"Aghast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dreamed that a woman of her sense would be so unreasonable," he wondered. Both had tempers, as I know my dearest reader has (if a lady), and neither would yield; and so, presently, they could hardly tell how, for they were aghast at it all, Isabel was alone in her room amidst the ruins of her life, and Basil alone in the one-horse carriage, trying to drive away from the wreck of his happiness. All was over; the dream was past; the charm was broken. The sweetness ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... vacillates, supplicating Our Lady to save him. The evocator, furious, throws him out of the circle. Gilles precipitates himself through the door, de Sille jumps out of the window, they meet below and stand aghast. Howls are heard in the chamber where the magician is operating. There is "a sound as of sword strokes raining on a wooden billet," then groans, cries of distress, the appeals ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... nations. Napoleon Bonaparte rose with the morning of the nineteenth century, and stood, like some frightful comet, on its troubled horizon. Distraught with the dream of conquest and empire, he hovered like a god on the verge of battle. Kings and emperors stood aghast. The sun of Austerlitz was the rising sun of his glory and power, but it went down, veiled in the dark clouds of Waterloo, and Napoleon the Great, uncrowned, unthroned, and stunned by the dreadful shock that annihilated the Grand Army and the Old Guard, "wandered ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... in, his small clerk said, and the sham detective followed the real one's card into the inner chamber of the poky offices upon the third floor. Mr. Crofts sat aghast in his office chair, the puzzled picture of a man who feels his hour has come, but who wonders which of his many delinquencies has come to light. He was large and florid, with a bald head and a dyed mustache, but his coloring was an unwholesome purple ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... cried, aghast, and the lawyer nodded, 'I trust that you now see the seriousness of the ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... long hours that he sat gazing at the picture his mind was the scene of changing moods. At first the sense of horror and shame was paramount. He was aghast at himself and too full of self-abhorrence to do more than fight blindly away from what he could not but see. He would fain have lost his senses if only to buy the boon of ignorance. Then this mood passed. The long habit of his heart asserted itself, and he fell on his knees, no longer in ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... learned from such examples, except the danger of being kings, queens, nobles, priests, and children, to be butchered on account of their inheritance. These are things, at which not vice, not crime, not folly, but wisdom, goodness, learning, justice, probity, beneficence, stand aghast. By these examples our reason and our moral sense are not enlightened, but confounded; and there is no refuge for astonished and affrighted virtue, but being annihilated in humility and submission, sinking into a silent adoration ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... reticule on her arm. But only Anna saw it; Constance, with her gaze in the letter, was drawing Miranda aside while both bent their heads over a clause in it which had got blurred, and looked at each other aghast as they made it out to read, "'—from the burial squad.'" The grandmother's silken bag saved them ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... had not come," said Florence. She looked so pale and frightened that Kitty glanced at her aghast. ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce Upon a head so dear in thunder, said: "Not at my side. I charge thee ride before, Ever a good way on before; and this I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife, Whatever happens, not to speak to me, No, not a word!" and Enid was aghast; And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on, When crying out, "Effeminate as I am, I will not fight my way with gilded arms All shall be iron;" he loosed a mighty purse, Hung at his belt, and hurl'd it toward the squire. So the last sight that Enid had of home ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... fire. "Go, heartless man! who dares to trifle thus with the feelings of a respectable and unprotected woman. Go, sir, you're only fit for the love of a—Dolly—Coddlins!" She pronounced the Coddlins with a withering sarcasm that struck the captain aghast; and, sailing out of the room, she left her tea untasted, and did not wish either of the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... and vigorous condition of France with that of England, weak, and sinking under her burdens, he states, in his tenth page, that France had raised 50,314,378l. sterling by taxes within the several years from the year 1756 to 1762 both inclusive. All Englishman must stand aghast at such a representation: To find France able to raise within the year sums little inferior to all that we were able even to borrow on interest with all the resources of the greatest and most established credit in the world! Europe was filled with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... three in the morning Port of Spain woke up, all aglare with the blaze six miles away to the north-west. Negroes ran and shrieked, carrying this and that up and down upon their heads. Spaniards looked out, aghast. Frenchmen, cried, 'Aux armes!' and sang the Marseillaise. And still, over the Five Islands, rose the glare. But the night was calm; the ships burnt slowly; and the San Damaso was saved by English sailors. So goes the tale; which, if it be, as I believe, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... not that of Thierry or Guizot, of Gibbon or Macaulay, but has a palpable individuality of its own. They evince throughout a patient, persistent industry in investigating original documents, from the mere labor of which an Irish hod-carrier would shrink aghast, and thank the Virgin that, though born a drudge, he was not born to drudge in the bogs and morasses of unexplored domains of History; yet the genius and enthusiasm of the historian are so strong that he converts the drudgery into delight, and lives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... short, choking sound; lay back in his chair, and stared aghast. This time it was evident that the description awoke a definite remembrance, but he appeared to thrust it from him, to find it difficult to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... deployed his troops, first raked them with grape-shot from his artillery, and when this had demoralised them, he advanced several masses of infantry, which descending rapidly from the high ground, swept like a torrent onto the Prussian battalions and instantly overwhelmed them! Prince Louis, aghast, and probably aware of his mistake, hoped to repair it by putting himself at the head of his cavalry and impetuously attacking the 9th and 10th Hussars. He had at first some success, but our Hussars having made a new and furious charge, drove the Prussians ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... actor, not having the author's words by heart, and being of a dull and heavy turn, and deaf withal, substituteth nothing, but standeth aghast, yearning for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... when he gained the castle door, Aghast the chieftain stood; The hound was smeared with gouts of gore His lips and fangs ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... do that I am ruined forever. I am trusted by the steward. He would cut off all my privileges—" Hobbs could go no further. He was prematurely aghast. Something told him that Mr. King would hop over ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... endure, so I reproached him with his rascality and abuse of hospitality towards me, adding that I expected he would now repay me what he had so unceremoniously taken from me while I was asleep. General Meyer looked perfectly aghast, and calling me a liar, a scoundrel, and a villain, he rushed upon me with his drawn bowie-knife, and would have indubitably murdered me, had he not been prevented by a tall powerful chap, to whom, but an hour before, I had lent, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... Margaret stood aghast, and for a few moments found no words. Her cousin's face showed that he was only too deeply in earnest; his eyes glowed with sombre fire, and a dark red spot burned in his cheek. When Margaret did speak ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... maniacal laughter—laughter which had no spice of merriment in it, and which was a mere spontaneous effort of nature to relieve the strain upon the shattered nerves. Bench, bar, jury and spectators stared aghast. Such laughter sounded not only incongruous, but sinister, ominous. It was suggestive of the expiring wail of a lost soul. It was more eloquent than any mere words could have been, and spoke with most miraculous organ. Over more than one heart there crept ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... little water, both of which articles I found on a soda-water stand in the shop, drank it off, though it burnt my mouth and lips very much. Instantly I felt relief from the pain at the chest and head. The chemist stood aghast, and on my telling him what was the matter, recommended a warm bath. If I had then followed his advice these words would never have been placed on record. After a second draught at the hartshorn bottle, I proceeded on my way, feeling very ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and freezing sleet fell in frequent showers. Alan shivered as he came out into its full fury on the lake shore. At first he could not see the water through the driving mist. Then it cleared away for a moment and he stopped short, aghast at the sight ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... out! ... Do you know, this combination of pitiful helplessness with the threatening cries was so killing that even the gloomy Simeon started laughing ... Well, now, apropos of Simeon ... I say, that life dumfounds, with its wondrous muddle and farrago, makes one stand aghast. You can utter a thousand sonorous words against souteneurs, but just such a Simeon you will never think up. So diverse and motley is life! Or else take Anna Markovna, the proprietress of this place. This blood-sucker, hyena, vixen and so on ... is the tenderest mother imaginable. She ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... sat upright staring aghast, her face still smudged with traces of tears, beside her stood a little figure in a luxurious wadded robe of crimson silk. The face she saw was a shining, wonderful thing. The Princess Sara—as she remembered her—stood ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... imagine how this mere trifling fact, affected the Americans. She was then an American—they were aghast—and I am convinced that they would have made any sacrifice, to have been able to have recalled all that they had done, and have hushed ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... circular westward outline of the sun had changed; that a concavity, a bay, had appeared in the curve. I saw this grow larger. For a minute perhaps I stared aghast at this blackness that was creeping over the day, and then I realized that an eclipse was beginning. Either the moon or the planet Mercury was passing across the sun's disk. Naturally, at first I took it to be the moon, but there is much to incline me to believe ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... Life," he said, rather aghast at my daring, for we had only just made each other's acquaintance, and I believe he thought that this was my first visit to Germany and that I had been there a week. "It is a wide field," he went on. "However ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... said I, "but I think I wronged you; I should have said, aghast—you exhibited every symptom of one ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... have been a chaos, but to him, with his experience, it was admirable order. No; Mr. Finn had not been there. And then, as he was searching among the letters for one from the Member for Tankerville, the injunction was thrust into his hands. To say that he was aghast is but a poor form of speech for the ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... priory of the Knights of Malta—nothing but a chapel and small villa as abandoned as the rest. After toiling up a steep and narrow lane between two walls, our carriage stopped at a solid wooden gateway, and the coachman told us to get out and look through the keyhole. We were aghast, but he insisted, laughing and nodding; so we pocketed our pride and peeped. Through an overarching vista of dark foliage was seen, white and golden in a blaze of sunshine, the cupola of St. Peter's, which is at the farthest end of the city, two miles at the least ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... to calm down his excitement and impatience, but it was because of a new fear that had struck him, and that was visible in his face. "Do you think she will never come back, Ingram?" he said, looking aghast. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... last week he had known what he was going to do—he had made up his mind. This abject horror through which others had let themselves be dragged to madness or death he would not endure. The end should come quickly, and no one should be smitten aghast by seeing or knowing how it came. In the crowded shabbier streets of London there were lodging-houses where one, by taking precautions, could end his life in such a manner as would blot him out of any world where such a man as himself had been known. A pistol, properly ...
— The Dawn of a To-morrow • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the driver is calm and aghast at the ruin he has contrived. Why, before God, did he pull the leg lever?—the arm lever?—the tongue lever? In an instant's action he has accomplished calamity; where sunshine laughed now darkness ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... had at first been greatly shocked at Katy's want of propriety, looking on aghast when she wound her arms around Wilford's neck, or sat upon his knee; but to the elder Cameron the sight was a pleasant one, bringing back sunny memories of a summer time years ago, when he was young, and a fair bride had for a few brief weeks made this earth a paradise to him. But fashion ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... certain of it too, now that you mention it," replied nurse, looking aghast at the thought. "Miss Joan was fair wild to get a squirrel; and Master Darby, he's that venturesome he would face anything. He doesn't know the meaning of fear for all he's so gentle and innocent-like. And Miss Joan follows him just like a dog. ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... room and stood aghast in the doorway at the spectacle of Mr. Gunnill, with his clenched fists held tightly by his side, bounding into the air with all the grace of a trained acrobat, while Mr. Drill encouraged him from an easy-chair. Mr. Gunnill smiled broadly as he met their astonished gaze, and with a final bound kicked ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... and mother fearfully anxious?" asked Janie, who had listened almost aghast to the recital ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... aghast. "But I'm not so dreadfully surprised," she said. "It explains so many things. She started to take Caroline's class-pin one day in our room. I supposed she had picked it up without thinking, so when she went away I asked her for it and she acted so funny when she gave it back. And then the ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... once notorious Michigander, Who launched the now exploded solar slander, Whereat ten thousand negroes stood aghast, In one short month into oblivion passed, But PICKERING'S momentous lunar screed Proves the persistence of this wondrous breed. Yet this in PICKERING'S favour let us state: He has no scare or scandal to relate— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... soundly. This was too much, only the man in him stayed the indignant tears. "Martin, Martin!" he cried; but the minstrel was on his own ground now, and was hailed everywhere with acclamations, and news given and demanded in a breath. Hilarius, shrinking, aghast, his ears scourged with rough oaths and rude jests, his eyes offended by the easy manners round him, his cheek hot from the late salute, took refuge under a low archway, and waited with anxious heart until the minstrel should have ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless
... you have found a prince of the church, pale as alabaster, sitting in his red robe, who put together the indicatory evidence of the crime that baffled you with such uncanny acumen that you stood aghast at his perspicacity?" ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... panic—tumbled this way and that. He had considered himself a radical, because he believed in expropriating the expropriators; but these plans for overthrowing the conventions and disbanding the home—these left him aghast. And trilled into his ear by a vivid and amazing young thing with a soft hand upon his arm and a faint intoxicating perfume all about her! Why was she telling these things to him? What ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... never heard tell of such a thing before!" exclaimed the stranger, hardly believing his ears, and aghast at the thought that such conditions could exist. "Friend," he said, addressing the bartender, "how is it that this sort of thing can go on in this town?" When the bartender had explained at some length, his interested ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... old gentleman threw out one leg and both arms, and began to twirl round, after the fashion of a peg-top, on one toe. At first he revolved slowly, but gradually increased his speed, until no part of him could be distinctly observed. Ned Sinton stood aghast. Suddenly the old gentleman shot upwards like a rocket, but he did not quit the ground; he merely elongated his body until his head stuck against the roof of the cave. Then he ceased to revolve, and remained in the form of a golden stalactite—his head surrounded ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the lawyer's letter came. Jean as an heiress is very funny and, at the same time, horribly touching. At first she could think of nothing but that the lonely old man she had tried to be kind to was dead, and wept bitterly. Then as she began to realise the fact of the money she was aghast, suffocated with the thought of her own wealth. She told us piteously that it wouldn't change her at all. I think the poor child already felt the golden barrier that wealth builds round its owners. I don't think Mr. Peter Reid was kind, though perhaps he meant ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... once, the look of animation died out of the Old Lady's face. She seemed utterly aghast and horror-stricken. She gasped out an ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... to you, though it might not be so to stupid people," Carne continued, as he pressed her hand, and vanquished the doubt of her enquiring eyes with the strength of his resolute gaze, "that bold measures are sometimes the only wise ones. Many English girls would stand aghast to hear that it was needful for the good of England that a certain number, a strictly limited number, of Frenchmen ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... his position possesses opportunities for evil so stupendous that as I read the warning I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that ready access to the King's person which is the aim of conspirators against the lives of sovereigns; and short of the supreme treachery he was master of secrets which Biron's associates would give much to gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... for the moment, sat aghast, not knowing but that the gods, to punish her pride and ambition, had sent a spectre to confront her. But being of strong mind and but little given to superstitious terrors, she instantly reasoned out the facts of his simultaneous captivity ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Merle looked aghast at that obstinate silence. At length, but very slowly, as the warning bell summoned him and Sir Isaac to their several places in the train, Waife found voice. "So you too, you too desert and despise me! God's will be done!" He moved away,—spiritless, limping, hiding ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thing be?" communed goody Liu in her heart, "What can be its use?" While she was aghast, she unexpectedly heard a sound of "tang" like the sound of a golden bell or copper cymbal, which gave her quite a start. In a twinkle of the eyes followed eight or nine consecutive strokes; and she was bent upon inquiring what it was, when she caught sight of several waiting-maids ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... she cried aghast, shrinking back into her doorway with raised hands, "an' who be yez? Yeh looks enough like the b'y to be the father of 'im. He'd hair loike the verra sunshine itself. Who be yez? Spake quick. Be ye man, b'y, ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... married a congenial spouse, and lived orderly and died reputably an old man. It is his chief title that he refrained from "the wrong that amendeth wrong." But the common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like the Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful virtue. Job has been written and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen hundred years ago; yet we have still to desire a little Christianity, or, failing that, a little even of that rude, old, Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he should fall dead with a broken neck on the threshold; if he had been carried away by his passions, and committed murder or robbery, he repented and made reparation, sometimes a hundred-fold. The cloister offered a refuge to those who fled aghast from the world and sought meditation and solitude; the abbey was not only an asylum, but a haunt of learning and practical industry, a seat of instruction for the farmer, the workman, the student. "Thus the most evil centuries of the Middle Ages," says Duruy, "were acquainted ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... slowly, but decisively. The entire Coolly was involved in the discussion before Mrs. Gray gave it any serious attention, but one day, when Sarah came in upon her and poured out a mingled flood of sorrow and invective, the good soul was aghast. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... raised myself to my full height, and hailed him at the top of my voice with a 'Hola! Mein Herr,' which, like an electric shock, brought him to his feet in an instant. I saw in a moment that I had committed a fatal blunder. The poor wretch stood aghast, horrified beyond the power of description; his white hair stood on end; his bloodshot eyes were bursting from their sockets; his mouth yawned like a cavern, and emitted a faint, gurgling sound, and every ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... then, the fullest significance of horror. In the morning she had ceased to be the epileptic shape, but the risk of re-transformation had hovered near her, and the intimidation of it was such that she had wept, aghast and broken as much by the future as by the past. She had been ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... suddenly came from a point in the forest up the valley, and then was succeeded by another in which six or seven voices joined, the Indian chant of victory. The hearts of the four dropped like plummets in a pool, and they gazed at one another, aghast. ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in dumb amazement, his hair thrilled up, and the accents faltered on his tongue. He burns to flee away and leave the pleasant land, aghast at the high warning and divine ordinance. Alas, what shall he do? how venture to smooth the tale to the frenzied queen? what prologue shall he find? and this way and that he rapidly throws his mind, and turns ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... thou me," he said; And I sought, as I sank, to trace, Through his hands above me spread, The lineaments of his face. I pored on each palm to see The scar of the stigma, where They had fastened him to the Tree, But no print of the nails was there. Then I shuddered, aghast of brow, As I cried, "Accurst! abhorred! Get thee behind me! for thou Art Satan, and not my Lord!" He vanished before the spell Of the Sacred Name I named, And I lay in my darkened cell Smitten, astonied, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Bertram, to call him by his own proper name), Colonel Mannering saw the man whom he had believed slain by his hand in India. Julia met her lover in her father's house, and apparently there by his invitation. Dominie Sampson stood half aghast to recognise the lost heir of Ellangowan. Bertram himself feared the effect which his sudden appearance might have on Julia, while honest Dandie wished his thick-soled boots and rough-spun Liddesdale plaid ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... I confessed I was aghast, and completely at a loss. A row was evidently unavoidable, and the odds were against us. Almost at the instant the door came open, Johnny, without waiting for hostile demonstration, jerked his Colt's revolvers from their holsters. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... and apart from civilization— to a people of rugged character, demanding strength in books as in life, capable of appreciating strength, one sees what a stupendous opportunity for community uplift has been wasted, and one stands aghast at the folly, economic and intellectual, of the limitations imposed. Why should children alone be considered? And if they alone are to be considered why should they be fed nothing but "juvenile" literature? It is both over-emphasis and false emphasis ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... of gamblers stared, aghast; then the look of trapped animals came into their faces, and with the noise of splintering wood below, they made a rush at the money on the floor. The boxer ran swearing into the ring to hide the kip and the pennies, butting with his bull shoulders against a ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... all thing at nought, With visage and eyes all forwept,* *steeped in tears And pale, as a man long unslept, By the hearses as he stood, With hasty handling of his hood Unto a prince that by him past, Made the bird somewhat aghast.* *frightened Wherefore he rose and left his song, And departed from us among, And spread his winges for to pass By the place where he enter'd was. And in his haste, shortly to tell, Him hurt, that backward down he fell, From a window richly paint, With lives of many a divers saint, And beat his ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... threaten our happiness and our safety be such as they have been represented; if ambition has extended her power almost beyond a possibility of resistance, and oppression, elated with success, begins to design no less than the universal slavery of mankind; if the powers of Europe stand aghast at the calamities which hang over them, and listen with helpless confusion to that storm which they can neither avoid nor resist, how ought our conduct to be influenced by this uncommon state of affairs? ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... strange charges made in the declaration. Accordingly, on the 28th of the month, Tonge and Oates were summoned before it, when the latter, making many additions to his narrative, solemnly affirmed its truth. Aghast at so horrible a relation, the council knew not what to credit. The evil reputation Oates had borne, the baseness of character he revealed in detailing his actions as a spy, the mysterious manner in which the fanatical Tonge accounted for his possession of the document, tended to ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... innermost of his own life were quaking with guilt under the spell of this staring presence. In the state of horrified sympathy to which it had precipitated him, he morbidly felt almost responsible for the brooding evil in the boy as well as aghast at it. But even this sense of sin, implying as it did a skeleton of naked, primal right and wrong seemed of small import to his astounded mind beside the nameless, unmentionable sorrow that pervaded the face and stabbed at Henry Montagu's heart. He knew without question that ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Roland for his Oliver. But this supposed tactical effect formed no part of Orlando's deliberate plan. It was a coincidence to be utilized, nothing more. Mr. Wilson had left him no choice but to quit France and solicit the verdict of his countrymen. But Mr. Wilson's colleagues were aghast at the thought that the Pact of London, by which none of the Allies might conclude a separate peace, rendered it indispensable that Italy's recalcitrant plenipotentiaries should be co-signatories, or at any rate consenting ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... established their cabin homes. But these, with the loving human hearts he had trusted to find there, were now behind him, utterly beyond his reach. Out before him was a depth of airy emptiness! Down beneath him—horrible! A tremendous precipice, and his feet on the very brink! Back he shrank, aghast! But the elves were behind him! His brain spun 'round! The mystic coronal was snatched from his head. The next instant the Manitou moccasins, with a wild leap, sheer over the dizzy verge, had flung him away, like a waif! Down the frightful ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... in rare form, as I said; and the bookmaker, who had for the first time read a novel of his, amiably quoted from it, and criticised it during the dinner, till the place reeked with laughter. At first every one stared aghast ("stared aghast!"—how is that for literary form?); but when Clovelly gurgled, and then haw-hawed till he couldn't lift his champagne, the rest of us followed in a double-quick. And the bookmaker simply sat calm and earnest with his eye-glass in his eye, and never did ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sayings when bent upon his worst. I looked at him aghast. Our cigars were just in blast, yet already he was signalling for his bill. It was impossible to remonstrate with him until we were both outside in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... measured by the length of his coffin! Events in Europe marshalled themselves into a formula of new problems at the beginning of 1878. The complete defeat of Turkey by the Russians left England and the United States—allies in the great causes of civilisation and Christianity—aghast. It was the most intense political movement in Europe of my lifetime. I was glad the Turkish Empire had perished, but I had no admiration then for Russia, once one of the world's ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language so extraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to more ordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... took a pistol out of his breast, while I shrank up against the farther door, the window of which was open, and stared at him aghast. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... them a few books. Madame was an expert at embroidery and lace-making, but was aghast when she realized her slender stock of materials, and that it would be well-nigh a year before any ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Applerod, aghast. "Why, Burnit, the work is nearly done and I have already in sight seventy-six thousand dollars of clear profit ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... up aghast. 'By Jupiter! sir, you don't mean to tell me that you suspected the bishop? Damme, ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... to make definite judgments. He could say "No!" neither to man nor woman; borrower and temptress alike found him tender-minded and pliable. Indeed he seldom made decisions at all, and when he did they were but half-hysterical resolves formed in the panic of some aghast and irreparable awakening. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... over Roads again, and I am aghast at its feebleness. It is the trial of a very "'prentice hand" indeed. Shall I ever learn to do anything well? However, it shall go to you, for the reasons ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... they searched his chambers they found in a chest two shirts of hair made full of great knots, and then they said: Certainly he was a good man; and coming down into the churchyard they began to dread and fear that the ground would not have borne them, and were marvellously aghast, but they supposed that the earth would have swallowed them all quick. And then they knew that they had done amiss. And soon it was known all about, how that he was martyred, and anon after they took his holy body and unclothed him and found bishop's clothing above and the habit ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... and here?" exclaimed Lieutenant Trent, aghast, as he recognized the features of his ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... Aghast the owner gazed around, And on the rude invader frowned, Convinced, as closer still he pressed, There was no room for such a guest; Yet more astonished, heard him say, "If thou art troubled, go away, For in this ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... He was aghast at his own folly. It was incredible that he should have allowed himself to drift into such an awkward situation. They might not be missed until after the steamer sailed, in which case it was quite possible that the erratic captain would refuse to put back. ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... any one to know whether his card-case is real seal or not?" queried Peter, aghast at ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... hands on her heart, she fell to the ground, and the mist rose from her and melted in the air. I ran to her. But she began to writhe in such torture that I stood aghast. A moment more and her legs, hurrying from her body, sped away serpents. From her shoulders fled her arms as in terror, serpents also. Then something flew up from her like a bat, and when I looked again, she was gone. The ground rose like the ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... had recovered from his weakness he wanted to know all that had happened since he had been unconscious under the drug, and as he listened he was aghast at ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... hospitable harangue, uttered in a loud voice and an excited manner, "produced a decided sensation." The whole company "were aghast." Queen Adelaide, who was amiable and well-bred, "looked in deep distress"; the young Princess burst into tears at the insult offered to her mother; but that mother sat calm and silent, very pale, but proud and ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Aghast, between two glittering files, the orphaned children shrank into the shadow behind a pillar, while upstreamed from the carriages below an unending line—bare-headed men and ladies bearing flowers. Behind, below, ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... garden?" said Mrs Morgan, aghast. "I don't feel as if I could believe it. There is that tiresome man at last. Do as you like, dear, about asking him to stay; but I must make my escape," and the Rector's wife hastened up-stairs, divided ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... cook in unbelieving accents as he staggered back, aghast at the spectacle—"wotever 'ave ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... son had lighted up the model for us to see, and I was almost aghast at the thought of the incredible labour it had meant—literally a labour of love, for the artist had given his eyes and his best years to his adoration of the beautiful. And the whole thing seemed the more of a marvel when I remembered how Mr. Barrymore had called Milan Cathedral the most highly ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... from the other crib; and both burst into the feeble sobs of exhaustion. Recovering from fever, and still fasting at half-past nine! Mary was aghast, and promised ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I exclaimed she, almost aghast with astonishment, "that is curous! But um fear'd you're faint, though you won't tell me so. Here," handing to me a large basket, well stored, I perceived, with provender, "take a happle, or a bun, or a sandwage, or a bit o' gingerbread—and a fine thing too ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... The great room was aghast. The women were startled, and pressed toward one another as for safety. The ki-sang released the cunies and shrank away giggling apprehensively. Only the Lady Om made no sign nor motion but continued to gaze wide-eyed into my eyes which ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Wat-el-Mek, and even had the audacity to declare that "he had nothing to do with slaves, but that he could not restrain his people from kidnapping." I never heard any human being pour out such a cataract of lies as this scoundrel. His plausibility and assurance were such that I stood aghast; and after he had delivered a long speech, in which he declared that "he was the innocent victim of adverse circumstances, and that every one was against him," I could merely reply by dismissing him with the assurance that ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... the next moment was taken up by another on the right, which again was echoed by a third on the rear. Peal after peal of tumultuous and scornful laughter resounded from the remoter solitudes of the forest; and the officer stood aghast to hear this proclamation of defiance from a multitude of enemies, where he had anticipated no more than the very party ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... that he is an exceptional person." Stewards and crew circulated exaggerated accounts of his riches and his studies. Some young girls sailing for Europe with imaginations seething with romance were very much aghast to learn that the hero was married and had a son. The solitary ladies stretched out on a chaise-longue, book in hand, upon seeing him would arrange the corolla of their petticoats, hiding their legs with so much precipitation that it always left them more uncovered; then ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the midst of their lessons. "Begin that line again," said Miss Arden. Elizabeth had walked gently into the room, and now stood by the table where the two young ladies were seated, and Catherine standing. When they beheld her, they all started, and looked aghast. "You are very early at your tasks, young ladies! But I did not know that we had a new pupil. Pray ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... days, my dream and I Turn back the hands of memory's books: We sup on pleasures long gone by— We drink of unforgotten brooks; We ransack garrets of the Past, We sing old songs, we play old plays; While hurrying Time looks on aghast, On rainy days. ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... too, gave a start as he spoke, and looked hard at the careworn face of that unhappy man. "Then you're Mr. Trevennack!" he exclaimed, all aghast. "Mr. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... the knife-point from her in horror, then turns to Ethel and clings to her. Both look towards door as Frank enters. He advances a pace or two, sees them, and stops, aghast. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... on the Eastern side of the pass, while the soldiers, aghast, remained watching us from above, themselves a most picturesque sight as they stood among the Obos against the sky-line, with the sunlight shining on their jewelled swords and the gay red flags of their matchlocks, while over their heads strings ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... aghast at the prospect of spending the whole summer in the flat. She hardly knew how she was to endure ...
— Miss Merivale's Mistake • Mrs. Henry Clarke
... sinking, contracting. Mrs. Welby had been already ill, and therewith jealous and tyrannical, for some little time before Madame de Pastourelles had been summoned to the death-bed of her husband! But now!—Eugenie shrank aghast before what she saw and ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hall, and stopped at the dining-room door aghast. The smoking candles in the sconces were throwing a somewhat uncertain light over a scene of devastation and ruin; the furniture of the table and the accessories of the meal lay in a broken heap at the foot of it, the chairs were ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... aghast, for this man's cleverness overwhelmed her. At every step he contrived to put her in the wrong; moreover she was crushed by the sense that he had justice on his side. She had bought and she must ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... upon her aghast. Then a generous current poured along his veins. "That is all one," he said. "If you be all you say, you have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hlo-hlo all the while with terrible long gashes all over his deep, soft body till Mouse was slimy with blood. But at last the persistent laughter of Hlo-hlo was too much for the jeweller's nerves, and, once more wounding his demoniac foe, he sank aghast and exhausted by the door of the house called Night at the feet of the grim old woman, who having uttered once that ominous cough interfered no further with the course of events. And there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away those whose duty it was, to the house ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... little Pat strayin' along wid the cow?" said Mrs. Fottrel, much aghast. "I was noticin' I didn't see him anywheres this evenin'. What's to become of him down there, and it risin' beyond the heighth of iverythin' as fast as it can flow? Sure, this mornin' 't was wallopin' itself agin' the wall, back of our place, fit ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... of that too. Well, I mean to go to some of the shipping offices, and see if they'll give me a post on a South African liner as assistant stewardess. Don't look so frightfully aghast! It's work I could do very well, though it wouldn't be pleasant. I've travelled so much about the world that I'm absolutely at home on board ship. I know all the ins and outs of voyaging, and I'm a splendid sailor, never ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... no telling, for they were looking aghast at the way in which the water had washed up, and lapped over the edge of the rock upon which we stood. It fell directly, but it had risen high enough to show that in a few minutes it would sweep right to where we were, and in a few more ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... produced by the vast development of wealth and at the same time as I suspect by the temporary failure of those beliefs which combat the sensual appetites and sustain our spiritual life. Colliers drinking champagne. The world stands aghast. Well, I see no reason why a collier should not drink champagne if he can afford it as well as a Duke. The collier wants and perhaps deserves it more if he has been working all the week underground and at risk of his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... aghast, As on we hurry through the dark; The watch-light blinks as we go past, The watch-dog shrinks and fears to bark; The watch-tower's bell sounds shrill; and, hark The free wind blows—we've left the town - A wild sepulchral ground I mark, And on ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... silk with mad slashes of her gleaming shears, while two neighboring women, who had just come into the room, stared aghast, and even Fanny was partly ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... in a moment. Doubtless some slight movement on the girl's part had set the light Indian craft afloat, and for another second or two I stared aghast upon a scene that is indelibly impressed on my memory. There was Ormond scrambling madly among the boulders, tearing off his jacket as he ran, Colonel Carrington struggling with a startled horse, and his sister standing rigid ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... really only head-clerk; he understood nothing of his business as a whole; self-interest, that great motor of the mind, had failed in his case to instruct him. He was often aghast when his sister ordered some article to be sold below cost, foreseeing the end of its fashion; later he admired her idiotically for her cleverness. He reasoned neither ill nor well; he was simply incapable of reasoning at all; but he had the ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... Sybilla rushed into every amusement which her secluded life afforded. At last, she resolved on an exploit at which Elspie looked aghast, and which made the quiet Mrs. Johnson shake her head—an evening party—nay, even a dance, at her ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... near it now. For as he caught her in his arms, suddenly seeing with a lover's sympathy and the poet's swifter imagination all that she had seen and even more, he was aghast at the vision conjured. In her delicate health and loneliness how dreadful must have been these monotonous days, and this glittering, cruel sea! What a selfish brute he was! Yet as he stood there holding her, silently and rhythmically marking ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... I stood aghast, and in a moment the rest of the party were clustered around me. "Is this where you left him?" they cried. "And is he gone? Are you sure this is ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... lips meet; but the kiss is interrupted ere it can be achieved. The bark of a dog—followed by a half-suppressed scream in a female voice—causes the interruption. The hunter starts back, looking aghast. The Indian exhibits only surprise. Both together glance across the glade. Marian Holt is standing upon its ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... monstrous egotism astounded and scandalized everybody. "A silence in which you might have heard an ant move succeeded this sally," says St. Simon, who relates the scene; "we looked down; we hardly dared draw breath. Everybody stood aghast. To the very builders-men and gardeners everybody was motionless. This silence lasted more than a quarter of an hour. The king broke it, as he leaned against a balustrade of the great basin, to speak ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... 'em gone, by hokey! If so be ye've smashed all my rigs, Paul Morison, I'll have the law on ye, as sure as my name's Peleg Growdy!" he roared, aghast at what he deemed a ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... the attitude of the Europeans. The first time that Liu was struck over the head by a beautiful Malacca cane, he was aghast with astonishment—and pain. Fortunately he knew enough not to hit hack. Not understanding English, he did not know that he was being directed to turn up the Peking Road, and accordingly had run swiftly past the Peking Road until brought to his senses, ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... Incredible! We stare aghast, as in the presence of some great dignitary from behind whom, by a ribald hand, a chair is withdrawn when he is in the act of sitting down. Tischbein had, as it were, withdrawn the obelisk. What was Goethe to do? What can a dignitary, in such case, do? He cannot turn and recriminate. That ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... I think it's the prettiest name in the world." Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he was perfectly aghast to find himself saying it. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... No longer he weepeth, But smileth and steepeth His thoughts in the dawn; He heareth Hope yonder Rain, lark-like, her fancies, His dreaming hands wander Mid heart's-ease and pansies; 140 ''Tis a dream! 'Tis a vision!' Shrieks Mammon aghast; 'The day's broad derision Will chase it at last; Ye are mad, ye have taken A slumbering kraken For firm land of the Past!' Ah! if he awaken, God shield us all then, 149 If this dream rudely shaken Shall cheat ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... aghast at the prodigy; and hiding their faces with their hands, every one departed in silence and confusion, and HAMET and OMAR were left alone. OMAR was taken by some of the soldiers who had adhered to ALMORAN, but ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth |
