"Perturbation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... upon him, considering his neurotic temperament. He glanced at the sleeping man on the floor, let the lid down gently, and rolled over on his back. It was an unwonted calm that rested on his face. Not a muscle quivered. There was not the least sign of excitement or perturbation. He lay there a long while, thinking, and when he got up and began to move about, it was in a cool, collected manner, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... the more pungent but comparatively salubrious perfume which a certain handsome little black-and-white quadruped—handsome, but impolite—is given to scattering upon the nocturnal breeze in moments of extreme perturbation. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... and Beranger mingled with the crowd, doing every thing in their power to appease and calm it. It was feared, every moment, that some pistol-shot would strike the duke from his horse. His countenance was pale and care-worn; but there was no visible perturbation. Having with difficulty forced his way through the angry crowd, Louis Philippe alighted from his horse and ascended the stairs. Lafayette, who was already in heart in sympathy with the Orleanist movement, came ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... death would be better far than the continued disdain of the Princess Osra. And all this, being told by the marquis's servants to the princess's waiting-women, reached Osra's ears, and caused her much perturbation. For she now perceived that the passion, of the marquis was real and deep, and she became very sorry for him; and the longer the face of the rascally physician grew, the more sad the princess became; and she walked up and down, bewailing the terrible effects of her beauty, wishing that ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... in at the gate of the Elms, and Geoff saw the high red brick house, surrounded with its walls, like a prison, or like the ogre's castle itself, his perturbation grew to a climax. The vague alarm which takes complete possession of a child when once aroused in him rose higher and higher in his mind. When the lady sprang lightly down, and held out her arms to receive him as he alighted, the little fellow made ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... perfectly indifferent who was found guilty, so that he could recover his money. "Settle it as you will amongst you," said he, "the money must be refunded, or I must have you all before a magistrate directly." Pasgrave, in great perturbation, set out for Mr. Macpherson's, showed him the note, and reminded him of the day when he paid his account. "If you received the note from us, sir," said the master-tailor, very calmly, "it must be entered in our books, for we keep regular accounts." The tailor's foreman, who knew ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... reached London late on that evening in the June of 1907 on her leaving Scotland she found, in response to the wire she had sent him from Edinburgh, Mr. Parsons waiting for her at the station, his astonishment as great as his perturbation. ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... control her perturbation and meet her guest with an unruffled countenance, but there was something about the bland smug countenance of Lieutenant Wainwright that irritated her. To have her first pleasant visit with Cameron suddenly broken up in this ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... matter was impossible. I could not in any reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so horribly conceived. This consideration served to calm the perturbation of my mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the phenomenon in its proper point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my senses, when I could not see the vast difference, in appearance, between the surface below me, and the surface of my ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... "that mighty orb of song," speak of his own divine gift—the gift of Poetry! "These abilities are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, and are of power to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility; to allay the perturbation of the mind, and set the affections to a right tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's Almightiness, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his Church; to sing victorious agonies of Martyrs ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Sacrament, give it to him whose doom is sealed, who in a few hours will be no more. The Bread and the Wine are his immense hope! they seem to stand between him and infinite danger, to soothe pain, to calm perturbation, ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... years—pacing to and fro with rapid and uneven steps. As the man turn'd in his walk, and the glare of the street lamp fell upon his face, the youth, half-benumb'd as his senses were, was somewhat startled at its paleness and evident perturbation. "Come with me!" said the elder brother, hurriedly, "the illness of our little Jane is worse, and I have been sent ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... superstition involved in the belief that a savage roamed a mountain—which was all that Mistress Mac Pholp, depriving the rumour of its richer colouring, ventured to impart as the cause of her children's perturbation; but anything a hair's-breadth out of the common, was a thing hated of Thomas Galbraith's soul, and whatever another believed which he did not choose to believe, he set down at once as superstition. He held therefore immediate communication with his gamekeeper on the subject, who in his turn was ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... finde her the infernall Ate in good apparell. I would to God some scholler would coniure her, for certainely while she is heere, a man may liue as quiet in hell, as in a sanctuary, and people sinne vpon purpose, because they would goe thither, so indeed all disquiet, horror, and perturbation followes her. Enter Claudio and Beatrice, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... getting abroad that the machine was bewitched, or that their Yankee brothers had lawsonized the buyers, when our own David P. Todd, of Amherst, happened along and informed them that the heat-waves which arose from their warm room caused a perturbation in the atmosphere which made star-gazing impossible. At once they made their house over, with openings so as to insure an even temperature, and Prince Fusiyama Noguchi wrote to Professor Todd, making him a Knight of the Golden Dragon on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... he found his wife in a state of perturbation, not over his tardiness, but over the extraordinary behaviour of Uncle Joe. The old man had been out most of the day and had come in at five, growling and cursing with ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... no one else to look after her. She brought her fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation. As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never in her life met any one ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... much perturbation of mind, shuffled down the line and looked through the next brazen tube. "This is a preparation of stomata," he said, recognizing it from a print in ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... August sixteenth, 190—, the guests assembled in Mrs. Ocumpaugh's white and gold music-room were suddenly thrown into confusion by the appearance among them of a young girl in a state of great perturbation, who, running up to the startled hostess, announced that Gwendolen, the petted darling of the house, was missing from the bungalow where she had been lying asleep, and could not be found, though a dozen men had been out ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... for that morning there arrived a letter from Mrs. Leighton written in great perturbation, to the effect that she had heard some very uncomfortable reports about Miss Leigh. Her information was derived from the captain's wife at Liverpool, to whom she had written on Bluebell's obtaining a situation, supposing that, as they had shown her so much kindness, they ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... but cautiously, made his way back to Tom, whom he found in a state of the greatest mental perturbation, owing to ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... we discover an attempt to appear at the altar with becoming decorum: but internal perturbation darts through assumed tranquillity, for though he is plighting his troth to the old woman, his eyes are fixed on the young girl who kneels ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... visible sign of perturbation. He coolly reached out, grasped the bottle that Rogers had been reaching for, and poured some of the amber fluid into one of the glasses. The other men watched him silently—all of them intent to note the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... vessel would be staved against the rock, and I overwhelmed with waters; and for that reason never once attempted to rise up, or look upon my peril, till after the commotion had in some measure ceased. At length, finding the perturbation of the water abate, and as if by degrees I came into a smoother stream, I took courage just to lift up my affrighted head; but guess, if you can, the horror which seized me, on finding myself in the blackest of darkness, unable to perceive the ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan! For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation of mind, 'but, of course, I am an artist,' he observed; 'I have a highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... with dismay which, however, she was careful to conceal. Jeanie heard of the impending visit with as much perturbation as her tranquil nature would allow, and during the day that intervened before his arrival gave herself more sedulously than ever to her task. She had an unhappy premonition that he would desire to examine her upon what she had read, and she was guiltily aware that ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... hunting-gate in the hedge and, without letting his eyes again rest upon her, leapt over and struck out across the down in the direction of Abbot's-Cernel. As he walked his pace showed perturbation, and by-and-by, as if instigated by a former thought, he drew from his pocket a small book, between the leaves of which was folded a letter, worn and soiled, as from much re-reading. D'Urberville opened the letter. It was dated several months before this time, and ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... to continue his observations along this philosophical line, when the manager appeared in much perturbation, approaching the landlord, who, at the same time, had entered the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... resolution, from that time to counterfeit as if he were really and truly mad; thinking that he would be less an object of suspicion when his uncle should believe him incapable of any serious project, and that his real perturbation of mind would be best covered and pass concealed under ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... were as conscious of all the evils they had ever sustained, and of all the friends and companions they had lost, and of all the misery that had befallen them, as if all had happened in that very spot; and especially of the fate of their lord. And because of their perturbation they could not rest, but journeyed forth with the head towards London. And they buried the head in the White Mount, and when it was buried, this was the third goodly concealment; and it was the third ill-fated disclosure when ...
— The Mabinogion • Lady Charlotte Guest
... suspicions. The groups to which the hidden thoughts of psychasthenics, for instance, belong are not many. As soon as our series of words strikes such a group, the reaction of the mind may be discriminated. The effect may be a general perturbation resulting either in an unusual delay of the fitting association or in an effort to cover the sore spot by an unfitting association. Sometimes the dangerous association may rush forward even with ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... that your ladyship should be downcast at the mention of military preparations, whilk I have observed to spread perturbation among women of all nations, and almost all conditions. Nevertheless, Penthesilea, in ancient times, and also Joan of Arc, and others, were of a different kidney. And, as I have learned while I served the Spaniard, the Duke of Alva in former times had the leaguer-lasses who followed ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... and rich of the city, will wait for a poor unknown admirer? Mr. Mellen, I understand, approaches her from every vantage-ground save that of a noble character; but in the fashionable world how little thought is given to this draw back!" and in his perturbation he strode rapidly and aimlessly on, finding some ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Had any counter-orders about the carriage been given? None; it was ordered to be at the door by twelve o'clock. "That was well," Helen said to herself. It would all soon be over. Lady Davenant would be safe, then she could bear all the rest; next she hoped, that any perturbation or extraordinary emotion in herself would not be observed in the hurry of departure, or would be thought natural at parting with Lady Davenant. "So then, I come at every turn to some little deceit," thought she, "and I must, I must!" ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... stayed long, but continued their journey into France. I don't know what became of them. They had been most hospitable, and placed the house and everything in it, even a final dinner, at our disposal; but the poor people were, of course, in a great state of perturbation, and there was not much except the house itself that ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... irresolute, because he knew not what to do: he uttered some incoherent sentences, which discovered at once the joy that he felt, and his sense of its impropriety; and his whole deportment expressed the utmost tumult and perturbation of mind. ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... pressure; fire; rush. acrimony, acritude[obs3]; causiticity[obs3], virulence; poignancy; harshness &c. adj.; severity, edge, point; pungency &c. 392. cantharides; seasoning &c. (condiment) 393. activity, agitation, effervescence; ferment, fermentation; ebullition, splutter, perturbation, stir, bustle; voluntary energy &c. 682; quicksilver. resolution &c. (mental energy) 604; exertion &c. (effort) 686; excitation &c. (mental) 824. V. give -energy &c. n.; energize, stimulate, kindle, excite, exert; sharpen, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Susanna came in greatly flurried, and, catching Eunice's arm, tried to draw her hastily out of the room. Miss Maitland herself had swiftly caught her housemate's perturbation. Indeed, she had already been perturbed when the children intruded upon her, and had, apparently, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... brought Rowland no small perturbation; the more, that what they seemed to point to surprised him. During the nine months of their companionship Roderick had shown so little taste for dissipation that Rowland had come to think of it as a canceled danger, and it greatly perplexed him to learn that his ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... eve of Good Friday, but the 'Golden Canon' had forgotten the season in his perturbation and his desire to show hospitality to a distant cousin newly arrived from America, who was full of curiosity and admiration of the city and cathedral of ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... slowed into the station, smiling anew at little Groper's perturbation. He was quite curious to see the arrivals. Barnet had been the home of his youth, and there might be some one whom he knew. He had half intended, earlier in the day, to go himself to the Reform meeting, but a growing spirit of inaction had made him give up the idea. Yes, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... of delay seemed ominous, and many moments passed. The house grew sepulchral in its silence, and the wind without sighed and moaned as if Nature foreboded and pitied him in view of the overwhelming misfortune impending. At last he sprang up and paced the room in his deep perturbation. As he turned toward the entrance he saw framed in the doorway a picture that appeared like a radiant vision. Miss Hargrove stood there, looking at him so intently that, for a second or two, he stood spell-bound. She was dressed in some white, clinging material, ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... Latin recitation, which came just before closing time at noon, that Cordelia's perturbation culminated in a blunder that sent most of the class into convulsive giggles, and even brought a twitching smile to Genevieve's ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... next few days much perturbation was evinced by the Pickwickians at their leader's continual absence from the society of his admiring friends, and it being unanimously resolved that he should be called upon to explain himself, Mr. Wardle invited the "full circle" to dinner again at Osborne's Hotel to give him the opportunity. ...
— The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick" - With Some Observations on their Other Associations • B.W. Matz
... look upon what seems no mere cleft in a mountain chain, but in the vast globe itself. This huge hollow, brought about by some strange geological perturbation, is the valley of Mnster, no longer a part of French territory, but of Prussian Elsass. The road we have come by lies behind us, but another as formidable winds under the upper mountain ridge towards ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... gave his master something to wipe his face with, and Don Quixote muttered that if this was sweat he was certain it was going to be a horrible adventure. As he was drying his face, he took off his helmet, and when he smelled the curds he turned to Sancho in great perturbation and accused him of having put them there, calling him a traitor and a scoundrel, and threatening to thrash him. But Sancho eyed his master innocently, and blamed it all on the devil or some enchanter, saying that his master might know that if he had had curds, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... soothe him, and it had its effect. As he was entering the governor's house, some one touched a small bell which hung over the door: he started with horror and astonishment; but in a moment after was reconciled to the noise, and laughed at the cause of his perturbation. When pictures were shown to him, he knew directly those which represented the human figure: among others, a very large handsome print of her royal highness the Dutchess of Cumberland being produced, he called out 'woman', a name by which we had just before taught him to call the female convicts. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... wore a peruke, and his hat upon that. He was in a dark suit, plain but rich; and had rings upon his fingers, which I could see as he spoke. He was wonderfully upright for a man of his age; and his face shewed no perturbation at all, though it was more fallen than I ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... the other way, because she felt a need of so doing for a brief space. Her escort strolled placidly at her side, all his perturbation appearing to have vanished into thin air with the satisfactory disposal of the English problem. They came to the top of the street and saw the old town-wall and its towers before them. The sun was very hot indeed, and the tourists in cabs all had ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... San Pasqual, and such was his perturbation that he sought to have "Doc" Taylor unravel ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... with his vividly-coloured existence, with this picturesque and sensuous world of Dutch art and Dutch reality all around that would fain have made him the prisoner of its colours, its genial warmth, its struggle for life, its selfish and crafty love, was but a transient perturbation of the one absolute mind; of which, indeed, all finite things whatever, time itself, the most durable achievements of nature and man, and all that seems most like independent energy, are no more ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... found the great financier in that state of perturbation and perspiration which the political crisis seemed to have rendered chronic. He was, however, sufficiently himself to remember that I ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... strangers it was that caused him the greatest perturbation. He puckered his brows into a frown of deep thought. It was well, thought he, that he had not given way to his first impulse to rush forward and greet these white ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The perturbation in my mind, in regard to thinking about it, being truly dreadful after my lady had gone away, I applied the remedy which I have never yet found to fail me in cases of doubt and emergency. I smoked a pipe and took a turn at ROBINSON ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... juryman asked two searching questions of a witness, she showed no sign of perturbation, and avoided meeting the eyes in the jury-box, as though they belonged to basilisks. Was it only three days since the beginning of this excruciating martyrdom of soul; and how much longer could she endure silently, and ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... that caused Bobby such perturbation came in the morning mail. His friend had laid bare some of the old stories concerning James Bansemer, and cautioned him not to become involved in transactions with the former New Yorker. Harbert's statements were positive in character, and he seemed to know his case thoroughly well. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... waited for him at the Tower stairs, ready at a moment's notice to carry him off again into the decent obscurity of the electorship of Hanover. He could not know the exultation of the metropolitan Jacobites; he could not know the perturbation of the Hanoverian side; he could not know the curious apathy with which a large proportion of the people regarded the whole proceeding, people who were as willing to accept one king as another, and who would have witnessed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... were the widow, Lady Garvington, himself, and his cousin Noel, the little man had no fear of what might be forthcoming, since with relatives there could be no risk of betrayal. All the same, he waited for the reading of the will with some perturbation, for the suggested secrecy hinted at some posthumous revenge on the part of the dead man. And, hardened as he was, Garvington did not wish his wife and Lambert to become acquainted with his delinquency. He was, of course, unaware that the latter knew about it through ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... excitement, and indeed the horses stopped at the house door; a few words were exchanged among the men, and one of them dismounted and knocked loudly. There was no help for it; the General went to open the door. He could scarcely conceal his inward perturbation at the sight of half a dozen gendarmes outside, the metal rims of their caps gleaming like ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... Phoebe's sudden outburst was as great a tax upon her nerves as Mrs. Allen's unwelcome visit. Surely Phoebe had said nothing about a burglar! It was Droop that Mrs. Allen had seen—of course it was. She dared not say so in their visitor's presence, but she wondered mightily at Phoebe's apparent perturbation. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... so shattered Rachel's self-control that she nervously grasped the letter and thrust it into her pocket, as if the mere sight of it would reveal to him the perturbation that ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... slide couldn't have been much more than fourteen or fifteen feet above the prairie-floor, but it seemed perilous enough when I tried it out—much to the perturbation of Whinstane Sandy—by lying stomach-down on Dinkie's coaster and letting myself shoot along that well-iced incline. It was a kingly sensation, that of speed wedded to danger, and it took me back to Davos at a breath. Then I tried it with Dinkie, and then with Poppsy, and then with Poppsy and Dinkie ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... No,—history is a pis-aller. It has assuredly not moved without the relation of cause and effect; it is a record of social growth and its conditions; but it is also a record of interruption and misadventure and perturbation. You trace the long chain which has made us what we are in this aspect and that. But where are the dropped links that might have made all the difference? Ubi sunt eorum tabulae qui post vota nuncupate perierunt? Where is the fruit ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... rang when she was ready for Beth to come. In the midst of the talk and laughter in the drawing-room the little bell suddenly sounded emphatically, and Beth fled. She found Aunt Victoria out on the landing in her petticoat and dressing-jacket, and without her auburn front, a sign of great perturbation. She had heard Beth's voice in the drawing-room, and proceeded to admonish her severely. But Beth heard not a word; for the sight of the old lady's stubbly white hair had plunged her into a reverie, and already, when the vision and the dream were upon her, no Indian ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... command. In the gathering dusk his face looked white and drawn, and old Wilkins, breasting his way up the slope, puffed hard, as he begged for news. There was still another despatch, however, which was evidently adding to the major's perturbation, for it concerned him personally and for the moment ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... be said that parents must take upon themselves the burden of instructing their children in sexual hygiene or shift it upon the shoulders of the family physician, who can undertake it with much less mental perturbation and with more intelligence. Otherwise they subject their offspring to the possibility of incalculable suffering, disease, and even death—largely ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... drew her long lips together, her eyebrows lifted with the faintest perturbation. 'But he certainly knows my name,' she said to herself. She turned once more, and in the still autumnal beauty, beneath that pale blue arch of evening, these two human beings confronted one another again. She eyed him blandly, yet ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... returned; but Alice thought not—at least she did not see her. But she lay in great excitement and perturbation; and was terrified, about an hour later, by a knock at her chamber door—not that opening into Una's room, but upon the little passage from the stone screw staircase. She sprang from her bed; but the door was secured on the inside, and she felt relieved. The knock was repeated, and she ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... was in a state of very great perturbation on her own account. The reader may perhaps remember that she had been much startled by a proposition that had been made to her in reference to her future life. Her aunt had suggested to her that she should become—Mrs. Gibson. She had not as yet given any ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of | their own countries amongst other nations, | better again and more worthy must that | aspiring be which seeketh the | amplification of the power and kingdom of | mankind over the world; the rather because | the other two prosecutions are ever | culpable of much perturbation and | injustice; but this is a work, truly | divine which cometh IN AURA LENI {51} | 51. 1 Kings 19,12 (Vulgata) without noise or observation{52}. | 52. St Luke 17,20: | Authorized Version: And when he was The access also to this work hath been ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... later, the young man came running to the physician's house in a great perturbation. "What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "Here was I to be set free from the bondage of sin; and I have just committed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... punctual, and, as always of late, flurried, excited, nervous—not, in fact, it appeared to me precisely in his right mind. The dinner passed off as dinners usually do, and the after-proceedings went on very comfortably till about half-past nine o'clock, when Dutton's perturbation, increased perhaps by the considerable quantity of wine he had swallowed, not drunk, became, it was apparent to everybody, almost uncontrollable. He rose—purposeless it seemed—sat down again—drew out his watch almost every minute, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... enormous force of will was required to keep her perturbation down. She had not distinctly told Picotee of the object of the viscount's visit, but Picotee guessed nearly enough. Ethelberta was upon the whole better pleased that the initiative had again come from him than if the first step in the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... what I thought of pirates and their pranks. If the approaching craft was not a pirate, he said, her movements at least bespoke her bent on no good. The little craft was now seen to sheer, which caused the major's perturbation to become irresistible; and suddenly putting his hands to his lips, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Ho, strange ship! Whence come you? and what want you, that you steer right in our way? Bear away, there, or may the devil take me but you'll get the worst of it, for this is the Two ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... written? He didn't want to hear from her, didn't want to be reminded of her existence. He wanted instead distinctly to forget there was a Madeline Taylor and that he had been fool enough to make love to her once. Nevertheless he opened the letter and pulled his forelock in perturbation as ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... nothing for slavery, and would never bear arms against the South, if she saw fit to "set up Government business for herself." He rather guessed war was a speculation that wouldn't pay. His volubility increased with his perturbation, and then he drank excessively and sang Dixie. When we reached Richmond, he was ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... they did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man, (for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear, and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... unfolded, I could not put it in my bosom without alarming her ears, as my sudden motion did her eyes—Up she flew in a moment: Traitor! Judas! her eyes flashing lightning, and a perturbation in her eager countenance, so charming!—What have you taken up?—and then, what for both my ears I durst not have done to her, she made no scruple to seize the stolen letter, though ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... angels which Correggio loved to paint: at others, I imagine that the woman whom he might have taught to love him to distraction is scourging him through all eternity. Where he was unjust was in making his reason, which was in nowise to blame, suffer for the perturbation of his uneasy nature (or spirit). He practised the studied absurdity of Tertullian and emulated the exaltation of St. Paul. His lectures on philosophy were an absolute travesty, as his contempt for philosophy was made apparent in every sentence; ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... the pleasures of the senses? And are not the pleasures of the intellect greater than the pleasures of the affections? Is not knowledge a true and only natural pleasure, whereof there is no satiety? Is it not knowledge that doth alone clear the mind of all perturbation? How many things are there which we imagine not? How many things do we esteem and value otherwise than they are! This ill-proportioned estimation, these vain imaginations, these be the clouds of error that turn ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... distracted him. Of course, their mother saw that something was amiss, but did not allude to it, hoping that the cloud would blow over as so many did if left alone. But this one did not, and when both refused cake, this sure sign of unusual perturbation made her anxious to know the cause. As soon as tea was over, Jack retired with gloomy dignity to his own room, and Frank, casting away the paper he had been pretending to read, burst out with the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... established what he called the "triumvirate" government in the provinces, and declared war on the Americans. His operations in this direction were mostly limited to sending crackbrained letters to the Civil Governor in Manila from his "camp in the sky," but his perturbation of the rural districts had to be suppressed. At length, after a long search, he was taken prisoner at the cockpit in Mariveles in May, 1904. He and his confederates were brought to trial on the two counts of carrying arms without licence and sedition, the revelations of the "triumvirate," ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... ill and worried. His scraggy neck rising far above an evening collar too low for him seemed to betray by its stringy workings the perturbation of his spirit. His carroty thatch no longer crisp from the careful military cut had grown into a kind of untamable towslement. The last month or two had aged him. He was the last person one would have imagined to be a distinguished soldier in the ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... been in the best position for seeing the flight of the arrow and the fall of the victim in Section II. Had she seen them? The continued jigging of the small, wiry curls hanging out from either side of her old-fashioned bonnet would seem to betray an inner perturbation indicative of some hitherto suppressed information. At all events Mr. Gryce allowed himself this hope and was most bland and encouraging in his manner as he showed her the place which had been assigned her on the chart drawn up by Sweetwater, and ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... it amused my father? Boy that I was, I saw no further. I must own I myself was dazzled, and, perhaps with childlike malice, delighted at the perturbation of my betters. The young carp was pleased to see the waters so playfully in movement when the old carp waved his tail and swayed ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... what were, to him, almost inappreciable degrees. He took in her hints so slowly. He was not sure from moment to moment whether or not she was in earnest. Nevertheless, I recognised, I thought, at least one cause for perturbation. He had been perceptibly ruffled and uneasy at the reference to an understanding between his son and Brenda. Probably the fear of that complication had been in his mind for ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... A universal perturbation followed her progress up the aisle, if she had known it. She was small and fair, very daintily and beautifully made; a pretty Marquise whose head Greuze should have painted. Mrs. Columbus Landis, wife of the proprietor of the Palace Hotel, conferring with a lady in the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... at the clock by her bedside. It was three o'clock. She said to herself, with that air of irony which people to whom many strange things have happened assume when they fear that yet another is approaching, so that they shall not flatter Fate by their perturbation, "It's late ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... to see this young man again!" This came from Mrs Baggett, who had been in great perturbation all the morning. The Sergeant had slept in the stables through the night, and had had his breakfast brought to him, warm, by his own wife; but he had sat up among the straw, and had winked at her, and had asked her to give him threepence of gin with the cat-lap. To this she ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope
... population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs as on the wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom doors, and trampling overhead, and some knocking about of Master Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her spirits, the black bombazeen garments of the worthy old lady darkened the audience-chamber where Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant arm-chair ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... cause for grief and occasional perturbation of spirits in the Stanhope family, but yet they rarely seemed to be grieved or to be disturbed. It was the peculiar gift of each of them that each was able to bear his or her own burden without complaint, and perhaps without sympathy. They habitually looked on the sunny side of the wall, if there ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... little Arctic flowers already rearing their heads to the Spring sunlight. I called Elza's attention to them. A vague apprehension was within me; my heart was pounding unreasonably. But this was Dr. Brende's affair, not mine; and I wanted to hide my perturbation ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... which the new tragedy had been advertised was not without result. To me, unused as I was to theatre-going, the host of people, the hot air, the glare of the gas-lights were intoxicating. In a flutter of anxiety for Tom's success, of sweet perturbation at the prospect of meeting Claire, at first I could grasp but a confused image of the scene. By degrees, however, I began to look about me, and then to scan the audience narrowly for sight of ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the woman, but we think it useless to publish them. All practitioners have more or less observed them, and it will only be necessary for them to call upon their memories to supply what our silence leaves. 'However, it is not difficult to conceive,' says Dr. Francis Devay, 'the degree of perturbation that a like practice should exert upon the genital system of woman by provoking desires which are not gratified. A profound stimulation is felt through the entire apparatus; the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries enter into a state of orgasm, a storm which ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... a press of work there would be at the hospital, I walked up there in the afternoon, and asked to be made useful. No doubt out of good feeling, the Boers did not shell at all that day till late evening, but at the hospital all was sad perturbation. There had only been time to attend to the worst cases, and the poor nurses were just sitting down to snatch a hasty meal. The matron asked me if I would undertake the management of a convalescent home that had to be ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... pride" which is inculcated upon every woman, and yet was something different. Lucy would have died rather than give Lady Randolph ground to suppose that she had quarrelled with her husband, and as she could not explain the matter to her, it was necessary to efface all signs of perturbation as far as that was possible. The elder lady was reading her letters when Lucy came in, but she raised her eyes at once with the keenest watchfulness. Young Lady Randolph was pale—but at no time had she much colour. She came in quite simply, without any explanation or ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... my dear father, the serenity of your brow, like a mild evening-sun, sooths the perturbation of my mind. I see that all is peace within. This single moment of joy would repay an age ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... he was, seated side by side with Honnor Cunyngham, talking to her, listening to her, and with no sort of perturbation whatever. He began to ask himself whether he had ever been in love with her—whether he had not rather been in love with her way of life and its surroundings. He was thinking not so much of her as her departure on the morrow, and the scenes that lay beyond. Why had he not L10,000 a year—L5000—nay, ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... rye whisky and peppermint which, when it arrived at the proper sirupy condition, was to be administered as a soothing potion to the hoarse throat of Peyton Kendrick, who perched croaking on a chair close by, drove him to seeking comfort from Phoebe much to her apparent amusement but secret perturbation, for Phoebe both comprehended ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Frank, in great perturbation, "I beg your pardon, but you have been grossly misinformed. I have known that excellent man these twenty years, and have paid him hundreds on hundreds; but never so much by ten per cent. as you offered me for discounting ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... were not uncouth as he launched them at the older man, and he was no longer careless as he watched the perturbation with which they were received. But Haydon shrugged his shoulders and attempted ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... dances. He agreed to attend, adding his own emphasis to the reason as stated. Katharine filled out his card for him, allowing him three dances with herself. The evening began in misery for the woman-hater, and ended in perturbation of spirit. There were girls, oceans of them, and not one of them had any sense. Katharine was different. These girls didn't know when they were joshed, and they couldn't josh back. They were an uninteresting lot. She had filled his card with ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... commanding looked up from the morning report and surveyed the post adjutant with something of perturbation, if not annoyance, in his grim, gray eyes. For the fourth time that week had Lieutenant Field requested permission to be absent for several hours. The major knew just why the junior wished to go and where. The major knew just ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... [in great perturbation]. I really can't believe this, O'Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... violent revolution, the leaders of society seem suddenly to disappear, and the powers of the human mind to lie concealed. Society is convulsed by great parties, by minor ones it is agitated; it is torn by the former, by the latter it is degraded; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary perturbation, those invariably disturb it ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... favourite to rest; but the narrative of wonders and novelties filled his mind with perturbation. He revolved all that he had heard, and prepared innumerable questions ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry—determined to make a day of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... blows. But that which it behoves the physician to see, not, indeed, with his bodily eye, but with clear, intellectual vision, is a process, and the chain of causation involved in that process. Disease, as we have seen, is a perturbation of the normal activities of a living body, and it is, and must remain, unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant of the nature of these normal activities. In other words, there could be no real science of pathology until the science of physiology had reached a degree of perfection ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... several of these men change countenance when I favor them with a glance. Whether this peculiar reddening of the face among the Afghans comes of embarrassment, or what it is, it always impresses me as much like the "perturbation of a wild animal at finding himself suddenly confronted with a ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... caresses. Everything seemed to be unfixed, uncertain; it was like being on the platform of a railway-station waiting for a train. In all this time, the agitated, nervous presence of my Father, whose pale face was permanently drawn with anxiety, added to my perturbation, and I became miserable, stupid—as if I had lost my ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... D'Effernay. "No! no! no!" he cried, while the captain's growing suspicions increased every moment, on account of the perturbation which his companion displayed. "I never gave his medicines; whoever says ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... Constance was herself once more. Poor Mrs. Aliston, sitting aloof, and almost abandoned during the days of her niece's perturbation of mind, was the first to receive the benefit of the returning sunshine. Constance, for reasons which any woman can guess, had kept her anxiety, concerning Doctor Heath, a profound secret from this good lady; and she, watching the ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... believe that Tish had a premonition of trouble then, for during their conversation aside she got out her knitting, always with her an indication of perturbation or of deep thought, and she spoke rather sharply to Aggie about rinsing the luncheon dishes more thoroughly. Aggie said afterward that she herself had felt at that time that peculiar itching in the palms of her hands which always ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and Burns elucidate this erroneous hypothesis of the poet. We pass lightly their misrule of themselves with a tacit assumption of their genius having shaken and shocked their moral faculties as in some giant perturbation. ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of people left in the great glass-roofed hall piled with bags of wool and sulphur, Mr. Twist went up boldly and asked if they were intending to meet some young ladies called Twinkler. His tone, owing to perturbation, was rather more than one of inquiry, it almost sounded menacing; and the answers he got were cold. He wandered about uncertainly from group to group, his soft felt hat on the back of his head and his brow getting more and ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... to convey to the reader who has never found himself circumstanced as we were an understanding of our perturbation of mind and body upon reaching the summit of the mountain: breathless with excitement—and with the altitude—hearts afire and feet nigh frozen. What should be done on top, what first, what next, had been carefully planned and even rehearsed, ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea. Peace is joy beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... regards the pupil in amazement mixed with anxiety. His emotion is beyond speech. He turns and leaves the room. In his perturbation he even forgets to kiss the mezuzah[2] on the doorpost. The pupil feels reproved and yet somehow in the right. Who did make God? But if the rebbe will not tell—will not tell? Or, perhaps, he does not know? ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... unconscious of, or indifferent to, the close proximity of the velvet curtains. A thrifty housewife, could she have seen the smoke rise and curl and lose itself in the folds above, would have experienced the ecstasy of anxiety and perturbation. But there was no thrifty housewife at the Red Chateau, nothing but ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... as brave as most lads of his age, but as he lay there, startled into a sudden wakefulness, it was impossible to help thinking of Adela's words spoken that morning and his own light remarks, and for a time he felt in a strange state of perturbation. ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... his mother's complaint. Janice felt some little perturbation. It increased as Uncle Jason's absence continued. When finally he opened the door suddenly and almost staggered into the kitchen, his face blanched and his eyes expressing an emotion that she could not ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... Wherefore are we in mighty perturbation, Amazed, distraught and filled with consternation. Thus do our bells ring out their wild alarms, Our civic bands do muster under arms; Drums shall be drummed the countryside around, Until our truant Duchess we ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... momentum in the solar system could be tampered with is by the interference of some external attracting body. We know, however, that the stars are all situated at such enormous distances, that the influences they can exert in the perturbation of the solar system are absolutely insensible; they are beyond the reach of the most delicate astronomical measurements. Hence we see how the endowment of the system with moment of momentum has conferred upon that system a something which is absolutely ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... 'The game is in my hands, and will probably remain there for a considerable period. But I do not wish to be unkind. You have, I am given to understand, a highly respectable uncle and a very charming sister, who will no doubt suffer much perturbation owing to your mysterious disappearance. Now, you may not think it, but I am a very humane sort of fellow. Consequently, I am quite agreeable that you should write them a brief note, omitting of course all superfluous information, such as dates, ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... most singular imaginable, and the perturbation of spirit in which he must return when it begins to grow dusk, and he reflects at once upon his own value, and his countrymen's taste for appropriation, must balance the enjoyment which his vanity receives from the admiration of the little ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... contraction of his features, his gloomy manner, and the occasional shudder which he could not repress, all betrayed his secret perturbation. ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... in a menacing form in Parliament; and though at that time Bengal was not struck at, there was a charge of bribery and peculation brought against the Governor of Madras. With this dread, with a mind full of anxiety and perturbation, he writes a letter, as he pretends, on the 22d of May, 1782. Your Lordships will remark, that, when he came down to Calcutta from his expedition up the country, he did not till the 22d of May give any account whatever of these ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... down the contract of association with them as I thought proper. No sooner had I done it, but I felt great perturbation and trouble of mind. I told her my pain, and that I had no doubt but the Lord demanded me at Geneva, yet did not let me see that He would have me to be of their congregation. She desired to have some time till after prayers and communion, and that then she ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... word of it until I have undoubted evidence of the fact. It can't be!" said Paul, pacing the floor in considerable perturbation of mind. ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... had passed when the voice of the old woman came from the top of the stair, calling aloud and in perturbation, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and generally less than a week—become eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her—one of those antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, perhaps, inappropriate in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... little creature in his hands like a toy, and I begin to fear lest I should have caused some perturbation in his mind. I do not trouble my head about this little Japanese girl. But Yves—it would be decidedly wrong on his part, and would greatly ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... of man. The embroidered collar, which she had been vigorously beating, dropped to the floor, and she gazed at him with such terror and dismay in every lineament, that he could not help being amused. He picked up the collar, which, in her perturbation, she had not noticed, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... evident perturbation caused her to forget the disclosure Captain Dan had been about to make. By the time she remembered to ask about it the captain had decided not to tell. He fabricated some excuse or other, and the excuse was ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln
... was almost day. The east glowed opalescent. All about him Annixter saw the land inundated with light. But there was a change. Overnight something had occurred. In his perturbation the change seemed to him, at first, elusive, almost fanciful, unreal. But now as the light spread, he looked again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanciful. The change was real. The earth was no longer bare. The land ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Lobo, in great perturbation, "I see dat you know all about me, so I will be perfectly open and frank wid you. I do know Matadi. He is a very powerful chief, de head of a tribe numbering quite t'ree t'ousand warriors; and his chief town is far up de river—four, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... hour earlier as the fete was to begin at half-past two. "Heavens," said Mme. Styvens with perturbation, "I shall ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... from the chapel; and at the same moment, no doubt, Doctor Giordano must have returned with Donna Serafina, for both were now there, she stupefied by the blows which had thus fallen on the house in her absence, whilst he, the doctor, displayed the perturbation and astonishment which comes upon the oldest practitioners when facts seem to give the lie to their experience. However, he sought an explanation of Benedetta's death, and hesitatingly ascribed it to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Long Island is the discourse of which East Hampton is the peroration. There are enough bluffs to relieve the dead level, enough grass to clothe the hills, enough trees to drop the shadow, enough society to keep one from inanity, and enough quietude to soothe twelve months of perturbation. The sea hums us to sleep at night, and fills our dreams with intimations of the land where the harmony is like "the voice of many waters." In smooth weather the billows take a minor key; but when the storm gives them the pitch, they break forth with the clash and uproar of an overture ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... may be within our reach again. We had better not be seen much together. I will reward you well for any real service," and he strode away in strong perturbation. ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... have been any heartburnings or regrets or perturbation of spirit. Mr. M. would have felt ashamed of his outbreak and apologized to her and to the untroubled Tommy, and gone downstairs, and eaten his stewed prunes with an humble and ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... perturbation, still gazed at Florence. She fixed her eyes, out of which all threat ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... late experiences and conflicts, Dorothy had gained much enlightenment. She had learned that well-being is a condition of inward calm, resting upon yet deeper harmonies of being, and resulting in serene activity, the prevention of which natural result reacts in perturbation and confusion of thought and feeling. But for many sakes the thought of home was in itself precious and enticing to her. It was full of clear memories of her mother, and vague memories of her father, not to mention memories of the childhood Richard and she had spent together, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... expected by the garrison, and the information of her capture excited a considerable degree of perturbation. This event, with the erection of some works on the high cliff at the light house, by which the island battery was much annoyed, and the preparations evidently making for a general assault, determined Duchambon, the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... went slowly on towards the sea town. The road was speckled with home goers, single and in groups, holding a quiet Sunday pace to their dinners. Suddenly Duncan grasped Malcolm's arm with the energy of perturbation, almost of fright, and said in a ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... near connection. The thing that had occurred was to be told to this cousin, and Phineas left his address, so that if it should be thought necessary he might be called upon to give his account of the affair. Then, in his perturbation of spirit, he asked for a glass of brandy; and having swallowed it, was about to take his leave. "The brandy wull be saxpence, sir," said Mrs. Macpherson, as she wiped the tears from ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... far-reaching as the secession of Newman and the fall of Sir Robert, coupled as these public events were with certain importunities of domestic circumstance of which I shall have more to say by and by, brought Mr. Gladstone to an epoch in his life of extreme perturbation. Roughly it may be said to extend from 1845 ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... it, is also much in Nature, because it shews a Perturbation of Mind, very much to be expected at such an Incident. For he must know, being a Scholar, (as they term him) that Spirits could not be stopp'd ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... refused to explain. It was time for Virginia to make herself ready, and here arose a new perturbation; what had she suitable for wear under such circumstances? Monica had decked herself a little, and helped the other to make the best of her narrow resources. At four o'clock they ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... Perhaps he saw her perturbation, for after a moment he turned from her to Nap and very deliberately engaged him in conversation, while Bertie, very pale but quite collected, sat down by her and ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell |
