"Terrifying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arrow, breaking it in twain, so as to let the shaft pass through the arm. Although blood flowed freely, I saw at a glance that the wound in the body was a mere puncture, and also that on the limb only a piercing of the flesh. Therefore was her hurt not serious, although of a certainty painful, and terrifying too for a child so young. But even now not one word of complaining did she utter. She kept her sweet smile ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... frightened crew were at once crushed on the deck by the overhanging ceiling of the cave. Five others hurriedly climbed out over the stern, and there hung on until ropes were lowered to them by men on the cliff above, who drew them up safely. It was a narrow escape; and a more terrifying situation than that of this crew, as they saw their vessel sucked into a cave whose depth they did not know, can hardly be imagined outside of a hasheesh dream. The next morning the vessel was so completely broken to pieces that not a piece the size of a man's arm was ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... the slippery rocks, but picked himself up just as quickly. In his mind's eye he could see his father helpless at the bottom of the cliffs, with a broken leg or a fractured rib, or suffering for the want of food and warmth. Such thoughts were terrifying, and caused him to shudder ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer
... the young and tender shoots of some low bushes, waving his great ears and switching his short tail. The antelope, scarce twenty paces from him, continued their feeding, when suddenly, from close beside the latter, there came a most terrifying roar, and I saw a great, tawny body shoot, from the concealing verdure beyond the antelope, full upon the back ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... powder, and long baths, late hours, and sleep at day-time, in a darkened room. Her face was utterly devoid of expression. One might have fancied that its muscles had become relaxed after terrible efforts to feign or to conceal some violent emotions; and there was something melancholy, almost terrifying in the eternal, and perhaps involuntary smile, which curved her lips. She wore a dress of black velvet, with slashed sleeves and bodice, a new design of ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... cried: What do you want? Not: What has happened? She told Mrs Fyne that she had received suddenly the feeling of being personally attacked. And that must have been very terrifying. The woman before her had been the wisdom, the authority, the protection of life, security embodied ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... evening following the burial of Katrina Potgieter's baby, which died of drinking water after a surfeit of dried peaches, the old lady was in great feather. Never were her reminiscences so ghoulish and terrifying, and never did she hurl her weighty moralities over so wide a scope. Eventually she lapsed into criticism, and announced that the art of dying ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... cataract in over her starboard topgallant rail; there was a horrid crunching sound as the ponderous iron bows of the steamer irresistibly clove their way through the wooden side and decks of the ship; a loud twanging aloft told of severed rigging; there was a terrifying crash of breaking spars overhead; and then, all in a moment, as it seemed, the main deck and poop became alive with shrieking, shouting, distraught people rushing aimlessly hither and thither, and excitedly demanding of each ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... thousand men, defeated the rebels, and plunged their leaders, seventy in number, each into a caldron of boiling water. Elated by such brilliant success, the young prince renounced allegiance to the Tartar sovereign and assumed independence. Terrifying his enemies by severity, rewarding his friends with rich gifts, and overawing the populace by claims of supernatural powers, this extraordinary young man commenced a career of conquest which the world has never ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... journey could not be made. In a country they do not know, horses frighten themselves by night in the most incredible manner. To stampede them, it is enough for them to discover a coyote or fox. The flight of a bird, the dust flung by the wind-any of these are capable of terrifying them and causing them to run many leagues, precipitating themselves over barrancas and precipices, without any human effort availing to restrain them. Afterwards it costs immense toil to gather them again, and those ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... his knees so near my father, that, not knowing what he might do, I rushed between them, and hastily pushed back the arm-chair to the wall. Then the monk, speaking in a mournful tone, which was rendered still more terrifying by the approach of night, began to pour out some lamentable rigmarole of a confession, and ended by asking pardon for his crimes, and declaring that he was already covered by the black veil which parricides wear when ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... a gray, menacing future; it had become suddenly the terrifying present, and its shadow fell sharply around her ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... so serious and awed that she became ashamed of her own incredulity. "I believed Him truly for the time that I saw Him. And so it was then my will and my meaning to do, ever without end—but, as a fool, I let it pass out of my mind. And lo! how wretched I was," &c. Then she falls asleep and has a terrifying dream of the Evil One, of which she says: "This ugly showing was made sleeping and so was none other," whence it seems that her self-consciousness was unimpaired in the other visions; that is, she was aware at the time that they were visions, and did not confound them ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... taught cooking, dress-making, laundry work, house-keeping economy, and for those who wish it, office work. It will require some training even to pronounce the name of this new institution, which requires something more than the number of letters in the alphabet to spell it, for it has this terrifying title: Maedchenpflicht-fortbildungsschule. ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... over-lordship of the kings of Kent ended with him, and Augustine's church, which had largely depended upon his influence, very nearly ended as well. Essex relapsed into heathenism, and it was only by terrifying AEthelberht's son with the vengeance of St. Peter that Lawrence kept him from relapsing also. On the other hand, Raedwald, king of the East Anglians, who succeeded to much of AEthelberht's authority, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... have them keep so near him. They would be right close up to him, as close as a dog would be. He always took a lively gait and kept it all the time. One night father was a little late and mother had seen more terrifying things than usual during the day, so she was just about ready to fly. She always hated whip-poor-wills for she said they were such lonesome feeling things. This night she stood peering out, listening intently. Then she, who had tried so hard to be brave, broke into wild lamentations, saying, she ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... middle of the third night, the telephone beside her pillow gave a buzz, more terrifying than a shout of fire, an earthquake, a knife at the throat. Brantome was speaking. Parr had returned to the house in Greenwich Village. Lawrence Teck had sailed ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... what blow? How did he die? Who slew him?" gasped Marie; her look of wild and tearless agony terrifying Isabella, whose last words had escaped unintentionally. "Speak, speak, in mercy; let me know ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... frame; indeed, but for her tremendous strength she would in all probability have herself been destroyed. As it was, no damage or harm whatever was done on board beyond throwing the four occupants of the pilothouse somewhat violently to the floor, and terrifying the cook and the hitherto sedate George almost ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... ten seconds after Merritt told them to keep a firm grip on the bridles of their horses that the boys on looking back saw the bridge suddenly rear itself in the air. Then came a terrifying boom that made the very ground under their feet quiver; and, in a moment later, in place of the fine bridge lay a horrible gap, from which smoke and dust was ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... proposed to England, at a time when none of the negotiators had dared to speak in plain terms of a European war or even to offer a glimpse of that terrifying vision. This interview was the immediate result of the decisive step taken by German diplomacy on the same day at St. Petersburg. The step in question has been made known to us through the diplomatic documents which have been printed by the orders of the belligerent ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... was the third night that he had spent out of his bed. He had been asleep,—the whole party had been asleep in the coach; and now this disputing, and the flare of the lanterns, and the presenting the muskets, and the having to get out and walk, must have been perplexing and terrifying to the poor little fellow. There was much noise round about. The alarm-bell was clanging; there were lights in all the windows: men poured out of the houses, half-dressed, and rolled barrels, and laid felled trees across the road, ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... thrilled her like an electric shock a thousand times more powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... you," he said. He was thanking her for the help those little hands had given him, yet she was not to know that. So for a long time he lay, his breath gentle and regular, the small hand clasped in his own. And now he was away in dreams, not the black and terrifying dreams of just now, but dreams of peace and of a happiness that might never be. And in those dreams she whom he loved bent over him and kissed him on the lips, and said something to him that set the thin ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... to do, for I hadn't any particular wish to murder my dusky callers; and at the same time, had to remember that they were two to one, and would be unhampered by any feeling of chivalry, if we did come to blows. I made up my mind to try to scare them—and suddenly I raised the most horrible, terrifying, unearthly yell I could think of, and at the same time fired both barrels of one gun ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... Belinda, but that tall seaman shook his head. His vessel was not ready yet to sail, being much delayed by the flight of Bonnet. And, moreover, he vowed that, although he was as bold a seaman as any, he would never consent to set out upon such an errand as the following of Blackbeard. It was terrifying enough to be in the same bay with him, even though he were engaged in business with the pirate, for no one knew what strange freak might at any time suggest itself to the soul of that most bloody roisterer; but as to following him, it was like walking ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... the sound of his strained voice. A thousand emotions overwhelmed her at the terrifying sight before her. Love, fear, horror, all broke forth from her lips in a sharp, hysterical cry, but above this cry sounded the gay laughter of the children who were playing in the next room, their shrill young voices raised in ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... from the Southern States; and the huge cold of the North had been a new and rather terrifying experience to her. She had been growing nervous all the evening, as the signs and portents of the weather accumulated. ...
— The Cold Snap - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Then, to Darlington; and on by porters proclaiming the names of stations in uncouth Dunelmian tongue, informing passengers that they have reached "Faweyill" and "Fensoosen," instead of "Ferry Hill" and "Fence Houses," and terrifying nervous people by the command to "Change here for Doom!" when only the propinquity of the palatinate city is signified. And so, on by the triple towers of Durham that gleam in the sun with a ruddy orange ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... silence is enjoined and strictly kept. Those who wail or weep, or even pray, in their utter darkness, are forced by blows to be quiet. The cries and shrieks of those who suffer from this chastisement, or from the torture, are carried along the whole length of the corridors, terrifying those who, in solitude and darkness, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... first time this occurred the parrot whirled on his perch and cried "Whoo!" and after that greeted every charge with a very good imitation of a policeman's rattle, probably as the loudest and most terrifying noise he could make. So determined was the belligerent fellow to subdue or annihilate the larger bird, and so reckless were his attacks, that I had to keep him a prisoner during the few days the parrot was in the room, for hospitality must not be violated. It is interesting to note that so great ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... attained a wide circulation by means of one scene. In recollecting "Anna Karenina," powerful scenes crowd into the memory—introspective and analytic as it is, it is filled with dramatic climaxes. The sheer force of some of these scenes is almost terrifying. The first meeting of Anna and Vronsky at the railway station, the midnight interview in the storm on the way back to Petersburg, the awful dialogue between them after she has fallen (omitted from the first American translation), the fearful excitement ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... stretched at full length, but looking always as if she were about to leap up; and straightway I meet the sidelong glance of her enamelled pupils, shining out of half-closed eyelids, with lashes that are still almost perfect. Oh! the terrifying person! Not that she is ugly, on the contrary we can see that she was rather pretty and was mummied young. What distinguishes her from the others is her air of thwarted anger, of fury, as it were, at ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... Joy, "she liked horses. And I don't. And I don't like their old cactus plants with their sharp needles that seem to jump at you. And the sun is cruel. It bites. And even the mountains look hard and angry as if they wanted to do you a mean turn.—And that storm! Did you ever see anything more terrifying? I thought the day of judgment had come. I don't believe Lady Betty would have been any braver than I ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... was daring, eccentric, temperamental, the apotheosis of brilliancy—genius. The sudden dart up, the terrifying drop down seemed her main accomplishment. The wonder of it was that the men could never tell where she would land. Did it seem that she was aiming near, a sudden swoop would bring her to rest on a far-away spot. Was it ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... evening with you. If you put it down, it is back in a jiffy with a kind of cooing that sounds like a gentle reproach. Sometimes, sitting up in front of you, it looks at you so softly, so tenderly, so caressingly, and in so human a way that it is almost terrifying, for it is impossible to believe that there is no ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... if left to himself, would not, I believe, rest, till he had tormented Madame Duval into a fever. He seems to have no delight but in terrifying or provoking her; and all his thoughts apparently turn upon inventing such methods as may do it ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... courage to play my game. I stood motionless, looking at him, and his head fell. Had I moved he would have struck, but to his mad eyes my calmness was terrifying. ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... you ever heard? Did you ever hear an immense cannon fired? Of course you have heard thunder. The loudest, most terrifying noise I ever heard was a boiler explosion. The town heating plant was only three doors from my home. The whole plant blew up one prayer meeting evening. The church building was plunged into darkness, the walls shook, windows were broken on every side. In terror people got down on their knees and ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright
... The losses due to war and pestilence, said no less an authority than Darwin, are soon made up. There is something terrifying in what the very modern science of geography has to tell us about the rapidity with which the remaining part of the earth's surface, available for the nourishment of man, is being exhausted. What problems will face the Rational Social Will in the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... when somebody, she said, clutched her arm violently near the wrist, and she heard, at the same instant, some blasphemous menace, the import of which escaped her the moment it was spoken, muttered close in her ear. This terrifying interruption was the cause of the scream which had awakened me; and the condition in which she continued during the remainder of the night confirmed me more than ever in the conviction, that she was suffering under some morbid action ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the evening psalms and lessons, and then climbed into my nest—where I sank down, down, down into the feathery depths, in a manner peculiarly terrifying to one whose nights had all been spent on hair mattresses. A few hours' ride had transplanted me into a new region, among an entirely different race of people, and I fell asleep to dream that a whole army of intricate sums were charging upon ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... also ambassadors were sent, to promise him two hundred talents of silver, if he would cross over into Sicily or Italy. Ambassadors were also sent into Italy to the two generals, to desire them to keep Scipio at home by terrifying the enemy in every way they could. To Mago, not only ambassadors were sent, but twenty-five men of war, six thousand infantry, eight hundred horse, and seven elephants, besides a large sum of money to be employed in hiring auxiliaries, in ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... them. They were monsters beckoning them to destruction. The light, too, of the full moon—for it would be full moon that night—would add to the terrors of Lightning Speed. That intense white world would be as terrifying to him as the blackness of the gorge and the sudden awful gap over which he was expected ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... hung on a thread. His family and his friends expected to see him die from one hour to another. The physician, an experienced physician whose every visit cost five francs, talked of a lesion, and that word was in itself very terrifying to all but Gervaise, who, pale from her vigils but calm and resolute, shrugged her shoulders and would not allow herself to be discouraged. Her man's leg was broken; that she knew very well, "but ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... between military and civil duties. I think that the military air dates from the time that the profession of arms became a private profession, from the time of the bravos, the Italian condottieri, who were more terrifying to civilians than to the enemy. When the Romans said "cedant arma togae," they did not refer to civil officials and soldiers; the civil officials were then soldiers in their turn; professional soldiers did not exist. They meant "might gives way ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... the crying of the two, terrible to Ranny, terrible to Winny, the passionate screams, the strangled sobs, the long, irremediable wailing, the terrifying convulsive silences, the awful intermissions and shattering recoveries of anguish—it was as if their innocence had insight, had premonition of the monstrous, imminent separation, of the wrong that he and she were about to do to each other in the name of such sanctities ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... heavy oppressive still darkness breathed over the earth. Then through the silence came a faraway soft drumming sound, barely to be heard. As we bent our ears to catch this it grew louder and louder, approaching at breakneck speed like a troop of horses. It became a roar fairly terrifying in its mercilessly continued crescendo. At last the deluge of rain burst actually ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... brain. What use could be made of him, what profit for his country and himself? And then a fear—a sudden, startling fear. Little profit, perhaps, to be made, but the danger—the danger of this man alive with such secrets locked in his bosom! The thought itself was terrifying, and even as he realized it a significant thing happened—he caught the eye of the Baron de Grost, lunching alone at a small table just inside ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... savagely filching away the soft loam banks beneath little settlements and greedily adding broad acres to the burden of its surcharged waters. Mighty giants of the forest, wrested from their footholds of centuries, plunge with terrifying noise into the relentless stream; great masses of earth, still cohering, break from their moorings and glide into the whirling waters, where, like immense islands, they journey bobbing and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Ferd, weeping, and so oddly mounted. Horses there were galore in the Sobrante stables and pastures, but never one like this; so white, so spirited, and yet so marvelously marked. For even by the daylight, there in the slight shadow of the wall, the animal's eyes glowed with an unearthly light, terrifying to Natan and startling even to her fearless self. Indeed it had not been until the moment of her appearance and Buster's whinnied welcome, that Ferd's horse had turned its face toward them and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... and less interesting, and even the character of Richard begins to waver. There is one astonishing instance of this towards the end of the drama. On the eve of the decisive battle Richard starts awake from his terrifying dreams, and now, if ever, one would expect from him perfect sincerity of utterance. This is ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... city in that pallid dawn. The houses seemed to have huddled together as if in fear before they sank into sleep, to crouch close to the earth as if warding off a blow. Only the ugly dome of the City Hall, the church steeples, and the old shot tower held up their heads, and they had an almost terrifying sharpness of outline, of alertness, ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... for both the mummified body and the spiritual elements which had inhabited it upon earth had to be protected from a multitude of devils and fiends, and from the powers of darkness generally. These powers of evil had hideous and terrifying shapes and forms, and their haunts were well known, for they infested the region through which the road of the dead lay when passing from this world to the Kingdom of Osiris. The "great gods" were afraid of them, and were ...
— The Book of the Dead • E. A. Wallis Budge
... shoulders. The anarchist was the most terrifying bugaboo in Chicago, referred to as a kind of Asiatic plague that might break out at any time. Before Lindsay could get his argument launched, however, some of the guests drifted out to the terrace, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... foeman's trenches, and day after day great searching shells sped up past our billet warm from the German guns, but always they went far wide of their mark. Never could they discover the locality of the terrifying ninety-pounder, he (p. 136) who slept all day in his thicket home, awoke at midnight ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... believed that these vessels had any guns. Certainly, there had been no evidence that any shots had been fired from them. In the opinion of reasonable people the destruction of the forts and the explosions in the harbour had been caused by mines—mines of a new and terrifying power—which were the work of traitors and confederates. The destruction of the lighthouse had strengthened this belief, for its fall was similar to that which would have been occasioned by a great explosion under ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... completely from those now existing. It is quite out of the question, however, to build a new economic structure and new economic units at the same time. Habit and convention are too strong. Innovation is too terrifying and too problematical. The life of local economic units will be carried on to-morrow very much as it is carried on to-day by the masses of the people. The most workable economic superstructure, for a new society, will be built upon an ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... first tremor, the Pony Rider Boys were thrown prone upon their faces on the rocky floor, partially stunned by the sudden shock. A distant boom, like the report of a cannon sounded in their ears, then all at once a terrifying rending of the rocks about them, accompanied by ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... and almost inaudible voice. To feel oneself so sick and so far away; to think that it wanted so many days before he could reach home! Would he ever live until then, with his strength ebbing away? Such a terrifying feeling of distance continually haunted him and weighed at every wakening; and when, after a few hours' stupor, he awoke from the sickening pain of his wounds, with feverish heat and the whistling sound in his pierced bosom, he implored ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... lulled into a pleasing tranquillity by the songs of a thousand birds. At night, however, the music was not so sweet to our ears. Then we heard the barking of wolves, the mournful 'coo-whoo-a' of the great horned owl, and the still more terrifying scream of the cougar. But we kept up a crackling, blazing fire all the night, and we knew that this would keep these ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... Clinch's smile became terrifying. "I shell out five hundred dollars for every deer that's dropped on Star Peak to-day," he said. "And I hope there won't be no accidents and no mistakin' no stranger for a deer," he added, ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... appraisement being made by beneficiaries whose blood had not the mischance to be shed. The French revolution is of incalculable value to the Socialist of to-day; when he pulls the string actuating its bones its gestures are inexpressibly terrifying to gory tyrants suspected ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... once more descended, and again the thunder took up the old rumble and crash. Perhaps the wind was not as furious as was the first rush, and the rain may have been less in quantity, but the second part of the storm was severe and terrifying enough. ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... and the mother-love in the woman who was careful and troubled about the things that perish put the match-maker to the wall. It was almost terrifying to see Elinor, the strong-hearted, the self-contained, breaking down like other mothers' daughters. So it was the mother who held out her arms, and the daughter ran to go down on her knees at the chair-side, burying her face in the lap ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... true mountaineer from being afraid of death, that he seems to take a savage pleasure in imagining it in its most horrible forms and dwelling upon its most repulsive and terrifying features, merely to have the satisfaction of triumphing over it in fancy. As an illustration of this I give below a part of another Chechense song called "The Song of Khamzat." Khamzat was a celebrated abrek, or Caucasian Berserker, who harried the Russian armed line of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... a booming roar that was a new note in the terrifying sounds of the underworld through which ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... this extraordinary torpor, hearing the least whisper. I remember it still. And what fears the devil inspired! I was afraid of everything; my bed seemed to be surrounded by frightful precipices; nails in the wall took the terrifying appearance of long fingers, shrivelled and blackened with fire, making me cry out in terror. One day, while Papa stood looking at me in silence, the hat in his hand was suddenly transformed into some horrible shape, and I was so frightened ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... that human hair was first applied to shields in order to complete the representation of a terrible human face, which, as we have seen, is commonly painted on the shield, and which is said to be valued as an aid to confusing and terrifying the foe. It is perhaps a difficulty in the way of this view that the use of human hair to ornament the shield is peculiar to the Kenyahs and some of the Klemantans (the latter probably having imitated the former ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... second time by that terrifying pu-pu-pu. It approached through the forest but it stopped at the point where the dead body of the black giant lay. He knew that it was the voice of the mate. He listened a long time, but he did not hear it again, and he concluded that the second ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... ken; but now that she was there to serve as a scale by which to measure the height of the surges, and to bring home to us a realising sense of their tremendous and irresistible power by showing how fearfully and savagely they flung and battered about the poor maimed fabric, it became absolutely terrifying, as was to be seen by the blanched faces and quailing, cowering figures of the crowd on the poop who, stood watching the craft in her death throes. Hitherto the violence of the sea had been productive ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... away at first," confessed Sally, "it was so terrifying. But I realized I might be the very one most wanted here- -if ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... it,' he went on, slowly; 'the change is more than skin-deep now. One can't go through what I have gone through these last few terrifying days, Sheila, unchanged. They have played the devil with my body; now begins the tampering with my mind. Not even Danton knows how it will end. But shall I tell you why you won't, why you can't answer me that one question—him or me? Shall I ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... extends into the sea, we entered the bay, at the bottom of which is the town of St. Croix. The appearance of Teneriffe is majestic: the whole island is composed of mountains, which are extremely high, and crowned with rocks terrifying from their size, which on the north side, seem to rise perpendicularly above the surface of the ocean, and to threaten every moment to crush by their fall, the vessels which pass near their base. Above them all rises the Pico, the summit of which is ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... Yet she may kindle to it ere my heart quickens. I tell you, women, we have no duty here: Let us get gone to-night while there is time, And find new harbouring ere the laggard dawn, For death is making narrowing passages About this hushed and terrifying house. ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... difference between success and failure. Where they might lie at the end of the wild dash for safety, how they were to retrace their way with their depleted supply of copper, what other dangers of dead star, planet, or sun lay in their path—all these were terrifying questions ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... almost reassured; after all, he could forgive her for terrifying him so much, since she had come on ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... upward march from savagery and slavery—throughout the nearly 2,000 years of the Christian calendar, the nearly 6,000 years of Jewish reckoning—there have been many deep, terrifying valleys, but also many ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... deaf to the warnings of the family, shook his moth-eaten mane with pride, thinking of his ancestors; then he tried on the terrifying mask, a cardboard arrangement that imitated, with a faint resemblance, the countenance of the ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bird which they had discovered on the sand. They circled round after round, and once in a while there was a series of loud peeps, like those of a rusty gate, as if in conference, with sudden flutterings, as if a terrifying suggestion had been made. The bolder birds occasionally swooped downwards to inspect the monster more closely; they twisted their heads around to bring first one eye and then the other to bear, and then ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... be acknowledged also that the very sight of his works is terrifying, whether we take the enormous folios in two columns of the Benedictine edition, or the volumes, almost as compact, and much more numerous, of recent editions. Behind such a rampart of printed matter he is well defended against ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... saw not Judith and her curious face. A scale was, as it were, before his eyes, blinding them to all outward influences, except one-the officers of justice standing there, and the purpose for which they had come. "What on earth has happened, Master Arthur?" whispered Judith, as he passed her, terrifying the old servant with his pale, agitated face. But he neither heard nor answered; he walked ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sorry, but I can't hear a word you say, young man. I've been stone-deaf ever sin' I came to take care o' this house five year ago. It's a terrifying damp place." ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... examining the cut on his forehead in a small mirror on the wall. It was not much of an injury, but it had bled freely, and his appearance was rather terrifying. ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... invented others. They have created the heraldic wild boar, who is as much above the wild boar as the wild boar is above the domestic pig and the lord is above the priest. They have created the griffin, which is an eagle to lions, and a lion to eagles, terrifying lions by his wings, and eagles by his mane. They have the guivre, the unicorn, the serpent, the salamander, the tarask, the dree, the dragon, and the hippogriff. All these things, terrible to us, are to them but an ornament and an embellishment. They have a menagerie which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... those scenes of terrifying magnificence when she followed Mat over the trail cut along the perpendicular walls of the canon five miles down to the floor of the Valley. One who has not passed over that trail can scarcely conceive of it; and one who has, brings away a sense of ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... a romance," Sarah declared, as she took the ice which her cavalier had brought her and settled down once more in her chair. "Tell me more about Mr. Wingate, please. Mr. Phipps I know, of course, and he doesn't seem in the least terrifying. Is Mr. Wingate like that or is he a ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the terrifying sound, we may, through dread, humble ourselves before the Supreme Being, for it is the nature of these martial instruments to produce a sensation of terror, as the prophet Amos observes, "Shall a trumpet be blown in a city, and the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... himself for this resolution, the door opened, and the figure appeared at it, beckoning and nodding to him, with a familiarity somewhat terrifying. John now started up, determined to pursue it; but the pursuit was stopped by the weak but shrill cries of his uncle, who was struggling at once with the agonies of death and his housekeeper. The poor woman, anxious for her master's reputation and her own, was ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... exercise, you cannot overcome the awful power of the grinding ice," declared the gloomy scientist. "I predict that we will see most wonderful and terrifying sights." ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... Probably no more terrifying a figure could have presented itself at the Persepolitan Hotel than the major of cavalry, and he looked the type of his class, insolent with aristocratic hauteur, martial to the point of arrogance, and ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... a spree. It was really a dragon, at least that's what the Chinese call it; but it was in fact the finest exhibit ever beheld of what a diseased imagination can do for a victim of strong drink. It could easily claim the prize as being the most terrifying ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... later sketch called "Our Dogs" Dr. Brown tells how Rab became the property of James and Ailie. He had been terrifying everybody at Macbie Hill and his owner ordered him to be hanged. As Rab was getting the better of the contest, his owner commanded that he be shot. But Ailie, who happened to be near, noticed that he had a big splinter in his foreleg. "She gave him water," says Dr. Brown, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... before him, and laid her arms across his knees. The touch, the grasp, the warmth of her strong flesh, penetrated his inmost consciousness, and brought back the tottering senses. His eyes lost their terrifying and ghastly expression, and took on one searching and half-stern. "You were not drowned!" he said. "You have not been dead all these years! You went away! You are not Hetty!" and he pushed her arms rudely from his knees. Then, in the next second, ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... the ancients[179] desired the salvation of mankind, those of our day covet women and riches and turn their every thought to terrifying the minds of the foolish with clamours and depicturements[180] and to making believe that sins may be purged with almsdeeds and masses, to the intent that unto themselves (who, of poltroonery, not of devoutness, and that they may not suffer fatigue,[181] have, as a last ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... value, which either we must have hidden or the Abyssins must have imposed on them. They left us the rest of the day at a gentleman's house, who was our friend, from whence the next day they fetched us to transport us to the island, where they put us into a kind of prison, with a view of terrifying us into a confession of the place where we had hid our gold, in which, however, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... Chinese women who might reach our shores, would also be admitted to the voting list, and what then would become of our proud, Caucasian civilization? Whether it was the thought of the poor Mongolian slave at the polls, or some other equally terrifying vision of a yearly visit of American women to the centre of some voting precinct, the majority of the Colorado legislative assembly of 1870, in spite of all the free discussion of the campaign of that year, decided adversely. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... take us across the river!' Out he rushed and I after him, with every story Grandma ever told us dancing through my brain. Now there was going to be an adventure! But there wasn't. We had reached the Caw River, where there were Indians to ferry us across. They were real and red and terrifying, but I never flinched. If they brought out tomahawks in midstream, I would be as brave as a pioneer's daughter should be. But would you believe me, those Indians were as tame as pet canaries, and just shot us across the river without glancing at us, and held out their ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... to tremble violently at the sight of him; he looked terrifying in the light of the grey dawn, on the white coverlet of snow, with his anguished face, wide-open eyes, and drooping tongue on which the teeth had closed firmly. There were blue patches on his skin, and he was covered with filth from head ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the vandals had fired the town; but though the sky was lit by many blazing houses, that tall pillar came from the great oil-tanks, set on fire by the Belgians lest they should fall into German hands. A more awful and terrifying spectacle it is hard to conceive. The sky was lit up as if by the sunrise of the day of doom, and thirty miles away our road was lighted by the lurid glare. Our way led through woods, and amongst the ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar
... massacre Jews than in the Athena of Phidias. Yet, once we have rid our minds of trivial mythology, there is religion in Athena also. Athena is an ideal, an ideal and a mystery; the ideal of wisdom, of incessant labour, of almost terrifying purity, seen through the light of some mystic and spiritual devotion like, but transcending, the love of man for woman. Or, if the way of Athena is too hard for us common men, it is not hard to find a true religious ideal in such a figure as Persephone. In Persephone there ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... black bobbed hair against demure cheeks. A longing which was indistinguishable from loneliness enfeebled him. While she waited, tapping a long, precise pencil-point on the desk-tablet, he half identified her with the fairy girl of his dreams. He imagined their eyes meeting with terrifying recognition; imagined touching her lips with frightened reverence and—She was chirping, "Any more, Mist' Babbitt?" He grunted, "That winds it up, I guess," and turned ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... There was a terrifying sense of certainty in their method. They took no chance of open attack, wasted no breath in needless howling or snarling, but merely sat upon their haunches beyond the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... "And now," says Von Tschudi, "there followed during two or three minutes a terrible scene. The swaying motion which had hitherto prevailed changed into fierce vertical upheaval. The subterranean roaring increased in the most terrifying manner; then were heard the heart-piercing shrieks of the wretched people, the bursting of walls, the crashing fall of houses and churches, while over all rolled thick clouds of a yellowish-black dust, which, had they been poured forth many minutes longer, would have suffocated ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... nor even surprise. The river from which he had come had been politically disturbed for a couple of years, and he was aware that his visits there were looked upon with some suspicion. But he did not mind much the displeasure of the authorities, so terrifying to old Nelson. He prepared to leave the brig, and Schultz followed him to the rail as if to say something, but in the end stood by in silence. Jasper getting over the side, noticed his ghastly face. The eyes of the man who had found salvation in the brig from the effects of his ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... beauty, but also of its tonic charm, its secret allurement. Here is sea poetry to match with that of Whitman and Swinburne. The music is drenched in salt-spray, wind-swept, exhilarating. There are pages in it through which rings the thunderous laughter of the sea in its mood of cosmic and terrifying elation, and there are pages through which drift sun-painted mists—mists that both conceal and disclose enchanted vistas and apparitions. There is an exhilaration even in his titles (which he has supplemented with mottos): as "To the Sea," "From a Wandering ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... the surface of her mind reflected these sights and was caught in the maze of fresh impressions, the back of that mind was forever at work on her own terrifying problem. She thought confidently of escape, not able to plan it but waiting intently upon opportunity, upon the passing of a boat perhaps, or the moment of tying ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... that Christ is our Lord is very comforting, though we have made it terrifying by regarding Christ as a stern and angry judge. But the fact is, he is Lord for the sole purpose of securing us against harsh lords, tyrants, the devil, the world, death, sin and every sort of misfortune. We are his inheritance, and therefore he will espouse our cause, deliver us from violence ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... Ida again had seemed taken from them, had restored her not only to their eyes, but to life. But how should they accost her, how make themselves known to her, how go about even to answer the question she had asked without terrifying her with new and ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy |
