"Dire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... altogether novel to me. I had left home rather more than a twelvemonth before, the third officer of the Crisis. From this station, I had risen regularly to be her first officer; and now, by a dire catastrophe, I found myself in the Pacific, solely charged with the fortunes of my owners, and those of some forty human beings. And this, too, before I ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... an over-ripe mango from his skirt, and bit into it, with dire results to his whiskers and coat,—it should be eaten only in a ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... him in such wise that he cannot move. No need is there to tell more of the others, for easily were they vanquished when they saw their lord taken. They capture them all with the count and lead them away in dire shame even as they had deserved. Of all this, King Arthur's host who were without, knew not a word; but in the morning when the battle was ended they had found their shields among the bodies; and the Greeks were raising a ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... only knew how manly and gentle and humble he was," she cried quickly, as if something dire might happen if Tommy were not assured of this ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... How much longer would this scene of terror last? Oh, the thought of that awful leap into space! The maniac might any moment end the scene—each time as he approached in that wild rush backward and forward might be the last. The slightest move, the slightest sound, might precipitate the dire calamity—and Lilama as well as Pym and Peters seemed to feel this truth. The madman, like the wild beast, appears to need an extraneous stimulus, be it ever so slight, to suggest an initiative: the crooking of a finger, the whispering of a word, may be sufficient, but it must ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... said Mrs. Perry, "we might proclaim to the world your gallant conduct; but for any report of this matter to get abroad would be disastrous, a dire calamity, as you can see. The camp day begins early, and it would be best for you to return to Huddleston and keep ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... assent of all had been stipulated before that of any one should be esteemed valid, every province now refused to enforce or to permit the collection of the tenth or the twentieth penny within their limits. Dire were the threatenings and the wrath of the Viceroy, painfully protracted the renewed negotiations with the estates. At last, a compromise was effected, and the final struggle postponed. Late in the summer it was agreed that the provinces should pay two millions yearly for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Miss Thorne gave, having no other alternative; but she did so with a trembling heart, fearing Mr. Arabin would be offended. Immediately on his return she apologized, almost with tears, so dire an enmity was presumed to rage between the two gentlemen. But Mr. Arabin comforted her by an assurance that he should meet Mr. Slope with the greatest pleasure imaginable and made her promise that she would introduce ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Sir, it is a Charm for the Tooth-ach—I have worn it this seven Year, 'twas given me by an Angel for ought I know, when I was raving with the Pain; for no body knew from whence he came, nor whither he went, he charg'd me never to open it, lest some dire Vengeance befal me, and Heaven knows what will be the Event. Oh! cruel Misfortune that I should drop it, and you should open it—If you had ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... said. "Go! go, and may God help me! You have seen me—me, an innocent girl! fleeing from a dire catastrophe and haunted by sinister men; and neither pity, curiosity, nor honour move you to await my explanation or to help in my distress. Go!" she repeated. "I am lost indeed." And with a passionate gesture she turned and fled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is so sudden and so dire, that I can scarcely credit it! Are we then truly in danger of becoming prisoners to barbarians? Is Eve Effingham, the beautiful, innocent, good, angelic daughter of my cousin, to be their victim!—perhaps the inmate of ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... on, with the theatrical company, to the coast, where they filmed a realistic picture of a wreck. In the jungle was where we next met Blake and Joe, and they were in dire peril more than once, photographing wild animals, though the dangers there were surpassed when they went to Earthquake Land, as they called it. The details of their happenings there will be found in the fifth volume of ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... witnessing (though he could not see her even had he wished) this farce from an upper window of the tower. He stood for a moment irresolute, half inclined to retreat from the ridicule that never failed to affect him more unpleasantly than danger the most dire; his face and neck flamed; he forgot all about the full-bosomed Baronne or remembered her only to agree that nobility demanded some dignity even in fleeing from an enemy. But the shouts of the pursuers that had died away in the distance grew again in ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... profuse in his apologies, the more so as he caught the look of anger in the baron's eye, but peace being quickly made, he rewarded his followers and sallied out to discover the whereabouts of his delinquent servant, breathing out dire threatenings against him. He searched in vain, and after a thorough examination, returned in ill mood to partake of the first meal of the day, and to discover the extent of his losses ere he proceeded to appear against the unfortunate ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... confuted), or else of a | divinity and natural philosophy. In deceitful simplicity. For if they mean | a number of memorable passages Bacon that the ignorance of a second cause doth | indeed warns his readers of the dire make men more devoutly to depend upon the | consequences of confusing divinity providence of God, as supposing the | with natural science: to combine effects to come immediately from his hand, | them, he says, is to confound them. I demand of them, as Job demanded of his | This ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... like this, in moments of dire emergency, that the officer of true worth stands out, the real leader of men. There were a dozen incidents to prove this in the next few hurried, desperate moments. None can be more soul-stirring than the quick thought, ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... you may look for another place!" At this dire threat Shag turned as white as he would ever become, and took a firmer grip on the "Ready now, Shag!" called the colonel, at the same time directing his helper to come down the bank toward a little pool whither he was leading ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... to a market where no man wanted to buy. He thought how old their slavery was; and he wondered if it would ever be abolished, as other slaveries had been. Would the world ever outlive it? Would some New-Year's day come when some President would proclaim, amid some dire struggle, that their slavery was to be no more? ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... after she had indulged in such sinful wanderings, she read the chapter in Isaiah where the prophet denounced the "round tires like the moon, the bonnets and the head bands, the mantles, and wimples, and crisping pins, and changeable suits of apparel," and other vanities, and predicted dire punishments ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the brother—my friend—my guide—my guard—So far as this little proposed intrigue concerns him, such practising would be thought not quite fair. But your bouncing, swaggering, revengeful brothers exist only on the theatre. Your dire revenge, with which a brother persecuted a poor fellow who had seduced his sister, or been seduced by her, as the case might be, as relentlessly as if he had trodden on his toes without making an apology, is entirely ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... for I remembered my father's saying grizzlies did not climb, so I planned to shin up the tallest tree in the woods should one come in sight. In my dreams back on the farm, my only fear had been lest all the grizzlies be killed before I reached the Rockies; barring such dire calamity, I had never had a doubt of my prowess. But somehow, when at last I found myself alone in the dark forest, it seemed the better part of valor to postpone the actual encounters until I should become more skillful ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... a decent body, poor, and a widow, of course; cela va sans dire. She told me her story once; it was as if a grain of corn that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualize itself by a special narrative. There was the wooing and the wedding,—the start in life,—the disappointments,—the children she had buried,—the struggle against fate,—the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the giver of treasure, I see, has dire intent to burn my hands. With nails uncut I was stroking his back. Clearly I ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... these dire sounds and voices, the Princess scaled the long garden, skimming like a bird the star-lit stairways; crossed the park, which was in that place narrow; and plunged upon the farther side into the rude shelter of the forest. So, at a bound, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... storming fury rose, And clamor such as heard in heav'n till now Was never; arms on armor clashing brayed {p. 248} Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots raged; dire was the noise Of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew, And, flying, vaulted either host with fire. . . . Army 'gainst army, numberless to raise Dreadful combustion warring and disturb ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... flashy shoes, who was by trade a pimp, being about half Jean's height and a tenth of his physique,) strolled up to Jean—who had by this time got as far as my bed—and, sticking his sallow face as near Jean's as the neck could reach, said in a solemn voice: "II ne faut pas dire ca." Jean astounded, gazed at the intruder for a moment; then demanded: "Qui dit ca? Moi? Jean? Jamais, ja-MAIS. MERDE a la France!" nor would he yield a point, backed up as he was by the moral support of everyone present except the Raincoat—who found discretion the better part of valour and ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... news Morrison's head jerked back as if he had been struck and his lips tightened. Without the addition of another word to Cary's story he saw all the dire consequences to himself of what had been an act of the commonest humanity. Yes, in other times it would have been what any right thinking human being would have done for another in distress, but, unhappily, this was war time and the ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... in dire disorder. A cabinet had all its drawers out. The floor was littered with their ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic-pangs Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums; Dire was the tossing! deep the groans! despair Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch: And over them, triumphant death his dart Shook. P. L. b. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... splendour of life. Aeson too, ill-fated man! Surely better had it been for him, if he were lying beneath the earth enveloped in his shroud, still unconscious of bitter toils. Would that the dark wave, when the maiden Helle perished, had overwhelmed Phrixus too with the ram: but the dire portent even sent forth a human voice, that it might cause to Alcimede ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... freed negroes, who attached themselves to every regiment in droves, and the lately hostile inhabitants came also at every stopping place, "with baskets and two-wheeled carts" for supplies to relieve their dire necessities. ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... victims. Instead of seeking safety at the first menacing roar they foolishly succumbed to their curiosity or stopped only long enough to listen and to wonder, then went about their own affairs as was their custom. This seldom failed to bring dire consequences, for when the sudden rush came it confused them and they dashed blindly into the very jaws of their destroyer. Such particularly was the fate of the agoutis, which had either forgotten the experience of past seasons or ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... racked by coughing, was hastily carrying an infant to and fro to quiet it, in despair that all the milk of her breast should be exhausted. Then, in an adjoining lodging, came the poignant spectacle of three beings, half clad in shreds, apparently sexless and ageless, who, amidst the dire bareness of their room, were gluttonously eating from the same earthen pan some pottage which even dogs would have refused. They barely raised their heads to growl, and did not ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... to give the natives evidence of his clemency. He pardoned them, therefore, and restored them to his friendship; warning them, however, to beware how they again deceived him, or trespassed against the safety and welfare of the Spaniards, lest they should bring down upon themselves dire and terrible revenge." ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... 'Oime, saprestimi tu dire che di quelli me I'ha morto?' The 'me' is so emphatic, that, though it makes poor English, I have preserved ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... burn'd up all that dwelt therein, A dire destruction bringing, But from the ruins, ivy-like, My loved one's name ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... going with her, but am being dragged by force. Oh! whoever you are, may heaven bless you for having had pity on me in my dire misfortune. (Turns round and sees the Third Old Woman.) Oh Heracles! oh Heracles! oh Pan! Oh ye Corybantes! oh ye Dioscuri! Why, she is still more awful! Oh! what a monster! great gods! Are you an ape plastered with white lead, or the ghost ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... termination of an Australian voyage and the completion of my duties as chief mate, I returned to my ancestral home for the purpose of spending a brief holiday with my mother prior to my departure upon yet another journey to the antipodes, I had found her in dire trouble. This trouble was the natural—and I may say inevitable—result of my father's mistaken idea that he was as good a man of business as he was a seaman. Acting under this impression, he had relied entirely upon his own unaided judgment in the investment of ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... Arestino remained alone to brood over his plans of vengeance. It was horrible—horrible to behold that aged and venerable man, trembling as he was on the verge of eternity, now meditating schemes of dark and dire revenge. But his wrongs were great—wrongs which, though common enough in that voluptuous Italian clime, and especially in that age and city of licentiousness and debauchery, were not the less sure to be followed by a fearful retribution, where retribution ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... speak true, and these strange fires portend nations ruined and rulers overthrown, does it foretell my fate? I will think no more." (Alas! if by the Romans associated with the fall of Rienzi, that comet was by the rest of Europe connected with the more dire calamity of the Great Plague that so soon afterwards ensued.) As his eyes fell, they rested upon the colossal Lion of Basalt in the place below, the starlight investing its grey and towering form with a more ghostly whiteness; and then it was, that he perceived ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Gonzalez Bravo, a man of fine literary discrimination, whatever may be thought of him politically, was prime minister under Isabel II. He had become interested in the work of Gustavo, and, knowing the dire financial straits in which the young poet labored, he thought to diminish these anxieties and thus give him more time to devote to creative work by making him censor of novels. A new period of calm and comparative comfort began, ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... vous soyez sage," said Madame Reuter, "et a vrai dire, vous en avez bien l'air. Take one drop of the punch" (or ponche, as she pronounced it); "it is an agreeable and wholesome ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... presence at that moment: Selwood felt a world of unspeakable gratitude that he was there, just when help and protection were wanted. For each recognized, with a sure instinct and intuition, that those innocent-looking lines of type-script signified much, heralded some event of dire importance. To save Barthorpe Herapath's life!—that could only mean that somebody—the sender of the note—knew that Barthorpe was innocent ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... and that our mating, urged along on both sides as it was by strong personal ambitions was one of those so-called 'marriages of convenience' which almost invariably turn out to be marriages of such dire inconvenience to the two people most concerned. For one year we lived together in a chaos of experimental acquaintanceship. For two years we lived together in increasing uncongeniality and distaste. For three ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... monstrosity is trouble—especially future trouble. Some things about it are real, but the whole combined menace is only an illusion, not a thing which actually exists at all. Face the trouble itself; give no heed to that idea of it which invests it with a hundred dire calamities. ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... that at the time of the first Reform Bill (1830) the members of the House of Commons were threatened with dire consequences if they could not give what the mob considered satisfactory answers ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... halt; for the Snow children came shrieking up to demand the three kittens that Pokey was cooly carrying off in a travelling bag. The unhappy kits were rescued, half smothered, and restored to their lawful owners, amid dire lamentation from the little kidnapper, who declared that she only "tooked um 'cause they'd want to go wid ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... all the various lots around the ball, Which fate to man distributes, absolute, Avert, ye gods! that of the Muse's son, Cursed with dire poverty! poor hungry wretch! What shall he do for life? He cannot work With manual labour; shall those sacred hands, That brought the counsels of the gods to light; Shall that inspired tongue, which every Muse Has touch'd divine, to ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... which should deprive him of all the splendour which time had made familiarly necessary to him, and send him forth into the world to struggle with poverty, with rapacity, and with scorn. Under these dire forebodings, his temper, exhausted by the sickness of delayed hope, became peevish and fretful, and his words and actions sometimes expressed a reckless desperation, which alarmed Miss Wardour extremely. We ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... dire, but they were now at the corner by the Maximiliansstrasse, and supper was too near ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... dire distress were we, Under a giant's fierce command; But gained our lives and liberty, From ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... il se frappe le ventre et les genoux a plusieurs reprises et ne trouve jamais autre chose a leur dire que Eh bien! mes demoiselles.—Eh bien! vous voila donc.... Eh bien! vous voila ... vous voila ici? Cette phrase dura un quart d'heure sans qu'il put en sortir. Une d'elles se leva d'impatience: Ah, dit-elle, je m'en etois bien doutee, cet homme n'est bon qu'a manger du veau!"—Burton's Life ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... offered her his protection and a home, if she would sever all connection with the two, Mimo and Mirko, and she had indignantly refused. And it was only when they were in dire poverty, and he had again written asking his niece to come and stay with him for a few weeks, this time with no conditions attached, that she had consented, thinking that perhaps she would be able in some way ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... on his father periodically for money to pay for dire necessities. It was not surprising that B——'s jobs changed frequently and he went from city to city—the general direction of his fortunes, habits, and health being downward. Just now he has a job on a little weekly paper in a village. His bare pittance in these parlous days of H.C.L. hardly ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... for either, or for both, of these. Equally has it resisted temptation to touch on many topics—not strictly belonging inside the Southern Capitals—still vexed by political agitation, or personal interest. These, if unsettled by dire arbitrament of the sword, must be left to Time and his best coadjutor, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... me why, when you found yourself in such a dire extremity as to be arrested for this crime, on evidence as startling as to call for all and every possible testimony to your innocence, you preserved silence in regard to a fact which you must have then felt would have secured you a most invaluable witness? I can ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... says the Burmese chronicle, "of a great bell hung in the canopy of the skies."[4] At last one day, when he was walking in a much enfeebled state, he felt on a sudden an extreme weakness, like that caused by dire starvation, and unable to stand any longer he fell to the ground. Some thought he was dead, but he recovered, and from that time took regular food and gave up his severe penance, so much so that his five disciples soon ceased to respect ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... is wrapped with old rags and frequently dipped in a jar of water standing by to keep it cooled; the bread thus baked tastes very good when fresh, but it requires a stomach rendered unsqueamish by dire necessity to relish it after ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... landing, when she was powerless to do otherwise, had she extended the zone of war. As to the responsibility, she reiterated her previous declaration. The baffled Germans fell back on threats: the right was reserved to visit upon China dire consequences for her alleged breach of neutrality. The incident, thrown into striking contrast with Germany's offer to Belgium, marked the unscrupulousness of German diplomacy, but stirred also many doubts among the foreign communities in China, in which the British, allied as ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... to put it in execution himself. The surprise, which had taken possession of the whole party, exhibited itself in his own vacant wondering stare, as strongly as in any of the admiring visages by whom he was surrounded. His denunciation, therefore, notwithstanding its dire import, was disregarded; and the dogs were left to obey the impulses of their mysterious instinct, without ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the Gordons should see so much of so ordinary a person as Mr. Wilkins. Everybody makes much of him here, and, alas! all the girls run after him, and even fall in love with him; why, I can't conceive. For if driven by dire compulsion of fate, to bend one's thoughts upon some prosaic example of that prosaic sex, why not choose one of the many far more attractive candidates available—the Gordons, the McKenzies, and so forth? When I go ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... into the world to be the Captain of salvation, and to suffer being tempted, that He might be able to succor all those who are tempted?" For a moment she listened breathlessly as if some new thing had been said to her. Christ really cared for her; really knew her extremity in this dire temptation; was ready with His help, if she would but have it. Could it be true? If He were beside her, witnessing her temptation and her struggling, seeing and entering into all the bitterness of the passing hours, why! then such a ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... were built by men who did a deed Of blood:—terrific conscience, day by day, Followed, where'er their shadow seemed to stay, And still in thought they saw their victim bleed, Before God's altar shrieking: pangs succeed, As dire upon their heart the deep sin lay, No tears of agony could wash away: Hence! to the land's remotest limit, speed! These walls are raised in vain, as vainly flows Contrition's tear: Earth, hide them, and thou, Sea, Which round the lone isle, where their bones repose, Dost sound for ever, their ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... how to play Indians! These arrangements suited the young Maynards perfectly, and soon the game was in progress. The Indian Chief and the Squaw waited in ambush for the pale-faced Maiden to come along; the Chief meanwhile muttering dire threats ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... priceless gems been filched from Oriental potentates! How often have mysterious murders been committed to recover some jewel stolen from an Eastern temple, the murderer driven forth by religious zeal—or fanaticism, call it what you will—to a relentless search for the fetich, and to wreak a dire vengeance on the plunderer! Admitting that the present intricate problem involved a similar instance, I could not see how the fact might tend to aid ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... my father, who evidently had become deeply intoxicated the night before, was lying on the sanded floor with his face downwards; my mother, in her short dressing-gown and flannel petticoat, was standing over him, her teeth set, her fists clenched, and arms raised, with a dire expression of revenge in her countenance. I thought at the time that I never saw her look so ugly—I may say, so horrid; even now her expression at that moment is not effaced from my memory. After a few minutes ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... elaborate method of expressing the fact that it occasionally rains. The heroes who endured their angers and jests and tragic loves are delicately veiled allusions to the sun—surely, a very harmless topic of conversation, even in Greece; and the monsters, 'Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras dire,' their grisly offspring, their futile opponents, are but personified frosts. Mythology—the poet's necessity, the fertile mother of his inventions—has become a series of atmospheric phenomena, and the labours of Hercules prove to be a ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... look to the Lord as the source of all life and light, and looked only to itself for all things. It thus lost all conception of the legitimate aim of life. Seeking only the enjoyment of the present moment, labor seemed a dire calamity; for the eternal end of labor, that is, the development of the powers of the soul, so as best to fit it for the performance of heavenly uses, passed out of the knowledge of man, and he learned to look forward to heaven as a place of idle enjoyment; toiling ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... numbing sense of astonishment passed away, it left her cold with anger. Kitty was a dignified young lady, and she would not tolerate such an affront from any man alive. It was more than an affront; it was a dire catastrophe. What should she do now? What would become of ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... fathers tramping uneasily about them. In the heart of each, perhaps, was an indefinable conviction that he should fall among the tens. Since Israel had died in droves by hard labor in the brick-fields and along the roadways and canals, in what numbers and with what dire speed would not Israel perish in ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Stas realized that a dire danger was drawing near. But what could it be? Buffaloes, perhaps? Perhaps a pair of rhinoceroses seeking an exit from the ravine? In such case if the report of the shot did not scare them and turn them back, nothing could save the caravan, for those animals, not ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... uniting with those of their brethren of Jewish descent who now agreed to relinquish the Hebrew ceremonies, chose an individual, named Marcus, for their chief pastor, and that at this period the succession in the line of the circumcision "failed." [624:3] This statement cannot signify that some dire calamity had at once swept away all the old presbytery of Jerusalem. It obviously indicates that none of its members had joined the party whose principles had obtained the ascendency. And yet, though the adherents of Marcus ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Contending wits become the sport of fools: But still the worst with most regret commend, For each ill author is as bad a friend. 520 To what base ends, and by what abject ways, Are mortals urged through sacred lust of praise! Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast, Nor in the critic let the man be lost. Good-nature and good-sense must ever join; To err is human—to ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... sur ces cent vingt mille hommes il n'y en avoit que la moitie, c'est-a-dire les gens de cheval, qui fussent en bon etat, bien armes de tarquais et d'epee; le reste est compose de gens de pied mal equippes. Celui d'entre eux qui a une epee n'a point d'arc, celui qui a un arc n'a ni epee ni arme quelconque, beaucoup ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... the speaker, who was the same individual that had struck Julian by his resemblance to the man who called himself Ganlesse, "I love a dire revenge, but we shall buy it somewhat too dear if these rascals set the house on fire, as they are like to do, while you are parleying from the window. They have thrown torches or firebrands into the hall; and it is all our friends can do to ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... addressing it articulately, and imploring it to satisfy his need. Surely there is nothing more touching in Nature than this? Man could never so expose himself, so break through all constraint, except from a dire necessity. It is the suddenness and unpremeditatedness of Prayer that gives it a ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... is remarkable that Avaux, though a very shrewd judge of men, greatly underrated Berwick. In a letter to Louvois, dated Oct. 15/25. 1689, Avaux says: "Je ne puis m'empescher de vous dire qu'il est brave de sa personne, a ce que l'on dit mais que c'est un aussy mechant officie, qu'il en ayt, et qu'il ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the style which the latter introduced into Russian literature; and bore himself in no less distant and hostile a manner to the rising romantic school of Pushkin. He was the son of an army officer, who was afterwards in the civil service, a very competent, intelligent man, who left his family in dire poverty at his death. At the age of fifteen, Kryloff produced his first, and very creditable, specimen of his future talent, though obliged, by extreme need, to enter government service at the age of fourteen, at his father's death. He filled several positions in different places at a ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... many a halcyon day he lived to see Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire, When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she Was gone-and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's knee. ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... considerably while aboard the train, Jack," said Mr. Temple, "for fear something dire might happen to you these last two or three days. I'm glad to see you are all right. Any word from ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... artist, was at that time the eccentric and elegant lion of society in Baltimore. "Jack Randolph" had recently sat to him for his portrait. "By the bye [the letter continues] that little 'hydra and chimera dire,' Jarvis, is in prodigious circulation at Baltimore. The gentlemen have all voted him a rare wag and most brilliant wit; and the ladies pronounce him one of the queerest, ugliest, most agreeable little creatures in the world. The consequence ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... grandfather whom you seemed to think might not receive you as you ardently hoped when you started forth on this long journey," the older lady told her. "But then you did not know what was in store for you. Sometimes great blessings, as well as dire calamities, spring upon us without the least warning. Hugh, I shall leave the telling to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... the tidings with an aching heart indeed; for her compassion for the sufferings of others did not permit her to remain unmoved amidst such dire misfortunes. Still she never lost her habitual composure; her only occupation was to console the mourners: her first impulse on these occasions to bless God, and accept at His hands all that His providence ordained. It was well that she was resigned, and had ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... minutes later when Allen, sulky and breathing dire threats, had been dropped ashore, Harwood paddled Marian home, Sylvia ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... midnight settled down over the house. Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance on the ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... proportion also of infanticide, owing to the prevailing prejudice which condemns immorality more harshly when the results are evident. Arson and theft form only 2%. Such cases are however possible. A young girl, whom my father had under observation in prison, seeing her family in dire poverty, committed arson in order ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... and a ruthless promise-breaker, John's natural cruelty would in itself sufficiently account for the dire penalties threatened under the warrant of 1208; but neither his tyranny, his faithlessness of character, nor his very human irritation at the concessions wrung from him by his barons, can explain to our satisfaction why, having granted a charter affirming and ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... her good-night; "and you must not leave this room till I give you permission. I intend that you shall spend some days in solitude,—except when I see fit to come to you,—that you may have plenty of time and opportunity to think over your sinful conduct and its dire consequences." ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... been slain on the field; thousands of others had been taken prisoner; a new army was not easily to be raised. Months passed before Philip was able to come to the relief of the beleaguered stronghold. The Oriflamme, the sacred banner of the realm, never displayed but in times of dire extremity, was at length unfurled to the winds, and from every side the great vassels of the kingdom hastened to its support. France, ever prolific of men, poured forth her sons until she had another large army in the field. In July ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... himself was of too torpid a temperament to fall a victim to the gnawing tooth of envy, but in the soul of his wife the launch, and, what was worse, the immediate prosperity of the Salon Malakoff, bred dire resentment. Her own establishment had grown grimy with the passage of time, and the annual profits displayed a constant and disturbing tendency toward complete evaporation, since the coming of the big cafes, and the resultant subversion of custom to ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... that in thine orb is movement dire, Tempest and flame, as on a million oceans: Well may it be, thou heart of heavenly fire; Such looks and smiles befit a god's emotions, We know thee gentle in the midst of all, By those smooth orbs in heaven, this sweet ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the billows that brighten the storm with their crests, Gleam dread as their bosoms that heave to the shipwrecking wind as they rise, Filled full of the terror and thunder of water, that slays as it dies. 1370 So dire is the glare of their foreheads, so fearful the fire of their breath, And the light of their eyeballs enkindled so bright with the lightnings of death; And the foam of their mouths as the sea's when the ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... had reached her father's ears of a malignant being who was permitted to wander over the earth and tempt men in dire extremity with release from their troubles as the result of their concluding an unspeakable bargain. This being himself appeared to the father, and warned him that his daughter was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... gentille aloueette, avec son tirelire, Tirelire, a lire, et tireliran, tire Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vers ce lieu, Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... art undreamt in Crete, strange art and dire, in counter-charm prevents my charm limits my power: pine-cone I heap, grant ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... arithmetic. Anne's consequent humiliation was less than it might have been, however, in view of the concert and the spare-room bed. She and Diana talked so constantly about it all day that with a stricter teacher than Mr. Phillips dire disgrace must inevitably have been ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... plain call to him to proclaim God to the world. He had realized God, and it was the task of every one who had realized God to help all mankind to the same realization. The proposal of Lady Sunderbund had fallen in with that idea. He had been steeling himself to a prospect of struggle and dire poverty, but her prompt loyalty had come as an immense relief to his anxiety for his wife and family. When he had talked to Eleanor upon the beach at Hunstanton it had seemed to him that his course was manifest, perhaps ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... can tell one where to search then, and where to dredge, I hope. I have set my heart on a fortnight's work here, and have been dreaming at night, like a child before a Twelfth-night party, of all sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons and chimaeras dire, fished up ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... dear fellow; there's the ghastly humor of it; the dire tragedy, rather." As he spoke he struck his closed hand gently but firmly on the table, and regarded the reporter with the compressed lips of one who is about to ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... it—for the first effect of that frightful gong is to hurl you across the house, and slam you against the wall, and then curl you up, and squirm you like a spider on a stove lid, till somebody shuts the kitchen door. In solid fact, there is no clamor that is even remotely comparable to the dire clamor which that gong makes. Well, this catastrophe happened every morning regularly at five o'clock, and lost us three hours sleep; for, mind you, when that thing wakes you, it doesn't merely wake you in spots; it wakes you all over, conscience and all, and you are good for eighteen hours of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... surprisings, Hands all wants and looks all wonder At all things the heavens under, Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings That have more of love than lovings, Mischiefs done with such a winning Archness, that we prize such sinning, Breakings dire of plates and glasses, Graspings small at all that passes, Pullings off of all that's able To be caught from tray or table; Silences—small meditations, Deep as thoughts of cares for nations, Breaking into wisest speeches In a tongue that ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... leaped; and in turn I tried every artifice I could think of to make him back away from me, to take refuge behind his tree. I ran at him with a club as if I were going to kill him. He waited, crouching. Finally, in dire extremity, I bethought me of a red flannel hood that Emett had given me, saying I might use it on cold nights. This was indeed a weird, flaming headgear, falling like a cloak down over the shoulders. I put it on, and, camera in hand, started ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... thy shy snow At tenderest touch will shrink and go. Love me not, delightful child. My heart, by many snares beguiled, Has grown timorous and wild. It would fear thee not at all, Wert thou not so harmless-small. Because thy arrows, not yet dire, Are still unbarbed with destined fire, I fear thee more than hadst thou stood Full-panoplied ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... the pope empty purgatory, for the sake of holy love and of the dire need of the souls that are there, if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a Church? The former reasons would be most just; the latter ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... pris en lui-meme, l'auteur n'a qu'un mot a en dire. Le genre humain, considere comme un grand individu collectif accomplissant d'epoque en epoque une serie d'actes sur la terre, a deux aspects, l'aspect historique et l'aspect legendaire. Le second n'est pas moins vrai que le premier; le ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... Oileus (not the greater Ajax), the blasphemer, who said he would return in spite of the Gods, and at once perished. The account of the death of Ajax has its meaning for Menelaus, who thought of getting home with paying due regard to the Gods. Once more Agamemnon's dire lot is told with some new incidents added. Thirdly Proteus has seen Ulysses in an ocean isle with the nymph Calypso who detains him though eager to get away. Thus the son hears the fact about his father. Finally ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... in fact, until after Beatrice's death that Isabella obtained Lodovico's leave for his favourite sculptor to visit Mantua. By that time the duke's affairs were in dire confusion, and seeing there was little hope of further employment and none of certain pay, Messer Cristoforo left the Milanese court sorrowfully and went to Mantua, where he carved the lovely doorway still to be seen ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... supernatural occurrences in these New Hampshire hills obtained until a recent date, and Sunday Mountain is a monument to the dire effects of Sabbath-breaking that was pointed out to several generations of New Hampshire youth for their moral betterment. The story goes that a man of the adjacent town of Oxford took a walk one Sunday, when ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... fact in mind, I think you will more readily realize the moral impossibility of our assent, save under the impulse of a last dire necessity, to a Disunion Peace, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Home may be found, and is found, in great houses and in small houses, where there is large wealth and where there is dire poverty. It is not dependent ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... the lay brothers, with his talk," he said. "He is a good instructor in arms, but he teaches not as one who feels that it is a dire necessity to carry arms, but as one who delights in it. Moreover, he causes scandals by his drinking bouts, and does not add to the harmony of the place. At a time like this, when the Scots may, at any moment, fall across the border, such a fellow may do good ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... the dire effect Of loit'ring here, of death defrauded long; Of old so gracious (and let that suffice) My very master knows me not. I've been so ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in the cruel ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... well acquainted with the dire effects of law, had to represent two men,—one who had gained a law-suit, and another who had lost one. He painted the former with a shirt on, and the ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... is a moment's monument,— Memorial from the Soul's eternity To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, Whether for lustral rite or dire portent, Of its own arduous fulness reverent: Carve it in ivory or in ebony, As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see Its flowering crest impearled and orient. A Sonnet is a coin; its face reveals ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... scarcely moved from her position, although streaming with blood from a score of wounds. Once, indeed, as a deep-searching thrust entered her very vitals, she raised her massy flukes high in air with an apparently involuntary movement of agony; but even in that dire throe she remembered the possible danger to her young one, and laid the tremendous weapon as softly down upon the water as if it ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... restrain them by reasons. Why should not the solitary invalid destroy himself, he whose life has become a hopeless torture, and whose death none would mourn? Why should not a voluntary death be sought as an escape from temptation and from imminent sin? Why should not the first victims of a dire contagion acquiesce in being slaughtered like cattle? Or if it be deemed perilous to commit the departure from life to each one's private whim and fancy, why not have the thing licensed under certificate of three clergymen ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... were Japs that were going to fire a torpedo under them, or throw a bomb on deck, and when our boat got by the Russian boat, the crew was called to prayers, to thank the Lord, or whoever it is that the Russians thank, because they had escaped a dire peril. I guess the Russians are all in, and that those who have not gone to the front are shaking hands with themselves, and waiting for the dove of peace to alight on their guns. The Suez canal probably pays, and no wonder, cause ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... over the perplexing questions of life, he is assisted in his dreary analysis by the gloomy and hair-raising cry of the mother of the moon. When the first four notes strike his ear, he will listen, thinking that some human being in dire distress is somewhere out in the swamps, pitifully calling for help, but in so painful a manner that it seems as if all hope were abandoned. Still listening, he will hear the four succeeding melancholy notes, sounding as if the desolate sufferer were giving up the ghost in a last ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... and spends a great deal of money to appear to advantage and follow the fashions, who does her best to keep house sumptuously and yet economically—a house, too, not easy to manage—who, from morality and dire necessity, perhaps, loves no one but her husband, who has no other study but the happiness of this precious husband, who, to express all in one word, joins the maternal sentiment to the sentiment of her duties. This underlined circumlocution ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... some reasons for not doing so; and even now you could go to the nearest village, which lies more than twenty miles away, and ask the people about it, but they would only say that they had never heard of it, that no such place existed, for they believe that even to speak of it would bring dire disaster. We Indians are Christians; the Spaniards made us so. We make the sign of the cross, and we bow before their images and pictures, and once a year we go to their churches; but among the tribes east ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... average crop is about seventy pounds, and is mostly from small plots of from fifty to one hundred trees, there being no very large plantations. All the coffee is brought into the city of Harar, whence it is sent on mule-back to Dire-Daoua on the Franco-Ethiopian Railway, and from there by rail to Jibuti. Some of it is exported directly from Jibuti, and the rest is forwarded to ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... night and crossed the Rhine. Never had heroes hunted worse. Noble maids bewept the game they slew. Forsooth many good warriors must needs atone for this in after days. Now ye may hear a tale of great overweening and dire revenge. Hagen bade carry Siegfried of the Nibelung land, thus dead, before the bower where Kriemhild lodged. He bade place him stealthily against the door, that she might find him when she went forth before the break of day to matins, which Lady Kriemhild ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... alternative but to stay where he is and starve. Since Alexander II. of philanthropic memory made the Russian serf a free man, the blessings of freedom have been found to resolve themselves chiefly into a perfect liberty to die of starvation, of cold, or of dire disease. When he was a serf this man was of some small value to some one; now he is of no consequence to any one whatsoever except himself, and, with considerable intelligence, he sets but small store upon his own existence. Freedom, in fact, came to him before he was ready ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... naturel; cela va sans dire; it is only our devoir, Madame, to exprimer to the ladies some of the many ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... at heart to have any relish for Madame Dalmas' nauseous compliments, and more than half aware of her cheats and falsehoods, she yet tolerated the creature from her own dire necessities. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... the clouds moving to the south. Higher up they moved to the west, and toward the zenith stray flecks moved to the north. The spirits of the air were not at peace among themselves. And dire things were brooding. From the inland highlands of Greenland now came a series of swift explosions, and in the brief succeeding interval there was an unearthly silence. Then a grinding crash rent the air. The spirits ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... here to hire themselves out, so don't give them more than ten roubles a month. Their place was burned down to ashes last summer, and they are now in dire ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... to think. He thought first of his companions. That they were in a dire plight, he realized well. That they would be able to devise any plan by which they could find their way to any shore, he doubted; yet, as he thought of it, his own position seemed more critical. The trail he had found would now be useless. He was ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... this the following passage of Jean de Labadie (1610-1674), the founder of a mystical school on the Continent: "Plusieurs sont bien aises d'ouyr dire qu'ils sont justifies par Jesus-Christ, laves de leurs peches en son sang par la foi, par la repentance et par le bapteme chrestien, et volontiers ils I'embrasent comme Justificateur, comme crucifie et mort pour eux; mais peu prennent part a ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... star meglio di quel che sto, e forse perche uso di spesso il bagno freddo, e beo limonata a pranzo e a cena da molti mesi. Questa e la mia quotidiana bevanda, e dacche mi ci sono messo, m' ha fatto un bene che non si puo dire. Di quelle doglie di capo, {218} che un tempo mi sconquassavano le tempie, non ne sento piu una. Le vertigini, che un tratto mi favorivano si di spesso, se ne sono ite. Sino un reumatismo, che m' aveva afferrato per un braccio, s' e dileguato, cosi ch'io farei ora ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... the past he had fondly imagined himself nursing implacable, absolutely undying hatreds; brooding darkly over injuries received in fancy or reality, planning dire and utterly ruthless revenge, etc. But, deep, deep down in his boyish soul he knew it to be only a dismal failure—that he could not keep it up. His was an impulsive, generous young heart—equally quick to forgive an injury as to resent ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... was terribly appealing to her. It made her heart ache, and she had much ado to keep from taking him to her arms, big as he was, and comforting him, as she used to, years ago, when he came in with frostbitten fingers or the dire array of cuts and bruises. But she judged it best, in the interest of domestic government, to quell emotion that could have, she knew, no hopeful issue, and she began breaking eggs into her mixing bowl and then beating ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... custom that ladies, especially young ladies, must always wear their jewellery, even when travelling. Arms, wrists, neck and ankles, bare of jewels, are a sign of widowhood or dire poverty. Out young heroine was accordingly adorned with jewels and she was also richly attired. Was she not the daughter of a wealthy man and going to visit her mother-in-law? So her mother had lovingly dressed her in an exquisite ...
— Bengal Dacoits and Tigers • Maharanee Sunity Devee
... random. Here is our old guidebook. The road is all mapped out, the way surveyed, by which we march to ruin. All the dire calamities of Greece may be traced to this ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... think, too, in his dire peril of another—younger than his father and fairer? Necessarily, he did. "Go, Eggleston!" she had exclaimed, as they said farewell under the portico of his father's house where she was visiting, "it is your duty. But mine lies elsewhere. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... respected our friend, whatever was the coat he wore; whereas, among the Colonel's own kinsfolk, dire was the dismay, and indignation even, which they expressed when they came to hear of this, what they were pleased to call degradation to their family. Clive's dear mother-in-law made outcries over the good old man as over a pauper, and inquired of Heaven, what she had done that her blessed child ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... death so dreadful a menace to-day, that consumption alone can march beside them in the leadership of the destroyers. Typhoid, so easily conquerable, claims its annual thousands of sacrificed victims. And the slaughter of the innocents goes endlessly on, recorded only in the dire figures of infant mortality. To-day, as I write, the whole nation is thrilled with horror at the tragedy of 150 young lives snuffed out in a needless school panic in Cleveland. Had my pen the power, perhaps I could thrill the nation with horror over the more dreadful fact that some 1100 children ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... eggs. The seventh egg always became his Sunday letter, and thus he always remembered to sally forth "with gown and cassock, book and band," and perform his accustomed duty. Unfortunately the clerk was treacherous, and one week stole an egg, with dire consequences to the congregation, which had to wait until the clergyman, who was engaged in the unclerical task of "soleing shoes," could be fetched. The poem is a poor trifle, but it is perhaps worth mentioning on account of the personality ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the House would permit, placed themselves under the protection of the City; and the day previous to the one fixed for their return to St. Stephen's under the protection of the trained bands of London, the King left Whitehall, to return to it only to pay the dire penalty for his past offences. Both sides now actively prepared for the inevitable struggle. Owing to Pym's forethought, the Tower was blockaded, and the two great arsenals of Hull and Portsmouth secured for the Parliament. ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... touched along the coasts of the Persian Gulf, it had penetrated into the caravan to Mecca, where the heat and dearth of water had given it fresh intensity. It raged in the Holy Town, striking down twenty thousand victims, and touched at Jeddah and Zambo, where its effects were very dire. Passing through Suez, it decimated the population, and in August it reached Cairo and spread to Upper and Lower Egypt. The army did not escape the common scourge, and when about to invade Syria was overtaken by the epidemic. Five thousand out of ninety thousand perished. All preparations for ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... assistance, the wedged-in horse did so all the more loudly. Supine and unable to free himself from his uncomfortable position, he repeatedly uttered that terrified scream which one never hears from this noble and reticent beast except in dire extremity. Whoever has heard such a cry will readily admit that it is far more terrible than any merely ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... trace of the belief appears in the Psalms, they illustrated it in the great illuminated psalters from which the noblest part of the service was sung before the high altar. The service books showed every form of agonizing petition for delivery from this dire influence, and every form of exorcism ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... how unlike those late terrific sleeps! And groans, that rage of racking famine spoke: The unburied dead that lay in festering heaps! The breathing pestilence that rose like smoke! The shriek that from the distant battle broke! The mine's dire earthquake, and the pallid host Driven by the bomb's incessant thunder-stroke To loathsome vaults, where heart-sick anguish toss'd, Hope died, and fear ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... and looked over the duchess' shoulder, unperceived into the mirror, he started back and cried out angrily, as no true courtier ought ever to allow himself to do in the presence of his sovereign: "By the blood of my ancestors! A boy climbing a mountain. And there is such dire need to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... but for the branch of a tree which grew on the opposite bank and overhung the stream. This branch Mr Sudberry, in his eagerness, did not observe. In casting, he thrust the end of his rod violently into it; the line twirled in dire confusion round the leaves and small boughs, and the drag hook, as if to taunt him, hung down within a foot ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... on, Lady Fairweather became somewhat daunted by the dire predictions of chills and fever as a result of our long lying in the marshes; and one day she deserted the ship and sailed away on a bigger one. We thought she was to be gone only a little while, but she proved a real deserter and Gadabout saw ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... a pine thicket when he heard behind the frantic, choking yelps of a dog in dire distress. Knowing what had happened, he ran back. Within the pasture the hound, only his hind feet touching the ground, was struggling and pawing at the fence. He had jumped, the block had caught and was hanging him. Davy rushed to him. Breathing fast, he unsnapped the chain. The block ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... almost succeeded in driving through a bill to stop this traffic. They knew the true Prussian way of whimpering when bullying did not avail them. And so they not only whimpered about our sending shells over to kill- the German soldiers, but they whimpered also over the dire effects which the Allied blockade produced upon the non-combatant population of Germany. These things went on, not only a whole year, but far into the second after the sinking of the Lusitania. Roosevelt never desisted ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... progressive taxation on incomes, ranging from 3d. in the pound on incomes less than L500 to punitive proportions after L10,000 was reached; while in his Spartan arithmetic great wealth appeared so dire a misfortune that he rid the possessors of the whole of incomes of L23,000 and upwards. As for Pitt's financial reforms, he laughed them to scorn. He also accused him of throwing over the fair promises that marked his early ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... details was needed to realize that there were difficulties in the way, and that high-explosive is awkward stuff to deal with—a gun of my own 5-inch battery in South Africa was, shortly after I had left the unit to take up other work, blown to pieces by a lyddite shell detonating in the bore, with dire results to the detachment. To secure detonation is more difficult in a small, than in a big shell; but other countries had managed to solve the problem in the case of ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell |
