"Overwrought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stop now, Barbara," he said in a caressing tone. "You are overwrought. I will hear the rest another time—when you feel stronger and send for me. I am going to say good-night now, so that you may rest. But before I go I want to say that nothing you have told me can make the least difference in my ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... the middle of work. It's the duty of both they are well aware To preserve their precious lives with care; It's their duty, when feeling overwrought, To preserve their lives with ...
— The Magic Pudding • Norman Lindsay
... bell—sits a woman with wings too small to raise her heavy body. Far in the distance is a wonderful city, with the glory of the Northern Lights, but across the splendid vision flits the little bat-like creature, fit symbol of some disordered fancy of an overwrought mind. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... overwrought by sorrow, it may be, my father said that he would have the doctor-woman from Wolf ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... subsequent commerce with her was achieved by his own personal force. You may say that she had been prepared to see him by belief and desire, by belief and desire acting upon a mind greatly distressed and probably overwrought. You may say that she saw what she ardently desired to see. It is quite true, I cannot deny it; but I point to his previous manifestations, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... too much for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet been transformed into the gentleman he aspired to become, and in a way that was more honest than courteous he forestalled another hysterical outburst on the part of his overwrought benefactress. ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... but brokenly, and then overcome by this unexpected succor she sank prone upon the floor weeping passionately; the tension on her nerves had given way and her overwrought feelings had to have ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... feeling that if he opened the next thought in his mind, an undertaker would rise out of the ground with a coffin. This astonishing man, coming upon his overwrought state, made him feel hysterical. He turned to Effie and gave her both his hands. "The doctor's taking you, Effie. It's been dreadful for you. It's all over now. Try to leave it out of your mind ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... this manner will it give me pleasure to spend the money on a trip of recreation. That trip, on which I start tomorrow, has come just in time; uninterrupted work has again strongly affected me, and the nerves of my brain are so overwrought that even these few lines put me in a state of violent excitement, wherefore I must ask you not to be angry if I make them very short. I feel that I am still capable of doing good things, but only by keeping very strict diet, and especially ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... drama in our language which purports to relate his story, will wander as far from historic truth as from nature and probability. The Chronicle of Sanuto, which the poet has avowed to be his basis, presents no trace of that false, overwrought, and unintelligible passion which, in the tragedy, is palmed upon us for nice sensitiveness to injured honour. We are told, indeed, that the angry old man had once so far indulged his choleric humour as to fell to the ground a somewhat tardy bishop during ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... "What are you talking about? Usual? Of course not! Some do. What is the matter with you, Velasco? You are overwrought to-night." ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... her spirit began to falter for the second time. It is comparatively easy to endure while there is something to be done; but it is almost intolerable, specially to the young when life is strong in them, merely to sit by and wait. Katherine's overwrought nerves began to play cruel tricks upon her, carrying her back in imagination to that other hideous hour of waiting, in the dining-room, four evenings ago. Again she seemed to hear the short peremptory ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... down to reach Griffin and bring him to life and safety, when the overwrought system gave way. He loosed his handhold on ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... "He's overwrought and not himself, probably. I don't think he quite grasps the immediate situation. He seems to be looking far ahead already, whereas the most pressing matter should be a thing ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... one of those moments of strain, when even trifles can turn the overwrought attention. Glaucon knew that the stranger was looking from him to Lycon, from Lycon back to himself, measuring each with shrewd eye. Then the gaze settled on the Athenian. The ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... you," said Elsie, "in the distance, but of course I had no idea who it was. How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... was the first to recover, and kneeling by the panting, overwrought horse he passed his hand gently over the tangled mane and down the foam-flecked face. The red eye rolled up at him; but it was wonder not hatred, a prayer and not a threat, which he could read in it. As he stroked the reeking muzzle, the horse ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Emperor, moreover, appeared overwrought, and irritable. As the years begin to weigh upon William II. the family traditions, the retrograde feelings of the Court, and, above all, the impatience of the soldiers, are gaining more ascendency over his mind. Perhaps he may feel I know not what kind of jealousy of the popularity ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... descended from the carriage and felt her son's pulse with much solicitude. "He has only fainted," she said. "He is apt to have such attacks when overwrought. It's a part of his disease. Miss Jocelyn, you see he is a reed that must be supported, not leaned upon," she added, looking straight into the young girl's troubled eyes. "I mean you kindness as truly as I mean kindness to him. He will soon be better. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... true? Was it not merely some illusion of my overwrought and distracted spirit? Why should that hour yesterday seem to me so far away, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... in detail with what you have heard, I cannot explain or defend myself. Will you not sit down? You are looking pale and overwrought." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... retirement;—these were some of the company among whom Duchess Molly was paraded by her discerning lord, to carry her smiles of welcome and her pretty ways. Grifone, grave, attentive, in black, was there, be sure, waiting his turn. It came, and with it Molly, blushing and overwrought, new from the very kindly salutations of the Greek. To Grifone she proffered a greeting which was no less kind because her heart was troubled. Her well of trust in mankind was not yet dry. Grifone took her hand and bent over it; it was as much as he did to brush it with his lips. Molly wondered ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... slight nervous shock—the effect of some agitation. She has been overwrought lately. The truth is, Ladislaw, I am an unlucky devil. We have gone through several rounds of purgatory since you left, and I have lately got on to a worse ledge of it than ever. I suppose you are only just come down—you look rather ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Graham, I am so glad!' I said, and, unable to check myself, I burst into tears. I think I was overwrought, and this coming on the top of my other trouble, proved too much ...
— Dwell Deep - or Hilda Thorn's Life Story • Amy Le Feuvre
... for I saw that the poor girl was becoming a trifle overwrought, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that her emotion carried something of a contagious character with it. It was necessary to get away from emotionalism and down to the commonplaces of life once more, so I nodded smilingly ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... doctor. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, asked questions, and shook his head. Overwrought nerves the whole of it. Her mind must have been over-excited for some time, and this was the result. No danger was to be apprehended; careful nursing would restore her in a week or two, combined ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... alarm—there in the terrified, riotous city jammed with refugees, reeking with disease, half frantic from famine and the filthy, rising flood of war—if really it all had been merely romantic impulse, ardour born of overwrought sentimentalism, nevertheless, what he had pledged that day to a little Grand Duchess in rags, he had fulfilled to the letter within ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... the misty heights, but Mr. Hume would not allow his patient time to brood over the surroundings. He shaved off fragments of biltong for him to eat, talking cheerfully all the time, and at last had the satisfaction of seeing the overwrought nerves of the lad quieted in sleep. Then the anxiety that had filled him all the time appeared in the expression of his face, and he stepped away a few yards to send a call for the woman ringing up into the vault. The cry ran away mournfully in a series ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... the silence fell, deepened, grew ominous. None breathed, and the overwrought nerves of the court reached the ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... himself in his fanatical exaltation. "He speaks again, he speaks again! Woe, woe to the city of Doom!" Once more the firmament seemed cleft in twain, and the earth trembled under the reverberations of the tremendous electrical discharges. The effect upon the overwrought nerves of the throng was instantaneous; as one man the crowd turned and made for the exits from the Citadel Square. Even the personal attendants upon Dom Gillian were affected by the panic, and leaped over the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... and watched the stage, waiting for her turn. She felt greatly overwrought by the happenings of that entire day. She closed her eyes and became rapt in a quiet meditation of the words of Grzesikiewicz, who had again recurred to her memory, but suddenly, she started with a shudder, for behind ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... were no words to address to an overwrought soul, mastered by passion. But, as I have said, I was terrified and bewildered. The strong desire I felt to treat him with all the gentleness and tender consideration I could muster, must have been ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... fail, and that was something. But oh, what a wrench it gave to life, thought, reason, to all her heart and being, to have that unconscious chit cut in with "only mamma for the girl!" What and whence was this little malaprop? Her overwrought mind shut away this question—almost in the asking it—with "Dearer to me, at least, than anything else in this world, unless——" and then shut away the rest of ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... I been awhile, and overwrought At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech, And passeth all desire to ask of it. Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear. (To the MESSENGER) Unroll the record! stand composed and tell, Although thy heart be groaning inwardly, Who hath escaped, and, of our ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... half an hour had elapsed since he had heard the steps upon the stairs. His situation began to prey upon his nerves, it irritated them—it became intolerable. It was not now fear that he experienced, it was the overwrought sense of mortal enmity—the consciousness that a man may feel who knows that the eye of a tiger is on him, and who, while in suspense he has regained his courage, foresees that sooner or later the spring must come; the suspense itself becomes ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the supposed wolf pack in a way eased the anguish of his ruin by diverting his mind. But the lack of cigarettes served only to put a more frightful strain on his overwrought nerves. He felt it first in a vague discomfort that set his hands to groping automatically through his pockets. The absence of the usual box roused his consciousness, with a dismayed start, to the realization that he was absolutely without his soothing drug. The absconding guide and valet had taken ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... the line. They, however, were recovered; and, on the whole, I feel grateful to the check system of the American railways. And then, too, one never hears of extra luggage. Of weight they are quite regardless. On two or three occasions an overwrought official has muttered between his teeth that ten packages were a great many, and that some of those "light fixings" might have been made up into one. And when I came to understand that the number of every check was entered in a book, and re- entered at every change, I did whisper to my wife that ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... been a court usher and provincial secretary, suffers from the mania of persecution. He either lies curled up in bed, or walks from corner to corner as though for exercise; he very rarely sits down. He is always excited, agitated, and overwrought by a sort of vague, undefined expectation. The faintest rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to make him raise his head and begin listening: whether they are coming for him, whether they are looking ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... The poor girl, overwrought by the strain of the confession that laid bare her very soul, sank back in her chair and cried, as Miss Kendall gently tried to ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... cried the Professor, unable to restrain his impatience longer, bis overwrought nerves ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... seemed to fall after this, and Bart felt, as he crouched there watching the plains, that something very terrible was going to happen ere long. At another time he would have been drowsy, but now sleep was the last thing of which he thought, all his nerves being overwrought; and as his eyes swept the wide flat plain, he kept on fancying that sooner or later he would see the Apaches coming up to them with the slow, silent approach of so ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... his eyes. Could this passionate, thoroughly aroused woman be his cold, self-contained daughter? He could not understand, as so many cannot, that such natures when aroused are tenfold more intense than those whom little things excite. A long and peculiar train of circumstances, a morbid and overwrought physical condition, led to this outburst from Christine, which was as much a cause of surprise to herself afterward as to her father. He judged correctly that a great deal had occurred between Dennis and herself of which he had no knowledge, and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... not come a minute too soon; for Freddy, his sensitive organization completely overwrought by the events of the morning and his narrow escape from death, had fallen fainting to the ground; his hands still clenched in the folds of little Louie's jacket. Will instantly raised him, when he saw that all danger was ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... main characteristics of good manners are comprised in the three preceding Sections. They are the observance, in one's demeanor and conduct toward others, of the fitnesses of time and place, and of the due and graceful mean between overwrought, extravagant, or fantastic manifestations of regard on the one hand, and coldness, superciliousness, or indifference on the other. Courtesies, like more substantial kindnesses, are neutralized by delay, and, when slow, seem forced and reluctant. Attentions, ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... possession of individuals to an exaggerated extent. But the number of patients in the hospital was rapidly diminishing, and, for money, those were to be found who could supply Ruth's place. But to her it was owing that the overwrought fear of the town was subdued; it was she who had gone voluntarily, and, with no thought of greed or gain, right into the very jaws of the fierce disease. She bade the inmates of the hospital farewell, and after carefully ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... At this point Amabel's overwrought energies suddenly failed her, and she burst out crying. "I don't know how I shall get over the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... "You're too suspicious, Gregg. Overwrought. But you're right—we can't be too careful. I'm going to have that Prince suite searched when I catch it unoccupied. Passengers don't ordinarily travel with invisible cloaks. Go to bed, Gregg—you need ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... last they set eyes on each other again. Indeed each was surprised to find something almost agreeable in the appearance of the other. Dr. Martineau at once perceived that the fierceness of Sir Richmond was nothing more than the fierceness of an overwrought man, and Sir Richmond realized at a glance that the curiosity of Dr. Martineau's bearing had in it nothing personal or base; it was just the fine ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... representative said coldly. "Mr. Gelsen, you are overwrought. I suggest you control yourself." He cleared his throat. "All of you are ordered by the President to carry out the plan you have submitted." He looked sharply at Gelsen. "Not to do ...
— Watchbird • Robert Sheckley
... the most flourishing empire in the world, to be one of the most compact and unenviable powers on the globe! Oh, wonderful rights! that are likely to take from us all that yet remains!" This picture of the nation's misery, however, was greatly overwrought. England was not yet reduced to the abject state in which Burke would have had the house believe she was in. Her empire on the seas was not yet lost, nor was she shorn of her rank among the nations. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that the impress of my character was stamped: that fitfulness of temper, that affection for extremes, has accompanied me through life. Hence, not only all intermediums of emotion appear to me as tame, but even the most overwrought excitation can bring neither novelty nor zest. I have, as it were, feasted upon the passions; I have made that my daily food, which, in its strength and excess, would have been poison to others; I have rendered my mind unable to enjoy the ordinary aliments of nature; and I have wasted, ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... changed in her inflexible unyielding look, he felt that he could cope with her. He thought a sudden terror, occasioned by this night-alarm, had subdued her; not the less readily, for her overwrought condition. Throwing open the doors, he followed, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... opposed to any display of the softer emotions, and for shame of the weakness that in this case he could not help but show, his face and neck flushed red, and he declared that he had the toothache. And then, as a vent for his overwrought feelings—of all things in the world—he fell to cursing the Superintendent of the Old Colony Railroad: on the ground that but for this functionary, who most unjustifiably had discharged him, he never would have come to Mexico ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... come? What had happened? Had the plot failed? Was he even now lying wounded unto death as the result of his effort to escape captivity? A hundred horrid thoughts raced through her throbbing, overwrought brain. He should have been with her two hours ago—he should now be far on his way to freedom. Alas, something appalling had happened, she was sure ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... emotion amount to then? He would rather make money, regulate current political, social and financial affairs. The poor fool who fell in behind the enlisting squad—no, not fool, he would not call him that—the poor overwrought working-man—well, Heaven pity him! Heaven pity all of them! They really did not know what ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... official dogma. I am inclined to think that partisan feeling is of less effect in this matter than, in some, ignorance of the facts and lack of critical faculty, and in others, really well-informed persons, failure to verify alleged facts, or an unwillingness to correct the errors of an overwrought public opinion—errors which, quite unknown to themselves, they really desire to believe. It is easier, and at the same time it is safer, to rest content with the news supplied from house to house by the great purveyors, rather ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... dead. How it could have happened, or just when, no one knew, but on the very day after her husband's departure she had gone quietly on deck while the rest of the company were at supper and never was seen again; nor till the sea gives up its dead shall any know the story of that poor overwrought soul's last fierce ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... steps, all told, must I take, and yet it seemed to my overwrought imagination that that farther wall was miles away; but at last I reached it, nor once had I taken my eyes from the back of ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ellen. Then, since she was only a girl, and overwrought, having been through a severe strain, she broke down, and ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Her senses, overwrought by the terrible adventure which she had just gone through, were threatening to reel; she heard the massive door close, shutting out the yells of baffled rage, the ironical laughter, the obscene words, which sounded in her ears like the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... never in all my life did such a thing before," said Auntie Sue in a tremulous whisper, too overwrought to speak aloud. ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... had expected to see Cyril showing a few more traces of last night's battle. I was looking for a bit of the overwrought soul and the quivering ganglions, if you know what I mean. He seemed pretty ordinary and quite ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... magician's name fell icy numb Upon my wild conjecturing: truth had come Naked and sabre-like against my heart. 560 I saw a fury whetting a death-dart; And my slain spirit, overwrought with fright, Fainted away in that dark lair of night. Think, my deliverer, how desolate My waking must have been! disgust, and hate, And terrors manifold divided me A spoil amongst them. I prepar'd to flee Into the dungeon core of that wild wood: I fled three days—when lo! before me ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... train for Harwick, and within a few hours was rubbing his hands over an open fire in the parsonage, whose stiff and cheerless aspect bespoke the lack of a woman's humanizing touch for the Reverend Mr. Prentice was a widower. Overwrought with anxiety and strain, the clergyman, as soon as he had taken his coat, began a hurried, inconsequential narrative, broke off, tried again, fell into an inextricable confusion of words, and, dropping his head in his ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... "You were overwrought, Mademoiselle Stephanie," he said. "I was not sure of your intentions. But I see that ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... thought, emotion, and power, which are the hidden being of man, and which so ally the filial spirit to the parent Divinity. As beneath His gaze the faithful soul of Elisha Kane slowly extricating itself from its overwrought tabernacle, and also extricating itself from the holy network of heart strings which sixty millions of men speaking one speech have flung around him, if haply so they might retain him to earth to take their love and waiting honors rises into the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... ante-bellum America; and, (3) its constant exploration of American social, moral, and cultural issues. This said, it must be admitted that the telling of Adrienne's sad plight in Paris becomes a bit overwrought; and that the inept wooing of Mary Monson by the social cad Tom Thurston is so drawn out and sarcastic as to suggest snobbery on Cooper's part as well as on that of his elite hanky. Finally, the heroine-handkerchief's protracted failure to recognize her maker, when she has proved ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... late at night, and they never met. Mrs Pratt in the room below, and her little dying daughter, had many a tale of kindness and devotion to tell about him; and when presently the little life fled, she heard with grateful tears of his act of mercy to the poor overwrought mother, and ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... overwrought, and that night slept but little. It was hard to say whether the thoughts of her future on the stage, her dreams of distinction with Gay's opera, or her wounded love and pride occupied the foremost place in her mind. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning her head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud. The infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when she had a little ...
— Words for the Wise • T. S. Arthur
... am drawing a picture that is overwrought. No man who has spent the last week in the city of Washington will believe that I have done justice to it. You have all the elements of the French Revolution surrounding the capital now, and threatening it with its terrors. Not only is our constitutional Government to be stricken down; ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Such treasure in the air, Recking naught else but that her graces give Life to the moment, I would bid them live As roses might, in magic amber laid, Red overwrought with orange and all made One substance and ...
— Hugh Selwyn Mauberley • Ezra Pound
... have been born with overwrought nerves, and in his passionate desire to excel, he was often led to the brink of some rash step; and yet, having resolved upon such a step, when the moment arrived, he invariably proved too sensible to take it. He was ready, in the same way, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Reb Shemuel trembled from head to foot. Hannah's cheek was drawn and white. She seemed overwrought beyond endurance. There followed a silence only ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and looked levelly into Blaine's eyes,—"I am amazed that a man of your perception and experience should for a moment entertain the idea that he could make out a case of capital crime against a person of my standing, solely upon the hysterical pseudo-testimony of a girl whose brain is overwrought. This midnight conference, which you so glibly quote, is a figment of her distraught mind—or, if it actually occurred (a fact of which you have no proof), Miss Lawton admits, by the words she has just uttered, that she did not see the mysterious visitor, but is attempting to identify ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... equally apprehensive. Yet there were younger men who shared none of these fears. To be sure, the political atmosphere of Washington was electric. The House spent weeks wrangling over the Speakership, so that when the serious work of legislation began, men were overwrought and excitable. California with a free constitution was knocking at the door of the Union. President Taylor gave Congress to understand that at no distant day the people of New Mexico would take similar action. And then, as though ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... lead her at ten o'clock on such a night to that lonely hilltop, and on down the road into the country beyond? It was manifest that his own mind had shaped the vision from the pale vapours, and he realised how weary and overwrought he had become. His sensation was now almost one of fear, as if he had seen the ghost of a loved one rising out of the mists of a remote and passionate past. A strange impulse seized him to follow the phantom further, but he was shivering with the ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... intensity, and allowed him more repose. This season of repose had overcome old Dietrich, and, like the disciples on Mount Olivet, he had fallen "asleep for sorrow." The Prince was awake and found himself in that overwrought condition in which the high-strung, quivering nerves lend wonderful clearness and acuteness to the spirit, and in which the soul with wide-seeing vision takes in the whole past, the whole future. He saw his past rise up before him, with all its struggles, its privations, its inexpressible ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... difficult to ascertain. Gnecco we neither of us for one instant suspected, but we felt some degree of uncertainty about the others. Whether or no there had been some amount of unclean work going on, it was anyway quite certain that a great part of Giannoli's suspicions were the outcome of his overwrought and exhausted mental condition. ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... his teeth clenched together and the sweat starting out on his broad forehead. What he thought of Genevieve Leslie was plainly evident in his convulsed face and dilated eyes. If he could be so overwrought by the mere remembrance of a danger that she had escaped, he must love her, not as most men love, but with all the depth and strength of his powerful nature. Lord James's lips pressed together and his gray eyes ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... much of the best blood of the country, which seeks opportunity for achievement. The great city is inevitable so long as great society insists on gigantic production and as great consumption, but the city idea is overwrought beyond its natural condition. If some power could equalize the transportation question, so that a factory might be built in a smaller town, where raw material could be furnished as cheaply as in the large city, and the distribution of goods be as convenient, there is no reason why the population ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... her wing till found; without thy light My Paradise had still been incomplete.[288] Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30 Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the World's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain,—and never more, save when the cloud Which overhangs ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... wrought up first by the anticipation of the catastrophe, then by its description; and the intervening period, when it was actually going forward, is filled up by the recital of sublime lyric poetry, at once causing the stop of time to be forgotten, affording a brief respite to the overwrought feelings, and yet keeping up the enthusiastic and elevated state of mind ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... assumed a rhetorical and poetical appearance; the people calling it the Italian style. Petrarch had given shape to Italian thought, and through his influence Germany became sated with poetic imagery and overwrought fancy. Sagittarius founded a stipend for the preaching of a yearly sermon in the University Church "which should be more a practical illustration of Christian doctrine than of lofty speech." Emblematical sermons were sometimes ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... Deserto—that where the birds should light the favor of Heaven would follow, as they passed the convent on their outward way, a multitude of birds set free from their golden cages burst upon the air with a flood of song, inspired by their sudden liberty, then came throbbing and overwrought, to seek shelter among the silken sails of the Cyprian galleys—mere specks of iridescence, flashing like jewels in a chance ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... celebrated courtesan, whose empire lay till the day of her death over the papal city. The wealth of sensuality and wit that made a fatal seduction of Rome for Molza, scholar and libertine, is reflected as it were in the rich cadences and overwrought adornment of his verse. Such compositions as these had a powerful influence over the tone of idyllic poetry. I have mentioned only a few out of a considerable list. The Driadeo d'amore earlier—a mythological medley variously ascribed in different editions to ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... and McLean deliberately set himself to encourage Freckles and keep his thoughts from the trouble of the past few days, for he had been overwrought and needed ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... all, and woke with fewer fears on me, for I was overwrought yesterday after all the terrible waiting on the cliff and what went before. It was Sunday, moreover, and the early services in the new church helped mightily to set a new face on things. So when I had seen to the few duties of the morning, I went down the street to ask after Elfrida, ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... constitution. This stupor, this utter death of all the faculties and senses for so long a time, is wonderful. Fever, delirium, anything but this death-like trance. It seems as if this man had been sleepless all his life before, and that now his overwrought brain and heart were compensating themselves for the toil and wakefulness of years. Could ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... of a second Father Honore shrank within himself. He could not tell at that moment whether he had here to do with an overwrought brain, with a mind obsessed, or with an awful fact. But he answered without hesitation and out ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... some strange heavy fluid, denser than any common air. He could have fancied that the world had sunken in the night, far below its proper level, into some close, thick abysm of its own atmosphere. The Christian people of the town, hardly less terrified and overwrought by the haunting sickness about them than their pagan neighbours, were at prayer before the tomb of the martyr; and even as Marius pressed among them to a place beside Cornelius, on a sudden the hills seemed to roll like a sea in motion, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... in the room, its sound a miasma in his ears. All his sleepless, nightmare-charged brooding, all his bottled hate for Darkover and the memories he had tried to bury, erupted into overwrought bitterness against this too-ingratiating youngster who was a demigod on this world and who had humiliated him, repudiated him for the hated Jason ... for Jay, Regis had suddenly become the symbol of a world that hated him, forced him ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Julie's mind unbalanced? She knew that the Frenchwoman's fiance and two brothers had been killed early in the war. Had grief for them and anxiety for her beloved country developed hallucinations? One thing was apparent—it would never do to disagree with her in her overwrought condition. Kathleen laid her arm protectingly about her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. She was very fond ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... the sea was blowing fresh and free over the village, and beyond it to the little churchyard, the God's acre of Northbourne. Kneeling beside one of the grassy mounds therein was Theo Carnegy, tears rolling down her earnest face. The girl was overwrought by home-worries, for Theo was none of the crying sort, as a rule. But there are times in the lives of each of us when all things seem too difficult for our feeble hands to smooth out; the knots, the difficulties, become hopelessly entangled; we sit down dismayed ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... a momentary silence between them. Then the emotion astir within her swept all before it. Turning suddenly, she flung both arms round his neck and hid her face upon his shoulder, her breath coming in short, dry sobs, like the breath of an overwrought child. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... council of men has had to face for many centuries, perhaps not since the embassy of the Goths to the Emperor Valens—the ministry or cabinet which but dares, dares to trust this people's resolution, will find that this enthusiasm is not that of men overwrought with war-fever, but the deep-seated purpose of a people strong to defend the heritage of its fathers, and not to swerve from the path which fate itself has marked out for it amongst the empires of the ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... head-work the easiest and least indispensable of all labor. Happily, many of the younger sons in peasant families, by going to seek their living in the towns, carry their hardy nervous system to amalgamate with the overwrought nerves of our town population, and refresh them with a little rude vigor. And a return to the habits of peasant life is the best remedy for many moral as well as physical diseases induced by perverted civilization. Riehl points to colonization as presenting the true field ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... and breathless hush of overwrought interest and intense (yet strange to say not unpleasing) terror lay like a mighty and awful dream ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... extinguished, and he saw not her countenance—a degree of tranquillity he had not dared to hope. It was a tranquillity, however, resulting from despair and stupor,—a lethargy of spirit, resulting from overwrought feelings, in which she happily remained, more than half unconscious of what ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... seams of his high, wrinkled forehead, replacing the tears which might have lessened the pressure upon his overwrought nerves. His slender frame shook, as with ague, and at times was racked by a convulsive shudder. A sudden step upon the stairway leading to his workshop brought him trembling and wide eyed to his feet, staring fearfully at the locked and ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... much overwrought that he cried aloud again, and now it was a cry of despair, not of joy. He looked at the little black ash as if his last chance were gone, but his despair did not last long. He seized the dry stick again and scraped off another little pile of ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... influence had wrought in him, and how nothing but her love was needed to keep him steadfast in the future; and, in truth, he more than half believed what he said. The whole scene was quite in the key of the play, and her overwrought feelings drifted toward the man pleading thus earnestly for affection. Harry saw the advantage of the situation, and urged on her an immediate decision. Henrietta, still shaken by passionate excitement, and without rest in herself, was on the point of promising ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... oars contending, sails with sails, Upon Windander's spacious breast, it chanced That—after I had left a flower-decked room (Whose in-door pastime, lighted up, survived To a late hour), and spirits overwrought Were making night do penance for a day Spent in a round of strenuous idleness— My homeward course led up a long ascent, Where the road's watery surface, to the top Of that sharp rising, glittered to the moon And bore the semblance of another stream Stealing with silent lapse ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... old in understanding, although he was young in years; and he knew it was wiser sometimes to give in to the whims of a tired, overwrought brain. He knew without being told—for Margaret MacLean would never have told—how tired and hopelessly heart-sick and mind-sick she was to-night. What he did not know, however, was how pitifully lonely and starved her life had always been; and that this was the hour for ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... him rather angrily. He was jesting, of course, and she had been dreaming, or had been so overwrought by excitement as to have been made the victim of a vivid hallucination. Nevertheless there was something disagreeable in the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... Lawton to the ministrations of young Mr. Bemis, while she kneels beside Mrs. Curwen. and chafes her hand: "Oh, poor thing! I knew she was overwrought by the way she was keeping up. Give her air, Mr. Miller. Open a—Oh, there isn't ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells
... but turns his eyes upon Moll, who stands before him with bowed head and clasped hands, wrung to her innermost fibre with shame, remorse, and awful dread, and for a terrible space I heard nothing but the deep, painful breathing of this poor, overwrought man. ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... He believes the Asian mystery has been solved. He returns to Government House and gives vent to his overwrought feelings in smoke—Parascho cigarettes; then he telegraphs himself to sleep. Dreams sweep over him, issuing from the ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... for miles in silence. He shrewdly suspected that the infinite peace of the landscape would prove the best tonic for her overwrought mind. His theory proved correct. The girl leaned back in the seat, and, taking off her hat, enjoyed to the utmost the rush of the breeze and the swift changes in the ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... that they gave up their minds to hopeful anticipations, mixed with some fears. How their fondest wishes were realized almost in the first flash of the torch had been already detailed, and while the weakened frame and overwrought mind of the captain sunk under the weight of so much happiness the buoyant Smart recovered his own character at once, and became all and everything he had ever been to us, with a double portion of strength, energy, and sense to assist and ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... one generation, though under the direct teaching of God himself. Notwithstanding the numbers of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of unbelief. Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and, remembering this, we should not indulge in overwrought expectations as to the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may attain in our day. The principle might even be adopted by missionary societies, that one ordinary missionary's lifetime of teaching should be considered an ample supply ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... but with the revival of letters came the revolutionary spirit before exhibited on the battle-field and in cabinets. For the artificial and elegant was substituted the melodramatic and effective; lyrics from the overwrought heart broke in dreamy sweetness from Lamartine and in simple energy from Beranger; fiction the most elaborate, incongruous, and exciting, here quaintly artistic, there morbidly scientific, revealed the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... order that no unlicensed hand shall commandeer it unbeknownst, and secondly, so that he shall be ready to go in directly his predecessor is out. There is an ill-concealed restiveness about his movements, as he watches the batsmen getting set, that betrays an overwrought spirit. Then of a sudden one of them plays a ball on to his pad. ''s that?' asks the bowler, with an overdone carelessness. 'Clean out. Now I'm in,' and already he is rushing up the middle of the pitch to take possession. When he gets to the wicket a short argument ensues. 'Look here, you idiot, ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... terrible. My overwrought nerves yielded at last. I felt my head whirling around, while streams of icy water seemed to be running down my legs. Then I fell down at Tom ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... suppose," muttered Katherine, and limped down the bank to the wharf, frightening the nervous, overwrought Betty almost out of her wits at first, and then vastly relieving her by taking the entire direction of affairs into her ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... ask me now! Wait until my nerves get settled. It never stopped, and fast as it reeled off I recognized Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Weber—lots of Weber—Marschner, and Chopin. Yes, Chopin! The orchestration seemed overwrought and coarse and the form—well, formlessness is the only word to describe it. There was an infernal sort of skill in the instrumentation at times, a short-breathed juggling with other men's ideas, but no development, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... clear, but the words were scarcely uttered when he fell to his knees again, with a subdued cry of overwrought feeling. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... the thing that made her start out of her sleep and cry out like that. Perhaps it was just the protest of the exhausted body and the overwrought nerves. Usually, after that, she would sit up, haggardly, and take the hairpins out of her short thick hair, and announce her intention of going to bed. She always insisted that the children go too, though they often won an extra half hour by protesting and teasing. It ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... of thought now began to rage in all its wildness. Overwrought and trembling, she dropped the rein upon Pansy's shoulders, and vowed she would be led whither the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... not to dine downstairs together on that evening—they were, all of them, overwrought and the situation was strained; they were wondering what he was going to do. There were, of course, a thousand things to be done, but he was glad that they had left him alone for that night at any rate. He ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... picture. See! I am on board, and I am driving her at one hundred and ten miles." And he followed with his pointer the swift course of the vessel, as it shot down the screen like a great comet, leaving a long tail of smoke behind it. To the overwrought nerves of the audience, the buzz and splutter of the moving-picture machine seemed to increase in volume, and thus lend a semblance of reality to the monster as ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... forced themselves out of Mr. Gresley's eyes. He was exhausted and overwrought. He sobbed against ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... stop—and he was conscious of seeing, as in a flash, a crowd of frightened and awe-struck faces looking at the train from the platform. He sank back on the cushioned seat, seized with a nameless terror. Time and space seemed to his overwrought nerves to be filled with tokens of some approaching calamity which he was powerless to prevent; the terrific speed and violent swaying of the train, the shrill howl of the ceaseless whistle, the terrible darkness and silence of everything outside his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... upward into comprehension, is the apostle of an ever widening truth. And over the richly sculptured central arch which forms the entrance to the choir, against the incongruous glitter of gold and jewels and magnificent garments and lights and sumptuous, overwrought details—the very extravagance of the Renaissance—a great black marble crucifix bore aloft the most solemn Symbol of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull |
