"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that his father's face was deadly pale, his hair too had parted here and there, as often happens when death is at hand, and his skin was chafed off his hands from holding on to the keel. The son understood now that his father was nearly at the last gasp, and tried, so far as the pitching and tossing would allow it, to hold him up; but when Elias marked it, he said, "Nay, look to thyself, Bernt, and hold on fast. I go to mother—in Jesus' Name!" and with that he cast himself down headlong from ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... her with her steady gaze, a gaze that was a menace and an appeal, and Rhoda gave a little gasp as if for breath. ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... specified in the other Letter: five hundred copies for America, which are to cost he computes about 2/7, and your Bookseller will bind them, and defy Piracy. My Lectures come on, this day two weeks: O Heaven! I cannot "speak"; I can only gasp and writhe and stutter, a spectacle to gods and fashionables,—being forced to it by want of money. In five weeks I shall be free, and then—! Shall it be Switzerland, shall it be Scotland, nay, shall it be ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... regard this menagerie in a more morbid fashion than usual. To-day, in particular, it seems as if all the mangy and decrepit cats of Rome had given themselves a rendezvous on this classic soil; cats of every colour and every age—quite young ones among them; all, one would say, at the last gasp of life. This pit, this crater of flame, is their "Home for the Dying." Once down here, nothing matters any more. They are safe at last from their old enemies, from dogs and carriages and boys. Waiting for death, they move about in a stupid and dazed manner. Sunlight streams down upon their bodies. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is—is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... murderer of time. Held by the daily recurring duties of her household, Ann Leighton awoke with a gasp to the day that Natalie's hair went into pigtails and the boys shed kilts for trousers. At the evening hour she gathered the children to her with an increased tenderness. Natalie, plump and still rosy, sat in ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... form, and the mythological materials; and yet they seem to have been composed with the obvious purpose of surpassing them; in which attempt they succeed as much as a hollow hyperbole would in competition with a most fervent truth. Every tragical common-place is worried out to the last gasp; all is phrase; and even the most common remark is forced and stilted. A total poverty of sentiment is dressed out with wit and acuteness. There is fancy in them, or at least a phantom of it; for they contain an example of the misapplication of every mental faculty. The authors have ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... reporter, gathering human-interest stories about the event from the pitiful wreckage in the hospitals, happened on Clare Gould, he got a feature-story for the Sunday edition that made Audrey's own world, reading it in bed or over its exquisite breakfast-tables, gasp with amazement. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... emeralds in the blinding glare. She was a witch, of perhaps nineteen, he judged, alert and dreamy and with the tell-tale white line over her upper lip that was a weakness and a delight. He sank back with a gasp against the wall ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... under the hau tree arbour that lines the Moana hotel beach, gasped when Lee Barton and his wife Ida emerged from the bath-house. And as the pair walked past them and down to the sand, they continued to gasp. Not that there was anything about Lee Barton provocative of gasps. The tourist women were not of the sort to gasp at sight of a mere man's swimming-suited body, no matter with what swelling splendour of line and muscle such body was invested. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... dust stretching perpendicularly would speed whirling along; the palm trees would bend and the sky disappear, while stones would be heard rebounding on the animals' cruppers; and the Gaul, his lips glued against the holes in his tent, would gasp with exhaustion and melancholy. His thoughts would be of the scent of the pastures on autumn mornings, of snowflakes, or of the bellowing of the urus lost in the fog, and closing his eyelids he would in imagination behold the fires in long, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... 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 of astonishment and alarm. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... able to do its work for years, often is suddenly snapped by the extra work put upon it by pregnancy and childbirth. Sometimes a woman with a diseased heart will keep up to the last minute of the delivery of the child and then suddenly will gasp and expire. In the first year of my practice I saw such a case, and I never have wanted to see another. Women suffering from heart disease of any serious character should not, under any circumstance, be permitted ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... the Parliaments of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had not succeeded, in the space of a century, in destroying monasticism; the Cromwellian war alone seemed to have done so, as it left the entire nation almost at the last gasp, on the verge of annihilation. Nevertheless, a few years saw the orders again revive and prepare to start their holy work anew. Henry VIII. then, and his vicar, Cromwell, deceived themselves in thinking that they had put an end to monasticism in the land which had been the cradle of so many families ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... closed to him. And while he sat turning right and left, behold, he espied a horseman making towards him with bent back and reins slack. He sat up right and after a time reached the Prince; and the stranger was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded when he came up; the tears streamed down his cheeks like water from the mouths of skins, and he said to Kanmakan, "O Chief of the Arabs, take me to thy friendship ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... he cried, "is the king's own favourite, and if any harm come to a lock of her hair, I tell you that there is not a living soul within this portcullis who will not die a death of torture. Fools, will you gasp out your lives upon the rack, or writhe in boiling oil, at the ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like a gasp went through the room. With a heart-breaking coldness I felt that I was her only unmoved auditor, or— no; Ned seemed studying with weary disapproval the pattern ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... Yes, I had friends; but perhaps you will understand me, having seen to what depths I fell, that I couldn't bring myself to apply to my friends. Well, I was at my last gasp when I crawled up to your barn. I mean morally, for my strength was returning. You and your brother rode up. By God! I could ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... incense from the church within and other unmentionable smells, makes such a compound that only a brave nose can stand it. But stand it we must, if we would see Domenichino's frescoes in the chapel within; and as they are among the best products of his cold and clever talent, we gasp and push on,—the most resolute alone getting through. Here in this old monastery, as the story goes, he sought refuge from the fierce Salvator Rosa, by whom his life was threatened, and here he painted his best ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... him—a half-choking gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his exceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on his other side. He could see nothing near at hand, but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle and cough, and outlined between two jagged rocks not a score ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... the yellow wall was a rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep enough; what a wall it was!—four feet at least, and the opening of the window reached to the floor, though the window itself ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... Cairn. If the rabbits spoil your crops you're welcome to catch them if you can! I've ranged these woods myself all summer, and I have found out that gamekeepers are no safeguard against poachers." A gasp of astonishment greeted this statement, and Angus Niel was observed ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... his chair, he drove away this boy with his pointed oak stick, and with some harsh words about caring for the horse and being on time in the morning, he sent him out into the mist. As this little shivering and pathetic figure vanished, the old man drew, with gasp and haw, a number of deep breaths which shook his bent back and did their share, no doubt, in restoring his own disturbed circulation. Then, with a sinister twist which brought his pointed chin and twinkling eyes again into ...
— The House in the Mist • Anna Katharine Green
... eddy of sulphureous vapours from the volcano, yet more rapidly, yet more densely than its predecessor, rolled over the mountain; and either the nature of the exhalation, or the excess of his own dread, was such, that Glyndon, after one wild gasp for breath, fell senseless on ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... way," said Horrocks, with a gasp, as the train came rattling by, and they stood panting by the ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... voice thickened up then quite frantically into a little scream that knotted in her throat, and she was suddenly so small and stricken that, with a gasp for fear she might crumple up where she stood, Mrs. Samstag leaned forward, catching her ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... Rebecca, then she stopped with a gasp at the sight of the other woman's face. Although a face, it gave somehow the impression of a desperately clutched ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact, within a quarter of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!' and he went, and took his place in the conference for some five minutes more. Then a half-suppressed gasp broke out among the Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose to take his leave. Again coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook hands in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... agitated girl, pausing for a moment to gasp for breath; "forget that you ever knew me—remember the claims of your bleeding ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... in leaping range; but the tiger had learned, in many experiences, always to make sure. Still she crouched—a single instant in which the trotting native came two paces nearer. Then the man drew up with a gasp ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... a panting gasp of triumph; his, blade had bitten flesh. A widening circle of red stained the shoulder of Alwin's white tunic. The thrall's lips set in a harder line; his blows became more furious, as if pain and despair gave him ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... calling to him: "Come back, jaal-lu," screamed the Wieroo; and Bradley did as he was bid. As he approached the creature which stood now behind a large, flat-topped pedestal beside the alcove, he saw lying upon the smooth surface something that almost elicited a gasp of astonishment from him—a simple, common thing it was, or would have been almost anywhere in the world but Caspak—a square ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... occasional shell-burst. That is Douaumont, whose taking cost the Germans such prolonged and bloody effort and aroused the Kaiser to a florid outburst of laudation of his Brandenburgers who, by its capture, had, as Germany then thought, brought France to her death-gasp. ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... English Consul ... forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph—take it."—Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... 'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved Of any life thereafter. And, moreover, Often will some one in a sudden fit, As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt, Blither, and twist about with sinews taut, Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs With tossing round. No marvel, since distract Through frame by ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... longer 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, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... catching my train. Guarding against being trailed, I made a rush of it for the Emergency Hospital. Luck was with me, and I gained access at once to comrade Galvin, the surgeon-in-chief. I started to gasp out my information, but ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... 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 ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... is not a perfect medium. It loses much that we wish to register but, also, it registers much that we may wish to lose. Therefore when I say that I distinctly heard a gasp, followed by heavy difficult breathing, over the telephone, I must beg for credence. It is true. Some one at the other end of the line ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... wounded friend. I couldn't leave him until I was absolutely certain that he was past all aid. He did not last very many minutes, and I knelt there with my arm round his shoulders, hoping against hope that something could be done. He was called to pay the supreme sacrifice of all. And with just one gasp he died. ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... to kill; but the best shot at a hundred yards will miss every time at a hundred inches. The bullet just grazed your shoulder, and at the sting of it you began to gasp and presently to cry. Tears afterward the doctor told me you would never have lived to draw a single breath if it hadn't been for that shot. The shock of it was what started your heart, your lungs. They had tried slapping, and ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... troubled dreams, in which gymnoti play a conspicuous part. He imagines himself still floundering amidst these monsters, assailed from all sides by their galvanic batteries, and that they have dragged him down into the mud, where he is fast getting asphyxiated. When in his last gasp, as it were, he is relieved, by awaking from his uneasy slumbers; which he does suddenly, and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... from the world for eighteen hundred years in mythical obscurity, is unhappily lost again the moment it is discovered, in the infinitely deeper darkness of the philosophy of Hegel and Strauss; who in vain endeavour to gasp out, in articulate language, the still latent mystery of the Gospel! Hegel, in his last hours, is said to have said,—and if he did not say, he ought to have said,—'Alas! there is but one man in all Germany who understands ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... love, used, in their innocent effrontery, to discuss, half in jest, half in earnest, love and the sweets of love: and, in school, under the fatherly eye of the master—a very polite and mild old gentleman—verses like the following, which he confiscated one day, when they made him gasp: ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... there was complete silence. The company was evidently making sure that it had understood his speech correctly. Then Miss Newbury gave a gasp, and Henry Lawford, with a certain stern dignity that he ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... "Bless us! what a word on A title-page is this!" and some in file Stand spelling false while one might walk to Mile- End Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than Gordon, Colkitto, or Macdonnell, or Galasp? Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek, That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp. Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke, Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, When thou taught'st Cambridge and King ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... Elsie listened with a gasp of astonishment; the old clock ignored the halves and quarters, so the time must be two o'clock in the morning! She never remembered having been up so early or so late before, and the thought that she was wandering about ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... his eyes being still held by those of Julius, and instantly, as it seemed to him, he plunged, as a man dives into the sea, into a gulf of unconsciousness, from which he presently emerged with something like a gasp and with a tremulous sensation about his heart. What had happened to him he did not know; but he felt slacker of fibre, as if virtue had gone out of him, while Julius, when he spoke, seemed refreshed as by a draught ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... the girl's soul. A quick gasp of pain broke from her, and the man turned and saw her face and ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... long panel down the front, 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 from ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... his seat, and the last echo of his resonant voice died away. First came silence, and then a thunder of applause. Men stood up and waved what they had in their hands, hats or handkerchiefs or papers; women sat with their eyes still on him, or, with a gasp, leant back and closed their lids. He sat with his head sunk on his breast, till the tumult died away. No one rose. The Speaker looked round once and again. Could it be that no one——? Slowly he began to rise. The movement caught Sir Robert's attention: he signed to Puttock, who sprang ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... muffled noise from the living room. He heard Captain Greer's gasp as he turned. He could see through the bedroom door to the wall of the living room. A large section of the ferro-concrete wall had sagged away and collapsed, having suddenly lost its tensile strength. On the top of the rubble, frozen for a long instant, stood the Nipe, ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... its interests both abroad and at home. Otherwise, no rank, no toleration even, for me. I had no arts but manly arts. On them I have stood, and, please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... something strong, firm, and resistless grasped his neck from behind, and, even as he opened his mouth to gasp out his surprise and alarm, a vise-like grip shut down on his thigh, and then, he was jerked backward, lifted upward, tossed outward, falling downward. The wagon clattered off in the night, and a tall man and a woman looked over the ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... horrified gasp. "How perfectly dreadful! How in the world did I happen to make such ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... we make our cooking fire; or else the blaze is at the last gasp. Then, after all, we may have been a little off about that light we ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... like a jackass, and Geisenheim chattered like an ape. But all was forgotten and unnoticed when Vivian heard the fell and frantic shouts of the laughing hyaena, the Margrave of Rudesheimer! Vivian, in despair, dashed the horn of Oberon to his mouth. One pull, a gasp, another desperate draught; it was done! and followed by a supernaculum almost superior to ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... curate, he stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at him. 'Last Sunday,' he said, 'I 'eard you read those very words from the chancel steps. Go! go! I tell you, go! You are a bad man, a wolf in sheep's clothing—go!' Mr Clinton walked up to him threateningly, and the curate, with a gasp of astonishment and indignation, fled ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... with his weakened limbs the earth that separated him from his beloved master. Passion gave him strength, and at last he was near to the body. Then his faithful heart gave way, and he breathed out a last gasp, as if he knew he had ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... name—we wish we could say, with Thackeray's F. B., "the highly respectable name"—of the Chinese who has just been acquitted on a charge of bigamy. In China, it is said that the more distinguished a man is the shorter is his title, and the name of a very victorious general is a mere click or gasp. On this principle, the trisyllabic Tin-tun-ling must have been without much honour in his own country. In Paris, however, he has learned Parisian aplomb, and when confronted with his judges and his accusers, his air, we learn, "was very calm." "His smile it was pensive and bland," like the Heathen ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... sorry," she managed to gasp, feeling if she didn't say something, she should surely run. "Does your head feel better?" And she smoothed his hot forehead gently just as Phronsie always did Grandpapa's when it ached. And when she thought of Phronsie, then it was all she could do to keep ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... gasp came from the audience, as from five hundred bathers in a wholly unexpected surf. This gasp was punctuated irregularly, over the auditorium, by imperfectly subdued screams both of dismay and incredulous joy, and by two dismal ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... he once more bored his way through the crowd to the side of Rosenblatt, who was continuing to gasp painfully and spit blood. The moment of danger was past. The excited crowd settled down again into an appearance of stupid anxiety, ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine, Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then! 'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve My bath must needs be left behind, alas! One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... the dog-days. Round and about we skipped in the golden straw, amidst treasuries of hay, puffing and spinning. And the quiet lightnings quivered between the beams, and the monstrous "Ah!" of the thunder submerged the pipe's sweetness. Till at last all began to gasp and blow indeed, and the nodding Fool to sip, and sip, as if in extremis over his mouthpiece. Then we rested awhile, with a medley of shrill laughter and guffaws, while the rain streamed lightning-lit upon the trees and tore ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... him. 'God's messenger!' was all he could gasp. Then the tall melancholy man raised his eyes to heaven, and uttered a Hebrew voluntary in which references to the ram whose horns were caught in the thicket to save ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... the goal with a helpless air, but obeyed, and heard a sort of gasp, then a shout that rent the air. She opened her eyes and looked around dazedly. Her gromet was in the bucket, and amid the wild cheering Mr. Malcolm was chalking up a 10 nearly a foot long. This gave the score to Faith's side and Mrs. Windemere was ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... us water-rats or otters, To keep our breath still living through a dive That lasts until the earth's burnt out? Or how Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp, And find the star waiting for our plunged heads To ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... not realize until now the progress she had made since the day of our arrival in Gotham nearly four years previous. Her education was complete—she was a graduate in the great school of flat-life, and was contemplating a post-graduate course. Figures that made me gasp and sustain myself by the silver-mounted plumbing left her quite undisturbed. From her manner you would suppose that it was only the desirability of the apartment itself that was worth consideration. She criticised the arrangement of the rooms ...
— The Van Dwellers - A Strenuous Quest for a Home • Albert Bigelow Paine
... now, with a sudden gasp of pain; it was as though a dagger had been turned in a wound. It seemed too sacred to read to Dr. Howe, but it was just to John that it should be heard, even if only partly understood; and it was also just to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... consistent with the 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 that those ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... could expect to live a little 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 ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... from his, and suddenly his crisp hair caught her eyes. Surely—surely it was curled with tongs! A kind of spasm of amusement was set free in her heart, and, almost inaudibly, the words escaped her lips: "Une technique merveilleuse!" His eyes wavered; he uttered a little gasp; his lips fell apart. Gyp walked across the room and put her hand on the bell. She had lost her fear. Without a word, he turned, and went out into the garden. She watched him cross the lawn. Gone! She had beaten him by the one thing not even violent passions can withstand—ridicule, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... 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 it. I've thought about the thing—a lot. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... better exercise to acquire a good habit of breathing than reading aloud. Try how much can be read easily, without strain, upon a single inflation of the lungs. Never gasp, catch up, or piece out a breath. "You may add years to your life by the simple act of breathing." Every public speaker knows, or should know, the feeling of repose and self-possession that comes over ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... sister, Miss Edith, and Madam Rothsay. I don't think they recognized me at first, for when I tried to make the best of the situation by speaking and expressing my happiness at thus meeting them, Miss Edith gave a sort of a gasp and cried: 'Why, aunty! I do believe it is Mr. Bullen!' She seemed so distressed, that I hastened not only to assure her of my identity, but that with the exception of a few blisters I was quite well. I also attempted to divert her mind by praising the wonderful sea-going ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... double weight onto the ice, it broke, and before the rest of us had thought of anything to do the cold would have cramped him. I saw Ongyatasse stuffing Tiakens's hair into his mouth so as to leave both his hands free, and then there was a running gasp of astonishment from the rest of the band, as a slim figure shot out of Dark Woods, skimming and circling like a swallow. We had heard of the snowshoes of the Lenni-Lenape, but this was the first time we had seen them. For a moment we were so taken up with the wonder ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... She uttered a startled gasp; there was no time for more ere his lips met hers in a kiss so burning, so compelling, that it reft from her all power of resistance. One glimpse she had of his eyes, and it was as if she looked into the deep, deep ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... halted near the door with an exclamation of disappointment. By this time his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and he noted the white surface of the bed in a far corner and ran quickly toward it, groping with his hands about the posts at its head. He closed his fingers with a quick gasp of satisfaction on a leather belt that hung from it, heavy with cartridges and a revolver that swung from its holder. Holcombe pulled this out and jerked back the lever, spinning the cylinder around under ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... an audience collected to hear an eminent clergyman last summer, I heard an astonished gasp behind me, as the ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... With a gasp of shame, Theodora realized that she had been crying aloud in her excitement, while the blurred scratches on the ice showed that she had been flying about the group in a futile distraction. With a groan of self-disgust, she ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... reviewer affects to lose his respiration, and with "a gasp of incredulity" wants to know what the writer means, "and what standards he proposes to himself when he has given up the English ones?" The reviewer makes a more serious case than the writer intended, or than a fair construction of the context ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... breaking of a twig, disturbed the quiet and Bet sat erect with a gasp of surprise. She caught Joy by the arm. ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... loud applause. Hyacinth started to his feet. For a time he could only gasp for breath to utter a reply, and Dr. Spenser, secure in the conviction of his own intellectual and social superiority to the son of a parson from Connemara, determined to ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... the 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 against ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... where he got out. He's married now, and his wife sings at the music-hall, and he lives on her earnings. Quite the gentleman he is now, and smokes cigars all day long. There's his address, and thank you for the money. Oh," she said with a gasp. "To think that people can earn five pounds ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... risked a war with a friendly power concerning a very distant land, the value and potentialities of which were far from being immediately obvious. The Englishman, however, is tremendously assertive when threatened. He will fight to the last gasp to keep what he really does not want very much, if only he supposes that his enemy wishes to take a bit of it. It was in that spirit of pugnacity that he stretched a large muscular hand over the whole map of Australia, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... 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 ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... heights.... How well she knew the cool brightness of his eyes, as he wrote! The god she had liberated that sunlit day was dead—not dead to her alone, but to any woman of Shore or Mountain or Isle.... With a gasp, she recalled Vina Nettleton's first conception, that Bedient was past, or rapidly passing beyond the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... 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, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... hangman no, twelve times within this hour, when I was at the last gasp; and that is a time, I think, when ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... fell on his knees, looking over his shoulder at the Indian, who was close behind him, and now observing the bull's helpless condition, sat down a short distance off, waiting for the death-gasp. After one or two efforts to rise, the huge beast dropped his ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... suddenly a clod of earth should rise, And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love, How one would tremble, and in what surprise Gasp: ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... simultaneous gasp from a hundred throats—a distinct cry from some. Then the Clerk of Arraigns was seen to be leaning forward, a hand to his ear, for the foreman's voice had broken with excitement. And every soul in ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... who had made the Lake Superior trip with me last summer, and we stood watching him. Then as his end drew near, we knelt and I offered up the beautiful commendatory prayer for the sick, and we joined in repeating the Lord's prayer. As we rose from our knees the dear boy gave one more faint gasp for breath and expired. How wonderful are the ways of God, how little can we understand His dealings. But the very essence of faith is the trusting in God when we do not ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... of practical jokes in his mind, Shorthouse at once swung his heavy stick in the direction of the sound; but it met nothing more solid than air. He heard his aunt give a little gasp beside him. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... energies of the once stubborn will gave way. The last gasp of the failing breath was drawn. The herald at the window announced to the waiting multitude that Louis the ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... anyone in that holy place! It was hateful to have his 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the music which is divine, My heart in its thirst is a dying flower; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine; Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like an herbless plain, for the gentle rain, I gasp, I faint, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... any one!' I answered, a little piqued that she should have drawn any such impression from my appearance. I may have been uttering a fib of magnificent proportions at the moment, but one has a right to deny cowardice to the last gasp, whatever else ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... drawn together—he stooped to the body of the murdered woman. Partially raising the fur cloak, he suppressed a gasp of astonishment. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... preserved pears, Miss Ravis? Yes, miss, she'd get them right away; they were just over here on the sideboard. Yes, here they were. No more? Now she'd go and put them back. And at last when she had set the nerves of all of them in a jangle, was dismissed to the kitchen and retired with a gasp of unspeakable relief. ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... "I lay under the bush, and went to sleep; and then they came and woke me, and brought me here. I want air!" he cried, suddenly changing his tone, and springing up, he rushed to the grated window, and seemed to gasp for breath. The small lattice stood open, but the prisoner, devoured by fever, could not be satisfied with such coolness as came in through it. He seized the iron bars with trembling hands and tried to shake them; ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... father's grief if I resided far away. My presence certainly would remind him of the wreck of all his ambitions, but if I should settle down in Vienna or Paris, or—" she paused and gave a little gasp—"or if anything should happen to me, if I should—should disappear, that is, really disappear, Jeneka would be free ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... but in vain. There was one gasp; the blood poured in a torrent from his mouth, and he fell down at ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was you!" Fred said, with a great, tremulous gasp. "She is so strange, so cold and self-contained,—so bitter against fate! Believe me, Jack, I have tried my utmost"—and the voice broke with something like ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... conveyed to him in the same forcible manner in which it had been conveyed to Plunger; but, though the dig in the ribs made him gasp, it did ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... the same law prevails. Every one suffers. Said Augustine, "God had one Son without sin; he has none without sorrow." From infancy's first cry until the old man's life goes out in a gasp of pain, suffering is a condition of existence. It comes in manifold forms. Now it is in sickness; the body is racked with pain or burns in fever. Ofttimes sickness is a heavy burden. Yet even this burden has a blessing in it for the Christian. Sickness rightly borne makes us ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... the work satisfactorily; so well, in fact, that when she gave the girl a little finishing pat and announced admiringly that "You surely will be queen of the ball to-night, Miss Lucy," that young lady gave an involuntary gasp ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... cried Baker, unaware of the source of the report, and rushing in, he grasped his arms to guard against any feint or strategy. A moment convinced him that further struggle with the prone flesh was useless. Booth did not move, nor breathe, nor gasp. Conger and two sergeants now entered, and taking up the body, they bore it in haste from the advancing flame, and laid it without upon the grass, all fresh with ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... But the frightened creature needed no urging. With a great shuddering leap he sprang forward as though a thousand fire-fiends from the infernal regions had been after him. Helene uttered a half-suppressed shriek, and clung strenuously to Edward's arm. Suddenly he gave a loud gasp of dismay. On the road directly before them a pile of brush had caught the blaze and stretched before their startled eyes like a burning bridge. All attempts to stop or turn around were useless. The horse was wholly beyond control. ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... a whiff of Old Ireland herself," was Patsy O'Connell's subconscious comment as "Miss St. Regis" crossed the stage; and something of the feeling must have been wafted across the footlights to the audience, for it drew in its breath with a little gasp of genuine appreciation. ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there," but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized "par le queue," the soldier who had ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen's bunk. I reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying motionless, but moved slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under his blankets. There was no warmth, no sign of fire. Yet that smoke which blinded me and made me cough and gasp must have a source. I lost my head temporarily and dashed frantically about the steerage. A collision with the table partially knocked the wind from my body and brought me to myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could start a fire only ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... a mace from the pavement, on which it lay beside one whose dying gasp had just relinquished it, to rush on the Templar's band, and to strike in quick succession to the right and left, levelling a warrior at each blow, was, for Athelstane's great strength, now animated with unusual fury, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... caressing hand. But Methuselah was incapable now of any further effort. He opened his blind eyes sleepily for the last, last time, and stared around him with a blank stare at the fading universe. "God save the king!" he screamed aloud with a terrible gasp, true to his colors still. "God save the king, and to hell ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... the Poet, said—hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine, —then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,—then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head,—then a long ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... lost—what recks it by disease or strife? Let him who crawls, enamoured of decay, Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;[hk] Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head; Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed,— 30 While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang—one bound—escapes control. His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead. For ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... an inward gasp, but pointed gracefully to a small confectionery shop on the other side of the road. Mrs. Reffold ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... you, I know you!" was all she could gasp, as she bowed herself submissive before him. "I detest you, and shall therefore marry you. Trample upon me!" And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... his hair, which hung about his face unkempt and uncared for, had the same singed aspect; his skin was brown and baked. I got up as he approached, and caught him and threw him to the ground, without heeding his struggles to get on. 'Don't you see,' he cried with a gasp, 'they may get me again.' He was one of those who had escaped out of the mines; but what was it to me whether they caught him again or not? I wanted to know how he had been caught, and what he had been set to do, and how he had escaped. ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... child made my skin stiffen into goose-prickles. A wilder moan succeeded, and then one of the windows of one of the dark houses was opened, and something thrown out which fell heavily down. Mr. Rowe was just coming on board again, and I found courage in the emergency to gasp ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... feeling that I had never heard the tune before. In his earnestness he came nearer and nearer, his contortions every moment becoming more extraordinary, his whistling more piercing; and I, by this time convulsed by awful, helpless laughter, could only shrink farther back in my seat and gasp feebly, "Please don't." ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... luxury of defiance, I swam my fastest and most furious racing-stroke, till my breath gave out with a gasp, my breast felt like bursting, and my heart beat heavily on my ribs. So I lay supine upon the water, closed my eyes, and derived a surfeit of joy from ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... half drowned!" was his humorous complaint. "The smell of eats makes my mouth water so fast I have to gasp for air. Must tickle your nose, too, eh, ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... the table and read it slowly, certain portions of it he read a second time, and at intervals made a sound with his mouth like an oath cut short, or a gasp of surprise half suppressed. So Latour had lied, and Bruslart ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... then he gritted his teeth and placed one arm about her waist and threw the other around her neck in such a way that he could draw it tight if necessary. Suddenly she raised her head, gave one startled look into his face, and with a shuddering gasp, she recoiled. ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... a gasp, a moment of supreme quiet, and then a mighty burst of applause. To men of all parties and factions there came a single thought. Johnson was the leading county of its Congressional district. There was an election that fall, and Harrison ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... in your power to keep from the public the knowledge that you are no longer a potential mother. If you are past forty, do not mop your face or gasp for breath or carry a fan to the theater! Shun attention and fear, and you will be surprised at the ease with ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... She had reached the platform alone, when, coming toward the car, she saw the man of the sombrero, and shrank back with a gasp of utter dismay. ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... deep voice from behind the curtain: it was Mark Armsworth's. He had come over with the first dawn, to bring the ladies food; had slipped upstairs to ask what news, found the door open, and entered in time to see the last gasp. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... of this with the air of a man sure of having his offer accepted. But if he had expected Joe to gasp with astonishment and delight, ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... last again and again, sweeping it away and cutting great gashes in it, through which we saw the figures of men caught up and hurled to one side, and others flinging themselves face downward as though they were diving into water; and at the same instant in our own trench the men would gasp as though they had been struck too, and then becoming conscious of having done this would turn and smile sheepishly at each other, and crawl closer into the burrows they had made in ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... looms Aloft through rigging frayed they ply— Cross and recross—weave and inweave, Then lock the web with clinching cry Over the seas on seas that clasp The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp. ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... saw the spectre six times, but did not name it to her family. Her sister saw the appearance in 1882, a maid saw it in 1883, and two boys beheld it in the same year. Miss Morton used to follow the appearance downstairs and speak to it, but it merely gave a slight gasp, and seemed unable to converse. By way of testing the spectre, Miss Morton stretched threads at night from the railing of the stair to the wall, but the ghost descended without disturbing them. Yet her footsteps sounded on the stairs. This is, in fact, a crucial difficulty about ghosts. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... she had bargained for. She leaned against the wall instinctively, as if needing more substantial support than her limbs. Her throat seemed parched, so that when she would have spoken the result was merely a spasmodic gasp. Even the friendly semi-darkness of the little antechamber failed to hide her confusion ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... drive. Even as he delivered the ball Carroll bounded away from his position, flinging off the mask as he jumped. For a single fleeting instant, the catcher's position was vacated. But that instant was long enough to make the audience gasp. Kane bunted beautifully down the third base line, and there Carroll stood, fifteen feet from the plate, agile as a huge monkey. He whipped the ball to Mahew at third. Mahew wheeled quick as thought and lined the ball to second. Sheldon came tearing ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... a gasp of wonder and surprise, and at the same instant the Medicine Man jumped forward, pointed a finger towards the sign, and turned with an evil ...
— The Fiery Totem - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian North-West • Argyll Saxby
... earth like fishes, and a gasp is all their breath. God for empty honours only gave them death and scorn of death, And you walk the worms for carpet and you tread a stone that squeals— Only, God that made them worms did not make them wheels. Man shall shut his heart against you and you shall ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... gave a slight gasp. The thing had got to be done, and the sooner he was out of range of ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... the Poet, said—hits me like a bullet in the forehead. I have often had the blood drop from my cheeks when it struck, and felt that I turned as white as death. Then comes a creeping as of centipedes running down the spine,—then a gasp and a great jump of the heart,—then a sudden flush and a beating in the vessels of the head,—then a long sigh,—and the poem ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... went along. The Brant's were moving in the Jamreth house; she would remember hereafter to turn off at State street and not pass it. Somehow she felt very tired. At times there was such a fluttering somewhere inside of her that for a moment things went round and she had to gasp for breath. She would like to tell Dr. Richards about it. She had seen him twice, both times in the street and it had kept her happy ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas
... his gaze to the position of the throttle device and Gregory saw with a gasp of astonishment that the throttle was ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... drop in the well, As I gasp'd upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell 'T is to ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Birkenshead tore off his own coat and waistcoat; but as he turned, the coming breaker dashed over their heads, he heard a faint gasp, and when his eyes were clear of the salt, he saw the old man's gray hair in the midst of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... had almost reached the man, and still pointing began to gasp some broken words. Then, suddenly in the bright moonlight, Metem saw a shining point of light flash towards the pair from the darkness of the tree. It would seem that Elissa saw it also; at least, she leapt ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... sight. The house lay behind the sand-banks, the first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from his shoulders ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a guttural gasp of amazement. A rumour of the possible arrival of the young millionaire had percolated despite Mr. Clisson's care, through the range of desks to the doorkeeper, who without discernible reasons had expected some time in the day a procession of black coats and grave men to appear ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... group of enthusiasts who were flocking round her, and she found that she was being quietly drawn aside into safety. Max Errington's tall form had interposed itself between her and her too eager worshippers. With a little gasp of relief she let him lead her down the steps of the platform and back into the comparative calm of the artistes' room, while two of the ushers hurried forward and dispersed the memento-seekers, shepherding them back into the hall below, so that the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... drive. The road along which they sped seemed, in the gathering dusk, uncomfortably narrow, and he speculated a good deal as to how frightened the two mutes behind him must be. But silence was such a law of their life that, though he strained his ears, he could not so much as hear them sigh or gasp. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... I found a better, worse luck to the villain as killed him. He was that free and ginerous, sir, that many 's the time I have said to Hannah—" She stopped, with a sudden comical gasp of terror, looking at her fellow-servants like one who had incautiously made a slip. The coroner, observing ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... in this new professional phase, readily obeyed. One quick movement of Shirley's muscular hand, the thumb oddly twisted and stiffened, and a sudden jab in the doctor's abdomen made that gentleman gasp with pain. Shirley's expression was triumphant, but the professor regarded him ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... eyes. Forrester, expressionless, ducked under the man's flailing 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
... gasp, she dropped into her lap the bit of needlework and sought to hide it with her hands—a gesture wholly girlish yet—to hide and guard it with those hands, so useful and beautiful, so precious and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... have suspected the identity of Cousin Egbert, and I had hopes that he would feel a new courage for his part when he beheld himself. Instead, however, after one quick glance into the glass he emitted a gasp of horror that was most eloquent, and thereafter refused to be comforted, holding himself aloof and glaring hideously at all who approached him. Rather like a mad ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... usually come on in a few seconds, and are of the shortest possible duration. There is a sudden gasp for breath, possibly a loud cry, and the patient drops down dead. If the fatal termination is prolonged for a few minutes, the symptoms are intense giddiness, pallor of the skin, dilatation of the pupils, laboured and irregular breathing, small and ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... heard a frightened gasp from somewhere back in the hall. Turning, he asked in the most natural manner whether there were children in ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... thought of these particulars, however, but, putting her hands together, dived off the landing-place just as Loveday turned the corner of the boat-house. It was very cold, indeed, in the water, far colder than she had expected; it made her gasp for breath, and sent a numbness into her limbs. She struggled on, however, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Green was so confounded at this unusual reception that he lost the power of motion and speech. But as Mr. Larkyns advanced towards him in a threatening attitude, he managed to gasp out: "Why, Charles Larkyns, don't you ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... woman whom you would have murdered, whom I found at her last gasp, and with difficulty restored to consciousness, that poor woman, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... smothered gasp the old negro hurried back. But try as they would, room for all the numerous bundles could not be found. The proprietor energetically tucked bundles into all of Uncle Noah's pockets, piled them tower fashion upon his ...
— Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration • Leona Dalrymple
... in the tree about five minutes, while we stood about, panting, pale, and terror-stricken, we again took it down and laid it out on the ground. All of a sudden, to our amazement there was a movement about the mouth and a little gasp, as for breath. The rough handling of the body getting it in and out of the tree had had ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... past a hundred leagues before the breeze which Circe had lent them suddenly stopped. It was stricken dead. All the sea lay in prostrate slumber. Not a gasp of air could be felt. The ship stood still. Ulysses guessed that the island of the Sirens was not far off, and that they had charmed the air so with their devilish singing. Therefore he made him cakes of wax, as Circe had instructed ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gasp of relief came from Toby. She spoke with more assurance. "Oh, was that it? You were just trying—to ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... is hard labour in the mines for"—The last word was never spoken, for ere it was uttered the tall and still erect form of the dethroned Autocrat suddenly shrank together, lurched forward, and fell with a choking gasp and a clash of chains upon the hard-trampled snow. A stream of blood rushed from his white, half-open lips, and when they went to raise him ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... daily, and contemplating the lecture field. This great blaze of international appreciation which had come to the little boy who used to set type for him in Hannibal, and wash up the forms and cry over the dirty proof, made him gasp. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... happy heart; what else is there to dread? Although a bird knows full well when it has received its death wound, instinct drives it to flutter, drag itself as far as possible from the gaze of the sportsman, and gasp out its agony in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... heir to the throne, the last hope of avoiding the miseries of a disputed succession; and that in her revengeful fury the queen, as a woman, has committed the blackest of all crimes, a mother's slaughter of her child. We are not asked to weep but to gasp at the horror of it. It is in order to protect the loftier, broader aspects of the catastrophe from the influence of the particular that action is excluded. This cautions us against confusing tragedy and pathos. To perceive ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne |
