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More "Convulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... room he flung himself for a few moments face downwards upon the bed, and from the convulsive motion of his back an observer might almost have believed that he was sobbing. When he rose, there was no trace of tears or tenderness upon his features. On the contrary, they were stern and set, like ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... dead silence in the room now; only from a far distant rolls of ceaseless thunder sent their angry echo through the oppressive air. Caligula was staring at the girl as he would on some unearthly shape. Gasping he had fallen back a few steps, the convulsive twitching of his fingers ceased, his mouth closed with a snap, and great yellow patches appeared upon ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of a second. In a frenzy jerking one of my hands free, and throwing the full weight of my body across his face to momentarily smother the outcry, I twisted around, drew my knife, and plunged it deep into his side. There was a convulsive tremor, and silence. Yet, as the king snake had done, I also drew back warily, listening. It ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... of the Queen-mother sent in my pursuit, probably," replied La Mole coolly, and disengaging himself from the convulsive embrace of Jocelyne. "How they have tracked me, I know not. So be it, then. I had hoped for the sake of others to avoid their hands; but I am prepared to meet ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... special ends; as when we try to escape a danger, or struggle to secure a gratification. But the movements of chest and limbs which we make when laughing have no object. And now remark that these quasi-convulsive contractions of the muscles, having no object, but being results of an uncontrolled discharge of energy, we may see whence arise their special characters—how it happens that certain classes of muscles are affected first, and then ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... would have had the power to exercise it, so engrossed was he in his own distress. By the process, however, of continually repressing the visible signs of his own emotions, he had now learnt to appreciate them in others. And in Mrs. Branscome's sudden change of colour, in little convulsive movements of her hands, and in a certain droop of eyelids veiling eyes which met the gaze frankly as a rule, he read this evening sure proofs of the constancy of her heart. This fresh knowledge affected him in two ways. On the one hand it gave breath to the selfish passion which ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... up on his bed, shaken by a convulsive movement, and questioned with his eyes the eyes of the Dominican, as though he would find out if he had deceived himself and not heard aright. ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... door, Mrs. Heth gathered her daughter in a convulsive bear-hug, murmuring ecstatic nothings. Little she thought of Settlements or ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... spirit, shaped out by a guilty conscience, and this is the only familiar which attends me, and by it I have been dogged into madness through every turning of life. Whilst it lasts I am subject to spasms and convulsive starts which are exceedingly painful. The lump on my back is the robe I wore when innocent in my ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... off very well, and we separated at a very late hour. When we reached home, however, Mr. S— was attacked by a violent cholic, a disposition to vomit, convulsive cramp, and ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... in London society, literary and fashionable. He went to the Opera to hear Grisi, then young and pretty, and Lady Blessington pointed out the beautiful Mrs. Norton, looking like a queen, and Lord Brougham flirting desperately with a lovely woman, 'his mouth going with the convulsive twitch that so disfigures him, and his most unsightly of pug-noses in the strongest relief against the red lining of the box.' He breakfasted with 'Barry Cornwall,' whose poetry he greatly admired, and was introduced to the charming Mrs. Procter and the 'yellow-tressed Adelaide,' ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... lilies. Neither spoke, however, and in a moment we passed on down Third Avenue, now brightly lighted and teeming with its usual gay Sunday night crowd. At last we turned into our own street, and were in front of the dark building we both called "home." Here Eunice caught my hand in hers, with a convulsive little motion, as might a child who was afraid of the dark. We climbed the stone steps together, and I pulled the bell, Eunice's grasp on my ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... the old warrior's countenance grew rigid; his large, bony hands gripped the back of the chair on which he leaned, and were white with their own convulsive force; and he bowed his head under ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Mesmer's art, is, that it furnishes the surest method of inducing this particular condition of the system. Employed with collateral means calculated to shake the nerves and excite the imagination, mesmerism causes the same variety of convulsive and violent seizures which extremes of fanatical frenzy excite; when it is employed in a gentle form and manner, with accessaries that only soothe and tranquillise, the most plain and unpretending form of trance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... man's arm gave Fitzpiers a convulsive shake. "What are you doing?" continued the latter. "Keep still, please, or put me down. I was saying that I lost her by a mere little two months! There is no chance for me now in this world, and it makes me reckless—reckless! Unless, indeed, anything ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... remind him of his promise on oath, but the criminal expression of Misha's face, his unrestrained voice, the convulsive trembling of all his limbs—all this was so frightful that I made haste to get rid of him. I informed him that he should receive his clothing at once, that a cart should be harnessed for him; and taking from a casket a twenty-ruble bank-note, I laid it on the ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... disappointment that crossed the rugged lineaments of the hunter amounting so nearly to anguish as to frighten his companion, while the sensation of choking became so strong in the Pathfinder that he fairly griped his throat, like one who sought physical relief for physical suffering. The convulsive manner in which his fingers worked actually struck the alarmed girl with a feeling ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... he sums up for them the whole character of medieval art itself in that which distinguishes it most clearly from classical work, the presence of a convulsive energy in it, becoming in lower hands merely monstrous or forbidding, but felt, even in its most graceful products, as a subdued quaintness or grotesque. Yet those who feel this grace or sweetness in Michelangelo might at the first moment be puzzled ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... drawn nine thousand pounds. The sums expended during our absence on the Continent reached the perplexing figures of forty-eight thousand. I knew it too likely, besides, that all debts were not paid. Self—self—self drew for thousands at a time; sometimes, as the squire's convulsive forefinger indicated, for many thousands within a week. It was incomprehensible to him until I, driven at bay by questions and insults, and perceiving that concealment could not long be practised, made a virtue of the situation by telling him (what he in fact must have seen) ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... answer, and Mrs. Hamilton's newly raised hopes vanished; she waited full two or three minutes, then gently disengaged her hand and dress from Ellen's still convulsive grasp; the door closed, with a sullen, seemingly unwilling sound, and Ellen was alone. She remained in the same posture, the same spot, till a vague, cold terror so took possession of her, that the room seemed filled with ghostly shapes, and all the articles of furniture ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... his heart clutched with horrible forebodings, he distinctly saw (Dr. Owen did not see this) a faint stream of bluish radiance playing over her from the direction of Seraphine, and enveloping her. It is certain that Penelope's face immediately became peaceful and the convulsive twitchings that had ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... interrupted in her convulsive attempts at "run-and-back stitching." Winnie was hardly in the house, before Sarah Rowe came out in the garden to ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... flys had driven off and the spectators had vanished, Barnet followed to the door, and went out into the sun. He took no more trouble to preserve a spruce exterior; his step was unequal, hesitating, almost convulsive; and the slight changes of colour which went on in his face seemed refracted from some inward flame. In the churchyard he became pale as a summer cloud, and finding it not easy to proceed he sat down on one of the tombstones and supported his head ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... rim of the pulpit with both hands, his face had turned to a curious greenish colour, his eyes were rolled upwards till only the whites could be seen: he was no longer articulate; convulsive shudders tore at him, froth dabbled his chin. Suddenly he fell down inside the pulpit and was lost to view, all except those fearful hands, that clutched and beat at the rim. Then that too ceased, and they hung over motionless, like the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... for freedom; and the Athenian constitution grew, with little pressure from below, under the intelligent action of statesmen who were swayed by political reasoning more than by public opinion. They avoided violent and convulsive change, because the rate of their reforms kept ahead of the popular demand. Solon, whose laws began the reign of mind over force, instituted democracy by making the people, not indeed the administrators, but the source of power. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... As the foot also itself had been very much hurt, the handling of necessity gave a great deal of pain, more than the mere setting of the broken bone would have caused. Mr. Randolph could feel every now and then the convulsive closing of Daisy's hand upon his; other than that she gave no sign of what she was suffering. One sign of what another person was feeling, was given as Dr. Sandford bound up the foot and finished his ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... magnetizer that even when they appear to be in a stupor, his voice, a glance, or a sign will rouse them from it. It is impossible not to admit, from all these results, that some great force acts upon and masters the patients, and that this force appears to reside in the magnetizer. This convulsive state is termed the crisis. It has been observed that many women and few men are subject to such crises; that they are only established after the lapse of two or three hours, and that when one is established, ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... were dry, and her terror had passed away, so great was her amazement. But what were her feelings when Pavel Petrovitch, Pavel Petrovitch himself, put her hand to his lips and seemed to pierce into it without kissing it, and only heaving convulsive sighs from time ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... to her feet by a convulsive movement. Her lips parted, and she gasped for breath. She could utter no sound. One by one the people about her, unconscious of what had happened, turned their heads, and inquiry and alarm became visible upon their faces at ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... past came slowly forth with all its train Of blissful scenes that ne'er might be again, Of mournful partings and convulsive sighs, Of pallid faces and of tearful eyes, Of aching hearts that heaved with sorrow's swell, And broken tones that sadly breathed, "Farewell!" And in the silence of that lonely hour, Which bade the sternest own its wondrous power, A small, still voice whispered ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... the water together, and his grip loosened, for he was now up against something too strong for him—the sound and sight and feeling of cold water. When we came up, the cutwater was between us, and I didn't see him again, though I heard his convulsive gurgling and screaming from the other side of the ship. Then the sounds stopped, and I think he must have gone under; but I was too busy with myself to speculate much. I was trying to get a finger-nail grip on that smooth, black ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... avoid, we learn to relieve it by great voluntary exertions, as in grinning, holding the breath, or screaming; now the pleasurable sensation, which excites laughter, arises for a time so high as to change its name, and become a painful one; and we excite the convulsive motions of the respiratory muscles to relieve this pain. We are however unwilling to lose the pleasure, and presently put a stop to this exertion; and immediately the pleasure recurs, and again as instantly ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... a sinking in which she seemed dying, she strove to let us know that she knew it by trying to speak the word 'death.' Divining her thought, I said, 'Is it death?' Then in a kind of convulsive outburst came, 'Death, death!' Thinking that she was right, that it was indeed to her death begun, of what could die, thus dating her life immortal, I said, 'No, oh no! not death, but life immortal.' She instantly caught my meaning, and cried out, 'Life eternal! E—ter—nal ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... knife descended, and this time struck deep, for the wounded animal, with a convulsive spring, overturned the ruffian, and together they rolled upon ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... cannot tell of it,—the rapid, wearying walk from side to side of my little garret, the despairing flinging myself on the bed, the restlessness that would bring me to my feet again, the pressing my hot face against the cool window-pane, the convulsive sobs with which the struggle ended, the heavy, unrefreshing sleep that came at last, and the dull wakening in the morning, when nothing seemed left about my heart but a dead weight of insensibility. But with the brightening ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... physician, born at Bologna; celebrated for his discoveries in animal magnetism called after him Galvanism, due to an observation he made of the convulsive motion produced in the leg ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... movement at the outset, the French Revolution was now guided by demagogues and adventurers, whose only hope of keeping erect lay in constant and convulsive efforts forwards. Worst symptom of all, its armies already bade fair to play the part of the Praetorians of the later Roman Empire. Nothing is more singular at this time than the fear of the troops. Amidst the distress prevalent at Paris, much apprehension ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... darted down. No eye could follow the lightning speed with which he whipped out his revolver and fanned it, but by a mortal fraction of a second the convulsive jerk of Silent's hand was faster still. Two shots followed—they were rather like one drawn-out report. The woodwork splintered above the outlaw's head; Tex Calder seemed to laugh, but his lips made no sound. He ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... sharp stinging pain in his right shoulder, and but for a convulsive grasp of the pommel with his bridle hand he would have pitched headlong ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... to look at the man with scorn, but her nerves gave way, and again she broke down and cried softly, but with great, convulsive sobs. ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... half over when he fell into one of those convulsive flurries which come with the semi-unconscious stage. He kicked and plunged and struck out with both hands. Over with a crash went the little table which held the candles, and in an instant we were left in total darkness. You can think what a rush and a scurry there was, one to pick ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... doom in the tablets of the awful future. 'They'll hang him. Oh, feyther! feyther!' she choked out, almost stuffing her apron into her mouth to deaden the sound, and catching at Philip's hand, and wringing it with convulsive force, till the pain that he loved was nearly more than he could bear. No words of his could touch such agony; but irrepressibly, and as he would have done it to a wounded child, he bent over her, and kissed her with a tender, trembling kiss. She did not repulse it, probably ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... last! You've grown." Then, with a sensation of every limb gone weak, he felt her arms round his neck, and herself pressed against him. There was time for the thought to flash through him: This is terrible! He gave her a little convulsive squeeze—could a man do less?—then just managed to push her gently away, trying with all his might to think: She's a child! It's nothing more than after Carmen! She doesn't know what I am feeling! But he was conscious of a mad desire to clutch ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... blood might have been foregone—when the fierce passions of the people might have been soothed and pacified, and when Justice might have been nobly done and catastrophe averted, if there had been but one brave man,—one only!—and that man a King! But in nearly all the convulsive throes of nations, kings have proved themselves the weakest, tamest, most cowardly and ineffectual of all the heads of the time—ready and willing enough to sacrifice the lives of thousands of brave and devoted men to their own cause, but never prepared to sacrifice themselves. Hence ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... kind to me sometimes, I could bear it all. If she only smiled on me even once a month, I think I should not complain. But, O, it is so terrible to be locked into your chamber, and stay there day after day for a whole week!" moaned she, with a convulsive quiver. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... with a terror-stricken stream of fugitives, ancient men hobbling upon sticks, aged women clutching copper pans, and stumbling under the weight of feather-beds, while whimpering children fumbled among their mothers' skirts. What convulsive eddies each of the shells, whose trajectory we heard ever and anon in the skies overhead, were making in that living stream were to us a subject ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... after he had spoken, Sybil did not move. Then she quietly drew back her hands and hid her face in a sudden, convulsive movement. She, too, trembled, and her heart beat as though it would break; but she said nothing. Ronald sprang from the ground and kneeled again upon the step beside her; very gently his arm stole about her and drew her to him. She took one hand from her face and tried to disentangle ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... tale who saves himself from cobra or rattler by letting the serpent crawl its slow way over his perfectly controlled body might have withheld even a quiver of the flesh, but I am no Spartan. At my convulsive shudder each horrid claw gripped a death-hold. In one swift motion I seized a corkscrew that lay nearby, pried loose with a quick jerk every single pede and threw the odious thing a dozen yards. A trail of red, inflamed spots rose where it had ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... well as of fear rose to the unfortunate girl's eyes; convulsive sobs shook her shoulders and tore at her heart till she felt that she must choke. She threw out her arms across the table and buried her face in them and lay there, sobbing and moaning in her terror and in ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... bullet fell to the floor where it was picked up by the crawling child, and, as was most natural, thrust at once into his mouth. Perhaps it felt hot to the little tongue; perhaps the child was simply frightened by some convulsive movement of the father who evidently spent his last moment in an endeavour to reach the child, but, whatever the cause, in the quick gasp it gave, the bullet was drawn ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... table her uncle knelt upright, with hands clasped and face uplifted, no feature or muscle moving—a strong figure rapt in devotion. On her other side, as a slight tree waves in the wind, her aunt's slim figure was swaying and bending with feeling that was now convulsive and now restrained. Sometimes she moaned audibly or whispered "Amen." Across the richly-spread table Susannah saw the preacher kneeling in a full flickering glare of the pine fire, one hand upon the brick jamb, the other covering his eyes, as if to hide from himself ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... face with both hands, and bending forward till she hid her confusion on her knees, went into an uncontrollable giggle, the only evidences of which, however, were the convulsive movements of her shoulders and an occasional squeak in the region of her ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... image thrilled with life, The stone began to quiver; She drank my kisses' burning flame With fierce convulsive shiver. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... A convulsive movement passed over her face, slight as a twitching of muscles could well be. The sweat broke ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... literary atmosphere by the criticism of Lessing, the philosophy of Kant, and the poetry of Klopstock. It was at this transition period that Schiller appeared, retaining throughout his literary career much of the revolutionary and convulsive spirit of his early days, and faithfully reflecting much of the dominant German philosophy of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a great child, with convulsive sobs; his arms hanging down, and his legs weak, and he went downstairs without knowing what he was doing, and moving his feet mechanically. They put him into the chair which he always occupied at dinner, in front ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... you going to do with him?" he asked, crossing one long leg over the other with a convulsive abruptness very trying to my balance, and to the strength ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Robert Kennedy; the man who was Chancellor of the Duchy;—almost within a yard of my head." Then he sat down and burst out into a fit of convulsive laughter. ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... individuals; that the fear of dangers on a broad national scale, diverts men's minds momentarily from brooding over small private perils, and for the time gives them something like largeness of views; but, as little doubt have I, that convulsive revolutions put back the world in all that is good, check civilisation, bring the dregs of society to its surface; in short, it appears to me that insurrections and battles are the acute diseases of nations, and that their tendency is to exhaust, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... there, she was instantly relieved from her pain by the last sad resource, the fatal unerring ball, which, when directed by a skilful hand, produces instantaneous death, without a groan, or scarcely a convulsive struggle. I dropped a tear when she had breathed her last; consoled only by the reflection, that my life had been spared by a merciful and beneficent Creator; for had the poor animal fallen, at the swift pace she was going, my destruction must have ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... this built on the greatest paternal Indulgence imaginable. Affections that have taken such deep Root, are little Treasures hoarded up in the good Mind, and cannot be torn thence without causing the strongest convulsive Pangs in the Heart, where they have been long nourished: And when they are so very easily given up as you now, Sir, seem to contend for, I confess I am very apt to suspect they have only been talked of by the Persons who can part with them with so little ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... dashed the knife from him as if it had been an asp stinging him. He stood with his bloodshot eyes fastened on it, his hands spread, and his body shrunk up with horror. "Forged in hell! and for me, for me!" he screamed, as he sprang forward and seized it with a convulsive grasp. "Damned pledge of the league that binds us!" he cried, holding it up and glaring wildly on it. "And yet a voice did warn me—of what, I know not. Which of ye put it in this hand? Speak—let me ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... unable to get up again. The fore-legs are paralysed; the others are capable of moving. Lying sideways, if not interfered with, the insect in a few moments gives no signs of life beyond a fluttering of the antennae and palpi, a pulsation of the abdomen and a convulsive uplifting of the ovipositor; but, if irritated with a slight touch, it stirs its four hind-legs, especially the third pair, those with the big thighs, which kick vigorously. Next day, the condition is much the same, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... in his chair, drawing all eyes to his face. John, peering from behind the circle of big boys, could see the first signs of returning consciousness, a flicker of the eyelids, a convulsive tremor of ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... backward and plunged sheer. The bank of white choyas caught him, held him upon their steel spikes. How long did the dazed Gale sit there watching Rojas wrestling and writhing in convulsive frenzy? The bandit now seemed mad ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... from the sick bay, after the last alarming change took place, rendered his death, or, rather, the convulsive struggles which for some hours preceded that event, a dreadful trial to poor Reid, whose state had for some time past been scarcely better, the difficulty in his breathing having increased to a most distressing degree. When Souter was dying, Reid remarked ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... sight which rose before his eyes many times afterward and would not be blotted from his memory. It all came back to him now once more,—the agonized, horribly glaring eyes, the clinched hands and quivering throat, and the convulsive sobbing and gasping which would not cease tearing the wasted frame until death should bring the only possible help. It made him sick at heart to think that the gentle unselfish girl who was even then forgetting herself in her care for others ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... first effect of air on the infant is a slight tremor about the lips and angles of the mouth, increasing to twitchings, and finally to a convulsive contraction of the lips and cheeks, the consequence of sudden cold to the nerves of the face. This spasmodic action produces a gasp, causing the air to rush through the mouth and nostrils, and enter the windpipe and upper portion of the flat and ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... to stretch beneath the pressure of the double load. No help was possible. Those standing below cursed him for rousing the castle with his shouts. The narrow edge of the gutter was gradually slipping through his nerveless fingers. And now one hand relaxed its hold, and only by a last convulsive effort did he manage to hold on for a few seconds by ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... wear out, running down with little spurts of life and longer intervals of dumbness; others end with a sudden crashing of the pendulum while in its full swing, and a wild, convulsive whirr of the jarred wheels. One moment the sober tick tells that all is well, the next—silence. So was it with ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... bewildered in the darkness; there, he either checked himself by a convulsive effort from falling headlong into the unknown deeps beneath him, or lost the little ground he had gained in labour and agony, by retracing his way at the bidding of some unexpected obstacle. Now he gnashed his teeth in anguish, now he cursed in despair, now he was breathless ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... was he who, standing there, Seemed as an image of Despair, Which agony's convulsive strife, Had quickened into breathing life. The writhing lip, the brow all wet With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat; The hand, that with unconscious clasp, Strained his keen dagger in its grasp; ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... forth, as the precursor of some event which will yet violently agitate the country. (Napoleon was now in St. Helena.) The stormy wave of discord has not subsided. The temple of ambition is not overthrown, and party spirit will rush to inhabit it. The convulsive struggle for independence in the South (America) still continues, but civil war appears about to interrupt its progress. At home all is quiet. A virtuous chief magistrate and a wise administration must benefit a people so PRONE ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Genis clung half inert to him with one hand gripping the saddle-bow, the other clutching Bobby's belt with convulsive tenacity. Bobby himself was only half conscious, dazed with the pain of wounds, the exertion of hoisting that dead weight across his saddle, the deafening noise of whizzing bullets round him, the boring of the frightened ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... harsh voice of unhappiness. They'll note the curse, but not the pang, Not the torment whence it sprang, They'll note the blow at my friend's back, But not the soul stretched on the rack. They'll note the weak convulsive sting, Not the crushed body and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together, and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... her in a princely style, "pour se beaux yeux;" for it must be admitted, that she can boast as fine a pair of black eyes as ever were seen. The circumstance of this taste for materialism, is as unfortunate to the possessor, as a convulsive nod of the head once was to a rich gentleman, who was never without being engaged in some law suit or other, for lots knocked down to him at auctions, owing to his incessant and involuntary noddings at ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... marquise a hard struggle was passing, and this was reflected on her face; but it was only for a moment, and after a last convulsive shudder she was again calm and serene; then ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... through many a masculine bosom. With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days. But he was heroic as the singer who broke his collar-bone by the ut di petto. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... high-minded. Diodorus (Bibl. Hist., lib. iii. p. 130) records the exploits of Myrina, Queen of the Amazons, but it is probable that Byron named his Ionian slave after Mirra, who gives her name to Alfieri's tragedy, which brought on a convulsive fit of tears and shuddering when he first saw it played at Bologna in August, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... revolution which they made famous. Liszt felt a deep interest in the literary and scientific interests of the day, and he threw himself into the new movement with great enthusiasm, for its strong wave moved art as well as letters with convulsive throes. The musician found in this fresh impulse something congenial to his own fiery, restless, aspiring nature. He entered eagerly into all the intellectual movements of the day. He became a St. Simonian and such ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... uttered and savage mockery of the girls, and their going simultaneously into fits, screaming at the top of their voices, twisting into all possible attitudes, stiffened as in death, or gasping with convulsive spasms of agony, and crying out, at intervals, "There is the black man whispering in Cloyse's ear," "There is a yellow-bird flying round her head." John Indian, on such occasions, used to confine his achievements to tumbling, and rolling his ugly body about the floor. ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... how it was, but before the debut of Morgiana, the English press began to heave and throb in a convulsive manner, as if indicative of the near birth of some great thing. For instance, ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... such a face,—so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry escaped from them,—how heart-breaking when there is none to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reaches my ear. He is speaking, and that which I hear him say, I write: no more, no less, no different. His voice dies away, inarticulate. I see his lips whiten and draw back upon his teeth. His hands clutch me as a convulsive spasm wrenches his muscles. There is a tense, rigid silence, and then one deep-drawn groan. Nerve, limb, muscle, and flesh collapse as the Life is set loose. The damp body sinks back, leaving its death sweat on my arms, its gasp in my ears. Tomkins is dead. But the impulse ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... of the old woman clung to the heart with a tenacious embrace. Three or four centuries elapsed, while yet the belief in sorcery and witchcraft was alive in certain classes of society. And then, as is apt to occur in such cases, the expiring folly occasionally gave tokens of its existence with a convulsive vehemence, and became only the more picturesque and impressive through the strong contrast of lights and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... concerned Chopin most at the commencement of his instruction [writes Mikuli] was to free the pupil from every stiffness and convulsive, cramped movement of the hand, and to give him thus the first condition of a beautiful style of playing, souplesse (suppleness), and with it independence of the fingers. He taught indefatigably that the exercises ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... used all their unselfish endeavors to comfort their dear boys. Vernon, weary of crying, soon sank to sleep; but not so Eric. He sat on a low stool, his face buried in his hands, breaking the stillness every now and then with his convulsive sobs. ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... my love; come to me, come to me, and let me hold you!" said the poor girl, struggling to speak amid her convulsive sobbing, and holding out her hands towards him. "Oh, my Ludovico, this is very dreadful. But it is impossible—impossible! They will know that it is impossible that you could have done such a thing. Murder! You- -murder a defenceless girl! Oh, it is ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... true to its name, was to lick his hand and endeavour to rise, but again it fell back, and after a few convulsive struggles, expired. ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... can yet be detected; others, in which the outlines of the Medusa can be distinctly traced within the transparent ectotheque (external layer); others, again, just casting off this thin outer pellicle, and others completely freed from it, struggling with convulsive efforts to break loose from the colony, and finally launched forth in the full enjoyment of their freedom into the surrounding water. I know of no form in which so many of the characteristic features of a typical hydroid ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... fierce spirit of resistance. At length she was conscious of Elise standing before her, half terrified, but wholly determined. Her eyes moistened, then grew soft. Her outstretched arms sought the girl and drew her within their convulsive grasp. ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... trembling in the ghost's hand. In fact, so convulsive was his grasp that it shook the hook from the staple, and the shutter slowly opened as he ...
— His Unquiet Ghost - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... succeeded but too well. Her natural strength increased by the excess of anguish, long did the Sufferer struggle to disengage herself, but in vain. The Monk continued to kneel upon her breast, witnessed without mercy the convulsive trembling of her limbs beneath him, and sustained with inhuman firmness the spectacle of her agonies, when soul and body were on the point of separating. Those agonies at length were over. She ceased to struggle for life. The Monk took off the pillow, and gazed ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... Tribune, contending with strong and convulsive emotion—"it may be literally of death that you speak.—Go! leave one who can no longer protect you ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... his seat not the most comfortable in the world, leaped off; then running some way ahead, he again fired into the creature's mouth. The last shot proved an effectual quietus to the saurian, which, after making a few convulsive struggles, rolled over ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... shoulder, as if a nervous shudder had passed through it, and at the same time his mouth made a curious movement from right to left, which seemed to result from the other. These movements, however, had nothing convulsive about them, whatever may have been said notwithstanding; they were a simple trick indicative of great preoccupation, a sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly manifested when the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, was maturing vast ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... he sat there, pallid, motionless, gazing into the vast blank space of the unknown future; only the convulsive workings of his face betrayed the intense agitation of his mind. It was the psychological crisis in the life of a man who too late becomes aware of having destroyed his better self, of having annihilated all those hopes which on entering life had floated before his vision ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... His passion, gives them more reality than even the most frequent reading of the Bible. This renders the crucifixion extremely painful, intolerable in powerful pictures. I knew of an intelligent, sensitive little child who burst into convulsive sobbing before Tintoretto's great Crucifixion in the Scuola San Rocco at Venice. In the Belvedere at Vienna there is a picture by Rubens of the dead Christ in the arms of the usual small group: His mother is removing with a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... the phial with a convulsive grasp, "I know well that I am about to die. It is right. Blood for blood; my life for hers. How happens it that my steel did not turn aside? How could I kill her?—but it is done—and my heart is full of remorse, and ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of sympathy and kindness which my father used. He was an Italian, well informed, poor but not destitute, and living economically upon the profits of his art as a painter. Their intimacy increased; and at length the Italian, seeing my father's involuntary emotion at his convulsive turnings and shuddering, which continued as formerly, interrupting their conversation from time to time, told him his story. He was a native of Rome, and had lived in some familiarity with, and been much patronized by, a young nobleman; ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... playing and dancing—dancing, such as it was—went forward, and one terrible hour passed away. At last the wrists of the farmer snapped asunder; his hands and the bags of gold fell to the ground together. The dancer gave one desperate and convulsive leap into the air. Klaus stopped his violin; and, in the next instant, Simon lay dead upon the floor. Will it be believed that the rascally Dwarf had fiddled every hair of the poor devil's head, and brought them all down to his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... closed, his hands stretched forth, remained immovable, as he had always been accustomed to do in the critical moments of his life. The convulsive oscillations of his hat alone revealed, from time to time, the continued violence ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... with champagne. Louise on a subsequent day said she had got drunk with champagne, but she never knew that I had seen her on that night. I believe that something else had been given to her to make her insensible. There was a convulsive movement in her body as she turned round; her limbs before she did so seemed dead, her breathing resembled a groan, her breast heaved distressingly, she opened her eyes, but saw nothing. The more I reflected, the less I understood the agitation ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... truly sweet! Nor was it vain; two precious lives were spared, And the young parents were, afresh, prepared To grapple with their duties—growing large— Conscious of weakness in their full discharge. The babe proved cross and fretful; and, for years, Frequent convulsive fits filled them with fears; And quite unfitted her, in after life, For bearing a just share of toil and strife. This proved an exercise for faith and prayer, Until the fully felt that God's kind care Would be extended o'er their suffering child; And this thought ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... are mystical and wild," said Sybil with an amazed air; "they come upon me with convulsive suddenness." And she paused for an instant, collecting as it were her mind with an expression almost of pain upon her countenance. "These changes of life are so strange and rapid that it seems to me I can scarcely meet them. You are Lord Marney's brother; it ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... got afloat in the public mind with respect to sassingers." I once told him of a young woman who brought in a manuscript, and said, as she placed it in my hands, "I don't know what to do with myself sometimes, I'm so filled with mammoth thoughts." A series of convulsive efforts to suppress explosive laughter followed, which I ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... appear strange to those who do not understand such natures, but to me her next action was perfectly natural. She burst into a convulsive laugh; then, seizing the queer object, bent her face upon it and sobbed hysterically. When the storm was over, very tenderly she laid the gift aside, and bare-headed ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... to dream of death, or worse than death; For death were bliss, and the convulsive wrath Of living torture peace, to the dread weight That pressed upon sensation, while the light Of reason gleamed but horror, and strange hosts Of hideous phantasies, like threatening ghosts. Grotesquely mingled, preyed upon his brain: ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... for the mere sake of demanding sympathy, though it was certain she made the most of them. The scrofulous taint in her constitution was declaring itself in many ways. The most serious symptoms took the form of convulsive fits. On Julian's return home one evening, he had found her stretched upon the floor, unconscious, foaming at the mouth, and struggling horribly. Since then, he had come back every night in agonies ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... the poor little girl; never taking breath, never for one minute staying the frightful torrent, until at least the other in her wild distraction, "with one foot in hell"—to use her own words—should have fallen into a convulsive fit, and begun beating the flags with her knees, her body, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... of the hemlock limb and clung to it instinctively. For a moment I dangled there; then with a few convulsive efforts I succeeded in drawing myself to the trunk of the hemlock and getting my feet on a limb. Breathless, I now glanced downward and was terrified to see that in falling the basswood had carried away the lower branches ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... no doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, intolerable ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... closed. When I opened them, without violence, the pupil was seen to be immobile. It did not react in the least upon the direct light of the sun on either side. The left eye did not move at all, the right made rare, convulsive, lateral movements. The conjunctiva was very much reddened. The child did not react in the least to pricks of a dull needle tried on all parts of the body, and reacted only very feebly to pinches; not at all to sound-stimuli, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... her put to bed at once, but it was some hours before her convulsive sobbing ceased. Mrs. Temple had administered to her a soothing draught of proved efficacy, and after sitting with her till after one o'clock, I left her at last dozing off to sleep, and myself sought repose. I was quite wearied out with the weight of my anxiety, and with the crushing bitterness ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... but softly he laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the same instant there came a scrunching blow; an unnatural shriek, beginning small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell such as are imagined in haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsive sound, as of the motion of running, and the arms drumming on the bed; and then another blow—and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly still. I heard a horrible tremor quivering through the joints and curtains of ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the brakes caused me to stop abruptly, and the elderly man to seize the arms of his seat with a convulsive grasp. ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... must place to the account of the physical condition of this unfortunate girl, and did not conceal from himself that her charges were not wholly unjustifiable. So he restrained himself, and when she had gained control over the convulsive sobbing which shook her bosom, he told her his intention of leaving her and not returning until he could expect a less hostile reception. Meanwhile she might consider whether the Emperor's decision ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... warrior's guile Displayed; they haul, they rend, as in some orderly office mercantile. And a timed artillery speaks full-mouthed on a stuttering feeble reduced to nought. Can it be France, an army of France, tricked, netted, convulsive, all writhen caught? Arterial blood of an army's heart outpoured the Grey Observer sees: A forest of France in thunder comes, like a landslide hurled off her Pyrenees. Torrent and forest ramp, roll, sling on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... speech for the moment, and the Countess stood up and looked curiously around her. It never occurred to her that she might be the cause of that convulsive outburst. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... him out and carried him indoors. Once he thought there was a faint convulsive stir of the limbs that lay with so dead a weight in his arms, but when they got inside, there was no trace of life. But the look of supreme terror and agony of fear had gone from his face, a boy tired with play but still smiling ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... seemed as if the intervals between the moans grew longer. Another five minutes and she was sure that the hand upon her arm was relaxing its convulsive grasp. Not long after the restless form grew still, the hot hand on her arm slipped down upon the bed, and when the clock in the tower struck the half hour after three, the regular breathing of the girl told ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... and gentlemanlike demeanour of Mr. Percy were contrasted with the dark, inauspicious physiognomy of Sir Robert, who sat opposite to him, and who was never tranquil one second, but was continually throwing notes to his counsel, beckoning or whispering to his attorney—while convulsive twitches of face and head, snuff-taking, and handkerchief spread frequently to conceal the expression of his countenance, betrayed the ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... always "bad"—i.e. cold and inappreciative; the best of all good turns never "goes" at that house, and artists dread the week when they are booked there. I have seen turns which have sent other houses into one convulsive fit, but at this hall the audience has sat immovable and colourless while the performers wasted themselves in furious efforts to get over the footlights. At the Oxford, however, the audience is always "with you," and this atmosphere ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... William placed the fatal velvet on his head, and rose to pronounce her sentence, she started with a kind of convulsive motion; retreated a step or two back, and, lifting up her hands, with ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... her pillows and smiled at these things. Most wonderful it was to him to see how swiftly she recovered from her ordeal, how hourly the flush of health seemed to steal back into her cheeks. He became ashamed of the memory of his convulsive anguish and his blind rebellions. He saw now that her pain had not been as other pain; it was a constructive pain, a part of the task of her life. It was a battle in which she had fought and conquered; and now she sat, throned in her triumphal chariot, acclaimed by the plaudits ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... so near her seemed to recall to her dazed sense the uncompleted action his fall had arrested. She made a convulsive bound towards the railing, but Jack ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... procession that Lady Bude ran out to meet. She passed Mr. Macrae, whose face was set with an expression of deadly rage, and looked for Bude. He was not there, a gillie told her what they knew, and, with a convulsive sob, she followed Mr. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... discharge. On his return, the poor man's stare of bewilderment was indescribable. He watched his master unfold the receipts one by one without uttering a syllable; and when they were put into his hand, he clutched them with a sort of convulsive grasp, but still not a word escaped him. At length he exclaimed: "But, master, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... during which nothing was heard but a convulsive working about the chest and glottis of the foreman, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... animation to this subject, he has chosen the point of time when an executioner is piercing the side of Christ, whilst another, with a bar of iron, is breaking the limbs of one of the malefactors, who, in his convulsive agony, which his body admirably expresses, has torn one of his feet from the tree to which it was nailed. The expression in the action of this figure is wonderful. The attitude of the other is more composed, and he looks at the dying Christ with a countenance ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... cooled; and now the hope grew within him that the tigress might actually be saved. He talked softly to her as he poured drop by drop upon her tongue from the side—the little ones pressing closer and closer. Even in the convulsive trembling that took her body from time to time there was an inflowing rather than the ebb ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... active of those organized by Spence and was the centre for operations in the manufacturing districts. On December 15, a great gathering (as described by The Index) took place there with delegates from many of the near-by towns[1137]. Forster referred to this and other meetings as "spasmodic and convulsive efforts being made by Southern Clubs to cause England to interfere in American affairs[1138]," but the enthusiasm at Manchester was unquestioned and plans were on foot to bombard with petitions the Queen, Palmerston, Russell ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... boat brings almost certain destruction upon most of the passengers, whether swimmers or not, as they seize each other in their terror, and go down inextricably entangled together, each held by the others in the convulsive grasp with which drowning men always cling to whatever is within their reach. Caesar, anticipating this danger, leaped over into the sea and swam to the ship. He had some papers in his hand at the time—plans, perhaps, of the works which he was assailing. These he ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... smell the savoury morsel. It will be some time before he decides to swallow it, for his nature is cunning. When he does, leave him five minutes to meditate over it; then pull strongly and steadily. He will make convulsive jumps; but be calm, and do not let his excitement gain on you, draw him up, ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... cousin the Colonel, who had lately been the subject of so much speculation and agitation, approached the sofa of the rheumatic. His eyes were closed, and Josephine was standing at the open window with its closed blinds. Still she saw what the new-comers did not—a quick, convulsive shudder pass over the recumbent form, and the hand that lay on his heart close with a nervous spasm, as if it was crushing something hateful and dangerous that ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... Jonathan sat staring up at the eye which stared back; then moving with a convulsive jerk, ran both hands through the mane of silvery hair as though to lift some crushing load from about his head; and turning sideways in his chair stretched out one hand between the eye above and his own as he clumsily seized the pen in the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... he saw her hand—the same white jeweled hand that had gleamed on his arm in the starlight—go to her throat with a quick, convulsive movement. Instead of the thrill of repulsion which he had felt before, a sudden sense of pity and regret came over him now. He was not enough of a puppy to feel a certain keen enjoyment and gratified vanity in the realization of this woman's folly. He appreciated, on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... was the sister of an emigrant, and myself a native of England, he told us we were to pass the night in a church appointed for the purpose, and that on the morrow we should be conveyed to Arras. For a moment all my faculties became suspended, and it was only by an effort almost convulsive that I was able to ask how long it was probable we should be deprived of our liberty. He said he did not know—"but that the raising of the siege of Dunkirk, and the loss of six thousand troops which the French had taken prisoners, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... forward from her bent shoulders; and she peered sometimes at Ann Veronica and sometimes at a photograph of the Axenstrasse, near Fluelen, that hung upon the wall. Ann Veronica watched her face, vaguely sympathizing with her, vaguely disliking her physical insufficiency and her convulsive movements, and the fine eyebrows were knit with a faint perplexity. Essentially the talk was a mixture of fragments of sentences heard, of passages read, or arguments indicated rather than stated, and all of it was served in a sauce of strange ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... towing the Schooner, was just visible in the fog, at the other end of the great sagging hawser. And the sea was rolling, rolling, rolling. And the ship was tossing, tossing, tossing. And Frank's poor stomach, not satisfied with its convulsive efforts to turn him wrong side out the night before, recommenced heaving, heaving, heaving. He clung to the rail of the schooner, and every time it went down, and every time it came up, he seemed to grow dizzier and sicker than ever. He consoled himself by ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... it looked as if even the powerful current would be useless, but when the doctor turned it on full strength there was a convulsive shudder of the body. Then, suddenly the eyes opened, and the voice of the rescued ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... with piercing eye, with high color, with dry lips and a powerful hand, will become excited and convulsive; she represents the genius of classic neurosis; while a young blonde woman, with white skin, is the genius of romantic neurosis; to one belongs the empire gained by nerves, to the other ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... despair ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero feels when he is innocently accused of a crime and the judge is putting on the black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all human ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... his fallen adversary a few words of pointed warning as to ever repeating his offence; then remounted and spurred forward to join Ellen. All her power of keeping up was gone, now that the necessity was over. Her head was once more bowed on her pony's neck, her whole frame shaking with convulsive sobs; she could scarce with great effort keep ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... may care but little for house or shelter, and night dew can never wet a body that passes its days in the water," returned the scout, grasping the shoulder of Heyward with such convulsive strength as to make the young soldier painfully sensible how much superstitious terror had got the mastery of a man usually ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... partly pique at her silencing him, and partly mere unfeeling attention to 'propriety,' which made the servant wish to check the convulsive grasp of the feet, which the master allowed. Underlings are more careful of what they suppose to be their superior's dignity than he is. Much is permitted to love and sorrow, by a prophet, which would be repressed by smaller men. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... now, as before, rolling beneath the arch with frightful impetuosity. As I gazed upon the eddies of the whirlpool, I thought within myself how soon human life would become extinct there; a plunge, a convulsive flounder, and all would be over. When I last stood over that abyss I had felt a kind of impulse—a fascination; I had resisted it—I did not plunge into it. At present I felt a kind of impulse to plunge; but the impulse was of a different kind; it ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... him o'er the plains; No more he joys to bend the twanging bow, To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw; His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove, To wounds inflicted by the god of love. How oft, expressive of the inward smart, Did groans convulsive issue from his heart! How oft did blushes own the sacred flame, How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name! Now presents worthy of the plighted fair, And nuptial robes his busy train prepare— Robes wherewith Livia ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... she admonished her purple-faced and convulsive charge one afternoon when all the world was gold. "Stop it, or mamma will be coming after us, and making us stay on the back porch." But Theodora, in the boastfulness of her new lungs, yelled uninterruptedly ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... the letter wrung some tears from Faith's eyes, but afterwards the effect of the whole was to shake her. She sat down on the couch with the letter fast in her hand, and hid her head; yet no weeping, only convulsive breaths and a straitened breast. Faith was wonderful glad of that letter! but the meeting of two tides is just hard to bear; and it wakened everything as well as gladness. However, in its time, that struggle was over too; and she went down to Mrs. Derrick ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... and we separated at a very late hour. When we reached home, however, Mr. S— was attacked by a violent cholic, a disposition to vomit, convulsive cramp, and general indisposition. ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... Esau was about half-way, when we saw him look down again, and then make quite a convulsive clutch at the rock, against which he now rested motionless, and without making an effort ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... his customers in high glee, and so convulsive was their merriment that they were obliged to hold their sides. Slick laughed too, yet losing no time; in a moment he presented the gentlemen with the sparkling liquor. They took their glasses, drank his health, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... deal an effective blow with his ice-hatchet, which he buried in the skull of the animal, fairly penetrating his brain. The blow accomplished what our shots had not. Bruin fell back, and after a few convulsive struggles, lay dead ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... hard. The neck was not broken, as the body was drawn up without being given a fall, and death came by strangulation. For fully ten minutes after he was strung up the chest heaved occasionally, and there were convulsive movements of the limbs. Finally he was pronounced dead, and a few minutes later Detective Richardson climbed on a pile of staves and cut the rope. The body fell in a ghastly heap, and the crowd laughed at the sound and crowded ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... was away and Jim down with flu. She had to hold the lantern. Straw littered in the half-lighted shed. Cowslip swinging her bald-faced head round to you, her humble, sorrowful eyes imploring, between her groans and the convulsive heavings of her flanks. A noise between a groan and a bellow, a supreme convulsion. The dark wall, the white funnel of light from the lantern, and John's ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... glance fell on the oxygen tank. It took him only a moment to connect a rubber hose to the tank, and in a few seconds a blast of the life-giving gas was blowing into the scientist's face. Dr. Bird gave a convulsive gasp or two ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... she went. She saw what appeared to be a park on ahead, and there she bent her steps. The shady seats among the cool green grasses under the leafy trees looked inviting. She opened the gate and entered. A sudden sense of dizziness stole over her, and her breath seemed to come in quick, convulsive gasps. ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... actor wrapped from head to foot in stage traditions and conventions tries to recite a simple ordinary speech, "To be or not to be," not simply, but invariably with the accompaniment of hissing and convulsive movements all over his body, or when he tries to convince me at all costs that Tchatsky, who talks so much with fools and is so fond of folly, is a very clever man, and that "Woe from Wit" is not ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... marks, which none of you appear to have noticed. Mose did his best, but he could not reach his master in time. The murderer seeing—or rather hearing him, for it must have been dark—was seized with sudden fear, and with a convulsive effort he threw the old man against the rock wall here, where his head struck on this broken stalactite. If you look carefully you can see the marks of blood. He then hurled him into the pool ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... approaches, a yellow or red glairy fluid runs from the vagina (this is a symptom, which rarely, or never, deceives) her breathing becomes laborious and slightly convulsive. The belly has for several days lost its natural rotundity, and has been evidently falling,—she begins to moan,—the pulse becomes small, wiry, and intermittent. At length labor comes on, and is often attended with much difficulty ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... his hand," said Rosamond, and Lenore found the pebble token given to her, and obeyed. At the touch, a quivering trembled over face and form, the eyelids lifted, the eyes met hers, there was a catching of the breath, a shudder and convulsive movement. "He is going," cried his mother, but Anne started forward with drops of strong stimulant, Rosamond rubbed spirit into his forehead, the struggle lessened, the light flickered back into his brown eyes, his fingers closed on hers. "Speak to him," said Mrs. Poynsett. ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been found—and slight mobility. The eyes remained closed. When I opened them, without violence, the pupil was seen to be immobile. It did not react in the least upon the direct light of the sun on either side. The left eye did not move at all, the right made rare, convulsive, lateral movements. The conjunctiva was very much reddened. The child did not react in the least to pricks of a dull needle tried on all parts of the body, and reacted only very feebly to pinches; not at all to sound-stimuli, but regularly to stronger, prolonged ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... a wedge of some kind between the teeth if possible, the handle of a spoon protected by a cloth cover, or a rolled napkin does well. This is to prevent biting the tongue, which the patient is apt to do in unconsciousness with convulsive movements. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... ears was maddening; his brain felt as if it were on fire. How long did it take one to drown? Was there no end to the agony? But Phil came up again, and so did a Florida steer right under him, kicking, bellowing and plunging in its convulsive death-throes, like some ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... slept, And all was peace;—he felt the general calm O'er his rack'd bosom shed a genial balm: When casting far behind his streaming eye, He saw the Grove,—in fancy saw her lie, His Margaret, lull'd in Germain's[3] arms to rest, And all the demon rose within his breast. Convulsive now, he clench'd his trembling hand, Cast his dark eye once more upon the land, Then, at one spring he spurn'd the yielding bank, And in the calm ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... Franconnette? alas! in her cottage, half-dead—cold as marble! holding firmly in her tightened and convulsive grasp the faded ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... process was going on, the rest, leaning on their muskets, were anxiously grouped around the spot where Philips had fallen. At first, only the outline of a man of large stature and proportions could be seen lying in a cramped position, as if produced by some strong convulsive agony, and then when the fire began to kindle and crackle, the dress could be distinguished, and then as the light grew brighter, the scalpless head, and then the marked and distorted features of the murdered master of the house, who lay in a pool of blood that slowly trickled ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... forward from the door, Mrs. Heth gathered her daughter in a convulsive bear-hug, murmuring ecstatic nothings. Little she thought of ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... to the masculine mind-her feminine mood had changed. Elements I had never suspected, in Nancy, awe, even a hint of despair, entered into it, and when my hand found hers again, the very quality of its convulsive pressure seemed to have changed. I knew then that it was her soul I loved most; I had been swept all unwittingly to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... With a convulsive movement he clutched the bottle and uncorked it, and before I could interfere he had drunk nearly ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... of silent villages, in which not a single inhabitant remained. The currency had been debased; the authority of laws and magistrates had been suspended; the whole social system was deranged. For, during that convulsive struggle, everything that was not military violence was anarchy. Even the army was disorganised. Some great generals, and a crowd of excellent officers, had fallen, and it had been impossible to supply their place. The difficulty of finding recruits had, towards the close of the war, been so ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Northumberland, had a poodle which he had instructed to go through all the apparent agonies of dying. He would fall on one side, stretch himself out, and move his hind legs as if he were in great pain; he would next simulate the convulsive throbs of departing life, and then stretch out his limbs and thus seem as if he had expired. In this situation he would remain motionless, until he had his master's ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... chair, his head sunk on his breast. His eyes were hollow, and his face overspread with a horrible sickly greenish pallor, the hue of the last stage of fear. His hands, resting on his knees, twisted and fiddled continually. Every now and then convulsive shudders shook him. The man was quite obviously on the verge ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... mine, loaded with 12,000 pounds of powder, was to be the signal of attack. At eight o'clock this mine was fired, and the effect was terrific; the ground trembled as if agitated by an earthquake, and after it had heaved up with several convulsive throes, the volcanoes burst forth. The whole of the salient angle and the stone cavalier in its rear were lifted into the air, and, after the smoke and clouds of dust had passed away, the bastion with three hundred men were seen precipitated below. The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to shoot through many a masculine bosom. With bending waist, arms gracefully extended forwards, and fingers snapping louder than castanets; with the upper half of the body fixed as to a stake, and with the lower convulsive as a scotched snake, he advanced and retired by a complicated shuffle, keeping time with the tom-tom and jingling his brass anklets, which weighed at least three pounds, and which, by the by, lamed him for several days. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... that Ruth Erskine, the young lady who, according to Mrs. Mitchell, had so quiet, and settled, and peaceful a life, that she coveted it for her daughter, stood in the great hall that was glowing with light and beauty, and caught her breath with an almost convulsive sound, as she rested against a chair for support; her face deathly pale, her eyes bright with a calm that she had forced upon herself, in her solemn determination to try to do just the right thing, say just the right words; her ear had ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... agony. A young pup should be trained just as a child is, and punished when he goes wrong. Dandy began badly, and not being checked in his evil ways, had come so this. Poor Dandy! Poor, handsome dog of a rich master! He opened his dull eyes, gave me one last glance, then, with a convulsive shudder, his torn limbs were still. He would never suffer ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... Jean, with a convulsive leap of his heart, realized that he had left his bloody tracks on the ladder as he had climbed. That moment seemed the supremely terrible ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... knew he could rely upon, and they gathered around Uncle Sheba. His wife was slapping him on the back and chafing his hands, while Kern was splashing water in his face. The unfortunate man began to sneeze, and manifest rather convulsive signs of recovery. At last he blurted out, "Dar now, dar now, Aun' Sheba, doan go on so. I'se gwine to bring ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... visions—confused but realistic in detail, and horridly probable—of his ejectment from the hotel, perhaps arrest and trial. He wondered what they did in Italy to people who "beat" hotels; and, remembering what some one had told him of the dreadfulness of Italian jails, convulsive shudderings seized ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... Meuse): "Anecdotes relatives a la Revolution." "He was dressed like a tough cab-driver. He had a disturbed look and an eye always in motion; he acted in an abrupt, quick and jerky way. A constant restlessness gave a convulsive contraction to his muscles and features which likewise affected his manner of walking so that he didn't walk ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... observed in him, the Minister has not been very judicious in his selection of private correspondents. Figure to yourself a bald-headed personage, about forty years of age, near seven feet high, deaf as a post, stammering and making convulsive efforts to express a sentence of five words, which, after all, his gibberish made unintelligible. His dress was as eccentric as his person was singular, and his manners corresponded with both. He called himself ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... left. The latter, since the drawing-room had been growing empty, had remained ensconced in the depths of an arm-chair, no longer speaking, but overcome by that species of magnetic slumber which stiffened him, and fixed his eyes on something far away beyond the walls. He protruded his face, a convulsive kind of attention seemed to carry it forward; he certainly beheld something invisible, and heard ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... liberty became strongly excited, and he resolved to devote all his energies to the cause, and left Italy in the summer of 1823. He arrived in Missolonghi on January 10th, 1824. On February 15th he was seized with a convulsive fit, which rendered him senseless for some time. On April 9th he got wet, took cold and a fever, on the 11th he grew worse, and on the 19th he died, inflammation of the brain having set in. Among the most ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... moment too long, and this wondrous physical organization finds itself drained of its forces to support them. It does not seem strange that strong men should have died by a single ecstasy of emotion too convulsive, when we bear within us this tremendous engine whose slightest pulsation so throbs in every fibre ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... time except the black seaman at the wheel, who denies having seen her at all. The whole affair is wrapped in mystery. My own theory is that while Mrs. Tibbs was holding the child and standing near the bulwarks it gave a spring and fell overboard, and that in her convulsive attempt to catch or save it, she followed it. I cannot account for the double disappearance in any other way. It is quite feasible that such a tragedy should be enacted without the knowledge of the man at the wheel, since ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... upon the river; the tide was now, as before, rolling beneath the arch with frightful impetuosity. As I gazed upon the eddies of the whirlpool, I thought within myself how soon human life would become extinct there; a plunge, a convulsive flounder, and all would be over. When I last stood over that abyss I had felt a kind of impulse—a fascination; I had resisted it—I did not plunge into it. At present I felt a kind of impulse to plunge; but the impulse was of a different kind; it proceeded from a loathing of life, I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... tore, then stayed. And helpless there Betwixt the silvery moonlight and the ground He hung convulsive, grasping at the air, For two full hours it may be, whilst a hound Of the Great Danish breed, that made no sound Save a deep snarl, below him watching stood (This portion of my dream ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... did hear, except the sobbing breaths, ever more convulsive. Rachel had never before been present with death, and awe and dismay seemed to paralyse her whole frame. Even the words of hope and prayer for which the child's eyes craved from both her fellow-watchers seemed to her a strange tongue, inefficient to reach the misery of this untimely mortal ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the outset, the French Revolution was now guided by demagogues and adventurers, whose only hope of keeping erect lay in constant and convulsive efforts forwards. Worst symptom of all, its armies already bade fair to play the part of the Praetorians of the later Roman Empire. Nothing is more singular at this time than the fear of the troops. Amidst the distress prevalent at Paris, much apprehension ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... in some instances as much as 1,800 feet, and in many places the walls are very precipitous. The rock is gneiss, of a kind that is not easily disintegrated or eroded, nor is there any evidence of any convulsive movement. It is clearly a case of erosion, but not by the present river, which has no fall, for tide water extends 100 miles up the river beyond the Highlands. This therefore was probably a work mainly performed in some past period when the continent was at a higher level. Most likely ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... his last words. There was a slight gasping, a convulsive shuddering passed over his frame, and the spirit of the duke took its flight to the judgment-seat of Christ. The remains were conveyed, with much funereal pageantry, to the vaults of St. Denis, the ancient mausoleum ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... commenced with reparation, not with ruin. Accordingly, the state flourished. Instead of lying as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard even of her former self. An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... twilight a slight bending form, coming down, holding by the balusters. Violet was in her arms, clasping her with a trembling, almost convulsive ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... echoed through the valley like a peal of thunder, he sprang out and rushed at the savages in front, who scattered like chaff right and left. But at the same instant fifty blow-pipes sent their poisoned shafts into his body, and, after a few convulsive bounds, the splendid monarch of the American forests fell dead on the ground. The black jaguar is a somewhat rare animal, and is very seldom seen. This one was therefore hailed as a great prize, and the skin and claws ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... be interrupted in her convulsive attempts at "run-and-back stitching." Winnie was hardly in the house, before Sarah Rowe came out in the ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... until his father had gone, and then, with a gasp of relief, put his head on the table and gave way to them. Convulsive tremours assailed him, and hilarious sobs escaped at intervals from his tortured frame. Ejaculations of "Joan!" and "Poor girl!" showed that he was not entirely bereft of ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... face away, and sat in silence for a minute; but all of a sudden I saw his shoulders begin to heave, his hands worked together, and he broke into convulsive tears. He sobbed so noisily that though the door was already closed, I darted towards it with an instinctive wish to shut out the sound from the ears of the people in the ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... light that surrounded the little body, a marked change was apparent. The inanimate form relaxed suddenly and it seemed that the muscles pulsated with an accession of energy. Then one leg was stretched forth spasmodically. There was a convulsive heave as the lungs drew in a first long breath, and, with that, an astonished and very much alive rodent scrambled to its feet, blinking wondering ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... gone, save one who lingers, Absorbed in deep and silent prayer. As if his heart could find no rest, At times he beats his heaving breast With clenched and convulsive fingers, Then lifts them trembling in the air. A chorister, with golden hair, Guides hitherward his heavy pace. Can it be so? Or does my sight Deceive me in the uncertain light? Ah no! I recognize that face Though Time has touched it in his flight, And changed the auburn hair to ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... every lip. His natural pathos mingled with his baritone in such a manner that it was impossible to tell where one left off and the other began. And in his dramatic numbers, the writhings of his face showed the convulsive agonies of a ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... a convulsive twitching at the corner of his mouth, but he had sworn to himself that he would betray no levity. Brady looked so uncomfortable that his friend pitied him. There is much which disturbs us, chiefly through the sensibility of others. At the end of the singing, a man rose to tell of what ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... which the outlines of the Medusa can be distinctly traced within the transparent ectotheque (external layer); others, again, just casting off this thin outer pellicle, and others completely freed from it, struggling with convulsive efforts to break loose from the colony, and finally launched forth in the full enjoyment of their freedom into the surrounding water. I know of no form in which so many of the characteristic features of a typical hydroid are more finely expressed ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... knife with a convulsive shudder, and turned his eyes on his sleeping sister and brother. Then he thought, as he picked up the knife again, how small an amount of food would suffice to keep these two alive for a few days longer, and surely a sail must come in sight at last; they had waited ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... answered angrily; "Patrick Henry would never do such a cowardly thing." "But this is Patrick Henry," said Mr. Tyler, pointing to him. The old woman was amazed; but after some reflection, and with a convulsive twitch or two at her apron string, she said, "Well, then, if that's Patrick Henry, it must be all right. Come in, and ye shall have the best I have ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... gazed earnestly and tenderly upon his portrait, put it to his lips, and then to his heart, and sighed with a convulsive force. Emily could scarcely believe what she saw to be real. She never knew till now that he had a picture of any other lady than her mother, much less that he had one which he evidently valued so highly; but having looked repeatedly, to be ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... there was a terrific report as the hind tyre of a passing car burst with due violence, a sudden convulsive bound as the Devil leapt with all four feet off the ground, and a thunder of hoofs as, with the bit between his teeth, he cleared for the open just as a man on a sixteen-hand bay turned in ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... and spars, and planks, and other parts of the ship, were seen the forms of numerous human beings, some yet struggling, but struggling in vain, for life; others floating helplessly among the pieces of wreck, or clinging to them with a convulsive clutch, while many, already lifeless, were tossed to and fro in the boiling caldron, happier than those who were seen every now and then, as they were swept off, to throw up their arms, and then, with a fearful shriek of ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... centre the barometer began to rise. Equally rapid was the fall of the wind. When it was no more than a howling gale, the engine lifted up in the air, parted its bed-plates with a last convulsive effort of its forty horsepower, and lay down on its side. A wash of water from the bilge sizzled over it and the steam arose in clouds. The engineer wailed his dismay, but Grief glanced over the wreck affectionately and went into the cabin to swab the grease ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... was a comedian in every look and gesture. The "Malade Imaginaire" was the last of his works. When it was produced upon the stage, the poet himself was really ill, but repressing the voice of natural suffering, to affect that of the hypochondriac for public amusement, he was seized with a convulsive cough, and carried home dying. Though he was denied the last offices of the church, and his remains were with difficulty allowed Christian burial, in the following century his bust was placed in the Academy, and a monument erected to his memory in the cemetery of Pere ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... and then one darts its long bayonet-like beak into the water, invariably drawing it out with a fish between the mandibles; this, after a short convulsive struggle, and a flutter or two of its tail fins, disappearing down ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... shriek of delight he rushed to the box, cut the other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk, and presented it to the terrier. The unfortunate creature's tongue seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been struck ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... toiled at the pumps, others cleared away the extra boat. There was no longer time to repair the other. At this juncture one of the men discovered the same whale about two hundred and fifty fathoms to leeward. He was in a fit of convulsive rage terrible to look upon; leaping, turning, writhing, threshing about in the water, beating it with his mighty tail and great flukes, thundering upon it with all his force, and all the while opening and shutting his enormous jaws, "smiting them ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... stoutest hearts. He felt his strength giving way, his brain beginning to whirl, and he was on the point of yielding himself to his fate; when a stream of smoke and flame accompanied the startling report of a rifle, shot out from the edge of a neighboring thicket. The moose gave a convulsive start, floundered forward on his knees, swayed backward and forward an instant, then fell over broad-side into the bushes with a heavy crash, straightened out, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the smaller pages, a boy of twelve or thirteen, by name Robin Ingoldsby, crossed the court. He had been crying; his face was red and blubbered, and his body was still shaken with convulsive sniffs. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... approaching footsteps and his alarmed ejaculation seemed to bring her to herself. He appeared to have come round the back of the Old Humpey. He was horrified at the sight of her convulsive shivering. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... She must produce entire forgetfulness, and to do this, she must wipe out every association, one by one. She gathered her strength during a short pause. She was greatly encouraged by the fact that the acknowledgment of the delusion had been followed by no convulsive reaction in the body. She was on the very verge of a complete triumph, and the concentration of her will during a few moments longer might win ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... encouraging that noble service which, of all the instruments employed by an English government, is the most impotent for mischief, and the most powerful for good. His administration was glorious, but with no vulgar glory. It was not one of those periods of overstrained and convulsive exertion which necessarily produce debility and languor. Its energy was natural, healthful, temperate. He placed England at the head of the Protestant interest, and in the first rank of Christian powers. He taught every nation to value her friendship and to dread her enmity. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... house, stealthily traversed the passages, and gained the lighted hall. At the very moment that he put his feet on its tessellated floor, a sudden commotion was heard up the stairs. A door was flung open, and Sibylla, with cheeks inflamed and breath panting, flew down, her convulsive cries echoing through the house. She saw Lionel, and threw herself into ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... word the Miami got into the full reach of the storm, halted, gave a convulsive stagger, than plunged into the smother. For a minute or two no one on deck could have told what had happened. The shriek of the hurricane through her cordage, the harsh roaring of the tempest-whipped sea, and the vengeful boom of the waves as ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... gracefully bowed himself out and with a convulsive movement of the cushions Jerome Fandor sprang ...
— A Royal Prisoner • Pierre Souvestre
... what would be the quick, convulsive writhing motion with which one would shrink aside and endeavor to get instantaneously away from it, when told that an asp, a centipede or a young rattlesnake was lying on the shoulder, and ready to strike its deadly fangs into the neck. But it is not easy to imagine that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... eyes. I think he saw the gleam of my pistol, which, though still in my hand, I had no intention of using. A convulsive look of terror passed over his face as he ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... with enjoyment of her convulsive emphasis; but she went on: "I don't think life's worth living if you're to be shut up all your days to the intelligence ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... his instruments for the operation, which must be done quickly, if at all. The boy was unconscious, but every moment or two he broke out in convulsive delirium, giving answers to questions like a man talking in sleep. "Hilda! Hilda!" he cried again and again. "My Hilda, do not ask me that. Thou wouldst not love me if I told thee! Thou wouldst hate ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... was no other way, and with an inarticulate prayer I gripped the strap fast with my other hand and swung myself upwards. A second later although in my agony it seemed an eternity and my hand clutched the pinnacle itself; a wild convulsive scramble and I was up safe . . . and free . . at last! And even as I dragged myself into freedom, the haversack, loosened from its hold, fell with all its precious contents into ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... air was full of black fists smashing him, and not five feet away, the bullet head of Tump Pack bobbed this way and that in the rapid shifts of his attack. A stab of pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense and paralyzed, making convulsive efforts to breathe. At that moment he glimpsed the convexity of Tump's stomach. He drop-kicked at it with foot-ball desperation. Came a loud explosive groan. Tump seemed to rise a foot or two in air, turned over, and thudded down on his shoulders ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero feels when he is innocently accused of a crime and the judge is putting on the black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all human aid is ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... for he was now up against something too strong for him—the sound and sight and feeling of cold water. When we came up, the cutwater was between us, and I didn't see him again, though I heard his convulsive gurgling and screaming from the other side of the ship. Then the sounds stopped, and I think he must have gone under; but I was too busy with myself to speculate much. I was trying to get a finger-nail grip on that smooth, black side slipping by me, but ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... in—I let him p-put the noose around his own neck and tie the knot. Then I hung him." His convulsive giggling was terrible, forecasting, as ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... would only be kind to me sometimes, I could bear it all. If she only smiled on me even once a month, I think I should not complain. But, O, it is so terrible to be locked into your chamber, and stay there day after day for a whole week!" moaned she, with a convulsive quiver. ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... hand as she said mechanically: "It will not matter, it will not matter." The poor girl glanced furtively at the nurse, and trembled as the infant cried, and the remembrance of her sorrow came to her mind occasionally in a convulsive sob, while suppressed ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing, and then comes the 'Why, sir!' and the 'What then, sir?' and the 'No, sir!' and the 'You don't see your way through the ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with an offended God, through the merits and sufferings of Christ. After which he sentenced him to be executed on the fifth day from the close of the assizes. On hearing the last words of the judge, he clutched the dock at which he stood with a convulsive effort; his hands and arms, however, became the next moment relaxed, and he sank down in a state of helpless insensibility. On reviving he found himself in his cell, attended by two of the turnkeys, who felt now more alarmed at his screams and the horror ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... side, and lifted his head out of the dark red pool in which it lay. Even in the dim light I could see the broad, bright eye glazing: the death-pang came very soon; he was too weak to struggle; but a quick, convulsive shiver ran through all the lower limbs, and, with a sickening hoarse gurgle in the throat, the last ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... he! Ye rogue—he! he!" and he shook his fist waggishly at the unconscious gray dog. "I owe ye anither grudge for this—ye've anteecipated me"—and he leant back and shook this way and that in convulsive mirth. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head. It was not a case in which one could afford to take chances, and if he had moved I was about to drop on his ribs with my ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... doubles her thumb under her fingers—folds her fist across it—so—especially when anybody talks about anything alarming? If the conversation happens to turn on jungle fever, or any subject like that, down goes her thumb instantly, and she clasps her fist over it with a convulsive squeeze. At the same time, too, her face twitches. I know what that trick means. She's horribly afraid of tropical diseases, though she ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... in the same lifeless attitude, her eyes fixed, her hands clenched—yearning from the depths of her heart that death would summon her. Suddenly a singular noise, seeming to come from the next room, struck her ear. It was only a convulsive sob, or violent and smothered laughter. The wildest and most terrible ideas crowded to the mind of the unhappy woman; the foremost of them, that her husband had secretly returned, that he knew all—that ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... his eyes; And they stood wide with horrour: and he seized In both his hands the dust which lay around, And threw it on his face, and smirched his hair, His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms: And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, And his sobs choked him, and he clutched his sword To draw it, and for ever let life out. But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hand, And with a soothing voice he spoke, and said 'Father, forbear, for I but meet to-day The doom that at ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... my friend, however, for snatching up the gun that I had lain down beside me, I let it have a charge of buckshot in the neck which nearly cut it in two, so that it fell down and expired with hideous convulsive writhings. ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... I told him your intent, Replying, what he knew of that affair Would give no satisfaction to the king; Then, falling on his knees, begged, as for life, To be dismissed from court: He trembled too, As if convulsive death had seized upon him, And stammered in his abrupt prayer so wildly, That had he been the murderer of Laius, Guilt and distraction could not have ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... no further. Her eyes filled with tears and after seeking in vain to fight them back she burst into convulsive sobs and wept till ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... daughter—lovely, surpassingly lovely in all the blooming beauty of fifteen. The princess, comprehending the peril of the hour, could not sleep. Maria pressed her child to her throbbing heart, and the pride of the queen was soon vanquished by the tenderness of the mother, as with convulsive energy she embraced her, and wept in anguish almost unendurable. Shouts of unfeeling derision arose from the troops below, stationed for the protection of the royal family, and their ears were assailed by ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... gained during their fights, by hunger and frustration and agony. Pain had even marred their song. For what should have been innocence and effortless movement and godlike joy, Mozartean coordination and harmony, was full of terrible cries, and convulsive, rending motions, and shrouding sorrow. And Nietzsche had dreamt of music of another sort. He had dreamt of a music that should be a bridge to the Superman, the man whose every motion would be carefree. He had seen striding ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... not in the manner of its accomplishment. And Robert's brother and sister knew much of his story by heart. It had formed the sole theme of his letters to them for many years past. Mrs. Pendleton's thoughts wandered to afternoon tea. Her husband nodded with closed eyes, and recovered himself with convulsive starts. Austin Turold fixed his glance on the ceiling, where a solitary fly was cleaning its wings with its legs. From the window Charles Turold presented an immobile profile. Only Dr. Ravenshaw seemed to listen with an interest ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... chase, and urge him o'er the plains; No more he joys to bend the twanging bow, To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw; His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove, To wounds inflicted by the god of love. How oft, expressive of the inward smart, Did groans convulsive issue from his heart! How oft did blushes own the sacred flame, How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name! Now presents worthy of the plighted fair, And nuptial robes his busy train prepare— Robes wherewith Livia was herself attired, And those bright dames that to the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... conjecture is that the sounds are produced by snappings and gratings of the big mandibles ("He is gritting his teeth," said a shrewd unornithological Yankee, whose opinion I had solicited), and that the wing movements may be nothing but involuntary accompaniments of this almost convulsive action of the beak. But perhaps the ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... Drops of the tinctura thebaica, were added to each of his Draughts, as the Pain and Difficulty of making Water had increased. On the 26th his Pulse rose, and became very hard and quick; the Pain in his Side, and the Dysuria, became more violent; and about Twelve o'Clock he had a convulsive Fit, resembling that of an Epilepsy; after coming out of the Fit, as the Fever and Pain had increased, he was blooded; the Belly was fomented and embrocated, and he took the oily Draughts four Times a-Day; his Blood ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... gale's very heavy." Then followed a scene. People, helpless in illness a moment before, sprang out of their berths and hastily huddled on their clothes; mothers caught hold of their infants with a convulsive grasp; some screamed, others sat down in apathy, while not a few addressed agonised supplications to that God, too often neglected in times of health and safety, to save them ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... alretty yet again, wasn't it so?" and Mr. Switzer winked at the admiring newsboy, and tossed him a quarter, with the advice to get a pretzel and use it for a watch charm. Whereat the boy went into convulsive laughter again. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Poets; the cruelty of Apollo in flaying Marcias alive is a favourite subject with the antient artists: and the tortures of expiring martyrs have disgraced the modern ones. It requires little genius to exhibit the muscles in convulsive action either by the pencil or the chissel, because the interstices are deep, and the lines strongly defined: but those tender gradations of muscular action, which constitute the graceful attitudes of the body, are difficult to conceive or to execute, except by a master ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... lay unconscious, his form rigid, his face thin and betraying marks of weariness and suffering. The tears rose to the eyes of Jasper as he realized that his father was passing away. As he looked on there was a slight convulsive movement; then repose. In that one moment his father had passed on ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... small enough to be torn down, they levelled them with their trunks, and stripping them of their leaves and branches, they tossed them wildly over their heads on all sides. Some in their struggles made no sound, whilst others bellowed and trumpeted furiously, then uttered short convulsive screams, and at last, exhausted and hopeless, gave vent to their anguish in low and piteous moanings. Some, after a few violent efforts of this kind, lay motionless on the ground, with no other indication of suffering than the tears which suffused their eyes and flowed incessantly. Others in all ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... mad. Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now—and now I am myself a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which I sold my character. God help me! God help me!" He burst into convulsive sobbing, with his ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... hatred of his own condition no more helps to improve it than hatred of other people tends to improve them. If we allowed ourselves to speak in such a case of efficacy at all, we should say that pain perpetuates and propagates itself in various ways, now by weakening the system, now by prompting convulsive efforts, now by spreading to other beings through the contagion of sympathy or vengeance. In fact, however, it merely betrays a maladjustment which has more or less natural stability. It may be instantaneous ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... she has depredated our commerce—she has abused our government, and riveted the chains of bondage on our unhappy fellow citizens! Not content with ravaging and depopulating the fairest countries of Europe, not yet satiated with the contortions of expiring republics, the convulsive agonies of subjugated nations, and the groans of her own slaughtered citizens, she has spouted her fury across the Atlantic; and the stars and stripes of Independence have almost been attacked in our harbours! When we have demanded reparation, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... and in some degree submit to it. But while I humble myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive struggles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and repented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbors of his ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... and chest under the uplifted jaw of the jaguar it went—through heart and lungs. Then with a great coughing, sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... constructor of ma-chines and engines. Mort'gaged (pro. mor'gajd), given as security for debt. 9. Ging'ham, a kind of cotton cloth which is dyed before it is woven. 10. Pan'to-mime, acting without speaking, dumb show. 12. Hys-ter'ic-al, convulsive, fitful. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of the "pain-luller" was discovered by an accident. A little girl carrying a pet Nebo was knocked down, and the wheel of a chariot passed over her legs. In a convulsive effort to save her pet, the child pressed it to her bosom with so much force that she broke, the bird's skin. When the people ran to her assistance, and lifted her up, they found that both her legs were broken. To the ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... she was automatically occupied with the trousers she was making on the machine, her face became animated, her mouth opened slightly, her nostrils dilated, her feet moved the pedals with constantly increasing rapidity. Soon I saw a convulsive look in her eyes, her eyelids were lowered, her face turned pale and was thrown backward; hands and legs stopped and became extended; a suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh, was lost in the noise of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... him back to life; and life Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, And they stood wide with horror; and he seized In both his hands the dust which lay around, 700 And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair,— His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword, To draw it, and for ever let life out. 705 But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, And with a soothing voice ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... great man because he has not provided for her in a princely style, "pour se beaux yeux;" for it must be admitted, that she can boast as fine a pair of black eyes as ever were seen. The circumstance of this taste for materialism, is as unfortunate to the possessor, as a convulsive nod of the head once was to a rich gentleman, who was never without being engaged in some law suit or other, for lots knocked down to him at auctions, owing to his incessant and involuntary noddings at these places. The fat ladies wish the ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the basilisk glance. A courageous and even a defiant woman, Mrs Swann was taken aback. She could not possibly tell Mrs Clayton Vernon that she was the bearer of hot potatoes to her son. She scarcely knew Mrs Clayton Vernon, had only met her once at a bazaar! With a convulsive unconscious movement her right hand clenched nervously within her muff and crushed the rich mealy potato it held until the flesh of the potato was forced between the fingers of her glove. A horrible sticky ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... Gwendoline. She opened her eyes and stared aghast at her mother. And well she might, for the effect was electrical. Mrs. Gildersleeve was sitting there, transfixed with awe and some unspeakable alarm; her figure was rigid; her face was dead white; her mouth was drawn down with a convulsive twitch; she clasped her bloodless hands on her knees in mute agony. For a moment she sat there like a statue of flesh. Then, as sense and feeling came back to her by slow degrees, she could but rock her body up and down in her chair with a short swaying motion, and mutter over and over ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... half-hidden behind a dead trunk, was carefully examining the top of an ebony-tree. At this moment l'Encuerado placed his gun to his shoulder and fired. He had taken good aim—an animal came tumbling down about ten paces from us, spreading out, in its convulsive movements, the membrane which joined its legs together and covered it almost ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... his task was easy and brief, for they were already of his mind. But the great mass of ignorance and prejudice had also to be reckoned with. By a work in which the influence of the divine Spirit was quite as manifest as in the convulsive agitations of a camp-meeting, it was dealt with successfully. Church history moved swiftly in those days. The news of the accession of Judson and Rice was received in January, 1813. In May, 1814, the General Missionary Convention of the Baptists ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... lucky comrade's hand, and withdrew to the farthest corner. Bland and Mooney were for a few moments occupied with the rope—doubtless preparing for escape by means of it. The silence was broken only by the convulsive jangling of Bland's irons—he was shuddering violently. At last Mooney spoke again, in strangely soft and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the constancy of glowing tenderness with which, in all his wanderings, woes, and glory, he cherished the love of his sister Augusta, Mrs. Leigh. She remained unalterably attached to him through the dreadful storm of unpopularity which drove him out of England. With what convulsive gratitude he appreciated her fond fidelity, he has expressed with that passionate richness of power which no other could ever equal. Four of his most splendid poems were composed for her and addressed ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... co-operation, and when its success has been realized, it may be accounted the most important social event of the century, for it will be the dawn of peace to a warring world, the promise of harmony between all the restless and convulsive elements of civilized society. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... transformed into shivering intensities. She danced like the wine-steeped Noah; she danced as danced David before the Ark of the Covenant. And she was Herodias pirouetting for the price of John's head, and her brow was wreathed with serpents. Followed the convulsive curvings of the Nautch and the opaque splendours of stately Moorish slaves. Debora threw her watcher into a frenzy of fear. He crouched under a sky that roofed him in with its menacing blackness; the orbs ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... series. All that remains, combining originality and value, of Mesmer's art, is, that it furnishes the surest method of inducing this particular condition of the system. Employed with collateral means calculated to shake the nerves and excite the imagination, mesmerism causes the same variety of convulsive and violent seizures which extremes of fanatical frenzy excite; when it is employed in a gentle form and manner, with accessaries that only soothe and tranquillise, the most plain and unpretending form of trance quietly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... which he uttered in the affair. With a rush Waters cleared the sidewalk and was upon him, had him by the pulp of clothes which enveloped him and tore him across the wheel to the ground. They went down together across the curb, legs in the gutter among the wheels, a convulsive bundle of battle that tore apart and whirled together again as the American, with all the long-compressed springs of his being suddenly released and vibrant, poured his resentment and soul-soreness into his fists and found balm for them in the mere ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... rang out sharp and clear on the intense silence of the night, and in another second the great brute had landed on his head within four feet of us, and rolling over and over towards us, was sending the bushes which composed our little fence flying with convulsive strokes of his great paws. We sprang out of the other side of the 'skerm,' and he rolled on to it and into it and then right through the fire. Next he raised himself and sat upon his haunches like a great dog, and began to roar. Heavens! how he roared! I never heard anything like it before ...
— Hunter Quatermain's Story • H. Rider Haggard
... been a cruel, licentious, and rapacious prince, the nation might have found courage in despair, and might have made a convulsive effort to free itself from military domination; but the grievances which the country suffered, though such as excited serious discontent, were by no means such as impel great masses of men to stake their lives, their fortunes, and the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... body, landed in the midst of his broad white shirt-bosom. And with the tea-pot Dominick hurled his favorite epithet from his garbage barrel of language. With a yell Jamieson crashed over backward; his flying legs, caught by the table, tilted it; his convulsive kicks sent it over, and half the diners, including Dominick, were ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... juncture, perhaps I was less so. The long days of loneliness in waste Glen Aline, and too many solitary cigarettes, had probably injured my nerve. So, when I suddenly heard a sigh and the half-smothered sound of a convulsive cough-hollow, if ever a cough was hollow—hard by me, at my side as it were, and yet could behold no man, nor any place where a man might conceal himself—nothing but moor and sky and tufts of rushes—then ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... almost on the brink—he had hardly a moment to coil, but he shot across the gulf with a convulsive leap that carried his rider over, with nothing—absolutely nothing—to spare. He made the farther side with three feet—the left hind foot slumped on the edge of the bank and down went ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... carry insane bugs, lame toads, and convulsive kittens in your hands, and they would not stay on a stretcher if you had one. You should have an ambulance and be a branch of the Sanitary ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... to take her away. I placed her down on the floor, where she remained silent, moving her head up and down with a slow motion, her face buried in her shawl. It was but now and then that you heard a convulsive drawing of her breath. Old Tom had remained a silent but agitated spectator of the scene. Every muscle in his weather-beaten countenance twitched convulsively, and the tears at last forced their way through the deep furrows on his ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was still beating feebly; and as she was a well-made, apparently healthy infant, we had every hope of recovering her. And we were not disappointed. She began to move her little legs and arms with short, convulsive motions. ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked them, and continued to look in his face for the ray of hope that was ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... his position. He sprang from his horse, unslung his rifle, took calm and sure aim, and just at the moment when the Indian was reaching his covert, the sharp report was heard, the bullet whistled through the air, the Indian gave one convulsive bound and fell dead upon the sod. The savage had already cocked his rifle. As he fell the piece was discharged, and the bullet intended for Carson's heart, whizzed harmlessly through the air. Such scenes were of constant occurrence in this wild mountaineer life. They produced no lasting ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... to attract the attention of the hindermost creature. It turned, and the light from the moon, coming through the half-open door of her bedroom, shone on its glittering eyes and white teeth. It sprang towards her. With one convulsive bound Tina cleared the threshold of a room immediately behind her, dashed the door to—locked it—barred it—flung a chair against it; and stood in an agony, for which no words exist. She seemed to see, all in a moment, herself safe, and her ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... this part intensely, and cries of "Go it, Ben!" "Hit him again, Billy!" "Two against one isn't fair!" "Thorny's a match for em." "Now he's down, hurray!" cheered on the combatants, till, after a terrific struggle, the tyrant fell, and with convulsive twitchings of the scarlet legs, slowly expired, while the ladies sociably fainted in each others arms, and the brothers waved their swords and shook hands over the corpse ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... where a circular wall of foliage, rising behind stone benches, hemmed in a fountain, above which a marble antique warrior was lifting in his arms a marble girl, who struggled against that seizure with a convulsive energy, while her upturned face wore a look of happiness. Lawrence Teck made ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... promised a brilliant future, when his style and method should both ripen; a promise that had not, so far, been kept by two or three succeeding ventures launched on these doubtful waters. Hon. Jere Clemens, of Alabama, had commenced a series of strong, if somewhat convulsive, stories of western character. "Mustang Gray" and "Bernard Lile," scenting strongly of camp-fire and pine-top, yet had many advantages over the majority of successful novels, then engineered by northern publishers. Marion Harland, as her nom de plume went, was, however, the most popular of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... doubt that was just what I wanted. I used to wriggle along in a most unseemly fashion, like an eel, continually moving aside to make way for generals, for officers of the guards and the hussars, or for ladies. At such minutes there used to be a convulsive twinge at my heart, and I used to feel hot all down my back at the mere thought of the wretchedness of my attire, of the wretchedness and abjectness of my little scurrying figure. This was a regular martyrdom, a continual, ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... have been glad to see a little of what appeared—to know something of what to expect. Once or twice she struggled to raise her head; but this only made the convulsive clasp closer than before. All she knew was, that Pierre or the men on the box seemed to speak, from time to time; ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... coolie balanced himself over it. He had nearly reached the opposite bank when there was a crash. The tree broke, and the man was in the water, frightened and screaming pitifully, clutching a branch with convulsive fingers. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... hesitation saved them, so quickly and well was it used by Jack. He had his rifle already at his shoulder. As the flame sprang up, his quick eye brought the sights to bear on the huge, round head of the crouching tiger. He touched the trigger, and the rifle spoke. The great tiger gave one convulsive shudder, but did not move. There was a general thrill of terror among the party. Had Jack missed, or only grazed him? If it was so, he would spring at once, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... with the conical bullets of our hard-hitting muskets. The boys would aim at a point just behind the fore-shoulder, the ball would strike the mark with a loud "whack," a jet of blood would spurt high in the air, the alligator would give a convulsive flounce,—and disappear. It had doubtless got its medicine. But this "alligator practice" didn't last long. Gen. Kimball, on learning the cause, sent word mighty quick from the headquarters boat to "Stop that firing!"—and ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... I saw that I must apply force to this horse, and that I might as well begin first as last. I plucked a stout switch from a tamarind tree, and the moment he saw it, he surrendered. He broke into a convulsive sort of a canter, which had three short steps in it and one long one, and reminded me alternately of the clattering shake of the great earthquake, and the sweeping plunging of the Ajax in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have teased this snake a few moments with my cane, it seems to be seized with an epileptic or cataleptic fit. It throws itself upon its back, coiled nearly in the form of a figure eight, and begins a series of writhings and twistings and convulsive movements astonishing to behold. Its mouth is open and presently full of leaf-mould, its eyes are covered with the same, its head is thrown back, its white belly up; now it is under the leaves, now out, the body all the while being rapidly drawn ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
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