"Sleepless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eat alone with Adare again this morning, and his heart jumped with both surprise and joy when Josephine came out into the hall to meet him. She was very pale. Her eyes told him that she had passed a sleepless night. But she was smiling bravely, and when she offered him her hand he caught her suddenly in his arms and held her close to his breast while he kissed her lips, and ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... nights when she was sleepless on her own couch beneath the roof of Catharine Knollys, did Mary Connynge allow herself to think. Tell, then, ye who may, whether or not she was a mere survival of some forgotten day of the forest and the glade, as she lay with her hands clasped in brief moments ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... hands: his son brought some seeds from plants growing in a gentleman's garden in the French province of Artois, and it was only at his son's repeated entreaty that he was prevailed upon to try its effects. And even this entreaty from a son might not have prevailed, had not the influence of a sleepless night from the heat of summer, led to a conversation to be followed by results ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... vividly depicted his position, told of his sleepless nights, his duties at certain hours, the absolute necessity of succeeding in his enterprise, the insatiable requirements of a newspaper in which he was required to judge the events of the whole world without blundering, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Meredith," begged Mobray. "You can do naught for me, and—and—I would have—Do as he says." His hand blindly groped until Janice placed hers within it, when he gave it a weak pressure as he said, "'T is many a long march and many a sleepless night that the memory of you has sweetened. Thank ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... is sleepless in the pursuit of knowledge. It is ever seeking new fields of conquest. It must advance: with it, standing still is the precursor of defeat. If necessary it invents new methods of attack, and rests not until it gains ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... he rode back to the Chateau with such eager questioning in his eyes when they met mine, I knew he had nothing better to report to me, than I to him. After a silent meal, he would ride through the dark forest on a fresh mount. How and where he passed those sleepless nights, I do not know. Thus had a month slipped away; and we had done everything and accomplished nothing. Baffled, I had gone to confer with Mr. Jack MacKenzie and had, as usual, exasperated him with the reiterated conviction that ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... my heart out in that cursed village. The feasting and the hunting and the triumph, the wild songs and wilder dances, the fantastic mummeries, the sudden rages, the sudden laughter, the great fires with their rings of painted warriors, the sleepless sentinels, the wide marshes that could not be crossed by night, the leaves that rustled so loudly beneath the lightest footfall, the monotonous days, the endless nights when I thought of her grief, of her peril, maybe,—it was an evil dream, and for my own pleasure ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... back, endeavouring to recollect what could have given rise to this charge. One morning, after a sleepless night, when he had tossed and turned on his uneasy bed, and risen unrefreshed, he hired a horse, for he had none in town, and went for a long ride. Coming back he turned into Rotten Row. He could not tell why he did so, for such places, affected by the gay, empty-headed votaries of fashion, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... strain be wild and deep, Nor let the notes of joy be first; I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, Or else this heavy heart will burst; For it hath been by sorrow nursed, And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 'tis doomed to know the worst And break at once—or yield ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... in the dawn Lady Landale came into her sister's bedroom. Her circled eyes, her drawn face bespeaking a sleepless night. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... had grown upon him to fight these fights in secret many times, until of nights he would lie in solitary darkness writhing in spirit as he hounded his man to desperation, or forced him into a corner where he might slake his thirsty vengeance. After such black, sleepless hours he dragged himself from his battle-grounds of fancy, worn and weary, and the daylight discovered him more saturnine and moody, more menacing ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... then aware that she hated Laura. The hatred was not active in her presence; it made no movement towards its object; it lay somewhere in the dark; it tossed on a hot bed, sleepless ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... wandering bird? Which is not a bird of heaven, nor yet a beast of earth, But ever roveth, homeless,—a creature of strange birth. Wings hath it, but it flies not. And yet within its breast Are strange and sleepless drivings, so that it may not rest; Half-formed, half-conscious impulses, with its half-formed pinions given, Too strong for rest on earth, too weak to bear to heaven;— And madly it beats its wings, but vainly, against its side, For the light ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... night setting it in disorder. My original plan had been to barricade the door during the night, and thus hold the doctors and attendants at bay until those in authority had accepted my ultimatum, which was to include a Thanksgiving visit at home. But before morning I had slightly altered my plan. My sleepless night of activity had made me ravenously hungry, and I decided that it would be wiser not only to fill my stomach, but to lay by other supplies of food before submitting to a siege. Accordingly I set things to rights ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... bind To his young brows his own all dazzling-wreath. I therefore, although last and least, my place Among the Learned in the laurel-grove Will hold, and where the conqu'ror's ivy twines, Henceforth exempt from th'unletter'd throng Profane, nor even to be seen by such. Away then, sleepless Care, Complaint away, And Envy, with thy "jealous leer malign" 130 Nor let the monster Calumny shoot forth Her venom'd tongue at me. Detested foes! Ye all are impotent against my peace, For I am privileged, and ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... subjected, in whole or in part, to the criticism of his friends, and, according to their verdict, either published, or left fragments, or consigned to the flames. About this time he begins, in his letters, to complain of depression of spirits, of severe attacks of the gout, of sleepless nights, feverish mornings, and heavy days. He was now, and during the rest of his life, to pay the penalty of a lettered indolence and studious sloth, of a neglected body and an over-cultivated mind. The accident, it is said, of seeing a blind Welsh harper performing on a harp, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... chair. Why, he is a merchant; and whether he lives upon a scale of princely expenditure, whether wholesale or retail, banker, or proprietor of a chandler's shop, he is a speculator. Anxious days and sleepless nights await upon speculation. A man with his capital embarked, who may be a beggar on the ensuing day, cannot lie down upon roses: he is the slave of Mammon. Who are greater slaves than sailors? So are soldiers, ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... lightning broke forth, followed by thunderous crashes, and the island was shrouded in rain, they prayed for the absent ones. When the storm abated, they gazed long and patiently, in the hopes of getting a signal of the returning boat. They saw and heard nothing. The mother spent the night in sleepless anxiety. ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... Simon rose from his sleepless bed, saying, "The saints above, as you call them, must take care of you now, Ally, any how; for I'm fairly tired out: so I must go a-hunting or a-shooting with my friend, Sir Hyacinth O'Brien, to recruit ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... papers, and the girl noticed that while he looked ill and haggard there was relief in his face. It was, however, with a vacant curiosity she waited for him to speak, for she had risen heavy-eyed and listless after a sleepless night. Deringham leaned against the balustrade in front of her, and appeared to find ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... kept back enough to establish herself and Mark in rooms, should she be successful in finding some unfurnished rooms sufficiently cheap to allow her to take them, although how she was going to live for more than two years on what she had was a riddle of which after a month of sleepless nights she had ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... wagon until far into the quiet, hissing night of the Foehn, and the gleam of a lighted window replied to the swaying light of his lantern on the horse-collar, he himself would send that same little ditty out into the yearning, burning spring night with his strong, clear voice, making the sleepless girls that heard it bite ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... that I wrote to Frank Beard, from whom I shall doubtless hear to-morrow. I mention it, only in case you should come in his way, for I know how perversely such things fall out. I felt it a little more exertion to read afterwards, and I passed a sleepless night after that again; but otherwise I am in good force and spirits to-day. I may say, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... from head to foot from his rough bath towel, tingling with the leaping life within him, showing no signs of the all but sleepless night, came out to breakfast before Garth had finished his pipe. He caught Rose-bud by the two shoulders, drove him back against the wall and held him there while he spoke ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... And therefore art thou worthy of the boon Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, 590 And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... hunter's rifle. At other times goat ears are spared, and the loudest-braying donkey of the caravan is picketed immediately in front of the zareba's porthole, his normal vocal activities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. Sometimes several weary sleepless nights are spent without result, but sooner or later, without the slightest sound hinting his approach, suddenly a great yellow body flashes out of the darkness and upon the cringing lure. For an instant there are the sinister sounds of savage snarls, rending flesh, cracking bones and ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... blurted out that the price was suspiciously wrong, and added that I must see the portrait by daylight before venturing an opinion. The thought that Mantovani had owned it for twenty years and more made a sleepless night hideous; at sunrise my loyalty reasserted ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Dash had not passed a sleepless night of misery. Long ago, tired out with sorrow, they had fallen asleep on the nursery window-sill, and dreamt that they were sailing on ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow
... neck. The young woman was motionless; only the gradual and regular rise and fall of her bosom showed her to be alive. Vassili's eyes wandered in turn from the sea to this woman by his side. He told Malva how tired he was of living alone and how painful were his sleepless nights filled with gloomy thoughts. Then he kissed her again on the mouth with the same sound that he might have made in chewing a ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... to bed at a decent hour, she would walk the floor of her chamber half the night. But this was not done because she was suffering, or sleepless from grief, but for the purpose of keeping poor Miss Crane awake all night in the room below and making the poor lady believe that she, Mary Grey, was breaking her ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... researches of Morelli and Berenson. Gebhart attributes to Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi about eighty-five pictures, many of which were long ago in Morelli's taboo list—that terrible Morelli, the learned iconoclast who brought many sleepless nights to Dr. Wilhelm Bode of Berlin. Time has vindicated the Bergamese critic. Berenson will allow only forty-five originals to Botticelli's credit. Furthermore, Gebhart does not mention in his catalogue the two Botticellis belonging to Mrs. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... malignity. When a man of robust and vigorous constitution has a fit of sickness, it produces a more powerful effect, than the same indisposition upon a delicate valetudinarian. Such was the case with Miss Melville. She passed the succeeding night sleepless and uneasy, and was found in the morning with a high fever. Her distemper resisted for the present all attempts to assuage it, though there was reason to hope that the goodness of her constitution, assisted by tranquillity and the kindness of those about her, would ultimately surmount it. On ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... replied the old man. 'I thought of it a long time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... again, and when he would approach her with open arms, asking her to forgive and forget the morning, she would demur just long enough to set him alight again. Heaven, how the devils would dance then! And the night would usually end with them lying sleepless in distant beds. ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... the thief in the gloaming; It comes, and none may foretell The place of the coming—the glaring; They live in a sleepless spell That wizens, and withers, and whitens; It ages the young, and the bloom Of the maiden is ashes of roses— The Swamp Angel broods ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... where, she felt the barrier between them even while he kissed her good-bye. He had made a vigorous declaration of independence that night at dinner, and now he had gone away to let her think it over, not even noticing that her eyes were heavy from a sleepless night. ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... his mother had gone up-stairs to their rooms in the thatch; and I lay wearied but sleepless in my bed, listening to these dull, faint, ceaseless murmurs, as a child listens to the sound of the sea in a shell. Was it possible that it was I, myself, the Olivia who had been so loved and cherished ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... anxious looks, and the tear which occasionally might be seen to glisten in her eye, betrayed the trouble within. A whole week elapsed, a longer period than had ever passed before without a letter from Philip Hayforth—a fortnight—a month—and the poor girl's appetite failed, her nights were sleepless, and her drooping figure and pining looks told of that anxious suffering, that weary life-gnawing suspense, which is ten times more hard to bear than any evil, however great, of which we can ascertain the nature and discern ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... for them all) constitute the highest penance. That is distinguished above all kinds of penance. He who betakes himself to such penance is regarded as one that is always fasting and that is always leading a life of Brahmacharya. Such a Brahmana will become a Muni always, a deity evermore, and sleepless forever, and one engaged in the pursuit of virtue only, even if he lives in the bosom of a family. He will become a vegetarian always, and pure for ever. He will become an eater always of ambrosia, and an adorer always of gods and guests. Indeed, he will ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... the master of the house, who, after many sleepless nights and distracted days, had a haggard, unshorn face, scarcely to be recognised. 'I cannot permit ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... playing upon the prejudices and fears of the slave-holders, might succeed in seducing them from their allegiance. To prevent the success of such appeal Mr. Crittenden, whose wise counsels were devoted with sleepless patriotism to the preservation of loyalty in the Border States, offered in the House a resolution defining the objects of the National struggle. The resolution set forth that "the deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the Disunionists ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to learn to sleep anywhere if you expect to keep in...." Costigan broke off as he opened the door and saw Clio's wan face. She had evidently spent a sleepless and wracking eight hours. "Good Lord, Clio, ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... feeling, a mind animated with convictions and principles, and a whole soul warmed by a patriot's fire;—to see before your eyes the scissors of the censor ready to lop your ideas, maim your arguments, murder your thoughts, render vain your laborious days and sleepless nights;—to know that the people will judge you, not by what you have felt, thought, written, but by what the censor will let you say;—to perceive that the prohibition has no rule or limit but the arbitrary pleasure of a man who is doomed by profession to be ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... chased the lumbering steamer. They hung to her bows and pulled her for'ard deck under emerald-green rollers. They clung to her stern and hoisted her nose till Big Ivan thought that he could touch the door of heaven by standing on her blunt snout. Miserable, cold, ill, and sleepless, the emigrants crouched in their quarters, and to them Ivan and the thin-faced Livonian ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... the L5,000 offered, though who bought them remained at the time a mystery to me. Ultimately a meeting was called to consider the question of liquidating the company, and at this meeting, after three sleepless nights, ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... under protest, and she battled against the change she felt creeping upon her so slowly but so surely. She showed a brave face to people, and tried to be as bright and ready-witted as ever; and if she failed it was not her own fault. She fought hard against her sleepless nights and weary days; and when she lay awake hour after hour hearing the clock strike, it was not because she made no effort to compose herself, it was only because the delicate wheels of thought would work ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... attends, From danger guards them, and from want defends; In search of prey she wings the spacious air, And with the untasted food supplies her care: For thankless Greece such hardships have I braved, Her wives, her infants, by my labours saved; Long sleepless nights in heavy arms I stood, And sweat laborious days in dust and blood. I sack'd twelve ample cities on the main,(207) And twelve lay smoking on the Trojan plain: Then at Atrides' haughty feet were laid The wealth I gathered, and the spoils ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... a snap and I was left alone in the smiling moonlight. I was vastly excited, even thrilled by the prospect of a sleepless night. Something told me I wouldn't sleep a wink, and yet I, who bitterly resent having my sleep curtailed in the slightest degree, held no brief against circumstances. In fact, I rather revelled in the promise of nocturnal distraction. Fearing, however, that I might drop off ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... that individualising care. In one of the Old Testament instances of the use of this metaphor, we read that in the great day of calamity and sorrow 'Thy people shall be delivered, even every one that is written in Thy Book.' So we need not dread anything if our names are there. The sleepless King will read the Book, and will never forget, nor forget to help and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... anywhere with her, and yet was opposed to anybody else's escorting her. Upon one occasion he declined to go to a wedding with her, and when she got other company, lay in wait for the couple by the road, intending to make them go back or kill the escort. After spending sleepless nights over his ruling desire for a full year, he at last attempted its execution—that is, attempted to disfigure the young woman. It was a success. It was permanent. In trying to shoot her cheek (as she sat at the supper-table with her parents and brothers and sisters) in such a manner ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... leavest, And thou comest to the other, 450 Do thou not forget thy mother, Or despise thy dearest mother, For it was thy mother reared thee, And her beauteous breasts that nursed thee, From her own delightful body, From her form of perfect whiteness. Many nights has she lain sleepless, Many meals has she forgotten, While she rocked thee in thy cradle, Watching fondly o'er ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... frightful loneliness of such an experience. Yesterday again I failed to find the comfort of your occult presence when I went into the wood. I was filled with consternation, and when the night came I lay tossing in a sleepless fever. Unless I knew once more in my heart that you loved me, I felt that I could no longer endure life. So I lay far into the night. At last in desperation I arose from my bed, slipped on my shoes and the big cloak that you will remember, and fled away to our tree in the forest, pursued ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... in a meadow half a mile distant from the road. At midnight, in mud and rain, we resumed the march, in convoy of a pontoon train, and over a by-road which from the manner its primitive rock was revealed, must have been unused for years. The streams forded during that night of sleepless toil, the enjoined silence, broken only by the sloppy shuffle of shoes half filled with water, and the creaking wagons, the provoking halts that would tempt the eyes to a slumber that would be broken immediately ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... man as Athalie lifted her eyes from the crystal and smiled reassuringly at him. He was a stocky, red-faced, trim, middle-aged man; but his sanguine visage bore the haggard imprint of sleepless nights, and the edges of his teeth had bitten his ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... multiplies, and makes A thousand images of one that was The same, and still the more, the more it breaks; And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Assemblage of Cheerful Writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed,—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... unendurable, people who lived only forty or fifty miles out of London began to ask if one would run down to them on Friday or Saturday, and stay over Sunday. Of these hospitalities I was a sparing and infrequent cultivator, for they always meant two sleepless nights; and, as someone truly observed, just as you had begun to wear off the corners of your soap, it was time to return to London. But there were people, more happily constituted, who could thoroughly enjoy and profit by the weekly dose of fresh air and quiet. It was seldom ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... experience stand out, vivid, indeed, but fragmentary, yet they do not form to my mind a coherent whole. I think I understand to some extent the process by which he became accustomed to ordinary physical hard living, into which the initiation began with his series of almost wholly sleepless nights and heavy sleep-burdened days. Night was too strange—in barns, beneath hay-ricks, in little oppressive rooms, in stable-lofts—for him to sleep easily at first; and between his tramps, or ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... learned, was there before him, and met him with his bland smile and well-turned compliments; and, strange as it may seem, scarcely an hour had passed before he had charmed away every shadow of suspicion. Matters now went on as before for a few weeks, when Joseph had another sleepless night, and a more convincing unfolding of his partner's real character; and the next night, after the office had been closed, he spent in examining the books of the concern, and detected a number of artfully-contrived ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... of those dark months, Frank Power had written of him that all day he was cheering up others, but that through the night he heard his footfall overhead, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, sleepless, broken in heart, bearing on his soul the burden of those he ...
— The Story of General Gordon • Jeanie Lang
... got Della Wharton into the Willets Hotel without, he felt certain, attracting attention. For when they had ridden into town—taking the back way in order to avoid any sleepless citizens that might be about—it was past midnight. Lawler had timed himself to reach town at about that hour, knowing that with the exception of a brothel or two, Willets ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... ghostly outfit of strangers was pursuing its evil work against him, and he meant to come up with it, and to wreak his vengeance in merciless, summary fashion. His purpose had become an obsession in the long sleepless days ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... Maluka with many thanks, refusing all offers of nursing help with a quiet "He'd rather have me," but accepting gratefully broths and milk and anything of that sort the homestead could furnish. "Nothing ever knocks me out," he reiterated, and dragged on through sleepless days and nights, as the days dragged by finding ample reward in the knowledge that "he'd rather have me", and when there came that deep word of praise from his stricken comrade: "A good mate's harder to find than a good wife," his gentle, ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... ye enemies steal my nights, and sold them to sleepless torture: ah, whither hath that ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a plague had come amongst us that we had heard much about, and now caused us much trouble—a plague of lice. It is not an edifying subject, but anyone can understand how the itching caused many a sleepless night. We were not to blame. When we no longer were able to change our clothes, we could not guard against the vermin that had become a plague among the huge wandering armies of the enemy. Although we boiled our clothes, to our ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... 21st.—After passing a sleepless night, listening to the roaring of cannon, and figuring to ourselves the devastation that must have taken place, we find to our amusement that nothing decisive has occurred. The noise last night was mere skirmishing, and half the cannons ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... a large party of ladies and gentlemen, who accompany them to do a last handshaking on board. For, in quitting California, the ex-haciendado leaves many friends behind; among them, some who will pass sleepless hours thinking of Carmen Montijo; and others whose hearts will be sore as their thoughts ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... again to Naples, and left me in a worse condition than before. My days I now passed with the most irksome uneasiness, and my nights were restless and sleepless. The story of our amour was now pretty public, and the ladies talked of our match as certain; but my acquaintance denied their assent, saying, 'No, no, he is too wise to marry so imprudently.' This their opinion gave me, I own, very great pleasure; but, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... could bear. The sleepless nights, the days of almost entire fasting, together with all my troubles, had been too much for me. I was weak in body ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... mosquito curtains, they afford a remedy ofttimes worse than the disease, keeping out what little air is to be had and admitting, here and there, one mosquito of slenderer bulk and more indomitable temper than the rest. After two or three utterly sleepless nights the most enthusiastic traveller will sigh for grey English skies, pattering drops and undisturbed sleep. At sea, you may escape both blinding glare and mosquito bites. A boat is also the only means of realizing the beauty of the coast. Most beautiful is the roundabout ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... terribly ill. "We are a little anxious about him," his sister had said, and she had mentioned the word "blood-poisoning." Of the full meaning of that dread word Kathleen had little knowledge, but it held for her a horror of something unspeakably dangerous. He had been restless, sleepless, suffering for the last two days and two nights. That very night and that very hour he was perhaps tossing in fever. An uncontrollable longing came over her to go to him. Perhaps she might give him a few hours' rest, might ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... of my father, different situations were obtained for the three eldest; while the old nurse, with the assistance of occasional charity, supported the two younger ones. But Mammy had suffered from sleepless nights, and rooms but illy warmed; and her own health failed during her ceaseless watch by the bedside of her sister. We did not know exactly what it was, but felt very sure that Mammy seemed no longer like ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... to pretend very hard the next day that he was feeling ill, for an almost sleepless night, spent in trying to find some way out of his difficulties, had left him hollow-eyed and pale. Breakfast had been a farce and dinner a mere empty pretence, and between the two meals he had fared illy in classes. It was scarcely more than ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... for some interruption of the kind, that she hoped Theo did not see the little instinctive movement "Mamma!" She sat with a nervous thrill upon her, taking no notice, trying to listen, seeing in the dark the little sleepless boy tossing upon his uneasy pillow, and calling in vain for his mother, but resisting all the impulses both of heart and habit. If only Theo might not hear! After a while, however, Theo's ear caught the sound. "What's that?" he ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... a weed of hardy growth, and once having taken root is difficult to destroy. There were memories to haunt him and give him many a sleepless night: Joyce seizing and kissing Dalton's hand in her frenzy of relief when he told her the good news concerning the child; her milk-white shoulder and bosom exposed for the stethoscope.... She might look upon Dalton as an "angel" or an "automaton," but no man, unless superhuman, is ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... as sleepless a condition as Toby; Aunt Olive had invited him to remain overnight, so that he might see everything that was going on, and as he lay in the soft, geranium-scented bed, his eyes were kept wide open by his delight with what seemed to him the ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... bed had been a failure. For—note you—I had not then learned of the bough bed de luxe. This information, which I have given you so freely, dear reader, what has it not cost me in sleepless nights and family coldness and ...
— Tenting To-night - A Chronicle of Sport and Adventure in Glacier Park and the - Cascade Mountains • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... time the biological laboratory was full of healing virtue. Her sleepless night had left her languid but not stupefied, and for an hour or so the work distracted her altogether from ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... fighting out the night with his sleepless thoughts, Sue Desha was in the same restless condition. Mr. Waterbury had arrived. His generous snores could be heard stalking down the corridor from the guest-chamber. He was of the abdominal variety of the animal species, eating and sleeping his way through life, ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... Another sleepless night—another anxious morning. About eight o'clock I heard Kate's bell ring, and Eunice go upstairs. Presently the girl ran down and entered the room ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... he had, and that slightly bent, spare, though large and tall frame, and always placid face, and realized for the first time that what we imputed to him as a fault was the hindrance of disease, and possibly of sleepless nights; and I would have given a world for an ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... afternoon was drawing to a close. Everybody realized that a monumental task had been performed. Sleepless nights and nerve-wracking days had been endured. Many pocketbooks were running low. Everybody felt it was time ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... and if refusing it for a time you heap your life persistently upon one object—however blameless in itself that object may be—Beware! For one day—and when you least expect it—the gods will send a thunderbolt upon you. One day the thing for which you have toiled and spent laborious days and sleepless nights will lie broken before you—your reputation will be ruined, your ambition will be dashed, your savings of years will be lost—and for the moment you will be inclined to think that your life has been in vain. But presently you will wake up ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... passed, and for Morris ten weary, almost sleepless, nights. The tragedy of the destruction of the new rector's daughter in the ruins of the Dead Church no longer occupied the tongues of men and paragraphs in papers. One day the sea gave up the hood ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... swamps about Richmond, or his enemies who were exulting in Pall Mall. He bore it as well as he could till midsummer, but, when the story of the second Bull Run appeared, he could bear it no longer, and after a sleepless night, walking up and down his room without reflecting that his father was beneath him, he announced at breakfast his intention to go home into the army. His mother seemed to be less impressed by the announcement than by the walking over her head, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... husband was misled by the calm surface of her feelings into the belief that there was no wild turbulence beneath. He did not see the tears that wet the pillow upon which she slept. He did not know how many hours she lay sleepless in the silent midnight watches. Daily all her duties were performed with unvarying assiduity; and when he spoke to her she answered with her usual gentle smile. That it faded more quickly than was its wont, Benjamin Parker did not notice, nor did he remark upon the fact that she rarely ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... of peril, though Esther did not know it. This new excitement, coming so swiftly after a fortnight of exhaustion, threw her back into a state of extreme nervousness. Of course the scene of Saturday evening was followed by a sleepless night, and when Sunday morning came, her very restlessness made her hope that she should find repose and calm within the walls of the church. She went believing that she needed nothing so much as the quieting influence of the service, and she was not disappointed, ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... chained and cannot be locked, but that wander far away in the sunlit world, in their wild pilgrimage after destined goals. Throughout the restless night I hear the footsteps over my head. Who walks? I do not know. It is the phantom of the jail, the sleepless brain, a man, the man, the Walker. One—two—three—four; four paces and the wall." ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... Heidi, but she is not allowed to be. Her family are so overwhelmed by their own feelings of love and admiration that they really only love themselves in her, for they give her not the slightest opportunity to be herself. The poor baby has sleepless, crying nights, and a little irritating illness hanging about her all the time; the doctor is called, and every one wonders why she should be ill; every one worries about her; but the caressing and noisy affection go on. Although ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... within, the passages were still grey and chill, and silent as though night's ghostly sentinels still walked them, when one of the bedchamber doors opened and a face peeped out. The face was Flavia's. The girl was too young, too full of life and vigour, to be altered by a single sleepless night, but the cold reflection of the whitewashed walls did that which watching had failed to do. It robbed her eyes of their brightness, her face of its colour, her hair of its lustre. She stood an instant, and gazed, frowning, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... sleepless nights in the tent of the general-in-chief. When all others except the pickets are asleep, he is examining maps and plans, calculating distances, estimating the strength of his army, and asking himself whether it will do to attack the enemy, or whether ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... expected it to be. Sometimes when I wake in the morning, and know that Solitude, Remembrance, and Longing are to be almost my sole companions all day through—that at night I shall go to bed with them, that they will long keep me sleepless—that next morning I shall wake to them again,—sometimes, Nell, I have a heavy heart of it. But crushed I am not, yet; nor robbed of elasticity, nor of hope, nor quite of endeavour. I have some strength to fight ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... perfectly happy, but unluckily their straitened circumstances admitted of no such expenditure, and before many weeks she was again without materials. She would not tell Russell that she had exhausted his package, and passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method by which she could aid herself. It was positive torture for her to sit in school and see the drawing-master go round, giving lessons on this side and that, skipping over her every time, because her aunt could not afford the extra ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... were so much struck with the beauty of the western sky, as its gilded clouds marked the departure of the great ruler of the day. It was scarcely possible to behold a more splendid sunset; but with us, after another sleepless night, his rise, as he tinged the eastern sky, was ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... the unceasing exertions which her difficult position demanded of her; apart from the harassing days, the sleepless nights, and pecuniary deficiencies which somehow never were made up; apart from the shadow of death which hovered ever near her; and the unvarying labours which pulled at her fingers, and strained at her eyes, so that her efforts seemed still ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... During a sleepless night in Italy he formed the plan for the music of "Das Rheingold," but not wishing to write on Italian soil, he got up and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... fought against fearful odds, with sleepless nights and fasting days sapping her strength; and when the battle ended, though the will was unfaltering, physical exhaustion triumphed, and delirium mercifully took the tortured ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... presented himself. His face showed the effects of a sleepless night, but he was already refortified with jackass brandy for the ordeals of the day, and ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... son of Amvika, addressed him, saying, 'From my good luck alone, O Vidura, thou, O sinless one, of conversant with morality, hast come here remembering me! And, O thou bull of the Bharata race, in thy absence I was beholding myself, sleepless through the day and the night, as one that hath been lost on earth!' And the king then took Vidura on his lap and smelt his head, and said, 'Forgive me, O sinless one, the words in which thou wert addressed by me!' And Vidura ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... two having been struck by Swetman's one-handed clock on the stairs, that is still preserved in the family. Christopher heard the strokes from his chamber, immediately at the top of the staircase, and overlooking the front of the house. He did not wonder that he was sleepless. The rumours and excitements which had latterly stirred the neighbourhood, to the effect that the rightful King of England had landed from Holland, at a port only eighteen miles to the south-west of Swetman's house, were enough to make wakeful and ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in his bed for seven sleepless hours, Barnes arose and gloomily breakfasted alone. He was not discouraged over his failure to arrive at anything tangible in the shape of a plan of action. It was inconceivable that he should not be able in very short order to bring about the ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... staid in her own room the worse she really did get, and her nerves, with confinement and worry and relaxation, would by-and-by be in a condition for any sort of an outburst if we attempted the least reasoning with her. She would become, for one thing, as sleepless as an owl; then she was thoroughly sure she was going to be insane, and down would go the hydrate of chloral till the doctor forbade it on pain of death. After the chloral, too, such horrid eyes as she had! the eyes, you know, that ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... equally certain that the time would come, and come quickly, when the unnatural hardness of the man would yield to the genial influence of friendship, of pleasure, of the subtle joys of freedom. Those past days of hideous monotony, of profitless, debasing toil, the long, sleepless nights, the very nightmare of life to a man of Wingrave's culture and habits, might well have poisoned his soul, have filled him with ideas such as these. But everything was different now! The history of the world could show ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the speaker's table, she suddenly recalled the evening before, her sleepless night, and her worry. And she quaked as she leaned forward to hear what he was saying, and bent her looks in fear upon the ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... the more piquant the situation for one who was in it; and there were moments of a sleepless night in which Langholm found nothing new to regret. But he was in a quandary none the less. He could scarcely meet Mrs. Steel again without a word about the prospective story, which they had so often discussed together, and upon which he was at last free to embark; nor could he touch upon ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... fierce and shrill, And chides with angry moan the frosty skies; The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still. We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill, Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies, Lured by the hand of beckoning memories, Back to those summer evenings on the hill Where we together watched the sun go ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... amount of professional contentment can quite atone for the strain of many sleepless nights; and, more than once that summer, Doctor Keltridge had been strongly tempted to call a halt in the whole undertaking. Then, at the last minute, he had stayed his prohibition. Opdyke, in all surety, was working far beyond his strength. None the less, it seemed ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... dawn he had come under my lady's window and sung her that farewell which so filled my heart, and I had heard from my post in my lady's antechamber. But oh, Mother of God! so had my lord, who, being at home and sleepless, had risen betimes and was walking in the cool of the morning on a little pleasaunce next my lady's tower, and hearing the song, had looked unseen at the singer, had guessed the bitter truth, but had held his peace till ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... not look upward," was the rejoinder, "and God is observing you." That was a word in season. The father's arm was paralyzed. He took up his sack and returned home. Remember, my friends, that the sleepless eye of the Omnipresent One is upon you. The man that goes forth at the still, dark, hour of midnight to plunder our habitations, how startled would he be if an inmate should noiselessly and suddenly present himself before him—the servant that robs his master, the circulator ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... agents put forth sleepless activity. The world rings with the clash of warring forces. The priest, then, that idly folds his arms and manufactures sops for a gnawing conscience, while the very air is electric with the energies of assault, that priest is set up not for the resurrection but ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... there to bear him to shelter and comfort; her surgeons stanch the noble blood, remove the shattered limbs, quench the stifling thirst, working with a tenderness sucked in with the mother's milk. In the hospital, in her own gentle person, she soothes his restless hours, watches o'er his sleepless couch, dresses his mangled limbs, bears him up with her own faith, giving her strength to aid his weakness, she leads him back to life, or, if death must come, up to God. American Women, live up to the holy duties now demanded of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... require repose after so many sleepless nights; you look wearied and exhausted with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... mountain stands, a sleepless watch; And white like dawn, Parnassus shimmers far Aloft with midland ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... grief and anxiety were not removed: and she passed that sad night in sleepless reflection on the dreadful fate of her only child, and in sincere endeavors so to realize and apply all the blessed truths she had learnt from Henrich, as to derive from them that comfort to her own soul, and that perfect resignation ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare; he whose whole life had been one placid scene of happiness, prosperity, and content. Never had he known a passion strong enough and forbidden enough to cause him a pang or a sleepless hour till now. Had not his life been happy? What did he want with more? Ah, if he could but blot out for ever all that the last month had brought with it. If he could but be again as he had been before this woman had cast her sorcery on ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... articles with infinite satisfaction, before instructing his followers how to deal with it. "But time must not be wasted," said he in a moment. "I believe the ogre to be a very sleepless creature, and he may soon rise to wander after his usual style; so ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... letter to New York, fell in with it heart and soul. More stupidity, you see. Worse yet, he put it into effect. The arrangement was actually carried out last night. And again their luck turned against them. It so happened that both Miss Manwaring and Mr. Trego were sleepless last night and observed certain details of the conspiracy; and to make matters worse, it was the very night chosen by the thief ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... the free place's glory; The wind that sang them all his stormy story Had talked all winter to the sleepless spray, And as the sea's their ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbour and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colours. ...
— Captain Boldheart & the Latin-Grammar Master - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Lieut-Col. Robin Redforth, aged 9 • Charles Dickens
... used to passing sleepless nights," said the Texan. "When we are fairly launched into the Indian country you may not sleep so sound. Take hold and eat. A hearty eater on the plains generally stands travel best. To-morrow, it is likely, we'll have a fifty-mile ride or ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... lay there sleepless, or walked in his death to and fro in the room, his father and mother, some three miles ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... Twain that his career had come to an end. Back in Hartford, sweating and suffering through sleepless nights, he ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the chimneys of the manufacturing part of the town. He too knew what it was to build a tall pile like that. He had laid all he had at its base—his strength, his money, his honor. He had paid for it with sleepless nights and whitened hair; it was the tomb-stone of his race which he had raised on his estate, and what he now saw before him in the uncertain light was a monster church-yard, full of shadowy monuments, beneath which lay coffined the peace of mind of many wretched ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... gate was barricaded with carts. For hours stones were thrown against the gate and demand was made for our money. A messenger was at once sent after the engineers' party, asking them to return. All that night was spent in sleepless suspense. ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... of your position—and even my own. Mine own has risen like a palace in a dream, and may vanish like one. But that would not be a calamity if you were safe. If I quitted this world to-morrow, where would you be? It gives me sleepless nights and anxious days. If you really loved me as you say, you would save me this. I am haunted with the perpetual thought that all this glittering prosperity will vanish as it did with our father. God forbid that, under ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli |
