"Terrific" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which the tides had swept and moulded, and which had in places risen to the surface, and caused the wreck of many a vessel. Fragments of these lay under the rocks they had split upon, but the wandering family had no thoughts for them; wonder and pity had been exhausted among exciting and terrific scenes. They thought only of forcing their way over the rocks, and feared to think how much of this they had to traverse before they should come to what had been the shore, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... a large fire as a signal to the Hook's party that we had passed the TERRIFIC rapid ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... not yet permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended sign of an inn, "The Old Magpie," or "The Saracen's Head," substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the turban'd frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well judging that a man who could not read a syllable might nevertheless ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... course which he hoped would enable him to steer clear of the horde of British men-of-war which then infested the American coast. But in so doing he fell in with a natural enemy, which came near proving fatal. A terrific thunderstorm, gradually growing into a tornado, crossed the path of the ship. The ocean was lashed into waves mountain high. The crash of the thunder rent the sky. A stroke of lightning struck the main-mast, and ripped up the deck, narrowly ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... steel, there were enormous pieces with wheels reinforced by metal plates, somewhat like the farming engines which Desnoyers had used on his ranch for plowing. Like smaller beasts, more agile and playful in their incessant yelping, the groups of '75 were mingled with the terrific monsters. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the three deltas made a slight left bank and shot by the B-25 at terrific speed. The colonels estimated that the speed was at least three times that of an F-86. They got a good look at the three deltas as the unusual craft passed within 400 to 800 yards ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... only too glad to get away, though I had many messages for home. I found my men standing as they had been put—they had not even shifted their feet in the dust,—and off I marched, still feeling that terrific smile like an east wind up my back. I never halted them till sunset, and'—he turned about and looked at Pook's Hill below him—'then I halted yonder.' He pointed to the broken, bracken-covered shoulder of the Forge Hill behind old ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... the lofty houses she looked forth over the terrific stream beyond the rows of trees. Yonder heaved a stream of rolling carriages, cabriolets, coaches, omnibuses, cabs, and among them riding gentlemen and marching troops. To cross to the opposite shore was an undertaking fraught with danger to life and limb. Now lanterns shed their ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords released their tongues and filled their mouths with awkward simultaneousness. However, after a time the general awe abated, and soon the Rye Quartet was swamped in a terrific noise ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... to stare at them, blinked, and finally said, "Okay, Mac. You said it." He started with a terrific grinding of gears, drove out of the Penn Station arch and ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh-ah! kh-ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and scalp are ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... silk jackets coming swiftly up the broad straight boulevard of the race course; even as he looked they passed by with a peculiar bobbing up-and-down motion. The effect was grotesque, for he could not see the horses, could not see the motive power which carried the bright-colored riders at such a terrific pace. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... slain, there was a fearful look in her eyes, and her features were rigid as marble, while the quivering lips could scarcely pray for the great fear tugging at her heart. Mark Ray was not with his men when they came from that terrific onslaught. A dozen had seen him fall, struck down by a rebel ball, and that was all she heard for more than a week, when there came another ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... blowing so that it can scarcely be faced; the sea like ink excepting the whiteness of the surge, which is carried into the air like clouds of dust, or like the driving of snow. The wind piping through our bare rigging sounds most terrific; indeed, it is a most awful sight. The sea in mountains breaking over our bows, and a single wave dispersing in mist through the violence of the storm; ship rolling to such a degree that we are compelled to keep our berths; cabin dark with the deadlights in. Oh! who would go to sea when he can ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... sound, the girl crept back through the shadows over the damp pine needles, until, peering fearfully over her shoulder, she saw the last ghost-tint of Quintana's fire die out in the terrific dark behind. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... about, and, under close-reefed sails, went bumping through the interminable ice-patches which seem ever to choke these straits. The mountains to the northward showed white after the squalls of last night; and the seals were leaping as briskly amid the ice-cakes as if the terrific scenery of the previous evening had but given ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... The terrific honours which these ferocious nations paid to their deceased monarchs are recorded in history, by the interment of Attila, king of the Huns, and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... an even stronger indictment against some of the scholars. In a speech delivered to law students at Harvard he declared that there was scarcely a great conspiracy against the public welfare that did not have Harvard brains behind it. He need not have gone to Harvard to utter this terrific indictment against college graduates; he might have gone to Yale, or Columbia, or Princeton, or to any other great university, or even to smaller colleges. It would not take long to correct the abuses of which the people complain but for the fact that back of every abuse are the hired ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... an interesting picture of the state of society in Patriarchal times—the whole of the life of Moses is extremely well written—the description of the Plague is indeed terrific—and the death and character of the Prophet drawn with a masterly and vigorous hand. The reigns of David and Solomon, as might be expected, are magnificently told. Among the picturesque sketches ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... of that road to Calvary which we all of us must follow, whether it be a long or short way, is that it is always, as it were, a lonely journey into the Unknown. It is a mystery—a terrific mystery—and sometimes it frightens us so terribly that men and women have been known to kill themselves rather than take it. But there is always this to be said of sorrow—like happiness, it looms so very much larger when seen from ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... valley on the other side the saddle over which I had come, I concluded that the saddle itself could not be less than nine thousand feet high; and I should think that the river-bed, on to which I now descended, was three thousand feet above the sea-level. The water had a terrific current, with a fall of not less than forty to fifty feet per mile. It was certainly the river next to the northward of that which flowed past my master's run, and would have to go through an impassable ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... been three days in New York in great heat, which Kitty took pains to tell us was most unseasonable, when one morning a thunderstorm accompanied by terrific wind came up, preventing us from going out as we had intended. Kitty's floor at the top of the building, with its steel supports, actually gave the effect of swaying in the blast like an overgrown spear of wheat, a phenomenon Kitty took as a matter of course. So we Britishers had to do the ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his car in motion, and, judging by the way the wind stung me, the pace was something terrific. At first I attempted to pay some attention to the direction we took. But I soon gave up the idea. My position on the car was not one from which I could observe anything with any degree of comfort. With my arms bound, I sprawled out upon the ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... showing us that we should be missed. Henry Irving's position seemed to be confirmed and ratified by all that took place before his departure. The dinners he had to eat, the speeches he had to make and to listen to, were really terrific! One speech at the Rabelais Club had, it was said, the longest peroration on record. It was this kind of thing: "Where is our friend Irving going? He is not going like Nares to face the perils of the far North. He is not going like A—— to face something else. He is not going to China," ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... absolute necessity that there should be no waste. Accordingly, the field-officers pointed the pieces in person, and the words "look to the commodore—look to the two-deckers!" passed along the line. The conflict soon grew terrific. The balls whistled above the heads of the defenders, and bombs fell thick and fast within the fort; yet, in the excitement of the moment, the men seemed totally unconscious of danger. Occasionally a shot from one of ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... from literature, we spoke with the gentle abbate of our day's adventures, and eagerly related that of the Ecelino prisons. To have seen them was the most terrific pleasure of ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... destruction of each other. Sometimes the struggle lasts for hours on a plot of meadow, which they denude of its grass as cleanly as if it had been ploughed. Finally, the beast who is getting the worst of it, feeling that his rival is the stronger, begins with a terrific roar to fly away through the herd, and runs wild on the puszta; with blood-red eyes, with blood-red lolling tongue, he wanders up and down the fields and meadows, frequently returning to the scene of his humiliation; but he mingles no longer ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... when this struggle for freedom is over, and from the little child to the bowed-down man, all shall breathe through the new Constitution a fresher, more glorious life. Viewed from the daily papers, the battle is long, terrific, and uncertain. Go to the stricken hearthstones, and we exclaim, "Oh, that this cup might pass from us!" Visit the solemn battle-field, and in anguish we murmur, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken us?" ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... not be improper here shortly to revert to the different appearance of the eye in rabies. In the early stage of this malady there is an unnatural and often terrific brightness of the eye; but the cornea in distemper is from the first rather clouded. In rabies there is frequent strabismus, with the axis of the eye distorted outwards. The apparent squinting of the eye in distemper is caused by the probably unequal protrusion ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... children and the mortality from tuberculosis have become alarming. At Budapest, even after the War, the number of deaths surpasses the number of births. The statistics published by Dr. Ferenczi prove that the number of children afflicted with rickets and tuberculosis reaches in Budapest the terrific figure of 250,000 in a population of about two millions. It is said that practically all the new-born in recent years, partly through the privations of the mothers and partly from the lack ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... assignation with his lady, wait for sundown more eagerly than I did that day. Hour after hour I sat upon the house-top, watching the Black Kendah carrying off the dead killed by the hailstones and generally trying to repair the damage done by the terrific tempest. Watching the sun also as it climbed down the cloudless sky, and literally counting the minutes till it should reach the horizon, although I knew well that it would have been wiser after such a night to prepare for our journey by lying down ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... tangled up in a heap on the floor, and a terrific struggle began between them, the sailor trying to put his wooden leg through the accordeon, and the Dutchmen industriously striving to gouge Tim's ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... home and friends, and roamed the streets at night, denouncing doom to the city. He was a tall gaunt man, with long jet-black hair hanging in disordered masses over his shoulders. His eyes were large and black, and blazed with insane lustre, and his looks were so wild and terrific, that it required no great stretch of imagination to convert him into the genius of the pestilence. Entirely stripped of apparel except that his loins were girt with a sheep-skin, in imitation of Saint John in the Wilderness, he bore upon his head a brazier of flaming coals, the lurid light of ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... For the history of Alfred's times, and details of the terrific struggle with the Northmen, the reader must be referred to the histories. The struggle ended with the Treaty of Wedmore, in 878, with the establishment of Alfred not only as king of Wessex, but as overlord of the whole northern country. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the British Museum, at the top of the stairs, we encounter in a terrific alliance a giraffe, a hippopotamus, and a basking shark. The public—young and old—pass with a start and a stare, and remain as wise as they were before about all the three creatures. The day before yesterday I was standing by the big fish—a father came up to it with his ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... mispronouncing a letter of the alphabet; but Eremey Lukitch had received a cruel and secret blow that day: his best dog had been crushed by a tree. Vassilissa Vassilyevna's efforts in regard Panteley's education did not, however, get beyond one terrific exertion; in the sweat of her brow she engaged him a tutor, one Birkopf, a retired Alsatian soldier, and to the day of her death she trembled like a leaf before him. 'Oh,' she thought, 'if he throws us up—I'm lost! Where could I turn? Where could I find another teacher? Why, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... of England Shall yet terrific burn; Till danger's troubled night depart, And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... in the same sphere, seeing that man and woman were evidently made for each other, and have shown equal capacity in the ordinary range of human duties. In governing nations, leading armies, piloting ships across the sea, rowing life-boats in terrific gales; in art, science, invention, literature, woman has proved herself the complement of man in the world of thought and action. This difference does not compel us to spread our tables with different food for man and woman, nor to provide in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sleep. The banana man passed back again under her window, calling his wares as loudly as before, but she did not hear him. An Italian with a hand-organ stopped in front of the house and ground out several popular noisy airs, but no note of it reached her. There was a dog fight on the corner, a terrific pow-wow of yelps and snarls; still she did not stir. Two, three hours went by. Then she was aroused by a rustling sound at her door, and opening her eyes, saw that some one was ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... gazing into the same unspeakably ferocious blue eyes of the night before, at the same clutching talon-like hands, and at the same formidable bulk in the act of springing upon him. But this time Dave had no night-stick to throw, and he was caught by the biceps of both arms in a grip so terrific that it made him groan with pain. He saw the large white teeth exposed, for all the world as a dog's about to bite. Mr. Ward's beard brushed his face as the teeth went in for the grip on his throat. ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... Desperately and consistently, as they behold their competitors forced out in the irresistible march of centralization, they cling to their sinking ships, their small deceits and petty ideology in the hope of one day winning out against the terrific odds opposed to them, and landing high and ...
— Women As Sex Vendors - or, Why Women Are Conservative (Being a View of the Economic - Status of Woman) • R. B. Tobias
... stand the munition workers, the Man Back of The Desk, the people themselves, each guarding against waste and each contributing his or her part, great or small, for that national economy which alone can hope to sustain the terrific pace that victory demands. Finally, out in the great open spaces, faithful and unassuming and backing his country to the limit, must plod the Man Behind The Plow, working silently and steadily from dawn till dark to enlist and re-enlist the ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... hours being 140,000,000 cubic feet of clear ice. As this great quantity cracks into pieces from the glacier, the bergs of the North Pacific begin their life. The separation from the larger mass and the plunge into the sea cause terrific noises. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... travel!" exclaimed he; "that will give my whole character a more decided bias: I will and must," added he in thought. "My sorrow will be extinguished, the recollections of my childhood be forgotten. Abroad, no terrific figures, as here, will present themselves to me. My father is dead, foreign earth lies ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... trigger so close together that four hundred rifles sang together as one. The charge halted in its tracks. The entire front rank was shot away. Horses and men went down together, and the horses uttered neighs of pain, far more terrific than the groans of the wounded men. Many of them, riderless, galloped up and down ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... came that awful struggle, where muscle met muscle in a strain that was truly terrific. Roxley was heavier, but its wind was going fast. Brill held at first, then went ahead—an ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... idea of this important day at Friars Carse, I have watched the elements and skies, in the full persuasion that they would announce it to the astonished world by some phenomena of terrific portent. Yesternight until a very late hour, did I wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet firing half the sky, or aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians, darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those convulsions ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Frontenac accordingly. August, 1671, Governor Frontenac dispatched the English Jesuit—Father Albanel—with French guides and Indian voyageurs to set up French arms on Hudson Bay and to bear letters to Radisson and Groseillers. The journey was terrific. I have told the story elsewhere. Autumn found the voyageurs beyond the forested shores of the Saguenay and Lake St. John, ascending a current full of boiling cascades towards Lake Mistassini. Then the frost-painted woods became naked as antlers, with wintry winds setting ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... The explosion was terrific; its effect appalling. The glare lit the whole city for a brief second with a light like a stormy sunset, then upon us showered great pieces of iron and stone with mangled human limbs, the debris of a gateway that for centuries had ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... of blue steel, the half-caste's dripping face looked forth, peering into the terrific storm. There was no question of fending off such torrents of rain, nor did he attempt it. Indeed, he seemed to court its downfall. He held out his arms and stretched forth his legs, giving free play to the water which ran off him ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... At this terrific act of insubordination, and the almost blasphemous suggestion which capped it, the lawyer fell back in his chair and broke out into a profuse perspiration, gazing at the Rector as he would at some suddenly intruding wild animal. Then, with ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... of bleeding battle skill'd, The monster stalks the terror of the field. From Gath he sprung, Goliath was his name, Of fierce deportment, and gigantic frame: A brazen helmet on his head was plac'd, A coat of mail his form terrific grac'd, The greaves his legs, the targe his shoulders prest: Dreadful in arms high-tow'ring o'er the rest A spear he proudly wav'd, whose iron head, Strange to relate, six hundred shekels weigh'd; He strode along, and ...
— Religious and Moral Poems • Phillis Wheatley
... said he had lost the path in the storm, and, seeing the light, had scrambled down to inquire his way. I perceived at once, from the scared and mysterious look of the old woman's eyes, that she was persuaded that this appearance had more than a little to do with the awful rider, the terrific storm, and myself who had heard the sound of the phantom-hoofs. As he ascended the hill, she looked after him, with wide and pale but unshrinking eyes; then turning in, shut and locked the door behind her, as by a natural instinct. After two or three of her ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... was a pity that Hilary always so disliked any work he had to do. Work—a terrific, insatiable god, demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till twilight—so Hilary saw it. The idea of being horrible, all the concrete details into which it ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... now stopped to take in passengers, but still no steam was permitted to escape. On the starting of the boat again, cold water was forced into the boilers by the feed-pumps, and, as might have been expected, one of the boilers exploded with terrific force, carrying away the boiler-deck and tearing to pieces much of the machinery. One dense fog of steam filled every part of the vessel, while shrieks, groans, and cries were heard on every side. Men were running hither and thither looking for their ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown
... Cowen and I went out to the base-ball game together to-day and saw the champions down the Detroits to the tune of 14 to 8. It was a great slugging match all around. Conway pitched for Detroit and McCormick for Chicago. As I say, there was terrific batting; on the part of Chicago, Gore made 1 base hit, Kelly 3, Anson 2, Pfeffer 3, Williamson 1, Burns 1 and Ryan 2; on the part of Detroit. Richardson made 2, Brouthers 4, Thompson 1 and Dunlap 1. The Chicagos played ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and Three-Bishopricks gallop, in the Night of Spurs; Diligences ruffling up all France into one terrific terrified Cock of India; and the Town of Nantes in its shirt,—may fancy what an affair to settle this was. Robespierre, on the extreme Left, with perhaps Petion and lean old Goupil, for the very Triumvirate ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... morrow all is rejoicing; but when night falls, the monster's mother attacks Heorot, and kills Hrothgar's favorite thane. The next day, Beowulf pursues her to her den under the waters of the fen, and after a terrific combat slays her. The hero returns home to Sweden laden with gifts. This ends the main thread of the first incident. In the second incident, after an interval of fifty years, we find Beowulf an old man. He has been for many years king of the Geats. A fire-breathing dragon, the guardian ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... into line across the broad river was a noisy and exciting piece of work. We carried on the launch a large party of elderly chiefs, most. of whom were obviously suffering from "the needle," and during the working of the boats into line they hurled commands at them in language that was terrific in both quality and volume. At last something like a line was assumed, and on the sound of the gun the twenty boats leaped through the water, almost lost to sight in a cloud of spray as every one of those twelve hundred men struck the water for all he was worth. There was no saving of themselves; ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... of herbs and flowers a kind of ministering to his wants; were not the gods in some sort his husbandmen, and spirit-servants? Their mere strength or omnipresence did not seem to him a distinction absolutely terrific. It might be the nature of one being to be in two places at once, and of another to be only in one; but that did not seem of itself to infer any absolute lordliness of one nature above the other, any more than an insect must be a nobler creature than ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... Heaven, imploring its mercy with sobbing voices. Everything totters, is agitated; all dread death, and terror becomes general. In the country it is totally different, and a hundred times more imposing and terrific. For instance, in Jala-Jala, at the approach of one of these phenomena, a profound, even mournful stillness pervades nature. The wind no longer blows; not a breeze nor even a gentle zephyr is perceptible. The sun, though cloudless, darkens, and spreads around a sepulchral light. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... charging about in their limited space, their little legs driving madly and their mouths open. What they lacked in size they made up in numbers, and the din was terrific. ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... occupied with speculations about the decision of arms than with a change which was, after all, only another phase of a protracted, tiresome struggle in which the papacy had long since fallen from its pinnacle. It was, however, an element of terrific demoralization in the house of Austria, which thus saw the consolidation of Italy under the Napoleon family complete, and their last hope to regain their European influence by enlargement in that ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... our full song from time to the silence of eternity. Sleep next to death is the most terrible life that soul and body knows. It is the center of the wheel radiating high powers to the circumference. The speed there is terrific, so fast that it hardens, again that "majestic instancy." The tiniest flame is the friction of conflicting "universes." Beauty is alike the center and circumference of infinity, the silent wheel of ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... pressed around him as he took a bottle of water from Doc and dashed the liquid into the sand. There was a cloud of steam and a terrific hissing. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... the most atrocious language. Then they fled. The three footmen stood their ground a little longer. Mr. Donovan raised his voice a little. He felt old powers returning to him. He became fluent. One by one the footmen slank away. Mr. Donovan went on, without passion or heat. He arrived at a terrific malediction which he had found effective many years before in dealing with Italian navvies. The major domo cowered, his hands held to his ears, and vanished into ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... narrow valleys where gradual denudation has washed bare the flat-backed slopes of limestone ridges, and which consequently send down torrents of rapidly accumulating rainfall, both these central lines of water-course are liable to terrific floods. The drainage of the Bolan and Nari finally disappears in the irrigated flats of the alluvial bay (Kach Gandava), which extends 130 m. from the Indus to Sibi at the foot of the hills, and which offers (in spite of periodic Indus ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... 1887, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were led out to the gallows. At the last moment, yielding to the terrific pressure of protest which had been developed by the defense in the last months, and a great wave of general sympathy with the men throughout the country, Governor Oglesby commuted the sentences of Fielden and Schwab to life imprisonment. Two days before the execution—when ...
— Labor's Martyrs • Vito Marcantonio
... confusion. I looked back on my by-past life with pain, as one looks back on a perilous journey, in which he has attained his end, without gaining any advantage either to himself or others; and I looked forward, as on a darksome waste, full of repulsive and terrific shapes, pitfalls, and precipices, to which there was no definite bourn, and from which I turned with disgust. With my riches, my unhappiness was increased tenfold; and here, with another great acquisition of property, for which I had pleaed, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... is an awful topic—but 't is not My cue for any time to be terrific: For checkered as is seen our human lot With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific Of melancholy merriment, to quote Too much of one sort would be soporific;— Without, or with, offence to friends or foes, I sketch your world ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... high and low, thousands of miles back to the left hand, until we came again in sight of the boundary wall, and reached a narrow corner. Here we perceived an immense, frowning, ruinous palace, open at the top, reaching to the wall where were the innumerable doors, all of which led to this huge, terrific court. The walls were constructed with the sculls of men, which grinned horribly with their teeth. The clay was black, and was prepared with tears and sweat; and the mortar on the outside was variegated with phlegm and pus, and on the inside with black-red blood. On the top of each turret, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... easily," said Donald. "That's right. You're blooded now, my boy. You'll fight all the better in the future for tasting your own blood to-night. I'm glad you are back with us. Your father has been giving out the most terrific curses against Lord Dunseveric for having brought the yeomen down on us and taken away his little cannons. I tell him he ought to be thankful they went into the meeting-house instead of coming here. They'd have made a fine haul if they'd walked in and taken the papers he and I had before ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... tail twisted round her head. 'Ah, traitress!' he exclaimed, and ordering the horses to be turned round, he drove the elder daughter, quivering with rage, to the old woman who had sought to deceive him. With his hand on the hilt of his sword he demanded Lizina in so terrific a voice that the mother hastened to the well to draw her prisoner out. Lizina's clothing and her star shone so brilliantly that when the prince led her home to the king, his father, the whole palace was lit up. Next day they were married, and lived happy ever after; and ...
— The Crimson Fairy Book • Various
... mountaineer's eyes were opened to the evil of his ways, after the death of his father, Alvin C. York forsook his old habits once and for all. When the World War came he declared himself a conscientious objector. His church—the Church of Christ in Christian Union—held that war was a sin. York had a terrific struggle deciding his duty between God and patriotism. He loved his God. He loved his country. He made every effort to obtain exemption because he firmly believed it a sin to fight and to kill, even for the sake of one's country. But for all that, he could not gain exemption. Whereupon ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... hero so strong that there was little fear of his being ousted; so my sympathies were on the winning side. But once he met his master, and was pitched with terrific violence across the sand, striking on his head, to his evident stupefaction. When he recovered he gave up his property without demur, and started for another venture. Then I, the deus ex machina, stepped into the epic, pitched the usurper three times as far as he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,) The rapid march, the life of the camp, The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre, Red battles with their slaughter, the stimulus, the strong terrific game, Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and like of you all fill'd, With ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... first real taste of it, and it was sweet to the lips. But the regiment was halted presently, lest it get too far forward and be cut off, and a general striding over to Bougainville uttered words of approval that John could not hear amid the terrific din of so many men in battle—a million, a million and a half or more, he ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... console him, by persuading him that he was their protector, and he began to think there was need of a guard, when a mighty cheer caused him to take refuge behind Ethel. Even when assured that it was anything but terrific, he gravely declared that he thought Margaret would want him, but he could not cross the garden without Meta ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... Spencer showed his next neighbor, in the back of his Colburn's Arithmetic, an imaginary portrait of their district hero, which caused them both to chuckle derisively. The Honorable Mr. Laneway figured on the flyleaf as an extremely cross-eyed person, with strangely crooked legs and arms and a terrific expression. He was outlined with red and blue pencils as to coat and trousers, and held a reddened scalp in one hand and a blue tomahawk in the other; being closely associated in the artist's mind with the early settlements of the ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... exactly described the movements of Hooker. He was still in a grand fog, and knew nothing of his adversary's intent, when a terrific cry arose among the well-to-do farmers of Pennsylvania. The wolf had appeared in the fold. Ewell was rapidly ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... bush behind, and a huge English mastiff rushed upon Etienne. His Norman sleuth hound threw himself upon the assailant of his master, and a terrific struggle ensued. Etienne did not dare wait to see its conclusion or help his canine protector, for the noise of the conflict was drawing all the English there; but he struggled back to the open, and ran along the inner edge of the wood, hoping ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... said, 'I was walking down Bond Street about five o'clock. There was a terrific crush of carriages, and the traffic was almost stopped. Close to the pavement was standing a little yellow brougham, which, for some reason or other, attracted my attention. As I passed by there looked ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... avenger which, if the words on this paper were true, I owed it to my Ada and the promise which I had given her to be? The cloud that enveloped my brain pressed upon me too closely for me to give an answer to questions so vital and terrific. I was in a maze,—a horrible dream; I could not think, I could only suffer, and at last creep away like a shadow of guiltiness to where a cluster of pine-trees made a sort of retreat into which I felt I could thrust my almost ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... like a man, but sprinkled With her blood, who gave her death, By that human viper bitten. Round his birthday came at last, All its auguries fulfilling (For the presages of evil Seldom fail or even linger): Came with such a horoscope, That the sun rushed blood-red tinted Into a terrific combat With the dark moon that resisted; Earth its mighty lists outspread As with lessening lights diminished Strove the twin-lamps of the sky. 'Twas of all the sun's eclipses The most dreadful that it suffered Since the hour its bloody visage Wept the awful death of Christ. For o'erwhelmed ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... across the hill of ice and the sea of glass,' said the Prince; but almost before the words had passed his lips a second thunderclap, louder and more terrific than the first, was heard. The Princess sank half fainting on the ground. When she again opened her eyes, Prince, palace, everything had disappeared. She was alone, quite alone, on a barren moorland, ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... we saw the ship must strike. A huge roller seemed to lift her, and with a terrific crash down she came on the sand, the foaming sea instantly dashing over her, making every timber in her tremble, and tearing off large fragments of her ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... fresh water rush out furiously against floods of salt water leaping in, upheaved into mighty waves by the winter gale. A foaming roaring battle between two opposing forces of the same element takes place. The noise is terrific—it is heard like thunder, at great distances off. At last, the heavy, smooth, continuous flow of the fresh water prevails even over the power of the ocean. Farther and farther out, rushing through a wider and wider channel ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... Sancho received Urraca's defiance, he flew into a terrific rage, and accused the Cid of having counselled the resistance of the princess because of love for her. Not a word of explanation would he hear, but straightway banished the Cid from the kingdom. Rodrigo ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... her," he said, "I was giving out tickets for the up train. There was a terrific scrimmage between two dogs—no end of a row. Perhaps your brother or your father came in by the up train and took the child home. It was enough to frighten anybody to hear the lady that the little dog belonged to! She was right down screaming for somebody to rescue ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... of these waves as they come rushing on I cannot desert the pressing demands made upon me by the gems she wore, to inquire, but they are charged with something about Robinson Crusoe, and I think it was in Yarmouth Roads that he first went a-seafaring and near foundering (what a terrific sound that word had for me when I was a boy!) in his first gale of wind. Still, through all this, I must ask her (who was she, I wonder!) for the fiftieth time, and without ever stopping, Does she not fear to stray, so lone and lovely through this bleak ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... a most terrific rain for the last two days—the people are getting anxious on account ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Presently the signal-bells rang, the steamboat backed away and swung into midstream; he was really going at last. He crept from beneath the boat and sat looking out over the water and enjoying the scenery. Then it began to rain—a terrific downpour. He crept back under the boat, but his legs were outside, and one of the crew saw him. So he was taken down into the cabin and at the next stop set ashore. It was the town of Louisiana, and there were Lampton relatives there who ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... were devastated by a terrific hurricane, and, hearing that Ori had suffered great loss, Mrs. Stevenson sent him a sum of money to help tide him over the crisis. He was very grateful for this assistance and wrote her a letter of heartfelt thanks, saying the money ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... startled forest returned to the resounding tread of their flying cavalcade. She leaned back again in the carriage; again she fell asleep; again she dreamed. But her sleep was un-refreshing; her dreams were agitated, confused, and haunted by terrific images. And she awoke repeatedly with her cheerful anticipation continually decaying of speedily (perhaps ever again) rejoining her gallant Maximilian. There was indeed yet a possibility that she might be under the superintending care of her lover. But she secretly felt that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... wait till the older returned. There he was now. I might ask him. The older benignly granted my petition, nodding significantly to his fellow-guard, by whom I was accordingly escorted to my destination and subsequently back to my bench. When we got back the gendarmes held a consultation of terrific importance; in substance, the train which should be leaving at that moment (six something) did not run to-day. We should therefore wait for the next train, which leaves at twelve-something-else. Then the older surveyed me and said almost kindly: "How would ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... he started forward, his eyes bulging from his head, and, with a stream of foam flung out from his mouth, he turned and raced through the water at a terrific rate, Kernel Cob and Sweetclover clinging to him ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... remains to be done, my readers will perhaps echo what my publishers say, "Please God to spare you!" I only ask to be less tormented by men and things than I have hitherto been since I began this terrific labor. I have had this in my favor, and I thank God for it, that the talents of the time, the finest characters and the truest friends, as noble in their private lives as the former are in public life, have wrung my ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... it seemed, as much in the water as out of it. When the raft was completed, I was invited to embark. My original friend, who had twisted a tow-rope, took this between his teeth, and led the way. Others swam behind and beside me to push and to pull. The force of the water was terrific; but they seemed to care no more for that than fish. My weight sunk the rush bundles a good bit below the surface; and to try my nerves, my crew every now and then with a wild yell dived simultaneously, dragging the raft and me under water. But ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... or more. The forest, never touched by a woodman's axe, had a remarkably young and fresh look about it. Now and then, however, at exposed places we came upon trees broken off like matches, telling of what terrific storms may rage over these solitary regions that received us calmly enough. Not until we had reached the top did we feel the wind blowing pretty hard from the east and encouraging us in our hopes that the fine weather would continue, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... frightened, because she knew that Dick would soon return to her assistance; but as the distance between boat and shore increased, a cold hand seemed laid upon her heart. Looking at the shore it seemed very far away, and the view towards the reef was terrific, for the opening had increased in apparent size, and the great sea beyond ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... the Sompnour is also a Devil of the first magnitude, grand, terrific, rich, and honoured in the rank of which he holds the destiny. The uses to society are perhaps equal of the Devil and of the Angel; their sublimity ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... begin with, the withered and corrupt dead will have to be excavated from the cellars, and when that day comes those will be present who can say: "This skeleton was So-and-So's child," "That must have been my mother." Terrific hours await Ypres. And when (or if) the buildings have been re-erected, tenants will have to be found for them—and then think of the wholesale refurnishing! The deep human instinct which attaches men and women to a particular spot of the earth's surface is so powerful that almost certainly ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... to Delhi—before I sent for you at all—I told her what I meant to do, and I never in my life knew a woman raise such terrific objections to working with a man. As it happened her objections only confirmed my determination to send for you, and before she went down to Delhi to clean up I told her flatly she would either have to work with you or else stay in India for ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... received with cheers, he ordered a charge on the British line. Urging on the fight, leading every onset, delivering his orders in person where the bullets flew thickest, he forced the British to their camp. Here the Hessians, dismayed by these terrific attacks, fired one volley and fled. Arnold, having forced an entrance, was wounded in the same leg as at Quebec (p. 112), and borne from the field, but not until he had won a victory while Gates stayed ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... passage in the new line for Bordeaux. They supposed they had; but would they ever reach the vessel in New York? The last moments were terrific. In spite of all their careful arrangements, their planning and packing of the last year, it seemed, after all, as if everything were left for the very last day. There were presents for the family to be packed, ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale
... stands at the mouth of the Valley of Rocks, about which so much has been written, which has been compared to an amphitheatre of giants, or the scene of some titanic conflict, where the huge granite crags and boulders have been torn up and tossed about by supernatural and terrific forces. In honesty I must admit that this seems to me an exaggeration. Any walker who goes with this in his mind must, I think, be disappointed; the place is wild enough, and barren enough, a bleak, bare, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... board. His limbs were arranged like those of dead persons, and when his eyes had been closed, a painter was introduced into the room and desired to make a full-length and full-size picture of this terrific object, this solemn theatrical presentment of life in death. The frontispiece of Death's Duel gives a reproduction of the upper part of this picture. It was said to be a remarkably truthful portrait of the great poet and divine, and it certainly agrees in all its proportions with the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... how fast she was going. Instinct, made keen by thousands of saddle miles, told Dicksie of her terrific pace. She was riding faster than she would have dared go at noonday and without thought or fear of accident. In spite of the sliding and the plunging down the long hill, the storm and the darkness ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... government party, his reputation for indomitable courage, protected him from personal molestation under circumstances where another man would have been mobbed. In Stockbridge itself, there were no violent collisions of the two parties save in the case of the children, terrific snowball fights raging daily in the streets between the "Shayites" and the "Boston Army." Had Perez listened to the counsels of his followers, the exchange of hard knocks in the village would have been by no ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... plump white hands of hers almost close to the Archbishop's face, as if she were ready to do it, but Cardinal Mazarin whispered something in her ear which made her less violent, and the next moment the lieutenant of police came in, with such a terrific account of the fury of the mob and their numbers, that there was no more incredulity; it was plain that there was really a most frightful uproar, and both the Regent and the Cardinal entreated the Coadjutor to go down and pacify the people by promises. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... careful eyes of Priam first beheld. Not half so dreadful rises to the sight,(274) Through the thick gloom of some tempestuous night, Orion's dog (the year when autumn weighs), And o'er the feebler stars exerts his rays; Terrific glory! for his burning breath Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death. So flamed his fiery mail. Then wept the sage: He strikes his reverend head, now white with age; He lifts his wither'd arms; obtests the skies; He calls his much-loved son with feeble cries: The ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... elbow into this one's face, while his right arm turned beneath the arm of the man on his chest and reached a position of half-nelson behind the man's head. He was now in a position to break this assailant's neck. Bones snapped as he applied the terrific muscles of his right arm and the brown man's muscles relaxed. Johnny's head and arms were free. With the speed of a wild-cat, he sprang to his feet, faced about, then, with a bounding leap, cleared the remaining assailant and went tobogganing down the hill. He had seen five others of the brown ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... fountain in silver as an ornament to his study. Never was there a place where such a measure would be more important; if cleanliness be akin to godliness, Edinburgh stands at great disadvantage in her devotions. The impure air, the terrific dirt which surround the working people, must make all progress in higher culture impossible; and I saw nothing which seemed to me so likely to have results of incalculable good, as this practical measure of the Simpsons in support ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the terrific encounter, it occurred too close to camp for the other Assiniboines to remain in doubt for a moment. Moreover, when the victim of the Shawanoe's prowess went down not to rise again he uttered an ear-splitting screech which ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... helplessness in the presence of the multitude seemed at this juncture to return to the chief magistrate of the city. It was impossible to control the cataract-like passions of the rioters. He heard their awful roar for the sign. The din had risen to terrific proportions. The thought of what might happen next appalled him. The mob might begin to bombard the sign with brickbats, and from the sign pass to the building, and from the building to the constables, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... well-broken into the side-saddle, had been conjured up from somewhere by the Creek. But two of the pack-horses had strayed, and by the time they were found the morning had slipped away, and it was too late to start until after dinner. Then after dinner a terrific thunderstorm broke over the settlement, and as the rain fell in torrents, Mac thought it looked "like a case of to-morrow ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... and his country, his wounded spirit imputed the supposed unkindness which he received to the religion which his enemies professed. In a foreign land, brooding over his wrongs, he cherished the bitter antipathy to priestcraft and to monarchy which finds such terrific expression in his poems.(645) His end was a fit close of a tragic life. A friendly hand paid the last office of friendship to his remains; and the urn which contains the ashes of his pyre rests in the solemn and beautiful cemetery of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... in a sense, very necessary to the ignorant man. He must have some theory by which to explain the phenomena of nature and soothe his own terrors. Hence he peoples the earth and water, not only with invisible spirits more or less malevolent, but also with bodily presences usually in terrific bestial form. To those who believe in one Spirit pervading, ordering, governing all things, there is unity amid all phenomena, and the universe is all order and beauty. To the mind which has not reached this height of simplicity, ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... the moment she was facing a window, and a flash of strange brilliancy made every feature luminous. It seemed to him that he saw her very soul, the spirit she might become, for it is hard to imagine existence without form—form that is in harmony with character. The crash that followed was so terrific that they paused and stood confronting each other. The music ceased; cries of terror resounded; but the momentary transfiguration of the girl before him had been so strange and so impressive that Graydon forgot all else, and still gazed at her with something like awe in his face. Her lip ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... rock which straddled the width of the river, leaving only a narrow opening for the current to race through. Mungo Park, seeing the danger, nevertheless resolved to force a passage. But the odds were terrific. It took half the men to keep the canoe moving against the current, while the rest fired at the enemy as they hurled stones and assegais upon their heads. At last the two steersmen were slain, and the canoe went adrift. In a desperate attempt to lighten it, they cast all the baggage ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... tumult and terrific screams announce that a tremendous tiger has escaped from an iron cage in the temple of Siva, spreading destruction everywhere. Instantly, Nandana's youthful sister, Madayantika happens to be passing, and is attacked by the tiger and is reported ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... violet is a blossom sweet, That droops before the day is done— Slain by thine overpowering heat, O Sun! And I, like that sweet purple flower, May roast, or boil, or broil, or bake, If burned by thy terrific power, Firedrake! ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... royal eye, is wonderfully full of colour and picturesque, but, as far as one can see, quite harmless. Nobody seems to be getting hurt, wild-looking men are swinging maces round, but you can see that they won't hit anybody. A battle-axe is being brought down with terrific force, but somebody is thrusting up a steel shield just in time to meet it. There are no signs of blood or injury. Everybody seems to be getting along finely and to be having the most invigorating physical exercise. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... after a last wild gaze round, the little party gave way step by step, and were literally driven out by the tremendous heat, Fred's last look back being at the splendid staircase, now one raging mass of fire, which was spreading upward with terrific speed. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... say in this whole connection that these people all came from a part of Europe where what we call a common-law marriage is an ordinary relationship.) It was from the language of her father that Libby first gained acquaintance with bad sex ideas, we are assured by the mother. After a terrific time of stress Libby's mother was rescued from her miserable conditions by the man who later lived with her and finally married her, and who has supported her and been true to her ever since. He is a sympathetic ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... container cover, it was as firm as if it had been welded on. But then, if the cover had been closed in the thin atmosphere of 65,000 feet, it would be held on by the terrific pressure of a column ...
— Warning from the Stars • Ron Cocking
... and instantly gave proof of a power of the highest order. There was something horrible and majestic in the spectacle of the sudden transformation in his face; he could only be compared to a cauldron full of the steam that can send mountains flying, a terrific force dispelled in a moment by a drop of cold water. The drop of water that cooled his wrathful fury was a reflection that flashed across his brain like lightning. He began to smile, and looked down at ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac |
