"Spasmodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the part of different clubs, unexpected ill fortune on the part of others, and marked variations of form, which ranged from the leaders almost to the lowliest teams of the second division, injected spasmodic moments of excited interest into the National League race for 1912 and marked it by more vicissitudes than any of ...
— Spalding's Official Baseball Guide - 1913 • John B. Foster
... assembled in the underground Baths and every new boy was put upon a chair in their midst and made to sing. The penalty for singing out of tune was a cup of salt and water but it is doubtful whether the penalty was often enforced; even so there is no continuous tradition; it was irregular and spasmodic. Another task for the new boy was to climb the Scars a quarter of a mile from the School and place a stone upon the cairn, called ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... figure, and rather dark complexion. His conversation and deportment denoted the cultivation, delicacy, and graceful poise of an accomplished gentleman; and he delivered his English with a correctness and fluency very noticeably free from the peculiar spasmodic effort that marked his royal brother's exploits in the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... hair and arms, came from the grocery store at the corner, and gathered them in. My little sister was put to nurse with Mrs. Cudlip next door, and when, at the end of the week, President went off to work somewhere in a mining town in West Virginia, my father and I were left alone, except for the spasmodic appearances of the red-haired slattern. Gradually the dust began to settle and thicken on the dried cat-tails in the china vases upon the mantel; the "prize" red geranium dropped its blossoms and withered upon the sill; ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... of Wales's, Mr. ARTHUR ROBERTS, as Captain Crosstree, is more ARTHUR ROBERTS than ever, and, consequently, immensely droll. While he is on the stage, the audience is convulsed with spasmodic laughter, excepting when he tries to forget himself and his drollery in a loyal attempt at doing justice to Messrs. SIMS' AND PETTITT's words, and to the serious business of some situation intended to be dramatic. At such moments the laughter of the House is checked, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... burning of Furstenberg, were the work of these free companies, consequently a sense of uneasiness permeated the Empire, whose rulers, great and small, began to foresee that a continuance of this state of things meant disaster to the rich as well as misery to the poor. Charity, spasmodic and unorganized, proved wholly unable to cope with the disaster that had befallen ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... surgeons, the policemen themselves who hated to lodge under one roof with tramps, from citizen bodies that saw in the system an outrage upon Christian charity and all decency, but all without producing any other effect than spasmodic whitewashing and the ineffectual turning on of the hose. Nothing short of boiling water would have cleansed those dens. Nothing else came of it, because stronger even than the selfish motive that exploits ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Lodi against the tyranny of Milan. These, together with the ridiculous proffer of the imperial crown from the lately formed Republic of Rome, seemed to open an opportunity for the successful recovery of imperial rights. And, much as the Italians resented the spasmodic interferences of the Emperor, they were proud of their imperial connection. The commerce of the East, largely increased by the Crusades, flowed into Western Europe chiefly through Italy. As a result, the north and centre ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... class, the most precarious and incoherent known to science. However, the luggage was bundled on to the top by Our Lady's grace, without dissolution of continuity; the lean-limbed horses were induced by explosive volleys of sound Tuscan oaths to make a feeble and spasmodic effort; and bit by bit the sad little cavalcade began slowly to ascend the interminable hill that rises by long loops to the ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... from foe, they were hurrying to our right and rear intent only on their safety. Wright's (Sixth Corps) infantry, which was farther removed from the point of attack, fared somewhat better, but did not offer more than a spasmodic resistance." Nevertheless, they made Early "pay dearly for every foot gained and finally brought him to a stand," as Nicolay ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... follows come spasmodic attempts at negotiation by direct conversations between the parties concerned, with no advantage, but rather with the growth of mutual suspicion. Down to August 1st both Sir Edward Grey and M. Sazonof were ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... following, Phyl's impending journey kept Mrs. Hennessey busy in a spasmodic way. One might have fancied from the preparations and lists of things necessary that the girl was off to the wilds of New Guinea or some region ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... when under any strong excitement, his face was distorted, and his neck was twisted and stiffened in a most frightful manner. In ordinary attacks of this kind Catharine had power to soothe and allay the spasmodic action of the muscles, and gradually release her husband from the terrible gripe of the disease, but now he would not suffer her to come near him. He could not endure it, for the sight of her renewed so vividly the anguish that he ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... of that very paper are given to frequent and sneering attacks on the alleged yellowness and the boasting proclivities of the jingo Yankee sheets; also, they are prone to spasmodic attacks on the laxity of our marriage laws. Perhaps what they say of us is true; but for unadulterated nastiness I never saw anything in print to equal the front page of a so-called sporting weekly that circulates freely in London, and I know of ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... is no opportunity for rehearsal; and sometimes they have not even an idea of the nature of the turn until band parts are put in. This means that they must read at sight, that the conductor must follow every movement of the artist, in order to catch his spasmodic cues for band or patter, and that the boys must keep one eye on music they have never seen before, and the other on their old ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... selfward, manward, or Godward, should always take precedence of routine-work however wisely planned. Obstinate adherence to system may lead to more and greater criminal omissions of duty than would be incurred, even in the spasmodic industry which takes its impulse from the passing moment. It must be remembered that timeliness is the essential element of right and obligation in many things that ought to be done, especially in all forms of charity, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... him who is obeying the spontaneity of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these (two) things are owing? To Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth cannot make such (spasmodic) actings last long, how much ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... intervals between his performances. There were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of unglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, already grotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic experiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice of Lance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... his work was more or less spasmodic on account of his bitter struggle with poor health, in 1883 he achieved success by the publication of Treasure Island. Markheim appeared in 1884. Kidnapped and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... the semblance of strength and manhood, so that he might have some chance of finding employment, he had to increase the quantity of morphia daily; but each succeeding indulgence brought nearer the hour when the drug would produce pain—pain only, and death. After a week or two of futile and spasmodic effort he drifted on in the old way, occasionally suffering untold agony in remorse and self-loathing, but stifling conscience, memory, and reason, as far as possible, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... had been sighted, not a sign of smoke appeared on the spotless horizon. At regular intervals the gun on the forward deck boomed thrice in quick succession, startling the lifeless hulk into a sort of spasmodic vitality. Then she would sink back once more into the old, irksome lethargy, incapable of resisting the gentlest wave, submissive to the whim of the slightest breeze. The ship's carpenter and his men were ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... sandstone bluffs, whimsically decorated with sparse patches of greenery, seemed to waver as though seen through shimmering silken gauze. And over it all was the hush of a dream, except when, in a spasmodic freshening of the breeze, the rude mast creaked and a sleepy watery murmur grew up for a moment at ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... that have been lately "rectified," the liquor traffic still goes on, and the war is to be carried into the suburbs. What then? Where next? Which party can play this game the longer? Tears, prayers and songs will soon lose their novelty—this spasmodic effort will be likely soon to spend itself; is there any permanent good being wrought? Liquor traffic opposes woman suffrage, and with good reasons. It knows that votes change laws, and it also knows that the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... could be taught to understand even a fraction of the truth of the insidious wrong hidden under the mask of the nostrum advertisement, we would witness a righteous resentment that could only be satisfied by legislative enactment that would wipe out forever the whole infamous business. No spasmodic or localized effort will ever succeed against this public enemy. Its very strength is the people whom it dupes and despises, because they supply the money with which the patent medicine combine ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... revivifying. The evolutionary gestures on the screen held me more raptly than a "movie" plot. My companion (here in the role of villain) thrust a sharp instrument through a part of the fern; pain was indicated by spasmodic flutters. When he passed a razor partially through the stem, the shadow was violently agitated, then stilled itself with the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... hearing the name, set his teeth: he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... thoughts, she turned into a side street. But she had walked beneath its withered maples no more than a block or two, when her largest immediate problem, her father's trial on the morrow, thrust itself into her consciousness, and the pressing need of further action drove all this spasmodic speculation from her mind. She began to think upon what she should next do. Almost instantly her mind darted to the man whom she had definitely connected with the plot against her father, Arnold Bruce, and she turned back toward ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... felt it as a thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest amongst brutes, in his dilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and thunder- beating hoofs. The sensibility of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration of such a movement; the glory of Salamanca might be the first. But the intervening links that connected them, that spread the earthquake ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... Juliet, he noticed for the first time, had become singularly pretty. He engaged a severe Frenchwoman of mature age as chaperon, and made spasmodic attempts to take his adopted daughter into such society as the Belgian port, where he was consul at this time, ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... with a start, as he made a spasmodic motion toward the pocket of his coat. But if his intention had been to draw a weapon, Tom was too quick for him. The Marquis found himself staring into the barrel of a pistol and heard the unpleasant click of the trigger as ...
— The Inn at the Red Oak • Latta Griswold
... could say to you that anything more is done about your commissions; but this has been, and continues to be, absolutely impossible, for a reason which gives us all no small degree of uneasiness—I mean the King's illness, which begun with a violent spasmodic attack in his stomach; and has continued with more or less violence, and with different symptoms ever since. We put as good a face as we can upon it; and, indeed, I hope that the danger is now over, but I cannot but own to you that I think there is still ground ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Among the spasmodic efforts at reform made under Louis XVI. were two attempts to extend the system of local self-government. The first was made by Necker in 1778 and 1779. Provincial assemblies were established in those years by way ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... manner, "Good lord! what a crew," and the pair sought better things elsewhere. Turner and Roberts were very insignificant people during the daytime: they were little use at games, and even a year's spasmodic cribbing had only managed to secure them a promotion from the Second Form to the Third. But when the evening came they were indeed great men, and ruled over a small dormitory that contained, besides themselves, only four new boys who ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... his moments, or rather his long hours, of labor and of meditation, was subject to a peculiar spasmodic movement, which seemed to be a nervous affection, and which clung to him all his life. It consisted in raising his right shoulder frequently and rapidly; and persons who were not acquainted with this habit sometimes interpreted this as a gesture of disapprobation ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... escape from the present, he plunged into the memories of the war, as into a bath of oblivion, a strange oblivion, where he found all his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness, the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the drama, presented their excuses, or poured forth their complaints; and it seemed to him that his country would make him forget ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Mark's powers of cordiality, or else Nuttie's stiffness froze him. They were all embarrassed, and had reason to be grateful to Lady Kirkaldy's practised powers as a diplomate's wife. She made the most of Mrs. Egremont's shy spasmodic inquiries, and Mark's jerks of information, such as that they were all living at Bridgefield Egremont, now, that his sister May was very like his new cousin, that Blanche was come out and was very like his mother, ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... child. In the next moment I was lost in wonder at the improvement which had taken place in twenty-four hours. The tension and retraction of the neck and head had relaxed, respiration had diminished, the lips were pink and moist, the spasmodic nerve reaction and muscular twitching had almost ceased. I felt that exultation which comes when instinct as much as specific observation assures me that the tide has turned, that the arrow of fate ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... design was discovered, so he started a loping gallop, turning to a quick, mad sprint, as though he attempted to jump over the bar before it had time to rise higher. With a beautiful take-off, a splendid spring—a quick, writhing twist in air, and two spasmodic kicks, the whole being known as the scissors form of high jump, the mosquito-like youth made a strenuous effort to clear the needed height, but—one foot kicked the cross-bar, and as Hicks fell flat on his back, in the ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... two lie in the sun, with a wing and a leg stretched out,—lazily picking at the gravel, or relieving their ennui from time to time with a spasmodic rustle of their feathers. An old, matronly hen stalks about the yard with a sedate step, and with quiet self-assurance she utters an occasional series of hoarse and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an astonished brood at her heels, is eying curiously, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... they cloaked with secrecy their complicity in these great crimes. The Jacobins became all-powerful. The Girondists became the party of the past, and from this time their history is a record of a party in name, but in such act of dissolution as to make its efforts spasmodic, clique-like, and personal; sometimes grand, sometimes cruel, and often cowardly. They were under the coercion of public opinion, but were dragged instead of driven by it. They frequently held back, but this was merely a halt, which accelerated the rapidity of the march which left them at ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... of these observations reached abruptly for the decanter on the desk and poured himself a stiff drink of Scotch whisky. The neck tinkled a little tattoo against the glass. He swallowed the liquor neat and shook his head in a spasmodic grimace. The sigh with which he settled back in his chair was one ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the monthly U. S. Labor Bulletin covers most of the articles which are at all important in the wage earners' budget. The collection of such data, however, has remained spasmodic up to the present. See the article by H. S. Hanna in the October, 1919, issue of the Monthly Review of the U. S. Department of Labor. The Sumner Committee Report on the "Cost of Living in Great Britain" 1917 (CD ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... moved. The stomach becomes sensible, the gastric juices are moved and displace themselves with noise, the mouth becomes moist, and all the digestive powers are under arms, like soldiers awaiting the word of command. After a few moments there will be spasmodic ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... fits of spasmodic rigidity which had recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... their spears, and muttering a charm. All the people of the coffle then sprang up and set forwards, without formally bidding their friends farewell. The slaves had all heavy loads upon their heads, and many of them having been long in irons, the sudden exertion of walking quick, caused spasmodic contractions of their legs, and they had scarcely proceeded a mile, when two of them were obliged to be taken from the rope, and suffered to walk more slowly. The coffle after halting two hours at Maraboo, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... found Rome with a mere shadow of an army; the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result, and the little army, called into existence by the republic, proved admirable in discipline, ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... see," continued the other, with a spasmodic movement of his big frame that might have been caused, Jack suspected, by a half- suppressed sob welling up from his sorely distressed heart, "he's not only been watching me close at times, but twice now he's even asked me something about the football match with Marshall; and last night ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... scoundrel known to us pursued his work of sin with an absolute unconsciousness of all moral law until pain or death drew near; then the scoundrel cringed like a cur under the scourges of remorse. Thackeray, in a fit of spasmodic courage, painted the archetypal scoundrel once and for all in "Barry Lyndon," and he practically said the last word on the subject; for no grave analysis, no reasoning, can ever improve on that immortal and most moving picture of a wicked man. Observe the masterpiece. Lyndon goes ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... day we had no better luck, and the pain between the shoulder-blades was unceasing. All night long I had tossed on my narrow cot, with aching back and nerves wrought up to such a tension that the moment I began to doze off I was wakened by a spasmodic jerk of the right arm as it reached forward to grasp a visionary strip of lace. That evening, as we filed out at six o'clock, Bessie was waiting for us, her gentle face full of radiance and good news. Even the miserable Eunice ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... life, enlivened by humor and sweetened by pathos. I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius," he says; but again, with strange imperviousness, "A small daily task, if it be daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules." Beat them, how? Why, in quantity. But how about quality? Is the travail of a work of art the same thing as the making of a pair of shoes? ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... but, with an effort that forced a groan, he rolled over on his face, and thence raised himself to a kneeling posture. He paused so a moment, and then, by another spasmodic movement, succeeded in gaining his feet. He had been twice kicked in his right leg, and the pain was wellnigh insupportable. He stood ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... trickle of treble notes. There are black silences, like thunderclouds, that burst into flashes of music. Now the poor melody swings up into the air—then comes one of those terrible pauses, and now down into the abyss. A crash, an ineffectual beating, a spasmodic rush. I seem to hear the pumps again, distant, remote, ineffectual. But that is not so; the struggle is over. Chopin's Study has been battered to pieces; only disarticulated fragments toss amidst the froth. High up the confusion of the stormy sky she drives in a sieve dropping notes—the ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... seeing a ray of light underneath the door of his room. He entered.... She was awaiting him—reading, tranquil and smiling. Her face, refreshed and retouched with juvenile color, did not show the slightest trace of the morning's spasmodic outbreak. She was clad ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and the only remedy which is of value in whooping cough is a nerve depressant which will diminish the activity of the nervous system without at the same time interfering with the strength or vigor of the patient. On account of this connection between the lungs, whose spasmodic ejection of air seems to threaten the entire collapse of the little patient, and the stomach, so alarming do the repeated fits of vomiting appear that often this feature of the disease is even more serious ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... dust, slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark—this lightly-clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature—up there! He remembered her now. Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... produced in many ways, and for various reasons. A species of ant which makes its nest on the under side of leaves produces a noise by striking the leaf with its head in a series of spasmodic taps, and another ant is also very interesting as regards its sound-producing habit. "Individuals of this species are sometimes spread over a surface of two square yards, many out of sight of the others; yet the tapping is set ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... deeply exciting, the clash of interest upon interest was swift, novel in sequence, and most dramatic in outcome, but the applause was sharp and spasmodic, not long continued and hearty as before. Some of the men who had clapped loudest at the opening now sat gnawing their ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... turn in consulting the prophetess professionally, that she had witnessed a scene of consternation and unaffected maternal grief in this Hungarian lady upon the sudden seizure of her son, a child of four or five years old, by a spasmodic inflammation of the throat (since called croup) peculiar to children, and in those days not very well understood by medical men. The poor Hungarian, who had lived chiefly in warm, or at least not damp, climates, and had ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... me for some time by rustling newspapers, and making spasmodic struggles to find a posture that suited him, my master found one at last and fell asleep, and I crept up to the velvet collar of his great-coat ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... performances. They were followed in 1862 by "Der Fliegende Hollaender," all worthy but inadequate efforts. Maretzek and Strakosch were the chief figures in grand opera during this period, but there were spasmodic efforts by others which need ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... where there were belts of plowed land the harrows clanked across the furrows amidst a haze of blowing dust. The ducks and geese had gone, and red lilies began to sway above the rolling waves of grass. Farmer and hired man worked with tense activity, but Charnock's efforts were spasmodic and often slack. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... its forms of expression or even of thought are adapted to such minds, but that its principles, when rationally applied to a more advanced state of society, are unsound. Rightly understood it does not seem to me to enjoin anything eccentric or spasmodic, to bid you enact primitive Orientalism in the streets of London, thrust fraternity upon writers in the Pall Mall Gazette, or behave generally as if the "Kingdom of God" were already come. Your duty as a Christian is done if you ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... power of spices to prolong its decay. It had rotted of the potato-rot, and the League's powerful breath blew it over. The Whigs returned to office, but not to power, the Russell Government proving a most ridiculous concern, and living through only five years of rickety rule. A spasmodic Tory Government, that discarded Tory principles, endured for less than a year, not even the vigorous intellect of the Earl of Derby, seconded though it was by the genius of Disraeli, being sufficient to insure it a longer term of existence. Then came the Aberdeen ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... had given place to spasmodic efforts to rise. He got on one knee, and his gloved hand roamed feebly about in search of a hold. It was plain that he had shot his bolt. The referee signed to his seconds, who ducked into the ring and carried him to his corner. Sheen walked back to his ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... might not have been aware of it, but the repetitions of the threats were, in themselves, confessions of weakness. He came a step or two forward,—then, stopping short, began to tremble. The perspiration broke out upon his brow; he made spasmodic little dabs at it with his crumpled-up handkerchief. His eyes wandered hither and thither, as if searching for something which they feared to see yet were constrained to seek. He began to talk to himself, out loud, in odd disconnected ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... be rendered save by actors strung up to a pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of such characters as Isabella, demands ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the rattle of chain and hiss of steam, but the uproar began to die away and the sharp clatter of small engines changed to spasmodic jars. Then somebody shouted, there was a crash, and the end of a broken warp, flying back, tore up the dazzling water. The windlass stopped, and a few moments later a clump of mangroves swayed. Kit heard green wood crack, as ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... day was over: oh, the information was positive; he had it from an aid to one of the generals; and although, in speaking of the route the marshal was to come by, he pointed to the frontier of Belgium, Maurice yielded to one of those spasmodic attacks of hopefulness of his, without which life to him would not have been worth living. Might it not be that the day of reckoning was ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... bird opened the concert with a brilliant solo by way of overture, which was duly reported by the musical critic in the shape of a chalk line on the table. The length of the effusion did not matter; a long aria, or a brilliant but spasmodic cadenza, each counted one, and one only. The Bermondsey bird, heedless of the issue at stake, devoted the precious moments to eating, emitting nothing beyond a dyspeptic twitter which didn't count; and his proprietor stood by ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... horribly for breath. He did not apparently hear Max enter. His close-cropped head was bowed upon his arms. His hands were opening and closing convulsively. He rocked to and fro almost with violence, but no sound beyond his spasmodic breathing ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... without thought, animated only by frenzied brute instinct to find the throat of his tormenter, and ever and ever failing; till at length he crumpled and lay crushed and writhing, then subsided into insensibility, was quite still but for heaving lungs and the spasmodic clutchings of his broken ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... a spasmodic and egotistical fashion, he found himself thinking presently of Janet Merryweather, as he had thought more than once during the wakeful hours of the night. He felt, somehow, that she had been treated detestably, and he was angry with his uncle for having left him, ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... to his heart again with almost a spasmodic pressure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft sweet names which now came new to his lips! How he chid himself for ever having been unhappy with such a treasure in his house, ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... a kind of wondering weariness—weariness at the weary fate of men who could 'think so brainsickly of things.' So in like manner will all the emphasis and elaboration in the literature of sensuality become a weariness without meaning, also. Congreve's caustic wit will turn to spasmodic truism; and Theophile Gautier's excess of erotic ardour, into prolix and fantastic affectation. All its sublimity, its brilliance, and a large part of its interest, depend in art on the existence of the moral ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... distributed over the country As wealth is attained the capacity of enjoying it departs Assertive sort of smartness that was very disagreeable Attention to his personal appearance is only spasmodic Boy who is a man before he is an infant Bringing a man to her feet, where he belongs Chief object in life is to "get there" quickly Climate which is rather worse now than before the scientists Content: not wanting that we can get Excuse is found for nearly every moral delinquency Frivolous old ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... coldness to the touch of a male, and warmth to that of a female; and finally its ability to induct—I think this is the right term—to induct sounds out of the unknown. This last quality might be called spasmodic or accidental, whereas the others ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... gathered to a public show. Though the rain had ceased, and the sun shone, those who possessed umbrellas were not to be coaxed, but held them aloft with a settled air of gloom which defied the lenitives of nature and the spasmodic cajolery of the worst band in Edinburgh. "It'll be near full, Jock?" "It wull." "He'll be startin' in a meenit?" "Aiblins he wull." "Wull this be the sixt time ye've seen him?" "I shudna wonder." It occurred to me that, had we come ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crooked-tailed, cropped-eared cat, its back arched, tail erect, fur standing stiff all over its body, and round yellow eyes glued in fascination to the enemy luring her to death. Not a sound did the poor cat make, but continued her march with a spasmodic rhythm that would have seemed ludicrous had it not been so pathetically fearful. Even Aunt Maria's arrival upon the scene did not break the charm, and the horrified woman stood still in the doorway too frightened to move, too terrified ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... she'll see anything?" asked the woman with a spasmodic shudder and a terrified roll of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... have been more astonished. They had just passed three freight trains headed in the opposite direction, and now here was a pursuing locomotive coming after them at full speed, and with a full head of steam on. Making one spasmodic effort, they broke the rail they were trying to ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... ordinary use, but of greater length. Returning to the bed where Thora still lay, breathing with the long, heavy respiration of slumber, he leaned over her, and the moment he did so, and but for a moment, a low, spasmodic cry was heard, a slight struggle shook the bed, and all was hushed as before. M. de Lacroix had driven the needle into Thora's heart! Wiping with his finger the trifling drop of blood which oozed from the puncture, he effaced all trace ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... nature could not sink into the depths without many a bitter outcry against its wrongs. It was with no slight effort that he drowned the memory of his early home and its good influences. During the first two or three years he occasionally had periods of passionate remorse, and made spasmodic efforts toward better things. But they were made in human strength, and in view of the penalties of evil, rather than because he was enamored of the right. Some special temptation would soon sweep ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... grossly flatters the sensibilities of the average citizen by its assumption that he is sharp enough to be dismayed by what stares him in the face. Charles Dickens had lucid intervals in which he was vaguely conscious of the abuses around him; but his spasmodic efforts to expose these brought him into contact with realities so agonising to his highstrung literary nerves that he invariably sank back into debauches of unsocial optimism. Even the Swan of Avon had his glimpses of the havoc of displacement wrought by ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... plead his delicate health as the reason for assuming them, as he did; though I used to think, that for a man in poor health, he was very swift on the legs; at least when a good place was to be jumped to; though that might only have been a sort of spasmodic exertion under strong inducements, which every one knows the greatest ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... to hear of your indisposition, but thought the best thing I could do, was to make no formal calls when you were really ill. I have been suffering myself from another kind of malady—a severe, spasmodic, house-buying-and-repairing attack—which has left me extremely weak and all but exhausted. The seat of the disorder has ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... a positive strength; and so there was sometimes a sardonic smile, when, on rising from his seat, the rheumatism was a little evident in an old fellow's joints; or when the palsy shook another's fingers so that he could barely fill his pipe; or when a cough, the gathered spasmodic trouble of thirty years, fairly convulsed another. Then, any two that happened to be sitting near one another looked into each other's cold eyes, and whispered, or suggested merely by a look (for they ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... occasions when the pitiful curtain of his egotism had been blown aside by some chance breeze of destiny, and Francis Madigan had stood for a moment face to face with himself and his shirked responsibilities, he made the spasmodic effort to fulfil his paternal obligations, which the Madigans had learned to call their "martyring." He took from his library the book which had been most to him, which he had read all his life: for inspiration when he had been young and hopeful, for philosophy ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... within range of the stick just as it was lifted, provided that it was not possible, under the circumstances, in the one case to have known, in the other to have anticipated, the proximity. In either case there is wanting the only element which distinguishes voluntary acts from spasmodic muscular contractions as a ground of liability. In neither of them, that is to say, has there been an opportunity of choice with reference to the consequence complained of,—a chance to guard against the result which has ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... evils which had always been there, had that which the others lacked, moral conviction, and Hartington was infected with moral indifferentism. The Conservatives no doubt thought that Mr. Gladstone's attitude was mere emotional facility, a mere exhibition of spasmodic power of transient enthusiasm, an effect rather of temperament than of conviction, and unlikely therefore to produce a continued consequence of action sustained at a high level. The public, however, saw more ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... discussed tempo rubato of Chopin many and fatal blunders have been made. Players without number have gone stumbling over the piano keys with a tottering, spasmodic gait, serenely fancying they are heeding the master's design. Reckless, out-of-time playing disfigures what is meant to express the fluctuation of thought, the soul's agitation, the rolling of the waves of time ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... said Aunt Emmeline, "you are not in your first bloom. That we can't expect. Your colour is a little harder and more fixed" (the figure in the glass gave a spasmodic jerk. The sulky expression was pierced by a gleam of fear. "Fixed!" Good gracious! She might be talking of those old people who have little red lines over their cheek-bones in the place of "bloom". It's ridiculous to say I am "fixed". It is a matter of indifference to me ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I am free and in favor again you will—Ah!" he broke off suddenly with an exclamation. His eyes were bent eagerly on the circle of trees just beyond the parade-ground. Then his hand clasped hers in one spasmodic grip of relief. An instant later he was towering, with head bare, at the top of the steps, his hand pointed dramatically toward ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... thing, at least, there is no shadow of doubt. The people of the loyal States, who, by an immense majority, have just emphasized their determination to sustain the war, are firmly convinced that they are not laboring and suffering in vain. It is no spasmodic impulse of blind passion, or even of useless though just resentment against wrong, which impels them, after nearly three years of ruinous war, to redouble their sublime efforts to conquer the treason that still obstinately resists the lawful authority of the Union. Whatever ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... | | | | Every doctor will tell you that he is more afraid to give tobacco, | | even as an enema, than any other poison in the Materia Medica: he | | never gives it by the stomach. Sometimes, in violent spasmodic colic, | | or strangulation of the bowels, or spasmodic croup, tobacco is used | | externally as a poultice, and if you are not very careful, it will | | kill your patient even in this form. Many a colt and ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... we were nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now—their summer ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... spasmodic movement of the victim, and immediately above the middle of his forehead a black hole marred the whiteness of the figure-head. A dreadful pause; then again the report, and the solid sound and jar of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Outside herself there was little in which she took very great interest, and her interest in herself was not absorbing. Yet she had a curiously sweet way. Her servants liked her and the tenants could count on her spasmodic attentions in time ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... critic, after various spasmodic efforts at severity, selecting from among many comprehensive measures suggested by me for the future emancipation, and for the present benefit, of the slave, the proposition of "a proper instrument for flogging, to be established by law," and that with the evident intention of throwing ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... no room for them in the Bursa. So on they went into Bohemia, where at the town of Kaaden the rector of the school was able to allot them a room—just a bare, unfurnished chamber, in which they were permitted to settle. Such teaching as Butzbach received was spasmodic and ineffectual, and after two years of this bondage he ran away. For the next five years he was in Bohemia in private service, longing for home, hating his durance among the heathen, as he called the Bohemians for following ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... all,"—not in constant, spasmodic, or ill-directed labor, but faithful, unremitting, daily effort toward a well-directed purpose. Just as truly as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so is eternal industry the price ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... cannot afford to ignore such experiments as those of Morselli and Bottazzi. I am aware that many investigators discountenance such experiments, but I believe with Venzano that the physical phenomena of mediumship cannot be, and ought not to be, considered trivial. It was the spasmodic movement of a decapitated frog that resulted in the discovery of the Voltaic Pile. Furthermore, I intend to try every other conceivable hypothesis before accepting that ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... take a U-tube depending from a vessel of water (Fig. 4) and apply the lamp to one leg a circulation is at once set up within it, and no such spasmodic action can be produced. Thus U-tube is the representative of the true method of circulation within a water-tube boiler properly constructed. We can, for the purpose of securing more heating surface, ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... with Blackwood's Magazine for many years. He was a poet of the highest order, and his Execution of Montrose, and the Burial March of Dundee, are two noble historical ballads. He was author of the celebrated Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Bon Gaultier Ballads, Firmilian, a Spasmodic Tragedy, Bothwell, Poland, and other Poems, The Life and Times of Richard Coeur de Lion, etc. Died August ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform, together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country. Bryan did not approve. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Divinity," [36:2] in which, on the contrary, I studiously commit myself to very decided disbelief in such a "Personal God" as he means. In no way inconsistent with that chapter are my concluding remarks, contrasting with the spasmodic Jewish Divinity a Supreme Being manifested in the operation of invariable laws—whose very invariability is the guarantee of beneficence and security. If Dr. Lightfoot, however, succeeded in convicting me of inconsistency in those final expressions, there could ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... civilization is, should be, and may be as a world enterprise—these considerations are the foundation stones upon which we must build the temple of education now in the process of reconstruction. Otherwise the work will be narrow, illiberal, spasmodic, and sporadic. It must be possible to arrive at a common denominator of the concepts of society, citizenship, and civilization as pertaining to all nations; it must be possible to contrive a composite of all these ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... powers of cordiality, or else Nuttie's stiffness froze him. They were all embarrassed, and had reason to be grateful to Lady Kirkaldy's practised powers as a diplomate's wife. She made the most of Mrs. Egremont's shy spasmodic inquiries, and Mark's jerks of information, such as that they were all living at Bridgefield Egremont, now, that his sister May was very like his new cousin, that Blanche was come out and was very like his mother, etc. etc. Every one was more at ease when Lady Kirkaldy carried the conversation ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cried Dick, with a spasmodic tightening of the right hand which rested on Dora's shoulder. "Give father the impression that she's coming back, just to see how ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... exception that the latter is only sung by men. The character of the Tuppah is not very clear, but the Ragni is a direct descendant of the old magic songs and incantations; in character it is rhapsodical and spasmodic. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the last turn of the stairs she perceived that Mason Winch, an earnest youth with advanced views on political economy, was engaged, to the diversion of a circle of spectators, in teaching the Telfer girls chess. The futility of trying to fix the spasmodic attention of this effervescent couple, and their instructor's grave unconsciousness of the fact, constituted, for the lookers-on, the peculiar diversion of the scene. It was of course inevitable that young Winch, on his arrival at Lynbrook, should have succumbed at once to the tumultuous ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... there been five such years in England. The sanguinary struggles of the Roses, the grinding oppression of Henry the Seventh, the spasmodic cruelties of Henry the Eighth, were not to be compared with this time. Of all persecutors, none is, because none other can be, so coldly, mercilessly, hopelessly unrelenting, as he who believes himself to be doing ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... right,' said Phil, breathlessly, delivering himself of his information in spasmodic bursts of words. 'Such a lot of work it was! here's the list. Pancho will dump them on the ground and let us settle them when we get there. Such a load! You should have seen it! Hardly room for him to sit up in front with the Chinaman. Just hear this,' and he drew a large ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... without one. The long, lonely evenings—the endless days, when time never moves off the spot, my dogs and I have sat on the floor fascinated with the greatest music in the world. I like my machine because it may be depended upon, never is nervous, and always willing to perform. Talent is so spasmodic and dependent upon moods, while the little hard rubber discs tirelessly and graciously ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... opened by Talleyrand's agents before it left Paris, and the French Government was thus placed on its guard against the sudden explosion of Prussian wrath. Lucchesini's despatch had indeed all the importance that Talleyrand attributed to it. It brought that spasmodic access of resolution to the irresolute King which Bernadotte's violation of his territory had brought in the year before. The whole Prussian army was ordered to prepare for war; Brunswick was summoned to form plans ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... as we should now say, the epileptic boy, who ofttimes falls into the water or into the fire, or lies grovelling on the earth, foaming and gnashing his teeth; the boy struggles in his arms—the rolling eyes, the distorted features, the spasmodic limbs are at once terrible ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... genuine ones, and these he palmed off upon the innocent and unsuspecting, until he was brought to book on the charge of false pretenses. Human service, as taught by Jesus of Nazareth, has only been tried in a very spasmodic way, except for advertising purposes. The world has now, for the first time in history, reached a point where as a vital problem the production of wealth is secondary to the question of how we shall distribute it. And so the Religion of Service is being seriously considered, and perhaps ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... ask leave to scrutinise carefully every step of the argument which has such an ending, and demur if at any point of it we are invited to substitute unlimited hypothesis for patient observation, or the spasmodic fluttering flight of fancy for the severe conclusions to which logical accuracy of reasoning ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... experience of the first few sittings, it may be that of many; but, sooner or later, there will come a moment when the milky clouds and dancing starlights will suddenly vanish—a bright azure expanse like an open summer sky will occupy the field of vision; the brain will take up a spasmodic action, as if opening and shutting in the superior coronal region; there will be a tightening of the scalp on a level with the base of the brain, as if the floor of the cerebrum were contracting; the seer will catch his breath ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... were still on his lips when out of the dense tangle of vegetation rang a shot. The owner of the Flying VY clutched at his saddle-horn. A spasmodic shudder shook the heavy body ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... means of existence. We were to recover, I make out, our disturbed balance, and were to pursue awhile further our chase of the alien, the somehow repeatedly postponed real opportunity; and the second, the comparatively cramped and depressed connection with the classic refuge, as it then was, of spasmodic thrift, when not of settled indigence, for the embarrassed of our race in the largest sense of this matter, was to be shuffled off at last with no scant relief and reaction. This is perhaps exactly why the whole picture of our existence at the Pas-de-Calais watering place pleads to me now ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... loud crash they both fell heavily down. Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile; but anguish was depicted on every lineament of ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... fables. When he practised as a physician at Basle, he called one of his nostrums by the name of azoth—a stone or crystal, which, he said, contained magnetic properties, and cured epilepsy, hysteria, and spasmodic affections. He soon found imitators. His fame spread far and near; and thus were sown the first seeds of that error which has since taken root and flourished so widely. In spite of the denial of modern practitioners, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... days, however, we can readily believe that Charles IX. died a natural death. His excesses, his manner of life, the sudden development of his faculties, his last spasmodic attempt to recover the reins of power, his desire to live, the abuse of his vital strength, his final sufferings and last pleasures, all prove to an impartial mind that he died of consumption, a disease scarcely studied at that time, and ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... given to the masses is, in its nature, spasmodic and transitory. No systematic enterprise to enlighten the masses ever can be carried out. Campaigns of education contain a fallacy. Education takes time. It cannot be treated as subsidiary for a lifetime and then be made the chief business for six months with the desired result. ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... confounded, and recoiled from the fierce, spasmodic energy of the speaker, so very much at variance with the subdued tone of her previous conversation. He little knew what an effort was required hitherto, on her part, to maintain that tone, and to speak coolly and quietly of those fortunes, every thought of which ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... under his assailant, and the dagger rose and fell in spasmodic jerks. Dick had hold of the man's wrist, but the dagger-point dripped blood and the fury of the attack increased as Dick appeared to weaken. Utirupa ran in to drag the assailant off, but Trotters got there first—chose his neck-hold like a wolf ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... with blades or keys attached, forming a keyboard four feet long. The levers, each three feet long, are delicately hung on fine brass centers, and each lever is counterbalanced by a weight hung in a vessel of water, which acts as a hydraulic brake, and checks any spasmodic movement ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... the one possible means of relief, however; and Madame Dravikine, wise in her generation, let him weep his bitter revolt away. This lasted nearly an hour, and both were exhausted by the time the tears had ceased, and only an occasional, spasmodic sob gave evidence of the storm that had passed. It was at this juncture—Ivan upon the floor, half sitting, half kneeling, Caroline's arms clasping him close—that the door of the room opened again, quietly, and Nathalie appeared. At sight of ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... again, or would dare to say that he ever had! Lord! I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and his high-toned mother and sister some arternoon." He threw himself back and laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from being genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of pain in others rather than of pleasure in himself. He had often laughed at her ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... days before the end, pressure of the brain became apparent; severe pain, succeeded by torpor and loss of power, and, after a short time, utter unconsciousness, proved that the sands of life had nearly run down. A few hours of spasmodic suffering followed, very trying to those who watched by; but suddenly, about four on the morning of October 13th, 1845, the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the spirit returned to God ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... in a vast and sombre hall whose darkly panelled walls and high-beamed ceiling bred a multitude of shadows that danced about the table a weird, spasmodic saraband, without meaning or end, restlessly advancing and retreating as the candles flickered, failed and flared ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... forgetfulness, or bewilderment, he had left his door unfastened. The candle was still burning, and May saw him lying on the floor, where he had fallen in his endeavor to reach the door to call for assistance; his face purple and swollen, and his breath gurgling up with a choking, spasmodic sound. ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... face was long, and thin, and dark, with a straight nose, and large mouth, and high cheek-bones; but he had fine black eyes, though they were fierce, and had a look in them that suggested the woods and the wild things that live there. But Ranald, though his attendance was spasmodic, and dependent upon the suitability or otherwise of the weather for hunting, was the best speller in ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... latter, the need for a divinely-commissioned society which should declare the will and communicate the grace of God, not to one nation only but to all men who were willing to hearken and obey,—and whose action, as a channel of intercourse between God and Man, should be continuous rather than spasmodic,—began to make itself felt. A Code of Law might conceivably suffice to regulate the life of one small nation; but when we consider under what varying conditions of climate, occupation, custom, tradition, ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes |
