"Suspense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Square with her bird-like quickness. She detested that woman now whom in happier days she had been accustomed to think so kind. Was she always to be put off thus, and forced to undergo this torturing suspense? ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... background. The gentlemen hurry to and fro with their ladies on their arms. GULDSTAD approaches SVANHILD and bows: she starts momentarily, then collects herself and gives him her hand. MRS. HALM and her family, who have watched the scene in suspense, throng about them with expressions of rapture, which are overpowered by the music and the merriment of the dancers ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... journal. He cowered in agony before these visions. He dared not seek the little park again. He feared to show himself in the streets. He dreaded the short walk from his dormitory to the Vatican. His life became a sustained torture—a consuming agony of uncertainty, interminable suspense, fearful foreboding. The cruelty of his position corroded him. His health suffered, and his cassock hung like a ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and Common Sense, than to any half-dozen items in the whole catalogue of imposture. Curiosity is, and has been from the creation of the world, a master-passion. To awaken it, to gratify it by slight degrees, and yet leave something always in suspense, is to establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... inevitable. Congress will hesitate before consenting to go the length he proposes. The taking forcible possession of West Florida may provoke a war sooner than any other act, but it is impossible to foresee how such a step may be viewed by the Cortes. We are at this moment in awful suspense—the king's illness, the proximity of the armies under Massena and Wellington, and the measures our government may deem proper to adopt to meet the hostile proceedings of the Americans, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... patient's aspect. The physician whose face reflects his patient's condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sickroom. The old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,—the patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable operation which he himself is by-and-by—to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... foreseeing the bad effects and dangerous evils which might ensue thereupon, and how greatly the other sort were mistaken who did then yield to the same, apprehending no danger in them, it is this day too too apparent to us whose thoughts concerning the event of this course cannot be holden in suspense betwixt the apprehensions of fear and expectations of hope, because doleful experience hath made us feel that which the wiser sort before did fear. Since, then, this church, which was once a praise in the earth, is now brought to a most ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... side in the paradise of sages? Both of them, the one by demolishing the theory of spontaneous generation, the other by refuting the mechanical theory of the origin of instincts, have brought into due prominence the great unknown and mysterious forces which seem destined to hold eternally in suspense the profound enigma ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... a dignity of despair that wrung Slone's heart. His silence was an answer. It was Joel Creech who broke the suspense. ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... door, his sensations painful enough in the mingled tumult of suspense, hope, and fear. There was no bell, only an old-fashioned brass knocker, which, with a kind of surly stiffness, resisted his attempt to use it. He managed to wrench one knock out of it, and left it suspended in ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... had said the same thing to her and she understood just how it was. But all the same, it was cruel of Felix, and not at all like him, for he was always so sweetly considerate, to go off in this sudden, secret way and leave them all in such suspense. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... praying, and not psalmody,) of "sensation-preaching," (which takes the place of the "painful" preaching of old times,) of "platform-speakers," of "revival-preachers," of "broad pulpits," and "Churches of the Future," of the "Eclipse of Faith" and the "Suspense of Faith," of "liberal" Christians, (with no reference to the contribution-plates,) of "subjective" and "objective" sermons, "Spurgeonisms," and "businessmen's meetings." And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius, whoever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... cross. Besides this, the king saw that on the opposite bank there was a large body of French troops posted to guard the passage. Edward was obliged to wait some hours for the tide to go down, being in a terrible state of suspense all the time for fear that Philip should come down upon him in the rear, in which case his situation would have been perilous in ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... ring; he thought she gave him all he asked, and with a glow of gratitude extended both his own to take it. Then she saw that delay was worse than weak, and though she trembled she spoke out bravely ending his suspense ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... he need not study much, Dick found himself in a dull rage with his helplessness. The day was bright, clear, cold and sunny, but the young cadet's soul was dark and moody. Would this suspense never end? ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... of the young dragon too. You wouldn't have had the heart to keep me in suspense if you had accepted him again. You couldn't have been so pleasant last night if ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... two of suspense succeeded, and then a pale, primrose- coloured streak appeared on the horizon to the eastward, rapidly increasing in size, and a hollow moaning sound gradually became audible in the air. I did not like it at all. I was sure something out of the common was about to happen, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... interpolation of the line, and the King was merely giving Le Despenser back his own—the coronet which had belonged to the grand old family of Clare, whose co-heiress was the great-grandmother of Thomas Le Despenser. The title had been kept as it were in suspense ever since the attainder of her husband, the ill-fated Earl Hugh, though two persons had borne it in the interim without any ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... judgement against the East India Company, till their next meeting; to which the Lords returned answer that they would return answer to them by a messenger of their own, which they not presently doing, they were all inflamed, and thought it was only a trick, to keep them in suspense till the King come to adjourne them; and, so, rather than lose the opportunity of doing themselves right, they presently with great fury come to this vote: "That whoever should assist in the execution of the judgement of the Lords against the Company, should be held betrayers ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Straight Dramatic and Melodramatic Sketch. In identically the same way the introduction into one-act dramas and melodramas of "bits" that are merely added to heighten the suspense and make the whole seem more "creepy," without having a definite—an inevitable—effect upon the ending makes and marks them as narrative dramas and melodramas and not ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... Court, of which they had heard so much, had been the girls' day-dream for so long that it seemed impossible that it had come at last. Ruth's mind flew at once to considerations of ways and means, and she suffered a moment of agonising suspense before Mrs Connor's eager consent ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... seem to be needed, they ought to be made. This question is too important to rest in suspense. The mean composition of human milk for the first two months after delivery ought to be established. In chemistry, as in mathematics, figures alone are convincing. But from what has been said it is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... between the ships. The Englishman had blown off his gun-ports. And next some one shouted that our battery of twelves was fighting them muzzle to muzzle below, our rammers leaning into the Serapis to send their shot home. No chance then for the thoughts which had tortured us in moments of suspense. That was a fearful hour, when a shot had scarce to leap a cannon's length to find its commission; when the belches of the English guns burned the hair of our faces; when Death was sovereign, merciful or cruel at his pleasure. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... noticeable, too, that when once the sickening suspense was removed, and the path of pain and glory lay clear before these youthful spirits, they grew very rapidly in intellectual stature. They had found their equilibrium, and no more time and force were wasted in useless oscillations. Each of them had, at last, the occasion, ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... rejected,—she should at least not be in suspense, and Reuben was soon at her door, as soon admitted. But he came in very quietly, without that spring of step which had so often brought a letter, and standing ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... individual champions upon either side. In one of these Najib lost 3,000 of his Rohillas, and was very near perishing himself; and the chiefs of the Indian Musalmans became at last very urgent with the Shah to put an end to their suspense by bringing on a decisive action. But the Shah, with the patience of a great leader, as steadily repressed their ardour, knowing very well that (to use the words of a modern leader on a similar ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... mystery, do not allow the end to be guessed too soon. Interest thrives on suspense and on expectation. The surprising thing, yet the natural ending, swiftly brought about, marks the climax of a good photoplay plot. Many a promising photoplay script has failed because it did not make good its prophecy. The plot opened well, but ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... is so completely dumbfoundered by it, perhaps this acute young prince may be able to answer my question?" insinuated the Baital, after a few minutes of anxious suspense. ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... therefore continued with him; and, from my great attention to his orders and his business, I gained him credit, and through his kindness to me I at last procured my liberty. While I thus went on, filled with the thoughts of freedom, and resisting oppression as well as I was able, my life hung daily in suspense, particularly in the surfs I have formerly mentioned, as I could not swim. These are extremely violent throughout the West Indies, and I was ever exposed to their howling rage and devouring fury in all ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Great suspense on the part of the audience, then a general burst of laughter as Boo trotted in, a perfect miniature of his honored parent, knee breeches, cocked hat, shoe buckles and all. He was so fat that the little tails of his coat stuck out in the drollest way, his chubby legs ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... street; but, Doctor Wesselhoff, if you still doubt my statements, and imagine that I am laboring under a peculiar mania, you can easily ascertain the truth by bringing my father here to prove my assertions. I beg that you will do so without delay, for he must be suffering the most harrowing suspense on ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... woman watched her sister's conduct in agonised suspense. At first Ida had been honestly indifferent to the behaviour of her brother-in-law; after a while, however, a faint embarrassed flush would sometimes overspread her pretty youthful countenance. From ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... he had entered in solemn fashion, faced the same tragic assembly, made the same fiery oration, gained applause at the climax of the same rounded periods and allowed his voice to break in the same rightly timed places. Having kept his audience in sufficient suspense as regards his mission, he unwrapped the muffler from his neck, removed his coat, felt his throat to see whether it was in good condition, swelled out his chest, including his waist-coat which was spanned by the broad ribbon of his ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... a few days later that, coming in one afternoon, I found Miss Champion with my grandmother and noticed that there was something odd in the manner of both of them. Nor was I kept long in suspense about it, for Miss Champion, who was the most candid person alive, could not long keep ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... pestilence-stricken multitudes, yellow and black and red, whirled away in flight on flight before the volleying blast, and to hear and see and feel the tempests of rain, the big silver-grey drops that smite you like hail! And what pleasure too, in the still grey November weather, the time of suspense and melancholy before winter, a strange quietude, like a sense of apprehension in nature! And so on through the revolving year, in all places in all weathers, there is pleasure in the open air, except ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... my lord, take heart; for tho' you suspended yourself, the Pope let you down again; and tho' you suspend Foliot or another, the Pope will not leave them in suspense, for the Pope himself is always in suspense, like Mahound's coffin hung between heaven and earth—always in suspense, like the scales, till the weight of Germany or the gold of England brings one of them down to the dust—always in suspense, like the tail of the horologe—to and ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... returning from Japan, would rush to her with a full explanation. Of course he cared for her—he had never thought of anything else—of course he considered that they were engaged! And Susan, after keeping him in suspense for a period that even Auntie thought too long, would find herself talking to him, scolding, softening, finally laughing, and at last—and for ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... its iron grip on the heart of Africa was advancing steadily from the north as well as from the south: it was nearing the Equator. The country, its imagination profoundly stirred by the enterprise, watched it in suspense. But until the meeting of the two giant highways was effected, everything depended upon an equable balance of forces, of which a touch might destroy the equilibrium. German possessions and German ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... been of more importance they would have excited little notice at the time, so earnestly bent was every mind towards the main object of interest and curiosity. At length, after about two hours had been passed in this state of anxiety and suspense, ascending a hill towards the south—Hagiopolis! exclaimed a Greek in the van of our cavalcade; and, instantly throwing himself from his horse, was seen upon his knees, bare-headed, facing the prospect he surveyed. Suddenly the sight burst upon us all. The ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... battle-axe, and retreating two steps from his antagonist, who stood in astonishment, scarcely recovered from the stunning effect of the blow by which he was so nearly prostrated. He sank the blade of his battle-axe in imitation of his antagonist, and seemed to wait in suspense what was to be the next process of the combat. "I acknowledge my debt," said the valiant Count of Paris, "alike to Bertha of Britain and to the Almighty, who has preserved me from the crime of ungrateful blood-guiltiness.—You ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... couch. He endured this situation until noon the ensuing day, when an iron wicket in the centre of the tower was opened, and two hands were seen lowering a basket, containing food like that he had found the preceding night. For the first time since the terrible change in his fortunes did pain and suspense extort from him a question or two. Why was he brought hither? What offence had he committed? But he received no answer; the hands disappeared; and the sash was closed. Here, without beholding the face, or hearing the voice of a fellow-creature; without the least clue to his terrible destiny; fearful ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... given all my future prospects (which, by the way, were not very great) to remain in that room. The oddity of the situation; the mystery of the occurrence; the suspense I saw in every face; the eagerness of the cries I heard redoubled from time to time outside; the malevolence but poorly disguised in the old lawyer's countenance; and, above all, the presence of that noble-looking woman, which was the one off-set to the general ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... trampled in the mud. Every night, as soon as I was in bed, I could hear them searching about for what they could devour, under my table, and all about my boxes and baskets, keeping me in a state of suspense till morning, lest something of value might incautiously have been left within their read. They would drink the oil of my floating lamp and eat the wick, and upset or break my crockery if my lazy boys ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... sufrimiento, suffering sufrir, to suffer sujetapapeles, paper fasteners suma, sum, addition sumar, to add suma redonda, lump sum superficie, surface suponer, to suppose suprimir, to suppress sur, sud, south surtido, assortment, selection suspender los pagos, to stop payments (en) suspense, (in) abeyance ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... of God, don't tell me you have failed," implored the baron. "I have died a hundred deaths of torture and suspense since your card was carried up. But if I am to hear bad news ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the dead would reappear to testify. An impulse almost incontrollable bade Carthew rise from the thwart, shriek out aloud, and leap overboard: it seemed so vain a thing to dissemble longer, to dally with the inevitable, to spin out some hundred seconds more of agonised suspense, with shame and death thus visibly approaching. But the indomitable Wicks persevered. His face was like a skull, his voice scarce recognisable; the dullest of men and officers (it seemed) must have remarked that tell-tale ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hardy had assumed charge of our Long Tom, and he had gradually worked himself up into such an uncontrollable condition of fidgety impatience, running his eye along the sights and then glancing round at me, that it seemed cruel to keep him thus any longer on the tenter-hooks of suspense, and I, rather reluctantly, nodded permission to him to fire. The next instant the gun spoke out, the shock of its discharge jarring the schooner to her keel, and the shot flew high over the mast-heads of the galley and a little wide ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... sickening to me is this suspense, since, for the first time in my life, I falter. Oh! I ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... back Peter Baron turned something over in his mind as he had never turned anything before; it was the question of whether, at the end, she would let him come into her sitting-room for five minutes. He felt on this point a passion of suspense and impatience, and yet for what would it be but to tell her how poor he was? This was literally the moment to say it, so supremely depleted had the hour of Bohemia left him. Even Bohemia was too expensive, and yet in the ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... had sailed for hours in suspense, evidently stemming a current. Almost mad with doubt, I grasped the helm to throw her head off shore, when blazing out of the sea was the light ahead. "Excalibur!" cried "all hands," and rejoiced, and sailed on. The Spray was now in a protected sea and smooth water, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the crowning sensation in the suspense of the situation. Barb Doubleday drove into town in the buckboard, headed his team into Kitchen's barn to put up and ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Then all this suspense was followed by such delighted exclamations when the cake came out, done to a turn, so high, so delicately brown, and with a light golden fissure breaking through the warm swell, like the furrow in a hill-side, betraying ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... a suspense that racked her whole body. Guy reached the bend first. There was room for only one upon that narrow ledge. He went round the curve with the confidence of one who fully expected a clear path ahead. And then—on the very edge of the precipice—he ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... window, could not endure the suspense. She entered the church by a side door, and listened not far from the pulpit steps. Her husband's voice rang out amid a breathless silence, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... few days she was perfectly conscious, and watched with keen suspense what was passing around her. It made her happy to find that Charles sent his own physician to her but, on the other hand, she was deeply and painfully agitated by his failure to grant the entreaty which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... disappearance had been so complete and so prolonged as to leave not the slightest cause for doubt or hope on the part of any of my relatives. Had I for a moment imagined that my mother was still cherishing hopes of seeing me again some day, and that she was undergoing agonies of mental suspense and worry on my behalf, I think I would have risked everything to reach her. But I knew quite well that she must have heard of the loss of the Veielland, and long ago resigned herself to the certainty of my death. I can never hope to describe the curious delight with which I perused my precious ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... of my way," answered Andrews. He was calm again now, and his tone showed nothing of the agony of suspense ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... effeteness of the 'old hunkers', as Whitman called them, has rarely rung out more sharply than in the closing stanzas of Claudel's great Palm Sunday ode. All the pomp and splendour of bishops and cardinals is idle while victory yet is in suspense: that must be won ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... great song which the soldier lifts during his halt, or on the edge of battle, is generally written beforehand by some pen unconscious that its glow would tip the points of bayonets, and cheer hearts in suspense for the first cannon-shot of the foe. If anybody undertakes to furnish songs for camps, he prospers as one who resolves to write anthems for a prize-committee to sit on: it is sutler's work, and falls a prey to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was worse. She seemed suddenly to have come on the traces of her friends. In the St Anton valley the snow had stopped and she let down the window for air, for she was choking with suspense. The car rushed past the station, down the hill by Peter's cottage, through the village, and along the lake shore to the ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... and frightful suspense," he said. "I'm very miserable, nearly desperate. I stand before you in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... in the affair as he was; neither could tell tales upon the other. In the first glow of happiness, the clergyman suffered a deep sigh to escape him; and as his bosom had become choked and his throat dry during his previous suspense, the sigh was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... followed Mlle. Remy inside of the building, but having been overtaken by timidity for the first time in his life, had hesitated at a little distance in the rear. He could stand the suspense no longer. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... task fell to those who were asked not to write of the war but to practice the gentle art of cheering us all up—an art so easily lost in these days of sorrow, suspense and anxiety—yet we have received many delightful contributions in harmony with this request, and so the cheerful note, the finer optimism, recurs again and again, and is ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... Melancthon affords a striking Lecture on the Value of Time, by informing us that when he made an Appointment, he expected not only the Hour, but the Minute to be fixed, that Life might not run out in the Idleness of Suspense; and all the Plans and Enterprizes of De Wit are now of less Importance to the World, than that Part of his personal Character which represents him as careful of his Health, and ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... ceremony, and listen for the wedding march and happy jingle of village bells; or if we may not have these in Puritan days, at least we may hear the pompous magistrate pronounce the blessing of the State over its two happy subjects. But no! There is yet a moment of suspense, a last trial to the lover's constancy. The bride is taken dangerously ill, so dangerously ill that the doctors rejoice when the disease pronounces itself to be small-pox. Alas! who shall now say what are the inmost thoughts of our Dorothy? Does she not need all her ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... behind. Obeying the instincts of a mother, and turning a deaf ear to the admonitions of friends, she started off on a perilous search for the missing one. It was dark; she was alone; and the foe was lurking around; but the agonies of death could not exceed her agonies of suspense; so she hastened on. She traversed the fields which, but a few ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... went back to London, promising to return within two days. It seemed to us that those two days lasted a month. At length they passed away, but Forrester had not returned. A third and a fourth day passed, and our impatience became intolerable. Morning and night we watched in agonizing suspense; but the sun rose and set, and still Forrester had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... which period the president might be kept in the isle of Puna under a confidential guard, by which he might be prevented from writing to Spain that the country was in rebellion; more especially as they could keep him in continual suspense, by representing that the general assembly could not meet sooner on account of the vast distance of some of the cities. Even the most moderate were for obliging the president to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... rosy cheeks and laughing mouths, while the Mother Superior showed off the little boys and girls for them to choose. This affair of the choice was always a delightful difficulty, and here his fancy loved to hang in suspense, vibrating between rival joys. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... examining her features, and trying to suit them to one or other of the numerous models of Love that a young man carries about with him. Her eyes met his, and even as he was deciding against her on almost every point, the force of their frankness held his judgement in suspense. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dark valley.' The 'valley' she saw, but no darkness, neither night nor shadow; all was light and peace. On the future life she had pondered much, but ever with a trust absolute and an abounding cheer. Fear, doubt, anxiety, suspense, she knew nothing of; none of them had power to mar her peace or jostle her conviction. While she could speak, she expressed the utmost gratitude that the dear Father was loosening the cords of life so gently that ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... cab rang like a drumhead; the driver blinked through the back-splatter from his rubber apron; now and again the tyres lost grip on the treacherous going and provided instants of lively suspense. Lanyard lowered a window to release the musty odour peculiar to French taxis, got well peppered with moisture, and promptly put it up again. Then insensibly he relaxed, in the toils of memories roused by the reflection that this night ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... ten o'clock—Molly O'Reilly couldn't endure the suspense any longer. She cunningly stacked a tray with nut- bread sandwiches and a pitcher of milk and strode bravely up the stairs ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... and equal suspense of the conclave was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A specious offer was made and accepted, that, in the term of forty days, they would elect one of the three candidates who should be named by their opponents. The archbishop of Bourdeaux, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... sound of the electric bell, a precipitate double peal, seemed to uphold this statement. The women faced each other in a moment's suspense, a moment of expectation, such as the advance column may feel at sight of a scout hotfoot from the field of battle. There were muffled movements in the hall, then light, even steps crossing the drawing-room. Those light steps always suggested a slight frame, and, as ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... For several evenings he had not left his house, I therefore went to him. His first question was relative to the courier he had despatched for tidings of his daughter, and whose delay disquieted him. After a short interval of suspense, with every caution which my own sorrow suggested, I deprived him of all hope of the child's recovery. 'I understand,' said he,—'it is enough, say no more.' A mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his strength failed him, and he sunk into a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... the glittering blade, only to mock him with several pretended thrusts, hoping thus to create and prolong an agony of fear and suspense. ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... All the faces were blank, and every man said he had not taken a word about the shooting. 'Look over your files,' said the boss to the man handling the press stuff. For a few moments we waited in suspense, and then the man held up a sheet of paper containing a short account of the shooting of the President. The operator had worked so mechanically that he had handled the news without the slightest knowledge of its significance." Mr. Adams ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... days I had been cooling my heels about the Vatican, vexed by suspense. It fretted me that I should have been so lightly dealt with after I had discharged the mission that had brought me all the way from Pesaro, and I wondered how long it might be ere his Most Illustrious Excellency the Cardinal of Valencia ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... wept and said nought; but, after he had thus held the friar a great while in suspense, he heaved a deep sigh and said, 'Father mine, since you promise me to pray God for me, I will e'en tell it you. Know, then, that, when I was little, I once cursed my mother.' So saying, he fell again to weeping sore. 'O my son,' quoth ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... keep you no longer in suspense, Bellarmine, having tried every argument and persuasion which he could invent, and finding them all ineffectual, at length took his leave, but not in order to return to Leonora; he proceeded directly to his own seat, whence, after a few days' ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... held her breath in a sickening suspense, scarce knowing whether or not she longed to see him. She knew almost each face as it loomed up into view: there was young Fitzjames, their kinsman, looking shame-faced but submissive; there were Udel and ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... suspense we will temporarily leave Herrera and his friends, to follow in the footsteps of the muleteer. So rapid had been his ascent of the mountain, that when he reached its summit the Carlists had not yet completed their circuit, and entered the valley where the convent stood. With a feeling of huge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... forth a gleam Of hungry expectation, gazed Where o'er him still the man was raised, To see how soon the bush would fall, The burden that it bore, and all. That man in utmost fear and dread Surrounded, threatened, hard bested, In such a state of dire suspense Looked vainly round for some defense. And as he cast his bloodshot eye First here, then there, saw hanging nigh A branch with berries ripe and red; Then longing mastered all his dread; No more the camel's rage he saw, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... an hour's suspense, the clang of the house-bell for call-over broke the spell. Mr Rollitt grunted and yawned and opened his eyes, looked about for his pipe, inspected the rug on his knees, took his, feet off the hassock, and finally realised where ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... transports rather violent than unpleasing. She soon, however, recollected herself, and her native serenity returned; when, rising from her seat, she declared he would see him in the next apartment, where he stood in the most tumultuous suspense, waiting for permission to approach her person. Here she broke in upon him, arrayed in an elegant white undress, the emblem of her purity, beaming forth the emanations of amazing beauty, warmed and improved ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... beating on the rocks; or the sea deep-coloured in daylight, with white gulls over it; or the sea with those sinuous paths made by the wandering currents, the subtle, smiling, silent sea, holding in suspense its unfathomable restlessness, waiting to surge and spring again. That was what she wanted from him—not his embraces, not even his adoration, his wit, or his queer, lithe comeliness touched with felinity; no, only that in his soul which escaped through his fingers into the air and dragged ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... doings were to be discussed, probably censured. When would the time arrive that he might take steps to defend himself? When would his lips be unsealed? How much longer would Mr. Moncrief keep him in suspense, and what had ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... would develope. The newspaper-vendors would rise and demand that The Daily Mirror feuilleton be suppressed, thus plunging the country into an agony of suspense, and railwaymen would cease work at the sight of any passenger immersed in the most recent instalment of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... while a dreary vision of a living grave—called a workhouse—loomed more and more darkly upon her poor old eyes. She had well-nigh given up all hope of succour from her old master when the letter came, and she was the more inclined to be grateful for very small help after this interval of suspense. It was not without strong emotion that Mrs. Woolper obeyed her old master's summons. She had nursed the hard, cold man of the world whom she was going to see once more, after ten years of severance; and though it was more difficult ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... weeks he had haunted its ante-rooms and audience-chambers, in the vain hope of righting himself before his superiors, who were content, without formulating charges against him, to keep him in this disgrace of inaction and the anxiety of suspense. Unable to ascertain the details of the accusation, and conscious of his own secret, he was debarred the last resort of demanding a court-martial, which he knew could only exonerate him by the exposure of the guilt of his wife, whom he still ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... of the Pope was expressed in a Bull of Deposition; which however on second thoughts he found it advisable to hold in suspense till ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... pretext she had found for breaking her promise to walk with Mr. Gryce. She had sometimes been accused of being too eager—even Judy Trenor had warned her to go slowly. Well, she would not be too eager in this case; she would give her suitor a longer taste of suspense. Where duty and inclination jumped together, it was not in Lily's nature to hold them asunder. She had excused herself from the walk on the plea of a headache: the horrid headache which, in the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... was not yet over; the air had again become close and suffocating. Courtland remained brooding in his chair. Whether he could accept Champney's news as true or not, he felt that he must end this suspense at once. A half-guilty consciousness that he was thinking more of it in reference to his own passion than his duty to the company did not render his meditations less unpleasant. Yet while he could not reconcile ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a feeling of intense relief and thankfulness that Miss Lincoln welcomed the missing pair as the boat drew up on the beach at Moorcliffe. The hours of their absence had been a time of such anxiety and suspense as she had not experienced before with any of her pupils. One look at her face showed them what she had suffered ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... captain stood absolutely motionless, his body vaguely silhouetted against the glow of the binnacle. The hands that gripped the wheel so savagely were as steady as if carven out of stone. An atmosphere of suspense enveloped ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... most anxious suspense, the approach of night gave him an opportunity of leaving his hiding-place. He now cautiously made his way down the river on the Chattanooga side. At length he found a canoe, in which he rowed at night, and when morning came, he would sink it, and hide in the bushes; ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... until Robert Seymour, generally a very philosophical person, could have slain those innocent lovers. He felt, he knew not why, that his chances were slipping away from him; that sensation of something bad about to happen, of which Benita had spoken, spread from her to him. The suspense grew exasperating, terrible even, nor could it be ended. To ask her to come elsewhere was under the circumstances not feasible, especially as he would also have been obliged to request the other pair to make way for them, and all this time, with a sinking of the heart, he felt ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... instantly seen. To their terror the sentinel was mounted, and alighting with flint and steel began to strike a light to indulge in the comfort of his pipe. The flame of a piece of paper would reveal them. The suspense was terrible. So still did they lie and so intense were their inward throbbings that Mr. Carson afterwards affirmed that he could actually hear Lieutenant ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... interview at Downing Street. He fancied that her manner towards him was changed; and he was once or twice on the point of asking the most sympathetic of the housemaids whether she had noticed it. On Wednesday his suspense ended. Lucian came, and had a long conversation with Lydia in the library. Bashville was too honorable to listen at the door; but he felt a strong temptation to do so, and almost hoped that the sympathetic housemaid might prove less scrupulous. But Miss Carew's influence extended farther than her ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... this had to be man-handled through the sand up to our camp about a mile away. And the sun blazed, and the flies pestered and stung and buzzed and fought with each other for the drops of sweat streaming down your face. How long should we be here? When were we going into action?... The suspense was brain-racking. The diarrhoea increased: everyone went down with it. Some got the ague shivers and some a touch ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... of elections as a high crime and misdemeanor, recommends the Earl of Marchmont to bribe "some of your venal peers" to confess that they took money to vote for the court.[112] "Ever since Lord Granville went out," wrote Horace Walpole in 1744, "all has been in suspense. The leaders of the Opposition immediately imposed silence upon their party; everything passed without the least debate, in short, all were making their bargains. One has heard of the corruption ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... of the preceding ten years, had offered nothing similar to these romances which joined tragic and idyllic material in scenes of brilliant theatrical effectiveness, abounding in transitions from suspense to surprise, and culminating in telling denouements. This new realm of romance is an artificial one, contrasting pure love with horrid entanglements of lust, and ever bringing love in conflict with duty, friendship, or the code of honor. In its intriguing courts, ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... opposition candidate. They pitched with this view on Major McNamara, a liberal Protestant of the county, at the head of one of its oldest families, and personally popular; but this gentleman, after keeping them several days in suspense, till the time of nomination was close at hand, positively declined to stand against his friend, Mr. Fitzgerald, to the great ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... elder brother, as well as of the sobs of its present Emperor, may be gathered from the fact that it went all but mad with enthusiasm! When the Bishop finished reading, there went up a wild and universal shout of joy of exultation, of triumph, of relief, as though a great weight of suspense had been lifted from the hearts of the multitude. It spread through the army like light, and was raised again and again, until the very vault of heaven seemed to thunder, while the soldiers tossed their ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... lighted the fire. The crisp manzanita wood crackled as the flames leaped up and assailed the dry bark of the larger logs. Then she leaned in the shelter of her husband's arm, and the three stood and looked in breathless suspense. When Ferguson gave judgment, it was with beaming face and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... secondary; or we may, on the other hand, treat the avoidance of error as more imperative, and let truth take its chance. Clifford, in the instructive passage which I have quoted, exhorts us to the latter course. Believe nothing, he tells us, keep your mind in suspense forever, rather than by closing it on insufficient evidence incur the awful risk of believing lies. You, on the other hand, may think that the risk of being in error is a very small matter when compared with the blessings of real knowledge, and be ready to be duped many times in your ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... the miscellaneous contents of the cabin a few hooks were found, which were somewhat rusty, it is true, yet still good enough for the purpose before them. Lines, of course, were easily procured, and soon a half dozen baited hooks were down in the water, while a half dozen boys, eager with suspense, watched the surface ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... from Mary he toiled, white as lint, in his potato-field. There followed two days of sick suspense; then the minister waved to him at the gray fence-rails. So greatly did he dread to hear the news he longed to know, he could not stir from the spot where he stood, but waited, a strained, pathetic figure, for him to make his way across the even furrows. On the fatherly, near-sighted countenance, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Stepping and Tottingham and Bursley. In Eden Village it caused such a commotion as had not disturbed the tranquillity since the weather-vane on the church steeple was regilded. As you are by this time, kind reader, in a fever of excitement and curiosity, I'll relieve your suspense. ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... centred on a single point; all are watching the gradual birth of so important an event. The wider the influence of the executive power extends, the greater and the more necessary is its constant action, the more fatal is the term of suspense; and a nation which is accustomed to the government, or, still more, one used to the administrative protection of a powerful executive authority, would be infallibly convulsed by an election of this kind. In the United States the action of the government may be slackened ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... moments; but the woman whose earthly happiness is on the cast of the die, who cannot shield the being dearest to her upon earth from the crushing blow or the deadly thrust, to her the day of battle is one of unmixed anguish; suspense is agony, and yet she dreads to exchange that suspense for knowledge which might bring agony more ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... slowly for him in the suspense of waiting. He opened and read the letters of which he had spoken to Marsa the evening before; they always affected him like a poison, to which he returned again and again with a morbid desire for fresh suffering—love-letters, the exchange of vows ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was now arrived, and all the young competitors were in a state of the most anxious suspense. Leonora and Cecilia continued to be the foremost candidates; their quarrel had never been finally adjusted, and their different pretensions now retarded all thoughts of a reconciliation. Cecilia, though she was capable of acknowledging any ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... the month of June, and our year of exile (as it liked us to call it) nigh at an end, Dawson one night put the question to Don Sanchez, which had kept us fluttering in painful suspense these past six months, whether he had saved sufficient by his labours, to enable us to return to ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... true, and as usual the days of suspense told heavily on Aymer. Christopher's return was an immense relief. He had had a heavy spell of work and travelling, and allowed himself a few days' holiday. It happened that Patricia was also at Marden. She spent so large a percentage of her time with Constantia now that her presence in the house ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... days we lived in unenviable suspense. Every morning did we expect to be summoned from the school-room to be scolded by Aunt Maria. Every afternoon we dreaded the arrival of "the old gentleman next door" to make his formal complaint, and, whenever the front-door ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young man shouted at them to begin again, and, seizing a boat-hook, stuck it into the arms of his coat. He waved this on high while the men redoubled their efforts. For many moments they hung in suspense, watching the black hull as it gathered speed, and then, as they were about to cease their effort, a puff of steam burst from its whistle and the next moment a short toot of recognition reached them. Glenister wiped the moisture from his brow and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and stood a while waving to and froe, as in suspense; at length you fell, with a forward thrust, ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... all the ardour of the most impassioned lover—while the proud priest, the austere guardian is humbled, if I but frown, into the veriest slave of love. She then asked, "Why did I not keep him longer in suspense? He could not have loved me more, I believe: but my power over him might have been greater still. I am the happiest of women in the affection he has proved to me, but I wonder whether it would exist under ill treatment? If it would not, he still does not love me as I ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... suit your convenience, and never regarding anything as a trouble which could conduce to your pleasure. I confess I am surprised at my little niece Nell speaking in such a way of so good a man. If the Captain keeps you in suspense, depend upon it his purpose is to make you enjoy the treat he has in his mind ten times more than if you knew all about ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... indefinable, unaccountable, unknowable, shuddering. Pain begins, for the heart springs into life, and fills the silence with the terror of its beatings, thick, knifing, frightful in its intense longing. Power of mind over soul, power of calm over fear avail nothing; suspense and misery, locked arm in arm, pervade aeonic stillness, till all ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... her, for the minute or two of suspense, and then the whole scene, the tragedy, was enacted before her gaze. She was not frightened; she was not even excited; the thing was so astonishing that she did not quite grasp its full import till she saw Palura ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... changed by the harmony, how a familiar bit of tune, with the simplest harmonies arranged in a new way, resulted in practically a new melody. This device he commonly used, sometimes with fine results. The incessant series of climaxes, leading us on and keeping us in suspense until a certain point is reached, then releasing the tension for a moment, and preparing to do the same again—these he employed to an extent, but ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... beheld a form moving slowly through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more attentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule, or was it an animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting behind the gauzy, coloured veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed nearest to me vibrated; ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... who had been flagging for some time, fell suddenly lame. From this fresh misfortune the Baron was aroused by the well known baying of his gallant stag-hounds. "Aiglette and Caspar are not baying after nothing," thought he. He was not long in suspense. To his extreme amazement, the identical boar which had caused all his trouble and fatigue, appeared closely followed by both ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... eyes would have seen a generous share of Ann and Jane, was talking to the Colonel; who, in his turn, was making her position of honor guest less trying than she had pictured it during that long day of suspense. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... and it's twenty-three for mine." (Tom paused in suspense at this ominous phrase.) "My registration card is numbered twenty-three, so I'm the only original skiddoo soldier—take it from ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... crash. It had become known on the floor that I was the only one who could do anything with him in his frenzies, and my pleading with him in the lobby was watched by the members of the Exchange with triple eyed suspense. When it was clear from his emphatic gestures and raised voice—for he was in a reckless mood from drink and madness and took no pains to disguise his intentions—that I could not prevail upon him, there was a frantic rush for the poles to throw over stocks ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... fact was verified—and he would start for home on the morrow. There seemed to be no details, save the comforting one that Billy Snow was with him. After that first sharp immediate relief from suspense, Lois again felt its filminess ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various |
