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Agony   /ˈægəni/   Listen
Agony

noun
(pl. agonies)
1.
Intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain.  Synonyms: torment, torture.  "The torments of the damned"
2.
A state of acute pain.  Synonyms: excruciation, suffering.



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"Agony" Quotes from Famous Books



... and that the emotion which created it was fresh in him. This had an extraordinary influence on the listener, who felt that the reader had been present at the scenes he described, and that he still felt their bliss or agony. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... agony and lamentation rose from the starving Isle of Saints to the gates of Heaven, and fell back unheard; the sky was hard as brass above and the earth was barren beneath, and men and women died in despair, their shrivelled lips ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt

... shock of Roy's imprisonment and the agony of suspense that finally stretched her nerve to breaking-point; so that the sudden onslaught of pneumonia had slain her in the space of a week. And Roy, knowing her too well, had guessed the truth, in spite of his father's gallant attempt ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... a boy. It will soothe my agony immensely and give me courage to appear in a low-necked coat and curl on my forehead, for I'm not used to such elegancies and I find them no end ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... and seriously injure my temper, by the overpowering pressure I laid upon them to keep them quiet when you were by? Could I not, by the sense of coming ill through all my quivering frame, presage your advent as exactly as the barometer heralds the approaching storm? Those three months of agony are little atoned for by this late vengeance; but ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various

... not that he will hit the harder and the more relentlessly when he gets at close quarters with his enemy, fired by the thought of those mangled little bodies and the remembrance of their mothers' agony. And in addition to the murderous shells of the Boers, typhoid and malaria were at their fell work in the women's laager; the children's graveyard just outside the laager extended its sad bounds week by week, and the cheerfulness that marked ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie

... Napoleon, turning his eyes, with an expression of agony, toward his attendants. "Caulaincourt, do you, too, share the views of ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... with your red raw agony column made him most suspicious, and I believe he knows to a hair exactly how ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson

... went by before I recovered from Tom's shot. At first I thought that I was going to die, for, although luckily none of my bones were broken, the pain in my back was dreadful. When I tried to ease the agony by rubbing against roots it only became worse, for the fur fell off, leaving sores upon which flies settled. I could scarcely eat or sleep, and grew so thin that the bones nearly poked through my pelt. Indeed I wanted very much to die, ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard

... maiden truly falls in love; up to this time, regard for the opposite sex has been merely a light fancy, barely skin deep; but now it takes hold of the heart strings and plays upon them with an agony that is truly heart rending. Who is there with red blood in his veins that does not look back upon his first heart conflict with almost pathetic reverence? Parents should be more concerned than they usually are over the conquest of the heart of youth. Such affairs may carry with them ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... and painful wound, to-wit: Over, against, to, at, by, upon, contiguous to, near, adjacent to and bisecting the intestines of him, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, by reason of which he, the said James Smith, commonly called Windy Smith, did in great agony linger, and lingering did die, on the 14th day of July, Anno Domini 1880, at 2 o'clock in the forenoon of said day, contrary to the statutes in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... close upon those in the grip of the law, are poised rifles awaiting the order to fire. To a woman like Lady Barbara, these guarded a dark and loathsome tomb, in which her last hope lay buried. That she had not deserved the punishment meted out to her did not soothe her agony. She had deserved none of Dalton's cruelty, and yet she had withered under its lash. This was the end; beyond, lay only a slow, lingering death, with her torture increasing as the hours ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

... at this time that Antonie showed her sincere, unobtrusive attachment to her childhood's friend. Day after day she went to the Volkmar cottage, to comfort and cheer Marietta, who hung in an agony of anguish and suspense over her grandfather's bed. Willibald found it necessary to go with his cousin and do what he could. All this seemed natural enough to the head forester, who was sincerely attached to the Volkmars, and felt a great ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... the change was not to be carried out without seriously impinging on his own cherished ease. He protested that he sought nothing but Clarendon's safety, and that he had believed from what he had heard "of the extreme agony the Chancellor was in upon the death of his wife, that he had himself desired to be dismissed from his office." Albemarle was sent to require Clarendon's presence at Whitehall, and seems both to have believed, and to have desired, that what was but a passing misunderstanding ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... guarded this second door suddenly became firm, and closed it with a mighty effort; that is to say, he all but closed it, only was prevented by the foot and head of the last junior hurrying in, who howled his agony aloud at having fallen into such ...
— The Tale of Lal - A Fantasy • Raymond Paton

... wringing her hands. Her own passion was puny beside the sternness, the reality, and the intensity of the quiet rage before her. She was completely mastered by it. She forgot all but the evident agony she ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr

... spoken, but the feeling that she was suffering with him had assuaged his agony until that Mrs. Sprockett had touched him on the shoulder and ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... priest[305], The Inquisition, with her burning feast, The Faith's red "Auto," fed with human fuel, While sate the catholic Moloch, calmly cruel, Enjoying, with inexorable eye,[ef] That fiery festival of Agony! The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both 340 By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth; The long degenerate noble; the debased Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced, But more degraded; the unpeopled realm; The once proud navy which forgot the helm; The once impervious ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... compliance. I was so worn out, that I could have almost received the blow with thankfulness, but I remembered you, my dear uncle and aunt and others, and resolved for your sakes to make one more effort. I did so; I ran and walked for an hour more in perfect agony; at last nature could support the pain no longer, and I ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat

... what the others called her "swell friends." Gray Stoddard—the thought brought with it an agony from which she flinched. But after all, there was Lydia Sessions. She was sure Miss Sessions meant to be kind; and if she knew that Deanie was really sick—. Yes, it would be worth while to go to her with the ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... by the administration of a strong opiate, and of having been again startled by noise and violence out of the unnatural state of insensibility in which he had been plunged by the potency of the medicine, may be able to imagine the confused and alarmed state of Sir John Ramorny's mind, and the agony of his body, which acted and reacted upon each other. If we add to these feelings the consciousness of a criminal command, sent forth and in the act of being executed, it may give us some idea of an awakening to which, in the mind of the party, eternal sleep would ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... York! What southern thoroughfare was ever smitten by pestilence, when our physicians did not throw themselves upon the sacrifice! What distant land has cried out in the agony of famine, and our ships have not put out with bread-stuffs! What street of Damascus, or Beyrout, or Madras that has not heard the step of our missionaries! What struggle for national life, in which our citizens have not poured their blood into ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage

... Alonso de Aguilar;" to which the other rejoined, "And I am the Feri de Ben Estepar," a well-known name of terror to the Christians. The sound of this detested name roused all the vengeance of the dying hero; and, grasping his foe in mortal agony, he rallied his strength for a final blow; but it was too late,-his hand failed, and he was soon despatched by the dagger of his more vigorous ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... I quoted some sentiment noble and impassioned from one of the great poets, and would ask me to repeat it. He would have been a man of memorable energy, and for good purposes, had it not been for his agony of conflict with pecuniary embarrassments. These probably had commenced in some fatal compliance with temptation arising out of funds confided to him by a client. Perhaps he had gained fifty guineas for a moment of necessity, and had sacrificed for that trifle only the serenity and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... of tears, declared she would try to follow her advice, but again besought her in the utmost agony to send after her brother, protesting she did not think even her life would be safe in making so long a journey with Mr Harrel in his present state of mind: his character, she said, was totally changed, his gaiety, good humour, and sprightliness were turned into roughness and moroseness, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... whilst the hammer was poised in mid air and Hun Rhavas' furtive glance darted on the praefect to see if he were still indifferent! Menecreta prayed with all her humble might to the proud gods enthroned upon the hill! she prayed that this cycle of agony might end at last for she could not endure it longer. She prayed that that cruel hammer might descend and her child be delivered over to ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... as sweating of blood while He was in His agony, wrestling with the thoughts of death, which He was to suffer for our sins, that He might save the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... wish I had not seen it. I heard the agonized cries of the old man: "My God! he's gone! he's gone!" I wish I had not heard it. I heard the wild wailing cry with which the Celt mourns for his dead, and glanced impulsively to the window. It was not death, but departure that prompts that agony of grief. A car was driving off rapidly on the mountain road which led to the nearest port. The car was soon out of sight. The father and the son had looked their last look into each other's eyes—had clasped the last clasp of each other's hands. An ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... thought passed to the people, and there came to him a jealousy of an unprecedented sort. He reflected that the people also, the entire populace, had had before their eyes the woman whom he loved exposed almost naked. He writhed his arms with agony as he thought that the woman whose form, caught by him alone in the darkness would have been supreme happiness, had been delivered up in broad daylight at full noonday, to a whole people, clad as for a night of voluptuousness. He wept with rage over all these ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... My daughter is in the room!" exclaimed Mr Heatherstone. "Oh, save her, or let me do so!" cried the poor man in agony; but the fire burst out of the window in such force, that any attempt would ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... hesitated for one moment of agony, then crossed the room with a farewell glance at the sad little feast. He closed the door softly behind him, descended the stairs and stood for a moment in the entrance hall, looking out upon the street. A cheerless, drizzling rain was falling. The streets were wet ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... this awful pestilence had come, at intervals, and swept away multitudes of the inhabitants. Whenever it commenced its ravages, nothing seemed to stay its progress, until there were no more victims for it to seize upon. Oftentimes, hundreds of people, at once, lay groaning with its agony; and when it departed, its deep footsteps were always to be traced in ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the midst, and there I found five of our brother officers standing, wrapped in their wide cloaks. As we pressed each other's hands, not a word was spoken. Each heart was full; and hard features that never quailed before the foe were now shaken with the convulsive spasm of agony or compressed with stern determination to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... day of Irene's visit to the cottage, the horrible suspicion took possession of her that he loved Irene better than herself. True, she was very young, but childish hearts feel as keenly as those of matured years; and Electra endured more agony during that day than in all her past life. Had Irene been other than she was, in every respect, she would probably have hated her cordially; as matters stood, she buried the suspicion deep in her own heart, and kept as much out of everybody's way as possible. Days and weeks passed very wearily; ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... upon God, and in the act of looking past themselves to Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and then I was able to help him when he did not grasp ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... the man she loved, and then of the man she did not love, she thought that she could willingly perish—if it were not that her father lay there so old and so helpless. Gradually, as she magnified to herself the terrible distresses of her heart, the agony of her yearning love for a man who, though he loved her, was so unworthy of her perfect faith, she began to think that it would be well to be carried down by the quick, eternal, almighty stream beyond the reach of the sorrow which encompassed ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope

... dropping with blood: and the pathetic reproaches she vented against them might have affected a heart of stone. Then the figure of Falkland presented itself to her distracted fancy, deformed with wounds, and of a deadly paleness, and she shrieked with agony, while she exclaimed that such was the general hardheartedness, that no one would make the smallest exertion for his rescue. In such vicissitudes of pain, perpetually imagining to her self unkindness, insult, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... fast, and far away, the bark hath stood Out toward the great heaving solitude, That gurgled in its deeps, as if the breath Went through its lungs, of agony and death! ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart

... felt somewhat as he had made me feel when I saw help close to me and might not have it. I pitied him, for I knew well what his torture had been. Ay, and I will tell this, that men may know how this terror burnt into me. Many a time have I let a trapped rat go, because I would not see the agony of dumb helplessness in anything. It frays me. There is no wonder that I set ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... life and yet she tried to meet his eyes, which burned wildly, shifting from side to side like those of a caged beast. In her terror she could not tell what dauntless instinct had urged her unless it was Ben Cameron's soul in agony that had cried out through her lips. And now she had not only betrayed ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... came again. The direful agony of Sim's soul seemed at length to conquer him, and he fell to the ground insensible. In an instant Rotha was on her knees in the hardening road at her father's side; but she did ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... an infinite distance. And then, not in his thought, but in deed, she was singing alone, and the words of 'O Salutaris Hostia,' sounded in the dim church as they had never sounded before, nor could ever sound again, the appeal of a lost soul's agony to God, the glory of golden voice, the accent of transcendent genius, the passion, the strength, the despair, of ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford

... overtaken by trouble and distress. His enemies had risen up, and were gathered in fearful strength around him. His "heart greatly trembled," a dark and gloomy presentiment came over his spirit, and his bosom was convulsed by an agony of solicitude. He turned toward his God for light and strength. He applied for relief to the priests of the altar, and to the prophets of the Most High; but his prayers were unanswered, and his efforts vain. In his sorrow and apprehension, he appealed to a woman who was reputed to have supernatural ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... In an agony of longing, I await the signal day, When my fetters shall be broken, When from earth I fly away; And for tumults, Hear alone the songs ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris

... temptation removed, with the routine of a bleak, uninteresting existence his only choice, Farwell was a harmless creature. Gradually he had found solace in the commonplaces that surrounded him. Like a person relieved of mortal agony he was grateful for semi-invalidism. Previous to Ledyard's recognition of him he had sunk to a monotonous indifference, waiting, he realized now, for the time when he might safely shake off his disguise and slip away to what was once his own. Now, with his exit from Kenmore barred, ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... thinking of many things, when he was suddenly startled by a scream from the woman. It was a scream of such terror and agony that, for the moment, Tom was stunned into inactivity. Then, as he turned, he saw a great condor sweeping down out of the air, the wind fairly whistling through the ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... consulted with the other official, two seamen hustled the man towards a second gangway that led to the tug, the woman raised a wild, despairing cry. It, however, seemed that she blocked the passage, and a quartermaster drove her, expostulating in an agony of terror, forward among the rest. Nobody appeared concerned about this alien's tragedy, except one man, but Agatha was not astonished when Wyllard rose and quietly laid his hand upon the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... from Berlin, because von Krauss was an authority upon blood infection and spent a week of intense mental agony until he was ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... an agony of discomfort. I had some thought of trying to go up the shaft again, and leave the Under-world alone. But even while I turned this over in my mind I continued to descend. At last, with intense relief, I saw dimly coming up, a foot to the right of me, a slender loophole ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... rapid pulse, copious sweating, and often the development of various rashes and minute blisters on the skin. There is also loss of appetite, and the bowels are constipated. The urine is usually very dark-colored. Altogether, victims of the disease are truly pitiable, for they suffer agony, and are unable to move without increasing it. The weakness and prostration are marked. Small, hard lumps, from the size of a shot to that of a pea, sometimes appear on the skin of the fingers, hands, wrists, knees, ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... sometimes is so terrible that I can hardly read. I feel myself like one who lives, knowing the inevitable future, and yet is powerless to help. I see the acts of the poor human puppets, and know the disaster that must follow. I wonder if the Calvinists ever realised the agony of that dark God of theirs, omniscient and yet so strangely weak, to whom the eternal majesty of heaven was insufficient to save the predestined ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... her to a helpmate fit for me. Now, thank the Gods, my labours are complete—she stands redeemed from all her giddiness! (Here he steps upon the pin, and utters an exclamation). Ha! what is this? I'm wounded ... agony! With what a darting pain my foot's transfixed! I'll summon help (with calm courage)—yet, stay, I would not dim this nuptial day by any sombre cloud. I'll bear this stroke alone—and now to probe the full extent of my calamity. (Seats himself on sofa in such a position as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various

... just at nightfall, when the whole surface of the earth was covered with ice and slush, slipped and fell heavily, breaking three of his ribs. He was taken up and carried to his room at the hotel, and lay on the sofa waiting for the doctor to come. While the Judge lay, groaning and in agony, the old janitor of the court- house, who had helped pick him up, wiped off the wet from his clothes and said to him, "Judge Merrick, how thankful you must be it was not the Chief Justice!" Poor Merrick could not help laughing, ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... crazy impulse Richard staggered across the floor, seized the door handle and shook it violently. One of those violent paroxysms of hunger suddenly possessed him which while they endure are acute agony. The longing for food gripped at his vitals like an eagle's claw and drove reasoned action from his head. He knew well enough that there was no escape to be made through the shuttered windows but ignoring the knowledge he leapt toward them and seized the iron cross-bar. As he lifted ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... enough remained of his fanaticism to operate as a motive force in the scheme which he afterwards developed; enough survived from the ascetic phase he had surmounted, to make him comprehend that some such agony as he had suffered should form the vestibule to a devoted life. We may compare the throes of Ignatius at Manresa with the contemporary struggles of Luther at Wittenberg and in the Wartzburg. Our imagination will dwell upon the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... remember. Our lives are a constant change: the present drives out the past, and one memory usurps the place of another. Yet there are some memories which are always green. These fasten themselves upon us in agony. The pleasant are evanescent and pass away as a smile, but the bitter live in ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... looked him full in the face for a moment, for agony had overcome shame; then her gaze sought the far horizon, which to seafaring people is as the hills whence cometh their aid to the people who dwell among mountains; "—Ma'colm, he's gaein' to merry ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... than the loud ocean, like a crash Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, Save the wild wind, and the remorseless dash Of billows; but at intervals there gushed, Accompanied by a convulsive splash, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony."—Byron. ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... refuge in rum? Yes, so it was. Scarcely had I recovered from the fright than I sent out, procured a pint of rum, and drank it all in less than an hour. And now came upon me many terrible sensations. Cramps attacked me in my limbs, which raked me with agony, and my temples throbbed as if they would burst. So ill was I that I became seriously alarmed, and begged the people of the house to send for a physician. They did so, but I immediately repented having summoned him, and endeavored, but ineffectually, to get out of his way when he ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... Our agony became so unbearable that the women ended it when they could by leaving us at the stage of coffee and cigarettes. Then, with us three men the position became untenable, and Reggie found that he'd have to go ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair

... difficult to characterize the curious combination of levity and seriousness that runs through this tale. There is no illusion of reality anywhere; there is no agony of soul in Baron Pon's confession; Nerto's terror when she learns that she is the property of the Devil is far from impressive, because she says too much, with expressions that are too pretty, perhaps because the rippling octosyllabic verse, in Provencal at least, cannot ...
— Frederic Mistral - Poet and Leader in Provence • Charles Alfred Downer

... Breasted the brunt of battle, but we bent Beneath the onsets as the red-hot bar Bends to the sledge, until our furious foes— Mown as the withered prairie-grass is mown By wild October fires—fell back and left A field of bloody agony and death About the base, and victory on ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... hand, offered to do it at his dictation. But he would not let him. He wrote it with a pencil, lying on his back. Brandolaccio held the paper for him. My brother kept trying to raise himself, and then the very slightest movement gave him the most dreadful agony in his arm. Giocanto says it was ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee

... tender from contact with the mud and water through which they marched, soon became a mass of blisters, and their sufferings from this cause alone were intense. Six of the poor fellows succumbed, unable to proceed. After a journey attended with much mental depression, and bodily agony, the former increased by the barbarous contumely flung at them by men who emerged from roadside inns, to stare at them as they passed, the prisoners, including the subject of our story, entered Richmond, and were at once introduced to the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... trickling slowly from a little wound? The crowd looked anxious; the hero came on, but more slowly, with his dim eyes straining for the old coach; and Melchior stood with his arms held out in silent agony. But just when he was beginning to hope, and the brothers seemed about to meet, a figure passed between—a ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... evening seat, my straining eye once more Roves the wide watry Waste;—but nought descries Save the pale Flood, o'erwhelming as it strays. Yet Oh! lest my remorseless Fate decree That all I love, with life's extinguish'd rays Sink from my soul, to soothe this agony, To balm that life, whose loss may forfeit thee, COME DEAR ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... Boulaye was alone in the spacious hall of the Conciergerie. From without they heard the wild clamouring and Ca-iraing of the mob. Chafing at this fresh delay, which was as a prolongation of his death-agony, La Boulaye was pacing to and fro, the ring of his footsteps on the stone floor yielding a ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... intensified form by the genius of Raymond Lull who had himself been born on the confines of Islam, and his "Book of the Lover and the Friend" is a typical manifestation of sexual mysticism which inspired the great Spanish school of mystics a few centuries later. The "delicious agony" the "sweet martyrdom," the strongly combined pleasure and pain experienced by St. Theresa were certainly associated ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... few seconds were for Fettes an agony of thought; but in balancing his terrors it was the most immediate that triumphed. Any future difficulty seemed almost welcome if he could avoid a present quarrel with Macfarlane. He set down the candle which he ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... reach the next station, which was Chartres, before the two accomplices, and to fly at Sauverand's throat. He saw nothing but that: the savage grip of his two hands that would set Florence Levasseur's lover gasping in his agony. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... over my head is stamping viciously about his room. What would his language be if he knew how I have rewarded his tormentress—he whose principles are so strict that he would bear the agony for hours, sooner than give a barrel-organ sixpence to go to another street. He would be capable of giving Giacomo a sovereign to pocket my coin, if he only knew. Yet I owe that unmusical old organ a charming evening, tinged with the faint soupcon of melancholy which is necessary ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... parting tear, He comes to catch the parting breath— Ah heaven! no melting look he wears, His alter'd eye with vengeance glares; Each frantic passion at his soul, 'Tis he has dash'd that venom'd bowl With agony, and death. ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... and the Sultan bade the Wazir Dandan take the missive and read it. He perused it accordingly; and, when Zau al-Makan heard it to end and understood its purport, his eyes filled with tears and he shrieked for agony at her perfidy; and the Minister Dandan said, "By Allah, my heart shrank from her!" Quoth the Sultan, "How could this whore play her tricks upon us twice? But by the Almighty I will not depart hence till I fill her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... time existed in one long agony. He would have left Mardykes, were it not that he looked vaguely to some just power—to chance itself—against this hideous imputation. To go with this indictment ringing in his ears, would amount to a ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... while his opponent was still in agony from the self-inflicted blow, Hal drew his revolver and, reversing it, struck out in the direction of ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... invincible! The sea had cooled the burning of that brain; Had laid to rest those limbs so fever-tense, That scarce relaxed in sleep; and now she lies Sleeping the sleep that follows after pain. 'Twas one night more of agony and fear, Of shrinking from the onset of the sea; One cry of desolation, when her fear Became a fact, and then,—God knows the rest. O cure of all our ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald

... young Indian, they see him," cried Charley in an agony of suspense. "Look, look, they ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... I had at this time no knowledge of the accident to Janet's old house, could surmise no reason for Nancy's lying at a public inn, and was in an agony of fear for her life, the wretched state of my mind can well be understood; but I was still capable of quick action, and within an hour Dr. McMurtrie, the end of his dinner carried in a bag, and myself were ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... seen in the next chapter that it was from a very remote period the practice of the Eastern Church to introduce into the lesson for Thursday in Holy-week, S. Luke's account (ch. xxii. 43, 44) of our LORD'S "Agony and bloody Sweat," immediately after S. Matth. xxvi. 39. That is, no doubt, the reason why Chrysostom,—who has been suspected, (I think unreasonably,) of employing an Evangelistarium instead of a copy of the Gospels in the preparation of his Homilies, is observed ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... empire's best, and towards which so many a mother-heart turns tearfully from almost every part of the Anglo-Saxon world. It was the after-math of Paardeberg, which claimed more lives long after, than in all its hours of slowly intensifying agony! Boers and Britons, both together, there were vastly fewer who sighed their last beside the Modder River banks than the sequent fever claimed at Bloemfontein; and all through the campaign the loss ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... with their threats. The myriads of mankind in this secret tribunal are silent because they are ignorant of speech. They are dull of brain and low in nervous organization, so that perception with them is a cerebral agony and even feeling responds only to the shock of actual physical suffering. Organized public opinion, when compared with this unnameable and resistless silent force of human instinct is like a small body of the police in the presence of a vast sullen mob. If the mob ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison

... went up in an agony of prayer for her husband, that he might be saved from suffering and shame, and be found "in his right mind", "sitting at the ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson

... errors. Besides the last verses of the Gospel of St. Mark already alluded to, and no less than three hundred and sixty-four other omissions in the same Gospel of greater or less moment, the doxology at the end of the Lord's Prayer, in Matthew vi. 13, is wanting; as also the description of the agony of the Saviour and the help of the angel in Luke xxii. 43, 44; the important clause, "For he was before me," in John i. 27; the miraculous troubling of the water in the Pool of Bethesda in John v. 3, 4; the narrative of the adulterous ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... near the hour she bore us, agony was hers to know, Yet she bravely faced it for us, smiling in her time of woe; Down the years how oft we've tried her, often selfish, heedless, blind, Yet with love alone to guide her she was ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... half-hour he cleared his throat with a rasping noise and, when he had secured Morris' attention, ostentatiously swallowed a large gelatine capsule and rolled his eyes upward in what he conceived to be an expression of acute agony. At length Morris ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass

... agony in his eyes, the boy protests his innocence. Suddenly he pauses, realizing that he is not making ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... that he was beginning to fade. He got paler and thinner by degrees, and one day she found him in a dead faint upon the floor. The slight uneasiness in his hip had increased to actual pain, and the pain had spread to his back. In an agony of apprehension she summoned the doctor, and the doctor with hollow professional cheerfulness said that that sort of thing wouldn't do at all, and that Master Austin must make up his mind to lie up a bit. And so he was put to bed, and people smiled ghastly ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour

... chill tingled at Weldon's heels and flew up to his hair. He had a sudden flashing sense of being in a net that was softly tightening. In an agony of regret he wished that he had not that sheaf of "memoranda, etc." It was suddenly clear to him that he had ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... a doctor?" inquired Lord Arondelle, in an agony of anxiety, as he bent over the unconscious form ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth

... my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in my passionate ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... her side, where, with a movement of protection that was not lost on him, she had made a place for him apart. She begged him just to look at young Reggy Lawson, who sat in agony, sustaining a ponderous topic with Miss Probyn. He remembered Reggy? Her half-remorseful smile implied that he had good cause to remember him. He did. He was sorry for young Reggy, and hoped that he found consolation ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out for the Fury, and knows that the night will come and the inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was! what a lonely rage and long agony—what a vulture that tore the heart of that giant!(45) It is awful to think of the great sufferings of this great man. Through life he always seems alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakespeare otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings can have no company. ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... most, Ready," replied William; "it must be agony to her to witness their sufferings, and not be able ...
— Masterman Ready - The Wreck of the "Pacific" • Captain Frederick Marryat

... to him now as he ran, more and more vividly, and from out of it the woman urged him on to the vengeance which she demanded of him, her great eyes glowing like fire, her beautiful face torn with the agony which he had last ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... even then risking her life in a crazy native boat to regain him. But the awful foreknowledge of the dying deceived them. Wrenching himself forward, Orde looked through the curtains and saw how near was the sail. 'That's Polly,' he said simply, though his mouth was wried with agony. 'Polly and—the grimmest practical joke ever played on a ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... dropping out of his lips one on the top of the other, and without noticing, in his agony of embarrassment at effecting his departure, Midwinter's outstretched hand, he went noiselessly down the steps, and was lost in the darkness of ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... one side as he spoke, he started violently, and then asked, in a tone so constrained that it seemed the voice of agony,— ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... time she saw Dark Kensington die until Nuwell's arrival at the Chateau Nectaris a day later, Maya remained in her room, half in shock, half in an agony ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay

... our lines. I could hear their picks and shovels busy in front, and suddenly (p. 114) somebody screamed "Oh! Oh! Oh!" the first loud and piercing, the others weaker and lower. But the exclamation told of intense agony. Afterwards I heard that a boy had been shot through ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... or puff adder, is one of the most amusing representatives of the tendency to "play dead" that could well be found. If you strike him the faintest blow with the lightest stick, he at once goes into apparent convulsions, in which he seems to suffer the greatest agony. Then, throwing himself upon his back, he, to all appearances, yields up the ghost. If, however, you retire but a slight distance and keep your eye upon him, you find that his ghost returns after ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... institution" was being consumed in the fire of war. It had withered in popular elections, been paralyzed by confiscation laws, crushed by executive decrees, trampled upon by marching Union armies. More notable than all, the agony of dissolution had come upon it in its final stronghold—the constitutions of the slave States. Local public opinion had throttled it in West Virginia, in Missouri, in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in Maryland, and ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... tree, was a woman, several shades lighter than the man. Her feet were secured by stout cords, and her arms were clasped around the blackened stump, and tied in that position. Her back was bare to the loins, and, as she hung there, moaning with agony, and shivering with cold, it seemed one mass ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... from the exceeding violence of his agony, felt that the moment of his death was at hand; and attempted to say something, and to give some orders, as was indicated by a sobbing, which shook his whole frame, a gnashing of the teeth, and a series of violent gestures with his arms, resembling ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... 'tis as I say: she's got a very nice soprano voice; and as for an ear, I never knew a better in my life. There's no singing flat there, I can tell you. But, seriously speaking,' he continued, taking pity on Kate, whose face expressed the agony of shame she was suffering, 'of course I know well enough she don't know how to produce her voice; she never had a lesson in her life, but I think you'll agree with me, when you hear it, that the organ is there. Do sing ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... of winters A thousand in number; then he knows again 365 The ends of his life; over him is laid The funeral fire: yet he finds life again, And wondrously awakened he waxes in strength. He droops not nor dreads his death therefore, The awful agony, since always he knows 370 That the lap of the flame brings life afresh, Peace after death, when undaunted once more Fully feathered and formed as a bird Out of the ashes up he can spring, Safe under the heavens. To himself he is both 375 A father and a ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various

... on; but she stood, her hand pressed against the tree, as if for support, as if she were unable to move, her eyes following the two figures; and as she watched them, in an agony, she saw a third figure coming through the gate. For a moment she did not recognize it, then she saw that it was Mr. Clendon. She saw him stop in front of the other two men and she ran forward, calling his name, and, in another instant, she was ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... modern mood of self-complacency. Jonathan Edwards' Enfield sermon pictured sinners held over the blazing abyss of hell in the hands of a wrathful deity who at any moment was likely to let go, and so terrific was that discourse in its delivery that women fainted and strong men clung in agony to the pillars of the church. Obviously, we do not believe in that kind of God any more, and as always in reaction we swing to the opposite extreme, so in the theology of these recent years we have taught a very mild, benignant sort ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... began talking again and Jan heard them say something about his strength to Captain Smith. A heavier wave lifted the ship from the rocks then dropped her back on the jagged edges that were stabbing her to the heart, while she writhed and groaned like a living thing in agony begging for help. ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker

... The agony endured that night while alone in the dark cellar was terrible, for Tom knew the temper of the diggers too well to doubt his fate. Still hope, blessed hope, did not utterly desert him. More than once he struggled to his knees and cried to God for ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... an agony and a bliss. It is a cataclysm and a new world. It is our most serious hour, perhaps. And yet we ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... story complete, it was necessary for the young Shawanoe to begin with his visit to Jack's mother, and to describe the mental agony of the good parent over the unaccountable absence of her boy. Then he told of his meeting with the Sauk warrior, Hay-uta, who made such a determined effort to take his life. From him he learned that a white youth was a captive in ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... cry of the new-born, A scream, A yell, A shout, A paean, A death-agony, A birth-cry, A submission, All tiny, tiny, far away, reptile under the ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence

... bar, you are yet to meet him in the world on which you cast him out. You will be called to behold him a disgrace to his family, a sorrow and a shame to his children, a living fountain of grief and agony to himself. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... this poor lady into a terrible agony. The Queen was receiving I know not whom,—some persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honour, the Queen's tirewoman, and the ladies of the bedchamber, were behind the Queen. I was near the throne, with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... a dogged watcher of the Wandering Jew—the deathless scoffer at our Lord's agony, who shall never die, who shall leave cholera in his track wherever he may wander—Karl Steinmetz knew that the Oster was in itself a Wandering Jew. This river meandered through the lonesome country, bearing cholera germs ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... books to the cove, and pursuing her studies or meditations with the sound of the sea's chime in her ears. My father, at that time I believe a simple, happy country squire, but showing strong signs of his Romany ancestry, had often warned her of the risk she ran, and one day he had the agony of seeing her from the cliff locked in the cove, and drowning before his eyes ere a boat could be got, while he and the coastguard stood powerless ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... The despairing agony in the orphan's voice touched Mrs. Murray's proud heart, and tears softened the indignant expression of her eyes, as she looked at the ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... expressions for a hostile Dyas (couple), with whose removal a better condition first commences, although at the outset it is actually requisite for the achievement of the work. In the Bhagavad-Gita the pairs of opposites play a great part. The world is full of agony on account of the pairs of opposites, which are to be found everywhere. Heat, cold; high, low; good, evil; joy, sorrow; poor, rich; young, old; etc. The basis of the opposites is formed by the primal opposition Rajas-Tamas. ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... before, ceased instantaneously as he pronounced the word confession. In the breathless silence, his low, quiet tones penetrated to the remotest corners of the hall; while, suppressing externally all evidences of the death-agony of hope within him, he continued ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... soon as that joy was communicated they began to be so tortured as not to know how to twist or turn because of the pain. I saw them thrust their heads down to their feet and cast themselves upon the ground, and there writhe into coils like serpents, and this in consequence of their interior agony. Such was the effect produced by heavenly delight upon those who are in the delights of the love of self and of the world; and for the reason that these loves are directly opposite to heavenly loves, and when opposite acts against opposite such pain results. And since heavenly delight ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg

... low chair, her face buried in her apron, swayed back and forth in an agony of grief, her strong form shaking with sobs. Denny looked at the young woman appealingly as—with his one good hand on his mother's shoulder—he said again, "Come, mother, look up; it's Miss Hope that's come to see you. Don't, ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright

... a scientific reality like the fourth state of matter, he may have a statue raised to him by grateful posterity. But this will neither recall him to life, nor will it obliterate the days and months of mental agony that harassed the soul of this intuitional, far-seeing, modest genius, made even after his death to receive the donkey's kick of misrepresentation and to be publicly charged ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... doctor, but on the way spread the news that I had been killed by a fall. Among the first callers after the accident were Donald G. Mitchell and his daughter, my neighbours. I lay on a mattress on the lawn all afternoon in great agony. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... My father bought the material, and my mother and Mary paid for the making of the gown. It was a white alpaca creation, trimmed with satin, and the consciousness that it was extremely becoming sustained me greatly during the mental agony of preparing and delivering my oration. To my family that oration was the redeeming episode of my early career. For the moment it almost made them ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw

... especial favourites, and the long letter which Cromwell now addressed to him was in reply to one just received from Hammond, imparting to Cromwell his doubts respecting the recent proceedings of the Army, and his own agony of mind in the difficult and complicated duties of his office in the Isle of Wight. Cromwell's letter, so occasioned, begins "Dear Robin," and is conceived throughout in terms of the most anxious affection, struggling with a half-expressed purpose. He reasons earnestly with Hammond on his ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... sufferings of humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was something far different from this, it was the birth-throes of the divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is made flesh, and at Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees of Greccio, they are in agony "because their own received ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... enemy's line. It rolled into their trenches, and in a second those men were choking and gasping for breath. Their lungs filled with the rotten stuff, and they were dying by dozens in the most terrible agony, beating off even as they died a part of the "brave" Prussian army as it came up behind those gas clouds; came up with gas masks on and bayonets dripping with the blood of men lying on the ground fighting, true, but for breath. A great army, that Prussian army! ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... poverty exhaust the field of thought and prevent us from nursing imaginary cares, for when we have undergone the torture of our own forebodings, struggled with the impetuosity and agony of a nature surrendered to itself, we are disposed to look almost with relief on tangible troubles, and to end by appreciating the cares of poverty as salutary distractions from the sickly anxieties ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin

... do not understand," said Crosbie in his agony. "You think that I am inventing this plea about her fortune now. It isn't so. He will understand. We have talked all this over before, and he knew how terribly I was disappointed. Shall I wait for you here, or ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... with tables for two under rose-shaded lights. He booked seats for theatres, trains, steamers, grand-stands, and the Empire. He dealt in all stocks and shares. He was a banker. He acted as agent for all insurance companies. He would insert advertisements in the agony column, or any other column, of any newspaper. If you wanted a flat, a house, a shooting-box, a castle, a yacht, or a salmon river, Hugo could sell, or Hugo could let, the very thing. He provided strong-rooms for your savings, and summer quarters for your wife's furs; conjurers ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett

... last Wednesday night. Although I am convinced your ideas and mine thoroughly coincide as to the real cause of man's bitter degradation, yet I fear human means to redeem him are now fruitless. The Fire must burn, and Prometheus endure his agony. The Pestilence of Asia must come again, ere the savage will be taught humanity. May you escape! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... said, it was a wonder she ever recovered, having no body with her. By that time she had finished it, she was so ill she was not able to get herself into bed, but threw herself down on the place where she sat, which was the side of it, in such agony of grief and despair, as never any soul was possessed of, but Sylvia's, wholly abandoned to the violence of love and despair: it is impossible to paint a torment to express hers by; and though she had vowed to Antonet it should not at all affect her, being so prepossessed ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn



Words linked to "Agony" :   agonist, passion, throe, Passion of Christ, agonise, hurt, hurting, agonal, pain, agonize



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