"Terrific" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She had just managed by her superior alertness to dodge that deadly hoof, and was perhaps not prepared for an instant renewal of the attack. But she had barely gotten her four feet in contact with the sod when two rows of terrific teeth plunged into her withers. The pain was frightful, and with a long, pitiful scream Lady Clare sank down upon the ground, and, writhing with agony, beat the air with her hoofs. Shag, who had by this time recovered ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the region had trembled at its fury. They called it Mois-oa-tunga, which means "Smoke That Sounds." When you see the falls you can readily understand why they got this name. The mist is visible ten miles away and the terrific roar of the falling waters can be ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... of the moon goddess, and well might the Mexicans paint her with two colors. The beneficent dispenser of harvests and offspring, she nevertheless has a portentous and terrific phase. She is also the goddess of the night, the dampness, and the cold; she engenders the miasmatic poisons that rack our bones; she conceals in her mantle the foe who takes us unawares; she rules those vague shapes which fright us ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... passionate excess has terrific effects on body and soul, in nations as in men; and when this excess is in rage, and rage against your brother, and rage accomplished in habitual deeds of blood,—do you think Nature will forget to set the seal of ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... astride of the Hog's Back and playing on the fiddle—how he broils fish there before a storm; and many other stories, in which we must be cautious of putting too much faith. In consequence of all these terrific circumstances, the Pavonian commander gave this pass the name of Helle-gat, or, as it has been interpreted, Hell-gate;[30] which it continues to bear at ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... greatest civility, to move: he made no reply. I could not, for the life of me, refrain from giving him a slight, very slight push; the next moment he moved in good earnest; the whole party sprung up as he set the example. The offended leg gave three terrific stamps upon the ground, and I was immediately assailed by a whole volley of unintelligible abuse. At that time I was very little accustomed to French vehemence, and perfectly unable to reply to the vituperations ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into the very midst of the noisy scene. Carefully he guided her steps through the seeming hurry and confusion of machinery and men. Now they paused before one of those grim monsters to watch its mighty work. Now they stopped to witness the terrific power displayed by another giant that lifted, with its great arms of steel, a weight of many tons as easily as a child would handle a toy. Again, they stepped aside from the path of an engine on its way ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... them, aided in his brawl by his powerful and blue-eyed wife, especially when with swollen neck and gnashing teeth, poising her huge white arms, she begins, joining kicks to blows, to put forth her fists like stones from a catapult. Most of their voices are terrific and threatening, as well when they are quiet as when they are angry. All ages are thought fit for war. They are a nation very fond of wine, and invent many drinks resembling it, and some of the poorer sort wander about with their senses ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... terrific explosions, the earth seemed to be shaken to its very centre;—It was afterwards discovered the enemy's position was no longer tenable, so they had fired some 300 tons of gunpowder, which had blown up all their vast forts and ...
— General Gordon - Saint and Soldier • J. Wardle
... earth with terrific force; then retired, grumbling and muttering like some tremendous monster robbed of its prey. Then the rain began, pouring down in torrents, dashing itself upon the cabin roof and windows with such violence it seemed solid wood ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... a terrific thing—there is no denying that. If he had been proven guilty of theft, arson, licentiousness, infanticide, and defiling graves, I believe they would have suspended him ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a little uneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly at distant foliage on which appeared little puffs of white smoke. The spatter of skirmish firing was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little line of men ran forward. A colour sergeant ...
— The Little Regiment - And Other Episodes of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... will allow it; and wait for you below." They changed situations.—But even upon the barrel, Bertram began to feel his powers sinking. He clung as firmly as he could. But the storm grew more and more terrific: and many times he felt faint in his wild descents from the summit of some mounting wave into the yawning chasm below: Nature is benign even in the midst of her terrors: and, when horrors have been accumulated till man can bear no more, then his sufferings are relieved for a time by ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... gutters. They have been denied their rights at the start. In a Christian land, they grow weak, anemic, yield to the white specter and in a few years pass out of the unfair world to which they came, or remain to fight out a miserable existence against terrific odds. They make up an army of girls who have been denied their rights. And her religion? What is it that religion may offer to her in compensation for that which ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... a little. Phil clutched at the side of her berth. By this time she was wider awake. "What a terrific storm!" she thought to herself. "I hope we won't be blown away." Phil turned over on her pillow. It was incredible that everybody else should be asleep when the wind made such a noise. Besides, the boat was moving; Phil felt sure ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... clock Sloan and five reporters had started for the scene of the Rutland disaster, fifteen miles away, where enough giant powder had gone up in one terrific blast to raze Gibraltar. A thriving town lay in ruins; hundreds of families were homeless; a steamship was sunk at her dock; a passenger train blown ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... burst upon them with terrific force, and the danger of shipwreck was great. "But," says the old record, "as they had a chosen company and the king's luck with them all ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the top of a heavy wardrobe that stood in the room, I swung myself up, clambered along the top, sprang up and down over chairs and tables, raced around the room with huge strides and jumps, and finally wound up my performances by rushing at the astonished Coriander, and, beating my breast, gave a terrific howl, that fairly made the old man quail as he writhed in his chair. I had not been practicing for nothing, evidently. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Yet he grimly continued to compose, his last works being of titanic dimensions such as the Choral symphony, the Mass in D and the last Quartets and Pianoforte Sonatas. Beethoven died on March 26, 1827; nature most appropriately giving a dramatic setting to the event by a terrific storm of hail and snow, lightning and thunder. It would take too long to dwell on the many characteristics of the man Beethoven. Power, individuality and sincerity were stamped upon him, and his music is just what we should expect from his nature. He embodied ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... A terrific blast of wind burst over the house as he spoke, shaking it to its center, overpowering all other sounds, even to the deafening crash of the waves. The slumbering child awoke, and uttered a scream of fear. Perrine, who ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... July, a company of regular infantry, in reserve, was lying flat on their stomachs in a sunken road, a few hundred yards from the stone block-house of El Caney, Cuba. The men were under a terrific fire, but were not allowed to reply to it, for ammunition was growing scarce. For hours they remained in this position. They began to get restless and to shift about. As long as they kept low, there was no danger from Spanish fire, for the bank of the road was sufficiently high to afford security. ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... With terrific yells the Indians took up the pursuit. On and on Ree dashed among the bushes and over brush and logs, springing wildly aside at times to save himself from dashing out his brains against a tree—hurrying fast and faster, he knew not whither, his ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... in the cavern of Etna, conceal'd, Still mantles unseen in its secret recess; At length, in a volume terrific, reveal'd, No torrent can quench it, no ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... said old Asher as he struck the log, "I wish for the good of the horses and cows and all the other live things and," with a terrific chuckle of mystery, "I wish for things aplenty ...
— When the Yule Log Burns - A Christmas Story • Leona Dalrymple
... exclaimed twenty voices together, the horror that mingled in the cries proclaiming the extent of a danger which is, perhaps, the most terrific that seamen ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... death's terrific gloom, And all the fear which shrouds the tomb; Heighten our joys, support our head, Before we sink among ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... but God, George, it was terrific, the way that thing grabbed me yesterday. But it's ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... to preach a sermon, which I essayed to do. The confusion was terrific. In order to be present themselves the mothers in Israel had been obliged to bring their children, and the most domestic of attentions were being bestowed upon them freely. They cried and wailed and expostulated with their parents in audible tones ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed, When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road; And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone A spectator's leg was broken — just from merely looking on. For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead, While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead. And the Cuff and Collar Captain, when he tumbled off to die, ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... and were engaged with the tigre—I mean it Number 1. No doubt by the time we tackled the old Tom, they were off again. As, you see, muchachos, some little rain has sprinkled that trail since they passed over it, which shows they went away in the tail of that terrific shower. So," he adds, turning round, and stepping back towards his horse, "there's nothing more to be done but ride off after them; which we may now do as rapidly as our animals ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... saw the army of beasts advancing, each tribe by itself and commanded by a leader of extraordinary size. The onset was terrific. They flung themselves against the high walls with savage cries, while the badgers and other burrowing animals ceaselessly worked to undermine them. Stone Boy aimed his sharp arrows with such deadly effect that his enemies fell by thousands. So great was their loss that the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... by those familiar with the locality that the storms which rage in the upper altitudes of the coast range during the greater part of the time, from October to March, are terrific. A man caught in one of them runs the risk of losing his life, unless he can reach shelter in a short time. During the summer there is nearly always a wind blowing from the sea up Chatham Strait and Lynn Canal, which lie in almost a ...
— Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest • Joseph Ladue
... the students of the fine arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended sign of an inn, "The Old Magpie," or "The Saracen's Head," substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the turban'd frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted the symbols of good cheer so as to be obvious to all capacities; well judging that a man who could not ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... but getting no strike. I was still watching it intently, when all of a sudden I heard a great splashing beside me, and looking around—there was a sight! That boy's little pole was nearly bent double, and at the end of his line threshing and churning the water at a terrific rate was a big fish! The boy was having the time of his life; oh, he played him, he tightened him and slacked him, but all the time bringing him nearer to ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... malediction than to anything else, Mr. Bluffy walked to the bar. Resting himself against it, he turned, and sweeping his eye over the assemblage, ordered every man in the room to walk up and take a drink with him, under penalties veiled in too terrific language to be wholly intelligible. The violence of his invitation was apparently not quite necessary, as every man in the room pulled back his chair promptly and moved toward the bar, leaving Keith alone by the stove. Mr. Bluffy had ordered drinks, when ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... Keyork was so extraordinary that the Wanderer started, not being prepared for any manifestation of what seemed to be the deepest emotion. The gnome sprang from the table with a cry that would have been like the roar of a wounded wild beast if it had not articulated a terrific blasphemy. ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... the snowstorm had risen to the height of a terrific tempest, the heaviest and hardest of the winter, and what the New England winter can do when it tries can only be known by experience, as no description can convey any adequate idea of the fierce blasts, the drive of hard-frozen snow and the terrible cold forced straight ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... in a terrific struggle for safety. They have no social instinct apart from the instinct to combine for safety. Their ideal is a tradesman, a pedlar, who has accumulated sufficient wealth to be safe from poverty. Their ideal of religion is one which guarantees ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... that sometimes in the most terrific crushing pain, I laugh, at the thought that my steady years of drive and struggle to help a lot of people to get justice, or a chance, should be gloriously crowned by an ironical God with an end that would make a sainted Christian, in Nero's time, regret his premature ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... endowed with the powers of speech and memory, could start from the wall, and tell its tale of horror—the romance of life, Sir, the romance of life! Common-place as they may seem now, I tell you they are strange old places, and I would rather hear many a legend with a terrific-sounding name, than the true history of one ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... frightened, fearing that they were entering a land of constant darkness. Their fear became greater when a terrific storm arose. The sea grew rough, and the fog and sleet prevented the sailors from seeing whether land was near or not. The land which they had hoped to find ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... Highland pride, Whirls her keen blade with horrid whistle And lops off heads like tops of thistle; In vain brave Erin, famed afar, The flaming thunderbolt of war, Profuse of life, through blood does wade, To lend her sister kingdom aid: Our conquering thunders vainly roar Terrific round the Gallic shore; Profoundest statesmen vainly scheme— 'Tis all a vain, delusive dream, If treacherously within our breast We foster sin, the ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... by the Allied troops on German positions culminated on April 9, 1917, when the British launched a terrific offensive on a twelve-mile front north and south of Arras. German positions were penetrated to a depth of from two to three miles, and many fortified points, including the famous Vimy Ridge, were captured. The line of advance extended from Givenchy, southwest ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Pickett's division, the flower of the Virginia infantry; but many other brigades took part in the assault, and the column, all told, numbered over fifteen thousand men. At the same time, the Confederates attacked the Union left to create a diversion. The attack was preceded by a terrific cannonade, Lee gathering one hundred and fifteen guns, and opening a fire on the center of the Union line. In response, Hunt, the Union chief of artillery, and Tyler, of the artillery reserves, gathered eighty ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... She knew to what her grandson alluded. Lord Kew had represented Jack Belsize, and his thundering big stick, in the most terrific colours to the family council. The joke was too good a one ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... society section. There was something about her brown eyes and her straight, sensible nose that reassured them so that few suspected the mischievous in her. For she was mischievous. If she had not been I think she could not have stood the drudgery, and the heartbreaks, and the struggle, and the terrific manual labor. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... everywhere sacked and burned, and the realm was crimsoned with blood. Civil war is necessarily followed by the woes of famine, which woes are ever followed by the pestilence. The plague swept the kingdom with terrific violence, and whole provinces were depopulated. In the city of Kief alone, seven thousand perished in the course of ten weeks. Universal terror, and superstitious fear spread through the nation. An earthquake indicated that the world itself was trembling in alarm; an ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... fruit-sellers, the guides, the turbaned porters with their badges, the staring children and the ragged wanderers who thronged about the train, she thought of the desert to which she was now so near. It lay, she knew, beyond the terrific wall of rock that faced her. But she could see no opening. The towering summits of the cliffs, jagged as the teeth of a wolf, broke crudely upon the serene purity of the sky. Somewhere, concealed in the darkness of the gorge at their ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... Abe Storm slunk into the store, and the community rose and fell on him and administered the most terrific beating that a husky young man ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... however, is of a dream of terrific grandeur before he was two, which seemed to indicate that his dream tendencies were constitutional and not due to morphine, but the chill was upon the first glimpse that this was a world of evil. He ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... after part reached the water than the fearful rumbling noises increased, and the volcano begun to spout forth its contents, in a far more terrific manner than had hitherto been witnessed, while the atmosphere grew lurid with flame. Streams of lava were also seen descending on ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... Holland and coming out at Madrid). Mr. O. Howe Lurid, our special correspondent, writing from "Somewhere near Somewhere" and describing the terrific operations of which he has just been ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... Scarcely had he vowed this when he had to gather all his courage in order not to give way to fear, for again there broke out a noise and din that surpassed anything that he had ever heard: shots of cannon and muskets, shouts and screams from all sides, and the terrific sound of all the trumpets, horns, drums, bugles and clarions; and then came the heavy creaking noise of carts, coming through the wood and all brightly ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... A terrific crash of thunder drowned out the last words. Billy sprang forward in alarm, and away went the wagon over ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... that last thunderbolt Samuel turned and went out, slamming the door with a terrific bang in ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... another huge shell struck the ground near the boy and burst with a terrific crash and roar that shook the earth for a long distance all about. The brave child was again hit by a splinter and this time mortally wounded. He knew that the end was near and his thoughts went back to his parents, to his home in the little village which he had left to go ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... than Lord Salisbury appears to be to-day, always being studious. He did not care to take long walks, but once I persuaded him, with another young Englishman, to go and see the beautiful Wairarapa Valley. They walked there and back, and on the last evening, while returning, were caught in a terrific rain-storm. They sought the shelter of some rocks, contrived to make a fire, and over it ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... there were five hundred cattle that had been driven there the night before, and that just now presented the appearance of a sea of wildly lashing tails and horns. Such horns!—great, branching, terrific-looking things that they gored and fought each other madly with, seeing they could not get ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... the newspaper before Mrs Bullfrog's eyes—and though a small, delicate, and thin visaged man, I feel assured that I looked very terrific—'Madam,' repeated I, through my shut teeth, 'were you the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... American concoction known as "Hohenzollern punch," said to be in readiness for the prince on his arrival. The number of intoxicants, and the ingenuity of their combination, as his Majesty read the list aloud, were amazing; it was a terrific brew, which only a very tough seaman could ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... Just then a terrific roaring noise was heard. It was like the sound of a mighty cataract rushing down into the mine. The old people rose hastily. They perceived at once that the waters of Loch Malcolm were rising. A great wave, ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... devised to over-reach their simplicity. By what new principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If their warfare, from being different to that of the white people, be more terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps—- they seek him not—and cannot expect to find women and children in an invading army. But they are men, and have equal rights with all other men to defend themselves and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... descended upon it, casting its gloomy shadow over the adjacent peaks and bursting in a grand storm. These magnificent changes in mountain scenery occasioned by light and shade during one of these terrific tempests, with all the incidental accompaniments of thunder, lightning, rain, snow and hail, afford the most awe-inspiring exhibition in nature. As I write, another grand storm, which does not extend to our camp, has broken out on Emigrant peak, which at one moment is completely obscured ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... pockets: they told their parents about him: and, though at first they had been inclined to look askance at his advances, they were won over by the frank open manners of their noisy neighbor, whose piano-playing and terrific disturbance overhead had often made them curse:—(for Christophe used to feel stifled in his room and take to pacing up and down like a caged bear).—They did not find it easy to talk to him. Christophe's rather boorish and abrupt manners sometimes ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the time—had always been one, in fact). She would dress as a girl and conduct a very delicate diplomatic mission with a foreign ambassador, involving a submarine wrecked (in the studio tank) and a terrific ride across one of the deadliest battle-fields of Verdun (New Jersey) with a vast army of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... a terrific scream sounded in the upper hall, followed by another that made every one down-stairs turn pale with fright. Two voices were uttering piercing shrieks, one after another, so loud and frantic that even the servants in the back part of the ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... The wind was terrific and the snow cut the printer's face like tiny needles, while he was forced again and again to turn his back to the blast in order to breathe, and in spite of his heavy clothing was chilled to the bone before he had gone three blocks. On Broadway, he passed saloon after saloon, ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... utterly unexpected in the apparition smote him with surprise and apprehension. It was as if he had encountered something groping in a mausoleum—something startling to the superstitious instinct, though not terrific in a material way. When it passed he stood speechless on the stair, looking down into the profound black, troubled with amazement, full of speculation. All the suspicions that he had felt last night, when the signal-calls rose below the turret ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the workers were to realize that they must organize and vote with the same political solidarity that they long had been developing in industrial matters. With political power in their hands the capitalists could, and did, use its whole weight with terrific effect to beat down the working class, and nullify most of the few concessions and laws obtained by the workers after the severest and ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... was contagious. Johnny himself was glad. It seemed like a terrific waste of time to have to wait a month before he could tell her what he thought of her; but he ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... whom the Fusiliers would have followed to death, it was Nicholson. At his summons they ran on again, some of them actually reeling from the terrific strain they had undergone. Springing out into the mouth of the lane, Nicholson waved his sword above his head and went forward. The soldiers advanced some paces, wavered, re-formed, and wavered again as the sepoys' guns belched ...
— John Nicholson - The Lion of the Punjaub • R. E. Cholmeley
... ships of the line and many store-ships and transports. On the 8th, when the enemy's works were not completed, Eliott opened fire upon them and did them much damage by using red-hot balls. During the next four days the enemy replied by a terrific bombardment from their heavy ordnance and gunboats. Early on the 13th a general attack was made by land-batteries and sea-batteries, and a perpetual fire was poured upon the fortress from over 300 pieces of the heaviest ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... of this statement he suddenly emitted a terrific bellow. The effect was magical. The refined and painstaking artists on the stage stopped as if they had been shot. The assistant stage-director bent sedulously over the footlights, which had now been turned up, shading his eyes with ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... precipices, gigantic caverns, and fountains of boiling water, which, mingled with flashing fires, soared up into the air, amid the undergroans of earthquakes, and howlings and hissings as of demons in torture. Subterranean fires, in terrific contest with the wintry ocean, seemed to have made sport of rocks, mountains, and rivers, tossing them into the most fantastic and appalling shapes. Yet such was the fondness of the Scandinavian imagination for the wild and desolate, and such their hatred of oppression, that they soon peopled ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... plan is this—that it might be abused by parties bumping their own heads, and raising tumours for the sake of obtaining credit for different qualities. Thus a terrific crack at the back of the ear might produce so great an elevation of the organ of combativeness as might obtain for the greatest coward a reputation for the greatest courage; and a thundering rap on the centre of the head might raise on the skull of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... thinking that the Archbishop was rather shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies would as soon have missed going to church as to one of his lordship's parties. "His morals are bad," said little Lord Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated, having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect to the doings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's got the best dry Sillery in Europe!" And as for Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart.—Sir Pitt that pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who had led off at missionary meetings—he never for one moment thought of ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tremendous tug, which almost tore the hazel wand out of his grasp. He tightened his clutch convulsively, and in recovering the rod he struck the fish, for at the next moment the tug of a tightly hooked 'big un' shook him from head to foot. Then there was a terrific splash at his feet, which caused his heart to jump into his mouth. The trout had leaped clean ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... lips is blown A dreadful and monotonous cry; And whoso of our mortal race Should find that city unaware, Lean Death would smite him face to face, And blanch him with its venomed air: Or caught by the terrific spell, Each thread of memory snapt and cut, His soul would shrivel and its shell Go rattling ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... cultivation of the mind. You will still be left with three evenings for friends, bridge, tennis, domestic scenes, odd reading, pipes, gardening, pottering, and prize competitions. You will still have the terrific wealth of forty-five hours between 2 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. Monday. If you persevere you will soon want to pass four evenings, and perhaps five, in some sustained endeavour to be genuinely alive. ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... better judgment, but you don't appear to be very grateful,' she said severely. 'I've a good mind to let you bear the brunt of your folly, as you deserve; and you know very well that if your father knew about it, his anger would be terrific. I'm afraid you'd have to take to the Antipodes then, because the door would be shut upon you here. I would advise you to do what you can to redeem yourself, and your utmost to keep Gladys. Tell me something about the girl. Do you think she would ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... sermon, he likened it to one of the storms of the great Atlantic. He said. "At such a time it is interesting to stand on the shore and watch the sea, and to note the power of wind and waves while the storm is raging. Even then it is sometimes terrific enough; but how much more so when the wind veers and the mighty waves come rolling in one after another, and breaking with tremendous force upon the rocks on which we stand! So it was with this preacher. All eyes were fixed on him when ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... two great ships hurtled together the Spaniard turned away a few points so that the blow should be a glancing one. None the less it was terrific. A dozen men in the tops of the carack were balancing a huge stone with the intention of dropping it over on the English deck. With a scream of horror they saw the mast cracking beneath them. Over it went, slowly at first, then faster, until with a crash it came down on its side, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an outsider in time of peace can hardly read it without emotion. I mean, of course, Julia Ward Howe's "War-Song of the Republic," with the choral opening line: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." If that were ever sung upon a battle-field the effect must have been terrific. ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... konker, which tapped the claret. An almost instantaneous close followed, in which Randall, grasping Martin round the neck with his right arm, and bringing his head to a convenient posture, sarved out punishment with his left. This was indeed a terrific position. Randall was always famous for the dreadful force of his short left-handed hits, and on this occasion they lost none of their former character. Martin's nob was completely in a vice; and while in that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... morning when we first got the alarm—'turn out and be ready to march off at once.' We heard that the Hill—the famous Hill 60—had gone up and that we had been successful in holding it, but the rumours were that the fighting was terrific. We were soon marching on the road past battered Vlamertinghe. Shells of heavy calibre were falling on all sides, and we made for the Convent by the Lille gate, by a circuitous route—round by the Infantry ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... up the slope on which Thomas had taken his position, only to be hurled back with heavy loss. Again and again they charged, sixty thousand of them, but Thomas stood like a rock against which the Confederates dashed themselves in vain. For six hours that terrific fighting continued, until nearly half of Thomas's men lay dead or wounded, but night found him still master of the position, saving the Union army from destruction. Ever afterwards Thomas was known as ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... was later to lead the Polish Napoleonic legions, and whose name stands at the head of the famous patriotic song so beloved of Poland, would at Kosciuszko's laconic order, "Harass the enemy," sally forth on some daring expedition. Or we hear of a sixteen hours' battle, the Poles, under a terrific fire, successfully driving the Prussians from height to height, Kosciuszko himself commanding Kilinski's burgher regiment. No shirkers were to be found in Warsaw. Under the fearful Prussian bombardment ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... was idolatry; it was the most extraordinary passion I have ever known a man otherwise sane to be possessed by. You would have said that that creature with the black-and-white body and the terrific bowels of machinery had some sinister and magic power over him. He loved it; he worshipped it; he was afraid of it. And when you think of how, as the chauffeur said, he had "served" ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... to consider the weather. It was the middle of September, a season subject to terrific gales. Making all speed, he sailed away with every available man, leaving Laudonniere, sick himself, to hold dismantled Fort Caroline with disabled soldiers, cooks ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... being now useless, were drawn up under him, while coil after coil of his eel-like body wriggled away like a serpent. At his shoulders two broad, feathery wings expanded, and these enabled the monster to cleave his way through the water with terrific force. ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... in consequence, and several vessels at St. Helena have been driven from their anchors and wrecked. These waves roll in from the north, and do not break till they reach soundings, when they evince terrific power, rising from 5 to 15 feet above the usual level of the waters. A connection with volcanoes has been suggested ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... thunder was heard, and some random flashes of lightning came from the southwest. Every sail was taken in but the topsails; still, no squall appeared to be coming. A few puffs lifted the topsails, but they fell again to the mast, and all was as still as ever. A moment more, and a terrific flash and peal broke simultaneously upon us, and a cloud appeared to open directly over our heads, and let down the water in one body, like a falling ocean. We stood motionless, and almost stupefied; yet nothing had been struck. Peal after peal rattled over ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... been some weeks at sea when, during a dark and blowing night, a terrific crash was heard. I sprang out of my berth and dressed, and within a minute my faithful Jack was by ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... as if an issue would have to be forced there and then, but at that minute Gregor entered, and drove her out with an oath and terrific gesture, she not seeming particularly afraid of him, but willing to wait for the better chance she foresaw was coming. Gregor made no explanation or apology, but fastened down the leather window-curtain after her and threw more wood on ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... parade, of the plait contraband, beneath the view of the glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amidst the hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in the terrific war-whoop ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... all, except their sentinels, sleeping quietly and secure, were suddenly aroused by the unearthly and terrific yells with which the Saxons burst into the lines of their encampment. They flew to arms, but the shock of the onset produced a panic and confusion which soon made their cause hopeless. Odun and his immediate followers pressed ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... over his hand and thrust it into one animal's mouth, and with one wrench dislocated its jaw. With the right hand free, he met the third and plunged his dagger into its side until it fell back goaded with pain, and in the throes of death sent forth terrific wails, at which the doors of the Temple were thrown open. A light streamed down the pathway, lighting up the fierce combat between man and beasts. The priests uttered a peculiar call, and every hound was immediately obedient; not ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... his ease after the departure of the conquering horde, negotiated with Suleiman the ransom of Tzympe. Scarcely had he sent the ten thousand ducats agreed upon, when a commissary of the Ottoman Prince arrived bringing him the keys; but at the same time a terrific earthquake devastated the towns on the Thracian coasts. The inhabitants who did not find death in the destruction of their dwellings went with the garrisons to seek refuge against the destroying scourge and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... reflect, or I'll run over some Director." Said the Central: "I'm Pacific; But, when riled, I'm quite terrific. Yet to-day we shall not quarrel, Just to show these folks this moral, How two Engines—in their vision— Once ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... I was more than a little frightened as I prepared to follow my daring cousin. I imitated his methods as closely as I could; I got a terrific speed ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... brought with him from Strassburg. Of the one, Wanderers Sturmlied, he has given in his Autobiography an account which is fully borne out by the character of the poem itself. It was composed, he tells us, in a terrific storm on one of his restless journeys between Frankfort and Darmstadt, and at a time when the memory of Friederike was still haunting him. Of Friederike, however, there is no direct suggestion in the poem; from first to last it is a paean of the Sturm und Drang, composed ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... fight had lasted but a few moments, and already five of them were stretched upon the ground, and a sixth disabled. There was something in the Tavern Knight's attitude and terrific, blood-bespattered appearance that deterred them. From out of his powder-blackened face his eyes flashed fiercely, and a mocking diabolical smile played round the corners of his mouth. What manner of man, they asked themselves, was this who could laugh in such an extremity? ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... gone a foot from the davit, than the volunteer who was acting as coxswain, in reaching out for something, inadvertently let go the line, which, in Kynaston's apparatus, keeps the tackles hooked; consequently, down went the boat and crew twenty feet, with a terrific crash; the men were struggling for their lives, and the boat ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the most terrific fighting had passed. Five days of incessant bombardment from massed German guns, which had literally blown the defenders out of their trenches. And during those few days, when the French lines to the north of the salient ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... heart when the gorgeous robes were torn off the idol human weakness had set up, deserve to be compared with the long-drawn sigh of melancholy reflection, when misery and vice thus seem to haunt our steps, and swim on the top of every cheering prospect? Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? Hell stalks abroad: the lash resounds on a slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labor, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good-night, or, neglected in some ostentatious hospital, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Hammon died. During the afternoon and evening other financiers, summoned hurriedly from New England shores and Adirondack camps, were busied in preparations for the struggle they expected on the morrow. During the closing hours of the market prices had slumped to an alarming degree; a terrific raid on metal stocks had begun, and conditions were ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... Suddenly a terrific gust of wind seemed to strike the boat like an actual blow. Magda saw Michael leap aside, and in the same instant came a splitting, shattering report as the mast snapped in half and a tangled mass of wood and cordage ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... ordered a charge on the British line. Urging on the fight, leading every onset, delivering his orders in person where the bullets flew thickest, he forced the British to their camp. Here the Hessians, dismayed by these terrific attacks, fired one volley and fled. Arnold, having forced an entrance, was wounded in the same leg as at Quebec (p. 112), and borne from the field, but not until he had won a victory while Gates stayed in his tent. ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... Sophocles, the terrific strength of these execrations is immediately followed by a soft and pathetic scene between Antigone and her brother. Though crushed at first by the paternal curse, the spirit of Polynices so far recovers its native courage that he will not listen ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the War is unmistakable; but what I want to tell you about is an experience that I have had in the house of one of the leading picture collectors here—and the art treasures of America are gradually but surely becoming terrific. If some measure is not passed to prevent export, England will soon have nothing left, except in the public galleries. Of course, for a while, America can't be so rich as if she had not come into the War, but she will be richer than we can ever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... the case, Seraphine says, with Georges Sand, George Eliot and various women in history who were the favorites of kings, although some of them had little beauty. They were dowered, however, with this terrific magnetism for ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... grand collision of yawl at full speed and a rakish cutter at anchor. Profane language in the cabin; sleepy crew, half awake, rush up the hatchway, and denounce Irrepressibles. Irrepressibles sing "Smuggler's Life," etc.; terrific noise of hens; half-the-crew invite the Irrepressibles to "be as decent as they can." No moon yet; everybody packed in ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... remained in all his dignity, listening with great legal seriousness to the very important case then being argued by General F——, whose eloquence was of the 'rip-roarer' style, and whose tragical flourishes were as terrific as dangerous to the limbs all persons in proximity. Smooth's seat was at the left of the Umpire, that functionary's right being flanked by a gentleman lean of figure and studious of countenance, said to be the American Commissioner, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... A shrill whistle rang through the room; a voice shouted, "Don't 'it 'im; 'ook 'im!" His arms were seized from behind and pinioned to his sides. The lights were turned out. Somebody in front hit him a terrific crack in the eye at the same moment that someone else administered a violent kick from the rear. He was propelled by an invisible force to the head of the stairs, and then—whizz! down he went in one prodigious leap, clear from the top to the ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... terrific yell of fear and pain, for instead of cowering down and suffering himself to be beaten and kicked, Gyp knew that this was not his master. For one moment he had stood astonished at the blow, and then seemed puzzled by the strange broken English objurgations; then with a fierce snarl ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... while we were swooping over the country in the most terrific manner. I thought how frightened mother and Lurindy'd be, if they should see me. It was no use trying to count the cattle or watch the fences, and the birch-trees danced rigadoons enough to make one dizzy, and we dashed through everybody's back-yard, and ran so close ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... present demands of civilization, such a war stands forth terrific in wrong, making the soul rise indignant against it. One reason avowed is brutal; the other is frivolous; both are criminal. If we look into the text of the Manifesto and the speeches of the Cabinet, it is a war founded on a trifle, on a straw, ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... as a lake of water, his voice as loud as thunder, the hairs of his body as long as palm-trees, a flame of fire proceeding from his mouth, the noise of his breath like the roaring of a tempest, and in his right hand a terrific iron club. Sentence is passed, and the wretched beings are doomed to receive punishment according to the nature of their crimes. Some are made to tread on burning sands, or sharp-edged stones. Others are rolled among thorns and spikes ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder
... souls if not their lives. Its founders could claim to act from motives both of mercy and of justice against members of a satanic association. And it was not against error or noncomformity simply, but against criminal error erected into a system, that the Inquisitors forged their terrific armoury. In the latter half of the fifteenth century their work was done and their occupation gone. The dread tribunal lapsed into obscurity. Therefore, when the Spaniards demanded to have it for the coercion ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... she sat there, something came whizzing into the room through her window, circled around her at terrific speed with a humming, whispering whirr, then dropped with a solid thud on the night table ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... it approached this point, and that the work had evidently been recently done. Much alarmed at the consequence of this neglect, he at once set his men to fill up the breach; but they had scarcely begun the operation when a terrific yell arose, drowning the mingled ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... sheep. It is not our fault that the forefathers of these sheep cut down the forests and omitted to plant more, so that the flocks with whom we have to deal have no fuel. It is not our fault that a most terrific winter annually renders the land unproductive for four months. It is not our fault that the government to which we are forced to bow—the Czar whose name lifts our hats from our heads—it is not our fault that progress and education are taboo, and that all who endeavor to forward the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... in New York in great heat, which Kitty took pains to tell us was most unseasonable, when one morning a thunderstorm accompanied by terrific wind came up, preventing us from going out as we had intended. Kitty's floor at the top of the building, with its steel supports, actually gave the effect of swaying in the blast like an overgrown spear of ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... The child-angel I saw must have run in much further than I had supposed, and perhaps I could not find her at all. A sickening fear came to me that she had grown dizzy, or had slid down over the loose sand into the terrific abyss of the crater itself. So another half minute passed; and now only one ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... collected, and the party, numbering eight, set off for the town. There were present such stalwarts as Borwick and Crowle, both of Dexter's, and Tomlin, of the School House, a useful man to have by you in an emergency. It was Tomlin who, on one occasion, attacked by two terrific champions of St Jude's in a narrow passage, had vanquished them both, and sent their mortar-boards miles into the empyrean, so that they were never the same mortar-boards again, but wore ever after a bruised and ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... wanted to apologize, but Mrs. Hutch didn't give me a chance. If she had been harsh before, she was terrific now. Did I come there to insult her?—she wanted to know. Wasn't it enough that I and my family lived on her, that I must come to her on purpose to rile her with my talk about college—college! these beggars!—and laugh in her face? "What did you come for? Who sent ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... have pity on me, and leave me alone with my sorrow! Go! Go! I'm not a responsible creature just now—" and his passion was so stern and terrific that neither of them dared to ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... felt suffocated, stifled, his lungs bursting, his throat burning, while every breath he drew was laden with the irritating sand. It penetrated through all the openings of his clothing, down his collar, inside his shirt, into his boots. The heat was terrific, unbearable, the darkness intense. Wargrave began to wonder if his first apprehensions were not justified, if they could hope to escape alive or were destined to be buried under the stifling pall that enveloped them. He felt against him the soft ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... his heart was beating quickly; and again and again he was repeating to himself Honnor Cunyngham's counsel, and wondering whether he would disgrace himself at the very outset, when some bewildering brown thing sprang from the ground, there was a terrific whir, a crack from Captain Waveney's gun—and away along there the grouse came tumbling down into the heather. Almost at the same moment there was another appalling whir on his right—followed by a bang from Sir Hugh's gun—and another bird fell headlong. After the briefest pause for reloading, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... The engineer evidently had read that the signals were somewhat amiss, for his air brakes were already screaming, and he was leaning far out of his cab with his hand shading his eyes. The sand cars were a short distance up the track, and the moving train struck them with a terrific rending of iron and hissing of escaping steam. The force of the contact was lessened because of the sudden slowing up of No. 4, but it was sufficient to send two of the passenger coaches tumbling on to the boggy earth six ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... get no further, because of the terrific peals of laughter which his words, coupled with the pathetic sincerity of his expression, drew forth. Again and again he tried to speak, but his innocent look and his mighty shoulders, and tender voice, with the thoughts of that "blessed babby," were too much for ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... north to south; who have viewed the impregnable natural positions, that the only connecting ridge by which a passage into the interior can be effected, every where presents; to those who are aware that this ridge is in many places not more than thirty feet in width, and have beheld the terrific chasms by which it is bounded, chasms inaccessible to the most agile animal of the forest, and that will for ever defy the approach of man; to those, I say, who are acquainted with all these circumstances, the independence of this colony, should it be goaded into rebellion, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... account of famine, caused by the failure of the monsoon rains, has been terrific in some years. Canals and reservoirs for irrigation as well as navigation have been built in order to remove this evil. In 1874 L16,000,000 was expended in the relief of sufferers by the government. Since that time a famine fund ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... other hand, there was no unemployment, and the poor were better fed than they had ever been, since every one could make good wages at munitions. The death rate among civilians was very much lower than usual. People learned to eat less, and not to waste—and the pre-war waste in England was terrific. And I say—and I think we all say—that anyone who grumbles about 'privations' in England deserves to know what real war means—as the women of Belgium ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Will, jumping to a decision. "There'll be a terrific fuss if he finds it out, but perhaps he won't. I'll bring my gun over to the barn to-night, and get Zebbadee to meet us with the hounds at the bend in the road. Well, I must get back now. I don't want him to suspect I've ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... nowhere perpetrated on so terrific a scale as in the islands, where, in a few years, they had nearly annihilated the native population, were yet of sufficient magnitude in Peru to call down the vengeance of Heaven on the heads of their authors; and the Indian might feel that this vengeance was not ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... dusky red. The maniac figure of the Saxon Ulrica was for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing her arms abroad with wild exaltation as if she reigned empress of the conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole turret gave way and she perished in the flames ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... everything was visionary; and he thought himself surrounded by spirits, and in the mansions of the damned. Something like a deep black cloud began to gather gradually round him. The gigantic structure, with its tall terrific arches, turned slowly into darkness, and the spirits within disappeared one after another, till as the ends of the cloud met and closed, he saw the last of them looking at him with an infernal ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... same time quite raw and priggish. Job troubles not to answer: the others keep a chilling silence. But while this young man rants, pointing skyward now and again, we see, we feel—it is most wonderfully conveyed—as clearly as if indicated by successive stage-directions, a terrific thunder-storm gathering; a thunder-storm with a whirlwind. It gathers; it is upon them; it darkens them with dread until even the words of Elihu ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Prison, and reminiscences of striking events in the lives of sundry of the prisoners, in the progress of the American war. We shall refer more particularly to this entertaining collection in an ensuing number. . . . THE Lines on 'Niagara Falls at Night' are entirely too terrific for our pages. They are almost as 'love-lily dreadful' as the great scene itself. 'M.' must 'try again,' that is quite certain; and we are afraid, more than once. . . . TU DOCES! Doubtless many of our young readers, especially ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... accordingly accepted. When they arrived next morning upon the field, the gamester, arming his countenance with all its terrors, advanced with a sword of a monstrous length, and, putting himself in a posture, called out aloud in a most terrific voice, "Draw, d—n ye, draw; I will this instant send you to your fathers." The youth was not slow in complying with his desire; his weapon was unsheathed in a moment, and he began the attack with such unexpected spirit and address, that his adversary, having made shift with great difficulty ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of 1825-6 was one of the most terrific ever known in the history of the Selkirk Settlement. Just before Christmas the first woe occurred. The snow drove the herds of buffaloes far out upon the prairies from the river encampments and the wooded shelter. The horses in bands were scattered and lost, dying as they floundered in ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... matters, and promising to do all he could to help him. They pass by Paris, then by Troyes, Dijon, and Dole, through the Jura range. This time is graphically described by Shelley in letters appended to the Six Weeks' Tour; the journey and the eight days' excursion in Switzerland. We read of the terrific changes of nature, the thunderstorms, one of which was more imposing than all the others, lighting up lake and pine forests with the most vivid brilliancy, and then nothing but blackness with rolling thunder. These letters are ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... One we can see on all sides, quietly progressing, demolishing land patiently bit by bit, building up land steadily grain by grain. The other, though more commonly hidden from sight, is fierce and tumultuous in character, and shows his power in occasional terrific outbursts. ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... pack. After we had eaten, Richards suggested to Pete that they take the fish net ahead and set it in the little lake which was still some two and a half miles farther on the trail. They had just returned when a terrific thunderstorm broke upon us, and every moment we expected the tent to be carried away by the gale that accompanied the downpour of rain. It was then that Richards remembered that he had left his ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... parts as Lear and Hamlet; but did he ever paint a single side-scene in his life? Beverley, they say, is equal to Stanfield in the poetry of his landscapes; and you confess that in his airs and distances he surpasses your noblest efforts. Ask yourself, my dear friend, if he ever fought a terrific combat with a sword in each hand, with such courage as I have seen you display in front of one of your own scenes? Ask him if he ever painted his mother's cottage in one character, pushed it forward in another, and poisoned her in it in a third? No, no, dear Smith, do not try to hide ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... allowed them to pursue precisely the same studies as young men. It was predicted that almost unheard-of evils would ensue. Woman, if they succeeded, would be unfitted for her "sphere," and become unwilling to soothe, with tender hand, the suffering and the distressed, etc. The wail was terrific. The experiment, however, succeeded. Women not only commenced a real collegiate course, but pursued it to the end, graduating with honors; and, despite prophecy, college-bred women made faithful wives, judicious mothers, and ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... A terrific reply to the Mexican alarm came from the forest. A volley of rifle and pistol shots was fired among the soldiers as they sprang to their feet and ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and, indeed, of all the regions west of the mountains, had an extreme dread of the small-pox; that terrific scourge having, a few years previously, appeared among them, and almost swept off entire tribes. Its origin and nature were wrapped in mystery, and they conceived it an evil inflicted upon them by the Great Spirit, or brought among them by the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... agree with you, that the difficulties on my notions are terrific, yet having seen what all the Reviews have said against me, I have far more confidence in the GENERAL truth of the doctrine than I formerly had. Another thing gives me confidence, viz. that some who ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... met by difficulty. The surf breaking shorewards was tremendously high; and meeting and struggling with it came a rush of the current from within. Between the two opposing waters the canoe was tossed and swayed like a reed. It was, for a few moments, a scene to be remembered, and not a little terrific. The shoutings and exertions of the men, who felt the danger of their position, added to the roar and the power of the waters, which tossed us hither and thither as a thing of no consequence, made it a strange wild ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Commons upon the shoulders of the Attorney-General, and the feebleness of the Government was all the more painful from the manifest strength of the great master of sarcasm and invective, their unflinching opponent, growing in favor throughout the country, merciless in his attack at all times, but terrific in his onslaughts upon a foe worthy of his hatred, and capable of defense. Imagination cannot linger upon a finer picture than is presented in the persons of these mighty combatants; nor is the effect diminished by the fact that of their great achievements little remains beyond ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... the National Government is reducing its debt. Others are increasing theirs at about $1,000,000,000 each year. The depression that overtook business, the disaster experienced in agriculture, the lack of employment and the terrific shrinkage in all values which our country experienced in a most acute form in 1920, resulted in no small measure from the prohibitive taxes which were then levied on all productive effort. The establishment of a system of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... great physical effort; this was done by tightly screwing up her nose. Next she proceeded to gather her eyebrows into the smallest possible compass, and then she drew a deep breath, folded her small hands, and started off at a terrific pace, "Gaw bess parver yan muvver yan nannie yan hughyan betty yan dicky an aunt woggles yan ellen yan emma yan croft—yan blusby yan all ve vitty children yan make dem velly good boys yan make my nastyole ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... somebody snatched him up and hurried him into a dark passage. The last sight he had of the fray was of a glossy black horse plunging frantically back from a cloud of the flour flung into his face, and rearing higher and higher, until he fell over with a terrific scrambling crash. Con particularly noticed the white gloves of the rider, and thought to himself, "He's been grabbin' the flour too." And the women about him said, "Och, murdher, the baste—the man's apt to ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... twice, to feel the hot glow of the fire on my face, and to see the lurid glare coming on with the black smoke-clouds wreathing up at terrific speed. Then as we tramped on with the roar behind us as of some vast furnace, there came explosions like the firing of guns; the crashes of small arms; and from time to time the fall of some ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... and precipices with dreadful impetuosity. The passage through which it passes is very narrow and nearly seventy feet perpendicular, composed of large stones, which appear as if they had been laid by Masons; the whole forming a sublime and terrific appearance. There is a Chapel belonging to the Baptists ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... Americans had in front of them a barricade and Israel Putnam was there, threatening dire things to any one who should fire before he could see the whites of the eyes of the advancing soldiery. As the British came on there was a terrific discharge of musketry at twenty yards, repeated again and again as they ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... "Instead of making a terrific steady current and cutting it off, I'm going to start with it not flowing and use a strobe-light pack. Every amateur photographer has one. They give a current of eight hundred amperes and twenty-five ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... not be heard above the water, for there was no reply from the bird, which continued making a terrific outcry, using every effort to get ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... sir," said Mr. Howland, turning to Barry. "I apologise to you, sir, to all of you Canadians. I am ashamed to confess that I did not at first get the full meaning of this terrific thing that has befallen your Empire. Were it the U.S.A. that was in a war of this kind, hell itself would not keep me from going to her aid. Nor you either, Brand. Yes, you are right. Go to your war. God ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... never have heard his strange history. But it so happened that a few days after our first meeting, a buffalo, with the finest horns I had ever seen, got up within twenty yards of us; and in my eagerness to secure his wonderful head, I shot badly, and only succeeded in wounding him slightly. His terrific charge was a ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... joined the right. On the evening of the 16th it was rumoured we were to commence firing again in the morning. I was on duty on the morning of the 17th, and I went down at half-past two A.M. At 3 A.M. all our batteries opened, and throughout the day kept up a terrific fire. The Russians answered slowly, and after a time their guns almost ceased. I mentioned in my report that I thought they were reserving their fire. [If this view had only been taken by the Generals, especially Pelissier, ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... The explosion was terrific; its effect appalling. The glare lit the whole city for a brief second with a light like a stormy sunset, then upon us showered great pieces of iron and stone with mangled human limbs, the debris of a gateway that for centuries had ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... shudder when we read the sermons of Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards; but if the mere reading causes astonishment after the lapse of these hundreds of years, what terror the messages must have inspired in those who lived under their terrific indictments, prophecies, and warnings. Here was a religion based on Judaism and the Mosaic code, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Moses Coit Tyler has declared in his History of American Literature:[2] "They did not attempt to combine ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... co-ordinate his impressions, to find his way about in a corner of the great imaginative universe. He seemed extraordinarily ready to impart his discoveries; and Claudia felt that her ignorance served him as a convenient buffer against the terrific impact ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton |
