"Hysterics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women have hysterics?" he asked, but in a moment he added, reassuring himself, "Maud never has, and, hang it, we must chance ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... his servants, who were vainly endeavouring to recall that vital spark which was totally extinct. Victorine, the young and lovely marchioness, thus suddenly and awfully reduced to widowhood, had fallen into such violent hysterics, as to render the task of supporting her almost dangerous to a noble youth who had voluntarily undertaken it. The consternation of the spectators at this tragical spectacle may be well imagined; but some two or three of them had, nevertheless, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... seat beside his driver and hurried post-haste to the Merrick residence. In a few minutes Mrs. Merrick was in violent hysterics at the disappearance of her daughter. Arthur stopped long enough to telephone for a doctor and then drove to the Doyles. He routed up Uncle John and the Major, who appeared in pajamas and bath-robes, and told ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... laughed, too. We laughed like fools and the tears ran down my cheeks. I suppose we were on the verge of hysterics. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... course, was the hero of the evening: he talked much and loudly. Cash, as well as several young ladies, went into hysterics at his wit. Mercer, as the evening wore away, grew exceedingly conceited, even for him; and he graciously asserted that the company present reminded him of his two visits to the "Capitol," and other associations equally ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... given him jest five minits' law to get up and get and leave her, and we'd hev toted that gal and her fixin's back to her dad again! But she jest gave a little scream and start, and then went off inter hysterics, right on his buzzum, laughing and cryin' and sayin' that nothin' should part 'em. Gosh! if I didn't think HE woz more cut up than she about it; a minit it looked as ef HE didn't allow to marry her arter all, but ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... letting him out of the front door. Fred came in to me, and I soon got the strength of it all from him. What do you think Hill had come for? To get Fred to burgle Sir Horace's house! And Fred had agreed to do it. I cried and I stormed and went into hysterics, but he wouldn't budge—you know how obstinate he can be when he likes. He said that Hill had told him there was a good haul to be picked up. Sir Horace was going to Scotland for the shooting, and the servants were ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... apparently decided that the man was a harmless fool, for with a quick exclamation he strode off toward his tent, which lay at some distance from the camp. The others excitedly discussed the alarming turn events had taken, while Aunt Sally showed strong symptoms of hysterics. But Alverado, whose face had taken on a startled expression at Wandering William's quick exclamation, darted to the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... Elizabeth shook her head: it was a trick, she said, to hide from her the sorrow which had fallen upon her. Her agony, instead of calming, became more violent; her tears ceased to flow, and were followed by hysterics. The priest then made her swear to keep the secret, and the sanctity of the confession ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... small, dry, and dapper, was one of these; Basil had made his acquaintance over a discussion in a hotel cloak-room about the right hat, a discussion which reduced the little major almost to a kind of masculine hysterics, the compound of the selfishness of an old bachelor and the scrupulosity of an old maid. They had gone home in a cab together and then dined with each other twice a week until they died. I myself was another. I had met Grant while he was still a judge, on the balcony of ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... She wished very much that Augusta Goold had stopped at home. It would have been a great deal pleasanter to have gone on practising hysterics with Hyacinth as a sympathetic spectator. When the door was shut Augusta Goold ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... indignantly—"nothing but their own base suspicions! She nearly fainted at first sight of him. He showed her a picture, and she ran out of the room and fell into hysterics. Since then he has written to her, and mysterious personages—females in disguise—visit him at the Blue Bell. That is what they whisper, ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... the terrified landlady, screaming like a sea-gull, and bearing Jocko aloft upon her shoulders, from which "bad eminence" he was grinning and chattering with the fury of fifty devils. She ran twice round the room, and then sunk on the floor in hysterics. We lost no time in hastening to her assistance; but the warlike Jocko, still sitting upon her, refused to permit one of us to approach. There he sat, turning from side to side, showing his sharp, white teeth, and uttering from time to time the most ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the village ran out to look at Anna as she passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... feelings. With a voice and look that awed the woman in to obedience, she commanded her to quit her presence for ever; and then, no longer able to suppress the motions of insulted pride, wounded vanity, and indignant disappointment, she gave way to a violent fit of hysterics. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... nation—if (but this was doubtful) England did not help others to hammer her. Now, twenty years ago one would not have heard any of this sort of thing. If it sounds a little mad, remember that the Mother Country was throughout considered as a lady in violent hysterics. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... followed, to borrow the hackneyed phrase, beggars description. The house was turned upside down; to my mental vision arose sal volatile and burnt feathers, swoons and hysterics. Mahomet's dove alone can tell how all might have ended had not the Frenchman suggested a bolus. Captain No. 1 and I were commissioned to inquire into the mystery of the disappearance of that baleful mongoose. ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... her face in her hands, and relapsed into hysterics. I darted to her side. Somehow I had an intuition of something having happened to her which had nothing to do with myself. She was like ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... behind, and we were going nicely along a good bit of road, when a ridiculous old donkey got right across the way. I thought he'd move, but he didn't, so I gave him a kick; he kicked back, and over we went in a heap, donkey and all. Such a mess! I thought only of Dora, and she had hysterics; at least, she laughed till she cried, and that beast brayed, and I lost my head. Any fellow would, with a poor girl gasping in the road, and he wiping her tears and begging pardon, not knowing whether her bones were broken or not. I called ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Patty demanded indignantly. "What with being frightened into hysterics first, and then having a strange fiance thrust at me without a moment's notice, I think that I carried off the situation with rare delicacy and finesse. Do you think it would have been tactful to tell her it was nothing but a bull pup ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... of Denoisel. She only remembered the commencement of the attack that she had had in his presence, that terrible moment which had been followed by her fall and a fit of hysterics. She had had a sensation of being suffocated by her brother's blood, and she knew that a cry had come to her lips. She did not know whether she had spoken, whether her secret had escaped her while she was unconscious. Had she told Denoisel that she had killed Henri, that it was she who ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... he frequently urged upon me the excellency of the opportunity now offered for indulging my desire of travel. He found me by no means an unwilling listener—yet the matter could not be so easily arranged. My father made no direct opposition; but my mother went into hysterics at the bare mention of the design; and, more than all, my grandfather, from whom I expected much, vowed to cut me off with a shilling if I should ever broach the subject to him again. These difficulties, however, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... that is an ungenerous and superficial view, especially as we have never seen the same people courting hysterics before," she said; but she did not speak as if she cared much which ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... concerned, ended in a nervous attack that was not unlike heart failure. I allude, of course, to Caroline, and it took Isabella and myself a good half hour to bring her back to a normal condition, and when this was done, Isabella thought it incumbent upon her to go off into hysterics, which, being but a weak simulation of the other's state, I met with severity and cured with a frown. When both were in trim again ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... find out before you get through that I mean to deal with you fairly. But you cannot accomplish anything by hysterics. ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... series of long or short howls and grunts, gave me his message, to which I replied by careless taps of my cane or hand, nobody suspecting that my casual movements meant anything, nor supposing for an instant that a sudden burst of African forest yells, which sent a fat lady nearly into hysterics, and made two small children howl with apprehension, merely meant "She with the pink bonnet ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... exercise of what he considered his mysterious powers. His fastings and vigils, and want of bodily movement and fresh air, had so injured his health as to make him tenfold more nervous and sensitive than ever. But his faintings and hysterics and epileptic paroxysms were taken more and more as evidences of his lofty mission. His father and mother regarded him as an oracle, for the simple reason that he always answered just as they expected. A curious or superstitious neighbor was added from time to time to the circle, and their reports ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... uproarious that the grandsire's red kerchief came down from his face with a jerk. What decent old gentleman could sleep in such a racket! Mynheer van Gleck regarded his children with astonishment. The baby even showed symptoms of hysterics. It was high time to attend to business. Mevrouw suggested that, if they wished to see the good St. Nicholas, they should sing the same loving invitation that had ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... was nothing more than despair in hysterics, enabled Dewhurst to withstand, for a little, the looks of triumph in Hamilton and Cameron, in spite of their laugh, which still rung in his ears. The sermon had touched him but little, and if he could have got quit of this wildly ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... for counsel and advice at the critical point in his book, there are only two courses open to him, aside from the doubtful one of evasion. He may let his fancy run riot and put his heroine into clothes that would give even a dumb woman hysterics, or he may follow the example of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor, who says of one of his heroines that "her pliant body was enshrouded in white muslin with a blue ribbon at ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... sharp cries of "Amen!" "Glory!" "Amen!" while the prostrate penitents continued to receive whispered comfortings, and from time to time a mystic caress. More than once I saw a young neck encircled by a reverend arm. Violent hysterics and convulsions seized many of them, and when the tumult was at the highest, the priest who remained above, again gave out a hymn ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... prodigal returned, lightfooted, gay of mien. She was alone when she arrived, having firmly refused Bertrand's escort farther then the end of the plage, lest poor Mademoiselle, who hated men, should have hysterics. But the tale of her adventures had preceded her. All Valpre knew what had happened, and watched her with furtive curiosity. All Valpre knew that the petite Anglaise had spent the night in a cave with one of the officers from the fortress, and all Valpre waited with bated ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... "blue, blue orbs," and trickled down her plump and ruddy cheeks; but scarcely had she plunged into the very depths of the pathos induced by the moving air, which threatened to throw her into a gentle swoon, or kicking hysterics, when her spirit was aroused by the sudden change of the melancholy ditty, to the rampant and lively tune, with the popular burden of, "Turn about and wheel about, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... lost to view. Then, with some very complimentary reflections upon Lena's riding, he returned to his pillow, thinking to himself, "There's a girl worth having. By Jove, if I'd never seen Nellie Douglass, and 'Lena wasn't my cousin, wouldn't I keep mother in the hysterics most ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... Edward," repeated Mrs. Lambert. "Yes, but if I'm not mistaken, my dear, she is doing so well that she's going to pieces. She's overstrung to-day. If it were you, you'd be in hysterics." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... basement was at once instituted, the men-servants were sent into the grounds with lanterns, the whole house was turned topsy-turvy, in the midst of which the nurse returned, and finding her baby was gone, went into violent hysterics, while the young baroness, with flying hair and dilated eyes, rushed about, wringing her hands, and looking, as she felt, distracted ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... she sat in—Rob's awful little room adjoining—which was awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and hard on the bed before she was taken away in hysterics—were dread enclosures of utter silence. The whole house was dumb—the very street had no sound in it. She could not endure it. How dare Tonson? She sprang up and rang the bell again and again until its sound came back to ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a weird sight. I suppose I should have wrung my hands and had hysterics, but as a matter of fact I was almost amused, it was so silly. Thank goodness the road ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... laughing and then crying and then laughing again and then crying once more till six of 'em had to be led out and the rest down with hiccoughs. Napkins waving ... three tables broken ... waiters in hysterics. I tell you, I played on them as on a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted. He thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit as she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone into hysterics when he merely grinned at them through the curtains on one of the spare bedrooms; of the rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he was coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the care of Sir William Gull ever since, ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... it, she ordered an immense bottle of hartshorn to be placed upon her toilet. Being asked what use was to be made of the hartshorn, she said it was to prevent her first Lady of Honour from falling into hysterics when the calls of nature were uncivil enough to exclude her from being of the party. This, as may be presumed, had its desired effect, and Marie Antoinette was ever afterwards allowed free access at least to one ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ritual, it was no wonder that, after all she had suffered, she could not now bring herself into tune with the commonplace intercourse of life. Not that her friends utterly failed to lure her into it. She might well have been the victim of hysterics, but she was only distrait, pensive and gently smiling, with the smile of a good heart. Smiling with her had ever taken the place of conversation. It was an apology for not speaking when she could ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... lighted no candle, but sat down just as she was, put her head on the table, and sobbed as if her heart would break. She was very seldom overcome by emotion of this kind, and used to be proud that she had never once in her life fainted, and was not given to hysterics. Checked at last by a deadly shivering which came over her, she took off her wet garments, threw them over a chair, and crept into bed, revolving in her mind the explanation which she could give ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... be dissolved in proof spirit before the oil is added. One part of this salt, and three parts of extract of belladonna, mixed and spread upon leather, makes an excellent plaster for relieving rheumatic pains. As a local stimulant it is well known, as regards its effects in hysterics, faintness, and lassitude, when applied to the nose, as ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... hand laid on his. For the rest of that night the two boys were terrified by noises, apparently caused by two people rushing about the room fighting and knocking against the bed. About 6 A.M. they went to their father, almost in hysterics from terror, and refused to sleep there again. The eldest sister, not being nervous, was then given that room; she was, however, so disturbed by these noises that she begged her father to let her leave it, but having ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... erect in her night robes, screeching at the top of her voice, for she believed a madman had entered her room, and went straight into a fit of hysterics, while the watchman and numerous of the female bystanders gathered around the major, and would have torn him to pieces, but for a clergyman, who suddenly made his appearance, in his shirt and spectacles, and commenced reading them a lesson on the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... me, and great God! it was my mother! I knew her in spite of the blond hair and the paint, and she knew me. She gave one awful shriek, and then fell in a dead faint, and when she came to half an hour after, she went into hysterics, and screamed and raved ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... It's your plant," said Mrs. Strong briskly. "Alaska Spigg will go into hysterics when she hears where you've put ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... shall be victorious. An ebullition of superstition is easily quieted by a little good news." "Your majesty has been following the new fashion," said he, aloud; "you have been consulting the fortune-tellers. I presume you have visited the nun who is subject to pious hysterics; and Father Gassner, I see, has been visiting your majesty, for I met him as I was coming to the palace. I could not help laughing as I saw his ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she would have tried with all her strength—which is not small—and a very good will, to kill ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... way to do so," he said, almost roughly, "you'll be in hysterics soon—control yourself ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... You come through these affairs with a smile, when you ought to have hysterics. I'll bet a doughnut that when you see a mouse you go and get ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... July 18th.—The theater was crowded to-night, which delighted me. It is pleasant to see malicious and evil actions produce such a result. I was very nervous and excited, and nearly went into hysterics over one small incident of the evening. At the close of the first separation scene—the play was "Venice Preserved"—when Jaffier is carried out by the nape of the neck by Pierre, and Belvidera extracted on ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... now books on hygiene. Oh! but they are comic! What assurance physicians have! what effrontery! what asses for the most part! I have just finished the Gaule poetique of Marchangy (the enemy of Beranger). This book gave me hysterics. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... the spot; you certainly will." Julia felt anxious, for her mother showed signs of going into hysterics. But she put her foot out and shook her head in a way that said that all her friends might die and all the world might go to pieces before she would yield. Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn hope. She determined to order that ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... rejoined I, suiting the action to the word. At length even Mr. Frampton's excellent appetite appeared exhausted, and he declared himself ready to face old Vernor if he should prove as cantankerous as a rhinoceros in hysterics; after which statement we proposed to start on our expedition. During his visit to 443 town on the previous day, Mr. Frampton had purchased a very handsome light travelling carriage, which, with post-horses, was now in waiting to convey us to ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Z——, Touki-San, Campanule, and Jonquille, with 'the friend of amazing height.' And these two, poor Chrysantheme and poor Oyouki, would have been obliged to stay at home with heavy hearts, had we not arrived, because Madame Prune had been seized with faintness and hysterics after ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... for an explosion of fury, piercing cries, hysterics, fainting-fits. To his great surprise, Jenny did not answer a word. She became as white as her collar, her ruddy lips blanched, ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... the due performance of the healthy functions of the lungs. Their partners, the brilliancy of the scene, and the music, excite their nerves to undue and thus to unnatural, action, and what is the consequence? Fatigue, weakness, hysterics, and extreme depression follow. They leave the heated ball-room when the morning has far advanced, to breathe the bitterly cold and frequently damp air of a winter's night, and what is the result? Hundreds die of consumption, ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... police-court; and finally said he would give you five minutes to dress in. Now, there they are, banging at the door. Oh, what have we done? Why did we ever come into this barbarous land?" and poor merry Kate was on the brink of hysterics. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the mauvais honte which men too generally display towards angry and unreasonable women, took an awkward leave of the angry widow, and poor Worrell, whom she treated to a lecture of half an hour, ending with a lively fit of tears and hysterics. As the poor little man turned away, leaving her in the hands of a servant, he ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... the most audacious ugly young-un I ever set eyes on. I wasn't much more than a girl, to be sure, when I saw him first, but I went into yelling hysterics, and took to my bed. Pierre was handsome—and, you know how he ended? Damon, he gritted his teeth—and in his case he could do that early—and made up his mind to make good for his deficiencies—if you can say that ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... was to Bellairs, who had never chosen to believe that her mistress could move without her, and though mortally afraid in crossing to the Isle of Wight, and utterly abhorring all "natives," went into hysterics on finding that her young lady would take out no maid but a little hard-working village girl; and though transferred in the most flattering manner to Mrs. Rivers's service, shed a tear for every stitch she set in the trousseau, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and he gave the sharp, melodramatic howl that he always used when it was his dignity rather than his body that was hurt. Jeremy looked up, saw what had happened, and a fine scene followed. Mary had hysterics, stamped and screamed and howled. Jeremy, his face white, stood and said nothing, but looked as though he hated her, which at that moment he undoubtedly did. It was that look which more than anything else in ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... time came to set out by coach, madame went off into violent hysterics; but the magistrate, backed up by his father-in-law, showed firmness, and they set out for the Chateau de Nesmond, about thirty ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... attempted to scatter the wheat, and to empty out the spirits, but that Mr Ruthven had held her hand, and told her that the anker of spirits was, in fact, her purse—her means of purchasing from Macdonald and others her daily meat and such service as she needed. But now she was in hysterics, and they did not know what to do next. ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... began to live again through the success of The Cardinal's Niece, but also he remembered the horrible time he had had at rehearsals with Mr Halford Bunn who would get so drunk with his own words that any acting which distracted attention from them drove him almost into hysterics. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... of loitering Anne arrived at the hotel quite two hours before luncheon, and after divesting herself of a frock that would send Mrs. Nunn into hysterics if her news did not, she ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... own way, was long a disputed point in the servants' hall; but next morning he was missed in the castle, and in the course of my duties the same forenoon, I brought a letter from the village post-office, the reading of which sent the young ladies off in hysterics, and made Lady Catherine retire to her room—for it announced that her heir of entail and the farmer's daughter were gone to get married ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... is only a children's nurse, and rather a broken reed at the best of times," said Iris ruefully. "She had hysterics all last night, but she's a bit ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... as I managed it, it wasn't half so bad. Now, I dare say many women would have gone into violent hysterics, would have driven their relations to the verge of despair and the shivering bridegroom to the brink of delirious joy, and then given in,—married the man, lived with him, and been miserable ever after. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... for him," Runnels ran on, evidently warmed to his subject. "She's made his reputation; he has money and position. For my part, I'd rather remain insignificant and have a real wife, even if she does have hysterics over a ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... oculos ad coelum.' This ecstasy Madame B. (as Leonie) dimly remembers, averring that 'she has been dazzled BY A LIGHT ON THE LEFT SIDE.' Here apparently we have the best aspect of poor Madame B. revealing itself in a mixture of hysterics and hypnotism, and associating itself with an audible sagacious voice and a dazzling light on the left, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... outright at the close of the second verse. The gallery heard—it hated hysterics—and considered whether it should look upon itself as cheated and protest, or submit quietly to being coerced into approval. The scales had not yet turned, when someone far aloft drew a long breath in order to force it out between closed teeth, and this in sign ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... singular, and even then only in the privacy of intimate intercourse, where everything is buried. But the antipathies that arise from the inversion of affinities have, very happily, been recorded when developed by famous men. Thus, Bayle had hysterics when he heard water splashing, Scaliger turned pale at the sight of water-cress, Erasmus was thrown into a fever by the smell of fish. These three antipathies were connected with water. The Duc d'Epernon fainted at the sight of a hare, Tycho-Brahe at that of a fox, ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... and so did the dealers in bacon and eggs and crockery, and even hardware. Mr. Cheeseman, for instance, who left nothing unsold that he could turn a penny by, was anything but easy in his mind, and dreamed such dreams as he could not impart to his wife—on account of her tendency to hysterics—but told with much power to his daughter Polly, now the recognised belle of Springhaven. This vigilant grocer and butterman, tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuffman, hosier also, and general provider for the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... about eight o'clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she replied that she had been looking for the child and demanded earnestly if anything had been heard concerning him. When shown the body, she fell into violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days. The picture was then produced which the servant had found in her pocket; and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was the same which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... by degrees, she recovered herself, drawing great sobbing breaths at long intervals that all but burst the girths, rolling her eyes in bewildered, supplicating fashion, trembling in every muscle, and starting and shrinking now and then like a young girl in hysterics. At last she lay quiet. The men allowed her to struggle to her feet. The saddle was removed and she was led to one of the empty stalls, where she remained the rest of the evening, her head low, her pasterns quivering, turning her head apprehensively from time to time, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... but too true. Whether from the fright or the heat, or the unusual exertions, Madame was anything but well, and fell from one fit of hysterics to another. We could do but little to mend her, for even supposing we had had smelling salts on the island we should not have deemed it one of the necessaries to bring upon the rock. We put Zoe beside her with orders to talk to her, and tell her as many of her adventures as she could to ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... to be put to bed in strong hysterics. She had lashed her nephew with her bitter tongue till he had rushed out of the house, declaring that none of them should ever see his face again. Now she reproached herself as being the cause of all, and fell into an agony of remorse, which engrossed her sisters' whole ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... not knowing the difference between "Old Hundred" and "Old Dan Tucker,"—I, whose every attempt at music, though only the humming of a simple household melody, has, from my earliest childhood, been regarded as premonitory symptom of epilepsy, or, at the very least, hysterics, to be treated with cold water, the bellows, and an unmerciful beating between my shoulders,—I, who can but with much difficulty and many a retrogression make my way among the olden mazes of tenor, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... find out what that cause was; but the servants spread some reports. They said they had found Maggie and Annabel together; Annabel had fainted; and Maggie was in an awful state of misery— in quite an unnatural state, they said; she went into hysterics, and Miss Heath was sent for, and was a long time soothing her. There was no apparent reason for this, although, somehow or other, little whispers got abroad that the mystery of Annabel's illness ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... I feel, is growing too frightful; ladies who read it will be going into hysterics, or saying, "Well, upon my word, this is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of language. Jane, my love, you will not read that odious book—" and so I will be brief. This grinning man belabours the patient violently ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fell to crying afresh, and, endeavouring to recover herself, tried to laugh. The laugh and the cry, meeting each other thus abruptly, had a struggle for the mastery; the result was, that it was a drawn battle, and Miss La Creevy went into hysterics. ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... you good," said Belle; "I remembered that when the poor women in the great house were afflicted with hysterics and fearful imaginings, the surgeon, who was a good, kind man, used to say: 'Ale, give them ale, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... tense excitement. What did it all mean? If a chicken had sneezed the whole gathering would have been dissolved in hysterics, it was so keyed up with a sense of the impending disclosure of a deep mystery. As for Hepsey, she sat motionless, though Jonathan believed that he caught sight of a ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... now?" she said, her voice faltering, her eyes filling, and seemingly on the very verge of hysterics. "What if Blackadder should find ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... apparently slumbering in the sun. This puts the Eclaireur in an awful temper. She goes down towards it as near as she dare, and then frisks round again, and runs up river a little way and drops down again, in violent hysterics the whole time. Soon M. Gacon comes along among the trees on the bank, and laughs at her. A rope is thrown to him, and the panting Eclaireur tied up to a tree close in to the bank, for the water is deep enough here to moor a liner in, only there are a good many rocks. In a few ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Inza was so frightened that she was threatened with hysterics. She almost fought Elsie, who was seeking ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... wife is always popping in here, and if she found me with a model posed as Susannah she'd go into hysterics. You understand me? ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris
... patting Edith's shoulder as one might soothe a weeping child, "you're all tired out. I can't take the responsibility of letting you have hysterics; Arthur would never leave you alone ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... time to turn her thoughts in other directions, and she is well nigh sure to ask about her father and brothers. I shall be guided in my answers by her condition. Mistress Martin is a sensible woman, and not a girl who will fly into hysterics and rave like ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... expostulated with me, but I would not listen to anything, as I was nearly beside myself with laughter. She then took Mlle. de Brabender away and left me alone, for she feared that I should finish with hysterics. When once I was by myself I began to calm down. I closed my eyes and thought of my convent again. The te de de got mixed up in my enervated brain with the "Our Father," which I used to have to repeat some days fifteen or twenty times as a punishment. Finally I came to myself again, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... commons, conics, credentials, delicates, dioptrics, economics, ethics, extraordinaries, filings, fives, freshes, glanders, gnomonics, goods, hermeneutics, hustings, hydrodynamics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hysterics, inwards, leavings, magnetics, mathematics, measles, mechanics, mnemonics, merils, metaphysics, middlings, movables, mumps, nuptials, optics, phonics, phonetics, physics,[146] pneumatics, poetics, politics, riches, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... "There is no hope!" and finally "guilty" in all the cases was reported. The wife of a horrible German murderer who had strangled his employer's wife, while a female accomplice played the piano to divert her children's attention from her cries, swooned away at the news. O'Flynn's old mother went into hysterics and became quite uncontrollable in her grief when, a few minutes later the news, "Five years' ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... only virtue worth striving for; the others were never thought of when he asked how I was getting on. Once I had fever and nearly died, yet this knowledge that my face was everything was implanted in me so that my fear lest he should think me ugly when I recovered terrified me into hysterics. I dream still that I am in that fever and all my fears return. He did think me ugly when he saw me next. I remember the incident so well still. I had run to him, and he was lifting me up to kiss me when he saw ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... eschew melodrama. Visit the poor, by all means, and give them tea and barley-water, but don't do it as if you were administering a bowl of deadly nightshade. It upsets them. Then when you nurse sick people, and find them not as well as could be expected, why go into hysterics? MAR. Why not? DES. Because it's too jumpy for a sick-room. MAR. How strange! Oh, Master! Master!—how shall I express the all-absorbing gratitude that—(about to throw herself at his feet). DES. Now! (Warningly). MAR. Yes, I know, dear—it ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... whatever for heroics, hysterics or weeping, so miserably are our American railways managed; and Clara winked back into her eyes the tears which filled them, and Amidon looked ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... know one word of what he was talking about; he did not know what Celts are, or what hysterics are, or what freedom was, or what regal was or even of what England was—in the ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... for things to cool down. As soon as the muck-rakers wear out their rakes, and the great American public finds some other kind of hysterics to keep it worked up to a proper temperature, I shall mosey back and resume business at the old stand. But why tell you the story of my life? Play fair now, and tell me a lot ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... of New Zealand, landing on a lone islet where no ship had ever touched, found the whole population prostrate with influenza. Lewis and Clarke, the first explorers of the Rocky Mountains, found Indian warriors ill with fever and dysentery, rheumatism and paralysis, and Indian women in hysterics. "The tooth-ache," said Roger Williams of the New England tribes, "is the only paine which will force their stoute hearts to cry"; even the Indian women, he says, never cry as he has heard "some of their men ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... and attentive as I suppose he was on the journey—this is how they speak of it—and made one or two quite risque jokes down the ear trumpet, and Aunt Maria blushed and looked so coy. Apparently she had had hysterics at Folkestone originally—did you have them when you married, Mamma? I never thought of such a thing when Harry and I—but I did not mean to speak of him again. Aunt Maria wears the same shaped bonnet now as she did then, and strangely enough it is exactly like my ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... figured it out together that the first crack of thunder had sounded like shooting, and that's what started her off. She hadn't ever been in a real thunderstorm before, and she's scared of them. I know that one we had the other day like to of scared her into hysterics. I laughed at her and joshed ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... gasped, and then she went into hysterics, adding to the excitement and giving Mulligan a bad five minutes while he fought to keep ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... pouring forth his nature in objurgations and oaths, and brandishing before the culprits—Verena and Ransom—the extreme penalty of the law. Mrs. Tarrant had burst into violent hysterics, while Selah revolved vaguely about the room and declared that it seemed as if the better day was going to be put off for quite a while. "Don't you see how good, how sweet they are—giving us all this time? Don't you think that when they ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... flung out of the apartment, in a towering rage, and went up to her room and fell into hysterics and the arms of her maid on ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... equine hysterics, and evidently convinced that the ordinary buggy behind him had been changed into some dangerous and appalling creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the depths ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... by other men as brilliant as, and less scrupulous than, the homilist; he admitted the force of their arguments. Let other men of his great calling pile up and amass wealth, if they chose, by tampering with the unclean thing. Owen Saxham would none of it. At this juncture the woman would have hysterics of the weeping or the scolding kind, or would be convinced of the righteousness of the forlorn cause he championed, or would pretend the hysterics or the conviction. Generally she pretended to the latter, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Mrs. Payne. "Why, it has wrecked the nerves of the entire family, has given me Saint Vitus' dance, has kept Laura awake for nights, has reduced Angela to hysterics, and you actually have the face to tell me it is harmless! Judged by its effects, I consider it quite as reprehensible as a taste for cards or a fancy for a chorus girl. Those are vices at least that belong to our century and to civilisation, but ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... alive. There she found Mrs. Archbold in a pitiable state. That lady had been looking on the fire, with the key in her pocket, by taking which she was like to be a murderess: her terror and remorse were distracting, and the revulsion had thrown her into violent hysterics. Mrs. Dodd plucked up a little strength, and characteristically enough tottered to her assistance, and called for the best remedies, and then took her hand and pressed it, and whispered soothingly that both were now safe, meaning David ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... by the cage, sobbing with frightful violence, and pouring forth a perfect torrent of ejaculations of vengeance against the cat. Mrs. Sherwin came down; and by her total want of tact and presence of mind, made matters worse. In brief, the scene ended by a fit of hysterics. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... her hysterics sufficiently to rescue her new treasure from the danger of being scalped. As she squeezed the doll in her arms, safe from harm's way, it opened its lips and emitted ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... to overcome the provocation to merriment by screeching; and as Bridget caught the sound of this tendency towards laughter between the screams, she thought it was the commencement of a fit of hysterics, and it accounted all the ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... completely eradicated. If left to itself, unchecked, the habit deepens the "spasm-groove," and the "energy-leaks" grow bigger and bigger until finally, in later, adult life, all that is necessary to convert such persons into first-class neurasthenics or hysterics is some bad news, a few worries, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... the children's response. It was so unexpected, in fact, that for the moment she tottered perilously near the verge of hysterics. The children actually grinned; while ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... experience. 'Who writes to himself, writes to an eternal public.' You see, Ruth, men can't help looking at the question from the other side, because they form the other side. You might cram a woman's head with all the wisdom of the ages, and while it would frighten every man who came near her into hysterics, it wouldn't keep her from going down abjectly before some man who had sense enough to know that higher education does not rob a woman of her womanliness. Depend upon it, Ruth, when it does, she would ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... heavy, had stopped quicker an' hit in shallow water near the shore, but, as luck would have it, the bottom was soft an' he had come down feet foremost, an' a broken leg an' some bad bruises were all he could boast of. Lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt. Dan an' I got 'em out on the shore, an' left 'em cryin' side by side, an' scrambled up the bank to find Aleck. He had aimed too low an' hit the wall, an' was stunned, an' apparently, for the time, dead as a herrin' on the farther side of it. I removed ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... the privacy of their own sitting room, Nance had a real case of hysterics, laughing and weeping alternately, and Molly felt quite faint and had to lie on the sofa, while Judy, who had been moodily strumming her guitar most of the evening, gave ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... so after the explosion there were several Bushmen round behind the stable who crouched, doubled up, against the wall, or rolled gently on the dust, trying to laugh without shrieking. There were two white women in hysterics at the house, and a half-caste rushing aimlessly round with a dipper of cold water. The publican was holding his wife tight and begging her between her squawks, to 'hold up for my sake, Mary, or I'll lam the ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... and what does it matter where we are when we're thegither?" which was poor comfort for him, but still he could not tell her the truth, and so in the end Aaron had to tell her. It struck her down, and the doctor had to be called in during the night to stop her hysterics. When at last she fell asleep Tommy's arm was beneath her, and by and by it was in agony, but he set his teeth and kept it there rather than risk ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... tent was in an uproar, for the chevalier's wife had come hurrying in, the chevalier's daughter was on the verge of hysterics, and the chevalier's prospective son-in-law was alternately hugging the great beast-tamer and then shaking his hand and generally deporting himself like a respectable young man who had suddenly ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... tried to hammer an excuse, To which the sole reply was tears, and sobs, And indications of hysterics, whose Prologue is always certain throes, and throbs, Gasps, and whatever else the owners choose: Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;[77] He saw too, in perspective, her relations, And then he tried to muster all ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... bidder. As a camp man he is a marvel, never seen on horseback, but generally discovered on his hands and knees fudging about with a thing he calls a pocket microscope, and occasionally going off into hysterics over some clod of earth, a leaf, or some weird microbes which he says are feeding on the alfalfa roots. Talking of feeding, The Instigator can eat anything, his motto is "tout jour"; he has the digestion of an ostrich, and says "it is just ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... scream; his father's reassuring answer. Hurriedly he reached for his clothes. Downstairs he found his father endeavoring to calm the frightened servants, one of whom appeared to have hysterics. Presently his mother entered with the smelling salts. Soon ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman |
