"Awful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of which afforded him any outlet. The thought of exposure was horrible; anything must be done to avoid that—disgrace to himself was bad enough; to be held up for laughter before his Cambridge friends, Randal, his London acquaintances—but disgrace to the family! That was the awful thing! ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... am trying to put some heart into myself. I am trying to make ready to enjoy the brief ecstatic future where Camilla awaits me. But I am so tired, Polycarp. And there's no disguising the fact that it's an awful nuisance never to be quite sure whether you won't fall down dead the next minute or the next second. I must go in and have another glance at that singular swindle of ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... of the awful slaughter were seventeen children, from two months to seven years of age, who were carried, on the evening of the massacre, by John D. Lee and others to the house of Jacob Hamblin, and afterward placed in charge ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... tired and sleepy; they were homesick and in bad temper at their mean and unaccustomed surroundings, and were inclined to hold the Yankees responsible for it all, and they began to curse and swear in rough and bitter speech. Then there came on the most awful thunder storm I ever witnessed. Vivid flashes of lightning kept the whole heavens illuminated with a blaze of light, while a thousand electric lights would not so have turned night into day around our ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... for you, and all you have to do is to climb out of your window into that cedar-tree—you know you can climb down that, because you are so afraid of burglars climbing up—and you can slip on my dress; you had better throw it out of the window and not try to climb in it, because my dresses tear awful easy, and we might get caught that way. Then you just sneak down to our house, and I shall be outdoors; and when you go up-stairs, if the doors should be open, and anybody should call, you can answer just like me; and I have found that light curly wig Aunt Laura wore when she had her head shaved ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... of a thousand-fold sameness to be overcome, before we can begin to enjoy a gallery of the old Italian masters. . . . . I remember but one painter, Francia, who seems really to have approached this awful class of subjects (Christs and Madonnas) in a fitting spirit; his pictures are very singular and awkward, if you look at them with merely an external eye, but they are full of the beauty of holiness, and evidently wrought ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but one who could lift the veil of the awful past. On this eventful night Fritz Braun hid, within his heart, an awful resolve, born of the fear of the disguised felon, floating uneasily in the maelstrom of a great city. "If she should betray me, and women are women, after all," he mused in his cowardly ferocity. "If she pulls this off for ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... representing the lord of the land, and who was attended for support of his authority by a piper, a drummer, and four sturdy clowns armed with rusty halberds, garnished with party-coloured ribbons; myrmidons who, early as the day was, had already broken more than one head in the awful names of the Laird of Lochleven ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... now almost a worse storm within than the tempest of fire which was raging without. The women were wild. It was an awful moment for everybody. The fire had full possession on both sides of the road, viciously sparkling and crackling and throwing out jets of flames and volumes of smoke, threatening to dispute the way with the stage coach; yet through ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... Fly's crew. Tried and condemned for piracy at Boston in 1726. On the way to the gallows the culprits were taken to church, where they had to listen to a long sermon from Dr. Colman, bringing home to the wretched creatures their dreadful sins and their awful future. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... almost forgotten what it was like, but I was sick. Awful. I didn't particularly want to look around but I did, eyes moving rustily in their sockets. There was a nurse and a doctor. They were standing by my bed in what ...
— Inside John Barth • William W. Stuart
... deep blue tint." After a short pause he continued, "When we can see at one glance such an immensity of space, and know that this vast tract of mountain and of valley must be full of animal life, is not this silence awful?" ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the kiss and passed on without reply. She was very pale, but the awful inertia of the previous night had left her. She was in full command of herself. She took up some letters from a side table, and ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... plunge us into the unusualness of Utopia. We feel at home among neither horrors nor ideals. We are glad at the prospect of having the old world back rather than at having to make a new world. Lord Birkenhead, I observe, declares that it would be an awful thing if the war had left us unchanged, but we look in vain for signs of any deep change even in the speeches of Lord Birkenhead. One noticeable change the war has unquestionably made: more women ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... that Edmund had brought her from Italy to this dreary place to kill her, that she couldn't and wouldn't endure it, and that return to Italy she must and would, if she had to beg her way. It was cruel to shut her up in that awful house, to deny her the means of getting about, to treat people who wished to be kind to her as Edmund had treated Lady Tatham. She was not a mere caterpillar to be trodden on. She would appeal to the neighbours—she would go home ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that will not fight for their homes, the graves of their fathers, and their family altars. Cruel they were in the prosecution of their contests; but it would require the aggregate of a large number of predatory incursions and isolated burnings to balance the awful scene of conflagration and blood which at once extinguished the power of Sassacus, and the brave and indomitable Narragansets over whom he reigned. No! until it is forgotten that by some Christians in infant Massachusetts ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... sir, I couldn't really. Why, I couldn't go round this room—cabin, or whatever you call it. Oh dear! oh dear! to think of me turning all of a sudden like this! It's awful." ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... was well worn, and had been carefully handled; it lay open easily anywhere, and in many places various marks of pencilling shewed that not only the eyes but the mind of its owner had been all over it. It was almost an awful book to Elizabeth's handling. It seemed a thing too good to be in her hold. It bore witness to its owner's truth of character, and to her own consequent being far astray; it gave her an opening such as she never had before to look into his mind and life and guess ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... being, there must have been a transition from the instinct of the brute to the noble mind of Man; and in that case, "where," he asks, "are the missing links, and at what point of his progressive improvement did Man acquire the spiritual part of his being, and become endowed with the awful attribute of immortality?"* (* Physical Theories of the Phenomena of Life "Fraser's Magazine" July 1860 ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... Denis did not appear when his name was called in stentorian tones by Ralph, or in pathetic falsetto by Charles. In short, Mr. Denis was not forthcoming. A rush up-stairs on the part of most of the young men brought to light the awful fact that Mr. Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the meadow, and there I stood snorting with astonishment and fear. In the course of the day many other trains went by, some more slowly; these drew up at the station close by, and sometimes made an awful shriek and groan before they stopped. I thought it very dreadful, but the cows went on eating very quietly, and hardly raised their heads as the black, frightful thing came puffing and grinding past. For the first few days I could not feed in peace; but as I found that this terrible ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... the lovers were not long to be divided. "Since that awful day," Madame du Barry wrote to a friend, "you can easily imagine what my grief has been. They have consummated the frightful crime, the cause of my misery and my eternal regrets—my grief is complete—a life which ought to have been so grand and glorious! ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... a torrent of abuse, so the count ordered a pair of scissors to be brought, that the beards of the filthy rogues might be cut off. At this awful threat the two friars made their escape, and we laughed heartily ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... travelling through a beautiful undulating country, until arrested by a Bricklow scrub, which turned us to the south-west; after having skirted it, we were enabled to resume our course to W.N.W., until the decline of day made me look for water to the south-west. The scrubs were awful, and threatened to surround us; but we succeeded in finding a fine large lagoon, probably filled by the drainage of the almost level country to the north-east. No water-course, not the slightest channel produced by heavy ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... became deafening. But she was stopped on the stairs by her father, who blamed her most cruelly for breaking down in her part, and ordered her to return immediately and finish, accompanying his command with most awful threatenings if she ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... and though she's nothing but a stray visitor at the Plaza where you help wash up the plates and dishes, you suddenly conceive a lot of romantic foolery in your head and imagine me to be mysteriously connected with her! Oh, for God's sake don't cry! It's the most awful bore! There's nothing to cry for. You've set me up like a sort of doll in a shrine and you want to worship me—well!—I simply won't be worshipped. As for your 'little wonderful white woman sweetly perfumed like a rose,' ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... face of the mountain was yellow with sulphur, and the air was sickening from its smell. Usoof and Abu were not a little terrified by this awful experience, and grasped their Tuan by the arm entreating him not to venture near what, they evidently thought, were the ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... prepared, and Laborde was carried there. As he was placed upon that bed, Mimi looked at him with intense anxiety and alarm, for his pale, emaciated face and weak, attenuated frame seemed to belong to one who was at the last verge of life. An awful fear of the worst came over her—the fear of bereavement in this distant land, the presentiment of an appalling desolation, which crushed her young heart and reduced her to despair. Her father, her only relative, her only protector, ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... comparing them to the eyes of the hero of a certain romance called "Melmoth the Wanderer," which used to alarm us boys thirty years ago; eyes of an individual who had made a bargain with a Certain Person, and at an extreme old age retained these eyes in their awful splendour. I fancy Goethe must have been still more handsome as an old man than even in the days of his youth. His voice was very rich and sweet. He asked me questions about myself, which I answered as best ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... awful!" gasped Jennie, as she and her mother picked their way through the confusion of furniture in the room, and looked at the ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... bronze or enduring marble—no! the great dominant, unconcealed purpose of all the leaders of the Republic was, in some way—no matter how, by hook or by crook—to conjure that spectre of the First Consulate, riding about, awful and imminent, on the black horse ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... awfully, you know, and I only carry it to meetin' cloudy Sundays; sometimes the sun comes out all of a sudden, and I have a dreadful time covering it up; it's the dearest thing in life to me, but it's an awful care." ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... kisses and tears on his face, and again came the poor little voice, "Oh, darling, please listen, please don't do so. I will marry you. I will. I know you did just right. I read one of Uncle Tom's books this morning, and I found out what awful suffering she might have had hours longer. You did right. I will marry you. I will never think of it again. Please don't look so. Are you dreadfully hurt? Oh, when they came bringing you in I thought ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... Psalmist are the gods of property: the former had hands and felt not; the latter, on the contrary, manus habent et palpabunt. The right of increase is conferred in a very mysterious and supernatural manner. The inauguration of a proprietor is accompanied by the awful ceremonies of an ancient initiation. First, comes the CONSECRATION of the article; a consecration which makes known to all that they must offer up a suitable sacrifice to the proprietor, whenever they wish, by his permission obtained and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... near upon a minute, unable to move and scarce able to breathe, face to face with that awful figure. At length I turned to escape, and, as I turned, he turned also, and I could see him, over my shoulder, hurrying away. As I reached the door, I halted for a moment, looking back with the door in my hand, holding the candle ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the death of his Majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty of administering the Government of this empire. This awful responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a period of my life, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden were I not sustained by the hope that Divine Providence, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... most terrible experience in mess to-day when a guy having eaten more rapidly than I attempted to take my ration. When I told him he shouldn't do it he merely laughed brutally and kicked me an awful whack on the shin. This injury, together with the sight of witnessing my food about to be crammed down his predatory maw, succeeded in bringing all my latent patriotism to the fore and I fell upon him with a desperation bred of hunger. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... right, Kid," she admitted gratefully. "I never had any furs on before in my life. But ain't Russian sables awful expensive? Seems to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... in their places. Male and female, the groups come to us in winter and retire in summer: their faint splendors fall down upon our harvest nights, and then give way to the more august retinue of the wintry solstice. The boreal pivot, whose journal is the awful, compact blue, may, for aught I know, be hobnobbing at this moment with the most masculine of starry masculinities. But if it be, it is in little sympathy with the magnetic pole of human thought, whose fine point turns unwaveringly in these ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... offense, would have been as pitifully impotent as a naked baby attacking a battleship. But now those defenses were being challenged by no ordinary craft; it had taken the mightiest intellects of Vorkulia two long lifetimes to evolve the awful engine of destruction which was hurling itself forward and upward with an already ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... appears in loud peg-top trousers (peg-top trousers were very fashionable in 1860), with a big cigar in his mouth, and his hat worn jauntily on one side. His talk is all of racing, betting, and fighting. Letty is struck dumb with astonishment at first, but the awful change, which two years have effected, gradually dawns on her. She implores him to turn from his idle, foolish ways. Master Harry sinks on his knees by her side, but just as his sister is about to rejoice and kiss him, he looks up in her face and bursts into loud laughter. She is much exasperated, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... which had been bought for a dollar worth sixty cents, must be paid for with a dollar worth eighty, ninety, or a hundred cents, according to the date on which the contract matured. Of course, such a proceedings created an awful squeeze. Many men, struggling under loads of debt, found the weight of their obligations growing upon them faster than their power to ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... quite broken, with Aunt Selina staring after him. She never did understand. I could have explained, but it was too awful. ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... father used to tell them. Strangely enough, Amherst, the future commander-in-chief in America, under whom Wolfe served at Louisbourg, and the two men who succeeded Wolfe in command at Quebec —Monckton and Townshend—were also there. It is an awful moment for a young soldier, the one before his first great fight. And here were nearly a hundred thousand men, all in full view of each other, and all waiting for the word to begin. It was a beautiful day, and the sun shone down on a splendidly martial sight. There stood the British and Hanoverians, ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... more. It had been good fun, after all, this three weeks' life on the "Bertha Millner," a strange episode cut out from the normal circle of his conventional life. He ran over the incidents of the cruise—Kitchell, the turtle hunt, the finding of the derelict, the dead captain, the squall, and the awful sight of the sinking bark, Moran at the wheel, the grewsome business of the shark-fishing, and last of all that inexplicable lifting and quivering of the schooner. He told himself that now he would probably never know the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... at the bed, and then 'e pulled the clothes off and saw pore Ginger all tied up, and making awful eyes at 'im to ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... in the sledge, powerless to act, he felt as though within him opened a big, empty ice-cold void. It was the awful certainty that they would be ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... to be very reasonable, 'Thalia, to stand a community life, or else you've got to be an awful fool. You are ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... tall, very thin, and very round-shouldered, and the sandiness of his hair also cried aloud for an adjective. All the boys considered Malachi the greatest ass on the station, and there was no doubt that he was an awful fool. He had never been out of his native bush in all his life, excepting once, when he paid a short visit to Sydney, and when he returned it was evident that his nerves had received a shaking. We failed to ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... awful news came, Mary has seemed to lose interest in everything. She adored Barry, and she's never going to get over it—not entirely. I miss the old Mary." Grace stopped to steady her voice. "But when I went up with her to her room to talk to her while she dressed for ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... heard her, that gave an awful shriek and away that flew into the dark, and she never saw it ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... a while after he's put his chin in the way of a real live one. I remember when Joe Peterson put me out, way back when I was new to the game—it was the same year I fought Martin Kelly. He had an awful punch, had old Joe, and he put me down and out in the eighth round. After the fight they found me on the fire-escape outside my dressing-room. 'Come in, Kid,' says they. 'It's all right, chaps,' I says, 'I'm dying.' Like that. 'It's all right, chaps, I'm dying.' Same with ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... "You look awful nice," the little girl pursued. "Just like one of my make-believe Princes. I wish you lived with Jimmie and me. I wouldn't ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... the book I worked from looked at first sight as though it had been beautifully printed. But this turned out to be a delusion, for the type-setting had been truly awful. It does seem sad that an author, a well-known one at the time, could take the trouble to write a good book, that he should use a good publisher, and a good illustrator, a good book-binder, only to have ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... the cryin' of poor Mrs. Murphy," she said. "'Tis an awful thing for a bit of a bye to be lost in this great big city. If 'twas our little Phelan, Jawn, I'd ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... Alice. "She must have an awful headache, not to have heard about the written lesson. What did you think we were all ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... his free hand into his pocket and had just taken out a bill and was trying to plan a way to offer it to me and reveal the fact to poor, modest little Nance Olden that he was not her own daddy, when an awful thing happened. ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... doubt that the approaching executions will very much determine the future conduct of those people. They ought to be such as will humble, not irritate. Nothing will make government more awful to them than to see that it does not proceed by chance or under the influence ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Custom-House. We've made so many purchases. Well, I've written to a friend to come down, and perhaps he can help us. He's very well acquainted with the head. Once I'm chalked I don't care. I feel like a kind of blackboard by this time anyway. We found them awful ...
— Pandora • Henry James
... Daniel Rackstraw. Long before the fourth round his voice had dwindled to a husky whisper. Deep lines appeared on his forehead; for it is an awful thing for a football enthusiast to be compelled to applaud, in the very middle of the Cup-ties, purely by means of facial expression. In this time of affliction he found Isabel an ever-increasing comfort to him. Side by side ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... tread who would reach the platform that is before the cave. Now since she had hung by her hands over Goldfoss gulf, Gudruda had feared to tread upon a height with nothing to hold to. Skallagrim went first, then called to her to follow. Thrice she looked, and turned away, trembling, for the place was awful and the fall bottomless. Then ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... shoulders was all that our guide vouchsafed, and with that awful voice ringing in our ears we were glad ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... relentless anatomy of all the strongest feeling of our nature. In Sir Giles Overreach, a character almost devoid of poetry, Kean's acting displayed with such powerful and relentless truth the depths of a cruel, avaricious man, baffled in all his vilest schemes, that the effect he produced was absolutely awful. As no bird but the eagle can look without blinking on the sun, so none but those who in the sacred privacy of their imaginations had stood face to face with the mightiest storms of human passion could understand such a performance. Byron, who had been ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... from forth the frowning sky, From the heaven's topmost height, I heard a voice—the awful voice Of the blood-avenging sprite: "Thou guilty man, take up thy dead, And hide it from ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... in this wide world of ours which neither the craft of the scribe nor the skill of the painter can hope to reproduce, and this is one of them. It is awful in its grandeur, terrible in its sublimity, like Milton's Satan. It fascinates, and yet repels; charms the eye, while it chills the heart. One trembles with the sense of a dire terrific power, which at any moment may leap into the clay, and sweep the shattered island into destruction. ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... only with a motion of his head that signified refusal, falling back into his chair, and looking at his parents with dry and awful eyes. Clara went up to him with a cheerful air and ...
— El Verdugo • Honore de Balzac
... difficulties. It was a hundred yards out, but the enjoyment of a sunbath after a sea frolic enabled one to proceed to the rescue without preliminaries. Half drowned and completely cowed, the bird was now confronted by a more awful peril than that of the sea. A bedraggled crest indicated horror at the steady approach of the enemy man, whose presence stimulated the sodden bird to such extraordinary efforts that it succeeded in rising and in making slow, low flight ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... be allowed to my expression, I should not hesitate to style the palatial residence of Heaven. When, therefore, the Gods above had taken their seats in the marble hall of assembly; he himself, elevated on his seat, and leaning on his sceptre of ivory, three or four times shook the awful locks[40] of his head, with which he makes the Earth, the Seas, and the Stars to tremble. Then, after such manner as this, did he open his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... auntie und she had a bird, a awful polite bird; on'y sooner somebody calls him he couldn't to come the while he ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... the first time in my life that I had witnessed the awful scene of a battle, when man was engaged to destroy his fellow man. I well remember my sensations on the occasion, for they were solemn beyond description, and very hardly could I bring my mind to be willing to attempt the life of a fellow-creature. ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... ain't no 'stronomer strawnry, and I ain't heerd no complaints about them; but I do say as how, down here, we ha' got most uncommon bad weather more'n at times; and the walnuts they turns out, every now an' then, full o' mere dirt; an' the oranges awful. There 'ain't been a good crop o' hay, they tells me, for many's the year. An' i' furren parts, what wi' earthquakes an' wolcanies an' lions an' tigers, an' savages as eats their wisiters, an' chimley-pots blowin' about, an' ships goin' down, an' fathers o' families choked ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... again an instant later choking, sneezing and almost blinded just as if he had dynamited a box loaded with powdered red pepper instead of a common fireproof safe. Foiled in stealing the contents of the safe, amid awful curses, he climbed into the buggy and called to Joe to jump upon its rear, and while they heard all around them loud calls and even pistol shots of the farmers, who had been aroused out of their slumbers, Boston Frank turned into the highway ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... Such an awful threat reduced the juniors to order, and they submitted quite peaceably to be apportioned among their various benefactresses. Irene secured Little Flaxen, Lorna had a pair of solemn-eyed sisters, Peachy pounced upon the liveliest trio and proclaimed them ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... there with bags of gunpowder; and when they were both chained up, he tied them round their bodies. Then, a light was thrown upon the pile to fire it. 'Be of good comfort, Master Ridley,' said Latimer, at that awful moment, 'and play the man! We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.' And then he was seen to make motions with his hands as if he were washing them in the flames, and to stroke his aged face with them, and was ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... an author see, Who says, 'The awful war I'll sing Of Titans with the Thunder-King:' Of this grand promise the result, we ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... every prisoner was brought out he inquired his name, his country, and his crime. The greater part were found guilty, hurled over the precipice, and shot below by musketeers sent there to despatch any one who still showed signs of animation, as many had escaped with life from the awful fall. Some 307 were put to death, and 91 reserved for another day. These last, strange to say, were all chiefs of note; many of whom had fought against the Emperor, and all, he knew, were ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... Woodpecker, The Wren and the Eagle, The Blackbird and Swallow, The Jackdaw and Starling, And the wonderful Peacock; The Lapwing and Peewit, The bold Yellowhammer, The bad Willy-wagtail, The Raven so awful, And the Cock with his Hens; Stone-checker, Hedge-sparrow, And Lint-white and Lark, The Tom-tit and Linnet, And brisk little Sparrow, The King-fisher too, And my ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... long delayed the beginnings of a New France in the West. Incessant dynastic wars with near neighbors, the final throes of the long struggle between the crown and the great vassals, and finally the religious wars that culminated in the awful slaughter of St. Bartholomew's, and ended at the close of the century with the politic conversion and the coronation of Henry IV.—these were among the causes that had held back the great nation from distant undertakings. ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the marks of reluctance and procrastination for impetuous, horror-striking, fiendishness!—Of such importance is it to understand the germ of a character. But the interval taken by Hamlet's speech is truly awful! And then— ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... She's squatting up close to Renny on the lawn, and her arm is twisted round Pauline's waist. She's big, and dressed awful grand. She has gold bangles on her arms, and tinkling gold things round her neck, and she's here, and I thought course you ought for to know. I thought so 'cos I love you. Aren't you pleased? Aren't I the sort of little girl you could ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... question, who wrote Homer? In the former case, the question is certainly in one respect more simple, for the recognised plays and poems that go by Shakspeare's name are—at least by far the larger portion—unquestionably from one and the same pen; while Homer, poor, dear, awful, august, much-abused shade! has been torn by a pack of German wolves into fragments, which it puzzles the lore and research of Grote and Muir to patch together again. Even Mr Grote seems disposed to admit, that while the Odyssey may pass muster as one continuous poem, whatever was ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... expect to be in England by Christmas-Day or near it. I shall have an immensity to talk over. I was much pleased with Naples; stayed ten days; went over to Portici; Herculaneum and Pompeii, and ascended Mount Vesuvius: this was a spectacle—the most awful and grand that I had ever witnessed—the fire bursting every two minutes, and the noise with it like thunder: red-hot ashes came tumbling down continually where I stood sketching, many of which I brought away, and different pieces of the old lava which I hope to show ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... Effie is awful silly," remarked Cousin Egbert enigmatically. "No, sir; she can't ever tell how the cat is going to jump." Nor would he say more, though he most elatedly held ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... explain," said Faith quickly, "and you must try and believe me, Maggie. Both Mr. Denton and myself are thinking only of your good. We want to help you to see this awful sin which you have committed in the right light—that is, as a sin not only against yourself and your fellow beings, but against the God who made you and who wishes you ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... at Lindsay in a manner which was itself a reminiscence of amateur theatricals. "Their relations!" she murmured to Dr. Livingstone. "What awful things to talk about!" ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... would have had to have been much more interesting to have held the love of such a girl as Rosalind," she protested. "Heroes are awful people anyway, I think. The only ones I really like are explorers. Uncle Cassius said the other day that the most unique experience was to be the first white man to step foot on new territory. I may take up forestry as a profession, but I'd much rather be ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... stripling, as I conjecture, there already blooms a certain prospective Paradise, cheered by some fairest Eve; nor, in the stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that Garden, is a Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful in the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps too the whole is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword divide it from all footsteps of men; and grant him, the imaginative stripling, only the view, not the entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, when ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... was not a more furious tempest or greater darkness, neither did the earth quake more violently. No! I don't know how or what it was, but it seemed to Petru as though somebody had got into the middle of the earth to overturn it. What happened was something awful, and may Heaven preserve any ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... the other couples. They all clung to one another more closely than ever. There was a moment of embarrassment—intense, awful, tremendous. ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... not with senselessness of the majesty of God when he came to pray, as the Pharisee did, and as sinners commonly do. For this standing back, or afar off, declares that the majesty of God had an awful stroke upon his spirit: He saw whither, to whom, and for what, he was now approaching the temple. It is said in that 20th of Exodus, That when the people saw the thunderings and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, and all these were signs of God's terrible presence, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... neighborhood, and rushes into them with a force which produces the concussion and the rumbling sound; and the shaking of the surface which we perceive is really like the commotion in the tea-kettle and the trembling of the vessel when the steam has no vent. It is an awful thought that we thus live over the action of these subterranean fires; but they are in the control of the Almighty, and all we have to do is to submit to God's will ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... was jes' a thinkin' how awful it 'ud be ef anything like that ever did happen. He'd come home and talk to grandma'am at nights about it. I tell you his nerves was powerful ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing "cases" where I am master of it, a seemingly insignificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird—(it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of no consequence to anybody): "Where is the bird?" Now the answer to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... favourite of the old housekeeper, who liked him for his haughtiness, which was to her thinking the sign of real English nobility, and perhaps it is the popular sign, and a tonic to the people. She raised lamentations over the shame of the locking of the door against him that awful night, declaring she had almost mustered courage to go down to him herself, in spite of Mrs. Calling's orders. The old woman lowered her voice to tell him that her official superior had permitted the French gentleman and ladies to call her countess. This she knew for a certainty, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and came crashing to the earth, smashing trees like grass blades. At the giant's first scream, Dorothy shut her eyes and, putting her hands over her ears, had run as far and as fast as she could. At the awful crash, she stopped short, opened her eyes, and stared ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... irregular group of dark buildings, which at night, when the moon lights up the stagnant pool, have the appearance of an enormous inaccessible castle standing in the midst of the joyous and cultured city,—arouse a feeling of awful sadness. At night the courtyard is lighted only by an occasional lamp; the few people who pass through it quicken their pace as if they are afraid. There is no sound of steps to be heard, no lighted windows to be seen; one enters it ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... But not this life, dear God, not this. Let the cup pass from us, tempt us not beyond our strength, for there is that clamoring and clawing within, to whose voice we would not listen, yet shudder lest we must,—and it is red. Ah! God! It is a red and awful shape. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... reserve fund. When at last all her gowns were ready, she had two dollars and thirty-eight cents left, on which she and her mother must live until her first week's salary should be paid. Worse than that, on the last awful day before the opening night she had a sharp attack of pleurisy. A doctor was called, who, being intoxicated, treated the case wrongly. Another physician had to be summoned to undo the work of the first, and as a result Daly's ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... in the awful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" the sinner should hear the echo of his own agony, as of one forsaken of God and swept out of his presence forever; and that the only ground of approach to this righteous God is the atoning blood of his crucified Son; that ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... mysterious rumblings and mutterings of the pent up forces beneath the island disturbed the breathless calm and silence that lay on nature—the calm before the terrible storm—the mightiest, the most awful on record! It burst forth! Sudden night snatched away day from the eyes of the terrified beholders on the mainland, but the vivid play of lightnings around the ascending column of dust penetrated even the deep obscurity to a distance of 80 miles. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... immortal, going down as he had lived with his face to the foe. To these ardent young patriots the place was holy ground, and their pulses leaped and their hearts swelled as Melton pointed out the features of the field and narrated some of the incidents of that awful, but magnificent, fight. It was with intense reluctance that, warned by the gathering shadows, they tore ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... life and soul of that struggling Institution, he had engaged to make one of a party of worldlings at a morning concert! I asked myself what did it mean? Alas! it meant that our Christian Hero was to reveal himself to me in a new character, and to become associated in my mind with one of the most awful backslidings ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... saved their lives by the substitute of my own. And now, instead, I have been as it were their murderess, and a death to them all in female form. And now the Deity has avenged them, by sending to me at last the God of Love in human shape, whose death will be a grief to me a hundred fold more awful than any death I could have died. And I myself shall not survive him. Then why waste time in chiding one who has but one more day to live? For as soon as night arrives, he must go like the rest to meet his doom: and certain it is, that I shall not live to see the sun rise ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... night of Jan. 5, 1891, Coxswain Fish was asleep in his hammock in the watch-house at the end of Ramsgate pier. There was a gale blowing from the E.N.E., and in the long frost of that awful winter there was no more terrible night than this. The thermometer stood at 15 deg. below freezing-point; there was a great ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... exhibit the same indifference that they did, his mind was exceedingly busy, and it seemed to him that he thought of every thing he had done during his life. Oh, how he longed to hear the order passed to commence firing! Any thing was preferable to that awful stillness. ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... complained Rhoda, "what do you want to tell such awful jokes for? Nothing like that ever happened to ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr |
