"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nerve, the two culprits stood before their teacher. Mr. Garrison was evidently much incensed. A spasm of reform had seized him. His eyes had been opened to the prevalence of "meeching," and he determined to put a stop to it by making an example of the present offenders. He had missed them both from school the day ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... frame shook under a spasm of shuddering, and he glowered at us both wildly, with a look half-wrath, half-pitiful pleading, which helped me the better to make ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of the formerly beautiful and radiant Marie-Anne. Her quick, alert tread had become slow and dragging, often she sat for whole days motionless in her chair, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, her lips contracted as if by a spasm, while great tears rolled ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... the trail she saw Driscoll scaling the cliff. That demon yelling, which is the first spasm of Mexican warfare, had not ceased, and each demon was shooting as fast as he could reload. She saw the white dust spurt out from the bullet peppered rock. But either the sun slanting down from the mountain line was in their eyes, or they were disconcerted at the American's change in their ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... and in asphyxia of the new born, but the first indication in these cases is the induction of artificial respiration, after the successful initiation of which inhalations of nitrite of amyl doubtless assist in overcoming the concomitant spasm ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... spasm,' she gasped, as frightened he went to the sideboard, and poured out some brandy into one of the tea cups, and putting a little water to it, gave it ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... will love Him. That is plain enough. And you will not love Him unless you trust Him. Though it lies wide of my present purpose, let us take this lesson in passing. You cannot work yourself up into a spasm or paroxysm of religious emotion and love by resolution or by effort. All that you can do is to go and look at the Master and get near Him, and that will warm you up. You can love if you trust. Your trust will make you love; unless you trust you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... beyond, doubt, but only deadly dull and deadly commonplace. I have perseveringly frisked in the high places of iniquity, I have junketed with all evil gods, and the utmost they could pretend to offer any of their servitors was a spasm. I renounce them, as feeble-minded deities, I snap my fingers, very much as did my progenitor, the great Jurgen, at ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... was as if the Wheat, Nourisher of the Nations, as it rolled gigantic and majestic in a vast flood from West to East, here, like a Niagara, finding its flow impeded, burst suddenly into the appalling fury of the Maelstrom, into the chaotic spasm of a world-force, a primeval energy, blood-brother of the earthquake and the glacier, raging and wrathful that its power should be braved by some pinch of human spawn that dared raise barriers ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... looked up at the powerful, nobly-proportioned form, the grand, kingly face, calm and colourless, the large, searching black eyes, within whose baffling depths lay all the mysteries of mesmerism, and a spasm of pain seized her own features. She shaded her ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the face of the unconscious man a long, dreadful minute as one who pities rather than hates a foe. Then he stepped to the telephone, called Dr. Nesbit, glanced at the fountain pen and the crumpled letter, burst into a spasm of weeping, and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... happened. In spite of himself he started. His race flushed, and his lips pressed tight together. It seemed almost as though a spasm of pain had seized him, which he could not conceal in spite of his best efforts. With an unconscious motion, he grasped his wine glass and the ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... self-exalted most alone, Chief dreamer, own thy dream! Thy brother-world stirs at thy feet unknown, Who hath a monarch's hath no brother's part; Yet doth thine inmost soul with yearning teem. —Oh, what a spasm shakes the dreamer's heart! "I, too, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... A spasm passed through Mam'selle Pauline's delicate frame. La Petite could feel the twitch of it in the wiry fingers that were intertwined with her own. Ma'ame Pelagie remained unchanged and motionless. No human eye ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed with irritation. Finally ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... last fell into a stupor. At nine o'clock that night he sat up. Ed Banks and Kennedy were standing beside the cot. Du Sang became delirious, and in his delirium called the name of Whispering Smith; but Smith was at Baggs's cabin with Bill Dancing. In a spasm of pain, Du Sang, opening his eyes, suddenly threw himself back. The cot broke, and the dying man rolled under the feet of the frightened horses. In the light of the lanterns they lifted him back, but he was bleeding slowly at ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... yet," cried Sampson cheerfully. "She'll sell addled eggs over all our tombstones; that is to say, if she minds what I bid her. When was your last spasm?" ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... inn, a prey to the deepest grief. This sacrifice had given a new impetus to my love for this charming woman, and I felt a sort of spasm, which made me afraid I should get ill. I shut myself up in my room, and I ordered the servants to say I was unwell and ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... him again. Pelle had to lift him up; at every spasm there was a wet, slapping sound in his chest. He put one hand on Pelle's shoulder and leaned his forehead against the boy's body. Suddenly the cough ceased; and the white, bony hand convulsively clutched Pelle's shoulder. "Pelle, Pelle!" moaned the master, and he gazed ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Pegtop might have done worse. Indeed it was plain that a total reformation was needed here; and I was glad to find that poor Milly seemed herself conscious of it; and that her resolution to become more like other people of her station was not a mere spasm of mortification and jealousy, but a genuine and ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... that the items were not what you might call stirring, and that the unpatented pages put him in mind of Jones's field in winter with a dozen chunks of coal dropped in the snow. And his observations on the later issues of the week (issues which were put forth with a suggestion of spasm, and possibly to the permanent injury of Mr. Parker's health, he looked so thin) were too cruelly unkind to be repeated here. Indeed, Mr. Fisbee, Parker, the luckless Mr. Schofield, and the young Tipworthy may be not untruthfully likened to a band of devoted mariners lost in the cold ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... been so curiously affected by the emotions of the last few months that he was not in the least surprised to find himself, that evening, torn by a very curious and unfamiliar spasm of jealousy. After an hour or so of indecision he made his way, as usual, to the theatre, but instead of going at once to Elizabeth's room, he slipped in at the back of the stalls. The house was crowded, and, seated in the stage box, alone and gloomy, his somewhat austere ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... silky cloth the donkey, who had not twopennyworth of life in him, opened his large grey eye and winked his long ears two or three times, as much as to say, "Oh, thank you!" before a final spasm shook it from head to tail, whereafter ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... as a trapped swallow trembles while, as you hold it in your hand, it strains its neck to look about it with wild eyes. She shook with a nervous spasm, studying me with a defiant look. Her dry eyes glittered with a light that was almost hot: still, she was a woman! The moment came when her tears forced their way, and she wept—not because she was touched, but ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... landlady's daughter. The young fellow John was smoking out in the yard. The gendarme was afraid of the evening air, and kept inside. The young Marylander came to the door, looked out and saw us walking together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and stalked off. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the arm I held, and saw the girl's head turn over her shoulder for a second. What a kind creature this is! She has no special interest in this youth, but she does not like to see a young fellow going off because he feels as if ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... summoned all her heroism, one day, when Herr Otto complained of her indifference to the pieces he set before her, and informed him that she should perish at his feet, unless he would give her "Sternenkranz." Of course her guilt was manifest, and Herr Otto, in a spasm of anger at "prying women," as he called them, brought out the treasure, and with it others of a very rare album of Schumann's, to which he had given no names, leaving them to whisper their own names to each soul that could receive them: Star-Wreath it might be to one, Bower of Lilies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wildly. His face was gray and old—so old that he might have been taken, at the first glance, for a man of eighty, and in the intervals between his words he sucked in his breath with a hissing noise. Meeting Christopher's look, he broke into a spasm of frightened sobs, whimpering like a child ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the grim Doctor, breaking his pipe-stem by some sudden spasm in his gripe of it. "Pooh! the devil take the pipe! A very strange story that! Pray how ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... underanged, the motor powers perform their functions capably. The physical or pneumatic power acts in obedience to the vital or muscular power, while both stand in equilibrium; but the ascendancy of the one over the other deranges the whole thoracic machine. When the glottis closes by muscular spasm and excludes the external air, the respiratory muscles cease to exert a motor power upon the pulmonary cavity; their united efforts cannot cause a vacuum in thoracic space in opposition to the pressure of the external ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... very faintly, and then his expression suddenly changed. Something like a spasm of fear and of pain shot quickly across his face, frightening her a little. Then he ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... with one leap she was in his arms, as he knelt on one knee, and clasped her, holding out a hand to Angela, whose eyes were full of tears of relief and trust. Marilda gave a glad welcome, but they were startled by perceiving that the joy of meeting had brought on a spasm of choking on Lena, who was gasping in a strange sort of agony. Angela took her in her arms and carried her out of the room. Marilda presently following, came back reporting that the little girl had been relieved by a ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... fancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans in San Antonio in the early morning following the fight. Which also partly accounts for the unhappy predicament in which "Cricket" McGuire found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman—may his shadow never measure ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Legros!" cried M. Linders from his bed, in a sudden spasm of rage, "it is that villain, that miserable! Yes, yes, come in; Madelon, light the candles quickly; where are the cards? Ah—I ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... than Te Waharoa, a fighting chief whose long life of warfare contains in it many stirring episodes of his times. Born in 1773 in a village near the upper Thames, he owed his life, when two years old, to a spasm of pity in the heart of a victorious chief from the Hot Lakes. This warrior and his tribe sacked the pa of Te Waharoa's father, and killed nearly all therein. The conqueror saw a pretty boy crying among the ashes of his mother's hut, and struck with the child's face, ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... a spasm shot over her face; then a ray of light seemed to flit across it, and then it ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... one grotesque, If I have proved an accurate guesser, The hawk-nosed high-cheek-boned Professor. I felt at once as if there ran A shoot of love from my heart to the man— That sallow virgin-minded studious Martyr to mild enthusiasm, As he uttered a kind of cough-preludious That woke my sympathetic spasm, (Beside some spitting that made me sorry) And stood, surveying his auditory With a wan pure look, well nigh celestial,— Those blue eyes had survived so much! While, under the foot they could not smutch, Lay all the fleshly and the bestial. ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... strangers. The bugbear of her life, since ever she had been left a widow with five helpless little ones to support, had been the Union Poor's-house; and now want, starvation, and the Union seemed staring her in the face. It was pitiful to see the spasm of positive pain which crossed her face as I put a trifle into her hand on leaving. She murmured a few words of thanks; but I heard her say with a deep sigh, as I left the room, 'I'm nothing better than a beggar now, living ...
— Catharine's Peril, or The Little Russian Girl Lost in a Forest - And Other Stories • M. E. Bewsher
... consciousness. He was bewildered and dazed at first, but as he began to speak the color came back freshly to his face. He could not conceive, he stammered, what had happened. He was riding with Miss Atherly, and he supposed his horse had slipped upon some withered pine needles and thrown him! A spasm of pain crossed his face suddenly, and he lifted his hand to the top of his head. Was he hurt THERE? No, but perhaps his hair, which was flowing and curly, had caught in the branches—like Absalom's! ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... off his lungs. His eyes grew clear, as his full sense returned after a while: seeing only at first, it so happened, the fire in its square frame; and thinking only of that, as the mind always drowsily absorbs the nearest trifle after a spasm of pain. A bed of pale red coals now, furred over with white and pearl-colored ashes. It was a long time since he had seen any open fire,—years, he believed. Where was it that there had been a fire just like that, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... soul; she had redeemed the idea of womanhood from gross associations, and set before him a fair ideal of all that female tenderness and purity may teach to man. Her prayers—well he believed in them,—but be set his teeth with a strange spasm of inward passion,—when he thought of her prayers and love being given to another. He tried to persuade himself that this was only the fervor of pastoral zeal against a vile robber who had seized the fairest lamb of the sheepfold; but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... A spasm distorted for the moment De Guardiola's every feature. So often of late had chagrin been pressed to his lips that the cup had grown poisonous. When he spoke it was with a hollow voice: "Had not Mexia come in between us!... The light caught the velvet ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the man went on to say, with some eagerness. "We 'most all around here air in them picters; ya-as'm! Ye wouldn't think I was an actor, would ye?" And he went off into another spasm of chuckles. ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... a passing spasm, mother. I am—I believe I am already better," said the daughter, in an agony of suffering that ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... all about it," said I, hastily, as I passed my handkerchief over my mouth to hide the spasm of pain which ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... when this mother told you with a proud smile, "Allie always wants the whole attention of any one she loves, and cannot stand sharing her friends. She was always that way at home. We never could pet her little brother without her going into a spasm. And you must be careful about showing the other children attention before her. It just breaks her heart—she ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with an exquisite feeling for the beauty of the human body, Sodoma excelled himself when he was contented with a single figure. His "S. Sebastian," notwithstanding its wan and faded colouring, is still the very best that has been painted.[406] Suffering, refined and spiritual, without contortion or spasm, could not be presented with more pathos in a form of more surpassing loveliness. This is a truly demonic picture in the fascination it exercises and the memory it leaves upon the mind. Part of its ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... acute spasm of delight at seeing his own physiognomy reflected in a mirror had passed, I suggested to the king that if he would like to try on his new garments I should be very pleased to instruct him as to the proper method of getting into ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Embury was neither mean nor spiteful of disposition. She had a furious temper, but she tried hard to control it, and when it did break loose, the spasm was but of short duration and she was sorry for it afterward. Her husband declared he had tamed her, and that since her marriage, about two years ago, his wise, calm influence had curbed her tendency ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... defy me, bringing the god of love to his aid in the form of his own marvellous and incomparable beauty. Aye! and I feel that I am defeated already, before the battle has so much as begun. And then, all at once, a spasm of rage shot through her heart, and she turned pale. And she exclaimed: Ah! but I am anticipated by this accursed King's daughter, who will rob me of him, nay, has already done it, by her undeniable hateful beauty, and her priority of claim, Alas! alas! O why did I not see him first, ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... true that at the period at which we have arrived the predominance of the grotesque over the sublime in literature is clearly indicated. But it is a spasm of reaction, an eager thirst for novelty, which is but temporary, it is an initial wave which gradually recedes. The type of the beautiful will soon resume its rights and its role, which is not to exclude the other principle, but to prevail over ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... virility. I was so accustomed to my own lone amorous broodings that the effort and action required for this process, when I attempted to imitate it, disconcerted my thoughts and interfered with concentration on my own inventions. I had never experienced the pleasure accompanying the spasm of emission, and there seemed to be nothing worth trying for along that road. I desisted and returned to my reveries. I was now in a perfect maze of promiscuity; there must have been at least fifty people who attracted me at that time. I developed a liking for imagining ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... fainter, the hens cackled less domineeringly, the pigs squealed less insistently, and as for the strutting cockerel, that lordly and despotic bird stopped fairly in the middle of a crow, and his voice gurgled away in a spasm of astonishment. As for the old farmhouse, it grew so dim I could scarcely see it at all! Having thus published abroad my Declaration of Independence, nailed my defiance to the door, and otherwise established myself as ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... the fireplace in the library, nervously pacing to and fro across the rug. Would she see him? How much did she know? How much did they all know? How much would she forgive? ... These questions had racked him every hour since in a spasm of nervous terror he had flung the pistol over the bushes and heard it splash in the river, and with one terrified look at the wounded man, whom he had dragged into the thicket, had got himself in some unremembered fashion to the junction ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... reacquire his lordships in the Bergamasque territory. The true motive for his imprisonment remains still buried in obscure conjecture. Probably it was not even known to the Visconti, who acted on this, as on so many other occasions, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he could have ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... when we observe him further, there is a spasm in his breast; he cannot breathe freely; the chest remains elevated, and his respiration is short and rapid. There is a gasping and convulsive motion of his lips, a tremor on his hollow cheeks, a gasping and catching of his ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... a thrill of ease, a spasm of pleasure accompanying each line. That fat old Hemerlingue found it restful, puffing in his stage-box on the ground floor as in a trough of cerise satin. It was restful also to that tall Suzanne Bloch, her hair dressed in the antique way, ringlets flowing over a diadem of gold; and ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... of the leading traits of his character much has been written, and by some of the keenest observers of his time. He is said to have been a very small and sickly boy, subject to attacks of violent spasm. Although so fond of games and sports when a man, as a boy he evinced little interest in them, probably on account of his ill health. We should naturally think of him as the autocrat of the playground, and the champion in all games of strength and skill; but such was ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... the moment of success is the moment most pregnant with disaster. To the patient who has known only the fraction of life that lies in darkness, the sudden coming of light is a miracle beyond mere resurrection from the dead. But he is warned he must avoid any spasm of joy. Should he cry out and start at the coming of the dawn, in that moment he bids farewell forever to the light ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... of this speech my friend nudged me spasmodically, whispering something which was jostled out of intelligent utterance by some inward spasm of laughter. ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... a deeper gloom fell upon the brow of Mr. Hamilton, who stood with folded arms watching the advance of the great destroyer. It came at last, and though no perceptible change heralded its approach, there was one fearful spasm, one long-drawn sigh, a striving of the eye for one more glimpse of the loved ones gathered near, and then Mrs. Hamilton was dead. On the bosom of Mrs. Carter her life was breathed away, and when all was over that lady laid gently down her burden, carefully ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... my senses: a sickening pain Tingled like lightning through my brain, And ere the spasm of fear was broke, The men who had borne him homeward spoke Soothingly: "Some assassin's knife Had taken the innocent artist's life— Wherefore, 'twere hard to say: all men Were prone to have troubles now and then The world knew naught of. Toward his friend Florence stood waiting to extend Tenderest ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time I did not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... bladder apparently causes the organ to tend to "swallow" the foreign object. Yet for every case in which the hair-pin disappears and is lost in the bladder, from carelessness or the oblivion of the sexual spasm, there must be a vast number of cases in which the instrument is used without any such unfortunate result. There is thus great significance in the frequency with which cases of hair-pin in the bladder are strewn through the medical ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... one I had pulled last year," he announced vastly relieved. A sharp spasm of pain in his jaw caused him to abruptly take advantage of a recent discovery; and while he was careful to couch his opinions in an undertone, he told Mr. Yollop what he thought of him in terms that would have put the hardiest pirate to blush. Something in Mr. Yollop's ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... you have been—" he answered meaningly, with an amused flash of his eyes, though at the very moment a spasm of pain crossed his face, for he was suffering from incurable disease, and went about his great task in daily misery, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... murderous basilisk.—When this began, He shouted on poor Lichas, none to blame For thy sole crime, 'What guile is here, thou knave? What was thy fraud in fetching me this robe?' He, all-unknowing, in an evil hour Declared his message, that the gift was thine. Whereat the hero, while the shooting spasm Had fastened on the lungs, seized him by the foot Where the ankle turns i' the socket, and, with a thought, Hurl'd on a surf-vex'd reef that showed i' the sea: And rained the grey pulp from the hair, the brain Being scattered with ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... fell back in a spasm of pain, from which it was almost impossible to revive him. ...
— The Golden Canyon - Contents: The Golden Canyon; The Stone Chest • G. A. Henty
... into Charlotte's eyes. She looked at the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two Parisian women, and suspected the cause ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... in the spasm of his throat. But he took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... in my mouth and swallowed it, but as I was taking a second from the blue flames I suddenly felt a faintness. At first I put it down to the heat of the room, but a moment later I felt a sharp spasm through my heart, and my brain swelled too large for my skull. My jaws were set. I tried to speak, but was unable ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... affectionate memories of generations of proctorial officers, the innocent rustications, the warning appeals of authoritative Deans—all these seemed gathered together into one last loud trumpet-call, as a tall, impressionable youth, carrying with him a spasm of feeling, a Celtic temperament, a moved, flashing look, and a surplice many sizes too large for him, dashed with a kind of quivering, breathless sigh, into the chapel of St. Boniface's just as the porter was about to close the door. This was ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... shrieked Aunt Aggie, in the strangled squeak in which we always explain that it is "only a crumb" gone wrong. And she relapsed into a fresh spasm. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... work before me, associated throughout with the effort to weight my dramatic values as heavily as might be, since they had to be so few, presents that effort as at the very last a quite convulsive, yet in its way highly agreeable, spasm. Of such mild prodigies is the "history" of any ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... and exeunt again a pair of voyagers. These two had saved the train and no more. A tandem urged to its last speed, an act of something closely bordering on brigandage at the ticket office, and a spasm of running, had brought them on the platform just as the engine uttered its departing snort. There was but one carriage easily within their reach; and they had sprung into it, and the leader and elder already had his feet upon the floor, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Rhona sat almost doubled up, feeling that she would never get warm. Her body would be still a minute, and then a racking spasm took her and her teeth chattered. A purple-faced woman beside her ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... to take a step, but suddenly a violent spasm of pain deprived her of all power and all determination, and with a loud groan she fell back on the bed. Shatov ran up, but Marie, hiding her face in the pillow, seized his hand and gripped and squeezed it with all her might. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the gambler, and his face contorted in a spasm. The barkeepers slid out from behind the bar. For a moment the situation was tense and threatening. The dealer with a sweeping glance again searched the faces of those before him. In that moment, probably, he made up his mind that an open scandal must ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... write, but they are, without exception, lazy and inefficient men. They never have accomplished much, and they never will accomplish much. Regular eating, regular sleeping, regular working—these are the secrets of all true literary success. A man may throw off a single little poem by a spasm, but he cannot write a poem of three thousand lines by spasms. Spasms that produce poems like this, must last from five to seven hours a day, through six days of every week, and four weeks of every month, until the work shall be finished. There is no ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... which I cannot yet bear with equanimity, and which I do not believe I shall ever meet without at least a spasm of wrath, even if my Christian character shall ever become strong enough to preclude absolute tetanus; and I do hereby beseech all persons who would not be guilty of the sin of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin, who do not wish to have on their hands the burden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... But the short spasm of gayety, after all, was only the fitful and feverish symptom of the deadly weakness of the body politic. It was merely superficial; and under it was a fixed and impenetrable gloom. The desertions from the army were assuming fearful proportions, that no legislation or executive rigor ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... that had been rising in the young doctor's gray eyes vanished. He turned quickly to his bottles and indulged in a spasm of silent laughter. But his face was very grave when he looked around again. "Look here, David," he said firmly, "I'd advise you not to discuss my affairs. Neither you nor the rest of the village had better even speculate upon them. You're ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... unless luck favours. Wading in a shallow, mangrove-bordered creek, he blindly probes the bottom with a six-feet length of fencing wire, the modern substitute for the black palm spear. Frequently he trifles thus with coy Fortune for hours, an inch or so separating each prod; and again, in a spasm of indignant impatience, he stabs determinedly into the mud at random. Non-success does not make shipwreck of his faith in the existence of the much-desired food in the black mud, for as far back as his own experience and ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... was a wild scene, every fellow being for himself. Colon flung his blazing torch at the advancing beast, and with such good aim that it actually came in contact with the cow's flank. Perhaps it stung, or at any rate gave the beast a new spasm of fear, for there immediately followed a fierce bellow, and the ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... the slit when the first men were brought to the pit. I was sitting below, huddled up, listening with all my ears. He made a sudden movement backward, and I, fearful that we were observed, crouched in a spasm of terror. He came sliding down the rubbish and crept beside me in the darkness, inarticulate, gesticulating, and for a moment I shared his panic. His gesture suggested a resignation of the slit, and after a little while my curiosity gave me courage, and I rose up, stepped across ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... A spasm crossed the baronet's face; his lips twitched convulsively; his face slowly changed to a ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... subside. She never relinquished her soul, never fell into confidence, so in a sense we always remained strangers, for it is when lovers tell their illusions and lonelinesses that they know each other, the fiercest spasm tells us little, and it is forgotten, whereas the moment when a woman sighs and breaks into a simple confidence is remembered years afterwards, and brings her before us though she be underground or a thousand miles away. ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... speaker to the other in a kind of terrible astonishment. Suddenly she knew on whose brow she had seen that awful grayness, from whose lips she had heard that short and hurried breath. A kind of spasm of great agony suddenly contracted her heart. Without a word, however, she rose to her feet, gave the wife money for her present needs, bade the dying husband good-bye, and stepped into the cab which still waited for her. It was really ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... Mayor at one time, and had been knighted by the king because of a loan made by the city to his Majesty. Sir William was an honest, simple man, who cared little to rise above his class, but he had a wife who thrilled to the heart whenever she heard the words "Lady Wentworth," and experienced a spasm of delight whenever she saw her name in ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... of the grinding room had come to know Jurgis by this time, and had marked him for a likely man; and so when he came to the door about two o'clock this breathless hot day, he felt a sudden spasm of pain shoot through him—the boss beckoned to him! In ten minutes more Jurgis had pulled off his coat and overshirt, and set his teeth together and gone to work. Here was one more difficulty for him ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... convulsively at his master's hand; a wild light came out of his eyes; a sudden spasm passed over his face, and—he was 'gone whar ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... resolution, like an iron pillar, and not like a reed shaken with the wind, conspicuous superiority to considerations of ease and comfort, a direct vision of the unseen, and a message from God, the crowds will go out to see him; and even if the enthusiasm be shallow and transient, some spasm of conviction will pass across many a conscience, and some will be pointed by him ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... after all, in my mind, the result of a greater degree of physical insensibility. It has been told me, and I believe it, that in amputation and other surgical operations, their nerves do not shrink, do not show the same tendency to spasm with those of the whites. When the savage, to explain his insensibility to cold, called upon the white man to recollect how little his own face was affected by it, in consequence of its constant exposure, he added, 'My body is all face.'[246] This increasing insensibility, transmitted from generation ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... ha, ha! Is it not a joke, Joshua? Ha, ha, ha! This is a joke that shall run crackling through America, like Samson's burning foxes. Ha, ha, ha!—Andre is in New York! A spasm of joy; and yet it pains my leg. Your hand, my friend. The laughter comes again— Ha, ha, ha! Now let them vote! Brigadier Generals May rain on this accursed land of pain As fast as Congress spawns them! Now, ye rats! Who shall squirm last, I ask ye? ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... and the tears began to fall. She raised her muff to her face to hide the spasm of pain ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... worked on again, till a howl and a cry Told the Saint one more hour—the fifth—had gone by. 'What's the row?' asked the Saint, 'A cramp in the wrist, I think for a while I had better desist.' Having rested a bit he worked at his chasm, Till, the hour having passed, he was seized with a spasm. He raged and he cursed, 'I bore this at first, The rheumatics were awful, but this is the worst.' With awful rage heated, The demon defeated, In his passion used words that can't be repeated. Feeling shaken and queer, In spite of his fear, At the ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... jest paced up an' down the yard yellin' an' takin' on an' beggin' us to go fetch her back, so that none of us at the house thought o' draggin' the hole at the foot-log. But Bill Dugan did, an' soon come with the news whar she was at. Then her ma jest had a spasm. I railly believe on my soul she cussed God an' all futurity. She raved till she was black in ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... rigid, with occasional convulsions. About 4 p.m. his throat had become contracted, and the endeavour to give him nourishment brought on convulsive attacks. The Bishop came at 8. p.m., and after another attempt at giving him food, which produced a further spasm, he was lying quietly when ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that scrap of paper. He wondered still more, whether Duncan might not report the matter to the comptroller of the currency at Washington, and thus bring about a criminal prosecution, even after the sum irregularly borrowed had been repaid. Then he remembered, with something like a spasm round his heart, that the bookkeeper, Leftwich, had heard the whole conversation, and he remembered also that he had been, as he put it, "rather hard on Leftwich" upon several occasions in the past. ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... and rode away. As soon as he was out of earshot he began to laugh. Spasm after spasm shook him. No sooner had he composed himself to gravity than a remembrance of Udo's appearance ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... starts out bravely enough. Of this much, at least, I can be moderately sure. For a short time it looks as though something might come of it; but nothing really does. It is all so terribly obvious. There are no obstacles such as one finds in real fiction; there is no love spasm in Chapter XXV. There is no Chapter XXV at all! And so it must be perfectly clear that those who insist upon having their love spasms will be bored to death by Tutors' Lane and should on no account be allowed to look at it. There is love, of ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... little about the money part of the scheme. She only guessed what had become of Aunt Raby's watch and chain; and a spasm crossed her face when one day she happened to see that Aunt Raby's poor little jewel case was empty. The jewels and the watch could certainly not fetch much, but they provided Prissie with a modest little outfit, and ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... red-gold sunlight of the waning November afternoon. The church bells, resting between their morning duty and that of the night, all were silent; over the city there lay a hush—it was as if the town were gathering strength for its final spasm of campaign activity on the morrow. There was nothing in that Sabbath calm to disturb the emotion of Elsie's bedside, and Katherine walked slowly homeward beneath the barren maples, in that fearful, tremulous, yearning mood in which she had left ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... first case, the miracle at once struck him with the consciousness that he was now, in some way, he knew not how, in the immediate presence of the supernatural. That was immediately followed by a quick spasm and sense of sin, and that again by a recoil of terror, and that again by the cry, 'Go out of the boat; for I am a sinful man, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... from irritation of the bowels excited from indigestion, it will be temporary, and the sign will go and come just as the spasm may occur, and slight ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... in millions. Well, of course the outstanding fact about such popularity is that in face of it any affectation of superiority becomes simply silly. One has got to accept this creation of Mr. EDGAR RICE BURROUGHS as among the definite literary phenomena of our time. In the immediate spasm before me Tarzan (who is, if you need telling, a kind of horribly exaggerated Mowgli after a diet of the Food of the Gods) is represented as placing himself at the disposal of the British forces in East Africa, and attacking the Germans ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... reputations, like old fashions, are more prized in the grassy than in the stony districts. An effete celebrity, who would never be heard of again in the great places until the funeral sermon waked up his memory for one parting spasm, finds himself in full flavor of renown a little farther back from the changing winds of the sea-coast. If such a public character was not to be had, so that there was no chance of heading the Report with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... symptoms, and course of the disease, and its possible prevention by early treatment, are all discussed. The old tradition was already in existence that sufferers from rabies or hydrophobia, as it is called, dreaded water, when it is really only because the spasm consequent upon the thought even of swallowing is painful that they turn from it. That tradition has continued to be very commonly accepted even by physicians down to our own day, so that Bartholomew, the Englishman, ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... one's child? Here is your purgatory:—purgatory? no: for purgatory is a kind of half-way house to heaven, but this son of mine is to me a slippery stepping-stone to perdition. Sir, a child should be a cherub to lift its parents' spirit to the skies; but mine, oh!"—and a spasm of agony passed over the old man's visage, succeeded by a forced expression of ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... under a spasm of fright. The menace of enquiry became something more than a threat: he felt it, like the grip of a constable upon his arm. Everything would be mercilessly unravelled. The telegram of the idiot Kervick would bring the police down upon ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... "Cedars" was but a short ride, and when the carriage turned into the cedar shaded driveway Tavia felt another "spasm" of alarm—it was such an imposing ...
— Dorothy Dale • Margaret Penrose
... still upon the field of action, but in sad and sorrowful condition; suffering the penalties of past pleasures, and calling to mind the captain's dulcet compound, with many a retch and spasm. It seemed as if the honey and alcohol, which had passed so glibly and smoothly over his tongue, were at war within his stomach; and that he had a swarm of bees within his head. In short, so helpless and woebegone was his plight, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... after as she could she set out for the village, leaving the field to the Dutch girl, and carrying with her enough unpleasant thoughts on other things to prevent her from giving any more consideration to the silly spasm of jealousy. She had thrust her two letters from England into her pocket, and as she went she kept turning and turning their news in her mind though without much result. There seemed very little she could do except prevent the banishing of her father ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... canteen banged the correspondent, to his annoyance and distress, forcibly on the knee. He had forgotten about his dragoman, but happening to look upon that faithful servitor, he saw him gone white with horror. A bullet at that moment twanged near his head and the slave to fear ducked in a spasm. Coleman called the orderly's attention and they both laughed discreetly. They made no pretension of being heroes, but they saw plainly that they were better than this man. Coleman said to him : " How far is it now ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... spasm will be worth nothing. There have got to be real efforts, real hard work, the expenditure of money for future and not merely immediate profits, a cheerful readiness to discard old and cherished methods, a ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... at her heart with both hands, for an actual spasm caught her there. Every trace of color shot from her face, and with a rush came back—fire. She rose, gave her daughter one look that was almost terror, and quickly ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... O! Unhappy I was thus foully mangled by the unjust prayers of an unjust father—I am destroyed miserably. Ah me! ah me! Pains rush through my head, and the spasm darts across my brain. Stop, I will rest my fainting body. Oh! oh! O those hateful horses of my chariot, things which I fed with my own hand, ye have destroyed me utterly and slain me. Oh! oh! by the Gods, gently, my servants, touch with your hands my torn flesh. Who stands by my side on ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... he displayed a remorseless spirit of justice without mercy in dealing with his own family. Yet he hated the Spanish ascendancy with a hatred far more fierce and bitter than that of Paul III. His ineffectual efforts to shake off the yoke of Philip II. was the last spasm of the older Papal policy of resistance to temporal sovereigns, the last appeal made in pursuance of that policy to France by an ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Her head had dropped on her arms, and her face was hidden. Julian's judgment had not misled him; the utter self-abandonment of her attitude answered Horace as no human language could have answered him. He looked at her. A quick spasm of pain passed across his face. He turned once more to the faithful friend who had forgiven him. His head fell on Julian's shoulder, and ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... throughout the course of the disease there is an excessive sensibility of the skin which, if irritated by the touch, will bring on attacks of violence. Throughout the course of the disease the animal may have appetite and desire water, but on attempting to swallow has a spasm of the throat which renders the act impossible. This latter condition, which is common in all rabid animals, has given the disease the name of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... a death as he had often said would be his choice. Just a dropping to sleep here and an awakening yonder. The doctor said it was heart-failure, resulting from a sudden spasm of pain. But the face bore no trace of pain. The moan that wakened Daisy was probably that sigh with which mortal parts with mortality—the parting breath between life and death, which will scarcely stir a feather and yet will ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... disturbance of hysteria which Sir William Gull has called anorexia nervosa. In this malady there is such annihilation of the appetite that in some cases it seems impossible ever to eat again. Out of it grows an antagonism to food which results at last, and in its worst forms, in spasm on the approach of food, and this in its turn gives rise to some of those remarkable cases of survival for long periods without food. As this goes on there may be an extreme degree of muscular restlessness, so that the patients wander about until exhausted. According ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... quietly. I was just going to lie down on the sofa, when I thought her face looked different, and stood watching. She woke, said she felt oppressed, and asked me to raise her pillows. While she was leaning against my arm, there was a spasm, a shiver, and she was gone! Yes, we must only think of her ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... face was twisted with a spasm of fury. But as he stammered for words another voice was lifted, and Captain Runacles came through the crowd. He had been fetched from his laboratory by Mr. Swiggs, and had arrived on the scene in time ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... spasm of jealous anger at this, inquired was the Pope to become the chaplain of Venice, and dispatched Macchiavelli to bear the tale of ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... breathing was less quick and laborious. The spasm of the head was no longer visible. The flow of saliva had stopped and there was less delirium. The jaw began to be dependent: the rattling, choking noise in his throat louder. He carried straw about in his mouth. He picked up some pieces ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... hideous word. Lady Barbara heard the word and saw the crowd race away like scattered sheep, saw the Prince forcibly hustled away by his attendants; also she saw her son lying prone in an agony of overmastering terror, his spasm of daring shattered by the child's unexpected resistance, still clutching frantically, as though for safety, at that white-satin gew-gaw, unable to crawl even from its deadly neighbourhood, able only to scream and scream ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... the grave with both hands for support, with gasping breath he awaits her answer. The vengeful sword of remorse is already in his soul; one groan, one spasm of anguish from the innocent victim would break his heart. Raising her heavy eyelids, his child seems to trace an expression of pity on his face, and for a moment dreams that hope is not yet past. Kneeling on the marble of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions, made frantic efforts to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run through her tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and, if it did not, she was quickly cured, and, moving about to some other point, tried to draw my attention as before. When followed ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... said Mr. Berridge, turning to scan the weather. At sight of the robin, a little spasm of pain contracted his face. A shine of tears came to his prominent pale eyes, and he turned quickly away. Just at that moment, heralded by a slight fragrance of old lace and of that peculiar, almost unseizable odour that uncut turquoises have, ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... Let not the spasm of infidelity mar my letter in your eyes or heart, and on your anniversary let one stream flow to the ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... was ill-timed. I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers' face. "Get up, boy!" he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what I would do, and that I shall do! A Bezers keeps his word. By the God above us—if there be a God, and in the devil's name I doubt it to-night!—I ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Tatters case it was very marked. He was dozing in a corner near the radiator when I heard him yelp and saw him snapping at his belly. He ran across the room, lay down and began licking himself. Within fifteen minutes he began to whine. Then he stiffened out in a sort of a spasm. It was like strychnine poisoning. Before could get a ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... head inwards. If the child had awakened at that instant, if it had stirred and cried, she must have gone back for good. She returned for one moment and flung herself over the cradle again. One spasm more of lingering tenderness. "Good-bye, my little one! I am leaving you with him, darling, because he loves you dearly. You will grow up and be a good, good girl to him always. Good-bye, my pet! My precious, my precious! You will reward him for all ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... horsemen trotted on a hundred yards in advance, like skirmishers thrown out in front of an attacking force. There was something in all this mysterious precaution and reticence which bewildered and exasperated Lynde, who noted every detail. Mary, in a transient spasm of backing, had fallen to the rear; the young man could no longer see the girl, but ever before his eyes was the piteous, unslippered little foot with its ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the wearers of the Scout uniforms might even imagine that they had been attacked by a spasm of fear; but at least two members of the group had within recent times proven their valor in a fashion that the people of Stanhope ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... outcome of a sudden spasm of warm-heartedness on his lordship's part. He had pondered the matter deeply, and had come to the conclusion that, though it had flaws, it was the best plan. He was alive to the fact that a small boy was not an absolute essential to the success of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... A fierce spasm of pain through his chest blinded him mentally and physically for the moment. But, by an almost superhuman effort, he recovered himself. He knew he was hit, and hit badly. Something seemed to have broken inside him, just under ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... by a chandelier and little colored lamps hidden among palms, india-rubber plants and flowers, was first seen like a scene on the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland, dazzled by such luxury, muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap his hands as if it were a pantomime scene. They then went into the first drawing-room, a small room hung with dead gold and furnished to match. The larger drawing-room—the lawyer's consulting-room, very ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... sorrow. My mother had been taken severely ill, and I found the house in commotion—doctors, and apothecaries, and nurses, running to and fro, my father in a state of excitement, and my dear sister in tears. Spasm succeeded spasm; and although every remedy was applied, the next evening she breathed her last. I will not attempt to describe the grief of my father, who appeared to feel remorse at his late unkind ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... swept a swift spasm of pain. So quickly was it gone that I would not have noticed it, had not my eyes happened to rest on her face when Mrs. Lester spoke of her baby. Was there a child in that hectic past of hers? ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... to define politics in relation to the British public, I should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... shrinking behind the ample bulk of Mrs. McMahon, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, as if in a wordless soliloquy. Then, again, his eyes returned to the man who had just uttered the preposterous accusation, and he beheld the usually jocund face distorted by a spasm of jealous fury, the insensate fury of the male in the loathed presence of a rival. No, here was no room for laughter. However ludicrous the mistake in its essence, its fruits were too serious for mirth. He turned his gaze on McMahon, and saw there the like virile detestation ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... but in large doses it acts as a narcotic, abating pain and inducing sleep. In moderate doses it operates as a diaphoretic, diuretic, antispasmodic, increasing the heat of the body, allaying irritation and spasm. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed, red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen, impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm. Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... awoke with this disorder. My opinion of its effect, some one day, has never altered. However, it is entirely gone off, and I am only quite weak. The good people of England will not believe, that rest of body and mind is necessary for me! But, perhaps, this spasm may not come again these six months. I had been writing seven hours yesterday; perhaps, that had some hand ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol II. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face. The sharp teeth clamped together. Then her eyes closed, ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Jim. "We paid seven cents, and a wonder we did as well. The receiver——" (methought a spasm seized him at the name of this official, and he broke off). "But it's all past and done with, anyway; and what I want to get at is the facts about the wreck. I don't seem to understand it; appears to me like as there was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life and vivacity, having inherited much of the careless joyousness of his father's temperament; and although he was the light and joy of his home, yet his mother sometimes felt as if her heart was contracting with a spasm of agony, when she remembered that it was through that same geniality of disposition and wonderful fascination of manner, the tempter had woven his meshes for her husband, and that the qualities that made him so desirable at home, made him equally so ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... chattering very fast in a shrill, affected voice, with a gesticulation so free and French, and a face so close to his, that the nervous and finicking squire had been every moment afraid lest the next should find her white fingers in his very eyes. He felt an inward spasm of relief when he ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... quite sure that the consideration you want to show him would be no kindness. The pain of having his affection thrown over' (he spoke with a spasm in the throat) 'would be greater than you would like to inflict, if you were forced by truth to own you did not care for him; and if he be what I think, the carrying away security of your feeling for him will be gladness enough. And as for the looks, I have a better opinion of yours than to ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to her feet and, with George Washington still in her arms, she threw herself on Mr. Jerry in a perfect spasm of delighted gratitude that brought tears to the eyes of both of them for George Washington was not accustomed to being squeezed between a young man ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death; Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic, emotional, exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude's breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... evidently overcome with a spasm of shyness that Midget was sorry for her, but somehow it made her feel shy, herself, and the two little girls sat there, looking at each ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... of meeting her, and of exchanging glances with her once again. This did not occur, however, until the lapse of a fortnight. Every day, in the interim, I had inquired for Talbot at his hotel, and every day had been thrown into a spasm of wrath by the everlasting "Not come ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... into the street it was with a spasm of terror. She fancied that every step behind her was Lantier's. She dared not look around lest his hand should glide about her waist. He might be watching for her at any time. He might come to her door in the afternoon, and this idea brought a cold sweat to her forehead, because he ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... He would have liked to crawl into his bed, close his eyes and never open them again, he was so tired. But he must not give in yet; his task was but half accomplished. David must be told of what he had done, and at that thought a spasm of fear contracted his heart. Shivering, he drew a chair near the stove and waited with closed eyes and pain-drawn face for the sound of David's foot upon ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams |
