"Convulse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... expensive war, growing out of this strengthening of the slave power, had just terminated, adding to the Union still larger territories—now free soil indeed, but furnishing a field for renewed battles between slavery and liberty. New revolutions were about to break forth in Europe, to convulse the Eastern Hemisphere, and cause old thrones to ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... shutting the door himself, he said he was glad to find me alone, for that he wished a free conversation with me. He entered immediately on an explanation of the situation of our affairs with France, and the danger of rupture with that nation, a rupture which would convulse the attachments of this country; that he was impressed with the necessity of an immediate mission to the Directory; that it would have been the first wish of his heart to have got me to go there, but that he supposed it was out of the question, as it did not seem ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... consider more at leisure these revelations. He foreread like a placard Jeanne d'Etoiles' magnificent scheme: it would convulse all Europe. England would remain supine, because Henry Pelham could hardly hold the ministry together, even now; Newcastle was a fool; and Ormskirk would be dead. He would barter his soul for one hour of liberty, he thought. A riot, now,—ay, a riot in Paris, a blow from within, would temporarily ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... coming doom. Then in the Senates of your sinking state Show me the man whose counsels may have weight. Vain is each voice where tones could once command; E'en factions cease to charm a factious land: Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle, And light with maddening ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... struck up "Money Musk" on his fiddle, old and young fell into their places for a dance. All down the long kitchen they stood, Mr. and Mrs. Bassett at the top, the twins at the bottom, and then away they went, heeling and toeing, cutting pigeon-wings, and taking their steps in a way that would convulse modern children with their new-fangled romps called dancing. Mose and Tilly covered themselves with glory by the vigor with which they kept it up, till fat Aunt Cinthy fell into a chair, breathlessly declaring that a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the government. Such a man we know; but as we are writing without either his knowledge or consent, we do not feel ourselves called upon to pursue this important subject further. All we can say is, that the violent opposition which is now organized against tithes, and which is already beginning to convulse the country, will, and even now does require, the active courage and decided ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... commotions shook him, and made flush All the immortal fairness of his limbs; Most like the struggle at the gate of death; Or liker still to one who should take leave Of pale immortal death, and with a pang As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse Die into life: so young Apollo anguish'd: 130 His very hair, his golden tresses famed Kept undulation round his eager neck. During the pain Mnemosyne upheld Her arms as one who prophesied.—At length Apollo shriek'd;—and lo! from all his limbs Celestial * * * * ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... temptation nor the ability to interfere in the political conflicts of the country. Not deriving their charters from the national authorities, they would never have those inducements to meddle in general elections which have led the Bank of the United States to agitate and convulse the country for upward ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... convulse the church had not yet begun. 'You may smile,' Mr. Gladstone said long after, 'when told that when I was at Oxford, Dr. Hampden was regarded as a model of orthodoxy; that Dr. Newman was eyed with suspicion as a low churchman, and Dr. Pusey as leaning ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... inaction. In amplifying his instructions not to provoke a collision into instructions not to fight at all, I have no doubt he thought he was rendering a real service to the country. He knew the first shot fired by us would light the flames of a civil war that would convulse the world, and tried to put off the evil day as long as possible. Yet a better analysis of the situation might have taught him that the contest had already commenced, and could no longer be avoided. The leaders of the South at ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... gasconading manner in which he had been indulging, and, in a low voice, added, "In real earnest, Windham, there is one thing in America which is, every year, every month, every day, forcing on a war from which there can be no escape; a war which will convulse the republic and endanger its existence; yes, Sir, a war which will deluge the land with blood from one ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Even in a home so obscure and so devoted to other pursuits and interests as ours, the spirit of the times made its way, and our own peculiar occupations became less interesting to us than the intense national importance of the public questions which were beginning to convulse the country from end to end. About this time I met with a book which produced a great and not altogether favorable effect upon my mind (the blame resting entirely with me, I think, and not with what I read). I had become moody and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... convulse the slumbering South like an earthquake, and convince her that her only alternative is, to abolish slavery, or be abandoned by that power on which she ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... water systems. The old-fashioned open water sewers still remain, however, lending to the place, a rich, ripe odor. Pnom-Penh possesses a spacious and well ventilated motion-picture house, where Charlie Chaplin known to the French as "Charlot" and Fatty Arbuckle convulse the simple children of the jungle just as they convulse more sophisticated assemblages on the other side of ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... befit Sir Robert Peel, the strangely-contrasted son of the great Free Trader. Peel was naturally an orator. He could make the most slashing onslaughts without the appearance of ill-temper, and could convulse the House with laughter while he himself remained to all appearance unconscious of the fun. His voice, pronounced by Gladstone the most beautiful he ever heard in Parliament, was low, rich, melodious, and flexible. His appearance was striking and rather un-English, his gestures ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... anything, and loved to do it. If the girls were in despair about a fire-place when acting "The Cricket on the Hearth," he painted one, and put a gas-log in it that made the kettle really boil, to their great delight. If the boys found the interest of their club flagging, Ralph would convulse them by imitations of the "Member from Cranberry Centre," or fire them with speeches of famous statesmen. Charity fairs could not get on without him, and in the store where he worked he did many an ingenious job, which made him valued for his mechanical skill, as well as for his energy ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... pessimists when they were melancholy, and optimists when they were happy. But the optimist of to-day seems obliged to prove that gout and unrequited love make him dance with joy, and the pessimist of to-day to prove that sunshine and a good supper convulse him with inconsolable anguish. Carlyle was strongly possessed with this mania for spiritual consistency. He wished to take the same view of the wars of the angels and of the paltriest riot at Donnybrook Fair. It ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... of self-defence compel me to draw the sword which I had, in inclination and intention, sheathed for ever. History, and our own experience to some extent, abounds with monitory lessons, that personal disputes may convulse churches, that ecclesiastical controversies may convulse provinces, and lead to the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... if they told me so I could convulse the heavens with my horror. I think I could alter the frame of things in my agony. I think I could break the System with my heart. I think, in my convulsion, ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... penciled brows contracted, and the eyes flashed brightly—oh! far more brightly than glanced the ray of the morning sun through the windows, upon the glossy surface of her luxuriant hair. A momentary spasm seemed to convulse the full and rounded form; and the small, elegantly shaped foot which peered from beneath her flowing robe, tapped the floor ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... fantastic burlesque, in the comic-terrible, he was unrivalled and inimitable. In the domestic drama he could hardly be surpassed, but he might be approached. Webster, Emery, Addison, could play Daddy Hardacre, or the father in "The Porter's Knot"; but none but himself could at once awe and convulse in Medea and the Yellow Dwarf. These domestic dramas interested, however, as much by their subject as by the excellence of his acting. Moreover, the public are apt sometimes to grow weary of burlesques,—their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... and his comrade went slowly up the avenue, devoutly hoping that the coast was clear; for he was the bearer of tidings which would, he thought, convulse the entire family ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... the horse and his master out of which grew so many aspects of sublimity under accidents of mists that hid, or sudden blazes that revealed, of mobs that agitated, or midnight solitudes that awed. Tidings fitted to convulse all nations must henceforwards travel by culinary process; and the trumpet that once announced from afar the laurelled mail, heart-shaking when heard screaming on the wind and proclaiming itself through the darkness to every ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... one more fitting; the situation of the bite renders necessary the whole action of the limbs";—and another critic says, "In the group of the Laocon, the breast is expanded and the throat contracted to show that the agonies that convulse the frame are borne in silence." In striking contrast with such testimonies to the scientific truth to Nature in Grecian Art was the objection I once heard an American back-woods mechanic make to this celebrated work; he asked why the figures were seated in a row on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... be a challenge, not a truce! This is my homage to the mightier powers, To ask my boldest question, undismayed By muttered threats that some hysteric sense Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, They all must err who have to feel their way As bats that fly at noon; for what are we But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, Who needs must stumble, and with stammering ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... about aimlessly. She never tired of the old woman's pungent reminiscences, browsing at intervals on the old magazines and books that were scattered over the house, even going into the kitchen to convulse the appreciative Henny, and make a cake or pudding ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... remembrance of the menace on Morella's dull face as she had watched Theodora depart, and, above all, Wensleydown's behavior as they all said good-night: nothing for him actually to take hold of, and yet enough to convulse him ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... on yon lofty tower, View'st the calm floods that wildly beat below, Be off!—yon sunbeam veils a heavy shower, Which sets my heart with joy a aching, oh! For why, O maid, with locks of jetty flax, Should grief convulse my heart with joyful knocks? It is but reasonable you should ax, Because it soundeth like a paradox. Hear, then, bright virgin! if the rain comes down, 'Twill wet the roads, and spoil my morning ride; But it will also spoil thy bran-new gown, ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... dogs, and a facility in the management of boats, guns, and fishing tackle that made him an indisputable authority on all matters of the sort. His stock of stories was immense, his wit always ready and very comical. He could convulse a dinner-party when everything else failed, by making ridiculous faces. Among ladies of all ages he was a sort of conquering hero. He was consequently in general social demand as the life ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... ills, that age has been endowed with, levelling all to their will, contracting all to the limit of their stinted nature, making of all its glories but 'rubbish, offal to illuminate their vileness,'—the fact that the power which enables creatures like these, to convulse nations with their whims, and deluge them with blood, at their pleasure,—which puts the lives and liberties of the noblest, always most obnoxious to them, under their heel—the fact that this power ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... unsettle, disturb, confuse, trouble, perturb, jumble, tumble; shuffle, randomize; huddle, muddle, toss, hustle, fumble, riot; bring into disorder, put into disorder, throw into disorder &c 59; muss [U.S.]; break the ranks, disconcert, convulse; break in upon. unhinge, dislocate, put out of joint, throw out of gear. turn topsy-turvy &c (invert) 218; bedevil; complicate, involve, perplex, confound; imbrangle^, embrangle^, tangle, entangle, ravel, tousle, towzle^, dishevel, ruffle; rumple &c (fold) 258. litter, scatter; mix &c 41. rearrange ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... as it is thoroughly amusing; and, it be added, in such a piece, sentiment is as much out of place as would be plain matter-of-fact conduct or dialogue. To see Mr. PENLEY in the elderly Aunt's dress is to convulse the house without his uttering a word. To see him enjoying himself with the young ladies while threatened by their lovers, who cannot take them away without compromising themselves, is delicious. Then, when after dinner he is alone with the ladies, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 28, 1893 • Various
... Yankee phantoms? What is all this chattering of bare gums? Does the ague convulse your limbs? Do you mistake your crutches for ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... cheerful spirits. No atrocities of oppression could excite his indignation. He could thrust his keen dagger points into the vitals of his antagonist, with a smile upon his face and jokes upon his lips which would convulse both friend and foe with laughter. He was the most unrelenting antagonist of Governor Denny in the Assembly, and yet he was the only man who remained on good terms with the governor, visiting him, ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... wildly, but with a last nimble skip the panting Hatter made for the Griffon's ladder and, seating himself upon it, refused to respond beyond a nod and a careless wave of his hand. Later he left his perch and proceeded to convulse his audience by sitting on his tall hat and taking a bite from his teacup, the three-cornered bite having been carefully removed beforehand and held temporarily in place with library paste until ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... seizing the maid by her dark auburn hair, An oil-jug he plung'd her within. Seven days, seven nights, with the shrieks of despair Did Ellen in torment convulse the dim air, All cover'd with oil to ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Rudolstadt, Albert, loves Consuelo, which seems, in the conduct of the relation, a type of a religious democracy in love with the spirit of art. We do not mean that any such cold abstraction is consciously intended, but all that is said means this. It shadows forth one of the greatest desires which convulse ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... course of one of the numerous revolutions that so often convulse the South American Republics, the latter vessel had become little better than a pirate, by levying contributions on various seaport towns, but having been venturesome enough to deal with British vessels in the same way, the Shah and the Amethyst were sent to ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... The Senator copies the British officer who, with boastful swagger, said that with the hilt of his sword he would cram the "stamps" down the throats of the American people, and he will meet a similar failure. He may convulse this country with a civil feud. Like the ancient madman, he may set fire to this Temple of Constitutional Liberty, grander than the Ephesian dome; but he cannot enforce obedience ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... of High Church curates, or a hornpipe by Mr. T. P. Cooke, would not be more out of the key; though the gravity of a Scots audience was not to be overcome, and they merely expressed their disapprobation by a round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of Christmas fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from pit to gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told, the Italian tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach than the observance. With the total disappearance of these damsels, with a stronger Lady Macbeth, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... State, than by enacting it into a law, which in my opinion would be impolitic, admitting there is a decided majority for it, to the disquiet of a respectable minority. In the former case, the matter will soon subside; in the latter, it will rankle and perhaps convulse the State." ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... and disgraceful quarrels convulse high life. The lower ranks are ruled only by the revolver. The criminal stalks boldly, unpunished, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I saw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and laughed ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Nations fight, the little mortals who represent them have only the faintest idea of what is really going on, of what the warfare means. They feel the sweep of immense passions; ecstasies and horrors convulse and dislocate their minds; but they do not, cannot, understand. And the dear creatures in the trenches and the firing-lines give their lives—equally beautiful, equally justified, on both sides: fascinated, rapt, beyond and beside themselves, as foes hating each other with ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... awful visitations, spiritual appearances; ghosts in white sheets, with bleeding bosoms: hobgoblins with saucer eyes, fierce claws, and long tails; and catastrophes so tremendous as to set the hair on end, and convulse the whole frame with the delight of tenor, and the ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... for mirth from the most trivial matters. Incidents that would not provoke a smile individually, convulse them collectively. Men under restraint in ranks are particularly infectious from the influence of the passions. With lightning-like rapidity, to misapply a ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... the role of a dignified bridegroom," smiled Mrs. Harlowe. "He is far more likely to convulse the wedding party and upset the whole solemn service than to conduct ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... that, with the money these treasures represented, he would be in a position to convulse the money markets of Europe and America, bring society to his feet, make and unmake kingdoms—dominate, in short, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... streak, Arise; and, as the clouds along them break, Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer; Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, And gathering storms around convulse the closing year. ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... which now convulse and disorganize society under the name of democracy, have an extensive and powerful sway in the United States, and ferment there with all the contagious errors and destructive vices which they involve. But they have hitherto been controlled ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Sam? Well, you are in a nice fix!" and Ben's eyes began to twinkle with mischievous merriment, as well they might, for Sam certainly was a spectacle to convulse the soberest person. Perched unsteadily on the gnarled stump, with his muddy legs drawn up, his dismal face splashed with mud, and the whole lower half of his body as black as if he had been dipped in an inkstand, he presented such a comically doleful object ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... moment the waiter entered, he went on with the utmost readiness—"or, as it seems, the Queen of Hungary will never make good her claims. Pray, sir," turning to Major Delavie, "have you ever seen these young Archduchesses whose pretensions seem likely to convulse the continent to ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fortune with your turbulent border chiefs; and if, in the strife that will soon convulse this land, thou meetest Konrad of Salzberg, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... they laughed, for the expression of his face was droll enough to convulse a Quaker, as he stood and stared wildly from the unconscious innocents to the hilarious spectators with such dismay that Jo sat down on the floor ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... and that which appeared to enter the body did not pierce it at all. But, were it worth while to dwell on a subject so ridiculous, we might recollect that in so terrible an agony of shame as is likely to convulse a human being under such a trial, and such personal insults, the blood is apt to return to the heart, and a slight wound, as with a pin, may be inflicted without being followed by blood. In the latter end of the seventeenth century this childish, indecent, and brutal ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... had endured for five hundred years, and under which the insignificant town on the Tiber had risen to unprecedented greatness and glory, had sunk its roots into the soil to a depth beyond human ken, and no one could at all calculate to what extent the attempt to overthrow it would penetrate and convulse civil society. Several rivals had been outrun by Pompeius in the race towards the great goal, but had not been wholly set aside. It was not at all beyond reach of calculation that all these elements might combine to overthrow the new holder of power, and that Pompeius might find Quintus Catulus ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... set before thee things which in silence will [make thee] give utterance to such delight, and so terrify thee as to cause thee to wish to take flight. Painting stirs the senses more readily than poetry. And if thou sayest that by speech thou canst convulse a crowd with laughter or tears, I rejoin that it is not thou who stirrest the crowd, it is the pathos of the orator, and his mirth. A painter once painted a picture which caused everybody who saw it ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... purity, in grief, | | To eat the vile tobacco leaf. | | Know this my friend, a poisoned brain, | | Can not a poisoned thought refrain. | | A heart that beats with poisoned pulse; | | Will any moral mind convulse. | | Alcohol and Tobacco food, | | To feed the mind with, is not good. | | It causes one when e're he speaks, | | To imitate the weeds and snakes. | | And thus his poison he'll impart | | From mind to mind from heart to heart. | | ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... which he radiated good humor, intelligence, benevolence, told stories and jokes that kept the little company shouting with laughter, and finally rose and got off an impromptu piece of doggerel with exactly ten verses, and each child's name and some peculiarity brought out in a way to convulse even mammas and the maids, was as indescribable as delightful. I am not sure that he did not enjoy it more than any of the grand entertainments that he had been asked to; and as for the children, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... the envelopes, which the boy did. The manager did not look toward it in any manner; but took it in the tips of his right fingers, held it in the air, and asked the medium to give the writer of this question a test. The medium shivered a few times, allowed his frame to convulse ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... absurd horizontal system, and none exceeding twenty per cent. It was then pressed through under the great emergency of the public necessities. But I may now recur to what I then said, namely, that its principle was false and dangerous, and that, when its time came, it would rack and convulse our system. I said we should not get rid of it without throes and spasms. Has not this been as predicted? We have felt the spasms and throes of this convulsion; but we have at last gone through them, and begin to breathe again. It is something that that act is ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... excited to great action. Pausing, she would declaim verse of others or her own; act many parts, with strange catch-words and burdens that seemed to act with mystical power on her own fancy, sometimes stimulating her to convulse the hearer with laughter, sometimes to melt him to tears. When her power began to languish, she would spin again till fired to recommence her singular drama, into which she wove figures from the ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... resignation of his office, with the giving up of his law-chamber in London, and his evident premonitions of the sore troubles in affairs of Church and State which were soon to convulse his native land, doubtless guided him to a decision, some of the stages and incidents of which have left no record for us. Enough, however, of the process may still be traced among papers which have recently come to light, to open ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... nation is thrown back fifty years; this, of itself, is an important result. When the first moment of enthusiasm is past, this reflexion will fill them with consternation." The conclusion which he drew was, that so violent a shock would convulse the throne of Alexander, and force that prince to sue ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... mishaps, mortifications, confusions, and agonizing mental and physical distresses of a self-conscious, hypersensitive, appallingly bashful young man, in a succession of astounding accidents, and ludicrous predicaments, that convulse the reader with cyclonic laughter, causing him to hold both sides for fear of exploding from ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... I was and weary of the ways of the world, I was conscious of a sudden pang of sympathy and grief as I looked upon the spasm of despair which, seemed to convulse this strange and beautiful woman. I bent to my books, and yet my thoughts would ever turn to her proud clear-cut face, her weather-stained dress, her drooping head, and the sorrow which lay in each line and feature of ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... then Davy began to laugh. First came a low gurgle like that of suppressed bubbles in a fountain, then a sharp, crackling breaker of sound, and then a long, deep roar of liberated mirth that seemed to shake and heave the whole man, and to convulse the ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... arm! May Aetna's fires Convulse the land; to its foundation shake The groaning isle! May civil discord bear Her flaming brand through all the realms of Greece; And the whole race expire in ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... correspondent of a Parisian journal and gives his impression of things American as he sees them, in a series of letters to his "small Journal for to Read." Their seemingly unconscious humor is so deliciously absurd that it will convulse the reader with laughter in nearly every line. There is no dialect in them, and their humor lies entirely in the peculiar views set forth, as well as the grotesque language in which they are expressed. No book ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... feet and the hem of her dress and beg her to listen to him . . . Then again, when he remembered the whole tragedy of the situation, he felt like springing up from his chair and smashing everything that came in his way; or again such a violent grief would convulse him that he could have cried ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... jar, jolt, convulse, concuss, jounce, dodder, tremble, trill, shiver, totter, joggle, jiggle, wave, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... castigated pulse Gies now and then a wallop, What ragings must his veins convulse, That still eternal gallop: Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, Right on ye scud your sea-way; But in the teeth o' baith to sail, It ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... of life— 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep 345 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings.—WE decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... offend her," he retracted. His ropy throat muscles seemed to convulse. His long face flamed hotly red. He burst out, as though unable to control himself: "My savvy allatime you no savvy! Ni buh yao t[i] na go hwa! Djan go chue, ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... repeated the dark Wacousta, while an expression of loathing and disgust seemed for a moment to convulse his features; "then is it as I had feared. One word more. Was the family seat ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... to any political or religious contest need a standard—some outward sign which appeals to the eye and the intelligence of all. The most serious of the political questions that convulse France to-day are symbolized and summed up in the color of a flag; and thus in the Russian conflict between popular obstinacy and the modern propagandism the rallying-sign of the Old Believers, and the emblem of the champions of nationality and conservatism, was the beard. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... severely. "See how you all treat an event that is wonderful enough to convulse the National Academy of Science. I do not believe the psychic's hands have moved an inch, and yet, unless some one of you is false to his trust, the miraculous has happened—Are you there, 'Wilbur?'" I queried of the ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... and unconciliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is an change for the better, like birth and death which convulse the body. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... her dark auburn hair, An oil jug he plung'd her within. Seven days seven nights, with the shrieks of despair, Did Ellen in torment convulse the dun air, All covered with ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... Caribbee islands of Mexico, of Guatimala, and of the table-land of Quito; when we examine either the reactions of these different systems of volcanoes on one another, or the distance at which, by subterranean communication, they simultaneously convulse the earth. (I have already observed (Chapter 1.2) that the whole group of the Canary Islands rises, as we may say, above one and the same submarine volcano. Since the sixteenth century, the fire of this volcano has burst forth alternately in Palma, Teneriffe, and Lancerote. Auvergne ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... elevated situation." Told by the venerable judge at a recent dinner of 'Old Paulines,' this story was not less effective than the best of those post-prandial sallies with which William St. Julien Arabin—the Assistant Judge of Old Bailey notoriety—used to convulse his auditors something more than thirty years since. In the 'Arabiniana' it is recorded how this judge, in sentencing an unfortunate woman to a long term of transportation, concluded his address with—"You must go out of the country. You ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... wisdom to entertain. Yet he may not unnaturally seek to regain the former Norman influence in these realms. He knows that in you he receives the most powerful man in England; that your detention alone would convulse the country from one end of it to the other; and enable him, perhaps, to extort from Edward some measures dishonourable to us all. But against me he can harbour no ill design—my detention would avail him nothing. And, in truth, if Harold be safe in England, Gurth must be safe in Rouen? Thy ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... or by the syncope of a chuckle, move his audience at pleasure to tears or to laughter. He could haunt their memories for years afterwards with the infinite tenderness of his ejaculation as Hamlet, of "The fair Ophelia!" He could convulse them with merriment by his hesitating utterance as Falstaff of "A shirt—and a half!" Incidentally it is remarked by the biographer of Henderson that the qualifications requisite to constitute a reader of especial excellence seem to be these, "a good ear, a voice capable of inflexion, an understanding ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... remembered, that the struggle in America is for place, not for principle; for whichever party obtains power, their principle of acting is much the same. Occasionally a question of moment will come forward and nearly convulse the Union, but this is very rare; the general course of legislation is in a very narrow compass, and is seldom more than a mere routine of business. With the majority, who lead a party, (particularly the one at present in power), the contest is ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which prevent domestic enjoyment, the bickerings and jealousies of families with their various alliances—all the animosities which agitate social life—all the intestine broils, ambitious emulations, endless contentions, and opposing interests that distract a state—all the melancholy wars that convulse nations and desolate empires, the record of which has stained the page of history in all ages—with every particular, form, and mode of evil, discoverable in ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... conflicting principles of absolutism and democracy; but there has been no general war, like those of the French Revolution, like the American, or the Seven Years' War, or like the War of the Spanish Succession. It would be far too much to augur from this, that no similar wars will again convulse the world; but the value of the period of peace which Europe has gained, is incalculable; even if we look on it as only a truce, and expect again to see the nations of the earth recur to what some philosophers have termed man's natural state ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... the besieging sea Throb far away all night. I heard the wind Fly crying, and convulse tumultuous palms. I rose and strolled. The isle was all bright sand, And flailing fans and shadows of the palm: The heaven all moon, and wind, and the blind vault - The keenest planet slain, for Venus slept. The King, my neighbour, with his host of wives, Slept in the precinct of the palisade: ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... called in this university a "Thorpism" from Mr. Thorp, formerly a hosier of some note in the city. He was famous for making blunders and coining new words, was very fond of making long speeches, and when upon the toe, never failed to convulse his hearers with laughter. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... found it hard to keep her temper. Her temper surprised even herself. It seemed to be giving way, and she trembled with rage at things that before would not have stirred an unquiet thought in her mind. Remembrances of the passions that used to convulse her when a child returned to her. As is generally the case, there was right on both sides. Her life, it must be confessed, was woven about with temptations. Dick's character easily engendered suspicion, and when the study of the ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... and honorable, and should in our government be alike used and honored; but as creatures of sex, the female is fitter than the male for administration of constructive social interests. The change in governmental processes which marks our times is a change in principle. Two great movements convulse the world to-day, the woman's movement and the labor movement. Each regards the other as of less moment than itself. Both are parts of ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... between North and South, for the principle of class and caste knows neither latitude or longitude. It was a war of ideas—of Aristocracy and Democracy—of Capital and Labor—the same that has convulsed the race through the ages, and will continue to convulse future generations, until Justice and Equality shall ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... a system of oppression, kindred to the famous Stamp Act—a system which was destined to grow more and more intolerable under Governor Tryon's administration, and to lead to the formation of the famous company of Regulators, whose resistance of taxation and tyranny was soon to convulse the whole State. ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... ascertaining native opinion on the future of Rhodesia was in question), may not sound particularly funny, but, when delivered in a voice of peculiar penetration and "Scotchiness," at precisely the right moments, they were sufficient to convulse the Benches. Mr. MACQUISTEN must be careful or he will ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... men to keep in view the subject of the wide-spreading cholera, and not to suffer themselves to be led from an attentive consideration of all that appertains to it, by the great political questions which at present convulse ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... and diplomatic affairs in this state and with Austria still holding out for her impossible conditions, 'twas easy for Dumouriez and the war party to browbeat the wellnigh desperate King into a declaration of hostilities that was to convulse the whole of Europe for nearly a quarter of a century. This was done on the 20th of April, three days after Mr. Calvert had joined Lafayette at Metz, and was almost instantly followed by orders from Dumouriez to that general to advance with ten thousand ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... Think on the wars men have fought for lies, on the millions of followers lies have had—how from their lofty seats they govern empires, convulse continents, and drive patient nations mad. Think on the money they have made, the mouths they have filled, the backs they have warmed, the houses they have built, the reputations they have created, the systems they have propped, the books they have sent out, the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... Deep hollows appeared in his cheeks. The minutes seemed to age him like long years of sickness. The sight of him suggested the faces of the dying martyrs in certain primitive pictures. Nothing short of physical pain can thus convulse the features of a man's countenance. And he really suffered as much as if he were being stretched on the rack and burnt with red-hot pincers. Nevertheless, he felt that his mind remained lucid, as must be that of the martyrs undergoing torture, and he clearly understood ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... Convict (man) kondamnulo. Convict kondamnato. Conviction kondamno. Convince konvinki. Convocation kunvoko. Convolution konvolvado—ajxo. Convolvulus konvolvulo. Convoy veturilaro. Convulse konvulsii. Convulsion kunvulsio. Cook kuiri. Cook (man) kuiristo. Cookery kuirado. Cool malvarmetigi. Cool malvarmeta. Coolness malvarmeto. Coop kagxego. Coop kagxigi. Cooper barelisto. Co-operation kunhelpo—ado. Copeck kopeko. Copier ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... perhaps, the finest in the whole play, and brings out all the striking points of Helen's character, to which I have already alluded. We must not fail to remark, that though the acknowledgment is wrung from her with an agony which seems to convulse her whole being, yet when once she has given it solemn utterance, she recovers her presence of mind, and asserts her native dignity. In her justification of her feelings and her conduct, there is neither ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... much less violent, paroxysm followed. From Jeanne's lips burst some broken words. At short intervals two fresh attacks seemed about to convulse her, and then a great prostration, which again appeared to alarm the doctor, fell on the child. He had placed her so that her head lay high, with the clothes carefully tucked under her chin; and for nearly an hour he remained ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... such in China; a decoction of it certainly performs this operation; yet, by long use, it is drunk by many without such an effect. The infusion also, when it is made strong, and stands long to draw the grosser particles, will convulse the bowels: even in the manner commonly used, it has this effect on some constitutions, as I have already remarked to you from my ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... head waiter, and having donned a clean white blouse of Hop Yet's and his best cap with the red button, from which dangled a hastily improvised queue of black worsted, he proceeded to convulse everybody with his Mongolian antics. These consisted of most informal remarks in clever pigeon English, and snatches of Chinese melody, rendered from time to time as he carried dishes into the kitchen. Elsie laughed until she cried, and Laura sat in the shadiest corner, her head artistically ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her that it was of a kind to convulse Mrs. Lupin, for whose seizures she could never accurately account; and looking round, she perceived, sure enough, that little forlorn body agitated, with a handkerchief to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith |
