"Appalling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of plates and cups on the impact of the kick, there was a sensible silence before the appalling crash and thud at the stair's foot. Amaryllis held back a scream, but ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... of the name, momentarily she lost herself. It is appalling to be a snob. But there are attributes that pour balm all over you. In the deference of the bored yet gracious young women who, with robes et manteaux, had come all the way from Fifth Avenue, there had been a flagon or two of that balm. In the invariable "Thank you, mem's" of the Paliser personnel ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling to a recluse as half a mile of summer boarders. As the deer entered the thin woods, she saw a rabble of people start across the meadow in pursuit. By this time, the dogs, panting, and lolling out their tongues, came swinging along, keeping the trail, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that startled even the captain. The whole village of several hundred Indians was in sight and a most frightful sight it was. Everyone young and old was running about crying, wailing, with faces painted black and white. They did not seem even to see the big steamer. It was such an appalling spectacle that the captain deemed it best not to land, but there were two men on board, residents of St. Paul returning from St. Louis who got into ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... is Oestrich, adjacent to which stood the famous convent of Gottesthal, not a vestige of which remains to mark its former site. Its memory is preserved, however, in the following appalling legend, the noble referred to being the head of one of the ancient families of ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... appointed by the justices of the peace had come to be the real authorities in the administration of poor relief, as well as in most other matters. The abuses arising from poor-law administration were not infrequently appalling. ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... our Thid fled, spurred by the knowledge that his life was forfeit. For a time, he was naturally thought dead. Who could survive unprotected the extremes of heat and cold? And if by a miracle he triumphed over the elements, how survive the appalling enmity of the Termans, whose rudimentary ...
— Walls of Acid • Henry Hasse
... of evening around me are falling, With its dark sombre curtain outspread, And night's just at hand, chilly night so appalling, And day's ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... shrink under his feet; he went back to David's house, hopes pursuing him as the Furies followed Orestes, for he had glimmerings of endless difficulties, all summed up in the appalling words, "Where is the money to ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... peoples of Iranic and Galcha origin in hopeless confusion. The various Afghan tribes, separated from each other by natural barriers and intervening alien stocks, though similar in physical type, speech, religion and culture, have no sense of unity, no common political aims, while the appalling list of tribes constituting the population of the country[1396] offers little hope of Afghanistan ever developing national cohesion. Kafiristan alone, which lies in the Hindu Kush range for the most part at an altitude ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... moment she hesitated, trembling. The thought of the prowling beasts out there in the darkness was appalling. Then, with a sudden brave toss of her head, she attacked the thorny boma wall with her delicate hands. Torn and bleeding though they were, she worked on breathlessly until she had made an opening through which she could worm her body, and ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... birth, typhus fever will disappear. Had such a suggestion been adopted, the theory would have been triumphantly confirmed; for as a matter of fact, typhus fever has disappeared. On the other hand cancer and madness have increased (statistically) to an appalling extent. The opponents of the little finger theory would therefore be pretty sure to allege that the amputations were spreading cancer and lunacy. The vaccination controversy is full of such contentions. So is the controversy as to the docking of horses' tails and ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... the blood of a man innocent of offense against him. After the first glance at Tira, he did not look at her again, but passed her, threw open the door, and went in. His thoughts, becoming every instant more confused, as the appalling moments in the woods beat themselves out noisily, seemed to favor closing the door behind him. It was she who had brought him to this pass. It was she who had locked his door upon herself and, in her wantonness, as good ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... and abandoned him forthwith. And when he crawled over the bow of the canoe and ascended the short, steep bank to a place beside Mike Breyette, this peculiar sense of being forsaken grew, if anything, more acute, more appalling. ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... accompanied the words, and Judithe noticed, as she had done often before, the lack of complaint or bewailings of the disasters so appalling to the South, for even the victories were so dearly bought. There was an intense eagerness for news from the front, and when it was read, the tears were silent ones. The women smiled bravely and were sure of victory ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... "It's appalling to think of the waste of money," said Antonia. "Oh, what would not ten pounds do in the cause of Art? But a promise is a promise. Come along, Annie, we'll go to ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... straightway to Argos and Epidauria, but when we came into the desert country, there is a certain shore beyond this land which slopes even down to the Saronic Sea, from thence a voice like the subterraneous thunder of Jove sent forth a dreadful groan appalling to hear, and the horses pointed their heads erect and their ears toward the sky, and on us there came a vehement fear, whence possibly the voice could come: but looking toward the sea-beaten shore we beheld a vast wave pillared in heaven, so that the view of the ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... my weakness or to the baleful influence which emanated from the whole ghostly place, there was something absolutely appalling in this draped and masked figure with its gleaming eyes and ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... they serve, sooner or later, to produce a counteracting rise and progress in the fortunes of another; as the sea here advances, there recedes, swallowing up the fertilities of this shore to increase the territories of that; and fulfilling, in its awful and appalling agency, that mandate of human destinies which ordains all things to be changed and nothing to be destroyed. Without the invasion of Persia, Greece might have left no annals, and the modern world might search in vain for inspirations ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all the charity sales, carrying a package of women's chemises under his arm. It was quite true that I often bought "poor clothes" at the sales. The objects exposed in the way of screens, pincushions, table-covers, and, in the spring, hats made by some of the ladies, were so appalling that I was glad to have poor clothes to fall back upon, but I don't remember his ever carrying my ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... less terrifying than their brothers. They had their father's fierce, hawklike profile, softened by youth, and the appalling height and robustness due to the freedom and fresh air of a nomadic existence. Their costumes might, Mary thought, have been fashioned out of gunny-sacks by the simple expedient of cutting holes for the head and ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... poured into his ranks to take the place of the dead—They tell me that he has no genius, no strategy, no skill. My reply to this is simple but unanswerable. We must fight to win. Grant is the ablest general we have developed. His losses are appalling—but the struggle is on now to the bitter end! Our resources are exhaustless. The South cannot replace her fallen soldiers—and therefore her losses are fatal! If we continue to fight, five millions cannot whip twenty millions—the ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... itself; the literary man in such a moment goes beyond all parallel. If there be added the fact that he has just returned from a very unsatisfactory interview with a publisher, wife and daughter may indeed regard the situation as appalling. Marian came in, and at once observed her mother's ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... true, for the number of people, who, during that bitter year, were in want of bread, was appalling. The famished peasants roamed about the country in groups, from three to twenty or more together. Some carried babies in their arms; some had young children dragging by the hand. The children looked almost transparent, ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... blotches of black and rufous yellow upon a ground of white. With extreme swiftness the creature scurried down the road, its legs being so short in proportion to its body and moving with such twinkling rapidity that it seemed to be propelled upon wheels. The appearance of this strange monster and the appalling character of its squealing, caused Nora to tremble like a leaf, but the animal having departed, a laudable curiosity made her forget ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... deck at twelve o'clock, it was as black as Erebus; the studding-sails were all taken in, and the royals furled; not a breath was stirring; the sails hung heavy and motionless from the yards; and the perfect stillness, and the darkness, which was almost palpable, were truly appalling. Not a word was spoken, but every one stood as though waiting for something to happen. In a few minutes the mate came forward; and in a low tone, which was almost a whisper, told us to haul down the jib. The fore and mizen top-gallant sails were taken in, in the same silent manner; ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... but I can't. I have no parlor tricks," she said. "Besides, what's the use? Nobody wants it," and she smiled with appalling candor. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... appalling to those of the most iron nerves, when it comes quietly and in the stillness and solitude of night. John Effingham was such a man; but he felt all the peculiarity of his situation as he sat alone in the state-room by the side of Mr. Monday, listening to the washing of the waters that the ship ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... think that I could work up sufficient nerve to appear in public muzzled in this way. I knew from reading how many million microbes of different kinds there are inhabiting every cubic inch of air, and it was indeed appalling to think what even one of them would do for me if it chanced to hit me in a vulnerable spot. I did the best I could and kept my windows open wide both day and night, that some of these little imps of Satan might ride ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... mission of reprisal in which he was biding his time, yet the coming of the day when the truce must end haunted her thoughts. Heretofore, that day had always been to her remotely vague—a thing belonging to the future. Now, with a sudden and appalling menace, it seemed to loom across the present. She came close, and her voice sank ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... said, in the panic of the great plague, to have died not only neglected, but plundered before his eyes, still Venice prized him so highly, that she made in his favour the single exception of a public funeral, during the appalling devastation ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... fearsome beasts beneath the sun The Bugbear is the most appalling one. At night he comes and hovers o'er our bed, Filling us with a nameless fear and dread. He is not half so terrible by day— Sometimes he shrinks and ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... are in position to draw some conclusions with regard to the outlook. Our study shows that there is plenty in the character and extent of present day immigration to make the Christian and patriot thoughtful, prayerful, and purposeful. On the surface there is enough that is appalling and threatening to excuse if not justify the use of the word "peril." The writer confesses that when he lived, years ago, in western Pennsylvania, and came close to the inferior grades of immigrants, and witnessed the changes wrought by the displacement of the earlier ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... main-topsail, jib, and trysail, were split into ribbons, so that we became anxious to know how we should reach port when the gale subsided. But we were soon spared further care on that head. As the day closed in, the tempest resumed its fury, and by the following morning, (the 8th,) raged with such appalling violence, that we laid her too. From her straining, the brig had now began to make so much water, as to require all hands in succession at the pumps till the following morning at two, when the larboard watch ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... to you in the name of my as yet unwritten poems, my masterpieces for which France, for which the whole brotherhood of letters, so anxiously waits, to put a term to this appalling chastisement!" ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Omdurman. Visits were constantly paid to the battle-field for the double purpose of rescuing any wounded dervishes there might be and counting the dead. The large number of the enemy who for days survived shocking wounds, to which a European would have instantly or speedily succumbed, was appalling. These wretched creatures had been seen crawling or dragging themselves for miles to get to the Nile for water or into villages for succour. Food and water were sent out to them by the Sirdar's orders on the day after the battle, when it was seen that ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... badly, Nyoda dear," she said one day as Nyoda sat beside her in the depths of despair. The usual jolly teacher had now no cheery word to offer. The prospect of the gay dancing Sahwah on crutches for the remainder of her life was an appalling tragedy. "I can act out 'The Little Tin Soldier' quite realistically—then," went on Sahwah, her mind already at work to find the humor of the situation. But Nyoda sat staring miserably at the flowers ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... such as were to be converted by a goblin.' And in the same Sutra may be found this promise of the Teacher: 'While he is dwelling lonely in the wilderness, I will send thither goblins in great number to keep him company.' The appalling character of this promise is indeed somewhat modified by the assurance that gods also are to be sent. But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen Japanese goblins, and I do not ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... abrupt and startling manner—by the significance of the skipper's last remark. The imminence and deadly nature of the Frenchmen's peril was brought home to them anew; and now they seemed to realise, for the first time, the possibility that they might be called upon to witness at close quarters the appalling spectacle not only of a foundering ship but also of the drowning of all her people. Instantly quite a little hubbub arose among the excited passengers, General O'Brien and some half a dozen other men among them pressing about ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... An appalling unearthly report followed instantly, such as can be compared to nothing whatever known, not even to the roar of thunder, or the blast of volcanic explosions! No words can convey the slightest idea of the terrific sound! ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne
... the pleasures of feasting and of love, or of racing with his own victorious horses—all of which he had enjoyed there to the full—were as child's play compared with the nervous tension to which he had been strung by the appalling events he had witnessed on all sides. How petty was the excitement of an Alexandrian horse-race! Whether Timon or Ptolemy or he himself should win—what did it matter? It was a fine thing no doubt to carry off the crown in the circus at Byzantium, but there were ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... speaking, Great Britain has twenty million persons in gainful pursuits. Of these, five million have already been taken for the army. The contribution of France is still greater. Her military force has reached the appalling proportion of one-fifth of her entire population. But we who have thirty-five million in gainful occupations are giving a paltry one million, five hundred thousand in service with our Allies. The ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... applied, that, if another world war breaks out, not only will material damage be caused which can never be repaired, but the best part of the human race will either be destroyed or suffer deterioration as disastrous as complete destruction, and that this result will be accompanied by appalling misery. ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... bricks, with here and there a wall standing amid the debris. To me it was a remarkable spectacle, though my companions assured me that this village was in a positively palatial condition compared to other places farther up. Just as we reached the troops we were destined for, an appalling crash rent the air, and went echoing away like a peal of thunder. It was the British heavy artillery at work, though we couldn't see any batteries. Meanwhile the Boches were aiming at our aeroplanes which were flying above us continually. Amid all this our fellows were quite unmoved, and ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... sound advice Angus soon began to build up a reputation. He treated war-worn veterans like Bobby Little with immense respect, and this, too, was counted to him for righteousness. He exercised his platoon with appalling vigour. Upon Company route-marches he had to be embedded in some safe place in the middle of the column; in fact, his enormous stride and pedestrian enthusiasm would have reduced his followers to pulp. At Mess he was mute: like a wise man, he was ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... demoralised, and sober townspeople who had welcomed the arrival of the troops were disgusted by their disorderly behaviour. The only fruit of Howe's victories during the campaign of 1777 was the acquisition of good winter quarters at Philadelphia, and that he purchased at the price of an appalling disaster ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... sunrise, just as the men were dismissed from parade, a sudden assault was made upon the militia, who lay unprotected beyond the creek. The unexpectedness and fury of the onset, the heavy firing, and the appalling whoops and yells of the throngs of painted savages threw the militia into disorder. After a few moments' resistance they broke and fled in wild panic to the camp of the regulars, among whom they drove in a frightened herd, spreading ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... near for a couple of hours to see what her fate would be. At the end of that time, the dense smoke which had nearly hidden her from our view, suddenly became one enveloping mass of flame. It was a beautiful, yet appalling sight, to see that noble vessel thus burning upon the breast of the sea! For nearly an hour her form, sheeted in fire, stood out distinctly against the face of the sky, and then she went down, and left only ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... country places there had been appalling excesses, I asked him how the Red Terror that followed the attempt on the life of Lenin had shown itself in their district. ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... Captain Blackwood on board the "Victory," the last words he uttered to whom were:—"God bless you, Blackwood; I shall never see you more." He had a presentiment that, while he was certain of victory, it would, nevertheless, be gained at the price of his own life. Yet, with this prospect before him, appalling as it must have been to his mind, he was calm and serene. His whole attention was fixed on Villeneuve, who was wearing to form the line in close order upon the larboard tack, thereby to bring Cadiz under his lee, and to facilitate, if necessary, his escape into that port. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the night when the two Phalanx regiments filed out of the road into the woods, bringing up the rear of the army, and took shelter under the trees from the falling dew. Amid the appalling stillness that reigned throughout the encampment, except the tramp of feet and an occasional whickering of a battery horse, no sound broke the deep silence. Commands were given in an undertone and whispered along the long lines of weary troops that ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... 'This is appalling,' Helena said, turning pale. 'I now understand why some women have such a horror of anything like political strife. I wonder if I should lose courage if someone in whom I was ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... was dragged to the shore, and loaded into the sampan; for the appalling picture the captain had made of low water induced them all to hurry ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... from evaporation. No traces of any human inhabitants were seen, nor were the usually ever-present, tracks of native game, or their canine enemy the wild dingo, distinguishable upon the sands of this previously untrodden wilderness. The silence and the solitude of this mighty waste were appalling to the mind, and I almost regretted that I had sworn to conquer it. The only sound the ear could catch, as hour after hour we slowly glided on, was the passage of our noiseless treading and spongy-footed "ships" as they forced their way through the live and dead ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... selling adulterated articles being fearlessly given. The responsibility incurred was immense, but the assertions of the journal were so well founded upon fact that they were universally accepted as accurately representing the appalling state of the food supply. As instances may be cited, that of thirty-four samples of coffee only three were pure, chicory being present in thirty-one, roasted corn in twelve, beans and potato flour each in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... six weeks, in the winter of 1795-1796, spent within the walls of an asylum. In 1796 Lamb's sister Mary, who was as talented and remarkable as Lamb himself, went violently insane and killed her own mother. For a long time after this appalling tragedy she was in an asylum at Hoxton; then Lamb, in 1797, brought her to his own little house, and for the remainder of his life cared for her with a tenderness and devotion which furnishes one of the most beautiful pages in our ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... soared up into the air, amid the undergroans of earthquakes, and howlings and hissings as of demons in torture. Subterranean fires, in terrific contest with the wintry ocean, seemed to have made sport of rocks, mountains, and rivers, tossing them into the most fantastic and appalling shapes. Yet such was the fondness of the Scandinavian imagination for the wild and desolate, and such their hatred of oppression, that they soon peopled this chaotic island to an extent it has never since reached. In spite of the rigor of the climate, where corn refused ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... declined, and he suffered ostracism, as had Aristides and Themistocles before him. His loss of public favor came about in this manner. In the year 464 B.C., a terrible earthquake destroyed a large portion of Sparta. In the panic of the appalling disaster the Spartans were led to believe that the evil had befallen them as a punishment for their recent violation of the Temple of Poseidon, from which some Helots who had fled to the sanctuary for refuge had been torn. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... day of the trial, John Hus stood before the great Council. The scene was appalling. For some weeks this gallant son of the morning had been tormented by neuralgia. The marks of suffering were on his brow. His face was pale; his cheeks were sunken; his limbs were weak and trembling. But his eye flashed with a holy fire, and his words rang clear and true. Around ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... the savage slumbered for the time being, it was only like some pent up fire, burning in secret, until opportunity should present for it to burst forth in a manner most appalling, carrying destruction and terror throughout its course; and in consequence of this, the year 1782 was destined to be one most signally marked by bloody deeds in the annals of Kentucky. The winter of '81 and '82 passed quietly away; but early in the ensuing spring hostilities were again renewed, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... lurked delicate and generous forbearance for her; that from his equivocal position his very faults might have arisen; and a pang of remorse for her long sacrifice of the children to the father shot through her heart. It was followed by a fear, an appalling fear, more painful than the remorse. The proofs that were to clear herself and them! The words of her husband, that last awful morning, rang in her ear. The minister dead; the witness absent; the register lost! But the copy of that register!—the copy! ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... With this appalling intelligence I returned below. Escape seemed impossible. I proposed building a raft, it was a desperate resource, and there might not be time even to lash a few spars together. I could not bear the thought of allowing the poor captain to perish miserably without an attempt to save him. He divined ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... organization that would be of service to other widows, poor women without the alleviations of wealth and social eminence, many of them a prey to black despair. Calling in other young widows of their own circle to help (the number was already appalling), they went about their task in a business-like way, opening offices in the Rue Vizelly, which were subsequently moved to ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... vision, watching the big cutter, for such she was, heading, not for Plymouth, but for the nearer coast. But this was not the only strange thing about her course, for when she had made some few hundred yards towards the coast, she jibbed round of a sudden, with an appalling wrench at the horse; and there being, as it appeared, no hand either at the peak halyards or the throat halyards, the mainsail presently showed a great rent near the luff, while the foresail had torn free from the bolt-ropes of ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... boy, who had been with Eyre in Adelaide, now alone remained, and it is scarcely possible to imagine a more appalling situation than that in which Eyre then found himself. The murderers had carried away nearly the whole of the scanty stock of provisions, leaving only forty pounds of flour, a little tea and sugar, and four gallons of water. They had ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... verdict of "not guilty," having regard to the fact that Lord Queensberry had not used a direct accusation, but the words "posing as," etc. Besides, he wished to spare the jury the necessity of investigating in detail matter of the most appalling character. He wished to make an end of the case—and he ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... of heaven. They are wholly of earth, and seem the counterparts of those wild outbreaks of human passion from which I and so many poor women in the past have suffered;" and a low sob shook her frame. "I wish I had more of good Mr. Yocomb's spirit; for this appalling cloud seems to me the very incarnation of evil. Why does God permit ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... Old and New Testaments. Nothing else is genuine that we have from antiquity,—not even the coins,—certainly, not the productions of the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church, nor the Ecumenical Councils down to that held at Trent, and to cap the climax of these appalling paradoxes, the parables and prophecies of the Saviour and the Apostles first appeared in Latin. More wondrous still! This wholesale fabrication all occurred in the 13th century, and the forgers were exclusively Benedictine monks. Had the great Jesuit ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... when at the age of nearly seven she held him down on his back, because he wanted to do something of which she did not approve. This first interference with the free individualism of a Forsyte drove him almost frantic. There was something appalling in the utter helplessness of that position, and the uncertainty as to whether it would ever come to an end. Suppose she never let him get up any more! He suffered torture at the top of his voice for fifty seconds. Worse than anything was his perception that "Da" had taken all that time ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... business of the country is therefore evident. If an earthquake should suddenly sink this temple and all its votaries into the bowels of the earth, with all its nervousness and all its electricity, it is appalling to think what would become of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Once the appalling thought came to Vance that the story must have been told during one of those moments when his sister had shown alarm. The crisis might be over, and Terry had indeed showed a restraint which was a credit to Elizabeth's training. But by the hunted look in her eyes, he knew that the climax ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... reveal. Now, why did not all the bears of North America share the fate of the lions and the tigers? It seems reasonable to answer that it was because the bears were wiser, more gifted in the art of self-preservation, and more resourceful in execution. In view of the omnivorous menu of bears, and their appalling dependence upon small things for food, it is to me marvelous that they now maintain themselves with ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... appalling uproar continued, the solid earth shook to the roar of the guns and the crashing of the shells. By the end of that time both fronts to a depth of hundreds of yards were shrouded in a slow-drifting haze of smoke and dust, through which the flashes of the bursting shell blazed in quick glares ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... hara-kiri. Even today, no man more quickly wins the popular regard during his life or more surely draws homage to his tomb, securing even apotheosis, than the suicide, though he may have committed a crime. In this era of Meiji or enlightened peace, most appalling is the list of assassinations beginning with the murder in Ki[o]to of Yokoi Heishiro, who was slain for recommending the toleration of Christianity, down to the last cabinet minister who has been knifed or dynamited. Yet in every case the murderers considered ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... rumors of wars had come to an end. So much for human foreknowledge. By the autumn of 1854, the horrors of the Crimean war had reached their climax. The Times was full, day by day, of the most thrilling and appalling descriptions of the hideous sufferings of our brave men—sufferings caused quite as much by the utter breakdown of the sanitary administration as by even the deadly battles and trenchwork; while every post was bringing agonizing ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... Dulcie. It was appalling, almost incredible, that she should be allowed to associate with men and women whom we practically knew to be adventurers, and who might be not merely adventurers, but criminals masquerading as respectable members of Society. Yet I was impotent to prevent her; it was, of course, Sir Roland's ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... jeremiad on the condition of things in general. Parliament, he thought, especially now that members were paid, had lost its self-respect; the towns had eaten up the country; hunting was threatened; the power and vulgarity of the press were appalling; women had lost their heads; and everybody seemed afraid of having any "breeding." By the time little Gyp was Gyp's age, they would all be under the thumb of Watch Committees, live in Garden Cities, and have to account for every half-crown they spent, and every half-hour of their time; the horse, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... The Commission of Doctors appointed by the Medical Faculties of Holland, Sweden, and Norway to examine the conditions in Germany reported as follows in the Swedish Press in April, 1919: "Tuberculosis, especially in children, is increasing in an appalling way, and, generally speaking, is malignant. In the same way rickets is more serious and more widely prevalent. It is impossible to do anything for these diseases; there is no milk for the tuberculous, and no cod-liver oil for those suffering from rickets.... Tuberculosis is assuming almost ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... orchestra of one hundred and forty, in which figure eight flutes, seven clarinets, six horns, four Wagner tubas. Little wonder the impression was a stupendous one. There were episodes of great beauty, dramatic moments, and appalling climaxes. As Schoenberg has decided both in his teaching and practice that there are no unrelated harmonies, cacophony was not absent. Another thing: this composer has temperament. He is cerebral, as few before him, yet in this ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... including many homophones, or different forms for representing the same sound. But with the Persian translation for a guide on the one hand, and the Semitic languages, to which family the Assyrian belonged, on the other, the appalling task was gradually accomplished, the leading investigators being General Rawlinson, Professor Hincks, and Mr. Fox-Talbot, in England, Professor Jules Oppert, in Paris, and Professor Julian Schrader, in Germany, though a host ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... guidance, his plans for keeping them out of each other's way must be as complicated as the traffic arrangements of a railway superintendent. When I contrasted the angelic behaviour of our car with the appalling perversity of other people's, Sir S. burst out laughing, and said that evidently I was born with the motor instinct: that he'd seen women who took days or weeks learning these great truths, whereas I came by ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a porpoise, at the season when his favourite prey, the salmon, comes up the river to spawn, is another high excitement to dwellers on the Trent. I remember well the almost appalling interest with which, in childhood, I beheld some huge specimen of this marine visitor, drawn up by crane on a wharf, after an enthusiastic contest for his capture by the ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... the years of fourteen and eighteen in those days and Harold between twenty-two and twenty-six. Most violent quarrels sometimes sprung up between them but they were physically violent, that was the point, and after swift and appalling fury, and terrible kicks from Robert and horrifying thumps from Harold they were astonishingly soon over and done with and forgotten. On one awful day, Rosalie saw Robert and Harold rolling on the floor ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... patent. That everything which we respect and revere in the way of science or thought, or culture, or music, or poetry, or drama, should be cast into the melting-pot to satisfy dynastic ambition is a thing too puerile as well as too appalling to be even considered. And the horror of it all is something more than our nerves will stand. The best brains and intellects of Europe, the brightest and most promising youths, all the manhood everywhere in Europe to be shrivelled and consumed ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... incredibly evil, incredibly persistent, luring Julian downwards, beckoning him with the thin hand of a saint to depths unpierced by the gaze of even the most sinful. And that hand of the saint was only part of the appalling deception of his beautiful and tragically lying body, a crystal temple in which a demon dwelt secretly, peering from its concealment through the shadowy blue windows, in which Julian saw truth and honour, but in which Cuckoo read things to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... presiding at a lecture on the war by Mr. Buchan, delivered March 22, 1915, reviewed the origin and causes of the conflict. Germany, he said, refused every suggestion made to her for settling the dispute by means of a conference. On her must rest for all time the appalling responsibility for having plunged Europe into this war. One essential condition of peace must be the restoration to Belgium of her independence and reparation to her for the cruel wrong done to her. England claims for herself and her allies claim for themselves, and together ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ravines between Venezuela and the Colombian valleys, the narrow and rugged passages, the wild beasts,—sink into nothingness as compared with the almost unconquerable obstacles which he was to face on his way to the South. In no other part of the continent do the Andes present such an appalling combination of ravines, torrents, precipitous paths and gigantic peaks. Furthermore, nowhere on the continent was the population so hostile to freedom as were the pastusos (inhabitants of the Pastos). Men, women and children cordially hated the cause ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... all at once his spine had been turned, into limp string; I saw now a ring of fire run out in spitting tongues of flame around the gulf, and a circle of thin whitish smoke slowly raise itself through the dark leaves of the girdling bushes. It was an appalling second of mental numbness during which I looked at this strange sight, and seemed not at all to ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... remains of the lovely Anselma were consigned to the kindred earth, and I hastened to learn the cause of the appalling fate, which my boding heart already but too faithfully foretold. I hurried to the mansion of Gomez Arias; the truth was soon revealed, but I felt no surprise—I was prepared for the dire intelligence. I reproached Gomez Arias in the most bitter and provoking terms; he answered me with the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... finances, so far as it can be effected without encroaching upon their future income." If Hastings could scheme out needed reforms on his way out, he found on his arrival that the need for reform was little short of appalling. The position which Hastings held was a curious one. He was President of the Council, it is true, but president of a council of which every member had an equal vote, and many of the members of which had personal ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... us, for the noble Roberts was killed, and Colonel Harrington, of the Twenty-Seventh Illinois, who succeeded to his brigade, was mortally wounded a few minutes later. I had now on the death-roll three brigade commanders, and the loss of subordinate officers and men was appalling, but their sacrifice had accomplished the desired result; they had not fallen in vain. Indeed, the bravery and tenacity of my division gave to Rosecrans the time required to make new dispositions, and exacted from our ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... celebrity, chief among them Theophile Gautier (Feuilleton de la Presse, November 5, 1849) and Jules Janin (Feuilleton du Journal des Debuts, October 22, 1849), the latter's performance being absolutely appalling. Indeed, if we must adjudge to French journalists the palm for gracefulness and sprightliness, we cannot withhold it from them for unconscientiousness. Some of the inventions of journalism, I suspect, were subsequently ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the indignation it had aroused, sent an embassador to London with a poor apology for the crime, by pretending that the Protestants had conspired against the life of the king. The embassador was received in the court of the queen with appalling coldness and gloom. Arrangements were made to invest the occasion with the most impressive solemnity. The court was shrouded in mourning, and all the lords and ladies appeared in sable weeds. A stern and sombre sadness was upon every countenance. The embassador, overwhelmed by his reception, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... upon each other, and there was no need to speak the appalling thought that was in both our minds. With one accord we plied our whips and drove our unwilling and terrified horses in the direction he had taken. We came near enough to see that he was digging among the dry leaves for acorns, and that his beard and mouth were defiled with earth, and full of fragments ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire, Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling. ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... Revue des Deux Mondes, M. Jules Janet records the following experiment which, although simplicity itself, gives us a very vivid glimpse of a most appalling complex problem:— ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... presence of the quiet and well-bred without a feeling of distrust and uneasiness, that had its rise in the simple circumstance of his not being used to their company. Indeed, there is nothing more appalling, in general, to the vulgar and pretending, than the simplicity and natural ease of the refined. Their own notions of elegance lie so much on the surface, that they seem at first to suspect an ambush, and it is probable that, finding so much repose where, agreeably to their preconceived opinions, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... Christ and a little picture. On the perpendicular board at the foot hung two white garments, and over a second chair at the bed-side another: all very neat and holy. He was a large stern man, blond as corn, but with some red, too, in his hairy beard; and appalling was the significance of those eyes that prayed, and the long-drawn cavity of those saffron cheeks. I cannot explain to myself my deep reverence for this man; but I had it, certainly. Many of the ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... who had been a third time an offender, and whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible, was brought forth, as at some solemn auto da fe, arrayed in uncouth and most appalling attire—all trace of his late "watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he was exposed in a jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect of this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it could have anticipated. With ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... ought to be a certain thing now, and the only appalling possibility the sight of the Norwegian Flag ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... the case, so appalling to the unhappy Countess, were on the other hand eminently satisfactory to M. Paul de Roustache. To be plain, they meant money, either from the Countess or from the Count. To Paul's mind they seemed to mean—well, ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... believe it, as his former slaves told me of his licentious character from his early youth to eighty years! He was never married, and was the owner of a large plantation, and his many slaves sought the first opportunity to make their escape. The condition of these women was truly appalling, and the history of their base and degraded master and father too revolting for the public eye or ear! I turned away with utter disgust at their recitals. The child soon died, and I thought it seemed a pity that its demented mother ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... little lamp on the stair: he enters the blank familiar room, where the only tokens to greet him, that show any interest in his personal welfare, are the Christmas bills, which are lying in wait for him, amiably spread out on his reading-table. Add to these scenes an appalling picture of bachelor's illness, and the rents in the Temple will begin to fall from the day of the publication of the dismal diorama. To be well in chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill in chambers—to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with a sense of doom, The dead are cowering in the tomb, Seas are calling, stars are falling And appalling is the gloom! Fragmentary flames are flung Through the air the trees among! Lo! each hill inclines its head— Earth is ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... I was taken to the Old Meeting House at Norwich, where many learned men had preached, and where many men almost as learned listened. The gigantic pews, in which a small family might have lived, filled me with amazement. And equally appalling to me was the respectability of the people, of a very different class from that of our Wrentham chapel. Close by was the Octagon Chapel, where the Unitarians worshipped, equally impressive in its respectability. But what struck me most was the ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... audience. But, at an unlucky moment, a fresh arrival of persons at the door made the monster turn his thousand eyes in that direction. I mistook it for an indication that he was getting weary of my talk. My attention was distracted. Then came a suspension of all thought, an appalling paralysis of memory. Having learnt the first part of my discourse by heart, I had been reciting it without turning over the leaves of the manuscript; and now I was unable to recollect at what point I had left off, or whether I had given five ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... prospect of all the moral and economic ruin with which South Africa is now threatened, make it necessary for both belligerents to ask themselves dispassionately, and as in the sight of the Triune God, for what they are fighting, and whether the aim of each justifies all this appalling misery ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... most of our classical students in regard to the history of English literature is appalling; and yet it is impossible properly to study a given work of a given author without some knowledge of the background against which that particular writer stands. I have, therefore, sketched the politics, society, and literature of the age in which Dryden lived, and during which he gave to ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... appalling to think how near to the happiest and most prosperous scene of life stands the saddest despair. All homes are haunted with awful possibilities, for whose realization no array of threatening agents is required,—no lightning, or tempest, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... whose civic mechanism was largely employed in trading in the bodies and souls of the innocent and defenceless. What has been published in this connection is but the merest hint of what exists—and exists, most appalling of all, as the evidence has come to me under the seal of confidence in overwhelming volume and force to demonstrate—under a system of terrorism which compels its victims to recognize that to denounce it means the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... station at Buree, a native named Sandy informed me of the melancholy end of poor Cunningham; the particulars he described having been gathered by him from other natives who were eye-witnesses of the appalling circumstances. A report from the officer of mounted police, whom these natives afterwards guided to the remains of my unfortunate fellow-traveller will be found in the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... cold. I lay shivering in my blanket and could not get warm. The guns were continually crashing out. Shells were bursting just outside with appalling regularity. Suddenly they seemed to quieten down, as if by some means the Germans had got to know of our great plans and were preparing for the blow. Presently everything was comparatively quiet, except for the scurrying of countless rats, running ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... of the play, alike for her and Guido, the presence of a corpse in her garden is merely an inconvenience without any touch of the gruesome. Precautions have, of course, to be taken to meet the emergency which has arisen: but in the dead body of a man per se, the lovers can detect nothing more appalling, or more to be shrunk from, than would be apparent if the lifeless object in the walkway were a dead flower. The thing ought to be removed, if only in the interest of tidiness, but there is no call to make a ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... advance by the ambiguity of his dispatches, and Antonius was also to blame for his untimely compliance with instructions—or else for trying to throw the responsibility[215] on Mucianus. The other generals thought the war was over, and thus rendered its final scene all the more appalling. Petilius Cerialis was sent forward with a thousand cavalry to make his way by cross-roads through the Sabine country, and enter the city by the Salarian road.[216] But even he failed to make sufficient haste, and at ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... the class stopped suddenly at Miss Clara's warning finger as visitors opened the door, Emmy Lou, her eyes squeezed tight shut, her little body rocking to and fro to the rhythm, went right on, "m-a-n, man," "p-a-n, pan"—until at the sound of her own sing-song little voice rising with appalling fervor upon the silence, she stopped to find that the page in the meantime had been turned, and that the pointer was directed to a column beginning ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... which were eternal flames to destroy every one who had not been good. But a hell whose flames were eternally impotent to destroy these people, a hell where evil was to go on writhing yet thriving for ever and ever, seemed to me, even at that age, too patently absurd to be appalling. Nor indeed do I think that to the more credulous children in England can the idea of eternal burning have ever been quite so forbidding as their nurses meant it to be. Credulity is but a form of incaution. I, as I have said, never ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... suddenly appeared in the Bosphorus. Probably there were not more than 1500 of these vessels all told and they must have been small compared with the Christian dromons; nevertheless they presented an appalling danger at that moment. The Christian fleet was watching Crete, the army was in the east winning back territory from the Arabs, and Constantinople lay almost defenseless. The great walls could be depended an to hold off a barbarian ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... her, waiting for me in vain, then wandering off, perhaps to fall under a bush and die alone, was too appalling to contemplate. That we must keep together, at all costs, was like a point of honour, like an article of faith with us—confirmed by what we had gone through already. It was like a law of existence, like a creed, like a defence which, once broken, would let despair upon our heads. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... obstinate, and easily humbugged and easily diverted. Even the tragic and inspiring idea of Marx, that the poor were nearing a limit of painful experience, and awakening to a sense of intolerable wrongs, began to develop into the more appalling conception that the poor were simply in a witless uncomfortable inconclusive way—"muddling along"; that they wanted nothing very definitely nor very urgently, that mean fears enslaved them and mean satisfactions decoyed them, that they took the very gift of ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... experience in its way," she was thinking. "Something to tell Joan when I get back. But oh! what an appalling woman! She's settled one thing, though. It will be quite impossible to take Jane Saunders now. A pity—because I ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... through not being able to adjust their respirators in time. There was no warning, although after this gas alarms were given by ringing church bells. Other prisoners, from the 63rd, regiment, had such vivid recollections of the attack that they said: "The effects of the English gas are said to be appalling." Collecting information from prisoners belonging to this or that Company, and carefully checking by cross-examination, it is clear that this attack must have been responsible for ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... southern part of the city. Then like a blow in the face came the realization that all fire fighting facilities were nil owing to the lack of water. One short hour previous, San Francisco was sleeping peacefully in its prosperity, and now the sight was appalling. Devastation, far as the eye could see, was spelling death ...
— The Spirit of 1906 • George W. Brooks
... glad to believe a tale against her, and in short time the affair ceased to be a subject for discussion,— was almost forgotten, in fact, except for a sore spot in Katy's heart, and one page in Rose Red's album, upon which, under the date of that fatal day, were written these words, headed by an appalling ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... it is much for a subordinate. To his clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness of England on the seas. In the exploits of Hawke, Rodney, or Nelson, this dead Mr. Pepys of the Navy Office had some considerable share. He stood well by his business in the appalling plague of 1666. He was loved and respected by some of the best and wisest men in England. He was President of the Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of his conduct in that solemn hour—thinking it needless to say more—that it was answerable to the greatness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits had dyed his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old white hat, tied under his chin with a handkerchief; his body was short and stout, but his legs of disproportioned and appalling length. I observed him at sunset, breasting the hill with gigantic strides, and standing against the sky on the summit, like a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard him screaming frantically ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... she stammered, looking about her, bewildered. Then, as the appalling truth struck home, she grew ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... statesman be raised up in our hour of need to undeceive this unhappy multitude, now eagerly rushing or heedlessly sauntering along the pathway of revolution, as an ox goeth to the slaughter or a fool to the correction of the stocks, what is it but a symptom as infallible as it is appalling, that the day of our greatness and stability is no more, and that the chill and damp of death are already creeping over England's glory.' These dolorous spectres haunted him incessantly, as they haunted so many who had not the sovereign excuse ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... loose trades. On that high seat, one hand grasping an iron railing at the side, sitting by grim-faced Starling Tucker in his battered hat, who drove carelessly with one hand and tugged at his long red moustache with the other, it was pleasantly appalling to reflect that he might be at any moment dashed to pieces on the road below; to remember that Starling himself, the daily associate of horses and a man of high adventure, had once fallen from this very seat and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... There was certainly a good deal of unrest in the country during the period of the ex-monk's ascendency; no less than 13,783 persons had been banished to Siberia, and 3,756 executed at his orders. Yet nothing, it seemed, could shatter his position when, with appalling suddenness, a thunderbolt descended. Nobody knows to this day what took place. It was something Russian; some scandal in the Highest Spheres which may see the light of day, centuries hence, when the Imperial Archives are disclosed as musty court history to the eyes of students ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... Alabama in general, as an immense evil to the country—but the free part of it, by all, as the greatest of all evils.... They feel severely the effects of the deleterious influence which the free negroes exert upon the slaves—and they look, moreover, into futurity, and there they behold an appalling scene—in less than one hundred years, (a short time, we should hope, in the life of this republic,) 16,000,000 of blacks.' * * * * 'Since the recent revolution in the island of St. Domingo, which has placed ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... dense forest reigned supreme in the noonday heat. The whispered consultations and the occasional footfall of some one of the party on a dry teak-leaf seemed to echo for miles and to break rudely the well-nigh appalling quiet of the jungle. Here and there, sometimes crossing our path, were the fresh footprints of deer and of antelope, of pig and the lordly sambar stag that had passed this way last night to drink at a time when the presence of man does not disturb the domain ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... months after George's marriage, it was borne in upon her with appalling certitude that George was necessary to her, and ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... on, the abstemious Hun had obviously made a halt. The litter of bottles was appalling. There was a perfect wall of them for about a quarter of a mile. The proportion of bottles to the number of men estimated to occupy four hundred yards (1000) was alarming. There must have been enough ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... anti-Wagnerite—are typical: they may be read in the files of the Daily Telegraph, and are well worth reading. But, alas! when those heartless people called accountants came to add up their mysterious sums and to put figures on the credit side and on the debit side, they proved incontestably that an appalling deficit was the most obvious result of the whole proceedings; and if Wagner had any doubts, the steady inflowing tide of bills to be met must have finally convinced him. To pay the deficit, dresses and scenery had to be sold; and for a time, at any rate, it was clear ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... One of the most appalling scandals of modern times is the disgraceful suppression by the Ginger-beer Press of news relating to the state of affairs in the Isle of Wight. For some weeks we have not flinched from filling our columns with picturesque accounts of the epoch-making events taking place there; and yet ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... was surely natural. The discovery was quite as appalling to me as to you; and, knowing that somewhere among the dead man's papers my letters were preserved, I dreaded lest they should fall into the hands of the police and thereby connect me with the crime. It was fear that my final letter should be discovered that gave my actions the appearance ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... painfully from the peril that menaced him, she turned to see that it was Fanny whom she had saved—laughing at her derisively, and Hosmer had been left to perish. The dream was agonizing; like an appalling nightmare. She awoke in a fever of distress, and raised herself in bed to shake off the unnatural impression which such a dream can leave. The curtains were drawn aside from the window that faced her bed, and looking out she saw a long tongue of flame, reaching far up into the sky—away ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... readers see the scene as I saw it, or of conveying any adequate idea of the intense, the appalling loneliness of the spot. It really seemed to me as if our voices and laughter, so far from breaking the deep eternal silence, only brought it out into stronger relief. On either hand rose up, shear from the waters edge, a great, barren, shingly mountain; before us loomed a dark pine forest, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... child's sleeping suit, was most cleverly contrived out of brown plushette, painted in bold bars to represent the stripes of a tabby. She wore a cat's mask on her head, and made such an excellent representation of a gigantic specimen of the feline race that the effect was quite appalling. The younger children squealed when she appeared on the field, especially as, to keep up her character, she made an occasional claw at one of them as she passed, or gave vent to a tremendous "Miau!" or "Fuff!" She had decorated ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... irretrievable importance of every word which you utter. As for me, feeling as I do the full weight of my responsibilities, I wish to seek behind those words, beyond yourselves, whether there is not some detail unperceived by yourselves which will destroy the appalling truth established by your evidence. What I am seeking is—I tell you so frankly—a doubt on your part, a contradiction. I am seeking ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... to the passing scenery. "The girls will never believe this of me," she soliloquized. And indeed she was amazed at herself. Then thought of Glenn strengthened her. It did not really matter what she suffered on the way to him. Only she was disgusted at her lack of stamina, and her appalling sensitiveness to discomfort. ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... those of Dr. Beck before him, had been in vain. Session after session the "Bill to establish the Beck Asylum for the Chronic Insane'' was rejected,— the legislature shrinking from the cost of it. But one day, as we were sitting in the Senate, appalling news came from the Assembly: Dr. Willard, while making one more passionate appeal for the asylum, had fallen dead in the presence of the committee. The result was a deep and wide- spread feeling of compunction, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... these teeth were only to display and talk with, and were but sorry helps in eating. This very appalling advertisement from the Massachusetts Centinel gives a clue to the way in which missing teeth were replaced: "Live Teeth. Those Persons inclined to dispose of Live Teeth may apply to Templeman." Or this from the Connecticut Courant ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... to make a study of children's ailments and their proper treatment. Above all, the matter of diet should be comprehended. It is appalling to see the conglomeration of indigestible substances which a sick person is allowed to eat. All children should be trained to take medicine, and to submit to any prescribed dietary ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... and appalling in the sudden apparition of the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the single candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father's passive features, from which the life has almost ebbed. Bianchon with thoughtful tact left ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... every time the surge broke upon its sides. On looking a little out to sea I perceived at no great distance on our right, all the other ships of the expedition, which quieted me very much. Towards ten in the morning the wind changed; immediately an appalling cry was heard, concerning which the passengers, as well as myself, were equally ignorant. The whole crew were in motion. Some climbed the rope ladders, and seemed to perch on the extremities of the yards; others mounted to the highest parts of the mast; ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... of April twenty-second is one that I can never forget. It was frightful, yes. Yet there was a grandeur in the appalling intensity of living, in the appalling intensity of death ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... his diseased brain were so frequent and appalling, and the near approach of death so dreadful to the guilty and despairing wretch, that they produced at last a strong desire to see his brother, that he might ask his forgiveness, and make some restitution of his property ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... robber knights, extortionate beggars, and daring highwaymen. But one thing is certain, that premeditated crimes, committed professionally and for hire by third parties, occurred in Italy with great and appalling frequency. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... sitting at your feet in your favourite little room, with the dear children playing around us! If they became troublesome to you, I would tell them some appalling goblin story; and they would crowd round me with silent attention. The sun is setting in glory; his last rays are shining on the snow, which covers the face of the country: the storm is over, and I must return to my dungeon. Adieu!—Is Albert with you? and what is ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... seem designed by nature to be the absolute victims of woman. Whenever they fall in love, they do it with an earnestness and an obstinacy which is actually appalling. The adored object of their affections can twine them round her finger, quarrel with them, cheat them, caricature them, or flirt with others, without the least risk of severing the triple cord of attachment. They become as tame as poodle-dogs, will submit patiently to any manner of cruelty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... reached St. Pierre about 7 o'clock Thursday morning. The greatest difficulty was experienced in getting into port, the air being thick with falling ashes and the darkness intense. The ship had to grope its way to the anchorage. Appalling sounds were issuing from the mountain behind the town, which was shrouded in darkness. The ashes were falling thickly on the steamer's deck, where the passengers and others were gazing at the town, some being engaged ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... which the railroad, the breath of their nostrils, wanted. They grew ugly, forgetting they were dealing with a magnate, and that a railroad from ocean to ocean can take its shops somewhere else with appalling ease. Thus did the corner lots become sand again in a night. "And in the words of the poet," concluded Stuart, "Sharon has an ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... somewhat bulky envelope, addressed in a neat hand: To the Lady of the House. It contains a couple of very voluminous papers, almost as large as the broad page of The Times, one of which adverts mysteriously to some appalling calamity, which has resulted in a 'most DISASTROUS FAILURE, productive of the most intense excitement in the commercial world.' We learn further on, that from various conflicting circumstances, which the writer does not condescend to explain, above L.150,000 worth of property has ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... commenced, and our coasts are spread over with the shattered fragments of more than two hundred vessels, which, in one fatal tempest, have been stranded on the British shores, attended with an appalling havoc of human life, beyond all present means to ascertain its extent, besides the loss of property to an enormous amount. And shall these fearful warnings also be without avail? Shall we still close our eyes on conviction, until further catastrophes wring from us those reluctant efforts, which ...
— An Appeal to the British Nation on the Humanity and Policy of Forming a National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck (1825) • William Hillary
... shines,—neither did the blossoms give him any greeting. Nature wastes no trivialities on such grief; the mother, whose child comes in to her broken-limbed and wounded, does not give it sugar-plums and kisses, but waits in silence till the surgeon has done his kindly and appalling office,—then, it may be, she sings her boy ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... for the 'Mysteries of Udolpho'!" exclaimed the doctor. "Ann Radcliffe could not have depicted yon mountains in a more appalling aspect." ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... a suddenness that was appalling, they seemed to be flung into the midst of a hurricane. The wind lashed the sea to fury, and the Mary Ellen spun around like ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... do, youngsters," he commanded with extreme mildness it seemed to me, considering the appalling situation. "I thought you had had about enough practice for to-day and Charlotte could ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... difference, as Humboldt informs us, that then they used vessels of clay, and now they use copper caldrons. The solitary-looking baths are ornamented with odd-looking heads of cats or monkeys, which grin down upon you with a mixture of the sinister and facetious rather appalling. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... looked at him with intense anxiety and alarm, for his pale, emaciated face and weak, attenuated frame seemed to belong to one who was at the last verge of life. An awful fear of the worst came over her—the fear of bereavement in this distant land, the presentiment of an appalling desolation, which crushed her young heart and reduced her to despair. Her father, her only relative, her only protector, was slipping away from her; and in the future there seemed nothing before her but ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... and dryness of manner was the only result of her observation. She adjusted his pillow, asked him if there was anything that he wanted, but took her directions from the doctor, rather than from himself, with a practical insight and minuteness that was as appalling to the patient as it was an unexpected delight to Dr. Duchesne. "I see you quite understand me, Miss Trotter," ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... by the pleadings of a man of law. This personage was a village notary, and all unfitted by knowledge or experience to battle against the skilled prosecutors. And yet she was grateful; for, at least, she would thus learn of what she was accused. The list of her crimes was appalling. Firstly: treason. Secondly: purloining of lands and monies. Thirdly: witchcraft and black magic. Fourthly: bigamous intent. Fifthly: attempted murder. It is characteristic of the age that the fifth indictment should not ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... observing that Nadyezhda Fyodorovna wanted to speak. "Trust me, I will not deceive you, I will not hide one truth from the eyes of your soul. Listen to me, my dear. . . . God marks great sinners, and you have been marked-out: only think—your costumes have always been appalling." ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hedge. While he was speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an appalling series of explosions mingled with the grind of outraged machinery suddenly braked, and some one shouted above the din. The next instant a huge mass shot past the other side of the hedge and there followed a ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... from that most wonderfully conscientious spell of silver-cleaning. He was relieved to find himself alone. He was ill, perhaps very ill, but he felt unquestionably better than in the night. He was delivered from the appalling fear of death which had tortured and frightened him, and his thankfulness was intense; and yet at the same time he was aware of a sort of heroical sentimental regret that he was not, after all, dead; he would almost have ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... room grinding his teeth, his lips foaming, and his face of a livid hue; so appalling was his appearance; that one of the gang, who had been the first to enter by the window, turned pale with terror, and dropped ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... for him to be tempted to prolonged slumbers by silence and solitude, she put on her hood and gloves and went out alone to see the horrors of the deserted streets, of which nurse Basset had given her so appalling ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Gazzam and Fahnestock thought she could not live more than four weeks; but Spear said she might linger three months. This blanched the cheek of each one. Three months of such unremitting pain, steadily on the increase, was appalling; but mother faced the prospect without a murmur, willing to bear by God's grace what He should inflict, and to wait His good time for deliverance. I was filled with self-reproach, for I should have ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm |
