"Spasmodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is to be sought for in these bygone epochs. Movements of human thought have seldom that suddenness with which they are sometimes credited; if those literary innovations, apparently so spasmodic, are carefully and closely studied, it will be nearly always found that the way had been imperceptibly prepared for them through the ages. We are in the habit of beginning the history of the English ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... I should have spoken. I felt like the spectator who is compelled to witness a tragedy which both wounds and bores him. I was obsessed by my own ill-luck and the stupidity of the rest of mankind. I was particularly annoyed by the spasmodic hymn-singing that went on in various parts of ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... springs forward, and approaches the silent hunter, who, with a beating heart, holds his piece in the attitude of "ready." He makes another of his pauses. The gun is levelled, the trigger pulled; the bullet speeds forth, and strikes into his broad chest, causing him to leap upward in the spasmodic effort ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... even here, in the club-room, after his sixpence was duly laid down, and the arm chair taken, there was no security for him against the intrusion of those maladies which had so often assailed him. On the first night of meeting (13th of December, 1783) he was seized with a spasmodic asthma, and hardly made his way home to his own house, where the dropsy combined with asthma to hold him a prisoner for more than four months. An occurrence during his illness, which he mentioned to Boswell, deserves notice, from the ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... three letters of the 5th and 6th. They made me laugh, yet I pity you, and have really a fellow feeling for you. Poor little Rippy, so you are mortgaged! But you bear it charmingly; do you think this courage will last, or is it only a spasm? Spasmodic love. It is really quite new. The trifling incident in relation to dress you must pardon. I am a connoisseur in these things, and can assure you they are ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... its confusion was increased by the appearance of the cholera morbus. This frightful malady first appeared on the banks of the Ganges, in 1817. The early manifestations of it consisted in violent vomitings and discharges of the bowels. After this, spasmodic contractions, beginning in the fingers, gradually extended themselves to the trunk; the pulse sank; the skin became cold; the lips, face, neck, hands, and feet, and soon after the thighs, arms, and surface assumed a leaden, blue, purple, black, or deep ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... left hand. There was a sharp crack and the yellow-faced man, reeling, dropped face downwards on the carpet without a sound. In his fall his foot caught a small table on which a vase of chrysanthemums stood, and the whole thing went over with a loud crash. He made a spasmodic effort to rise, hoisted himself on to his knees, swayed again, and then collapsed full length on the floor, ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... that was his bed. A stubble of beard made his already dark face even more sinister, his tousled hair looked as if it had never known the refining influences of a comb or brush. As Rose-Marie stared at him, half fascinated, he turned—with a spasmodic, drunken movement—and flung one ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... troubled with spasmodic contraction of the throat once went to a doctor in alarm and distress. The doctor told him that, in any case, nothing worse than fainting could happen to him, and that, if he fainted away, his throat would be ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... young woman, who as it happened was jealous of her companion's progress, still sat writing, and a light blinked in the adjoining one across the passage in which one of the heads of the firm would probably remain most of the night. Trade is spasmodic in the West, and those who live by it work with feverish activity when the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... without taking a formal farewell of their friends, set forward. As many of the slaves had remained for years in irons, the sudden exertion of walking quick, with heavy loads upon their heads, occasioned spasmodic contractions of their legs; and we had not proceeded above a mile, before it was found necessary to take two of them from the rope, and allow them to walk more slowly until we reached Maraboo, a walled village, where some people were waiting to join the coffle. Here we stopt ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... mysterious and profound, with his long, dark, straight locks of hair, one of which was continually being brushed away from his forehead as it continually fell; with his gold-bowed eye-glass, his large nose and peculiar blue eyes, his spasmodic expressions of nervous horror, and his cachinnatious laugh. There were sturdy Teel, and heavy Eaton, and frisky Burnham, and bluff Rykman, with round-eyed Fanny Dwight and another graceful Fanny, and oh! so many more men ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... a harsh shout of laughter, succeeded by the same abrupt silence. Would all our conversation, I wondered, be conducted on this spasmodic system? He certainly didn't second my efforts at small-talk. Was what he had to say ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... vapours of camphor, alcohol, chloroform, sulphuric and nitric ether, are poisonous in moderately large doses, but in small doses serve as narcotics or, anaesthetics, greatly delaying the subsequent action of meat. But some of these vapours also act as stimulants, exciting rapid, almost spasmodic movements in the tentacles. Carbonic acid is likewise a narcotic, and retards the aggregation of the protoplasm when carbonate of ammonia is subsequently given. The first access of air to plants which have been immersed in this gas sometimes acts ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... considerable gifts, but spasmodic, emotional. He had grave domestic troubles, divorced his wife, in fact, and it was as a relief from that, I think, that he took up politics of the rabid sort. He was a fanatical Radical—a Socialist—or typical Liberal, as they used to ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... striving for breath, which came in spasmodic pants after her running. "Help, monsieur, if ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... vitals. His sufferings were too intense, and he could no longer bear up against them. His head fell backwards, his jaws closed convulsively, he crushed the neck of the bottle between his teeth, his neck grew rigid, his limbs writhed with spasmodic action, and he ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... April had hardly washed away the traces of the wild March winds, the weather had suddenly become almost tropical in its heat. There was not the slightest breath of air stirring, and the sea lay lazily asleep, only throbbing now and then with a faint spasmodic motion, which barely stirred the shingle on the shore, much less plashed on the beach; while a thick, heavy white mist was steadily creeping up from the sea, shutting out, first the island, and then the roadstead at Spithead from view, and overlapping ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... on the defensive. A big effort by the enemy was expected, and when it came, the St. Quentin front was not unlikely to receive the brunt of his massed attack. The months of January and February and the first half of March were ominously quiet. Shelling was spasmodic. After the artillery activity of the last summer and autumn our guns seemed lazy. So quiet was it that Abraham used to ride up to the two small copses that ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... his head dejectedly, his lips working in a sort of spasmodic silence. Dodge eyed him with a curious, new-born commiseration. The boy's self-abasement, his misery, his flouting of his own weakness were not altogether the result of maudlin reaction. He presented a combination of manliness and effectiveness that perplexed and irritated Simeon Dodge. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... under the elbows of the crowd, stared at her, and smiled queerly and whispered to himself. Marjie shivered, then forgot him as a spasmodic gasp ran through the crowd; a sound suddenly seemed to envelop her like a wave, breaking, gathering itself, then breaking ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... Abbotsford with his daughter Sophia, before her marriage to Mr. Lockhart, and had sent to say that he was desirous I should come to him, which I did, and remained for ten days till the attack had subsided. During its course the extreme violence of the pain end spasmodic contraction of the muscles of the stomach were such that I scarcely expected the powers of endurance could sustain him through the trial, and so much at times was he exhausted by it as to leave us in alarm as to what the result had actually been. One night I ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the gradual increase in fighting activity was not simply an impulsive response to Prime Minister Kerensky's eloquence or the result of isolated local conditions. Gradually the fighting spread over more and more ground. It became more efficient and less spasmodic. Undoubtedly this was partly due to the fact that matters behind the front began to settle down somewhat and that supplies of ammunition and food again flowed more regularly and abundantly. Then too the new commander in chief seemed to be more capable of controlling ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... were mostly in flannels and blazers, and deck-shoes; the women affected light array of a cool nature; and all looked as though it were too much trouble to move or even to speak, though here and there an individual more enterprising than his or her fellows would make a spasmodic attempt at a constitutional, said attempt usually resolving itself into five and a half feeble turns, up and down the clear part of the deck, to culminate in abrupt collapse; for it is warm in ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Mr. Sumner was a more serious difference, but it passed without any break in our relations. He had not acquired the church-going habit, or he had renounced it, and my church-going was spasmodic rather than systematic. Thus it became possible and agreeable for me to spend some small portion of each Sunday in his rooms. The controversy over Mr. Motley and his removal from the post of minister to Great Britain excited Mr. Sumner to a point far beyond any excitement ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... nerve in her body seemed to tremble and throb with quick, spasmodic pain, then to stand still as though the chill of death were creeping over her. Her eyes grew dim with an awful darkness, and Claire's voice seemed far off and indistinct. Then the world faded from her ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... that of the Kuges. But it must not be understood that these councils were regular meetings held in the modern parliamentary way; nor that they had anything like the powers of the British Parliament or of the American Congress. These councils of Japan were called into spasmodic life simply by the necessity of the time. They were held either at the court of Kioto or that of Yedo, or at other places appointed for the purpose. The Kuges or Daimios assembled rather in an informal way, measured by modern parliamentary procedure, ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... she said at last, speaking huskily in her struggle to overcome the spasmodic contractions of her throat, "it is time ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... Rome with a mere shadow of an army; the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result, and the little army, called into existence by ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... the rare six stresses in a ten-syllabled line, the still rarer effect of three strongly stressed syllables following immediately upon one another, the inversion of three out of the five stresses of the next line, "irrecoverably dark" suggesting the spasmodic disorder of violent grief. These are certainly devices deliberately chosen for producing the required effects. And so, probably, are the more regular rhythm of the words which express the calming ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... Colonel Bogey at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work. A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise your ambition—and so great, so influential an ambition!—by spasmodic and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately. You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and has need ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... caught sight of Paul Deulin a long way off, despite her short sight, which was perhaps spasmodic, as short sight often is. She stopped, and half turned, as if to dismiss Martin. When Deulin perceived them he was standing in the middle of the pavement, as if they had just met. He came up with a bow to Netty and his hand stretched out to Martin—his left hand, which conveyed the fact that ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... title was bestowed on them by Cedar Camp, possibly in recognition of a certain matured good humor, quite distinct from the spasmodic exuberant spirits of its other members, and possibly from what, to its youthful sense, seemed their advanced ages—which must have been at least forty! They had also set habits even in their improvidence, lost incalculable and unpayable sums to each other over euchre ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... years of age and unappeasably timid, unaccountably strange, had, on her reduced scale, an almost Gothic grotesqueness; but the final effect of one's sense of it was an amenity that accompanied one's steps like wafted gratitude. More flurried, more spasmodic, more apologetic, more completely at a loss at one moment and more precipitately abounding at another, he had never before in all his days seen any maiden lady; yet for no maiden lady he had ever seen had he so promptly conceived ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... mine does," he said with a sigh, laying her little hand on his heart. He could do so in all confidence, for its spasmodic throbbing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... events—the completeness of my damnation. Thank you for discharging that sisterly office. I observe, by-the-bye, that Mallard's influence is strengthening your character. Formerly you were often rigorous, but it was spasmodic. You can now persevere in pitilessness, an essential in one who would support what we call justice. Don't think I am writing ironically. Whenever I am free from passion, as now—and that is seldom enough—I can see myself precisely ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... again and again without thought, animated only by frenzied brute instinct to find the throat of his tormenter, and ever and ever failing; till at length he crumpled and lay crushed and writhing, then subsided into insensibility, was quite still but for heaving lungs and the spasmodic clutchings of his broken ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... a shock and both expressed it by a spasmodic breath. They spoke not; they watched her slim, white figure pass to-and-fro with soft and reverent steps, arranging violets and white hyacinths with green moss in the exquisite white Wedgewood. Then with a face full of innocent joy she placed it upon the ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... until his eyes had become more accustomed to the shadows. His feet had scarcely touched a firm foundation before he was conscious of a slight noise behind him. He turned, and at the same moment a form hurled itself upon him. In the frenzied movement of the hands for his throat, in the spasmodic clutch of the arms which clung animal-like about him he recognized the same mad, unreasoning passion with which young Arsdale had before attacked him. He could not see his face, and the man uttered no cry. The fellow's arms seemed stronger than before ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... one wild roll of her eyes at him. The colour was returning to Adrianna's cheeks; her mother was drinking hot tea in spasmodic gulps. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... and the spasmodic flare showed the rigid face torn with the emotions that were racking the soul laid bare before its ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... it was growing dark that afternoon, and went back to his rooms for tea. He had passed, as was usual now, an extremely distracted couple of hours, sitting over his books with spasmodic efforts only to attend to them. He was beginning, in fact, to be not quite sure whether Law after all was ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... get," answered the manager; and so he held on till, I suppose, the tide had raised the river Dee to its very acme of height. At last the word was given; the ship began slowly to move; Mrs. ——— threw the bottle against the bow with a spasmodic effort that dashed it into a thousand pieces, and diffused the fragrance of the old port all around, where it lingered several minutes. I did not think that there could have been such a breathless moment in an ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... is the general mental inadequacy that is paired with this spasmodic energy of scorn. Common sense is not the highest of dramatic qualities, but a modicum of it would have made Schiller's first heroine, to say the least, more interesting. She has no power of initiative and seems made only to be duped. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... himself found out,—and so received my first ignorance of his plagiaristic tendency as if I had known all about it: and years after Aytoun had (as I was told) avenged justice by that cleverest of spasmodic poetries, "Firmilian, by Percy Jones"—a burlesque on Alexander Smith, and a book which the world has too willingly let die. Let no one, however, after all this, fancy that I am unaware of Alexander Smith's true merit. He very neatly fitted into ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... into a side street. But she had walked beneath its withered maples no more than a block or two, when her largest immediate problem, her father's trial on the morrow, thrust itself into her consciousness, and the pressing need of further action drove all this spasmodic speculation from her mind. She began to think upon what she should next do. Almost instantly her mind darted to the man whom she had definitely connected with the plot against her father, Arnold Bruce, and she turned back toward the Square, afire ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the lion lunged suddenly to earth and with a few spasmodic quiverings lay still. The ape-man rose and shook himself, even as might ja, the leopard-coated lion of Pal-ul-don, had he been the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... slender form of Florence underwent a spasmodic seizure in her chair, but as the fit was short and also noiseless, it passed without ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... seeing a ray of light underneath the door of his room. He entered.... She was awaiting him—reading, tranquil and smiling. Her face, refreshed and retouched with juvenile color, did not show the slightest trace of the morning's spasmodic outbreak. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Isabella said I would make a better musician than she, having more patience and perseverance. However, I took hardly six months' lessons to her ever so many years; heard how well she played, got disgusted with myself, and gave up the piano at fourteen, with spasmodic fits of playing every year or so. At sixteen, Harry gave me a guitar. Here was a new field where I would have no competitors. I knew no one who played on it; so I set to work, and taught myself to manage it, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... we assure our friends once again that, in the discharge of this responsibility, we Americans know and we observe the difference between world leadership and imperialism; between firmness and truculence; between a thoughtfully calculated goal and spasmodic reaction to the ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... at least, there is no shadow of doubt. The people of the loyal States, who, by an immense majority, have just emphasized their determination to sustain the war, are firmly convinced that they are not laboring and suffering in vain. It is no spasmodic impulse of blind passion, or even of useless though just resentment against wrong, which impels them, after nearly three years of ruinous war, to redouble their sublime efforts to conquer the treason that still obstinately resists the lawful authority ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Florentine mirror above the fine old walnut credence he had picked up at Dijon—saw himself spare, quick-moving, carefully brushed and dressed, but furrowed, gray about the temples, with a stoop which he corrected by a spasmodic straightening of the shoulders whenever a glass confronted him: a tired middle-aged man, baffled, beaten, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... of 1783, in addition to his gout and his catarrhous cough, he was seized with a spasmodic asthma of such violence that he was confined to the house in great pain, being sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a recumbent posture being so hurtful to his respiration that he could not endure lying in bed; and there came upon him at the same time that oppressive and fatal disease ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... as a candle, was conducting an invisible orchestra when Aline returned. The frightened maid tried to hold the lean, spasmodic arms as they traced in the air the pompous rhythm of a march that moved on silent funereal pinions through the chamber. The woman stared threateningly at the picture on the wall, the picture of the skeleton which ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... right hand of Hercules tenderly, and Jarvis never let her know that it was the left arm that had been broken. She felt certain that he must be suffering agony, for ever and anon his fingers would close over hers with a spasmodic grip that sent a thrill of mixed joy and ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... freedom from pain of a most excruciating character during the ten minutes that elapsed before her husband's return. The quantity of opium administered was large, and its effects soon apparent in a gradual breaking down of the pains, which had been almost spasmodic ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... ladies were no better dressed, and none of them had any covering for the head. Their faces bore distinct traces of the sufferings they had undergone. Their eyes were sunken, their cheeks pale, and every now and then a sort of spasmodic twitch seemed to pass over their features. One of them could just stand, but could not walk; the others were comparatively helpless. A gentleman was lying close by the ladies, still suffering grievously in his hands and feet from the effects of his long exposure in ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... behind this wall of reserve. Carlotta said, "Oh, ye-es" or "No-o" to everything. It was not a momentous conversation. As it was Carlotta in whom Judith was particularly interested, I effaced myself. At last, after a lull in the spasmodic talk, Carlotta ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Every impulse given to the masses is, in its nature, spasmodic and transitory. No systematic enterprise to enlighten the masses ever can be carried out. Campaigns of education contain a fallacy. Education takes time. It cannot be treated as subsidiary for a lifetime and then be made the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... passages by a P. and O. steamer from Suez to Bombay many weeks beforehand, so as to secure good berths; and still more unfortunately, in a letter to Lady Georgina, I had chanced to mention the name of our ship and the date of the voyage. I kept up a spasmodic correspondence with Lady Georgina nowadays—tuppence-ha'penny a fortnight; the dear, cantankerous, racy old lady had been the foundation of my fortunes, and I was genuinely grateful to her; or, rather, I ought to say, she had ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... from well. Now I'll state my case to you, for your satisfaction, and to prevent any little mistakes. I was lately afflicted with a sort of nondescript atrophy, a stagnation of the fluids, a congestion of the small blood-vessels, and a spasmodic contraction of the finitesimal nerves, that threatened very serious consequences. At the survey, two of the surgeons, ignorant quacks that they are, broached a most ridiculous opinion—a heterodox doctrine—a damnable heresy. On ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... other sweet herbs that used to be deposited in them. Even the tiny cow-bell, which once served to warn Dame Trippew of the advent of a customer, still hung from a bit of curved iron on the inner side of the street-door, and continued to give out a petulant, spasmodic jingle whenever that door was opened, however cautiously. If the good soul could have returned to the scene of her terrestrial commerce, she might have resumed business at the old stand without making any alterations whatever. Everything remained precisely as she ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Carey's theory of wealth, and acknowledges unreservedly, in its broadest sense, the universal domination of Law. Statistics bourgeon into prophecies under his pen: he does not disdain their significance, but rather aids their influence with all the power which his spasmodic style has given in drawing our grotesque-loving public to him. We suspect Buckle, and feel a cheerful sense of Bacon and Comte. In his plea for socialism, for education, we see the dawn of the ultimate triumph and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... on us do not last for ever. In too many cases they do not last long. It is rather a start in grace we take at such seasons than a steady and deep growth in it. The growth in grace that comes to us in connection with some sore affliction is apt to be violent and spasmodic; it comes and it goes with the affliction; it is not slow, constant, steady, sure, as all true and natural growth is. If one might say so, an unbroken winter in the soul, a continual inward winter, is needed to keep up a steady, deep and fruitful growth in grace. Now, ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... them. Cathy was loath to leave her father even for an hour, he was so ill; but she had been told Linton was dying, so nerved herself to go once more on the moors: they found Linton in a strange state, terrified, exhausted, despondent, making spasmodic love to Cathy as if it were a lesson he had been beaten into learning. She wished to return, but the boy declared himself, and looked, too ill to go back alone. They escorted him home to the Heights, and Heathcliff persuaded them ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... is meant a spasmodic condition which usually affects children at night, and is in no way to be confounded with that really dangerous disease, membranous croup, or diphtheria, to which so ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... similarity to the same subject at Varallo, is by far the best. Ferrari never painted anything at once truer to life and nobler in tragic style than the fainting Virgin. Her face expresses the very acme of martyrdom—not exaggerated nor spasmodic, but real and sublime—in the suffering of a stately matron. In points like this Ferrari cannot be surpassed. Raphael could scarcely have done better; besides, there is an air of sincerity, a stamp of popular truth, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... manner of holding his hand to his forehead as if seeking inspiration, the almost spasmodic movements of his mouth, the sort of plaintive groan that started the prayer, and the steadily accumulating earnestness with which it ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... his plump shoulders in regularly recurring, silent chuckles, and a ludicrously doleful effort to shut off with upturned collar the draft from the back of his neck, to hear the boy's approaching footsteps. He started guiltily to his feet in the very middle of a spasmodic upheaval, to stand and stare questioningly at the big figure whose fingers had plucked tentatively at his elbow, until a sudden, delighted recognition flooded his face. Then he reached out one pudgy hand with ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... can tell what wind there is in them," remarked Boston, as he viewed it. "But it's pretty close to the water, and dropping rain. Hold on, there, Doc. Stay aboard. We couldn't pull ashore in the teeth of it." The doctor had made a spasmodic leap to the rail. "If the chains were shackled on, we might drop one of the hooks and hold her; but it's two hours work for a ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... infrequently slandered: they are, as a rule, so bad that calumniation is a compliment. Our best men, with here and there an exception, have been driven out of public life, or made afraid to enter it. Even our spasmodic efforts at reform fail ludicrously for lack of leaders unaffiliated with "the thing to be reformed." Unless attracted by the salary, why should a gentleman "aspire" to the Presidency of the United States? During his canvass (and he is expected to "run," not merely to "stand") he will have from ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... usual, had the window open. She and plump Mrs. Frederick Penhallow did most of the talking. Mrs. George Penhallow being rather out of it by reason of her newness. She was George Penhallow's second wife, married only a year. Hence, her contributions to the conversation were rather spasmodic, hurled in, as it were, by dead reckoning, being sometimes appropriate and sometimes savouring of a point of view ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the noses of the horses behind touching the backs of the vehicles in advance, all bespattered with ebon mud—ebon mud that stuck like Jews' pitch. At times the mass, receiving some mysterious impulse far in the rear, away among the coiled thoroughfares out of sight, would, start forward with a spasmodic surge. It seemed as if some squadron of centaurs, on the thither side of Phlegethon, with charge on charge, was driving tormented humanity, with ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... been conducting a vigorous campaign against singers who dispense with careful and prolonged training, and by their spasmodic and declamatory style ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... from the Dagombas and with one accord we struggled to our feet. Each with his hand upon the shoulder of his companion in front we moved cautiously forward, shooting now and then as we went. But the reply to our fire was now spasmodic, and we were convinced that only a few of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... hopping now on the one foot now on the other. When many took part in the dance, they placed themselves in rows, sang a monotonous, meaningless song, hopped in time, turned the eyes out and in, and threw themselves with spasmodic movements, clearly denoting pleasure and pain, now to the right, now to the left "La saison" for dance and song, the time of slaughtering reindeer, however, did not happen during our stay, on which account our experience of ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... forward and congratulated the novelist as on some achievement of his own. They did it briefly, restrained by the silence that his voice had sunk into. Everybody's nerves were tense, troubled by the vibrating passage of the supersensual. The discussion that followed was spasmodic and curt. ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... strangely enough, while swimming,—in the mightiest ocean-surge into which I had ever dared plunge my mortal body. Keats hints at the same sudden emotion, in a wild poem written among the Scottish mountains. It was not the distinctive sensation which drowning men are said to have, that spasmodic passing in review of one's whole personal history. I had no well-defined anxiety, felt no fear, was moved to no prayer, did not give a thought to home or friends; only it swept over me, as with a sudden tempest, that, if I meant to get back to my own camp, I must keep my ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... more genteel worshippers take up their quarters mainly on the ground floor—at the back of the central seats and at the sides. The poor have resting places found for them immediately in front of the pulpit and at the rear of the galleries. Very little of that unctuous spasmodic shouting, which used to characterise Wesleyanism, is heard in Lune-street Chapel. It has become unfashionable to bellow; it is not considered "the thing" to ride the high horse of vehement approval and burst into luminous showers of "Amens" and "Halleleujahs." Now and then a ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... his precipitated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry elemental strife; through which, with bad accommodations and innumerable accidents, he became a prey to the merciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheumatism, which barely suffered him to reach his home ere, long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured prisoner, to his bed. Such was the check that almost instantly curbed, though it could not ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... complete catastrophe for the enemy, who from positions on our extreme left and centre had a full view of the slaughter around the doomed trains. Their nerves were completely shattered, their fire became spasmodic and erratic, and then among the trees on a hill to the ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... lashed to a solid one will be solid; and reeds shaken with the wind may be turned into brazen pillars that cannot be moved. If we have Christ in our hearts, He will be our consolation first and our stability next. Why should it be that we are spasmodic and fluctuating, and the slaves of ups and downs, like some barometer in stormy weather; now at 'set fair,' and then away down where 'much rain' is written? There is no need for it. Get Christ into your heart, and your mercury will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... always on the alert for easy duties, and used to plead his delicate health as the reason for assuming them, as he did; though I used to think, that for a man in poor health, he was very swift on the legs; at least when a good place was to be jumped to; though that might only have been a sort of spasmodic exertion under strong inducements, which every one knows the greatest invalids will ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... to ask her where she lived and how old she was, and she had to scream so loud to answer him, that it attracted the attention of all the guests. Then the dessert came and the wine, and an hour and a half had passed, and still no one showed any signs of leaving the table, and the old gentleman made spasmodic attempts at conversation, at intervals of ten minutes. The hour and a half became two hours, and Gypsy was so thoroughly tired out sitting still, it seemed as if she should scream, or upset her finger-bowl, or knock over her chair, or ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... walk less with God, thy frame less heavenly? Hast thou less conscious nearness to the mercy-seat,—diminished communion with thy Saviour? Is prayer less a privilege than it has been?—the pulsations of spiritual life more languid, and fitful, and spasmodic?—the bread of life less relished?—the seen, and the temporal, and the tangible, displacing the unseen and eternal? Art thou sinking down into this state of drowsy self-contentment, this conformity-life with the world, forfeiting all the happiness of ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... sudden certainty which had as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The defeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a horrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and, unconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead against the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on the gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the rock, and Charley held his breath as Toby slowly and deliberately adjusted the rifle at his shoulder and aimed. Then the rifle rang out as music to Charley's ears. The seal gave a spasmodic lurch toward the water, and then lay still. Toby's aim had been sure, and the bullet had reached its mark in the head, the one point where it would deal quick and certain ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... Parliament was destined before long to prove irresistible. The case of the reformers was emphasized by the widespread agricultural distress from which the country had long been suffering. The inevitable reaction had set in, too, after the spasmodic inflation of trade and commerce which had accompanied the long period of war. Even if the governing system of England had been as wise and humane as it was {23} unenlightened and harsh, the condition of the country would, ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... expanse of solitude spread glitteringly. All crimson and violet, with deep purple marking the depressions in its monotonous surface, and here and there the dry bed of one of its spasmodic lakes, showing almost black in its obscurity. These lakes were water-filled only in the early spring, and their moisture had long since died out of them. Under a noon-day sun they showed like shallow bowls filled with ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... went to the small hotel and secured a room. She meant to telegraph and buy her ticket South—but instead she fed Cuff, took a little food herself, and fell asleep. It was late when she awakened to a realization of acute suffering that seemed confused and spasmodic. It was like being partially conscious. She was frightened and tried to fix upon some direct and immediate means of securing help for herself. She did not want to call assistance from the office, so she got up and dressed and half ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... hidden in the harsh monastic shell. The devil has become God upon this earth, and God's eternal jailer in the next world. Nature is regarded with suspicion and aversion; the flesh, with shame and loathing, broken by spasmodic outbursts of lawless self-indulgence. For human life there ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... at him steadily for a moment, the tears still in her eyes. "You are very understanding and gentle—and sensible," she added, with brusque frankness and cordiality. "Yes, I will sing for Rudyard Byng and for Jigger; and a little too for a very clever diplomatist." She gave a spasmodic laugh. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Norman came in. Linda went out with Mrs. Richards to get some refreshment in the dining-room, and Mrs. Woodward sat with her arm round Katie's neck on the sofa, comforting her with kisses and little caressing touches, but saying nothing. Katie, still unconscious of her passion, gave way to spasmodic utterance of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... up till that period his noblest poem, "The Salamandrine, or Love and Immortality," appeared in 1843. As there is no hesitation in his thought, there is no vagueness in his language; it is terse, clear, and direct in every utterance. An enemy to spasms in every form, he abhors the Spasmodic School of Poets. If the true poet be the seer—the far seer into futurity—he should see his way clear before him. He should write because he has a thought to utter, and ought to utter it in the clearest and the fittest language, and this is the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... administration of military affairs in the United States is somewhat spasmodic, resulting directly and unavoidably from the fact of our maintaining only the merest skeleton of a standing army compared to the vast territorial extent of the Union. As an incident of this system, Fort Moultrie ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by. Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... entertainment. A damper, less enthusiastic company never gathered to a public show. Though the rain had ceased, and the sun shone, those who possessed umbrellas were not to be coaxed, but held them aloft with a settled air of gloom which defied the lenitives of nature and the spasmodic cajolery of the worst band in Edinburgh. "It'll be near full, Jock?" "It wull." "He'll be startin' in a meenit?" "Aiblins he wull." "Wull this be the sixt time ye've seen him?" "I shudna wonder." It occurred to me that, had we come to bury Byfield, not to praise ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... writers, 'de quibus,' Boccaccio said, 'nil curandum est,' were it not that they show how the memory at least of the classical pastoral survived amid the ruins of ancient learning, and so serve to lead up to one last spasmodic manifestation of the kind in certain poems which else appear to stand in ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... my dearest Hal, and found your letter waiting for me. The aspect of these, my hired Penates, is comfortable and homelike to me, after living at inns for a fortnight; and the spasmodic and funereal greetings of the nervous Mulliner, and the lugubrious Jeffreys, gladden my spirits with a sense of returning to something that ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and sinewy, Shoulders broad, necks thick and strong, Necks that to the earth-supporting Atlas might full well belong. "But our strength un-scientific strives in vain thro' stagnant water, Every day, I blush to own it, Cambridge strokes are rowing shorter. With a short spasmodic impulse see the boats a moment leap, Starting with a flying motion, soon they stop and sink to sleep. Where are Stanley, Jones, and Courage? where is 'Judas' stout and tall, Where the Stroke named ''all' by Bargemen, known to Cambridge as 'Jack Hall'? 'Twas a ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... and the mother must be especially patient and sympathetic. Her disposition may change, she may want to be alone, and she may be more or less melancholy. She will be dissatisfied with the things that previously interested her. She will tire easily, and she may have many spasmodic pains from time to time. The wise mother will tactfully see that she takes plenty of nourishing food and systematic exercise, and that she gets enough sleep in a well-aired room. There are other physical changes which are observable at this age. The girl grows taller, the figure broadens ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... said the dying angel with a smile of unaffected cheerfulness. 'In the short term of my life a great deal of happiness has been comprised. The maladies of my frame were peculiar; those of my head and stomach which no medicine could eradicate, were spasmodic and violent; and required stronger measures to render them supportable while they lasted than my constitution could sustain without injury. The periods of exemption from those pains were frequently of several days' duration, and in my intermissions I felt no indications ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... John Kemble that he was never pathetic because he had no children. Talma says that when deeply moved he found himself making a rapid and fugitive observation on the alternation of his voice, and on a certain spasmodic vibration which it contracted in tears. Has not the actor who can thus make his feelings a part of his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but who makes his observations solely from the feelings of others? It is necessary to this art that the mind should have, ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... in the nostrils and leaves a bad taste for hours afterward in the mouths of the sight-seer. At the time of our visit both the opium dens and the gambling houses were running in full blast, and this in spite of the spasmodic efforts made by the police to close them. John Chinaman is a natural born gambler, and to obtain admission to one of his resorts is a more difficult matter than it would be for an ordinary man to obtain an audience with the Queen of England. He does his gambling ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... we have not met. Their poor shifts at self-deceit are painfully familiar to us. In the company of this keen-eyed detective we can follow human selfishness and cowardice through all their disguises. The emptiness of conventional respectabilities and pieties and the futility of the spasmodic attempts at heroism are ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... thrill and stir me so that I have an emission while sitting by them with no thought of sex, only the gladness of soul found its way out thus, and a glow of health suffused the whole body. There was no spasmodic conclusion, but a pleasing gentle sensation as the few drops of semen passed." (In reality, no doubt, not semen, but urethral fluid.) This man's condition may certainly be considered somewhat morbid; he is attracted to both men and women, and the sexual impulse seems to be irritable ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and then reared straight up, till it seemed to Diana that he must fall backward and crush the man who was clinging to him. But he came down at last, and for a few moments it was almost impossible to follow his spasmodic movements as he strove to rid himself of his rider. The end came quickly. With a twisting heave of his whole body he shot the Arab over his head, who landed with a dull thud and lay still, while the men who had been holding the colt dashed in and secured him before ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... they repeated their performance. They were torn between intermittent convulsive laughter and sudden spasmodic discussions of politics, college, and the sunny state of their dispositions. Their watches told them that it was now nine o'clock, and a dim idea was born in them that they were on a memorable party, something that they would remember always. They lingered over the second ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... critic, after various spasmodic efforts at severity, selecting from among many comprehensive measures suggested by me for the future emancipation, and for the present benefit, of the slave, the proposition of "a proper instrument for flogging, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... always has been. Study was not my bent, and I could not please myself by being all idle. Thus it came to pass that I was always going about with some castle in the air firmly build within my mind. Nor were these efforts in architecture spasmodic, or subject to constant change from day to day. For weeks, for months, if I remember rightly, from year to year, I would carry on the same tale, binding myself down to certain laws, to certain proportions, and proprieties, and unities. Nothing impossible ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... spasmodic attempt to play the squire of Mellor on his native heath, Richard Boyce rose, drew his emaciated frame to its full height, and stood looking out drearily to his ancestral lawns—a picturesque and elegant figure, for all its ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... has had a big sale." "Three Men in a Boat ought to have," quoth the Baron, cheerily, and then he called aloud, "Bring me Pickwick!" He commenced at the Review, and the first meeting of Mr. Pickwick with the Wardle family. Within five minutes the Baron was shaking with spasmodic laughter, and CHARLES DICKENS'S drollery was as irresistible as ever. Of course the Baron does not for one moment mean to be so unfair to the Three Men in a Boat as to institute a comparison between it and the immortal Pickwick, but he has heard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... that the overture will be sung—for the real overture is the great movement beginning with this stern attack, and ending only when light appears at the command of Moses—the Duchess could not control a little spasmodic start, that showed how entirely the music was in ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... very ill indeed, with spasmodic rheumatism. But the old gentleman was himself—which is to say, he was kind-hearted and agreeable when comfortable, but a singularly violent wild-cat when things did not go well. He would be smiling along pleasantly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of rebellion flared up in his passionate outburst against the King and the Loyalists. But it was only temporary, and when he learned that the girl was James Sterling's daughter, he was forced to capitulate. He made a few spasmodic efforts after that, but the gentleness of the girl, together with the fact that she knew and loved Dane, swept everything ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... left hand to the full length of his arm; there was a soft dab, and Fred uttered a subdued "Oh!" as his companion's right hand grasped his with spasmodic violence. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... plants of the Gemiasma verdans. A represents a mature plant. B represents the same plant, discharging its spores and spermatia through a small opening in the cell walls. The discharge is quite rapid but not continuous, being spasmodic, as if caused by intermittent contractions in the cell walls. The discharge begins suddenly and with considerable force—a sort of explosion which projects a portion of the contents rapidly and to quite a little distance. This goes on for a few seconds, and then the cell is at ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... the season weighed upon my health and spirits. I had been affected for about three days with what I regarded as the ordinary complaints of the season, when one night, after my family had retired, I found myself suddenly very ill—my symptoms being coldness, debility, and spasmodic pains. I believed myself to be attacked with cholera. I efficiently practised the artificial respiration in fresh air as before described. Gaining strength as I proceeded, I soon found a death-like coldness giving place to genial ...
— Theory of Circulation by Respiration - Synopsis of its Principles and History • Emma Willard
... present, he plunged into the memories of the war, as into a bath of oblivion, a strange oblivion, where he found all his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness, the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the drama, presented their excuses, or poured forth their complaints; and it seemed to him that his country would make ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... permit ourselves to believe that the lyric solo made but a single spasmodic appearance in the "Orfeo" and had to be born again in the artistic conversion brought about by the labors of Galilei and Caccini, we shall be deceived. The fashion set by Poliziano's production was not wholly abandoned and throughout the remainder of the fifteenth ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... existence menaced—tottering to its fall. All these catastrophes, so crushing, so unexpected, filled him with a kind of primeval terror. Mr. Parker was neither a devout believer nor the reverse. He was a fool and liable, as such, under the stress of bodily or mental disturbance, to spasmodic fits of abject fright which he mistook for religion. An attack of indigestion, the failure of some pecuniary speculation, the demise of a beloved stepsister—these various happenings, so dissimilar to one another, had yet this feature in common, that they put the fear of God into the ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... world enterprise—these considerations are the foundation stones upon which we must build the temple of education now in the process of reconstruction. Otherwise the work will be narrow, illiberal, spasmodic, and sporadic. It must be possible to arrive at a common denominator of the concepts of society, citizenship, and civilization as pertaining to all nations; it must be possible to contrive a composite of all these concepts to which all nations will subscribe; and it ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... have real spiritual life, get to know Christ. Many try to stir up spiritual life by going to meetings. That may be well enough; but it will be of no use, unless they get into contact with the living Christ. Then their spiritual life will not be a spasmodic thing, but will be perpetual; flowing on and on, and bringing forth fruit ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... settled to their proper places. Standing in the sticky, sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyed the robot apprehensively. Half buried in mud, it stood quiet in the shadowy light except for an occasional, almost spasmodic jerk of its blaster barrel. For the first time that night Alan allowed himself a slight smile. "A blade in the old gear box, eh? How ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... now be felt to palpitate spasmodically, as if opening and closing again in the coronal region; there will be a tightening of the scalp about the base of brain, as if the floor of the cerebrum were contracting; the seer will catch his breath with a spasmodic sigh and the first vision will stand out clear and life-like against ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... wall of trees that seemed to close in with smothering relentlessness about the lonely cabin and its raw field of stumps. The angry, low-lying clouds and the hastening dusk of an early April day had by this time cast the gloom of semi-darkness over the scene. Spasmodic bursts of lightning laid thin dull, unearthly flares upon the desolate land, and the rumble of apple-carts filled the ear with promise of disaster. The chickens had gone to roost; several cows, confined in a pen surrounded by the customary stockade of poles ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... Mountain forbore to force her to descend to the parlour in which Mr. Tom Raybould nervously awaited her coming, and where, on Samson's return from his daughter's chamber, the pair sat and drank their beer together in miserable silence, broken by spasmodic attempts at conversation regarding crops and politics. The doctor had been called in, and, knowing nothing of the grief which was the poor girl's only ailment, had been too puzzled by the symptoms of her malady to be of any great service. She was feverish, excited, with ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... Dixon into crying out for mercy. The effect upon others was painful. To see so great a sinner fall terror-stricken seemed like a providential stroke of confirmatory evidence, and nearly a dozen other young people fell crying, whereat the old people burst out into amens of spasmodic fervor, while the preacher, the wild light still in his eyes, tore up and down, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... lay stretched along the grass, their struggles appeared each moment to grow less violent, and their melancholy cries became weaker and weaker. Their contortions at length came to an end. A feeble effort to raise themselves alone could be perceived,—then a spasmodic motion of their long crooked limbs,—their cries became indistinct; and, after a while, both lay motionless and silent! Were they dead? Surely so, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... and case-hardened against all impressions whatever appealing to his vanity or egotism, did absolutely (credite posteri!) blush like any roseate girl of fifteen. And that this was no accident growing out of a momentary agitation, no sudden spasmodic pang, anomalous and transitory, appeared from other concurrent anecdotes of Canning, reported by gentlemen from Liverpool, who described to us most graphically and picturesquely the wayward fitfulness (not coquettish, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... little dexterity of movement, or want of it, he can knock the hats over the eyes of two persons at a time, and by a little shifting of his position he can frequently bring down four by a single spasmodic lunge. When he is fresher, as in the morning, and can hold his own weight, he falls in his more natural posture. Would you know what that may be? Did you ever observe one of the descendants of the Lost Tribes who inhabit Chatham ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... sum of money to be given in small prizes, to the best examples of "virtue" of the year. The academy's committees, with great good sense, have shown a partiality to virtues simple and chronic, rather than to her spasmodic and dramatic flights; and the exemplary housewives reported on have been wonderful and admirable enough. In Paul Bourget's report for this year we find numerous cases, of which this is a type; Jeanne Chaix, eldest of six children; mother insane, father chronically ill. Jeanne, ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... only a few days; then, like a veritable conflagration, it began to languish; and, like the reflection of a dying fire, as it sank it began to glow with the red color of embers. But its changes were spasmodic; once about every three days it flared up only to die away again. During these fluctuations its light varied alternately in the ratio of one to six. Finally it took a permanent downward course, and after a few months the naked eye could no longer perceive it; but it remained visible with ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... Friedrich's vehement rallyings and urgings, gradually lose ground,—back at last to Kunersdorf and the Kuhgrund again. The Loudon grenadiers, and exclaimed masses of fresh Russians, are not to be broken, but advance and advance. Fancy the panting death-labors, and spasmodic toilings and bafflings, of those poor Prussians and their King! Nothing now succeeding; the death-agony now come; all hearts growing hopeless; only one heart still seeing hope. The Spitzberg is impossible; tried how often I know not. Finck, from the Alder Waste, with his Infantry, attacks, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... anything is air—for lungs and mind. We have overdone herd-life. We are dimly conscious of this, feel vaguely that there is something "rattling" and wrong about our progress, for we have had many little spasmodic "movements" back to the land these last few years. But what do they amount to? Whereas in 1901 the proportion of town to country population in England and Wales was 3 10/37—1, in 1911 it was 3 17/20—1; very distinctly greater! At this crab's march we ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... his opportunity, accepted it and became one of the elect. He passed on to the staff of the Courier, where his work was spasmodic and of a leisurely character, but always valuable and appreciated. His salary, which was liberal, seemed to him magnificent. Besides, he had the opportunity of doing other work. All the magazines were open to him, although he was tied down to write for no other newspaper. The passionate ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... seen the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not the least idea of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and moist, and sigh, and move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and perhaps get up and go to her, or else have slight spasmodic movements that looked like hysterics;—do you believe in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Northumberland was a desolate waste; and divine service had almost ceased to be performed between Newcastle and Carlisle, even Hexham being deserted for a time. After the battle of Bannockburn, matters were worse, if possible, and all the north lay in fear of the Scots, but from time to time spasmodic efforts at retaliation were made by the boldest of the Northumbrian landowners. In the reign of Edward III., however, many of these great landowners thwarted the King's designs by making a traitorous peace ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... his legs, which as I grasped by the ankle and clasped it to my side, kept giving spasmodic jerks, I dragged with all my might, and found I could not move him; but as I dragged again he seemed to give a tremendous throb, and I went backwards, followed, it seemed to me in the darkness, by a quantity of soft ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... discovered that there was another bed in this den, opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory movements within, it was occupied. Presently the head of a youth emerged, with closed eyes and flushed features. He indulged in a series of groans and spasmodic kicks, that subsided once more, only to recommence. A flute projected from ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... are four small glands, the parathyroids, each about the size of a split pea. The removal of these glands in animals produces a condition resembling acute poisoning accompanied by spasmodic contraction of the muscles. A small glandular organ at the base of the brain, the pituitary body, produces a secretion, one of the most marked properties of which is a control of growth, particularly that of the bones. Most cases of giantism, ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... languish between the two men. Vine had answered all his host's inquiries about old friends and acquaintances on the other side, inquiries at first eager, then more spasmodic, until at last they were interspersed with brief periods of silence. And all the time Vine had said nothing as to the real object of his visit. Obviously he had come with something to say; almost as obviously he seemed to find a certain ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of Bobbie was Mrs. ——, red in the face, so angry she was asked to meet Madame Romedek, talking with poor Bobbie in a sharp, spasmodic sort of way, as if she were carrying on the conversation with her knife and fork, cutting the sentences into bits, some ignoring and some eating,—and none agreeing with her, or she agreeing with none. Then George Ringold asked, I suppose, for me. I am ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... pottle in the other? Are not melons rank poison, and cucumbers sudden death? And in the winter, sir, are we better off? Instead of the wholesome frosts of olden days, purifying the air and the soil, and bracing up our nerves, what have we but the influenza, which lasts us for four months, and the spasmodic cough which fills up the remainder of the year? I am no grumbler, sir, I hate and abhor anything like complaining, but this I will say, that the world has been turned upside down—that everything has gone wrong—that peace has come to us unattended ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat) |
