"Breath" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... things to be said. The mother of the lady, who formerly moved in a higher sphere than she does at present, never maintained a very formidable character. This daughter is the fruit of her indiscriminate amours, and though I am perfectly satisfied she has not yet been blown upon by the breath of a mortal, her education has been such as to prepare her to follow the venerable example of her mother. Your lordship therefore sees that in this case, you will wrong no parent, and seduce no child, that you will merely gather an harvest already ripe, and which will ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... of course it was only real fishes that could do it. Spray-tail felt stung on behalf of his kin, and as the shark had told him that there were openings here and there in the roof of this underground way, he made up his mind to try his luck, trusting that he could hold his breath from one opening to another. But it fell out otherwise. Spray-tail never came back. The last ever heard of him was that some swans, in their flight over the hills, had seen a jet of blood spurting out ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... flocks are in the fold, and the birds at roost, and the echoes themselves seem to be asleep, there is occasionally a sweet music heard, too soft for even the listening ear to catch by day. Every breath of summer wind that steals through the pine-forests wakes this music as it goes. The stiff spiny leaves of the fir and pine vibrate with the breeze, like the strings of a musical instrument, so that every breath of the night-wind, in a Norwegian forest, wakens a myriad of tiny harps; ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... telling romantic stories to while away the tedium of the lives of the great. Fancy the reception they would have given me for bringing a new joy into their castled isolation, new ideas, new passions—a breath of gossip and scandal from the outside world to relieve the intolerable boredom of the middle ages. I should have been kept at the Court of Aix: I think they would have bound me with flower-chains, and my fame would have spread ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... Count Rolland the breath of life Gone from his friend, his body stretched on earth, His face low in the dust, his tears gush out With heavy sobs. Then tenderly he speaks: "Alas! for all thy valor, comrade dear! Year after year, day after day, a life ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... the reply. "I recollect the bugle sounding, and then I was too busy to know what I did till it sounded 'Cease firing!' I know I was out of breath." ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... raised that way," he replied to the last question. "Bill, old man, when you grow up, don't you ever become one of these fellows who can't walk two blocks without stopping three times to catch up with their breath. If you get like that mutt Dana Ferris you'll break my heart. And you're heading that ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... nothing: this malady was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two months they were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the post-mortems as over the treatment of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a path should be left, one rood in breadth. Along the middle paths and by the side of the divisions drains must be cut, the former two feet in breath and depth, the latter one foot. The drains along the divisions must be cut in such a way as to conduct the rain-water to the larger drains which flank the middle paths. On precipitous ground, when the coffee is planted, small ridges should be raised between the rows, to prevent ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... reminiscences of extinguished meerschaums. He should remember that the sick are sensitive and fastidious, that they love the sweet odors and the pure tints of flowers, and if his presence is not like the breath of the rose, if his hands are not like the leaf of the lily, his visit may be unwelcome, and if he looks behind him he may see a window thrown open after he has left the sick-chamber. I remember too well the old doctor who sometimes came to help me through those inward ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... parks, streams and lakes—but as she appears in all her wildness, ruggedness, raggedness and simple grandeur, in the glorious land of Scott and Burns, the Queen's journal, though a little clouded at the last, by that "great sorrow," is very pleasant, breezy reading. It gives one a breath of heather, ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... especial reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery, that he lacks the faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move; his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and anon he will seem to pause with as satisfied an air as if he had been talking excellent sense. Good sense or bad, Monsieur du Miroir is the sole judge of his own conversational powers, never having whispered ...
— Monsieur du Miroir (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... aids us in this deep search, quickens us, gives us impulses. At first in our natural state we are able only in a very dim way to perceive these impulses, but we can become so sensitive to God that He pierces us, brings us to the ground with a breath, and we bend and yield before His lightest wish as a reed bends and ...
— The Romance of the Soul • Lilian Staveley
... The mountains on the mainland had vanished, and even the heights on Vinalhaven were being blotted out; but as yet not a breath of air ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... vengeance seize my breath, I must pronounce thee just in death; And if my soul were sent to hell, Thy righteous law approves ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... inferno of fire a captured German officer told with his dying breath of a fresh division of Germans that was about to be thrown into the battle to attempt to wrest from the marines that part of the wood they had gained. The marines, who for days had been fighting only on their sheer nerve, who had been worn out from nights of sleeplessness, ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... of serpents gave his consent. And the serpents thereupon began auspicious rites. Then purifying himself carefully, Bhimasena facing the east began to drink nectar. At one breath, he quaffed off the contents of a whole vessel, and in this manner drained off eight successive jars, till he was full. At length, the serpents prepared an excellent bed for him, on which he ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... are, there cannot be a doubt that the atmosphere we discover in them reaches us through the ear from the orchestra. Besides giving us a series of singularly apposite and significant pictures, Wagner has reproduced the very breath and colour of the old sagas; he has re-created the atmosphere of a time that never was; and it is this remote atmosphere which lends to "Siegfried" and all the "Ring" a great part of their enchantment. Fancy what it might have been, this long exposition of sheer Schopenhauerism in ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... time of this election there was some question whether England should go to war with all her energy; or whether it would not be better for her to save her breath to cool her porridge, and not meddle more than could be helped with foreign quarrels. The last view of the matter was advocated by Sir Roger, and his motto of course proclaimed the merits of domestic peace and quiet. "Peace abroad and ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... me?" said the king with a violent effort, for his breath was now fast failing him. His mother watched the scene with folded arms and haughty mien. Each ebbing of the breath brought her nearer to her ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... more dirty tablecloths, Europeanised mousmes, and gaping guests. When Yae spoke to the girls in Japanese, there was much bowing and hissing of the breath; and they were invited upstairs on to the first floor where was another beer-hall, slightly more exclusive-looking than the downstair Gambrinus. Here a table and chairs were set for them in the embrasure of a bow-window, which, protruding over the cross-roads, commanded ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... answered the major. "Brown turned his ivories and we all held our breath as we read his four-three. A mad joy flamed in Andrew's face and he turned his cup with a steady wrist—and rolled threes. We none of us looked at Brown, a man who had led another man in whose veins ran a madness, where in his ran ice, on to his ruin. We followed Andrew to the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... motion, headed for a small promontory which we discerned at the opposite end of the lake. We paddled slowly across one of the purest and most tranquil sheets of water we had encountered in our voyage. Not a breath of air was stirring. We halted frequently to scan its shores, and to run our eyes along the verdure-covered hills which enclose its basin. These elevations are at a distance of from three to four miles, and are covered chiefly with white pines, intermingled with ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... of Wesley had a basic reason, for at his time the State Religion was a galvanized and gilded thing, possessing everything but the breath of life. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... of our glory sets! Our King has breathed his latest breath! 10 Each heart its wonted pulse forgets, As if it own'd the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... 1749) the source of the intelligence which, in that month, Cumberland had already found useful? The first breath of suspicion against Glengarry, not as a forger or thief (these minor charges were in the air), but as a traitor, is met in an anonymous letter forwarded by John Holker to young Waters. {161} A copy had also been sent to Edgar at Rome. Already, on November 30, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for breath; They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... The breath of liberty, which was beginning to stir faintly in the provinces through which he so often travelled, could not escape Pyramus's notice, but he saw in it only the mutinous efforts of shameless rebels and misguided men, who ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... this one day I have suffered everything. No one has shown interest in me; no one has given proof of his sympathy—neither my uncle, nor my brother, nor my nephew. When they saw I was near my last breath, they all forsook me and shut ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... she startled the old storekeeper by an almost wholesale order of candies and cookies and topped it off by a demand for a pink knitting wool, which, Robin hoped mightily, might be found only on the topmost shelf. Then, while he was rummaging and grumbling under his breath, she hurriedly told him she didn't want it and dropped a crisp five dollar bill on the counter, for the men were pouring down the street and any moment ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... hand laid on the heart-strings is followed by a strong stroke on conscience. The heart vibrates most readily in answer to gentle touches: the conscience, in answer to heavier, as the breath that wakes the chords of an Aeolian harp would pass silent through the brass of a trumpet. 'Wherefore art thou come?'—if to be taken as a question at all, which, as I have said, seems most natural, is either, 'What hast thou come to do?'—or, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... we were far from the lighthouse, and the scream of the white gulls as they started from their roosting-places on the face of the rocks, or returned to them from their swirling flights, were the only indication of the presence of any creature having the breath of life. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... great, though frailer folk than I walked twenty miles to hear him. We might have parted thus had we not wandered by chance to the very spot where I had met him and Babbie. There is a seat there now for those who lose their breath on the climb up, and so I have two reasons nowadays for ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... joyless mien, looking up towards the poop, the host invited his guest to accompany him there, for the benefit of what little breath of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the admiration of scholars, —Calvin's to his Institutes, De Thou's to his History, and Casaubon's to his Polybius,—not because of any learning or rhetoric, though it is charmingly written, but for a spirit flowing through it to which learning and rhetoric are but as the breath that is wasted on the air to the Mood ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... unawares burst forth a storm of swords, Which tremble made the Pagan knights and lords. XCII These fifty champions were, mongst whom there stands, In silver field, the ensign of Christ's death, If I had mouths and tongues as Briareus hands, If voice as iron tough, if iron breath, What harm this troop wrought to the heathen bands, What knights they slew, I could recount uneath In vain the Turks resist, the Arabians fly; If they fly, they are slain; if ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... time contradicts this doctrine. Many of our thinking brains have undertaken to drive out by mockery this heavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in the soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. Under the slavish influence of their own unworthiness they have entered into terms with self-interest, the dangerous foe of benevolence; they have done this to explain a phenomenon which was too godlike for their narrow hearts. They have spun their comfortless ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of a puddle, which he brought with him, Private Smith was laid on the deck, and, waving his arms about, fought wildly for his breath. ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... of dots that came in on a long slanting drive from the ten thousand level. They swung into faultless formation to "ride his tail" into whatever flaming breath he might lead. And Danny O'Rourke threw his red ship down and into the valley that seethed with a ...
— The Hammer of Thor • Charles Willard Diffin
... her feet beneath were rooted to the ground; and meantime all her handmaidens had drawn aside. So they two stood face to face without a word, without a sound, like oaks or lofty pines, which stand quietly side by side on the mountains when the wind is still; then again, when stirred by the breath of the wind, they murmur ceaselessly; so they two were destined to tell out all their tale, stirred by the breath of Love. And Aeson's son saw that she had fallen into some heaven-sent calamity, and with ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... us, coming from the hollow between the fall and the rock, which drove the spray directly in our faces, with such force that in an instant we were wet through. When in the midst of this shower-bath the shock took away my breath: I turned back and scrambled over the loose stones to escape the conflict. The guide soon followed, and told me that I had passed the worst part. With that assurance I made a second attempt; but so wild and disordered was my imagination that when I had reached half way I could bear ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... are drinking in the characteristics of Bonny scenery you notice a peculiar smell—an intensification of that smell you noticed when nearing Bonny, in the evening, out at sea. That's the breath of the malarial mud, laden with fever, and the chances are you will be down to-morrow. If it is near evening time now, you can watch it becoming incarnate, creeping and crawling and gliding out from the side creeks and between the mangrove-roots, laying itself upon the ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... answer he darted across the street, threading his way among the numerous vehicles with a coolness and a success which amazed Ben, who momentarily expected to see him run over. He drew a long breath when he saw him safe on the other side, and bethought himself that he would not like to take a similar risk. He felt sorry to have Jerry leave him so abruptly. The boot-black had already imparted to him considerable information about New York, which ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... had his breath taken away by the boldness of Step Hen's astonishing proposals. He looked at the other, and a smile spread completely across his face. Then he puckered up his lips, and gave a little whistle, that somehow caused Step Hen to turn a bit red ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... evening, much blood ran." Those dressings are not with knowledge. They have been placed upon the breathing passages of the nose and oppress the breathing and come off, because of the bleeding. Let them be placed within the nostrils, they will preserve the breath and the blood will be held back. If it is right in the sight of the king, in the morning I will come and prescribe for him. Now ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... she understood what was passing in his mind. Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard to tell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerk of the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, "The ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yet of surrender; that they will never be, while a breath of life is left to Queen Sophie and her Project: we may fancy Queen Sophie's mood. Nor can his Majesty be in a sweet temper; his vexations lately have been many. First, England is now off, not off-and-on as formerly: that comfortable possibility, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... thing that much affected him, and made him endeavour to escape from the wrath to come, and to inquire what he should do to be saved, was the death of a little brother. When he saw him without breath, and not able to speak or stir; and when carried out of doors, and put into the ground, he was greatly concerned, and asked whether he should die too? Being answered yes it made so deep an impression on him, that from that time forward, he was exceedingly serious; ...
— Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour - A Token for Children • John Wesley
... shall be done. And when it is done you may count upon me to the last breath to help you to pull down this pestilential Duke ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... edifice; it is enough, more than enough for me, if I do so much as merely begin, what others may more hopefully continue. One only among the sons of men has carried out a perfect work, and satisfied and exhausted the mission on which He came. One alone has with His last breath said "Consummatum est." But all who set about their duties in faith and hope and love, with a resolute heart and a devoted will, are able, weak though they be, to do what, though incomplete, is imperishable. Even their failures become ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... preparation for Fairpoint. Flossy, though kept her strangely quiet face and manner; the night had not brought her peace; she had tossed restlessly for hours, and when at last she slept it was only to be haunted with troubled dreams. With the first breath of morning she opened her eyes and felt that the weight of yesterday was still pressing ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... of Germany seemed moved by the same breath of independence in the subject or conquered countries. In Swabia, Saxony, Hesse, a silent emotion thrilled all hearts; at certain points bands of insurgents collected together. In Prussia, the instinct of patriotic vengeance was still ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... her breath, and her mind being soothed by the judgment that had been pronounced on Master Charlie, she began to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... events as mere ideals go—is not to destroy life but to preserve it; we seek to improve the conditions of life and to render unnecessary the premature death of any human creature that has once drawn breath. ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... and skilled to adjust those preliminary measures which steal from the people, without its knowledge, the power of choosing its own rulers. The popular voice, at the next gubernatorial election, though loud as thunder, will be really but an echo of what these gentlemen shall speak, under their breath, at your friend's festive board. They meet to decide upon their candidate. This little knot of subtle schemers will control the convention, and, through it, dictate to the party. And what worthier candidate,—more wise and learned, more noted ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the window and drew a deep breath of the pure air which he loved. Then he returned ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... clothes. The washing almost does itself. The tubs are of soapstone, at the opposite side of the room from the ironing-table. Over the entire stove—she might have had a range, but didn't want one—there's a sort of movable cover with a flue running into the chimney that carries off every breath of steam and smoke from the cooking. One would never guess at the dinner by any stray odors. It is made of tin; the kettles boil quicker under it, and it makes the room a great deal cooler in summer by carrying the extra heat off up ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... is habitable only to a man of genius who can people it with ideas, the children of the spiritual world; or to one who contemplates the works of the Creator, to whom it is bright with the light of heaven, alive with the breath and voice of God. Excepting for these two beings—so near to Paradise—solitude is to the mind what torture is to the body. Between solitude and the torture-chamber there is all the difference that there is between a nervous malady ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... silent while Don Ippolito moved up and down the room, with his sliding step, like some tall, gaunt, unhappy girl. Neither could put an end to this interview, so full of intangible, inconclusive misery. Ferris drew a long breath, and then said steadily, "Don Ippolito, I suppose you did not speak idly to me of your—your feeling for Miss Vervain, and that I may speak plainly to ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... prismatic—to a little ball of bread. But Dona Perfecta was pale and kept her eyes fixed on the canon with observant insistence. Rosarito looked with amazement at her cousin. The latter, bending toward her, whispered under his breath: ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... hid quasi-guardian. Neither of them noticed Connie. Yet she had hung absorbed on their conversation, the breath fluttering on her parted lips. And when their talk paused, she bent forward, and laid her ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to recover and take breath in. The word is found only in poetry and post-Augustan prose, and, in the expressive sense in which it is here used, only in Ammian. Marc. 29, 1. ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... occupants of the old red house felt over-much inclined to draw a long breath and rest on their oars after their anxiety and recent excitement, Agatha's manager was able to supply a powerful antidote. He ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... breath. Nellie, who had wedged herself in tightly between her master and Jefferson, wriggled and licked his hand. He looked down at her, tried to say something, broke a little on it, ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... with a heavy whip, accenting his howls with cruel blows. Clare grew pale with anger as she came nearer and saw it all more distinctly. The mule's knees bent nearly double at every violent step, its wide eyes were bright red all round, its white tongue hung out, and it gasped for breath. The road was stony, too, besides being steep, for it had been lately mended and ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... analogies. The Yoga teaches that there are innumerable souls distinct from one another and from God and though salvation through the spirit sounds Christian, yet the Upanishads constantly celebrate Vayu (wind) and Prana (breath) as the pervading principle of the world and the home of the self. "By the wind (Vayu) as thread, O Gautama, this world and the other world and all creatures are bound together."[602] Thus the idea that the wind is the universal mediator is old and it does ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... Travels, something of Borrow (fact or fable), Hudson and Cunninghame Graham, Bent, Bates and Wallace, The Crossing of Greenland, Eothen, the meanderings of Modestine, The Path to Rome, and all, or almost all, of E. F. Knight. I have run through most of them at one breath, and the sum total would not bend a moderately stout bookshelf. How many high-sounding works on the other hand, are already worse than dead, or, should we say, better dead? The case of Smollett's Travels, there is good reason to hope, is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... darted off on the road to Howglen, where he lived, and never dropped into a walk till she reached the garden-gate. Fully conscious of the inferiority of her position, she went to the kitchen door. The door was opened to her knock before she had recovered breath enough to speak. The servant, seeing a girl with a shabby dress, and a dirty bonnet, from underneath which hung disorderly masses of hair—they would have glinted in the eye of the sun, but in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... his arm relaxed though his breath was still hot on her cheek. "Now I must be going," she said, rising swiftly. "Good-night, Rimrock! I'm ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... should decide that after what we had gathered from the man with the blond hair, it would, on the whole, be advisable to come to the point with the labour question forthwith. At last we should draw the deep breath of resolution and arise and ask for the Public Office. We should know by this time that the labour bureau sheltered with the post-office and other public ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... Jones's facts and arguments will be found applicable to other decayed races in the old and new worlds is highly probable. Meanwhile, it takes one's breath away quite sufficiently to realize that they apply to Hellas and her old colonies ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... visited Gen. Lee's headquarters on Saturday afternoon, and has not yet returned. Breath is suspended in expectation of some event; and the bickering between the President and the Congress has had ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... cleared his face by rubbing his hands over it, not that it made his countenance clean, but it removed masses of mud from his eyes, nose, and mouth, so that he could see and speak, though his first operation was to gasp for breath. ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... The effect was instantaneous. Releasing me at once, he was completely doubled up, standing in the middle of the pavement outside a grocer's shop, his hands pressed against his body, gasping for breath. Fortunately no one had seen the blow struck, though Mr. Parsons was soon surrounded by a gaping, sympathetic group. I took to my heels at once, almost running against the policeman, and turned to my right, in the direction opposite to that of Mr. Parsons' dwelling-place. Soon, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... was deep. Peterson, leaning against the closed door, held his breath; Max, sitting on the railing with his elbow thrown over the desk, leaned slightly forward. The eyes of the laborers wandered restlessly about the room. They were disturbed, taken off their guard; they needed Grady. ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... sweet-scented; the perfume seems to become stale after a few days: but pass under this tree just at the right moment, say at nightfall on the first or second day of its perfect inflorescence, and the air is loaded with its sweetness; its perfumed breath falls upon you as its cool shadow does ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... ancient citizens were playing checkers, while a third stood over them, watching with that thrilled concentration with which the ordinary person might watch an only son essaying to cross Niagara Falls on a tight rope. Scattergood knew better than to interrupt the game, so he stood by until, by a breath-taking triple jump, Old Man Bogle sent his antagonist down to defeat. Then, and only then, did Scattergood speak to the old gentleman who ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... was past forty, short in stature, and short of breath, and "miles around," as Talleyrand ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'No—don't kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those—those detestable creatures won't bring coals to the fire. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... said the good gentleman, shaking his head; 'she will imagine that I want to keep this letter instead of giving it up like the rest, so as to have a hold over her. She is so distrustful, and M. de Mazarin so—Yon devil of an Italian is capable of having us poisoned at the first breath of suspicion.'" ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... how astonished Fir-twister was when the little insignificant dwarf sprang up at him, and belaboured him so with his fists that he could not defend himself, but fell on the ground and gasped for breath! The dwarf did not go away until he had thoroughly vented his anger on him. When the two others came home from hunting, Fir-twister said nothing to them of the old mannikin and of the blows which he himself had received, and thought, "When they stay ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... thankfully out, and drove away as fast as the fat pony could go. As they rounded the curve below the beech wood a plump figure came speeding over Mr. Andrews' pasture, waving to them excitedly. It was Catherine Andrews and she was so out of breath that she could hardly speak, but she thrust a couple ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Wiley Holman and his father! The knowledge of her impotence almost drove her on to further madness, but another voice bade her beware. He had given her his advice, which was not to sell, and—oh, that accursed assayer! If she had his report she could flaunt it in his face or—she caught her breath ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... my speaking, with panting and labour of breath and voice. Not to fall upon the main too sudden, but to induce and intermingle speech of good fashion. To use at once upon entrance given of speech, though abrupt, to compose and draw in myself. To free myself at once from payt. (?) of formality and compliment, though with some show ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... professionally, of the operation. The interne, however, gazed in admiration, emitting exclamations of delight as the surgeon rapidly took one step after another. Then he was sent for something, and the head nurse, her chief duties performed, drew herself upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... forest depths; only on the highest trees a few pigeons bathe in the sun, and as they fly heavily over the wood, their call sounds, melancholy as a sad dream, from afar. A lonely butterfly flutters among the trees, a delicate being, unused to this dark world, seeking in vain for a ray of sun and a breath of fresh air. Sometimes we hear the grunt of an invisible pig, the breaking of branches and the rustling of leaves as it runs away. Moisture and lowering gloom brood over the swampy earth; one would not be surprised ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... without a breath of air stirring the forest. In the deep hush that brooded over the wilderness small sounds held sway that ordinarily would have been submerged in the paean of the wind in the firs—the whisper of the Wolverine where it swept, deep and strong; its strident chatter to a fling of gravel at occasional ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... who were tired out, and had none of the borderers to their friends; but meeting their enemies as they passed the frontier, were environed on all sides, and the people setting the long dry grass on fire, smothered them, so as they had no breath to fight, nor could discern their enemies for the great smoke. He told me further that four days' journey from his town was Macureguarai, and that those were the next and nearest of the subjects of Inga, and of the Epuremei, and the first town ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... to me before you take on this work. In any event, don't overdo at any time, neither here nor in your home practice. If you find it necessary, stop at any time and sit down in your chair a few minutes till you get your breath. But don't stay out of class tomorrow because you find your muscles are tired. Every other student's muscles will be sore tomorrow, as well as yours. If you remain absent you will be much slower in getting those sore muscles ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... of the wind could be heard the noise of falling buildings and the wild cries of the people. A huge wave caught the ship and carried it a mile out to sea and then whirled it back again at a speed that made the crew hold their breath in awe. ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... this morning!" Very gently he raised a corner of the tarpaulin and as he looked down, Ravenslee's breath caught suddenly. ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... dishes; and, in some parts of Europe, are eaten in a crude state with bread. "It is not cultivated to any considerable extent in this country; its strong flavor, and the offensive odor it communicates to the breath, causing it to be ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... time and then vanish away, is the outward biography of all men, a circle of smoke that breaks, a bubble on the stream that bursts, a spark put out by a breath. ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... anything, in any one, but you, Unorna. The service of my love fills the days and the nights and the years with you—fills the world with you only; makes heaven to be on earth, since heaven is but the air that is made bright with your breath, as the temple of all temples is but the spot whereon your dear feet stand. The light of life is where you are, the darkness of death is everywhere where you are not. But I am condemned to die, cut off, predestined to be lost—for you have no pity, Unorna, you cannot find ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... since I first drew breath in this sad world? From dawn to dusk it has been hard work and little pay! At home is an empty cupboard, a discontented wife, and lazy and disobedient children! O Death! O Death! come and free ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... demeanor as attentively as an anatomist might have watched the action of a muscle. He noted that the prisoner seemed to experience a sensation of satisfaction directly his foot touched the pavement of the courtyard, that he drew a long breath, and then stretched and shook himself, as if to regain the elasticity of his limbs, cramped by confinement in the narrow compartment from which he had just emerged. Then he glanced around him, and a scarcely perceptible smile ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... devil. Nothing else than such can be the issue of the Cross; for 'He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied,' and Christ is not going to labour in vain, and spend His life, and give His breath and His ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the German propagandists are mad. The insanity of Germany is part of the scheme of the world-change through which we are passing. He recognises the superhuman forces at work and in the same breath babbles of 'states.' There is only one earthly State and to that ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... by watching for every chance of advancement offered them, and by saving every cent and especially by adhering strictly to honesty, had intended to work their way up the ladder of success until they had reached a respected and independent position. After he had paused to take a second breath, with a true boyish fervor, he commenced to build aircastles as to what he would do when the day arrived when they would not have to look so closely to the saving of their pennies. The more enthusiastically Joe spoke of this bright future, the less he became aware that ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... looking half aside at Ernest, 'I didn't quite care for all of them—the Nihilists and Communards took my breath away at first; but as to Max Schurz himself I think there can be only one opinion ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... the rest of my time—well, I employ it in doing what good I can among the poor and those who need comfort or who are bereaved, especially among those who are bereaved, for to such I am sometimes able to bring the breath of hope that ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... uncertain light they found a candle and Harlan drew a long breath of relief. "It would have been pleasant, wouldn't it?" he went on. "We could have sat on the stairs until morning, or broken our admirable necks in falling over strange furniture. The next thing is a fire. Wonder where my distinguished relative kept ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... ought to have written to you long before now, but I have suffered so much from the constant changes of the weather that the wonder is I am able to hold a pen. During the whole summer the heat was really quite intolerable, not a drop of rain or a breath of wind, the cattle dying for absolute want, the vegetables dear and scarce, and as for fruit—that, you know, in this town, is at all times scarce and bad, and particularly when there is the greatest occasion for it. In the autumn we never had two days alike, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... food for the rat in his hole,—supports the bird upon the branch.—May he be blessed for all this, he who is alone, but with many hands." "Men spring from his two eyes," and quickly do they lose their breath while acclaiming him—Egyptians and Libyans, Negroes and Asiatics: "Hail to thee!" they all say; "praise to thee because thou dwellest amongst us!—Obeisances before thee because thou createst us!"—"Thou art blessed by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero |
