"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it," she ordered, handing him the bacon. Then, with a shudder, she added: "Must have been rather awful down there." ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... simply awful, old chap," pursued Jack cheerily. "Where on earth have you been for the last month? I wrote to York and got ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... slaves? The truth was, we stopped the natural progress of civilization in Africa. We cut her off from the opportunity of improvement. We kept her down in a state of darkness, bondage, ignorance, and bloodshed. Was not this an awful consideration for this country? Look at the map of Africa, and see how little useful intercourse had been established on that vast continent! While other countries were assisting and enlightening each ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... moment she felt quite incapable of speaking intelligibly. Her mental vision conjured up a picture of her child in some terrible danger, and, in her anxiety, her mind refused to take in more than that one awful fact, overlooking for the time the circumstance of Bob having received an injury. The danger to which May had been exposed; that was all she thought about—all she could think about just then; and, until ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... followed by the cataract-like roar, and the high, thin seas, wheeling away beautifully crested with sparkling foam. If it is possible, imagine the effect upon the beholder: this precipice of ice, with tremendous cracking, is falling toward us with a majestic and awful motion. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... and an Olive reposing on the Bosom. If he ordered Ice Cream he got something resembling a sample Paper Weight from the Quarries at Bedford, Indiana. And the Buckwheat Cakes! They looked like Doilies and tasted like Blotters. And the Demi-Tasse is an Awful Joke to spring on the Man who wants a Cup ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... all other collectors. And he is the truly happiest of them all. It is only when, by some merciless stroke of Fate, he is robbed of his hoard, that he becomes wretched. Then, certainly, he suffers. He suffers proportionately to his joy. He is smitten with sorrow more awful than any sorrow to be conceived by the sane. I whose rainbow-coloured hoard has been swept from me, seem to taste the full ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... entirely wanting. They were trodden down, but at the same time exceedingly defiant and imperious. If they were not the "head," it was not because they did not "strive for the mastery." They seemed to have no idea of self-control; their bursts of passion were awful. The number of women who reverenced their husbands was as small as the list of husbands who did not beat their wives. Says Miss Fiske, in writing to a friend, "I felt pity for my poor sisters before going among them, but anguish ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... of precious minutes!" Edgar exclaimed ironically. "If one could only get over these troublesome bodily needs, you could add hours of work to every week and make Sylvia Marston rich. By the way, Jake's cooking is getting awful." ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... "foul play!" Is the knife or the bludgeon, then, the only foul play, and not the cesspool and the curse of Rabshakeh? Go through Bermondsey or Spitalfields, St. Giles's or Lambeth, and see if there is not foul play enough already—to be tried hereafter at a more awful coroner's inquest than thou ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... and dust the desert has its charms. The desert dust is dusty dust, but not dirty dust. Compared with the awful organic dust of New York, London, or Paris, it is inorganic and pure. On those strips of the Libyan and Arabian deserts which lie along the Nile, the desert dust is largely made up of the residuum of royalty, of withered Ptolemies, of arid Pharaohs, for the tombs of queens and kings are counted ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... need of prayer more than ever before, and I cannot now imagine how those men could sleep, without first asking God to take care of them. I am afraid, though, that some of the sailors don't even believe that there is such a being, and they say his awful name without any fear, and ask him to curse each other every few moments, as if they had never heard what a dreadful thing it is to be under the ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... Still he will do it; and next he is given a look into the Distant and Future, a glance into the soul of things separated from him by Space and Time. He will know concerning the Returners, in deep accord with the spirit of the poem. He hears of the awful death of Ajax, son of Oileus, he hears of the sad fate of his brother Agamemnon; also the Old Man of the Sea tells him a few words concerning Ulysses, who is still alive but cannot get away from the isle of Calypso. ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... despite the raging tempest, the 10-tonner fought her way through the waves while the sea broke continually over her side, drenching the shivering boys, who stuck to their posts, and every now and then shouted to each other with chattering teeth that it was "awful fun." ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... said Miss Mela, "they had to turn the gas down all through one part of it, and the papers said the ladies were awful mad because they couldn't show their diamonds. I don't wonder, if they all had to pay as much for their boxes as we did. We had to pay sixty dollars." She looked at the Marches for their sensation at ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... reminded of this by the sign of the Cross. The Son of God redeemed us through the Cross. After sin had reduced the human race to a state of ignominious bondage the Son of God, moved by infinite love, became incarnate for us, in order to make satisfaction for our sins and to remove from us their awful consequences. From slaves of sin and of the devil, He has made us just and children of God. Having been redeemed, we now call God our Father; and Jesus, the Son of the eternal Father, calls us His brethren. Of all this we are reminded by the Cross, for we were redeemed through the Cross, and ...
— The Excellence of the Rosary - Conferences for Devotions in Honor of the Blessed Virgin • M. J. Frings
... know that the flames that burn her and consume not will some day cease? For the torment she suffers is like that of the damned, and the flames wherewith she is burned are even as the flames of hell. This I would fain know, that at this awful moment I may feel no doubt, that I may know for certain whether I dare hope ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... felt the sensation of horrible, undefined, uncontrollable fear—that fear of the unknown and supernatural, that shrinking from spiritual intercourse even with those we have loved best. It seemed as though he were in communion with the invisible world—that awful, incomprehensible state of existence; and with beings whose power and essence are yet unknown, armed, in imagination, with attributes of terror ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... cried Doris, hastily,—"what does it matter? She wants to help—she's sorry for you. You should see that woman! It would be too awful if your son was tied to ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... far before they stopped at the top of the steps called the Horseferry. A few lights twinkled here and there, and were reflected trembling in the river, otherwise a black awful gulf, from which, on St. Victor's cautious hail, a whistle ascended, and a cloaked figure with a lantern came up the steps glistening in ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... replied her father, "since my destiny calls me, and since thine ordains thee to be my torch-bearer. Believe it, and record it, if thou darest, in thy book, that Alexius Comnenus does not, without alarm, descend into those awful dungeons—which his predecessors built for men, even when his intentions are innocent, and free from harm.—Be silent, and should we meet any inhabitant of those inferior regions, speak not a word nor make ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... "look at that! just listen to him! You wouldn't believe me before. What's a young woman to look for with a man as can go on like that?—cursing and swearing before one's face,—quite awful!" ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... and the three who had stood grouped against the golden sky on that December evening on Clarke's Island silently entered the room and stood around the bed, where in the awful hush that clings about the last hour their chief lay half unconscious and yet able to rally his energies ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... a lot of solid comfort In an old clay pipe, I find, If you're kind of out of humor Or in trouble in your mind. When you're feeling awful lonesome And don't know just what to do, There's a heap of satisfaction If you ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... that digging, wasting Boche powder in that fashion! The Kaiser won't like it!" said Mr. Atkins. "We exploded one under them yesterday and it made them hate so hard they couldn't wait. They've awful tempers, the Boches!" And he finished the job on which he was engaged when interrupted, eating a large piece of ration bread surmounted by all the ration jam it could hold; while one of the company officers reminded me that ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... the purity of his intentions; and his care and anxiety to escape from the predicted crime, added naturally to the poignancy of his despair, when he found that he had nevertheless been overtaken by it. Awful indeed is his blindness in not perceiving the truth when it was, as it were, brought directly home to him; as, for instance, when he puts the question to Jocasta, How did Laius look? and she answers he had become gray-haired, otherwise in appearance he was not unlike Oedipus. This ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... most was, that he believed that I, though young, could understand and thwart his hellish plans. As my mother trembled and was silent, fearing the priest was cursing her and her only daughter in his heart,—for the priests tell such awful stories about the effects of a priest's curse that the great mass of the Italian people fear it more than the ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... envelop his body half a dozen times over, and strong enough to crush him into a shapeless mass, that he was completely paralysed. He had no fear of the serpent, although he was perfectly aware of the awful danger in which he stood—he knew that in another instant the enormous body might fling its great coils about him and gradually bring into action the tremendous pressure which should crush every bone in his ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... round one—not less than a hundred thousand pound. Mr Perch don't think himself that a hundred thousand pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs Perch and Cook, often repeat 'a hun-dred thou-sand pound!' with awful satisfaction—as if handling the words were like handling the money; and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr Towlinson, wishes she had only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sacred rite, When a vast form of awful might, Of matchless splendor, strength and size Was manifest before his eyes. From forth the sacrificial flame, Dark, robed in red, the being came. His voice was drumlike, loud and low, His face suffused with rosy glow. Like a huge lion's mane appeared The long locks of his hair and beard. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... to be a bigger jack than you are," Racey adjured him in a tone that he strove to make contemptuous. "You think yo're awful funny—just too awful funny, don't you? I'm askin' you, you fish-faced ape, whose hoss this is I ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... "But that's awful silly of you!" the inquisitive newcomer soon exclaimed. "You're not playing a good game, my dear viscount. You're laying aside your trumps and using only your bad cards. How stupid ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bad enough before, letting everybody else aboard know that all he has to do is push you over. But it was an awful blunder to let him know it, the ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... broken string hung from his collar, and the other half of, it lay, all warm, in the artilleryman's still hand. He explained to me, keeping his eyes straight in front of him, that he had met this dog (he called him awful names) walking alone, and was going to take him to the Fort to be killed ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... of this awful threat, Miss Inches persisted in her plan. Johnnie's little trunk was packed by Clover and Katy, who watered its contents with tears as they smoothed and folded the frocks and aprons, which looked so like their Curly as to seem a part of herself,—their ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... killed his man,—he got off on the plea of self-defense. It was two years before Bowker and Doc met,—in the lobby of the Palmer House,—I happened to be there. I was talking to a friend when suddenly I felt as if something awful was about to happen. I started up, and saw Bowker just rising from a table at the far end of the room. I shan't ever forget his look,—like a bird charmed by a snake. His lips were ajar and wrinkled as if his ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... Silver Braid; we shall want some more rain in a day or two.... Let's come for a walk round the farm," he said suddenly. "The farm belongs to the Gaffer, but he's let the Lodge to a young fellow called Johnson. He's the chap that Peggy used to go after—there was awful rows about that, and worse when he forestalled ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... was like nothing which she had ever heard before. It did not seem possible that her mother, that anything human, in fact, was making such a noise, and yet no animal could have made it, for it was articulate. Her mother was in fact both praying and repeating verses of Scripture, in that awful voice which was no longer capable of normal speech, but was compounded of wail and groan. Every sentence seemed to begin with a groan, and ended with a long-drawn-out wail. Maria went close to her ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Hanover, the home of Continental tires, is surrounded in every direction with execrable cobblestones, or whatever the German equivalent is—"pflaster," the writer thinks. Probably the makers of the excellent tires for automobiles have nothing to do with the existence of this awful pave, and perhaps if you accused them of it they would repair your tires without charge! The writer ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Hap Smith. "That ain't right. She's an awful nice girl an' she's clean tuckered out an' cold an' wet. She'd ought to have a bed to creep into." His eyes reproachfully trailed off to Poke Drury. The one-legged man made a ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... Blake, now, show them how little they think of a five foot wall in Galway. Faith though, Larry's first—bravo, Roscommon!" He's over, and a couple of bricks only falling show how lightly Miss Fidget touched it with her hind feet; not so Thunderer; again the horse made an awful leap, but the pace had been too much for him, he struck the wall violently with his knees, and, bursting through, gave Blake a fall over his shoulders. Galway, however, was soon in his saddle again, but not before Bob was over, ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... to see Tod. again so soon, for fear your scrupulous conscience should have prevented you from fully availing yourself of his spoils. By this coach I send you a copy of that awful pamphlet 'The Giaour,' which has never procured me half so high a compliment as your modest alarm. You will (if inclined in an evening) perceive that I have added much in quantity,—a circumstance which may truly diminish your modesty ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... advice, he undid the bolts, sunk the drawbridge, and bade them enter in the name of God. Having done so, he instantly retired into his sanctum sanctorum to await the event, for there was something in the voices and language of his guests that sounded mysterious and awful. They rushed into the castle, and appeared to know their way through all its recesses. Grooms were heard hurrying their horses to the stables—sentinels were heard mounting guard—a thousand lights gleamed from place to place through the ruins, till at length they ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... awful at home now," she complained to Kitty Drummund, some twenty minutes later. "The whole house is wrapped in gloom because Dick Gardner has a sore throat. One might as well ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... of Lincoln was an awful blow to the negroes here. One would say, "Uncle Sam is dead, isn't he?" Another, "The Government is dead, isn't it? You have got to go North and Secesh come back, haven't you? We going to be slaves again?" They could not comprehend the matter at all—how Lincoln could die and the ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... thought the Seward yell could not be surpassed," wrote a spectator; "but the Lincoln boys were clearly ahead, and, feeling their victory, as there was a lull in the storm, took deep breaths all round, and gave a concentrated shriek that was positively awful, and accompanied it with stamping that made every plank and pillar in ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... had developed their counter attack," says the Colonel. "I have a reserve that would certainly give them an awful wallop." ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... gasped. "I say, isn't this heat awful? Worse, even, than that on the Coast, I think! And what has become of all the wind? I say, I suppose we haven't made a mistake in our reckoning, and run down on to the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... celibacy. They held that the doctrine of Rome on this subject had been prophetically condemned by the apostle Paul, as a doctrine of devils; and they dwelt much on the crimes and scandals which seemed to prove the justice of this awful denunciation. Luther had evinced his own opinion in the clearest manner, by espousing a nun. Some of the most illustrious bishops and priests who had died by fire during the reign of Mary had left wives and children. Now, however, it began to be rumoured that the old monastic spirit had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... grandparent's oratory. But in her brief and colourless letters she repeated the same bald statements in the same few terms. She was well, she had been "round" with Bertha Shallum, she had dined with the Jim Driscolls or May Beringer or Dicky Bowles, the weather was too lovely or too awful; such was the gist of her news. On the last page she hoped Paul was well and sent him a kiss; but she never made a suggestion concerning his care or asked a question about his pursuits. One could only infer that, knowing in what good hands he was, she judged such ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... the Cherub, and his grave Rebuke, Severe in youthful Beauty, added Grace Invincible: Abash'd the Devil stood, And felt how awful Goodness is, and saw Virtue in her own Shape how lovely I saw, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... were looked upon as mere matters of course, the state of society must have been indeed awful. Louis XIV. very early saw the evil, and as early determined to remedy it. It was not, however, till the year 1679, when he instituted the "Chambre Ardente," for the trial of the slow poisoners and pretenders to sorcery, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... of the Father they had lost. With unbounded grief and despair they might wing their way farther and farther, with their harps all unstrung, and every song silent, and the soul-harrowing words, 'We have no Father, no God, a blind chance rules,' might be all that would break the awful silence of heaven. Let the glorious words once more be heard, 'God reigns, he lives, he reigns,' and what joy would fill the heavens and the earth." The child of sorrow would lift up his head and say, "Our Father who art ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... answer, O god, and save!" She ceased, With full throat salt with tears, and looked on him, And with a sudden cry of awe fell prone, For, lo! he was transmuted to a god; The supreme aureole radiant round his brow, Divine refulgences on his face,—his eyes Awful with splendor, and his august head With blinding brilliance crowned by vivid flame. Then in a voice that charmed the listening air: "Woman, arise! I have no influence On Death, who is the servant of the Fates. Howbeit for thy passion and thy prayer, The grace ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... tree and watched. But very soon a new fear sprang up within her, a fear that made her collect all her strength for action. It was something in that awful, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... "Why, then, you'll make an orator!" Dr. ——— told of Canning, too, how once, before rising to speak in the House of Commons, he bade his friend feel his pulse, which was throbbing terrifically. "I know I shall make one of my best speeches," said Canning, "because I'm in such an awful funk!" President Pierce, who has a great deal of oratorical power, is subject to a similar horror ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... its long weeds, visible through the clear water, trailing close down to the bottom; its inexorable, eternal, onward pouring. Because it was so mighty and so threatening, he rejoiced grimly in the awful river. To float, watching cracks and ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to bend to his oars only when white crests of the rapids yelled for his life; to win escape by sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... however, remained to be tried: when he found his life near its end, he directed the young lord to be called; and when he desired, with great tenderness, to hear his last injunctions, told him: "I have sent for you, that you may see how a Christian can die." What effect this awful scene had on the earl, I know not: he, likewise, died himself in a short time, In Tickell's excellent elegy on ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... whence they knew not, that crocodile arose. An awful scaly head appeared with dull eyes and countless flashing fangs, and behind the head cubit upon cubit of monstrous form. The fangs closed upon ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... the prince's eyes was laid That marvel, as the Brahman prayed. One moment on the bow he gazed, Quick to the notch the string he raised, Then, in the wandering people's view, The cord with mighty force he drew. Then with an awful crash as loud As thunderbolts that cleave the cloud, The bow beneath the matchless strain Of arms heroic snapped in twain. Thus, giving purest water, he, My sire, to Rama offered me. The prince the offered gift declined Till he should learn his father's mind; So horsemen ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... (thank God! he is better). I cannot describe what a time of it I had after my return from London, Scotland, etc. There was a reaction that sunk me to the earth; the deadly silence, solitude, desolation, were awful; the craving for companionship, the hopelessness of relief, were what I should dread to ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... well now," said Sam. "I was awfully ill, I know that, but it all came from my mind. I think I told you that. My heart was breaking because I couldn't be a perfect soldier. I had to face the question and grapple with it. It was an awful experience; I can't bear to speak of it or even think of it. But I won. I'm a perfect soldier now! I can do anything with my men here, and I will obey any order I receive, I ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... lively times I tell you? Overboard came Always with three spears in him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking about me in the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again after poor Always, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you can well imagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again and struggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the dim again on the deck of ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Nekhludoff got up and went out into the corridor, with the intention of not returning to the court. Let them do what they liked with him, he could take no more part in this awful and horrid tomfoolery. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... best that some of the unfortunate people could do was to pitch their tents in the depths of the forest. Stones were used for a rude fire place. The tent had no floor but the ground. The winter was very cold, with deep snow, which afforded some protection. Still it was an awful winter. There were mothers who had been reared in a pleasant country, enjoying the luxuries of life, who now clasped their helpless little ones to their bosoms and tried by the warmth of their own bodies to protect them from the bitter ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... of these days," said Adeline, with the sort of awful satisfaction in realizing a catastrophe, which ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... am, ma! When she showed me the penny I told her that what you said was something awful, and worth sixpence ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... nearer the coast of Australia, when, however, I was not aware that the gale was extraordinary, a French mail-steamer from New Caledonia for Sydney, blown considerably out of her course, on her arrival reported it an awful storm, and to inquiring friends said: "Oh, my! we don't know what has become of the little sloop Spray. We saw her in the thick of the storm." The Spray was all right, lying to like a duck. She was under a ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... For one awful moment Romayne's eyes brightened, Romayne's voice rallied its power, as if life was returning to him. Frowning darkly, ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... suffered....She understood me, and looked at me with the most agonizing gaze which perhaps was ever in her eyes since that now blighted crown had been placed on her head. That look spoke of agony—it revealed depths of sorrow!....What must she have suffered on this awful day!....She felt wretched, dying, and yet she smiled! Oh, what a torture was that ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... deep red, and the wire was touched and he was no more. Of all Deaths it is far the most easy; not a convulsive struggle could be perceived after the blow. The sight is horrid in the extreme, though not awful, as no ceremony is used to make it so. Those who have daily seen 200 suffer without the least ceremony or trial get hardened ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... go aboard that awful-looking ship without letting me give you a fresh dressing," ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... you think! Oh, it is too awful that he would be so mean! Papa gave me a little, old, ten-dollar bill! Think of it, after all my plans, and he knows how much I need. I told him at the first it would take all of fifty to get the things we really need. And he ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... approaching the lady's chamber were lined with master, mistress, man-servant and maid-servants, all eagerly listening to the awful bustle within. At length there is a dead silence of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of their own numbers; Badajos was taken by a happy chance after the main assault had miserably failed; at both places the losses of the assailants were in proportion less, and in number but little greater, than at Port Hudson; yet, in the contemplation of the awful slaughter of Badajos, even the iron firmness of Wellington broke down in ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... said, "if you would be very disappointed and think me very dense if I proposed our giving up the Malakhand Fort? The driver has been giving me in very poor English such an account of the dangers of that awful road up the hill that I feel no Fort would repay me for its terrors. Do say what you feel, Miss Loring. Mr. Clifden can lunch with the officers at Nowshera and come any time. I know I ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... periods, and the minutest details of old-fashioned penmanship were as familiar to him as the common alphabet. But would he do it? Would he undertake the responsibility of a forgery of which the success would produce such tremendous responsibilities, of which the failure would involve such awful disgrace? Montevarchi had reasons of his own for believing that Arnoldo Meschini would do anything he was ordered to do, and would moreover keep the secret faithfully. Indeed, as far as discretion was concerned, he would, in case of exposure, have to bear the penalty. Montevarchi ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of their city, the procession of court ladies headed by the queen to implore the intercession of Mary, and the wreck of a vessel freighted with convicts bound for Sicily—Petrarch concludes with a fervent prayer that he may never have to tempt the sea, of whose fury he had seen so awful an example. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... move; he allowed it to pass unharmed. I looked at him in surprise, and saw that his lips were compressed and his eyebrows knitted, as if he were about to fight with some awful enemy. ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... of those long lonely days of his boyhood stole in upon him. He thought of that terrible day when his father stood by his bedside, and had bidden him in an awful voice ask no more for his mother, and think of her only as dead; and he remembered well the chill of cold despair with which he had realized that that fair, sweet woman, who had called him her little son, ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... awful end, which our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ speaks of thus: "Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." {148a} And, again, "These shall go away into everlasting ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... perform. The time of apprenticeship is over. Servant, show us what thou hast done with thy talent. Speak now, or be silent forever." This appeal of the conscience is a solemn summons in the life of every man, solemn and awful as the trumpet of the last judgment. It cries, "Art thou ready? Give an account. Give an account of thy years, thy leisure, thy strength, thy studies, thy talent, and thy works. Now and here is the hour of great hearts, the hour ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distance, far ahead, The shadows of the Earlier Dead Arise, with speculating eyes, Forgetful of their destinies, And gaze, and gaze, and gaze again Upon the long funereal train, Undreaming their Descendants come To make that ebony lake their home— To vanish, and become at last A parcel of the awful Past— The hideous, unremembered Past Which Time, in utter scorn, has cast Behind him, as with unblenched eye, He travels toward Eternity— That Lethe, in whose sunless wave Even he, himself, must ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... "carve the living hound," and to curare, which he called "the hellish oorali." And thus this greatest poet of the Victorian age gave the weight of his commanding authority for all time to a fierce condemnation of vivisection as the most awful and monstrous of the offsprings ...
— Great Testimony - against scientific cruelty • Stephen Coleridge
... "Awful people?" exclaimed the doctor. "It's awfully good practice, I know. That is, in certain lines. I can't say there is very much variety. When a really good thing occurs, it is whisked off to the hospital and the big guns ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... guide, no one knew. One thing was certain: destruction or surrender must have stared them in the face. The kopjes on the farther side of the stream were bristling with Boers, and away on the veldt beyond was drawn up the Staats artillery. And then one realized a most awful blunder of the Reform Committee, from their point of view. The Boer forces, arriving hereabouts in hot haste, from a rapid mobilization, had been almost entirely without ammunition. We were told on good authority ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... change—ah, pray continue it.) Gray heads are here too, listening to my rhymes, Full of the spirit of departed times; Grave men and studious, strangers to my sight, All gather round me on this brilliant night. And welcome are ye all. Not now ye come To speak some trembling poet's awful doom; With frowning eyes a "want of mind" to trace In some new actor's inexperienced face, Or e'en us old ones (oh, for shame!) to rate "With study good—in time—but—never great:" Not like you travelled native, just to say "Folks in this country can act ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... recognised, were successively discovered. The chief's mangled remains were given over to his son for interment, and the miserable fate of one who so shortly before had ridden at the head of twenty thousand horse gave an awful lesson of the uncertainty of fortune and drew pity even from those who had been victims of his barbarity when ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds destruction from the hands that are madly outstretched to grasp it, and forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling soul. Finding that it was the principle of LIFE which grew stronger within him, the young man at last meditated an awful crime. The thought of self-destruction haunted him day and night. He lingered around the wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained from the deed only by the memory of the last loving voice he had heard. ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... Mordaunt, and Lord Ulswater has since said that his countenance as he spoke wore an awful and strange aspect, which lived long and long afterwards in the memory of his companion, "perhaps they are tokens and signs between the soul and the things of Heaven which do not wholly shame the doctrine ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... solemnly from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... careless boy, you gave me a fright this morning? I was sleeping with my cabin window open, and I was awoke by an awful splash in the water. I called for the stewardess. I declare I thought ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... my recollection; I mean, the effects—so super-sensual that they may easily and most venially pass for supernatural, so very glorious to human nature that, though in truth they are humanity itself in the contradistinguishing sense of that awful word, it is yet no wonder that, conscious of the sore weaknesses united in one person with this one nobler nature we attribute them to a divinity out of us, (a mistake of the sensuous imagination in its misapplication of space and place, rather than a misnomer of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Fenn has an awful time at Kay's," said Jimmy Silver. "It must be a fair sort of hole, judging from the specimens you see crawling about in Kay caps. I wish I'd known my people were sending young Billy there. I'd have warned them. I only ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Newman visited Greece in the thirties what impressed him, or rather oppressed him, as he stood above the glorious bay of Salamis, over which once rode the hundreds and thousands of galleys and triremes which transported the unnumbered hosts of Xerxes to Greece, was the awful thought that all those million men, including the proud monarch who reviewed them from the spot on which he then stood, were "still alive". Alive! And where were they, and what were they doing? I cannot conceive anything more appallingly depressing, nay, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... you, I know, to know that our prospects are somewhat brighter. My poor dear dearest sister, the unhappy and unconscious instrument of the Almighty's judgments to our house, is restored to her senses; to a dreadful sense and recollection of what has past, awful to her mind, and impressive (as it must be to the end of life) but temper'd with religious resignation, and the reasonings of a sound judgment, which in this early stage knows how to distinguish between a deed committed in a transient fit of frenzy, and the terrible guilt ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... catching my arm, "just think that behind each and every one of those facades there is some one suffering, hoping, weeping, perhaps in secret! Think of the awful moment when all the bells shall solemnly toll midnight, every stroke resounding like a dirge in the souls of those who are torn with anxiety, who crave relief, and patiently implore a ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... last they stopped for breath they found themselves about at the point where they had parted from their chums. As they came into the cleared space a flash lighted up the sky, flames went flickering, seemingly, from horizon to horizon, and lifted to the zenith. Then came the awful thunder of the explosion. The ground shook so that Jimmie went tumbling on his face. After the first mighty explosion others came ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... thought how he must go away and travel again; only open solitude and wandering with rough men could still his pain; primitive Nature was the one balm.... That fellow Tahar—why did he delay? Owen thought of the eagles, the awful bird pursuing the fleeting deer, and himself riding in pursuit. This was the life that would cure him— how soon? In three months? in six? in ten years? It would be strange if he were to become a bedouin for love of her, and he walked on thinking how they had lain together one night listening to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... easily here! Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring. This country has its good points, after all!" They both laughed loudly while Carlier thought: "That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and unhealthy. It would be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a man I respect." . . . Before they reached the verandah of their house they called ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... third—he was not quite sure which—Moses was in the sixth, while Abraham alone had the supreme distinction of residing in the Seventh Heaven. There, at the apex of indescribable glory, Mohammed had entered the awful presence of his Maker, Who, after some chit-chat, charged him to see that all Moslems should hereafter prostrate themselves in prayer toward the Temple of Solomon five times a day. The truth of this narrative rests upon two solid facts: from that day to this, all devout Moslems have ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... equally interesting question, who wrote Homer? In the former case, the question is certainly in one respect more simple, for the recognised plays and poems that go by Shakspeare's name are—at least by far the larger portion—unquestionably from one and the same pen; while Homer, poor, dear, awful, august, much-abused shade! has been torn by a pack of German wolves into fragments, which it puzzles the lore and research of Grote and Muir to patch together again. Even Mr Grote seems disposed to admit, that while the Odyssey ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... when Death draws near you, When the awful eyes of Pauguk Glare upon you in the darkness, I will share my kingdom with you, Ruler shall you be thenceforward Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... it not recall to a vivid imagination? The thousands who lined those seats in eager gaze upon the arena with its bloody and heart-sickening conflicts, its array of blood-thirsty antagonists, its dying groans, its weltering victims. Where are they? What remains? Awful solitude, awful grandeur, awful beauty, desolation. Peace, the emblem of Christianity, now reigns in the ancient stronghold of barbaric passion, butchery and strife. Lady Rosamond had visited ruins of palaces, ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... They met! Who can describe that meeting? Not the writer, for he did not see it; more's the pity! Very few people saw it, for it was a quiet corner. The parties concerned cannot be said to have seen, though they felt it. Both went down. It was awful, really, to see a feeble old lady struggling with an ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... prostration of the last expectation for help, that had arisen like an angel of hope, in what seemed the darkest hour of his fate. And bitter indeed, were then his thoughts. Those who have never felt it, cannot imagine the awful distress which the mind feels, while contemplating the wants of those who are dearer than all the world, without possessing the means of relieving them. At times, there is a wild excitement, an imaginary consciousness of power to do all things; ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... America,' he went on, 'mainly for my health's sake; and the voyage did wonders for me. Of course I picked up a lot of information on the way and in New York. It was there I first heard of the awful wickedness of the Pacific Slope, the utter, abandoned godlessness of the mining camps throughout the golden and silver states. I had letters of introduction to one or two New England families—sober, religious ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... niggers,' she would go on, 'does you know you's all sinners? Well, you is; everybody is. White folks is sinners too—Miss Feely says so. But I 'spects niggers is the biggest ones. But ye an't any of ye up to me. I's so awful wicked, there can't nobody do nothin' with me. I 'spects I's the wickedest crittur in the world.' Then she would turn a somersault, and come up bright and smiling, evidently ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin, Young Folks' Edition • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... take me long. I'm used to finding horses that the varmints are fools 'nough to say are thars. One day last spring, I war over near the staked plain all alone, when I got cotched in one of them awful nor'easters, and I never came so near freezin' to death in all my life. Them sort of winds go right to the marrer of yer bones, and it takes yer a week to thaw out. Wall, sir, while I war tryin' to start a fire, a couple ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne |
