"Aghast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He stood aghast before the determined girl. She was obviously older than himself, yet she was only a slip of a girl, and if he forced his way past—but he was not the fellow to do it—and that maddened him, because he ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... Vait-hua where the whites are not. I have had my trousers lifted from my second-story room in a Manila hotel by the eyed and fingered bamboo of the Tagalog ladron, while I washed my face, and stood aghast at the mystery of their disappearance with door locked, until looking from my lofty window I beheld them moving rapidly down an estero in a banca. I have given over my watch to a gendarme in Cairo to forfend arrest ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... ice that clove her That unforgotten day, Among her pallid sisters The grim Titanic lay. And through the leagues above her She looked aghast and said: "What is this living ship that comes ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... his heart he knew this was not true, but he chose to think it. He flung himself into a chair by the window. It was a gloomy, thawing day; the snow, as if aghast at the trouble it had caused, was melting sadly away. There was nothing in the prospect to make him feel cheerful. After awhile he went to work on his composition again, and as he wrote he felt more and more like a martyr. When it was ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... "Dicks" at Blue Aloes, and Christine, not knowing it, had been guilty of a grave injustice to Richard Saltire! Aghast as she was by the revelation, all her love and faith came tingling back in a sweet, overwhelming flood. For a moment or two she forgot Roddy, forgot where she was, forgot all the world but Saltire, and her attention ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Brown. A certain Rector did once try to compel him to resign his post because he, the Rector, did not fancy Brown's ways, which he said were hardly consistent with the reverence due the house of God. The congregation, however, were aghast at the prospect of losing Brown, and plainly gave the Rector to understand that he must not interfere with the sexton. Never mind about his want of reverence. The Rector's business was to look after the religious part of the congregation, while Brown superintended the secular affairs ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... I exclaimed aghast. "You do not make allowance for the enigma in which everything is wrapped up. I said I was your friend when I thought you of good report. Give me an hour—only an hour—to say whether I will stand by my promise, now that you yourself have claimed that your report is not good but evil. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... it was his duty to draw his buzzing thoughts together, to be watchful and quick, to think and act while others stood aghast, he took one last look at the dying Emperor, and turned to make his way from the crowd while yet he could. He had pieced together, with the slow accuracy that Deulin envied him, the small scraps of ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... juncture Jean in his earnestness and quite without thought grasped her hand. The contact checked the flow of his speech and suddenly made him aghast at his temerity. But the girl did not make any effort to withdraw it. So Jean, inhaling a deep breath and trying to see through his bewilderment, held on bravely. He imagined he felt a faint, warm, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the true significance of his doctrine, every settled authority, every triumphant interest recoiled aghast. None were willing to surrender advantages won by force or skill, because they might be in contradiction, not with the Ten Commandments, but with an unknown code, which Grotius himself had not attempted to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... hull lifted, and, aided by wind, sea and current, it set still further on the reef, thumping in a way to break strong iron bolts, like so many sticks of sealing-wax, and cracking the solid live-oak of the floor-timbers as if they were made of willow. The captain stood aghast! For one moment despair was painfully depicted in his countenance; then he recovered his self-possession and seamanship. He gave the order to stand by to carry out to windward the stream-anchor in the launch, and ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... exclamation and walked quickly to a position near the window where he could see his son's face. Roscoe's eyes were bloodshot and vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted, and he was deathly pale. The father stood aghast. ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... stricken aghast at Maitland's sudden grasp of the case. Even Godin was surprised. What could it all mean? Had Maitland known the facts all along? Had he simply been playing with the witness for reasons which we could ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... and lilies all aghast— And I said the stars should slacken in their paces through the vast, Ere yet my loyalty should fail enduring to the last—. So vowed I. It is written. It is ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... decision the advantage was with the Rebels; the President sought how to avoid war without compromising his duty; and the Rebels, who knew their own purpose, won incalculable advantages by the start which they thus gained. The country stood aghast, and would not believe in the full extent of the conspiracy to shatter it in pieces; men were uncertain if there would be a great uprising of the people. The President and his cabinet were in the midst ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... straining eyes would have discovered at a glance) the open upper drawer that salutes my forehead as I stoop hastily to grasp the handles beneath. Touch is clumsy. It only serves to upset valuable plants, inkstands, solar lamps, &c., with an appalling crash, and then leaves me standing aghast, in utter uncertainty as to the extent of the catastrophe. In such emergencies a rush for the stairs is the first impulse. Ah! ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... about 100,000 people. Despite a commanding situation, it could be seen that a struggle would have to be made for it to maintain the leadership among the river towns. As early as 1839 there had been a project for a highway bridge; and we are told that "the city fathers stood aghast" at an estimated cost of $736,600. In the following years there were several more abortive schemes for bridging, one of which, it is even said, would have been carried out, had not its projector died. Perhaps it is as well that he never lived to try it, for until Eads no one ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... modern. And yet, her whole existence was a tragedy, every actor was an executioner, the curtain rose amidst shrieks and fell upon corpses, and the only shifting of the scenes was from blood to blood. The whole world stood aghast, as under sentence of death, awaiting execution, and all nations and tongues were driven, with her own citizens, as sheep to the slaughter. Of her seven kings, her hundreds of consuls, tribunes, decemvirs, and dictators, and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... thee such a thing! The engineer Who lays the last stone of his sea-built tower, It cost him years and years of toil to raise— And, smiling at it, tells the winds and waves To roar and whistle now—but, in a night, Beholds the tempest sporting in its place— May look aghast, ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... Devonshire. Two or three fast young ladies, finding the evening somewhat heavy, and lamenting a dearth of dancing men, rang the bell, and in five minutes the lady of the house, who was in another room, was aghast at seeing them whirling round in their Jeames's arms. It was understood that the ringleader in this enterprise, the daughter of an Irish earl, was not likely to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... three companions stood helplessly aghast whilst this tragedy was in progress; but the professor, ever alert in the interests of science, promptly compelled the wounded girl to lie down, and instantly applied his lips to the wound made by the poisonous fangs of the snake, sucking vigorously ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... name, what do you return him for the sacrifice?" asked Esmond, aghast; who knew enough of men, and of this one in particular, to be aware that such a finished rake gave nothing for nothing. "How, in heaven's name, are you to ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... aghast. Her brain was still reeling from the shock of hearing Pixie refer to the subject of lovers at all, and here was yet another problem looming ahead. With a loving grasp of her sister's character, she realised that the protestations to which she had just listened embodied a real danger. Pixie ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... the faulty junk was discovered. This was untwisted until the core was laid bare, and when about a foot of it had been so treated, the cause of evil was discovered, drawing from the onlookers an exclamation of horror rather than surprise, as they stood aghast, for treachery seemed to ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Welling, aghast: "Thought my note was for Miss Rice? Sent it to her? Gracious powers!" They all stand for a moment in silence, and then Welling glances at the paper in his hand. "But there's some mistake. You haven't sent my note to Miss Rice: here it ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... I was aghast. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that the lady might be in any danger. "You don't mean that she would be ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... from Maryland vehemently declared: "The Convention is on the verge of dissolution, scarcely held together by the strength of a hair." Well has it been said: "In even the contemplation of the fearful consequence of such a calamity, the imagination stands aghast." ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... by force demoniac dragg'd To earth, or through obstruction fettering up In chains invisible the powers of man, Who, risen from his trance, gazeth around, Bewilder'd with the monstrous agony He hath endur'd, and wildly staring sighs; So stood aghast the sinner when ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... downright poisonous to him. He may yearn for a son to pray at his tomb—and yet suffer acutely at the me reapproach of relatives-in-law. He may dream of a beautiful and complaisant mistress, less exigent and mercurial than any a bachelor may hope to discover—and stand aghast at admitting her to his bank-book, his family-tree and his secret ambitions. He may want company and not intimacy, or intimacy and not company. He may want a cook and not a partner in his business, or a partner in his business and not a cook. But in order ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... so-called martyrdoms convulsed the Catholic world. The pope shook upon his throne; the shuttle of diplomatic intrigue stood still; diplomatists who had lived so long in lies that the whole life of man seemed but a stage pageant, a thing of show and tinsel, stood aghast at the revelation of English sincerity, and a shudder of great awe ran through Europe. The fury of party leaves little room for generous emotion, and no pity was felt for these men by the English Protestants. The Protestants knew well ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... Aghast at the effect of this upon his own mind, he reeled from the room, followed by the lawyer. As they passed down the hall they heard her voice raised to a scream in uncontrollable shame and indignation. This was followed by the snap of her key ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... by that time a man and two women servants standing near them, aghast. Mrs. Lloyd turned to ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moment Sergius stood aghast. Excuse and pleading he was prepared to hear. Recriminations would not have surprised him, for he knew that his own course would not bear investigation, and nothing, therefore, could be more natural than that she should attempt to defend herself ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a chest two shirts of hair made full of great knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... The major looked aghast. "Surely, Captain Rogers, you do not mean to say you insist on my landing, whether I like it or not, and would compel me and my delicate wife and those fair young creatures to march thirty miles or more through the sands of Africa without ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... I was aghast. It was not he that was in danger of hanging, but myself, a soldier in citizen's apparel within the enemy's lines. The colonel turned to me. With what I took for a ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... in the meantime been consigned to a kind, motherly, portly Mrs. Thompson, who, accustomed as she was to hearing of strange adventures, was aghast at what the child had undergone, and was enchanted with the little French gentleman who spoke English so well, and to whom his Grand Seigneur airs returned by instinct in contact with a European lady; but his eye instantly sought Arthur, nor ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... aghast. He knew the danger better than any one. If Alan was spent, Bandmaster might blunder and there would be a nasty spill. He hoped for the best as he watched with his feelings strung ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... every kind, A strange promiscuous carnage, drenched in blood, And heaps on heaps amassed. What yet remain 500 Alive, with vain assault contend to break The impenetrable line. Others, whom fear Inspires with self-preserving wiles, beneath The bodies of the slain for shelter creep. Aghast they fly, or hide their heads dispersed. And now perchance (had Heaven but pleased) the work Of death had been complete; and Aurengzebe By one dread frown extinguished half their race. When lo! the bright sultanas ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... moose, and the waters of the lakes over which the red man paddled in his bark canoe are now ploughed by crowded steamers. Where the bark dwellings of his fathers stood, the locomotive darts away on its iron road, and the helpless Indian looks on aghast at the power and resources of the pale-faced invaders of ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... Aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, Squeers released his hold of Smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon Nicholas with looks that ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... responding to the lightest touch of the helm, he was venturing with all the confidence of ignorance upon the most delicate of human undertakings. Miss Drewitt, eyeing him with perfect comprehension and some little severity, sat aghast at his hardihood. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... looked up at the clock and said: "My goodness! Betsy'll be late for school if she doesn't start right off." She explained to the child, aghast at this sudden thunderclap, "I let you sleep this morning as long as you wanted to, because you were so tired from your journey. But of course there's no reason for ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... whispered to his companion and stared; a middle-aged man farther up the aisle stood stock-still and stared; a young woman at the other end of the car turned round and, gazing over the back of her chair, whispered aghast to her ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... incident of his preceptor's disgust. He was turning over a score of "Semiramide" in the library, when the maestro came in and asked him what music it was. "Rossini's," was the answer. Sigismondi glanced at the page and saw 1. 2. 3. trumpets, being the first, second, and third trumpet parts. Aghast, he shouted, stuffing his fingers in his ears, "One hundred and twenty-three trumpets! Corpo di Cristo! the world's gone mad, and I shall go mad too!" And so he rushed from the room, muttering to himself about the hundred and ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... Northampton; he still bred Spanish sheep, but the risk of Joanna's venture was increased by the high price she would have to pay for railway transport as well as in fees. However, once she had set her heart on anything, she would let nothing stand in her way. Socknersh was inclined to be aghast at all the money the affair would cost, but Joanna soon talked him into ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... his horses in full gallop, came rattling and chehupping past us. My people called to warn him that he had no drag: but still he cried "Never fear!" and shaking the long reins, and stamping with his foot, on he went thundering down the hill. My Englishmen were aghast. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... particularly quaint idea into his head and proceed to carry it out in spite of every opposition. I arrived in this world on a chilly autumn day and was duly presented to my father's gaze. He was quite inexperienced about babies and it's recorded of him that he stared at me aghast and said: 'My gad, what a bleak-looking object!' That inspired some by-standing lunatic to observe that I doubtless took after the month, and my father promptly exclaimed: 'October! What a jolly fine ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... Tier, was on deck. Mulford met Spike at the cabin door, and pointed toward the fiery column, that was booming down upon the anchorage, with a velocity and direction that would now admit of no misinterpretation. For one instant that sturdy old seaman stood aghast; gazing at the enemy as one conscious of his impotency might have been supposed to quail before an assault that he foresaw must prove irresistible. Then his native spirit, and most of all the effects of training, began to show themselves in him, and he became at once, not only the ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... answer, Willis—" Whimpering: "Oh, he just wants to make me take my life in my hand! He wouldn't like anything better." The two men, during this rapid colloquy, remain silently aghast, staring at each other and at the scene of confusion ...
— Evening Dress - Farce • W. D. Howells
... the mountain sky, Leaving Dian's choir on high, Down her cataracts laughing loud, Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, Leading many a nymph, who dwells Where wild deer drink in ferny dells; While the Oreads as they past Peep'd from Druid Tors aghast. By alder copses sliding slow, Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo And paused awhile her locks to twine With musky hops and white woodbine, Then joined the silver-footed band, Which circled down my golden sand, By dappled park, and harbor ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Miss Hunsden stood aghast, staring, absolutely confounded. For one instant she stood thus; then all was forgotten in her sense of the ludicrous. She leaned against a tree, and set up a shout ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... where you slip up, my leetle friend." He took from the same drawer a clasped portfolio, and unlocked it, producing half a dozen prospectuses and certificates of mining shares. I stood aghast as I recognized the names of one or two extravagant failures of the last ten years,—"played-out" mines that had been galvanized into deceptive life in London, Paris, and New York, to the grief of shareholders abroad and the laughter of the initiated at home. I could ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... alienate him. To this end, a report was made to reach the priest's ears, that La Salle had seduced a young woman, with whom he was living, in an open and scandalous manner, at Fort Frontenac. The effect of this device exceeded the wishes of its contrivers; for the priest, aghast at what he had heard, set out for the fort, to administer his fraternal rebuke; but, on arriving, in place of the expected abomination, found his brother, assisted by two Recollet friars, ruling, with edifying propriety, over ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... arch where deepest shadows fall He sits and studies the old, storied panes, And the calm crucifix that from the wall Looks on a world that quavers and complains. Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast, On modes of violent death he meditates. And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last, She will not come, the woman that ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... was aghast. Never had he seen his mother and sister at work in the fields. John had been born in America; and he was American, not German, in his feeling about this. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Mull come aboard at Tinkle Tickle t' greet me, I was fair aghast an' dismayed. Never afore had he looked so woebegone an' wan. Red eyes peerin' out from two black caves; face all screwed with anxious thought. He made me think of a fish-thief, somehow, with a constable comin' down with the wind; ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... suasoriae. They are, for the most part, such speeches as—after making the most liberal allowance for rhetorical licence—no human being outside a school of rhetoric could have uttered. Caesar's soldiery would have stared aghast had they been addressed by their general in such language as Lucan makes him use to inspire them with courage before Pharsalus. They would have understood little, and cared less, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... 'but I think I wronged you; I should have said, aghast; you exhibited every symptom of ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... aghast, stupefied with amazement, at the body, twitching convulsively at first and then lying prone and motionless. He bent over it, turned it on its back, and gazed at it for some time. The man's eyes were closed, and blood trickled from a wound at the side of his forehead. Although ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... man stood aghast; then, again, some profound sally, some sign of the lad's remarkable range of intellect, would reassure him. He would say, as the Marquis said at the rumor of some escapade, "Boys will be boys." Chesnel had spoken ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... burnished; afflicted; affright; consideration; perplexity; fatal; agony; infinitely; desperate; earthen; conscious; molten. 23. Pronounce: Midas; calculate; particularly; obscure; tinge; extraordinary; mediate; composure; blighted; bath; cup; snarl; molten; aghast; admirably; metallic; frothy; pitiable; ravenous; indigestible; victuals; phrase; recognized; ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... was seized with a sudden and serious illness, after a banquet shared with his ally, the King of Prussia; and in a few days a malignant fever had brought him face to face with death. Madame de Chateauroux watched his sufferings with the eyes of despair. "Leaning over the pillow of the dying man, aghast and trembling, she fights for him with sickness and death, terror and remorse." With locked door she keeps her jealous watch by his bedside, allowing none to enter but Richelieu, the doctors, and nurses, whilst outside are gathered the Princes of ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... his friend of the effect on Sabre of Mabel's action against him: "He's crashed. The roof's fallen in on him." And that had been Sabre's own belief. But it was not so. There are degrees of calamity. Dumfounded, stunned, aghast, Sabre would not have believed that conspiracy against him of all the powers of darkness could conceivably worsen his plight. They had shot their bolt. He was stricken amain. He was in the crucible of disaster and in its heart where ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... not tell you, for, really, if it is true it would make one shudder. He said that it was (whispering in her ear) the Antichrist! It makes one feel aghast, does it not! They sell his photograph; he has a satanic look. (Looking at the clock.) Half-past two—I must run away; I have given no orders about dinner. These three fast-days in the week are to me martyrdom. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The matrons found him very distinguished. "It is plain to be seen that he is an exceptional person." Stewards and crew circulated exaggerated accounts of his riches and his studies. Some young girls sailing for Europe with imaginations seething with romance were very much aghast to learn that the hero was married and had a son. The solitary ladies stretched out on a chaise-longue, book in hand, upon seeing him would arrange the corolla of their petticoats, hiding their legs with so much precipitation ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me," ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... ride on in triumph glorious, Gird Thy sword upon Thy Thigh! Earth shall own Thy Might Victorious, Death and Hell confounded lie. Yea! before Thine Eye all-seeing, All Thy foes shall fly aghast; Nature's self, through all her being, Tremble at Thy ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... lasso parted with a snap. He never stopped until his momentum carried him through the slats of the neighboring cow-pen. Only the long-legged Michigander kept his hold, and he looked like a pair of extended scissors. I stood aghast at the impending ruin of my hopes, with my lower jaw dropped. The captain alone retained his presence of mind. As the black unit of my last Texan speculation shot by him, with Michigan, elongated like a peninsula, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... you are!" cried Rosemary, aghast at the frown on Shirley's pretty forehead. "Don't be so cranky, darling. Sarah will play in one end of the box and you play ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it, poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house, and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She gave me ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... and skies; So looked Rinaldo, when he shook his crest Before those walls, each Pagan fears and flies His dreadful sight, or trembling stayed at least: Such dread his awful visage on them cast. So seem poor doves at goshawks' sight aghast. ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... come up?" No one answered, and Mrs. Wright passed me, going softly up stairs, saying, in a low tone, as she ascended, "James, you had better make up a good fire, and get some water heated as fast as you can." Again I was aghast. "Get some water heated," said I; and the wretchedness of our bedless bed and furnitureless room crossed my mind at the same time. Mrs. Mason, at this moment, leaned over the banisters, and said, in a soft voice, "James, fetch the ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... peoples, and did not promise particularly well. One day Bishop Selwyn had occasion to rebuke him for his stubborn and refractory behaviour. The boy instantly flew into a passion and struck the Bishop a cruel blow in the face. It was an unheard-of incident, and all who saw it stood aghast. The Bishop said nothing, but turned and walked quietly away. The conduct of the lad continued to be most recalcitrant, and he was at last returned to his own island as incorrigible. There he soon relapsed into all the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... improprieties of Shakspeare, with Don Juan, or one of those infernal French novels—I beg your pardon—lying on their toilet table. Lady Florence is shocked at the sallies of Beatrice, and Beatrice would certainly stand aghast to see Lady Florence dressed for Almack's; so you see that in both cases the fashion makes the indecorum. Let her ladyship new model ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... rather aghast at this reception, which did not appear to be at all to his taste, seemed to hesitate a moment whether to charge his adversary or not; then, with a low growl of baffled fury, he slowly turned away, and ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... fancies, Sybilla rushed into every amusement which her secluded life afforded. At last, she resolved on an exploit at which Elspie looked aghast, and which made the quiet Mrs. Johnson shake her head—an evening party—nay, even a dance, at her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... roused all hands, and when we hurried on deck, there was the owner of the box, looking aghast at its scattered contents, and with one wandering hand taking the altitude of a bump on ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... starts, with a forehead wrinkled and livid, Aghast at the lightnings sudden and vivid; One telleth, with curses, the gold that they drew there (Ah! cross your breast humbly) from him ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... and at the same time those upon the roofs also discharged a blinding volley. The Spaniards waited until the foremost column was within fire, and then, with a general discharge of artillery, swept the ranks of their assailants, mowing them down by hundreds. The Mexicans for a moment stood aghast, but soon rallying swept boldly forward over the prostrate bodies of their comrades: a second and third volley checked them and threw their ranks into disorder, but still they pressed on, letting off clouds of arrows, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... he had dictated much more. The terrible advantage thought has over expression bewildered him. All that he dreamed, all that was in embryo within his brain, he fancied was already in form and on the page, and he was aghast at the disproportion between the dream and the reality. His delusion was like that of Don Quixote,—he believed himself in the Empyrean, and took the vapors from the kitchen for the breath of heaven, ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... still, Here gave a view of dale and hill, There narrower closed, till overhead A vaulted screen the branches made. "A pleasant path," Fitz-Eustace said, "Such as where errant-knights might see Adventures of high chivalry; Might meet some damsel flying fast, With hair unbound, and looks aghast; And smooth and level course were here, In her defence to break a spear. Here, too, are twilight nooks and dells; And oft, in such, the story tells, The damsel kind, from danger freed, Did grateful pay her ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... had gained wide renown as an ecclesiastic; added to which his prominence in civic affairs, and in matters of national importance, together with a public championship of workingmen's rights at which many wealthy churchpeople stood aghast, made him one of the most notable figures in American life. He passed his summers in Cooperstown until his death at Fernleigh in July, 1908, and the near view of his big personality caused him to be as greatly beloved in the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... train passed through the village he was overwhelmed with emotion at the sight. He fell prostrate on the bank as if struck by a thunder-bolt. When he stood up his brain reeled, he was speechless, and stood aghast, unutterable amazement stamped upon his face. In the tone of a Jeremiah he at length gasped out, "Well, sir, what a sight to have seen: but one I never care to see again! How awful! I tremble to think of it! I don't know what to compare it to, unless it be to a messenger despatched ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... halyards aloft!" he commanded, and at this even those two daring souls stood aghast, for it meant that whatever the emergency no sail could be taken off the Charming Lass. With the end of the halyards aloft no man could reach them in time ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Golden Apples wrought, that gleamed In the Hesperides' garden undefiled: All round the fearful Serpent's dead coils lay, And shrank the Maids aghast from Zeus' ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... the Thunderer's breast; This he pronounced, 'Tis he who loves thee best.' The fire that, once extinct, revived again Foreshows the love allotted to remain. Farewell!" she said, and vanished from the place; The sheaf of arrows shook, and rattled in the case. Aghast at this, the royal virgin stood, Disclaimed, and now no more a sister of the wood: But to the parting Goddess thus she prayed: "Propitious still, be present to my aid, Nor quite abandon your once favoured maid." Then sighing she returned; ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... aghast before that simple question, and its obvious answer. It was as if the earth has opened under his feet; as if he had suddenly discovered that only a thin crust intervened between himself and the crater of a ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... door. The office was in an uproar. Twenty or thirty of Bob's brokers were there, aghast at not getting a reply to their calls. Many more were pouring in through the outer office. Bob looked at them coldly. "Well, what is the trouble? Is it possible we are down to a point where the Stock Exchange rushes over to a man's office when his ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... nine letters which I received contained some very interesting facts. One man, an old trader in Polynesia, wrote me as follows: "Some of these poor beggars actually land in Polynesian ports with a trunk or two of glass beads, penny looking-glasses, twopenny knives and other weird rubbish, and are aghast to see large stores stocked with thousands of pounds' worth of goods of all kinds, goods which are sold to the natives at a very low margin of profit, for competition is very keen. In the Society Islands the Chinese storekeepers ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... aghast, followed them downstairs to inquire how such a thing were possible. The jurors said that they had agreed to ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... of rushing water, and for a moment the Brigade Major hoped that somebody had taken it upon himself to wash the orderly. The noise, however, was followed by a succession of thumps which put an end to this pretty flight of fancy. Aghast he surveyed the scene before him. Close to the Brigade Headquarters' dug-out was an old French dump of every conceivable kind of explosive made up into every known form of projectile. No longer was it a picture of Still Life. The Sleeping Beauty was awake indeed. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... no objections whatever, and, having finished the first course, was equally ready to proceed with the second. The fowl was done to a turn, and when at length the innkeeper came to clear away, he looked aghast at the wreck of ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... aghast, or rather sat aghast, on receiving this reply, and scanned Willie's face with one of her most eagle glances; but that small piece of impudence wore an expression of weak good-nature, and winked its eyes with the humility of a subdued pup, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... class found the idea of the banner most attractive, but when it came to the making they were aghast at the expense. A committee examined the prices at places in New York where such decorations were made and ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... is at hand, Madame Gohier," says Josephine in effect, "and at this very moment Barras is being pressed to resign, and if he disobeys his fate is sealed." Madame Gohier is aghast, stiffens her back, and with as much dignity as her nature will allow, she bows, withdraws, and hastens to the side of her husband, to convey all she has seen ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... immodest than the simple gown which the American high-school girl wears on her Commencement Day, and it was decidedly more ample than the sum of all the garments worn at polite social gatherings in communities somewhat to the west. Nevertheless, the company stood aghast. They were doubly horrified—first, at the effrontery of the girl, and second, at the revelation of her real person, for they saw that she was doomed, helpless, bereft of hope, ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the look of animation died out of the Old Lady's face. She seemed utterly aghast and horror-stricken. She gasped ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... retails the favours of his lord. But hark! th' affrighted crowd's tumultuous cries Roll through the streets, and thunder to the skies: Rais'd from some pleasing dream of wealth and pow'r, Some pompous palace, or some blissful bow'r, Aghast you start, and scarce, with aching sight, Sustain th' approaching fire's tremendous light; Swift from pursuing horrours take your way, And leave your little ALL to flames a prey; [dd]Then through the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... this in our own country at the present time. Do we behold anything like it? Read the answer in the lamentation of the prophet: "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." Stand aghast, O Earth! Tremble, ye people, but be not deceived. The huge specter of evil confronts us, as the prophet declared. Satan is loosed. From the depth of Tartarus, myriads of demons swarm over the land. The prince of darkness manifests himself as never ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... He was aghast. "Two minutes. Two seconds. I won't have you dodging around stage-doors. To-morrow you'll breeze in and tell my old friend Regan you've quit. Just say, 'I quit'— ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... program, then, leaning toward Lissa, whispered: "That is the overture to Attitudes—the program explains it: 'A series of pale gray notes'—what the deuce!—'pale gray notes giving the value of the highest light in which the play is pitched'—" He paused, aghast. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... that W—— stood aghast at the thought of such a robbery, and it is impossible to say when the talk, the wonderment, the conjectures, suggestions, theories, and general indignation would have ended, had not the second shock overborne the first. Once more ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... He was aghast at her calmness. The irregular lines in his face showed the disordered state of his soul, but she walked by his side without the quiver of an eyelid, or a tinge of colour more than usual. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... as in Luke we read, Which in vicious living his good doth waste, As soon as his living he had remembered, To confess his wretchedness he was not aghast; Wherefore his father lovingly him embrac'd, And was[164] right joyful, the text saith plain, Because his son was ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... The poor Rat looked aghast at such a load to pull; but he was a gentlemanly Rat, and so, having offered to pull the carriage, he ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... She was aghast, for all that she was far from understanding. But he went on relentlessly to make his meaning clear, for the sake of O'Moy as much as for her own—for the sake of the future of these two people who were perhaps ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... some solicitude about their property. Scarcely was I under way, when, with a bound like a deer, the girl was up on the cariole behind, hanging on to the back of the seat with both hands. Perfectly aghast with astonishment, I pulled the reins and stopped. "What!" I exclaimed, in the best Norsk I could muster, "is the Jomfru going with me?" "Ja!" answered the laughing damsel, in a merry, ringing ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... collector who, stealing the money, yet left the case. The new method was incomparably more subtle than the old: it afforded an opportunity of a hitherto unimagined delicacy; the wielders of the scissors were aghast at a skill which put their own clumsiness to shame, and which to a previous generation would have seemed the wildest fantasy. Yet so strong is habit, that even when the picking of pockets was a recognised industry, the superfluous scissors still survived, ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... put on another waist, I do think," said Polly, hanging up the towel, aghast to find herself growing angry at all this delay, and with half a mind to run and leave ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... for the remainder of my life." "No such thing, Doctor, I assure you," said William. He then plainly intimated that, whenever Sancroft should cease to fill the highest ecclesiastical station, Tillotson would succeed to it. Tillotson stood aghast; for his nature was quiet and unambitious: he was beginning to feel the infirmities of old age: he cared little for money: of worldly advantages those which he most valued were an honest fame and the general ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... telegraph both to her friends at Sandgale and to her mother to tell of her adventure and to say that she would go on to Sandgale on the Monday. For, unfortunately, the next day was Sunday, and Rose looked so aghast at the very idea of traveling then that Erica could say nothing more though she surmised rightly enough that Mr. Fane-Smith would have preferred even Sunday traveling to a Sunday spent in Luke Raeburn's house. There was evidently, however, no help for it. Rose was there, and there ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... heard low voices muttering about the Gunpowder Plot; once in the morning, they really did hear a great rumbling noise over their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine. Every man stopped and looked aghast at his neighbour, wondering what had happened, when that bold prowler, Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told them that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied a cellar under the Parliament House, removing his stock ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... massacres and famine; a Parliament and executions; pillage and the greatest heroism; "The Black Hundred," and Leo Tolstoy—what a mixture of figures and conceptions, what a fruitful source for all kinds of misunderstandings! The truth of life stands aghast in silence, and its brazen falsehood is loudly shouting, uttering pressing, painful questions: "With whom shall I sympathize? Whom shall I trust? Whom ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... my brother-officer with some men appeared. He stood aghast, as well he might, at the spectacle presented to him. As he was approaching me a shell fell in the space between us, sending its fragments in every direction. I felt that I was wounded, and, staggering back, I fell to the ground. My brother-officer ran to lift me up. I found ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... daily to see the Reverend Orme. "Behold him!" he cried at his first visit, aghast at the havoc the stroke had played with the tall frame. "He is but a boy, he has fathered but two children—and yet—behold him! He is broken!" The sight of the Reverend Orme, suddenly grown pitifully old, seemed to work on the white-haired, ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... of courage; and are condemned like us to be crucified between that double law of the members and the will. Are they like us, I wonder, in the timid hope of some reward, some sugar with the drug? Do they, too, stand aghast at unrewarded virtues, at the sufferings of those whom, in our partiality, we take to be just, and the prosperity of such as in our blindness we ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... concerns. He wants to begin at the top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers, and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought with their own hands. And, though he talks glibly of manufacturers, he refuses to see that the Indian manufacturer of the future will ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I'm not thinking of—" And Barnes, aghast, stopped before blurting out the words that leaped to his lips. "I mean to say, this is a proposition that may also affect your excellent companions, Bacon and Dillingford, as well ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... autumn of this year were indeed the most memorable in the annals of New Brunswick's history. Many there are still living who distinctly remember that awful visitation. The season of drought was unparalleled. Farmers looked aghast and trembled as they viewed the scanty, withered products of the land. All joined in the common uneasiness, daily awaiting relief. None felt more anxiety than Sir Howard Douglas, whose sole interests were those ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour |
