"Alarming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brigade of coolies begin to complain of sickness, which sounds alarming, not only to themselves, but to us, for none others are now procurable. This results from their making too free with unripe apricots, and drinking too many gallons of cold water on the road; also, however, from the fact of my having doctored the first patient who had presented himself, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... succession of blinks. The land below was cooling off—perhaps he had passed the worst of the journey. But in that passing how much had he and the flitter become contaminated? Ali had devised a method of protection for the empty suit the Medic would wear—had that held? There were an alarming number of dark ifs in ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... road. If it had not been for the clouds, and the intervals when the shadows had overtaken the sun, the walk would have been a hot one; but Penelope did not notice that, her mind was absorbed by other things, for suddenly it seemed to her that it was rather an alarming thing to be going alone to face a strange, and very particular, lady, and she felt a great shyness coming over her. She tried to forget it by racing the cloud, as it chased the sunshine, and the sunshine as it overtook the cloud, and so, at ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... recommend masturbation, but from time to time tacitly to permit it. To do in these cases what it is well to do in certain others, namely, to describe the bad effects of masturbation, may give rise to grave conditions of depression, and even to suicide. Certainly, in such cases, we must carefully avoid alarming the patients too seriously about the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... hour arrived when the doctor should have paid his visit, and no doctor came. I presumed that the sirocco detained him also; but as the state of Jadin appeared to me alarming, I resolved to go and rouse my Esculapius, and bring him, willing or unwilling, to the hotel. I took ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... alarming disease afflicting a numerous class. Put the thing by, and tackle it again in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... till one is accustomed to it, is very alarming, is the noise which the balloon makes when it is struck by successive gales of wind. When the wind has passed, the balloon, which has been pressed into a concave form by the wind, suddenly resumes its globular form with a loud noise heard at a great distance. The silk of the balloon would ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... going to send a cablegram. Barrow early gave up the idea of trying to convince Tracy that he hadn't any father, because this had such a bad effect on the patient, and worked up his temper to such an alarming degree. He had tried, as an experiment, letting Tracy think he had a father; the result was so good that he went further, with proper caution, and tried letting him think his father was an earl; this wrought so well, that he grew bold, and tried letting him think he had two fathers, if he wanted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... contingencies failed to expand itself to all its alarming proportions, and unite with its fellows to form a dreadful vista, like the valleys filled with demons and genii, dragons and malign enchantments, which confront the heros of the "Arabian Nights," when they set ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... That will show if all carry certificates. But I don't want to do that yet. Before alarming them I want to examine the contents of a few of the lorries. I think we might do ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... the Middle Age the allegorical personage named "Danger" plays a considerable part, and it is to be feared that Danger too often signified a husband. In Wimpole Street that alarming personage always meant a father. Edward Moulton Barrett was a man of integrity in business, of fortitude in adversity, of a certain stern piety, and from the superior position of a domestic autocrat he could even indulge himself ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Pharnaces. So Bassus at first remained quiet, satisfied to be allowed to live: when, however, some similar persons had associated themselves with him and he had attracted to his enterprise various soldiers of Sextus who at various times came there to garrison the city, and likewise many alarming reports kept coming in from Africa about Caesar, he was no longer pleased with existing circumstances but raised a rebellion, his aim being either to help the followers of Scipio and Cato and the Pompeians ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... a horse recovers from his astonishment at being brought to his knees, he begins to resist; that is, he rears up on his hind-legs, and springs about in a manner that is truly alarming for the spectators to behold, and which in the case of a well-bred horse in good condition requires a certain degree of activity in the Trainer. (See ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... world into which he had been dragged, noisy, perplexing, interested apparently in the most vague trifles. That they should lay out his future for warfare and for hate, without any regard for his own wishes, was a little alarming. Soldiering—with the man before him in the picture, sitting propped up on his arms, frantic lest the horses should trample on him—seemed the last trade on earth; as for hate, that might be easier and due to his benefactor, but it would depend ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... board of her, I fear, that did not pant to be on shore. It seemed as if this little island had risen out of the sea for the sole purpose of affording us the rest and peace our shattered condition and worn-out frames demanded. And yet it was curious and half alarming to see this little spot of earth rising so lonely and yet so beautiful in the middle of the sea: like an emerald gem on the vast extent of water it lay calm and alone, no other land in sight, no other ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... filled solid with conger-eels in a few years. Sometimes a single tapeworm, parasitic in the human body, will produce three hundred million embryos; the fact that this animal is relatively rare diverts our attention from the alarming fertility of the species and the excessive rate of its natural increase. Perhaps the most amazing figures are those established by the students of bacteria and other micro-organisms. Many kinds of these primitive creatures are known where the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... a loose, airy coat, shaking hands with Sir Rufus, shaking hands with anybody who would shake hands with him. Sibylla looked daggers at Jan, and Lionel cross. Not from the same cause. Sibylla's displeasure was directed to Jan's style of evening costume; Lionel felt vexed with him for alarming Lucy. But Lionel never very long retained displeasure, and his sweet smile stole over his ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... she knew that it was in her, to hate Gerda with a cold and deadly anger, the sportsman in her gave its tribute. For what was nothing and a matter of ordinary routine to her, might be, she suspected, rather alarming to ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... and the sickness increased with alarming rapidity. The building of quarters was given up or postponed, and the houses, more or less finished, occupied as well as they could be. Company E managed to complete—walls and roof—one of the four prescribed barracks, but, being ...
— History of Company E of the Sixth Minnesota Regiment of Volunteer Infantry • Alfred J. Hill
... each other with alarming significance. Nothing was too wild for the Puritans to invent or to believe, and it had been found impossible to uphold Conn in the position of papal envoy to the Queen. After nearly three years' service, he had consequently been withdrawn, and in August 1639, Count Carlo Rosetti was sent ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... Illinois, Democratic whip in the Senate, heard alarming reports of two of his constituents, Miss Lucy Ewing, daughter of Judge Ewing, niece of Adlai Stevenson, Vice-President in Cleveland's Administration, niece of James Ewing, minister to Belgium in the same Administration, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... collectively involving a long space, separately as involving a very brief one. If the eye is applied to each conquest itself, nothing can exhibit less of a slow or gradual expansion than the Roman system of conquest. It was a shadow which moved so rapidly on the dial as to be visible and alarming. Had newspapers existed in those days, or had such a sympathy bound nations together[15] as could have supported newspapers, a vast league would have been roused by the advance of Rome. Such a league was formed where something of this sympathy existed. The kingdoms formed out of the inheritance ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... and discontent at seeing their bread given to enemies who had been withdrawn from their vengeance, inasmuch as a decree of death; in conformity with the laws of war, had been passed on Jaffa. All these reports were alarming, and especially that of General Bon, in which no reserve was made. He spoke of nothing less than the fear of a revolt, which would be justified by the serious nature ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the idea that I too had something to do. Certainly I had. One always has. Somehow I could not remember. It was intolerable, and even alarming, this blank, this emptiness of the many hours before night came again, till suddenly, it dawned upon me I had to make some extracts in the British Museum for our "Cromwell." Our Cromwell. There was no Cromwell; he had lived, had worked for the future—and now he had ceased ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... starboard quarter, and effectually-scared the others. It was just as well that Enva, who heartily hated the bitter cold, was snugly ensconced in the warm cushions of the cabin, and had not, therefore, the opportunity of giving to Eveena, on our return, her version of an adventure whose alarming aspect would have impressed them both more than its ludicrous side, For half a minute I thought that I had, in sheer folly, exposed half a dozen lives to a peril none the less real and none the more satisfactory that, if five had been killed, the survivor ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... more serious dangers of repression and of its relation to various forms of insanity, this is hardly the place to speak.[11] It ought not to be necessary to appeal to alarming instances in order to make us attend to a ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... Instead of devoting yourself to friendships which are somewhat unstable, instead of alarming us by your retirement, remain always in our society, do not leave us, let us live as a united family. M. de Guiche is certainly very amiable; but if, at least, we do not possess ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... essentially—almost the first she had ever met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always supposed; and hitherto, whenever the girl had heard people described as eccentric, she had thought of them as offensive or alarming. The term had always suggested to her something grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a matter of high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... years the new religious movement continued to spread with alarming rapidity. Nation after nation either fell away from the centre of unity or wavered as to the attitude that should be adopted towards the conflicting claims of Rome, Wittenberg, and Geneva, till at last it seemed not unlikely that Catholicism was to be confined within the territorial boundaries ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... dead hour of night, such a summons would have seemed strange in any season: it was now almost alarming. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the echoes of long continued cheering had subsided the bitterness of faction flashed out with increased intensity. To the Radicals, Raymond's suggestion of Edwin D. Morgan for permanent chairman was as gall and wormwood, and his talk of an entire new ticket most alarming. However, George Opdyke and Horace Greeley, the Radical leaders, chastened by the defeat of Wadsworth and the election of Morgan to the Senate, did not now forget the value of discretion. Hunt's ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and zigzag roads, at every alarming angle of declivity, intercept the labyrinth of houses, which stand on each other's heads, or peep over each other's shoulders, and settle down on the ...
— The Cornish Riviera • Sidney Heath
... assured by both the ladies that nothing alarming was the matter, when they arrived at their lodgings he descended from the driver's seat to assist them in alighting. Mrs. Delano, with polite regrets at having thus disturbed his pleasure, thanked him, ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... was made in a blizzard. They were clearing the snow before us all the way from New Jersey, and we took forty-two hours to reach Baltimore! The bells of trains before us and behind us sounded very alarming. We opened in Baltimore on Christmas day. The audience was wretchedly small, but the poor things who were there had left their warm firesides to drive or tramp through the slush of melting snow, and each one who managed to reach the theater was ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... a Peruvian, and the boy engineer was not long in learning that he was willing to work for twelve pistoles a month. Though smarting under this unfair treatment, Jack offered no objections as he stepped aside. The war with Chili was assuming more alarming proportions, and he foresaw that troublesome times were near ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... her, in a way as little alarming as I could devise, the purport of what passed betwixt this Laird of the Lakes and her brother, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... which of the young bloods is the local Beau Brummel. The audience—so to speak—sit on, chairs backed against the walls of the hotels and stores, while many prefer the street itself, and with feet on curb or other coign of vantage, tilt their chairs at most alarming angles. A sort of animated lovers' lane is thus formed, through which the promenaders have to run the gauntlet, and are subjected to a certain amount of criticism. Everyone knows everyone. Good natured badinage plays like wild-fire, up and down and across the street. Later on, the tinkle of mandolin ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... a dressing-sack or a cul-de-sac may bring you up short. You meet alarming tragedians stalking in bath-robes in search of rumored bathrooms. From hundreds of rooms come the buzz of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the ready laughter of the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... France. The creation of a diocese came in due time; the need of an ecclesiastical superior, of a character capable of imposing his authority made itself felt more and more. Disorders of all kinds crept into the colony, and our fathers felt the necessity of a firm and vigorous arm to remedy this alarming state of affairs. The love of lucre, of gain easily acquired by the sale of spirituous liquors to the savages, brought with it evils against which ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... the house. He had eaten nothing since early morning, and was beginning to be hungry. He saw there were no lights in the rear of the house, and thought if he could enter the kitchen he might get a loaf of bread without alarming the household. He tried the back door and found it fastened. But knowing the ways of the house, he raised the cellar door, went down the steps, shut the door down upon himself, groped his way to the inner stairs, and so gained the kitchen. He ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... its freight of fifteen lives out of sight, in some point of time when our eyes were for an instant averted. But the water was perfectly quiet, and the whole place, both on water and on land, silent, sunny, and not in the least uncanny or alarming. We dropped our oars and gazed ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... girl stirred in her seat, and her mother leaned forward and shook her, with alarming energy. "I never was so hard with Mary L. afore," she explained the next day, "but I was as nervous as a witch. I thought, if I heard a pin drop, I ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... the surroundings, and the utter mystery of the whole affair combined to make the sudden appearance and vanishment of the great shadowy shapes the more inexplicable, not to say alarming. Small wonder was it that the inquiring faces that turned toward each other were ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... she had mounted her horse to take her usual exercise with her keepers, that this alarming message was delivered to her; and for obvious reasons she was compelled to proceed on her excursion, instead of returning, as she desired, to her chamber. Meantime all her papers were seized, sealed ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... and, about the tenth of August following, two boys were taken from Major Hoy's station. This party was pursued by Capt. Holder and seventeen men, who were also defeated, with the loss of four men killed, and one wounded. Our affairs became more and more alarming. Several stations which had lately been erected in the country were continually infested with savages, stealing their horses and killing the men at every opportunity. In a field, near Lexington, an Indian shot a man, and running to scalp him, was himself shot from the fort, and ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... that in such cases it was neither safe nor expedient to drive him to extremity. "What I have to say," continued he, "must so soon be public news, that it little matters who hears it; and yet the West, so full of strange changes, never sent to the Eastern half of the globe tidings so alarming as those I now come to tell your Imperial Highness. Europe, to borrow an expression from this lady, who honours me by calling me husband, seems loosened from its foundations and about to precipitate itself ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... coach in the yard of the Swan with Two Necks, in a lane now swallowed up by Gresham Street. He proceeded to the lodgings of his friend Roger Kerrison, at 16, Millman Street, Bedford Row; but in May he had developed such alarming, even suicidal, symptoms that Kerrison, fearing he might be involved in a tragedy, hastily moved off to Soho. Borrow was now to begin the real battle of life, and he had to put in practice, as best he might, his motto, "Fear God, and take your own part." He had left behind in Norwich the mother ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... indicated by a peculiar shining—the rest remained dull, until their turn came. In addition to the upper eyes he had the two lower ones, but they were vacant and lifeless. This extraordinary battery of eyes, alternatively alive and dead, gave the young man an appearance of almost alarming mental activity. He was wearing nothing but a sort of skin kilt. Maskull seemed somehow to recognise the face, though he had certainly never ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... a condition of the national temper, of which too little notice has been taken by literary historians. The attacks on the stage for its indecency and blasphemy had been flippantly met by the theatrical agents, but they had sunk deeply into the conscience of the people. There followed with alarming abruptness a general public repulsion against the playhouses, and to this, early in 1699, a roughly worded Royal Proclamation gave voice. During the whole of that year the stage was almost in abeyance, and even Congreve, with The ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... of that county, and such I have reason to believe it to be at this moment. But whilst these outrages must be admitted to exist to an alarming extent, it cannot be denied that they have arisen from circumstances of the most unparalleled distress: the perseverance of these miserable men in their proceedings, tends to prove that nothing but absolute ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... knocking the nest down will not drive it away, until the stupid process has been repeated several years. The robin must be coaxed; the sparrow is suspicious, and though easy to tame, quick to notice the least alarming movement. The swallow will not be driven away. He has not the slightest fear of man; he flies to his nest close to the window, under the low eave, or on the beams in the out-houses, no matter if you are looking on or not. Bold as the starlings are, they will seldom do this. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... and rubbed them together, said, "Na fear, me leddie; a barrowfu' o' sand noo an' then wul keep it fra' gangin' any further." So I went back reassured. But as night came on, the blaze increased so much that it became alarming. Mr. C—— and the men were away at Kuwatin, some fifteen miles from us, and could not be back before daylight. A kindly old Irishman, Michael Cahill, who for a drink of butter-milk came in the evenings to work in the garden, offered his services ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... tank, or off into the sea at our bow or stern; whether the dynamometer shows its tension to be great or small; whether we are grappling for it, or underrunning it; whether it is a shore end to be landed, or a deep-sea splice to be made, the cable is sure to develop most alarming symptoms, and some learned doctor must constantly sit in the testing-room, his finger on the cable's pulse, taking its temperature from time to time as if it were a fractious child with a bad attack of measles, the eruption in ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... tall form of the stranger in an attitude of painful hesitation. Each time she had seen him, apparently desirous of doing something definite, hesitation had overtaken him. In his indecision there was something horrible to her, something alarming. ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... spent in drink by the 'aristocracy', the clergy and the middle classes were deducted from the 'Nation's Drink Bill', it would be seen that the amount spent per head by the working classes is not so alarming after all; and would probably not be much larger than the amount spent on drink by those who consume tea and coffee and all the other unwholesome and unnecessary ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... fog, among these floating rocks, as our commander properly called them; this is preferable to the being entangled with immense fields of ice under the same circumstances. In this latter case the great danger to be apprehended, is the getting fast in the ice; a situation which would be alarming in the highest degree. ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... a kind of colonial dependence on the parsonage at Camenz, the bonds gradually slackening, sometimes shaken a little rudely, and always giving alarming hints of approaching and inevitable autonomy. From the few home letters of Lessing which remain, (covering the period before 1753, there are only eight in all,) we are able to surmise that a pretty constant maternal cluck and shrill paternal warning were kept up from the home coop. We ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... the toast of Music was responded to in this room, it was remarked that popularity was not without its drawbacks. I fear, sir, there are not many of us who are actually groaning under the oppressive weight of over-popularity—at least not to any very alarming extent. [Cheers.] But I may permit myself to say that while the popularity of music itself is undeniable, it is not so equally obvious that the fact is an absolutely unmixed blessing; perhaps the very ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... Annorah turned, and saw the shadow of a man on the sloping rock at the left hand. Her first impulse was to cry out, but the fear of alarming Annie, and her own natural courage, prevented her; and she soon thought she could detect in the shadowy outline a resemblance to Father M'Clane. "Och, then, the murder's out," she thought; "the mane creature has been listening, and faith now he shall have a pill that will settle his stomach ...
— Live to be Useful - or, The Story of Annie Lee and her Irish Nurse • Anonymous
... vainly through the various rooms in the palace for Count Fabio d'Ascoli, and trying as a last resource, the corridor leading to the ballroom and grand staircase, discovered his friend lying on the floor in a swoon, without any living creature near him. Determining to avoid alarming the guests, if possible, D'Arbino first sought help in the antechamber. He found there the marquis's valet, assisting the Cavaliere Finello (who was just taking his departure) to ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... we are there, by what means shall we gain The Duke's bed-chamber, without his alarming The servants of the Court; for he has here 150 A ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... at the word "trifling;" it seemed to dissipate his fears. Had he been alarming himself for nothing! "Is it ten ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... came to him and told him that he was suspected of treason, the defeat of the French having been ascribed to secret information furnished by him. Whether this were true, or a mere stratagem on the part of his informant, it had the desired effect of alarming Hasting, who quickly determined to save himself from peril by joining his old countrymen and becoming again a viking chief. He thereupon sold his countship to Tetbold, and hastened to join the army of Norsemen then besieging Paris. As for the cunning trickster, he settled down into his cheaply bought ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... know that Berrington was safe and as satisfied with his surroundings as it was possible to be under the circumstances. Though he was a prisoner, he seemed to have been able to obtain important information which he had managed to convey to the outside world without alarming his captors. ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... excuse!), fall upon her, and crush her—crush and destroy, so that she could never again raise her head; treat her as she had in old days treated Germany. How far this plan was deliberately adopted we do not know, but in the spring of this year the signs became so alarming that both the Russian and the English Governments were seriously disturbed, and interfered. So sober a statesman as Lord Derby believed that the danger was real. The Czar, who visited Berlin at the beginning of ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... division explains why the political democracies of such countries as France, Switzerland, the United States, and the British Colonies show no tendency to become real democracies. Not only do classes defend every advantage and privilege that economic evolution brings them, but, what is more alarming, they utilize these advantages chiefly to give their children greater privileges still. Unequal opportunities visibly and ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... our encampment, being stretched across the narrow isthmus in open order from the water's edge on the river-side to that on the sea-side. Each watch was commanded by an officer, with a midshipman under him; and the general orders were to fire a single shot at the first sign of anything of an alarming character, and then retire upon the camp, if an attack should threaten to cut off the outpost from the ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... answer, sire, with the greatest possible moderation of tone, that the disposition of Holland does not seem friendly toward the king of France; that the symptoms of public feeling among the Dutch are alarming as regards your majesty; that certain medals have been struck ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... she answered; "her condition seems to me really alarming. At her age you ought to take every precaution, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... itself in still more ruinous forms with morphinism and cocainism, vices which grow in this country to an alarming degree. The psychotherapeutic treatment of such drug habits demands much patience and much skillful adjustment to the psychological conditions. Its general difference from the treatment of alcoholism is given by the circumstance that any too rapid withdrawing of the drug is certainly dangerous, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... of it all was again sweet on her lips. A few days later she began to wonder how the thought of Strefford's endearments could have been so alarming. To be sure he was not lavish of them; but when he did touch her, even when he kissed her, it no longer seemed to matter. An almost complete absence of sensation had mercifully succeeded to the first wild ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... sustain a siege. Not only was the door itself lined with iron, but it was strengthened by ponderous wooden beams, placed upright, and across, and in every possible direction. This formidable exhibition of precautions against danger was quite alarming. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... of commandant of Ostend was no sinecure. He was temporarily succeeded by Sergeant-Major Jacques de Bievry, but the tumults and confusion incident upon this perpetual change of head were becoming alarming. The enemy gave the garrison no rest night nor day, and it had long become evident that the young volunteer, whose name was so potent on the Genoa Exchange, was not a man of straw nor a dawdler, however the superseded veterans might grumble. At any rate the troops on either ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... man could hide from himself, that discontent, even without theory, had grown in England in an alarming manner. The French and Imperial ambassadors both gave their courts information of it, the former with a kind of satisfaction, the latter with apprehension and pain. He laments the bad effect which the religious persecution produces, makes pressing objections to it and ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... he had seized the wheel Jasper had not taken his eyes off of the little boat away in the distance. He could see that it was in the rough water and was pitching about in an alarming manner. It seemed to be beyond control and was drifting rapidly toward the rougher water of the ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... very alarming occurrence, Sir Charles. It must have shaken you very badly. But we must not overlook the possibility that this may have been ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... purpose of nature by rendering women barren, and destroying his own constitution, though he avoids the shame that pursues the crime in the other sex. These are the physical consequences, the moral are still more alarming; for virtue is only a nominal distinction when the duties of citizens, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and directors of families, become merely the ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... listened breathlessly to satisfy himself whether he had not been deceived, a dark form came hurriedly, yet noiselessly, down the steps of the cabin. Gerald turned, and discovered Sambo, who now perfectly awake, indicated by his manner, he was the bearer of some alarming intelligence. His report confirmed the suspicion already entertained by himself, and at that moment he fancied he heard the same subdued sounds but multiplied in several distinct points. A vague sense of danger came over the mind of the officer, and although his crew consisted of a mere ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... launched, and the boatswain and the Krumen leaped into her. They called to Sambo and the rest to follow. I thought Sambo would have remained faithful to the captain, and have come to assist him, but at that moment a forked flame burst up from the hold, so alarming him, that he followed the rest. Paul and I entreated the other men to remain by the smaller boat, while we went into the cabin to bring up my poor friend the captain. As I was descending the companion hatch, I heard the boatswain shouting ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... who were engaged in cooking their breakfast. The bull-dog, with a fierce bark, sprang towards us. As he did so, the black with his spear nearly fixed the brute to the ground, which saved me from having to fire, and thus alarming the other two. One of the men attempted to take up his gun, but it was beyond his reach; he, however, seized from the fire a thick stick, with which he made a blow at my head; but at that instant ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... preparation of the food by the expressive action of spitting out a portion of it. He himself, it is but fair to say, does not remember this circumstance, nor does he speak of the fever itself as either alarming or dangerous. About forty of the girls suffered from this, but none of them died at Cowan Bridge; though one died at her own home, sinking under the state of health which followed it. None of the Brontes had the fever. But the same causes, which affected the health of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... had been the case before, for in 1634 he had been elected Dean of the Confraternity of St. Luke and a great feast was held in his honor. When he came now to London the social atmosphere was full of sadness. The political troubles, which were finally so terrible in England, had already become alarming. In a few months the Earl of Strafford was executed, and Vandyck saw the royal family, to whom he was so much attached, surrounded with danger and ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... order to reconcile me to a submission to treatment of so different a kind from what I had hitherto known. At the same time she advised the King to consider that these troubles might not be lasting; that everything in the world bore a double aspect; that what now appeared to him horrible and alarming, might, upon a second view, assume a more pleasing and tranquil look; that, as things changed, so should measures change with them; that there might come a time when he might have occasion for my services; that, as prudence counselled us not to repose too much confidence in our ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... attached to the balloon. He paused for a second or two, as he remembered that it would soon be life or death with him, but at length drew his knife across the rope. The first feelings he experienced were both unpleasant and alarming; his eyes and the top of his head appeared to be forced upwards, but this passed off in a few seconds, and his feelings subsequently became pleasant, rather ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster
... Harman's heart. Mary, the following morning, little aware that full justice had been rendered her, was sitting in the parlor with her mother, who had been complaining for a day or two of indisposition, and would have admitted more fully the alarming' symptoms she felt, were it not for the declining health of her daughter. If there be one misery in life more calculated than another to wither and consume the heart, to make society odious, man to look like a blot in the creation, and the very providence of God doubtful, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... say," and the tunnel contractor shook his head. "Whew! That was a bad one!" he exclaimed, as the steamer pitched and tossed in an alarming manner. ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... Peggy, we would not leave you alone!" Mellicent's eyes were wide with horror, she stretched out entreating hands towards the unresponsive figure. To see Peggy cross and snappish like—any other ordinary mortal was an extraordinary event, and quite alarming to her placid mind. "They will ask you, too, dear! I am sure they will—we will all be asked together!" she cried; but Peggy tossed her head, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... considered suitable to his years, "that I don't take any interest in the story until the decks are dripping with gore?" Here we have no opportunity of deciding whether or not the actual description demanded would be more alarming than the ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... loyal, nor the many evidences he has given of a sincere desire to accomplish what seemed to him best for the future of the whole country; but, at the same time, we cannot help thinking that some of his over-frank confidences of late have shown alarming misconceptions, both of the position he holds either in the public sentiment or by virtue of his office, and of the duty thereby devolved upon him. We do not mean to indulge ourselves in any nonsensical rhetoric about usurpations like those which cost an English king ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... the war of the "Spanish Succession." England and Holland united with Emperor Leopold to curb his limitless ambition. The purpose of the war of the "Spanish Succession" was, ostensibly, to place the Austrian Archduke upon the throne of Spain; its real purpose was to check the alarming ascendancy ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... not all three gaze into the hole at once, for fear of alarming the recluse. Do you two pretend to read the Dominus in the breviary, while I thrust my nose into the aperture; the recluse knows me a little. I will give you warning when you ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... be detected by the eye until one was within a few feet of it. The young chirped vociferously as I approached the nest, thinking it was the old one with food; but the clamor suddenly ceased as I put my hand on that part of the trunk in which they were concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarming them into silence. The cavity, which was about fifteen inches deep, was gourd-shaped, and was wrought out with great skill and regularity. The walls were quite smooth ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... some of these people is significant. The Richmond Enquirer the chief organ of thought in the State expressed in a strong editorial that the evils of slavery were alarming and urged that some definite action be taken immediately since the policy of deferring the solution of the problem for future generations had brought the commonwealth to grief.[29] Certain ladies from Fluvanna County said in their memorial: ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... Alarming as was the outlook in Alexandria, the races, were to be held as usual. This had been decided only a few hours since at the Bishop's palace, and criers had been sent abroad throughout the streets and squares of the city to bid the inhabitants to this popular ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Charles wrote to Napoleon in the tone of ancient friendship; but the answer he received was threatening and mysterious. The utterances which the Emperor let fall in the presence of persons likely to report them at Madrid were even more alarming, and were intended to terrify the Court into the resolution to take flight from Madrid. The capital once abandoned by the King, Napoleon judged that he might safely take everything into his own hands on the pretence of restoring to Spain the government which ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... show himself at his best on the morning of the birthday. He was in twenty different minds about the Diamond in as many minutes. For my part, I stuck fast by the plain facts a we knew them. Nothing had happened to justify us in alarming my lady on the subject of the jewel; and nothing could alter the legal obligation that now lay on Mr. Franklin to put it in his cousin's possession. That was my view of the matter; and, twist and turn it as he might, he was forced in the end to make it his view too. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... of travelling, of leaving Paris. At other times she insisted that she must enter a convent. Her friends were sorely perplexed, and strove to discover the cause of that singular state of mind, which was even more alarming than her illness; when she suddenly confessed to her mother ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... her babies at Allan's alarming suggestion, and managed to hug them both at once; an ordeal which Philip stood with every evidence of pleasure, and ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... not without some anxiety that Tom arose the next morning, fearing he would hear news that the bank had been broken into, but no such alarming report circulated in Shopton. In fact having made some inquiries that day of Ned, he learned that no trace had been seen of the mysterious men. The police had been on the lookout, but they had seen nothing ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... which had overtaken the men of Estill's Station was speedily succeeded by another report no less alarming. A band of Indians had crept up to Hoy's Station and there had stolen two ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... men in curiously fashioned hats—driving around the city in the afternoon (for Valentine was at his best in getting carromatas under false pretenses) till the little family broke up. The first to go returned after a day or two, almost in tears with the alarming information that the mayor of the town that he had been assigned to was a naked savage; that what he supposed was pepper on the fried eggs he had had for breakfast, had turned out to be black ants—and wouldn't we please pay his carromata fare, ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... of St. Francis, and more particularly the so- called Observantines—sent them out according as they were wanted. This was commonly the case when there was some important public or private feud in a city, or some alarming outbreak of violence, immorality, or disease. When once the reputation of a preacher was made, the cities were all anxious to hear him even without any special occasion. He went wherever his superiors sent him. A special form of this work was the preaching ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... trying to darn a worsted sock of her father's. Margot had been giving her lessons, and with a very big needle, and a thread that was so long that it continually got itself into knots, she worked away at an alarming looking ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... freehold and copyhold, purchase or lease, repair or disrepair, of which Henrietta knew nothing, and cared less; she knew that her mamma was considered a great heiress, and trusted to her wealth for putting all she pleased in her power: but it was rather alarming to recollect that Uncle Geoffrey would consider it right to make the best terms he could, and that the house might be lost to them while they ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... drummers—neither at reveille, at dawn, Nor the long roll alarming the camp—nor even the muffled beat for a burial; Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... was dangerous; and would ask in an alarming manner, "Who are you?" Any fantastic, much more any suspicious-looking person, might fare the worse. An idle lounger at the street-corner he has been known to hit over the crown; and peremptorily despatch: "Home, Sirrah, and take to some work!" ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... had a letter from him yesterday; his state of mind is truly alarming. He has, by his own confession, kept a letter of mine unopened three weeks, afraid, he says, to open it, lest I should speak upbraidingly to him; and yet this very letter of mine was in answer to one, wherein he informed me that an alarming ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... indistinctly visible on the main; whilst to the eastward we could see nothing but the waters of the bay, which were tossed wildly to and fro as if by a coming storm; yet the wind had fallen perceptibly, and the only alarming sign was the peculiar look of the sky. After having made these observations, and sucked up as much bitter dirty water as I could contrive to do, I returned with ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... put off therefore this parting audience under various pretexts. At last, Saint-Aignan, pressed by his reiterated orders (orders all the more positive because suspicion had already begun to foresee a disturbance ever alarming), spoke firmly to the Cardinal, and declared that if this audience were not at once accorded to him, he would do without it! Therefore the Cardinal, in anger, replied with a menace, that he knew well enough how to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... delightful treat we were enjoying, all hearts bounding with joyous excitement, and every tongue eloquent in the praise of the gigantic work now completed, and the advantages and pleasures it afforded. A murmur and an agitation at a little distance betokened something alarming and we too soon learned the nature of that lamentable event, which we cannot record without the most agonized feelings. On inquiring, we learnt the dreadful particulars. After three of the engines with their trains had passed ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... exhausted itself in domestic quarrels; the other states were too distant or too weak to inspire any uneasiness; and nothing appeared wanting for the public weal. Nevertheless there was something dangerous and alarming in the situation of the Low Countries; but the danger consisted wholly in the connection between the monarch and the people, and the alarm was not sounded till the ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... a stray boy, with a very strange story. The two ragged boys, one of whom had a bundle of papers under his arm, and the other the outfit of a boot-black slung over his shoulder, thought that at the best he was stretching the truth to an alarming degree, even though his manner appeared to bear out ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... beset by uncertainty over land ownership rights, which has discouraged needed investment and restructuring. Another threat is negative demographic trends, fueled by low birth rates and a deteriorating health situation - including an alarming rise in AIDS cases - that have contributed to a nearly 2% drop in the population since 1992. Russia's industrial base is increasingly dilapidated and must be replaced or modernized if the country is to achieve sustainable economic ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ago, Mr. —— gave his little daughter, H——, a child of five years old, her first lesson in English Grammar; but no alarming book of grammar was produced on the occasion, nor did the father put on an unpropitious gravity of countenance. He explained to the smiling child the nature of a verb, ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... evident in cold and moist seasons; and, I may add, that since the introduction of vaccination, I think cutaneous cases have increased in number. The scurvy, by neglect or improper treatment, may advance to such an alarming degree, in some constitutions, as to endanger the patient's life; and I have seen and treated other cutaneous diseases which were very closely allied to leprosy—the legs, arms, thighs, and, in fact, the whole body, being ...
— Observations on the Causes, Symptoms, and Nature of Scrofula or King's Evil, Scurvy, and Cancer • John Kent
... Cecilia Templemore, for she had changed her name the day before. It was also the case with her husband, who always had a good appetite, even during his days of courtship; and the consequence was that the messman's account, for they lived in barracks, was, in a few weeks, rather alarming. Cecilia applied to her family, who very kindly sent her word that she might starve; but, the advice neither suiting her nor her husband, she then wrote to her cousin Antony, who sent her word that he would be most happy to receive ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... confederate was soon realized. Passing to Hamilton palace, the insurgent leaders there met the Duke himself, to whom they held out such alluring prospects that he openly identified himself with their cause. During these transactions at Hamilton, alarming news came of the doings of the Regent. It was reported that she was busily engaged in fortifying Leith—a proceeding, the Congregation maintained, in direct violation of the late treaty. Disregarding their protest, she steadily proceeded with the work; and, as she was strengthened ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... The foreman's smile assumed alarming proportions and he slapped his thigh in joy: "Good boy!" he laughed. "Billy's th' man—good Lord, but won't he give Cupid cold feet! Rustle around an' send th' pessimistic soul ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... at the head of his harem, out of forbidden garden bounds; the social groups that scratched and descanted lazily about the wide, sunny barn doors; the anxious companies seeking their favorite perches, with alarming outcries, in the dusk of summer evenings; the sentinels answering each other from farm to farm before winter dawns, when all the hills were drowned in snow, were of ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... and keep them in good order, so that in case of need they should not miss fire. We were also to give due notice when we required notes from Maryborough, so that the messenger appointed to bring them over should be accompanied by a complete escort, i.e., a mounted trooper. All this was very alarming, and we prepared ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... greatest importance that an early, true, and authentic account of this inhuman proceeding, should be known to you, the Congress of this colony have transmitted the same, and, from want of a session of the Hon. Continental Congress, think it proper to address you on the alarming occasion. ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... upon getting in Mexico, our arrangements for its purchase, and my sending a pontoon train to Brownsville, together with which was cited the renewed activity of the troops along the lower Rio Grande. These reports and demonstrations resulted in alarming the Imperialists so much that they withdrew the French and Austrian soldiers from Matamoras, and practically abandoned the whole of northern Mexico as far down as Monterey, with the exception of Matamoras, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan
... hand, his first minister of state. Sir Philip was fairly wealthy, but by no means enormously so; and he had other uses for his wealth than the buying of pictures and keeping up stables and kennels at an alarming expense. If Miss Adair were so pretty, he mused, it was just as well that she was not at home, for, of course, it was possible that he might find a lovely face an attraction: and much as he liked Lady Caroline, he did not want particularly ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... much interested in their game to notice the lugubrious expression of the old man, until he came to the table, and in a tone of the most alarming gravity exclaimed: ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Everson should not linger another moment. Indeed, he ought to have counted himself fortunate that he had made his discovery in time to save himself from running into a trap. He should return to his friends with the alarming news and help them in getting away with the utmost haste possible. But Jack did nothing ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis |
