"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she could she set out for the village, leaving the field to the Dutch girl, and carrying with her enough unpleasant thoughts on other things to prevent her from giving any more consideration to the silly spasm of jealousy. She had thrust her two letters from England into her pocket, and as she went she kept turning and turning their news in her mind though without much result. There seemed very little she could do except prevent the banishing of her father to London. She would write to her mother ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... circuit of the walls for support. His eyes were always riveted on the gun; and however slightly it was moved, he experienced a fresh spasm of fear. ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... of lightning it had come. Beyond that one moan she fought silently, lips tight, one hand clutching at her side, through seconds that seemed eternities to the man watching helplessly. At last the spasm passed ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... minutes there was silence in the room. Up from the bar, through the thin partition, came the sounds of oaths and laughter and drunken song. The doctor cursed them all below his breath and turned toward the door. A spasm of coughing brought him back to his patient's side. After the spasm had passed the sick man lay still, his eyes closed, and his breath becoming shorter every moment. Once again the eyes made their appeal, and the doctor hastened to seek their meaning. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... A spasm of pain and anger distorted his face. He gave a cry, caught up suddenly the thick hake brush, and hurled it across the room toward the upright frame of silk. It struck the surface midway, a little to the left; pressed and worked against it as though ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... part of this speech my friend nudged me spasmodically, whispering something which was jostled out of intelligent utterance by some inward spasm of laughter. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... A spasm of pain contracted her face and cut short her speech. She would have fallen had Old Abe not caught her and, with Mary's help, ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... bugbear it used to be, when one mighty spasm of cleanliness shook the house from garret to cellar and threw its inmates into a fever of discomfort and dismay. The modern house-cleaning season is one of indolence and ease compared with what it once was, when not only the cleaning and living problem, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... at the door, leaving aunt and niece alone, and, as the door closed behind them, Sylvia felt a spasm of loneliness and regret. It was hard to part from Jack with that formal shake of the hand, to feel that days might elapse before they met again, and, as she looked round the ugly little dining-room, she felt like a prisoned bird which longs to break loose ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... A quick sharp spasm of pain passed over her face. She was silent for a minute before she answered him, and ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... the better of her again, for a moment; but it passed over her face like a spasm, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... returned his "good-night" with sympathetic cordiality; then turned softly to his own apartment. Having reached it, he gave himself up to a spasm of silent laughter. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... can tell what a day may bring forth, let alone ten year? One autumn day he came home to me, in our shanty at Wild Cats' Gulch, with a hard chill, and in two hours, just as the turn of the cold fit into the hot one, he had a little spasm and ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... a fever, which seized her next morning. It lasted fourteen days with great violence, and was succeeded by attacks of convulsion and spasm. This was the beginning of that state of bodily suffering and mental exaltation in which she passed the remaining seven ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... Frederick Elliots and Marochettis dined with us. There was a frost, and torches on the Serpentine. Mrs. F. Elliot drove round to see it, and went home and died in the night [of a spasm of the heart. The news reached Reeve by a note from Mr. Elliot, dated seven o'clock in ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... A spasm of emotion filled his eyes with tears, and some one touched his arm and drew him aside. He strove with himself fiercely and looked up again to see that three men had entered the room and were going toward the prisoner. The priest had come forward ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... pardon, under which his confessions were obtained, was not kept after they were completed; and the execution of Lucan, at the age of twenty-six, while it cut short a remarkable poetical career, rid the world of a very poor creature. Yet the final spasm of courage with which he died, declaiming a passage from his own epic, has gained him, in the noblest of English elegies, a place in the same verse ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... raising the injured foot from the ground, while a spasm of anguish contracted his features. "Did you take my foot ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... back, with his chest heaving. His features were working. The spasm had exhausted him; and the green brilliance gave his gray skin a ghastly pallor. He lifted a small silver hammer and brought it down upon the belly of a ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... that of Mrs. Marden's first husband). It was really Polwhistle—either Henry or Ernest Polwhistle; he was not quite sure which. Everything is thus restored to the status quo ante, except that Marden, in a spasm of generous reaction, feels himself morally bound to abide by the new conditions that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... Flat was "after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... he traveled the campus. He passionately envied the dancers in the fraternity houses but consoled himself with the thought, "Maybe I'll be dancing at the Nu Delt house next year." Then he had a spasm of fright. Perhaps the Nu Delts—perhaps no fraternity would bid him. The moon lost its brilliance; for a moment even the Sanford-Raleigh game ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... two men. Monty sat where Trent had been earlier in the night at the front of the open hut, his eyes fixed upon the ever-rising moon, his face devoid of intelligence, his eyes dim. The fire of the last few minutes had speedily burnt out. His half-soddened brain refused to answer to the sudden spasm of memory which had awakened a spark of the former man. If he had thoughts at all, they hung around that brandy bottle. The calm beauty of the African night could weave no spell upon him. A few feet behind, Trent, by the ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there is never gout in the hands or feet, no catarrh, nor sciatica, nor grievous colics, nor flatulency, nor hard breathing. For these diseases are caused by indigestion and flatulency, and by frugality and exercise they remove every humour and spasm. Wherefore it is unseemly in the extreme to be seen vomiting or spitting, since they say that this is a sign either of little exercise or of ignoble sloth, or of drunkenness or gluttony. They suffer rather from swellings or from the dry spasm, which they relieve ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... all that he had to say, so he waited patiently for John to get over his spasm of laughter. Then he looked at him as if to ask what had he to say about such positive evidence as he had brought forth, regarding the Movie girl making the best ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... spoke up Dotty, very bravely, till a sudden spasm of recollection changed her tone, and she added, faintly, "If 'twasn't for my cunning ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... a long breath, but curiously it broke, as if a sharp spasm had gripped her heart. She stood, struggling with herself. And then suddenly she dropped upon her knees by the sill with her arms flung wide and her head with its cloudy ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... of spirits, of knowing, and endeavoring after what is morally good, and true, and perfect, and of the yearning after every real disciple of the inner religion of Christians, impels me to suggest to you to tell him from me, that I believe the spasm of his spiritual efforts would sooner be calmed, and the solution of the great problem would sooner be found, if he were to live for a time among us; I mean, if he resided for a time in one of the German universities. We Germans have been for seventy years working as thinkers, inquirers, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... foot, he has taken permanent possession of the country. The ancient religions of the primaeval East or the quaint beliefs of savage tribes make no particular impression upon him, except a passing spasm of disgust at anybody having different superstitions from his own; and, being in the main a good-natured animal in a stolid way of his own, he is able to make use even of popish priests if they will help to found ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... heart cried in the intolerable spasm of a swift and mysterious convulsion. 'Why do you thus torture me?' Every step was ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... killed. At last he had to dance." "Sometimes they would be jerked about like a cock with his head off, all about the ground." The dancing I judge to have been an involuntary convulsive movement, which was the close of the general spasm. Of course, the people believed the whole was a "manifestation of the power of God." There is no reason to doubt that McNemar's descriptions are accurate; from what I have heard at South Union, I imagine that ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... the other three diseases in that it is a nervous trouble, and probably the germ or the poison formed by the germ attacks the nervous system, and particularly one great nerve connecting the lungs and stomach. This is why the spasm of coughing is frequently followed by vomiting, and the only remedy which is of value in whooping cough is a nerve depressant which will diminish the activity of the nervous system without at the same time interfering with the strength or vigor ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... merely a matter of hours, if not minutes. Over and over again he had had himself propped up by his attendants with the expectation that his command to bring his son had been obeyed. No one knew better than he how impossible it would be to resist another spasm like that which had seized him a little while after his son had ridden off the rancho early that morning. Yet he relied once more on his iron constitution, and absolutely refused to die until he had laid upon his next of kin what ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... of amazement. Quickly he glanced at his chum, to see that Frank had gone deadly white, and his eyes glittered with sudden spasm of pain that ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... opinion of it's effect, some one day, has never altered! However, it is entirely gone off, and I am only quite weak. The good people of England will not believe, that rest of body and mind is necessary for me! But, perhaps, this spasm may not come again these six months. I had been writing seven hours yesterday; perhaps, that had some hand in bringing it upon me." Thus lightly does he speak of his own sufferings, thus good-humouredly ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... was suffering physical anguish at the moment—the old sharp pain at his heart to which he had become more or less wearily accustomed, had dizzied his senses for a space, but as the spasm passed he took Reay's hand and pressed ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... disease of the brain the cry is always sharp, short and piercing. Drowsiness generally follows each spasm of pain. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... squatting on his heels all this time at Shadrach's feet, and his hard fingers, like claws, were picking at the ground. Now he put out a hand, and began fingering the laces of the farmer's shoes with a quick fluttering movement that Shadrach saw with a spasm of terror. It was so exactly the trick of a baboon, so entirely a thing ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... and are labelled, "Expenses of [Brighton] Pavilion," of "Furniture," "Drinking expenses." "Aye, this comes," he exclaims, "of your cursed pill economy, which you forced me to take a month back; no one knows what I have suffered from this economical spasm. I am afraid we shall all be laid up together." On the table behind him lie the medicines which have been prescribed for him, certain pills labelled "Petitions against the property tax," and a huge bolus ticketed "economy," "to be taken immediately." On ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... lily, with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks. She wore her sleek, golden hair in a quaint arch around it. Her forehead was very broad and white. She was fresh and young and hopeful. The mother's heart contracted in a spasm of pain as she looked at her. How like the girl was to—to—to the Spencers! Those easy, curving outlines, those large, mirthful blue eyes, that finely molded chin! Isabella Spencer shut her lips firmly and crushed down some ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to see the child with its fair locks all tumbled upon the pillow, a dimpled hand laid under a dimpled cheek, ease and comfort and well-being in every lovely curve; and then there came a momentary spasm across his face, and he murmured "Poor little beggar!" under his breath. He was not panic-stricken like Lucy. He was a man made robust by much experience of the world, and a child more or less was not a thing to affect him as it would ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... round him at the awakening beauty of the springtide world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat. His face contracted as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cried M. Linders from his bed, in a sudden spasm of rage, "it is that villain, that miserable! Yes, yes, come in; Madelon, light the candles quickly; where are the cards? Ah—I will have ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... retains the impression that bats were made to get on with, while the rest of Callahan's bunch use them solely to get out with, and that was the whole trouble in the last round. The Sox entered that spasm four runs behind, having converted Demmitt's lone hit in the first inning into the only genuine tally of ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... very motionless in the bright illuminations and dancings of the torches. But at the news of delay, through the King of Scots, a spasm of pain and concern came into her face. So that, if her features did not again move they had in them a savour of anguish, her eyebrows drooping, and the corners ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... hotel office was in a spasm of activity, bells were ringing, doors slamming, and guests arriving. The group of loiterers who usually sat facing the fire, criticizing the daily proceedings of the legislature, now stood in a semicircle with their backs to it, watching the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... Shadow, striving to find her way out into the sunlight; and sometimes the valley seemed but the entrance to that bottomless pit of shame where Maxime Dalahaide was entombed. She awoke from a dream forgotten, in a spasm of cold fear, before it was dawn, and switching on the electric light near the bed, she drew her watch from under the pillow. It was just six o'clock; and for a few moments Virginia lay still, thinking over the events of yesterday. After all, what did they mean for her? Nothing, said Reason; ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... blood flooded his cheeks. The woman who for him was the sole and only incarnation of the whole race of womankind throughout the ages rose before his mental sight with a surprising clearness; every hair of his body stood on end in an agonizing spasm of desire, and he dug his nails into the palms of his hands. The vision caused him an unspeakable yet delicious pain—Gabrielle in a loose peignoir at a small, daintily ordered table gay with flowers and glasses. ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... half-breed's father—a wordless cry, rising and dying away again and again, like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night, as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Jan's arm in a sudden spasm of horror. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... that preceded the latter part of this speech was not lost upon Molly Healy. It caused her a spasm of pain that was sharp, if it was only short-lived, for she was a girl, if a sensible and healthy one, and she always had greatly admired ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Ziska,[75] as it were, killing him at second hand. For Ziska, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had risen out of the ashes of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in large doses it acts as a narcotic, abating pain and inducing sleep. In moderate doses it operates as a diaphoretic, diuretic, antispasmodic, increasing the heat of the body, allaying irritation and spasm. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... solitude, is of service at least in this, that it affords an escape for vain regrets, angers, impatience. One puts this and that angry spasm into it, and is delivered from ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden spasm, release of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... all diseased: all maladies Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms Of heartsick agony, all fev'rous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic-pangs Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... the necessity of expressing something he has felt not only intensely but definitely. The artist must know what he is about, and what he is about must be, if I am right, the translation into material form of something that he felt in a spasm of ecstasy. Therefore, shapes that merely fill gaps will be ill-drawn. Forms that are not dictated by any emotional necessity, forms that state facts, forms that are the consequences of a theory ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... trouble and everything, I've gone and left that knife at home, and now my whole trip is going to be spoiled for me. I just seemed to feel that something was bound to happen to upset my calculations. I might as well go back, that's what," said Bluff, gritting his teeth in his spasm of disgust. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... dark eyes, unmoved from his face, roused in him a spasm of nervous irritation. "Your soul is in great danger, and you're very unhappy, I can see. Turn to God for help, and in His mercy everything will be made so different for you—so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it. She was never finer than when she knelt at Harold's bedside and laid her hand gently on his forehead. She could not speak for a moment, and when her eyes cleared of their tears and she felt the wide, dry eyes of the man searching her, a spasm of ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... stop mopin' out thar an' come along in, I'll clear off the dishes!" called his mother again in her rasping voice which sounded as if she were choking in a perpetual spasm ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... transept is to be seen a group carved in marble, representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Caesar gazed at it absorbed. The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who smilingly threatens her with ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... remains at its strongest the normal colours do little more than modify the blue, or appear faintly through a veil of it; but presently the vehemence of the sentiment dies away, and the normal colours re-assert themselves. But because of that spasm of emotion the part of the astral body which is normally blue has been increased in size. Thus a man who frequently feels high devotion soon comes to have a large area of the blue permanently existing in his ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... in a spasm of coughing and a struggle for breath that made Faxon, still holding his arm, guide him hastily into the ...
— The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... Heaven wandered free. The little bride stepped bravely between the piles of refuse, daintily gathering her dress about her. A dirty sheet on the wall flapped without warning, and we had a glimpse of a gaunt and pallid crucifix, instantly shrouded again in a spasm of wind. Passing under an arch we entered a less demolished chapel. Here all ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... victorious, but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 'Galileo'?—what of his 'House of Orleans'?—the letter of Catherine II. which he had presented to the Grand Duke?—the letter of Rotrou, which he had solemnly bestowed upon the Academie? What? What? A spasm of energy brought him to his legs. Fage! He ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... promising boy, full [of?] life and vivacity, having inherited much of the careless joyousness of his father's temperament; and although he was the light and joy of his home, yet his mother sometimes felt as if her heart was contracting with a spasm of agony, when she remembered that it was through that same geniality of disposition and wonderful fascination of manner, the tempter had woven his meshes for her husband, and that the qualities that made him so desirable at home, made him equally ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... back at the wall, and then closed his eyes, as if with a spasm, of retarded dizziness. "I won't resist you," he said. "But I have made you obey," he added, turning to Christina. "Am I ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... about again my first act is to apologize to you for my rudeness in quitting the table so abruptly as to make it seem like a personal insult to you. Now I hope you will believe me when I say that an insult to you from me is impossible. Something like a spasm passed over my nervous system, and I had to hurry ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... spasm of the crisis I was more concerned for Jim's safety than with the long-feared monetary cataclysm. That was upon us in such power as to make us helpless; but Jim, wounded and prostrated as he was, his very life in danger, was a ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... marble, while a spasm of pain passed over his features as he said: "Oh, Aunt Lucy, you do not know how you hurt me Why did you speak ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... in July, Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, and in April, Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one, Mrs. Taylor and Mill were quietly married. The announcement of the marriage sent a spasm over literary England, and set ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... fast," murmured Mrs. Montgomery, as she noted the livid lips and pallid face that followed the spasm. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... dissatisfaction, yea desolation of my soul—wretched, alone, unfinished, without him! It cannot act from itself, save in God; acting from what seems itself without God, is no action at all, it is a mere yielding to impulse. All within is disorder and spasm. There is a cry behind me, and a voice before; instincts of betterment tell me I must rise above my present self—perhaps even above all my possible self: I see not how to obey, how to carry them ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... the house, lying wrapped up in his blanket on the ground. He was, to all appearance, very ill indeed, and shook and shivered horribly; not as people do from cold, but in a frightful kind of spasm or convulsion, that racked his whole body. Mark's friend pronounced his disease an aggravated kind of fever, accompanied with ague; which was very common in those parts, and which he predicted would be worse to-morrow, and for many more to-morrows. ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... a momentary spasm of alarm, her grief was so wild and overwhelming. One hand was flung about her father's neck, and the other pressed itself against her side, as if ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and antispasmodic, but owing to the accidents it may give rise to, its use in therapeutics is very limited. Like all the active Solanace it is effective against neuralgia and spasm of the muscular tissues and is therefore indicated in strangulated hernia and in intestinal obstruction. In these conditions the infusion of 1-5 grams of the dried leaf to 250 grams of water is given ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... was dark, and my blushes were unnoticed. (faintly repeating Rudolph's words) "Your tiny hand is frozen, Let me warm it into life!" It was dark, and my hand then you clasped— (a sudden spasm half suffocates her; she sinks ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... truth was brought home to them so forcibly that they forthwith developed the fighting spirit, and became the most blood-thirsty entities in, the service of the Queen. All were needed, and When afterwards a merchant found himself "officered" by his factotum, he enjoyed (after a fleeting spasm); the humour of the revolution ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... philosopher bend. As the broken heart of a sunset that bleeds pure purple and gold In the shudder and swoon of the sickness of colour, the agonies old That engirdle the brows of the day when he sinks with a spasm into rest And the splash of his kingly blood is dashed on the skirts of the west, Even such was my own, when I felt how much sharper than any snake's tooth Was the passion that made me mistake Lady Eve for her niece Lady Ruth. The whole world, ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a fashion similar to Butch's spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from his immaculate track togs, and bowing to the cheering ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... you think she has gone there?" Richard asked, with a sudden spasm of fear, for which he could not account, and which was not in any wise diminished by his mother's reply: "Ann said she took the six o'clock train for Olney, and as Miss Amsden lives beyond us, it's likely she went there, and is home ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... he held out to her, glanced at it, and choked back a spasm of hysterical laughter. For it wasn't a picture of Aunt Caroline, or even of a departed Spence—it was a picture of ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... I know all about it," said I, hastily, as I passed my handkerchief over my mouth to hide the spasm of pain which ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... could have read or written. The answer seems to be pretty obvious; namely, that after the publication of the Dictionary he wrote very little, and that, when he did write, it was generally in a brief spasm of feverish energy. One may understand that Johnson should have frequently reproached himself for his indolence; though he seems to have occasionally comforted himself by thinking that he could do good by talking as well as by writing. He said that a man should have ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... With a wild spasm of joy William realised that his enemy lisped. It is always well to have a handle against ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... still upon the field of action, but in sad and sorrowful condition; suffering the penalties of past pleasures, and calling to mind the captain's dulcet compound, with many a retch and spasm. It seemed as if the honey and alcohol, which had passed so glibly and smoothly over his tongue, were at war within his stomach; and that he had a swarm of bees within his head. In short, so helpless and woebegone was his plight, that his party proceeded ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... blood-stained hand above his head, shouted, in a heart-piercing cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" The effort was his last. It was the expiring tribute of allegiance to the chief he adored. The blood spouted in cataracts from his half-closed wounds, a convulsive spasm worked through his frame, his eyes rolled fearfully, as his outstretched hands seemed striving to clutch some object before them, and he was dead. Fresh arrivals of wounded continued to pour in; and now I thought I could detect at intervals the distant noise of a cannonade. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... wire-toothed horse rake with its two handles, which when the day was hot and the grass heavy nearly killed both man and horse. The holder would throw his weight upon it to make it grip and hold the hay, and then, in a spasm of energy, lift it up and make it drop the hay. From this rude instrument, through various types of wooden and revolving rakes, the modern wheeled rake, with which the raker rides at his ease, has been evolved. At this season the cows ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... as if he had suddenly felt the prick of a knife, so sharp was the spasm which ran through him. For the moment he had quite forgotten the prospect of an attempt at rescue; now the mention of the soldiery coming to meet the unhappy prisoners and strengthen the escort brought all back, and ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... she ran away with your father," she cried, a spasm of pain crossing her face. "He said I was born before they were married. I have a right to kill him. Do you hear? I ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... the folks from over to Jocelyn's, yist'd'y," he said, in a spasm of sharp, crackling speech, "and they seemed to think 't Mis' Mulbridge'd got to step round pretty spry 'f she did n't want another the same name in the house ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... She looked at the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two Parisian women, and suspected the cause of ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... was rather fond of styling himself "Master of Arts in both Universities." Soon after 1585, if not before, he betook himself to London, where he speedily sank into the worst type of a literary adventurer. Thenceforth his life seems to have been one continual spasm, plunging hither and thither in transports of wild profligacy and repentance. He died in 1592, eaten up ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... tears are in her eyes, (we do not forget that it is of marble we are speaking,—there are tears in her eyes,) but they only linger there; she is not weeping now; her chin trembles, and one of her hands is convulsively clenched,—but it is with the anguish of her sore besetting, not the spasm of mortal fear. Though Heaven and Earth, indeed, might join to help her, we yet know that the soul of the maiden will help itself,—that her hope clings fast, and her courage is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... sign or sound he fell down upon the sodden turf, his head striking against the earth with a dull echo, his hands drawing up the rank herbage by the roots, as they closed convulsively in one brief spasm. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... feel twitchings of uneasiness. Fred Massingbird had gone then, and the doctor was out. Lionel looked into the drawing-room, and there found the two elder Misses West, each dissolved in a copious shower of tears. So far, Jan's words were borne out. A sharp spasm shot across his heart. ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... An enthusiastic commercial spasm will be worth nothing. There have got to be real efforts, real hard work, the expenditure of money for future and not merely immediate profits, a cheerful readiness to discard old and cherished methods, a new adaptability, a new painstaking attention to details. There has got to be serious ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... fashion of southern countries of serenading, which I am very glad is not an English fashion. Music, as long as I am awake, is a pure and perfect delight to me, but to be wakened out of my sleep by music is to wake in a spasm of nervous terror, shaking from head to foot, and sick at my stomach, with indescribable fear and dismay; certainly no less agreeable effect could possibly be contemplated by the gallantry of a serenading admirer, so I am glad our admirers do not serenade us English girls. This picturesque ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... reaction of relief, that the child could speak at all, half horrible spasm of all her own motherly nerves that thrilled through and through with every pang that touched the little frame, hers also. Mothers never do part bonds with babies they have borne. Until the day they die, each quiver ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... blinding spasm of giddiness closed upon and shook him, while the brave words were on his lips. He blinked and tottered under it, as it passed, and then backed humbly to his divan and sat down, gasping a little, and patting his hand on his heart. There ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... It was as if the Wheat, Nourisher of the Nations, as it rolled gigantic and majestic in a vast flood from West to East, here, like a Niagara, finding its flow impeded, burst suddenly into the appalling fury of the Maelstrom, into the chaotic spasm of a world-force, a primeval energy, blood-brother of the earthquake and the glacier, raging and wrathful that its power should be braved by some pinch of human spawn that dared ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof, And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls, Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching anguish in uttermost tension Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping like a jerking leap, and oh! Opening its clenched face from his outstretched neck And giving that fragile yell, that scream, Super-audible, From his pink, cleft, old-man's mouth, Giving up the ghost, Or screaming in Pentecost, ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... text becomes a whole creed to the exclusion of every other text, and instead of being itself subject to rational tests is made the sole test of the rationality of everything else, so in the case of the average Bolshevist of this type a single phrase received into the mind in a spasm of emotion, never tested by the usual criteria of reason, becomes not only the very essence of truth but also the standard by which the truth or untruth of everything else must be determined. Most of the preachers who become pro-Bolshevists ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in crowded House thought of these miserable men. HARCOURT made his speech; GORST demonstrated that Motion was indefensible, being both too late and too soon; the Mouse came and went amid a spasm of thrilled interest; GLADSTONE delivered oration in dinner-hour; PARNELL fired up at midnight; House divided, and SPEAKER left the Chair. Then was heard the rattling of keys in the door by OLD MORALITY's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... Square, I remember vaguely hearing some one call out. I paid no heed, but pressed on blindly. A moment after, a hand fell heavily on my shoulder, and I thought I had fainted. Certainly the world went black about me for some seconds; and when that spasm passed I found myself standing face to face with the "cheerful extravagant," in what sort of disarray I really dare not imagine, dead white at least, shaking like an aspen, and mowing at the man with speechless lips. And this was the soldier of Napoleon, and the gentleman who intended ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spasm of hope took me into that green cup. The bracken was as thick as on the Pentlands, and there was a multitude of small lovely flowers in the grass. It was like a water-meadow at home, such a place as I had often in boyhood searched for moss-cheepers' and corncrakes' eggs. Birds were crying ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... delicacies were bought, in case Justin might like them; Redge and Zaidee were hurriedly dressed in their best "to see dear papa," and, even though they had to go to bed without the desired result, Redge in a fresh spasm of coughing, it was with the repeated promise that the father should come up-stairs to kiss them as ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... and putting her head on one side, looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her mouth, but with a cunning aspect ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... the ecstasy of relief which Mark felt at her words there was a spasm of sobering jealousy; she only cared to live for the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... sails beginning to shiver as she faced more and more to the wind, and finally flapping to and fro; but almost at once as the spokes turned rapidly through Isaac Gregg's hands, a deep low murmur ran through the crew, while a pang-like spasm seemed to shoot upward to cause a choky sensation in ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... this sudden spasm of business anxiety, but said nothing further, and Drew hastened down to the Jones Lane pier and boarded the Normandy. But again he was doomed ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... and sullen, with eyes as clear and heartless as those of a beast in the wild. Now, without warning, a startling transformation was wrought. His form stiffened to rigidity after one lightning-swift step forward, and his face grayed. The eyes glowed with the fires of a man's heart in a spasm of hate. He was the embodiment of rage, as he spoke huskily, his voice a whisper that was ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... meshed. The slimy touch sent an unpleasant thrill through him, but he had no sense of fear as yet He wrenched off the bloom he had aimed for, and again he went under water. Then he found he could not rise, and a sudden spasm of terror shook him. He struggled madly, and the pulses in his head beat like bells. Just when the case seemed desperate, and he felt as if he must take breath or die, something gave way. He surged upward, and got one great gulp of air. His senses came back to him, ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... towards him with approving glances, they saw him standing before them cold, rigid, and voiceless. The next instant his fixed features were suddenly distorted, his whole frame collapsed as if torn by an internal spasm—he fell back heavily to the floor. Those around approached him with unsteady feet, and raised him in their arms. His soul had burst the bonds of vice in which others had entangled it; the voice of Death had whispered to the slave of the ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... difference. Before we go any farther, let it be clearly understood that there was no sentiment involved; at least, no sentimental sentiment. Years before, I, like most of the other town boys of my age, had taken my turn as Agatha's fetcher and carrier; but that was only a passing spasm—a gust of the calf-love which stirs up momentary whirlwinds in youthful hearts. The real reason for the promise-making lay deeper. Abel Geddis had been crabbedly kind to me, helping me through my final year in the High School after my father died, and taking me into his private ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... could not keep me away from that festive board," the colonel vowed. (Another spasm for the groom!) "And how is that good father ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... into the red-lit space of the control room, where the airlock was. Weaver stopped and frantically tugged his arm free of the rubberoid sleeve. The repressed spasm was an acute agony in his nose and throat. He fumbled the handkerchief out of his pocket, thrust his hand up under the helmet—and ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... spinning off at a tangent, out into the void, where all things seemed possible, hurtling through the dark there, groping for the supernatural, clamouring for the miracle. And it was also the human, natural protest against the inevitable, the irrevocable; the spasm of revolt under the sting of death, the rebellion of the soul at the victory ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... let the primus burn on after supper now for a time—it was the only thing which kept us going—and when one who was holding the primus was seized with cramp we hastily took the lamp from him until the spasm was over. It was horrible to see Birdie's stomach cramp sometimes: he certainly got it much worse than Bill or I. I suffered a lot from heartburn especially in my bag at nights: we were eating a great proportion of fat and this was probably the cause. Stupidly I said nothing ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... returning alone, Isabel insisted on accompanying him, declaring that she had no fears, and that her mother would be miserable if her absence should detain them. Perhaps she was somewhat deceived by the cool, almost ludicrous, light in which he placed the revolution, as a sort of periodical spasm, and Miss Longman's predictions that the railway would be closed, only ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moments in which radical evil gets its innings and takes its solid turn. The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! To believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our imagination—they seem too much like mere museum specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that did ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... murderous basilisk.—When this began, He shouted on poor Lichas, none to blame For thy sole crime, 'What guile is here, thou knave? What was thy fraud in fetching me this robe?' He, all-unknowing, in an evil hour Declared his message, that the gift was thine. Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot Where the ankle turns i' the socket, and, with a thought, Hurl'd on a surf-vex'd reef that showed i' the sea: And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain Being scattered with the blood. Then the great throng Saddened their festival with piteous ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... and swung my hat and shouted, hoping to attract some brakeman's attention. The train was thundering along at full speed, and none saw or heard me. I knew her stupor would not last long. A slight quivering of the lip, an occasional spasm running through the frame, told me too plainly that the stage of frenzy would soon begin. 'My God,' I exclaimed in despair, as I shut the door and turned toward her, 'must I see you die, Gulnare, when the opening of a vein would ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... made a bodily resistance—I received from an unseen power the most violent thrust which a human being ever felt. The working of terror was acting dreadfully within me; its effect was to close my arms as in a spasm, to seize on what stood unseen before me. I staggered onwards, and fell prostrate on the ground; beneath me on his back was a man whom I held fast, and who now ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... be kept alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time I did not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... | discharges |debility. Relapses |mild. Characteristic | from nose |are apt to occur. |"whooping" cough develops | and mouth. |Second attack |in about a fortnight, and the | |rare. Specially |spasm of coughing often ends | |infectious for |with vomiting. | |first week or two. | | |If a child is sick | | |after a bout of | | |coughing, it is | | |most probably | | |suffering from | | |whooping cough. | | | | | |Great variation in | | |type of ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... began. Then he seemed to undergo some internal spasm. He dropped his hat, slid his chair to the side of Fanny's, and said, "Ah, Miss Newt, how can you ask me at such ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... is called the Devil's Bridge. With a single arch, from ridge to ridge, It leaps across the terrible chasm Yawning beneath us, black and deep, As if, in some convulsive spasm, The summits of the hills had cracked, And made a road for the cataract That raves and rages down ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... such a death as he had often said would be his choice. Just a dropping to sleep here and an awakening yonder. The doctor said it was heart-failure, resulting from a sudden spasm of pain. But the face bore no trace of pain. The moan that wakened Daisy was probably that sigh with which mortal parts with mortality—the parting breath between life and death, which will scarcely stir a feather and yet will ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and then she kind of trembled and turned white, and the next thing I knew was she was all of a heap on the floor. I remember he looked into her face then and seemed to be seized as if it was with a start or spasm-like,—but I thought nothin' more of it, supposin' it was because he felt so bad at makin' her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Josephine took the glass. "I drink to your health, Camille, and to your glory; laurels to your brow, and some faithful woman to your heart, who will make you forget this folly: it is for her I am saving you." She put the glass with well-acted spirit to her lips; but in the very action a spasm seized her throat and almost choked her; she lowered her head that he might not see her face, and tried again; but the tears burst from her eyes and ran into the liquid, and her lips trembled over ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clanged up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay, beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa, whispering and choking out the words ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... tents, and I suppose show-people always expect to travel with shows. I don't know anything about it. But I do know when that child came to me she'd been dosed nearly to death with laudanum, or some sleepin' drug, and didn't really come to her senses till after her spasm." ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... He was leaning on the back of his chair, fighting some spasm of feeling. "I am—faint. I must ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... His eyes grew clear, as his full sense returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a long time since he had seen any open fire,—years, he believed. Where was it that there had been a fire just like that, with the ashes like moss over the heat,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... together. They are, indeed, not without peril, for the perpetually returning disturbance of the circulation may give rise to an overfilling of the vessels of the brain, or to a stagnation of the blood within them, or the spasm may affect the muscles which open and close the entrance to the windpipe, and the child may die choked as in a paroxysm of whooping cough, or in a fit of spasmodic croup, or lastly the violent and frequently repeated muscular movements may at length exhaust its feeble frame. But still, such ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... a straight thrust to the core of a superstitious heart and a spasm of terror crossed the woman's face. She began ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... memory betrayed her. Just so, she recollected, Leofwine's son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow of the King's fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... got here this afternoon; sent out one of the messengers to buy me a sofa, and here I've been ever since. Well, and what's brought you up—don't answer, I know all about it. I've got to keep on talking until this particular spasm's over, or else I shall scream and disturb the flow of Soane's leader. Well, and now you've come, you'll stop and help me to put the Hour to bed, won't you? And then you can come and put me ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... this general course constantly in mind in all cases of esophagoscopy, but particularly in those cases in which there is marked dilatation of the esophagus following spasm at the diaphragm level. In such cases the aid of this knowledge of direction will greatly simplify the finding of the hiatus esophageus in the floor of ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... of finding himself in the little town, he was in the depths of a great old forest, and in horrible agony. Some accident had occurred—he did not know what. He only knew that he was shot, suffering, dying! He groaned, and even as he writhed in a spasm of pain he saw her sitting on the sward beside him. He turned glazed eyes on her. Her brown ones looked back into his with a great love ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... pain; for she believes that poison is being introduced into her system, and that her bones will be softened, and her flesh turned into dust. She becomes deadly pale; her limbs are stiffened by a sort of tetanic spasm, and her hair is partially erected on the front ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... sold shamrock on St. Patrick's day. She has dressed in rags and sung in the streets for charity. She has hired a van and ridden about the suburbs pretending to sell domestic articles. She has attended revival meetings and thrown herself in a spasm of ecstasy upon what she calls the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... and then he choked and collapsed on the bed in a shaken spasm of grief. After a minute he opened his eyes and regarded ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... struggling and making efforts to escape, but his iron collar held him back. The birds adapted themselves to all his movements, retreating, then striking again, scared but desperate. On one side a strange flight was attempted, on the other the pursuit of a chained man. The corpse, impelled by every spasm of the wind, had shocks, starts, fits of rage: it went, it came, it rose, it fell, driving back the scattered swarm. The dead man was a club, the swarms were dust. The fierce, assailing flock would not leave their hold, and grew stubborn; ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... wan, their movements constrained and timorous. All their efforts at gaiety were impeded by the inertia of fear. At every speech the lips of Lina and Laura quivered, the hands of Leonello and Leonardo were clenched in a nervous spasm. Antonio controlled himself only by the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... aerial wave, the energy of which would not reach a minute fraction of that necessary to raise the thousandth of a grain through the thousandth of an inch, can throw the whole human frame into a powerful mechanical spasm, followed by violent respiration and palpitation. The eye of course, may be appealed to as well as the ear. Of this the lamented Lange ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... absorbed, it is true, in grave thought, but his countenance was neither distressed nor gloomy. With a spasm of fierce annoyance, and a bitter curse on the meddling of old females and young, Rupert had to admit that never had he seen his brother look more handsome, more master of the house and of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle |
