"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... begin afresh at home, in music, and verse, and trustful talk. Every day was a life, and every evening a blessed death—type of that larger evening rounding our day with larger hope. But many Christians are such awful pagans that they will hardly believe it possible a young loving pair should think of that evening, except with misery and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the attack upon the ensanguined slopes. Forty thousand men, almost the flower of the Union army, charged again and again up those awful slopes, and again and again they were hurled back. The top of the hill was a leaping mass of flame and the stone wall was always crested with living fire. No troops ever showed greater courage as they returned after every ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... imposed upon me by Providence. I, to do evil! I, to whom my conscience, even in the midst of my wildest follies, said that I was good! I, whom a pitiless destiny was dragging swiftly toward the abyss and whom a secret horror unceasingly warned of the awful fate to come! I, who, if I had shed blood with these hands, could yet repeat that my heart was not guilty; that I was deceived, that it was not I who did it, but my destiny, my evil genius, some unknown being who dwelt within me, but who ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... that the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I that He shall take of Mine and show it unto you.' What awful words! A divine, teaching Spirit can only teach concerning God. Christ here explains the paradox of His words preceding, in which, if He were but human, He seems to have given that teaching Spirit an unworthy office, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... ripe in the practice of penances, and also by the deities, O thou who leadest an excellent life! And men and snakes, celestial choristers, Yakshas and Kinnaras followed the magnanimous saints,—desirous of witnessing that wonderful event. Then they came up all together near to the sea, of awful roar, dancing, as it were, with its billows, bounding with the breeze, and laughing with masses of froth, and stumbling at the caves, and thronged with diverse kinds of sharks, and frequented by flocks of various birds. And the deities accompanied by Agastya and celestial choristers ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... receive from us impassioned arguments against his own nation on account of slavery, might well be pardoned were he to say to us, with somewhat of intemperate feeling, 'Physician, heal thyself,' and to expose with bitterness the awful inconsistency of Britain's vehement denunciation of American slavery, while, by most deadly ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Again and again has religious enthusiasm pictured a life to be eliminated from the grossness and imperfections of our material existence. The Spirit—the Mind—that mental gift, by or through which we think, reason, and suffer, is by one tragic and awful struggle to free itself from temporal blemishes and difficulties, and become spiritual and perfect. Yet, who, sweeping the limitless fields of space with a telescope, glancing at myriads of worlds that a lifetime could not count, or gazing through a microscope at a tiny world in a drop of water, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... I replied stiffly, "that with the assistance of my learned friends, much may be done for you. Ha! hem! So this is the malady. Turn your head a little to that side;" here an awful groan escaped the sick man, for I, it appears, had made considerable impression upon rather a delicate part, not unintentionally I must confess; for as I remembered Hoyle's maxim at whist, "when in doubt play a trump," so I thought it might be true in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... afforded them ample matter of interest, and as they sat there, secure and without discomfort, on that solitary rock, with the ocean smiling calmly around them, the awful event, which so short a time before had cast them there, seemed almost like a dream, which is, with difficulty, recalled to ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... or two good stinging ones (I knew they were stingers, because I tried them on Cook first) and cut off little bits and put them in Uncle JAMES's sandwiches, which he always has for lunch. It was awful larks to watch him eat them. I thought he'd have a fit. Then I said good-bye, and I haven't been near him since. But I got Cook to take him in a dock-leaf from me, and I hope he ate it after the sandwiches. I thought it might ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... the gods beset; Finished almost the castle stood! In three days more The work be o'er; Then must they make their contract good, And pay the awful debt." ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... superstitious servants take more interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... not even see him till he started beating us. By Allah, my poor head is sore, my back is broken with that awful beating. He was like a madman!' The speaker ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... him I hadn't got any," was the injured reply. "He went cut like a streak of damp lightning. I heard him kicking up an awful hullaballoo in the ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... used to tremble for the child's future, as, attracted by the sweet, true ring of her voice, he saw the eager, merry eyes wandering all round the room, while the lips were singing the most sacred words. Those awful and profound truths, that were to him the only realities, and which animated his every effort, were apparently to this sweet young singer but as fairy tales, or even as mere empty words on which to build up the fabric ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... so awful much work when I was coming up. Dey was priming me and training me. When dey call my name, I allus come. Often I hid myself to see de bad niggers whipped. Never had no 'buse in my life. Marse didn't 'low nobody to look at his niggers when dey was being whipped, kaise he hated ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... to be spoiled, so I couldn't win the prize," spoke Hal, as he went back to the house with his father, walking under the umbrella. "That's why I came out to keep off the frozen rain. It came down awful hard." ...
— Daddy Takes Us to the Garden - The Daddy Series for Little Folks • Howard R. Garis
... inability to pay. The barbarous tyranny which held his body in thraldom, served at the same time to rivet more strongly upon his mind the fetters of that stern superstition which had gained dominion over him. The more he endured for his religion, the more awful and important did it appear in his eyes; while in proportion to the severity and tediousness of his sufferings from without, the scenery within became continually more cheerless and terrific; and learning to dread ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the rim of the hollow and making in the direction of the tents. We called him back and compelled him to stay on guard over the prisoners, to his awful disgust, for he suspected there was whisky among Schillingschen's "chop-boxes." But so did we! We left all our boys with him except Kazimoto, threatening them with hitherto unheard of penalties if they dared as much as show a lock of hair above the rim of the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... final success? As for himself, his life was a thousandfold forfeit; and even yet his enemies did not know the measure of his atrocities. It was only when the head of the British column arrived at the Subada Khotee that the awful truth became known. The troops halted, surprised that no welcome greeted them. They entered the courtyard; all was hushed and quiet, but fragments of dresses, children's shoes, and other remembrances of British occupation, ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... name she slid forward, and all her dishonesty left her. She acknowledged that life's meaning had vanished. Bending down, she kissed the footprint. "How can he forgive me?" she sobbed. "Where has he gone to? You could never dream such an awful thing. He couldn't see me though I opened the door—wide—plenty of light; and then he could not remember the things that should comfort him. He wasn't a—he wasn't ever a great reader, and he couldn't remember ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... all afraid of it. They all gathered around the mule, staring in amazement at him, and said: 'What kind of an animal is this? It is a dangerous animal.' Just then the mule stuck up his ears, and let out an awful cry, just such a cry as only the mule can make. Then the people all ran away as hard as they could go, scared almost to death, except one Indian, who fell flat on the earth—too scared to run. And finally the people called this man, 'Not-Afraid-of-the-Mule.' And in this way ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... are doled out to you, and you are responsible for them. But there will come a moment,—it may be to-night, it may be a year hence,—when the hand of God will close, and you will have had your sum. Then time will end for you, and eternity begin. Are you prepared for that awful moment— that moment when the last is given you, and the next withheld? What if it came now? Are you prepared for it? Are you ready to welcome it, as did our brother who died at this hour one short week ago? His was not the only deathbed ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... marching, and after some hours our clothes became sufficiently dry to be more comfortable, so that when we reached camp in the evening our condition was much improved. This was due in part probably as much to the relief from the awful nervous strain of the battle and the conditions through which we had passed in that wilderness as to rest and the changed weather. When we reached this side of the river that nervous strain ceased. We were sure that fighting was over, at least for the present. We found the regiment had been in camp ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... 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 that each burgher ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... can; for if I expressed my sentiments I should soon be put into jail for Fenianism!'" This was in 1867 while Fenianism was rampant. Of course he did not approve of it, but the sights he saw taught him its awful provocation. And once when unduly pressed with the dictum of an author whose range of power was not high enough to overcome Father Hecker's objections, he said: "I am not content to live to be the echo of dead men's thoughts." But it ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... and gave Oswald and Dicky over two yards and a quarter of good lead piping, and a brass tap that only wanted a washer, and a whole handful of screws to do what we liked with. We screwed the back door up with the screws, I remember, one night when Eliza was out without leave. There was an awful row. We did not mean to get her into trouble. We only thought it would be amusing for her to find the door screwed up when she came down to take in the milk in the morning. But I must not say any more about the Lewisham ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... consulting with his officers. Evidently the counsels were divided and some favored making the rush, despite its danger, for, as has been shown, not all of them were poltroons, but that awful threat of the American had done what it was intended to do. Had General Yozarro followed his own promptings, he would have withdrawn, but he lacked the courage to do that, and in ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... more awful than the mere fact of life as mystery when that fact first rushes fully into consciousness. Out of unknown darkness we rise a moment into sun-light, look about us, rejoice and suffer, pass on the vibration of our being to other beings, and fall back again into darkness. So a wave rises, catches ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... cried. "It was my room! V., do you hear? It was our room that horrid wretch was robbing. My dear, if we had been there we should have been murdered in our beds, I know we should. Peggy Montfort has saved our lives. Isn't it perfectly awful?" ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... speechless horror; the severe chastisement inflicted on the lad by his father;—she could never look back on it all without sickness of heart. Thenceforth, her brother and his wild ways embodied for her that awful thing, infidelity. At the age which Cecily Doran had now attained, Miriam believed that there were only a few men living so unspeakably wicked as to repudiate Christianity; one or two of these, she had learnt from the pulpit, were "men of ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... been accepted of God, does not in the least conflict with the truth that 'there is none other Name given among men, whereby we must be saved,' but it sheds a bright and most welcome light of hope into that awful darkness. Christ is the only Saviour, but it is not for us to say how far off from the channel in which it flows the water of life may percolate, and feed the roots of distant trees. Cornelius's ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... protesting that I do not consider myself as being now put upon my country to be tried as the constitution directs—as the spirit of the constitution requires—and, therefore, I do not address you for my legal defence, but for my vindication before the tribunal of conscience—a far more awful tribunal, to my mind, than this. Gentlemen, I regard you as twelve of my fellow-countrymen, known or believed by my prosecutors to be my political opponents, and selected for that reason for the purpose of obtaining a conviction against me in form of ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... at the thought. "Picture the beauty of it," he said. "Not red, which would cause all automobiles to stop, but green, the signal to go! Imagine their mad desire to rush forward in righteous obedience to the law, and their awful frustration to find every other automobile and truck obeying the same law, regardless of the direction from which it is coming. It has been estimated by noted mathematicians who are involved in this plan, that within forty-five ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... Mrs. Mumbles, in a reverential tone; "you should hear their awful speeches. Daniel Webster could never equal ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... the quiet creations of the artists of the Renaissance, the power and awful force of Michelangelo stand out; in the "Stanze" Raphael has left an everlasting wealth of artistic treasures; and in the Chapel of Nicholas V. Fra Angelico with ingenuous expression and the purest and most sincere religious feeling, ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... Lady Why's laws, and decree justice according to her eternal ideas of what is just, but only do what seems pleasant and profitable to themselves. On them Lady Why turns round, and says—for she, too, can be awful, ay ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... a ripping, tearing sound as he sprang into the air with a yell of mingled terror and exultation. His prompt action and the fierce impetus had saved him. He was free. But in the awful hand that seized him he had left behind the end feathers of his right wing. A few inches more and it would have been not merely the feathers, ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... heart which she made to the King; and for a good reason, no doubt; no one wanted to take it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and forget it. And all had succeeded, and would go on to the end placid and comfortable. All but me alone. I must carry my awful secret without any to help me. A heavy load, a bitter burden; and would cost me a daily heartbreak. She was to die; and so soon. I had never dreamed of that. How could I, and she so strong and fresh and young, and every day earning a new right to a peaceful and ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... contagion of Dolly's own spirit and hopefulness, and was sustained by it in spite of appearances; but its influence died out at the end of a few weeks, and even she was not to be deceived. An awful fear began to force itself upon her,—a fear doubly awful to poor, susceptible Phemie. Dolly was getting no better; she was even getting worse every day; she could not sit up; she was thinner and larger-eyed than ever. Was something going to happen? And at the mere thought of that possible something ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... God, have mercy on me! I knew all the time that I was abusing and polluting myself, but I did not know, I did not think, I was never told that I was abusing and polluting Thy Son, Jesus Christ. Oh, too awful thought. And yet, stupid sinner that I am, I had often read that if any man defile the temple of God and the members of Christ, him shall God destroy. O God, destroy me not as I see now that I deserve. Spare me that I may cleanse and sanctify myself and the members ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... keep you long, Mr. King," said the Prince ruefully. "I suppose you are very busy getting ready. I just wanted to give you my lucky stone and tell you about being a baron. I won't have any luck till you come back. Tell Mr. Hobbs I'm thinking of making him a count. You're awful brave, ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... to be Lyddy Ann's at the table, an' she see what was bein' done. She turned right round, with the fish-platter in her hand, an' says she, in an awful kind ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... aloud, just to pass the time away, and to keep awake while Phil was fussing with the engine preparatory to starting on their trip down-stream. "I'm tired of this dead little village that they call a town. And tired of hearing what an awful lot of trouble we're bound to buck up against when we get two-thirds of the way down to the gulf. Wonder what they'd say if they knew your dad owned most all of that property along this crazy old creek ...
— Chums in Dixie - or The Strange Cruise of a Motorboat • St. George Rathborne
... an anxious moment, but the belt broke, and Dad breathed freely again. He was acting entirely on the defensive, but an awful consciousness of impending misfortune assailed him. His belt was gone, and—his trousers began to slip—slip—slip! He called wildly to the others for God's sake to do something. They helped with advice. He yelled "Curs!" ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... stroke itself had been. And the ladder hung and swayed in the air with the man who was climbing upward, enveloped in snow, encircled by lightning; the ladder that seemed cut from a splinter swinging with the man like a bell in the awful heights. Every one held his breath. The same expression of horror stared from hundreds of unlike faces at the man on high. None believed in the daring feat—and yet they saw the man who dared. It was like something ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... been listening to the Moors all night, came and whispered to me that they were asleep. The awful crisis was now arrived when I was again either to taste the blessing of freedom or languish out my days in captivity. A cold sweat moistened my forehead as I thought on the dreadful alternative, and ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... quite improbable that he had suddenly improvised this story. It was too elaborate and well sustained. Later, when the boy again tragically begged to be helped from making such falsifications, he said the incident had been thought out some days previously and it seemed an awful nice story about the things that he might do. Daydreaming thus masked as ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... hear another word," cried Joan, suddenly rising; "there shall be no new cause for remorse in my life. Trouble has come upon me through my loves, both lawful and criminal; alas! no longer will I try to control my awful fate, I will bow my head without a murmur. I am the queen, and I must yield myself up for ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... only 18 ft. by 14 ft. 10 in., with but two small windows, where they were left for the night. It was the 20th of June; the heat was intense; and next morning only 23 were taken out alive, among them Holwell, who left an account of the awful sufferings endured in the "Black Hole." The site of the Black Hole is now covered with a black marble slab, and the incident is commemorated by a monument erected by Lord Curzon in 1902. The Mahommedans retained possession of Calcutta for ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... 1835, during an electrical storm, the meetinghouse was struck by lightning. On that day the pastor, Dr. Harrison, had been invited to Georgetown to preach, and the usual Sunday afternoon services were postponed. Imagine his horror upon returning to discover the "severe and Awful calamity which had befallen the church and congregation." In the session book of the meetinghouse, we find ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... thirst for acquisition and profit, but a desperate conflict with something undiscovered and invisible. At that moment of his life it seemed to some that Darvid was like a man running straight forward and with all his might, because he felt that were he to halt, something awful would seize him. Others said, that he called to mind a man into whose ear some buzzing insect had crept, and who was hiding in a factory filled with uproar which was to drown the unendurable buzzing of ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... senseless grown That they thy saints devour? And never worship at thy throne, Nor fear thine awful power? ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... wasn't so awful manly," he returned, blushing. "There wasn't nothin' else to do, I expect. Would you have me hold a grudge against him? An' spoil everything—nature's plan included? It was to happen that way, an' I ain't interferin'. Why, I reckon if I wasn't to forgive him, ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... debts which had been contracted on low scales of purchasing power. That which had been bought for a dollar worth sixty cents, must be paid for with a dollar worth eighty, ninety, or a hundred cents, according to the date on which the contract matured. Of course, such a proceedings created an awful squeeze. Many men, struggling under loads of debt, found the weight of their obligations growing upon them faster than their power to meet, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... sacrilegious atrocities of "infidel" soldiers, and had bound himself the vassal of "idolatrous" Spain, could hope to keep his throne long. He was an object of horror and repulsion to the people upon whom he had brought this awful calamity, and so fierce was their scorn of the traitor to Islam that the story is told of a Moorish girl in the clutch of the soldiers, who, when the restored King of Tunis sought to save her, spat in his face; anything was better than the dishonour of his protection. Hasan pretended ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... precious villains—Carbon and Azote— They have perplexed me heretofore; but now The thing is plain enough. This morning, ere I left my chamber, all the mystery stood Asudden in an awful revelation! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... was awful.' Then she went up to him and looked into his eyes. 'You do love me, Herbert, don't you?' she said, her voice suddenly breaking. 'I want your love ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Essex. The awful Searcher, whose impartial eye Explores the secrets of each human heart, And every thought surveys, can witness for me, How close thy image clings around my soul! Retards each rising wish, and draws me back To life, entangled by ...
— The Earl of Essex • Henry Jones
... good look at Jerry's face," she said, "and seen that he ain't half as bad as he tries to make out. Jerry'll make a fine neighbor for any man if he's let be; and we do want a home of our own, awful bad! We was ten years paying for a little farm back in Illinois, and then we lost it at the last minute because there was something wrong with the deed, and we didn't have any money to go to law about it. Jerry didn't tell you that; but it's that makes him talk kinda ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... free Ireland was to go over an' blow th' windows in Winzer Palace, an' incidentally to hist th' queen an' th' Rooshian cza-ar without th' aid iv th' elevator. What this here Tynan had again th' Rooshian cza-ar I niver heerd. But 'twas something awful, ye may ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... seems kind of awful to have two brothers divided like that, doesn't it, Essie? But I suppose father's right, he 'most always is. Only I wish they'd make it up, and Uncle Abel would come here with some of his horses, and perhaps I could go West with him some ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... imminence of battle on the left, absorbed the attention of even this wounded and angry spirit, as, indeed, they might have absorbed that of any being not more or less than human. A private wrong, insupportable though it might be, seemed so small amid that deadly clamor and awful expectation! Moreover, the intellect which worked so calmly and vigorously by his side, and which alone of all things near appeared able to rule the coming crisis, began to dominate him, in spite of his sense of injury. A thought crossed him ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... City shed The engine coughs and shakes its head, The smoke, a plume of red and white, Waves madly in the face of night. And now the grave incurious stars Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars. Against the kind and awful reign Of darkness, this our angry train, A noisy little rebel, pouts Its brief defiance, flames and shouts — And passes on, and leaves no trace. For darkness holds its ancient place, Serene and absolute, the king Unchanged, of every living thing. The houses lie obscure and ...
— Trees and Other Poems • Joyce Kilmer
... him up. In awful silence each of us produced his wrappings and his caskets, extracted the shining briar, smeared it with cosmetics, and polished it more reverently than a peace time Guardsman polishes his buttons when warned for duty next day at "Buck." * ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... the last of her race, I was told. I did not know what this meant, but it gave her words great weight. Once she pictured hell for me, the roaring furnace, the writhing of the damned, and no reason and no reading has ever served to clear my mind of her awful painting. With her as the advocate I could hear the groans of lost souls; and in my childish way I believed that the old woman was inspired to spread the terrors of perdition; nor has education and the ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... thou hast returned, and only just in time: for hadst thou stayed away another day, I could not have endured. I thought thee dead, for day by day, I waited, and day by day, thou didst not come: and each night was longer, and more awful than the last. And I sought thee in every quarter of the wood, but thou wert not to be found. And now, lo! there before my eyes, hardly to be believed, thou art; and now I am almost ready once more to die, for joy, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's Works (1787), xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful period, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... length into an open conflagration. Uproar and disorder, and the anarchy of a superannuated empire, strong only to punish and impotent to defend, were at this time convulsing the provinces in every point of the compass. Rome herself had been menaced repeatedly. And a still more awful indication of the coming storm had been felt far to the south of Rome. One long wave of the great German deluge had stretched beyond the Pyrenees and the Pillars of Hercules, to the very soil of ancient Carthage. Victorious banners were already ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... had gone. "A sort of male Lady Cardington. Both of them are morbidly conscious of their age and carry it about with them as if it were a crime. Yet they're both worth knowing. People with that temperament who don't use hair-dye must have grit. His son's awful." ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... in the store, and after I had got about forty different extracts on my clothes, another boy that worked there he fixed up a bottle of benzine and assafety and brimstone, and a whole lot of other horrid stuff, and labeled it 'rose geranium,' and I guess I just wallered in it. It is awful, aint it? It kerflummixed Ma when I went into the dining-room the first night that I got home from the store, and broke Pa all up, He said I reminded him of the time that they had a litter of skunks under the barn. The air seemed fixed around where I am, and everybody seems to know who fixed ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... get it," he said in a low voice, "will you stand by me if I get stuck? I'm an awful ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is complete—Eve is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the new-born charms, the submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance, into effusions of love or gratitude; at ease reclined, with fingers pointing at himself and his new mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... "It's awful!" groaned Colonel McCabe. "This damned hole is enough to make one childish. I shall go crazy soon." And then he cracked his standing joke of the evening: "My daily morning prayer is: 'Let it soon be evening, O God; the morrow will come of itself.'" The jest was greeted with a dutiful grunt of ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... turned away, and the mate, scenting a little excitement, took him gently by the coat-sleeve and led him from the brink. Sympathy begets confidence, and, within the next ten minutes, he had learned that Arthur Heard, rejected by Emma Smith, was contemplating the awful crime of self-destruction. ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... am not talking about boys running about with the shell still on their heads and more affections to place than they can find a market for, but men. Well then, with most all of them, when one comes to discuss matters, one finds one's had such an awful lot of predecessors. At best one comes in a bad third—more often a bad three-and-twentieth—I mean nothing risky. Don't be nervous. But they have romantic memories of half-a-dozen women. And so, though they are no end nice and kind to one, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... an opportunity of seeing whether I deserted him or not. I was to speak on the next morning. But what a night preceded it! Fevered and horror-stricken, I could find no repose. If I slumbered for a moment, the murderer's form arose before me, scaring sleep away, now muttering his awful crime, and now shrieking to me to save his life! I did try to save it. I did everything to save it, except that which is imputed to me, but that I did not, and I will prove it. I have since pondered much upon this subject, and I am satisfied that my original impression was ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... faith; and on a table opposite, at the extreme end, stood an image of our Redeemer, before which burned four tall lights in massive candlesticks, lent by the priest upon such occasions to give additional solemnity to the scene. There is something very awful in the contemplation of death, from which not even the strongest mind can altogether divest itself. But at a wake the solemn gloom which generally pervades the chamber of a lifeless corpse is partially ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... this state when an accident took place so awful and inexplicable in its character that my reason fairly reels at the bare memory of the occurrence. It was the tenth of July. After dinner was over I repaired, with my friend Dr. Hammond, to the garden to smoke my evening pipe. Independent of certain mental sympathies which ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... sufferings of the people, according to the different historians, were absolutely appalling. One of these experiments of paper money, however, begun under the most promising auspices, and on a professed basis of convertibility, was yet so stupendous and awful in its effects, that it has taken its place as a Pharos in History, and is never to be forgotten. We refer, of course, to the banking prodigalities of the Regency of France, undertaken in connection with the scheme known as Law's Mississippi Bubble,—although the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... marriage, for all his former affection for Zorzi had returned, with the conviction of his innocence, and the case was very urgent. That very night Zorzi might be found, and on the next morning he might be brought before the Ten to be examined. Marietta thought with terror of the awful tales Nella had told her about the little torture chamber behind ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Seymour had gone by to finish his cigar in solitude, why then this story would have had a very different ending; or, rather, who can say how it might have ended? The dread, foredoomed event with which that night was big would have come to its awful birth leaving certain words unspoken. Violent separation must have ensued, and even if both of them had survived the terror, what prospect was there that their lives would again have crossed each other in ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... awful, and even brave Sir Sidney turns a little as the boat reaches the doomed ship, and the men are seen clambering up her sides. At that dreadful moment a huge cloud of smoke, balloon shaped, rises high above the Desespere, a sheet of flame shoots into the air, and yards, and masts, ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... the valleys in order to recognize the valley of Gschaid and descend to it. But he saw no valleys whatever. He seemed not to stand on any mountain from which one can look down, but in some strange, curious country in which there were only unknown objects. Today they saw awful rocks stand up out of the snow at some distance which they had not seen the day before; they saw the glacier, they saw hummocks and slanting snow-fields, and behind these, either the sky or the blue peak of some very distant mountain above the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... in Catholic countries, and as the recognized interpreter of their religious faith. So long as people remain Roman Catholics, they must remain in allegiance to the head of their church. They may cease to be Catholics, and no temporal harm will happen to them; but the awful power remains over those who continue to abide within the pale of the Church. Of his spiritual subjects the Pope exacts, as he has exacted for centuries, absolute and unconditional obedience through his ministers,—one great hierarchy of priests; the most ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... parents, breaking the Sabbath, swearing, stealing, drunkenness. I don't remember just the order they came. It was very interesting, for he told lots of stories and we sang a great many times. I should think Eddy Tousley would be an awful good boy with his father in the house with him all the while, but probably he has to be away part of the time ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the Young Doctor ruminated over what he had seen and heard at Tralee. "That old geezer will get an awful jolt one day," he said to himself. "If that girl should wake! Her eyes—if somebody comes along and draws the curtains! She hasn't the least idea of where she is or what it all means. All she knows is that she's a prisoner in some strange, savage country and doesn't know ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... with many arrows. And here the Indians warmed and chafed his benumbed body, and treated him with all the kindness they knew. But that brought Smith little comfort. For he knew it was the Indian way. A famous warrior might be sure of kindness at their hands if they meant in the end to slay him with awful torture. ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... auxiliaries, Thracians and Ligurians such as had abandoned Aulus at Suthul; and the sense of the danger threatened by the treachery of allies, who must form a vital element in all Roman armies, may have been the motive for the awful example now given to the empire of Rome's punishment for breach of faith. Some of these prisoners had their hands cut off; others were buried in the earth up to their waists, were then made a target for arrows and darts, and were finally burnt with fire before the breath ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... waist, and I ask you, if this side of a painted and feathered savage you can find anything more unpleasant to behold. And yet such young women we meet by the hundred every day on the street and in all our public places. It is awful ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... is still the awful fact of death to face; Nature herself has been temporarily dead before she blooms into beauty; she dies every autumn, to rise again in the same form every spring. But how do we know in what form we shall emerge from the chrysalis? As soon as a man ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... ever; a sad spectacle, for it was evident that the death of the poor wretch had been caused by intemperance; he was found in the morning lying on his face, and his body already stiff. We were both alike involved in the same awful responsibility, for the Indians drank as much at one house as the other, though his death occurred at the establishment of the other party. The Company only permit the sale of liquors to the natives when the presence ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... of a mile before the same savage screech,—which was more frightful than I can describe, being seemingly made up of the mingling tones of a man's and a woman's voice, raised to the highest pitch in an agony of rage or pain,—the same awful screech, I say, rose and thrilled through the shuddering forest, coming this time, I perceived, from the mouth of the gorge, where the animal had so quickly arrived, found my trail, doubtless, and started on in pursuit. I now, though still not really ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... got her the job at Berry's. Her grandfather, a pious old stick in the mud, turned her out of his house. She had to do something to earn her living. I hope she isn't going to be sick. It would be an awful mess. She can't have much saved up. Go and see her, will you, Doc? Forty-nine Cherry. Taylor ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... sent for whisky and poured out a stiff four fingers, to the awful disgust of Curley Crothers, who saw the whole transaction. The pilot consumed it so instantly that there seemed never to have been any ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... defeat and further failure. I know not how it may be in other States, but if I am not greatly mistaken as to the mind of the loyal people of Ohio, they mean to trust power in the hands of no man who, during the awful struggle for the Nation's life, proved unfaithful to the cause of liberty and of Union. They will continue to exclude from the administration of the government those who prominently opposed the war, until every ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... idea, as I say, but I couldn't apply it. And that's the way things stood last night when I went to bed. I had sat up until after eleven and had used up all the paper I had, and so when I got into bed I saw diagrams all over the place and had an awful time to get to sleep. But at last I did. ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour
... said, "knowing good and evil," and from the hour she began to know she ceased to trust. It was the spies that lost the Land of Promise to Israel of old. It was their foolish proposition to search out the land, and find out by investigation whether God had told the truth or not, that led to the awful outbreak of unbelief that shut the doors of Canaan to a whole generation. It is very significant that the names of these spies are nearly all suggestive of ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... never sees now. They had been made in England. They were hinged together like jaws, and Georgina yelled again as she saw them all blackened and gaping, dangling from the tongs. It was not the grinning teeth themselves, however, which frightened her. It was the awful knowledge, vague though it was to her infant mind, that a human body could fly apart in that way. And Tippy, not understanding the cause of her terror, never thought to explain that they were false ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... ('Just one more step and thou art dead!') in Fidelia. This terrific effect, which I too had felt, was produced by the shock—like unto the blow of an executioner's axe—which I received on suddenly coming down from the ideal sphere to which music itself can exalt the most awful situations, to the naked surface of dreadful reality. This sensation was due simply to the knowledge of the utmost height of the sublime, and the memory of the impression I received led me to call that particular moment ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... States—of the whole—of all the United States. That oath will bind him to take care that the laws be faithfully executed throughout the United States. Will secession absolve him from that oath? Will it diminish, by one jot or tittle, its awful obligation? Will attempted revolution do more than secession? And if not—and the oath and the obligation remain—and the President does his duty and undertakes to enforce the laws, and secession or revolution resists, what ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... short in his swift flight, and Bamboo felt himself slipping. Too late he screamed for help, too late he tried to save himself. Down, down from that dizzy height he tumbled, turning, twisting, thinking of the awful death that was surely coming. Swish! he shot through the tree tops trying vainly to clutch the friendly branches. Then with a loud scream he struck the ground, and his long ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... Mooley cow, the engine when you hear its bell; Beware, O camel, when resounds the whistle's shrill, unholy swell; And, native of that guileless land, unused to modern travel's snare, Beware the fiend that peddles books—the awful peanut-boy beware. Else, trusting in their specious arts, you may have reason to condemn The traffic which the knavish ply 'twixt ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... to expose us to the danger of being eaten alive?" said Lady Hesketh, in an awful voice. "Ricky, I'm going to get into that boat at once; Dorothy—Betty Castlemaine—bring Alixe and Barbara Lisle. We are ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... of rhyme and the language of fiction would but ill suit my present feelings. This is to me a very awful moment; it is no less than parting forever with those from whom I have received the greatest kindness and favors, and upon the spot where that kindness and those favors were enjoyed." [Here he was unable to proceed till he was relieved by a shower ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... come home he saw Miss Elizabeth with her hand all bandaged up, and wanted to know what the trouble was. He was told the story, so he came out to look for me. He called me out from my hiding place, and when he saw me with those awful whelps on me, and how pitiful looking I was, he said, "Elizabeth, you done ruint my little nigger, David." "I wouldn't have him in this fix for all the strawberries." I was very fond of strawberries in those days, but that experience ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... being chastened by his disease, Pharaoh remained stiffnecked, and he tried to restore his health by murdering Israelitish children. He took counsel with his three advisers, Balaam, Jethro, and Job, how he might be healed of the awful malady that had seized upon him. Balaam spoke, saying, "Thou canst regain thy health only if thou wilt slaughter Israelitish children and bathe in their blood." Jethro, averse from having a share in such an atrocity, left the king and fled to Midian. Job, on the other hand, though ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... a awful temper. "Soa tha thowt tha couldn't do enuff to aggravate me but tha mun mak a ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... Germans, that the Canadians will hold their ground? They are untried troops." I told him that I was sure that one thing the Canadians would do would be to hold on. Before a fortnight had passed, in the awful struggle near Langemarcke, the Canadians proved their ability to hold ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... there is not one man who inspires confidence, and in which, with the exception perhaps of John Russell (who is broken in health and spirits), there is not one deserving to be called a statesman,—to this Cabinet is committed the awful task of solving the many difficult questions of domestic, colonial, and foreign policy which surround and press upon us; while the Duke of Wellington and Peel are compelled 'to stand like ciphers in the great account.' The great characteristic of the present time is indifference: nobody ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... around the fantastic Frederick. In Italy he had met adventurers of Genoa and Venice who had shown him charts of unknown oceans and maps of Prester John's country and the desert roads that led to Cambaluc, that city farther than the moon, and told him tales of awful and delectable things hidden beyond the dawn. He had returned to his tower by the springs of Canche, a young man with a name for uncanny knowledge, a searcher after concealed matters, negligent of religion and ill at ease in ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... Vegetable Compound has done for me. It has made me well and happy. Five months ago I could hardly walk across the room, I was so full of pain. I could scarcely step. I now feel like a new woman. I sleep well and have a good appetite. I used to get such awful sick headache spells, but now I have them no more. Also would be troubled with awful bearing down pain at time of menstruation but have also been relieved of this. I cannot praise your medicine enough. ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... the family lawyer, and confided to the heir at midnight on his twenty-first birthday. Jimmy had come across the story in corners of the papers all over the States, from New York to Onehorseville, Iowa. He looked with interest at the light-haired young man, the latest depository of the awful secret. It was popularly supposed that the heir, after hearing it, never smiled again; but it did not seem to have affected the present Lord Dreever to any great extent. His gurgling laugh was drowning the orchestra. Probably, Jimmy thought, when ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... awful suspense had passed away since the last of the red line of light cavalry had been seen rushing into the cloud of smoke. The guns which had dealt death into their ranks had ceased to roar; but what had become of them or of the brave horsemen it was impossible to say. At length here and there ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the terrible nature of my misdeed burst upon me; my step-mother's horrified countenance and the baby's frightened screams were a simultaneous and forcible indication of what awful results may spring from a trifling source. I became angry with myself, for once, and with a very contrite countenance, I went towards my step-mother and held my arms out repentantly, offering to soothe the refractory ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... ingenuity. "Who," he asks in a splendid burst of feigned horror, "can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and natural in a moment?" At the same time Lady Macbeth affects to swoon away in the presence of so awful a crime. For the time all suspicion of guilt, except in the mind of Banquo, is averted from the real murderers. But, like so many criminals, Macbeth finds it impossible to rest on his first success in crime. His sensibility grows dulled; ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... not refuse to admit that the great separation, and the storms and sufferings connected with it, was an awful judgment upon Catholic Christendom, which clergy and laity had but too well deserved—a judgment which has had an improving and salutary effect. The great conflict of intellects has purified the European atmosphere, has impelled the human mind on to new courses, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... faint, she must keep her nerve until Ahmed came. Oh, dear God, send him quickly! The laugh wavered hysterically, and she caught her lip between her teeth. She must do something to distract her attention from that awful still shape at her feet. Almost unconsciously she grasped the cigarette case in her pocket and took it out, dragging her eyes from the horrible sight on which they were fixed, and chose and lit a cigarette with slow care, ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... was in the year 1797, in a small workshop and smithy situated in Wells Street, Oxford Street. It was in an awful state of dirt and dilapidation when he became its tenant. He entered the place on a Friday, but by the Saturday evening, with the help of his excellent wife, he had the shop thoroughly cleaned, whitewashed, ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... is that we come into the world alone and we go out of the world alone; and although we travel in company, make our pilgrimage to Canterbury or to Vanity Fair in a great show of fellowship, and of bearing one another's burdens, we carry our deepest troubles alone. When we think of it, it is an awful lonesomeness in this animated and moving crowd. Each one either must or will carry his own burden, which he commonly cannot, or by pride or shame will ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... abomination and blasphemy! And this craven sentiment is echoed by the very men whose industry is taxed to defray the expenses of twenty-five representatives of property, vested in beings fashioned in the awful image of their Maker; by men whose hard earnings aid in supporting a standing army mainly for the protection of slaveholding indolence; by men who are liable at any moment to be called from the field ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... awful lot of old timers died this spring. You can't cut them off short and hope to ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... to profit by what was seen, the importance of avoiding, on all occasions, bringing credit into disrepute. As one event that occurred offers an apposite parallel to what I have now to advance, I shall make a tender of the facts in the way of illustration. The circumstances show the awful uncertainty of things in this transitory life, Captain Ludlow, and forewarn the most vigorous and youthful, that the strong of arm may be cut down, in his pride, like the tender plant of the fields! The banking-house ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... hear the solemn sound, Which midnight echoes waft around, And sighing gales repeat. Fav'rite of Pallas! I attend, And, faithful to thy summons, bend At Wisdom's awful seat. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... sad, peaceful, white face, with the awful mystery of stillness on it, laid back upon the pillow. No stir, no change there! He only looked at it for a moment before he closed the curtains again, but that moment steadied him, calmed him, restored him—mind and body—to himself. He returned to his old occupation of walking up and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... ride the new House, but it must be with a snaffle bridle. Bosanquet and Sir Alexander Johnston were made Privy Councillors to sit in the Chancellor's new Court. The Privy Council is as numerous as a moderate-sized club, and about as well composed. Awful storms these last few days, and enormous damage done, the weather like the middle ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... The awful thing about nonsense verse is the very fine line that divides a masterpiece from utter drivel. Nonsense verse is very good or very bad. When it plays along the edges it is very pleasing but when ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... 'n that," responded Creede, squinting his eyes down judicially. "Them Herefords are awful solid when they git big. I reckon he'll run nigh onto seventeen hundred, Bill." He paused and winked furtively at Hardy. "I kin git fifty dollars fer that old boy, jest the way he stands," he said, "and bein' as he can't carry ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the fire, Vic. It begins to look spooky back here. I've just had my ear to the ground and I heard an awful roaring somewhere." Trench, who had been sprawling lazily in the shadows, now declared, "Say, I'd hate to be penned into this place so I couldn't get out. There's no skinning up that rock wall even if a fellow could swim the river, and I can't," and ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... implications. But we cannot help this. We must think with the symbols with which experience has furnished us; and when we so think, there does seem to be little that is even intellectually satisfying in the awful picture which science shows us, of giant worlds concentrating out of nebulous vapour, developing with prodigious waste of energy into theatres of all that is grand and sacred in spiritual endeavour, clashing and exploding again into dead vapour-balls, only to renew the same toilful ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske |
