"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that I forgot my hatchet and cords. I had scarcely reached the stairs by which I had descended, when the enchanted palace opened at once, and made a passage for the genie: he asked the princess in great anger, "What has happened to you, and why did you call me?" "A violent spasm," said the princess, "made me fetch this bottle which you see here, out of which I drank twice or thrice, and by mischance made a false step, and fell upon the talisman, which is broken, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... with despair also, but remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his mother had shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on his own part. He was seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother took him in her arms. "No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be sensible, dear. What! must I rock my long-legged boy as if he were a baby? No, little Jack, you never did me any harm. It is I who did wrong. Come, do not weep any more. ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... this: their conclusions are wrong in every instance" (here I nearly laughed aloud, for, as I glanced at the two experts, the expression of smug satisfaction on their countenances changed with lightning rapidity to a ludicrous spasm of consternation); "not sometimes wrong and sometimes right, as would have been the case if they had made mere guesses, but wrong every time. When they are quite certain, they are quite wrong; and when they are doubtful, they incline to the wrong conclusion. This is a very strange coincidence, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... spasm of pain crossed her face. After a time she said slowly, "I enjoyed myself for a week or two. Then came news from home. The fever which had been lurking in the town for some time reached our house, and the two beautiful little twins were smitten with it. And before I could hear again they ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... remarkable gentleness, its suggestion of purity as of one unspotted by the world, was turned to him with a confident appeal. Her clear gray eyes rested quietly on his. Yet she saw his face change. It seemed that a spasm of pain or revolt shook him. Upon her face there came a blank look. Why was he displeased? But the spasm passed. He shrugged his shoulders ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... of the ponderous trap trembled and shook under the influence of the animal's writhings. Heavy though it was, the bear shook it so powerfully at each spasm of rage, that it was plainly too weak to hold him long. In the event of his breaking out, death to the ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... as a spasm of rage ran through him; and Zebedee, noting the trembling movement of his hands, conveyed his impression of the cause by bestowing a glance, accompanied with a pantomimic bend of his elbow, in the direction of a certain stone bottle which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... She shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phoebe," she thought, "you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to another girl you have a spasm!" ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... sexes. Whenever by the procreative act the germ body is prepared, a fiend hies from bale, or an angel stoops from bliss, or a demon darts from his hovering in the air, to inhabit and rule his growing clay house for a term of earthly life. The spasm of impregnation thrills in fatal summons to hell or heaven, and resistlessly drags a spirit into the appointed receptacle. Shakspeare, whose genius seems to have touched every shape of thought with adorning phrase, makes Juliet, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... at her heart with both hands, for an actual spasm caught her there. Every trace of color shot from her face, and with a rush came back—fire. She rose, gave her daughter one look that was almost terror, and ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... left alone, at length, in the little blue-and-white room which had known her as a child and maiden, where she now sat as wife. For weeks past she had been emotionless. To-night, with that trenchant command, unanswered except in her heart, a spasm of pain had broken the serenity of her calm, and ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... here. No,' he droned, 'but the Museum will still be just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it is. And people will be able to go and read there.' He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as of actual pain ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... for the cows, filling a pan with chopped hay and brewer's grains and a little meal. The child, all wonder, watched what he did. A new being was created in her for the new conditions. Sometimes, a little spasm, eddying from the bygone storm of sobbing, shook her small body. Her eyes were wide and wondering, pathetic. She ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... the oriental's head was bobbing like a mandarin's, whilst in a spasm of terror his mouth ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... face for an instant lost its quietness. Something like a spasm of mortal pain crossed it and twisted it. The woman walked away abruptly, but came back. "I've been home and—put him to bed," she said, slowly—"in his last ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... boy was indeed his very self. He was a very little and a very sickly boy. He was subject to attacks of violent spasm which disabled him for any active exertion. He was never a good little cricket-player. He was never a first-rate hand at marbles, or peg-top, or prisoner's base. But he had great pleasure in watching the other boys, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... thus partly silenced. The lantern made its dim illumination with specks of light, swinging from a nail over the window alcove. Maria had not yet unclosed her eyes. Her wasted hand made a network around one of Rice's fingers, and as the coughing spasm seized her ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... was the condition of the hand. When a person, at the moment of death, grasps any object firmly, there is set up a condition known as cadaveric spasm. The muscular contraction passes immediately into rigor mortis, or death-stiffening, and the object remains grasped by the dead hand until the rigidity passes off. In this case the hand was perfectly rigid, but it did not grasp the hair at all. The ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... dust, bit it in half cheerfully. Then Bo, who was watching him, saw a strange thing take place. The half orange flew out of the Bear's mouth as from a popgun, and his face became so distorted that the boy thought his friend was having a spasm. Suddenly he whirled, and making a rush at the fallen oranges, began to kick them in every direction, coughing and spitting every second. The two dogs looking over the hedge stopped barking to enjoy the fun. One of the oranges rolled ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... were seized with the same spasm of mad terror. Again they hurled themselves against the electrified lines, and again they were hurled back, masses of boys and girls tumbling against one another, and screaming in one wail that, could ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... first time a horrible spasm of terror seized him. Had he forgotten? or was it all a mistake, and Anthony not there? He turned in his place, put his shoulders against the door and his feet against the woodwork of the stairs, and pushed steadily; there were one or two loud creaks, and the door began to yield. Then he knew ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... any available summons to religious preparation. The poor mutineer who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades dies by a most sudden death in Caesar's sense; one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is over. But, in the sense of the Litany, the mutineer's death is far from sudden: his offence originally, his imprisonment, his trial, the interval between his sentence ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... than he had sprung already on the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the tottering stairway. Strong arms received, embraced, and helped him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself, in the company of two rough-looking men, in the paved back-yard of one of the tall houses that crowned the summit of the hill. Meanwhile, from below, the note of the bell had been succeeded by the sound of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... victim. The horse flashed through the gate, something snapped, the rope stood in air, and a dull thud was heard in the bewilderment of the moment. The blur passed in an instant, and a monster dog wolf lay at the gatepost, relaxing in a spasm of death. ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... women know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as a rule, must be a "throw-back" to times when men and women were rather worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant to ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... chair as though undergoing a spasm of pain. The sentences smote him between the eyes of his sensibilities. Had it come to this, that his name was being bandied dishonorably about the barrooms of St. John's? If so, how ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... filled with fine frost wet his face, lifted the smothering off his lungs. His eyes grew clear, as his full sense returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a long time since he had seen any open fire,—years, he believed. Where was it that there had been a fire just like that, with the ashes like moss over the heat,—and on a night in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the domestic bugbear it used to be, when one mighty spasm of cleanliness shook the house from garret to cellar and threw its inmates into a fever of discomfort and dismay. The modern house-cleaning season is one of indolence and ease compared with what it once was, when not only the ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... is unlike the other three diseases in that it is a nervous trouble, and probably the germ or the poison formed by the germ attacks the nervous system, and particularly one great nerve connecting the lungs and stomach. This is why the spasm of coughing is frequently followed by vomiting, and the only remedy which is of value in whooping cough is a nerve depressant which will diminish the activity of the nervous system without at the same time ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... of the Assyrians, he pronounced the last two letters "um" like the French nasal "on," which gave the name of the Assyrian king the same sound as that of Ninon de l'Enclos, the terrible bete noir of the jealous Marquise. This was enough to set her off into a spasm of fury against the luckless tutor, who could not understand why he should be so berated over a simple question and its correct answer. The Marquise not understanding Latin, and guided only by the sound of the answer, which was similar to the name ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... ghost of the formerly beautiful and radiant Marie-Anne. Her quick, alert tread had become slow and dragging, often she sat for whole days motionless in her chair, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, her lips contracted as if by a spasm, while great tears ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... his horse and rode away. As soon as he was out of earshot he began to laugh. Spasm after spasm shook him. No sooner had he composed himself to gravity than a remembrance of Udo's appearance started ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... She bore it like a Spartan sooner than lose the amusement of his simplicity and enormous strength, so drolly and unnecessarily exerted. It cost her a little struggle not to laugh right out, but she turned her head away from him a moment and was quit for a spasm. Then she came round with ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... produced upon Bob was a varied one. He still felt the consequences of that horror into which he had fallen, that spasm and convulsion of terror which had seemed to turn him to stone, yet the relief that had been found was inexpressibly sweet. In spite of the pain which still lingered about his heart, there came a calmer and happier frame of mind; the pain ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... With a horrid spasm across her heart, which seemed ready to kill her, so sharp was the pain, Lizzie recovered the use of her legs and followed Mrs. Carbuncle into the dining-room. She had been hardly conscious of hearing; but she had heard, and it had seemed to her ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... this sudden spasm of business anxiety, but said nothing further, and Drew hastened down to the Jones Lane pier and boarded the Normandy. But again he was doomed to meet ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed with irritation. Finally he stopped in front of me ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... now that a spasm of energy and excitement shot through Frank, as he gazed for a few moments, and then thought of the Hakim and the need for his ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... leaped almost to his feet, then fell back in another spasm. A minute later he was dead. With tenderness mother and son cared for the body. In one of the seaman's pockets was found a packet of papers yellow ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... ashamed of the sick spasm of disgust that closed his throat. He felt that it was a sign of raw youth and amateurishness, as when a medical student faints at first sight of the dissecting table. He feared that his face had betrayed him to these soldiers, many of whom had hardened their nerves on battlefields. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... to define politics in relation to the British public, I should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four or ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... A spasm has seized him: 490 He leans on his niece, And his left leg upraising He twirls it around In the air like a weight. His right follows suit then, And murmuring, "Curse it!" He suddenly masters And ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world face that decided her—for it sent the deep spasm across her. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... very little about the money part of the scheme. She only guessed what had become of Aunt Raby's watch and chain; and a spasm crossed her face when one day she happened to see that Aunt Raby's poor little jewel case was empty. The jewels and the watch could certainly not fetch much, but they provided Prissie with a modest little outfit, and Mr. Hayes had got a grant ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... you the sorrow of Achilles for the loss of Briseis," said I, and, going into the corner, I raised my hand to my shelf of books—and stood there with hand upraised yet touching no book, for a sudden spasm seemed to have me in its clutches, and once again the trembling seized me, and the hammer had recommenced its beat, beating ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... upon a giddy pinnacle, the highest in the world, and yet the higher the deeper the fall. Everything that earth could give was now at her feet. Was she to risk the losing of it all—for what? For a weakness which was unworthy of an Empress, for a foolish new-born spasm of love, for that which had no existence within her in the morning? How could she be so foolish as to risk losing such a substance for ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of America; and with the very wealthy and most respectable firm of Schuchhardt & Gebhard, of Nassau Street. Every thing went along swimmingly till the 21st of August, when all Wall Street was thrown into a spasm by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, and the panic so resembled that in San Francisco, that, having nothing seemingly at stake, I felt amused. But it soon became a serious matter even to me. Western stocks and securities tumbled to such ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... boards was calling me by name! I felt my ears grow crimson, purple, maroon. My wife was looking at me as though I were some peculiar insect. The squeak of Ouija boards and the murmur of conversation rose louder and louder, and then I felt my face twitch in the spasm of that idiotic grin. I tried to straighten my wretched features into their usual semblance of humanity, I ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... a fish out of water, and wriggled my neck in a silly way, which a charitable man, unaccustomed to women, might take for schoolgirl gawkishness in a spasm of acquiescence. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... called the political-criminal element on the one side, and patriotism and intelligence on the other side. Knaves, using bigotry, ignorance and intimidation as their weapons, manage to control municipal affairs, except when expelled from office for periods more or less brief by some sudden spasm of public virtue and indignation, like the revolt in the city of New York against the Tweed Ring a quarter of a century ago, and the reform victory in that city ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... the youthful captain gave a groan. "Then I—I can't expect anything of you. Too bad! I wanted to send word to my sister—" A sudden spasm of pain caused ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... and it required all the resourcefulness of Bull to quiet him. But in three days the barley sack and its queer-looking additions had been changed for a true saddle—with the cinches drawn up tight enough for riding. And this without eliciting a single bucking spasm ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with awful motions like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands, first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to sit there, almost fainting with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe the policeman ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... aloud, and then he choked and collapsed on the bed in a shaken spasm of grief. After a minute he opened his eyes and regarded ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... words the Sibyl of Cumae chants from the shrine her perplexing terrors, echoing through the cavern truth wrapped in obscurity: so does Apollo clash the reins and ply the goad in her maddened breast. So soon as the spasm ceased and the raving lips sank to silence, Aeneas the hero begins: 'No shape of toil, O maiden, rises strange or sudden on my sight; all this ere now have I guessed and inly rehearsed in spirit. One ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... her breath, inaudibly; only Duncan could see the little spasm of mortification and anger ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... A spasm crossed his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile. He said only: "Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... camped, holiday-making, the year prior to formal and rightful occupancy, in a spasm of enthusiasm, which still endures, I selected the actual site for a modest castle then and there built in the accommodating air. It was something to have so palpable and rare a base for the fanciful fabric. All in a moment, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... shrieked Aunt Aggie, in the strangled squeak in which we always explain that it is "only a crumb" gone wrong. And she relapsed into a fresh spasm. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... dressed in a green cloak and sold shamrock on St. Patrick's day. She has dressed in rags and sung in the streets for charity. She has hired a van and ridden about the suburbs pretending to sell domestic articles. She has attended revival meetings and thrown herself in a spasm of ecstasy upon what she calls the mercy-seat. ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... recognized her, a fleeting smile crossed the pale, spiritualized face, which seemed to her to have grown ten years older in this short time; but it vanished as quickly as it had come. Then the great eyes gazed blankly again from the shadows that surrounded them, and a spasm of pain quivered from time to time round the thin, tightly closed lips. Melissa could hardly restrain her tears. Was this what he had been brought to-the youth who only a few days ago had made them all feel conscious of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... superfluous person in Stillwater. A mortar-splashed hod-carrier, who had seated himself on a pile of brick and was eating his noonday rations from a tin can just brought to him by a slatternly girl, gave Richard a spasm of envy. Here was a man who had found his place, and was establishing—what Richard did not seem able to establish in his own ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... been invented, so it made telegraphic apparatus, burglar-alarms, electric pens, and other such things. But in 1878, when the Western Union made its short-lived attempt to compete with the Bell Company, the Western Electric agreed to make its telephones. Three years later, when the brief spasm of competition was ended, the Western Electric was taken in hand by the Bell people and has since then remained the great ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... it and a spasm of fear clutched his heart. But he would not voice it; he shrank from having ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... his hands and feet, which jerked wildly. His face was gray and old—so old that he might have been taken, at the first glance, for a man of eighty, and in the intervals between his words he sucked in his breath with a hissing noise. Meeting Christopher's look, he broke into a spasm of frightened sobs, whimpering like a child that has ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the generous old monarch of Britain, in a spasm of parental love, bequeathes his dominion to his two daughters, Goneril and Regan, and gave nothing to the beautiful Cordelia. Hear the old man rave at his ungrateful daughters and ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... with intense curiosity that his bright color paled and his sparkling hazel eyes darkened with a sudden look of horror; but the spasm of memory passed quickly, and once more he was staring at her ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... relieve spasm, or irregular and painful action of the muscles or muscular fibers, as in Epilepsy, St. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... The young fellow John was smoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the evening air, and kept inside. The young Marylander came to the door, looked out and saw us walking together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and stalked off. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the arm I held, and saw the girl's head turn over her shoulder for a second. What a kind creature this is! She has no special interest in this youth, but she does not like to see a young fellow going off because he feels as if he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... moderately sure. For a short time it looks as though something might come of it; but nothing really does. It is all so terribly obvious. There are no obstacles such as one finds in real fiction; there is no love spasm in Chapter XXV. There is no Chapter XXV at all! And so it must be perfectly clear that those who insist upon having their love spasms will be bored to death by Tutors' Lane and should on no account be allowed to look at it. There ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... We have these moments of weakness, the bravest of us; but I have a spirit like a slip of steel, for the more you bend it the higher it springs. One spasm of despair, and then a brain of ice and a heart of fire. All was not yet lost. I who had come through so many hazards would come through this one also. I rose from my horse and considered what ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... common symptom in serious lung diseases, "bloat" in cattle, or any condition that may cause dyspnoea. Horses affected with "heaves" show a double contraction of the muscles in the region of the flank during expiration. In spasm of the diaphragm or "thumps" the expiration appears to be a short, jerking movement of the flank. In the abdominal form of respiration the movements of the walls of the chest are limited. This occurs in pleurisy. In the thoracic form ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... here except the one I had pulled last year," he announced vastly relieved. A sharp spasm of pain in his jaw caused him to abruptly take advantage of a recent discovery; and while he was careful to couch his opinions in an undertone, he told Mr. Yollop what he thought of him in terms that would have put the hardiest ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... to himself, and a spasm of disgust seized him. "What a rotten inconvenience!" he said aloud. But before he had time to measure the effect of this new complication the swelling music reminded him that this dance belonged to Mrs. Cortlandt and that her ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... The seabirds began to wake out on the reefs; their cries sounded in through the open windows. A spasm of joy went through me at this first calling of the birds, and I longed to be out there ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... and goaded on, by the highest considerations; and then so held down, and chained to his place, by an imbroglio of counter-considerations and sphinx-riddles! Thrice over, at different dates (which shall be given), the first of them this Year, he starts up as in spasm, determined to draw sword, and plunge in; twice he is crushed down again, with sword half drawn; and only the third time (in 1743) does he get sword out, and brandish it in a surprising though useless manner. After which he feels better. But up to that crisis, his case is really tragical,—had ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... shells which can destroy one thousand men by one explosion; if we increase the range of our guns from twelve miles to twenty, and fight our pieces according to directions signalled from a balloon, we shall be going the very best way to make all men rise with one spasm of disgust, and say, "No more ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... is in vain to allege in proof of the aphrodisiacal qualities of opium the state of erection in which the genital members of Turks are found when lying dead on a field of battle,[159] for this state depends upon, or is caused by, the violent spasm or universal convulsive movements with which the body is seized in the moment of death: the same phenomenon frequently appears in persons who suffer hanging. In warm countries, it is the concomitant of death from convulsive diseases, ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... watched him with misgiving, alive to all the signs of raw procedure—the crook of his elbow, the tilt of the glass, the lift of his head. "To you, sir!" said he: and resolutely downed it. 'Twas impressive then, I recall, to observe his face—the spasm of shock and surprise, the touch of incredulity, of reproachful complaint, as that hard liquor coursed into his belly. 'Twas over in a moment—the wry mouth of it, the shudder—'twas all over in a flash. My tutor commanded his features, as rarely ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... into a vulgarism likely to set her teeth on edge and possibly, in the spasm of it, close them momentarily on reminiscence. "I'm willing to let you in for all I know about Old Crow. To tell the truth, I'm ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... of the carving-knife dropping upon the platter as Leadbury started in some sudden spasm of pain, was drowned by the silvery laughter of Miss ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... case, the miracle at once struck him with the consciousness that he was now, in some way, he knew not how, in the immediate presence of the supernatural. That was immediately followed by a quick spasm and sense of sin, and that again by a recoil of terror, and that again by the cry, 'Go out of the boat; for I am ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the man testified to the splendid strength that had once been his, and could never be his again as long as he lived. He saw the girl turn her head aside as he moved. The sunbonnet completely hid her face. A sharp spasm of pain set his own like a ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the death color, and he was twice sentenced to be burned alive, at the Pickaway Plains and at Sandusky. But each time he was saved at the last moment, once through a sudden spasm of mercy on the part of the renegade Girty, his old companion in arms at the time of Lord Dunmore's war, and again by the powerful intercession of the great Mingo chief, Logan. At last, after having run the gauntlet eight times and been thrice tied to the stake, he was ransomed by some ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... body, and a sharp short whinny,—by no means intending to put their heels through the dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition of the young person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call a palpebral spasm, affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if it were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me to suspect a disposition to be satirical on ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... man whom you have every reason to believe not only the coolest, but the most unimpressible, of beings, suddenly turns white as a ghost and shivers with a nervous spasm, it is safe to suppose he is frightened. But when terror, turning into rage, changes one of the most attentive and respectful of servants into a madman, it is scarcely safe to suppose anything. As it was, I stared in mute amazement, and he glared at ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... speak he felt hands about his neck, and then the touch of a rope passed across his face. For an indescribable instant a terror seized on him; he closed his eyes and set his teeth. The spasm passed, and so soon as the hands ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... innkeeper had Donald at his mercy, and was in the very act of striking home, his arm was suddenly paralysed, a spasm of terror shook him through and through, his eyes glazed over. 'There's twa o' them,' he muttered, and instead of striking he shrank his hand back as if to ward off a new assailant, and Donald had a momentary vision of his brother by his side. The innkeeper made a pass, then ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... The spasm of smile was instantaneous, and the man's face dropped at once into its harmonious melancholy. He spoke without further explanation or inquiry, like a man speaking to an ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... heel, in a spasm of will, From sleep or debate, a mannikin squire With head of a merlin hawk and quill Acrow on an ear. At him rained fire From a blast of eyeballs hotter than speech, To say what a deadly poison stuffed The France here ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... his "good-night" with sympathetic cordiality; then turned softly to his own apartment. Having reached it, he gave himself up to a spasm of ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... well-understood, are they not one and the same? The old Habits of France are gone: her new Rights and Mights are not yet ascertained, except in Paper-theorem; nor can be, in any sort, till she have tried. Till she have measured herself, in fell death-grip, and were it in utmost preternatural spasm of madness, with Principalities and Powers, with the upper and the under, internal and external; with the Earth and Tophet and the very Heaven! Then will she know.—Three things bode ill for the marching of this French Constitution: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... her voice reached her brother's dull ear; a faint spasm, as though he strove in vain to speak, crossed his white drawn lips. But the disfigured head in its ghastly bandages was motionless; the shattered arm in its wrappings made no gesture. In terror, in despair, his sister started to her feet, and looked eagerly, closely, into his face. ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... a note of raillery in her voice, but raillery so tender that he started with happiness. His movement brought him a hot spasm of pain, and he clapped his hand to a red stain on ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... and the tears began to fall. She raised her muff to her face to hide the spasm of pain that distorted ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... audacity of Mr. Shaw, I was unprepared for the spasm of absolute fury that convulsed ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... cackled Grimes, at last giving way to a spasm of mirth which, Helen thought, was not nice to look upon. "And how does he fancy having you ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... live in tents, and I suppose show-people always expect to travel with shows. I don't know anything about it. But I do know when that child came to me she'd been dosed nearly to death with laudanum, or some sleepin' drug, and didn't really come to her senses till after her spasm." ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... this had been witnessed by the father of the MacNicols, who had stood for a second or two as if paralysed. Then a sort of spasm of action seized him, and, apparently not knowing what he was about, he threw open the gangway abaft the paddle-box ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... your three letters of the 5th and 6th. They made me laugh, yet I pity you, and have really a fellow feeling for you. Poor little Rippy, so you are mortgaged! But you bear it charmingly; do you think this courage will last, or is it only a spasm? Spasmodic love. It is really quite new. The trifling incident in relation to dress you must pardon. I am a connoisseur in these things, and can assure you they ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... brightest smile, "I like the Benedick far better than I should ever have dreamed possible; and his wife is charming. And I want to say, too," he added, "that I have a thousand times thanked you for taking that vial before I went to be married. I'm in a spasm of virtuousness just now, and it is pleasant to remember that I did not ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... short visit to the mantua-maker, and then went to Mrs. Gordon's. There was less effusion in that lady's manner than at her last interview with Katherine. She had a little spasm of jealousy; she had some doubts about Katherine's deserts; she wondered whether her nephew really adored the girl with the fervour he affected, or whether he had determined, at all sacrifices, to prevent her marriage with Neil Semple. Katherine had never before seen her so quiet and ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... and dat one and de other one. Took to shavin' again and gwine to Winnsboro every Saturday, and different churches every Sunday. I hear a voice from de choir, one Sunday, dat makes me sit up and take notice of de gal on de off side in front. Well sir! a spasm of fright fust hit me dat I might not git her, dat I was too old for de likes of her, and dat some no 'count nigger might be in de way. In a few minutes I come to myself. I rise right up, walked into dat choir, stand by her side, and wid dis voice of ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... blinked and felt a spasm running down his cheeks.... He wrapped up the baby, put him under his arm, and strode on. All the way to the Myelkins' villa social questions were swarming in his brain and conscience ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... he looks as if he were sleeping. Sylvie has gone for a doctor. I say, Mlle. Michonneau, he is sniffing the ether. Pooh! it is only a spasm. His pulse is good. He is as strong as a Turk. Just look, mademoiselle, what a fur tippet he has on his chest; that is the sort of man to live till he is a hundred. His wig holds on tightly, however. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... also, especially Bowers, suffered agony from cramp in the stomach. We let the primus burn on after supper now for a time—it was the only thing which kept us going—and when one who was holding the primus was seized with cramp we hastily took the lamp from him until the spasm was over. It was horrible to see Birdie's stomach cramp sometimes: he certainly got it much worse than Bill or I. I suffered a lot from heartburn especially in my bag at nights: we were eating a great proportion of fat and this was probably the cause. Stupidly I said nothing ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... shadow of fear of the state of death, for he forgot that he would carry himself, his unchanged being—Conscience, Habit and Memory—into the other world. What he dreaded was the spasm of dying— the convulsion that was to snap the thousand silver strings in the harp of life. This he shuddered at, but he consoled himself that it would be ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... with motions of his hands and body, was able to express things apparently impossible in a dance. His hands dimmed the air, creating a cloud, bright, living, quivering, voluptuous, surrounding the half-fainting form of a maiden shaken by a spasm of delight. That was a picture, not a dance; an expressive picture, disclosing the secrets of love, bewitching and shameless; and when at the end of it Corybantes rushed in and began a bacchic dance with girls of Syria to the sounds ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly we held on, yet, all three, it ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... An acute spasm of pain passed through me, and I was aware that the Swede had hold of me in such a way that he hurt me abominably. It was the way he ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... through the park-like grounds of the Hydro. She was Miss Mary Moultrie, and she coughed and cleared her throat just like Baxter. She suffered—she told me it was a Moultrie castemark—from some obscure form of chronic bronchitis, complicated with spasm of the glottis; and, in a dead, flat voice, with a sunken eye that looked and saw not, told me what washes, gargles, pastilles, and inhalations she had proved most beneficial. From her I was passed on to her younger ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... succeeded it, instead of finding himself in the little town, he was in the depths of a great old forest, and in horrible agony. Some accident had occurred—he did not know what. He only knew that he was shot, suffering, dying! He groaned, and even as he writhed in a spasm of pain he saw her sitting on the sward beside him. He turned glazed eyes on her. Her brown ones looked back into his with a great love ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... laugh of bitter scorn that came from my mother's lips, the sudden spasm that shook her frame, the sudden shadow as of night that swept across her features, should at once have hushed my confession. But I went on: my tongue would not stop now: I felt that my eloquence, the eloquence of Winifred's danger, must conquer, must soften ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... had indeed become restless. He looked towards the door every time any one came in; and when Charles appeared, a spasm passed over his face ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... school fated to be examined in deadly branches. None moved except when she spoke, and then all writhed together but each in a different way; the most comforting word from her produced a family spasm with individual proclivities. Rowan tried to talk with the father about crops: they were frankly embarrassed. What can a young man with two thousand acres of the best land say to an old man with fifty of ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... the tapering mast of the Loulia against the thin, magical gold of the sky at sunset. He saw it against the even more magical primrose, pale green, soft red, of the after-glow. He saw it black as ink in the livid spasm of light that the falling night struck away from the river, the land, the sky. And then he saw ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... A spasm crossed the Levantine's face. She put her handkerchief to it for a moment. "What is an Ouled?" ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... alarm was so great that she could not even scream for assistance, and she feared, if she quitted her brother, he would expire before her return; but the agony, though great, was speedily over, and as the spasm ceased, he looked up, and, with a faint smile, strove to ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... expression, contending at first, as in a high fine spasm, with different dangers, had now quite let itself go. She had to make an effort to reach a point in space already so remote. "Miss Croy? Oh she was pleasant and clever. She knew," Mrs. Stringham ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... it is the dread Valley of the Shadow of the Drug through which they are continually straying, I can not say. They seldom smile, and their laughter is of such an extraordinary and sardonic nature—so purely a mechanical spasm, quite independent of any mirthful attribute—that to this day I am doubtful whether I ever saw a Chinaman laugh. A theatrical representation by natives, one might think, would have set my mind at ease on this point; ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... very motionless in the bright illuminations and dancings of the torches. But at the news of delay, through the King of Scots, a spasm of pain and concern came into her face. So that, if her features did not again move they had in them a savour of anguish, her eyebrows drooping, and the ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... well as the highest possible expediency, it has been regarded as a fixed policy of the Government and the people, and has been suffered to do its excellent work quietly and undisturbed. The legislation introducing it was not an accident. It was not a spasm of generosity to the people; but it was a fixed purpose of the British public; the wise and only adequate means adapted to accomplish an important, an indispensable end. The first contract for carrying the mails in steamers, was made ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... is shut up in a house of correction for six months. On returning to his lodgings he occupied himself with writing an obscene poem in the style of La Pucelle and then, through a fit of rage resembling a spasm, he plunged headlong into the Revolution. He possessed a "blood calcified by study," a colossal pride, an unhinged conscience, a pompous, gloomy imagination haunted with the bloody recollections of Rome and Sparta, an intelligence so warped and twisted as to be comfortable only among ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... lower, till it blurred and obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple and stretch—then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope. Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen's senses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. The spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and terrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he held her so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braised her lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, they pressed so hard ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed, red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen, impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm. Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and tortured slave ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... cried by the watchman, far away, and then close under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman in a dying spasm. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... A spasm of half-formed jealousy snatched at Mabel's heart. She had always wanted Dick to fall in love and marry some nice girl, yet the ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... group than they will invariably arrange themselves so as to face her with eyes and antennae, and to walk backwards before her. It is a token of respect, or of solicitude, that, unlikely as it may seem, is nevertheless constant and general. But to return to the queen. During the slight spasm that visibly accompanies the emission of an egg, one of her daughters will often throw her arms round her and appear to be whispering to her, brow pressed to brow and mouth to mouth. But the queen, in no wise disturbed ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... matter he seemed unable to remove his gaze from the splendid chest development that young Reade displayed so easily. Then the boy tried to fill the upper portions of his own lungs in the same manner. The attempt ended in a spasm of coughing. ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... eyes, all her being exhausted by the unknown creature that had taken possession of her. She was conscious of a vague buzzing, sweet, lulling, agonizing. She would start suddenly from her torpor—dripping with sweat, shivering, with a spasm of revolt. She fought against the meshes in which Nature had entrapped her. She wished to live, to live freely, and it seemed to her that Nature had tricked her. Then she was ashamed of such thoughts, and seemed monstrous in her own eyes, and asked herself if she ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... you read the Sun this morning? It seems that this little town of Hunston is having a violent spasm of politics right now. Rather lucky coincidence, I should say. The dispatch I read was pretty vague, but I gather that there's an interesting fight on between a strong machine and a ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... At the inquest it was described somewhat untechnically as due to heart spasm. That is normal enough and leaves us quite in the dark as to whether he died because he stood between the girl and ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... the cadets is that in the arrangements for their visit, the Quartermaster's Department was stricken with a spasm of economy as regarded transportation, and each of the future heroes was limited to the miserably insufficient allowance of ten pairs ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... Ere this goes out, I hope to see your expressive, but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions—'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'—Fanny seems a little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and disrepair; I wish the devil had had K. by his red beard before he had packed my library. Odd leaves and sheets and boards—a thing to make a bibliomaniac shed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face. The sharp teeth clamped together. Then her eyes closed, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... A sudden spasm contracted the sculptor's throat. His whole being was shaken by the return of the woman to whom all the passionate devotion of his manhood was given, and he never heard that soft, maternal note with which his wife spoke of ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... delight, but she has her fevers of blood and fury, her awful reactions of raw brutality, her hidden sores of strange crime. Of all cities, Paris is the most refined, the most progressive in the highest way, the most delicately sensitive; of all cities, too, when the spasm is on her, she is the most mediaeval in her violence, her lust for blood, her horrible 'inhumanity to man'—Burns might have written ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... her shrinking behind the ample bulk of Mrs. McMahon, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as if in a wordless soliloquy. Then, again, his eyes returned to the man who had just uttered the preposterous accusation, and he beheld the usually jocund face distorted by a spasm of jealous fury, the insensate fury of the male in the loathed presence of a rival. No, here was no room for laughter. However ludicrous the mistake in its essence, its fruits were too serious for mirth. He turned his gaze on McMahon, and saw there the like virile detestation of himself. He ventured ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... Maria!" the man went on to say, with some eagerness. "We 'most all around here air in them picters; ya-as'm! Ye wouldn't think I was an actor, would ye?" And he went off into another spasm of chuckles. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... out a heavy hand, and Roy shrunk from it. As he did so there came a sound which sent the blood to Roy's heart with a spasm of instant hope, of possible escape. It was Tumbu's low growl as he realised that some one wanted to touch his old master and that his old master did not want to ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... indifferent now. Struck with the unusual emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face,—a flush and slight spasm of the features, such as we see in people who hear some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the past. She was quite silent, and walking on toward the trunk of a fallen tree, she ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... fellow run for it too!" added Steve, as again they felt that terrible shudder pass through the wooden structure that had spanned the Evergreen Elver as far back as they could remember; and which somehow forcibly reminded Max of the spasm apt to run through the muscles of a stricken animal ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... growing whiter and whiter during this interview, now became convulsed with a spasm of great agony. She put up her trembling hands to cover it. This was not a moment for tears. Her ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time I did not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a passionate desire ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... course of the act, Esperance secured several salvos of applause. The sustained emotion of the grief that overwhelmed her and the spasm of weeping which closed the act gave the young artist complete assurance ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... our paths, I had not even heard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastened to the Hampstead "Home," only to find him already in the agony. He had not been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had muttered something brokenly about "knowing better," that a spasm had interrupted. Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful for the summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had still retained his already cold hand; his brow had worked with that ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... they take four deep breaths it will prove fatal: "One breath and you catch the first spasm, two and you are mad, three and you are unconscious, four and you are dead. If you keep your presence of mind and hold your breath you will have six seconds to get on your gas helmet or respirator." ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... pure all things are pure," may have been written especially for our times, when there is such a vast amount of mock modesty; when so much pretense of virtue covers such a world of iniquity and vice. The young lady who goes into a spasm of virtuous hysterics upon hearing the word "leg," is perhaps just the one who at home riots her imagination in voluptuous French novels, if she commits no grosser breach of chastity. The parents who are the most ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... experiencing a spasm of excitement unusual to it. As a general thing, the dwellers on the edge of the great alkali wastes—once the bed of a mighty inland sea—were by far too much occupied in keeping reasonably cool, ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... The bullet flew far and harmless amidst the forest foliage, his arm dropped, and without sign or sound he fell down upon the sodden turf, his head striking against the earth with a dull echo, his hands drawing up the rank herbage by the roots, as they closed convulsively in one brief spasm. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... A spasm of pain contracted his face as he looked at the girl's drooping head; her face, in that dim light, he ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... again, like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night, as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Jan's arm in a sudden spasm of horror. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... dimensional insane asylum!" Pillbot gazed upward fearfully at a descending mass. "The pattern of its action fits perfectly," he went on. "Some violent type of insanity, combined with delusions of grandeur. Any slightest opposition will cause a spasm of fury. It recognizes such opposition in the way you tricked it into bringing you here. At first I thought it was a primitive mentality, but now I know it is a highly evolved, but insane creature, thinks it's Napoleon, wants to conquer the three dimensional ...
— The 4-D Doodler • Graph Waldeyer
... the transept is to be seen a group carved in marble, representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Caesar gazed at it absorbed. The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who smilingly ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... House thought of these miserable men. HARCOURT made his speech; GORST demonstrated that Motion was indefensible, being both too late and too soon; the Mouse came and went amid a spasm of thrilled interest; GLADSTONE delivered oration in dinner-hour; PARNELL fired up at midnight; House divided, and SPEAKER left the Chair. Then was heard the rattling of keys in the door by OLD MORALITY's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... explained Frank. "I had a sudden spasm of strength which enabled me to out-distance those people who were pursuing me, but after I had shaken them off I felt that I could drop. I came upon this cottage, which seemed the only habitation in view, and after endeavouring to waken the occupants ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... my eyes which the selfishness of passion made bitter indeed. My mind reacted and I felt that she did not love me enough even to wish for liberty. So long as love recoils from a crime it seems to have its limits, and love should be infinite. A spasm shook my heart. ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... the energy of which would not reach a minute fraction of that necessary to raise the thousandth of a grain through the thousandth of an inch, can throw the whole human frame into a powerful mechanical spasm, followed by violent respiration and palpitation. The eye of course, may be appealed to as well as the ear. Of this the lamented Lange ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the room, with a slight limp, and the spasm of pain that showed on her face was quickly replaced by a smile. But ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... tugging, awkward with deadly peril, at my revolver. His fingers had whipped free of the pocket, I glimpsed as with second sight (for my eyes were held strongly by his) the twin little black muzzles of a derringer concealed in his palm; a spasm of fear pinched me; they spurted, with ringing report, but just at the instant a flanneled arm knocked his arm up, the ball had sped ceiling-ward and the teamster of the gaming table stood against him, revolver barrel ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... consciousness. He was bewildered and dazed at first, but as he began to speak the color came back freshly to his face. He could not conceive, he stammered, what had happened. He was riding with Miss Atherly, and he supposed his horse had slipped upon some withered pine needles and thrown him! A spasm of pain crossed his face suddenly, and he lifted his hand to the top of his head. Was he hurt THERE? No, but perhaps his hair, which was flowing and curly, had caught in the branches—like Absalom's! He tried to smile, and even begged them to assist him to his horse that he might follow ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... by apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Zisca, as it were, killing him at second-hand. For Zisca, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad Papistic doings, in the interim; and was tearing up the world ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle |
