"Shock" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that we did not. In the first moments of their agony when we met them their souls had not recovered from the shock of their encounter. It was, with many of them, more than the mere physical pain. They were still held by some discovery at whose very doors they had been. The discovery itself had not been made by them, but they had been so near to it that many of them would never be the same man again. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... hand trembling, filled another glass with the foaming golden wine, and drained it at a draught. What the lawyer just said had been somewhat of a shock. Was there more meaning in it than appeared in the chance words? He eyed Steell narrowly, when he was not looking, but the lawyer's face was inscrutable. Again he filled his glass and again ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... happen. The sorrel went straight up in the air with all four feet, coming down with the legs stiff, giving Wilbur a jar which set every nerve twitching as though he had got an electric shock. But he kept his seat. Then the sorrel began pacing forward softly with an occasional sudden buck, each of which nearly threw him off and at most of which he had to "hunt leather," or in other words, catch hold of the saddle with ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... risen to his feet. He had the look of a man who has received a shock. He brushed past some people who were taking their places at a table without remark or apology. He passed my companion and myself without even, I believe, being conscious of our presence. He walked straight to ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... am.'—Grammar, Eng. p. 13. This Definition, is founded upon the Notion abovementioned, viz. That none but Transitives are Verbs Active, which is contrary to the reason of Things, and the common sense of Mankind. And what can shock a Child more, of any Ingenuity, than to be told, That Ambuto and Curro are Verbs Neuter; that is, to speak according to the common Apprehensions of Mankind, that they signifie neither to do, nor suffer."—Johnson's Grammatical ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... lives through the shock," said Madame de Chaulieu, with a very maternal manner, "I shall be anxious about her future life. Louise is ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the most part, in a pickle; but we should regret to say anything that might be misinterpreted. The periwinkle and wilk interest has sustained a severe shock; but potatoes continue to be done ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... our readers may think at first thought. But the shock and the violent fall from the horse was really the more dangerous part of the tournament. The point of the lance seldom penetrated the armour of proof in which ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... when he ran after her with a horsewhip to beat her, that he tumbled down on the stones; and mayhap the shock killed him, as it did that other knave who flung her against the wall; or that he got a fit; for such would have been a just judgment of God on him, as it is written (Malachi iii. 5), 'I will be a swift witness ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... its energies,—when the needs for its enterprise were seemingly as active and stimulating as ever,—all its habitual functions are arrested, and shocks of disaster run along the ground from Chicago to Constantinople, toppling down innumerable well-built structures, like the shock of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... contingent was almost annihilated, and, later on in the day, by the Gordons, who left their convoy work on the left and advanced gallantly towards the Boer position. No praise can be too high for our artillery. It was their excellent shooting that helped our men to rally after the first shock, and which ultimately succeeded in driving the Boers from their first line of trenches. These trenches were admirably constructed in long deep parallel lines connected at the ends so that a force could advance or withdraw from any point without being noticed by ourselves. Shell fire could ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... lamps at frequent intervals give sufficient light, and, at all events, do not smell worse than modern metropolitan gas. There is a large tent standing en permanence during the summer for flower shows, and terrace after terrace of croquet lawns, all of which it will, I fear, shock some Sabbatarian persons to learn were occupied on that Sunday afternoon, and the balls kept clicking like the week-day shots of the erratic riflemen on the Scrubbs. I had a young lady with me who was considerably severe on the way in which we workmen male and female, handled our mallets. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... boiled cabbage, boiled this and boiled that, never seems to occur to the vast majority of people in this country, who seem incapable of understanding that these different vegetables are worthy of being served in an infinite number of ways. It will doubtless shock those who cling to this beliefs but the following remarks by Dr. Mitchell, an English physician practising in Paris, directed against his own countrymen be it understood, are forcible enough:—"The plain boiled potato," says he, "whatever else it may be, is clearly a cattle food; ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... foundation. As in the course of years competition gradually increases, the effect of this competition on the South will probably be most beneficial. The change from monopoly to competition, distributed over many years, will come with no sudden and destructive shock, but will take place imperceptibly. The fall of the dynasty will be gradual; and with the dynasty must fall its policy. Its fruits must be eradicated by time. Under the healing influence of time, the South, still young and energetic, ceasing to think of one thing alone, will quickly turn its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... up the trail, followed by Virginia and Death Valley Charley and a crowd of curious citizens; and as they awaited the shock, Blount shuddered and smiled nervously, for he knew that she would demand back her stock. Wiley shuddered too, but instead of smiling he clenched his jaws like a vise; and as the Widow entered he signaled ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... descended fast, followed at once by the raised welt of flesh, or the blood from the lacerated tissue. Across the shoulder blades, the small of the back, the buttocks, the belly, they descended with the full force of the robust arms and weight of O'Kin. Every time the legs were raised at the shock the suspended body spun round. Every time the toes rested on the ground the bow descended with merciless ferocity. The sight of the torture roused the fierce spirit in the tormentors. O'Kin redoubled the violence of her blows, seeking out the hams and the withers, ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... feet, till the huge cakes rubbed softly against the crest of the bank. The tail of the island, being lower, was overrun. Then, without effort, the white flood started down-stream. But the sound increased with the momentum, and soon the whole island was shaking and quivering with the shock of the grinding bergs. Under pressure, the mighty cakes, weighing hundreds of tons, were shot into the air like peas. The frigid anarchy increased its riot, and the men had to shout into one another's ears to be heard. Occasionally ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... that it was reading Plato that did it. That philosopher was very well qualified to convey the first shock of the ancient civilisation to Shaw, who had always thought instinctively of civilisation as modern. This is not due merely to the daring splendour of the speculations and the vivid picture of Athenian life, ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... concerned only the ranches near that town—so long as no vexatious happenings sifted too far south. But they had so sifted, and Perry's Bend, or rather the undesirable class hanging out there, was due to receive a shock before long. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriad of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle, in its ascent to heaven, with the shouts of battle and the shock ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... more spirit, that she might shock him less, "I did not save Mr Harrel, to destroy so much better a man! you have suffered but too much oppression already; the present evil is mine; and from me, at least, none I hope will ever ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... insisted on pulling or twisting everything, until he happened to touch a couple of live wires, giving himself quite a shock, and then he ran away howling. But still the crowd increased, and at last Mr. ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton
... came forth bearing a dead tree-trunk between them, he got two more of them. And then the timber crashed against the flimsy door; the rended boards flew across the room; the sod walls trembled to the shock. He dropped his rifle and drew his revolver as he ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... saucy baggage"—and the thought was too much for him. Tears filling his eyes he turned to Rex. "Recky, you spank that lil' sir," he pleaded brokenly. "He's too lil' for me—I'd hurt him"—and Rex meditated again. A shock came when they reached the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. "Up's' daisy," crowed Billy Strong, and swung Fairfax facing uptown ...
— A Good Samaritan • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... came from down the road, the shock of steel tires striking viciously against the stones, the cries and oaths of the ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... which they were made, so that the ultimate effects of an invention are not observed until its novelty is already out of sight. A century has elapsed since the invention of the steam-engine, and we are only just beginning to feel the depths of the shock it gave us. But the revolution it has effected in industry has nevertheless upset human relations altogether. New ideas are arising, new feelings are on the way to flower. In thousands of years, when, seen from the distance, only the broad lines of the present age will still be visible, ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... a white figure, holding a lamp, stood full before me. I thought at first it was one of those images made to stand in niches and hold a light in their hands. But the illusion was momentary, and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the bright flame and snowy drapery to see that the figure was a breathing one. It was Iris, in one of her statue-trances. She had come down, whether sleeping or waking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that told her she was wanted,—or, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... stood nearly in the middle of the room, her little body trembling under the shock of passions too strong for it, her very lips pale, and her eyes gleaming, the door opened, and Miss Assher appeared, tall, blooming, and splendid, in her walking costume. As she entered, her face wore the smile appropriate to the exits and entrances of a young lady who ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... issued, his armour all in red, and the trappings of his horse of the same colour. They couched their lances and came marvellously fast together, and smote each other in the midmost of their shields; and the shock of their spears was so great that it bore down both horses and men, and for a little while the ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... was in the seventh year of our residence in the hut that of a sudden I had a terrible shock or fright, and this I must now describe to you. It comes in about the middle of this history, and it ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale
... before the childish desperation. Lottie had never revolted before—she had thought Eugenia's thoughts and weakly lived up to Eugenia's conception of her duty. She had been meek and amiable and ineffectual; but it came to Eugenia with a shock that she had never admired her until to-day—until the hour of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... overpowered Tilly with his right arm. That dream came through the Gate of Horn, for the Saxons who formed the left wing were raw troops, but victory was sure to the Swede. Soldiers of the old school proudly compare the shock of charging armies at Leipsic with modern battles, which they call battles of skirmishers with armies in reserve. However this may be, all that day the plain of Breitenfeldt was filled with the fierce eddies of a hand-to-hand struggle between mail- clad masses, their cuirasses and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... future." He believed in the boast of the vain old sage,—"I am a world to myself!" In the wild career through which his later manhood had passed, it is true that he had not carried his philosophy into a rejection of the ordinary world. The shock occasioned by the death of Florence yielded gradually to time and change; and he had passed from the deserts of Africa and the East to the brilliant cities of Europe. But neither his heart nor his reason had ever again been enslaved by his passions. Never again had he known the softness of ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of the crowd, persistent, disquieting,-the dull shock of guns. People looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, "The civil war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel; but I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new dangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find perils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hesitation he advanced to the water's edge and plunged into the stream. The water was icy cold, and Hal's breath was taken away by the suddenness of the shock. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... inch the indomitable fighter he was. He stood six feet to the line, straight and strong, carrying just sufficient bulk to temper his restless energy without impairing its power. Nor did the face offer any shock of disappointment to the promise given by the splendid figure. Salient-jawed and forceful, set with cool, flinty, blue-gray eyes, no place for weakness could be found there. One might have read a moral callousness, a colorblindness in ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... week,—and in the evenin' about sunset here they'd come, Annie in front fast asleep, and Old Man Bob holdin' her on one arm and guidin' his horse with the other. Harvestin' times Annie'd be out in the field settin' on a shock o' wheat and orderin' the hands around same as if she was the overseer; and Old Man Bob'd jest stand back and shake his sides laughin' and say: 'That's right, honey. Make 'em move lively. If it wasn't for you, pappy couldn't git ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... to kill the youth or at least to throw him into a death-like trance, which the savage hardly distinguishes from death. His recovery would then be attributed either to the gradual recovery of his system from the violent shock which it had received, or, more probably, to the infusion into him of fresh life drawn from the totem. Thus the essence of these initiatory rites, so far as they consist in a simulation of death and resurrection, would be an ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... we have dealt almost exclusively with the training of the Cavalry for actual combat, the cause lies in the nature of things. Victory whether in the shock of 'Masses' or even in the minor encounters of patrols, forms so much the foundation of every possible success, whether strategical or otherwise, that training with this end in view naturally comes first under ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... dissolution, more and more augments the collision and concussion; so that there is neither mixtion nor adhesion and conglutination, but only a discord and combat, which according to them is called generation. And if the atoms do now recoil for a moment by reason of the shock they have given, and then return again after the blow is past, they are above double the time absent from one another, without either touching or approaching, so as nothing can be made of them, not even so much as a body without ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... he had given his former friend time to get over her shock, came forward, and very soon managed to win her back to her old friendliness, as he gave her his arm to take her in to dinner. Poor Vava! she had so looked forward to this dinner; it had turned out so very different to what she had expected, ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... fearful task. One moment the great seas lifted him high into the air, and the next down he came again till the massive spar crashed on to the deck of the San Antonio with such a shock that he nearly flew from it like a stone from a sling. Yet he hung on, and, biding his chance, seized a broken stay-rope that dangled from the end of the bowsprit like a lash from a whip, and began to slide down it. The gale caught him and blew him to and fro; the vessel, ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... falls, the plays are done, To roar of shell and shock of gun; The scuttled shipping bobs and sways, In grime and muck of shallow bays. The tattered ensigns mould'ring lie, As diving otters bark and cry; While—in the lee of crumbling piers, The rotting hulk its decking rears. Gray, screaming kestrels wheel and sheer, Above ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... new, disconcerting way to think of the subject. We are accustomed to consider Time only as it applies to ourselves, forgetting that it is working upon everyone else simultaneously. Why, he thought with a sudden shock, if only 36,500 people in this city have had a thoroughly spendthrift and useless day, that means a net loss of a century! If the War, he said to himself, lasted over 1,500 days and involved more than 10,000,000 men, how many aeons—He used to think about these things ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... from house to house, with their swords at their sides (Fig. 377). These, who at times lived a racketing and luxurious life, at last rebelled against the Grand Coesre, and would no longer be reckoned among his subjects—a step which gave a considerable shock to the ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... up the stairs, wounds, shell shock and all, three steps at a time! He wakened Rosanna by tickling her on ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... Heifetz said might shock thousands of aspiring young violinists for whom he pointed a moral: "Of course," his answer was, "you must not take me too literally. Please do not think because I do not favor overdoing practicing that one can do without it. I'm quite frank to say I could not myself. But there is a happy ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... thee like a friend that set thee free; Affliction still is virtue's opportunity! 35 Virtue, on herself relying, Ev'ry passion hush'd to rest, Loses ev'ry pain of dying In the hopes of being blest. Ev'ry added pang she suffers 40 Some increasing good bestows, Ev'ry shock that malice offers ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... fought with exceeding strong lances. And they were increased with rage, and fought furiously, even until noon. And they gave each other such a shock, that the girths of their horses were broken, so that they fell over their horses' cruppers to the ground. And they rose up speedily, and drew their swords, and resumed the combat. {37b} And the multitude that witnessed the encounter felt assured that they had never before seen ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... were inconsistent with what she had so lately said, Mrs. Bennett complained again. "My nerves have received quite a shock; I am all in a tremble." It was true; she was even wiping away genuine tears. "Oh, my dear, it's a terribly low occupation. Oh, my dear, the things I have heard they do—the atrocities ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... cried the youth in a terrible voice, as he caught up a sharp knife and placed his foot on the neck of the friar, who was recovering from the shock of his fall. "Let him who values his ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... peculiar to it, but perhaps less popularly acceptable. The building had often suffered from earthquakes, and on the awful day, dies irae, of the great Lisbon earthquake, during mass and at the moment of the elevation of the Host, when the worshipers were on their knees, there came such a mighty shock in sympathy with the far-off cataclysm that the people started to their feet and ran out of the cathedral. If the priests ran after them, as soon as the apparent danger was past they led the return of their flock and resumed the interrupted rite. It was, of course, by a miracle ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... perhaps unnecessary to remind the English reader in explanation of the title that Jena stands for French supremacy and German defeat—Sedan for German victory and a French debacle; but he should be warned that in this truthful mirror of life there may be details liable to shock insular notions. The author could not shrink from such in the fulfilment of his task, which was to give the truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His work must be judged not only as a novel (and ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... age, Auguste and Hippolyte Ballet. Auguste, the elder, had the misfortune a few days after his birth to incur his mother's lasting dislike. The nurse had let the child fall from her arms in the mother's presence, and the shock had endangered Mme. Ballet's life. From that moment the mother took a strong aversion to her son; he was left to the charge of servants; his meals were taken in the kitchen. As soon as he was five years old he was put out to board elsewhere, while his brother Hippolyte ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... occurred. He was also positive that Winn had been on board the ill-fated craft. He was certain that Reward died at his post of duty, though of Don Blossom's fate he knew nothing. How he himself had escaped he could not explain, for he remembered nothing after the shock of ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... to the publication of these researches—that is to say, on January 29, 1835—Faraday read before the Royal Society a paper 'On the influence by induction of an electric current upon itself.' A shock and spark of a peculiar character had been observed by a young man named William Jenkin, who must have been a youth of some scientific promise, but who, as Faraday once informed me, was dissuaded by his own father ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... and the door to the turret-stairs,—of which only the King possessed the key,—was fast locked; and for the next hour or more the startled sentry remained staring at the skies in a sort of meditative stupefaction, with the words still ringing like the shock of an alarm- ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... thing is not how like man is to the brutes, but how unlike he is. It is the monstrous scale of his divergence that requires an explanation. That man and brute are like is, in a sense, a truism; but that being so like they should then be so insanely unlike, that is the shock and the enigma. That an ape has hands is far less interesting to the philosopher than the fact that having hands he does next to nothing with them; does not play knuckle-bones or the violin; does not carve marble or carve mutton. People talk ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... shall shock him;" said Julia, "he will soon find that I am only common vulgar flesh and blood, to be ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... receive the enemy's charge, "by reason that" (I shall here steal Plutarch's own words, which are better than mine) "he by so doing deprived himself of the violent impression the motion of running adds to the first shock of arms, and hindered that clashing of the combatants against one another, which is wont to give them greater impetuosity and fury, especially when they come to rush in with their utmost vigor, their courages ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... of whirring wheels, and now and again a clash of couplings as we slid down some hollow of the track, we rolled on through the night, while the scream of wind grew louder outside the rattling cars. I was nearly asleep when there came a sudden shock, and the conductor's voice rang out warning us to leave the train. At slackened speed we had run into a snow block, and the wedge-headed plow was going, so he said, to plug the drifts under a full pressure, and butt her ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... left the state-room, but I had no need to visit the purser. I met her face to face coming out of the saloon. If appearances were in any way to be trusted, the meeting was as much a shock to her as to me. She was wearing a thick veil, which partially obscured her features, but I saw her stop short, and clutch at a pillar as though for support, as she recognized me. If the amazement in her tone was counterfeited, she ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... apt to seem discouraging, in the beginning; the attention being riveted upon the supposed hero, meets with a shock in finding it has been following the history of his great-grandfather. The scattered energies are then directed upon the grandfather, only to meet with a second delay. Again recovering, and following the father's fortunes, the son, the subject ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker
... of these obscure calamities, Europe felt the shock of revolution, which first revealed to the world the name and nation of the Turks. [2211] Like Romulus, the founder [2212] of that martial people was suckled by a she-wolf, who afterwards made him the father of a numerous ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... glanced round at May and winked. That wink, deliberate and humorous, was like an electric shock to her. She could actually feel her heart leap in her breast. If she had not been afraid of the doctor, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... suddenly a violent uproar succeeded the profound silence which had reigned in the city. The air was filled with cries of rage. The massive gates rolled open upon their hinges, and fifteen thousand mounted Tartars, armed to the teeth, rushed upon the little band with a shock utterly resistless, and, in a few moments, the Russians were cut to pieces in the presence of the whole army. The victorious Tartars, having achieved this signal exploit, swept back again into the city and the gates were closed. This event taught ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... free institutions. He must be willing to sacrifice everything to the single consideration of success, because success means truth and honor; to use every means, though they may alarm the fears of men who are loyal with a reservation, or shock the prejudices of would-be traitors. No middle course is safe in troubled times, and the only way to escape the dangers of revolution is by directing its forces and giving ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... much he did for the stage. Though his alterations of Shakespeare shock us, they are nothing to those outrages committed by others, who deformed the poet beyond recognition. Garrick made Shakespeare's plays once more popular. He purged the actors, for a time at least, of ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... short behind his master, Blanche, awakened suddenly by the shock, raised her head; her first look sought her sister, on whom she smiled sweetly; then both exchanged glances of surprise, on seeing Dagobert motionless, with his hands clasped and resting on his long staff, apparently affected by ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... him on his feet and commanded him to gather brushwood and sticks, while he went about himself picking birch-bark off the dead and living trees. This he spread under the brush and ignited with his tinder-box. The sight of the flame seemed to wake up Arthur with a shock from the lethargy that was stealing over his faculties. Mr. Holt had chosen a good site for his fire in the lee of a great body of pines, whose massive stems broke the wind; so the blaze quickened and prospered, till a great bed of scarlet ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... possible verdict was returned, that of homicide during temporary insanity, against the young woman who, in her frenzy, had killed her own mother and destroyed a home which she had been working hard, as a mantua maker, to help support. The awful shock had, perhaps, a steadying effect on Charles Lamb. Here he was at the age of one-and-twenty suddenly placed in a position that might have tried a strong-minded man in his prime; his brother, a dozen years his senior, ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... not even pause at the door; there seemed no need to gather strength for the shock of that meeting; she was all ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... was wonderful about childhood is that anything in it was a wonder. It was not merely a world full of miracles; it was a miraculous world. What gives me this shock is almost anything I really recall; not the things I should think most worth recalling. This is where it differs from the other great thrill of the past, all that is connected with first love and the romantic passion; for that, though equally poignant, comes always to a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the clergyman,—"so ill that I fear he will never be better. Let us place him in the chaise, Sir Everard. I will drive slowly, and do you ride on to Hunsden Hall to prepare his daughter for the shock." ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... familiar with. First comes the ignorant and poor but industrious peasant, the young man, alone, without wife or family. For a few years he works and saves, living according to a 'standard of life' which shocks his older established neighbors, and we may guess would often shock his people at home. At first he makes plans for going back, sends his savings home, and perhaps goes back himself. But he usually returns to this country, with a wife. America has now become his home, savings are invested here, land is bought, and a little house built. The growing children are ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... clattered their heavy sabres back into the scabbard, and with a fearful imprecation, such as no German tongue could echo, charged weaponless and at full speed their mimic caricatures whom fate had thrown in their way. The shock was so irresistible, that the poor Croats could make no use of their sabers against the furious onset of their unarmed foe: they were beaten down from their saddles with the fist, and dragged off their horses by ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... that charge, and he was glad that he did not. He preferred that it should remain a blur in which he could not pick out the details. He was conscious of the shock, when horse met horse and body met body. He saw the flash of rifle and pistol shots, and the gleam of sabers through the smoke, and he heard a continuous shouting kept up ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... between two beings filled with affection for each other and whose lives are in absolute unison, that cloud, though it may disperse, leaves in those souls a trace of its passage. Either love gains a stronger life, as the earth after rain, or the shock still echoes like distant thunder through a cloudless sky. It is impossible to recover absolutely the former life; love will ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... principle that "Success must be followed up until the enemy's power is ruined" ("Field Service Regulations," vol. ii. (1920)). If the fruits of victory are to be secured the work must be put in hand whilst the enemy is still reeling under the shock of defeat. A few hours' delay gives him time to recover his equilibrium, to organise a rearguard, and to gain several miles on his rearward march. In modern warfare motor transport may enable the ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... getting farther away from under the "Avion," and very much impressed by seeing it rushing sideways at a sickening speed, instinctively we stopped everything. What passed through our thoughts at this moment which threatened a tragic turn would be difficult to set down. All at once came a great shock, splintering, a heavy concussion: we ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... framed her. There, with her shock of auburn hair, her cameo face, her slim figure and her costume which, though simple, was not the ruinous simplicity that Fifth Avenue achieves, Cassy presented a picture very different from that on the table, a picture ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... constantly changing without external compulsion, and are constantly radiating energy: all explosives are storehouses of energy which, or part of which, can be obtained from them; but the liberation of their energy must be started by some kind of external shock. When an explosive substance has exploded, its existence as an explosive is finished; the products of the explosion are substances from which energy cannot be obtained: when a radio-active substance has exploded, it explodes again, and again, and again; a time comes, sooner ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... were born just before 1870 grew up in an atmosphere of patriotic mourning and amidst the discouragement of defeat. National life, such as it became reconstituted after that terrible shock, revealed to them on all sides nothing but abortive hopes, paltry struggles of interest, and a society without any other hierarchy but that of money, and without other principle or ideal than the pursuit of material enjoyment. Literature ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... said after staring at the old scientist some time in astonishment, "except for years of personal acquaintance, I would say that you were suffering a mental shock. Knowing you as I do, however, I pray to God you're making no mistake this time. I'll do as you wish." His ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... no reply. There was an instant of dead silence. Then there came a sudden, hideous shock against the panel of the door. The socket of the bolt gave with the strain, but did not wholly yield. Avery shrank back trembling against the shadowy four-poster. She felt as if a raging animal were trying to force ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... sphinx-like countenance and realised that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure—that he had confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock that might come. ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... passed his place early in the morning, loaded with furs, and that they expressed their intention of proceeding to the post before they halted. These Indians had all been supplied by myself in autumn to a large amount; so that the intelligence acted on my nerves like an electric shock. I felt much fatigued on entering the lodge, but I now sprung to my feet, as fresh for the journey as when I had commenced it; and ordering one of my men to return with me, left the other, an experienced hand, to manage affairs with ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... Yes, sir; she was grieving sorely about that. It give me a new line on her. I saw all at once she was mostly mother—a born one. Couldn't ever be anything else and hadn't ever really felt anything but mothersome to this here wandering treasure of hers. It give me kind of a shock. It made me feel so queer ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... walked over to Bowers. "I have come to a decision which will shock you." Victor was to go at the end of the march, because pony food was running so short. Birdie wrote at the end of the day:—He "did a splendid march and kept ahead all day, and as usual marched into camp ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... he was in mental courage, was almost paralysed by the shock when he discovered that his mother's spirit had fled; and for some time he remained by the side of the bed with his eyes fixed upon the corpse, and his mind in a state of vacuity. Gradually he recovered himself; ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... send to Spain for the pay and maintenance of the Spanish armies very considerable sums, which the government hardly knew how to raise. Spain was devastated and impoverished, and the Roman civilization, which unfolded so fair a promise there, received a severe shock; as was naturally to be expected in the case ofan insurrectionary war waged with so much bitterness, and but too often occasioning the destruction of whole communities. Even the towns which adhered to the dominant party in Rome had countless hardships to endure; those situated on the coast ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... there was a slight muscular tremor, or beating sensation, and her step faltered from weakness. To her delicate organization, already reduced by anxiety, sedentary life, and prolonged mental effort, the strain and nervous shock of that day's experiences ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... grave; whilst the offspring also shared in the weakness of the parent. Comparatively a small minority sunk by gradual and calm decay; in the case of very few could the comparison of Job's reprover be applied with truth, "Thou shalt come to the grave in full age, as a shock of corn cometh in ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... space. The charge of gun-cotton was calculated to give the projectile a velocity sufficient to carry it past the 'dead-point,' where the gravity of the earth upon it was just balanced by that of the moon, and enable it to fall towards the moon for the rest of the way. The sudden shock of the discharge on the car and its occupants was broken by means of spring buffers ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... a much livelier impression of the festivities, from which it was abundantly clear that he at any rate had managed to amuse himself. Neither did it appear that his good opinion of his own attractions had suffered any serious shock. He was distinctly in ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... expression, in almost every figure, is admirable; and the whole is a strong representation of the human mind in a storm. Three stages of that species of madness which attends gaming, are here described. On the first shock, all is inward dismay. The ruined gamester is represented leaning against a wall, with his arms across, lost in an agony of horror. Perhaps never passion was described with so much force. In a short time this horrible gloom bursts into a storm of fury: he tears ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... assertions, showing us, as they do, at least ten Assyrian warriors on foot for each one mounted on horseback, and at least a hundred for each one who rides in a chariot. However terrible to the foes of the Assyrians may have been the shock of their chariots and the impetuosity of their horsemen, it was probably to the solidity of the infantry, to their valor, equipment, and discipline, that the empire was mainly indebted for its ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... death the air. Now roll'd in spires, he forms an orb immense: Now stretch'd at length he seems a monstrous beam: Now rushing forward with impetuous force, As sweeps a torrent swell'd by rain, his breast Bears down th' opposing forest. Cadmus back A step recedes, and on his lion's hide The shock sustains;—then with protended spear Checks his approaching jaws. Furious he strives To wound the harden'd steel;—on the sharp point He grinds his teeth: now from his poisonous mouth, Began the blood to flow, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... weary of contemplating all these fresh faces; his look, more than once, encountered sweet looks, and then he experienced a delicious shock which ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... in by intolerable forms and immeasurable dulness, the maddening temper gains on me! Nay, I have had to rush out at night and swear a dozen round oaths before I could compose myself to sit down to the endless supper. Ah, I shock you, madam! but that's not the worst I am ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... all laid out like a roadmap. I was going to show you proof and use you as an impartial observer to convince someone else. Then we'd go to the Medical Center and hand it to them on a platter. Since then I've had a shock that I can't get over, or plan beyond. Scholar Phelps is a Mekstrom. That means that the guy knows what gives with Mekstrom's Disease and yet he is running an outfit that professes to be helpless in the face of this disease. For all we know Phelps ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... but parts and members of one hideous monster, moving itself by one volition, winking its thousand eyes all at once, and ready to swallow me with a single deglutition. However, the plunge is made. The worst is over. I rallied from the shock, and in a clear, but unnecessarily loud and ponderous voice, pitched many degrees too ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... just as the Comte de Solis, accompanied by Pierquin's servants, appeared at the farther end of the square. The latter were too late, however, to save the old man and his valet from being pelted with mud. The shock was given. Balthazar, whose faculties had been preserved by a chastity of spirit natural to students absorbed in a quest of discovery that annihilates all passions, now suddenly divined, by the phenomenon of introsusception, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... mind like lightning-flashes. At the same time she gave one loud, terrified scream, and fell forward upon the floor. She did not rise, she did not speak, she seemed scarcely to breathe. The shock had ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... that Columbine is almost nineteen (I think she told herself this fact aloud once when she was out riding alone, just to convince herself), the shock is not so great as it might have been to hear Wade murmur aloud (doubtless to convince himself too), "Baby would have been—let's see—'most nineteen years old ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... improvement, when the day at last arrives on which you and your two-thirds take heart to say that falsehood and abuse have now reached their final term, and must at length be swept away into the outer darkness. Consider how much more terrible the shock of change will be when it does come, and how much less able will men be to meet it, and to ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... to all appearances, went on her way rejoicing. For a moment, in the shock of mutual grief over Rosalie's trouble, she and her mother had drawn nearer in spirit, and strange words of sorrow and sympathy, as though dragged from her very depths, had come faltering from the girl's lips. But ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... Eph, holding on to Owen's head for grim life. Under the weight and the unexpected shock the ex-foreman ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... can do nothing for you.' That's what a President of the United States said to descendants of Mayflower crossers who'd been foully dealt with, and been druv from their substance and their homes, their wheat burned in the stack and in the shock, and themselves butchered or put into the wilderness. And now the Lord's word to this people is to ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... we could effect this, and when at last the skiff was hauled ashore, we found that we were too late to prevent the mischief that we had anticipated. All the things had been fastened in the boat, but either from the shock, or the force of the current, one of the pork casks, the head of the still, and the greater part of the carpenter's tools, had been thrown out of her. As the success of the expedition might probably depend upon the complete state of the still, I determined to use every effort for its recovery: but ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... when she perceived the shepherd disappear in the valley. "We are all right," she said to Duncan, keeping to herself the shock she had received. "This will lead us ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the fruit-market, facing Buda; but nothing, not even the outline of the hills, was visible in the thick, black darkness of the night. "Ah! what is that?—look!" cried my brother, with a pressure of the arm that sent an electric shock through my body. Yes, sure enough, there was a flash of fire high up on the Blocksberg that made a rift in the darkness; and then, before we had time for speech, there came a sharp, ringing, detonating sound that made ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... care and all Phillis's promptings, the revelation was a great shock to Mrs. Challoner; in her weakened state she seemed hardly able ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... said, a wholesome fillip to the constitution, and "cleared the sulphur off the lungs;" and mine would suffer for want of the medicine which kept theirs clean. I know not whether there was virtue in their remedy: it seems just possible that the shock given to the constitution by an overdose of strong drink may in certain cases be medicinal in its effects; but they were certainly not in error in their prediction. Among the hewers of the party I was the first affected by the malady. I still remember the rather pensive ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... effeminate, luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric and his host of Goths appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a horde of barbarians, thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it. The fall of the great city was a shock to the whole world; the end of the world must be near, for how could it stand without Rome? Jerome could hardly sob the strange news: "Rome, which enslaved the whole world, ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... not out of her mouth when, without feeling conscious that any change was passing over me, I suddenly knew that I had ceased to be a man. In the greatness of the shock and surprise—for I had no idea that Amina was a magician—I never dreamed of running away, and stood rooted to the spot, while Amina grasped a stick and began to beat me. Indeed her blows were so heavy, that I only ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably, Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face, as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the tale as repeated by his father. But when ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... unexpectedly and with a shock to his composure. He had observed the three spirited saddlehorses near the entrance of the hotel, in charge of two stable-boys, but had regarded them only as splendid specimens of equine aristocracy. It had not entered his mind to look upon ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon |
