"Spasm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nervous look around the field, then went into a spasm in which he seemed to be trying to "skin the cat" on an invisible turning-pole. Out of the mix-up he suddenly straightened himself. The first baseman saw a dusty white cannon-ball shoot past him, and heard the umpire's dulcet ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... A spasm crossed his face. Perhaps he was trying to smile. He said only: "Well, put your leg down, then. Seems to me you're old enough and ought to have sense enough not to sit on it when it's asleep. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... BRAIN.—In disease of the brain the cry is always sharp, short and piercing. Drowsiness generally follows each spasm of pain. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... a death as he had often said would be his choice. Just a dropping to sleep here and an awakening yonder. The doctor said it was heart-failure, resulting from a sudden spasm of pain. But the face bore no trace of pain. The moan that wakened Daisy was probably that sigh with which mortal parts with mortality—the parting breath between life and death, which will scarcely stir a feather and yet will awaken the soundest sleeper. To my mind Eugene Field died ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... smoothing her hair now, as her bead still lay pillowed upon his breast, so he could not see the spasm of pain which contorted her features as be thus appealed to her. Half bewildered, Maddy could not at first make out whether it were a blissful dream or a reality, her lying there in Guy's arms with his kisses on her forehead, lips ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... her critically. Lady Ruth raised her eyes once, but dropped them at once. She felt herself growing paler. A spasm of the ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pretty doll of a wife, between Vedia's countenance cleverly assuming a normal social expression after her brief glare at me, and Nemestronia's mask of horror, accentuated by the agony of the gripping spasm which throttled her, for the pain in her chest was induced by anything which startled her, and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Mr. Calamity. As often as he heard the word "independence" on the street his cane would fly up, and after this spasm his snuffbox would come out of his pocket for refreshment. His snuffbox was silver, and on it in gold were ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... half-hissing z-z-z-ip of the minie-ball—numbs the ardor of the bravest. It is such a malignant, direct, devilish admonition of murder; it comes so unexpectedly, no matter how well you are prepared, that Achilles himself would feel a spasm of fear. And when it strikes it does its work with such a venomous, exultant splutter, that there seems something animate, demoniac in it. The volley, as I said, came as the men were hurried down the hill ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... cried in the intolerable spasm of a swift and mysterious convulsion. 'Why do you thus torture me?' Every step ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... his country home, while his confreres operated in their own localities. He chuckled over his plans as if he contemplated some great, good deed that would be of incalculable benefit to his neighbors. He suffered no qualm of conscience, no revolt of personal honor, no spasm ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... on account of the shriek you heard. As far as we can tell, he does not. The shriek comes, so the doctor tells us, from a nervous spasm. He would have been a bright boy if he had kept his health. Would ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr
... from the room, just giving one backward glance in so doing, when the expression on her mother's face brought a quick spasm of pain to her heart. There was a strange conflict of feeling going on within her, as she trod the corridor with swift steps, and passed rapidly down into the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... cornea. Aside from the congestion, the primary changes that take place in the iris are indicative of paresis of the fibers of the motor oculi that supply the sphincter pupillae, and stimulation of the fibers from the sympathetic producing vasomotor spasm. The long diameter of the pupil apparently lies in the direction of the terminal vessels of the two principal branches of each long ciliary artery which form the circulus iridis major, where the vasomotor ...
— Glaucoma - A Symposium Presented at a Meeting of the Chicago - Ophthalmological Society, November 17, 1913 • Various
... one I had pulled last year," he announced vastly relieved. A sharp spasm of pain in his jaw caused him to abruptly take advantage of a recent discovery; and while he was careful to couch his opinions in an undertone, he told Mr. Yollop what he thought of him in terms that would ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... strength or the courage. He shrank from the picture as one shrinks from something horrible in a bad dream. There could be no question of failure. He had to succeed at any cost, however desperate or fantastic. Once more the spasm of childish, futile rage swept over him and shook him like ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... blockhead!" he shrieked, raising the injured foot from the ground, while a spasm of anguish contracted his features. "Did you take my foot ...
— The Young Outlaw - or, Adrift in the Streets • Horatio Alger
... said the child, with a last effort, throwing her arms about his neck. In a moment they dropped again; and, as St. Clare raised his head, he saw a spasm of mortal agony pass over the face,—she struggled for breath, and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to such impressions; and besides the sort of spasm of imaginative interest sometimes given to me by certain rare and eccentric personalities, I know nothing more subduing than the charm, quieter and less analytic, of any sort of complete and out-of-the-common-run ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... old man suppressed that spasm, and the veins in his neck and forehead swelled alarmingly. If he had spoken he would infallibly have choked. He ceased eating, and putting his hands on the table tried to raise himself. He could not and subsiding ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... orgies of drunken Boches, and in the most revolting horrors of bayonet charges and the corps-a-corps. It was as though they wanted to reveal the savagery of war to the last indescribable madness of its lust. "Pah!" said an old cabotin, after one of these word-pictures. "This war is the last spasm of the world's barbarity. Human nature will finish with it this time. . . . Let us talk of the women we have loved. I knew a splendid creature once—she had golden ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... which made a bodily resistance—I received from an unseen power the most violent thrust which a human being ever felt. The working of terror was acting dreadfully within me; its effect was to close my arms as in a spasm, to seize on what stood unseen before me. I staggered onwards, and fell prostrate on the ground; beneath me on his back was a man whom I held fast, ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... him some paper money impatiently. The babu unfolded it, eyed the denomination with a spasm of relief, folded it again, and appeared to stow it into ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... spasm will be worth nothing. There have got to be real efforts, real hard work, the expenditure of money for future and not merely immediate profits, a cheerful readiness to discard old and cherished methods, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... them aside from the steps of the concert-hall. They made way for her: her thin, white arms could deal furious blows, they knew from experience. Besides, they had seen her, when provoked, fall in some cellar-door in a livid dead spasm. They were afraid of her. Her filthy, wet skirt flapped against her feet, as she went up; she pulled her flaunting bonnet closer over her head. There was a small room at the top of the stairs, a sort of greenroom for the performers. Lot shoved the door open and went in. Madame —— was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you don't stop mopin' out thar an' come along in, I'll clear off the dishes!" called his mother again in her rasping voice which sounded as if she were choking in a perpetual spasm of moral indignation. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... be kept alive at all hazards," I laughed; and this time I did not reject her. But it was a child around whom my arms closed. An inner flash, accompanied by a spasm of pain, revealed it, and changed a passionate ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... did rush in, and of course where least expected. He seized one of our porters by the shoulder, his claws doing more damage than his teeth. I shot him by thrusting my rifle into his ear, and although that dropped him instantly his claws, in the dying spasm and by the weight of his fall, tore wounds in the man's arm ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... took up a hatchet and went out to where her son was digging the hole. She waited till he bent down to throw out the earth with his hands and then cut open his back and pulled out his liver and heart and brought them into the house. Her unfortunate son felt a spasm of pain when his mother struck him but he did not know what had hurt him and there was no visible wound. The two women then chopped up the liver and heart and cooked ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... daughter now!" Mrs. Frayling's fair face clouded on the instant, and her affectionate heart, which had been so happily expanded the moment before by the kind thoughts about her absent friend that came crowding as she wrote to her, contracted now with a painful spasm of nervous apprehension. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... not warned us any too soon. In a terrible spasm of agony Locasto threw us off quickly. We grasped him again. Now we were struggling with him. He fought like a demon. He was cursing us, praying us to leave him alone, raving, shrieking. Grimly ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... at once negligently asserted his power over her, and reassured her against his power. Her being was suffused with gladness and pride. She had won. She had won in defiance of reason. She had appealed and she had conquered. And she enjoyed his glance. She gloried in it. She blushed. A spasm of exquisite fear shot through her, and she savoured it deliciously. The deep organic sadness of the house presented itself to her in a new light. It was still sadness, but it was beautiful in the background. Her sympathy for Sarah Gailey was as keen ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... at his hostess then, an action which he was strenuously avoiding, he might have seen a curious spasm pass over her face. Mrs. Windlebird turned very pale and sat down suddenly in the chair which Roland had vacated at the beginning of their conversation. She lay back in it with her eyes closed. She ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... opinion of it's effect, some one day, has never altered! However, it is entirely gone off, and I am only quite weak. The good people of England will not believe, that rest of body and mind is necessary for me! But, perhaps, this spasm may not come again these six months. I had been writing seven hours yesterday; perhaps, that had some hand in bringing it upon me." Thus lightly does he speak of his own sufferings, thus good-humouredly notice the little consideration of the ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... He had a spasm of rage that would have terrified her had she conjectured what agitated him. He raised his head, crossed his arms on his breast, and said, ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... reacquire his lordships in the Bergamasque territory. The true motive for his imprisonment remains still buried in obscure conjecture. Probably it was not even known to the Visconti, who acted on this, as on so many other occasions, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Looking round the room, she saw that every woman admired Lucien; she watched group after group repeating the phrases by which Lucien crushed her with seeming disdain, and her heart contracted with a spasm ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... me, and a sudden chill seized me and sent me into a spasm of coughing, and the pain of my shoulder shot up into my head like a knife... and I was back—all right—to the ruined church in Belgium, a prisoner of war in the hands of ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... she had never seen her child other than deliberate, calm, judicial, in all his movements. In a sudden spasm of motherly love she bent to pick him up, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... channel. She was still ill at ease with Bazarov, though she had told him, and assured herself that everything was forgotten. While she was exchanging the simplest sentences with him, even while she was jesting with him, she was conscious of a faint spasm of dread. So people on a steamer at sea talk and laugh carelessly, for all the world as though they were on dry land; but let only the slightest hitch occur, let the least sign be seen of anything out of the common, and at once on every face there comes out an expression of peculiar ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... of the stomach, but little can be done in the way of treatment more than to overcome spasm (if any exists), and to give physics with the hope of dislodging the stone or stones and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Glory soon found herself being snapped up by other partners and addressed familiarly by the waiters and their women. She could feel the moisture of their hands and smell the oil of their hair, and a feeling like a spasm of physical pain came ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... to speak irreverently, which sounded like the crack of doom. To her standing stricken underneath, it seemed to explode somewhere in the roof with a shock beyond all artillery,—to tear up the ground under her feet, like the spasm of an earthquake,—to rend the walls, like lightning's electric finger; and to shriek in her ringing brain the advent of some implacable and dreadful judgment, but not the doom of all men,—only one, which doom, alas! she felt might be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions made frantic efforts to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run through her tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to draw my attention as before. When followed she always ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... a noble pair!" Hotep ejaculated under his breath. But he saw Kenkenes bend near the Israelite, as if to make his final plea; a spasm of anguish contracted her white face, and she turned her head away. The incident, so eloquent to Rachel and Kenkenes, had been so swift and subtile in its enactment, that only the quick eye of Hotep detected it. Again he called on the gods ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... A sharp spasm darted through her heart, for at the moment in which she had met his gaze she had seen his look averted from her; and the long-cherished hopes of months and faith in his constancy, held to through so many discouraging circumstances, gave ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... eyes closed, it seemed to him that with a sudden sharp spasm of pain he tore himself away from that sleeping sentient portion of humanity which was his representation, and then, without effort or consciousness of his own, he seemed floating swiftly along over a dark and misty ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks;—with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It unsealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The bars of the springs below:— And the beard and the hair Of the river God were Seen through the torrent's sweep ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... fancy vests and neck-wear being spilled from their pullmans in San Antonio in the early morning following the fight. Which also partly accounts for the unhappy predicament in which "Cricket" McGuire found himself as he tumbled from his car and sat upon the depot platform, torn by a spasm of that hollow, racking cough so familiar to San Antonian ears. At that time, in the uncertain light of dawn, that way passed Curtis Raidler, the Nueces County cattleman—may his shadow never measure ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... virtually in complete agreement. Now, the strange thing is this: their conclusions are wrong in every instance" (here I nearly laughed aloud, for, as I glanced at the two experts, the expression of smug satisfaction on their countenances changed with lightning rapidity to a ludicrous spasm of consternation); "not sometimes wrong and sometimes right, as would have been the case if they had made mere guesses, but wrong every time. When they are quite certain, they are quite wrong; and when they are doubtful, they incline to the wrong conclusion. This is a very strange coincidence, ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... flutes, perfumes. The hot blood flooded his cheeks. The woman who for him was the sole and only incarnation of the whole race of womankind throughout the ages rose before his mental sight with a surprising clearness; every hair of his body stood on end in an agonizing spasm of desire, and he dug his nails into the palms of his hands. The vision caused him an unspeakable yet delicious pain—Gabrielle in a loose peignoir at a small, daintily ordered table gay with flowers and glasses. He saw it all quite clearly; his gaze searched every fold of ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... no, brother," said Ciccio. But a spasm suddenly took him, he pulled off his hat and put it over his face ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... but no conquered army ever beat such a retreat as ours down the tower stairs and into the refuge of the living-room. There, with the door closed, sprawled on the divan, I went from one spasm of mirth into another, becoming sane at intervals, and suffering relapse again every time I saw Hotchkiss' disgruntled countenance. He was pacing the room, the tongs still in his hand, his mouth pursed with irritation. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... unusual speed by the heartrending sounds that came from below. When she returned, Grandmother seemed to be in a final spasm, and even Matilda was frightened, though she would not ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... North, recovering himself with an effort. "A spasm. I have these attacks at times." ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... in ill health, for I noticed, as we were passing along to church, that he frequently laid his hand upon his heart, and seemed in pain. He said he hoped he should be able to get through the evening, but that when he was not well, excitement was apt to bring on a spasm about the heart; but with it all he seemed so cheerful, lively, and benignant, that I could not but feel my affections drawn towards him. Mrs. Wardlaw is a gentle, motherly woman, and it was a great comfort to have her with me on such ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... as undergoing hardships undreamt of. Visiting those trenches straight from the Somme the other day, with their duck-boards and sandbags, and the occasional ping of a sniper's bullet, and the momentary spasm of field guns and trench mortars which appeared in the official summary next day as "artillery and trench mortar activity"—after the Somme, I say, one found oneself looking on it, in the terms of the friend who went with ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... the seat, and Jimmie, who had to sit next to him, caught him in his arms and held him. He was quivering, with awful motions like a spasm. He made no sound, and Jimmie was terrified, thinking that he was dying. Before long Jimmie felt a hot wetness stealing over his hands, first slimy, then turning sticky. He had to sit there, almost fainting with horror; he dared not say anything, for maybe ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... and was being plied with milk by Mrs. Kukor. She was out of pain now, and her concern was mostly for Johnnie. She watched him constantly, smiling down at him lovingly. And as he opened his eyes and looked back at her, she saw the stiff muscles of his face twist as if in a spasm, and at the sight of ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... my friends! We have these moments of weakness, the bravest of us; but I have a spirit like a slip of steel, for the more you bend it the higher it springs. One spasm of despair, and then a brain of ice and a heart of fire. All was not yet lost. I who had come through so many hazards would come through this one also. I rose from my horse and considered what had ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... corner, the figure of a woman was seen close by the eaves of the house of Kondo[u] Rokuro[u]bei. As he approached she came forward laughing wildly the while. The light of his lantern fell on the ghastly white face, the disordered hair. In a spasm of fright he dropped the lantern and delivered his blow in drawing the sword. The cut was almost identical with the one delivered to Myo[u]zen the priest. The men there gathered looked into each other's faces, then at the body of O'Kame ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... were bought, in case Justin might like them; Redge and Zaidee were hurriedly dressed in their best "to see dear papa," and, even though they had to go to bed without the desired result, Redge in a fresh spasm of coughing, it was with the repeated promise that the father should come up-stairs to kiss them as soon ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... was white as marble, while a spasm of pain passed over his features as he said: "Oh, Aunt Lucy, you do not know how you hurt me Why did you speak ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... louder and sadder, and the splash at first was 'Leesha,' but it became 'Leda' to my ears, and it sobbed her name, and I pitied myself, so sad was I. And when I could no longer bear the anguished melancholy of its spasm and its sobbing, I arose and went softly, softly, lest she should hear in that sounding silence of the hushed and darksome night, going more slow, more soft, as I went nearer, a sob in my throat, my feet leading me to her, till I touched the carriage. And against it a long time I leant my ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... sudden change, radical change, sweeping organic change; change of state, phase change; quantum leap, quantum jump; clean sweep, coup d'etat[Fr], counter revolution. jump, leap, plunge, jerk, start, transilience|; explosion; spasm, convulsion, throe, revulsion; storm, earthquake, cataclysm. legerdemain &c. (trick) 545. V. revolutionize; new model, remodel, recast; strike out something new, break with the past; change the face of, unsex. Adj. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... surprise may be one of two kinds—pleasant or unpleasant. And, strangely enough, the very thing that delighted the Green family sent Rusty Wren into a spasm of jealous rage. ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... face curiously (the spasm was over for the present), cut the Major short by a question to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... placed seven quarts of nitrous oxide, and made from it three inspirations, and three expirations, and then instantly transferred his mouth to the nitrous gas bag, and turning the stop-cock, took one inspiration. This gas, in passing through his mouth and fauces, burnt his throat, and produced such a spasm in the epiglottis, as to cause him instantly to desist, when, in breathing the common air, aqua-fortis was really formed in his mouth, which burnt his tongue, palate, and injured his teeth. Mr. D. says, "I never design again to repeat so ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... yesterday your three letters of the 5th and 6th. They made me laugh, yet I pity you, and have really a fellow feeling for you. Poor little Rippy, so you are mortgaged! But you bear it charmingly; do you think this courage will last, or is it only a spasm? Spasmodic love. It is really quite new. The trifling incident in relation to dress you must pardon. I am a connoisseur in these things, and can assure you they ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... With a horrid spasm across her heart, which seemed ready to kill her, so sharp was the pain, Lizzie recovered the use of her legs and followed Mrs. Carbuncle into the dining-room. She had been hardly conscious of hearing; but she had heard, and it had seemed to her that the robbery spoken of was something ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to resume the suspended work of practical reform. His first care was to remove the fears which the final spasm of rebellion had again provoked. He had already granted an amnesty. But the optimates were conscious that they had desired and hoped that the Pompeys might be victorious in Spain. Caesar invited the surviving ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... gave a last spasm with his hands and feet, and lay rigid, grinning up at the slit of blue ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like frivolity or wantonness in upsetting such clearly taken governmental action is a grave offense against the Republic. To protest against tyranny, to protect minorities from oppression, to nullify an act committed in a spasm of popular fury, is to render a service to the Republic. But for the courts to arrogate to themselves functions which properly belong to the legislative bodies is all wrong, and in the end works mischief. The people should ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... some one called. A spasm of anger wrought on his face for a flashing instant, but in the next his good-humor was ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... and flung himself back on the bank in a spasm of impotent loathing of Lord Henry. "They're holding hands!" whispered the girl in ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... words the Sibyl of Cumae chants from the shrine her perplexing terrors, echoing through the cavern truth wrapped in obscurity: so does Apollo clash the reins and ply the goad in her maddened breast. So soon as the spasm ceased and the raving lips sank to silence, Aeneas the hero begins: 'No shape of toil, O maiden, rises strange or sudden on my sight; all this ere now have I guessed and inly rehearsed in spirit. One thing I pray; since here is the gate named ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... she ran away with your father," she cried, a spasm of pain crossing her face. "He said I was born before they were married. I have a right to kill him. Do you hear? ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... the grimed face turned bony, Oped mouth gushing, fallen head, Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony! O sudden spasm, release of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... silence that surrounded the travellers. Nay, the Moon, realizing the weird fancy of the Arabian poet, who calls her a "giant stiffening into granite, but struggling madly against his doom," might shriek, in a spasm of agony, loudly enough to be heard in Sirius. But our travellers could not hear it. Their ears no sound could now reach. They could no more detect the rending of a continent than the falling of a feather. Air, the propagator and transmitter of sound, ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... as he tottered down the road for the short walk which was now almost the only exercise to which he was equal, Cuthbert met Adeline. A spasm of anguish flitted through all his nerve-centres as he saw that she was accompanied by Raymond ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... always, but it was hard to make you believe it; be good to our child, Bianca, for my sake.' And then, as she knelt beside him in speechless anguish and remorse, he called his little Crystal to him and kissed and blessed me, and while he was still holding my hand a sudden spasm crossed his face and he put his head down upon her shoulder, and in ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... morgue gib'bet tres'pass greet smart pledge bod'kin shil'ling perch badge gourd gos'ling mat'tock champ dodge schist lob'by ram'part drench brawl flounce tan'sy tran'quil squeeze dwarf screech lock'et cun'ning grist yawl spasm van'dal her'ring shrink grant starve ex'tra drug'gist copse spunk ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... a fish out of water, and wriggled my neck in a silly way, which a charitable man, unaccustomed to women, might take for schoolgirl gawkishness in a spasm of acquiescence. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... A fierce spasm of pain through his chest blinded him mentally and physically for the moment. But, by an almost superhuman effort, he recovered himself. He knew he was hit, and hit badly. Something seemed to have broken inside him, just under ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... relapsing into a vulgarism likely to set her teeth on edge and possibly, in the spasm of it, close them momentarily on reminiscence. "I'm willing to let you in for all I know about Old Crow. To tell the truth, I'm rather ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... spasm of pity rent the bosom beneath Dudley Pickering's ample shirt. There was a buzzing in his ears and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... the same spasm of mad terror. Again they hurled themselves against the electrified lines, and again they were hurled back, masses of boys and girls tumbling against one another, and screaming in one wail that, could it have ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... my doing," shrieked Aunt Aggie, in the strangled squeak in which we always explain that it is "only a crumb" gone wrong. And she relapsed into a fresh spasm. ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... one doctor after another; they wearied me with questions, and all agreed in saying that I was threatened with spasm of the heart. The fainting fits, incident to the disease, had begun to show themselves. I required, it was said, to break through the usual routine of my life, to relinquish for some time my sedentary habits, and seek a complete change of air and scene, in ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... ruminative judicial air befitting the oldest justice of the peace in the county; but, within him, a little something gnawed unceasingly at his nerves like one of those small white worms that are to be found in seemingly sound nuts. About once in so long a tiny spasm of the muscles would contract the dewlap under his chin. The squire had never heard of that play, made famous by a famous player, wherein the murdered victim was a pedler too, and a clamoring bell the voice of unappeasable remorse in the murderer's ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... eye at the speaker, and then at the ring, over which his hand closed with a convulsive spasm. And at that dread instant the man prevailed over the King; and far away from people and monk, from adjuration and duty, fled his heart on the wings of the storm—fled to the cold wife he distrusted: and the pledge that should assure him of life, seemed as a love-token ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a new phase of character to the man of the world, who laughed aloud, and at the mention of Douglas' store started so quickly that a spasm of pain distorted his features, causing Maggie to ask if ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... die. The supreme delight of begetting is perhaps nothing but a foretaste of death, the eradication of our own vital essence. We unite with another, but it is to divide ourselves; this most intimate embrace is only a most intimate sundering. In its essence, the delight of sexual love, the genetic spasm, is a sensation of resurrection, of renewing our life in another, for only in others can we renew our life and ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... hands behind him, pointed his nose in the air, and walked forward with such a display of offended dignity that Jack Penny doubled up, putting his head between his knees and pinning it firm, while he laughed in throes, each of which sent a spasm through his loose-jointed body. ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... only a passing spasm, mother. I am—I believe I am already better," said the daughter, in an agony of suffering that she dared ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... even heard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastened to the Hampstead "Home," only to find him already in the agony. He had not been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had muttered something brokenly about "knowing better," that a spasm had interrupted. Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful for the summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had still retained his already cold hand; his ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... half-breed's father—a wordless cry, rising and dying away again and again, like the wailing of a dog. Sudden lights flashed into the night, as they had flashed years ago when Cummins staggered forth from his home with word of the woman's death. He gripped Jan's arm in a sudden spasm of horror. ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... few hurried minutes occupied in the passage to the schooner, the conviction had grown upon him that this mercy which had spared his life for a brief while would not be continued. Pomp Cooper would not continue to be his friend after his spasm of affection for Inez should spend itself, and devoid as the African was of intellect, he was likely to understand that the true course of the party who had entered upon the villainy was to ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... heavenly air-castles that young mothers never weary of building. She felt the necessity of growing strong so that she could work early and late, for baby must have everything, even if mother went without. Sometimes a fleeting likeness to Sanderson would flit across the child's face, and a spasm of pain would clutch at Anna's heart, but she would forget it next moment in one of baby's most ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... and seemed to herself scarce to breathe, such a spasm of various feelings was upon her heart. "It ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... get his testimony relative to his escape, etc., the Chairman of the Committee took his pencil and expressed to him his wishes in the matter. Amongst other questions, he was asked: "Do you regret having attempted to escape from slavery?" After a severe spasm he said, as his friend was about to turn to leave the room, hopeless of being gratified in his purpose: "Don't go; I have not answered your question. I am glad I escaped from slavery!" He then gave his name, and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... made a few steps forward. His face became livid, large drops of perspiration trickled down his forehead, his teeth chattered together, and a universal spasm convulsed his features. ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... for a moment; she half closed her eyes. An impulse of pain passed like a spasm across ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... intervals of relief from nausea I reflected that he must have gained plenty of practice, that he was an old hand in making this trip. It was a peculiar way to gain wealth, I thought, caught in another spasm of sickness, enriching oneself on the misery ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... waiting before the fireplace in the library, nervously pacing to and fro across the rug. Would she see him? How much did she know? How much did they all know? How much would she forgive? ... These questions had racked him every hour since in a spasm of nervous terror he had flung the pistol over the bushes and heard it splash in the river, and with one terrified look at the wounded man, whom he had dragged into the thicket, had got himself in some unremembered ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... about Anne of Cleves, and there were no warrants signed for Katharine's housing or food. All the palace was trembling with confusion, for, when the Queen had been upon the point of setting out from Rochester, the King was said to have been overcome by a new spasm of disgust: she ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... it is only a modification of Turkish gravity, or whether it is the dread Valley of the Shadow of the Drug through which they are continually straying, I can not say. They seldom smile, and their laughter is of such an extraordinary and sardonic nature—so purely a mechanical spasm, quite independent of any mirthful attribute—that to this day I am doubtful whether I ever saw a Chinaman laugh. A theatrical representation by natives, one might think, would have set my mind at ease on this point; but it ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... flashes of eager sympathetic fire break continually from the cloudy volumes of Rousseau, the result at once and the warning of that convulsion of which Paris was to be the crater and all Europe to feel the spasm. There are symptoms enough elsewhere of that want of faith in the existing order which made the Revolution inevitable,—even so shallow an observer as Horace Walpole could forebode it so early as 1765,—but Rousseau more than ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... had shaken the mustard can out of Jim's hands, and the contents were spilled upon the floor. He stooped to scoop some of the mustard into the cup, and the succeeding spasm doubled him upon the floor. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... be willing to do it because we think a lot of them, although they have lowered themselves so much"—a spasm of fury darted through Paul's brain, but he controlled himself; "we would fulfil your wish directly, but first tell us what dowry will ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... The deer stretched themselves and began slowly walking toward the lake. All had disappeared but the buck. Rolf gave another whistle that turned the antler-bearer to a statue. Controlling himself with a strong "I will," he raised the gun, held it steadily, and fired. The buck gave a gathering spasm, a bound, and disappeared. Rolf felt sick again with disgust, but he reloaded, ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lady, with light eyes and hair, was seized with convulsions of her limbs, with hiccough, and efforts to vomit, more violent than words can express; these continued near an hour, and were succeeded with a cataleptic spasm of one arm, with the hand applied to her head; and after about twenty minutes these spasms ceased, and a talkative reverie supervened for near an other hour, from which no violence, which it was proper to use, could awaken her. These periods of convulsions, first of the muscles, and then of the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... disaster? He paused not to reflect. Scarce was the ladder reared to its full length than he had sprung already on the rounds; hand over hand, swift as an ape, he scaled the tottering stairway. Strong arms received, embraced, and helped him; he was lifted and set once more upon the earth; and with the spasm of his alarm yet unsubsided, found himself, in the company of two rough-looking men, in the paved back-yard of one of the tall houses that crowned the summit of the hill. Meanwhile, from below, the note of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on to Mrs. Neifkins, who was picking at a French knot in a spasm of nervousness lest Kate betray the fact that ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... in itself sufficient, but the look that accompanies it—betraying as it does even more disgust than hatred—stings her to self-control. Slowly she rises to her feet. As she does so, a spasm, a contraction near her heart, causes her to place her hand involuntarily against her side, while a dull gray shadow covers ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Ukridge was describing some more than usually original device for the furthering of the interests of his fowls, did a slight spasm disturb Phyllis's ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... A spasm distorted for the moment De Guardiola's every feature. So often of late had chagrin been pressed to his lips that the cup had grown poisonous. When he spoke it was with a hollow voice: "Had not Mexia come in between us!... The light caught the ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... Sick. Outside, the loons clanged up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay, beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa, whispering and choking out the words in ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... face was twisted by a faint spasm of hate which left it flushed. She would never grow used to being bellowed at for a fool. Once more her husband's refusal to let her take her meals apart from him seemed monstrous. Hardly ever did she rise from one at which she had not been abused and insulted. She realized ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... day, for the ensuing weeks, the same scene reenacted itself with endless variations. Lizzie, after the first sharp spasm of disappointment, made no effort to conceal her anxiety from Miss Macy, and the fond Andora was charged to keep a vigilant eyeupon the postman's coming, and to spy on the bonne for possible negligence or perfidy. But ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... from the altar. Then he recited the fantastic oath before them all once more, whilst they repeated every syllable of it after him. The comedy was concluded by a violent electric shock which instantly sent a spasm of pain through the muscles and sinews of every member of the living chain. The poor untaught creatures all imagined that the devil himself was flying through their limbs and with tears and groans they begged Black Mask not to put them to any ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... rose too, to see him off the premises. The architect seemed in absurdly high spirits. After watching him walk away at a swinging pace, Soames returned moodily to the drawing-room, where Irene was putting away the music, and, moved by an uncontrollable spasm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was twisted with a spasm of fury. But as he stammered for words another voice was lifted, and Captain Runacles came through the crowd. He had been fetched from his laboratory by Mr. Swiggs, and had arrived on the scene in time to ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... so curiously affected by the emotions of the last few months that he was not in the least surprised to find himself, that evening, torn by a very curious and unfamiliar spasm of jealousy. After an hour or so of indecision he made his way, as usual, to the theatre, but instead of going at once to Elizabeth's room, he slipped in at the back of the stalls. The house was crowded, and, seated in the stage box, alone and gloomy, ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... long moment there was utter silence in the room, through which the words just spoken seemed to scurry like living things, anxious to be out and away. Laurie, his eyes on the girl, showed no change in his position, though a spasm crossed his face. Epstein, putting up one fat hand, feebly beat the air with it as if trying to push back something that was approaching him, something intangible but terrible. Bangs alone seemed at last to have taken in the full meaning of the curt announcement. ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... he. 'I stand for France just as Frederic the Second stood for Prussia. I will make her the great Power of the world, so that every monarch in Europe will find it necessary to keep a palace in Paris, and they will all come to hold the train at the coronation of my descendants—' a spasm of pain passed suddenly over his face. 'My God! for whom am I building? Who will be my descendants?' I heard him mutter, and he passed his ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... risk, with a chance of having it thrown back upon your hands. The contributor assumed the risk so far as to say, "Pretty rough!" when the stranger paused; and perhaps these homely words were best suited to reach the homely heart. The man's quivering lips closed hard again, a kind of spasm passed over his dark face, and then two very small drops of brine shone upon his weather-worn cheeks. This demonstration, into which he had been surprised, seemed to stand for the passion of tears into which the emotional ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... labelled, "Expenses of [Brighton] Pavilion," of "Furniture," "Drinking expenses." "Aye, this comes," he exclaims, "of your cursed pill economy, which you forced me to take a month back; no one knows what I have suffered from this economical spasm. I am afraid we shall all be laid up together." On the table behind him lie the medicines which have been prescribed for him, certain pills labelled "Petitions against the property tax," and a huge bolus ticketed "economy," "to be taken immediately." On the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... to his weight drew him down again, and almost jerked his hold from the limb, in which event he would have been snapped up and disposed of before he could have made a struggle in the way of resistance. But he held on, and with an unnatural spasm of strength, drew himself and the clogging weight part way up, kicking both feet with ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... much at any time, but to-day he was not at all in the humor. He occupied himself in observing Hans, who spent the whole evening in worshipping his lady-love. A spasm shot through Ola's heart when he saw the light-green frock whirl away in his brother's arms, and it seemed to him that ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... looked at herself in the glass in a peculiar searching way. A slight spasm crossed her features. "I'm not sure but that you were right. At times I feel far from certain," she said. Laura lifted her head from the pillow, watched her ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... shop, bought a bun, and ate it sitting by a marble-topped table. It nearly choked her. Yet she knew she needed it badly. With one penny the less she resumed her pilgrimage. But nowhere could she see the old man in his leggings, and suddenly a sort of joyful spasm shook her superstitiously. Fate opposed her cruel resolution. In a rush of eager contrition she started for home, walking as quickly as her abnormal fatigue would allow her. She had left the street in which the old man generally walked, and ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... made by the quill as it traced its inky characters on the yet incomplete codicil the Baronet was preparing. The candles had burned low in their sockets, and the fire on the hearth had died out unheeded by him who sat writing line after line. Suddenly a spasm seized him. He, with great difficulty, raised himself from the stooping position over the escritoire, but as he did so, another spasm, more violent than the first, attacked him. He tried to call for assistance, but his tongue clove to his mouth. He was suffocating. He stretched his arm ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... must have wondered at the eccentricity with which her patient's father attired himself. Bending over the little sufferer, Reardon felt for the first time since Willie's birth a strong fatherly emotion; tears rushed to his eyes, and he almost crushed Amy's hand as he held it during the spasm ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the ghost of the formerly beautiful and radiant Marie-Anne. Her quick, alert tread had become slow and dragging, often she sat for whole days motionless in her chair, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, her lips contracted as if by a spasm, while great tears rolled ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... read you the sorrow of Achilles for the loss of Briseis," said I, and, going into the corner, I raised my hand to my shelf of books—and stood there with hand upraised yet touching no book, for a sudden spasm seemed to have me in its clutches, and once again the trembling seized me, and the hammer had recommenced its beat, ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... Elizabeth, conquering a sharp spasm of pain with the spirit of a martyr. "If human care, or human sacrifice can insure her welfare, I will not be ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... chilling laugh; and closer to us! To no ebullition of any earthly emotion can I compare it. It resembled none. It conveyed scorn, exultation, defiance, hatred. It seemed an uncontrollable burst of triumph over a parting and ruined soul. Again, I gazed steadfastly on the dying woman. A spasm convulsed her countenance. She pointed feebly to some unseen object—unseen at least by me—and clasped her hands with an imploring gesture. Another spasm came on-a second-a third—and all was silence. I was alone ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... spasm, as if from a wrench of pain, passed over his face. Then he took the glass, and said coldly, "I drink to ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... scarcely possible to convey the extraordinary disgust which the sight of these human slugs bred in me; nor, could I, do I think I would; for were I successful, then would others be like to retch even as I did, the spasm coming on without premonition, and born of very horror. And then, suddenly, even as I stared, sick with loathing and apprehension, there came into view, not a fathom below my feet, a face like to the face which had peered up ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson |
