"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... see, Each grass-blade's glory-glitter. Had I known The torrent now turned river?—masterful Making its rush o'er tumbled ravage—stone And stub which barred the froths and foams: no bull Ever broke bounds in formidable sport More overwhelmingly, till lo, the spasm Sets him to dare that last mad leap: report Who may—his fortunes in the deathly chasm That swallows him in silence! Rather turn Whither, upon the upland, pedestalled Into the broad day-splendour, whom discern These eyes ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... there was the condition of the hand. When a person, at the moment of death, grasps any object firmly, there is set up a condition known as cadaveric spasm. The muscular contraction passes immediately into rigor mortis, or death-stiffening, and the object remains grasped by the dead hand until the rigidity passes off. In this case the hand was perfectly rigid, but it did not grasp the hair at all. The little tress ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... Lady Helena and Inez returned to St. John's Wood. And Sir Victor, from his lodgings in Fenton's Hotel, followed his wife home every evening. It was his first thought when he arose in the morning, the one hope that upheld him all the long, weary, aimless day—the one wild delight that was like a spasm, half pain, half joy—when the dusk fell to see her slender figure come forth, to follow his darling, himself unseen, as he fancied, to her humble home. To watch near it, to look up at her lighted windows with eyes full of such love and longing as no words ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... In a sudden spasm of nervousness Callandar threw the half-burned cigar out of the window and, following it with his eyes, was not sorry to be distracted by the sight of Ann in her night-dress, crying under the pear tree. Ann crying was an unusual sight, but Ann in a night-dress ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... moment to another found myself forming as to what I should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my mind what to do. There was an alien object in view—a figure whose right of presence I instantly, ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... Looking round the room, she saw that every woman admired Lucien; she watched group after group repeating the phrases by which Lucien crushed her with seeming disdain, and her heart contracted with a spasm ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... on his heels all this time at Shadrach's feet, and his hard fingers, like claws, were picking at the ground. Now he put out a hand, and began fingering the laces of the farmer's shoes with a quick fluttering movement that Shadrach saw with a spasm of terror. It was so exactly the trick of a baboon, so entirely a thing animal ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... strychnine-poisoning, the body may pass at once into rigor mortis. Rigor mortis must be distinguished from cadaveric spasm or the death clutch; in the former, articles in the hands are readily removable, in the latter this is not the case. In tetanic spasm the limbs when bent return to their former position; not so ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... a leather mask to hide the man behind it, was now ablaze with the fire of zealotry; and, truly, in these his spasm-fits of supplication he stood for all that is most awe-inspiring and unnerving, asking but a little stretch of the imagination to figure him as one of those old iron-hard prophets of denunciation come back to earth to be the herald ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the radiator when I heard him yelp and saw him snapping at his belly. He ran across the room, lay down and began licking himself. Within fifteen minutes he began to whine. Then he stiffened out in a sort of a spasm. It was like strychnine poisoning. Before could get a veterinary here ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hoping to attract some brakeman's attention. The train was thundering along at full speed, and none saw or heard me. I knew her stupor would not last long. A slight quivering of the lip, an occasional spasm running through the frame, told me too plainly that the stage of frenzy would soon begin. 'My God,' I exclaimed in despair, as I shut the door and turned toward her, 'must I see you die, Gulnare, when the opening ...
— A Ride With A Mad Horse In A Freight-Car - 1898 • W. H. H. Murray
... overtook Him on the occasion of the visit of certain Greeks at the beginning of the last week of His life. They had desired to see Him; but, when they were introduced by Andrew and Philip, Jesus, instead of being exhilarated, as might have been expected, was overcome with a spasm of pain, and groaned, "Now is My soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour." The sight of these visitors from the outside world made Him feel how grand and how congenial to Himself would have been a worldwide mission to ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... Biff Pemberton, Hefty Hollingsworth, Bunch Bingham, Buster Brown, Beef McNaughton, and Pudge Langdon, who had been attacked in a fashion similar to Butch's spasm, concealed grins of delight, and made strenuous efforts to appear guileless, as Track-Coach Brannigan approached T. Haviland Hicks, Jr. To that cheery youth, who was brushing the dirt from his ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... evident that he was dying. He continued in this state for about half an hour; his breathing became slower and slower, until finally it ceased altogether, and that was all! Not a movement of a muscle, not a spasm or a tremor of any kind, betrayed the moment when his spirit took its departure. An infant, wearied with play on a summer's eve, could not have fallen asleep ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... me as she put that question. A spasm of jealousy shook me to the soul. "You know ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... the cobar de capello,—a venom to which no antidote is known, which no test can detect. It corrupts the whole mass of the blood; it mounts in frenzy and fire to the brain; it rends the soul from the body in spasm and convulsion. But examine the dead, and how divine the effect of the cause! How go back to the records of the Borgias, and amidst all the scepticisms of times in which, happily, such arts are unknown, unsuspected, learn from the hero of Machiavel how a ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was utter silence in the room, through which the words just spoken seemed to scurry like living things, anxious to be out and away. Laurie, his eyes on the girl, showed no change in his position, though a spasm crossed his face. Epstein, putting up one fat hand, feebly beat the air with it as if trying to push back something that was approaching him, something intangible but terrible. Bangs alone seemed at last to have taken in the full meaning of the curt announcement. As if it had galvanized ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... like a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... rudeness," he replied. "I had a spasm of pain, to which I am subject at times, but it has passed off." He pointed to my blue capote with brass buttons—the summer uniform of the company. "You are a Hudson Bay man," he added, "and I am another. ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... true," murmured Moira, piteous appeal in voice and eyes. A spasm crossed the pale face upon which her eyes rested, then the ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... had simply dipped below their view on some further slope even as it had once before. But they knew they were disappointed, and that disappointment revealed to them the fact that they had concealed it from each other. The girl was the first to succumb, and burst into a quick spasm of angry tears. That single act of weakness called out the boy's pride and strength. There was no longer an equality of suffering; he had become her protector; he felt himself responsible for both. Considering her no longer his equal, he was ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... all women know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as a rule, must be a "throw-back" to times when men and women were rather worse than they are now, and is too unpleasant ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... the house opened and a trim looking maid appeared and greeted the chauffeur familiarly as "Heinie". He replied by a wink and a series of movements with his eyebrows which threw the maid into a spasm of amusement. Then he started the limousine, with the Glow-worm still in tow, around the side of the house, presumably toward the garage, although from where we stood we saw no building. The maid held the door open for us and we stepped into an ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... to the fortitude, precision, and courage exhibited. At the same time, a realization of the seriousness of war on the part of all men, because they knew before this war began the punishing effect of rifle or machine-gun and artillery fire, is a powerful deterrent to making war in any spasm of emotion. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... standing, wrapped in their wide cloaks. As we pressed each other's hands, not a word was spoken. Each heart was full; and hard features that never quailed before the foe were now shaken with the convulsive spasm of agony or compressed with stern determination to ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... rose just as elated, and went to business like a boy to play. About noon, he was talking to a farmer in his quiet back room, endeavouring to drive a hard bargain with the man, whom a bad season had already rendered poor. He spoke loud and fast—until, suddenly, a spasm at the heart caught and stopped him. His eyes bolted from their sockets—the parchment skin of his face grew livid and blue. He staggered for an instant, and then dropped dead at the farmer's foot. The doctors were not wrong when they pronounced the banker's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... more stubborn or successful than Te Waharoa, a fighting chief whose long life of warfare contains in it many stirring episodes of his times. Born in 1773 in a village near the upper Thames, he owed his life, when two years old, to a spasm of pity in the heart of a victorious chief from the Hot Lakes. This warrior and his tribe sacked the pa of Te Waharoa's father, and killed nearly all therein. The conqueror saw a pretty boy crying among the ashes of his ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... a few steps forward. His face became livid, large drops of perspiration trickled down his forehead, his teeth chattered together, and a universal spasm convulsed ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... spasm passed. But for Paul the night was no longer beautiful. Only unutterable sadness seemed to pervade the place. The very air seemed heavy with oppressive grief. And rising, he tottered like an old man around to the foot of the steps ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... in one's solitude, is of service at least in this, that it affords an escape for vain regrets, angers, impatience. One puts this and that angry spasm into it, and is delivered ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world face that decided her—for it sent the deep spasm across her. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... insisted on accompanying him, declaring that she had no fears, and that her mother would be miserable if her absence should detain them. Perhaps she was somewhat deceived by the cool, almost ludicrous, light in which he placed the revolution, as a sort of periodical spasm, and Miss Longman's predictions that the railway would be closed, only ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A sharp spasm darted through her heart, for at the moment in which she had met his gaze she had seen his look averted from her; and the long-cherished hopes of months and faith in his constancy, held to through so many discouraging circumstances, gave way at a glance, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... nature was to leave the fallen man, but the second, the Christian impulse, bade him stay, and forgetting his own slight but painful wound, he bent over Adah's husband, and did what he could to alleviate the anguish he saw was so hard to bear. At the sound of his voice, a spasm of pain passed over the doctor's pallid face, and the flash of a sudden fire gleamed for a moment in his eye, as he, too, remembered Adah, and thought of what might be when the grass was ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... lighted a lamp and raised it over my head. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first I thought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into his sunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched his mouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place to hope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in his head, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... you by the throat, unearthly harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre piece to all these features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain's eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... breath came in short, sharp gasps which cut him like knives. He would have liked to crawl into his bed, close his eyes and never open them again, he was so tired. But he must not give in yet; his task was but half accomplished. David must be told of what he had done, and at that thought a spasm of fear contracted his heart. Shivering, he drew a chair near the stove and waited with closed eyes and pain-drawn face for the sound of David's foot upon ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Ziska,[75] as it were, killing him at second hand. For Ziska, stout and furious, blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven mad, had risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad papistic doings, in the interim; and was tearing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... that matter he seemed unable to remove his gaze from the splendid chest development that young Reade displayed so easily. Then the boy tried to fill the upper portions of his own lungs in the same manner. The attempt ended in a spasm of coughing. ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... him in thrusting away his enemy. Damis' knee came up and the Jovian dropped his foot with a howl of pain. His breath came in gasps and he stared into the implacable blue eyes before him with a sudden spasm of fear. At last ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... he screamed. "It was a involuntary spasm brought on by takin' two searchin' medicines too near ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... a baby of gold, And it lies in a spasm of pink, And rallies the Cheest for the horrible cold He has dragged to the willowy brink, The Gryke blots his tears with a scrap of his grief, And growls at the wary Graigroll As he twunkers a tune on a Tiljicum leaf And hums like ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... the intended honor, which had been mentioned to me before, and gave him my card, not without a spasm of terror lest the entire police force ...
— The Story of Patsy • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... pause. From the interior of the cottage came the murmured gratitude of the peasants, broken at times by a wail of agony—the wail of a man. It is not a pleasant sound to hear. Catrina heard it, and it twisted her plain, strong face in a sudden spasm of sympathy. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Linders from his bed, in a sudden spasm of rage, "it is that villain, that miserable! Yes, yes, come in; Madelon, light the candles quickly; where are the cards? Ah—I will ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the opening I felt the head of a dog pushed against me. A spasm of terror ran through me, but the moment the creature began to lick my hands I knew that I had nothing to fear from him. Instantly my courage returned. I felt that he was my protector. I patted his head and ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... constantly has 'em So long as his food is the best, But he'll swallow with never a spasm What ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... and decided to secure a position on the surface. One morning, as the prisoners were being let down into the mines, apparently in a fit he fell into the arms of a prisoner; when he landed at the bottom he was in the worst part of his spasm; the officer in charge ordered him sent to the top as soon as he had partially recovered, stating that it was dangerous to have a man working in the mines who was subject to fits, as he might not only kill himself but be the cause of the death of others with him in the cage. To make his case ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... disgust at this cool shedding of blood, and I halted irresolutely by the body of the dead Indian. He lay stretched upon his back, naked to the breech clout, the red stream flowing from the lance wound in his side. His limbs quivered, but it was in the last spasm of departing life. ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... thinkest thyself authorised to oppress me, because thou art stronger and craftier than I—then do not complain when my strong arms shall tear thy breast open to find thy heart; do not complain when in thy spasm-riven bowels thou feelest the deadly doom which I have passed into them with thy food. Be thou a victim in thy turn, and expiate the crime of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... showing that the nerves which cause dilatation are still competent after the administration of physostigmine. Besides the sphincter pupillae, the fibres of the ciliary muscle are stimulated. There is consequently spasm of accommodation, so that clear vision of distant objects becomes impossible. The intra-ocular tension is markedly lowered. This action, at first sight somewhat obscure, is due to the extreme pupillary contraction ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... head sadly, and his black eyes showed every indication of sorrow. But of a sudden he jumped, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. The doctor straightened up and Roberto scowled at him wrathfully. The boy had ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... I should as soon as I began to speak. And do you know I foresaw, too, that you'd be the first to remark on it. The minute I see my joke isn't coming off, your reverence, both my cheeks feel as though they were drawn down to the lower jaw and there is almost a spasm in them. That's been so since I was young, when I had to make jokes for my living in noblemen's families. I am an inveterate buffoon, and have been from birth up, your reverence, it's as though it were a craze in me. I dare say it's a ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... overwhelmed with despair also, but remained utterly silent, as if the noisy demonstrations of his mother had shocked him, and made him ashamed of any manifestations on his own part. He was seized with a sort of nervous spasm. His mother took him in her arms. "No, no, dear child, I was only in jest; be sensible, dear. What! must I rock my long-legged boy as if he were a baby? No, little Jack, you never did me any ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... be produced by kerosene (three or four drops on sugar), alum and molasses, or ipecac (ten drops every fifteen minutes). Some remedy must be administered continuously until free vomiting occurs. A good dose of castor oil should be given after the spasm. Suitable treatment should be administered through the day to prevent a recurrence of the attack the ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... The Secourists used wooden clubs in the same manner as paviors use their mallets, and it is stated that some Convulsionnaires have borne daily from six to eight thousand blows thus inflicted without danger. One Secourist administered to a young woman who was suffering under spasm of the stomach the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other similar cases which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Sometimes the patients bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions, like fish when out of water; ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker
... went on, in the same whispering voice, "the figure of a dark-complexioned man standing up with his head uncovered. One of his hands, still clutching a pistol, has fallen to his side; the other presses a bloody handkerchief over his mouth. The spasm of mortal agony convulses his features; but I know them for the features of a swarthy man who twice frightened me by taking me up in his arms when I was a child at Wincot Abbey. I asked the nurses at the time who that man was, and they told me it was my uncle, Stephen Monkton. Plainly, as ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... An enthusiastic commercial spasm will be worth nothing. There have got to be real efforts, real hard work, the expenditure of money for future and not merely immediate profits, a cheerful readiness to discard old and cherished methods, a new adaptability, a new ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... came from below, sending a spasm of energy through all at the mouth as they pulled ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... my mouth and swallowed it, but as I was taking a second from the blue flames I suddenly felt a faintness. At first I put it down to the heat of the room, but a moment later I felt a sharp spasm through my heart, and my brain swelled too large for my skull. My jaws were set. I tried to speak, but was unable ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... he'll have a spasm," Katherine cautioned. "He thinks we are not his friends and are going to do something he doesn't want us to do. Let ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... for an instant lost its quietness. Something like a spasm of mortal pain crossed it and twisted it. The woman walked away abruptly, but came back. "I've been home and—put him to bed," she said, slowly—"in ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... snarling cry he slid a knife from his long loose sleeve and struck upwards under the whirling arm. Brown sat down at the blow and began to cough—to cough as a man coughs who has choked at dinner, furiously, ceaselessly, spasm after spasm. Then the angry red cheeks turned to a mottled pallor, there were liquid sounds in his throat, and, clapping his hand to his mouth, he rolled over on to ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... to go under a sizzling right-hand blow from the mulatto and come up with a right uppercut to the ugly, freckled face and a left rip to the mulatto's midriff. The fellow grunted, and a spasm of pain crossed his countenance. "You yellow dog!" Donald muttered, and flattened his nose far flatter than his mammy had ever wiped it. The enemy promptly backed away and covered; a hearty thump in the solar plexus made him uncover, and under a rain ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... opened her large hazel eyes, and glanced wildly around, a quick spasm passing like an electric shock over her frame at the same instant; for the funeral scene burst upon her view, and reminded her where she was, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... have sturdily refused any idea of selling Moufflou; but that morning the thousand francs which would buy Tasso's substitute were forever in her mind and before her eyes. When she heard the foreigner her heart gave a great leap, and her head swam giddily, and she thought, in a spasm of longing—if she could get those thousand francs! But though she was so dizzy and so upset she retained her grip on her native Florentine shrewdness. She said nothing of her need of the money; not a syllable of her sore distress. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... intend my voice to falter, but it did: more, I think, through the agitation of late delight than in any spasm of present fear. Still there certainly was something in M. Paul's anger—a kind of passion of emotion—that specially tended to draw tears. I was not unhappy, nor much afraid, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... and that the unpatented pages put him in mind of Jones's field in winter with a dozen chunks of coal dropped in the snow. And his observations on the later issues of the week (issues which were put forth with a suggestion of spasm, and possibly to the permanent injury of Mr. Parker's health, he looked so thin) were too cruelly unkind to be repeated here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbee, Parker, the luckless Mr. Schofield, and the young Tipworthy may be not untruthfully likened to a ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... throat had become contracted, and the endeavour to give him nourishment brought on convulsive attacks. The Bishop came at 8. p.m., and after another attempt at giving him food, which produced a further spasm, he was lying quietly when Patteson felt his ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Royal American Ermine," as they called it. The scarcity boomed the price. Ships were quickly fitted out and dispatched. Boats bound for the whale fisheries were diverted, and New Bedford had a spasm of jealousy. Astor encouraged these fur-seeking expeditions, but at first declined to invest any money in them, as he considered them "extra hazardous." He was not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... a strange spasm on Christian's countenance, as if of conflicting emotions, while he grasped the youth's ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... weighty rock she aimed With much enthusiasm: "Oh, lor'!" the startled gnat exclaimed, And promptly had a spasm: A natural proceeding this was, Considering how close ...
— Fables for the Frivolous • Guy Whitmore Carryl
... motioned to her to burn them. Usually she would have obeyed docilely enough, but this deviltry of merriment she resented. While she delayed, standing erect before the smouldering sticks, she noticed that a look of terror crept across the sick face. A spasm shook him, and he fainted. After that his weakness kept him in bed. She wondered what he had been so anxious ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... mortal, it is enough for me if I do my duties as a mortal; I am content if posterity recognises that... This is the only temple I desire to have raised in my honor,—and this only in men's hearts."—the senate, in a spasm of flattery, offered to swear in advance to all his acts. He forbade it, saying in effect that he was doing and proposed to do his best; but all things human were liable to change, and he would not have them endorsing ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... hushed, and turned into a spasm of horror and intense shock, that made every man hold his breath, when the sound of a sudden heavy fall was heard; and it was seen that the Marchese Lamberto had fallen ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... and both felt a spasm of uncontrollable diversion in their throats, making Janet turn her back, and Carey gasp and turn on ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... portico, and the Major stepped down to deliver himself of his garnered news. He was in no pleasant humour, for he had met Dan face to face that morning as he passed the tavern, and as if this were not sufficient to try the patience of an irascible old gentleman, a spasm of gout had seized him as he made ready ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... account of the shriek you heard. As far as we can tell, he does not. The shriek comes, so the doctor tells us, from a nervous spasm. He would have been a bright boy if he had kept his health. Would you like to ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... looked up at him, saw what was coming, looked down again to hide a spasm of terror, and said, with a steady severity that cost her a great effort, "I hope you ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... in the wall contained all that Raikes held dear in the world; every spasm of fear, each contraction of the heart, always began and concluded with the button which moved ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... one I had pulled last year," he announced vastly relieved. A sharp spasm of pain in his jaw caused him to abruptly take advantage of a recent discovery; and while he was careful to couch his opinions in an undertone, he told Mr. Yollop what he thought of him in terms that would have put ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... herons called across the islands, but no human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay, beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa, whispering and choking out the words in ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... the cornea. Aside from the congestion, the primary changes that take place in the iris are indicative of paresis of the fibers of the motor oculi that supply the sphincter pupillae, and stimulation of the fibers from the sympathetic producing vasomotor spasm. The long diameter of the pupil apparently lies in the direction of the terminal vessels of the two principal branches of each long ciliary artery which form the circulus iridis major, where the vasomotor spasm would have the greatest effect ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... intending to put their heels through the dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to use a familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physiological condition of the young person, John. I noticed, however, what I should call a palpebral spasm, affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if it were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, might lead me to suspect a disposition to be satirical ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... and I simply proposed to restore it by a proviso guarding the rights of bona fide settlers who were claiming title under the laws of the United States; but to my perfect amazement I found the California delegation bitterly opposed to this amendment. The reading of it threw them into a spasm of rage, and showed that they were less anxious to quiet titles in their State than to serve the monopolies and rings which had trampled on the laws of the United States, and thus involved themselves in trouble. The zeal and ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... with so sudden and desperate a spasm, that he was forced to let her go. She stood gazing at him, a trembling deer no longer, but rather a lioness at bay, her face ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with awful motions like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands, first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to sit there, almost fainting with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe the policeman would strike him also. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... languor came on her unawares, probing at her weakness, and blinding her to the laws and duties of earth, until her conscious womanhood checked it, and she sprang from the vision in a spasm of terror, not knowing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now, as her bead still lay pillowed upon his breast, so he could not see the spasm of pain which contorted her features as be thus appealed to her. Half bewildered, Maddy could not at first make out whether it were a blissful dream or a reality, her lying there in Guy's arms with his kisses on her forehead, lips ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... wordless cry, rising and dying away again and again, like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night, as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Jan's arm in a sudden spasm of horror. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... cried. "She says they are 'creepy.' She would go into a spasm if she were compelled to touch those caterpillars I ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... came suddenly to himself, and a spasm of disgust seized him. "What a rotten inconvenience!" he said aloud. But before he had time to measure the effect of this new complication the swelling music reminded him that this dance belonged to Mrs. Cortlandt and ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... office. Uvar Ivanovitch wore a loose snuff-coloured coat and a white neckcloth, used to eat often and much, and in moments of great perplexity, that is to say when it happened to him to express some opinion, he would flourish the fingers of his right hand meditatively in the air, with a convulsive spasm from the first finger to the little finger, and back from the little finger to the first finger, while he articulated with effort, 'to be sure... there ought to... in some ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... and acted upon it. She was never finer than when she knelt at Harold's bedside and laid her hand gently on his forehead. She could not speak for a moment, and when her eyes cleared of their tears and she felt the wide, dry eyes of the man searching her, a spasm of ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... disturbance of the duchy to reacquire his lordships in the Bergamasque territory. The true motive for his imprisonment remains still buried in obscure conjecture. Probably it was not even known to the Visconti, who acted on this, as on so many other occasions, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... personal appearance and of the leading traits of his character much has been written, and by some of the keenest observers of his time. He is said to have been a very small and sickly boy, subject to attacks of violent spasm. Although so fond of games and sports when a man, as a boy he evinced little interest in them, probably on account of his ill health. We should naturally think of him as the autocrat of the playground, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... lay still, his breathing became easier and he opened his eyes. Higgins, the volatile, leaped back and swore at the indefinable horror in those eyes. Payne tightened his lips and laid an assuring hand on Willy's shoulder. A spasm of terror passed over the Indian's features as memory returned. He sprang to his feet, looking wildly round and saw Garman. Then he cowered, shrinking together as if striving to sink into the ground, to return to unconsciousness, terrified by some ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... ministry had promised aid, it was long in coming. The Massachusetts Assembly had asked that the ships should be at Boston before the end of March; but it was past the middle of May before they sailed from Plymouth. Then, towards midsummer, a strange spasm of martial energy seems to have seized the ministry, for Viscount Shannon was ordered to Boston with an additional force, commissioned to take the chief command and attack, not Port Royal, but Quebec.[141] This ill-advised change of plan seems to have been ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... washed away, her free hand could lie without spasm in Henry's, and it was as if she found in her last words a secret ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... him lately, this habit of starting at nothing, this ridiculous spasm of shoulder-blade, eyelids and mouth. It was a cause of many smiles to the young ladies of his boarding-house; and this lady was smiling too, though after another fashion. Her smile was remote and delicately poised; ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... heavy and distorted face from his book, and a sneer raised his lip for a moment; but a sudden spasm of pain seizing him, the expression changed, and Vavasour, whose eyes were fixed upon him, hastened to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... heaves and compulsory sways, ah see! in the flush of a march Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weir from the arch Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from inward shades of our night Encroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... found her, she frightened her almost into a spasm by telling her what always happened to ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... knees: a strong spasm ran through her throat and bosom, and she fell on her knees before him, and looked ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... faint when they left the train; and while Aubrey was eagerly devouring the produce of the refreshment room, had to lie on a bench under Dr. Spencer's charge, for Ethel's approach only brought on a dangerous spasm of politeness. How she should get on with him for a month, passed ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... then in white velvet. A preparation of menthe, dripping from a phial, spotted it green. He did not notice. At the moment the spasm had him. Then as that clicked and passed, he looked in the expressionless face of the butler who ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... the comical sight of a French bride and bridegroom, in all the glory of their bridal array—white satin, veil, and orange blossoms—driving through the streets in open cabs, and hugging and kissing each other with an unctuous freedom which is apt to throw a conservative American into a spasm of laughter. Indeed, the frank and candid way that love-making goes on in public among the lower classes is so amazing that at first you think you never in this world will become accustomed to it, but you get accustomed to a great many strange sights in Paris. If a kiss ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... Such a brief spasm had now seized the State. Expenses had doubled and redoubled with a velocity which caused even hardened prodigals to view with alarm. The number of commissions, boards, assistant inspectors, and third deputy clerks was enormous, far larger than anybody realized. If ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... was a wild scene, every fellow being for himself. Colon flung his blazing torch at the advancing beast, and with such good aim that it actually came in contact with the cow's flank. Perhaps it stung, or at any rate gave the beast a new spasm of fear, for there immediately followed a fierce bellow, and ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... circle with a goblet of beaded wine in either hand. There was a moment of solemn silence while Mrs. Harriet and the great Towle condescended to the Pommery. It was broken only by a loud gulp from the hysterical-looking girl who was, it seemed, nervously affected by an imitative spasm, and who suddenly began to swallow nothing with extreme ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... touch of the silky cloth the donkey, who had not twopennyworth of life in him, opened his large grey eye and winked his long ears two or three times, as much as to say, "Oh, thank you!" before a final spasm shook it from head to tail, whereafter it ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... having set the example, and while it is true that in most physiological works "Glottis" is used for the slit between the vocal ligaments, yet the appellations "Rima glottidis" and "Aperture of the glottis" are also employed for the same thing. Medical men, moreover, speak of "Spasm of the glottis," and singing masters of the "Shock of the glottis," which terms are clearly quite meaningless when applied ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... swiftly that it might have been a nervous twitch. He was now a model of Oriental gravity. "Ask him who he is, and what he wants?" The native officer did so, but the stranger made no reply, save that the same sharp spasm passed once more over his face. "Well, I'm blessed!" cried Hilary Joyce. "Of all the impudent scoundrels! He keeps on winking at me. Who are you, you rascal? Give an account of yourself! D'ye hear?" But the tall Arab was as impervious to English as to Arabic. ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "Cedars" was but a short ride, and when the carriage turned into the cedar shaded driveway Tavia felt another "spasm" of alarm—it was ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... "Don't get me started!" A spasm of emotion made a faint, passing shade on his sodden countenance; his voice held almost a note ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Commander-in-Chief said he was going, but that moment arose the good old trouble—the trouble which muddled our start for the Relief of Chitral and ruined the Tirah Campaign. Everyone wants to rush off to the excitement of the firing line—(a spasm usually cured by the first hard fight), and to leave the hum-drum business of the Base and Line of Communication to shift for itself. Braithwaite, of all people, was good natured enough to plead for the Administration. He came to tell me that it might tend towards goodwill amongst the charmed ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... O! Unhappy I was thus foully mangled by the unjust prayers of an unjust father—I am destroyed miserably. Ah me! ah me! Pains rush through my head, and the spasm darts across my brain. Stop, I will rest my fainting body. Oh! oh! O those hateful horses of my chariot, things which I fed with my own hand, ye have destroyed me utterly and slain me. Oh! oh! by ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... bladder apparently causes the organ to tend to "swallow" the foreign object. Yet for every case in which the hair-pin disappears and is lost in the bladder, from carelessness or the oblivion of the sexual spasm, there must be a vast number of cases in which the instrument is used without any such unfortunate result. There is thus great significance in the frequency with which cases of hair-pin in the bladder are strewn through the medical ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... now!" Yet as he uttered these words, he sank to his knees and leaned feebly against the tree, his pallid face suddenly contorted by a dreadful spasm, so that I could scarcely bear to look. Then, sweating with the agonising effort, slowly—slowly—he raised his arm, dwelt a moment on his aim, and fired; the smoking weapon dropped from his lax fingers and, swaying sideways, he sank down, his ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... instinct, the heavy, spiked, iron-headed mace that hung at the Earl's saddle-bow, he gave it one tremendous wrench that snapped the plaited leathern thongs that held it as though they were skeins of thread. Then, grinding his teeth as with a spasm, he struck as he had never struck before—once, twice, thrice full upon the front of the helmet. Crash! crash! And then, even as the Earl toppled sidelong, crash! And the iron plates split and crackled under the third blow. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... and went over the whole building from basement to attic. Most of the rooms were unfurnished, but none the less Holmes inspected them all minutely. Finally, on the top corridor, which ran outside three untenanted bedrooms, he again was seized with a spasm of merriment. ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spasm of angry disgust, when he declared he would go East the next morning, Blair's fancy for "hanging round Mercer" hardened into purpose; but he did not "hang round" his mother's house. "The hotel is pretty bad," he told Nannie, ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... then the second dark, sea-beaten figure emerged from below, and Annette darted forward. She clasped both Paul's hands and gazed into his face, while she seemed to be struggling with herself for something a spasm passed over her face, which was as white as her coiffe: her father and the others gathered round, but some instinct bade them be silent. Annette's lips opened more than once as if she were about to speak, but no sound came forth: then she turned to ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... the ecstasy of relief which Mark felt at her words there was a spasm of sobering jealousy; she only cared to live for ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... A spasm crossed his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile. He said only: "Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. Put it down, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... clear, as his full sense returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a long time since he had seen any open fire,—years, he believed. Where was it that there had been a fire just like that, with the ashes like moss over the heat,—and on a night ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... but she took no notice. The baby's little mouth twitched slightly and her whole being became acutely conscious. She changed its position and words of passionate lovingness crowded upon her lips. But instead of responding to them, it began to whimper fretfully—a sound that brought a spasm of positive anguish ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... versicolor; from mania-a-potu, and from nephrorrhaphy; from the leptothrix, and from colds in the head; from tape-worms, from jiggers and from scurvy; from endocarditis, and from Romberg's masticatory spasm; from hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus, and from fits; from the bacillus botulinus, and from salaam convulsions; from cerebral monoplegia, and from morphinism; from anaphylaxis, and from neuralgia in the eyeball; from dropsy, and from dum-dum fever; from autumnal catarrh, from coryza vasomotoria, ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... Noah's grandson, all threw off their characters; and all illusion, as well as all reality of festivity, were at an end. It is true that Louise composed herself speedily, besought pardon, and assigned as the cause of her emotion sudden spasm in the chest. Elise and Eva, and more particularly Petrea, endeavoured, on account of Henrik and Jacobi, to jest back again the former merriment, but it would not come, and nothing more could succeed. Everybody, but more especially Jacobi, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Leofwine's son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow of the King's fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... experiencing a spasm of excitement unusual to it. As a general thing, the dwellers on the edge of the great alkali wastes—once the bed of a mighty inland sea—were by far too much occupied in keeping reasonably cool, to betray even a passing interest in anything; except the arrival of a train of desolate-looking ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... alone, at length, in the little blue-and-white room which had known her as a child and maiden, where she now sat as wife. For weeks past she had been emotionless. To-night, with that trenchant command, unanswered except in her heart, a spasm of pain had broken the serenity of her calm, and had ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... these words the reverend gentleman had a severe spasm which forced him to lie back and draw his breath hard. Evans uttered something between a cry of dismay and a groan of despair, and stared down upon this audacious invalid with wonder and ire at his supernatural ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... ashamed of the sick spasm of disgust that closed his throat. He felt that it was a sign of raw youth and amateurishness, as when a medical student faints at first sight of the dissecting table. He feared that his face had betrayed ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Then Bo, who was watching him, saw a strange thing take place. The half orange flew out of the Bear's mouth as from a popgun, and his face became so distorted that the boy thought his friend was having a spasm. Suddenly he whirled, and making a rush at the fallen oranges, began to kick them in every direction, coughing and spitting every second. The two dogs looking over the hedge stopped barking to enjoy the fun. ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... it set him going again, although this time the spasm was of shorter duration, Hugh noticed; just as though he had shown them what he could do along such lines, and did not want ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... face of the dying man, and looked at him with deep emotion. He smiled and closed his eyes; but after lying in a quiet slumber for about an hour, he awoke with a spasm; his head fell back, and the hapless victim died in the ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... was cried by the watchman, far away, and then close under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman in a dying spasm. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... dear boy—" said the Revd. Howel, again taking him in his arms in a renewed spasm of affection. "I heard you were wounded and very ill in the camp hospital at Colesberg. It was a nursing sister, I think, who sent me the information. I wrote several times to the War Office, my letters were acknowledged, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... talking, but urbanely listened; and from time to time his eye would scan Augustus, and then a certain sublimated laugh, to his wife well known; would seize him for a single voiceless spasm, and pass. The experienced Albumblatt meanwhile continued, "By-the-way, Doctor, you know ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... in a spasm of dread, putting his hand on mine, "take care, they may punish me much worse. You don't know what they can do." ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... spasm of hope took me into that green cup. The bracken was as thick as on the Pentlands, and there was a multitude of small lovely flowers in the grass. It was like a water-meadow at home, such a place as I had often in boyhood searched for moss-cheepers' ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... in full revolt, and quick with passionate remembrance of the injustice that had been done her, she drew back from him, her eyes flashing. Perhaps it was some passing remembrance of the breakage of the first beer-jug that prevented her from striking him with the second. The spasm passed, and then her rage, instead of venting itself in violent action, assumed the form of dogged silence. He followed her up the street, and into the bar. She handed the jug across the counter, and while the barman filled it searched in her pocket for ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... amazement. Quickly he glanced at his chum, to see that Frank had gone deadly white, and his eyes glittered with sudden spasm of pain that seized ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... "Meaning Meldrum." A spasm of pain shot across the face of the man. "If he's done my little girl any meanness, he'd better blow his head off before I get ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... things for the best. Come now—rouse yourself. Tell David you will always be a friend, and that your father will love him as though he were indeed his son." He moved towards her and touched her tenderly. He felt a violent spasm ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sake of the conventions I tried to feel apprehensive of grave peril. It was no use. I felt safe—not exactly comfortable, but perfectly safe. I could not even muster up a spasm of the spine when a member of our party leaned over and whispered in my ear that any one of these gentry roundabout us would cheerfully cut a man's throat for twenty-five cents. I was surprised, though, at the moderation of the cost; this was the only cheap thing I had struck in Paris. It was ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... could have wished with this handsome young man. In a brave spasm (this girl was in great suffering), "I will tell the Principal," she said; trod heavily to Miss ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... very short visit to the mantua-maker, and then went to Mrs. Gordon's. There was less effusion in that lady's manner than at her last interview with Katherine. She had a little spasm of jealousy; she had some doubts about Katherine's deserts; she wondered whether her nephew really adored the girl with the fervour he affected, or whether he had determined, at all sacrifices, to prevent her marriage with Neil Semple. Katherine had never before seen her so quiet and so ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... as loss of friends and so on. I see her fix her eye steady on him, and then she kind of trembled and turned white, and the next thing I knew was she was all of a heap on the floor. I remember he looked into her face then and seemed to be seized as if it was with a start or spasm-like,—but I thought nothin' more of it, supposin' it was because he felt so bad at makin' her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... tears. He looked anxiously round to see if Vera was there, but one and another hastened to tell him that Vera had gone away. He ought to have been glad to hear this news, but he heard it with a spasm of pain. When he entered his aunt's room she sent Pashutka out and locked ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... be here. No,' he droned, 'but the Museum will still be just where it is. And the reading-room, just where it is. And people will be able to go and read there.' He inhaled sharply, and a spasm as of ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... spasm appeared to pass over Weston's face, and then he continued the conversation in a sadder tone than the subject seemed to require, but I supposed that this was due to his recalling that ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... to repeat the line that so tickled him, he fell into a fearful spasm, which tore and twisted him till his child's body lay curved like a bow. Her ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... stepmother; and this very night she spited and beat me till I could bear it no longer, and was on my way to my aunt's, who dwells in yonder village, when the shower came on; but as I lay waiting for the rain to stop, I was seized with a spasm, to which I am subject, and was in great pain, when I had the good luck to fall in ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... forcibly on the knee. He had forgotten about his dragoman, but happening to look upon that faithful servitor, he saw him gone white with horror. A bullet at that moment twanged near his head and the slave to fear ducked in a spasm. Coleman called the orderly's attention and they both laughed discreetly. They made no pretension of being heroes, but they saw plainly that they were better than this man. Coleman said to him : " How far is it ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... vowed!"' When ceased that voice There fell upon the monks a crisis strange; And where that Pilgrim looked for joy, behold, Doubt, wrath, and anguish! Faces old long since Grew older, stricken as by hectic spasm, So fierce a pang had clutched them by the throat; While drops of sweat on many a wrinkled brow Hung large like dewy beads condensed from mist On cliffs by torrents shaken. Mute they sat; Then sudden ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... gave a last spasm with his hands and feet, and lay rigid, grinning up at the slit of blue sky ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The rider was firmly fixed in the deep cavalry saddle; the reins tossed loose with the horse's mane, and both hands were clenched against either side of his breast; and the head was cut off clean at the shoulders. Perhaps in the spasm of that death-tear the rider had gripped his horse's sides with his long-spurred heels; perhaps the horse also was wounded; anyhow, with head down, and wild and terrified eyes, his shoulders foam-bespewed, he tore past as if in horror of the ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... as mine, and more so,' I replied, rising with a jerk, for a spasm of cramp took me. 'We must separate,' I added, as we walked on. 'We want, at one stroke, to prove to them that we're harmless, and to get a fresh start. ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... new car. She shook herself in an effort at self-control. "Phoebe," she thought, "you're selfish! You go to Philadelphia and you go out with Royal Lee and dance with other young men, and yet, when David pays attention to another girl you have a spasm!" ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... there was silence in the room. Up from the bar, through the thin partition, came the sounds of oaths and laughter and drunken song. The doctor cursed them all below his breath and turned toward the door. A spasm of coughing brought him back to his patient's side. After the spasm had passed the sick man lay still, his eyes closed, and his breath becoming shorter every moment. Once again the eyes made their appeal, ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... often end by carrying off the patient. As a result of the abscess and destruction of the ligaments, the head of the bone is apt to be displaced, and under some sudden muscular exertion or involuntary spasm, consecutive dislocation of the femur (generally on to the dorsum ilii) ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... unpacked her basket, and spread her meagre offerings before him. She described in detail all the surgical operations she had ever had any experience with, following some to their direst consequences. Alexis listened apathetically. Now and then a spasm of pain contracted his face, but he ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... impression that bats were made to get on with, while the rest of Callahan's bunch use them solely to get out with, and that was the whole trouble in the last round. The Sox entered that spasm four runs behind, having converted Demmitt's lone hit in the first inning into the only genuine tally ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... were still hidden, there passed through his worn features a sharp spasm, as of some uncontrollable anguish—passed and ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... now all her dregs were stirred to the surface. The mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman, had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival—to be revenged on her false lover. More than one sharp spasm passed over her features before she could master them, and then she became smiles above, wormwood and red-hot steel below—all in less ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade |
