"Convulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man's arm gave Fitzpiers a convulsive shake. "What are you doing?" continued the latter. "Keep still, please, or put me down. I was saying that I lost her by a mere little two months! There is no chance for me now in this world, and it makes ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... in her bosom—her quickened convulsive breathing almost beat on my face, as she held me back ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... generation as well as the present, and still be left in a state even of pauperism. These victims perish in silence! No one has attempted to suggest even a palliative for this great evil; and when I asked the greatest genius of our age to propose some relief for this general suffering, a sad and convulsive nod, a shrug that sympathised with the misery of so many brothers, and an avowal that even he could not invent one, was all that genius had to alleviate the forlorn state of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... to terror experiences certain physical sensations: wildly beating heart, tensed and twitching muscles, and a frantic impulse to convulsive action. A man in whom those physical sensations are induced by other means will, ordinarily, find his ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... man, one of the negligible millions, being "squeezed," in other words the operation in an ordinary case of the divine law of survival. Freke was to survive; Simonds was not. In what respects Simonds was inferior to Freke, the Divine Mind alone could say. When that convulsive face shot past Isabelle in Lane's office, it was merely the tragic moment when the conscious atom was realizing fully that he was not to be the one to survive! The moment when Suspense is converted ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. Waring's plaid cap pass an open casement. She turned upon me like a wild creature driven to bay. I looked up-stream;—the ice had gathered in one high barrier mixed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... perfectly still, while the doctor set the ankle-bone which had been broken. As the foot also itself had been very much hurt, the handling of necessity gave a great deal of pain, more than the mere setting of the broken bone would have caused. Mr. Randolph could feel every now and then the convulsive closing of Daisy's hand upon his; other than that she gave no sign of what she was suffering. One sign of what another person was feeling, was given as Dr. Sandford bound up the foot and finished his work. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... effort should ever have been saddled upon him. He considered that from the start Steering should have been with him. Most fiercely of all he resented that he, Crittenton Madeira, should have let himself get into the position of trying to mollify Steering. "By God!" he was saying to himself with a convulsive anger, "Me to have to mollify! By God! Me!" Then the thought of Sally came back to him, goading him and confusing him. On a sudden impulse of candour he cried out to Steering, as he came on ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... threatened all who came near him with the fury of a wild beast; so that the jailers were obliged to put him into a straight-jacket, as much to protect his life as their own from the effects of his anger. Prevented by that controlling power from doing violence, Tascheron gave vent to his despair by convulsive jerks which horrified his guardians, and by words and looks which the middle-ages would have attributed to demoniacal possession. He was so young that many women thought pitifully of a life so full of passion about to be cut off forever. "The Last Day of a Condemned Man," that ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... his room he flung himself for a few moments face downwards upon the bed, and from the convulsive motion of his back an observer might almost have believed that he was sobbing. When he rose, there was no trace of tears or tenderness upon his features. On the contrary, they were stern and set, like the features of one bent upon some terrible endeavour. Going to a drawer, he unlocked ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... girl; and that was all she could say, as she flung her arms around his neck, and clung to him with a convulsive grasp. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... delight." When you are past shrieking, having no human articulate voice to say you are glad with, you fill the quietude of their valleys with gunpowder blasts, and rush home, red with cutaneous eruption of conceit, and voluble with convulsive hiccough of self-satisfaction. I think nearly the two sorrowfullest spectacles I have ever seen in humanity, taking the deep inner significance of them, are the English mobs in the valley of Chamouni, amusing themselves with ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... high-powered, small-calibered rifle. The hunter sprang from the thicket in which he had lain concealed and crossed the gully to a knoll where a black furry bundle had dropped to the snow after one convulsive leap. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... as the precursor of some event which will yet violently agitate the country. (Napoleon was now in St. Helena.) The stormy wave of discord has not subsided. The temple of ambition is not overthrown, and party spirit will rush to inhabit it. The convulsive struggle for independence in the South (America) still continues, but civil war appears about to interrupt its progress. At home all is quiet. A virtuous chief magistrate and a wise administration must benefit a people so PRONE TO ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... be round," was the reply, which had the effect of sending Elsie off into a fit of convulsive laughter ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... to assign reasons for the conduct of those [the republican party] who are arraigning, and, so far as they are able, constantly embarrassing, the measures of government with respect to its pacific disposition towards the belligerent powers in the convulsive dispute which agitates them. But their motives are too obvious to those who have the means of information, and have viewed the different grounds which they have taken, to mistake their object. It is not the cause of France, nor I ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... from her friends—she hastened to her own apartments to prepare to go out, and when Iras opened the door to enter her rooms she went to speak to her about the night attendance upon the Queen. But her niece had not perceived her; shaken by convulsive sobs, she had pressed her face among the cushions of a couch, and there suffered the fierce anguish which had stirred the inmost depths of her being to rave itself out with the full vehemence of her passionate nature. Charmian ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wrong, as usual, this morning; and Mrs. Beaudesart remained in the narangies' breakfast-room, mildly glowering into Ida's tear-stained face, and noting with polite deprecation the convulsive sobs which the sensitive girl vainly tried to repress before the young fellows. Beauty in distress is a favorite theme of your shallow romancists; but, to the philosophic mind, its pathos is nothing to that of ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... beckoned to three or four elderly men whom he knew he could rely upon, and they gathered around Uncle Sheba. His wife was slapping him on the back and chafing his hands, while Kern was splashing water in his face. The unfortunate man began to sneeze, and manifest rather convulsive signs of recovery. At last he blurted out, "Dar now, dar now, Aun' Sheba, doan go on so. I'se gwine to bring ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Hara San," he said gently as she pressed closer to him. He tilted her head, stooping to kiss the tiny mouth that trembled at the touch of his lips. She closed her eyes and he felt an almost convulsive shudder ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... order to Yellow Handkerchief, who mumbled it huskily to his men. He was suffering from a bad cold, which doubled him up in convulsive coughing spells and made his eyes heavy and bloodshot. This made him more evil-looking than ever, and when he glared viciously at me I remembered with a shiver the close shave I had had with him at the time of his ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... heard a chill voice say and knew it was his own. "Liar on both counts! My father sent you up because you were a thief. I beat your head off because you are a bully. Listen!" Roy shot the last word out in crescendo to forestall the result of a convulsive movement of the hand beneath his enemy's coat. "Listen, if you want to live the day out, you ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... cane couch in the corner, at the foot of which the child, Tottie, was playing with a doll, lay the baby, an infant of nearly three. The convulsive fit had passed away and she was sitting up supported by a pillow, the fair hair hanging about her flushed face, and beating the blanket with ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... sight of the convulsive clasp with which she drew to her breast the tiny bundle she ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... is symbolically called u blei or god, and the other is styled u briew or man, they are connected by a thin membrane. Directly the bird has been disembowelled the sacrificer throws a few grains of rice on the entrails and then watches their convulsive movements. If the portion of the entrail called u blei moves towards that portion which represents man, it is considered proof positive that the god has heard the prayer of the sacrificer, but if the movement proceeds in ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... eager chase, and urge him o'er the plains; No more he joys to bend the twanging bow, To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw; His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove, To wounds inflicted by the god of love. How oft, expressive of the inward smart, Did groans convulsive issue from his heart! How oft did blushes own the sacred flame, How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name! Now presents worthy of the plighted fair, And nuptial robes his busy train prepare— Robes wherewith Livia was herself attired, And those bright dames ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... preference, even over the delicate locusts. When he had finished them, he modestly requested a can of water. A sailor brought a large flask, and poured forth a plentiful supply. The canonico engulfed the whole, and instantly threw himself back in convulsive agony. 'How is this?' cried the sailor. The master ran up and, smelling the water, began to buffet him, exclaiming, as he turned round to all the crew, 'How came this flask here?' All were innocent. It appeared, however, that it was a flask of mineral water, strongly sulphureous, taken out of ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... friend of mine, a very efficient, clear-brained person, whom, by-the-way, we had asked to come in order to fully preserve the proprieties, suddenly felt a twitching in her left hand, which was touching mine. This convulsive movement spread to her shoulder, until her whole arm began to thresh about like a flail in a most alarming way. The action became so violent at last that she called upon me for aid. I found it exceedingly difficult to subdue her agitation and silence her rebellious limb, but I did finally ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... in which was a little hearth. Coppelius approached it, and a blue flame crackled upwards from it. Round about were all kinds of strange utensils. Good God! as my old father bent down over the fire how different he looked! His gentle and venerable features seemed to be drawn up by some dreadful convulsive pain into an ugly, repulsive Satanic mask. He looked like Coppelius. Coppelius plied the red-hot tongs and drew bright glowing masses out of the thick smoke and began assiduously to hammer them. I fancied that there were men's faces visible round about, but without eyes, having ghastly ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... the railing, but took his seat in a chair outside the curtain, in full view of the audience. He sat for some minutes motionless, staring at vacancy. He then slowly closed his eyes, and a convulsive shudder ran through his frame. This was repeated at rapid intervals, with more or less violence. He next passed his hands alternately over his forehead, as if he were wiping it, and throwing some invisible, sticky substance, with a vicious ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... I did take cognizance of strange sights and singular people, that I did act much as persons act from the ordinary promptings of curiosity, and from time to time even laugh very nearly as those do who are attacked with a convulsive sense of the ridiculous, the epilepsy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... Marigold made a sudden swerve. Of course the car skidded. It skidded all over the place, as if it were drunk, and, aided by Marigold, described a series of ghastly half-circles. At last he performed various convulsive feats of jugglery, with the result that the car, which was nosing steadily for the ditch, came to a stand-still. Then Marigold informed me in unemotional tones that the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... the depths of an arm-chair, no longer speaking, but overcome by that species of magnetic slumber which stiffened him, and fixed his eyes on something far away beyond the walls. He protruded his face, a convulsive kind of attention seemed to carry it forward; he certainly beheld something invisible, and heard a summons ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... was on the brow of the cliff. She gave a convulsive cry of joy and relief, and reached out her little hand to me. I almost stretched out to grasp it; then, remembering that with her slight weight I might easily drag her back into danger, I took hold of a little bush: it was dried to the roots, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... horror at his crime, which had greeted his entrance, died into the stillness of involuntary admiration and half-compassionate respect; and with a quick and convulsive sigh, that seemed to move the whole mass of life as if it were one body, the gaze of the spectators turned from the Athenian to a dark uncouth object in the center of the arena. It was the grated den of the lion. Kept without food for twenty-four hours, the animal had, during the whole ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... convulsive grasp at a rope, and just saved himself from falling overboard, for a vigorous snatch made by a large fish at his bait had been quite sufficient to disturb his equilibrium, his activity alone saving him from a terrible ducking, if not from ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... his instruments for the operation, which must be done quickly, if at all. The boy was unconscious, but every moment or two he broke out in convulsive delirium, giving answers to questions like a man talking in sleep. "Hilda! Hilda!" he cried again and again. "My Hilda, do not ask me that. Thou wouldst not love me if I told thee! Thou wouldst ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... over the ear drum, a meaningless cacophony of sounds that gradually resolved into a thin, incredibly metallic melody which appeared, mercifully, to come from a distance. To this was presently joined a voice, the voice, as it were, of a sinister, tin manikin galvanized into convulsive song. The words grew audible ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... must have caused a jealous pang to shoot through many a masculine bosom. With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... friendship were made. Doggie went into the house and in the dining-room found Oliver in convulsive laughter. ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... give you a full account. He [the King] said more than once: 'THIS was his sickness; the thing that ailed him, this: it gnawed his heart, and would be the death of him!' He certainly did not affect; he was in a very convulsive condition. [JARNI-BLEU, here is a piece of work, Herr Seckendorf!]—Adieu, I have ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... subsided to a convulsive clinging to him without tears, he explained his delay in arriving by his meeting with Uncle Sim. They were seated on the bench by this time, his arms about her, her face close ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... she wanted to be free for the strange grey river and the grey shores. But the home scenes recurred relentlessly. Again and again she went through the last moments... the goodbyes, the unexpected convulsive force of her mother's arms, her own dreadful inability to give any answering embrace. She could not remember saying a single word. There had been a feeling that came like a tide carrying her away. Eager and dumb and remorseful she had gone out of the house and ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... epochs, that uprise Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies. So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps: Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace From meal to meal: some with convulsive leaps Shake the green tussocks of malign disgrace: And some advance by system and deep art O'er vantages of wealth, place, learning, tact. But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart, Dost bind all epochs in one dainty Fact. Oh, sweet, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... generations of students. In the chapel, tremendous waves swelled and glowed, reaching almost from floor to ceiling, as they erased the texts from the walls, demolished the stained-glass windows, defaced, but did not completely destroy the college motto graven over them, and, in convulsive gusts swept from end to end of the chapel, pouring in and out of the windows in brilliant light and color. Seen from the campus below, the burning east end of the building loomed up magnificent even in the havoc and desolation it ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... many people in this room," said she. Her expelling glance fell first on Poppy, throned on the bed, then on the convulsive Spinks. She turned more gently to Rankin, in whose mouth she saw remonstrance, and to Maddox, in whose eyes she read despair. "It will really be better for him to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... help! Only a fierce spirit of resistance. At length she was conscious of Elise standing before her, half terrified, but wholly determined. Her eyes moistened, then grew soft. Her outstretched arms sought the girl and drew her within their convulsive grasp. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... humiliations and resentments; but no doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... the Revolution of the seventeenth century failed. It failed, at least, as an attempt to establish social equality and liberty of conscience. The feudal past, with a feudal Europe to support it, sat too heavy on us to be cast off. By a convulsive effort we broke loose, for a moment, from the hereditary aristocracy and the hierarchy. For a moment we placed a popular chief in power, though Cromwell was obliged by circumstances, as well as impelled by his own ambition, to make himself a king. But when Cromwell died before his hour, all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... of men's voices from below, and from above there came the convulsive sobs of a child, deadened ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... he sighed, as his head drooped helplessly forward, though his fingers tightened on the canoe with the convulsive ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... to pray. She did not pray; she whispered her anger, her unhappiness, her desires, to the air of the cold, still room, repeating the same phrases again and again with clenched hands and the convulsive ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... say with safety whatever came first to her lips helped to weaken her. She half expected that Bosio would rise, and come to her and comfort her, perhaps, as she hid her face in her hands, shivering in fear of herself and shaking a little with the convulsive sob that ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... it was with care and suffering. She attempted two or three times to speak, but not a word escaped from her quivering lips; and the tears gushing from her eyes followed each other in quick succession down her cheeks; and, finally, her pent-up feelings found expression in short, convulsive sobs. Her inability to speak because of her emotion had a greater power to move the meeting than the most fervid eloquence could have had. Soon there was scarcely a dry eye in the room, and many were sobbing in sympathy with her inexpressible ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... smiting-stones of the Neanderthaler. She sprang forward and lifted one in both hands. The apeman threw back his head to give a roar of victory. The note never issued from his throat. The huge flint which he had chipped patiently to a sharp edge, struck him on the back of the head. With a gasp and a convulsive shudder, the apeman rolled over, ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... the band threw themselves upon him like the hounds on a stag. Desperately Nigel strove to gain his sword which lay upon the iron coffer. With the convulsive strength which comes from the spirit rather than from the body, he bore them all in that direction, but the sacrist snatched the weapon from its place, and the rest dragged the writhing Squire to the ground and swathed ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... witnessed a sight which rose before his eyes many times afterward and would not be blotted from his memory. It all came back to him now once more,—the agonized, horribly glaring eyes, the clinched hands and quivering throat, and the convulsive sobbing and gasping which would not cease tearing the wasted frame until death should bring the only possible help. It made him sick at heart to think that the gentle unselfish girl who was even then forgetting herself in her care for others would be seized by those paroxysms ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... decomposed. With a supreme effort, she had lifted her child above her head, and the poor little creature's arms were still twined around its mother's neck! The postures of the four seamen seemed ghastly to me, twisted from convulsive movements, as if making a last effort to break loose from the ropes that bound them to their ship. And the helmsman, standing alone, calmer, his face smooth and serious, his grizzled hair plastered to his brow, his hands clutching ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... bed, and wept as if her heart would break. Julia Cloud stood over her in consternation, and tried to soothe her; but nothing did any good. The young storm had to have its way, and the slim pink shoulders shook in convulsive sobs, while the dismayed elder sat down beside the bed, with troubled eyes upon her, and waited, ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... very slowly, and before the dawn of Greek independence there was a time of almost utter darkness, the darkest time of all being the few months following Lord Cochrane's arrival. "Vanquished Greece," says her historian, "lay writhing in convulsive throes. In herself there was neither hope nor help, and the question to be solved was merely whether the Mahometans would have time to subdue her before the mediating powers made up their minds to use force. That ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... shore, stored the trout away in the shade beneath it, and sat down in a convenient place among the stones to have another chat about Quebec. We had just passed the jewelry shops, and were preparing to go to the asylum of the orphans, when Patrick put his hand on my shoulder with a convulsive grip, and ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... with enjoyment of her convulsive emphasis; but she went on: "I don't think life's worth living if you're to be shut up all your days to the intelligence merely of ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... of disappointment that crossed the rugged lineaments of the hunter amounting so nearly to anguish as to frighten his companion, while the sensation of choking became so strong in the Pathfinder that he fairly griped his throat, like one who sought physical relief for physical suffering. The convulsive manner in which his fingers worked actually struck the alarmed girl with a feeling ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... task, and its substance is impervious to passion. With this organization, men of really little power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... four or five heaves of the neck, throwing the water two or three feet—in fact, turning itself into a veritable pump! I have stood within a few yards of the bird when it made the sound, and seen the convulsive movement of the neck and body, and the lifting of the head as the sound escaped. The bird seems literally to vomit up its notes, but it ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... through all this the canoe glances like an arrow, dips like a wild bird down the wing of the storm, now slanting from a rock, now edging a green cavern, now breaking through a backward rolling billow, without a word spoken, but with every now and again a quick convulsive twist and turn of the bow-paddle to edge far off some rock, to put her full through some boiling billow, to hold her steady down the slope of some thundering chute which has the power of a thousand horses: for remember, this river of rapids, this Winnipeg, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... table, sprang up—recoiling as one recoils before an avenging specter. In his convulsive fingers were the time-tables, clinging ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... Waters, Water-Mother, maid aerial, Felt it hot, and felt it hotter, And she felt her skin was heated, 220 Till she thought her knee was burning, And that all her veins were melting. Then she jerked her knee with quickness, And her limbs convulsive shaking, Rolled the eggs into the water, Down amid the waves of ocean, And to splinters they were broken, And to fragments they ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... a convulsive twitching at the corner of his mouth, but he had sworn to himself that he would betray no levity. Brady looked so uncomfortable that his friend pitied him. There is much which disturbs us, chiefly through the sensibility ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... shark a little behind the head and went clear through his body. It must have struck a vital point for the monster gave one convulsive leap and fell back in its death flurry, lashing the water into yeast. Then it turned part way over and remained motionless, the leverage of the shaft preventing it from turning wholly on ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... stole over her shoulder and she was drawn close to his breast. She raised her lips to greet the kiss. Her little hand clutched his with a sudden convulsive ecstasy. He felt the warm, quick ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... and languid, by him, on a creepie that a lass who had been baiting a line with mussels had just vacated; suddenly she seized Jean's arm with a convulsive motion; Jean looked up—it was the London steamboat running out from Leith to Granton Pier to take up her passengers for London. Charles Gatty was going by that boat; the look of mute despair the poor girl gave went to Jean's heart; she ran hastily from the group, ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... to express the surprise of the poor woman at the sight; she stared wildly round her, and upon her little benefactor, and, clasping her hands together in an agony of gratitude and feeling, she fell back in her chair with a kind of convulsive motion. Her husband, who was in the next room, seeing her in this condition, ran up to her, and catching her in his arms, asked her with the greatest tenderness what was the matter; but she, springing ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... now broke with terrific violence. There appeared to be about eight or nine men on her deck, who sheltered themselves under the weather bulwarks. Each wave, as it broke against her side and then dashed in foam over her, threw her, with a convulsive jerk, still further on the sand-bank. At last she was so high up that their fury was partly spent before they dashed against her frame. Had the vessel been strong and well-built—had she been a collier coasting the English shores—there was a fair chance that she might have withstood ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... suddenly, and there was a startled sort of look in the wide brown eyes, a fleeting expression of fear; and at the same time her hand went to her breast in a convulsive movement. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... men bent to their oars, and the rope was hauled in until they came quite close to the fish. This time a harpoon was thrown, and a deep lance-thrust given which penetrated to the vital parts of its huge carcass, as was evidenced by the blood which it spouted, and the convulsive ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... demoniacal war now commenced. It was significantly initiated by the execution of a papist, an Irishman named Glover, who was accused of having bewitched the daughters of a mason of Boston, by name Goodwin. These girls, of infantile age, suffered from convulsive fits, the ordinary symptom of 'possession.' Mather received one of them into his house for the purpose of making experiments, and, if possible, to exorcise the evil spirits. She would suddenly, in presence of a number of spectators, fall into a trance, rise up, place herself in a riding ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... convulsive, shrill gasp of laughter, which would have instantly developed into an hysterical roar, had not the young Prince, with quick, tactful disregard of British convention, sprung to his feet, and with one hand holding champagne glass, and the other uplifted, commanded silence. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... the sofa, her whole being shaken by convulsive sobs. Virginia, panic-stricken, darted forward, but the Doctor held out ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... corrals, and men curiously watched him fly past. He saw one rancher running, and he felt intuitively that this fellow was going to join in the chase. Duane's steed pounded on, not noticeably slower, but with a lack of former smoothness, with a strained, convulsive, jerking stride which showed ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... said Mr. Morton. Catherine rose eagerly, and gazed searchingly on her sister-in-law's hard face. She swallowed the convulsive rising at her heart as she gazed, and stretched out both her hands, not so much to welcome as to plead. Mrs. Roger Morton drew herself up, and then dropped a courtesy—it was an involuntary piece of good breeding—it ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... who charged him so furiously, was nothing more than the thousands of bull-headed forwards who had come upon him like thunder-bolts in the days of old. With the ease begotten by practice he circled his assailant with his long muscular arms, and gave a quick convulsive jerk in which every sinew of his body participated. The red-bearded man's stumpy legs described a half-circle in the air, and he came down on the stone pavement with a sounding crash which shook every particle of breath from his ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... glad you've come!" she cried, tears in her voice. She caught her hands together in a convulsive little gesture. "Isn't it dreadful? I've been afraid all the time that something awful would happen—and ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... again. He tried to climb over a stone wall, five or six feet high. I saw that I must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convulsive sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it and one long one, and reminded me alternately of the clattering shake of the great earthquake, and the sweeping plunging of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a great deal and presently wept a great deal in convulsive sobs, and then opened his eyes and saw the tourbillon of whirling elements settling down into Rossiter's grave, handsome face—yes, but a gravity somehow interpenetrated by love, a love not ashamed to show itself—bending over him with great concern. The secret had been guessed, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... lost or gained. The cheering ceased and the silence became intense; one could see the veins standing out on the competitors' foreheads and perspiration pouring off their faces, each man pulling to the last ounce, then our coach shouted "come away" and as if by magic they gave a convulsive pull and gained a foot, the spell was broken, and the men of our Regiment looking on gave a wild cheer. In a second everyone was shouting for their side, but slowly, very slowly, inch by inch they were winning, they would lose a ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... was made of teeth and tongue and palate and a purely convulsive physical impulse. But the echo's laugh was a phantasy of mist and dawn and inestimable balsam-scented spaces where little green ferns and little brown beasties and soft-breasted birdlings frolicked eternally in ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... face, and the convulsive movement of the hand that held the heavy whip, might have ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... turned. Then came a dull crash, and the mob swayed backwards for an instant. The drop had fallen, and the victims were struggling in the throes of a horrible death. The ropes jerked and swayed with the convulsive movements of the dying men. A minute later, and the vibrations ceased—the end had come, the swaying limbs fell rigid and stark, and the souls of the strangled men had floated upwards from the cursed spot—up from the hateful crowd and the sin-laden atmosphere—to the throne ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... any thing happened? You are surely ill?" were the exclamations that met him on all sides. He tried to carry it off as well as he could, but felt that the movements he would have wished to appear alert, were only convulsive; and that the smiles with which he attempted to relax his features, were but distorted grimaces. However, the church was not the place for further inquiries; and while Natalie gently pressed his hand in token of sympathy, they advanced to the altar, and the ceremony was performed; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... which Jesus spoke, and which holds the one wanderer of more account than the ninety and nine that went not astray. She would neither leave her husband nor betray him, nor yet would she for one moment justify his sin; and hence came two years of convulsive struggle, in which sometimes, for a while, the good angel seemed to gain ground, and then the evil one returned ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in the cases recorded we have but the symptoms of well-known diseases, which, from their exceptionally painful character, involving loss of reason, involuntary or convulsive motions, and other abnormal phenomena, the imaginative and unscientific Easterns attributed, as the easiest mode of accounting for them, to a foreign power taking possession of the body and mind of the man. They say there is no occasion ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... in, and the boy was kept under chloroform, but in vain; the next day his whole body was perfectly rigid, with occasional convulsions. About 4 p.m. his throat had become contracted, and the endeavour to give him nourishment brought on convulsive attacks. The Bishop came at 8. p.m., and after another attempt at giving him food, which produced a further spasm, he was lying quietly when ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she was at my feet, upon her knees, her arms fast about me, her face hidden against me, her body shaken with convulsive sobs. ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... passionate and high-minded. Diodorus (Bibl. Hist., lib. iii. p. 130) records the exploits of Myrina, Queen of the Amazons, but it is probable that Byron named his Ionian slave after Mirra, who gives her name to Alfieri's tragedy, which brought on a convulsive fit of tears and shuddering when he first saw it played at Bologna in August, 1819 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... that moment that Ruth Erskine, the young lady who, according to Mrs. Mitchell, had so quiet, and settled, and peaceful a life, that she coveted it for her daughter, stood in the great hall that was glowing with light and beauty, and caught her breath with an almost convulsive sound, as she rested against a chair for support; her face deathly pale, her eyes bright with a calm that she had forced upon herself, in her solemn determination to try to do just the right thing, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... through which all things that men call beautiful and ugly are seen to be made up of textures very much alike. Europe adjusts itself to a fait accompli, and so does an individual character—until the placid adjustment is disturbed by a convulsive ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... prestidigious noctambulist-has literally stormed over it. It is barbaric, it is perhaps pathologic, and of it Liszt has said most eloquent things. It is for him a dream poem, the "lurid hour that precedes a hurricane" with a "convulsive shudder at the close." The opening is very impressive, the nerve-pulp being harassed by the gradually swelling prelude. There is defiant power in the first theme, and the constant reference to it betrays the composer's ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... great cricket, which thoughtlessly approaches along the wire-work of the cover, the Mantis, shaken by a convulsive start, suddenly assumes a most terrifying posture. An electric shock would not produce a more immediate result. The transition is so sudden, the mimicry so threatening, that the unaccustomed observer will draw back his hand, as though at some unknown danger. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... reflection that this thing was but some trick of the carver's art, and that what we had seen we had seen in a sort of nightmare, when the whole hideous reptile was seized with what seemed to be a fit of convulsive shuddering. It seemed to be in agony. It trembled so violently that I expected to see it loosen its hold of the stem and fall to the ground. I was sufficiently master of myself to steal a glance at Bob. We had had an ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... like a harp-string as the terrified Arima relaxed his convulsive grip on it and was hauled back inboard to safety by his master, and the yacht's forward progress was checked with an abruptness that threatened to drag the bitts out of her as the strain of the line, with the plunging, struggling monster at the end of it, was suddenly ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... slight twitching is observed about the muscles of the face. The difficulty in sucking increases, the cry grows weaker and more whimpering, or even altogether inaudible, while breathing is attended with a slight rattle or a feeble cough, and the convulsive movements return more frequently, and are no longer confined to the face, but affect also the muscles of the extremities. Any sudden movement suffices to bring on these convulsive seizures, but even ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... his head, yet the second swing drove his teeth along Breed's neck and laid open a six-inch gash. As Breed struggled to his feet the wolf's fangs sliced at his throat and ripped it open but not deep enough to kill. A loop of the kinked trap chain was tightened on Flatear's toes by Breed's convulsive backward dodge, and a ghastly fear that he himself was trapped swept through him, transcending even the lust to kill the yellow wolf. He made one wild leap for safety,—and the tightening kink cracked his toes and threw him, the same lurch dragging Breed ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... was. She walked on in the direction whence the sounds proceeded, and there, lying on the ground, was the figure of a man—the man she had spoken to that afternoon. This was dreadful. Marjory had not known that a grown-up man could cry; his whole frame was heaving with convulsive sobs, and he murmured something she could not understand. She felt at a loss in the presence of such bitter grief, and did not know what to do or what to say. At last she took courage and said gently, "Can I do anything ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... must come!" something within her said. If she had not been prepared for it by the events of the last twelve hours she would have jumped to her feet with an exclamation of natural shock and horror. As it was, she felt a convulsive, nervous thrill without rising from her seat. A pause. The next shell burst in line with the first, out by the linden-trees; a third above ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... contractions which constitute the convulsion. If this view were correct, it would not be hard to imagine that during the onset of these stupors the tendency to part company with the environment, which ordinarily comes on slowly, might occur with epileptic suddenness and hence liberate convulsive movements. This is, however, a pure speculation but not fruitless if it serves to draw attention to the analogies existing between the stupor reaction and some of the mental symptoms of epilepsy. These analogies are ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... curtains stretch out and engulf her. She feels their dark touch, like a visible presence of evil, she shivers all over. The cold damp air of the chill room comes to her like wafts of deadly poison. She cannot breathe; a convulsive tremor ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... words, "He is not here, but has been sent for." A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained perfectly silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals. When the short period I mention had elapsed, the hand of the medium was again seized with its convulsive tremour, and she wrote, under this strange influence, a few words on the paper, which she handed to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... was a strange, loud whiz and a long, silvery tinkle of broken glass. At that instant Holmes sprang like a tiger on to the marksman's back, and hurled him flat upon his face. He was up again in a moment, and with convulsive strength he seized Holmes by the throat, but I struck him on the head with the butt of my revolver, and he dropped again upon the floor. I fell upon him, and as I held him my comrade blew a shrill ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strain of life reaches a certain degree of intensity, unfailingly produces its characteristic breakdown; the patient is seized with confusion, is overcome by feeling, indulges in an emotional sprawl, is flooded with terrible apprehensions and distracting sensations, may even go into a convulsive fit, and, in extreme cases, even become unconscious and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... peculiar vapor arising out of the cavern, and one of the goatherds was induced to try its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations, to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily circulated widely, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... There were men enough; all dead, apparently, except one, who lay near where I had halted my platoon to await the slower movement of the line—a Federal sergeant, variously hurt, who had been a fine giant in his time. He lay face upward, taking in his breath in convulsive, rattling snorts, and blowing it out in sputters of froth which crawled creamily down his cheeks, piling itself alongside his neck and ears. A bullet had clipped a groove in his skull, above the temple; ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... looked up, and for a moment she had seemed bewildered, stunned by the news. Then all the colour had receded from her round face; it became discomposed, covered with red streaks. She broke into convulsive sobs as, shaking her head violently, she ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... moment and hide behind one of the statues in the passage during the exit of his step-mother with the weeping Niobe; but when the sound of their footsteps had died away in the distance, he rushed into the oak parlour, and seizing Winnie round the waist, treated her to several convulsive hugs and various exclamations ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... said soothingly, "of course you are not going to leave your bones on this island. If you did, you know, you and Bill Halliwell might ha'nt around together—think how cozy! (Here Aunt Jane gave a convulsive shudder.) As to my being married, if you were betting just now on anybody's chances they would have to be Captain ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... a final effort the knife was driven home, a convulsive shiver racked the body of the great white wolf, and with a low, gurgling moan of agony her jaws set rigid, her muscles stiffened, and she toppled sidewise into the snow, where she lay ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... movement. Esther was tempted to believe she enjoyed the stabbing pain. There were people who took a sensual delight in suffering, or at least she had heard that there were. She watched curiously the sort of rapturous twist of the patient's body, the convulsive grip of her hands on the ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... met the glance of upturned, glazing eyes. Even as he dropped upon his knee beside the dying man, Peters swept his arm around in a convulsive movement, having the fingers crooked, coughed horribly, and ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... pointed warning as to ever repeating his offence; then remounted and spurred forward to join Ellen. All her power of keeping up was gone, now that the necessity was over. Her head was once more bowed on her pony's neck, her whole frame shaking with convulsive sobs; she could scarce with great effort ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... her hot hands, all wet with tears, went suddenly to her shoulder, and grasped his that lay there, with a convulsive pressure, seeming to draw him down as she bowed herself almost to the keyboard in her agony of weeping. Then, without thought, his other hand, cold as ice, was under her throat, bringing her head gently back upon his arm, till ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... This victory was made possible only by the fact that God visited them with convulsions so terrible that they rolled up and writhed in pain, unable to stand in the battle lines, so that Israel could cut them down while they were half dead from convulsive pains. [679] God also drew masks over their faces, so that they could not see plainly, and taking one another for Israelites, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... heard a rushing noise as of a loud wind, but could see nothing. Presently a large eagle dropped, as if from the air, upon the otter's carcass. Grasshopper drew his bow, and the arrow passed through under both of his wings. The bird made a convulsive flight upward, with such force that the cumbrous body was borne up several feet from the ground; but with its claws deeply fixed, the heavy otter brought the eagle back to the earth. Grasshopper possessed himself of a handful of the prime feathers, crowned his head with the trophy, and set off in ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... all that mortals hold so dear, Then welcome infamy and public shame, And, last, a long farewell to worldly fame. 'Tis said with ease, but, oh, how hardly tried By haughty souls to human honour tied! O sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride! Down then, thou rebel, never more to rise, And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize, That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice. 290 'Tis nothing thou hast given, then add thy tears For a long race of unrepenting years: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... here, and I 'd give all the rest of my life to see her smashed and sunk, and feel that I 'd had some hand in the doing of it. Ay, I know her. Could a man ever forget her!" continued the seaman, turning away white with passion, and shaking his fist in convulsive rage at the frigate, which made a handsome picture in spite of all. Seymour's face was ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, beginning small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another blow—and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu |
