"Convulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to push my fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... South, for the principle of class and caste knows neither latitude or longitude. It was a war of ideas—of Aristocracy and Democracy—of Capital and Labor—the same that has convulsed the race through the ages, and will continue to convulse future generations, until Justice and Equality shall reign upon ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... opposite description might befit Sir Robert Peel, the strangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally an orator. He could make the most slashing onslaughts without the appearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughter while he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. His voice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard in Parliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... her, 'My dear, your sufferings are great.' 'Don't,' said she, 'don't mention them; they have been nothing—nothing.' After a severe spasm, that seemed to convulse her whole frame, she exclaimed, 'O the pains, the groans, the dying strife! The spirit seems to be struggling and fluttering to get free from this cumbersome body.' She had, during most of her sickness, ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy
... the key; though the gravity of a Scots audience was not to be overcome, and they merely expressed their disapprobation by a round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of Christmas fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from pit to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, the Italian tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than the observance. With the total disappearance of these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hilarious delight, the mishaps, mortifications, confusions, and agonizing mental and physical distresses of a self-conscious, hypersensitive, appallingly bashful young man, in a succession of astounding accidents, and ludicrous predicaments, that convulse the reader with cyclonic laughter, causing him to hold both sides for fear of exploding from an ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... with the difficulty of substituting at once white for slave labor, and the derangement which would ensue in the domestic concerns of life, would not merely make general emancipation at once inexpedient, but the attempt would denote the extremity of madness and folly, and convulse this government to its centre.'—[Idem, vol. ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... upon him the expectant faces of the others, assembled about the table, were fixed, and a visible tremor of dismay and grief seemed to convulse them. A few covered their faces with their hands, others stood up and gazed at the benignant colossus in bronze at the end of the room, while others, motionless, still ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... Beauvouloir—that blessed man whose teachings had proved so precious to the child, and whose anxious glance at that frail idol had so often made the duchess tremble—declared that Etienne was now in a condition to live long years, provided no violent emotion came to convulse his delicate body. Etienne ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... Alice clapped her hands, and seemed pleased with the bluff good-nature of his physiognomy. But Laurence thought it strange that a man with such a face, indicating hardly a common share of intellect, should have had influence enough on human affairs to convulse the world with war. Grandfather observed that this poor king had always appeared to him one of the most unfortunate persons that ever lived. He was so honest and conscientious, that, if he had been only a private man, his life would probably have been blameless and happy. But his was that worst ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... standard of the cross waved on the hills before Velez Malaga, and every height and cliff bristled with hostile arms, the civil war between the factions of the Alhambra and the Albaycin, or rather between El Zagal and El Chico, continued to convulse the city of Granada. The tidings of the investment of Velez Malaga at length roused the attention of the old men and the alfaquis, whose heads were not heated by the daily broils, and they endeavored to arouse the people to a ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... duel in tactics between the two parties, intensely interesting in character and in its results surprising, at least for some people. The parties to the struggle which now proceeded to convulse Canada were the government of Manitoba, the author of the law in question, the Roman Catholic hierarchy in their capacity of guardians and champions of the Manitoba minority, and the two Dominion political parties. ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... that the struggle in America is for place, not for principle; for whichever party obtains power, their principle of acting is much the same. Occasionally a question of moment will come forward and nearly convulse the Union, but this is very rare; the general course of legislation is in a very narrow compass, and is seldom more than a mere routine of business. With the majority, who lead a party, (particularly the one at present in power), the contest is not, therefore, for principle, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Sam? Well, you are in a nice fix!" and Ben's eyes began to twinkle with mischievous merriment, as well they might, for Sam certainly was a spectacle to convulse the soberest person. Perched unsteadily on the gnarled stump, with his muddy legs drawn up, his dismal face splashed with mud, and the whole lower half of his body as black as if he had been dipped in an inkstand, he presented such a comically doleful object that ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... made my way along the windings swiftly. The air, so it seemed to me, was even more noxious with vapours than it had been when I was down there before, and I judged that Zaemon had already begun to stir those internal activities which were shortly to convulse the city. But again I had difficulty in finding an exit, and this, not because there were people moving about at the places where I had to come out, but because the set of the masonry was entirely changed. In olden times the Priests' Clan oversaw all the architects' plans, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... on the floor, roaring with laughter at one particularly silly spoken record of the "Uncle Josh at the World's Fair" order. Over and over again they would ask for that record, and it never ceased to convulse them with laughter. "He's been enjoyin' poor health lately, but this mornin' I heard him complain that he felt a little better"—how sick and tired we got of this and similar jokes drawled out a dozen times running! The natives did not understand a word of it; it was the ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... and jealousies of families with their various alliances—all the animosities which agitate social life—all the intestine broils, ambitious emulations, endless contentions, and opposing interests that distract a state—all the melancholy wars that convulse nations and desolate empires, the record of which has stained the page of history in all ages—with every particular, form, and mode of evil, discoverable in ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... conduct of the relation, a type of a religious democracy in love with the spirit of art. We do not mean that any such cold abstraction is consciously intended, but all that is said means this. It shadows forth one of the greatest desires which convulse ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... lies. Think on the wars men have fought for lies, on the millions of followers lies have had—how from their lofty seats they govern empires, convulse continents, and drive patient nations mad. Think on the money they have made, the mouths they have filled, the backs they have warmed, the houses they have built, the reputations they have created, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... in durance vile, Spreads his huge length beneath Sicilia's isle, Feels mountains, crush'd by mountains, on him prest, Close not his veins, nor still his laboring breast; His limbs convulse, his heart rebellious rolls, Earth shakes responsive to her utmost poles, While rumbling, bursting, boils his ceaseless ire, Flames to mid heaven, and sets the skies on fire. So the contristed Laurence lays him low, And hills of sleet and continents of snow Rise on his crystal ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... say?" fiercely repeated the dark Wacousta, while an expression of loathing and disgust seemed for a moment to convulse his features; "then is it as I had feared. One word more. Was the family seat called ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... unknown and unfathomable depths below, into which the waves found entrance through some subterranean channel. Even at calm times the sea was never silent in this frightful abyss, but on stormy days its fury was terrific. The wild waves boiled and thundered in their imprisonment, till they seemed to convulse the solid cliff about them, like an earthquake. But, high as they leapt up in the rocky walls of the chasm, they never leapt into sight from above. Nothing but clouds of spray indicated to the eye, what must be the horrible tumult ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... between the horse and his master out of which grew so many aspects of sublimity under accidents of mists that hid, or sudden blazes that revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight solitudes that awed. Tidings fitted to convulse all nations must henceforwards travel by culinary process; and the trumpet that once announced from afar the laurelled mail, heart-shaking when heard screaming on the wind and proclaiming itself through the darkness ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... drifting in that direction? Let every candid thinker put the question to himself and ponder it deeply, remembering, while looking for the ultimate result, that it was the bitter hostility of opposing factions which ruined the republics of old, and which to-day convulse many that might otherwise take rank among the most powerful and progressive nations of the earth, neutralizing their progress, and holding them constantly suspended above the gulf of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... weary of the ways of the world, I was conscious of a sudden pang of sympathy and grief as I looked upon the spasm of despair which, seemed to convulse this strange and beautiful woman. I bent to my books, and yet my thoughts would ever turn to her proud clear-cut face, her weather-stained dress, her drooping head, and the sorrow which lay in each line and feature of ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... illegal fees was part of a system of oppression, kindred to the famous Stamp Act—a system which was destined to grow more and more intolerable under Governor Tryon's administration, and to lead to the formation of the famous company of Regulators, whose resistance of taxation and tyranny was soon to convulse ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... for a prince of William's reputed wisdom to entertain. Yet he may not unnaturally seek to regain the former Norman influence in these realms. He knows that in you he receives the most powerful man in England; that your detention alone would convulse the country from one end of it to the other; and enable him, perhaps, to extort from Edward some measures dishonourable to us all. But against me he can harbour no ill design—my detention would avail him nothing. And, in truth, if Harold be safe in ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The old-fashioned open water sewers still remain, however, lending to the place, a rich, ripe odor. Pnom-Penh possesses a spacious and well ventilated motion-picture house, where Charlie Chaplin known to the French as "Charlot" and Fatty Arbuckle convulse the simple children of the jungle just as they convulse more sophisticated assemblages on the other side ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... the maid by her dark auburn hair, An oil-jug he plung'd her within. Seven days, seven nights, with the shrieks of despair Did Ellen in torment convulse the dim air, All cover'd ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... vicissitudes and during the whole of its brilliant career. Whatever becomes of correspondents, Punch never resigns and never dies. The baton never falls from his grasp. He sits in his arm-chair, the unshaken Master of the Revels,—though thrones totter, kings abdicate, and revolutions convulse empires. Troubles may disturb his household; but thereby the public does not suffer. He still lives,—immortal in his funny ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... draught. "It's a thraitise of moine which I ixplict to upsit the thaories of the miserable Saxon schaymers that desthort the pleen facts of antiquetee to shoot their own narrow an' disthortid comprayhinsions. An' I till ye what—whin my thraitise is published, it'll make a chumult among thim that'll convulse the litherary wurruld." ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... on his knees before her, kiss her hands and feet and the hem of her dress and beg her to listen to him . . . Then again, when he remembered the whole tragedy of the situation, he felt like springing up from his chair and smashing everything that came in his way; or again such a violent grief would convulse him that he could have cried ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... you, Frank?' ... 'I never saw the creature in my life.' ... 'Well, you'll see her now. You're to come right over and remove this spell, or we won't have any breakfast.'" Here Congdon looked solemnly round at his guests. "Now wouldn't that convulse a body? I didn't know her name; on my word, I couldn't remember how she looked. But my curiosity was roused, and over I toddled. It was all true. Karen was in the kitchen, armed with the jig-saw bread-knife and calling for me. Henry was all for my appearing ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... at each other as yellow and blue, As any electioneering crew Wearing the colours of Whigs and Tories. Ah! well the Poet said, in sooth, That "whispering tongues can poison Truth," - Yes, like a dose of oxalic acid, Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, And rack dear Love with internal fuel, Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel, Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel, - At least such torments began to wring 'em From the very morn When that mischievous Horn Caught the whisper ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, 40 In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine,[71] A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... on reading such a sine qua non and ultimatum my vox faucibus haesit and stuck in my gizzard with bashful sheepishness, for how to convulse the Thames and set it on fire and all agog with amazement at the humdrum incidents of so very ordinary an existence as mine, which is spent in the diligent study of Roman, Common, International, and Canonical Law from morn to dewy eve in the lecture-hall ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... last nimble skip the panting Hatter made for the Griffon's ladder and, seating himself upon it, refused to respond beyond a nod and a careless wave of his hand. Later he left his perch and proceeded to convulse his audience by sitting on his tall hat and taking a bite from his teacup, the three-cornered bite having been carefully removed beforehand and held temporarily in place with library paste until ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... brings out all the striking points of Helen's character, to which I have already alluded. We must not fail to remark, that though the acknowledgment is wrung from her with an agony which seems to convulse her whole being, yet when once she has given it solemn utterance, she recovers her presence of mind, and asserts her native dignity. In her justification of her feelings and her conduct, there is neither sophistry, nor self-deception, nor presumption, but a noble ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... justice, and the humanitarian spirit of the age, demand radical changes, which will come immeasurably nearer securing equal opportunities for all persons than the past dreamed possible. No sudden or rash measure calculated to convulse business and work great suffering should be entertained, but our future action should rest on a broad, settled policy founded upon justice, tempered by moderation, keeping in view the great work of banishing uninvited poverty, and elevating to a higher level the great struggling millions ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... situation of the bite renders necessary the whole action of the limbs";—and another critic says, "In the group of the Laocon, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... storms, accompanied by lightning and rumbling thunder, sweep over the earth's surface, so beneath the crust occur electric storms, accompanied with terrific combustions of gases, which in their efforts to escape convulse the outer earth, and in many ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... of a Parisian journal and gives his impression of things American as he sees them, in a series of letters to his "small Journal for to Read." Their seemingly unconscious humor is so deliciously absurd that it will convulse the reader with laughter in nearly every line. There is no dialect in them, and their humor lies entirely in the peculiar views set forth, as well as the grotesque language in which they are expressed. No ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... even at him; because we are not tickled so much by the weak points of a character whose points are all weak ones; also because we have no reverence trying to impose restraint upon us.) Still, Falstaff has indubitably the power to convulse us. I don't mean we ever are convulsed in reading Henry the Fourth. No printed page, alas, can thrill us to extremities of laughter. These are ours only if the mirthmaker be a living man whose jests we hear as they come fresh from ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... less violent, paroxysm followed. From Jeanne's lips burst some broken words. At short intervals two fresh attacks seemed about to convulse her, and then a great prostration, which again appeared to alarm the doctor, fell on the child. He had placed her so that her head lay high, with the clothes carefully tucked under her chin; and for nearly an hour he remained there watching her, ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... while her own brain, instead of being disturbed, was excited to great action. Pausing, she would declaim, verses of others, or her own, or act many parts, with strange catchwords and burdens, that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearers with laughter, sometimes to melt them to tears. When her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to re-commence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Dr. Johnson says that dirty images were as natural to Swift as sublime ones were to Milton;—we may say that images at once lambent and laughable were those which were natural to Hood. Even when his mirth is broadest, it is decent; and while the merest recollection of his drollery will often convulse the face in defiance of the best-bred muscles, no thought arises which the dying need regret. Who can ever forget "The Lost Heir," or remember it but to laugh at its rich breadth of natural, yet farcical, absurdity? The very opening begins ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... young fell into their places for a dance. All down the long kitchen they stood, Mr. and Mrs. Bassett at the top, the twins at the bottom, and then away they went, heeling and toeing, cutting pigeon-wings, and taking their steps in a way that would convulse modern children with their new-fangled romps called dancing. Mose and Tilly covered themselves with glory by the vigor with which they kept it up, till fat Aunt Cinthy fell into a chair, breathlessly declaring that a very little ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... Martie, thinly dressed, wandered about aimlessly. She never tired of the old woman's pungent reminiscences, browsing at intervals on the old magazines and books that were scattered over the house, even going into the kitchen to convulse the appreciative Henny, and make a cake or ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... power, had just terminated, adding to the Union still larger territories—now free soil indeed, but furnishing a field for renewed battles between slavery and liberty. New revolutions were about to break forth in Europe, to convulse the Eastern Hemisphere, and cause old thrones ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... ceased to convulse his frame, the prince lurched forward, and his body collapsed into an attitude not unlike that of one engaged in ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... turns suddenly so that the stimulus to action is unexpectedly withdrawn. The subject matter of the joke affects each hearer according to the type of stimuli that commonly excites that individual. Hence it is that a joke may convulse one person while it bores another, and so there are jokes of the classes, bankers' jokes, politicians' jokes, the jokes of professional men, of the plebeian, of the artist, etc. If the joke fails, the integration products of the excitation may be used in physical ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... 'gainst the coming doom. Then in the Senates of your sinking state Show me the man whose counsels may have weight. Vain is each voice where tones could once command; E'en factions cease to charm a factious land: Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle, And light with ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... things which in silence will [make thee] give utterance to such delight, and so terrify thee as to cause thee to wish to take flight. Painting stirs the senses more readily than poetry. And if thou sayest that by speech thou canst convulse a crowd with laughter or tears, I rejoin that it is not thou who stirrest the crowd, it is the pathos of the orator, and his mirth. A painter once painted a picture which caused everybody who saw it to yawn, and this ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... without either his knowledge or consent, we do not feel ourselves called upon to pursue this important subject further. All we can say is, that the violent opposition which is now organized against tithes, and which is already beginning to convulse the country, will, and even now does require, the active courage and decided abilities of ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at Donnybrook Fair. It was this species of insane logic which led him into his ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... gasconading manner in which he had been indulging, and, in a low voice, added, "In real earnest, Windham, there is one thing in America which is, every year, every month, every day, forcing on a war from which there can be no escape; a war which will convulse the republic and endanger its existence; yes, Sir, a war which will deluge the land with blood from one end ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... religious freedom. What they wish to have in Ireland is not my Lord Haddington, or any other viceroy whom the right honourable Baronet may select, but the tyranny of race over race, and of creed over creed. Give them what they want; and you convulse the empire. Refuse them; and you dissolve the Tory party. I believe that the right honourable Baronet himself is by no means without apprehensions that, if he were now called to the head of affairs, he would, very speedily, have the dilemma of ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pulse Gies now and then a wallop, What ragings must his veins convulse, That still eternal gallop: Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, Right on ye scud your sea-way; But in the teeth o' baith to sail, It makes an ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the pulse of the besieging sea Throb far away all night. I heard the wind Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms. I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, And flailing fans and shadows of the palm: The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault - The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept. The King, my neighbour, with his ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... consider more at leisure these revelations. He foreread like a placard Jeanne d'Etoiles' magnificent scheme: it would convulse all Europe. England would remain supine, because Henry Pelham could hardly hold the ministry together, even now; Newcastle was a fool; and Ormskirk would be dead. He would barter his soul for one hour of liberty, he thought. A riot, now,—ay, a riot in Paris, a blow from within, would temporarily ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... risen to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate and convulse civil society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set aside. It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all these elements might combine to overthrow the new ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... malkaveta. Convey alporti. Convey (by vehicle) veturigi. Conveyance veturilo. Convict (man) kondamnulo. Convict kondamnato. Conviction kondamno. Convince konvinki. Convocation kunvoko. Convolution konvolvado—ajxo. Convolvulus konvolvulo. Convoy veturilaro. Convulse konvulsii. Convulsion kunvulsio. Cook kuiri. Cook (man) kuiristo. Cookery kuirado. Cool malvarmetigi. Cool malvarmeta. Coolness malvarmeto. Coop kagxego. Coop kagxigi. Cooper ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... nature, False and fickle, vain and weak"— What of this sad nomenclature Suits my tongue, if I must speak? Does the sex invite, repulse so, Tempt, betray, by fits and starts? So becalm but to convulse so, Decking heads and ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... kept the little company shouting with laughter, and finally rose and got off an impromptu piece of doggerel with exactly ten verses, and each child's name and some peculiarity brought out in a way to convulse even mammas and the maids, was as indescribable as delightful. I am not sure that he did not enjoy it more than any of the grand entertainments that he had been asked to; and as for the children, they remember ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... feebly, and said, "Brayvo, Cuffy," with evident delight; for it reminded him of the days when that little shred of a door-mat, in the might of its vigour, was wont to wag its tail so violently as to convulse its whole body, insomuch that it was difficult to decide whether the tail wagged the body, or ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... in his ears. The remembrance of the menace on Morella's dull face as she had watched Theodora depart, and, above all, Wensleydown's behavior as they all said good-night: nothing for him actually to take hold of, and yet enough to convulse ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... Buddhist temple. Together with the intellectual vanity which it fostered, our new faith was commended to us by its flavor of the secret, the hazardous, and the forbidden. We were delightfully conscious of being concerned in a species of conspiracy, which if it came to light would convulse the college and the community, have us expelled, and cause no end of ...
— A Positive Romance - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... he could hardly be surpassed, but he might be approached. Webster, Emery, Addison, could play Daddy Hardacre, or the father in "The Porter's Knot"; but none but himself could at once awe and convulse in Medea and the Yellow Dwarf. These domestic dramas interested, however, as much by their subject as by the excellence of his acting. Moreover, the public are apt sometimes to grow weary of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... and then Davy began to laugh. First came a low gurgle like that of suppressed bubbles in a fountain, then a sharp, crackling breaker of sound, and then a long, deep roar of liberated mirth that seemed to shake and heave the whole man, and to convulse the very air ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... hopes of restoring the fallen supremacy of its religion—motives, in every age, the most absorbing among the wild impulses of man. I repeatedly warned the Irish cabinet against an outbreak, which, if it succeeded, must convulse the empire; and which, even if it failed, must cost the heaviest sacrifices to the country. My advice was answered by professions of perfect security, and magnanimous declarations of the wisdom of extinguishing peril by exhibiting the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... for his inaction. In amplifying his instructions not to provoke a collision into instructions not to fight at all, I have no doubt he thought he was rendering a real service to the country. He knew the first shot fired by us would light the flames of a civil war that would convulse the world, and tried to put off the evil day as long as possible. Yet a better analysis of the situation might have taught him that the contest had already commenced, and could no longer be avoided. The leaders of the South at this period would hardly have been satisfied ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... replied Galerius, with a transport of fury, which seemed to convulse his whole frame, "it well becomes the Persians to expatiate on the vicissitudes of fortune, and calmly to read us lectures on the virtues of moderation. Let them remember their own moderation, towards the unhappy Valerian. They vanquished him by fraud, they treated him with indignity. They detained ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... all over Germany, a spirit of deep and settled enmity was manifesting itself in the shape of patriotic clubs (the chief being called the Tugend-bund, or Alliance of Virtue), which included the young and the daring of every class, and threatened, at no distant period, to convulse the whole fabric of society with the one purpose of clearing the national soil of its foreign oppressors. Napoleon affected to deride, but secretly estimated at its true importance, the danger of such associations, if permitted to take firm root among a people so numerous, so enthusiastic, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the words spoken before Phedre rushes into the room to commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her passion mastered what remained of modesty or reserve in her nature, the woman sprang forward and recoiled again, with the movements of a panther, striving, as it seemed, to tear from her ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... circumstances may differ, but they differ far less than the inward reactions that follow; and the insignificant, incomplete event that falls on a fertile heart and brain will readily attain the moral proportions and grandeur of an analogous incident which, on another plane, will convulse a people. ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... man of his times; and he possessed the faculty of adapting himself to his audience, and to the changing feelings of an audience, to a degree which few men ever attain. In a moment he could melt a popular audience to tears or convulse it with laughter. He could be plain or ornate, coarse or courteous. The eloquence of invective and vituperation was carried by O'Connell to a very inglorious perfection. His eulogies were as dextrous and expressive as they were, nevertheless, morally repugnant ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... kontrauxo, malo. contrast : kontrasti. contrive : elpensi. control : estri, regi. convenient : oportuna. conversation : interparolado, konversacio. convict : kondamnito. convince : konvinki. convolvulus : konvolvolo. convulse : konvulsio, spasmo. copper : kupro. copy : kopii; ekzemplero. coral : koralo. cord : sxnuro. core : korajxo, internajxo. cork : korko; sxtopi, corn : greno; (foot), kalo. corner : angulo. correct : korekti; gxusta, senerara. correspond : korespondi. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... principles of absolutism and democracy; but there has been no general war, like those of the French Revolution, like the American, or the Seven Years' War, or like the War of the Spanish Succession. It would be far too much to augur from this, that no similar wars will again convulse the world; but the value of the period of peace which Europe has gained, is incalculable; even if we look on it as only a truce, and expect again to see the nations of the earth recur to what some philosophers have termed man's natural ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... enjoyment. Willie followed him, as did Carara. Even Cloudy showed his teeth, and the two young people on the porch found themselves joining in from infection. It was patent that here lay some subtle humor sufficient to convulse the Far Western nature beyond all reason; for Stover essayed repeatedly to check his laughter before gasping, finally: "Gosh 'lmighty! I never can get past that place. He! He! He! Whoo-hoo! That's sure ridic'lous, for ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... ruined for a century to come. The nation is thrown back fifty years; this, of itself, is an important result. When the first moment of enthusiasm is past, this reflexion will fill them with consternation." The conclusion which he drew was, that so violent a shock would convulse the throne of Alexander, and force that prince to sue ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur |
