"Agony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great tragedy—his loss of courage, his loss of faith—his acceptance of a passive future. Resolutely she had conquered all the shivering agony which had swept over her as she had read of that sordid marriage and its sequence. Resolutely she had risen above the faintness which threatened to submerge her as the whole of that unexpected history was presented to her; resolutely she had fought against a pity which ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... was happening out there in the sunlight too. The creature had convulsively grasped the branch of a bush and was clinging weakly to it, great tremors wracking its body. It seemed to be struggling, suffering, dying ... even as he was. In his agony, Tyndall laughed. ...
— Grove of the Unborn • Lyn Venable
... Rabbi Aser Abarbanel closed his eyes: his heart beat so violently that it almost suffocated him; his rags were damp with the cold sweat of agony; he lay motionless by the wall, his mouth wide open, under the rays of a lamp, praying to ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... so in agony she listened for the response. It came; but Arthur Miles could not distinguish the word, nor tell if Tilda had heard better. She had caught his hand, and they were running together as fast as their small legs ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... misery. The study of my profession had acquainted me, that when the stomach is empty and contracted to a certain degree, that it, in a measure, acts upon itself, and draws all the neighbouring organs into sympathy with its distress: this increases to an agony that ends in distraction; for it is well known that those who are starved to death, die raving distracted! Some of us in the course of this horrid voyage could have eaten a puppy or kitten, could we have laid ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... have shown that invention and imitation, taken together, form, one may say, the entire warp and woof of human life, in so far as it is social. The American over-tension and jerkiness and breathlessness and intensity and agony of expression are primarily social, and only secondarily physiological, phenomena. They are bad habits, nothing more or less, bred of custom and example, born of the imitation of bad models and the cultivation of false personal ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... agony grew so intense that I felt I must shout for help, the soft pit-pat of the animal's feet passed by me again, and was followed by the sound of the man moving his moccasined feet, hardly heard upon the boarded floor, and the stars were completely ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... wished not to clothe the generation. What was to the remainder of the exiled sons of Adam simply the brand of expulsion from Paradise, was to him hell. In his agony, anything less than an angel, soft-voiced in his path, would not have satisfied the poor boy, and here was this wretched outcast, and instead of being relieved, he was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ground just at her feet and looked up in the splendid old face with an agony of hurt born of misunderstanding in his own, so that, suddenly realising that her refusal had been taken for antipathy, she stretched out her hand, which, having first pulled a corner of his white mantle between, he held upon the back of ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... went. As soon as he was gone, Kitty sprang from the sofa, and walked up and down the room in a passionate preoccupation. A tremor of great fear was invading her; an agony of unavailing regret. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust, but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below, slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense muscle, ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... merry supper; when the clear, bright, sparkling wine represented the free spirits of those who drank it; when maidens, with gay hearts and light golden hair, sought his love. "Give me back these joys," he exclaimed in agony; "give me that youth which graced the pursuits of love, and which dignified every enjoyment: take from me that ambition, which only leads to misery in its failure and to disappointment ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... an order to say all captured ponies were to be given up to the Commissariat after the battery had had first pick. It was an awful pull up that spur. I suppose we went up at least two thousand feet. I was all right, as I had a pony, but it must have been agony for the laden coolies. Once up, the going was easy enough; open, grassy downs, gradually sloping down from where we stood to the junction of the Yarkhun and Turikho valleys, though the actual sides of the tableland dropped steeply down to the rivers. By our present divergence ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... into the midst of the brown men and earth. Horses and riders fell, officers leaped to the ground and shouted encouragement to their soldiers, men sprang behind rocks and discharged their rifles. Minutes of agony passed. Officers gathered their men and attempted to lead them forward, but they had not progressed far when the Boers in the spruit in front of them swept the ground with the bullets of their rifles. Burghers crept around the edge of the kopjes and emptied their carbines into the backs ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... I have been checked and reduced in merit. For that bias I was myself encircled. I was in an agony of spirit when I knew that the thing was beginning to advance, but my very will to aid ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... of his agony, pouring out a flood of clamorous thoughts into those friendly hearts, Eve and David listening in pained silence to a torrent of woes that exhibited such greatness ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... of a child," as Boehme himself says. But, as a matter of fact, descriptions fail and fall short in the case of all genuine life-experiences, {203} even those that are most universal and common to the race. How one feels when after nights of agony from watching over a child that is hovering between life and death, and seemingly certain to slip away from human reach, the doctor says, "He has passed the crisis and the danger is over!" one cannot describe. Whenever it is a matter that concerns the inner quick of the ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... their vessels ashore, where they abandoned them as prizes to the Christians. Yet many of the fugitives, before gaining the shore, perished miserably in the waves. Barberigo, the Venetian admiral, who was still lingering in agony, heard the tidings of the enemy's defeat, and exclaiming, "I die contented," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... pay the whole of it. Lying here these deadly nights, Lads, for me the Mermaid lights Gleam as for a castaway Swept along a midnight sea The harbour-lanthorns, each a spark, A pin-prick in the solid dark, That lets trickle through a ray Glorious out of Paradise, To stab him with new agony. Let me pay, lads, let me pay! Let the Mermaid pass the sentence: I am pleading guilty now, A dead leaf on the laurel-bough, And the storm ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... paragraph that had cost her half of the hour occupied in writing; for it must be expressed just so and no otherwise; and its wording had cost her agony lest on the one side she should tell him too much, and, on the other, too little. And her agony was not yet over; for she had to face its sending, and the thought of all that it might cost her. She was to give it to one of the men who was to leave early for ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... fast In trembling hands and feet, the face is white And changed with agony, the failing head Is drooping heavily; but still again, And yet again, the weary eyes are raised To seek the face of One who hangeth pale Upon another cross. He hears no shrill And taunting voices of the crowd beneath, He marks no cruel looks of all that gaze Upon the woeful sight. He sees ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... into the timber. Shirley watched him pass out of her life, and gloried in what she conceived to be his agony, for she had both temper and spirit, and Bryce Cardigan calmly, blunderingly, rather stupidly (she thought) had presumed flagrantly on brief acquaintance. Her uncle was right. He was not of their kind of people, and it was well she had discovered this before permitting herself to develop ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... her hands in an agony of impatience. Would the man ever tell her, or would she be compelled to shake ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... Jehovah make the feet of him I love to enter in upon the path my feet do tread. So hath my soul been bound to his soul and there are no more two souls, but one soul. And having wrought thus blessedly, will God play with the love he hath put in a woman's heart and bring to her soul such agony as doth wring drops of blood from her? Nay, nay! It can not be! He must come! He will come! Hasten, my ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... is true, but as for rest, I might as well, or better, have been awake. I fell from one dream into another; found myself wandering through impossible places; started in an agony of fear, and then dozed again, only to plunge into some deeper quagmire of trouble; and through all there was a vague feeling I was pursuing a person who eluded all my efforts to find him; playing a terrible game of hide-and-seek with a man who always ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... cried Mrs. Temple. "Oh my dear Charlotte!" and clasping her hands in an agony of distress, fell into ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... frenzy, he ran along the margin of the lake to a considerable distance, returning after a fruitless search to the hut, where he threw himself on the ground. In the agony of his spirit he lay with his face to the earth, as if to hide ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... working and gossiping, while the little ones played about. He had not gone twenty yards before he was stopped by the violent crying of a child; and turning toward the voice, he saw a little girl of six or seven, who had strayed from her mother, scrambling out of the ditch, and wringing her hands in an agony of pain and terror. The poor little thing had fallen into a bed of nettles, and was very much frightened, and not a little hurt. The constable caught her up in his arms, soothing her as well as he could, and hurrying along till he found some dock-leaves, sat down with her on his knee, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... most truly, sir, for your confidence. That dread has haunted me for many weeks. It is a true, real agony. My poor, poor mother!' her lips began to quiver, and he let her have the relief of tears, sure of her power of ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... not intend to fire at him." As the boat neared the wharf, he asked that Mrs. Hamilton be sent for. "Let the event be gradually broken to her," he said, "but give her hopes." Thus he lingered for thirty-one hours in great agony, but retaining his self-command to the last, and dying in the midst of his stricken ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... host of the Trojans he roused Hippocoon, a counsellor of the Thracians and a noble kinsman of Rhesus. He started up out of his sleep and saw that the horses were no longer in their place, and that the men were gasping in their death-agony; on this he groaned aloud, and called upon his friend by name. Then the whole Trojan camp was in an uproar as the people kept hurrying together, and they marvelled at the deeds of the heroes who had now got away ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... as if I were in a file of the executed, a stammering death-agony; and I think I see him who struggled like a stricken vulture, on the earth that was bloated with dead. And his words enter my heart more distinctly than when they were still alive; and they wound me like blows at once ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... feeling of dismay for what had happened, I could not believe that Moira had been taken from me, and as I remembered my ingratitude to her and thought of how surly I had become, absorbed in my own trouble, I threw myself down upon the rocks in an agony of remorse. Alas, poor Moira! Faithful friend! True heart, and loyal to death! A thousand times I reproached myself with my neglect of her, but my regrets were unavailing, and ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... terrible sensation of dread in going out,—more palpably felt than when I entered. What if these horrible jagged masses should fall on or in front of me, obstructing my path! I could see myself flying before me, and my breath grew so short that it was something like agony as I toiled up and up, led by a miner so bulky that he almost ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... classes in a great city. And whenever her good genius takes her off the beaten road of recorded fact her narrative shows considerable imaginative vigour. The massacres at Meerut and Delhi, the wild tumult, terror, and agony, are energetically described; and her picture of the confusion inside Delhi during the siege is admirably worked up, remembering that she wrote forty years after the event, at a time when the people and even the places had very greatly ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... turned their glance upon the old man in the domino; but if any retort was intended it gave way as the violins burst into an agony of laughter. The floor was immediately filled with waltzers and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... by this dark calm and beauty; he realized that he desired his master's return. But he did not come! The time passed slowly, more slowly than crawled the clouds up in the sky. . . And the length of time augmented the agony of the silence. But just now behind the wall, the plashing of water was heard, then a rustling, and something like a whisper. Gavrilo was ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... back to the plough-tail by some potentate when he first went to the University; should we not have heard a good deal of noise about the business sooner or later? Again, we find Mr. Froude writing somewhat placidly when he tells us about the men who were cut to pieces slowly in order that their agony might be prolonged. The description of the dismemberment of Ballard and the rest, as given in the "Curiosities of Literature," is too gratuitously horrible to be read a second time; but Mr. Froude is convinced that the whole affair was no more than ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... men when they saw Charybdis gulping down the sea. But as we drove by, the monster Scylla seized six of my company—the hardiest of the men who were with me. As they were lifted up in the mouths of her six heads they called to me in their agony. 'But I could do nothing to aid them. They were carried up to be devoured in the monster's den. Of all the sights I have seen on the ways of the water, that sight ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... Kremlin to arrest the officers implicated in the conspiracy. They were loaded with chains, conducted to the Trinity, and in accordance with the barbaric custom of the times were put to the torture. In agony too dreadful to be borne, they of course made any ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... hear distinctly quite a new sound of something running within the thickness of the granite wall, a kind of dull, dead rumbling, like distant thunder. During the first part of our walk, not meeting with the promised spring, I felt my agony returning; but then my uncle acquainted me with the cause of ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... generally despatches the prisoner by repeated blows on the head, with the hammer-side of the instrument called a tomahawk: but sometimes they save themselves the trouble, and sometimes the blows prove ineffectual; so that the miserable patient is found alive, groaning in the utmost agony of torture. The Indian strings the scalps he has procured, to be produced as a testimony of his prowess, and receives a premium for each from the nation under whose banners he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Some of the slaves who incautiously exposed themselves were the first to suffer. A poor fellow was standing at the window next to me. A bullet struck him on the breast. It was fired from a tree, I suspect. Down he fell, crying out piteously, and writhing in his agony. It was very dreadful. Then the blood rushed out of his mouth in torrents, and he was quiet. I sprang forward, intending to help him. The pale light of the lantern fell on his countenance. He looked perfectly calm. I thought he ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... departed precipitately, and Mr. Worthington began to pace the room, clasping his hands now in front of him, now behind him, in his agony: repeating now and again various appellations which need not be printed here, which he applied in turn to the prudential committee, to his ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... kick with my foot. This made the flames leap up. By their light I saw that a fresh actor had come upon the stage and attracted the attention of the savage brutes. A huge serpent had crawled out from among the bushes. It sprang upon one of the dogs, which immediately, writhing in agony, sank on the ground. Instead of taking to flight, however, they rushed at the creature, one of them seizing it by the back, but not before one or two others were bitten. The rest then set on it, and tearing it to pieces, quickly ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hesper-Phosphor, far away Shining, the first, the last white star, Hear'st thou the strange, the ghostly cry, That moan of an ancient agony From purple forest to golden sky Shivering over the breathless bay? It is not the wind that wakes with the day; For see, the gulls that wheel and call, Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar, Catching the sun-dawn on their wings, Like snow-flakes or ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... rapidly passed his hands over his body. It felt unusually small and slim, Mr. Bultitude being endowed with what is euphemistically termed a "presence," and it was with an agony rarely felt at such a discovery that he realised that, for the first time for more than twenty years, he actually had ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... the popular agony. As darkness fell, Athens presented a strange sight—silent figures marching, one after another, towards where King Constantine was spending his last night in his capital. They made their forlorn pilgrimage ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... the attractive person that you are, by mortally transgressing His laws every day of your life?" I hear that question, and I am unspeakably overwhelmed by it. I quit the chair on which I have hitherto been leaning carelessly, and I prostrate myself in an agony of remorse on ...
— A Fair Penitent • Wilkie Collins
... sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; and only by accident had he ever come ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... betrayal of fainting, and struggled hard for such courage as I might attain by deadening myself to the danger I was in by inflicting intense pain on myself. You have often asked me the reason of that mark on my hand; it was where, in my agony, I bit out a piece of flesh with my relentless teeth, thankful for the pain, which helped to numb my terror. I say, I was but just concealed when I heard the window lifted, and one after another stepped over the sill, and stood by me so close that I could ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... does not know the same agony? To name a child, to give him a sign that shall go with him to his grave, and that shall fit that mystery of the cradle which time and temptation and trial shall alone reveal—hoc opus, hic labor est. Many fail by starting ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... playing, learning, creating something and living! Here, she lay sunken in a complete apathy, like a crushed soul that hardly dares at moments to think that it still exists and then again sinks into an agony which cannot, however, end in ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... she acknowledged the symbol of salvation in which she trusted, and received that absolution from her sins which her church considers necessary. Who can say how deeply she had repented of her misdeeds during the many hours of silent agony which ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... This was a young man of prepossessing exterior, who had recently moved in a higher sphere than either of his companions in suffering. His cheek was flushed when he entered, and he staggered forward, writhing in agony, and scarcely able to sustain himself. He looked at those who surrounded him as if he feared to discover some who had known him in the day of his pride. It was necessary to support him while his irons were being removed. He was attended by a benevolent person who commonly assists ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... of agony came from the stage. "Pack-e-r-r-! Where did you find this Missmiss understudy? Can't you get me people of experience? I really cannot bear this kind of thing—I can not!" And Potter flung himself upon the chair, leaving the slight ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... literal signification is not really susceptible of increase. Yet extremest has been used, and is still used, by some of the very best writers; as, "They thought it the extremest of evils."—Bacon. "That on the sea's extremest border stood."—Addison. "How, to extremest thrill of agony."—Pollok, B. viii, l. 270. "I go th' extremest remedy to prove."—Dryden. "In extremest poverty."—Swift. "The hairy fool stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook, augmenting ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... support that was suddenly and painfully experienced after each jump. He could see, very far off, the pink coat of "Owld Sta'" following a line which seemed each moment to be turning more directly for Madore, and in his agony he gave the pony an imprudent dig of the spur that sent her on and off a boggy fence in two goat-like bounds, and gave the sunlight opportunity to play intermittently upon the hollow seat of the saddle. She had never carried him so well, and as ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... C sharp minor. The biographers of Mendelssohn relate analogous instances of transposition under musical form. During a storm that almost engulfed George Sand, Chopin, alone in the house, under the influence of his agony, and half unconsciously, composed one of his Preludes. The case of Schumann is perhaps the most curious of all: "From the age of eight, he would amuse himself with sketching what might be called musical portraits, drawing by means of various turns of song ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... throng of aristocratic leaders, who fled precipitately on learning of the approach of Caesar. Pompeius sailed from Brundisium to Epirus. Cicero, who had ardently desired an accommodation between the rivals, was in an agony of doubt as to what course it was right and best for him to take, since he saw reason to dread the triumph of either side. Reluctantly he decided to cast in his lot with the Senate ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... ancestors, nor the ceremonies and rites which they observed in honor of their innumerable divinities, softened the severity of their character, or weakened their passion for war and bloody sports. Their hard and rigid wills were rarely moved by the cries of agony or the shrieks of despair. Their slavery was more cruel than among any nation of antiquity. Butchery and legalized murder were the delight of Romans in their conquering days, as were inhuman sports in the days of their political ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... Hatfield so charmingly; and another—why, you must allow me some share of female vanity: I don't pretend to be without that most essential attribute of our sex—and if you had seen poor Hatfield's intense eagerness in making his ardent declaration and his flattering proposal, and his agony of mind, that no effort of pride could conceal, on being refused, you would have allowed I had some ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... thing, Talpers never would have worn it. She might have been making a wild guess about the watch, but she certainly was not guessing about the money. Her certainty in mentioning the amount had given Bill a chill of terror from which he was slow in recovering. Another thing that was causing him real agony of spirit was the prominence of Lowell in affairs at the Greek Letter Ranch. It would be easy enough to hold the girl in check with that letter. She would never dare tell the authorities how much she knew about Talpers, as Bill could drag her into the case by producing his precious documentary ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... see the muscles of the serpents' tail stand out as the pressure was increased, and then could be plainly heard the breaking bones while the victim uttered wild screams of agony. ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... till Dr. Long could not spare her any longer; and then Lady Alison nursed her night after night and day after day, till she had worn herself into an illness, and when the doctors spoke of improvement, we only perceived worse agony. It was eight months before she was even lifted up in bed, and it was years before the burns ceased to be painful or the constitution at all recovered the shock; and even now weather tells on her, though ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... throats cut; women with bleeding heads and butchered bodies, stabbed through and through—and perhaps the awful specter of Lieutenant Boyd, with eyes and nails plucked out, and tongue cut off, bound to the stake and slowly roasting to death, while Walter Butler watched the agony curiously, interested and surprised to see a disemboweled ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... the noisome smell of mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking them to get him the book and put ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... resumed his seat, but the strength of his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle was apparent. With that dignity which never failed to signalize his official actions, he held up the bill for a moment in silence. He looked steadily around him on the last agony of the expiring Parliament. He at length repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion that THIS BILL do pass, say ay! The affirmative was languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued. Again ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... told me about what those women spend on their clothes—underclothes and furs and everything. Now there must be something wrong with a woman who can spend money on those things when she knows the agony of poverty right around her. You can't compare that sort of woman ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... and his innocence of any intentional disobedience to the Government; to all such representations his captors turned a deaf ear. Still more, no means were neglected by them, no note of preparation omitted, that could tend to increase the agony ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... prescribed devotions were betimes crowded out, and then he punished himself without mercy to redeem his failures. Whole nights and days together he lay upon his face crying to God, till he swooned in his agony. Everything his brother-monks could tell him he tried, but all the resources of their religion were powerless to comfort him or to beget a righteousness in which his ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... would have been exchanged, but the marshals, crossing their lances between them, compelled them to separate. The Disinherited Knight returned to his first station, and Bois-Guilbert to his tent, where he remained for the rest of the day in an agony of despair. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the anxieties and sorrow of poor Godwin. The blank lines drawn in his diary for Sunday 10th September 1797, show more than words how unutterable was his grief. During the time of his wife's patient agony he had managed to ask if she had any wishes concerning Fanny and Mary. She was fortunately able to reply that her faith in his wisdom ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... It was Warkworth's face, not as she had seen it last, but in some strange extremity of physical ill—drawn, haggard, in a cold sweat—the eyes glazed, the hair matted, the parched lips open as though they cried for help. She stood gazing. Then the eyes turned, and the agony in them looked ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... while his right—his pistol arm—lay bent in an unnatural direction, which showed that it was broken in more places than one. He was perfectly insensible, but that he was still alive was proved, as well by his hard and painful breathing, as by a low moan of agony to which he occasionally gave utterance. "How has this happened?" inquired I, turning away with a thrill ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... bread in his hand, and the little brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by Mr. Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never lighted the gloom of his infant years. And yet he burst into an agony of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him. Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the last agony, Sir. It will be comfortably dead and buried before long, with a neat little epitaph over it,—which is much the best way to dispose of them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... Near the powder-magazine is a hospital, which was shaken from foundation to roof: for an instant it had trembled violently as if it were going to fall. The nurses, dressers, and even the sick had rushed from the wards, shrieking in an agony of fear; the frightened horses, too, with blood streaming down their sides, pranced madly among the fugitives, or galloped away as fast as they ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... sexual relationships would be too great to permit its universal adoption even if it should be found to have no deleterious social effects. But the very fact that transient mating does involve so much human agony, especially on the part of the woman, is all the more reason why it is needless to add artificial burdens to those already compelled by the very nature of ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... on the cinema," said Nora. "The girl wavers about in an agony whether to tell or not, and wrings her hands and rolls her eyes, like they always do roll them on the films, and then, just when things are at the very last gasp, the husband tumbles over a precipice, or is wrecked at sea, or smashed in a railway ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... work had a peculiar and really unanalysable fascination for me. It was perhaps the directness of contact that pleased me. I suppose one felt that here at any rate one was doing immediate practical good, relieving distress and agony that must, by some one, be immediately relieved; and, at any rate, in the first days at M—— when the press of wounded was terrific (we treated, in one day and night, nine hundred wounded soldiers) ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... structure of the church but upon the summit of a rock fifteen feet higher than the main floor. At one side of this chapel, where the rock itself projects slightly above the floor, a figure of the Christ in dying agony is suspended upon the cross, and at the foot of the cross stand the figures of Mary, His mother, and St. John, both dejected and sorrowful. These figures appear to be made of gold and silver. The crowns on their heads are covered with diamonds, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... voices were hushed in blood, and agony, and death; one by one the shrieks of anguish were mingled with the shouts of praise; and these fair young spirits, so heroic under suffering and faithful unto death, had carried their song to join it with the psalm of the redeemed ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... splendidly, although there were times when it seemed to Will that his heart jumped into his throat with agony as he imagined that the whirling propeller, exposed to view by the rapid sweep of a billow, might be twisted from its shaft, and ruin ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... describe the feelings of the builder at the sight of the completed work of his rival. Despair and agony made his heart sink within him, but the Evil One looked with joy on his victim. When he suddenly tried to grasp him, Master Gerhard darted to the edge of the scaffolding with a heart-rending scream, and dashed himself down into the depth ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... what would he do, what would he be if he were here to-day? I do not presume to know. But what a loss we have in him! I have read that in some hard battle, when the tide was running against him, and his ranks were breaking, some one in the agony of a, need of generalship exclaimed, "Oh for an hour of Dundee!" So say I, Oh for an hour of Webster now! Oh for one more roll of that thunder inimitable! One more peal of that clarion! One more grave and bold counsel of moderation! One ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... Expecting to frighten off the creature, he slashed at it with his handkerchief, when it sprang at him with a fierce hiss, and, seizing his hand in its mouth, held on so tightly that he was unable to beat it off. He hastened home, nearly fainting with the agony he endured, and not till the creature's body was cut from the head could ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... and my gentle peer, Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, Thy end for ever and my life to moan? O, thou hast left me all alone! Thy soul and body, when death's agony Besieged around thy noble heart, Did not with more reluctance part Than I, my dearest Friend, do ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... would be obstacles in the well-regulated quiet village, but in the army might they not be overlooked, if accompanied by willing hands and heart? In the great haste, in the great excitement, in the great agony, might not the great tidings be delivered acceptably even by an inexperienced messenger? Thus I thought, and soon after the battle of Bull Run, I obtained an appointment as chaplain, joined the army, and remained with it until the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... reason; and though the form of childhood was there, its light heart, its merry laugh, and sparkling eyes were wanting. 'The father and mother looked on upon this, and upon each other, with thoughts of agony they dared not breathe in words. The healthy, strong-made man, who could have borne almost any fatigue of active exertion, was wasting beneath the close confinement and unhealthy atmosphere of a crowded prison. The slight and delicate woman was sinking beneath the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... was on his knees before Mr Pigtop, who was in an agony of pain, holding on his upper lip, which was nearly severed from his face, whilst the blood was streaming ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... a gesture of meek acknowledgment. "He mastered me with his cunning. Not a thing escaped him—every weakness, every shrinking, every faltering I had, seemed known to him; he kept me in an agony of suspense; rather than be hampered and embarrassed by him at every turn I tried to get rid of him ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... bear that!' and then it is all right. But if you try to dodge it, it's my experience that there comes a kind of back-wash which hurts very much indeed. Let the stream go over you, and then emerge. To fight against it simply prolongs the agony." He certainly recovered himself quicker than anyone I have ever known: indeed I think his recuperation was the best sign of his enormous vitality. "I'm sensitive," he said to me once, "but I'm tough—I have a fearful power of forgetting—it's much better than forgiving." ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... or seconds being present, they fired at each other, and Captain Boyd fell mortally wounded between the fourth and fifth ribs. A surgeon who came in shortly, found him sitting in a chair, vomiting and suffering great agony. He was led into another room, Major Campbell following, in great distress and perturbation of mind. Boyd survived but eighteen hours; and just before his death, said, in reply to a question from his opponent, that the duel was not fair, and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... been seven years younger. Stephen darted after him, Ambrose rushed after Stephen, and breaking through the trees, they beheld the dog at the throat of one of three men. As they came on the scene, the dog was torn down and hurled aside, giving a howl of agony, which infuriated his master. Letting fly his crossbow bolt full at the fellow's face, he dashed on, reckless of odds, waving his knotted stick, and shouting with rage. Ambrose, though more aware of the madness of such an assault, still hurried to his support, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... represent Alexander the Great, is drawn with great beauty and vigor. Charging, bareheaded, in the midst of the fight, he has transfixed with his lance one of the Persian leaders, whose horse, wounded in the shoulder, had already fallen. The expression of physical agony in the countenance of the wounded man is admirably depicted. Another horse, which an attendant had brought for him, has arrived too late. The death of the Persian general has evidently decided the fortune of the day. In the background, the Persian spears ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... five minutes the dark figure stood there, with the huge shoulders bent forward so as to bring the head down to the level of the glass; while behind him, though not nearly so large, the shadowy form of the other Indian swayed to and fro like a bent tree. While I waited in an agony of suspense and agitation for their next movement little currents of icy sensation ran up and down my spine and my heart seemed alternately to stop beating and then start off again with terrifying rapidity. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the old friar's lips. He writhed his body in the bed, and the manifestation of his agony became more and more intense. The eager impatient air of the Commissary changed itself into one of persistent dogged determination; and he quietly drew from his pocket a note-book and the means of writing ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... to Billy's playful demonstration of the weak points in the human anatomy. He pressed the tip of a finger into the middle of her forearm, and she knew excruciating agony. On either side of her neck, at the base, he dented gently with his thumbs, and she ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... Caricatures of Boswell's Journal is entitled Revising for the Second Edition. Macdonald is represented as seizing Boswell by the throat and pointing with his stick to the Journal that lies open at pages 168, 169. On the ground lie pages 165, 167, torn out. Boswell, in an agony of fear, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Ginevra's pictures, her portrait, and the few articles of furniture which they could still exist without, and sold them for a miserable sum, which prolonged the agony of the hapless household for a time. During these days of wretchedness Ginevra showed the sublimity of her nature and the extent ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... alarm was on account of her brother and sister. While the tumult yet raged around, she rushed, guided by Matty's screams, to a spot where she found the poor girl trembling in an agony of terror. ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... upon the ground, thy sinister arm Adjuring heaven, thy soul broke forth in tones Of thunder; but thy agony in that hour Pale ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... were scarcely suppressed. She struggled no longer than till she reached the little chamber where she and Annie had passed the night. The hours that she was suffered to remain there alone were passed in such an agony of grief and home-sickness as the poor child never suffered from before. She quite exhausted herself at last; and when Mrs McIntyre came to call her to dinner, she found her ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... from subtle silk of agony Our veils of lamentable flesh are spun, Since Time in spoiling violates, and we In that strait Pass of Pangs may be undone, Since the mere natural flower and withering Of these our bodies terribly distil Strange poisons, since ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... utter a word of remonstrance, I felt a shooting pain in my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind, and the Stranger began to reappear, saying, as he gradually increased in size, "There, I have not hurt you much, have I? If you are not convinced now, I don't know what will convince you. What ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... had listened while a woman who had been near San Francisco at the time of the earthquake and fire endeavoured to describe what was in truth indescribable, how the very air itself was at that time charged with a poignancy of agony—an impalpable spiritual agony, apart from such physical cause as heat and fire, an agony which arose from the grief of thousands of ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Death, Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they; For it can burst his charnel, and make free 405 The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, The soul in dust and chaos. Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow; There is a path on the sea's azure floor, 410 No keel has ever ploughed that path before; The halcyons brood around the foamless ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... God has told me what to do. The first great crisis of this sort came to me in Syracuse. While living there I received a pastoral call from the Second Reformed Church of Philadelphia. Six weeks of agony followed. ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Nina's long canoe drift silently past the sleeping house of Bulangi, bearing the two lovers into the white mist of the great river. Her jealousy and rage culminated into a paroxysm of physical pain that left her lying panting on the river bank, in the dumb agony of a wounded animal. But she went on moving patiently in the enchanted circle of slavery, going through her task day after day with all the pathos of the grief she could not express, even to herself, locked within her breast. She shrank from Nina as she would have shrunk from the sharp blade ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... the younger children scarcely noticed that their treasures were actually burning up, also, till Kenneth suddenly caught sight of his "Dacob," writhing, and curling, and jumping about in the most uncanny way, as if in mortal agony. The poor baby darted ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... grass writhed and swirled as if in agony, and dashed high in waves of green and yellow. The corn-leaves had rolled up into long cords like the lashes of a whip, and beat themselves into tatters on the dry, smooth spot their blows had made beneath them; they seemed ready to turn to flame in the pitiless, furnace-like blast. Everywhere ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... one battle as a variety of battles: every garden and orchard became a scene of deadly contest; every inch of ground was disputed with an agony of grief and valor by the Moors; every inch of ground that the Christians advanced they valiantly maintained, but never did they advance with severer fighting ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving |
