"Momentary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to find their parents. They reached the church; the congregation was singing; silently, and unobserved, they entered, and seated themselves at the remotest part of the building. The singing ceased; there was a momentary pause, and their father rose before them. Oh, how he was changed! Pale, very pale, thin and sad was his dear face; and Emma's and Anna's hearts smote them, as being the cause of this change. They leaned forward to catch a glimpse of their mother, but in her accustomed seat sat a lady dressed in black, ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... the first house you passed," answered the Major and, as he noticed a momentary satisfaction flicker upon his victim's face, he added, "But you will not do well to expect help from 'The Porch'—at all events in time to be of much service to you. You hardly appreciate that we have been at some pains to come up with you. We are not likely again to find so many circumstances ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... hesitating voice faltered, and he suddenly brushed his hand across his poor dim eyes. The pathos of this hint was not lost on Walden, who, forgetting all his own momentary irritation, rose manfully to the occasion and roared down the old man's ears like one of the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... was brought home in irons from the world he had discovered. A general burst of indignation arose in Cadiz, and its neighboring city, Seville, which was immediately echoed throughout all Spain.... However Ferdinand might have secretly felt disposed towards Columbus, the momentary tide of public feeling was not to be resisted. He joined with his generous queen in her reprobation of the treatment of the admiral, and both sovereigns hastened to give evidence to the world, that ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... withdrew her apron, and tenderly dusted the highly colored features of an Indian squaw, whose head-feathers reposed upon her arm. Then she placed it on a corner of the stove where its imposing dignity produced a momentary impression upon even ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... midst of her pious emotion, she was unable to subdue her conscience. It smote her heavily for her meditated falsity to Richard, for her miserable readiness to succumb to the strong temptation to seek a momentary resting-place in his gaping heart. She recoiled from this thought as from an act cruel and immoral. Was Richard's heart the place for her now, any more than it had been a month before? Was she to apply for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... wit, thought she, is like a noisy squib, the momentary terror of passengers; Lady Delacour's like an elegant firework, which we crowd to see, and cannot forbear to applaud; but Lady Anne Percival's wit is like the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... simultaneously by one object, I can hardly, if my eyes are shut, help believing that there are two marbles instead of one. But it is not my touch in this case, nor my sight in the other, which is deceived; the deception, whether durable or only momentary, is in my judgment. From my senses I have only the sensations, and those are genuine. Being accustomed to have those or similar sensations when, and only when, a certain arrangement of outward objects is present to my organs, I have the habit of instantly, when I experience the sensations, inferring ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... fast in the birdlime of that pleasure, as to protest (so oft as we discussed it) that I could never lead a single life; and urged in my defence when I saw him wonder, that there was great difference between his momentary and scarce-remembered knowledge of that life, which so he might easily despise, and my continued acquaintance whereto if the honourable name of marriage were added, he ought not to wonder why I could not contemn that course; he began also to desire to be married; ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... kiss the Grandmother's hand, the old lady withdrew it, and herself kissed the girl on the cheek. As she passed me, Polina gave me a momentary glance, and then ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... heart and his head, said in the presence of the king, that the prince should have 40,000 Welshmen, to wait upon him against any king in Christendom; the king, not a little jealous, hastily inquired, "To do what?" The little prince turned away the momentary alarm by his facetiousness: "To cut off ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... the seat of war to advise with the men on the ground. None the less, disaster out-travels the swiftest of "limited" trains. Before the heavily-feed consulting attorney had crossed the Hudson in his westward journey, Wall Street had taken notice, and there was a momentary splash in the troubled pool of the Stock Exchange and a vanishing circle of ripples to show where Western Pacific ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... by Prince Joseph, Napoleon's brother, went too far in pursuit of the enemy and was charged and over-run by the horse-guards and Cuirassiers of the Grand-duke Constantin, the brother of Alexander, who captured their Eagle. A force of Russian cavalry advanced rapidly to support the momentary success of the horse-guards; but Napoleon sent against them the Mamelukes, the light cavalry and the mounted Grenadiers of his guard, led by Marshal Bessires and General Rapp, and a most sanguinary mele ensued. The Russian squadrons were overcome ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the snow. She did not see where he fell—the sledge was moving far too fast for that; but she heard the sound of the concussion, and then frantic screaming, accompanied by howls of triumph and joyful yapping. There was a momentary lull—only momentary—and ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been bitter hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service." ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... end would have been the same, when he rallied from the momentary struggle, had not his daughter awakened from the daze that had held her mute and motionless. Like Pocahontas, she sprang forward, with arms again outstretched, and with a faint shriek, flung them about the ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... a momentary flash. He settled back into the easy-chair with invalid languor, and began to tell me good-naturedly about his old velocipede, describing its construction, and the feats he had been able to perform on it, clumsy though it was. He could keep up with a fast ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... friend was true. His own heart wished this so earnestly; his noble and great soul rebelled at the thought of despising those whom he had once loved and trusted so fully. He wished to believe that he had had a hurtful dream; that a momentary madness had darkened his brain; he would rather distrust all his reflections than to believe that this woman, whom he had loved with all the strength of his nature, this man whom he had confided in so entirely, had deceived and betrayed him. It was too horrible to doubt the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... can wait," growled Bob—I mean roared—for though there was a momentary cessation in the shrieking of the wind, he spoke as if Mr Denning were by the wheel; and there was no doubt now—we could not see it, nor were we likely to, through the mist and spray, but the sun was rising, and ten minutes after I was gazing ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... continued, "there can be no fear of an offence: is not your son a clergyman? for, if he be, and they confess to him anything worse than to have admitted him to their confidence—why, sir, he shall be allowed to enter, and shrive them when he chooses;" and after a momentary silence, "Fie! fie!" he resumed, rolling in his chair; "'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God,' and the wise man of Mainville, who has been all his life looking for purity in a petticoat, says 'there ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians, and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... in love?—in love with a girl whom I had accidentally met in an omnibus? Or, was I merely indulging a momentary caprice—merely feeling a young man's hot, hasty admiration for a beautiful face? These were questions which I could not then decide. My ideas were in utter confusion, all my thoughts ran astray. I walked on, dreaming in full day—I had ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... cheered by imagination, warmed by love. Needful as may be the light and the cheer, it is the warmth only that can give life. We may know and imagine, and yet perform nothing; but when love is wakened, performance becomes a necessity of our being; and every sacrifice of momentary pleasure we make in order to obtain the fruition of our desires is not only without pain, but it is sweet as self-denial to a lover, if perchance he may give pleasure thereby to the object of his passion. It is the merest self-delusion for any one to sit still ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... comrade, hurt and spent, drifted away in the darkness, felt that he was alone in every sense of the word. But the feeling of failure was only momentary. He was unhurt, and the good God had not given him great strength for nothing. He still held the rifle in his left hand above his head and swam with the wide circular sweep of his right arm. The yellow waves of the Ohio surged about ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... vultures, high above which rose the clashing of the bones with which the Jogi sat drumming upon the skull before him, and tending a huge cauldron of oil whose smoke was of blue fire. But as he raised his long lank arm, silver-white with ashes, the demons fled, and a momentary silence succeeded to their uproar. The tigers ceased to roar and the elephants to scream; the bears raised their snouts from their foul banquets, and the wolves dropped from their jaws the remnants of human flesh. And when they ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... the rats, and one peered up over the bowlder the next instant, its eyes glinting in a momentary splash of moonlight fiendishly. Also, his quick ears could hear the soft creepings of the others on every side of the bowlder, back and front. They had surrounded him, and, like wolves, would now rush, and then—and then—— They ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... despair, and all the sons of night Retire before thy beams, and take their hasty flight. Thou risest in the fragrant east, Like the fair Phoenix from her balmy nest; But yet thy fading glories soon decay, Thine's but a momentary stay; Too soon thou'rt ravish'd from our fight, Borne down the stream of day, and overwhelm'd with night. Thy beams to thy own ruin haste, They're fram'd too exquisite to last: Thine is a glorious, but a short-liv'd state: Pity so fair a birth should ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... of reasoning appeared to him deliberate enough, in point of fact he had worked it out and put the conclusion into practice in a couple of bounds. As he darted aside and along the footpath he could hear the momentary break in his ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... heels, to bolster their courage, walked briskly downtown to the Morse Building. If any doubts as to the propriety of their action crept into any one of the four minds, they were quickly dispelled—for the sake of sentiment. It, of course, would not be pleasant, facing this stranger, but any momentary discomfort was as nothing, considering that their act might mean many years of happiness for poor, ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... relapse into barbarism. It is the instinct of the tiger still surviving in the white cat transformed into the princess. I will not call it, young gentlemen, the fond return of Melusina to the gambols of the mermaid, or Undine's momentary unconsciousness of a soul, because these are poetic and pathetic suggestions. The prize-ring is disgusting and inhuman, but at least it is a voluntary encounter of two individuals. But college bullying is unredeemed brutality. It is the extinction of Dr. Jekyll in Mr. ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... Rem Van Ariens, and Lieutenant Hyde were present. The girls had a momentary glance at the latter ere he assumed the manner he thought suitable for youth and beauty. He was talking seriously to the Doctor and playing with an ivory paper knife as he did so, but whatever remark he was making he cut it in two, and stood up, pleased and expectant, ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... watched the storm as it raged, and when there was a momentary cessation Howard threw his blanket ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... why I had come, and now, having recovered from her momentary surprise, she asked me to walk in and sit down, an invitation which I willingly accepted, for I did not in the least object to detaining her from ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... strange picture. The old man leaning upon the top of his hoe looking over at the lad, the gloom of his face irradiated with a momentary gleam of hope, and the boy looking back at him ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... a momentary spasm of alarm, her grief was so wild and overwhelming. One hand was flung about her father's neck, and the other pressed itself against her side, as if her heart ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... garden, they found Edith there before them—sitting on the top step, her arms around her knees, her worshiping eyes fixed on the Bride. Edith had nothing to say; it was enough to look at the "bridal couple," as the kitchen had named them. When her father and mother appeared, she did manage, in the momentary bustle of rising and offering ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... sorrows while on earth, and are all destined to the slumbers of death, where we must exhibit the emblem of perfect equality. Immaterial how far one may exalt himself above another while passing through this momentary existence—immaterial how far he may rise above his fellow men in the scale of intellect and refinement—immaterial how exalted the station he may have obtained—how brilliant the powers of his imagination may sparkle, or how soft and sublime his eloquence may flow—immaterial how ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... lapses were only momentary, and did not interfere at all with the gay spirits of his companion, who having found a friend in the midst of the loneliness of London, and his twin image in the person of that friend, was now pouring out his ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... cheerfulness, his cheeks and lips grew ruddy, and he looked about him gaily—nay, it seemed as if a strange, wild humor, such as was foreign to his nature, had seized him. Beautiful Sara was frightened as she had never been before in all her life, and a cold shudder went through her—due less to the momentary manifestation of dumb horror which she had seen in her husband's face, than to the cheerfulness which followed it, and which was now gradually developing into jubilant hilarity. The Rabbi cocked his ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... was, in his wonted way, preaching the kingdom to a great multitude, one of the audience, taking advantage probably of some momentary pause in the discourse, broke in upon the solemn exercises with the inappropriate and incongruous demand, "Master, speak to my brother that he divide the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... bull by the horns. After all, from a conventional point of view, my conduct was quite justifiable. I always meant to do better by him next time, and then I always deferred it to the next. But, from a conventional point of view, my conduct was quite unassailable. I said this to myself when I had momentary qualms of conscience. Now, rather late in the day, it strikes me that the conventional point of view should have been re-adjusted to the special case. I should have ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... the creek in a sudden blaze of light, and in that momentary brilliance he saw that the rushing water was rising rapidly. A grave feeling of uneasiness stirred him and he turned back to his companions. For once in his life he felt ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... allies fled in terror, freeing some of the water-carriers, who plunged at once into the bay and swam to the ship. The group of mangroves was a natural fortress, and the Dons failed to get in at the first rush. The flight of the Indians threw them into a momentary disorder; and Captain Drake, instant in appreciating an opportunity, turned a gun a little wide of the cluster, and sent a ball smashing into the rallying place of the foe. Covered by the armed gentlemen, the workers retreated to their boat; arrows and a few musket balls flew after them, but ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... but the fourth volume of the 'Philosophical Tales' must be a last reply to my enemies and give the presentiment of an incontestable superiority. You must therefore forgive the poor artist his fatigue [he is writing to his sister], his discouragements, and especially his momentary detachment from any sort of interest that does not belong to his subject. 'Louis Lambert' has cost me so much work! To write this book I have had to read so many books! Some day or other, perhaps, it will throw science into new paths. If I had made it a purely learned work, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... ensued—then there was a trampling of feet, accompanied by discordant strains of music—after which a momentary silence ensued, and a harsh ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... swung him swiftly about. It came from the door of a noisy and crowded mart of chance recently erected, but already the scene of many quarrels. The blare of music which had issued from it swiftly ceased. There was a momentary silence; then a sound of shuffling feet, ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... Lispeth, recovering from her momentary amazement. "What's the meaning of all this, I'd like ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the hands of Petri, caused a momentary shout of opposition to the king. The cry arose that he was introducing strange and novel faiths. His faiths perhaps were novel, but they were not strange. The strangest feature in the matter was the position ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... having arrived in the great hall where the convention was sitting, a number of skirmishes took place, and a momentary victory was gained by the Independents in electing, as temporary chairman, a colored delegate of great ability from one of the Southern States, over Mr. Powell Clayton of Arkansas, who, though he had suffered bitterly and struggled bravely to maintain the Union during the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... two sisters more united and affectionate—nor would it have been easy to say on which side the balance of kindness preponderated. For if Blanche was ever the first to cede to her sister's wishes, and the last, in any momentary disappointment or annoyance, to speak one quick or unkind word, so was Agnes, with her expressive features, and flashing eye, and ready, tameless wit, prompt as light to avenge the slightest reflection cast on Blanche's tranquillity and coldness; and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... the queen, who had been the sole partner in his wickedness, in whose bosom he could sometimes seek a momentary repose from those terrible dreams which afflicted them both nightly, died, it is supposed, by her own hands, unable to bear the remorse of guilt, and public hate; by which event he was left alone, without a soul to love or care for him, or ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... with straight, square shoulders and small limbs. He wore spectacles, and as he looked at one straight in the face there was a singular contraction of the eyes which hardly amounted to a cast—moreover, it was momentary. It was precisely the look of a hawk when its hood is suddenly removed in full daylight. This resemblance was furthered by the fact that the man's profile was birdlike. He was clean-shaven, and there was in his sleek head and determined ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... not," answered Helen, though a little surprised at the question. Still, she was so long accustomed to be consulted by the earl, and to give her opinion frankly and freely on all points, that the surprise was only momentary. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... his place, and privately enjoyed his triumph over Miss Pink. If Lady Lydiard had been actually in league with him, she could not have chosen a more opportune time for her visit. A momentary interval passed. The carriage drew up at the door; the horses trampled on the gravel; the bell rung madly; the uproar of Tommie, released from the carriage and clamoring to be let in, redoubled its fury. Never before had such an unruly burst of ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... larger experience of history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual series of causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions. But if the interval between two memorable aeras could be instantly annihilated; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the pleasing subject of a philosophical romance. The scene could ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... doom them to destruction. Jugurtha may also have made his blunder. Unless we suppose that his penetrating mind had been, suddenly clouded by the senseless rage which prompts the half-savage man to a momentary act of demoniacal folly, he could never have willed the slaughter of the Roman and Italian merchants.[919] If he willed it in cold blood, he was consciously making war on Rome and declaring the independence of Numidia. For, even with his ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... fashion for men to wear lockets, in a locket they should be worn, for I never had a greater respect for any creature upon four legs than for poor Sni. See how naturally men fall into relic worship; when I have preserved the memorials of that momentary whim so many years, and ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... conditions with which the experience on earth is temporarily invested; and because of this, all the range of friendship should be held apart as divine, and any interchange of material gifts should not receive this undue emphasis, but be regarded as the mere incidental trifle of momentary convenience, while all the regard and devotion that may lie behind should give its mutual joy as free and as pure as the fragrance of a rose. Of all that a friend may ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... take voices and visions on the lowest, most prevalent, and least startling level. A large proportion of people, including the writer, are familiar with the momentary visions beheld with shut eyes between waking and sleeping (illusions hypnagogiques). The waking self is alert enough to contemplate these processions of figures and faces, these landscapes too, which (in my own case) it is incapable of ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... Lincoln by name, especially to what he characterized as his political heresies. By thus everywhere making Lincoln and Lincoln's utterances a public target, Douglas himself, in effect, prolonged and extended the joint debates over the whole Union. Another circumstance added to the momentary interest of the general discussion. Douglas was by nature aggressive. Determined to hold his Northern followers in the new issues which had grown out of his Freeport doctrine, and the new antagonisms ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... of her as she looked in that short passage from room to staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance. There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face in its ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... that face of glory, which was once marred and smitten on account of our sins. And seeing Him as He is we shall be like Him. How long will be the meeting in the air? It has been said that the stay in that meeting place will be but momentary and that the Lord will at once resume His descent to the earth. We know from other Scriptures that this cannot be. Between the coming of the Lord for His saints and with His saints there is an interval of at least seven years before the ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... nothing but a pet He took at life—a momentary spite; Besides, he hoped that time would some day get The better of love's flame, howover bright; A thing that time has never compass'd yet, For love, we know, is an immortal light. Like that old fire, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... at sunset, and the world was pleasant again to the two fair-haired ones. A momentary pang of disappointment had, nevertheless, passed through Elfride when she casually discovered that he had not come that minute post-haste from London, but had reached the neighbourhood the previous evening. Surprise would have accompanied ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... is found I should seek in another that which for the moment has gone from me with her. I saw splendid forms at thy villa. Do not contradict me. I know what love is; and I know that when one is desired another cannot take her place. But in a beautiful slave it is possible to find even momentary distraction." ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... momentary silence that ensued the blithe jingling of bells was heard, accompanied by the merry ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... thrill, almost painful in its pleasure, agitating her bosom, as she sat watching the gateway they had entered. It was even a momentary relief to her that they had turned in there instead of riding directly to the house. It gave her time to collect her thoughts and summon all her fortitude for the coming interview. Her fingers wandered ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... the stranger, there flashed a sudden recollection of her grandmother and her grandfather, and all the homely belongings which he, a minister of the connection, could not be kept in ignorance of. It was but a momentary pang. Phoebe was not so foolish as to shrink before the inevitable, or to attempt by foolish expedients to stave off such a danger. She shrank for a second, then drew herself up and shook off all such ignoble cares. "I am myself whatever happens," was her reflection; ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... rushed across the room, threw both arms about the astonished young man's neck and dropped an energetic kiss upon his cheek. There was a momentary silence; for Di finely illustrated her strong-minded theories by crying like the weakest of her sex. Laura, with "the ruling passion strong in death," still tried to draw, but broke her pet crayon, and endowed her Clytie with a supplementary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... position of Buschbeck's line. This ground was not held in force by Jackson's corps at the moment, and it was not difficult for Sickles to possess himself temporarily of some portion of that position. But it must have been a momentary occupation. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Trouillefou appeared to hold a momentary conference with the Duke of Egypt, and the Emperor of Galilee, who was completely drunk. Then he shouted shrilly: "Silence!" and, as the cauldron and the frying-pan did not heed him, and continued their duet, he jumped down from his hogshead, gave a kick ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... He had made his escape, had euchred Fate, but—the payment for laziness, the terrible cess for a momentary lapse from vigilance, which great Nature, in her grim, wise cruelty, always demands, had to be met, and the end of it was ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... fantastic about this formality of the synagogue. But we ought to remember that we have made the Western conditions which startle the Western eyes. It seems odd to wear a modern top-hat as if it were a mitre or a biretta; it seems quainter still when the hat is worn even for the momentary purpose of saying grace before lunch. It seems quaintest of all when, at some Jewish luncheon parties, a tray of hats is actually handed round, and each guest helps himself to a hat as a sort of hors d'oeuvre. All this could easily be turned into ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... fury of the latter shot out in a burst that resembled momentary madness as much as rage. "Is that my answer?" he shouted, in the hoarse, quivering accents of passion; and with the rapid energy of the dark impulse which guided him, he snatched up a stone from a ditch, and flung it at his brother, whose back was towards him. Felix fell forward in an instant, ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... melon and handed Dan five cents. A momentary glance was exchanged, and then he walked away and sat down in a quiet corner of the yard and cut open the melon. As he expected, he found a note rolled up in the center. A small piece of the rind had been cut out and the pulp removed for its reception. The bit of rind had then been carefully ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... return they scarcely spoke. Miss Marston divined that her companion felt ashamed and awkward, and that his momentary enthusiasm had evaporated under the influence of a long railroad ride. While they were waiting for the steamer at the Mount Desert ferry, she said, as negligently as she could, "I have telegraphed for a carriage, but you had better walk up ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... an essential difference between the loose and momentary cooeperation of unorganized workers aiming at the remedying of special grievances, and disbanding their association whenever that particular struggle is over, and a permanent organization representing the workers' side all the time and holding them in a bond of mutual ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... impulse, of the loves, hates, fears, jealousies, and ambitions that swayed the men of his age. Milton is the poet of steadfast will and purpose, who moves like a god amid the fears and hopes and changing impulses of the world, regarding them as trivial and momentary things that can never swerve a ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the straight slope of the mountain and among the broken hills. Here their work was entirely hopeless and they knew it. They knew also that they were in almost momentary danger of being cut off and completely surrounded. Here the fire did not keep any steady edge that they could follow and attack. The wind eddied and whirled about among the broken peaks of the hills in every direction and with it the fire ran ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... His momentary embarrassment, however, introduced another perturbation, for in glancing away for an instant to reassemble himself, so to speak, his eyes fell upon the clock, which at that very moment chimed ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... soldier and brave man, could not repress a shudder. In the midst of many thoughts that now assailed him, there was one against which he felt he had neither defence nor courage: might not poison be employed ere long by his secret enemies? Under the influence of fears, which his momentary weakness and fever and low diet increased, he sent for an old woman long attached to the service of his grandmother, whose affection for himself was one of those semi-maternal sentiments which are the sublime of the commonplace. Without confiding ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... this moment that their consciences traced their sorrows; it was to that act of their souls which permitted them to enjoy that momentary rapture that they attached their guilt; it was at that moment and in that silent place that they planted the seeds of the trees upon which ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... so with a determination that carried the various doors between him and the study, and at last came the knock, of which he sat in momentary dread. It expressed the outsider so imperatively, that the minister at once laid aside his pen, and opened the door. And, alas! it was Saturday, P. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... usually are; and their countenances bespoke both good will and curiosity, though mixed with some degree of apprehension. Their curiosity was mostly directed to our persons and dress, and constantly drew off their attention from our little presents, which seemed to give but a momentary pleasure. The approach of the sun to the meridian calling me down to the beach, our visitors returned into the woods, seemingly well satisfied with what they had seen. We could perceive no arms of any kind amongst them; but I knew these people too well ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... gravely, "the one act was momentary and without risk. The other was done at the cost of labour and sacrifice daily and hourly for nearly a month. You have been through the campaign, and know how frightful were the sufferings, how overwhelming the exhaustion of the soldiers. ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... "thick breaths rank of gross diet"; it is Shakespeare too and not Cleopatra who speaks of death as bringing "liberty." In "Cymbeline," Shakespeare's mask Posthumus dwells on the same idea. But these lapses are momentary; the superb declaration that follows is worthy ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... relief in having thus decided upon the course he should follow; but the momentary satisfaction did not in the least lighten the burden that weighed upon his heart. His anxiety was intense, and he could not escape it, nor find any argument whereby to alleviate it. He did not love his brother, or at least had never loved him before; but we often find ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... that Gay thought that he might in time live down the disfavour at Court in which he had been involved by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry and his other partisans. He may even have had a momentary hope, in 1730, when the office of Poet-Laureate was vacant that the position might be offered to him, who had written "Fables" for a young Prince. When Colley Cibber was appointed, Gay probably had it brought home to him that his day as a courtier had passed for good ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... even savage. There was not a pleasant look in his eyes and about his lips. He appeared to be endeavoring to put a great restraint upon himself. There was a momentary silence. Mr. Dacre made a movement as if to interpose. The duke caught him ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... a book entirely through in a single evening, and the next day are eagerly at work on another, to be as quickly mastered. No mind, however strong, can stand such a strain. You see at once that it would be absolutely impossible for them to remember what they read. And so they read for a momentary enjoyment, and gradually fall into the habit I have spoken of—reading to forget. I need not tell you that such a habit is fatal to any very high position ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... particular advantages merely because they are defenceless; and what they are deprived of is given to others merely because they are old or strong: and this is not effected by personal violence, depending upon momentary caprice and individual disposition (in which case it might be considered as the consequence of a state of equality) but it is enforced upon the natives of Australia by traditional laws and customs which are by them considered as valid and binding as ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... back directly to his troubles, and he felt a kind of momentary relief on finding that there was no one in ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... and a thread of a tail, whose existence the complacent mother ignores, his plethoric brothers and sisters repudiate, and for whose emaciated jaws there is never a spare or supplemental teat, till one of the favoured gormandizers, overtaken by momentary oblivion, drops the lacteal fountain, and gives the little squeaking straggler the chance of a momentary mouthful. This miserable little object, which may be seen bringing up the rear of every litter, is called the Tony ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... face was drawn and white. Beneath his trim black mustache there was a momentary gleam of sharp white teeth ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... would have lost a good fellow. As it is"—he smiled with his usual conceited delight in his own sayings, even when they were uttered in soliloquy—"he is merely one of those splendid gentlemen one will meet with in hell." Then Dodson had a momentary nostalgia for goodness himself, but he soon overcame it, and stretching himself on his sofa, ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... drummer on the Arequipa. That was momentary—a coincidence, he told himself. The woman was looking down at the child, her eyes softer than they had been, and the child was lying on its back and playing with ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... waited all this forenoon in momentary expectation of the return of Augustus and Junius, but as they did not appear at two P.M., I sent Mr. Hood with a party of men, to inquire into the cause of their detention, and to bring the meat which Terregannoeuck had promised us. He returned at midnight with the information, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... down to the centre of the arc, so it must needs be used up by the passage of the bob upwards from the centre of the arc to the summit of the left-hand half-swing. Hence, at this point, the bob comes to a momentary rest. The last fraction of kinetic energy is just neutralised by the action of the attractive forces, and the bob has only potential energy equal to that with which it started. So that the sum of the phenomena may be stated thus: At the summit of either half-arc of its swing, ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... on, dream following dream, nightmare following nightmare, until the distracted ape-man started like a frightened deer at the rustling of the wind in the trees about him, or leaped to his feet as the uncanny laugh of a hyena burst suddenly upon a momentary jungle silence. But at last the tardy morning broke and a sick and feverish Tarzan wound sluggishly through the dank and gloomy mazes of the forest in search of water. His whole body seemed on fire, a great sickness surged upward to his throat. He saw a tangle of almost ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as softly as was possible, she felt for the door, and having found it, entered trembling into the vault from whence she had heard the sigh and steps. It gave her a kind of momentary joy to perceive an imperfect ray of clouded moonshine gleam from the roof of the vault, which seemed to be fallen in, and from whence hung a fragment of earth or building, she could not distinguish which, that appeared to have been crushed inwards. She advanced eagerly towards this chasm, ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... burden of an inner life unshared? I can see into them now as I could not in those 'earlier days. I sometimes think their pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness glide through them; indeed, I dread them, I come so close to the nerve of the soul itself in these momentary intimacies. You used to tell me I was a Turk,—that my heart was full of pigeon-holes, with accommodations inside for a whole flock of doves. I don't know but I am still as Youngish as ever in my ways,—Brigham-Youngish, I mean; at any rate, T. always want to give a little love to all the poor things ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... is doing as he wishes to oblige him, and not as is really the case making him a puppet of her own. And not one of them all ever even knows of the existence of any other lover than himself. And Shatrunjaya is all the more to be excused, because she really took a momentary fancy to him, and cloyed him for a day or two with nectar that soon turned ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... confused chaos of rugged rocks pitched and hurled about in the most fantastic combinations, rendering the road almost impassable for our cattle. Darker clouds than before were around, but not immediately over us; and the atmosphere was hot like the breath of a furnace, with now and then a momentary gush of piercing cold coming between sharp peaks and ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... lay down for a night of rest. It was very cold, and towards morning commenced snowing. With difficulty I kept the fire alive. Sleep was impossible. When daylight came, I was impressed with the idea that I must go on despite the storm. A flash—momentary but vivid—came over me, that I should be saved. Snatching a lighted brand, I started through the storm. In the afternoon the storm abated and the sun shone at intervals. Coming to a small clump of trees, I set to work to prepare a camp. I laid the brand down which I ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... deficiency of steady natural water supply. During the rainy season, from October to March, the naked ground fails to retard the running off of the waters, which therefore escape rapidly by the rivers, swelling them to momentary torrents that quickly and fruitlessly subside. During the long dry season the exposed herbage dries ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... away level. The cows continued their slow advance, browsing as they went, but in a little while their dark fronts were turned towards the dogs as after a momentary indecision they recognized an enemy. With a startled rush the herd drove through the meadow and poured across the unfenced road up to the hill pasture which they had left, whose scanty grasses had doubtless ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... retrace our steps. Hannah sustained, in the tone of her spirits, by the extremity of her anger, a mood of feeling which I did not share. Indignation was to her in the stead of consolation and hope. I, for my part, could not seek even a momentary shelter from my tempestuous affliction in that temper of mind. The man who could accuse my Agnes, and accuse her of such a crime, I felt to be a monster; and in my thoughts he was already doomed to a bloody atonement (atonement! alas! what atonement!) whenever the time arrived that her cause would ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... boat went high. Then when the crash that meant doom seemed imminent the swell spread and fell back from the wall and the boat never struck at all. By some miraculous chance it had been favored by a strange and momentary receding of the huge spent swell. Then it slid back, was caught and whirled by the current into a red, frothy, up-flung rapids below. Shefford bowed his head over. Fay and saw no more, nor felt nor heard. What seemed a long time after ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. Another symptom is a momentary hesitation to look round you, when the interest of the narrative is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid looking into a mirror, when you are alone, in your chamber, ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... was troubled with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I found was none of her well-wishers, she changed colour and startled at everything she heard. She was likewise, as I afterwards found, a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with, even in her own sex, and subject to such momentary consumptions, that in the twinkling of an eye, she would fall away from the most florid complexion and the most healthful state of body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as sudden as her decays, insomuch that she would revive in a moment ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... convention or anything in the least resembling "the grand manner"—she had a style of her own; many also—even those who disapproved—admitted her charm. As she talked to her chosen intimates, her two hands would go out in quick bird-like gestures of momentary contact, while her brightly moving face gave a constant invitation to the free entry of her thoughts. Barriers she had none. A dangerous young person for getting her own way; for in the process she often got not only her own but other ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... of the pool; and the whiz of swift wings—unheard by all except little creatures living in frequent danger, and listening with beating hearts to sounds unperceived by our drowsy senses dulled by long immunity from fear—caused momentary terror to the water-vole. Each trifling sight and sound contributed to that invaluable stock of experience from which he would gradually learn to distinguish without hesitation between friends and foes, and be freed from the pain of needless anxiety ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... the truth, they are not so very much to blame. Even the momentary reflection of love is a good thing; at least, it is better than to know nothing of it. One can fancy that a violin upon which no one had ever played would yet be glad to vibrate faintly in unison with the music of a more ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... remnant of Christian belief. A few months sufficed to relegate these vestiges of faith to that part of our souls reserved for memory. The statement that everything in the world is of the same colour, that there is no special supernatural or momentary revelation, impressed itself upon our minds as unanswerable. The scientific purview of a universe in which there is no appreciable trace of any free will superior to that of man became, from the first months of 1846, the immovable anchor from which we never shifted. We shall ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... was but half believed even at first, by the people, and very soon rumors began to circulate in the city that Romulus had been murdered by the senators who were around him at the time of the shower,—they having seized the occasion afforded by the momentary absence of his guards, and by their solitary position. There were various surmises in respect to the disposal which the assassins had made of the body. The most obvious supposition was that it had been sunk in the lake. There was, however, ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... menaces of vengeance; but it was not long ere Madame du Fargis succeeded in convincing her that she had nothing to fear from such a rival, and that she would act prudently in affecting not to perceive the momentary fancy of the King for the modest ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... in the country, and he was now supported by a strong party; he owned, however, that his success had been chiefly owing to the handsome manner in which Lord John and his colleagues had supported him in the debate. That he should incur the momentary enmity of those states whose interests and plans he might have to cross was quite natural; he had never intended any disrespect to the Queen, and if he had been guilty of any he was quite unconscious of it and sorry ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... a table d'hote was easily effected. One of the actresses, a sweet little, well-proportioned creature, with large black eyes, was receiving, with apparent indifference, the compliments of the better sort of bumpkins and young farmers of the neighbourhood. In her momentary and occasional smiles, she discovered a beautiful set of small, white teeth; but when she resumed her pensive attitude, I was sensible of an enchanting air of melancholy, which deeply interested me in favour of this poor girl, who was evidently in a lower situation in ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... meet with in Chapter VIII, under the name of psychic impotence, shows the powerful and disturbing interference of thoughts on the automatic action of instinctive sexual activity. A momentary psychic impotence is not necessarily pathological. While voluptuous sensations alternate during coitus with desire and corresponding erotic representations, a sudden idea of the ridiculousness of the situation, signs of pain or of bad temper in the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... from Richling, had gone to his home in Casa Calvo street, a much greater sufferer than he had appeared to be. While he was confronting his abaser there had been a momentary comfort in the contrast between Richling's ill-behavior and his own self-control. It had stayed his spirit and turned the edge of Richling's sharp denunciations. But, as he moved off the field, he found himself, at every step, more deeply wounded than ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... perceptions, would have bowed and gone his way. But then a man of deeper sensibilities would never have sought this interview that the viscount was now seeking. Therefore, it was but natural that he should recover swiftly from his momentary halt, and step aside to throw open the door of a little room on the right of the hall. Bowing slightly, he invited her ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... her position in Italy, a position on which her rulers still believed that all her destinies hung. Her energy was now the wilfulness of despair. Events in Europe were shaping themselves without regard to her advantage. The momentary humiliation of France in Jourdan's defeat, the deplorable condition of British finances as shown by the fall of the three per cents to fifty-three, the unsettled and dangerous state of Ireland, with the menace of Hoche's invasion impending, these circumstances created in London a feeling ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... to believe that among them he should find a new Mazeppa,[143] or that he himself might become one: he imagined that he had completely gained them over. This momentary armistice, under the actual circumstances, sustained the hopes of Napoleon, such need had he of self-delusion. He was amused in ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... it was all over, he scarcely knew how he had been betrayed into the weakness he was guilty of. It was not like him to lose sight of his manifold imperfections; but for once they were swept out of his mind by a momentary madness. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so great that I could scarcely see the length of a yard before my horse's head. The animal seemed uneasy, and would frequently stop short, prick up his ears, and utter a low mournful whine. Flashes of sheet-lightning frequently illumed the black sky and flung a momentary glare over our path. No sound interrupted the stillness of the night save the slow tramp of the horses' hoofs, and occasionally the croaking of frogs from some pool or morass. I now bethought me that I was in Spain, the chosen land of the two fiends, assassination and plunder, and how easily ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... performed as follows: Shut yourself in a dark closet for fifteen or twenty minutes to remove all trace of stimulation of the retina. With the eyes covered with several folds of thick black cloth go to a window, uncover the eyes and take a momentary look at the landscape, immediately covering the eyes again. The landscape will appear as a positive after-image, with the positive colors and lights and shades. The experiment is best performed on a ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... eastward, we were lost; if it remained stationary, we were at least holding our own; if it opened out to westward, we were saved. We watched with a strained eagerness impossible to describe. At each momentary gain or rebuff we uttered ejaculations. The Nigger mumbled charms. Every once in a while one of us would snatch a glance to leeward at the cruel, white waters, the whirl of eddies where the sea was beaten, only to hurry back to the rock and the point of the cliff ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... enough to control my feelings, for which I thank God: a momentary flash of anger did not cause me to forget so many proofs of kindness and affection, and, with the docility of a girl of sixteen, I prepared to depart, although I was entirely ignorant where I should go to, or who would offer me protection and an asylum.... ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... over, Mrs. Bourdon," said I, finding she did not speak; "and your presence is probably needed by Miss Armitage." A flash of intelligence, as I spoke, passed between the pair; but whether indicative of grief or joy, so momentary was the glance, I should have been puzzled to determine. The housekeeper immediately left the room, keeping her eyes, as she passed, fixed upon me with the same nervous apprehensive look which had ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... he stopped as if rooted to the ground, with hands thrown up and eyes bulging from his head. At his feet lay the corpses of his morning comrades,—scalped, stripped, hacked almost piecemeal! Then the instinct of the hunted thing, of flight, of self-protection, eclipsed momentary terror, and the boy was ducking into the rushes to hide when, with a crash of musketry from the woods, the Iroquois ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... physical forces of the kingdom possessed by the monarchs of that day, that when the Reformation flashed out, a beacon in the northern sky of political and religious freedom to the world, its light could not penetrate into Spain. There was a momentary struggle there, it is true. But so apathetic was the popular mind that the effort to bring it into sympathy with the vast movement of the age was hopeless from the beginning. The axe and the fagot made rapid work of the heresy. After only ten years of burnings and beheadings ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay |
