"Overwrought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... infrequently offer innumerable opportunities for intimacies which may or may not fall short of actual sexual relations. Attention has been called to this situation by social workers among wage-earning girls. It has been a distressingly frequent experience in my special practice to find that the young man, overwrought by the excitement of wooing, has exposed himself elsewhere to infection and unwittingly punished the trustfulness of his fiancee by infecting her with syphilis through a subsequent kiss. The publication of banns before marriage is worth while, and unmistakable ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... bloomin' neck!" he growled vindictively, though his eyes continued to search the dark shroud overhead that inclosed them as in a tomb. A dark form loomed downward through the mist. It was Hozier, alone, coming back to them. A frenzied cheer broke from the lips of those overwrought men. They knew what that meant. Somewhere, high above the black rocks and the flying scud, was hope throned in the blessed sunshine. They drew him in cautiously until Coke was able to grasp his hand. They were quick to see that he brought ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... with some concern. She seemed so fatigued and overwrought after the long journey that he begged her to let him call Mrs. Middleton that she might have a cup of tea and go to her room before Elsie's return. The latter had gone into town but would be back very soon, for she went ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... longer required the physician's visits, but her mind was very far from being poised in the just balance of its faculties. She was of a good natural constitution and a fine temperament; but she had been overwrought by all that she had passed through, and, though happening to have been born in another land, she was of American descent. Now, it has long been noticed that there is something in the influences, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... telling her what moral miracles her influence had wrought in him, and how nothing but her love was needed to keep him steadfast in the future; and, in truth, he more than half believed what he said. The whole scene was quite in the key of the play, and her overwrought feelings drifted toward the man pleading thus earnestly for affection. Harry saw the advantage of the situation, and urged on her an immediate decision. Henrietta, still shaken by passionate excitement, and without rest in herself, was on the point of promising eternal affection, in the manner of ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... gain a fair opportunity for the operation of regimen or remedies; in short, the judicious physician, like the Roman general, Fabius, conquers through delay, by cutting off the supplies, and wearing out the strength of the enemy. In large cities, where the mind is so much overwrought in the various schemes of private ambition, or of public business, anxiety is very frequently the grand opposing circumstance to recovery; so that while the causes which produced it are allowed to operate, mere medical prescription is of no avail. The effects ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... phantasy, of course, the sick imaginings of a mind overwrought. I had not slept and had scarcely tasted food for more than thirty hours; for, following up a faint clue supplied by Burke, Slattin's man, and, like his master, an ex-officer of New York Police, my friend, ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... happy. When the time comes I shall win you bread. To do this I shall, of course, have to leave your side. But that's for after. Till then—but I fear my thoughtless reference to our parting has unnerved you. You are overwrought. Lean upon me. That's what I'm for. I am your man—your husband. Where's that ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... live with her who had been ill or needed rest in cheerful surroundings. Not always the same two, for that is paralyzing after a time when the freshness of energetic influence wears off; but her experience among her friends told her that in a city's social life there was an endless supply of overwrought nerves and bodies. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... was that was with me I could not tell; I could not even guess. It was as though something in my mental organisation had been stricken by a sudden paralysis. It may seem childish to use such language; but I was overwrought, played out; physically speaking, at my last counter; and, in an instant, without the slightest warning, I was conscious of a very curious sensation, the like of which I had never felt before, and the like of which I pray that I never may feel again,—a ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... to the world. Allowing all by which attention to his biography may explain the tremendous paradox of fearful guilt in a man aspiring after knowledge, and not generally inhumane; allowing that the crime came upon him in the partial insanity produced by the combining circumstances of a brain overwrought by intense study, disturbed by an excited imagination and the fumes of a momentary disease of the reasoning faculty, consumed by the desire of knowledge, unwholesome and morbid, because coveted as an end, not a means, added to the other physical causes ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hotel his eyes, searching eagerly for his employer, fell first on James Greenfield. With a movement wholly involuntary the hand of the overwrought desert man came to rest on his hip close to the heavy Colt's forty-five. Then he saw Jefferson Worth and Willard Holmes ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... sang, nevertheless, for there was always the hope that she might escape if given the opportunity and if she could win the friendship of one of the creatures, her chances would be increased proportionately. All during the ordeal, for such it was to the overwrought girl, Ghek stood with his eyes ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was cold and clear, but the words were scarcely uttered when he fell to his knees again, with a subdued cry of overwrought feeling. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... has been silently introduced into our prose. In this we have oscillated from freedom to restraint;—from the easy, natural, and colloquial style of Swift, Addison and Steele, to the perpetually strained, ambitious, and overwrought stiffness, of which the author we are now considering affords a striking exemplification. "He's knight o' the shire, and represents them all." There is not the smallest keeping in his composition:—less solicitous ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... had seemed overwrought, Babbitt who had been the protecting big brother, Paul became clear-eyed and merry, while Babbitt sank into irritability. He uncovered layer on layer of hidden weariness. At first he had played nimble jester to Paul and for him sought amusements; by the end of the week ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... romantic fancy has been woven about it. Its significance for after-time is in Lincoln's "reaction." There had been much sickness in New Salem the summer in which Ann died. Lincoln had given himself freely as nurse—the depth of his companionableness thus being proved—and was in an overwrought condition when his sorrow struck him. A last interview with the dying girl, at which no one was present, left him quite unmanned. A period of violent agitation followed. For a time he seemed completely transformed. The sunny Lincoln, the delight of Clary's Grove, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... sun set Rachel rose and walked to her hut. She was utterly dazed, she could not understand. Was this but a fiction of an overwrought and disordered mind, or had she seen a vision of things passing, or that had passed, far away? If it were a dream, then this was but another drop in her cup of bitterness. If a true vision—oh! then what did it mean to her? It meant that Richard Darrien ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... in his confidence. There is nothing hysterical or overwrought or morbid in these brief words, so peaceful in their trust, so moderate and restrained in their rapture. Are our anticipations of the future moulded on such a pattern? Do we think of it as quietly as this man did? Are we as tranquilly sure about it? Is there as little mist of uncertainty about ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... his cold, self-contained daughter? He could not understand, as so many cannot, that such natures when aroused are tenfold more intense than those whom little things excite. A long and peculiar train of circumstances, a morbid and overwrought physical condition, led to this outburst from Christine, which was as much a cause of surprise to herself afterward as to her father. He judged correctly that a great deal had occurred between Dennis and herself of which he had no knowledge, and ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... so hurried and overwrought with the work he had been engaged on that morning (the lending of L1323 to a widow at 5 1/4 per cent., [which heaven knows is reasonable!] on security of a number of shares in the London and North-Western Railway) that he misread the placard and thought it ran "Rabelais lecture ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... example,' says Dr Burgess, 'is admirably suited, during several months of the year, between the middle of May and the middle of September, for certain forms of dyspepsy, lesions of the nervous system affecting the mind, or that form of general innervation which results from an overwrought brain, and diseases of repletion. But Norway is little frequented, because it is not fashionable, although it would be difficult to point out a more appropriate occasional residence for the numerous class of invalids just mentioned, than Christiania, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet been transformed into the gentleman he aspired to become, and in a way that was more honest than courteous he forestalled another hysterical outburst on the part of his overwrought benefactress. ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... converted and elevated in one generation, though under the direct teaching of God himself. Notwithstanding the numbers of miracles he wrought, a generation had to be cut off because of unbelief. Our own elevation, also, has been the work of centuries, and, remembering this, we should not indulge in overwrought expectations as to the elevation which those who have inherited the degradation of ages may attain in our day. The principle might even be adopted by missionary societies, that one ordinary missionary's lifetime of teaching should be considered an ample supply of foreign teaching ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... affectionate companionship. The feel of the warm, soft body, and the thought of the velvety brown eyes which he could not see in the dark, but knew were fixed upon him with their intense, loving gaze, were soothing to his overwrought nerves. Here was something whose love could be counted upon—something as dependent upon him as he was upon Mr. Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted, soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... which he might unburden himself of the secrets and the sorrows that were aching in his own breast. Yet he had not allowed himself to run to waste in the long time since he was left alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the seductions which always beset solitary men with restless brains overwrought by depressing agencies. He disguised no misery to himself with the lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open eyes through all the weary ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... His overwrought mind and body soon made him ill. He sought by violent emotions and excessive fatigue to escape from the thoughts which were persecuting him like spectres, and driving him to his death. In vain the physicians commanded ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... awake. That was to be expected. Her mind was overwrought and her young heart burdened with ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... and decided to rush them for a last chance of life. Then there was an unfortunate mistake: I went along the Barrier edge and discovered what I thought and what proved to be a practicable way to land a pony, but the others meanwhile, a little overwrought, tried to leap Punch across a gap. The poor beast fell in; eventually we had to kill him—it was awful. I recalled all hands and pointed out my [Page 267] road. Bowers and Oates went out on it with a sledge and worked their way to the remaining ponies, and ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... a good deal jumbled, to be sure, and without any recognizable form or theme; and yet, like a Liszt rhapsody, it perfectly answers its purpose,—that is, it gives the performer full scope to show what he can do with his instrument. You may laugh a little, if you like, at an occasional grotesque or overwrought passage, but unless you are well used to it you will surely be astonished. Such power and range of voice; such startling transitions; such endless variety! And withal such boundless enthusiasm and almost incredible endurance! Regarded as pure music, one strain of the hermit thrush is to my ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... overwrought, Mademoiselle Stephanie," he said. "I was not sure of your intentions. But I see ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... night, and she had been revelling in the peace of it, when suddenly this outcry from above had shot her out of her hammock like an explosion. She ran upstairs, fearing she knew not what. She found Nutty sitting on the bed, looking like an overwrought giraffe. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... The overwrought man threw himself face down on the table in front of his grim accuser, like a child's broken doll, and wept with great sobs that shook his frame as the wind lashes ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... resembling dactyls, anapaests, and choriambs thrown hurriedly together, broken by irregular pauses, we begin to build a whole romance on the steps of the stranger; we infer from them moments of grave deliberation; the languor consequent upon overwrought thought; renewed effort; resolve; alternations of passion; hope struggling with despair; until all at last seems merged in impatient longing for the hour of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Ptarth watched the shadow behind the monolith at the opening to the avenue opposite her. She hoped that it might be but the figment of an overwrought imagination. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as swift and as noiseless as a tiger's I lit beside the guardsman who had moved. My hands hovered about his throat awaiting the moment that his eyes should open. For what seemed an eternity to my overwrought nerves I remained poised thus. Then the fellow turned again upon his side and resumed the even respiration ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and was still overwrought and nerve-strung: for some reason she could not afterwards have explained, she felt spiteful and uncontrolled, goaded into stupid fury by the look of insolence and of triumph with which ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... not usually frightened at lightning, but now, perhaps because her whole being was overwrought and strung, she started and crouched down with a sense of awe strangely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... time, the series begun by Richardson's (1689-1761) "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "Sir Charles Grandison" have a virtuous aim, but they err by the plainness with which they describe vice. The tediousness and overwrought sentimentality of these works go far towards disqualifying the reader from appreciating their extraordinary skill in invention and in ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the last to gather his wits together, was on this occasion the first to give expression to his overwrought feelings. ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the room, its sound a miasma in his ears. All his sleepless, nightmare-charged brooding, all his bottled hate for Darkover and the memories he had tried to bury, erupted into overwrought bitterness against this too-ingratiating youngster who was a demigod on this world and who had humiliated him, repudiated him for the hated Jason ... for Jay, Regis had suddenly become the symbol of a world that hated him, forced him into a ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... your sleep, Leonie, by reason of the workings of an overwrought brain, that is all. India is the problem, and your ayah is the answer. I think she frightened you somehow, made some deep impression on you, on your baby brain, and we are going to India to find her. ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... up all night with that youth wrestling for his soul; and in the morning not only was he a Christian, but his hair was as white as snow. (Lentulus falls in a dead faint). There, there: take him away. The spirit has overwrought him, poor lad. Carry him gently to his house; and leave the ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... left Matilda, she sat for long hours In her chamber, fatigued by long overwrought powers, 'Mid the signs of departure, about to turn back To her old vacant life, on her old homeless track. She felt her heart falter within her. She sat Like some poor player, gazing dejectedly at The insignia of royalty worn for a night; Exhausted, fatigued, with the dazzle ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... you understand that I want to do what is best for you? Won't you trust me?' Her answer came harshly. A more experienced man than Harold, one who knew women better, would have seen how overwrought she was, and would have made pity the pivot of his future bearing and acts and words while the interview lasted; pity, and pity only. But to Harold the high ideal was ever the same. The Stephen whom ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... point; go great lengths; spin a long yarn; draw with a longbow, shoot with a longbow; deal in the marvelous. out-Herod Herod, run riot, talk at random. heighten, overcolor^; color highly, color too highly; broder^; flourish; color &c (misrepresent) 544; puff &c (boast) 884. Adj. exaggerated &c v.; overwrought; bombastic &c (grandiloquent) 577; hyperbolical^, on stilts; fabulous, extravagant, preposterous, egregious, outre [Fr.], highflying^. Adv. hyperbolically &c adj.. Phr. excitabat enim fluctus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the Officers at some length. "The old man" always had an impressive way of speaking, and darkness and overwrought nerves doubtless magnified this. He spoke in subdued tones, as if awed by the intense ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... brokenly, and then overcome by this unexpected succor she sank prone upon the floor weeping passionately; the tension on her nerves had given way and her overwrought feelings had to ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... speaks again, he speaks again! Woe, woe to the city of Doom!" Once more the firmament seemed cleft in twain, and the earth trembled under the reverberations of the tremendous electrical discharges. The effect upon the overwrought nerves of the throng was instantaneous; as one man the crowd turned and made for the exits from the Citadel Square. Even the personal attendants upon Dom Gillian were affected by the panic, and leaped over the guard-rails of the platform into the mass of humanity ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... in a mood to torment herself that night and she lay awake to listen for that dread voice from across the woods. She lay on her left side so they would have good luck next day. She was greatly overwrought and when at last she did hear the sound, loud and heartless with its sudden beginning and sudden end, it startled and terrorized her as if it were indeed that gloomy, windowless equipage of the State Orphan Home, coming to ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to tell you all about it, that night at Mrs. Byrd's, it seemed to me that you had brooded over the matter until you had gotten in an overwrought and—overstrung condition about it. It seemed to me the considerate thing not to force the unwelcome topic upon you, but ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the imagination. Having known all the picturesqueness and beauty of England, he settled himself in the old Vassall (or Craigie) House, in Cambridge, with serene enjoyment and appreciation. This house was then in a retired spot, and overwrought as he frequently found himself, the repose of the place was helpful to him. In 1842 he again visited Europe, for the third time. His health suffered from solitude and the continued activities of his mind. "I sometimes think," he ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... gave him a good reception. He sometimes took money or begged it in order to read masses for poor souls. In one village he said he had come to reconnoiter for a site to build a hospital. Some cloister brothers in one place took him for a swindler and decided he was overwrought religiously, and that he really thought he was what he wished to become. He was studied at length in prison where he had one attack of maniacal behavior and tried to hang himself. The physician there thought him a simulator. He was excused ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... escutcheons, and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with this reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude about the grave, may be but the offspring of an overwrought sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its best and tenderest affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about the world, and ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... newspapers and the lighter periodicals, it is surely natural to infer that the exclusive reading of such works must have a dissipating effect also. It is too obvious that the feverish mediocrity of overwrought brains becomes infectious among the class who place themselves in too constant and unbroken connection with it, and that from the closets of over-toiled litterateurs an excited superficiality creeps out upon the age. And hence the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hang—the Virgin Mother 475 With her child, born the King of heaven and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that story of yours was a ridiculous lie!" responded the Prince, brutally, being, indeed, greatly overwrought. "How do I know," he added, suddenly, "that you did not intentionally deceive me? I have only your word—what is that worth? How do I know that it was not a trick—a trick on the part of your government to involve me with England? That would be like you!" and his hands clenched ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... joy! The moment of happiness is scarce experienced ere come the doubts of its reality, the fears for its continuance; the higher the state of pleasurable excitement, the more painful and the more pressing the anxieties that await on it; the tension of delighted feelings cannot last, and our overwrought faculties seek repose in regrets. Happy he who can so temper his enjoyments as to view them in their shadows as in their sunshine; he may not, it is true, behold the landscape in the blaze of its noonday brightness, but he need not fear the thunder-cloud nor the hurricane. The calm ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and overwrought; she could not meet any of the crowd, and took refuge in one of the deserted wings, until, as she hoped, every one had dispersed. As she was quietly leaving the wings she was met, much to her annoyance, by the manager. He was a coarse, florid-faced person, but he took off his ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... point, because she was very much overwrought, G. G.'s mother had a mild little attack of hysteria; and Cynthia beat her on the back and shook her and kissed her until she was over it. Then G. G.'s mother told ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters, the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before. The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which, as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources of the government. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... charm which I can determine no way of expressing in this language. Acts and facts, of course. I shall not attempt to capture the subjectivity which is the charm, only to transcribe the physical datum—perhaps even data, who knows? My companions, for example: They were in appearance overwrought, looking about them continually, stopping entirely and drawing me with them into the shelter of a "door" when another man, this one wearing blue clothing and a visored hat appeared. Yet they were clearly devoted to me, at that moment, since they had put aside their ...
— The Day of the Boomer Dukes • Frederik Pohl
... Mrs. Anne Radcliffe (1764-1823) was one of the most successful writers of this school of exaggerated romance. Her novels, with their azure-eyed heroines, haunted castles, trapdoors, bandits, abductions, rescues in the nick of time, and a general medley of overwrought joys and horrors,[219] were immensely popular, not only with the crowd of novel readers, but also with men of unquestioned literary genius, like ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... river-bank toward where he saw the two half-breeds placing the canoe in the still water at the further end of the village. Half-way there he was relieved to meet the genial Ed. Mason, who greeted him, as Trenton thought, with a somewhat overwrought effusion. There evidently was something on the ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... shape! Fair attitude! with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... miserable. She felt that her intended kindness had proved a complete failure; she was afraid of her husband's clouded brow, still more afraid of her niece's firmly closed mouth, most afraid of all at the thought of Lady Caroline's displeasure. Nervous and overwrought, anxious to conciliate all parties, and afraid of making matters worse, she timidly went into Erica's room, and after beating about the bush for a minute or two, plunged ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... times; and the glorious "Zauberfloete," written to assist a theatrical manager, Schikaneder, were his next works. At this time a strange melancholy began to show itself in his letters—it may be that already his overwrought brain was conscious that the end was not far distant. Such lines as these, pathetic and sad in their simple and almost childlike expression, occur in a letter he wrote during a short absence from his wife, at Frankfort, in 1790: "I am as happy as a child at the thought of returning to you. If people ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... to the art for which he once lived. He spends days and days sitting in front of a piece of outstretched primed canvas, with his eyes fixed upon it in a stare; that he calls painting. Into what an overwrought condition the description of such a picture brings him, you have just seen for yourself. Besides this he is haunted by another unhappy thought, which makes my life to be a sad and agitated one; but I regard it as ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Distances that had formerly been clearly outlined were now dim, obscured. The yawning chasm was not the same. It circled wider, redder, deeper. It was a weird, ghastly mouth of hell. Gale stood fascinated, unable to tell how much he saw was real, how much exaggeration of overwrought emotions. There was no beauty here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its somber portent ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... somewhat slackened in intensity, and allowed him more repose. This season of repose had overcome old Dietrich, and, like the disciples on Mount Olivet, he had fallen "asleep for sorrow." The Prince was awake and found himself in that overwrought condition in which the high-strung, quivering nerves lend wonderful clearness and acuteness to the spirit, and in which the soul with wide-seeing vision takes in the whole past, the whole future. He saw his past rise up before him, with all its struggles, its privations, its inexpressible joys and ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... "in the distance, but of course I had no idea who it was. How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... not trying to rob the pulpit of any atom of its full share and credit in the work of disseminating the meat and marrow of the gospel of Christ; but I am trying to get a moment's hearing for worthy agencies in the same work, that with overwrought modesty seldom or never claim a recognition of their great services. I am aware that the pulpit does its excellent one-tenth (and credits itself with it now and then, though most of the time a press of business causes it to forget it); I am aware that ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nerves were strained almost to the breaking point, and when Sir Otho spoke so repellently, she realised how foolish her little plan had been, and how hopeless was her dream of reconciling this dreadful old man and his daughter. Partly, then, because of her overwrought nerves, and partly because of the downfall of her cherished ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... had not come a minute too soon; for Freddy, his sensitive organization completely overwrought by the events of the morning and his narrow escape from death, had fallen fainting to the ground; his hands still clenched in the folds of little Louie's jacket. Will instantly raised him, when he saw that all danger was over, ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... Milt, don't you think you're taking this a little too seriously? You're getting stale, overwrought. You need a fresh point of view. Lots of our people feel as you do at one time or another, but most of us learn to live with these necessary regulations, and do our work in spite of them. Let me make a suggestion, relax, ...
— Security • Ernest M. Kenyon
... suddenly caught the glitter of the thing as it moved and knew it for a very bright, human eye that watched me through the knot-hole. Now this may seem a very small matter in the telling, but to me at that moment (overwrought by my long sojourn in the dark) it ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... sensitive girl, and is now a little overwrought. The events of the last month have proved too much ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... the consciousness of all that he had gone through and was going through smote him, and he was resentful. By what right did this ragged beachcomber, in dungaree trousers and a cotton shirt, suggest such a thing as peace and content to him and his overwrought, exhausted soul? The captain did not reason this; it was the unconscious process of ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... plainly overwrought hour he should allow himself a moment of forgetfulness drew him ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... lovely having her," said Audrey softly. In her overwrought state, she felt inclined to cry at the mere thought of losing her. Indeed, she felt so stupid, so miserable, so tongue-tied, she could not stand there any longer lest the sharp-eyed old gentleman should see the tears in her eyes. What a weak, silly ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... You're overworked and overwrought, imagining things that don't exist. Instead of standing there slanging me you ought to go ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... ill and overwrought," cried Mrs. Colebrook, hastening to the bedside. "It is just as I said, you are not fit to get up." Then, to Susan, sharply: "You may put Master Keith's clothes back in the closet. He will not ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... Be not overwrought Nor cease thy preparations for the voyage. Work tranquilly and do not be disturbed, For thou canst put away his armor last. What am I saying! For he wears no mail, Nor doth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... replied Sir Charles, speaking fast and with much fierceness: "that lady there—poor thing, she is ill, you can see that for yourself, suffering, overwrought; she asked for a glass of water, and this brute, triple brute, as you say in French, ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... Holy Ghost in retirement;—these were some of the company among whom Duchess Molly was paraded by her discerning lord, to carry her smiles of welcome and her pretty ways. Grifone, grave, attentive, in black, was there, be sure, waiting his turn. It came, and with it Molly, blushing and overwrought, new from the very kindly salutations of the Greek. To Grifone she proffered a greeting which was no less kind because her heart was troubled. Her well of trust in mankind was not yet dry. Grifone took her hand and bent over it; it was as much ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... appeared among the guests again she was pale, her lips were set, and she held her head high. Her mother said the dear child was quite overwrought, but she saw only what she expected to see through her own tear-bedimmed eyes, and other people were differently impressed. They thought Evadne was cold and preoccupied when it came to the parting, and did not seem ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... upon the year 1850; I had decided to go to Paris, if only for the sake of peace, but had to postpone my journey on account of ill-health. The reaction following upon the terrible excitement of recent times had not failed to have its effect on my overwrought nerves, and a state of complete exhaustion had followed. The continual colds, in spite of which I had been obliged to work in my very unhealthy room, had at last given rise to alarming symptoms. A certain weakness of the chest ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... nevertheless. Hortense, overwrought by fatigue and her desire to know what was happening, continually questioned Rnine, who replied evasively, with his eyes turned to the esplanade, which they could see through the windows ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... glaring at the picture, and making a sort of dry, sucking noise with his mouth. He seemed completely overwrought. ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... was silence for a space, As they gazed upon his face, Dark with grief, and with passion overwrought; When out spoke a foreign tongue, That gunner-group among: 'Neow old Jarl ses the thing ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... descended from the carriage and felt her son's pulse with much solicitude. "He has only fainted," she said. "He is apt to have such attacks when overwrought. It's a part of his disease. Miss Jocelyn, you see he is a reed that must be supported, not leaned upon," she added, looking straight into the young girl's troubled eyes. "I mean you kindness as truly as I mean kindness to him. He will soon be better. He has often been in this condition ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... Overwrought as I was, I nearly succumbed to the false reasoning which was but the expression of my desire. And then once more the vision of those deadly inroads of disease rose ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... too, that she would go away on a long visit to a friend, giving as an excuse to her father that she was overwrought by the election and needed a rest. In this way she thought she would, for a time at all events, postpone the day of decision in relation to the suit which she knew Ned Wilson was longing ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... drawing nearer, she offered him terms by which he could be restored to his former health, terms which we are to understand the virtuous witness refused. It is pleasant to know that Master Enger was "distrustfull of the truth" of this tale. One fears that these spectres were not the products of overwrought imagination, as were many others, but were merely fabrics of elaborate fiction.[29] In any case they were not the groundwork of the proof. In the Fairfax prosecutions at York in 1622 the charges against the six women accused rested ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... remorse for the past, fearful of the future, which, to her overwrought imagination, crouched like a huge black monster ready to spring upon her and engulf her in its cruel jaws, Evelyn watched the swiftly passing landscape with unseeing eyes. When a voice from the seat behind her suddenly addressed her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... for his own use. "Did you not hear the order," he retorted, striking the man with his whip, "everyone on foot." Rarely did this great man mar a noble action by harsh treatment: the incident sufficiently reveals the tension of feelings, always keen, and now overwrought by ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... fragments, at which one universal shout rends the air. The small Judases keep up their snapping and explosions for an hour or more. At last Judas is utterly demolished, literally done for. Then the bells cease ringing, and the overwrought people gradually subside. The whole is a queer, strange piece of ludicrous mockery, ending as a good-natured ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... there was a momentary silence between them. Then the emotion astir within her swept all before it. Turning suddenly, she flung both arms round his neck and hid her face upon his shoulder, her breath coming in short, dry sobs, like the breath of an overwrought child. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... say I had expected to see Cyril showing a few more traces of last night's battle. I was looking for a bit of the overwrought soul and the quivering ganglions, if you know what I mean. He seemed pretty ordinary and ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... out of his system, so I pushed him into my car, preferring to take the wheel rather than have him drive. I can always think better when I have a steering wheel in my hands, and knowing with what speed Jim drove ordinarily, I didn't care to trust my precious body to him in his overwrought condition. ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... fool, sir," said Joe, suddenly, as the overwrought skipper made a move towards the galley. "'E didn't seem to know wot 'e was a sayin' of, so I up and ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... the dog. Shoot Chance? Not so long as he could keep between the dog and the cowboy's gun. The puncher, half in jest, reached for his holster. Sundown's overwrought nerves gave way. He dropped to his knees and lifted his long arms imploringly. "Don't! Don't!" he wailed. "He ain't dead! Don't ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... lion paced, growling and moaning, beneath the tree in which Jane Clayton crouched, panting and trembling. The girl was a prey to the nervous reaction from the frightful ordeal through which she had so recently passed, and in her overwrought state it seemed that never again should she dare descend to the ground among the fearsome dangers which infested the broad stretch of jungle that she knew must lie between herself and the nearest village of ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... bear no more—overwrought, and ill in mind and body, Bryda lay down in her tent-bed in the upper chamber of Bishop's Farm; and Mrs Lambert, to her intense surprise and vexation, was obliged to look for someone else to supply Bryda's place, mend and ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... for the struggle had abandoned her, she entered almost unconsciously, and with a feeling of rapidly-increasing weakness. She approached the bell to ring for her maid, which she was able to do with difficulty; and having done so, she attempted to reach the sofa; but exhausted and overwrought nature gave way, and she fell just sufficiently near it to have her fall broken and her head supported by it, as she lay there apparently lifeless. In this state Alley Mahon found her; but instead of ringing an alarm, or attempting to collect a crowd of the servants to witness ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... moments of strain, when even trifles can turn the overwrought attention. Glaucon knew that the stranger was looking from him to Lycon, from Lycon back to himself, measuring each with shrewd eye. Then the gaze settled on the Athenian. The Oriental called ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... or she couldn't have said the things she did—you remember?—at Ford Lankester's funeral. But she had been overwrought then, and that clear note had been wrung from her by the poignancy of the situation. She never gave us anything like ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... reverence and grief almost effaced by the intensity of my wonder. This face, so ivory pale, wore not the ashen aspect of one that would never wake again. There was a warmth about that pallor. And then I caught my nether lip in my teeth until it bled, and it is a miracle that I did not scream, seeing how overwrought ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... alarm—there in the terrified, riotous city jammed with refugees, reeking with disease, half frantic from famine and the filthy, rising flood of war—if really it all had been merely romantic impulse, ardour born of overwrought sentimentalism, nevertheless, what he had pledged that day to a little Grand Duchess in rags, he had fulfilled to the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... curb, but just as he dashed down the steps a limousine drew up, and Denning sprang from its opened door. His hand fell heavily upon Gard's shoulder as he stooped to enter the cab. Gard turned, his overwrought nerves stinging with the shock of the ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... Americans rather near the soil; or was with the engineers and firemen in their cabs, or on the running-boards of boxcars with trainmen. Without knowing it, I acquired the ability of getting the other fellow's point of view, and, when I got old enough not to be overwrought by sympathy that was inclined to be too partisan, I found an immense intellectual enjoyment in watching the interplay between temperament and environment. I think this answers your question. I have retained a gossip's ability to be interested in ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... Corner—curious thing, isn't it? that she came into it—were scrambling up a hill higher and higher, with that flood pouring after us. Sort of splashing into a foam of faces and helmets and bayonets—and clutching hands—and red stuff.... Well, Mr. Britling, I admit I'm a little bit overwrought about it, but I can assure you you don't begin to realise in England what ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... played it eleven times that day, four times by desire and seven times from force of habit, but the familiar strains were greeted with the rapture due to a revelation. A murmur of much humming rose from half the tables in the room, and some of the more overwrought listeners laid down knife and fork in order to be able to burst in with loud clappings at ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... Dr. Blair went to the first "revival" meeting. Without undervaluing the man's influence, he was instinctively repelled by his appearance and methods. The young physician's trained powers of observation not only saw an overwrought emotionalism in the speaker's eloquence, but detected the ring of insincerity in his more lucid speech and acts. Nevertheless, the hysteria of the preacher was communicated to the congregation, who wept and shouted with him. Tired and discontented housewives found their vague sorrows ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... grimly; this bargaining and trafficking with such a man, in a place so foul! It seemed grotesque, incongruous; and yet was, withal, so momentous. He knew just what Rogers should say; what he would force him to do! In his overwrought state he overlooked one or two points that would not have escaped him at another time: a certain craftiness, or low cunning that played occasionally on ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... next was so uncomplimentary to the gallant Captain Scott that that overwrought individual seized the sporting editor by the shoulder, and shoved him into the hands of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... Mr. Petalengro, "in our wandering existence. We contrasted in our semi-consciousness of mind our absence from a thousand anxious cares which crowd upon the social position of those who take part in an overwrought state of extreme civilisation. How long we should have continued our half-dormant reflections which might have added a few more notes upon the philosophy of life, we knew not, but we were roused by the rumble of a stolk-jaerre ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the burglars had come back full of the chase and its results, and there was an excited and dramatic recital going on in the servants' hall at that moment; but she dared not go there, though she was in an agony of anxiety to know the whole truth and the fate of her lover. Her face, her overwrought condition, would have betrayed her; so, at the least, would have caused surprise and aroused suspicion. She could not face the servants' hall, but she knew that the gentlemen would be discussing the affair ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... but an overwrought imagination and the strangeness of the situation, acting upon a mind eagerly grasping out after adventure, being set free from the oppression of those ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... friendly conversation would have been evident to the most casual observer from the manner in which Mike stumped off, swinging his cricket-bag as if it were a weapon of offence. There are many kinds of walk. Mike's was the walk of the Overwrought Soul. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... in number. As I opened the first of them the singing upstairs ceased. For a moment there was something almost oppressive in the sudden change from noise to silence. I suppose my nerves must have been overwrought. The next sound in the house—nothing more remarkable than the creaking of a man's boots descending the stairs—made me shudder all over. The man was no doubt the singing-master, going away after giving his lesson. I heard the house door close on him, and started at the familiar sound as if ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... His breast was rising and falling, and he moved his head about in a dull and wandering way, like a person who had been stunned. Presently he said, "I shall feel better when I get to bed; I have been overwrought today; yes, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... What had happened? Had the plot failed? Was he even now lying wounded unto death as the result of his effort to escape captivity? A hundred horrid thoughts raced through her throbbing, overwrought brain. He should have been with her two hours ago—he should now be far on his way to freedom. Alas, something appalling had happened, ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or women. Confirmable also from things contained in them. In most were found substances resembling combs, plates like boxes, fastened with iron pins, and handsomely overwrought like the necks or bridges of musical instruments, long brass plates overwrought like the handles of neat implements, brazen nippers to pull away hair, and in one a kind of opale, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... irritation of pursuit and the certainty of disappointment. By degrees, nothing but this morbid state of feeling satisfies us: and all common pleasures and cheap amusements are sacrificed to the demon of ambition, avarice, or dissipation. The machine is overwrought: the parching heat of the veins dries up and withers the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy; and any pause, any release from the rack of ecstasy on which we are stretched, seems more insupportable than the pangs which ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... to be God's witnesses, Miriam. Our creed is naught but prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles went through the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this long ignominy." He burst into sudden tears and sank into a chair overwrought. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... light the favor of Heaven would follow, as they passed the convent on their outward way, a multitude of birds set free from their golden cages burst upon the air with a flood of song, inspired by their sudden liberty, then came throbbing and overwrought, to seek shelter among the silken sails of the Cyprian galleys—mere specks of iridescence, flashing like jewels in ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... little headway. It was easy to grimly shut her teeth and resolve, "I've got to do this by myself, talk to Joe and simply make him believe me!" But as soon as she came to the details of what she should say to her husband, his face as she had seen it last—worn and nervous, overwrought—kept rising up before her. Could she convince him! "It's my last chance!" If only she knew how to go about it! She wanted to be heroic and face this crisis all alone—but she had been alone so much. ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... protest, no complaint as they hustled him back into the van, and from the van to the cell which was to be his dreary lodging for those three days. He felt degraded, dishonoured, disgraced, and as he sat hour after hour brooding over his lot, his mind, already overwrought, lost its courage and let ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... hard, gruelling fights—the kind that worked the heart and lungs to bursting, that took the elastic out of the arteries and made hard knots of muscle out of Youth's sleek suppleness, that wore out nerve and stamina and made brain and bones weary from excess of effort and endurance overwrought. Yes, he had done better than all of them. There were none of his old fighting partners left. He was the last of the old guard. He had seen them all finished, and he had had a hand in ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... each of whom were so strong and so individual, that she could not know what he would say. Closing her eyes she waited. When the two men joined her Theo was—laughing. And to her overwrought nerves the ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... in alarm and gave me my smelling-bottle. 'Hush! hush!' he said. 'You, too, are overwrought—you, too, are overexcited by all that has happened to-night. You are talking wildly and shockingly. Good God! how can you have so utterly misunderstood me? ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... which could be expected, but so as to take proper means to preserve health, maintain good spirits, and to economize the energy which would undoubtedly be largely taxed in downright physical muscular work, and which now would be liable any day to yield if overwrought by long-continued ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... way to the emotion that overwhelmed her, for she was wearied by the journey, excited over the new and strange scenes of the past few days, and overwrought with her fears. Lord Shrope bent a look of compassion upon her, but ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... began to reason again. Corona knew the truth, of course, and her husband knew it too. Montevarchi realised that he had already taken his revenge for their complicity, before knowing that they had injured him. His overwrought brain was scarcely capable of receiving another impression. He laughed aloud in a way that was ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... She was overwrought, strung up to such a pitch that she hardly knew what she was saying. She had been through a good deal in the last hour or two and Trenby realised it. Suddenly that grim determination of his to force her ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... linen down on the table with a professional air, while I was inwardly execrating my father's negligence. I emptied the portmanteau in the hope of finding some small phial or box. Any opiate would have been welcome to me, that would have dulled the overwrought nerves of the girl in the room within. But the practice of using any thing of the kind was not in favor with us generally in the Channel Islands, and my father had probably concluded that a Sark woman would not consent ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... best blood of the country, which seeks opportunity for achievement. The great city is inevitable so long as great society insists on gigantic production and as great consumption, but the city idea is overwrought beyond its natural condition. If some power could equalize the transportation question, so that a factory might be built in a smaller town, where raw material could be furnished as cheaply as in the large city, and the distribution of goods ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... as a reaction from the light thrown, or lighter thought upon her overwrought nature, or possibly from some subtle, potent influence emanating from the censer burning near her, Sarthia lapsed into sudden ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner
... to a preparatory school for the Gymnasium. She ought really to go to a dancing class, for she is nearly 17, but since she is in mourning it is quite impossible and of course she does not want to go anyhow. The head thought too that Dora would withdraw from the examination because she is so overwrought, but she did not want to withdraw. The staff were so awfully sweet to us after Mother's death, at least the women teachers were. The professors don't bother themselves about our private concerns, for they only see us for 1 or 2 hours a week. Frau Doktor Steiner, from whom we don't have any lessons ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... surprised to find something almost agreeable in the appearance of the other. Dr. Martineau at once perceived that the fierceness of Sir Richmond was nothing more than the fierceness of an overwrought man, and Sir Richmond realized at a glance that the curiosity of Dr. Martineau's bearing had in it nothing personal or base; it was just the fine ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... forget all that," she went on, after a moment of shamed thought. "I don't let myself think of it any more! I was unhappy, I was overwrought; there's no explanation for what I felt and said but that! And, Peter, you know that if I was false in thought to Martin, he had been unkind to me, and he had—" she paused, interrupted herself. "But men are different, I suppose," ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... he said anxiously. "She's hysterical and must be put to bed. I'll be there presently. I hope you will pardon my daughter's outburst," he added, turning to Gordon with a little bow. "She is overwrought from having brooded over this matter much more than it deserves. I don't share her suspicion of you and you seem to me to show every mark of a man speaking honestly what he believes to be the truth. But you will pardon me if I say I do not quite ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... mentioned but what possesses its perfectly logical, natural cause. There is not one that has not been duplicated, triplicated, ah! dozens and dozens of times since this quaint old world of ours began. You believe it is due to your influence because a silly old woman catches you in an overwrought moment and tells you so. She has implanted a parasite in your little head that has stuck there and grown out of all proportion. Believe me, child, you cannot influence the destinies of men. You have no say in the matter. As we are made, so we must work out our own salvation. It has ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... moment? Shall I show to strangers something that I would hide from all eyes save those of God? Let me realize it at once, and so maintain self-control henceforth. This is an illusion—a mere trick of my overwrought mind; and yet it ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... a supernaturally grave bevy of cow-punchers that gathered round the table that morning. Ma Bailey's silence was eloquent of suppressed indignation. Bailey also seemed subdued. Pete was as placid as a sleeping cherub. Only Andy White seemed really overwrought. He seemed to suffer internally. The sweat stood out on Bill Haskins's red face, but his appetite was in no way impaired. He ate rapidly and drank much coffee. Ma Bailey was especially gracious to him. Presently from Pete's end of the table came a faint "Me-e-ow!" Andy White put down ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... about sin, the wrath of God, the death of Christ, and offers them a choice between everlasting life and eternal death. To the person who knows and loves children—who has studied the gentle ways of Froebel—this excitement is vicious, concrete cruelty. Weakened vitality follows close upon overwrought nerves, and every excess has its penalty—the pendulum swings as far this ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... easiest and least indispensable of all labor. Happily, many of the younger sons in peasant families, by going to seek their living in the towns, carry their hardy nervous system to amalgamate with the overwrought nerves of our town population, and refresh them with a little rude vigor. And a return to the habits of peasant life is the best remedy for many moral as well as physical diseases induced by perverted civilization. ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... nightfall," was her conclusion, "and wait his coming, to tell him of my—of my mistake, for otherwise he may bring Joggles back and be captured. If I can only do it without being discovered, for dadda—" and the anxious, overwrought, tired girl wept the rest of the sentence into ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a stillness, a recess. Her limbs seemed to yield and give way beneath her. She half fainted with fatigue. She staggered and fell. Too weary to undress, she flung herself upon the bed, just as she was, clothes and all. Her overwrought nerves lost consciousness at once. In three minutes she was ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... us recognize the value of honest fiction for children and the overwrought brains of busy men, but the reading of novels of any kind can only be justified as a relaxation, and it is a sad fact that there is a large class of persons who will read nothing but novels and who call all other books dry reading. Upon the minds of this class ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley |
