"Sob" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thoughts he could not guess. Presently the rider whisked behind a point of sage-dotted hill and was gone. Vesta lifted her hands slowly and pressed them to her eyes, shivering as if struck by a chill. Twice or thrice this convulsive shudder shook her. She bowed her head a little, the sound of a sob ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... a deep groan, and by a sob counteracted and devoured as it were by a mighty effort. This token of distress thrilled to my heart. My terrors wholly disappeared, and gave place to unlimited compassion. I again entreated to be admitted, ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... was still weeping; and at times a sob, which she could not restrain, passed between two verses ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... a sob, not of pain, but of happiness, and knew that the blue eyes of Sally Fortune looked out to him from the doorway of ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... hour the three, with Li Chung hovering in the background, worked over the girl. Then as they saw her stupor change to a natural sleep, Katherine gave a sigh that was almost a sob. ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... water whispering from the birchen prow. One long last look, and many a sad adieu, While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet, I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you, A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette, A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee, A sigh for Jeanne, a sob for Verginie. ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... twelve o'clock struck, and my patient slept tranquilly. At a quarter to one, however, I was abruptly roused from a reverie by a sob, a sob of fear and agony that proceeded from the bed. I looked, and there—there, seated in the same posture as on the previous evening, was the child. I sprang to my feet with an exclamation of amazement. She raised her hand, and, as before, I collapsed—spellbound—paralysed. No words ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... of mind prevents you sleeping at night, and so you sob, and sigh, and blow your nose ten times every minute as loud ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... giantess gave a sob which sounded exactly like a wave going flop into the mouth of a cave up ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald
... Reckon ther storm put it out of business. I guess it's all up with me now. I hoped ter pay off ther part of ther mortgage with ther hay and grain in thet barn yonder, an' now——" He broke off in a half sob. Cantankerous as the old man had shown himself to be, and grasping withal, the boys could not help but feel sorry for the stricken old fellow. He looked pitifully bowed and old and wretched in the midst of his distracted farm hands, who were running about and shouting and ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... I won't let it spoil my life," she resolved while she bit back a sob. "Whatever happens, I am not going to let my life be ruined." She had repeated this so often that it had begun to drone in her mind like a line out of a hymn-book; and she was still repeating it when she swept by Stephen ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... cried. Then her voice failed. But her hands flew up; quick as a flash she raised her face—kissed him. Then she turned and with a sob ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... winds run warm on the waves of the grass that lifts like a scented sea. No sound of the surf, no sob of the tides; but the drone of the drowsy bee Is drawing me out from the purple shades to wade in the daffodils, Where the long green billows go drifting by to lap the feet of ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... own language, the priest sought to soothe the child and learn her identity as he carried her to the edge of the park and out into the street. But his efforts were unavailing. She could only sob hysterically and call piteously for her mother. A civil guard appeared at the street corner, and the priest summoned him. But scarcely had he reported the details of the accident when, suddenly uttering a cry, the priest thrust the girl into the arms of the astonished officer ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... a fear, the fear of losing her whom I loved with a sort of fanatical devotion; but it was so overwhelming, so crushing that I suddenly began to sob like a child. ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... they show no wit Who foolishly hug and foster it. If love is a weed, how simple they Who gather and gather it, day by day! If love is a nettle that makes you smart, Why do you wear it next your heart? And if it be neither of these, say I, Why do you sit and sob and sigh? ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... not call Harrison or anyone else. There is really nothing the matter. I'm just a silly girl to act like this and I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself." Then she wiped her eyes and strove to check a rebellious sob. ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... from him like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death rattle of a dying man; it seemed indeed like the agony of death when the father's love was powerless. There was a pause, and neither of the sisters spoke. It must have been selfishness indeed that could hear unmoved that cry of ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... her face in the pillow and began to sob and Jane reached out quick gentle arms and gathered her in a close comforting embrace. In a moment more Betty had gained control of herself ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Ay, I mun be wrong somehow, or it wouldna stick to me i' this road. I conna get rid on it, an' I conna feel as if I want to. What's up wi' me? What's takken howd on me?" his voice breaking and the words ending in a sharp hysterical gasp like a sob. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... chair Betty, covering her face with her hands, began to sob. And she cried on without any effort at self-control until she was limp and exhausted, although all the while her heart was saying its own special hymn of thanksgiving. And young Dr. Barton kept patting her upon the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... struck her as grim and frightful; while the very idea of going to sleep in the room with the horned Moses scared her almost to death. It preyed on her mind all day; and at night, after Johnnie had gone to bed, Miss Inches, passing the door, heard a little sob, half strangled by ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... an unmerciful man!" she accused him, with a sob in her voice. "You don't know the trouble my father has had; how many years he has worked, with nothing but his hands; and now your company comes and claims the water, and turns the river, that belongs ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... the maiden was flung down the steps before him—slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... Ergushovo," said Levin, feeling as if he would sob with the rapture that was flooding his heart. "And how dared I associate a thought of anything not innocent with this touching creature? And, yes, I do believe it's true what Darya Alexandrovna told me," ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... her face towards him, a red flush coloring her cheeks and brow. "No," she said, with vehemence, "it was my fault, and you know it, Mr. Sawyer. How you must hate me for having caused you so much trouble." She gave a convulsive sob and burst ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... how I have struggled," answered Esther with a sort of sob. "I never knew how gentle and patient a man could be until I saw how he helped me. He began by taking all the risk. I told him faithfully that I was not fit for him, and he said that he only asked me to love him. I did love him. I love him so much that if he were a beggar in the street ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... the foolish things I said to-night, dear?" she pleaded. "There, there, I'll blot them out with kisses—one for every harsh word, and one more for love's own sake. But you must promise me, Frank, never to leave me like that again." A sob caught her voice, and her ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... starving for my breakfast. If the young lady—she's married now, and I wish her all happiness—should appear before me at the end of this street, and sob out a confession of repentance for the past, it wouldn't in the least affect my appetite. I should tell her not to mind, and hurry on to join you ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... A great sob broke from Juliette's aching heart. The misery of it all was more than she could bear. Ah, pity her if you can! She had fought and striven, and been conquered. A girl's soul is so young, so impressionable; and she had grown up with that one, awful, all-pervading idea of duty to accomplish, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... and awaited the onrushing enemy tide. Some few with what futile strength could be mustered by superhuman effort tottered and staggered uncertainly in the direction they dimly imagined their comrades had taken. One by one fell prey to exhaustion, dropped with a last frenzied sob unto the earth; some lay still and quiet, peppered by a second stream of lead. Others, writhing in agony, dazed, mad, waited the Jerry approach and picked off man after man until a bayonet thrust put finis to their ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... gray billows, while the top stories of several sky-scrapers rose up here and there like solemn black cliffs. A faint light in the east heralded the approach of day. Too-oo-ot, sounded the whistle of the approaching steamer once again; then its voice broke and died out in a discordant sob, which was drowned in the nervous gang, gang, gang of the ship's bell. The steamer had been obliged to anchor on account of the fog. Too-oo-ot, came from the other steamer further out. Then life in the bay came to a stand-still: nothing could be done till the ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... good widow; her face overwhelmed with tears, leaning her head against the bed's head in a most disconsolate manner; and turning her face to me, as soon as she saw me, O Mr. Belford, cried she, with folded hands—the dear lady—A heavy sob permitted ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... stood in trembling silence. Then he threw the books from him into the sand at her feet, and with a choking sob sped past her to vanish amid a whirl of dust in the ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... rose, clinging to him. He threw her off, she ran to him, and he threw her off again, his face distorted in the moonlight. "I'm tired of this sob stuff!" he cried. "We're in this thing and we're goin' ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... sob, followed by another and another. She sprang out of bed to find Lucien, and saw the papers. Nothing would satisfy her but she must read them all; and when she had read them, she went back to bed, and lay there ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... gross to see them in detail, Who calculated life as so much dross, And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail, And cared as little for his army's loss (So that their efforts should at length prevail) As wife and friends did for the boils of job,— What was 't to him to hear two women sob? ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... loving sob like her. Come, Helen!" (He takes her hand.) (Helen.) Oh, let never Greek see this! Hide me from Argos, from Amy'clae [Footnote: A town of Laconia, where was a temple of Apollo. It was a short distance to the south-west of Sparta.] hide me, Hide me from all. (Menelaus.) ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... yourself how terrible it is that a woman should speak of the death of her husband without a tear in her eye, without a sob,—without ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... There was a sob in the squat man's throat and Jack Odin could see by the light of the flickering coals that Gunnar had aged. His face was more seamed. The knots of muscle at each jaw were larger. His hair was gray-streaked and thinner. But ...
— Hunters Out of Space • Joseph Everidge Kelleam
... moulded into features—this face answered me. Juno's wide back and mesial groove, is any thing so lovely as the back ? Cythereals poised hips unveiled for judgment; these called up the same thirst I felt on the green sward in the sun, on the wild beach listening to the quiet sob as the summer wave drank at the land. I will search the world through for beauty. I came here and sat to rest before these in the days when I could not afford to buy so much as a glass of ale, weary and faint from walking on stone pavements. I came later on, in better times, often straight ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... and could lay down and sob fer, is to know The homely things of homely life; fer instance, jes' to go And set down by the kitchen stove—Lord! that 'u'd rest me so,— Jes' set there, like I ust to do, and laugh and ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... Mrs. Leigh stood watching as she stood once before, beside the churchyard wall: but not alone this time; for Ayacanora stood by her side, and gazed and gazed, till her eyes seemed ready to burst from their sockets. At last she turned away with a sob,— ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... though they regard it reverently because they cannot comprehend it. They may not know of all this,—how their guardian bends over their pillow nightly, and lets no word of their careless talk drop unheeded, hails every brightening gleam of reason, and records every sob of infant grief; and every chirp of childish glee,—they may not know this, because they could not understand it aright, and each little heart would be inflated with pride, each little mind would lose the grace and purity of its unconsciousness: ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... before her passionate grief was sufficiently subdued to permit of her listening to me. When it was nearly exhausted, and found vent only in an occasional sob, I took her ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... in her seventeenth year, and showed promises of future development into a splendid woman. For the first few moments Nanette never ceased her protestations of gratitude, and when at last she finished them in a great sob behind her handkerchief, Honor looked sweetly up in Mr. Rayne's face ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... unequal battle with evil? Millions have faced it bravely—nobly, trusting God's promises, but they have never succeeded in removing one iota of the curse, 'Thou shalt surely die.' The whole problem of life is a mystery which I am tired of trying to solve," and Katherine was sure the woman stifled a sob as ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... replied Lizzie, with a sob. "On the finger is a ring which I know belonged to him, the clothing certainly is his and the keys, papers and penknife found in the pockets belonged to him. As you can see, the envelopes have his name and address ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto woman, evidently a servant in the house, with a timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully sad and gentle. She was weeping silently, the corner of her calico apron lifted to her eyes, occasionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. Steavens walked ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... man-of-war world, Life comes in at one gangway and Death goes overboard at the other. Under the man-of-war scourge, curses mix with tears; and the sigh and the sob furnish the bass to the shrill octave of those who laugh to drown buried griefs of their own. Checkers were played in the waist at the time of Shenly's burial; and as the body plunged, a player swept the board. The bubbles had hardly burst, when all ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... head on his hand, and sat in silence by my side, listening to song after song which he had known and liked in former days, I felt my heart grow fuller, till at last my voice failed, and in its place a choking sob rose in my throat. He raised his head abruptly, and looked at me sternly. "It is only that I am a little nervous," I said; "I have taken a long ride, and ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the ground. He swung a little towards the side of the house, pushed himself vigorously away from it with his feet, and at the farthest point of the outward swing, jumped. His hands gripped the telegraph wires safely. Even in that tense moment he heard a little sob of relief ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... night journey. Occasionally as we toiled onward I could hear Elsie moan and sob, but Eloise gave utterance to no sound, except to reply cheerfully whenever I addressed her. The exceeding roughness of the passage made our progress slow, and quite frequently we were all obliged to dismount, generally glad enough of the change, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... my heart to the voice of the sea, To find out the way of the Lord; To the sob of unuttered mystery, To find out the way of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... word—flash!—slush!—out went the whole contents of the full pail, two gallons at the least of ice-cold water, slap in the chaps, neck, breast, and stomach of the sound sleeper. With the most wondrous noise that ears of mine have ever witnessed—a mixture of sob, snort, and groan, concluding in the longest and most portentous howl that mouth of man ever uttered—Tom started out of bed; but, at the very instant I discharged my bucket, I put my foot upon the light, flung down the empty pail, and ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Mrs. Meehan began to sob, partly with relief, partly with a general tendency to sentimental hysteria: "I can see that, dearie. And say—if you're quiet, I ain't peekin' around corners and through key-holes. No, Miss Greensleeve; that ain't my style! Quiet behaved young ladies can have their company without me saying ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... the summer sunlight, but surged and swayed in low, broken lines, white-capped with fitful foam. And the voice—the song of the sea—that had been a very lullaby to Dan as he swung every night in his hammock beneath the stars, had a hoarse, fierce tone, like a sob of passion or pain. Altogether, Dan and his boat had a very hard pull over the ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... A sob at her right made her start and then turn away quickly from the sight of a mother's grief as she clung to a frail daughter for support, sobbing with utter abandon, while the daughter kept begging her to ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnerd "Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... she pulls me on the bottom of my hair, she goes und takes her pencil und gives me a stick in my face. When I was marchin' she extra takes her shoes und steps at my legs; I got two swollen legs over her. Und now"—here a sob—"you could to look on how she makes me ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... here always; our poor darling was fond of her." And as I closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her, she was quite composed; only for the white cheek and the black dress, you would not know that the burning feel of a child's last kiss had ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... broke through the gloom. Helene had not moved. Suddenly, however, she started up, for the moanings and cries of a child in pain had roused her. Dazed with sleep, she pressed her hands against her temples, but hearing a stifled sob, she leaped from her couch on ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... spoke the expression on the young man's face became more and more hopeless, and when he had ceased he dropped his head into his open palms, sitting quiet and motionless as a carven statue. No sob shook his great frame, there was no outward indication of the terrible grief that racked him inwardly—only in the pose was utter ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the parchments, and George felt inclined to blush as he glanced at the decorated words of eulogy; while a half-ironical twinkle crept into Grant's eyes. Then Hardie rose to reply, and faltered once or twice with a sob of emotion in his voice, for the testimonial had a deeper significance to him than it had to the others. His audience, however, encouraged him, and there was a roar of applause when he sat down. Soon after that ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... mimic rout, A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out The scenic solitude! It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs The mimes become its food, And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs In human ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... any good—if I should—throw them!" she choked hysterically, the tray raised high in her hands. Then with a little shamed sob she lowered the tray and hurried downstairs to ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... spared for a time, since they thought he might be of use to them, and forthwith loaded him with plunder. But he could not bear the cruel treatment that we suffered; and though I tried to console him with a hope of deliverance, he continued to sob and moan. One of the savages, seeing this, instantly came up, struck him to ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... abnormally still. There was something in the air, too, that struck me as unusual; an odd, clammy coldness that reminded me at once of the catacombs in Paris. I had hardly, however, conceived the resemblance, when a sob—low, gentle, but very distinct—sent a thrill of terror through me. It was ridiculous, absurd! It could not be, and I fought against the idea as to whence the sound had proceeded, as something too utterly fantastic, too utterly impossible! I tried to occupy ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... nearer to his partner and laid his hand upon his arm. His shirt fell open, showing the cords of his throat swollen and twitching. His voice was half a sob. ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... think about her, and going back there—oh," she burst out passionately, "I'd rather die than go back to live with her! Mr. Brewster, don't make me go! Please don't make me go!" The words came with a half sob, but she fought the tears back, and her appealing eyes searched his ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... been dealt to me I behaved very well indeed. But I was cold and, I suspect, pale. I listened as the others talked, but I did not say much myself; and, as soon as I could make some excuse, I went up to my room. There I threw myself into a great chair, and gently cried myself to sleep. I did not sob loudly, because I did not want Bernard to come up again. When I awoke I had a dreadful headache, and I made up my mind I would not go down to tea. I could do no good by going down, and, so far as I was concerned, it did not matter in the least whether Margaret was there or not. ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... explanation that was at once a sob, a complaint, and a trembling defiance, she pushed back her chair and fled to her room. Here she sobbed in peace and plenty; sobbed till tears became a luxury to be produced by a conscious effort of the will. It had always been a grief to Sissy that she could never cry enough. Split, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... California or Bermuda or any-where else unless Ladybird comes!" Nina burst out, with a broken sob. ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... that she was calling to answered her. He suddenly bowed his head and buried it in her lap. She felt his body shake, and he began to sob, hard, dry sobs that broke him as they came. He held her close, with his face hidden. Claire pressed her hands on each side of his temples, feeling the throbbing of his heart. She felt as if something inside her were being torn to pieces, something that knocked its way against ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... Dot continued to sob while Mr. Carroll did up the oatmeal and the cornstarch and the other things and put them in Bobby's bag. She was still crying when the four little Blossoms went down the grocery store steps and turned toward the road ...
— Four Little Blossoms on Apple Tree Island • Mabel C. Hawley
... and beyond the walls: the gleaming ruins, and fresh, uncontaminated daisies that trustfully throve beside some of them; the little fountains, with their one-legged or flat-nosed statues strutting ineffectually above them,—fountains either dry as dead revelers or tinkling a pathetic sob into a stone trough; the open views where the colors of sunlit marble and the motions of dancing light surrounded the peasants who sprang up from the ground like belated actors in a drama we only keep with us ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... there, Friends and relations of the dead,—and he, 175 A loveless man, accepted torpidly The consolation that he wanted not; Awe in the place of grief within him wrought. Their whispers made the solemn silence seem More still—some wept,... 180 Some melted into tears without a sob, And some with hearts that might be heard to throb Leaned on the table and at intervals Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came 185 Upon the breeze of night, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... down for several minutes, and then began to sob. Tydomin came up to him, and he got ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... like a punishment to me," she added, "a judgment, almost. You don't know—Effie dinna ken even—how many wrong feelings I had about coming away. I thought nothing could be so bad as to have to depend on Aunt Elsie, and now—" Something very like a sob stopped her utterance. ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... dead beat, losing heart, at every step, and stopping sometimes to take breath with a gasp which sounded ominously like a sob. The long hill seemed interminable; there was no glimmer of a light anywhere to cheer him; no clatter of a horse's hoofs to ring hope into his heart. All was black, and wet, and dreary. What if he should ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... in shadow. She opened the gate, followed the narrow foot-path leading to the front door, and found herself in a dark entry, with a few rays of light shimmering through the key-hole of a door immediately before her. As she put her hand to the latch, a stifled sob broke upon her ear, and noiselessly opening the door, she glided into the apartment. It was indeed the chamber of death. On a little table by the fire-place, amidst a number of glasses and vials, burned a solitary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... againward shrieked ev'ry nun, The pang of love so strained them to cry: "Now woe the time," quoth they, "that we be boun'!* *bound This hateful order nice* will do us die! *into which we foolishly We sigh and sob, and bleeden inwardly, entered Fretting ourselves with thought and hard complaint, That nigh for love we waxe wood* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... little sob caught in her throat. "His lips have told me nothing, Ursula. His eyes and my heart ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... I may never see you again!" And she turned and ran swiftly up the stair. I thought I heard a sob, but whether of anger ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... She lay on her face. She had wetted her pillow with her tears; she had flung it aside and was digging her hands into Ransome's pillow with a tearing, disemboweling motion. Every now and then, with the regularity of a machine, she gave out a sob and a ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... ears must be deceiving her, for there was the sound of a faint suppressed sob, and then, a second afterwards, her husband's voice answering cheerily, with ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... instant, had a spasm of fright and began to scream. He jumped up from his chair and walked hastily up and down the room with the child in his arms. It began to sob piteously, losing its breath for four or five seconds, and then bursting out anew. The thin walls of the room echoed the sound. He tried to soothe it but it sobbed more convulsively. He looked at the contracted and quivering face of the child and began to be alarmed. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... start to read while Nellie sat down to listen. Soon both were engrossed in the sad story, so powerfully told, and the tears would be running from the mother's eyes as her fancy pictured the sorrows of Wallace, while Robert's voice would break, and a sob come into his throat, as he proceeded. When finally the passage was reached where the brutal blow was struck, the book would have to be put down, while mother and son both cried as if the grief depicted were ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... had displeased my grandmother because, after luncheon, when she complained of not feeling very well, he had stifled a sob and wiped the tears ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the room he was aware of a sudden silence, accentuated by a half-repressed sob from his mother. Instantly he took the blame on his own shoulders. He expected difficulties; but he was not ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... room save for the half-suppressed sob from the nurse and the distant booming of the cannon. As Bok finished, he heard the boy at his right say slowly: "Saviour-meet-me-on-my-way": with a little emphasis on the word "my." The hand in his relaxed slowly, and then fell on the cot; ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... hanging helplessly by your side, and the blood streaming down your face and clothes, and the red light in your eyes—murderous fire, they called it. I heard her ladyship go into hysterics. I saw her laugh and sob like a maniac, and, God help us! that's what ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he may be, since his aim is to reach the very fount of laughter and tears. The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. They are worthy of respect, too. And he is not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob, and of a smile which is not a grin. Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... sob rising in her throat, she hastily filled her mouth with buttered toast, choked, and caught herself with a wild sound, half cough, half snort, that brought the eyes of the whole table upon her. The strange thing was, Peggy did not seem to care this time. They were only freshmen ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... are daintily off!—The soup that the cat has lapped; and (as her progeny has probably contributed to the hell broth) why not? Then your hours of solitude, deliciously diversified by the yell of famine, the howl of madness, the crash of whips, and the broken-hearted sob of those who, like you, are supposed, or DRIVEN mad by the crimes of others!—Stanton, do you imagine your reason can possibly hold out amid such scenes?— Supposing your reason was unimpaired, your health not destroyed,— suppose all this, which is, after all, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... still possible, and, when they had done all that they could, to the best of their judgment, to return to the fort with intelligence. Having thus dismissed his companions, the doctor tenderly raised the now insensible Lucille in his arms, and, pressing her to his breast with a sob of inarticulate gratitude to God for her preservation, he wended his way back to the fort with a heavy, grief-stricken heart, wondering meanwhile how he could best meet the anxious inquiries which he knew would be made ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... struck him on the cheek with her little, brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... again left them on this desperate mission. Lady de Mowbray and all the women remained in the chamber. Not a word was spoken: the silence was complete. Even the maid-servants had ceased to sigh and sob. A feeling something like desperation was stealing ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... scenting mischief, would not go; first she turned back to the cowshed and was dragged towards the highroad, then she lowed so miserably that Maciek went pale and Magda was heard to sob loudly: the gospodyni would not look ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... "thou 'lt show me a certain tree," and she broke into silvery laughter. She laughed until we had left behind the guest house and the figure in the upper window, and then the laughter changed to something like a sob. If there were pain and anger in her heart, pain and anger were in mine also. She had never called me by my name before. She had only used it now as a dagger with which to stab at that ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... had given her so much of grief and pain. But she attached too much importance to her own vague words. They did not betray her, and Wyvis scarcely listened to what she said. He broke into a short, harsh laugh, more hideous than a sob. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar, pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his father died so early, before his time, before the justice, the love of his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which said to him every moment: "Alas!" At the same time, he became more truly serious, more truly grave, more sure of his thought and his faith. At each instant, gleams of the true came to complete his reason. An inward growth seemed ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... cut, Martin!" said she at last, very softly, "Suffer that I bathe it." Now turning in amaze I saw her yet upon her knees, looking up at me despite her falling tears: "Wilt suffer me to bathe it, Martin?" says she, her voice unshaken by any sob. I shook my head; but rising she crossed to the door and came back bearing a small pannikin of water. "I brought this ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... presently the cause of her weeping was explained, as an elderly man came round the corner of the house with both his hands roughly tied up with bandages covered with blood—a sight which caused the young woman to sob with renewed vigour. After a little talk with the man, who, in spite of his injuries, seemed perfectly well, the latter went away, and I entered into conversation with the weeping female, whom I found to speak ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... Miss Hodges would willingly have continued to sob upon Miss Warwick's shoulder, or how long that shoulder could possibly have sustained her weight, is a mixed problem in physics and metaphysics, which must for ever remain unsolved: but suddenly a loud scream was heard. Miss Hodges ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... and the deformed girl starts apprehensively. A sob has sounded in her ear, and some one, unlike any she has ever seen heretofore, stands beside her, taking her hand in mute, unspeakable compassion. She cowers back against the wall and drags away her hand; Hazel's purity ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... quiet! I hate him. I won't try. I won't be tortured—oh, why can't you all leave me alone!" She began to sob and moan under her breath, careless even of a possible passerby. Fortunately there was no one, and they were already within sight of home. Esther, very white, supported the shaking woman with her arm and they hurried on together. At the door she would still have ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... above, white faces over white gowns, the soft rustle of expectancy, the silence when the Dozent with the red beard stepped out and began to read an address—all caught Harmony by the throat. Peter, keenly alive to everything she did, felt rather than heard her soft sob. ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... still! I love you! You are mine." And for every sob and every shudder and every moan of fear he had but one response—"I love you! You ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the very roots of the hair, sounds so unearthly that they suggest a caroling of dragons or bierfisch—and yet they are made by the same old fiddles that play the Kaiser Quartet, and by the same old trombones that the Valkyrie ride like witch's broomsticks, and by the same old flutes that sob and snuffle in Tit'l's Serenade. And in parts of "Feuersnot"—but Roget must be rewritten by Strauss before "Feuersnot" is described. There is one place where the harps, taking a running start from the scrolls of the violins, leap slambang through (or is it into?) the firmament of Heaven. ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... faced her, open-mouthed and silent, she went on, still dry-eyed, but with a quaver in her voice that was like a sob: "But, oh, the worst of my blame is for myself! I was a blind, selfish, self-centered egotist. I could have changed things if I had only tried harder. I am paying for it now. I ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... sob in his voice, "it was nobly done. Never did I see a better ridden course in all my life. I did not believe that thou couldst do half so well. Oh, Myles, prithee knock him out of his saddle an thou ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... sob was at her throat. If she had spoken it would have burst through, and she would have been not merely the child, but the ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... it. Now for the rising of the lark! Henceforward it is a chorus, and he is the leader thereof. Heaven and earth agree to follow him. I have a part for the brooks—their notes drop, drop, drop, like his: for the woods—they sob like him. At length, nothing remains but to blow the Hautboys; and just as the chorus arrives at its fulness, they come maundering in. They have a sweet old blundering 'cow song' to themselves—a silly thing, made of the echoes of all pastoral sounds. There's ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... A half-strangled sob came from the lips of Mrs. Astley-Rolfe. Tranter uttered an exclamation. The danseuse, the clergyman, and the theatrical manager burst ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... was not unlikely to have died with such thoughts in him. It is the eve of one of those terrible struggles at Toulouse, and the poet's imagination is hanging at moon-rise over the scene. 'The low broad field scattered over thick with corpses, all silent, dead,—the last sob spent,'—the priest's thanksgiving for the Catholic victory having died into an echo, and only the 'vultures crying their ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from his shoulders ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their feelings only, as their betters do. I've never been above telling you what a godsend you've been to me this summer;—have I? I've paid everything, butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you're going away!' Then Mrs Pipkin began to sob. ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... something to aggravate thy misery yet far more abundantly. I shall briefly speak to the words as they have relation to the terror spoken of in the verses before. As if he had said, Thou thinkest thy present state unsupportable, it makes thee sob and sigh, it makes thee to rue the time that ever thou wert born. Now thou findest the want of mercy; now thou wouldst leap at the least dram of it: now thou feelest what it is to slight the tenders of the grace of God; now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... call me Viola, after her mother, and Father wanted to call me Abigail Jane after his mother; and they wouldn't either one give in to the other. Mother was sick and nervous, and cried a lot those days, and she used to sob out that if they thought they were going to name her darling little baby that awful Abigail Jane, they were very much mistaken; that she would never give her consent to it—never. Then Father would say in his cold, stern way: "Very well, then, you needn't. But neither ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... anything," but I thought she checked a sob, "that I—can tell. I just thought there might be trouble to-night, but I imagined it would happen before you started. That was why I marked that gold. Don't take any, ever, out of the safe, if it hasn't my ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... attempt to struggle when Knox caught him, but he now withdrew from the relaxing arms, and the Secretary of War left the room hastily. Hamilton, to Washington's astonishment, flung himself into a chair, and dropped his head on his arms. In a moment, he began to sob convulsively. A malignant fever was breeding in his depressed system; the blood still surged in his head. He had a despairing sense that his character was in ruins; he was humiliated to his depths; he despised himself so bitterly that he ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... seen the performance. He had been called away the day she played it, but his pockets were full of the articles that had been written about her. The leaves of the beech trees shimmered in the steady sunlight, and they could see the green park through the drooping branches. She often detected a sob in his voice, and once, while sitting under a cedar tree at the edge of the terrace, he had to turn aside to hide his tears, and the sadness of everything made her sick ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... nothing on earth Brett detested so thoroughly as a display of feminine sentiment, no matter how spontaneous or well-timed. At heart he was conscious of kindred emotions. A child's cry, a woman's sob, the groan of a despairing man, had power to move him so strangely that he had more than once allowed a long-sought opportunity to slip from his grasp rather than sear his own soul by displaying callous indifference to ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... neared the place of execution, General Mejia suddenly turned pale, covered his face, and with a sob fell back in his place in the carriage. He had caught sight of his wife, agonized, dishevelled, with her baby in her arms, and all the ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... folding doors leading into the back school-room were opened and the boys gathered around and sang the hymn he loved, "Safe in the arms of Jesus." Scarcely an eye was dry, and many a sigh was heaved, and many a sob broke the silence of the apartment as they came up one by one to look on the marble face of their dead companion, and to imprint a kiss on his cold brow. Many of the boys would not be satisfied with ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... that, despite the leisurely character of my exertions, I made excellent progress, and, in a shorter time than I had thought possible, found myself within the deep shadow of the ship's hull. Everything was by this time as silent as death on board, save for the slight jerk of the wheel-chains and the sob of the water along the bends and about the rudder as the ship swung gently upon the long, low ground-swell, the edge of which just caught her as it crept up from the westward across the mouth of the small estuary where she lay at anchor. ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... excitement, too, that her checks had bloomed with roses. She glanced across. The fair flaxen head was on the shoulder half hidden by the protecting arm. The other head, showing many silver threads now, drooped over a little. The picture brought a mist to her eyes, and there was a half sob in her throat. The same thought came into her mind. She would be their "little girl" when the other one had gone to her ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... hand towards Lucina, caught her first by her flowing skirt, then by her fair arm, and drew her close to his side and pulled down her soft face to his. "Well, Pretty, how goes the world?" he said, with a laugh, which had almost the catch of a sob, so anxiously tender he was of her, and so timid before ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... wildly about and stabbing with a spear at the invisible sorcerers; another catches up a cudgel and at one blow shivers a water-pot of the deceased into atoms, or rushes out like one demented and lays a palm-tree level with the ground. Some fling themselves prostrate beside the corpse and sob as if their very hearts would break. They take the dead man by the hand, they stroke him, they straighten out the poor feet which are already growing cold. They coo to him softly, they lift up the languid head, and then lay it gently down. Then in a frenzy of grief one of them will leap ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... the door and switched on the shaded light over the table, ran back and administered the dose. Then with something like a sob he cried: "Mr. Craig, oh, my dear master, I can't stand it any longer," and pressed one of the ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... with the cheapest man. Souldiers may here to their old glories adde, [-The Mad Lover.-] The Lover love, and be with reason mad: Not as of old, Alcides furious, Who wilder then his Bull did teare the house, (Hurling his Language with the Canvas stone) 'Twas thought the Monster roar'd the sob'rer Tone. But ah, when thou thy sorrow didst inspire [-Tragi-comedies.-] With Passions, blacke as is her darke attire, Virgins as Sufferers have wept to see [-Arcas.-] So white a Soule, so red a Crueltie; [-Bellario.-] That thou hast grieved, and with unthought ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... "We'll try And make it easy with the present God. But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight, It seemeth harder to the lookers on, Than him that dieth. It may be, each breath, That they would call a gasp, seems unto him A sigh of pleasure; or, at most, the sob Wherewith the unclothed spirit, step by step, Wades forth into the cool eternal sea. I think, my boy, death has two sides to it, One sunny, and one dark; as this round earth Is every day half sunny and half dark. We on the dark side call the mystery death; They on the ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald |
