"Spasmodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the toll-keeper's widow behind me as I watched the spasmodic jerkings of this umbrella. "I wasn't far out in my reckon. And you, sir, make twenty-two. It niver rains but it pours, they say. Times enow I don't see a soul for days together, not to hail by name, an' now you drops in on top ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... like thunderclouds, that burst into flashes of music. Now the poor melody swings up into the air—then comes one of those terrible pauses, and now down into the abyss. A crash, an ineffectual beating, a spasmodic rush. I seem to hear the pumps again, distant, remote, ineffectual. But that is not so; the struggle is over. Chopin's Study has been battered to pieces; only disarticulated fragments toss amidst the froth. High up the confusion of the stormy sky she ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... basic nitrate of bismuth, a pearly white powder of loose texture, turning grey on exposure, and blackened by sulphuretted hydrogen. It is chiefly used as a cosmetic, but is said to injure the skin, rendering it yellow and leather-like; and it has been known to cause a spasmodic trembling of the face, ending ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... face flushed, with beads of perspiration on her brow and the chestnut curls damp. Helen threw down the blankets, and then, gathering courage—for she felt as if her back was broken—she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit was willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a violent spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes, and, succeeding, sat there trembling. The commotion she had made in the blankets awoke Bo, and she blinked her surprised blue ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... concentration is. The person that is able to concentrate gains the Power to control others. Concentration makes the will and intellect act in unison. Why some people are not magnetic. When a powerful personal influence is generated. How to become influential. The cause of spasmodic, erratic concentration. How to centralize your attention. A quick way to develop concentration. The development of physical and mental concentration. How to learn a valuable lesson. One of the best ways to influence ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... at Varallo, is by far the best. Ferrari never painted anything at once truer to life and nobler in tragic style than the fainting Virgin. Her face expresses the very acme of martyrdom—not exaggerated nor spasmodic, but real and sublime—in the suffering of a stately matron. In points like this Ferrari cannot be surpassed. Raphael could scarcely have done better; besides, there is an air of sincerity, a stamp of popular truth, in this episode, which lies beyond Raphael's sphere. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period—a state of affairs not conducive ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... frequency shows that they are based on some weak spot in human nature; and in proportion as we pity the victims we have a right to condemn those who sow the seeds of the pestilence. True religion is never spasmodic; it is calm as the existence of God. I know of nothing more shocking than such attempts to substitute rockets and blue lights for Heaven's ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... Dorothy Gedge, typewriter (with the nom de guerre of Gedage), was a little angular, and the motive of her spasmodic excursions across the stage was not always apparent. But she was extremely funny in her inimitable way when she had a chance of exhibiting the unreasonableness of her selection as a mouthpiece of the Muses. At the end, when she wonders if she could have been happy with Glandeville ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... it that even the great Titian was so struck with the vraisemblance of the work that he was not satisfied until he had touched the canvas to be sure of its not being in relief. We may fancy indeed that the scenery was one great attraction of the representation. In spite of spasmodic encouragement by the more liberally minded pontiffs, the general weight of church influence was against the new musical tendency, and the most skilled composers were at first afraid to devote their talents to further ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... The silence was so great as the 'Lexington' approached the dam, that a pin might almost be heard to fall. She entered the gap with a full head of steam on, pitched down the roaring torrent, made two or three spasmodic rolls, hung for a moment on the rocks below, was then swept into deep water by the current, and rounded to safely into the bank. Thirty thousand voices rose in one deafening cheer, and universal joy seemed to pervade the face of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... seem to you that this strange wayward spirit, if anything, was the very root and core of your own personality? And had you never a craving for the help of some higher, mightier spirit, to guide and strengthen yours; to regulate and civilise its savage and spasmodic self-will; to teach you your rightful place in the great order of the universe around; to fill you with a continuous purpose and with a continuous will to do it? Have you never had a dream of an Inspirer?—a spirit of ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... energy of soul and body into that rush, and launched himself against the broad back of the bear. It was an awful shock. Rooney was swift as well as heavy, so that his weight, multiplied into his velocity, sufficed to dislodge the wonder-stricken animal. One wild spasmodic effort it made to recover itself, and in doing so gave Rooney what may be called a backhander on the head, that sent him reeling ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... peaked. She had imagined her going about in this old place, sewing, learning to work properly, reading and studying, and going to church every Sabbath. She had really meant to do something for a human being day after day, not in a spasmodic fashion. And this ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... his side and head. The one impact knocked the breath out of him; the other stunned him. Even in his unconsciousness, lying on his side and quivering, he made rapid, spasmodic movements of his legs as if running for'ard to Skipper. The boys looked on and laughed, and when he no longer quivered and churned his legs they continued to laugh. Born in savagery, having lived in savagery all their lives and known naught else, their sense of humour was correspondingly savage. ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... away, rather spasmodic. He had been through the very front hell of the war—and like every man who had, he had the war at the back of his mind, like an obsession. But ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... the rattle of chain and hiss of steam, but the uproar began to die away and the sharp clatter of small engines changed to spasmodic jars. Then somebody shouted, there was a crash, and the end of a broken warp, flying back, tore up the dazzling water. The windlass stopped, and a few moments later a clump of mangroves swayed. Kit heard green wood crack, as a rope that had stretched and strained began ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... was one of the lawyers who examined Toombs for admission to the bar. He afterward declared that Robert Toombs, during the first four or five years of his practice, did not give high promise. His work in his office was spasmodic, and his style in court was too vehement and disconnected to make marked impression. But the exuberance or redundancy of youth soon passed, and he afterward reached a height in his profession never attained ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... in establishing themselves among the few contemporary painters whose performances are worth watching, they have not sprung suddenly into notice by some special achievement or by doing work so sensational that it would not fail to set people talking. There has been no spasmodic brilliancy in their progress, none of that strange alternation of masterly accomplishment and hesitating effort which is apt at times to mark the earlier stages of the life of an artist who may or may not attain greatness in his later years. ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... that then followed the galling despotism of Napoleon. Art and literature lay frozen and paralysed, and Overbeck in Lubeck and Vienna, like Cornelius in Dusseldorf, found in tyrannous sway the pseudo-classic school of the French David, cold as marble, rigid as petrifaction, spasmodic as a galvanised muscle. But the Germans, especially the more intellectual sort, smarting under the yoke, were all the while gathering strength to reclaim nationality as their birthright. The reaction came through the romantic movement, otherwise the ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... ten minutes he strove to coax a small quantity of the spirit down his chiefs throat, and at length had the satisfaction of seeing that some at least had been swallowed. The almost immediate result of this was a groan and a slight, spasmodic movement of the emaciated limbs; and presently, after a few minutes of further persistent ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... view of any person entering the room. He had the presence of mind to take these precautions instantly; but he had not self-control enough to suppress the involuntary exclamation which burst from his lips, at the moment when the thin streak of candle-light first flashed into his eyes. A violent spasmodic action contracted the muscles of his throat. He clenched his fist in a fury of suppressed rage against himself, as he felt that his own voice had ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... compelled by the circumstances of the situation not only invariably to yield my own judgment, but many a time had to play peacemaker—smoothing down ruffled feelings, that I knew had been excited by Granger's freaky and spasmodic efforts to correct personally some trifling fault that ought to have been left to a regimental or company commander to remedy. Yet with all these small blemishes Granger had many good qualities, and his big heart was so full of generous impulses and good motives as to ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... Bonbright, leaning forward as though drawn by spasmodic contraction of tense muscles, "is ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... NOT BEST UTILIZED.—Under the best types of Traditional Management we do find more or less spasmodic attempts at the functionalization of the worker. When there was any particular kind of work to be done, the worker who seemed to the manager to be the best fitted, was set at that kind of work. For example—if there was a particularly ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... announcement on Mallalieu was extraordinary. Bent felt the arm into which he had just slipped his own literally quiver with a spasmodic response to the astonished brain; the pipe which Mallalieu was smoking fell from his lips; out of his lips came something very like a cry ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... the benefit of a Government which, he thought, persecuted him. It may even be acknowledged that the resolute and consistent despotism he advocated might have been more tolerable, as well as more successful, than the spasmodic and fitful violence which discredited the Irish policy of the reign. He was indisputably right in condemning a system under which the island was 'governed neither as ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... present, he plunged into the memories of the war, as into a bath of oblivion, a strange oblivion, where he found all his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness, the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the drama, presented their excuses, or poured forth their complaints; and it seemed to him that his country would ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... sense of uneasiness permeated the Empire, whose rulers, great and small, began to foresee that a continuance of this state of things meant disaster to the rich as well as misery to the poor. Charity, spasmodic and unorganized, proved wholly unable to cope with the disaster that ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... and it is the method least efficacious in filling, as it is the one calculated to most fatigue the chest; for it compresses the vessels and nerves of the throat, and this leads to engorgement and spasmodic action of the muscles." ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... imagined it, they were only deceiving themselves; but how deplorable were the results. She herself had grown old as people should grow old—steadily and firmly. No interruptions, no belated after-glows and spasmodic returns. If, after all these years, she were now going to be deluded into some sort ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... later there was another roar of applause as the black Buzzard darted forward, and was soon soaring upward in pursuit of the speedy Golden Eagle. Old Schmidt in his monoplane was the next off—the crowd howling with mirth as the queer green contrivance scuttled over the ground in a series of spasmodic hops, just like its grasshopper namesake. Then came Gladwin, the novice, and a half dozen others. Presently the air above the plains was full of ambitious air craft, but with the exception of old Schmidt, who rose to ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... and his practice had finally parted company in the manner we have described, John Leech's indentures were transferred to Dr. John Cockle, afterwards physician to the Royal Free hospital. During part of his spasmodic medical course, he went through the mystic performance at one time known as "walking the hospitals," and at St. Bartholomew's varied his attendance at the anatomical lectures of Mr. Stanley—where he met other square pegs intended for round holes, Albert Smith and Percival Leigh—with sketches ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... within two yards of his den was a great surprise to him. He eyed me a long time—squirrel time—making little, spasmodic movements on the flat stone above his den. At a motion of my arm he darted into his hole with an exultant chip. He was soon out with empty pockets, and he then proceeded to sound his little tocsin of distrust or alarm so that all the sylvan folk might hear. As I ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... harsh shout of laughter, succeeded by the same abrupt silence. Would all our conversation, I wondered, be conducted on this spasmodic system? He certainly didn't second my efforts at small-talk. Was what he had to ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... our age, both young and old, should know that that God-consciousness of the Jew, that wondrous sense of eternity in his mission, is not a laboriously acquired conviction, not the result of some spasmodic effort of grasping the innermost meaning of our history, but the natural pervading spirit of Jewish life, the air which the Jew breathes, when he lives with Torah as his guide and Mitzvah as ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... imperial bridegroom at Paris, or that he underrated the ultimate effects of what was taking place in the Iberian peninsula if the process were to go on. Still less is it probable that with the direction of all his energy toward that quarter he could not have quenched the uncertain and spasmodic efforts of Spanish patriotism, either by arts of which he was a master, or by making a desert to call it a peace. No; every indication is that his eye was still fixed on England at her vital point, and that he took his measures ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Saxon. At intervals, when the government was exasperated by unusual outrages, some prince of the blood was sent across as viceroy; and half a century of acquiescence in disorder would be followed by a spasmodic severity, which irritated without subduing, and forfeited affection, while it failed to terrify. At all other times, Ireland was governed by the Norman Irish, and these, as the years went on, were tempted by their convenience to strengthen themselves by ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... slightly languid air. Outside herself there was little in which she took very great interest, and her interest in herself was not absorbing. Yet she had a curiously sweet way. Her servants liked her and the tenants could count on her spasmodic attentions in time of sickness ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... his theme; to the effect that all the forces of the civilised world were concentrating into two camps—the world and God. Up to the present time the forces of the world had been incoherent and spasmodic, breaking out in various ways—revolutions and wars had been like the movements of a mob, undisciplined, unskilled, and unrestrained. To meet this, the Church, too, had acted through her Catholicity— dispersion rather than concentration: franc-tireurs ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... life depended on his putting his gun to his shoulder he would have lost it, for he could not move. His fingers, however, were gifted with independent action. They gave a spasmodic jerk, and both barrels, chancing to be levelled correctly, sent their charges full ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... mark. All present saw the little spasmodic jerk of the bundle in the air. But there was no explosion. The dynamite fell harmlessly ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... a brief whisper. She could have said no more than half a dozen words, but they stupefied Barrie. She threw back her head, almost as if to avoid a blow. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips together in a spasmodic effort at self-control. The bright rose-red of excitement was drained from her face; but she did not draw away from her mother, who still held the girl's hands. All she did was to turn her head with a bird-like quickness and ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Roger of Sicily, from the citizens of Lodi against the tyranny of Milan. These, together with the ridiculous proffer of the imperial crown from the lately formed Republic of Rome, seemed to open an opportunity for the successful recovery of imperial rights. And, much as the Italians resented the spasmodic interferences of the Emperor, they were proud of their imperial connection. The commerce of the East, largely increased by the Crusades, flowed into Western Europe chiefly through Italy. As a result, the north and centre ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... it—which really under the circumstances did not appear quite so probable as she seemed to think—with a great deal more to the same effect. In a word, she passed with great decency through all the ceremonies incidental to such occasions; and being supported upstairs, was deposited in a highly spasmodic state on her own bed, where Miss Miggs shortly afterwards flung herself upon ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... by that foolish name? However, that single effusion had exhausted Mark's powers of cordiality, or else Nuttie's stiffness froze him. They were all embarrassed, and had reason to be grateful to Lady Kirkaldy's practised powers as a diplomate's wife. She made the most of Mrs. Egremont's shy spasmodic inquiries, and Mark's jerks of information, such as that they were all living at Bridgefield Egremont, now, that his sister May was very like his new cousin, that Blanche was come out and was very like ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who, with a beating heart, holds his piece in the attitude of "ready." He makes another of his pauses. The gun is levelled, the trigger pulled; the bullet speeds forth, and strikes into his broad chest, causing him to leap upward in the spasmodic ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... to remain at the Moonbeam for the rest of his life. But it was not so. It was in Mr. Horsball's nature to be civil to a rich hunting country gentleman; and it was the fact also that Ralph had ever been popular with the world of the Moonbeam,—even at times when the spasmodic, and at length dilatory, mode of his payment must have become matter for thought to the master of the establishment. There was no doubt about the payments now, and Ralph's popularity was increased fourfold. Mrs. Horsball got out from some secluded nook a special bottle of orange-brandy ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... that the moment he released them, they swelled and rose like the genius liberated from the chest of the fisherman, and refused to return to the prison-house they had quitted. His brows contracted, his lips quivered, and turning aside with a spasmodic gesture, he covered his face ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... end, pressure of the brain became apparent; severe pain, succeeded by torpor and loss of power, and, after a short time, utter unconsciousness, proved that the sands of life had nearly run down. A few hours of spasmodic suffering followed, very trying to those who watched by; but suddenly, about four on the morning of October 13th, 1845, the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the spirit returned to God ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... furious zeal over the apple during his mother's temporary absences from the room on household tasks, and on her return were mumbling solemnly and innocently the precepts of the catechism, after a spasmodic swallowing. His father was nodding in his chair and saw nothing, and had he seen would not have betrayed him. After a little inefficient remonstrance on his own account, Caleb always subsided, and watched anxiously lest Deborah should discover the ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... pressing before the dawn of the eighteenth century, though spasmodic and on the whole infrequent, were not entirely unknown. Times of national stress were peculiarly productive of them. Thus when, in 1545, there was reason to fear a French invasion, pressing of the most violent ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... are carried beyond the salient lines of character. Nature has gifted Mr. Sickert with a keen hatred of the commonplace; his vision of life is at once complex and fragmentary, his command on drawing slow and uncertain, his rendering therefore as spasmodic as a poem by Browning. He picks up the connecting links with difficulty, and even his most complete work is full of omissions. The defect—for it is a defect—is by no means so fatal in the art-value ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... for them by circumstances, though in the guidance of life there are many alternatives and much room for skilful pilotage. But the first great rule is that we must do something—that life must have a purpose and an aim—that work should be not merely occasional and spasmodic, but steady and continuous. Pleasure is a jewel which will only retain its lustre when it is in a setting of work, and a vacant life is one of the worst of pains, though the islands of leisure that stud a crowded, well-occupied life may be among the things to which we look ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... lay weltering in his blood, or rather in his gore, and the murderer was flying into the arms of the police, who incontinently turned and fled the other way. When my friends passed by the house of the victim, the midnight air was ringing with the horrible curses of his bereaved sister, whose spasmodic face was visible at a window. But the cold-blooded artistic English felt no answering throb of sympathy—it was still a scene in a play to them, still a coup de theatre—they had lost the primary human instincts, corrupted by a long ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... squint at the new kids," but after a casual inspection Turner said in a lordly manner, "Good lord! what a crew," and the pair sought better things elsewhere. Turner and Roberts were very insignificant people during the daytime: they were little use at games, and even a year's spasmodic cribbing had only managed to secure them a promotion from the Second Form to the Third. But when the evening came they were indeed great men, and ruled over a small dormitory that contained, besides themselves, only four ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... tedious. Doctor Lanning and Allen Harrison went forward to smoke. Gertrude Brock took refuge in a book and Mrs. Whitney, her aunt, annoyed her with stories. Marie Brock and Louise Donner placed their chairs where they could watch the sorting and unloading of never-ending strings of flat cars, the spasmodic activity in the lines of laborers, the hurrying of the foremen and the movement of the rapidly shifting fringe of men on the danger line at ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... Kilmarnock; began life as a pattern-designer, contributed to the Glasgow Citizen, wrote a volume of poems, "A Life Drama," and produced other works in a style characterised as "spasmodic," and which, according to Tennyson, "showed fancy, but not ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... of those spasmodic waves of strikes passed over the country. Some northern road that wasn't earning enough money to pay the interest on its bonds, cut down the salaries of some of its employees, and they went out. Then the "sympathy" idea ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... market-gardeners baited their horses; I made friends with one on 'em, and now, for a glass of gin a day, he brings me up in his cart on the top of the vegetables!' As a set-off to all this, we have now and then a spasmodic act of kindness: he rebukes Wilkie for talking about the fine effect of the snow falling while poor Lawrence's coffin was being lowered into the grave in the crypt of St. Paul's: he drives away the boys who injure his blackbirds: he sometimes gives half-a-crown when others would ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... needless to say that the enemy's plea was not heeded. By November 6, 1914, only spasmodic fire from widely scattered positions answered the Allies' bombardment. That night the Japanese and English charged across open ground and took the middle fort in the first line of defense with surprising ease, capturing 200 prisoners. The charge was led ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... lashing heels. Amazed for the moment at the sudden unaccustomed weight, the colt paused, and then reared straight up, till it seemed to Diana that he must fall backward and crush the man who was clinging to him. But he came down at last, and for a few moments it was almost impossible to follow his spasmodic movements as he strove to rid himself of his rider. The end came quickly. With a twisting heave of his whole body he shot the Arab over his head, who landed with a dull thud and lay still, while the men who had ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... to his room immediately, however, he decided to have a look at the weather. He stepped out upon the wet porch and closed the door behind him. The wind was still high; the lantern creaked and the dingy sign that hung above the steps gave forth raucous, spasmodic wails as it swung back and forth in the stiff, raw wind. Far away to the north lightning flashed dimly; the roar of thunder had diminished ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... more, but, with an effort that forced a groan, he rolled over on his face, and thence raised himself to a kneeling posture. He paused so a moment, and then, by another spasmodic movement, succeeded in gaining his feet. He had been twice kicked in his right leg, and the pain was wellnigh insupportable. He stood ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the lurching, wriggling, reeling, broken thing before them—following the Flopper, his right hand and arm curved piteously inward to his chin, his neck thrown sideways, his sagging leg seeming to hold only to his body by spasmodic jerks to catch up with the body itself, like the steel when detached from the magnet that bounds forward to re-attach itself again, his eyes starting from his head, his face bloodless with exertion and twisted as fearfully as were his limbs, but upon his lips a smile of resolution, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... short, sharp raid of General Early—penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them—can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before the final ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... and the other sweet herbs that used to be deposited in them. Even the tiny cow-bell, which once served to warn Dame Trippew of the advent of a customer, still hung from a bit of curved iron on the inner side of the street-door, and continued to give out a petulant, spasmodic jingle whenever that door was opened, however cautiously. If the good soul could have returned to the scene of her terrestrial commerce, she might have resumed business at the old stand without making any alterations whatever. Everything ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... light underneath the door of his room. He entered.... She was awaiting him—reading, tranquil and smiling. Her face, refreshed and retouched with juvenile color, did not show the slightest trace of the morning's spasmodic outbreak. She was clad ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the opening by the composer to announce that the overture will be sung—for the real overture is the great movement beginning with this stern attack, and ending only when light appears at the command of Moses—the Duchess could not control a little spasmodic start, that showed how entirely the music was in ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... vague, although at some reminiscence of hers he laughed jovially, and ''lowed that in them days, Cinthy, you an' me had a right smart notion of keepin' company tergether.' He did not notice how pale she was, and that there was often a slight spasmodic contraction of her features. She was busy with her spinning-wheel, as she placidly replied: 'Yes,—'though I always 'lowed ez I counted on livin' single.'"—Charles Egbert Craddock, In ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... combined journals appeared in 1891. They were succeeded by two new ventures, the Daily, which was started in September, 1890, still with us as an institution in undergraduate life, and the Inlander, whose long and honorable, if somewhat spasmodic, career as a literary magazine only came to an end finally in 1918. Wrinkle, Michigan's first humorous paper, appeared in 1893 and was immediately popular. It survived until 1905, when it also died of inanition, to ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... how many men," said he, "upon whom she has heaped her favours have lived too long by some years, and that the interest of his glory and happiness seemed to have marked the period of his public life, at the moment when the peace of the world is proclaimed." Then with one of those spasmodic impulses that compel attention, he darts an arrow right on the spot; "If," he says, "you think I owe the nation a new sacrifice, I will make it; that is, if the wishes of the people correspond with the command authorized by their suffrages." ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... head afloat upon the water eyed it with interest, but not, as it seemed, with any great apprehension. Yet it certainly looked formidable enough to excite misgivings in most creatures. Its flight was not the steady, even winging of a bird, but spasmodic and violent. It came on at a height of perhaps twenty feet above the sluggish tide, and its immense, circular eyes appeared to take no notice of the strange head that watched it from the water's surface. It seemed about to pass a little to ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... frequent workings by intrigue was another; but that also was a vile method accepted by his age. The fair questions, then, are: did he not commit the fewest and smallest wrongs possible in beating back those many and great wrongs? Wrong has often a quick, spasmodic force, but was there not in his arm a steady growing force, which could only be ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... given to the masses is, in its nature, spasmodic and transitory. No systematic enterprise to enlighten the masses ever can be carried out. Campaigns of education contain a fallacy. Education takes time. It cannot be treated as subsidiary for a lifetime and then be made the chief business ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... and mighty duchess, whose titles were being pompously enumerated by the punctilious mistress of ceremonies. As ill luck would have it, this one was older, uglier, and more strangely bedizened than all the others together. The queen felt a spasmodic twitch of her face; she colored violently, and opening her fan again, it was evident to all that assemblage of censorious dames that for the second time youth and animal spirits had ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... night. The trio, however, still held on their way; the black boy, during the momentary illuminations caused by the repeated flashes of lightning, continued to discern the, but to him, evanescent path; and with spasmodic starts; and intervals of salient progression, proceeded in ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... a third enactment, though on this point Mac has always been hazy. At any rate, in due course came the dawn. The sky brightened behind the Turkish lines, the searchlights faded away, and gradually the spasmodic rifle fire of the night fell to occasional single shots along the line. "Stand to" laboured by on leaden wings. A single sentry was posted at the sap-head; then, in awkward attitudes and angles, like the corpses on the ground above, they fell asleep ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... the one possible means of relief, however; and Madame Dravikine, wise in her generation, let him weep his bitter revolt away. This lasted nearly an hour, and both were exhausted by the time the tears had ceased, and only an occasional, spasmodic sob gave evidence of the storm that had passed. It was at this juncture—Ivan upon the floor, half sitting, half kneeling, Caroline's arms clasping him close—that the door of the room opened again, quietly, and Nathalie appeared. At sight of the two ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I suffered much less than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at every moment, with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus, and got it ready for ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... horse. It came right up to Nan's with an almost spasmodic jump, driven by a vicious jab of the ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... Whom the Abbot had distinguished Most that evening by his praises; And what finally was served up From the kitchen and the cellar. As the tail of a dead lizard Still, when life has long departed, With spasmodic jerks is writhing: So the memory of great actions Still lives on in daily gossip. But with thoughts above such nonsense Margaretta took an early Solitary walk next morning To the honeysuckle arbour, There to dream of last ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... had been for some time asleep, when I was aroused by a horrible squeaking, followed by a loud bark from True, who was sleeping under my hammock. The squeaks and a few spasmodic grunts which succeeded them soon ceased. The voices of my companions outside the hut showed me that they were on the alert; and knowing that True would attack our visitor, whether puma or jaguar, I tied him to ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... approaching reformation in India which will supplement its intellectual renaissance. Just as the growing power of Christianity in the second and third centuries of our era was shown by the competition of new and imitative religions like that of Mithra, and by spasmodic attempts on the part of the old heathenism to interpret its mythology symbolically and to reform its moral practice; just as the growing power of the gospel in the fifteenth century led the Roman Church to slough off some of its abuses and to tolerate ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... what the sentry's voice had failed to do. There came a clatter of spasmodic hoof-beats, an erratic shower of sparks, a curse in clean-lipped decent Urdu; a grunt, a struggle, more sparks again, and then a thud, followed by a devoutly worded prayer that Allah, the all-wise provider of just penalties, might ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... by excessive fright, I curbed their gyrations and brought them near to the body, it seemed as if I lost the sustaining power stored in them and the connecting bladders, as when the air is let out of a balloon, and found myself precipitated again to the earth; saved, indeed, by some spasmodic flutterings, from being dashed to pieces, but not saved from the bruises and the stun of a heavy fall. I would, however, have persevered in my attempts, but for the advice or the commands of the scientific Zee, who had benevolently accompanied my flutterings, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... or to try to force the situation; but she felt disappointed when at the approach of lighted houses he put her down without further caresses. In silence they returned to the hotel, where a few tired couples were still revolving to a spasmodic music. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... him again," she said slowly, in a low voice. "He is in jail, to be tried for murder, and he will probably be hung—" She hesitated, her face turned white and there was a spasmodic throbbing in her throat, but she went resolutely on: "And he does not care the least thing about me. He was merely fond of my little Bye-Bye, and I am grateful to him for that. But he is nothing to me. I'll marry Mr. Wellesly—I think—but I'll wait—" And then the throbbing in her throat ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... functions of the anus and rectum are disturbed by chronic inflammation, etc., the lower portion of the rectum becomes a more or less roomy pouch, a receptacle for feces and liquids; and instead of being physiologically empty it becomes pathologically distended, the result of spasmodic action or of more or less permanent stricture of the sphincter ani. See illustration in my book entitled How to Become Strong ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... at him with incredulous eyes. Her glance wandered from him to Maud, from Maud around the pretty luxurious room, through the window to the garden beyond, and finally back to his face. Her lips moved, and the words came out in spasmodic snatches. ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... right in some of his contentions; girl-like, she was spasmodic and unsystematic in her housekeeping; she had times of being discontented and selfish. She hated economy and the ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... a young colt when it is going to break out of harness. She rocked back and forth with short spasmodic jerks, and twisted her ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... becomes more and more complicated; disorganizations, alterations of the fluids, disturbances of the assimilative sphere, nervous derangements from simple illusions of the sentient sphere, and occasional trembling and twitching, to spasmodic and convulsive movements, and final extinction of nervous power, marasmus of the spinal marrow or a ramollissement of the brain; these are the ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... expert in the water know well the feelings of horror that overwhelm them, when in it, at the bare idea of being held down even for a few seconds—that spasmodic, involuntary recoil from compulsory immersion which has no connection whatever with cowardice; and they will understand the amount of resolution that it required in Peterkin to allow himself to be dragged down to a depth of ten feet, and then, through a narrow tunnel, into an almost pitch-dark ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... manhood, my impediment began to get worse. My stuttering changed to stammering. Instead of rapidly repeating syllables or words, I was unable to begin a word. I stood transfixed, my limbs drawing themselves into all kinds of unnatural positions. There were violent spasmodic movements of the head, and contractions of my whole body. The muscles of my throat would swell, affecting the respiratory organs, and causing a curious barking sound. When I finally got started, I would utter the first part of ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... take a U-tube depending from a vessel of water (Fig. 4) and apply the lamp to one leg a circulation is at once set up within it, and no such spasmodic action can be produced. Thus U-tube is the representative of the true method of circulation within a water-tube boiler properly constructed. We can, for the purpose of securing more heating surface, extend the heated ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... or rather his long hours, of labor and of meditation, was subject to a peculiar spasmodic movement, which seemed to be a nervous affection, and which clung to him all his life. It consisted in raising his right shoulder frequently and rapidly; and persons who were not acquainted with this habit sometimes interpreted this as a ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... windows went out one by one, and all the house was in darkness. Julian then walked off himself, with a vigour that was spasmodic only, and with much less brightness of mind than he had experienced on his journey hither. The stranger had gone another way, and Christopher saw no more of him. When he reached Sandbourne, Faith was ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could not help perceiving the absence of the paddings ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... was positive; he had it from an aid to one of the generals; and although, in speaking of the route the marshal was to come by, he pointed to the frontier of Belgium, Maurice yielded to one of those spasmodic attacks of hopefulness of his, without which life to him would not have been worth living. Might it not be that the day of reckoning was ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... charger, the glory of the squadron and of his owner's heart, was in a perilous case. So securely had he entangled himself in the head-rope that, despite the freedom of his heels, and spasmodic efforts to regain his feet, he remained pinned to earth, not many yards from where the fire was raging,—his fear and misery increased by wind-blown fragments of lighted straw, by the roar and crackle of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... mighty pretty dance went to that," she said, nodding her head in time with the music, and assisting the heavily spasmodic attempts of the instrument with the pleasant levity of her voice. "I used to ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of death was spasmodic contraction of every muscle in the thing's body; some of them were partly relaxed before we could get to work on it, but not completely. Every bone that isn't broken is dislocated; a good many both. There is not the slightest ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... A horrible spasmodic feeling thrilled through his soul; in order to conceal what he felt he became more than usually animated, yet there was a something hostile, a something sternly sarcastic in his words, which still, on account of the general ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... itself. Suspension expresses reticence, disquietude. Inspiration is an element of dissimulation, concentration, pain. Hence, we have normal, oppressive, spasmodic, superior, sibilant, rattling, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... and in 1806, nearly two hundred and fifty feet. These were "high-water" years. The "high waters" since then have been so insignificant that I have scarcely taken the trouble to notice them. Thus, you will perceive that the planters need not feel uneasy. The river may make an occasional spasmodic effort at a flood, but the time is approaching when it will cease ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... him, but his breath rattled as he drew it; his long hair hung loosely over his face, and upon the floor; his eyes were closed; his features livid and distorted; and but for his struggling breath, and the spasmodic jerking of ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... a man of considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He had grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical—a Socialist—or typical Liberal, as they used to call themselves, of the ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... Francaise a sum of money to be given in small prizes, to the best examples of "virtue" of the year. The academy's committees, with great good sense, have shown a partiality to virtues simple and chronic, rather than to her spasmodic and dramatic flights; and the exemplary housewives reported on have been wonderful and admirable enough. In Paul Bourget's report for this year we find numerous cases, of which this is a type; Jeanne Chaix, eldest of six children; ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... deserted mining flat, crossed and broken by the burrows and mounds made by the forgotten engines of the early gold-seekers. Johnny, at times hidden by these irregularities, kept closely in their rear, sauntering whenever he came within the range of their eyes in that sidelong, spasmodic and generally diagonal fashion peculiar to small boys, but ready at any moment to assume utter unconsciousness and the appearance of going somewhere else or of searching for something on the ground. In this ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... the divine afflatus and touched the high level of perfection. Our host had been showing us a charming little cabinet picture by a painter whose name we had never heard, and who, after this single spasmodic bid for fame, had apparently relapsed into obscurity and mediocrity. There was some discussion as to the frequency of this phenomenon; during which, I observed, H—- sat silent, finishing his cigar with a meditative air, and looking at the picture which was ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... I had a strong and sudden convulsive attack, which left me speechless, though not motionless—for some strong men could not hold me; but whether it was epilepsy, catalepsy, cachexy, or apoplexy, or what other exy or epsy, the doctors have not decided; or whether it was spasmodic or nervous, &c.; but it was very unpleasant, and nearly carried me off, and all that. On Monday, they put leeches to my temples, no difficult matter, but the blood could not be stopped till eleven at night (they had gone too near the temporal artery for my temporal safety), and neither ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the spasmodic flare showed the rigid face torn with the emotions that were racking the soul laid bare before its God and its ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... native methods under licence-fees of Rs.5 and Rs.10 a month. They are, however, only moderately successful. Gold is found in most of the rivers in Upper Burma, but the gold-washing industry is for the most part spasmodic in the intervals of agriculture. There is a gold mine at Kyaukpazat in the Mawnaing circle of the Kathra district, where the quartz is crushed by machinery and treated by chemical processes. Work was begun in 1895, and the yield of gold in that year was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... loping gallop, turning to a quick, mad sprint, as though he attempted to jump over the bar before it had time to rise higher. With a beautiful take-off, a splendid spring—a quick, writhing twist in air, and two spasmodic kicks, the whole being known as the scissors form of high jump, the mosquito-like youth made a strenuous effort to clear the needed height, but—one foot kicked the cross-bar, and as Hicks fell flat on his back, in the soft landing-pit, ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Miss Barrett and Mr. Tennyson were then the most accepted poets. Mr. Browning spoke fluently and persistently, but only to a very little circle; Mr. Horne's "Orion" and Mr. Bailey's "Festus" were the recent outcomes of Keats and Goethe; the Spasmodic School, to be presently born of much unwise study of "Festus," was still unknown; Mr. Clough, Mr. Matthew Arnold, and Mr. Patmore were quite unapparent, taking form and voice in solitude; and here was a new singer, utterly unlike ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... yet!" he broke out suddenly and aloud. As he spoke, a quick, darting, spasmodic pain ran shivering through his whole frame, and then fixed for one instant on his heart with a gripe like the talons of a bird; it passed away, and was followed by a deadly sickness. Brandon rose, and filling himself a large tumbler of water, drank with avidity. The sickness passed off like ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He made spasmodic attempts at literary work. Abstruse essays were begun under the impression that he had something brilliant and original to say, but before they were finished a new train of thought led him captive. He dreamed delicately sensuous dreams, lapped in luxurious ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question of our speed; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of an animal, in his dilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and echoing hoofs. This speed was incarnated in the visible contagion amongst brutes of some impulse, that, radiating into their natures, had yet its centre and beginning in man. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... first; but after several spasmodic repetitions a blue silk curtain flickered at one of the cabin windows on "Lorelei," and a little, old, brown face, with a fringe of fluff round the chin, appeared in the aperture—a walnut of a face, with a pair of shrewd, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the scherzo in one respect: it has to be given in detached jerks—literary, not musical—and these jerks don't come at any stated intervals at all. The music was bad enough—so Sally and Laetitia thought—but the chronicle is more spasmodic still. However, if you want to know its remaining particulars, you will have to brace yourself up to tolerating an intermittent style. It is the only one our means of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... wishes to us, the prisoner had seemed to be in no little distress. He exhibited spasmodic movements which led some of the bystanders to think that he was on the point of dying, but within a few seconds after he had swallowed the pellet he appeared to be completely restored. All evidence of distress vanished, and a look of content came ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... forever unknowable reality which causes us to rise into being. There is continual conflict between the soul, which is for ever sending forth incalculable impulses, and the psyche, which is conservative, and wishes to persist in its old motions, and the mind, which wishes to have "freedom," that is spasmodic, idea-driven control. Mind, and conservative psyche, and the incalculable soul, these three are a trinity of powers in every human being. But there is something even beyond these. It is the individual ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... fright. The rain comes down in torrents, I take off my cloak to shelter us in front, at the same moment we are blinded by a flash of lightning, and the electric fluid strikes the earth within one hundred yards of us. The horses plunge and prance with fear, and my companion falls in spasmodic convulsions. She throws herself upon me, and folds me in her arms. The cloak had gone down, I stoop to place it around us, and improving my opportunity I take up her clothes. She tries to pull them down, but another clap of thunder deprives her of every particle of strength. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... With all my heart!" she impulsively answered. Then, catching her breath in a spasmodic way, as some painful thought sped like an arrow through her heart, she added, in a subdued tone: "But, Le, before anything of that sort is quite settled between us, I want you to talk with my ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth |
