"Agonized" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where a huge peat-fire was burning, stood a young peasant woman, her face distorted with agonized grief, and holding in her arms a bundle of blackened rags. We found that her baby had fallen into the glowing embers, while she herself was occupied out of doors, and the poor mite was so badly burned that there seemed but little ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... father!" exclaimed Catherine, with an expression of agonized apprehension—"they are in the midst of ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... the pitiful, agonized Christ upon the cross, at which she glanced from time to time over her shoulder, faded to a white blot, then vanished away in the darkness, through which, from generation to generation, it kept its watch above the dead, those dead that in their despair ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... folly and imprudence, until, agonized by the torture of her own reflections, she would sink down in a chair quite exhausted, and burst into ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... eye. Perhaps he did not know him so well as I did. He did not know what that look meant. Suddenly, while the Privy-Councillor lay back in his chair pulling thoughtfully at his cigar, there was a bright, blood-red flash, a dull report, and a man's short agonized cry. Startled, I leaned around the corner of the deck-house, when, to my abject horror, I saw under the electric rays the Czar's Privy-Councillor lying sideways in his chair with part of his face blown away. ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state. The yearning memories, the bitter regret, the agonized sympathy, the struggling appeals to the Invisible Right—all the intense emotions which had filled the days and nights of the past week, and were compressing themselves again like an eager crowd into the hours of this single morning, made Adam look back on all the previous years ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... priest, speaking words not his own; and Albinia and Fred knelt with him. At the close of each prayer or psalm, Gilbert signed imploringly for more, even like our mighty dying queen; and at each short pause, the distressed agonized expression would again contract the brow, though in the sound of the holy words all was peace. The Psalm of the Good Shepherd with the Rod and Staff in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, recurred so ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... one row of figures halfway up the wall, where his firm black drawing is still distinguishable: throughout the rest of the fresco, hillocks of pink flesh have been substituted for his severe forms—and for his agonized features, puppets' heads with roaring mouths and staring eyes, the whole as coarse and sickening, and quite as weak, as any scrabble on the lowest booths ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... I agonized in dust and shame With tears and sighs in all the bitter prayer, I felt, as 't were, an arm that stole around me, And raised me to my feet. And at the touch, hope blossomed in my heart, And new-found strength ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... must be a lucky man to have won her tender young heart so utterly. Strange and equivocal a thing as the pretty child (she seemed a child to him) was doing, he never for an instant doubted the ignorant faith and love that shone in the depths of her beautiful agonized eyes. He bowed to her as deferentially as to a sultana, when he ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... captain's devotedness to Helen, and Helen's surprised, fond delight at being so much "made of" by the first lover who had ever wooed her, and a lover whom externally any girl would have been proud of. And then the agonized cry of another faithful heart went up to heaven—"God grant he may love her; that she may ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fullness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... seemed shaping for a new 21st of March, and, if our luck were out, my poor little remnant would have to take the shock. I telephoned to the Corps and found them as nervous as me. I gave them the details of my strength and heard an agonized whistle at the other end of the line. I was rather glad I had ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... he failed. Nay, more, he had tried the power of prayer. Socrates, and Plato, and Cleanthes had bowed the knee and moved the lips in prayer. The emperor Aurelius, and the slave Epictetus had prayed, and prayer, no doubt, intensified their longing, and sharpened and agonized their desire, but it did not raise them to a satisfying and holy koinonia in the divine life. "It seems to me"—said Plato—as Homer says of Minerva, that she removed the mist from before the eyes ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... arrow entered deeply into her heart, She rested her burning forehead against the marble pillar, and said, in tones of agonized entreaty, "I never met ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... friend, in her room was not less strange. What was happening? What did the letter contain? What were they hiding from her? If she had, the day before, felt the "needle in the heart" only on divining a scene of violent explanation between her mother and Boleslas Gorka, how would she have been agonized to ascertain the state into which the few lines of Boleslas's wife had cast that mother! The anonymous denunciation recurred to her, and with it all the suspicion she had in vain rejected. The mother was unaware ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... course, the only thing to have done for Edward would have been to let him sink down until he became a tramp of gentlemanly address, having, maybe, chance love affairs upon the highways. He would have done so much less harm; he would have been much less agonized too. At any rate, he would have had fewer chances of ruining and of remorse. For Edward was great at remorse. But Leonora's English Catholic conscience, her rigid principles, her coldness, even her very ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... an agonized shriek of "Don't chop! don't chop!" and Mr. Rogers himself came struggling to the defense of his property. In concert the instant need was explained to him, but he ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... throbbing ache came into his head, and as this grew the noise of voices became more distinct, and he could hear sobbing. Then he opened his lids, but the glare of the sunlight struck them shut again; he saw only Maud's face, agonized, white, and wet with tears, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... dread of Mr. Martin's act ceases to effect for a time its beneficent purpose; when the stiffened joints—the cracked hoofs—the greasy legs—and stumbling gait of the worn-out animal are all put into agonized motion by belabouring him upon the raw! The expression is Hibernian, but the brutality is our own. A few ill-gained pounds reconcile the enormity to the owner—and the cheapness and expedition of the conveyance give it public sanction: but humanity is outraged by the same: human ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... counted as the ally of the Czar in all matters relating to the East. Holleben and Cassini were taken to be a single force in Eastern affairs, and this supposed alliance gave Hay no little anxiety and some trouble. Suddenly Holleben, who seemed to have had no thought but to obey with almost agonized anxiety the least hint of the Kaiser's will, received a telegram ordering him to pretext illness and come home, which he obeyed within four-and-twenty hours. The ways of the German Foreign Office had been always abrupt, not to say ruthless, towards its agents, and yet ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... This were the summit of my hoped success! For this, my theme through mazes I pursue, Which nor Maeonides, nor Maro knew. II. Awhile the mast, in ruins dragg'd behind, Balanced the impression of the helm and wind; 60 The wounded serpent, agonized with pain, Thus trails his mangled volume on the plain: But now, the wreck, dissever'd from the rear, The long reluctant prow began to veer; While round before the enlarging wind it falls, "Square fore and aft the yards," the master ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... hesitation, replied that she would give him a reply the next day. After thinking the matter over, she wrote and dispatched the letter which Francoise had carried to Norbert. The prisoner in the dock as he anxiously awaits the sentence of his judge, can alone appreciate Diana's state of agonized suspense as she stood at the end of the park at Laurebourg awaiting the return of the girl. Her anxiety of mind lasted nearly three hours, when Francoise hurried ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... last, however, and knelt down beside him. He was groaning in an agonized manner, and had evidently been fearfully burnt before he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... mighty hunter, the mightiest of the mighty, the Gordon Cumming of his day. Not much regret noticeable in it.—["Having planted a bullet in the shoulder-bone of an elephant, and caused the agonized creature to lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some coffee. Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant's spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Petulengro, "there's a power of clouds before my eye." "You are a poor seer, after all," said I; and getting up, I retired to my dingle and my tent, where I betook myself to my bed, and there, knowing the worst, and being no longer agitated by apprehension, nor agonized by expectation, I was soon buried in a deep slumber, the first which I had ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... Sadly your melody swells, Tears with its mournful tones bringing, Sorrowful memory-bells! The first heart-link broken, The first farewell spoken, The first flow'ret crushed in life's desolate track,— The agonized yearning O'er joys unreturning, All, all with your ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... him again, with that assumed expression of compassion, and he could have torn her secret from her with hooked fingers, so exasperated, so intensely agonized was he by her delays. Finally he made a desperate, downward, begging gesture with both hands, and, ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... forward, Mirabelle retreated. "You've got something of your own, though?" It wasn't an ordinary question, it was an agonized appeal. ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... his knees. Jean was conscious only of her white, agonized face and the dark eyes with their look of ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... had raised his gun, and the Duke, perceiving this, called to him in an agonized voice to fire. But either the brigand wavered between his loyalty to the Duke or the Duchessa, or he feared to injure Tato, for he hesitated to obey ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... before she had received an agonized note from her grandfather saying that nothing had been accomplished, and that, unless she could use her influence "in a quarter that should be nameless, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... gave me a glance in which was at least gratitude, and I dared hope, something more, and I was about to make my declaration, when she made a little step, her right foot almost sunk under her and she gave an agonized cry and hobbling, limping, hopping on one foot, passed from me across the piazza to the stairs leading to the second story, whither she ascended upon ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... pity which blows at first excited, blows at length quelled. They had gradually increased with the suffering to the most terrible shrieks; then declined into low and inarticulate moans; until a deep-drawn and agonized gasp for breath, and an occasional convulsion, alone remained to show that the vital principle had not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 478, Saturday, February 26, 1831 • Various
... his intentions or could prevent it, Zeb had taken aim and fired. This was so sudden and unexpected that, for a moment, nothing was heard but the dull echo, rolling off over the forest and up the river. Then arose a piercing, agonized yell, that told how effectual was the shot of the negro. Rosalind's face blanched with terror as she heard the fearful chorus of enraged voices, and thought of the fearful scene that ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... I haven't the courage of my views, as I said before. I didn't marry him altogether because of the scandal. But sometimes a woman's LOVE OF BEING LOVED gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, her remorse sets in, and she does what she can to ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... ordered Hawke. "Some brandy—quick!" he cried, listening to her agonized words, "Valerie! My God! It is Valerie herself! My poor sister!" In a few moments an elderly man parted the assembling loiterers. His bustling air of command soon dispelled the loiterers. A woman attendant was bending over the still senseless ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... to be the only occupants—the remainder of the population being at work in the fields below—died of starvation, in view of the homeless hundreds of their people who for many days surrounded the unscalable mesa with upturned, agonized faces. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... sprinting after one of his harem who was playing hard to get, bee-lined into the path of a security police jeep. There was an agonized squawk, a shower of feathers and mourning. A short time later, the number of golden eggs dropped daily until one morning, there were none. They never reappeared. The United States had stockpiled twenty-six dozen in an underground cave deep ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... but even before she could glide off, there came from the ale-house an appalling volley of oaths and curses. It was a man's voice, yelling in agonized blasphemy, and a woman's shrill treble floated on the surface of ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... up amid the lesser throng, A giant oak, so desolately grand, Stretches its gray imploring arms to heaven In agonized demand. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... beams through this agonized breast; Thus sad and deserted, I n'er can forget you, Though this heart throbs to bursting ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... shriek like that of some agonized giant came home to them across the plains, and both looked around, as if about to flee in terror; but the curiosity of the Yankee restrained him. His practical eye saw that whatever it might be, it was a human contrivance, and there could ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... that her presence was an interruption, loitered behind with her little ones among the broom. Her attention was presently attracted by the strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who was now seen at some distance, agonized with an ungovernable access of joy. He was reciting very loud, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, those animated verses which he ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... a series of agonized shrieks brought them running from all directions to see Antha racing along the path to the tents in mortal terror, with Sandhelo after her as hard as he could go. She had come across him as he was grazing, and ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... the minutes dragged wearily, he lost all count of time, and the whole business merged into a vivid distorted dream. The drama was repeated, the mutterings of the assembling Turks, the long-searching beam coming up from the sea, the sudden tearing and crashing of the artillery, and the agonized howlings of the enemy. Then came another period of quiet ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... have made me very prudent, for I have seen pass under my eyes many equivocal and terrible situations, which not only agonized my conscience but gave me many cruel hours of indecision. Man is often so little responsible and circumstances are often so powerful. Our impenetrable nature is so capricious, our instincts are so mysterious that we must be tolerant and even indulgent in the presence ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... it meant, and kept his senses about him. It was utterly dark, and he was in the icy water with a terrified horse struggling fiercely, and in danger of beating out the boy's brains with his hoofs, while the shriek of the agonized mother rose above ...
— The Telegraph Messenger Boy - The Straight Road to Success • Edward S. Ellis
... relentlessly on her sentenced victim. He, grasping the lily-shaped chalice convulsively in his right hand, looked up despairingly to the polished dome of malachite, with its revolving globe of fire that shed a solemn blood-red glow upon his agonized young face, . . a smile was on his lips,—the dreadful smile ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... repeated the agonized son, letting go the bars, and clasping his bony hands over his face. "Thou, my once beloved mother, the wretched being of misery and sin—the accomplice of the spirits of darkness—and I thy denouncer! O God! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... all to rest and expatiate in a life to come. Every home here is baptized with tears and scarred with graves. Its poverty is a burden, its riches are snares, its friends are taken from us; broken hearts agonized there; restlessness is tossed to and fro there; and disappointment reigns in every member there. Hence in our wilderness-home we hunger and thirst, and pine for something more satisfying. We turn from the shadow to the reality; and ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... agonized, the Tailless Tyke thundered about the little room gnashing, snapping, oversetting; men, tables, chairs swirled off their legs as though they had been dolls. He spun round like a monstrous teetotum; ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... worked nimbly and docilely now, with none of that perversity which had troubled him during the day with the fear that he was going wrong in it. His thought was clear and quick, and it obeyed his will like a part of it; that sense of duality in himself no longer agonized him. He took a calm and prudent survey of the work before him; and he saw how essential it was that he should make no false step, but should act at every moment with the sense that he was merely the agent of others in the effort to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the castle; and Hippolita, when she saw the afflicted procession, ran weeping to her daughter, whose hands the agonized Theodore covered with a ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... force upon the great world outside and its shapings of the facts and currents of history. We think of Luther wrestling with his sins, despairing and dying under the impossible task of working out for himself an availing righteousness, and rejoice with him in the light and peace which came to his agonized soul through the grand and all-conditioning doctrine of justification by simple faith in an all-sufficient Redeemer; but we do not always realize how the breaking of that evangelic principle into his earnest heart was the incarnation of a power which ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... butcher made one single quick thrust with a long knife near the collarbone and into the heart. Boys caught the blood in earthen bowls as it gushed forth and handed it to various women hanging over the enclosing wall. The animal gave a few agonized bellows, a few kicks, and died. Each was quickly skinned and quartered, the more unsavory portions at once peddled along the wall, and bare-headed Indians carried a bleeding quarter on their black thick hair to the hooks on either side of pack horses which boys ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... shadow, the future unsubstantial as well; only the past was actual in Lemuel Doret's mind—the gray cold prison, the city at night, locked rooms filled with smoke and lurid lights, avaricious voices in the mechanical sentences of gambling, agonized tones begging for a shot, just a shot, of an addicted drug, a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... every point where the battle raged most fiercely. Several bullets pierced his clothes; one passing through his hat just grazed the crown of his head. At length, the Swedes, overpowered by numbers, gave way, and fled in great confusion. Charles, though agonized by his wound, was compelled to mount on horseback as the only means of escape from capture. The black hour of woe came, which sooner or later meets almost every warrior, however successful for a time his career may be. The blow was fatal to Charles XII. More than ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... From the moment when the weeping, agonized Lena was taken home and put, tenderly, pityingly, in her mother's hands (it was Mr. Gordon himself who had done this, refusing to let any other perform the duty), an invisible line was drawn about the Laxen cottage, which few dared pass. The doctor came and went, reporting all well to the eager ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... her words to himself at the time of Rizzio's death: "Consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently." And further, he remembered her cry at once agonized and fiercely vengeful: "Jamais, jamais ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... the agonized accent in which she spoke these words; he released her, but as he removed his arms, she reeled and he ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... appeal. A cold sweat broke out over my body, and my heart turned sick at the misery of it. All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry. And then, under this high-pitched, ringing sound there was another, more intermittent, a low, deep-chested laugh, a growling, throaty gurgle of merriment which formed a grotesque accompaniment to the shriek with ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... swish of the leaves above her, she drifted off to slumberland. A slanting beam of the setting sun waked her as it fell across her face, and she sat up abruptly, hardly realizing what had roused her. Then she became aware of voices issuing from the library beyond, and Allee's agonized voice cried out, "O, Grandpa, you don't mean that she will never, never walk again? Must she lie there all the rest of her life like the Lilac Lady and Sadie Wenzell until the angels come and get her? Grandpa, must she die like ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... she was still standing just where I had left her in the middle of the room, holding the letter in her hand. Her face was as white as her veil, and her wide-open eyes had a dazed, agonized look as of someone who had been stricken a mortal blow. All the soft happiness and sweetness had gone out of them. They were the eyes ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... completely ignorant of modern manners, and entertains the most sovereign contempt for them. Full of sentiment and sensibility, she is strongly susceptible to every impression, and her conduct is wholly governed by her feelings. Trembling at every leaf, and agonized at the smallest accident, she is yet capable, from singularity of thinking, of enterprises the most bold and unaccountable. Conformably to this temper, struck with the character of Burchel, and ravished with his address and behaviour, she plans the ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... foot of the bed and stared, stared at his father lying there in Eliot's arms. He would have liked to have been in Eliot's place, close to him, close, holding him. As it was he could do nothing but stand and look at him with that helpless, agonized stare. He had to look at him, to look and look, punishing himself with sight ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... shout answered her from farther up the canyon, and she ran stumbling toward the sound, too agonized to shed tears or to think very clearly. It was not her father's voice; she knew that beyond all doubt. It was no voice that she had ever heard before. It had a clear resonance that once heard would not have been easily forgotten. When she saw them finally, her father was being propped ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... steady enough to keep the sail full. When he was half-way out, the Ghost took a long roll to windward and back again into the hollow between two seas. Harrison ceased his progress and held on tightly. Eighty feet beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very life. The sail emptied and the gaff swung amid-ships. The halyards slackened, and, though it all happened very quickly, I could see them sag beneath the weight of his body. Then the gag swung to the ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... her hands, and turned away from him, as though the sight was distasteful to her. He bent above her, almost agonized that anything should ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... agonized. "I had to give that bread to a—to a poor ole man. He was starving and so were his children and his wife. They were all just starving—and they couldn't wait while I took time to come and ask you, mamma. I got to go outdoors this afternoon. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonized tone. "If he had attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child. What you intend, brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard nothin' then except the voice of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... trembling looks they gazed around the room, fearful that the very walls might harbor traitors. The sound of a foot, the stroke of a hammer, a voice in the streets, froze all hearts with horror. If a knock was heard at the door, every one, in agonized suspense, expected his fate. Unable to endure such protracted misery, numbers committed suicide. 'Had the reign of Robespierre,' said Freron, 'continued longer, multitudes would have thrown themselves under the guillotine; ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... as if frozen to stone. Ed and I sneaked out of the back door on tiptoe to make for downstairs, three steps at a time. In less time than it takes to tell it we were back, each with an armful of paving-stones, which we piled up beside our agonized comrade, assuring him volubly that there was no danger if he would only sit still, still as a mouse, till we came back. Then we were off again. The third trip gave us stones enough, and with infinite care we piled them, one after another, upon the rack ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... North had been at home, she would have met him with all the agonized courage of shyness and a good conscience. But she had fled out of the house, and down along the River Road, to be ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... made a grave mistake, which shows how a man may err when over-agonized by the danger of the woman he loves. The bold course was the right one. By killing the Dyak leader he would have deprived the enemy of the dominating influence in this campaign of revenge. When the main body, already much ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... must have held high carousal over the defection of Mr. Doyle. To cut one of his drawings was a crucial experiment. His hand was not sure in its touch; he always drew six lines instead of one; and in the portrait of a lady from his pencil, the agonized engraver had to hunt through a Cretan labyrinth of faces before he found the particular countenance which Mr. Doyle wished to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... launch on our extreme right. At the distance of twenty yards the executioner hurled his javelin full into the back of the great bull; a roar ensued and a frightful leap. The other creatures repeated the agonized cry, and they swam southward with the velocity of a ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... her docile, intelligent spirit exhibited itself in new and more endearing phases. Death was only anticipated during the last few hours of life, and when the fatal issue appeared but too certain the parents sat in agonized silence, watching the darling whom they could not save. Mrs. Fry begged earnestly of the Great Disposer of life and death that he would spare the child, if consonant with His holy will; but when the end came, and the child had passed "through the pearly gates ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... Did it act at once or slowly? Was it supposed to make us sick? Did it send us to sleep? How could we simulate symptoms when we had no idea what these symptoms were supposed to be? But the cold voice of the doctor cut sharply across my agonized questions. ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... added. For at that moment a tremendous storm burst around the house, and the rain poured down in sheets of water, as if it meant to wash everything into the lake. The kettle now really boiled, and the lid danced up and down with the frantic leaping and jumping of the agonized Nix, who puffed and blew till his breath came out of the ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... far away, had heard the agonized cry of his playmate and the sound had filled him with rage. Now, perched upon the back of the astonished lynx, he bit and tore, holding his place in spite of the animal's frantic efforts to dislodge him. At length, cowed and exhausted and with bleeding flanks, the lynx was glad to escape ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... shamed, humiliated, agonized radical—thus made a mark for gibes instead of winning honor as a martyr for the cause—began to wail and plead the men who were nearest the scene of flagellation started to laugh. The laughter spread like a fire through dry brambles. It ran crackling from side to side of the ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... northern seas, lying naked on an iceberg in silent delight. St. Brandan recognized him by portraits he had seen and hailed him. Judas then told his story; he was roasting in hell when the Lord remembered that once in Joppa this disciple had thrown his cloak over the shoulders of a leper who was agonized by a wind that blew sharp sand into his sores. An angel was sent to tell the doomed one that for this mercy he would be allowed, for one hour in every year, to breathe the wholesome air of the upper world, ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... gloomily at the stove, growing each moment more repellent to one another. They met one another's eyes at intervals with surprise and horror. The world without seemed utterly lost. Wailing voices sobbed in the pipe and at the windows. Sudden agonized shrieks came out of the blur of sound. The hours drew out to enormous length, though the day was short. The windows were furred deep with frost. At four o'clock it was dark, and, as he placed the lamp on ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... protested. As recently as May persons known to me—my English secretary was one—looked with the fascination of horror on the bodies of men who, when they breathed, were heroes. They lay there where they had fallen and agonized, and now, in the heat of the May sun, were moldering in dust away—a couple of hours' ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... been something in that agonized look that called forth emotion, or there might have been something in that cold, fixed gaze, which stamped for the instant the father on that upturned, ashy face; for as she met the glance, Della suddenly clasped her hands ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... this is the Tablet of Love. Meditate thereon, as the last of the triune God. In this Tablet lies the secret of suffering and pleasure. He who vibrates in pain will quiver in ecstacy. Only those who have agonized in Hell ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... precise early training usually permitted her to assume in the presence of others. There she rested, and soon felt the tides of energy again flowing in her blood, and that same vitality, too, wrought healing even for her agonized soul, though more slowly. The perfect health of her gave her strength to recover speedily from the shock she had sustained. It was this health that made the glory of the flawless skin, white with a living white that revealed the coursing ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... horrid cross, nor were they spared the mockings and the scourgings, the cruel thirst, and the slow-drawn agony of days of death. And among all that unnamed multitude how few were there but had some distracted mother to mourn for him, some agonized mother to swoon at the news of his death? Jews they were, as was he. Hero souls, no doubt faithful unto death, and now, let us hope, wearing a crown of life; patriots who knew how to die in the service of the land which their fathers had received from God, and of the temple in which ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... to acknowledge that now," she began, but paused and looked with almost agonized entreaty in my face. "Mr. Raymond, cannot you leave things as they are? Won't you? I don't ask for assistance, nor do I want it; I ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... to thee, honest Jarl, if I was ever chummy the cunning. Never mind if thou didst fabricate my tarpaulins; and with Samaritan charity bind up the rents, and pour needle and thread into the frightful gashes that agonized my hapless nether integuments, which thou calledst "ducks;"—Didst thou not expressly declare, that all these things, and more, thou wouldst do for me, despite my own quaint thimble, fashioned from the ivory tusk of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... entreated in pitiful accents for the return of her son, but in vain; the captors of the boy were not of the kind to let pity interfere with their plans; on down the broad stream glided the vessel, the treacherous vassals listening in silence to the agonized appeals of the distracted mother, and to the mingled prayers and demands of the young emperor to be taken back. The country people, furious on learning that the emperor had been stolen, and was being carried away before their eyes, pursued the vessel for some distance on both sides of the river. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... method is observed, the work progresses after the fashion of a child's block house, and the principal labour lies in dividing the lumps of stone. This is done with a rusty old saw pulled slowly backward and forward by two men, the sound produced resembling a succession of agonized shrieks. It goes on for hours and hours, with no apparent result except the noise; while a handsome boy, in a striped blouse and broad blue sash, completes the discord by currying the stone with an iron currycomb,—a process I have never witnessed before, and ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... sense of loneliness. A shiver shook Frederick from head to foot. His only answer was an ejaculated affirmative in a hoarse voice. The weird sighing of the trees took him back to Ithaca, back to the ragged rocks ... to Tessibel. For a moment he was so agonized that tears stung his lids ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... me o'er earth's chosen heroes—they were souls that stood alone, While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone; Stood serene and down the future, saw the golden beam incline To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine By one man's plain truth to manhood and ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... what is called the "upper classes:" It is the privilege of the "upper classes" to prey upon the sons and daughters of the people. The Hawkins family, though allied to the best blood of the South, were at the time in humble circumstances. He commented upon her parentage. Perhaps her agonized father, in his intervals of sanity, was still searching for his lost daughter. Would he one day hear that she had died a felon's death? Society had pursued her, fate had pursued her, and in a moment of delirium she had turned and defied fate and society. He dwelt upon ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... eager steps toward the place of meeting, heard the agonized shriek and, recognizing the voice of Jette, broke into a run. He was too late! The monster wolf stood over the lifeless body of his beloved, and though in his despairing fury the youth slew the huge brute, the retribution of ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... recollection, that it may fall heavy upon thyself, as it now does upon him. Acknowledge, then, without guile, that every unfortunate has an inalienable right to thy kindness. Above all, wipe from the eyes of oppressed innocence the trickling crystals of agonized feeling; let the tears of virtue in distress, fall upon thy sympathizing bosom; let the genial glow of sincere friendship animate thine honest heart; let the fond attachment of a mate, cherished by thy warmest affection, make thee forget the sorrows of life: be faithful ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... loved so well—hide those eyes in which I dreamed of finding my life's sunshine! Clara, Clara! What can I say to you, fallen rose of womanhood? How can I—" he suddenly bent over her as though to caress her, then drew back with a quick agonized sigh. "You thought me blind, Clara! . . ." he went on in low tones, "blind to my own dishonor—blind to your faithlessness,—I tell you if you had taken my heart between your hands and wrung the blood out of it drop by drop, I could not have suffered ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Tone!" An agonized cry, with the small hands clasped tightly over her throbbing heart. But ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... be able to meet them with food which he had procured somewhere. After a fearful struggle with his own desires, father consented, but not until the men of the party had promised to care for his innocent wife and children. Then, after he had held mother in his arms for a long agonized moment, he turned to me, and I forced my eyes to meet his with such fearless trust that he looked less despairing as he picked up Patty for a last hug and gripped the boys with an emotion too deep for any words; then he went off, ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... him to withhold them. What unutterable goodness! What exhaustless mercy! Surely the gifts of such mercy should be devoted to the works of mercy; and how more appropriately than in aid of that wondrous scheme which the agonized Jesus died to accomplish? While we enjoy our blessings, let us turn our eyes upward to the overflowing Source, and while we gaze, let the streams of gratitude gush forth. As we have freely ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... the marriage vow has become one of the chief topics of its daily wit, one of the acknowledged traits of its manners, and a favorite—in these modern times we might say the favorite—subject of its works of fiction. From the time of Moliere, himself an agonized sufferer behind his comic mask from the infidelities of a wife he was not able to cease to love, through memoirs, novels, dramas, and the volleyed squibs of the press, one fact stares us in the face as ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with blood. The tumult was deafening. The tiger-screams of the Kalis, the agonized torment of their prey. The gun-blasts from Maya's army, the cry of Ato who had hacked his way almost to Gunnar and Odin, the victory-scream of Nea, the broken music! And even above this, the mad curses and commands of ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... curtains in front of the doorway parted. My eyes, lifted to the height of fair tallness they expected to encounter, looked for an instant upon vacancy. Then they dropped to meet those of a grotesque and piteous little hunchback, whose agonized gaze cried to me, as did the hitching of her poor shoulders and the sudden trembling flutter of her hands to her mouth: 'For God's sake, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... scaffold, deep as was the public sympathy, which occasioned this profound suspense; they represented the national cause, and in every city of the land there were scores of the bravest and the best equally involved in the patriotic sacrifice, and whose destiny had, for long and weary months, agonized their relations, friends, and countrymen. The anomalous tyranny under which the nation had collapsed was demonstrated not so much by the outward aspect as by the moral facts of that fatal day in the Piazza of San Marco. On the scaffold were a group ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... to pull at me with her little hands. I think her opposition nerved me rather to proceed. I shook her off, perhaps a little roughly, and in another moment I was in the throat of the well. I saw her agonized face over the parapet, and smiled to reassure her. Then I had to look down at the unstable hooks to which ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... fisherman's wife at Cape Norman hung in the balance. The toiling men visualized her lying on a bed of pain and perhaps dying for the need of a doctor. They saw the agonized husband by her side, tortured by his helplessness to save her. They forgot themselves and the risk they were taking in their desire to bring to the fisherman's wife the help her husband was beseeching God to ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... something," said Io in an agonized half-voice. "She wants it so badly. What is it? Help me, Ban! She can't speak. Look at her eyes—so imploring. Is it medicine?... No! ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams |
