"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Come when it will—we snatch the life of Life— When lost—what recks it by disease or strife? Let him who crawls, enamoured of decay, Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;[hk] Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head; Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed,— 30 While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang—one bound—escapes control. His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead. For us, even banquets ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... gasp was plainly audible as he read the dial. "Why, it—it's dropping! Much faster than our deceleration accounts for! That ray—why, it must have magnetic properties! Carse, the ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette's eyes were still open, his mouth still shut and his ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... huge and black, She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp! Down went the Cumberland all a wrack, With a sudden shudder of death, And the cannon's breath For her dying gasp. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... the sum total of all that was sweetest and finest and most desirable in womanhood stood warm and vivid before him; and, bending over the little, clinging hands, he pressed his lips to them. Only for a moment. The hands slipped from his. There was a quick, frightened gasp, and the girl's face, all aflush with a new, sweet fearfulness and wondering confusion, vanished behind a ponderous ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the passengers slept on deck; among these was the country merchant. He lay at a considerable distance from the others and the night was dark. I stole upon him, and passed my long Spanish knife through his heart.—He died easy—a single gasp and all was over. I took his money, and threw his body over to the fishes. 'Twas my second murder—it never troubled me, for I never had a conscience. I entered New York, for the first time, with a capital of three thousand dollars, got by the murder of the country merchant; ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... up the stone over his head, and a sort of gasp went up from the crowd below. One saw what was coming, and ran to drag back the men with the beam, and stopped short before he reached them in terror, crying to them to beware. But their heads were down, and they ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... th' old woman's head went lower, and whin he finished, she gave a hard gasp. Thin she stood huddled forninst th' deck-house, an' Garnett started forward to th' men at work stevin' th' ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... little, conscious of a glow at the heart that she had not known for many a day. She tried weakly to give her hand to her new friend, but the pain of moving was so intense that she uttered a quick gasp and abandoned the attempt. ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... had started up with a little gasp of fright. A look of awe came into her gray eyes, which I have seen on the faces of those who find themselves for the first time beside the abyss of a precipice. And I have climbed many lofty peaks, but never one ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... have I found a better, worse luck to the villain as killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many 's the time I have said to Hannah—" She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously made a slip. The coroner, observing this, ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... Lady O'Gara said, with a gasp of consternation. She had never seen Stella before without brightness, the brightness of a bird. Now the small ivory pale face had lost the golden tints of its underlying brownness. The child was wan under ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... his speech as his eyes rested on the rear stairway, but his words became more and more inarticulate until, with a shudder and a gasp, he fell ...
— Abe and Mawruss - Being Further Adventures of Potash and Perlmutter • Montague Glass
... or sung to the air above-mentioned, and dedicating them to the gentlemen who are going up next Thursday evening. They relate to the symptoms, treatment, and causes of Haemoptysis and Haematemesis; which terms respectively imply, for the benefit of the million unprofessional readers who weekly gasp for our fresh number, a spitting of blood from the lungs and a vomiting of ditto from the stomach. The song was composed of stanzas similar to those which follow, except the portion relating to Diseases of the Brain, which was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... I had friends; but perhaps you will understand me, having seen to what depths I fell, that I couldn't bring myself to apply to my friends. Well, I was at my last gasp when I crawled up to your barn. I mean morally, for my strength was returning. You and your brother rode up. By God! I ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... book, as she was returning from the well and he was setting out for the hog-lot between two pails of sour swill. He stood out of the path to let her pass without stepping into the long, dewy grass. She put her bucket down with a gasp of weariness, and looked up into his ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... hours that I had been with him. Those hectic spots were more pronounced, the eyes shone more brightly out of darker hollows, and a cold sweat glimmered upon his brow. He still retained, however, the jaunty gallantry of his speech. To the last gasp he ...
— The Adventure of the Dying Detective • Arthur Conan Doyle
... harm's way, had knocked the springing brute sideways in mid-air with a quick sickle cut of his head, that he had invented all by himself; had knocked him over, and kneeled upon him with his huge knees till the life went out with a gasp and a howl, and there was only a fluffy striped thing on the ground for Kala Nag to ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... some grimaces she made a quarter of an hour before she gave up the ghost, you would have thought she lay upon a bed of flowers. But her two children lay heavy at her heart, and even to her last gasp she never would forgive Camacha, such a resolute spirit she had. I closed her eyes and followed her to the grave, and there took my last look at her; though, indeed, I have not lost the hope of seeing her again before I die, for they say that ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... to the spot, and between them they raised the boyish captain up. As they did this, he opened his eyes and gave a gasp. ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... A simultaneous gasp from them all betrays the worst. It had been no phantom called into being by their overtaxed nerves. A woman lay before them, face downward on the hard floor. A woman dressed in black, with hat on head and a little satchel clutched in one stiff, outstretched ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... stormier days had brought With darker passions deeper tides of thought. The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow, The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, The tender parting and the glad return, The festal banquet and the funeral urn, And all the drama which at once uprears Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears, From camp and field to echoing verse transferred, Swelled the proud song that listening ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... so panted for breath that she could only sign with a toil-scarred hand for Caroline to go back into shelter, but on reaching a little protection from the wind she managed to gasp out: ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... take. Presently, he saw, making towards him, a horseman whose back was bowed and who let the reins droop. He sat still and after awhile the horseman came up to him, when, behold, he was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded. The tears streamed down his cheeks, like water from the mouths of skins, and he said to Kanmakan, "O chief of the Arabs, take me to friend, whilst I live, for thou wilt not find my like, and give ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... you, I know you!" was all she could gasp, as she bowed herself submissive before him. "I detest you, and shall therefore marry you. Trample upon me!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... brings old age and death, If we've good fruits laid up in store; Soon as we gasp our latest breath, We ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... message after another—faster and faster now, not waiting for acknowledgment or confirmation—began to sink into a whisper. His speech became ragged, heavy. The words became indistinguishable. About his head there began to float a pale, luminescent sphere. There was a subdued gasp from the audience and then complete stillness. As though, unbreathing, in the depths of a tomb, they watched the sphere. It bobbed about, over the Swami's head and around him. At times it seemed as if about to float off stage, but it came back. It swirled out over the ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps they faced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was a quick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, a gasp and a blow... ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... more seriously than she meant them, but it was her pleasure to be reckless: her feelings were running riotously, and the sensation was so new that she refused to be circumspect or to consider consequences. Who could tell, she asked herself with a quick, frightened gasp, but that, after all, it might be that she was learning to care? From Solomons's she bade the man drive to the shop in Cranbourne Street where she was accustomed to purchase the materials she used in painting, and Fate, which uses strange ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... distinct from each other by means of degrees, has been manifested to me by much experience in the spiritual world; especially from this, that angels of the lower heavens are not able to breathe in the region of higher angels, and appear to themselves to gasp for breath, as living creatures do when they are raised out of air into ether, or out of water into air. Moreover, spirits below the heavens appear in a kind of cloud. That there are several atmospheres, and that they are distinct from each other by means ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... said—hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine,—then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,—then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head,—then a long sigh,—and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... where Corrigan had hit him. The frenzy of terror held him, and he looked wildly around at the tiers of faces confronting him, the cords of his neck standing out and writhing spasmodically. Twice he opened his lips to speak, but each time his words died in a dry gasp. At ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... and mortal's agony With as immortal's patience blending; vain The struggle! Vain against the coiling strain And gripe and deepening of the dragon's grasp The old man's clinch; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links; the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp." ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless—gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... throat. Muldoon beat at the thick face with both hands. But the other seemed not to feel the pounding fists. Slowly the fingers managed to reach their goal. Muldoon felt the darkness of death closing over him as his breath became a tortured dying gasp. His hand found Robert's face, came gently over it until his thumb pressed on one eyeball. And Robert screamed as the thumb became a ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... George of Douglas?" answered Dryfesdale. "Breath is now scarce with me, but I would spend my last gasp on this argument. Hast thou not, despite the honour thou owest to thy parents, the faith that is due to thy religion, the truth that is due to thy king, been so carried away by the charms of this beautiful sorceress, that thou wouldst have ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... being hidden from the world for eighteen hundred years in mythical obscurity, is unhappily lost again the moment it is discovered, in the infinitely deeper darkness of the philosophy of Hegel and Strauss; who in vain endeavour to gasp out, in articulate language, the still latent mystery of the Gospel! Hegel, in his last hours, is said to have said,—and if he did not say, he ought to have said,—'Alas! there is but one man in all Germany who understands my doctrine,—and he does not understand it!' And yet, ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... Kate gave a gasp. "Oh dear! Sylvia said he would have no money for journeys now! It cost so much his coming in a first-class carriage ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... wits, uttered a gasp, then sprang to the silent machine gun. A half-used strip of shells was in the gun and other ...
— The Children of France • Ruth Royce
... "Poor Simon," she whispered, as her hair brushed mine. Then her hand was gradually and gently withdrawn. I looked up to see her face; her lips were smiling but there seemed a dew on her lashes. She laughed, and the laugh ended in a little gasp, as though a sob had fought with it. And she cried out loud, her voice ringing clear among the trees ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... now, and as the auto gathered speed, Aunt Betty gave a little gasp, then looked at Dorothy and bravely smiled. Gradually Gerald let the car out until she was doing fully forty miles an hour. This could be kept up only on the smooth level stretches which they encountered every now and then. In climbing the hills, the car ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... calm forsook her; she was tortured with dissolving heats or frozen with icy blasts; her face contracted, growing small and pinched; her voice was hoarse and sharp,—every tone cut like a knife,—the notes became heavy to lift,—withheld by some hostile pressure,—impossible. One gasp, a convulsive effort, and there was silence,—she had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... distress that for the first few moments of their interview she seemed to be quite incapable of making any intelligible statement: she could do nothing but weep copiously upon her stalwart son's shoulder and gasp that they were ruined—utterly and irretrievably ruined! At length, however, the lad managed to extract from Mrs Maitland the statement that she had seen, in the previous morning's papers, an account of the suicide of Mr Jonas Cuthbertson, a solicitor; and, judging ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned—would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. But he is an excellent master still, holding it a part of his state to be so. He has a great liking for Mrs. Rouncewell; he says she is a most respectable, creditable woman. He always shakes hands with her when he comes down to Chesney ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... wheeled eastward, and shot forward at a speed that made the onlookers gasp. When it had disappeared, they became suddenly alive to the suspicion that Jack McMurtrie had practised a ruse on them. They gave a yell and looked round for him. A motor-car was making at forty miles ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... have locked me away from a dying mother; disgraced an innocent life; broken a girl's pure, happy heart; what else is there to dread? Although a bird knows full well when it has received its death wound, instinct drives it to flutter, drag itself as far as possible from the gaze of the sportsman, and gasp out its agony in some ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone! As the advocate of society therefore—of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting union ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... threshold John Pearse saw little save a dim, cool hall, vast and full of vagrant shadows; then, when Milo had arranged the lights so that they gradually grew in power, flooding the chamber with mellow radiance, his soul seemed to burst from his throat in one choking, stupefied gasp. ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... of the awful sea called the Past dash over me, I almost die of strangulation. I pant and gasp for breath, and shudder and tremble in my terror. My spree on this occasion was not yet over; my appetite was burning and raging, and notwithstanding my almost miraculous escape from a drunken death, I watched my opportunity, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... the theatre; the air grows thick and stifling with evil speaking, and poisoned by the breath, not of two toads as in the winter, but of three. Besides the velvety baritone laugh and the giggle like the gasp of a concertina, the maid who waits upon us hears an unpleasant cracked "He, he!" like the chuckle of a general in ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... With a choking gasp the little man turned into the house, and ran up the stairs and into his room. He dropped on his knees beside the great chest in the corner, and unlocked the bottom drawer, the key turning ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... victory—upon this field—For me to die hath more of peace than pain; For I shall leave no golden hopes behind, No idol-love to pine because I die, No friends to wait my coming or to mourn. They wait my coming in the world beyond; And wait not long, for I am almost there. 'Tis but a gasp, and I shall pass the bound 'Twixt life and death—through death to life again— Where sorrow cometh never. Pangs and pains Of flesh or spirit will not pierce me there; And two will greet me from the jasper walls— God's angels—with a song of holy ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... rang off, rang on and slapped it again. The effect at the other end must have been horrible, but it achieved its purpose. By the time connection had been restored and the blood of the Signal Master demanded, the A.D.C. had cheated with a handkerchief and was able to gasp out that the Corps Commander would enjoy seeing the Resplendent One ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 19, 1917 • Various
... he left me, that dead dawn I found him lying in the woods, alive To gasp my name out and his life-blood with it, As though the murderer's knife had probed for me In his hacked breast and found me in each wound. . . Well, it was there Christ came to me, you know, And led me home—just as that other led me. (Just as that other? Father, bear with me!) My ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... and the speech was cut short by the entry of a little, thin woman with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a gasp. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or "Bass," Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the grass, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are! Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... water down his throat. He and two more were lifted on board. They then took a cup to the rest, who were too weak to make the slightest exertion. They poured some water down the throat of one; he gave one gasp, and then sank back, apparently lifeless. A sixth person was already beyond human help. On raising his arm, it fell ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... almost passed, and the hearts of the two were beating high with increasing hope, when Long, with a gasp of terror, grasped the arm of the Professor with incredible force, and jerking him backward, pointed with his extended finger to the ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... your feet through your boot-soles, when you butter your bread with a soup-ladle and the mercury boils merrily in the barometer, then, vainly pawing the air for mosquitoes with one hand and reaching for the siphon with the other, you gasp, "Gad! it must ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... soon changed into a certainty. When, a few hundred yards up the hill, he met his friend, both were almost breathless. Harry was the first to gasp out: ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... his lips with his wine. "What do you ask with your white faces and great eyes, senors?... Oh, yes, he was made to speak—to cry out to the Lutheran's God, to gasp his defiance to Don Luiz waiting with folded arms—to wander, as they sometimes do, thinking friends about him, making appeal to the living and the dead to pluck him out of hell! at last, with froth upon his lips, to murmur ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... and only a thin coating lay on the ground at daylight. An unusual moderation in the temperature carried this away before nightfall, and the weather became almost spring-like, or rather resembled the lingering days of Indian summer, which are the expiring gasp of the mild season, soon to be followed by the ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... lettered in black with the name of the departed. Jonah and Clara stared, puzzled by the noise, when they saw an old man in the rear of the yard in a top hat and a frock coat, clinging to a marble cross. He lurched round, and instantly Clara, with a gasp of amazement and shame, recognized ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... was conveyed to him in the same forcible manner in which it had been conveyed to Plunger; but, though the dig in the ribs made him gasp, it ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... young fellow drinking soda-water and brandy already. He puts down his glass with a gasp of satisfaction. It is evident that he had need of that fortifier and refresher. He puts down the beaker and says, "How are you, Titmarsh? I was SO cut last night. My eyes, wasn't I! Not in the least: ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out upon a journey. So long as the road was fairly level, the Ass got on very well: but by and by they came to a place among the hills where the road was very rough and steep, and the Ass was at his last gasp. So he begged the Mule to relieve him of a part of his load: but the Mule refused. At last, from sheer weariness, the Ass stumbled and fell down a steep place and was killed. The driver was in despair, but he did the best he could: ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... absurd to us! And if you should ever find you canNOT pray any more, tell me, and I will try to help you. I don't think that time will ever come to me. I can't tell—but always hitherto, when I have seemed to be at the last gasp, things have taken a turn, and it has grown possible ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... intensity of that look, and the trembling severity of that voice, Pen wilted and shrank into the depths of his cushioned chair. He could only gasp: ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... though a poor one, of Oxford. Should he be more fortunate, and approach by motor car, again he loses much. A vision, perhaps, for a moment, as he tops some rising ground, and then, before he has had time to gasp his admiration, he finds himself bounded on either side by the unlovely villas ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... partner and he were both in a very bad condition, and I was not surprised, on making my rounds, one morning, to find them apparently quite dead. I called help, and took his partner away to the gate. When we picked up Bickford we found he still lived, and had strength enough to gasp out: ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... when she saw Antrim's face in the glare of light from within; "I thought you were one of the Circle L men!" She shrank back a little when Antrim grinned evilly at her, catching her breath with a gasp. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... seemed to Serena as if there was a flash of red and green light through the room, and Ruth had gone. Serena gave a little gasp, and ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... step, but the boys' hands were steady—hope was bright in their hearts. They were doing it rapidly and freely, when suddenly from the ranks there was the bright gleam of steel lower down than it should have been. A gasp broke from the breasts of Company "A's" friends. The blue and white drooped disconsolately, while a few heartless ones who wore other colours attempted to hiss. Someone had dropped his bayonet. But with muscles unquivering, ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... he, she swung herself up somehow and clutched at him with both hands. The half-dead bough, resenting these gymnastics, cracked ominously. There was a gasp, a scuffle. Roy hung on valiantly, dragging her ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... to her throat with a quick gasp of horror; for a second the room seemed to swing round, then slowly ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... ill-fated sisters of mine, imprisoned without a crime! If they could but have rejoiced once more in the freedom of the fields and woods, what new births of gladness might have been theirs,—they who with a gasp of despair and moral death first entered those royal dungeons, never again to come forth alive! And yet have I known more than one among them who accepted her fate with a repose of manner and a sweetness of smile that told how ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... did hear it. You were near enough to distinguish between a scream and a gasp. Where were you, and why weren't you seen by my man when he ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a kind of gasp, and then said, "Great heaven! Do you mean, Sir George, that there actually is an agreement extant? Yes. Here it is—my father's handwriting, sure enough! Then the question is clear. Upon my o——well, upon my ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A concerted gasp raced around the assemblage. Then silence again, while the pale-faced Hadley went on with his ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... tube, and he looked grotesque. Worst, he had lost all will to live. I thought the man would have been much better off to keep his body parts as long as he could, and die a whole person able to speak, eating if he felt like it, being with friends and family without inspiring a gasp ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... means in her power to overcome her most difficult position; this effort, however, resulted not infrequently in great exaggeration and straining of the voice, and in one very important place her part was sadly overacted. When, after the great trio in the second act, she had to gasp the words, 'er ist frei' ('he is free'), and to move away from her rescued lover towards the front of the stage, she made the mistake of speaking the words instead of ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... Silence followed. Not a gasp came from Herb after his efforts. Cyrus and the Farrars tried to still their heaving chests, while each quick ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... leaped from the shadow of the door and struck at the throat—at the great Adam's apple which shook with the laughter. The blow must have nearly broken the man's neck. His head jerked forward with a whistling gasp of breath, and as he reached for the knife on the table, Harrigan struck again, this time just behind the ear. The man slid from his chair to the floor and lay in a queer heap—as if all the bones in his ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... escorts grasp the ladies' arms and shove them ahead, that being the only way if you are ever going to get any place. The women gasp and pant and make a ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... sound of bolts being drawn; and presently the door opened and a big, burly, elderly man, his touzled hair touched with grey, and his body enveloped in a long white nightgown, appeared; holding a candle above his head. As the light fell upon the two hooded figures he involuntarily drew back with a gasp, whereupon Phil and Dick stepped into the passage, closing the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... she was gazing. Then giving a loud, shrill shriek, she bounded to the fence, climbed over it, and jumped to the ground with a momentum so violent that she fell and rolled several paces on the earth. Something cold twined round her feet and ankles. With a gasp of despair, Helen gave herself up for lost, assured she was in the coils of the snake, and that its venom was penetrating through her ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... die in, from all that I hear of it. Well, you're just in time to be in at the last gasp—that's all, my boy." ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... reply, but there was a suffocating sensation at her throat, and it was some moments before she could wildly gasp out—"Yes!" ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... a mere lubrication of the conversation, helping to make her easier in Miss Tabor's presence, but as it increased in shrillness, she seemed to be losing control of herself, as if her laughter were getting away with her; she was not far from hysteria, when it stopped with a gasp, and she sat up straight in ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... staring at him with wide eyes and parted lips. His astounding proposition had robbed her of speech. It was some seconds before she could gasp out, "What do you ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... said he, with a gasp. "Lord Almighty!" He stared for a long time in front of him without speaking. Then to my amazement he said deliberately: "I remember you! You were a sort of a young English god in a straw hat and beautiful clothes, and you used to take me for rides on the clown's ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... And it was not one of triumph. For we find ourselves, sometimes, in deeper water than we imagine. Then we have to choke and gasp for a while before we can get ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... choked Susan feverishly. "Mr. Burton, I KNOW you don't want to talk about it, but you've got to. I'm all Keith's got to look out for him." The father of Keith gave an inarticulate gasp, but Susan plunged on unheeding. "An' he'll never get well if he ain't let to get up an' stand an' walk an' eat an' sit down himself. But Mis' Colebrook won't let him. She won't let him do anything. She keeps sayin', 'Don't do it, oh, don't do it,' all the time,—when she ought ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... Grace's throat emitted a gasp of relief at finding the result so nearly as she had hoped. She went to the door ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Queen Elizabeth I strolled into the main salon, not a single eye was batted. Not a single gasp was heard. ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... that I am drawing to an end: For on a sudden came a gasp for breath, And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes, And a great darkness falling on my soul. O Hallelujah!... Kindly ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... speak, but in vain. There was one gasp; the blood poured in a torrent from his mouth, and he fell down ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... the bed. You could not hear anything except the clock upon the mantel. Colonel Musgrave went to the mantel, opened the clock, and with an odd deliberation removed the pendulum from its hook. Followed one metallic gasp, as ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... can we? Yes. I hold in my hand the proof of it. Here is a letter written by a woman, right out of her heart of hearts. I think she never saw a spelling-book in her life. The spelling is her own. There isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the fonetics to the last gasp—it squeezes the surplusage out of every word—there's no spelling that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White House. And as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence, eagerly and breathlessly uttered, without break or pause in it anywhere. The letter is absolutely ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain |
