"Awe-inspiring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had lain in such different places. Innately a gentleman, he bore himself with dignity in this new position, with a fine simplicity and self-effacement that was not lost on some of his friends. His respect for them all was unbounded. For the mother, so majestic, so awe-inspiring; for Howard, that handsome boy whose exuberant Americanism was untouched by any feeling of caste; for Melton and Hubert Henry, his brothers, those lordly striplings of a lordly race; for Miss Latimer, who in his heart ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... at the sudden winning intonations which had crept into her voice, dodged around the portly back of Mrs. Stanley and followed Beatrix out of the room. For the moment, the haughty woman had changed to a jovial, friendly girl, no more awe-inspiring than Katarina, in spite of her wonderful gown and the fluffy white thing in her hair; and the artist, in his turn, changed into a normal hungry boy, as he ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... the chase was in their sensitive nostrils. It was like the sight of rare wines to a drunkard. Shift! Say, but the way those long-legged demons ate up the distance between them and their prey was awe-inspiring. It was uncanny. It was almost magic. It ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... in the cavity in the west side of the gulch might not have been so awe-inspiring had it not been for the mysterious noise that had echoed and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... thereby rescued them from their sin. Indeed, one should take the names of all these that were endued with the blazing effulgence of fire, great beauty of person, and high energy. Some of them were of awe-inspiring forms and great might. Verily, one should take the names of these deities and Rishis and kings, those lords of the universe,—who are enhancers of fame. Sankhya, and Yoga which is highest of the high, and Havya and Kavya and that refuge of all the Srutis, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... her late husband, yet that little was of a sufficiently awe-inspiring character to satisfy the curiosity of Laurel Spring. A man of unswerving animosity and candid belligerency, untempered by any human weakness, he had been actively engaged as survivor in two or three blood feuds in ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... faith, was a hard and difficult task. He would have tried to divert her mind by taking her on a long drive; but she was fearful that Carry might come during her absence; and her strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed greatly. As he looked into her large and awe-inspiring clear eyes, a something he tried to keep from his mind—to put off day by day from contemplation—kept asserting itself directly to his inner consciousness. He began to doubt the expediency and wisdom of his management. He recalled every incident of his ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... relieved him of some sixty francs, although he always went to the pit. What student could deny himself the pleasure of seeing Talma in one of his famous roles? Lucien was fascinated by the theatre, that first love of all poetic temperaments; the actors and actresses were awe-inspiring creatures; he did not so much as dream of the possibility of crossing the footlights and meeting them on familiar terms. The men and women who gave him so much pleasure were surely marvelous beings, whom the newspapers treated ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... larger even than the aircars of the Moon, landed in vast and awe-inspiring numbers on the roof of the world—landed easily, with no apparent effort or shock. The light of them made all the world a place of vast radiance, save only that portion which was being destroyed by the cube-army, and this area had a cold, chill ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... within it, the mother alone excepted. They don't wear any clothing till they are seven or eight years old, and are then dressed like their elders. Their manners to their parents are very affectionate. Even to-day, in the chief's awe-inspiring presence, one dear little nude creature, who had been sitting quietly for two hours staring into the fire with her big brown eyes, rushed to meet her mother when she entered, and threw her arms round her, to which the woman responded by a look of true maternal tenderness and a kiss. ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... to see the effect, he followed it instantly with the second ball. During one brief moment it seemed that neither had taken effect, and with feverish energy Charlie pressed home two fresh shells. That awe-inspiring beast was a hundred and fifty yards away, and each second seemed an hour. But, just as Jack stepped forward and fired again, the great ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... not some strange, awe-inspiring voice that shall break the silence of the midnight sky; our need is an ear trained to hear, a spirit to understand and reverence the sublime voices that are ever speaking in our world, the voices of the beauty of nature, the joy of living, ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... hill was an expanse of rolling, desolate wilderness. Carefully I examined with my glass the great plain of lakes, hoping that I might discover the smoke of a wigwam fire or some other sign of life, but none was to be seen. It was as still and dead as the day it was created. It was a solemn, awe-inspiring scene, impressive beyond description, and one that I shall ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... in a delightful quarter of the city, opposite a park of many acres. The house was dignified mansion, full of stately old furniture, and if it had not been for its owner's cheery hospitality it would have been rather awe-inspiring to a little girl like Polly. But Polly, having been several times a guest in the big house, now felt quite at home, and ran up and down the polished oaken stairs and through the grand, dimly lighted hallways as merrily as if she had always been used ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... over-hanging brows, high-bridged fleshy nose, and a full-lipped mouth which tightened and set when he was angry. His grey eyes were piercing and soldier-like, yet I have seen them lighten up into a kindly and merry twinkle. His voice was the most tremendous and awe-inspiring that I have ever listened to. I can well believe what I have heard, that when he chanted the Hundredth Psalm as he rode down among the blue bonnets at Dunbar, the sound of him rose above the blare of trumpets and the crash of guns, like the deep roll of a breaking wave. ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... off instantly at a smart walk; the rigid straddle of his legs, the turned-out feet, the stiff back, the rakish slant of the sombrero above the square, motionless set of the shoulders expressing an infinite, awe-inspiring impudence. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Carrowmore, with its labyrinth of cromlechs and stone circles, a very city of dead years. There is something awe-inspiring in the mere massiveness of these piled and ordered stones, the visible boundaries of invisible thoughts; that awe is deepened by the feeling of the tremendous power lavished in bringing them here, setting them up in their ordered groups, and piling the ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... answers were much less frequent, and Mr. S. began to indulge the hope that he would soon overcome the habit entirely. When he had attended school for about six months, as was the custom two or three times a year, we passed under what to the school boys was an "awful review" in presence of those awe-inspiring personages, termed in those days the school-trustees, and any other friends of the school who might chance to be present. We all, even to the teacher, had our fears lest Ned (who had not yet entirely discontinued ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... is flung the living garment of God, and how grandly, yet reverently and humbly, did the profound Newton cross it! Oh, ye defiant iconoclasts of sublime faith in the "old doctrines;" ye who talk so flippantly of the "potentialities of life in a nebula;" who sit on the awe-inspiring Matterhorn, at high noon, and muse in sadness over "the primordial formless fog," teeming with all the mighty possibilities of myriads of sun-systems like our own; and, musing, sneer, if you can, at the idea of a "specific creation" in the beginning—of an Infinite Intelligence ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... petticoats. I began to feel my way. Once I contrived to get a seat close by the wicked angel, and paid her attentions which she received graciously: when I asked leave to wait upon her, she referred to her mistress, on whom everything depended. I spoke admiringly of that awe-inspiring Madonna, and remarked that I had known her family in Turkey, and that she resembled ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... or awe-inspiring about 37 Middle Street, yet the barrister was loth to leave the place. The scent of the chase was in his ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... the heavy pages of the great books rustle as they are turned, and names called aloud cause search to be made in other books. Pens scratch. The old cashier, surrounded by his lieutenants, has a businesslike, awe-inspiring air. From time to time Fromont Jeune, on the point of going out in his carriage, looks in for a moment, with a cigar in his mouth, neatly gloved and ready for the street. He walks slowly, on tiptoe, puts ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... has attended but one meeting where the great McDonald presided, and, being then young in years, the dress, or rather the undress, of the man was itself awe-inspiring. It was something unusual to see a man in the pulpit with his coat and vest laid aside and his shirt open, laying bare his brawny neck. The man himself was enough to create fear, but when the activity of the members began, discretion ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... been just as startling and awe-inspiring to Bakahenzie as it had been to his most ignorant dupe. His belief in ghostland was implicit, but now he had seen what, professionally, he was supposed to see and converse with on familiar terms. As Zalu Zako disappeared he ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... from the established customs of humanity must be criticised unsparingly, and, if necessary, destructively. To overthrow the customs of antiquity must entail its own punishment and that punishment may be an awe-inspiring and chastening Success. Therefore, this happy whisky-governed land of ours should never forsake its liquor or it may be forced by opportunity and work to become great. The foundations of our civilisation are steeped in beer—let no sacrilegious hand seek ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... something awe-inspiring in the innocent readiness of little children to learn the explanation of by far the greatest fact within the horizon of their minds. The way they receive it, with native reverence, truthfulness of understanding, and guileless delicacy, is nothing short of a revelation ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... brings one to the edge of a precipice 2,400 feet deep, so appalling and so sudden that one's breath is momentarily taken away. It is a spot to sit and meditate on the grandeur of the work of the Master of all architects. The majesty of that mighty ravine is, indeed, awe-inspiring. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... some weeks past that the man Nattoo, whom he had just shot, was bent on making trouble. His prompt action had not, therefore, been the result of panic, but the deliberate execution of a fore-ordained sentence. The only question was how to make the necessary execution most awe-inspiring and exemplary. The moment was well chosen, and served to strengthen, for the time being, the waning authority of these two Englishmen thus thrown upon their own resources in ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and home. It was one of those matchless nights that come only in the mountains, when the world is flooded with a soft, silvery light and the great trees stand out transfigured against the sky, amid a silence profound and awe-inspiring. ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... nothing. Trembling with awe, he opened his perceptions to this new and unfamiliar thing that was to unveil for him all the mysteries of the world, if only he kept his ears open; and he did so. But there was no awe-inspiring man, who looked at them affectionately through gold-rimmed spectacles while he told them about the sun and the moon and all the wonders of the world. Up and down the middle passage walked a man in a ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of wind and rain, with the accompaniments of thunder and lightning of the most awe-inspiring nature, gave them a lesson in the weakness of their shelter-place, for the water swept through in a deluge, and after a terrible night they gazed in dismay at the river, which was running swiftly nearly up to the place where they kept their fire going. That the flood was increasing ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... arose to speak a few precious words, the effect was visible a good many yards from where he stood. At the close of the service he went in great state down the center aisle, preceded by the gorgeous beadle—a character that is always awe-inspiring to me in these churches, being a cross between a magnificent drum-major and a verger and two persons in livery, and followed by a train of splendidly attired priests, six of whom bore up his long train of purple silk. The whole cortege was resplendent in embroidery and ermine; and as the great ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... they very successfully accomplish their object—that of realizing to the eye of the mind that distinctive and prevailing expression which each aspect of nature, like each movement of the human face, wears in itself, and is calculated to awaken in others—cheerful, sombre, majestic, or awe-inspiring, according to the nature of the scene, the associations past and present with which it is surrounded, and the conditions, or, as a painter would term it, accidents under which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... and the Dean of the Chapel Royal. Francesca, it is true, makes her annual bow to the Lord High Commissioner at Holyrood Palace and dines there frequently during Assembly Week; and as Ronald numbers one Duke, two Earls, and several Countesses and Dowager Countesses in his parish, there are awe-inspiring visiting cards to be found in the silver salver on her hall table,—but Salemina in Ireland literally lives with the great, of all classes and conditions! She is in the heart of the Irish Theatre and the Modern Poetry movements,—and when she is ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... fantastically and floated off also, leaving the deep blue vault to mirror itself in the answering azure of the sea; the eternal calm above, awful in its intensity of stillness; the ceaseless movement below, a type of life, throbbing, murmurous, changeful, more interesting than awe-inspiring, more to ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... slightest objection. As a matter of fact, they were very good to me, nor did I see aught while I was among them to indicate that they are ever else than a simple, kindly folk when left to themselves. Their awe-inspiring size, terrific strength, mighty fighting-fangs, and hideous appearance are but the attributes necessary to the successful waging of their constant battle for survival, and well do they employ them when ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... manifestations of the religious life with which alone he was familiar, he was still an unconscious worshiper. The woods, the hills, the rivers and the stars awoke within him a response to the beautiful, the sublime and awe-inspiring in the natural universe. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... away her wooden parts and diminished the weight upon her. Ascending to the roof of the building I watched her for hours, until finally she was lost in the dim vistas of the distance. The sight was awe-inspiring in the extreme as one contemplated this mighty floating funeral pyre, drifting unguided and unmanned through the lonely wastes of the Martian heavens; a derelict of death and destruction, typifying the life story of these strange and ferocious ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... There was something mysterious—awe-inspiring in these movements; and our young hunters observed them, not without feelings of terror. They were both puzzled and awed. They scarcely knew what course to adopt. They talked in whispers, giving their counsels to each other. Should they creep to their horses, mount, and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... exhilaration. We can see at most for a hundred yards in any direction. But we know that the forest extends like this for hundreds of miles. And we realise that if we wandered off the track we might never find it again. It is all very awe-inspiring, and in some ways frightening. Still, we are thrilled by the sight of such a profusion, intensity, and variety of life. In this hot, steamy atmosphere plants and trees grow in luxuriant abundance. Every inch of soil is occupied. And these ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... longer. Mat, sit there and guard the small things, while you and I, Livy, charge boldly among these imbeciles and drag them to their duty;' and Amanda marched away to clutch a cockaded victim by the shoulder with an awe-inspiring countenance. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... has that to reveal to her which concerns her, and thee, too, deeply. And mark me, Chief! unless thou ceasest to pursue the feuds of thy fathers, thy course will be brief, and bloody will be its close." Thus saying, he turned and feebly dragged his spent and tottering form into the dark and awe-inspiring cave. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the inner shrine of this awe-inspiring organism, he naturally preferred to think of the secret autocratic powers, and of the almost uncanny insight of those to whom he was about to make appeal. Surely they would soon probe the ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... us leave this awe-inspiring uproar and go down into the saloon. Here we come into another world, a world of light and peace and contentment. The drawn curtains exclude the sight of the angry elements without, and save for the gentle rocking of the ship and the occasional splashing of water against its sides, ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson
... little urchin was making a squeaking noise with a wet finger on the window-pane, inside which were displayed a few crossed pipes and fly-blown sweatmeats. As the city minister stood looking about him, a bent yet awe-inspiring form came hirpling to the door, leaning heavily on a staff. Making out by the noise the whereabouts of the small boy, the old man turned suddenly to him with a great roar like a bull, before the blast of which the boy disappeared, blown ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... a human soul? What is an ephemeral flower or an age-lasting star compared with glorious reason, with eternal love, with deathless benevolence, and conscience? What were the material universe with all its sublime grandeur and awe-inspiring magnificence with no soul to gaze upon it? And yet perfect and beautiful as were our souls when God gave them to us, what unsightly, miserable, demoniac things we have made of them! It is evil Education that has done it all. We have trained ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... overhung with a canopy of blood-red passion-flowers and girt about by design dangled from the clustering foliage in its roof. Within, directly under the beams, all by itself, on an upright chair beside a small table, sat an incongruous, startling, awe-inspiring apparition—a grimy old man of Mongolian aspect. He might have been frozen to stone, so immobile, so lifeless were his features. Belated visitors passed near the entrance of the shrine, peered within as at ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... David Michelangelo first displayed that quality of terribilita, of spirit-quailing, awe-inspiring force, for which he afterwards became so famous. The statue imposes, not merely by its size and majesty and might, but by something vehement in the conception. He was, however, far from having yet adopted those systematic proportions for the human body which later on gave an air of monotonous ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... night, he said, the stars were so wonderful, so big, so close, so soft and luminous. But the northern stars were different. They were without the orange tone that belongs to the South. They seemed remoter and more awe-inspiring, and there was always a green ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... disposition, the Divisional Commander contented himself, during his first visit, with merely observing and asking a question here and there. His subsequent visits were frequent and seldom welcomed by the rank and file, who found him awe-inspiring and hypercritical. He was, however, known to unbend and show generous appreciation of honest effort and good work. On rare occasions he unexpectedly revealed the possession of ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... hour afterward they had reached the dark and awe-inspiring gap of Brixen; and the united Bavarian and French troops marched with a measured step along the narrow road, on both sides of which rose steep gray rocks, covered here and there with small pine forests, and ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... flame. Where, a moment before, it had been belching skyward an enormous stream of gaseous vapor, all but invisible except at the casing head, now it was a monstrous blow torch, the flaming crest of which was tossed a hundred feet high. Nothing in the nature of a conflagration could have been more awe-inspiring, more confounding to the faculties than that roaring column of consuming fire. It was a thing incredibly huge, incredibly furious, incredibly wild. Human figures, black against its glare, were flying to safety, near-by silhouettes were flinging ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... the turn of the second-class passengers! There was a general bousculade and the human bundle began to move. Marguerite lost sight of the tent and its awe-inspiring appurtenances: she was a mere unit again in this herd on the move. She too progressed along slowly, one step at a time; it was wearisome and she was deadly tired. She was beginning to form plans now that she had arrived in France. All along she had made up her mind that she would begin ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... covert peeping forth In the low vale, or on steep mountain side; And sometimes intermixed with stirring horns Of the live deer, or goat's depending beard; These were the lurking Satyrs, wild brood Of gamesome deities; or Pan himself, That simple shepherd's awe-inspiring god." ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... made speech impossible, and vision when sitting in the little glass-screened well, or conning-tower, was limited by the great waves of greenish-white water which curved upwards from either bow, and rolled astern in a welter of foam. There was an awe-inspiring fury in the thunder of the 700 h.p. engines revolving at 1350 per minute, and a feeling of ecstasy in the stiff breeze of passage and the atomised spray. When waves came the slap-slap-slap of the water as the sharp bows cleft through the crest and the little vessel was for a brief moment ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... origin of Christianity. The first thing necessary to its solution is this: that Christianity is to be understood only by examining the soil from which it sprung—it is not a reaction against Jewish instincts; it is their inevitable product; it is simply one more step in the awe-inspiring logic of the Jews. In the words of the Saviour, "salvation is of the Jews."[4]—The second thing to remember is this: that the psychological type of the Galilean is still to be recognized, but it was only in its most degenerate form (which is at once maimed and overladen with ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... effect of the etheric-physical interference of the astral impulse appears before our eyes, our ears give us direct awareness of this impulse in the form of thunder. It is this fact which accounts for the awe-inspiring character of thunderstorms. ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... significance to the author himself? The answer is to be found in the title, with its allusion to the narrative in the Acts of the Apostles of the journey of Saul, the persecutor, the scoffer, who, on his way to Damascus, had an awe-inspiring vision, which converted Saul, the hater of Christ, into Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Strindberg's drama describes the progress of the author right up to his conversion, shows how stage by stage ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... and who, further, had been made suddenly aware that in this somber setting of bleak and elemental nature the great figure of his future employer assumed a certain air of grandeur that was a little too awe-inspiring to be pleasant. ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... ice-clad peaks of Kinchinjunga, a hundred miles away, towered high in air. Mystic, lovely, they seemed to float above the earth, as unsubstantial as the clouds from which they rose. They belonged to another world, a fairy world altogether apart from the rugged, tumbled masses, the awe-inspiring precipices and tremendous cliffs, of the nearer mountains. These were majestic, overpowering, but plainly of this earth, unlike the pure, white summits that seemed unreal, impossible in ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... Particularly awe-inspiring was Mrs. Gurley when she listened to another speaking. She held her head a little to one side, her teeth met her underlip and her be-ringed hands toyed incessantly with the long gold chain, in a manner which seemed to denote that she set little value on what was being said. Awful, too, was the ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... should say that his dogmatism is shaken by vibrations from the new Dominant. His difficulty, which he acknowledges, but which he would have disregarded had he written a decade or so earlier, is the profundity of some of these obscurations. He says that mere smokiness cannot account for such "awe-inspiring dark days." So he conceives of eddies in the air, concentrating the smoke from forest fires. Then, in the inconsistency or discord of all quasi-intellection that is striving for consistency or harmony, he tells of the vastness of some of these darknesses. Of course Mr. Plummer did not really think ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... in the process. Oh, was not that a dainty dish to set before such kings! At the far end of the station were ten trucks of coal blazing more vigorously than in any grate, besides yet other trucks filled with government stationery and no one knows what beside. It was an awe-inspiring sight and pitiful ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... and so isolates the mind from contact with the world outside. To gaze at the motionless face of a sleeper temporarily rapt from the life of sight, sound, and movement—which, being common to all, binds us together in mutual recognition and social action—has always something awe-inspiring. This external inaction, this torpor of sense and muscle, how unlike to the familiar waking life, with its quick responsiveness and its overflowing energy! And then, if we look at dreams from the inside, we seem to find but the reverse face of the mystery. How inexpressibly strange does ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... seemed suddenly to become one of the great events of a lifetime, and was unmarred by the disturbing apprehensions of any possible danger. The entire absence of sound was indescribably awe-inspiring as ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... weakness. I feared to pick it up, a horrible dread seized me that it might be a new Bible, and I was unwilling to risk another disappointment. The footprint on the sand was not more suggestive nor more awe-inspiring to Robinson Crusoe than the appearance of that book was to me. In mood as lonely, in plight as desperate as his, there lay before me a sight as unlooked for and, as it seemed, as full of meaning as the footprint ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... letter from a New York firm offering to trade stock in a holding company, taking over smelters of the class and kind in the Wahoo Valley for the stocks and bonds of the Harvey Smelters Company. The letterhead was so awe-inspiring and the proposition was so convincing by reason of the terror inherent in the letterhead that the smelters went into the holding company, and thereafter the managing officials who had been men of power and consequence in Harvey became clerks. About the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... (The Old Hay). Only about a quarter of the country is fit for human habitation, mainly the districts along the coast. The uplands, for the most part made up of mountains, glaciers, sand- deserts, and lava, are often awe-inspiring in their grandeur. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... its ever changing spectacle, exhilerating, splendid, awe-inspiring, there among the mountains, raised her spirits as she travelled, and drove gloomy thoughts away as it drove off the brooding mists which clung persistently, tearing themselves to tattered ribbons ere they would loose ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... glory. Matrons stared at it; maidens gazed with fascinated and jealous vision; men young and old let their eyes take full liberty. It was as if a queen, arrayed in a robe of state, had entered that dingy log edifice, an apparition of dazzling and awe-inspiring beauty. Oncle Jazon caught sight of her, and snapped his tune short off. The dancers swung together and stopped in confusion. But she, fortified by a woman's strongest bulwark, the sense of resplendency, appeared ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... fireman included, taking to their heels in wild flight. As the little girls and urchins had melted away before the Simpson gang, so was melting away the Simpson gang before some new and correspondingly awe-inspiring group of ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... garden,—running round two sides of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and probably for the custody of booty,—the battlements, and the round tower, and the awe-inspiring gateway had all been added by one of the late Sir Florians. But the castle looked like a castle, and was interesting. As a house it was not particularly eligible, the castle form of domestic architecture being exigeant ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... interior of such a cathedral, with its vast nave rising in swelling arches to the vaulted roof, its clustered columns, its glowing windows, and infinite variety of ornamentation, forms the most awe-inspiring sanctuary ever raised by man. It is a prayer, a hymn, a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... watched this work long when a distant muffled sound, something like that of a blast, and yet plainly not produced by an explosion, reached their ears. Although not loud, it was an ominous, awe-inspiring sound; and Derrick would have taken to his heels and made for the bottom of the slope had not his pride kept him ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... when we last parted, and he was almost triumphant when he related the success of his mission to Gallibornu with the mysterious paper written in English, that I had given him in order to terrify the purchaser of his bullock. He had exhibited this awe-inspiring epistle, which nobody could either read or understand, and Georgi had taken advantage of his opportunity to threaten the sharp cattle-dealer with a long list of imaginary punishments that would be inflicted by English law should he ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... parish. He had escaped being an Oxford don by being preferred early to this college living, but he had married the daughter of a don, who appreciated the grand manners of their new acquaintances, and who, when she had overcome their first rather awe-inspiring impression, became communicative and amused them much with her details respecting the little world in which they were now to live. She could not conceal her wonderment at the beauty of the twins, though they were no longer habited ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... evening—being a gentler tragedy than "Oedipus," and conceived in a spirit more in touch with our modern times—was received with a warmer enthusiasm. No doubt to the Greeks, to whom its religious motive was a living reality, "Oedipus" was purely awe-inspiring; but to us, for whom the religious element practically has no existence, the intrinsic qualities of the plot are so repellent that the play is less awe-inspiring than horrible. And even in Grecian times, I fancy—human nature being the same then as now in its substrata—"Antigone," with its ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... sacred tombs, and silent walls! 'Tis your auspicious aid that I invoke; 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation, pours forth its prayers! What though the profane and vulgar mind shrinks with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect; to me you unfold the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and offer to my senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting thoughts! How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... on charmingly with the English nobility and sufficiently well with the gentry, but the upper servants strike terror to my soul. There is something awe-inspiring to me about an English butler. If they would only put him in livery, or make him wear a silver badge; anything, in short, to temper his pride and prevent one from mistaking him for the master of the house or the bishop within his gates. When I call upon Lady DeWolfe, I say to myself impressively, ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... member of which was gorgeously painted and bedecked with eagle feathers, and carried in his hand a long switch with which to threaten the encroaching throng. Their horses wore head-skins of fierce animals to add to their awe-inspiring appearance. ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us searchingly. "No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Paul's an elderly and impressively haughty person in a black robe showed us through the Crypt and delivered learned lectures before the tombs of Nelson and Wellington. His appearance and manner were somewhat awe-inspiring, especially to Hephzy, who asked me, in a whisper, if I thought likely he was a bishop or a canon or something. When the round was ended and we were leaving the Crypt she saw me put a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... It was thought to be a most difficult country to reach—a terra incognita—rude and dangerous, having no allurements for the average Canadian, whose notions about it, if he had any, were limited, as usual, to the awe-inspiring legend of "barbarous Indians and ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... eyes as he took his son in his arms; and I saw by the expression of his countenance how he loved him. Mr Brand always stood high in his estimation; when he heard of what Silas had done, he stood higher still. I must own it, Jerry and I very soon forgot the awe-inspiring thoughts which had passed through our minds while we expected so soon to be called into eternity. Our chief concern was, having lost our guns and gamebags. We were, therefore, highly delighted when Burkett and Kilby made their appearance ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... staring at most people in a reproving manner, as though he had just found them out in some dark transgression. It was possibly a habit due to a lifelong experience of the faults and the failings of human nature, and it was one which stood Binks in good stead, giving him an austere and awe-inspiring appearance. Especially on Sundays did this detective air prove helpful, when he did duty as parish clerk in the quaint, old-time church on the shore, where it served to keep the small ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... nettles everywhere, but are not smooth, green grasses more common still?' Can you recognize something awe-inspiring in the rise and fall of nations? Can you not recognize something undisturbed and peaceful among disturbance and trouble? Has not even grass some meaning? Does not even a stone tell the mystery of Life? Does ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... A dinner much disturbed by German artillery. They started a tremendous shelling of the wood in which we were encamped. Salvos of 5.9's made deafening crashes among the trees, and the earth was shaken by the heavier, more awe-inspiring "crump" of the 8-inch how. There was now, too, a steady bombardment of Villequier Aumont, the village, a mile and a half behind, in which the battery waggon lines ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... formation, the wind filling their, great white cloaks, making each man look gigantic. Diana's interest flamed up excitedly. It was like passing another ship upon a hitherto empty sea. They seemed to add a desired touch to the grim loneliness of the scene that had begun to be a little awe-inspiring. Perhaps she was hungry, perhaps she was tired, or perhaps she was only annoyed by the bad arrangements of her guide, but before the advent of the mounted Arabs Diana had been conscious of a feeling of oppression, as if ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... irregularities.[606] Pitt's affection for Dundas and Grenville had also cooled; but on the whole his friendships stood the test of time better, perhaps, than those of any statesman of the eighteenth century. Certainly in this respect he compares favourably with his awe-inspiring father. Not that Pitt possessed the charm of affability. On most persons his austere self-concentration produced a repellent effect; and it must be confessed that the Grenville strain in his nature dowered him with a fund of more than ordinary English coldness. Such was the opinion ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... after midnight. A thunder storm suddenly rolled its dense clouds over the city and smothered the street lamps in a pall of darkness. The rain burst with a flash of lightning and poured in torrents. The electric display was awe-inspiring. The horses in one of the ambulances in the long line stampeded and smashed the vehicle in front. The procession was stopped in the height of the storm. The vivid flame was now continuous and Betty could see the wagons standing in a mud-splashed row for a mile, the lightning ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... Francisco Ferrer did not believe in the existence of a God. Why teach the child to hate something which does not exist? Is it not more likely that he took the children out into the open, that he showed them the splendor of the sunset, the brilliancy of the starry heavens, the awe-inspiring wonder of the mountains and seas; that he explained to them in his simple, direct way the law of growth, of development, of the interrelation of all life? In so doing he made it forever impossible for the poisonous ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... very magnificent person, of course. She made the rest of the company, including the principals, look (this was a phrase Dolly had unguardedly used the day Rose first appeared at rehearsal) like a bunch of rummies. And of course it was an immense compliment to be singled out by an awe-inspiring person like that, for her particular chum. Only, once the compliment had been paid, its value as an abiding possession became a little doubtful. Awe is not a very comfortable sort of emotion to ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... gentleman in the west of Skye. This gentleman is an excellent English scholar, can speak Gaelic but is unable to read it. He got a letter once from St. Kilda composed by an islander who spelt Gaelic by ear and not according to the awe-inspiring orthography of the dictionary. The gentleman, who could not have made out the letter had it been spelt correctly, was able to read it as it stood, without the slightest hesitation. If a more rational spelling were generally adopted, an immense number of Lowlanders who are interested in philology, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... sunrise has a peculiar quality of its own, in the bush, which I found very moving and somewhat awe-inspiring upon first acquaintance. There was a hush which one could feel and hear; a silence which exercised one's hearing more than any sound. And yet it was not a silence at all; for the sea never was still there. It was as though the bush and all that dwelt therein held its breath, waiting, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... of wrigglers from a dealer down on the Bowery and Merritt made himself up for a Hindoo fakir. He would get into the cage with them and those snakes would wrap themselves about him from his head to his toes and it was an awe-inspiring sight. He taught them to stand up on their tails and dance while he played on a tin whistle and to do other pretty little tricks, but the great and original stunt was what he called the 'Interminable Snake,' when ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... off from the artillery, and tells a blood-curdling tale of Boer treachery and cowardice. He tells how the enemy held out the white flag to coax our men to stop firing. Then, in awe-inspiring tones, he sobs forth a tale of dark and dismal war, how our soldiers respected the white flag and rested on their arms, only to be mowed down by a withering rifle fire from the canaille who represent the enemy in the field. Having got so far, he does ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... enough there the hat was. Both children pressed beside Norah to peep in with her when she opened the cupboard door. This hall cupboard was the most sacred and awe-inspiring receptacle in the whole house, because here were kept Dale's fireman's outfit always ready and handy to be snatched out at a moment's notice. Rachel gazed delightedly at the blue coat hanging extended, with the webbed steel ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... usually so dramatic and awe-inspiring as tornadoes, but they are even more destructive of life. The Johnstown flood of 1889, however, was dramatic and even spectacular—so swiftly did it come and so certainly could it have been avoided. It destroyed 2,235 lives, swept away ten ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... because of an inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its awe-inspiring influence in "the monumental caves of death," as described by Congreve. Sir Joshua truly declares that "all arts address themselves to the sensibility and imagination"; and no one thus alive to the appeal of sculpture will marvel ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... a long time before Bernardine even wished to speak. This beautiful whiteness may become monotonous after a time, but there is something very awe-inspiring about it, something which catches the ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... centered there. To the two country girls the idea of "Society" was a trifle appalling. Phyllis Alden had also written them that she knew nothing of Society and was almost afraid to venture into that awe-inspiring realm, while Miss Jenny Ann at first refused to consider the idea, but finally relented and made her preparations to join the girls in anything but a joyous ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... the first half of Macbeth is greater than the second, and in the first half Lady Macbeth not only appears more than in the second but exerts the ultimate deciding influence on the action. And, in the opening Act at least, Lady Macbeth is the most commanding and perhaps the most awe-inspiring figure that Shakespeare drew. Sharing, as we have seen, certain traits with her husband, she is at once clearly distinguished from him by an inflexibility of will, which appears to hold imagination, feeling, and conscience completely in check. To her the prophecy of things that will ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... lithe Tanagraean maiden spoke With awe-inspiring prophetess Cassandra, Ivy-crowned Maenads, Gods Olympian, And the song-nourished Hellades; they spoke From the far cave of fair ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... and day of public prayer, on which to supplicate God that He turn aside the sword suspended above them. The night following, the beadle in a dream saw an awe-inspiring old man, who addressed him in the following words: "Up, quickly! Hasten to the gate of the court, where lies the money you need. I am your father Abraham. I have beheld the affliction wherewith the Gentiles oppress you, but God has heard your groans." In great terror the beadle ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... first critic speaks kindly or savagely of him. What, indeed, at best, do those blind leaders, but zealously echo a sentiment already in the public heart,—which they vainly endeavor to create (out of nothing) by any awe-inspiring formula ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... proper, tall fellows, too, and we were all as mute as mice; and even now, when time has whitened my locks, and I am the grandparent of a second generation, I could not behold that remarkable woman without feelings it is impossible to describe. Whoever has seen that awe-inspiring air and manner so characteristic in the Father of his Country will remember the matron as she appeared when the presiding genius of her well-ordered household, ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... servant stood holding open the door. A sense of gloom and chill at once overwhelmed me. From the interior, which I faintly saw stretching before me, there breathed even in that first moment of hurried entrance a cold and haughty grandeur that, however rich and awe-inspiring, was any thing but attractive ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... century discovered for us. Vergil is not likely to stand in postures before the awful solemnity of the sea or the majesty of wide vistas from mountain tops. Italian hill-tops afford views of numerous charming landscapes but no scenes of entrancing grandeur or awe-inspiring desolation, and the sea, before the days of the compass, was too suggestive of death and sorrow to invite consideration of its lawless beauty. These aspects of nature had to be discovered by later experiences ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... distance, where he had to invite the harbour officials to examine his ship. This again proved a most attractive and impressive excursion. The view of one fjord in particular, which extended far inland, worked on my imagination like some unknown, awe-inspiring desert. This impression was intensified, during a long walk from Tromsond up to the plateau, by the terribly depressing effect of the dun moors, bare of tree or shrub, boasting only a covering of scanty moss, which stretch away to the horizon, and merge imperceptibly into the gloomy sky. It was long ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... rollers and ourselves on the other. First it was impossible to take off the guns and specimens, so we made them all up to leave for the morrow. Second, a sick man had come ashore for exercise, and he could not be got off: finally, Atkinson stayed ashore with him. The breakers made the most awe-inspiring cauldron in our little nook, and it meant a tough swim for all of us. Three of us swam out first and took a line to the pram, and finally we got a good rope from the whaler, which had anchored well out, to the shore. I then manoeuvred the pram, and everybody plunged into ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... it had an awe-inspiring effect upon the barbarians. When they thought they had a God to deal with, they gave up the struggle; which made their ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... hands with a gesture of dismay, and sat as if transfixed by the spectacle of a ponderous lady, in an awe-inspiring bonnet, who came walking slowly down the street. Polly gave a groan, and pulled a bright ribbon from her hair. Toady muttered, "Oh, bother!" and vainly attempted to polish up his countenance ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott |
