"Monstrous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great quantities for motormen and conductors. Had we not been led by easy grades to the acceptance, these things would have cried out for our eyes. Nowhere in the Orient or the Islands, is the male form made so monstrous. Had some one drawn them for us, in a place where we are accustomed to look for caricature; had we seen them in comic opera, or upon the legs of a Pacific Islander; or had we come from another planet, there would have been no mistake as to the debauchery of taste ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... pile of cloud the moon Peered sadly through the misty veil; Softly the breezes waved their wings; Sighed in my ears with plaintive wail. Night shaped a thousand monstrous forms; Yet fresh and frolicsome my breast; And what a fire burned in my veins, And what a ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... from the pages of their book, their very glances glued with love? What doth your Tchaikovsky with this Old World tale? Alas! you know full well. He tears it limb from limb. He makes over the lovers into two monstrous Cossacks, who gibber and squeak at each other while reading some obscene volume. Why, they are too much interested in the pictures to think of love. Then their dead carcasses are whirled aloft on screaming flames of hell, and sent whizzing into a ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... leaves of which the moonlight glanced with a soft lustre, rendered more beautiful by their stillness. That side on which the light could not fall, lay in deep shadow, which occasionally gave to the rocks and small projecting precipices an appearance of monstrous and unnatural life. Having passed through the tangled mazes of the glen, he at length reached its bottom, along which ran a brook, such as in the description of ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... favor or wish them well, if they broke their word." Sometimes they performed the pasambahan for greater solemnity and confirmation of the oath. That consisted in bringing forward the figure of some monstrous beast asking that they might be broken into pieces by it if they failed in their promise. Others, having placed a lighted candle in front of them, said that as that candle melted and was consumed, so might he who failed in his promise be consumed and destroyed. Such as these ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... I, father. What, keep a cake locked up seven days together, and not give one's friends a bit! That is monstrous! But let us have ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... had to move the weight off me, which was crushing me. Then a roaring sound began to come and go upon the air, louder and louder, faster and faster; the strange pungent scent came again; and then I was thrust down under the weight, monstrous, insupportable; further and further down; and there came a sharp bright streak, like a blade severing the strands of a rope drawn taut and tense; another and another; one was left, and the blade ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... according to the energy of the settlement, might be increased a hundredfold—drained, metalled, tarred, and adorned with splendid telegraph poles and wires—or might be wrapped up in a napkin of neglect, monstrous overgrown hedges and decayed ditches, and allowed to wither: the splendid main road, having regard to its ancient Roman lineage, disdainfully did not care tuppence either way; and for that matter Penny Green, which had ages ago ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... world,"—nor would this appear for a moment extravagant, if one only calls to mind the strange traditions which the Rabbinnical writers have handed down upon theological points of far more importance, or the equally absurd and monstrous notions which the modern history of sectarianism furnishes. From what has been said, however, it appears very clear, that Satan has had too much to do with tobacco. If it be verily the tree of knowledge, it must be admitted that he has preserved it with infinite care, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... girl at sea, and never well ashore. I am always in raw health—the strong mind in the potent body. Had I been at Louisburg, I should have held it, as I held Ticonderoga last July, and drove the English back with monstrous slaughter." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... that people are not enough aware of the monstrous state of society, absolutely without a parallel in the history of the world, with a population poor, miserable and degraded in body and mind, as if they were slaves, and yet called freemen. The hopes entertained by many of the effects to be ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... divine gives itself to the human in the spirit of true brotherhood; the son of Zeus takes on the ills of mortality through fraternal love. The second mother of this group is Iphidameia, who declares Neptune to be the father of Otus and Ephialtes, of her monstrous twins, "who at the age of nine years threatened war upon the Gods," and proposed to storm heaven by piling Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion on top of that. Such is the contrast: one set of sons is noble, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... back of the monstrous improbabilities of the sale, was enough to have shaken the reason of Immanuel Kant. The earth seemed banded together to defeat them; the stones and the boys on the street appeared to be in possession of their guilty secret. Flight was their one thought. The treasure of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... massive proportions, standing erect with outstretched arms, and of a mixed and strange composition. The head was of fine gold. The breast and arms were of silver. The belly and thighs of brass. The legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay. While the king was gazing on this monstrous figure with intense interest, his attention was arrested by the appearance of a small stone—this stone was alone; there appeared no hands handling it or moving it. It was cut out of the mountain ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... the belief in their own irresistibility and the exhaustion of their opponents. The full wave of the hideous instruments of warfare which the devilish ingenuity of the Germans had invented, liquid fire, monstrous shells, various kinds of gases including the horrible mustard gas, had struck the Americans squarely and fully, and they had stood and fought ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow; you ride down steeples and staircases and over precipices; you hover in horrible suspense over inhabited towns, vainly seeking for a brake your hand cannot find, to save you from a headlong fall; you plunge into weltering rivers, and rush helplessly at monstrous obstacles. Anon Mr. Hoopdriver found himself riding out of the darkness of non-existence, pedalling Ezekiel's Wheels across the Weald of Surrey, jolting over the hills and smashing villages in his course, while the other man in brown cursed and swore at him and shouted to stop his career. There ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... be born in shape of a beast, bird, fish, or other object, with or without the power to take human form or monstrous size. ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... loose in a hideous manner, and had taken possession of many: yea, I believe that there was never generation before nor since, that could produce so many possessed with devils, deformed, lame, blind, and infected with monstrous diseases, as that generation could. But what was the reason thereof, I mean the reason from God? Why one (and we may sum up more in that answer that Christ gave to his disciples concerning him that was born blind) was, that the works ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... efficient, devoted, inspired, and capable beyond what could be looked for from any other Egyptian, or indeed from any other sentient being. Hassan's hands became tragic and violent as he talked. He showed his teeth and seemed burning with fury. And who has done this monstrous thing? Isaacson dropped out the enquiry. Hamza—him who prayed. That was the answer. And it was through Ibrahim that Hamza had entered the service of my Lord Arminigel; it was Ibrahim's unexampled generosity and nobility that had brought Hamza to ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... the time he spent alone in his book-room, sitting with his hands in his lap, staring at the unspeakable thought that paralysed him, the thought that was entangled with the very roots of his creed and that glared at him with monstrous and malignant face above the very altar of his religion—the thought of his last prayer—the effectual prayer, the fervent prayer, the damnable prayer that branded his soul with the mark of Cain, ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... did the King and all his warriors marvel at the bold young knight. 'Was ever heard so monstrous a plan?' murmured the warriors each to the other. 'The stripling from a foreign land, with but eleven bold knights to aid him, would seize Burgundy and banish the King from his realm. It ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... other class on the Lord's day'! The idea of making a man truly moral through the ministry of constables, and sincerely religious under the influence of penalties, is worthy of the mind which could form such a mass of monstrous absurdity as this bill is ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... good-natured discussion of the Land Law question between two other gentlemen present, one of them, a strong Nationalist, smote his Unionist opponent very neatly under the fifth rib. The latter contending that it was monstrous to interfere by law with the principle of freedom of contract, the Nationalist responded, "That cannot be; it must be right and legitimate to do it, for the Imperial Parliament has done it ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... northwest wind and the sea were leagued against it. They sent out threatening fingers and long spinning veils of cloud across it—skirmishers that foretold the black and serried lines, the torn and monstrous masses behind. Below these wild tempest shapes again—in long spaces resting on the sea—the heaven was at peace, shining in delicate greens and yellows, infinitely translucent and serene, above the dazzling lines of water. Over Rome itself there was a strange ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... now to the goal whence he began his course, now to the realms of sunset which he is not destined to reach. He loses his self-command, and knows not what to do, whether to draw tight the reins or throw them loose; he forgets the names of the horses. He sees with terror the monstrous forms scattered over the surface of heaven. Here the Scorpion extended his two great arms, with his tail and crooked claws stretching over two signs of the zodiac. When the boy beheld him, reeking with poison and menacing with his fangs, his ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... way the hideousness of these scenes had never shown itself to her—perhaps because she had been a child at the time, and had thrilled to the delicious excitement of it; but now, as she imagined it all happening again before her eyes, she shivered with horror. How monstrous, how ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... another vile trick of the Frisco faction. So Oakland doubled its brawny fists and swung into San Francisco for blood. And San Francisco, consciously innocent, was no less willing to join issues. To be charged with such a crime was no less monstrous than the crime itself. Besides, for too many tedious hours had the Irish heroically suppressed themselves. Five thousands of them exploded into joyous battle. The women joined with them. The whole amphitheater was filled with the conflict. There were rallies, retreats, charges, and counter-charges. ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... but it was enough. Our plan had been discovered, and the chances for escape from now on to the fearful end would be small indeed. My one hope now was to return undetected to the quarters of Dejah Thoris and learn what fate had overtaken her, but how to do it with these great monstrous thoats upon my hands, now that the city probably was aroused by the knowledge of my escape was a ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to the wood, and hid her where 'twas most dense, and there waited on the alert, and glancing, now this way and now that, to see if any were coming. And while thus she stood, nor ever a thought of a wolf crossed her mind, lo, forth of a close covert hard by came a wolf of monstrous size and appalling aspect, and scarce had she time to say, God help me! before he sprang upon her and griped her by the throat so tightly that she might not utter a cry, but, passive as any lambkin, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... more recent development would be found in what is called the "sociological" novel. Monstrous and misshapen as this must seem to us often, if considered as a work of art, it would have to be reckoned with in any investigation of the treatment ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... which had snoodled beside me, its transparent shovel-snout half buried in the sand. Immune from the opiate of the sea, though motionless, with wide, watery-yellow eyes, it gazed upon me as a fascinated child might upon a strange shape monstrous though benign, and as I raised my hand in salutation wriggled off, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... we are all citizens of the same city and war between us, a civil war, a monstrous iniquity to be forgotten, as soon as it may bring in peace; or else there is no city and no home for man in the universe, but only an everlasting conflict between creatures that have nothing in common and no place where they can together be at rest."—Times Literary Supplement, ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... has here absolutely mistaken his work; for instead of exhibiting the Properties of WIT in a clearer Light, and confuting the false Claims which are made to it, he has made it his whole Business to perplex it the more, by introducing, from all Corners, a monstrous Troop of new ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword, who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because altho of the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... a commission from McClure's, I was in Pittsburg writing an article on "Homestead and Its Perilous Trades," and the clouds of smoke, the flaming chimneys, the clang of steel, the roar of blast-furnaces and the thunder of monstrous steel rollers made Wisconsin lumber camps idyllic. The serene white peace of West Salem set Pittsburg apart as a sulphurous hell and my description of it became a passionate indictment of an industrial system which could so ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... penal servitude for life. A sentence, I believe, inflicted not so much for the crime, but on account of the position the prisoner formerly occupied in society, and "as a warning to others." This is a formula which, in many cases, is made to sanction monstrous injustice, and in all cases, I may say, is practically inoperative. The only parties warned by the fall and punishment of such an one as the prisoner I here refer to, are those in the same respectable position in life, because they are the only parties who have it in their power to commit ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... she was getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonnas seated under inexplicable canopied thrones with the simple country as a background, and of saints with architectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged in their skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning: but all this was apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... against his authority, at all events; and her hands remained in his clasp until of his own accord he opened his fingers with an exclamation. "Do you wear bracelets for rings, my fair, or what? What!" From the monstrous bauble in his palm, he raised his eyes to hers, and if she had seen their look she might have answered differently. But her gaze was still on the ring; and as she felt him start, that impish dimple peeped out ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... when anchored under this Spit that in H.M.S. Britomart, a monstrous shark was caught, about twenty feet long, in which were found the bones of some very large animal, possibly those of a bullock, that had been carried out to sea by some current. Steering North-North-West we deepened the water in eight miles ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... that, side by side with the theology of Aquinas and Bonaventura, there was working among those who influenced fashion and opinion, among the great men, and the men to whom learning was a profession, a spirit of scepticism and irreligion almost monstrous for its time, which found its countenance in Frederick's refined and enlightened court. The genius of the great doctors might have kept in safety the Latin schools, but not the free and home thoughts which found utterance in the language of the people, if the solemn beauty of the Italian Commedia ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... ugly, but more pleasant than her English rival novelist, the other pseudonymous George. They had few points in common except that both wrote well and were full of talent of a different kind and were equally monstrous, looking like two ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... language, is "large turtle," derived from the word Mi-she- mi-ki-nock in the Chippewa language. That is, "Mi-she" as one of the adnominals or adjectives in the Ottawa and Chippewa languages, which would signify tremendous in size; and "Mikinock" is the name of mud turtle—meaning, therefore, "monstrous large turtle," as the historians would have it. But we consider this to be a clear error. Whereever those annalists, or those who write about the Island of Mackinac, obtain their information as to ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... Ay, now, 'tis a vulture. O abominable! monstrous! monstrous! has not your vulture a beak? has it not legs, and talons, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... conditions otherwise. For the purpose of suffrage they may, in the theory of our government, be equal—but we haven't yet demonstrated it. We exclude the Japanese and Chinese. We have included the negro, only within the living generation—and it's entirely evident, now, we made a monstrous mistake by doing it. Equal! Equal! ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... beat it," declared Tom, "and I want to do it without making such a monstrous gun that it will be difficult ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... century. He is said to have made a bold speech to the King; but this I will not believe of any Englishman—at least, of any plebeian Englishman—until I hear it. But there stands his statue in the Guildhall in the act of making his speech, as if the monstrous attempt ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Everywhere, even in the small hamlets and the agricultural districts, the dupes rose against their dupers. The smoldering resentment of years burst into flame, and within a week all that was left of insurance in America was the record of a monstrous and cruel delusion written in the blood of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... opening speech was very able and very unscrupulous. All facts in Mr. Bradlaugh's favour were distorted or hidden; anything that could be used against him was tricked out in most seductive fashion. Among the many monstrous perversions of the truth made by this most pious counsel, was the statement that changes of publisher, and of registration of the Freethinker were made in consequence of a question as to prosecuting ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... task of emancipating the crown from parliamentary interference. But popular suspicion had been aroused by Charles's secret dealings and James's open professions; and Titus Oates, who knew something about real plans for the reconversion of England, inflated his knowledge into a monstrous tale of a popish plot. The Whigs, as the opposition party came to be called, used it for more than it was worth to damage the Tories under Danby. The panic produced one useful measure, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, many judicial murders, ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... ought to be, I hold in intimate persuasion. One woman indeed now alive ... and only that one down all the ages of the world—seems to me to justify for a moment an opposite opinion—that wonderful woman George Sand; who has something monstrous in combination with her genius, there is no denying at moments (for she has written one book, Leila, which I could not read, though I am not easily turned back,) but whom, in her good and evil together, I regard with infinitely ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... observation. Clotilde had evidently not conceived the slightest alarm. The gentle serenity of her features remained unaltered. A few oddities, more or less, in Julia's ways did not constitute a sufficient novelty to attract her particular attention. Her mind, moreover, was too far away from the monstrous abysses yawning at her side; she might have stepped into them and been swallowed up, before she had suspected ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... fond and faithful creature as he is, from being the most docile and obedient of all animals, is made the most dangerous, if he become mad; so men acquire a frightful and not less monstrous power when they are in a state of moral insanity, and break loose from their social and religious obligations. Remember too how rapidly the plague of diseased opinions is communicated, and that if it once gain ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... take his departure if he did not wish his whale-boat to be cracked like a nut against the roof of the tunnel. Alive to his danger, the Commandant abandoned the search after his late prisoner's corpse, and he hastened to gain the open sea. The boat, carried backwards and upwards on the bosom of a monstrous wave, narrowly escaped destruction, and John Rex, climbing to the gallery, saw with much satisfaction the broad back of his out-witted gaoler disappear round the sheltering promontory. The last efforts of his ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... started on your light-weight handicap, Philip. Father was monstrous unreasonable that day. Seemed to think I was coming back here to put my shoulder out for your high bailiffships and bum-bailiffships and heaven knows what. You're welcome to the lot for me, Philip. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... yfaith is my sower friend to all worldly desires ouer taken with the hart of the World, Love? I shall be monstrous proud now, to heare shees every way a most rare woman, that I know thy spirit, and judgement hath chosen; is she wise? is she noble? is she capable of thy vertues? will she kisse this forehead with judiciall lipps where somuch judgement and vertue deserves ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... House believe. It is on a par, indeed, with other legislation that in past years has been engineered through this legislature under the guise of beneficent law. No, not on a par. It is the most arrogant, the most monstrous example of special legislation of them all. And while I do not expect to be able to delay its passage much longer than the time I shall be on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... yellow rocks of bare limestone, at the foot of which is the small inn, seem to be drawing nearer. All their details become luminously distinct as the air grows darker, while the caverns gape like the black mouths of some stealthily approaching, monstrous, many-headed form. Two men are still working in a field of tobacco, and they go on until lights flash forth from all the houses in the valley. Then they slowly move off into the dusk with their ox ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... cannibalism is certainly owing to the fact that there are moments when game is scarce and hunger great. The savages began by eating human flesh to appease the demands of an appetite rarely satiated; subsequently the priests regulated and satisfied the monstrous custom. What was a meal, was raised to the dignity of a ceremony, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... one of the most singular, disastrous, amazing, and, on the whole, humiliating years the European world ever saw. Not since the irruption of the Northern Barbarians has there been the like. Everywhere immeasurable Democracy rose monstrous, loud, blatant, inarticulate as the voice of Chaos. Everywhere the Official holy-of-holies was scandalously laid bare to dogs and the profane:—Enter, all the world, see what kind of Official holy it is. Kings everywhere, and reigning persons, stared ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... the narrow-minded idiot, thought this a good time to play off a smart trick on one of Smith's regular customers. So he paraded a large variety of goods before her, and took occasion to recommend a very pretty article, for which he charged a monstrous price, because he said it was a very scarce pattern, and it was with great difficulty they had secured a single piece. As the lady herself could perceive, it had not been opened before; not a soul in the village had even seen the outside of it. Now, it must not be supposed that Mrs. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... friendly terms—or striving to be so—with people in high places, who are but too often revelling in crimes, with the very name of which they would scorn even to pollute their lips; and I would ask, did such a monstrous absurdity ever enter into any one's head as to doubt from these amicable relations whether the Government of this country or its agents repudiated such abomination of abominations? If for political purposes you submit to this latter, while for commercial purposes you refuse ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... Mrs. Fairbanks. "Would you ask a young lady to go out and bury herself alive in such a country as that, or ask her to wait an indefinite number of years till the young man should return? Why it is simply monstrous." And Mrs. Fairbanks fixed her glasses firmly on her nose and gazed at Brown as if she ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... occasioned by his being employed in making of Cyder in a very cold Cellar. He had not had a Stool for some Days: at first he took a Dose of Physic, and some of the saline Draughts; but in a Day or two complained that his Belly had grown to a monstrous Size, and that he had not made Water for above twenty-four Hours; on examining, we found the Bladder so much distended as to reach up to the Navel; and upon a Catheter's being introduced, above two Quarts of Water were drawn off, and ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers Of wretches now long dead,—their dire bequests.— In me the echo of the stifled cry Of children for their bartered mothers' breasts. I claim no race, no race claims me; I am No more than human dregs; degenerate; The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; I am—just what I am.... The race that fed Your wives and nursed your babes would do the ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... what though the oven smoke? And what though I die ere morn? There was I nourished and tended, and there was Taheia born." Noon was high on the High-place, the second noon of the feast; And heat and shameful slumber weighed on people and priest; And the heart drudged slow in bodies heavy with monstrous meals; And the senseless limbs were scattered abroad like spokes of wheels; And crapulous women sat and stared at the stones anigh With a bestial droop of the lip and a swinish rheum in the eye. As about the dome of the bees in the time for the drones to fall, The dead and the maimed are scattered, ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... monstrous, perfectly atrocious, ugh! Let us make a little tour of a walk. The tombola is finished. An Irish ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... was regarded by all as influencing the fate, not of the King only, but of all who remained in communication with him, if not in this world, at any rate in the world to come. Moreover, in this particular case, while no one believed the monstrous charges against Gregory, there was sufficient in Henry's past conduct to give credibility to anything that ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... "The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you enjoyed it or not. What dragons ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... Unlike the noise of machinery in a factory it was not homogeneous. Each sound was intended to attract attention and to evoke a certain response, but what response and from whom? Long levers projecting from the steel deck wagged back and forth spastically like the legs of monstrous insects struggling on their backs. Several times Dewforth was temporarily blinded by an explosion of blue light as a fuse blew or something short-circuited among the rows of knife-switches and rheostats on the panels. One would never really ...
— In the Control Tower • Will Mohler
... veracity, Prescott has relied almost entirely upon these sources for the material of his popular work. No person can calmly survey the field to-day, compare the statements of the various authors, and visit the country itself, without seeing clearly how much of absurd exaggeration and monstrous fiction has been foisted upon the reading public relative to this period of the conquest ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... alarmed the nation, and made them attentive to the operations of parliament. Hence the publication of the parliamentary debates. And where is the injury, if the members act upon honest principles? For a public assembly to be afraid of having their deliberations published is monstrous, and speaks for itself. No mortal can construe such a procedure to their advantage; and the practice of locking the doors is sufficient to open the eyes of the blind;—they must see that all is not well ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... springing from their seats, seized their guns, ready to fire at the monster as soon as it should come within range. At a leisurely pace the tiger trotted on, the outline of its form seen clearly in the moonlight. It had just got close to the water, when, Burnett firing, the monstrous brute rolled over, casting a glance of defiance at the foe it had only then discovered. A second shot laid it lifeless on the ground. Both gentlemen reloaded; and Reginald proposed hurrying down to ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... not know yet, rose up in orderly logic, and joined what was now in her mind, completing the whole hideous tale of wickedness that had ended in the death of Ida Bamberger, who had been murdered, perhaps, in desperation to avert a crime even more monstrous. The dying girl's faint voice came back to Margaret ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... after the appeal to what were called facts, came a series of arguments, which have been so long bruised and battered round in the cause of every doctrine or pretension, new, monstrous, or deliriously impossible, that each of them is as odiously familiar to the scientific scholar as the faces of so many old acquaintances, among the less reputable classes, to the officers ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to see not only Goldilocks but also the Three Bears and they took a remarkable journey through the air to do so. Tommy even rode on a Rocket and met the monstrous Blue Frog. When they arrived at Goldilocks' house they found that the Three Bears had been there before them and mussed everything up, much to Goldilocks' despair. "We must drive those bears out of the country!" said Pa Flyaway. Then they journeyed underground ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... you for me,—for one who loves you so truly?" When the question was put to her in that guise she could not quite tell so monstrous a lie as would be needed for an answer fit for her purpose. "This is a matter, Marion, in which a man has a right to demand an answer,—to demand ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... cry, resembling a shriek rather than a bark, while he struggled desperately to return. The next instant, to my horror, my faithful animal disappeared beneath the surface. As he sank I caught sight, through the water, of a monstrous alligator, which was dragging him down. Had I possessed another charge of powder, I might have rescued him, or, at all events, have avenged his death; ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... work upon the figure, perfecting every detail of expression, until he fancied he could feel and see the silver limbs of the dead Christ suffering upon the cross under the diabolical skill of his long fingers. The monstrous horror of the thought made him work marvels, and the fancied realisation of an idea that would startle even a hardened unbeliever, lent a feverish impulse to this ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... wears his leathern coat. The whole populace pursues him, hooting, yelling, and firing blank shots in volleys after him. Thus driven out of the city, he is detained for seven days in the great chamber of horrors at the Samyas monastery, surrounded by monstrous and terrific images of devils and skins of huge serpents and wild beasts. Thence he goes away into the mountains of Chetang, where he has to remain an outcast for several months or a year in a narrow den. If he dies before ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... newspaper report of to-day that leases for sixty years were to be given to indigo planters, and this without any authority from home. He seems to have suspected from the first that Lord W. would do some monstrous thing, and certainly he does ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... Among the many who did so, were two gentlemen, deputed by the Viceroy of Sicily [2] to our Duke on public business. Now these two agreeable persons met me upon the piazza: I had been shown them in passing, and now they made monstrous haste to catch me up; then, with caps in hand, they uttered an oration so ceremonious, that it would have been excessive for a Pope. I bowed, with every protestation of humility. They meanwhile continued loading me with compliments, until at last I prayed them, for kindness' sake, to leave the piazza ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... to a comfortable level all parts of the area over which I had need to bend? Though no horticulturist, perhaps, ever had such a thought before, expense was the sole objection visible. Called away just then for another long absence, I gave orders that no "dust" should leave the house; and found a monstrous heap on my return. The road-contractors supplied "sweepings" at a shilling a load. Beginning at the outskirts of my property, I raised a mound three feet high and three feet broad, replanted the shrubs on the back edge, and left a handsome border for flowers. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... would put up with it. Londoners, as a rule, take their houses as they can get them, looking only to situation, size, and price. What Grecian, what Roman, what Turk, what Italian would endure, or would ever have endured, to use a room with a monstrous cantle in the form of a parallelogram cut sheerly out of one corner of it? This is the shape of room we have now adopted,—or rather which the builders have adopted for us,—in order to throw the whole first floor into one apartment which ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... prodigious noise he hears, Which suddenly along the forest spread; Whereat from out his quiver he prepares An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head; And, lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears, And onward rushes with tempestuous tread, And to the fountain's brink precisely pours, So that the giant's join'd by all the boars. Morgante Maggiore ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... to be aggressive is furnished by his own account of the consequences. Two rivals, he says, one of whom seems to have been Bernard of Clairvaux, took the field against him, "and succeeded in exciting the hostility of certain ecclesiastical and secular authorities, by charging monstrous things, not only against my faith, but also against my manner of life, to such a point as to detach from me some of my principal friends; even those who preserved some affection for me dared no longer display it, for fear. God is my witness that I never heard of the union of an ecclesiastical ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... death which were already girdling Paris, that flabby Cyclops, Gambetta, was to mouth his monstrous platitudes, and brood over the battle-smoke, a nightmare of pomposity and fanfaronade—in a balloon. All France was bowed down in shame at the sight of the grotesque convoy, who were proclaiming her destiny among nations, and their destiny to lead her to victory ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from Bruntsea. That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-boy's kite, and dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the inland sea, though nearly half full of water. Driven on by wind and wave, it labored heavily toward us; and ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... what seemed like vast folded leathern wings, which shook and swayed in the air at every step. Its pace was about as fast as that of a man, and it moved with ease and lightness. It seemed like some enormous bat, or rather like a winged crocodile, or yet again like one of those monstrous dragons of which I had read, but in whose actual existence I had never believed. Yet here I saw one living and moving before me—an actual dragon, with the exception of a tail; for that appendage, which plays so great a part in all the pictures of dragons, had no place here. This ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... Danced the Beggar's Dance to please them. Now, in search of new adventures, From his lodge went Pau-Puk-Keewis, Came with speed into the village, Found the young men all assembled In the lodge of old Iagoo, Listening to his monstrous stories, To his wonderful adventures. He was telling them the story Of Ojeeg, the Summer-Maker, How he made a hole in heaven, How he climbed up into heaven, And let out the summer-weather, The perpetual, pleasant Summer; How the Otter first essayed it; How the Beaver, Lynx, and Badger Tried ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... metaphysical speculation—and we do not laugh at them any more. In their origin, they were the consecration of the first-fruits of knowledge; the expression of a real reverential belief. Then time did its work on them; knowledge grew and they could not grow; they became monstrous and mischievous, and were driven out by Christianity with scorn and indignation. But it is with human institutions, as it is with men themselves; we are tender with the dead when their power to hurt us has ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... I took alone, down muddy lanes, in the bad winter weather, carrying that parlour, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone in it, everywhere: a monstrous load that I was obliged to bear, a daymare that there was no possibility of breaking in, a weight that brooded on ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... readiness they moved backward step by step. The lions began to pace up and down the strip of sand, tossing their shaggy heads toward the frightened men, and then the leader, a monstrous fellow with a mane that swept the ground, advanced a few paces and uttered a tremendous roar that seemed to shake ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... King answered, 'I know not if I myself appear less monstrous in black or red, and my son shall be habited as I be. ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... from now stranger will meet with stranger, but when they make the sign of peace and sit down with one another, they shall find that words come more easily, though one may seem outwardly monstrous to the other. Only, now we must go our own way. We are youths setting forth on our journey of testing, while the Elders wish ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Both he compares, and measures in his mind; And sometimes casts an eye upon the east, 220 And sometimes looks on the forbidden west. The horses' names he knew not in the fright: Nor would he loose the reins, nor could he hold them tight. Now all the horrors of the heavens he spies, And monstrous shadows of prodigious size, That, decked with stars, lie scattered o'er the skies. There is a place above, where Scorpio, bent In tail and arms, surrounds a vast extent; In a wide circuit of the heavens he shines, And fills the space of two celestial signs. 230 ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... differences of which the chicken and egg debate is a frivolous, but a very felicitous, type. The evolutionary materialists are appropriately enough represented in the vision of all things coming from an egg, a dim and monstrous oval germ that had laid itself by accident. That other supernatural school of thought (to which I personally adhere) would be not unworthily typified in the fancy that this round world of ours is but an egg brooded upon by a sacred unbegotten bird; the mystic dove ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... confronted a black and monstrous figure. A rifle barrel caught some glinting beams. "Halt! halt!" He was dismayed for a moment, but he presently thought that he recognized the nervous voice. As he stood tottering before the rifle barrel, he called out: "Why, hello, ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... was far more various and picturesque than nowadays. Both sexes dressed in gaudy colors and delighted in strange fashions, so that, {497} is Roger Ascham said, "he thought himself most brave that was most monstrous in misorder." For women the fashion of decollete was just coming in, as so many fashions do, from the demi-monde. To Catharine de' Medici is attributed the invention of the corset, an atrocity to be excused only by her own urgent need ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... brain, but a pain came with the effort of memory. So my eyes went back to my grandfather in the window. His face was now become black as Scipio's, and he wore a red turban and a striped cotton gown that was too large for him. And he was sewing. This was monstrous! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... almost like brutes, and scarcely knowing, and assuredly never caring about the existence of God; some of them are even counted cannibals. The Gipsies of this country are altogether different; for monstrous crimes are ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... on the left side his well-handled spear Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote, And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone, Deep in; and deeply smitten, and to death, The heavy horror with his hanging shafts, Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips Foamed out the latest ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... all giddy. With an effort he oriented himself so that the cat's vision became his, and he watched in distaste as the chickens scurried, scrawny wings lifted and beaks achirp, this way and that to escape the monstrous cat. ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... to one, of whose great efficacy we have frequent instances in sacred history: I mean, the just judgment of God against an offending people." The state of public morals, Fielding considers, to have drawn down upon society this signal visitation of Providence. "Indeed, such monstrous impieties and iniquities have I both seen and heard of, within these last three years, during my sojourning in what is called the world, particularly the last winter, while I tarried in the great city, that, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... delight, I beheld from my window—I may say, indeed, from my bed—the stupendous vision. The beams of the rising sun shed over it a variety of tints; a cloud of spray was ascending from the crescent; and as I viewed it from above, it appeared like the steam rising from the boiler of some monstrous engine.... ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... scene on the lake had been exciting, it became not less so on shore, when all the negroes, male and female, crowding together, began to scale, strip, and salt the fish. Each of them had an account to give of some grand fishery, where a monstrous fish, a mile in length, had been taken by some fortunate "Sambo" of the South. The girls gaped with terror and astonishment, the men winking and trying to look grave, while spinning these yarns, which certainly beat all the wonders ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... was the Satyr, strangely unreal for all that he cast a shadow and tossed the dust with his hoofs. After him from the brake came a monstrous lout, a thing of horse and rhinoceros, chewing a straw as it came; then appeared the Swine-woman and two Wolf-women; then the Fox-bear witch, with her red eyes in her peaked red face, and then others,—all hurrying eagerly. As they came forward ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... granite jewel which is as light as a bit of lace, covered with towers, with slender belfries to which spiral staircases ascend, and which raise their strange heads that bristle with chimeras, with devils, with fantastic animals, with monstrous flowers, and which are joined together by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... brain, was the dank and noisome jungle. It actually stank with evil, and it was always twilight. Rarely did a shaft of sunlight penetrate its matted roof a hundred feet overhead. And beneath that roof was an aerial ooze of vegetation, a monstrous, parasitic dripping of decadent life- forms that rooted in death and lived on death. And through all this he drifted, ever pursued by the flitting shadows of the anthropophagi, themselves ghosts of evil that dared not face him in battle but that knew that, soon ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... little later in the Morning of Time—later by perhaps some two or three hundred thousand years. Monstrous mammals now held sway over the fresh, green round of the young earth, so exuberant in her youthful vigor that she could not refrain from flooding the Poles themselves with a tropical luxuriance of flower and tree. The supremacy of the Giant Reptiles ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hardly conceivable that Christian nations should go to war to-day for the settlement of points of doctrine. Three hundred years ago the whole church thought that necessary; to-day a very large part of the church would think it horrible and monstrous. It is not very long ago that the church believed in the settlement by force of disputes between individuals. The wager of battle was supposed to be a proper and Christian way of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person. To ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... no sorer misfortune in all human destiny, than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becometh false and distorted and monstrous. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... much sense in that," admitted the scientist, "until you stop to think that paleontologists adopted the word 'thunder' as meaning something large and monstrous, as thunder is the loudest ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... balanced are even the very mightiest of these monarchs of the woods in all their proportions and circumstances there never is anything overgrown or monstrous-looking about them. On coming in sight of them for the first time, you are likely to say, "Oh, see what beautiful, noble-looking trees are towering there among the firs and pines!"—their grandeur being in the mean time in great part invisible, but to the living eye it will be manifested sooner ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... many things in creation besides that which is, humanly speaking, beautiful; and that everything which is in nature is—or has the right to be—in art. It includes in its picture of life the ugly, the misshapen, the monstrous. Hence results a new type, the grotesque, and a new literary form, romantic comedy. He proceeds to illustrate this thesis with his usual wealth of imaginative detail and pictorial language. The Middle Ages, more than any other period, are rich in instances of that intimate blending ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and accounts kings and emperors to be mere catchpolls and constables, bound to execute with implicit faith all the commands of insolent ecclesiastics. Bellarmin was made a cardinal for his efforts and devotion to the papal cause, and maintaining this monstrous paradox,—that if the pope forbid the exercise of virtue, and command that of vice, the Roman church, under pain of a sin, was obliged to abandon virtue for vice, if it would not ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... withered tree stood apart, an outcast from its fellows. The thought struck me as I went up to it, and tapped the decayed trunk with my fingers: "You and I, my friend—we have seen our past, and are out of the pale now." With this I sat down on one of the huge roots, that coiled like monstrous serpents at my feet, and leaning my head against the tree prepared to ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... silent battle of wills raged. Upon one side was a horrible and gigantic brain, of undreamed of power; upon the other side a strong man, fighting for all that life holds dear, wielding against that monstrous and frightful brain a weapon wrought of high-tension electricity, applied with all the skill that earthly ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... brilliant and the shapes startling, some almost to grotesqueness, though even such added to the charm and romance of the landscape as the giant cacti render weirdly beautiful the waste spots of the sad Mohave. And over all the sun shone huge and round and red, a monster sun above a monstrous world, its light dispersed by the humid air of Caspak—the warm, moist air which lies sluggish upon the breast of this great mother ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... complaint, she gathered herself for her spring. A week, and then another, she stood breathless and following with eyes astrain the figure of her ally, little Belgium, gallant and heroic, which had moved out upon the world arena, the first to offer battle to the armour-weighted, monstrous war lord of Europe, on his way to sate his soul long thirsty for blood—men's if he could, women's and little children's by preference, being less costly. And as she stood and strained her eyes across the ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... repaired on board, taking Ben with him. As they pulled up the harbour in a shore boat towards the frigate, which lay lashed alongside a hulk, Ben was astonished at the number of ships he saw, and the vast size of many of them. It seemed to him as if the wind could never affect such monstrous constructions, even to move them along through the water; and as to the sea tossing them about as it did the boats to which he was accustomed, that seemed impossible. Several of them carried a hundred huge iron guns, and others even a larger number. He saw many ...
— Ben Hadden - or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It • W.H.G. Kingston
... the same time I have no fear of its ever becoming law. But it may be useful, for its monstrous and unprincipled provisions will teach the Imperial Government the folly of permitting a Colonial Legislature to tamper with those great and holy principles of the Constitution, on the preservation of which the prosperity and happiness of the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... behind these twinkling masses I knew were all things tragic, comic—people laughing, fighting, hating, scheming, dreaming, loving, living. I thought of that row of cabins de luxe that I had seen on the Christmas boat. Here was the same thing magnified, a monstrous caravansary with but one question over its doors: ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... forced in the morning to rise and dress myself in the dark, because they would not suffer my kinsman's servant to disturb me at the hour I had desired to be called. I was now resolved to break through all measures to get away, and after sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, neats'-tongues, venison-pasty, and stale beer, took leave of the family; but the gentleman would needs see me part of my way, and carry me a short cut through his own grounds, which he told me would save ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... all his days, but now he turned instinctively to a human being. His hand was wet and cold. It grasped Philip's with feeble, despairing energy. The old man was fighting with the fear of death. And Philip thought that all must go through that. Oh, how monstrous it was, and they could believe in a God that allowed his creatures to suffer such a cruel torture! He had never cared for his uncle, and for two years he had longed every day for his death; but now he could not overcome the compassion that filled his heart. What a price ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... third brother, who was called the Chevalier de Savoie, died in consequence of a fall from his horse. The Prince Eugene was a younger brother: he had two sisters, who were equally ugly; one of them is dead, and the other is still living (1717) in a convent in Savoy. The elder was of a monstrous shape, but a mere dwarf. She led a very irregular life. She afterwards ran away with a rogue, the Abbe de la Bourlie, whom she obliged to marry her at Geneva; they used to beat each ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... were peculiar to their order, and which gave them, with the Spaniards, the name of orejones.29 This ornament was so massy in the ears of the sovereign, that the cartilage was distended by it nearly to the shoulder, producing what seemed a monstrous deformity in the eyes of the Europeans, though, under the magical influence of fashion, it was regarded as ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... I do that my own personal decease is not more certain than that our religion will subdue the world, I own that it is with a somewhat saddened heart that I pass my thoughts around the globe, and consider how distant is yet that triumph. There are the realms on which the crescent beams, the monstrous many-headed gods of India, the Chinaman's heathenism, the African's devil-rites. These are, to a large extent, principalities and powers of darkness with which our religion has never been brought into collision, save at trivial and far separated points, and in these cases the attack ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... know that, but I am without reason afraid of them. I think of the demons as being like monstrous bats. But that is a silly use ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... said the king, "are monstrous to the contemplation of youth only. You are learning your lesson early; I have studied mine for many years, and with a bitterness of soul which in some measure prepared me for the completion. My kingdom has passed from me at the moment you have lost your ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... distance, that we might not encumber each other's motions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They were about twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their helmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in the middle position, and the middle giant approached me. My eyes were busy with his armour, and I was not a moment in settling my mode of attack. I saw that his body-armour was somewhat clumsily made, and that the overlappings ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... it. Everything is anti-human. How extraordinary, strange, and incomprehensible are the creatures captured out of the depths of the sea! The distorted fishes; the ghastly cuttles; the hideous eel-like shapes; the crawling shell-encrusted things; the centipede-like beings; monstrous forms, to see which gives a shock to the brain. They shock the mind because they exhibit an absence of design. There is ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... a crab which lives on the cocoa-nuts; it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows to a monstrous size: it is closely allied or identical with the Birgos latro. The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with others weaker and much narrower. It would at first be thought quite impossible for a crab ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... case against the prisoner looked extremely black. That monstrous figure of Owen Saxham, based upon an ingenious hypothesis of guilt, and plastered over with a marvellous mixture of truths and falsities, facts and conjectures, grew uglier ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... enough for naughty girls, and long enough for two letters, faith. Congreve and Delaval have at last prevailed on Sir Godfrey Kneller to entreat me to let him draw my picture for nothing; but I know not yet when I shall sit.(26)—It is such monstrous rainy weather, that there is no doing with it. Secretary St. John sent to me this morning, that my dining with him to-day was put off till to-morrow; so I peaceably sat with my neighbour Ford, dined with him, and came home at six, and am now in bed as usual; and now it is time ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... "'Tis monstrous!" exclaimed Hart, bitterly, as he realized the travesty. "You cannot act and never could. I was a fool to ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... pistol from his belt, he sprang to the brass gun, held the pan of his pistol over the touch-hole and fired. The shot was succeeded by the hiss of the cannon's priming, then the blaze and the crashing thunder of the monstrous gun burst upon the savages with such deafening roar that it seemed as if their very ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... of aristocracy by no means resembles those kinds which preceded it. It will be observed at once, that as it applies exclusively to manufactures and to some manufacturing callings, it is a monstrous exception in the general aspect of society. The small aristocratic societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of our age, contain, like the great aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very opulent, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... 'Monstrous, though! monstrous!' pursued the butcher. 'The boys of this town be gettin' past all control. Proper young limbs, I call some ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... he must see Miss Farwell again. She must listen to his explanation and apology. She must somehow understand. For apart from his interest in the young woman herself, there was that purpose of the minister to win her to the church. It was a monstrous thought that he himself should be the means of strengthening her feeling against the cause to which he had given his life. So he had gone to Judge Strong's home early that evening determined to see her. But at the gate, when he saw Dr. Harry turning in as if to stop, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright |
