"Frightful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... say of the Napoleon of Mr. Turner? called (with frightful satire) "The Exile and the Rock Limpet." He stands in the midst of a scarlet tornado looking at least forty feet high. "Ah!" says the mysterious poet from whom Mr. Turner loves ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... usual—I found myself in the borderland of a cypress swamp. On one side was the lake, but between me and it were cypress-trees; and on the other side was the swamp itself, a dense wood growing in stagnant black water covered here and there with duckweed or some similar growth: a frightful place it seemed, the very abode of snakes and everything evil. Stories of slaves hiding in cypress swamps came into my mind. It must have been cruel treatment that drove them to it! Buzzards flew about my head, and looked at me. "He has come here to die," ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... them from the want of the mother's milk. There is a regular "parental baby-slaughter"—"a massacre of the innocents"— constantly going on in England, in consequence of infants being thus deprived of their proper nutriment and just dues! The mortality from this cause is frightful, chiefly occurring among rich people who are either too grand, or, from luxury, too delicate to perform such duties; poor married women, as a rule, nurse their own children, and, in consequence ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... need. The shadow of terror lurks even amid the beauty of Spenser's fairyland. In the windings of its forests we come upon dark caves, mysterious castles and huts, from which there start fearsome creatures like Despair or the giant Orgoglio, hideous hags like Occasion, wicked witches and enchanters or frightful beings like the ghostly Maleger, who wore as his helmet a dead man's skull and rode upon a tiger swift as the wind. The Elizabethan dramatists were fascinated by the terrors of the invisible world. Marlowe's Dr. ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... out to sea to try his luck elsewhere. Seventy miles from the coast he comes across the notable little island, Juan Fernandez, and circles round its volcanic cliffs. For him there are no frightful precipitous ascents and descents; from his height he can see all he wishes to see. It is otherwise with explorers. Some cliffs are inaccessible to their feet, as Carl Skottsberg found when he went out to the island three years ago in a Chilian vessel. He ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... that long tunnel of trees, like one of those unescapable things seen in dreams, the little gray spot of moving figures grew to strange proportions—"the Germans!"—front of that frightful avalanche. A few hundred yards away they pulled down to a walk, and slowly, peering sharply out from under their helmets, entered the silent street. Another moment and the leader was alongside, and we found ourselves looking up ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... fifty thousand are positively either captured and held in the various zareebas (or camps) or are sent via the White Nile and the various routes overland by Darfur and Kordofan. The loss of life attendant upon the capture and subsequent treatment of the slaves is frightful. The result of this forced emigration, combined with the insecurity of life and property, is the withdrawal of the population from the infested districts. The natives have the option of submission ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... a most frightful storm one night and Rosalie, in Anna's bed with Flora crowded in also and Hilda shivering in her nightgown beside them, too young to be frightened but with her sister's fright beginning to communicate itself to her, said, "Ask father to go ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... a frightful noise last night soon after I went to bed," said Mrs. Bickford, at the breakfast table. "Didn't ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... leave your beautiful native land, and go into Italy to serve a prince (Murat) to whose enjoyment you had once ministered in Paris. You followed your king into Russia. But alas, by a deplorable fatality, you perished miserably, your feet and body frozen by the frightful climate of the north. Arrived at Vilna, your generous prince lavished gold to save you, but in vain. O great Guipiere, receive the public homage of a faithful disciple. Regardless of those who envied you, I wish to associate your name with my labors. I bequeath ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... the soul, fury raged uncontrolled. For all the desolate calm of outer seeming, the tragedy of her fate was being acted with frightful vividness there in memory. In that dreadful remembrance, her spirit was rent asunder anew by realization of that which had become her portion.... It was then, as once again the horrible injustice of her fate racked consciousness with its tortures, that the seeds of revolt were implanted in her ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... not particularly different from that of the better American Indians in our colonial period, [6] though possessing a much larger ability to learn. The "two terrible centuries" which brought these new peoples into the Empire were marked by unspeakable disorder and frightful destruction. It was the most complete catastrophe that had ever ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... and another whale was following after him. Atkinson said they were at play, and that that lesser whale loved that bigger whale, and kept it company all through the wide seas: but I thought it strange play, and a frightful kind of love; for I every minute expected they would come up to our ship and toss it. But Atkinson said a whale was a gentle creature, and it was a sort of sea-elephant, and that the most powerful creatures in nature are always the least hurtful. And he told me how men went out to take these whales, ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... were well trained. Their pen was spacious, and a terror to the slaves. They were let loose on a runway, and, if they tracked him, they literally tore the flesh from his bones. When this slaveholder died, his shrieks and groans were so frightful that they appalled his own friends. His last words were, "I am going to hell; bury ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... canvas had gone out of her now, and nothing but the bare yards were left aloft. How they ever stood the frightful strain was a miracle and spoke volumes for the Yankee riggers who fitted her out. The wind bore more and more abeam, and under the pressure she heeled over, letting the great load on her decks roar off in a torrent ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... secondarily with tariffs. I believe Sir Henry knows that most people regard a tariff as a very oblique way of reaching the pocket. People compute tariffs and argue about them. Only the farmers can make them into frightful realities. Nobody understands a tariff anyway when it comes to the schedule. Its chief use is ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... forest and the water. Finding no tree upon the shore, we sank the end of our oars into the sand, in order to form poles for our tents. Every thing remained quiet till eleven at night, when suddenly there arose, in the neighbouring forest, a noise so frightful that it became impossible to shut our eyes. Amidst the voice of so many savage animals, which all roared or cried at once, our Indians could only distinguish the howling of the jaguar, the yell of the tiger, the roar of the cougar, or American lion, and the screams of some birds of prey. When ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Titianesque in gorgeousness, and his pictures of shadows, abstractions, and all fantastic forms, are so forcible as to seem to start from the canvas. In painting the beautiful, his verse becomes careless and flowing as a loosened zone; in painting the frightful and the infernal, his language, like his feeling, seems to curdle and stiffen in horror, as where, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... be an ethnological impossibility; for the smallest trace of negro blood would inevitably drag down the superior race to the level of the inferior, and reduce the fair Southland, already devastated by the hand of the invader, to the frightful level of Hayti, the awful example of negro incapacity. To forefend their beloved land, now doubly sanctified by the blood of her devoted sons who had fallen in the struggle to maintain her liberties and preserve her property, it behooved every true Southron to stand firm against ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the organizers of the Federated Socialist Republics of Europe and Asia. One is nationality, language, custom and tradition, together with the ancient antagonisms which have been so carefully nurtured through the centuries. The other is the frightful economic disorganization prevalent throughout Central Europe,—a disorganization which would be increased rather than diminished by the establishment of new forms of economic life. Even if such an organization were perfected, it must ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... reproaches he parried with the defence that he had no money to pay omnibus fares, and could not even write often because of the expense of postage; while anent the muslin, he stated that he possessed it before his failure, as La Touche and he had nailed it up to hide the frightful paper on the walls of the printing-office. Uncrushed by the scathing comments on his attempts at decoration, curious though characteristic efforts on the part of a starving man, he writes to his sister a few days later: "Ah, Laure, if you did but know how passionately ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... them. Gathering such a force of fighting men as he could, he hastened from the city and with all possible speed threw up a line of rude earthworks, and waited to be attacked. This line the British under General Pakenham attacked on January 8, 1815, and were twice driven back with frightful loss of life. Never had such a defeat been inflicted on a British army. The loss in killed, wounded, and missing was 2036 men. Jackson lost seventy-one men. Five British regiments which entered the battle 3000 strong reported 1750 men ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... broken by strange dreams, frightful or preposterous, which, running into each other, became blended in a confused mass of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... crazy love of a wretched madman. He could not even repay her the miserable money which had cost her so dear. Out of his dreams of fortune there was not so much as a handful of coin left to give the girl who had given all she had, who had sold her hair to save his honour. With frightful vividness the truth came over him. That honour of his, he had pledged it in the recklessness of his madness. She had saved it out of love, and he had not even—but no—there was a new memory there—love he had for her, passionate, tender, true, a love ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... appreciated the horse, for he had stained only his face, but this had been made quite as frightful as that of the Indian. The pony was of a bright cream color, slender, and with a perfect head and small ears, and one could see that he was quick and agile in every movement. He was well groomed, too. The long, heavy mane had been parted from ears to withers, and then ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... were frightful as he dashed hither and thither, dealing terrific blows with his giant weapon, or sinking his yellow fangs into the flesh of some luckless victim. And during it the priestess stood with poised knife above Tarzan, her eyes fixed in horror upon the maniacal thing ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... that fellow had given us our answer before he went away," Tom said to Peter when they were alone. "I hope he won't bring any prisoners up here; these massacres are frightful, and one side seems as bad as the other. Well, in another month we shall have finished with all this work, and be making for the frontier again. Shan't I be glad when we catch sight ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... would soon relax there; while fingers are thawed, hearts are melted by that fire—warm and kind affections are drawn out—sparkles of wit fly about the room, as if in emulation of the good hickory: it is a chimney corner most provocative of ancient legends, of frightful ghost-stories, of tales of knight-errantry and romantic love, of dangers and of hair-breadth escapes; in short, of all that can draw both old and young away from their every-day cares, into the brighter world of fiction and poesy. In the recess on one side is a small library, comfortable ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... things they said, but I am sure your ears must have burned from the compliments they paid you, at least those who have had the good-luck to catch a glimpse of your face. They all agreed that Ernest was a frightful ogre, who ought to be put in a boiling cauldron, for immuring you so closely,—I am going to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... think, the man was the more frightened. But the girl, uttering a frightful shriek, ran out of the room as though pursued by a demon. As she did so whoever had been moving behind the curtain evidently went away. The shadow disappeared, and Adderley, still staring as if hypnotized ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... sending Darke away? He regrets having done it. Better his head to have been crushed or cleft by a tomahawk, killing him at once, than torn while still alive, gnawed, mumbled over, by those frightful fangs threatening so near! The thought stifles reflection. It is of itself excruciating torture. He cannot bear it much longer. No man could, however strong, however firm his faith in the Almighty. Even yet he has not ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... full of strained invective and scandal, which Rochester had made against the former maids of honour. This severe and cutting lampoon was principally levelled against Miss Price, whose person he took to pieces in the most frightful and hideous manner imaginable. Miss Hobart had substituted the name of Temple instead of Price, which she made to agree both with the measure and tune of the song. This effectually answered Hobart's intentions: ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... there came a Man to lodge at our Lodgings that was troubled with fits. ROBERT was so much hurt to see this poor creature drawn into such frightful forms, and to hear his horrid screams, that I was forced to leave the Lodging. We went to Blue Hart-court, Bell-alley. In our new Garret we found a singular character, James Kay, a native of Dundee. He was a middle-aged man, of a good understanding, ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... taken unawares and to have such conundrums volleyed at you in a strange tongue is apt to be rather exhausting. However I have a reputation to live up to and must be as frightful as possible. I find the best thing to do is to refer them to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... admiring him, for though not a warrior who would snap his bill over the head of an enemy of his home, he had a gallant holiday air with his blue coat and merry song, and you felt sure his little brown mate would get cheer and courage enough from his presence to make family dangers appear less frightful." ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a frightful grin. 'This is a pollis case, is it? You're a-going to bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... face growing red as at a frightful faux pas, but his lordship only laughed, called me his "little nun," and said that since I had been willing to leave the choice to him he would suggest Egypt and Italy, and Berlin and Paris on the way back, ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... of the depot the train swept in. I gave the horses the whip, looked, and saw the boys close behind me. Nothing but the sharpest of turns saved me from a severe accident. As it was, I heard two hard thumps upon the wooden wall, and two frightful howls, and saw both my nephews mixed up on the platform, while the driver of the stage growled in my ear, "What in thunder did you let 'em hitch that goat ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dragged themselves away upon leaden feet, yet—apparent paradox—with frightful rapidity; for I now no longer had a household to attend to my wants; my meals were brought to me with unfailing regularity by my guards, but they had apparently been forbidden to communicate with me, for not a word could I get out of them, good, bad, or indifferent. I was not ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a single step toward ensuring the maintenance of his successors."[12128] In 1809, adds the same diplomat:[12129] "His death will be the signal for a new and frightful upheaval; so many divided elements all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by former subjects; new princes will have new crowns to defend. A veritable civil war will rage for half a century over the vast empire of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of the ecclesiastics had been very ancient in England, as well as in most other European kingdoms; and as this topic was now become popular every where, it had paved the way for the Lutheran tenets, and reconciled the people, in some measure, to the frightful idea of heresy and innovation. The commons, finding the occasion favorable, passed several bills restraining the impositions of the clergy; one for the regulating of mortuaries; another against the exactions for the probates of wills; [**] a third against non-residence and pluralities, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Ross Cox, in the relation of his travels across the Rocky Mountains, says, "that the Upper Crees, a tribe who inhabit the country in the vicinity of the Athabasca river, have a curious tradition with respect to these animals They allege 'that these animals were of frightful magnitude, that they formerly lived in the plains, a great distance in the south, where they had destroyed all the game, after which they retired to the mountains. They killed everything, and if their agility had been equal to their size and ferocity, they would have ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... skirt across a tuft of smoldering grass and set herself afire. With the excitement of watching all points at once, and with the smoke and smell of fire all about her, she did not see what had happened, and must have paid a frightful penalty if Kent had not, at that moment, been running past her to reach a point where a blaze had ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... Poor, needy, starved. Perhaps derived from the Russian Tchernoe (black, dirty, wretched); or from the Hungarian Csunya (hateful, frightful); whence the Chungalo of the Hungarian, and also of ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... costume. But he insisted that it would make the disappearance more plausible, more dramatic. Wouldn't tell me where we were going, either. Said it was a club house, so I thought of course there would be golf. But look at this hole! And I've had four days of it. Mosquitoes? Something frightful. That's why I've kept on the cap and bells. At first I put in the time working over one of the songs in the new piece. Wrote some ripping verses, too. They'll go strong. Best thing I've done. But after I had finished that job I ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... of the publications against the Constitution, a man is apt to imagine that he is perusing some ill-written tale or romance, which instead of natural and agreeable images, exhibits to the mind nothing but frightful and distorted shapes "Gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire''; discoloring and disfiguring whatever it represents, and transforming everything it touches into a monster. A sample of this is to be observed in ...
— The Federalist Papers
... of the place; he had passed it twenty times in his constitutionals on the bicycle; he had always dimly felt it was a place where something might occur. But it gave him quite a shiver to feel that the face of his frightful friend or enemy Smith might at any time have appeared over the garden bushes above. The gardener's account, unlike the curate's, was quite free from decorative adjectives, however many he may have uttered privately when writing ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... his side, his face expressionless. She felt that she had struck right at his life's vitality—that she had killed him. Yet it was not remorse that blinded her till the white road became a shimmering blur—it was a frightful personal pain which was hers and hers alone. Neither spoke. They passed a crowd of natives returning to the Bazaar. They salaamed, but Nehal Singh made no response, as was his wont. He did not seem to see ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... fits, as they are commonly called, which depends on the brain becoming irritated; and sometimes under this condition the child is either cut off suddenly, or the foundation of serious mischief to the brain is laid. The remedy, or rather the safeguard, against these frightful consequences is trifling, safe, and almost certain, and consists merely in lancing the gum covering the tooth which is making its making its way through. When teething is about it may be known by the spittle constantly driveling from the mouth and wetting ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... the sad experience of generous and delightful Gilead P. Beck, in "The Golden Butterfly": how, after "Fifine at the Fair," frightful symptoms set in, till in despair he took up "Red Cotton Nightcap Country," and fell for hours into a dull comatose misery. "His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was pushed in disorder about his head, his cheeks were flushed, his hands were trembling, the nerves in his face were ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... in: he wears a frightful mask, has red hair and a cloak of rough skins and carries a whip with many lashes.) What makes ye late to-night, ye young schemers? What was it delayed ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and sooner ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... and as the dazed Mexicans rushed for their guns only to find them gone, they thought that the whole Texan army was upon them. In another instant a new terror struck at their hearts. Their horses and mules, driven in a frightful stampede, suddenly rushed into the glade and they were now busy keeping themselves ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the blood streaming from his skinned head, and uttering a hideous howl. An old squaw, possibly his mother, stopped and looked back from the mountainsides she was climbing, threatening and lamenting. The frightful spectacle appalled the stout hearts of our men; but they did what humanity required, and quickly terminated the agonies of the gory savage. They were now masters of the camp, which was a pretty little recess in the mountain, ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... was two o'clock in the morning when we left the place and it had blown up cold during the rain, so that the streets were a glare of ice and our taxi was skidding horribly. When we got to Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue there came a frightful explosion; a gas main had taken fire and flames were shooting twenty feet into the air. I was terrified, for it made me think of Paris—the air raids, the night sirens, the long-distance cannon. Captain Herrick saw that I was quite hysterical and said that I mustn't think of going up to Eightieth ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... profit in that beautiful and unhappy land, although history is not wanting in examples to prove that violent reactions, any more than revolutions, are not elements with which to construct and consolidate. May God grant that from this frightful conflict may emerge a strong and respected monarchy, equally separated from all factions, and based upon a disciplined army as well as upon the general interests of the country,—a monarchy capable of rallying ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... this in an old Chanaanite idiom, which the Barbarians did not understand. They asked one another what she could be saying to them with those frightful gestures which accompanied her speech, and mounted round about her on the tables, beds, and sycamore boughs, they strove with open mouths and craned necks to grasp the vague stories hovering before their imaginations, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... Chanterie arrived almost dying, and with what an illness! She nursed him and saved his life. Then she tried to bring him to better sentiments and a decent life. After promising all that angel asked, the jacobin plunged back into frightful profligacy, and finally escaped the hands of justice only by again taking refuge with his wife, in whose care ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... mad, I wonder how our progress can be described? We fairly flew. So frightful was the speed with which we displaced the water, that a wave rose up on either side our bow and foamed aft in a series of three stiff, up-standing waves, while astern a great crested billow pursued us hungrily, as though at each moment it would fall aboard and destroy us. The Streak was pulsing ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... in his tone suggesting that he was even proud of the accomplishment. To me it was a frightful revelation, accounting entirely for what had puzzled and distressed me in his delusions already referred to. And now let me say that whilst it would have been on my part the most pitiful weakness (because the most foolish tearfulness of injuring a great ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... chosen one, and after some bargaining with the owner as to its price, she went to the cupboard in the wall to fetch the money. But what were her feelings when she perceived that every shelf lay empty and bare before her! For a moment she stood bewildered, then broke into such frightful ravings that Lucia ran to her in alarm; but as soon as she heard of the disappearance of the money she was heartily glad, and no longer feared that her father had come to any harm, but understood that he ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... attended by the Greegree men, or sorcerers, who, on account of the fantastic dress which they wear, form a most motley group; the Greegree men, trying to outvie each other in the hideous and fantastic style of their dress, and the more frightful they make themselves appear, the greater they believe is the effect of their sorcery. The principal festivals are those of circumcision and of funeral. Whenever former ceremony is performed, a vast concourse of people are attracted, from every part of the country, the operator being ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... shutting him alone with the dead. Save for his trembling self and his wife's painted eyes, the big room was lifeless. It was beyond the closed door that his imagination, now running beyond control, pictured the presence of his frightful guest—his own solitude, coming in ironical answer to his craving ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... trust thy Tick doleru, or however you spell it, is vanished, for I have frightful impressions of that Tick, and do altogether hate it, as an unpaid score, or the Tick of a Death Watch. I take it to be a species of Vitus's dance (I omit the Sanctity, writing to "one of the men called Friends"). I knew a young Lady who could dance no other, she danced thro' ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... look dissolved into a smile of giddy relief. He was expecting something quite frightful, and the clear wit of ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... buried by her shocked relatives. The ashes of Lord Garvington and Mother Cockleshell, recovered from the debris of the cottage, had also been disposed of with religious ceremonies, and Silver's broken body had been placed in an unwept grave. The frightful catastrophe which had resulted in the death of four people had been the talk of the United Kingdom for the ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... frightful extravagance as she paid away two of Miss Cobb's shillings for Bulwer's 'Caxtons;' but she felt also that to live through those three tedious hours without such aid would be a step on the road to a ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... and to throw water in his face, and he regained consciousness just as one of the carts was passing. It was drawn by four oxen, completely covered with black cloth, and attached to each horn was a lighted wax taper. Leading the oxen were two demons with such horrible, frightful faces that Sancho shut his eyes tightly after having got one glance of them. An old, worthy-looking man with a long, snow-white beard sat on a raised seat on the cart; and when he passed Don Quixote he said in a deep voice: "I am the sage Lirgandeo." And the cart ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... not come out of the room and Liddy was delighted. She had said she meant to put a stop to that; and so, indeed, she had,—for this time at least. The dear child had not strength enough to get out of bed, and moaned as if a heavy hand were clutching at his throat. In fact he was suffocating. It is frightful to think of! Was nobody coming ...
— Little Grandfather • Sophie May
... retribution. With a smothered grunt of discontent he gave Ramon a shove that sent him further, and rolled over into his place. Frank Hapgood began to slide—began to dream that he was falling down through a frightful place that had no bottom! The air whistled shrilly past his head. The black walls of the pit shot upward swiftly and he could see the faint light far up at the mouth of the shaft growing dimmer until it too went out! He tried to scream, but the wind caught the sound and carried it ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... barking of his dog alarmed him. He stepped to the door to see what he could discover, and instantly there was a report of several muskets, and he fell upon the floor of his hut pierced with bullets, and with a broken leg and arm. The Indians, surrounding the house, now with frightful yells rushed to the door. The mother, frantic with terror, her children screaming around her, and her husband groaning and weltering in his blood, barred the door and seized an axe. The savages, with their hatchets, soon ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... to scale, and which he wrongly hoped to descend when he should be weary of the position, by the same ladder by which he climbed; and her half-playful words assume a still more sinister import, as she depicts the whirling waters, the frightful rocky abyss, into which a moment's giddiness on his part, a touch from her, might precipitate him. She bids him cure the dizziness, ward off the danger, by kneeling, even crouching, at her feet; act the lover, though ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... miles further on, we passed the Little Falls. It was night when we came to them, but it being moonlight, we had an opportunity of seeing them to advantage. The crags are here stupendous—irregular and massive piles of rocks, from which spring the lofty pine and cedar, are heaped in frightful disorder on each other, and give the scene ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... belief of the Secretary be well founded or not, nothing can be more certain than the superiority of the Treasury notes to those of the mass of suspended banks, as they would have been after three years of the present war. It is frightful to think of the condition to which the currency would have been reduced at this time, if the Government had been guilty of the folly of conducting its immense operations in the suspended paper of irresponsible local ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... other nations: pretty girls and plain ones, bright girls and stupid ones, clever girls and silly ones, smart girls and dowdy girls. Though I will say, we've got a larger proportion of smart-looking, well-dressed girls than any other country. But then we make up for that by so many of us having frightful ya-ya voices and raw pronunciations. As for our wonderful cleverness, we have the assurance to talk about things we know nothing of, in such a way as to deceive some people for awhile. The girls of other nations haven't, and that's ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... this happened the wild beasts broke into exultant roars, particularly when the Wood-nymph indicated a cow or some other large creature. The animal that saw the torch turned toward it, uttered a frightful cry, as if it had received a knife thrust in its flesh. Herd upon herd followed, without a break in the line of procession. It ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... cave, also natural, running at right angles to it. I am sure it was a natural cave, and not hollowed by the hand of man, because of its irregular and contorted shape and course, which gave it the appearance of having been blown bodily in the mountain by some frightful eruption of gas following the line of the least resistance. All the caves hollowed by the ancients of Kor, on the contrary, were cut out with the most perfect regularity and symmetry. At the mouth of this cave Ayesha halted, ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... later than we had expected them. They came in "fiacres," and climbed off very easily. We inquired, "Where wounded?" "Belgrade." "When?" "Three months ago." Not a serious case amongst them, and we had heard that the badly equipped hospitals at Krusevatz were crowded with the most frightful cases. We were furious. A lot more wounded came to the "State" cafe. None seriously hurt, and after examination one man had no wound to show at all, nor shock, nor anything. He had simply run away. There were several hand cases, some blackened with powder, proving that the poor ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she— Beautiful exceedingly." Christabel, Part ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighboring Netherlands. Wherever the dancers appeared, the people assembled in crowds to gratify their curiosity with the frightful spectacle. At length the increasing number of the affected excited no less anxiety than the attention that was paid to them. In towns and villages they took possession of the religious houses, processions were everywhere instituted on their account, and masses were said and hymns were sung, while ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... travelled in France from 1787 to 1789, gives, in the twenty-first chapter of his Travels, a frightful account of the burdens of the rural population even at that late period. Besides the regular governmental taxes, and a multitude of heavy fines imposed for trifling offense, he enumerates about thirty ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... a proposition would have excited distrust; in America, and in that day, more especially among girls of the class of Kitty Huguenin, it produced none. Then, I flatter myself, I was not a very frightful object to a girl of that age, and that my countenance was not of such a cast as absolutely to alarm her. Kitty, accordingly, wished her companions hasty adieus, and in a minute she was placed between Marble and myself, the old vehicle being sufficiently ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... his guard, chatting of other things, while he packed. But no, she had caught him unawares when he sat as he was sitting now! Clo pictured her offering to help him pack. He had lolled comfortably while Kit worked. Then, she had come behind him and dealt that frightful blow with the butt of his own pistol. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Fusiliers, when Arthur Carlton, for it was he who led, appeared out of a cloud of dust and smoke close to the Battery. Leveling his pistol, he shot down one of the Seik gunners, the lintstock of the other was within a few inches of the vent. A second more and a frightful gap would have been made in the ranks ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... With strong hopes and high spirits that hid the sad parting, we had started on our long journey. And now we were checked so unexpectedly but surely, the blow coming from where we little expected it, being, as we believed, safe in that quarter. And that is why the simple words had such a frightful meaning to us. We had received a wound we knew not how ...
— From Plotzk to Boston • Mary Antin
... three people present who thought such an address to the Supreme Being blasphemous and frightful, but the rest of the crowd ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... clean muslin apron, large frilled, picturesque collar, and high mob-cap, was instructed to say "Not at home" to all comers. She was a country girl, not from Northbury, but from some still more rusticated spot, and she thought she was telling a frightful lie, and blushed and trembled while she uttered it. So apparent was her confusion that Miss Peters, when she and her sister, Mrs. Butler, appeared on the scene, rolled her eyes at the taller lady and asked her in a pronounced manner if it would not be well to drop a tract on the ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... the only untroubled pair I've heard of to-day. My husband's in a frightful temper because he didn't sell our land six months ago. He says we'll never sell it now, but I'm just as glad. Is the whole thing going to break up?" Mrs. Bowers swung her parasol ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... they had all shown in the arrow on the rock was driven out of them the next moment by a wild uproar at the other end of the ravine—the sound of a great crashing accompanied by a frightful bellow. Then there was another crash; the sound of rock striking against rock, a ripping, tearing, falling sound, a thud and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... their persons and properties safe, and their women-folk protected by an elaborate set of capitulations from being requisitioned for the harems of the invaders, small wonder if the mass of Chinese welcomed a firm administration after the frightful disorders which had torn the country during the last days of the Mings. [Footnote: This most interesting point—the immunity of Chinese women from forced marriage with Manchus—has been far too little ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... in his diary. Once he goes to the wedding of a maid of five years old—a curious thing, but not, evidently, an occasion of sensibility. Another time he stands by, in a French hospital, while a youth of less than nine years of age undergoes a frightful surgical operation "with extraordinary patience." "The use I made of it was to give Almighty God hearty thanks that I had not been subject to this deplorable infirmitie." This ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... him, lost in dismal and angry conjectures. At the door of the drawing-room he barred my way. "He loved her very much," he said interrogatively, and I only nodded, feeling so bitterly disappointed that I would not trust myself to speak. "Very frightful," he murmured. "She can't understand me. I am only a strange old man. Perhaps you . . . she knows you. Talk to her. We can't leave it like this. Tell her to forgive him. It was very frightful." "No doubt," I said, exasperated at being in the dark; "but have you forgiven him?" He looked ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... principle in religion; it concerns us all, it concerns young and old, rich and poor, all of whom are apt to consider it a valid reason for disregarding and speaking against a religious life, that it is so strict and distasteful. They shrink from religion as something gloomy, or frightful, or dull, or intrusive, or exorbitant. And, alas, sometimes it is attempted to lead them to religion by making it appear not difficult and severe. Severe truths are put aside, religion is made to consist in a worldly security, or again in a heated enthusiastic state of mind. But this is a deceit. ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... sudden seriousness.] Oh, Gerald! [Comes closer.] It was a frightful thing! I've hardly ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... Casas's suggestion, which was only one of many enumerated in his scheme. Had the project as he framed it been accepted in its entirety and loyally carried out, no increased injustice would have been done to the negroes, for it was the frightful mortality amongst the cruelly driven Indians that rapidly reduced the numbers of labourers and made gaps which could only be filled by the importation of others from elsewhere. Under a more humane system, the Indians ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... the regimental surgeon approached, and Sever called to him. They gently removed the clothing from the boy, and discovered that he had received a frightful wound in the side. They carefully and tenderly placed him on a litter borne by two Chinamen, and sent him to the town, some ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... Hercules, accustomed to wandering, arrived at the lake, which was thickly shaded by a wood. Into this wood a great flock of the birds had flown for fear of being robbed by wolves. The hero stood undecided when he saw the frightful crowd, not knowing how he could become master over so many enemies. Then he felt a light touch on his shoulder, and glancing behind him saw the tall figure of the goddess Minerva, who gave into his hands two mighty brass rattles made by Vulcan. ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... losses and sufferings, and by the death of a person on whom they relied chiefly for assistance, the surviving colonists determined to abandon the country, and embark on board the vessels then returning to England. The frightful pictures they drew of the country, and of the climate, deterred the company, for some time, from farther attempts to make a settlement, and their enterprizes were limited to voyages for the purposes of taking fish, and of trading with the natives for furs. One of these was made by ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... "priest in himself" contrives distress, death, the danger of life in pregnancy, every kind of misery, old age, weariness, and above all sickness,—nothing but expedients in the struggle against science! Distress does not permit man to think.... And nevertheless! frightful! the edifice of knowledge towers aloft, heaven-storming, dawning on the Gods,—what to do!—The old God contrives war, he separates the peoples, he brings it about that men mutually annihilate one another (the priests have always had need of war ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... prevailed. I saw that I was not going to bleed to death, so I called a couple of men to carry me back to the road away from the firing line. In doing this, one of them put his arms under my knees, and the pain in the wound soon became so frightful that I begged them to lay me down and let me die. They carried me to the road however, a short distance, and ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... endeavour to grasp the conquering right hand; and with wonder they behold the huge beast as he lies upon a large space of ground, and they do not deem it safe as yet to touch him; but yet they, each of them, stain their weapons with his blood. {Jason} himself, placing his foot upon it, presses his frightful head, and thus he says: "Receive, Nonacrian Nymph, the spoil that is my right; and let my glory be shared by thee." Immediately he gives her the skin as the spoil, thick with the stiffening bristles, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... death. So we come back to that singular sentence of Robert Louis Stevenson's, "The beauty and the terror of the world," which so adequately describes the double fascination of nature for man. Her spell is both sweet and terrible, and we would not have it otherwise The menace in summer's beauty, the frightful contrast between the laughing earth and the waiting death, are all felt in the prolonged and deep sense of gloom that broods over much of Fiona's work, and in the second-sight which very weirdly breaks through from time to time, forcing our entrance into ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... for me to do beside my share in the campaign to increase enlistments. Every day now the wards of the hospitals were filling up. Men suffering from frightful wounds came back to be mended and made as near whole as might be. And among them there was work for me, if ever the world held work for ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... said the other, 'I cannot help it. I never can remember those frightful names—without having your whole Soul and Being inspired by the sight of Nature; by the perfume,' said Mrs Skewton, rustling a handkerchief that was faint and sickly with essences, 'of ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Frightful were the sufferings endured by these martyrs. The cries of the children, as they writhed in agony, were heartrending, but Chadkin and his followers never wavered. At last, however, one of the sufferers, unable longer to face such tortures, managed to escape, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... that you suggest these reforms while you are yet prisoners on this island and in Coo-ee-oh's power. That these things should be done, there is no doubt, but just now a dreadful war is likely to break out, and frightful things may happen to us all. Our Queen has such conceit that she thinks she can overcome the Su-dic and his people, but it is said Su-dic's magic is very powerful, although not as great as that possessed by his wife Rora, before Coo-ee-oh ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... peering into the darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct, in-tense tone, the mere recollection of which makes me shudder,—"The sentence is being carried out even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the train is a frightful precipice of monstrous height, and at its base beats a fathomless sea. The railway ends only with the abyss, Over that will the train hurl itself into annihilation, There Is No One On The Engine!" At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and looked round ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... to the landing. While standing there I casually noticed a large wall tent at the side of the road, a few steps to my rear. It was closed up, and nobody stirring around it. Suddenly I heard, right over our heads, a frightful "s-s-wis-sh,"—and followed by a loud crash in this tent. Looking around, I saw a big, gaping hole in the wall of the tent, and on the other side got a glimpse of the cause of the disturbance—a big cannon ball ricochetting down the ridge, and hunting further mischief. And at the same ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... kingdom of Egypt. But when the sacred scribe saw this, [he was the person who foretold that his nativity would the dominion of that kingdom low,] he made a violent attempt to kill him; and crying out in a frightful manner, he said, "This, O king! this child is he of whom God foretold, that if we kill him we shall be in no danger; he himself affords an attestation to the prediction of the same thing, by his trampling upon thy government, and treading upon thy ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... across the mouth of the cave, waving its enormous head from side to side. Sicto, trembling with fear, retreated into the jungle, and as Piang saw him disappear, he longed to be out again, fighting Sicto, anything, rather than penned up in the cave with that frightful snake and the unknown horrors. There was no turning back, however, for that sentinel continued to slip and slide across the opening, and Piang bravely faced the two miles that lay between him and the other ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... again commenced, drowning the remainder of the sentence. Then came a shock that made the stately vessel reel throughout the whole of her massive fabric. There was a rending and grinding of timber, and a frightful crash on deck announced that one of the ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... went to the wizard's house to soothe his dying moments. With the night came storm, and with its outbreak the old man's face took on such a strange and horrible look that the watchers fell back in alarm. There was a burst of purple flame at the window, a frightful peal, a smell of sulphur, and Woolcott was dead. When the watchers went out the roads were dry, and none in the village had heard wind, rain, or thunder. It was the coming ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... Empire. The first effect of the King's illness was to create a new tie of sympathy between himself and his subjects. Human suffering borne so patiently during that week of concealed sickness and with such earnest determination to go through what must have come to appear the frightful ordeal of the Coronation appealed strongly to people everywhere in the Empire, while the externally dramatic passage from preparations for the greatest of national festivities down into the valley of the shadow of death came ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... here last autumn is situated in a still more cheerless spot than Fort Chimo, being surrounded by rugged hills, whose sides are covered with the debris of rock, which appears to have been detached from the hills by the process of decay. The post stands at the foot of one of those frightful hills, while another rises immediately in front; the intervening valleys, or cavities, present nothing to enliven the scene, save a few stunted pines, and here and there a patch ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... that its immediate conquest were possible—would demand many years and large disbursements. The path to glory did not lie in this direction. In Europe, as Henry Adams observes, "war could be made to support war; in Santo Domingo peace alone could but slowly repair some part of this frightful waste." ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... time since I entered the cave I realized the frightful danger in which I stood. My mind had been strung so high by the ritual that I had forgotten all else. Now came the rebound, and with shaky nerves I had to face discovery and certain punishment. In that moment I suffered the worst terror ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... these methods for beautifying a churchyard may be adopted. Shrubs and flowers on and near the graves, as is so universal in Wales; independently of their pretty effect, show a kindly feeling for the memory of those whose bodies rest beneath them; and how far to be preferred to those enormous and frightful masses of brick or stone which the country mason has, alas, so ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... frightful journey by Cradle Mountain, and over the lofty plateau of Middlesex Plains, the travelers experienced unwonted misery, and the circumstances called forth the best qualities of the noble little band. Mr. Robinson wrote afterwards to Mr. Secretary Burnett some details ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... time he ever saw you, was when you had that frightful cold, and looked hideous, with your poor dear nose twice its size, and your eyes half theirs. But—well, Betty, you're a beauty, and I'm not, though I do flatter myself I'm not bad looking. I'm 'penny plain,' and you're 'tuppence coloured'; and the Mantell man can ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... guilt-burdened man is in dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mirror-rising (like the mocking mirrors of mirage in Arabian deserts) from the fens of death—most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, bishop, that you also, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... that these things scared them away; but, in my poor judgment, when Martinmas and Whitsuntide came round without a penny-fee, the old blue-bottles of serving-men began to think of creeping elsewhere before the frost chilled them.—No devil so frightful as that which dances in the pocket where there is no cross to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... procuring abortion—the woman having died. The doctor is a Yankee, and the Finance Minister tells me that this is a common practice in the States, and carried on to an alarming extent, even amongst respectable people, and, that this, and similar, frightful practices are the cause of the degeneracy of much of the American race. He says the Canadian Government have determined to stop it in Canada, in the outset, by hanging this doctor and his employer, and so deterring the ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... with yellow crosses. Round the walls were reliefs of the fourteen stations of the Cross in white plaster on a gilt ground framed in grey marble. From the roof hung vulgar glass chandeliers with ropes tied with faded pink ribands. Several frightful plaster statues daubed with scarlet and chocolate brown stood under the windows, which were protected with brown woollen curtains. Close to the entrance were a receptacle for holy water in the form of ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Indians out of the group and dragged him forward to the edge of the cliff. The king raised his hand as a signal. They caught the man by his leg and arm, and swung him three times backwards and forwards with tremendous violence. Then, with a frightful heave they shot the poor wretch over the precipice. With such force did they throw him that he curved high in the air before beginning to drop. As he vanished from sight, the whole assembly, except the guards, rushed forward to the edge of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... It seemed to us, that all this was a dream, a frightful illusion, that clung to our hearts, to our souls; and yet, without a tear, without a complaint, we ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies |
