"Overwrought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bed-curtain—a large yellow-white hand holding a small gleaming knife. The Duchess, still with the dread of insanity upon her, told herself that it was an hallucination, a delusion, the frenzied working of her overwrought brain. She gathered her courage and fixed her eyes on the mirror, which showed her what she conceived to be a phantom. The hand was large, with hair growing hideously over it, and jagged, bitten nails—she could see this distinctly, for the light fell from the window full on the ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... doubts of its reality, the fears for its continuance; the higher the state of pleasurable excitement, the more painful and the more pressing the anxieties that await on it; the tension of delighted feelings cannot last, and our overwrought faculties seek repose in regrets. Happy he who can so temper his enjoyments as to view them in their shadows as in their sunshine; he may not, it is true, behold the landscape in the blaze of its noonday brightness, but he need not fear the thunder-cloud nor the hurricane. The calm ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... each other again. Indeed each was surprised to find something almost agreeable in the appearance of the other. Dr. Martineau at once perceived that the fierceness of Sir Richmond was nothing more than the fierceness of an overwrought man, and Sir Richmond realized at a glance that the curiosity of Dr. Martineau's bearing had in it nothing personal or base; it was just the fine alertness ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... The yawning chasm was not the same. It circled wider, redder, deeper. It was a weird, ghastly mouth of hell. Gale stood fascinated, unable to tell how much he saw was real, how much exaggeration of overwrought emotions. There was no beauty here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its somber portent ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... have seeped out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... To our overwrought nerves there was something of terror in its mere bulk and its silence. We stood for some little time peering at it through the darkness, and then we made our way back to the parlour again, where we sat waiting—waiting, we knew not for what, and yet with absolute conviction ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... her, her spirit began to falter for the second time. It is comparatively easy to endure while there is something to be done; but it is almost intolerable, specially to the young when life is strong in them, merely to sit by and wait. Katherine's overwrought nerves began to play cruel tricks upon her, carrying her back in imagination to that other hideous hour of waiting, in the dining-room, four evenings ago. Again she seemed to hear the short peremptory tones of the surgeons, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... drama in our language which purports to relate his story, will wander as far from historic truth as from nature and probability. The Chronicle of Sanuto, which the poet has avowed to be his basis, presents no trace of that false, overwrought, and unintelligible passion which, in the tragedy, is palmed upon us for nice sensitiveness to injured honour. We are told, indeed, that the angry old man had once so far indulged his choleric humour as to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... heart and weary of foot. The "Princess" might still arrive at midnight, though, and Madame Depine lay down dressed in her bed, waiting for the familiar step in the corridor. About three o'clock she fell into a heavy doze, and woke in broad day. She jumped to her feet, her overwrought brain still heavy with the vapours of sleep, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... to be merely her overwrought nerves which were at fault, I sought to soothe her. "It was probably no more than a shadow," I said, crossing to her side of the table, to enable her better to feel the influence of my presence. "Let us be content to sit here ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... to be avoided, however. We may become so taken up with the overwrought descriptions of the emotions as found in literature or on the stage that the common humdrum of everyday life around us seems flat and stale. The interpretation of the writer or the actor is far beyond what we are able to make for ourselves, so we take their interpretation rather ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a white man, and he had proved himself not a quitter. The girl had been overwrought by their terrible flight. That she should fancy herself beginning to fall in love with him was quite understandable. The discovery of the fact set his jaded nerves to tingling with a pleasant thrill even as he realized ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... look at the book, an' then he'd look at Sonny, an' then he'd look at the class,—an' then he'd turn a page, like ez ef he couldn't make up his mind, an' was afeerd to resk it, less'n it might be missed, an' be referred back to the class. I never did see a man so overwrought over a little thing in my life—never. They do say, though, that school-teachers feels mighty bad when their scholars misses any p'int ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... slid on again into the darkness; and the lawyer sat for a moment with pursed lips. Yes, of course the boy was overwrought: anyone could see that: he had stammered a little—a sure sign. But why make all this fuss? A week in the ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... very quiet," he said reassuringly. "If you hear any sound in the house you can go back. You're overwrought, dearest, and I've only come to be near you. Nobody will see me except yourself, but if at any time before daylight you want me, come to your window and raise the blind. I'll ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... forget all that," she went on, after a moment of shamed thought. "I don't let myself think of it any more! I was unhappy, I was overwrought; there's no explanation for what I felt and said but that! And, Peter, you know that if I was false in thought to Martin, he had been unkind to me, and he had—" she paused, interrupted herself. "But men are different, I suppose," she mused. There was a silence during which ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... His overwrought feelings expressed themselves in a nervously rebelling stomach, culminating in a disgraceful moment over the nearest gutter. The rest of the afternoon ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... people, and were not to be quieted. Some woman who could not see the cause of the uproar, out of her overwrought apprehension raised the cry of fire and precipitated the panic rush for the doors. All of them were screaming the stupid, soul-sickening high note of terror, drowning the forewoman's voice. Saxon had been merely startled at first, but the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... live in superlatives. You don't know what happiness or unhappiness means. You were badly overwrought then, so you cried and said ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... maid's statement occupied all my mind. "Madame n'est pas heureuse." It had a dreadful precision . . . "Not happy . . ." This unhappiness had almost a concrete form—something resembling a horrid bat. I was tired, excited, and generally overwrought. My head felt empty. What were the appearances of unhappiness? I was still naive enough to associate them with tears, lamentations, extraordinary attitudes of the body and some sort of facial distortion, all very dreadful to behold. I didn't know ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... notice of her words. He knew that she was overwrought and broken-hearted, and that it was no time now to press ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... murmur, distant as yet, but borne to the ear on the fresh morning air, foretold the rising of another storm. The sound grew in intensity, even while she listened; and yet for a moment she misunderstood him. "O God!" she cried, out of the agony of nerves overwrought, "will that bell never stop? Will it never stop? Will no one ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... One night, being overwrought by sorrow, it may be, my father said that he would have the doctor-woman from Wolf ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... foot and a half. As Mr. Brown of the Sillet Light Infantry informed me most correctly, many would make fine spars; but Mr. Cracroft's language in one of the Journals of the Asiatic Society when describing these firs, seems rather overwrought. During our march I picked up a pretty species of Sonerila. A small stream runs at the foot of the descent, by what name it goes I know not. Near the Bustapanee, flowing along a valley about two hours' walk from the last mentioned water. Wallich discovered abundance of his favourite and really splendid ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... he pleaded, his words coming quick and eager, "don't do that! Do you think I can't see that you're all overwrought? How can I let you go tramping out there in the streets again? You couldn't go—you mustn't go! Stay here with good Mrs. Trapes, I beg of you, and I swear I'll bring Arthur to you! Only you must promise me to wait here and be patient, however long I ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... Holmes, I have been a little overwrought. Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a biscuit, I have no doubt that I should be better. I came personally, Mr. Holmes, in order to insure that you would return with me. I feared that no telegram would convince you of the absolute urgency ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... scholar revived, and literary eclipsed warlike fame; but with the revival of letters came the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Branger; fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the chaos and the earthquakes that laid bare and upheaved ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... those moments of strain, when even trifles can turn the overwrought attention. Glaucon knew that the stranger was looking from him to Lycon, from Lycon back to himself, measuring each with shrewd eye. Then the gaze settled on the Athenian. The ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... "in the distance, but of course I had no idea who it was. How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... the two half-breeds placing the canoe in the still water at the further end of the village. Half-way there he was relieved to meet the genial Ed. Mason, who greeted him, as Trenton thought, with a somewhat overwrought effusion. There evidently was something ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... Francisco del Deserto—that where the birds should light the favor of Heaven would follow, as they passed the convent on their outward way, a multitude of birds set free from their golden cages burst upon the air with a flood of song, inspired by their sudden liberty, then came throbbing and overwrought, to seek shelter among the silken sails of the Cyprian galleys—mere specks of iridescence, flashing like jewels in a chance ray ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... night, and she had been revelling in the peace of it, when suddenly this outcry from above had shot her out of her hammock like an explosion. She ran upstairs, fearing she knew not what. She found Nutty sitting on the bed, looking like an overwrought giraffe. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... which Billie allowed her gaze to travel casually about the room. Sam occupied the intermission by staring furtively at her profile. He was by now in a thoroughly overwrought condition, and the thumping of his heart sounded to him as if workmen were mending the street outside. How beautiful she looked, with that red hair peeping out beneath her hat ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... merely like the grating of overwrought nerves. But it is more than that. All religions grew out of that most human mood. And whenever one is deeply moved, he feels it. For even the most matter-of-fact person of us all has now and then a suspicion that this life is merely episodic—that curtain after curtain of darkness is to ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... varied with loud cries and groans. "Abide with me" is a beautiful hymn, but really its beauties began to pall when it had been sung through from beginning to end nine times running. Neither my nephew nor I could get any sleep that first night owing to the blatant devotional exercises of the overwrought negroes. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... terrible. Reb Shemuel trembled from head to foot. Hannah's cheek was drawn and white. She seemed overwrought beyond endurance. There followed a silence only less terrible ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to you, Miss Harriet," he said patiently, "because you are grieved and anguished over the affair. I know that you are much overwrought. Therefore will I explain to you that by all the usages of war, and upon the principle of retaliation I should have been justified in executing an officer of equal rank with Captain Johnson immediately upon receiving proofs of his death, and ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... even in the long series that succeeded it in the following Parliament. Mr. James Lowther was profoundly moved; whilst as for Mr. Cavendish Bentinck, his feelings of loyalty to the Throne were so overwrought that, as was recorded at the time, he went out behind the Speaker's chair, and crowed thrice. Amid the uproar, someone, anticipating the action of Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar on another historic occasion, "spied strangers." The galleries were cleared, and for an hour there raged throughout ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... prevent this circumstance from happening in the ensuing season, by cleaning with the greatest nicety not only such wheat as was intended for seed, but such as was received into the public store from settlers. It was occasioned by the ground being overwrought, from a greediness to make it produce golden harvests every season, without allowing it time to recruit itself from crop to crop, or being able to afford it manure. Had this not happened, the crops would ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... of the crass commercial climate of ante-bellum America; and, (3) its constant exploration of American social, moral, and cultural issues. This said, it must be admitted that the telling of Adrienne's sad plight in Paris becomes a bit overwrought; and that the inept wooing of Mary Monson by the social cad Tom Thurston is so drawn out and sarcastic as to suggest snobbery on Cooper's part as well as on that of his elite hanky. Finally, the heroine-handkerchief's protracted ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... undo sin's terrible work, and restore the divine image to the soul. He can give such comfort to the sad heart that eyes long downcast shall be lifted up to look upon God's face in loving submission and joy. He can put such songs into the hearts of the weary and overwrought that the crooked form shall grow straight, and brightness shall come again ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... the house the hours had stretched their weary lengths along, and sleep came tardily to bring relief to their overwrought minds. Bucholz, nervous and uneasy, had, without undressing, thrown himself upon the bed with Sammy Waring, and during his broken slumbers had frequently started nervously and uttered moaning exclamations of pain or fear, and in the ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... nevertheless. Hortense, overwrought by fatigue and her desire to know what was happening, continually questioned Rnine, who replied evasively, with his eyes turned to the esplanade, which they could see through ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... refuge and was now much calmer. She embraced her son and wept over him in joy at this reunion. Robin could see, however, that she was indeed much overwrought by these troubles. She had not yet recovered from the ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... smallness of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or woman. Confirmable also from things contained in them. In most were found sub- stances resembling combs, plates like boxes, fastened with iron pins, and handsomely overwrought like the necks or bridges of musical instruments; long brass plates overwrought like the handles of neat implements; brazen nippers, to pull away hair; and in one a kind of opal, yet maintaining ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... grimly; this bargaining and trafficking with such a man, in a place so foul! It seemed grotesque, incongruous; and yet was, withal, so momentous. He knew just what Rogers should say; what he would force him to do! In his overwrought state he overlooked one or two points that would not have escaped him at another time: a certain craftiness, or low cunning that played occasionally on ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hang—the Virgin Mother 475 With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men's salvation. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Be not overwrought Nor cease thy preparations for the voyage. Work tranquilly and do not be disturbed, For thou canst put away his armor last. What am I saying! For he wears no mail, Nor doth he need ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... of these things," he said soothingly—"You are evidently overwrought with study and excessive zeal. Much that you say may be true; nevertheless the Church—OUR Church—stands firm among overwhelming contradictions,—and we, its ministers, do what we can. I myself am disposed to ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... be his cold, self-contained daughter? He could not understand, as so many cannot, that such natures when aroused are tenfold more intense than those whom little things excite. A long and peculiar train of circumstances, a morbid and overwrought physical condition, led to this outburst from Christine, which was as much a cause of surprise to herself afterward as to her father. He judged correctly that a great deal had occurred between Dennis and herself of which he had ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... one occasion sent back over the line. They, however, were recovered; and, on the whole, I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those "light fixings" might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re- entered at every ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... to the emotion that overwhelmed her, for she was wearied by the journey, excited over the new and strange scenes of the past few days, and overwrought with her fears. Lord Shrope bent a look of compassion upon her, ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... sense, at one or more periods of their lives. I have a considerable packet of instances contributed by my personal friends, besides a large number communicated to me by other correspondents. One lady, a distinguished authoress, who was at the time a little fidgeted, but in no way overwrought or ill, assured me that she once saw the principal character of one of her novels glide through the door straight up to her. It was about the size of a large doll, and it disappeared as suddenly as it came. ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... you attempt to relate another reminiscence while in my employ, I shall make a deduction from your wages. I warn you—I warn you in the presence of this witness. My overwrought nerves can endure no more. Between your inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences, I am a nervous wreck!" The little man's voice ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... explosions, with pitch-dark comers, and those ghost-like forms in the misty heights, but Mr. Hume would not allow his patient time to brood over the surroundings. He shaved off fragments of biltong for him to eat, talking cheerfully all the time, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing the overwrought nerves of the lad quieted in sleep. Then the anxiety that had filled him all the time appeared in the expression of his face, and he stepped away a few yards to send a call for the woman ringing up into the vault. The cry ran away mournfully in a series ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... number. As I opened the first of them the singing upstairs ceased. For a moment there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change from noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have been overwrought. The next sound in the house—nothing more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descending the stairs—made me shudder all over. The man was no doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson. I heard the house door close on him, and started at the ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... happened, or just when, no one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the story of that poor overwrought soul's last ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... that youth wrestling for his soul; and in the morning not only was he a Christian, but his hair was as white as snow. (Lentulus falls in a dead faint). There, there: take him away. The spirit has overwrought him, poor lad. Carry him gently to his house; and ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... with the culture of the grape, had a flavor of poetry about them. The toil that produces those kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life, but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen the overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread. Certainly, the sunburnt young men and dark-cheeked, laughing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated Arcadia. Later in ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "That poor girl is overwrought to a terrible degree. I am delighted that she is to get a rest. It will be life to her; and in the morning she will be all right. Her nervous system is on the verge of a breakdown. Did you notice how fearfully disturbed ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... that can be made on this score, it is still no little impeachment of his temper, or his understanding, that he should lend his ear to the poisonous breathings of one whose spirits are so well known to "toil in frame of villainies." As to his rash and overwrought scheme of revenge for Hero's imputed sin, his best excuse therein is, that the light-minded Prince, who is indeed such another, goes along with him; while it is somewhat doubtful whether the patron or the favourite is more at fault in thus suffering artful malice to "pull the wool ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... pouring some wine into a glass. With a woman's instinct she saw that the old man was overwrought and faint. It was a Friday, and in his simple way there was no more austere abstinent than Father Concha, who had probably touched little food throughout the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... resembling dactyls, anapaests, and choriambs thrown hurriedly together, broken by irregular pauses, we begin to build a whole romance on the steps of the stranger; we infer from them moments of grave deliberation; the languor consequent upon overwrought thought; renewed effort; resolve; alternations of passion; hope struggling with despair; until all at last seems merged in impatient longing for the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... confidence. There is nothing hysterical or overwrought or morbid in these brief words, so peaceful in their trust, so moderate and restrained in their rapture. Are our anticipations of the future moulded on such a pattern? Do we think of it as quietly as this man did? Are we as tranquilly sure about it? Is there as little mist of uncertainty ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thinking" is a complaint often heard, and reason or philosophy does not seem to touch it. Even the certain knowledge that nothing is gained by this rapid thought at the wrong time, that very much is lost, makes no impression on the overwrought mind,—often even excites it more, which proves that the trouble, if originally mental, has now gained such a hold upon the physique that it must be attacked there first. The nerves should be trained to enable the body to be ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... with his deep gaze in hers the overwrought spectre had fled!—broke down, no longer doubting, bowing her head in her slim gloved hands, thrilled to the soul with the certitude of their unhappiness eternal, and the dreadful ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... cried the Professor, unable to restrain his impatience longer, bis overwrought nerves almost ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... the outer shop. But Ruth had walked to the gate to see if Babbie was coming and, as Maud emerged from the shop, the two women came face to face. For an instant they did not speak. Maud, excited and overwrought by her experience with the letter and her interview with Jed, was still struggling for self-control, and Ruth, knowing that the other must by this time have received that letter and learned her brother's secret, was inclined to be coldly defiant. She was the first to break the ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... mind unbalanced? She knew that the Frenchwoman's fiance and two brothers had been killed early in the war. Had grief for them and anxiety for her beloved country developed hallucinations? One thing was apparent—it would never do to disagree with her in her overwrought condition. Kathleen laid her arm protectingly about her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She was very fond of the ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... hospital at Crepy spoke of the effect of the Salvation Army girls, not alone upon the wounded, but also upon the medical-surgical staff and the men of the hospital corps who acted as nurses in that advanced position. "Before they came," he said, "we were overwrought, everyone seemed at the breaking point, what with the nervous tension and danger. But the very sight of women working calmly had a soothing effect ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... been ill-treating his stomach, eating too much or too well, also demands a tonic—something to give him an appetite so that he may eat more. And his poor overwrought stomach is all the time crying out ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... was not herself. My wife was in an over strained and suffering condition. For one so nervously overwrought many allowances must be made. She may have been conscious of not responding fully to my affection. That this feeling was strong enough to induce her to take her life is a source of unspeakable grief to me, but one for which ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... said Alison, lighting a pipe. "Bound to. I feel rather overwrought myself. Let's go and ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... and some of the greatest utterances in history have been hard, bitter, vehement words torn from agonized hearts. It is true that Socialists now and then use violent language, but no Socialist—unless he is so overwrought as to be momentarily irresponsible—advocates violence. The great urge and passion of Socialism is for the peaceful ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... picture. See! I am on board, and I am driving her at one hundred and ten miles." And he followed with his pointer the swift course of the vessel, as it shot down the screen like a great comet, leaving a long tail of smoke behind it. To the overwrought nerves of the audience, the buzz and splutter of the moving-picture machine seemed to increase in volume, and thus lend a semblance of reality to the monster as it swept nearer ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... park. In 1785 the king purchased Saint-Cloud and presented it to the queen, together with six millions in her own right, to enjoy and dispose of as she pleased. That act added the last straw to the burden of resentment of the overwrought public; from that time she was known as "Madame Deficit." Also she was accused of having sent her brother, Joseph II., one hundred million livres in three years. She was hissed at the opera. In 1788 there were many who refused ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... other occupations than preparing his manuscript for the printer's hands. He was ill and overwrought, and small things became magnified out of all proportion to their actual importance. There had been a dispute between Borrow's dog and that of the rector of Oulton, the Rev. E. P. Denniss, and as the place was small, the dogs met frequently and renewed their feud. Finally ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... down upon the bed, and her overwrought feelings found relief in tears. How long she would have so remained would be impossible to say, but she had barely succeeded in locking herself in when she was startled by a gentle ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... generally Americans rather near the soil; or was with the engineers and firemen in their cabs, or on the running-boards of boxcars with trainmen. Without knowing it, I acquired the ability of getting the other fellow's point of view, and, when I got old enough not to be overwrought by sympathy that was inclined to be too partisan, I found an immense intellectual enjoyment in watching the interplay between temperament and environment. I think this answers your question. I have retained a gossip's ability to be interested in ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... however, the differences of opinion respecting the aim of the reform have become more and more pronounced. Sweden has adhered to a Union, which outworldly represents a perfect unity, and tried to create a safe and secure Union. Norway has, by degrees, in her ever increasing overwrought sensitiveness, developed her reform programme towards a purely personal union, behind which the rupture of the Union has stood as the main ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... "He's overwrought and not himself, probably. I don't think he quite grasps the immediate situation. He seems to be looking far ahead already, whereas the most pressing matter should be ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... as she turned away, pressing her hands tightly together, and evidently struggling with some sudden emotion for which there really was no apparent reason. She was overwrought, I suppose; and indeed the exertion of breaking in the door had been rather too much for Charles too; for, now that the excitement was over, his hand shook so much that he had to put down the lamp, and even his voice trembled a little as ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... as they did Halvdan, the hero of his drama 'Redaktoeren' (The Editor); or that he would yield, as so many modern poets have yielded, to the temptation of resorting to pernicious stimulants or to dissipation as antidotes for the overwrought or depleted state of the nervous system occasioned by creative activity. Nothing has injured Bjoernson's spine; his lungs are without blemish; a cough is unknown to him; and his shoulders were fashioned ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and secondly, so that he shall be ready to go in directly his predecessor is out. There is an ill-concealed restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays a ball on to his pad. ''s that?' asks the bowler, with an overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now I'm in,' and already he is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here, ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... perfectly healthy girl, as well as an athletic one. But in a time of stress like this the very healthiest person can easily and quickly break down. "I feel as though I should fly!" is an expression often heard from nervous and overwrought schoolgirls. Ruth wished that she might fly—away from school and study and scenarios and ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... She felt as if she could almost have shrieked out in the agony of her mortal struggle, till her proud spirit quailed and trembled with unwonted fears. Again the clock tolled forth a solitary sound, which vibrated strangely on her overwrought nerves, and seemed more sonorous than usual. She pressed her hand upon her brow, then by an effort she seemed by a single gasp to recover herself, and, closing the window, retired to her sleeping chamber in that ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the thing that made her start out of her sleep and cry out like that. Perhaps it was just the protest of the exhausted body and the overwrought nerves. Usually, after that, she would sit up, haggardly, and take the hairpins out of her short thick hair, and announce her intention of going to bed. She always insisted that the children go too, though they often won ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... overwrought and overcome, had staggered to a chair and, falling into it, had buried ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... heard strange sounds all around him, in the room itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the wall against which his ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... gave me in exchange for my discreet smile had no hidden mirth in it. Her eyes seemed hollowed, her face gone wan in a couple of hours. We had been laughing too much. Overwrought! Overwrought by the approach of the decisive moment. After all, sincere, courageous, and self-reliant as she was, she must have felt both the passion and the compunction of her resolve. The very strength of love which had carried her up to that ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... appeal. Overwrought as I was, I nearly succumbed to the false reasoning which was but the expression of my desire. And then once more the vision of those deadly inroads of ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... of a second Father Honore shrank within himself. He could not tell at that moment whether he had here to do with an overwrought brain, with a mind obsessed, or with an awful fact. But he answered without hesitation and out of ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... had left Montgomery, Maroney had been executing a series of strategic movements, and now that he had undoubtedly thrown his pursuers, if there were any, off his track, why should he not ease his overwrought mind by sleep, that sweetest ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... horrifying in this change. In his morbid and overwrought condition it seemed murderous. At last a new resolution set his lips in a stern line, and when the curtain fell on the last act his mind was made up. "I will write one more play for the sensation-loving fools, for these flabby business men and their capon-stuffed wives. I will ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and tear madly at slow-yielding rock, the calls for a rest while carpenters hastily propped up tottering roofs and walls, the occasional warning shouts when men fell back to watch other huge masses of rock fall into the black drift, and the instants when some rescuer, overwrought, thought he heard sounds of "rock telegraphing" and bade the others pause and listen. There were those among the men on the street who had seen the desperate, melancholy conclusions, when hope, flaming ever more feebly, guttered out as a burned candle and died. ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... he could not see that. If he went he might be shot, and what would his noble emotion amount to then? He would rather make money, regulate current political, social and financial affairs. The poor fool who fell in behind the enlisting squad—no, not fool, he would not call him that—the poor overwrought working-man—well, Heaven pity him! Heaven pity all of them! They really did not ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... miserable weakness, I set to work earnestly, doggedly, to find some way out of this great chain of circumstances that bound me. Where to find Jeanette? My brain reeled with the schemes and plans that came crowding upon me, only to be rejected one by one as improbable, fantastic, children of an overwrought imagination. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... gave me my smelling-bottle. 'Hush! hush!' he said. 'You, too, are overwrought—you, too, are overexcited by all that has happened to-night. You are talking wildly and shockingly. Good God! how can you have so utterly misunderstood me? Compose ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... expanding under the multiplicity of the lessons and the tasks imposed; even the realm of my young dreams seemed closing against me little by little. The first dismal, foggy weather, and the first gray days added a greater desolation and sadness to my already overwrought feelings. The uncouth chimney-sweeps had returned, and their yearly autumn cry was again heard in the streets. Theirs was a cry that in my earlier years wrung my heart and caused my tears to flow. When one is a child the approach of winter, with its killing gloom ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a glass of water to my ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... introduced into our prose. In this we have oscillated from freedom to restraint;—from the easy, natural, and colloquial style of Swift, Addison and Steele, to the perpetually strained, ambitious, and overwrought stiffness, of which the author we are now considering affords a striking exemplification. "He's knight o' the shire, and represents them all." There is not the smallest keeping in his composition:—less solicitous what he shall say, than how he shall say ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... too terrible. My overwrought nerves yielded at last. I felt my head whirling around, while streams of icy water seemed to be running down my legs. Then I fell down at Tom ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... away, leaving a perfectly furious one standing in the road shaking his fists after them. And he was the more angry because he felt that he had been hastier with the constable than even his overwrought state of mind warranted. Then, as he reflected on the graveyard matter, his curiosity began to get the better of his wrath, and to the surprise of his Vienna antagonist he abandoned the field without another word and started for Smyrna village ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... her a quick and affectionate smile. It asked no confidence, it expressed no sympathy, it was simply the satisfied glance of a man pleased with the moment and with the company in which he found himself. To Rachael, overwrought, nervous, and ashamed, no mood could have been more delicately tuned. She sank back against the deep upholstery luxuriously, and drew a long breath, inhaling the delicious air of early summer twilight. What a sweet, ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... that it was of no use to go to bed, he blew out his lamp, lit a cigar and walked out upon the loggia. There was a warm and fitful spring wind blowing, and the unceasing rustling of the ilex leaves seemed cool and soothing to his hot and overwrought senses. In the upper strata of the air, a stronger gale was chasing dense masses and torn shreds of cloud with a fierce speed before the lunar crescent; and the broad terrace beyond the trees was alternately illuminated ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... old in understanding, although he was young in years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of a tired, overwrought brain. He knew without being told—for Margaret MacLean would never have told—how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and mind-sick she was to-night. What he did not know, however, was how pitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this was the hour ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... was, no doubt. Of course we who are practical men of the world know very well that all this foolish feeling on Ernest Le Breton's part was very womanish and weak and overwrought; that he ought to have done the work that was set before him, asking no questions for conscience' sake; and that he might honestly have pocketed the three guineas, letting his supposed duty to a few naked brown people somewhere up in the Indian hill-country ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... of reading that for the first time a doubt came across me of the tenableness of Anglicanism. I had seen the shadow of a hand on the wall. He who has seen a ghost cannot be as if he had never seen it. The heavens had opened and closed again." To less imaginative and slower minds this seems an overwrought description of a phenomenon, which must present itself sometime or other to all who search the foundations of conviction; and by itself he was for the time proof against its force. "The thought for the moment had been, The Church of Rome will be found right after all; and then it ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... replied Sir Charles, speaking fast and with much fierceness: "that lady there—poor thing, she is ill, you can see that for yourself, suffering, overwrought; she asked for a glass of water, and this brute, triple brute, as you say in ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... retorted, striking the man with his whip, "everyone on foot." Rarely did this great man mar a noble action by harsh treatment: the incident sufficiently reveals the tension of feelings, always keen, and now overwrought by physical suffering and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... thus gain a fair opportunity for the operation of regimen or remedies; in short, the judicious physician, like the Roman general, Fabius, conquers through delay, by cutting off the supplies, and wearing out the strength of the enemy. In large cities, where the mind is so much overwrought in the various schemes of private ambition, or of public business, anxiety is very frequently the grand opposing circumstance to recovery; so that while the causes which produced it are allowed to operate, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... of these things?" he cried. "You are overwrought, sweetheart." And with the promise to wait until a calmer frame of mind in her should be more propitious to what he wished to say further on this ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... She was overwrought, strung up to such a pitch that she hardly knew what she was saying. She had been through a good deal in the last hour or two and Trenby realised it. Suddenly that grim determination of his to force her promise, to bind her his here and now, yielded to an overwhelming ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... With overwrought nerves Peter Siner entered his room. At five o'clock that afternoon he had seen Cissie Dildine go up the street to the Arkwright home to cook one of those occasional suppers. He had been watching for her return, and in the midst of it the Captain's extraordinary ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open eyes through all the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... late in getting to the station that there was no time for a prolonged leave-taking. Phil hurried away to the baggage-room to check their trunks. Henrietta made a move as if to follow. Her overwrought sympathies kept her nervously opening and shutting her hands, for she dreaded scenes, and would not have put herself in the way of witnessing a painful parting, had she not thought she owed it to Joyce to stand ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... myself, it is all I ask to know that it has served the appointed end to which my energy has aimed,—that it has proved a food instinct with healing and comfort to my kind—a staunch support and refuge for the overwrought sinews of humanity. May such be my guerdon of reward for the long years of thought and toil ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... Hours must pass before he could dig into that pie. I dropped the subject, and we sat for a pretty good time in silence. Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won't forget him in the general distribution. I averted my gaze tactfully, but I could hear him kicking chairs and things. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... guests again she was pale, her lips were set, and she held her head high. Her mother said the dear child was quite overwrought, but she saw only what she expected to see through her own tear-bedimmed eyes, and other people were differently impressed. They thought Evadne was cold and preoccupied when it came to the parting, and did not seem to feel leaving her ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... critic, rather than the professional scholar; while expressing a measure of admiration for the significance of Plautus in literature, he is impelled to say: "The bold, coarse style of Plautus and his famous jokes, savour of his familiarity with the vulgar ... mostly inclines to the farcical, to overwrought and often disgusting drollery." This is doubtless true, but, by making the incidental a criterion for the whole, it gives a gross misconception to one that has ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... men, each of whom were so strong and so individual, that she could not know what he would say. Closing her eyes she waited. When the two men joined her Theo was—laughing. And to her overwrought nerves the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... His overwrought mind and body soon made him ill. He sought by violent emotions and excessive fatigue to escape from the thoughts which were persecuting him like spectres, and driving him to his death. In vain ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... richest beauty. It was written for Faustina Mancina, a celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. The Driadeo d'amore earlier—a mythological medley variously ascribed in different editions to Luca and to Luigi Pulci—and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... a distinct purpose in it! I wanted to draw his attention to the bell rope, and to fix it there. It may be that he is in a highly overwrought state, and has been studying too much, although I am bound to say that he seems as sound and healthy a young man, mentally and bodily, as ever I saw—but then the rats—and that suggestion of the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... universe in general, to which, as he lay on his back on the carpet, he presented a pair of singularly active little heels. Mrs. Luna had a way of being present at his lessons, and when they passed, as sooner or later they were sure to, into the stage I have described, she interceded for her overwrought darling, reminded Ransom that these were the signs of an exquisite sensibility, begged that the child might be allowed to rest a little, and spent the remainder of the time in conversation with the preceptor. It came to seem to him, very soon, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... lovely having her," said Audrey softly. In her overwrought state, she felt inclined to cry at the mere thought of losing her. Indeed, she felt so stupid, so miserable, so tongue-tied, she could not stand there any longer lest the sharp-eyed old gentleman should see the tears in her eyes. What a weak, ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Griffiths, overwrought by sun and sickness, exploded. All his bitterness of spirit rose up in his face and twisted his mouth ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... not usually frightened at lightning, but now, perhaps because her whole being was overwrought and strung, she started and crouched down with a sense of awe strangely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... charm which I can determine no way of expressing in this language. Acts and facts, of course. I shall not attempt to capture the subjectivity which is the charm, only to transcribe the physical datum—perhaps even data, who knows? My companions, for example: They were in appearance overwrought, looking about them continually, stopping entirely and drawing me with them into the shelter of a "door" when another man, this one wearing blue clothing and a visored hat appeared. Yet they were clearly devoted to me, at that moment, since they had put aside ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... of the influence of heredity and environment and habit of thought, which would give the explanation of many things in her patient's attitude. Nor can she realize just what shade of meaning certain phrases and words have for her charge. To the nervously overwrought person the most innocent reference—father, sister, wife, home—may bring concepts that are unbearable. The association of the word may make for deep unhappiness, of which the nurse knows nothing. But she can learn that all these things do influence attitude, can appreciate the difficulty ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... of the "Jolly Waggoner," we made off along the road at a good, sharp pace. And now, what with the stillness of the night and the strange happenings of the last few hours and the wild figure of the highwayman who seemed even more grim and terrifying by moonlight, my overwrought emotions brought on me a nausea of horror and faintness so that I stumbled more than once, whereupon my companion, tightening his grip, dragged me on, cursing me heartily; so that, contrasting his brutality with my aunt Julia's tender, loving care and my desperate plight with the luxurious security ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... at all events, brother," replied Eric, laughing in his old fashion at the possibility of such a thing. The lad was quite overwrought with emotion at parting with the old skipper as well as his late companions in the ship; and, tears and mirth being closely allied, he would have felt inclined to laugh at anything then—just because ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... interview, had not responded to his appeal for her confidence, nor vouchsafed any reason for her belief that Jimmie Turnbull had been the victim of foul play. And Colonel McIntyre had given him only until Saturday night to solve the problem! Kent's overwrought feelings found vent in ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... swallowed only the desired water and doses which did not corrode, a desire for food coming at the end of the month. The only day and night nurse was an overwrought mother, who got into bed with the same disease as soon as the daughter got out of it. There was another month of severer sickness, when without food and without the horror of dosage, as before, the call for food marked the ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... the intervening period, when it was actually going forward, is filled up by the recital of sublime lyric poetry, at once causing the stop of time to be forgotten, affording a brief respite to the overwrought feelings, and yet keeping up the enthusiastic and elevated state ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside her on the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. "Don't cry, you dear thing," she cooed gently. "There is nothing to cry about. You are a bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scored heavily off all of us—and not least off the creature who upset you. Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor is empty. It ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... ordinary, as peaceful, as monotonous as the Victorian era could produce. Yet if he were to tell any one within sight the plain truth concerning his life, it would be regarded as a fairy tale, the fantastic invention of an overwrought brain. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... which he could be restored to his former health, terms which we are to understand the virtuous witness refused. It is pleasant to know that Master Enger was "distrustfull of the truth" of this tale. One fears that these spectres were not the products of overwrought imagination, as were many others, but were merely fabrics of elaborate fiction.[29] In any case they were not the groundwork of the proof. In the Fairfax prosecutions at York in 1622 the charges against the six ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... that the bottle that contained it was safely stowed in his pocket Eva sank, overwrought, into a chair and cried ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... to rest until to-morrow's light, Then to renew the battle, I concede. No honour 'twere to-day to prove my might On thee, whom weak and overwrought I read." — "Arms are not new to me, nor listed fight; Nor does fatigue so short a toil succeed," Answered Marphisa, "and I, at my post, Hope to prove this upon thee, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... a better school wherein to model life than by incessantly exposing to it the diversity of so many other lives, fancies, and usances, and by making it relish a perpetual variety of forms of human nature. The body is, therein, neither idle nor overwrought; and that moderate agitation puts it in breath. I can keep on horseback, tormented with the stone as I am, without alighting or being weary, eight ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... were in perplexed consideration as to where to go and what to do, that the magazine article appeared—devoted to houseboating. It was a most fetching production with a picture that appealed to every overwrought nerve. There was a charming bit of water with trees hanging over; a sky all soft and blue (you knew it was soft and blue just as you knew that the air was soft and cool; just as you knew that a drowsy peace and quiet was brooding over all); and there, in the midst, ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... in the life of a young inexperienced woman as that when she begins to form an attachment for one of the opposite sex—at a moment when she needs the very best advice accompanied with a considerate regard for her overwrought feelings—the very best course she can take is to confide the secret of her heart to that truest and most loving of friends—her mother. Fortunate is the daughter who has not been deprived of that wisest and tenderest of counsellors—whose experience of life, whose prudence ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... council of men has had to face for many centuries, perhaps not since the embassy of the Goths to the Emperor Valens—the ministry or cabinet which but dares, dares to trust this people's resolution, will find that this enthusiasm is not that of men overwrought with war-fever, but the deep-seated purpose of a people strong to defend the heritage of its fathers, and not to swerve from the path which fate itself has marked out for it amongst the empires of the earth. This, I maintain, is the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... shack. Bill was sleeping on the floor with his long legs drawn up. His mouth was open and he was snoring lustily. I couldn't help thinking how much he looked like an overgrown grasshopper. But that was just a first impression springing from overwrought nerves. ...
— The Man the Martians Made • Frank Belknap Long
... No, that overwrought presentation of early local history was not quite what they wanted. The contract remained unsigned, and presently it slid off into the waste-paper basket ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... "You're a little overwrought, Gerald," Mr. Fentolin declared. "Sit quietly in my easy-chair for a few moments. Walt until I have examined Mr. Dunster's belongings. Ah! Meekins has ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... or that reason for the failure of a child may be given. In one case it may be the father or mother drinks, in another that the child is an orphan, neglected by aunt or stepmother, in another that the mother is an invalid or a sweated worker too overwrought to do much for him, or, though a good-hearted soul, she is careless and dirty or ignorant, or that she is immoral and reckless, and so on and so on. Our haphazard sample of ten Scotch cases gives instances of nearly all these alternatives. And from ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... life," she repeated slowly. It seemed that this obvious fact needed to be indelibly established in her mind. Indeed the girl was overwrought by all that she had gone through. Only by degrees were her thoughts marshaling themselves with lucid coherence. As yet, she recalled so many dramatic incidents that they failed ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... air would have daunted a less courageous girl. Lady Caroline had risen, and was staring sternly. Percy was pulling the puffs of an overwrought soul. Lord Marshmoreton, whose thoughts had wandered off to the rose garden, pulled himself together and tried to look menacing. Maud went on without waiting for a reply. She was all bubbling gaiety and insouciance, a charming picture of young English girlhood that nearly made her ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse |
