"Panic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at her feet; "you called me harlot! I have great pity on your soul." But all thought of herself was lost in the thought of her mission. It was in vain that the French generals strove to remain on the Loire. Jeanne was resolute to complete her task, and while the English remained panic-stricken around Paris she brought Charles to march upon Reims, the old crowning-place of the kings of France. Troyes and Chalons submitted as she reached them, Reims drove out the English garrison and threw open ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... her cousins. As she had no children of her own, she brought one of her nieces from Champagne and adopted her. This niece was my mother, Clemence Collin. The Massons were about to retire from business with a comfortable fortune, when they lost practically everything within two weeks, in a panic, saving just enough to live decently. Shortly after this my mother married my father, a minor official in the Department of the Interior. My great-uncle died of a broken heart some months before my birth on October 9, 1835. My father died ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... Beppina tried to hold him back, and, seizing the bear's rope, marched proudly along behind the van. The woman laughed and clapped her hands. "Bravo, bravo!" she cried. Then, turning to the panic-stricken Beppina, she said comfortingly: "The old Ugolone will not hurt him. He is very old and as tame as a kitten. See!" She gave the bear a slap and walked along beside him with her hand on his back, and Beppina ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... are both wrong, and nobody ought to know it so well as himself. His relations with the great gold bankers were exceedingly intimate in 1892 and 1893, and have been so ever since. It is notorious that the panic of 1893 was a bankers' panic deliberately brought about by these men to frighten public sentiment into supplementing their demand for the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman law of 1890. The agitation against ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Princess, "O ye servants of the Messiah, avenge your comrade!" So they ceased not charging down upon him, one after one; and Sharrkan also ceased not playing upon them with the blade, till he had slain fifty Knights, the lady looking on the while. And Allah cast a panic into the hearts of the survivors, so that they held back and dared not meet him in the duello, but fell upon him in a body; and he laid on load with heart firmer than a rock, and smote them and trod them down like straw under the threshing sled,[FN201] till he had driven ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... trifling oversight would suffice to vitiate, exhibited clearly enough the danger, but afforded no guarantee of safety from a collision, with all the terrific consequences frigidly enumerated by Laplace. Nor did the panic subside until Arago formally demonstrated that the earth and the comet could by no possibility approach within less ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Anger checked her panic. She straightened up with what composure this surprise had left her and started for the door. But the cowboy barred her passage—grasped her arms. Then Madeline divined that her brother could not have ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... vineyard, the first that ever I did see A pretty man, I would be content to break a commandment with him About two o'clock, too late and too soon to go home to bed Accounts I never did see, or hope again to see in my days All the towne almost going out of towne (Plague panic) Among many lazy people that the diligent man becomes necessary And feeling for a chamber-pott, there was none And all to dinner and sat down to the King saving myself At a loss whether it will be better for me ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... and more successful attack was made on the 8th of October, during the evacuation of Antwerp. Antwerp was being bombarded, the panic-stricken retreat of the population had begun, but the Naval Air Service stuck to its aerodrome, and carried out the first notable air-raid of the war. On the 7th of October the machines at Antwerp had been taken out of their ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... a panic-stricken second as she stood, a single human atom in the howling white death about her but it passed quickly. She dreaded the physical suffering which experience told her would come when her body cooled and the wind penetrated her garments, ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... saw imaginary Italians upon every side; and for the first, and, I may say, for the last time in my experience, became overpowered by what is called a panic terror. I knew nothing, that is, to be afraid of, and yet I admit that I was heartily afraid; and it was with sensible reluctance that I returned to my exposed and solitary camp in ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... trebled, and the note of the sirens was raucous, harsh, and peremptory. At ten no longer were there disconnected warnings, but from the horns and sirens issued one long, continuous scream. It was like the steady roar of a gale in the rigging, and it spoke in abject panic. The voices of the cars racing past were like the voices of human beings driven with fear. From the front of the hotel we watched them. There were taxicabs, racing cars, limousines. They were crowded ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... aggravated the misery of the people, while the mounting extravagance of the Duchess had put a last strain on the exhausted treasury. The consequent increase of the salt-tax roused such popular fury that Father Ignazio, who was responsible for the measure, was dismissed by the panic-stricken Duke, and Trescorre, as usual, called in to repair his rival's mistake. But it would have taken a greater statesman than Trescorre to reach the root of such evils; and the new minister succeeded neither in pacifying the people nor in ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of a fiercer, earlier world. A strangeness overclouded the senses; mist wreaths were everywhere, and an uncertainty as to the numbers of demons.... The cavalry broke. Officers tried to save the situation, to rally the units, to save all from being borne back. But there was no helping. Befell a panic flight, and at its heels the Highland rush streamed into and had its way with Cope's infantry. The battle was won with a swift and horrible completeness and became a massacre. Not much quarter was given; much that was horrible was done and seen. ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... way as to hide from the world how difficult it was to make both ends meet. Now, feeling that things were approaching a crisis, she sold the horses and dismissed most of the servants. A great fear seized her that it would be impossible to keep Hamlyn's Purlieu, and she was stricken with panic. She was willing to make every sacrifice but that, and if she were only allowed to remain there, did not ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... "The lid, the lid. Slide it back over the well!" The guards and servants pressed after him, but not one of them ever got into the town again. Across the bridge was now pouring a wild rush of human panic. Carriages, carts, cars, horsemen, mules, donkeys, were flying from the Seven Sisters laden with men and women and whole families. Crowds pressed forward on foot. Animals, dogs, cats, pigs, sheep, cows, came pellmell ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... and night and into the next day, when a sloop came down from Henricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk, whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves escaped as by a miracle. Many were sorely wounded, so that they died when we lifted them from the boats; others had slighter hurts. Each ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... of a rifle on the hill Rang in his ears: and stung to headlong flight, He started to his feet; and through the brake He plunged in panic, heedless of the sun That burned his cropped head to a red-hot ache Still racked with ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... and the Nonae Caprotinae, because they go out of the city to the Goat's Marsh on that day to sacrifice, for in Latin a goat is called Capra. And as they go to the sacrifice they call out many of the names of the country, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, with loud shouts, in imitation of their panic on that occasion, and their calling to each other in fear and confusion. But some say that this is not an imitation of terror, but of eagerness, and that this is the reason of it: after the Gauls had captured ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... feel panic. Why should he imagine that he was able to write? Of course it was all crude, worthless stuff. He looked at the dingy white pillars and heavy green curtains with a kind of despair ... of course it was all bad. He had been hypnotised by ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... perplexities of theology in judicial rulings, and the rage for having recourse to law courts, are of recent date in our controversies. They were revived among us as one of the results of the violent panic caused by the Oxford movement, and of the inconsiderate impatience of surprised ignorance which dictated extreme and forcible measures; and as this is a kind of game at which, when once started, both parties can play, the policy of setting the law in motion to silence theological ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... John Dene, "it wouldn't be until there had been about the tallest kind of financial panic this little globe ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... beloved, for he was careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous to real distress. Everybody admired his courage. The cholera in 1831 was very bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic at the new disease, which was fatal in many cases within six hours after the first attack. The Rector through that dark time was untouched by the contagious dread which overpowered his parishioners, and his presence carried confidence and health. On the worst day, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... than ten minutes the regiment was seen to defile from the mass, and take the road to Brussels, to increase the panic of that city, by circulating and strengthening the report, that the English were beaten,—and Napoleon in ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... pair are now face to face, she motionless and grave, he all excitement. With the tip of his leg, he ventures to touch the plump wench. He has gone too far, daring youth that he is! Panic-stricken, he takes a header, hanging by his safety- line. It is only for a moment, however. Up he comes again. He has learnt, from certain symptoms, that we are at last ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... mounted by Dollond, and presented it to the Observatory.—In this December occurred the alarm from agrarian fires. There was a very large fire at Coton, about a mile from the Observatory. This created the most extraordinary panic that I ever saw. I do not think it is possible, without having witnessed it, to conceive the state of men's minds. The gownsmen were all armed with bludgeons, and put under a rude discipline for a ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... a species of malicious humour about him that made her uneasy. Saltash in a mischievous mood was not always easy to restrain. He did not immediately reply to her question, and she turned with a hint of panic ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... spent on military mechanisms decreases our total strength and, therefore, our security. We must not return to the "crash-program" psychology of the past when each new feint by the Communists was responded to in panic. The "bomber gap" of several years ago was always a fiction, and the "missile gap" shows every ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... country. Up to the time of its establishment the whole country had suffered enormously from the wretched currency supplied from the State banks. Even in those States where the greatest precaution was taken to insure its redemption all of it was, in time of crisis or panic, fluctuating and much of it worthless. But in other States the case was even worse. I can recall perfectly that through my boyhood and young manhood every merchant and shopkeeper kept on his table what was called a "bank-note detector,'' ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... attacks much longer. Still he might have done serious damage, by causing a leak, and, while the Soudalar was a stanch craft, with many water-tight compartments, still no captain likes to be a week from land with a bad leak, especially if a storm comes up. Then, too, there was the danger of a panic among the passengers, had the attacks been kept up, so, though Tom wanted to make light of his feat, the others ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... the sultan's forces, fled in confusion without waiting to be attacked. Before the morning Feroze Shaw had crossed the river with his whole army, and at dawn assaulted the enemy's camp with great fury. Dewul Roy grieved by the death of his son and panic struck at the bravery of the assailants, made but a faint resistance. Before sunrise, having taken up his son's corpse, he fled with his army. The sultan gained immense plunder in the camp, and pursued him to the vicinity of Beejanuggur. ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... sleeping draught she administered was perfectly harmless, but there is no doubt that for one terrible moment she must have feared that Mrs. Inglethorp's death lay at her door. She is seized with panic, and under its influence she hurries downstairs, and quickly drops the coffee-cup and saucer used by Mademoiselle Cynthia into a large brass vase, where it is discovered later by Monsieur Lawrence. The remains of the coco she dare not touch. Too many eyes are upon her. Guess at ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... He forced his panic down. After all, what could these two do? There could be little evidence they could offer. Well over twenty years had passed. He had adopted the ways of the land. Now, he was one of the Duke's powerful arms. And what could they give to ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... moment where the thronging trunks thinned somewhat, when a little mouthing moan came towards us on the crest of a ripple of wind. My companion stopped on the instant, and clutched my arm, his face twisting with panic. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... and there are enough smells on the Coast now. I gave it up after the first half-hour. The other device was a muzzle, a respirator, I should say. Well! all I have got to say about that is that you need be a better-looking person than I am to wear a thing like that without causing panic in a district. Then orders to avoid the night air are still more difficult to obey—may I ask how you are to do without air from 6.30 P.M. to 6.30 A.M.? or what other air there is but night air, heavy with ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... which he had doffed for the night. Springing on his horse, he met some of the runaways, whom he forced back, hoping by their means to stem the main torrent. But, lo! in the very height of the panic, appeared another and more direful intruder—an avenue of fire seemed to extend from the walls to their own trench. It appeared as though the enemy had by some unaccountable means formed in a double ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... as swiftly as he had begun, and in the silence Max quailed under his glance. Out of the unknown, fear assailed him; it seemed that under this mastering scrutiny his mask must drop from him, his very garments be rent. In sudden panic his thought skimmed possibilities like a circling bird and lighted upon the first-found point ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... train, and hurried his troops across the fields to the point just where he was most needed. They were at first supposed to be the Enemy, their arrival at that point of the field being entirely unexpected. The Enemy fell back, and a panic seized them. Cheer after cheer from our men went up, and we knew ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... is, if anything, rather better. Her malady is taking its natural course. But people of her class always fancy they are going to die, if they are ill enough to stay in bed. It is the panic of ignorance. Yes, I think it would do her good to see a priest. But there is not the slightest occasion ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... bravado, at the first smell of gunpowder, Thornton Rush threw down his firearms in a panic and ran as if from a sweeping tempest of fire and brimstone. Sleeping by day in hollow logs, traveling by night with haste and stealth, he made his way to the hated Northern lines, went as fast as cars could carry him to New York city, ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... a panic, of course, and the Abolition lecturer would have been roughly handled by the mob if a young lady, a sister of the poet Whittier, had not taken him by the arm, and walked with him through the astonished crowd. They did not ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... great hurry and with trembling hands, as was not unnatural. He had succeeded with five, when the sixth stuck fast in the groove of the clockwork. Just at that moment, as we judged, either an alarm was raised in the rear, or some panic fear seized on him. Probably the fellow judged right that the most incriminating pictures of all had by that time been removed, and that the last would only show his back, if it included him at all, or if he came into ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... corridor, with every door and window exactly duplicated. How could living men and women have endured the appalling uniformity of this human beehive? Everywhere, too, were the same recurring evidences of the haste and panic that had characterized the final moments of that terrible hegira. Hats and garments, cash-boxes and account-books, littered the hallways, and were piled in little heaps at the entrances to the elevators—impedimenta ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... speech seemed to appeal to the dissentients, with the result that they withdrew their opposition, and it was agreed that we should attempt to break our way through the besieging army about one hour before the dawn, when they would be heavily asleep and most liable to panic. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Imogene had been abundantly clad, and her gestures much more restrained. He was trying now to picture how Gashwiler would take a thing like this, or Mrs. Gashwiler, for that matter! One glimpse of those practically unclad bodies skipping and bounding there would probably throw them into a panic. They couldn't have sat it through. And here he was, right up in front of them, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... rugs for our noontide rest by the ruined south gate of the city. At our feet lies the wide, level, green valley where the mighty host of Ben-hadad, King of Damascus, once besieged the starving city and waited for its surrender. (II Kings vii.) There in the twilight of long ago a panic terror whispered through the camp, and the Syrians rose and fled, leaving their tents and their gear behind them. And there four nameless lepers of Israel, wandering in their despair, found the vast encampment deserted, and entered in, and ate and drank, and ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... Great Britain, to realize upon the magnificence of India; and this is as Dr. Johnson said of the vats and barrels of the Thrale estate—"the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice." It is a new departure, but not a matter for the panic or apprehension of conservatism, that the Stars and Stripes float as the symbol of sovereignty over a group of islands in the waters of Asia, that are equal to all the West Indies. If we are strangers there now we shall not be so long. We have a front on the Pacific Ocean, of ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... but at that number he had made a gigantic error—which, however, he was never able to detect and rectify—with the result that all transactions above that point worked out at a considerable loss to the seller. It was in vain that the panic-stricken Ti Hung goaded his miserable son-in-law to correct the mistake; it was equally in vain that he tried to stem the current of his enormous commercial popularity. He had competed for public favour, and he had won it, and every day his business increased till ruin grasped him by ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... such a thing as security, look you. He is a warm man, certainly—very warm—quite respectable—most undoubtedly respectable. But who knows? A panic may take place; and then these five hundred companies in which he is engaged may bring him to ruin. There's the Ginger Beer Company, of which Brough is a director: awkward reports are abroad concerning it. The Consolidated Baffin's Bay Muff and Tippet Company—the shares are down very low, and ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... untouched. But it seems clear to me that at the same time he had resolved to make the best of it, to keep his mask resolutely on. It was only with the discovery of her being in the house that everything—the forced calm, the restraint of his fanaticism, the mask—all came off together in a kind of panic. Why panic, do you ask? The answer is very simple. He remembered—or, I dare say, he had never forgotten—the Professor alone at the top of the house, pursuing his researches, surrounded by tins upon tins of Stone's Dried Soup. There was enough in ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... was shunned as if the deadly plague had been rioting there. Years before the disease had raged with fearful violence in the town, and many a fresh mound was reared in the graveyard, and many a hearth-stone desolated. This it was which struck a panic to the hearts of the inhabitants when they knew the scourge was again in their midst, and save the inmates of the house, and Edith Hastings, none came to Dr. Griswold's aid. At first Richard refused to let ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... heart of the martyred Stevens these words struck panic. But as he opened his mouth to protest, the catastrophe occurred. There was a snap, and the toboggan shot downward. Bound as he was, the victim could see below him a brick wall right across the path of his descent. He was helpless to move; ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... the radiance had departed, and that she crept about again like a tired woman. When, after nine o'clock, they were alone by the fire, again and again it was on the tip of Janet's tongue to say, "Tell me, who was Dick Tanner?" Then, in a sudden panic fear, lest the words should slip out, and bring something irreparable, she would get up, and make a restless pretence of some household work or other, only to sit down and begin the same inward debate once more. But she said nothing, and Rachel, too, was silent. She sat ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... saddled horses ahead of them, reins flying and soon putting panic into the animals, Jim and Betty rode down into the valley. They looked down to the big adobe house and saw no one; the place slept tranquilly in the late afternoon sun. They passed the corrals and still saw no one. If any of her men had not followed Zoraida, they were lounging under cover. ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... about 100 yards' range upon a dense crowd, collected mainly in the lower and more distant part of the enclosure around a platform from which speeches were being delivered. The crowd was estimated by him at 6000, by others at 10,000 and more, but practically unarmed, and all quite defenceless. The panic-stricken multitude broke at once, but for ten consecutive minutes he kept up a merciless fusillade—in all 1650 rounds—on that seething mass of humanity, caught like rats in a trap, vainly rushing for the few narrow exits or lying flat on the ground ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... that we must try to escape by this way," said Curio, seriously, but without panic. "We must go back at once, and try to cross by the wooden bridge below or by ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... of prisoners two incidents passed before my eye with a realism that would have been worth a small fortune to a motion picture man if equally dramatic ones had not been posed. A German sprang out of the trench, evidently either of a mind to resist or else in a panic, and dropped behind one of the piles of chalk thrown up in the process of excavation. A British soldier went after him and he held up his hands and was dispatched to join one of the groups. Another who ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... townsmen strangely altered; they were as men stricken with a panic fear; they ran to and fro through the streets of the town of Mansoul, crying out, 'Help, help! the men that turn the world upside down are come hither also;' nor could any of them be quiet after, but still, as men bereft of wit, they cried out, 'The destroyers ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... built under these charters. The financial panic of 1837 swept them all into oblivion, together with a multitude of other roads projected throughout the country. Some of them were heard of no more, and others were revived in after years, the charters greatly amended, and the roads eventually built. The design of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... were fast mounting; and in the deceptive quiet of the night, downfall and red revolt were brewing. The litter had passed forth between the iron gates and entered on the streets of the town. By what flying panic, by what thrill of air communicated, who shall say? but the passing bustle in the palace had already reached and re-echoed in the region of the burghers. Rumour, with her loud whisper, hissed about the town; men left their homes without knowing why; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was to hear from Mr. Barrymore how, on the spot where its castle stands, Attila watched the burning of Aquileia. That seemed to take me down to the roots of Venetian history; and I could picture the panic-stricken fugitives flying to the lagoons, and beginning to raise the wattled huts which have culminated in the queen city of the sea. From Udine we went southward; and at the Austrian custom house, across the frontier, we had to unroll yards of red tape ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a dollar a month lodge dues, and other incidental expenses of lodge meetings. The wife has paid a dollar a year dues in a suffrage club, and a dollar and a half a year for subscription to the Woman's Journal. The 'late' panic has shrunk the family income, and something must be cut off. The Wife will cut off the two small amounts mentioned. She will cut off anything else that is for her separate existence. Now, the question is, how may ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the law. Harsh as that law was, the Catholics obeyed it; yet even this obedience did not satisfy the Protestant party, or rather that portion of them who were active agents in carrying out this imprudent and unjustifiable rigor at such a period. They were seized by a kind of panic, and imagined forsooth that a broken down and disarmed people might engage in a general massacre of the Irish Protestants. Whether this incomprehensible terror was real, is a matter of doubt and uncertainty; ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... honourable gentleman seems to triumph in the recollection of mistakes and disappointments. I will give him the date, but I should think it must really be seared upon his conscience. December 27 is the date of federal execution: and Her Majesty's Government must have been in a state of complete panic, because on the 28th they made application to France, which is answered in a few hours by Lord Cowley: 'I said Her Majesty's Government were most sincerely anxious to——' (laughter). I wish really to be candid, not to ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... seem a chaos of contradictions, with its almost priggish praise of parliaments and its quite barbaric massacre of prisoners, until we realise that, if the Middle Ages was a house half built, the seventeenth century was a house on fire. Panic was the note of it, and that fierce fastidiousness and exclusiveness that comes from fear. Calvinism was its characteristic religion, even in the Catholic Church, the insistence on the narrowness of the way and the fewness of the chosen. Suspicion was the note of its ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... of a sudden panic. He had just come from baring the rawness of his wound to Kitty, and, gently as her fingers had probed, even the kind hands of a friend may sometimes hurt excruciatingly. He felt that at the moment he could not endure the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... deserters—could she, like them, have been all this while unconsciously executing judgment upon herself? Running from a wrath that was doubtful, into the very jaws of a wrath that was inexorable? Flying in panic—and behold! there was no man that pursued? For the first time in her life, Kate trembled. Not for the first time, Kate wept. Far less for the first time was it, that Kate bent her knee—that Kate clasped her hands—that ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... Bank of Cleveland, in 1857, became deeply involved, by the failure of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, of Cincinnati. Mr. Mygatt was appointed cashier at this time, when a memorable panic in finances was sweeping over the country. The bank sank a large part of its stock, but maintained its integrity, and ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... has some reason to be afraid. Perhaps he got an idea in his head that we'd come up here to hunt for him! And when he saw Toby looking straight at him, he fell into a regular panic right away." ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... of money to general Oglethorpe; and the governor had ordered some ships of force to his aid. These appeared off the coast while the principal officers of the Spanish army were yet deliberating on the letter. They deliberated no longer. The whole army was seized with a panic; and, after setting fire to the fort, embarked in great hurry and confusion, leaving behind several pieces of heavy artillery, and a large quantity of provisions and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... in the hands of slave-insurgents is always this blind panic they create, and the wild exaggerations which follow. The worst being possible, every one takes the worst for granted. Undoubtedly a dozen armed men could have stifled this insurrection, even after it had commenced operations; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... ponies are not pulling well. The surface is, if anything, a little worse than yesterday, but I should think about the sort of thing we shall have to expect henceforward. I had a panic that we were carrying too much food and this morning we have discussed the matter and decided we can leave a sack. We have done the usual 13 miles (geog.) with a few hundred yards to make the 15 statute. The temperature ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... sound; to my astonishment, a general panic ensued. The miserable wretches never stopped to enquire how many, or how far off, they were—but scrambled to every outlet of the yard, trampling each other down in their hurry. I leaped up on the ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... Daily Mail a panic was recently caused in a Manchester tea-room by a rat which took refuge in the leg of a gentleman's trousers. This may not mean that the need of a new style of rat-proof trouser has attracted the interest of Carmelite House publicity agents, but we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... like panic signalized the Legislative Chamber and Cabinet ministers scurried in and out like flurried rabbits and finally took refuge in their private rooms—here was fought out the decisive battle between physical and moral force over the suffrage question. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... men, including the two captains, who were wounded and captured, with the guns. [Footnote: The optimistic Cooper thinks that two regular regiments would have given the Americans this battle—which is open to doubt.] Ross took Washington and burned the public buildings; and the panic-struck Americans foolishly burned the Columbia, 44, and Argus, 18, which were ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... headed towards Pratzen to see what was happening in the enemy advance-guard. He stayed a long time watching, and as night was approaching, he went back to Brunn without visiting the Chasseurs. For several days I was in a mortal panic, although I learned of the arrival of successive detachments of men, but at last the coming battle and the many preoccupations of the Emperor drove from his mind the idea of making the check which I so much feared. But I had learned my ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... Spaniard, Cotabanama bent his gigantic bow, and was on the point of launching one of his three-pronged arrows, but Lopez rushed upon him and wounded him with his sword. The other Indians, struck with panic, had already fled. Cotabanama, dismayed at the keenness of the sword, cried out that he was Juan de Esquibel, claiming respect as having exchanged names with the Spanish commander. Lopez seized him with one hand by the hair, and with the other aimed a thrust at his body; but the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... roused by some unusual noise, did not see Hector in the bed he occupied near hers; for they slept side by side in two beds, as beseemed an old couple. She lay awake an hour, but he did not return. Seized with a panic, fancying some tragic end had overtaken him—an apoplectic attack, perhaps—she went upstairs to the floor occupied by the servants, and then was attracted to the room where Agathe slept, partly by seeing a light below the door, and partly by the murmur ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... is well known. The horses, who were commanded to charge the advancing Highlanders in the flank, received an irregular fire from their fusees as they ran on, and, seized with a disgraceful panic, wavered, halted, disbanded, and galloped from the field. The artillerymen, deserted by the cavalry, fled after discharging their pieces, and the Highlanders, who dropped their guns when fired, and drew their broadswords, rushed with headlong fury ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the panic-stricken gamblers breathed more easily. Several men who had jumped up from their seats went back to ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock
... Catach[145] self below thee, And the Gallach[145] cower'd for cover; But ever more their striving, When claim'd respect thine eye, Thy scourge corrected, driving To other lands to fly. Thy loyal crew of clansmen true, No panic fear shall turn them, With steel-cap, blade, and skene array'd, Their banning foes they spurn them. Clan-Shimei[146] then may dare them, They 'll fly, had each a sabre on, Needs but a look—when Staghead Once ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... him a long letter on the subject. On the very eve of the departure came a second telegram. Telegrams were not every-day things in the High Valley, the nearest "wire" being at the Ute Hotel five miles away; and the arrival of the messenger on horseback created a momentary panic. ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... could not proceed to us without attacking the Rebel Camp, returned back to Waterford. From these rapid successes, and their encreasing numbers, (as it was supposed there were then 20000 men ready to attack Wexford) the people here were panic-struck; and finding that many who were entrusted with arms had deserted the barriers, and it being considered that others could not be depended on, the Officers concluded that the town was not tenable, and without firing a shot it was evacuated on the 30th of May, and ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... excited apprehension, was the impression the nurse produced. She, on her part, was perhaps more disconcerted than he. Her single eye settled upon him in a panic of surprise. The dressing of the scene gave Balder a grisly reminder of the first moments of Gnulemah's eloquent astonishment. There was as great an apparent difference between the superb Egyptian and this poor creature, as between good and evil; but ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... of that moment! A wild heart beat lawlessly at my side. One more touch of terror, and it would rebel in utter panic. Why was the dormitory so dark? Why had the little night-lamp gone out? And the wooden floors were stone-cold like the window-sill in my dream. I couldn't see if my bed were close to me or far away because of the impenetrable darkness; but I was so very, very tired, and my ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his stirrups, and by his own movements assisted the animal's now perfectly reckless gallop,—and at last, hearing the flying hoofs behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly pulled up and came to a dead halt. A head was thrust out of the carriage window,—Miraudin's head,—and Miraudin's voice shouted in ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... they felt that their lives were at the mercy of the native tribes. Not one-fourth of that number of armed men with any training for battle could have been sent forth from the settlement for its own defence. This gave a significance to the Wairau massacre that created quite a panic. Fresh settlers ceased to come; many that were there already now left. Those who had taken up farms far out in the country abandoned them and withdrew to ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... with its high hues was filled with Turcos in panic flight crowding one another in their terror, while over them billowed the yellow poison pall of death; but in the midst of the maelstrom the roaring Canadian guns stood immovable and unyielding, served by gunners who rose superior alike to the physical terrors ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... in which to take them," she said. "There should be no panic in the hearts of those who wait on the Divine Will. Moreover, I should wish you to understand in case of siege, and an extra demand upon the staffs of the Town and Field Hospitals, that we are all—or nearly all—certificated ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... now lost many of their best warriors, and a general panic had seized upon them, ending in their full flight. Carlos followed along with the victorious pursuers, now and then using his rifle upon the fleeing robbers. But fearing that a stray party of them might attack his own little camp he turned ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... with the full energy of his nature, backed by the whole power, spiritual and secular, of the kingdom. The country was covered with his secret police, arresting suspected persons and searching for books. In London the scrutiny was so strict that at one time there was a general flight and panic; suspected butchers, tailors, and carpenters, hiding themselves in the holds of vessels in the river, and escaping across the Channel.[494] Even there they were not safe. Heretics were outlawed by ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... that Falstaff was surprized with fear in this single instance, that he was off his guard, and even acted like a Coward; what will follow, but that Falstaff, like greater heroes, had his weak moment, and was not exempted from panic and surprize? If a single exception can destroy a general character, Hector was a Coward, and Anthony a Poltroon. But for these seeming contradictions of Character we shall seldom be at a loss to account, if ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... When the panic had to a certain degree subsided, and they perceived that the water did not increase, all hands applied to the pumps, and by eight o'clock in the morning the vessel was free. Still the unaccountable circumstance weighed heavy on the minds of the seamen, who walked the deck without speaking ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... ran past the town was already bank-full; and all manner of terrifying reports kept circulating among the panic-stricken people of that section of the State, adding to their alarm and uneasiness. More rain meant accessions to the flood, already augmented by the melting of vast quantities of snow up in the mountains, owing to the ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... from house to house, and plantation to plantation, leaving a wide swathe of death in their track. Terror filled the night, terror filled the State, the most abject terror clutched the bravest hearts. The panic was pitiable, horrible. James McDowell, one of the leaders of the Old Dominion, gave voice to the awful memories and sensations of that night, in the great anti-slavery debate, which broke out in the Virginia Legislature, during ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... after the second boy was born, Larry came in, shaking in hand and heart, and the miserable news was soon out,—"caught in the panic," "unexpected turn of the market." But how could he be caught, his wife demanded, with contracting blue eyes? Had his firm failed? And after a little,—lie and subterfuge within lie and subterfuge being unwrapped,—it appeared,—the fact. He had "gone into cotton"—with ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... second or two longer with an odd smile on his face and that in his eyes which startled her into a momentary feeling that was almost panic; then with a single, swift movement he bent and caught ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... date of his bond. But of what use were the papers he hastily dragged out of his breast; of what use were laws in those days of slow intercourse with such as were powerful enough to protect, and in the time of popular panic against ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... terrified ladies and scattered the rest of us in dismay. But it was side-splitting when the little fellow, seeing an open door, made a sudden break for it, and plunged into the berth of a shy damsel, who, put to ignominious flight in the first gust of the panic, had sought safety in her state-room only to be singled out for the recipient of the rascal's special attentions. She was rescued by the bravest of the brave; but Bruin had to be dragged from behind the lace curtains with a lasso, and then he brought some shreds of lace with him ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... from Blucher. We were all aware that the enemy was in movement, and the ignorant could not solve the enigma of the Duke going tranquilly to the ball at the Duke of Richmond's—his coolness was above their comprehension. Had he remained at his own hotel a panic would have probably ensued amongst the inhabitants, which would have embarrassed the intended movement of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... different states of the Union, but it was also burdened with obligations to the extent of eight millions of dollars. The times were most unpropitious, the country being just on the eve of a great financial panic when immense properties were crumbling to pittances. He undertook the Herculean task of rescuing at this time this estate from threatened ruin, and of vindicating the good name of his father from undeserved censure. He had in this gigantic work to meet and thwart ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... upon the port itself. At this news Henry made the best speed he could, but he was only in time to see the rout of the Moors. Menezes and the garrison made a desperate sally directly they sighted the relief coming through the straits; the same appearance struck a panic into the enemy's fleet, and only one galley stayed on the African coast to help their landsmen, who were thus left alone and without hope of succour on the eastern hills of the Ceuta peninsula, cut off by the city ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... consequence of his attendance—when the customary staff of matrons and nurses had been swept off in two days—and the nurses belonging to the Infirmary had shrunk from being drafted into the pestilential fever-ward—when high wages had failed to tempt any to what, in their panic, they considered as certain death—when the doctors stood aghast at the swift mortality among the untended sufferers, who were dependent only on the care of the most ignorant hirelings, too brutal to recognise the solemnity of Death (all this had happened within a week from the ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... would find its way to London and thence to the Cape. I'll answer for it that the immediate effect is a great drop in the price of stones. We should have a second agent at the Cape diamond fields, and he would lay our money out by buying in all that he could while the panic lasted. Then, the original scare having proved to be all a mistake, the prices naturally go up once more, and we get a long figure for all that we hold. That's what I mean by making 'a corner in diamonds.' There is no room in it for any miscalculation. It is as certain ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... from their very infancy, restrained by the invisible bonds of opinion, overcome by panic terrors, their faculties blunted by ignorance, how should the people know the true causes of their wretchedness? They imagine that they can avert it by invoking the gods. Alas! do they not see, that it is, in the name ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... peep at our treasures to regain composure had, we fear, given the foreigner glimpses, and whetted the appetite of our masses. No sooner are we at peace than these are heard uttering low howls, and those are seen enviously glaring. The spectre, Panic, that ever dogs the optimistic feast, warns us of a sack under our beds, and robbers about to try a barely-bolted door. . . Then do we, who have so sweetly sung our senses to sleep, start up, in their grip, rush to the doctor ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the theory of progress is quite modern, for the ancients looked behind them for the Golden Age. Nowadays we trumpet the glory of our British empire; yet at intervals our confidence in its fortunes is shaken by some sharp panic; the decline and fall of England is predicted. It is, indeed, perilous to be overconfident, to live in a fool's paradise, for some of us have seen in our lifetime the sudden catastrophes that have overtaken ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, made a professional reputation for himself in the committee-rooms of the Houses of Parliament, he had many a sharp tussle with one of those venal witnesses who, during the period of excitement that terminated in the disastrous railway panic, were ready to give scientific evidence on engineering questions, with less regard to truth than to the interests of the persons who paid for their evidence. Having by mendacious evidence gravely injured a cause ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... panic did not follow, nor did the yeomanry go into bankruptcy. The breadstuffs flowed in, and the manufacturing population being better fed at a less outlay than formerly, had more money to spend. Great general prosperity followed, and the gentry, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... with such merciless energy that some of his men dropped dead with wading night and day through the loose sands. When, from behind their frail defences, the French saw the Spanish pikes and partisans glittering into view, they fled in a panic, and took refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging his honor for their safety. The commander and several others told the messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust themselves to Spaniards; and, escaping, they fled to the Indian ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... Their leader fallen, the remainder of the pack had seemingly no liking for keeping up the attack. Still snarling they began to retreat slowly—a backward movement, which presently changed into a mad, helter skelter rush. Panic seized on them, and down the dry arroyo they fled, a dense cloud of yellow, pungent dust rising behind them. In a few seconds all that remained to tell of the battle in the gulch were the still bodies of the brutes that had fallen before the ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... J. E. B. Stuart. General Joseph E. Johnston re-enforced Beauregard with another army during the fight, and became the ranking-officer on the field. The defeat of the Union army was complete; it was a rout, and on the retreat became a panic. When the troops reached the protection of the fortifications around Washington, a thorough demoralization pervaded their ranks. The holiday illusion had been rudely dispelled, and the young men ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... this the British troops, having advanced to Germaintown, were vigorously attacked by the whole patriot army, and victory seemed inclined to their standard when, the Americans becoming separated by a thick fog, a panic seized them, and they made a precipitate retreat. General Washington's army, we heard, was now at a place called White Marsh, about fourteen miles from Philadelphia. Thither Mrs Tarleton resolved immediately to proceed, in the hopes of meeting her brother, who, though wounded, was still, ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... from what I believe to have been a panic of snoring to hear the train clattering over the sleepers and points, and to see—oh, human, brotherly sight!—the broad level light of morning stream out of the east. We were stealing into a city ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... as it rises in anger and puffs its green throat out; even thus Androgeus drew away, startled at the sight. We rush in and encircle them with serried arms, and cut them down dispersedly in their ignorance of the ground and seizure of panic. Fortune speeds our first labour. And here Coroebus, flushed with success and spirit, cries: "O comrades, follow me where fortune points before us the path of safety, and shews her favour. Let us exchange shields, and accoutre ourselves ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... so much in the papers nowadays of the extravagant sums paid for rare books by our modern millionaire bibliomaniacs that one is apt to become somewhat panic-stricken upon experiencing the first symptoms of the bibliomania. While these more opulent victims of book-madness vie with one another in the auction-room, the rational bibliophile sits in the gallery and views with silent awe and amazement ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... panic of the ministers was great; the King's displeasure was still greater. He suspected treachery, and considered the publication of such a petition treasonable. Remonstrances were of no avail; the ministers were dismissed, ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... just idea of the terror which their hideous yelling is calculated to inspire. When heard that night in the mighty solitude through which those boats were passing, we are told that most of the voyagers were panic-stricken and almost nerveless until Mrs. Rowan's calm resolution and intrepidity inspired them with a portion of her own undaunted spirit. The Indians continued hovering on their rear and yelling, for nearly three ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... ground was strewed with dead and dying Indians; but the band of English warriors was yet unbroken, and was fiercely bearing onward towards the wigwams. Their numbers were small, indeed, when compared with those of their opponents; but the latter had no firearms, and a panic seemed to have struck them from the force and suddenness of the attack. Still they defended the lines of wigwams with desperation, until Mason, with amazing boldness, entered one of them, and, seizing a brand from the ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb |
