"Last gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... slowly glazed under the terrified glance of Miss Thankful. Death had cut short that vital sentence, and simultaneously with the entrance of the nurse, whose return he had so much feared, he uttered his last gasp and sank back lifeless on his pillow. With a cry Miss Thankful pounced on the wallet. It opened out flat in her hand, as empty as her life seemed at that minute. But she was a brave woman and in another instant her courage had revived. The money could not be far away; ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... at my last gasp, I get a brief peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in command. Perfect spring weather. And what can ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... ants. There is one specially vicious ant called the bulldog ant, because of its pluck. Try to kill the bulldog ant with a stick, and it will face you and try to bite back until the very last gasp, never thinking of running away. The bulldog ant has a liking for the careless picnicker, whom she—the male ant, like the male bee, is not a worker—bites with a fierce energy that suggests to the victim that his flesh is being torn with red-hot pincers. I ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... their very last gasp, and had mentally resigned themselves to death, when there came a tremendous shock, throwing the two lads off their feet only just in time to avoid the final thrusts from the two pirates, to which fortuitous circumstance they owed their lives. As they lay on the deck, struggling to regain their ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the water, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... drawing to a conclusion, seems to be inclining to good opinions: and as dying men, are much given to repentance, so finding his cause at the last gasp, he unburthens his Conscience and disclaims the principles of a Common-wealth, both for himself, and for both Houses of Parliament, which is indeed to be over-officious: for one of the Houses will not think they have need of such a Compurgator. But he wisely fears no ...
— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden
... failed in an attempt to divert the attention of the English by an invasion of Cumberland. After Easter, Edward III. went in person to Berwick, and devoted the whole resources of England to ensuring its reduction. The siege lasted on until July, when the garrison, at the last gasp, offered to surrender, unless the town were relieved within fifteen days. The Scots made a great effort to save Berwick from capture, and the English king was forced to fight a pitched battle, before he ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... suddenly he fell sick and his sickness grew upon him and gained mastery over his frame, so he sent for me, saying, "Bring me my son." Accordingly I went and entered to him and found him changed of condition and nearing his last gasp. But he turned to me and said, "O my son, I charge thee with a charge which do thou not transgress nor contrary me in whatso I shall declare to thee." "What may that be?" asked I, and he answered, "O my son, do thou never make oath in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... poor woman, as we thought, at the last gasp. Had we come sooner, we could not have got away as we intended, that night. You see I am for excusing the man all I can; and yet, I assure you, I have not so much as a conditional liking to him. My mother sat up most part of the night, expecting every hour would have been her poor cousin's last. ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... tumble-bellied man, bullet-headed, bull-necked, and with flashing eyes. Inordinate alike in appetite, mind and action, he was always suffering for his furies, and always making a fine recovery. Just now he was at the last gasp for a breath, or so you would have said to look at him. But not so; his exertions were really his stimulant. Presently he would eat and drink consumedly, drench himself with snuff, and then spend half the night with his books, preparing for to-morrow's lecture. Of this sort was Dr. Porfirio Lanfranchi, ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... which at its brightest periods produced the beautiful mosque of the Sultan Bayazid at Amasia, is at its last gasp; for we can, with safety, affirm that not a single grand thought, either social, religious, or political, any longer connects together the four millions of inhabitants which the Porte numbers in this part of her dominions. All unity has disappeared, and the Asmoulis, ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... devoted supporter of Handel, was pessimistic from the beginning of the season. "I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter," she wrote on November 25; "they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it. The directors are always squabbling, and they have so many divisions among themselves that I wonder they have not broke up before; Senesino goes away next winter, and I believe Faustina, so you see harmony is almost out of fashion."Admeto ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... hand; every portion, without any exception, furthering the process of conviction;" and I do not know a more impressive passage of sombre passion than the peroration of his first speech against the Act of Union: "For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my blood; and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the fallen," Bivens went on musingly, "who is dying hard. With his last gasp he is trying still to reach my heart. In spite of the fact that I have unlimited resources, this man is constantly circulating reports about the soundness of my finances. He uses the telephone principally and he has started two runs on my bank within the past month. Another is pending. I'm ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... logic were adopted by thousands whose brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet anybody ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... burst and sinews crack: Fog in one's eyes, the brain a-swim, A weight like lead in every limb, And a raw pit that hurts like hell Where once the light breath rose and fell: Do you but keep me, hope or none, Cheery and staunch till all is done, And, at the last gasp, quick to lend One effort more ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... other's reputations, an allusion to him was still the signal for universal commotion; his very name would be greeted with clouds of ecstatic adjectives, and wild interjections and enthusiatic superlatives would fly buzzing about your ears until language would seem to be at its last gasp, and for a week to come the positive and comparative degrees would be applicable ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... same, April 15.-The rebellion at its last gasp. Supplies from France taken. Hanoverian troops. Trial of Hawley. Marriage of Lord Kildare. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, or the statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might depict the face and color of one ready to faint and expire. And this, said I, the Cyrenaics ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp, My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, away ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... purshooers, 'cause why? We're purshooin' the cap'en and crew of the Termagant at law, and means to purshoo 'em too, I guess, till they stumps up for that air whale. And they is the defendants, 'cause they're s'posed to defend themselves to the last gasp; but it ain't o' no manner ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... little stanza the other night, dear Delia. Doesn't it seem strange, that when I am at the last gasp with agony, I should find myself thinking of lines of poetry? I called it 'Life'; you will say that it ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the Division also disembarked at Alexandria, in order to relieve the Regular garrisons of Alexandria and Cairo. The Battalion passed on to Port Said. As we neared the harbour, our men hailed watchers on the quay for the latest news. Antwerp was then at its last gasp, and the Aboukir, Hague and Cressy had been torpedoed in the North Sea. The first cry from the ship was "How is City getting on?" League football was still the first interest of Young England in the second ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... speaks to me aloud from that steeple; he whispers to me at these curtains, and he speaks thy words: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.[240] Let this prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, my dying in thee; that if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may die the death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; and if I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die to sin; which death is a resurrection to a new ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... regards it for a few moments in silence.) Ah! by Jove, Gervaise! some one sent you down the wrong turn: you ought to have been a painter. What a sky! And what a sea! Those blues and greens—rich as a peacock's feather-eyes! Superb! A tropical night! The dolphin at its last gasp in the west, and all above, an abyss of blue, at the bottom of which the stars lie like gems in the mineshaft ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... house paints admirably the temper of the citizens at the time. Its founder, Prior Norman, built church and cloister and bought books and vestments in so liberal a fashion that no money remained to buy bread. The canons were at their last gasp when the city-folk, looking into the refectory as they passed round the cloister in their usual Sunday procession, saw the tables laid but not a single loaf on them. "Here is a fine set out," said the citizens; "but where is the bread to come from?" The women who were present vowed each ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... the life-line as a signal that he was at his last gasp, bidding them pull in. Then, gripping the last flicker of his purposed energy on the one final aim—not to loose hold in the sea of the man he had rescued from an intolerable death, the boy locked himself to the sufferer in the "side ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... road appeared closed to him. And while he sat turning right and left, behold, he espied a horseman making towards him with bent back and reins slack. He sat up right and after a time reached the Prince; and the stranger was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded when he came up; the tears streamed down his cheeks like water from the mouths of skins, and he said to Kanmakan, "O Chief of the Arabs, take me to thy friendship as long as I live, for thou wilt not find my like; ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Still one last gasp, one last breath; then came a cry from Marie Antoinette's lips, and her head sank upon the hand of her son, which rested in her own, and which was now stiff. A few tears coursed slowly over the cheeks of the king, and his hands, folded ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... to say, "Renty, renty, Classidas!" she cried, "you called me vile names, but I have a great pity for your soul." He on his side showered down blasphemies. He was at the last gasp; one desperate last effort he made with a handful of men to escape from the boulevard by the drawbridge to Les Tourelles, which crossed a narrow strip of the river. But the bridge had been fired by a fire-ship from Orleans and gave way under the rush of the heavily-armed men; and the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... to be the case. On returning to the spot they found an arctic fox in his last gasp, lying flat on the snow, with the heavy log across his back, which seemed to be broken. A slight tap on the snout with the accountant's deadly ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... thought Slynn was such a softy. Why, Slynn,' he went on, and clapped Chippy on the shoulder, 'you'll never make a fishmonger if you carry on like that. Everything's fresh to a customer. You must always tell 'em it's just done its last gasp, unless the smell's a trifle too high, and then you must ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... of the line. I drove forward with a mighty kick of my feet—a last gasp of strength. My fingers closed on the handle of the gully, I ripped it out of its sheath, and slashed the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... state of intoxication, and so rousing the inmates by his gestures, that they at once followed him into the road, alongside of which the beery old sabreur was found prostrate in a pool of water, setting his face pertinaciously against that hostile element, even to what was very near being his last gasp. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... shone with feeling—with protest, indignation, anguish. As she spoke, she thrust her head forward with the vigour of a passionate counsel. Sheila Llyn was a champion who would fight to the last gasp for ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... jackanapes?" he cried, at the top of his lungs, "who is this jackanapes who comes here, thrusting his idiotic presence upon me?" Poor General Fontana showed his face, pale and in evident discomfiture, and with the air of a man at his last gasp, indistinctly pronounced these words:—"His Excellency Count Mosca solicits ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone! As the advocate of society therefore—of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard the liberty of the ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... was charged with a message which he would gladly have died to discharge was far away, eating out his heart in silence, or vainly relieving it with unknown words. At the last gasp, or after he ceased to gasp for the time, and was drifting insensible, but happily with his honest face still upward, a Dutchman, keeping a sharp lookout for English cruisers, espied him. He was taken on board of a fine bark bound from Rotterdam for Java, with orders to choose the track least ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... formidable and well-provided foe. All was confusion and panic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagion of alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions, his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently at the last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy into which they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organization of his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination, and procured five hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... his cigarette and inhaled a puff thoughtfully. "You don't understand. All you have to say does have some bearing upon things, but, when you get down to brass tacks, it's instinct—at the last gasp, it's instinct. You can't get away from it. Look at the difference between a thoroughbred and a cold-blooded horse! There you are! That's true. It's the fashion now to discount instinct, I know; well—but you can't get away from it. I've thought about the thing—a lot. Men are ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... thoroughly enjoying this opportunity of studying the features of the fine old hall, and making a note of them for future use. "What a magnificent old place!" he said to himself. "Trelawney says the man is at his last gasp, and will positively have to turn out before long. Poor beggar! I pity him. It must be heartbreaking to leave an old place like this, where one's ancestors have lived for generations, where every stone has its history, and the spirits ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... assassins;—but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... now or never, and kick up the dark man there;" but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... the shore of the north end. Shorty insisted that it was the opening of the river and that he could see water. He and Kit alone were able to work, and with their oars they broke the ice and forced the boat along. And at the last gasp of their strength they made the suck of the rapid river. One look back showed them several boats which had fought through the night and were hopelessly frozen in; then they whirled around a bend in a current ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... that people say very carelessly that always seems to me to be a dreadful thing for a man to say. They say it when they talk about their lives to one another, and think about their lives to themselves, and by and by very often say it upon their death-bed with the last gasp, as though their entrance into the eternal world had brought them no deeper enlightenment. One wonders what is the revelation that comes to them when they stand upon the borders of the other side and are in the full life and eternity of God. The thing men say is, "I have ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... smothering the flames. Had the coarse cloth been a little more cleanly it is likely that it would have been burned, but as it was it strangled the blaze until it may be said there were several bushels of smoke gathered beneath and the embers were at their last gasp. ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... years of an exile imprisonment on the barren isle of St. Helena, I heard his last gasp, "Head of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... will be captivated now; and that here will ooze out the last gasp of his love for the religion of St. Patrick," the young bride ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... appearance, waited, and puzzled his head in the endeavor to guess what Bob would have to say, inventing all sorts of possible excuses for wanting to give up connection with the game. Jack was grimly determined that he would not let go his hold on the big fullback until the last gasp. Surely he must be able to advance some argument that would have weight with any objections the other ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... noticed a broken window, through which I managed to scramble, and on finding out how things were returned to the coach to help other passengers. Underneath me seemed to be a dying man. He was in a dreadful condition and at his last gasp, etc., and he made more row than the rest put together. Reaching down and removing mattresses, he grasped my hand, jumped up and thanked me profusely for saving his life. He was not hurt a bit, indeed was the only man in the lot who escaped serious ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... Four men were struggling in the seething waters in deadly danger. Too brave and resolute to leave their comrade-in-arms, too feeble to procure his safety, they were wearing out their strength in futile though heroic efforts, whilst the object of their solicitude was at his last gasp. ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... it secretly, and scared me so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dear child would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in on Thursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on the darling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... but so lost was she in admiration of the water plants and lilies, that had it not been for me she would have sat down and sketched them whether Jacques drowned or not. I hurried her off, telling her the child might be just at the last gasp, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 31, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as soon as missed, and inevitably traced by the hounds, that he rarely attempts to escape from his master unless under some peculiarly aggravating cause. It may even be doubted whether a slave would be pursued to-day were he to attempt to escape, because slavery is so very near its last gasp. In one respect this is an advantage to the negroes, since the master, feeling this indifference, grants the blacks more freedom of action. So perfect of scent is the Cuban bloodhound that the master has only to obtain a bit of clothing left behind by the runaway and give it to ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Sh[o]gun of Yedo deposed, the dual system abolished, feudalism in its last gasp and Shint[o] in full political power, with the ancient council of the gods (Jin Gi Kuan) once more established, and purified Shint[o] again the religion of state, thousands of Riy[o]bu Shint[o] temples were at once purged of all their Buddhist ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... did the aged Emperor send envoys to propose a peace and offer to purchase escape by the payment of an immense sum in gold. Sapor, confident of victory, refused the overture, and, waiting patiently till his adversary was at the last gasp, invited him to a conference, and then treacherously seized his person. The army surrendered or dispersed. Macrianus, the praetorian prefect, shortly assumed the title of emperor and marched against Gallienus, the son and colleague of Valerian, who had been ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... cumbersome forms? But can we? Yes. I hold in my hand the proof of it. Here is a letter written by a woman, right out of her heart of hearts. I think she never saw a spelling-book in her life. The spelling is her own. There isn't a waste letter in it anywhere. It reduces the fonetics to the last gasp—it squeezes the surplusage out of every word—there's no spelling that can begin with it on this planet outside of the White House. And as for the punctuation, there isn't any. It is all one sentence, eagerly and breathlessly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... thus, or hope that they may be so, and cannot but dread that they are otherwise. Again, the laws of Nature which have been ascertained are enough for the conduct of life, and science constantly, and with excellent reason, resists to the last gasp every attempt to recognise the existence of a new law, which, after all, can apparently do little for the benefit of mankind, and may conceivably do something by no means beneficial. Again, science is accustomed to deal with ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... machine takes a fresh spurt, we makes the top of the hill, and halfway down the other side we sees Birch Crest. Hanged if we don't roll right up to the front door too, before the engine gives its last gasp, and Barry, covered with dust and red in the face, is hauled in. We're only half an ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... enough to drive in a horse and cart." Backing clear and turning the after-pivot gun, the Merrimac then got in three raking shells against the Congress, which grounded when trying to escape. Meanwhile the Cumberland was listing over and rapidly filling, though she kept up the fight to the very last gasp. When she sank with a roar her topmasts still showed above water and her colors waved defiance. An hour later the terribly mauled Congress surrendered; whereupon her crew was rescued and she was set on fire. By this time various smaller craft on ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... stayed not to make any excuse, but started up from table and made off I know not whither. Ercolano, without remarking his wife's flight, again and again bade him who sneezed come forth; but the latter, who was now at the last gasp, offered not to stir, for all that he could say; whereupon, taking him by one foot, he haled him forth of his hiding-place and ran for a knife to kill him; but I, fearing the police on mine own account, arose and suffered him not to slay him or do him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... defile—we found the job tougher than we anticipated. Those cannibals are hard fighters. They fell back as we unmasked our ambush; but they rallied quickly, and delivered one assault upon another. I tell you, we were at our last gasp when ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... simultaneous with the one sent to Keats. In that case, Keats cannot be supposed to have received the invitation; for he had towards the middle of November quitted Naples for Rome, and by 18 February he was almost at his last gasp. ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... darkness that encompassed his mind, and can nevermore plead ignorance. Besides, your hands and feet are not nailed to a cross as his were. You are not reduced to the extremity of calling for mercy with the last gasp of expiring life. "How shall we escape if we neglect ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends, who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp: you see our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you will tell us what you ...
— Laches • Plato
... were left upon the field. Young Captain Sabbatier was in command, and when I asked him where were the five missing squadrons he pointed back and answered: "You will find them round one of those British squares." Men and horses were at their last gasp, caked with sweat and dirt, their black tongues hanging out from their lips; but it made me thrill with pride to see how that shattered remnant still rode knee to knee, with every man, from the boy trumpeter to the farrier-sergeant, ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that we were revolving in enormous circles in the ether, and I had long since given my last gasp, when there came a great roaring wind in my ears and a range of mountains toppled upon us both; we went to earth ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... thrusting— Wood-anemones and cowslips. As the patriarch, old Noah, At the time of the great Deluge, Sent the dove to reconnoitre: So with winter's ice sore burdened, With impatience sends the Earth forth These first flowers with a question, Asking, whether the oppressor Has not come to his last gasp yet. Blustering from the Feldberg's summit Now old Master Storm is rushing, And rejoices, through the dark dense Forest he again is blowing; Says: "I greet you, ancient comrades; Why I come, you know the reason— They believe, poor mortal children, When they see me tearing, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... the victim of a cruel, inexorable fate, and felt like a bunted animal driven to its last gasp and hearing the dogs and sportsmen fast coming nearer. He had a sensitive, childlike nature, which did not yet know how to meet the hard strokes of fate. His body and his physical courage had been hardened against bodily ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... one," answered the gold gatherer; "but it was so tight over my breast that my very heart grew cold under it, and almost ceased to beat. Having a great quantity of gold on my back, I felt almost at the last gasp; so I threw off my girdle and being on the bank of a river, which I knew not how to cross, I was about to fling it in, I was so vexed! 'But no,' thought I, 'there are many people waiting here to cross besides myself. I will make my girdle into a bridge, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... shore of Corsica, while most of the dogs were off harrying a village inland, and we had a sort of respite, or I trow he would have rowed till his last gasp. How he prayed for the poor wretches they were gone to attack!—ay, and for all of us—for me also—There's enough of it. Such talk skills ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... here note down what I heard at Rome nine years later from the mouth of a tool of the Jesuits. The Cardinal Tamburini was at the last gasp, and the conversation turned upon him, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was filled with a horde of turbaned freebooters. Cimiez, Montboron, Mont Gros and a hundred other villages and hamlets were soon alive with French marauders and Turkish pirates, who presently proceeded to bombard the city itself. The siege was short, but terrible, and the inhabitants were at the last gasp when the energetic Catterina Segurana, a washer-woman by trade, and surnamed Mao faccia ("Ugly face"), on account of the homeliness of her countenance, seized a hatchet, and, after a vigorous address to her fellow-citizens, placed herself at their head and led them against the enemy. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... November 30th, is the anniversary at the Royal, and I fear Sir Joseph must be almost at the last gasp. I shall be glad when ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... plunge a poinard in her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then again sheathe it in my own! But, no; in times of misery we must fight against our destinies, and strive not to be overcome by them. I would not yield, but to the last gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow and pain; and if I were vanquished at last, it should not be ingloriously. I stood in the gap, resisting the enemy—the impalpable, invisible foe, who had so long besieged us—as yet he had made no breach: it must be my ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... I dreaded far the most of the two. Would he not think it treacherous to cast him off after the sacrifices he had made for me? Implicitly we were as good as pledged to stand by each other to the last gasp. Was it not mean and dastardly to run away from the battle because it was dangerous to fight it out? Had friendship no claims superior to personal safety? Was not my decision prompted by sheer selfishness? Could anything ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... she did not immediately go to sleep for thinking that she had killed a man. And yet for this killing there was not in this girl's mind one atom of regret. She was so grateful that she had been there, and had been enabled to do it. She had seen her uncle almost at his last gasp, and she had saved him from making that last gasp. Moreover, she had saved the life of the man who had saved the most important life in the land. She knew the face of the gentleman in the barouche ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... should lie down he could not rise again. We proceeded two miles farther, when, coming out upon a small open space, he told me the animal was at no great distance, and very probably in this meadow. We accordingly advanced a few yards, and there we found the deer lying at the last gasp. The wound was exactly as I had been told. The sagacity of the Saulteurs [Ojibwes] in tracing big wood animals is astonishing. I have frequently witnessed occurrences of this nature; the bend of a leaf or blade of grass is enough to show the hunter the direction ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... Germanys— in time. But what we were all fearing, we who knew how grave the situation was, how tremendous the Hun's last effort would be, was that the line in France would be broken. The French had fought almost to the last gasp. Their young men were gone. And if the Hun broke through and swept his way to Paris, it was hard to believe that we could have gathered our forces and begun all over again, as we would have ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... capture of Rome, even after the annihilation of its army, would be a greater task than he could undertake. History has shown how desperate a defence may be made by a population willing to die rather than surrender, and the Romans, an essentially martial people, would defend their city until the last gasp. They had an abundance of arms, and there were the two city legions, which formed the regular garrison of ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... well—tolerably well and very much alive, that is—she did use to make the greatest business of dying! Alive! why, when she was stretched out on the sofa, after an agony of asthma, or indigestion, or whatever, and had called us all about her with faltering and tears, and was apparently at her last gasp, she would suddenly rise, like her own ghost, at the sound of a second ringing of the door-bell, which our little renegade Israel had failed to answer, and declare if she could only once lay hands on Israel she would box his ears ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... her husband's villa and went into the bedroom on tip-toe, as though nothing had happened, Groholsky, pale, with hectic flushes on his cheeks, was lying in the attitude of a man at his last gasp and moaning. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... when he began to lose blood and bodily strength, he received unexpected mercy from his enemy. For though Hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. And so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. For of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. So Hedin, with the help of his men, was taken back to his ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... might be too damn considerate of Miss Hammond's sensitive feelin's." There was now no trace of the courteous, kindly old rancher. He looked harder than stone. "How about my feelin's? I want to know if you're goin' to let this sneakin' coyote, this last gasp of the old rum-guzzlin' frontier sheriffs, put you in irons an' hawg-tie you an' drive ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He never went on with any subject, but gave little, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... die a Christian; adding, by a holy transport of zeal, that if all Japan, and all Europe, if the Father's of the Society, and the Pope himself, should renounce our Saviour Jesus Christ; yet, for his own particular, he would confess him to the last gasp; and be always ready, with God's assistance, to shed his blood, in testimony ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... taken, and by the customs he hath been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish; for which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... to free her from the daily mill. She was young yet, and should taste of joy before the years began to darken about her. But these are the thoughts that must not be uttered. To show pity is to insult. A merry nod to the friend who staggers on beneath his burden; and, even at his last gasp, the friend shall try ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... other,—money to spend as he liked and no questions asked!—I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to realise, further, that here on this little platform the old order lay at its last gasp, and that Edward might come back to us, but it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... the approaching figures of the three contestants. It was still an open question who would come in ahead. The Wonder was evidently at almost his last gasp, while Badger, the Paulding runner, could hardly be said to show much better form, for he too wobbled constantly from side to side, as though kept going ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... have escaped, but for love of the country and of truth, which, as far as we know, has long lain buried. The trouble and difficulty which do or will affect us, although wanting no addition, do not grieve us so much as the sorrowful condition of New Netherland, now lying at its last gasp; but we hope and trust that our afflictions and the sufferings of the inhabitants and people of the country will awaken in Their High Mightinesses a compassion which will be a cause of rejoicing ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch and his advisers was manifestly total extermination, and journalism appeared to be at its last gasp. But though crushed and mutilated in every limb, and bleeding at every pore, faint respirations every now and then showed that the vital spark still lingered. But brighter days were at hand. That festering mass of mental and bodily corruption which had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... die in the darkness of a dirty and windowless shack. The long-suffering star of Jesse Purvy ordained otherwise. He might go under or he might once more beat his way back and out of the quicksands of death. At all events, he would fight for life to the last gasp. ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... the enemy at their success was unbounded. They could scarcely believe in it. Their army was just at its last gasp. They had not more than four days' supply of powder left in the place. After the victory, M. de Savoie and Prince Eugene lost no time in idle rejoicings. They thought only how to profit by a success so unheard of and so unexpected. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... bequeathing the tavern to St. Michael's Church, Crooked Lane, toward the supporting of a chaplain. For some time the vestry meetings were regularly held there, but it was observed that the old Boar never held up his head under church government. He gradually declined, and finally gave his last gasp about thirty years since. The tavern was then turned into shops; but she informed me that a picture of it was still preserved in St. Michael's Church, which stood just in the rear. To get a sight of this ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... visible, clinging like a wraith about the ship. They wondered idly upon it, and wondered still more at the heat, which was now intense. They were interrupted in their conjectures by the call of Kate summoning them to the wireless house where Henshaw lay apparently at the last gasp. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... men all killed; yet would not admit of any quarter, but chose rather to die under his Arms, being shot into the brain, than surrender himself as a Prisoner unto the Bucaniers. What lion ever fought to the last gasp more obstinately than the Governour of Puerto Velo? who, seeing the Town enter'd by surprizal in the night, one chief Castle blown up into the Air, all the other Forts and Castles taken, his own assaulted several ways, both Religious men ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin
... part of the night was past, when the host spread his guest a bed and went up to his harem. The other lay down and addressed himself to sleep, when, behold, there arose a great clamour in the harem. He asked what was to do, and they said, 'A terrible thing hath befallen the sheikh, and he is at the last gasp.' 'Take me up to him,' said he. So they carried him to the schoolmaster, whom he found lying insensible, with his blood streaming down. He sprinkled water on his face and when he revived, he said to him, 'What has betided thee? When thou ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... man; but he is at his last gasp. He must have had mighty strength once, only it is now ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and, throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel was going strong, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... carried to a berth by Misonne and Turquiette, who had succeeded in getting free. He was already at the last gasp of death; and the two sailors occupied themselves with Nouquet, whose wound was not, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... an audience suborned to applaud his declamations. He had his circle round him, and shouts of approbation followed. It was upon that occasion that Domitius Afer [b] emphatically said, Eloquence is now at the last gasp. It had, indeed, at that time shewn manifest symptoms of decay, but its total ruin may be dated from the introduction of a mercenary band [c] to flatter and applaud. If we except a chosen few, whose superior genius has not as yet been seduced from truth and nature, the rest ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... great life-work is an agony. Behind every song there lurks a sigh. There's an element of sadness in humor itself. The Virgin Mother is known as Our Lady of Pain. The cult of Christ is hallowed by the blood of self-sacrifice and known as the Religion of Sorrow. The first breath of life and the last gasp are drawn in suffering; and between the cradle and the grave there lies a monster-haunted Sahara. Yet men choose the ignis-fatuus called Happiness, and mourn that they cannot cover it with a No. 6 hat. They ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... was no doubt about it, the poor beast was at her last gasp; and unless something were quickly done to relieve her she would assuredly die. Piet and I were both wearing soft, wide-brimmed felt hats, of sufficient capacity to contain about three pints of water and to retain it without very much leakage ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... own scrape, me lad; but we'll get ye out av it if th' spalpanes will let yez alone ter-noight. Av they joomp yez, we'll be here ter foight ter ther last gasp." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand.... ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and the dog strolled through the back yard, past the cabin of Aunt Cindy the cook to the shaded side of the garage. Here under the eaves was a ditch the boy had been digging to take off water. He had worked on it all one rainy morning shortly before, a cool, gusty morning, the last gasp of spring before the present first hot spell of summer. Aunt Cindy had discovered him wet to the skin and made a great fuss ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... his forehead, and his hair standing up wildly. She shrank from the contemplation, took her letter-case on her knee, moved close to the fire to profit by the light, stirred up a clear flame, and proceeded with the benevolent hermit, who came to the rescue when Sir Hubert was at the last gasp, and Adeline had received his beautiful resigned words. The hermit had transported him into his hut, and comforted Adeline, and was beginning a consolatory harangue, making revelations that were to set everything right, when just as he ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scene with much anxiety. His hopes of a favourable crisis, and his fear of disturbing the last moments of his friend, had held him dumb. For the last half hour he had stood up, with his eyes intently fixed upon Mr. Clare. He witnessed the last gasp, the last little convulsive motion of the frame. He continued to look; he sometimes imagined that he saw life renewed. At length he could deceive himself no longer, and exclaimed with a distracted accent, "And is this all?" He would have thrown himself upon the body of his friend; the attendants ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... implored Lenore, clasping her hands; "we are at the last gasp; even your help can ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... said the old trapper; "he'll answer you better when he's had some broth. I found him not long since pretty well at his last gasp. I guess he has got away from some Redskins. I always said he was carried off by them. If I am right they are not likely to be far away. We must be on the look-out not to be ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... and Susan's fancy had fondly caught it; and then had come again and missed them, and then had come and found them once more: besides letting them easily see that if it hadn't by this time been the end of everything—which they could feel in the exhausted air, that of the season at its last gasp—the places they might have liked to go to were such as they would have had only to mention. Their feeling was—or at any rate their modest general plea—that there was no place they would have liked to go to; there was only the sense of finding they liked, wherever ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... sempstresses, and, in the second place, to give herself the trouble of coming in person, as I am too ill to go out. Our new flat is very cold, and still in great disorder. Also, Bwikov has an aunt who is at her last gasp through old age, and may die before our departure. He himself, however, declares this to be nothing, and says that she will soon recover. He is not yet living with me, and I have to go running hither and thither to find him. Only Thedora is acting ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... talk to him, coax him, implore him, reason with him, forgive him, love him, and caress him. She would try to be gentle with him this coming morning. But if he were obdurate in blaming her, she would stand on her own innocence and fight to the last gasp. He was supported by no such spirit of pugnacity. He felt it to be his duty to withdraw his wife from the evil influence of this man's attractions, but felt, at the same time, that he might possibly lack the strength to do so. And then, what is the good of ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... to the deck, he held a hurried consultation with his two officers, the result of which was a determination to fight to the last gasp, if the crew were only willing to stand by them. It would be necessary to ascertain their feeling upon the subject before anything could be done; so, it being then within a quarter of an hour of noon, George and the chief mate went below for their quadrants, took the sun's ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... you a thousand things. His whole life is an absurdity. He only did a wise thing once in his life. When I was at the very last gasp, and nothing in the world could save me but a rich uncle, this Hungarian Nabob, this Plutus, one night crammed himself up to the very throat with plover's eggs, and died early in the morning. I was immediately ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... he fell to reflecting that this marriage would be an extraordinary stroke of luck for the family. Here they were at the last gasp, mortgaged up the eyes, when suddenly fortune, in the shape of an, on the whole, perfectly unobjectionable young man, appears, takes up the mortgages, proposes settlements to the tune of hundreds of thousands, and even offers ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... without Pleasure, Youth without Honour, Age without respect, Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe 'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,[477] Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, Then, in the last gasp of thine agony, Amidst thy many murders, think of mine! Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes![478] Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom![fx][479] Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods! 100 Thee and thy serpent seed! [Here the DOGE turns and addresses the Executioner. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... of a girl of twenty-two is very tenacious! Moreover, she will preserve consciousness, even to her last gasp. She might possibly rise from her bed and talk with us, although the sufferings caused by this ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... through the grated slit of one, as I passed, and saw two men, or, rather, fiends in the shape of men, crouched on the floor of the dark and noisome den. Between them lay outstretched the body of a horse, old and thin, worn to the last gasp in the cruel service of the streets. On its flank was a long open wound. One of the men, bending over it, had a red-hot iron glowing in his hand. What they were going to do I could not tell, and I did ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... homogeneous and prevent religious discord, was extended to Frenchmen, whose only disability, was their faith, and who did not belong to the national Church, and though the colony, more than once was at its last gasp, for want of soldiers and colonists to defend it, it was forbidden ground to the 500,000 industrious Frenchman, whom the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1682, drove to England, Holland and Germany, and the English and Dutch colonies in America. This policy of exclusiveness, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... the younger Van Tromp, it went so much to his heart that he took to his bed, and in less than three days was brought to death's door by a violent cholera morbus! Even in this extremity he still displayed the unconquerable sprit of Peter the Headstrong—holding out to the last gasp with inflexible obstinacy against a whole army of old women, who were bent upon driving the enemy out of his bowels, in the true Dutch mode of defense, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath the pillows of its bed to ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck |
