"Paroxysm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1833), i. 59-108 (a Bookseller's compilation, with some curious Excerpts):—under which lie modern Sagittarius, ancient Adam of Bremen, Ditmarus Merseburgensis, Witichindus Corbeiensis, Arnoldus Lubecensis, &c. &c. to all lengths and breadths.] Which threw King Mistevoi into a paroxysm, and raised the Wends. Their butchery of the German population in poor Brandenburg, especially of the Priests; their burning of the Cathedral, and of Church and State generally, may be conceived. The HARLUNGSBERG,—in ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... his steps, leaving the door wide, his eyes dwelling upon Suzanne until she shrank under its gaze, as she might have done from the touch of some unclean thing. She drew near to her mother, in whom the brief paroxysm of rage was now succeeded by a no less violent paroxysm of weeping. On the stairs sounded Guyot's ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... and repaired to the study, where he threw himself on a chair in a paroxysm of grief, which, for the first quarter of an hour, admitted of no alleviation: "He had no character. The doctor had heard all before. All believed him guilty—and how could Ferrers act so? How could it ever ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... till he fainted. And now occurred the last of those striking incidents so frequent in his life, in reference to which we may quote the joint testimony of two witnesses. Colonel Stanhope writes, "Soon after his dreadful paroxysm, when he was lying on his sick-bed, with his whole nervous system completely shaken, the mutinous Suliotes, covered with dirt and splendid attires, broke into his apartment, brandishing their costly arms and loudly demanding their rights. ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... dread lest a paroxysm of the collector's mania should seize her father, gave her the courage to resist his proposal. "Your word will be sufficient that Messere is a scholar and has travelled much. The Segretario will need no ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... our arms, and placed him in my saddle, and to our great satisfaction, we found that after the first paroxysm of pain was over, he could get along very well. We led the animal upon which he was mounted slowly along the ravine, until we reached our prisoners, who were lying in the same position ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... Mr. Pickwick; while the ever gallant Mr. Tupman led Mrs. Bardell, who said she was better, downstairs. "I cannot conceive what has been the matter with the woman. I merely told her of my intention of keeping a manservant, when she fell into an extraordinary paroxysm. Very remarkable thing." ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... quietly round and locked the door. Da Souza would have called out, but a paroxysm of fear had seized him. His fat, white face was pallid, and his knees were shaking. Trent's hand fell upon his shoulder, and Da Souza felt as though the claws of a trap had ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... jauntily professes himself ready for all that life can inflict. But there come moments in every life when the false security in which shallow souls wrap themselves ignobly is broken up, and then often a paroxysm of terror or misery grips a man, for which he has no anodyne, and his despair is as unreasonable as his security. The meaning of all circumstances that force our helplessness on us is to open to us Jehoshaphat's refuge in his—'our eyes are upon Thee.' We need to be driven ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... found! you are alive! Thank God! thank God!" Throwing himself on his knees by her, and, clasping her cold hands in his, and, in a paroxysm, pressing them to his lips and heart, and covering them with ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... my report of a failure. And yet—and yet—"—he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction—"I KNOW it's all wrong. I feel it in my bones. There is something that has not come out, and that housekeeper knows it. There was a sort of sulky defiance in her eyes, which only goes with guilty knowledge. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In her paroxysm she rolled down on the stone floor, and he stooped in consternation and picked her up. He rested his foot on the ledge where she had sat, and held her upon his knee. She struggled for breath until he thought she would die, and the sweat of terror stood on his forehead. When ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... convulsed and shook as with a strong fit of ague: his veins swelled: the circulation of the blood was quickened. The man was now possessed and inspired by the god: his own human personality was for a time in abeyance: all that he said and did in the paroxysm passed for the words and acts of the indwelling deity. Shrill cries of "Koi au! Koi au!" "It is I! It is I!" filled the air, proclaiming the actual presence of the powerful spirit in the vessel of flesh and blood. In giving the ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... But this paroxysm of tact that had just broken out in his office was really too much. Of course they'd been talking him over, those two. It must have been amply obvious to them for a good while that there was something more than met the eye, about that long visit of his wife's to California. And it was nice and ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... new eyes, and a sort of wonder: and had scarcely time to compose my face, when, the paroxysm of his fury spent, he rose, and looking at me askance, to see how I took his actions, he asked me sullenly whither I ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... of the vessel caused me to suffer very severely from seasickness; the exertion of dressing in the morning always brought on a paroxysm, but I determined to struggle against it as much as possible, and was only one day so completely overpowered as to be unable to rise from the sofa. This sickness was the more provoking, since there was no swell to ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... Ann Sidley has also been weeping, and, as even Annette, always courteous and considerate, has shed a few tears in the way of sympathy, you ought not to imagine that I have been altogether so stoical as not to betray some feeling, dear father. But the paroxysm is past, and I am beginning to philosophize. I hope, cousin Jack, you have not forgotten that the drawing-room is a ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... when she heard the good news, she almost fainted with joy. It might yet be in time. Cleer might be married now before poor Michael broke forth in that inevitable paroxysm. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... train, for their mounts ceased running only when the barn-yard was reached. Then the old mare came to a stop, blowing and trembling so wildly that she could scarcely keep her legs, while the bald-face kicked and snorted about among the granaries and pens in a perfect paroxysm ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... hand. He looked ill and exhausted, like a man who had passed through a violent paroxysm ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... frenzy does not disturb the calm vision of the thinker. To Nicolai, the paroxysm he contemplates seems the last flicker of the torch. Just as, he declares, horse-racing and yachting are undergoing their fullest development in our own day, when horses and sails are ceasing to have any practical use, so likewise patriotism has become a fanatical cult at the ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... excited that he shook her in the hot paroxysm of returning rage. Phoebe was not frightened, but indignation made her pale. She stood without flinching, and looked at him, till poor old Tozer let go his hold, and dropping into a chair, covered his face with his hands. She was ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... system against disease. The morning cold bath, followed by vigorous rubbing, is a most excellent measure for this purpose, but the old-fashioned German wet-sheet pack is one of the best remedies known. The paroxysm itself can generally be avoided by means of the dry pack, begun before the chill makes its appearance; but this requires the services of an expert nurse. In not a few cases it is wise for a person who suffers frequently from malarial ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... tell you—it's Q," he raved and shrieked in his insane way as he rocked back and forth in bed. He was fighting his own conscience, and kept pushing some unseen thing from him as he shook in a paroxysm of fright. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... curtain which now shaded the window, and too much absorbed in his own painful reflections to think of ascertaining whether the light was out or not, he groped his way to the single bed, and threw himself upon it, giving way to a paroxysm of grief. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... long period of it. And then again that cough from above—a prolonged paroxysm of it this time that went racketing ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... stiffening of every muscle: she stood stock still with flaming eyes. I suspect we human beings know but little of the fierceness with which the vortices of passion rage in the more purely animal natures. This beginning he knew well would end in a wild paroxysm of rearing and plunging. He had more than once tried the exorcism of patience, sitting sedate upon her back until she chose to move; but on these occasions the tempest that followed had been of the very worst description; ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... swayed her and that the horrors and tortures of an ecclesiastical trial may have overclouded her reason, subject at all times to strange vagaries, and that after such bitter suffering there may have come upon her the actual paroxysm of madness. On the other hand it may have been that with sound sense and calm mind she was mocking at the clerks of Rouen; she was quite capable of it, for she had mocked at the clerks of Poitiers. At any rate she had a jesting air, and the ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... translated into sound. So enormous was it, and so distant, that it enfolded us like a foreboding of disaster. It was as though one were listening to the cheering of innumerable myriads on another planet. There was neither cessation to it nor paroxysm, neither surging up nor dying away. It was a continuous and prodigious drone. And the wonder of it was driven, if possible, a notch higher when it was known that this uproar was caused, not by the moans ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... words, and as soon as the paroxysm was over, he sunk by fits into a gloomy silence, or walked from room to room, wringing his hands and beating his head, in a state of furious distraction, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... Bull has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he suffers from the spleen, and thinks of hanging himself; when Jonathan has a fit of indigestion, or a stroke of ill-luck, he goes on his travels. Now and then he has a paroxysm of lunacy, but he recovers himself quickly, and never dreams of putting an end to his existence. On the contrary, he says to himself, 'Let us think no more of it; ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Petrea, after the paroxysm of sorrow and penitence was in measure abated, began to think herself and her adventures particularly interesting, and sate in her little carriage a very important personage, surrounded by her ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... and dignified, waited in silence until the paroxysm had abated, then he quietly went on ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... against him, as if some pent-up force had rent its way out, she fell into a paroxysm of weeping. Lassiter held her in silent sympathy. By degrees she regained composure, and she was rising, sensible of being relieved of a weighty burden, when a sudden start ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... two or three times wearing around, providing they didn't come to mending before that," mused the "Pet," with a speculative look in her blue eyes, but with a quiver of the dimples that evoked another paroxysm of laughter from her audience. "But I say, Sadie," she went on with the next breath, "Miss Minturn is a downright sweet-looking girl, and I'll wager a- -a darning needle against a pair of those silk stockings you'll find her O. K. ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... all the sun's eclipses The most dreadful that it suffered Since the hour its bloody visage Wept the awful death of Christ. For o'erwhelmed in glowing cinders The great orb appeared to suffer Nature's final paroxysm. Gloom the glowing noontide darkened, Earthquake shook the mightiest buildings, Stones the angry clouds rained down, And with blood ran red the rivers. In this frenzy of the sun, In its madness and delirium, Sigismund was born, thus ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... rhythm and motion. Perfectly she understood those who, having reached the breaking point, dashed madly through the fire scattering embers and coals, or who darted forward to kiss ecstatically the white man's feet, or who reached a wild paroxysm of nerves to collapse the next instant into exhaustion. She was brought to ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... story of the court-martial which had sat upon Lord George Germaine himself, after the battle of Minden, and made an insulting comparison between his conduct in that battle, and the conduct of the brave and enterprising Burgoyne. In a paroxysm of rage, Lord George asserted that he did not merit such an attack; that he would for once descend to a level with the wretched character and malice of his assailant; and that, old as he was, he would meet the fighting gentleman and be revenged. The house called to order, and the speaker ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... mountain pass heard also, and felt at that moment a sudden thrill of premonition. The guerdon; the quittance; could it be possible after all, the end was not far? He could not believe it, yet a paroxysm of fury seized him; his strength became redoubled; wherever his sword touched a ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... We reached Flint House just at the right moment, for me. I broke into the room and found him—dead. He was not where I had left him. In a last paroxysm he had struggled to his feet and fallen across the clock-case, with the intention, as I shall always believe, of putting back the hand of the clock. I think his dying vision saw me alter it, and his last thought—his last effort—was to thwart my intention to mislead those upon ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... up the garden-path again, meditating a hundred wild plans of escape. Where, where was Alessandro? Why did he not appear for her rescue? Her heart failed her; and when she entered her room, she sank on the floor in a paroxysm of hopeless weeping. If she had known that Alessandro was already a good half-hour's journey on his way to Temecula, galloping farther and farther away from her each moment, she would have ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... of thought broke off short there and was succeeded by a paroxysm of silent hatred towards Haldin, so intense that Razumov hastened ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... by a sudden rush of tears; and Humphrey, flinging down his spade, threw himself along the ground in a paroxysm of unspeakable anguish, choking sobs breaking from him, the unaccustomed ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... unmanly fashion. As his government directed him to turn the Austrian Embassy over to the American Ambassador, it was necessary for Page to call and arrange the details. The interview, as Page's letter indicates, was little less than a paroxysm of grief on the Austrian's part. He denounced Germany and the Kaiser; he paraded up and down the room wringing his hands; he could be pacified only by suggestions from the American that perhaps something might happen to keep Austria out of the war. ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... your mother all alone!" was the reproachful rejoinder. "But you always loved him best; never cared particularly for me; and never will I suppose," she added, going into a stronger paroxysm ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... of the slaveholding Rebel conspiracy, have been disgusted and offended. The Rebels, who supposed Great Britain, and perhaps France also, would join them in a war which was virtually a crusade against free institutions, have been stung into a second paroxysm of madness. Western Europe failed us in the storm; it leaves them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... and had none left. She held her sister in her arms, and soothed her almost unconsciously, as if she had been a little child. But her own thoughts were taking shape quickly, for she was strong; and after the first paroxysm of her grief, she saw the immediate future as clearly as the present. When she spoke again she had the mastery of her voice, and it ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... his private retreat, sound through the vaults, and pierce the grates and iron doors of the seraglio. Democracy seems to revive in a scene of wild disorder and tumult; but both the extremes are but the transient fits of paroxysm or ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... light around her which had an indescribable charm. It was a strange thing to see her there, looking out so serenely on the war of the elements; whilst others wept and raved, no sound was heard from her, and though strong men lay writhing at her feet in a paroxysm of terror, no thrill of fear shook her tender frame; calmly she stood, her white garments shining in the night, like the pure robes of some angel of peace; her sweet face shaded by the golden glory of her long ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... (Latin for "pain of the chest"), a term applied to a violent paroxysm of pain, arising almost invariably in connexion with disease of the coronary arteries, a lesion causing progressive degeneration of the heart muscle (see HEART: Disease). An attack of angina pectoris usually comes on with a sudden seizure of pain, felt at first over the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... the mourners have but just received the news of their bereavement, and are under the operation of a paroxysm of grief, anger and revenge; or, unless the prisoner is very old, sickly, or homely, they generally save him, and treat him kindly. But if their mental wound is fresh, their loss so great that they deem it irreparable, ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... disorder in the breast had put him past all exertion for the space of a year; and, on the 17th of November, 1814, a paroxysm of his malady carried him off, in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various
... had become shapeless from its violence. Deluges of snow are possible. This was one. The paroxysm scourged the shore at the same time that it uptore the depths of ocean. This was, perhaps, the moment when the distracted hooker was going to pieces in the battle ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... she added, and then something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little—a hard, dry, feverish cough. "Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still there, at the Forks?" she asked, after the little paroxysm ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... into a long and uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter, during the intervals of which he said, in broken language, as he walked about the room endeavoring to get breath and recover his self-control, that it was the best thing he had heard since he landed at Liverpool. ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... diversity of his gifts thus distracted him, his emotional experiences, it will appear, were not more favourable to a settled aim and purpose. One paroxysm of passion succeeded another, with the result that he was eventually, in self-preservation, driven to make a complete breach with his past, and to seek deliverance in a new set of conditions under which he might attain the self-control after which he had hitherto vainly striven. This prolonged ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... paroxysm of laughter was over, she fell down on the floor. Her lover would have raised her, when what was his horror to find that he held in his arms an old woman, with frightfully disfigured features, and evidently in the agonies of death. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... heaving himself over on his side, with an ejaculation, poor Murdock began to vomit violently, as Cunningham had done, having evidently, like him, swallowed a great quantity of salt water. For perhaps five minutes the paroxysm continued with severity; then, having rid himself of most of the salt water, the man, between groans, began to ask where he was, and then, as memory returned, informed us that he had received a violent blow on the top of the head which had knocked the senses out of him. Fortunately there ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... speech to have caused the paroxysm of fury that drove the red-haired girl into the middle of the room, almost shouting—"Do you suppose I care what you use? Any ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... her uppish, independent glances upon Eva, and reject at once her appeal and offer. Instead of that—instead of coldness and haughty independence—they saw her, they heard her, suddenly give a shuddering, sobbing sigh, and then, dropping her face into her hands, break down utterly in a paroxysm of tears,—not tears of anger, of violence of any kind, but tears that, like the shuddering, sobbing sigh, seemed to come from a sore heart after ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... great agony from suffocation, until the afternoon of the 23d, when she was seized with the most severe paroxysm she had yet had. Her family gathered about her bed, relieved her as far as it was possible, and saw her sink exhausted into an unconscious state, from which, two hours later, she crossed the threshold of Eternity. Her "precious Nina" ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... come of decent people, and I'll have respect. What have I done that ye should lightly me? What have I done? What have I done? O, what have I done?" and her voice rose upon the third repetition. "I thocht - I thocht - I thocht I was sae happy!" and the first sob broke from her like the paroxysm of some mortal sickness. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... first attention, however, was to the prostrate man. A single glance was sufficient to show that he was dead. His eyes were closed, his hands clenched, and his body was bent as though he had expired in a final paroxysm of agony. The teeth, too, were hard set, and there were certain features about his appearance that caused me to entertain grave suspicion from the first. His thin, consumptive face, now blanched, was strangely drawn, as though the muscles had suddenly contracted, and there was an absence of ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... liberated from its terrible conflict; she was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. For now the thoughts came thickly. It was not in Dorothea's nature, for longer than the duration of a paroxysm, to sit in the narrow cell of her calamity, in the besotted misery of a consciousness that only sees another's lot as an accident of ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... He fought the whole war over. Sometimes he prayed fervently; prayed against his infirmity; prayed that his chains might be broken. Then he would grow calm for awhile. One thing recurred constantly: he had sold his honor, betrayed his cause. This was the order again and again, and each time the paroxysm of frightful fury came on, and it took all of us to hold him. He was covered with snakes: they were chains on his wrists and around his body. He tried to pull them from around him. At last, toward ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... paroxysm had somewhat subsided M. Collot withdrew; but before he went away Bonaparte invited him to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... him a special or peculiar regard. His frankness was indeed sometimes misunderstood, and people occasionally supposed that they had evoked a nearness of feeling, an impassioned quality, which was not really there. "You give away your heart in handfuls," said a friend to him once in a paroxysm of anger, fancying himself neglected; and Hugh felt that it was both just and unjust. He had never, he thought, given his heart away at all, except as a boy to his chosen friend. But he gave a smiling and ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... himself back on his cushions in a paroxysm of laughter, in which even his ancient Secretary was feign ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... course!" yelled Holmes, in a paroxysm of excitement. "Idiot that I was! I thought so much of our visit that the paper never entered my head for an instant. To be sure, the secret must be there." He flattened it out upon the table, and a cry of triumph burst from his lips. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... perceive that une Anglaise could laugh with such abandon. Monsieur they observed looked not sympathetic. Monsieur had an air injured, annoyed, on his dignity. On his cheeks was a flush, as of wounded pride. When at length the paroxysm showed signs of lessening, he spoke in ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... return, and said that by holding her nostrils closed and her mouth open she could, if she felt the paroxysm coming on, sneeze almost noiselessly. She said also that though not related to her by blood Charlie Sands was as dear as her own, and that if turned back she would go to V—— alone and, if captured, at least suffer ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the orchestra seems to tumble head over heels in a paroxysm of delight. The movement closes with prolonged shouts of ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... third stroke, however, he himself fell upon the deck, putting his hands to his stomach and rolling about doubled up almost in two in his agony; although, when the paroxysm of pain had ceased for the moment, he got up on his feet once more and began ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... time to breathe freely, than she changes the wondrous kind aspect of the assembly, and sends it into a paroxysm of fright, by relating her curious adventure among the denizens of the Points. Brother Spyke nearly makes up his mind to faint; the good-natured fat man turns pale; the wise man in the spectacles is seen to tremble; the neatly-attired females, so pious-demeanored, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... of the line of paroxysm-stricken people—not far, not near to that hallowed group for something held them back; but inward gradually until the line, no longer straight, was half a circle, crescent shaped. Louder came that harrowing medley of sounds, its component parts voicing ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Lucan, might have suggested to him a little more truth in this instance, by a celebrated remark which he made on the characteristic distinction of Csar, in comparison with other revolutionary disturbers; for, whereas others had attempted the overthrow of the state in a continued paroxysm of fury, and in a state of mind resembling the lunacy of intoxication, that Csar, on the contrary, among that whole class of civil disturbers, was the only one who had come to the task in a temper of sobriety and moderation, (unum accessisse ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... sea." The victors, intoxicated with their first great success, invested Hadrianople, where were deposited enormous riches. But they were unequal to the task of taking so strong a city; and when the inhabitants aroused themselves in a paroxysm of despair, they raised the siege and departed to ravage the more unprotected West. Laden with spoils, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace, and thence scattered their forces to the confines of Italy. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the Julian ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... of the weapon seemed to throw the guide into a paroxysm of fear. He fell flat on the ground, ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... replenish it before turning in for the night. He took out his tinder-box, in order to get a light, when he happened to look up, and to seaward. And there, before his astonished gaze, he saw a vessel riding at anchor about two miles from the shore. In the first paroxysm of his joy, Roger was about to call aloud, imagining the craft to be one of the vessels of Cavendish's squadron; but on looking again, and studying the craft more closely, he saw that she was altogether different from any of the vessels in ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... driver buttoned the curtains tight about them methodically. The day was very still, not a sound came to them from over the prairie, and of a sudden, startlingly clear, from the house itself there came an interruption: the piteous, hopeless wail of a woman in a paroxysm of grief, and a moment later the voice of another woman ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... in which Lucy now burst into tears betrayed the intensity of the feelings that had been pent up in her bosom, and the relief she found in my assurances. She did not scruple, even, about leaning on my shoulder, so long as the paroxysm lasted. As soon as able to command herself, however, she wiped her eyes, again took my hand with confiding affection, looked anxiously towards me as ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... life-weary, she had crept to the window of her room; then the gladness of the day appeared so indifferent to her sorrow that she had raged hopelessly, helplessly, at the ill fortune which had over-ridden her. This paroxysm of rebellion had left her physically inert, but mentally active. She had surveyed her life calmly, dispassionately, when it seemed that she had been deprived by cruel circumstance of parents, social position, friends, money, love: everything ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the memory of that horrible night before her. She had tried in vain to sleep,—she had made no effort whatever to eat. She knew now why Arthur Morrison had fled away. She knew the cause of that paroxysm of fear in which he had sought her out. The horror of the whole thing had crept into her blood like poison. Life was once more a dreary, profitless struggle. All the wonderful dreams, which had made existence seem almost like ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Soon as our first paroxysm of joy had a little subsided, we moved toward head quarters, where we had the good fortune to fall in with our old friend Col. Semp, who appeared overjoyed to see us, and immediately offered to introduce us to the general. His excellency Horatio Gates was the commander in chief, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... she said burying her face in the pillow and breaking into a paroxysm of tears. "Oh, Miss Belle, how can I tell you," she replied recovering from her sudden outburst ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... left alone with Wieland, the perils of my situation presented themselves to my mind. That this paroxysm should terminate in havoc and rage it was reasonable to predict. The first suggestion of my fears had been disproved by my experience. Carwin had acknowledged his offenses, and yet had escaped. The vengeance which I had harbored had not been admitted by Wieland; ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... in the glare of the sunlight upon what had been the two colossal monarchs of the early world. The dreadful, unrecognizable things still moved, still heaved and twisted ponderously among the bodies of their slain, but it was mere aimless paroxysm, the blind life struggling to resist its final expulsion and dissipation. The wounded Dinoceras drew away, to die or recover as curious Nature might decree. The surviving cows returned to assure themselves that their young had come to no hurt. And the great black bulls ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... anguish he must have been privately enduring while he endeavoured to dress his face with tranquillity and to converse with his accustomed cheerfulness and ease. Smothered grief is one of the most deadly inmates; and it is reasonable to believe that a paroxysm of violent emotion in a moment when solitude gave an opportunity for giving a loose to reflection, operating upon a plethoric habit, occasioned his ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... Occasionally, however, there would be a lucid interval, in which he became for a short time truly conscious and could make sensible and rational remarks. For example, on one occasion when he was in the middle of a paroxysm of loud, violent, and incoherent talk, almost approaching raving, he suddenly turned to his wife or daughter with an apology of bewildering poignancy. "I do wish that man on the sofa would keep quiet. I am afraid his noise worries you. It worries me ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... distant courtesy waited, nibbling a straw, till her paroxysm was over. 'One word, Miss Tuck—Mrs.—Margery,' he then recommenced gravely. 'You'll find me man enough to respect your wish, and to leave you to yourself—for ever and ever, if that's all. But I've just one word of advice to render 'ee. That is, that ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... was of intense darkness. To attempt to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... all nerved up when I cough," she said, lying back exhausted after a paroxysm. "I've got used to it; it don't trouble me no more'n a mosquiter. I want to have a real good night now, talkin' ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... event, its doom is fixed. Like one of those reptiles, which, in the supreme act of hostility, extinguish their own lives inflicting a mortal wound upon their victims, slavery, roused to the final paroxysm of its hate and rage, injects all its venom into the veins of the Union, exhausts itself in ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... more than a thousand years, the unifying principle was the imperial principle. People talk of the Thirty Years' War as having disintegrated Germany. I should say it was the thousand years' war, of which the Thirty Years' War was only the worst excess, the worst paroxysm of that plague of religious dissension with which the Germans are inoculated. And without unity, Germany is a very queer structure. Its owners, or its inhabitants, don't possess it, except in a slight ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... way back from pits of madness, the woman strove to focus her senses, but her wild eyes encountered the dark and crumpled mass on the floor and again a low shriek broke from her. She turned her horrified face away and surrendered to a fresh paroxysm, but at length she stammered between gasps that wrenched her ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... sort was a case at Lyons in 1851. Sixty women were working together in a shop, when one of them, after a bitter quarrel with her husband, fell into a violent nervous paroxysm. The other women, sympathizing with her, gathered about to assist her, but one after another fell into a similar condition, until twenty were thus prostrated, and a more general spread of the epidemic was only prevented by ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he had lain a plan for surprising Charles at Innspruck, and getting possession of his person, and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. These disputes were adjusted in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... thus—radiant—defiant—until there was no longer an echo of footsteps back through the long vaulted corridor of the castle. Then the mocking smile died on her lips and eyes and she threw herself on her couch in a bitter paroxysm of passion. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... In the paroxysm of his rage the feeble old man became almost strong; his grip tightened upon his wife's wrist, and he dragged her violently from ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... fire that instantly kindled my love to madness. Again and yet again I kissed her; I pressed her lips till they were dry and burned like fire, then kissed cheek, forehead, hair, and, casting my arms about her strained her to my breast in a long, passionate embrace; then the violence of the paroxysm was over, and with a pang I released her. She trembled: her face was whiter than alabaster, and, covering it with her hands, she sank down on the sofa. I sat down beside her and drew her head down on my breast, but we remained ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson |
