"Qualm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... boring his audience. One familiar with the trade of electioneering, as it has always been conducted by men, would strut and shout and brag, never for a moment worrying whether or not he came anywhere near the truth or feeling the slightest qualm, though he deafened his hearers with his trumpeting or bored them to complete extinction, and would refuse to be silenced even ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... his sirens than on the modest wimples of the Wise Virgins? "The general end of the book," he tells us in his Dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh, "is to fashion a gentleman of noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." But a little further on he evidently has a qualm, as he thinks how generously he had interpreted his promise of cuts: "To some I know this method will seem displeasant, which had rather have good discipline delivered plainly in way of precepts or sermoned at large,[299] as they use, than thus cloudily enwrapped in allegorical devices." Lord Burleigh ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... Today she was afraid of being noticed. She had a queer feeling that these smart, clever people in the Park might see through her, if they stared too closely. Just what they would discover she did not know; but she suffered a disquieting qualm of uneasiness whenever she saw any one ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... that before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm; But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... the gulf behind him thrust him on; he was one of those who might commit a murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch—necessity stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I used to wonder whether I more admired or more despised this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hard to read the secret of this change. It was not merely that Time, the great assuager, had begun to do its work with him, but that he had brought himself to accept without qualm or question Mary O'Neill's beautiful belief (the old, old belief) in the immortality of personal love, and was firmly convinced that, freed from the imprisonment of the flesh, she was with him every day and hour, and that as long as he ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride, Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons of Pride; The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel a sicklier qualm, And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm, When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on their wing, And hear her loyal soldier's shout, 'For God ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... tense silence that followed the challenge Lindsey bit clean through his cigar. Terry's answer was so long in coming that the trio of Americans who listened experienced something of the faint qualm which sickens a man when he witnesses another's backing-down. Finally he spoke, slowly, his measured words scarcely audible above the muffled beat ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... seem to be, Evelyn?" I asked, conquering a qualm of feeling at these words, and inexpressibly interested in ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... into which having emptied a rich stew from an iron pot, he placed them before his guests, and made them a sign to fall to. This they were not slack to obey, for all were desperately hungry. No one inquired of what it was composed, though a qualm came over the feelings of Devereux, who was likely to be the most particular, as he hooked up what certainly looked very like the body and feet of a lizard. However, he said nothing, and minced up the remainder of his portion before he examined it. O'Grady made some ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... brush it away with my hand, but in a moment it returned, and almost immediately came another by my ear. I struck at this, and caught something threadlike. It was drawn swiftly out of my hand. With a frightful qualm, I turned, and I saw that I had grasped the antenna of another monster crab that stood just behind me. Its evil eyes were wriggling on their stalks, its mouth was all alive with appetite, and its vast ungainly claws, smeared ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... "I had a qualm or two when I was sure of the place; but then it was over. It's far worse for you than for me. And I told you I've been learning from you a lesson of cheerfulness. I was merely ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... answer you implicitly admit that you see no good. Have you then no remorse for frittering away such a precious gift of God as time? If the damned got five minutes of that time to repent, every chamber in hell would be empty. Yet you squander months and years without a qualm. ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... appearing to her children, a true Goddess, a mother of solace and comfort. Toad now knew well that he had not been really hungry before. What he had felt earlier in the day had been a mere trifling qualm. This was the real thing at last, and no mistake; and it would have to be dealt with speedily, too, or there would be trouble for somebody or something. He looked the gipsy over carefully, wondering vaguely whether it would be easier to fight him or cajole him. So there he sat, and sniffed ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... no satisfaction of weakening nerve, but in her heart she kept hidden a qualm as the time lengthened and a number of the men went on drinking ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely gone for the key of the house. But the child is a sort of homily to me. He is perfectly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... keep my word; but you will bury me in the Atlantic, so make up your minds to it. Do you suppose that I, a poor, used-up old invalid, who can't look at a sail-boat without a qualm, can survive thirty days of standing on my head, and thirty nights of sail-splitting, as we go slamming and lurching across two or three awful oceans?' demanded Lavinia, with the ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... economic development and so forth — which required association with allies as doubtful as Napoleon III, and robberies with violence on a very extensive scale. As long as he could argue that his opponents were wicked, he could join in robbing and killing them without a qualm; but it might happen that the good were robbed. Education insisted on finding a moral foundation for robbery. He could hope to begin life in the character of no animal more moral than a monkey unless he could satisfy himself when and why robbery and murder were a virtue and duty. Education founded ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... this, Montague received a telephone message from Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter of business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague went—though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity Building, the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls of white marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to Montague that somewhere in this structure people were at work preparing an answer to his charges; he wondered ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... to follow, when a qualm of conscience seized her. She had not delivered Miss Strong's message to Bess, and it would perhaps be as well to ascertain that the latter had not strayed unwarned ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Cleveland to live and die a Gothamite. With sublime disregard for the thing called conscience, Courtney included this new debt in the list to be prepared for his father, and permitted the old gentleman to settle without so much as a qualm of self-reproach. He considered it high finance, I believe. His brothers lived up to his estimate of their astuteness by never even thinking of a ruse so clever. Corky congratulated himself on getting a long start over them. Moreover, ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... safe within reach of French authority. Ay, but he should not go alone; in the depths of those forests, beyond the arm of the law, beyond even the grasp of the Church, we should be together. In our own hearts love would justify. Without a qualm of conscience, without even a lingering doubt, I made ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... while she wondered, with a qualm of anxiety, if her ring was safe. She dared not even feel of her pocket under her dress. Whenever she thought of it Miss Tabitha seemed to be looking straight at her. Poor Comfort had a feeling that Miss Tabitha ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... who seemed to have lost all diffidence of him, and treated him with an easy familiarity that showed itself in his slapping him on the shoulder and making dints in his hat. Trannel seemed to enjoy these caresses, and, when they parted again for the afternoon's sight-seeing, Ellen had no longer a qualm in letting Boyne drive ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... by the rules the enemy himself laid down," Lanyard returned. "They would have sunk us without one qualm of pity—would, in all probability, have shelled our boats had any succeeded in getting off. They have done as much before, and will again. It is out of reason to insist that the captain risk his ship in the hope of picking up one or ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... for him, in one of the unoccupied cabins. But he woke before day with a feeling of intense prostration, a violent headache, and such an aversion for the mere idea of food that Feliu's invitation to breakfast at five o'clock gave him an internal qualm. Perhaps a touch of malaria. In any case he felt it would be both dangerous and useless to return to town unwell; and Feliu, observing his condition, himself advised against the journey. Wednesday he would have another opportunity ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... Poussette's history seemed to prepare the way for Pauline's. Meanwhile Dr. Renaud had spoken to madame, and within an hour she was ready, and, being driven to Lac Calvaire, entered upon her labours without qualm ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... you—and you got it," said P. Sybarite callously, with never a qualm of shame for the apathy with which he contemplated this second tragedy in ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... attraction of novelty; it had been one of a series, all bearing a strong connecting likeness. There had been small unrepaid loans which Elaine would not have grudged in themselves, though the application for them brought a certain qualm of distaste; with the perversity which seemed inseparable from his doings, Comus had always flung away a portion of his borrowings in some ostentatious piece of glaring and utterly profitless extravagance, which outraged all the canons of her upbringing without bringing him an atom of understandable ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... would have been damnable of me to hint at scandal of years gone by. I received them both and gave them my paralytic blessing, and Leonard Boyce accepted it with the air of a man who might have been blessed, without a qualm of conscience, by the Third Person of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... rather anxiously; for, now that I came to think of eating at all, I felt all the hungrier, although until Tim asked me the question I had not once thought about the matter, nor experienced the slightest qualm from that neglected little stomach ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... in toward the shore I perceived, with a momentary qualm of uneasiness, that quite a considerable number of natives was turning out to meet them; but upon bringing the ship's telescope to bear upon the beach my uneasiness was to a considerable extent dissipated, ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... treacherous institutions which, after giving the spirit a momentary expression, had become an offence to both spirit and flesh. Observers at the time may lament the collapse of so much elegance and greatness; but nature has no memory and brushes away without a qualm her card-castle of yesterday, if a new constructive impulse possesses ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... it be the same when hours and days of fasting had hollowed his cheeks, and given to his eyes the glare which he had seen in many a wretched peasant's eyes in those distant lands? Would she still be able to face that sight without flinching, to view his sufferings without a qualm, and turn, firm in her cruel purpose, from the ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... when I have told you a lie, lest you should take me for a chambermaid, or Charles Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age? How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... tones of one of his inspired hours. At the entrance to the sick chamber he clung for a moment to the door, gazing at the wild-eyed women who knelt about the room, their frightened eyes fixed on his father. His knees shook under him. He had a qualm of nausea at the slimy images of corruption and decay which the minister was trumpeting forth as the end ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... tiny little qualm which had been furtively worming into Arlee's thrill of adventure. Nothing very strange or out-of-the-way, she thought, could be connected with such a modern car; it presented every symptom of effete civilization. Against the upholstery of delicate gray flamed ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... must not aspire To bliss, which mortals never knew before. On trembling wings let youthful fancy soar, Nor always haunt the sunny realms of joy: But now and then the shades of life explore; Though many a sound and sight of woe annoy, And many a qualm of ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... Monny's envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... dazed by the misery of her darkness. It was only then that I realised the part the child had played in her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without a qualm. She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of passion. She had returned to me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child alone the passionate human love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden in her soul. And now the child ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... drawing-room and again found much that interested him. He felt no twinge of pity at the thought that Solomon White would very soon exchange this almost luxury for the bleak discomfort of a prison cell, and not even the sight of the girl who came through the door to greet him brought him a qualm. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... me," he said, reassuring himself, in spite of an inward qualm of misgiving. "I am glad I arranged to stay on. I will speak to her this afternoon. She has become much softened, and we will bury the past and make a fresh ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... came early. The Governor, either by qualm of conscience or further freak of selfishness, got him the place of head of the Oomana, the three Administrators of Customs at Tangier. He held the post six months only, to the complete satisfaction of the Kaid, but amid the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... the cazi rested his chin on the breast of deliberation; and, after due consideration, raised it, and said: "Be it known to you, who were lavish in your praise of the rich, and spoke disparagingly of the poor, that there is no rose without its thorn; intoxication from wine is followed by a qualm; hidden treasure has its guardian dragon; where the imperial pearl is found, there swims the man-devouring shark; the honey of worldly enjoyment has the sting of death in its rear; and between us ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... no qualm of fear, no doubt, even, touching the issue. Not that I was an habitual ferrailleur. As I have indicated, I had fought but one man in all my life. Nor yet am I of those who are said to know no fear under any circumstances. Such men are not truly brave; they are stupid and unimaginative, ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... were there received by the Pope Honorius with great respect; and continued there all the winter. In this same year was so great a flood on St. Laurence's day, that many towns and men were overwhelmed, and bridges broken down, and corn and meadows spoiled withal; and hunger and qualm (153) in men and in cattle; and in all fruits such unseasonableness as was not known for many years before. And this same year died the Abbot John of Peterborough, on the second day before the ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... the wind and sea ran tolerably high, and of course everybody mostly was tolerably sick. One day's ordeal sufficed for Edith's tribute to old Neptune; after that, she never felt a qualm. A great deal of her time was spent in waiting upon Aunt Chatty and Trix, both of whom were very far gone indeed. In the case of Miss Stuart, the tortures of jealousy were added to the tortures of sea-sickness. Did Sir Victor walk with the young ladies ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... him furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then, rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... real reform or by pity for the peasants. She had the heavy whip—the knout—applied to the bared backs of earnest reformers. Her court was scandalously immoral, and she violated the conventions of matrimony without a qualm. For some excuse or another, the promised constitution was never written, and the lot of the serfs tended to become actually worse. To the governor of Moscow, the tsarina wrote: "My dear prince, do ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... Only last night I was bewailing the dulness and the dirt of it all, and the general absurdity and discomfort, and now without one qualm I confess I would willingly exchange yesterday's uncertainty for to-day's certainty—that we are all going to be made into mincemeat. But I do not even feel serious or desperate now; it has ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... alone. Angela took little notice of the remonstrance of aunts and cousins, but when she heard that her brother Rupert was coming to stay at the Herons, and proposed to spend a day or two at Netherglen on his way thither, she felt a qualm of fear. Rupert was very careful of his sister: she felt sure that she would never be permitted to do what he thought in the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes openly displayed itself, and he gazed full into the face of Hugh Ritson with a searching look that made little parley with his smile. "Then one may take a man's inheritance without qualm or conviction?" ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... action of taking out a notebook gave the operators a certain qualm of doubt. Fry whispered Hodges to go and tell the governor. On his return Hodges found the parties as he had left them, except Robinson—he was paler ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to me with a strange qualm. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... tenant is mostly a pig, And your landlord is sometimes a 'og; still between 'em we jest slip along, But do dooty for both of 'em? Snakes! that is coming it slightly too strong. The tenants 'old on jest as long as they can, and the landlords 'old orf. A sort of a ketchy sore-throat, or a bit of a qualm or a korf, Make some idjots go fair orf their chumps on diphtheria, and typhod and such; But then others, who don't like a hupset, put up with the lot, pooty much, Jest to save topsy-turvey and 'oles in the garden, and mud ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... his name was called, but for some reason fear had been banished from his heart, and he advanced without a qualm. Presently they came to one of the numerous jungle clearings. The sun did not burn at this altitude, and Piang took a deep breath of the fresh, crisp air. A flapping of wings startled him, and before he could prevent, a brilliant mina-bird circled his head and gently lighted ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... thrillingly to watch the arched splendour of stars above and muse upon the fleeting years that carried off his youth. The moment marked another tremendous epoch, for he was done with school. Now for all the years to come he could hear the bell sound its warning and feel no qualm; never again need sit confined in a stuffy room, breathing chalk dust, and compel his errant mind to bookish abstractions. He had graduated from the Newbern High School, respectably if not with distinguished honour, ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... be considering something, for he rose suddenly, and with a nod of his head to himself, as though settling some qualm of conscience, shoved the letter ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... Brand rose also, with a sudden qualm of disappointment, for he took that as the signal of his dismissal; and he had scarcely ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... when I first saw in the work of these men the beauty resulting from the personal touch of the artist on the whole of the cutting and leading, a qualm of doubt arose whether the practice of admitting any other hand to my assistance was not a compromise to some extent with absolute ideal; whether it were not the only right plan, after all, to do the whole oneself; to sit down to the bench with one's drawing, and ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... alone remains on the ground by the time the Doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not without a slight inward qualm. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... the lease assigned to him by Simon, he noticed the strict clause, binding the tenant to renew within a certain time. A qualm came over him! He was astonished at himself for not having more carefully perused the lease before he concluded the bargain. Had it been with any one but soft Simon, this could not have happened. He hastened in search of Simon ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... without a certain inward qualm that I accepted the position thrust upon me by Cleon. In accepting it, I flatter myself that I took a common-sense view of the case. In the petit drama of real life in which I am now acting an uneventful part, I look upon myself ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... eat men? Alas, he did not know. Why, then, this hesitancy! Once more he essayed the effort, but a qualm of nausea overwhelmed him. He did ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Whale-blubber tastes like raw bacon and it cannot very easily be cooked, as it would liquify too soon. It is a good deal better than seal-oil, which to a southern palate is sweet, mawkish, and sickly. Seal-oil tastes as lamp-oil smells. But you can approach without a qualm boiled beluga-skin, which is the skin of the white whale. In its soft and gelatinous form it ranks among northern delicacies with beaver-tail and moose-nose, being exceedingly tasty and ever so much more ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... long he's taken to put on that choker,' observed Mr. Spareneck, eyeing him intently, not without an inward qualm that he had set himself a more difficult task than he imagined, to 'cut him down,' especially when he looked at the noble animal he bestrode, and the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... would have imagined that they could be anything but brother and sister. The marriage of babies! Was there no single apostle of common sense in all the country—a country so gloriously free that it granted licenses to every foolishness without a qualm? ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... penalty; suffering, ache, smart, throe, rack, agony, torture, distress, qualm, discomfort, pang, excruciation, paroxysm, gripe, twinge, cramp, travail, stitch, crick, anguish; heartache, misery, dolor. Antonyms: ease, comfort, relief, solace. Associated Words: anodyne, anaesthetic, analgesic, dolorific, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and that they deserved it. No one could tell which one or how many would be "fired" back into the scrubs. More than one of them, on waking in the morning, wondered what made his heart so heavy, until with a qualm the thought of "Bull" Hendricks came to enlighten him. That thought had persisted all through the morning hours, and, if they were distrait in the recitation rooms, the reason was not far to seek. Even Tom's irrepressible spirits were somewhat tamed, although he had less to fear than some ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... the day was coming nearer and more near. Susan's whole being was tuned to the great event; she felt herself the pivot upon which all her world turned. A hundred things a day brought the happy color to her face, stopped her heart-beats for a second. She had a little nervous qualm over the announcements; she dreamed for a moment over the cards that bore the new name of Mrs. William Jerome Oliver. "It seems so—so funny to have these things here in my trunk, before I'm ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Sybarite blankly, experiencing a qualm at the thought of a soft-nosed bullet mushrooming ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... Charlotta knew nothing of her story, she had no farther thought about it than of some little qualm, which frequently happens when young ladies are too closely laced, and she seeming perfectly recovered from, the conversation was renewed on the same subject it had turned upon before this interruption; and the name of monsieur du Plessis ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... long regarded as mine was almost within my grasp, should I permit it to elude me for the gratification of a dying man's whim? Never! In my rage I could have throttled him then and there without a qualm; fear of the law alone held me back. I tried to dissuade him, but it was useless. I then bribed the servant sent to bring the attorney to report that he was out of town, and when that proved of no avail, I sent for Richard Hobson, a penniless shyster, whose ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... the dusk of evening, the Two Marys was shaping her course for the north shore, the wind had subsided, and the sea moved lazily along in unbroken swells. Supper was announced, and Major Roger Potter hastened into the cabin, saying: "It is as well that we eat, for though I feel a qualm coming over me now and then, which seriously disturbs my temper, I must not forget that food may cure the ills of my head." Having cast several scrutinizing glances over the humble fare Luke's wife had prepared, and for the quality of which she offered ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... welfare of body and soul had never occurred to the beneficence of Dunstone, and it cost Cecil a qualm to accept it; but she could not be a goody in the eyes of Sirenwood; and besides, she was reading some contemporary literature, which made it plain that any religious instruction was a most unjustifiable interference with the great law, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... passing qualm that John had not been tipped, but put that thought away as a matter of no pressing importance. "Had he?" I commented. "Well, you've carried it half-way, now, I'll carry it the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... shifty-eyed and mean, always half drunk, a bad citizen: they would be sure to be foremost in affairs like this. They had precious little respect for the law as law. And here they were, making the holy night indecent with bestial behavior. Again a sick qualm shook Peter: Mosely was calmly putting four severed black fingers into his coat pocket. Oh, where was the sheriff? Why ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... without. It was not what Michael had done or had said which had banished her pride and told her of his faithfulness. It was the consciousness which came from within, the consciousness which had always fought back the forces from without. She had not felt one qualm of conscience, for Freddy was understanding and approving. He would know that any doubt she had ever had had been banished the moment Michael had taken her in his arms. Freddy, who had only blamed him for his weakness, would ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... qualm of remorse passed through my bosom, and then I was exceeding glad. The morning was fresh, and the air invigorating, and I determined to walk down to the beautiful minutely-sanded beach, and enjoy the refreshment of the sea-breeze just sweeping gently over the bay. To do this, I had to ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... hay across the barn the youth, heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through half closed lids. A qualm of disgust sent a sudden shudder through his slight frame. For the first time he almost regretted having embarked upon a life of crime. He had seen that the two men were conversing together earnestly, though he could over-hear nothing they said, and ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The Professor, having long retired from active practice, remembered with a qualm that he might have broken this appalling news ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... (although he heartily disliked the country) and in order to provide for both families a double house was being built across the line between the two farms. I helped shingle the roof, and being twenty-one now, and my own master, I accepted wages from my father without a qualm. I earned every cent of my two dollars per day, I assure you, but I carefully omitted all reference to shingling, in my letters to ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... self-accusation: "'Tis good enough for me, 'twas wrong to be eating pork, 'tis positively forbidden us. I lay it to that! I gave myself over to eating to make up for a fast of nine long years. Thou hadst not a qualm because thou hast been fed on wine and porridge and beef gruel and whey. The clearness of thy body speaks for a pure stomach. Let the awfulness of my condition warn thee. Thou must never grumble when I take from thee weightier food than thou hast been used to. But, Lambkin, we have had a glorious ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... which frightened the loquacious little man was sufficiently strange to cause a qualm even in the bosom of the knight. Through the darkness there loomed a figure which appeared to be of gigantic size, and a hoarse voice, issuing apparently some distance above the heads of the party, broke roughly on the silence of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for questions—and I learned with amazement that Liege had fallen, Belgium was invaded, and that hard fighting was going on at St. Quentin, but eighty miles away. "The cannon of yesterday was no target practice," thought I. The men all seemed so hopeful, though, that we never felt a qualm. ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... a bad rule! a villanous bad rule, fit only for ghosts and graybeards. We youngsters, Count, should have a more generous policy. Come, now, where didst thou drink last night? has the bottle bequeathed thee a qualm or a headache, which preaches repentance ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the libel laws. They're hard enough as it is." His thought turned momentarily to Ely Ives, the journalistic sandbag, and he felt a momentary qualm. "I don't pretend to like everything about my job. One of these days I'll have a newspaper of my own, and you shall censor every word ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... my moment's qualm of foolishness and went below, well content to meet my loved one and to rest secure in her father's wisdom. Of course he was right. He had proved himself right too often already on ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... exceptional kind, who believed devoutly in himself as the instrument chosen by the Saints for the overthrow of heretics; convinced that his aims and interests were favoured by Heaven, ranking before those of the Papacy itself; without a qualm as to the righteousness of all means he could adopt to further those aims. Save in one slight instance, we seek in vain to find in him any sign of human affections—tenderness, sympathy, generosity. Infinitely laborious, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... in a benevolent neutrality, and we undertake not to take any of the possessions of France in Europe," said Germany to Great Britain, without allowing herself to be troubled by so much as a qualm about the iniquity of asking us to trade with her in the French colonies. And when we rejected Germany's infamous proposals, and called on her to say if she meant to respect the independence of Belgium, whose ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... said the Master, that would face a tiger bare-fisted, or plunge into a river and die without a qualm; but one, indeed, who, fearing what may come, lays his plans ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... little as a ruble. She is quite a providence to many of our fellows—but such an old hag! I tell you what I would do. I would kill that damnable old hag, and take all she is possessed of, without any qualm of conscience," exclaimed the student excitedly. The officer laughed, but Raskolnikoff shuddered. The words just uttered so strongly echoed his own thoughts. "Let me put a serious question to you," resumed ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... about it? Douglas Falloden, with his egotism, his pride in himself, his family, his wits, his boundless confidence in his own brilliant future, was surely fair game. Such men do not break their hearts for love. She had refused his request that he might write to her without a qualm; and mostly because she imagined so vividly what would have been his look of triumph had she granted it. Then she had spent the rest of the winter and early spring in thinking about him. And now she was going to do this reckless thing, out of sheer wilfulness, sheer thirst for adventure. She had ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... attention and remark. His father wrote the family name Burnes; Robert early adopted the orthography Burness from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth year changed it once more to Burns. It is plain that the last transformation was not made without some qualm; for in addressing his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number two. And this, again, shows a man preoccupied about the manner of his appearance even down to the name, and little willing to follow custom. Again, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flash of family pride.] — And I the son of a strong farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... at the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be no other than anonymous, or the inquiry would not have ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... fervours left them calm— Emotion they considered freakish;— He felt with many an inward qualm That he was thoroughly un-beakish; His mood perplexed them; he was half Provocative, half deferential, Too anxious to provoke a laugh, Too vague where logic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... were to last, these were the real symptoms of her condition, and of Arthur's condition. No! The memory of the ball did not trouble her; it had not troubled her since she awoke after the sedative. She had entered the drawing-room without a qualm, and the instant of their meeting, anticipated on the previous night as much in terror as in joy, had passed equably and serenely. Relying on his strength, and exulting in her own, she had given him her hand, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... a wastebasket of varied rubbish into the open fire, leaned a broom against the mantel, readjusted the towel that protected her gray hair from the dust—hair on week days exposed with never a qualm to all manner of dust—cursed all Chinamen on land or sea with an especial and piquant blight invoked upon the one now in hiding, then took from the back of a chair where she had hung it the moment before ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... amenable; besides which it was fundamental to my uncle's attitude that he should give them money freely. Not to do so would seem like admitting a difficulty in making it. So that after he had stopped their allowances for the fourth time Sybil and Gertrude were prepared to face beggary without a qualm. It had been his pride to give them the largest allowance of any girls at the school, not even excepting the granddaughter of Fladden the Borax King, and his soul recoiled from this discipline as it had never recoiled from the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... her, then looked away again. A qualm of jealousy, of which she was ashamed, seized her. She gave her head a toss, and repeated, with a sort of defiance, "Yes, he is ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... were he King of France, not a sword should be drawn without his permission, as though this were a dictum that a sage had uttered yesterday. They feed every day on the vaunts and falsehoods which their newspapers offer them, and they digest them without a qualm. While they expect the provinces to come to their aid, they are almost angry that they should venture to act independently of their guidance. They are childishly anxious to send out commissaries to take the direction of affairs in ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... And with a qualm of horror the boy saw that, attached to Mr. Carrington's cheek, to his bare arm, and to his thigh, and lashing furiously with their lithe brown muscular bodies, were three of these horrible larvae, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... angry and not without a qualm of apprehension. This man had become a constant caller at the farm at all sorts of odd and unexpected moments. And his attitude was such that she thoroughly resented him. In his vaunting, braggadocio manner he had assumed a sort ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... is very difficult for a man who has stooped long enough to have conquered his early cramps and aches to face the problems of politics with uncompromising rigidity. Hyacinth recognised with a curious qualm of disgust that his thoughts turned less and less to Ireland's wrongs and Ireland's future as he learnt to care for the flowers ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... duke," replied Dick, stoutly enough, but with a qualm at heart, "I have not even the good fortune to return with my command. I have been, so please ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lease, though so very long as to be almost perpetual, nevertheless had a termination; and that after the lapse of a thousand years, lacking one, the connexion of his family and representatives with the estate would cease. He took a qualm at the thought of the loss to be sustained by his posterity a thousand years hence; and going back to the house of the gentleman who feued the ground, he demanded, and readily obtained, the additional term of fifty years to be added to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... against her. She got up and walked the room; then she sat down and began to consider what arrangements would be necessary, and what would be possible. Then confessed to herself that it would not be all bad to have somebody to break her solitude, even anybody; then got over another qualm of repugnance, and drew the table near her ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... you may tell me all that passed between you and the wives of the clachan. I am better of that stomach qualm, with which I am sometimes seized, and shall be much amused by hearing the sentiments of noted witches regarding ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... of what he had escaped gave him a new qualm of nausea. The loss of his cash would have meant suspended credit at the store and the leanest three ...
— His Dog • Albert Payson Terhune
... that Agatha leaned over, trying to see his face. The violence of the chill had passed. His eyes were wide open, his face alarmingly pale. She felt a sudden qualm of pain, lest illness and exhaustion had wrought havoc in his frame deeper than she knew. But as she bent over him, his features lighted up with his rare smile—an expression full of happiness and peace. He lifted ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... the exigencies of the game, do not burst at once into falsehood, but by a confusing process weaken their memories and corrupt their imaginations. They never lie of the events of the day. Rather they return to some jumbled happening of the week before and delude themselves with only a lingering qualm, until from habit they can create what is really a form of paranoia, the delusion of greatness, or the exaggerated ego. Such men, inoculated with self-deception, return to the outer world, to deceive others, lower the standards of business morality, contaminate ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... His little failing was concealment of the fact that he was almost wholly supported by remittances furnished by his hard-working brother. Incidentally he was engaged to Eric's sister, but abandoned her without a qualm for the beringed hand of one Mrs. Meldrum, a rich widow, known as The B.Q. (Biscuit Queen). Need I say that Mrs. Meldrum, moving in these circles, and with ambitions as an art patroness, lived in Cheyne Walk? Indeed the setting of the whole comedy is inevitably Chelsea. Having ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... anything. She makes the patterns up all out of her own head. "—And filled with pride in Mother's accomplishments and Lilith's appreciation of them, Laura fell asleep that night without a qualm. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... qualm, as otherwise he might have felt, at hiding there waiting for new victims. He was proud and thrilled to see his friend, secreted in his perch, keen-eyed and alert, guarding alone the crystal purity of this laughing, life-giving brook, as it hurried along its pebbly bed and tumbled in little ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... any woman might admire and be proud of. Certainly, the only son-in-law for me. Even if she can't idolize and worship him, as some fool women think they must, a man, she can respect and be respected with him. And with him she can take the highest position in the land, without a qualm as to his competence and manner. Beside all that, what's ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... became a pretty shade of plum. "Weener, youre a thief, a petty, cadging, sly, larcenous, pilfering, bloody thief. You take the Daily Intelligencer's honest dollars without a qualm, aye, with a smirk on your imbecile face, proposing with the cool impudence of the born embezzler to return no value for them. Weener, you forget yourself. The Intelligencer picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered and thoroughly fitting ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the telephone without a qualm and instantly recognized the high-pitched voice of Mrs. Gibson, Thomas Hardin's sister. She was speaking more loudly than is necessary in such conversation and with a ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... qualm. There had been an ominous drop the last day or two. Still Rainsford and one or two others had recommended him to hold on. This man spoke so quietly, yet withal so prophetically. What if he, in his inscrutable way, were more than ordinarily in ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... curves of those lips so many times that he could reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an aura over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced a qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... watched the first few puffs, awaiting a repartee. None came. I felt a qualm of apprehension. Was he already becoming de-Paragot-ised? I did not realise then what it means to a man to cast aside the slough of many years' decay, and take his stand clean before the world. He shivers, is liable ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... world how Maro sings Of useful subjects and of lofty things. These will such true, such bright ideas raise, As merit gratitude, as well as praise: But foul descriptions are offensive still, Either for being like, or being ill: For who, without a qualm, hath ever looked On holy garbage, though by Homer cooked? Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded gods Make some suspect he snores, as well as nods. But I offend—Virgil begins to frown, And Horace looks with indignation ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... conscience he may happen to have. If he can stand by and coolly watch us work our gizzards out for the common good, and then reach out to share the fruits of our sacrifices, energies and enterprise, without a qualm, we can remember that there are many things in this world worth far more than money, one of which is that sense of having done our neighbour's share as well as our own. It will be enough for us to watch when, bewildered by the lusty life and growth and the ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... come, which would make them no longer precious to him. But that which had made them precious was not far to seek: he would find it elsewhere, and could afford to dismiss his Alice for the time being from his heart and life, and even from his memory, without a qualm. ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... of realism meant extra risk for Annesley in case Mrs. Ellsworth were awake; but she took it with scarcely a qualm of fear. The house was quiet, and there were ten chances to one against its mistress being on the alert at this hour, so long past ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Novelist, the countless good things scattered abundantly up and down the original descriptions—inimitable touches of humour that had each of them, on the appreciative palate, the effect of that verbal bon-bon, the bon-mot—were sacrificed inexorably, apparently without a qualm, and certainly by wholesale. What the Reader looked to throughout, was the human element in his imaginings when they ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... quite twenty-three years old, and English—to suggest without a backward thought or a qualm that a lady whom he had known five days should come and live with him and be his love! None of his friends accustomed to his bashful habits would have believed it. Only his ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... them and placed them in the roll of buckskin that I carried for moccasin-patches. And my heart being hardened, I scalped the murderer with never a qualm. No warning was longer needed at the Grisdol cabin. ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... passed the ford near the Lazette trail, she felt a sudden qualm of misgiving, for she had never ridden quite that far alone—the ford was about ten miles from the ranchhouse—but she smiled at the sensation, conquering it, and continued on her way, absorbed in the panoramic view of ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... seems to have grown up, to have begun to weigh its powers and consider its possible deficiencies. There was a time when American confidence and self-satisfaction seemed impregnable; at the slightest qualm of doubt America took to violent rhetoric as a drunkard resorts to drink. Now the indictment I have drawn up harshly, bluntly and unflatteringly in Sec. 4 would receive the endorsement of American after American. The falling birth-rate of all the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it "gave trouble," a deadly offence in the ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... and it was kept by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and a bloated, purple countenance and the palsy. As much of him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish; and Jean, after the first qualm of repulsion, when she faced him over the hotel register, detected a certain kindly solicitude in his manner, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... Broken games and animals, dolls' dresses painfully tailored by unskilled fingers, disjointed members,—sorry relics of past pleasures,—one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a shower of sparks to the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... night Ringtail again visited the birdhouse. To his joy he discovered that it could now be entered, even though the doorway was a tight fit. The sparrows, who, in spite of the destruction of their nests, had returned to the cabin to roost, he evicted without a qualm of conscience. The first streaks of dawn found him curled up snugly, sound ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... you to ask us, and at our age we won't have many more opportunities of having a holiday together, so perhaps we should seize this one. Dear me, Jean, I don't understand how you can look so bright so near your wedding. I cried and cried at mine. Have you not a qualm?" ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... in the girl's soft voice brought Peter a qualm for laughing at her. He laid an impulsive ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... overlook the fact that glamour and "sweet bloom" are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at table to furnish ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... Martin felt a qualm at that remembrance—shooting a man was a new and terrible experience, and his conscience had scruples concerning the sanctity of human life. If Martin Blake could then have seen a few months into ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... reed, Wounded, he faced you as he stood at bay; You dared not lynch him in the light of day, But on your dungeon stones you let him bleed; Night came ... and you black vigilants of Greed,... Like human wolves, seized hand upon your prey, Tortured and killed ... and, silent, slunk away Without one qualm of horror at ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... like this plainness better Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter, Or any feat of qualm or sowning, But hanging of yourself, or drowning. Your only way with me to break 485 Your mind, is breaking of your neck; For as when merchants break, o'erthrown, Like nine-pins they strike others down, So that would break my heart; which done, My tempting ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler |
