"Appal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Prayer, for thee men rumor Venus' son Daughter of Jove; and Peleus' son his birth 135 Drew from a Goddess of inferior note. Thy mother is from Jove; the offspring, his, Less noble of the hoary Ocean old. Go, therefore, and thy conquering spear uplift Against him, nor let aught his sounding words 140 Appal thee, or his threats turn thee away. So saying, with martial force the Chief he fill'd, Who through the foremost combatants advanced Radiant in arms. Nor pass'd Anchises' son Unseen of Juno, through the crowded ranks 145 Seeking ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... philanthropical estimate, included the smallest evil. At another time I was haunted with doubts. But, in spite of these variations of sentiment, I uniformly determined to persist! I felt as if impelled by a tide of unconquerable impulse. The consequences were such as might well appal the stoutest heart. Either the ignominious execution of a man whom I had once so deeply venerated, and whom now I sometimes suspected not to be without his claims to veneration; or a confirmation, perhaps an increase, of the calamities I had so long endured. Yet these I preferred ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... is, Mountjoy sighed for it bitterly,—sighed for it, but could not see where it was to be found. He had a gentleman's horror of those resorts in gin-shops, or kept by the disciples of gin-shops, where he would surely be robbed,—which did not appal him,—but robbed in bad company. Thinking of all this, he went up to London late in the afternoon, and spent an uncomfortable evening in town. It was absolutely innocent as regarded the doings of the night itself, but was terrible to ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... of joy shall the mind appal, And the death-light dimly flit round the hall Of him, by base lucre who led astray, Shall age into fruitless ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... keep, defend and save In all your battles, combats, fights and frays, You that subdued the Turks and Persians brave, That thirst and hunger held in scorn always, And vanquished hills, and seas, with heat and cold, Shall vain reports appal ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Triumph, inhuman triumph, glistened in its eye, and, with relentless delight, it brewed the tempest, and hurled the destructive lightning. Edwin gazed upon this astonishing apparition, and knew it for a goblin of darkness. The heart of Edwin, which no human terror could appal, sunk within him; his nerves trembled, and the objects that surrounded him, swam in confusion before his eyes. But it is not for virtue to tremble; it is not for conscious innocence to fear the power of elves and goblins. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... clefts are concealed by a treacherous covering of snow where avalanches threaten the traveller at every step, and where the mountain-side often seems as difficult to climb as a pane of glass, the prospect seems as if it ought to appal the stoutest heart. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... former establishment was cracked only a trifle. When the situation was finally summed up, however, nearly three-fourths of the city had to be rebuilt or remodeled, and the cost of doing this was enough to appal the strongest hearts. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the crash of the contending elements above, and the roar of the turbulent populace below, doubt, and almost dismay, had sunk into the hearts of several the most daring, so far as mere mortal perils were to be encountered, but the most abject, when superstition was joined with conscious guilt to appal ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... stead. He likes to tell you that no difficulty is insurmountable in his eyes—nay, further, he does not believe in the existence of any difficulty which he is not competent to overcome. Rumours of trouble with natives do not appal him, because he knows before he slings his gun over his shoulder that he is going forth to inflict due punishment upon the insurgents. He does not in any instance entertain the thought of a repulse. He marches to the front with a firm, determined step, and he does not rest until ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... tear and destroy. This will, indeed, be a day or time of visitation. The political disturbances will be terrible. Nation against nation plotting and deceiving; internal strife and outward dangers. These are of a kind to appal one in reading them. Then come the temporal or physical evils. These are to be a horrible train of ills in the form of pestilence, famine, and earthquakes. The plague of yellow fever is as nought to some of the scourges ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... something strange and terrible, and sufficient to appal a heart stronger than that of a boy who had suffered from a long and severe illness. The darkness seemed to float as it were in a thick transparent body upon the surface of the sea, while far above the ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... the vast and foamy deep, The rending thunders, as they onward roll, The loud, loud winds, that o'er the billows sweep— Shake the firm nerve, appal the bravest soul! Mysteries of Udolpho: The Mariner. MRS. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... know not how, but I am brought Into a large and Gothic hall, Seated with those I never sought— Kings, Caliphs, Kaisers—silent all; Pale as the dead; enrobed and tall, Majestic, frozen, solemn, still; They make my fears, my wits appal, And with ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... the coolness, the keenness, the sagacity, the sustained force, and the supernatural strength of some young hunted animal. They might slay her so that she left perforce her mission unaccomplished; but no dread of such a fate had even an instant's power to appal her or arrest her. While there should be breath in her, she would go on ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... stink in the nostrils; go against the stomach, turn the stomach; make one sick, set the teeth on edge, go against the grain, grate on the ear; stick in one's throat, stick in one's gizzard; rankle, gnaw, corrode, horrify, appal[obs3], appall, freeze the blood; make the flesh creep, make the hair stand on end; make the blood curdle, make the blood run cold; make one shudder. haunt the memory; weigh on the heart, prey on the heart, weigh on the mind, prey on the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... life in a drunken duel on the Mississippi, and Jim's boyhood had never had discipline or direction, or any strenuous order. He might never acquire order, and the power that order and habit and the daily iteration of necessary thoughts and acts bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She had taken the risk with her eyes wide open; had set her own life and happiness in the hazard. But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents, his genius, entitled him to be. And the long game must have the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... accommodate the two women and their necessary outfit, Stonor supposed that Imbrie must have taken one of the dug-outs. He did not believe that any of the Kakisas had accompanied the fugitive. The prospect of a long journey would appal them. And Stonor was pretty sure that Mary was not over-working herself at the paddle, so that it was not too much to hope that he was catching up on them at this rate. Thinking of their outfit, Stonor wondered how Imbrie would feed ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... the King of all— A King who doth appal; But shall we who love delight bow before him? Or raise revolting cry— Proclaiming pleasure high, Declare it treason if good men dare adore him? And to this design We'll pledge in good wine; Come all and drink and laugh tonight; We'll clink and we'll drink, Nor stop to sigh or think— Come all with ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... returned Jos. Larkin's intimidating smirk with a look of fury, which—for he now believed he held the winning cards—did not appal him. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... chest, nor slaves can claim, Bug, Spider, nor e'en hearth aflame, Yet thine a sire and step-dame who Wi' tooth can ever flint-food chew! So thou, and pleasant happy life 5 Lead wi' thy parent's wooden wife. Nor this be marvel: hale are all, Well ye digest; no fears appal For household-arsons, heavy ruin, Plunderings impious, poison-brewin' 10 Or other parlous case forlorn. Your frames are hard and dried like horn, Or if more arid aught ye know, By suns and frosts and hunger-throe. Then why not happy as thou'rt hale? 15 Sweat's strange to thee, spit fails, ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... means of promoting thy earthly happiness?" demanded the demon, fixing on Fernand a glance intended to appal and intimidate, but at which he on whom it was bent quailed not. "Hast thou not received sufficient experience of the terrific sufferings which twelve times a year thou art doomed to endure? Knowest thou not on each occasion thou destroyest human life, where ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... jaws of destruction without actually plunging into them. As the night wore on the sky cleared up, and the scene of foaming desolation that was presented by the breakers in the midst of which they flew, was almost enough to appal the stoutest heart. ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... of a single volume. There is a buoyant enthusiasm in every page, a sanguine optimism at which the youngest among us might marvel, combined with a familiar acquaintance with the saddest and darkest phenomena of existence. The book deals with problems which of all others are most calculated to appal, and overwhelm the minds with the sense of desolation and despair, yet it is instinct throughout with a joyous hope and glowing confidence. General Booth, face to face with the devil, still ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... 260 But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake God's own speed in the one way of love; I abstain for love's sake. —What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small, Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch; should the hundredth appal? In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift, That I doubt His own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift? ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... "Do not leave me now. He will come back soon of his own accord. I told him to do so if he did not find you. I must ask you to bear with me, monsieur. The solitude, the strangeness of the place, almost appal me. I feel a kind of terror when I do not know that ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... laconic, as to be often obscure and unintelligible. Their characters are neither ideal nor real beings, but misshapen gigantic puppets, who are set in motion at one time by the string of an unnatural heroism, and at another by that of a passion equally unnatural, which no guilt nor enormity can appal. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... gives us strength, and keeps us sound— A present help when dangers call; Then fear not we, let quake the ground, And into seas let mountains fall; Yea so let seas withal In watery hills arise, As may the earthly hills appal With dread ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... bulwarks to assail, Their gathering numbers darken all the vale! Valdivia called to the attendant youth, Philip, he cried, belike thy words have truth; 10 The formidable host, by holy James, Might well appal our priests and city dames! Dost thou not fear? Nay—dost thou not reply? Now by the rood, and all the saints on high, I hold it sin that thou shouldst lift thy hand Against thy brothers in thy native land! But, as ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... who suffers in his own person; but, worse than that, the tender-hearted, conscience-worried man of feeble will is always afraid of causing a slight grief by retracing a mistaken step, and so goes on inevitably to the creation of troubles which appal him when he comes to contemplate them in after-hours. And to have a full theoretical knowledge of this fact enforced by years of experience is to be gifted with no safeguard. 'To be weak'—there is no wiser saying among the utterances ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... the sacrifice of my own life would suffice to put an end to all this accumulating horror, how gladly would I lay it down. Ay, in any way—in any way. No mode of death should appal me. No amount of pain make me shrink. I could smile then upon the destroyer, ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... prospects, he gave himself no anxiety about them: satisfied with his escape from a revolting thraldom, his mind seemed to take a bound from the difficulty of his situation and the wildness of the scene, and he felt himself a man, and one, too, whom nothing could daunt or appal. ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Fresh gleams of comfort on the brow of care, The sectary's cold shrug, the miser's stare, Were all excited, for the tidings flew As quick as scandal the whole country through. "Rent paid by rhymes at Oakly may be great, "But rhymes for taxes would appal the state," Exclaim'd th' exciseman,—"and then tithes, alas! "Why there, again, 'twill never come to pass."— Thus all still ventured, as the whim inclined, Remarks as various as the varying mind: For here Sir Ambrose ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... separate house, and at length Kiartan was obliged to compound matters with the spectres by kindling a large fire for them in the principal apartment, and one for the family and domestics in a separate hut. This prodigy continued during the whole feast of Jol. Other portents also happened to appal this devoted family: the contagious disease again broke forth, and when any one fell a sacrifice to it his spectre was sure to join the troop of persecutors, who had now almost full possession of the mansion of Froda. Thorgrima Galldrakinna, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... firm, and dispute their lives to the last. The boy performs prodigies of valour; he is worthy to be the son of Edward himself; but he is at last struck down, while his frantic father deals with his battle-axe blows which appal the stoutest heart. No one dares to approach the lion at bay: they hem him in; they call to and entreat him to lay down his arms; he is blinded with the blood which flows from two deep wounds in his face; and, faint and staggering, he gazes round on the slaughtered heaps ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... in my heart like fire doth burn. 'Tis true, I've more cunning than all your dull tribe, Magister and doctor, priest, parson, and scribe; Scruple or doubt comes not to enthrall me, Neither can devil nor hell now appal me— Hence also my heart must all pleasure forego! I may not pretend aught rightly to know, I may not pretend, through teaching, to find A means to improve or convert mankind. Then I have neither goods ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Bedford moved an address to the king, asking him to change his ministers, and alluding to the state of Ireland, as it was before the breaking out of the Rebellion. He said: 'Were I to enter into a detail of the atrocities which have been committed in Ireland, the picture would appal the stoutest heart. It could be proved that the most shocking cruelties have been perpetrated; but what could be expected if men kept in strict discipline were all at once allowed to give loose to their ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... directions with fantastic effect. Some of the feelings of the night at Garney's grave came back to him, but this time with the knowledge of real danger. A little higher and he was out of sight of his friends below. The danger began to appal him; he wanted to go back, and to justify the retreat he tried to call out, "No Coon here!" but his voice failed him, and, as he clung to the branch, he remembered Caleb's words, "There's nothing ahead of grit, an' grit ain't so much ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... not deny the excellence of the position, or that the plate-glass looked very imposing and the gilt letters exceedingly fine; but the cost of this running on perhaps for two or three months seemed to appal them. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... can do, though more than enough for any one else. I want, and the world expects, a longer work from you; and I see in you what I never saw in poet before, a strange diffidence of your own powers, which I cannot account for, and which must be unaccountable, when a Cossac like me can appal a cuirassier. Your story I did not, could not, know,—I thought only of a Peri. I wish you had confided in me, not for your sake, but mine, and to prevent the world from losing a much better poem than my own, but which, I yet hope, this clashing will ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... retain unquaking trust in his Saviour! "This is the blood that was shed for thee," are words whose mystery quells not always nature's terror. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is renewed in vain—and he remembers, in doubt and dismay, words that, if misunderstood, would appal all the Christian world—"My God—my God—why hast thou forsaken me?" Perhaps, before the Faith, that has waxed dim and died in his brain distracted by pain, and disease, and long sleeplessness, and a weight of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... but as I rose to earth again, obedient to your call, Prithee, tarry not in parley! be one word enough for all— Speak and gaze on me unshrinking, neither let my face appal! ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... which occupies the southern end is, in its way, something very fine. A magnificent picture of the crucifixion occupies the back ground; flowers and candles, in numbers sufficient to appal the stoutest Evangelical and turn to blue ruin such men as the editor of the "Bulwark" are elevated in front; over all, as well as collaterally, there are inscriptions in Latin; designs in gold and azure and vermilion fill up the details; and on each side there is a confessional wherein ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... and shadows, of tones and warblings, of terror and delight, may best be caught in these long solitary interviews. Such infinite variety may appear crushing or distracting on a first view, but if faced with a courage that no mystery can appal, if sounded with a resolution that no length of time can abate, may give the clue to analogies, conformities, relations between our senses and our sentiments, and aid us in tracing the hidden links which bind apparent dissimilarities, identical oppositions and equivalent antitheses, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... the result of all this, upon the Spaniards—this wealth of treasure and this unencouraging greeting? "Go back again," was the substance of Cortes's reply to the ambassadors of Montezuma; "tell your monarch the mountain road and its dangers do not appal us—we who have sailed two thousand leagues of troubled ocean to arrive here—and we cannot return to our great sovereign without having personally greeted yours." Again the Spaniards waited the messengers' ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... reception. The women looked relieved. They were obviously not expected to say anything, and they had no fear now that they would be put to the ordeal of meeting a possibly superior person, one who might patronise them, make a flutter in their home, appal them by expecting a great deal of attention, in short, be "very Englified." The Spanish Friar had very quick intuitions and some subtle way of his own for conveying his emotions and his requirements. He was in ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... they are—and such they will be found: Not so Leonidas and Washington, Their every battle-field is holy ground Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone. How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound! While the mere victor's may appal or stun The servile and the vain, such names will be A watchword till the future ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... o'er the distant height, Kindling with its living beam Frowning wood and cold grey stream, I awoke with sudden start, Clammy brow and beating heart, Trembling limbs, convulsed and chill, Conscious of some mighty ill; Yet unable to recall Sights that did my sense appal; Sounds that thrill'd my sleeping ear With unutterable fear; Forms that to my sleeping eye Presented some strange phantasy— Shadowy, spectral, and sublime, That glance upon the sons of time At moments when the mind, o'erwrought, Yields reason to mysterious thought, And night and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and other—and at the beginning of another. Cataclysm is to follow cataclysm. The pent-up forces are bursting out in many quarters; and not only will men be swallowed up or slain by thousands, 'new' land appear and 'old' subside, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves appal; but secrets of an unsuspected past will be uncovered to the dismay of Western theorists and the humiliation of an imperious science. This drifting ship, if watched, may be seen to ground upon the upheaved vestiges of ancient civilizations, and fall ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... which warm the heart and exalt the mind, are held up as objects of emulation. And what can be a more effectual method of softening the ferocity, and improving the minds of the inconsiderate? The heart is melted by the scene, and ready to receive an impression—either to warn the innocent, or to appal the guilty; and numbers of those who have neither abilities nor time for deriving advantage from reading, are powerfully impressed through the medium of the eyes and ears, with those important truths which while they illuminate the understanding, correct the heart. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... eloquence of the various proclamations which he scattered as he advanced, ranged themselves spontaneously and even enthusiastically upon his side. How different world have been the result of his campaign but for the unexpected earthquake which at that instant was to appal Christendom, and to scatter all his well-matured plans and legitimate hopes. His chief reliance, under Providence and his own strong heart, had been upon French assistance. Although Genlis, by his misconduct, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... languor of inglorious days Not equally oppressive is to all. Him, who ne'er listened to the voice of praise, The silence of neglect can ne'er appal. There are, who, deaf to mad Ambition's call, Would shrink to hear th' obstreperous trump of Fame; Supremely blest, if to their portion fall Health, competence, and peace. Nor higher aim Had He, whose simple tale these artless ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... reader must consider the conditions under which the work of this unit was carried out—often under a burning sun and again in bitter cold, mud and torrential rain—conditions which might well appal the stoutest heart, but here I note that the gallant author, as I expected, makes light of the many hardships and vicissitudes that he and his comrades were called upon ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... of enterprise, and the moral ascendency that waited on their efforts. In truth, Mr Brooke belongs not to the present generation. His energy, his perseverance, which nothing can subdue, his courage which no dangers can appal, his simplicity which no possession of power and authority can taint, his integrity and honest mind, all belong to a more masculine and primitive age, and constitute a rare exception for our respect ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... that this dawn of light will burst into a more perfect day on our brethren of the southern states, casting its cheering and benign influence alike on all; that the ensanguined lash of the task master, and the cries of the slave, may no longer appal the ear and sicken the heart, in this boasted land ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various |
