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Fearful   /fˈɪrfəl/   Listen
Fearful

adjective
1.
Experiencing or showing fear.  "Fearful of criticism"
2.
Causing fear or dread or terror.  Synonyms: awful, dire, direful, dread, dreaded, dreadful, fearsome, frightening, horrendous, horrific, terrible.  "An awful risk" , "Dire news" , "A career or vengeance so direful that London was shocked" , "The dread presence of the headmaster" , "Polio is no longer the dreaded disease it once was" , "A dreadful storm" , "A fearful howling" , "Horrendous explosions shook the city" , "A terrible curse"
3.
Lacking courage; ignobly timid and faint-hearted.  Synonym: cowardly.
4.
Extremely distressing.  Synonym: frightful.  "A frightful mistake"
5.
Timid by nature or revealing timidity.  Synonyms: timorous, trepid.  "In a timorous tone" , "Cast fearful glances at the large dog"



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"Fearful" Quotes from Famous Books



... understand what happens as the buoyant carbon vapors soar upwards through the sun's atmosphere. They attain at last to an elevation where the fearful intensity of the solar heat has so far abated that, though nearly all other elements may still remain entirely gaseous, yet the exceptionally refractory carbon begins to return to the liquid state. At the first stage in this return, the carbon vapor conducts itself ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... falls of the James. Arms, ammunition, and stores were sent up the rivers in sloops. The well-to-do planters were angered when their horses and corn were taken for the expedition, but at any show of resistance they were threatened and intimidated. One of Bacon's men told John Mann, "with many fearful oaths, as God damn his blood, sink him and rot him, ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... the Christ would reprove us, If we found him and told him our trouble? It is fearful with no one to love us, And our pain and despair growing double. It is mad'ning to feel we're excluded From the homes of the mothers that bore us; And that man, by no false arts deluded, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... by a military court respecting those fearful papers, but they, as well as myself, were not satisfied, I for being sent for on so useless an errand, and losing my French lesson, and they because they could not discover whether I was a spy, or prove that I had circulated those papers among the fishing boats. After this ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... taking orders had served as an officer in the army. This Fray Diego was his constant companion. The baron inspired universal terror with his gloomy character, his eccentricities, and more especially by the fearful appearance of his face. The children were quite panic-stricken in his presence. Parents and nurses used him as a bugbear to make ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... fearful shadows. Ordella. — So is sleep, sir; Or anything that's merely ours, and mortal; We were begotten gods else. But those fears Feeling but once the fires of nobler thoughts, Fly, like the shapes of ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... consequences be what they may; and that if by doing this Ohio should be lost to the Republicans it ought to be lost. In other words, no victory is worth having if it is to be brought about upon such conditions as those,—if it is to be purchased at such a fearful cost as was paid ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... have my doubts as to this fearful war in which we are engaged. You entered upon it, you say, to carry out your treaty obligations to Austria. Treaties, no doubt, are sacred things. But why, then, was not the treaty obligation to Belgium ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various

... had been a pond. A farm-house had stood near it. It had long ago passed away. Two huge pine-trees preserved its memory; the wind was for ever droning and sullenly murmuring in their high gaunt green tops. There were mysterious tales among the people of a fearful crime supposed to have been committed under them; they used to tell, too, that not one of them would fall without bringing death to some one; that a third had once stood there, which had fallen in a storm ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev

... rocks. Here is what is called the Raudal de Cariven. We passed through channels that were not five feet broad. Our canoe was sometimes jammed between two blocks of granite. We sought to avoid these passages, into which the waters rushed with a fearful noise; but there is really little danger, in a canoe steered by a good Indian pilot. When the current is too violent to be resisted the rowers leap into the water, and fasten a rope to the point of a rock, to warp the boat along. This manoeuvre ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... compelled belief; something in his face told her that he was a man by whom the inevitable hardships of winter and summer travel, fearful as they are, would ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White

... back to Paris for supplies and to bring the women overland in the automobile, because he was somewhat fearful lest they might be held up if they attempted to go out by train. The idea of women in the camps was so new to our American soldiers, and so distasteful to the French, that they presented quite a problem until their work fully ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill

... the moonlight falling over it, and displaying all its horror. The snakes, whose venomous natures could not altogether sleep, kept twisting themselves over the forehead. It was the fiercest and most horrible face that ever was seen or imagined, and yet with a strange, fearful, and savage kind of beauty in it. The eyes were closed, and the Gorgon was still in a deep slumber; but there was an unquiet expression disturbing her features, as if the monster was troubled with an ugly dream. She gnashed her white tusks, ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... have been jumping. Quiverings, undulations, coming from afar, flowed like a river beneath the skin. When she pressed a little she felt she distinguished the suffering cries of the marrow. What a fearful thing, something was boring away like a mole! It must be the rotgut from l'Assommoir that was hacking away inside him. Well! his entire body ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... This fearful farce was enacted in the cemetery of St. Ouen, behind the beautifully severe monastic church so called, and which had by that day assumed its present appearance. On a scaffolding raised for the purpose sat Cardinal Winchester, the two judges, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... means. Indeed, I was filled with nothing but disgust first, and terror afterwards. The first sight which I had of the ocean was much less satisfactory to me than would have been my father's duck-pond. I soon got miserably sick; night came on, dark and fearful; the winds rose; the waves dashed with great force against the ship's sides, often breaking over the deck, and wetting me to the skin. I was shivering with cold; I was afraid that I should be washed overboard; I was afraid that I should be killed by something tumbling on me from ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... whom she could share the knowledge acquired at Wallingford; that had to be endured alone. At Praed Street she found her aunt gazing at her curiously, sometimes beginning a sentence, and stopping, as one fearful of trespassing on prohibited ground. When Mr. Trew called, he and Mrs. Mills conferred in undertones, breaking off when the girl came near, and speaking, in an unconvincing way, of an interesting murder ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... shock, a great wave was seen from the distance of three or four miles, approaching in the middle of the bay with a smooth outline; but along the shore it tore up cottages and trees, as it swept onwards with irresistible force. At the head of the bay it broke in a fearful line of white breakers, which rushed up to a height of 23 vertical feet above the highest spring-tides. Their force must have been prodigious; for at the Fort a cannon with its carriage, estimated at four tons in weight, was moved 15 feet inwards. A schooner was left ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... sudden divine vengeance no longer pales the cheek of the perjurer. If the vengeance is not sudden, then, according to the church, the criminal will have plenty of time to repent; so that the oath no longer affects even the fearful. Would it not be better for the church to teach that telling the falsehood is the real crime, and that taking the oath neither adds to nor takes from its enormity? Would it not be better to teach that he who does wrong must suffer the consequences, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... and asked if Susan was ready to go with him. At the sound of his voice, Gifted Hopkins smote his forehead, and called himself, in subdued tones, a miserable being. His imagination wavered uncertain for a while between pictures of various modes of ridding himself of existence, and fearful deeds involving the life of others. He had no fell purpose of actually doing either, but there was a gloomy pleasure in contemplating them as possibilities, and in mentally sketching the "Lines written in Despair" which would be found in what was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... carry it, Deerslayer, and ships I know do use such things. Have you never heard any fearful stories about Thomas Hutter's having once been concerned with the people ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... objective with less fearful slaughter, but at the moment when there should have been the sharp clash and clang of steel on steel, the cries and groans of men fighting for their lives, we heard the bugles from far and near, sounding the "stand by," and friend and enemy dropped wearily ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... artificial darkness of the parlour, into which only one thin jet of sunlight penetrated, the stranger, hungry we must suppose, and fearful, hidden in his uncomfortable hot wrappings, pored through his dark glasses upon his paper or chinked his dirty little bottles, and occasionally swore savagely at the boys, audible if invisible, outside the windows. In the corner by ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... and they alone, who can save marriage; they hold all life in their hands. Never before in the world has the opportunity been so vast; it is a fearful thing to find oneself among realities. To you, who to-day are young, negligence no longer is possible. Listen to what I tell you: those heroes who have died for this England of ours cry to you for children to hold their memories and make their ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... Gnecco managed to make his voice heard above the din of his compatriots. "All these comrades," he explained in Italian, "have escaped like ourselves from the savage reaction which actually holds Italy in its sway. They arrived this morning after a fearful journey which lack of money compelled them to ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... present safety. The modern civilized world had suddenly broken loose from many of its anchors, but so conspicuous a man as Auersperg could not stain his name with a deed that would brand him throughout Europe. Weber, however, had spoken of a morganatic marriage, and fearful pressure might be brought to bear. A country so energetic and advanced as Germany had clung, nevertheless, to many repellent principles of medievalism. A nation listened with calm acceptance and complacency, while ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... ful: as, fear, fearful; cheer, cheerful; grace, graceful; shame, shameful; power, powerful. These come almost entirely from personal qualities or feelings, and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... very strange night—such a night as never had been passed in that house before; and fearful things were about in the darkness, ill dreams, strange shadows of trouble. When Sir Tom woke in the morning and found no sign that his wife had been in the room or any trace of her, there arose once more a painful apprehension in his mind. He hurried half-dressed to the nursery to ask for ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... of unconcerned nonsense that was, her strange, new instinct told her, best calculated to quite his vibrant nerves. "Little child, little child," he returned mutely, "how little you know! Well—as you are so innocent, why should not I snatch this fearful joy while I may? It harms no one but myself, and such pain is better than any ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... and smile. I fancy 'tis a trick—I'll try.—I would disguise to all the world a failing which I must own to you: I fear my happiness depends upon the recovery of Valentine. Therefore I conjure you, as you are his friend, and as you have compassion upon one fearful of affliction, to tell me what I am to hope for—I cannot speak—but you may tell me, tell me, for you know ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve

... why men ever finalize their status with women," Kennon murmured. "It does no good. It doesn't convince the woman. She's still fearful, jealous, and suspicious—always belittling her ability to hold what she has, always alert for competition, clinging, holding, absorbing—when she should be working as ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... (the first that was laid out), saw the site of the first house, and turned round Carver Street, walking lingeringly, so as not to break the spell, out upon the hill-Cole's Hill—where the dead during the first fearful winter were buried. This has been converted into a beautiful esplanade, grassed and graveled and furnished with seats, and overlooks the old wharves, some coal schooners, and shabby buildings, on one of which is a sign informing the reckless that they can obtain ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... fit up those caverns, through which so miserably I wormed my way, with the grandiose luxury of the Count of Monte Cristo; that, as he says, the prophecy might be fulfilled which said: "Monte Cristo shall seem like a pauper and a penny gaff in comparison with the fantasies of our fearful wealth." ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... on the greedy tongues of fire, To make of those dread mounds a funeral pyre, As raging onward o'er their victims broke, The fearful conflict of the ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby

... drawing nearer, fearful lest they discover him before he could get close enough to hold them up; for should they run in different directions he could not expect ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster

... this to be supposed in the original play, or inserted by Hamlet, embodying an unuttered and yet more fearful doubt with ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... life away. And these people entreated me kindly, though, as others, they feared me much, holding me to be a wizard brought hither by the sea. For my sorrows had stamped so strange an aspect on my face that men gazing at me grew fearful of what lay ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... rushed out with one temple as it were smeared with blood, crying out: "Come forth, traitors!" At which uproar all the people rose to their feet, men began to lay hands on their weapons, and the kinsmen of the young men, who appeared to be giving each other fearful thrusts, ran towards the stage; when he who had come out first, turning towards the other young men, said: "Hold your hands, gentlemen, and sheathe your swords, for I have taken no harm; and although we are at daggers drawn and you believe ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari

... avowal of his claims. He consequently asserted his authority to forgive sins, his special mission to the sick in soul whom the scribes shunned as defiling, his right to modify the conception of Sabbath observance; even as, later, he warned his critics of their fearful danger if they ascribed his good deeds to diabolical power (Mark iii. 28-30), and as, after the collapse of popularity, he rebuked them for making void the word of God by their tradition (Mark vii. 13). His attitude to the scribes in Galilee ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees

... my lady for her lack of good taste. It therefore became his habit to speak of her intrigues before the court, and to name the individuals who received her favours. Now Wycherley, being amongst these, grew fearful his amour with the duchess should become known to the king, from whom at this time he expected an appointment. Accordingly, he besought his good friends, Lord Rochester and Sir Charles Sedley, to remonstrate ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... the same bundle, hell-babes in your own business, and sluggards in mine! You kill to-day and you'll lay it to me to-morrow! Ay, you will! you will!" he repeated frantically, and drove home the asseveration with a fearful oath. "The dead are as good servants as you! Foucauld was better! Foucauld? Foucauld? ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... an approximate knowledge of the number, the city government once ordered the persons thus arriving to be counted,—and that during the progress of the trials, at a time when the negroes were rather fearful of coming into town; and it was found, that, even then, there were more than five hundred visitors on a single Sunday. This fact, then, was the essential point in the plan of insurrection. Whole plantations were found to have been enlisted among the "candidates," ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... and anger, and should they arise I determine at once to cast them aside." It is a prayer, as it were, to the Will to stand by me, and truly the will is Deus in nobis to those who believe that God helps those who help themselves. For as we can get into the fearful state of constantly recalling all who have ever vexed or wronged us, or nursing the memory of what we hate or despise, until our minds are like sewers or charnel-houses of dead and poisonous things, so we can resolutely banish them, at first by forethought, then by ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... detects the spirit of this world in all its baits and allurements, and shows how man came to fall from God, and the fallen state he is in. Secondly, it begets a sense and sorrow, in such as believe in it, for this fearful lapse. You will then see him distinctly whom you have pierced, and all the blows and wounds you have given him by your disobedience, and how you have made him to serve with your sins; and you will weep and mourn ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn

... entrails as do men Who worship. Funeral pyres she loves to light And snatch the incense from the flaming tomb. The gods at her first utterance grant her prayer For things unlawful, lest they hear again Its fearful accents: men whose limbs were quick With vital power she thrust within the grave Despite the fates who owed them years to come: The funeral reversed brought from the tomb Those who were dead no longer; and the pyre Yields to her ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... it's been strange from the start, and so quick. You, in the middle of the storm that day—the things you said—the fearful tangle you were in. And then the letters—the wonderful letters! And we thought we were keeping it all impersonal. You, with your blazing individuality—you, impersonal! I can't imagine your face, but you've stripped ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray

... In this fearful war at least six hundred of the English inhabitants either fell in battle or were murdered by the enemy, A dozen or more towns were utterly destroyed, others greatly damaged, Some six hundred buildings, chiefly dwelling-houses, were consumed by fire, and ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... various schemes for arresting the advancing evil. The streets were powdered with lime and huge fires of tar kept constantly burning, yet daily, hourly, the fatality increased; and, as colossal ruin strode on, the terrified citizens fled in all directions. In ten days the epidemic began to make fearful havoc; all classes and ages were assailed indiscriminately. Whole families were stricken down in a day, and not one member spared to aid the others. The exodus was only limited by impossibility; all who could ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... also her brother's, as these resolute words fell upon her ears; but she had no intention of undeceiving the girl at present, for she knew that if she threw up the character which she had thus far been impersonating, their plot would be ruined and a fearful scandal follow. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... Canadian hymn book. I was so comfortable that I hoped our residence at Ypres might be of long duration. At night, however, desultory shells fell into the city. We could hear them ripping along with a sound like a trolley on a track, and then there would be a fearful crash. One night when returning from Brigade Headquarters near Wieltje, I saw a magnificent display of fireworks to the South. I afterwards heard that it was the night the ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott

... into the dining-room. A haughty head waitress, zealously chewing gum, ignored him for a time, then piloted him to a table where he found a party of doleful drummers sparring in repartee with a damsel of fearful and wonderful coiffure. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... you loved me. Let me say in return that I love you as wildly, tenderly, passionately, as if I, like you, had been born under a southern sun; that I cannot be happy without you. Forgive me for last night. It was not that my heart was cold, but I was fearful that unless I constrained myself I should be wild and extravagant. Dearest Clara, will you say to me that which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... to resist all assaults and inflict a great deal of damage upon the enemy. These assaults were continued to the middle of the afternoon, and resumed once or twice still later in the day. The enemy's losses in these unsuccessful assaults were fearful. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... as incantations to confuse many a mind to which these sounding syllables were no more than names; ignorant, therefore, of the stern necessities that drove Wellington to these victories, forgetful of their fearful cost, and above all ignoring or forgetting the axiom, on which rests the whole art and science of military engineering—that the highest and stoutest of stone walls must yield at last to the smallest trench through which a man may ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... every fifty men who think they can play poker one ain't mistaken," was the Girl's caustic observation. The next instant, however, she jumped down from the table and was back at her post, where, fearful lest he should think her wanting in hospitality, she proposed: ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco

... Rome, and commandant of the Castle of St. Angelo, a devoted servant of the pope, into whose custody Arnold was delivered, fearful lest his prisoner should escape by means of a popular riot,—as he had once done before in the same circumstances,—resolved to execute him on his own account; and, without waiting forfurther instructions either from Frederic or Adrian, but secretly abetted by ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... was only the betrothed wife of an obscure but conscientious person, named Joseph. This was a circumstance which occasioned him extreme perplexity, but tended to exhibit the strength of her faith. Joseph was fearful of her reputation, and meditated some plan of concealing what he supposed would be deemed the disgrace of his beloved partner; for the Jews, whose laws of marriage were very precise, considered infidelity to a betrothed husband ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... retired, with one servant, to a remote house of meaner dimensions, and were sought no longer by those who had come in our wealth. I looked earnestly around me; the present was cheerless, the future dark and fearful. My parents were dead, my few relatives in distant countries, where they thought perhaps but little of my happiness. Burleigh I had never loved other than as a father and protector; but he had been the benefactor of my fallen family, and to him I owed comfort, education, and every ray ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... chanted thanksgivings for the victory; they were led to the high altar and to the shrine of St. Alban. But the victorious troops, being little better than barbarians, flushed with unexpected victory, committed fearful excesses in the town, and even plundered the Abbey. Hitherto Abbot John had been a strong partisan of the Lancastrians, but the treatment he received turned him into a staunch Yorkist. Edward IV. when he came to the throne granted ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... and we carefully arranged what we should say. It was I who went before the magistrate and made a deposition, which was unhesitatingly received. But, oh, what a fearful day! My pulse is at eighty, and I feel I shall not sleep all night. Octave is half mad, and Heaven knows what will ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... lotus-eaters, fearful of fuss or novelty, and drowsily satisfied with themselves and life in general. The breezy healthfulness of travel, the teachings of art or science, the joys of rivers and green lanes—all these things are a closed book to them. Their interests are narrowed down to the purely ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... strength of will, that of a child. He has, so to speak, no executive talent. He is the doubting philosopher, the subtle metaphysician, the self-analyzer, always 'thinking too precisely upon the event.' He sees so far into the consequences of human action that he is fearful of taking decided steps. He has the nerve to kill neither his uncle nor himself, although he debates the latter question with great dexterity. He never effected any one of the plans upon which he had deliberated. Any one who reads ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... him how the time would drag until he allowed her to come again; he remembered the anxious, timid way in which she had once begged him that it might not be very long, and the way in which she had looked at him then, fixing upon him her fearful and imploring gaze, which gave her a touching air beneath the bunches of artificial pansies fastened in the front of her round bonnet of white straw, tied with strings of black velvet. "And won't you," she had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... Englishmen I have met have been very pleasant. I can readily believe that there are no better people living, but I feel so strongly on the subject, nationally—so bitterly opposed to a continuance of England's sea control—so fearful that our people may be lulled into a feeling of false security, that I cannot help trying to combat, with every small means in my power, anything that seems to propagate a ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... again, its destruction was, as St. Paul said, life to all nations. He destroyed Moses' law. But he, by so doing, put in its place his own Gospel. He scattered abroad the nations of the Jews, but he thereby called into his Church all nations of the earth. He destroyed, with a fearful destruction, the Holy City and temple, over which he wept. But he did so in order that the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, even his Church, should come down from heaven; needing no temple, for he himself is the temple thereof; that the nations of those which ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... mob, which, above all things, wants to have cheap wine. "Ruffians, armed with pikes and sticks, proceed in several parties to give up to pillage the houses of those who are regarded as enemies to the public welfare." "They go from door to door crying, 'Arms and bread!' During this fearful night, the bourgeoisie kept themselves shut up, each trembling at home for himself and those belonging to him." On the following day, the 13th, the capital appears to be given up to bandits and the lowest of the low. One of the bands hews down the gate of the Lazarists, destroys the library and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Sent heralds out, which basely on their knees, In all your names, desir'd a truce of me? Forgett'st thou that, to have me raise my siege, Waggons of gold were set before my tent, Stampt with the princely fowl that in her wings Carries the fearful thunderbolts of Jove? How canst thou think of this, and ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... For one moment his head appeared above the angry waters, but he was motionless, and evidently at the mercy of the waves. He was again drawn under the water, and was seen no more alive. Some days later his body was found four miles below the fatal Rapids. It bore tokens of the fearful violence of the struggle which he had undergone. His bathing drawers were torn to fragments, and there was a deep wound in his head. An inquest was held, and the jury returned a verdict of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various

... expected, which had been too elusive to be called hope, too remote to be termed happiness. She gave herself the luxury of this short outburst of tears—since nobody was near and nobody could see: there was a fearful pain in her heart while she rested her head against the cushion of the stiff high-backed chair and cried till it seemed that she never could cry again whatever sorrow life might still have ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy

... sword was out while the other was still speaking. "By Saint Mary, do you imagine that I am fearful of you? Never in my life was I more thirsty ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... soldiers take their case to be. [35] Now by all means let us see exactly how things stand with us. If from henceforward victory must fall to those who can reckon the largest numbers, your fears for us are justified, and we are indeed in fearful danger; but if the old rule still holds, and battles are decided by the qualities of those who fight, then, I say, take heart and you will never fail. You will find far more stomach for the fight ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... visit to Mr Oswald, and had a long conversation with him respecting his commission. On the resignation of Mr Fox, many reports to the prejudice of Lord Shelburne's sincerity, on the subject of American independence, had spread through France as well as through Great Britain. His Lordship, fearful of their effect on the confidence with which he wished to inspire the American commissioners, conveyed by Mr Benjamin Vaughan to Dr Franklin an extract of certain instructions to Sir Guy Carleton, of which the following is a ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various

... her thoughts are gone, She nothing sees—no sight but one! The maid, devoid of guile and sin, I know not how, in fearful wise, So deeply had she drunken in That look, those shrunken serpent eyes, That all her features were resigned To this sole image in her mind: And passively did imitate That look of dull ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... are overlaid with heretical emendations. The religion of my fellow-countrymen is a fiery furnace, Jerusalem a den of warring thieves. The rulers of earth are weary and turn a deaf ear on their peoples. The time is ripe for revolt. Sick of the accursed luxury and debauchery, fearful of the threatening barbarians from Asia and the boreal regions, who are hemming the civilized world, waiting like vultures for the first sign of weakness to destroy everything, the slaves in revolt—all these impending terrors assure me that the end of the ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... afterward take to the ministry mostly; Who always wear spectacles, always look bilious, Always keep on good terms with each mater-familias Throughout the whole parish, and manage to rear Ten boys like themselves, on four hundred a year: Who, fulfilling in turn the same fearful conditions, 160 Either preach through their noses, or go ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... mirror to see it in? Ever did this agitating, yet, as I now perceive, quite frivolous question, remain to me insoluble: Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, such even as the most have not; or art thou the completest Dullard of these modern times? Alas! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; and how could I believe? Had not my first, last Faith in myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid open, and I dared to love, been all-too cruelly belied? The speculative Mystery of Life grew ever more mysterious to me: neither in the practical Mystery ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... Her eyes, a little less fearful, rested on the erect figure of the nearest cowboy, just to the right ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... on my back, being jaded and shaken beyond his strength, for a man of three-score and five; and as soon he felt assured of safety he would talk no more. And to tell the truth he snored so loudly, that I could almost believe that fearful noise in the fog every night came ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... trials, using animals as passengers. This was followed by a captive ascent with a man as passenger, and eventually by the first free ascent in America, which was undertaken by one James Wilcox, a carpenter, on December 28th, 1783. Wilcox, fearful of falling into a river, attempted to regulate his landing by cutting slits in some of the supporting balloons, which was the method adopted for regulating ascent or descent in this machine. He first cut three, and then, finding that the effect produced ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... committees, in societies, in Sunday-school, who worked effectively in the Civic Club. She sang fairly well naturally, of course "adored music" and was an efficient enthusiastic worker when interested. But Lena Platt was never able to work when not interested. Periodically her "fearful nervous spells" would interfere with all duties. The doctor was absolutely subsidized. Had any other attractions appealed to him, his wife's early evidences of implacable jealousy would have proven a sure antidote. He was an unconscious slave. Her nervousness expressed itself toward ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... is upon the lees. As for America, we have so managed as to give her the appearance of triumph, and what is worse, encouragement to resume the war upon a more favorable opportunity. It was our business to have given them a fearful memento that the babe unborn should have remembered; but, having missed this opportunity, I believe that this country would submit with great reluctance to continue a war, for which there is really no specific object. As for the Continental monarchs, there is no guessing what ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... of an instant. They put a man inside a frame and a sort of broad knife falls by machinery—they call the thing a guillotine-it falls with fearful force and weight-the head springs off so quickly that you can't wink your eye in between. But all the preparations are so dreadful. When they announce the sentence, you know, and prepare the criminal and tie his hands, and cart him off to the scaffold—that's the fearful ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... Ere the world was, with absolute delight His Infinite reposed in thy Finite; Well-match'd: He, universal being's Spring, And thou, in whom are gather'd up the ends of everything! Ora pro me! In season due, on His sweet-fearful bed, Rock'd by an earthquake, curtain'd with eclipse, Thou shar'd'st the rapture of the sharp spear's head, And thy bliss pale Wrought for our boon what Eve's did for our bale; Thereafter, holding a little thy soft breath, Thou underwent'st the ceremony of death; And, now, Queen-Wife, Sitt'st ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... Rabenwald, that famous black steed, by means of which he vanquished all the champions at the great tournament at Bremen? and did not the same steed afterwards precipitate itself with its rider into an abyss so steep and fearful, that neither horse nor man were ever seen more? Had he not given to Dame Gertrude Trodden a curious spell for making butter come? and was she not burnt for a witch by the grand criminal judge of the Electorate, because she availed herself ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... hour I would have wish'd to die, If through the shudd'ring midnight I had sent From the dark dungeon of the tower time-rent, That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry— That in no after-moment aught less vast Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout Black horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout From the more with'ring scene diminish'd pass'd. Ah! Bard tremendous in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... our streets, defies our Sabbath laws, deluges our country with beer, and opposes all work for temperance and the salvation of our sons from the liquor curse. It is not the man from across the Pacific who commits the fearful crimes, and who is longing to put his hand to our political wheel and rule the United States. There are no healthier immigrants coming to this country. It is with difficulty, and only under pressure of necessity they are induced to leave China, so that the bugbear ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... so unexpected that De Fervlans for a moment seemed stupefied; then quickly recovering himself, he dashed into the thick of the fight, Vavel following his example. By this time the trumpet had been cleansed, but no orders were received for a retreat signal; instead, the sound it shrilled above the fearful turmoil ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... heartless flirtation Ending—I never yet met the man who could tell when it ended Enjoy the name without the gain Enough is as good as a feast Escaped shot and shell to fall less gloriously beneath champagne Every misfortune has an end at last Exclaimed with Othello himself, "Chaos was come again;" Fearful of a self-deception where so much was at stake Fighting like devils for conciliation Finish in sorrow what you have begun in folly Gardez vous des femmes, and more especially if they be Irish Green silk, "a little off the grass, and on the bottle" Had a most remarkable ...
— Quotes and Images From The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer • Charles James Lever

... who, out of friendship for St. Francis, had come with six of his companions to this assembly and who heard this discourse, was fearful lest what he said and did was perhaps an exaggeration, and that it might seem to be tempting the Lord, if some steps were not taken for procuring food for so great a multitude. But he was of a very different ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... my grief, indeed is great, Coming here when I had thought That admonished thou wert taught To o'ercome the stars and fate, Still to see such rage abide In the heart I hoped was free, That thy first sad act should be A most fearful homicide. How could I, by love conducted, Trust me to thine arms' embracing, When their haughty interlacing, Has already been instructed How to kill? For who could see, Say, some dagger bare and bloody, By some wretch's heart made ruddy, But would fear it? Who ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... Marmaduke could not bring himself to take any interest in Mr. Glascock's affairs, and would not ask a single question respecting the fearful American female whom this unfortunate man was about to translate to the position of an English peeress, yet circumstances so fell out that before three days were over he and Mr. Glascock were thrown together in very intimate relations. Sir Marmaduke had learned ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... not attempt to describe: their nature is best shown in the effect they produced—the almost overwhelming agony of body and mind, which had borne him, like a stricken plant, unresisting to the earth. But now that, in the calm and solitude of his chamber, he had leisure to review the fearful events conspiring to produce this extremity, his anguish of spirit was even deeper than when the first rude shock of conviction had flashed upon his understanding. A tide of suffering, that overpowered, without rendering him sensible ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... long before the Druid was within a hundred fathoms of the flag-ship, on her weather-quarter, shoving the brine before her in a way to denote a fearful momentum. It was evidently the intention of Captain Blewet to cross the Plantagenet's stern, and to luff up under her lee quarter; the safest point at which he could approach, in so heavy a swell, provided it were done with discretion. Captain Blewet had a reputation for handling his frigate ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... "This is indeed a fearful thing. Child as you are, you will have to pay the penalty of your deed; so to-night you must fly to Yedo in secret, and take service with some noble Samurai, and perhaps in time you may become ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... dazed, and for a moment seemed not to know what next to do, or which way to turn. They did not dare now go back to the fated First Article, according to the program agreed upon, as Mr. Sherman and Mr. Howe had demonstrated its weakness, and they were fearful of going to the Second or Third, as in the then temper of the anti-impeachers it was manifest there would be little hope for either of them, and the other eight had been already beaten without a vote, at the conference previously held, and by ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross

... yet another. She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so long, it was necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and, though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown. Had she been near Marlott she would ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... in violence. The rain began to pour in torrents, and the thunder and lightning to succeed each other in fearful rapidity. My sister sprang to waken the Frenchman. "Get up, Vitelle, quick," cried she, in French, "run up the bank for Mata and Mr. Arthur—tell them to ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... of fearful aspect. As soon as one enters one is seized by the sense of a mournfulness beyond words, by an oppression as of something too heavy, too crushing, almost superhuman. The impotent little flames of the candles, ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti

... the thing up with me,—with ME, you know, and I'll see you through." An idea, as yet vague, that he could turn Collinson's unexpected docility to his own purposes, possessed him even in his embarrassment, and he was still more strangely conscious of his inordinate vanity gathering a fearful joy from Collinson's evident admiration. It was heightened by his captive's ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte

... advancing tide of barbarians swept over them, they ceased to exist as a nation. Contributions were levied on the cities, the country was laid waste, villas were razed to the ground, and on all the points where the natives endeavoured to face the enemy, fearful hecatombs were slaughtered by the ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... Not much—not anything, like the man's religion, to speak of. Hope bears up many a man, though it pays no bills to the grocer, milliner, tailor, or market man. It is the vertebra which steadies him plumb up to a positive perpendicular. A hopeless man or woman—how fearful! They very soon become round-shouldered, limp and weak, and drink little but unsizable sighs, and feed on all manner of dark and unhealthy things. It is TODD'S deliberate opinion that if a cent can't be laid up, Hope should. Hope with empty pockets is rich compared ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various

... their belief they differ widely. The speaker in Christmas-Eve is a genial if caustic observer, submitting with robust tolerance to the specks in the water which quenches his thirst; the speaker of Easter-Day is an anxious precisian, fearful of the contamination of earth, and hoping that he may "yet escape" the doom of too facile content. The problem of the one is, what to believe; the problem of the other, how to believe; and each is helped towards a solution by a vision of divine love. But the Easter-Day Vision conveys ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... choking his breath. Perhaps if, as he had desired, he had gone away, Susan would be spared. But Stephen was right; nothing could keep her from the pronouncement of the words that would free him and bind herself in intolerable ill. Her uprightness was terrible. It would take her fearful but determined into the pits of any hell. His hands slowly clenched, his muscles tightened, in a spasm of anguish. God, why hadn't he recognized the desperation in Essie's quivering face! It would have been already too late, he added in thought; it ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... collect yourselves. Gaze not upon me with those fixed and anxious looks! Cast not such timid glances on every side! I but give utterance to the wish of all. Is not my voice the voice of your own hearts? Who, in this fearful night, ere he seeks his restless couch, but on bended knee will, in earnest prayer, seek to wrest his life as a cherished boon from heaven? Ask each other! Let each ask his own heart! And who but exclaims with me,—"Egmont's ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... afterwards, threatening vengeance on the miscreant for having robbed the service of one of its best men. Finding himself weak from loss of blood, he deliberately unscrewed his head, threw it violently at the foe, and took him on the spine; down he tumbled; the veteran jumped upon him; fearful was the struggle; chest to chest, fist to fist; at last they joined in the death grapple, and dreadful ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... of confessing how much she had overheard, but she was tremendously interested—almost fearful for the man's safety, she hardly dared ask herself why. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... that the Desert is the sole thing not enjoined to 'bless the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever.' This is because when our illustrious father, the Lord Adam, and his august consort, the Lady Eve, were expelled from Eden, Eblis the Accursed, fearful lest mankind should return ultimately to the favour of Allah, set himself to burn and lay waste all the lands east and ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling

... somewhat distrustful of Charles's foreign policy, and fearful of his leanings toward Roman Catholicism, found in the Declaration of Indulgence a serious infraction of parliamentary authority. The royal right to "suspend" laws upon occasion had undoubtedly been exercised ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... sight to see that ship dashing straight towards the shore at fearful speed; and those who looked on seemed to be impressed with a vague feeling that she had power to spring upon the strand and continue her swift career through the forest, as she had hitherto cleft ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... and wild, filled Egon's heart at these thoughts, and above all rose the fearful suspicion of the man's fidelity to his flag and country. Was his presence at the dangerous outpost an answer to suspicions, or was it a cloak ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... I perceived in every thing that related to the count, a spirit very different from that of frenzy. It is thus that I have plunged from uncertainty to uncertainty. From adopting a solution wild and absurd, I am thrown back upon a darkness still more fearful, and am lost in conjectures of the most ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... to give a negative to the hopes of the noble family, whose only disgrace is, that so very vile a man is so nearly related to them. But yet—alas! my dear, I am so fearful of consequences, so selfishly fearful, if this negative must be given—I don't know what I should say—but give me leave to suspend, however, this negative till I hear from ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson

... fearful to look upon. The embouchure, well known to old traders, has been scientifically surveyed in our day by Lieutenant Alph. Fleuriot de Langle, of La Malouine (1845), and the chart was corrected from a survey ordered by Capitaine Bouet- Willaumez (1849); ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... a great resemblance to that of Thingvalla; but the third one was again fearful. Lava covered it, and was quite overgrown with that whitish moss, which has a beautiful appearance when it only covers a portion of the lava, and when black masses rise above it, but which here presented a most ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... her his sight of the King and Court at Versailles, and the wonderful marble-work and mirrors in that palace; wrote next from Lyons; then, after a comparatively long interval, from Turin, narrating his fearful adventures in crossing Mont Cenis on mules, and how he was overtaken with a terrific snowstorm, which had well-nigh been the end of him, and his tutor, and his guides. Then he wrote glowingly of Italy; and Barbara could see the development of her husband's mind reflected ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... street Lena turned the corner to her right. The two boys as a consequence had to run in order not to lose sight of her. They were fearful lest she should slip away from them and therefore were greatly relieved when they came to the turn and saw her still in ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene

... was terrified by the fearful aspect of Mr. Fairfield when he entered the room, and for weeks the awful expression upon his face haunted her like the vision of a midnight ghost. Levi was startled, and Mrs. Fairfield, accustomed as she was to the ways ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic

... at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but not like that leaving a wound behind it,—sudden as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale explosion,—is one of the most fearful and mysterious weapons that arm the hand of man. The old Romans knew how formidable, even in contest with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, and shield, was the almost naked retiarius with his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin in the other. Once get a net over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... so bad—really in its essence it is not bad at all. If we only give the other man a real chance. It is the pushing and pulling and demanding of one human being toward another that smother the best in us, and make life a fearful strain. Of course there is a healthy demanding as well as an unhealthy demanding, but, so far as I know, the healthy demanding can come only when we are clear of personal resistance and can demand on the strength of a true principle and without selfish emotion. There is a kind of gentle, ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call

... addressed Mr Reece: "Your ship and mine belong to the same owners, and I want as many of your men as can be spared to assist my people in repairing our damages, for we are terribly short-handed. We encountered fearful weather in coming round Cape Horn, when we had the misfortune to lose four men overboard, three more were killed by the only whale we have yet taken, two deserted at Juan Fernandez with the idea of playing Robinson Crusoe, though they'll very soon get sick of that, and five others are too sick to ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston

... here, and see if there will not soon appear the answering signals of Traitors all over the Land. * * * If these men do mean to light the torch of War in all our homes; if they have resolved to begin the fearful work which will redden our streets, and this Capitol, with blood, the American People should know it at once, and ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan



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