"Instantaneous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... maintenance of the industrious poor is of greater consequence than the enrichment of monopolists"—"I have seen the state of these miserable men, and it is a disgrace to a civilised country." The speech was well received. The impression produced two days later by Byron's "Childe Harold" was as instantaneous as it has proved deep and lasting. Even the dashes of scepticism, with which he darkened his strain, served only to heighten its success. The Prince Regent had the poet presented to him, and the author ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... gripped with a sudden fear. As if at a signal, every sail was abruptly lowered; arms folded, bodies contracted, shells turned over by changing their center of gravity, and the whole flotilla disappeared under the waves. It was instantaneous, and no squadron of ships ever maneuvered ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... evidently did so. It was what photographers call an "instantaneous effect," caught in three seconds, as the carriage whirled past; but in that fraction of a minute the lady had nodded and flashed a brilliant, sympathetic smile in their direction, and Clover had nodded ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... marks, all, of the thoroughly equipped general officer. The order as to his personal movements being not discretional, was of course absolutely accepted; but his other measures were apparently his own, and were instantaneous. A vessel was at once sent off to Barbados to notify Admiral Pocock that the best place in the West Indies for his rendezvous was Fort Royal Bay, in the newly acquired Martinique. The ten sail-of-the-line, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... gently with the palm of the hand, it will afford the sufferer delightful and instantaneous relief;" i.e., It at once removes the skin, and if rubbed in with vigour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... The latest instantaneous system which acquired a certain degree of temporary popularity was that introduced from the western prairies, by Mr. Ellis, of Trinity College, Cambridge, which consisted in breathing into the nostrils of a colt, or buffalo colt, while its eyes ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... to spend Christmas week at Lahore: a week which brings half the Punjab together for purposes of festivity and sport. Here, by some mysterious process, which no science will ever be able to fathom or explain, she had cast an instantaneous and unaccountable spell over a man of rare singleness of purpose, whose heart was set to court action, danger, hardship in every conceivable form: a man for whom a girl-wife fresh out from "Home" seemed as hazardous an investment as ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... not escape the quick perception of the Indian; and, along with the good-humour manifest in the stranger's speech, made an instantaneous impression upon him. ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... produces! It is so dense that a tiger could not crawl through it; it is so impenetrable that an elephant could not force his way! Were a bottleful of concentrated miasma, such as we inhale herein, collected, what a deadly poison, instantaneous in its action, undiscoverable in its properties, would it be! I think it would act quicker than chloroform, be as ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... luckily found a steamer just starting for Lucerne. The cabin was crammed with German students, each one smoking his pipe and roaring choruses to alternate singers. All of a sudden, those who were on their legs were knocked off them. The panic was instantaneous, for every one of us knew it was a collision. But the immediate peril was in the rush for the deck. Violent with terror, rough by nature, and full of beer, these wild young savages were formidable to themselves and others. ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... own farm, and which could not be far removed from the path leading to the middle ground; on which account it behoved She-fo-pao to hail the person repeatedly, previous to the firing of the gun, whose effect would be instantaneous, and occasion the death of the unknown person ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... The effect was instantaneous. On this one throw the machine had staked everything. That it had lost was now plain. In a day Jeff was the hero of Verden, of the state at large. His long fight for reform, the dramatic features of the shanghaing and his ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... near the top he may capture the burrowing ant-eating porcupine, though if perchance he place it for a moment in the stoniest ground, it will tax all his strength to drag it from the instantaneous burrow in which it will defiantly ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... influenced by the same opinion concerning the hopelessness of the patient's condition, besides being kindly anxious to console him, he poured out a small glass, all of which he permitted the other to drink. The effect was instantaneous, for it would seem this treacherous friend is ever to produce a momentary pleasure as a poor ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... conspicuous consumption. The primary problem at the moment is sheer survival. In a way, the move makes sense. Old-fashioned political machinery couldn't cope with the situation; there's no time for debate when instantaneous decisions are necessary to national welfare. You've heard how civil liberties were suspended during the old wars. Well, there's a war on right now; a war against hunger, a war against the forces of fecundity. In another dozen years or so, when the Leff shot ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... Klutz became aware of what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy under the ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... confronted him, and changed their outlines unexpectedly. Forms rose out of the earth at his feet and towered all at once to the top of the room, taking the appearance of San Giacinto and vanishing suddenly into the air. The things he saw came like instantaneous flashes from another and even more terrible world, disappearing at first so quickly as to make him believe them only the effects of the light and darkness, like the ghost he had seen in his coat. In the beginning there was scarcely ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the greatest piece of literature it has ever been my fortune as a publisher to come upon. It is vital, and passionately sincere, and I will stake my reputation upon the prophecy that it will be an instantaneous success. I hope that we may become the publishers of it, and will be glad if you will come to see me at once and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... partial success of the Jesuits, for they did beat back the Reformation, is no doubt attributable to their fidelity, virtue and learning. Their devotion to the cause they loved, their willingness to sacrifice life itself, their marvelous and instantaneous obedience to the slightest command of their leaders, made them a compact and powerful papal army. Their methods, in many particulars, were not beyond question, and, whatever their character, the order certainly incurred the fiercest hostility of every nation in Europe, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... the heart of Wallace, as he started on his feet at this horrible disclosure, seemed to pierce through all the recessed of the glen; and with an instantaneous and dismal return was re-echoed from rock to rock. Halbert threw his arms round his master's knees. The frantic blaze of his eyes struck him with affright. "Hear me, my lord; for the sake of your wife, now an angel hovering near you, hear ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... gun," said Forrest. "It's for instantaneous work at close range. One could probably hit a tossed coin with it, but one must have more weight and inches to the barrel and less ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... Cabinets and Imperials, made by the new instantaneous process exclusively. Permanent engagement of a first-class operator. Every picture ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... directed this movement was the Knight of Avenel, his ancient master; and the next convinced him, that its effects would be decisive. The result of the attack of fresh and unbroken forces upon the flank of those already wearied with a long and obstinate struggle, was, indeed, instantaneous. ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... If the danger be great, we have seldom any opportunity to count the time which elapses between the appearance of the lightning and the report: electrical effects take place at no sensible time; it has been found, that a discharge through a circuit of four miles is instantaneous, whilst sound moves at the rate of about twelve miles in a minute. So that, supposing the lightning to pass through a space of some miles, the explosion will be first heard from the point of the air agitated nearest to the spectator; it will gradually come from the more remote parts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... a personality analogous to that of the animal whose operations most resemble its manifestation. For instance, lightning is often given the form of a serpent, with or without an arrow-pointed tongue, because its course through the sky is serpentine, its stroke instantaneous and destructive; yet it is named Wi-lo-lo-a-ne, a word derived not from the name of the serpent itself, but from that of its most obvious trait, its gliding, zigzag motion. For this reason, the serpent ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... timepiece? Should science finally establish the new view, already adopted by practically all biologists, it will but substitute the method of gradualism and an unfolding progression for a human body created by an instantaneous and peremptory fiat. But this is a question for specialists and experts. Those scholars who accept this view, including such thinkers as the late President McCosh, of Princeton; Dana, of Yale; such teachers as Caird, Drummond, and scores who ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the susceptible Cicily was instantaneous. With her customary impulsiveness, and her eagerness to do the right thing for any and all persons, she felt that she herself had been woefully remiss in not having hurried to Mrs. Morton's support at once. So, to make amends, she spoke ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... learned about the "demonstration" he went to the statue and from there immediately to the Foreign Office, where he saw Secretary of State von Jagow. Gerard demanded instantaneous removal of the wreath. Von Jagow promised an "investigation." Gerard meanwhile began a personal investigation of the League of Truth, which had purchased and placed the ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... The executioner, standing before him, with a sharp sword makes two quick incisions above the eyebrows, and draws down the portion of skin over each eye, then he makes two more quick incisions across the breast, and in the next moment he pierces the heart, and death is instantaneous. Then he cuts the body in pieces; and the degradation consists in the fragmentary shape in which the prisoner has to appear in heaven. As a missionary said to me: "He can't lie out that he got there properly when he carries with him such ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages; the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with the dreadful roar of thunder, and ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... uses it is instantaneous in action, through a conductor, at any distance. A current might be sent around the world while the ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Beppo. Both stories turned upon those decisive moments which habitually caught Browning's eye. Only, in their case, the decisive moment was not one of the revealing crises which laid bare their utmost depths, but a crisis which temporarily invested them with a capricious effulgence. Yet these instantaneous transformations have a peculiar charm for Browning; they touch and fall in with his fundamental ideas of life; and the delicious prologue and epilogue hint these graver analogies in a dainty music which pleasantly ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... was instantaneous. So many women offered to enlist that she had difficulty in accepting all of them, and she resolutely weeded out those that seemed unfit, enacting a strict and severe discipline, more rigorous, in fact, than any ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... mind of man are so closely bound together that whatever affects one affects the other. An instantaneous change of mind instantly changes the muscles of the face. A violent thought instantly ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... of a key or corkscrew: occasionally too the color of their costume is still farther diversified by a chequered handkerchief and white apron. The young are generally pretty; the old, tanned and ugly; and the transition from youth to age seems instantaneous: labor and poverty have destroyed every intermediate gradation; but, whether young or old, they have all the same good-humored look, and appear generally industrious, though almost incessantly talking. Even on Sundays or feast-days, bonnets are seldom ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... exempt—just as God bids us ask for the continuance of the 'daily bread'!—'battle, murder and sudden death' lie behind doubtless. I repeat, and perhaps in so doing only give one more example of the instantaneous conversion of that indignation we bestow in another's case, into wonderful lenity when it becomes our own, ... that I only contemplate the possibility you make me recognize, with pity, and fear ... no anger at all; and imprecations of vengeance, ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Instantaneous death is nothing to me. I am as cool and collected where leaden rain and iron hail are thickest as I would be in my own office writing the obituary of the man who steals my jokes. But I hate to be drowned slowly in my good clothes and on dry land, and have my ...
— Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal • Various
... of instantaneous regeneration by the special operations of the Holy Spirit, is believed by all who have any claim to be called Orthodox. But this doctrine, like the others mentioned, is variously stated and explained. Some consider ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... said Morey seriously, "it was distinctly fortunate that we were attacked almost at once. Their instantaneous system of destruction would have worked for the one shot needed to send the Ancient Mariner to eternal blazes." He laughed, but it was a ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... of this may be mentioned. In view of his probable accession to power, preparations were made in the city of London for a banquet and a general illumination to celebrate the event. But the celebration was at once countermanded when it was known that he had become earl of Chatham. The instantaneous revulsion of public feeling was somewhat unreasonable, for Pitt's health seems now to have been beyond doubt so shattered by his hereditary malady, that he was already in old age though only fifty-eight. It was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... family affection, recognising their complete twin-ship, always blended them—were aware of this disfiguring habit, but relegated the curing of it to the day of their future prosperity. They couldn't afford glasses now, they said. They'd rather put their money into books. This according and instantaneous grimace Lydia found engaging. She could not possibly help hiring them, and they appeared again that night with two battered tin boxes and took up residence ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... of a solid body according to Poinsot's method, we have to consider the successive positions of the instantaneous axis of rotation with reference both to directions fixed in space and axes assumed in the moving body. The paths traced out by the pole of this axis on the invariable plane and on the central ellipsoid form interesting subjects of mathematical investigation. ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... wherefore of this sudden appearance he did not pause to consider. His resolve to intercept the carriage was instantaneous. He ran forward, and doggedly waiting barred the way to ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... putting on a grave and demure countenance, cheats himself into the belief that he conceals from every eye that delectable and irresistible confusion in which his brain is swimming. His love was seen. How could it be otherwise? That instantaneous, that complete delight which he felt when she joined him in his rambles, or came to sit with him in the library, could not be disguised nor mistaken. He was a scholar, a reader and lover of books, but let the book be what it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail—undoubtedly though not ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Italian came on the car, directly to the front, and seemed nettled to see the young lady talking so freely with the motorman. He saluted her with a frown upon his face, but evidently with familiarity. The change in the girl's demeanor was instantaneous. Evidently she did not wish to offend the newcomer, nor did she wish to break with the motorman. All were ill at ease, distraught, vexed, worried. She tried to bring the newcomer into the conversation, which he refused. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... by proving that TRUTH and BEAUTY are coincident, and that the warmest Admirers of these CELESTIAL TWINS, have consequently Souls more nearly allied to therial Spirits of a higher Order. The effect of a good TASTE is that instantaneous Glow of Pleasure which thrills thro' our whole Frame, and seizes upon the Applause of the Heart, before the intellectual Power, Reason, can descend from the Throne of the Mind to ratify it's Approbation, either when we receive into the Soul ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen
... was covered with officers. Among them was one grey-headed man, whom I recognised by his dress for the captain. He made a gesture, turning an arm upward, and I knew an order was given immediately after, by the instantaneous manner in ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... were called under Elizabeth. He had thus a snug position at Court, and might have been happy, had it been another Court. But in nothing was the accession of James more apparent than in the almost instantaneous blasting of the taste, manners, and serious grace that had marked the Court of Elizabeth. The Court of James was a Court of bad taste, bad manners, and no grace whatever: and Daniel—"the remnant of another time," as he calls himself—looked wistfully back upon the ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... seen the infuriated buffalo among us. I peeped over the horse's back, and, to my delight and surprise, I saw the carcass of the bull lying within three feet of him. His head was pierced by the ball exactly between the horns, and death had been instantaneous. The horse, having reared to his full height, had entangled his hind legs in the grass, and he had fallen backwards without being touched by the buffalo, although the horns were close ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... she gained an interval for thought. The predicament, as she saw it, was troublesome and unfortunate. Honor was intended her, the highest in the imperial gift, and the offer was coming with never a doubt of its instantaneous and grateful acceptance. Remembering her obligations to the Emperor, her eyes filled with tears. She respected and venerated him, yet could not be his Empress. The great title was not a sufficient inducement. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... to the breach his comrades fly; "Make way for Liberty!" they cry, And through the Austrian phalanx dart, As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart; While, instantaneous as his fall, Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all: An earthquake could not overthrow A city with ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Michael Angelo. The conceptions of this great sculptor were so godlike that he seems to have been discontented at not likewise possessing the godlike attribute of creating and embodying them with an instantaneous thought, and therefore we often find sculptures from his hand left at the critical point of their struggle to get out of the marble. The statue of St. Matthew looks like the antediluvian fossil of a human being of an epoch when humanity was mightier and more majestic ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... efficacious than flour. It ought to be thickly applied over the part affected, and should be kept in its place either with a rag and a bandage, or with, strips of old linen. If this be done, almost instantaneous relief will be experienced, and the burn or the scald, if superficial, will soon be well. The advantage of flour as a remedy, is this, that it is always at hand. I have seen some extensive bums and scalds cured by ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... pebbles devious stray; 'If kindred drops an adverse channel keep, 'The crystal friends toward each other creep; 'Near, and still nearer, rolls each little tide, 'Th' expanding mirror swells on either side: 'They touch—'tis done—receding bound'ries fly, 'An instantaneous union strikes the eye: ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... holding some sort of mechanical accessory in their hands. It looked like a small sphere of glass, and it connected with the apparatus by means of a hollow tube of fibre. Jim guessed that in an instant the Ray could be made to dart out of the lens. It would be quick work—as nearly as possible instantaneous work. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... breach his comrades fly; "Make way for Liberty!" they cry, And through the Austrian phalanx dart, As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart; While instantaneous as his fall, Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all. An earthquake could not overthrow A city with a ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... uncertain, that their minds were already on the way to the rear. If they did anything, it must be quick, and their gun-work must be accurate. Nothing but a withering fire could check.... He sprang to the firestep and then out on the parapet. Something instantaneous happened; he ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... and mustered the forces on each side, some account of the combat is naturally expected; and Johnson complains, that, after all the interest excited, the story is but lamely winded up by a speech from the throne, which produces the instantaneous and even marvellous effect, of reconciling all parties, and subduing the whole phalanx of opposition. Even thus, says the critic, the walls, towers, and battlements of an enchanted castle disappear, when the destined knight winds his horn before it. Spence records in ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... by now in many Western subtleties which he had not previously known, and daily becoming wiser, would as a rule give an instantaneous decision. ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... represented to the workman more than his yearly savings, more than any single expenditure. To the business man, even, it was a sum not to be lightly dropped on a filthy car floor. This mere statement of the value of cleanness made an almost instantaneous change in the habits of thousands. Within two days the car floors became practically free without a single fine being collected within that time, as far as the ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... condition of mind, it must be recognised by like intuition on the part of the reader, and a sort of immediate sense. In every one of those masterly sentences of Flaubert there was, below all mere contrivance, shaping and afterthought, by some happy instantaneous concourse of the various faculties of the mind with each other, the exact apprehension of what was needed to carry the meaning. And that it fits with absolute justice will be a judgment of [34] immediate sense in the appreciative reader. We all feel this in what may be called inspired translation. ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... spectator, till most of the audience on that side of the arena were watching the fight in which he took part to the exclusion of everything else that was going on. He displayed that perfect balance of all the mental and physical faculties, that instantaneous co-ordination of eye, brain and muscle, which only an occasional phenomenon can attain to. He made no mistakes, bore himself like a dancer on a tight-rope, circled about his adversary, warded off all his thrusts, lunges and rushes, turned aside his ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... scene was instantaneous and appalling. Most of the animals, startled, and dreading immediate punishment, darted for their pedestals,—any pedestals that they found within reach,—and fought savagely for the possession of the first they came to. The ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... time there was no mistake. In the firelight I saw plainly the dangle of Br'er Rabbit's long legs, and the flap of his big ears, and the quick flash of his dark eyes in the reflected light,—got an instantaneous photograph of him, as it were, at the top ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... people who, absorbed in commerce, politics, and other pursuits, think that music is a mere family pastime—an ear-gratifying enjoyment. Great popularity has its drawbacks as well as its advantages, and there is no doubt that the widespread, instantaneous appreciation and popularity of melody has detracted somewhat from the proper recognition of the higher and graver attributes of music. But that music is a power and has influenced humanity with dynamic ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... most afflicted ones civil government for a time has virtually broken down. Both the great need for food and clothing and the overthrowing of conventions, customs and habits are responsible for the change. Here we perceive a notable example of the almost instantaneous disruption of established folk-ways. ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... Christ is but another name for holiness, and when, at the resurrection, we awake satisfied with his likeness (Ps. 17: 15), we shall be perfected in holiness. This is simply saying that sanctification is progressive and not, like conversion, instantaneous. And yet we must admit the force of what a devout and thoughtful writer says as to the danger of regarding it as only a gradual growth. If a Christian looks upon himself as "a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season," ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... darkness of the wood growing high up the mountain-side and the faint light of the declining moon, seemed only like an oblong of paler purpler black than the shadowy room. How much I remembered from my one instantaneous glance before the candle went out, how much I saw as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I do not know, but even now, in my dreams, comes up that room of horror, distinct in its profound shadow. Amante could hardly have been gone a minute before ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... that of a tiny power not yet solidified, remote from the main currents of the world's life, out-matched in resources by any one of the greater powers of Europe. America is no longer so remote as to have little practical concern with Europe. Its contacts with Europe are instantaneous, daily, intimate, innumerable—so much so indeed that our own civilization will be intimately affected and modified by certain changes which threaten in ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was by this appearance of his dearest enemy, he wasted no precious time on mere words. He swung a vicious blow at Larry, intended to remove this barrier to his freedom. But the experienced Larry let it glance off his forearm, and with the need of an instantaneous conclusion he sent a terrific right to Barney's chin. Barney staggered back, fell in a crumpled ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... eyes as well as hands; carefully and softly hinting the key-note from time to time. Standing with an arm drawn round her, but with a face far more intent on Mr. Jasper than on her singing, stood Helena, between whom and her brother an instantaneous recognition passed, in which Mr. Crisparkle saw, or thought he saw, the understanding that had been spoken of, flash out. Mr. Neville then took his admiring station, leaning against the piano, opposite the singer; Mr. Crisparkle sat down by the china shepherdess; Edwin Drood gallantly furled and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Until so notified, your first family prisoners in my hands'—the names then given—'will receive precisely similar treatment. For each of my officers hung, I will hang three of my prisoners who are slave-holders.' This dose operated with instantaneous effect, and the next letter received from our captured officers set forth that they were at large on parole, and treated as well as they could wish to be in ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... turned coward Burton and his wife did not hesitate. But they had moments of fearful suspense as they sank slowly down into the black abysm. The snap of a single link in the long chain would have meant instantaneous death; and a link had snapped but a few days previous, with fatal results. Arrived at the bottom they found themselves in a vast cave lighted with a few lamps—the walls black as night or reflecting slender rays from the polished watery ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Iodized Collodion, for obtaining Instantaneous Views, and Portraits in from three to thirty seconds, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... instantaneous. He puffed his cheeks out in astonishment, and sucked them in again. The overbearing anger vanished as he leaned forward in the saddle to scrutinize my face. It was clear that he thought my use of that phrase might just possibly have ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... was immediately rolled up in the strips of blanketing upon which it lay, and carried on deck. The mate was then called, and preparations made for an instantaneous' burial. Laying the body out on the forehatch, it was stitched up in one of the hammocks, some "kentledge" being placed at the feet instead of shot. This done, it was borne to the gangway, and placed on a plank ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... impossible for me to describe the effect of so instantaneous a change of circumstances upon us. The boats were allowed to drift along at pleasure, and such was the force with which we had been shot out of the Morumbidgee, that we were carried nearly to the bank opposite its embouchure, whilst we continued to ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... result of experience, were of quite another kind. He turned his cob's head, and went off like the wind at right angles to the course the ostrich was taking, and the effect was instantaneous. There was all the open veldt, or plain, spreading out for hundreds of miles before the bird, and it had only to dart off and leave the swiftest horse far behind. But its would-be cunning nature suggested to it that its enemy had laid a deep ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... the farthest hills Which bound the blue lap of the swelling vale, On whose last line, seen like a beacon, hangs Thy tower,[146] benevolent, accomplished Hoare, To where I stand, how wide the interval! Yet instantaneous, to the hurrying eye Displayed; though peeping towers and villages Thick scattered, 'mid the intermingling elms, And towns remotely marked by hovering smoke, And grass-green pastures with their herds, and seats Of rural beauty, cottages ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... took about a week. Sure paraspace hops are, to all intents and purposes, instantaneous, but there is a limit to the capacity of the GSM drive, and regulations restrict the jumps to a toleration well within that capacity. We might have made it sooner had we not been bound to follow 231's space plan—but not much. ...
— Attrition • Jim Wannamaker
... what time the star-shells began to flare and the flashes of the guns could be seen on the hills of Lorette, two of our men got done to death in their dug-out. A shell hit the roof and smashed the pit-props down on top of the two soldiers. Death was instantaneous ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... artistry, but it is its sincerity which gives it its value. Here are the little sharp experiences of life mirrored poignantly, sometimes feverishly, always truly. Each lyric is an instantaneous photograph of one of the many moments in existence which affect one briefly perhaps, but indelibly. Mr. Braithwaite says in his introduction that this author engages "life at its most reserved sources ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... threw any clear light upon the commission of the deed, its motive, or its perpetrator. There were ample accounts of the capture of the horse, the finding of the body, its position, and the nature of the wound,—medical opinion in addition that death had been instantaneous, and probably received before the breaking of the storm. If there had been any telltale track or mark in the soil of the river road, the continued and beating rain had made the way impossible to read. Witnesses from Malplaquet told of ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... coincidence, sir, if you please?" A dainty little native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was; so he quietly took heed of Madame Dor from ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... upon him, unaccustomed as he was to alcoholic stimulants, was instantaneous. The brandy diffused itself through his chilled, sinking, and dying frame, warming, elevating, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... words, Mr. Pickwick felt, with some astonishment, that Sam's fingers were trembling at the gaiters, as if he were rather surprised or startled. Sam looked up at Mr. Winkle, too, when he had finished speaking; and though the glance they exchanged was instantaneous, they seemed ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... can catch, but keep a few pups to train for hunting, and wonderful hunting dogs they are. Hence their fear of our taking their pets. The old gentleman was much delighted with my watch. I then showed them some matches, and the instantaneous ignition of some grass in the midst of them was rather too startling a phenomenon for their weak minds; some of them rose to depart. The old man, however, reassured them. I presented him with several matches, and showed him how to use them; he was ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... doings of a cloud, is the splitting into two, which has been occasionally observed in them! Well, if they be clouds, the coming of one into contact with our earth would most likely deposit with us an immense addition to our stock of water. It would be instantaneous, or nearly so. Only think of a sudden fall of water sufficient to raise the ocean a hundred feet, and submerge all parts of the land which were less than that height above the present level of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... deep and thrilling in its interest. At length, after a struggle for life, and a horror of death possibly unprecedented in the annals of crime, he was pushed upon the drop, the spring was touched, and the unhappy man passed shrieking into that eternity which he dreaded so much. His death was instantaneous, and, after hanging the usual time, his body was removed to the goal; the crowd began to disperse, and in twenty minutes the streets and people presented nothing more than their ordinary aspect of indifference to everything but their ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... if I could afford your mind instantaneous relief I would gladly do so, if even at a very great sacrifice. Of one thing rest assured—you have my service in any way that you wish to command me; besides, you have my sympathy and interest for life. It may be that I can slightly alleviate your sorrow. Can I ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... of which their tenure was so doubtful; and these were the men whom the "decemviri," or ten magistrates, would be anxious to assist. We are told that the father-in-law of Rullus himself had made a large acquisition by his use of Sulla's proscriptions. And then there would be the instantaneous selling of the vast districts obtained by conquest and now held by the Roman State. When so much land would be thrown into the market it would be sold very cheap and would be sold to those whom the "decemviri" might choose to favor. We can hardly now hope to unravel all the intended details, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... tests in the form of small guns and other structures subject to concussion and strain; and both the theory and all the evidence that we have promise its superiority for gun-metal. But another element of resistance is required in guns with thick walls. The explosion of the powder is so instantaneous that the exterior parts of the metal do not have time to act before the inner parts are strained beyond endurance. In order to bring all parts of a great mass of metal into simultaneous tension, Blakely and others have hooped an inner tube with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The instantaneous death of animals put into air so vitiated, I still think is owing to some stimulus, which, by causing immediate, universal and violent convulsions, exhausts the whole of the vis vitae at once; because, as I have observed, the manner of their death is the very same in all the ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... extraordinary power of intuition which fully makes up for their deficiency in reasoning force. They do not conclude from the premisses of their observation, they /know/ that this man is to be feared and that trusted. In fact, they share with the rest of breathing creation that self-protective instinct of instantaneous and almost automatic judgment, given to guard it from the dangers with which it is continually threatened at the hands of man's over-mastering strength and ordered intelligence. Ida was one of ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... seems the change Accorded to thy worth; As instantaneous and as strange Thy exit ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... terrifying that I stopped with chilled blood and beating heart, gripping my knife-hilt and peering forward into the dark as frightened as ever I was in my life. I heard Burns gasp and half turn; then, before I could move, even had I dared venture such a thing, an instantaneous flash lit up the black interior. I caught one confused glimpse of a huge object, topped with a head of tumbled hair, of two flapping wings stretching out upon either side, and then the impenetrable curtain ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Emilie returned, Mrs. Somers was dressed: she had dressed in the greatest hurry imaginable, that she might be ready for action—instantaneous action—if the service of her friends, as she hoped, required it. Emilie brought the newspaper in her hand, which her mother had been reading ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... Gayeties and Gravities give it as their opinion that no object of sight is regarded by us as a simple disconnected form, but that—an instantaneous reflection as to its history, purpose, or associations converts it into a concrete one,—a process, they shrewdly remark, which no thinking being can prevent, and which can only be avoided by the unmeaning and stolid stare of "a goose on the common or a cow on ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... generation know very well it was an ugly and stupid reality; we know also it was brought about by the Wagnerites. Not Wagner's "discords," his "lack of melody," his "formlessness" and so on hindered an almost instantaneous appreciation of his music, but the "explanations" of the music. Things easy to grasp, many things as old as the eternal hills, were "explained" as being terribly difficult, and the world was told of the "revolution" Wagner had brought ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... be love, is known in a moment. Man who never saw the sun before would know it was the sun. In Fred's case it was an instantaneous, impetuous passion, flaming up at the sight of such unexpected beauty—a passion that will probably fade as rapidly as ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... and the gate was opened, the body of an Indian was seen lying without; a small mark on his forehead showed where Harold's bullet had entered; death being instantaneous. His war-paint and the embroidery of his leggings showed him at once to be an Iroquois. Beside him lay his bow, with an arrow which had evidently been fitted to the string for instant work. Harold shuddered when he saw it and congratulated himself ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... hand and he sat staring at it where it lay. He picked it up and read the last paragraph, for his dazed brain had not yet grasped its meaning. But when its entire significance was made clear to him it came with a rush: it was like the instantaneous effect of some powerful drug or stimulant that turned the blood to fire and crazed the brain. The blind rage which made the room swing round was like the frenzy of insanity. Van Lennop's face went crimson and oaths ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... years Mr. Bastow had a hard time of it. It was, then, both with pleasure as an old friend, and with renewed hopefulness for the village, that he visited John Thorndyke on his return. The change in the state of affairs was almost instantaneous. As soon as it became known that the Rector was backed, heart and soul, by the Squire's authority, and that a complaint from him was followed the next day by a notice to quit at the end of a week, his own authority was established as firmly as it had ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... 3d Place, Brooklyn, N.Y., a magic lantern with 16 slides, and a printing press with 2 fonts of type, for an instantaneous ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... which there would be for the beholder no shape at all, but mere ragbag chaos!—And in calculating the likelihood of a perceptive empathic response we must remember that such active shape-perception, however instantaneous as compared with the cumbrous processes of locomotion, nevertheless requires a perfectly measurable time, and requires therefore that its constituent processes be held in memory for comparison and coordination, quite as much as the similar processes by which we ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... trousers, which the later Romans also regarded as effeminately oriental; it was an oriental touch found in many florid things of the time—in Byron's poems or Brighton Pavilion. Now, the interesting point is that for a whole serious century these instantaneous fantasies have remained like fossils. In the carnival of the Regency a few fools got into fancy dress, and we have all remained in fancy dress. At least, we have remained in the dress, though ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... "light travels so fast that for something as near as a lightning flash, you can reckon it as instantaneous, while sound only travels at a little more than ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... years of the century, is another such sign of the times: the newspaper being one of the great social bonds of humanity, for good or bad, linking man to man, race to race in the common, well-nigh instantaneous nexus of sympathy. The influence of the press at the time of a San Francisco or Messina horror is apparent to all; but its effect in furnishing the psychology of a business panic is perhaps no less potent though not so ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... buzz of voices upon the anchored vessels' decks, and Joe kept on yelling wildly to the men to pull, the noise and excitement being increased by the reports of muskets fired at them in a hurried ungoverned way, the flashes of light giving them faint instantaneous glimpses of the vessels and the faces of the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself; when her ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... could not give so instantaneous and unqualified a consent. He debated and hesitated;—it was a serious charge;—a girl so brought up must be adequately provided for, or there would be cruelty instead of kindness in taking her from her family. He thought of his own four children, of his two sons, of cousins in love, etc.;—but ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... straightforward boyhood, wrapped up in tiny ambitions, vexed with trivial cares, full of trifling events, with a constant sense of small dissatisfaction, I am amazed at the colours with which memory tints the scene. She selects a few golden hours, scenes of peculiar and instantaneous radiance, when the old towers and trees were touched with a fine sunshine, when the sky was unclouded, the heart light, and when one lived for a moment in a sense of some romance of ambition or friendship; and she bids one believe ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... use. My face was deep in the pillow, but I made sounds as of a hen who has laid an egg. It broke on the Doctor with a total instantaneous smash, quite like ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... had a conviction that he had said something better left unsaid, and that Beverly Carlysle's glance at her brother was almost hostile. He had that instantaneous picture of the two of them, the man defiant and somehow frightened, and the woman's eyes anxious and yet slightly contemptuous. Then, in a ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the bullet took a diagonal course from the shoulder back to the other side. It must have gone within an inch of his heart, and would have finished him in a short time, without that other shot—that penetrated his brain, you see; death was instantaneous." ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... were, mummified the body. A moment's glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gun-shot wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting-coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch's death was plain to me in a flash. Some one of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun—the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... been any one to equal Joachim. Yet he never played the same Bach composition twice in the same way. We were four in our class, and Hubay and I used to bring our copies of the sonatas with us, to make marginal notes while Joachim played to us, and these instantaneous musical 'snapshots' remain very interesting. But no matter how Joachim played Bach, it was always with a big tone, broad chords of an organ-like effect. There is no greater discrepancy than the edition of the Bach sonatas published (since his death) ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... grandeur of these scenes was gloried in, when Captain Hunter gave the order to draw the anchor and steam away. The whistles call the passengers back to the steamer, where they were soon comparing specimens, viewing instantaneous photographs, hiding bedraggled clothing, casting away tattered mufflers, and telling of hair-breadth escapes from peril and death. Many a tired head sought an early pillow, and floated away in dreams of ghoulish icebergs, ...
— Oregon, Washington and Alaska; Sights and Scenes for the Tourist • E. L. Lomax
... greatest amount of good to the recipient. The first object was attained by enacting that those who had hitherto been slaves should be free; the third was arrived at by making the freedom thus given, not instantaneous, but by leading them to it, and preparing them for its proper and useful enjoyment, by a system of apprenticeship. The slave was to be apprenticed to his master for seven years, receiving, partly in money and partly in kind, a certain fair amount of wages, and having also one-fourth ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... nations. It is a pet theory of his that the finale of the material world will be rapid. He bases his conclusions upon the fact of the steady decrease in the volume of the surrounding atmosphere and the almost instantaneous action of all of Nature's destructive forces, fire and flood, storm and sunstroke, lightning and hail, earthquake and cyclone. Oh, apropos of my erudite friend, Marthe, he has promised to spend August with us, so you will have ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... meant so much to them in power and wealth. Finally, it was unfortunately true in the eighteenth century, as it is in the twentieth, that an argument of right and justice, based upon Christianity, did not have instantaneous effect upon professing Christians. But Woolman seemed divinely inspired to perform his mission. He travelled extensively and never hesitated to approach Friends on the subject of slavery.[188] At the Yearly Meeting for 1759, he was gratified to learn that a recommendation had been made to Friends ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... I do?" I cried, wringing my hands and handing her the letter to read. Hurriedly reading it, she quickly said, "Let us pray." Immediately suiting the action to the word, she as briefly as possible asked the Lord for speedy help. It came—an instantaneous impression to telephone to the hotel at S—— where Reba had been employed. "Keep on, Bessie, keep on praying," I requested as I arose from my knees and hastened into the next room, took down the receiver, called for the long-distance operator, asked for my party, ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... And it will not do to say, that the young generals were victorious merely in virtue of their superiority in courage, energy, and dash; for they evinced a no less decisive superiority in commonsense and judgment,—that is, in instantaneous command of all their resources in the moment of peril, in quickness to detect the enemy's weak points, and, above all, in resolute sagacity to send the full strength of the arm to second at once the piercing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the mob but the unfortunate sufferers themselves, who perhaps would next have been attacked, had not a king's ferash appeared, accompanied by one of the principal Armenians, and their presence produced an almost instantaneous ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... Paris; and indeed close them altogether. The opera balls were established on a grand scale, and with all possible effect. The proposer of the idea had for it six thousand livres pension; and a machine admirably invented and of easy and instantaneous application, was made to cover the orchestra, and put the stage and the pit on the same level. The misfortune was, that the opera was at the Palais Royal, and that M. le Duc d'Orleans had only one step to take to reach it after his suppers and show himself there, often in ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon |
