"Shock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was forthcoming. Even to frame a plan operative under such conditions requires in an admiral accuracy of judgment and readiness rarely bestowed; but to communicate his designs and enforce execution upon captains under such a staggering shock of disaster is even more uncommon of accomplishment. During the remainder of the day light airs from the eastward prevailed, interspersed with frequent calms; conditions unfavorable to movement of any kind, but far more to the French, deprived of concert of purpose, than to the British, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... stared at her daughter in the utmost astonishment at her forwardness. She would not have been surprised if Flavia had been guilty of such imprudence, but that Faustina should thus boldly address a young man who had not spoken to her, was such a shock to her belief in the girl's manners that she did not recover for several seconds. Anastase appreciated the situation, for as he answered, he looked steadily at the mother, although his words were plainly addressed to ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... comrade's wrists, as if he was holding hard against a considerable force. The end of the peach branch began to quiver and turn. Cameron reached out a hand to touch it, and was astounded at feeling a powerful vibrant force pulling the branch downward. He felt it as a magnetic shock. The branch kept turning, and at length pointed ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... then, as in the case of Kate Greenaway, Rosa Bonheur herself walked into the hall, in a velvet jacket, dressed, as she always was, in man's attire. A delightful smile lighted the strong face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, cut short at the back; and from the moment of her first welcome there was no doubt of her cordiality to the few who were fortunate enough to work their way into her presence. It was a wonderful afternoon, spent in the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... a crusher—and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to recover from the shock of it; then she said, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... northern chiefs, whose rage unbroke Has still repell'd the tyrant's shock; Who ne'er have bow'd beneath his yoke, With servile base prostration;— Let each now train his trusty band, 'Gainst foreign foes alone to stand, With undivided heart and hand, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... reluctance to fix a topic had thrown the club into a mental disarray which increased with the return to the drawing-room, where the actual business of discussion was to open. Each lady waited for the other to speak; and there was a general shock of disappointment when their hostess opened the conversation by the painfully commonplace enquiry. "Is this your ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... father, partly in consequence of a wound from which he never quite recovered, met with rather a serious accident through a young horse in the harvest-field, and the report reached his wife that he was killed. To the shock she thus received was generally attributed the peculiarity of the child, prematurely born within a month after. He had long passed the age at which children usually begin to walk, before he would even attempt to stand, but he had grown capable ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... itself anything novel; but in this case it was Hanne herself, the immaculate, whom as yet no tongue had dared to besmirch. And even now they dared hardly speak of it openly; it had come as such a shock. In a certain sense they had all entered into her exaltation, and with her had waited for the fairy-tale to come true; as quite a child she had been elected to represent the incomprehensible; and now she was merely going to have a child! It really ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... shook the faith of the people of the northern states in the judiciary, as this decision. Faith, whether in the priest or the magistrate, is of slow growth, and if once impaired is seldom fully restored. I doubt whether the Supreme Court has ever recovered from the shock it then received, and, considered from this point of view, the careless attitude of the American people toward General Grant's administration, when in 1871 it obtained the reversal of Hepburn v. Griswold by appointments to the bench, assumes a ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... for another, it wouldn't suit my style. I'm not interested in people. I'm interested in their diseases. They know it, and rather like it." A touch of chill scorn showed itself for a moment in his face. "They're frightened of me. I'm as good as an electric shock to their lethargic, overfed carcasses. They can't get over a young man with his way to make who wipes his boots on them. They have to come ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... noise was even more deafening than before. I was still in a state of nerves over the events of the morning. There had been a most distressing lack of poise on my part, and I couldn't help feeling after it was all over that my sense of humour had received a shock from which it was not likely to recover in a long time. There was but little consolation in the reflection that my irritating visitors deserved something in the shape of a rebuff; I could not separate myself from the conviction that my integrity as a gentleman had suffered in a mistaken ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... him when about the age of thirteen years. He had brought a flask of powder near the fire, and was engaged either in the operation of drying it or casting some grains into the coals for amusement, when the whole quantity exploded. The shock and the injuries he sustained nearly proved fatal to him; when he recovered, it was with his hearing nearly quite destroyed, and his sight permanently impaired. But Kickham had the poet's soul within him, and it was his compensation for the losses he had sustained. He could still hold communion ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... breakfast came almost as an unpleasant interruption to Rod. But it did not shock his appetite as it had his romantic fancies, and he performed his part at the morning meal with considerable credit. Wabi and Mukoki had already decided that they would not take up the trail again that day but would remain in their present ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... was not a long one. Before Mo, whose weak point was his speed, had covered half the intervening distance, a kick of the convict's heavy boot-heel, steel-shod, had found its bone, and broken it, just above the ankle. The shock was irresistible, and the check on the knife-hand perforce flagged for an instant—long enough to leave it free. Another blow followed, a strange one that M'riar could not localise, and then all the Court swam ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... nothin' else is. They see what I was doin', well enough—only I donno's they'd 'a' called it what I did, 'bout the Lord's housekeepin' an all. An' I knew I couldn't gentle 'Leven into the i-dee, but I judged I could shock it into her—same as her an' the Big Lil kind have to hev. Some folks you hev to shoot ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... 1st of November, when the population of Lisbon was assembled in the churches for the services of All Saints' day, that the first shock was felt. This was soon followed by two others which laid the city in ruins, killing many people. Most who had escaped rushed to the river bank, where they with the splendid palace at the water's edge were all overwhelmed ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... internal diameter of .019 of an inch. When we hear that the strongest battery in Paris was used, and that its power on a substance of such easy fusibility as glass was to form tubes so diminutive, we must feel greatly astonished at the force of a shock of lightning, which, striking the sand in several places, has formed cylinders, in one instance of at least thirty feet long, and having an internal bore, where not compressed, of full an inch and a half; and this in a material so ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the Twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six:" And the better in memory to fix The place of the children's last retreat, They called it, the Pied Piper's Street— Where any one playing on pipe or tabor Was sure for the future to lose his labor. Nor suffered they hostlery or tavern To shock with mirth a street so solemn; But opposite the place of the cavern They wrote the story on a column, And on the great church-window painted The same, to make the world acquainted How their children were stolen away, And there it stands to this very day. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... under the shock of these calamities, the telegraph brought us news of the bombardment of our beautiful metropolitan church, of the Church of Notre Dame au dela la Dyle, of the episcopal palace, and of a great part of our dear ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... statement of his density (0.95), which proves to be something like double what it should be. Here a curious incident may be named. When, in 1877, it was discovered that Mars has two satellites, though, according to my hypothesis, it seemed that he should have none, my faith in it received a shock; and since that time I have occasionally considered whether the fact is in any way reconcilable with the hypothesis. But now the proof afforded by Mr. Lynn that my calculation contained a wrong factor, disposes of the difficulty—nay, changes the objection to a verification. It turns ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... that, in the case of the vast majority of men, the first living, real apprehension of a real, living God is accompanied with a shock, and has mingled with it something of awe, and even of terror. Were there no sin there would be no fear, and pure hearts would open in silent blessedness and yield their sweetest fragrance of love and adoration, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... itself, so amusing after all did the whole incident seem to them. The Count found rather risky witticisms, but so cleverly told that they provoked smiles. In his turn Loiseau fired some broader jokes, which did not shock the listeners; and the thought brutally expressed by his wife preponderated in every one's mind: "Since it is her business, why should the girl refuse this man rather than another?"—The pretty Mme. Carre-Lamadon seemed even inclined ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... when she had revived, the danger past, And raised her eyes to look upon the sun, The baron fell upon my breast; and then A silent vow between us two was sworn, A vow that, welded in yon furnace heat, Will last through ev'ry shock of time and fate. ...
— Wilhelm Tell - Title: William Tell • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... they were intense enough, but they were vague, and he must find reasons. He must tell her that he loved her beauty, and that it must suffer no disfigurement from a baby's lips. No sooner did he put his feelings into words than they shocked him, and he knew how much more they would shock Ellen, and he wondered how he could think such things about his own child. The truth was, there was little time for thinking, and he had to tell Ellen what she must do. It so happened that he had heard only the other day that goat's milk was the exact equivalent to human, ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... general. It was derived from a half-witted lad named Ned Lud, who entered a house in a fit of passion, and destroyed a couple of stocking-frames. The song was an impromptu, enclosed in a letter to Moore of December 24, 1816. "I have written it principally," he says, "to shock your neighbour [Hodgson?] who is all clergy and loyalty—mirth and innocence—milk and water." See Letters, 1900, iv. 30; and for General Lud and "Luddites," see Letters, 1898, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... thorough preparation of the soil is much better than later cultivation. Destroy the crop of young weeds, but do not disturb the peanut crop by late cultivation. Harvest before frost, and shock high to keep ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... 1824, she was out riding, when she accidentally met Byron's funeral on its way to Newstead. "I am sure," she wrote to Murray, July 13, 1824, "I am very sorry I ever said one unkind word against him." Her mind never recovered the shock, and she died in January, 1828, in the presence of her husband, at Melbourne House. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... beggar! Oh, Lord, I'm growing old. What will become of this younger generation? Well, I give it up. Dorothy, my dear, whatever will happen to those unfortunate Russians, I shall never recover from the shock of your shell. The thing is absolutely impossible. Can't you see that the moment you get down to details? How are you going to procure your shells, or your shell-firing gun? They are not to be bought at the first hardware store you come to on ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... young daughter of Old Chattox, not destitute, if we may judge from one occurrence deposed to, of personal attractions, may be said to have convulsed Lancashire from the Leven to the Mersey,—to have caused a sensation, the shock of which, after more than two centuries, has scarcely yet subsided, and to have actually given a new name to the ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... and found it impossible to procure a room there, far less a house. This is also the case at Guadalupe, San Joaquin, in fact in every village near Mexico. We are in no particular danger, unless they were to bombard the palace. There was a slight shock of an earthquake yesterday. ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... her, flowers and china and all. You have seen that table in Longdean Granges. Since then it has never been touched, the place has never been swept or dusted or garnished. You have seen my aunt, and you know what the shock has done for her—the shock and the ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... how tightly a brick or other arch is keyed in, there must always be some slight subsidence when the "centers" are struck. This, again, results in a shock, or impact loading, to ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... against it at the very instant Thad did. Their combined weight, added to the force with which they struck the trembling rock, proved to be sufficient to start it moving. It appeared to hesitate just a second, and then went crashing over, making the very ground tremble with the tremendous shock. ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... confessed that the shock which this discovery gave to Bob was a very powerful one. He looked all around in anxious curiosity, with the endeavor to comprehend his situation. His first thought was, that some accident had happened to the party which was delaying them; but soon he became aware of his own ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... been assured by old hunters, that, if pursued, it will leap from a cliff into the valley a hundred feet below, where, alighting upon its huge horns, it springs to its feet, uninjured, its neck being so thick and strong, that it endures the greatest shock without injury. ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... the vessel between the islands and the main land, she would no longer answer the helm, and was driven to and fro by a furious sea. Between three and four o'clock in the morning she struck with her bows foremost on a jagged rock, which pierced her timbers. Soon after the first shock a mighty wave lifted the vessel from the rock, and let her fall again with such violence as fairly to break her in two pieces; the after part, containing the cabin with many passengers, all of whom perished, was instantly carried away through a tremendous current, while the fore part was fixed ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... I fainted upon his bosom. After that my dreams were haunted by gory battle-fields, in which P. Crandall figured in every imaginable scene of suffering and danger. My delicate nerves had received a severe shock, and yet I did not mean to be weak, in the hour of trial, for it is the duty of a faithful wife, such as I sought to be, to sustain her partner in the ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the desperate shock of the letter from her mother. Her mother said, I believe, something like: "You have no right to go on living your life of prosperity and respect. You ought to be on the streets with me. How do you ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... shock, it need not be concealed. Otherwise, she had been quite pleasantly occupied with the interest of something new, into which she had walked so easily out of her own bedchamber, without any trouble, and with the delightful ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... relief that the name of James Bansemer was not mentioned. The reports from the bedside of the robber's victim were most optimistic. She was delirious from the effects of the shock, but no serious results were expected. The great headlines on the first page of the paper he was reading set his mind temporarily at rest. There was no suggestion of truth ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... instantly fixed the attention of every man and woman within the range of vision. His giant figure seemed to tower more than a foot above his surroundings. Everything about him was large—an immense head, crowned with thick shock of coarse black hair, his strong jaws rimmed with bristling new whiskers, long arms and longer legs, large hands, big features, every movement quick and powerful. The first impression was one of enormous strength. He ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... tears in Aunt Pike's eyes as she turned to thank her niece. "You—she—Anna need not have been afraid. I did not know I was so harsh with her that she was afraid to—" and poor Aunt Pike broke off, quite overcome. The shock of finding Anna feverish and ill, and with her hands ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the men whom he has appointed have done? It is said that they are not to be relied on; that they have been guilty of treason, and we will not trust them. I hope that no such ideas will prevail here. I think this will be a cold shock to the warm feelings of the nation for restoration, for equal privileges and equal rights. They were in insurrection. We have suppressed that insurrection. They are now States of the Union; and if they ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Ferrand, who had simply become to him (he had been "reading up" feverishly for a week) a very curious subject of psychological study; but he could easily put himself in the place of that portion of the public whose memory was long enough for their patriotism to receive a shock. It was some time fortunately since the conduct of public affairs had wanted for men of disinterested ability, but the extraordinary documents concealed (of all places in the world—it was as fantastic as a nightmare) in a "bargain" picked up at second-hand by an obscure scribbler, would ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... probably a quoted proverb. It implies His entire acceptance of the character which the crowd ascribed to Him, His pleasure in their praises, and, in a wider aspect, His vindication of outbursts of devout feeling, which shock ecclesiastical martinets and formalists. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... acquaintance: "Your eyes are changed to a strange colour." The other replied: "It often happens, but you have not noticed it." "When does it happen?" said the former. "Every time that my eyes see your ugly face, from the shock of so unpleasing a sight they suddenly turn pale and change ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... French families and refugees in Boulogne, close to which city our hospital was located. I could also visit other Units, and give lantern shows, which had, I thought, special value when psychic treatment was badly needed. Shell-shock was but very imperfectly understood at the beginning of the war. The football matches and athletic sports did not need the asset of being an antidote to shell-shock to attract my patronage. Never in my life had I realized quite so keenly what a saving ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... my command his course must steer: I bade him love, I bid him now forbear. If you have any kindness for him still, Advise him not to shock a father's will. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... brown-faced Colonel, with his eyes that looked so steady and saw nothing; of that flat, kindly lady, who talked so pleasantly throughout dinner, saying things that he had to answer without knowing what they signified. He realized, with a sense of shock, that he was deprived of all interests in life but one; not even his work had any meaning apart from HER. It lit no fire within him to hear Mrs. Ercott praise certain execrable pictures in the Royal Academy, which she had religiously ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... or shock. In the very aged or very young, or after a very prolonged or painful operation, shock may now and then kill the patient within a few hours. Since the days of chloroform this result is ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... with the deep chest-tones, this affected, offensive, and almost inaudible nasal pianissimo, the aimless jerking out of single tones, and, in general, this whole false mode of vocal execution, must continually shock the natural sentiment of a cultivated, unprejudiced hearer, as well as of the composer and singing-teacher? What must be the effect on a voice in the middle register, when its extreme limits are forced in such a reckless manner, and when you expend ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... thenceforward denied to her, she had accepted a protector, called husband—rashly, past credence, in the retrospect; but it had been her propelling motive; and the loathings roused by her marriage helped to sicken her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she had suffered the shock precipitating her to an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... confusion of his enemies, he erected a bridge 1500 feet long, by 42 wide, where there was, at the lowest ebb, 28 feet of water, and the flow of the tide was from 12 to 16 feet more. But what is the most surprising, this bridge has stood the shock of prodigious bodies of ice, sometimes three or four feet in thickness; which are, every thaw violently forced against it with a powerful current. He was rewarded with the sum of two hundred dollars above ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... overhead. Night fell, and I had not so much as a candle. I began to long for some society, and stole down to the court. It was now plunged in the blue of the first darkness; but the recess was redly lighted by the fire. The wood had been piled high, and was crowned by a shock of flames, which the draught of the chimney brandished to and fro. In this strong and shaken brightness the Senora continued pacing from wall to wall with disconnected gestures, clasping her hands, stretching ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... September, after Tom had left, that Grace found the missing belt. Her mother had hidden it in a cave on the shore, and Grace, following her there, came upon the hiding-place. The shock of detection brought out the disease against which Mrs. Harvey had taken so many precautions, and within two days the unhappy woman ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... to Mr. Montenero to what circumstances I had so unintelligibly alluded. I gained courage as I went on, for I saw that the history of my father's vow, of which Mr. Montenero had evidently never heard till this moment, did not shock or offend him, as I had expected that ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... habit of saying, filled his thoughts or swayed his life or mastered his intellect, the world might well smile (and to my thinking had better smile than weep) at the issue of the investigation. When the first brief shock was gone, how few out of the solid twenty-four would be the hours claimed by the despot, however much the poets might call him insatiable. There is sleeping, and meat and drink, the putting on and off of raiment and the buying of it. If ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... passion. For an instant he regarded the savage intently as he shrank appalled before him; then his colossal fist fell like lightning, with the weight of a sledge-hammer, on Misconna's forehead, and drove him against the outer door, which, giving way before the violent shock, burst from its fastenings and hinges, and fell, along with the savage, with a loud crash ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... some wild animal, Pomp sprang at his father, the shock with which he struck him in the chest causing the hat to fall off back on to the floor as he tore at the buttons to get the ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... covered with iron plate and mail, and they manage with surprising dexterity their little active steeds, which are also supplied with defensive armour. They have one fault only, but it is a serious one, they cannot stand the shock of an enemy. While the contest continues doubtful, they hover round as spectators, ready, should the tide turn against them, to spur on their coursers to a rapid flight; but if they see their friends victorious, and the enemy turning their backs, they come forward and display no small vigour ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... scene which had occurred in the library as minutely as I could,—and Kate and Bob were thrilled by the narrative. For my own part I had not yet recovered from the shock it had given me. The expression of agony on my uncle's face haunted my imagination. I could still see his pale face and his quivering lip, and his piteous pleading lingered in my ears. Most terrible are the sufferings of the evil-doer, ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... very subject to frequent earthquakes, being surrounded with volcanic mountains. To look at its houses, one would think that a single shock would level the whole town. The best of them consist of a frame of wood, each post standing on a single stone, which is simply laid on the ground, not let into it; the vacancies between the posts and the cross-pieces of framework, are filled up with lath and plaster; and ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... was bid. Directly he had left the room, Richard pulled down the window-blind, and staggered to a chair. Perhaps want of food and sleep had weakened him; but he sat down, looking very pale and haggard, like one who has received a sudden shock. Why should one man have answered him last night, "the convict ship," and now this fellow have pointed out the jail? It was only a coincidence, of course; but if there was ever such a thing as an evil augury, he had surely experienced it on those two occasions. "This is what comes ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... his claim, Whose fate with Clare's was plight, For he attaints that rival's fame With treason's charge—and on they came, In mortal lists to fight. Their oaths are said, Their prayers are prayed, Their lances in the rest are laid, They meet in mortal shock; And, hark! the throng, with thundering cry, Shout 'Marmion! Marmion!' to the sky, 'De Wilton to the block!' Say ye, who preach Heaven shall decide When in the lists two champions ride, Say, was Heaven's justice here? When, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... by the shock; and only recovered when the time came for being angry at every suggestion of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... grace was marvellous, but the uncanny words and the girl's apparent seriousness gave a touch of unreality to the scene. Presently, from sheer inability to further control himself, the looker-on gave a laugh that rent the stillness of the afternoon like a cruel shock. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... general engagement, the shock of modern armies is, beyond comparison, more magnificent, more sonorous and more discoloring to the face of nature, than the ancient could have been; and is consequently susceptible of more pomp and variety of description. Our heaven and earth are not only ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... country belonged to the Indians, they had some time ago, had a conference with Governor LAWRENCE, and had consented that the English should settle the country up as far as the Grimross: from this acknowledgment of the Chiefs, the adventurers were a little relieved from the shock they received at first, and said, they were unwilling to dispute, and would in a few days, remove their camps towards Grimross. This answer did not appear fully to satisfy the Indians, yet they made no ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... This was another shock that brought something to his eyes that made him see the others through a mist. There were the pictures of his mother, whose gentle voice he could almost hear, and of his father, whose gray hairs and sad face he suddenly remembered were ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... the gate and entered. An old man looked up in some surprise. He was short in stature and had the stoop of one who is bending under the weight of years and infirmities. His features were as withered and brown as a russet apple that had been kept long past its season, and his head was surmounted by a shock of white locks that bristled out in all directions, as if each particular hair was on bad terms with its neighbors. Curious seams and wrinkles gave the continuous impression that the old gentleman had just swallowed something very bitter, and was making ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... tell you that, during those two Siberian days, my parlour-cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and been properly insulated, the shock might have been given to a whole circle ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... coming. Members of the driving crew leaped shouting from one log to another. Sometimes, when the space across was too wide to jump, they propelled a log over either by rolling it, paddling it, or projecting it by the shock of a leap on one end. In accomplishing these feats of tight-rope balance, they stood upright and graceful, quite unconscious of themselves, their bodies accustomed by long habit to nice and instant obedience to the almost unconscious impulses of the brain. Only their eyes, intent, preoccupied, ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Oriental archaeology have come with a rude shock to disturb both the conclusions of this imperfectly-equipped criticism and the principles on which they rest. Discovery has followed discovery, each more marvellous than the last, and re-establishing the truth of some historical narrative in which we had been called upon to disbelieve. Dr. Schliemann ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... open paved highway the big pillow-wheeled Sloppy Joe would do sixty in a breeze, but this desert route was far from a paved road. Inside the pressurized passenger cab, Tom gripped the shock-bars with one arm and the other leg, and jammed the accelerator to the floor. The engine coughed, but thirty-five was ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... wrote 'lift many a volcano-isle.' The plain becomes studded in an instant with piles of corpses, even as the smiling surface of the sea will sometimes become studded in an instant with many islands uplifted by a sudden shock of earthquake. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... then: "Maybe you don't remember this one in your very recent edition: 'A hard-hearted Queen from Flat Rock, Whose anger came as a great shock, Said: I will not speak, sir, To you for a week, sir, So he went out and—' but I haven't had time to make the last line fit. ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... his power for those dear friends with whom he should be associated." She then gives an account of the receipt at home of the unexpected intelligence of this long journey, and of the calmness which eventually followed the shock to the feelings which it occasioned. After he had set out, she wrote an interesting account, too long to be given at full length, of what had passed in the intervening time,—the hopes and fears, the ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... doctor from the Battery, who had once helped me change a tyre, came running up and I covered the scratched side of my face lest he should get too much of a shock. "Je suis joliment dans la soupe," I said, and saw him go as white as a sheet. "These Frenchmen are very sympathetic," I thought, for it had dawned on me what they were crying ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... save art and her father's wisdom. He seemed to embody the culture and worldly philosophy that now became, in her judgment, the only things worth living for. To gain his confidence became her great desire. But this had received a severe shock. Mr. Ludolph had lost all faith in everything save money and his own will. Religion was to him a gross superstition, and woman's virtue and truth, ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... should appear in the hands of the people whom of all others he most esteemed and with whom his own fortunes were most intimately bound up, was a terrible shock. This, then, was the clew to the catalogue of Holbrook's misfortunes. What surpassing crime could the old man have committed to be so signally marked out for vengeance? But the question of most vital interest was what could ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... knew what I wished to ask. He gently lifted part of the blanket, and I felt as if I had been stunned by an electric shock on observing that his right leg had been amputated above the knee. For some moments I could not speak. I could not move. It was with difficulty that I could draw my labouring breath. Suddenly ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... a shock than all that had preceded, because Mr. Kloman, being a partner, had no right to invest in another iron company, or in any other company involving personal debt, without informing his partners. There is one imperative rule for men in business—no secrets from ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... relations between the races have always been cordial. In company, side by side, mulattoes, blacks and whites have lived, worked, enjoyed themselves and fought their revolutions. There is absolutely no color line. A friend of mine from Virginia received quite a shock the first time he attended a state ball in Santo Domingo and saw an immense negro, as black as coal, a member of Congress, dancing with a girl as white as any of the foreign ladies present. He rushed to the refreshment room and beckoned to a tall mulatto in a dress suit: "I'll have something to ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... sitting down on a ledge of the chalk rock, endeavouring to recover from the shock which ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... for the first time tonight, Mr. Dennis, realized how hard a nerve shock Jim had had in seeing his father killed. He had kept from his mother the horror of the nights that followed the tragedy. She did not know that periodically, even now, he dreamed the August fields and the dying men and the bloody derrick over again. She did not know what utter courage it ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... a peace amid'st the shock of arms, That satisfies the soul, though all the air Hurtles with horror and ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... assembly of France. Yet it is always so. We might make just the same remark of the House of Commons at Westminster in 1640, and of the Assembly of Massachusetts or of New York as late as 1770. The final flash of a long unconscious train of thought or intent is ever a surprise and a shock. It is a mistake to set these swift changes down to political levity; they were due rather to quickness of political intuition. It was the King's attempt at flight in the summer of 1791 that first created ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... far before and around me! A shower was sweeping mistily along the horizon and I could trace the white line of the breakers that foamed at the foot of the cliffs. The scene came over me like a vivid electric shock, and I gave an involuntary shout, which might have been heard in all the valleys around. After a year and a half of wandering over the continent, that gray ocean was something to be revered and loved, for it clasped the shores of my ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the Governor General was thinking of "regularising the situation." He knew that his attitude was illegal. He decided, therefore, to concoct a few decrees in order to legalize it in the eyes of the world. He had, you see, to save appearances. You cannot get on with no law at all. It might shock neutrals. So, if you break all the articles of the Hague Convention one by one, like so many sticks, the only thing to do is to manufacture some fresh regulations to replace them. And everything will again be for the best in the ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... his kind, and especially his sisters, Maggie and Clara. Clara might make some facetious remark. Edwin could never forget the Red Indian glee with which Clara had danced round him when for the first time—and quite unprepared for the exquisite shock—she had seen him in long trousers. There was also his father. He wanted to have a plain talk with his father—he knew that he would not be at peace until he had had that talk—and yet in spite of himself he had carefully kept out ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... of the curious among the gossips went to see the house the Princess had lately occupied, where she had "received" society and managed to shock it as well. It was shut up, and looked as if it had not been inhabited for years. And the gossips said it was "strange, very strange!" and confessed themselves utterly mystified. But the fact remained that Gervase had disappeared and the ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... must go, I must go, To Execution Dock I must go, To Execution Dock, Will many thousands flock, But I must bear the shock, and must die. ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... relieve it until at last they discover that the remedy fails. The jaded, overworked, faithful heart will bear no more; it has run its course, and, the governor of the blood-streams broken, the current either overflows into the tissues, gradually damming up the courses, or under some slight shock or excess of motion, ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... man, wiping his bloodshot eyes; "a sad shock, a sad shock, my dear George. If you'd only been here a ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... thanksgiving; for indeed, O young man, I see that thou knowest everything. So tell me somewhat concerning husbandry?"—"The best of corn is the thickest of cob and the grossest of grain and the fullest sized of shock."[FN90] "And what sayest thou concerning palm-trees?"— "The most excellent is that which the greatest of gathering doth own and whose height is low grown and within whose meat is the smallest stone." "And what dost thou say anent the vine?"—"The most noble is that which is stout of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... comparatively tolerant and progressive. Labor turmoil in 1980 led to the formation of the independent trade union "Solidarity" that over time became a political force and by 1990 had swept parliamentary elections and the presidency. A "shock therapy" program during the early 1990s enabled the country to transform its economy into one of the most robust in Central Europe, but Poland currently suffers low GDP growth and high unemployment. Solidarity suffered a major defeat in the 2001 ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... attractive element of danger; it is more sudden and destructive in its effect; it makes a noise and churns up and agitates the water; its violent concussion breaks and smashes the submarine coral forest into which it is thrown; and its terrific shock kills and mutilates hundreds of fish, which, through their bladders bursting, sink and are ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... condition of things—such the attitude which I occupied toward the two brothers—when the event, which I am about to relate, took place. The event in question was tragic and terrible. It came without warning, to shock the entire surrounding country. One night, on his return from the county seat, whither he was said to have gone upon some matter of business, George Conway was murdered, and his body concealed in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... more, it seems not unlikely that he would have been the first man to navigate the air on a power-driven machine. He left behind him his gallant example, and some advances in design, for he improved the balance of the machine by raising its centre of gravity, and he provided it with wheels, fitted on shock-absorbers, for ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... cannot understand how it can be pleasant: they cannot believe or admit that it is more pleasant than a life of liberty, laxity, and enjoyment. They, as it were, say, "Keep within bounds, speak within probability, and we will believe you; but do not shock our reason. We will admit that we ought to be religious, and that, when we come to die, we shall be very glad to have led religious lives: but to tell us that it is a pleasant thing to be religious, this is too much: it is not true; ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... which had been promulgated from the throne and reiterated from the ministerial side of the house. A perpetual war, which could only cease with the restoration of the French monarchy, was to him a startling proposition, calculated to shock his principles and appal his feelings. Wilberforce deprecated both the speech and address, and took an extensive view of the comparative state of both countries after a long and sanguinary conflict, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... frame of the former master of gunmen, the | |big body straightened out, tugging at the creaking | |straps. For a few moments it stretched out. A slight| |sizzling was heard and a slight curl of smoke went | |up from the right side of Becker's head, rising from| |under the cap. When the shock was at its height, his| |grip tightened to the crucifix, but as the | |electrocutioner snapped the switch off the cross | |slipped from the relaxed fingers. A guard caught it.| |The whole body dropped to a position of utter | |collapse. | | | |Becker's ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... enthusiasm of the ladies. His ad libitum playing, which with the interpreters of his music degenerates into disregard of time, is with him only the most charming originality of execution; the dilettantish harsh modulations which strike me disagreeably when I am playing his compositions no longer shock me, because he glides lightly over them in a fairy-like way with his delicate fingers; his piano is so softly breathed forth that he does not need any strong forte in order to produce the wished-for contrasts; it is for this reason that one does not miss the orchestral-like effects which the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... guardsman had now entirely recovered his senses, and found himself with a strap round his ankles, and another round his wrists, a captive inside a moving prison which lumbered heavily along the country road. He had been stunned by the shock of his fall, and his leg was badly bruised by the weight of his horse; but the cut on his forehead was a mere trifle, and the bleeding had already ceased. His mind, however, pained him more than his body. He ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... steps he had followed the evening before, without guessing that the man was perambulating the pavement and passing among the crowd in search, doubtless, of a fresh victim for occult experiment or outrage! That conclusion once determined, shock after shock smote upon his sense. What if the mysterious person were really proved to be Julius's father? What if he had entered upon a course of experiment or outrage (he passed in rapid review the ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... love is like the rock, That every tempest braves, And stands secure amid the shock Of ocean's wildest waves; And blest is he to whom repose Within its shade is given— The world, with all its cares and woes, Seems less like earth ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... unknown form may be seen peeping over our shoulder. In short, when I am in a ghost-seeing humour, I make my handmaiden draw the green curtains over the mirror, before I go into the room, so that she may have the first shock of the apparition, if there be any to be seen. But, to tell you the truth, this dislike to look into a mirror in particular times and places, has, I believe, its original foundation in a story which came to me by tradition from my grandmother, who was a party concerned in the scene ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... intelligence between us. No deceit here either, only a little self-deception on Cecilia's part. She had really grown suddenly fonder of me; what had become of her fear, she did not know. But I knew full well my new charm and my real merit; I was a good and safe conductor of the electric shock. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... gets over the war. It has left a nervous shock in his make-up—a memory in all his after life which takes precedence over all other things. The old man had the naming of the grandchildren, and he named them after the battles of the Civil war. Bull Run and Seven Days were the boys. Atlanta, Appomattox and Shiloh were the girls. His apology ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... thou not stood where ocean madly raging, Rolled onward as with overmastering shock: 'Till hushed the storm, the chafed surge assuaging, It gently laved ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... general all-around surprise party for the lot of us. We were taken aback to find Ralph here in the old shack; he had his surprise when he watched those two men carry on so queerly; then we had the shock last night of hearing thunder and seeing lightning when the sky was clear; after that, the fellow looking in at the window startled us. You were a little surprised your self, I reckon, Bud, at your success in trying out your stability device as applied to aeroplanes. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... shot did not even stagger him and he charged us; our horses avoided his rush, and he started for the river. Sheathing my carbine, I took down my rope and caught him before he had gone a hundred yards. As I threw my horse on his haunches to receive the shock, the weight and momentum of the bull dragged my double-cinched saddle over my horse's head and sent me sprawling on the ground. In wrapping the loose end of the rope around the pommel of the saddle, I had given it a half hitch, and as I came ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... she had received an electric shock. Her husband had left them; but, even if he had been still in the room, she would probably not have been any more able ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... middle-aged maid of Ruth Schuyler, told of the shock to her mistress when the news ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... and his country irrecoverably lost. Instead of confining himself to a defensive war, four years after the defeat of Warna he again penetrated into the heart of Bulgaria, and in the plain of Cossova, sustained, till the third day, the shock of the Ottoman army, four times more numerous than his own. As he fled alone through the woods of Walachia, the hero was surprised by two robbers; but while they disputed a gold chain that hung at his neck, he recovered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... One very severe shock was felt in San Francisco, but little damage resulted from it. Some of the California ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 35, July 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... forever. If she ever came back it would not be as his daughter, but as the wife of Gilman. She had deserted him, fled in the night like a thief; his heart began to harden again, and he rose stiffly. His native stubbornness began to assert itself, the first great shock over, and he went out to the kitchen, and prepared, as best he could, a breakfast, and sat down to it. In some way his appetite failed him, and he fell to thinking over his past life, of the death of his wife, and the early death of his only boy. He was still ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... nothing for five minutes, and for an excellent reason. There was not a single thought during that time which would sound pretty if put into words, and he had no wish to shock the Little Doctor. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... destroy the papers of Julius Zimmermann, waiter ... I felt I was in greater danger whilst I had them on me ... and to assure myself that my precious document was in its usual place—in my portfolio. It was then I made the discovery, annihilating at the first shock, that my silver badge had disappeared. I could not remember what I had done with it in the excitement of my escape from Haase's. I remembered having it in my hand and showing it to the police at the top of the stairs, but after that my mind was a blank. I could only imagine I ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... the sleeper, he summons Loge, and commands him in his original form of elemental fire to surround the mountain-summit. At the shock of his spear against the rock, a flame flashes and rapidly spreads. With his spear Wotan traces the course the fire is to follow, girdling the peak. Nimbly it leaps from point to point, till the whole background is fringed with flame. At Wotan's words, "Let no one who is afraid of my spear ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... considers the part played by the front limbs during progression. As Zundel expresses it, they are columns of support rather than of impulsion, and, as the body-weight is thrown forward by the hind-limbs, it is the duty of the fore-limbs to receive it. The shock or concussion of the body-weight thus thrown forwards is first received by the muscles uniting the limb to the trunk, and a great part of it there minimized by their sling-like attachment. It is further absorbed by the shoulder-joint, and from there passed on ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... been assassinated, the news could not have produced a greater shock. Scarcely had the Assembly adjourned, before the citizens of Albany—rushing into the vacant chamber and electing the old and venerable John Taylor, the former lieutenant-governor, for chairman—expressed their indignation in denunciatory speeches ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... so strongly against Bonaparte as it did at that period. The French have more need than any other people of a certain degree of liberty of the press; they require to think and to feel in common; the electricity of the emotions of their neighbours is necessary to make them experience the shock in their turn, and their enthusiasm never displays itself in an isolated manner. Whoever wishes to become their tyrant therefore does well to allow no kind of manifestation to public opinion; Bonaparte ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... or tea-chest serves as a chest of drawers, drawing-room table, and clothes-box. In these places children are born, live, and die; men, women, grown-up sons and daughters, lie huddled together in such a state as would shock the modesty of South African savages, to whom we send missionaries to show them the blessings of Christianity. As in other cases where idleness and filth abounds, what little washing they do is generally done on the Saturday afternoons; but this is a business they do not indulge ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... newspapers, enduring the mother's grief—and my own. And whenever I wait for the letters, I recall a little episode of the War told me by a wounded subaltern at an evacuated point. He had sustained a slight head wound, and I am certain he was not normal, but was suffering from shell-shock. Dark-eyed, swarthy, he was lying on a stretcher and wearing a white bandage. I offered him tea, but he would not take it; pushing aside the mug and gripping ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... Usurtasen I., which still stands at Heliopolis, was not overthrown. The humbler tombs at Ghizeh, so precious to the antiquary, were for the most part untouched. Amenemhat's buildings in the Fayoum may have been damaged, but they were not demolished. Though Egyptian civilization received a rude shock from the invasion, it was not altogether swallowed up or destroyed; and when the deluge had passed it emerged once more, and soon reached, and even surpassed, ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... you may thank Heaven that you did not become a medical man; your life would have been one of torture, disgust, and agonising sense of responsibility. But do you not see that you must thank Heaven for the sufferer's sake also? I will not shock you again by talking of amputation; but even in the smallest matter—even if you were merely sending medicine to an old maid—suppose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought of her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... wounded, black and white intermingled, there was the wonderful quiet which usually prevails on such occasions. Not a sob nor a groan, except from those undergoing removal. It is not self-control, but chiefly the shock to the system produced by severe wounds, especially gunshot wounds, and which usually keeps the patient stiller at first than ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... outran her plebeian rival. When we had galloped a mile or more, a large rabbit, by ill luck, sprang up just under the feet of the mule, who bounded violently aside in full career. Weakened as I was, I was flung forcibly to the ground, and my rifle, falling close to my head, went off with a shock. Its sharp spiteful report rang for some moments in my ear. Being slightly stunned, I lay for an instant motionless, and Reynal, supposing me to be shot, rode up and began to curse the mule. Soon recovering myself, I rose, picked up the rifle and anxiously examined ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... cut some time ago, probably two or three weeks, but the cause of his death seems to be heart failure, induced no doubt by lack of care, improper nourishment, and a severe shock that finished him off with his ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle |
