"Convulsive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... A convulsive trembling seized the Cardinal's mortal frame—but the soul within him was strong and invincible. With hands outstretched he turned to Manuel,—and lo!—the boy was moving away from him— moving slowly but resolutely up towards the Cross! Breathless, speechless, the aged Felix ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... 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
... convulsive grasp at a rope, and just saved himself from falling overboard, for a vigorous snatch made by a large fish at his bait had been quite sufficient to disturb his equilibrium, his activity alone saving him from a terrible ducking, if not from ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... 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
... A convulsive spasm choked his utterance; and as she seated herself beside him on the grass, his head sunk upon her lap, as in other years, and the proud man's spirit was humbled and subdued like that of a ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... 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 |
