"Petrified" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had an understanding above the common standard; "and believe me mad, till you are obliged to acknowledge the contrary." The woman was no fool, that is, she was superior to her class; nor had misery quite petrified the life's-blood of humanity, to which reflections on our own misfortunes only give a more orderly course. The manner, rather than the expostulations, of Maria made a slight suspicion dart into her mind with corresponding sympathy, which various other avocations, and the habit of banishing compunction, ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... mortals, whatever our business or amusement,—however serious, however trifling,—all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the blacksmith's iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's strong-box, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... passing an hour or two with her husband, which she so highly prized. Romayne withdrew, to meet her at the door—too hurriedly to notice Winterfield standing, in the corner to which he had retreated, like a man petrified. ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... King it would have been decided to declare His Majesty of full age; but my son frustrated this by dismissing the Duke, and degrading him at the same time. The Chief President is said to have been so frightened that he remained motionless, as if he had been petrified by a gaze at the head of Medusa. That celebrated personage of antiquity could not have been more a fury than Madame du Maine; she threatened dreadfully, and did not scruple to say, in the presence of her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a century ago, crammed to the brim with vigor till it became agony. But the next moment, if it were so (which it could not have been), the face grew ashen, withered, shrunken, more aged than in life, though still the murderous fierceness remained, and seemed to be petrified forever upon it. ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that twas not Want of, but Superiority to all Worldly Dominion, that made him not exert it. But is this then the Saviour? is this the Deliverer? Shall this Obscure Nazarene command Israel, and sit on the Throne of David? [7] Their proud and disdainful Hearts, which were petrified [8] with the Love and Pride of this World, were impregnable to the Reception of so mean a Benefactor, and were now enough exasperated with Benefits to conspire his Death. Our Lord was sensible of their Design, and prepared his Disciples for it, by recounting to em now more distinctly ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... white roads, the breathing, busy figures, and the bright and smiling mile upon mile of emerald turf rose in rebellion against the likelihood of ghosts—yet, there was the shadow. I looked away from it, and, as I did so, an icy touch fell on my shoulder. I dared not turn; I sat motionless, petrified, frozen. The touch passed to my forehead and from thence to my chin, my head swung round forcibly, and I saw—nothing—only the shadow; but how different, for out of the chaotic blotches there now appeared a well—a remarkably well—defined ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... be healed with it, Lady Mar," returned he, "for it is not a man like the rest of his sex that now addresses you, but a being whose heart is petrified to marble. I could feel no throb of yours; I should be insensible to all your charms, were I even vile enough to see no evil in trampling upon your husband's rights. Yes, were virtue lost to me, still memory would speak, still would she urge, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... him almost black in the face. Mr. Seward looked half vexed that her crying for him was now so much lowered in its flattery, yet grinned incessantly; Miss Thrale laughed as much as contempt would allow her: but Dr. Delap seemed petrified with astonishment. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... not a disguise,' he answered: 'it is—' He could say no more: a terrible look from the unknown had as if petrified him. She regarded him some seconds in silence, then let fall from her eyes two large tears. Franz would have rushed toward her, but she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... door: and she looked like a statue of panic before a judgment seat listening for some irrevocable doom. A second time the hideous uproar was heard: and a crash, as of some mighty ruin. Captain Walladmor groaned as he gazed upon the beautiful figure and the sweet countenance before him, both petrified into marble, speechless, breathless, sightless,—giving no sign of life but by spasmodic startings, that shot momentarily over her bosom and lovely mouth: for his sake was she tortured thus—for his sake, that in a minute—oh! ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... there was dead silence. "Blow up any minute!" We looked at one another. We sat tense. Our very thoughts seemed petrified. From the far corner of the room there ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... far from pleading for the conventional tableau at the end of each act, with all the characters petrified, as it were, in penny-plain-twopence-coloured attitudes. But it is certainly desirable that the fall of the curtain should not take an audience entirely by surprise, and even that the spectator should feel the moment to be ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the result; the hill-men stopped suddenly as if petrified, and were hesitating still as to what they should do, when a second volley sent them to the right-about, leaving several of their number on the track, while half-a-dozen more were seen to drop before their ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... silence as of death. All eyes turned to the ridge of rising ground whence that sound had come. Now came the unmistakable thunder of horses' hoofs pounding furiously on the rocky ground. A moment of paralyzed inaction ensued. The Indians stood bewildered, petrified. Then on that ridge of rising ground stood, silhouetted against the blue sky, a great black horse with arching neck and flying mane. Astride him sat a plumed warrior, who waved his rifle high in the air. Again that shrill ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... dog to which, in the very moment of his keenest assault upon some object of his appetite, the fiend cried out—Halt! Whereupon, standing up as he was, on his hind legs, his teeth grinning, and snarling with the fury of desire, he halted and remained petrified:—from the graspings of hope, however distant, to the necessity of weeping for a wager, the congress found the transition too abrupt ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... say, have now given way to an unpleasant vice of which you seem never before to have been guilty. What were my feelings when Thedora informed me that you had been discovered drunk in the street, and taken home by the police? Why, I felt petrified with astonishment—although, in view of the fact that you had failed me for four days, I had been expecting some such extraordinary occurrence. Also, have you thought what your superiors will say of you when they ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Anne of Austria, struck suddenly in head and heart with fell remorse, she lost her equilibrium. No one aiding her, for all were petrified, she sank back in her fauteuil, breathing a weak, trembling sigh. Louis could not endure the spectacle and the affront. He bounded towards D'Artagnan, over whose brain a vertigo was stealing and who staggered as he caught ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all kinds of extravagant postures. Some were shaped like fierce animals; others resembled faces, houses, men. It seemed like a vision of another world, a glimpse of some vanished people, a race of titanic beings who had suddenly been petrified into stone. The place was deserted. There was no one there but themselves. A sepulchral silence hung heavy over everything. It was as mournful and awe-inspiring as ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... new disclosure, Sir Norman stood perfectly petrified; and La Masque, looking down at the dreadful place at her feet, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... Captain Plum stood as if the sudden apparition had petrified him. He listened long after the sound of retreating footsteps had died away. There remained behind a faint sweet odor of lilac which stirred his soul and set his blood tingling. It was a beautiful ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... Julian was petrified by this urchin's intimacy with death. It struck him as utterly vicious and terrible. A horror of the rosy-faced little creature, with good-conduct medals gleaming on its breast, came ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... looked up to see my rescuer gazing out of the window. I asked, "How do you feel, Mr. Carson?" His voice trembled when he answered: "Lady, I feel glorified, satisfied and nigh about petrified. ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made a movement: she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour's face had petrified her. ...
— The Frozen Deep • Wilkie Collins
... silence from one corner of the room to the other and again stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was conscious of. "The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me," he remarked at a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was for some minutes down on her beam-ends; and nothing, I believe, but the undaunted presence of mind, perseverance, experience, and courage of Paget preserved us from a watery grave. The oldest and most experienced of our sailors were petrified and paralysed; you may judge somewhat, then, of what was the state of most of the passengers; every one almost flew up in their shirts upon deck in terrors that are not to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... instantly, cast on the young Goth a glance of such speechless misery and despair, that he involuntarily quailed before it; and then, without a tear or a sigh, without a look of reproach, or a word of entreaty, petrified and bowed down beneath a perfect trance of terror and grief, she ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... himself in this unfortunate position. He made more wild efforts to explain, but the sense of his danger only petrified his mind instead of stimulating it. Then he was spared further conflict. A dark mist rose before his eyes; the walls of the room receded into infinite space; and, with a loud singing in his ears, he fell, and seemed to himself to be sinking down, down, ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the emperor Frederick II. employed to descend the strait of Messina, saw there with horror, enormous polypi attached to the rocks, the arms of which, being several yards long, were more than sufficient to strangle a man. In a great many places, the madrepores form a kind of petrified forest fixed at the bottom of the sea, and frequently, too, this bottom plainly presents different ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... Jim stood petrified. He had half expected this, but now that he was face to face with it the blow came harder than he expected it to be. She was going—going out of his life for ever.... Perhaps it was as well that way. He turned to ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... carefully behind us on the seat, from the force of gravity, suddenly rolled down, and before we could arrest this spirituous avalanche, pitching right on the stones, was dashed to pieces. We all beheld the spectacle, silent and petrified! We might have collected the broken fragments of glass, but the brandy! that was ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... spread over the table licking up Ted's horses and the scattered bits of paper as it went. Then a piece of the burning paper blew against Nellie's apron and the next instant that was blazing, and Nellie screaming with fright, while the other children ran crying into the inner room—all but Ted. He—petrified with terror—stood still with mouth and eyes wide open, gazing at the fiery stream ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... period, the latter part of it, we owe the beginning of that general system of the "petrified kidney" style of pavement which still lingers in places. Twopence-half-penny a bushel the material cost our forefathers! but what, in trials of patience and of temper, have they not cost the unlucky Roystonians who were destined to walk upon {114} them for so long and with so little hope of ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... she neared the top of the hill, a human figure materialized in the trail before her. She was too much startled to scream. She stopped, petrified with terror, struggling to draw her breath. Its shadowy face was turned toward her. It was a very creature of night, still and voiceless. It blocked the way she had to pass. Her limbs shook under her, and a low moan ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... And then things have never gone so far as that people could refuse to receive her, you know. Oh no! the Contessa has her wits too much about her for that. But you saw for yourself that the Duchess was petrified; and I—not that I am an authority, like her Grace. One thing, Lucy, is quite clear, and that I must say; you must not take upon yourself to be answerable—you so young as you are and not accustomed to society—for that woman, before the world. ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... for a height of one hundred and fifty, with a thundering reverberation. It ran, where they saw it, from east to west, and the line of rocks that barred its course extended from north to south. In the midst of the falls, rocks of strange forms started up like huge ante-diluvian animals, petrified there amid ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... purposes so labelled with Hands off! you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit. In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges. Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... presence of applauding thousands, but as it receded from their upturned eyes, all, all at once agaze upon it, the thunders of applause unaccountably died away—a general misgiving ran through every bosom—the mob themselves stood like statues, as silent and as petrified, for as it slowly went up, and up the soft expression of those chiselled features, the delicate curves and outlines of the limbs and figure, became gradually fainter and fainter, and when at last it readied the place for which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... this labyrinth, whose windings crossed each other in all directions, it was no use to think of flight any longer. Here I must die the most dreadful of deaths. And, strange to say, the thought came across me that when some day my petrified remains should be found thirty leagues below the surface in the bowels of the earth, the discovery might lead to grave ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Cruelly hurt and offended, she was about to reproach him with his conduct, when she perceived the dagger, which he had thrown down upon the ermine carpet. At sight of this weapon, and the expression of fear and stupor which petrified the features of Djalma, who remained kneeling, motionless, with his body thrown back, hands stretched out, his eyes fixed and wildly staring Adrienne, no longer dreading an amorous surprise, was seized with an indescribable terror, and, instead of flying from the prince, advanced ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... Chinese origin; striped bracelets, of a soft, gypseous, copper-red rock, gleaming as if they were varnished; [122] small copper knives, but no iron utensils; and several broad flat stones bored through the middle; [123] besides a wedge of petrified wood, embedded in a cleft branch of a tree. The place, which to this day may be easily recognized in a hollow, might, by excavation systematically carried on, yield many more interesting results. What was not immediately ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... the talisman appeared powerless, but only for so long. On a sudden his gaze contracted—he became fascinated, petrified—his face darkened, as if a tide of molten lead were projected through every vessel—and a heavy dew of agony stood in beads upon his puckered forehead. With all this horror was mingled a fury, if possible, more frightful still; ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... passed long lines of petrified trees, some a hundred feet in length, lying as they had fallen, thousands of years before. White ants crawled among the ruins. Slowly climbing the sandy trail, we circled a great red bluff with jagged peaks, that had seemed an interminable ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... ship, which seem'd of late a wreck, Floats with a mast set proudly on her deck. Minona kisses Harrald's blooming face, Whilst he attends her to the parting place. His bold young heart beats high against his side— She sail'd away—and, like one petrified, Full long he stood upon the shore, to view The smooth keel slipping through ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... the moment, chanced to be absent; and l'Archeveque, who had a kindness for him, went quietly to seek him. He found him 011 a hillock, looking at the band of horses grazing on the meadow below. "I was petrified," says Joutel, "at the news, and knew not whether to fly or remain where I was; but at length, as I had neither powder, lead, nor any weapon, and as l'Archeveque assured me that my life would be safe if I kept quiet and said nothing, I abandoned myself to the care of Providence, and went ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... jumped up, she became as white as her collar, and trembling, with sobs rising to her lips, stood silent and petrified before Pierre. She could not speak, but her eyes were eagerly fixed on the young man. It was he, the companion of her youth, so changed that she had not recognized him; worn by hard work, perhaps by anxieties, bronzed—and with his face ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it a somewhat dubious adventure to follow a mad woman, it might be, in quest of her wits. Seeing his unwillingness to proceed, she whispered something in his ear which wrought a marvellous change. He looked as if petrified with wonder, but he followed now without shrinking. They entered by a narrow door, curiously concealed. On its closing after them, De Poininges and his companion seemed shut out from the world,—as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... it is unnecessary to describe this new mortification. Death! To be seen by ladies of such high breeding in such vulgar attitudes! Nothing better could ensue from such a vulgar play of Mr Flamborough's proposing. We seemed stuck to the ground for some time, as if actually petrified with amazement. ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... beneath her chin, glanced, and lodged in her right side. It was a most ghastly wound, and as the blood poured from it, over the snow-white dress, and trickled slowly along the floor, Bernard stood gazing upon it like one petrified. His eyes opened wide with horror, his limbs grew rigid, his very hair seemed to rise up, in the intense agony of the moment. The pistol dropped from his extended hand, and he fell upon his knees beside his victim, completely sobered, and awakened ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... this point in his speech when some one was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb, petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the journeyman ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... wonderful formations need to be examined slowly and in detail. The universal glitter of the Lights is worthless in comparison. From Rebecca's Garland you come into a vast hall, of great height, covered with shining drops of gypsum, like oozing water petrified. In the centre is a large rock, four feet high, and level at top, round which several hundred people can sit conveniently. This is called Cornelia's Table, and is frequently used for parties to dine ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the first amazing pictures, the first technical chit-chat of "plastique" and "masque" and "flowing line." Behold Mrs. Eleanor then, tired and mussed with shopping, dyspeptic from unassimilated restaurant-lunching (and a little nervous at her task, when actually confronted with it), staring petrified at Molly's darkened dining-room, where, on a platform, against dull velvet backgrounds, an ivory, loose-haired, barely draped intaglio-woman, swayed and whirled and beckoned. A slender spiral of smoke rose from the incense bowl before her: the odour hung heavy ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... the scouts had released Roy's foot and helped him out from under that human roof. That roof, at least, had not collapsed. Bruised and bleeding as Blythe was, he remained in his attitude of Herculean resistance as if he had died and become petrified there. ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... He remained petrified an instant, dazed and staring. She passed through the door the groom held open. The doorkeeper, from his pigeon-hole, handed her some letters. Yes, he knew every trick of the shoulders, every turn of the neck. She stood surveying the envelopes. As the groom let ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath, and thus to become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is enough to make any man of common sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a century's standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by such ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... women dressing themselves. In one corner Silvani—the illustrious Silvani, still wearing the large white apron he assumes when powdering his clients—was putting away his powder-puff and turning down his sleeves with a satisfied air. I stood petrified. What was going on ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... danger of falling deeper into confusion and dishonesty or the danger of awakening to a clearer and more difficult consciousness. Now, I do not believe it is moral to regulate life by fear, considering only the desire to remain undisturbed of those who are decayed and petrified. I do not know if I make my meaning clear. As our habit, we ignore or minimize all sex difficulties as much as we can; we hesitate and compromise and bungle over every reform because we are afraid of what may happen if we probe ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... was a wild, hoarse scream, so strange and unnatural that it might have come either from a man or a woman. At the same instant there was a heavy thud, which shook the old house, and then all was silence. The maid stood petrified for a moment, and then, recovering her courage, she ran downstairs. The study door was shut and she opened it. Inside, young Mr. Willoughby Smith was stretched upon the floor. At first she could see no injury, but as she tried to raise him she saw that blood was pouring ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cannot be given by any theory of the universe which, like the biblical one, is in glaring contradiction to the facts of modern science[1]. Nor is it conceivable that belief can be fixed so as to be unalterable. Intellectual correctness is relative, and Truth cannot be petrified into Creeds, but lives by discussion, criticism, ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... struck, those petrified forms in which life was at one time active, increased to multitudes and demanded classification. They were grouped in genera, species, and varieties, according to the degree of similarity subsisting between them. Thus confusion was avoided, each object being found in the pigeon-hole appropriated ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... night, Through storm and calm, the shores that fleeted by Grew wilder, grander, with his growing soul, And pregnant with the approaching mystery. And now along the Patagonian coast They cruised, and in the solemn midnight saw Wildernesses of shaggy barren marl, Petrified seas of lava, league on league, Craters and bouldered slopes and granite cliffs With ragged rents, grim gorges, deep ravines, And precipice on precipice up-piled Innumerable to those dim distances Where, over ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... to be astonished. I looked at him for a moment petrified. Was this indeed the man who had brought all Europe to the verge of war, who was held responsible for the greatest international complication of the century? Years had passed, but I remembered well that week of fierce excitement when the clash ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Petrified by the words which he had uttered and still more by those which he had been on the verge of uttering, Philippe suddenly, in the girl's presence, felt a need to be gentle and friendly and to make amends for his inexplicable rudeness. An unexpected sense ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... birthday, and when quite alone." Katie gasped, "Oh, look!" and dropped the paper as if it burned her fingers. Aubrey sprang forward, prepared to slay a giant spider, but when his eyes fell upon the writing which had so startled his sister, he too seemed petrified. They gazed fixedly into each other's eyes for a ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... puts in practice. Ask the young thief, in the subterranean haunts of vice and crime, if he does not know that it is wicked to steal, and if he renders an honest answer, it is in the affirmative. Ask the most besotted soul, immersed and petrified in sensuality, if his course of life upon earth has been in accordance with his own knowledge and conviction of what is right, and required by his Maker, and he will answer No, if he answers truly. The grade of knowledge in the Christian land is almost infinitely various; but ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... bed, without even considering that I was only in my night-shirt, and dressed myself in a few moments, and then I said: 'Did you come a short time ago?' 'No,' she said, standing like a statue petrified with horror. 'It was my servant... she knows.' And then, after a short silence, she went on: 'I was there... by his side.' And she uttered a sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp, she ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... gutter dogs," he whispered, so low that the words were hardly caught by Ali 'Assan, who with fingers twining uncontrollably in his white garment, sat petrified by the suddenly arisen storm. "Thou essence of evil, go back to the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... slop-basins, was the passage by the Alcorta. But dreary, lonely San Sebastian was not to be endured. Those poor fellows above, accustomed to the wild freshness and freedom of the sea, how they must mourn and repine! By some means or other I must get back to the world that is not petrified. No diligences dare to affront the dangers of the short journey to the Irun railway-station, since three were stopped some days before, the traces cut, the horses stolen, the windows shattered, the woodwork burned, and the charred wreck left on the roadside, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... on, leaving the gardener petrified with astonishment, crossed the court-yard—a court-yard worthy of the mansion, bordered with velvet turf, with ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... from his answers derived new questions; she went so far as to speak of painting, of music, of dancing—even of sculpture! She proved herself equally familiar with the pencil, with tunes, and with books, until Thaddeus was petrified by so much learning, and feared that he might become the butt of ridicule, and stammered like a little lad before his teacher. Luckily the teacher was beautiful and lenient; his neighbour guessed the cause of his perturbation, and shifted the talk to less deep and difficult subjects, to ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... young men of Latin America, who are by nature more emotional and who live in a more voluptuous environment than their cousins in Spain; for they had come to chafe at the coldness of contemporary Spanish poetry, at its lack of color and its "petrified metrical forms." With the success of the movement there was for a time a reign of license, when poet vied with poet in defying the time-honored rules, not only of versification, but also of vocabulary and syntax. But as in France, so in Spanish America, "decadence" has had ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... to his palace, he looked as though petrified; but, without changing his clothes, he sat down to the table and wrote an edict against the Christians, in which they were forbidden to study, and to fill offices of State. That was ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... Petrified by vanity and saturated with ambition, Angelique retained under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling. The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Uxmoor lighted a cigar and smoked it in measureless content. The servant brought him a note on a salver. It had come by hand. Uxmoor opened it and read every word straight through, down to "Zoe Vizard;" read it, and sat petrified. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... proceeded? He knew not; the journey among those countless columns, past those armies of petrified gods, down lanes of flickering lights, seemed longer than the voyage of a caravan, longer than his pilgrimage to China! But suddenly, inexplicably, there came a silence as of cemeteries; the living ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... bitumen and natron resemble black simulacra carved in ebony; corruption cannot attack them, but the appearance of life is wholly lacking; the bodies have not returned to the dust whence they came, but they have been petrified in a hideous shape, which one cannot contemplate without disgust and terror. In this case, the body, carefully prepared by surer, longer, and more costly processes, had preserved the elasticity of the flesh, the grain of the skin, and almost ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... upon me, and putting on his hat, he then slowly left the room, whistling a tune. I stood, with Bendel, as if petrified, ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... by the sea, Grecian amphoras wrested from the shells of mollusks after a submarine interment centuries long. The deep waters had embossed these petrified ornaments with strange arabesques that made one think of the art of another planet, and, twined in with the pottery that had held the wine and water of a shipwrecked Liburnian felucca, were bits of rope hardened by limey deposit and flukes of anchors whose metal was disintegrating ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... And to this day men see that wherever the Black Cat is, there too is the Sable not far away. [Footnote: The Passamaquoddy version relates that Pitcher in her flight pursued a moose to Bar Harbor, where, having killed him and drawn out the entrails, she petrified him. A Penobscot woman told me she had often seen the moose rock there, and the "inments." But she attributed the deed to Glooskap, to whom it properly belongs, his petrified moose and dogs and the print of his bow, etc., being still shown in Nova Scotia; and it ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... she had not eaten since morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the sign LADIES' RESTAURANT: a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against the dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a table for her near the window. The table was covered with a red and white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... seem to abound in the place; male population otherwise, I should think, must be mainly doing trade elsewhere; nothing but prayers, preachings, charitable boarding-schooling and the like, appeared to be going on. Herrnhuth is 'a Sabbath Petrified; Calvinistic Sabbath done into Stone,' as one of my companions called it." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... not observe that it was a beautiful child and that it had a look of terror in its eyes; he only knew that he was glaring wildly at the fiendish nurse, the truth slowly beating its way into his be-addled brain. For a full minute he stared as if petrified. Then, administering a sickly grin, he sought to bring his wits up to the requirements of the extraordinary situation. He lifted his hand and mumbled: "Come, Raggles! I haven't a biscuit, but here, have a roll, do. Give me a—a kiss!" He added the ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... the common Fishes of more modern times. The smaller Fishes, no doubt, afforded food to the larger ones, and to the aquatic Reptiles. Indeed, in parts of the intestines of the Ichthyosauri, and in their petrified excrements, have been found the scales and teeth of these smaller Fishes perfectly preserved. It is amazing that we can learn so much of the habits of life of these past creatures, and know even what was the food of animals existing countless ages ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... recoiled with a low exclamation of horror; for there, drawn up against the wall, in a strange half-crouching attitude, as though petrified with ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... opened. He turned, and saw the count entering. As Noel was about to bow respectfully, he was petrified by the look of hatred, anger, and contempt on ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... kneeling for a moment with her ingratiating smile hardening on her face, while the sense of her blunder petrified the rest. She was the first to recover herself, and she said, with a laugh that she tried to make reckless, "Well, friends, I suppose the rest of you are hungry; I know I am," and she began ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... clover-mead; yonder, its luxuriant smooth grasses give way to a dense wood of cedars, oaks, and pines. Not a living creature, either man or beast, breaks the visible silence of this inmost paradise; but for ourselves, standing at the precipice, petrified, as it were, rock on rock, the great world might well be running back in stone-and-grassy dreams to the hour when God had given him as yet but two daughters, the crag and the clover. We were breaking into the sacred closet of Nature's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... glance at that presumptuous brave, Rushing River was about to give vent to words which might have led on to the fighting stage, when he was arrested, and, with his men, almost petrified, by a strange fizzing noise which seemed to come from the earth directly ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... Pollnitz," said she, in a rough, imperious tone—"do you know I believe your face is not flesh and blood, but hewn from stone; or, at least, one day it was petrified? Perhaps the fatal hour struck one day, just as you were laughing over some of your villainies, and your smile was turned to stone as a judgment. I shall know this look as long as I live; it is ever ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... the attitude of the serpent: the body pliant, yielding, supple; but the crest thrown aloft, erect, and threatening. As for Zonla, she was frozen in the attitude of motion;—a dancing nymph in colored marble; agility stunned; elasticity petrified. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... far reaching fissures, which I am tempted to call geological, can disappear at once. And should we not be indulgent with our opponents, if we ourselves do not desist from fighting? Life is a struggle everywhere in nature, and without inner struggles we end by being like the Chinese, and become petrified. No struggle, no life! Only, in every fight where the national question arises, there must be a rallying point. For us this is the empire, not as it may seem to be desirable, but as it is, the empire and the Emperor, who represents it. That is why I ask you to join me in wishing well to the Emperor ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... her soup in petrified silence. Among the diners were at least two peers and a countess, all of whom she knew slightly; at no other time during the last twenty years would she have missed such an opportunity of impressing the company in general and her companion in particular by waddling from table to table and greeting ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... their Jesuit brethren throughout the world, are absolutely astounding. Their conscientious minuteness is wonderful; and many a one who thinks he is master of the ecclesiastical lore of his own parish, which he has made his specialty, has been petrified to find what he thought his discoveries all laid down with careful precision as matters of ordinary knowledge in some corner of these mighty volumes. The Bollandists obtained their information from the spot, and it is on the spot that this kind of literature must ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... went too far. He went so far that he couldn't stop himself. And the crowd who had gathered to hear a little harmless fun now stood petrified and heartsick. No one stirred, though everybody was wishing themselves miles away. And Seth's voice, dripping ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... sacks of ducats, the women scattered screaming among the tents. For an instant Fatia Negra stood petrified before Anicza, like a devil caught in a trap, and gazed vacantly at the ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... and—to see them—and then how refreshing to take a negligent stroll on the Battery, the Fort, the Mall, and from thence to Miss Such-a-one, then to Mrs. Such-a-one, then to Lady What's-her-name, and then home;—but now I am half of my time as motionless as Pitt's statue; as petrified and inanimate as an Egyptian mummy, or rather frozen snake, who crawls out of his hole now and then in this season to bask in the rays ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low
... round a corner of the shrubbery, came Dora herself, more charming than ever, all grace and smiles and beauty. But I saw neither beauty nor smiles nor grace; all I saw was, that she was leaning on the arm of that provokingly handsome dog Walter Ashley. For a moment I stood petrified, and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... his hand, and this also seemed strange to him. And then he remained breathless, motionless, petrified for hours, suppressing every thought, all loud breathing, all motion,—for every thought seemed to him but madness, every motion—madness. Time was no more; it appeared transformed into space, airless and transparent, ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... before me, and keep one eye steadily upon the yellow torments, till I forget all about them, in chat with the gentleman who shares my seat. Having heard complaints of the absurd way in which American women become images of petrified propriety, if addressed by strangers, when traveling alone, the inborn perversity of my nature causes me to assume an entirely opposite style of deportment; and, finding my companion hails from Little Athens, is acquainted with several of my three hundred ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... in his cabinet almost petrified. The sudden glitter of such unexpected happiness was at once so clouded by an odious and detestable condition, that he determined upon rejecting it. But all at once Ambition blew into his ear: "Ho! ho! Mr. Mayor; to be dubbed a nobleman at once, and in such an off-hand manner, as the saying is, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... flies. They dart upon the fly with very great speed, but just as you think that they are about to swallow him they pause for a second or two and then make the spring. I have never seen a fly escape during this pause, which looks as if the lizard charmed or petrified his victim. The Malays have a proverb based upon this fact: "Even the lizard gives the fly time to pray." There were other noises; for wild beasts, tigers probably, came so near as to scare the poultry and horses, and ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... if shot. Grandfather seemed petrified. He attempted to ejaculate something, but was scared by the sound ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... proved to be correct. I found, also, two broken columns of stone three or four feet high, formed like stumps of trees and of a thickness superior to the body of a man; but whether they were of coral or of wood now petrified, or whether they might not have been calcareous rocks worn into that particular form by the weather, I cannot determine. Their elevation above the present level of the sea could not have been less ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... We sat petrified, looking at Margery. She had collapsed on the seat with her face in her hands—the very picture of Admission of Guilt. "Margery!" cried ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... playing merrily without him, in the blissful ignorance of childhood. But Felicita, who did not love him as his mother did, and could not remain in ignorance of his crime! Was she not something like these pure, distant snowy pinnacles, inapproachable and repellent, with icy-cold breath which petrified all lips that drew too near to them? And he had set a stain upon that purity as white as the driven snow. The name he had given to her was tarnished, and would be publicly dishonored if he failed in evading the penalty ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... you to the contrary," she rejoined, extending the paper to him and revealing to his astounded gaze and to that of his partner, who looked petrified with surprise, the name plainly written ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... oft, alas, we've forc'd th' unwilling tear, And petrified the heart with real fear. Macbeth, a harvest of applause will reap, For some of us, I fear, have murder'd sleep; His lady, too, with grace will sleep and talk, Our females have been us'd at night to walk. Sometimes, indeed, so various is our art, An actor may improve and mend ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... institutionalism which stands in the way of human rights. Institutions at best are instruments; they exist merely for the purpose of bringing men to larger life; but these institutions sometimes get petrified into custom and become glorified by long practice, and even made sacred by adherents who look upon them as ends in themselves. Then there is no recourse except to break the institutions in the name of larger human life. If we could put ourselves back in ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... now married and rapturous, Tristan retires into the tomb, which closes over him. His horse "Baal" and his dogs, the "Celtically" (in the latter case we may say Piratically) named Thor and Brinda, are petrified round its entrance. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... simple plan; and that course of action must first have occurred to any other man but this; to him, however, it did not occur. The crying, shrieking need for money was the thing that stunned him and petrified him. Shattered and tossed to the brink of aberration, stretched at frightful mental tension for a fortnight, he finally succumbed, and told himself that ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts |
