"Frantic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lacked the sap of life, the beauty and the passion of nature's own teaching, which only can give immortality to song. There is a 'Harp of the Covenant', and in it there are piercing wails wrung from a people almost driven frantic with suffering and oppression. But the popular lays of the civil wars and commotions of the seventeenth century are few in number, and singularly wanting in those touches of grace and tenderness and kindly humour that somehow accompany the very roughest and most trenchant of ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... to these frantic exclamations with perfect calmness. When she was a little more composed, I desired her to rise. She obeyed, and looked the image of despair, for she thought I should immediately quit her for the arms of her more fortunate rival, and she considered my innocence ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... followed by her two ladies, who remained standing behind her during the conference. Even Lord Lindesay, though the rudest noble of that rude age, was surprised into something like respect by the unconcerned and majestic mien of her, whom he had expected to find frantic with impotent passion, or dissolved in useless and vain sorrow, or overwhelmed with the fears likely in such a ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sister was found, and a blue hat; and there was just time left for a frantic rush to a toyshop, round a corner and up a hill. Perhaps Doll Evie might be jealous of one rival, but there's safety in numbers; and Hugh thought that a dozen assorted sizes, from life-size down, would keep a doll's house from echoing with loneliness. As for the presents ...
— Rosemary - A Christmas story • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... an exquisite refinement in torture the possible father of several of his children not only dictated to the Queen perpetual outbreaks of frantic jealousy against her husband, but moved her to refuse with suspicion any food and drink offered her by his hands. The Concini's would even with unparalleled and ingenious effrontery induce her to make use of the kitchen arrangements in their apartments for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... loose from that frantic grip and continued his pull on the whistle until the Maggie, taking a false note, quavered, moaned, spat steam a minute, and subsided with what might be termed a nautical sob. "Now see what you've done," he bawled. "You've made me ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... confirmed the thought. "Heavens!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker, rendered almost frantic with grief and excitement, and noticing the appalling evidences of the Haytians' triumph, while we stared aghast at each other. "My poor darling child, and those brave fellows I left behind, where are they all; where are they? For God's sake ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... be Moufflou," said Tasso, and yet was seized with such a frantic happiness himself at the knowledge that he would not need go to the army, that he too felt as if he were drunk on new wine, and had not the heart ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... so that between them they seemed to entirely block the road. The runaway horse was, as Fred had said, not worked up to the frantic stage where nothing would stay his progress. Indeed, seeing that these determined figures in running costume acted as though they meant to keep him from passing, the beast gradually slackened ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... vice, and left it exposed and forlorn. Riot succeeded riot, till a fever, incurred by my own intemperance, first gave me time to think. Then was she revenged, for then first remorse was my portion: her image was brought back to my mind with frantic fondness, and bitterest contrition. The moment I recovered, I returned to England; I flew to claim her,—but she was lost! no one knew whither she was gone; the wretch I had trusted pretended to know least of all; yet, after a furious search, I traced her to a cottage, where he had concealed ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... knowledge of the people. The Florentines rebelled against the admission of soldiers within their walls as soon as the advance guard arrived to mark with chalk the houses they would choose for their quarters. There were frantic cries of "Abbasso le palle," "Down with the balls," in allusion to the three balls on the Medici coat of arms. Piero himself was disowned and ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... the yarn caused the fat fellow to strike up his frantic melody, the music grated on Tim's ears so that a wild desire entered his soul to pulverize ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... were, he would be upon me like a tiger upon its trainer when he slips. I reasoned out my course while we were descending from the fifth "king's" office to our cab: If the negotiations with the opposition should be successful, I should not get a cent; if they should fail, Wall Street would be frantic to get its contributions into my hand; therefore, the only sane thing to do was to go West, and make such preparations as I could against ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... terms of shame. Sackvilles[289] alone anticipate defeat, And ere they dare the battle, sound retreat. But if persuasions ineffectual prove, If arguments are vain, nor prayers can move, Yet in thy bitterness of frantic woe Why talk of Burton? why to Scotland go? Is there not Oxford? she, with open arms, Shall meet thy wish, and yield up all her charms: 660 Shall for thy love her former loves resign, And jilt the banish'd Stuarts to be thine. ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... undo us. Sail saw we none, but about nine o'clock Groves, scanning the waters over against Alger, perceived something which he took to be a galley; nor were we kept long in uncertainty, for by ten it was obvious to us all, showing that it had gained considerably upon us in spite of our frantic exertions, which convinced us that this was Mohand, and that he had discovered us with the ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... of stone steps in the middle. The cazique, divining their purpose, instantly called his men to arms. The Indian warriors gathered from all quarters, with shrill cries and clashing of weapons, while the priests, in their dark cotton robes, with disheveled tresses matted with blood, rushed frantic among the natives, calling on them to protect their gods from violation! All was now confusion and tumult.... Cortes took his usual prompt measures. Causing the cazique and some of the principal citizens and priests to be arrested, he commanded ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... raving and roaring in this frantic manner part of the floor suddenly opened and a huge giant rose up carrying a great chest in his arms. The witch was enchanted at this sight, and eagerly helped her brother to set down and open the chest, which was full ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... boy,' returned Michael gravely; and then he sat down and listened to what they had to tell him. He soon found that the mother's wild ravings had told them the truth. In her despair at being refused admittance to her son's room, she had given way to a frantic outburst of emotion. Biddy had tried to get rid of them, but Kester and Mollie had remained, almost petrified with horror. What could their mother mean by telling them that she hated the sight of them, and adjuring them to ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... her, even to procure her pleasure by means of others; for I could not renounce the hope of winning her again. But it was too late! I had lost her really; and the frenzy with which I revenged my fault upon myself, by assaulting in various frantic ways my physical nature, in order to inflict some hurt on my moral nature, contributed very much to the bodily maladies under which I lost some of the best years of my life: indeed, I should perchance have been completely ruined by this loss, had not my poetic talent here shown ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... 'The Infuriated Grasshopper.' Concerning this, it was recorded at the time that 'Nothing so excruciatingly funny as the action of this machine has ever been seen at any aviation ground. The little two-cylinder engine pops away with a sound like the frantic drawing of ginger beer corks; the machine scutters along the ground with its tail well up; then down comes the tail suddenly and seems to slap the ground while the front jumps up, and all the spectators rock with laughter. The whole attitude and the jerky action of the machine ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... paper, his mind quite in abeyance; I must uphold and guide him, prevent his frantic dives, and set him continually on his legs again. At first he sang wildly, with occasional outbursts of causeless laughter. Gradually an inarticulate melancholy succeeded; he wept gently at times; would stop in the middle of the road, say firmly, "No, no, no," and then fall on his back; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... austerity of morals and a decent behaviour are supposed to have weight—but the rabid spirit of disaffection to government and rule bears down every other consideration, and these 'enlightened electors' (as their flatterers always call them) are frantic with passion against everything belonging to what they call 'the aristocracy' of the country. But who can wonder at these people, when we see the great Whig Lords smiling complacently at their brutal ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... with double force And swings it on the rider's crown And splits him to the saddle down; He hews the saddle into bits, And e'en the charger's back he splits. See, falling to the right and left, Half of a Turk that has been cleft! The others shudder at the sight And hie away in frantic flight, And each one feels, with gruesome dread, That he is split through trunk and head. A band of Christians, left behind, Came down the road, his work to find; And they admired, one by one, The deed our hero bold had done. From these the Emperor ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the terrace opposite. The door of a cottage flew open, and a woman ran screaming into the road, followed by her husband with a tomahawk. But as the door slammed behind him, he suddenly changed his mind and, turning back, hammered on the closed door with frantic rage, calling on someone within to come out and be killed. Then, as he grew tired of trying to get in, he remembered his ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... But in either case he had no belief or hope that they would spare him. Every shout they raised and every sound they made was a blow upon his heart. As the attack went on, he grew more wild and frantic in his terror; tried to pull away the bars that guarded the chimney and prevented him from climbing up; called loudly on the turnkeys to cluster round the cell and save him from the fury of the rabble, or put him in some dungeon underground, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... tremens; and this may occur in those who claim to be only moderate drinkers, rarely if ever intoxicated. It accompanies an utter breakdown of the nervous system. Here reason is for the time dethroned, while at some times wild and frantic, or at others a low, mumbling delirium occurs, with a marked trembling ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... in front of Mr. Pendergast's roller rink the blanched faces of the people could be seen. Men were hurrying to and fro, knocking the bystanders over in their frantic attempts to get somewhere else. With great foresight, Mr. Pendergast, who had that day finished painting his roller rink a dull-roan color, removed from the building the large card which bore ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... fell from the cloud bank overhead and touched the grass. A stunning crash of thunder rolled across the sky, and the team plunged into a frantic gallop. Festing braced himself in a vain attempt to hold them, for the trail was half covered with tall grass and broken by badger holes. He was soon breathless and dazzled, for the lightning fell in forked ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... letter was written on the day of arrival. It contained a frantic appeal for enough money to buy her ticket home immediately, because she had a lonesome room away up in the north tower, and nobody had spoken to her all the afternoon, and her trunk had not come yet, and she did ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... I carried out this resolution, until an event occurred, which changed the entire current of thought, and transformed a quiet, rural retreat into a scene of frantic activity ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... and were trying, in a blundering but persevering way, to obey their consciences. He saw some unselfish thoughts and acts. Many things that he had attributed to irresolution or inconsistency, he perceived were in reality self- sacrifice. He went on in frantic disquiet, distance no longer being of consequence, and in his roaming chanced to pass through the graveyard in which many generations of his ancestors lay buried. Within the leaden coffins he saw the cold ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... from me, and rose in violent disorder: "What do you mean? You know not what you mean. Why do you bring me out, and torture me, and tempt me, and kill me—Much happier would [it] be for you and for me if in your frantic curiosity you tore my heart from my breast and tried to read its secrets in it as its life's blood was dropping from it. Thus you may console me by reducing me to nothing—but your words I cannot bear; soon they will make ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... made the task of getting the ship off more difficult. Adair had once before lost his ship under circumstances when the best of seamanship could not have saved her; but he now felt that she had been got on shore by inexcusable carelessness, and this thought made him inclined to become almost frantic. He restrained his temper and feelings, however, in a wonderful way for an Irishman, and with perfect coolness bent all his energies to the task of getting her off. His first lieutenant was on the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... the words were taken out of his mouth. Amedee awoke with a frantic start and launched himself at the archway, carroming from its nearest corner and hurtling onward at a speed which for once did not diminish in proportion ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... husbands were separated from their wives and children—each floating away from each other—for the part of the raft which was still towed by the boats had already left the other far astern. The women rose up and screamed, and held up their children; some, more frantic, dashed into the water between them, and attempted to gain the floating wreck upon which their husbands stood, and sank before they could be assisted. But the horror increased—one lashing having ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hour, a speed almost unbelievable to the simple souls of that time. Round the curve it went in safety, increasing its velocity to eighteen miles an hour. The railroad officials who were Cooper's guests were frantic with enthusiasm. One man produced paper and pencil and begged those present to write their names, just to prove that it was possible to write even when flying along at such a meteoric rate of speed. Another man jotted down a few sentences to demonstrate that to think and ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... suspected, his cup had been drugged, like those of King Duncan's body-guard, it is certain that, on this occasion, he passed with unusual rapidity, through all the different phases of the respectable state of drunkenness—laughed, sung, whooped, and hallooed, was maudlin in his fondness, and frantic in his wrath, and at length fell into a ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... was sitting with the maiden, awkwardly holding a skein of yarn for her to wind, when a messenger arrived in frantic haste bringing terrible news from the village. Miles Standish was dead, shot down by a poisoned arrow as he was leading his men to battle. Remorseful and yet glad that nothing now stood between him and the fulfillment ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... my master's only daughter, and child by his first wife, sickened and died, which affected him so much that for some time he was almost frantic, and really would have killed himself, had he not been watched and prevented. However, in a small time afterwards he recovered, and I was again sold. I was now carried to the left of the sun's rising, through many different countries, and a number of large woods. The people ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... improvements, and labor devices, displace human labor and steadily increase the army of unemployed, who, starved and frantic, are ever ready to take the places of those who have work, thereby still further depressing the ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... dear Kroll, you surely do not suppose that we were so imprudent as to let the poor sick creature get wind of any such ideas? I can solemnly swear that we were in no way to blame. It was the overwrought nerves of her own brain that were responsible for these frantic aberrations. ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... made a frantic lunge at the brindled streak as it whirled past him, with the result that he overbalanced himself and went sprawling on the floor with a crash. I ran to help him up, which only seemed to ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... swaying hoop of the cover of the wagon and burst into tears. "Oh, none o' ye 'll do nuthin' fur me!" she exclaimed, in frantic reproach. "Nuthin'!" ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... was hanging on under a close-reefed sail, driving head foremost into the pitchy dark. The lanterns had not been lighted, for the risk of being seen was worse, almost, than the danger of a collision. About nine o'clock, the Rector gave a frantic pull at the rudder. A light had appeared in the mist, close by off the port bow. It was a boat beating down in the opposite direction. Pascualo could not make out the lines of the craft as she sped past; but he knew it was the cutter, which had tired of loafing off the Cabanal, and was boldly ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... had discovered the presence of the bear in camp and were making frantic efforts to break ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and the regiment, and the ...
— Different Girls • Various
... of strange German romance and metaphysical speculations. He had once shut himself up for months to study astrology—and been even suspected of a serious hunt after the philosopher's stone; another time he had narrowly escaped with life and liberty from a frantic conspiracy of the young republicans of his university, in which, being bolder and madder than most of them, he had been an active ringleader; it was, indeed, some such folly that had compelled him to quit Germany sooner than himself ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... though he did not see his man. A long rope circled through the air. It fell neatly over the three close-locked heads and tightened suddenly as it dropped below their shoulders. There was a frantic struggle from the tied up trio and suddenly the deputy came into view belaying his rope ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... sounded murmuring drearily; they rose Wild, in strange colours, to his parching eyes; They seemed to rush around him, seemed to lift From the receding earth his helpless feet. He fell—Charoba shrieked aloud—she ran— Frantic with fears and fondness, mazed with woe, Nothing but Gebir dying she beheld. The turban that betrayed its golden charge Within, the veil that down her shoulders hung, All fallen at her feet! the furthest wave Creeping with silent progress up the sand, Glided through all, and raised their ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... with him food, and medicine, and consolation. Are these the materials of which we suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatize from every principle that can bind him to the State—his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... filet de mouton blanc, and wherein lay the subtle humor of pate de petit bete. And at last the storm broke—a youth scarcely in his teens published a book of poems in which the dread secret was blazoned forth to the world with mocking defiance. There were frantic attempts to suppress this book, but they failed; and then a prosecuting officer, eager for notoriety, placed the youth upon trial for his life. And ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... dear Seraphine! You came to me. You forgave me. You did not abandon your poor Penelope." She clung to me like a child in frantic, pitiful terror. ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the Katha whose praise and dispraise are equally enthusiastic; e.g., "Women of good family are guarded by their virtue, the sole efficient chamberlain; but the Lord himself can hardly guard the unchaste. Who can stem a furious stream and a frantic woman?" (i. 328). "Excessive love in woman is your only hero for daring" (i. 339). "Thus fair ones, naturally feeble, bring about a series of evil actions which engender discernment and aversion to the world; but here and there ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... and doubt; then a hurried random shot or two; then, as the burning masses, spreading before the wind, scattered their fires within the lines, a mighty shout, a rush of footsteps on deck, a hacking of cables and running of chains, a frantic hauling round into the wind; and then, amid panic cries, the galleons of Spain swung round, and, huddled together with tails ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... feast my eyes upon it," he said. "I was frantic at the loss of the miniature. I had seen this picture before, long ago, when I was a boy. When I first saw ... the original of the miniature I remembered this and thought it the strangest coincidence. I wanted to find out for myself if the ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... was Saturday last. During the afternoon Smith concluded to accept the challenge. Seconds and a surgeon were selected, and we are mortified to state that at 10 o'clock in the evening Scanton's Bottom was desecrated with a regular duel. The frantic glee of Culkins when he learned his challenge had been accepted can't be described. Our pen can't do it—a pig-pen couldn't. He wrote a long letter to his uncle in New York, and to his father in Connaught. At about ten o'clock the party proceeded to the field. The moon was ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... are drawing near to home," she continued, "I knew you would come, Harry, if—if it was but to forgive me for having spoken unjustly to you after that horrid—horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with grief then when I saw you. And I know now—they have told me. That wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor child: but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the day came when Picciola began to droop and wither. She seemed about to die. The poor prisoner was frantic with grief and cried, "Is my little one, my joy, my hope, the only thing for which I live, to be taken from me?" Searching, he found that as Picciola had grown taller her stem had had grown larger, and now there was not room enough for it in the crevice between the stones. Her sap,—her life ...
— A Kindergarten Story Book • Jane L. Hoxie
... court, and the rash attempt to rouse the city of London (8th of February 1601), proved a complete fiasco. The leaders were arrested that night and thrown into prison. Although the actual rising might have appeared a mere outburst of frantic passion, the private examinations of the most prominent [v.03 p.0138] conspirators disclosed to the government a plot so widely spread, and involving so many of the highest in the land, that it would have been perilous to have pressed home accusations against all ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... him in the road he could see lanterns bobbing, and the illuminated legs of the men who carried them running. Behind he heard the muffled pound of boots in thick dust, and the hoarse panting of others racing toward the scene of the trouble. The frantic screeching of the steamer's whistle (that was not yet silent) had done its work well. Freekirk Head ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... applause. But at the mention of Lincoln's the vigour of the cheers surprised the delegates. The Illinois managers had cunningly filled the desirable seats with their shouters, excluding Tom Hyer and his marchers, who arrived too late, so that, although the applause for Seward was "frantic, shrill, and wild," says one correspondent, the cheers for Lincoln were "louder and more terrible."[547] Whether this had the influence ascribed to it at the time by Henry J. Raymond and others has been seriously questioned, but it undoubtedly aided in fixing the wavering delegates, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... limbs ached with a dull sensation, more terrible than pain; his sight was dizzy, his tongue swollen. Vainly he looked around for aid; vainly he extended his forlorn arms, and wrung them to the remorseless heaven, almost frantic with thirst. The boundless horizon of the desert disappeared, and the unhappy victim, in the midst of his torture, found himself apparently surrounded by bright and running streams, the fleeting waters of the ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... flat as any fish, His nose had worn a little furrow; He only had one frantic wish, That like ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... alarmed the whole house; for frightened people came crowding downstairs in their night-dresses. There was a dreadful confusion and noise of loud talking, but I heard nothing and saw nothing till I had got her into my room and laid on my bed. I stooped down, frantic-like, to kiss her, and saw an awful mark of a blow on the left temple, and felt, at the same time, a feeble flutter of her breath on my cheek. The discovery that she was not dead seemed to give me back my senses again. I told one of the policemen ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Franko, kindled new flames in the distant valleys of Porpheero; while driven over from Verdanna came frantic shouts, and direful jubilees. Upon Dominora ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... days of stress and need, and Dowie was an efficient person. The cousin whose husband had been killed in Belgium, leaving a young widow and two children scarcely younger and more helpless than herself, had no relation nearer than Dowie, and had sent forth to the good woman a frantic wail for help in her desolation. The two children were, of course, on the point of being added to by an almost immediately impending third, and the mother, being penniless and prostrated, had remembered the ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... rocks, and the superadded towering of the trees above, but a small portion of the heavens was to be seen, and this was not blue, but of a misty murky grey. The first sensation was that of dizziness and confusion, from the unusual absence of the sky above, and the dashing frantic speed of the angry boiling waters. The rocks on each side have been blasted so as to form a path by which you may walk up to the first fall; but this path was at times very narrow and you have to cling to the chain which is let into the rock. The heavy storm of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... that I might expect some very considerable recognition if I carried it through rightly. I longed to be at it. One half of my longing came from the desire to occupy my mind with something better than my poor bungled love-affairs; and the other half from a frantic kind of determination to shew my Mistress Dolly that I was better than she thought me; and that I was man enough to attend to my affairs and carry them out competently, even if I were not man enough to marry her. It must be understood that I shewed no signs ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... it came across him that he would have done wiser to dismount. He gave a frantic 'whoop' and tried to get round, then, as he seemed falling over, he pulled the handles straight again and to the left by an instinctive motion, and shot behind her hind wheel, missing her by a hair's breadth. The pavement kerb awaited him. He tried to recover, and found himself jumped up ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Twenty per cent! The madness of it! The holes and corners he had rushed into, in his frantic hunt for twenty per cent! A bank in Australia, a railroad in Ecuador, a sailing ship that never by any chance sailed into prosperity, a ginger-beer works in Denmark, a cement works in Spain, a foolish concern which proposed to earn ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... takes hold of her daughter's shoulders. 'Amy, you drive me frantic. If you don't tell me at once I shall insist on ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... the woman's heavy step on the wooden stairs, Laurent became frantic. Therese laughed as she saw him searching for his waistcoat and hat. She grabbed his arm and pushed him down at the foot of the bed. With perfect self-possession ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... frantic yell of agony the half-breed's hand relaxed its grip upon his revolver, and the weapon fell to the ground. The fight was over. With a mighty throw Pete Clancy was hurled headlong, and fell sprawling upon the ground at the foot of the barn wall, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the same terrible distinctness which had characterized his previous details and which shed a double horror over the contrast of the darker and more frantic passages in the manuscript, related what the reader will remember Oswald had narrated before, respecting the letter he had brought from Madame de Balzac. It seems that Montreuil's abrupt appearance ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cried Griggs, and as the tompion-like stop was unscrewed from the bung-hole of a keg, a shallow iron bucket was cast loose from one of the mule's loads, the noise in the darkness nearly driving the whole team frantic, connecting the rattle of the handle ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... would be very angry if he knew what I am doing and saying at this moment. This committee, sir, was appointed by some forty members of the second class, sir, who are familiar with the facts. We have been sent to you, sir, by our classmates, who are frantic at the thought of losing the finest fellow ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... reply the woman became frantic with despair and cried out, "Oh, Mayall, for mercy save my child. You are the only man now living that can do it, and I will give you all I possess on earth and be your ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... pause, and the Senior Class make sudden charge upon the bouquets, huddling and hustling and crowding and jumping at the foot of the old tree; bubbling up on each other's shoulders into momentary prominence and prospect of success, and immediately disappearing ignominiously; making frantic grasps and clutches with a hundred long arms and eager outstretched hands, and finally succeeding, by shoulders and fists, in bringing the wreath away piecemeal; and then they give themselves up to mutual ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... granted. That's probably why I didn't back out. Nor did I tell him that the three life insurance companies which had foolishly and trustingly accepted me as a risk merely on the strength of a good constitution were making frantic efforts to compromise on the policies. They felt hurt, those companies: my healthy condition had ceased to appeal to them. What's a good constitution between earthquakes? No, there was no use telling the ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... frantic wife had received no intelligence of the missing man. As dawn appeared, a farm wagon containing a farmer and the derelict husband drove up to the house, while behind the wagon trailed the broken-down auto. Almost simultaneously came a messenger boy with an answer ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was ever interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not pass. Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize—two souls in one, mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain. She stood undaunted amid these horrors, but her lover, dismayed and heart-broken, sickened and died. Her child soon followed; then the old woman nurse found her unhallowed rest in that accursed soil, and Marguerite was left alone. Neither reason nor courage failed ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... was still rather casual. Tidiness of Natalie's meticulous order would always be beyond her, but after certain frantic searches for what was needed, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you call fourteen cents?" shrieked Hanneh Breineh, exultingly, the spirit of the penny chase surging in her blood. Diplomatically, Hanneh Breineh turned as if to go, and the fishman seized her basket in frantic fear. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... under an enfeebling sun, and many of the Suliote muskets being rendered useless by continual discharges, a large body of the enemy had actually succeeded in occupying the sacred interior of Suli itself. At that critical moment, when Ali was in the very paroxysms of frantic exultation, the Suliote women, seeing that the general fate hinged upon the next five minutes, turned upon the Turks en masse, and with such a rapture of sudden fury, that the conquering army was instantly broken—thrown into panic, pursued; and, in that state of ruinous ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Vienna. When the new Pope appeared on the balcony of the Quirinal to give his first benediction, the people, carried away by his youthful yet majestic bearing, and by the hopes which already centred in him, broke into frantic cries of: 'We have a Pope! He loves us! He is our Father!' If they had cried: 'We have a new heaven and a new earth,' they would but have expressed the delirium which, starting ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... arena vast and important as a battlefield. By this time a change had come over the game; the reddleman won continually. At length sixty guineas—Thomasin's fifty, and ten of Clym's—had passed into his hands. Wildeve was reckless, frantic, exasperated. ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... had to be done at once, and Aunt Frances was so frantic with the packing up, and the moving men coming to take the furniture to storage, and her anxiety over her mother—she had switched to Aunt Harriet, you see, all the conscientiousness she had lavished on Elizabeth Ann—nothing much could be extracted from her about Elizabeth Ann. "Just ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... quickly at once; that headstrong efforts were the worst obstacle; and lastly, that it was unseemly to attack a handful with a host. Also, said he, the sagacious man was he who could bridle a raging spirit, and stop his frantic empetuosity in time. Thus the king forced the headlong rage of the young man to yield to reflection. But he could not wholly recall to self-control the frenzy of his heated mind, or prevent the champion of wrangles, abashed by his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... if I were so foolish as to be jealous, it would not be of old Betty, but of the beautiful young Betty, her daughter." Perhaps this was rather mischievous on my part, for the poor dark lady went off in a frantic fit of jealousy, but this time it was not of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... fixed in the huge purple sides of a hippopotamus, who foamed and wallowed a few yards down the stream. An old grizzled warrior at the stern, with a rudder in either hand, kept the boat's head continually towards the monster, in spite of its sudden and frantic wheelings; and when it dashed madly across the stream, some twenty oars flashed through the water in pursuit. All was activity and excitement; and it was no wonder if Philammon's curiosity had tempted him to drift down almost abreast of the barge ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... a moment, half inclined to follow the excited, frantic-looking girl, but that queer inertia, which was part of her complex character, came over her. She shrugged her shoulders, the interest died out of her face; she walked slowly through the entrance-hall and down one of the side corridors to ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... precincts of certain streets in the town of Boston were the theatre of unusual proceedings. An unwonted activity pervaded the well-known printing-office of the "Messrs. Rogers and Fowle, in Prison Lane," now Court Street; a small printed sheet was being worked off,—not with the frantic rush and roar of one of Hoe's six-cylinder giants, but with the calm circumspection befitting the lever-press and ink-balls of that day,—to be conveyed, so soon as it should have assumed a presentable shape, to the counters of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Devil; for blindness to fall on her, for death to strike her, so that she might never see that unnamed Horror more! Sobs shook the whole frame of the stony woman whom nothing human moved at other times. Tears poured over those clay-cold cheeks. One by one, the frantic words of her prayer died away on her lips. Fierce shuddering fits shook her from head to foot. She started up from her knees in the darkness. Light! light! light! The unnamed Horror was behind her ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... bring to terms these Senators or Congressmen who fought the Commission by the simple expedient of not holding examinations in their districts. This always brought frantic appeals from their constituents, and we would explain that unfortunately the appropriations had been cut, so that we could not hold examinations in every district, and that obviously we could not neglect the districts of those ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... them into the hands of the trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning creature is sure to break her heart and your own and your very pet, darling china pitcher all in one and the same minute; and then her frantic despair leaves you not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... in frantic hopes of slaying Grilse, salmon, three-pound red-fleshed trout and what else there's no saying: But bitter cold and lashing rain and black nor'-eastern skies, sir, Drove me from fish to botany, a ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the military authorities in Germany, saw and terribly feared this, and called Europe to arms to prevent it. In his almost frantic appeal he said: ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... disposed of, went out on deck to watch the last preparations for departure. The pier was in that state of hurly-burly which may be witnessed only at the sailing of a transatlantic liner. The last of the freight was being got aboard with frantic haste; the boat and pier were crowded with people who had come to bid their friends good-by; two tugs were puffing noisily alongside, ready to pull us out into the stream. My companion appeared quite strong, and ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... penetrating the fortifications, will be exploded one after another, to terrify them into fits, when they will be easily captured. This precaution has been scarcely thought necessary by some of the mandarins, as our great artist, Wang, has covered the external joss-house with frantic figures that, must strike terror to every barbarian. Gold paper has also been kept constantly burning, on altars of holy clay, at every practicable point of the defences, which it is hardly thought they will have the hardihood to approach, and the sacred ducks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 28, 1841 • Various
... a bunnia's sharp elbow nagged his ribs, and the bunnia's servant dropped a heavy package on his foot, he smiled so genially that he melted the wrath of the frantic luggage clerk. But not at once. Even the sun needs ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... cut off from wire communication until late in the afternoon. Then two wires into Cincinnati were obtained and operators plunged into great piles of telegrams from Dayton citizens, almost frantic in their desire to assure friends outside of their safety. Operators at opposite ends of the wires reported that thousands of telegrams were piled up at relay offices. These were from people anxious over ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... nine o'clock, the procession was met by Dean Stanley in the Cloisters, who performed the funeral service. A journalist being by accident in the Abbey at the time of the funeral, Mr. Homan remarked that he became almost frantic when he heard who had just been buried, at having ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... war months before it was actually proclaimed. Feeling ran so high that men would not listen to reason. "Fight it out," was the frantic cry of many, who had not the remotest idea of what "fighting ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... there was no one who could warn him but herself—and she was a prisoner, several miles away. For the moment her own possible fate scarcely concerned her at all. It was the thought of Roger's position which drove her nearly frantic, impelled her to rise with tottering, cautious ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... lawn and oak grove, on Saturday morning, was terribly picturesque, and characteristic of the calamity of war. The well was beset by crowds of wounded men, perishing of thirst, who made frantic efforts to reach the bucket, but were borne back by the stronger desperadoes. The kitchen was swarming with hungry soldiers who begged corn-bread and half-cooked dough from the negroes. The shady side-yard was dotted with pale, bruised, and bleeding people, who slept ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... this was happening, and while at Skinyer and Beatem's they worked with frantic pens and clattering type there came a knock at the door, hesitant and uncertain, and before the eyes of the astounded office there stood in his wide-awake hat and long black coat the figure ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... out with the coil of rope over his shoulder. When Gregg reached the house, Nelly Pym hugged him, which is the privilege of fat and forty, and then she sat at the foot of the stairs and shouted up gossip while he shaved with frantic haste and jumped into his best clothes. He answered her with monosyllables and only half ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... seen God's worshippers unsheathe The sword of His revenge, when grace descended, Confirming all unnatural impulses, To sanctify their desolating deeds; And frantic priests wave the ill-omen'd cross O'er the unhappy earth; then shone the sun On showers of gore from the upflashing steel Of safe assassination, and all crime Made stingless by the spirits of the Lord. And ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... risk their lives for the old government and the old dynasty, if there were the slightest hope of success; but to rush at the head of their serving-men and tenants on the pikes of brigades victorious in a hundred battles and sieges, would be a frantic waste of innocent and honorable blood. Both Royalists and Republicans, having no hope in open resistance, began to revolve dark schemes of assassination; but the Protector's intelligence was good; his vigilance was unremitting; and, whenever he moved beyond ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... seems to have a strange effect upon a mouse. At one time, when a man was playing upon his violin, a mouse came out of his hole and danced about the floor. He seemed almost frantic with delight, and kept time to the music for several minutes. At last he stopped, fell over on the floor, and they found he ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... a deep, resonant sound came from the tree where the movie actor sat. At the same moment a small creature dropped into my lap from somewhere above, and ran up my sleeve. I made frantic although necessarily silent efforts to dislodge it, ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... order to be able to reach Balkh and return to C[a]bul before the cold weather should set in; but alas! our wishes were not destined to be fulfilled. Our uneasiness concerning the real intentions of the Meer was again excited towards the evening, for one of our followers came to us almost frantic with terror, stammering out as soon as his nervous state permitted him to speak, that he had heard it stated as a notorious fact that we were all to be detained at Koollum—that such was the pleasure of ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... by the French to expel them, committed that deed at which the world has shuddered ever since. One hundred and fifty settlers and traders, were thrust into an air-tight dungeon—an Indian midsummer. Maddened with heat and with thirst, most of them died before morning, trampling upon each other in frantic efforts to get air and water. This is the story of the "Black Hole of Calcutta;" which led to the victories of Clive, and the establishment of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... New-York, with millinery and other trifling articles of dress. On the 23d of September, 1780, Major Andre was captured, and the treason of the general discovered. When this news reached West Point, Mrs. Arnold became, apparently, almost frantic. Her situation excited the sympathy of some of the most distinguished officers in the American army. Mrs. Arnold, having obtained from General Washington a passport, and permission to join her husband in the city of New-York, left ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... so excessively troublesome this evening that we were obliged to kindle large fires for our horses these insects tortured them in such manner untill they placed themselves in the smoke of the fires that I realy thought they would become frantic. about an hour after dark the air become so ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... of the disaster, the two sleepers had caught fire, and there was absolutely no means to fight the flames. Mr. Hardy caught confused glimpses of men down on the ice throwing handfuls of snow upon the blazing timbers in a frantic attempt to drive back or put out the flames. He fell, rather than scrambled, down the steep, slippery bank of the stream, and then the full horror of the situation burst ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... there was no response. Beth was to utterly overcome to speak. She hardly dared believe it was his call she heard, issuing up from the tomb. She feared that her hope, her frantic imagination, her wish to have it so, had conjured up a voice that had no genuine existence. Her lips moved, but made no audible sound. She trembled violently. Van called again, with ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... with pointed stakes, which had been cunningly covered over by a leafy roof so thin that a child had broken through. Not until towards the sunset of that day had Don Luiz de Guardiola received information which enabled him to lay snares, but since that hour he had worked with frantic haste. Now he knew the moment when his springe would be trodden upon, the number of them who would come stealthily through the tunal to that gin, the nature of Nevil's attack upon the front, what guard had been left in the town, what upon the ships. His information was minute and accurate, and, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... developed the remarkable and thrilling feature in "Peter Pan" which made the adorable dream-child the best beloved of all American children. It came when Peter rushed forward to the footlights in the frantic attempt to save the life of his devoted little Tinker Bell, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... For one of those capricious reasons, of which Italian custodians everywhere hold the secret, the delightful gallery looking on the lagoon and Piazzetta is, however, closed. I once found my way there, but was pursued by a frantic ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... her anxiety as Jennie's space grew narrower? She left over going to the aid of Lisbeth, from whom she took away the pillows and for whom she did not provide any more toothsome dishes; she did not go to her aid howsoever frantic the beatings on the wall or fierce the outcry. Never has a sentry kept a closer look-out than Olwen for Jennie. Albeit Jennie died, and as Olwen looked at the hair which was faded from the hue of daffodils into that of tow and at the face the cream of ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... in the newspaper that Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks held up the traffic in Piccadilly. They appeared on a balcony at the Ritz, and the crowd went frantic. The super-hero and the super-heroine of the cinema drew the crowd's emotion to them, and Tagore the Indian poet arrived in town at the same time unnoticed. It would seem that the crowd responds to the presence of the unimportant person only. London went mad over ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... under it, the eager hoofs drummed the grass, as faster and still more fast the frantic horse bore himself and his rider toward the wall. Would Nigel spring off? To do so would be to bend his will to that of the beast beneath him. There was a better way than that. Cool, quick and decided, the man swiftly passed ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... between the desire of rest and the desire of life, while their stiffened fingers cast off head-earrings, fumbled for knives, or held with tenacious grip against the violent shocks of beating canvas. They glared savagely at one another, made frantic signs with one hand while they held their life in the other, looked down on the narrow strip of flooded deck, shouted along to leeward: "Light-to!"... "Haul out!"... "Make fast!" Their lips moved, their eyes started, furious and eager with the desire to be understood, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... got back, it was to find the post in a fever of preparation. John Gaviller had asked every white man to his house to dinner to meet the ladies. It was to be a real "outside" dinner party, and there was a sudden, frantic demand for collars, cravats and presentable foot-wear. Nobody at the post had a dress-suit but ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... to it; besides, she loved de Sigognac with fervour and devotion, though she had never acknowledged it to him, and the thought of the danger to which he was exposed, of a secret attack by the duke's hired ruffians, or even of a duel with his lordship himself, drove her well-nigh frantic ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Luke, with frantic impatience, "that I can accomplish this; that I can forget that I have loved you; that I can forget you? Cost what it will, the effort shall be made. Yet by our former love, I charge you tell me what has wrought this change in you! Why ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... careful search soon brought to light in an out-of-the-way corner of the hold two swivel-guns, two three-pounders, forty charges of shot, fifteen pounds of powder, and eight muskets. All was piled upon the deck, and pointed out to the captain on his return, amid frantic yells from the enraged populace. He solemnly protested that the ordnance was only intended for purposes of defence against the pirates that infested the Bermudas. But the case was already judged. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... deliberately poisoning a well from which the public supply was obtained, and in the past no charge more quickly could stir the populace to riot. In Strassburg in 1348 two thousand Jews were burned for this crime charged against them; and as late as 1832 the Parisian mob, frantic on account of the many deaths, insisted that the water-carriers who distributed water from the Seine, shockingly polluted with sewage as it was, had poisoned the water, and many of the carriers were ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... him, her father and a dozen more hostages would be shot and the town burned to the ground. Then came the girl's irrepressible outcry when he first touched her; the brother's knock at the door; her frantic effort to reassure him frustrated by the officer's drunken laugh; the forcing of the door and the fight half in the dark; the killing of the girl and then ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... ashamed of himself for meddling with it. He opened his Lucretius. Here was order and sequence; he knew where he was; he was at home. Was all this nought, were the accumulated labour and thought of centuries to be set aside and trampled on by the crude, frantic inspiration of clowns? The girl's face, however, recurred to him; he could not get rid of it, and he opened the biography again. He stumbled upon what now stand as our twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, containing the denunciation of the Pharisees, and the prophecy of the ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... frantic and savage career, numbers had formed designs for cutting him off; but one or two conspiracies being discovered, and others postponed for want of opportunity, at last two men concerted a plan together, and accomplished their purpose; ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.—When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... mist all afternoon, with steady, south plague-wind of the bitterest, nastiest, poisonous blight, and fretful flutter. I could scarcely stay in the wood for the horror of it. To-day, really rather bright blue, and bright semi-cumuli, with the frantic Old Man blowing sheaves of lancets and chisels across the lake—not in strength enough, or whirl enough, to raise it in spray, but tracing every squall's outline in black on the silver gray waves, and whistling meanly, and as if on a flute ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... deemed joy. It seemed like some wild senseless game that madness plays. He found it difficult to endow them, one and all, with any sense of life. He saw them groping in thick darkness, snatching with hands of shadow at things of even thinner shadow, all moving in a wild and frantic circle of artificial desires, while just beyond, absurdly close to many, blazed this great living sunshine of Reality and Peace and Beauty. If only they would turn—and ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... slipped through the water at full speed, her light-beams like restless antennae, now stabbing to the right to dissolve a formless shadow, now to the left to throw into blinding white relief a school of half-transparent fish which scurried with frantic wrigglings of tails from the glare, now slanting up to bathe the cold glassy face of an inverted ice-hill, now down to dig two white holes in the ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... five-and-thirty, had never heard that an oar on each side was necessary in a boat, and the harder he pulled the less likely was he to regain the shore. Of this he began to be convinced, as he whirled more into the centre of the current; and his efforts now really became frantic, for his imagination probably painted the horrors of a distant voyage in an unknown bark to an unknown land, and all without food or compass. The women screamed, and the louder they cried, the more strenuously he persevered in saying, "Laisse-moi ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and darted into the gloom of the forest, Sonny's solicitude became more personal. He knew that the forest was a place of many strange perils. It was no place for the Kid. A sudden fear seized him at thought of what might happen to the Kid, there in the great and silent shadows. He broke into a frantic run, scrambled through the fence, picked up the little adventurer's trail, and darted onward till he caught sight of the Kid's bright curly head, apparently intent on gazing into a thicket. At the sight he stopped abruptly, then sauntered forward with a ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to regain its footing. Then Dave caught up one of the rifles and blazed away, and the beast dropped to the ground, where it twisted and snarled and yelped in a fashion that served to drive the horses frantic. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... more experienced, you make a quick frantic effort to escape; you try to nip the bud of his talk with a frosty 'Indeed!' and edge away, calling upon your programme to cover you. You never so much as turn the sixteenth part of an eye in his direction, for even as the oyster-man, should the poor mollusc heave the faintest ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... one, and no possible remedy be left for the other, ideas far different from the present will arise, and embitter the remembrance of former follies. A mind disarmed of its rage feels no pleasure in contemplating a frantic quarrel. Sickness of thought, the sure consequence of conduct like yours, leaves no ability for enjoyment, no relish for resentment; and though, like a man in a fit, you feel not the injury of the struggle, nor distinguish ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Boy was visiting was quite a long way from the railroad station, but they trudged to it gayly, jubilantly. While yet a good way off they heard the Boy and came upon his trail. The little dog nearly went into fits with frantic joy at the cap he found in the path, but the Mother went straight on to meet the little shouting voice in her ears. Half-way to it she saw the Boy. But wait. Who was that with him? And that other one, laughing ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... challenging each other and every one they came across to fight to the death, were paralysed at the sight of the rubbish, and turning with a yell of terror rushed back the way they had come. Mary sought forcibly to restrain them, but, frantic with fright, they eluded her grasp, and ran shrieking towards the last town they had passed to wreak vengeance on the sorcerers. She ran with them, praying for swiftness and strength: she passed them one by one, and breathlessly ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... is of importance to me but my liberty. It will be very dangerous to deprive me of that. My friends will never allow it. In Wiggins this attempt to put me under restraint is nothing less than desperation. Think yourself how frantic he must be to hope to be able to confine me here, when I have friends outside who will move heaven and earth ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... over people in his frantic haste to reach the Colonel. Before he could accomplish his design he had three separate quarrels on his hands, and was threatening with fury to "settle the hash" of several ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... beautifully, when a new cloud gathered. This time a great, stern force, violent, vengeful, came into play. A lash of fire smote the firmament with frantic suddenness, shattering it into a myriad of blinding sparks, yet leaving it uninjured. There was a pause and then came a ferocious crash. The universe was falling to pieces. Then somebody seemed to be tearing an inner heaven ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... been brave, skulked about for a while, and then, as if he had got up a little spirit, he made a run at the steer. The steer sighted him, gave a bellow, and, lowering his horns, ran at him. Tige turned tail, and the young men that owned him were frantic. They'd been praising him, and thought they were going to have it proven false. Their father called out: 'Don't shoot Tige, till you see where he's running to.' The dog ran right to the cattle pen. ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... forgotten that the Quakers of this period were very different from those who afterward populated the City of Brotherly Love under Penn. They were fanatics of the most extravagant and incorrigible sort; loud-mouthed, frantic and disorderly; and instead of observing modesty in their garb, their women not seldom ran naked through the streets of horrified Boston, in broad daylight. They thirsted for persecution as ordinary persons do for wealth or fame, and would ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... and thirty-four seconds to the break. Sixty seconds at 5 G's; one hundred ninety-two seconds of free wheeling; and then, if they were lucky, the twenty-two frantic seconds they were out here for—throwing a few pounds of steel slugs out before them in one unbroken burst, groping out fifty miles into the darkness with steel and radar fingers to ...
— Slingshot • Irving W. Lande
... somewhere right on the top step he made a false step and slipped, or was it his blindness of rage? He caught at the vines with frantic hands, but as if they laughed at him they slipped from his grasp. His feet clattered against the step trying for footing, but he was too near the edge, and he went down straight into a little rocky nook where ferns and violets ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill |
