"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are surprised to find me here," said Millicent, with a gasp. "I left the railroad last night for Geoffrey Thurston's camp. We lost the trail and one of the horses in the snow, and just managed to reach this ranch. We can drag ourselves no further. I did not know ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... the impact of a heavier gasp of the squall, the topgallant masts went, and the small loss of of top-weight seemed momentarily to ease her. Kettle seized upon the moment. He left the trimmer and one of the Portuguese at the wheel, and handed himself along the streaming decks and kicked and cuffed the ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... writing a Jules Verne story, reading proof on a New York daily, and contemplating the lecture field. This great blaze of international appreciation which had come to the little boy who used to set type for him in Hannibal, and wash up the forms and cry over the dirty proof, made him gasp. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... hit, or whether it is to shoot themselves. The fire gets faster and faster, our guns thunder, and through the drifting smoke of the veldt fires we can still see the Gordons moving onward. Then among the looking-out group, crouched near the guns, goes a little gasp and mutter of excitement. We catch on the black background, glistening in the sun, the quick twinkle of a number of little steel points. They are fixing bayonets! Now the little figures move quicker. They make for the left side of the ridge. ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... men crouched in the darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the ruffians asked. The detective drew back, and the others with him, till ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... awfully true that is! And how unfair! It never seems to matter with men, but with women it means heaven, or the other thing. I wish I knew——' She broke off with a gasp, and ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... veterinary surgeons—indeed, who can tell whom they do not subsidize? When Belladrum came striding from the fateful hollow in front of Pretender, there was one "leviathan" bookmaker who turned green and began to gasp, for he stood to lose L50,000; but the "leviathan" was spared the trouble of fainting, for the hill choked the splendid Stockwell horse, and "information" was once more vindicated, while Belladrum's ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... With a little gasp of relief at having him so near, Gwendolyn slipped her trembling fingers into his. "She's worse than I thought," she managed ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... asserted that he would die—and, on that morning, he was evidently sinking fast. Towards noon, his breathing became much oppressed and irregular, and he was evidently dying; the rattle in his throat commenced; and I watched at his bedside, waiting for his last gasp, when he again opened his eyes, and beckoning me, with an effort, to put my head close to him to hear what he had to say, he contrived, in a sort of gurgling whisper, and with much difficulty, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... suddenly. Something halted me. My buck, now scarcely fifteen feet from me, began to shake and struggle. He raised his head, uttering a choking gasp. I heard the flutter of blood in his throat. He raised himself on his front feet and lifted his head high, higher, until his nose pointed skyward and his antlers lay back upon his shoulders. Then a strong convulsion shook ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the pocket of that coat," said the bank director, with a gasp of apprehension. "Where's ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... a frightened leap. "Oh no—no—not a bit!" she said hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group around the fire. Jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her hands hard. "It makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. He forced her eyes to meet his. "Sylvia—you know—you know what ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... of mine. She wanted to see where the soldiers was goin' to fly, so I borrowed Perez Ryder's power dory and we came over. 'Twas gettin' along dinner time and I built a fire so as to cook. . . . My soul!" with a gasp of consternation, "I forgot all about that chowder. And now it's got stone cold. Yes, sir!" dropping on his knees and removing the cover of the kettle, "stone cold or next door to ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... girl's soul. A quick gasp of pain broke from her, and the man turned and saw her face and sprang to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... the two women, trying my best to understand their point of view. What I saw made me gasp. In that area the older women all wore thigh-length loose jackets, and loose trousers, as their regulation attire. It was warm, and one of the two women had just pulled up her trouser legs. Her short stockings reached about eight inches above her ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... disgrace, Death, love, sin, sanity, Must in yon silence' clear solution lie. Too clear! That crystal nothing who'll peruse? The blackest night could bring us brighter news. Yet precious qualities of silence haunt Round these vast margins, ministrant. Oh, if thy soul's at latter gasp for space, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fellow'd, when that thou hast found No man with room, or grace enough of bound To entertain that New thou tell'st, thou art, — 'Tis here, 'tis here thou canst unhand thy heart ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... appeared closed to him. And while he sat turning right and left, behold, he espied a horseman making towards him with bent back and reins slack. He sat up right and after a time reached the Prince; and the stranger was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded when he came up; the tears streamed down his cheeks like water from the mouths of skins, and he said to Kanmakan, "O Chief of the Arabs, take me to thy friendship as long as I live, for thou wilt not find my like; and give me a little water though ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Come when it will—we snatch the life of Life— When lost—what recks it by disease or strife? Let him who crawls, enamoured of decay, Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;[hk] Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head; Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed,— 30 While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang—one bound—escapes control. His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... what I owe that book. Even at Cambridge the spirit of the age, which is said to pervade the air like a pestilence, had infected me; and I set out on my first visit to Paris full of curiosity about what was then the contemporary movement—at its last gasp. My guide was M. Mauclair; his book it was that put me in the right way. For by bringing me acquainted with current theories and reputations, and by throwing me into a fever of expectation, he brought my aesthetic sensibilities to that state in ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... fixed; the wondering smile would have been idiotic in any face less dimpled, rosy, and piquant than Susy's. After a slight gasp, as if in still incredulous and partly reminiscent ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... writing-desk and there halted. Jimmie gave a low gasp of pleasure and surprise. In the shaft of light, undisturbed in their silver frames and in their place of honor, he saw three photographs of himself. The tears came to his eyes. Then Jeanne had not cast him utterly into outer darkness. She still ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... a gasp, then a half-sob. "Ah! But I love to sing them, honey. I have sung them every Sunday all my life, and he loved them. He said I could sing with anybody, he wouldn't except angels. I ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... and the ready little French destroyer Mousquet on his way out. The Mousquet hadn't the ghost of a chance. But she went straight for the Emden and fought till she sank; her heroic captain, with both legs blown off, commanding her to the very last gasp. By this time, however, the net was closing in; and twelve days later the big Australian cruiser Sydney finished the Emden on ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... barrel's crown. It was like a powerful man struggling to uproot a rock, or a bear or an octopus crushing an enemy. It was dark-hole drama, like something from another galaxy. Like some horribly effective piece of sculpture, the tableau in the box preserved the last gasp of an ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... his lips with his wine. "What do you ask with your white faces and great eyes, senors?... Oh, yes, he was made to speak—to cry out to the Lutheran's God, to gasp his defiance to Don Luiz waiting with folded arms—to wander, as they sometimes do, thinking friends about him, making appeal to the living and the dead to pluck him out of hell! at last, with froth upon his lips, to murmur like a child ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette's eyes were still open, his mouth still shut and his legs kicked ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... as it sank. Glorious animal and glorious rider disappeared together beneath the surface, to rise together, a second later, the stallion still pawing the air with fore-hoofs the size of dinner plates, the rider still clinging to the sleek, satin- coated muscles. Graham thought, with a gasp, what might have happened had the stallion turned over. A chance blow from any one of those four enormous floundering hoofs could have put out and quenched forever the light and sparkle of that superb, white-bodied, ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... he looked at his hand. He allowed merely the edges of the cards to show over each other, and then closed up his hand and seemed to know just what he had. When young Storm looked at his hand he gave a sort of gasp, and for the first time cast his eyes upon me. I had seen his hand, but did not know whether it was a good one or not. I imagined it was not very good, because all the cards were of a low denomination. Threes or fours I think, but four of the cards had a like number of spots. There ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... the stream, while he, bending as low as he could, still kept a steady hand on the tiller. The triumphant shout behind them rose again, and the great stream gave it back in a weird echo. Paul suddenly uttered a gasp of despair. Directly in front of them, not thirty yards away, was a large war canoe, crowded with a dozen savages while behind ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... really seen her and I must say that I was completely bowled over by the sight. Plainly not of the same social class as the beautiful women whom Baahaabaa had selected for us, she yet possessed an eerie charm of her own which instantly stirred strange emotions in my breast. I heard Swank gasp and Whinney's face was white and drawn, his favorite expression when deeply moved. She stood close to her husband, half-twined about him with the grace and strength of an eva-eva vine while her kindling eyes burned questioningly, her lithe body tense and protective. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... questioning the watercolors, the bits of bric-a-brac, the dusty manuscripts, the dull red hangings, not quite understanding the fox in his hole. You will gratefully catch the sounds from the mound below our feet, and when you say good-by and drop swiftly down those long stories you will gasp a little sigh of relief. You will pull down your veil and drive off to an afternoon tea, feeling that things as they are are very nice, and that a little Chicago mud is worth all the clay of the studios. And I? I shall take the roses out of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... exultation as, unfolding it, he saw the seal of his Raj. His cry was a gasp of relief. Almost the shatterment of his career had lain in that worn discoloured sole, and disaster to his Raj if it had fallen into the ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... tumult as he spoke. She longed to ask whether the unknown knight from whom she had parted in the hermit's cell, had ever joined Sir William Wallace. She yearned to know that he yet lived. At the thought of the probability of his having fallen in some of these desperate conflicts, her soul seemed to gasp for existence; and dropping her head on her cousin's shoulder, "Tell me, Andrew," said she, and there she paused, with an emotion for which she could not ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of the landing was a window that pierced the thick stone walls of the tower; out of the window he looked, and then drew suddenly back again with a gasp, for it was through the outer wall he peered, and down, down below in the dizzy depths he saw the hard gray rocks, where the black swine, looking no larger than ants in the distance, fed upon the ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... cloud of brown dust stretching perpendicularly would speed whirling along; the palm trees would bend and the sky disappear, while stones would be heard rebounding on the animals' cruppers; and the Gaul, his lips glued against the holes in his tent, would gasp with exhaustion and melancholy. His thoughts would be of the scent of the pastures on autumn mornings, of snowflakes, or of the bellowing of the urus lost in the fog, and closing his eyelids he would in imagination behold the fires in long, straw-roofed cottages ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... young lady showed that again he was correct. With a gasp of terror she fled past him and raced up the stairs to the studio. Philip made no effort to follow and to explain. What was there to explain? How could he explain that which, to himself, was unbelievable? ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... last drop in the well, As I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... almost at his last gasp,' said Kendal, with a ghostly smile, and a reckless impulse to talk which seemed to him his salvation. 'He was never as vicious a creature as you thought him, and Miss Bretherton has had no difficulty in slaying him. But that hall was a masterpiece, Forbes! How have your pictures got on ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... occupants of the hotel dining room. He gave a cursory glance in the direction of the three persons at the table near him. A spasm of terror crossed his face. There was a sound of grating on the tesselated floor, as he pushed his chair back. His mouth opened in an involuntary gasp. Josie noted his agitation but she could but admire his quick command of himself. In a moment his face had assumed its normal suavity. It was evident that he had decided that he had been startled with nothing but a resemblance. This man in ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... asked for a look at the jewels, and he handed them to her. She had never set eyes on diamonds before, but all women have an instinct for jewels, and these made her gasp. 'Yes,' she owned, 'I could not have believed that the world contained such beautiful things. I am sorry thou hast done this wickedness, but I understand how ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... will be Whigs again.... But when these things come to pass, you will no longer be a Warden,[67] but a brown and impalpable powder in the tombs of Dulwich. In the meantime, enough of liberty will remain to make our old-age tolerably comfortable; and to your last gasp you will remain in the perennial and pleasing delusion that the Whigs are coming in, and will expire mistaking the officiating clergyman for ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... heard her! As they really saw me, each in turn would start, and, wide-eyed, look again. And as the awe and wonder grew in their faces—as there came the little stop, the gasp, that told how their reserve was for once overthrown, then, to the utmost, I tasted the sweet of power and felt the thrill ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... of quilts. The baby was in a cradle, with its face uncovered, whether dead or asleep Grayson could not tell. A pine coffin was behind the door. It would not have been possible to add to the disorder of the room, and the atmosphere made Grayson gasp. He came out looking white. The first man to arrive thereafter took away the eldest boy, a woman picked the baby girl from the bed, and a childless young couple took up the pallid little fellow on the floor. These were step-children. The baby boy that was left was the woman's ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... coming across three strange men all of a sudden at night around a turn in the road. They went along home, and Martha went inside and lighted a lamp, but Miss Hampton lingered on the porch fur a minute. Jest as she lit the lamp Martha hearn another little gasp, or kind of sigh, from Miss Hampton out there on the porch. Then they was the sound of her falling down. Martha ran out with the lamp, and she was laying there. She had fainted and keeled over. Martha said jest in the minute she had left her alone ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... to the all-healing Guillotine: death to traitors of every hue! So sings the prophetic voice; into its Convention sounding-board. The old song this: but to-day, O Heavens! has the sounding-board ceased to act? There is not resonance in this Convention; there is, so to speak, a gasp of silence; nay a certain grating of one knows not what!—Lecointre, our old Draper of Versailles, in these questionable circumstances, sees nothing he can do so safe as rise, 'insidiously' or not insidiously, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of feet through the hall, accompanied by the slower and heavier tread of the so-called brother, then silence, and such silence that Sweetwater fancied he could catch the sound of Brotherson's heavy breathing. His own was silenced to a gasp. What a treasure of a girl! How natural her indignation! What an instinct she showed and what comprehension! This high and mighty handling of a most difficult situation and a most difficult man, had imposed on Brotherson, had almost ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... towards them. A fourth, in a midshipman's uniform, at that moment came up from behind them. The admiral had just before stopped to take a breath, while he leant upon Desmond's arm. The astonishment Gerald felt made him gasp almost as much as the admiral, when he recognised Commanders Murray and Rogers and his Uncle Terence, with Tom Rogers, both of them as alive and hearty as they had ever been. He could not restrain a shout of joy as the ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... nothing happened. There was no sound of splintering glass. The tube did not fall from his hands. Not so much as gasp or groan broke the stillness of the laboratory. He did not seem to have moved even ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... older men could only gasp in incredulous astonishment, but Captain Grauble nodded wisely—"I half expected ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... recognised in Goethe and valued in Burckhardt. Even at this early period of his life Nietzsche was convinced that Christianity was the real danger to culture; and not merely modern Christianity, but also the Alexandrian culture, the last gasp of Greek antiquity, which had helped to bring Christianity about. When, in the later aphorisms of "We Philologists," Nietzsche appears to be throwing over the Greeks, it should be remembered that he does not ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a gasp. "Oh dear! Sylvia said he would have no money for journeys now! It cost so much his coming in a first-class carriage ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Earlham Hall, two miles out of Norwich. It was here that he was reproached by the voice, "clear and sonorous as a bell," of the banker himself; not for trespassing, but "for pulling all those fish out of the water, and leaving them to gasp ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... obvious satisfaction. At the back of his shrewd sense of self-preservation there had come the thought that the man who had spoken that unequivocal "No!" had learnt to its fullest the lesson of truth. He said nothing for a while, and when his laughter died away in a kind of hysterical gasp, he made a gesture expressive of indifference and also of submission to the ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products of his cold and clever talent, we gasp and push on,—the most resolute alone getting through. Here in this old monastery, as the story goes, he sought refuge from the fierce Salvator Rosa, by whom his life was threatened, and here he painted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there;" but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized par le ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... would make any difference to him!" Memory carried her back in an instant to the moment when she, Mr Cholderton's Imp, heard that beautiful woman cry, "Think of the difference it makes, the enormous difference!" She drew in her breath in a sudden gasp. An idea had flashed into her mind, showing her for the first time the chance of a situation which had never ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... against something, and for the life of me I don't know quite what it is. Perhaps it is insincerity, which is a very good thing to be in rebellion against. There is one very amusing and delightful character, a bibulous old sinner who defied law and order and almost at the last gasp ladled out what he considered justice in a most dramatic manner. His name is William Ambrose, and it is worth your while to make his ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... to lose his wits, sink away backward, and gasp for breath, a gleam of light broke upon his closing eyes; he gathered the remnant of his strength, struck for it, and was in a space of free air. After several long pants he looked around, and found that a thicket of stub oak jutting from the crag of the gap had ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... the theatre McTeague was suddenly seized with a panic terror. He had lost the tickets. He tore through his pockets, ransacked his wallet. They were nowhere to be found. All at once he remembered, and with a gasp of relief removed his hat and took them out from beneath ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... long row of crayons—Stewart as a baby, Stewart as a small boy with large feet, Stewart as a larger boy with smaller feet, Mary reading a book whose leaves were as thick as eiderdowns. And yet again did he wonder it when he woke with a gasp in the night to find a harp in luminous paint throbbing and glowering at him from the adjacent wall. "Watch and pray" was written on the harp, and until Rickie hung a towel over it the exhortation ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... gasp. "I—I knew he'd feel like that," he got out. "We've always cared such a lot for each other." And then he pressed his face harder than ever into the grass, and his long body quivered all over. But not for ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... public life past, but not forgotten. Little shall be said of that smooth and narrow pool, scarce visible among the rising shrubs which belt in and shroud the grounds from the incurious wayfarer; or of such carp and tench as, having escaped the treacherous toils of the nightly plunderer, gasp and tumble on its surface, delighting to display their golden pride in the mid-day sun, before the gaze of lawful possession. Nor shall the casual reader be led carelessly and wearily to note the many sweet memorials of private friendship, records of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... hill, dipped his cap, cup fashion, into the water of the dam and fled up with it again, brimming full and spilling over. He was able to dash a considerable quantity of reviving water into the girl's face. With a gasp and a struggle she turned over, opened her eyes, sat up,—her physical powers returning in advance of her ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... cried Baker, unaware of the source of the report, and rushing in, he grasped his arms to guard against any feint or strategy. A moment convinced him that further struggle with the prone flesh was useless. Booth did not move, nor breathe, nor gasp. Conger and two sergeants now entered, and taking up the body, they bore it in haste from the advancing flame, and laid it without upon the grass, all fresh with ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... gasp out something, I murmured feebly that I had thought I was going to drive a car, and had spent most of my leave sitting in a garage with that end ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... the nonentity, with a vicious gasp, "you may be sure she has some disreputable supper of men, and cigars, and brandies and sodas waiting for her up in town, or she would never go off so meekly as that in Mrs. Hazeldine's brougham. Still waters run ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... handsome folk; bent and weak, too; Some that I loved, and gasp'd to speak to; Some but a day in their churchyard bed; Some that I had not ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... her appropriation of the two rings, and laid it at the top of her principal jewel-case. After this, she wrote a letter to her husband—a few lines only, telling him how she had determined to take her child away with her, and how she should resist to the last gasp any attempt to rob ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... a little where to go when she reached the hall, but the schoolroom door was open, and she heard a mournful voice concluding with a gasp— ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cigarette and inhaled a puff thoughtfully. "You don't understand. All you have to say does have some bearing upon things, but, when you get down to brass tacks, it's instinct—at the last gasp, it's instinct. You can't get away from it. Look at the difference between a thoroughbred and a cold-blooded horse! There you are! That's true. It's the fashion now to discount instinct, I know; well—but you can't get away from it. I've thought about the thing—a lot. Men are ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the officer, in a decided tone, as the words came with a stifled gasp from his heaving breast, while the sigh that followed was drowned in the splash of the sweeps in the water as they again chafed in their gromets, and the foam flashed away from the ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to the letter a month later. Mahbub had gone down to Umballa to bring up a fresh consignment of horses, and Kim met him on the Kalka road at dusk riding alone, begged an alms of him, was sworn at, and replied in English. There was nobody within earshot to hear Mahbub's gasp of amazement. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... sight of that awful sacrilege—for such it was to them who worshipped this beast—a gasp of horror rose from the spectators, followed by a howl of execration. Then like a wave of the sea they rushed at us. I saw Leo cut one man down, and next instant I was off the horse and being dragged towards the furnace. ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... fugitive in his sudden rage. The fireman endeavored to gasp his readiness to obey. Courtenay relaxed his grip, and, for a time, at least one member of the crew stuck to his post, fearing the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... should have dashed up at a gallop, clicked his spurs, saluted and begun with "The commanding General's compliments, sir," et cetera. Instead, he dragged a very tired horse up the trail, knee-deep in mud, brought to, standing with a gasp of relief, and said, as he pushed his ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
... start of surprise, Evadne awoke to the significance of all this, and she knew, too, what was expected of her; but she could not say, "I congratulate you!" try as she would. "I will wait for you in the drawing room," was all she was able to gasp, and she hastened off in that direction ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... When they were alone again they began to piece many unrelated things together and get horrible results out of the combination. When things had got about to the worst Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp and ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... silence that hurt. It was broken by two sounds, occurring simultaneously in different parts of the room. One was a gasp from Lady Caroline. The other was a ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... a curious contradiction. Half of it consisted of tremendous generalities, which made the hearer gasp with a kind of mental deflation. The other side consisted of specific statements of the most meticulous kind. And these contradictory forms of attack upon the intelligence with whom he was in conversation were mixed together in the most admired disorder. I remember well a lady ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... friends; but perhaps you will understand me, having seen to what depths I fell, that I couldn't bring myself to apply to my friends. Well, I was at my last gasp when I crawled up to your barn. I mean morally, for my strength was returning. You and your brother rode up. By God! I could have ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... gasp of astonishment, the speaker pushed past him and entered, then introduced himself and his companions to the ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... for his embarrassment—feeling how little, on her own part, she was moved by charity. She had seen him, first and last, in so many attitudes that she could now deprive him quite without compunction of the luxury of a new one. Yet she felt the disconcerted gasp in his tone as he said: "Oh my child, I can never consent ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... have already seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the scientific discoveries in question are nothing new, but have really always been known and held by the Church, and that they simply substantiate the position taken by the Church. This new contention, which always betokens the last gasp of theological resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In 1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church, Archdeacon Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent philologists who had done most to destroy the old supernatural view of language, reads into their ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... knife and ripped off the covering of the tusk Charlie had been pulling at. The ivory gleamed yellow and discolored in the sunlight, while a gasp of surprise went up from the Masai, as for the first time they realized what these things were. ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... started away from the mirror and across the room with a little frightened gasp. For, looking in the glass, she had seen a dark form pass behind her, as if it had just come in at the door of the room. She knew who it was without turning around. It was Terence Sullivan. He was still close to the door now, and she was across the room. She had the little iron crucifix in her ...
— Fairies and Folk of Ireland • William Henry Frost
... It grew bright and eddied in lovely, variant colours. As if set to a powder train, it ran through the ship. The pale faces of the spectators shone ghastly in its radiance. From someone burst a sudden gasp. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... like an uncomfortable bridegroom, conscious meanwhile of the searching and hostile regard of Curtis Gordon. But at last his protegee managed to gasp out in a more or less coherent manner the main facts of the shipwreck and her rescue, whereupon Gordon's attitude ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... a half-suppressed scream as his hand was laid on the latch, and then a gasp of relief as he came in. No one questioned him, only his mother said, in a tone of forced unconcern, "Could you not see Christian coming?" as though she were made anxious only by the absence of her younger son. Hardly had Sweyn stamped near to the fire than clear knocking ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... With a universal gasp of relief, followed by deafening shouts and cheers, the spectators withdrew from the terrace, having witnessed a scene they could never forget, and which, as I said at the beginning, is still talked of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... whirled into life and vanished, each evidencing a battle where life took life in this ocean of the invisible living. A gasp from the girl ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... seven-thirty, and while Morris examined the mail, Abe took up the Daily Cloak and Suit Record and scanned the business-trouble column. There were no failures of personal or firm interest to Abe, so he passed on to the new-business column. The first item caused him to gasp, and he almost swallowed the butt of ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... her knees hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her life had such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack her whole body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this. Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could not smell, and opened ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... herself giving way. It was more than she could stand. For victory to be hers when only a moment before defeat seemed certain was too much for her nerves. All she could gasp was: ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... mendacious Sinners for brief confessions of their manifold transgressions during the dying year. The tide of experiences was at its height when, on the first stroke of midnight, every light was doused. So suddenly and unexpectedly did darkness swallow us from each other's ken that there was a gasp, and then for a moment a hushed silence. Before this was broken by any other sound out from the impenetrable gloom came ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... and sixty millions of dollars, a public debt of nearly forty millions in foreign and domestic loans, the Congress had, in March, ordered a new emission of bills; the result had been a season of crazy speculation and the expiring gasp of public credit. In addition to an unpaid army, assurances had been given to the French minister that not less than twenty-five thousand men should be ready for the next campaign; and how to force the States to recruit them, and how to pay them when ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the methods usually successful—those of bucking and kicking out with his hind feet—were of no avail, the animal adopted new tactics. He reared high in the air, with a scream of rage—reared so high that there was a gasp of dismay from the spectators. For surely it seemed that the horse would topple over backward and, falling on Snake, would crush and ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... rustled, and the speech was cut short by the entry of a little, thin woman with big rings round her eyes. Mrs. Vansuythen stood up with a gasp. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... hunted in vain, then the sunlight showed a golden sheen among some stones. Maynard gave a grunt of relief, but as his hand closed round it a tiny flutter passed through the fingerling; it gave a final gasp and was still. Knitting his brows in almost comical vexation, he hastened to restore it to the stream, holding it by the tail and striving to impart a life-like ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... escaped him in a gasp. What she wanted to hear! Were his ears playing him false? Was he dreaming? He had his hands on hers, holding it with a grip of a strong man stirred to the depths, crushing the fingers one on the other, but there ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... the wimple, replaced it on her head, found the scarabaeus clasp, and very quietly, as a woman who was tiring herself might do, made it fast in its place again, a sight at which I heard Userti gasp. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... the Abbey: glanced over that year's cricketing; hoped that no future Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard Arson in it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a moment of silence, he seized it with a gasp. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stood up and carefully headed my fish toward the shore, and slid his head and shoulders out on the lily-pads. One moment he lay there, glowing like mother-of-pearl, a rare fish, fresh from the sea. Then, as Attalano warily reached for the leader, he gave a gasp, a flop that deluged us with muddy water, and ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... life has often recurred to me. But his subsequent description of the baiting, with his position, of his legs and arms bent and shortened, till he looked like Bruin on his hind-legs, dabbing his fore-paws hither and thither, as the dogs snapped at him, and now and then acting the gasp of one that had been suddenly caught and hugged, his own capacious mouth adding force to the personation, was a memorable display. I am never reminded of this amusing relation, but it is associated with that forcible picture in Shakspeare, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... tomato-knives. Besides, the tips of two of her fingers had been left in the cutting machine at the paper-box factory the preceding winter. He remembered the hard palms of his mother as she lay in her coffin. And his father had worked to the last fading gasp; the horned growth on his hands must have been half an inch thick when he died. But Her hands were soft, and her mother's hands, and her brothers'. This last came to him as a surprise; it was tremendously indicative of the highness of their caste, of the enormous distance ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... reviewer affects to lose his respiration, and with "a gasp of incredulity" wants to know what the writer means, "and what standards he proposes to himself when he has given up the English ones?" The reviewer makes a more serious case than the writer intended, or than a fair construction of the context of his phrases warrants. It is the criticism of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... wrote to THIERS, and told him all about it. When the war broke out I mounted my stilts, and cautiously made my way across the untrodden track, following my Destiny. I had predicted the downfall of the Empire, and, in its last gasp, the Empire strove to wither me. Proceedings had been commenced, when Sedan put ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally corrupt. (See Lawson, Carolina, 34, and other early writers.) On the other hand, chastity in women was recognized as a virtue by many tribes. This was peculiarly the case among the Algonquins of Gasp, where a lapse in this regard was counted a disgrace. (See Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspsie, 417, where a contrast is drawn between the modesty of the girls of this region and the open prostitution practised among those of other tribes.) ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... of will to fight and struggle until the last gasp! The exhaustion one sees often in heat strokes and in hot climates is commonplace, but this type of exhaustion is, by itself, the final triumph ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... And when he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... leaping up and down within her. For a space she lay listening, every nerve upon the stretch. Then at last there came to her the sound of voices raised in farewell, the crunch of wheels below her window, the loud banging of a door. And with a gasp she turned her face into her pillow, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... of sounds generally answered better in keeping him fast for a few minutes. The consumptive voice, generally a strong high baritone, with its variously mingling hoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, and its occasional incipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while it gave forth Hebrew verses with a meaning ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the man better than that. And now what a trick of fate it is that he has Johnston before him again, in what we hope will prove the last gasp of the war! He likes Johnston, by the way, and has ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he replied, more gently than they had expected. "The people here don't understand me, nor I them. I'm laughed at and reviled, a subject for contemptuous jeers, and—and it hurts me. I don't like to be beaten. I'd fight to the last gasp, if I had any show to win. But these conditions, which I foolishly but honestly brought about myself, have defeated me so far in advance that I have absolutely no hope to redeem myself. That's all. Don't speak of it ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... and the whole system of its interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... silence. Then Grace giggled, Betty caught her breath in a gasp, Mollie went into a perfect gale of laughter, and Cousin Jane—well, she said it ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... Perhaps I never would have mounted had not Imam, the dragoman, with the frank unceremoniousness of the East, caught me up in his arms and landed me on my donkey before I could protest. And in the face of his childish smile of confidence I could only gasp. We moved off with the majesty of ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... locker-room, she opened her locker and took out her wraps. A faint gasp of astonishment broke from her. Only one rain-coat, one hat and one pair of rubbers were there, where at the beginning of the morning there had been two. Mary ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... more rapid now, the steamer seemed at her last gasp, the stern-wheel flopped languidly, and I caught myself listening on tiptoe for the next beat of the boat, for in sober truth I expected the wretched thing to give up every moment. It was like watching the last flickers of a life. But still we crawled. Sometimes ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... delight on her lips, she went swiftly to the chair and laid hold of the picture by its frame. In that act she checked, startled, transfixed, the laugh freezing into a gasp of alarm. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... upon, leaned upon, looked to, is like sliding sand, like sinking water; and he grasps at anything, anybody, the bedpost, the bed-curtains, the bed-clothes, his wife's hand, his son's arm, the very air sometimes. On what, on whom will you seize hold in your last gasp and death-grip? ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... her the fact that it was real, objective, positive! And with a gasp of fright she struggled up amid the litter and the rubbish ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... part in a Push—a part not altogether unattended with glory, but prolific in casualties. They had not been "pulled out" to rest and refit for over six months, for Divisions on the Western Front were not at that period too numerous, the voluntary system being at its last gasp, while the legions of Lord Derby had not yet crystallised out of the ocean of public talk which held them in solution. So the Seventh Hairy Jocks were bone tired. But they were as hard as a rigorous winter in the open could make them, and—they ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... sudden overflowing of something she had not known was there, but which was so great that her heart could not contain it, "comme une onde qui bout dans une urne trop pleine." And she was as moved as she was astonished. Elly came into her arms with a comforted gasp. They clung to each other closely, Marise's ears humming with the unfamiliar beauty and intricacy of that new page at which she had had that instant's glimpse. Here was a new harmony, a new progression, a new rhythm to which her ear had just ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the back made a disturbance, but their neighbours had the offenders quelled and out in a twinkling, and the room cried out for a repetition of the sentences which had been lost in the noise. When Dantes, opening his knife with his teeth, managed to cut the strings of the sack, a gasp of relief ran through the crowd; when at last he reached terra firma there was ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the king perforce returning to Berlin. The loving eyes that watched her saw signs of amendment, but early on Monday, July 16th, the spasms recurred. For hours no remedies availed. She could only gasp for "Air! air!" and when the sharp pain had passed lay exhausted, now murmuring a few words of some hymn learnt as a child, faintly thanking God for each solace sent her, or entreating her grandmother to rest. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... said in the girl's ear, and as they walked away she half closed her eyes against the sun, and Lucy thought she heard a gasp of fatigue. ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... taste of joy before the years began to darken about her. But these are the thoughts that must not be uttered. To show pity is to insult. A merry nod to the friend who staggers on beneath his burden; and, even at his last gasp, the friend shall try to nod ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... the breaking of a twig, disturbed the quiet and Bet sat erect with a gasp of surprise. She caught Joy by the arm. "S-sh! ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... gasp Bettina was game. She was a pretty girl in a white dress and bore no traces in her face ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... alone had lost thirty-eight killed and wounded. Not a word had been spoken among the little group on the hill, for the last ten minutes; they stood with tightly-pressed lips, breath coming hard, and pale faces looking at the scene. Occasionally a short gasp broke from one or other as a shell burst in the thick of the men crossing the little bridge, a cry as if they themselves had been struck. When the troops gained their shelter there was a ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... down in streaks of orange and crimson over the old oaks that crown the deer-park sloping upward to the rear of Ecclesfield Manor. Mr. Bruce walks across a darkened room to throw the window open for a gasp of fresh evening air, laden with the perfume of pinks, carnations, and moss-roses in the garden below. Her garden! Is it possible? Something in the action reminds him of that bright, hopeful morning at Calais. Something in the scent of the flowers steals to his brain, half torpid and benumbed; ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... I speak for my pavilion. I can on longer endure the noise, the dust of Ville-aux-Fayes; like a poor imprisoned bird I gasp for the air of the fields, the woodland breezes," said Madame Isaure, in a lackadaisical voice, with her eyes half-closed and her head bending to her left shoulder as she played carelessly with the long curls of her ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... rack and collecting his papers and umbrella, when he might be obtaining a first impression, though a poor one, of Oxford. Should he be more fortunate, and approach by motor car, again he loses much. A vision, perhaps, for a moment, as he tops some rising ground, and then, before he has had time to gasp his admiration, he finds himself bounded on either side by the unlovely ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How
... a sight! What a miracle! What a transformation in my whole destiny! I had already begun to look upon myself as a vassal of Proserpine, a bondsman of Hades, and now I could only gasp in impotent amazement at the suddenness of the change; words fail me to express fittingly the astounding metamorphosis. For the bodies of my butchered victims were nothing more nor less than three inflated bladders, whose sides still bore the scars of numerous punctures, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... A gasp rose from the four boys as they saw Fritz hurl himself over the rim of the car. They knew that nothing could be done, yet all threw themselves toward the Uhlan in ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Louise had observed, wondering why Mrs. Kenton had not bought the cottage and torn it down, since it was a blot on the surrounding landscape, when she saw the door open and a man come out. She gave a little gasp of astonishment as her eyes followed this man, who slowly took the path to the bridge, from whence the road ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... of clamorous party strife, And all the hot activities of life; But most the Politician He mocks—for 'meanness.' How the prig would gasp If shown the slime-trail of that wriggling asp In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... be the first to take up arms again to resist the encroachments of Bonaparte, so now she was the last to consent to peace, eager as her people were to have it. Malta had fallen, the Armed Neutrality of the North had dissolved, the French occupation of Egypt was at its last gasp. Foiled in these three directions by the sea-power of Great Britain, unable, with all his manipulation of the prostrate continent, to inflict a deadly wound, Bonaparte now resorted to the threat of invasion, well aware ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... ceased when Alec heard a gasp of terror from the lady near him, and saw, as one sees an act there is no time to avert, that one of the rough fellows who were standing behind the old man had suddenly struck him down by a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... word of thanks did not come forth. A strange, inarticulate sound, almost a gasp, came instead. Pallid as a ghost, she dropped limply to the divan, and dug her fingers into the satiny seat. As if fascinated, she stared over the black heads of the three women immediately in front ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... By and by, Whizzer ceased to shake and began to pant; and, thereupon, Jack took his turn at shaking, gently at first, but with maddening regularity and without at all loosening his hold. The big dog was too weak to resist soon and, when Jack began to jerk savagely, Whizzer began to gasp. ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... let my breath go at last, and while snatching another, I managed to gasp that I would get out and walk. But that imp of a Beechy (who must, I sometimes think, be a changeling) hugged my arm and said that I wasn't to be "an old woman, like the Prince"; that this experience was too blissful to be spoiled by anybody's nerves, and no one was going to be hurt, not ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... brush across the glade parted and the animal halted with a surprised snuff—one might almost say gasp of astonishment. The crash in the bushes betrayed that the creature had flung itself half around in its contemplated flight; then it hesitated; the flaming torch spurred its curiosity and, there being no movement in the glade, ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... Margrave, no longer with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... seems to me a responsibility I wouldn't care to take myself. I wouldn't care to think that I had the chance to stop it, and had let the chance go by. You know what the life is, and what the temptation a woman—" Van Bibber stopped with a gasp of concern, and added, hurriedly, "I mean we ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... be possible, that when I resign this frail, feverish being, I shall still find myself in conscious existence? When the last gasp of agony has announced that I am no more to those that knew me, and the few who loved me; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the prey of unsightly reptiles, and to become in time a trodden clod, shall ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Fred said, with a great, tremulous gasp. "She is so strange, so cold and self-contained,—so bitter against fate! Believe me, Jack, I have tried my utmost"—and the voice broke with something like ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... not, George of Douglas?" answered Dryfesdale. "Breath is now scarce with me, but I would spend my last gasp on this argument. Hast thou not, despite the honour thou owest to thy parents, the faith that is due to thy religion, the truth that is due to thy king, been so carried away by the charms of this beautiful sorceress, that thou ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott |
