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Paroxysm

noun
1.
A sudden uncontrollable attack.  Synonyms: convulsion, fit.  "A fit of coughing" , "Convulsions of laughter"



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"Paroxysm" Quotes from Famous Books



... families in all their glory, ventured to intimate his opinion that they, like other idols, had a fair share of clay and rubbish in their composition, and who, after professing a kind of sham republicanism, was frightened by the French Revolution into a paroxysm of ultra-Toryism. 'You wretched fribble!' exclaims Macaulay; 'you shallow scorner of all that is noble! You are nothing but a heap of silly whims and conceited airs! Strip off one mask of affectation from your mind, and we are still as far as ever from the real ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... bars of the cage. He fell back crushed and bleeding, foaming at the mouth with a bloody froth, and making inarticulate beast noises in his throat. Then, as the madness again took hold of him, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat, he flung himself once more at the bars, and, after another fearful paroxysm, fell back inert upon the floor. For hours he lay exhausted, but wildly restless, too spent to struggle and too demented and tortured to be still. He moaned, he groaned, he cursed with horrid filthy words and phrases, bit as a dog bites in his madness, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... about a line beyond the corona, the whole circumference of the organ. With the use of cocaine and a blunt instrument the adhesions were removed, with an immediate amelioration of all the reflex symptoms. The very next paroxysm was lighter and less exhausting; the improvement was continuous. The child soon went to school and had no further trouble; but, in the doctor's opinion, the two years' hard struggle have not been without its evil results on the constitution and ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... Annual Report" of the Registrar-General of England, in which the second-hand abstract of my Essay figures largely, and not without favorable comment, in an important appended paper. These testimonies, half forgotten until this circumstance recalled them, are dragged into the light, not in a paroxysm of vanity, but to show that there may be food for thought in the small pamphlet which the Philadelphia Teacher treats so lightly. They were at least unsought for, and would never have been proclaimed but for the sake of securing the privilege of a ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... perfect paroxysm of French, gesticulating and waving his tape as he put the sentences over the plate one after another. It was fast pitching, but I took them every ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... But the paroxysm of the Bohemian had reached its height; from an incarnate devil, in demeanour and language, he rapidly dropped into childish helplessness, and finally into a deep uncontrollable slumber. This was a state of things which, at first, threatened more danger than his open madness; but then it was ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... Gradually the paroxysm passed and she grew quieter; but she still clung closely to him, and at length with difficulty she began ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... we have said, Marston ran down to the edge of the lake, and yelled with delight—usually terminating each paroxysm with the Indian war-whoop, with which he was well acquainted. Then he danced, and then he sat down on a rock, and became suddenly aware that there were other hearts there, close beside him, as glad as his own. Another mother of the Mustang ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne

... a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter. ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... excited state recurred, and this time the reading appeared to have less effect. She sewed busily, and insisted that there must be a letter for her at L——. A violent fit of weeping was followed by a paroxysm of coughing, and finally the old man, who had sat quietly by her with his hand stroking her head, arose and said, "I will go." She threw herself into his arms, rubbing her head against him in sign of dumb affection, and in a little while grew calm. It was ...
— Elsket - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page

... to which during her absence Lyveden was subjected was only less trying than the open secrecy with which it was conducted. Heads were thrust into the passage to be withdrawn amid a paroxysm of giggling. Somebody was pushed into full view to retire precipitately amid an explosion of mirth. Preceded by stifled expressions of encouragement, a pert-looking lady's maid strolled leisurely past the newcomer, opened the back ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... excitement. Once more, your joy at my first act had brought you so near to my innermost heart that I thought I might, at such a moment, make the most outrageous demand on you. That feeling I expressed, if I remember rightly, in the words, "For my paroxysm of joyous excitement your delight at 'Tristan' is responsible." Dearest friend, at that moment I could not even think of the possibility of a misunderstanding. Everything being so certain and infallible ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... beneath her lace covered with features contorted, mouth half open and eyes staring wildly. A paroxysm of pain had carried her off, the good doctor well knew; the pain, and the excitement of the moment. Very tenderly he bent down and closed the eyes and pressed the lips together. He smoothed the lines from the cheeks, so that the face ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum

... name," said she, "and he attempts to disown me. Ha! ha! ha! ha!" and immediately fell off into a strong paroxysm of kicking, and pinching, and punching the bystanders, a malady well known under the name of hysterics; but being little more than a privileged mode, among certain ladies, of paying off some scores, which it is not thought decent to do ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)

... of the higher, but of the lower sentiments, and of the propensities of the new being, the result will necessarily be a mean type of brain. Here, it will be observed, God no more decreed an immoral being, than he decreed an immoral paroxysm of the sentiments. Our perplexity is in considering the ill-disposed being by himself. He is only a part of a series of phenomena, traceable to a principle good in the main, but which admits of evil as an exception. We have seen that it is for wise ends that God leaves our moral ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... attempt to rejoin it. For a moment he stood and watched it as it passed slowly on. A cold sweat stood on his brow, and every breath was a gasp. Then he turned slowly back to the spot where Forrester had fallen, and threw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of rage and misery. It was late and growing dark as he re-entered the school. There was a strange, weird silence about the place that contrasted startlingly with the usual evening clamour. The boys were mostly ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed

... half alert, sprang aside. The iron-ringed hoofs flashed past him, one biting along his cheek and ripping it an eighth of an inch deep. Phil staggered to the wall, as the horse continued to plunge and rear in a paroxysm of madness. Her owner tried to pacify her, but he made little headway ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson

... panic. He to beard Basterga! He to betray him! Impossible! Yet if he failed, the rack and the wheel awaited him. Either way lay danger, on either side yawned torture and death. And he was a coward. He wept and shuddered, abandoning himself to a very paroxysm of terror. ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... placed in opposition to an absurd impossibility. We needed not to be told, that no pleasurable emotion is likely to occur while we are unmanned by fear. The same might be said, also, in respect to the Beautiful: for who was ever alive to it under a paroxysm of terror, or pain of any kind? A terrified person is in any thing but a fit state for such emotion. He may indeed afterwards, when his fear is passed off, contemplate the circumstance that occasioned it with a different feeling; but the object of his ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... media the disease, par excellence, of the Gaboon is the paroxysm which is variously called Coast, African, Guinea, and Bullom fever. Dr. Ford, who has written a useful treatise upon the subject,[FN7] finds hebdomadal periodicity in the attacks, and lays great stress upon this point of chronothermalism. He recognizes the normal stages, preparatory, invasional, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... daughter of the Marquis and Marquise Victor d'Aiglemont; born in 1817. She and her brother Gustave were neglected by her mother for Charles, Abel and Moina. On this account Helene became jealous and defiant. When about eight years old, in a paroxysm of ferocious hate, she pushed her brother Charles into the Bievre, where he was drowned. This childish crime always passed for a terrible accident. When a young woman—one Christmas night—Helene eloped with a mysterious adventurer who was being tracked by justice and who was, for ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... became dilated; his cheek and eye inflamed; and his look that of a demoniac. These appearances of half-suppressed rage were the more frightful, because they were obviously caused by a strong effort to temper with discretion an almost ungovernable paroxysm of passion, and resulted from an internal conflict of the most dreadful kind, which agitated his whole frame ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... holding Pequita's hand. He looked ill and exhausted, like a man who had passed through a violent paroxysm ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... to his feet, and began to pace up and down round the walls, with the mechanical movements of a caged animal, avoiding the posts of the shelter without seeming to see them, and then cast himself down again upon the stones in a paroxysm of melancholy. He seemed to have no desire to escape, no energy, except to suffer. There was no hope about it all, no suggestion of prayer, nothing but blank ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson

... book with a snap, and turned his chair towards the fire. When his friend sat one evening in that very chair, and told his story, Clarke had interrupted him at a point a little subsequent to this, had cut short his words in a paroxysm of horror. "My God!" he had exclaimed, "think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, too monstrous; such things can never be in this quiet world, where men and women live and die, and struggle, and conquer, ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... unfortunate lady embarked for Flanders, where, soon after her arrival, the inconstancy of her husband, and her own ungovernable sensibilities, occasioned the most scandalous scenes. Philip became openly enamoured of one of the ladies of her suite, and his injured wife, in a paroxysm of jealousy, personally assaulted her fair rival in the palace, and caused the beautiful locks, which had excited the admiration of her fickle husband, to be shorn from her head. This outrage so affected Philip, that ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... he was conscious of a cobbled way beneath his sodden footgear. They were entering the outskirts of a ruined village. On either hand fragments of walls reared up with sashless windows and gaping doors like death masks of mad folk stricken in paroxysm. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph

... the boy upon the sward, and fetching water from the pool bathed his face and forced a few drops between the white lips. The cooling draft revived the wounded child, but brought on a paroxysm of coughing. When this had subsided Rudolph raised his eyes to those of the man bending ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... exclaimed Bright, grasping his hand in a paroxysm of delight; "if here isn't Tite Toodleburg cum home. Come in, come in. Welcome home." After shaking him warmly by the hand and leading him into the parlor, the inn-keeper ran and brought his wife, who welcomed the young man with the tenderness of a mother. The good woman would have ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams

... put in young Massard, "it is a better joke than you fellows imagine." And Massard went off into a paroxysm of laughter by himself. ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... mark, with a faint smile upon his thin lips, the triumph invariably attained by Raymond, and his growing and increasing faith in the power of the Name he invoked in his aid. Seldom indeed had he himself to come to the aid of the boy. He never did so unless Roger's paroxysm lasted long enough to try Raymond's strength to the verge of exhaustion, and this was ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... his rifle, and advanced towards the party in what seemed a paroxysm of insane fury, brandishing the weapon and rolling his eyes with a ferocity that could have only arisen from his being in that happy frame of mind which is properly termed "frightened out ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... open the door or should she not? Holding little Hans in her arms, she rose hesitatingly, and stretched out her hand toward the bolt. But all of a sudden, in a paroxysm of fear, she withdrew her hand, turned about, and fled with the child through the back door. The alder bushes grew close up to the walls of the cottage, and by stooping a little she managed to remain unobserved. Her greatest difficulty was to keep little ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... the bed, he talked to him in a gentle, soothing voice, and tried to make him feel at ease, while the child flung both his arms round his neck, sobbing, and still clung tight to his hand when Walter had succeeded in allaying the sudden paroxysm of terror. ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... this, it is publicly alluded to at Versailles. On the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman proposes it at the Palais-Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers; Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the four trumpets on the Day of Judgment." Loustalot writes that a second revolutionary paroxysm is necessary." "The day passes," says Desmoulins, "in holding councils at the Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends of the bridges, and on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of but one color.... These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats of the lamp post, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... his equal. She read over some of the imperious passages which she had now addressed to the pope in the unaffected dignity of conscious power, and the contrast was so striking, and struck her as so ludicrous, that she burst into an uncontrollable paroxysm of laughter. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott

... late as never before; in fact, the women were afraid of her. Miss Silence felt that she could not be responsible for her any longer. She had hopes for a time that Myrtle would go through the customary spiritual paroxysm under the influence of the Rev. Mr. Stoker's assiduous exhortations; but since she had broken off with him, Miss Silence had looked upon her as little better than a backslider. And now that the girl was beginning to show the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... rallied, and had driven back Protestantism even to the German Ocean. Then the great southern reaction began to slacken, as the great northern movement had slackened before. The zeal of the Catholics waxed cool. Their union was dissolved. The paroxysm of religious excitement was over on both sides. One party had degenerated as far from the spirit of Loyola as the other from the spirit of Luther. During three generations religion had been the mainspring of politics. The revolutions and civil wars of France, Scotland, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... diversion by squealing angrily, spitting at the Missing Link, and clawing for him in a paroxysm of professional envy. ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... to the floor with such force that it was shattered to pieces. He tore open the collar of his shirt, so violent was the paroxysm of fury that had seized him, and with the broken arm of the chair in his hand, he sprang at Janina to strike her, but the cold, almost scornful, expression of her face brought him ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... eagerly listened to the picturesque flow of profane language intermixed with a few eloquent remarks to God to forgive such irreverence, their minds were permeated with fear lest suspicion would fall on them during the paroxysm of alternate rage and godliness. Plunker was a powerful man, and when his anger was roused they knew by experience it was not safe to interject a word either of denial or assent; so they determined, when he called them to him, to pursue ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... on himself by mounting a moment earlier, was too much for him. Not a thought did he give to what might have happened to her had he come on the scene later; but, with all his cowardly soul laid bare, he rocked himself to and fro in a paroxysm of self-pity. ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman

... tough exploded, but with a difference. This time the wrath was genuine, the passion real. There was something beastly about it. Beside this paroxysm the other ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates

... is upon us, when the keen anguish born of the sight of human suffering appals and benumbs us, when we are frozen to terror, and our manhood flies at the sight of the Medusa-like head of the world's unappeased and unappeasable agony; then we too are torn by the paroxysm of anguish; we would flee to the Nirvana of oblivion and unconsciousness, turning our back upon what we cannot alleviate, and longing to lay down the burden of life, and to escape from that which has become insupportable."[195] But these are only the dark and seemingly forsaken hours ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... the mourners have but just received the news of their bereavement, and are under the operation of a paroxysm of grief, anger and revenge; or, unless the prisoner is very old, sickly, or homely, they generally save him, and treat him kindly. But if their mental wound is fresh, their loss so great that they deem it irreparable, or if their prisoner or prisoners do not meet their approbation, no torture, ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... Juana's eyes, we may well absolve him. He loved her distractedly. The Marana, so keen to know the signs of love, had recognized in that man the accents of passion and the brusque nature, the generous impulses, that are common to Southerners. In the paroxysm of her anger and her distress she had thought such qualities ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of amusement. ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... richest thing you ever seed? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 'bout that man as seed me in Sonora? Warn't it good as the minstrels? Oh, it's too much!" and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand, he almost threw himself from the bed in a paroxysm of laughter,—a paroxysm that, nevertheless, appeared to be half real ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... out instantly, protesting that he would not ride another yard with a man who held such opinions, and supported them in such a manner. So saying, he descended and walked off, leaving Richardson to enjoy his fancied triumph, and to pay the whole fare. Richardson, it is said, in a paroxysm of delight at Sheridan's apparent defeat, put his head out of the window and vociferated his arguments until he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various

... mingled with floods of tears, and interrupted by hysterical sobs. Provoked at her folly, yet softened by her extreme distress, Douglas was in the utmost state of perplexity—now ready to give way to a paroxysm of rage; then yielding to the natural goodness of his heart, he sought to soothe her into composure; and, at length, with much difficulty succeeded in changing her passionate indignation into ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he had lain a plan for surprising Charles at Innspruck, and getting possession of his person, and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. These disputes were adjusted in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies, and scarcely ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various

... continued to watch him. In the paroxysm that followed, Jim did not become unconscious. His muscles tensed and twitched and knotted, hurting him and crushing him in their savage grip. And in the midst of it all, it came to him that Matt was acting queerly. He was travelling the same road. The smile had ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... affection did not exist. They viewed each other as bitter enemies. So fiercely did Cyrus hate his brother that on seeing him he burst into a paroxysm of rage which robbed him of all the prudence and judgment he had so far shown. "I see the man!" he cried in tones of fury, and rushed hotly forward, followed only by the few companions who remained with him, against Artaxerxes and the strong force still with ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... The victors, intoxicated with their first great success, invested Hadrianople, where were deposited enormous riches. But they were unequal to the task of taking so strong a city; and when the inhabitants aroused themselves in a paroxysm of despair, they raised the siege and departed to ravage the more unprotected West. Laden with spoils, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace, and thence scattered their forces to the confines of Italy. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the Julian ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... century the excitement touching the virtues of the holy places in Judea grew, until Gregory VII, about the time of Canossa, perceived that a paroxysm was at hand, and considered leading it, but on the whole nothing is so suggestive of the latent scepticism of the age as the irresolution of the popes at this supreme moment. The laity were the pilgrims and the agitators. The kings sought the relics and took the cross; ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... has always acted square to me—that's how I know he ain't in this sneak-thief business, and why he didn't foller us, suspectin' suthin', and I've always acted square to him. All the same, I'd like ter hev seen his face when that box was opened! Lordy!" Here Bill again collapsed in his silent paroxysm of mirth. "Ye might tell him how ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... like the paroxysm that two days before had made him mutter at the Connoisseur, "I hate your d—-d superiority," struck him all at once as impotent and ludicrous. What was the good of being angry? He was on the point of losing her! And the anguish of that thought, reacting on his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... self-satisfaction he put his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst of that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction of himself, 'Pa-ancks the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... of any avail. Present appearances indicate a speedy dissolution. He has not been able to leave his bed, except for a few moments to sit in an arm-chair, since the fourteenth or fifteenth of last month. The paroxysm of the disorder seems to be upon him, and death, or a favorable turn to it, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... had flung himself face downwards on the hard ground now, and given way to a paroxysm of despair all the more bitter for his former hopefulness. Anderson looked down on him pityingly for a moment, as one who had no part in his trouble, then he looked away again. Save for the sunshine, it was exactly the same scene, the very same they had looked upon last night—there ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt

... attaching a great ball to a canoe, as he described it, could rise in it up to the clouds, and travel through the heavens, the medicine, or mystery men of his tribe pronounced him to be an impostor; and the multitude vociferously declaring that he was too great a liar to live, a young warrior, in a paroxysm of anger, levelled a ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge

... live for yet," were the first words he uttered; and while he spoke, he gave vent to his feelings in a paroxysm of weeping, the tears chasing each other down his sunburnt ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... would have chosen the little hammer, but she could not have struck the big blow. But the madman might have done both. As for the little hammer—why, he was mad and might have picked up anything. And for the big blow, have you never heard, doctor, that a maniac in his paroxysm may have the ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... the chair in which she had awaited his coming with so much eagerness of anticipation, Helen broke into an uncontrollable paroxysm of weeping. ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay

... outbreaks of anger against oneself, the more so because I believe them always to be evidence of consciousness of guilt. At least, I have never yet seen an innocent man fall into a paroxysm of rage against himself, nor have I ever heard that others have observed it, and I would not be able psychologically to explain such a thing should it happen. Inasmuch as scenes of this kind can occur perceivably only in the most externalized forms of anger, so ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... of his mirth as cheaply bought. Yet we know that beneath this blithe surface there was something of the fateful domestic horror, of the beautiful heroism and devotedness too, of old Greek tragedy. His sister Mary, ten years his senior, in a sudden paroxysm of madness, caused the death of her mother, and was brought to trial for what an overstrained justice might have construed as the greatest of crimes. She was released on the brother's pledging himself to watch over her; and to this sister, from the age of twenty-one, Charles ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... (with calm dignity) hear me, Venoni! tis plain that your senses are disordered, and I therefore listen to these insults without resentment: these insults which I have so little deserved from you. But I know well that your injustice proceeds not from your heart; and when this paroxysm of delirium ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... relieved to perceive that une Anglaise could laugh with such abandon. Monsieur they observed looked not sympathetic. Monsieur had an air injured, annoyed, on his dignity. On his cheeks was a flush, as of wounded pride. When at length the paroxysm showed signs of lessening, he spoke in cold ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... scarcely be supposed, could support herself so well as her husband, but when any paroxysm of grief approached she rushed out of the room, and gave vent to her affliction alone. All the rest of the family were present, and were equally distressed. But what most strongly affected Amabel was a simple, natural remark of little Christiana, who, fixing her tearful gaze on her, entreated ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... paroxysm of wrath and madness, Julian went down-stairs with a slow step and a heavy, heavy heart; above all, he dreaded the necessity of breaking to Violet the heart-rending intelligence of his decision, and the circumstances which caused it. He trembled to do it, for he knew ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... grin, smoothed my hand, and patted my cheek, and would in the excess of her conciliatory paroxysm have kissed me; but I withdrew, and she commented only with a little laugh, and a 'Foolish little thing! but you will ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... turning in for the night. He took out his tinder-box, in order to get a light, when he happened to look up, and to seaward. And there, before his astonished gaze, he saw a vessel riding at anchor about two miles from the shore. In the first paroxysm of his joy, Roger was about to call aloud, imagining the craft to be one of the vessels of Cavendish's squadron; but on looking again, and studying the craft more closely, he saw that she was altogether different from any of the vessels ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... sc. febris, fever), the common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease; the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple ague is of much the same type whether in temperate or tropical climates, and may take various forms (quotidian, tertian, quartan), passing into "remittent fever.'' The symptoms are discussed, together with causation, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... proceedings as highly flagitious, and busied himself with punishing the criminals in Flanders. The Regent was beside herself with indignation and terror. Philip, when he heard the news, fell into a paroxysm of frenzy. "It shall cost them dear!" he cried, as he tore his beard for rage; "it shall cost them dear! I swear it by the soul of my father!" The Reformation in the Netherlands, by the fury of these fanatics, was thus made apparently to abandon the high ground upon which it had stood in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... almost screamed, exclaiming amid his laughter: Ha! King, I am also the son of a King: and now I will be thy son-in law. And she shall have a husband at last, and teach him, if she pleases, dances, that even Tumburu does not know. And with that, he fell into such a paroxysm of laughter, that weak as he was, he could not stand, but fell: and his laughter turned to sobbing. Then the King's daughter turned to her father, with an angry flush on her brow. And she said, with strong emotion: O father, wilt thou delay for ever ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain

... last night they were buyin' 'em right under our noses," cried Mr. Tooting, in a paroxysm of indignation, "and you wouldn't believe me. They got over one hundred and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... said that, as her mother had always taken the side of the former Abbess against her, she had not confided this secret to her, from a conviction that she would oppose it to please the Abbess. This threw the mother into a paroxysm of grief. She said she was very unhappy both in her husband and her children; that her husband was the most unjust person in the world, for that he kept her brother-in-law in prison, who was one of the best and most pious of men—in short, a perfect ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans

... stood with horrified glance following him. The sense of high adventure perished at his going. Alone in the woods, in the ghostly hut, the night to face, and the blank future stretching beyond! It was more than she could bear, and a cry escaped her parted lips. But Farwell did not hear, and the paroxysm passed. ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... with an altogether new docility; and on arriving in her own room gave conclusive proof of her happiness by flinging herself on the bed in a paroxysm of stifled sobbing. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver

... been seized with a paroxysm of coughing that took his meagre storehouse of breath. Weakly striking at his breast, he shook and quivered in the clutch of the thing, leaning back exhausted when it had passed, but never once losing ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... in the presence of the Evil One, so completely had the frenzy of this poor deluded idiot developed itself in this short interval. Some violent paroxysm was evidently approaching; and her object was, if possible, to procure the liberation of Egerton before her guide should be rendered either unwilling or incapable. He suddenly assumed a more calm and consistent demeanour, while, to her great ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... child!" I cried, and I danced round in a paroxysm of delight at the idea of being a father. It seemed at once to elevate me to manhood, and puffed me up with pride. I rushed upon dear Mrs. V., embraced her most warmly, and pushing her back on ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... issued from the contorted face of Ben Blunt, and some of this being swallowed, strangulation ensued. When the paroxysm of coughing was past the hero revealed running eyes, but the tears were of triumph, as was the stoic ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... The servant lighted a candle, made up the fire, and asked if she would wait dinner. Emily made no answer, but sat still, her eyes fixed, looking into space. The man lingered at the door. At that moment her little dog bounded into the room, and, in a paroxysm of delight, jumped on his mistress's lap. She took him in her arms and kissed him, and this somewhat reassured the alarmed servant, who then thought it was no more than one of Miss Emily's queer ways. Dandy ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... the cloud melted away from Euphra's face; a sweet sleep followed; and the paroxysm was over ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... When this violent paroxysm had somewhat subsided M. Collot withdrew; but before he went away Bonaparte invited him to breakfast ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... gesture of refusal with his hand, and wanted to speak, but at that very moment he was attacked by a paroxysm of coughing. "You young devil!" he groaned, and leaned heavily on Pelle; his face was purple. Then came a fit of sickness, and the sweat beaded his face. He stood there for a little, gasping for breath while his strength returned, and then ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... On approaching within a few yards of a forest stream he was seized by violent spasms. By a desperate resolution he forced himself to take his seat in a canoe which had been provided, but the little craft had not proceeded many yards ere he was seized by a fresh paroxysm, and in a frenzied tone ordered the boatman to land him on the nearest bank. The order was promptly obeyed, and he had no sooner escaped from the boat than he ran frantically into the depths of the wood. He was pursued and overtaken by his companions, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... his head in his hands; then suddenly, he broke out into another paroxysm. "The feminine nature always the same, always, always; infinitely charming and infinitely volatile. ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... making the impression which such a mode of treatment is designed to produce, the child, especially if a girl, is agitated and distressed. Her nervous system is greatly disturbed. If calmed for a time, the paroxysm is very liable to return. She wakes in the night, perhaps, with an indefinable feeling of anxiety and terror, and comes to her mother's bedside, to seek, in her presence, and in the sense of protection which it affords, a relief from ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... strange new thoughts crowding into his mind as he felt her soft little hands about him. Suddenly he clasped them in both of his and pressed warm kisses upon them. Gertrude threw her arms about his neck in a childish paroxysm of affection, saying as she did so ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... One ... This cigarette tastes and smells just like (mention name of repugnant substance). Two ... It is the most vile and repugnant taste I have ever encountered, and I shall not be able to continue after the third puff. At the third puff, I will develop a paroxysm of coughing. Three ... I cannot smoke the cigarette any longer, and I will have ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers

... indicate a mind prepared for impression, and a sudden gust of passion, and that of the least noble kind; since there could be no opportunity of knowing the merit of the object. What woman would have herself supposed capable of such a tindery fit? In a man, it is an indelicate paroxysm: but in a woman, who expects protection and instruction from a man, much more so. Love, at first, may be only fancy. Such a young love may be easily given up, and ought, to a parent's judgment. Nor is the conquest so difficult as some young creatures ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... the sheets from her and began to read. Laughter is often only one remove from grief, and Tom, though he was sad-hearted enough, could not keep his countenance through Erica's article. First his shoulders began to shake, then he burst into such a paroxysm of noiseless laughter that Erica, fearing that he could not restrain himself, and would be heard in the sick-room, pulled the towel from his forehead over his mouth; then, conquered herself by the absurdity of his appearance, she was obliged to bury her own face in her hands, laughing ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... innkeepers were kept closed; no sort of article was offered for sale; everybody remained shut up at home. But when there is wrath at the bottom of men's souls, the silence and stupor of the first paroxysm are of short duration. Next day a rumor spread that the bishop and the grandees were busy "in calculating the fortunes of all the citizens, in order to demand that, to supply the sum promised to the king, each should pay on account of the destruction of the commune as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... speech to have caused the paroxysm of fury that drove the red-haired girl into the middle of the room, almost shouting—'Do you suppose I care what you use? Any kind will ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... Saint-Phar, and immediately, a running fire was directed on the people on the opposite side of the way, from Rue Saint-Denis to Rue Richelieu. A few minutes were sufficient to cover the pavement with dead bodies; the houses were riddled with balls, and this paroxysm of fury on the part of the troops continued for three quarters of ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo

... face flew instantly into a paroxysm of contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, gesticulated, and hurled forth a volley of incoherent words in broken English at the astonished Tete Rouge. It was just possible to make out that he was accusing him of having stolen and eaten four ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... vanished as quickly as he came. As this pantomime was to be performed in the Calle de Altavilla, in front of Estrada-Rosa's very house, the scandal was dreadful, and the crowds immense. Don Juan in a paroxysm of anger acquainted the Governor, who was a great friend of his, with the facts, and determined to leave with Fernanda the next day. The malicious youths, who had foreseen this determination, had contrived means ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... caused by the poison of the malarial parasite in the blood is very violent, and the pain is situated usually just over the eye, and occurring often in the place of the paroxysm of the chill and fever at a regular hour daily, every other day, or every fourth day. If the headache is due to malaria, quinine will cure it (Malaria, Vol. I, p. 258). The headache of rheumatism is owing also to a special poison ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various

... he was in a state of acute suffering, and, under its paroxysm, he bethought him again of Cornelius's advice, which he had rejected, to betake himself to Polemo. He had a distant acquaintance with him, sufficient for his purpose, and he called on him at the Mercury after the latter's lecture. Polemo was no fool, though steeped in affectation and self-conceit, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the Saviour enthroned ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... regiments, saving what was possible when all were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he was awakened by the bombardment of the town—and Smolensk held out all day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... that Maria Esmond had lost her heart ever so many times before Harry Warrington found it; but I like to fancy that he was going to keep it; that, bewailing mischance and times out of joint, she would yet have preserved her love, and fondled it in decorous celibacy. If, in some paroxysm of senile folly, I should fall in love to-morrow, I shall still try and think I have acquired the fee-simple of my charmer's heart;—not that I am only a tenant, on a short lease, of an old battered ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... je vous implore! Do not bring your babes within. A stern necessity—a care for the consequences would prevent me from admitting them. The sight of a human babe rouses in the vampire the sanguinary passion to a paroxysm of frenzy. In its natural state the vampire sucks the blood of men. This vampire has sucked that of KINGS, and to have to ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... upon the moor would not work a hard man like this convict into such a paroxysm of terror that he would risk recapture by screaming wildly for help. By his cries he must have run a long way after he knew the animal was on his ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... than courage, for a mob is always more prone to base than to noble instincts. The gloomy report of the spies jumped with the humour of the people, and was at once accepted. Its effect was to throw the whole assembly into a paroxysm of panic, which was expressed in the passionate Eastern manner by wild, ungoverned shrieking and tears. What a picture of a frenzied crowd the first verse of this chapter gives! That is not the stuff of which heroes can be made. Weeping endured ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... extent be a mystery to the reader, a mystery to which I cannot furnish the key. Was Solange the chief subject of George Sand's lamentations? Had Chopin or her brother, or both, to do with this paroxysm ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... of them had been examined and tried by several of the crew— doubt and apprehension were at an end. The truth had now been reached, was known to a certainty by all—and the result was a general paroxysm of despair. ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... man went into a protracted paroxysm of coughing. With one hand he hugged his onion to ...
— Options • O. Henry

... he realized for the first time all that had befallen him since the morning. He was racked by a horrified desolation that made his sturdy old body stagger as if under an unexpected blow. As he reeled he flung his arm about the pine-tree and so stood for a time, shaking in a paroxysm which left him breathless when it passed. For it passed as suddenly as it came. He lifted his head and looked again at the great cleft in the mountains, with new eyes. Somehow, insensibly, his heart had been emptied of its fiery draught by more than ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... for Lefevre had put his head in his hands, shaken with a silent paroxysm of grief. It wrung the doctor's heart, as if in the person that sat opposite him, all that was noblest and most gracious in humanity were ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban



Words linked to "Paroxysm" :   paroxysmal, attack



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