"Instant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the civil power, and such is therefore guilty of sedition. (John 19:12) "And he [Pilate] said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required." (Luke 23:22-24) Thus the civil power yielded to the importunities of ecclesiasticism, ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... exposed position to the troops of his allies under the command of the king of Denkera. He concentrated his artillery upon the heaviest columns of the enemy; but still they came undaunted, bearing down upon the centre like an avalanche. Sir Charles made an attempt to retreat with his staff, but met instant death at the hands of the Ashantees. His head was removed from the body and sent to Kumasi. His heart was eaten by the chiefs of the army that they might imbibe his courage, while his flesh was dried and issued in small rations among the line-officers for the same purpose. His bones ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... made him stumble. He leaned far forward under his heavy burden. The falling shower scorched his bare arms and legs. Once a heavy stone struck him on his cushioned head, and he fell. But he was up in an instant. He looked around bewildered. His head was ringing. The air was hot and choking. The sun was gone. The shower was blinding. Whose house was this? The door stood open. The court was empty. Where was the city gate? Would he never get out? He did not ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... a start, which caused the chain around her waist to clank upon the wretched stool on which she sat. "Justice!" she cried in a tone of indignation. For a moment the earthly spirit revolted. But it gleamed only for an instant. "May God pardon my unjust judge the sins of his youth,"—she paused, and added, "as I forgive him my cruel death!" With these words, the last spark of angry feeling was extinguished for ever. "May God pardon him, as well as those who have thus cruelly witnessed against me; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... For just an instant, he felt crushing pain, then the world dissolved into bright specks in a spreading blackness. One by one, the points of light winked out. And ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... removal of officers and civil servants to be designated by us, seemed to him to be unacceptable in their present form. With regard, to the first two points, I was in a position to give an authentic interpretation in the sense of your excellency's telegram of the 25th instant; with regard to the third, I expressed the opinion that it was a necessary demand. Moreover, matters had already been set in motion. The Serbians had mobilized on the previous day, and I did not know what ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Watson," said he at last. "We may leave the question of who killed John Straker for the instant, and confine ourselves to finding out what has become of the horse. Now, supposing that he broke away during or after the tragedy, where could he have gone to? The horse is a very gregarious creature. If left to himself his instincts would have been ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... prisoner to whose release he had consented was no other than Zamore. When the first shock of surprise was over, the Peruvian hero violently insulted his enemy, and upbraided him with the tortures he had inflicted. The Governor replied by ordering the instant execution of the prince. It was in vain that Don Alvarez reminded his son of Zamore's magnanimity; it was in vain that Alzire herself offered to sacrifice her life for that of her lover. Zamore was dragged from the apartment; and Alzire and Don Alvarez were left alone to bewail the fate ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... mind. With a brave and, for him, a rapid spring, Thursday caught little Sarah and Dinah as they were rolling helpless down the strand, the one by an arm, the other by a leg, and held on. At the same instant Susannah sprang forward and grasped Jack Mills by the hair of the head, but poor Polly Young was beyond her reach. Little Polly was the smallest, the neatest, and the dearest of the sprawling band. She was rolling to her doom. The case was desperate. In this emergency ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... instant, he turned with flashing eyes, and hounded towards me—only he could not see me, you must remember. But my eyes being so much better than his, I could see him perfectly well, and would run away round him ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... thrust with an oath. Red with rage he seized his bow, strung an arrow, and without warning launched it full af' Rob. Well was it for the latter that the Forester's foot turned on a twig at the critical instant, for as it was the arrow whizzed by his ear so close as to take a stray strand of his hair with it. Rob turned upon his assailant, now ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... request, threw his hat on the deck, kneeled on a cushion, tied one white handkerchief over his eyes, and dropped the other as a signal for his executioners, who fired a volley so decisive, that five balls passed through his body, and he dropped down dead in an instant. The time in which this tragedy was acted, from his walking out of the cabin to his being deposited in the coffin, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... whether she will be able to catch them and vault, as her companion has done, over the bull's back, or whether she will fail and be gored to death. With such a sport, in which life or death depended upon an instant, in which a slip of the foot, a misjudgment of distance, or a wavering of hand or eye meant horrible destruction, we may be sure that the tragedies of the Minoan bull-ring were many and terrible, and that the fair dames of the Knossian Palace, modern in costume and appearance ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... were such as to make one wakeful and alert, if anything could. But the danger of yielding for an instant to the allurement of the drowsiness produced by the long ride without sleep was overpowering. In an instant after getting under cover of the shelter tent I was emulating the seven sleepers. It is doubtful if the trump of Gabriel himself, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... in her eyes startled him and the tension snapped. An instant later she was crying wildly in his arms. Brian crushed his lips against her cheek, conscious only of an agonizing stab of joy, then Joan pulled away, her eyes dark ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... the steep flight of stone steps, and paused for an instant in the lobby which divided the Senate Chamber from the House of Delegates. The legislature had convened some six weeks before, and the building was humming ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... over many particulars: and I will onely bryng in those thynges, whiche I thinke necessarie to imitate, mindyng at this tyme, to give to our exercise of warre, some parte of perfection: The whiche shall make, that in one instant, I shall shewe you, how an armie is prepared to the field, and how it doeth incounter in the verie faight, and how it maie be exercised in the fained. The greatest disorder, that thei make, whiche ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... were ghouls. One man made the trooper believe that one of the dead bodies lying on a pile of rocks was his mother, and he was permitted to go up to the body. Apparently overcome by grief, he threw himself across the corpse. In another instant the soldiers discovered that he was chewing the diamond earrings from the ears of the dead woman. 'Here is where you get what is coming to you,' said one of the soldiers, and with that he put a bullet through the ghoul. ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... "On the 3d instant, definite treaties were concluded between all the late belligerent powers except the Dutch, who the day before settled and signed preliminary articles of peace with Britain. We most sincerely and cordially congratulate Congress and our country in ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... palm swung upon the dog's ribs, and, in instant response, he fell upon his side. He rose more slowly; stood isolated, obviously troubled. He drew back stumbling from a menacing gesture; but there was no cringing visible in his immature, ill-proportioned body; his tail drooped, but from weariness, discouragement; his head was ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... suddenly remembered that on the borders of a lake nearly a mile away grew another holly tree—a small and unremarkable bush which might yet contain sufficient bright berries for her purpose. Without an instant's hesitation she determined to walk that mile and reach that tree. She must go quickly if she would be back before anyone noticed her. She was particularly anxious that her gift should not be seen in advance. Running, racing, and ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... castle, there rushed upon me once more this thought of a higher educational vocation as my proper life-work; and again, being so far removed from my actual external life, it only flashed upon me with a momentary effulgence an instant, and then sank. This, unconsciously to me, and therefore quite disregarded by me, was the real position of my inner life when I arrived at the goal of my journey, Frankfurt, from whence my life was so soon to develop so largely. My energies at the ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... and for an instant saw them. A most gratifying tribute to his diplomacy—but devilish disturbing to a young fellow without a girl! Hurriedly he snapped a twig; he snapped another; he broke a branch; he whistled, he coughed, he shouted. And then they looked up, ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... incisive, with eyes as fine as those of a Newfoundland or a Collie and as innocent and winsome. They were wonderful eyes, soft and spring-like at times, glowing with a rich, human understanding which on the instant could harden and flash lightning. Deceptive eyes, unreadable, but alluring alike to men and to women in all walks and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... twenty shillings in the pound, and would have me know, though she was not as fine and as flaunting as Mrs. Gingham, the deputy's wife, she was not ashamed to tell her name, and would show her face with the best of them; and since I had married her daughter—" At this instant entered my father-in-law, a grave man, from whom I expected succour; but upon hearing the case, he told me, "That it would be very imprudent to miss such an opportunity of advertising my shop; and that when notice was given ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... a distant relative of mine," resumed Pendleton; "her mother was connected in some vague way with my mother; and because of this indefinite link, we've always been"—here he hesitated for an instant—"well, rather friendly. Last night we happened to meet at Upton's, and I took her in to dinner. Edyth is a nice girl, but I've noticed of late that she's not had a great deal to say. Sort of quiet and big-eyed and all that, you know. Seems healthy enough, but ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... an instant more of indecision, as the footsteps halted at the threshold, but, when the door burst open, he had squared his shoulders to meet whatever might come, and was whispering between his set teeth: "At any cost, mother! I'll keep ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... were dropping corn. As I came near the tree, I thought to myself, 'I wish I could see these Indians.' I had partly filled with nuts a straw hat which I wore, when I heard a crackling noise behind me; I looked round, and saw the Indians; almost at the same instant, I was seized by both hands, and dragged off betwixt two. One of them took my straw hat, emptied the nuts on the ground, and put it on my head. The Indians who seized me were an old man and a young one; these were, as ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... seem that the justification of the ungodly does not take place in an instant, but successively, since, as already stated (A. 3), for the justification of the ungodly, there is required a movement of free-will. Now the act of the free-will is choice, which requires the deliberation of counsel, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the table. He was very tall, with the lean New England build. His long, bony face was unhandsome save for the eyes and mouth, which held an expression of great sweetness. He shook hands with a kindly smile, and Mary took an instant liking to him, feeling In his presence the ease that comes of class-fellowship. He looked, she thought, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... turned away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and ran to the closet where hung her precious dresses. These she inspected nervously, and missing suddenly a favorite black silk from its accustomed peg, for a moment, thought she should have fainted. But discovering it the next instant lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness to a superior Being who protects the friendless for the first time sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit she was hurried for time, she could not resist trying ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... who noticed his intelligence. He became a journeyman printer, and one day in the studio of Madame Lebrun, dressed in his workman's blouse, he met Therezia Cabarrus, Marquise de Fontenay, the most seductive woman of her time, and fell in love with her on the instant. Nothing, apparently, could have been more hopeless or absurd. But the Revolution came. Tallien became prominent, was elected to the Convention, grew to be influential, and in September, 1793, was sent to Bordeaux, ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... iron. Yet he was able to reach for the gun, and clutch it; and with a final effort that seemed to tear the heart from his breast, he dragged the weapon under him, pressed the muzzle upward, pulled the trigger, at the very instant that Marion threw herself ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... open Tom's overcoat, almost tearing the buttons off. Another masterful jerk and his victim's jacket was likewise parted widely. He did not lower the club for an instant. He thrust his left hand into the V-shaped parting of the young ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... are out of time, out of space, and not subject to circumstance: thus in the soul of man there is a justice whose retributions are instant and entire.... If a man is at heart just, then, in so far is he God; the safety of God, the immortality of God, the majesty of God, do enter into that man with justice.... For all things proceed out of the same spirit, which is differently named, love, justice, temperance, in its different applications, ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... and various good-luck gourds of which she was fond. The Emperor, probably becoming weary of a conversation in which he had no part, quietly withdrew by a side entrance to the theatre which was playing at the time. For some moments the Empress Dowager did not notice his absence, but the instant she discovered he was gone, a look of anxiety overspread her features, and she turned to the head eunuch, Li Lien-ying, and in an authoritative tone asked: 'Where is the Emperor?' There was a scurry among the eunuchs, and they were sent ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... had been occupied in his attentions on the invalid, glanced up and met Philippa's eyes. He recoiled as if in surprise or horror, but in an instant ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... move her from her gust of passion, he quickly learned his mistake. Her lips curled in contempt, and, drawing her skirts aside as she passed him as though a touch might contaminate her, she swept to the doorway. For one instant she ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... idle to talk of me,—useless to help me. I am fast dying. But my child there, my only child" (he paused for an instant, and went on rapidly). "I have relations in a distant county, if I could but get to them; I think they would, at least, provide for her. This has been for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford the journey ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... [Salem] on the 23d instant. To Boston by stage, and took the afternoon cars for Worcester. A little boy returning from the city, several miles, with a basket of empty custard-cups, the contents of which he had probably sold at the depot. Stopped at the Temperance ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Emperor Joseph II. was taken from him in a few days by an attack of smallpox of the most virulent kind. Her coffin had recently been deposited in the vault of the imperial family. The Archduchess Josepha, who had been betrothed to the King of Naples, at the instant she was quitting Vienna received an order from the Empress not to set off without having offered up a prayer in the vault of her forefathers. The Archduchess, persuaded that she should take the disorder to which ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... turned angrily, the old grip of suspicion upon him,—suspicion that would point in time of stress to every one about him, suspicion engendered by black days of hopelessness, of despair. But in an instant, it all was gone; the picture of Ba'tiste Renaud, standing there by the embers, the honesty of his expression of sorrow, the slump of his shoulders, while the dog, unnoticed, nuzzled its cold nose in a limp hand, was enough to wipe it all out forever. ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... other with loud curses and shaken fists under the chin of a policeman, perfectly impassive, with eyes dropped upon the fists which all but stirred the throat-latch of his helmet. When the men should strike, I was aware that it would be his instant duty, as the guardian of the public peace, to seize them both and hale them away to prison. But it was not till many years afterwards that I read in his well-remembered effigy the allegory of civilization which lets the man-made suffering ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Ireland, yet willingly would I fondle the boy." "Cheerfully let him go to thee," said Bendigeid Vran; and the boy went unto him cheerfully. "By my confession to Heaven," said Evnissyen in his heart, "unthought of is the slaughter that I will this instant commit." ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... turned and gave, for one swift instant, a glance at Trenchard, who was, very clumsily, climbing into the carriage. Nikolai looked at him gravely. His round, red face was quite expressionless as he turned back and began to abjure his horses in that half-affectionate, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... sun Makes haste to have thy ripeness done, While all her nights let dews escape To set and cool thy perfect shape. Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause To dream and seek thy hidden laws! I stretch my hand and dare to taste, In instant of delicious waste On single feast, all things that went To make the empire ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... his moral doctrine and that he enforced the moral duty which they convey to the best of his power. And here the burden lay, which crushed this man, from which he never thenceforward could, even for an instant, free himself, and which Saint Paul avers to be the heaviest burden man can bear. Moses, to fulfil what he conceived to be his destiny and which at least certainly was his ambition, was condemned ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... following his, fixed themselves on the same face. On the instant she divined the truth. She beheld her to whom she had owed months of jealous agony, and over whom, poor child, she thought she had achieved a triumph. But the girl's heart was so instinctively good that the sense of triumph was merged in a sense of compassion. Her rival had lost Gustave. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blood-red tongue was projected for an instant from his mouth, and licked his jaws, as the cat species are fond of doing; and occasionally he moved his head from ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Porter, went from Tripolis in a small barke to Iaffa, the same day that we came from thence, which was the 14 day of this present, so that no doubt but long since they are in Ierusalem: God send them and vs safe returne. At this instant I haue received the account of M. Barret, and the rest of the rings, with two and twentie duckats, two medines in readie money. So there is nothing remaining in his hands but a few bookes, and with Thomas Bostocke I ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... high-gee, cleared the ecliptic, then swung out of normal space and jumped. When you materialized in the new sector, you set your cameras clicking, toggled all the other instruments into recording radiation, gravity pressures, spectroscopy, at slam-bang speed. The very instant your magnetic tapes got crammed to capacity, you pressed six dozen panic buttons and scooted like a scared jackrabbit ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... laid for supper. Rodman darted to it, seized a carving-knife, and in an instant was holding it to her throat. She shrieked and fell upon her knees, her face ghastly with mortal terror. Then Rodman burst out laughing and showed that his anger had ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... mind and so disconsolate, that he determined to put an end to his perplexity with his life, by abstaining from all manner of sustenance. But through the care and diligence of his friends, who were very instant with him, and added force to their entreaties, he came to resolve and promise at last, that he would endure living, provided it might be in solitude, and remote from company; so that, quitting all civil transactions and commerce with the world, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... molestation. When he got in the neighborhood of the fort, he posted himself on a hill overlooking it, and began throwing up intrenchments in full view of the garrison. As if all this were not imprudence enough, and as if bent on provoking the enemy to come out and give him battle on the instant, whether or no, he sent down a party of observation to spy out yet more narrowly the inside plan and defences of the fort, who were suffered not only to do this, but even to burn a house just outside the walls, and then return to their intrenchments without ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... learned from Gertrude of Augsburg and many other burgher girls that certain pleasantries were more objectionable to them in theory than in practice; but this burgher girl rose to her feet at his approach and seemed to grow a head taller in an instant. He quietly took his old place and she took hers. She continued as if unconscious ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... stupid-looking young boy do for her? No, it were better far to push on. She managed to sound the hooter, and with a supreme effort kept in the middle of the lane, while the sheep scattered to right and left. She dared not go any slower, for fear of stopping her engine, but she expected every instant to feel a bump, and find that she had run over one of the flock. The collie did his duty, however, and in a whirl of barking, shouting, and baa-ing she steered safely through ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
... before them all. He checked that temptation. In the first place it would be impossible to convince five men who had already made up their minds, who had already acquitted Sinclair of the guilt. In the second place, if he succeeded in convincing them, there would be an instant gunplay, and the first man to come under Sinclair's fire, he knew well enough, would be himself. He drew a long breath ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... For an instant the ruler of the mole-men stood half stooped in petrified astonishment, and in that moment Rawson dragged himself to his feet. No chance to use the gun—the other was upon him, his gripping talons tearing ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... illustrating it. Whatever may be said in respect to the right of the negro to a perpetual home here, and we would be the last to dispute it; whatever may be urged against the prejudice which thrusts them out of association and into painful separation, and we would not for an instant justify it; yet still we are of the opinion that here the negro will not abide as a people. Social equality and the enjoyment of every right are well nigh hopeless for him. Were there nothing else in the way, the stigma of slavery ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... her, and responds far more quickly than the man to a sudden idea. Sometimes, at dinner, one might wait till talk flagged, and then, as mildly as possible, ask one's liveliest neighbor whether she could explain why the American woman was a failure. Without an instant's hesitation, she was sure to answer: "Because the American man is a failure!" ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... mortels cachent ici les rois? Au fond de leur palais leur majeste terrible Affecte a leurs sujets de se rendre invisible; Et la mort est le prix de tout audacieux 195 Qui, sans etre appele, se presente a teurs yeux, Si le Roi dans l'instant, pour sauver le coupable, Ne lui donne a baiser son sceptre redoutable. Rien ne met a l'abri de cet ordre fatal, Ni le rang, ni le sexe, et le crime est e'gal. 200 Moi-meme, sur son trone, a ses cotes assise, Je suis a cette loi comme une autre soumise; Et sans le prevenir, il faut, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... wide open to the beauty of the world. He speaks of a horse, and we know the fine points of a thoroughbred; he mentions the duke's hounds, and we hear them clamoring on a fox trail, their voices matched like bells in the frosty air; he stops for an instant in the sweep of a tragedy to note a flower, a star, a moonlit bank, a hilltop touched by the sunrise, and instantly we know what our own hearts felt but could not quite express when we saw the same thing. ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... an instant the bailiffs were sprawling on the green turf. Such cheers, such congratulations, such slapping on the back, such hip! hip! hurrahs! were never heard before. Then the procession formed and passed on to the village; and to the melodious strains of "God save Ireland!" ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... him, only a few rods distant, making his way with great care and skill along the bank, as though he had no fear of any dispute over the ownership of the craft, as, indeed, he did not; for, catching sight of the white man at the same instant the latter saw him, he leaped ashore, and, knife in hand, attacked him with the impetuous fury ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... Terry again as I had seen him first, with the glamour of ardent love, the love that overleaps all barriers and, if only for an instant, stands face to face with love, unhesitating, tumultuous, and triumphant. The memory of even one perfect moment can never leave us, even if life be ever so dark and harsh and bitter, there will always be that single ray of light to illumine the darkness, ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... instant the little girls were all about her. Elinor Mayhew was holding her hands, and the others were pushing her along the path to the shore. The thick growing shrubs hid them from the house. Sylvia did not cry out or speak. She was not at all ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... In an instant the revelation of the whole mystery flashed upon him! The forgotten passage in Houston's letter about the stolen photograph stood clearly before him; the coincidence of his appearance in Shepherdstown, and the natural ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... of Three Thousand Six Hundred Eighty-two Pounds, Eight Shillings, and Six Pence: being so much due to them for their salaries and service to this Council unto the Two-and-twentieth day of this instant October. Hereof you are not to fail; and for so doing this shall be your sufficient warrant. Given at the Council of State at Whitehall this 25th day of ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... however rashly, committed his pledges thus largely to the hazards of trading companies, it behoved him, of course, to abide the consequences of his conduct, and, with whatever feelings, he surrendered on the instant every shred of property which he had been accustomed to call his own. It became vested in the hands of gentlemen whose integrity, prudence, and intelligence were combined with all possible liberality and kindness of disposition, and who readily afforded ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... of what is known as the "Woman's Crusade," the power of prayer seemed for awhile to be an almost irresistible force. Thousands and tens of thousands of men were, as they felt assured in their hearts, freed in an instant of time from an appetite which had been growing and strengthening for years, until it held complete mastery over them; and this in answer to the prayer of faith. And hundreds of saloon and tavern-keepers abandoned ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... long over the pleasures of the table, for there was still work to be done before they could conscientiously seek the beds that wooed them, that work consisting in the unpacking of their weapons and ammunition, and making the former ready for instant service. This task they undertook immediately after dinner, sitting side by side just within ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... depends on the stage. If recent and without instant danger of rupture of the bladder, the narrow opening of the sheath should be freely cut open in the median line below, and the sac emptied out with a finger or spoon, after which it should be thoroughly ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... written of the rising bale; Besought their aid and prudent choice, to form Some sure defence against the threatening storm. With one consent they urge the strong request, To summon Rustem from his rural rest.— Instant a warrior-delegate they send, And thus the ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... morning, has been, "Found dead." Everybody admires the sagacious conclusion at which the jury have arrived. It is reported that Figsby has resigned! I am able to contradict the gross falsehood. Mr. F. is now addressing the electors from his committee-room window, and has this instant received a plumper—in the eye—in the shape of a rotten potato. I have ascertained that the casualties amount to no more than six men, two pigs, and two policemen, killed; thirteen men, women, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... Hazel's hand. The momentary doubt of her—cruel as hell—had gone. She was his lady, and he was going to fight for her. Hazel looked up at him, and in that instant she almost loved him. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... pretty mite of a girl. 'Twas a year of grace indeed, for the little stranger happened to be none other than Anne Oldfield, whose elegance of manner, charm of voice and action and loveliness of face would in time make her the most delightful comedienne of her day. Perhaps she found no instant welcome, this diminutive maiden who came smiling into existence laden with a message from the sunshine; her father was richer in ancestry than guineas, and the arrival of another daughter may have seemed an honour hardly worth the bestowal.[A] But Thalia laughed, as well she might, and even the stern ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... was the pleasure of starting early, as my boy and his brother sometimes did, to shoot ducks on the Little Reservoir in the fall. His brother had an alarm-clock, which he set at about four, and he was up the instant it rang, and pulling my boy out of bed, where he would rather have stayed than shot the largest mallard duck in the world. They raked the ashes off the bed of coals in the fireplace, and while the embers ticked and bristled, and flung out little showers of sparks, they hustled ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... been executed at Arad, Francis Joseph thanked the Croats "for their ceaseless energy and for their numerous sacrifices in the interests of the State." But Jella[vc]i['c] did not move, and the Prince-Bishop wrote to Count Pozza, a friend of his at Dubrovnik. "I had hoped for an instant, my dear Count," he wrote, "but I am now convinced that Yugoslavism is, for the time being, merely an idle word. The Yugoslavs are unconscious of their own strength and sell themselves unconditionally to the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... righteousness. Mr William O'Brien sought to unite all Irish parties on a definite war policy. He held the view that "however legitimate would have been the policy of compelling England to fulfil her pledges by holding sternly aloof in her hour of necessity, the policy of frank and instant friendship on condition of that fulfilment would have been greatly the more effectual to make Home Rule a necessity that could not be parried, as well as to start it under every condition ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... Which sorrow always sanctions by a prayer. They in the radiance of its glancing eyes See nothing to suffuse with their own tears! Borne forward on the easy wing of Time, They travel on, they scarcely meet with Thought, Or, like a summer cloud, he passes by, His shadow rests one instant, and again The scene is ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... The column waited, sunken in the green and gold and misty Wilderness where the shadows were lengthening and the birds were at evensong. In a moment the evensong was hushed and the birds flew away. The same instant brought explanation of that "Don't-care. -On-the-whole-quite-ready-to-retreat.-Merely-following-instructions" attitude for the past two hours of the blue skirmish line. From Chancellorsville, from Hooker's great entrenchments on the high ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... looking over another animal of the same sort: neither uttering a word, nor stirring a finger, nor yielding a particle in his fixed unwinking gaze. Martinez could almost feel the exchanged challenge, the cold antagonism, the hostile curiosity, the matching of wills, the instant hate, between ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the cylinder turns completely over (Apparatus I.). As it does this, the valves, as already mentioned, close the ends of the cylinder, which is fixed in its new position by a hook in the bottom of the frame. At the same instant the slipping sinker that hangs under Apparatus I. is released, and continues the journey to Apparatus II., where the same thing happens. It is then repeated with Apparatus III. When they are all ready, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... availed himself of those means which are best calculated to arrive at his end; if he was capable of changing them, he could neither be called wise, immutable, nor provident. If it was to be granted, that the Divinity did for a single instant suspend those laws which he himself has given, if he was to change any thing in his plan, it would be supposing he had not foreseen the motives of this suspension; that he had not calculated the causes ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... For an instant the face of the bookmaker grew a shade less red and his eyes searched those of Ford in a quick agony of suspicion. Ford continued to smile steadily at him, and ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... that Peppino should still grow up to whine for a copper? But the Italian shells had no direct message for Peppino's stomach—and you are going to a dinner-party at a villa. So Peppino "points" an instant for the copper in the dust and grows up a Roman beggar. The whole little place represents the most primitive form of hostelry; but along any of the roads leading out of the city you may find establishments of a higher type, with Garibaldi, superbly mounted and foreshortened, painted on the wall, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Laurance felt that he was approaching some offended and avenging Fury, that he was drifting down to ruin, powerless to lift his hand and stay even for an instant the fatal descent; that he was gradually petrifying, and things ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... went out, and Henrietta sat at her paper for two hours and a half. It was so bad, so unintelligible, that she actually cried over it, and when she heard Miss Gurney's step, she carried it off to her bedroom and locked the door. Miss Gurney was after her in an instant. ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor
... my bed a single instant, and I have received company every day. I am about to have my only son inoculated. Count Orlof, that hero who resembles the ancient Romans in the best times of the republic, both in courage and generosity, doubting whether he had ever had the small-pox, has put himself under the hands of our Englishman, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... A'B', the stroke of the engine, and that again to AB, the throw of the crank. The highest position of P will be that shown in the figure, determined by placing the crank vertically, as OC. At that instant the motions of C and C' are horizontal, and being inclined to CC' they must be equal. In other words, the motion is one of translation, and the radius of curvature ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... towards me; it was a pitiful sight, it looked so old, so wan, so wizened; but while I looked at it a bright smile came over it, just as you see a gleam of sunshine lighten up a cold, dark little pool of water, so this smile danced over the child's features. I was vain enough for an instant to think myself the cause of the little creature's pleasure, but, remembering I was invisible, I turned at some slight sound and saw that another child had entered the door—a girl not larger than yourself, Lady Laura, about eleven or twelve years of age, thin and poor-looking, ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... Bartholomew, setting out expressly from my quarters to go and see the king, somebody told me on inquiry that he was in his cabinet, whence the admiral, who had been alone with him a very long while, had just that instant gone out. I entered at once, as I had been accustomed to do. But as soon as the king my brother perceived me, he, without saying anything to me, began walking about furiously and with long steps, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... reach the fence, the hitching strap had given away under the unusual strain, sending old Bess to her knees. But with no trace of the stiffness of age, she was up in an instant and galloping across the pasture, a number of enraged hornets in hot pursuit. At the crucial moment Amy's finger pressed the button, thus preserving a record of a fact which needed to be substantiated by even more convincing evidence than the testimony ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... dark object dropped through the air, fell with a loud POP on the street a few yards in front of the Bishop. A faint green vapor arose, misting for a moment the proud figures of Chuff and his horse. At the same instant the other two planes, throbbing down the line of the parade, discharged a rain of similar projectiles along the vacant strip of paving between the marching chuffs and the police-lined curb. An eddying emerald fume filled the street, drifting with the brisk air down through all the ranks of the procession. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... web of railroads, like ropes bent around the lower end of the lake. The night was too dark to see it long. The hundreds of huge oil tanks of Whiting had now disappeared, and I could see only the flaming tops of the iron furnaces of South Chicago. Suddenly they went out in an instant, as if a thick fog had smothered them, and there was a long minute of pale mist; and then suddenly a bright blue sky, the twinkling stars and a veil of grey shutting off all ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... Ay! do they. But just now we saw a store of good things carried into Desborough's tent. Lo! there goes Jepherson and Fight-the-good-Fight Egerton this instant to feast on the fat things of the earth. [Here the soldier gives him ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... meditate upon his parting expression, which though not intelligible to him in its whole purport, was sufficiently so in the caution which the last word recommended. Making, therefore, an effort to show himself worthy of the interest which his new master had expressed, by instant obedience to his recommendation, he walked up to the spot where Flora and Miss Bradwardine were still seated, and having made his compliments to the latter, he succeeded, even beyond his own expectation, in entering into conversation upon ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... emblems of the South everywhere. When they came to Jackson's house they met the fiery defender of his home on the landing of the stairs, rifle in hand, who with determined air informed the Federal soldiers that whoever lowered his flag would meet instant death. Staggered and dazed by such a determined spirit, they lost no time in reporting the fact to Colonel Ellsworth. Enraged beyond all control by this cool impudence, Ellsworth rushed to Jackson's house, followed by a squad of soldiers. On reaching the landing ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... peltasts. But when with counter-wave the phalanx of the heavy infantry rapidly advancing, faced them, and at the same time the bugle sounded, and the battle hymn rose from all lips, and after this a loud cheer rose, and at the same instant they couched their spears;—at this conjuncture the enemy no longer welcomed them, but fled. Timasion with his cavalry followed close, and, considering their scant numbers, they did great execution. It was the left wing of the enemy, in a line ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... round in a moment, but no one dared to interfere with Mr. Tudor. We could hear Aunt Philippa sobbing with terror. Clarence Chudleigh extinguished the lamp, some one else flung an Indian blanket and a striped rug at Jill's feet. For one instant I could see the girl's face, white and rigid as a statue, as the young man's powerful arms enveloped her. Then the danger was over, and Jill was standing among us unhurt, with her muslin gown hanging in blackened shreds, and with bruises on her round white arms from ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... would burn another blue light," he muttered, as striving to pierce the darkness ahead, and with his gun across his breast ready for instant action, he went on and on, with all kinds of curious thoughts occurring to him as his pulses beat heavily, and even his brain seemed to throb. Stories he had read and heard of people who were lost moving in a circle and ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... army in person. The Queen had retired to the innermost part of her pavilion, where she was performing her orisons before a private altar. While thus at her prayers she was suddenly aroused by a glare of light and wreaths of suffocating smoke. In an instant the whole tent was in a blaze; there was a high gusty wind, which whirled the light flames from tent to tent, and wrapped the whole in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the ruffians approached the bed. They swept her aside, but paused an instant be-fore the glance of the sick man's eye. He lay there, desperately, deathly sick. The blood throbbed in his whirling brain, his eyes were bloodshot and blinded, his strength was gone. He could hardly ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... bitterly, "only the man I love can give it to me.... I want, once at least, to feel a pair of arms around me, nothing but that, I assure you ... to lay my head on your shoulder and to remain like that, for an instant." ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... drawn half-away, but in an instant it was back, and he smiled no less pleasantly than before. But the Duke, less able or less careful to conceal his mood, frowned heavily, while ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... Vermont's anger might have carried him she did not know, for, to her intense relief, the door opened and Adrien Leroy himself entered the room. He gazed in surprise at the two occupants, and in an instant Jasper had regained his self-control. He did not release Ada's wrist, but, smoothing his scowl into a sleek smile, he said ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... by this article even when it conveys the idea of plurality and takes a plural verb: as, "There are a very great number [of adverbs] ending in ly."—Buchanan's Syntax, p. 63. "A plurality of them are sometimes felt at the same instant."—Kames, El. of Crit., Vol. i, p. 114. In support of this construction, it would be easy to adduce a great multitude of examples from the most reputable writers; but still, as it seems not very consistent, to take any word plurally after restricting ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and this likewise was the portal through which the Mohawks had already come on their errands of massacre. If Canada was to be safe, this region must become the colony's mailed fist, ready to strike in repulse at an instant's notice. All this the intendant saw very plainly, and he was wise in his generation. Later events amply proved his foresight. The Richelieu highway was actually used by the men of New England on various subsequent expeditions against Canada, and it was the line of Mohawk ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... of this charming scene of Old Virginia faithfulness, I put my best leg out and departed with gymnastic sprightliness. An instant after I turned ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... What happened that night is known By you, and by you alone: Though the eagles unceasing scream, How once through that midnight air, For an instant a trumpet's blare, And the voices of men in prayer, Arose from the ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... and she washed up. Later, they brought their sewing into the sitting-room. While we were trying to thaw the little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the floor. In an instant Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran round the room and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Paradise to keep in order the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... with entire belief until he had, by subsequent experiments upon animals, borne out the fact that it is possible for melted lead to be received into the stomach without the immediate death of the sufferer; though more probable that, in the great majority of cases, instant ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... coffee houses at once found favor among men of intelligence in all classes. Until they came, the average Englishman had only the tavern as a place of common resort. But here was a public house offering a non-intoxicating beverage, and its appeal was instant and universal. As a meeting place for the exchange of ideas it soon attained wide popularity. But not without opposition. The publicans and ale-house keepers, seeing business slipping away from them, made strenuous propaganda ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... A Mexican boy sprawling in the shade of a bale of government hay, and clad in cotton shirt and trousers well-nigh as brown as the skin that peeped through occasional gaps, glanced up at him with languid interest an instant, and then resumed the more agreeable contemplation of the writhings of an impaled tarantula. Under another section of the shed two placid little burros were dreamily blinking at vacancy, their grizzled fronts expressive of that ineffable peace found only in the faces ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... eyes flashed lightning for an instant; the blood flew to her cheeks, and she bit ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... The instant they had fairly moved away, she turned and ran in, in a hurry to look after the salt-cellars, and to see that Katty hadn't got the table-cloth diagonal to the square of the room instead of parallel, or committed any of the other general-housework horrors which ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... and battle-axes, and shouting their war-cry, 'Woach! woach! ha, ha, hach, woach!' Their number appeared to be about thirty men; and Standish knew that his party, several of whom were already slightly wounded, could not resist the fury of their attack. He therefore gave the word for an instant retreat to the boat, as the only means of safety. His gallant band would gladly have pressed on, and met the savages in close combat; but they had promised to obey their leader, and reluctantly they followed him to ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... of a spacious garden were thrown open at this instant, and I accepted with avidity an invitation to walk in it. Mirth and hilarity prevailed, and the moments fled on downy wings, while we traced the beauties of Art and Nature, so liberally displayed ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... stone, hat in hand, at the same moment in which Miss Power rose from her seat. She hesitated for an instant, and said, with a pretty girlish stiffness, sweeping back the skirt of her dress to free her toes in turning: 'Although you are personally unknown to me, I cannot leave you without expressing my deep sense of your profound scholarship, and my admiration for the thoroughness of your studies ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... the instant after the ladder had given way and he was rushing through the air and clutching vainly at the dark void, every faculty had violently expanded, so that he seemed to see and think at every pore. The next instant his rudely battered body refused ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... that dark, stern, melancholy face. But the cloud passed as swiftly as the shadows on a summer sea, and the next moment the look of affection and humor brought the frightened child into Mr. Webster's arms, and they were friends and playmates in an instant. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... holding office, no less than six new bishoprics were erected in the British colonies, and the first impulse was encouraged of that good spirit which has since sent forth into foreign parts five bishops in one day to "preach the word, to be instant in season, out of season, to reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... this matter. If generalization were permissible, psychical events would have to be at least as clear as physical processes, but that is not admissible for many reasons. First of all, physical concomitants are rarely direct and unmeditated expressions of a psychical instant (e. g., clenching a fist in threatening). Generally they stand in no causal relation, so that explanations drawn from physiological, anatomical, or even atavistic conditions are only approximate and hypothetical. In addition, accidental ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... and attacks Tyr, and they kill each other. Thor gains great renown for killing the Midgard serpent, but at the same time, recoiling nine paces, falls dead upon the spot suffocated by the floods of venom which the dying serpent vomits forth upon him. The wolf swallows Odin, but at that instant Vidar advances, and setting his foot on the monster's lower jaw, seizes the other with his hand, and thus tears and rends him till he dies. Vidar is able to do this because he wears those shoes for which stuff has been gathering in all ages, namely, the shreds of leather ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... plateau. The cheering Gordons, the Manchesters and the Devons now flung themselves at the remnant of the foe. Suddenly a white flag was seen to flutter defeat from a kopje beyond the laager. On the instant the soldiers paused at the surprising notes of the "Cease fire," followed by the "Retire." For a moment they wavered between discipline and dismay. At that instant from a small kopje east of the nek came a violent burst of firing as some fifty of the enemy made a last effort ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... to disoblige you, Major Pierson; but then I am compelled to resign the position without your permission," replied Christy without an instant's hesitation; for he clearly understood what he was doing now, and neither really nor constructively was he willing to do any thing in the service of ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... said the elder man, when the younger paused for an instant in his eager flow of words, "we have talked long enough about that fine land you have just come from, for even Australian adventures can keep—I am interested in something nearer home. What do you say to Charlotte there? She was but a baby when you ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... of London was rewarded for instant submission by a Charter, signed,—not by his name—but his mark, for the Conqueror of England (from whom Victoria is twenty-fifth remove in descent), could not write ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... light dough as for bread, using to mix it, milk, instead of water; divide it into 7 or 8 dumplings; plunge them into boiling water, and boil them for 20 minutes. Serve the instant they are taken up, as they spoil directly, by falling and becoming heavy; and in eating them do not touch them with a knife, but tear them apart with two forks. They may be eaten with meat gravy, or cold butter and sugar, and if not convenient to make the dough at home, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... instant Scipio's face flushed. Then it paled icily under its tan. His brain was struggling to grasp something which seemed to be slowly enveloping him, but which his honest heart would not let him believe. He stared stupidly at Vada's dirty face. Then, as ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... mouth, however, Kelly sprung over to him; and making a feint, as if he intended to lay the stick on his ribs, he swung it past without touching him and, bringing it round his own head like lightning, made it tell with a powerful back-stroke, right on Grimes's temple, and in an instant his own face was sprinkled with the blood which sprung from the wound. Grimes staggered forwards towards his antagonist, seeing which, Kelly sprung back, and was again meeting him with full force, when Grimes, turning a little, clutched Kelly's stick ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... in full exercise. The alarm was struck by the sentinels keeping firing at me. I arrived at the banks of Harlem,—five men met me with their bayonets at my heart; to resist was instant death, and to give ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... prevented him from moving and he had turned in an awkward sitting position to face Hardy. All he could do was bring his gun up quickly and fire over his left shoulder. Hardy fired at the same instant. At such close ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... the fire, in his night-gown and slippers, and talking gaily with the Queen and her ladies, when torches are seen flashing up from the garden, and the clash of arms and the sound of angry voices is heard from below. A sense of the dread reality bursts on them in an instant. The Queen and the ladies run to secure the door of the chamber, while James, seizing the tongs, wrenches up one of the boards of the floor and takes refuge in a vault beneath. This was wont to have an opening to the outer court, but it had unfortunately been built up of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... point four years later, from an independent source, is found in a Salt Lake City letter, of November 3, 1855, to the New York Herald. The writer said: "From September 5, to the 27th instant the people of this territory had not received any news from the States except such as was contained in a few broken files of California papers.... Letters and papers come up missing, and in the same mail come papers of very ancient dates; but letters once missing ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... lines were cast off in a jiffy. The Streak shot ahead and away from the wharf. The spy fisherman we had left behind on the stringer-piece pulled out a revolver and fired five shots into the air in rapid succession. The men in the skiff gave instant heed to the warning, for we could see them pulling away ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... and uncomfortable he had retired to the guard room, and I walked along with a free mind. I was just near the large gateway, however, when a most stentorian voice shouted out, "Halt, who goes there?" and at the same instant in the darkness I saw the sudden flash of a bayonet flourished in my direction. Not expecting such an event, I could not for the moment think of what I ought to say, but I called out in equally stentorian tones, "For heaven's sake, my boy, don't make ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... For an instant the lad's attention was deflected by the radiant vision. The girl, wrapped in a voluminous cloak of ivory colour, was tall and slim, with soft white throat and graceful neck; her eyes under shadowy lashes ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... have the ability, and what artist lacks it? In the future, there is fame for the painter, there is posterity for the poet and much good may it do them. But for the musician, particularly for the song-bird, there is the vertigo of instant applause. In days like these, days that witness the fall of empires, the future holds for the donna, for the prima donna, for the prima donna assoluta, the grandest of ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... a fly wheel. The beam, F, having to give motion to the piston in describing an arc of a circle at the extremity attached to the connecting rod, must, for that reason, have a fixed point of oscillation, or one that we must consider as such for the instant. Now, such point is selected on a piece, H, having the shape of the letter C, and which plays an important part in the working of the pump. This piece is really a two-armed lever, having its center of oscillation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... did not work upon the blossoms of the trailing arbutus, but while walking in the woods one April day I came upon a spot of arbutus swarming with honey-bees. They were so eager for it that they crawled under the leaves and the moss to get at the blossoms, and refused on the instant the hive-honey which I happened to have with me, and which I offered them. I had had this flower under observation more than twenty years, and had never before seen it visited by honey-bees. The same season I saw them for the first time working upon the flower of bloodroot ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... the soul to the lowest level at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage. So was it now with Tom. The atheistic taunts of his cruel master sunk his before dejected soul to the lowest ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... thought that my presence prevented an act of common humanity, I would leave your house this instant, Colonel Mohun." ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... called the Moone, was here heaued aboue the water with the force of the yce, and receiued a great leake thereby. Likewise the Thomas of Ipswich, and the Anne Francis were sore bruised at that instant, hauing their false stemmes borne away, and their ship sides stroken ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... delicious—clear, cheerful, sympathetic. This, and her smile—which added a charm of its own to the beauty of her mouth—won my heart, before she had got close enough to me to put her hand in mine. "Ah, my dear!" I said, in my headlong way, "I am so glad to see you!" The instant the words passed my lips, I could have cut my tongue out for reminding her in that brutal manner that she ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... lay the newspaper aside or quit the room. I very promptly declined to do either, when he snatched the paper from my hands, and instantly drew his sword. I was unarmed, with the exception of a good sized whalebone cane, but my anger was so great that I at once sprung at the scamp, who at the instant made a pass at me. I warded the thrust as well as I could, but did not avoid getting nicely pricked in the left shoulder; but, before my antagonist could recover himself, I gave him such a wipe with my cane on his sword-arm that his wrist snapped, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various |
