"Direful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who watched over the fortunes of the Nederlanders having unthinkingly left the field, and stepped into a neighboring tavern to refresh themselves with a pot of beer, a direful catastrophe had well-nigh ensued. Scarce had the myrmidons of Michael Paw attained the front of battle, when the Swedes, instructed by the cunning Risingh, leveled a shower of blows full at their tobacco-pipes. Astounded at this assault, and dismayed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... space between was for both as an open grave filled with dead things—hopes, ambitions, future days and months and years—days and months and years when they should be for ever mindful of his crime! For henceforth they were to dwell in the chill of this direful shadow that would tower above all the concerns of life whether great or small; that would add despair to every sorrow, and take the very soul and substance ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... the custom ne'er will alter, But wish its enemies a halter. Dissatisfaction great appear'd, In several places where they've heard Their preacher's bold, aloud disclaim That bundling is a burning shame; This too was cause of direful rout And talk'd and told of, all about, That ministers should disapprove Sparks courting in a bed of love, So justified the custom more, Than e'er was heard or known before. The pulpit then it seems must yield, And female valor ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... artless child. Was't not enough, in thy delirious whirl To blast the stedfast rocks; Her, and her peace as well, Must I, God-hated one, to ruin hurl! Dost claim this holocaust, remorseless Hell! Fiend, help me to cut short the hours of dread! Let what must happen, happen speedily! Her direful doom fall crushing on my head, And into ruin let her ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... seem to be the relative positions of the two different bands of workers, they must at last come together, for truth is one. But logic is not history. History is full of interferences which have cost the earth dear. Strangest of all, some of the most direful of them have been made by the best of men, actuated by the purest motives, seeking the noblest results. These interferences and the struggle against them make up the warfare of science. One statement more to clear the ground. You will not understand me at all to say that ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... gaily as he lightly knocked off with his little finger the ash from his cigar-end. This was a serious, a direful business; but he had no intention to let the Greek see that his words had any alarming or disturbing effect upon him, so he ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... would not have complained of his sufferings, for who can be in those most trying sufferances of miserable sensations and not complain of them, but his groans for the pain would have been blended with thanksgivings to the sanctifying Spirit. Even under the direful yoke of the necessity of daily poisoning by narcotics it is somewhat less horrible, through the knowledge that it was not from any craving for pleasurable animal excitement, but from pain, delusion, error, of ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... patriotism and good sense of the parties to the controversy and to place upon them the moral coercion of public opinion to agree to an arbitrament of the strike then existing and threatening consequences so direful to the whole country. He acted promptly and courageously, and in so doing averted the dangers to ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... people were ignorant and brutal and refused to the stranger a glass of water, unless he were prepared to pay for it. At Leon he was seized by a fever that prostrated him for a week. He also experienced marked antagonism from the clergy, who threatened every direful consequence to whosoever read or purchased "the accursed books" which he brought. A more serious evidence of their displeasure was shown by the action they commenced in the ecclesiastical court against the bookseller whom Borrow had arranged with to act as agent for his Testaments. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... this time the wasp seemed almost to drop into her claws; she clutched him with such a tight grasp, that he had no possibility of escape; but in an instant, with a direful scream, Wishie unclosed her paw; and the wasp dropped on the floor. Wishie's paw was terribly stung. Her first trial of the Fairy's gift had not proved pleasant by any means. So, limping and mewing, Wishie went back to her ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... from any one coming in contact with her, was this same Julia. The pretty blue dress and white apron were covered with great patches of mud; morocco boots and neat white stockings were in the same direful plight; and down her face the salt and muddy tears were running, for her handkerchief was also ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Polly, springing up quickly; "don't be afraid; we're going to have that cake! There, you ugly old thing, you!" (this to the stove) "see what you've done!" as two big tears flew out of Phronsie's brown eyes at the direful prospect; and the sorrowful faces of the two boys looked up into Polly's own, for comfort. "I can fix it, I most know; do get some paper, Joe, as quick ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... of outlook on the Roman alphabet. He treats it with a freedom and variety and a certain disregard of precedent—induced, perhaps, by his schooling in Blackletter—that often produces delightful, though sometimes, be it added, direful results. But if the extreme and bizarre forms be thrown aside the designer may obtain suggestions of great benefit and value from the more restrained examples of German work. Many eminent German draughtsmen, whose work is all too little known in this country, are [84] ...
— Letters and Lettering - A Treatise With 200 Examples • Frank Chouteau Brown
... grass. Among them were officers from foreign lands, aides-de-camp, generals, high officials, princes; all of them with field glasses in their hands, with which, since early morning, they had been watching every phase of the death-struggle of the army of Chalons, as if they were at the play. And the direful drama was drawing to ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... was Fanny? The direful sounds had reached her ear, and now at the head of the stairs she listened to the Babel which reigned in the parlor. High above all other voices she distinguished her father's, who, in his uncontrollable ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... Rizpah lived were dark and gloomy days. The words of Samuel to Agag may stand as their memorial, "As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women." Let us be thankful that we see no such direful scenes, and let us act worthy of our higher lot. Let us remember also that there is a destruction of life more terrible even than that which Rizpah witnessed—the destruction of the soul. If the mother's love within us prompts us to half the care of the spiritual life of our children, which ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... of Don Pedro was roused by these suspicions to intensity of action, and he resolved upon direful revenge. As the new governor was hourly expected, he could not venture upon any open act of assassination or violence, for he knew that in that case summary punishment would be his doom. Calling M. Codro before him, he assumed his blandest smile, thanked the artless philosopher ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... which had driven a husband to the refuge of a reverted pistol; which had banished, for life, relatives and friends; and which, in the shape of a promissory curse, had held apart those who would have been husband and wife; and now, like the long stored up venom of a serpent, it burst out with the direful force ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... Athena, gray-eyed queen of wisdom, Thy praise I sing! Steadfast, all holy, sure ward of our city, Triton-born rule whom High Zeus doth bring Forth from his forehead. Thou springest forth valiant; The clangour swells far as thy direful ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... them had ever heard before, her voice as tender as some wild bird's song; then the two women went away together around the store into the house. Poleon had told Necia all the amazing story that had come to him that direful night, all that he had overheard, all that he knew, and much that ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... even they look cheerily forward; and, for myself, the blowing off of my hat on a stormy day has given me more uneasiness."[53] To Lady Davy he writes truly enough:—"I beg my humblest compliments to Sir Humphrey, and tell him, Ill Luck, that direful chemist, never put into his crucible a more indissoluble piece of stuff than your affectionate cousin and sincere well-wisher, Walter Scott."[54] When his Letters of Malachi Malagrowther came out he writes:—"I am glad of this ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Felix an unusual sense of chill penury, and brought Vale Leston before his eyes. He laughed rather bitterly, saying, 'Perhaps some day neither thirty pence nor thirty pounds may have so direful a sound!' ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this name. This beautiful creature, then, was not the Eleanore who could load, aim, and fire a pistol. Turning my head, I followed the guiding of that uplifted hand, now frozen into its place by a new emotion: the emotion of being interrupted in the midst of a direful and pregnant revelation, and saw—but, no, here description fails me! Eleanore Leavenworth must be painted by other hands than mine. I could sit half the day and dilate upon the subtle grace, the pale magnificence, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... him in this speech, which was delivered in a satisfied and judicial tone. Sophy's sin had been present to Mrs. Bolton for so many months, and she had grown so accustomed to analyze it, and argue about it, that she could not enter into the sudden and direful shock the discovery had been to her nephew. An antagonism had risen in her mind about it, not only against Mr. Warden, but against some faint, suppressed reproaches of conscience, which made her secretly cleave to the idea that this vice was hereditary, and consequently incurable. ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... The phantoms of night in rapid succession pressed upon her bewildered imagination: she saw her venerable father borne down under the pressure of grief, wringing his withered hands in agony, and pronouncing a direful malediction on his ungrateful child. She heard that thrilling voice, broken by age, and quivering with emotion, and on his countenance she beheld the workings of despair. Fitfully she awoke, and struggled hard to chase ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... with Alexander the Great," said the Professor. "You would prefer the fame of Achilles to that of Homer, who told the story of his wrath and its direful consequences. I am afraid that I should hardly agree with you. Achilles was little better than a Choctaw brave. I won't quote Horace's line which characterizes him so admirably, for I will take it for granted that you all know it. He was a gentleman,—so is a first-class Indian,—a ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... no, it is repentant tears, By those let fall who make their direful flight, And drop by drop the anguish of their fears Comes down around us all ...
— The Story and Song of Black Roderick • Dora Sigerson
... damsel went out with Miss Dinah, for an extra bench from the wash-house, Dolf accompanied them, and directly the company were startled by a direful commingling of laughter and ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... daily, dismal forecasts of the male Cassandras of our time is, that in the event of women becoming emancipated from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first place—accepting that prophecy as true—why will women not marry? Because, they will then be independent of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... again yielded place to reflections on the scene before me. I fixed my eyes upon her countenance. My sister's well-known and beloved features could not be concealed by convulsion or lividness. What direful illusion led thee hither? Bereft of thee, what hold on happiness remains to thy offspring and thy spouse? To lose thee by a common fate would have been sufficiently hard; but thus suddenly to perish—to become the prey ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... never fade away: Emblazoned in the sacred Hall of Fame, They shall remain till dawns that direful Day, The valid seal beneath thy sacred name. Deft Tanner, artist, ever blazing flame, With Pickens, Bruce and Locke of classic dell, Old Truth and Harper, Yates and Ruffin came, And Walker, Terrell, Williams, known ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones
... impliest, that mercy thou deservest; and that is next door to, or almost as much as to say, God oweth me what I ask for. The best that can be put upon it is, thou seekest security from the direful curse of God, as it were by the works of the law, Rom. ix. 31-33; and to be sure, betwixt Christ and the law, thou wilt drop into hell. For he that seeks for mercy, as it were, and but as it were, by the works of the law, doth not altogether trust ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... Peterson, the subject of this sketch, is a native of the State of Florida. He was born of slave parents, just in time to be spared the horrible experiences of that slave system which swept over this country with such direful results. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... There to defend the pass bright eyes might gain; When his dread archery was pour'd amain Where blunted erst had fallen every dart. Scared at the sudden brisk attack, I found Nor time, nor vigour to repel the foe With weapons suited to the direful need; No kind protection of rough rising ground, Where from defeat I might securely speed, Which fain I would e'en now, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... this through the most perfect freedom; for all freedom is from love, thus the most perfect freedom is from marriage love, which is heavenly love itself. On the other hand, the advance of adultery is towards hell, and by degrees to the lowest hell, where there is nothing but what is direful and horrible. Such a lot awaits adulterers after their life in the world, those being meant by adulterers who feel a delight in adulteries, and no ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... State legislature. When the Rebellion broke out in 1861 he raised a company of Confederate volunteers and served as their captain through the war. Very soon after the surrender, when worldly ambition had succumbed to the direful state of the Southern people, his mind seems to have sought for something more enduring than aught the world could offer. He turned to religion with the honest purpose of seeking to learn if that might have in it such proofs of its genuineness and reliability ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... the wild bursts of cheering given out again and again by the rescued men, wounded (who were many) and sound (who were very few), to those who had succoured them in their direful time of need—shouts that were echoed and re-echoed by the wearied and weather-worn comrades warmly shaking hands and almost ready to embrace old friends—there were other meetings and heart-stirring incidents. Not the least interesting was that in which the commanding ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... thar'll be a mighty lot fer you to do now." So with this direful prophecy in her ears the girl hesitated. The old ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... instinctively imitated his motions, but at the same time their eyes were yet riveted on the dimly burning match. A small flash was observed to illumine the trench—another and a larger one succeeded! The first train of powder was ignited—the Indians were bursting through the snow-crust with direful yells—the blaze ran quickly along the plank—it reached the end of the reed—a shrill whizzing sound succeeded—a sharp crash under the snow—and then all was involved in a tremendous chaotic explosion! An enormous circular cloud of smoke ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... Nor direful rage, nor bois'trous tumult loud, Nor looks infuriate of the threat'ning crowd— Nor haughty tyrants, with their angry scowl, Like beasts that o'er the traveller's pathway prowl— Nor southern storm, that o'er the ocean raves, And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... I; and these fellows are delightfully plump. But you spoke of eating your shoes, Jacques. When were you reduced to that direful extremity?" ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... all. Since future human volitions are as a matter of fact the only ambiguous things we are tempted to believe in, let us stop for a moment to make ourselves sure whether their independent and accidental character need be fraught with such direful consequences to the universe ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... severely wounded and driven into a corner, this animal frequently commences a combat of despair, and sometimes kills the hunter. The puma measures in length about four feet, and in height more than two feet. More direful than any of the felines mentioned above is the sanguinary ounce,[81] which possesses vast strength, and is of a most savage disposition. Though the favorite haunts of this animal are the expansive Pajonales, ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... from flower to flower; The queen tried to catch it for many an hour; Till at last, oh, direful tale to tell, Into a spider's web our hero fell! The spider ran to seize his prey; Tom, with his sword, fought valiantly; Till, alas! the spider's poisonous breath Was the cause of our gallant hero's death. ...
— An Entertaining History of Tom Thumb - William Raine's Edition • Unknown
... was on fire with excitement. Then he broke into a disjointed checking off of the particulars—his potato cooling in mid-air meantime, and his mouth making a reach for it occasionally; but always bringing up suddenly against a new and still more direful performance of my hero. At last he looked his stunned and rigid comrade impressively in the face, and said, with ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that 'tis ever marked, that when this direful ceremony occurs, the average deaths in cities greatly increase. 'Tis from the turning of the blood in the spectators, who yet from some ungovernable madness cannot refrain from hurrying to the scene. I speak with some authority. I ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... is due the honor of giving the world a practical stationary engine; George Stephenson picked that engine up bodily and placed it on wheels, and against the most direful predictions of the foremost engineers of his age, proved the practicability of harnessing steam to ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... enormous quantity of it; it passes to the feet of the dancer; in fact, every one diffuses it at will, and may I see the Minotaur tranquilly seated this very evening upon my bed, if you do not know as well as I do how he expends it. Almost all men spend in necessary toils, or in the anguish of direful passions, this fine sum of energy and of will, with which nature has endowed them; but our honest women are all the prey to the caprices and the struggles of this power which knows not what to do with itself. If, in the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... the region Okolni. There is also a fair hall of ruddy gold called Sindri, which stands on the mountains of Nida, (Nidafjoll). In those halls righteous and well-minded men shall abide. In Nastrond there is a vast and direful structure with doors that face the north. It is formed entirely of the backs of serpents, wattled together like wicker work. But the serpents' heads are turned towards the inside of the hall, and continually vomit forth floods of venom, in ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... that all is ready. Forthwith the whole company rush back, and find the walls embellished by a series of little shelves, about a foot wide, each furnished with a mattress and bedding, and hooked to the ceiling by a very suspiciously slender cord. Direful are the ruminations and exclamations of inexperienced travellers, particularly young ones, as they eye these very equivocal accommodations. "What, sleep up there! I won't sleep on one of those top shelves, I know. The cords will certainly break." ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... sole sensuality," he says of this time, "was not to be in pain." In a terrible letter addressed to Joseph Cottle in 1814 he declares that he was "seduced to the accursed habit ignorantly"; and he describes "the direful moment, when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such a dreadful falling abroad, as it were, of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness, and incipient bewilderment ... for my case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... the war spirit, which is one of the most direful traits of our fallen race, there is but little difference between the civilized and uncivilized man. I was once breakfasting with one of the most distinguished officers of a European army. To my question whether the officers generally wished for peace or war, ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... Moffat and Waterboer found a young woman belonging to the Mantatees, whose whole appearance denoted direful want. Food was given her, and some tobacco, and she was sent with a message to her people that the strangers wanted to speak with them and not to fight. An old man and a lad were also found dying of starvation, these were helped and talked to in full sight of ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... lived with his sister. At first the direful system which ruled everything from the time of the cat's entrance to the date when the furnace fire should be started, chafed on him. His declarations of independence were received pityingly, as the prattles of a tired child. Gradually he resigned himself, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... think that the historian writing at the present day need fear any such direful calamity, for the past century has shown most instructively how, in such a society as ours, the sense of political dangers slowly makes its way through the whole mass of the people, until movements at length are made to avert them, and the pendulum ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... of the "hen-house" looked as if he wished very much to retort in kind. The glare he gave his visitor prophesied direful things. But he did not retort; nor, to her surprise, did he raise his voice or order her off the premises. Instead his tone, when he spoke ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... spiked switch to look out for, and a missile from an old building smashed the headlight glass. At the limits a man tossed a folded paper into the locomotive cab. It was a poor scrawl containing direful threats to anyone opposing the ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... tried the double somersault in the schoolroom that morning. Andy had made a famous success of the experiment, but with the direful result of smashing a desk, and ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... there are all sorts of attempts," and I told him of model cottages, ragged schools, and the like, and promised to find him the accounts; but he gave one of his low growls, as if this were but a mockery of the direful need. ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great doings when they got down to the village again, and had formed up in front of the inn. After refreshment St. George made a speech, in which he informed his audience that he had removed their direful scourge, at a great deal of trouble and inconvenience to him-self, and now they weren't to go about grumbling and fancying they'd got grievances, because they hadn't. And they shouldn't be so fond of ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... loopholes of the stockade. It was eight hundred yards away in the dazzling light of the rising sun. Old Springfields did not carry as do the modern arms. Soldiers of those days were not taught accurate shooting as they are now. It was too far for anything but chance, and all within a minute or two the direful tragedy was over, and the red warriors had darted back behind the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... devoted their lives to the perfection of this wonderful science. The regular schools of medicine, as a body, have ignored and will ignore it, because it discloses the fallacy of their favorite theories and practices, and because it reveals unmistakably the direful results of chronic drug ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... be more hurtful for any people than to dwell upon repulsive things. To hang upon that which is dark, direful, and saddening tends to degeneracy. There are few things which tend so much to dwarf a people as the constant dwelling upon personal sorrows and interests, whether they be ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... not a frequent caller. She had almost earned among the Wallencampers the direful anathema of "not ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... breakfast, retreated to an easy-chair, and taken from the chimney-piece one of his famous trabucos,—"upon my word, I can't guess; if some great reverse of fortune befell him, and he had to work for his livelihood, or if some other direful calamity gave a shock to his nervous system and jolted it into a fussy, fidgety direction, I dare say he might make a splash in that current of life which bears men on to the grave. But you see he ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... gloom, which had been the scene of so much that was dark and direful, became the witness of a happiness which seemed to lift it out of the veil of reserve in which it had been shrouded for so long, and make of the afternoon sun, which at that moment streamed in through the western windows, a signal of peace, ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... seemed to be an essential by the sign of the habitation and the dangers of the gate,—I was aroused by a crash, something like the noise of the machine which accompanies the falling of an avalanche or a castle, or some such direful affair at "Astley's;" and starting up, I thought,—had the coach upset? but, much to my gratification, found myself a safe "inside." Still came crash after crash, until I thought it high time to see as well as hear. "What on earth is the matter?" said I to the first waiter I met, as I descended ...
— Facts for the Kind-Hearted of England! - As to the Wretchedness of the Irish Peasantry, and the Means for their Regeneration • Jasper W. Rogers
... a distressing scene is here before us? America, I start at your situation! These direful effects of slavery demand your most serious attention. What! shall a people who flew to arms with the valor of Roman citizens when encroachments were made upon their liberties by the invasion of foreign powers, now ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... troops, and the music of the bands degenerates into inharmonious toots and discordant squeaks, from the inattention of the musicians. All along the line the signal runs - not "every Persian is expected to do his duty," but "the asp-i-awhan Sahib! the asp-i-awhan Sahib!" the whole army is in direful commotion. In the midst of the general confusion, up dashes an orderly, who requests that I accompany him to the presence of the Commander-in-Chief and staff; which, of course, I readily do, though not without certain misgivings ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... evident, from Prof. Huxley's lectures here, that he had not before imagined what results had been obtained in America. This is not surprising. Few foreigners are able to keep along with the work performed in this country, where there is such a direful supposed lack of workers! It is a fact that at present there is no part of the world where the discoveries made in this science are of so general importance as here. The Rocky mountains owe their ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... agitation of their vessels. For now the late dimpling current began to brawl around them and the waves to boil and foam with horrific fury. Awakened as if from a dream, the astonished Oloffe bawled aloud to put about, but his words were lost amid the roaring of the waters. And now ensued a scene of direful consternation. At one time they were borne with dreadful velocity among tumultuous breakers; at another hurried down boisterous rapids. Now they were nearly dashed upon the Hen and Chickens (infamous rocks!—more voracious ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that no arrests in that connection should be made public until the significance of the fact that at the time of the tragedy the child was wearing the coat—afterward found hanging loose, without a rent or a blemish, on the tree in the valley—should be fully exploited. If it were indeed a direful instance of murder and abduction, as the sheriff now believed, he wished the miscreants to rest unwitting of the activity of the officers ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... at this direful picture, and the chief culprit snuggled closer to this newly found guardian, and whispered contritely, "We didn't think of that before. We'll ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... last sound heard in the quiet room; but since its utterance the relative positions of the two individuals sitting opposite each other had changed. Wilford regarding Helen as an obstacle in his path, and Helen regarding him as a tyrant contemplating some direful harm ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck her, though it promised to put the finishing stroke to her misfortune, and to throw her naked and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... majority of the men voted to grant it perpetually. Women do not love their families because compelled to do so by statute, or cling to their homes because there is no place for them outside. This same direful prediction was made at every advanced step, but, although the entire status of women has been changed, and they are largely engaged in the public work of every community, they are better and happier wives, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the great hall. The whole garrison of retainers and hangers-on were in motion, reinforced by volunteer idlers from the village. The horses were led up and down before the door; everybody had something to say and something to do, and hurried hither and thither; there was a direful yelping of dogs; some that were to accompany us being eager to set off, and others that were to stay at home being whipped back to their kennels. In short, for once, the good squire's mansion might have been taken as a good specimen ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... force, was the best form of Government possible in this age; so a worship based chiefly upon the incitements and terrors of retributive law—the holding out of inducements of reward for the good, and of determents of direful punishment for the wicked, in a future world—was the best religion for which the time ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... guide told him that this road intersected the one he was on but a short distance ahead. His advance came dashing back, saying there was a large body of Federal troops in his front. From the rear came the direful tidings that Shackelford was near. Morgan saw, and his lip quivered. "It is no use," he said, "it is ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... not to aid, abet, or give countenance to the said Patrick Henry, or any other persons concerned in such unwarrantable combinations, but on the contrary to oppose them and their designs by every means; which designs must, otherwise, inevitably involve the whole country in the most direful calamity, as they will call for the vengeance of offended majesty and the insulted laws to be exerted here, to vindicate the constitutional ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... throes of its bitterness: "I will go down unto the grave unto my son mourning." And yet I think that without anticipating any revelation, the man whose thoughts about God and holiness were those which the Psalms of David disclose, cannot have lost his best-loved son in the very act and deed of direful guilt, without an aggravation of his anguish because of this sad thing. If Absalom in the midst of upright walking and works of righteousness had been stricken by disease and had died in his bed, the tidings of this ...
— Is The Young Man Absalom Safe? • David Wright
... hear ye not yon footsteps dread That shook the hall with thundering tread? With eager haste, The fellows past. Each intent on direful work. High lifts the mighty blade and points ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... supposed direful consequences that would follow the triumph of Atheism I have not dealt with at length. These are the bugbears which the designing normally employ in order to frighten the timid and credulous. Mental uprightness and moral integrity are certainly not the property of one religion, nor can it ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... us to be in bondage to the will of another. We cannot easily be convinced that this is not exactly parallel with being one of the slaves at the South, nor that to be a slave does not have these things for its inseparable conditions, which, we imagine, are always obtruding their direful visages; namely, "auction-block," "overseer," "whip," "chattelism," "separations," "down-trodden," "cattle." Hence it is easy for orators and preachers to work on our sympathies. There are scattered facts enough to justify any tale which any public speaker ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... this domestic tragedy, ye brutal contemners of female chastity, and of every virtue that emits a ray of glory around the social circle of matrimonial happiness! Take into your serious consideration this direful but noble proof of constancy, ye giddy and thoughtless worshippers at the shrine of beauty, and know, that a virtuous disposition is the brightest ornament of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... under cover of that appalling rain of death, the German infantry would creep back to reoccupy the positions from which they had been ousted by the bayonets only a few hours before. It was the German tactics of machine vs. men, a direful and cruel battle ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... with the aborigines, we must take into account her natural repugnance to repulsive and horrid spectacles. The North American savage streaked with war-paint, a bunch of reeking scalps at his girdle, his snaky eyes gleaming with malignity, was a direful sight for even a hardened frontiers-man; how much more, then, to his impressionable and delicate wife and daughter. The very appearance of the savage suggested thoughts of the tomahawk, the scalping ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... wrath to Bonynge, direful spring Of blows unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing— That wrath which hurled to Hellman's office floor Two heroes, mutually smeared with gore, Whose hair in handfuls marked the dire debate, And riven coat-tails ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... main forms. First, the worry over the life situation in general, that is to say, fear concerning business; fear concerning the health and prosperity of the household; fear that magnifies anything that has even the faintest possibility of being direful into something that is almost sure to happen and be disastrous. This constant worry over the possibilities of the future is both a cause of neurasthenia and a symptom, in that once a neurasthenic state is established, the liability to ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... jus' as good to begin on. So we thought of Passaic Falls, up to Paterson, an' we went there, an' took a room at a little hotel, an' walked over to the falls. But they wasn't no good, after all, for there wasn't no water runnin' over em. There was rocks and precipicers, an' direful depths, and everything for a good falls, except water, and that was all bein' used at the mills. 'Well, Miguel,' says I, 'this is about as nice a place for a falls ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... Sam, and, giving two or three contemptuous snorts, flourished his heels vigorously in the air, and was soon prancing away towards the lower end of the lawn, followed by Bill and Jerry, whom Andy had not failed to let loose, according to contract, speeding them off with various direful ejaculations. And now ensued a miscellaneous scene of confusion. Sam and Andy ran and shouted,—dogs barked here and there,—and Mike, Mose, Mandy, Fanny, and all the smaller specimens on the place, both male and female, raced, clapped hands, whooped, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that his philosophy was a very recent acquisition. When the news of their poverty first came he was the one who raved and sobbed and refused to contemplate anything less direful than slow starvation or quick suicide. She had soothed and comforted then. Since the previous evening, when he had gone out, in spite of her protestations, and left her alone, his manner had changed. He was still nervous and irritable, but no longer threatened self-destruction, ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... not enemies. To approach the questions which inevitably arise between them solely from the standpoint which treats each side in the mass as the enemy of the other side in the mass is both wicked and foolish. In the past the most direful among the influences which have brought about the downfall of republics has ever been the growth of the class spirit, the growth of the spirit which tends to make a man subordinate the welfare of the public as a whole to the welfare of the particular class to which he belongs, the substitution ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... fiend incarnate, that man is one," she muttered. "Heaven help poor Bernardine if she carries out her intention of marrying him! He will surely kill her before the honeymoon is over! Poor girl! what direful power has he over her? Alas! I tremble for her future. It would be the marriage of an angel and a devil. Poor Bernardine! why does she not elope with the young lover whom she loves, if there is no other way ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... they have to turn aside into some alley or secluded spot for grandpa to rest that Rosa became alarmed. What if night should overtake them, bringing to pass the policeman's direful prediction? ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright
... enquiries for me, and let me know if anything turns up. I have'nt entered into minute details of what I have been doing, which people I have seen, and what they have told me, etc., because I would much sooner wait till I can write and tell you what has turned up. You'd be thinking all sorts of direful things if I were to write by one mail and say I was going to see the great so-and-so to-morrow, and tell you how I had backed myself up with an array of mutual friends, letters of introduction, etc., and then write by next mail to say that it had all come to nothing; and yet that is what ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... Atlantic, yet we are assured that in the heart of both our nations survives unchanged that kindred regard and respect whose property it is, above other human feelings, to be indestructible. At this hour of your own greatest need and direful struggle,—at this hour, when a pirate from our ports is ravaging your shores, as you believe (albeit erroneously) with our guilty connivance—at this very hour you have come forward with noblest generosity, and sent us the rich vessel which has brought food to our starving people. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... comment, I took the wrapper, which was too handsome to trust to an inexperienced hand, like Mrs. Mitchell very well knew I was, and washed it, with the same direful results as chronicled before. But I could not help it, as heaven is my witness. I was entirely and hopelessly ignorant! But of course my mistress would not believe it, and declared over and over again, that I did it on purpose to provoke her and show my defiance of her wishes. In ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... and the same law of eastern aggressiveness which is at the bottom of the present war will push the yellow mass toward Europe. Russia, as comparatively western, will have to bear their first onset; for this she will require Occidental assistance, and in the turmoil of that direful conflict—or, let us hope, in order to avoid it—she will readily give up all designs against her western neighbors, and she may become really western by the necessities which impel her to lean on ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... decide the strife, between them rudely dash'd in ire, And waving high his falchion keen, he cleft in twain the golden lyre. Loud Hermes laugh'd maliciously, but at the direful deed did fall The deepest grief upon the heart of Phoebus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... consideration of the direful apprehensions which prevail in Ireland, that Mr. Wood will by such coinage drain them of their gold and silver, he proposes to take their manufactures in exchange, and that no person be obliged to receive more than ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... at the wishful, hungry look in the blue eyes before her. "Yes, a little," she said lightly; "for I hate the very word. But, if it must be spoken, it should always be short and staccato. Instead, he sat here, and we talked about Fate and wounds and all sorts of direful things." She shook herself and shivered slightly. Then she sat down in the chair which Weldon had just left vacant. "It is bad manners to have nerves, Captain Frazer. Forgive me first, and then tell me something altogether flippant, to make ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... misery is comprehended in that single word. What mind is there that does not shrink from its direful effects? Unless the image of God is obliterated from the soul, all men cherish the love of Liberty. The nice discerning political economist does not regard the sacred right, more than the untutored African who roams in the wilds of Congo. Nor has the one more right ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... road at present. This is lined with shops, varying in quality and increasing in size towards the Marble Arch. There are no buildings of importance. The road ends in Oxford Street, the ancient Tyburn Road, a name associated with the direful ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... teaching of the Christian belief. Whether unpopular with the people or not, this teaching may be unpopular with the preachers. We do not speak of these unpleasant things, for why be singular in direful prophecy? Of some preachers, to summarise, we will say that their need is a recovery of the sense of sin; of others that a deepened consciousness of every man's power to triumph over his inherited tendencies, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... Kirtley let him through the wall gate with its weighted rope. The gate flew back in place with a loud report as if to give emphasis to the old man's direful interpretations and prophecies. ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... fair their last have breathed, And now this world forever leaved; Their father, and their mother too, They sigh and weep as well as you; Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched, Into eternity theire laanched. A direful death indeed they had, As wad put any parent mad; But she was more than usual calm: She did not give ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... with untarnished light, Radiate, and make matter luminous, Filling the eyes with sweet felicity, And love, and peace, and all emotions pure. No sorrow there to make the vision dim, And wash the mellow ripeness from the cheek; No guilty deed to brand the heart with shame, And write its direful sentence on the brow; No rankling venom struggling through the veins, And blasting all the kindliness within, Till like a torrent bursting o'er restraint, It spread its desolation on mankind; But a pure regnant holiness and love, Directing impulse with most queenly sway ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... their differences to this insensate arbitrament,—and then how, in our day and before our own eyes, two nations eminent in civilization have furnished an instance of this incredible folly, waging together a world- convulsing, soul-harrowing, and most barbarous contest. All ask how long the direful duel will be continued. Better ask, How long will be continued that War System by which such a duel is authorized and regulated among nations? When will this legalized, organized crime be abolished? When at last will it be confessed that the Law of Right is the same ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... of yore, When folks were frugal, though not poor; An olio mixt of sweet and sour. Soon as this touch'd his laughing lip, That unmixt Nectar us'd to sip, He rose, and with a threat'ning frown Of direful Anger[11], dash'd it down, And swore, departing in a huff, I'll make your lives like ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... astonishing events we are still so busy in contemplating, that the union of the two kinds of force now specified, was essential to the liberation of the world from that odious but scientific oppression, by which it had been so long held in misery, and which was repeatedly found, by very direful experience, to be too strong for either of them separately. It was not till the enthusiastic indignation of vulgar minds, and the cordial ferocity of some of the rudest of the allied tribes, had been amalgamated with the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... basin full, and the same thing would happen if there should chance to be a backward current of air through these pipes, with this difference, that while the soap bubbles are harmless beauties, these may be filled with the germs of direful diseases. Still another danger to which this light water-seal is exposed is that a downward rush of water may cause a vacuum in the small pipes, somewhat as the exhaust steam operates the air-brakes, and empty the trap, leaving merely an open crooked ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... favor and revolted from the Covenant. He therefore hid His countenance, withdrawing the assistance and protection which they so gratefully accepted in distress, but deceitfully rejected when prosperity returned. The relapse threw them suddenly into direful conditions of misrule, oppression, and profuse bloodshed, which continued ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses her fear that the false report of Silvia's death ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Tant, a negro boy of my own age, and I seriously discussed the prospects and dangers of the journey. Direful tales of the tomahawk and scalping knife were recounted by the older children. But Tant's fears were allayed by the assurance that the "Injuns" would not kill and scalp a black boy with a woolly head. For once in my life I envied that imp ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... new song, for he has done wonderful things. His right hand has saved him and his holy arm. The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the presence of the nations. We may now appropriately respond to the inspired command to sing a new song, inasmuch as after such direful spectacles and narrations we now have the happiness to see and celebrate what many holy men before us and the martyrs for God desired to see on earth, and did not see, and to hear, and have not heard. But advancing more rapidly they attained far superior gifts in heaven, being ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... I had her here. My heart is now So full of anger, malice, and fierce hate, With all those direful and envenom'd passions By which the breasts of demons are infected; If I but even look'd upon her face, My scorching breath would wither up her charms Like adder's poison. Would I had ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... to his prison wall, Babel, accomplice of their guilt, was seen O'er the far hills to gaze with vision keen! And as was worked this dispensation strange, A wondrous noise filled the world's startled range; Reached the dull hearing that deep, direful sound Of their sad tribe ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... I earnestly entreat that a full and unqualified narrative of my wretchedness, and of its guilty cause, may be made public, that at least some little good may be effected by the direful example."—COLERIDGE. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... Red Cross in America, many direful calamities have afflicted the country. In each of these visitations the Red Cross has acted in some degree as the Almoner—the distributer and organizer—of the bountiful measures of relief that have been poured out ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... Hesperus, the Day-star, and the glow of his beauty reminded one of his father. Halcyone, the daughter of Aeolus, was his wife, and devotedly attached to him. Now Ceyx was in deep affliction for the loss of his brother, and direful prodigies following his brother's death made him feel as if the gods were hostile to him. He thought best, therefore, to make a voyage to Carlos in Ionia, to consult the oracle of Apollo. But as soon as he disclosed his intention to his wife Halcyone, a shudder ran ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... while it is scarcely for a moment permitted to dwell on thoughts of peace and beauty. In its language, as in its action, the drama is full of tumult and storm. Whenever the Witches are present we see and hear a thunder-storm: when they are absent we hear of ship-wrecking storms and direful thunders; of tempests that blow down trees and churches, castles, palaces and pyramids; of the frightful hurricane of the night when Duncan was murdered; of the blast on which pity rides like a new-born babe, or on which Heaven's cherubim are horsed. There ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... anything—the last word in favour of the Country versus the royal Martyr, for example, had he insisted on it. She gathered, bit by bit, that he had dashed at his big blustering cousin Cecil to vindicate her good name. The direful youths fought in the Steynham stables, overheard by the grooms. Everard received a fine account of the tussle from these latter, and Rosamund, knowing him to be of the order of gentlemen who, whatsoever their sins, will at all costs protect a woman's delicacy, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... frozen fingers. But the fare was of the most substantial kind —not only meat and potatoes, but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner. My boy, said the landlord, you'll have the nightmare to a dead sartainty. Landlord, I whispered, that aint the harpooneer, is it? Oh, no, said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, the harpooneer ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... passenger of wealth (not at that time a numerous class) might have feared in him a professional robber, or one whom opportunity was very likely to convert into such; a female might have been apprehensive of uncivil treatment; and a youth, or timid person, might have thought of murder, or such direful doings. Unless privately armed, however, the minstrel was ill-accoutred for any dangerous occupation. His only visible weapon was a small crooked sword, like what we now call a hanger; and the state of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... to flight and dispelled the malign influences, a prayer describing the enchantments and their effects being afterwards recited. "The baleful imprecation like a demon has fallen upon a man;—wail and pain have fallen upon him,—direful wail has fallen upon him,—the baleful imprecation, the spell, the pains in the head!—This man, the baleful imprecation slaughters him like a sheep,—for his god has quitted his body—his goddess has withdrawn herself in displeasure from him,—a wail of pain has spread itself as a garment ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... With new and direful forebodings Aun' Jinkey declared loudly: "I doan know what he be. He ain' say not'n ter me 'bout ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... (sublime image of so many lives), Godefroid, who was now on his way on foot to the rue Marbeuf, was conscious in his heart of more curiosity than benevolence. This sick woman, surrounded by luxury in the midst of such direful poverty, made him forget the horrible details of the strangest of all nervous disorders, which is happily rare, though recorded by a few historians. One of our most gossiping chroniclers, Tallemant des Reaux, cites an instance of it. The mind instinctively pictures a woman as being ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... wine, Then crams salt leaven on his crooked knife: The beast long struggled, as being like to prove 610 An awkward sacrifice; but by the horns The quick priest pulled him on his knees, and slew him. No vein sprung out, but from the yawning gash, Instead of red blood, wallow'd venomous gore. These direful signs made Arruns stand amazed, And searching farther for the gods' displeasure, The very colour scared him; a dead blackness Ran through the blood, that turned it all to jelly, And stained the bowels ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the principal steps by which the local governing system has been brought to its present high degree of democracy and effectiveness. Among the subjects to which the first reformed parliament addressed its attention was the direful condition into which had fallen the relief of the poor, and the initial stage of local government regeneration was marked by the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, abolishing outdoor ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... frightened to death, white as a sheet; pale, pale as a ghost, pale as death, pale as ashes; breathless, in hysterics. inspiring fear &c v.; alarming; formidable, redoubtable; perilous &c (danger) 665; portentous; fearful; dread, dreadful; fell; dire, direful; shocking; terrible, terrific; tremendous; horrid, horrible, horrific; ghastly; awful, awe-inspiring; revolting &c (painful) 830; Gorgonian. Adv. in terrorem [Lat.]. Int. angels and ministers of grace defend us! [Hamlet]. Phr. ante tubam trepidat [Lat.]; horresco ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... alarming, direful, frightful, majestic, solemn, appalling, dread, grand, noble, stately, august, dreadful, horrible, portentous, terrible, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... an illegitimate source of anxiety to one so circumstanced, and capable of Sir William Follett's superior aspirations? Was it not abundantly justified by his splendid qualifications and expectations? Why, then, should he not toil severely—exert himself even desperately—to provide against the direful contingency to which his life was subject? Alas! how many ambitious, honourable, high-minded, and fond husbands and fathers are echoing such questions with a sigh of agony! Poor Follett! 'twas for such reasons that he lived with an honourable economy, eschewing that extravagance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... inform thee farther. Lend thy hand, And pluck my magic garment from me. —So: [Lays down his mantle. Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort. 25 The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd The very virtue of compassion in thee, I have with such provision in mine art So safely order'd, that there is no soul, No, not so much perdition as an hair 30 Betid to any creature in the vessel Which thou ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... and finds itself in the frigid, boundless void of space. Yet, through some longing this soul might rejoin us, and, though invisible, might hear the church-bells ring, and long to recall some one of the many bright Sunday mornings spent here on earth. Has a direful misfortune befallen this brother, or has a slave been set free? Let us suppose for a moment that the first has occurred. 'Vanity of vanities,' said the old preacher. 'Calamity of calamities,' says the new. That soul's probationary period is ended; his record, on which he must ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... his promises in the utmost profusion, and by arranging for the celebration near the chasm of some juvenile sports, which were not concluded till twilight, was able to make the direful libation. As the boys came up one by one to receive their prizes, he pushed them into the gulf, the dreadful device being executed with so much dexterity that the boy who was approaching him remained unconscious of the fate ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... she fairly might be considered to be a little deranged on that head. Her imagination had been so worked upon, that she was in an unfit state to think of anything else, and if ever upon anybody a stern and revolting superstition was calculated to produce direful effects, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... it was out of the question for Billy Louise to leave the Cove while the storm lasted, so she took care of Marthy and the pigs and chickens and cows, and between whiles she tormented herself with direful pictures of Ward up there alone on Mill Creek. Sometimes she saw him raving in fever and wanting a drink which he could not get, so that thirst tortured him; then calling for her, when she could not come. Sometimes she saw him trying to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... made up, and how these members continued to sit in the same cabinet. The colonial secretary, he said, had still to explain "how their pulses, which formerly were so irregular, could beat so soon in unison; by what means the quietus had been produced, and the direful wrath appeased." He was inclined to impute all that had happened to a secret and powerful agency which had not yet been unmasked, and which was exercised, according to the statement of the honourable member, by a Jew stock-broker, and a Christian physician. He had, indeed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Peleus' son, the direful spring Of all the Grecian woes, O goddess, sing; That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign The souls ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... open window, and the empty bottle on the door by the ice-box. Jocko's hour of expiation had come. In the uproar that swelled louder as the angry crowd of tenants made for the attic, his name was heard coupled with direful threats. Foremost in the mob was Jim's father, with the stick he had peeled and seasoned against the boy's return. In some way, not clear to himself, he connected the monkey with Jim's truancy, and it was something to be able to avenge ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... easy language of common life, in which this drama commences, with the direful music and wild wayward rhythm and abrupt lyrics of the opening of Macbeth. The tone is quite familiar;—there is no poetic description of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker to another of ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... king and retainers is, however, of short duration. Grendel, the monster, is seized with hateful jealousy. He cannot brook the sounds of joyance that reach him down in his fen-dwelling near the hall. Oft and anon he goes to the joyous building, bent on direful mischief. Thane after thane is ruthlessly carried off and devoured, while no one is found strong enough and bold enough to cope with the monster. For twelve years he persecutes Hrothgar ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin |
