"Hysterical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... already by the cruel perplexities of her position, Emily's courage failed to resist the first sensation of horror, aroused in her by the climax of the nurse's hysterical narrative. Encouraged by her silence, Mrs. Mosey went on. She lifted one hand with theatrical solemnity—and luxuriously terrified herself with her ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... prepared to drink. But just at that moment I seemed to hear a horrid little laugh coming out of the bottle, and a voice chuckled at my ear: 'You ass, do you call that original?' It was so absurd that I burst out into hysterical laughter. Here had I been about to do the most 'banal' thing of all. Was there anything in the world quite so ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... prompt and complete. Jane did not rage or become hysterical, she did not even weep in his presence. But, quietly, with a set of her square little chin, she informed Captain Zelotes that she loved Speranza, that she meant to marry him and that she should marry him, some day or other. The captain raged, commanded, pleaded, begged. What was the matter with ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... temper; the mother was mild and accommodating; and as to Eva, she was in a high degree sensitive; whilst whatever concerned her love, or seemed to oppose her wishes in the slightest degree, brought her to tears and hysterical sobs, and her friends became ever more and more aware how violent and exclusive her love was to Major R. The mere glimpse of him, the sound of his steps, the tone of his voice, shook her whole frame. All earlier affectionate relationships had lost ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... hysterical tears, and he soon found himself involved in all the remorseful, inconsequent speeches to which a man in such a plight feels himself driven. She allowed herself to be calmed, and they had a dreary making-up. When ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wife with an almost extraneous interest. She was certainly extremely interesting from that point of view, that very novel point of view. 'It's quite useless,' he said, 'to get in the least nervous or hysterical. I don't care for the darkness just now. That was all. Tell the girl I am a strange doctor—Dr Simon's new partner. You are clever at conventionalities, Sheila. Invent! I said our patient must be kept quiet—I really think he must. That is all, so far as Ada is concerned.... What on earth else ARE ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... turning to her, "it is not worth while. Yet I sometimes wonder whether people realize how much harm this hysterical philanthropy—this purely sentimental faddism, does; how it retards the natural advance of civilization, throws dust in people's eyes, salves the easy conscience of the rich man, who bargains for immortality ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rank of masters. The use of significant motif is in both of his symphonies. But almost all the traits that startled and moved the world in Tschaikowsky's symphonies are revealed in this far earlier music: the tempestuous rage of what might be called an hysterical school, and the same poignant beauty of the lyric episodes; the sheer contrast, half trick, half natural, of fierce clangor and dulcet harmonies, all painted with the broad strokes of the orchestral ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... had reason to like her, and did like her; but along about this time his feeling towards her changed. Part of Shelley's plan, as he wrote Hogg, was to spend his London evenings with the Newtons—members of the Boinville Hysterical Society. But, alas, when he arrived early in December, that pleasant game was partially blocked, for Eliza and the family arrived with him. We are left destitute of conjectures at this point by the biographer, and it is my duty to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... only a little shaken," answered Winnie, with a little laugh that was half hysterical. "I am strong enough to go ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... hysterical weeping the woman drew back, endeavoring to close the cabin door. But Darrin's foot across the ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... ludicrous, the explanation so piteous, that between their wild desire to laugh and the stronger desire to cry, it was a hysterical group who closed in once more about the grotesque little figure, while the earnest-hearted, sympathetic young preacher swept away Peace's fears, and gave her the ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... first to last. Not so to me; I cannot count that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those I love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular charm of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of this long tale, evening gradually falls; and the lights are extinguished, and the heroes pass away one by one. One by one they go, and not a regret embitters their departure; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her will in a litter borne by two tired guides, while two others walked beside her and held her hands; and she was protesting at every step that she positively could not and would not go another inch; and she was as hysterical as a treeful of chickadees; her hat was lost, and her glasses were gone, and her hair hung down her back, and altogether she was ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... the windows rattled violently and we heard a loud explosion; at least that is what it sounded like to me. To the members of the club, however, it meant only one thing—an earthquake. Everybody rushed out; the streets were already crowded with hysterical people, crying, shouting, and running toward the great open plaza in front of the beautiful cathedral. Here some dropped on their knees in gratitude at having escaped from falling walls, others prayed ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... wild-goose chase; capriciousness &c. adj.; kink. V. be capricious &c. adj.; have a maggot in the brain; take it into one's head, strain at a gnat and swallow a camel; blow hot and cold; play fast and loose, play fantastic tricks; tourner casaque[Fr]. Adj. capricious; erratic, eccentric, fitful, hysterical; full of whims &c. n.; maggoty; inconsistent, fanciful, fantastic, whimsical, crotchety, kinky [U. S.], particular, humorsome[obs3], freakish, skittish, wanton, wayward; contrary; captious; arbitrary; unconformable &c. 83; penny ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... is a treacherous servant; it deserts us, trembles, makes a failure of it, is "not present or accounted for" often when we need its help. It is not alone in the shriek of the hysterical that we learn of its lawlessness; it is in its complete retirement. A bride often, even when she felt no other embarrassment, has found that she had no voice with which to make her responses. ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... the slave of their eye and ear, that many of the servants really thought that Missis was the principal sufferer in the case, especially as Marie began to have hysterical spasms, and sent for the doctor, and at last declared herself dying; and, in the running and scampering, and bringing up hot bottles, and heating of flannels, and chafing, and fussing, that ensued, there was quite ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... high a key, that your voice is strained." (An uncomfortable pause.) "Of course, now, that is but my opinion. It will not seem of any value to you, perhaps, but while I read it I could not get away from the fact that it was not altogether natural. It seemed hysterical and overwrought in places—it gives the effect of crudeness. It is rather hard, you know, to expect a man who sits at a desk all day to follow you in such very strenuous ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... any such phenomenon. Not one claimed to have done so. Yet a few days later from the base he heard a great many of these same men had declared that they had seen the "angels." He considered that the whole matter arose originally through some hysterical woman, and then was augmented by the suggestion of the question which he himself had put to them, made to men shell-shocked ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Sonya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded of her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and brought her up. To sacrifice herself ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... to God. It is good for many souls that she lived upon earth a little. There was nothing sentimental, visionary, or hysterical in her character. Nor, in giving her great heart with her pure soul to her Saviour, did she ever quite learn to despise the sweetness of earthly love. Not all a Saint. Yet the children of those women who most were ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... An hysterical passion of tears choked her utterance. Anne gently unwound the arms that clung round her—gently lifted the head that lay helpless ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... born at Nadia in 1485 and came under the influence of the Madhva sect. In youth he was a prodigy of learning,[636] but at the age of about seventeen while on a pilgrimage to Gaya began to display that emotional and even hysterical religious feeling which marked all his teaching. He swooned at the mention of Krishna's name and passed his time in dancing and singing hymns. At twenty-five he became a Sannyasi, and at the request of his mother, who did not wish him to wander too far, settled in Puri near the temple ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... to grasp the meaning of the words. Meaning would not come. He uttered a short, hysterical laugh that was like a bark. "You're crazy, Doc. ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... posted an ordinance to the effect that all barrow axles must be greased. The Chinese demurred, but a few arrests taught them obedience, so that now the streets of the German metropolis no longer resound with the hysterical wails and moans so dear to the heart of ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... Japanese friend in time of deepest affliction and he will invariably receive you laughing, with red eyes or moist cheeks. At first you may think him hysterical. Press him for explanation and you will get a few broken commonplaces—"Human life has sorrow;" "They who meet must part;" "He that is born must die;" "It is foolish to count the years of a child ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... hysterical about the laugh which accompanied her mocking farewell, but she was gone the next instant, and the door ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... proved more dangerous to the king, was on its discovery attended with more fatal consequences to themselves. Elizabeth Barton, of Aldington, in Kent, commonly called the "holy maid of Kent," had been subject to hysterical fits, which threw her body into unusual convulsions; and having produced an equal disorder in her mind, made her utter strange sayings, which, as she was scarcely conscious of them during the time, had soon after ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... perhaps hysterical boy—enjoying the poor blessings that were his with the prophetic eagerness those doomed to an early death so often exhibit, had taken his seat upon his office-stool as upon a throne; had blessed God for his career of junior clerk as for a high imperial lot; then had ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... Man all right," says Ben. "He's kind of had his eye on me ever since. He said the way I worded that report showed I wasn't one to lose my head and get hysterical, the way he had known some ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... that takes the very heart and courage out of a man; and yet no one who travels over these islands can avoid hearing jokes on the dismal subject made by boys who have hardly reached their twenty-fifth year. The bar encourages levity, and the levity is unrelieved by any real gaiety—it is the hysterical feigned merriment of ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical. "I'm no Puritan—I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not all like Edith—and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... termed anorexia epileptica, in which a total loss of appetite, and of the power of digestion, suddenly occurred along with epileptic fits. Miss B. a girl about eighteen, apparently very healthy, and rather plump, was seized with fits, which were at first called hysterical; they occurred at the end of menstruation, and returned very frequently with total loss of appetite. She was relieved by venesection, blisters, and opiates; her strength diminished, and after some returns ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... cliff before you knew where you were, if he were stupid enough to try. I'm sorry, deeply sorry, Mrs. Meredith, but I think that Jean was right when she said that the southern air had got into my blood. I'm a little hysterical—yes, put it down to that. It runs in the family," he babbled on. "I have an aunt who faints at the sight of strawberries, and an uncle who swoons whenever a cat walks ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... of Inez in his, and they continued until a number of palm-trees intervened, when he sped so rapidly that the child was kept on a run to maintain her place at his side. She had ceased her crying, but her face and eyes were red, and she was in an apprehensive, nervous and almost hysterical condition from the terrible scene she had witnessed—a scene such as should never be looked upon by one ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... was fast growing hysterical. "I could never bear the sight of such a mangled dwarf." Thrusting her hand inside her dress, she drew out a gleaming bodkin, and flung it at the fool's feet. "Kill him," she screamed, "kill him!" Then she rose unsteadily and staggered out ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... long intense moment they stared at it. And then, simultaneously, they broke into a peal of hysterical giggles. ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... knee, shouting with laughter as one of them told of a summer experience that struck them as funny. They were both so glad to get back to college, so glad to see each other, that they were almost hysterical. And when they left Surrey 19 arm in arm on their way to the Nu Delta house "to see the brothers," their cup of bliss was full to the ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... word of German; but that sounded kind. [Becoming hysterical.] Little Mother, beautiful little darling angel mother: don't be cruel: untie me. Oh, I beg and implore you. Don't be unkind. I ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... first sight of John were quite hysterical, exclaiming: "What a handsome man Miss Saylor's brother is!" When they learned his identity and that he came to take her away, he was condemned as a horrid old baldheaded man. This opinion was mildly modified at the farewell dinner the school gave to Miss Saylor, where John ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... Republican but not a Democrat. He recognized, long before the rival party saw their mistake in nomenclature, that this Jefferson school marked the degeneracy of republicanism into democracy. Knowing how absurd and unfounded was all the hysterical talk about monarchism, and that time would vindicate the first Administration and its party as Republican in its very essence, he watched with deep, and often with impersonal, uneasiness the growth of a party which would ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... which she ordered her life, there are a very large number of minor intellectual matters in which we might learn a lesson from the Queen. There is one especially which is increasingly needed in an age when moral claims become complicated and hysterical. That Queen Victoria was a model of political unselfishness is well known; it is less often remarked that few modern people have an unselfishness so completely free from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without exaggerating ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... regular clergy as "unconverted men," but who pushed his religious enthusiasm to great extremes by everywhere urging upon excitable young men the duty to become preachers like himself. He had introduced a kind of intoning at public meetings. This tended to create nervous irritability and hysterical outbursts of religious emotionalism, and these, Davenport taught his disciples, were the signs of God's approval of them and their devotion to Him. The government, watching these tumultuous meetings, concluded that it was time to show its ancient authority ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... from the scenes referred to in my last letter, which are witnessed at religious revivals. One person became hysterical, then another; one was seized with catalepsy, then others; some with convulsions; some with palpitations of the heart, perspirations, and other bodily disturbances. These effects, however various and different, went all by the name of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... gowns, out of which her shoulders shone gleaming white, she was easily the most noticeable and the most distinguished-looking woman in the room. To-night there seemed to be a new brilliancy in her eyes, a deeper quality in her tone. She was herself conscious of a recklessness of spirits almost hysterical. Perhaps, after all, the others were right. Perhaps she had found this new thing in life, the thing wonderful. The terrors and anxieties of the last few months seemed to have fallen from her, to have passed away like an ugly dream, dismissed with a shudder even from the memory. An acute sense of ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... voice and to her own intense horror she heard herself laughing—laughing a loud hysterical laughter, that resounded hideously and was ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... argument for law, that the whole community is sinfully unfit for liberty; and Mr. Fortescue falls into the usual maze of self-contradiction and obscurity when he tries to give an intelligible account of a war which lasted seven long and weary years, and yet was "factitious," initiated by an hysterical rabble, stimulated and sustained by the basest and pettiest motives, and which, he contends, was "the work of a small but energetic and well-organized minority towards which the mass of the people, when not directly hostile, was mainly indifferent." ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... a dozen hurried turns along the floor, and try to think of all our most depressing family themes—father; Algy's college-bills; Tou Tou's shrunk face and thin legs; nothing will do. When I stop before the glass and consult it, that hysterical smile is ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Mr. Thrale's illness is very terrible; but when I remember that he seems to have it peculiar to his constitution, that, whatever distemper he has, he always has his head affected, I am less frighted. The seizure was, I think, not apoplectical but hysterical, and, therefore, not dangerous to life. I would have you, however, consult such physicians as you think you can best trust. Broomfield seems to have done well and, by his practice, appears not to suspect an apoplexy. This is a solid and fundamental comfort. I remember Dr. Marsigli, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... power was gone! His lips would be sealed forever. She laughed aloud in the frenzy of hope. She laughed to think what a fool she would have been to forbid the marriage. The marriage? Her salvation! Jane found her almost hysterical, trembling like a leaf. She was obliged to confess that she had heard part of their conversation below, in order to account for her manner. When Jane confided to her that she had promised to marry Graydon in September—or June—she urged her to avoid ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the gallery I went, an hour after Adelaide had returned from Italy; as you know, I had not seen her for several years (indeed, not since my marriage). And so to the gallery I went, with buzzing in my ears and dizziness in my eyes, and an hysterical choking, which made me afraid to open my lips. Why my father was so anxious to go to this exhibition I hardly know; but I went to please him, and came back to please myself, without having an idea ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... knowing that the laugh was partly hysterical, and closely followed Henry who was now turning toward the west, leading them through rolling country, clothed in the same unbroken forest and undergrowth. It was his idea to find a creek or brook and then wade in it for a long distance ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for her husband. She was furious with him, also, for causing her pain. When she thought of the windigo, of the rapids, of any peril which might be working his limitless absence, she set clenched hands in her loosened hair and trembled with hysterical anguish. But the enormity of his behavior if he were alive made her hiss at the rafters. "Good, monsieur! Next time I will have four officers. I will have the entire garrison sitting along the gallery! Yes, and they shall be English, too. And ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... to Harold in a state of agitation which was almost hysterical. She buried her face in his shoulder, ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... Hysterical one[32] quite tame; "Ach, minheer zijn hand is tog zoo koud; ik wens, minheer, wil die heele dag mij kop hou" ("Ah, sir, your hand is so very cold, I wish you would hold it to my ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... ran forward and, throwing her arms about her guardian's neck with a little hysterical sob, she exclaimed, "Oh, I thought you ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... strong emotions tend to extremes, the age produced a new type of novel which seems rather hysterical now, but which in its own day delighted multitudes of readers whose nerves were somewhat excited, and who reveled in "bogey" stories of supernatural terror. Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of this school of exaggerated romance. Her novels, with ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... Schuylkill. As she walked slowly up-stairs to change her habit, her eyes filled with tears; and had she been endowed with the proper degree of romance for a regular heroine, she would probably have passed the morning in hysterical sobs. But as she had quite as much good sense, as fancy and feeling, she was by no means romantic; she had never fainted but once in her life; and although it must be confessed she had wept during the last few weeks, yet it was ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... said sharply; "there, coming down the lane?" Fly gave a hysterical giggle. Coming towards them down the lane was a tall figure dressed in an old green ulster coat, tied in round the waist by an apron; white hair fell about a flat white face, and big bare feet splashed in the mud. As ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... who, as you may remember, was a student of human nature, believed that Miss Whyte lived on her nerves, and he had therefore planned to leave her alone for a few moments to allow any hysterical tendency to exhaust itself. When he returned, he found her looking straight before her with the document ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... asperity, that it would be my job to make them on my anchor watch that night. I was surprised at this and made some remark about getting them from ashore, and it so tickled the poor over-worked Second that he stood up suddenly, spun round towards the reversing engine and broke into peals of hysterical laughter. I shall never forget the sight of him as he stood there in his sodden, filthy singlet and dungarees, his arms knotted and burned and bruised, his common little face twisted into an expression of super-human scorn. For a single moment he was sublime, lifted out ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... (indicated as a fault of youth and circumstance, not of heart and character), irritates Neville Landless, who falls in love with Rosa at first sight. As Rosa sings, at Crisparkle's, while Jasper plays the piano, Jasper's fixed stare produces an hysterical fit in the girl, who is soothed by Helena Landless. Helena shows her aversion to Jasper, who, as even Edwin now sees, frightens Rosa. "You would be afraid of him, under similar circumstances, wouldn't you, Miss Landless?" asks Edwin. "Not under any circumstances," answers Helena, and ...
— The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot • Andrew Lang
... choking hysterical laughter that alarmed Minna; horrible laughter, which left her ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... among savages the theory of inspiration or possession is commonly invoked to explain all abnormal mental states, particularly insanity or conditions of mind bordering on it, so that persons more or less crazed in their wits, and particularly hysterical or epileptic patients, are for that very reason thought to be peculiarly favoured by the spirits and are therefore consulted as oracles, their wild and whirling words passing for the revelations of a higher power, whether a god or a ghost, who considerately screens his too dazzling light ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... 'you may think what you please about me. I am even ready to agree with you that I'm hysterical now, but, by God, I'm in love with Elena, and Elena loves you. I promised, though, to see you home, and I will ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... the visitor had to confess herself nonplussed; for, though capable of growing hysterical, she was incapable of propounding any rational theory. Consequently she felt the more that she needed tender ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... my noble master," said Williams, observing the fixed posture and quenched eye of Evellin. At last he exclaimed—"I am not dead;" and bursting into an hysterical laugh, he swore De Vallance should find he ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... again would she ignore an urgent telegram, though she did not believe that this telegram had any real importance. She attributed it to Sarah's increasing incompetence and hysterical foolishness. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... in less time than it has taken to tell it, her own ten beautiful ducks were close about her, and that she was kissing each one somewhere with her great red bill. And then she saw that upon the bank a nervous, hysterical guinea-hen was tearing along, and in a voice like a carving-knife screeching aloud with terror. It went through Quackalina's bosom like a neuralgia, but she didn't mind it very much. Indeed, she forgot it instantly when she looked ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... quite understand," she said after a moment or two, whilst he waited calmly until her out-break of hysterical mirth had subsided. "You want my husband—the Scarlet Pimpernel, citizen—to deliver the little King of France to you after he has risked his life to save the child out of your clutches? Is that what you are ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... the dogs, now, vaguely as in a nightmare. But after a little while he began to believe that their hysterical yelping was really ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... virtue except heaven and hell-fire. When heaven and hell-fire cease to persuade, custom for a while is partly efficacious, but its strength soon decays. Some good men, knowing the uselessness of rational means to convert or to sustain their fellows, have clung to dogma with hysterical energy, but without any genuine faith in it. They have failed, for dogma cannot be successful unless it be the INEVITABLE ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... has seen him. He is not in his room. Oh, yes, he is gone, he is gone!" She fell back against the wall with shriek after shriek of laughter, while I, horrified at this sudden hysterical attack, rushed to the bell to summon help. The girl was taken to her room, still screaming and sobbing, while I made inquiries about Brunton. There was no doubt about it that he had disappeared. His bed had not been slept in, he had been seen by no one since he had retired to his room the night ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... this time discovered that it was a false alarm, and by degrees the hysterical feeling wore off, though there were many who would not soon forget the awful sense of fear that had ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... truths without accommodation. "You 're farther off from God than any woman I ever heard of." "Nay, if you believe in a protective tariff, you 're in hell already, though you may not know it." "You had a fine hysterical time last night, didn't you, when Miss B was brought up from the ravine with her dislocated shoulder." To Miss B he said: "I don't pity you. It served you right for being so ignorant as to go there at that hour." Seldom, strange to say, did the recipients ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... this vein had effectually rent the veil of illusion that shielded Roy from aggressive actualities. In Udaipur there had been no hysterical press; no sedition flaunting on the house-tops. One hadn't arrived at the twentieth century, even. Except for a flourishing hospital, a few hideous modern interiors, and a Resident—who was very ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... a stone wall, however, in time to shake off the company of this inhospitable host. In the next field there were two or three skittish colts, which they scared into all manner of hysterical behavior as they ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... hesitated again) . . . "well, I'm not a physician, and cannot define accurately; but there are certain nervous diseases—hysterical simulation, nervous affections such as St. Vitus' dance—as well, of course, as purely mental diseases, such as certain ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... employ of the friars and contemptuously hostile to Rizal, but who has since 1898 been giving quite a spectacular demonstration of waving a red light after the wreck, having become his most enthusiastic, almost hysterical, biographer: "Rizal is what is commonly called a character, but he has repeatedly demonstrated very great inexperience in the affairs of life. I believe him to be now about thirty-two years old. He is the Indian of most ability ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... any man could resist me if I set my mind upon winning him? No! Oh, it's not the language of hysterical vanity! I know my power; every woman knows how far her power will go. Let me have him to myself for one week, and—" She caught her breath. "Love! Yes, he shall return mine tenfold! I will teach him!" She caught her breath again and pressed her hands to her bosom. "Don't be afraid, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... came the final news. England had declared war. For the moment the news seemed to stun everyone. It had been expected, and still it came as a surprise. But then London rose to the occasion. There was no hysterical cheering and shouting; everything was quiet. Harry Fleming saw a wonderful sight a whole people aroused and determined. There was no foolish boasting; no one talked of a British general eating his Christmas dinner in Berlin. But even Dick Mercer, excitable and erratic as he had always ...
— The Boy Scout Aviators • George Durston
... forgotten my cares, my poverty, my guilt. Old thoughts, old feelings, old faces, and old scenes have returned to me, and I have fancied myself happy,—as happy as I am now." And she burst into a wild hysterical laugh. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the public road, at the grey, solid group of farm buildings beyond. The farmer's daughter, in a white slip, emerged against the barnyard, and called the chickens in a high, musical note, scattering grain to a hysterical feathery mob. The air was still with approaching twilight; the sun slipped below the western trees and shadows gathered under the lilac bushes; the sky ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of hysterical self-accusation, pushing his head away). No, no, you mustn't! I was wrong. The doctor told you not to, didn't he? Please don't, Fred! It would be awful if anything happened to you—through me. (Nicholls gives up his ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... Stepper will give me letters and telegraph ahead to the train people," said Honor. "And you mustn't believe all the hysterical tales in the newspapers, Muzzie dear. Here's ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... bridge, when a hysterical laugh startled the man, who leaned back on the front seat, with his arms crossed tightly over a heart throbbing with almost ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... he would succeed. In desperate alarm at the danger of her protector, and horrified at what she was about to do, she grasped the pirate by the hair and tore out a large handful, at the same time uttering shriek upon shriek mingled with appalling bursts of hysterical laughter. ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... no," said Anne, almost ready for a hysterical laugh, yet letting the old man seat himself, and then dropping on her knees before him, for she could hardly stand, "it is worse than that, sir; I know who it was ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is too late to keep it from you now," said poor Foker; and the distracted woman, having cast her eyes over it, again broke out into hysterical screams, and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Teutonic allies had not exerted themselves. All the Generals and Staff Officers of one Russian division were killed or wounded. Moreover, insanity raged in the ranks of the Russians, and from all sides hysterical cries could be heard rising above the roar of our guns, too strong for human nerves. Over the remnants of the Russians who crowded in terror into the remotest corners of their trenches there broke the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... humiliation and fury, Mignon turned and ran down the stairs, her slender body trembling with the anger of a defeat born of the failure of her plan and her own betraying haste. Gaining the shelter of her dressing room, she gave herself up to a paroxysm of rage that ended in a burst of hysterical sobs. ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... She burst into a hysterical flood of tears, and clung to him like some terrified child to its only friend in the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... been terrible. He was glad that Eve could sleep. He couldn't understand why Austin had allowed Marie-Louise to take such a trip. Her fear of storms was evidently quite uncontrollable. And she was at all times hysterical ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... heard, or the continuation of the quarrel which it certainly seemed to be the beginning of. As we came up the deck again we met young Howard with the shawl still on his arm and Mrs. Tremain walking beside him. She was laughing in a somewhat hysterical manner, and his face was as pale as ashes with a drawn look about the corners of his lips, but the captain's eyes were only on ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... this hint, Anna burst into a flood of tears. I was frightened, for her sobs became hysterical and convulsed. Those precious sentiments which had been so long imprisoned in her gentle bosom, obtained the mastery, and I was well paid for my selfishness, by experiencing an alarm little less violent than her own outpouring ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... be that." And she struggled grievously to get the better of the hysterical attack which had overpowered her. "I won't be regarded as ill-used; not as specially ill-used. But I am your darling, your own darling. Only I wish you'd beat me and thump me when I'm such a fool, instead of pitying me. It's a great mistake being soft to people when they make fools of themselves. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... broken only by a death-rattle here and there on the ground; then, the sound of hysterical weeping, as Jean Fitzpatrick broke down ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... of all diseases. It must be remembered that in 1846 little or nothing was known of spine complaints such as that from which Elizabeth Barrett suffered, less still of the nervous conditions they create, and least of all of hysterical phenomena. In our day she would have been ordered air and sunlight and activity, and all the things the mere idea of which chilled the Barretts with terror. In our day, in short, it would have been recognised that she was in the clutch of a form of neurosis which exhibits ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... his books gradually push out the others from our shelves; every night his plays are produced at the theatres; every conversation turns on him, and his is the name the pigmies quarrel over daily; the cry is heard that he has become hysterical, sentimental, out of his mind, but the next one knows, he is robustness itself, and enduring beyond belief, despite great need, enmity, sorrow. One hour one is angry over some extravagance which he has allowed himself, the next captivated by one ...
— Plays: The Father; Countess Julie; The Outlaw; The Stronger • August Strindberg
... that they were possessed by evil spirits. Wesley rather encouraged these manifestations, and indeed quite believed in their genuineness. No doubt for the most part they were genuine: that is, they were the birth of hysterical, highly strung natures, stimulated into something like epilepsy or temporary insanity by the unbearable oppression of a wholly novel excitement. No such evidences of emotion were ever given in the parish church where the worthy clergyman read his duly prepared or perhaps thoughtfully purchased ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... came back to the solitary woman in black, who still knelt motionless near her, a sort of choking sensation came into her throat and a stinging moisture struggled in her eyes. She strove to turn this hysterical sensation to a low laugh ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... is it?... My dear man, the girl Micky went to Paris with was Esther! my Esther Shepstone! and here you are trying to tell me that she and Micky are married!" She burst into hysterical laughter. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... themselves, and the speeding up constantly required of the operators, may at any moment so register their results upon the nervous system of a factory girl as to overcome her powers of resistance. Many a working girl at the end of a day is so hysterical and overwrought that her mental balance is plainly disturbed. Hundreds of working girls go directly to bed as soon as they have eaten their suppers. They are too tired to go from home for recreation, too tired to read and often too tired to sleep. A humane forewoman recently said to me as she glanced ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... of glasses, and broke into open, shaking, hysterical laughter. Paul surveyed her grimly. Her excitement had flushed her cheeks and darkened her eyes, and her sudden, apparently light-hearted, mirth put the finishing touch to a picture that could seem to her husband ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... his room at once: he was almost hysterical. Leighton brought out some tea for her, and she sat drinking it on the little terrace. Of ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... a lady of the highest social rank, and she was so unmistakably a lady that he could treat her with only the utmost deference. He saw with alarm himself the mother's nervous and trembling apprehension, for there was scarcely anything under heaven that he would not rather face than a scene with a hysterical woman. If this was to be the climax of his policy he would rather have lost the thousand dollars than have had it occur. Rising from ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... come, my dear Bismarck, be calm. You know that I am very fond of you. I have known you since your childhood. But I do not like you when you are hysterical. Come, you are going to be hysterical. Pray be calm: come, come, my dear fellow." A short time after this interview Bismarck complained to Odo of "the preposterous folly and ignorance of the English and all other Cabinets, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... that the race-life shall go on in safety and in social health. Meanwhile, although there is much to give us pause and to demand serious study and earnest and wise social work in the situation revealed by the divorce court statistics, there is nothing that need give hysterical alarm lest the home is being destroyed and the family abolished. On the contrary, there probably was never a time when so many people were really happy, each and every member of the family, in the home relation; and hence never a time when it was ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you, at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia, Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as would turn any ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... could stop her, Charlotte seized his hand, and kissed it with an hysterical fervor of admiration, which completely deprived him of ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... the life-belt. Why did the swimming young lady from Lobjoit's want to be rid of her wrap-up at that rate as she turned so sharp round to run down the ladder? He increased a brisk walk to a run as the lad, who had followed the young lady down the steps, came running up again; for there was hysterical terror in his voice—he was a mere boy—as he shouted something that became, as distance lessened, "In t' wa-ater! in t' wa-ater! in t' wa-ater! in t' wa-ater!" And he was waving something in his hand—a lady's hat surely; for with an instinct of swift presence ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... predict, in broad terms, the future actions of the Nipe. Evidently that proof had now come. The psychologist was smiling and rubbing his long, bony hands together. For Dr. George Yoritomo, that was almost the equivalent of hysterical excitement. ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... her down while the audience went hysterical. He set her down on a grassy mound and she threw him a red, angry look while the traces of tears were quickly drying. And he noticed that the other stocking was in the same condition. When he returned her the slippers she put ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Bible and the Light of Truth," says Miss Guinness, in her charming but hysterical "Letters from the Far East"—a book that has deluded many poor girls to China—"For the Bible and the Light of Truth the Chinese cry with outstretched, empty, longing hands" (p. 173). But this allegation unhappily conflicts with facts ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... woman. This thought stung him like a reproach of cowardice. He had forgotten her! And she was but the instrument in the deed, for he had taught her that this care of a worthless life was sentimental, hysterical. He had urged her to put it away in some easy fashion, to hide it at least, in some sort of an asylum. That she had steadfastly refused to do. Better death outright, she had said. And that which he had feared to undertake, she had done, fearlessly. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and the yearning wash of the brine outside until I went on a voyage to Natal and back in a big ocean steamer that all day long throbbed to the maddened heart in her engine room, like some black and gleaming leviathan rendered hysterical by the lances of whalers feeling for its life, and all night stormed through the dark ocean shadow like a body of fire, faster than a gale of wind could in my time have driven the swiftest clipper keel that furrowed ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... intervals, Jinny apologising for her boisterousness with reiterations—"Misser Johnssing say he been see 'em cousin belonga me light 'em pipe!" Jinny still rehearses the story at frequent intervals, and with hysterical outbursts. ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... too deeply interested in their business to take much notice of Bella's hysterical outburst, but looked at one ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... broke into a hysterical laugh. 'Where is he, my dear? That's the question. With consummate strategy, the wretch has disappeared into ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... was the fierce, hysterical laugh of a madman. His eyes fell on the arquebuses flanking the picture of the Mother of Mercy. He took one of them down, then caught the boy by the collar of his doublet and dragged ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... not been there McLean would have made a better case, would have pleaded with her, would have made less of a situation that roused her resentment and more of his love for her. He was very hard hit, very young. He was almost hysterical with rage and helplessness; he wanted to slap her, to take her in his arms. He writhed under the restraint of Peter's ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the audience. They all knew I was Welsh and saw the joke. The horror and suspense had been so great that when it broke with comic relief the house was really hysterical. It stopped ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... righteousness. It is said that this awakening was brought about by the younger of the two Reformed pastors. My hostess also belongs to the Reformed congregation. Some years ago she was so terrified by the opinion of the unconditional decree of God that a hysterical malady set in with which she is still somewhat afflicted. I searched for the marks of the state of grace. She answered sensibly, which gave me hope that she is in a state of grace. My host desired me to go into a private chamber with him and his weak spouse, and to pray in ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... equivalent for hysterics. If the controversialist ventures to ask some questions about the share which women have had in bringing about the great wars known to history, he draws on himself more and more hysterical abuse. What a strange being is this! Her life is one long squabble, she is the most reckless and violent of fighters, and yet she is always crying out that Men are brutal and bloodthirsty, and that she and her sisters would ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... was the landlady's pet. The room and piano were made over to her, and, being in a great fright at what she had undertaken, she studied and practiced her part night and day. She made Ashmead call a rehearsal next day, and she came home from it wretched and almost hysterical. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... exclaimed, and at sound of the commonplace phrase the girls could have hugged the speaker in relief. Also they felt a rather hysterical desire to laugh ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... neurasthenia was growing. Oscar Wilde thought France might accept a glorification of necrophilism and wrote his delectable book in French. France would have none of it, but when it was done into German, and Richard Strauss accentuated its sexual perversity by his hysterical music, lo! Berlin accepted it with avidity. The theatres of the Prussian capital were keeping pace with the pathological spirit of the day, and were far ahead of those of Paris, where, it had long been the habit to think, moral obliquity made ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... flashed on her memory a little picture of Lord Parham, standing spectacled and bewildered, peering into her slip of paper. She bent her head on her hands and laughed, a stifled, hysterical laugh, which scandalized the woman kneeling ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... good-bye, good-bye to this hell of dollar-hunting, good-bye to such misery as I have been in for three months, and home, a Virginia home, for Beulah and me." He sank into a chair and tears rolled down his cheeks Poor, poor Bob, strong as a lion in adversity, hysterical as a woman with victory ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... it is from him, he is alive," she exclaimed, with an hysterical cry as she sprang up the steps, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... breath scorched my cheek, his hands gripped my arm with nervous force, his hysterical whisper was barely audible, although his lips were within a few inches of ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to invade his mind. He complained of headache. His spirits alternated between depression and hysterical gayety. A dread lest the Inquisition should refuse the imprimatur to his poem haunted him. He grew restless, and yearned for ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... of us would not lay down life itself to know that he had spoken yesterday with the darling of our souls dead years ago?" Not one of you! The expression is rather hysterical in its intensity. The majority of your ultra-sceptical class would not even spend a day or an hour in the pursuit, for you have neglected the opportunities which have been open to all the world. You might have held a pair of slates ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... Lady Markham drew her hood over her head, and assisted Lilian, who was ready to burst into a fit of hysterical sobbing; and in fear lest she should betray her brother's whereabouts, her mother hurried her to the door, but stopped to see all out before her, leaving last, and taking the precaution to slip the key from the lock, lest some one should come and her son should ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... Am de chile FREE? she exclaimed, taking him in her arms, and bursting into a hysterical ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... wrong somehow, or it wouldna stick to me i' this road. I conna get rid on it, an' I conna feel as if I want to. What's up wi' me? What's takken howd on me?" his voice breaking and the words ending in a sharp hysterical gasp like ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... peering through the gathering dusk, I saw the figure of a man turn into the street and stride rapidly away in the opposite direction from the one I was then pursuing. My heart gave a great leap, I hardly knew why, and the blood rushed into my face, something caught in my throat and I gave a short, hysterical cough. I had reached the gate, and the air around it was yet laden with the scent of a rich cigar, though the figure had passed into ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... made use of every endearing epithet and tender expression, and recalled the time when she used to declare that she could dwell with him in a desert; her only replies were bitter reproaches and upbraidings for his treachery and deceit, mingled with floods of tears, and interrupted by hysterical sobs. Provoked at her folly, yet softened by her extreme distress, Douglas was in the utmost state of perplexity—now ready to give way to a paroxysm of rage; then yielding to the natural goodness of ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... performance and as a most improper one, but the spirit in which it was done has a great deal to do with the question, and any one who has seen a defeated team lying on the benches of their dressing room, sobbing like hysterical school girls, can understand how great and how serious is the joy of victory to the men ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... then she was vexed at herself that the laugh changed to a sob and the tears came. Was she hysterical? It was very unlike her, but this seemed something like it. Neither could she immediately conquer the strangling sensation, between laughter ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... to do so. I object on principle to these men's notion of what copying nature means. I don't deny him talent. I am ready to confess that there is more imagination and more honest work in that picture than in any one in the room. The hysterical, all but grinning joy upon the mother's face is a miracle of truth; I have seen the expression more than once; doctors see it often, in the sudden revulsion from terror and agony to certainty and peace; ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... "His hysterical crying got in the nerves of the soldiers and bade fair to start a panic among the women and children, so the sergeant went over and stopped it by force. All night they huddled together in this hell, with the fire making it bright as day on all sides; and ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... thankful human creature with whom Emily had to deal. After a few long moments, those still standing in the passage saw her stagger out, white, with singed clothes, half-carrying in her arms, half-dragging, her besotted brother. She placed him in her bed, and took away the light; then assuring the hysterical girls that there could be no further danger, she bade them go and rest—but where she slept herself that night no one ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... Hayes. The unwilling consent of the new occupant was extorted by Lady Chatham's entreaties and tears; and her lord was somewhat easier. But if business were mentioned to him, he, once the proudest and boldest of mankind, behaved like a hysterical girl, trembled from head to foot, and burst into ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... does business, none is more nefarious than his course by correspondence. Once he has induced two guileless clients to plunge into the traffic of love letters, the rest is easy. Wild speculation in love stock, false valuations, hysterical desire to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, invariably follow. Before the end of the month Harold Phipps and Eleanor Bartlett were gambling in the love market with a recklessness that would have staggered the most hardened ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the doctor came daily to see the little patient, who gratefully accepted his attentions; but, to their disappointment, he died. The only objection to these monkeys as pets is the power they have of howling, or rather whooping, a piercing and somewhat hysterical "Whoop-poo! whoop-poo! whoop-poo!" for several minutes, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... had an idiosyncrasy that prevented her drinking water. Every time she took the smallest quantity of this liquid into her stomach it was at once rejected, with many evident signs of nausea and pain. The patient was strongly hysterical, and I soon made up my mind that either the case was one of simple hysterical vomiting, or that the alleged inability was assumed. The latter turned out to be the truth. I found that she drank in private all the water she wanted, and that what she drank publicly ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... tears without apparent cause; emotions easily excited; mind often melancholy and depressed; tenderness along the spine; disturbances of digestion, with hysterical convulsions, and other ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... sleep quietly, and not disturbing him, and she is too excited and restless to do anything with her; she has startled him twice already, and then gets upset—tired out, poor thing! and will end in being hysterical if she does not get fed and rested, and then we shall be done for! Now I want you to take charge of her. See, here's her room, and I have ordered up some tea for her. You must get her quieted down, make her have a tolerable meal, and when she ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hysterical little laugh and folded the girl in her arms with such a warmth of affection that tears sprang into ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... to portray the subsequent scene in the Pensioner's peaceful dwelling. What cries of rage! what bitter sarcasm! what hysterical laughter! what wringing of hands! what banging of chairs! and what exclamations of woe! And in the midst of such a scene, terrible enough to strike terror into the heart of the most serene, the four parasols, the innocent cause of all the ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... several moments, and then suddenly started from her recumbent position, and sat upright in the bed. A glorious lustre broke through the mist that whelmed her eyes, and a faint color sprung to her pallid cheek. She clasped her daughter in her arms with an hysterical sob; looked wildly into her face; pressed a burning, quivering kiss upon her forehead, and then her lips gave forth fragments of speech, broken, but beautiful. But this did not last long; a weakness came over her almost preternatural strength; she loosened ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... broken machinery, and the heaps of rubbish, they rushed frantically here and there seeking for the bread-winners of their families, many uttering piteous wails when they sought in vain for their loved ones; while others, when they were discovered, bursting into shrieks of hysterical laughter, as they flung their arms round the men's necks, led them off to their homes. Some of the miners had, it appeared, come up just before the explosion; but what was the fate of the rest, far beyond a hundred in number, still ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... Eighth Avenue, you know, where two johns come up along side o' me. One rubs me with his elbow and the other applies that brass knuckle,—then they gets pinched. I got dressed up in a drug store, got the chauffeur's license number, and goes on down to my office to see this girl. She's hysterical about his family using all their money to put her in jail. I looks at her, and says, 'You won't need their money to get to jail. That old man's dead!' Her eyes was as big as saucers. 'I thought old Daddy Van Cleft was drunk.' I tells ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... self-complacency or vanity, or short-sightedness in refusing to prepare for danger, is both foolish and wicked in such a nation as ours; and past experience has shown that such fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis in advance is usually succeeded by a mad panic of hysterical fear once the crisis ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... she concluded, "I am the very happiest woman in all the world, and oh! Captain Frewen, when I think I shall see Mrs. Raymond within a few days, I feel almost hysterical. I'm sure I won't want to go to ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... opening in the thicket, he could see, at a distance of about forty paces, an enormous hyena, in the most wonderful state of excitement; dancing round a lamb just killed, and uttering, from time to time, the ghastly hysterical laughter which had ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... often amount merely to speaking out, laughing, weeping, smacking, throwing oneself about and so on, or occasionally to complicated actions, which begin with leaving the bed. Further comparison shows the night wandering as symptomatically similar to hysterical and hypnotic somnambulism. This interpretation might be objected to upon the ground that unfortunately we know nothing of the origin of the motor phenomena of the dream and that understanding of the hysterical and hypnotic somnambulism is deplorably ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... we have among us, and right-minded as far as they go; and we must not forget this at evil moments when it seems as if all the women had taken to writing hysterical improprieties, and some of the men were trying to be at least as hysterical in despair of being as improper. Other traits are much more characteristic of our life and our fiction. In most American novels, vivid and graphic as the best of them are, the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... weak good nature that was in Nigel, curiously side by side with a certain cruel hardness, he now felt a little sorry for her. It must be awful to be waiting like this. And she really had been in the wrong. It was an appalling thing to do—mad, hysterical, dangerous. It might have caused far more trouble than it had! Suppose ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... passed one by one the landmarks I had come to know so well during the last six years-the Summer Garden, the British Embassy, and the great Palace Square where I had seen armoured cars flaunting about during the July rising, soldiers camping during the hysterical days of the Kornilov affair and, earlier, Kornilov himself reviewing the Junkers. My mind went further back to the March revolution, and saw once more the picket fire of the revolutionaries at the corner that night when the remains of the Tzar's Government were still frantically printing proclamations ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... her hands again with the same passionate fury she had displayed after reading the note. Then Elsie began to grow hysterical ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... hostile criticism afflicted him. The seeds of a suspicious temper were nourished by prosperity itself. The author of the Armida and the Jerusalem began to think the attentions he received unequal to his merits; while with a sort of hysterical mixture of demand for applause, and provocation of censure, he not only condescended to read his poems in manuscript wherever he went, but, in order to secure the goodwill of the papal licenser, he transmitted it for revisal to Rome, where it was mercilessly ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... and butted against Beaumanoir in his haste. Felix, whose skin was always sallow, became livid; but nothing happened, and he snatched the bomb from its dangerous resting place. Then he burst into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter which drowned for an instant a ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... probably due to the fact that here a highly developed 'stregheria' was already in existence, resting on a different set of ideas. The Italian witch practiced a trade, and needed for it money and, above all, sense. We find nothing about her of the hysterical dreams of the Northern witch, of marvelous journeys through the air, of Incubus and Succubus; the business of the 'strega' was to provide for other people's pleasures. If she was credited with the power of assuming different shapes, or ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the image of a kind, wise, and self-respecting gentleman. It is customary, I suppose, in reading Martial, to leave out these pleasant verses; I never heard of them, at least, until I found them for myself; and this partiality is one among a thousand things that help to build up our distorted and hysterical conception of the great ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson
... our 'pest-houses.' On the contrary, she suffers severely from yellow fever, which has never yet visited the British Gold Coast. Her mortality is excessive, but she simply replaces her slain. She has none of that mawkish, hysterical humanitarianism which of late years has become a salient feature in our campaigning. During the Ashanti affair the main object seems to have been, not the destruction of the enemy, but to save as many privates as possible from ague ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton |
