"Spasmodically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'Morning Glory.' Then he exclaimed, 'Heavens and earth! Charlotte, what have you been doing?' I remembered what you told me and said nothing, but looked steadily out of the window. I summoned no tears, however, for I felt more like laughing than crying; he looked so ridiculous flying round spasmodically, like popcorn on a hot griddle, and talking as if making a stump speech on the corruptions of the Democrats. The first time he paused to take breath I said, in my softest tones: 'William, dinner is waiting; I fear the soup will be cold.' Fortunately he was hungry, and that great ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... storm continued. The windows and casements shuddered spasmodically, and the festive horn and cherubs creaked dismally on the rusted hinges. The early watch passed by, banging their staffs on the cobbles and doubtless cursing their unfortunate calling. Two of them carried ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... having the letter. Since you are so spasmodically and exceedingly scrupulous, I will carry it immediately to her and demand a perusal of the contents, St. Elmo, I am in no mood ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... built warrior was tossing in a series of convulsions. His legs kicked out spasmodically, arms jerked and clenched, and the helmeted head rolled from side to side. Then the man lay still for as long as a minute; but, just as Craig was about to go to him, his legs tensed once again, and, staggering drunkenly, ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... that supernatural sound that told her of the hopelessness of love, Aurora dropped the hollow, mocking scoffer, clutched spasmodically at her heart, and, with an agonizing shriek, ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... Censure moved by Prince ARTHUR; Government majority runs up on division to 47; Ministerialists, fresh from meeting at Foreign Office, agree that, on whole, have spent a happy day. Debate spasmodically dull. Prince ARTHUR could not lift it out of the rut, nor GRANDOLPH either. Only Mr. G. shone with effulgent light through gloom of evening. Principal result of manoeuvre, beyond giving fillip to majority, is that a day will be filched from meagre holidays, and House ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 8, 1893 • Various
... he knew he loved brought him misery and despondency. Thoughts of home brought him little less. He might have known, from that, that either he or the bank was a failure; but a fellow of nineteen looks through a smoked glass. To say that Evan did not think is scarcely the fact. He did think, but spasmodically. The mind is a dual thing: the superficial mind can be employed on an adding machine and leave the thinking function free to operate in any direction; but before that is possible the superficial ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... with them, Punch lunging boldly ahead with the ease and grace of a seal, looking round now and again to see if they were coming, and turning the moment they turned. While Scamp, away in the rear, thrashed along spasmodically, with a yelp for every stroke, but would not be left out of it. The sight of his anxious little face and twisting nose more than once set Margaret laughing, so that she had to turn on her back and float till she got over it, greatly to the ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... jams; and his prowess as a fighter had been displayed more than once when a backwoods bully required a thrashing. But now he gave the Aspohegan camp a genuine surprise. First, the blood left his face, his eyes grew small and piercing, and his hands clenched spasmodically as he took a couple of steps after Goodine's retreating figure. Then his face flushed scarlet, and he turned to Laurette with a look of absolutely ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... woods," shook with emotion, and a thousand tomahawks were brandished in the air. Even the Big Warrior, who had been true to the whites, and remained faithful during the war, was for the moment visibly affected, and more than once I saw his huge hand clutch, spasmodically, the handle of his knife.... When he resumed his seat, the northern pipe was again passed round in solemn silence. The Shawnees then simultaneously leaped up with one appalling yell, and danced their tribal war-dance, going through the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... with Gordon; one of his arms was around her; she felt it tighten spasmodically; felt his hand on her back with the fingers spread. Her hand holding the little lace ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the kitchen. When she came back, red-faced and still gurgling spasmodically, Pink was relating his experiences with another company. He and the Native Son and Weary, it transpired, were duly enrolled upon the extra list and were reasonably sure of a day's work now and then. Rosemary had paid her Japanese maid and let her go, and Andy was going to help her with the housework ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... and then thither, solemn Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two so-called Wars,—before this ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in great gasps. The sweat was running down his face. His heart beat thickly, spasmodically. His senses were tottering. But he clung tenaciously to the one idea. He could not die with his thirst unquenched. If he crawled every inch of the way upon his stomach, he would somehow reach the haven of ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the right all the beasts and birds began to cry. And in the rear the black crows cried, 'Go!' 'Go!' And momentarily his (Yudhishthira's) right arm began to twitch, and his chest and left leg shook (of themselves). And indicating evil his left eye contracted spasmodically. Thereupon, O Bharata, the intelligent Yudhishthira the just, inferring some great calamity (to be imminent), asked Draupadi, saying, 'Where is Bhima?' Thereat Panchali said that Vrikodara had long gone out. Hearing this, that mighty-armed king set ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... them in their mutual esteem, they chatted lazily and spasmodically till past midnight, with more smoke than ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... at his companion. There were great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy, the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as if attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent concern in these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, seating himself on ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he cannot see me," I thought, and I clung there spasmodically, hoping still that ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... his hope had died, and he no longer expected to find the Willow. The second cabin at the far end of the trap line drew him on, but it inspired in him none of the enthusiasm with which he had hurried to the first. He traveled slowly and spasmodically, his suspicions of the forests again replacing the excitement of his quest. He approached each of Pierrot's traps and the deadfalls cautiously, and twice he showed his fangs—once at a marten that snapped at him from under a root where it had dragged the trap in which it was caught, and the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... blood, shoulder to shoulder in death as in life. Canaries gasped at the bottom of their cages, while the water in their little glass fountains ran red. The bullfinches wore an unnatural crimson on their breasts. The mocking-bird lay on his back, kicking spasmodically, in the last agonies, with a tiny sword-thrust cleaving his melodious throat in twain, so that from the instrument which used to gush with wondrous music only scarlet drops of blood now trickled. The manikins were ruthless. Their faces were ten times ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... others, under still greater intensity of delight, slap their knees and sway their bodies backwards and forwards. Last of all, when the other channels for the escape of the surplus nerve-force have been filled to overflowing, a yet further and less-used group of muscles is spasmodically affected: the head is thrown back and the spine bent inwards—there is a slight degree of what medical men call opisthotonos. Thus, then, without contending that the phenomena of laughter in all their details are to be so accounted for, we see that in their ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... Rush. Fort was commanding Ila to pick up his handkerchief. The others were laughing and applauding. Lee and Coralie in their obscure corner were wide-eyed with excitement, and happy. Mr. Polk's chest heaved spasmodically. He screwed up his eyes. His face grinned. He looked like a man on the rack. He opened his eyes and glared about; but he saw nothing, for they were blind with tears. He turned ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the point of crumbling. His fear-full eyes ranged the court, always avoiding the gross figure in the railed dock. The lips of the witness were white and trembling. The hands which clutched the front of the box for support twitched spasmodically. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... body ceased its titanic struggles. It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn to shreds. At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from the tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson giant, straight as ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... something appalling in the cry to most ears; something deadly in the sound; something that tells of imminent danger and urgent haste. After David Boone's first alarm was given, other voices took it up; passers-by became suddenly wild, darted about spasmodically and shouted it; late sitters-up flung open their windows and proclaimed it; sleepers awoke crying, "What! where?" and, huddling on their clothes, rushed out to look at it; little boys yelled it; frantic females screamed it, and in a few minutes the hubbub in Poorthing Lane swelled ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... the troopers reassumed their clothing, most of which had been discarded during the day. As the gloaming deepened, the sniping ceased, but the Turks, ever mindful of the possibility of an attack, seldom throughout the night slackened their fire, which rose spasmodically to violent outbursts, probably in consequence of optical delusions on the part of a nervy follower of Mohammed, or, maybe, in response to horse-play on the part of the invaders. A Maori haka was sometimes responsible for the discharge of ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... being used and saw an old man with a white beard and long white hair, tipped back in a chair, his eyes half shut, his long legs stretched out in front of him, patting with one thick boot. Under his chin was a violin, on the strings of which he jiggled his bow back and forth spasmodically, an infinitesimal length of the horse-hair being used for each stroke, so that there was no sonority in the tones. Vincent gazed at him with astonishment. He had not known that you could make a violin, a real violin, ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... and expansive bald spot on his crown. She held the coin between her fingers awaiting his slow approach. Just as he reached the end of their pew where Phil was sitting, she sneezed. Not a loud sneeze, but one of those inward convulsions that makes the whole body twitch spasmodically. ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Fo-Hi leapt to the brink of the trap, glaring down madly into the cellar below. His yellow fingers opened and closed spasmodically. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... Darrell gasping and sobbing into the snow-bank ten feet away. He arose with the blood streaming from beneath his mustache. His eager, nervous face was white; his chipmunk eyes narrowed; his great hands, held palm backward, clutched spasmodically. With the stealthy motion of a cat he approached his antagonist, and sprang. Silver Jack stood straight and confident, awaiting him. Three times the aggressor was knocked entirely off his feet. The fourth he hit against the cutter body, and his fingers closed ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... faltered. She had clasped her hands spasmodically together, at Gregoire's words, trembling with horror of what must be ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... him. He extended his arm, and moved it spasmodically to encourage them. But they had stopped. What were they standing there for, talking—talking? They came on again. She had been, giving him a rub, he had not the least doubt of it, and no wonder, over a house like that—a great ugly thing, not ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... disappointment and anxiety. The pale intellectual face wore a look of horror, as if the dark eyes saw some dreadful sight; the thin figure moved nervously, the colourless lips twitched, the lean fingers opened and shut spasmodically on nothing. It was enough to scare the boy, who had always known his father gentle, sweet-tempered, and hopeful even under failure; but Overholt was quite changed now, and looked as if he were either ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... unfolding the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, he lifted his head to say abruptly, "Have you any idea ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... glaring rays toward the one door of the partition. In the center of the rear room was another table, standing behind a screen of wire gauze, at the bottom of which was cut a small semicircle, large enough for the protrusion of a white, tense hand, whose fingers were even now spasmodically clenching in nervous indication of fury. Behind either lamp was a heavy black screen, which effectually shut off ingress to ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... intrepidly took command, steering with a long paddle, while four alert young peasants plied the oars. Piotr's costume consisted of a cotton shirt and brief trousers. The others added caps, which, however, they wore only spasmodically. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... for several days. She scraped about in the inky darkness, but her fingers touched nothing. The babe's mother had forgotten to put out the pail! Until the coming of the Dominie and his wife, Tess had had but little fear, but now her breath came spasmodically. There was danger of detection if she crept into the kitchen to obtain the milk. If she could only get into Kennedy's barn! If the cows were only out to pasture! Tess turned the handle of the kitchen door softly, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... and spasmodically grasping the wampum, fearing Black Snake had been victorious and had come for his reward, was the impulse of the moment; but the subdued and brotherly manner assumed by Black Snake reassured ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... of flowers; and these pale, deciduous voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. "Desolate" and "forgotten" were the words that came up ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... search went on the radio spluttered spasmodically. Finding nothing of value on the persons of his captives, Billings bared the arms of the two men and scrutinized the flesh intently in ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... with amazement, for his cherished poem was at that minute in his breast pocket. He clutched at it spasmodically, to be ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... cut off as he was jerked into the air. There was a cracking sound and he kicked spasmodically, his head setting grotesquely ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... all arose in our seats, horrified—but the old ox was all right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the smashed remains of a cart—its owners were flaying the dead horse. A peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox—its partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically—finished. Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside, sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P—— and Admiral T—— slipped by in a shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... been long sleeping. He walked the world, either blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for views, effects, emotions, images; something striking and uncommon which would suggest a poetic figure, or help out a description, or in some way re-furnish his mind with thought. From which method it befell, that his lamp of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... at their feet seemed to have an undue number of arms and legs, and the children were a struggling, uncertain mass of motion, hard to make out, like the shadows, but they were only four: Willard, grunting and groaning; Natalie attacking spasmodically in the rear, and the strange little boy, the enemy. He was the heart of the struggling group, and Judith looked only at him. She could do nothing but look, for Judith had never seen a ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... of his story, in the general trend of its argument, Schummel does not depend upon either Shandy or the Journey: the hero's circumstances are in general not traceable to the English model, but, spasmodically, the manner of narration and the nature of the incidents are quite slavishly copied. Acomplete summary of the thread of incident on which the various sentimental adventures, whimsical speculations and digressions are hung, can be dispensed with: it is only necessary ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... a band of white linen which was scarcely whiter than the cheeks it encircled, such was her extreme pallor. The outer angles of her eyelids were contracted by the pain of her inflamed nerves, the lower lids quivering spasmodically from time to time, and the eyes were dewy and infinitely melting as if veiled by a mist of unshed ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the dried pine-needles. Sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was already receding from his parchment-like forehead. There were innumerable fine lines about his eyes. One eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. He looked ten years older than his age. He looked like a man who would fall like a rotten tree at the first ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... to the best of their ability, but troubled themselves very little about the battles of thought which were being fought upon the great arena of the world. The literary activity which now and then flared up spasmodically, like flames over a smouldering ash-heap, flickered and half-expired for want of fresh sustenance. A direfully conventional romanticist, H. F. Ewald (1821-1892), wrote voluminous modern and historical novels, the heroines of which were usually models of all the copy-book virtues, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... side with them pushed some weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a nightshirt with a ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... way genuine reality and not an essay with dates in it. In the end he consented to try his best. He realised at once that it would be quite necessary to keep the diary as a true diary—that is, write it spasmodically. I then again enjoined the utmost secrecy upon him, saying that it was not only a case of "omne ignotum pro magnifico," but also that secrecy was the best possible advertisement. I knew that his copy would be extraordinarily attractive, and I wanted people ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the remaining seven after the first three steps. The dangling lanthorn shed small patches of light through the holes in the metal top, like sunlight through leaves, upon the gloom of the remote ceiling. At the fifth step he pressed his hand spasmodically to his mouth; at the sixth he wavered to one side. I made a sudden motion as if to save him from falling. He was dying! He was dying! I hardly realized what it meant. This immense weight was being removed from me. I had no need ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... gasped for breath as this flood of questions rushed upon him, and moved spasmodically in his chair at every fresh inquiry, staring at Nicholas meanwhile with a most ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... my collecting funds spasmodically, a number of our local friends got "cold feet." Reports started, not circulated by well-wishers, that it was all a piece of personal vanity, that no such thing was needed, and if built would prove a white elephant, to support which I would be going round ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... figures were gathered about the clear, almost smokeless flame of the blast. Below they lingered on the grassy edge of the stream banked against the hillside and flooding smoothly to the clamorous fall and revolving wheel by the wood shed that covered the bellows. Pointed downward the latter spasmodically discharged a rush of air with a vast creasing of their dusty leather. A procession of men were wheeling and dumping slag into a dreary area beyond. There was a stir of constant life about the Furnace, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... for the rustling died out, began again more faintly, died out again, there was the sound of a pat or two as if given spasmodically by the reptile's tail, and then all was quite still, while the dust had cleared away so that the watchers could see by the lanthorn's light the inert body of ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... with seeming reluctance. I handed her my sketch. She said nothing, but stood for a long time, motionless, regarding it; and, suddenly, she burst into tears. She wept spasmodically, like men who have been struggling hard against shedding tears, but who can do so no longer, and abandon themselves to grief, though still resisting. I got up, trembling, moved myself by the sight of a sorrow I did not comprehend, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Dutchman. Jerking at the halter the goat bleated in agony, prancing up and down frantically. Its eyes grew horribly bloodshot and finally closed. With a feeble, choking sigh, the animal dropped over on its side, its legs still twitching spasmodically. Mirestone bent over the hairy form and examined the head, ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... of carbon, in the blood-vessels of the brain, is to produce sleep and stupor; hence the drunkard breathes thick, and snores spasmodically, and after this state, ends in confirmed apoplexy and death—just as dogs become insensible when held over the Grotto del Cane, in Italy, where they inhale this deleterious gas. But in addition to this it has been clearly proved, that alcohol does enter into the substance ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... speech with the final period a rifle cracked above them. Eddie jumped spasmodically and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... turned white to the very lips, his eyes blazed, and his breath came thick and heavily. His nostrils twitched spasmodically, but still, with a supreme effort—a struggle so terrible that few men happily may ever know it or experience it—he once more controlled the words that sprang to his lips and struggled for utterance. He swallowed and swallowed convulsively. "Sir," said he at last, in a voice so hoarse, so ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... to culminate all his misgivings, his suspicions, his apparent betrayals of the past. He trembled and shook like a man in a vertigo; the fingers of his upraised right hand opened and closed spasmodically; his flaccid lips fell apart, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... sound the water ran over the small stones; spasmodically there was a soft soughing among the barren limbs; now and then a crow cawed above the lake; and morning threw its sharp bluish gleam over forest and sea, over the snow, and over ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... going on, and what the creature was that had leaped out of the grass. Before my paddle had swung a dozen strokes I saw the alders by the brook open swiftly, and Mother Quoskh sailed out and drove like an arrow straight at the struggling wing tips, which still flapped spasmodically above the grass. Almost before her feet had dropped to a solid landing she struck two fierce, blinding, downward blows of her great wings. Her neck curved back and shot straight out, driving the keen six-inch bill before it, quicker than ever a Roman arm drove its javelin. Above the ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... settled himself in a cozy corner and lighted a pipe. With a stimulating interest he watched Dickens, who had finished his black-and-white, and was doing a water color from a sketch made that summer at Walberswick, a quaint fishing village on the Suffolk coast. He blobbed on the paint, working spasmodically, and occasionally he refreshed himself at the piano with a verse ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... spasmodically, the words seemed to come with gigantic effort. She bent her head in answer and passed between them through the white gate into the drive that led ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... in her memory as a hideous dream, vivid yet not wholly tangible. He laid her down upon the couch and bent over her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort of the powerless body to be free. She had a confused impression also that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall. In the end, her horror ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... of Winifred from the dark inside of the cottage: no sound of children's voices from the air, from the common, from the near distance. No sound, nothing but the old dark marsh-venomous atmosphere of the place. So he worked spasmodically through the day, and at night made a fire ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... resolve, and said, 'I will.' That is what we have to do. A languid seeker will not find; an earnest one will not fail to find. But if half-heartedly, now and then, when we are at leisure in the intervals of more important and pressing daily business, we spasmodically bethink ourselves, and for a little while seek for the light of God's felt presence to shine upon us, we shall not get it. But if we lay a masterful hand, as we ought to do, on these divergent desires that draw us asunder, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... reality so swift that the report was still ringing in his ears when he who must have made it sprang hideously into being across the palings. A hand darted through them and caught Pocket's wrist as in a vice. And he looked up over the spikes into a gnarled face tinged with fear and fury, and working spasmodically at the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... their fears. She answered querulously that the man was asleep and showed no more sorrow than a brute beast. She was very red-eyed and bedraggled. Every utterance was an excuse for a fresh outburst of weeping, her breast heaved, her hands moved spasmodically, her nerves were at extreme tension and she could not stay long in one place. Seeing that she was nearly lightheaded with much grief, and hoping that her husband's disorder would vanish after his slumber was ended, her friends forbore to hint at what had ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... could hardly call old Ben a steed at all, and he proved the only animal available that afternoon. Ben suffered from a disability of his right rear leg which caused him to raise his right haunch spasmodically when moving. The effect was rhythmic but grotesque, much as if Ben thought he was turkey-trotting. Otherwise, too, Ben was unlovely. His feet were by no means dainty, his coat was a dirty looking dappled-white, ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... and resting his head on his paw laid slowly down on the straw, telling us all as plainly as could be that he was sea-sick. Such was indeed the case; but in a few hours the sea fell and he was as sprightly as ever. Monkeys move spasmodically, by jerks as it were; not so these dignified, stately creatures: they are as deliberate in all their actions as staid, sober people. One day a passenger had offered a banana to the little one, but as it put forth its paw, withdrew it. The wee thing stood this several times, and at last laid down ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... was a feeble, indistinct sound. He stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, "I shall ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... report of a shot, and with a crash out went one of my lights, a shower of glass falling on the table. Before I could collect myself there came another shot and smash out went the other light. I dropped my pie and spasmodically grasped the table. The only lights left were the one in the waiting-room and my lantern, which made it in the office little better than total darkness. All the time the tramp, tramp on the platform was coming closer and closer, and my heart was gradually forcing its way up in my mouth. ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... reservoir into which her friend may pour her feelings, and come for them again when she chooses, to enjoy and gloat over them at leisure. Her nerves are hardly equal to a message; but a note feels red-hot in her bosom, and when she has one, she looks down every now and then spasmodically, as if to see whether it has singed the muslin. When the affair has been brought to a happy issue, she attends, in an official capacity, the busking of the victim; and when she sees her at length assume the (lace) veil, and prepare to go forth to be actually married—a contingency she had ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... to laugh spasmodically at her husband's careless speeches, not at what he said so much as through content in his familiar way of saying things. Under their light household talk, graver, questioning looks were exchanged, the unappeased glances of friends ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain, he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of which he greedily drank two ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... St. Vincent as the last of the crowd filed out. He clutched her hands spasmodically, like ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... most repulsive brute as it lay stretched on the ground, its jaws occasionally opening and shutting spasmodically, the blood from its wounded throat spreading in a pool on the sun-baked earth. It was evidently an old beast; and skull and back were covered with thick horny plates and bosses through which no bullet could penetrate. The big teeth studded irregularly ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... furiously, then spasmodically, then slowly and reluctantly. "I war-r-n you, I shall expose all," ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... rain would have been a relief. Two or three depressed and somnolent travelers yawned in the waiting room, which smelled horribly of smoky lamps. The telegraph instrument in the ticket office clicked spasmodically for a minute, and then relapsed into a gloomy silence. The imperturbable station master was tipped back against the wall in a wooden armchair, with his feet on the table, and his mind sunk in an old Christmas ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... fire spasmodically! Dick bit his lips, as he opened the valve a little wider. John McCarthy wiped the sweat from his forehead, as every face turned ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... meantime he wondered what she was like. Her letters indicated a cultivated mind, and he knew she had a post at a Toronto school; but one could not expect much from the daughter of the broken-down prospector he had met in the North. Strange had worked spasmodically at the mine, where he was employed because labor was scarce. He was not a good workman, and when he had earned a small sum generally bought provisions and went off into the bush to re-locate a silver ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... the cooling stuff trickled into the Indian's throat, stirring the spark of life that was beginning to glow again in him. A tremor convulsed his chest as the lungs sucked spasmodically at the tiny stream of air entering the swollen throat. A gurgle, a deep sigh, and Willy's unconscious body was taking in the life-giving air in ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... the overpowering sweetness of his smile acted like an anesthetic; he saw things waver, even wabble; and his hidden clutch on Lissa's fingers tightened spasmodically. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... flashy in dress, dull and kind of feature—handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength—of grace and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body: then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... were travelling westwards on the outside of an omnibus, in itself to Sybil a most fascinating mode of progression, and talking a good deal spasmodically. ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as he disappeared across the moor to eastward, Trevennack, far behind, seized his wife's arm spasmodically, and clutching it tight in his iron grip, murmured low in a voice of supreme conviction, "Do you see what that means, Lucy? I can read it all now. It was HE who rolled down that cursed stone. It was HE who killed ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... interval. She spasmodically flings her arms over her son and daughter, lets them fall, and becomes unconscious. They fetch a looking-glass, and find that her breathing has ceased. The clock of the Chateau strikes noon. The ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... face had been composed, almost colourless; into it there sprang an expression of amazement, which deepened into an animal ferocity shocking to see. The mouth twitched spasmodically, the eyes caught the glare of the flame, and glowed with a catlike lustre. Surprised, Done turned in the direction of his glance, and discovered the man Stony crouching on the other side of the fire, his weak, tremulous hands stretched out before him, ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... he returned home, fatigued and half-starved. He had probably been stolen. In the excess of their joy, the owners crammed him with meat until he became strangely ill. His throat was filled with froth, the pupils of his eyes were dilated, the conjunctiva was strongly injected, his neck was spasmodically contracted, and the spine of the back was bowed, and most highly sensible to the touch. M. Debeaux was sent for; it was an hour before he could attend. The dog was lying on his belly; the four limbs were extended and stiff. He uttered the most dreadful and prolonged ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Meineger, Godfried and Hugue, he who even in Szczytno itself shed more German blood than one good fight in war. "No, I cannot! I cannot!" Zygfried repeated vehemently, and at this thought his rapacious fingers closed spasmodically, and the old lean breast heaved heavily. Still, if it were for the great benefit and glory of the Order? If the punishment should fall in that case upon the still living perpetrators of the crimes, Prince Janusz ought to be by this time reconciled with the foe and remove the difficulty by an ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of it anyway." Billy Louise lifted a hand spasmodically to her throat. This was digging deeper into the agonies of life than she had ever gone before. "What was in the paper," she whispered later, as if his eyes were drawing it from ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... contention towards great effects; great intrinsically, as at Marathon, or when Harmodius and Aristogeiton fell, or magnified by the force and splendour of Greek imagination with the stimulus of the national games. For the most part, indeed, it is not with youth taxed spasmodically, like that of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and the "necessity" that was upon it, that the Athenian mind and heart are now busied; but with youth [279] in its voluntary labours, its habitual and measured discipline, labour for its own sake, or in wholly friendly contest for prizes ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... senses by the stares of the passers-by, he concluded he had better first return and get his hat. When he reached his own room, where Clem was thoughtfully pacing the floor, he flung himself face downwards upon the bed, groaning and kicking his feet spasmodically. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... suspended respiration or very difficult breathing. After a few respirations it cries out and then falls asleep quietly, or the attack may last an hour or so, when the face will become pale, veins in the neck become turgid and feet and hands contract spasmodically. In mild cases the attacks will only occur once during the night, but may recur on the ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... Do you know what I was thinking about just then, young man?" said the general, spasmodically leaping to his feet again, as though the thought was full ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... household, and who paid most of the bills. She worked early and late, driven always by the obligations to be met. A biographer says of her: "I have never known any other woman so systematically and persistently industrious as Alice Cary." Phoebe worked indeed, but spasmodically—she waited on her moods. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... lead up to and explain it; and the poet, adopting the idea, used Maud as a vehicle for much which he was feeling in the disillusionment of middle life. The form of a monodrama was unfamiliar to the public and has difficulties of its own. Tennyson has combined action, proceeding somewhat spasmodically, with a skilful study of character, showing us the exaggerated sensibility of a nature which under the successive influence of misanthropy, hope, love, and tragic disappointment, may easily pass beyond the border-land of insanity. In the scene where ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... and they scanned it together; she resting against his shoulder. She felt his chest heave twice; heard him swallow spasmodically in the suppression of some mighty emotion, and the palpable effort drew her very near to him. She never doubted from that moment, what she had more cause in after days to believe, that he loved the woman he had won with ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... beginning to feel it. The Hall door had been shut against the bane of the night-air. The stimulus of the fragrant night-stock had been excluded. Miss Tattersall pretended not to yawn. We all pretended that we did not feel a craving to yawn. The chatter rose and fell spasmodically in short ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... One of the most charming things noticeable about a Boer town is the plenitude of trees in the streets. They are often ornamental, always useful for purposes of shade. There is no regularity about their distribution; they seem to have been planted spasmodically at odd times and at odd positions. There is little about them to lead one to the belief that they receive over much care after they have been put into the soil. I have found a very creditable library in pretty nearly ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... by one of "the princes." There they would hold each others' hands and try to imagine themselves unsurrounded by other men and wives, while the little Violet would stray and return to embrace her father's leg spasmodically. Standing there, Mrs. Gerhardt would look on the bright side, and explain to Gerhardt how well everything was going, and he mustn't fret about them, and how kind the police were, and how auntie asked after him, ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... felt no surprise at what he had granted when he was left alone with his thoughts, for Paolo Cagliari, because of a way he had that men could not resist, already seemed to him a friend; for the rare mingling of knightly grace and artistic enthusiasm, overcoming spasmodically the usual assertiveness of his demeanor, seemed at such moments to mean more than when assumed by those who were never passionate nor brusque, and his very incongruities held a fascination for ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Some interest was selling securities. The business public was awakening to the fact that legislators, legislation, the people, and the law were hot after the business methods of many organizers. Fear, founded on a tardy awakening to facts, declared itself, but spasmodically, for now and again the great captains of finance and industry were trying to save the situation. They successfully aided whatever of momentum there was in general business. But Congressional activity as to any combinations in restraint of trade was unabated. It called upon the President ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... resolutely set himself. It was only by jumping that he was able to get a grip over the top of the wall; yet when this grip was gained he could get no farther on his way to deliverance, and so he hung dangling there, his face to the wall, jerking his short fat legs about spasmodically, and wasting in most piercing yells what little there ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry—the GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... girl who had left Moze on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but a boy, and hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood, talking spasmodically to Musa as she used in school days to talk to the brother of ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... the sound was jarring and startling, like the unexpected breaking of plates in a quiet room. Matilde's lips quivered and her brow contracted spasmodically. She hated his voice at all times, as she hated him and all that belonged to him and his being; but during the past twenty-four hours he had developed this strange laugh which set her teeth on edge every time ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... that hyper-sensitive organ to the evident delight of the beast, to judge from the way she stood to allow it: at first his fingers simply glistened with the moisture of the aperture, which could be seen contracting and twitching spasmodically as his fingers increased the animal's excitement, till a gush of horsey lubricity sent quite a flood of thick creamy looking stuff all over his hands, the mare giving quite a low ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... the thing were the two gills that swelled and relaxed spasmodically, emitting a rasping, purring sound—two gasping, blood-red gills, all ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... come?" Violet was suffering herself to be led towards the further door. She was shivering violently and moved spasmodically, as though the impulse to escape strongly ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Bosio's eyebrows contracted spasmodically, and his white hand stroked his silky beard, while his eyes turned quickly from his guest and looked down at the carpet. In two passes, as though they had been fencing together, this singularly ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... sort could have sounded. Heavenly melody, in our then state of mind, would only have still further harrowed us. A soul-moving harmony, correctly performed, we should have taken as a spirit-warning, and have given up all hope. But about the strains of "He's got 'em on," jerked spasmodically, and with involuntary variations, out of a wheezy accordion, there was something singularly human ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the last to leave. He saw the aged legs disappear up the earth-rise as the rear door opened. The legs jerked and twitched spasmodically, as if taking ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... minute yet. A thrill ran through every vein. A vibration quivered through the atmosphere. The montgolfier, elongated to its utmost stretch, was manifestly being sucked into a vortex. Every passenger in the quivering car involuntarily clung spasmodically to its sides, and as the two atmospheres amalgamated, clouds accumulated in heavy masses, involving all around in dense obscurity, while flashes of lurid flame threw a ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off for a new spin, and the pathos of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... repose of mind. Throughout the night, and in the early morning, messages went from him to various ships to take this or that step, to garner in the fruits of the victory yet unculled. The fleet responded somewhat spasmodically, if not inadequately, to these calls. Men in truth were worn out with labor and excitement. "My people were so extremely jaded," wrote Captain Miller of the "Theseus," who obeyed a summons to move, "that as soon as they had hove ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... he wrote spasmodically, eking out his income by lecturing and newspaper work. Life was hard. In 1878 he sailed for Europe, having been appointed consular agent at Crefeld, Prussia, about forty miles north of Cologne. In 1880 he was ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... house sixteen miles from New Ulm for the night. This farm house was on a small prairie surrounded by higher land. The sentries were ordered to watch the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians might ambush the troops. It was a night when the rain fell spasmodically alternating with moonlight. Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on the horizon and watched it disappear in the grass, then appear and crawl along a fence in his direction. He called, "Who goes there?" at the same time cocking his gun ready ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... Bruno took fresh courage and, in as few words as might be, explained his mission. He spoke the name of Cooper Edgecombe, and for the first time that queenly woman showed signs of weakness, staggering back with a faint, choking gasp, one hand clasped spasmodically above her madly throbbing heart, the other rising to her temples as though in ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... meetings of the Leaguers in Paris, many belligerent speeches by the cardinal legate, proclaiming war to the knife rather than that the name of Henry the heretic should ever be heard of again as candidate for the throne, various propositions spasmodically made in full assembly by Feria, Ybarra, Tassis, the jurisconsult Mendoza, and other Spanish agents in favour of the Infanta as queen of France, with Archduke Ernest or the Duke of Guise, or any other eligible ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... mound. The spear tore into it for two-thirds its length. There was a squeak—the first sound they had heard—from the wounded monster. The clutching forelegs tightened terribly, then began to loosen, quivering spasmodically as they slowly ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... bit her lip tightly, and all the features of her face trembled a little. The tears would rise spasmodically, though they were only tears of pity, not of love. Mrs. Ambrose, the severe, the stern, the eternally vigilant Mrs. Ambrose, sat down by the window; she put her arm about Mary Goddard's waist and took ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford |
