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Apprehensive   Listen
adjective
Apprehensive  adj.  
1.
Capable of apprehending, or quick to do so; apt; discerning. "It may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive... friend, is listening to our talk."
2.
Knowing; conscious; cognizant. (R.) "A man that has spent his younger years in vanity and folly, and is, by the grace of God, apprehensive of it."
3.
Relating to the faculty of apprehension. "Judgment... is implied in every apprehensive act."
4.
Anticipative of something unfavorable' fearful of what may be coming; in dread of possible harm; in expectation of evil. "Not at all apprehensive of evils as a distance." "Reformers... apprehensive for their lives."
5.
Sensible; feeling; perceptive. (R.) "Thoughts, my tormentors, armed with deadly stings, Mangle my apprehensive, tenderest parts."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Apprehensive" Quotes from Famous Books



... had a mind to know what Condition it should be in, when he had laid aside the Body, and was separated from it; which he persuaded himself would not be, till the Body ceas'd to continue a fit Instrument for its use. Therefore he consider'd all his Apprehensive Faculties, and perceiv'd that every one of them did sometimes apprehend Potentially, and sometimes Actually; as the Eye when it is shut, or turn'd away from the Object, sees Potentially.(For the ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... Relief Committee were apprehensive of a water famine. It was believed there was little chance that the present supply could be made to last until the water mains were in use again. R. H. Grant, head of the Relief Supplies Committee, issued an appeal to all cities ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... was nervous, apprehensive, every time she thought it likely that her lover was about to visit her. She dreaded what might transpire. She dreaded lest her power should be weakened before she had accomplished her end. It was difficult; it was nerve-racking. She ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... off home, who passed through Switzerland in every stage of want and despair. Every big town organized its soup kitchens at the railway station; women of the best families took the matter in hand, and so the huddling, apprehensive columns were passed from one town to another, fed, clothed, and comforted, finally landing in their own country, safe and sound. An enthusiastic letter of thanks has been published in the papers, emanating from these grateful "Chinks," (Swiss for "Dago,") and ending up with ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... temple of Juno, which at other times were plentifully fed, but now, by reason that corn and all other provisions were grown scarce for all, were but in a poor condition. The creature is by nature of quick sense, and apprehensive of the least noise, so that these, being moreover watchful through hunger, and restless, immediately discovered the coming of the Gauls, and, running up and down with their noise and cackling, they raised the whole camp, while the barbarians on the other side, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... long paper, setting forth their many grievances, with the intention of presenting it to the Governor. They first, however, requested the Council to join them in their demand for redress. This the Council with some sharpness, refused to do. We are apprehensive, they replied, that the grievances "proceed from petulent tempers of private persons and that which inclines us the rather so to take them is from the bitterness of the Expressions".[1021] Judging the Governor's temper from this reply of the Councillors, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... fell upon Edith's ears ominously and threateningly. They conveyed to her mind a menace dark and gloomy, and showed the full determination of Wiggins to maintain at all hazards the control that he had gained over her. Edith therefore was silent, and apprehensive of evil. She was afraid that she had said too much. It might have been better not to threaten, or to show her hand prematurely. It might be the best plan to wait in silence and in patience for Miss ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... concurred with him, implored and urged and scolded, till they ended by convincing her; for they were all apprehensive of the results of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... Brace and I started upon our excursion. A couple of sailors, friends of my companion, rowed us ashore and then took back the boat I was not easy in my mind until I saw the boat return without us; for I was still apprehensive that my tyrants might repent of their generosity, hail the boat, and have me taken back. I was not happy until I had put some bushes between myself and the river's bank, that hid me from the ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... McClellan; it was to be admitted that his predictions as to points of strategy had been fulfilled; that he had managed his retreat, or "change of base," with skill, and had shown some qualities of high generalship; but it was also evident that he was of a temperament so unenterprising and apprehensive as to make him entirely useless in an offensive campaign. Yet the burden of conducting a successful offense lay upon the North. Must Mr. Lincoln, then, finally accept the opinion of those who had long since concluded that McClellan was not the man ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... valuable benefice, which was at the disposal of Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Winchester. In answer to Dr. Porteus, through whom the last of these offers came, and whose friendship he enjoyed during the remainder of his life, he represented, in addition to other reasons for his refusal, that he was apprehensive lest his acceptance of preferment might render the motives for his writing the Essay on Truth suspected. He at the same time avowed, that if "he were to have become a clergyman, the church of England would certainly have been his choice; ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... than hurt, cry'd out Invasions, Depredation, Fire and Sword, the Northern Men would be upon them immediately, and propos'd to Fortify their Frontiers, and file off their Forces to the Borders; nay, so apprehensive did those Men of Prudence pretend to be, that they order'd Towns to be Fortify'd 100 Mile off of the Place, when all this while the poor Northern Men did nothing but tell them, that unless they would come to Terms, they would not have ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe

... tariffs were working economic disadvantage; the triumph of members of Congress and of the Supreme Court who favored a loose construction of the Constitution indicated that there would be no end of acts and decisions contrary to what the South regarded as her own interests. Some apprehensive people looked to Jackson for reassurance. But his first message to Congress assumed that the tariff would continue as it was, and, indeed, gave no promise of relief in ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... Sego, but that the king, wishing to relieve a white man in distress, had sent him five thousand cowries. From the conversation Park had with the guide, he ascertained that Mansong would willingly have seen him, but that he was apprehensive of being unable to protect him against the blind and inveterate malice of the Moorish inhabitants. His conduct, therefore, was ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... She tried to smile upon him, that what she thought would be her last look might dwell in his remembrance as tender and strong; she watched him to the door; she saw him hesitate, and return to her. He came back to her, and said in a timid, apprehensive tone: ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... his apprehensive air as the meal progressed. Perhaps it was because Ruth sat opposite. Alice said as much to her sister afterward, when they were ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope

... to be Samar-langa, likewise on the northern coast, and noted for its bay. Here, he says, the expedition, consisting of two thousand persons, was constrained to remain five months, waiting the change of the monsoon; and, being apprehensive of injury from the barbarous natives, they secured themselves, by means of a deep ditch, on the land side, with its extremities embracing the port, and strengthened by bulwarks of timber. With provisions they were supplied ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... she stood, burning with apprehensive dread. On one hand was the Prophet—trapped and unaware of his peril; on the other was Bale-Corphew—implacable, enraged, unrelaxing in his pursuit. She waited irresolute, until the cold, inquiring gaze of the Arch-Mystic made ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... usual place, with every appearance of innocence, as if nothing had happened; but this evening he did not let himself be seen; and on the following day, also, he was not seen by any of us; and in consequence, I began to grow seriously uneasy about him, and apprehensive that he might be lost for ever, but on the third day, one of my people, who had been to fetch water, informed me that he had seen Kees in the neighbourhood; but that as soon as the animal espied him, he had ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley

... they appeared in the shape of disorder. Without it France remained an unknown quantity. The king felt the resistance of the privileged and interested classes which was the source of his necessity, but he was not apprehensive of a national opposition. He was prepared to rely on the Third Estate with hopefulness, if not with confidence, and to pay a very high price for their support. In a certain measure their interest was the same. The penury of the State came from the fact that ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... deliberate, aimless way, sometimes vaguely resistive, again with free movements. She looked, dazed, sometimes stared straight ahead and looked "dreamy." Occasionally there was a tendency to close her eyes. With the restlessness she looked at times "a little apprehensive," or shrank away when approached. She spoke slowly, with initial difficulty, but answered quite a number of questions. The mental content of this period was displayed in the following utterances: She would ask for a priest, or say "Have I ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch

... not, by word or look, lead her to believe mine towards herself were less in earnest than they are; and it seems scarcely less honourable towards my worthy rival to endanger his own future happiness, should he discover later that his bride would have been happier with another. Why be so mysteriously apprehensive? If, as you say, with such apparent conviction, there is no doubt of your niece's preference for another, at a word from her own lips I depart, and you will see me no more. But that word must be said by her; and if you will not permit me to ask for it in your own house, I will ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... to your instructions I am holding Cold Harbor. I have captured this morning more prisoners; they belong to three different infantry brigades. The enemy assaulted the right of my lines this morning, but were handsomely repulsed. I have been very apprehensive, but General Wright is now coming up. I built slight works for my men; the enemy came up to them, and were driven back. General ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan

... state of happy confidence the governor set out for Nauvoo on the morning of June 27. On the way, one of the officers who accompanied him told him that he was apprehensive of an attack on the jail because of talk he had heard in Carthage. The governor was reluctant to believe that such a thing could occur while he was in the Mormon city, exposed to Mormon vengeance, but he sent back a squad, with instructions to Captain Smith to see that ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... for new levies on proposals musing. 'Tis true, that Bloomsbury-square's a noble place: But what are lofty buildings in thy case? What's a fine house embellish'd to profusion, Where shoulder dabbers are in execution? Or whence its timorous tenant seldom sallies, But apprehensive of insulting bailiffs? This once be mindful of a friend's advice, And cease to be improvidently nice; Exchange the prospects that delude thy sight, From Highgate's steep ascent and Hampstead's height, With verdant scenes, that, from St. George's Field, More durable ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... same time your Excellency notified me that, while granting the possibility of using new methods of retaliation against the new use to which submarines have been put, the Government of the United States was somewhat apprehensive that the allied belligerents might (if their action is to be construed as constituting a blockade) capture in waters near America any ships which might have escaped the cruisers patrolling European waters. In acknowledging ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... master. As I dozed, the music brought up before my imagination a kind of luminosity, with transparent dream-shapes. Next she played the "Sonate Pathetique" of Beethoven, and I at once felt heavy, depressed, and apprehensive. Mamma often played those two pieces, and therefore I well recollect the feelings they awakened in me. Those feelings were a reminiscence—of what? Somehow I seemed to remember something ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy

... He apprehensive? Why, he might have been the original man to go down to the sea in ships. Mother wailed that all the deck-chairs had been taken; Father found mountains of chairs and flipped a couple of them open as though he were a steward ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... and cut a path, much as if he were digging in the sand for water. When he got over that he was not much better off. The slope above was endless and grew steeper, more difficult toward the top. Slone knew absolutely that no horse could climb over it. He grew apprehensive, however, for Wildfire might stick up there on the slope until the line of fire passed. The horse apparently shunned any near proximity to the fire, and performed prodigious efforts ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various

... could exist between them without endangering the peace of Christendom. The immediate effect of the treaty upon ourselves will be felt in the security afforded to mercantile enterprise, which, no longer apprehensive of interruption, adventures its speculations in the most distant seas, and, freighted with the diversified productions of every land, returns to bless our own. There is nothing in the treaty which in the slightest degree compromits the ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... meetings in the forest—in that very glade where we had encountered the Indian girl, and in which we were still lingering. Her father was not aware of these interviews. There had been some coolness between him and the young hunter; and the lovers were apprehensive that he might not approve of their conduct. This was the prologue of the hunter's story. The epilogue I give in his own words: "'Twar a mornin'—jest five months ago—she had promised to meet me here—an' I war seated on yonder log waitin' for her. Jest then some Injuns war comin' through ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... upon earth. On the occasion to which I particularly wish to refer, I was accompanied by my Wife, to my secret annoyance, as I am afraid the Lady who does me the honour to share my name is unduly apprehensive of my safety, and, besides this general plea, I had yet another special reason for desiring her absence. To tell the truth, I had been greatly moved by a decision given in the Court of Appeal, whereby it seemed to me (and no doubt to many of my learned friends) the custody of a wife by her husband ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 2, 1891 • Various

... servant," he writes, "has suffered from many bodily infirmities. Relying upon the heavenly (i.e., your Majesty's) grace, I was appointed to go abroad on service of heavy responsibility. I am now feeble with age, having served at so great a distance; I also deplore my stupidity, and am extremely apprehensive of my inability in performing the functions devolving upon me. Since the sixth or seventh moon of the year before last I have suffered from insomnia. A year ago my spirits became daily more abattu. In the second month of last year I suddenly ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... that there was certainly a family resemblance. It appeared more strongly in the girl's face attired as she now was, her neck at liberty from the white linen collar, and her features cast into relief by a dress of dark material. Having felt a little apprehensive about the young lady's evening garb, Constance was surprised to find that it erred, if anything, on the side of simplicity. Though, for several reasons, not at all predisposed to like Miss Tomalin, she began to feel her prejudice waning, and by the end of dinner they were conversing in a very ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... again, as if apprehensive of an eavesdropper. The scene was becoming terrible. The passive personality had ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... Contrary to custom, it was Henry, and not Bell, who had flown into a rage at receipt of Gus Briskow's telegram announcing a slip-up in the deal—a sale to Calvin Gray; that message, in fact, had affected the son in a most peculiar manner. For days thereafter he had been nervous, almost apprehensive, and his nervousness had increased when he secured the back files of the Dallas papers and read those issues which he had missed while out of town. Since that time he had made excuses to avoid trips into the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... a Frenchman, and had been thirty years in the Dutch service. He arrived at Parlow and sent for Capt. Woodward. He wished him to go with him to Priggia where he resided, but Captain Woodward refused, being apprehensive that he should be forced into the Dutch service. The commandant then enquired where he intended to go. He answered to Batavia or Macassar and thence to Bengal. He did not offer Captain Woodward or his people either money, assistance, or clothes, but ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... shoot at a living target, so he took my dog away into a field and shot him there. I knew what he was going to do, but had no power to prevent it, as he had begun by persuading Mr. Cape that the poor beast was a nuisance, which he certainly was not. He was a very quiet, timid dog, of an anxious, apprehensive temperament, having probably never had reason to place much trust ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... waning, and they realized that they ought not to spend too much time on what might turn out to be a wild goose chase. They were in a lonely neighborhood, and while they were not at all apprehensive of danger, they felt it would be best to ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton

... arising from these regulations, to the disposal of the State in which it is levied. The States which, according to the public papers, have passed such acts, are New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Virginia: but the Assembly of Virginia, apprehensive that this disjointed method of proceeding may fail in its effect, or be much retarded, passed a resolution on the 21st of January, 1786, appointing commissioners to meet others from the other States, whom they invite into the same measure, to digest ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and Atheist have therefore no pretence to cheerfulness, and would act very unreasonably should they endeavour after it. It is impossible for any one to live in good-humour and enjoy his present existence, who is apprehensive either of torment or of annihilation—of being miserable or of not ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... Pacific, that a couple of perusals of the immortal lines had sufficed to stamp them in his memory. His "peak in Darien" was the sudden hour that had transformed his life, the hour of his perceiving with a mute inward gasp akin to the low moan of apprehensive passion, that a world was left him to conquer and that he might conquer it if he tried. It had been a turning of the page of the book of life—as if a leaf long inert had moved at a touch and, eagerly reversed, had made such a stir of the air as sent up into his face the very breath ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... (as we say in these days) which takes impressions retains all its delicacy from the fact that none of them have ever been developed, and perhaps it is a wise provision of nature that age in a heart unsatisfied should awaken lively apprehensive curiosity and sympathy about the manifestation of the tender passion in others. It certainly is a note of the kindliness and charity of the maiden mind that its sympathies are so apt to be most strongly excited in the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... forms the basis of the principle of public prayer, and I am conscious of it too, only it distresses me; moreover, the worst and most afflicting nightmare I have is the sensation of standing sightless and motionless, but with all the other senses alert and apprehensive, in the presence of ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... noise, started up and stared at the carpenter with an eye of fury, and then, placing his paw on the breast of his keeper, lay down to sleep again. At length the keeper was awakened by some of the attendants, and he did not appear in the least apprehensive on account of the situation in which he found himself, but shook the lion by the paw, and then gently conducted him ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst

... the table, was conscious of a slightly apprehensive glance in his direction from Miss Maggie's ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... jerk them back to prison-cells. Nor had they freedom of movement. When old Gow Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul, permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too, neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of the task of bossing two desperate convicts; but when they came she found it a pleasure to work with them. She could tell them what to do, but it was they who knew how do. Prom them she learned all the ten thousand tricks and quirks of artful gardening, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... their numbers are (as yet) not very considerable. Cruelty and injustice must, of course, exist: but why connect them with danger? Why torture a bull-dog, when you can get a frog or a rabbit? I am sure my proposal will meet with the most universal approbation. Do not be apprehensive of any opposition from Ministers. If it is a case of hatred, we are sure that one man[155] will defend it by the Gospel: if it abridges human freedom, we know that another[156] will find precedents for ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... Rochelle: but the commanders on that occasion would not undertake the responsibility of exposing the ships entrusted to them, to the great danger which threatened them if they made the attempt: they were apprehensive of being called to account. Buckingham was not fettered by considerations of this kind. He had had engines of extraordinary dimensions constructed, which it was expected would rend with irresistible power the mole in front of the harbour, by which Rochelle was cut off.[485] And who shall ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... not be apprehensive of hearing from me any degrading confessions," said Miss Sidney; "I have none to make: and since, without any just cause, without any cause for suspicion, but what a blush, perhaps, or a moment's embarrassment of manner may have created, you think ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... make any further effort in deception. He felt benumbed and impotent. A Power invisible to him fought against him. He could only lay down his weapons,—despicable, unworthy, as they were,—and let things take their course, while he looked on as one in a sad dream, apprehensive of the ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... afford an ampler scope for conjecture. The sanguine might form expectations of extraordinary consequences, and be justified, in some degree, by the reflection, that from smaller, and not more respectable beginnings, powerful empires have frequently arisen. The phlegmatic and apprehensive might magnify to themselves the difficulties of the undertaking, and prognosticate, from various causes, the total failure of it. Both, perhaps, would be wrong. The opinion nearest to the right was probably formed by the Governor himself, and such others among the leaders of the expedition, ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip

... countenance assumed an expression which it would be difficult to describe. There was, joined to his extreme paleness, a restless, apprehensive, and determined look; each trait apparently struggling for the ascendancy in his character, and attempting' to stamp his ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... Jones to absolute secrecy, and then I intimated to him, in a roundabout way, that the colonel and I were both very apprehensive of an attack ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... winter twilight gathered over the city, Gussie appeared to summon them to the library below, but she could not answer their eager questions, for she knew no more than they; and each girl looked at the others with apprehensive eyes, as each heart whispered, "It can't be that we have lost her,—that she is dead instead of sleeping." So with quaking limbs they hurried to the dimly-lighted study where the haggard President and ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown

... carry us to what part of Brazil we pleased, yet they would not believe it till they found it so. This, with some other unforeseen accidents, not necessary to be mentioned in this place, meeting with the aversion of my men to a long unknown voyage, made me justly apprehensive of their revolting, and was a great trouble and hindrance to me. So that I was obliged partly to alter my measures, and met with many difficulties, the particulars of which I shall not trouble the reader with: but I mention thus much of it in general for my own necessary vindication, ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... drove a prey of cattle from the lands belonging to the lairds of Crichton, Sanquhar, and Drumlanrig; and defeated, with slaughter, the pursuers, who attempted to rescue their property.—[See the following Ballad and Introduction.] The injured parties, being apprehensive that Maxwell would not cordially embrace their cause, on account of his late reconciliation with the Johnstones, endeavoured to overcome his reluctance, by ottering to enter into bonds of manrent, and so to become his followers ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... he himself might express it) tangential. There is no subject on which he has not touched, none on which he has rested. With an understanding fertile, subtle, expansive, "quick, forgetive, apprehensive," beyond all living precedent, few traces of it will perhaps remain. He lends himself to all impressions alike; he gives up his mind and liberty of thought to none. He is a general lover of art and science, and wedded to no one in ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt

... apprehensive! Santiago doesn't consider himself an Indian—and besides, he's not here. And what if he were! These are the nonsensical ideas of the newcomers. Let a few months pass and you will change your opinion, after you have attended a lot of fiestas and bailuhan, slept on cots, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... allowances for you, and comes to view your failings charitably, especially as they enure to his benefit, and so lean to Virtue's side. Fear of you he has none. Indeed, you inspire in him a certain sense of protection, for in your presence his habitual vigilance is lulled, and his apprehensive glances over his right and left shoulders fall to a lower figure per minute. He has learned there to feel safe from hawk and cat, and knows enough of other birds to be sure that none of them will "jump" his little claim of fifty feet square whereof ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... quite unexpectedly apprehensive tone, putting up his hand deprecatingly: "remember, here"—indicating the figure on the bed—"is an end of hypocrisy! No unrealities now: I cannot bear them. Let us have no trash of magnanimous injured husband, erring but repentant wife. We are man and woman, nothing ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... door, which usually stood open, closed and fastened: I knocked several times; but the whole house seemed buried in the repose of death: at length, after loud and repeated strokes, the door was opened by Wilson, whose cheeks bedewed with tears made me apprehensive that some great calamity had befallen him; I was however soon satisfied that devotion alone had caused this emotion. In an ante-room I found four or five naked Tahaitians, of the highest rank, as Wilson told me, on their knees reading the Bible. Having apologized for what appeared to be ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... and stared with unseeing eyes at the blue sky, and once under the heavy helplessness of it all she dropped on the side of the road and sat with her head buried in her arms—sat so long that she rose with a start and, with an apprehensive look at the mounting sun, hurried on. She would go to the Gap and teach; and then she knew that if she went there it would be on Hale's account. Very well, she would not blind herself to that fact; she would go and perhaps all would be made up between them, and then she knew that ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... one employed to take charge of the negro carpenters, of whom his employer wrote, "I am apprehensive ... that Green never will overcome his propensity to drink; that it is this which occasions his frequent sickness, absences from work and poverty. And I am convinced, moreover, that it answers no purpose to admonish him." Yet, though "I am so well satisfied of Thomas Green's unfitness ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... sin, that sting of hell, to pierce by its unutterable charging of it on the conscience, the soul for ever and ever; nor can the soul justly murmur or repine at God or at His law, for that then the sharply apprehensive soul will well discern the justness, righteousness, reasonableness, and goodness of the law, and that nothing is done by the law unto it, but that which ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... patron as "Doc." He never made that particular error again. Yet, to the credit of Dr. Surtaine's tact and knowledge of character be it said, O'Farrell was still the older man's loyal though more humble friend, after the incident. To-day he was plainly apprehensive. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... shrouding the child's parentage, however he might regard it, often roused within his mind thoughts dark and apprehensive. Only one communication had come from Padre Diego, and that some four months after his precipitous flight. He had gained the Guamoco trail, it said, and finally arrived at Remedios. He purposed returning to Banco ultimately; and, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... my way, indeed, seem to remember their physical ailments very distinctly, to judge by the way they talk of them; and are exceedingly apprehensive of their recurrence. Nay, it is curious to see how some old men will resent the compliments of their juniors on their state of health or appearance. 'Stuff and nonsense!' cried old Sam Rogers, grimly; 'I tell you there is ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... the women, the apprehensive noddings of the men, and the hushed voices of our old Confucian teachers as they spoke of the matter, indicated the concern with which they viewed it. Here was a boy who had been placed upon the throne by a woman; he was the same generation as the Emperor who had preceded ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... it is necessary to make some apology for producing this work in so trifling an age, when nothing will go down but temporary politics, personal satire, and idle romances. The true reason then for my surmounting all these objections was singly this: I was apprehensive lest the work should be lost to posterity; and though it may be condemned at present, I can have no doubt but it will be treated with due reverence some hundred ages hence, when wisdom and learning shall have ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole

... * * General Sullivan attacked them in this encampment on the 29th of August. They stood a hot cannonade for more than two hours; but the breastwork of logs being almost destroyed, and the Americans having reached the top of the hill on their left, they were apprehensive of being surrounded, and retreated immediately with the utmost speed. * * The behaviour of the Indians on this day was very courageous; they returned the fire of the Americans with great spirit and regularity; and would, it was thought, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... IV. had accepted the dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he worked too hard; banking all day and writing poetry all night were too much for him. Lamb, however, cheered up the dyspeptic poet. 'You are too much apprehensive about your complaint,' he wrote. 'I know many that are always writing of it and live on to a good old age. I knew a merry fellow—you partly know him, too—who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all that part, congratulated ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... have seldom seen here any indications of these Melanesians expecting money or presents; but we want to destroy the idea in their minds of their being fags by nature, and to help them to have some proper self-respect and independence of character. We see very little in them to make us apprehensive of their being covetous or stingy, and indisposed to give ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... demanded, and pulled his horse up abruptly. He was vaguely distressed at her blunt statement, apprehensive as to the reason for her flushed face and flashing eye, the slightly strident note in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... an undercurrent of something not altogether agreeable in the conversation. It lacked the gay ease of their first interview. He was not apprehensive lest she might have guessed his secret. There was, he felt, no possible means by which she could have done that. Yet the fact remained that those keen blue eyes of hers were looking at him in a peculiar and penetrating manner. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... how apprehensive and feeble were the first steps taken by our ancestors in moulding scholarship—how even the Latin classics, for example, had to be smuggled into the university market under all sorts of pretexts, as if they had been contraband goods. In the ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... a satiny rose-colored gown he had never seen before, came over to his couch to meet him. She looked very apprehensive and young and wistful for the role of Bold Bad Hypnotist. She bent towards him with her hand out, seemed about to speak, then backed, flushed, and acted as if something ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer

... in a small park, also gathers a fine flavor from age. In one of the many simple dignified apartments of this building my companion and I were introduced to the gentleman who was governor of the State at the time of our visit. It seemed to me that he had a look both worn and apprehensive, and that, while we talked, he was waiting for something. I don't know how I gathered this impression, but it came to me definitely. After we had departed from the executive chamber I asked the gentleman who had taken us there if the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... republican government, this gloomy state of things was viewed with deep chagrin. Many became apprehensive that those plans from which so much happiness to the human race had been anticipated, would produce only real misery; and would maintain but a short and a turbulent existence. Meanwhile, the wise and thinking part of the community, who could trace evils to their source, laboured unceasingly ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... inclosed herself in her resentment and her terror. Imprisoned in the palace of the Tuileries, she could not put her head out of window without provoking an outrage and hearing insult. Every noise in the city made her apprehensive of an insurrection. Her days were melancholy, her nights disturbed: she underwent hourly agony for two years, and that anguish was magnified in her heart by her love for her two children, and her disquietude for ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... for me, she said, or indeed for any of womankind. Why, I would not have had you put me on a level with women of the Heroic Age, with a Penelope, an Arete, a Theano; how much less with the chief of the Goddesses. Where the Gods are concerned (she continued; and mark her here), I am very apprehensive and timid. I fear that to accept a panegyric like this would be to make a Cassiopeia of myself; though indeed she only challenged the Nereids, and stopped short of ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... case, sir," I replied, "I would call to your attention the fact that you have asked but one question,—whether I were Signor Grandi. I answered that in the affirmative." You see I was apprehensive of what he might do, and desired to gain time. But he began ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... Grewgious should now know likewise—that I took a great prepossession against Mr. Neville Landless, arising out of his furious conduct on that first occasion. You know that I came to you, extremely apprehensive, on my dear boy's behalf, of his mad violence. You know that I even entered in my Diary, and showed the entry to you, that I had dark forebodings against him. Mr. Grewgious ought to be possessed of the whole case. He ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... Warrenton was a sort of neutral ground. At one time the Southern cavalry would ride through the main street, and next day a body of mounted Federals would pounce upon the town, the inhabitants, meanwhile, being apprehensive of a sabre combat in the heart of the place. Some people were ruined by the war; some made fortunes. The Mayor of the village was named Bragg, and he was a trader in horses, as well as a wagon-builder. There were two taverns, denominated respectively, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... wonderful news of the return of the dead. But nothing had come of it as yet; if there was a sensation in store for the literary world, Mabel's letters apparently contained no hint of it, and for a time Caffyn felt unpleasantly apprehensive that there might have been a hitch somehow in his admirable arrangements. Then he reflected that Mabel would naturally spare her mother as long as possible; he would not believe that after all the trouble he had taken, after Holroyd had ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... forty miles, and then he would come to a part of the country quite uninhabited; from thence he would enter the Indian country. They likewise told him, that all the wild beasts were afraid of fire, so that his best defence would be to strike a light and kindle some sticks whenever he was apprehensive of being ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown

... night we sailed safely past the Shetland Islands; and on the evening of the fifth day we passed so near the majestic rocky group of the Feroe Islands, that we were at one time apprehensive of being cast upon the rocks by the ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... Mountain so closely that he was compelled to retreat. Three fertile counties were thus abandoned to the enemy, and the Confederate sympathisers in North-west Virginia were proportionately discouraged.) Even Johnston, a most able and experienced soldier, although he was evidently apprehensive that Jackson's front was too extended, forbore to do more than warn. Nor was his interference the crown of Mr. Benjamin's offence. The omniscient lawyer asked no advice; but believing, as many still believe, that neither ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... answered, "for my mother waits impatiently the coming of my father. She is very lonely since my uncle died. Though Inez tries to comfort her, she, too, is apprehensive. The time set by my father ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... tavern, I saw an elderly lady who had lived with Mr. Pusey. She asked me how I was, and where I was going? I told her to visit my parents. She answered, that she really believed I was running away! Apprehensive of danger, I resumed my journey towards my father's, and on the road I met him. From my relation of the affair, he gave it as his opinion that it would be imprudent in me to return again; for he had not the ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... going to touch you—you needn't be afraid," he said. Reassured by the unsteadiness of his voice she raised her eyes to perceive that his face was ashy, his manner nervous, apprehensive, conciliatory,—a Ditmar she had difficulty in recognizing. "I didn't mean to frighten, to offend you," he went on. "Something got hold of me. I was crazy, I couldn't help it—I won't do it again, if you'll stay. I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... that way, I admit that the announcement was a mistake, Dexie, since it has made you apprehensive of your power to charm; but no one else doubts it, dear, and I feel sure that my Dexie will not put her friends in the embarrassing position that would arise if she purposely stayed away from the concert to-night. I grant that the announcement ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... II. Milton withdrew to the privacy afforded by a residence in Bartholomew Close, near West Smithfield. For a time he was apprehensive of punishment. His pamphlet justifying the late king's execution was, with others of a like kind, burned by the common hangman; but though parliament ordered the attorney-general would prosecute the authors of these works, Milton was neither ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... woman grew deadly pale, and cast an apprehensive glance upon Maitre Pierre, in whom the bravado of the young gallant seemed only to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... leaned out over the lake. Here my three dearly welcome visitors took up their station, and at once began to embroider the frosty air with their delicious melody, doubly delightful to me that particular morning, as I had been somewhat apprehensive of danger in breaking my way down through the snow-choked canons to ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... down at his table and pressed the bell. Harold, William's brother and co-messenger, entered with the air of one ready to duck if any missile should be thrown at him. The reports of the manager's frame of mind had been circulated in the office, and Harold felt somewhat apprehensive. It was on an occasion very similar to this that George Barstead, formerly in the employ of the New Asiatic Bank in the capacity of messenger, had been rash enough to laugh at what he had taken for a joke of Mr Bickersdyke's, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... and looked at the strong massive figure outlined against the bright panel of the open window. The influence of that mood of age lingered; he felt lonely and apprehensive. He noticed a number of empty flower vases about the room. Yvonne used to keep them always freshly filled. He wondered when she had ceased to do so and why. "You have rescued me from a mood that was almost suicidal, Thessaly. A horrible recognition of the futility of striving oppresses ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... Business was done. From thence I soon slip'd through Ludgate, but was damnably fearful of an Old Bailey always lurking thereabout, who might have brought me to the Fleet for being too Nimble, besides, I was wonderfully apprehensive of receiving some unwelcome Huggings from the W....n there; therefore with a step and a stride I soon got over Fleet-ditch, and (as in Justice I ought) I prais'd the Bridge I got over. Being a Batchelor, and not being capable to to manage a Bridewell ...
— The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard • Daniel Defoe

... the Doctor had insisted upon giving to von Rittenheim Gray Eagle and Bob's buggy. They could have done nothing kinder or more tactful, for Friedrich was apprehensive even of their seeing him for whom their son had given his life, and their insistence upon his accepting this remembrance of their dead boy proved their feeling towards him ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton

... the night was far advanced, and Mrs. Glibbans was rising to go away, apprehensive, as she observed, that they were going to bring "the carts" into the room. Upon Miss Mally, however, assuring her that no such transgression was meditated, but that she intended to treat them with a bit nice ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... he might carry his unwarranted show of assurance, and he waited therefore with amused interest the result of his demand. He did not, however, have long to wait for almost immediately the attitude of his questioner changed. He whitened, cast an apprehensive glance toward the eastern sky and then extended his right palm toward Tarzan, placing his left over his own heart in the sign of amity that was common among ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the ancients thought upon the subject appears from the following utterance of Aristotle: "A tyrant (the term applied to autocrats in Old Greece) must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do not easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side."—Aristotle's "Politics." Aristotle was born 384 B. C. at ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... be a gentleman, I must admit, but I have heard such stories of violence and rapine that I have some reasons to be apprehensive." ...
— Young Captain Jack - The Son of a Soldier • Horatio Alger and Arthur M. Winfield

... was now on, and, though we could not distinguish either the fishermen or their boats when we passed near one of their fishing-grounds, we could see the lights they carried dotted all over the sea, and we were apprehensive lest we should collide with some of them, but the course of the St. Magnus had evidently been known and ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... outside—soon became sickening. The overborne man appeared almost at his last gasp. The face, in spite of the warmth of the struggle, had an ominous pallor. The limbs barely sustained him.... The Trafalgar Square phrase that this man might be broken but not bent occurred to minds apprehensive at ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... class, feared that their commanding position would be impaired by the predominating influence of the people. The non-Hungarian portion of the inhabitants, choosing to ignore the fact that the new laws secured, without distinction of nationality, equal rights to every citizen of the State, were apprehensive lest the liberal constitution would benefit chiefly the Hungarian element of the nation. They, therefore, encouraged by the secret machinations of the Government of Vienna, took up arms, in order to drag the country, which was preparing to take possession of her new liberties, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... time during the ensuing night that he sat up, waiting for him, and taking watch after watch as it came round. But the morning dawned with still no sign of Marshall; and then the young officer began to feel seriously apprehensive; for he could not imagine that his leader should spend two whole days in Cartagena without learning all that he desired to know upon a matter which must be so widely discussed as the departure ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... to cast a half-furtive and wholly apprehensive glance over her shoulder, toward the doorway through which she had just passed. Then, she sprang forward like a young fawn and darted down the steps ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... goddess reclined on a crimson-draped seat, she, herself, swathed in white, and wearing a gorgeous necklace around her neck. Desiree Candeille, a little pale, a little apprehensive of all this noise, had obeyed the final dictates of her taskmaster. She had been the means of bringing the Scarlet Pimpernel to France and vengeance, she was to be honoured therefore above every other woman ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... there was a weakness in Booth's voice, making the listener apprehensive of the higher and louder tones. This insufficiency has passed away with practice and growth, and his utterance now has precisely the volume required in Hamlet,—being musical and distinct in the quiet parts, and fully ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various

... But the Governors of Cuba and Hispaniola, who succeeded him, being persuaded that these provinces furnished gold, resolved to make the discovery at the price of the lives of the inhabitants. In short, whether they thought the natives had conceived an implacable hatred to them, or that they were apprehensive of their superior numbers; or that the rage of slaughter when once begun, knows no bounds, they in the space of a few years entirely depopulated Hispaniola and Cuba, the former of which contained three millions of inhabitants, and the ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... or Almeria, who never existed, and they perpetually mistake plain William and Thomas for "My Beverly!" They have another peculiar misfortune; they require continual great emotions to keep them in tolerable humour with themselves; they must have tears in their eyes, or they are apprehensive that their hearts are growing hard. They have accustomed themselves to such violent stimulus, that they cannot endure the languor to which they are subject in the intervals of delirium. Pink appears pale to the eye that is used ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... Poet has come to make his presentment. The Painter, the more modest of the two, wishes his work to be admired, but is apprehensive, and would forestall the Poet's judgment. He means, it is a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... Wyatt, apprehensive lest his mission should fail, doubled the watch and then sought sleep. He did not find it for a long time, but toward morning he fell into a troubled slumber from which he was awakened by Early about an hour after the sun had appeared ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... fluttered, the boats moored to the palisades tossed to and fro; the waters were troubled, a thousand articles suspended from the houses dangled about,—the arms of the windmills spun rapidly around; it seemed as though a shiver of winter passed through everything, and that the city was apprehensive of a mysterious danger. In a few moments the sun shone out, and with it returned color, peace, and cheerfulness. This scene made me reflect that Holland is not really as sombre a country as many believe; it is rather very ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... greatest motive for that deed, were quick to fasten the guilt upon Giovanni Sforza, who by that time was far from Rome, riding hard for the shelter of his tyranny of Pesaro; and the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who was also mentioned, and who feared to be implicated, apprehensive ever lest his page should have seen the betraying arms upon the ring of his masked visitor—fled also, nor could be induced to return save under a safe-conduct from the Holy Father, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... into an alehouse, where he wrote an epistle to the old gentleman, informing him that they had a warrant to apprehend a lewd woman who was with child by his son, but that she had made her escape, and was now actually with him at a certain tavern in Drury Lane, wherefore being apprehensive of disturbance, and being unwilling to disgrace his family, rather than take rougher methods, they had informed him, in order that by his interposition the affair might be ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... composition of whole pages of narrative, descriptive, or cogitative matter being compressed as it were into a moment of time. Unfortunately, however, the impression made upon the ordinary brain is effaced as instantaneously as it is produced; the abnormal exaltation of the creative and apprehensive power is quite momentary, being probably indeed confined to the single moment between sleep and waking; and the mental tablet which a second before was covered so thickly with the transcripts of ideas and images, all ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... we entered the Simbani woods from this town, Isaaco was very apprehensive that we might be attacked by some of the Bondou people, there being at this time a hot war between two brothers about the succession: and as the report had spread that a coffle of white men were going to the interior, every person immediately concluded that we were loaded with the richest ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park

... frightened. She never liked to hear Hubert talk about those things, and it was so mortifying to have him take such a stand against the church and everything everybody—at least most respectable people—believed. She was sure he was saying something dreadful now. Mr. Gray looked apprehensive, too. Winifred's self-revelation of the morning made her feel like casting no stones ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock

... sunken garden where clumps of flowers bloomed dimly under the dark old trees, gave one apprehensive glance at the big house, which showed here and there a dully lighted window, and fled noiselessly in at the side door. They ran through a wide, bare, unaired hallway, and up a long flight of unlighted ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris

... much more, Sir, in commendation of your work, were I not apprehensive of being biassed by the subject. Still, that it would not be from flattery, I wilt prove, by taking the liberty of making two objections; and they are only to the last page but one. Perhaps you will think ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... determined that the means of Chili, furnished with great difficulty, should not be wholly wasted, without some attempt at accomplishing the objects of the expedition; and accordingly formed a plan of attack with the three ships which I had kept back—though being apprehensive that my design would be opposed by General San Martin, I had not even ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... suffered much wrong, while Sir Edmund Andros ruled over them," continued Grandfather, "and they were apprehensive of much more. He had brought some soldiers with him from England, who took possession of the old fortress on Castle Island, and of the fortification on Fort Hill. Sometimes it was rumored that a general massacre of the inhabitants was to be perpetrated by these soldiers. There were reports, too, ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of his wife's face, however, gave the worthy Lord Mayor an uncomfortable, apprehensive sort of feeling, the cheerful flow of his morning remarks died away in little sentences, as if the promise of their young life had ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... Democratic administration since Buchanan's time excited great interest in every detail of Cleveland's activities and characteristics.[2] Moreover, many who had voted for him distrusted his party and were apprehensive lest it turn out that a mistake had been made in placing such great confidence in one man. The more stiffly partisan Republicans firmly believed that Democratic success meant a triumphant South, with the "rebels" again in the saddle. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... kitchen and returned with a screwdriver. While Sutter looked on with apprehensive eyes, he began to tinker with the wiring. Suddenly there was a dull report and a flash of flame. Travail jerked his arm back as a thin streamer of smoke and the smell of burning ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi

... only biographer of Shakspeare; and even he can tell nothing, except to the Shakspeare in us,—that is, to our most apprehensive and sympathetic hour. He cannot step from off his tripod and give us anecdotes of his inspirations. Read the antique documents extricated, analysed and compared by the assiduous Dyce and Collier; and now read one of these skyey sentences,—aerolites,—which seem to have fallen ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... of all means of defence. Every man who has observed the ebb and flow of public feeling in our own time will easily recall examples to illustrate this remark. An English statesman ought to pay assiduous worship to Nemesis, to be most apprehensive of ruin when he is at the height of power and popularity, and to dread his enemy most when most completely prostrated. The fate of the Coalition Ministry in 1784 is perhaps the strongest instance in our history of the operation of this principle. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... in the shadow of Fear,—that greatest and most potent of realities. In truth she didn't know the meaning of the word. She had been afraid in her bed at night, she had been apprehensive of a block's walk in the twilight, but Fear—in its true sense—was an alien and a stranger. She had never met him in the waste places, seen him skulking on her trail through the winter snows, listened to his voice in the wind's wail. She ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... expecting them to precede her. To linger might renew vague suspicion, causing it to become more definite; and boys preserve themselves from moment to moment, not often attempting to secure the future. Consequently, the apprehensive Sam and the unfortunate Penrod (with the monstrous implement bulking against his ribs) walked out of the room and down the stairs, their countenances indicating an interior condition of solemnity. And ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... on his feet before we reached him. He was attempting to calm Miss Lawrence who was moaning, "He has killed him; he has killed him!" I knew she feared for Wallace, but I was much more apprehensive as to ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams

... well, dear Lady, quite." She smiled in her content. "So many slain, You must forgive me for a little fright." And he forgave her, not alone for that, But because she was fingering his heart, Pressing and squeezing it, and thinking so Only to ease her smart Of painful, apprehensive longing. At Their feet the river swirled and chucked. They sat An hour there. The ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell

... friend's chamber a phial full of this liquor, which I had given that friend, and having never heard anything of the experiment, nor having anybody near him who could tell him what this strange liquor might be, was a great while apprehensive, as he presently afterwards told me, that some strange new distemper was invading his eyes. And I confess that the unusualness of the phenomenon made me very solicitous to find out the cause of this experiment; and though I am far from pretending to have found it, yet my enquiries have, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... imperfect statement of the facts); "but, as the passage-way through the forest was narrow, I was satisfied that I could not throw troops through it fast enough to resist the advance of Gen. Lee, and was apprehensive of being whipped in detail." And in another place, "When I marched out on the morning of the 1st of May I could get but few troops into position: the column had to march through narrow roads, and could not be thrown forward fast enough to prevent ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... a shamefaced glance at the-wheelsman and made a quick and apprehensive survey of the sacred ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... the presence of enemies, the solicitude of Vose Adams was transferred to the two, who, hardly a mile distant, were awaiting with equal anxiety the coming of morning. They and he had agreed upon the plan to be pursued, but now, with the crisis at hand, the guide became apprehensive ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... for companions, whose insane oaths still tortured my ear, I asked myself if I was wretched or terrified. I was neither. Often in my life have I been far more so under comparatively safe circumstances. "How is this?" said I. "Methinks I am animated and alert, instead of being depressed and apprehensive?" I could not tell ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... apparently with a view to concealment. A broad-brimmed felt hat was slouched over his small black eyes, which glittered through its shadow like those of a snake, never fixing themselves on an object, but casting restless and suspicious glances, as though apprehensive of danger or treachery. Gliding into the room, and closing the door noiselessly behind him, he approached the table, and placed upon it a tolerably large casket, which he produced from under his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... her comprehend my hint, and she said, "This is true; but I am very apprehensive if I, wretched, should divulge my secrets; it may be the cause of great trouble." I answered, what strange apprehensions you form! do not conceive in your heart such an idea of me, and relate without restraint all the events of your life; never, never, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... Tigris was a long one, and in nearly every instance it would have been a question of months before help could arrive. Meanwhile, Egypt was at hand, jealous of her rival, who was thus encroaching on territory which had till lately been regarded as her exclusive sphere of influence, and vaguely apprehensive of the fate which might be in store for her if some Assyrian army, spurred by the lust of conquest, were to cross the desert and bear down upon the eastern frontiers of the Delta. Distrustful of her own powers, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... charities, no suspicion was excited. She had given to these organizations the greater part of the small fortune she had made from her play and other writings, not absorbed by taxation and bond subscriptions, but there were many wealthy women, hungry, sad, apprehensive that peace would find them paupers, upon whom she ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... with the consent of Burgoyne, tho he seems to have been apprehensive of the difficulty of managing a race of men whose manners were so ferocious, and whose motives to action must have been so different from those of the principal parties in the war. Burgoyne, in his narrative of this campaign, informs us that he took precautions to discourage that ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... pressing Messrs. Logan and Watt on the situation of things in the course of the night, Mr. Logan emphatically said; "That the beacon had an ill-faured[15] twist when the sea broke upon it at high-water, but that they were not very apprehensive of danger." On inquiring as to how they spent the night, it appeared that they had made shift to keep a small fire burning, and by means of some old sails defended themselves pretty well from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Dubois to understand that Jacqueline had been ill. I was apprehensive that he might question her and so discover her mental state; but the good man readily understood that an elopement causes much mental anguish in the case of the feminine party—at least this supposition was in line with the romantic requirements of ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... hands in supplication, as is frequently done on the stage and never, so far as I knew, anywhere else, and I am now not altogether sure that it was done in this instance. The man fixed his eyes upon her; they seemed to glitter bleakly in the moonlight with an expression that made me apprehensive that he would turn them upon me. I do not know by what impulse I was moved, but I sprang to my feet out of the shadow. At that instant the figures vanished. I peered in vain through the spaces among the trees and clumps of undergrowth. The night wind rustled the leaves; the lizards had retired ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce

... my dear sir, do not wander in the streets any more this evening. Our experience in the park has made me apprehensive." The minister lifted his hat, ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... whether the Southern attitude was "bluster" or "firm Resolve", Winthrop wrote, "the country has never been in more serious exigency than at present". "The South is angry, mad." "The Union must be saved... by prudence and forbearance." "Most sober men here are apprehensive that the end of the Union is nearer than they have ever before imagined." Winthrop's own view on February 19 had been corroborated by General Scott, who wrote him four days earlier, "God preserve the Union is my daily prayer, in and ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster

... extent, yes. The fact is, that I have for some time been convinced that I was followed about by natives of India, and remembering what my uncle had said on the subject, I became to some degree apprehensive, and thought it as well to leave London for a short time. That this attack was really instigated by the men I have no doubt whatever, since, as you have heard, it was begun by a Lascar, who tried ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty



Words linked to "Apprehensive" :   apprehensiveness, afraid, worried, perceptive



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