"Electric shock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so to speak, a start of recognition in the eyes of the man who passed. Nothing else, in features or gestures, betrayed recognition or surprise. But although there was only that, it flashed from his eyes to mine like an electric shock. He passed. I looked back. He continued his way without turning. The face was certainly known to me; but it floated in a mist ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... moment any doubt in his mind vanished, all the blood left the scoundrel's face, and, starting to his knees, he covered the foremost figure with his weapon. Twice he raised it, staring hard, and a feeling as of an electric shock passed through Dennis Dashwood as ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... some footprints beside a small field-piece that, dismounted and rusted, lay half buried in ashes, a sudden whir-r-r caused him to spring back as though he had received an electric shock. Only his quickness saved him from the living death held in the fangs of a rattlesnake that had evidently just crawled from the black muzzle of the gun. The snake instantly re-coiled to repeat its venomous stroke, and though Donald could easily have killed it as he had scores ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... of an electric shock, had passed through them all, silencing them. Mrs. Beale, with a sigh, released herself from the uneasy impression Mrs. Malcomson's words had made upon her, and felt the peace of mind, which she managed to preserve by refusing to know of anything that might disturb it and rouse her soul from ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... property of the general, the staff, and the headquarters' bureau was strapped to the pommels and cantels of the saddles, and these formed the pillows of their weary owners. The captured dispatch roused Jackson like an electric shock. He was essentially a man of action. He rarely, if ever, hesitated. He never asked advice. He called no council to discuss the situation disclosed by this communication, although his ranking officers were almost at his side. He asked no conference of opinion. He made no suggestion, but simply, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... from the flowers, what about these? While in a state of perplexity at not being able to understand these mysterious things, my eyes fell upon something which I had not noticed previously, at the same time causing me to give a sudden start as if pierced by an electric shock. ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... fierceness of Neil's words startled Nathaniel, like the thrilling twinges of an electric shock. He darted across the cell and found Marion's brother with his shoulder ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... yet there was much in the speech. He said that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician, and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded to compare ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... beautifully chiselled, sharply-pointed features, the close-shaved face, the tawny skin, the jet-black hair, remind us vaguely of something by Velasquez or Murillo, or of Ary Scheffer's picture of St. Augustine. And the interest aroused by sight is intensified by sound. The vibrant voice strikes like an electric shock. The exquisite, almost over-refined, articulation seems the very note of culture. The restrained passion which thrills through the disciplined utterance warns even the most heedless that something quite unlike the ordinary stuff ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... change came o'er my frame, Much like electric shock; Oh, how I longed for some rare key With which I might unlock My prison door, for I now felt The breath of coming Spring, And heard, likewise, her merry laugh, Like silver bells its ring. My lips were close to blanket ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... extraordinary events, the most remarkable of which is, that the majority of the allies of the grand army, who had fought under the banners of France in so many engagements with exemplary valour and obstinacy, in the midst of this conflict, as if wakened by an electric shock, went over in large bodies, with their drums beating and with all their artillery, to the hostile legions, and immediately turned their arms against their former associates. The annals of modern warfare exhibit no examples of such a phenomenon, except upon the most contracted ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)
... in a firmer hold, feeling all the while how utterly helpless he was, and shrinking away into himself from the terror above. The monsters moved leisurely about, at one time grazing the tube, and sending down a vibration which thrilled like an electric shock through him. For a moment he thought that they were malignantly tormenting him, and had done this on purpose in order to send down to him a message ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... singularly appropriate to the figure of the man who bore it, a tall, fair woman, evidently young-looking for her age, rose as if she had received an electric shock. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the old spirit that for many centuries had been faithful to secrets that are now disregarded by most of us, that now day by day was quickened more and more in his heart, and grew so strong that it was hard to conceal. He was indeed almost in the position of the man in the tale, who, by a sudden electric shock, lost the vision of the things about him in the London streets, and gazed instead upon the sea and shore of an island in the Antipodes; for Darnell only clung with an effort to the interests and the atmosphere ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... be back," cried Dale; and a few minutes after he and Saxe were having a good scrub about the neck and shoulders, and glowing as if from an electric shock, so brisk and sharp was the water that came tumbling down over the rocks in the middle of one of the clumps of pines whose tops were freshened by the ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... of the girls was an electric shock for Angela. In an instant the veranda, the crowd on it, and the stage whose turn would come next, vanished from before her eyes like a ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... fail. On the morning of the 12th of June, at three o'clock, the high mountains of the island of Timor rose in smiling majesty before them. This sight operated like an electric shock on the exhausted sufferers; they raised their hands to Heaven, and never certainly were thanksgivings more sincere. Two more days brought them to the Dutch settlement of Cupang, where the Governor received them with the utmost ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... tingling as an electric shock, surged over Stratton, and his grip on the Colt tightened. At last he was face to face with something definite and concrete, and in a moment all the little doubts and nagging nervous qualms which had assailed ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... sent from the uttermost corners of the world. But like a child he soon tires of his toys and throws them aside. He has a motor car, but he never rides in it. It has been reported that his chief use for the automobile is to attach a wire to its batteries and give his ministers an electric shock; for all Mongols love a practical joke, and the ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... facts in abundance. Sometimes, indeed, inspiration bursts forth in deep sleep and awakens the sleeper, and lest we may suppose this suddenness to be especially characteristic of artists we see it in all forms of invention. "You feel a little electric shock striking you in the head, seizing your heart at the same time—that is the moment of genius" (Buffon). "In the course of my life I have had some happy thoughts," says Du Bois Reymond, "and I have often noted that they would come to me involuntarily, and when I was not thinking of the subject." ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... to touch, feel, walk on, roll in the encroaching grass. I tried to control myself, but no willing of mine could prevent me from going up and letting the long runners slip through my half open hands. It was like receiving some sort of electric shock. Though the blades were soft and tender, the stems communicated to my palms a feeling of surging vitality, implacable life and ineluctable strength. I drew back from the green mass as though I had ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... voice in the state; the will of the king was generally law, and his person was sacred. Whatever he touched or wore became thereby holy and had to be made over to him; nobody else could afterwards touch it without danger of being struck dead on the spot as if by an electric shock. One king took advantage of this superstition by dressing up an English sailor in his royal robes and sending him about to throw his sweeping train over any article of food, whether dead or alive, which ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... electric shock, the man jumped up, and, throwing one single glance at the sailor, he gave a yell and leaped right in the midst of the vagabonds, and with herculean power he knocked down all who were near ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... An electric shock must have communicated to you, dear Edgar, the oppression of heart I felt at the sight of the landscape. There was the history of love in every tree and flower. There was an ineffable record in the hedges of the valleys; loving ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... didn't we bring a gun!" lamented Mr. Damon in a low voice to Tom. "Isn't there anything we can do? Can't you give them an electric shock, Tom?" ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... the electric shock had swept every nerve. A moment of breathless silence and the board boy leaning ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... setting about it, the usual method is to throw some susceptible person into a trance, which serves as a sort of bridge or cord of communication, by which the force beyond can give him, as it were, an electric shock, and awaken his higher senses. It opens the ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... jumped across the continent to the little mountain village, there fell on her ears the words, "In a land of men born free and equal before the law." Was it the tone of unexpected passion vibrating through those ancient words, or the idea itself that startled her like an electric shock? That pathetic effort of our ancestors to enact into constitutional dogma the poetic dream of a race! "Born free and equal"!—there was nothing more absurd, more contrary to the daily evidence of life, ever uttered. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... made my way to the tree, the gruesome thought entering my mind that Tristan's body had been transfixed by some downward-pointing snag as it was blown up against the limb, and that the strange stiffness of his limbs was due to some ghastly sudden rigor mortis brought on by electric shock. Dazed with horror and grief, I reached up to his clothing and pulled gently, braced for the shock of the falling body. It remained immovable against the bough. A harder tug brought no results either. Gathering up all my courage against the vision of the supposed snag tearing its rough ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... moved. My brain was still numb from the electric shock and I had a dazed fear that she might be dead. I shook her gently and she moaned. I spoke again and again, but she did not answer, nor try to rise. The rain was pouring down upon us and I knew she must not lie there. So once more, just as I had done in the dingy, but now under quite different ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... inflexible resistance, like an electric shock, startled and roused the people of all the English colonies on ...
— Orations • John Quincy Adams
... more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr. Tulliver, and he kept his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie, unable to restrain herself, rushed to her father's side and knelt down by him. Tom was silent a little while before ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... slowly to the lady's face, and there, in the genial light of that mild spring evening, stood Annie Evalyn. He started as if an electric shock had shot through his frame. She trembled and blushed, and the old doctor roared and shook with laughter at Sheldon's speechless surprise; but the latter soon recovered himself and greeted Annie ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... through the circle like an electric shock. Men stopped in the act of pledging each other's healths to listen. Loungers straightened up; every topic was dropped. The man who had made the statement was the loose-lipped busybody who had suggested to ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Yerkes has shown. In a careful way he confronted his mouse-pupil with alternative pathways marked by different degrees of illumination, or by different colours. If the mouse chose compartment A, it found a clear passage direct to its nest; if it chose compartment B, it was punished by a mild electric shock and it had to take a roundabout road home. Needless to say, the A compartment was sometimes to the right hand, sometimes to the left, else mere position would have been a guide. The experiments showed ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... of unconsciousness are shock, electric shock, fainting, apoplexy and injury to the brain, sunstroke and heat exhaustion, freezing, suffocation, and poisoning. The first two have already been described and the treatment of any form ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... if moved by an electric shock, and, turning quickly, met the supplicating eyes of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... ge thymo]—made on each occasion either some new concession to the ever-rising tide of Christian demand, or ratified the loss of a province which had been forcibly torn from his flank. Finally, we get to the period when the tragedy connected with the name of Queen Draga acted like an electric shock on Europe, and when the accession of King Peter, "who had translated Mill On Liberty," to the blood-stained Servian throne, revealed to an astonished world that the processes of Byzantinism survived to the present day. Five years later followed the assumption ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... half asleep after the weary watching of the night, or perhaps she was only too tired to notice, but when a voice suddenly spoke behind her she started as if at an electric shock. She had almost begun to feel that she and Columbus were indeed marooned ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... later I received a letter from her. She wrote, "It is just a year ago tonight since I sent for you to come and pray for me. As you prayed for me it was as though an electric shock went through me and after you left I turned over on my left side and went to sleep and slept all night and in the morning when I woke up I was perfectly healed. I have waited a year before writing, to see whether any symptoms returned, but ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... her like an electric shock a thousand times more powerful than the tingling which had flashed up her arm at the first touch of his hand, though even that had seemed terrifying then. But she sat still in her corner of the taxi, and gave him no answer, ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... [1734-1801], when thrown out by the vehemence of strong feeling, seemed to wither up the hearer; it was a flaming arrow, a lighting of passion. Such was the effect of her almost shriek to old Norval, "Was he alive?" It was like an electric shock, which drove the blood back to the heart, and produced a shudder of terror through the crowded theatre.—Boaden, Life ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... men. In his own infatuation he had not realized that most men would be affected by her as he was, would experience the same maddening impulses—the same longing—the same thirst for possession of her. Now the fact came home to him with the force of an electric shock. He could not endure the burning glances of admiration that he saw constantly directed toward her. What right had other men to devour her ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... the paddle, sent his light little craft flying towards his goal. Perhaps it was this very speed that saved his life. Bullet after bullet pierced the thin canvas sides and one struck a corner of his paddle, tingling his arm and side like an electric shock. A few minutes of this furious paddling brought him to the bow of the dugout. Seizing its rawhide painter, he fastened the end to a seat in his own boat. Then taking the paddle again, he headed back to the point. The leaden hail ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... top joint. The untimely vociferation of the Norwegian interrupted of necessity any plan P—— might have adopted to secure the salmon; for the assault made so unexpectedly on his person seemed, like an electric shock, to pursue its course throughout his whole frame, and rushing to the tips of his fingers sent the rod, at a tangent, bolt into ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... driving a restless horse, it is absolutely essential that you should not be at all nervous yourself. Every horseman will tell you that the animal knows instinctively the character of the person managing him. If a thrill of fear touches him who holds the reins, the horse responds to it as to an electric shock, and becomes almost beside himself with nervousness. If a firm, steady, yet gentle grasp is on the lines, the creature obeys in spite of himself. This same principle applies to children. If you cannot control yourself the children know it, and you may as well give up all idea of ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... the young pitcher was like an electric shock. He had never been spoken to like that before. But it was just ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... crown by a long wire with the Leyden Jar. When he wanted some fun he would dare any one to go up to the picture and take off the king's crown. Why that's easy enough, a man would say, and would walk up and seize the crown. But no sooner had he touched it than he would get an electric shock which would make his fingers tingle as they never tingled before. With a loud Oh! Oh! he would let go of the crown, and start back in utter astonishment, not knowing what had ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... used in Germany for filling Zeppelins. For calcium carbide is convenient and portable and acetylene, when it is once started, as by an electric shock, decomposes spontaneously by its own internal heat into hydrogen and carbon. The latter is left as a fine, pure ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... gallantly yet, but the rudder is against them for a moment, and the boat drags. St. Ambrose overlaps. "A bump, a bump," shout the St. Ambrosians on shore. "Row on, row on," screams Miller. He has not yet felt the electric shock, and knows he will miss his bump if the young ones slacken for a moment. A young coxswain would have gone on making shots at the stern of the Oriel boat, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the table rang sharply. Gard took down the receiver absently, but the voice that trembled over the wire startled him like an electric shock. It was Dorothy's, but changed almost beyond recognition, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... earth ... and there he lay, stretched at full length, like a man asleep. That scream of distress, that terrible shriek, that farewell cry of one who is going away for good had sent something like an electric shock through all around; work ceased and they scrambled down and stood in a great circle around that body ... looking. And a great silence followed, that silence which is so heavy and oppressive after the sudden stop of so much activity. People came rushing up, pushing to ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... the moment the voice of Natas trembled with irrepressible passion, which, before he could proceed, broke from his heaving breast in a deep sob that thrilled the vast assembly like an electric shock, and made men clench their hands and grit their teeth, and wrung an answering sob from the breast of many a woman who knew but too well the meaning of those simple yet terrible words. Then Natas recovered his outward composure and ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... by smoke or any poisonous gas, as also by hanging if the neck is not broken, and in suspended breathing from effects of chloroform, hydrate of chloral, or electric shock, remove all obstructions to breathing, instantly loosen or cut apart all neck and waist bands, taking special pains to keep the head very low, and placing the body face downward, to prevent closure of the windpipe by the tongue falling back. Then proceed to induce artificial respiration the same ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... different might the lot, the character, of each have been, had Constance's lips pronounced the words that her heart already recorded! And she might have done so; but as she raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected Godolphin came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an electric shock, the whole current of her thoughts. Full and immediately before her was the picture of her father. The attitude there delineated, so striking at all times, seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever impressive, and even awful in the livingness of its command. It was the face of Vernon ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with the particulars of his intended plan. "I believe," writes his lordship, "my arrival was most welcome; not only to the commanders of the fleet, but also to every individual in it; and, when I came to explain to them the Nelson touch, it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears, all approved. It was new, it was singular, it was simple; and, from admirals downwards, it was repeated—"It must succeed, if ever they will allow us to get at them! You are, my lord, surrounded by friends whom you inspire with confidence."—"Some," adds his ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... contains myriads of cells, in each one of which is coiled up, ready to be darted forth on contact with any living substance, a whip-like lance finer than the finest cambric needle. Millions of these stings entering at once cause a sensation like that of a violent electric shock, paralyzing and often killing the creature with ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... humiliating campaigns that had followed, might, by connecting the new candidate for power with the public glory, and the existing rulers with all the dishonors which had settled on the French banners, have given an electric shock to the patriotism of the audience, such as would have been capable for the moment of absorbing their feelings as partisans. In a French assembly, movements of that nature, under a momentary impulse, are far from being uncommon. Here, then, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... wakened like the thrill of an electric shock—wakened to an understanding of the strength of "special interests" that were opposed to us—and wakened in me, too, the anger of a determination to fight to a finish. The Powers that had "fixed" our juries, were now fixing Legislature. They had laughed at us in the courts; they were going to laugh ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... thought of her own sister was so burdensome upon her own mind that the mention by this mysterious communication of a girl, "safe but still unconscious," strung her nerves as though with an electric shock. She leaned over the little recording instrument, which was built on a hinged shelf that could be cunningly swung into the desk body, and covered with a false front. As she did so she saw a curious little instrument, shaped somewhat like the receiver of a telephone receiver. Mary's ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... after this speech of Robert Hardy to the people of Barton in the town hall, one who was present in the audience described the sensation that passed through it when the speaker sat down to be like a distinct electric shock which passed from seat to seat, and held the people fixed and breathless as if they had been smitten into images of stone. The effect on the chairman of the meeting was the same. He sat motionless. Then a wave of emotion gradually stirred the audience, ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... lost all power over my emotions, while it seemed to me as if my fancy had winged its way to some land where love and joy rules unclouded. "O, sweet transport, whither wilt thou beguile me!" I said with a sigh, as the voice ceased its singing, and the effect was like an electric shock, consuming me with disappointment. But I heard the dulcet echoes mingling faintly with the songs of birds, as if some seraph had strung her lute to give sweet music to the winds; and I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... loss to know how to meet the situation until his hand, quite by chance, touched hers as it lay on the arm of her chair. He withdrew it as quickly as if he had received an electric shock, but the next moment, like a lodestone following a magnet, it traveled slowly ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... herself was conscious of an electric shock of the most unpleasant nature when, but half an hour after the posting of the notice, the "Moral Worths" invited her to join their ranks! With all the determination in the world, she found it impossible to repress a start of surprise, ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... thinking to see anybody that knew me, I happened to look up at the man's face and who should it be but one of the very gamblers who had recently sold me. I dropped his foot and bolted from the room as if I had been struck by an electric shock. The man happened not to recognize me, but this strange conduct on my part excited the landlord, who followed me out to see what was the matter. He found me with my hand to my breast, groaning at a great rate. He asked me what was the matter; but ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... like a trumpet blast. When a man is in the habit of giving unsolicited counsel to everyone he meets, it is as invigorating as an electric shock to him to be asked ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... without feeling, he listened—breathlessly listened! A cold chill crept stealthily about the roots of my hair, I clenched my hands hard and whispered to myself: 'Will it come, good God, will it come, the thing he listens for?' When with a wild bound, as if every nerve and muscle had been rent by an electric shock, he was upon his feet; and I was answered even before that suffocating cry of terror—'The bells! the bells!'—and under cover of the applause that followed I said: 'Haunted! Innocent or guilty, this man is haunted!' And Mr. Daly, I bowed my head to a great actor, for though fine ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... which nearly every person feels for crawling reptiles. Nothing was so hideous to him as the crotalus, and when he caught sight of one he rarely allowed it to escape. An electric shock thrilled through him as he snatched back his hand in time to avoid the sting, for the snake must have been as much astonished as he by its disturbance. In the horror of the contact the Shawanoe forgot everything else for the instant, and letting go ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... his eyes glistened with delight, and he uttered a faint "Hurrah!" and yawned again. Then he gazed slowly round, till, observing the calm sea through an opening in the bushes, he started suddenly up as if he had received an electric shock, uttered a vehement shout, flung off his garments, and, rushing over the white sands, plunged into the water. The cry awoke Jack, who rose on his elbow with a look of grave surprise; but this was followed by a quiet smile of intelligence ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... when Lord Althorp with long steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a fresh lance to renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and Earl Spencer exclaimed, "Two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!" An electric shock went through the assembly. "And ten," quietly added the Marquis. There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he paused; the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb, when the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of this discovery was like an electric shock to me, and drew a cry of joy from my lips that made my mustang start and prick his ears. Tears of delight and gratitude to Heaven came into my eyes, and I could scarcely refrain from leaping off my horse ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... the whole man into proud and angry self-defence; whereas a single touch, no heavier than an infant's finger, applied away up somewhere, remote from conscience, in the region of the imagination, may send an electric shock down through the whole being and shake the conscience from ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... the swing, until it struck the topmost branches of the maple. The girl screamed and fell forward, into his arms; he was pushed over, on to the seat. The trembling of the soft warm body which nestled closely in his arms, sent an electric shock through his whole nervous system; a black veil descended before his eyes and he would have let her go if her left shoulder had not been tightly pressed against his ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... "TAXATION, WITHOUT REPRESENTATION, IS TYRANNY." Like the deep and startling tones of an alarm-bell, echoing from hill to hill, his bold eloquence aroused the hearts of thinking men from the Penobscot to the St. Mary; and his published arguments, like an electric shock, thrilled every nerve in the Atlantic provinces. "Otis was a flame of fire," said John Adams, in describing the scene in the Massachusetts Assembly, when the orator uttered his denunciations. "With a promptitude of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... volume, or indeed any volume of the Review, at random, we are almost certain to meet with some electric shock of paradox designed to arouse the attention of the torpid. In one number we find the writer, ever daring and alert, setting out with an eulogium on "the wonderful benefit of arbitrary power" in France. He runs on in this vein for some time, accumulating examples of the ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... him like an electric shock. It tingled to his criminal toes. It whirled through his cringing brain like a pinwheel suddenly lighted. It exploded like a bomb in the recesses ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... ears of the listening crowd as if with an electric shock. As they repeated them to each other with fear and amazement, and scattered hither and thither to saddle a horse, or to catch the runaway steed, that they might carry the news in time over the two miles that lay between ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... lady, with a child seated beside her, the mother pointing out to the child the varied beauties of the scene as they moved swiftly by. He straightened up on the instant, as if he had received an electric shock; for the conviction came like a flash that he had seen the face of that ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... special cause of my woe was this: I was simply a little boy to Miss Glentworth. I knew it. I bewailed it. I ground my teeth and wept in secret over the fact. If I had been aught else in her eyes would she have smoothed my hair so carelessly, sending an electric shock through my whole system? Would she have walked with me, hand in hand, for hours in the old garden, and once when I lay on the sofa, my head aching with love and mortification, would she have stooped down and kissed me if I hadn't been a little boy? How I despised little boys! How ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... electricity. They have seen the electric light, and heard of electric boats and omnibuses. They have possibly had an electric shock at a railway ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... that name into his brain was like an electric shock. He cursed his inactivity. Great God! had he become a child again, to tremble before imagined evil, a mere hobgoblin of the mind? He had already wasted time enough; now he must wring from the lips of that misshapen savage the ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... As if by an electric shock, Lida started backwards and, without knowing what she did, leant over the table and blew ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... on again, and his hand touched the shrouds which held the mainmast in place, and a little care had to be exercised to pass round. But this was silently achieved by both; and Vince was gliding his right-hand along the top of the bulwarks once more, when it was as if an electric shock had passed through him, for he had suddenly touched something unmistakably like ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Instead of a spiny defence, they are armed with electricity! The best-known sea-fish of this sort is the Electric Ray, also called the Cramp Fish or Torpedo (see p. 48). It is a clumsy fish about a yard long, and very ugly. Being too slow to catch its swift prey in fair chase, it stuns them with an electric shock, and then eats them. The electric power comes from the body of the Ray; if it wishes it can send a deadly shock through any fish which ventures near. Without chance of escape, it is at ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... accompanied by a peal of thunder that seemed loud enough to shake the world to its centre. We all believed the schooner had been struck by lightning. This was not the case. It was, nevertheless, a narrow escape. I received on my hand and arm an electric shock, which tingled through every nerve and nearly felled me to the deck, and rendered my arm powerless for ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... light! With deadly accuracy the shot clove the fourth strand. The lower half of a whole section of fence was gone. Behind it the bucking, red-eyed phantis inched forward, still afraid of the electric shock they thought was somewhere there, but drawn to the opening by their hatred of the two-legged creatures so near. Closer, closer! Then the befuddled pirates found their senses. Even as the fifth arrow ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... perhaps have learned sooner what a blessing Heaven has been guarding for my sad and lonely heart. I saw you as you passed out of the prison, and your resemblance to my beloved Rosalie struck me, as an electric shock." ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... from an electric shock, a flush of energy suffused my brain and limbs. I stood upright in an almost tranquil pool. An eddy had lodged me on a sandbank. Between it and the land was scarcely twenty yards. Through this gap the stream ran strong as ever. I ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... he cried out. The terrible word sent an electric shock through his brain. "On the faith of these happy hours that you grant me, I sleep and wake in your heart. And now today, for no reason, you are pleased to destroy all the secret hopes by which I live. You have required promises of such constancy in me, you have said so much of your horror ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... he is, great, ruddy, hairy wretch: there she is, a wraith of a creature made up of thistledown and fountain-bubbles and stars. He stares at her, stretches out his huge paw to grab a fairy, feathery tress of her dark hair. Defensive, she puts up her little hand. Its touch is an electric shock to the marauder. He blinks, and rubs his arm. He has a mighty respect for her. He could take her up in his fingers and eat her like a quail—the one satisfactory method of eating a quail is unfortunately practised only by ogres—but he does not want to eat her. He goes on his knees, and invites ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... another with deep purposes on both sides, they seldom come at once to the matter which they have most at heart. They dread the electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer topic, until they stand face to face with the true point of interest. Miriam was conscious of ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... like a mild electric shock. Forrester opened his mouth and then closed it again as the tingle stopped, and the sense of falling simply died away. He had closed his eyes on the way into the curtain, and now he ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... round at May and winked. That wink, deliberate and humorous, was like an electric shock to her. She could actually feel her heart leap in her breast. If she had not been afraid of the doctor, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... Immediately after that I became unconscious. How long that continued, I cannot say; but when I awoke in the morning I was trembling all over, and quite confused in my brain. On rising I felt as if a stiletto was suddenly, and as quickly as an electric shock, passed through my brain from front to back, and left a burning sensation on the top of the brain just below the bone. So thoroughly convinced was I that I must have been out through the night, that I examined my trousers to see if they were wet or ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... column of double-leaded type on the first page, run in after the making up of the paper's body, and Garrison's bitter eyes negligently scanned it. But at the first word he straightened up as if an electric shock had passed through him. ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... an electric shock to both of us. If we had been more conversant with ancient chronology we might have understood, but we ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... had got over the first electric shock of the news, and was happy enough now to laugh ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... been more successful, and many contrived to steal the coveted morsels from their mouths. When a bee or fly passed through the air near the water, they all simultaneously darted towards it as if roused by an electric shock. Sometimes a larger fish approached, and then the host of Piranhas took the alarm and flashed ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... electric shock passed through Tito as he rose from the chair, but it was not outwardly perceptible, for he immediately stooped to pick up the fallen book, and busied his fingers with flattening the leaves, while ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the strong voice of Strathmore, vibrant, deliberate, penetrating, repeat with slow solemnity the promise of conformity and obedience to the doctrine and worship of the church. The words tingled through the mind of Ashe like an electric shock. To his excited feeling Strathmore was perjuring himself in the name of God, since it was impossible to feel that the new bishop followed or intended to follow either. He experienced a wild impulse to ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... call grew louder and louder, a liquid yodel came like an electric shock from a clump of bushes on the left. There he was, looking, listening. Another call, and he came running toward me. Others appeared from every direction, and soon a score of quail were running about, just inside the screen, with soft gurglings like a hidden brook, doubly ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... answered a voice at the other end of the wire. "This is Billy Bunny, and I'm lost in the Friendly Forest." "What!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and he got so excited that he put the wrong end of the receiver to his left ear and got an awful electric shock that nearly wiggled his ear off. "Where are ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... last, and we all sprang as with an electric shock. It was old Mr. Price, led in reverently by Mr. Sampson. Tea was ready; so we all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... the Army in First Aid the method of resuscitation of the apparently drowned, as described by "Schaefer," will be taught instead of the "Sylvester Method," heretofore used. The Schaefer method of artificial respiration is also applicable in cases of electric shock, asphyxiation by gas, and of the failure of respiration following ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... been growing more and more uncomfortable, and this seemed to be his opportunity to escape. He edged towards the door. Now the metal knob of the door handle was within reach; he grasped it, and received a severe electric shock. Unable to master his startled nerves, he gave utterance to a cry of pain. The priest turned quickly, a frosty smile upon ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... impulse such as that which was in fact supplied by Methodism. It is not with that age that I wish to compare the present. I compare it with the age which terminated thirty years ago—roused, invigorated, searched as that age was through all its sensibilities by the electric shock of the French Revolution. It is by comparison with an age so keenly alive, penetrated by ideas stirring and uprooting, that I would compare it; and even then the balance of gain in well-calculated resource, fixed yet stimulating ideals, I hold to be ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... the first time in his life the thrilling presence of a friend—a man friend. David approached boldly, and stood over him. He had forgotten the Frenchman's warning. He was not afraid. He leaned over and one of his mittened hands touched Baree's neck. A tremor shot through the dog that was like an electric shock; a snarl gathered in his throat, broke down, and ended in a low whine. He lay as if dead under the weight of David's hand. Not until David had ceased talking to him, and had disappeared once ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... this apparent corpse with her legs, when the Scarites' tarsi quiver as though twitched by a slight electric shock. If the visitor be merely passing, matters go no farther; but, if she persist, particularly near the Beetle's mouth, moist with saliva and disgorged secretions of food, the tormented Scarites promptly kicks, turns over ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... still! The house was thrilled as with an electric shock, and the people half rose as if to seek a glimpse of the person who had made that exchange. Tom was growing limp; the life seemed oozing out of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to whom the report of a gun was ever the sweetest music, now started up, as if roused by an electric shock, and grasped his gun. The dog continued his barking, smelling all around, and looking in my face as if to inquire in what direction he should go. There was no rustling movement on the rock, and the bullet must have ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... that they acted at times like an electric shock. Some would drop down as if thunderstruck, others would cry aloud, whilst ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... the Draeger pulmotor," he explained as he worked, "devised to resuscitate persons who have died of electric shock, but actually found to be of more value in cases of asphyxiation. Start ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... by the rude moccasins worn by Arthur and Johnny. Others were the prints of naked feet, and some of these were of far too large a size to be made by either of the three. This discovery affected us for the moment like an electric shock, and we stood looking at one another without speaking, and scarcely breathing, while the very beating of our hearts ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... the Latin scholar uttered his invocation he felt something between a shudder and an electric shock pass through his body. The roar of the battle died down in his ears to a gentle murmur; instead of it, he says, he heard a great voice and a shout louder than a ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... my feet by an electric shock. A great flood of sunlight burst in on me. A corner of the booth, three-foot concrete, had been sheared away, whiffed into nothingness! I arose and dashed into the open. A raid was in progress. The air was electric with the clashing of opposing ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... lady in Pernambuco and trying to focus all these novel and conflicting ideas when I suddenly recollected I was on watch. What if something went wrong? I was new to watch-keeping then and had no subconscious sense of responsibility to keep me on the alert. The sudden recollection was like an electric shock. I jumped up, and saying 'I'll be back in a minute,' ran down to the ship and so into the engine room, my heart in my mouth. It was half-past eleven! But there was nothing wrong. I looked at the gauge-glasses on the boilers, peered into the bilges, and found the fireman at his ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... to lowering and chilling influences from material science and speculative philosophy: the glowing of the heart, as Jean Paul says, relights the extinguished torch in the night of the intellect, as a beast stunned by an electric shock in the head is restored by an electric shock in the breast. Daniel Webster says, in an expression of his faith in Christianity written shortly before his death, "Philosophical argument, especially that ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... out the Nipe would have been very useful, but to synthesize such a drug would have required a greater knowledge of the biochemical processes of the Nipe than any human scientist had. The same applied to anesthetic gases, or electric shock, or supersonics. There was no way of determining how much would be required to knock him out or how much would be required to kill. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... faintest possible electric shock passed up Mrs. Slawson's spine, and contracted the muscles about her mouth. For a second she positively grinned, then quickly her face regained its customary calm. With a clever, if slightly tardy, movement, her hand went ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... Such a terror, the eye-witnesses say, never fell on a Nation; nor shall again fall, even in Reigns of Terror expressly so-called. The Countries of the Loire, all the Central and South-East regions, start up distracted, 'simultaneously as by an electric shock;'—for indeed grain too gets scarcer and scarcer. 'The people barricade the entrances of Towns, pile stones in the upper stories, the women prepare boiling water; from moment to moment, expecting the attack. In the Country, the alarm-bell rings incessant: troops of peasants, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... no larger than the tiny mist from the whistle of one of those tooting tugs familiar in the harbor scene was gathering while the sun shone so brightly in the tower apartment. An electric shock will gather and burst a cloud large enough to bring midnight and deluge at noonday. Mr. Gibson understood the importance of lightning arresters, but was not prepared to apply them in his home. The women could do nothing; and, ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... of course, the born teacher, who sends an electric shock through the room directly she enters it, and who, without asking for it, secures instant silence and eager attention. Such people are rare, and it must be our task now to give a few practical suggestions to those less fortunate people who do not possess ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... struck me like an electric shock. For some moments I was simply stunned, and knew neither what she had said, nor ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... a sensation almost of fear, but something in his gaze held her as though spell-bound. She looked into his eyes like one fascinated, scarcely knowing what he said or what reply she made. The waltz began, and as their fingers touched Kate's nerves tingled as though from an electric shock. She shivered slightly, then, angry with herself, used every exertion to overcome the strange spell. To a great extent she succeeded, but she felt benumbed, as though moving in a dream or in obedience to some will stronger than her own, while her temples throbbed painfully and her respiration grew ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... send out an electric shock, did the emotion of her heart follow the course of her veins until it reached the heart of her companion? Did he understand, did he guess, was he, like herself, pervaded by a sort of intoxication of love? Or else, did he know by experience, alone, that no woman ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... declared Noddy. "It just hit me like an electric shock. I couldn't move a limb. Then I don't remember much of anything more till I found myself on ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... knee by the cradle, put the mallet under his arm, and gently raised the shawl curtain. "God bless my motherless girl," he said, in a voice no louder than a breath. Suddenly, while he knelt there, he was smitten as by an electric shock. His face straightened and he drew back, still holding the shawl at the tips of ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine |
