Maxim's or one of the Montemarte restaurants, to the cheers of acquaintances of many nationalities, to whom he offered libations with prodigal enormity. He carried with him, about the boulevards at night, in the highly powerful car he had hired, large parties of strange people, who would loudly sing airs from the Folie-Rouge (to my unhappy shudderings) all the way from the fatiguing Bal Bullier to the Cafe' de Paris, where the ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... period in the history of Maryland, her lands began to be exhausted by the bad cultivation peculiar to slave states; and hence she soon commenced the business of breeding slaves for the more southern states. This has given an enormity to slavery, in Maryland, differing from that which attaches to the system in Louisiana, and equalled by none of the kind, except Virginia and Kentucky, and not by ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... decemvirs "that by every means in their power they should keep the soldiers from mutinying." Where Virginius occasioned greater commotion than he had left behind him in the city. For besides that he was seen coming with a body of near four hundred men, who, fired at the heinous enormity of the occurrence, had accompanied him from the city; the unsheathed weapon and himself besmeared with blood, attracted to him the entire camp; and the gowns[151] seen in the different parts of the camp, had caused the number of people from the city to appear much greater than it ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... my hand," she added, suddenly conscious of the enormity John Sibley was committing by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gave orders to drive home as rapidly as possible, and on arriving, Betty, who was by this time also somewhat frightened at her own enormity, was put into a bath, and fumigated, and treated in every way that could be thought of to ward off the dreadful malady that in a rash moment she had ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... he took his question back, conceding its enormity. He leaned forward now in his balancing, and lowered his voice ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... ridiculous, and punishments unjust. The ruin of Liberty overthrows all order and all police, confounds vice and virtue, authorises every monstrous infamy, extinguishes the last spark of shame and remorse, degrades and disfigures beyond recovery the whole human race. A doctrine of such enormity as this ought not to be examined in the schools; it ought to be punished by the magistrates."[187] Of course, this was exactly what the Jesuits said about a belief in God, about revelation, and about the institutions of the church. To take away these, they said, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... unreasonable compassion. He was the Pen of old days once more restored to her, the frank and affectionate, the generous and tender-hearted. She at once took side with Helen against Doctor Portman, when he outcried at the enormity of Pen's transgressions. Debts? what were his debts? they were a trifle; he had been thrown into expensive society by his uncle's order, and of course was obliged to live in the same manner as the ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... longer inconsolable for his wife's death; and desires to testify to the happiness of conjugal relations, by a renewal of the sweet bondage; a curiously subtile compliment to the deceased. If I may be pardoned the enormity of the heresy, I think Shakspeare blundered supremely, when he gave Iago's soul to a man. Diabolical cunning, shrewd malevolence pure and simple, armed with myriads of stings for hypodermic incisions ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... wonderful comfort to a conscience troubled by the enormity of sin. Sin cannot harm those who believe in Christ, because He has overcome sin by His death. Armed with this conviction, we are enlightened and may pass judgment upon the papists, monks, nuns, priests, Mohammedans, Anabaptists, and all who trust in their own merits, as wicked and destructive ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... If I know that I really meant to kill him, for some vile purpose of my own; and if (which by no means always follows) I am really capable of feeling the enormity of my own crime—that is, as I think, true remorse. Murderer as I am, I have, in that case, some moral worth still left in me. But if I did not mean to kill the man—if his death was my misfortune as well as his—and if (as frequently ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... not because he is proud, but because he is shy; and he cannot shake it off, even if he would. Indeed, we should not be surprised to find that even the clever writer who describes the English Philistine in all his enormity of awkward manner and absence of grace, were himself as shy as ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... speculation on his own infirmity only affords him another occasion for indulging it. It is not from any want of attachment to his father or of abhorrence of his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any vague pretext that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from his ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... a reformer, that Philip," continued Jucundus, "and put down an enormity. Well, they call it an enormity; let it be an enormity. He'd put it down; but why? there's the point; why? It's no secret at all," and his voice grew angry, "that that hoary-headed Atheist Fabian was at the bottom of it; Fabian, the Christian. I ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... nor convinced. Stover was too firmly persuaded of the enormity of his offense and the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... among themselves. The pirates had even marts in different islands, where their prisoners were sold to the slave-dealers; and for fifteen years nothing was done or even attempted to put an end to so preposterous an enormity. The ease with which these buccaneers of the old world were eventually suppressed proved conclusively that they existed by connivance. It was discovered at last that large sums had been sent regularly from Crete to some of the most distinguished ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... observed, that some of the milder class of Cameronians made a distinction between the two sexes dancing separately, and allowed of it as a healthy and not unlawful exercise; but when men and women mingled in sport, it was then called promiscuous dancing, and considered as a scandalous enormity. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... schoolmistress, who would have relieved him of his esculent, and made the best of his way home, with it dangling at his neck. Mr. Allan's anger was aroused, and he proceeded instantly to the school-room, and after lecturing the astonished dame upon the enormity of such an insult to his son and to himself, demanded his account, determined that the child should not again be subject to such tyranny. Who can estimate the effect of this puerile triumph upon ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... don't want the privilege," Littimer smiled. "A man with a face like that couldn't reform; nature would resent such an enormity. And yet you can never tell. Physically speaking, my quondam friend Hatherly Bell has ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... in his daily or his nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible in his or her degree for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people upon earth it would ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... scarcely alone when I realised the enormity of my error, but it was too late; the essential object now was to get out of the situation with the least harm possible. With this aim in view, I kept out of the way of the Emperor as long as he was on horseback, in case he went back to the ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the thing that does not bear thinking of; the one thing to be forgotten; the unforgettable thing. Not the commission of some great crime: this can be atoned for by great penances; and the very enormity of it has a dark grandeur. Maybe, some little deadly act of meanness, some hole-and-corner treachery? But what a man has once willed to do, his will helps him to forget. The unforgettable thing in his life is usually not a thing he has done or left undone, but a thing done to him—some insolence ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Although these letters and answers were sent and returned the same day with an extreme rapidity, the interval had been sufficient to place another between my rage and transport, and to give me time to reflect on the enormity of my imprudence. Madam d'Houdetot had not recommended to me anything so much as to remain quiet, to leave her the care of extricating herself, and to avoid, especially at that moment, all noise and rupture; and I, by the most open and atrocious insults, took the properest means of carrying ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... we thus clearly realise the enormity of Ananias's sin, that we can understand the reason of the dreadful doom that followed. "And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down, and gave up the ghost" (ver. 5). The judgment came not from men, but from God. As it was in God's sight—the sight ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... without these outcries and tearings of hair, and don't be for ever goading the Karls and other trodden-down creatures till they get their carbines in order (very rationally) to abate the nuisance—when you make the man a long speech against some enormity he is about to commit, and adjure and beseech and so forth, till he throws down the aforesaid carbine, falls on his knees, and lets the Frederic go quietly on his way to keep on killing his thousands after the fashion that moved your previous indignation. Now is that right, consequential—that ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... azure enormity... In the fore, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a little further off no motion is visible, nor anything save color: dim warm blue of water widening away ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... me, and two days ago I was obliged to punish him for a gross violation of the truth; but as he grows older, I trust he will correct this defect, and I shall faithfully endeavor to show him its enormity. Is there anything else you wish to say to me about the children? I will very gladly hear any ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... speaking in public some time afterwards on Judaism in Music, by way of atonement, as it were, to this man, who had died in the meantime. The arrival of Alexander Ritter with my niece Franziska helped to enliven us. My niece, indeed, found constant entertainment and excitement in the enormity of Weisheimer's compositions, while Ritter, who was acquainted with the text of my Meistersinger, described a highly unintelligible melody given to the basses in Ritter Toggenburg as 'the lonely gormandiser mode.' [Footnote: Meistersinger ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... and inexorable was the fate that sent thee thither, Piercie Shafton, to waste thy wit upon country wenches, and thy valour upon hob-nailed clowns! But that insult—that affront—had it been offered to me by the lowest plebeian, he must have died for it by my hand, in respect the enormity of the offence doth countervail the inequality of him by whom it is given. I trust I shall find this clownish roisterer not less willing to deal in ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... thing on the stove quickly unscrewed it. The steam blew out with terrific force and filled the tent. A moment or two more and the bottle would have burst with disastrous consequences. When I told Stephenson of the enormity of his offence and that he might have been the cause of my death, and would have sent me to the grave covered with dishonour for having been killed by the bursting of a hot water-bottle—an unworthy end for one about to enter the greatest war ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... delights were left for these miserable women. With what disdainful bitterness they must have watched the frivolous vanities, the petty deceptions, the paltry sins of ordinary offenders. Perhaps they took a horrible pride in the enormity of their wickedness; in this "Divinity of Hell," which made ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... chief reason why the higher and educated classes have smaller families than the lower and uneducated is, that the former criminally prevent or destroy increase. The pulpit,[29] as well as the medical press, has cried out against this enormity. That a disposition to do this thing exists, and is often carried into effect, is not to be denied, and cannot be too strongly condemned. On the other hand, it should be proclaimed, to the credit and honor of our cultivated women, and ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... did right. I only did what perhaps any one else, under the same circumstances, would have done. I was too weak from hunger and other causes to withstand the temptation of obtaining the food as I did. As soon as my appetite was satisfied, however, my sin rose up before me in all its enormity; I felt distressed; and it came vividly in my mind, "In that Christ hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted." Oh, what had I done! I had lost God's help in this my hour of trial. I prayed for forgiveness, and asked God to direct and protect me. ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson
... minister's hand with greater dismay and astonishment. The strong barrier of guilt seemed breaking down. Conscience aroused, as if at once the veil that concealed his iniquities had been withdrawn, they rose in all their unmitigated horror and enormity. An arrow, drawn at a venture, had pierced the joints of the harness. He stood powerless and without defence—motionless as the image of despair. By a strange coincidence a thick white cloud seemed to coil itself heavily round the room. Whether to the heated imaginations ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... confessed these faults committed as the writer of this book, it is still possible in human multifariousness to consider their enormity, not merely in this book, but in fictional reading-matter at large, as viewed by an average-novel-reader—by a representative of that potent class whose preferences dictate the nature and main trend of modern American literature. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... normal procedure and, taking the matter into his own hands, sent for the culprit and interviewed him on the spot, whether for purposes of admonition or of punishment we know not. After an impassioned harangue in which, with many winged words, he fully expounded the enormity of the offence, he concluded dramatically somewhat in this fashion: "I hope you are satisfied with your morning's work! You see what you have done. You have wounded this poor fellow, and you very nearly hit me! Are you satisfied?" It was an awkward question to answer with ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... promised freedom to whatever slaves of the colony would enlist on his side, and fortified the little town. The crews of some English ships in the harbor assisted him; and in the sequel these tars were the only ones of his rabble that stayed by him. The neighborhood was alarmed, fearing any kind of enormity, and messengers rode through the woods post haste, and swam the rivers, in the sultry September weather, to find and recall their defenders, and summon them to resist a worse foe than the red man. Before they could ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... drops of blood were rolling down his cheek and staining his white coat. A momentary gleam of anger shot into his eyes and he gave a gasp, whether of surprise, pain, or annoyance, I know not. He made a gesture towards me. I half expected and fervently wished he would strike. The enormity of what I had done paralysed me. The whip fell from my fingers and I dropped on to a low lounge behind me, and placing my elbows on my knees crouchingly buried my face in my hands; my hair tumbled softly over my shoulders and reached the floor, as though to sympathetically ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... which they conduct their differences, utterly repel me. And the idea of the Protestant establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that I wonder the Right Reverends, Very Reverends, and all other Reverends, who commit it, can look in one another's faces without laughing, as the old soothsayers did. Perhaps they can't and don't. How our sublime ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... allows the English language to be capable of any excellence, still less the French. He said we moderns are entirely degenerated. I asked in what? "In everything," was his answer. He loves slavery upon principle. I asked him how he could vindicate such an enormity. He owned it was because Plutarch justified it. He is so wedded to system that, as Lord Barrington said to me the other day, rather than sacrifice his favourite opinion that men were born with tails, he would be contented to wear ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... movements of the day. A strange affinity seems to bind them all together.... But not to dwell on this remarkable connection—the claim of 'woman's rights' presents not only the common radical notion which underlies the whole class, but also a peculiar enormity of its own; in some respects more boldly infidel, or defiant both of nature and revelation, than that which characterises any kindred measure. It is avowedly opposed to the most time-honoured proprieties of social life; it is opposed to ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... Graham's shoulder. Abruptly Graham realised the enormity of his blunder in coming to the Council House. He turned towards the curtains that separated the hall from the ante-chamber. The clutching hand of Asano intervened. In another moment Lincoln ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... indisposed to let his prey escape. His insistence matured into insolence as Mortimer spoke somewhat sharply to him. Ignorant of racing as the latter was, he was hardly a man to take liberties with once he recognized the infringement. The enormity of his mission and the possibility that it might be frustrated by his undesirable tormentor, made him savage. Raised to quick fury by a vicious remark of the tout who held him in leash, he suddenly stretched out a strong hand, and, seizing his insulter ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... and months passed by, until the scapegrace reached his twenty-sixth year, having heaped wickedness upon wickedness; and who can tell how much trouble he brought upon his family, who were always afraid of hearing of some new enormity? At last they held a family council, and told the parents that matters had come to such a pass that if they did not disown their son the rest of the family must needs break off all communication with them: if he were allowed to go on in his ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... pressure was put upon him by the opposite party. The Pope did his best through the Nuncius at Paris directly, and through agents at Prague, Brussels, and Madrid indirectly, to awaken the King to a sense of the enormity of his conduct. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... [his] Sins. For the People of that country have this Naturally, that as they are more prone to evil thro' Ignorance than Men of other Countries,* so are they more ready and willing to do penance, when they are made sensible of the Enormity of their Sins. When the Bishop wou'd then enjoin him such penance as he thought reasonable, the Soldier answered: "Since you say that I have offended God so grievously, I will undergo a penance more grievous than any other whatsoever. ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... the strength to do so. And then, what is the good of withdrawing a wife, if the wife thinks that she ought not to be withdrawn? There are sins as to which there is no satisfaction in visiting the results with penalties. The sin is in the mind, or in the heart, and is complete in its enormity, even though there be no result. He was miserable because she had not at once acknowledged that she never ought to see this man again, as soon as she had heard the horrors which her husband had told her. "George," she ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... am afraid you think I know a great deal more about my husband's work than I do. I haven't the least idea what he is doing," she added presently, in a slightly different, that is a more explanatory, tone, as if she recognized in some degree the enormity of her confession. "I ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... soul is superior to the body, so evil example, scandal, the killing of the soul of another is a crime of a far greater enormity than the working of injury unto the body. Scandal comes properly under the head of murder; but it is less blood than lust that furnishes it with working material. It will therefore be treated in its ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... the table and picked up his cards. He was a foul-looking Mexican and seemed capable even of the enormity he was about to commit. The scene was rehearsed to Baird's satisfaction, then shot. The weeping old lady, blinded by her tears, awkward with her mop, the brutal Mexican, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... of brothers? Of course they were; of course we must be. Little children, love one another. Let us dwell together, my brethren, in amity," said the Doctor, putting down his glass, and forgetting that he was in Mr. Gray's study; "and please give me your ears while I show you this morning the enormity of burning widows upon the funeral pyres of ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... intercourse with her parents and her young associates there was a noble frankness which opened to her the hearts of all. The earliest lessons of her childhood were calculated to impress her mind with the enormity of all falsehood and the value of truth; and as she grew up to womanhood she was ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... Everlasting punishment is a punishment that lasts. Everlasting torment would be a torment that never ends, but one would be consciously suffering all the time. The laws of the land punish the wicked who violate the law, and the duration of punishment is short or long in proportion to the enormity of the crime committed. One who steals a loaf of bread violates the law and he may be punished by confinement for a day or a month in prison. One who destroys his neighbor's house by fire is punished, and his punishment may be a number of years in prison. Another takes ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... Well, all I want is to live. But with a grey past such as we have had, the present is good enough to ponder upon. We now can lie abed if we have sweet dreams and pursue them waking, and be lazy, yet not be troubled with the self-indulgence as with an enormity; or we can rise and breathe the sunshine at our own time. We can be frivolous, and yet meet with smiles in response, dress our hair and persons, and be pleased with ourselves, and with being admired or envied, yet not ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... called the bulldog terrier. I taught him to understand a great many words, insomuch that I am positive that the communication betwixt the canine species and ourselves might be greatly enlarged. Camp once bit the baker, who was bringing bread to the family. I beat him, and explained the enormity of his offence; after which, to the last moment of his life, he never heard the least allusion to the story, in whatever voice or tone it was mentioned, without getting up and retiring into the darkest corner of the room, with great appearance of distress. Then if you said, 'the baker was well ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... silence during which the men gazed into the fire. Each, perhaps, had some vague conception of the enormity of Rojas's love or hate—some faint and amazing glimpse of the gulf of human passion. Those were cold, hard, grim faces ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... terminated, most especially the attempt of Capt. Kennedy and others, holding commissions in the rebel service, to burn New York city. If ever a man deserved his fate, this man Kennedy certainly did, and the public, having been saved, unscathed, can never fully appreciate the enormity of his crime. One, knowing the facts of these men being in the North for this purpose, can readily appreciate the punishment awarded them; but upon reviewing all the facts in the case, will as readily say that they are now less guilty than the citizens of the North, who aided them in their designs, ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... down through families from father to son, and from husband to wife, and the possessions of the Church served for dowry to the daughters of bishops. Absolution was at a low quotation in the market, and redemption for sins of the greatest enormity cost scarcely the price of founding a church or a monastery. Horror-stricken at the sight of such corruption in the only things they at that time recognized as holy, men no longer knew where to find the rule of life or the safeguard of conscience. But it is the peculiar and glorious characteristic ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... with a good wife, as he had, an honest wife, as he had, a Christian wife, as he had, could have got into such an enormity if he had consulted in regard to her wishes? Consultation is the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... evident that it was an order to advance upon death. "Some one had blundered," and wisdom would have dictated the demand for a confirmation of the order. Valor suggested that it should be obeyed in all its blank enormity. Dismissing wisdom and yielding to valor, Lord Cardigan gave the word to advance, the brigade, scarcely a regiment in total strength, broke into a sudden gallop, and within a minute the devoted line was flying over ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to make things smart and business-like, a dozen strong chairs were bought for the use of the Committee room. There was also a rule about attendances, and any member failing to put in an appearance was fined sixpence, and if he happened to be the overseer, the enormity of his offence was marked by a fine of a shilling—"unless a note be sent to the meeting" [explaining cause of absence]. Here was a model authority, the like of which the town of Royston has never ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... gentleness, against which she struck out with drowning gestures, "if you could only understand what it would mean to me never to have anybody I liked to talk to about things,—anybody I liked to be with all the time!" She was choked and aghast at the enormity of it. ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... as I could, I explained the enormity of his offenses. To take a chair from a table, as he had done, was a gross insult; to receive a slap in the face and not to resent it, was another insult; to tear up an opponent's visiting-card, still another; to take out a revolver in Barscheit, ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... romance. The thing which had happened last night, as in the cold morning sunlight he sat up in his bed, seemed to him a thing grotesque, inconceivable. It was not really possible that those people—those well-bred, well-looking people—had seriously contemplated an enormity which seemed to belong to the back pages of history, or that he, Tavernake, had burst through a wall with no weapons in his hand, and had dominated the situation! He sat there steadily thinking. It ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and sipping not the very best of wine, and Bertram was expatiating on Sir Robert Peel's enormity in having taken the wind out of the sails of the Whigs, and rehearsing perhaps a few paragraphs of a new pamphlet that was about to come out, when Harcourt ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... contemplation of the benefactions of the Cross, through which we were redeemed and have received the grace to lead a devout: life and to strive for eternal happiness. In the Cross we recognize thoroughly the enormity of our guilt and the ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... Finally, the enormity of bloodshed and woe involved caused a sort of concession on both sides to be agreed upon. Oppression continued will surely lead to a point where it cures itself, and the superior class in England, with a wise weather-eye, saw the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... crime; his share in it, indeed, is greater than the mother's; had it not been for him, there would have been no crime. Then why should he be acquitted? Because the laws are made by men. There is the answer. The enormity of such man-made laws cries of itself to Heaven for intervention. And there can be no help for us women till we are allowed a say in the elections, and in the making ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... manner in which I had conducted myself, not only towards my allies, but even towards my enemies. But lo, even in my own camp, so much was I deceived in my opinion, the report of my death was not only readily believed, but anxiously waited for. Not that I wish to implicate you all in this enormity; for, be assured, if I supposed that the whole of my army desired my death, I would here immediately expire before your eyes; nor could I take any pleasure in a life which was odious to my countrymen ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... further abuse and ill-treatment. Not a day passed but one or other of us got a kick or a blow from him or the captain. They made one young lad very nearly leap overboard, where he would have been drowned. I hauled him back, and calming him down, showed him the enormity of the sin he was going to commit, and urged him to bear his trials, as they must shortly ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... honesty and rewarded hypocrisy, and all this she did because it was commanded by a book—a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book, to examine it, even, was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... dishonesty. The affair at the bank was a thing apart. The embezzler of six hundred thousand dollars was not John at all, but a separate personality wearing John's clothes and bearing his name. He perceived clearly the enormity of his offense, but, because he was the same John in every other respect, he had a feeling that somehow the fact that he had done the thing was purely fortuitous—in other words, that the bonds had to be taken, were going to be taken anyway, and that Fate had simply elected him ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... He would be glad not to go too far, and yet his chief dread is lest he be left behind. His consciousness of pure aims allows him to become an accomplice in the worst crimes. Suspecting himself at bottom to be a theorist, he hastens to clear his character as man of practice by conniving at an enormity. Thus, in September 1792, a band of miscreants committed the grievous massacres in the prisons of Paris. Robespierre, though the best evidence goes to show that he not only did not abet the prison murders, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... myself from there and then kneeling down at his feet and telling him what I had done. But that again would mean a confession of the past. I came to you that morning in order to understand the full enormity of my offence. From the instant that I grasped it my whole mind was turned to the one thought of getting back my husband's paper. It must still be where Lucas had placed it, for it was concealed before this dreadful woman entered ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... began to recover his self-possession, and to walk in the storm as other men did. But in proportion as his composure returned the enormity of his crime became more apparent to him, and the word written in red letters became so bright that he felt as if every passer-by must read it, unless he dropt his eyes to prevent their seeing ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sheridan:—on the abrogation of Parliaments, he entered into a closer connection than ever with Fox and a few others of lesser note, forming together as desperate and profligate a gang as ever disgraced a civilized country. They were guilty of every species of enormity, and went so far as even to commit robberies on the highway, with a degree of audacity that could be equalled only by the ingenuity with which they escaped conviction. Sheridan, not satisfied with eluding, determined to mock the justice of his country, and composed ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the horrors of the narrative was his cool and easy recital of his own and the deeds of his companions. You saw that he had no more conscience in him than the death's head he puffed at, and that his idea was there was no true greatness to be met with out of enormity. Well, thought I, as I stepped to the corner for some coal, if I was afraid of this creature when he was dead, to what condition of mind shall I be reduced by ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... that the enormity of the whole proceeding becomes most glaring—the house owes its actual value to the profit which the owner can make out of it. Now, this profit results from the fact that his house is built in a town—that is, in an ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... saw nothing wrong in the person who bowed, and smiled, and rubbed the palms of his hands in a rotary movement; and being taken up in trying to amalgamate the scantiness of her money, the prices on the carte, and the enormity of her hunger, neither did she notice the burning eyes in the handsome, sensual dark face of a middle-aged native fixed upon her hungrily from behind a half-open door, where he had been hurriedly summoned by the man who advertised his ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... had better go,' said Mark; 'I don't quite see what enormity I have been guilty of, but if you look at things in that light, there is no more to be said. I have chosen my life, and I don't mean to go back from it. I will see about finding lodgings as soon as I can, and you shall not be troubled with me any ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey |
