There was an awfulness in this tranquillity, that filled her friends with apprehensions.
"Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists"
Washington Irving
I tried to explain to her the awfulness of it, the incongruity, but no, she couldn't see it!
"To-morrow?"
Victoria Cross
"What I mean is," pursued Georgiana, "that ma being so endowed with awfulness, and pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there being so much awfulness everywhere-I mean, at least, everywhere where I am-perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened at it-I say it very badly-I don't know whether you can understand what I mean?"
"Dickens As an Educator"
James L. (James Laughlin) Hughes