"Formidably" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and Sally's eyes—pained, terrified—watched her face as she read. When she had finished, she laid down the paper, took off her spectacles and laid them glass downwards on the table. The long steel wires to pass over the ears stood upright, formidably bristling. ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... three-year-old boy commonly called "'Arry," was their pet. "Look, 'Arry; here's a dear little flow-wer! A little 'arts-ease—look, 'Arry!" "'Ere, 'Arry, have a bite o' this nice apple!" They were certainly attractive children, though formidably grubby as to their faces. I heard them with their father, admiring a litter of young rabbits in the hutch. "O-oh, en't that a dear little thing!" they exclaimed, again and again. Sunday was especially delightful to them because their father was ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... self-possessed man the apparition of an officer of the military forces, formidably clad, bearing in one hand a sheathed sword and in the other a cocked revolver, and rushing in furious pursuit, is no doubt disquieting to a high degree; upon the man to whom the pursuit was in this ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... suddenly quite fixed, reprobation. I was by this time—if I can put the whole thing at all together—more appalled at what I may properly call her manner than at anything else, though it was simultaneously with this that I became aware of having Mrs. Grose also, and very formidably, to reckon with. My elder companion, the next moment, at any rate, blotted out everything but her own flushed face and her loud, shocked protest, a burst of high disapproval. "What a dreadful turn, to be sure, miss! Where on earth ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... inclemencies of a tedious winter, fill our hearts with the visionary prospect of a speedy summer, and we fondly anticipate a long continuance of gentle gales and vernal serenity. But winter returns with redoubled horrors; the clouds condense more formidably than before, and those tender buds and early blossoms which were called forth by the transient gleam of a temporary sunshine, are nipped by frosts and torn by tempests.' These sentences are, after all, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... molest a weary traveller, for such are the blessings of the Venetian State, at least of the Terra Firma provinces, that it does not contain, I believe, above four regiments. Istria, Dalmatia, and the maritime frontiers, are more formidably guarded, as they touch, you know, the whiskers of the ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... my piece, there happened that terrible inundation which flooded the whole of Rome. [1] I waited to see what would happen; the day was well-nigh spent, for the clocks struck twenty-two and the water went on rising formidably. Now the front of my house and shop faced the Banchi, but the back was several yards higher, because it turned toward Monte Giordano; accordingly, bethinking me first of my own safety and in the next place of my honour, I filled my pockets with the jewels, and gave the gold-piece into the custody ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... meant a sledge journey of some two hundred miles along the coast, and its possibility depended upon the presence of sea-ice, which we have seen to have been absent at Evans Coves. It also meant crossing the Drygalski Ice Tongue, an obstacle which bulked very formidably in their imaginations during the winter. They reached the last rise of this glacier in the evening of October 10, and then saw Erebus, one hundred and fifty miles off. The igloo and the past were behind: Cape Evans and the future were in front—and the sea-ice was ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... must have been there oneself. But note this, Monsieur: never judge an impoverished man by your own standards of right and wrong—never! For the old-established meanings of things shift for him—they shift; and his temptations become formidably subtle beyond belief. When rich, he says calmly Non; ca ne va pas. But to forego an advantage, when poor, is the same as if—let me see ... as if one asked you to leave lying some fascinating flint in the ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... troubles at an end; but shortly after leaving Orte, where the road turns to the eastward for its climb over the Apennines, the lumbering vehicle came to a sudden halt. Shouts and oaths without, the shrieks of a woman at his side, and the opening of the door by a masked man, formidably ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... inflicted a most bloody defeat upon the enemy in an attempt to carry the great Polder. He withdrew, leaving heaps of slain, so that the account current for the day would have balanced itself, but that the Porcupine, having changed hands, now bristled most formidably against its ancient masters. The daily 'slaughter had become sickening to behold. There were three thousand effective men in the garrison. More could have been sent in to supply the steady depletion in the ranks, but ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to recognise the square set to the jaw that had impressed me so formidably the year before. And again his face relaxed almost quizzically as he ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... in the name of social pleasure. The most genial of his personal sonnets is addressed to Henry Lawrence, the son of the President of Cromwell's Council, and is an invitation to dinner. The repast promised is "light and choice"; the guest is apostrophised, somewhat formidably, as "Lawrence, of virtuous father, virtuous son," and is reminded, before he ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... voluntarily in the stocks with Sir Hudibras, and dare the world's contempt; while fashionable—or unfashionable idiots, who are scarcely capable of a grammatical answer to a dinner invitation, (those formidably confounded he's and him's!)—think themselves privileged to join some inane laugh against a clever, but not yet famous, author, because, forsooth, one character in his novel may be an old acquaintance, or one epithet in a long poem may be weak, indelicate, tasteless, or foolish, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... and the power of criticising are essentially different powers in the worlds both of thought and of action. Talent accumulates the materials of criticism from the experience of the past; and thus, as the world gets older, the critical ability grows, and becomes at length formidably complete;—whereas the power of originating, or, what is the same thing, of acting wisely, and on the spur of the moment, in new and untried circumstances, is an incommunicable faculty, which genius, and genius only, can possess. And genius is as rare now as it ever was. Any man ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... sense this is a far-fetched and rather childish objection, for so much of the history of the finite is as formidably foreign to us as the static absolute can possibly be—in fact that entity derives its own foreignness largely from the bad character of the finite which it simultaneously is—that this sentimental reason for preferring the pluralistic view seems small.[1] ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Porthos, formidably. And both rushed forth toward the mole, to place themselves within the shelter of the batteries. Boats, laden with soldiers, were seen approaching; they took three directions, for the purpose of landing at three points ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... whiter than the snow that lies Unsullied by the breath of southern skies; 30 Small shining horns on his curled forehead stand, As turned and polished by the workman's hand; His eye-balls rolled, not formidably bright, But gazed and languished with a gentle light. His every look was peaceful, and expressed The softness of the lover in the beast. Agenor's royal daughter, as she played Among the fields, the milk-white bull surveyed, And viewed ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... competes formidably with the convents as regards fees. Twenty-eight pounds yearly cover the expense of board, education, and medical attendance at the upper school; twenty-four at the lower; day boarders pay from twelve ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... shock too much? Kind Heaven! avert events Whose fatal nature might reply too plain! Heaven's half-bar'd arm of vengeance has been wav'd In northern skies, and pointed to the south. Vengeance delay'd but gathers and ferments; More formidably blackens in the wind; Brews deeper draughts of unrelenting wrath, And higher charges the suspended storm. "That public vice portends a public fall"— Is this conjecture of adventurous thought! Or pious coward's pulpit cushion'd dream; Far from it. This is certain; this ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... afternoon they were caught under a deluge of Eastern newspapers, and in them all the tariff discussion loomed formidably. There was every indication, too, that this big storm-cloud was moving westward; already it was hovering over the Missouri River Valley, because the newspapers of Kansas City and Omaha, like those of Chicago and New York, fairly ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the first place, he was ugly (Morgan will excuse me for mentioning this); in the second place, he was an inveterate smoker, and he smelled of tobacco when he felt languid pulses in elegant bedrooms; in the third place, he was the most formidably outspoken teller of the truth as regarded himself, his profession, and his patients, that ever imperiled the social standing of the science of medicine. For these reasons, and for others which it is not necessary ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... was hoarse, and till the sound of his own voice in all that unanswering and listening world began to frighten him. His confusion increased in direct ratio to the violence of his efforts. His distress became formidably acute, till at length his exertions defeated their own object, and from sheer exhaustion he headed back to the camp again. It remains a wonder that he ever found his way. It was with great difficulty, and only after numberless ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... city of Syracuse is a place of little or no military strength, as the fire of artillery from the neighboring heights would almost completely command it. But in ancient warfare its position, and the care bestowed on its walls, rendered it formidably strong against the means of offence which were then employed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... divan, her knees clasped around with her arms. And again was Platonov struck by the sombre fire in her deep eyes, that seemed fallen in underneath the dark eyebrows, formidably contracted downward, toward the bridge ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... the drawing-room at Belgrave Square with one of these ladies on either side of him. He was a tall, gaunt man with a grizzled black beard, a long nose, and such a formidably solemn expression that ambitious parents were in the habit of wishing that their offspring might some day be as wise as Sir Justin Wallingford looked. His fund of information was prodigious, while his reasoning powers were so remarkable that he had never been known to commit the slightest ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... gun used in hunting. That a single Martial battalion with its appropriate artillery could annihilate the best army of the Earth I could not but be aware; yet the first thought that occurred to me, as I looked on these formidably armed but diminutive soldiers, was that a score of my Arab horsemen would have cut a regiment of them to pieces. But by the time I had reached the foot of the steps my attention was concentrated on ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... oath of allegiance to a foreign monarch; and whoever might be king of France, or Spain, the pope was king of the Dominicans. All the other monastic orders were so many papal outposts. But the great Dominican order, immensely opulent in its pretended poverty; formidably powerful in its hypocritical disdain of earthly influence; and remorselessly ambitious, turbulent, and cruel in its primitive zeal; was an actual lodgment and province of the papacy, an inferior Rome, in the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... until the bulk of the population had retired to rest. Soon afterward, however, while pursuing their investigations, they reached a spot where the wall ended and where the grounds were enclosed for some distance by a lofty iron railing which, despite the fact that it was formidably spiked at the top, they thought might be easily scaled by two men who were accustomed, as they were, to climbing the masts and rigging of a ship. But on the other side of the railing was a wide, open street, along which people were constantly ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... pearly tinted clouds on the horizons. Where should she go? Only two ways lay open. Either she must follow Diana and Stanley up the valley, or she must stroll down to the temple alone. The third route lay to the Acropolis Hill, and that was formidably closed by the presence of the man who should have been her companion. Finally she decided on the temple, and tying on the large grey hat that blended so charmingly with her eyes and the soft tints of her skin, she walked along the little footpath skirting ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Hope not too much 35 From this first victory. Bethink you, sirs! How rapidly the wheel of Fortune turns; The Emperor still is formidably strong. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... which the yacht had been subjected was of course conclusive, so far as the non- existence of contraband on board at that moment was concerned. The only point upon which Jack had any uneasiness was the fact of the yacht being so formidably armed; he had given what he regarded as a very clever and ingenious explanation of the circumstance, which he hoped would prove completely satisfactory, but he was nevertheless not wholly free from ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... appendage of this chateau, so conspicuous is the ancient stronghold of the Vivarais. Livron, perched on a hill, looks very pretty. Soon we come to perhaps the grandest ruin cresting the bank of the Rhone, the donjon and chateau fort of Rochemaure, standing out formidably from the dark, jagged peaks, running sheer ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Mr. Kinnaird, his eyes would have sparkled with good-fellowship: he would have finished the verse and the bottle with you, and proceeded to as many more as your head could stand. Poor fellow, the last time I saw him, he was an apparition formidably substantial. The door of our host's dining-room opened without my hearing it, and, happening to turn round, I saw a figure in a great coat literally almost as broad as it was long, and scarcely able to articulate. He was dying of a dropsy, and was obliged to revive himself, before he was fit to converse, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... time. The trombones, bassoons, and cornets a piston, of which the harmonious strains had accompanied so many mazurkas in the bosom of peace, were suddenly transformed into warlike weapons, shining formidably in the light of the torches. The cocked hat of the lieutenant was struck ignominiously to the ground by one of them. Whereupon he picked it up, and his bellicose spirit was so stirred, that a line of foam encircled his lips, and he ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... Colkitto, dispatched for that purpose, had levied in Argyleshire. Among the most distinguished was John of Moidart, called the Captain of Clan Ranald, with the Stewarts of Appin, the Clan Gregor, the Clan M'Nab, and other tribes of inferior distinction. By these means, Montrose's army was so formidably increased, that Argyle cared no longer to remain in the command of that opposed to him, but returned to Edinburgh, and there threw up his commission, under pretence that his army was not supplied with reinforcements and provisions in the manner in which they ought to have been. From thence ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... hypochondriacal disorder which preyed in secret on his comfort during many years, and which, though apparently subdued by the cheering exhortations of frendship and great professional prosperity, failed not to show itself more formidably when he was exhausted by labour in the decline of life.' His trepidation was quite groundless, however. He had no lack of patrons or employment; the Duke of Richmond gave him generous encouragement and support, sat for his own picture, in profile, and commissioned portraits of Admiral Keppel, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... said formidably to the stout man. "You have a letter for the Minister. He's not here. He's gathering up his family. If anyone's in ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... which was either woven or knitted (it had darned places in it), and nothing in it was the right color or the right shape; and as for proportions, even Raphael himself couldn't have botched them more formidably, after all his practice on those nightmares they call his "celebrated Hampton Court cartoons." Raphael was a bird. We had several of his chromos; one was his "Miraculous Draught of Fishes," where he puts in a miracle of his own—puts three men into a canoe ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... formidably beside him, and Johnny Simms' expression of fury smoothed out instantly. He looked pleasant ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the Spanish people being led ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... been somewhat more formidably argued that the concluding cantos are spurious, that Kalidasa wrote only the first seven or perhaps the first eight cantos. Yet, after all, what do these arguments amount to? Hardly more than this, that the first eight cantos are better ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... it had no hold; and the whole bulk of Wales, in which the two castles of Pembroke and Montgomery were the sole Parliamentarian specks. Leaning back upon Wales, and the English counties of the Welsh border, the King, from Oxford, with its flanking counties north and south, fronted Parliament very formidably. [Footnote: In this survey of the state of the war over all England in April 1645, I have availed myself of the introductory Tables in Sprigge (pp. xi-xvi, Edit. 1854), repeated in Rushworth, VI. pp. 18-22. The geographical information in the Tables ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... consequence. The fighting alternative was, therefore, instantly adopted, and the boats pulled to shore nearly opposite to the hostile force. Here the arms were all examined and put in order. The swivel and howitzers were then loaded with powder and discharged, to let the savages know by the report how formidably they were provided. The noise echoed along the shores of the river, and must have startled the warriors who were only accustomed to sharp reports of rifles. The same pieces were then loaded with as many bullets as they would probably bear; after which the whole party embarked, and pulled across ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... course, American writers, as a rule, only pay attention to one set of cases, and British to the others. The Cyane and Levant threw a heavier broadside than the Constitution but were certainly less formidably armed; and the Essex threw a heavier broadside than the Phoebe, yet was also less formidable. On Lake Ontario the American ship General Pike threw less metal at a broadside than either of her two chief antagonists, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and as if doing nothing of the kind. But Estelle, as profoundly uneasy as if she had foreseen already the fate of the fat to end in the fire, was aware of it. She noted in Gerald's stiffly adjusted face the unself-conscious eyebrows, formidably different one from the other; she noted how Doctor Tom, sturdy and self-collected as he was, kept knocking the ashes of his cigar into ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Balzac's style is bad; in spite of the electric vigour that runs through his writing, it is formless, clumsy, and quite without distinction; it is the writing of a man who was highly perspicacious, formidably powerful, and vulgar. But, on the other hand, he possessed one great quality which Hugo altogether lacked—the sense of the real. Hugo was most himself when he was soaring on the wings of fancy through the empyrean; Balzac was most himself when he was rattling in a hired cab ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... making a study of the ground, and answering her remarks in his usual stumbling fashion. What was it had gone out of her voice—simply the soft callow sounds of first youth? And what a personage she had grown in these twelve months—how formidably, consciously brilliant in look and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... May, when I shall put you fairly on your trial for all crimes and misdemeanors. In the mean time, you will not be at a loss for judges, nor executioners either, if they could have their will. The world, in their generous ardour to take what they call the weaker side, soon contrive to make it most formidably the strongest. Most sincerely do I grieve at what has happened. It has upset all my wishes and theories as to the influence of marriage on your life; for, instead of bringing you, as I expected, into something like a regular orbit, it has only cast you off ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... forenoon of the 8th of May as Palo Alto was approached, an army, certainly outnumbering our little force, was seen, drawn up in line of battle just in front of the timber. Their bayonets and spearheads glistened in the sunlight formidably. The force was composed largely of cavalry armed with lances. Where we were the grass was tall, reaching nearly to the shoulders of the men, very stiff, and each stock was pointed at the top, and hard and ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... undergoing severe and strict manipulations at the hands of his wife. He had on the flowered jacket, but as proof against the sea air until he should be photographed, Mrs. Kobbe had applied paste to the locks of hair flayed out formidably each side of his ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... surpass Mr. Wm. Le Queux in the art of making a frankly and formidably melodramatic story go with alluring lightness ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... this question I'll insist," said Will formidably. "You've been a bachelor too long, and you a great medical man too. Men are scarce in this village, and you must have ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... dotty veil didn't disguise for him there was no possible concluding, at least on his part On hers, on hers it was—as he had so often for a week had reflectively to pronounce things—another affair. Ah, somehow, both formidably and helpfully, her face concluded—yet in a sense so strangely enshrouded in things she didn't tell him. What must she, what mustn't she, have done? What she had said—and she had really told him nothing—was no account ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... along the corridor through the nearest window; but there was a blurred sensation behind everything, a tiresome, unaccountable feeling as if he mightn't always be able to do things. He couldn't explain it exactly; but if it really turned up at all formidably later, he intended to shoot himself quickly before Peter ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... and this was equally divided between the 6th and 7th. As we were going over one company behind another, each company was responsible for nearly 700 yards—a very large front considering our depleted numbers. There is no doubt, as far as we were concerned, the task looked formidably ambitious. ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... were observed making a move, and as each proa got under sail, it steered towards us. The anchor was, therefore, immediately weighed, and we prepared to receive them as formidably as our means allowed. Their number was now increased to twenty-one vessels, by their having hoisted out six large canoes; but as they approached there was no appearance of any hostile intention, since some of them steered across ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... the genius of Certina, quietly but formidably. "We'll teach him a few things about libel, before he's through. Here's my proposition, Boyee. You can fight Pierce, but you can't fight all Worthington. Every enemy you make for the 'Clarion' becomes an ally of Pierce. Quit all these other campaigns. Stop roasting the business men and ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hand the tempests which infest the seas of China and Japan; the rocks, the gulphs, and banks of sands, which are formidably known by so many shipwrecks, are all of them under his dominion. He is Sovereign over all those pirates which cruize the seas, and exercise their cruelties on the Portuguese: and for this reason I cannot fear them; I only fear lest God should ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... dwarfed her father and mother. The conception, especially, of Mr. Ingram at lunch, deliciously playful and dominating, and now with the adroit wit crushed out of him and only a naive sentimentality left, was comic—as she had ruthlessly characterized it. She alone towered formidably over the devastated ruins ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... direction along the front of the British line towards the rear of La Haye Sainte, and so becoming blended with the divisions of French infantry, which under Donzelot had been assailing the Allies so formidably in that quarter. The sight of the Old Guard broken and in flight checked the ardour which Donzelot's troops had hitherto displayed. They, too, began to waver. Adams's victorious brigade was pressing after the flying Guard, and now cleared away the assailants ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... how much more formidable the task before them had become, the peasants were disheartened by their defeat, and even the boldest hesitated at the thought of again attacking foes so formidably posted. None of those who had returned were able to explain what was the obstacle which had checked their advance. All that they could tell was, that those before them had fallen, in some cases even before they were touched by the spears of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty |
