"Appall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by death. This great moral retribution was to be displayed to us—but how? Lady Macbeth is not a woman to start at shadows; she mocks at air-drawn daggers; she sees no imagined spectres rise from the tomb to appall or accuse her.[115] The towering bravery of her mind disdains the visionary terrors which haunt her weaker husband. We know, or rather we feel, that she who could give a voice to the most direful intent, and call on the spirits that wait on mortal thoughts to "unsex her," ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... sometimes one may get by gazing long into the starry zenith. From many points of view McKinley looks its giant size. As the climber ascends the basal ridges there are places where its height and bulk appall. ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... his mind, some one clutches his arm, and, turning, he beholds the little professor. There is a wild look in Philander's eyes, and his teeth rattle like castanets. Really the situation is terrible enough to appall ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... hand I led Your troops to conquest? fought I merchant-like, Or barter'd I for victory, when death Strode o'er the reeking streets with giant stride, And shook his ebon plumes, and sternly smil'd Amid the bloody banquet? when appall'd The hireling sons of England spread the sail Of safety, fought I like a merchant then? ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... son; For Wolfe, whose breast bright Honor did inspire With patriot ardor and heroic fire; For Wolfe, who headed that intrepid band, Who, greatly daring, forced Cape Breton's strand. For Wolfe, who following still where glory call'd, No dangers daunted, no distress appall'd; Whose eager zeal disasters could not check, Intent to strike the blow which gained Quebec. For Wolfe, who, like the gallant Theban, dy'd In th' arms of ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... monotony of candor appall us?" urged Palmerston. "Isn't it possible that our deceptions are all the ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... of a country of more than thirty million people, all supposed to be devotees of commerce, industry, and agriculture, "worshipers of money," entered with unparalleled eagerness upon a war which was soon to surprise and even appall the world. What industry lost in the North by secession of the South was regained in the manufacture or preparation of military supplies for soldiers who fought the South; and in the Confederacy men who knew little of industry and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... bleeding and near to fall, I turn and set my back against the wall, And look thee in the face, triumphant Death. I call for aid, and no one answereth; I am alone with thee, who conquerest all; Yet me thy threatening form doth not appall, For thou art but a phantom and a wraith; Wounded and weak, sword broken at the hilt, With armor shattered, and without a shield, I stand unmoved; do with me what thou wilt; I can resist no more, but will not yield. This is no tournament where cowards ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... the Rogues in Town). With saucy boldness will presume To pass th' impenetrable gloom, And lift the Curtain which we see Is drawn betwixt the World and Thee; Of nought but endless Torments speak, To frighten and appall the weak; Dwell on the horrid Theme with glee, And fain themselves wou'd Hangmen be; With so much Dread their Hearers fill, That they have neither Pow'r, nor Will, Tho' Heav'n's the Prize, to move a Hand, But shuddering and ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... "invisible spirit of wine" as a "devil" in the unsophisticated days of old, when wine was wine, and not a hell-broth concocted of poisonous drugs, what unspeakable fiends must lurk in the grimy bottles whose contents, analyzed and explained, would appall some, at least, of the stolid and ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... deep, Far as the farthest prairies sweep, Where mountain wastes the sense appall Where burns the radiant Western Fall, One duty lies on old and young— With filial piety to guard, As on its greenest native sward, The ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... the comfort of it's light, Glimmer the dim-lit Alps, dilated, round, And one sole light shifts in the vale profound; While, opposite, the waning moon hangs still, And red, above her melancholy hill. 220 By the deep quiet gloom appall'd, she sighs, Stoops her sick head, and shuts her weary eyes. —Breaking th' ascending roar of desert floods, And insect buzz, that stuns the sultry woods, She hears, upon the mountain forest's brow, 225 The death-dog, howling loud and long, below; On viewless fingers counts the valley-clock, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... Men shiver when thou 'rt named: Nature appall'd, Shakes off her wonted firmness. 836 ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... attacked them as they were struggling through deeply irrigated ground, poured volleys of missiles of all kinds upon them, and wounded many before they could get across to solid ground, where they could bring the guns into play. But even these, and the discharges of musketry did not appall the natives, who pressed forward with such fury that, after the engagement had lasted an hour, the position of the Spaniards became perilous ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... she said; "the thought of death does not appall me; and those who mourn for me will find consolation in the hope ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... and the dews later on, the fields and slopes of the hills would not be clothed in the verdant green which all true lovers of nature so much admire. Instead we might have a bleak barrenness, a dissolution which would appall——" ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... enough, and sufficiently prison-like to appall any one who might be thus suddenly thrust in there. Lady Dudleigh sank into a chair exhausted, and the woman began to make ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... are sad, your cheer appall'd: Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence? Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand: A holy maid hither with me I bring, Which by a vision sent to her from heaven Ordained is to raise this tedious ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... confirmed her fears, seemed for a moment to appall the girl; but she repressed her feelings, and answered ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... confiding nature? It may be because we had been children together, and that familiarity was unfavorable to the growth of love in one of my poetic nature. I must look up. The cloud crowned cliff did not appall my high-reaching eye. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... suffereth no sleepe; Say that raging love doth appall the weake stomacke, Say that lamenting love marreth ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... and of restricted mental horizon does not think in terms of masses of mankind. Masses vaguely appall him. They exist in the big cities on which he turned his back in his unaudacious youth. His contacts are with individuals. His democracy consists in smiling upon the village painter and calling him "Harry," in always nodding to the village cobbler and calling him "Bill," in stopping ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... Edwin: he had taken Edwin's watch, chain, and scarf-pin; he believed that he had left him, drugged, in quicklime, in a locked vault. Consequently the reappearance of Edwin, quite well, in the vault where Jasper had buried him, would be a very new idea to Jasper; would "confound and appall him." Jasper would have emotions, at that spectacle, and so would the reader! It is not every day, even in our age of sixpenny novels, that a murderer is compelled to visit, alone, at night, the vault which holds his victim's "cold remains," ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd, While life a pleasure can afford, Oh! hear a wretch's prayer! No more I shrink appall'd, afraid; I court, I beg thy friendly aid, To close this scene of care! When shall my soul, in silent peace, Resign life's joyless day; My weary heart its throbbings cease, Cold mould'ring in the clay? No fear more, no tear more, To stain my lifeless face; Enclasped, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... gnashing teeth In the dismantled rooms. Like armored knight The granite Castle fights with all its might, Resisting through the winter. All in vain, The heaven's bluster, January's rain, And those dread elemental powers we call The Infinite—the whirlwinds that appall— Thunder and waterspouts; and winds that shake As 'twere a tree its ripened fruit to take. The winds grow wearied, warring with the tower, The noisy North is out of breath, nor power Has any blast old Corbus to defeat, It still has strength their onslaughts worst to meet. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... is thy grace, O bibliomania! How good and sweet it is that no distance, no environment, no poverty, no distress can appall or stay thee. Like that grim spectre we call death, thou knockest impartially at the palace portal and at the cottage door. And it seemeth thy especial delight to bring unto the lonely in desert places the ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... rising through the darken'd air, Appall'd, we saw a hideous phantom glare; High and enormous o'er the flood he tower'd, And 'thwart our way with sullen aspect lower'd: An earthy paleness o'er his cheeks was spread, Erect uprose his hairs of wither'd red; Writhing ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake God's own speed in the one way of love; I abstain for love's sake. —What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth 265 appall? In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? Here, the creature surpass the Creator—the end what Began? Would I fain in my impotent ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... "Something must be burning," exclaimed she. In an instant the cry of fire was heard. All started up and rushed to the door; and there, indeed, they were witnesses of a sight which might well appall. The whole upper part of the house was in flames. Instantly the cause flashed upon them. The house had been struck and set on fire by lightning. "My father! O, my father!" shrieked Amelia, and fell fainting to the floor. Quick as the word ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... difficult situation in the face one can see frequently in daily life. Great difficulties seem to appall some people. They hate so much to believe a disaster possible, they fear so much to let themselves or others realize that a danger is impending, they are so afraid that other people will think them ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... audience is infinitely more important than you, the truth is more important than both of you, because it is eternal. If your mind falters in its leadership the sword will drop from your hands. Your assumption of being able to instruct or lead or inspire a multitude or even a small group of people may appall you as being colossal impudence—as indeed it may be; but having once essayed to speak, be courageous. BE courageous—it lies within you to be what you will. MAKE yourself be calm ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... open. The stillness of the place was positively unnatural; it seemed inconceivable that all about us was the discordant activity of the commercial East End. Indeed, this eerie silence was becoming oppressive; it began positively to appall me. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... or appall'd, To persons of a certain turn so proper, The money came when call'd, In silver, gold, and copper, Presents from "Friends to blacks," or foes to whites, "Trifles," and "offerings," and "widows' mites," Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions, With other gifts And charitable ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... I'm not counting furrows now. I'm getting ready to appall you by my ignorance." He spoke with a determined, reckless gaiety that lent a peculiar ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... good-humor of the Southwestern pioneer, to whom cyclones, famine, drought, floods, pestilence, and savages were things to be accepted, and whom disaster, if it did not stimulate, certainly did not appall. He received the insults, complaints, and criticisms of hurried and hungry passengers, the comments and threats of the Stage Company as he had submitted to the aggressions of a stupid, unjust, but overruling Nature—with unshaken ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... palm his ample forehead bound, And o'er his shoulder, mantling to his knee, Flow'd the transparent robe, around his waist Collected with a radiant zone of gold Aethereal: there in mystic signs engraved, I read his office high and sacred name, Genius of human kind! Appall'd I gazed The godlike presence; for athwart his brow Displeasure, temper'd with a mild concern, Look'd down reluctant on me, and his words 240 Like distant thunders ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... the inspiration of Apollo, spoke the Sibyl. When she had ceased, AEneas answered that no prospect of further trials could appall him, for he was prepared to endure the worst that could befall. But he now entreated, since it was said that the entrance to the shades was near, that the Sibyl should conduct him into those dark regions, in order that he might obtain an interview with the spectre of his father. It was Anchises' ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... no doubt the bravest cowers, When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appall. How odd a single hobgoblin's nonentity Should cause more fear than ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... mild and fragile and exquisite when he married her. He had crept back to bed, shamefacedly. He could hear the couple in the bedroom of the flat just across the little court grumbling and then laughing a little, grudgingly, and yet with appreciation. That bedroom, too, had still the power to appall him. Its nearness, its forced intimacy, were daily shocks to him whose most immediate neighbour, back on the farm, had been a quarter of a mile away. The sound of a shoe dropped on the hardwood floor, the rush of water in the bathroom, the ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... H. Hedge, "and war becomes impossible."[8] "The tremendous extent and pertinacity of the habit of human slaughter in battle," wrote Dr. William R. Alger, "its shocking criminality, and its incredible foolishness, when regarded from an advanced religious position, are three facts calculated to appall every thoughtful man and startle him into amazement." "It is vain," he said, "to undertake to impart a competent conception of the crimes and miseries belonging to war. Their appalling character and magnitude stun the ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... in the softer snow or cut their steps in the icy surfaces; of open crevasses, crossed by the ladder, or the more dangerous ones, masked by snow, over which they trod cautiously, tied together by the rope. But there was nothing to appall the experienced mountaineer with firm foot and a steady head, until they reached a height where the summit of the Jungfrau detached itself in apparently inaccessible isolation from all beneath or around it. To all but the guides their farther advance seemed blocked ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... wisdom, moderation, and power of command, while they have endeared him to the heart of the nation, add to the deep sense of the national calamity in the loss of a Chief Magistrate whom death itself could not appall in the consciousness of "having always ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson |
