"Ferocious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... His race run! Then this was the end of the fight! A ferocious triumph flooded Norvin's brain. With Belisario Cardi in the hands of the law the spell of the Mafia was broken. Savigno and Donnelly were as good as avenged. He experienced an odd feeling of relaxation, as if both his body and brain were cramped and tired with waiting. Then, realizing ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... cigar and strolled up Franklin. I wore my uniform and spurs on these promenades—wild horses tearing me would not have induced me to doff the spurs! They were so martial! They jingled so! They gave a military and ferocious set-off to my whole appearance, and were immensely admired by the fair sex! Regularly on coming back from my arduous and dangerous duties at camp, I brushed my uniform, put on my red sash, and with one hand resting ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... dream that I had at this time, I saw a ferocious wild animal coming to take my life. It seemed that if I could get hold of its horns God would protect me and help me to overcome it. During the meeting of which I have been speaking, we went home with one of the families of The ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... light-brownish yellow hue. The hair in nearly all was frizzled out into a mop, in some instances of prodigious size; the light-coloured man, however, had his head closely shaved.* The physiognomy varied much; some had a savage, even ferocious aspect. The nose was narrower and more prominent, the mouth smaller, the lips thinner, the eyes more distant, the eyebrows less overhanging, the forehead higher, but not broader, than in the Australian, with whom I naturally compared them as the only dark savage race which I had ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... be a whole and a large army of disabled or lifeless soldiers! All that was intermingled with them bore an aspect of still more poignant horror ; for the Bonapartian Prisoners who were now poured into the city by hundreds, had a mien of such ferocious desperation, where they were marched on, uninjured, from having been taken by surprise or overpowered by numbers - or faces of such anguish, where they were drawn on in open vehicles, the helpless victims of gushing wounds or horrible dislocations, that to see them without ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... experimental demonstration of the working of the brain into which we are looking, we must take note of two curious mental traits both living side by side, and both apparently negative of the other's existence: an intense and ever pulsatory horror of death, a sullen contempt and often a ferocious hatred of life. The stress of mind engendered by the alternating of these themes of suffering would have rendered life an unbearable burden to John, had he not found anchorage in an invincible belief in God, a belief which ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... resolve and the almost ferocious air that contorts the face when great dangers threaten, she made the movement which they were pressing her to make. She opened her mouth. They saw the gleam of the white teeth. At one bite, the white ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... its wounds, and the body was brought to the house, where a drawing of it was taken by Mr. Hood, and the skin preserved by Dr. Richardson. Its general features bore a strong resemblance to many of the dogs about the fort, but it was larger and had a more ferocious aspect. Mr. Back and I were too much occupied in preparing for our departure on the following day to join ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... waiting. Barely a hundred yards separated them, yet there was no sign of life from the camp. The long line of savages advanced a few steps more, their spears poised above their heads, their half-naked forms showing more distinctly as they peered forward through the grey gloom, savage and ferocious. The white men were surely sleeping still. They were as near now as they could get. There was a signal and then a wild chorus of yells. They threw aside all disguise and darted forward, the still morning air hideous with their cry of battle. Then, with an awful suddenness, their cry became the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... states, of chivalry and clanship, of Mahometanism and the Christian church, of the balance of Europe and the revolution of empires, is little else than a tissue of crimes, exhibiting nations as if they were so many herds of ferocious animals, whose genuine occupation was to tear each other to pieces, and to deform their mother-earth with mangled carcases and seas ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... when the others were not by. I knew you must be perfectly wild to ask me what this all meant; why I never told you that Mr Keswick was my cousin, and the rest of it." "I can't say," said Lawrence, "that I am absolutely untamed and ferocious in regard to the matter, but I do really wish very much that you would give me some explanation of your very odd doings. In fact, that is the only thing that now keeps ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... it seems that in the oddest way (Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious— As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk About the grounds from Saturday till Monday, As any harmless man to take a walk, If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday— But what is ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... sight of the husband's face as he looked at the tiny pair lying side by side, and there was a ferocious sullenness in it which startled him. He felt in the family assembled there a hideous resentment against those poor atoms who had come into the world unwished for; and he had a suspicion that if he did not speak firmly an 'accident' ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... Raka-hanga might have had a nasty comeback—the natives being mild but not cowards, and beginning to buzz like hornets and reach for their shark-tooth spears. No, what Peter was inflamed against was the coral jail, which he set at most ferocious with crowbar and ax until it was nothing but a heap of rubbish. Then he shot holes through the galvanized roofing, and burned it in a blazing fire along of the iron-studded door and window framing. By this time the missionary was trying to raise the multitude ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... leader; "it is to him I am leading you. Here our troubles will only commence, for he is a mishemokwa" (a she-bear, or a male-bear as ferocious as a she-bear) "and a manito. It is he who has what we prize so dearly, to obtain which the warriors whose bones we saw sacrificed their lives. You must not be fearful. Be manly; we shall find ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... means think that the real influence of their women is great, notwithstanding the tame and submissive gallantry with which the latter are treated in public. We doubt whether the most limited gynocracy would tolerate the use of tobacco as an article of daily diet, or permit ferocious murders to go unwhipped of justice under the name of duels. But the absorbing character of the pursuits of the men forbids any strong sympathy betwixt the sexes; and perhaps the despotism which the women exercise in the drawing-room ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... has perfectly observed the facts, but from want of having studied the psychology of crowds he has not always been able to trace their causes. The facts having appalled him by their bloodthirsty, anarchic, and ferocious side, he has scarcely seen in the heroes of the great drama anything more than a horde of epileptic savages abandoning themselves without restraint to their instincts. The violence of the Revolution, its massacres, ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... flashing with their eager gestures and in vivid relief against the rich background, making them at once the centre and the culmination of the magnificent composition. And the beauty and force of such a setting deepened the pathos and intensified the cruelty of the alternately supplicating and ferocious lines. ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... the convict Roach who had pushed the door open and now stood with his swollen body and bestial face darkening the glory of the sunset without. There was no added expression of greed or of awakened curiosity upon his sullenly ferocious countenance. He might have seen or he might not. They ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... were influenced strongly by the literary fashions set by greater men than themselves. But whereas Day took to the graceful fantasticalities of Lyly and to the not very savage social satire of Greene, Tourneur (or Turner) addressed himself to the most ferocious school of sub-Marlovian tragedy, and to the rugged and almost unintelligible satire of Marston. Something has been said of his effort in the latter vein, the Transformed Metamorphosis. His two tragedies, The Atheist's Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy, have been rather ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... up; her large eyes began to dilate, and her face grew very pale. The woman's eyes fell upon her. A look of ferocious pleasure rose to her face, and she came forward, laying her hand heavily ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... say, 'lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief: for if she were but for one day that which she ought to be, the world would be converted before nightfall.' To one class of sins, indeed, he was inexorable—all but ferocious; to the sins, namely, of religious persons. In proportion to any man's reputation for orthodoxy and sanctity, Philammon's judgment of him was stern and pitiless. More than once events proved him to have been unjust: when he saw himself to be so, none ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... in a high degree by "unity, mass, and coherence." It must be admitted also that George Sand possessed in a high degree the Pauline virtue of being "not easily provoked," or she never could have endured so patiently, so sweetly, Flaubert's reiterated and increasingly ferocious assaults upon her own master passion, her ruling principle. George Sand was one whose entire life signally attested the power of a "saving grace," resident in the creative and recuperative energies of nature, resident in the magical, the miracle-working, powers of the human heart, the powers of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... of attaining Pre-eminence in places where they play, Don't supply the smallest spoonful of the pleasing or the tuneful Or you'll chuck your very finest chance away. But be truculent, ferocious and ungentle And the critics will infallibly acclaim Your work as unalluring, elemental But arresting and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 4, 1914 • Various
... situations to the disadvantage of his competitor, as one who had not scrupled to accept that triumph from an alien power at the price of his independence, which he himself (as he would have it understood) disdained to court: thirdly, by his own talents and address, coupled with the ferocious energy of his moral character: fourthly—and perhaps in an equal degree—by the criminal facility and good-nature of Oubacha: finally, (which is remarkable enough, as illustrating the character of the man,) by that very new modelling of the Sarga or Privy Council, which ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... wealthy, the favored of the great, the admired, the applauded, the well-beloved. Garrick deserved his fame and his fortune, his splendid successes and {43} his shining rewards; but the grand, rough writer of books did not deserve his buffets and mishaps, his ferocious hungers, his acquaintanceship with sponging-houses, and all the catalogue of his London agonies. His struggle for life was a Titan's struggle, and it was never either selfish or ignoble. He wanted to live and be heard because he knew that he had something to say that was worth hearing. ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... All their views of Nature were essentially selfish; none were disinterested, reverential, deductive, or scientific. Nature ministered only to their appetites, in her various kinds of food,—to their service, in her beasts of burden,—or to their childish or ferocious amusement, with talking birds, as the starling, with pet fish, or with pugnacious wild beasts. There was no higher thought. The Greeks, though fond of flowers, and employing them for a multitude of adornments and festive occasions entirely unequalled now, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... system of fatalism, as we have seen, does not leave crime unpunished; but it is, at least, calculated to moderate the barbarity with which a number of nations punish the victims to their anger. This cruelty becomes still more absurd, when experience has shewn its inutility: the habit of witnessing ferocious punishments familiarizes criminals with the idea. If it be true that society possesses the right of taking away the life of its members—if it be really a fact, that the death of a criminal, thenceforth useless, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... not venture to attack this little stronghold, but fell upon some Huron villages near at hand, and massacred the helpless inhabitants with frightful cruelty; they then retreated as suddenly as they had come. Alarmed by this ferocious attack, which weakness and the want of sufficient supplies prevented him from avenging, Champlain sent Father Georges le Brebeuf as an agent, to represent to the king the deplorable condition of the colony, from ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... equal success by the Greek schismatic and the Catholic Spaniard, by the sectary of Calvin and the disciple of Luther: its seed might bless at one and the same time the fruitful plains of Asia and the sterile sands of desert Arabia, the burning soil of India and the icy land of the ferocious Esquimaux. Antiquity knew no speedier means of conveying its ideas than the harangues which the orators pronounced from the summit of the tribune, amidst assemblies of thousands of citizens; but modern intelligence wished to discover other means infinitely more efficacious, more active, ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... instant when I answered him, I was allowed to pass in. Having admitted me, he closed the door, and placed himself with his back against it. The customary pallor of his face had darkened to a deep red; there was an expression of ferocious mockery in his eyes. Helena's vengeance had hurt her unhappy father far more severely than it seemed likely to hurt me. The doctor had said he was on the verge of madness. To my thinking, he had already passed ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... that blasted quarantine's head off," ejaculated Mr. Jack MacKenzie, with ferocious emphasis. I had been relating my experience with the campers; and was recounting how the man put his head out of the tent and warned me of smallpox. But my uncle was a gentleman of the old school and had a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... the country over which the Arapahoes are accustomed to range, and for which the two trappers were on the point of setting out. These Arapahoes, of whom Shaw and I afterward fell in with a large village, are ferocious barbarians, of a most brutal and wolfish aspect, and of late they had declared themselves enemies to the whites, and threatened death to the first who should venture within their territory. The occasion of the declaration ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... national spirit, only planted a deep hatred in the hearts of the Macedonians for their respective governments. But of the three forces, Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian, the Bulgars and Greeks were by far the most ferocious. The Serbs were inclined to fight fair, attacking only the committee's bands and such villages as sheltered them. The Greeks and Bulgars knew no such restrictions. They burned whole villages, massacred whole communities, including women and children, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... evangelized to-day into the splendour of pious rhetoric; animalism had become fanaticism; Paganism, Paulinism; the bold rolling eye that had flashed upon her form in the old time with such mastery now beamed with the rude energy of a theolatry that was almost ferocious. Those black angularities which his face had used to put on when his wishes were thwarted now did duty in picturing the incorrigible backslider who would insist upon turning again to his wallowing in ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... before acquainted thee, Oliver, of the ferocious character of this Mac Fane; of which I have now had further proofs. I had scarcely finished my phrase before he replied, with one of his accustomary oaths—'You're a scoundrel and a liar'—and immediately ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... at some unseen foe. The hair of muzzle, head and paws was matted and plastered with some thick liquid, giving him a curious frowsy appearance. He was evidently in a towering rage but it was also apparent that he was suffering great pain, his ferocious growls being interspersed with long, low, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... instrument whose zeal more than once required the goad; and Mary herself, when she came to the throne, was so little cruel, that she would have spared even Northumberland himself. When the persecution assumed its ferocious aspect, she was exclusively under the direction of the dreamer who believed that he was born for England's regeneration. All evidence concurs to show that, after Philip's departure, Cardinal Pole was the single adviser on whom Mary relied. Is it to be supposed that, in the horrible ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... principles which they derived from us. They are descended from our loins, they retain our usages and manners, they read our books, they have copied our freedom, they rival our courage, and yet they are less popular and esteemed among us than the base and bigoted Portuguese and the ferocious and ignorant Russians." ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... evil nature is growing stronger every day. He is developing a sort of ferocious cunning to help him in his crimes. He wanders about in the dark, wearing a black velvet suit with holes for his eyes, and leaving only his hands exposed. I have watched him come into a half-darkened room and one can see nothing but the hands and ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... herself into a tub of water for my sake! There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! my own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the heart-ache; yes, I have lived to see much of that sort of thing; but I am extremely sorry for the garter—I mean the girdle—that went into the water-tub. I have much ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... the farmer's house I was seeking lay, half a mile off the road. Picking up a stout club to defend myself against the inevitable dog, which, in the absence of men-folks, guarded every log-house, I plodded across the plowed field, soon to be met by the ferocious beast, who, not seeing a stranger more than once a month, was always furious and dangerous. Out would come, at length, the poor woman, too curious to see who it was that broke up her monotonous solitude, to call off the dog, who generally grew fiercer as he felt his ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... say mug?" asked Mr. Chater, assuming the air of one who, knowing this at the time, would have committed a singularly ferocious murder. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... written in 1879; the scene is laid in Constantinople. This was followed by 'Rarahu,' a Polynesian idyl (1880; again published under the title Le Mariage de Loti, 1882). 'Roman d'un Spahi (1881) deals with Algiers. Taton-gaye is a true 'bete-humaine', sunk in moral slumber or quivering with ferocious joys. It is in this book that Loti has eclipsed Zola. One of his masterpieces is 'Mon Freye Yves' (ocean and Brittany), together with 'Pecheur d'Islande' (1886); both translated into German by Elizabeth, Queen of Roumania ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... at my assurance. An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... side with a superstitious awe. A dreadful order seemed to lurk in the darkest shadows of life. The madness of that Carlist with the soul of a Jacobin, the vile fears of Baron H., that excellent organizer of supplies, the contact of their two ferocious stupidities, and last, by a remote disaster at sea, my love brought into direct contact with the situation: all that was enough to make one shudder—not at the chance, ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... by the girl to whom he was engaged, Lester Ward would be an easy prey to the acute mind and provoking methods of the experienced detective. If jealousy can inspire hatred, then Ward must feel toward his successful rival all the ferocious hatred of a man resenting a great deprivation. And that vengeful passion must not be permitted to expend itself in profitless inward torture. It was a potent force for Britz's dexterous hands to manipulate, a destructive fury that should ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... was just fixing the priming and looking to the flint when the bison came up with a snort and charged as before. There was blood trickling down his face and he presented a truly ferocious sight. Henry waited until the beast was but a few paces away, then aimed for the right eye ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... not know, then, what she was doing when, wishing to place a living guard between herself and danger, she had descended to the kennel and unloosed the ferocious animals, which, recognizing her voice, had bounded about her and licked her hands with many manifestations of joy? She had ascended again to her chamber and extinguished the light, around which fluttered the moths, beating the opal shade with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... delicate voice rung out the ferocious chorus, with something, Lancelot fancied, of fiendish exultation, and every worn face lighted up with a coarse laugh, that indicated no ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... haggard with wide, fierce eyes agleam beneath knitted brows, a prominent nose and square chin with short, peaked, golden beard; an unlovely face framed in shaggy, yellow hair patched and streaked with silver; and beholding lowering brow and ferocious mouth and jaw I stood awhile marvelling at the ill-changes evil and hardship had ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... inquisition in the Netherlands. But the English people naturally judged by their own history, and in all of that such a reign of terror was unexampled. The note of Mary's reign is sterility and its achievement was to create, in reaction to the policy then pursued, a ferocious and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... apartments of her maids of honor, and directed La Valliere and Montalais to sleep in her own cabinet. No gateway, therefore, was any longer open—not even communication by letter; to write under the eyes of so ferocious an Argus as Madame, whose temper and disposition were so uncertain, was to run the risk of exposure to the greatest danger; and it can well be conceived into what a state of continuous irritation, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not see the stain of any evil act.[1118] To speak the truth is meritorious. There is nothing higher than truth. Everything is upheld by truth, and everything rests upon truth. Even the sinful and ferocious, swearing to keep the truth amongst themselves, dismiss all grounds of quarrel and uniting with one another set themselves to their (sinful) tasks, depending upon truth. If they behaved falsely towards one another, they would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... high the Danish hero I ever lov'd—I saw him by a fountain, Dejected, weaponless, and half in slumber; But deep into the forest fled the savage, From whom he took his sword, the sharp-edged Mimer, And Hother's spear in his rude hands he carried. "Retain my falchion, thou ferocious warrior! Little in conflict shall it e'er avail thee!" So shouted he, and all the rocks resounded. Then straight I brought my choicest spear from Valhall— Long since I cut it from a lonely wild beech, Which, hid from day, grew up in Lapland's deserts; A circle of grey stones stood ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... tyrant. He had a number of subjects who used to work underground, and their labour was to bring to the surface the black diamonds of the earth. It was not altogether a pleasant occupation, but still, the task had to be accomplished. His Majesty was fond of ferocious practical jokes, and perchance this may have been the origin of the jocular description attached to his name. One day, some of his subjects complained that their hours of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... little event which occurred about this time, did not tend to cheer her. It was the death of poor old faithful Keeper, Emily's dog. He had come to the Parsonage in the fierce strength of his youth. Sullen and ferocious he had met with his master in the indomitable Emily. Like most dogs of his kind, he feared, respected, and deeply loved her who subdued him. He had mourned her with the pathetic fidelity of his nature, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not have become an old man but for her," Randulf blurted out. But at this Worse looked so ferocious, that his friend took a long sip, and followed it ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... had struck her in the face. The eyes that clung to his we're horror-filled. Did there really live men so heartless that they would not lift a hand to snatch a child from a ferocious wolf? ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... home across the Brooklyn Bridge, and as he walked he still hummed tunes. Occasionally, still with the rapt and fatal manner which had daunted the managing editor, he would pause and flex his wrist, and then suddenly deliver a ferocious thrust with his walking-stick. ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... intellectual, and rapacious savage seized whatever came near him that pleased his fancy or aroused his curiosity, extracted the pith, and tossed aside what no longer amused or served him. There was no generosity in him, only an insatiable and ferocious demand that life should give him more, always more! Peter, who both admired and detested him, was sorry for this gentle creature fallen into his remorseless claws. And he wondered, as decent men must, at the fatal fascination animals like Dangeau seem ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... as ferocious in its expression as that of his confrere. It differed in colour. It was a coppery black—combining the hues of both races from whom he derived his origin. He had the thick lips and retreating forehead of the negro, but the Indian showed itself ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... dealer and owner of large livery stables, used to invite the riding community to hunt jackals with his "bobbery pack." The meet took place at the stables before daylight, and the "hounds" were carried to covert in a sort of water-cart. They were a most ferocious lot, to judge by the scuffling, squealing and snarling that took place en route. When they were let out, they appeared to lose their heads; the greyhounds, whippets, fox-terriers, bull-terriers, pariahs and nondescripts ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... matted vines, interlacing rank grasses, and clusters of towering plants, so dank with the odor of wet and decay that the air even up where the flyers were seemed charged with it, lurked many a monster reptile and ferocious beast. Often the four boys saw the majestic form of a lion or the lumbering shape of an elephant as these animals were quenching their thirst at some open spot along a stream. And once they caught a ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... effective use of it. I will select one notable illustration of this. When Mrs. Morris at length makes her confession—it is in the wagon, and at night—the unhappy husband wraps her up carefully in her bed and creeps away with his grief to the barn where Chang, a ferocious elephant amenable only to him, has ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... blood, one of his legs was hurt, but still the spirit burned. It was cowardly. Maurice's jaws assumed a particularly ferocious angle. Her dog! Rage choked him. With an oath he flung this student aside and that, fought his way to the center. A burly student, armed with a stout cane, was the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Dark as Lara, despairing as Manfred, rebellious as Cain, thou hast ranged through the depths of solitude! But thou art more ferocious, more savage, more inconsolable than they, because thou hast never found a man's heart sufficiently feminine to love thee as they were loved, to pay the homage of a confiding and blind submission to thy virile ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... was only momentary. He was in ferocious spirits, indeed, over the breakfast-table, and bolted quantities of buttered toast and eggs, swallowed cups of tea, one after the other, almost at a single gulp, all the time gabbling with a truculent volubility, and every now and then a thump, which made his spoon jingle in his saucer, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... corners of the rock work, at once perceive the windfall. They rise to the surface with great strokes of their oars; they hasten and fling themselves upon the crowd of carpenters. Each pirate grabs a sheath by the middle and strives to rip it open by tearing off shells and sticks. While this ferocious enucleation continues with the object of reaching the dainty morsel contained within, the caddis worm, close pressed, appears at the mouth of the sheath, slips out and quickly decamps under the eyes of the Dytiscus, who appears to ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he begged not to be left alone with Tim—for they had not meant death, and Ingles thought he read death in Tim's ferocious eyes—they laughed cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour of Jansen and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... conflict on the part of the coup d'etat, a struggle of despair on the side of the Republic. On the side of the soldiers an appalling and cold blooded resolution, a passive and ferocious obedience, numbers, good arms, absolute chiefs, pouches filled with cartridges. On the side of the People no ammunition, disorder, weariness, exhaustion, no discipline, indignation serving ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... In their hearts they think it almost irreverent to read the service in French. The acquaintance of a few fellow-exiles is made and that of a half-dozen English families, mothers and daughters and a younger son or two, whom the ferocious primogeniture custom has cast out of the homes of their childhood ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... back a most brilliant picture of the surface of society, showed manners but not the elementary passions of human nature. As a whole, it leaves an impression of hardness, shallowness, and levity. The polite cynicism of Congreve, the ferocious cynicism of Swift, the malice of Pope, the pleasantry of Addison, the early worldliness of Prior and Gay are seldom relieved by any touch of the ideal. The prose of the time was excellent, but the poetry was merely rhymed prose. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... impossible to remain on formal terms with one who was united with yourself to withstand an assault of wild savages, as portrayed by two little girls with branches of bracken waving above their heads, and geranium petals stuck in ferocious patterns about their cheeks; impossible not to feel an affection for the tallest member of the battalion which marched regularly every morning to the corner of the paddock to be drilled by their commander, scarlet sashes crossed sideways over holland dresses, and Panama hats ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... something; a bugbear, between a fortress made by art and a natural fastness, whose approaches were defended for miles by numberless masked batteries, and which was filled by countless thousands of the most ferocious warriors. Such was Manassas in public opinion when McDowell undertook to attack this formidable American Torres Vedras, and this with the scanty and almost unorganized means in men and artillery allotted ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... de), a gigantic, ferocious follower of prince John.—Sir W. Scott, Ivanhoe (time, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... hard-working, ill-paid minister of God's word, and might have subjected him to the rancorous venom of some daily Jupiter, who, without a leg to stand on, without any true case, might have been induced, by personal spite, to tear to rags the poor clergyman with poisonous, anonymous, and ferocious leading articles. But neither of these programmes recommended itself to my honesty. Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed. Caricature may too easily ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... softly, you may be sure," continued Jessica, "but it was hissing, just the same. For a wonder, she didn't hear it, but every girl in the junior class did. They were sitting down front on the same side as Eleanor's crowd. You know what a temper Ruth Deane has and how ferocious she can look? Well, the minute she heard it she went back there like a flash, looking for all the world like a thunder cloud. She talked for a moment to Edna and Eleanor. They tossed their heads, but ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... bad if you treat 'em all right, My Paw said so. They're as fond of a game as they are of a fight, My Paw said so. An' all of the animals found in the wood Ain't always ferocious. Most times they ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... we find him often expressing earnest wishes for the happy results concerning which Lafayette had dreamed so fondly, but he never expressed a hope, because he never felt it; and when, in the summer and autumn of 1792, the Revolution in France assumed a bloody and ferocious character, and the noble goal toward which his friend the marquis had so enthusiastically pressed was utterly lost sight of in the midst of the lurid smoke of a self-constituted tyranny, as bad in feature and act as the foulest on history's records, he ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that succeeding in his rascality." With that the intense manner had dropped from him as a garment, and he was smiling the gentlest, most whimsical smile at the older man. "You'll think, Mr. Litterny, that it's the loss of my new parish-house that's making me so ferocious, but, honestly, I'd forgotten all about it." And no one who heard him could doubt his sincerity. "I was thinking of the case from your point of view. As to the parish-house, it's a disappointment, but of course I ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... returned Nathan, "you do not know the value of these 'precious' phrases; I am talking Sainte-Beuve, the new kind of French.—I resume. Walking one day arm in arm with a friend along the boulevard, he was accosted by a ferocious creditor, who inquired: ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... sleek, black head upon its huge forepaws and seemed to sleep. I stood, fearing to move lest I should rouse it into malignant life once more. But at least I was able to think clearly now that the baleful eyes were off me. Here I was shut up for the night with the ferocious beast. My own instincts, to say nothing of the words of the plausible villain who laid this trap for me, warned me that the animal was as savage as its master. How could I stave it off until morning? The door was hopeless, and so ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... apparel, sacking, and rotten matting, with Smilash's coat and sou'wester, the whole covering a bundle which presently proved to be an exhausted woman with a tiny infant at her breast. Smilash's expression, as he looked at her, was ferocious. ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... attempted to escape from his puissance: in the woods the timid stag, made fierce by his touch, becomes brave for sake of the coveted hind and by bellowing and fighting, they prove how strong are the witcheries of Love. The ferocious boars are made by Love to froth at the mouth and sharpen their ivory tusks; the African lions, when Love quickens them, shake their manes in fury. But leaving the groves and forests, I assert that ...
— La Fiammetta • Giovanni Boccaccio
... character, of honour, of gain, and of the like, everyone under the influence of his own evil attracts another and, so far as he is strong enough, subjugates him, subjects the rest to his own authority, and exercises ferocious outrages with delight upon all who do not submit to him. All the hells are societies of this description: on which account, every spirit, and every society, cherishes hatred in his heart against every other, and, under the influence of such hatred, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... fatigue, but might be employed with advantage in the distillery and the boiling house or as watchmen against fire and the depredations of cattle. The Coromantees of the Gold Coast stand salient in all accounts as hardy and stalwart of mind and body. Long calls them haughty, ferocious and stubborn; Edwards relates examples of their Spartan fortitude; and it was generally agreed that they were frequently instigators of slave conspiracies and insurrections. Yet their spirit of loyalty made them the most highly prized of servants by those who could call it forth. Of ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Such ferocious mien had its effect on the spectators after a time. Smyrna quailed before her ancient tyrant, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... being pursued in that direction. In the rapidity of the pursuit, and with the impatience of the avenger, animating himself as in war, D'Artagnan, so mild, so kind towards Fouquet, was surprised to find himself become ferocious—almost sanguinary. For a long time he galloped without catching sight of the white horse. His rage assumed fury, he doubted himself,—he suspected that Fouquet had buried himself in some subterranean road, or that he had changed the white ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the ardor of the ferocious natives. They paddled with might and main, and fully a dozen, in their eagerness, leaped into the sea and swam ahead of their canoes. They were magnificent swimmers, speeding through the water like so many dolphins. The Americans, even ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... received his mortal wound. Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us"; and with that Apollyon spread forth his dragon wings, and sped him away.'[95] What an awful moment, when he fell unarmed before his ferocious enemy! 'Faith now has but little time to speak to the conscience—it is now struggling for life—it is now fighting with angels—with infernals—all it can do now is to cry, groan, sweat, fear, fight, and gasp for life.'[96] How desperate the conflict—the mouth of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... secret chambers—that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by any master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; but took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the house of Isaac Julian proved equally an absurd exaggeration. The ferocious party of Indians turned out to be a mulatto and a negro in quest of cattle. They had been seen by a child of Julian, who alarmed his father, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... him that he was very hungry. Cave life under fire, if it did not kill a man, gave him a ferocious appetite, and turning into one of the transverse trenches he followed a stream of the Strangers who were already on the way to ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... innumerable circus feats; but those performed on this occasion, surpassed them all. For, such a perfection in training ferocious animals is extremely rare. Vraiment, the five Nubian giant lions afforded an imposing aspect; and their performances were simply marvelous, indicating that—while human ingenuity and skill subdued the great forces of nature to the use of mankind—also ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... were, for at least three centuries, the prevalent usages and opinions with regard to this oppressed race, it is not surprising that we read of occasional outbursts of ferocious violence on their part. In the Basses-Pyrenees, for instance it is only about a hundred years since, that the Cagots of Rehouilhes rose up against the inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Lourdes, and got the better ...
— An Accursed Race • Elizabeth Gaskell
... appearance at the camp this evening, in the same direction as on the previous day. Each one was armed with a large bundle of spears, and with boomerangs. Their bodies were painted with a yellowish earth, which with their warlike gestures, made them look very ferocious. The grass in the position they had taken up was very long and very dry, quite up to the edge of the gully; they set it on fire in three or four places, and the wind blowing from them to us, it burned very rapidly. Thinking we should be frightened at this display they ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... at it. There is nothing incompatible between humanity and a warrior's soul. People without compassion are the civilians, government officials, merchants and such like. As to the ferocious talk one hears from a lot of decent people in war time—well, the tongue is an unruly member at best and when there is some excitement going on there is no curbing its ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... treated with the greatest lenity and tenderness; and if, after all, you fail, the frailty is to be lamented as a misfortune, and not punished as a fault, seeing that it must have its foundation in a feeling towards you, which it would be the basest of ingratitude, and the most ferocious of cruelty, to repay by ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... on hers, as though he would read the effect of his words before he replied, and his voice had a curious, rough note, as though with difficulty he quelled the tempest within him. "I have my rights, and you had spat upon me," he said with ferocious softness. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the family misfortune. The family triumph filled the secret mind of Mrs. Finch, to the exclusion of every other earthly consideration. I put my finger in as instructed, and got instantly bitten by the ferocious baby. But for a new outburst of the rector's voice at the moment, Mrs. Finch (if I am any judge of physiognomy) must have certainly relieved herself by a scream of delight. As it was, she opened her mouth; and (having lost her handkerchief as already stated) retired ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... rampant in the China seas during this period, and so bold and ferocious were the Chinese desperadoes that their junks were a great terror to merchant vessels, and seriously interfered with commerce. The "Powhatan," another of Captain Perry's squadron, and the English sloop "Rattler," joined forces against a fleet of piratical junks off Khulan, in 1855, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... nearly so ferocious as the European animal, nor I believe quite so large. I have heard of very few well- authenticated accounts of persons having been destroyed by these creatures, though I must say I should not like again to be in ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... when in the tall stout stranger he recognized the Northman whom he had known in Rome, and seen crowned only the day before in the Circus as the winning pugilist; when he saw the man's face, scarred with the wounds of many battles, and imbruted by ferocious passions; when he surveyed the fellow's naked limbs, very marvels of exercise and training, and his shoulders of Herculean breadth, a thought of personal danger started a chill along every vein. A sure instinct warned him that the opportunity for murder was too perfect ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... knew it was unlawful for any public conveyance to take us as passengers, without our master's consent. We were also perfectly aware of the startling fact, that had we left without this consent the professional slave-hunters would have soon had their ferocious bloodhounds baying on our track, and in a short time we should have been dragged back to slavery, not to fill the more favourable situations which we had just left, but to be separated for life, and put to the very meanest and most ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... him. The place burnt like fire, and the poison entered into his blood. Mad with pain, he tore off the coverings and his clothes too, flinging them far away, and danced about before the eyes of his ferocious soldiers, who now mocked at him, the mad prince, who wished to make war with God, and was overcome by a ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen |
