"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I had of him I knew that he was dead; the feeling of death was around him; there was death in the air, in the awful serenity of the pale face, in the hands which lay motionless and relaxed, as if surrendering all; in the faint smile, as though Death himself had come before the great man's vision and had been regarded calmly before his work was ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... (Whom, warned from heaven, he spared, and sent him home With tidings of the rest) he slew them all. Such was AEtolian Tydeus; who begat 475 A son in speech his better, not in arms. He ended, and his sovereign's awful voice Tydides reverencing, nought replied; But thus the son of glorious Capaneus. Atrides, conscious of the truth, speak truth. 480 We with our sires compared, superior praise Claim justly.[15] We, confiding in the aid Of Jove, and in propitious signs from heaven, Led to the ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Witnesses for me, that I have not stood by as an unconcerned Spectator amidst the Desolations of your respective Families, when GOD's awful Hand hath been lopping off those tender Branches from them, which were once our common Hope and Delight. I have often put my Soul in the stead of yours, and endeavour'd to give such a Turn to my publick as well as my private Discourses, as might ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... incompetent. He spoke thoughtfully of the great concerns of life, of death, and of the future; declared himself a Christian, a humble believer in all the vital truths of religion. As of the future he entertained no doubt, so of the awful transition through the valley and shadow of death, he had no fear. "Death may be to others," said he, "a leap in the dark, but I rather consider it a resting-place where old age may throw off its burdens." He ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... Mutiny! Those two things rush simultaneously into the mind, for Cawnpore is associated with the most awful scenes of the Mutiny, and no Briton can ever think of it without those ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... avoid the possibility of collision with the armed forces of the Spaniards; and thenceforward, for four full days, the train wound its perilous way along narrow pathways bounded on the one hand by towering, inaccessible, rocky cliffs, and on the other by ghastly precipices, of such awful depth that their bases were frequently hidden by the wreaths of mountain mist floating far below; across frail swing bridges stretched from side to side of those awful, fathomless rifts called barrancas which seem to be peculiar to the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... heaven-directed blight Involves each countenance with clouds of night! What pearly drop the ashen cheek bedews! Why do the walls with gouts ensanguined ooze? The court is thronged with ghosts that 'neath the gloom Seek Pluto's realm, and Dis's awful doom; In ebon curtains Phoebus hides his head, And sable mist ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... larger river, of whose source, size and direction, no intelligible account could be communicated or understood. The Muscle Shoals and the obstructions in the river above them, were represented as mighty cataracts and fearful whirlpools, and the Suck, as an awful vortex. The wild beasts with which the illimitable forests abounded, were numbered by pointing to the leaves upon the trees, or the stars in ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... moment, but the belt broke, and Dad breathed freely again. He was acting entirely on the defensive, but an awful consciousness of impending misfortune assailed him. His belt was gone, and—his trousers began to slip—slip—slip! He called wildly to the others for God's sake to do something. They helped with advice. He yelled "Curs!" and "Cowards!" back at them. Still, as he danced around with his strange ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Jerusalem riding on an ass, which was but a finger-post to guide men's thoughts to His fulfilling the ideal of the Messianic King. And yet, the minute correspondences are worth noticing. What a strange, solemn glimpse they give into that awful divine omniscience, and into the mystery of the play of the vilest passions as being yet under ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... a passion for Christ. "I have only one passion," said Zinzendorf, "and that is he." Love for Christ is the power that during these nineteen centuries has been transforming the world. Law could never have done it, though enforced by the most awful majesty. The most perfect moral code, though proclaimed with supreme authority, would never have changed darkness to light, cruelty to humaneness, rudeness to gentleness. What is it that gives the gospel its resistless power? It is the Person at the heart of it. Men ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... she buried her face in the cushions, crying chokingly, "Oh, I can't bear to think of it! Oh, Jack! how could such an awful thing ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... water against the rocks. Indeed Mr. Weld had no inclination either to go further, or to explore the dreary confines of these caverns, where death seemed to await any one who should be daring enough to enter their threatening jaws. No words, he says, can convey an adequate idea of the awful grandeur of the scene, at this place. The senses are appalled by the sight of the immense body of water that comes pouring from the top of the precipice; and by the thundering sound of the billows dashing against the rocky sides ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... a corner of the wall, Shadowy, silent, apart from all, With its awful portal open wide, And its latticed windows on either side, And its step well worn by the beaded knees Of one or two pious centuries, Stands the village confessional! Within it, as an honored guest, I will sit down ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... morning to the night of woe; When the grim Ocean, in his fiercest wrath, Held fearful contest with the god of storms, Who lashed the waves with death upon his path. O night of agony! O awful morn, That oped on such a scene thy sullen eyes! The shattered ship,—those wrecked and broken hearts, Who only prayed, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... one or two feet long. No, not a small snake, but a sinuous mark in the pattern on a huge serpent's head, five or six yards long, always moving deliberately at my side. If a cloud came over the sun, or a fresh breeze sprang up, gradually the outline of that awful head would fade and the well-defined pattern would resolve itself into the motlings on the earth. But if the sun grew more and more hot and dazzling as the day progressed, then the tremendous ophidian head would become increasingly real ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to market, and passing from the authority of a parent to the rod of the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring imagination into frenzy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the anguish of despair, and he made me feel how awful is the retribution of nature upon those who have broken ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... sir. I'm afraid not much. Ye see it's just home stuff. The old 'oman's awful smart. She raises enough chickens and turkeys and ducks and guineas to eat, and she sells a few eggs and young chickens and turkeys when they brings anything in the market. I got six sheep, a cow, ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... unlet. The landlady's parlour was on the ground floor, her bedroom was next to it, and further on was the entrance to the kitchen stairs, whence ascended Mrs. S——'s brood of children, and Emma, the awful servant, with tea things, many various smells, that of ham and ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... march, during which the heavy news had been brought to him, but he felt convinced that, with the very arrival of the awful tidings, the fate of that campaign was sealed, and the fall of Mons inevitable. In his own language, he had been struck to the earth "with the blow of a sledge-hammer,"—nor did the enemy draw a different augury from the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Sir," says he. "Madison avenue. I have the number, Sir." Just like that you know. "I have the number, Sir"—and more business with the cap brim. Awful bore, ain't it, specially right there on Broadway with so many folks ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... got here," declared Gif. "I read about the awful storm you had down around New York, and I thought ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... opportunity; five worldlings before you! Shall I ring the bell for Tomkins to fetch your Bible? I would go myself, only I'm just about done up. You will want a text. Give us your views; it will be most interesting and edifying. Who knows? You may so convince us of the awful sin of going to the Walkers', that we shall all send in an apology for our absence, and from henceforth do ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... upon his head, when he can come and claim it, and nothing in the intermediate time done to disgrace and fetter him, as in the [year] 1782, I shall be satisfied. It is a sad time indeed, and if the Arch(bishop)p pleases, I will call it by his affect(ted?) phrase, an awful moment. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... tell ye how long we careered around them woods and pastures, for, after a while, he got so plumb crazy that he run right out into the open country. I'd hit him a whack over the head with my stick of wood every chanst I got and he was awful weak anyhow, so he'd kind o' stagger whenever he made a sharp turn. By an' by we got to goin' toward town. Somehow he'd landed himself in the road; an', sir, we rid up to the hotel like a coach and four, and he drapped dead in front of the ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... don't know that Peabody'd have to strain himself very much to get such an awful big bag to drop you both in, if it comes right down to that, old chap. You're making a mistake. You're as bad as your old man. You're a beautiful pair of optimists, and you a good newspaper man, ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... awful truth dawned upon him—his mother was dead! She had died while he was fishing; but she had done the work that she had asked her boy ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... part in withdrawing at that moment, for our men were rapidly becoming exhausted. For my own part I do not think I could have held out another half hour, and neither could my men. We were not only wearied physically, but the nervous strain was something awful. I called my men into the gunroom and served each with a good stiff drink of whisky and told them to take all the rest they could get. I went into the chartroom, as it was about the coolest place ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... home to-morrow, except, as I have had the house built, I think I'd better stay the winter in it. But before the cold weather comes on they are going to send up a darky to look after me. I only hope I won't have to wait on him,—awful lazy nigger! He used to be a porter of ours. Loafing around these woods with a gun on his shoulder, pretending to hunt, will be just about his size. He's out of a job now, and comes cheap. I couldn't afford to pay him wages all the time, but ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sublime, awful, the poem dazzles criticism, and belittles the critic. It is the grandest poem ever written. It almost sets up a competition with Scripture. Milton's Adam and Eve walk before us instead of the Adam and Eve of ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... unnatural vision though her remaining senses were benumbed. The blue and white of the sky, the emerald green of the water, the russet brown and cold gray of the land—these shone now with a beauty vivid beyond any of nature's tints she had ever before seen. She was conscious, too, of an awful aloofness. Her spirit was entrenched in its own citadel. She seemed to be brooding, solitary and remote, yet shrinking ever within herself; quite unknowing, she offered a piteous example of the old Hebrew's dire truism that man came naked into the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... rivers. Sometimes, however, the almost criminal rashness, of which captains were guilty, in a mad rush for a little cheap glory, ended in a deafening crash, the annihilation of a good boat, and the death of scores of her people by drowning, or the awful torture of inhaling scalding steam. Rivalry between the different boats was fierce, and now and then at the sight of a competitor making for a landing where freight and passengers awaited the first boat to land her gangplank, the alert captain would not unnaturally take some ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... so. They've got the horses to help them, while we've got to foot it. It was an awful mean ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... clearly, when they had all got into the house again, was his grandfather carrying a woman in his arms. The old man had darted down the stairs at the moment Bashley fired his pistol; but Sara had fainted. Poor child, she had been long without food, and her strength gave way amidst that awful scene. ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... brows overhanging his serene and solemn eyes, with the slow gravity of motion and the measured dignity of speech which gave him the air of an old pontiff, he was an imposing personage to look upon, and could be awful, if the occasion demanded it. His creed was of the sternest: he was looked up to as a bulwark against all the laxities which threatened New England theology. But it was a creed rather of the study and of the pulpit ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and serious and even tragic as all this might be, it was as nothing (in the eyes of the Church and of God) compared with the awful gravity of the step I now contemplated—a second marriage while my ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... snatched me up and carried me off through the woods. And he left me there in that place he found, too, with a handkerchief in my mouth, and tied up so that I couldn't move, so I don't see why I shouldn't be glad to see him suffering himself. It was awful, Bessie, and if you hadn't followed me and had a chance to sneak in there and cheer me up, I don't know what ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... said Pinto, his voice shaking. "My God! It's awful! It's dreadful! Colonel, we've got to get away to-day. I tell you ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... systematic as possible, and some take the good old Chinese ground that there is no certainty that any good will come of it. To the outsider it looks as if the babes and sucklings who have no experience and no precedents would have to save China—if. And it's an awful if. It's not surprising that the Japanese with their energy and positiveness feel that they ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... and time are constantly occupied with the duties of your command, which almost deters us from asking your attention to this matter, but thought it might be that you had not considered this subject in all of its awful consequences, and that on more reflection you, we hope, would not make this people an exception to all mankind, for we know of no such instance ever having occurred —surely never in the United States—and what has this helpless people ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... its unexposed surface wholly escaped this terrible downpour of fire and gravel, and the absence of all drift deposit on these places is logically accounted for. The atmosphere, so heated during that awful period, drank up the waters of the earth—then came the floods, as the waters fell again. Then followed the reaction period of extreme cold, snow and ice—the glacial period. This particular rock, while following in the train of its parent comet, though lagging many thousands of miles behind, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... are now a part of you, and if you were transformed to a bumblebee the whole of you would be transformed, of course, and you'd be free of this awful island." ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... were homesick and in bad temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse and swear in rough and bitter speech. Then there came on the most awful thunder storm I ever witnessed. Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our corral of train-wagons. Crashing peals ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... members who should be elected under the new writs then issuing, should meet in convention at Williamsburgh, on the first of August, for the purpose of appointing delegates to sit in congress. This was a monster stride in the march of revolution, and it was easy to foresee its ultimate and awful consequences. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... hit wasn't no use. She says Steve's word's as good as yourn; 'n' she knowed about the crosses. Folks say she swore awful ag'in' ye at young Jas's burial, 'lowin' that she'd hunt ye down herse'f, ef the soldiers didn't ketch ye. I hain't seed her sence she got sick; 'pears like ever'body's sick. Mebbe she's a leetle settled down ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... keep at any vast distance? And so, as I say, on the lady's persistence, The Duke, dumb-stricken with amazement, Stood for a while in a sultry smother, 310 And then, with a smile that partook of the awful, Turned her over to his yellow mother To learn what was held decorous and lawful; And the mother smelt blood with a cat-like instinct, As her cheek quick whitened through all its quince-tinct. 315 Oh, but the lady heard the whole truth at once! What meant she?—Who ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the horrors of the French Revolution to distract her attention from the present crisis, and alluded to the horrors of cannibalism recently disclosed in Africa. Then I fall into a queer reverie and imagine how awful it would be if we should ever be called to submit to a race of beings as much larger than we are as we are above the fowls. I almost hear such a monster of a house-wife, fully ninety feet high, say to a servant, looking sternly and critically ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... if you'd ha' seen him fighting to-day with Mrs. Jackson's Bill, nigh twice as big as himself, you'd ha' said so too; but it ain't Christian-like to try children the same way as pups, and really his ears are sore, awful sore. I chanced t' notice 'em when I washed his face afore he went to school, and they be ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... on Wednesday, and the poor man will have worked himself to a shadow by that time. Imagine what electioneering must be like in this awful soaking rain, going along slushy country roads and speaking to damp audiences in draughty schoolrooms, day after day for a fortnight. He'll have to put in an appearance at some place of worship on Sunday morning, and he can ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... Reformed Churches have most powerfully influenced the feelings and the conduct of men, but have not presented them with visions of sensible beauty and grandeur. The Roman Catholic Church has united to the awful doctrines of the one that Mr Coleridge calls the "fair humanities" of the other. It has enriched sculpture and painting with the loveliest and most majestic forms. To the Phidian Jupiter it can oppose the Moses of Michael ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... right it was necessary to close with its outer point, towards which a merciless eddy flung the ship's head so rapidly, that before the thrown-aback sails checked her way, her jib-boom was almost over the rocks.* During the few awful moments that succeeded, a breathless silence prevailed; and naught was heard but the din of waters that foamed in fury around, as if impatient to engulf us in their giddy whirl. Still, it must be confessed, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... little fort he had held so long and so valiantly against such overwhelming odds, and, in desperation, availing himself of his one and only possible escape. Step by step, he followed him, in imagination, up the awful cliff, clinging for dear life with fingers worn and lacerated by the grinding stone. Weary and exhausted, he seemed to see him draw near the top. Then a slip, one slip of his tired feet, and no hold upon the limestone with his hands would have power ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... the West Indies. And then——Never mind what then. Stephen Holmes was very much in love, and this Christmas-day had much to bring him. Yet it was with a solemn shadow on his face that he watched the dawn, showing that he grasped the awful meaning of this day that "brought love into the world." Through the clear, frosty night he could hear a low chime of distant bells shiver the air, hurrying faint and far to tell the glad tidings. He fancied that the dawn flushed warm to hear ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... Were it a word sent down from God; for even the Pentateuch Hath falsified and garbled been of this and th' other wight.[FN31] Whilst, as for lies, how many were of folk before us told! Joseph to Jacob was traduced and blackened in his sight. Yea, for the slanderer and myself and thee, an awful day Of standing up shall come, when God to judgment all ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... heavy arches and low, almost numberless, and containing the sarcophagi of the Popes and other distinguished characters. The illumination here was confined to a single lamp over each arch, which rather made darkness visible and gave an awful effect to ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of the Goat, I call it; only it won't be half so much fun without her, and Billy gone, too. Oh, you can't possibly imagine how we miss Billy. How forlorn this room looks without all her pretty things!" She glanced about the room. "Perf'ly awful, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... shiftless one, "we've crossed trails of bands three times, but the main force ain't come up yet. I guess it means to wait a little, Paul. I'm awful glad we've come to help out these ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Their awful influence upon the wrongdoer was intensified by the softness of his insinuating voice, that seemed to pry down into human secrets as a sort of intellectual jimmy, delicate but powerful, and by the noiselessness of his tread, which ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... so good, Henry," she said, at last; "you've bin awful patient all these years. Fur's I'm concerned, I'd as lief stay here's anywhere, but if you want to go t' New York, I—I—want to do ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... the shoulders was all that our guide vouchsafed, and with that awful voice ringing in our ears we were ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Meanwhile, the Spanish fleet had ceased to exist. Its burnt remains lay on the bottom of the bay. The forts had been battered into shapeless heaps of earth, their garrisons killed or put to flight. It was an awful example of the difference between accurate gunnery and firing ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... tell the peaceful Indians from the hostile. They were ever in communication with the equally treacherous and ferocious Miami tribes, to whose towns the war parties often brought five or six scalps in a day, and prisoners, too, doomed to a death of awful torture at the stake. There is no need to waste sympathy on the northwestern Indians for their final fate; never were defeat and subjection more ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... night; when we turned in, the mist had come down in ridges on us, and it felt stuffy and warm under blankets, and the sound of the waters was muffled by the mist. I awoke with a world of vivid white light in my eyes, the glen was quivering with lightning, and the gods played awful bowls overhead! Green trees up the hillsides and contorted mist wreaths showed as in daylight, and then were buried in blackness and thunder. Then the rain came! to put it intil Scottis—a snell showir' dirlin' on the thatch. There was ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... hurt!" exclaimed the captain. "They've thrown a coat over one, and they're crowdin' around the other. What the—They're comin' back without 'em—need whisky to bring 'em to, I suppose. Why didn't I send whisky down by the other boat? There's an awful amount of time being wasted here. What's the matter, Mr. Bell?" shouted the captain, as the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... that in the awful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" the sinner should hear the echo of his own agony, as of one forsaken of God and swept out of his presence forever; and that the only ground of approach to this righteous God is the ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... world war. Against Russia and France we fight, as the poet expresses it, 'with steel and bronze, and conclude a peace some time or other.' But against England we wage war with the greatest bitterness and such an awful rage, as only an entire and great people in their holy wrath can feel. The words of Lissauer's 'Hymn of Hate' were spoken out of the innermost depths of every ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... said with a little laugh, and they fell silent again watching the awful thing from which they had so ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... August, sir. It seems that Mr. Henry had lost five or six thousand pounds on the Derby. He got what he could out of his father towards paying his losses, but he could not get more than three thousand pounds; so then he went to Joseph in an awful state of mind, declaring that he should be able to get the money in a month or so from his father, and that if he could do anything just to preserve his credit for the time, and meet the claims of the vulgar City ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... so ill that they have reached the lowest depth of infamy. Hell itself hath seen no spectacle more awful, no murder more barbarous, no horrider triumph of wickedness, than the crime which was perpetrated ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... sir, please;" said the man imploringly. "It's too awful. I see 'em as plain as I see you two gentlemen ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... it was awful!... They were all seated like monsters without eyes.... Who was the giant who tried to ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck
... go talkin' to her any more just now," announced the little old man when she had gone. "Your aunt's an awful good woman; no better lives. But there's times like today when things don't strike her as they do me an' Delight. She's so fond of the girl that her first thought would be for the money an' all that; but that would be ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... was brought up by the main hatch, from which he rebounded like a billiard ball towards the starboard gangway. At this point he lost his balance, and went rolling to leeward like an empty cask. There was something particularly awful and impressive in the sight of this unwieldy monster being thus knocked about like a pea in a rattle, and sometimes getting into attitudes that would have been worthy of a dancer on the tightrope, but the consummation ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... we thought it awful fun. Helen laughed like anything, and she's very good. I say, can you crack ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... the rules in invitin' you—why, I was goin' to say, 'Miss Lacharme, wouldn't you like to take a little buggy-ride in the Guzzuh, nice and slow. She's awful easy ridin' if you don't rein her ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... But Sallie proceeded gayly: "Then you know how hard I have tried to propitiate those miserable Asburys. I declare, I think Alice might meet me half way. Perhaps she didn't like being seated between Frank Mayo and Brian Beck, but both she and that awful Frost man sat as stiff and unsmiling as if they had swallowed curtain-poles by the dozen." Sallie does not mind an extra word or two to strengthen a simile. I tried to imagine Alice and Mr. Frost gulping ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... mischief in her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she was running away from the ship. Captain and officers of the Imperatrice Eugenie, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokens of awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with the humility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer in the small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. With the lady went her gentle little ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... heart was distracted by this dreadful thought, while on the other I was assailed by the despair that was present in the bankrupt's chamber; but generosity conquered in the awful trial, and at daylight I sought out the principal creditors and signed the documents that saved a brother's life and honor but gave up my ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... in anger. Raising his staff he told them in solemn and awful tones that it should be as they had chosen. Since they preferred their game on the moor to their service in church, on the moor at their game they should stay for ever. He lowered his staff and to the horror of all onlookers the defiant ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... declared Sophie, nodding. "Come and see the baby. She's awful pretty, but ma says ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... then given carried them forward to still further advances, in the turbulent times which followed. This beneficent impulse is, above all, imputable to Alhakem. He was one of those rare beings, who have employed the awful engine of despotism in promoting the happiness and intelligence of his species. In his elegant tastes, appetite for knowledge, and munificent patronage he may be compared with the best of the Medici. He assembled the eminent scholars ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... and shrapnel burst without ceasing. In the evening we get a cup of rice and one-third of an apple per man. Let us hope peace will soon come. Such a war is really too awful. The English shoot like mad. If no reinforcements come up, especially heavy artillery, we shall have a poor lookout and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... bemock'd the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship's huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... attempt, because of its difficulties and the small amount of hope which it offered him. The girl was already willing and anxious to jump into his arms. Then he had detected a man cheating at cards,—an extent of iniquity that was awful to him before he had seen it,—and was already beginning to think that there was not very much in that. If there was not much in it, if such a man as Miles Grendall could cheat at cards and be brought to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... of the money Uncle Tucker gets for this butter I make from the cows that graze on the meadows. Wouldn't it be awful if they should happen to drink some of the coal-oil and make the butter we send down to the city taste wrong and spoil the Sweetbriar reputation? I like money though, most awfully, and I want some ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... assuredly cease. Kotsuke no Suke having carefully considered the matter and given his consent, Sogoro was canonized under the name of Sogo Daimiyo, and a shrine was erected in his honour. After divine honours had been paid to him, the awful visions were no more seen, and the ghost of Sogoro ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... drew from it a small vial containing white, glistening crystals, and hid it nervously in her bosom; then, with trembling feet, she recrossed the room, opened her door, and peered breathlessly out into the dimly lighted corridor. No sound broke the awful stillness. ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... an apparition which froze his veins, as a ghost from the grave. The door was thrown open, and Lucretia stood in the aperture,—stood, gazing on him, face to face; and her own was so colourless, so rigid, so locked in its livid and awful solemnity of aspect that it was, indeed, as one risen from ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in blood." Whether the tradition is well or ill founded, the sentence has the ring of truth. A great work had been accomplished. If it were cast aside, Washington knew that the sword and not the pen would make the next Constitution, and he regarded that awful alternative with dread. He signed first, and was followed by all the members present, with three notable exceptions. Then the delegates dined together at the city tavern, and took a cordial leave of each other. "After which," the president of the convention wrote in his diary, "I returned ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... wistful look in those eyes gave me a singular shock. I had never seen human eyes with the same expression; they seemed as though they were appealing against some awful destiny. Once when Charlie and I were staying at Rutherford a beautiful spaniel belonging to Lesbia had been accidentally shot while straying in some wood. The poor animal had dragged himself with pain and ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... earthquake. In the south-east monsoon the lightning is more constant, but the coruscations are less fierce or bright, and the thunder is scarcely audible. It would seem that the consequences of these awful meteors are not so fatal there as in Europe, few instances occurring of lives being lost or buildings destroyed by the explosions, although electrical conductors have never been employed. Perhaps the paucity of inhabitants ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... of the vine, its being trodden down, and the great presence of blood flowing, symbolize the awful judgments to overtake the wicked, after the escape of the righteous, when they are gathered into bundles and burned. Thus Isaiah prophesied: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... I've got 'most fifteen hundred dollars in the bank. Laviny keeps the pass book in her bureau, but you could get it from her. I own my house. I'm a man of good character. You're poor, but I don't let that stand in the way. Anyhow, you're a first-rate housekeeper. And I really do think an awful ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... account for. But do not ask me to do more than that, Mrs. Doctor, dear. Cats is cats, and take my word for it, they will never be anything else. And at least, Mrs. Doctor, dear, do keep him away from the blessed wee man. Picture to yourself how awful it would be if he was to suck the ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... woman, are here blended with all the dignity which becomes the princely heiress of Belmont, but the serious, measured self-possession of her address to her lover, when all suspense is over, and all concealment superfluous, is most beautifully consistent with the character. It is, in truth, an awful moment, that in which a gifted woman first discovers, that besides talents and powers, she has also passions and affections; when she first begins to suspect their vast importance in the sum of her existence; when she first confesses ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... shall get lost," I said. "I haven't got a head for Stores. Perhaps if I sew my address into the back of my waistcoat I might venture, but it's an awful undertaking. And how does one dress ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... atmosphere. Guess the Nomad's done for." Carr drew her fiercely close as an awful picture flashed across his mind—of Ora's body mangled in twisted wreckage; of the ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... a garment worn for play. It was the spiritual woman only I was seeing, one who faced these real and awful facts of life with the calm, blissful assurance of knowing the truth, of giving her life for humanity because ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... be idler? And yet haven't we seen grave people and gay listening very contentedly at times to that wild and awful sort of frivolity; and I think there is in most men's minds, sages or zanies, a secret misgiving that dreams may have an office and a meaning, and are perhaps more than a fortuitous concourse of symbols, in fact, the language which good or evil spirits whisper ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... ahead what to expect it would help them keep their feet when the worst storm came. And by staying steady and true through the worst that came, they would be of the greatest service. The Holy Spirit in them would reach out and talk to that outer crowd. He would make clear to them their awful sin in killing Jesus, the spotless purity and rightness of the absent Jesus, and the terrific fact that the prince of the world whom they rally to so faithfully is actually judged, doomed and damned. Then He adds, ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... such as they are, is living with her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus; the whole little family bound to Jesus by the miracle which had brought Lazarus back to life. Jesus and his mother are their guests during Passion week; and the awful tragedy of the world and of heaven passes, in the anonymous narrative, across the narrow stage of that little burgher's house. As in the art of the fifteenth century, the chief emotional interest of the Passion is thrown not on the Apostles, scarcely on Jesus, but upon ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... whispered softly, forgetting at the awful moment that she possessed another name, "it has been voted that three of us perish by torture, but you are not in the list; you are named for a different fate. Is it still your wish that I fulfil ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... Riding. There is nothing so cruel as a crowd, and I have seen nothing in my life like the face of These-an'-That's wife. It was bleeding; it was framed in tangles of black, dishevelled hair; it was livid; but, above all, it was possessed with an awful fear—a horror it turned a man white to look on. Now and then she bit and fought like a cat: but the men around held her tight, and mostly had to drag her, her feet trailing, and the horns and ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... prison they were about to force; for the power of superstition is very great in this country, and although a great many of the men may lead wild and godless lives, they tremble at the thought of lifting their hands against that mysterious and awful body, the Inquisition. ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... prisoner is condemned, is perhaps the most awful scene of justice upon earth. This is so because it contains within itself elements that edge its painfulness. The judges wield not only the power of death, but the power of putting a man to utter ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... this vast assembly I unite my fervent prayer to that infinite and awful Being without whose favor all human power is but vanity, that he will crown your labor with his blessing, and ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... heard in the class at Sabbath-school. And surely this was a good, droning, yellow-bodied bee—where did the bees go to when they rose up straight into the air? And this little mouse, what became of it in winter? And—ah! What was that—that awful burst of sound? Clutch closer, little brother, though both be pale! How should either of you yet know the thunderous flight of the wild grouse, this great bird which whirled away through the brown leaves of the oaks? Father ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... the oak tree begged him not to do anything so wicked. He insisted but at last he agreed not to do it until the last leaf had fallen in the autumn. All the trees meant to hold On to their leaves so as to ward off the awful disaster, but one after the other they let them go—all except the oak. The oak never yet has let fall every one of its leaves and so the Evil Spirit never has had a chance to put his ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... of women, were she not unkind, The pitiless of pity to deprive. Yet she, the kindest creature of her kind, Accuseth me of self-ingratitude, And well she may, sith by good proof I find Myself had died, had she not helpful stood. For when my sickness had the upper hand, And death began to show his awful face, She took great pains my pains for to withstand, And eased my heart that was in heavy case. But cruel now, she scorneth what it craveth; Unkind in kindness, murdering ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... alone in the world," the Moralist, at the end of his essay on Ideal Friendship, writes somewhat sadly, "Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables," Yet we never quite give up the hope of finding them. But what awful things happen to us? what snubs, what set-downs we experience, what shames and disillusions. We can never really tell what these new unknown persons may do to us. Sometimes they seem nice, and then begin to talk like gramophones. ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... have played tricks on us," she declared. "It's been nothin' but one thing or 'nother ever since they came here—and last Summer it was the same way. The first thing you know, they'll be doin' somethin' awful, and some of us'll get hurt. I think I had ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... on Dutch courage, but I sure need it now," he said. "Isn't it queer the way death affects you under different circumstances? I didn't see such an awful lot of action in France, but once a raiding party of Heinies tumbled into our trench, and there was a deuce of a ruction for a few minutes. Between bayonets and bombs we cleaned the lot, a couple of dozen of them. After it was all over, we stacked them up like ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... despatch that Mr. Reynolds sent up, and at last she broke down, burst into tears, and said she, too, had learned since the inquest that Philippe was with her husband, and probably was the stranger referred to, that awful night. She even suspected it at the time, for she knew he came not to borrow but to demand money that was rightfully his, and also certain papers that Armand held and that now were gone. It was she who told me of Philippe's having been seen ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... dearie," Syrilla said to Princess Zozo, "I've got myself listed right when I say I got a refined nature. I've got all the instincts of a real society lady and sometimes it irks me awful not to be able to let myself ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... in Washington she went to see Father Walter because of his great kindness to the people of the South. She spoke, too, of the most pathetic and tragic service of his life, his faithful attendance upon Mrs. Surratt to the last awful moment. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... upheavals or descent, and cataclysmic and seismic or volcanic upheavals have blotted out in a day the accumulated progress of centuries. The poles of the earth have shifted with results to the life of the globe more awful than the imagination can portray. Bodies of people like our North American Indians represent the remains of many peoples, as in Russia or India to-day, fragments of many nationalities ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... which at length became contagious, and the people died like rotten sheep.' Medical men were ignorant and few. Proper attendance was wholly lacking. But the devotion of the Puritan chaplains, rivalling that of the early Jesuits, ran through those awful horrors like a thread of gold. Here is a typical entry of one day's pastoral care: 'Prayed at Hospital. Prayed at Citadel. Preached at Grand Batery. Visited [a long list of names] all verry Sick. [More names] Dy'd. Am but poorly myself, ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... Cars is awful tejus ridin', fer all they go so fast! But finally they called out my stoppin'-place at last: And that night, at the tavern, I dreamp' I was a train O' cars, and SKEERED at somepin', runnin' down ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... DEAR GRETCHEN,—Awful bad luck for poor Schneider. He went to enlist and was told to register! Of course he's got a streak of the Persian in him on his mother's side, and used to brag about it, as we all know; but now it's done him in the eye, and he's fairly mad. Carl is in the commissariat and tells me we've got three ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... knew how to talk; he could sling language. And lie—! Gosh, how beautifully he could lie! It was splendid of him to exaggerate like this, so as to set him in solid with the most important person in town. That was noble! People were awful nice. And this certainly was a grand city. Buddy knew he was going to get along fine; and he'd never forget Mr. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... awful word,—no overlooking the awful fact of sin's existence. No; the foundation of our enjoyment of our own fair good is well laid "in whom we have redemption through His blood, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel—oh, my, my!—and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops—"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... say sich things in sich an awful time as dis. You ain't only reskin' yo' own self, but you's reskin' us—same way like Anna Nias en Siffra. De lake WUZ dah—I seen it jis' as plain as I sees ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... larger scale, and in an aggravated form. 'Everything,' he writes, 'conduced to render me more and more unpopular, not only at the Lock, but in every part of London ... but my most distinguishing reprehensions of those who perverted the doctrines of the Gospel to Antinomian purposes, and my most awful warnings, were the language of compassionate love, and were accompanied by many tears and prayers.'[821] His printed sermons show us how strongly he felt the necessity of making a bold stand against the ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... fierce determination. It is no wonder that to those who have been in the war and passed through such moments, ordinary life and literature seem very tame. The thrill of such a moment is worth years of peace-time existence. To the watcher of a spectacle so awful and sublime, even human companionship struck a jarring note. I went over to a place by myself where I could not hear the other men talking, and there I waited. I watched the luminous hands of my watch get nearer ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... other causes of care. Still, for a long season, nought occurred to excite extraordinary regrets for the step they had taken, or to create particular uneasiness in behalf of the future. The borderers, for such by their frontier position they had in truth become, heard the strange and awful tidings of the dethronement of one king, of the interregnum, as a reign of more than usual vigor and prosperity is called, and of the restoration of the son of him who is strangely enough termed a martyr. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Awkward, as they have just pulled down north side of Strand, to make room for double lines of electric tramways in centre of roadway, and whole street in an awful litter. Begin to wish we had not "Abolished the Contractor" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... out to fetch the lead to line the coffin. By a strange chance, the sheets of lead cost just the sum he had given Pierrette for her journey from Nantes to Provins. The brave Breton, who was able to resist the awful pain of himself making the coffin of his dear one and lining with his memories those burial planks, could not bear up against this strange reminder. His strength gave way; he was not able to lift the lead, and the plumber, seeing this, came with him, and offered ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... called, with an awful voice, to come forth and make good our charge against the prisoner at your bar; but as a long time has elapsed since your Lordships heard that charge, I shall take the liberty of requesting my worthy fellow Manager near me to read that part to your Lordships which I am just ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to tell from what quarter the sound proceeds; this arises from the habit which the animal has of placing his mouth close to the ground when he roars, so that his voice rolls over the earth, as it were like a breaker, and the sound is carried along with all its tremendous force. It is indeed a most awful note of preparation, and so thought Alexander, who ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... afraid you have been keeping too late hours, Paul, or reading too much. Lord Westover was saying the other day that you were in a very Bohemian set—journalists and artists, and those sort of people. I am afraid they keep awful hours." ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... progress of Christianity and the fulfilment of its prophecies, may inspire increasing confidence that the new objections are also destined to yield to similar solvents. Meanwhile, such new difficulties, and those more awful and gigantic shadows which we have no reason to believe will ever be chased from the sacred page,—mysteries which probably could not be explained from the necessary limitation of our faculties, and are, at all events, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... position in society. There was also an interview with Col. Sellers and another with Washington Hawkins, the brother of the murderess. One journal had a long dispatch from Hawkeye, reporting the excitement in that quiet village and the reception of the awful intelligence. ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... derived from the presence of his self-sufficient attendant, except in as much as the appearance of such a person in his company was likely to produce a moral effect upon those to whom he might be opposed. Messengers of state were in those days very awful people, and employed in general in the arrest of such criminals as were very unlikely to escape the axe if taken. Yet it seldom if ever happened that any resistance was offered to them; and we are told that at the appearance of a single individual ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... "Awful people, implacable, insatiable, pernicious, destructive people. The trackers down, the hangers-on, the persecutors, the pursuers. Did I ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... nothing was visible but pine-trees, firs, and blocks of granite; and the road was difficult even for the sure-footed beasts which we bestrode; at length, we cleared the wood, and at once the Vignemale rose in awful splendour before us, its glaciers glittering in the sun, ten thousand feet above the bed of the dark blue lake, itself at a vast elevation above the level of the sea. Next to Gavarnie, this view of the Vignemale struck me as the most impressive object I had seen, the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello |
