"Faintness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... its Effects are far more speedy; for if a Person, for Example, fatigued with long and hard Labour, or with a violent Agitation of Mind, takes a good Dish of Chocolate, he shall perceive almost instantly, that his Faintness shall cease, and his Strength shall be recovered, when Digestion is hardly begun. This Truth is confirmed by Experience, tho' not so easily explained by Reasoning, because Chocolate sensibly appears to be soft, heavy, and very little disposed by any active Quality to put the Spirits in ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... not hear her. A faintness and numbness that seemed like death, which had been creeping languidly through his veins for some time, darkened his eyes and sealed his lips. He could not see her, and her voice sounded far away. She called again and again upon him, but there was no answer. The deep roar ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... shoulders with the hard leathern thongs of their scourges; and a faintness came over Flora Francatelli when she observed the blood appear on the back of the young and beautiful penitent who had given the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... in the front parlor where the dead girl lay, and as I took my way thither I felt the same sensations of faintness which had so nearly overcome me on the previous occasion. But I mastered them, and was quite myself before I ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... father's shoulder; a strange, dull sound in his head overpowered him; a slight faintness seemed to blow over his face; his eyes were fixed and glassy, and he became unconscious. Mr. Mortimer changed color, and hastily catching the falling boy, he carried him to the sofa. Dr. Wilkinson sent Reginald immediately for some water, but before he could return, and ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... since the fatal turn of little Minna's illness, Averil had been subject to distressing attacks of gasping and rigidity, often passing into faintness; and though at the moment of emotion she often showed composure and self-command, yet that nature always thus revenged herself. Suspense—letters from home or from Henry—even verses, or times connected with the past, would almost ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute, lancinating pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat and strove in vain to stifle a groan. On this the child, who had hitherto seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike, knelt by my side to support ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... more and more mighty, and their warriors came up against the City of Kalydon, and would no longer suffer the people to come without the walls. And everywhere there was faintness of heart and grief of spirit, for the enemy had wasted their fields and slain the bravest of the men, and little store remained to them of food. Day by day Oineus besought his son, and the great men of the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... breathing time, and rest for a little season. Here have I drained deep draughts out of the springs of life. Here, as of old, while still unacquainted with toil and faintness, Stretched are my veins with strength, fearless my heart and at peace. I have come back from the crowd, the blinding strife and the tumult, Pain, and the shadow of pain, sorrow in silence endured; Fighting, at last I have fallen, and sought the breast of the Mother,— ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in the soft mass through which he was struggling, panting with exhaustion. He shouted when he gained the top of the ridge. Up through the white blur of snow on the other side there came to him faintly a shout; yet, in spite of its faintness, Jan knew ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... with a voice that, in its faintness and steadiness, had a sound of anguish—'only think what I allowed him to make me do! To insult my father and his choice! It was a mistake, I know,' she continued, fearing to be unjust and to grieve Louis; 'but ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... went on, our victual decreasing and the air breeding great faintness, we grew weaker and weaker, when we had most need of strength and ability. For hourly the river ran more violently than other against us, and the barge, wherries, and ship's boat of Captain Gifford and Captain Caulfield had spent ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... some such stand in the presence of all who have known me in days past, as this which you have taken. My first and only wish is henceforth to live but for Him, who has graciously drawn my wandering affections to Himself.... You speak of the faintness of your heart—but "they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," and I do believe the truth of these precious words; not only because they are those of God, but also because my own experience ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... hands, and yet save our oath, if thou depart thence by the landward gate before sunset. Will this serve thee? Fair sir, said Birdalone, it will save my life and mine errand; I may say no more words for my faintness, else would ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... wallop the rains. Oh, this pain!—this faintness! She now comprehended the feeling which had so often overcome the fair ladies of England when enmeshed in some frightful situation. They, on such upsetting occasions, had ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... half dazed. I hardly heard what they were saying. My heart danced like the elephant. Then it stood still within me. I was only aware of a feeling of faintness. Luckily for my reputation as a mighty sportswoman, however, I just managed to keep up, and did not actually faint, as I was more than half inclined ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... rising and falling, grew higher and higher as they approached it; the noise and the dull roar of the breakers became more and more deafening, and a feeling of faintness crept over Elizabeth as she looked towards the land, and began to realise ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... over mind. The throbbing pulses, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts, that surround the unamiable—what a cloud of witnesses is here! and what plea shall avail against them? The terror of innocents who should know no fear—the vindictive emotions of dependants who dare not complain—the faintness of heart of life-long companions—the anguish of those who love—the unholy exultation of those who hate,—what an array of judges is here! and where can appeal be lodged against their sentence? Is pride of singularity a rational plea? Is super-refinement, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... the shop upstairs was agreeably refreshing after the vitiated atmosphere of the dining-room; it saved her from faintness. Happily, she was sent down to tea at a quarter to four, to find that this, by a lucky accident, was stronger and warmer than the tepid stuff with which she had been served at breakfast. As the hours wore on, Mavis noticed that most of the girls seemed to ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... waves had met, and rising high in the air in their furious contact, had fallen with terrific force, sweeping her and her rescuer into the boiling surf. Valmai became unconscious at once, but Cardo's strong frame knew no sense of swooning nor faintness. His whole being seemed concentrated in a blind struggle to reach the land—to save Valmai, though he was fighting under ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... wakened early, with a faintness in her chest. This was the day on which she must acquit herself well. Breakfast would be Claude's last meal at home. At eleven o'clock his father and Ralph would take him to Frankfort to catch the train. She was longer than usual in dressing. When she got downstairs Claude and ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... faint; I die! my labouring Breast Is with the mighty Weight of Love opprest: I feel the Fire possess my Heart, And pain conveyed to every Part. Thro' all my Veins the Passion flies, My feeble Soul forsakes its Place, A trembling Faintness seals my Eyes, And Paleness dwells upon my Face; Oh! let my Love with pow'rful Odours stay My fainting lovesick Soul that dies away; One Hand beneath me let him place, With t'other press me ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... hand which held Ruth's was clasped more tightly, and a groan smote on the listeners' ears. The room reeled—a faintness came over the heroic child; but she was ...
— The Big Nightcap Letters - Being the Fifth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus. At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to take the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of the battle, [49] the Praetorian guards, almost by an involuntary impulse, asserted the superiority of their valor and discipline. The rebel ranks were broken; when ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... too, but poor imaginative Ben had somehow fancied it would be with his brother as with the King who guarded that other sacred Cup, and when all was over, was quite disappointed that Stead needed his strong arm as much as ever, nay more, for on coming out into the air and sunshine a faintness and exhaustion came on, and they had to rest him in the porch before he ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly, made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some sense of her kindness, by saying, "Poor Elinor! how unhappy I ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Harson, "has a relative in Asia whose acquaintance I wish you to make, and you know it already in one of its products, which is common in every household. It is also very fragrant—or rather, I should say, it has a strong aromatic odor which is very reviving in cases of faintness or illness, although it has quite a contrary effect on insects, particularly on mosquitoes. I should like to have some one tell me what this ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... made preparations to cut out the glass to preserve it, it seemed to contain a number of minute points and several more or less broken parallel lines. The edges gradually trailed off into an indistinct faintness. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... He had been seen to start at the discharge, as if the report had frightened him. But he neither stopped nor slackened his pace in the least, and ran on full forty yards further. Then, without one reel or stagger, or sign of faintness, or quivering ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... in a hungry despair, around the empty room—or, rather, I should have said, in that faintness which makes food at once essential and loathsome; for despair has no proper hunger in it. The room seemed as empty as his life. There was nothing for his eyes to rest upon but those bundles and bundles of dust-browned papers on the shelves before him. What ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... forming it before a mirror into the most horrible contortions. He was crazy both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the falling sickness. When he arrived at the age of manhood, he endured fatigue tolerably well; but still, occasionally, he was liable to a faintness, during which he remained incapable of any effort. He was not insensible of the disorder of his mind, and sometimes had thoughts of retiring to clear his brain [453]. It is believed that his wife Caesonia administered to him a love potion which threw him ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... expiring, it was with reluctance he permitted himself to be carried into the rear, where he displayed, in the agonies of death, the most anxious solicitude concerning the fate of the day. Being told that the enemy was visibly broken, he reclined his head, from extreme faintness, on the arm of an officer standing near him; but was soon roused with the distant cry of "they fly, they fly." "Who fly?" exclaimed the dying hero. On being answered "the French." "Then," said he, "I depart content;" and, almost ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... possessed the power of imposing the hypnotic sleep and had exercised that gift upon him, unexpectedly and against his will. He would have more willingly supposed that he had been the victim of a momentary physical faintness, for the idea of having been thus subjected to the influence of a woman, and of a woman whom he hardly knew, was repugnant to him, and had in it something humiliating to his pride, or at least to his vanity. But he could not ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... nerves; by overexertion; or by alcoholism. It may also be due to general debility; the woman resists fatigue less easily, and she experiences a general malaise. To the palpitations are rapidly added faintness and shortness of breath. The sleep is troubled with distress in the region of the heart. It is said that women in whom the menopause occurs early are more liable to tachycardia than those who menstruate later in life; and that it occurs with especial frequency when ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... said Ferdiad: "I fall for that!" Then Cuculain ran towards him, and clasped his two arms about him, and bore him with his arms and armor across the ford northwards. Cuculain laid Ferdiad down there, bowing over his body in faintness and weakness. But the charioteer cried to him, "Rise up, Cuculain, for the host is coming upon us, and it is not single combat they will give thee, since Ferdiad, son of Daman, son of Daire, has fallen ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... three at a time. It was in November when my turn came. I never liked to go into the kirkyard after darkening, let-a-be sit through a long winter night with none but the dead around us. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and downsinking about my heart and stomach, to the dispelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... his men repeatedly against the rebels, and was as often forced back, until the ground over which his division had fought was covered with dead. He was thrice wounded, but refused to be carried from the field until faintness from loss of blood obliged him to ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... after midnight he would throw himself back in reveries —tallied him, and shall he escape? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... away to her room. She did not guess the cause of Joe's faintness, but supposed it to be a momentary indisposition, amenable to the effects of eau-de-cologne. She made her lie upon the great cretonne sofa, moistening her forehead, and giving her a bottle ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... had striven to force her to return to civilization. Away from Ronador? It might be. How insistently the Baron had urged him to linger in her camp! To spy? A great wave of faintness swept over her. And there was Arcadia and the hay-camp and the mildly impudent indignities—they all slipped accurately ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... been the concealment afforded by the engines that permitted three of the enemy to get so close. The only warning the Terrestrians had was a faint pink haze as they stepped around the corner of an engine; and a sudden feeling of faintness swept over them. They leaped back, out of sight, peering around the corner with nerves and muscles tensed. There was no ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... A sudden faintness seized her. She grew dizzy and almost fell. A more terrible memory had come behind. The thought was like ravens flapping their black wings on her brain. She felt her temples beating against her hands. They seemed to be sucking the life ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... his muscles grew taut, for the other voice was that of Conscience and it shook with terrified unevenness and a tremulous faintness like the leaping and weakening of a fevered pulse. He could tell that she was talking guardedly with her lips ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... it with heavy eyes. (Where was he now—where was he now?—This repeating itself in the far chambers of her brain.) Her sight seemed dimmed, not only by the mist, but by a sinking faintness which possessed her. She did not remember how little food she had eaten during more than twenty-four hours. Her habit was heavy with moisture, and clung to her body; she was conscious of a hot tremor passing over her, and saw that her ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dumb. He felt a kind of faintness come over him. "You will leave me all alone?" he said in ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... subscribe, Manardus, and [4328]many others; "it takes away sadness, and makes him merry that useth it; I have seen some that have been much diseased with faintness, swooning, and melancholy, that taking the weight of three grains of this stone, in the water of oxtongue, have been cured." Garcias ab Horto brags how many desperate cures he hath done upon melancholy ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... which had come upon Paul Burton was the faintness of death, and there were those among the merry-makers who could not forget the grotesque attitude of which they had caught a glimpse, and who found ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... thank you——" The girl attempted to lift the hand to which she still clung to her lips, but a deadly faintness seized her. She trembled, grew pale, and fell in an unconscious heap ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... statue of black marble, with wimple and face and hands of alabaster, she stood so breathlessly still. Her heart did not seem to beat; her blood was stagnant in her veins. She felt no faintness. Her observation was unnaturally keen, her mind dazzlingly clear; her brain seemed to work with twice its ordinary power. She thought. He glanced at the shabby watch he wore upon the steel lip-strap, and waited. She was aware of the action, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... that: but certainly I know A mind, that has been feeling for long time The greatness of some hovering event Poised over life, will rejoice marvellously When the event falls, suddenly seizing life: Like faintness when a thunderstorm comes down, That turns to exulting when the lightning flares, Shattering houses, making men afraid. And this is my event: I am its choice. Yea, not as a storm, but as an eagle ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... "A faintness seizes all {animals}; both in the woods, in the fields, and in the roads, loathsome carcases lie strewed. The air is corrupted with the smell {of them}. I am relating strange events. The dogs, and the ravenous ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... yourself. Yet I should have liked to see you, and so would Anne. Emily continues much the same; yesterday I thought her a little better, but to-day she is not so well. I hope still, for I must hope—she is dear to me as life. If I let the faintness of despair reach my heart I shall become worthless. The attack was, I believe, in the first place, inflammation of the lungs; it ought to have been met promptly in time. She is too intractable. I do wish I knew her state and feelings more clearly. The ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... to another, never raising his voice nor altering its key, till a sense of dizziness overcame his audience, and his voice became as the singing in one's ears which accompanies high fever or heralds a faint. Indeed I have never suffered from fever or faintness since that date without my sensations recalling Gresham's dreary, argumentative drawl; then gradually his voice would grow fainter and somewhat spasmodic, until at length it gave way to snores, as the weary Lamb and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... new-made nun was in a blaze of light and distinct on the foreground, so that we could mark each varying expression of her face, the crowd in the church, and the comparative faintness of the light, probably made it difficult for her to distinguish her mother; for, knowing that the end was at hand, she looked anxiously and hurriedly into the church, without seeming able to fix her eyes on any particular object, while her mother seemed as if her eyes were glazed, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... given Etta no sign of recognition, but the horror in his once-handsome face, now white and drawn, told of his shock at finding her with me, and fear and recoil weakened him to the point of faintness. In his effort to recover himself, to resist what might be coming, he struggled as one for breath, but from him came ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... white teeth clicked together in its brain, and she sauntered slowly out of sight, bearing her latest victim in her mouth. It was hideous. To eat vegetables was natural enough, but to eat living, quivering flesh! A sickening faintness crept over him, and it was full an hour before he could leave ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... the dressing-room—the door communicating with her own room, not that communicating with mine. She had evidently started to come to my assistance when faintness ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... representative of life in that place of the dead so filled him with horror that he turned and fled to his canoe. Nor did he pause in his flight until he had covered many miles of water, and was compelled to do so by the faintness of hunger. ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... round me. I clung to him as to a rock, for of a truth I had never felt a grasp so steady and withal so gentle and kindly, as was his around my shoulders. I tried to murmur words of thanks, but again that wretched feeling of sickness and faintness overcame me, and for a second or two it seemed to me as if I were slipping into another world. The stranger's voice came to my ear, as it were ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... doubting Christian, "weakness and faintness as to my graces; my faith, my hope, my love and desires to these and all other Christian duties, are weak: I am like the man in the dream, that would have run, but could not; that would have fought, but could not, and that would have ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... would have been well if faintness and weariness had been all that was the matter; but now that the excitement was over, the collapse came; and the men sat down listlessly and sulkily by twos and threes upon the deck, starting and wincing when they heard ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... them from her upper window, and the sight of them walking about in the field had produced an acute physical feeling of nausea and faintness; for her fear lest the field should be built upon and the last seclusion spoilt, had already made one of those deep ruts in the mind along which every thought runs when not actually driven in another direction. ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... me tremble!" said Adam, drawing his breath from chest-depths. "Will I ever grow to glimpse at you without having the blood spurt quick from me hairt, or to touch you without this faintness o' joy? And don't mock me wi' your eyes, bonnie wee one, for it's bonnie wee one you'll be to me when you're a fat auld woman the size of yonder mountain. And that changes the laughter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... desolate waste upon which I could see no track, which my heart fainted to look at, which no longer roused any hope in me, as if it might lead to another beginning, or any place in which yet at the last it might be possible to live. As I lay in that horrible giddiness and faintness, I loathed life and this continuance which brought me through one misery after another, and forbade me to die. Oh that death would come,—death, which is silent and still, which makes no movement and hears no sound! that I might end and be no more! Oh that I could go back ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... could but listen, frightened all the time at the faintness of her solemn resolution, which had seemed so irrevocable when she made it. He frankly demanded the reason for her change of conduct toward him. And she, like an honest and simple-hearted girl, told the other love story with a trembling voice, while ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... seem to be all over, for the fresh boats had reached the steamer, and their men were swarming over the side, when suddenly the remembrance of his orders flashed across old Dick's clouded brain, bringing with it renewed strength, for the faintness seemed to ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... might be of some avail! She wondered that she was not more frightened, for in sooth it was a dreary prospect before her: long and countless years must pass ere again she heard the sound of voices, again saw the light of the sun! She was half awake and half dreaming; the faintness of her swoon yet upon her, the repose following her great weariness, and the lightness of her brain from want of food, made her indifferent-almost happy. She could lie so a long ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... of pity and distress. Josephine put her hand to her bosom, and a creeping horror came over her, and then a faintness. She sat working mechanically, and turning like ice within. After a few minutes of this, she rose with every appearance of external composure and left the room. In the passage she met Rose coming hastily towards the salon laughing: the first time she had laughed this ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... "I will fetch you a glass of negus," and disappeared. He had not thought to bring a chair, and she, looking about with an increasing faintness and finding none, saw that she was standing by the door of a small side-room. The crowd swerved back for the passage of the legate of France, and pressed upon her. She opened ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... easy to overcome the faintness that had seized upon her. When at last she did open her eyes, it was only to close them again in ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... supposes, in taking presents contrary to law, and in taking bonds for them as his own, contrary to what he admits to be truth and fact, that he might have acted without any distinct motive at all, or at least such as his memory could reach at that distance of time. That immense distance, in the faintness of which his recollection is so completely lost as to set him guessing at his motives for his own conduct, was from the 15th of January, 1781, when the bonds at his own request were given, to the date of this letter, which is the 22d of May, 1782,—that ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... At last I thought that I discovered one at the spot from which the crate had fallen. I clambered up one huge bale, then got on another, and I was then on a higher level than I had been since I first fell into the hold. I was rejoiced at the prospect of liberating myself, when a faintness came over me, and I sank down on the ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... and placing it upon the spot where the pain seemed most severe, it came in contact with a cold, slimy mass of what he at once knew to be blood. His first effort to rise was accompanied by a feeling of faintness, that caused him to stretch himself again upon the floor, where he lay for some time endeavouring to collect his scattered senses. After he had fully comprehended the meaning of his alarming situation, he made another and more successful ...
— Who Are Happiest? and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... consciousness of the face of Berenice, warm against his bosom, and with each wave of faintness he struggled to keep his senses that he might protect her. The din of noises seemed far away, the cries somewhere at a distance ever increasing. The moans that had seemed to him those of the girl who clutched his arm grew fainter, until they were lost in the ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... close my eyes. Dearest Ursula, there is such a dreadful smell! Oh, Ursula, it is such a smell! I do so wish thou couldst smell it! Good-night, my angel!——Dearest! I have found them! They are apples!" The smell of roses, of peonies, of lilies, has been known to cause faintness. The sight of various objects has had singular effects on some persons. A boar's head was a favorite dish at the table of great people in Marshal d'Albret's time; yet he used to faint at the sight of one. It is not uncommon ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... say how, through her sleepless hours at night, When rain or leaves were dropping, every noise Seemed like an omen; every coming step Fell on her ears like a presentiment And every hand that rested on the door She fancied was a herald bearing grief; While every letter brought a faintness on That made her gasp before she opened it, To read the story written for her eyes, And cry, or brighten, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... away, decided me to punish him if I could. I did so! I was not conscious that I was hurt myself, until I saw him falling!—I then felt a heavy and numbing sensation in the same thigh which had been touched before. A faintness relieved me from present sensibility, and when I became conscious, I found myself in the carriage, supported by Kingsley and the surgeon, on my way to my lodgings. My wound was a flesh wound only; the ball was soon extracted, and in a few weeks after, I was ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... 1588. The suddenness of his death gave rise to a suspicion that it was caused by poison; and Ben Jonson tells a story that he had given his wife 'a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he died.' ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... apple blossoms were plucked from the branches, more slowly the springtime steps were taken, and before she reached a point in the music where she could stop, Patty was swaying from faintness, not by design. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... negotiations on the subject, the plan was abandoned, each party charging the other with declining the contest. The queen and Bothwell, in the mean time, found such evidences of strength on the part of their enemies, and felt probably, in their own hearts, so much of that faintness and misgiving under which human energy almost always sinks when the tide begins to turn against it, after the commission of wrong, that they began to feel disheartened and discouraged. The queen sent to the opposite camp with a request that a certain personage, the Laird of ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on both their faces, and in the ears of each the blood sang madly. A haze, as from the dropping of a shade, seemed to have formed and hung over the room, and in unison sounds from without acquired a certain faintness, like that born of distance. Through it all the two men sat motionless, watching the candle and the time, as the fascinated bird watches its charmer; as the subject watches the hypnotist,—as if the passive exercise were the one imperative ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... head, ... his face had grown ashen gray and rigid in the deep extremity of his speechless trouble and terror,—there was a sick faintness at his heart, and rising, he moved unsteadily to one of the great fountains, and there dipping his hands in the spray, he dashed some drops on his brow and eyes. Then, making a cup of the hollowed palms, he drank thirstily several ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... fleet are all in sight, near 100 sail great and small, they think, coming towards them; where, they think, they shall be able to oppose them; but do cry out of the falling back of the seamen, few standing by them, and those with much faintness. The like they write from Portsmouth, and their letters this post are worth reading. Sir H. Cholmly come to me this day, and tells me the Court is as mad as ever; and that the night the Dutch burned our ships the King ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... under the snow lay an ill-kept grass plot, and there was violently sick. The anaesthetics and soporifics of the last two days were having their usual aftermath. After that came on a shuddering faintness and a rigor of shivers, under which her teeth clacked. Some doctor came forward with a little brandy. She put the glass to her lips, then pushed it aside, took Pasteur Walcker's proffered arm, and walked towards the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... is only too common: If you are in a crowded room, with plenty of fire and lights and company, doors and windows all shut tight, how often you feel faint—so faint that you may require smelling-salts or some other stimulant. The cause of your faintness is just the same as that of the mouse's fainting in the box; you and your friends, and, as I shall show you presently, the fire and the candles likewise, having been all breathing each other's breaths, over and over again, till the air has become unfit to support life. ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... a postal just now, saying that you were coming soon. I had my usual queer faintness. It was like receiving word from the dead—it seemed such centuries—aeons—since I heard from you! I send you this batch of notes I have written you at various times, a sort of mental itinerary, for ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... recollection of Bobby's mistress—the pale, unfortunate young seamstress she had so unconscionably neglected. She wondered if she were alive or dead. A waft of sickly odors surged from below; Esther felt a deadly faintness coming over her; she had walked far, and nothing had yet passed her lips since yesterday's dinner, and at this moment, too, an overwhelming terrifying feeling of loneliness pressed like an icy hand upon her heart. She felt that in another instant she must swoon, ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... the road at a good, sharp pace. And now, what with the stillness of the night and the strange happenings of the last few hours and the wild figure of the highwayman who seemed even more grim and terrifying by moonlight, my overwrought emotions brought on me a nausea of horror and faintness so that I stumbled more than once, whereupon my companion, tightening his grip, dragged me on, cursing me heartily; so that, contrasting his brutality with my aunt Julia's tender, loving care and my desperate plight with the luxurious security of home, I felt ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... intimations reached our ears, as the sounds of battle now receded, now drew near, that the issue of the day still hung in suspense. The war-yells of the Indians to the rear were heard less often now. The conflict seemed to be spreading out over a greater area, to judge from the faintness of some of the rifle reports which came to us. But we could not tell which side was giving way, nor was there much time to think of this: all our vigilance and attention were needed from moment to moment to keep ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Mr. Orton. This time it was the telephone. Bell invented the first telephone, which consisted of the present receiver, used both as a transmitter and a receiver (the magneto type). It was attempted to introduce it commercially, but it failed on account of its faintness and the extraneous sounds which came in on its wires from various causes. Mr. Orton wanted me to take hold of it and make it commercial. As I had also been working on a telegraph system employing tuning-forks, simultaneously with ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... sitting, half lying on the couch in a curiously uneasy position, as though she had flung herself back in some sudden faintness; her eyes were closed, and the contrast between the pale face and dark dishevelled hair was very striking; her lips, even, were of the same marble tint. He had always been compelled to admire her, but he had done ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... was further strengthened by a peculiar physical habit in Emilia, which first alarmed the household, but soon ceased to inspire terror. She fainted very easily, and had attacks at long intervals akin to faintness, and lasting for several hours. The physicians pronounced them cataleptic in their nature, saying that they brought no danger, and that she would certainly outgrow them. They were sometimes produced by fatigue, sometimes ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... and angry, penetrated through Anna's haze of fright and faintness. She sat up in the bed, ready to spring to the window if she heard steps on the stairs. When none came, but the voices, lowered now, went on endlessly below, she slipped out of her bed and crept ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it was, the rusty marlinespike had disappeared. The rowboat, too, had gone into the darkness. Jim got up, dazedly thinking for a moment that it was necessary for him to give chase, but he quickly sat down on the sail-cloth again, overcome with faintness and a dark pall before ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... the bed. The boy looked at her curiously, then he raised himself on his elbow and gazed about him, but as he did so he became conscious of a dull throbbing pain in one side of his head and a sick faintness swept over him. It was his first experience of weakness, and it startled him into a faint groan as his head fell back ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... had refrained from entering No. 1 Park Crescent. She had not seen it or Mrs. Rossiter since David's attack of faintness and hysteria in February, 1909, nearly two years ago. Why she went now she scarcely knew, logically. It was unwise to renew relations too closely with Rossiter, who showed his solicitude for her far too plainly in his face. The introduction ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... bottle of ammonia well corked. Tie the cork down firmly in the bottle (Fig. 32); a flannel case or raffia covering will protect the glass from breakage. Good to smell in case of faintness, but care must be taken not to hold it too near the nose, as the ammonia might injure the delicate membranes, as would also smelling-salts. Safer to move the bottle or cloth wet with ammonia slowly back and forth near the nose. Good also ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... along. Not arm in arm, or hand in hand, or interchanging bright glances; but she in tears; he gloomy and down-looking. Were these the hearts that had so lately made old Toby's leap up from its faintness? No, no. The Alderman (a blessing on his head!) had Put ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... he was trembling, and that a sensation of faintness and of dull and sick revolt against all things under the stars was upon him. Sitting down in the shadow of the tree, he rested his face in his hands and shut his eyes, preferring the darkness within to that outer night which hid not and cared not, which was ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... faintness there was a recognizable touch of Mrs. Crupp, when the spasms were engendering in the nankeen bosom of that exemplary female, so also in the maternal confidences volunteered by the same witness, there ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... sufferer. But in the later periods of life, when severe shocks strike very heavily upon the soul, there is found far less of buoyancy and recovering power to meet the blow. In such cases the stunned and bewildered spirit moves on, after receiving its wound, staggering, as it were, with faintness and pain, and leaving it for a long time uncertain whether it will ultimately rise and recover, or sink ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Henry Pinckney's headstone on the snow, but what was that other and similar shadow beyond it? Putnam had been standing edgewise to the slab: he shifted his position now and saw a second stone and a second mound side by side with the first. An awful faintness and trembling seized him as he approached it and bent his head close down to the marble. The jagged shadows of the cedar-branches played across the surface, but by the uncertain light he could read the name "Imogen Pinckney," and below it the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... only her correction might be wrong. "It isn't that I am a blockhead?" he asked between faintness and grimness. "It isn't ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... grew white, and she leaned back in her chair with a sudden feeling of faintness. It was years since the boy had spoken of his father; why should he utter his name now? He had raised his head when he felt her move, and her dim and failing eyes saw his face in a mist, looking so like his father when she had known him first, that she shrank from him, with a terror ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... "A faintness soon Will shroud thee in its fold; The hours will bring the fearful noon; 'Twill pass—and thou ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... could drag it out from the waves and get into it. Drenched from head to foot, and cold and trembling with excitement and grief, he again shouted, and the basket once more ascended. He remembered no more. A sudden faintness overcame him, and the first thing he remembered was feeling himself borne along on a kind of extemporary litter, and hearing kind voices saying that he was "coming to," and would ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... despair, and a sudden faintness, she got up and went over to the tray of spirits and liqueurs which had been brought in with the coffee. Pouring out a liqueur-glass of brandy, she was about to drink it, when her ear became attracted by a noise without, a curious stumbling, shuffling sound. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... appetite was very good,—it was difficult for him to control it, and he ate everything that was brought to him. Then he began to manage differently—before starting to eat he would pour out half into the pail, and this seemed to work. A dull drowsiness and faintness ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... of raw spirit certainly drove away the faintness, but it brought fresh fire to the fever that burned in her veins, and she was muttering in delirium before the end of that night's journey brought them to a small village just above the old house on the river that figured ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... had prompted him to thrust forward his lips till they touched the water just where the ray shot forth glowing light and life as well, for he drank and drank, and as he imbibed the fluid, which looked like fire but tasted like water, the feeling of faintness grew less, his senses began to return, and he drew back to lie over with a sigh and gaze dreamily at the great arum-like leaves of the banana and the huge bunch of ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... "Seems a pity to tear that up," she said anxiously, "it wants a bit of mending, but it is one of the best. If you will wait a minute, miss, I think I know where I can put my hand on a piece," and Mary scrambled to her feet, forgetful of her faintness. ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... the latter, pausing at a bed on which child with fair face, blue eyes and golden hair was lying. A single glance sent the blood back to Edith's heart. A faintness came over her; everything grew dark. She sat down to ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... existence. She had not looked on Horatio since she watched him under the shadow of the magnolia, until his barouche passed her in her rambles some months after. She saw the deadly paleness of his countenance, and had he dared to look back, he would have seen her tottering with faintness. Mary brought water from a rivulet, and sprinkled her face. When she revived, she clasped the beloved child to her heart with a vehemence that made her scream. Soothingly she kissed away her fears, and gazed into her beautiful eyes with a deep, deep sadness ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... known what hunger was—in the mornes he had endured it almost to extremity. He now expected to suffer less from it than then, from being able to yield to the faintness and drowsiness which had then to be resisted. From time to time during his meditations, he felt its sensations visiting him, and felt them without fear or regret. He had eaten his loaf when first hungry, and had watched through the first night, hoping to sleep his long sleep the sooner, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... poor lost Julia; and at the moment I heard it I had been dreaming of her. I questioned my own state of health. I was well; at least I had been so, I felt fully assured, up to that moment. Now a feeling of chilliness and numbness and faintness had crept over me, a cold sweat was on my forehead. I tried to shake off this feeling by bringing back my thoughts to some other subject. But, involuntarily as it were, I again uttered the words, "Poor Julia!" aloud. ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... faintness passed away, and she clung to the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone could give her strength to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
