"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seized the letter with a gasp. "It—it's the same stationery he uses," she said, with a note of thankfulness. "I—I guess it's all right. I'll run right ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... seemed to be grinding only sand between their teeth. They lost the count of time. They dared not sleep, for that would have meant being buried alive. The could only crouch close to the leaning rock, shake off the sand, blindly dig out their packs, and every moment gasp and cough and choke to ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... thought she would drag another while. There was no time for the priest itself to overtake her, or to put the little dress of the Virgin in her hand at the last gasp of death. ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... orderly piles of documents. At first sight, the years seemed to have passed over Michael's head leaving him untouched; but, as Ivan stepped into the light of a low-hanging lamp, his father gave a sudden start, a hoarse gasp, and then fell back into his chair again—an old man. Ivan, though he had been gripping himself for the ordeal, felt himself turn slowly white, closed his eyes for an instant, and reopened them to meet the ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... worthy price. Oh, innocent compared with arts like these, Crape and cocked pistol and the whistling ball Sent through the traveller's temples! He that finds One drop of heaven's sweet mercy in his cup, Can dig, beg, rot, and perish well-content, So he may wrap himself in honest rags At his last gasp; but could not for a world Fish up his dirty and dependent bread From pools and ditches of the commonwealth, Sordid and sickening at his ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... his handkerchief, and passed it over his face with a gasp of relief. "There is my last chance!" he said. "If she will be true to me—if she will be always near me, morning, noon, and night, I shall be released from the sight of him. See! he is fading away ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... gods! Direct me to thy knees: yet, oh forbear, Lest the dead embers should revive. Stand off, and at just distance Let me groan my horrors!—here On the earth, here blow my utmost gale; Here sob my sorrows, till I burst with sighing; Here gasp and languish out ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... shadow that I crossed," I said. "Its chill was but a touch of frost. It made me gasp, but quickly I came through, With breath recovered ere ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... with a gasp of dismay. She did not want Maggie to hear her now. She would have been distressed at Maggie being acquainted with her carelessness. She felt sure that a girl like Maggie Oliphant could never understand what a little purse, which only contained ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... the operation commenced, the clerk griped her with his long, horny fingers by the throat, with a snap so sure and energetic that not a cry, not a gasp even, or a wheeze, could escape through 'the trachea,' as medical men have it; and her face and forehead purpled up, and her eyes goggled and glared in her head; and her husband looked so insanely wicked, that, as the pale ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph—take it."—Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... Jasper Lamotte that uttered these words; rather, hissed them? Sybil almost betrayed herself in her surprise; but the gasp that she could not quite stifle, was drowned by the voice ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... said than done; the package that had made them so much trouble was hastily thrust far under a broad-spreading lilac bush, and with a gasp, Helen started on a mad run down the street followed closely by Bessie. Not until they had turned a corner and passed into another street, did the two culprits dare to take a long breath ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... loved his joke, On matters, too, where few can bear one; E. g. a man cut up, or broke Upon the wheel—a devilish fair one! Your common fractures, wounds and fits, Are nothing to such wholesale wits; But, let the sufferer gasp for life, The joke is then, worth any money; And, if he writhe beneath a knife,— Oh dear, that's something quite too funny. In this respect, my Lord, you see The Roman wag and ours agree: Now as to your resemblance—mum— This parallel we need not follow: Tho' ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... the bare arms lying outside on the bison-robe. He kept these going in an awkward, spasmodic fashion, which caused the infantile fist now and then to land in his eye. On such occasions the organ winked very suddenly, and the boy seemed to start with a gasp of surprise, but he did not cry. Young as he was, he had been trained in the iron school which makes the American Indian indifferent to ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... daffodils. After everyone was put on the easel Henrietta Templeton Price would stick her thumb up in the air and sight across it with one eye shut and say "A stunning bit, that!" and the others would gasp with delight and mutter to each other about its being ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... then Blackbeard began to illuminate the scene with fire and brimstone. The sulphur burned, the fumes rose, a ghastly light spread over the countenances of the desperadoes, and very soon some of them began to gasp and cough and implore the captain to let in some fresh air, but Blackbeard was bound to have a good game, and he proceeded to burn more brimstone. He laughed at the gasping fellows about him and declared that he would be just as willing to breathe the fumes of sulphur ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... the point of the great triangle, where the lights of Little Butte station and bridge twinkled uncertainly in the distance. "If I can get down yonder to Goodloe's wire in time to catch the super's special before it passes Timanyoni"—he went on, only to drop his jaw and gasp when he held the face of his watch up to the moonlight. Then, brokenly, "My God! I couldn't begin to do it unless I had wings: he said eleven o'clock, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... dismay the creature's mouth caught his thumb. With a boathook, fortunately at hand, I managed to wrench open the turtle's mouth and extract Tom's thumb. Had the creature been in full strength it would undoubtedly have bitten it off; even as it was, though at its last gasp, it had given him an ugly gripe, which necessitated his being under the care ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... man nor the woman moved. Then the latter opened her eyes to look with wonder upon the dead beast behind her companion. As that beautiful head went up Tarzan of the Apes gave a gasp of incredulous astonishment. Was he mad? It could not be the woman he loved! But, indeed, it was ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of the Holy Trinity. The tale of this house paints admirably the temper of the citizens at the time. Its founder, Prior Norman, built church and cloister and bought books and vestments in so liberal a fashion that no money remained to buy bread. The canons were at their last gasp when the city-folk, looking into the refectory as they passed round the cloister in their usual Sunday procession, saw the tables laid but not a single loaf on them. "Here is a fine set out," said the citizens; "but ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... imitation of the "Boy," the "Great American tragedian," alternates between the deep bass of a veteran porker and the mellifluous tenor of a "pig's whisper." He is apt to roll his eyes quickly from side to side, to gasp and heave his chest most unaccountably. He reads nothing of the papers but the theatrical advertisements and critiques. He has an acquaintance with two or three fourth-rate stock actors and a scene shifter, and ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... start from their sockets, and the thigh bones are disjointed;—in short, the tortured wretch would soon expire without any farther process; yet, in that state, he is beaten by bamboos till at the last gasp, and is then abandoned to the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... out the pitiless future of my children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that saved me: Why not confiscate? If their forays were bootless, in the nature of things their forays ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... has hurried, for he is out of breath; and the deadly pallor of his cheek is almost affrighting to see. But he soon recovers himself, though when he rises to speak the breathlessness is still very apparent, and he has to gasp almost now and then for more voice. Fortunately on this occasion we have not long to wait for the big announcement which everybody is so anxiously expecting. It is usually the fate of the House of Commons, whenever something very momentous ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... is rest,' he said; and at her gasp, 'Besides, marble works or no, one ought to make the ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that uncouth missile hurling through the air. It struck poor Tom, point foremost, and with stunning violence, right between the shoulders in the middle of his back. His hands flew up, he gave a sort of gasp and fell. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... turned up into her head with horror; she could only gasp, "Mais si quelqu'un ouvrait la porte?" "Mais je la ferme toujours a clef," I said, and then I asked her if in France they also dried themselves in their wet chemises? But she said that that was a childish question, ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... your eyes. Her hair is parted in the middle; it is slightly grey. She must have passed over about fifteen to twenty years ago. I think it is your mother. She wants to, she wants to—" Bubbles hesitated, and then, speaking now entirely in her own voice, she exclaimed with a kind of gasp—"to warn ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... narrow pool, scarce visible among the rising shrubs which belt in and shroud the grounds from the incurious wayfarer; or of such carp and tench as, having escaped the treacherous toils of the nightly plunderer, gasp and tumble on its surface, delighting to display their golden pride in the mid-day sun, before the gaze of lawful possession. Nor shall the casual reader be led carelessly and wearily to note the many sweet memorials of private ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... told me this," his companion said suddenly. "Father repeated it over and over through the nights after they were married. He slept only in snatches, and would wake with a gasp and his heart almost bursting. I know almost nothing about her, except that she had a brave heart—or she would have gone mad. She was English and had been a governess. They met in the little hotel where they were married. Then father bought this place, and they ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... the doctor, sitting down beside him with a gasp of relief; 'let a wave-worn mariner into your ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... Now a great gasp of wonder went up from the multitude, and all looked to see this fool killed by torture. But Chaka ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... answered the gold-gatherer; "but it was so tight over my breast that my heart grew cold under it, and almost ceased to beat. Having a great quantity of gold on my back, I felt almost at the last gasp; so I threw off my girdle, and being on the bank of a river, which I knew not how to cross, I was about to fling it in, I was so vexed! 'But no,' thought I, 'there are many people waiting here to cross besides myself. ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... homeward between mounds of high-piled snow and under a sun which Sally Carrol scarcely recognized. They passed a little girl done up in gray wool until she resembled a small Teddy bear, and Sally Carrol could not resist a gasp ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... There are some sorts of beauty which defy description, and almost scrutiny. Some faces rise upon us in the tumult of life like stars from out the sea, or as if they had moved out of a picture. Our first impression is anything but fleshly. We are struck dumb, we gasp, our limbs quiver, a faintness glides over our frame, we are awed; instead of gazing upon the apparition, we avert the eyes, which yet will feed upon its beauty. A strange sort of unearthly pain mixes with the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... in England, and London was smothering me, my chest was bad and the wife was always in ill-health; but I suppose I'll have to take her home in the end or else she'll go melancholy mad!" And he drew a breath that was more like a gasp ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... would swiftly close in on him! Let him fight to the last bitter gasp and have it over! But these hunters, eager as they were to get him, had care of their own skins. They took few risks. They had ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... few hours, more men will be brought in and laid on that gruesome operating table. The very passageways have been already invaded by men lying on long chairs, because there are no more beds. Even they are happy; they have crept to a place where they can gasp in quiet; that is all they ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette's eyes were still open, his mouth still shut and his legs kicked ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... anxiously around him for an instant, and then with incredible swiftness, threaded a number of narrow and intricate lanes which led him out in front of one of the principal theatres. The amusements were just concluded, and the audience was streaming from the doors. The old man was seen to gasp as he threw himself into the crowd, and then the intense agony of his countenance seemed in some measure to abate. He took the course which was pursued by the greater number of the company. But these, as he proceeded, branched of right and left to their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... but never a man could hold his breath long enough to kill himself; he must have rope or water, or some mechanical help, or nature will make him draw in a breath of air, and would make him do so though he knew the salvation of the human race would be forfeited by that one gasp. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... effort the more force,' you'd say to yourself. 'I'll smash him even if I burst myself in doing it.' And what would happen then? You'd only cut me and make me angry, besides exhausting all your strength at one gasp. Whereas, if you took it easy—like this—" Here he made a light step forward and placed his open palm gently against the breast of Lncian, who instantly reeled back as if the piston-rod of a steam-engine had touched him, and dropped ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... little gasp and stopped him. "Pray say no more; it is my fault; if people will feign death, they must expect these little tributes. My uncle has lost no time." And two unreasonable tears swelled to her eyes and trickled one after another down her ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... managed to gasp, sobbing in an effort to catch breath, as the iron fingers at my ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Jane, he hadn't been very fond of them when they were boys"—she spoke it with dignity and a little gasp as if she were committing a breach of loyalty to explain, but realized that it was necessary—"and he felt when he was dying that he wanted to make reparation, so he thought if I should marry one of them it would show them that he had ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... right itself and, turning in a short circle, return in their direction, but it was so far above them and the light of the sun so strong that they could see nothing of what was going on within the fuselage; but presently Lieutenant Smith-Oldwick gave a gasp of dismay as he saw a human body plunge downward from the plane. Turning and twisting in mid-air it fell with ever-increasing velocity and the Englishman held his breath as the thing ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... With a gasp I hurled myself after Jimmy, only to hear a strange voice in the hall and to know that I was too late. I was in for it, whatever was coming. It was Aunt Selina who was coming—along the hall, followed by Jim, who was mopping his face and trying ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... one yard wide. Six people, then, had to spend the night in a place where there was scarcely room for two. Although a little window opened on the yard opposite the door, there was a rank, sharp odor which made Perrine gasp. But she said nothing. ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... carronades on the forecastle," cried I, "and then train them to rake the main-deck, fore and aft. Half of you in the waist retreat to the topgallant forecastle, the other half to the poop, and defend those two positions to the last gasp. Let me know when those carronades are ready, and be careful so to depress their muzzles that none of the ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Diamond Robbery," one of the films, was in progress, and there, depicted on the canvas, amid many figures, he saw himself, the most pronounced in that realistic group. And Betty Dalrymple saw the semblance of him, also, for she gave a slight gasp and sat more erect. In the moving picture he was running ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... an invention like his could not long be at a loss. In short, he went to Marion, with a doleful face, and in piteous accents, stated that his father, an excellent old man as ever son was blessed with, was at his last gasp, and only wanted to see him ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... courses of torrents, and sometimes looking almost perpendicularly down upon the point which we had passed half an hour ago. Nothing can be more bare or desolate than the rocky mountain ridge in which this ascent terminates, and on which vegetation seems at its last gasp. A dance of Satyrs might be appropriately introduced to complete the wildness of a sketch from this spot, but that it does not afford a single berry or blade of grass to regale them, even if they could live like their cousins the goats. A large family of peasants, ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... of the shadows, and her heart beat unpleasantly fast as she plunged in among the trees, keeping below the narrow trail that went slanting up the side of the declivity, until she stopped, with another gasp, when she reached a spot where a ray of moonlight came filtering down. A limp figure in an old skin coat lay almost at her feet, and she dropped on her knees beside it in the snow. Hawtrey's face showed an unpleasant greyish-white in the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... this week, meeting her on an upper landing, Claire discovered Sophie apparently dragging herself along with her hands, and punctuating each step with a gasp of pain. She stood still and stared, whereupon Sophie instantly straightened herself, and ascended the remaining steps in ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... reached him through the metal, flinging him to the ground. He rolled out of its range and leaped to his feet to race away from there. Then, with a gasp, he flattened his body back against the wall of the ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... him gently and quietly for another ten minutes until he is quite weary and tame. Now let me draw him softly in toward the boat, slip my fingers under his gills to get a firm hold, and lift him quickly over the gunwale before he can gasp or kick. A tap on the head with the empty rod-case—there he is—the prettiest landlocked salmon that I ever saw, plump, round, perfectly shaped and coloured, and just six and a half pounds in weight, the record fish ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... a convulsive gasp. The woman in black was on her feet leaning over the table. Her eyes blazed in a frenzy of delight. She was sweeping into her open hands the piles of gold before her. By some marvelous stroke of luck, and with almost her last louis, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and pressed her to my heart. She drooped her head upon my shoulder, and lay for some time like one who slumbered; but, alas! not as she had used to slumber. Her breathing, which had been like that of sinless infancy, was now frightfully short and quick; she seemed not properly to breathe, but to gasp. This, thought I, may be sudden agitation, and in that case she will gradually recover; half an hour will restore her. Wo is me! she did not recover; and internally I said—she never will recover. The arrows have gone too deep for a frame so exquisite in its sensibility, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... started on his return. His health was failing, and his horses were sadly weakened. After leaving the Newcastle, the water in the many short creeks coming from the range was found to be at the last gasp; in some there was none, in others but a scanty supply. The horses commenced to give in rapidly, and one after another they were left on successive dry stages. Stuart, too, began to think that he would never live to reach the settled districts. Scurvy had brought him ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... circumstances, threatened on every side, and feeling almost at the last gasp, the Tyrians resolved on a final desperate effort. They would make a bold attempt to recover the command of the sea. As the Macedonian fleet was divided, part watching the Sidonian and part the Egyptian harbour, they could freely select to contend with which portion they preferred. ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... at us?" repeated Jack, as he began to gasp the situation. "And do you happen to know if they mean to slip away again, like they did a ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... knees hard against the upper log to keep from reeling. Never in her life had such a sickening nausea assailed her. It appeared to attack her whole body. The forerunning qualm of seasickness was as nothing to this. Carley gave a gasp, pinched her nose between her fingers so she could not smell, and ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... intensity of that look, and the trembling severity of that voice, Pen wilted and shrank into the depths of his cushioned chair. He could only gasp: ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... the conquest of her third trout, looked quickly behind her, startled by the snapping of the branch only a few rods away. What she saw made her gasp. She almost cried out with the sudden fright. But ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... said that, on troublous nights, evil spirits settle upon the necks of men, and belabor them so that they gasp and sweat for very terror; quite another sort it was to-day which sat by the woodman: and his heart was warm, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... matter, I thought—I could pay him back for it one way or another. But what if, in reality, without the least desire to be offensive, that sheepshead had a notion in earnest that he was superior to me and could only look at me in a patronising way? The very supposition made me gasp. ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... She began to gasp and sob, and Bill began to think wot a good wife he 'ad got, when he felt 'er put a couple of pillers over where she judged his 'ead to be, and hold ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... him tell me any old thing. That was what I was there for. But he shut himself up with a kind of gasp and cannoned himself into his tabernacle under the stairs and left me there, wondering if I was where I thought I was, or had got into a moving-picture show by mistake. The clerk had fallen through the floor or something. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... sob and a gasp he saw her shut the door, but the fright and shaking had been too much for his weakened frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ago. His aching, weary little head seemed too heavy ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... characteristic of Spartan nature, his mother, a crone of great age [161], suggested the means of punishment, by placing, with her own hand, a stone at the threshold)—and, setting a guard around, left the conqueror of Mardonius to die of famine. When he was at his last gasp, unwilling to profane the sanctuary by his actual death, they bore him out into the open air, which he only breathed to expire [162]. His corpse, which some of the fiercer Spartans at first intended to cast in the place of burial for malefactors, was afterward buried in the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a gasp as if an earthquake had opened at her feet, and turned deathly white. She did not venture to say a word. All in the room waited in mute suspense, realizing that the matter must be of vital importance. With a ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder's cell, he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at his last gasp, perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he saw him sitting up in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his face was bright and cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in a quiet ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... man of science or of letters. But it didn't. It did much better for him than that. It took all the subtlety out of his face and endowed it with an earnest and enormous stare. And as that large mouth couldn't and wouldn't close properly, his sentences had a way of dying off in a faint gasp, leaving a great deal to the imagination. All these natural characteristics were invaluable for ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... upon the sea neids not hear be told, since its not to be feared that I'l forget it, yet I cannot but tell whow[45] Mr. John Kincead and I had a bucket betwixt us strove ... who should have the bucket first, both being equally ready; and whow at every vomit and gasp he gave he cried Gods mercy as give he had ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... go and beg their pardon! Are there many people like you? What are you smiling at? Because I am not ashamed to disgrace myself before you?—Yes, I am disgraced—it can't be helped now! But don't you jeer at me, you scum!" (this was aimed at Hippolyte). "He is almost at his last gasp, yet he corrupts others. You, have got hold of this lad "—(she pointed to Colia); "you, have turned his head, you have taught him to be an atheist, you don't believe in God, and you are not too old to be whipped, sir! A plague ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... at my last gasp, I get a brief peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in command. Perfect spring weather. And ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... figure had not crossed the threshold ere Smith had his arm about the girl's waist and one hand clapped to her mouth. A stifled gasp she uttered, and he lifted her into ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... her. Mom Wallis's eyes shone as if she had been a young girl as she turned with a smothered "Oh!" She was a woman not given to expressing herself; indeed, it might be said that the last twenty years of her life had been mainly of self-repression. She gave that one little gasp of recognition and pleasure, and then she relapsed into embarrassed silence beside the two young people who found pleasure in their own greetings. Bud, boy-like, was after a cottontail, along with Cap, who had appeared from no one knew where and was ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... There was a strangled gasp, a thump, and onto the table from the captain's hands there fell a little harmonica. There was no mistaking the look on Muller's face now. His cheeks were like wax, and his eyes, so dull till then, blazed with a panic and horror ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... did his words fail, and what was the reason of that scared look with which he regarded the blank faces of the other undergraduates? And what is the meaning of that gasp, and the rapid dropping of the head upon the breast, and the deadly pallor that suddenly put out the fair colour in his cheeks? There was no fly—but, good heavens! was ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... stormier days had brought With darker passions deeper tides of thought. The camp's harsh tumult and the conflict's glow, The thrill of triumph and the gasp of woe, The tender parting and the glad return, The festal banquet and the funeral urn, And all the drama which at once uprears Its spectral shadows through the clash of spears, From camp and field to echoing verse transferred, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the girl's soul. A quick gasp of pain broke from her, and the man turned and saw her face and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... advise you. I am with you in this venture; with you to the last gasp; with you heart and soul, until that devil MacNair is dead or driven out of the North, and his Indians ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... that dreadful scene in the forest returned to him for a moment, and, despite himself, he made tone and manner dramatic. A long, deep gasp, like a groan, came from the crowd, and then Robert heard the sound of a woman on ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... people would never know, she hoped. Like so many others, she had gambled and lost, and perhaps she deserved to lose. Who could say? If she had sinned in coming to this place she would bear the punishment bravely. It would surely be very swift; there would be but a gasp or two from the stunning chill of the icy water, after which must come swift oblivion. The world was indeed a very harsh and dangerous place. She would be glad to leave it; there could be nothing ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... one but a native, and he a wise one, could have recognized a meaning in the guttural gasp ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... great gasp and fainted dead away. As a matter of fact, her ears were not so bad. They were simply very flat and colorless, forming a contrast with the rosy tints of her face. But from that moment no one could see anything but these ears; and thereafter the princess wore her hair ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... buffets from the water taken aboard, seemed to come to himself suddenly as the boat approached the Breakwater. It was a vision of life that gleamed in the darkness of his despair. No! He did not want to die! He would fight and fight to the last gasp. In the alternative of certain drowning in the undertow off Nazaret or of taking a chance among the rocks on the Breakwater, he would take the chance. Hadn't he been famous as the ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... first gave was that he was made out of tobacco. His fingers were stained with nicotine, and his teeth yellow from it. He had smoked so fast and furiously the room was soon fog-bound. The boy looked up from his paper with a gasp and hastened inside to see if he could get rid of his obnoxious presence. In a moment he ushered out the client and ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... himself, and his writings are upset by his own virtue and goodness. For that recommendation of those children, that recollection of them, and affectionate friendship for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed by a long, dry howl which reached the servants' quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever done. In ten seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... with a gasp of delight. "Here! clear away the work, father, while I put up a basket of dinner." She stopped by the window, looking out: "Somebody is coming through the apple trees: I smell a cigar. Now, remember, nothing must detain you. We can't ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... looked wonderingly at her, for the voice was like no other sound—no human sound; it was a faint gasp, as of one who had escaped a deadly peril, and was still faint with the remembrance ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... grasped; with his left hand (the right side was already lifeless) the dying man drew me towards him nearer and nearer, till his lips almost touched my ear, and, in a voice now firm, now splitting into gasp and hiss, thus he said, "I have summoned you to gaze on your own work! You have stricken down my life at the moment when it was most needed by my children, and most serviceable to mankind. Had I lived a few years ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... first gasp of excitement, there had crept into the placid Brodie's voice a note of quiet jubilation which hinted ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Rider's gasp of dismay was silent, and made no sound. He stood staring blankly at those wonderful invaders of his bachelor house, marvelling what was to be done with them in the first place. Was he to bring Fred down all slovenly and half-awakened? was he to leave them in possession of his ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... glance had proclaimed it a boy; the second had told a different story. A girl—dressed in far different fashion from Robert Fairchild's limited specifications of feminine garb—she caused him to gasp in surprise, then to stop and stare. Again she waved a hand and stamped a foot excitedly; a vehement little thing in a snug, whipcord riding habit and a checkered cap pulled tight over closely braided hair, she awaited him with all the impatience ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... A sudden gasp and twist of her body told Nan that the old woman was again seized with a spasm. The neighbor woman took swift control, and waved out Peter and old Mr. Renfrew, while she and the doctor ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... heard the man next me give a quick gasp, as if he had just come up from a plunge under water; and I opened my eyes again just in time to see the fuse out, and the young officer letting drop the shell at the general's feet, without ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... yet found tenants, thoroughly finished off, externally and internally, so far as floors and doors and windows and staircases go, but of course entirely unfurnished. One of these is selected and hired (at a cost that would make some people gasp) for the determined evening. An upholsterer is turned in to put up temporary mirrors, chandeliers and curtains, and lay down temporary carpets; a florist, following, covers bare mantelpieces with captivating layers of cut-roses, ferns and mosses, and empties a whole conservatoryful of plants and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... many windows in a German sitting-room that those near the plants need never be opened in winter; and even when the temperature sinks several degrees below zero outside, the air of the flat is kept artificially warm, so warm that English folk gasp and flag in it. At the first sign of winter the outside windows, removed for the summer, are brought back again. Our windows are unknown on the continent, and disliked by continentals who see them here. They call them guillotine windows, and consider them dangerous. Theirs ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Forrester, expressionless, ducked under the man's flailing arms and slammed a fist into his midsection. It was a harder midsection than he'd expected; unlike Herb, Sam had good muscles, and hitting them was like hitting thick rubber. The blow didn't put Sam down. It only made him gasp once. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Tom, who played an old man, endangered his respectable legs among the footlights to peep, announced that he saw Miss Cameron's handsome head in the place of honour, a thrill pervaded the entire company, and Josie declared with an excited gasp that she was going to have stage fright for the first time ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and Catherine breaks the bonds of ordinary sensual or sentimental relationship and hurls itself into that darker, stranger, more unearthly air, wherein one hears the voices of the great lovers; and where Sappho and Michaelangelo and Swift and Shelley and Nietzsche gasp forth their imprecations and their terrible ecstasies. Crude and rough and jagged and pitiless, the style of this astounding book seems to rend and tear, like a broken saw, at the very roots of existence. In some curious way, as in Balzac and Dostoievsky, ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... look for," observed Sam Short; "they'll fight to the last gasp, rather than lose the chance of their revenge; only don't let any of us get into their hands alive, that's all; they'd try our nerves in a way we should not like, depend ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... may embrace his neck, And in his bosom spend my latter gasp: O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks, That I may kindly give one fainting kiss. And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock, Why didst thou say of late thou ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... the money from the King, and set out on his journey. Arriving at the seashore, one of the first objects he beheld was a little fish cast up by the waves on the beach and almost at its last gasp. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... six or eight of the men snatched out pistols and fired at random into the woods. The cry of a panther, drawn out, long, full of ferocity and woe, plaintive on its last note, like the haunting lament of a woman, was their answer. He heard a gasp of fear from the men, but the leader, of stauncher stuff, cowed them with ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the commander dropped them the last five hundred feet. The sea-floor rose like a gray ghost. More control studs were pushed; the order-board below read: "All Power Off, Rest in Trim." The location chart told a tale that wrung a gasp from Bowman's throat. The red and ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... impressed John with vague astonishment. As she turned upon the summit to point out the place of meeting, her face sparkling with animation, her eyes alight and eager, the golden coronet of hair radiant in the mellow glow, he gave a little gasp of amazement. The girl was beautiful! What a pity she should lead ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... challenged Danny, as he dropped the flat, beaver-like elephant's tail and darted at a run out of the woodshed, followed by the others. As they lined up in front of the gaudy, delectable poster, there came a simultaneous gasp of amazement from all ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... this would be to shut the door on all the objects she had at heart. If a direct answer must be given, it was better to say "Yes!" and have it over; better to leap blindly and see what came of it. Mrs. Lee, therefore, with an internal gasp, but with no visible sign of excitement, said, as though she ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... turned abruptly from a sheer descent, then followed a narrow knife edge to rise again among the rocks to the last, the final height, a little rocky upland with a lonely standing rock. Here Jim turned to see the plain, to face about and gasp in sudden wonder; for the spell of the mountain seen afar is but a little echo of the mountain power when ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... quite large and far apart, so that there was a square expanse of the turquoise blue with a stiff flower at each corner. The lining was of sulphur yellow silk, and the binding was a puffing of violet ribbons. The color fairly made me gasp, at first, but then it became fascinating, and finally irresistible. I sighed as I thought of the dreary patchwork quilts of our great-grandmothers. How they would have marveled at our audacious use of color, our frank joy ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... while he talked he was glancing over his shoulder as if he feared the shadows under the moon. His voice was half gasp, half whisper. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... fast, and bound her to a stake. Soon the water came up to her face. She saw it go over the head of a poor old woman, whom they had tied farther out than herself. She saw her death struggles; she heard her gasp for breath, as she choked and strangled in the yellow waves. Ah! she must have had courage from the Lord, or that sight would have made her young heart fail. Once more, and for the last time, the king's officer asked her to make the promise never to attend a conventicle again. ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... this he found a confusion of bewildering barefoot moulds, mixed with others unquestionably made by a shoe on the foot of a civilized person. Hurrying through the trees, fearful that savages had attacked Lady Tennys at this place, he was suddenly confronted by a spectacle that made him gasp. Down at the water's edge, over near the place where he had left her, he saw white garments spread upon the rocks. She was nowhere to be seen. Like a flash the truth came to him, and he looked at his watch in consternation. It was but three-thirty ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... alarm many people had run down to the shore; the officer of the coast-guard with his glass had reported what was going on, and up to the last moment it had been believed that the boat would get to them in time, and there had been a gasp of dismay as he suddenly exclaimed, "They are down! The boat is only a few lengths away," he went on; "I expect they will get them. One of the men is standing up in the bow ready ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... wild animiles iv th' West fr'm a Brooklyn car window. It took on'y a moment f'r him to inflict a mortal wound on Seton-Thompson's kodak. An' Tiddy Rosenfelt stood alone in th' primeval forest. Suddenly there was a sound in th' bushes. He loaded his pen, an' thin give a gasp iv relief, f'r down th' glade come his thrusted ally, John Burroughs, leadin' captive th' pair iv wild white mice that had so long preyed ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... you to—give a ball," says Molly, boldly, with a little gasp, keeping her large eyes fixed in eager anxiety upon his face, while her pretty parted lips seem still to entreat. "Say ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... that it was only left to her to make the best of it. The duke had honoured her by coming to her house, and she was bound to welcome him, though in doing so she should bring Lady Lufton to her last gasp. "Duke," she said, "I am greatly honoured by this kindness on the part of your grace. I hardly expected that you would be so good ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... rapidly in one breath and at the end had a sort of anxious gasp which gave me the opportunity to voice my surprise. It ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... coach when a sound came to him faintly. It was too sharp for the wailing of the storm. Others heard it and grew suddenly erect, with tense and listening faces. The young woman with the round mouth gave a little gasp. A man pacing back and forth in the aisle stopped as if at ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... pleasure to be reckless: her feelings were running riotously, and the sensation was so new that she refused to be circumspect or to consider consequences. Who could tell, she asked herself with a quick, frightened gasp, but that, after all, it might be that she was learning to care? From Solomons's she bade the man drive to the shop in Cranbourne Street where she was accustomed to purchase the materials she used in painting, and Fate, which uses strange agents to work out its ends, so directed ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... black night he left me, that dead dawn I found him lying in the woods, alive To gasp my name out and his life-blood with it, As though the murderer's knife had probed for me In his hacked breast and found me in each wound. . . Well, it was there Christ came to me, you know, And led me home—just as that other led me. (Just as that other? Father, bear with me!) My lover's death, ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... his lips to keep from laughing, "that after this there won't be any gamekeeper on Glen Cairn. If the rabbits spoil your crops you're welcome to catch them if you can! I've ranged these woods myself all summer, and I have found out that gamekeepers are no safeguard against poachers." A gasp of astonishment greeted this statement, and Angus Niel was observed ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... mysteriously from the little chamois bag on her neck, and duly appeared on her left hand. She had promised to keep the engagement "or understanding, or preference," a profound secret, but this was impossible. First one intimate friend and then another was allowed to gasp and exclaim over the news. The time came when Anne decided that it was not "decent" not to let Martin's aunt know of it, when all these other people knew. Finally came a dinner to the Norths', when Cherry's health was drunk, and then ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... away wi' thee!" mumbled Mrs. Garth, brushing the girl aside with her elbow. The blacksmith glared at her, and seemed to gasp for breath. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... the matter, dear father?' asked she. But the king could not tell her; and only managed to gasp out: 'My shoe! my shoe!' While the sailors stood round staring, thinking that his majesty ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... exposure after all. He seized his insensible adversary, dragged him out into the centre of he room, loosened his collar, and squeezed the surgery sponge over his face. He sat up at last with a gasp and a scowl. "Domn thee, thou's spoilt my neck-tie," said he, mopping up the water from ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... summons without further query, for when all men wore swords the neighbourhood of a garrison were only too liable to such encounters outside. There was no need for her to gasp out more; from the very cottage door he could see the need of haste, for the swords were actually flashing, and the two young men in position to fight. Anne shook her head, unable to do more than sign her thanks to the good woman of the cottage, who offered her a ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... through them. To Uncle Felix, at any rate, it seemed a fact—this joyous sensation of immense duration, yet of nothing passing away: the bliss of utter freedom. He gasped to realise it. But the children did not gasp. They had always known that nothing ever really came to an end. "The weather's still here," he heard Judy calling across the lawn to Tim—as though she had just been looking among December snowdrifts and had popped back again into ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... the Colonel; "for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir William Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall. The empire of Britain in this ancient province is at its last gasp to-night;—almost while I speak it is a dead corpse;—and methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit mourners at ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... began to find the occupation diverting, and characteristically did not hesitate to allow her critic to form most alarming conclusions as to the state of matters at the Red House. She was pensive, and mild, and a little surprised when Miss Temperley, with a suppressed gasp, urged that the question was deeply serious. It amused Hadria to reproduce, for Henriette's benefit, the theories regarding the treatment and training of children that she had found current among the mothers ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and she gripped his arm in her sudden amazement while she threw out one hand pointing. He heard her little gasp; he looked upward; an astonished ejaculation broke from his own lips. A breathless moment and already the thing, appearing from the black nothingness, silhouetted but a moment against the sky, was gone and he vaguely saw ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp hands,—his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... mind flashed the picture of Anne on her knees beside him saying, in that sharp gasp of her sorrow, "You don't love me." This was no such thing, yet, in some phase, was life going to repeat itself over and over in the endless earth journeys he might have to make, futilities of mismated minds, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... disembarked at Alexandria, in order to relieve the Regular garrisons of Alexandria and Cairo. The Battalion passed on to Port Said. As we neared the harbour, our men hailed watchers on the quay for the latest news. Antwerp was then at its last gasp, and the Aboukir, Hague and Cressy had been torpedoed in the North Sea. The first cry from the ship was "How is City getting on?" League football was still the first interest of Young England in the second month of ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... above-mentioned, and dedicating them to the gentlemen who are going up next Thursday evening. They relate to the symptoms, treatment, and causes of Haemoptysis and Haematemesis; which terms respectively imply, for the benefit of the million unprofessional readers who weekly gasp for our fresh number, a spitting of blood from the lungs and a vomiting of ditto from the stomach. The song was composed of stanzas similar to those which follow, except the portion relating to Diseases of the Brain, which was more appropriately ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... out to me, with thrills of breathless excitement, a woman who was in the divorce court, or a coroneted bankrupt. Then she would drag me off to some terrible private view full of the same people all staring at and gabbling to each other, or looking at pictures that made poor me gasp and shudder. No, I am thankful to be back at my own sweet Riseholme again. I ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... hope for myself or for others. Our life is a false nature; it is not in the harmony of things; it is an all-blasting upas, whose root is earth, and whose leaves are the skies which rain their poison-dews upon mankind. We wither from our youth; we gasp with unslaked thirst for unattainable good; lured from the first to the last by phantoms—love, fame, ambition, avarice—all idle, and all ill—one meteor of many names, that vanishes in ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... an inward gasp, but pointed gracefully to a small confectionery shop on the other side of the road. Mrs. ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... then a little gasp first from one and then from another of the group. Every one looked at Mrs. Homan, and from Mrs. Homan to Sarah Jane. Mrs. Homan tightened her grip on the pancake turner; Sarah Jane uneasily moved her long fingers within reach of a sturdy little ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund
... casualty list with terrified, yet eager, eyes, she gave a little cry, half gasp and half sob that brought the girls ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... does. It seems that when she first came to London she had funny ideas in her head—innocent, I should call it, and sort of inclined to trust men—anyway, she lived with some man and there was to have been a baby," she brought the information out with a sort of gasp. ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... ... and there below, another monster; a raging, yes, raging, sea ... The white foam gleamed with spasmodic fury, and surged up in hillocks upon it, and hurling up shaggy billows, it beat with a sullen roar against a huge cliff, black as pitch. The howling of the tempest, the chilling gasp of the storm-rocked abyss, the weighty splash of the breakers, in which from time to time one fancied something like a wail, like distant cannon-shots, like a bell ringing—the tearing crunch and grind of the shingle on the beach, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... lock of wills, the President was the victor, and the French and English press, exhausted by now, could only gasp their condemnation of Clemenceau and ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... door and locked it on the inside. In half a dozen hasty strides he was across the room and inside the smaller apartment where he had left the girl. With a little gasp of relief he realized that she was there still. She was pale, and a spot of color was blazing in her cheeks. Her hair and dress were a little disordered. With trembling fingers she was fastening a little brooch into her blouse as he entered. A rush of night air struck ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... knew where I was going"—slowly the mind turned back to trace the blind, careless steps of that afternoon. "At least he said he'd leave a note—Oh, what a fool I was!" she broke off to gasp, seeing how that forethought of his, that far-sighted remark, had prevented her from leaving a note of her own. And she remembered now, with flashing clearness, that upon her arrival he had carelessly inquired ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... There was no sound of splintering glass. The tube did not fall from his hands. Not so much as gasp or groan broke the stillness of the laboratory. He did not seem to have moved even the muscle of ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... and she had almost reached the man, and still pointing began to gasp some broken words. Then, suddenly in the bright moonlight, Metem saw a shining point of light flash towards the pair from the darkness of the tree. It would seem that Elissa saw it also; at least, she leapt from the ground, her arm lifted above her head as though to ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... lay in a tumbled, huddled, shapeless heap, with his head bent under him. Not a drop of blood was to be seen on his person or clothing. The Russian baron raised him up. There was a gasp, a momentary flutter of the lips and eyelids, and all ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... band could keep presence of mind to go on playing the "Merry Widow," instead of stopping short with a gasp and crash of instruments, to start again with the "Tango Trance," her dance ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... not money enough left unmelted to purchase one crucible or limbeck. And yet after all, they are not so much discouraged, but that they dream fine things still, and animate others what they can to the like undertakings; nay, when their hopes come to the last gasp, after all their disappointments, they have yet one ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... politicians who could not reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet anybody in argument, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... fiercer flame from high, When with his poisonous breath he blasts the sky: Then droop'd the fading flowers (their beauty fled) And closed their sickly eyes, and hung the head; And rivell'd up with heat, lay dying in their bed. The ladies gasp'd, and scarcely could respire; The breath they drew, no longer air but fire; 380 The fainty knights were scorch'd, and knew not where To run for shelter, for no shade was near; And after this the gathering clouds amain Pour'd down a storm of rattling hail and rain; And lightning flash'd betwixt: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Surveyed it dying in his grasp, Yet knew no grief nor sense of shame In watching for its final gasp. ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... seen—not even a face at a window—not a single eye peering through a crack. Worse than all, their judge and referee was in the bottom of his boat, kicking with merriment. He had strength only to point to the boat-house and gasp, between ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... not these qualities that caused Mike to gasp and Doree to blush deeply. It was the regal figure's almost complete nudity. She wore only the briefest of attire across her ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... him. Ben laid him flat on his back, and, straddling him, with his knees on the ground, began to work Ted's arms with an upward, backward, and outward motion, as if he was restoring the breath to a half-drowned person. Soon a flush came into Ted's face, and he gave a gasp, and his breath came in short, painful inhalations. As Ben continued the exercise, his breathing became regular, and he opened his eyes with surprise, to see so many of his friends about him, and particularly big Ben ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... Jove His faithful comrades laid Sarpedon down, And from his thigh the valiant Pelagon, His lov'd companion, drew the ashen spear. He swoon'd, and giddy mists o'erspread his eyes: But soon reviv'd, as on his forehead blew, While yet he gasp'd for breath, the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... whose hand had secured the neutrality until summoned to appear at the Congress, to defend his rights to the title and the duchy against those of Detricand Prince of Vaufontaine. Had he known that Detricand was behind it all he would have fought on to the last gasp of power and died on the battle-field. He realised now that such a fate was not for him— that he must fight, not on the field of battle like a prince, but in a Court of Nations like a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
