"Hysterical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of individuals who can produce seizures such as Mohammed was wont to evoke at will. One type is the hysterical, and the other is that degraded individual who for the sake of collecting alms will place a piece of soap in his mouth, enter a crowded street, fall to the ground, and proceed to foam at the mouth and twist and contort himself as an epileptic ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... broken every glass on the table. It would not have surprised him in the least if she had torn handfuls of hair off the King's head. To his amazement she laughed. It was a most unpleasant laugh. But it was not the laugh of a lunatic. It was not even hysterical. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... it, beyond all doubt, they have not taken: the movers in these meetings from first to last would not make fifteen thousand; and the inert subscribers of Petitions would not make seventy thousand. Secondly, in spite of the hysterical violence manifested by the letter of the Premier, and partly in consequence of that violence (so theatrical and foreign to Lord John's temperament), many doubt whether he himself carried any sincerity with the movement. And this doubt is strengthened by the singular indecorum of his having addressed ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Lalage who did this while the rest were gaping helplessly. I dont remember what followed. I thought I had fainted; but it appears that I nearly cried, and talked the most awful nonsense to her. I suppose the choking made me hysterical. However, I distinctly recollect the stage manager bullying the girls, and turning us all out. I was very angry with myself for being childish, as they told me I had been; and when I got back to Cambridge I actually took to reading. A few months afterward I made another ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... susceptibility of man in these directions is increased and intensified, and exercised upon a superior plane, when it is utilized by intelligent spirit operators. It is not true that sensitiveness is confined to those who are diseased, weak of will, neurotic, or hysterical. Those who are susceptible to psychic influence may be impulsive, warm-hearted, spontaneous, sociable, and not by any means, or of necessity, weak-minded or vicious." Dr. Dean Clake says: "The word mediumship, as ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... unsupported trumpery, but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the Ploughman's dreams, no stories from the 'Terrific Register,' nor fancies of hysterical females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins should be excluded: and, in lieu of all such common-places, I should propose an anecdotic treatise in the manner scientifical. Macnish's 'Philosophy of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... before Jenkins, the long-suffering maid, succeeded in settling her mistress to her satisfaction behind the curtains of her berth. The girls made no attempt to get into the dressing-room until the little comedy was over. They laughed until they were hysterical over each scene as it occurred. A comedy in three acts, Betty called it—the losing of the cold-cream bottle and the finding of same in madam's overshoe. The unavailing search for a certain black silk handkerchief in which ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... read—she heard it not, her brain was bewildered. She was led back to her seat, and then it was that all her courage, all her constancy and fortitude gave way; and during the remainder of the ceremony, she filled the Cathedral with her wild hysterical sobbing; all entreaties or threats being ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... religious enthusiasm a remarkable phenomenon often attended these festivals, when excitement began to run high, as it was certain to do among a Celtic people. This was the barking of certain highly strung hysterical women. In time it became quite a usual feature, but now, happily, it is a part of the ceremony which has almost entirely disappeared. There is a legend in connexion with this custom that the Virgin appeared before some women disguised as a beggar, and asked ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... and write after a fashion, and was intelligent, but ignorant, deceitful, superstitious, and hysterical. Mrs. Caldwell continually lectured Beth about going into the kitchen so much; but she only lectured on principle really. Young ladies could not be allowed to associate with servants as a rule, but an exception might be made in the case of a good, steady, sober ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... celebrated exorcist, (an inferior hand having failed,) she, or the demon in possession, among other things accused Gaufridi. Her revelations may be resolved into an imposture instigated by revenge, or a pious fraud caused by remorse, or hysterical fits, with utterance shaped by memory; but what can be said of Gaufridi's, made with a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... it had produced six millions. Scores of miners staked their claims upon or near the Comstock lode and most of them sought capital in San Francisco. Washerwomen, bankers, teamsters—every class was bitten by the microbe of hysterical investment. Some had made great fortunes; none apparently thus ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... had at least good primary school teaching. But though they read—clean, healthy English books—this, so far from making them inclined to favour frantic or immoral social experiments, should have, one may hope, just the opposite effect. Far from being a spectacled, angular, hysterical, uncomfortable race, perpetually demanding extravagant changes in shrill tones, they are, at least, as distinguished for womanly modesty, grace, and affection, as Englishwomen in any other part ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... which included the famous Shafton Emeralds, and a string of pearls worth a hundred thousand dollars, and let them down from her window as directed, and then fainted, knowing nothing more till her maid hearing her fall, rushed into the room and found her unconscious. When roused she became hysterical and told what had happened. Then remembering the threat of death for telling ahead of time she became crazy with grief, and it was almost impossible to soothe her. The maid called her family physician, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... her with matronly solicitude, and at the last moment Harriet flung herself impetuously upon her neck and broke out into hysterical crying. ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... making for her, made Popocatepetl quite hysterical. She arched her back, spit angrily, and then dove from the table. In her flight she overturned the china cup of molasses which fell to the floor and broke. The sticky liquid ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... at the breakfast table. Jennie simply announced her intention of immediate departure; all questions as to her health, happiness, and possible reasons were met only with a parrot-like repetition of the fact. Upon closer pressing she gave way to hysterical tears, Dorothea the while assisting the scene with round, innocent eyes and the bewildered air of one suddenly made aware ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... as badly as that?" he asked, and her answer was a low, rather hysterical little laugh, coming nearer bitterness than anything he had ever heard ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete evaporation ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... looked up frankly. "I saw no reason for speaking. She accuses herself without a shadow of reason; it's mere hysterical conscientiousness. We have known each other for half a year or so, and I have made love to her, but I never had the least encouragement. I knew all along she didn't care for me. How is she to blame? A girl ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... so kind, doctor," she sobbed, and drank, with hysterical gurglings, the glass of water Mahony poured out for her. "Yes, I will tell you everything. It began years ago—when Eddy was only a tot in jumpers. It used to amuse my husband to see him toss off a glass of wine like a grown-up person; and ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... as big as his goggles, but he did not say a word. And presently, after three rather hysterical attempts, Bland set the propeller whirring, and ran out to one side, his hands up as though he feared for his life if he lowered them. The motor's hum increased to the steady roar which Johnny's ear recognized as the sound Bland got from it when ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... paroxysm, I have readily perceived the pulse there. On the other hand, when the heart pulsates more languidly, it is often impossible to feel the pulse not merely in the fingers, but the wrist, and even at the temple, as in persons afflicted with lipothymiae asphyxia, or hysterical symptoms, and in ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... leading a company of Snake warriors that the squaw had recognized as her own people, from whom she had been wrested when a child. The Indians broke into songs of delight, and Sacajawea, dashing through the crowd, threw her arms round an Indian woman, sobbing and laughing and exhibiting all the hysterical delight of a demented creature. Sacajawea and the woman had been playmates in childhood and had been captured in the same war; but the Snake woman had escaped, while Sacajawea became a slave and married the ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... "Evidently you don't know Uncle Elbert, after all. He's as temperamentally unfit to carry through a job of this sort as a hysterical old lady. Besides, even though they haven't met for so long, I suppose his own daughter would recognize him, wouldn't she? I never gave that idea a thought. Like his wife, he says he wants to have nothing whatever to do with it. In fact, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... he would think no more; he would act. The long talk with Lord Evelyn had enabled him to pull himself together; there would be no repetition of that half-hysterical collapse. More than one of his officer-friends had confessed to him that they had spent the night before their first battle in abject terror, but that that had all gone off as soon as they were called into action. And as for himself, he had many things ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... working yourself to death," she said gently. "Buck, you're hysterical. What have you to fear from Dan? Isn't he your friend? Hasn't he proved it a ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... height only when twoscore people, mostly young, were tightly clustered upon their knees about the rail, and in the space opening upon the aisle. Above the confusion of penitential sobs and moans, and the hysterical murmurings of members whose conviction of entire sanctity kept them in their seats, could be heard the voices of the Presiding Elder, the Soulsbys, and the elderly deacons of the church, who moved about among the kneeling ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... form-room next door, and delegated his duty to the yet unenlightened McTurk, with an hysterical precis of the campaign thus far. So it was McTurk, of the wooden visage, who brought the clothes from the dormitory while Beetle panted on a form. Then the three buried themselves in Number Five lavatory, turned on all the taps, filled the place ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... the kitchen fire listening to the raging of the storm, Martha close beside her in wordless sympathy, and when Dr. Clay came in with, the good news that the operation was over, and the great man believed that Libby Anne would live, she was almost hysterical with joy. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... it had been terrible. He was glad that Eve could sleep. He couldn't understand why Austin had allowed Marie-Louise to take such a trip. Her fear of storms was evidently quite uncontrollable. And she was at all times hysterical and high-strung. ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... ran forward and, throwing her arms about her guardian's neck with a little hysterical sob, she exclaimed, "Oh, I thought ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... what on earth she was crying about, and herself told her she was a little hysterical fool, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... safe—he's safe?" cried Joe; and his manliness all departed in his wild excitement, for he burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing. He mastered his emotion ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... the groves give a shout; the hurricane is only an hysterical laugh; and the lightning that blasts, blasts only in play. We must laugh or we die; to laugh is to live. Not to laugh is to have the tetanus. Will you weep? then laugh while you weep. For mirth and sorrow are kin; are published by identical nerves. Go, Yoomy: go study ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... you all this. It's been ten years since I've talked it. But your telling me that you threw it all over—that little home out there, and a man that was driving down deeply the stakes of his home—threw it over because the black spot from his collar button made you feel hysterical—Oh, I tell you there is a grin through the scheme of things. A laugh. What old man Metz used to call ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... don't believe in it. My dear, your strong mind is all humbug, or you would not look so frightened," and again she was on the verge of hysterical laughing; "it is only that I can't stand a chorus of old ladies in commotion. How happy Alick must be to have his prediction verified by some one tumbling over a hoop!" Just then, however, seeing Mr. Carleton still lingering near, she caught hold of Rachel ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remarks apply equally to the various forms of chronic rheumatism, chorea, paralysis agitans, infantile paralysis, hysterical paralysis, mercurial and lead poisoning, muscular atrophy; rigid atrophy, consequent upon the rheumatic diathesis; locomotor ataxia, as a result of rheumatism; syphilis, or local injury; cranial, facial, and intercostal neuralgia; sciatica, lumbago, and their allied affections, ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet
... and then she was vexed at herself that the laugh changed to a sob and the tears came. Was she hysterical? It was very unlike her, but this seemed something like it. Neither could she immediately conquer the strangling sensation, between laughter and crying, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... that here a highly developed 'stregheria' was already in existence, resting on a different set of ideas. The Italian witch practiced a trade, and needed for it money and, above all, sense. We find nothing about her of the hysterical dreams of the Northern witch, of marvelous journeys through the air, of Incubus and Succubus; the business of the 'strega' was to provide for other people's pleasures. If she was credited with the power of assuming ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... overhead ... and that noon the bright faces and laughter in the hallway! It seemed unreal; like ghosts revisiting; and he learned later that the first morning the hat factory had set to work, some of the girls had become hysterical. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... gave her undivided attention to her mistress, who bade fair to be hysterical for ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... in the habits of the two animals according to our English natural histories: and I have therefore slightly retouched the Captain, and curled his whiskers. I have also taken the liberty, in the seventh chapter, of curing Miss Walladmor of an hysterical affection: what purpose it answered, I believe you would find it hard to say: and I am sure she has ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... 'it is as Boris says. The house is dark and they are hiding in it. Bolt the door and let them come up to us; and we will kill them—kill!—kill!—kill!' he ended with an unearthly shriek and a burst of hysterical sobs. ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... topic. And, in order to get as far from love as possible, she turned to business. When she and her friend descended the broad stairway of the mansion Lana was discoursing on the need of coaxing men of big commercial affairs into politics. Her views were rather immature and her fervor was a bit hysterical, but the subject was plainly more to her taste than that on which Mrs. Stanton had ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... both directions at once; that the world turns away on Good Friday from the unutterable depths of her sorrow, and on Easter Day from the unscalable heights of her joy, calling the one morbid and the other hysterical? For what does the world know of such passions as these? What, after all, can the sensualist know of joy, or the ruined financier of sorrow? And what can the moderate, self-controlled, self-respecting man of ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... it is worse than I thought," said the old groceryman as he laughed a hysterical laugh through the long whiskers, and he hugged the boys as though he had a liking for them, notwithstanding the suffering they had caused him. "By gosh, I thought you were nothing but common robbers, who just wanted my money. You ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... with thoughts which pressed their tongues to silence. When they were clear of the town, however, Elsa could contain herself no more; indeed, the anguish awakened in her mind by the sight of Ramiro working upon nerves already overstrung had made her half-hysterical. She began to speak; the words broke from her like water from a dam which it has breached. She told Foy that she had seen the man, and more—much more. All the misery which she had suffered, all the love for the father who was lost ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... thee. I have looked to that also. Holy One, my heart is very heavy for my many carelessnesses towards thee.' An hysterical catch rose in his throat. 'I have walked thee too far: I have not picked good food always for thee; I have not considered the heat; I have talked to people on the road and left thee alone ... I have—I have ... Hai mai! But I love thee ... and it is all too late ... I was a child ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... minute Elta stood in the doorway gazing wonderingly at this strange scene. Then her mother caught sight of the girl's wide-eyed bewilderment, and burst into a fit of laughter that was almost hysterical. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... in the latter, being his broad and wild fun; Swiveller, and the Dodger, and Sam Weller, and Miggs, are more impressive far to my taste than the melo-dramatic, utterly unreal Dombey, or his strumous and hysterical son, or than all the later dreary trash of "Bleak ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... hysterical laughter. "Right!" she cried. "Right! Uncle Wesley, you should have seen me among them! I was a picture! They'll never forget me. No, they won't get the chance, for they'll see ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... the ladies rose and retired. Then, after looking at his watch, he beckoned to one of his sons to take his place; and quietly left the room. He only stopped once, as he crossed the hall, to ask news of his daughter from one of the servants. The reply was, that she had had a hysterical fit; that the medical attendant of the family had been sent for; and that since his arrival she had become more composed. When the man had spoken, Mr. Langley made no remark, but proceeded at once to the library. He locked the door behind ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... sandwich in one hand and poured himself out some tea with the other. He ate and drank with the restraint of good-breeding, but with a voracity which gave point to his plea of starvation. A few yards away, the breathless silence between the two women had given place to an almost hysterical ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... woman began to laugh, vacantly and foolishly at first, and with short interruptions of silence, but then more loudly, and by degrees more continuously, till the spasms grew wild and hysterical, and bad to hear. Sister Giovanna went quickly to her and at once tried to put a stop to the attack. The Princess was rolling her head from side to side on the pillows, with her arms stretched out on each side of her and her white hands clawing at the broad hem of the sheet with all their strength, ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... the silverware is not properly cleaned, and is used over and over at frequent intervals, and in which there is a careless and unsanitary type of personal service, can hardly be regarded as safe. While there is no need for hysterical alarm over such possibilities, it is just as well to provide for them. Crowding, close quarters, and insufficient sanitary conveniences in stores and offices, in restaurants or tenements, provide just the conditions in which accidental infection may ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... results are not sufficiently known. At the most there exist some indications—e.g. in Morselli's masterly work (2)—of the existence of some concordances between the phenomenology of mediumism and hysterical, hysteroid, or at least "sensitive" temperaments. And I believe that—with the help of their own publications, properly analysed—it would not be too difficult to attribute one or the other of such physio-psychic varieties to those persons who ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... though with a number of changes in their arrangement. In September, 1888, he began actual work upon the first volume, and before the end of the month it was completed. The Summer had been one of almost hysterical creative activity. Since the middle of June he had written two other small books, "The Case of Wagner" and "The Twilight of the Idols," and before the end of the year he was destined to write "Ecce Homo." Some time during December his health began to fail ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... and vigorous bandits!" she continued in hysterical enthusiasm. "I adore them. I should like to have them in my home, as they have gold-fishes in a globe, to feed them every hour, to see how they ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... was smothering the hysterical enthusiasm of her old friend, Dinah. It was as she had expected: Oliphant had grown more suspicious and difficult for the last two years, and had refused to see a doctor, or, in fact, anyone but the Rev. Dr. Shapless and a country lawyer ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... to curse with amazing fluency in French and Arabic, while his orderly fell into half-hysterical prayer. Bristol—stolid Englishman though he was—had to make a strong effort to keep his teeth from chattering. The two Italians, one with an ugly wound on the jaw, burst out laughing, waving their arms extravagantly. Simonds shouted jubilation and began to jump about in ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... feet. Hector had turned Trimmer's greatest danger into the means of victory. The Trimmer people led one of those extraordinary hysterical processions round the aisles that you see sometimes in a convention (a thing I never get used to), and it was all Trimmer, or rather, it was all Hector. Trimmer was nominated on ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... hostile criticism afflicted him. The seeds of a suspicious temper were nourished by prosperity itself. The author of the Armida and the Jerusalem began to think the attentions he received unequal to his merits; while with a sort of hysterical mixture of demand for applause, and provocation of censure, he not only condescended to read his poems in manuscript wherever he went, but, in order to secure the goodwill of the papal licenser, he transmitted it for revisal to Rome, where it was mercilessly ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... bridegroom!" she screamed, with hysterical laughter, and pointed mockingly at what seemed to be the corpse ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... do not know how good he is, nor how he raises me! I never knew the sort of creature I was until he told me. He said once, when we quarrelled, that I was fanciful, sentimental, lackadaisical, hysterical, and in an unhealthy state ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... to laugh and cry alternately, as the misfortune and its absurdity fully appeared, and Helena saw that the girl was fast becoming hysterical. Evidently, in their wearer's eyes, the beautiful frock now so badly smirched and the white gloves which had split asunder in her fall were treasures beyond compute, and Helena herself loved pretty clothes. She felt a keen sympathy in that ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... struggling against the old crone, were Betty and Amy, disheveled and almost hysterical, but otherwise safe ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... fond study of the past, as Quintilian; or in minute and pedantic erudition, as Aulus Gellius. The literature of the Silver Age is throughout conscious of its powerlessness; and this consciousness deadens it into tame acquiescence or galls it into hysterical effort, according to the time and temperament of the author. Pliny the younger and Quintilian alone show the happily-balanced disposition of the Golden Age; but what they gain in classic finish they lose in human interest. The decay of Greece had been insignificant, ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... upon her face and figure. Through his growing indignation Rand was still impressed and even startled with the change the few last months had wrought upon her. In place of the silly, fanciful, half-hysterical hoyden whom he had known, a matured woman, strong in passionate self-will, fascinating in a kind of wild, savage beauty, looked up at him as if ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the grueling disappoints, the unceasing sacrifices? Then abandon your great career and join the army of useful music workers who are teaching the young people of the land to love music as it should be loved,—not in hysterical outbursts in the concert hall but in the home circle. If you have the unextinguishable fire within your soul, if you have the talent from on high, if you have health, energy, system, vitality, nothing can stop you from becoming great. Advice, interferences, ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... of half-frightened open-mouthed staring, had suddenly burst into a violent fit of almost hysterical giggling, which he seemed ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... me come!" George cried victoriously. "I told you I should!" He was far too agitated to think of shaking hands, and seemed to be in a state of fever. All his gestures were those of a proud, hysterical conqueror, and like a conqueror he gazed down at Edwin and Janet, who stood beneath him with upturned faces. He had absolutely forgotten the existence of his acquaintances in the carriage. "Did you know I've had the influenza? My temperature was up to 104 once—but it ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... tries to tease and plague me now. You and Jean, and father, and that old fool, Rouel, are all alike," and Annot gave symptoms of hysterical tears. ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... breakfasted in the seclusion of their several apartments, with their hair in crimping-pins. Miss Granger was too perfect a being to crinkle her hair, or to waste three hours on dressing, even for a wedding. Lady Laura showed herself among her guests, for a quarter of an hour or so, in a semi-hysterical flutter; so anxious that everything should go off well, so fearful that something might happen, she knew not what, to throw the machinery of her arrangements ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Tom Barnum arrived at the Temples', they found the household in a great state of excitement. Some of the maids were hysterical. But Frank and Della, with a few sharp-spoken words, shamed the women and brought them to their senses. However, it was not to be wondered at that hysteria prevailed, as there were few men about to give protection in case of an attack on the house, the butler being an ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... cracked loudly over the horse's back, and the hansom, lurching into Thirty-fourth Street on one wheel, was presently jouncing eastward over rough cobbles, at a regardless pace which roused the gongs of the surface cars to a clangor of hysterical expostulation. In a trice the "L" extension was roaring overhead; and a little later the ferry gates were yawning before them. Again Maitland consulted his watch, commenting briefly: ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... slightest manifestation of pity, nor was there a single word of gloating. They watched and then they went away, leaving the victims to be disposed of by the men selected for the purpose. No shouts, no execrations, no hysterical cries or sobs,—nothing save the grim silence of awe. For these people, even to the tiniest child, had ceased to live in ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... cheerful assurance would have proved absolutely disastrous to me had I not been sitting close to my friend and able to whisper to her: "Please dig your nails into my wrist—hard." Any bodily pain was preferable to the hysterical laughter which had been so long ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... of hysterical sobs and hurried toward the door. Elizabeth would have gone to her but she pushed her aside and rushed into the front hall and up the stairs. They heard her sobs ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... Roundhead preacher." He laughs, and she, and then I—all three together in the rain are overtook by an unreasonable gust or clap of laughter, which none the less eased us. We call it in medicine the Hysterical Passion. So I went home ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... and rushed for a farther corner of the church, while the more hysterical fainted. Even strong men were for ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... the floor, for she could hardly walk, even when so determined to come over, and greet her granddaughter. And when her arms were twined around the weak little figure on the bed, and she pressed her to her matronly bosom, Joey's mother broke down in hysterical sobs, and, in turn, twined her arms about the neck ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... I can only be happy with you, my father!" she cried; but it was of no avail. He, being a father and not a mother, was unable to perceive what was in the girl's heart. He considered it quite natural that she should be a trifle hysterical in anticipating her new life—that strange untraveled country! Ah, is there anything more pathetic, he thought, than a girl's anticipations of wifehood? But he would do his duty, and he fancied that he was doing his ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... odd little way they had showing the small white teeth and forming the dimples in cheeks and chin. So great was the girl's relief; so appalled was she at what might have been, that the conflict of emotions made her almost hysterical. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... rest," she insisted, only a tell-tale pink rim around her blue eyes betraying the hysterical collapse she had ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Now a baying mob ramped through the street, with jangle "Hang him! Hang him! String him up!" Borne on by a hysterical company I saw, first a figure bloody-chested and inert flat in the dust, with stooping figures trying to raise him; then, beyond, a man bareheaded, whiskered, but as white as death, hustled to and fro from clutching hands ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... timber head, is it time now to palter? Alsatian Westermann clutches him by the throat with drawn sabre: whereupon the Timber-headed believes. In this manner wanes the slow night; amid fret, uncertainty and tocsin; all men's humour rising to the hysterical pitch; and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... themselves down exhausted between the guns. The fact was that I was suffering from the reaction that was inevitable after so fierce and protracted a fight—the battle having lasted for over an hour—and I felt that I must bestir myself or I should become light-headed, or hysterical, or something equally foolish. I, therefore, rose to my feet, called to the steward to bring me a glass of water—the water-cask which usually stood on deck having been smashed to staves early in the fight—and then gave orders for the men to secure ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... it is absolutely truthful. The liar is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander, he may be worse than most thieves. It puts a premium upon knavery untruthfully to attack an honest man, or even with hysterical exaggeration to assail a bad man with untruth. An epidemic of indiscriminate assault upon character does not good, but very great harm. The soul of every scoundrel is gladdened whenever an honest man is assailed, or even when a scoundrel is ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... exegesis. As to the Song of Solomon, its influence upon Christian Mysticism has been simply deplorable. A graceful romance in honour of true love was distorted into a precedent and sanction for giving way to hysterical emotions, in which sexual imagery was freely used to symbolise the relation between the soul and its Lord. Such aberrations are as alien to sane Mysticism as they ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the compartment the Princess was seated where I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed her hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said in a hysterical way, 'You are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have ...
— In the Fog • Richard Harding Davis
... joined the Salvation Army with her protegee (religion had all the attraction of the impliedly forbidden to the Madigans), and was discovered by Francis Madigan one evening on C Street, putting up a fluent prayer in a nasal tremolo—an excellent imitation of the semi-hysterical falsetto of the bonneted enthusiast who had ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... these fascinations, Barbara's thoughts seemed to have been still running on what Kit had said at tea-time; for, when they were coming out of the play, she asked him, with an hysterical simper, if Miss Nell was as handsome as the lady who jumped over ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... terror to hysterical laughter as the driver pulled up short and a group of barefooted children broke in front of his horses and scuttled out of the dust into the road-side bushes like a covey of quails. There seemed to be a dozen of them, nearly all the same ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... round chest, no neck, a great ruddy frill of a beard, the tufted eyebrows, the 'What do you want, damn you!' look about the eyes, and the whole catalogue. When the ape-man stood by Challenger and put his paw on his shoulder, the thing was complete. Summerlee was a bit hysterical, and he laughed till he cried. The ape-men laughed too—or at least they put up the devil of a cacklin'—and they set to work to drag us off through the forest. They wouldn't touch the guns and things—thought them dangerous, I expect—but they carried away all our ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for her removal. He even gave me her life! But he lied; he did not mean it. He loved her too well, and meant to deceive me and marry her, and I have deceived him and shall marry him, that is all!" and Angelique laughed a hysterical laugh, such as Dives in his torments may sometimes ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... himself, knowing that the laugh was partly hysterical, and closely followed Henry who was now turning toward the west, leading them through rolling country, clothed in the same unbroken forest and undergrowth. It was his idea to find a creek or brook and then wade ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... rather hysterical at this, and it was necessary for Calvin to soothe and quiet her; Mr. Cheeseman meanwhile inspected the harnesses critically, and expressed his opinion that they was a first-rate set out, and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Ally free, massa? Am de chile FREE? she exclaimed, taking him in her arms, and bursting into a hysterical fit of weeping. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... not by you. I did not mean that. I did not expect that you should misinterpret them." Then she laughed hysterically,—a little low, gurgling, hysterical laugh; and after that she wiped her eyes, and then she smiled, and then she put her hand very gently upon his shoulder. "Thank God, Conway, we are ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... stages of development demand and make proper. For American literature we want mighty authors, not even Carlyle- and Heine-like, born and brought up in (and more or less essentially partaking and giving out) that vast abnormal ward or hysterical sick-chamber which in many respects Europe, with all its glories, would seem to be. The greatest feature in current poetry (perhaps in literature anyhow) is the almost total lack of first-class power, and simple, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Virginia, in a glow, climbed with Captain Lige to the hurricane deck. There they stood for a while in silence, watching the broad stern of the Barbara growing smaller. "Just to think," Miss Carvel remarked, with a little hysterical sigh, "just to think that some of those people brought bronze clocks ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... too much for poor Muriel's overwrought nerves. She, too, gave way in a tempest of sobs, and, subsiding on one of the native stools hard by, burst into tears herself with half-hysterical violence. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... dangerous to the king, was on its discovery attended with more fatal consequences to themselves. Elizabeth Barton, of Aldington, in Kent, commonly called the "holy maid of Kent," had been subject to hysterical fits, which threw her body into unusual convulsions; and having produced an equal disorder in her mind, made her utter strange sayings, which, as she was scarcely conscious of them during the time, had soon after entirely escaped her memory. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... for Grant, even more than she, hated to spend money where a show could not be made with it. But Captain de la Tour was rather insistent and got on her nerves. In an hysterical fit, therefore, she made a clean breast of the story to her husband. When she had described to him as well as she could what was in the letters, and what a Bohemian sort of life she had led in Bel-Abbes, ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... her right side to unilateral hallucinations of sight and hearing. Now Charcot[2752] considered unilateral hallucinations of sight to be common in cases of hysteria.[2753] He even thought that in hysterical subjects they are allied to a hemianaesthesia situated on the same side of the body, and which in Jeanne would be on the right side. Jeanne's trial might have proved the existence of this hemianaesthesia, ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... was taken home in the carriage with the distinguished prelate to escape the deluge. The various conveyances plunged down the hillside post-haste, with lightning crashing on every side. Some of the ladies in the party became hysterical. Miss Cooper alone was perfectly calm. "With a bishop by my side," she exclaimed, "I am not in ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... woman to be economically independent, give her the opportunity for full knowledge of all that pertains to motherhood; make the motherhood a pure and beautiful manifestation of physical activity if you will, but without forgetting that it is only simple and natural; avoiding that hysterical glorification of the function in poetry and the hiding of it in actual life as if it were an unclean thing. But the important matter is to understand that a woman has a right to bear a child if she wish. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... letter gives me credit for more acute feelings than I possess; for though I feel tolerably miserable, yet I am at the same time subject to a kind of hysterical merriment, or rather laughter without merriment, which I can neither account for nor conquer, and yet I do not feel relieved by it; but an indifferent person would think me in excellent spirits. "We must forget these things," and have recourse to our old selfish comforts, or ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... rumbled nearer and nearer. Now and then a vivid flash of lightning split the sombre clouds. At such times the nervous girls would jump in their seats, and there would follow hysterical, though quickly subdued, bursts of laughter from their more stolid ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope |
