"Sob" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight's face was hard, and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze far out to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and though only evening where they sat, it had been ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... breathless agitation, as though the skies were falling, and darted back. After a moment's hesitation I too, went back and watched her bind up with stiff, unaccustomed old fingers the little scratched hand, watched the frightened little boy sob himself quiet on her old knees that had never before known a child's soft weight saw the expression in her eyes as she looked down at the sleeping baby and gazed about the untidy room so full of mire, which had always been so orderly ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... sob, half a laugh, and, half sobbing, half laughing, the young man stopped his horse on the crest of the Tigmore Hills, in the Ozark Uplift, raised in his stirrups, and looked the country through and through, as though he must ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... lips and sat down silently. She did not rush over to him; she did not burst into tears; she did not break into a sob; she did not do any of the terrible things which Sergey had feared. She just kissed him and silently sat down. And with her trembling hands she even adjusted ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... voices of men, conversing or calling or breaking into laughter. Twenty times he hastened to the steps at the end of the terrace, sure he could not have been mistaken, only to hear the earth-forces sob and sough and shout again, as if in derision of this puny, presumptuous mortal, with his ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... a mighty movement of the beast—a threshing that nearly blinded the men in the cloud of bloodstained seeds it raised. With something between a curse and a sob, the mule lunged at its crib as if attempting to get bodily into it. But no: it was only trying to perch on its edge! Now it had succeeded. The ungainly beast hung there a second, two, three. From its uplifted throat issued that usually innocuous phrase, a phrase ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... arms. Something in the spiritless droop of her shoulders and the soft dishevelment of her fair hair suggested weariness—sleep, perhaps. But as the young man hesitated on the threshold the sound of a muffled sob escaped the quiet figure. He turned noiselessly and went away, sorry and ashamed, because unwittingly he had stumbled upon the clew he ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... could be of mutual help and comfort if they could bring themselves to speak, for he suffered also the pangs of imprisonment and the longings for liberty in that cruel house of bondage. Yet he always turned and went softly, almost breathlessly, back to his bed, leaving her to sob and cry alone in the struggle of ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... Geraldine's room and found the girl pacing the floor. She paused and gazed at her hostess, her eyes dry and bright. Mrs. Barry approached and took her in her arms. At the affectionate embrace a sob ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... must be suffering underground, waiting for the return of light; they had nightmares, they also dreamed that they were crawling along an underground passage, hindered by mounds of ruins, struggling madly to reach the sunshine. And he began to weep and sob out in low tones that winter was a disease of the earth, and that he should die with the earth, unless the ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... a little home-made sob I opened my eyes and asked the same question that Eve put to Adam the morning after God had presented him with that poisonous bon-bon. "Where am I?" and it's none of your inquisitive business what he answered. The white auto will call tonight to see of I'm still living and meantime I have ordered ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... came to his mind, which he had learned a long time ago, when he had been a little boy himself. Slowly, with a singing voice, he started to speak; from his past and childhood, the words came flowing to him. And with that singsong, the boy became calm, was only now and then uttering a sob and fell asleep. Siddhartha placed him on Vasudeva's bed. Vasudeva stood by the stove and cooked rice. Siddhartha gave him a look, which he returned with ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... are not taking any notice of what I say," said Miss Dora, with something like a suppressed sob. "I don't doubt your sick people are very important, but I thought you would take some interest. I came down to tell you, all ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... till the very last moment, I thought it best not. But perceiving that he stayed long before going out at the gate, and remembering his long grief, I took courage and went out, trembling and miserable. I found him leaning against the garden door in a paroxysm of anguish, sobbing as women never sob. Of course I went straight to him. Very few words were interchanged, those few barely articulate. Several things I should have liked to ask him were swept entirely from my memory. Poor fellow! But he wanted such hope and such encouragement ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... are not asleep, neighbor," said La Lorraine, to her. "How do you get on, for your first night here? Last night, as soon as you were brought in, you were placed in bed, and I did not dare to speak to you; I heard you sob. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... he muttered with something much like a sob in his voice. Not even then did he dream of procrastinating. He was hungry and weary and when he reached the cabin he paused to eat again before going to the rock with his day's earnings. Mary, Molly, and Martin were absent, but that was no new thing. Sandy ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... unlikely to have died with such thoughts in him. It is the eve of one of those terrible struggles at Toulouse, and the poet's imagination is hanging at moon-rise over the scene. 'The low broad field scattered over thick with corpses, all silent, dead,—the last sob spent,'—the priest's thanksgiving for the Catholic victory having died into an echo, and only the 'vultures crying their Te ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... child To meet with cares and strife, Breathes through her tears her doubts and fears For the loved one's future life. No cold "adieu," no "farewell," lives Within her choking sigh, But the deepest sob of anguish gives, "God bless thee, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... A sob choked Dorothy, and she ran swiftly into the house, fortunately meeting no one on her way to her room. Dick ventured out of the barn and came up to Harlan, who ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... frequently offered, the silent, earnest supplication of terrified and persecuted little children. When, at the sound of the bell, their heads were raised, the teacher said the tears were streaming, but not a sound, not even a sob, was to be heard. They then quietly went down stairs and through the halls, and she remarked that 'to her dying day she should never forget the scene;' the few moments of eloquent silence, the streaming noiseless tears, ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... She stared at me like she couldn't take in what I was sayin'. Then her face begun to work like a person's in a convulsion, and she jumped up and rushed out o' the room, and the next minute she give a cry that I can hear yet. Then she begun to sob, and I knew she was cryin' tears at last, and I set by the child and cried ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... again Laine felt a quiver, this time of sudden relaxation, and heard a sob that was quickly smothered. "Oh, I don't need toys, and mother hasn't got ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... purpose, the nose means will. But over and behind all is that fleeting Something we call "expression." This Something is not set or fixed, it is fluid as the ether, changeful as the clouds that move in mysterious majesty across the surface of a summer sky, subtle as the sob of rustling leaves—too faint at times for human ears—elusive as the ripples that play hide-and-seek over the bosom of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... voice. It broke on a heartrending sob. And the voice of the resourceful Capataz de Cargadores, master and slave of the San Tome treasure, who had been caught unawares by old Giorgio while stealing across the open towards the ravine to get some more silver, answered careless and cool, but sounding startlingly weak ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... our little fists ready to fight—in short, play upon all our moods through the influence of poetry and song. The betrayal of Wallace was his trump card which never failed to cause our little hearts to sob, a complete breakdown being the invariable result. Often as he told the story it never lost its hold. No doubt it received from time to time new embellishments. My uncle's stories never wanted "the hat and the stick" which Scott gave ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... Robelia buried a sob of laughter in the nearest cushion, and as we rolled away gaped at me with a face on which a dozen flies danced and played ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... and once she thought she heard a sob from below, then concluded she must be mistaken. But she was not, for Sylvia Crane was lamenting as sorely as the younger maiden up-stairs. "Poor Richard!" she repeated, piteously. "Poor Richard! There he came, and the stone was up, and ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... given vent to a sob of relief when the man left her, ran towards home as fast as she could, never pausing till she reached the Miss Seawards' door, which chanced to be a little nearer than her own. Against this she plunged with wonderful violence for one so gentle and tender, and then hammered it with her knuckles ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... was filling one little heart to the brim. A sob caught Judy's breath—she felt as if she should choke. She dared not look any more, but drawing down the blind, crept back into bed and covered ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... went on Latimer. "Stamps found them in a chink in the logs. She had hidden them there that she might take them out and sob over and kiss them. I used to hear her in the middle ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... scowl returned to Frank's forehead. "But maybe if I pitch 'em a sob story, tell 'em it's our honeymoon, you know, then ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... into the horde. Red-Eye paid no further attention to me, and I was at liberty to whimper and sob to my heart's content. Several of the women gathered curiously about me, and I recognized them. I had encountered them the preceding year when my mother had taken me to the ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... long-drawn sigh that was almost a sob, "it is you! Why have you brought me here? What have I done?" Then a look of unearthly wisdom came into Tania's solemn, black eyes. She continued to stare at the young man so silently and gravely that Philip Holt's ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... as the volley ceased, A low sob call'd them where They found an Indian maiden dead, Clasping in death's despair One feather from a Highland plume And one ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... confer with Frank. Carroll stood by the reporters' tables, irresolutely, until presently Silvia beckoned her. The two women exchanged looks which were enigmatical to Frank, but evidently perfectly intelligible to them, for Carroll turned away with a sound like a strangled sob, and the pall of weariness and depression which had lifted for a moment again settled over Silvia, now that there were no longer any prying or unfriendly eyes upon them. Without another word she turned and went ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... love of home and country—verse. The crashing of the orchestra ceased, dying away almost to a whisper. Chenal drew the folds of the tricolor cloak about her. Then she bent her head and, drawing the flag to her lips, kissed it reverently. The first words came like a sob from her soul. From then until the end of the verse, when her voice again rang out over the renewed efforts of the orchestra, one seemed to live through all the glorious history of France. At the very end, when Chenal drew a short jeweled sword from the folds of her ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... easy to determine which is which. I strongly suspect, my dear, that you have been actuated by a feeling of false pride, in the position you have taken as to this matter. I won't attempt to advise you, now. Don't sob so, my dear. It will all ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... to sob, turned fiercely on Susan. "Leave me alone!" she cried. "I hate to have you touch me." The dress was, of course, entirely unfastened ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... get to that little, insistent girl. He heard her sob, a childish sob, half desire, half fear. The veins stood out on his forehead and his hands gripped the edge of his desk as he got ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... poor young children, O my brothers, To look up to Him, and pray; So the blessed One who blesseth all the others Will bless them another day. They answer, "Who is God, that he should hear us While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word; And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) Strangers speaking at the door. Is it likely God, with angels singing round him, Hears our ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and presently the whole party came on board again and the moon shone bright upon river and height. Then said the Hashimi to the damsel, Allah upon thee, trouble not our joyous lives!' So she took the lute, and touching it with her hand, gave a sob, that they thought her soul had fled her frame, and said, By Allah, my master and teacher is with us in this ship!' Answered the Hashimi, By Allah, were this so, I would not forbid him our conversation! Haply he would lighten thy burthen, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... feet, a whirl of gay blue skirts and cheerfully tossing blue feathers. "Good-by, dear Crusader!" she said with a catch in her voice that might have been either a laugh or a sob. "The next time you see me ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... to explain them to her, but of late I had quite lost sight of her. Now, how changed, how wan she looked! As I addressed her with my ordinary phrase, "Tshah-ko-zhah?" (What is it?) she gave a sigh that was almost a sob. She did not beg, but ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... voice say, "for God's sake let that hare go and listen, Master Tom," and the girl Ella, who of a sudden had begun to sob, tried to ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... neared the place of execution, General Mejia suddenly turned pale, covered his face, and with a sob fell back in his place in the carriage. He had caught sight of his wife, agonized, dishevelled, with her baby in her arms, and all the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... and took up one of the children very tenderly, stroking back its curls and kissing the face, which, if before surprised and saddened by the mother's sob, now smiled gaily ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He opens the heart to receive the Scriptures, and He opens the Scriptures to yield their meaning. Then, and only then, the Bible appears in its true greatness. Then is it the effective voice of God, tender as the sob of a babe, and majestic as thunder; it then is the temple of living truth, filled with the glory of the Lord's presence; it then is the revelation of the eternal world, showing the beauty of holiness, the mystery of the cross, the conquest of death, the horrors of sin, the doom of ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... and wailed after his master, "'Ere, you come back this minute, Sir. You'll get yourself in trouble again. Do you 'ear me, Sir?" But the Padre apparently did not hear him, for he plodded steadily on his way. The batman gave a sob of despair and broke into ...
— Punch, Volume 153, July 11, 1917 - Or the London Charivari. • Various
... face away with a bitter sob, and Mrs. Hastings who stooped and kissed her went out quietly. She knew what had come about, and that the girl had broken down at last, after ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... it. If love is a weed, how simple they Who gather and gather it, day by day! If love is a nettle that makes you smart, Why do you wear it next your heart? And if it be neither of these, say I, Why do you sit and sob and sigh? ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... now I mustn't make myself out better than I am, either. Because I did not always manage to look at it that way; very often something very like a sob kept rising in my throat. But then I used to talk to myself seriously, and say: Even supposing it is your own happiness you are giving up for her sake, is that too much for you to do for her? No, a thousand times no! And even supposing he does not love you any more, ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... reined in his horse, so that there was danger of the girl's being hurt. She was quick on her feet, however, and sprang aside, but one poor bird was trampled under the steed's hoofs, at which the girl gave a sob and called out, "You are wicked, wicked!" Then he put his hand in his purse and drew out some gold pieces and flung them towards her; but she did not see them, for her face was buried in the down of the bird, which was ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... cried the girl, beginning suddenly to sob, "that I don't know! Oh, please let me go! I swear I have told ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... to go out. He lighted it again and turned to his neighbour with an apology, as the voice ceased and then seemed to revive with a last sob of ecstasy. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... gently laid in the crib he turned restlessly, and from time to time a gasping sob shook his whole body, for he had cried himself to sleep. He had fallen into a fitful slumber while in the Doctor's buggy, and had not awakened when carried ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... was beside me on the grass, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... "Doug, if I do she'd guess how cowardly I am and how I suffer—in my mind, I mean," and she put her hands over her face with a dry sob. ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... sob again. Laverick left the room and, descending the stairs, met the girl in the hall. Her white face questioned him before her lips had time to ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... wind a widow'd nation's wail, And cared as little for his army's loss (So that their efforts should at length prevail) As wife and friends did for the boils of job,— What was 't to him to hear two women sob? ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... but the little boy, imagining the invitation was to enter her bag and be literally carried away therein, set up a terrific howl. Thereupon the pretty young woman emerged hastily, and the child, with a great sob of love and confidence, ran to her ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... swells and throbs in every sun and star, In mighty ocean's organ-peals and roar, In billows bounding on the harbor-bar, In the blue surf that rolls upon the shore, In the low zephyr's sigh, the tempest's sob, In the rain's patter and the thunder's roar; Aye, in the awful earthquake's shuddering throb, When old Earth cracks her bones and trembles to ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... heart to kill him; he was young and he was frightened. I heard the sob in his throat as I dropped my arm and he went ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... afraid that even torture would make Tom do anything mean," she said, with a little sob. "But these officers back there at that cottage must actually believe that he has ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... easily moved to tears. "He could not," says the author of the Panegyric, "refrain from weeping on bold affronts." And again "They talk of his hectoring and proud carriage; what could be more humble than for a man in his great post to cry and sob?" In the answer to the Panegyric it is said that "his having no command of his tears spoiled him for ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... together; mother and daughter. He bent over them. His hand was taken and pressed by Fredi's; she spoke; she said tenderly: 'Father.' Neither of the two made a movement. He heard the shivering rise of a sob, that fell. The dry sob going to the waste breath was Nataly's. His girl ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... something distant and unlikely. Yet a dim terror of this latter evil hung over her, and once upstairs she threw herself on her bed and sobbed. Philip heard her where he sate near the bottom of the short steep staircase, and at every sob the cords of love round his heart seemed tightened, and he felt as if he must there and then ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to the voice dying away with the last sob of the balalaika. "It is too sad," he said, rising. "Let us go," ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... away in answer to Dan's whistle, Kate recovered herself from the daze in which she stood and with a sob ran towards the willows, calling the name of Dan, but Silent sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. She cried out and struggled vainly ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... someone moaning in pain. We kept going toward the sound and finally came to a little brook. Near the water was a negro woman with her head bent over to the ground and weeping as if her heart was broken. Upon asking her what had caused her agony she finally managed to control her emotions enough to sob out her story. The negro woman said then that her master had just sold her to a man that was to take her far away from her present owner and incidently her children. She said this couldn't be helped but she could ask the good Lord to let her die and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... "The girls just sob. They can say nothing. No woman forgive that. Then she say loud, 'Ana,' and the girl run in. 'Ana,' she say, 'pack this stuff and tell Jose and Marcos take it up to the house of the Senor Don Ramon Garcia. I have no ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... made sure, for all eternity; and I did take it hard. For when the strain was off, and there was no one by to see or hear save my good-hearted death-watch, I must needs go down upon my knees beside the bed in childish weakness, and sob and choke and let the hot tears come as I had not since at this same bedside I had knelt a little lad to take my mother's ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... beside him; but Danvers, and none could blame him, considering his belief that she had done her utmost to get him hanged, looked full at her, his eyes showing scorn of her. I felt the slight body quiver, saw her sway back and forth for a little, and then, with a sob like a wounded child, she lost consciousness entirely. Hugh Pitcairn stayed by her until she was enough recovered for me to put her in the coach, and rode back to Stair with us, watching her all the time with an expression of alarm ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... took her hand, and led her to a chair. Bending above her he gave her the whole story of the night, and she scarcely interrupted with a question, sitting there dry-eyed, with only an occasional sob shaking her slender form. As he ended, she looked up into his face, and now he could see a mist of unshed ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... sob, and forgetting everything he sprang to the side of the litter and dropped upon his knees. ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... had not even become indifferent. He loved his wife, he said, as much as on the day he married her. He was extremely unhappy. Mr. Lanley grew to dread the visits of his huge, blond son-in-law, who used actually to sob in the library, and ask for explanations of something which Mr. Lanley had ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... love, O let me lie Under your shades to sleep or die! Either is welcome, so I have Or here my bed, or here my grave. Why do you sigh, and sob, and keep Time with the tears that I do weep? Say, have ye sense, or do you prove What crucifixions are in love? I know ye do, and that's the why You sigh for love as well ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... the winter of 1861-2. In response to the toast of his health, he alluded to his infirmity of temper, admitted his suffering—before concealed from outside people—and expressed his apologies in a manner so feeling and so gentle that the tears came into everybody's eyes. I heard more than one sob from men whose rough exterior disguised the real tenderness of ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... n't be here, I suppose, only for the disfigurement of my face," he replied, swallowing a sob. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... a sudden—I'm almost ashamed to tell it, even though it's a good while ago now, and I really was scarcely more than a little boy myself—something seemed to get into my throat, and I felt as if in another moment it would turn into a sob. ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... that way." He was not ashamed to let fall a tear for the little dead child. But Lucy could neither weep nor think of the angels. She hurried him on through the long avenue, clinging to his arm but not leaning upon it, hastening home. Now and then a sob escaped her, but no tears. She flew upstairs to her own boy's nursery, and fell down on her knees by the side of his little crib. He was lying in rosy sleep, his little dimpled arms thrown up over his head, a model of baby beauty. But even that sight did not restore ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... A sob at her right made her start and then turn away quickly from the sight of a mother's grief as she clung to a frail daughter for support, sobbing with utter abandon, while the daughter kept begging her to "be calm ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... mischief, would not go; first she turned back to the cowshed and was dragged towards the highroad, then she lowed so miserably that Maciek went pale and Magda was heard to sob loudly: the gospodyni would not look out of ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... something prophetic. That bent little figure beside her, these shaking limbs and dim old eyes,—all this house of life, once so carefully builded, was crumbling again into the dust, and its tenant indeed wanted a new one, quite, quite different! A sob rose in Robinette's throat, but she swallowed it down and went ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Glibbans and you maun now be friends." "They're a' friends to me that's no faes, and am very glad to see Mrs. Glibbans sociable in my house; but she needna hae made sae light of me when she was here before." And, in saying this, the amiable hostess burst into a loud sob of sorrow, which induced Mr. Snodgrass to beg Mr. Micklewham to read the Doctor's letter, by which a happy stop was put to the further manifestation of the grudge which Mrs. Craig harboured against Mrs. Glibbans for the lecture ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... more intense, I saw—I saw—mother, do not disbelieve it—a man. In perfect silence, and with his back turned towards me, he was running over the organ-keys with one hand while managing the stops with the other. And the organ sounded, but in an indescribable manner. It seemed as if each note were a sob smothered in the metal tube, which vibrated under the pressure of the air compressed within it, and gave forth a low, almost imperceptible ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish • Various
... the depths of his selfish soul by her tears, her clinging caresses, and her protestations of affection, answered with an oath and a sob that no better or more loyal and devoted subject than himself ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... bell and stood basket in hand, waiting to be admitted. But Johnnie gazed at one spot in the street, with eyes full of tears, and with now and then a sob gurgling from his throat. He could not forget ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the old lady's hands shook so violently that she let fall her knitting, and hiding her face in her hands, she began to sob convulsively. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... chair, a man on the shore gave a big cry of joy as he clasped her in his arms. Jan recognized the pretty lady, but she did not have her baby in her arms this time. Then every one was silent, only a woman's sob sounded softly, and the pretty lady stood staring across the water, where high above the waves swung a big leather mailbag. It came nearer and nearer, and men went far out into the surf to steady it, until it was unfastened, lifted down, opened, and the pretty lady, crying and laughing, held her ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... the trader, and, with a sob, as though the heart springs were snapped, she threw herself into her husband's arms. Again, and again he pressed her to his heart, then gently unclasping her hands, he tottered along the plank, and nearly had he ended his saddened life in the rolling stream below, ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... had felt the full force of his language, And she restrained her no more; but with passionate out-burst her feelings Made themselves way; a sob broke forth from her now heaving bosom, And, while the scalding tears poured down, she straightway made answer "Ah, that rational man who thinks to advise us in sorrow, Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving Ever a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... perfectionist. I do not build the spasmodic sob nor spill the scalding tear because all men are not Sir Galahads in quest of the Holy Grail, and all women angels with two pair o' reversible wings and the aurora borealis for a hat-band. I might get lonesome in a world like that. I do not expect to see religion ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... a perfect idiot!" she said shakily. And on the words she tried to laugh, but only succeeded in partially smothering a sob. ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... on one's memory! As I write I see the set face of Charles Bradlaugh. I behold the sob-shaken back and bowed head of Herbert Gilham just in front of me. I hear and feel the cool, rustling wind, like a plaintive ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... went to th' little corner cubbord, an after clatterin' th' cups an plates abaat, shoo managed to find ten shillin', an shoo caanted 'em aght one bi one, an' then wi a sigh 'at wor ommost a sob, shoo sed, "Thear it is, an aw hooap tha'll net forget to let me have it back as sooin as tha can. But hah is it tha's managed ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... her words was broken by a hoarse sob from Mr. Rathbawne, and, turning, they saw that his head had fallen back against the chair, with his eyes, wide and staring, fixed upon the glass roof, and his breath coming in short, thick gasps from between his parted lips. In an instant Natalie ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... distress of mind prevents you sleeping at night, and so you sob, and sigh, and blow your nose ten times every ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... powerless, and a sob burst from her lips. The king did not regard it; he did not look back. With a firm hand he opened the door which led into his chamber; entered and closed it. He sank upon a chair, and gave one long and weary sigh. A profound despair was written on his countenance, and had Barbarina ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... she accused him, with a sob in her voice. "You don't know the trouble my father has had; how many years he has worked, with nothing but his hands; and now your company comes and claims the water, and turns the river, that belongs to everybody, into their big ditch. I'd like to know how they came to own this river! And when ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... this morning," explained Jinnie. "Bobbie's awfully ill, terribly. He can't live long anyway, and I——" A terrific sob shook her as a raging gale rends ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... With a sob of horror and despair, Acton lurched down the hill, dragging his companion with him. He kept repeating, as though it were a formula: "Down the slope and bear to the left" ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... face hidden on the ground, she would reach out one little hand, to stroke the poor dead thing, and then once more bury her face in her hands, and sob as if her heart would break. ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... door or to reach the outer door of my office, which was nearer hers than it was to my desk. I waited—through a silence, broken only by Beulah's weeping, that seemed hour-long. Then in Bob's voice came one low sob of joy: ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... down my cheeks to such an extent that everyone began to sob. M. de Voltaire and Madame Denis threw their arms round my neck, but their embraces could not stop me, for Roland, to become mad, had to notice that he was in the same bed in which Angelica had lately been found ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... And still I cannot resist it. I say, 'There's the hanky!' Nevertheless, in two minutes it has worked its way with me. She squeezes it in her poor, plump hand as the tears begin to rise; Fate, or man, is inexorable, so cruel. There is a sob, a cry; she presses the fist and the hanky to her eyes, one eye, then the other. She weeps real tears, tears shaken from the depths of her soft, vulnerable, victimized female self. I cannot stand it. There I sit in the padrone's little red box and stifle ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... therefore the maiden was flung down the steps before him—slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... floodgates of Paul's numbed soul were opened, a great sob rose in his breast. He covered his face with his hands, and ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... A sob of deep emotion made her bosom swell. She spread out her arms, and they strained one another, while their lips ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... set herself to win and to break the heart of a trusting lad, and the punishment of her sin was that she should now love him with the same intense but hopeless passion with which he had loved her. "My heart is broken," I heard her sob, "and in hell one cannot die of a broken heart. If I had loved him, and he me, and he had died, I could have borne it, knowing that I should meet him hereafter; but to live loveless through eternity, that is the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... what I have been thinking? It is that rain-coats really are not very needful things, after all. Without them one gets wet, it is true; but then one soon gets dry again. But truly"—and there was a sudden catching in Pablo's throat that was very like a sob—"truly I did want one." ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... cut a caper, a look of lively joy shot from the man's eyes, where a tear was gathering, and the wagon, from its bursting cover, gave utterance to a sob. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... of heart, but in the face of such sudden and unlooked-for danger her courage failed her. The pretty rose-bloom died away from her face, and her beautiful blue eyes expanded wide with terror. She caught her breath with a sob, and, seizing the oar with two soft, childish hands, made a desperate attempt to turn the boat. The current resisted her weak effort, snapping the oar in twain like a slender twig and whirling it from ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... down to bedrock, he had laid himself open to that. He ran his fingers through his cowlicks. But drat the woman! why had she accepted the situation so docilely? Since midnight not a sound out of her, not a wail, not a sob. Now he had her, he couldn't let her ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... her sob out her emotion. Then, taking her firmly by both wrists, he looked once into her eyes, led her to a seat upon the pebble ridge, and sat himself ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cried Rhimeson, when he saw this movement of the pursuers; and springing as he spoke towards the entrance of a narrow defile which lay entirely in the shadow of the mountain. A deep convulsive sob burst from the pent-up bosom of Elliot ere he replied: "Leave me to my fate, my friend; I cannot fly; the weight ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... to despatch Master Jack to his tent with a round scolding, when the last words of the song were frozen on his lips by the sound of a smothered sob, in place of the saucy retort he hoped to provoke. The unexpected sob frightened him more than any fusilade of hot words, and he stole away in the darkness more crestfallen than he had been for ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unhealthy dreams and there could be seen nothing but broken reeds on an ocean of bitterness. On the other side the men of the flesh remained standing, inflexible in the midst of positive joys, and cared for nothing except to count the money they had acquired. It was only a sob and a burst of laughter, the one coming from the soul, the other ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... through the waters, and Lenyard caught a glimpse in the deeps below of sparkling pinnacles and bulbous domes of gold; a dead sea rolled over the dead cities of the bitter plain. He trembled as Neshevna said, with a grinding sob, "That was the ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... back the flood of anguish broke. It was as if his heart had turned to water. Tears sprang from his eyes, and the strength went out of his knees. It was all he could do not to fall at the side of the bed and to sob out his mother's name, telling her that he would give his life a hundred times for hers if that could be, or that he would go out of the world with her rather than she should go alone. But something came to his help and kept him outwardly calm save for a slight ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and he must have noticed the moody silence of the older boys as they ate. When supper was but half over little Billy, the youngest, had suddenly pushed back his plate and slipped away from the table, manfully trying to swallow a sob. But William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... contagious as a disease, it spread from one to the other. It broke out, too, in the women's apartments. Suddenly some of them felt a great desire for water, complaining of thirst, first timidly, then louder, pressing against the door of the kitchen, and beginning to sob aloud. Not long after, all the children took to screaming for water, and many who, under other circumstances, would not have thought about drinking at all, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... the pressure of his gaze, the hardness of his heart, the words on her lips died away. She looked at him uncertainly for a moment, then, turning, she threw herself on the bed near by, clutched her cheeks and mouth and eyes, and, rocking back and forth in an agony of woe, she began to sob: ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... immediately, and found her in the most violent affliction. She used every kind effort in her power to quiet and console her, but it was not without the utmost difficulty she could sob out the cause of this fresh sorrow, which indeed was not trifling. Mr Harrel, she said, had told her he could not possibly raise money even for his travelling expences, without risking a discovery of his project, and being seized by his creditors: he had therefore charged ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Then he looked around and saw Lawyer Watson, who had stood motionless by the doorway, and with a cry that was half a sob Kenneth threw himself into his old friend's arms and burst into ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... With a suffocating sob, as though stabbed to death herself, the Duchess swooned upon the ground, and, whilst the courtiers in the company hastened to her assistance, the huntsmen reverently covered the still quivering body of the young prince with ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away. Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in his eyes, he approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and said between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... he did not intend to do it, for to-day he did not know that he had until you explained. And I thought-I thought—" Her voice ended in a sob. ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... settled down upon the ship, and I felt as I stood there as if eight or nine years had suddenly dropped away from me—that I was a little child again, and that I should like to creep below somewhere out of sight, or sit down and cry and sob. ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... life in a little forest when darkness falls than in a big town? and that every living thing there recognises you as an intruder with warning calls from tree to tree? I had not more than cast myself upon the ground to sob out all my griefs to whatever gods would listen, when a sleepy little robin just overhead called up to his mistress the tone of my trouble. The young leaves whispered it, the boughs swept low about me, and the winds ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... she turned the tap, to find the water running red. She was intensely superstitious, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was the victim of witchcraft, so she flung her apron over her head, commenced to sob, and deplored the early death which would probably overtake her. She sat on the landing making quite a scene, prophesying evil to the other servants who crowded round to condole and marvel, and showing the bewitched water in her jug with a mixture of importance and horror. The girls who ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... something like a strangling sob broke out on the stillness, frightening the lecturer; and a ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thought I heard a moan and a sob. I sat upright in my chair and listened. But I heard nothing more, and concluded I had deceived myself. After a few moments, I rose to go home and have some tea, and turn my mind rather away from than towards the subject of witness-bearing any more ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... a sob, not of pain, but of happiness, and knew that the blue eyes of Sally Fortune looked out to him from the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... answered in a cry choked with a sob; and dropping again on the sofa, she hid her face once more between ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... silences, when the two stared into the shifting flames and saw there the things his words had conjured. Sometimes the eyes of Billy Louise were soft with sympathy. Sometimes they were wide and held the light of horror. Once, with a small sob that had no tears, she reached out and clutched his arm. "Oh, don't!" she gasped. "Don't go on telling—I—I can't bear to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... at the feet of his child's brave savior, and clasps his arms around Cecil. "My darling," and there is almost a sob in his voice, "my little darling, do not be afraid. Look at papa. He is so ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... the question upon Billie was disastrous. She had come to this office with beating heart, prepared to end all misunderstandings, to sob on her soul-mate's shoulder and generally make everything up; but at this inane exhibition the fighting spirit of the Bennetts—which was fully as militant as that of the Marlowes—became roused. She told herself that she had been mistaken in supposing ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... disappeared into Trenholme's house. When she walked home she did not sob or wipe her eyes or cover her face, yet when she got to the hotel her eyes were swollen and red, and she went about her work heedless that anyone who looked at her must ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... gave no answer in words, but her face was sufficient as she made a step forward towards the slight figure which swayed unsteadily before her. Mary Simpson made no sound save a gasping sob, her hand went to her heart, and then she fell in a heap on the ground, before Mrs. Haden, prepared as she was, had time ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... her arms convulsively about his neck, but she choked the first sob that rose in her throat. She did not dare give way. She instinctively knew that she needed all her strength to carry her through what she had undertaken. She kissed the startled child with burning ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... living man, that money was never for me; and now he's a-gone and left me in the lurch, and if your grandfather likes he can sell me up, and that's the truth. I've got seven children," said the poor man, with a sob breaking his voice, "and a missus; and nothing as isn't in the business, not a penny, except a pound or two in a savings' bank, as would never count. And I don't deny as he could sell me up; but oh! Miss, he knows very well it ain't ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... star-gazing, in his far-imagined heavens, Valkyrie or houri, man has fain made place for her, for he could see no heaven without her. And the sword, in battle, singing, sings not so sweet a song as the woman sings to man merely by her laugh in the moonlight, or her love-sob in the dark, or by her swaying on her way under the sun while he lies dizzy ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... things. The tears and woes of the old South may change into smiles and good cheer, forgetting the glory that once encircled us like a radiant halo. But many there are who feel that "Such things were, and were most dear to us!" These look back with brimming eyes, and force down the rising sob, ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... and she sprang to her feet "Why, Graydon, it might have been a hundred-fold worse. I thought it was immeasurably worse," she said, suppressing a sob. "You might have been killed. See how far you fell! I feared you might have received some terrible ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... the silence and the dark By that closed door, the distant sob of tears Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores The spectral sea; and through the sobbing — hark! Down the fair-chambered corridor of years, The quiet shutting, ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... an awful fear that she was going to cry, and, as the Easterns say, he felt his heart turning to water within him. But her highly trained intellect came to her aid. She swallowed the sob, and looked up at ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... could see nothing but a small patch of grey sea beyond the hole in which their oar worked. The sweat poured off their chests and backs in streams, until their waist-bands clung to the flesh like soaked sponges. Some began to moan and sob; others to entreat Heaven for a respite, as if God were directing their torture and taking delight in it; others again broke out into frightful imprecations, cursing their Maker and the hour of their birth. And while the oars swung and the chains clashed and the cries redoubled their volume, ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to answer him, but something choked her; a sob was all she achieved. Had he caught her to him in that moment there is little doubt but that she had yielded. Perhaps he knew it; and knowing it kept the tighter rein upon desire. She was as metal molten in the crucible, to be moulded by his craftsman's hands into any pattern that he chose. But ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... come, the while convulsively clasping in her arms their only child, their fair-haired Davie. But when at last she heard the measured tread of those who bore him coming nearer and nearer to her door, she rose, with a shivering sob, to meet him, as she had ever done, with a loving smile, though now her heart was full of anguish. And he knew her, for he put out his poor crushed hand for her to ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... silence which to lovers means infinitely more than words. The joy of feeling that my love was returned, and that she whom I held in my arms was mine, made me forget all else, until, with a little sob, Zarlah whispered: ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... the raisins and the nuts— To-night All-Hallows' Spectre struts Along the moonlit way. No time is this for tear or sob, Or other woes our joys to rob, But time for Pippin and for Bob, And ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... wet, and halfway over the Hangingshaw Height he heard a stifled sob behind him, and, looking over his shoulder, he saw his little woebegone bride trying in vain with her numbed fingers to guide her palfrey, which was floundering in a moss-hole, to ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... master!" muttered the wife, for the old man was not laughing now; his last words were half a sob, and tears ran suddenly down. "I tell you always," she said, "Martin will come back. The good God cannot let our five boys die, one after the other. Madame your mother thinks so too," she said, nodding at Angelot. "I spoke to her very ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... upwards to Etna, and discussing the chances of an eruption. "Ah," said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air, in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet—everywhere, in fact; ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the absorbing business of holding the pink frock before the glass to make sure that the color was becoming, when she was suddenly arrested by the sound of a sob, and she turned to see Harriet throw herself across the bed and clutch the pillow in a storm of weeping. Patty stared with wide-open eyes; she herself did not indulge in such emotional demonstrations, and she could not imagine any possible cause. She ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... turn, Phil brought his boat alongside the wharf, where a group of campers, Gertrude among them, were gathered to receive them. Gertrude had Viola in her arms in a moment, and was welcoming her with a warmth that made the emotional little creature sob with real ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... passed the woman, she would surely have felt that the bundle in her arms was her own little lass, even if she had not seen one small clogged foot escaping from under the shawl. Baby was quiet now, except for a short gasping sob now and then, for she thought she ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton |
