"Breathless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an inexhaustible confidence in Speug's genius for mischief and effrontery of manner, but the Rector's class sat breathless when Peter came in with an unshaken countenance, and politely intimated to the Rector that a magistrate of Muirtown had come and desired to speak to the school. Before the Rector could fairly withdraw himself from a cunning phrase of Horace's, or the school had energy to cheer, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... the General descend, and appearing again over the edge of the basket, he seemed to be motioning to the breathless hordes below, the story of his failure. Then he dropped out of sight, and when we next saw him, he was reconnoitring the Confederate works through a long black spy-glass. A great laugh went up and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... the dazzled wind-up at Naples. Two or three others had preceded this; incidents, indeed rather lively marks, of their last fortnight at home, and one of which had determined on Mrs. Stringham's part a rush to New York, forty-eight breathless hours there, previous to her final rally. But the great sustained sea-light had drunk up the rest of the picture, so that for many days other questions and other possibilities sounded with as little effect as a trio of penny whistles might sound in a Wagner overture. It was the Wagner ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... had only time for one long gaze, and then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten it!" and with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... say something; certainly not going to make a speech, much less deliver oration. Carried out this subtle fancy to such extent that, pitching voice on low conversational tone, sometimes difficult to catch full length of sentences. This added to impressiveness of scene. Crowded House sitting breathless; Members opposite leaning forward lest they might miss a phrase. Everyone conscious that at the door also listening were jealous France, the wily Turk, the interested Egyptian, the not entirely disinterested ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... as any was Face-of-god, and though he was cumbered with his hauberk, yet was Iron-face's handiwork far lighter than the war-coat of the Dusky Man, and the race was soon over. The felon turned breathless to meet Gold-mane, who drave his target against him and cast him to earth, and as he strove to rise smote off his head at one stroke; for Dale-warden was a good sword and the Dalesman as fierce of mood as ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... himself. He danced up with his usual ungainly frolics, first to the Baron and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes, crying, 'Bra', bra' Davie,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of his thousand-and-one songs for the breathless extravagance of his joy. The dogs also acknowledged their old master with a thousand gambols. 'Upon my conscience, Rose,' ejaculated the Baron, 'the gratitude o' thae dumb brutes and of that puir innocent brings ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... at each one they pretend to understand perfectly what is wanted and trace on tissue-paper, with a paint-brush, the addresses of the shops where we shall without fail meet with what we require,—away we go, full of hope, only to encounter some fresh mystification, till our breathless ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... Weissnichtwo Packet, with all its Custom-house seals, foreign hieroglyphs, and miscellaneous tokens of Travel, arrived here in perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader shall now fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, with what breathless expectation glanced over; and, alas, with what unquiet disappointment it has, since then, been often thrown ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... when people rise early and look forward to being at their desks half an hour before their usual time. On such occasions they invariably come upon a clock which points to a quarter of ten, and sends them scurrying breathless up four flights of stairs, to find the janitor engaged in ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... thousand; and the trembling antagonists played as if life and death hung on the event. And the whole company, indeed, forgetful of their own comparatively slight interest, in the momentous one thus put at stake, at once turned their eyes on the two players, and watched the result with breathless interest. That result was soon disclosed; when, to the surprise of all, and the dismay of Gaut Gurley, the victory once more strangely fell to the lot of Mark Elwood, who, gathering up the stakes with trembling eagerness, hastily rose from the ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... humor. Should he, the teacher of the great Koert, be kept waiting for a chit of a girl—only, of course, he said "das Kindchen" or some other German equivalent for chit—and then have her come into the sacred presence breathless, and salute him between gasps as the Frau ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... breathless climax to the gentleman to whom he had first spoken, and who had listened to her attack on Bartley with a smile which he was at no trouble to hide from her. "Which question are you going to answer first, Mr. Hubbard?" he asked quietly, while his eyes searched Bartley's ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... translated what Gervaise had said to the rowers, by whom it was received with short exclamations of approval, for they were too breathless and exhausted for talk. Already they could hear the yells of the pirates, who, as the boat ran up on the beach were but a quarter ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... excitement arose from those on the eastern front, as in the rapidly whitening dawn they saw Kilbride suddenly reappear around the northern and blank end of the building. For some few moments they watched his actions in awe-struck, breathless silence as, with bent back, he busied himself ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... and in a moment more the Indians came pouring down upon them, shooting everyone they met with their bows and arrows. "And," continued they, "when we saw them shooting and yelling, we broke and run before they got to us, and we did not stop until we got here." They said all this in a frightened, breathless way, that showed how excited ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... waving in the breeze. Did you ever see trees from on top? They are quite different. And out from the pines come great round hills made all of stone. I think they look like skulls. Then there are breathless descents where the pines fall away. Once in a while a little white road ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... finished up his breathless narrative in a way that left no doubt in the mind of his hearers as to his sincerity. He was trembling with nervous excitement still. And even in the starlight the look upon his face spoke of real concern ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... will play you the prettiest tricks an you give it the run of the house; close but one door though, and it sits sulking in the lobby. Delightful are the games it can play you: wit, irony, criticism, thrilling ideas, visions of fantastic anarchy and breathless generalizations—all these it can give; but the earth and all things above and below must be its toy-box; from the deferential intellect expect nothing better than puns, anecdotes, comfortable platitudes, elaborate ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... man was completely dumfounded by the sight of her. He hung in suspended motion; his wide eyes leaped to hers—and clung there. They silently gazed at each other—each with much the same pained and breathless look. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... fourteen. The operation takes some ten years, at the end of which the moulded bride regards her lord as an old man. On the whole I think that the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer. Dance with a girl three times, and if you like the light of her eye and the tone of voice with which she, breathless, answers your little questions about horseflesh and music—about affairs masculine and feminine,—then take the leap in the dark. There is danger, no doubt; but the moulded wife is, I think, ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... was breathless, as if he'd been running hard. "What's the matter now?" Why, I wondered, couldn't the plant get along one morning without me? Seven o'clock—what a time to get up. Especially when I hadn't ...
— Robots of the World! Arise! • Mari Wolf
... slippery footropes, shouting for hold and gasket, we fought the struggling wind-possessed monster, and again the leach was passed along the yard. A turn of the gasket would have held it, but even the leading hands at the bunt were as weak and breathless as ourselves. The squall caught at an open lug, and again the sail bellied out, thrashing fiendishly ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... then arose—for he slowly drew her—breathless, the color gone, much of the capable practicality that was hers completely eliminated. She felt limp, inert. She pulled at her hand faintly, and then, lifting her eyes, was fixed by that hard, insatiable gaze of his. Her head swam—her eyes were ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... minutes, longitude 4 degrees 6 minutes—a hot, breathless day. The "Harnessed Mule" glides swiftly over the unruffled blue. The crew loll about, listening to the babbling of the boiling ocean, and now and then lazily extinguishing the flames which break up from the tropically heated planks. It is a typical ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... and climbed between foot-hills and wound into rockier country. Every dark gulch brought to Joan a trembling, breathless spell. What places for ambush! But ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... with the Lady Hermione," answered the almost breathless girl, while the blood ran so fast to her face as totally to remove the objection of paleness which Aunt Judith had made ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... slapped on the back and praised to the skies. Why, even Sue Barnes, Ivy Middleton, Peggy Noland, and a lot of other school-girls seemed proud to shake hands with Nick, who was as red in the face as a turkey gobbler, and rendered quite breathless trying to answer the myriad of sincere congratulations that ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... aloud, and was quietly dissembling for some purpose of his own. His very thoughtfulness seemed to lend color to that idea. He looked at Bryce across the carpet of grass and at the same instant Bryce raised his eyes. They stared at each other with the breathless intensity of two men who know that in all things they are evenly matched. Each was striving to the last atom of his will-power to break down the resistance of the other and force him in some way to take the initiative. At last it was Bryce who dropped his eyes a fraction and Cumshaw who breathed ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... there, panting and breathless, a woman rushed downward. Believing she would throw herself into that tangled mass below, I instantly caught her ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... and now and then—very reverently—a Madonna and Child. It was all very rough, for there was no one to teach him anything. But it was all lifelike, and kept the whole troop of children shrieking with laughter, or watching breathless, with wide open, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... their home I did commend your highness' letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that show'd My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth From Goneril his mistress salutations; Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission, Which presently they read: on whose contents, They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse; Commanded ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... to tell the Prioress the Pope himself was dead, or had gone mad; something certainly had happened into which it was no business of hers to inquire. And this vague feeling sent her running down the passage and up the stairs, and returning breathless to Evelyn, whom she found in a chair nearly unconscious, for when she called to her Evelyn awoke as from ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered cocked hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trowsers on his legs, who cried out, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... reserved, but he ate a good breakfast, and would have given his mother even more gratifying evidence of the perfect state of his health Had not Miss Chris interrupted his meal by a sudden and disconcerting entrance. The young woman came into the room breathless, eager-eyed, and white to the lips. She drew herself up by the door, and made a poor pathetic effort to compose herself, to frame her plea in conventional words; but she was too agitated to ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... had been dancing together for the third time—a waltz fast and furious, which they had kept up almost incessantly till the music had ceased. Heated and breathless, he led her out of the ball-room to get some refreshment. There was a large supper-room which, on the cessation of the waltz, immediately became crowded by other couples bent on a similar errand. But there ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... hour in the Park, with dearest Aggie pointing out to me, with thrills of breathless excitement, a woman who was in the divorce court, or a coroneted bankrupt. Then she would drag me off to some terrible private view full of the same people all staring at and gabbling to each other, or looking at ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and tried to dominate the pandemonium, shouting and waving his hands. The galleries went wild with noisy excitement. Men threatened each other with violence on the floor of the House, cursing and shaking their fists. Others rushed here and there trying to find some trace of the Clerk. The Speaker, breathless from calling for order and pounding with his gavel, had to sit ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... few breathless moments of headlong galloping, during which they swayed perilously from side to side, and were many times on the verge of being overturned. Then, the ground rising steeply, the mare's wild pace became modified, developed into a spasmodic ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... after the death recur to me now as a sort of breathless nightmare, in which, aided by the admirable Alexis, I was forever despatching messages and uttering polite phrases to people I had never ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Breathless in the midst of her reading Cornelia looked up and faced him squarely. "How could any girl—write all that ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... surrounded by a circle of almost naked wildmen who moved, uneasy, she told quaveringly of how the booming tones had rumbled down the forested slopes, and of how ill had befallen her people both times; when she ceased, they stood breathless, their whole beings strained to catch the dread sound none but she had ever heard. Yes, she moved me, queerly ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... that dread hour, And all the Fians feared his power, And watched, as in a darksome dream, The warriors meet ... They saw the gleam Of swift, up-lifted swords, and then A breathless moment came, as when The lithe and living lightning's flash Makes pause, until the thunder's crash Is splintered ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... to myself that I was in the presence of the greatest living man; and though I could neither love nor worship, I felt subdued and awed into a sort of breathless horror, as one might fancy humanity to be in the presence of some superior intelligence, some being ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... them even a passing recognition? They convey the impression that, when Ignatius was on his way to Rome, all Asia Minor was moved at his presence—that Greece caught the infection of excitement—and that the Western capital itself awaited, with something like breathless anxiety, the arrival of the illustrious martyr. Strange, indeed, then that even his letter to the Romans is mentioned by no Western father until between two and three hundred years after the time of its assumed publication! Nor were Western writers wanting ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the heels and was standing him on his head. Then he rolled him over and pressed his chest, with that oscillation which is helpful in restoring seemingly drowned persons, while the breathless George stood idly by watching everything with straining eyes. He could do nothing but pray ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... now side by side, now, where the way was narrow, one before the other. The blue clouded over, there sprang a wind. The trees bent and shook, the deep glen grew gray and dark. That wind died and there was a breathless stillness, heated and heavy. Each heard the other's ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... clear eyes rolled up and fixed. Ah, what said those eyes that spoke so much of heaven? Earth was passed, and earthly pain; but so solemn, so mysterious, was the triumphant brightness of that face, that it checked even the sobs of sorrow. They pressed around her in breathless stillness. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... Jimmie. "It knocks me breathless! I don't know what to make of it—it beats the novels that wind up with the discovery of the lost heir. At all events, Jack, you seem to be in ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... and I stopped. Sitting up I halloed lustily. An answering shout came from below, where Sir Henry's wild career had been checked by some level ground. I scrambled to him, and found him unhurt, though breathless. Then we looked for Good. A little way off we discovered him also, hammed in a forked root. He was a good deal knocked about, but ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... my own violence, I sat down breathless and trembling. He on the contrary had grown calm, and there was almost a sneer on his lips as he answered, "Those vulgar ruffians are relatives of the Tracys, and, for their sakes, I wished to spare them an exposure which would ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... knowledge of what is now the future, and will then be the dead past; seeing that all has been for the best for us in the end; that all has come right in spite of us, we will wonder how we could ever have been foolish enough to await each hour in such breathless anxiety. We will ask ourselves if it was really true that nightly, as we lay down to sleep, we did not dare plan for the morning, feeling that we might be homeless and beggars before the dawn. How unreal it will then seem! We will say it was our wild imagination, perhaps. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... mutual distrust which had been many years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place confidence in the other. The whole nation now looked with breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long, earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the pommels of swords in a manner which revived ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of Joanna was so breathless, that a great many people never noticed Ellen, or at best only saw her hat as it went past the tops of their pews. Joanna realized this, and being anxious that no one should miss the sight of Ellen's new magenta pelisse with facings of silver braid, she made ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... very slow in doing what was still necessary, and the boy watched him in breathless suspense, for he had seen other trials that had failed—more than two or three, perhaps half a dozen. Every one who has lived with an inventor, even a boy, has learned to expect disappointment as inevitable; only the seeker himself ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... last a comrade was found who was persuaded to attack it on the promise of a bottle of punch. He entered Bjoernson's den, got a long pipe which he filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely—for it was a hot day—flung himself on the bed, and began to read. Bjoernson sat in the sofa, breathless with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; not a smile, not a single encouraging word! The young poet had good reason to regard the battle as lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book were finished. Then the merciless Stoic rose ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... snarled viciously at us. Donovan cut at them with his oar right and left; while Raed, Kit, and Wade levelled their muskets at the horde of rushing, breathless savages, who seemed not to have seen us at all till that moment, so intent had they been after the negro. Discovering us, the front ones tried to pull up; and, those behind running up, they were all crowded together, shouting and screaming, and punching each ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... morning was a truly exciting, not to say breathless, time to Diana. She had not an instant to regret her absence from Iris and Apollo. The exploits, the feats performed by the three circus girls, and by Tom the clown, to say nothing of the advent of the elephant and of the donkey who could perform numberless tricks, and finally, the performances ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... perfectly still. Of course she had no right to listen, but she did. She waited breathless, in an agony of expectation, for the ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Breathless for fear of losing a word, Robert yet remembered that he had seen something like these words in the papers Ericson had given him to read on the night when his illness began. When he had fallen asleep and silent, he searched and found the poem from which I give the following extracts. He had not ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke; trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight; rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits; and even Christina creek turned from its course, and ran up a hill in breathless terror!" ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... in breathless silence, in which the clicking of the mechanism which kept the great telescope moving so as to exactly counteract the motion of the machinery of the Universe, sounded like the blows of a sledge-hammer on an anvil, Gilbert Lennard stood ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... outside chimneys, and its sloping shingled roof, from which five dormer-windows stared in a row over the slender columns of the porch. The garden had been planned in the days when it was easy to put a dozen slaves to uprooting weeds or trimming flower beds, and had passed in later years to the breathless ministrations of negro infants, whose experience varied from the doubtful innocence of the crawling age to the complete sophistication of six or seven years. Dandelion and wire-grass rioted, in spite of their earnest efforts, over the crooked path ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... ferry-boat Philip bought an evening paper from a boy crying "'Ere's the Evening Gram, all about the murder," and with breathless haste—ran his ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... aisles perhaps had echoed to the shot—his gasping moan that had borne his young spirit up to the Infinite! At this thought, Horror leapt upon me, wherefore I sought to flee these gloomy shades, only to trip and fall heavily, so that I lay breathless and half-stunned, and no ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... suddenly, breathless, staring at Mr. Magnus as though she had not been aware until now that he was in the room. To say that her outburst astonished him was to put it very mildly indeed. She had always been so quiet and restrained; she had ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... said than done; he turned around and fairly galloped up the hill, around the corner, and landed nearly breathless at the market. ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... was, her voice may not always have been meaningless for one who knew her haunts so well; deep recesses where, veiled in foliage, some wild shy rivulet steals with timid music through breathless caves of verdure; gulfs where feathered crags rise like castle walls, where the noonday sun pierces with keen rays athwart the torrent, and the mossed arms of fallen pines cast wavering shadows on the illumined foam; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... blustering crowd as it surged along the street, but now that it had come to a standstill, a sudden breathless silence fell upon it, and all eyes turned in one direction, gazing eagerly, intently up the track. Suddenly, a low, hoarse cry broke from ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... d'Elbee's force was but a quarter of a mile away and, running down from his lookout, he started to meet it. It was coming at a run, the men panting and breathless, but holding on desperately, half maddened with the ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... dealing with the familiar story of Nathan Hale, of Revolutionary times, is the nearest approach to the old folk ballad in our history. Its repetitions help it in catching something of the breathless suspense accompanying his daring effort, betrayal, and execution. The pathos of the closing incidents of Hale's career has attracted the tributes of poets and dramatists. Francis Miles Finch, author of "The Blue and the Gray," wrote a well-known poetic account of Hale, while ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... evident partiality, and every period which told at all against the conduct of the war elicited cheers from the opposition, and the ministerial benches were far from silent on these occasions. After his lordship sat down, Lord Palmerston arose on behalf of the government, amidst breathless expectations. His adroitness was extraordinary, and his intellectual superiority to his notable compeer obvious; but it was equally obvious that Lord John's moral influence was in the ascendant, and the latter part of Lord Palmerston's statement was heard with impatience, which extended to the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... as she read with breathless anxiety, and her heart sank as she noticed how serious was the expression on the reader's face as she came to ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... Lapham was breathless with resentment of his wife's implication. "Don't I tell you," he gasped, "that I don't want to know them? Who began it? They're friends of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... could. He went. The occasion was of unusual solemnity, as a revival was in progress. The minister preached a sermon, well calculated for effect. His peroration was a climax of great beauty. Assuming the attitude of one intently listening, he recited to the breathless auditory: ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... took place. The shepherdess kept calling to her Agnes, but she was so ashamed that she did not dare even lift her eyes to meet her mother's, and the shepherd kept gazing on her in silence. As for the king, he was so breathless and aghast with astonishment, that he was too feeble to fling the ragged child from him, as he tried to do. But she left him, and running down the steps of the one throne and up those of the other, began kissing the queen next. But the ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... broken by small bays and headlands. Mr. Chalk eyed it with all the fervour usually bestowed on a holy relic, and, breathlessly reading off such terms as "Cape Silvio," "Bowers Bay," and "Mount Lonesome," gazed with breathless interest at ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... suggestion she did not speak. It would be too much for the poor boy, who sat, knitting his brows over her tale, his face changing as he looked down at the cigarette between his fingers. He had interjected one breathless question. Was Stella better? Was she in any danger? And his mother had answered that Dr. Costello was satisfied that the girl ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... wetting of her slippered feet, she struggled on through the waxing drifts to the stable door. With a sigh of relief that the goal was attained, she passed through the partly open doorway and paused at last, breathless ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... with thee amid the mystic shadows, The solemn hush of nature newly born; Alone with thee in breathless adoration, In the calm dew ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... beauty and palatial mansions of a northern clime, we follow hero and heroine, with breathless interest, to the sun-scorched veldt and arid plains of ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... efforts to subdue the material world were as nothing. The real conquest lay still before him, the conquest of self. And when that were faced and achieved, well she knew that no such garish display as this would announce the victory to a breathless world. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... empty save for a steersman, half asleep in the hot sun by the tiller. With a great wrench of his arms the ex-buccaneer lifted himself over the stern and slipped as quietly as he was able into the boat's bottom. There he lay breathless, listening for sounds of alarm aboard the sloop. None came and after a few moments he wriggled forward and made himself snug under the bow-thwart. The boat carried a water-beaker and a can of biscuit ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... tumble in the rolling tide The doubtful gift, for treachery designed, Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side, And probe the caverns where the Danaans hide. Thus while they waver and, perplext with doubt, Urge diverse counsels, and in parts divide, Lo, from the citadel, foremost of a rout, Breathless Laocoon runs, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... companion, gazed at the rabbi! And, beneath the look—whose absence of expression the hapless man did not at first notice—he fancied he again felt the burning pincers scorch his flesh, he was to be once more a living wound. Fainting, breathless, with fluttering eyelids, he shivered at the touch of the monk's floating robe. But—strange yet natural fact—the inquisitor's gaze was evidently that of a man deeply absorbed in his intended reply, engrossed by what he was hearing; his eyes ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... stumbling haste. In Bad-Weather Tom West's kitchen, somewhat after ten o'clock in the morning, in the midst of this hilarious scramble to be off to the floe, there was a flash and spit of fire, and the clap of an explosion, and the clatter of a sealing-gun on the bare floor; and in the breathless, dead little interval between the appalling detonation and a man's groan of dismay followed by a woman's choke and scream of terror, Dolly West, Bad-Weather Tom's small maid, stood swaying, wreathed in gray smoke, her little hands ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... him, as I stood breathless by his shoulder, with my pistol ready, pattering off prayers in a tremulous, rapid whisper; and, I confess, horrid as the thought may seem, I despised him for thinking of supplications in a moment so critical and thrilling. In the meantime, Clara, who was dead white but still possessed ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... a Doe came bounding by them; and the King, who had his Bow ready, shot her through the Heart; telling the Dervis, that a fair Opportunity now offered for him to show his Art. The young Man immediately left his own Body breathless on the Ground, while at the same Instant that of the Doe was re-animated, she came to the King, fawned upon him, and after having play'd several wanton Tricks, fell again upon the Grass; at the same Instant the Body of the Dervis recovered its Life. The King was infinitely ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... get rid of Manilov's ever-supporting arm, Chichikov hastened his steps, and Manilov kept darting forward to anticipate any possible failure on the part of his companion's legs. Consequently the pair were breathless when they reached the first corridor. In passing it may be remarked that neither corridors nor rooms evinced any of that cleanliness and purity which marked the exterior of the building, for such attributes were not troubled about within, and anything ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... had passed away when one morning George came running into the house, breathless with excitement, and his eyes shining ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... ground, slips forth on padded feet to crouch defiantly in the center of the extemporized arena. Occasionally, but very occasionally, the beast becomes intimidated at sight of the waiting spearmen and the breathless throng beyond them, but usually it is only a matter of seconds before things begin to happen. The long tail abruptly becomes rigid, the muscles bunch themselves like coiled springs beneath the tawny skin, the sullen snarling changes to a deep-throated ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... ungainly frolics, first to the Baron, and then to Rose, passing his hands over his clothes, crying, 'BRA', BRA' DAVIE,' and scarce able to sing a bar to an end of his thousand-and-one songs, for the breathless extravagance of his joy. The dogs also acknowledged their old master with a thousand gambols. 'Upon my conscience, Rose,' ejaculated the Baron, 'the gratitude o' thae dumb brutes, and of that puir innocent, brings the tears into ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... and signed to one of the footmen, who helped Philip to the door. A moment afterwards the latter sank back amongst the cushions, a little dizzy and breathless, but revived almost instantly by the cool night air. He gave the chauffeur his address, and the car glided through the iron ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... come Again! May I not be glad of your coming? Yes, and a little breathless?—Did you come Only because you ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister of the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma'amselle is charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... is one of the arch offenders in the matter of spoiling the syntax of the sentence and the paragraph. As has been observed already, the unpretending writers noticed above, if they have little harmony or balance of phrase, are seldom confused or breathless. Sidney was one of the first writers of great popularity and influence (for the Arcadia was very widely read) to introduce what may be called the sentence-and-paragraph-heap, in which clause is linked on to clause till not merely the grammatical but the ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... His portraits are as truly interpretative as his imaginative subjects, and each typifies a distinct element of child-life. The little Miss Bowles sitting on the ground hugging her dog, and Master Bunbury looking out of the canvas with breathless eagerness, arouse a universal interest, which is entirely independent of their individuality. Miss Frances Harris, the serene, and Miss Penelope Boothby, the demure, will be loved as child ideals long after their ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... that they had altered its entire course; that such episodes had given to her life a double character,—one side of calmness, secrecy, indifference, and the other of delight, absorption, thrilled with a breathless excitement and uncertainty. But this time there was a greater than ordinary interest. The verses that she had sent last were more ambitious in conception; they had description in them, and mental analysis, and several other things which very likely she would not have called ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... half breathless with fear She crept to conceal herself there; That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear, And she saw in the moonlight two ruffians appear, And between them a ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... I was at the hospital—breathless, it was true. I went in, and found Spicer still alive, for his eyes turned to me. I went up to him; the nurse, who was standing by him, told me he was speechless, and would soon be gone. I told her I would remain with him, and she went to the other patients. I gave ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... the firing of cannon to our right was fast and furious, the shells dropping and bursting right among our field artillery. I watched with breathless anxiety, expecting all our guns to be abandoned, and half the men killed, when to my astonishment the men rode their horses right among the bursting shells, and hooking them to their guns rode quietly away, taking ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... The breathless interest given to Mr. Moody's anecdotes while being related by him before his immense audiences, and their wonderful power upon the human heart, suggested to the compiler this volume, and led him to believe and ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody
... and the tears came into her eyes, "it was beautiful, beautiful, every word of it! I sat in a perfect trance from beginning to end, and I felt that it was all as true as it was beautiful. People all around me were breathless with interest, and I don't know how I can ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... was greatly interested, Calhoun did not make his report until that General could meet with Morgan. Then Calhoun gave a detailed account of all he had seen and heard. He was listened to with breathless attention. ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... has left," I think. I try the door which is open, knock once again, and enter. The editor is sitting at his table, his face towards the window, pen in hand, about to write. When he hears my breathless greeting he turns half round, steals a quick look at me, shakes ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Hannah Thomson. Hearing that the whole neighborhood was rising against the benefactor of Shocky and of her family, she had slipped away from the eyes of her mistress, and run with breathless haste to give warning in the cabin on Rocky Branch. Seeing Ralph, she blushed, and went ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... to reply. The blood upon my face and hands was plain evidence of the wound I had received, and the captain's indifference left me breathless. Without another word he turned and scrambled up on deck, and ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... the hungry ocean, and, as I supposed, there was no human aid at hand to save me, when the brig gave a violent lee lurch, and before I was borne away from her side I felt myself seized by the collar of my jacket, and dragged by a powerful arm, breathless and stunned with the roar of waters in my ears, into ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... that, really?" exclaimed Jane Pengelly, not expecting such a hurried sending of me off to sea. "Surely not so soon, my man, eh?" She was almost breathless with grief and surprise. ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... A breathless silence swallowed his shout. Then a mighty roar burst out, an exultant roar that soared up past the impassive image of the god and rolled in thunderous echoes along the roof. "Praise ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... now, at this moment, Christ were to come in the clouds of heaven, and take up His redeemed, could you not trust Him? Would not His call, His promise be enough for you? Could you not commit your soul to Him, to your Saviour, Jesus?' Then came a flash of hope across me which made me feel literally breathless. I remember how my heart beat. 'I could surely,' was my response; and I left her suddenly and ran away upstairs to think it out. I flung myself on my knees in my room, and strove to realise the sudden hope. I was very happy at last. I could commit my soul to Jesus. I ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... called out in breathless agony, pushing her way through the crowd of men now hastening up from all directions toward the captain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... oh! with what rapture of silent bliss. With what breathless deep devotion, Have I watch'd, like spectre from swathing shroud, The white moon peer o'er the shadowy cloud, Illumine the mantled Earth, and kiss The meekly murmuring lips of Ocean, As a mother ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... St. Elizabeth, Abbess of Schonau, in the diocese of Treves, says that sometimes she was in an ecstatic trance, so that she would remain motionless and breathless during a long time. In these intervals, she learned, by revelation and by the intercourse she had with blessed spirits, admirable things; and when she revived, she would discourse divinely, sometimes ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... runs out into the old clearing, or down through the pasture, you find other and livelier birds,—the robins, with his sharp, saucy call and breathless, merry warble; the bluebird, with his notes of pure gladness, and the oriole, with his wild, flexible whistle; the chewink, bustling about in the thicket, talking to his sweetheart in French, "cherie, cherie!" and the song-sparrow, perched on his favourite ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke |
