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More "Convulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was nothing like the Polar regions of Earth. Stark desolation. A naked land seemingly upheaved by some gigantic cataclysm of nature, lying tumbled and broken where it had fallen in convulsive agony; and then congealed forever in a ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the shining shores receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible! There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn into the ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... seemed a death dance, grotesque, convulsive, hideous. Paris, Nice, Berlin, Budapest, Rome, Vienna, London writhed and twisted and turned and jiggled. St. Vitus himself never imagined contortions such as these. In the narrow side-street dance rooms ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... or rather she answered only by a sudden burst of weeping; not the light, facile weeping of a woman crossed or over-fretted, or frightened; but the convulsive heart-rending sobbing ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... door: her hands fell irresolutely upon the rough surface of it and lay still for a moment. Then with the noise of a hoarse groan the door swung inward, and the light guttered in a swirl of keen morning air, casting convulsive shadows upon her lifted countenance, and was extinguished. She held out her arms in a gesture that was half maternal. "Raoul!" ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... the fear of dangers on a broad national scale, diverts men's minds momentarily from brooding over small private perils, and for the time gives them something like largeness of views; but, as little doubt have I, that convulsive revolutions put back the world in all that is good, check civilisation, bring the dregs of society to its surface; in short, it appears to me that insurrections and battles are the acute diseases of nations, and that their tendency is to exhaust, by their violence, the vital energies ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... light—they were passing more radio-active patches. He felt the wild convulsive struggles of Lanier against the thing; and then suddenly the tunnel ended, debouched into a far-stretching, low-ceilinged cavity. It was feebly illuminated by radio-active patches here and there in walls and ceiling, ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... woman leaned heavily on her stick, tearless sobs shaking her emaciated frame. For a space of sixty seconds her watery, faded eyes stared into Waldstricker's flashing dark ones—then she drew a long, convulsive breath. ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... tiny thing, the familiar little "wahuhu" of the Cherokees—flitted down with its noiseless wings from out the sky and sat, a mere tuft of feathers and big round eyes, on one of the eaves, its shrill cry and convulsive chatter smote the night with a sudden affright—all the breathless listening spaces of the "beloved square" seemed to shiver at the sound, and the keen sleety lines of snow were tremulously vibrant with it as the flakes came slanting down once ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... convulsive start, the warrior raised himself upon his couch to an upright posture. Gazing wildly around for a moment, he threw his arms forward, shouting "I come, beloved, I come!" and then falling back he lay a lifeless corpse. And so died Mishikinakwa, the Little Turtle ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... charming partner, Madame Hghelghghagllaghem. For the pronunciation of this polysyllabic cognomen, I can only give you a few plain instructions; commence it with a slight cough, continue with a gurgling in the throat, and finish with the first convulsive movement of a sneeze, imparting to the whole operation a delicate nasal twang. If the result is not something approaching to the sound required, you must relinquish all hope of achieving it, as I did. Luckily, my business was to dance, and not to apostrophize the lady; ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... me For that one cry of jealousy, That curse where I had come to bless, That harsh voice of unhappiness. They'll note the curse, but not the pang, Not the torment whence it sprang, They'll note the blow at my friend's back, But not the soul stretched on the rack. They'll note the weak convulsive sting, Not the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the girl beside him give a convulsive start. She tried to drag her fingers from his, but ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... think I am going to cry," she stammered. She turned from him hurriedly and walked toward the rail. She tottered as though about to fall. Dan sprang to her side and placed his hand lightly on her arm. The touch seemed to strengthen her. With a convulsive effort she gained control of herself, and as Dan's hand dropped to his side she looked at him with ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... sheeny dazzle of her polished skin, the soft and supple curves of her whole exquisite form, . . and spell-bound by the witchery of her loveliness, he almost forgot the very presence of her dying victim. Occasionally indeed, he glanced at the agonized creature where he lay huddled on the ground in the convulsive throes of his dreadful death- struggle,—but it was now with precisely the same quiet and disdainful smile as that for which he had momentarily hated Sah- luma! There was a sound of singing somewhere,—singing that had a mirthful under-throbbing ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... life and vigor. The queen had taken it up with both hands, and brought its body to her mouth, and, by a single application of her teeth, the black blood with which it was filled gushed over her face and neck, while the long sucking arms of the fish, in the convulsive paroxysm of the operation, were twisting and writhing about her head, like the snaky hairs of a Medusa. Occupied as both hands were, she could only give her visitor a nod. Mr. Stewart remarks, 'It was the first time I had seen her Majesty, ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... down upon the ground at her feet, and trembled all over with a continued shudder as irrepressible as ague. All her energies seemed strained to suppress a fit, with which she was then breathlessly tugging; and at length a low convulsive cry of suffering broke from her, and gradually the hysteria subsided. "There! That comes of strangling people with hymns!" she said at last. "Hold me, hold me still. It ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... not so deadly in their after-effects as the bizarre and the extravagant. The literary movement of the eighteen nineties was like a strong stimulant given to a patient dying of old age. Its results were energetic, but the energy was convulsive. We should laugh if we saw a man apparently dancing in mid-air—until we noticed the rope about his neck. It is impossible to account for the success of the Yellow Book school and its congeners save on the assumption that the rope was, generally ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... on his breast, and he stumbled on the brink of the chasm as before, the thievish hands went once more, quick and busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive attempt to cry "No!" desperately rolled himself over into the gulf; and sank away from his enemy's touch, like a phantom in a ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... to do. Do not ask them how it all happened; how can they tell you, and their hearts almost breaking? They did not even hear the angel's wings as he came to bear away the sweet babe. All they knew was, that there was a convulsive movement of the little limbs, and ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... a convulsive tremor run through her, and her breast heaved and fell rapidly. She placed her hand to her heart, as though to calm the rising tempest of emotion within her. Her breath ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... lines of the letter wrung some tears from Faith's eyes, but afterwards the effect of the whole was to shake her. She sat down on the couch with the letter fast in her hand, and hid her head; yet no weeping, only convulsive breaths and a straitened breast. Faith was wonderful glad of that letter! but the meeting of two tides is just hard to bear; and it wakened everything as well as gladness. However, in its time, that struggle was over too; and she went down to Mrs. Derrick ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... stayed. And helpless there Betwixt the silvery moonlight and the ground He hung convulsive, grasping at the air, For two full hours it may be, whilst a hound Of the Great Danish breed, that made no sound Save a deep snarl, below him watching stood (This portion of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... cap, lilac satin pelisse, and silk shoes. Ruin to the whole race of Glenfern, present and future, seemed inevitable from such a display of extravagance and imprudence. Having surmounted the first shock, Miss Jacky made a violent effort to subdue her rising wrath; and, with a sort of convulsive smile, addressed Lady Juliana: "Your Ladyship, I perceive, is not of the opinion of our inimitable bard, who, in his charming poem, 'The Seasons,' says' Beauty needs not the foreign aid of ornament; but is, when unadorned, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... revealed filled Theresa with an instant sense of confidence and strength. She threw herself into the lady's arms as if she had found there a haven of refuge from all her storms of anxiety and distress, and burst into a convulsive fit of weeping. ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... appearance he has never in all his life loved any one as he did this unhappy sister; and struck with a respect for the grief which has outlived many a man's lifetime, I was shrinking back when he caught my hand, and with a convulsive strain, contrasting strongly with his tone, which was strangely measured, he cried, "Do not forget the end! Do not forget John Poindexter! his sin, his indifference to my father's grief; the accumulated sufferings of years which made Amos Cadwalader a hermit amongst men. I have seen the girl; she ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... recitation, which came just before closing time at noon, that Cordelia's perturbation culminated in a blunder that sent most of the class into convulsive giggles, and even brought a twitching ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... 'tired,' as he expresses it, of 'sublunary affairs,' was trying to come to an arrangement with her husband, from whom she had been long separated; the price was to be, he fancied, L2,000 a year. Meantime, during the convulsive state of political affairs, he interested himself continually in the improvement of Strawberry Hill. There was a rival building, Mr. Bateman's Monastery, at Old Windsor, which is said to have had more ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... stretching; their eyes closed, their legs gave way and they seemed to suffocate. In vain did musical glasses and harmonicas resound, the piano and voices re-echo; these supposed aids only seemed to increase the patients' convulsive movements. Sardonic laughter, piteous moans and torrents of tears burst forth on all sides. The bodies were thrown back in spasmodic jerks, the respirations sounded like death rattles, the most terrifying ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... enemies to rise against it. The distress becomes more and more complicated; disorganizations, alterations of the fluids, disturbances of the assimilative sphere, nervous derangements from simple illusions of the sentient sphere, and occasional trembling and twitching, to spasmodic and convulsive movements, and final extinction of nervous power, marasmus of the spinal marrow or a ramollissement of the brain; these are the consequences of such ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... sinking of the transport. So Zaidos floated easily beside his unconscious companion, occasionally calling to some hardy swimmer who came near, and expecting soon to see the rescuing vessel approach. Velo opened his eyes, felt the lap of the waves round his shoulders, and gave a convulsive leap out ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... a recent winter in New York was one of such convulsive intensity that in the nature of things it could not last very long. It affected the feminine temperament of our public with hysterical violence, but left the community the calmer for its throes, and gently, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... his feelings until his father had gone, and then, with a gasp of relief, put his head on the table and gave way to them. Convulsive tremours assailed him, and hilarious sobs escaped at intervals from his tortured frame. Ejaculations of "Joan!" and "Poor girl!" showed that he was not entirely bereft of ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... up bodily and flung him with all his strength against the wall of the kitchen. He rebounded from the wall to the dresser; and in convulsive agony gripped hold of those utensils near him. All fell, with reverberations of sound, downward with him to the ground. There Roger lay still—save for a slight and hideous twitching ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... but a doubtful part in all the festivities. The cloud that had hung dimly over him had begun to show little rifts; but the dark masses between the rifts were thicker and heavier than ever. It was the last brief convulsive struggle of the patient against the power of the anaesthetic, when the nervous hand goes up to put the cloth away from the mouth, just before the work is done and consciousness slips utterly away, and life is no more ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... till you're called; the gale's very heavy." Then followed a scene. People, helpless in illness a moment before, sprang out of their berths and hastily huddled on their clothes; mothers caught hold of their infants with a convulsive grasp; some screamed, others sat down in apathy, while not a few addressed agonised supplications to that God, too often neglected in times of health and safety, to save them in ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... sobbing, agonized choking—knew it was I who sobbed. Against me I felt Ruth's body strike, bend in convulsive ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... up at him as he stood above her bed. Slowly she reached out and placed one slim hand in his. "I know what you are thinking," she said, "and—" her face twisted in a grimace of pain, and the hand in his clutched with convulsive strength ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... him suddenly, and there was a startled sort of look in the wide brown eyes, a fleeting expression of fear; and at the same time her hand went to her breast in a convulsive movement. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... was discovered by an accident. A little girl carrying a pet Nebo was knocked down, and the wheel of a chariot passed over her legs. In a convulsive effort to save her pet, the child pressed it to her bosom with so much force that she broke, the bird's skin. When the people ran to her assistance, and lifted her up, they found that both her legs were broken. To the surprise of all, she did not cry, but only ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... The convulsive struggle within the breastwork was frightful; for a few moments the Blackfeet fought and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery was complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled together under the precipice. Not a Blackfoot ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to her own room. And there, for a while, the storm of anger drove over her with such violence that conscience had hardly time to whisper. Sorrow came in again as passion faded, and gentler but very bitter weeping took the place of convulsive sobs of rage and mortification, and then the whispers of conscience began to be heard a little. "Oh, mamma! mamma!" cried poor Ellen in her heart; "how miserable I am without you! I never can like Aunt Fortune; it's of no use—I never can like her. I hope I sha'n't get to ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... the muscular contractions which constitute the convulsion. If this view were correct, it would not be hard to imagine that during the onset of these stupors the tendency to part company with the environment, which ordinarily comes on slowly, might occur with epileptic suddenness and hence liberate convulsive movements. This is, however, a pure speculation but not fruitless if it serves to draw attention to the analogies existing between the stupor reaction and some of the mental symptoms of epilepsy. These analogies ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... induced to try its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations, to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily circulated widely, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, to ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... for several days remained under the same roof, to watch the progress of recovery; but at midnight, he was called to witness convulsive struggles, that indicated ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... under her fingers—folds her fist across it—so—especially when anybody talks about anything alarming? If the conversation happens to turn on jungle fever, or any subject like that, down goes her thumb instantly, and she clasps her fist over it with a convulsive squeeze. At the same time, too, her face twitches. I know what that trick means. She's horribly afraid of tropical diseases, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... everything. Thrown into the Temple, he hanged himself in the night, by tying his necktie to the bars of his cell. A gaoler hearing his death-rattle, opened the door and took him down; but Bouvet, three-quarters dead, as soon as they had brought him to, was seized with convulsive tremblings, and in his delirium ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... when we pass from the physical to the moral nature of man, and becomes much more sad and impressive. By creation, it was a pleasure and a pastime for man to keep the law of God, to do spiritual work. As created, he was not compelled to summon his energies, and strain his will, and make a convulsive resolution to obey the commands of his Maker. Obedience was joy. Holy Adam knew nothing of effort in the path of duty. It was a smooth and broad pathway, fringed with flowers, and leading into the meadows ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... rudimentary survivals of what was once an integral part of every college. Making dead languages optional was the last convulsive ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... surpassingly lovely in all the blooming beauty of fifteen. The princess, comprehending the peril of the hour, could not sleep. Maria pressed her child to her throbbing heart, and the pride of the queen was soon vanquished by the tenderness of the mother, as with convulsive energy she embraced her, and wept in anguish almost unendurable. Shouts of unfeeling derision arose from the troops below, stationed for the protection of the royal family, and their ears were assailed by remarks of the most brutal barbarity. Hour after hour of the night ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... there was a stage erected, from which some one was delivering an oration or address of some sort. He stood beside a long table, upon which lay something which I could not clearly distinguish, except that it seemed alive, and moved, or rather writhed with convulsive twitchings, as if trying to get free of the bonds which confined it. Round the stage in front were a number of seats occupied by listeners, many of whom were women, whose interest seemed to be very great, some of them being furnished with ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... it, dirt cheap. So thought all the rest, and they all proceeded to bring forth their loose change, and pass it over to the old-man. The hands of the latter closed over the silver, with a nervous and almost convulsive clutch, and after one long, hungry look at each lot that was given him, he would insert each very carefully in the remote corner of an old sheepskin poach that hung in front of him, suspended around ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... stared up at me out of his swollen eyes, then covering his face in ragged sleeve broke into convulsive sobbing. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart: I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his life ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... sheer. The bank of white choyas caught him, held him upon their steel spikes. How long did the dazed Gale sit there watching Rojas wrestling and writhing in convulsive frenzy? The bandit now seemed mad ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... death. Mrs. Trevor and Fanny, themselves filled with grief, still used all their unselfish endeavors to comfort their dear boys. Vernon, weary of crying, soon sank to sleep; but not so Eric. He sat on a low stool, his face buried in his hands, breaking the stillness every now and then with his convulsive sobs. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... rushing forward, followed by Joe. When Joe's eyes fell upon the black mass of serpents, he made a convulsive grasp at the reins with an involuntary resolution to retreat without delay from such a frightful scene. But the violence of his grasp severed the reins from the bit, and the pony sprang forward after the steed, being ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... she was on the brow of the cliff. She gave a convulsive cry of joy and relief, and reached out her little hand to me. I almost stretched out to grasp it; then, remembering that with her slight weight I might easily drag her back into danger, I took hold of a little bush: it was dried to the roots, and came out in my hand. My footing gave way: I slipped ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... fourth shot an arm and rifle were thrust up above the rock in a convulsive gesture, then suddenly disappeared. No more bullets came pinging ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... minutes Mrs. Tresslyn stood with her back to them. Gradually the illy-stifled sobs subsided and, as they still looked on curiously, the convulsive heaving of her shoulders grew less perceptible, finally ceasing altogether. Her tall figure straightened to its full, regal height; her chin went up to its normal position; her wet handkerchief was stuffed, with dignified ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... cane couch in the corner, at the foot of which the child, Tottie, was playing with a doll, lay the baby, an infant of nearly three. The convulsive fit had passed away and she was sitting up supported by a pillow, the fair hair hanging about her flushed face, and beating the blanket with her ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... held the water to his mouth, and made him drink some, which he did; and then, suddenly aroused to a recollection of what had passed, the boy gave a shriek of woe, and burst into a paroxysm of tears. This ended in convulsive sobbings and low moanings. Edward felt that he could do no more at present, and that it would be better if he was left for a time to give vent to his grief. Edward sat down on a stool by the side of the orphan, and remained for some time in deep ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... sharp rock his mangled carcass lie, His entrails torn, to hungry birds a prey! May he convulsive writhe his bleeding side, And with his clotted ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... he cried, as the strange man retreated to the next room: "your name?" "My name," he replied, with a smile that had more of mockery than joy in its convulsive expression,—"my name is Benedict Arnold!" He was gone: Talleyrand sank into his chair, gasping the words, "ARNOLD, ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... receives a blow or shock of any kind, his answering cry makes us realise that he is hurt, but a mute makes no outcry. How do we realise his sufferings? We know it by his agonised look by the convulsive movement of his limbs, and through fellow-feeling realise his pain. When a frog is struck it does not cry, but its limbs show convulsive movement. But from this it does not follow that the frog is not hurt, for some would urge that there is a great gap between ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... two, and threw the stunned animal upon the gunwale of the boat. Quick as thought, Doughty clutched the antlers with one hand, while with the other he reached for the knife which one of his companions held out to him. At that moment the deer threw itself on one side with a convulsive movement, the boat rocked, Doughby lost his balance, the stag, which was now recovering its strength, drew itself violently back, and in an instant the Kentuckian was floundering in the water, struggling with the deer, to whose horns ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... house to herself; and, indeed such a confusion for half an hour I never saw! The next day, at my Lady Townshend's, old Charles Stanhope asked what these fits were called? Charles Townshend replied, "The true convulsive fits, to be had only of the maker." Adieu! my dear Sir. To-day looks summerish, but we have ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... to me on his hands and knees, grovelling, whining, begging me (he is almost shouting) for her, for her, imagine it! And I, I had to get up and give my place to him. (He covers his eyes with his hands in a. convulsive moment.) Phew! Then I'd ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his wife convulsive and in tears. ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... but turned and stared malignantly at them from the deck; then, as the craft swung outward into the stream, he grinned through the trickle of blood that stole down from beneath his wide hat, if the convulsive grimace he made could be termed a ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... strange to those who do not understand such natures, but to me her next action was perfectly natural. She burst into a convulsive laugh; then, seizing the queer object, bent her face upon it and sobbed hysterically. When the storm was over, very tenderly she laid the gift aside, and bare-headed ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... gazed, was still silent, but she half rose from her sofa. I could not withdraw my eyes from the well-known face, but I grasped the kind hand that placed the chair for me, while my breath laboured under the convulsive swellings of my heart. "She must be one of the pirate women, and some of her people have been killed," said the elder lady. "Pray, Meta speak to her, and don't gaze ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... effort to free himself, but his mother held him fast in her arms. He turned his face away and looked with hot eyes into the dark night, upon the desolate blackness of the wood and across at the will-o'-the-wisp, still pursuing its erratic course, now rising with convulsive, trembling flame, now sinking into the ground beneath, only to come up again quivering and glimmering. There was something ghostly and horrible, and withal strangely fascinating in the ceaseless dance of this ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... a slight noise in the other direction, and, turning, saw a woman approaching. The woman came up quickly, and, to her amazement, Anne recognized Matilda. Her walk was convulsive, face pale, almost haggard, and the cold light of the morning invested it with all the ghostliness of death. She had plainly walked all the way from Budmouth, for her shoes were covered ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... fated to be interrupted in her convulsive attempts at "run-and-back stitching." Winnie was hardly in the house, before Sarah Rowe came out in the ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... of masts, and spars, and planks, and other parts of the ship, were seen the forms of numerous human beings, some yet struggling, but struggling in vain, for life; others floating helplessly among the pieces of wreck, or clinging to them with a convulsive clutch, while many, already lifeless, were tossed to and fro in the boiling caldron, happier than those who were seen every now and then, as they were swept off, to throw up their arms, and then, with a fearful shriek of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... and celery were deserted, and out rushed servants, master, mistress, and guests, being joined by the two girls from the school-room; but even then Carey was struck by the ominous absence of boys. The poultry house door was shut-locked-but the noises within were more and more frightful-of convulsive cocks and hysterical hens, mingled with human scufflings and hushes and snortings and snigglings that made the elders call out in various tones of remonstrance and reprobation, "Boys, have done! Come out! Open ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Jean, with a convulsive leap of his heart, realized that he had left his bloody tracks on the ladder as he had climbed. That moment seemed the supremely terrible ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... one drop of the empyreumatic oil of tobacco to the tongue of a cat; it occasioned immediate convulsions and an accelerated breathing. Five minutes after, the animal lay down on the side, and presented, from time to time, slight convulsive movements. A quarter of an hour after, it appeared recovered. The same quantity of the oil was applied again, and the animal ...
— An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon Life and Health • R. D. Mussey
... also, pressed my hand with convulsive energy. Gazing into my face, he held me a moment thus embraced, His manner a strange mixture of fierceness and emotion. 'Alas, yes,' he answered, 'he did, and took away those whom he found there! Those whom he found there, you understand! ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... adhered to him and fought by his side. His standard-bearer stood his ground, with the king's banner in his hand, until at last both his legs were cut off under him, and he fell to the earth; still he would not let the banner go, but clung to it with a convulsive grasp till ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... to the waist; the ball struck him in the left nipple, the blood spirted out of the wound, his bow and arrows and lariat, with himself, rolled off the pony, falling heavily on the ground, and with one convulsive contraction of his legs and an "Ugh!" he was as dead ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... spoke she had lost her pallor; her lovely face was fired with revenge, her eyes flashed lightning. This child of sixteen was terrible to behold; she pressed her lover's hand with convulsive tenderness, and clung to him as if she would screen him ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... knew much of his story by heart. It had formed the sole theme of his letters to them for many years past. Mrs. Pendleton's thoughts wandered to afternoon tea. Her husband nodded with closed eyes, and recovered himself with convulsive starts. Austin Turold fixed his glance on the ceiling, where a solitary fly was cleaning its wings with its legs. From the window Charles Turold presented an immobile profile. Only Dr. Ravenshaw seemed to listen with ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Step Hen by pouring in a broadside of small bullets that must have dropped the animal in his tracks. But he refrained, for his instinct seemed to tell him that the missile from Step Hen's little rifle had struck home, as the buck gave a convulsive leap, and pitched over; and Thad knew how much a new beginner in the game delights in the knowledge that he has accomplished the work of bringing down ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... the house, stealthily traversed the passages, and gained the lighted hall. At the very moment that he put his feet on its tessellated floor, a sudden commotion was heard up the stairs. A door was flung open, and Sibylla, with cheeks inflamed and breath panting, flew down, her convulsive cries echoing through the house. She saw Lionel, and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... up to see if her sister were in earnest, and meeting a glance of great severity she rose and advanced towards Dottie sideways, with one finger in her mouth, and holding the doll by the legs, head downwards. Dottie, still sniffing and sobbing, made a convulsive ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... a terrific, convulsive jerk on the rope and jerked it through Charley's hand. The sudden pull completely unbalanced him and he fell from the limb. But instantly he tightened his clutch on the slipping rope and in a second was dangling in air, frightened but safe. He slid to the ground, ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... She heard Hozier mutter under his breath, while San Benavides revealed his dismay by an oath and a convulsive tightening of the hands that rested on the ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... the water, unconscious of the approach of its enemies, the hardy fisher rows directly upon it; and an instant before the boat touches it, buries his harpoon in his back. The wounded whale, in the surprise and agony of the moment, makes a convulsive effort to escape. Then is the moment of danger. The boat is subjected to the most violent blows from its head, or its fins, but particularly from its ponderous tail, which sometimes sweeps the air with such tremendous fury, that boat and men are ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... left her the girl's frame was racked by a convulsive shudder as she sank to the floor of the hut and covered her face with her hands. She realized now why the women had not been left to guard her. It was the work of the cunning Usanga, but would not his woman suspect something of his intentions? She was no fool and, further, being ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with the table between them. Alexander's hands moved toward Ian's. They took hands; there followed a strong, a convulsive pressure. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... further side of the wagon, sat down with his back to the wheel and began to play. His eyes were closed. Sometimes the movements of his fingers were so slow that the melody seemed to die away. Then unexpectedly he picked it up, carrying the same strain through quick, convulsive passages, lost it again, wandered as though in search of it, extemporising all the time, yet playing always with the air of a man who feels and sees the hidden things. Suddenly the bow rested motionless. A look ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the order to Yellow Handkerchief, who mumbled it huskily to his men. He was suffering from a bad cold, which doubled him up in convulsive coughing spells and made his eyes heavy and bloodshot. This made him more evil-looking than ever, and when he glared viciously at me I remembered with a shiver the close shave I had had with him at the time ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... and tried to hold her at arm's length to look into her face. But the woman clung frenziedly to him, while convulsive sobs shook her body. His arms went round her instinctively and, holding her to his breast, he stared blankly over the beautiful bowed head. It was true, then. She loved him. Without meaning it he had won her heart. He whose earnest wish it had been to save ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... marquise a hard struggle was passing, and this was reflected on her face; but it was only for a moment, and after a last convulsive shudder she was again calm and serene; then ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... your destinies. He comes; behold the god!" Thus while she said, (And shiv'ring at the sacred entry stay'd,) Her color chang'd; her face was not the same, And hollow groans from her deep spirit came. Her hair stood up; convulsive rage possess'd Her trembling limbs, and heav'd her lab'ring breast. Greater than humankind she seem'd to look, And with an accent more than mortal spoke. Her staring eyes with sparkling fury roll; When all the god came rushing on her soul. Swiftly she turn'd, and, foaming as she spoke: "Why this ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... lost in emotions of remorse and grief, which he had neither the power, or the will to express, sat insensible almost of the presence of Emily, his features still concealed, and his breast agitated by convulsive sighs. ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... born shortly after the death of his father. At the age of six his mother died also, and he spent the first ten years among the Bedouins under the care of a foster-mother named Halima. At the age of four it was noticed that the child had signs of convulsive seizures which later commentators thought were of an epileptic nature. He was brought up under the care of his uncle Abu Talib, and his early manhood was spent in caring for the flock ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... things, were human kin and kind. The sudden vertigo sent me throbbing, like a stricken animal, against the high pillars of the room we had entered, and a reflex tide of emotion swept over me in a storm that shook me with convulsive sobs. ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... with ideas of unknown evil powers, of demons and spirits, and of being persecuted and possessed by the devil. Simultaneously they complain about all sorts of bodily sensations. In isolated cases one may observe convulsive twitchings of the voluntary and involuntary musculature. Finally severe motor excitements set in. The patient becomes noisy, screams, runs aimlessly about, destroys and ruins everything that comes his way. With this the disease has reached its ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... word the Miami got into the full reach of the storm, halted, gave a convulsive stagger, than plunged into the smother. For a minute or two no one on deck could have told what had happened. The shriek of the hurricane through her cordage, the harsh roaring of the tempest-whipped sea, and the vengeful boom of the waves as they threw their tons of water on the ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... at his watch, and mysteriously shakes his head. He then commences thrusting and poking Mr. Verdant Green in various parts of his body, - after the manner of doctors with their victims, and farmers with their beasts, - inquiring between each poke, "Does that hurt you?" and being answered by a convulsive "Oh!" and a groan of agony. The doctor then prescribes a draught to be taken every half-hour, with the pills and blister at bed-time; and, after covering his two fellow-actors with confusion, by observing that he leaves his patient in admirable hands, and, that in an affection ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... packed as for the witnessing of a parade. Not so easily this time did Smoke gain to his giant rival, and when he did he was unable to pass. Side by side they ran along the narrow aisle between the solid walls of fur-clad, cheering men. Now one, now the other, with great convulsive jerks, gained an inch or so, only ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... could not sleep Terror began to wake, Close at my side to creep And sting me like a snake. And I was afraid of death, But when I thought of pain— O, language no word hath To recall that thought again! Into my heart fear crawled And wreathed close around, Mortal, convulsive, cold, And I lay bound. Fear set before my eyes Unimaginable pain; Approaching agonies Sprang nimbly into my brain. Just as a thrilling wind Plucks every mournful wire, So terror on my wild mind Fingered, with ice and fire. ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... to the extremity of grief. One hand grasped unconsciously the weapon which she held, and served, at the same time, to prop her forehead, while the tears, by which she was now for the first time relieved, flowed in torrents from her eyes, and her sobs seemed so convulsive, that Rose almost feared her heart was bursting. Her affection and sympathy dictated at once the kindest course which Eveline's condition permitted. Without attempting to control the torrent of grief in its full current, she gently sat her down beside the mourner, and possessing ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... with viscid saliva, while very often the bowels are constipated. If the liver becomes involved, we shall very soon have the jaundiced eye and the yellow skin. Diarrhoea is another very common complication. We have frequent purging and, maybe, sickness and vomiting. Fits of a convulsive character are frequent concomitants of distemper. Epilepsy is sometimes seen, owing, no doubt, to degeneration of the nerve centres caused by blood-poisoning. There are many other complications, and skin complaints are ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... the riders to pass. When they had done so, Benedetto, in silence, fell upon his master's neck. Don Clemente, full of wonder and noticing that he trembled and was shaken by convulsive starts, concluded that the sight of that woman had caused this emotion, and, kept ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morris was everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food and medicine, at his old master's bedside, lifting his pillow, turning him in bed, holding his convulsive hands. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... one piercing the right sleeve of his doublet, the other aimed at his face, which he avoided by moving his head. Then for one instant a dusky arm was seen reaching over the shoulder for another arrow, and in that instant the snaphance rang cheerily out, the arm fell with a convulsive movement, and a piercing cry rang through the wood, followed by the pattering of many moccasoned feet, as dusky shadows slipped from tree to tree, and were lost in the dim ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... eyes; and Nosey was a thick-set man, with a thin, prominent nose, sunken eyes, and overhanging brows. He never had a prepossessing appearance, and now his look and attitude were so ugly and fierce that the big woman was completely cowed. The pair stood still for some time, watching the last convulsive movements of the ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... to keep the boat luffed up in the wind. He accordingly raised a musket and fired. It was a good shot, and, though Zappa escaped, the man next him received the ball in his bosom. He fell back with a deep groan, a convulsive shudder passed through his frame, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... in her bosom—her quickened convulsive breathing almost beat on my face, as she held me ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... kept under by the judicious use of lenitives; and there was reason to hope that if that salutary regimen had been steadily followed, there would have been a speedy improvement in the general health. Unhappily, the new State hygeist chose to apply irritants which have produced a succession of convulsive fits, each more violent than that which preceded it. To drop the figure, it is impossible to doubt that Lord Melbourne's government was popular with the great body of the Roman Catholics of Ireland. It is impossible to doubt that the two Viceroys ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... most interesting, I am sure, my dear sir," says Madame Bernstein, putting up three pretty little fingers covered with a lace mitten, to hide a convulsive movement of her mouth. "And your mother must have been delighted ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... A convulsive shudder ran through the Sphere. "This must not be," I thought I heard him say: "either he must listen to reason, or I must have recourse to the last resource of civilization." Then, addressing me in a louder tone, he hurriedly exclaimed, "Listen: no stranger must witness what you have ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... sinking in her cheeks, not with a sudden impulse, but gradually—as the sunset rose-tints fade from the brow of the Jungfrau, leaving a ghastly opaque whiteness behind them. During the silence that ensued, a sharp tinkle might be heard as the jeweled head of the riding-whip, snapped by a convulsive ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... long held in perplexity. He no sooner saw his followers within the door, than he exclaimed, with convulsive eagerness, "There, there, that is your man! thank God! thank God!" Gines looked eagerly in my face, with a countenance expressive alternately of hope and doubt, and answered, "By God, and I do not know whether ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... her fame, her science, learning, wealth and power— Slow growths that through long ages came, or fruits of some convulsive hour, Whose very memory must decay—Heaven is too ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... Then, with a convulsive shudder, she closed the book, thrust it back into its place, and ran noiselessly to the door leading to the hall. She swept back the curtain ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... voice every moment becomes more indistinct. Her fingers tremble with a convulsive motion). That letter. Prepare yourself for a terrible disclosure! My hand wrote what my heart abhorred. It was dictated by your father! (Ferdinand stands like a statue petrified with horror. After a long silence, he falls ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... fly, or shun the spear; Fix'd as a pillar, or a lofty tree, He stood, while through his breast Idomeneus His weapon drove; the brazen mail it broke, Which oft had turn'd aside the stroke of death; Harshly it grated, sever'd by the spear: He fell; the spear-point quiv'ring in his heart, Which with convulsive throbbings shook the shaft. There Mars its course arrested. Then with shouts Of triumph, ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... impotence of the warfare of the small against the great capitalists that, during this convulsive period, the existing magnates increased their wealth and power on every hand, and their ranks were increased by the accession of new members. From the chaos of middle-class industrial institutions, one trust after another sprang full-armed, until presently there ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... back into the street ag'in, an' pulls away at his boots. About the time we gets 'em off he sags back convulsive, an' thar he is as ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of those who stood about the bed, awe-struck and silent, looking down upon him; he himself sensed nothing of the harsh convulsive breathing, and of all the other grim outer signs of the struggle. But still, deep within, that combat of resistance to death waged as desperately, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... were moved to tears. With her own peculiar grace, Josephine advanced to the seat provided for her. Leaning her pale forehead upon her hand, she listened with the calmness of stupor to the reading of the act of separation. The convulsive sobbings of Hortense, mingled with the subdued and mournful tones of the reader's voice, added to the tragic impressiveness of the scene. Eugene, pale and trembling, stepped forward and took a position by the side of his adored mother, to give her the moral support of ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... regiment, that he could afford to indulge in the whim of giving five pounds to every mendicant who held out her hand to you? You did not, I say, madam, imagine'—but the bridegroom was interrupted by the convulsive sobs of his wife: it was their first quarrel, they were but six weeks married; he looked at her for one moment sternly, the next he was at her feet. 'Forgive me, dearest Fanny,—forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... labor, and, more pitiful yet, in the bent shoulders of the older ones she could see the beginnings of deformity that would soon be permanent; and as these thoughts came to her, she clasped the wondering children to her side, with a convulsive wish to make life a ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... poor man's stare of bewilderment was indescribable. He watched his master unfold the receipts one by one without uttering a syllable; and when they were put into his hand, he clutched them with a sort of convulsive grasp, but still not a word escaped him. At length he exclaimed: "But, master, where's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... moment and hide behind one of the statues in the passage during the exit of his step-mother with the weeping Niobe; but when the sound of their footsteps had died away in the distance, he rushed into the oak parlour, and seizing Winnie round the waist, treated her to several convulsive hugs and various exclamations ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... the altered sound of the lash and the terrible aspect of the victim, who, after giving one or two convulsive shudders, threw back his head with glazed eyes and jaw relaxed, caused the trumpeter to recede a pace or two, and throw down his gory scourge, for some lingering sentiment of humanity, which even the Dutch discipline of King William had not extinguished, made him respect when ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... The inward and convulsive trembling of the marquise was more apparent than she wished it to be; a tragic drama developed at that moment in the souls ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... passionate energy of Kean's acting on Byron's mind, that, once, in seeing him play "Sir Giles Overreach," he was so affected as to be seized with a sort of convulsive fit. Some years later, in Italy, when the representation of Alfieri's tragedy of 'Mirra' had agitated him in the same violent manner, he compared the two instances as the only ones in his life when "any thing under reality" had been able to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... some convulsive noise. Thomas turned and looked at her; she was slowly sinking down upon her side. His face changed. All the rage and obstinacy went ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... stave, at the same distance from the top as the lower tap-hole is from the bottom. This prevents the slovenliness of working the beer over the head of the barrel; and the opening being much smaller than the bung-hole, the beer by being confined will sooner set itself into a convulsive motion, and work itself fine, provided proper attention be paid to filling up the casks five or six times a day.——Another method of brewing, rather more simple but not more excellent than the above, may be ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... and met the glance of upturned, glazing eyes. Even as he dropped upon his knee beside the dying man, Peters swept his arm around in a convulsive movement, having the fingers crooked, coughed horribly, and rolled upon ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... sat straight up with a sort of convulsive shudder, and at the same time—you may laugh if you like—the most horrible feeling came over me. I didn't see anything, but I just felt that there was something or someone ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was deftly swung, and the forefeet caught, and then with a skilful move the feet were drawn together, and down went the raging Pacer to lie a moment later 'hog-tied' and helpless on the ground. There he struggled till worn out, sobbing great convulsive sobs while tears ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... distorted, her soft blue eyes straining from their orbits. She made a violent effort to speak, but death was too near at hand; the sound died away upon her lips, and her uplifted arms dropped powerless upon the bed; her head fell back—a convulsive shudder came over her: she was dead. Her unhappy lover ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... his features pinched and skin cold and clammy. Kennedy examined the stricken man carefully, first feeling his pulse. It was barely perceptible, rapid, thready, and irregular. Now and then there were muscular tremblings and convulsive movements of the limbs. Craig moved over to the side of the room away from the two girls, ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... me away!" cried the prisoner in a tense voice. "Paul, Paul, my own little Paul!" The woman's breath came and went in gusts, and her child cried from the convulsive pressure to her breast. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... voice was a mere convulsive whisper. "Senorita! It was the Americano, Senor Wiley! He cursed me and laughed! I heard him when ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... intensely, and cries of "Go it, Ben!" "Hit him again, Billy!" "Two against one isn't fair!" "Thorny's a match for em." "Now he's down, hurray!" cheered on the combatants, till, after a terrific struggle, the tyrant fell, and with convulsive twitchings of the scarlet legs, slowly expired, while the ladies sociably fainted in each others arms, and the brothers waved their swords and shook hands over the corpse ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... might have migrated into from his grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from his vortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop and rapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan of a disturbed beauty, and thence perched upon Milburn's peaked hat, and with a convulsive struggle of his throat and body, as if he were in superhuman labor, brought out, distinct as man ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... heard the verdict with a short, convulsive sob, then was her weary, quiet self again, "I feared it was so," was all she said. She now became aware that Mildred stood beside her with an encircling and sustaining arm. "Don't," she whispered; "don't be too kind or I'll break down utterly, and I don't ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... quivering laugh she moved. She loosened her convulsive clasp upon his hand, turned it upwards, and stooping low, she pressed her lips closely, passionately, lingeringly, upon his open palm. She had found ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... vulgarizing of genius, that it should be lighted up in any other way than by a direct inspiration from Heaven; nor overlook the steadfastness of purpose, the devotion to some single but great object, the unweariedness of labor that is given, not in convulsive and preternatural throes, but by little and little as the strength of the mind may bear it; the accumulation of many small efforts, instead of a few grand and gigantic, but perhaps irregular movements, on the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... to bend the twanging bow, To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw; His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove, To wounds inflicted by the god of love. How oft, expressive of the inward smart, Did groans convulsive issue from his heart! How oft did blushes own the sacred flame, How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name! Now presents worthy of the plighted fair, And nuptial robes his busy train prepare— Robes wherewith Livia was herself ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Howl'd the shrill voice of nature in despair; The birds dart screaming thro' the fluid sky, 85 And, dash'd upon the cliff's hard surface die; High o'er their rocky bounds the billows swell, Then to their deep abyss affrighted fell; Earth groaning heaves with dire convulsive throws, While yawning gulphs her central caves disclose: 90 Now rush'd a frighted throng with trembling pace Along the vale, and sought the mountain's base; Purpos'd its perilous ascent to gain, And shun the ruin ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... rest of the body of the earth, what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountain, brought out with fierce and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength; the plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, when its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty, yet ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... saddle. Silvermane seemed to be climbing into the air. Then August Naab, darting through the gate in a cloud of dust, shot his lasso, catching the right foreleg. Silvermane landed hard, his hoofs striking fire from the stones; and for an instant strained in convulsive struggle; then fell heaving and groaning. In a twinkling Billy loosened his lasso over a knot, making of it a halter, and tied the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... again. The blood rushed like water from the wound, her face paled, her limbs stiffened, and, with a few convulsive shudders, she was dead. She was taken to one of the huts, and buried by the blacks on the following night. There was no inquest—no ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the bystanders. The dying man, writhing under the grasp of his murderer, utters a piercing shriek. "Murdered! I'm dying! Oh, heaven! is this my last-last-last? Forgive me, Lord,—forgive me!" he gurgles; and making another convulsive effort, wrings his body from under the perpetrator of the foul deed. How tenacious of life is the dying man! He grasps the leg of a desk, raises himself to his feet, and, as if goaded with the thoughts of hell, in his last struggles staggers to the door,—discharges a ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... various scenes of your public life, so long and so successfully devoted to the most arduous services, civil and military; as well during the struggles of the American revolution, as the convulsive periods of a recent date, we can not look forward to your retirement without our warmest affections, and most anxious regards, accompanying you; and without mingling with our fellow citizens at large, in the sincerest ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... anguish as to frighten his companion, while the sensation of choking became so strong in the Pathfinder that he fairly griped his throat, like one who sought physical relief for physical suffering. The convulsive manner in which his fingers worked actually struck the alarmed girl with ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... religion.... With that apparent snap in continuity incomprehensible to the masculine mind-her feminine mood had changed. Elements I had never suspected, in Nancy, awe, even a hint of despair, entered into it, and when my hand found hers again, the very quality of its convulsive pressure seemed to have changed. I knew then that it was her soul I loved most; I had been swept all unwittingly to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whose audience is always "bad"—i.e. cold and inappreciative; the best of all good turns never "goes" at that house, and artists dread the week when they are booked there. I have seen turns which have sent other houses into one convulsive fit, but at this hall the audience has sat immovable and colourless while the performers wasted themselves in furious efforts to get over the footlights. At the Oxford, however, the audience is always "with you," and this atmosphere gets behind and puts the artists, in ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... was clasped in hers under the fur rug, and she felt the thin fingers close with a convulsive hold. ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... unfailingly produces its characteristic breakdown; the patient is seized with confusion, is overcome by feeling, indulges in an emotional sprawl, is flooded with terrible apprehensions and distracting sensations, may even go into a convulsive fit, and, in extreme cases, even become ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... so deadly in their after-effects as the bizarre and the extravagant. The literary movement of the eighteen nineties was like a strong stimulant given to a patient dying of old age. Its results were energetic, but the energy was convulsive. We should laugh if we saw a man apparently dancing in mid-air—until we noticed the rope about his neck. It is impossible to account for the success of the Yellow Book school and its congeners save on the assumption that the rope was, generally ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... of thee? Ah, is there aught can image thee aright In earth or heaven, how great or fair it be? We watch the acorn grow into the tree, We watch the patient spark surprise the mine, But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree? What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine, That wrecks a world but ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the cell, broken only by Madge's convulsive sobs, and even Calton, cynical man of the world as he was, felt his eyes grow wet. Brian led Madge over to him, and placed her ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... big body, landed in the midst of his broad white shirt-bosom. And with the tea-pot Dominick hurled his favorite epithet from his garbage barrel of language. With a yell Jamieson crashed over backward; his flying legs, caught by the table, tilted it; his convulsive kicks sent it over, and half the diners, including Dominick, ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... and is administered with great perseverance, accompanied by frequent fomentations. An infusion of ginger drank in the morning has frequently good effects. Flannel assists excretion, and is found beneficial. Tetanos is also another disease peculiar to Africa, and is a kind of spasm and convulsive contraction, for which ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... after an aimless search for employment in shops that had earned her rude laughter for her utter inexperience and her presumption in supposing her services could be of any value, she found Mrs. Japes in convulsive tears, speechless. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... give me no encouragement yit, Uncle Jase?" she whispered once when he came to the bedside, with a convulsive catching at her throat, though her eyes were dry and hot, and the old man, too ruggedly honest to soften the edge of fact with evasion, shook ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... and then, swiftly driven forward by an overpowering impulse, I dropped on my knees and seized her hands with a convulsive grasp. "Rosa! Rosa!"—my voice nearly broke—"you must know that I love you. Say that you love me—that you would love me whether Clarenceux ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... her, and laid his hand on her shoulder: he seemed to grasp nothing but the empty stuff of the dress. With a terrified, convulsive motion, he pulled her round, so that the head was disturbed from its position on the arms, and the ghastly mystery was revealed to his starting eyeballs. The spectacle was not one to be described. He uttered a weak, wavering scream, ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... President's Message, declares that "neither commissions, edicts or armies, or any earthly power can affect plural marriages of the Mormons for they are 'ecclesiastical, perpetual and eternal.'" No doubt there will be a convulsive effort made to retain the government of the Territory in their own hands, and they might be forced to abandon polygamy to save such a catastrophe, but would they do it ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... ensuing haze of eery light that surrounded the little body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate form relaxed suddenly and it seemed that the muscles pulsated with an accession of energy. Then one leg was stretched forth spasmodically. There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first long breath, and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to its feet, blinking wondering ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... yards of me; and, although I stood upon the bank, his great round eyes gazed at me without a symptom of fear. The next moment I put a two-ounce ball exactly between them, and killed him stone dead. He gave a convulsive slap with his tail, which made the water foam, and, turning upon his back, he gradually sank, till at length I could only distinguish the long line of his white belly twenty feet ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Harvard University, often referred to as the founder of modern psychology, spoke thus disparagingly of untrained effort: "Your convulsive worker breaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,—he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... stifle his moans by putting her handkerchief to his mouth; unhappily he saw me; his face became even more distorted, a convulsive cry rent the air, and he gave me a dreadful look as ...
— The Red Inn • Honore de Balzac
... must be purchased here With loss of all that mortals hold so dear, Then welcome infamy and public shame, And last, a long farewell to worldly fame! 'Tis said with ease; but, oh, how hardly tried By haughty souls to human honour tied! O sharp convulsive pangs of agonising pride! Down then, rebel, never more to rise! And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize, That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice. 'Tis nothing thou hast given; then add thy tears For a long race of unrepenting years: 'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... horror at his crime, which had greeted his entrance, died into the stillness of involuntary admiration and half-compassionate respect; and with a quick and convulsive sigh, that seemed to move the whole mass of life as if it were one body, the gaze of the spectators turned from the Athenian to a dark uncouth object in the center of the arena. It was the grated den of the lion. Kept without food ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... involuntary movement with the right shoulder, as if a nervous shudder had passed through it, and at the same time his mouth made a curious movement from right to left, which seemed to result from the other. These movements, however, had nothing convulsive about them, whatever may have been said notwithstanding; they were a simple trick indicative of great preoccupation, a sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly manifested when the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... am not excited," he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face white about ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... with another convulsive sob, and that tears fast followed each other down her cheeks. I seemed to have the power of noting everything distinctly, but I couldn't understand or account for what I saw. Who was that sweet-faced girl? Beyond a doubt I ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... For my own part, I was moved beyond description; but my faculties seemed spell-bound, and when I strove to speak, my tongue cleaved to my mouth. The delirium of poor Anne continued for some time to find utterance, either by convulsive gesticulation, half-uttered expressions, and, occasionally, loud and vehement imprecations. At length, quite exhausted with her violence, which required all the efforts of her brother to subdue by positive force, she sunk into a state of insensibility. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... sudden convulsive sneeze that sounded in her very ear. Frances gasped but Constance sat ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... at the outset, the French Revolution was now guided by demagogues and adventurers, whose only hope of keeping erect lay in constant and convulsive efforts forwards. Worst symptom of all, its armies already bade fair to play the part of the Praetorians of the later Roman Empire. Nothing is more singular at this time than the fear of the troops. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... it was the laughter of death, as if the soul of the man, in dying, recognized its natural wild element and had burst into convulsive mirth. So he sat there, untouched as yet by the wide river of fire, chuckling at his destiny. The wall of fire closed across the doorway again and the work of red ruin went on with a crashing of timbers from the upper part of ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... scrofulous scars and marks, seeing with but one eye, he had convulsive motions and twitches, and his slovenly dress added to the uncouthness and oddity of his appearance. In all respects he was an original, and even his defects and peculiarities seemed to ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... of these great convulsive throes of the planet we have many ancient legendary accounts. The Biblical accounts, and the irrefutable testimony of the globe itself, as recorded in the veined strata which have held their record for ages inviolably concealed, until man should finally bring to the unmasking ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... arising out of the cavern, and one of the goatherds was induced to try its effects upon himself. Inhaling the intoxicating air, he was affected in the same manner as the cattle had been, and the inhabitants of the surrounding country, unable to explain the circumstance, imputed the convulsive ravings to which he gave utterance while under the power of the exhalations to a divine inspiration. The fact was speedily circulated widely, and a temple was erected on the spot. The prophetic influence was at first variously attributed to the goddess Earth, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... syllable. The sound, however, though faint, had been sufficient to attract the attention of the hindermost creature. It turned, and the light from the moon, coming through the half-open door of her bedroom, shone on its glittering eyes and white teeth. It sprang towards her. With one convulsive bound Tina cleared the threshold of a room immediately behind her, dashed the door to—locked it—barred it—flung a chair against it; and stood in an agony, for which no words exist. She seemed to see, all in a moment, herself safe, and her children—not a door closed ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... his lips. He was torn between blind unreasoning anger at the quicksand and pity for the struggling horse. Suddenly he jerked the forty-four, always on his saddle, from its holster. As the gun swung back and then forward there was a crashing report and Old Blue's head dropped, with a convulsive shudder, ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... asked of this renowned batrachian was the making of a little broth. Another part of the skinned anatomy touched the iron rail below, and the anatomist observed that this casual contact produced a convulsive twitching of the dead reptile's legs. He groped about this fact for many years. He fancied he had discovered the principle of life. He made the phenomenon to hang upon the facts clustering about his own ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... Sir Jonathan sat staring up at the eye which stared back; then moving with a convulsive jerk, ran both hands through the mane of silvery hair as though to lift some crushing load from about his head; and turning sideways in his chair stretched out one hand between the eye above and his own as he clumsily seized the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... the words had escaped the Colonel's lips, a streak of fire flashed from where the overseer stood, and took the direction of the negro. One long, wild shriek—one quick, convulsive bound in the air—and Sam fell lifeless to the floor, the dark life-stream pouring from his side. The little child also fell with him, and its greasy, grayish shirt was dyed with its father's blood. Moye, at the distance of ten feet, ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... visible the marks of the blows he had received in the struggle; his white lips trembled, and he moved his jaws as if he sought a little saliva for his burning tongue; his staring eyes were bloodshot, and expressed the wildest distress; his body was bent with convulsive spasms. So terrible was this spectacle, that the mayor thought it might be an example of great moral force. He turned toward the crowd, and pointing to Guespin, said in a ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... come to bless, That harsh voice of unhappiness. They'll note the curse, but not the pang, Not the torment whence it sprang, They'll note the blow at my friend's back, But not the soul stretched on the rack. They'll note the weak convulsive sting, Not the crushed body and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... see it, and it fired, and the man tumbled off, and the horses snorted and ran so fast; then they stopped, and the other mans came back, and I heard them say, 'He's killed; he's quite dead.' O papa, I'm so frightened!" and she clung to him with convulsive grasp, sobbing ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... even in the action of the very best players of the present day, sudden leaps from the measured solemnity in recitation and gesticulation which the general tone of the composition required, to a boisterousness of passion absolutely convulsive, without any due preparation or softening by intervening gradations. They are led to this by a sort of obscure feeling, that the conventional forms of poetry generally impede the movements of nature; when the poet any where leaves them at liberty, they then indemnify themselves ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... seized his father. He ran towards him, and assisted him to a seat. Scarcely had the young man reached it, when a violent sickness seized him; a greenish-coloured froth appeared at the mouth, and he began to grow delirious. Guided by the convulsive efforts of the sufferer, Bloundel tore off his clothes, and after a moment's search, perceived under the left arm a livid pustule. He uttered a cry of ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervading and continual hope—a hallucination, which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death—is, that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... still lower over her work, and as Frantz's eyes were fixed exclusively upon his happiness, as Mamma Delobelle did nothing but look at the clock to see whether her great man would return soon, no one noticed the lame girl's emotion, nor her pallor, nor the convulsive trembling of the little bird that lay in her hands with its head thrown back, like ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... target to my rifle; he was on his way to the river, when, hearing our approach, he stopped to listen, and in so doing turned his shoulder toward me. Lifting my rifle, I took quick aim, and fired. The noble beast sprang into the air, and then, falling forward on his knees, gave a few convulsive struggles, and lay ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Dresden musicians. This circumstance alone was sufficient to make me take a great interest in him; but the point about him which attracted me more than anything was the manner in which he listened to the various items in the programme: he used to give peculiar, convulsive nods of his head, and blow out his cheeks as though with sighs. All this I regarded as a sign of spiritual ecstasy. I noticed, moreover, that he was quite alone, that he belonged to no party, and paid no attention to anything ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... muscular tremors affect the limbs; each step is short, jerky, and convulsive; the respirations and pulse are almost immediately greatly quickened, and the lower lip is hung pendulous, and moved almost unconsciously up and down with a flapping noise against the upper. A patchy perspiration ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... voice was heard saving: "Not a word sir; not a word. Don't dare to raise your voice above a whisper. You deserve it all and more." After a few moments Professor Justice retired with the same stealthy step. There was convulsive sobbing in Chief Paul's bed, and the other boys covered their heads with their blankets in dread of ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the form of the fallen patriarch. I placed my hand upon his heart, but there was no answering throb. He was indeed dead, and my whole frame was shaken with convulsive grief. ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... cheerful, she became every moment more depressed; and when at last the ices came, and the waiter, with the utmost cordiality beaming from his eyes, urged her to take a vanilla-ice, she was only just able to taste it, upon which she set it down, rushed out of the room, and burst into a convulsive fit of weeping. This was a thing so unusual with Louise, that it occasioned a general perplexity. Host, hostess, maid, waiter, Noah's grandson, all threw off their characters; and all illusion, as well as all ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... by the successive jerks toward the hand which holds the slate, and is gradually brought up to within grasping distance. The forefinger is then passed over the frame of the slate, and it and the thumb seize and hold the pencil, and under cover of some violent convulsive spasms the slate is turned over and the question read. At this point it is that the Medium shows his nerve: it is the critical instant, the only one when his eyes are not fastened on his visitors. On one occasion, when the ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... all," cried Nucky with sudden fury. And he burst into an obscene tirade against the sex that utterly astonished the guide. He lay with his chin supported on his elbow, staring at the boy, at his thin, strongly marked features, and at the convulsive working of his throat as ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... mingled with incessant and ungovernable laughter. Checking our course, and turning to behold the cause, we observed, about a hundred yards below us, the sledge of the D'Egvilles, from which the almost convulsive laughter proceeded, and at a considerable distance beyond this again, an object the true character of which we were ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... sometimes get into a terrible passion at any infringement of constitutional integrity or breach of discipline), there is no mistaking it for a mere prepared climax to a speech; he is completely possessed by the demon. The only action he ever uses is on such occasions, and then it is almost convulsive. His arms and legs seem no longer to be under control, they quiver, and shake, and tremble: and the clenched fist, violently and frequently struck upon the table, denotes that some very potent feeling of indignation is, for the time, mastering ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... cover. One of the soldiers was lying at his feet with his jaw broken, losing blood freely. Another received a bullet in his chest, and dragged himself over to the wall, where he lay gasping in protracted agony, while convulsive movements shook his frame at intervals. They were but eight, now, all told, not counting the lieutenant, who, too weak to speak, his back supported by the headboard of the bed, continued to give his directions ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... up. There it was, as high as the mast-head, compact as a wall, and charging with the level velocity of a horse regiment. The doctor closed his eyes and thought, "Now for the grand secret." Then came the immense pressure—the convulsive straining, the failing light, the noise in the ears. First the young man found himself crushed under some strangling incubus; then, with a shrieking gasp, he was in the upper air. But he was under a hamper of ropes that strung him down as if he were in a coop, and his dulled ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... the firelight, and now its convulsive shadows marred two dogged faces. "I think it best not to recall that boy and girl who are so long dead. And, frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of the business I have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set all England by the ears, and I am ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... The Rat found it shut when, having secured a newspaper, they went down the passage. At the closed door, Marco stopped. He did not turn the handle. From the inside of the room there came the sound of big convulsive sobs and passionate Samavian words of prayer and ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a maniac in the great emotion that came to her, and not a word was spoken. If they had been strong enough they would have carried us to camp upon their shoulders. As it was they stopped two or three times, and turned as if to speak, but there was too much feeling for words, convulsive ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... order to Yellow Handkerchief, who mumbled it huskily to his men. He was suffering from a bad cold, which doubled him up in convulsive coughing spells and made his eyes heavy and bloodshot. This made him more evil-looking than ever, and when he glared viciously at me I remembered with a shiver the close shave I had had with him at the time ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... with—'Surely, madam, you did not suppose, when you married a lieutenant in a marching regiment, that he could afford to indulge in the whim of giving five pounds to every mendicant who held out her hand to you? You did not, I say, madam, imagine'—but the bridegroom was interrupted by the convulsive sobs of his wife: it was their first quarrel, they were but six weeks married; he looked at her for one moment sternly, the next he was at her feet. 'Forgive me, dearest Fanny,—forgive me, for I cannot forgive myself. ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but the little tea-maker was not at her usual post. Only Mrs. Blake was standing alone in the middle of the room, and as Cyril led Audrey to her she threw her arms round the girl with almost hysterical violence. 'Oh, my dear, dear, dearest girl!' she exclaimed, pressing her with convulsive force; and Audrey ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stability of tone do not depend upon excessive pressure of the breath, so the muscular power of the organs used in singing does not depend on convulsive rigidity, but in that snakelike power of contracting and loosening,[1] which a singer must consciously have under ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... this was he who, standing there, Seemed as an image of Despair, Which agony's convulsive strife, Had quickened into breathing life. The writhing lip, the brow all wet With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat; The hand, that with unconscious clasp, Strained his keen dagger in its grasp; The eye, that lightened with the blaze Of frenzied Passion's maniac gaze; The nervous, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... a jealous pang to shoot through many a masculine bosom. With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days. But he was heroic as the singer who broke his collar-bone ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... lack of powers had weighed like a nightmare upon Scutari—was taken in hand, and new regulations were laid down, accurately defining his responsibilities and his duties. One Sub-Commission reorganised the medical statistics of the Army; another established in spite of the last convulsive efforts of the Department an Army Medical School. Finally, the Army Medical Department itself was completely reorganised; an administrative code was drawn up; and the great and novel principle was established that it was as much a part of the duty of the authorities to look after the soldier's ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... brother, wounded unto death, coming home to die, and she gave a great convulsive sob. Then like a bird she flew to the middle of the road. She saw that the horse's mane and shoulders were dripping with blood, that the rider's hair was clotted ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... circumlocution," said the queen, trying to conceal the convulsive shudder that ran ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... hands. Over all was the monotony of the gray sky, descending and still descending with clouds that came upon the land, mistily folding it in close embraces of death. Voices sounded far off and unreal through the gloom. The final convulsive struggles of the nation's life grew feebler and fewer. Of all causes Ireland's seemed the most hopelessly lost. Was he, too, going to forsake her? He felt that in spite of all the good promised him there would always hang over his life a gloom that oven Marion's love would not disperse, ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... side and the other, then, yielding to a new impulse, flies round and round again till you are dizzy. You look with great complacency at the tightening twist, now brought almost to perfection. You turn it carelessly in your fingers, scarcely noticing its convulsive starts for freedom. Ah! your imprudent friend, without any warning, gives it a final pull to stretch it into shape. The twine slips from your grasp, springs away across the room, curls itself into a succession of snarls ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... he started up once more; he raised his head from the sand with one final convulsive movement, and his voice ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... With this organization, men of really little power accomplish wonders. Without it great minds are confused and lost. They have only velleity or caprice. The will makes a series of vigorous, perhaps almost convulsive, but short, inconsistent efforts. As Jean Paul says, there is sulphur, charcoal, and saltpetre in the soul, but powder is not made, for they never find each other. To understand this will-plexus is preeminent among the new demands ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... door, crawling into the room, coming to me on his hands and knees, grovelling, whining, begging me (he is almost shouting) for her, for her, imagine it! And I, I had to get up and give my place to him. (He covers his eyes with his hands in a. convulsive moment.) Phew! Then ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... of a skilful director of consciences, it has proved of terrible efficacy. The novice, in solitude and darkness, day after day and night after night, ponders its images of perdition and despair. He is taught to hear, in imagination, the howlings of the damned, to see their convulsive agonies, to feel the flames that burn without consuming, to smell the corruption of the tomb and the fumes of the infernal pit. He must picture to himself an array of adverse armies, one commanded by Satan on the plains of Babylon, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... length into the passage, she felt Violet's hand close with a convulsive pressure upon her arm, and she knew that here was fear such as she had never before encountered or imagined,—the deadly, unfathomable fear of a mind that hovered on the brink of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... the vicious crack of a high-powered, small-calibered rifle. The hunter sprang from the thicket in which he had lain concealed and crossed the gully to a knoll where a black furry bundle had dropped to the snow after one convulsive leap. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... to be interrupted in her convulsive attempts at "run-and-back stitching." Winnie was hardly in the house, before Sarah Rowe came out in the garden to ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... he set his face and slowly turned to find the Bronco Kid standing behind him as though risen from the sea, his light clothes wet and clinging, his feet centred in a spreading puddle. The dim light showed the convulsive fury of his features above the levelled weapon, whose hammer was curled back like the head of a striking adder, his eyes gleaming with frenzy. Glenister's mouth was powder dry, but his mind was leaping riotously like dust before a gale, for he divined himself to ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... anxiety. He felt the advantage of being a good swimmer, and exerted himself to the utmost with his feet and one hand; the other was holding fast the young girl. Every possible effort he made to keep up his strength in order to reach the land. He heard Clara sigh, and perceived that a kind of convulsive shuddering had seized her; and he held her the tighter. A single heavy wave broke over them—the current lifted them. The water was so clear, though deep, that Joergen thought for a moment he could see the shoals of mackerel beneath; or was it Leviathan himself who was waiting to swallow them? ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... Barrett with a convulsive shudder. The most deadly error mortal man can make, with the exception of calling a school a college, is to call a college ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... ready his instruments for the operation, which must be done quickly, if at all. The boy was unconscious, but every moment or two he broke out in convulsive delirium, giving answers to questions like a man talking in sleep. "Hilda! Hilda!" he cried again and again. "My Hilda, do not ask me that. Thou wouldst not love me if I told thee! Thou wouldst ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... suffering from some bodily ailment, in spite of the fact that nobody had ever known Diana to have so much as a headache in her life until now. Her face was hid. Basil went up softly and laid his hand on her shoulder, and felt so the slight convulsive shiver that ran over her. But his inquiries could get nothing but monosyllables in return; hardly that; rather inarticulate utterances of assent or dissent to his questions or ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... breathing time was permitted to France between two convulsive efforts, and the Revolution as yet knew not whether it should maintain the constitution it had gained, or employ it as a weapon to obtain a republic, Europe began to arouse itself; egotistical and improvident, she merely beheld in the first ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... or guessed, he never could be sure which. Anyhow, he felt that we must get forward or perish. In desperation he sunk his teeth into the soft part of the inner side of the sole of my left foot. The pain made me give a convulsive wriggle and I scraped past the obstacle, tearing my hip badly in ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... wondered not that her cries were continued in the wildest terror, mingled with convulsive ejaculations. A man had drawn near her, and oh! such a man! Never in all his experience, nor in his darkest and most distorted dreams, had he seen, or dreamt of, a human being so hideous, as that he now saw, half-standing, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... in which I had requested her to remain. I crossed the threshold unobserved, for all was silent as the grave, and gently ascended the stairs. The room door was partly open, and a faint light glimmered on the table. The curtains of the bed were undrawn, and there—there lay gasping in the last convulsive agonies of nature—Oh, lady! she was dying—I rushed into the room, threw myself by her side, and implored her to live for me. She knew me—yes, she knew me—but at that very instant an officer with an armed party entered the apartment. They had watched me, and I was arrested ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... menace] You young—! [He makes a convulsive movement of one hand; then, in the silence, seems to lose grip of his thoughts, and pits his hand up to his head] I want to clear me mind a bit—I don't see it plain at all. [Without looking at BILL] 'Tis said there's been an offer ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... only saw his faithful dog expiring at his side, and knew that he had no power to aid him. It was evident that the arrow was poisoned, for the wound, otherwise, appeared too slight to be mortal; and the foam that gathered on Fingal's jaws, and the convulsive struggle that shook his form, showed too plainly that his sufferings would soon be over. The companions of Rodolph urged him to join them in instant flight; for they felt the peril of their present situation, where the ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... he, his countenance assuming a convulsive and ghastly aspect, "I arose on tiptoe, and collecting the heavy comforters and large downy pillows of the bed, I deliberately piled them on her one upon the other, and pressing them down with all my gathered force, I stifled her in ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... act brought a troop of hurrying, laughing girls downstairs. Instead of the alert, self-possessed Mignon who had swept proudly into the dressing room that night, those who shared the room with her found a convulsive weeper lying face ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... and smooth and polished—and through all this the canoe glances like an arrow, dips like a wild bird down the wing of the storm, now slanting from a rock, now edging a green cavern, now breaking through a backward rolling billow, without a word spoken, but with every now and again a quick convulsive twist and turn of the bow-paddle to edge far off some rock, to put her full through some boiling billow, to hold her steady down the slope of some thundering chute which has the power of a thousand horses: for remember, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... stood over the huge beast. He was not quite dead. He opened his glazing eyes, made a convulsive movement with his paws as if he would like to attack his foes, and then his head fell back and he moved ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... descriptions of all sorts of imaginable wickedness, some of his brethren of the press have done. M. de Bernard's characters are men and women of genteel society—rascals enough, but living in no state of convulsive crimes; and we follow him in his lively, malicious account of their manners, without risk of lighting upon any such horrors as Balzac or ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at last beaten down by this cumulative revelation. He buried his face in his hands and his panting breath was convulsive with unuttered sobs. Maggie looked down upon the young boy, with pity, remorse, and an increasing recognition of the ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... her Birth, and this built on the greatest paternal Indulgence imaginable. Affections that have taken such deep Root, are little Treasures hoarded up in the good Mind, and cannot be torn thence without causing the strongest convulsive Pangs in the Heart, where they have been long nourished: And when they are so very easily given up as you now, Sir, seem to contend for, I confess I am very apt to suspect they have only been talked of by the Persons who can part with them with so little ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... the enemy; and the explosion of a mine, loaded with 12,000 pounds of powder, was to be the signal of attack. At eight o'clock this mine was fired, and the effect was terrific; the ground trembled as if agitated by an earthquake, and after it had heaved up with several convulsive throes, the volcanoes burst forth. The whole of the salient angle and the stone cavalier in its rear were lifted into the air, and, after the smoke and clouds of dust had passed away, the bastion with three hundred men were seen precipitated below. The two grand divisions of the army ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... wrenched herself out of Phillis's power, she had saved herself and her husband from the suspicion that it was possible Dr. Grey's wife could receive, or give occasion to receive, a secret letter, a love-letter, from any man; but when the effort was over she broke down. Convulsive sobs, one after the other, shook her, until she felt as if her very life were departing. And in the midst of ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... to him and fought by his side. His standard-bearer stood his ground, with the king's banner in his hand, until at last both his legs were cut off under him, and he fell to the earth; still he would not let the banner go, but clung to it with a convulsive grasp till he died. ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... it was: sometimes it was the landlady—sometimes the lodgers or their visitors—at last came the person they longed to see; but the moment they beheld him, all their fears were confirmed. He was pale as death, and his lips trembled with convulsive motion. He walked directly up to his loom, and without speaking one syllable, began to cut the unfinished work ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... wives were bound and thrown in, until a certain number had been procured; the earth was then thrown over them, and so great was the agony of these victims, that the ground for several minutes was agitated with their convulsive throes. So fearful, in former times, was the observance of this barbarous custom, that many towns narrowly escaped depopulation. The graves of the kings are invariably concealed, so as, it is stated, to prevent an enemy from obtaining ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... hand, which Birnier had prepared behind his back, hovered over the old wizard's head, he grunted and made a slight convulsive movement. ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... with piercing eye, with high color, with dry lips and a powerful hand, will become excited and convulsive; she represents the genius of classic neurosis; while a young blonde woman, with white skin, is the genius of romantic neurosis; to one belongs the empire gained by nerves, to the other ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... was the answer, as the snoring abruptly terminated in a convulsive snort: "Ay, ay. What's the matter now, youngster? Has the ship tumbled overboard during the night, or has the skipper's cow gone aloft to roost in the main-top, that you come here disturbing me with your ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... the handkerchief to his mouth, racking, struggling; and when the convulsive agony had passed he smiled, and there in the shadow by the door the light that crossed his face was ghastly, like a dim smear of phosphorus. And now the Major's shoulders were not stiffened with resentment; they were drooping with a pity ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... mate, who was on deck in a moment; and the savage creature, in spite of its convulsive struggles, was hoisted up, and lay a helpless captive on the forecastle. Here it continued to plunge and strike out with its tail, keeping the seamen at a respectful distance. Now and then one would rush in with a handspike and endeavour to give it a blow, which might ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Maggie's hand fell face down on the shelf. Miss Maggie's fingers caught the edge of the mantel in a convulsive grip. A swift glance in the mirror before her disclosed Mr. Smith's face just over her shoulder, earnest, pleading, and still very white. She dropped her gaze, and turned half away. She did not want to meet Mr. Smith's eyes just then. She ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... care. He knew now that he would not have to eat the rest of the soup. That was the one thing in the world that seemed to matter to him. His tears ceased. But now his body was shaken by a convulsive sob. On the whole his mood was ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... name, set his teeth: he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... a fashion. By the morning he grew calm through exhaustion, and went into a wretched tavern in the outskirts, asked for a room and sat down on a chair before the window. He was overtaken by a fit of convulsive yawning. He could scarcely stand upright, his whole body was worn out, and he did not even feel fatigue, though fatigue began to do its work; he sat and gazed and comprehended nothing; he did not understand what had happened ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... "gives pleasure to the savage and the philosopher, to the inhabitant of the burning desert and the frozen zone; in short, its use, either in powder, to chew, or to smoke, is universal; and for no other reason than a sort of convulsive motion (sneezing) produced by the first, and a degree of intoxication by the ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... because it happened to confirm one of his doctrines; but Strauss is "far from going to these problematic productions" in search of the merits of his Beethoven. "It is a pity," cries our Master, with a convulsive sigh, "that one is compelled, by such reservations, to mar one's enjoyment of Beethoven, as well as the admiration gladly accorded to him." For our Master is a favourite of the Graces, and these have informed him that they only accompanied Beethoven ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... strange convulsive shiver in every nerve—God have mercy, the time was come! . . . No, not yet. At the very instant when it seemed the panting flesh and blood would be shaken off by the granite force repelling it, the fingers, like long antennae, touched horns of rock jutting out from ledges ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her position, but her whole body heaved with noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna glanced round at Sonya and seated herself ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... of such a building, suddenly the cool wind, which had shifted to the north, brought on its waft a most portentous roar. We stood still to listen. Nearer and nearer it swelled, crashing and hissing as it approached. Josephine grasped my arm with convulsive energy, and at that instant we perceived Mr. Waring's plaid cap pass an open casement. She turned upon me like a wild creature driven to bay. I looked up-stream;—the ice had gathered in one high barrier mixed with flood-wood and timber, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... old warrior's countenance grew rigid; his large, bony hands gripped the back of the chair on which he leaned, and were white with their own convulsive force; and he bowed his head under ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... His army blouse, covering several thicknesses of shirts and jackets, was ragged and dirty. He wore a little fur cap and rough moccasins of untanned leather tied around the leg. As he spoke his utterance was thick and mumbling, and in his agitation his jaws worked in convulsive twitches. As the two met, the man, with a sudden impulse, took off his ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the keeping of a like force on the coasts of Peru and Chile on the Pacific. The irregular and convulsive character of the war upon the shores has been extended to the conflicts upon the ocean. An active warfare has been kept up for years with alternate success, though generally to the advantage of the American patriots. But their naval forces have not always been under the control of their own ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams
... doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable humiliation at the thought, which passed into an incessant and ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... this!" exclaimed Renouard in a choked voice. Miss Moorsom seized his wrist suddenly, and at that contact fire ran through all his veins, a hot stillness descended upon him in which he heard the blood—or the fire—beating in his ears. He made a movement as if to rise, but was restrained by the convulsive pressure ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... felt against her own the loud convulsive throbs of the heart that loved her—an embrace which, in its fierce rapture, was like none that came before it, or after. When she learned to count and chronicle such tokens of love, as one begins to count each wave when the sand grows dry, this ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to," she answered weakly. "Please don't scold me now—even if you have to desert me." Her voice broke in one convulsive sob, but she mastered herself sharply. "I'll go," she added, struggling to her feet. "I didn't mean to get ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... exclaimed the wretched man. He bowed his head upon his outstretched arms, and the table beneath him shook with his convulsive sobs. His friend was unprepared for such an overwhelming outburst of emotion. He did not understand, no one but Alfred himself could understand, the peculiarity of the ties that bound him to that dear orphan. Recovering from this unwonted mood, he inquired ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... form rigid, his face thin and betraying marks of weariness and suffering. The tears rose to the eyes of Jasper as he realized that his father was passing away. As he looked on there was a slight convulsive movement; then repose. In that one moment his father had passed ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... concerned Chopin most at the commencement of his instruction [writes Mikuli] was to free the pupil from every stiffness and convulsive, cramped movement of the hand, and to give him thus the first condition of a beautiful style of playing, souplesse (suppleness), and with it independence of the fingers. He taught indefatigably that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... her nephew. No relation at all"—Fyne emitted with a convulsive effort this, the most awful part of the suspicions Mrs Fyne used to impart to him piecemeal when he came down to spend his weekends gravely with her and the children. The Fynes, in their good-natured concern for the unlucky child of the man busied in stirring ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... no time to think, but picking up the knife, repeated, with convulsive strength, the operation on his other foot. With a low moan, wrung from him by the double agony, he leaned, faint and deathly sick, against the wall. In this position he remained for many minutes, until, above the pain, arose the thought that he ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... course that would tend to unveil her miserable secret. Overshadowed by a misfortune that is worse than death, in her half-benumbed mental condition, she hears of the professional abortionist, and braces herself for one of those convulsive actions by which a betrayed woman will sometimes leap from a temporary sorrow into ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... which had aroused this emotion? If so, it was but natural. To all appearance he has never in all his life loved any one as he did this unhappy sister; and struck with a respect for the grief which has outlived many a man's lifetime, I was shrinking back when he caught my hand, and with a convulsive strain, contrasting strongly with his tone, which was strangely measured, he cried, "Do not forget the end! Do not forget John Poindexter! his sin, his indifference to my father's grief; the accumulated sufferings of years which made Amos Cadwalader a hermit ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... again the child's life seemed hanging in even balances, and it was with a gratitude almost like that they felt to God that the two women blessed Dr. Eben for his recovery. Night after night, the three, watched by the baby's bed, listening to his shrill and convulsive breathings. ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... suddenly stop, turn and lift a revolver. The flash of the sun on the barrel and the explosion of the discharge were simultaneous. As the red man fired, the other flung up his arms, plunged forward on his face, gave one convulsive tremor through all his limbs, and moved no more. The discovery, the chase and its termination had occupied but five minutes; and while one big man, panting from his exertions, approached only to see that his fallen victim showed no sign of life, the other, with his face amid the alpine ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... had given her the courage to open the matter to her little daughter. She had foreseen and endeavoured to prepare herself for Ellen's anguish; but nature was too strong for her, and they clasped each other in a convulsive embrace while tears fell ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... With a convulsive stamp and shake, the prostrate figure sprang up and confronted the party. Had the cast-iron stove suddenly burst into atoms, and blown the roof off the house, it could scarcely have created greater consternation than that which filled ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... surrounded them. They came to a spot where a circular wall of foliage, rising behind stone benches, hemmed in a fountain, above which a marble antique warrior was lifting in his arms a marble girl, who struggled against that seizure with a convulsive energy, while her upturned face wore a look of happiness. Lawrence Teck ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... the button, and met the glance of upturned, glazing eyes. Even as he dropped upon his knee beside the dying man, Peters swept his arm around in a convulsive movement, having the fingers crooked, coughed horribly, and ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... Barbara was literally incapable of making one. The steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat was working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a convulsive sob, or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... made in the green roof of the forest the sun enters triumphantly and illuminates the prostrate forms of the gigantic victims (lying about like Cyclopses fulminated by the ire of Jupiter) that ever and anon still give convulsive starts at the breaking of some huge bough in under that can no ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... ceased with a snap of his teeth. His lips set in a thin, bitter line. The agitation of his face preceded a convulsive wrestling of his shoulders. All this swift action denoted an inner combat, and it ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, [Footnote: Such they appeared to me: but since the first edition, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, 'that Dr Johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which he indulged himself at certain times. When in company, where he was not free, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... it really seemed, for Tartar lay in the bottom of the boat, still breathing, but in convulsive gasps. In his teeth remained a portion of the child's clothing, torn away with him. He had hung to his charge to the last. His jaws ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... now that it was broad daylight, I looked at Jackson. He was lying on his back; his brow was covered with large drops of perspiration, and his hands were clenched together. Although asleep, he appeared, by the convulsive twitching of the muscles of his face, to be suffering and in great agony. Occasionally he groaned deeply, and his lips appeared to move, but no sound proceeded from them. I perceived that the pannikin of liquor was not finished, one-third ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... chosen, have leaped over the breastwork and escaped; but this was not necessary, for with devilish yells the Crow warriors came dropping in quick succession over the rock among their enemies. The main body of the Crows, too, answered the cry from the front and rushed up simultaneously. The convulsive struggle within the breastwork was frightful; for an instant the Blackfeet fought and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery was soon complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled up together under the precipice. Not a Blackfoot ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... existence. He succeeded but too well. Her natural strength increased by the excess of anguish, long did the Sufferer struggle to disengage herself, but in vain. The Monk continued to kneel upon her breast, witnessed without mercy the convulsive trembling of her limbs beneath him, and sustained with inhuman firmness the spectacle of her agonies, when soul and body were on the point of separating. Those agonies at length were over. She ceased to struggle for life. The Monk took ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... man of the tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where it had stood ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... of pleasure O'er the ranger's face was spread; One dark, convulsive shadow, And the ranger boy was dead. Far from his darling sister We laid him down to rest With his saddle for a pillow And his gun across ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... back, falls in fine curls over the ears, revealing a high, rounded forehead, obstinate and full of thought. But what chisel, what graver could reproduce the surprising shrewdness of that gaze, eclipsed from time to time by a convulsive tremor of the eyelids! What Holbein, what Chardin could render the almost extraordinary brilliance of those black eyes, those dilated pupils: the eyes of a prophet, a seer; singularly wide and deeply set, as though gazing always upon the mystery of things, ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... rugged lineaments of the hunter amounting so nearly to anguish as to frighten his companion, while the sensation of choking became so strong in the Pathfinder that he fairly griped his throat, like one who sought physical relief for physical suffering. The convulsive manner in which his fingers worked actually struck the alarmed girl ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... distorted hours, in a state of abject horror which cannot be described. He who felt nothing—knew nothing—had now his eyes opened with terrible clearness to one object—the livid phantasma of a strangling death. All the rest was convulsive despair and darkness. Thought shudders at it—but let ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
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