"Appalling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the desire rather to praise the Lord for his goodness, than to spend time and strength in murmurings and disputings with their fellow-mortals. The destruction, not only of property, but of life; in some recent contests, is quite appalling, and we certainly live in very eventful times; the tendency, however, both of the good and evil, is so obviously towards an increase of light and knowledge, that it seems warrantable to expect all will be overruled to better views and practices becoming more general, and the kingdoms of this ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... say, at the time he seemed positively appalling to me, a virulent specimen, and I thought, "The Irish brute! To think of human beings having to work for a brute like that! To think of his driving men like that!" However, I soon began to discover that he was not so bad as he seemed, and then ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... adventures staged in the homes and parks of the wealthy, as pictured by the sycophantic fashion magazine and cast with the people of its gallery of photographs—sublimely smart women in frocks of marvellous inspiration, and polo-playing, motor-driving, clothes-mad men of an insouciance appalling. ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... are children, in the schools, and are thus handicapped in their work of education—in their efforts to fit themselves for the struggle of life—it assumes even larger proportions and becomes truly appalling. ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... under his 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 them naturally. "It's ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... An appalling calamity has befallen the American people since their chosen representatives last met in the halls where you are now assembled. We might else recall with unalloyed content the rare prosperity with which throughout the year ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... persecuting hand into the valley of death—was about to fall from the lips of the judges whom they addressed. Against others a fate less repulsive, perhaps, to the feelings of humanity, but certainly not more merciful, and hardly less painful and appalling, was about to be decreed. Recent revelations have thrown some light on the horrors endured by the Irish political prisoners who languish within the prison pens of England; but it needs far more than a stray letter, a half-stifled cry from ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... so overwhelmed with maidenly confusion at the appalling thought, that she did not recover herself for half an hour at least. Octavia, feeling that it would not be safe to pursue the subject, only uttered one ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... assistance I managed it. Rob got frightened, and had many leaps before he got up. From this ridge such a lovely scene opened out in the evening light, lofty peaks all around, and below, grassy, fern-covered ravines. It made one almost giddy to look down. The descent appeared appalling, but the ferns were long, and we could get a good foothold in them. As we neared the bottom we picked up a quantity of wood. Some of it rolled into a gulch, and in going after it Graham got "blocked" ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... looked, old memories rose up to torment her and redouble her misery. A thing she could have borne in the outer world, a thing which might have seemed tolerable in the reeking air of Paris or in the gloomy streets of Angers wore here its most appalling aspect. Henceforth, whatever choice she made, this home, where even in those troublous times she had known naught but peace, must bear a damning stain! Henceforth this day and this hour must come between her and happiness, must brand her brow, and fix her ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... was kindled, and arose Within the sphere of that appalling fray! For, from the encounter of those wond'rous foes, A vapor like the sea's suspended spray Hung gathered; in the void air, far away, Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap, Where'er the eagle's talons made their way, Like sparks into the darkness; as they ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... the lamps were held up I saw that it was nothing but one vast charnel-house, being literally full of thousands of human skeletons, which lay piled up in an enormous gleaming pyramid, formed by the slipping down of the bodies at the apex as fresh ones were dropped in from above. Anything more appalling than this jumbled mass of the remains of a departed race I cannot imagine, and what made it even more dreadful was that in this dry air a considerable number of the bodies had simply become desiccated with the skin still on them, and now, fixed in every conceivable position, stared ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... is but a narrow strip of sea—so narrow indeed that you scarcely lose sight of one coast before you sight the other—yet the oldest sailors cross it with fear, for its appalling depth within its narrow boundaries make it subject to sudden "rages" in certain winds. Even Charlie, who must have made the trip half a hundred times, scanned the western horizon with an ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... foundation of true civilization, the keynote of human happiness,—reaches not their wretched quarters. Placed by society under the ban, life is one long and terrible night. But tragic as is the fate of the present generation, still more appalling is the picture when we contemplate the thousands of little waves of life yearly washed into the cellar of being; fragile, helpless innocents, responsible in no way for their presence or environment, yet condemned to a fate more frightful than the beasts of the field; ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the middle of the table instead of Miss Barton's bowl of flowers, and there were several substantial platefuls of currant-bread. It was an extremely warm afternoon, and even to school-girl appetites the sight of such plenty at 4 p.m. was appalling. Miss Lowe's convulsed apologies sent the visitors ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... said the appalling voice of the Solitary, "to seek refuge here? Go hence; when the heath-fowl need shelter, they seek it not in the ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... face on the ground beside her. Still she took not the smallest notice of it; she laid one shapely hand on the small of its back, as if to make sure it was there, and continued her conversation tranquilly with Morley. How she could hear what he said I could not tell. I could hear nothing but the appalling ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... ever. Among the offenders were men of great 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
... written article about it. In this article Mr. Clemens proves very little against Mr. Bourget and a very great deal against himself. He demonstrates clearly that he is neither a scholar, a reader or a man of letters and very little of a gentleman. His ignorance of French literature is something appalling. Why, in these days it is as necessary for a literary man to have a wide knowledge of the French masterpieces as it is for him to have read Shakespeare or the Bible. What man who pretends to be an author can afford to neglect those models of style and composition. George ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... little Blanco y Negro, beautifully gotten up, is at the head of all the more dignified illustrated journals of the country. There are no kiosks; the papers are sold by children or by old women in the streets, and the Madrid night is rent by the appalling cries of these itinerant vendors of literature. For the Spanish newspaper is always literature, which is a good deal more than can be said for some of the English halfpenny Press. Whatever may be the politics of the particular journal, its ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... passed. "My soul recoils from the bare idea of pronouncing my own accursed name! But—unhappy as you see me—crushed, overwhelmed with deep affliction as you behold me—anxious, but unable to repent for the past as I am, and filled with appalling dread for the future as I now proclaim myself to be, still is my power far, far beyond that limit which hems mortal energies within so small a sphere. Speak, old man—wouldst thou change thy condition? For to me—and to me alone of all human beings—belongs the means of giving thee new life—of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... for a time to an Art School. There he met a great many curious people. Many of the men were horrible blackguards: he was not exactly that: so they naturally found each other interesting. He went through some rather appalling discoveries about human life and the final discovery was that there is no Devil—no, not even such a thing as a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... bring their sunshine and clouds, but no change in the unhappy family; a change there was for the worse in the appalling development of the infidel and socialistic tendencies of their impious father. His language, less guarded, seemed to teem with new insults against religion and God, and contributed to confirm the chill of horror with which he was met by hapless children that ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... continued to beat furiously upon the house and the din was appalling, but these two men, keen-eared, trained to the life of their mountains, had heard a sound which was not the storm, nor of the forest creatures doling their woful cries beneath the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... me the life path that will lead to success?" So far as is possible it will be the purpose of this book to reply fully to these all important questions, and by illustration and example to show how others in the face of obstacles that would seem appalling to the weak and timid, carefully and prayerfully prepared themselves for what has been aptly called "the battle of life," and then in the language of General ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... midst of the cry she saw some little yellow flowers growing in the grass at the roadside, and plumped down then and there inconsequently to gather them. By that time Jane was out of sight; and at the moment Beth became aware of the fact, she also perceived an appalling expanse of bright blue sky above her, and sat, gazing upwards, paralysed with terror. This was her first experience of loneliness, her ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... 'In a most appalling manner! His wife's lover was a soldier from Perugia in garrison at Sienna—ask Ludovico—he knows all about it, but has never liked to tell you, for fear of hurting your feelings. Allow me to inform you, Bebe, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... which we can wing our flight; but all around are multitudes of stars, some shining with a brightness almost equal to what our Sun appears to give forth at that great distance, others hardly visible, but the smallest telescope increases their number enormously, and presents to our mind the appalling phantom of immensity in all its terror, standing there to withstand our next great step. How are we to continue on our journey when our very senses seem paralysed by this obstruction, and even imagination ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... courts, usually reserved for the "patball" of the local athletes of either sex, there was absolutely nothing to do, and we were too far off Modder River to feel that we were at all in the swim of things. The heat was sometimes appalling. On Christmas day the temperature was 105 deg. in the shade, and most people took a long siesta after the midday dinner and read such odds and ends of literature as ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... "My dear, appalling! Don't talk of it. I was prostrate all night, and Mason too ill to do anything but moan. She's been ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... inn?" she stammered, looking about her, bewildered. Then, as the appalling truth struck home, ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... necessary to control this point. The engagement was on June 6, 1863, and continued from three in the morning until twelve noon. Never did men fight with greater courage against such odds at the point of the bayonet than did these colored troops. The appalling list of casualties shows how they stood the test. Of the officers in the colored forces, seven were killed, nine wounded, three missing. Of the enlisted men, 123 killed, 182 wounded, 113 missing. In commenting on this battle, Schouler, in his history ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... removed from my family, of whom I heard no more. The new faces that appeared wore a gloom at once strange and appalling. Report had greatly exaggerated the struggle of the Milanese and the rest of Italy to recover their independence; it was doubted if I were not one of the most desperate promoters of that mad enterprise. I found that my name, as a writer, was not wholly unknown to my jailer, to his wife, ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... the Lung' Arno, sounded a loud reverberation of many voices, an immense outcry mingled with the deep rumbling of carriage wheels, and the fierce neighing of horses. There were sounds like the rush of a great multitude, and cries of terror mingled with one another in appalling confusion. ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... beautiful, though rather florid Alexander I. style struggled from the walls with an appalling set of furniture of the period of Alexander II. But the whole thing had an odd unfinished look, and a fine portrait of the Prince's grandfather in one panel ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... spirits evidently occasioned by the humiliating necessity of ushering his polished friends into the wretched asylum of penury, the Poet led the way with tardy reluctancy, while his visitors regretted every step of ascent, under the appalling circumstance of giving pain to adversity; yet they felt that to recede would be more indelicate than ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... these Pedro rode fairly down, and sent, horse and all, over the precipice. Lawrence's cudgel beat down the guard of the other, flattened his sombrero, and stopping only at his skull, stretched him on the ground. As for those who had fled, the appalling yells of Quashy, as he pursued them, scattered to the winds any fag-ends of courage they might have possessed, and effectually prevented their return. So tremendous and sudden was the result, that Manuela felt more inclined to laugh ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... of wild beasts, and thus exposed to be devoured by dogs. They were covered with pitch and set on fire to serve as lamp-posts to the streets of Rome. To justify such atrocities, and to smother all sentiments of compassion, these persecutors accused their innocent victims of the most appalling crimes. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... drumbeats; fiercer, madder went the dance; and, unable to resist the impulse, Graham and Connell, secure in the belief that the Indians were utterly engrossed, crept cautiously onward and outward, with the corporal at their back, determined to see what they could of this savage and appalling ceremony. ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... May 31, 1919). 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 ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... coming?" asked Tommy, turning with appalling suddenness to Carron, whose hatred for him increased tenfold as he ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... ought to be a certain thing now, and the only appalling possibility the sight of the Norwegian ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... surprise and pleasure. At that instant Alice turned, and her gaze met that of the stranger. The fascination of the basilisk can scarcely more stun and paralyse its victim than the look of this stranger charmed, with the appalling glamoury of horror, the eye and soul of Alice Darvil. Her face became suddenly locked and rigid, her lips as white as marble, her eyes almost started from their sockets—she pressed her hands convulsively together, and shuddered—but still ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... this prayer was, I believe the God of pity heard and answered it; for, notwithstanding my disinclination to the fulfilment of this vow, made under circumstances so appalling, He bore with me, but never allowed me to forget it. Every appearance of evil —and especially the return of the cholera in our midst the next fall —seemed to me, "like the fingers upon the wall," ready to write my doom. I ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... Idleness is their curse, their opportunity for sin; you may know them as the loungers over refreshment-bars, as the retailers of the latest filthy joke, or as the vendors of some disgusting scandal; indeed, it is appalling the number of these lepers found both in our business ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... with a palpitation of the heart when Tom committed this appalling indiscretion, for she felt that if the dish turned out a failure, she never would be able to hold up her head before John Westlock again. Quite unconscious of her state of mind, John accepted the invitation ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of himself as a thirsty man in a waterless land. That may be a literally true reproduction of his condition, if indeed the old idea is correct, that this is a work of David's; for there is no more appalling desert than that in which he wandered as an exile. It is a land of arid mountains without a blade of verdure, blazing in their ghastly whiteness under the fierce sunshine, and with gaunt ravines in which there are no pools or streams, and therefore no sweet sound of running ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the dignity of the work accomplished in arts and crafts by the women of Germany, where it was exhibited together with that of men. In the one instance where women secluded themselves it was shown with appalling force that the result was tawdry ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... elaborate skill, as if in the view of some terrible climax, the poet makes them collapse into utter farce. Disgusted by their intrusion on his privacy, the Priapus adopts a simple but exceedingly vulgar expedient to alarm these appalling hags. In an instant they fall into the most abject terror, suspend their incantations, and, tucking up their skirts, make off for the more comfortable quarters of the city as fast as their trembling limbs can carry them—Canidia, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... haze the huge reeling shapes of the fighting vessels, looming indistinctly, vomiting flame like so many angry dragons, and several of them burning in addition, having been set on fire by shells; and above all the appalling concussion of the great guns, like the ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... the discovery of America, the disease has been one of its great scourges, permanently endemic in the Spanish Main, often extending to the Southern States, occasionally into the North, and not infrequently it has crossed the Atlantic. The records of the British Army in the West Indies show an appalling death rate, chiefly from this disease. At Jamaica, for the twenty years ending in 1836, the average mortality was 101 per thousand, and in certain instances as high as 178. One of the most dreaded of all infections, the periods of epidemics ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... devils in mines. I had myself snaked through just such passages in coal-mines. Still, I confess that the choking sense of being shut in this earth-smelling tube, like a fox in a drain, and the sudden realisation of the appalling tonnage of superincumbent earth above me—liable at any moment to loosen, and, as with a giant thumb, press out my poor little insect existence—made the sweat pour from me and my heart stand still. I had to shut my eyes for a moment and ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... master failed him, but a look of heart felt satisfaction gleamed across his rough visage, as its muscles suddenly contracted, when the faded lineaments slowly settled into the appalling ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... persisted in the accusation that Polish Jews spent money lavishly in fomenting rebellion and anarchy. The pupils of the Jesuits found great delight in attacks upon the Jews, which frequently culminated in riot and bloodshed and the payment of money by Jews to Catholic institutions. "What appalling spectacles," exclaims a Christian writer, "must we witness in the capital [Warsaw] on solemn holidays. Students and even adults in noisy mobs assault the Jews, and sometimes beat them with sticks. We have seen a gang waylay a ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... as everything he observed in Edinburgh was offensive and depressing, he was constantly depressed—the more because he could not understand. At Barbie his life, though equally void of mental interest, was solaced by surroundings which he loved. In Edinburgh his surroundings were appalling to his timid mind. There was a greengrocer's shop at the corner of the street in which he lodged, and he never passed it without being conscious of its trodden and decaying leaves. They were enough to make his morning foul. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... appears at his worst. If any one from real life were suddenly thrust unprepared and unlearned in theatrical art upon a stage the incongruity of the situation would be appalling. Yet the witness is thrown into new and strange surroundings. It is a portion of the reality of life shown vividly against a conventionalized background. The judge and jury in a vague manner understand this. The lawyer producing the ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... 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 ...
— The Flying Mercury • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Thinking to have some amusement at his expense, I rushed toward him, and when almost upon him sprang into the air, alighting far beyond him and away from the city. He wheeled instantly and charged me with the most appalling speed I had ever beheld. I had thought his short legs a bar to swiftness, but had he been coursing with greyhounds the latter would have appeared as though asleep on a door mat. As I was to learn, this ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... am not likely to make assertions wildly,—proof, at any rate, to you? Listen to me. When I left that unfortunate creature's room,—I had had a nurse sent for, I left him in her charge—and reached my own bedroom, I was possessed by a profound conviction that some appalling, intangible, but very real danger, was ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... certainly very solemn. The deep hoarse recitative of the psalm, the strange phantom-like appearance of the fraternities, the flash and glare of the torches which they carry, on the face of the dead; the dead body itself, in all the appalling nakedness of mortality, but still mocked with the tawdry images of this world, in the flowers and tinsel and gilding which surround it; the quick swinging motion with which it is hurried along, and with which it comes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... now afforded an opportunity—the first that had ever occurred, as Kennedy yelled for my information—to see what a really magnificent sea boat we had under our feet, for under the scourging of that terrible wind the sea rose with appalling rapidity, notwithstanding that the top of every sea, as it rose, was torn off and swept to leeward in blinding and drenching clouds of spindrift. And although our engine had been stopped, the ship lay to ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Such appalling figures obliged Desnoyers to exert his imagination. It was not easy to evoke with exactitude the vision of three hundred carcasses in helmets, boots and cloaks, in all the revolting aspects of death, ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... being lost; but having, in common with the lascars, taken the precaution to lash a rope round his waist, we were able, by its means, to extricate him from danger; at the same time the vessel made an appalling lurch, lying down on her beam-ends, in which position she remained for the space of two minutes, when the maintopmast, followed by the foretopmast, went by the board with a dreadful crash; she then righted, and we were all immediately engaged in going aloft, and with hatchets cutting away the wreck, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... of, and nowhere else was the pride of birth so stupidly intolerant. That fruitful theme of earlier and later poets, the love of nobleman for maid of low degree, had been lost in the age of gallantry, save in lubricious tales of intrigue and seduction. The appalling dissoluteness which characterized the French court during the first half of the eighteenth century, and was duly copied by the princelings of Germany, had poisoned the minds of high and low alike and led to a state of affairs in which there was little room for a noble ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... a dreadful thing to happen at Christmas. Barbara gripped my hand tight and did not say a word. The next phase I remember only too vividly. When the flat door opened, in a blaze of electric light, it was like a curtain being lifted on a scene of appalling tragedy. As soon as we entered we were sucked into it. A horrible hospital smell of anaesthetics, disinfectants—I know ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... all look forward to a festal treat. Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais'd, Sit patiently, and fain would be amaz'd. I know the art to hit the public taste, Yet ne'er of failure felt so keen a dread; True, they are not accustomed to the best, But then appalling the amount they've read. How make our entertainment striking, new, And yet significant and pleasing too? For to be plain, I love to see the throng, As to our booth the living tide progresses; As wave on wave successive rolls along, And through heaven's narrow ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... destroyed, and there had been an outlet from agriculture into industry, the evil effects of the agrarian system would have been mitigated. As it was, in one of the richest and most fertile countries in the world the congestion and poverty were appalling. Competition for land meant the struggle for bare life. Rent had no relation to value, but was the price fixed by the frantic bidding of hungry peasants for the bare right to live. The tenant had no interest in improving the land, because ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... following day, however, accompanied by natives, we met at the scene of destruction, and truly it was an appalling one to us. The mangled corpses of our companions, rendered more ghastly from the numerous wounds they had received, the provisions, clothing, &c. scattered about the ground, the hideous yells of exultation uttered ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... became evident that we had in some manner drifted completely away from the island. The appalling conviction could no longer be resisted. There we were, lost and helpless, on the open ocean, in our chip of a boat, without provisions for a single day, or, to speak more definitely, without a morsel of bread or ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... seemed quite appalling, for they felt as if they were on the eve of some discovery—what, neither could have said; but upon comparing notes afterwards each said he felt convinced that something was about to happen, but paradoxically, at the same time, as if it never would; ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... of all we must have a taste of those dainty lips; stand back, bl—t you," he vociferated with a volley of appalling oaths, that sent the disorderly men, who were again crowding behind him, back into the rear; "we would be alone, ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... entire coast, so far as the eye could reach, looked like another sea—a sea, though, of flame and smoke, which shot up its leaping billows in long tongues of fire far against the sky. It was a terrible, an appalling spectacle; and Josephine fled from it to the bedside of her little sleeping daughter. Then, kneeling there by the couch of her child, she uplifted to heaven her face, down which the tears were streaming, and implored God ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... doubtless, of open revolution, of bloodshed and the destruction of property. In a far more terrible sense, the reckoning which he has referred to is already upon us. The ills we suffer as the result of the conditions now prevailing in the United States are appalling in their sum. ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... idea of the appalling disasters caused by these too oft recurring phenomena, the above-mentioned bulletin gives Flammarion's description of ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... '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 interested were in ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... for English persistence to accomplish what France, with such appalling violence, had done in as many years. It had been a furious outburst of pent-up force; but the work had been thorough. Not a germ of tyranny remained. The incrustations of a thousand years were not alone broken, but pulverized; the privileged classes were swept away, and their vast estates, two-thirds ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... a number of songs and counts in different languages, but it is not supposable that he understands every word he utters. If, however, his understanding develops as it promises to do, he will become a decided polyglot. He has mastered an appalling array of statistics, such as the areas in square miles of hundreds of countries, the population of the world's principal cities, the birthdays of all the Presidents, the names of all the cities of the United States of over 10,000 inhabitants, and a lot of mathematical data. He is greatly ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... apparition on the persons present was utterly appalling. Cedric started back in amazement. Ivanhoe crossed himself, repeating prayers in Saxon, Latin, and Norman-French, while Richard alternately said "Benedicite" and ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... has been too strong, and in the matter of grammar we are still the slaves of the ancient world. As for spelling, the irregularities of our language seem to have driven us to one sole method, memorizing: and to memorize every word in a language is an appalling task. Our rhetoric we have inherited from the middle ages, from scholiasts, refiners, and theological logicians, a race of men who got their living by inventing distinctions and splitting hairs. The fact is, prose has had a very ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... corridor, nor had the sunshine of her French marigold head lit up her familiar places. The two days were days of relief, yet mitigated with a certain uneasy apprehension of the return of Sarah Walker, or—more alarming thought!—the Sarah Walker element in a more appalling form. So strong was this impression that an unhappy infant who unwittingly broke this interval with his maiden outcry was nearly lynched. "We're not going to stand that from YOU, you know," was the crystallized sentiment of a brutal bachelor. In fact, it began ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... sons of toil. Our first twenty-one miles to Twin Lakes, at the best speed, with good horses, occupied eight hours, three of which, in the middle of the night, were passed under deluging rain accompanied by thunder and lightning of the most appalling grandeur, thumping in the shelterless wagon over stumps and bogholes through the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... debauchery. Father Judge, of the hospital, could have told of far more important donations than that first ten sacks of flour. And old-timers who came to Daylight invariably went away relieved according to their need. But fifty dollars for a quart of fizzy champagne! That was appalling. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of the future glories of the Republic are now obscured by the storm of battle. Our country, the land of so much of affection, of pride and of hope, now presents to the startled and astonished gaze of mankind an appalling, humiliating, and saddening spectacle. Treasonable menaces of other days have now ripened into treasonable deeds. Civil war holds its carnival, and reaps its bloody harvest. The nation is grappling with a gigantic conspiracy—struggling ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a charming whine—what a vigorous stamp, he hath! How hard he strikes his forehead when he is going into a rage—how flat he falls upon the ground when he is going to die! And then, when he has killed Tybalt, what an attitude he strikes, what an appalling grin he indulges his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... only illusion about her. Though her appearance was uncouth and ungainly, her manner was unembarrassed. She looked at Helen with some degree of interest; and to the latter it seemed that Misery, hopeless but unabashed, gazed at her with a significance at once pathetic and appalling. In response to Mrs. Haley's salutation, the woman seated herself ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... are.' "The caste," Mr. Trench writes, "are illiterate to a man, and their intellectual development is reflected in their style of living. A visit to a hamlet of tanning Chamars induces doubt as to whence the appalling smells of the place proceed—from the hides or from the tanners. Were this squalor invariably, as it is occasionally, accompanied by a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, victuals and clothing, the Chamar would not be badly off, but the truth is that in the northern ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... of isolation, when Washington, with the telegraph inoperative, was kept in an appalling uncertainty, the North rose. There was literally a rush to volunteer. "The heather is on fire," wrote George Ticknor, "I never before knew what a popular excitement can be." As fast as possible militia were hurried South. The ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... complete the tragedy of the whole situation, a snow-fog drifted down upon them. Blotting out the black ribbon of water and every ice-pile that was more than a stone's throw from them, it swept on to the south with a silence that was more appalling than had been the grinding scream of a tidal wave ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... stranger quickened his horse also to an equal pace. And when the first horseman pulled up, thinking to lag behind, the second did likewise. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller against the sky, gigantic in height and muffled in a cloak, he was horror-struck to discover the stranger was headless!—but his horror was still more increased ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... is not strength of will or action, of bone and muscle, nor is it coarse and palpable—but it assumes a character of vastness and sublimity seen through the same visionary medium, and blended with the appalling associations of preternatural agency. We need only turn, in proof of this, to the Cave of Despair, or the Cave of Mammon, or to the account of the change of Malbecco into Jealousy. The following stanzas, in the description of the Cave of Mammon, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... enjoyed it at first. They had no loads to carry; had their usual good, warm food, and, what was better than all besides, youth and strength. But, on the second day, the heat grew appalling; not for the camels, for they love the broad glare of the sun, but for the Arabs, who, in spite of their hardihood, grew faint and weak as the sun, like a ball of fire, poured its scorching rays on the ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... red and white cotton nightcaps, rags and patches; most graceful girls, with pretty, self-respecting feet, and flashing eyes, and no head-dress but their own hair; gay, fat hags, all smile; thin hags, with faces of appalling wickedness or misery; precociously witty little gutter-imps of either sex; and such cripples! jovial hunchbacks, lusty blind beggars, merry creeping paralytics, scrofulous wretches who joked and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the case with the LADY ARBELLA, though it is to be hoped there was no "demurrage" clause, exacting damage, as is usual, for each day of detention beyond the "lay days" allowed, for the long and unexpected tarries in Cape Cod and Plymouth harbors must have rolled up an appalling "demurrage" claim. Winthrop enters among his memoranda, "The agreement for the ARBELLA L750, whereof is to be paid in hand [i e. cash down] the rest upon certificate of our safe arrival." The sum was doubtless considerably in excess of that paid ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... above calculations are based upon official statistics which are grossly exaggerated in favour of the Germans and Magyars. The picture would be still more appalling if we took into consideration the actual number of the Slavs. The Austrian census is not based upon the declaration of nationality or of the native language, but upon the statement of the "language of communication" ("Umgangsprache"). In ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... which difficulties of this nature are removed. Probably no one branch of medical surgery has been more assiduously cultivated than this; and the number of supporters, pessaries, braces, and levers which have been recently brought before the medical profession for this purpose is simply appalling. There are women and men who make it their business to carry them through the country and sell them on commission. We distinctly warn our readers against this class. They are almost invariably ignorant and unscrupulous, rich in promises, and regardless of performances. She who patronizes them ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame. Never in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... were in general a sad lot. Some of them were always encamped in the flats below town; and about one of the stores a number of them could be seen trying to screw their resolution up to paying the appalling prices for necessities. The majority had no spare money, and rarely any spirit left; and nobody paid much attention to them except to play practical jokes on them. Very few if any of this influx stopped ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... House of Representatives now assembled in Washington, humbly confessing their dependence upon Almighty God who rules all that is done for human good, make haste, at this informal meeting, to express the emotions with which they have been filled by the appalling tragedy which has deprived the Nation of its head and covered the land with mourning; and in further declaration of ...
— Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - Delivered at the request of both Houses of Congress of America • George Bancroft
... the man. Yet there was a ferocity in her that froze the cry. Glidden's coat and blouse were half torn off; blood covered him; he strained and flung himself weakly in that iron clutch. He was beaten and bent back. His tongue hung out, bloody, fluttering with strangled cries. A ghastly face, appalling in its ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... time before worrying seriously about the future. I went to Coney Island and the other resorts, took in the pre-season shows along Broadway, and ate at first-class restaurants; but I shunned the old Sixth Avenue district as though it were pest-infected. My few days of pleasure made appalling inroads upon what cash I had, and caused me to see that it required a good deal of money to live in New York as I wished to live and that I should have to find, very soon, some more or less profitable ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... alone; she is trembling to her core: how long will the shuddering caves withstand the mighty hammer of the Atlantic surge? And then again the sudden wild gleam startles the night, and one sees, with an appalling vividness, the driven white waves and the black island; and then again a thousand echoes go booming along the iron-bound coast. What can be heard in the roar of the hurricane, and the hissing of rain, and the thundering whirl of the waves ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... was set in anguish before her, from whose lips these words seemed to be torn, as, one by one, they were flung out to her ears, was remembered by Zillah many and many a time in after years. At this moment the effect upon her was appalling. She was dumb. A vague desire to avert his wrath arose in her heart. She looked at him imploringly; but her look had ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... appalling. Pontcalec, alone, did not belie himself. Not that the others wanted courage, but they wanted hope; still Pontcalec reassured them by the calmness with which he addressed, not only the ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... "I thought I'd better keep out of the way. I thought I'd better leave it all to you. It's appalling, simply appalling!... Just when ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... mule I found it eating grass contentedly by the roadside. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when our human beast of burden finally arrived, took up his burden and was ready to start. Then, suddenly, I took a new resolve. Before us rose the appalling mass of the Sierra Madre; to get that mule across it would wear us out in mind and body; I regretted that he had not died, and determined to have no further trouble with him. Quickly, we sent back word to Nenton that a mule and saddle were for sale; the crowd ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... the date "4 June," on a neighbouring stone, gives us the reason and occasion of his catastrophe. He has been too loyally celebrating the birthday of his majesty King George III. Another of Bewick's gifts is his wonderful skill in foreshadowing a tragedy. Take as an example, this truly appalling incident from the "Quadrupeds." The tottering child, whose nurse is seen in the background, has strayed into the meadow, and is pulling at the tail of a vicious-looking colt, with back-turned eye and lifted heel. Down ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... The prospect is appalling. We feel that death or the extreme torture of thirst is before us. We have no fear of hunger. Our horses are in the grove, and our knives in our belts. We can, live for weeks upon them; but will the cacti assuage the thirst of men and horses ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... bigger, and down in the earth's bowels you can well believe there is trouble, and if you believe in a hell, you can get it, illustrated proper, but the rivulets of lava that flow out of the wrinkles around the mouth of the crater are no more appalling than making fudges over a gas stove. When the lava cools you would swear it was fudges, only you can't eat the lava and get indigestion ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... to know himself as never before or after. This is the stage where increase of knowledge often means increase of sorrow. It is, in truth, the sorrow of finding out our limitations which, on their first acquaintance, often seem more appalling than they actually are. While youth may be saved by hope, by what is to be, middle life is often lost in the drab reality of what is. Every youth, who is not as indifferent to his possibilities as though he were nothing more than a lump of flesh, ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... the opposite side of the jungle. In another moment the babel gave place to a confusion of shrieks, howls, yells, laughs, barking of dogs, beating of tins, blowing of horns, explosions of crackers, and a din that represents all that is wild and untamable in three nations. It is a weird, almost appalling prologue. Those laughs!—they are a study—they fairly chill the blood—they would make the fortune of a comic actor—so intense, thrilling, surprising, and seemingly filled with a ghoulish glee. Over and over they would break ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... of those mothers who, whenever they hear of their children having done anything wrong, assume a look of intense, solemnised horror, that would lead an ignorant spectator to suppose that intelligence had just been received of some sudden and appalling catastrophe. She knew that children could not be deceived by such pieces of acting. She expressed on her countenance precisely what she felt—a slight degree of sorrow that her child should cherish an evil passion, which, she knew, existed in her heart in common ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... hardly 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
... into their midst, brandishing his hatchet and striking violently at the pole. As he danced about, he recited the great deeds he and his fathers had done in war. His appalling cries, his terrible words, stirred the hearts of his Indians and fired their blood. All were in a frenzy of excitement. With wild cries they joined their chief ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... temper, his craft, his impetus, were always driving him into projects and situations more or less critical. Sometimes he won, sometimes he failed; but his audacious energy hitherto had extricated him. The difficulties of his present situation were, however, appalling, and almost ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the trenches in an appalling state, and forthwith proceeded to repair them, but the enemy would not allow this to go on long, and, after a few days' work had been spent on them, a couple of hours' bombardment would suffice to demolish anything that had been ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... the platform at decreasing speed, it seemed to stretch like elastic. It broke! The platform jumped up suddenly over my head, but I caught at the silk ladder. I was saved! There was a fearful silence, and then the appalling shock of hysterical applause from seven thousand throats. I slid down the ladder, ran across the stage into my dressing-room for a cloak, out again into the street. In two ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... the cause of his Saviour, his tact in winning the confidence even of those who never before trusted their own friends, his fearlessness in the presence of unscrupulous and cruel men and his ascendency over them, his lively faith under appalling discouragements, and his unyielding perseverance, form an array of excellence rarely combined in one man. Like the holy Apostle, he was "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... last two sessions of Parliament, a Select Committee of the House of Lords sat to inquire into the condition of the English Universities. The Marquis of Salisbury was the chairman. The evidence taken before that committee reveals the appalling fact that infidelity, or doubt as to the first principles of the Christian religion, nay, of belief in God, is wide-spread in the Universities of England, and especially among the most intellectual of ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... augmented and treated with a broad brush. The first questioning theme is heard again, and with a perpendicular roar the presto comes upon us. For two pages the dynamic energy displayed by the composer is almost appalling. A whirlwind I have called it elsewhere. It is a storm of the emotions, muscular in its virility. I remember de Pachmann—a close interpreter of certain sides of Chopin—playing this coda piano, pianissimo ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... the daughter who could resist it? It would not be many minutes before the head would find a happy resting-place upon the shoulder beside it, and all the little trials and troubles—trials so very real and very appalling to young hearts—would be put into words, and lose half their bitterness in the telling just because love—that mighty magician—had come ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... checked any familiarity, and evidently had produced some embarrassment on the limbs of four visitors who had just been ushered into its glories. After hesitating before one or two gorgeous fawn-colored brocaded easy-chairs of appalling and spotless virginity, one of them seated himself despairingly on a tete-a-tete sofa in marked and painful isolation, while another sat uncomfortably upright on a sofa. The two others remained standing, vaguely gazing at the ceiling, and exchanging ostentatiously ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... side of such a life the plain, with its sliding snow and ferocious wind, was appalling—a treeless expanse and a racing-ground for snow and wind. The man's mood grew darker while he mused. He served the meal on the rude box which took the place of table, and still his companion did not come. Ho looked ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... beginning very far down would have to be made, if she were to reach the individuality of this perfectly nurtured modern child of hers. There was nothing bad about Molly; she was irritatingly blameless. But what she lacked was appalling! At ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... hand on Halsey's brow, "You know, dear, I don't know whether you and baby are anywhere—anywhere"; wildly, as if the appalling loneliness of its meaning had flashed upon her dulled brain, she ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... valuable secrets, and to confer magic favors. But, looking the other way, he was to be dreaded as a possible (though involuntary) agent of evil; especially perilous was it, these venerable dames would affirm, to become the object of his affection or caresses—a dogma which received appalling confirmation in the fate of the brindled cat, who, after having been caught by the leg in a trap intended for a less respectable robber of hen-roosts, was finished by a bull-terrier, who took advantage of her embarrassed circumstances to pay off upon her a grudge of long ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... threw the burning stumps to the floor, drank his fill, then stumbled away, intending to give himself up to his first sergeant for absence without leave. Back round by way of the store and the east front he went, but before he could reach the barracks came the appalling cry of fire—Lanier's quarters! His doing beyond doubt, and now, in dismay and terror, he fled from the post. Some ranch folk took him in next day, and cared for him awhile, then sent word to the fort. Poor Cary had Lanier to plead for him before his trial, but three months' hard labor ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... an antediluvian chuckle that sounded like a magical and appalling rattle from the inner recesses of his person. He was getting brighter and brighter, as the stars appear to do when the ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... that had nothing to do with any man's regular breathing, twitching away steadily. The whole thing was a careful reproduction of the Egyptian teraphin that one read about sometimes and the voice was as clever and as appalling a piece of ventriloquism as one could wish to hear. All this time the head was "lip-lip-lapping" against the side of the basin, and speaking. It told Suddhoo, on his face again whining, of his son's illness and of the state of ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a terrific burst, a noise, they knew not what, a rush they could not understand, a vibration which shook them on their horses, made them start back and again dismount. Every terror sank before the appalling roar of the cataract. It seemed that the mighty mountain, unable to support its weight of waters, shook to the foundation. A lake had burst on its summit, and the cataract became a falling Ocean. The source of the great deep appeared to be discharging itself over the range of ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... joined to the tempestuous aspect of the heavens, made me shudder. I had little doubt that they were signals of distress from a ship in danger. In half an hour the firing ceased, and I felt the silence more appalling than the dismal sounds which ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... headquarters confusion and dismay had come, indeed, with appalling suddenness. Late in the afternoon Hooker was sitting with two aides-de-camp in the verandah of the Chancellor House. There were few troops in sight. The Third Corps and Pleasonton's cavalry had ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Dominichino and of the Caraccis, of which there are a very great number, incline, in general, to the representation of what is dark or gloomy in character, or what is terrific and appalling in suffering. The subjects which the first of these masters has in general selected, are the cells of monks, the energy of martyrs, or the sufferings of the crucifixion; and the dark-blue coldness of his colouring, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... considered to bore mankind by her vocal performances in the Spanish language, she retired to Bath, where she lives slenderly on an annual present from Sir Leicester and whence she makes occasional resurrections in the country houses of her cousins. She has an extensive acquaintance at Bath among appalling old gentlemen with thin legs and nankeen trousers, and is of high standing in that dreary city. But she is a little dreaded elsewhere in consequence of an indiscreet profusion in the article of rouge and persistency in an obsolete pearl ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... whole sky. When our watch came on 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 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 mizzen top-gallant sails were taken in in the same silent manner; and we lay ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... imagine my feelings. I went hot all over. "Shar," of course, not "Shah." How ever could I have been such an idiot as to have thought it was "Shah"? S-h-a-h obviously spelt shash, not shar. How nearly I had exposed my appalling ignorance to my fellows! "Vote for the—"; I blushed again, hardly able to think of it. And oh! how thankful I was now that everybody else had been too busy to read my poster. Hastily I went over to it, and tore it ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... carried out; in the twinkling of an eye I am stung all round the neck, and recognise there are lots too many mosquitoes and sandflies in the scenery to permit of contemplation of any kind. Never have I seen sandflies and mosquitoes in such appalling quantities. With a wild ping of joy the latter made for me, and I retired promptly into a dark corner of the verandah, swearing horribly, but internally, and fought them. Mr. Hudson, Agent-general, and Mr. Cockshut, Agent for the Ogowe, walk up and down the beach in front, doubtless ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... not proceeded far, however, before she heard the loud shouts of a mob of young men and boys, directly in the street through which she must pass. As she drew nearer, the shouts and laughter grew louder and more appalling. She hesitated. But what could she do? She must go on. Trembling, she endeavored to glide through the crowd, when a great brutal boy, with a horrid mask on his face and a "jack-o'lantern" in his hand, came up before her. He threw the glare of the light ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... are the Russians wanting, though they get more and more astonished: Tempelhof, who was in it, says he never, except at Torgau next Year, heard a louder cannonade. Loud exceedingly; and more or less appalling to the Russian imagination: but not destructive in proportion; the distance being too considerable,—"1,950 paces at the nearest," as Tempelhof has since ascertained by measuring. Friedrich's two batteries, however, as they took ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the attention, even in stone, close by is one of the finest and most perfectly-preserved female mummies I ever beheld,—hideous in its uninjured state, grinning fearfully with its rows of fine ivory teeth a little broken, glaring with its still prominent eyes, and appalling with its blackened skin drawn over the high cheekbones. Why might not this carefully-attended and richly-adorned queen be the beautiful and fatal "serpent of old ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... are now so thoroughly neglected as they were thirty years ago. The state of many of our Collegiate and Cathedral libraries was at that time simply appalling. I could mention many instances, one especially, where a window having been left broken for a long time, the ivy had pushed through and crept over a row of books, each of which was worth hundreds of pounds. In rainy weather the water was conducted, as by a pipe, along the ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades
... Germans have countless rifles and guns; have got the most perfect maps, spies, plans you can imagine. I'm quite prepared to hear that they have got a thousand tremendous surprises in equipment up their sleeves. I'm quite prepared for sweeping victories for them and appalling disasters for us. Those are the first things. What I do know is that the Germans understand nothing of the spirit of man; that they do not dream for a moment of the devil of resentment this war will arouse. Didn't we all trust them not to let off their guns? Wasn't that the essence of our ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... camps all day long. One message that an Afghan told me the Germans had received, was that the British fleet was all sunk and Paris taken. But that sort of message seemed to me familiar, so that I was not so depressed by it as my Afghan informant had hoped. He went off to procure yet more appalling news to bring me, and no doubt was accommodated. I should have had burning ears, but that about that time, their amir came, Habibullah Kahn, looking like a European in his neatly fitting clothes, but surrounded ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... falling; To-morrow! thy victorious march appalling, 'Tis the red fires from Moscow's tow'rs that wave; 'Tis thine Old Guard strewing the Belgian plain; 'Tis the lone island in th' Atlantic main: ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... made a discovery—one which to a girl of honest nature was almost appalling. She had looked into her heart, and found that her early interest in Giles Winterborne had become revitalized into luxuriant growth by her widening perceptions of what was great and little in life. His homeliness no longer offended ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... heard outside in the porch. "Christian!" said Sweyn and his mother simultaneously, he confidently, she authoritatively, to set the checked wheels going again. But Tyr flung up his head with an appalling howl. ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... as we know it. Then when the sun is passed the comet sinks away again, and as it goes the tail dies down and finally disappears. The comet itself dwindles to a hairy star once more and goes—whither? Into space so remote that we cannot even dream of it—far away into cold more appalling than anything we could measure, the cold of absolute space. More and more slowly it travels, always away and away, until the sun, a short time back a huge furnace covering all the sky, is now but a faint star. Thus on its lonely journey unseen and ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... holiday, the circus full, The circus full from rim to floor: The lookers on, beyond control, The lookers on now begin to murmur and roar! Some are calling, And others bawling And howling too, with might and main! For they await a sight appalling! 'Tis the day of the brave of Spain! Come on! make ready! Come on! ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... Hell, Down through the appalling clamors of the place, Charming them all to willing concord, fell A Voice ineffable and full of grace: "Because of all the law-defying race One single malefactor of the cell Thou didst not free from his incarceration, Take thou ten ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... of Juggernaut no longer go crushing over the bodies of prostrate victims, the assembled crowd rush to the car with almost appalling fury and excitement. Pilgrims, however, come in vast numbers from all parts of the country to the temple, and thousands die from famine and exhaustion on the arid road across the sands which surround it. That the vile and dark superstitions I have ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... pastime for nations, not alone in the loss of lives and destruction of public and private property, but the expenditures in actual cash—gold and silver—is simply appalling. It is claimed by close students of historical data, those who have given the subject careful study, that forty million of human beings lose their lives during every century by war alone. Extravagant as this estimate may ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... position of the animal's body had in a manner to be guessed at, he used the same expedients here. To cock and poise his rifle were the acts of a single moment and a single motion: then aiming almost without sighting, he fired into the bushes where he knew a body ought to be, in order to sustain the appalling countenance which alone was visible. There was not time to raise the piece any higher, or to take a more deliberate aim. So rapid were his movements that both parties discharged their pieces at the same instant, the concussions mingling in one report. The mountains, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... when summoned to attend in the garden, for the trial of the conspirators, did not dare to disobey, he yet found it very difficult to summon resolution to face the appalling dangers of his position. He took his place at last among the others, and with a forced external composure which ill concealed the desperate agitation and anxiety which reigned in his soul, he gave himself to the work of trying and ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... and in 1803 a second greatly enlarged. Its leading proposition, supported by much learning, is that while population increases approximately in a geometrical ratio, the means of subsistence do so in an arithmetical ratio only, which, of course, opened up an appalling prospect for the race. It necessarily failed to take into account the then undreamed-of developments whereby the produce of the whole world has been made available for all nations. The work gave rise to a great deal of controversy, much of it based on misunderstanding. M. was Prof. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... last straw. Citizens gathering after nightfall in order to protest were told to disperse immediately, and upon refusal, were fired upon. The next morning showed a death roll in the large centers of population that was appalling. ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... held the cable in our hands. Occasional flashes of lightning shone with a ghastly glare through the watery curtains around us, and lent additional horror to the scene. Yet we longed for those dismal flashes, for they were less appalling than the thick blackness that succeeded them. Crashing peals of thunder seemed to tear the skies in twain, and fell upon our ears through the wild yelling of the hurricane as if it had been but a gentle summer breeze; while the billows burst upon the weather side of the island ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... assumes a high tone, but is not at all certain of its ability to pass the Coercive Bills unaltered, and yesterday there appeared an article in the 'Times' in a style of lofty reproof and severe admonition, which was no doubt as appalling as it was meant to be. This article made what is called a great sensation; always struggling, as this paper does, to take the lead of public opinion and watching all its turns and shifts with perpetual anxiety, it is at once regarded as undoubted evidence of its direction ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville |
