"Frightening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pressing business," cried the sanguine youth, as he dashed through the kitchen, frightening Alice, and throwing Toozle into convulsions of delight,—"horribly important business, that 'won't brook delay;' but what brook means is more ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... maidens and four other men from the fort, started upon the trail and kept up the pursuit until, early on the second morning, they discovered the Indians sitting around a fire cooking breakfast. Suddenly the white men fired a volley, killing two of the Indians and frightening the others so badly that they beat a hasty retreat ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... arm-in-arm, down Bridge Street, across the bridge, and then clambered up the hill. On the way he gave her the directions she asked for about her behaviour as bride and most honoured guest; and altogether succeeded, against his intention and will, in frightening her so completely as to the grandeur and importance of the occasion, and the necessity of remembering certain set rules, and making certain set speeches and attending to them when the right time came, that, if any one so naturally graceful could have been awkward, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... victim they should bring hither to destroy. It would take up a larger volume than this whole work is intended to be to set down all the contrivances I hatched, or rather brooded upon, in my thoughts, for the destroying these creatures, or at least frightening them so as to prevent their coming hither any more: but all this was abortive; nothing could be possible to take effect, unless I was to be there to do it myself: and what could one man do among them, when perhaps there might be twenty or thirty of them together with their darts, or their bows ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... pale, shivered all over, and swayed about in his chair, almost frightening the mendacious Yankee by the sight of the mischief his words had wrought. Tryphena, however, quickly filled the shocked corporal a hot cup of tea, and mutely pressed him to drink it. He took off the tea at a gulp, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... and bustle ceased; the big city gates closed with a clang, and the municipal guard, for all the world like Dogberry and his watch, made their rounds beating wooden clappers, not in the hope of catching, but rather in the hope of frightening malefactors away. ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... a time when Mr. Lloyd George's financial measures were arousing resentment and fear among the investing classes, and when preachers of the Tariff Reform creed were laying so much stress on our "dying industries" that they were frightening those who trusted them into the belief that the sun was setting on our industrial greatness. The effect of this belief was to bring down the prices of home securities, and to raise those of other countries, as investors changed from the ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... a hill near the lake, and began frightening the birds by the noise of the rattles. The Stymphalides could not endure the awful noise and flew, terrified, out of the forest. Then Hercules seized his bow and sent arrow after arrow in pursuit of them, shooting many as ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... not prepared to close the incident, but the idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my sense of humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightly down, found the front door, and, from the inside, opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurried scamper above, and the heavy fall of one ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... as she grasps in her little fingers one of the dead fish, and threatens to throw it back upon the stream. Her little feet hang over the edge of the bank; and from time to time, she reaches down to dip her toe in the water; and laughs a girlish laugh of defiance, as I scold her for frightening away the fishes. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... not to cry. These big girls called them "Infants," and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen appear just ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... and hopelessly struggled against his twofold fate; for he had fallen into a 'sink-hole' that the treacherous snow had concealed, and his driver, unable to extricate him, had abandoned him to his fate, or gone for help. Brandishing his whip, Tom shouted at the wolves in hope of frightening them off. They only raised their heads to glare threateningly at him, their jaws dripping blood, then voraciously resumed their gory repast, tearing great quivering masses of flesh from the struggling beast, which ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... Olympus, at least to touch the most human of the gods, Hercules: he wrote a -Hercules Auctionator-. The tone, as a matter of course, was not the most refined; very unambiguous ambiguities, coarse rustic obscenities, ghosts frightening and occasionally devouring children, formed part of the entertainment, and offensive personalities, even with the mention of names, not unfrequently crept in. But there was no want also of vivid delineation, of grotesque incidents, of telling jokes, and of pithy sayings; and the harlequinade rapidly ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... laughing, hallooing, breaking limbs off the trees as they pass, awkwardly struggling through briery thickets, entangled like blue-bottles in spider webs, and stopping from time to time to fire off their guns and pistols for the sake of the echoes, thus frightening all the life about them for miles. It is this class of hunters and travelers who report that there are "no birds in the woods or game animals of ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... does, he sat down by me like any other teacher, and heard me play the first movement. It was frightfully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me. Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the most sympathetic one I've had. You feel so free with him, and he develops the very spirit of music in you. He doesn't keep nagging at you all the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... travelled on foot from London it must be nearly three weeks since he could have exchanged a thought with any human being. I could not think of violating the laws of hospitality by having him seized and drenched with an emetic, and thus frightening him into a notion that we were going to sacrifice him to some English idol. No: there was clearly no help for it. He took his leave, and for some days I felt anxious, but as I never heard of any Malay being found dead, I became convinced that he was ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... stopping. And then you rush. 'Come on! Come on!' say the officers. Everybody gives a sort of howl and rushes. When you see men dropping, you rush the faster. The only thing that checks you at all is the wire twisted about everywhere. You don't want to trip over that. The frightening thing is the exposure. After being in the trenches so long you feel naked. You run like a scared child for the German trench ahead. I can't understand the iron nerve of a man who can expose his back by turning ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... walk close up to flowers on which they alight. There is one genus with transparent wings that frequents the white-flowered shrubs in the clearings, and I have sometimes advanced my hand within six inches of them without frightening them. There is, however, a yellow and black banded wasp that catches them to store his nest with; and whenever one of these came about, they would rise fluttering in the air, where they were safe, as I never saw the wasp attack them on the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... out to me that there exists a similarity between the scene of Umslopogaas frightening Alphonse with his axe and a scene in Far from the Madding Crowd. I regret this coincidence, and believe that the talented author of that work will not be inclined to accuse me of literary immorality on ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... away from the old man, he ran two or three paces, and then sprang clear over the head of a young lady, frightening her ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... could equally well be viewed and studied at a more reasonable hour did not move Tamara, and while her friend slumbered comfortably in her bed at Mena House, she had set off, a self-conscious feeling of a truant schoolboy exalting and yet frightening her. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... 'It is impossible,' said Mr. Windham in the House of Commons, 1791, 'to deem them (the Roman Catholics) formidable at the present period, when the power of the Pope is considered as a mere spectre, capable of frightening only in the dark, and vanishing before the light of reason ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... said in Berlin—while on a hunting expedition, he suddenly encountered a phantom female figure, dressed in white, who, springing apparently from nowhere, stopped in front of his horse, and blew a shadowy horn, frightening the animal so much that its rider was nearly thrown to the ground. The phantom figure then disappeared, as mysteriously as it had come—but that it was the White Lady of the Hohenzollerns, come, perchance, to warn Wilhelm of some terrible future ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... Lord Dunmore watched the events of 1774-1775 with helpless alarm. Particularly frightening for him was the formation of the "Independent Companies" in the spring of 1775. On the night of April 20 he took the precaution of having the small store of arms and ammunition in the magazine at Williamsburg removed and placed on H.M.S. Fowey in the ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... sculpture, a good picture, carries me back immediately to Felicia. In my early girlhood she represented art to me, and it corresponded with her beauty. Her nature was a little vague, but so kind, I always felt she was something superior to myself, that bore me to great heights without frightening me. Suddenly she stopped coming to see me. I wrote to her; no reply. Later on, fame came to her; to me great sorrows, absorbing duties. And of all that friendship, which was very deep, however, since I cannot speak of it without—'three, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... failings of prejudice, vested interest, well-meaning ignorance, conditioned upbringing, shortsightedness, preoccupation with other matters, and simple reluctance to change. The old ways were comfortable, and the new untried, frightening in their implications and demanding special effort. Nowhere was there enthusiasm for the positive measures needed to implement the Gillem Board's recommendations leading to integration. This unwillingness to act positively was particularly ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Jacob Flanders," wrote Clara Durrant in her diary. "He is so unworldly. He gives himself no airs, and one can say what one likes to him, though he's frightening because ..." But Mr. Letts allows little space in his shilling diaries. Clara was not the one to encroach upon Wednesday. Humblest, most candid of women! "No, no, no," she sighed, standing at the greenhouse door, "don't ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... he. And I demand to know, monsieur, by what right you and your crew of ruffians have dared to run aboard me in this outrageous fashion, driving my crew below, stationing a guard athwart my decks, and frightening my passengers very nearly out of their senses. Are you ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... unusual lines, and for that very reason dangerous lines—frightfully dangerous lines, he told himself, as an ugly enlightenment broke across his mind, warming it up for a few moments and no more. As he turned in the gate at the Rectory it was a relief to him—for his own thoughts were frightening him—to see the peasants moving away and the head of the gardener disappear behind the wall. He walked up the path to the Rectory, the lawn dotted over with sombre yew trees all clipped into the shape of torpedoes, all ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... lad make any outcry, that could only have resulted in frightening her, but he simply devoted all his energy to getting away from his pursuer, whose whole savage nature seemed to have been aroused by ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... Ashton!" And in his excitement he sprang from his seat, nearly upsetting the table and seriously frightening Mrs. Reid. ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... alternately storming and crying; Spain was about to send ships to Hartlepool to help the rebels; Mary Stuart would certainly be rescued from her prison at Tutbury. Then Mary had been moved to Coventry; then came a last flare of frightening tales: York had fallen; Mary had escaped; Elizabeth was ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... got away, but he also got away with eleven out of the twelve young chicks in that brood. He had dug a hole under the wire of the coop, then, by waiting his chance, or by frightening the chicks out, had eaten all of ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... the seals hauled up out of the sea, I built wide-spreading wings of low rock walls that narrowed to a cul de sac, where I might conveniently kill such seals as entered without exciting their fellows outside and without permitting any wounded or frightening seal to escape and spread a contagion of alarm. Seven months to this structure ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... from the ejection onwards. Don't do it. This isn't just nosing into the Slot, over the reef between the town and the island and letting go then, and beginning to sweat. This is much more, Harry. This is bloody frightening. Are the three minutes up yet? My stomach is crawling at the thought of you pushing that button and nothing happening. Listen, Bannister, you're not getting me down, so forget any assurances. I hope they never let you put anybody else ...
— What Need of Man? • Harold Calin
... at the farther side, over which the water ran in a clear stream into the purling brook, which finally led to the lake, where lived Ned's friend, the Fairy Queen. Down the silvery cascade he glided and whirled away through the running water, frightening the minnows and miller's thumbs lying among the stones in the shallow places, and startling the crawfishes and little fresh water lobsters hidden under ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... said, impudently. She flung him a bag of gold with a show of masculine strength. Out it flew through the open window, down to the pavement, frightening the steed from his groom, who first stopped to pluck the bag before giving chase to the wily horse. Down came the scullion, followed close by the gay young fop, who waited impatiently outside the door. The guard looked ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... extolling the merits of Dyott's Patent Itch Ointment, Swaim's Panacea, and Brandreth's Pills. More and more Americans were learning how to read, as free public education spread. Persuaded by the frightening symptoms and the glorious promises, citizens with a bent toward self-dosage flocked to buy the American brands. Druggists and general stores stocked them and made fine profits.[109] While bottles of British ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... and the next, it was the same, and at the expiration of a week, Ben had determined either to marry Rosamond Leyton, or go to the Crimean War, this last being the bugbear, with which he intended frightening his mother into a consent. He hardly dared disobey her openly for fear of disinheritance, and he would rather she should express her willingness to receive Miss Leyton as her daughter. He accordingly startled her one day by asking her ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... weak head, too," said Hamilton. "Now, just behave yourself, Bones, and stop frightening the lady. I'm perfectly sure she's fond of you—in a motherly kind of way," he added, as he saw Bones's face light up. "And, really, she is such an excellent typist that it would be a sin and a shame to frighten ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... physiological factor. Our schools are as apt in frightening it away as our churches are in inviting it. Sleep is the opportunity for repair. During its hours of quiet rest, when muscular and nervous effort are stilled, millions of microscopic cells are busy in the penetralia of the organism, like coral insects in the depths of the sea, ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... not for the world run the risk of frightening her, whoever she is," said Higson, when at length the lady ceased singing; "if we go on, we shall come directly in front of the room in which she is sitting; the window is open, or we should not hear the sound so plainly. We must try ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... says she, and looks up at him suddenly, a little sideways perhaps, as if half frightened, and gives way to a naughty sort of little laugh. It rings through the room, this laugh, and has the effect of frightening her altogether this time. She checks herself, and looks first down at the carpet with the big roses on it, where one little foot is wriggling in a rather nervous way, and then up again at the professor, as if to see if he is thinking bad things of ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... the tree, and hearing the bird chattering as before, said, "Well, good mother, hast thou brought the gold?" The bird croaked. The blockhead, supposing the imaginary woman refused to pay him, became angry, and threw up a stone, which frightening the bird, it flew from its nest in the tree and alighted on a heap of ruins at some little distance. He now concluded that the woman had desired him to take his money from the heap, into which he accordingly dug, and found a copper vessel full of coin. This discovery convinced him he was ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... growled in the distance, as if a gigantic dog were crouching way below the ground ready to jump up at the heavens, snarling and snapping. The muffled barking of the big mortars came from over there like a bad fit of coughing from a sickroom, frightening the watchers who sit with eyes red with crying, listening for every sound from the dying man. Even the long, low rows of houses shrank together with a rattle and listened horrorstruck each time the coughing convulsed the earth, as though the stress of war ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... know perfectly well that you were the ghost. Have I forgotten the night you planned the whole thing out? Anne White was there. I daresay she remembers it quite as well as I do. Of course, we thought you were enjoying yourself frightening the life out of people, but we wondered, both of us, how you dared. I remember you said how easy it would be to chase girls if they ran, and how easy to escape because you were the swiftest runner in college. Why are you ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... Boyd offered, irritated beyond measure at such stupidity. "Tell them to move the whole blamed village down to my place, women and all. I'll take care of them." But after an hour of futile cajolery, he was forced to give up, realizing that Marsh had been at work again, frightening these simple people by threats of ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... dragons, are proverbially stupid, and a clever hero with more wits than brawn has no difficulty in thoroughly frightening them. Grimm's story of "The Brave Little Tailor" (No. 20), with its incidents of "cheese-squeezing," "bird-throwing," "pretended carrying of the oak-tree," "springing over the cherry-tree," and "escape from ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... her," answered the Wuzeer. "Early every morning she comes into the garden to play among the flowers. If you come here early and hide you can see her without frightening her, as you would do if you ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... at last,—"I know just how you feel! It's just as bad as bad can be. But try and be a man, won't you? You can't bring the poor little creature back to life again,—and it's no use frightening your mother with all this grief for what cannot be helped. Then there's poor Kitty—SHE 'hates the quality';—her little heart is sore and full of bad feelings—all for the sake of you and your dog, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... to his amusement and disgust, found the remains of a cracker, which had burst beneath his foot-tread. There were several others scattered about, that had been unnoticed, because they looked simply like bits of paper. These had evidently been placed by his father amongst the gold, in the hope of frightening any one who might wish to finger it, and had rolled out with the treasure ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... The silence was eerie, frightening. Just then it was shattered by a muffled report, followed almost at once by another that seemed to rend my cavern walls asunder. Bits of ice dropped about me. I suddenly remembered a number of things I wanted to do outside, I turned and sought the guarded cavern of ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... Start from Johnson's Ranch A Bucking Horse A Night Ride Lost in the Mountains A Terrible Night A Flooded Camp Crossing a Mountain Torrent Mule Springs A Crazy Companion Howlings of Gray Wolves A Deer Rendezvous A Midnight Thief Frightening Indians The Diary of the ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... young and beautiful Princess Pamina is pursued by declarations of love from a negro-servant of Sarastro. Papageno comes to her rescue, frightening the negro Monostatos with his feathery dress. Papageno, on the other hand fears the negro on account of his blackness, believing him to be the devil in person. Papageno escapes with Pamina, but the negro overtakes him with ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... in the room when Hetty awoke, a little after four o'clock, with a sense of dull misery, the cause of which broke upon her gradually as she began to discern the objects round her in the dim light. And then came the frightening thought that she had to conceal her misery as well as to bear it, in this dreary daylight that was coming. She could lie no longer. She got up and went towards the table: there lay the letter. She opened her treasure-drawer: there lay the ear-rings and the locket—the ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... arms. He tried to soothe her and explained that he had missed her, had guessed that she would try to get home alone down this road and so took the short cut in order to catch up with her and make sure that she got home safely. He never dreamed of frightening her so, but she was safe with him now and there was ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... with any deliberate intention then of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... when the smuggling captain came and stood before him; but the man did not speak—he only glared down, apparently with the idea that he was frightening the lads horribly. Vince did not shrink, for he did not feel frightened, only troubled about home and the despondency there, as the time went by without news of their fate. For it was evident to him that the time had come ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... very good of you," said the Kangaroo gratefully, "and it is not the first time you have saved Kangaroos by your cleverness. I didn't know you Bitterns were near, so I told Dot to make a noise in the hope of frightening them." ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... worst temptation in the world is the habit of influence and authority, the desire to direct other lives and to conform them to one's own standard. The only way in which we can help other people is by loving them; by frightening another out of something which he is apt to do and of which one does not approve, one effects absolutely nothing: sin cannot be scared away; the spirit must learn to desire to cast it away, because it sees that goodness is beautiful ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cried, "you have not seen her! She must have kept her face hidden from you behind the veil! Oh, why, why did you cheat me into talking of it! I will never speak of it again. See, we are frightening the child! Come here, darling; there is nothing to be afraid of. Come, and bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, giving a grand dinner; and we will be two friends whom you have invited to dine with you; and the doll shall be the little girl who comes ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... tomfoolery you've been telling my girl?" he says. "I wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it—frightening an innocent female into fits. You ought ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... Roger Hunter for back taxes and repairs when he went broke in the Belt looking for his Big Strike. It wasn't much of a mining rig for anybody to use, and the dangers of a small mining operation in the Asteroid Belt were frightening. It took skill to bring a little scout-ship in for a landing on an asteroid rock hardly bigger than the ship itself; it took even more skill to rig the controlled-Murexide charges to blast the rock into tiny fragments, and then run out the shiny magnetic net to catch the explosion ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... sick, his illness is occasioned by the atua, in the shape of a lizard, preying upon his entrails; and, accordingly, in such cases, they often address the most horrid imprecations and curses to the invisible cannibal, in the hope of thereby frightening him away. They imagine that at other times he amuses himself in entangling their nets and oversetting their canoes. Of late years they have suspected that he has been very angry with them for having allowed the white ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... length concluded. Before the close of 1532 the Emperor actually succeeded in inducing Pope Clement, at a personal interview with him at Bologna, to announce his intention to convoke a Council forthwith. He urged him to do so by frightening him with the prospect of a German national synod, such as even the orthodox States of the Empire might resolve on, in the event of the Pope obstinately opposing a Council, and in that case, of a possible combination of the entire German nation against ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... official-like. Yes, they wanted to get over here, and didn't have a boat. Perhaps they've gone up river to get one, and cross to the island. They might try it to-day; and then again perhaps they'd wait for another night, for fear of frightening him away, and losing him somehow if he jumped into ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the Iron Chancellor was viewed in the home of the empress when a young girl, may best be gathered from the fact that whenever her nurses and governesses were desirous of putting a stop to her naughtiness and of frightening her into obedience, they would exclaim: "Bismarck's coming! wow! wow!" This childhood impression has continued so deep that even to this day, whenever the empress shows any signs of reluctance to comply with her husband's wishes, or betrays irritation, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... saying, I had gone down upon one knee, and was just reaching out a little stick to turn the Beetle over, when I saw a sight that made me draw back hastily and hold my breath, for fear of making any noise and frightening ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... would include with these the reports of medical associations, and those separate publications which, coming in the form of pamphlets, heap themselves into chaotic piles and bundles which are worse than useless, taking up a great deal of room, and frightening everything away but mice and mousing antiquarians, or possibly at long ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... hastened her end. Yesterday, at the Grotto, she had a bad attack, which was a warning. And in spite of her fatigue she obstinately followed the procession afterwards. I thought then that she could not last long. Yet, out of delicacy, one did not like to say anything to her, for fear of frightening her." ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the carriage had worn dark clothes, in the night all had looked black. Nelse had only observed one closely; but Pluto saw a chance of frightening the old man out of a subject of gossip so derogatory to the dignity of the Terrace folks, and he did not ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... He walked ahead toward that frightening manifestation of the unknown, holding the little statuette before him like a sword, his ugly face rapt in some listening beyond me. As the little statue crossed the line, ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... effect of the whole scene was a little sinister, even a little frightening. The strangeness of Africa, the African jungle, was here, and one was a white man in it all alone among grinning savage faces. But for the figures about one being clothed, the illusion had been complete; but for that and the kind-hearted salutations from comely white-turbaned ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... cliffs and wade through those bogs. It's mad, I say, you visionary, you man on the other side of all that, who are living, who are doing things. I never can—I never can. And yet, it's so terrible, it's so horrible, so frightening, so desperate, sometimes, to be drowning in luxury. I woke in the night last night and before my eyes had opened I had flung out my hand and cried out loud in the dark: "What shall I do with my life—Oh what shall I do ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... gig—our gig— was hoisted out, and Cunningham and I, with two hands for a crew, and with a shot gun each, together with a double pocketful of cartridges, went ashore to perform the exceedingly unpleasant but necessary task of frightening the birds so effectually that they would not be likely to interfere to any very great extent with our pearling operations. At the last moment, just before shoving off from the schooner's side, Cunningham shouted to the cook to pass down into the boat the biggest ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... you contemplate serving me by firing off pistols, and frightening the passengers of the boat out of ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... bough to bough, whilst the music of the birds was charming. Fred, himself, was tempted as he peeped over the gap, and stood irresolute. The plantation was far enough from the residence of the owner, nor was it likely that they could do much mischief beyond frightening the game, and as it was not sitting time, Fred himself argued it could do no harm, but little Riches, the boy called Pure, who was a great admirer of Fred, especially since the affair of the Dahlias, begged him not to go; "Mr. Barton, you know, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... was easy enough, though the horses were painfully glistening with icicles, and the aspect of the tram- conductors' faces presented a repulsive blending of crimson and purple. But as to frightening or bullying, or even wheedling some sort of answer out of Mr. Hudig, that was another matter altogether. He was a big, swarthy Netherlander, with black moustaches and a bold glance. He always began by shoving me into a chair before ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... force must soon come. He grasped the situation with a master-hand, and began to prepare the way. Still he kept his counsel strictly to himself, and set to work to threaten, and if possible to attack, New York, not with much hope of succeeding in any such attempt, but with a view of frightening Clinton and of inducing him either to withdraw troops from Virginia, or at least to withhold reinforcements. As he began his Virginian campaign in this distant and remote fashion at the mouth of the Hudson, he was cheered by news that De Grasse, the French ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... towards his camp. My horse was standing saddled for a ride of reconnoissance in a different direction, and, as it was not desirable that these people should know either where I went, or even that I was absent, I took this opportunity of frightening them away from our rear, and covering my ride the other way. With this intention, I immediately mounted, rode first to the tree, with my rifle in hand, and, accompanied by one of the men and Yuranigh, both mounted, I next ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... To the live sea, By working, marrying, breeding Shoreham Town, Breaking the sunset's wistful and solemn dream, An old, black rotter of a boat Past service to the labouring, tumbling flote, Lay stranded in mid-stream: With a horrid list, a frightening lapse from the line, That made me think of legs and a broken spine: Soon, all-too soon, Ungainly and forlorn to lie Full in the eye Of the cynical, discomfortable moon That, as I looked, stared from the fading sky, A clown's face flour'd for work. And by and by The wide-winged sunset ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... "'You're frightening them horses,' says he, in his mincing way (for Londoners are mostly all tongue-tied, and can't say their a's and i's properly, 'and it's our business to keep you from molesting the ladies and gentlemen going to her ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... one who is bewitched," said Goldeye, "and, under the circumstances, he too must be bewitched. Are you not afraid that he may be a black cormorant?" She was a good talker and succeeded in frightening Dunfin thoroughly. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... little Effie two or three times, and then go bouncing off, shaking their fat sides with laughter. There was an old sword-fish, that seemed to be a kind of special constable, who kept going round and round, pricking the dolphins whenever he got a chance and frightening the little fishes almost out of their senses; as often as he made his appearance, with that long sword of his sticking out, such a scampering as there would be! and how the wee fishes would try to hide behind the dolphins, and how the dolphins would ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... myself I explained this by a desire not to waken the youngster. No use frightening him. I stole, as quietly as one of his own ancestors, to the foot of the stairs. The door of Desire's room was open. I could see a moonlit ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Gualala Indians of California, we find the "devil-dance," which Powers compares to the haberfeldtreiben of the Bavarian peasants,—an institution got up for the purpose of frightening the women and children, and keeping them in order. While the ordinary dances are going on, there suddenly stalks forth "an ugly apparition in the shape of a man, wearing a feather mantle on his back, reaching ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... she took up Juliet, Portia, and Ophelia; each with appropriate costumes, studying with tireless avidity, and frightening Aunt Wess' with her declaration that "she might go on the stage after all." She even entertained the notion of having Sheldon Corthell paint her ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... which becomes non-existent the moment he grasps it? But then I suppose it would be with him as with the rest of the tortured, he must either die himself, which he has not done, or become used to it and enjoy the frightening as much as the killing. Any pain through which a man can live at all becomes unfelt as soon as it becomes habitual. Pain consists not in that which is now endured but in the strong memory of something better that is still recent. And so, happiness lies in the memory ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... he read, "this is to let you know that I must give you a month's notice as from Tuesday the 13th. For a long time I've felt the place too big for me, but when Jane Parfit and Emma Laidlaw go off with scarcely as much as an 'if you please,' after frightening the wits out of the other girls, so that they can't turn out a room by themselves or walk alone down the stairs for fear of treading on half-frozen toads or hearing it run along the passages at night, all I can say is that it's no place ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... way," said Mabyn, "for how can you be so thoughtless? Wenna has been very ill—I tell you she has been very ill indeed, though she has said little about it—and the least thing upsets her. How can you think of frightening her so? Do you know what you are doing? I wish you would go away back to Launceston or London, and write her a note there, if you are coming, instead of trying ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... of this comb are attatched to each other as those of the hornets are. their wings are four of a dark brown colour. the head is black, the body and abdomen are yellow incircled with transverse rings of black, they are ferce and sting very severely, we found them troublesome in frightening our horses as we passed those mountains. the honey bee is not found here. the bumble bee is. one of the men brought me today some onions from the high plain of a different speceis from those near the ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... his rapid explanation, and his eyebrows worked up and down so swiftly that Muriel was fascinated by them. His eyes baffled her completely. They were like a glancing flame. She listened to his proposal with more of bewilderment than consternation. It took her breath away without exactly frightening her. The steady grasp of his hand and the exceedingly practical tones of his voice kept her from unreasoning panic; but she was too greatly ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... has a circus about once a week, and tries to break his neck jumping through hoops, hanging to a rope by his heels, turning somersaults in the air, and frightening his mother out of her wits by his pranks. I suspect that he has been to see Leotard, and I admire his energy, for he is never discouraged; and, after tumbling flat, half-a-dozen times, he merely rubs his elbows and knees, and then ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... dare follow for fear of frightening away Mr. Mocking Bird, who stopped singing as cat and dog scampered away, but who had not yet flown back to his mate. He was watching fearfully every move ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... stone. The white man had obtained it, I was told, partly by the exercise of his wonderful strength and partly by cunning, from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had fled instantly, arriving in Patusan in utmost distress, but frightening the people by his extreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue. Most of my informants were of the opinion that the stone was probably unlucky,—like the famous stone of the Sultan of Succadana, which in the old ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to feel very uncomfortable. There was no longer the slightest satisfaction in the thought of frightening the family. She was frightened herself, and with the worst kind of fear—the fear of ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... little while the child played her usual game of frightening her doll with the Yellow Devil and then rescuing her by the aid of a fairy prince which she herself had designed, smeared with water-colours, and cut out with scissors ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... woman that accompanied him. He pursued them; he endeavoured in various manners to harass and vex them; they had sought in vain to shake him off. The young woman was considerably terrified. The accused expostulated with their persecutor, and asked him how he could be so barbarous as to persist in frightening a woman? He replied with an insulting tone, "Then the woman should find some one able to protect her; people that encouraged and trusted to such a thief as that, deserved no better!" The accused tried every expedient ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... an ill-natured fellow, being in a terrible rage at Tom for frightening and scalding him with the furmenty, went straight to the king, and said that Tom had jumped into the royal furmenty, and thrown it down out of mere mischief. The king was so enraged when he heard this, that he ordered Tom to be seized and tried for high treason; ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... strangest things are there for me, Both things to eat and things to see, And many frightening sights abroad Till morning in the land ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... usually observant nature, our Indian looked keenly about him while cooking his pemmican, noting every particular with an intelligent eye. Suddenly his gaze became fixed on a particular corner. Rising slowly, as if afraid of frightening away some living creature, he advanced step by step toward the corner with eyeballs starting nearly out of his head. Then with a light bound he sprang forward, grasped a little piece of cord, and pulled out from beneath a heap of rubbish what ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... succeeded in frightening a hare, but that was all," Godfrey laughed. "It ran almost between my legs before I saw it, and I think it startled me quite as much as my ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Ryder quietly; "he is too wise to come here against your will; and she is bitter against you for frightening him away. Ask yourself, sir, didn't she change to you the moment that you threatened that Leonard with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... the midst of the graveyard rites there broke out on the unseen lines near by, northward, an uproar of attack, and one or two shells burst in plain view, frightening the teams. The company leaped into the vehicles any way they could and started townward over a miserable road with the contest resounding on their right. As they jostled along the edge of a wood that lay between ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... Night-terrors.—This frightening of a child by a silly nurse frequently brings on night-terrors. He wakes up suddenly, soon after going to sleep, frightened and terrified; screaming violently, and declaring that he has seen either some ghost, or thief, or some object that the silly nurse had been ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... 'earth-bound spirit.' Personally, I do not believe in immortality, in the usually accepted sense of the word; but I have always felt that were there such a thing as a disembodied spirit, it would have something better to do than to walk along old corridors, frightening housemaids! But, to come to the point, concerning our ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... probably gave the people on board of the privateer some idea of the state of confusion we were in. She now rounded to, and gave us her broadside of three guns: they were well directed, and did us some damage in the upper works and rigging; but still more in frightening the people, who were now running down below, notwithstanding the exertions of the mate, Bramble, one or two of the seamen, and myself; but our fate was soon decided by the captain, who cried out, "It's ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... rejoined our companions, who had found several wells of fresh water. It was resolved to pass the night in this place, which seemed less arid than any we saw near us. The soldiers, being requested to go and seek wood to light a fire, for the purpose of frightening the ferocious beasts which were heard roaring around us, refused; but Mr. Carnet assured us, that the Moors who were with him knew well how to keep all such intruders from our camp. In truth, during the whole ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... of Opposition may possibly have some effect towards frightening old Louis, and in that case it may be useful, but I trust there is little chance of its communicating its effects either in the Cabinet or Parliament on this side the water. Canning will, I believe, return in time to take his ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... moment from behind the ice-hill came a great white father bear galloping up as fast as he could to see what the matter was. He came over toward Teddy growling, "Gur-r-r! gur-r-r-r! Who are you, coming and frightening my little bears this way?" But as soon as he saw the Counterpane Fairy he grew quite humble. "Oh, excuse me," he said. "I didn't know it ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... hitherto unknown to her, and incomprehensible even to herself, was passing in her soul, and that a nameless but potent something had grown up in her heart, had struggled free, and had found life and motion; a something that was strange, and yet precious to her, frightening, and yet sweet, a pain, and yet unspeakably delightful. An emotion such as she had never before known had mastered her, and she felt, since hearing Polykarp's speech, as if a new and purer blood was flowing rapidly through ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... guardian was expected to contribute four shillings. Daisy might have gone free had she pleaded absolute poverty, but that would have meant investigation. From such humiliation Natalya shrank. She shrank even more from frightening the poor child by uncovering the skeleton of poverty. Most of all she shrank from depriving Daisy of all the rural delights on which the child's mind dwelt in fascinated anticipation. Natalya did not think much of the country herself, having been born in a poor Polish village, amid ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... with a huge flaming bandanna, that filled the room with an odour of musk so stifling that I determined to do battle with that Snob, and that either he or I should quit the Inn. I first began harmless conversations with him; frightening him exceedingly, for he did not know what to do when so attacked, and had never the slightest notion that anybody would take such a liberty with him as to speak first: then I handed him the paper: then, as he would take no notice of these advances, I used to look him in the face ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mournfully, "because he's an orthodox minister and I want to be an actress. Of course he couldn't approve, and I ought not to blame him. And yet, if I wait until I'm of age, I'll be too old. I'd like to run away right now, but for the row it would make and for frightening auntie. Really, you know, I'd rather join the circus than ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... oyster might say, "howling round camps and villages, making night hideous, frightening quiet folk out of their lives. Why don't you go to bed early, as I do? I never prowl round the oyster-bed, fighting other gentlemen oysters, making love to lady oysters already married. I never kill antelopes or missionaries. Why ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... earth—holy hearth. Referring to the places specially haunted by the Lars and Lemures. The Lemures were the spirits of the dead, and were said to wander about at night, frightening the living. The Lares were the household gods, sometimes referred to as the spirits of good men. The former frequented the graveyards; the ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... having exclaimed, "God bless us I" added, "I wonder, Master Wingate, you can take pleasure in frightening one thus." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... They were in a private room, of which, having ordered up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil was in him. He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself, alternately frightening and cajoling the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who was buried yesterday, who had been hunting me so long, and frightening me and Uncle Tom, and why have I been compelled to stay housed as if I were a prisoner so much of ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... which Miss Chancellor rose from her chair on hearing these words showed her hostess that if she had wished to take a little revenge by frightening her, the experiment was successful. "What others do you mean?" Olive asked, standing very straight, and turning down her eyes as ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... at each other like two dogs they went a long distance apart, and then came rushing at each other with lowered heads. Their object seemed to be to break each other's skull; but Miss Laura soon stopped them by calling out and frightening them apart. I thought that the lambs were more interesting than the sheep. Sometimes they fed quietly by their mothers' sides, and at other times they all huddled together on the top of some flat rock or in a bare place, and seemed to be talking to each other with their heads close together. Suddenly ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... am glad we are to be put on a short allowance of gunpowder, and that crackers are forbidden, they are such a nuisance, burning holes in clothes, frightening horses, and setting houses afire," said sober Fred from the gate, where he and several other fellows were roosting ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Manuel de Leon, in 1674] commanded Juan Canosa Raguses, a skilful builder of lateen-rigged vessels, to construct two galleys; these sailed very straight and light, and did good service in frightening away the Camucones, pilfering and troublesome pirates, who in most years infested the Pintados Islands with pillaging and seizure of captives. These are a barbarous, cruel, and cowardly people, and they cannot have one of these traits without the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... thirty-six square inches—coldly calculated by me this afternoon during that fair hour which succeeds the sleep of repletion and the just—but the vast possibilities which lie hidden beneath the surface of the undeveloped expanse of picture are almost frightening. A land rich in minerals, teeming with virgin soil—a very Canaan of to-day. Does ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... point out to him from her more subtle knowledge that constancy to the unchanging dead is sometimes easier than constancy to the variable living. She was only too glad to have the inevitable disclosure made lightly and the truth dismissed without frightening off the desirable suitor. "And certainly Miss Harned don't look as if, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... pipe and filled it and lighted it, and stuck the stem out through the lodge door, and sat there and began to pray to the ghost woman. She said: "Oh ghost, take pity on us, and go away. We have never wronged you, but you are troubling us and frightening our children. Accept what I offer you, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... you laughing at?" he asked, turning upon them savagely, his loud voice and threatening manner frightening those who stood nearest, so that they instinctively stepped back a pace ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... by sight," went on Mrs. Wilkins, who, like all the shy, once she was started; lunged on, frightening herself to more and more speech by the sheer sound of what she had said last in her ears. "Every Sunday—I see you every Sunday ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... the lamp into the pantry this morning, nicely trimmed. There is villany here, Magdalena; I believe that rascal of a Baptista—I must call him so, he has such a hang-dog look—wants to drive us away, for reasons of his own: I can never forgive him for frightening my poor darling so. We'll see if the ghost assail you, or pay you any polite attentions, while you are with me! I've never been so lucky as to see any of the creatures, and should like to try a few experiments upon them: I never ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... a thirst for blood, the big cat returned again and again to the edge of the hole. After his first throw Wade was unable to hit the beast with a stone, although his efforts had the temporary effect of frightening it. Gradually, however, it grew bolder, and was restrained from springing upon him only, as it seemed, by some sixth sense which warned it of the impossibility of getting out of the fissure after once getting in. Baffled and furious, the lion sniffed and prowled about the rim ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... keep within reach that lost, but blood-bought soul. Another good point in this little book is, that there is just about enough in it concerning God and Christ to give the teacher an occasional opportunity to preach Jesus, without frightening the pupil away by too abrupt a "setting forth of strange gods." And, finally, this one Reader well studied will place the pupil where you can safely commend to him the New Testament as the cheapest and the best book ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 6, June, 1889 • Various |
