"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... on a bit of swelling ground and looked on, without understanding what she saw; seeing, hearing, as in a dream; and after the first spasm of relief, as if what was being done in no way concerned her, belonged to another world to her own. It was as though she were in the moon and saw what men were ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... face swept a swift spasm of pain. So quickly was it gone that I would not have noticed it, had not my eyes happened to rest on her face when Mrs. Lester spoke of her baby. Was there a child in that hectic past of hers? I decided there ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... been realized. Reform has rarely been non-partisan—except in the minds of its more innocent advocates. Now and then an agitation for municipal reform in a particular city will suffer a spasm of non-partisanship; but the reformers soon develop such lively differences among themselves, that they separate into special groups or else resume their regular party ties. Their common conception of reform as fundamentally a moral awakening, which seeks to restore ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this mysterious precaution and reticence which bewildered and exasperated Lynde, who noted every detail. Mary, in a transient spasm of backing, had fallen to the rear; the young man could no longer see the girl, but ever before his eyes was the piteous, unslippered little foot ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... neighbouring stone. These for the most part lodged in the skin over the left orbicularis muscle, but one also lodged in the conjunctiva and was removed. Some ten days later the patient complained that he could not lift the upper lid. The levator palpebrae was normal, but spasm of the orbicularis held the eye firmly closed. The condition did not improve, and the patient was invalided home. ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... paviors use their mallets, and it is stated that some Convulsionnaires have borne daily from six to eight thousand blows thus inflicted without danger. One Secourist administered to a young woman who was suffering under spasm of the stomach the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other similar cases which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Sometimes the patients bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions, like fish when out of water; and this was so frequently ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... him some paper money impatiently. The babu unfolded it, eyed the denomination with a spasm of relief, folded it again, and appeared to stow it into his ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... order for dinner Chester Hunt finally deigned to notice that there were other occupants of the hotel dining room. He gave a cursory glance in the direction of the three persons at the table near him. A spasm of terror crossed his face. There was a sound of grating on the tesselated floor, as he pushed his chair back. His mouth opened in an involuntary gasp. Josie noted his agitation but she could but admire his quick command of himself. In a moment his face had assumed its ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... he stared at the strange truth that what he wanted more than to see Kate Croy was to see the witness who had just arrived from Venice. He wanted positively to be in his presence and to hear his voice—which was the spasm of his consciousness that produced the flash. Fortunately for him, on the spot, there supervened something in which the flash went out. He became aware within this minute that the coachman on the box of the brougham had a face known to him, whereas he had never ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... shrinking behind the ample bulk of Mrs. McMahon, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as if in a wordless soliloquy. Then, again, his eyes returned to the man who had just uttered the preposterous accusation, and he beheld the usually jocund face distorted by a spasm of jealous fury, the insensate fury of the male in the loathed presence of a rival. No, here was no room for laughter. However ludicrous the mistake in its essence, its fruits were too serious for mirth. He turned his gaze on McMahon, and saw there the like virile detestation of himself. He ventured ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... in the spasm of his throat. But he took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... as though a sharp spasm of pain had convulsed his body. Then he stood as if about ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... as they hover along the gusty flue, "Thin, sable veils, wherein a restless spark Yet trembled." But the description is at its best when the subjects are unpleasant, or even grisly. There are a few capital lines in this key on the last spasm of the battle before alluded to. Surely nothing could be better, in its own way, than the fish in "The Last Cruise of the Arrogant," "the shadowy, side-faced, silent things," that come butting and staring ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... long neglected, and with spider's webs in its corners" reminds us of Nietzsche when he describes his doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence. The Russian has told us in memorable phrases of the blinding, intense happiness, a cerebral spasm, which lasts the fraction of a second at the beginning of an epileptic attack. For it he declares, for that brief moment during which paradise is disclosed, he would sacrifice a lifetime. Little wonder in the interim of a cold, grey, miserable existence he suffered from what he calls "mystic fear," ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... defenseless, hears The brother's late return. His jealous ears Miss no least accent in the voice of each, Yet glean so little from their foreign speech That, spite of passion (knowing woman's art), A spasm of dread contracts the hero's heart. Suppose, while thus in helpless case he lay, The maid his place of hiding should betray! Clutching with iron grasp his trusty gun, Scarce breathing, he awaits the morrow's sun. Meanwhile, she prattles of ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... the conventions I tried to feel apprehensive of grave peril. It was no use. I felt safe—not exactly comfortable, but perfectly safe. I could not even muster up a spasm of the spine when a member of our party leaned over and whispered in my ear that any one of these gentry roundabout us would cheerfully cut a man's throat for twenty-five cents. I was surprised, though, at the moderation of the cost; ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... and through the Benderloch, and through Appin and even up to Glencoe, by some strange spasm of physique—for she was frail and famished—the barefooted old cailleach of Carnus came after us, a bird of battle, croaking in a horrible merriment over our operations. The Dark Dame we called her. She would dance round the butchery of the fold, chanting her venomous ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Jack, with another spasm of disgust; "but if you've any other plans, Raffles, of killing an hour or so whilst Hill makes speeches, trot 'em out. I'm sick of pottering round his yard like an idiot. Are you coming with ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... thoroughfare. Still he followed. The throng was even more dense here than in Oxford Street, to keep her in sight more difficult. For nearly ten minutes he did it, then suddenly all strength left him. For a minute or two he felt as though he must fall. There was a spasm of the heart that was like a knife-thrust. He caught at a lamp-post. He beckoned a passing hansom by a sort of expiring effort. The cab whirled up beside him; he got in somehow, and fell back, blinded ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... sharply and Diana read his purpose in the horror in his eyes. She held up her head with a little nod and the same brave smile on her white lips. "Please," she whispered, "quickly!" A spasm crossed his face, "Turn your head," he muttered desperately. "I cannot do ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... year prior to formal and rightful occupancy, in a spasm of enthusiasm, which still endures, I selected the actual site for a modest castle then and there built in the accommodating air. It was something to have so palpable and rare a base for the fanciful fabric. All in a moment, disdaining formality, and to the, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it off the plate, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... quite willing to believe that the deep and harrowing emotion he exhibited was mere acting, or at least a passing spasm of wounded vanity, or even of love in its dying throes. It was comfortable to suppose that he had endeavored to impose upon me to the last, to gull and outrage me. I wanted some such apology to myself for hating him, with that heart-rending cry rising up out of the earth, and ascending in accents ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... to crag, Like one determined never to flag— Now weathers a block Of jutting rock, With hardly room for a toe to wag; But holding on by a timber snag, That looks like the arm of a friendly hag; Then stooping under a drooping bough, Or leaping over some horrid chasm, Enough to give any heart a spasm! And sinking down a precipice now, Keeping his feet the Deuce knows how, In spots whence all creatures would keep aloof, Except the Goat, with his cloven hoof, Who clings to the shallowest ledge as if He grew ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... a spasm of pain, like the entrance of poison into an unhealed wound, contracted my heart. "Was that confounded package under his arm," I questioned, almost angrily, "some ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the exultation of the Opposition was very great at what they deemed a victory over the Ministers. It is said that there will be 100 contests, and that Government will lose twenty or thirty members. The Queen was so ill on Friday evening that they expected she would die. She had a severe spasm.[1] ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the dumb agony that is struggling for utterance below. Just such flashes of eager sympathetic fire break continually from the cloudy volumes of Rousseau, the result at once and the warning of that convulsion of which Paris was to be the crater and all Europe to feel the spasm. There are symptoms enough elsewhere of that want of faith in the existing order which made the Revolution inevitable,—even so shallow an observer as Horace Walpole could forebode it so early as 1765,—but Rousseau more than all others ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... the low window. The glints wavered over Rachel's face, as white as a wood lily, with only a faint dream of rose in the cheeks. She wore her sleek, golden hair in a quaint arch around it. Her forehead was very broad and white. She was fresh and young and hopeful. The mother's heart contracted in a spasm of pain as she looked at her. How like the girl was to—to—to the Spencers! Those easy, curving outlines, those large, mirthful blue eyes, that finely molded chin! Isabella Spencer shut her lips firmly and crushed down some unbidden, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the book starts out bravely enough. Of this much, at least, I can be moderately sure. For a short time it looks as though something might come of it; but nothing really does. It is all so terribly obvious. There are no obstacles such as one finds in real fiction; there is no love spasm in Chapter XXV. There is no Chapter XXV at all! And so it must be perfectly clear that those who insist upon having their love spasms will be bored to death by Tutors' Lane and should on no account be allowed to look at it. There is love, of ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... nothing—publish nothing to the world until three years shall have passed."—I promised.—"And now farewell for three hours. Come to me again about ten o'clock, and take a glass of wine in memory of old times." This he said laughingly; but even then a dark spasm crossed his face. Yet, thinking that this might be the mere working of mental anguish within him, I complied with his desire, and retired. Feeling, however, but little at ease, I devised an excuse for looking in upon him about one hour and a half after I had left him. I knocked ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... and of the leading traits of his character much has been written, and by some of the keenest observers of his time. He is said to have been a very small and sickly boy, subject to attacks of violent spasm. Although so fond of games and sports when a man, as a boy he evinced little interest in them, probably on account of his ill health. We should naturally think of him as the autocrat of the playground, and the champion in all games of strength and skill; but such was not ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... promise of pardon, under which his confessions were obtained, was not kept after they were completed; and the execution of Lucan, at the age of twenty-six, while it cut short a remarkable poetical career, rid the world of a very poor creature. Yet the final spasm of courage with which he died, declaiming a passage from his own epic, has gained him, in the noblest of English elegies, a place in the same verse ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... have a predilection for any country besides my own, that bias is in favour of France, the place of my father's sepulture. No one, more than myself, laments the spasm of patriotism which convulses that nation, and hazards the cause of freedom; but I shall not suffer the torrent of love or hatred to sweep me from my post. I am sent neither to plead the cause of France nor ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... accurate guesser, The hawk-nosed high-cheek-boned Professor. I felt at once as if there ran A shoot of love from my heart to the man— That sallow virgin-minded studious Martyr to mild enthusiasm, As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious That woke my sympathetic spasm, (Beside some spitting that made me sorry) And stood, surveying his auditory With a wan pure look, well nigh celestial,— Those blue eyes had survived so much! While, under the foot they could not smutch, Lay all the fleshly and the bestial. Over he ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... few feeble jets. Soon every spasm becomes more powerful, till with a mighty roar, up comes the water in a great column. This rises to the height of one hundred and thirty feet for the space of about five minutes. After the column of water sinks down there is a discharge ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden spasm, release of the dead! ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... can clear at leisure A greater distance. Observe the chasm We are nearing. Ha! did you feel a spasm As ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... A spasm passed over the invalid's face at her words; and if Mrs Clay had not been too much afraid of her husband she would have stopped Sarah and sent her away. As it was, she gave a little groan from the background, as much as ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... complained of her indifference to the pieces he set before her, and informed him that she should perish at his feet, unless he would give her "Sternenkranz." Of course her guilt was manifest, and Herr Otto, in a spasm of anger at "prying women," as he called them, brought out the treasure, and with it others of a very rare album of Schumann's, to which he had given no names, leaving them to whisper their own names to each soul that could receive them: Star-Wreath it might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in his chair as though undergoing a spasm of pain. The sentences smote him between the eyes of his sensibilities. Had it come to this, that his name was being bandied dishonorably about the barrooms of St. John's? If ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Frayling's fair face clouded on the instant, and her affectionate heart, which had been so happily expanded the moment before by the kind thoughts about her absent friend that came crowding as she wrote to her, contracted now with a painful spasm of nervous apprehension. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth grinning through his short black beard. His two clenched hands were raised above his head, and a heavy blackthorn stick lay across them. His dark, handsome, aquiline features were convulsed into a spasm of vindictive hatred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression. He had evidently been in his bed when the alarm had broken out, for he wore a foppish embroidered night-shirt, and ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... his flesh, his heart bitter in the thought of the death that was his. Already he felt the deadly virus pulsing through his veins. A hundred times in the short hour that had passed he suffered death—death beginning with the gripping throat, the shortened breath, the foaming mouth, the spasm! ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... not minutes. Over and over again he had had himself propped up by his attendants with the expectation that his command to bring his son had been obeyed. No one knew better than he how impossible it would be to resist another spasm like that which had seized him a little while after his son had ridden off the rancho early that morning. Yet he relied once more on his iron constitution, and absolutely refused to die until he had laid upon his next of kin what he thoroughly believed to be a stern duty. Deep down in ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... prohibition against marriage within the kin—in other words, violates the law of exogamy. To be thus guilty of incest is to incite in the community at large a horror which, venting itself in what Bagehot calls a "wild spasm of wild justice," involves certain death for the offender. To interfere with a grave, to pry into forbidden mysteries, to eat forbidden meats, and so on, are further examples of transgressions liable ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... told this, said Pantagruel, and so were those who gave you this account; but none ever saw or read of such a cure. On the contrary, Hippocrates, in his fifth book of Epidem, writes that such a case happening in his time the patient presently died of a spasm and convulsion. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... man has always to do; much more an original ruler of men. The world, in fact, had tried hard to put him down, as it does, unconsciously or, consciously, with all such; and after the most conscious exertions, and at one time a dead-lift spasm of all its energies for Seven Years, had not been able. Principalities and powers, Imperial, Royal, Czarish, Papal, enemies innumerable as the seasand, had risen against him, only one helper left among the world's Potentates (and that one only while there should be help ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... bunk in the lumbermen's camp half leaps to his feet. His eyes are staring more wildly, his breathing is more rapid. He appears a man in a spasm. His comrades force him to his bed again, but find it necessary to restrain him by sheer strength. They think he has gone mad. But only his body is with them. He is in the forest. His prey has escaped him. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... to his daughter's side, and meeting her look of agony, said soothingly, "No, dearest, it is a spasm, she ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... has been such as I never believed that anybody would dare use in my house, I am constrained to accept your statements respecting your friend's fitness to meet me in the field of honour.' Then, as a spasm of terror almost ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... silence, a carriage passed them; Frederick bowed, and his countenance was suddenly illuminated. Almeria turned eagerly to see the cause of the change, and as the carriage drove on she caught a glimpse of a beautiful young lady. A spasm of jealousy seized her heart—she withdrew her arm from Frederick's. The abruptness of the action did not create any emotion in him—his thoughts were absent. In a few minutes he slackened his pace, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Holding out several stiff papers, he motioned to her to burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had been so ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... offer, exchanged glances of relief, and allowed themselves to breathe again. But to their consternation, Leif did not take advantage of this loop-hole. He argued and urged, until Eric drew in another long breath of excitement, until his aged muscles tingled and twitched with a spasm of youthful ardor, until at last, in a burst of almost hysterical enthusiasm, he accepted the offer. In the warmth of his pleasure, he grasped his son's hand and publicly received him back into his ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... must have the Father! Witness the dissatisfaction, yea desolation of my soul—wretched, alone, unfinished, without him! It cannot act from itself, save in God; acting from what seems itself without God, is no action at all, it is a mere yielding to impulse. All within is disorder and spasm. There is a cry behind me, and a voice before; instincts of betterment tell me I must rise above my present self—perhaps even above all my possible self: I see not how to obey, how to carry them out! I am shut up in a world of consciousness, an unknown I in an unknown world: surely this ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... larger part of an hour, Jinnie held the newcomer close to her thumping heart, and when a spasm of pain attacked the shaggy head resting on her arm, she wept in sympathetic agony. Could Peg be persuaded to allow the dog to stay? She would promise to earn an extra penny to buy food for this new friend. At this opportune moment Mrs. Grandoken ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... who not only had a French division in that land, supported at its expense, but also relied on its maritime resources.[265] The proposal was at once set aside at Paris. Napoleon's decision to drag the Batavian Republic into the war arose, however, from no spasm of the war fever; it was calmly stated in the secret instructions issued to General Decaen in the preceding January. "It is now considered impossible that we could have war with England, without dragging Holland into it." Holland was accordingly once more ground between the upper and the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... him at the awakening beauty of the springtide world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat. His face contracted as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in sharpened ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... was prepared a good dinner of pork, and the three came ready prepared to curse us." Part of the agreement was that the dinner should follow upon the cursing. But whether it was that the rogues could do nothing until they were fortified with drink, or that a sudden spasm of conscientiousness came upon them, or that they were like superstitious people who with blanched lips loudly protest that they do not believe in ghosts, but decline on principle to walk through a churchyard after dark, these three fellows all ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... spasm in his breast. The expression of his features was so very significant that Mrs. Toplady's smile threatened ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of jealousy shook me to the soul. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... was dark, and my blushes were unnoticed. (faintly repeating Rudolph's words) "Your tiny hand is frozen, Let me warm it into life!" It was dark, and my hand then you clasped— (a sudden spasm half suffocates her; she ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... eyes. She looked at the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two Parisian women, and suspected the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... out her long look, and he soon enough saw why. A spasm came into her face, the tears she had already been unable to hide overflowed at first in silence, and then, as the sound suddenly comes from a child, quickened to gasps, to sobs. She sat and covered her face with her hands, giving up all attempt ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... back at the wall, and then closed his eyes, as if with a spasm, of retarded dizziness. "I won't resist you," he said. "But I have made you obey," he added, turning to Christina. "Am ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... the attitude of the lad to give him cause for prudence; and he immediately drew up, throwing out both hands in a sudden spasm of alarm. ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with awful motions like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands, first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to sit there, almost fainting with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe the policeman would strike him also. He ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... The scene may be pitched in London, on the sea-coast of Bohemia, or away on the mountains of Beulah. And by an odd and luminous accident, if there is any page of literature calculated to awake the envy of M. Zola, it must be that "Troilus and Cressida" which Shakespeare, in a spasm of unmanly anger with the world, grafted on the heroic story of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... A spasm of fury crossed the face of Blake. "They may have me, and welcome, when I've told my tale," said he. "Let me but tell of Anthony Wilding's lurking here, and not only Anthony Wilding, but all the rest ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... away again for a minute or two. He was ashamed of such extraordinary weakness. He looked at one of his hands. It was thin, like the band of a man wasted with fever, and the blue veins stood out on the back of it. He could scarcely believe that the hand was his own. But after the first spasm of weakness was over, the precious will returned. He could walk. Strength enough to permit him to hobble along had returned to the ankle at last, and mind must control the rest of his nervous system, however weakened it might be. He ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... length, in the little blue-and-white room which had known her as a child and maiden, where she now sat as wife. For weeks past she had been emotionless. To-night, with that trenchant command, unanswered except in her heart, a spasm of pain had broken the serenity of her calm, ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... account of the shriek you heard. As far as we can tell, he does not. The shriek comes, so the doctor tells us, from a nervous spasm. He would have been a bright boy if he had kept his health. Would you like to ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... shrieked Aunt Aggie, in the strangled squeak in which we always explain that it is "only a crumb" gone wrong. And she relapsed into a fresh spasm. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... Alpheus bold On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks;—with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It unsealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below:— And the beard and the hair Of the river God were Seen through the torrent's sweep As he followed the light [6] Of the ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... spasm of delight at seeing his own physiognomy reflected in a mirror had passed, I suggested to the king that if he would like to try on his new garments I should be very pleased to instruct him as to the proper method of getting into them, an offer which he instantly accepted; and he would ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... upon Bob was a varied one. He still felt the consequences of that horror into which he had fallen, that spasm and convulsion of terror which had seemed to turn him to stone, yet the relief that had been found was inexpressibly sweet. In spite of the pain which still lingered about his heart, there came a calmer and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... to hand. Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive, but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions - 'and a' - to be a posy to your ain dear May!' - Fanny seems a little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a momentary spasm of the old hate, but a feeble one, hardly more than a brief wash of the early torrents of rage. Something had burned out of him these months; an increasing dullness was moving into ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... through this spasm of solitary fear each first night of vacation. It wasn't genuine fear. It was the growing-pain of freedom. The cricket who chirped so gaily when he was with Mother was also a weary man, a prisoner of daily routine. He had ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... no shadow of fear of the state of death, for he forgot that he would carry himself, his unchanged being—Conscience, Habit and Memory—into the other world. What he dreaded was the spasm of dying— the convulsion that was to snap the thousand silver strings in the harp of life. This he shuddered at, but he consoled himself that it would be over in ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... day arrived. The Prince, though perhaps a little pale from his confined life, looked very handsome, and led his ugly bride to the altar like a man. Just exactly as the marriage ceremony was half over, a spasm contorted the muscles of the Prince's face; the poor young man felt strongly inclined to sneeze. Though he could be seen making heroic efforts to control the impulse, the audience ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... wake Margaret from her introspective mood. An agonised spasm swept her face; but almost on the instant she was calm. She almost smiled ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... caused to the community by the thieving of thieves,—of the thieves, that is, who have been convicted and condemned as such; for there is no way of figuring on how much the undetected thieves steal. Every time we shake the social body, in this or that spasm of probing and reform, hundreds drop out, like moths from an unprotected garment; so that at last we are prone to suspect that the thief, overt or covert, is more the rule than the exception, and that a good part of the cash in circulation was more or less dishonestly come by. But, ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... whole building from basement to attics. Most of the rooms were unfurnished, but none the less Holmes inspected them all minutely. Finally, on the top corridor, which ran outside three untenanted bedrooms, he again was seized with a spasm ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spoke to me, and a sudden chill seized me and sent me into a spasm of coughing, and the pain of my shoulder shot up into my head like a knife... and I was back—all right—to the ruined church in Belgium, a prisoner of war in the hands of ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... contusions on those portions of the surface which were exposed to the rudest attacks. For the rest, the blows were never administered except during the torments of convulsion; and at that time the tympany (meteorisme) of the abdomen, the state of spasm of the uterus in women and of the alimentary canal in both sexes, the state of contraction, of orgasm, of turgescence in the fleshy envelopes, in the muscular layers which protect and inclose the abdomen, the thorax, the principal vascular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... the vice of the situation," he exclaimed; "at the very mention of divorce his teeth chatter, he gets a spasm of the heart, and he begins to gabble like a sick monk about his soul and his conscience. Believe me, we are dealing with a madman. How can any end be attained in ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... cultivating corn. The breasts of the horses and their wide strong shoulders pushed the young corn aside and made a low rustling sound. Now and then a man's voice was raised in a shout. "Hi, there you Joe! Get in there Frank!" The widow of the hens owned a little woolly dog that occasionally broke into a spasm of barking, apparently without cause, senseless, eager, barking. Rosalind shut all the sounds out. She closed her eyes and struggled, trying to get into the place beyond human sounds. After a time her desire was accomplished. ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... way now, sir," remarked the mate. "I noticed him beating up for the path as you brought up the Articles." Rolfe halted suddenly at the sound of grinding teeth and stared at the skipper in wonderment. But Barry cast off the spasm of rage ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... one. He has no consolation to offer. It must be sought at the throne of Him who giveth, and hath the right to take away. The minister receives the intelligence with admirable fortitude. We are sitting together, and the doctor has just spoken as becomes him, seriously and well. There is a spasm on the cheek of the incumbent, whilst I sob loudly. The latter takes me by the hand, and speaks to the physician in a low and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... thinking of an herb that caught her eye As she was coming, in a pleasant plain (Whether 'twas panacea, dittany, Or some such herb accounted sovereign For stanching blood quickly and tenderly, And winning out all spasm and bad pain), She found it not far off, and gathering some, Returned with it ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... scarcely having spoken a word in all this time. Again, he would come in, having finished his work, but looking very tired and worn. Our talking at these times did not seem to disturb him, though any sudden sound, as the dropping of a spoon, or the clinking of a glass, would send a spasm ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... train gave its first spasm and creak at starting; up came the tangle of beauty; down fluttered the bit of paper to the platform; and Rodney came in with the rare garlands and tassels drooping ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... corner near the radiator when I heard him yelp and saw him snapping at his belly. He ran across the room, lay down and began licking himself. Within fifteen minutes he began to whine. Then he stiffened out in a sort of a spasm. It was like strychnine poisoning. Before could get a veterinary here ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... about it," said I, hastily, as I passed my handkerchief over my mouth to hide the spasm of ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... him to the remotest quarters. Wherever he has set down his solid foot, he has taken permanent possession of the country. The ancient religions of the primaeval East or the quaint beliefs of savage tribes make no particular impression upon him, except a passing spasm of disgust at anybody having different superstitions from his own; and, being in the main a good-natured animal in a stolid way of his own, he is able to make use even of popish priests if they will help to found a new market for his commerce. The portrait is not the less ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of that glow, a planet, magnified by the wonderful air, came swinging up, pale but splendid, and mapped by soft colours—green, violet, and red. I knew it on the minute, Heaven only knows how, but I knew it, and a desperate thrill of loneliness swept over me, a spasm of comprehension of the horrible void dividing us. Never did yearning babe stretch arms more wistfully to an unattainable mother than I at that moment to my mother earth. All her meanness and prosaicness was forgotten, all her imperfections and shortcomings; it was home, the one tangible ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world face that decided her—for it sent the deep spasm across her. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... completion of the waterworks, which may occupy eight or ten years, and the contract with Scales is binding on the city unless he can be impeached for cause. Scales was city engineer under the previous reform spasm, but Stone probably found him good material and kept him on. The waterworks plans were prepared under his supervision and he got them ready for bidding. Now what's ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... tried to find a hiding-place for Jill so that if or when the invaders searched for her, they would not find her. But he expected his muscles to knot in spasm and cramp before ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness, while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in such elevated terms. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic, which could estimate friendship at nothing, or at ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... also a sovereign remedy for the diarrhoea, the diagnostics of which are, faintness, frequent gripings, rumbling in the bowels, cold sweats, and spasm." ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... 'Niram's house! I'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the poor-master comes to git me—and I'll tell everybody that it's because my own twin sister, with a house and a farm and money in the bank, turned me out to starve—" A fearful spasm cut her short. She lay twisted and limp, the whites of her eyes ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... evening of that day that Lady Aoi was suddenly attacked by a spasm, and before the news of this could be carried to the Court, ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... these to Mr. Calamity. As often as he heard the word "independence" on the street his cane would fly up, and after this spasm his snuffbox would come out of his pocket for refreshment. His snuffbox was silver, and on it in gold were ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... laugh when on duty. There is probably something in the regulations against it. But Officer Donahue permitted the left corner of his mouth to twitch slightly, and a momentary muscular spasm disturbed the calm of Officer Cassidy's granite features, as a passing breeze ruffles the surface of ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... vetoed the Whitney bill with a savage message." My informant told me that Towle and his men were making for head-quarters on a run. As I hung up the receiver, the bell rang again. In a second my telephone with Whitney's office was in the middle of a spasm. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... His system was to thrill the audience with horror, till they precipitated themselves in a spasm of terror into his show. Just as when one is on a height, a nervous, uncontrollable impulse fills some men to throw themselves down out of very fear of falling, so did this great artist in horrors work up the feelings of his audience to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... spasm of pain and activity, struggled to his feet from the dust and attempted to make his escape. Van no more than beheld him that he leaped from his horse and broke his ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... no less," I answered; and then I stooped over the corpse (as I had stooped over the corpse of its victim), and the whole of my strength was required to draw the great knotted hands from the eyes, upon which they were cramped with a spasm not yet relaxed. ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... doubt, but only deadly dull and deadly commonplace. I have perseveringly frisked in the high places of iniquity, I have junketed with all evil gods, and the utmost they could pretend to offer any of their servitors was a spasm. I renounce them, as feeble-minded deities, I snap my fingers, very much as did my progenitor, the great Jurgen, at all their ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... a tremendous shout, so as to satisfy their new associates that their conversion is genuine. But as to myself, I was always an abolitionist. I have never uttered a word, written a sentence, or cast a vote that did not look in that direction. Why, then, should I go into a spasm on the eve of an election?" Whether my little speech had anything to do with the result of the ballot which placed me at the head of the delegation or not, it is impossible to divine. But of one thing I felt assured. I had "freed my mind," as the old lady said, and felt better. The ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... facing him; her hands went swiftly to her heart, as if a spasm shook her. As Jarvis came toward her, a great light in his face, she put her hands out ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... thus unconscious, enter and exeunt again a pair of voyagers. These two had saved the train and no more. A tandem urged to its last speed, an act of something closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket office, and a spasm of running, had brought them on the platform just as the engine uttered its departing snort. There was but one carriage easily within their reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader and elder already had his feet upon the floor, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Marochettis dined with us. There was a frost, and torches on the Serpentine. Mrs. F. Elliot drove round to see it, and went home and died in the night [of a spasm of the heart. The news reached Reeve by a note from Mr. Elliot, dated seven ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... in writing the lines. Why should my voice falter in repeating them? Depend on it, Shirley, no tear blistered the manuscript of 'The Castaway.' I hear in it no sob of sorrow, only the cry of despair; but, that cry uttered, I believe the deadly spasm passed from his heart, that he wept ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and returned his "good-night" with sympathetic cordiality; then turned softly to his own apartment. Having reached it, he gave himself up to a spasm of silent laughter. ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... the one I had pulled last year," he announced vastly relieved. A sharp spasm of pain in his jaw caused him to abruptly take advantage of a recent discovery; and while he was careful to couch his opinions in an undertone, he told Mr. Yollop what he thought of him in terms that would have put the hardiest pirate to blush. Something in Mr. Yollop's eye, however, ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... physical fatigue in Flavian, who seemed to find no refreshment in the coolness. There had been something feverish, perhaps, and like the beginning of sickness, about his almost forced gaiety, in this sudden spasm of spring; and by the evening of the next day he was lying with a burning spot on his forehead, stricken, as was thought from the first, by the ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... A sudden nauseous spasm at all the ugliness of life shook Lorraine. She turned on her mother swiftly, scarcely knowing ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... with a sudden spasm, as a sound burst upon me, wild, ringing, dreadful. A hundred Indians were uttering a war-cry, and, as I lay there, with my head pressed to the burnt sod, I felt the shudder of earth from many hoofs. I turned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... ecstasy of relief which Mark felt at her words there was a spasm of sobering jealousy; she only cared to live for ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... out into the red-lit space of the control room, where the airlock was. Weaver stopped and frantically tugged his arm free of the rubberoid sleeve. The repressed spasm was an acute agony in his nose and throat. He fumbled the handkerchief out of his pocket, thrust his hand up under ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... not answer; and Arthur, glancing up to learn the reason, saw that he also was watching the approach of his wife, and that his face was contorted with a sudden spasm of intense malice and hatred, whilst his little, pig-like eyes glittered threateningly. He had not even heard the remark. Arthur would have liked to whistle; he had surprised ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... and cauterized the wound. Nothing availed. Lebon, in his depleted condition, could not fight off the poison. Thirty minutes later, swollen and black, he died in a frothing spasm, his last words a hideous imprecation on the Arabs who had enslaved and tortured him-a curse on ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... seemed to pour through the open window was thus partly silenced. The lantern made its dim illumination with specks of light, swinging from a nail over the window alcove. Maria had not yet unclosed her eyes. Her wasted hand made a network around one of Rice's fingers, and as the coughing spasm seized her ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... reassured her against his power. Her being was suffused with gladness and pride. She had won. She had won in defiance of reason. She had appealed and she had conquered. And she enjoyed his glance. She gloried in it. She blushed. A spasm of exquisite fear shot through her, and she savoured it deliciously. The deep organic sadness of the house presented itself to her in a new light. It was still sadness, but it was beautiful in the background. Her sympathy for Sarah Gailey ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... a big hand over his big face. He smoothed out something there—either a wry smile or a spasm of pain. ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... deadly pale; a spasm of rage convulsed her features; and drawing back, stiff and ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... down to plague you in the summer," said Gertrude, and Delia laughed assent—with Miss Andrews standing by. The girl went through a spasm of solitary weeping when Gertrude was finally gone; but she soon mastered it, and an hour later she herself ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... help reading, till she came to one passage which so agitated her, that the tired and over-wearied girl's self-control left her entirely. She sobbed once or twice, then laughed convulsively; and flung herself on the bed, where she worked out a set hysteric spasm as she best might, without anybody to rub her hands and see that ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... considerable pain, and often end by carrying off the patient. As a result of the abscess and destruction of the ligaments, the head of the bone is apt to be displaced, and under some sudden muscular exertion or involuntary spasm, consecutive dislocation of the femur (generally on to the dorsum ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... creature's temporal advantage. Anyhow my aunt always made it a condition to the employment of a farm-servant that he should curry the cow every morning; but after just enough trials to convince himself that it was not a sudden spasm, nor a mere local disturbance, the man would always give notice of an intention to quit, by pounding the beast half-dead with some foreign body and then limping home to his couch. I don't know how many men the creature ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... comfort and hope that truthfully can be given. But this is a strange, cruel world. We seem the sport of circumstances, the victims of hard, remorseless laws. One bad person can frightfully injure another person" (a spasm distorted her father's face). "What accidents may occur! Worst of all are those horrible, subtle, contagious diseases which, none can see or guard against! Then to suffer, die, corrupt—faugh! To what a disgusting end, to what a lame and impotent ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... was unable to swallow, and it was evident that he was dying. He continued in this state for about half an hour; his breathing became slower and slower, until finally it ceased altogether, and that was all! Not a movement of a muscle, not a spasm or a tremor of any kind, betrayed the moment when his spirit took its departure. An infant, wearied with play on a summer's eve, could not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various |
