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Atrocious   Listen
adjective
Atrocious  adj.  
1.
Extremely heinous; full of enormous wickedness; as, atrocious guilt or deeds.
2.
Characterized by, or expressing, great atrocity. "Revelations... so atrocious that nothing in history approaches them."
3.
Very grievous or violent; terrible; as, atrocious distempers. (Obs.)
Synonyms: Atrocious, Flagitious, Flagrant. Flagitious points to an act as grossly wicked and vile; as, a flagitious proposal. Flagrant marks the vivid impression made upon the mind by something strikingly wrong or erroneous; as, a flagrant misrepresentation; a flagrant violation of duty. Atrocious represents the act as springing from a violent and savage spirit. If Lord Chatham, instead of saying "the atrocious crime of being a young man," had used either of the other two words, his irony would have lost all its point, in his celebrated reply to Sir Robert Walpole, as reported by Dr. Johnson.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Atrocious" Quotes from Famous Books



... Forgive me. I never, at worst, thought that the great tragedy of the world was going on there. It was tragic, but there are more chronic cruelties and deeper despairs—ay, and more exasperating wrongs. For the rest, we have the most atrocious system in Europe, and we mean to work it out. Oh, you will see. Your committees nibble on, and this and that poisonous berry is pulled off leisurely, while the bush to the root of it remains, and the children eat on unhindered on the other side. I ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... his hand through his hair and let it stay there, clasping his thick locks. "Beautiful?" he cried; "of course it 's beautiful! Everything is beautiful; everything is insolent, defiant, atrocious with beauty. Nothing is ugly but me—me and my poor ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... will say so. Every experienced man who has had conspicuous success in picking the right men, and in getting scores of individuals started up the right ladder, will also shudder a little as he recalls his particularly atrocious blunders. Outward appearances are so greatly deceiving! The prior estimates placed on men are so frequently highly ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... buffooneries, playing the part of an orator, making pretensions to learning, looking round to see what effect he was producing, and courting applause. And some of those who sat in judgment on him did applaud. At each of his atrocious vulgarisms many of the Peers laughed, and this laugh naturally encouraged him. Did he make a movement to rise, voices called out: 'Fieschi desires to say something, Monsieur le President! Fieschi ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer

... claim the right of trial and jurisdiction in the lawsuits of the seamen. That has come to such a pass that when I ordered that a sailor, one Luys Rivero, should be hanged for an atrocious murder that he had committed—of whose trial and of what passed then I enclose a sworn statement—they actually ordered that he be not executed. That happened on a day when I had left this city, on account of having ordered that on that same day a retired sergeant be beheaded, who ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... illicit importation had been the forfeiture of the goods when caught, and the smugglers (unless they made resistance or carried fire-arms) were allowed to escape and retrieve their bad luck, which they very soon contrived to do. And as yet, upon this part of the coast, they had not been guilty of atrocious crimes, such as the smugglers of Sussex and Hampshire—who must have been utter fiends—committed, thereby raising all the land against them. Dr. Upround had heard of no proclamation, exaction, or even capias issued ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... are recorded scenes from the career of the emperor; the thing must have been of English manufacture, for only an Englishman (inspired by that fear and that hatred of Bonaparte which only Englishmen had) could have devised this atrocious libel. One has to read the literature current in the earlier part of this century in order to get a correct idea of the terror with which Bonaparte filled his enemies, and this literature is so extensive that it seems ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field

... day forward, such atrocious sufferings laid hold upon the marquise, that notwithstanding the firmness which she had always shown, and which she tried to maintain to the end, she could not prevent herself from uttering screams mingled with prayers. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... the judgment-seat as a fresh relay of criminals entered, two of them with faces atrocious enough for any crime, and passed out of the courtyard of the Yamun through the "Gate of Righteousness," where the prisoners, attached to heavy stones, were dragging and clanking their chains, or lying in the shade full of sores, and though the red sunset light was transfiguring all things, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... stripped naked, that atrocious idea first promulgated in the President's message, and now advocated here, of fighting on till we can get our indemnity for the past as well as the present slaughter. We have chastised Mexico, and if it were worth while to do ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... the depths of the easy chair, "before that vote is taken to make the will of this council unanimous, I wish to have it fully understood that I am opposed, bitterly opposed, to the calling of unorthodox men to our pulpits. It is atrocious, and I shall wash my hands of the whole affair. I regret very much that our beloved Brother Fox has forced me to disagree with him, and if he is of the same opinion still, I shall have to ask him to take the chair while the vote he has ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper

... institution.' There were a prophetic few, who clearly perceived that it would be purged away by no milder scourge than that of war. But there were none who dreamed that the slaveholder would be the Samson to bring down the atrocious system of human slavery by madly taking arms in its defence! Yet so it was; and the Divine penalty is before us. The wrath of man has worked out the retributive justice of God. The crime which a country would ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... natural instinct due to the economic situation of the working classes, is properly to be designated as the principle of the working classes,—this is what the public prosecutor has construed into an atrocious crime, and has accused me of urging the working classes to aim at making their own class the masters of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... post with much intelligence, and with extreme gallantry and magnificence. This brilliancy, and this distinguished mark of favour, made Louvois, whom Lauzun in no way spared, think very seriously. He united with Madame de Montespan (who had not pardoned the discovery Lauzun had made, or the atrocious insults he had bestowed upon her), and the two worked so well that they reawakened in the King's mind recollections of the broken sword, the refusal in the Bastille of the post of captain of the guards, and made his Majesty look upon Lauzun as a man ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... something about her, and declare that she is not, nor has ever been; Spain never changes. It is true that, for nearly two centuries, she was the she-butcher, La Verduga, of malignant Rome; the chosen instrument for carrying into effect the atrocious projects of that power; yet fanaticism was not the spring which impelled her to the work of butchery; another feeling, in her the predominant one, was worked upon—her fatal pride. It was by humouring her pride that she was induced to waste her precious ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... circumstances in this affair at present utterly incomprehensible, or else some strange and most atrocious fraud has been practiced; which of these two is the case it now behoves us ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... sprightly, as a page; And everybody but his mother deemed Him almost man; but she flew in a rage[45] And bit her lips (for else she might have screamed) If any said so—for to be precocious Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... grand conception it would be vain to deny. A vast majority of mankind associate with the idea of disbelief in their Gods, everything stupid, monstrous, absurd and atrocious. Absolute Universalism is thought by them the inseparable ally of most shocking wickedness, involving 'blasphemy against the Holy Ghost,' which we are assured shall not be forgiven unto men 'neither in this world nor in that which is to come.' Educated to consider ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... rouse them to acts of hostility against the United States. No means in our power should be omitted of providing for the suppression of such cruel practices and for the adequate punishment of their atrocious authors. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson

... dangerous place for me, since I was certain that every word was distinctly heard by Barboza; yet he made no sign, but went on swaying from side to side as if no mocking word had reached him, then launched out in one of his most atrocious decimas, autobiographical and philosophical. In the first stanza he mentions that he had slain eleven men, but using a poet's license he states the fact in a roundabout way, saying that he slew six men, and then five more, ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... on. The Marcia Reale was finished, but now in turn the Hymn of Garibaldi and the Hymn of Mameli, historic battle songs of Italian liberty, pealed forth to the stars, loud above the bursting of the shells. And many Italian eyes, from which the atrocious sufferings of this war had never yet drawn tears, wept with a proud, triumphant joy. And as the last notes died away upon the night air, a great storm of cheers broke forth afresh from the Italian lines. The moon was now ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton

... Badger sternly, "it appears that you have not only made an atrocious assault on my son, but lied deliberately about it. You shall have neither dinner nor supper, and tonight I will give you a flogging. Now, ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... all the time. His crime was particularly atrocious. He outraged a poor servant girl, sixteen years of age, and then cut her throat. He was himself thirty-two years of age, with a wife and one child, so that he had not even the miserable excuse of an unmated animal. A plea of insanity was put forward on his behalf, but ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote

... sought in some instances, to wreak itself on those who were guiltless of any participation in those bloody deeds. That vindictive spirit led to the perpetration of offences against humanity, not less atrocious than those which they were intended to requite; and which obliterated every discriminative feature between the perpetrators of them, and their ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... torture, a thing almost unheard of, seeing that it cut the flesh of the wrist to the bone and dislocated the limbs, weights were attached to the feet, thus doubling the torture. This last form of torture was only applied when an atrocious crime had been proved to have been committed upon a sacred person, such as a priest, a cardinal, a prince, or an eminent ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sitting with him one morning, said, that in his opinion the character of an infidel was more detestable than that of a man notoriously guilty of an atrocious crime. I differed from him, because we are surer of the odiousness of the one, than of the errour of the other. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I agree with him; for the infidel would be guilty of any crime if he were ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Squ"—— he commenced, but she had gone, having slammed to the door behind her with all her force; and Titmouse was left alone in a half frantic state, in which he continued for nearly two hours. Once again he read over the atrocious puffs which had over-night inflated him to such a degree, and he now saw that they were all lies. This is ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... ladies especially, WILL send their communications, although they won't understand that they injure their own interests by so doing; for how is a man who has his own work to do, his own exquisite inventions to form and perfect—Maria to rescue from the unprincipled Earl—the atrocious General to confound in his own machinations—the angelic Dean to promote to a bishopric, and so forth—how is a man to do all this, under a hundred interruptions, and keep his nerves and temper in that just and equable state in which ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... investigation into the cause of death of the husband resulted in the discovery that he had been murdered by pouring melted lead into his ear while he slept. La Corriveau was arrested as the perpetrator of the atrocious deed. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... them by the government. The government pretended often that they were richer than they really were, while they themselves pretended that they were poorer than they were, and the government resorted to the most lawless and atrocious measures sometimes to compel them to pay. The following extract from one of the historians of the time gives an example of this cruelty, and, at the same time, furnishes the reader with a specimen of the quaint and curious style of composition and orthography in which ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... tariff of the colony. It is held to be manners to ask him to partake himself, when any one desires to put away a nobbler; and the Pirate, being an ardent disciple of Bacchus, was never yet known to refuse any such invitation. He also sells, at seven shillings a bottle, the most atrocious rum, brandy, or ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... commendation of Richard Baxter; and it may be supposed to have had an important effect in producing the more disastrous delusion which followed three years after. The Goodwin children soon got well: in other words, they were tired of their atrocious foolery; and the death of their victim gave them a pretense for ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... here, you are flat on your back and you take advantage of that fact. I have never said a word to you about your own life, but I know it all the same—and it was atrocious! That is all! I am not going into particulars, but remember, you had best not ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... mosque lost much of its dignity through an atrocious clock-tower standing in the courtyard in front of it. It had evidently been found too expensive to cover this tower with a golden scale to shine in the sun, so some ingenious architect hit upon the plan of papering it with flattened kerosene-tins. It ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... against it the new humanity which, in the most elegant drawing-rooms, lays to its charge the maintenance of the antiquated remains of a barbarous epoch, ill-imposed, ill-apportioned and ill-collected taxes, sanguinary laws, blind prosecutions, atrocious punishments, the persecution of the Protestants, lettres-de-cachet, and prisons of State. And I do not include its excesses, its scandals, its disasters and its disgraces,—Rosbach, the treaty of Paris, Madame du Barry, and bankruptcy.—Disgust intervenes, for everything is decidedly ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... wounded, he called his armour-bearer to him, and said, "Draw thy sword, and kill me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him." His monarchy ceased with him, and the ancient chronicler recognises in the catastrophe a just punishment for the atrocious crime he had committed in slaying his half-brothers, the seventy children of Jerubbaal.* His fall may be regarded also as the natural issue of his peculiar position: the resources upon which he relied were inadequate to secure ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... giving also more influence." The French language, disengaging itself from its Latin idioms, had become the language of legislation; it was that of the Assises, or laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The poetry of the troubadours had perished in the atrocious crusade against the Albigeois, but, "north of the Loire, the trouveres were still composing the chansons de geste, veritable epic poems which were translated or imitated by Italy, England, and Germany. So that we are quite justified ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... get the horse. These billet-heads will suspect mischief if they see us talking together, particularly whon they behold your conceited action. This political landlord will surmise that you are a second Aaron Burr, about to beat up recruits to conquer California. Your big whiskers—what an atrocious pair!—with your standing collar, will confirm ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms

... man, at least acted wisely, i. e. according to a worldly wisdom; but those who covet honour, I mean a great name, really covet no substantial thing at all, and are not only "the most offending men alive," inasmuch as this passion for fame may carry them on to the most atrocious crimes, but also the most foolish ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... drawn up against Peter Riot: "For that he meanly and clandestinely and with malice aforethought had broken three panes in the window of Widow Careful with a certain instrument called a top, whereby he had committed an atrocious injury upon an innocent person, and had brought a disgrace upon the society to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... possible for me to sacrifice myself? I would wish nothing more than to be able to do it—if only you might take my old body, my old flesh, my old bones—if only I might serve for something! How quickly would I consent that it should infect me—this atrocious malady! How I would offer myself to it—with what joys, with what delights—however disgusting, however frightful it might be, however much to be dreaded! Yes, I would take it without fear, without regret, if my poor old empty breasts might ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair

... cough their souls away. The English orderlies stamp and shout, displaying the greatest goodwill and a knowledge of the nervous system acquired in cavalry barracks. Far away we hear the sound of Buller's guns. I did not know it was possible to suffer such atrocious and continuous pain ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson

... establishments in town and country on the dastardly scale so common among rich people in Europe. He, too, could have had his park, his half a dozen mansions, his thirty carriages, his hundred horses and his yacht as big as a man-of-war. That he was above such atrocious vulgarity as this, was much to his credit and more to our advantage. What he could have done safely, other men would have attempted to whom the attempt would have been destruction. Some discredit also would have been cast upon those who live ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... robber has sometimes the excuse of want; banditti, in a disorderly country, may pillage, and, when resisted, murder; but the crimes of men, even atrocious as these, are confined at least to a contracted space, and their consequences extend not beyond a limited period. It was not so with Frederick. The outrages of his ambition were to be followed up by an immediate war. He could never suppose that, even if he succeeded ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... weeks. But that little bit of basic instruction, plus the work he had done on the books and tapes from the ruined Kerothi ship, had helped him. "Ah?" The general blinked in surprise. Then he smiled. "Your accent," he said in Kerothic, "is atrocious, but certainly no worse than mine when I speak your Inklitch. I suppose you intend to question me in Kerothic now, eh? In the hope that I may reveal ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett

... The atrocious sentence passed on Vanini was in part remitted, evidently public opinion already making itself felt. His tongue was cut out, but strangulation preceded the burning alive. Here one cannot help noting the illogical, the puerile—if such words are applicable to devilish wickedness—aspect ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... fell; but luckily against the door, so that in a moment or two I became conscious of Aunt Elizabeth standing over me and regarding me as a culprit caught red-handed in some atrocious crime. ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Roman dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is made to pass off for a hero? or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess? In the palaces which we saw, several Court allegories were represented, which, atrocious as they were in point of art, might yet serve to attract the regard of the moraliser. There were Faith, Hope, and Charity restoring Don John to the arms of his happy Portugal: there were Virtue, Valour, and Victory ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had looked no mortal directly in the face. There was an ambiguity about this person's character,—a stain upon his reputation,—yet none could tell precisely of what nature, although the city gossips, male and female, whispered the most atrocious surmises. Until a recent period he had followed the sea, and was, in fact, the very shipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, under such singular circumstances, in ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild beast, atrocious in the man of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... self-preservation, that was the first law; surely no known code of human practice called upon him to share the daily crimes of any living soul—it was a daily repetition of his crime for this traitor to carry on the atrocious ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... horror which it caused can be gauged by the mental agony of Madame de Remusat and of others who had hitherto looked on Bonaparte as the hero of the age and the saviour of the country. His mother hotly upbraided him, saying it was an atrocious act, the stain of which could never be wiped out, and that he had yielded to the advice of enemies' eager to tarnish his fame.[304] Napoleon said nothing, but shut himself up in his cabinet, revolving these terrible words, which doubtless bore fruit in the bitter reproaches ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... beautiful than what I had seen. Besides, the evening was dull and cold. The south-easter greeted us here, and I could not go out all the afternoon. The inn was called 'Railway Hotel', and kept by low coarse English people, who gave us a filthy dinner, dirty sheets, and an atrocious breakfast, and charged 1l. 3s. 6d. for the same meals and time as old Vrow Langfeldt had charged 12s. for, and had given civility, cleanliness, and abundance of excellent food;—besides which, she fed Sabaal gratis, and these people fleeced him ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... of the older man rose the atrocious scenes at Uargla. He saw Spero, a bold, brave boy, scaling the towers—he heard his firm words, "Papa, let us die"—and felt the soft, childish arms wind about ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... is the primary cause. Not injured! every word of love from his lips is pollution; his asking her of my father an atrocious insult; his endeavours to fly with her a ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar

... another impression in which we may fully share, that though vulgarism is "bred in the bone and will come out in the flesh," yet the flogged man would be very careful of the locality in which he again indulged in the same atrocious habit. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... of horror, for until now he had hardly believed it was possible that even Nana Sahib could perpetrate so atrocious a massacre. Not another word was spoken until ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty

... entitled to refuse its assent to every Bill presented to it. The Crown is entitled to make a thousand Peers to-day, and as many to-morrow: it may dissolve all and every Parliament before it proceeds to business; may pardon the most atrocious crimes; may declare war against all the world; may conclude treaties involving unlimited responsibilities, and even vast expenditure, without the consent, nay without the knowledge, of Parliament, and this not merely in support or in development, but ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... are told, for a good digestion: let us add to the prayer — and a bad memory. Truly we are sometimes tempted to think that we are the only ones cursed with this corroding canker. Our friends, we can swear, have all, without exception, atrocious memories; why is ours alone so hideously vital? Yet this isolation must be imaginary; for even as we engage in this selfish moan for help in our own petty case, we are moved to add a word for certain others who, meaning ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame

... a dream of cold-blooded men, blind and deaf, cutting their throats, slitting them open, gutting them, cutting them into pieces, cooking them alive, sometimes laughing at them and their contortions as they writhe in agony. Is there anything more atrocious among the cannibals of Africa? To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of men. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland

... was still continuing his self-reproaches, by the hand and led him in impressive silence to the walled-up postern, and said, "The man who fell down dead at your feet, Freiherr Roderick, was the atrocious murderer of your father." The Freiherr fixed his staring eyes upon V—— as though he saw the foul fiends of hell. But V—— went on, "The time has come now for me to reveal to you the hideous secret which, weighing upon the conscience of this monster and burthening him with curses, compelled ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... she, "I might sooner have put a stop to this atrocious duel, the very idea of which terrifies me; had it not have been so near its completion, you would, perhaps, have denied the intention to fight after all, within a few days. Thanks to the assistance of Gaetano, my childhood's ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... expression of a worthy ideal contrary to self interest, for his constituents were at that time certainly not in any way opposed to slavery. It was only within a few months after this very time that the atrocious persecution and murder of Lovejoy occurred in ...
— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... substituted a tragedy of violent situations for the tragedy of character. His Rhadamiste et Zenobie (1711), which has an air of Corneillean grandeur and heroism, notwithstanding a plot so complicated that it is difficult to follow, was received with unmeasured enthusiasm. To be atrocious within the rules was to create a new and thrilling sensation. Torrents of tears flowed for the unhappy heroine of La Motte's Ines de Castro (1723), secretly married to the Prince of Portugal, and pardoned only when the fatal poison is in her veins. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden

... atrocious scoundrel!" exclaimed Don Ramon, when Singleton had come to the end of his narrative. "But do you really believe that the part of his story relating to the Senorita Isolda is true? May it not be that it is merely the empty boast of an inordinately vain man? There are individuals, you ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... Church;[106] and to the (p. 056) Emperor that at the beginning of his reign he thought of nothing else than an expedition against the Infidel. But now he was called by the Pope and the danger of the Church in another direction; and he proceeded to denounce the impiety and schism of the French and their atrocious deeds in Italy. He joined Ferdinand in requiring Louis to desist from his impious work. Louis turned a deaf ear to their demands; and in November, 1511, they bound themselves to defend the Church against all aggression and make ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... improperii, the sentiments of which, and the chant composed by Palestrina [92], are admirably adapted to the pathetic ceremony. In them God enumerates the unparalleled benefits which he lavished upon the Jews, and the atrocious crimes by which they repaid Him. At the end of each improperium or reproach, the Trisagion is sung by one choir in Greek, and in Latin by another "Holy God! Holy strong one! Holy immortal, have mercy on us"[93]. The Pope then returns to his throne; he resumes his previous vestments ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs

... apparatus of a generally useless kind which he had ordered on the strength of their much advertising, and he observed sententiously, "We armatures get badly imposed upon." Here were patent gimcrack printing devices, although he had scarce anything worth printing; all sorts of atrocious fancy borders with which he sought in vain to embellish out-of-focus under-exposures; orthochromatic filters and colour screens with which he was eliminating undesirable rays, although the chief thing ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... of the adjacent hills, previous to its sinking for the night into the purple depths of obscurity. Early the following morning, the Collector, with a suitable escort, proceeded on their way to Runjetpoora, the place to which they were returning when they were so ruthlessly set upon by the atrocious mutineers. ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest

... wretched isolation as an old bachelor, with nobody to care for him, and he also suffered atrocious mental torture, torn by paternal tenderness springing from remorse, longing and jealousy, and from that need of loving one's own children, which nature has implanted into all, and so at last he determined to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... courage and with dignity. He was firmly convinced that he was a much-injured man, and if the justice of a man's cause were to be decided merely upon the demeanor of the defendant, Hastings would have been exonerated. He professed to be horrified, and he no doubt was horrified, by what he called "the atrocious calumnies of Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox." He carried himself as if they were indeed atrocious calumnies without any basis whatsoever. His attitude was that of the martyr supported by the serenity of the saint. He had lived ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... is impossible to recapitulate his actions. Volumes would be necessary to shew the world the arbitrary crimes of this atrocious individual. It would appear that for the commission of so many offences he must have had some cause that impelled him, for they could not possibly be the effect of ignorance. It was impossible to believe that by insulting ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... A vile, desperate fellow. Persons guilty of murder, or other atrocious crimes, are frequently, after execution, hanged on a gibbet, to which they are fastened by iron bandages; the gibbet is commonly placed on or near the place ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... skimming through an illustrated book called "Noa Noa," by a Frenchman, which describes, or pretends to describe, a visit to Tahiti. There is not much fault to be found with it as a narrative, but the pictures of the natives are atrocious. Many of the figures are distorted, and all of them have a smutty look, as if they had been rubbed with lampblack or coal-dust. There is not one simple, honest presentation of the natural human form in the book. When the Parisian becomes a degenerate, he is the most degenerate of all—a refined, ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... disbelief is that the son of the heroine wrote a letter affirming it, in which he states that his mother was never afterwards able to touch a glass of red wine. The point to bear in mind is that these atrocious criminals rejoiced as much in a man to save as in a man to kill. They were servants of a cause, acting ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... actually engaged in this atrocious deed were few in number: at the outset, indeed, very few: but the design was gradually revealed to others, though even when the discovery actually took place, the number was comparatively small. That there was ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury

... late—which error is, of the two, by far the greater. He was young, perhaps, to have had such experience; but in the social world of to-day it is especially the fashion for men to be extremely young, even to youthfulness, and lack of years is no longer the atrocious crime which Pitt would neither attempt to palliate or deny. We have just emerged from a period of wrinkles and paint, during which we were told that age knew everything and youth nothing. The explosion ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford

... noisy debating-club spouters of the day. In speaking of the Reform Bill at a meeting at a tavern in London, he said, that, if the bill did not pass, he for one should like to "wade the streets of the capital knee-deep in blood." It was consoling to reflect, even at the time, that the atrocious aspiration was mitigated by the reflection that it would not require a deluge of gore to reach the knees of such a Zacchaeus as Roebuck. "Pretty wicious that for a child of six!" said the amiable Mr. Squeers on one occasion; and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Timothy's heart beat so hard against his little jacket that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay's face; moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited nose; and then, dragging the basket along the path leading to the front gate, he opened it and went in, mounted the steps, plied the brass knocker, and waited in childlike faith for a summons to enter ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... at him, face hardening. "Oh, hello, George. Thought you'd gone back to Zenith." He did not introduce his companion. Babbitt peeped at her. She was a flabbily pretty, weakly flirtatious woman of forty-two or three, in an atrocious flowery hat. Her rouging ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis

... in a friendly voice. "You have walked, I suppose, all the way from the Villa des Dunes. English girls are such great walkers now—a most excellent thing. I belong to the semi-generation older than yours, which preferred a carriage. I am an atrocious walker. You are not at all like your brother." And she threw back her head and looked speculatively at her visitor. "Sit down," she said, with a laugh. "You probably came here harbouring a prejudice against me. One should never ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... consider the question in the light of their awakened consciences; but these divine monitors were only roused into temporary wakefulness and speedily dropped asleep again. The manifest distrust which Inez showed toward them seemed to fill their hearts with the most atrocious feelings, and neither of them would have hesitated to fling her overboard, had the opportunity been given. Incredible as it may seem, it is the fact that they would have preferred to do so, being restrained by the simple question of policy. They saw that Pomp had grown very fond of her, and ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... all the encouragement of his project Jack Tier could obtain, on that occasion, from either his brother steward, or from the cook. These blacks were well enough disposed to rescue an innocent and unoffending man from the atrocious death to which Spike had condemned his mate, but neither lost sight of his own security and interest. They promised Tier not to betray him, however; and he had the fullest confidence in their pledges. They who live together in common, usually ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper

... pass over me, and now I could nowhere see anything. I had passed beyond the fixed stars and plunged into the huge blackness that waits beyond. All this time I had experienced little, save a sense of lightness and cold discomfort. Now however the atrocious darkness seemed to creep into my soul, and I became filled with fear and despair. What was going to become of me? Where was I going? Even as the thoughts were formed, there grew against the impalpable blackness that wrapped me a faint tinge ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson

... intertwined. It was a fortunate, if not a providential, combination of circumstances that compelled the enemies of the Star, primarily on my account, to interweave with their scheme of murderous persecution and private revenge an equally ruthless and atrocious treason against the throne and ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... voice—for it was he. 'Dead and buried, as all men supposed through your infernal arts, but reserved by Heaven for this—at last—at last I have you. You, whose hands are red with my brother's blood, and that of his faithful servant, shed to conceal your own atrocious guilt—You, Rudge, double murderer and monster, I arrest you in the name of God, who has delivered you into my hands. No. Though you had the strength of twenty men,' he added, as the murderer writhed and struggled, you could not escape me or loosen ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... and coaching, he poured out the story of Bonneyville's wrongs at the hands of the reactionary landowners, and the atrocious behavior of the Hickock goon-gang. Finally, after extracting the last drop of class-hatred venom out of him, Sidney turned ...
— Lone Star Planet • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire

... agree in thinking ridiculously underrated by recent fashions, my boat is on the shore and my bark is on the sea; but before I go, Tom Moore (if I may so by a flight of fancy describe you), I feel impelled to send you this hurried line to thank you, so far as this atrocious hotel pen will allow me, for the wonderful time I have had in Palestine, which is so largely owing to you. There is also something even more important I want very much to discuss with you; because of certain things that have been touched on between us in former ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... the predominance of this foreign influence, which was resented by the people not merely because it was alien, but largely also because of its unscrupulous and ruthless character. Some of the most atrocious cruelties which students of Russian history associate with court and political life in the Tsardom, during the best part of two centuries, had their sources in the sheer malignity of Teuton Ministers who spoke and acted in the name of the autocrat of the moment. ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon

... naturally turned to daring evil, and determined, by the circumstances of his situation, to a particular species of mischief. Those who have perused the curious Letters from the Highlands, published about 1726, will find instances of such atrocious characters which fell under the writer's own observation, though it would be most unjust to consider such villains as representatives of the Highlanders of that period, any more than the murderers of Marr and Williamson can be supposed to represent the English of the present day. As ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... occasion the lad fell upon a hobbledehoy who had just given a highly diverting pantomime representing the hanging of a man, with realistic details, and, having beaten him in fair fight, broke his collar-bone with an atrocious fall. For this outrage Jim o' Mill End was called upon to answer to the law, and, the answer he had to give being considered wholly unsatisfactory, Jim was sent to gaol for a term ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson

... King of Great Britain, and by aiding, assisting, abetting, and comforting the generals and other officers, civil and military, of the said King, to enforce his authority in and over this State, and the good people of the same: And whereas the aforesaid treason, and other atrocious crimes, justly merit forfeiture ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... shiver still, and unfortunately there is no avoiding it, as they have hung it close to Guido's lovely Cleopatra. In the gallery there is a Judith and Holofernes which irresistibly strikes the attention—if any thing would add to the horror inspired by the sanguinary subject, and the atrocious fidelity and talent with which it is expressed, it is that the artist was a woman. I must confess that Judith is not one of my favourite heroines; but I can more easily conceive how a woman inspired by vengeance ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... palace [Luxembourg] to enter all the prisons with additional guards and dispossess every prisoner of his knives, forks, and every other sharp instrument; and also to take their money from them. This happened a short time before Mr. Paine's illness, and as this ceremony was represented to him as an atrocious plunder in the dregs of municipality, he determined to avert its effect so far as it concerned himself. He had an English bank note of some value and gold coin in his pocket, and as he conceived ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... relapses and self-contradictions, but he follows his very consistently. Through all the things that we have examined, the view of national boundaries, the view of military methods, the view of personal honour and self-defence, there runs in their case something of an atrocious simplicity; something too simple for us to understand: the idea that glory consists in holding the steel, and ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate, closed the debate. He spoke of "the indulgence shown to Mr. Breckinridge," and of his having used it to "assail the President vehemently, almost vindictively, while he had not a single word of condemnation for the atrocious conduct of the rebellious States." Was the senator from Kentucky here to vindicate them, and the hurl unceasing denunciations at the President, "who was never surpassed by any ruler in patriotism, honor, integrity, and devotion to the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... night alternating between sleeplessness and nightmares. Once again, he was tormented by atrocious and terrifying visions. ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... Dr. Cambray's letter again, and read on: he found that Lady Annaly had not credited these reports as to the atrocious accusations; but they had so far operated as to excite doubts and suspicions. In some of the circumstances, there was sufficient truth to colour the falsehood. For example, with regard both to Peggy ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... which the general alluded was the discharging of a fiendish war machine toward an unsuspecting and harmless city alive with sleeping people, and the emotion of the inventor was due to the fact that he had devised and completed the most atrocious engine of death ever conceived by the mind of man—the Relay Gun. Horrible as is the thought, this otherwise normal man had devoted nine whole years to the problem of how to destroy human life at a distance of a hundred kilometres, and at last he had been successful, ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train

... bed-rooms? But I have planned it all. The front room down-stairs is to be your study and our dining-room (poor papa!), for, you know, we settled mamma is to have as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bed-room behind, in that projection ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... went forth to the garden in the rear of the inn. Here spread a lawn more level than a ballroom floor. There was a summer-house and many beds of flowers. On this day there was nobody abroad in the garden but an atrocious parrot, which, balancing on its stick, called out continually raucous cries ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... the drawing of the shepherd is atrocious, and that the figures are of disproportionate sizes. Such failings, they say, cannot be laid to a great master's charge. This is an appeal to the old argument that it is not good enough, whereas the true test lies in the question, Is it ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... favor. But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, can she long. Men must soon see that as, on their own ground, Woman is the weaker party, she ought to have legal protection, which would make such oppression impossible. But I would not deal with "atrocious instances," except in the way of illustration, neither demand from men a partial redress in some one matter, but go to the root of the whole. If principles could be established, particulars would adjust themselves aright. Ascertain the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... between the Catholics and Protestants. In France, in particular, the conflict raged with merciless fury. It was on August 24th, 1572, but a few years after Maximilian ascended the throne, when the Catholics of France perpetrated the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, perhaps the most atrocious crime recorded in history. The Catholics and Protestants in France were nearly equally divided in numbers, wealth and rank. The papal party, finding it impossible to crush their foes by force of arms, resolved to exterminate ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... justice might have been preserved, and a valuable moral inculcated, had the conduct of OEdipus, in his combat with Laius, been represented as atrocious, or, at least, unwarrantable; as the sequel would then have been a warning, how impossible it is to calculate the consequences or extent of a single act of guilt. But, after all, Dryden perhaps extracts the true ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... hours and hours I weighed all the pros and cons in favor of or against the probability of my being the father, growing nervous over inexplicable suppositions, only to return incessantly to the same horrible uncertainty, then to the still more atrocious conviction that this man was ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... second-rate, this goodness too uninspiring. This human drama, without a villain or a pang; this community so refined that ice-cream soda-water is the utmost offering it can make to the brute animal in man; this city simmering in the tepid lakeside sun; this atrocious harmlessness of all things—I cannot ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... to become accustomed to their use, and no lands are more capable of cultivation than these if the water be sufficient for irrigation. The camp was enlivened by an adventure of the major's, which revenged for us his atrocious habit of rising at 3 A. M. and saying "Now, gentlemen!" as he stood relentless at the tent-doors. C. and I had found a canyon near by about one hundred feet deep and having a good bathing stream. As we returned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... who, for a bet of five shillings, ate two pairs of worsted stockings fried in train oil, and half a pound of yellow soap into the bargain. The losers of this wager might have been more cautious had they known that the same atrocious glutton once undertook to eat as much tripe as would make himself a jacket with sleeves, and was accordingly measured by a tailor, who regularly cut out the materials, when, to general surprise, the voracious fellow ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... "The ignorance was atrocious, the kings were advised even in warlike matters by priests. Charles II., when the Dutch troops offered to garrison the Spanish towns in Flanders, consulted with the clerics as on a case of conscience, because this might facilitate the diffusion ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... soul—I should, ah! I must have flung myself into the sea at the mere sight of my companions. Out-doors I still could live; but in the building, whether to sleep or to eat,—to eat out of buckets, and each bucket filled for three couples,—it was life no longer, it was death; the atrocious faces and language of my companions were always insufferable to me. Happily, from five o'clock in summer, and from half-past seven o'clock in winter we went, in spite of heat or cold and wind or rain, on 'fatigue,' that is, hard-labor. Thus half this life was spent in the open air; and the air ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... proceeded so far as to impale some gentlemen, and roast them alive before a slow fire: a body of nine thousand of them broke into Meaux, where the wife of the dauphin, with above three hundred ladies, had taken shelter: the most brutal treatment and most atrocious cruelty were justly dreaded by this helpless company: but the Captal de Buche, though in the service of Edward, yet moved by generosity and by the gallantry of a true knight, flew to their rescue, and beat off the peasants ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... to hurt you, but it is no use pretending. I can never live in this atrocious Africa, and I feel it would be cruel to tear you away from a country you love so much. Besides, after deep consideration, I find that my darling husband's memory is dearer to me than any living man can be. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... Hanno proposed atrocious and impracticable measures, such as promising a heavy sum for every Barbarian's head, or setting fire to their camp with ships and machines. His colleague Gisco, on the other hand, wished them to be paid. But the Ancients detested him ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... care a doit—"Cover your face with your hands, if you like it, Mr. Berryl; you may be ashamed for me, but I feel no shame for myself—I am not so weak." Mordicai's countenance said more than his words; livid with malice, and with atrocious determination in his eyes, he stood. "Yes, sir," said he, "you may look at me as you please—it is possible—I am in earnest. Consult what you'll do now behind my back, or before my face, it comes to ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... and laughed—a great, frank laugh, which broke up the ordinary discontent of the face agreeably. The speaker, M. Alphonse Duchatel, had been already turned out of two ateliers for a series of the most atrocious charges on record. He was now with Taranne, on trial, the authorities keeping a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... this Mark was intrusted by his chief with the work of discovering a man who had committed a very atrocious murder, and was, it was tolerably certain, hiding in the slums of Westminster. It was the first business of the kind that had been confided to him, and he was exceedingly anxious to carry it out successfully. He dressed himself as a street hawker, ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... and stab with the right. "Conscience," I may observe, does not exist in Eastern Africa, and "Repentance" expresses regret for missed opportunities of mortal crime. Robbery constitutes an honorable man: murder—the more atrocious the midnight crime the better—makes the hero. Honor consists in taking human life: hyaena-like, the Bedouins cannot be trusted where blood may be shed: Glory is the having done all manner of harm. Yet the Eesa have their good points: they are ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... to go on, and then the Crown Prosecutor made a speech, in which he talked about the dishonesty which was creeping unchecked over the land, and the atrocious villainy of criminals who took a thousand head of cattle in one lot, and made out the country was sure to go to destruction if we were not convicted. He said that unfortunately they were not in a position to bring many of the cattle back that ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... Llanelwyn stream. What atrocious luck! Don't believe there's the ghost of a bridge anywhere. Shall we have to ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... solicitation, instead of which it was used to induce him to plunge into guilt and ruin. "We have a right to presume," observes Saurin, "that as no crime was ever connected with more melancholy results, so none was ever more atrocious than hers. The more we examine its nature, the more base it appears, and the more easy is it to exculpate religion from those reproaches which this statement has so often occasioned. Whatever tends to extenuate the guilt of other sins, is ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... ferocious, jealous and vindictive, as a savage, do not those, whose manner of thinking is supposed to displease him, expire under studied torments, by the command of sanguinary laws? Modern nations, at the instigation of their priests, have perhaps improved upon the atrocious folly of barbarous nations; at least, we find, that it has ever entered the heads of savages to torment for opinions, to search the thoughts, to molest men for the invisible movements ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... his cruel bodyguard would have opposed it had they been strong enough,—as do equally cruel politicians who are strong enough,— but the bully still doubted the strength of his party. A proposal so atrocious had beep made, in the case of little William, at the very outset, and had met with but slight opposition. Had it not been for the brave English sailor, the lad would certainly have fallen a sacrifice to the horrid appetites of these horrid men. With one ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... the mayor of the city, during my absence suppressed the convention by the use of the police force, and in so doing attacked the members of the convention, and a party of two hundred negroes, with fire-arms, clubs, and knives, in a manner so unnecessary and atrocious as to compel me to say that it was murder. About forty whites and blacks were thus killed, and about one hundred and sixty wounded. Everything is now quiet, but I deem it best to maintain a military supremacy in the city for a few days, until the affair is fully investigated. I believe ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... time did it harmonize with what he was about. Music was the subject of conversation; the praises of a new composer were being sung, when Krespel, smiling, said in his low, singing tones, "I wish the devil with his pitchfork would hurl that atrocious garbler of music millions of fathoms down to the bottomless pit of hell!" Then he burst out passionately and wildly, "She is an angel of heaven, nothing but pure God-given music!—the paragon and queen of song!"— and tears stood in his eyes. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... of refuge for many of these persecuted people. The grandfather of the present Earl of Radnor, and the father of the venerable Baron Maseres were amongst them; and it is well known that England owes no inconsiderable part of her manufacturing skill and industry to that atrocious persecution. Enemies of freedom, wherever it existed, this family of Bourbon, in the reign of Louis XIV. and XV., fitted out expeditions for the purpose of restoring the Stuarts to the throne of England, and thereby caused great expense ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury

... apparent, a 'Bill for the Better Regulation of Mad-houses' was brought into Parliament by Mr. Rose in 1813, but was nevertheless opposed and finally withdrawn; and another Bill, in 1814,[141] though it passed the Commons, was rejected by the House of Lords. The public, in fact, was not yet aware of the atrocious evils which these Bills were intended to remove; and it was not until now that the course was adopted, which, in every case of public grievance, is the only sure one for obtaining redress. A Committee of the House of Commons, appointed for ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke

... years ago, the decoration of the Pullman parlor-car was atrocious. Colors were in riotous discord; every foot of wood-panelling was carved and ornamented, nothing being left of the grain of even the most beautiful woods; gilt was recklessly laid on everywhere regardless of its fitness or relation. The hangings ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... M. Seneschal tried in vain to discover the hand that had struck this blow. The secret of this treacherous trick was well kept. But it was a most atrocious trick to revive thus, on the eve of the trial, such mournful memories ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... who appears to be your mate," said Mr Vernon. "But what could have induced him to commit such an atrocious act?" ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... uprightly.' They are unwearied in their efforts to get at truth, and govern wisely; but our system of law is totally unsuited for Orientals. It is made a medium for chicanery and trickery of the most atrocious form. Most of the native underlings are utterly venal and corrupt. Increased pay does not mean decrease of knavery. Cheating, and lying, and taking bribes, and abuse of authority are ingrained into their very souls; and all the cut and dry formulas of namby pamby philanthropists, ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... Labat in no way disapproves the atrocious sentence inflicted upon the wretched negro: in his opinion such predictions were made by the power and with the personal aid of the devil; and for those who knowingly maintained relations with the devil, he could not have regarded any punishment too severe. That he could be harsh ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... produce them again. Vile and detestable as have been the monsters of antiquity, the world still contains their parallels; and if they languish in obscurity, if they have not attained a celebrity equally atrocious, it is because they possess not equal facilities for the display of their real character and propensities. Human nature is still the same, and wherever a field is opened for the growth of tyranny, there that poisonous fungus, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... Miss Martineau, as the consequence of her desire to speak the truth as she apprehends it, is overwhelmed with atrocious insults from all quarters. For my own part I would rather fall into the hands of God than of man, and suffer as she did in the body, instead of being the mark of these cruel observations. But she has singular strength of mind, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... so elate with pride, that they trampled on the laws. All ties of friendship, all natural affection, and all relative duties, were extinguished. Whole families were destroyed; and the empire was a scene of anarchy and wild contention. He, who felt himself capable of the most atrocious deeds, declared himself a BLUE, and the GREENS were massacred with impunity. Montesquieu, Grandeur et ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus

... British government to the late maharaja, although the latter had adopted him in legal form and had proclaimed him his heir. This was one of the principal reasons for the mutiny, and without considering the question of justice or injustice, Nana Sahib satiated his desire for vengeance under the most atrocious circumstances. Having accepted the surrender of the little garrison upon his personal assurances of their security and safe conduct to Allahabad, he placed the survivors, about 700 in number, in boats upon the Ganges River and bade them good-by. As soon as ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... his brow, his thoughts dwelt sadly on his Myrtilus. Hitherto it had always seemed as if he was bound, and must commit some atrocious deed to use the seething power condemned to inaction. But as the galley left the Tanitic branch of the Nile behind, and the blind man inhaled the cool air upon the calm sea, his heart swelled, and for the first time he became fully aware that, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... she clung close to her husband, and as she looked up to him as if for protection, the moon-beams shining on her beautifully fair countenance showed it paler than usual with terror, while tears glittered in her fine dark eyes. "O caro mio!" would she murmur, shuddering at every atrocious circumstance of ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... resolution of leaving him to misery and want. But people of judgment treated this insinuation as an idle chimera; because, had my relations been so wicked as to consult their interest by committing such an atrocious crime, the fate of my father would have extended to me too whose life was another obstacle to their expectation. Meanwhile, I grew apace, and as I strongly resembled my father, who was the darling of the tenants, I wanted nothing which their indigent ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... the little finger of the left hand was an emerald ring, which I had often seen the murdered man wear, and which, being covered with blood and sand at the time of the catastrophe, no doubt escaped the attention of the villians who perpetrated the atrocious act. The left jaw was fractured by a rifle-bullet, which knocked him off his horse backwards, as described by one of ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... repeated Juve. "Here is how it came about. You remember when Fantomas got an unfortunate actor named Valgrand executed in his stead? Well, our mysterious Fantomas, the better to mislead and bamboozle those who might suspect this atrocious jugglery, our bandit of genius—for Fantomas has genius—took the personality of Valgrand for several hours, and dared to go to the theatre where the real Valgrand was playing. However, as Fantomas was not capable of playing ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... suffered no diminution; and learned priests, when they conversed with him, thought to themselves that few of the nobles of France were so well-informed as Gilles de Laval. But dark rumours spread gradually over the country; murder, and, if possible, still more atrocious deeds were hinted at; and it was remarked that many young children, of both sexes, suddenly disappeared, and were never afterwards heard of. One or two had been traced to the castle of Champtoce, and had never been seen to leave it; but no one dared to accuse openly so powerful ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... upon strength and vitality. She, who had been always fearless, became prey to a hundred unconfessed dreads. She feared for her husband, and with a frenzy of terror for her daughter. She woke trembling out of atrocious nightmares. She was wasting to a shadow, and always pretending that the life was ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... the ruffian's face as he realised that this evil woman who was ready to commit the most atrocious deeds out of love for him, was ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... reason for hesitating to accept any of these. But we would point out that, if some of these accounts have been founded on fact, the Sea Dayak victims, or their companions, have in all probability provoked the Kayans to severe, reprisals by their atrocious behaviour, and may be fairly said to have deserved ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... the marks of rust upon the face of the rock, which were declared by common consent to be bloodstains. Waddy confidently expected the gold-stealing case to culminate in the discovery of a particularly atrocious murder, and Ephraim Shine was selected as the probable victim. It was held by many that so good a man as the superintendent had seemed to be could not reasonably be suspected of consorting with a sinner like Joe Rogers with criminal intentions, ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... but Mr. R. not quite approving of them, they were left out in a subsequent edition, 1801. But George has been worrying about them ever since; if I have heard him once, I have heard him a hundred times express a remorse proportioned to a consciousness of having been guilty of an atrocious libel. As the devil would have it, a fool they call Barker, in his "Parriana" has quoted the identical two lines as they stood in some obscure edition anterior to 1801, and the withers of poor George are ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... on the ship Surprise, and, upon making their plea for their captive friend, were told that he had inflicted atrocious injuries upon British soldiers, and the Admiral had resolved to hang him from the yard-arm. The eloquence of Mr. Key, supplemented by letters written by British officers to Dr. Beanes, thanking him for the many kindnesses which they had received from him, finally won Admiral Cochrane from his vengeful ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... arousing the worst passions of their kind are playing with a dangerous sentiment. The negroes may as well understand that there is no mercy for the negro rapist and little patience with his defenders. A negro organ printed in this city, in a recent issue publishes the following atrocious paragraph: "Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful they will overreach themselves, and public sentiment will have a reaction; ...
— Southern Horrors - Lynch Law in All Its Phases • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... the shop, only to meet an atrocious woman from "The Gables," who stopped me with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... many other people, had an unsuspected strength of character which only a great occasion could call out. "It is perfectly atrocious," said she, at length, "and I am making a grave sacrifice of my happiness; but I suppose I must do it. Are you ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton



Words linked to "Atrocious" :   flagitious, horrifying, evil, ugly, horrible, alarming, grievous, painful, frightful



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