"Horror" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... back part of his head, and was almost at the same moment shot through the heart. He fell among the horses that about the same time were killed, and presented to his afflicted daughters and fellow-travellers, who were witnesses of the awful occurrence, a spectacle of horror which we need ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the pirate of its hidden hoard; Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, And Death is but the pilot come aboard, Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: Then—spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, And lap of waters ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the depths of his immeasurable tenderness. It appealed to that Pity which, as every one has noticed, is a fundamental attribute of the national Russian character. In "The Portrait," which is partly written in the minute manner of Balzac, and partly with the imaginative fantastic horror of Poe and Hoffmann, we have the two sides of Gogol's nature clearly reflected. Into this strange story he has also indicated two of the great guiding principles of his life: his intense democratic sympathies, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the Watling Street. When they came to Richmond and told their tale of the ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... moment his eyes fell on her, stopped as if suddenly arrested by an invisible hand; his eyes expressed horror and surprise, his dark face grew darker. Rachel quickly recovered. "I will call again," she murmured, and passing him swiftly, noiselessly, left the room, ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... up with Wells and Fargo's messenger was the neatest practical joke that had occurred in the county for some time. The always serious and anxious sheriff told the driver the accusation, and it was a genuine cry of horror that the young lover gave at hearing the truth at last, and at feeling the ghastly chain of probability that ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Immediately after the lynching the citizens had dispersed to their homes. No prisoners except the Mafiosi had been harmed, and of those who had been sought not one had escaped. The damage to the parish prison did not amount to fifty dollars. Through the community spread a feeling of satisfaction, which horror at the terrible details of the slaughter could not destroy. There was nowhere the slightest effort at dodging responsibility; those who had led in the assault were the best-known citizens and openly acknowledged their parts. It was realized now, even more fully than before the event, that the ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... soapy cloth which she had just wrung out after the retreating Bertha. Fortunately she was a bad shot. The missile flew past its intended object, and, hitting a hen, which had ventured to intrude, on the legs, swept it with a terrific cackle into the road, to the amazement, not to say horror, of the ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... stream, out of which he managed to crawl with considerable difficulty half a mile lower down; the second took to his heels, with his coat torn, and his person otherwise disordered; and the fashionable Pup, to his great horror, found himself seized in the formidable jaws of the unoffending but own angry dog. Imagine how much his terror was increased when Job, carrying him, as I would a mouse, to the edge of the precipitous ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... upon the golden head of Montezuma. So be it! The wealth which Cortes wept over, and his Spaniards sinned and died for, is for ever hidden yonder by the shores of the bitter lake whose waters gave up to you that ancient horror, the veritable and sleepless god of Sacrifice, of whom I would not rob you—and, for my part, I do not ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... Yea, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction; yea, and in fine so great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... two intervened, and then, to my horror and astonishment, I saw the overseer take Aurore by the arm, and raise her upon the block! The intention was plain. She was to ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... him to a cross, and burned him, no extremity of torture availing to shake his constancy. They cut off the arms and legs of the four other persons, tied crosses to the trunks, and then burned them. This deed, done so near Canton, has caused great horror among the foreigners both here and at Hong Kong, and the deepest sympathy is felt both with the converts and the missionary priests. In the sympathy with the heroism and sufferings of those who have been "faithful unto death," all the Protestant missionaries join ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... permit us to be, and in our illuminated moments we catch a glimpse of that Jacob's ladder that Francis Thompson saw, with ascending angels, at Charing Cross. Some one called Shelley 'an ineffectual angel.' I think most of us are ineffectual angels. Take this tragedy that is filling the world with horror to-day. We are fighting like tigers for our own points of view, but in our hearts we are ashamed of the spectacle, and know that humanity is better than its deeds. One day, perhaps, the ineffectual angel will find his wings and outsoar the spider point of view.... And, by the way, suppose ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... sincere emotion can be clearly expressed even with old-fashioned rhythms, and that to try and create new rhythms is mere technical work, and to enforce such upon the composers of to-morrow is simply depriving them of their character. This is all true, and I myself have a horror of seeking new means of expression within the limits of hard and fast rules, for expression ought to be a spontaneous manifestation. But I assert that experiments in rhythm, and the complete study of movements simple and combined, ought to create ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... arguments taken from the Scriptures, the Word of Truth. And that is also the true and ultimate reason why they refused to deliver [to the Lutherans a copy of] their refutation. Those fugitive evil consciences were filled with horror at themselves, and dared not await the answer of Truth. And it is quite evident that they were confident, and that they had the Diet called together in the conviction that our people would never have the boldness to appear, but if the ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... her partner prove morose, sullen, selfish, it will blight forever the joys of their marriage day. Better had she been bound to the dead, as certain offenders of her sex were said to be of old, than bound to a living mass of pollution, to one whose principles become more and more her horror, as they are ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... a new horror seized her, and terrified her beyond measure. This rumour of a duel—a mere word dropped carelessly in conversation by a thoughtless acquaintance—called up to her sudden visions of evil to come. Surely, howsoever she might struggle against love and beat it roughly to silence in ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... horror of the consequences of an interference for which I was almost ready to blame myself now, "Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes could have done no more than deny all knowledge of this letter. Now Mrs. ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the girl's sister, who had behaved with some aplomb, "It made her feel rather bad afterwards. She felt sick. All the floor was covered with blood." The little maidservant had a curious look, half horror, half importance, as she said this. She herself was not more ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... on her knees beside her bed, that night, prayed long and fervently and with full particulars concerning the education of her son. Her heart would have frozen with horror, had she seen the smoke-filled room where her son was sitting, with Reed Opdyke across the table from him. Her hopes for his future would have shrivelled into naught, could she have realized that, over that very table, her son, her Scott, was to receive a lesson, new ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... light chanced to break into the dark chasm at the time, and revealed all its dangers to the pendulous Thorwald so powerfully that he positively howled with horror. ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... vainly tried to obey; her brain was burning; the rapid ride, the sudden transition, from the sickening horror of being too late, to the assurance of Stanley's safety, the thought that she had indeed parted from him for ever, and now Isabella's evident anger, when her woman-heart turned to her as a child's to its mother's, yearning for that gentle sympathy which, at such a moment, could alone have ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... for his wants as best he could, but during the first few months he had great difficulty in conquering the sadness and mastering the horror consequent upon his terrible loneliness. He built two huts of willow, which he covered with a sort of rush, and lined with the skins of the goats he killed to satisfy his hunger, so long as his ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... in the other, help had been refused to the family of a drowned resident. Thus one offence had been legal; the other only moral. A country community [105] will not hand over its delinquents to the police except in case of incendiarism, murder, theft, or other serious crime. It has a horror of law, and never invokes it when the matter can be settled by any other means. This was the rule also in ancient times, and the feudal government encouraged its maintenance. But when the tutelar deity has been displeased, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... for the street, looked down upon Mrs. Gregory as if turned to stone. Her beautiful face expressed something like horror at the other's irreverence. ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... quantity of food is necessary in all cases, to sustain their health and growth; and their faults ought to be corrected by more rational means. The idea of making them suffer in their health and growth on account of their behaviour, is sufficient to fill every considerate mind with horror. It is the project only of extreme weakness, to attempt to correct the disposition by creating bodily sufferings, which are so prone to hurt the temper, even at an age when reason has gained a more powerful ascendancy. Eatables ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... a repugnance for entertaining high officials and men in general, and the greatest horror of going in official hat and ceremonial dress, to offer congratulations, or express condolences, to pay calls, return visits, or perform other similar conventionalities, but upon receipt on the present occasion ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Herodotus (viii. 27), adopted the same 'aisy stratagem,' as Captain Costigan has it. Tellies, the medicine-man ([Greek]), chalked some sixty Phocians, whom he sent to make a night attack on the Thessalians. The sentinels of the latter were seized with supernatural horror, and fled, 'and after the sentinels went the army.' In the same way, in a night attack among the Australian Kurnai, {41a} 'they all rapidly painted themselves with pipe-clay: red ochre is no use, ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... Africa have been plunged, and the grave dangers threatening our civilisation, record our solemn conviction that the highest interest of South Africa demand (1) A termination of the war now raging, with its untold misery and horror, as well as the burning of houses, the devastation of the country, the extermination of a white nationality, and the treatment to which women and children are subjected, which was bound to leave a lasting ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... when a soldier came up, leveled his musket at the window, and shot her dead on the spot in the midst of her terrified family. On the intercession of a friend the dead body was permitted to be removed when the house was set on fire. This atrocious deed excited such general horror and detestation that the British thought proper to disavow it, and to impute the death of Mrs. Caldwell to a random shot from the retreating militia, though the militia did not fire a musket in the village. The wanton murder of the lady might be the unauthorized act of a savage ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... religion? that from the loins of a polygamous people should come an immaculate Christ? How can we mention Abraham, Isaac and Jacob without a curse, or think of a God whose teachings they followed, without horror—unless indeed we take issue with the public and vote Mr. Talmage an ass ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... night—for I'll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the door in Jem Hearn's face, and he's a steady young man, fit for any girl; only I had given missus my word." Martha was all but crying again; and I had little comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of the horror with which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon "followers"; and in Miss Matty's present nervous state this dread was not likely to ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that the war was not only inevitable, but was also in its essence just and righteous on the part of the borderers. Even the unpardonable and hideous atrocity of the murder of Logan's family, was surpassed in horror by many of the massacres committed by the Indians about the same time. The annals of the border are dark ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... their nuts they laughed till they cried, and roared so lustily at the remembered frolics of their youthful days that the old parsonage rang, the books on the library shelves rattled and several of the theological volumes actually gaped with horror. ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the anticipated report. It is a solitary purser's dip, as they are termed at sea, emitting but feeble rays, and Vanslyperken's eyes are directed to the door of the cabin to see who carries it. To his horror, his dismay, it is brought in by the drowned Smallbones, who, with a cadaverous, and as he supposes, unearthly face and vacant look, drawls out, "It's a-blowed out ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... more moved with compassion than with horror, gave to this shocking beggar the two florins which he had received from the honest Anabaptist James. The spectre looked at him very earnestly, dropped a few tears, and fell upon his ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... Cora. "Please do not take any chances with speed laws. I have a perfect horror of ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... permanent revival of the better part of the ancient institutions, and for substituting Reform for Revolution. Only a few weeks before, numerously signed addresses from the middle classes in Paris, Rouen, and other large cities, had been presented to the king, expressive of their horror of the anarchists, and their readiness to uphold the rights of the crown, together with the liberties of the subject. And an armed resistance to the authority of the Convention, and in favour of the king, was in reality at this time being actively organized ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Will looked down with horror to see that the iron bar had so given way that the rope had gradually been dragged to the top, passed over, and probably both Josh and Will had made their last descent depending upon the strength of the former's ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... of them is there any sense of conflict. The life which they knew was wholesome, regular, still free from urban corruption, the experience of a plain, prosperous and law-abiding people. None of these writers, though like Hawthorne they might deal with sin or like Poe with horror and a lover's despair at death, struck any tragic note. No tragedy was written, no love-poetry, no novel of passion. No literature is so maiden-pure. It is by refinement rather than power that it is most distinguished, by taste and cultivation, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the manner of a big dog who deigns to visit a little one, came a man of average height but immense girth. His great beardless face was so hideous, so startling, that Max gaped at him rudely, lost in horror. Nose and lips had been partly cut away. The teeth and gums showed in a ghastly, perpetual grin. But as if this were not enough to single him out among a thousand, a pair of black, red-rimmed eyes had been tattooed on the large forehead, just above a bushy, auburn line overhanging the eyes which ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... difficulty, arrived a few days later, to find a piteous Cecilia, white-faced, stunned and bewildered. She pleaded desperately against leaving France; amidst all the horror and chaos that had fallen upon her, it seemed unthinkable that she should put the sea between herself and Bob. But to remain was impossible. Aunt Margaret's English maids wanted to go back to their friends, and a girl of seventeen could scarcely stay alone in a country ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... in astonishment and horror. Then it flashed on me that I had dawdled away an hour without knowing it, and with it the finest opening I ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... let the words come out so brutally. And now, as he saw the frightened look, almost of horror, come into her eyes, he suffered in a way that would not have been possible before he had known this maid. He read her thoughts,—that she herself was the cause of a double tragedy,—and it for the moment unmanned him. When he could look at her ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... greatly, and I resolved to examine the problem with care. In particular my perturbed friend alluded to certain movements in modern criticism. He cannot admire Shelley, yet he finds Shelley placed above Byron and next to Shakspere; he reads a political poem by a modern master, and discovers to his horror that he fails to understand what it is all about. Moreover, this very free critic cannot abide Browning and the later works of Tennyson; nor can he admire Mr. Swinburne. This is dreadful; but worse remains behind. With grief ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Altrosen came forward, held out his hand to his old friend, and spoke for Cordula "The horror and loathsomeness were too much for her, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... coast; his heart stood still as he thought of the peril to a helpless woman in clambering up those cliffs, even if she were not drowned before reaching them. Every flash of lightning seemed to disclose some new horror. If life is measured by sensations, he lived years of torture in the few minutes during which he waited for the shock of the bows against the granite wall. Marcia, fortunately, had become insensible, though her sobbing, panting breath showed the extremity of terror that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... treatment of their children. Punishment for wrong-doing is almost unheard of, and as for striking a male child, all would recoil from such a thought with horror. The male child, and especially the heir, is a prince in his own family circle. Everything is deferred to his wishes unless he can be persuaded to surrender it. With female children it is different. They must submit to every act of tyranny on the part of their brothers at once, ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... the rough-looking man on the platform, who wore a wide felt hat and a pistol in his belt. He didn't look even respectable to Amelia Ellen's provincial eyes. And behind him, horror of horrors! loomed a real live Indian, long hair, high cheek bones, blanket and all, just as she had seen them in the geography! Her blood ran cold! Why, oh why, had she ever been left to do this daring thing—to leave civilization and ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... such, for instance, as copies sent in great profusion to the newspapers; but at the close of the third day seven copies only had been sold, and three of those on credit. It might be believed that in revealing to the horror-stricken Thuillier this paltry result the young publisher would have lost at least something of his assurance. On the contrary, this Guzman of the book-trade ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... violence, and rapidly drawing two bolts, one after another, as if to exclude the intrusion of any one of that hated race, who had thus lashed his soul to frenzy. Earnscliff left the moor with mingled sensations of pity and horror, pondering what strange and melancholy cause could have reduced to so miserable a state of mind, a man whose language argued him to be of rank and education much superior to the vulgar. He was also surprised to see how much particular information ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... the eating and drinking began in earnest. Dr Grantly, to his great horror, found himself leagued to Mrs Clantantram. Mrs Clantantram had a great regard for the archdeacon, which was not cordially returned; and when she, coming up to him, whispered in his ear, 'Come, archdeacon, I'm sure you won't begrudge ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... "I suppose we'll fill up Australia some day. But the people who come out now seem to have a holy horror of going into the 'waste spaces,' as you call 'em, Tommy. They want to nestle up to the towns, and ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... is from such central and poignant experiences as these that men have been constrained to look outward for a God. For these mark the very disintegration of personality, the utter dissipation of selfhood. That is the inescapable horror of sin. That is what we mean when we say sinners are lost; so they are, they are lost to their own selves. With what discriminating truth the father in the parable of the lost boy speaks. "This, my son," he says, "was dead though he is alive again." So ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... of her own room, her senses were offended by the odor of alcohol. With horror she realized that rum, the spirit of all the sources of evil, had found its way into ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... the fox said: "Now my heart is heavy, for death stands in all his horror before me, and I cannot escape. My dread Lord the King, and you my sovereign Lady the Queen, and you my lords that stand to behold me die, I beseech you grant me this charitable boon, that I may unlock my heart before you, and clear my soul of ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... enough, for though she had never seen it she had heard what it was for, what kind of boys and girls lived there. But the jail—she had seen the jail, back behind the courthouse, with its air of mystery and of horror. Not Hell itself seemed such a frightful thing as ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... wild place, in the black heart of night, the terror of the thing fell on my soul. The savage faces, the deadly purpose in Ringan's eyes, the fumbling miscreant before him, were all heavy with horror. I had no doubt that Cosh was worthy of death, but this cold and merciless treatment froze my reason. I watched with starting eyes the last throw, and I could not hear Ringan declare it. But I saw by the look on Cosh's face what it ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... clause had been evoked by the sight of a blazing Miss Sheridan, who now stood over him with fists tightly clenched. "Oh, oh, oh!" This was low, tense, thrilling. It expressed horror. "So that's what your convictions amount to! Then you do applaud him, every word of him, and you were deceiving me. Every man in his own heart, indeed. Thank heaven I found you out ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... she burst into the room, and stood there, her tear-stained face convulsed with the horror of finding him ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... Romans, had they been guilty of such abuses against them, the Romans now had against Jews, for their impiety in regard to their own religious customs. Nay, indeed, there were none of the Roman soldiers who did not look with a sacred horror upon the holy house, and adored it, and wished that the robbers would repent before ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... had effected an inconceivable amount of destruction and suffering. The sun of spring had now returned; the snow had melted, and the buds were bursting. It was time to plow the fields and scatter the seed; but universal consternation and despair prevailed. Every day brought its report of horror. Prowling bands of savages were every where. No one could go into the field or step from his own door without danger of being shot by some Indian lying in ambush. It was an hour of gloom into which scarcely one ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... overthrow as regards public life, and, though some parts of it were remitted and others lightened, it plunged his private affairs into trouble which weighed heavily on him for his few remaining years. To his deep distress and horror he had to go to the Tower to satisfy the terms of his sentence. "Good my Lord," he writes to Buckingham, May 31, "procure my warrant for my discharge this day. Death is so far from being unwelcome to me, as ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... owned by a prim old woman who for more than twenty years was my landlady. She and I were great friends, indeed she tended me like a mother, and when I was so ill nursed me as perhaps few mothers would have done. Yet while I was watching on the Road suddenly she came by, and with horror I saw that during all those years she had been robbing me, taking, I am sorry to say, many things, in money, trinkets, and food. Often I had discussed with her where these articles could possibly have gone, till finally suspicion settled upon the man who cleaned the windows. Yes, and worst of ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... delusive hopefulness there was no weird and boding Cassandra to pierce the veil of the future for us, and reveal the length and the ghastly horror of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, through which we must pass for hundreds of sad days, stretching out into long months of suffering and death. Happily there was no one to tell us that of every five in that party four would never stand under the Stars and Stripes again, but succumbing ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... There was no time to be lost. She had spent one night of horror, she could not endure another, and the day was drawing to its end. To be sure she felt no terror now, but the night ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... improved upon it in the report recommending an immediate declaration of war. The Henry affair was declared an "act of still greater malignity" than any of the other outrages against the United States of which Great Britain had been guilty, and that which "excited the greatest horror." The incident was seized upon, apparently, to answer a temporary purpose, and then, so far as Mr. Madison was concerned, was permitted to sink into oblivion. In the hundreds of pages of his published letters, written in later life, in which he reviews and explains ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... heard her speak casually, but charily, of having lived in Fordham. She knew she had been in Wales but a short time before she made her appearance in Eccleston. There was no doubt of the identity. Into the middle of Jemima's pain and horror at the afternoon's discovery, there came a sense of the power which the knowledge of this secret gave her over Ruth; but this was no relief, only an aggravation of the regret with which Jemima looked back on her state of ignorance. It was no wonder that when she arrived at home, she was so oppressed ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the man whom we had seen in the street, with his evening paper spread out in front of him, and as he looked up at us it seemed to me that I had never looked upon a face which bore such marks of grief, and of something beyond grief—of a horror such as comes to few men in a lifetime. His brow glistened with perspiration, his cheeks were of the dull dead white of a fish's belly, and his eyes were wild and staring. He looked at his clerk as though he failed to recognise ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... before him like a phantom in the foggy light is the ship; and now, perhaps, if any of the crew have gone down with her, the diver feels a momentary horror; but if no one has been lost, he sets about his work, and hums a ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... convinced she was not happy, although she only half realised it herself. She is capable of stifling her powers of perception. Then David Bright died and left her in poverty. His will was a scandal, and the horror did not only smirch his good name, it reached to hers. I can't and won't try to tell you what I suffered, or how I determined to fight this hideous wrong. I went to Florence; I tried to see Madame Danterre; I engaged the detective—all ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... therefore, that some Northerner has passed a plantation at the South, and seen dogs tied up. Naturally having a horror of dogs, he has let his imagination loose. After a great deal of mental exercise, the brain jumps at a conclusion, "What are these dogs kept here for?" The answer is palpable: "To hunt niggers when they run away." Reader, ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... Brushwood Boy.' Of short-stories he is the most powerful recent writer, as witness 'The Man Who Would Be King,' 'The Man Who Was,' 'Without Benefit of Clergy,' and 'Wee Willie Winkie'; though with all the frankness of modern realism he sometimes leads us into scenes of extreme physical horror. With longer stories he is generally less successful; ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... summoned her nuns to Chapter, and in a moving discourse exhorted them to preserve at any cost the treasure of their chastity. Then seizing a razor, and calling upon her daughters to follow her heroic example, she mutilated her face in order to inspire the barbarian invaders with horror at the sight. The nuns without exception courageously followed the example of their abbess. When the Danes broke into the cloister and saw the nuns with faces thus disfigured, they fled in panic. Their leaders, burning with rage, sent back some of their number to set fire to the ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... orthodoxy in great horror, having no faith in creeds which set up the highly comfortable doctrine, "I am holier than thou, for I am in the Church." "Ah! I have given dear, good friends great pain because of my obstinacy. They would have me believe as they do, which is utterly impossible." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... friends the fishers might at that moment, if it were a fine night, be holding one of their prayer meetings. The mood lasted all through the talk of Prospero and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there came a snap, and the spell was broken. With a look in which doubt wrestled with horror, Blue Peter turned to Malcolm, and whispered with bated breath—"I'm jaloosin'—it canna ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... The horror of his complicated situation displayed itself suddenly to James. He who had always led a calm, unworried life, was about to be shoved into the very midst of a hullabaloo ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... features which identify them with an irrevocable past—a past when the faithful and true Creole could, without fear of contradiction, express his religious belief that the antipathy he felt for the Americain invader was an inborn horror laid lengthwise in his ante-natal bones by a discriminating and appreciative Providence. There is, for instance, or was until lately, one house which some hundred and fifteen years ago was the suburban residence of the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... reverted perforce to the more bestial traits of aboriginal humanity. They were thrust back in their development. They became solitaries, animalesque and shy—such as we may imagine our hairy progenitors to have been. Hence their dirt and vermin, their horror of learning, their unkempt hair, their ferocious independence, their distrust of sunshine and ordered social life, their foul dieting, their dread of malign spirits, their ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... horror he attempted to laugh, but the laugh ended in a weakly giggle. She was more woman than girl by this time, and realized ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... The trouble with Sommers was this. He—well, he died of delirium tremens, and so, of course, you know what the matter was. Sommers had drunk Chicago whisky for thirty-five years straight along, and never added to it the additional horror of Chicago water. You see what his condition became, both physical and mental. Many people tried to reform Sommers, because he was really a brilliant man; but it was no use. Thirst had become a disease ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... advised to leave, and given a passage gratis to Europe. He signalised his arrival by an article printed in the 'Independence Belge,' declaring among other statements that 30 per cent. of the Boer women had been ruined by the British troops. Such a statement from such a source raised a feeling of horror in Europe, and one of deep anger and incredulity on the side of those who knew the British Army. The letter was forwarded to Pretoria for investigation, and elicited the following unofficial comments from M. Constancon, the former Swiss Consul in that city, who had been ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... except two utter idiots would have sat philandering upon the sofa in what might be termed "the lion's den," knowing that "the lion" might at any moment walk in with her shopping-basket and catch them. The surprise and horror depicted on their countenances would have commanded a good salary at a cinema studio. Mr. Montague Ponsonby was for bluffing it, but Dorothea's astute female brains seized a readier way out of the situation. ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... if all that interested her was, that there they were, talking about it. Provoked at last by her persistent lack of GENUINE reception, Ian was tempted to try her with something different: perhaps she might be moved to horror! Any feeling would be a FIND! He thought he would tell them an adventure he had read in ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions about wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The cases must be extreme in which such a course ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the great body of those who inconsiderately took this fatal step are sincerely attached to the Constitution and the Union. They would upon deliberation shrink with unaffected horror from any conscious act of disunion or civil war. But they have entered into a path which leads nowhere unless it be to civil war and disunion, and which has no other possible outlet. They have proceeded thus ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... there can be two meanings to any thing. As Sydney Smith says of the Scotch, it would take a surgical operation to get a joke well into their understanding. When I propounded this question to my young fellow-passenger—a very amiable and intelligent young man—he looked distressed and horror-stricken, and replied with great earnestness, "Oh no, he is a very respectable man. I am certain he never committed a crime in his life." "But," said I, "if he doesn't intend to hang somebody, why should he rave about hemp all night?" "Oh, he is a rope-maker. He is going to Russia to ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... even moved like Helena—got composedly to its feet. It got its coat. It put the coat on. Hallen stared with his mouth open. The pins hadn't convinced him, but the utterly different voice coming from this girl's mouth had. Yet, waves of conflicting disbelief and conviction, horror and a racking doubt, chased ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... off speaking in Spanish before Monsieur, who has a horror of conversation held in foreign languages, because he always thinks he is being ill spoken of? and lastly," continued the princess, "will people persist in attributing a wrongful affection to the king when the truth is, we can offer nothing ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... people being bitten by them, effendi, and some have died; but I should have said that it was dangerous as soon as I saw the horse shrink from it. Animals do not generally show such horror unless they know that ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... when it became known in Baalbek that Khalid, the excommunicated one, is living in the Hotel, and with an American woman! the old prejudices against him were aroused, the old enemies were astirring. The priests held up their hands in horror; the women wagged their long tongues in the puddle of scandal; and the most fanatical shrieked out, execrating, vituperating, threatening even the respectable Shakib, who persists in befriending this ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... minister put no more questions, "for," quoth he to himself, "when the prince wants my counsel, he will apply for it." In this point he had borrowed wisdom from his father, who held in peculiar horror the giving of unasked- for advice. So, when he saw that conversation was irksome to his master, he held his peace and meditated upon what he called his "day-thought." It was his practice to choose every morning some tough food ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... no charm—at least, none powerful enough to master the latent horror associated with its prettiest feature—for the weak and dismal man who was looking at it; and being now alone, he rose and leant on the window, and looked out, and then with a kind of shudder clutching his hands together, and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... troubles from more strenuous duties with an Infantry regiment, joined our mess and proved a valuable addition. He was a talented mathematician whose researches had carried him to where mathematics soar into the realms of imagination; he had a horror of misplaced relatives, and possessed a reliable palate in the matter of red wines. One dinner-time he talked himself out on the possibilities of the metric system, and pictured the effects of a right angle ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... Help against Death; and his powerlessness wrung his heart with anguish. Waking, he thought of all the women—beautiful, tender, objects of infinite passion and worship—who even at that moment lay smitten by the great destroyer; the gentle, the loving, racked, disfigured, flung into the horror of the grave. And his being rose in revolt; he strove in silent agony against the ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... CURWEN, horror-struck: "And my wife! Oh, heavenly powers! what are we going to do? How shall we get them out? Why don't they ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... him, somewhat overwhelmed by the business in hand. I felt like an inadequate boy measured against solemnities too large for him. The processes seemed curiously unconvincing, like a game in which the important part is to keep from laughing; and yet when I thought of laughing I felt cold chills of horror. If I had laughed at that moment I cannot think what that justice would have said! But it was a pleasure to have the old man read the deed, looking at me over his spectacles from time to time to make sure I was ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... among other agents whose approbation or reprobation are contemplated by the savage as consequences of his conduct, are the spirits of his ancestors. When a child he is told of their deeds, now in triumphant tones, now in whispers of horror; and the instilled belief that they may inflict some vaguely-imagined but fearful evil, or give some great help, becomes a powerful incentive or deterrent. Especially does this happen when the story is of a chief, distinguished ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... comprised in its cellar or larder. In Heaven, there was neither soda-water nor biscuits. A great confusion consequently ensued; but at length the bard, whose love of fame was only equalled by his horror of getting fat, consoled himself with a swan stuffed with truffles, and a bottle of strong ...
— Ixion In Heaven • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Courant, "It was a most extraordinary sheet. Of all the colonial newspapers, it was the most spirited, witty, and daring. The Bostonians, accustomed to the monotonous dullness of the News-letter, received, some with delight, more with horror, all with amazement, this weekly budget of impudence and fun. A knot of liberals gathered around James Franklin, physicians most of them, able, audacious men, who kept him well supplied with squibs, essays, and every variety of sense and nonsense known in ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... regulation hero-act end, in which Thomas Jefferson Brown saves the life of the lady he loves. It's something different—something that Thomas Jefferson Brown never guessed at when the water spurted in, and Lady Isobel turned to him with a little scream, her beautiful blue eyes wide and filled with horror. ...
— Thomas Jefferson Brown • James Oliver Curwood
... shaded with dismal yew, which leads through profound silence to the infernal abodes. {Here} languid Styx exhales vapors; and the new-made ghosts descend this way, and phantoms when they have enjoyed[55] funeral rites. Horror and winter possess these dreary regions far and wide, and the ghosts newly arrived know not where the way is that leads to the Stygian city, {or} where is the dismal palace of the black Pluto. The wide city has a thousand passages, and gates open on every side. And as the sea {receives} the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... to tear it from her, as if it were some tangible horror, some blazing film, that was covering her flesh. With a cry, ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... strange to David. On the floor was a rag-carpet rug, the first he had ever seen. On the walls were a fishing-rod, a toy shotgun, and a case full of bugs and moths, each little body impaled on a pin, to David's shuddering horror. The bed had four tall posts at the corners, and a very puffy top that filled David with wonder as to how he was to reach it, or stay there if he did gain it. Across a chair lay a boy's long yellow-white nightshirt ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... testifying directly against them by her own behaviour? When she should confess to fear of being alone with her father, to fear of what he might then—ah, with such a slow, painful motion as she had a horror of!—say to her, THEN would be time enough for Amerigo and Charlotte to confess to not ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... introduced. But the exquisite poetic perceptivity Coppee showed in his modern poems, the certainty with which he raised the commonest subject, investing it with sufficient dignity for his purpose, escaped me wholly, and I could not but turn with horror from such poems as "La Nourrice" and "Le Petit Epicier." How anyone could bring himself to acknowledge the vulgar details of our vulgar age I could not understand. The fiery glory of Jose Maria de Heredia, on the contrary, filled me with enthusiasm—ruins ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... whispered, fighting with his horror and his sorrow as he moaned to himself: "That any ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... renunciation that would be required of him: "It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks."[1434] The enormity of his hostility and enmity against the Lord and His people filled the man's soul with horror, and in trembling contrition he asked: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" The reply was: "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do." The brilliancy of the heavenly light had blinded Saul. His companions led him into Damascus, where, at the house ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... besieged some nine or ten days. He was left, notwithstanding, in a minority. Two more days were thus irretrievably lost; for at the end of that time only six or eight had enlisted, 'such a terrible horror had ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... Clement VIII was horror-stricken at the increasing frequency of this crime of parricide: for the moment, however, he was unable to take action, having to go to Monte Cavallo to consecrate a cardinal titular bishop in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli; but the day following, on Friday the 10th of September ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... three weeks that intervened between the precipitate and ill-considered engagement and the marriage, Mehetabel hardly came to her senses. Sometimes when occupied with her work in the house a qualm of horror came over her and curdled the blood in her heart; then with a cold sweat suffusing her brow, and with pale lips, she sank on a stool, held her head between her palms, and fought with the thoughts that rose ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... ago, when this disgraceful process was going on under my eyes, I addressed an indignant remonstrance to a leading journal. I suppose it was deficient in literary elegance, or too warm in its language; for no notice was taken of it, and the hyena-horror was allowed to complete itself in the face of daylight. I have never got over it. The bones of my own ancestors, being entombed, lie beneath their own tablet; but the upright stones have been shuffled about like chessmen, and nothing short ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... saw the hopes of years melting away, and knew that in time he would beat down my will, and, on his own terms, possess himself of all the results of my years of study and labor. I saw nothing but starvation before me and my child, and went down into a horror of great darkness." ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... had silently assisted at the ceremony, could not conceal the horror with which it inspired him. Mai interpreted for him, eloquently and forcibly. Towha could ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... day's work. I don't think that I am a particularly brave man. I have an Irish imagination which makes the unknown and the untried more terrible than they are. On the other hand, I was brought up with a horror of cowardice and with a terror of such a stigma. I dare say that I could throw myself over a precipice, like the Hun in the history books, if my courage to do it were questioned, and yet it would ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the gentle influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal prerogative has been moderated by the ancient institution ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... doctor, "that's fortunate, very fortunate;" and turned again to the fire, with an air, as I thought, of disappointment, as if he had expected a tale of horror to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... his seventy-second year. The infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable event of which he never thought without horror was brought near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow of death. He had often to pay the cruel price of longevity. Every year he lost what could never be replaced. The strange dependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom, in spite of their ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ready to marry us now, sir?" said Canute, laying one iron hand on his stooped shoulder. The little preacher was a good man, but like most men of weak body he was a coward and had a horror of physical suffering, although he had known so much of it. So with many qualms of conscience he began to repeat the marriage service. Lena sat sullenly in her chair, staring at the fire. Canute stood beside her, listening ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... he inflicted an indescribable wound ... and the bird sped across the sky, blotting out half of it, screaming. Then as the screaming died he became aware that there was a human note in it, and that Frank was crying to him, somewhere across the confines of the wold, and the horror that had been deepening with each shot he fired rose to an intolerable climax. Then began one of the regular nightmare chases: he set off to run; the screaming grew fainter each instant; he could not see his way ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... ever ready to help in every good work, and her private charities are very great, but she does not approve of the higher education or the emancipation of women, and entertains a holy horror of everything pertaining to the female suffrage movement. Women, according to her views, should remain in their own sphere, and should regard their duties to their husbands, their children, and their homes as their first and foremost obligations; ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... horror and amazement were passed, and I took up the letter and pondered on it once more, I caught a glimpse suddenly; suspicion darted all at once into my mind; I strove to recollect the circumstances attending ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... and learn to swim, Fred, it's so easy," said Harry, "and such capital fun. Look here; see me dive." And then, turning heels upwards in the water, he went down out of sight, to Fred's great horror, but came up again directly, and then floated upon his back, swam sideways, and did other feats that seemed to Fred little short of wonders—so easily ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... rustles (I am speaking of nurses professional and unprofessional) is the horror of a patient, though perhaps he does ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... me," cried the fanatic. And sweeping away his lanky hair he showed his ears; to my horror they had been cropped level across their tops by the shears. "Do your will," he shrieked, "I am ready. But your hour comes also, yea, your ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... and the birds were welcoming its advent with many a clamorous note. A dull roar, like that of a gale of wind rattling through a forest, resounded louder and louder. I called Sumichrast and l'Encuerado; the latter at once shouted out in horror— ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... already exhausted itself. He had mistaken his vocation, and already recognized the false position in which he was placed. He was contending against the monarch in whom he might find the surest ally against the arch enemy of both kingdoms, and of the world. The French monarch held heresy in horror, while, for himself, Philip had already decided upon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the horror that daughters would experience, at unexpectedly beholding the shocking spectacle that was placed before the eyes of Judith and Esther, as related in the close of the last chapter. We shall pass over the first ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... nosegay he was constrained to inhale—summed up the courage to pop the question, and received a reply which extinguished in my breast the last flickering ray of Hope's dim taper—"Sair, I vosh go to Nashveele." Only conceive the horror of being squashed into such a neighbour for twenty-one long hours, and over a road that necessarily kept jerking the unwashed and polecatty head into your face ten times in a minute! Who that has bowels of compassion but must commiserate me in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... lord forever, and not light? Look forth, tormented nations! Let your eyes Behold this horror that the few have done! Then turn, strike hands, and in your burning might Impel the fog of murder from the skies, And sow the hearts of Europe ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... almost before these short sentences could be spoken. But they had not gone twenty yards ahead of us when the water rushed in over the bow, and before we could utter a word the boat and crew were gone. Not a trace of them remained! The horror of the moment had not been fully felt, however, when the boat rose to the surface keel up, and, one after another, the heads of the men appeared. The line had fortunately broken, otherwise the boat would have been lost, and the entire crew probably ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... death by blindfolded carters. He leads the life of a friar; he is tended carefully as any babe; he is permitted to indulge his pugnacity, which it would be harsh to restrain, and at worst he dies fighting like a gentleman. A Tenerifan would shudder at the horror of our fashionable sport, where ruffians gouge or blind the pigeon with a pin, squeeze it to torture, wrench out its tail, and thrust the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... whose commentary her father preferred to any other, and the venerable saint, the Reverend William Jay of Bath, whom she was proud to call her friend. Miss Fish, therefore, made further inquiries gently and delicately, but she found to her horror that Madge had neither been sprinkled nor immersed! Perhaps she was a Jewess or a heathen! This was a happy thought, for then she might be converted. Selina knew what interest her mother took in missions to heathens and Jews; and if Madge, by the humble instrumentality of a child, could be brought ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... rarely shall that path be trod, Which, without horror, leads to death's abode. Some few, by temperance taught, approaching slow, To distant fate by easy journies go: Gently they lay them down, as evening sheep On their own ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... doctor, "they are not your enemies, but you are the enemy of the human race: nobody can think without, horror of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE |
