"Aghast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would break his back. determined to drown the straw. Mrs. Ginx, clinging to No. Twelve, listened aghast. The stream of her affections, though divided into twelve rills, would not have been exhausted in twenty-four, and her soul, forecasting its sorrows, yearned after that nonentity Number Thirteen. Ginx sought ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a pause. Crane thoughtfully relighted his cigar, and wrapped his right cheek round it. The captain glared glassily at Lanyard. Mr. Sherry looked, if possible, more uncomfortable than ever. Lanyard pondered, aghast. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... / and Siegfried stood aghast From fear that this same hour / was doomed to be his last, So mightily the Porter's / blows about him fell. To find such faithful warder / did please his ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... Helen was aghast at the enormous result of her few minutes' irritability. Such outbursts were not common with her. There was a catch in her voice as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... with lofty anger, "I do not know what you mean! I never felt in the least inclined." Then seeing my brethren look rather aghast at this sudden change in the wind, I add gayly: "Bobby, you must never again breathe a word about Sir Roger's having been at school with father; let it be supposed that ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the house, he met Peter de Groodt coming out of it. The old man started back aghast, doubting whether it was not a ghost that stood before him. It being bright daylight, however, Peter soon plucked up heart, satisfied that no ghost dare show his face in such clear sunshine. Dolph now learned from the worthy sexton the consternation and rumour to which ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... chronometer was just coming into general use. So little was it depended upon that the Pilgrim carried only one, and that one, going wrong at the outset, was never used again. A navigator of the present would be aghast if asked to voyage for two years, from Boston, around the Horn to California, and back again, without a chronometer. In those days such a proceeding was a matter of course, for those were the days ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... it and caught it; every time he threw, He caught it nearer to the point. At last The fish was near enough to touch. He paused. Eunice knew well the craft—"What's got the thing!" She cried. "What can have caused— Where is his net? The moment will be past. The fish will wriggle free." She stopped aghast. He turned and bowed. One arm was ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... navy was more than a match for them upon the water. We had gained some credit, which we were sorely in need of after the American business; and a few Colonies, which were welcome also for the same reason; but our debt had gone on rising and our consols sinking, until even Pitt stood aghast. Still, if we had known that there never could be peace between Napoleon and ourselves, and that this was only the end of a round and not of the battle, we should have been better advised had we fought it out without a break. As it was, the French got back the twenty ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Both her auditors stood aghast, for she uttered this conclusion with a dignity of which the opening gave no promise, and the occasion, weighed in masculine ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... from the nerveless grasp of young Moseley. Emily sank in insensibility by the side of her preserver. Mrs. Wilson and Jane stood speechless and aghast. The colonel alone retained the presence of mind necessary to devise the steps to be immediately taken. He sprang to the examination of Denbigh; the eyes of the wounded man were open, and his recollection perfect: the first were fixed in intense observation on the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... the soul of Ajax fill'd With fear; aghast he stood; his sev'nfold shield He threw behind his back, and, trembling, gaz'd Upon the crowd; then, like some beast of prey, Foot slowly following foot, reluctant turn'd. As when the rustic youths and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the earliest buttons on that narrow back of checked gingham, and swiftly the girl completed the process to her waist. Then the waist was off her meagre shoulders and she stepped from the hated garment. The Wilbur twin was aghast at her downright methods. He had a feeling that she should have retired for this change. How was he to know that an emergency had lifted her above prejudices sacred to the meaner souled? But now he raised a new objection, for beneath her gown the girl had been still abundantly ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... harm'—returned the traveller boldly, 'and have said none that I know of. I ask a few questions—as any stranger may, and not unnaturally—about the inmates of a remarkable house in a neighbourhood which is new to me, and you are as aghast and disturbed as if I were talking treason against King George. Perhaps you can tell me why, sir, for (as I say) I am a stranger, and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... into her mind. She wondered it had never struck her before to doubt her friend's patriotism. Nearly distracted with the dreadful discovery, she hurried away to find Winifrede, and, showing her the paper, poured out her story. Winifrede listened aghast. ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... more of this business than the babe unborn, sir," cried the major, aghast. "No more than Lady ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the tree besprinkled with his blood Were dyed black. The root also, bestained as it stood A deep dark purple colour, straight upon the berries cast, Anon scarce ridded of her fear with which she was aghast, For doubt of disappointing him comes Thisbe forth in haste, And for her lover looks about, rejoicing for to tell How hardly she had 'scaped that night the danger that befell. And as she knew right well the place and fashion of the tree (As which ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... up, and in one moment rushed back upon me the remembrance of his words that day in the boat, and I stood aghast at the new trouble that seemed to rise before me. My voice must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... He was aghast at his own folly. It was incredible that he should have allowed himself to drift into such an awkward situation. They might not be missed until after the steamer sailed, in which case it was quite possible that the erratic captain would refuse ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... sat aghast, not knowing but that the gods, to punish her pride and ambition, had sent a spectre to confront her. But being of strong mind and but little given to superstitious terrors, she instantly reasoned out the facts of his simultaneous captivity with herself and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... collector who, stealing the money, yet left the case. The new method was incomparably more subtle than the old: it afforded an opportunity of a hitherto unimagined delicacy; the wielders of the scissors were aghast at a skill which put their own clumsiness to shame, and which to a previous generation would have seemed the wildest fantasy. Yet so strong is habit, that even when the picking of pockets was a recognised industry, the superfluous scissors still ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... curse, from Cambria's tears!" Such were the sounds that o'er the crested pride Of the first Edward scatter'd wild dismay, 10 As down the steep of Snowdon's shaggy side He wound with toilsome march his long array. Stout Gloster stood aghast in speechless trance: "To arms!" cried Mortimer, and couch'd ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... in the town looked at each other aghast, believing the enemies outside had neglected or perhaps betrayed them. General doubt and misunderstanding reigned in both camps. While they were debating what plan they must now adopt, the sharp-witted watchman had time ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... this lady saif, And her gat-es all locked fast, He fell into a rage of wrath, And his look was all aghast. ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... the same time those upon the roofs also discharged a blinding volley. The Spaniards waited until the foremost column was within fire, and then, with a general discharge of artillery, swept the ranks of their assailants, mowing them down by hundreds. The Mexicans for a moment stood aghast, but soon rallying swept boldly forward over the prostrate bodies of their comrades: a second and third volley checked them and threw their ranks into disorder, but still they pressed on, letting off ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... such as no practice in prose themes can ever give. If you are disappointed of these results it will not be the fault of this long-proved method of teaching, but of my own inability to carry it out. Indeed I cannot too strongly confess my own ignorance or fear my own inability. I stand aghast when I compare my means and my idea, but I believe that "by teaching thou shalt learn," is a rule of which I too shall take the benefit, and having begun these lectures in the name of Him who is The Word, and with the firm intention of asserting throughout His claims as ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... and dropped him like a brick. His nose was flattened right over his cheek-bone. Fortunately that happened on the Yale side of the field. If it had happened on the Harvard side, there would have been a riot. There was some noise when that blow was delivered; the whole crowd in the stand stood aghast and held its breath. So Harvard laid for Murphy and in about two plays they got him. How they got him we never knew, but suddenly it was apparent that Murphy was gone. The trainer finally helped Murphy up and the captain of the team told him in which direction his goal was. He would break through ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... land, no! you don't want that!" cried the little milliner, aghast. "That's only common doin's, anyhow; and it's been in that box three years. Them shapes ain't ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... at him aghast; and then suddenly came a startling interruption—one that fairly made their blood ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... unutterable horror of what he had seen, Terry watched the waters become quiet again, but turned away, aghast, when bubbles rose like tiny silver globes against the jet depths. When he turned back there were no ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... their country. At nine o'clock the club was in St. Peter's fields, and a kind of platform had been erected, from which an address was to be given. Caillaud and the Major were down below. Both of them were aghast at what they saw. Thousands of men were present with whom they were unacquainted, who had been attracted by Ogden's proclamation; some with coats; others without coats; some with sticks; some with petitions; but most of them with blankets, which ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... to my cousin Fitzjocelyn last night,' said Isabel, with such calmness, that the old gentleman fairly stood with his mouth open, looking at her aghast. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... danced like this, she danced like that, The bishop looked aghast; He could not see her mazy skirts, They switched around ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... then for purely military efficiency. When we recall that spiritual heritage, as previously described, when we think of Schiller, Herder and Goethe, Froebel, Herbart and Richter, Tauler, Luther and Schleiermacher, Kant, Fichte and Schopenhauer, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, we stand aghast at the way in which she has plunged it all into the abyss,—for what? Shall it profit a people, more than a man, if it gain the whole world and ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... while all those who witnessed this phenomenon stood aghast, then there arose that babel of voices which had reached the ears of Otter as he lurked under the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the phantoms of the Past, The cherished fictions of my boyhood, rise: I see Red Ridinghood observe, aghast, The fixed expression of her grandam's eyes; I hear the fiendish chattering and chuckling Which those misguided fowls ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... the sunny-souled Senior, aghast. "I haven't twanged my ole banjo and held forth with a saengerfest for a coon's age! I surely can do so now without arousing Butch to wrath. Thor has awakened, Hamilton is walloped, and Bannister will surely win the Championship! Everything is happy, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... dormitory-boys were aghast, and as soon as they heard the doctor's retreating footsteps, began flocking in the dark to No. 7, not daring to ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... calm down his excitement and impatience, but it was because of a new fear that had struck him, and that was visible in his face. "Do you think she will never come back, Ingram?" he said, looking aghast. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... Aghast the owner gazed around, And on the rude invader frowned, Convinced, as closer still he pressed, There was no room for such a guest; Yet more astonished, heard him say, "If thou art troubled, go away, For in this ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... Convention is on the verge of dissolution, scarcely held together by the strength of a hair." Well has it been said: "In even the contemplation of the fearful consequence of such a calamity, the imagination stands aghast." ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... old woman, aghast. "La! miss, you must not talk in that way,—it's quite wicked and heathenish! One must not marry ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saw this ladye fair. And her yetts all lockit fast, He fell into a rage of wrath, And his heart was all aghast. ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... ago, in the newspapers, a brief table of such causes, purporting to come from an army surgeon who examined each recruit on the subject. It was funny, and so startling withal, that while some laughed or stood aghast, others hardly knew which to admire most, the doctor's eccentricity, or his fertile fancy. We know not if in the world's vast library there is any reliable exhibition of such causes. Sir Walter Scott's imaginary Clutterbuck, after ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... He stood aghast. Then he heard a door open, and steps on the stair. Merciful heaven, the girl must not find him here. What WOULD she think? He skipped back into the pantry, and shrank into a corner. He heard the footfalls reach the bottom of the stairs. There was ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... the coat the tailor stood aghast. There was apparently the same man he had measured twenty-eight days previously standing before him in perfect health, but as to dimensions not at all ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... were unusually noisy, we had cautioned them in vain to be quiet, and finally I ordered them all to leave the library. They were simply aghast for they were to have a test in history the following day and the material could only be procured from our reference shelves. I was aware of this at the time but felt drastic measures must be taken to show them that ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... first to leap to the terrace with a torch, and stood for a moment aghast as he saw the deadly struggle going on, close to the slight wooden railing which ran along the edge of the terrace; then he sprang forward, and just as the struggling foes crashed through the woodwork, and were in the very act of falling over the low stone parapet, he dashed the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... open, and Herne, in his wild garb, with his antlered helm upon his brow, and the rusty chain depending from his left arm, stood before them. His appearance was so terrific and unearthly that they all shrank aghast, and Mat Bee fell with his face on ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... soft night-air over us. Above us shine the peaceful, patient stars. The crash of a new eruption wakes us, the roar of the subterranean thunders, the stabs of the volcanic lightning into the shrouded bosom of the sky; and we see, aghast, the tortured Titan hurling up its fires among the pale stars, its great tree of smoke and cloud, the red torrents pouring down its sides. The roar and the shriekings of Civil War are all around ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of the room stood aghast. Even the clerk was so startled that he let a blot fall upon his paper. Two millions! The magistrate was evidently reflecting. "Hum!" he murmured, meditatively. Then, as if deciding on his course, ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... brilliant thought occurred to him which caused him to ring for a messenger-boy with such a show of impatience that Rawles stood aghast. The telegram which Monty wrote was ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... drove up to the door, where the old butler stood ready to receive his young lady and her bridegroom. The moment the carriage-door was opened, the bridegroom jumped out and walked away. When his bride alighted, the old servant was aghast. She came up the steps with the listless gait of despair. Her face and movements expressed such utter horror and desolation, that the old butler longed to offer his arm to the lonely young creature, as an assurance of sympathy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... supply of which was always kept there. A coarse bouncing full-figured young woman, with frizzly black hair, paused, with her foot on the treadle of her machine, to stare at the newcomer. Mrs. Belcovitch, attired in a skirt and a night-cap, stopped aghast in the act of combing out her wig, which hung over an edge of the back of a chair, that served as a barber's block. Like the apple-woman, she fancied the apparition a lady philanthropist—and though she had long ceased to take charity, the old instincts ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the short distance to the two-story building which comprised Tom's workshop and living quarters. The entire ground floor was taken up by the laboratory, and Old Crompton stared aghast at the wealth of equipment it contained. Furnaces there were, and retorts that reminded him of those pictured in the wood cuts in some of his musty books. Then there were complicated machines with many levers and dials mounted on their faces, and with huge glass bulbs of peculiar ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... with her arrival had come an order from Ames to apprehend the girl as a disturber of the peace. The hush of death lay over Avon, and even the soldiers now stood aghast at their own bloody work of the day before. Carmen had avoided the main thoroughfares, and had made her way unrecognized. At a distance she saw the town jail, heavily guarded. Its capacity had been sorely taxed, and many of the prisoners ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... on the Eastern side of the pass, while the soldiers, aghast, remained watching us from above, themselves a most picturesque sight as they stood among the Obos against the sky-line, with the sunlight shining on their jewelled swords and the gay red flags of their matchlocks, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... judgments seal the dead past with its dead But never bind a moment yet to come. Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep; I lend my arm to all who say "I can!" No shamefaced outcast ever sank so deep But yet might rise and be again a man. Dost thou behold thy lost youth all aghast? Dost reel from righteous retribution's blow? Then turn from blotted archives of the past And find the future's pages white as snow. Art thou a mourner? Rouse thee from thy spell! Art thou a sinner? Sins may be forgiven! Each morning gives thee wings to flee from hell, Each night ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... enough of that. Though it was only Fancying made me see it, it was enough: I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast, Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... you, for, really, if it is true it would make one shudder. He said that it was (whispering in her ear) the Antichrist! It makes one feel aghast, does it not! They sell his photograph; he has a satanic look. (Looking at the clock.) Half-past two—I must run away; I have given no orders about dinner. These three fast-days in the week are to me martyrdom. One must have a little variety; my husband is very fastidious. If we did ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... I've thought of that too. Well, I mean to go to some of the shipping offices, and see if they'll give me a post on a South African liner as assistant stewardess. Don't look so frightfully aghast! It's work I could do very well, though it wouldn't be pleasant. I've travelled so much about the world that I'm absolutely at home on board ship. I know all the ins and outs of voyaging, and I'm a splendid sailor, never seasick in the least. I could make myself most uncommonly useful. ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... all he had to tell of what he had seen and heard since he had been at Chartley. His adventures in London had already been made known by Diccon. Mr. Talbot was aghast, perhaps most of all at finding that his cousin Cuthbert was a double traitor. From the Roman Catholic point of view, there had been no treason in his former machinations on behalf of Mary, if she were in his eyes his rightful sovereign, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ceaseless to the eternal Gods, in hope That Jove, for retribution of the wrong, Shall doom you, where ye have intruded, there To bleed, and of your blood ask no account.[5] 480 He ended, and each gnaw'd his lip, aghast At his undaunted hardiness of speech. Then thus Antinoues spake, Eupithes' son. Telemachus! the Gods, methinks, themselves Teach thee sublimity, and to pronounce Thy matter fearless. Ah forbid it, Jove! That one so eloquent should with the weight Of kingly cares in Ithaca be charged, A realm, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... boyhood near Senlis, there was captured an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these words engraved on the collar: 'Caesar mihi hoc donavit.' It is no wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and they stood aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten ages, and following an antiquity with hound and horn. And even for you, it is scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder how many centuries this ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man was really aghast. What had he brought on poor little Patty! He didn't excuse himself with the thought that it was Patty's doing, not his, that Azalea was there at all, but he felt personally to blame for having such a relative ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... having been fully seven feet high, and powerful in proportion, who kept very quiet, but who, on being chaffed as the giant escaped from Barnum's Museum, grew angry, and ended by clearing out the barroom—driving thirty men before him like flies. Aghast at such a tremendous feat, one who remained, asked, "Who in God's wrath are ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... The Geheimraethe were aghast. Twenty thousand, nay, even forty thousand, gulden they would pay, but two hundred thousand! This vast sum to be wrung out of the war-impoverished land! Impossible! Besides, it was as much as the marriage-portion of six ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... Vi, who was gently feeling the top of the tiny head, and she looked aghast at her father, "O, papa, its ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... Esquire, Commander, too, in chief, And hence he gained his bread and hence his beef: But sir, you might have searched creation round, And such another ruffian not have found Though unprovoked an angry face he bore,— All were astonished at the oaths he swore He swore, till every prisoner stood aghast, And thought him Satan in a brimstone blast He wished us banished from the public light; He wished us shrouded ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... sanction!" I retorted, somewhat aghast at the idea of having paved a broad and easy path for the way ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... alike; they are made to be trodden on. Ill-usage brings out their good points—just as kneading makes dough light. Let them alone, or pamper them, and they spread like a weed, and choke you"—and he quoted a saying about going to women and not forgetting the whip, at which Maurice stood aghast. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... was aghast. Never had he seen his mother and sister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he was American, not German, in his feeling about this. Without ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... man who knows right well the gait he should gang, and prays fervently to be permitted to follow it, but sometimes stumbles in the ditch? Monday, oh Monday; I must be at Edinburgh and face them all! Tis that dauntons me." His eyes seemed to swim in blood, as he looked at me, or through me, aghast at the horror of his situation, and sweat stood in blobs upon his brow. "That," he went on, "weighs me down like lead. Here about me my people know me, and may palliate the mistake of a day by the recollection of a lifetime's honour. I blame ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... against the battles for which the beleaguered city waited—waited heartsick and aghast or lifted and fevered, as the case might be. On the whole, the tragic mask was not worn; the city determinedly smiled. The three floors of the warehouse, roughly divided into wards, smelled of strong soap and water ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... in Venus' fetters, sings of another love, warmer and more passionate, but sensual. And when the others remonstrate, he loudly praises Venus, the goddess of heathen love. All stand aghast, they recognize now, where he has been so long, he is about to be put to death, when Elizabeth prays for him. She loves him dearly and hopes to save his soul from eternal perdition. Tannhaeuser is to join a party of pilgrims on their way to Rome, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... "Oh, no," cried Helen aghast. "Both the Misses Armstrong have been very kind and Mrs. Armstrong is delightful—but, of course, I get homesick." She stopped suddenly for that was a subject upon which she dared ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... was given a while surveyed With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40 Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, A gloomy consistory; and them amidst, With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:— "O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World (For much more willingly I mention Air, This our old conquest, than remember Hell, Our hated habitation), well ye know How many ages, as the years of men, This Universe we have possessed, ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... looked aghast. "Surely, Captain Rogers, you do not mean to say you insist on my landing, whether I like it or not, and would compel me and my delicate wife and those fair young creatures to march thirty miles or more through the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... Nay, speak out, 'twill ease your heart To call him villain! Why stand'st thou aghast? 265 Men think it ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... discernment of intolerable moral difficulties inseparable from the doctrine. First, that every sin is infinite in ill-desert and in result, because it is committed against an infinite Being. Thus the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil! I was aghast that I could have believed it. Now that it was no longer laid upon me as a duty to uphold the infinitude of God's retaliation on sin, I saw that it was an immorality to teach that sin was measured by anything else than the heart and will of the agent. ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... because you cannot deny," answered Commines, "and had Hugues not tampered with Saxe the truth might never have been known until all France stood aghast at the tragedy. That Hugues is dead matters nothing. His death does not affect the issue. He would have denied it had he lived. But now we know without a doubt that you and he, and that unhappy boy, the Dauphin—Villon, who is that fumbling at the latch? ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... common fairness not to have concealed from the jury the fact that the lady had a wooden leg!" The Court was convulsed with laughter at this discovery, while Lee, who was ignorant of this circumstance, looked aghast; and the jury, ashamed of the influence that mere eloquence had had upon them, returned a verdict for ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... right, than if he had turned on his heel with Worldly Wiseman, married a congenial spouse, and lived orderly and died reputably an old man. It is his chief title that he refrained from "the wrong that amendeth wrong." But the common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like the Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful virtue. Job has been written and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen hundred years ago; yet we have still to desire a little Christianity, or, failing that, a little even of that rude, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... convent, she found that nothing had been seen or heard of her, since she herself had quitted the cell the previous evening, then the whole truth became apparent, and a general sense of consternation pervaded the sisterhood. It was the enormity of the offence that struck them aghast, the boldness of the attempt, and its complete success. It was altogether a new idea to them that any one should wish to escape from those walls; an appalling one that any one should make such an attempt, and succeed. Soeur Lucie, held responsible for Madelon, was summoned before ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... volcanoes, which would readily he considered objects of the greatest natural grandeur, if the hotels in the neighborhood were only a little better kept and more judiciously advertised. Before these stupendous hot-water works the spectator stands aghast, and boils his egg in fourteen ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various
... seamstress?" exclaimed the lawyer, aghast. "What do you know about sewing—you who have always had everything of the ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... W—— stood aghast at the thought of such a robbery, and it is impossible to say when the talk, the wonderment, the conjectures, suggestions, theories, and general indignation would have ended, had not the second shock overborne the first. Once more let ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... as Julia spoke, might have amused a disinterested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she was receiving. Fanny pitied her. "How distressed she will be at what she said just ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... a bark of dead men's bones, And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, Stitch shrouds together for a sail, with groans To fill it out blood-stained and aghast; Although your rudder be a dragon's tail Long-sever'd, yet still hard with agony, Your cordage large uprootings from the skull Of bald Medusa, certes you would fail To find the Melancholy—whether she Dreameth in any isle ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... could speak. They could only stare aghast at the gulf beside and before them, at the little strip of road broken off short and square at their feet. How were they to pass this frightful, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... died, on the night of my debutante party, our little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in our younger set never fully ...
— Different Girls • Various
... evil import was read by the young scribe to the disenthralled medium, her own horror and regret at its utterance far exceeded that of any of her aghast listeners, not one of whom, any more than herself, attached to it any other meaning than an impression produced by temporary excitement and the sphere of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... contradictions and refutations of the democratic idea which are to be noted now. What food for English, French, and German sarcasm would our pigmy Four Hundred then become! In those remote realms they have already shrank aghast at the licentious tyrannies of our newspapers. England has freedom of the press, but she also has a law of libel which is not a cipher. Our law of libel is so horribly effete that the purest woman on our continent may to-morrow be vilely slandered, and yet obtain ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... higher education except to ridicule it. This, like every other battle for freedom which the world has seen, was led by the few brave, strong souls who saw the truth and dared proclaim it. In 1820 the world looked aghast upon "bluestockings." Because a young woman was publicly examined in geometry at one of Mrs. Emma Willard's school exhibitions, a storm of ridicule broke forth at so scandalous a proceeding. It was ten years after Holyoke was founded before Mary Lyon dared to have Latin ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Lartius laid Ocnus low; Right to the heart of Lausulus Horatius sent a blow. "Lie there," he cried, "fell pirate! No more, aghast and pale, From Ostia's walls the crowd shall mark The track of thy destroying bark. No more Campania's hinds shall fly To woods and caverns when they spy ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... Duxbury Farley was equally successful. A company was formed, the charter was obtained, and the golden stream began to flow into the treasury; into it and out again in the raceway channels of development. Thomas Jefferson stood aghast when an army of workmen swept down on Paradise and began to change the very face of nature. But ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... he was, Manuel saw and stood aghast at the baleful spirit which had enslaved this woman, crushing all generous impulses, withering all gentle charities, and making her the saddest spectacle this world can show—one human soul rebelling against Providence, to become the nemesis of another. Involuntarily he recoiled ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... democracy;" but Demos dies, by violence and disease, ere yet salvation comes. It appeals to its old-time standards for relief,—they are gone; to its pastors—they are mute; to its masters—they are impotent; to its doctors—they are baffled, helpless and aghast, whilst vainly searching earth and air for some frail pretext of unreal enlightenment, some fragile figment of belief. And yet in hypnotized complacency the masses stand; for meanwhile commerce reaps its costly gains and labour draws in enhanced increment the ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... and I Turn back the hands of memory's books: We sup on pleasures long gone by— We drink of unforgotten brooks; We ransack garrets of the Past, We sing old songs, we play old plays; While hurrying Time looks on aghast, ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he might, the man sprang back and gazed at her with horror, believing that his sacrilegious robbery had brought the dead to life. Even the two young men-albeit, neither of them given to nervousness nor cowardice—recoiled for an instant, and stared aghast. Then, as the whole truth struck them, that the girl had been in a deep swoon and not dead, both simultaneously darted forward, and forgetting all fear of infection, knelt by her side. A pair of great, lustrous black eyes were staring wildly ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... good people left me to travel alone. I thought that they would naturally feel some solicitude about their property. Scarcely was I under way, when, with a bound like a deer, the girl was up on the cariole behind, hanging on to the back of the seat with both hands. Perfectly aghast with astonishment, I pulled the reins and stopped. "What!" I exclaimed, in the best Norsk I could muster, "is the Jomfru going with me?" "Ja!" answered the laughing damsel, in a merry, ringing voice—"Ja! Ja! Jeg vil vise de Veien!—I will ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... and lovely: and in hopes you will return me back some of the blushes I have lent you, see there, in my daughter Jenny, whom you have been so justly admiring, the mistress of the house, and the lady with the Pagan name." Sir Jacob sat aghast, looking at us all in turn, and then cast his eyes on the floor. At last, up he got, and swore a sad oath: "And am I thus tricked and bamboozled," that was his word; "am I? There's no bearing this house, nor her presence, now, that's certain; and ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... aghast with the perception that there was some dreadful thing she didn't know; but he walked on, dropping the question angrily and turning his back to her as if he couldn't trust himself. She read his disgust in his averted, ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... at him almost aghast, for his manner was energetic and almost wild. Only that he so frequently was wild, she would have feared that something dreadful was about to happen. She had not, however, time to say anything further, for Caroline's step was heard on ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... The Archangel Michael flames from every window, With the sword of fire that drove us Headlong, out of heaven, aghast! ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... hall, and stopped at the dining-room door aghast. The smoking candles in the sconces were throwing a somewhat uncertain light over a scene of devastation and ruin; the furniture of the table and the accessories of the meal lay in a broken heap at the foot of it, the chairs were overturned, the curtains torn, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... to our measure. Though the women who ought to have felt it most sat there cowed and silent, I am proud to think there were other women who cried out, "Shame!" Yes, yes,' she interrupted the interrupters, 'those women were dragged away to prison, and all the world was aghast. But I tell you that cry was the beginning of a new chapter in human history. It began with "Shame!" but it will ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... madness, and beating his breast, would fall on his knees and call on those whom fear of death had caused him to denounce, imploring their pardon. When he learned what was expected of him he appeared to be overwhelmed, not at the number of victims he was going to betray, but because he was aghast at the idea of leading the detectives over a road that he had traversed only at night, and that he feared he might not remember. The expedition set out on February 3d. Real had taken the precaution to have an escort of gendarmes for the prisoner whom Georges and his ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... into his pocket and drew forth a goodly handful of gold, which he handed to the cowboy. Not improbably, if this large amount had been shown earlier, before the change in the sentiment, Lem would have looked aghast and begged for mercy. As it was, he accepted it as if he were accustomed to borrowing that much every day. Belllounds had rendered futile the easy-going, friendly advances of the cowboys, as he had made it impossible to play a ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... back aghast, as he saw the inhuman chief of the Sioux—the cruel, grim-faced warrior, Sitting Bull; shrunk back, and laid his hand upon the butt ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... Harris, pulling on a very large pair of white cotton gloves—thus did he live up to the standards of the policemen's ball—came shuffling across the hall, and his aghast expression when he caught sight of Mrs. Maitland was a faint consolation ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... Vance stared aghast,—"Your picture, you drab!" Here another model of rustic charms, who might have furnished an ideal for the fat scullion in "Tristram Shandy," bobbing a courtesy put in ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pilgrim oft, At dead of night, 'mid his oraison, hears Aghast the voice of TIME, disparting ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... removed from the scene. Bim was placed in the corner with his face to the wall. He was aghast; no words can give, at all, any idea of how dumbly aghast he was. What possessed him? What, in an instant of time, had leapt down from the clouds, had sprung up from the Square and seized him? Between ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... comedians stared at him aghast. Across the sunlit terrace seemed to have fallen the ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... instead of into the hands of the "person now near him," upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could be placed. The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess burst into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast. The Duchess said not a word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then in a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and announced her immediate return to Kensington. ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... lives and property of the citizens of an important town; that several houses, fired by incendiary hands, were roaring like furnaces, and lighting with a lurid glare the overhanging sky; that women by hundreds were shrieking with terror, and brave men were standing aghast and appalled; that two of my own brothers and some valued friends were in deadly peril, and that one at that very instant was fighting for very life. It was the night of the great Bull Ring riots ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... any mistaking the fact that the rich copper-colour of the hair swathed beneath the smart little hat had come out of a bottle, and was in no way to be accredited to nature. It was small wonder that primitive Monkshaven stood aghast at such flagrant tampering with the obvious ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... arose from the castle below. They looked aghast, for it was the sound of fierce strife and dread dismay. What could ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... petulance or turbulent rebellion. Indeed, her resistance to authority grew as she grew older, and occasioned my father and mother, and indeed all of us, no little anxiety. Even Charley and Harry would stand with open mouths, contemplating aghast the unheard-of atrocity of resistance to the will of the unquestioned authorities. It was what they could not understand, being to them an impossibility. Such resistance was almost always accompanied by storm and tempest; ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... would ye be haulin' me an' me wooden leg out into sich a desperate flurry as this here?" inquired Pat, aghast. "Saints be good to ye, skipper, but I'd ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... demoniac dragg'd To earth, or through obstruction fettering up In chains invisible the powers of man, Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around, Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony He hath endur'd, and wildly staring sighs; So stood aghast the sinner ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... holding the fatal hat-pin, taken in custody, crying hysterically 'When he gave me his name, I couldn't help it. He's the one who has caused all the trouble!' Floorwalker reverently covers the body with a cloth, then looks at the name on the sales slip. 'Gosh,' he cries, aghast, 'it's ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... aghast! The energy with which Mr Hazlit poured out his words, and, as it seemed to Timms, the free and easy magnificence ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... cried Vanheimert, aghast at the quiet statement, which it never occurred to him to gainsay. Stingaree pared a pipeful of tobacco and rubbed it fine before troubling ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... for some time, thinking Kirsty sure to come back to him, but half wishing she would not. He rose at length to see whether she was on the way, but no one was in sight. At once the place was aghast with loneliness, as it must indeed have looked to anyone not at peace with solitude. Having sent several ringing shouts, but in vain, after Kirsty, he turned, and, in the descending light of an autumn afternoon, set out on the rather long walk to his home, which was the wearier that he had ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... and fell against the table. Cicely ran forward and caught his hand; but he pushed her away savagely and, with another clutch at the table's edge, dropped upon the hearth-rug. The young man, meanwhile, white and aghast, rushed to the table, filled a glass with wine, and held it to the lips of the wounded man. So ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... last. He sank back, groaned, and died; and at the same moment the flame from the pine-chips flickered itself away, and of a sudden the room grew nearly dark. Philip stood for awhile aghast at his own handiwork, and watched the dull light glance on the dead white of his father's brow. He was benumbed by terror at what he had done, and in that awful second of realization would have given his own life to have ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... two, and Mrs. Carradyne sat down aghast. "I never saw children so troublesome and self-willed in all my life, Godfrey," she said to her brother. "Have they ever been controlled ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... aghast at the black depths of the quarry, beside which she had been sleeping, then searched the fell with her eyes. Yes, there was the upward path. She struck into it, praying that friend and houses ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... speech, and whose province was to amuse the courtiers. He was called the king's jester, or, more commonly, the fool. The name of King Charles's fool was Archy. After this rebellion broke out, and all England was aghast at the extent of the mischief which Laud's Liturgy had done, the fool, seeing the archbishop go by one day, called out to him, "My lord! who is the fool now!" The archbishop, as if to leave no possible doubt in respect to the proper answer to ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... an immediate fire and hot water for washing. Landlady and assistants were aghast. There had never been anything in any bedroom fireplace of the inn less innocent than paper flowers; bedroom fireplaces were for paper flowers; while as for washing it was a betise to want to do so in the evening, especially ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... gentleman threw out one leg and both arms, and began to twirl round, after the fashion of a peg-top, on one toe. At first he revolved slowly, but gradually increased his speed, until no part of him could be distinctly observed. Ned Sinton stood aghast. Suddenly the old gentleman shot upwards like a rocket, but he did not quit the ground; he merely elongated his body until his head stuck against the roof of the cave. Then he ceased to revolve, and remained in the form of a ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... about to reply, but here the schoolroom door unclosed, admitting Mr. Sympson. That personage stood aghast when he saw the group ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... persuaded Rose to telegraph both to her friends at Sandgale and to her mother to tell of her adventure and to say that she would go on to Sandgale on the Monday. For, unfortunately, the next day was Sunday, and Rose looked so aghast at the very idea of traveling then that Erica could say nothing more though she surmised rightly enough that Mr. Fane-Smith would have preferred even Sunday traveling to a Sunday spent in Luke Raeburn's house. There ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall |
