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Alarming   Listen
adjective
Alarming  adj.  Exciting, or calculated to excite, alarm; causing apprehension of danger; as, an alarming crisis or report. Alarmingly, adv.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Alarming" Quotes from Famous Books



... very weak, but continued slowly to recover. Several days elapsed, during which time Thornton's pain in the head had been upon the increase, and other alarming symptoms had been developed. These were intensely strengthened by the imprudence ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... of them, was indisputably the best speaker of the age. He was the first among the Romans who displayed the proper and distinguishing talents of an Orator, such as, digressing from his subject to embellish and diversify it,—soothing or alarming the passions, exhibiting every circumstance in the strongest light,—imploring the compassion of his audience, and artfully enlarging on those topics, or general principles of Prudence or Morality, on which the stress of his argument ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... I exclaimed with considerable relief. "The mother is dead, you know. Sylvester, that is my friend who sent this, shot her when the baby was only three days old." But the expression of Mrs. Brown's face at this moment was so alarming, that I saw that nothing but the fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not very coherently, I ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... desertions occur to an alarming extent, for want of sufficient food. And he says there is enough subsistence in the country, but that the Commissary ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... and who soon afterward sunk under a constitutional distemper. His mother caused the crown to be conferred on her husband, the ambitious Guy,—a measure which did not allay the jealousy of the nobles who had opposed their union. An alarming dissension prevailed among the barons, some of whom refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, and even offered the diadem to Humphrey de Thoron. But the intrigues of Sybilla and the terror of Saladin prevented ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell

... and they had got up, what was their astonishment to see no less than fourteen bats lying side by side! They were dead, of course: Guapo had killed them all during his watch. They had appeared at one period of the night in alarming numbers, and Guapo had done battle manfully ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... rejected his advances with all the marks of anger and disdain; and he found it necessary to appease the storm he had raised, by the most respectful and submissive demeanour; resolving to change his operations, and carry on his attacks, so as to make her yield at discretion, without alarming her religion or pride. Accordingly, when the bill was called after dinner, he took particular notice of her behaviour, and, perceiving her pull out a large leathern purse that contained her money, reconnoitred the pocket in which it was deposited, and, while they sat close to each other in the ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... The thought of his rubbing her headache away, his hands against her brow, was alarming yet exhilarating. She glanced up as she felt him removing the towel from her head, then quickly down again. She felt, even though her face was already fiery hot, that she was blushing. She was embarrassed, her head was racking, but on the whole she didn't dislike the situation. Mr. Briggs ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... wrong, a foul injustice, done to a whole race, and therefore ought to die, but that does not tell one half of the damning story: the worst is this, that it gradually kills out the virtue, the manliness, the moral vitality of the nation that allows it; that it has done so in our own nation to an alarming extent is the great, the fear-impelling cause why it should be rooted out, abolished, as an influence in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... resulting from the anaesthetic during the operation, the patient, unless of a very apathetic temperament, is in that state of severe nervous strain, when any unexpected movement or remark, or sight of a soiled instrument, may produce an alarming or fatal syncope. The earliest local anaesthetic was cold, produced by a mixture of ice and salt. In place of this cumbersome method, the skin is now frozen by means of a fine spray of ether or ethyl chloride directed upon it. The spraying is discontinued when the skin ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... still alive, having wakened but once in the night, and that only in consequence of Louis and Morgan crying; nothing more alarming than that. I ought to feel foolish; but I do not. I am glad I was prepared, even though there was ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... when the others had begged for one plum from her appetizing collection she had guarded them jealously, and, refusing to allow her pail to be placed with the others on the return trip, had held it in her lap, superior to all jeers and the alarming threats of her ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... mingling out of hours with the small but thoroughly charming set I had found ready to welcome me on my arrival as the "new Englishman." On the whole, I was popular, though one great flaw—i.e.—lack of high birth and desirable home connections, weighed to an alarming extent with the dowagers of ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... brought no alleviation to the troubles of Aureataland. If an individual hard up is a pathetic sight, a nation hard up is an alarming spectacle; and Aureataland was very hard up. I suppose somebody had some money. But the Government had none; in consequence the Government employees had none, the officials had none, the President had none, and finally, I had none. The bank had a little—of other people's, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope

... no less than the total subversion of the balance of power in the West Indies, and indeed everywhere else. This arrangement, considered in itself, but much more as it indicates a complete union of France with Spain, is truly alarming. Does he feel nothing of the change this makes in that part of his description of the state of France where he supposes her not able to face one of our detached squadrons? Does he feel nothing for the condition of Portugal under this new coalition? Is it for this state ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Morgan, not feeling any alarming symptoms, had to carry out his promise to join Lady Thiselton's little dinner party. She received him with a formality that made him laugh inwardly—and almost outwardly. But the impulse died away as with a start ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill

... to that school the summer previous to this, but did not pass the examination. There was still some doubt whether he would succeed any better at the next examination; and in case of his failure, his parents had decided to send him to a boarding-school in the country. But there was nothing very alarming to him in the idea of going into such an establishment, notwithstanding all his father said of the strict discipline to which he would be subjected. There would be a novelty about it, he imagined, that would make ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell

... month," argued John, who was somewhat taken aback, however, by the alarming news of Mrs. Goddard's age. "Besides, I can go into the church, before I ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford

... rapidity that was truly alarming the black haze in the west crept upwards over the sky, the sun was engulfed in a few minutes, and before half an hour, accompanied by a roaring wind and a whirl of dust and decayed leaves, the storm ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables

... had done so as long as most of them could remember; but it was only of late that matters had begun to look really serious for them. It was rumoured that the Hall was already mortgaged beyond its value, and it was common knowledge that the Colonel's debts were accumulating with alarming rapidity. This marriage, so it was openly surmised, had been arranged in haste for the sole ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... time in Minnesota, hundreds of miles from the scene of the disasters, and he can never forget the condition of things. There was a parched, combustible, inflammable, furnace-like feeling in the air, that was really alarming. It felt as if there were needed but a match, a spark, to cause a world-wide explosion. It was weird and unnatural. I have never seen nor felt anything like it before or since. Those who experienced it will bear me out in ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... conveyed in classical allusions, or in the coarse plainness of speech of an earlier age? I know as a fact, whether we recognize it or not, that behind our mature backs our girls are discussing these moral problems with quite an alarming amount of freedom, and some at least, guided by no teaching, and with no practical knowledge of the great laws of human life, are coming to quite startling conclusions, which would make their mothers' hair stand on end. And one most ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... will be made against Rev. Dr. Thomas, of Chicago, at the trial next month. The amount of heresy that is going on in this country, and particularly among ministers, is truly alarming. The names of his partners in guilt are not mentioned, probably out of respect for their families. A minister that goes around practicing heresy ought to be watched, and when caught at it he should be bounced. There is no excuse for heresy, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck

... left the gates, however, than he turned his horse's head in the opposite direction, and rode off post haste to Antwerp. There he had a conference with William of Orange, and painted in lively colors the alarming position of affairs. "And what do you mean to do in the matter?" asked the Prince, rather drily. Ryhove was somewhat disconcerted. He had expected a violent explosion; well as he knew the tranquil personage whom ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... words of mine," he says, "would convey to you an adequate idea of the great obstacles which the social and religious condition of the Hindoo community presents in the way of female education and advancement. In a country where superstition and caste prejudices prevail to an alarming extent, where widows are cruelly persecuted and prevented from remarrying, where high-caste Hindoos are allowed to marry as many wives as they like without undertaking the responsibility of protecting them, and where little girls marry at a most tender age and sacrifice all prospects ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... little Journal is precluded by the alarming progress of Napoleon, and the consequent necessity of taking immediate steps for our departure from this country. The ex-Emperor is every day making rapid strides to the capital; and we have to-day ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison

... soon to understand. The next day Eileen took him up to London by train. This in itself was a tremendous adventure, though alarming at first. He traveled in the guard's van, it having been found quite impossible to get him into an ordinary compartment—or, rather, to get any one else into the compartment after he lay down on the floor. So he traveled with the guard, chained to the ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay

... never abated his unacceptable attentions to the orphan heiress. Day by day, on the contrary, to Clara's unspeakable distress, these attentions grew more pointed and alarming. ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth

... repeated in November at South Kensington Museum, as the first part of a threefold course to women on the elements of physical science, and the "Times" reporter naively remarks that under the rather alarming name of Physiography, many of the audience were no doubt surprised to hear an exceedingly simple and lucid description of a river-basin. Want of leisure prevented him from bringing out the lectures in book form until November 1877. When it did appear, however, the book, like his other popular ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... on to Oconomowoc. He stopped for the night with Brother Worthington, ate sparingly, and retired at the usual time. At three o'clock in the morning he was seized by the cholera. The attack, severe at first, soon became alarming. Medical aid was called, but without avail. He lingered until six o'clock P.M., and passed away in great peace. His family were sent for, but failed to reach him before his departure. The Funeral Sermon was preached in the Spring Street ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller

... probably Silence; he has charge of this door.... It appears to have been alarming?... You are quite pale still ...
— The Blue Bird: A Fairy Play in Six Acts • Maurice Maeterlinck

... . . So she hates you, does she? I am charmed to hear it. Indifference would be an alarming symptom, but good, cordial hatred, or what looks like it, is a most hopeful sign. The next chance you get to see her alone, assure her that you never shall repeat your first offence. If nothing comes of it I am not a woman, and never was one; ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... Next to the public school, the post-office is the great agent of education over our vast territory. The rapidity with which new sections are being settled, thus increasing the carrying of mails in a more rapid ratio than the increase of receipts, is not alarming. The report of the Postmaster-General herewith attached shows that there was an increase of revenue in his Department in 1873 over the previous year of $1,674,411, and an increase of cost of carrying the mails and paying ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant

... breaking things. She always had her little snub nose into everything, and being too small to see what was on the table, she pulled it down instead. Soeren had to get a drill and learn to mend earthenware to make up for the worst of her depredations. A great many things fell over Ditte without alarming her ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... every afternoon. A seizure of this sort occurred about March 7, when he was walking alone at a short distance from the house; he got home with difficulty, and this was the last time that he was able to reach his favourite 'Sand-walk.' Shortly after this, his illness became obviously more serious and alarming, and he was seen by Sir Andrew Clark, whose treatment was continued by Dr. Norman Moore, of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and Mr. Alfrey, of St. Mary Cray. He suffered from distressing sensations of exhaustion and faintness, and seemed ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... wicked little heroine. Miss Russell was quite certain of Annie's guilt; she and her companions condescended to discuss poor Annie and to pull all her little virtues to pieces, and to magnify her sins to an alarming extent. ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade

... McHenry Colonel Armistead had under him about 1,000 men, including soldiers, sailors, and volunteers. It is said he was the only man aware of the alarming fact that the powder magazine was not bombproof. During the night of September 13 the fort was under constant bombardment by the enemy, but the attack failed. Discouraged by the loss of the British general in land ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor

... usually accompanied by definite argument, but it assumes that birth-control is the method of such suicide, and that the first and most immediately dangerous result is that one's own nation, whichever that may be, is placed in a position of alarming military inferiority to other nations, as a step towards the final extinction. It is useless to deny that it really is a serious matter if there is danger of the speedy disappearance of the human race from the earth by its own voluntary and ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... the giantess Ruotze hatched dragons or lind-worms from the huge eggs. These animals grew with alarming rapidity, and soon the governor of the province sent word to the king that he could no longer provide food enough for the monsters, which had become the terror of the whole countryside. They finally ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... the wheel! The wheel has a tricky way of turning up the unexpected between nations. A new era had come to the United States. Kansas was no longer feeding wheat to hogs. In fact, the decrease in wheat exports had become so alarming that men like Hill of Great Northern fame and James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, actually predicted that there would come a day of bread famine in the United States. The population of the United States had grown faster than the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut

... of the family, Doctor Bertaud, noticed alarming symptoms in the girl, most prevalent between five and seven o'clock each evening. He could not ascertain the cause, but persuaded the philosopher to take her to Doctor Potain, a celebrated heart specialist. Madame Darbois took Esperance ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... in the bay. Alongside of us lay a large steamer, which had tried the Pentland Firth in the morning, but after five unsuccessful hours had been obliged to put back. This steamer had shifted her cargo, and lay over on her side, in a way that looked to me alarming; we left her in the bay when we weighed anchor on ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Maltravers, "I have heard, indeed, some ugly old gentlemen with immense whiskers, and gestures of the most alarming ferocity, pour out their vehement impromptus; but I have never yet listened to a young and a handsome lady. I shall only believe the inspiration when I hear it direct ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Bucks.—The Chiltern Hundreds formed a bailiwick of the ordinary type. They are situated on the Chiltern Hills, and the depredations of the bandits, who found shelter within their recesses, became at an early period so alarming that a special officer, known as the steward of the Chiltern Hundreds, was appointed for the protection of the inhabitants of the neighbouring districts. It is doubtful at what date the necessity for such an appointment disappeared, but the three hundreds of Stoke, Burnham and Desborough ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... together over puzzling cases—cases of fraud, of mischief-making, of ignorant evil-doing, of inherited tendencies, physical, mental, and moral— and sometimes it will seem as if the whole human creation were incurably ailing, and the doctrine of total depravity will take on alarming probability. But at this point some sound, smiling, active boy or girl comes in with a cheerful greeting, and pessimism retires into the background. And all this reminds me of one more quality which the children's librarian must have—a ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... Majesty to call forth all the resources of the country. When I look to the state of Ireland, when I turn my attention to our foreign relations, and above all, when I call to mind the present condition of the Peninsula, I find it impossible to shut my eyes to the alarming truth, that events are on the eve of occurring, which may call forth to the utmost, every exertion which Englishmen are capable of making, and may demand, as I have said before, all the resources ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... sight of a medical certificate of his invalid state. Van Haubitz assumed a doleful countenance and betook him to the surgeons. They agreed with the general that he looked pretty healthy; asked for symptoms; could discover none more alarming than regularity of pulse, sleep, appetite, and digestion, laughed in his face and refused the certificate. The sickly cannonier, who had the constitution of a rhinoceros, and had never had a day's illness since he got over the measles at the age of four years, waited a little, and tried the second ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various

... for them by lantern-light. Dancing-girls climbed on board and feasted with them, and sang to the sound of the samisen, and played with them the game of ken. Late into the night the feasting and the fun continued; and although an alarming quantity of sake was consumed, there was no roughness or boisterousness. But sake is the most soporific of wines; and by midnight only three of the men remained on deck. One of these had not taken any sake at all, but still desired to eat. Happily ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... elephant hunter decided that they were near enough to chance some shots. As a matter of fact, Tom Swift, with his electric rifle, had been within range some time before, but as he did not want to spoil the sport for the others, by firing and killing, and so alarming the herd, he had held back. Now ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... Adelantado, the brave pilot made his way back to the boat. Columbus, on receiving the alarming intelligence brought by the pilot, was thrown into a state of the greatest anxiety. Rather than allow the settlement to be broken up, he would have joined the Adelantado with all his people; but how, then, could he send tidings ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... of James Curtain; and had reached Alexandria just as the plague was beginning to disappear from that city, as it always does on the approach of St. John's day, when, as almost every body knows, "out of respect for the saint," it entirely ceases. The state of the country was still very alarming, yet Mr. Belzoni and his little party ventured to land, and performed quarantine in the French quarter; where, though really very unwell, they were wise enough to disguise their situation; "for the plague is so dreadful a scourge," he observed, "and operates so ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various

... and brief of speech. Life was a serious business with them just then. Their ranches were their all. They had given hostages to competence. Up to a year ago they had believed themselves lucky, independent, on the way to modest fortune. Then came alarming rumours; next, construction of works confirming the rumours. Now they were come to hear the worst or best from the lips ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm

... shining and shedding her dreamy light over the sleeping, snow-clad valley, and the silvery rays filtered through the clustering branches of the towering trees. As the great boat swung along past a farm-house, Jenkins heard the shrill, alarming cry of a peacock. Strains of music came floating upward from the cabin. The grim, black smoke-stacks were breathing heavily, and the timbers of the Texas trembled as the boat came up under ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis

... lambs,' and it was some time ere I became accustomed to the novel use of the word. Now, the common announcements that 'the cuckoo hen has brought out a rare mob of chickens,' or that 'there's a great mob of quail in the big paddock,' are to me fraught with no alarming anticipations." ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... by the friendly care of this benevolent negro, from a situation truly deplorable, but his fever became daily more alarming. On the third day after his arrival, as he was going with Karfa to visit some of his friends, he was so faint that he staggered and fell into a pit; Karfa endeavoured to console him, and assured him that if he would not walk out into ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... quickly upon rescript; one sounding as if written by de Witte, the other as if dictated by Pobiedonostseff; while alarming rumors were coming hourly from Moscow, Finland, Poland, the Crimea, the Caucasus; and the great fabric before which the world had trembled seemed threatened at ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele

... stoop to the lobby floor last night at or shortly after the critical moment of Miss Challoner's fall in the half story above. I can give such information. I was in the lobby at the time, and in the height of the confusion following this alarming incident, I remember seeing a lady,—one of the new arrivals (there were several coming in at the time)—stoop quickly down and pick up something from the floor. I thought nothing of it at the time, and so paid little attention to her appearance. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... hour, full of alarming forebodings, and we witnessed the depression of our brother exiles with sorrow ...
— Acadian Reminiscences - The True Story of Evangeline • Felix Voorhies

... again; and thought they would try a different diet, and then thought better of it; and made but a poor use of their advantages, after all. And others you will see, who have begun life as wicked crystals; and then have been impressed by alarming circumstances, and have become converted crystals, and behaved amazingly for a little while, and fallen away again, and ended, but discreditably, perhaps even in decomposition; so that one doesn't know what will become of them. And sometimes you will see deceitful crystals, that look as soft ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... sufficiently high to rise above the leaves, and to permit one seated on it to overlook the plain as well as the starlight would allow. Believing the duty to be important, Captain Truck, first giving his orders to Mr. Leach, as to the mode of alarming the men, should it become necessary, went cautiously out on the bowsprit, and thence by the foot-ropes, to the farther extremity of the booms. As this was done with the steadiness of a seaman and with the utmost care to prevent discovery, he was soon stretched on the spar, balancing his ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... celebrated for the "Sepulchres of the Giants" (Greek tombs) that were unearthed here, and latterly for a certain more valuable antiquarian discovery. Not long ago it was a considerable undertaking to reach this little place, but nowadays a public motor-car whirls you up and down the ravines at an alarming pace and will deposit you, within a few hours, at remote Cosenza, once an enormous drive. It is the same all over modern Calabria. The diligence service, for instance, that used to take fourteen hours from San Giovanni to Cosenza has been replaced by motors that cover the distance in four or five. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas

... have tried to explain, and unsuccessfully it seems, it is haunted by nothing more alarming than ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... his departure on account of a distressing and alarming disturbance of his nervous system. Mr. Haden recommended him to give up all kind of work immediately, which he did, and for a few days he only wrote ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... this young woman had a brow of pride. It was ample and broad and, after the Greek manner, it rose almost in a line with her admirable nose. A noble head, to be sure, but alarming to a mere human man. So Harry thought, and he touched his hat and said: "Madame, your most humble. Pray what do you want with my Benjamin? Your gentle heart ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey

... remarkable except that one typhoon crossed our track not ten miles astern, and for eighteen miles we travelled alongside another, the heavy seas striking the ship nearly abeam, and causing her to roll in a very alarming manner. The troops had a very uncomfortable time, and were glad to sight the coast of Korea and the calm waters of the ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... been full of kindly interest. She was in private not sorry that it was felt better that she should not disturb the patient by a visit to his room. The abnormality of his condition seemed just slightly alarming ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... be rendered very simple, if people would but make it so; but from the volumes which have been recently written on diet and digestion, we might gather the alarming information that nearly every thing we eat is pernicious. Far be it from me to adopt such a discouraging theory. My object is rather to point out what is good, than to stigmatize what is bad—to afford the patient, if I can, the means of comfort and enjoyment, and not to tell ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various

... seldom, if at all, engage your attention; and therefore you spend days, weeks, months and years, in a profane and careless manner, though you are repeatedly informed and reminded in the most plain, faithful, and alarming language I can use, that the wages of sin, without repentance, is death,[Rom. vi. 23.] the curse of God, and the eternal ruin and ...
— An Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies, Established in New South Wales and Norfolk Island. • Richard Johnson

... had been a concerted signal, the back door was struck as rudely the next instant. They were hemmed in. But at these alarming sounds Margaret seemed to recover some share of self-possession. She whispered, "Say he was here, but is gone." And with this she seized Gerard and almost dragged him up the rude steps that led to her father's sleeping-room. Her own lay ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... and alarming in the little cabin, like the floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself fall on the couch. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... really afraid now, and she knew it. She was feeling very small and defenceless in an extremely alarming world. She could not have said what it was that had happened to her. She only knew that life had become of a sudden very vivid, and that her ideas as to what was amusing had undergone a striking change. A man's ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... high domes, and bottomless pits; heard the voice of unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a mile in the deep Echo River, whose waters are peopled with the blind fish; crossed the streams "Lethe" and "Styx"; plied with music and guns the echoes in these alarming galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured and fretted chambers,—the icicle, the orange-flower, the acanthus, the grapes, and the snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... Coffee—The adulteration of articles of human food is a practice of the most nefarious description, and cannot be too strongly deprecated, although it has been carried to an alarming extent. There is scarcely an article of ordinary consumption but has been unlawfully adulterated, and in many cases rendered injurious by the infamous and fraudulent practice of interested persons. Bread, which is considered to be the staff of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... deputation of fifteen hundred select men, with instructions to march to Rome and lay their complaints before the Emperor. These military petitioners, by their own determined behavior, by inflaming the divisions of the guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army, and by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained the minister's death, as the only redress of their grievances. This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the weakness of government, were a sure presage of the most ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... moment, however, a servant came in with a telegram. It was from Dubuche, who wired: 'Impossible to stir. Alice has an alarming cough.' ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... Eleanor Hopton was a proper and dignified young lady, and the straightness of her back was quite alarming as she frowned dissent at the new-comer. "Frighten people, indeed! Do you not call that naughty? It's a wicked and dangerous thing to do, and you would be punished severely if you attempted it. I have read of people who died of fright. How would you ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... and grasses from the land, he sells a portion of his soil; and if he does not renew in some way the saline matters taken away in his crops, he invariably impoverishes his farm. This work of exhaustion is now going on to an alarming extent, and the prolific wheat lands are to be searched for farther and farther westward ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in Paris ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... century after Christ, fermentation begins among the former of these two groups. No longer are the Germanic tribes content with fighting for their land, retreating step by step before the Latin invader; alarming symptoms of retaliation manifest themselves, like the rumblings that herald the great cataclysms ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... slipped in a sheet of foolscap, and began to type-write with alarming speed—click, click, click; while Elsie, rising to the occasion, set to work to transcribe imaginary shorthand as if her life depended ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... alarming them. The Commons persisted in their plan of impeachment. The king arrested the men whom they appointed as managers of the impeachment, and imprisoned them. The Commons remonstrated, and insisted that Buckingham should be dismissed from the king's service. The king, ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... applauded upon another occasion in a Brutus or an Appius,—but, for want of attending to Antonio's words, which palpably led to the expectation of no less dire an event, instead of being seduced by his manner, which seemed to promise a sleep of a less alarming nature than it was his cue to inflict upon Elvira, they found themselves betrayed into an accompliceship of murder, a perfect misprision of parricide, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various

... on her babies at Allan's alarming suggestion, and managed to hug them both at once; an ordeal which Philip stood with every evidence of pleasure, and Angela ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... parents could procure, and, though constitutionally strong, this hothouse, fashionable life had began to undermine her general health, and having exhausted the skill of the regular physician, her condition became so alarming that other counsel was sought; and this new disciple of Esculapius was a shrewd, honest man, and wont to get at the root of difficulties. He saw at a glance that the patient's disease was born wholly of fashion. He found her waist ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... stormy weather. He knows they are not made to stand the rough usages of life. After finishing her term at the high school she entered the summer school at Berkeley. While there she contracted a cold which became alarming but she was unconscious that it was touching her vitals and kept busy with her books. After the school closed her mother returned and finding she did not improve, removed her to her home and concluded she had better be attended to at once. She had ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson

... narrative, Tertius had returned with further news. And these, of a truth, were very alarming. The lower slopes of the Palatine, as well as the Forum and the surrounding streets, were now in the hands of the mob. The few legions who were in the city had been cut off from the Palatine, and though they were making vigorous efforts to break through the close ranks of the crowd, they ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... which set me thinking. The keys of the club-house had been found lying on a table in the side hall of the Cumberland mansion—the keys which I have already mentioned as missing from my pocket. An alarming discovery which might have acted as a clew to the suspicious I feared, if their presence there had not been explained by the waitress who had cleared the table after dinner. Coming upon these keys lying on the floor beside one of the chairs, she had ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... retired. I sought Ewell, and reported. We had a fine game before us, and the temptation to play it was great; but Jackson's orders were imperative and wise. He had his stores to save, Shields to guard against, Lee's grand strategy to promote; and all this he accomplished, alarming Washington, fastening McDowell's strong corps at Fredericksburg and preventing its junction with McClellan, on whose right flank he subsequently threw himself at Cold Harbor. He could not waste time chasing Fremont, but we, who looked from ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... picked ourselves up we begin to suppose that such a state of mind must have been caused by something of which the significance was inherent and the value absolute. "This," we say, "is absolute beauty." Perhaps it is. Only, let us hesitate to give that rather alarming style to anything that has moved us ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... was revealed to the Girondists but a few hours before its destined catastrophe, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the doomed victims obtained extrication from the toils which had been wound around them. Disastrous news was now daily arriving from the frontiers. The most alarming tidings came of insurrections in La Vendee, and other important portions of France, in favor of the restoration of the monarchy. These gathering perils threw terror into the hearts of the Jacobins, and roused them to deeds of desperation. Though Madame Roland was now in comparative obscurity, ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... There may be less than an ounce or it might amount to a pint or more before the bleeding stops. In advanced cases, in which large cavities have formed, large blood vessels may be eaten through and this followed by copious and alarming bleeding. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, "Five-Spot," for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... more favourably than any of his attendants and friends had ventured to anticipate. For some days the symptoms continued as alarming as at first; but from the hour that he began to amend, his progress towards recovery was without drawback, and unusually rapid. Within a month, the news circulated through the village, that he had been safely brought home to his own lodgings; and the day after, the ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... keeping his head above water. He was as blue as indigo and as cold as a frog when rescued by his anxious mother. The next day the same victimized infant was seen, by a passing friend, seated on the chimney, on the highest peak of the house. Without alarming anyone, the friend hurried up to the housetop and rescued the child. Another time the three elder brothers entered into a conspiracy, and locked up the fourth, Theodore, in the smoke-house. Fortunately, he sounded the alarm loud and clear, and was ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the castle of Baron Lamond must be within half an hour's walk of where he now moved without show of eagerness, yet quickly none the less, from a danger the more alarming because the extent of ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... family in 1594. It was, he wrote in September, 1594, raging in the town of Sherborne 'very hot.' 'Our Bess,' he added, 'is one way sent, her son another way; and I am in great trouble therewith.' Less alarming occasions were constantly taking him away. He had to be in Devonshire and Cornwall, discharging the duties of his Wardenship and Lieutenancy. Every year he went to Bath for the waters. He resorted to Weymouth for sea bathing ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... during one day and one night it burned like a furnace, and emitted flashes in such fashion that each time I looked to see if my masts and my sails were not destroyed; these flashes came with such alarming fury that we all thought the ship must have been consumed. All this time the waters from heaven never ceased, not to say that it rained, for it was like a repetition of the Deluge. The men were at this time so crushed in spirit, that they longed for death as a deliverance from so ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... alarming report ran down the line that their left was driven back, and it was true. The valiant Zollicoffer leading his brigade in person, had rushed upon this portion of the Northern army which was standing upon another low hill and struck it with great violence. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... themselves to those illicit sciences, whose amusements are criminal, and turn us aside from the study of the Holy Scriptures.[307] It seems that one of the Porta's had delivered himself in the style of an ancient oracle; but what was more alarming in this prophetical spirit, several of his predictions had been actually verified! The infallible court was in no want of a new school of prophecy. Baptista Porta went to Rome to justify himself; and, content to wear his head, placed his ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... her husband is a rabid Spaniard. "A rabid Spaniard!" Could anything be more alarming? No; I will not be the innocent means to bring about discussions, and precipitate a conflict between the Cubans and the Spaniards! I have pinned upon the bed-curtains, next to the precautions for preserving health and the washing-list, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone

... enthusiasm to be neighborly and helpful was more a matter of theory than practice, and it did not take Claire many days to decide that she had no right to impose upon a good nature which was made up largely of ignorance of a sick-room's demands. Claire's final check from Flint was dwindling with alarming rapidity; indeed, she was facing the first of the year with the realization that there would be barely enough to pay the next month's rent, let alone to settle the current bills. She had no idea what Mrs. Condor intended paying, but she fancied that it must be little enough. Surely Mrs. Condor ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie

... vexation and saucy disdain. The uncompromising manner in which she declined the proposed honor, threw her guardian, who had strengthened himself to enact the part of Cupid's messenger, by a somewhat liberal repast, into a state of astonishment which threatened alarming disturbance ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... wagon, driving a tall sorrel horse named Pumpkin. This animal was ill suited to the dignity of his driver. He had a singularity of gait which consisted in occasionally going on three legs, and at times elevating both hind legs in a manner rather amusing than alarming; often he persisted in backing when urged to go forward, and always his emotions were expressed by the switching of his very light wisp of a tail. Mrs. Cooper was most frequently Mr. Cooper's companion on these daily excursions, although often the eldest daughter took the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... sentences. We passed Albano's on the other side of the street, being careful not to look at it too closely, for several men were hanging idly about—pickets, apparently, with some secret code that would instantly have spread far and wide the news of any alarming action. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... her little girl was two years old. The grief of the husband was terrible and the more alarming to his parents because perfectly silent and dry-eyed. After the funeral, while the immense bareheaded crowd of peasants surrounding the private chapel on the grounds was dispersing, the Prince, waving away his friends and relations, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad

... Boston town, and good Queen Anne was prayed for in Puritan pulpits, an expedition was fitted out under Sir Hovenden Walker to drive the French out of Canada. In the previous year, 1710, the Legislature of New York had taken steps to lay before the Queen the alarming progress of Gallic domination ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway

... from my aunt Hervey. Betty, in her alarming way, told me, I should have a lady to breakfast with me, whom I little expected; giving me to believe it was my mother. This fluttered me so much, on hearing a lady coming up-stairs, supposing it was she, (and not knowing how ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... afford to wait too long lest his determination to face what lay inside should fail him. On feast days the Joss House was a gay place, full of lights and people crowding in and out, and there was no room for fear, for even a Joss is not alarming in company with many men, but when Leh Shin went in, the place was deserted, and it seemed to him that the unseen power was terribly near ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... that, the descent of Gervaise was rapid. Lantier never paid anything for his support, Coupeau drank more heavily than ever, and Gervaise, who was gradually drifting into intemperance, resumed her old connection with her lover. All the time work was being neglected, and debts were accumulating with alarming rapidity. Eventually Madame Virginie Poisson took over the shop, and with it Lantier, who transferred his affections along with the lease, and the Coupeaus removed into a small house high up in the same building. ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... anger, 'Because that worst of kings offereth me food that is unholy and unworthy of being taken, therefore that wretch shall have himself a fondness for such food. And becoming fond of human flesh as cursed by Saktri of old, the wretch shall wander over the earth, alarming and otherwise troubling all creatures.' The curse, therefore, on that king, thus repeated a second time, became very strong, and the king, possessed by a Rakshasa disposition, soon lost all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... viruela had scarcely visited San Jose within the memory of man and the vesicles looked alarming, the population, true children of the Church, agreed with their pastors, and, from purely religious motives, hooted and stoned the philanthropic "Americano" and his guard out of the district. Now ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... to be no longer his own master, as in former days. Fate had caused his feet to stray towards something new—something alarming. He was poised, as it were, on the brink of a gulf. Or rather, it was as if that old mind of his, like a boat sailing hitherto briskly before the wind, had suddenly encountered a bank of calm, of utter and ominous calm; it was a thing spell-bound; a toy of circumstances ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... to audience.) And perhaps I'd better mention, Lest alarming you I am, That it isn't our intention To perform a Dithyramb— It displays a lot of stocking, Which is always very shocking, And of course I'm only mocking At ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan



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