"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... escaped him in a gasp. What she wanted to hear! Were his ears playing him false? Was he dreaming? He had his hands on hers, holding it with a grip of a strong man stirred to the depths, crushing the fingers one on the other, but there was no waver ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... in the mind. Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams I shall slumber, and in dreams Slide through some long glen that burns With a crust of blood-red ferns And brown-withered wings of brake Like a burning lava-lake;— So, urged to fearful, faster flow By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk!" of the crow, Shall pass by many a haunted rood Of the nutty, odorous wood; Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom, Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom; Till, lured by light, reflected cloud, I burst aloft my watery shroud, And upward through ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... dead white and for an instant her eyes flamed so fiercely that the boy shrank away with a little gasp of fear. But the next moment she was looking at him with eyes full of tears—a long silent look—then, without a word, ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... and began to put it down, the ground was not there. He was deathly sick, as he reeled and staggered on, and when he reached home, and showed himself white and haggard to his frightened mother, he had scarcely strength to gasp out a confession of his attempt to retrieve the family honor by learning to chew tobacco. In another moment nature came to his relief, and then he fell into a deep sleep which lasted the whole afternoon, so that it seemed to him the next day when he woke up, glad to find himself alive, if not ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... Stuart started on his return. His health was failing, and his horses were sadly weakened. After leaving the Newcastle, the water in the many short creeks coming from the range was found to be at the last gasp; in some there was none, in others but a scanty supply. The horses commenced to give in rapidly, and one after another they were left on successive dry stages. Stuart, too, began to think that he would never live to reach the settled districts. Scurvy had brought him down ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the foibles and the strength of my countrymen; but I have never met your equal for cold persistence. You are a trader, and have turned war into a trading venture. I do believe that when you are at your last gasp you will be found calmly casting up your accounts with life. And I think you will find a balance on the right side. God speed you, Mr. Garvald. I love ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... gave her in acknowledgment of the word made her gasp for breath. He was so carried away that he had to use both arms, whereby a lurch of the boat nearly unseated him. "Never," he declared, in an intense whisper—"never shall you come to harm, my precious one, while you've got me to protect you; I ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... it over," said Carmine. "They're getting the jump on us every time, Steve." Carmine's voice was husky and he had to gasp his words out. Steve, panting like ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarticulate gasp of excitement, she stepped out into the ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... said Peggy, who was the first to reach her sister, and already had her in her arms. "Jean, don't gasp so! You have seen something; is that it? Margaret, what did I ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... done for!" he grumbles. "They are done for! They are at the last gasp! God be my judge! ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... finding help there. The snowflakes clung to her hair and blew against her soft cheeks. All she could see was her mother wringing her hands, and her father's white face. When she burst into the house where the Colonel sat reading by the fire, she was so breathless at first that she could only gasp when ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... embroidered with tiny pearls and gold thread. Her little feet were adorned with high-heeled slippers of white silk, also embroidered in the tiny pearls. A necklace of shining stones, and two little earrings made them gasp with delight. In the soft wavy hair was a high shell comb. The little lady held a book in her clasped hands, and her eyes, half closed, looked sleepily out ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... touches here and there and a careful pruning of her lavish riches, it could be seen that no human artist had designed the wondrous stage effect. To step suddenly out of an uncut wilderness into such a scene as this was bewildering, and made the American gasp with delight. The place had an air of strictest privacy. A spring-board mirrored in the depths below invited one to plunge, a pair of iron gymnasium rings were swung by chains to a massive limb, a flight of stone steps led up the bank and ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... arms and slammed a fist into his midsection. It was a harder midsection than he'd expected; unlike Herb, Sam had good muscles, and hitting them was like hitting thick rubber. The blow didn't put Sam down. It only made him gasp once. ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... coolness and breezy optimism at a moment when things looked to be at a dead end made Barry gasp in renewed amazement at this unfathomable second mate, who was so obviously something infinitely more than a ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... gasp of pain. Simon stared at her, rather startled by the effectiveness of his sardonic reminder. The book she was holding had dropped to the floor with a crash, her cheeks had gone white to the lips, and now she was staring ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... regiment or battalion knows. The men were razor-keen for action, but that very keenness might lead them into a rashness, a foolhardiness, which would precipitate action. The Colonel believed they would stand and fight to the last gasp and die to the last man rather than yield a yard of their trench. He believed that of them even as he believed it of himself—but he did not know it of them any more than he knew it of himself. Men, apparently every bit as good as ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... A gasp rose from the four boys as they saw Fritz hurl himself over the rim of the car. They knew that nothing could be done, yet all threw themselves toward the Uhlan in the ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Cossacks who had met me and followed the murderer had arrived on the scene and raised the wounded man from the ground. But he was already as his last gasp and said these three ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... knocked at the door. Wally himself opened. Elliot, from the shelter of the pine, saw the two men in talk. Selfridge shut the door and came to the edge of the porch. He gave a gasp and his hands went trembling into the air. The six-gun of the miner had been pressed hard against his fat paunch. Under curt orders he moved down the steps and out of the yard ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... was like a giant's roar in the cavern, and Joanne gave a gasp, while Peggy shiveringly caught Aldous by ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... blowing, Though here where I gasp and sigh Not a breath of air is stirring, Not a cloud in the ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Jack Pumpkinhead, with a gasp: "if you become a girl, you can't be my dear father ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... into a weird, uncanny dance, in which each one flapped or writhed or swayed back and forth as he pleased, in ghostly silence. The movements of the ones in the bolster-cases were the most comical, and the little audience on the porch laughed until they could only gasp ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the Readilit for a cigarette, then his hand stopped. His face was contorted with pain; he gave a gasp of suffocation. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... cigarette and inhaled a puff thoughtfully. "You don't understand. All you have to say does have some bearing upon things, but, when you get down to brass tacks, it's instinct—at the last gasp, it's instinct. You can't get away from it. Look at the difference between a thoroughbred and a cold-blooded horse! There you are! That's true. It's the fashion now to discount instinct, I know; well—but you can't get away from ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Washington, and I have had my suitcase packed for days, ready to spend a rejuvenating week end CHEZ VOUS. Please hurry! I've languished in this asylum atmosphere as long as humanely possible. I shall gasp and die if ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... them, that hard inexorable set about the mouth, which gave a more sinister character to his whole face? As she gazed at him an ineffable loathing and dread rose in her soul, and she could have shrieked out of pure terror. She put her hand up to her throat with a gasp to keep down the sudden inclination to cry out. As she did so her guardian glanced over the top of the note-book with his piercing ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... on his dam. It was the first time Happy Jack Squirrel ever had seen him out of water, and Happy Jack gave a little gasp of surprise. "I had no idea he ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened—I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me—to certain ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... mercantile marine is at the last gasp (warlike digression). It is not surprising. I cannot build without iron. I can get it at ten francs in the world's market; but, through the law, the managers of the French forges compel me to pay them fifteen francs. Thus they take five francs from me. I ask freedom ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... always a devoted supporter of Handel, was pessimistic from the beginning of the season. "I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter," she wrote on November 25; "they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it. The directors are always squabbling, and they have so many divisions among themselves that I wonder they have not broke up before; Senesino goes away next winter, and I believe Faustina, so you see harmony ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... will in the child. She did throw herself in, and, counting one, two, three, forgot her usual gasp of fright; suddenly it seemed natural and as if she had always done it! She felt a delicious joy in the ease with which her stroke carried her ahead through the water. She wished Billy might see her now! Then, exhausted by her effort, triumphant and ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... contentment, provided that they seconded his efforts. "I bid you thereto in God's name," he added, "and for my part, were I alone, abandoned of all, I am determined to prosecute this sacred cause even to the last drop of my blood and to the last gasp of my life." The assembly fully approved of their chief's behavior, accepting "with gratitude the King of England's powerful intervention, without, however, loosing themselves from the humble and inviolable submission which they owed to their ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... wither from our youth, we gasp away - Sick—sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay, Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first - But all too late,—so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... the ludicrous, and she felt inclined to scream or do something desperate just to see what would happen. At length the dreary repast came to an end, and she had just taken up a newspaper, with a sort of gasp of relief at the thought of escaping for a moment into a larger world, when she was recalled to the narrow circle of Greyshot by a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... as Thorny put out his arm to clutch Ben, who looked ready to defend himself to the last gasp, "Boys, I will settle this affair. Is there anything hidden in the closet, Ben?" and Miss Celia came between the belligerent parties with her one ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... utterance was discernible; there was a gasp as for breath, or a prolonged dwelling upon certain syllables, which, occurring in the most animated passages, and apparently evincing the preacher's struggle with emotion, rather served to heighten ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... great passion with them. But as Charles Malcolm, in the king's ship, was the only one belonging to the parish that was likely to be art and part in the business, we were in a manner little troubled at the time with this first gasp of the monster of war, who, for our sins, was ordained to swallow up and devour so many of our fellow-subjects, before he was bound again in the chains of mercy ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... receive our produce, there cannot be a doubt but the people on the west side of the Apalachian mountains will open their eyes to their real interests." At the same time Sevier was writing to Gardoqui, offering to put his insurrectionary State of Franklin, then at its last gasp, under the protection of Spain. [Footnote: Gardoqui MSS., Sevier to Gardoqui, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the beast," I managed to gasp out, because I saw he was badly distressed about me, and what he had done. "I'm crying because I'm a little beast. But ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... knees: yet, oh forbear, Lest the dead embers should revive. Stand off, and at just distance Let me groan my horrors!—here On the earth, here blow my utmost gale; Here sob my sorrows, till I burst with sighing; Here gasp and languish out my ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... garment of awful shape And it wasn't a waist, nor yet a cape, But it looked like a piece of ancient mail, Or an instrument from a Russian jail, And then with a fearful groan and gasp, She squeezed herself in its deathly clasp— So fair and yet so fated! And then with a move like I don't know what, She tied it on with a double knot;— And the young ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... never killed any body," said one of the prisoners. "No, because you did not get time and because you were prevented," said Justice. When the den was opened, there came out such a horrible puff of bloody flame, and such a yell as if a thousand dragons were giving their last gasp in their death agony. Into this den Justice hurled his prisoners; {93} and on his way back he breathed obliquely, such a tempest of fiery whirlwinds upon the Arch-Fiend and all his potentates, as he passed by them, that Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... to take his cup from Vanderbank, whose hand, however, dealt with him on the question of his sitting down again. Mr. Longdon, resisting, kept erect with a low gasp that his host only was near enough to catch. This suddenly appeared to confirm an impression gathered by Vanderbank in their contact, a strange sense that his visitor was so agitated as to be trembling ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... kill Jean Isbel. Woman's love could turn to hate, but not the love of Ellen Jorth. He could drag her by the hair in the dust, beat her, and make her a thing to loathe, and cut her mortally in his savage and implacable thirst for revenge—but with her last gasp she would whisper she loved him and that she had lied to him to kill his faith. It was that—his strange faith in her purity—which had won her love. Of all men, that he should be the one to recognize the truth of her, the womanhood yet unsullied—how strange, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... daring scarce herself restrains, Love thereon to my heart retires dismay'd, Abandons his attempt, and weeps and fears, And hiding there, no more my friend appears. What can the liege whose lord is thus afraid, More than with him, till life's last gasp, to dwell? For who well loving dies at ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... lead the crouching line once more The grand old fellow came. No wounded man but raised his head And strove to gasp his name, And those who could not speak nor stir, "God blessed ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... gaining so rapidly that the heat of it, penetrating to the prison of the boys, was almost unbearable. The smoke, too, made their eyes smart and burn, and it choked them, causing them to gasp and cough. ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning, that never ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... things even looked at; and she—she seemed to be fingering them. He pulled the door open with a jerk, and said: "What are you doing?" He was indeed so stirred by righteous wrath that he hardly noticed the gasp she gave, and the collapse of her figure against the wall. She ran past him, and vanished without a word. He went up to his creatures and saw that she had placed on the head of each one of them a little sprig of jessamine flower. Why! It was idiotic! He could see nothing at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... all right—" And leaving the whisky untouched, he went into his own compartment. As he was closing the door, he gave a gasp of dismay. "She might begin now!" he muttered. He rang for the porter. "Bring that bottle," he said. Then, as an afterthought of "appearances," "And the ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... hundred and sixty millions of dollars, a public debt of nearly forty millions in foreign and domestic loans, the Congress had, in March, ordered a new emission of bills; the result had been a season of crazy speculation and the expiring gasp of public credit. In addition to an unpaid army, assurances had been given to the French minister that not less than twenty-five thousand men should be ready for the next campaign; and how to force the States to recruit them, and how to pay them when in the field, was the present question ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless—gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he said, ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... conservatory full of tropical blossoms of quite unique and almost monstrous beauty, and on such afternoons as these glowing with gorgeous sunlight. Thus when the hall door was open, many a passer-by literally stopped to stare and gasp; for he looked down a perspective of rich apartments to something really like a transformation scene in a fairy play: purple clouds and golden suns and crimson stars that were at once scorchingly vivid and yet transparent and ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... a water-tight compartment," he replied. "It is a process of regimentation like the old Germany that will soon merge into a new Internationalism. What seems to be at this moment an orgy of Nationalism in South Africa or elsewhere is merely its death gasp. The New World will be a world of individualism dominated by ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... began to lose blood and bodily strength, he received unexpected mercy from his enemy. For though Hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. And so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. For of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. So Hedin, with the help of his men, was taken back to his ship, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that she began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to gasp for air. He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making himself worse by laboriously fanning himself with her handkerchief, when he turned towards ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... others he gags With thick heavy foam. 'Twing them round The sharp rugged crags That are sticking out near,' Growls he, 'for fear They all should rebel, And so play hell.' Those that he bound, Their prison-walls grasp, And through the dark gloom Scream fierce and yell: While all the rest gasp, In rage fruitless and vain. Their shepherd now leaves them To howl and to roar— Of his presence bereaves them, To feed some young breeze On the violet odour, And to teach it on shore To rock the green trees. But no more can be said Of what was transacted ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... rules he laid down. And so he is convicted by himself, and his writings are upset by his own virtue and goodness. For that recommendation of those children, that recollection of them, and affectionate friendship for them, that attention to the most important duties at the last gasp, indicates that honesty without any thought of personal advantage was innate in the man; that it did not require the invitation of pleasure, or the allurements of mercenary rewards. For what greater evidence can we require ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... such a state of excitement, that, when Raoul returned, he flew to him with ashy face and trembling all over, and could scarcely gasp out: ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... rises to the storm it always does every few hours, more men will be brought in and laid on that gruesome operating table. The very passageways have been already invaded by men lying on long chairs, because there are no more beds. Even they are happy; they have crept to a place where they can gasp in quiet; that is all ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... gasp of pleasure. "Oh, what fun!" she exclaimed. Then she stopped and looked down at her dress. "But I have nothing to wear," she said. "All my prettiest dresses went home on the ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... Again the baby face turned its smiling dark eyes toward him, and Philip knew that the child was calling him, though there was no sound; and again without volition of his own his feet took him where it led. He felt his breath coming difficultly, and suddenly a gasp shook him—there was no footprint on the unfrozen earth where the vision had passed. Yet there before him, moving through the deep sunlit silence of the garden, was the familiar, sturdy little form in its old-world dress. Philip's eyes were open; he ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... over twenty years more. That was a long time, to be sure, twenty years; but it would pass, and at the end of it I should have to die and look as that man looked, and be buried in the ground. The thought of it caused me to gasp suddenly, and filled me with a sense of terror and despair so awful that I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out. Most young people, I conjecture, pass through a similar mental experience, when the drear fact of death is ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... enraged than ever, and swearing more terribly by his tail, teeth, and claws that he would be revenged. So he ran on all day, and at night, when he came to another large village, he was so weary that he could just gasp, "Have—you—seen a Rab—bit run this way?" With much concern and kindness they all asked him what was the matter. So he told them all this story, and they pitied him very much; yea, one gray old ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... inflicted upon them, but no discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch and his advisers was manifestly total extermination, and journalism appeared to be at its last gasp. But though crushed and mutilated in every limb, and bleeding at every pore, faint respirations every now and then showed that the vital spark still lingered. But brighter days were at hand. That festering mass of mental and bodily corruption which had ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... half-abstractedly. "Of course it's a Moorish dance, originally brought over, I suppose, by those old Andalusian immigrants two hundred years ago. It's quite Arabic in its suggestions. I have got something like it in an old CANCIONERO I picked up at a bookstall in Boston. But," she added, with a gasp of reminiscent satisfaction, "that's not like HIM! Oh, no! HE is decidedly ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... turned with a gasp, following his brother's glance. "I wish to God you would not be so terribly precise," was what he said. And then he fingered ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of adulation! As she thinks of it, her husband takes the form of some heartless monster, sapping her youth's freedom, fettering her down to his side like a dragon-fly on a pin, she can only flap her wings faintly and gasp ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... awful moment of a nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone! As the advocate of society therefore—of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard the liberty ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea seemed preposterous, many looked upon the attitude of Japan as the madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... her an' says, 'Caan't you say a word, miss? It's only Peter Portgartha speaking, he's well known for his respect for your sect. No young womon need be frightened of speakin' to Peter Portgartha.' And with that she spaaks at last, with a quick little gasp like a sob—I'm thinking I can hear it at this minute—'Aw,' she says, 'why caan't you leave me alone?' 'Never be afraaid,' I says, for I have my pride like other folk, 'I'll say no more. Peter Portgartha has no need to foorce his conversation ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... face grew purple with rage. He was just able to gasp his words during the progress of the trial. It was brief, and when it ended and the rest had gone, he faced ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... hands went up into the air, his body swayed to and fro, his strength left him completely, and he fell to the ground in sudden and complete collapse. When they picked him up, there was froth mixed with blood upon his lips, he breathed once or twice heavily, stertorously, and then with one long-drawn gasp died in the arms ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... proclaimed it a boy; the second had told a different story. A girl—dressed in far different fashion from Robert Fairchild's limited specifications of feminine garb—she caused him to gasp in surprise, then to stop and stare. Again she waved a hand and stamped a foot excitedly; a vehement little thing in a snug, whipcord riding habit and a checkered cap pulled tight over closely braided hair, she awaited him with all the impatience of ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... the enemy at their success was unbounded. They could scarcely believe in it. Their army was just at its last gasp. They had not more than four days' supply of powder left in the place. After the victory, M. de Savoie and Prince Eugene lost no time in idle rejoicings. They thought only how to profit by a success so unheard of and so unexpected. They retook ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... head down, and Buck had just time to drop his bundle and extend both arms to prevent a collision. An instant later his tense muscles quivered under the impact of some hundred and thirty pounds of solid bone and muscle; the runner staggered and flung up his head, a gasp of terror jolted ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... There was a gasp of horror; the musicians dropped their instruments; Bingo halted and looked back uneasily; she lay unconscious ...
— Polly of the Circus • Margaret Mayo
... I heard her gasp, and although I could not see her, I was conscious that she deliberately walked around us, probably to obtain a better view of me; and in that moment I think I doubted her; but I tightened my grip around the man I held, and waited grimly for events ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... ended her perplexity for her that very moment. It broke off from a large lump and fell on to the fender. Becky started, and opened her eyes with a frightened gasp. She did not know she had fallen asleep. She had only sat down for one moment and felt the beautiful glow—and here she found herself staring in wild alarm at the wonderful pupil, who sat perched quite near her, like a rose-colored ...
— A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of occidental spectators, who knew that the dripping red thing was a sheep with its throat so skilfully slit that, if the omen were favourable, it would live on through the long race to Rabat and gasp out its agonized life on the ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... A gasp of suppressed nervousness sounded from the end of the room, and Pam's voice said with the usual funny little squeak, "I've got sixpence with a hole in it. I'll join, Betty! Do get mother a palm! She wants it so badly. We saw one in a shop window yesterday, and she ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... to drive to the station. Then she took the girl's hand kindly. "What is it, my dear?" she said in a motherly voice. "Are you ill, or has something frightened you?" but it was long before Leah could gasp out her explanation. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... about making a bid for. All the big fellows are after it. Old man Jeffries has made two barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put in a bid, but this idea of the judge's and Greg's, with the whole village grouped about it, has given me the keynote to win the thing from the whole bunch of American architects. He wants the ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... is human pride! Dares man upon himself confide? The wretch who glories in his gain, Amasses heaps on heaps in vain. Why lose we life in anxious cares, To lay in hoards for future years? 50 Can those (when tortured by disease) Cheer our sick heart, or purchase ease? Can those prolong one gasp of breath, Or calm the troubled hour of death? What's beauty? Call ye that your own? A flower that fades as soon as blown. What's man in all his boast of sway? Perhaps the tyrant of a day. Alike the laws of life take place Through every branch of human race, 60 The monarch of long regal line ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... within me so that I sweated afresh lest he catch the sound of it. And sometimes I would hear the soft, slurring whisper his fingers made against deck or bulkhead where he groped for me, and once a snorting gasp and the crunch of his murderous knife-point biting into wood and thereafter a hoarse and outlandish muttering. And ever as I crept thus, moving but when he moved, I felt before me with my foot, praying that I might discover my knife and, this in hand, face him and end matters one way ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... with a sigh that was almost a gasp. "There are the figures, and a full explanation of them. You will be very careful that my name does not ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... the waiters, bouncers, men of prey, their faces ghastly, and three or four of them sick. The silent throng around the walls stared at the scene from the partial shadows; no one seemed even to be breathing. Then Palura made a horrible gulping sound, and writhed as he gave up his last gasp of life. ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... gleeful,—joyous over the conquest of her third trout, looked quickly behind her, startled by the snapping of the branch only a few rods away. What she saw made her gasp. She almost cried out with the sudden fright. But ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... her, his gaze meeting hers. Then in an instant his face changed, blanched before her—he seemed to gasp for breath—she was only just able to save him from falling. It was apparently another swoon of exhaustion. As she knelt beside him on the floor, having done for him all she could, watching his return to consciousness, Catherine's ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suppressing her gasp of sheer embarrassment, Sally admitted to herself that he was presentable, very presentable. His manner was altogether free from the self-conscious graciousness of an artist off-duty; moreover, he was very big, very ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... did not seem to matter, somehow, and he lay very still until he felt himself strangling, and he was breathing in strong ammonia which made his eyes smart and his tired lungs gasp. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... The point seems unimportant. The thing of importance is the undoubted fact that assembled and treated in the way we have treated them they present a complete and arresting picture of the aims and ambitions of the ordinary Japanese; of their desire to push home the attack to the last gasp and so to secure the ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... had hit it twice more. The load of fear left me, and I discovered an intense discomfort, wedged in as I was between the two crossed bracing-struts. Five minutes passed before I was able, with many a heave and gasp, to withdraw back ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... that, with a deliciously girlish and confused gasp, Mrs. Cricklander had hastily quitted ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... heels of that thought, looking over its shoulder, indeed, in the effort—which she resisted—to claim priority, was the thought of the dear man with the blue eyes about to be a guest, once again, under this roof. This gave her a little thrill, a little gasp, wrapping her away to the borders of sad inattention to Louisa Taylor's somewhat academic discourse.—The girl's English was altogether too grammatical for entire good-breeding. In that how very far away from Carteret's!—Damaris tried to range herself with present company. But ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... and looking gave a little gasp. "That is he!" she breathed into Villon's ear. Villon gave an involuntary sigh, partly indeed of satisfaction at the thought that his quarry was before him, a very vast and royal stag for a hunter's hand to threaten, but partly too of exquisite regret. It had been ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... with a sound half-gasp, half-cry, she was on her feet, and shrinking back against her sheltering boulder in the paralysis of a great horror. There, within a few yards of her and drawing nearer, ever nearer, with a beast-like stealth, was a tall, black-bearded tribesman. Transfixed by terror, she stood and gazed ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... the demons that are in us by our wicked thoughts and sinful acts; these are their meat and drink. I make them gasp sometimes. My heart laughs quite merrily to think of it. When I am hungry, and there is something tempting on the table, hunger, like a serpent, comes creeping up into my throat and laps its dry tongue with eagerness for its prey, but it often ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... summons without further query, for when all men wore swords the neighbourhood of a garrison were only too liable to such encounters outside. There was no need for her to gasp out more; from the very cottage door he could see the need of haste, for the swords were actually flashing, and the two young men in position to fight. Anne shook her head, unable to do more than sign her thanks to the good woman of the cottage, who offered her a seat. She leant ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... swimmer, dived—cutting the water with barely a splash. For the space of a half-minute Yorke stared apprehensively at the swirling eddy, beneath which the other had vanished. The line still remained taut. Then he gave a gasp of relief, as Redmond's head re-appeared, and that young gentleman swam to the side. Extending a hand, the senior constable lugged his comrade ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... never loved you so wildly—though I have always longed for you. I sometimes feel now as if my brain were utterly wrecked. I know not what is the matter; I gasp, when I think of you. I am convinced of heaven and hell almost in the same breath—experience each in rapid succession. One touch of your hand and one look, I think would cure me. I seem as if in a thunder-storm—pitchy blackness with flashes of light—and ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... Good-by, dearie," said Charles-Norton, and hung up the receiver, and with a bad conscience and a soaring heart, went off to dinner. No shearing to-night—gee! He ordered a dinner which made the red-headed waitress gasp. "Must have got a raise, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... heightened by the feelings of the crowd. These moments are generally caused by pieces of acting or by what is rarely contrived, and can only happen once in the history of a piece, a successful, effective surprise. As an instance, there was a unanimous gasp of surprise and pleasure at the brilliant coup de theatre with which John Oliver Hobbes ended a difficult scene in The Ambassador, and then came a prodigious outburst of applause. What a loss to our stage the premature death of ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... resting, a light she espied, And a Glow-worm came twinkling by. "Dear me!" exclaimed he, with a gasp and a sob, "I don't think ...
— Mouser Cats' Story • Amy Prentice
... by Jan's favourite way, the back, and plunged into a dark lane where neither ear nor eye was on him. He uncovered his head, he threw back his coat, he lifted his breath to catch only a gasp of air. The sense ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... of William had behaved tumultuously the summer long, whenever his eyes beheld those pickets of the Parchers' fence, but now it outdid all its previous riotings. He was forced to open his mouth and gasp for breath, so deep was his draught of that young wine, romance. Yonder—somewhere in the breath-taking radiance—danced his Queen with all her Court about her. Queen and Court, thought William, and nothing less exorbitant could have expressed his feeling. For seventeen needs ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... marry a girl like cousin Helen's girl! A grand creature, by George! The grandest creature I ever saw in my life! Why, rather than wet his clothes the sneak would have let us both drown after I had got him to the bank! Calling to me to go to him, when I had done my best, and was at the last gasp!" ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... marched forward instead of backward, crashing violently into Agony, who was marching with the four ahead. Not prepared for the collision, Agony lost her footing and went down in a heap on the ground, covering her white suit with dust from head to foot. A simultaneous gasp of dismay went up from the audience and the company, while the Hillsdale-ites laughed triumphantly. One of the Hillsdale boys, a youth of eighteen, who considered himself superlatively funny, called out, "Oakwood ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... when I looked at them in the fields it did seem rather formidable. You are so used to seeing them in the butchers' shops, ready for the range, that you never think of what they have to go through before that. But at last I managed to gasp out, one day, "If I could only have a chicken!" and he seemed to think that it could be managed. I don't know how he made interest with the authorities, or how the authorities prevailed on a farmer ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... natural fluffiness of the hermit's hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly country gentleman stepped forward and asked the modest man how he executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets, and showed them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... oyster-room staring at him through the lighted transparencies of its two windows, like two square eyes, below; and his tenant's light in a chamber above! The added shock which this discovery gave to the heaving of his heart, made him gasp for breath. Could it be? Did he still dream? While he stood panting and staring at the building, the city clocks began to strike. Eleven o'clock; it was ten when he came away; how he must have driven! His thoughts caught ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, under the correction of bragging, be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. But, before Heaven, I cannot look greenly,[11] nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... all over the body. At length, the animal being detained too long from its native element, became enfeebled, the colours faded, the spots decreased in size, and all its pristine beauty vanished with the last gasp of life." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... at the strange fight that followed between the foes and friends of the mysterious fire. He almost felt the island shake when Flambeau collided with the huge gardener; he merely imagined how it would whirl round them as they wrestled. He heard the crashing fall; and his friend's gasp of triumph as he dashed on to the first negro; and the cries of both the blacks as Flambeau and Fanshaw bound them. Flambeau's enormous strength more than redressed the odds in the fight, especially as the fourth man still hovered near the house, only a shadow and a voice. He heard also ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... further, and his eyes fell on the interior of the closet of the room, the door to which stood wide open. Then he gave a gasp. ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the ruffians asked. The detective drew ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... a gasp, and as he did so a letter was placed in his hand. It was addressed in Beatrice's handwriting and bore the Chester postmark. A chill fear seized him. What did it contain? He hurried with it into a private room and opened it. It was dated from Bryngelly on the previous Sunday ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... an anxious and aching heart Alyosha went into his elder's cell, he stood still almost astonished. Instead of a sick man at his last gasp, perhaps unconscious, as he had feared to find him, he saw him sitting up in his chair and, though weak and exhausted, his face was bright and cheerful, he was surrounded by visitors and engaged in a quiet and joyful conversation. But he had only got up ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... you that I consider myself a very, very wonderful man. Nobody but a most remarkable man could spend so much time in the goat-feather groves gathering goat-feathers and still keep his family from starvation. I actually gasp when I think what a great man I should have been if I had stuck to business instead of being drawn aside by every sweet odor and pleasant sound. Then I actually swear when I think how many hours and days and weeks I have given to making myself look like a cross between a llama ...
— Goat-Feathers • Ellis Parker Butler
... at will. They did not pass away. It was the seekers who passed through them. To Uncle Felix, at any rate, it seemed a fact—this joyous sensation of immense duration, yet of nothing passing away: the bliss of utter freedom. He gasped to realise it. But the children did not gasp. They had always known that nothing ever really came to an end. "The weather's still here," he heard Judy calling across the lawn to Tim—as though she had just been looking among December snowdrifts and had popped back again ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... promiscuously under her armpits, and along both sides. Tai-yue had never been able to stand tickling, so that when Pao-yue put out his two hands and tickled her violently, she forthwith giggled to such an extent that she could scarcely gasp for breath. "If you still go on teasing me," she shouted, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... with gasp and effort, but with the swell of a voice which drowned all the discords of terror and of agony sent forth from the Phlegethon burning below—"and this witch, whom I trusted, is a vile slave and impostor, more desiring my death than my life. She thinks that in life I should scorn and forsake ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... A gasp and the spirit of the young man was gone. A loud scream rang out on the night air when Mrs. Seabright realized that it was ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... stopped unexpectedly and hesitated, damming the flood of hurrying citizens, Roger halted of necessity and stepped backward, but in avoiding them he bumped heavily against the person behind him. A startled gasp, something soft against his shoulder, the sharp edge of a projecting hat, told him that this person was a woman, and stepping sidewise into the shelter of a neighbouring news-stall, he raised his hat with a courtesy alien to the place ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... shock, that his peace of mind was gone; that the sudden experience of a few hours back had given his life new meaning; that something had happened to him which could not be undone; in other words—with an incredulous gasp at his own folly—that he was head over ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... but with unbated zeal, That horseman plied the scourge and steel; 115 For jaded now, and spent with toil, Embossed with foam, and dark with soil, While every gasp with sobs he drew, The laboring stag strained full in view. Two dogs of black Saint Hubert's breed, 120 Unmatched for courage, breath, and speed, Fast on his flying traces came, And all but won that desperate game; ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... man she once cared for, and it staggered what wits I had left. I nodded like a fool, just as if I had known what she was talking about, and went on lifting the canoe ashore. Whether I really heard her give a terrified gasp I don't know; perhaps I only thought so. But as I put the canoe on the bank I heard a rustle, and when I looked up she was gone. There was nothing to tell me she had really even been there. It was ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... gasp, and bounded to his side, as Joel flopped around on the ground, his back toward her, his black eyes fastened on something doubled up in ...
— The Adventures of Joel Pepper • Margaret Sidney
... hands tightly together, so tightly that she reduces the feathers on the fan she is holding to their last gasp. Because she is now disappointed in him; because he has proved himself, perhaps, unstable, deceptive to the heart's core, is she to vilify, him? A thousand times no! That would be, ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford |
