"Qualm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... house, the whole world tore round and round, and heaved up and down frantically with him. He ceased to be a human being: he became a giddy atom, spinning drunkenly in illimitable space. He started up in bed, and was recalled to a sense of his humanity by a cold perspiration and a deathly qualm. Hiccups burst from him no longer; but they were succeeded by another and a louder series of sound—sounds familiar to everybody who has ever been at sea—sounds nautically and lamentably associated with white basins, whirling waves, and misery of mortal stomachs wailing ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... forbearance, recoiled, and stepped into the roadway in order to pass him. Indignant at this attempt to ignore him, he again placed himself in her path, and was repeating his question with increased sternness, when a jerk in the pit of his stomach caused him a severe internal qualm, besides disturbing his equilibrium so rudely that he narrowly escaped a fall against the curb-stone. When he recovered himself he saw before him a showily dressed young ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... and how delighted I am to hear your interesting intelligence. You could not have given me better news. In future I am relieved of all need of sympathetic anxiety about you, and henceforth I can enjoy my freedom without a qualm, and dispose of life just as ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... that is my course; By cunning, if I may; if not, by force; So cometh, year by year, my salary." "Now certes," quote the Sumner, "so fare I. I lay my hands on everything, God wot, Unless it be too heavy or too hot. What I may get in counsel, privily, I feel no sort of qualm thereon, not I. Extortion or starvation;—that's my creed. Repent who list. The best of saints must feed. That's all the stomach that my conscience knoweth. Curse on the ass that to confession goeth. Well be we met, 'Od's heart! and by my dame! But tell ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... expect that great worldly lights might learn by experience how fatal bungled entertainments can be, but such is not the case. Many well-intentioned people continue sacrificing their friends on the altar of hospitality year after year with never a qualm of conscience or a sensation of pity for their victims. One practical lady of my acquaintance asks her guests alphabetically, commencing the season and the first leaf of her visiting list simultaneously and working steadily on through both to “finis.” If you are an A, you will ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... his sudden qualm appeased. 'No,' he said, his thoughts returning painfully to his son. 'I'm feeart he'll not stay wi you. He's cleverer than I ever was, and I was ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... into her eyeballs, hung before her. For she knew that it was the cost to her he was counting. She knew that for himself he had ever held life cheap, that he could have seen Tignonville suffer without a qualm. And the thoughtfulness for her, the value he placed on a thing—even on a rival's life—because its was dear to her, touched her home, moved her as few things could have moved her at that moment. She saw it of a piece with all that had gone before, with all that had passed between ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... and not without a qualm of apprehension. This man had become a constant caller at the farm at all sorts of odd and unexpected moments. And his attitude was such that she thoroughly resented him. In his vaunting, braggadocio manner he had ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... sang, Eric had time to think. As he glanced round the room, at the flushed faces of the boys, some of whom he could not recognise in the dusky atmosphere, a qualm of disgust and shame passed over him. Several of them were smoking, and, with Bull and Brigson heading the line on each, side of the table, he could not help observing what a bad set they looked. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... rebuked me with the holy word— Accursed sounds; but now my native pride Return'd, and by no foolish qualm deterr'd, I bore him from the mountain's woody side Up to the summit, where extending wide Kingdoms and cities, palaces and fanes, Bright sparkling in the sunbeams, were descried, And in gay dance, amid luxuriant plains, Tripp'd to the ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... proceeded to distribute liberal largesse among the subordinate officers of the impi, gave Mapela a specially handsome present, and so parted upon excellent terms from my Mashona friends, not without a qualm of regret and of wistful surmise as to my chances of ever again seeing them. Later on, after a meal and a rest, we again inspanned, and, trekking a few miles upstream, rounded the shoulder of a range of low hills ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... little supper, he said: "My dear parents, I have some news, which I fear will affect you considerably." I felt a qualm come over me, and said nothing. Lupin then said: "It may distress you—in fact, I'm sure it will—but this afternoon I have given up my pony and trap for ever." It may seem absurd, but I was so pleased, I immediately opened a bottle of port. Gowing dropped in just in time, ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... had done or had said which had banished her pride and told her of his faithfulness. It was the consciousness which came from within, the consciousness which had always fought back the forces from without. She had not felt one qualm of conscience, for Freddy was understanding and approving. He would know that any doubt she had ever had had been banished the moment Michael had taken her in his arms. Freddy, who had only blamed him for his weakness, ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... of her daughter. He meant nothing to her. Her world was complete without him. He possessed her daughter's love,—and all the love she would ever know perhaps,—but even that did not produce within her the slightest qualm. Doubtless Anne would go on loving him to the end of her days. It is the prerogative of women who do not marry for love; it is their right to love the men they do not marry provided they honour the men they do, and keep their ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... so long, that Agatha leaned over, trying to see his face. The violence of the chill had passed. His eyes were wide open, his face alarmingly pale. She felt a sudden qualm of pain, lest illness and exhaustion had wrought havoc in his frame deeper than she knew. But as she bent over him, his features lighted up with his rare smile—an expression full of happiness and peace. He lifted ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... side of this tail was adorned with hair like fringe. It looked at me steadily, and, except its tail, was not an ugly creature. I did not choose to be frightened; but still as another and another came, and all stood steadily gazing at me, I had a sort of qualm that some rats fly at one's throat, and, though not really injured, I might perhaps get severely bitten if they attacked me. I was therefore glad to hear the merry voices in the distance coming nearer and nearer; and, as the rats heard the unusual sounds, they slunk away as if by magic, ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... didn't make the libel laws. They're hard enough as it is." His thought turned momentarily to Ely Ives, the journalistic sandbag, and he felt a momentary qualm. "I don't pretend to like everything about my job. One of these days I'll have a newspaper of my own, and you shall censor every ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... dealings. If we look into our everyday life we cannot fail to see that God not only allows but seeks our cooperation in the establishment of His Kingdom. So the second fundamental by which I stand is the certainty of a possible real and close relationship between man and God. Not one qualm assails my intellect or my intuition when I say that I know absolutely that God is my Father. To live "as seeing Him who is invisible" is my one ideal which embraces all the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... in Riversborough who would not have spoken of him as a good churchman and a Christian. While he had been gradually appropriating Mr. Clifford's money and the hard-earned savings of poorer men confided to him, he had felt no qualm of conscience in giving liberally to many a religious and philanthropic object, contributing such sums as figure well in a subscription list; though it was generally his wife's name that figured there. He had never taken up a subscription list without glancing ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... his time, and day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes be,— He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty—the paltry clime It will grow golden in his palm, Who ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... moonlight, and looked very peaceful; but the strangling sensation at her throat continued, and besides that, her face and ears felt muffled. She put up her hand and felt that her head was covered with a ruffled nightcap tied under her chin so tightly that it was exceedingly uncomfortable. A great qualm of horror shot over her. She tore the thing off frantically and flung it from her with a convulsive effort as if it had been a spider. She gave, as she did so, a quick, short scream of terror. She sprang out of bed and was going toward the ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... the suspicion of morbid sensitiveness when I confess that I never took my weekly wage in London without a qualm and a compunction, for I could never make myself believe that I had really earned it. What had I done? I had simply performed a few arithmetical processes which any schoolboy might have done as well. My labour, such ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... adventurer. I liked adventure for adventure's sake, and cared nothing for the constant peril of detection. Strange how easily one can be enticed from a life of honesty into one of fraud, especially if the inducements held out are an adequate recompense for any qualm ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... you, Colonel Sahib?" she asked him squarely. "I see nothing foolish in what I have said. You wouldn't have me so conceited that I rushed into this immense business without a qualm, without any thought whether I can carry it out creditably—with ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... charge, her burden, as helpless in her hands as a child; and nobody but herself knew anything about it. It was characteristic of Phoebe's nature that she had no doubt as to being perfectly right in the matter, no qualm lest she should be making a mistake. She felt the weight upon her of the great thing she had undertaken to do, with a certain half-pleasing sense of the solemnity of the position and of its difficulties; but she was not afraid that she was going wrong or suffering her fancy to stray further than ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... which came second. The Red was third, which comforted Colgius a little. As Palus passed the judges' stand he threw up an arm, with a gesture so boyish, so debonair, so graceful, so altogether characteristic of Commodus, that I felt a qualm all over me. And a second gesture of exultation as he vanished through the Gate of Triumph was ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... happiness. But Walter's open and generous mind was quite incapable of understanding this unworthy motive, and with feelings far better trained than those of Kenrick, he never felt the slightest qualm ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... was one of those who might commit a murder rather than confess the theft of a postage-stamp. I was sure that his coming interview with Carthew rode his imagination like a nightmare; when the thought crossed his mind, I used to think I knew of it, and that the qualm appeared in his face visibly. Yet he would never flinch: necessity stalking at his back, famine (his old pursuer) talking in his ear; and I used to wonder whether I most admired, or most despised, this quivering heroism for evil. The image that ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... subjects, the finer feelings seem to have been lost in the pursuit of wealth. There is no sign that the hideous tortures inflicted on men condemned for treason, or the equally horrible sufferings of heretics burnt at the stake, excited the least qualm of compassion in the breast of the multitude; the Act of Six Articles seems to have been rather a popular measure, and the multiplication of treasons ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... ten shillings and two pounds of lump sugar. That prevents the child from hindering our work or pleasure; and, as it is the interest of the nurse to protect the child for which she receives payment, why should we disturb our consciences with qualm or fear? ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... drives, and be present at the meals which she and Hugo now shared alone. Angela took little notice of the remonstrance of aunts and cousins, but when she heard that her brother Rupert was coming to stay at the Herons, and proposed to spend a day or two at Netherglen on his way thither, she felt a qualm of fear. Rupert was very careful of his sister: she felt sure that she would never be permitted to do what he thought in the ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... before the door, and a policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to me with a strange qualm. ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... Ferrier's dying hand had marked—he recalled the gleam in Barrington's black eyes as he had listened to it, the instinctive movement in his powerful hand, as though to pounce, vulturelike, on the letter—and his own qualm of anxiety—his sudden sense of having gone ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... relationship was not real. But to accept money from him—from that she shrank instinctively. And that proved the difference. For though not in the least drawn toward Cousin Julia, for all the other Elsie's enthusiasm, she could have accepted a larger sum from her without a qualm. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... entirely his. The incident of the silver dish had lacked even the attraction of novelty; it had been one of a series, all bearing a strong connecting likeness. There had been small unrepaid loans which Elaine would not have grudged in themselves, though the application for them brought a certain qualm of distaste; with the perversity which seemed inseparable from his doings, Comus had always flung away a portion of his borrowings in some ostentatious piece of glaring and utterly profitless extravagance, which outraged all the canons ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... St. Alban's; and were there received by the Pope Honorius with great respect; and continued there all the winter. In this same year was so great a flood on St. Laurence's day, that many towns and men were overwhelmed, and bridges broken down, and corn and meadows spoiled withal; and hunger and qualm (153) in men and in cattle; and in all fruits such unseasonableness as was not known for many years before. And this same year died the Abbot John of Peterborough, on the second day ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... life. Surely I should be ashamed to admit that in such fashion was my brain trying to fool my soul; but so it was. Remorse? I should have been worn with remorse, I know; but I was not. I tried to grieve for my hasty judgment of Captain Blaise: and I did. But for the Governor's son, not a qualm. I, too, like Captain Blaise, had become the creature of hereditary instincts and overpowering emotion. Never in all my life before had I thought that any sin or shortcoming of mine was ever to be anybody's business but my ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... time Uncle Moses had rallied. The momentary qualm had been purely physical, connected with something that a year since had caused a medical examination of his heart with a stethoscope. He had been too great an adept in the art of rallying after knock-down blows in his ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... by this answer you implicitly admit that you see no good. Have you then no remorse for frittering away such a precious gift of God as time? If the damned got five minutes of that time to repent, every chamber in hell would be empty. Yet you squander months and years without a qualm. ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... ache, smart, throe, rack, agony, torture, distress, qualm, discomfort, pang, excruciation, paroxysm, gripe, twinge, cramp, travail, stitch, crick, anguish; heartache, misery, dolor. Antonyms: ease, comfort, relief, solace. Associated Words: anodyne, anaesthetic, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... thousand rubles at a moment's notice; yet she will take in pledge objects worth as little as a ruble. She is quite a providence to many of our fellows—but such an old hag! I tell you what I would do. I would kill that damnable old hag, and take all she is possessed of, without any qualm of conscience," exclaimed the student excitedly. The officer laughed, but Raskolnikoff shuddered. The words just uttered so strongly echoed his own thoughts. "Let me put a serious question to you," resumed the student, more and more excited. "I have hitherto been joking, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... again found much that interested him. He felt no twinge of pity at the thought that Solomon White would very soon exchange this almost luxury for the bleak discomfort of a prison cell, and not even the sight of the girl who came through the door to greet him brought him a qualm. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... the eighth commandment rose to mind, It only served a moment's qualm to move; For thefts like this it could not be designed, The eighth commandment was not ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... indicate the prevailing metrical unit, or foot, within the line has been frankly given over. Iambs, dactyls, and their ilk receive scant courtesy from the composer of folk-song, who without qualm or quaver will stretch one syllable, or even an utter silence (caesura), into the time of a complete bar; while in the next breath he will with equal equanimity huddle a dozen syllables into the same period. Consequently, this ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... progress to wrestle with whatever remnant of a conscience he may happen to have. If he can stand by and coolly watch us work our gizzards out for the common good, and then reach out to share the fruits of our sacrifices, energies and enterprise, without a qualm, we can remember that there are many things in this world worth far more than money, one of which is that sense of having done our neighbour's share as well as our own. It will be enough for us to watch when, bewildered by the lusty ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... any opponent his last cent of money, even if he knew that a wife and children could be reduced to starvation thereby? How could a kindliness of purpose be read into the acts of a man who would have no scruple in taking life, under provocation, without the least mercy or qualm of conscience? He displayed no tenderness, he hated what he considered such weakness. It was his studied practice to avoid showing consideration for others, and he would have bitterly resented those who considered ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... squirming victims over the pot, and not without a qualm of pity dropped them into the boiling water. Then he ventured to ask a question. "What is ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... satisfied to have the instant emergency pass over in a manner rendered superficially creditable to himself by his outburst of temper, under cover of which he sacrificed the substantial matter of principle without a qualm. He shook his fist and shouted defiance in the face of the nullifiers, while Mr. Clay smuggled a comfortable concession into their pockets. Jackson, notwithstanding his belligerent attitude, did all ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... accept The Master's terms, if The Master offered them. He would become The Master's subject, accepting the poison of madness without a qualm. He would act and speak and think as a subject of The Master, until his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... the crowded establishment, where other clerks were selling tickets to Palestine, Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and all the abodes of happiness in the world, she saw at the newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an English daily. It said: "More Suffragette Riots." She had a qualm, for her conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and its empire over her had been strengthened by the long, steady course of hard work which she had accomplished. Miss Ingate's arguments had not placated that conscience. It had said to her in the night: "If ever there was a ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... felt no qualm, as otherwise he might have felt, at hiding there waiting for new victims. He was proud and thrilled to see his friend, secreted in his perch, keen-eyed and alert, guarding alone the crystal purity of this laughing, life-giving brook, as it hurried along its pebbly bed and tumbled in little gushing ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Vincent had a qualm of a feeling he thought he had left behind him with his boyhood, real embarrassment, fear of appearing at a disadvantage. What in the world did their antiquated lingo mean? Was he to kiss ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... lantern on the broken floor and swung herself down into the black hole. She hung by her hands and her feet did not touch the bottom. Suddenly she felt a qualm of terror. Perhaps the cellar was a good deal deeper ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... so pretty," urged Trent with a chivalric qualm—and he remembered her smooth brown hair parted over her rosy ears, her blue eyes, fresh as flowers, and the peculiar steadfastness that possessed ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... from a corporation which might at any time be haled before his court, and for a legislator to receive a gift from a body that was constantly in need of legislative attention is now held to be improper in the extreme. But in those days a less sensitive public opinion felt hardly a qualm. That the practice was likely to arouse an unconscious bias in the minds of public officials is hardly debatable. The more crude forms of bribery, too, were not uncommon. It was testified before a committee of investigation that the Erie Railway ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... admit to a qualm at the thought of Dad let loose on Earth without me, but after all Uncle Charlie is a born Terrie and can keep him in line; Hell he is old enough ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... out a notebook gave the operators a certain qualm of doubt. Fry whispered Hodges to go and tell the governor. On his return Hodges found the parties as he had left them, except Robinson—he was paler and his lips ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... afterward that he seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiency ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... him a little comfort. It was, then, only a moral qualm. He had even no objection to such a keen sense of purity in her; and sooner or later she would forgive his action, or be made to see it with the eyes of the ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... anger, resistance, and disgust. She had just offered him so large a sum of money to quit England for ever, as even Jim, for whom, you must remember, every sovereign represented twenty shillings' worth of beer, could not refuse without a qualm. He hesitated, and Maud's face brightened with a ray of hope that quivered in her eyes like sunlight. "To sail next week," said he slowly; "to take my last look of ye to-day. Them's the articles. My last look. Standing there in the daylight—a real lady! And ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... furtively, conscious of a slight nervous qualm. Then, rapidly reviewing the situation in her shallow brain, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... of varied rubbish into the open fire, leaned a broom against the mantel, readjusted the towel that protected her gray hair from the dust—hair on week days exposed with never a qualm to all manner of dust—cursed all Chinamen on land or sea with an especial and piquant blight invoked upon the one now in hiding, then took from the back of a chair where she had hung it the moment before a riding skirt come to feebleness and decrepitude. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... 'tis the trivial things that leave their mark upon the memory. For one, I recall the curious thrill of master-might it gave me to feel the play of Jennifer's great shoulder muscles against my back in his plying of the heavy claymore. For another, I remember the sickening qualm I had when the warm blood of my second—or mayhap 'twas the third—gushed out upon my sword hand, and I remember, too, how the impaled one, driven in upon the blade by the pressure of his fellows behind, would lay hold of the sharp steel and ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the advantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgo these walks home—at least until the next examination. She would understand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand.... He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincing matters. If once he began to consider her—Why should he consider her in that way? Simply ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... that means. It is only teasing the cousinhood when they fall on him open-mouthed," said Geraldine, with a laugh, though with a qualm of misgiving at her heart, while Clement ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... character, and was firm and strong rather than amiable or kind. Evidently a man who, should the occasion for doing so arise, would deal out the utmost rigour of the law, if not with indifference, at least without a qualm. He was the Honourable William Dummer Powell, and he occupied the high office of Chief Justice of the Province. In conjunction with the Reverend Doctor Strachan, Rector of York, he had for several years practically ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... everlasting fitness of things, in resurrecting a body from its mother clay. And yet that night, in the Casanova churchyard, I sat quietly by, and watched Alex and Mr. Jamieson steaming over their work, without a single qualm, except the ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the truly Spanish type, and it was kept by a huge, blubbery creature with piggish eyes and a bloated, purple countenance and the palsy. As much of him as appeared to be human appeared to be Irish; and Jean, after the first qualm of repulsion, when she faced him over the hotel register, detected a certain kindly solicitude in his manner, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... no satisfaction of weakening nerve, but in her heart she kept hidden a qualm as the time lengthened and a number of the men went on ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... years old, and English—to suggest without a backward thought or a qualm that a lady whom he had known five days should come and live with him and be his love! None of his friends accustomed to his bashful habits would have believed it. Only his father perhaps might ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... Smoke coughed and conquered a qualm. "Chop them open, and we can test by looking at them. Throw it out, Shorty—Throw it out! Phew! And ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... fully now, turns pale, and shudders. A blue line marks itself about his mouth; he is conscious of a qualm of positive ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a wolf cry broke the morning silence. In a little while there were more wolf cries, and they were coming nearer and nearer. The animals were doubtless following some quarry. Was it Bob they were after? A momentary qualm at the thought was quickly replaced by a feeling of satisfaction. That, he tried to argue with himself, would cover every clue to what had happened and was what he had ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... Could he ever get away from his guilt, run fast as he would? Benjamin ran as he had never run before, his heart pounding, although he did not know clearly what he was running for. He tore around the barn, through the pasture bars, towards the house. When he came in sight of the shed a great qualm of guilt and remorse forced him to glance up at the place where poor Seventoes had so loved to sit, and where he would sit no more. Benjamin glanced, then he stood stock-still, fairly aghast with awe and terror—there ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... hay across the barn the youth, heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through half closed lids. A qualm of disgust sent a sudden shudder through his slight frame. For the first time he almost regretted having embarked upon a life of crime. He had seen that the two men were conversing together earnestly, though he could over-hear nothing they said, and that he had been the subject of their nocturnal ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... game was, the better she was pleased. "Sure it's your own face! It's for you to do what you please with it!" was the easy comment with which she accepted my proposed disguise. She undertook to do most of the work of the flat without a qualm, and shed an easy tear of emotion over the sorrows and difficulties which it was to be my mission to reduce. "Oh, the poor creatures! Will they be starving around us, Miss Evelyn, and the little ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... save love. And for a time she seemed really to be more in love than ever. Olivier, being less passionate and having a greater store of tenderness, was less susceptible to these apprehensions: only every now and then he would feel a qualm of uneasiness. Besides, his love was preserved in some measure by the constraint of his daily occupation, his work, which was distasteful to him. But as he was highly strung and sensitive, and everything that happened in the heart of the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... well that she was armed with no parental authority. She could hold her theory, and could advise; but she could do no more. She could not even scold. And there had been some qualm of conscience on her part as to Walter Marrable, now that Walter Marrable had been taken in hand and made much of by the baronet,—and now, also, that poor Gregory had been removed from the path. No doubt she, ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... background, ready at any moment to do desperate deeds, if thereby he could win a smile of approval, so different from that other complacent lover, who was "content to wait" and never knew the semblance of a qualm! I used to watch Rachel watch Jim, and thought somehow that she felt the difference, and was not so serene as she had been when I first knew her. Her face looked sad sometimes, but not for long, for she had so little time to think of herself. I agree with Will that she is the ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... dusk, a small animal, which I took to be a rat, ran suddenly between my legs. Now I confess to an antipathy to rats, and, though I would not willingly hurt any animal, I could not resist an impulsive kick, which sent my supposed rat high in the air. I felt a qualm of conscience immediately afterwards, and ran to pick up my victim, and was sorry to find I had perpetrated such an assault on an unoffending little hedgehog, which was however only stunned, and was carried off by me to the Zoological Gardens. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age? How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not understand equity, so he remains prosecutor-general. Yorke would have taken ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... in his sister's parish, who had good-naturedly given him a seat in their fly, and having fulfilled his duty by asking the daughter to dance, he had nothing to disturb him in watching for the cynosure whose attraction had led him into these unknown regions, and, as he remembered with a qualm, on the eve of St. Britius. However, with such a purpose, one might surely grant oneself a dispensation from the vigil of a ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... growing out of them gradually," said Crocker. Then Geraghty got up from his chair and whispered the whole truth into the sufferer's ears. "It was all in the Pall Mall yesterday, and Aeolus knew it before he went away." A sick qualm came upon the poor fellow as though it were a repetition of yesterday's sufferings. But still it was necessary that he should say something. "New Year's Day comes only ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... qualm of remorse passed through my bosom, and then I was exceeding glad. The morning was fresh, and the air invigorating, and I determined to walk down to the beautiful minutely-sanded beach, and enjoy the refreshment of the sea-breeze just sweeping gently over the bay. To do this, I had ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... alarmed about the future," I said. "I have it from Dr. Thorndyke that he is convinced of Reuben's innocence, and is hopeful of being able to make it clear to the world. But I did not have this to repeat," I added, with a slight qualm of conscience. ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... habit for turnkeys to drink," said Latour, severely, and the red-capped bully felt a sudden qualm of nervousness in his frame as he remembered ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... enough to say, "Oh, he wouldn't do anything else. Any one could have waited!" But how many would have waited in that same situation, without a qualm of fear, or without doubting the simple assurance that the master of the ranch would know best ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... same age and the same height that I must have been in the days when I was here last. My first feeling is one of almost anger, to see him playing on the gravel where I had played before, as if he had usurped something of my identity; but next moment I feel a softening and a sort of rising and qualm of the throat, accompanied by a pricking heat in the eye balls. I hastily join conversation with the child, and inwardly felicitate myself that the gardener is opportunely gone for the key of the house. But the child is a sort of homily to me. He is perfectly quiet and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... haunted by pitiful ghosts of the hopes and despairs of its former tenants. And he remembered with reminiscently aching muscles the comfort of such a "single bed" as is peculiar (one hopes) to top hall backs, and with a qualm what it was to cook a surreptitious meal on a metal heater clamped to the gas-bracket (with ears keen to catch the scuffle of the landlady's feet as she skulked in the hall, jealous ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... a while she wondered, with a qualm of anxiety, if her ring was safe. She dared not even feel of her pocket under her dress. Whenever she thought of it Miss Tabitha seemed to be looking straight at her. Poor Comfort had a feeling that Miss Tabitha could see her ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... a little. It was rather bewildering. This strange old man must mean her grandfather, who had died before her Aunt Ann Eliza. She replied faintly that he was well, and hoped, with a qualm of ghastly mirth, that she was speaking the truth. Ellen's grandfather had not been exactly a godly man, and the family seldom ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... questioned. At first Rob felt a qualm of anxiety, lest the fact that they no longer had an interpreter in their company to explain things might get them into trouble. That fear soon vanished, however. In every instance it was found that some man could either talk fair English, or else what ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... late to think of that, and in another second my feet touched the beam. I breathed again. Softly, very gingerly, I made good my footing on the slender bridge, and, disengaging the rope, let it go. Then, not without another qualm, I sat down astride of the beam, and whistled in token of success. ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... blending or isolating for contrast the ideas, opinions and surmises of two eager minds. So often a conversation is shipwrecked by the very eagerness of one member to contribute. There must be give and take, parry and thrust, patience to hear and judgment to utter. How uneasy is the qualm as one looks back on an hour's talk and sees that the opportunity was wasted; the precious instant of intercourse gone forever: the secrets of the heart still incommunicate! Perhaps we were too anxious to hurry the moment, to enforce our own theory, to adduce instance from our own ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... unskilled fingers, disjointed members,—sorry relics of past pleasures,—one by one Miss Terry seized them between disdainful thumb and finger and tossed them into the fire. Her face showed not a qualm at parting with these childhood treasures; only the stern sense of a good housekeeper's duty fulfilled. With queer contortions the bits writhed on the coals, and finally flared into dissolution, vanishing up chimney in a shower of sparks to the ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... are so much pepsin to help weak stomachs digest strong joy. If you would have the best possible time of it in the world, develop your joy-digesting apparatus to the point where it can, without a qualm, dispose of that tough morsel, the present, obvious and attained. There will always be enough of the unachieved at ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... his time, and day by day Faces defeat full patiently, And lifts a mirthful roundelay, However poor his fortunes be—, He will not fail in any qualm Of poverty— the paltry dime It will grow golden in his palm, Who ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... and experienced a strange qualm of dismay. He discerned in a flash that something heretofore always prominently present on the Harrington landscape was ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... Ay, but he should not go alone; in the depths of those forests, beyond the arm of the law, beyond even the grasp of the Church, we should be together. In our own hearts love would justify. Without a qualm of conscience, without even a lingering doubt, I made the choice, the ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Jucundus had recovered from the qualm which Juba's intelligence had caused him, and he cried out, "Cease your rubbish; old Gurta's jealous; I know her spite; Christian is the most blackguard word in her vocabulary, its Barbar for toad or adder. I see it all; no, Callista, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... vernacular, or it was the spirit of a bandit. Some demand of the kind was, however, urgently necessary, for George did not, as formerly, show a desire to flee; his belligerent attitude suggested fight and he was a husky specimen with a handy club. Even though he might have suffered a qualm at again beholding the white apparition in the moonlight, his determination to dare the spectre was bolstered by the voice and the manner ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... slipping a letter up the sleeve of my coat. He had caught sight of me labouring up the hill, and had immediately hastened to scribble a few lines which he trusted to my sympathy with misfortune to smuggle to their destination for him. He was not mistaken, and in so doing I had no qualm of conscience. I accompanied him to his cell, and he told me the story of the capture of the San Margarita. It was substantially as I have related; they thought they were in a mare clausum, at all events they had drifted out of it on ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... him. The laugh, the jeer, that had risen in his heart at this sudden failure of nerve never found expression. There was something in the young fellow's face that spoke of more than a qualm of nervousness. It was a pitiful terror that met Trevannion's eyes—the pleading terror of a dumb, helpless animal ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... the boat to float almost of its own will down the stream, and caught fish enough for this morning's breakfast. But, partly from a qualm of conscience, I finally put them all into the water again, and saw them swim away ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which was to be forced the essence of many days. When they returned to the hall they found most of the small party gathered there before going up to dress for dinner; and there was that in the faces of the pair which betrayed them. Hillyard looked quickly round the hall, as a qualm of pity for Stella Croyle seized him. But he could not see her. "Thank Heaven she has already gone up to dress," he said to himself. A marriage between Joan Whitworth and the Harry Luttrell of to-day, the man freed now from the great obsession of his life and ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... day was coming nearer and more near. Susan's whole being was tuned to the great event; she felt herself the pivot upon which all her world turned. A hundred things a day brought the happy color to her face, stopped her heart-beats for a second. She had a little nervous qualm over the announcements; she dreamed for a moment over the cards that bore the new name of Mrs. William Jerome Oliver. "It seems so—so funny to have these things here in my trunk, ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... bed prepared for him, in one of the unoccupied cabins. But he woke before day with a feeling of intense prostration, a violent headache, and such an aversion for the mere idea of food that Feliu's invitation to breakfast at five o'clock gave him an internal qualm. Perhaps a touch of malaria. In any case he felt it would be both dangerous and useless to return to town unwell; and Feliu, observing his condition, himself advised against the journey. Wednesday he would have another opportunity to leave; and in the meanwhile Carmen ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... pair of scissors, Vincent?" She had been quick to learn that beauty must be obeyed. She would have asked Vincent for the moon if she had happened to want it, and would have seen him depart on the errand without qualm. Sure enough, he brought the scissors before her held-out ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm; But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free From the crude and vulgar emotions that harass the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... instant when George was trying to tell Migwan the answer, Abraham, who had also forgotten the name of Sargon, glanced over toward George's paper and saw it written out in his easily readable hand. Without a qualm he wrote it down on his own paper ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... hair-cloth sofa, struck an old chord of her own heart. Charlotte dared not say a word to comfort her directly. She condoled with her for the fifteen-years-old loss of her mother, and did not allude to Richard Alger; but going home she said to herself, with a miserable qualm of pity, that poor Aunt Sylvia was breaking her heart because Richard had ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... American pirates should stand Major Stede Bonnet along with the rest. But in truth he was only a poor half-and-half fellow of his kind, and even after his hand was fairly turned to the business he had undertaken, a qualm of conscience would now and then come across him, and he would make vast promises ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. Enfin, what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of conscience, for, with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and honest man. Was it right to disturb those placid depths? Was it right to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never be gratified? He himself had not the slightest intention of playing Lothario ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... seem to be, Evelyn?" I asked, conquering a qualm of feeling at these words, and inexpressibly interested ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... voluntarily and advisedly, she would never have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical music and waning foreign languages, and by ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... the fleeting years that carried off his youth. The moment marked another tremendous epoch, for he was done with school. Now for all the years to come he could hear the bell sound its warning and feel no qualm; never again need sit confined in a stuffy room, breathing chalk dust, and compel his errant mind to bookish abstractions. He had graduated from the Newbern High School, respectably if not with distinguished honour, and the superintendent had said, in conferring his ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... came to me of themselves, in their distress, for private instruction and counsel; and I found, so far as I can remember, that with by far the greater part their apparent concern in public was not just a transient qualm of conscience or merely a floating commotion of the affections, but a rational, fixed conviction of their ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... word; but you will bury me in the Atlantic, so make up your minds to it. Do you suppose that I, a poor, used-up old invalid, who can't look at a sail-boat without a qualm, can survive thirty days of standing on my head, and thirty nights of sail-splitting, as we go slamming and lurching across two or three awful oceans?' demanded Lavinia, with ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... confess that when I first saw in the work of these men the beauty resulting from the personal touch of the artist on the whole of the cutting and leading, a qualm of doubt arose whether the practice of admitting any other hand to my assistance was not a compromise to some extent with absolute ideal; whether it were not the only right plan, after all, to do the whole oneself; to sit down to the bench with one's drawing, ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... Ishmael had a moment's qualm. What ploughing he had done had been but slight, and he was not free from an uneasy impression that John-James was laying a trap for him into which he would not be sorry to see him fall. It would be no better to put it off, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... descended, Landry had the assurance to put his arm around her waist as if to steady her. He was surprised at his own audacity, for he had premeditated nothing, and his arm was about her before he was well aware. He yet found time to experience a qualm of apprehension. Just how would Laura take it? Had he ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... qualm of any sort he experienced during these three days was when he was composing this letter, so he finished it quickly and did not even read it over. And now, as he strode across the Wendover park, it was safe in his servant's pocket and would be despatched duly next day. He was unaware of the fact ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride, Midst the steel-clad files of Skippon, the black dragoons of Pride; The recreant heart of Fairfax shall feel a sicklier qualm, And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm, When they see my lady's gewgaw flaunt proudly on their wing, And hear her loyal soldier's shout, 'For God ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... be quite safe, and Nancy, with a qualm at her heart which she could not account for, allowed the little girl to put ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... a tone entirely free from bad manners but weighted with simple truth; "Joan likes to kiss Auntie Dorrie." The inference stiffened Mrs. Tweksbury and caused Doris a qualm. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... settled, sailed for America, leaving me entirely unprotected, whereupon I succeeded in making my escape. Heaven knows I had no desperate longing to visit Palestine at that particular time, but I journeyed thither without a qualm of regret, and thereby avoided the ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... like this plainness better Than false mock-passion, speech, or letter, Or any feat of qualm or sowning, But hanging of yourself, or drowning. Your only way with me to break 485 Your mind, is breaking of your neck; For as when merchants break, o'erthrown, Like nine-pins they strike others down, So that would break my heart; which done, My tempting fortune is your own, 490 ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... claims to entitle one to its enjoyment, he seemed to have no sort of notion. For property he had a profound deference, so far as that deference extended to its importance and influence; but it would have caused him not the slightest qualm, either in the way of conscience or feeling, to find himself suddenly installed in the mansion of the patroons, for instance, and placed in possession of their estates, provided only he fancied he could ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... for a sudden quaking in the region of his heart—such a fate is too terrible to calmly contemplate; but this qualm is only momentary, and then Doctor Chicago is himself again, brave ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... and trembled a little at the thought of her near discovery, but felt not the slightest qualm of conscience at her ruthless destruction of another's property. On the contrary, she experienced a wicked satisfaction, and smiled to herself as she pictured Miss Thompson's consternation when the latter should discover her loss. Best of all, the principal would ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... Bessie, in a despairing tone. "That's the way the lawyers and your manager talk. They coolly and without a qualm get him arrested, this young boy who has never in all his life shown any sign of criminal tendency. These horrid lawyers display their dreadful astuteness and ability in catching a lad who never tries to run away, and your manager pleads the ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... a qualm of horror the boy saw that, attached to Mr. Carrington's cheek, to his bare arm, and to his thigh, and lashing furiously with their lithe brown muscular bodies, were three of these horrible larvae, their great jaws buried deep in his flesh and sucking for dear life. They ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... with just a passing qualm, perhaps, while my stirrup-leathers were being adjusted, and a little awkwardness in taking up my reins, which were more twisted than I could have wished; however, at length, I found myself embarked on the stream of traffic ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... had intended saying and the girl knew it. There sprang into her mind a sudden wish to hear Billy Byrne say the words that he had dared not say; but she promptly checked the desire, and a moment later a qualm of self-disgust came over her because of the weakness that had prompted her to entertain such a wish in connection with a person of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... though some one had stiffened her spine. The least little doubt had been creeping into her mind lest what she had done had been heartless. Father Bob's words put that qualm at rest. And, of course, good news would come from ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... there, but men were painfully exact, and five was the hour she had named. But again, Charles Batty was not an ordinary man. Trusting to that fact, she went to her room and provided herself with money, and, having listened without a qualm at Henrietta's door, she ran out ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... do anything. She makes the patterns up all out of her own head. "—And filled with pride in Mother's accomplishments and Lilith's appreciation of them, Laura fell asleep that night without a qualm. ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson |
