"Agony" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The agony that was his during the next few minutes can by no means be exaggerated. With such crises the human mind is not fitted adequately to cope; it retains no record of the supreme moment beyond a vague and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... hand of death was already upon him, a few moments before his agony, did he not say that eternity and space were already before his eyes, but that on this point, thanks to God, he was happy and tranquil? that the thought of living eternally, of living another life, was a great consolation to him? that Christianity ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... round among the grinning tars with a glance of terrible indignation and agony; and then settling his eye on me, and seeing there no hope, but even an admonition of obedience, as his only resource, he made one bound into the rigging, and was up at the main-top in a trice. I thought a few more springs would take him to the truck, and was a ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... and with a shock that stunned me, for all I was so well prepared for it. A few brief moments of dreadful agony, and the good man who had been more than a father to me was no more. Never once during his long illness had his sister Lady Cludde visited him; neither she nor her husband accompanied his remains to the grave: and when we had left him ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... How melody seems to enjoy itself in the open air! The fiddles have forgotten their agony, and everything is harmonious. Until you look at the blue tent it seems that the music springs from the sunshine, it is so boundless, so joyous. Only when you see the staid-faced musicians ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... shot in a blinding snow-storm. Baird warmly congratulated the mechanics who contrived the storm, and was enthusiastic over the acting of the hero. Through the wintry blast he staggered, half falling, to reach the door where he collapsed. The light caught the agony on his pale face. He lay a moment, half-fainting, then reached up a feeble hand to the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... By the dismal tarns and pools Where dwell the Ghouls; 30 By each spot the most unholy, In each nook most melancholy,— There the traveller meets aghast Sheeted Memories of the Past: Shrouded forms that start and sigh 35 As they pass the wanderer by, White-robed forms of friends long given, In agony, to ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... had to be. Sometimes, though, I think something must.... Nothing we expect, but something unforeseen." He paused and shut his eyes. "You remember in the old mythology tales how, when the sons of the gods were born, the mothers always died in agony? Maybe it's only Semele I'm thinking of. At any rate, I've sometimes wondered whether the young men of our time had to die to bring a new idea into the world... something Olympian. I'd like to know. I think I shall know. Since ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... Cumberly," he said, and his voice was caressing as a woman's. "Pardieu! I understand. To wait is agony; but you, who are a physician, know that to wait sometimes is necessary. Have courage, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... laddie, laddie, how often did I hold my hands over my heart for fear it would burst for pride in you! How often did I check back my tears for very joy of loving you! How often did I find myself sick with the agony of fear that you should go away from me forever! And then you went away, oh, so kindly, so kindly pitiful, your pity stabbing my heart with every throb. Why do I tell you this to-day? Let me go through ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... clung to each other in an agony of suspense. Never had they dreamed that they would witness such a dreadful catastrophe as ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... in the dream was the final slaughter along the last platform, a sight so horribly real that Chris woke up suddenly, bathed in perspiration, and suffering an agony of excitement before he could force himself to believe ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... half stammered in an agony of confused doubt; and that was the only lame phrase she could utter during ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... them all; with gibes and blows the soldiers haled them away through the tumult and the agony of the fallen town and its doomed defenders. Out of the rich sunlight they led them into a house that still stood not greatly harmed by the cannon-shot, but a little way from the shattered Ravelin and the gate which had been the scene of such fearful conflict—a ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... hands. It had been so with him when the question of secession was first broached. "It was soon after the election of 1860," wrote one of his clerical friends, "when the country was beginning to heave in the agony of dissolution. We had just risen from morning prayers in his own house, where at that time I was a guest. Filled with gloom, I was lamenting in strong language the condition and prospect of our beloved country. 'Why,' said he, 'should Christians be disturbed about the dissolution ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... at Damascus there was an outbreak of cholera, which gave me a great deal of trouble at the time. Several people died in great agony, and I did what I could to check the outbreak. I made the peasants wash and fumigate their houses and burn the bedding, and send to me for medicine the moment a person was taken ill. Fortunately these precautions checked the spread of the disease; but along the cottages ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... made for the operation. The last that Mr. Hardy heard was the shriek of the poor wife as she struggled to her feet and fell in a fit across the floor where two of the youngest children clung terrified to her dress, and the father cried out, tears of agony and despair running down his face. "My God, what a hell ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... moments later the death-agony began, and M. Colbert begged the King to listen to him in an embrasure. There, taking a pencil, he made out a list of all the millions which the Cardinal had hidden away in various places. The monarch bewailed his minister, his tutor, his friend, ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... direct reference to the patient's condition lest it should be thought irrelevant. No love even can long endure without complaint, silent it may be, an invalid who is entirely self-centred; and what an agony it is to know that we are tended simply as a duty by those who are nearest to us, and that they will really be relieved when we have departed! From this torture we may be saved if we early apprentice ourselves to the art of self-suppression and sternly ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... hands clenched and unclenched about his rifle-barrel in an agony of indecision, his eyes perceiving the silhouette of the girl against the lighter arc of sky. No, not that—not that! They must hide their trail, leave behind no faintest trace of passage for these hounds to follow. Yet how could the miracle be accomplished? ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Pantheon is put, the Pantheon at Paris and the Crypt of the Invalides, the Abbey of Westminster, matchless in memorials, the sepulchres within the hills that gird Jerusalem, and the sepulchre in which the Nazarene was gently laid when His agony was ended. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... shouted above the howling gale, spent the whole night on the Breakwater, in danger of being swept off by the towering surf, soaked with the brine from the biting spray, and peering out into the blackness as though bent on witnessing the lingering agony of the ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... aspirations destroyed, his dreams of future joy,—all had passed away. His mother would die of a broken heart. Henceforth those with whom he had associated would shun him. For him there was no more peace, joy, or comfort,—nothing but impenetrable darkness and agony in the future. So overwhelmed was he, that he took no notice of Mr. Noggin's testimony, or of what was done, till he heard Judge Adams say: "There are some circumstances against the accused, but the testimony is not sufficient to warrant my binding him over for trial. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... use of so much talk with the heretic dog? This is the way I confess this Polish fifer." And he put an end to the agony of Dmitri by ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... of the womb becomes swollen and inflamed, discharging sticky, stringy, transparent mucus. The cow becomes uneasy, stops eating, and if in a pasture becomes separated from the rest of the herd; will lie down and get up alternately as if in great agony. When birth pains start, the back is arched, and a severe straining follows the contraction of the abdominal muscles. The membranes covering the foetus will be the first to make their appearance, engorged with a fluid from the womb. This is commonly known as the water bag, which eventually bursts ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... right that he should look after their interests; besides, the time had nearly expired during which they could avail themselves of the pardon offered by Gen. Howe to all those who should go over to the enemy." Such were the lamentations of Gen. Reed, until, in the agony of his fears, he communicated them to Gen. Cadwalader. The feelings of that high-minded, chivalrous soldier can hardly be imagined—his first impulse was to order Reed under the arrest, but was deterred for fear of the effect the example might have on the men. He, however remonstrated ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... dawn, When hearts beat fainter, and the hands of death Are strengthened,—with lips white and drawn And feverish lids and scarcely moving breath, The hapless mother, tender Chione, Beside the earth-cold figure of her child, After long bursts of weeping sharp and wild Lay broken, silent in her agony. At first in waking horror racked and bound She lay, and then a gradual stupor grew About her soul and wrapped her round and round Like death, and then she sprang to life anew Out of a darkness clammy ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... not linger upon a scene the very remembrance of which is painful to this day.... I went from my father's presence in disgrace, in an agony of spirit that was overwhelming, to lock the door of my room and drop face downward on the bed, to sob until my muscles twitched. For he had, indeed, put into me an awful fear. The greatest horror of my boyish imagination was a wicked ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... agony and a bliss. It is a cataclysm and a new world. It is our most serious hour, perhaps. And yet we ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... night on marble columns and golden-colored couches, makes a scene of enchantment, behold Esther, with her royal apparel thrown aside, kneeling on the tesselated floor. There she has been two days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, while hunger, and thirst, and mental agony have made fearful inroads on her beauty. Her cheeks are sunken and haggard—her large and lustrous eyes dim with weeping, and her lips parched and dry, yet ever moving in inward prayer. Mental and physical suffering have crushed her young heart ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... despair, again put her hands into the bag whence she had fatally resigned the peppercorns, and felt about in agony for her lost treasure. And now finding none, and perceiving that the genius Houadir attended not to her cries, she was drawing out her hand when, in a corner of the bag, she felt one peppercorn, which had ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... energy to do more than telegraph you from New York that all our troubles were ended. I was too much upset by the agony that I had been through to write. It was a very dreadful two days, dear Aunt Lucy; the most dreadful—especially that second day and the last night—that I have ever known. And dear Clement suffered even more ...
— A Temporary Dead-Lock - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... was horror-struck at seeing through the darkness a white object on the ground, struggling as if in the grasp of some terrible monster. Instantly the blood froze in his veins; he stood petrified,—the howlings of the wind, clanking of chains, and groans of agony, filling his ears,—with his eyes fixed in terror upon the white shape rolling and plunging and writhing among the tombs. Attempting to run, his feet refused to move, and he swooned and fell senseless in the road. A party of travellers, happening shortly to pass, stumbled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... first be made acquainted with his mortality, or even with the inevitable debility and infirmities of old age, when his understanding had arrived at its full strength, and life was endeared by the enjoyments of youth, and vigour, and health, with what an agony of terror and distress would the intelligence be received! yet, being gradually acquainted with these mournful truths, by insensible degrees, we scarce know when, they lose all their force, and we think no more ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... don't be afraid of yourself! you will recover in a minute or so. I was just the same when I first went out in this way.' Sir," added the officer to me, "it was as if an angel had put a new soul into me. With the feeling that I was not yet dishonoured, the whole burden of agony was removed, and from that moment I was as fearless and forward as the oldest of the boat's crew, and on our return the lieutenant spoke highly of me to our captain. I am scarcely less convinced of my own being than that I should have been what I tremble to think of, if, instead of his humane encouragement, ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... after being directed to various deputies and clerks, they at length found the department in which the information was obtainable. Inside of five minutes they were in possession of facts that vindicated Miss Guggenslocker, lifted Lorry to the seventh heaven, and put Mr. Anguish into an agony of impatience. Graustark was a small principality away off to the east, and Edelweiss was a city of some seventy-five thousand inhabitants, according ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... able to share in a game with his beloved brother, boldly sped the shaft, expecting to hear the usual shouts of joyous laughter which greeted all such attempts. There fell instead dead silence on his ear, and immediately on this followed a wail of bitter agony. For Balder the Beautiful had fallen dead without a groan, his heart transfixed by ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... vain,—to get me to lend a hand at digging and planting. Into the hayfields on holidays I was often compelled to go,—not, I fear, with much profit. My father's health was very bad. During the last ten years of his life, he spent nearly the half of his time in bed, suffering agony from sick headaches. But he was never idle unless when suffering. He had at this time commenced a work,—an Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica, as he called it,—on which he laboured to the moment of his death. ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... tables for two under rose-shaded lights. He booked seats for theatres, trains, steamers, grand-stands, and the Empire. He dealt in all stocks and shares. He was a banker. He acted as agent for all insurance companies. He would insert advertisements in the agony column, or any other column, of any newspaper. If you wanted a flat, a house, a shooting-box, a castle, a yacht, or a salmon river, Hugo could sell, or Hugo could let, the very thing. He provided strong-rooms for your savings, and summer ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... would steal down into the quiet church-yard, and kneeling beside her mother's grave, ask, with streaming eyes, if she had not done well. Such moments were fraught with bitter anguish; but a heavenly peace would descend on her, and she said her trials, after the agony was over, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... You call an act of common humanity folly—doing what one could to relieve the agony of a fellow creature. I am glad that I differ from you—and from your servant. Mrs Hensor refused to help that poor gin who had a spear through her arm and was shrieking ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... is not a family at the South which has not its associations with the North—not a Northern family which has not its Southern ties! War in the midst of such a people! God grant that the future, that the events which must inevitably follow dissension here, may at least spare this agony to ourselves, our ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... got Widderin's head in his breast, blindfolding him with his coat, for should he neigh now they were undone indeed! As the bushrangers approached, the horse began to get uneasy and paw the ground, putting Sam in such an agony of terror that the sweat rolled down his face. In the midst of this he felt a hand on his arm, and Alice's voice, which he scarcely recognised, said in a fierce whisper: 'Give me ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... nature of the man, his mortal fear was the dreadfullest torture that could be devised. The game little cockney peered into his distorted face, and wondered. Never was there a more pitiful coward, and yet the craven had passed through the same agony full twenty times during the last few years. Murguia knew nothing of the noble motives which make a man stronger than terror, but he did know a miser's passion. He begrudged even the costlier fuel that was their ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the thought of this, so sharp an agony came to me that I arose and cried out loud. "I can not endure it, I can not endure it!" I cried (although this sorrow had ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... Madame Raffoni shall lead me to you if you need me. You can trust her. I will come to her home. I cannot bear this agony, and ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... husband the tragic history of the cook's impertinence, and handed him a heavy bill, when the poor man was enjoying the first quiet rest of the day; she requested Mollie's advice about spare-room curtains at the moment when long-separated lovers were united, and it was agony to lift one's eyes from the page for the ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... For the first time since the morning she reflected seriously on her position. Until then she had yielded herself up to the delight of loving, without a thought of the past or of the future. Unable to bear the agony of her mind, she sought, with the patience of love, to obtain a look from the young man's eyes, and when she did so her paleness and the quiver in her face had so penetrating an influence over him that he wavered; but the ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... pleasure of striking the aristocrats, the justice of the observation is admitted, and it is decided that the victims shall be made to pass slowly between two rows of slaughterers, who shall be under the obligation to strike with the back of the sword only so as to prolong the agony. At the prison de la Force the victims are stripped stark naked and literally "carved" for half an hour, after which, when every one has had a good view, they are finished off by a blow ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... a word of remonstrance, I felt a shooting pain in my inside, and a demoniacal laugh seemed to issue from within me. A moment afterwards the sharp agony had ceased, leaving nothing but a dull ache behind, and the Stranger began to reappear, saying, as he gradually increased in size, "There, I have not hurt you much, have I? If you are not convinced now, I don't know what will ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... fastened upon mine, staring straight at me, the head moving very slowly, while those three brutes actually watched my agony of terror, and exchanged smiles as they waited for the reptile ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... that the hard heart might not melt? For the sake of Helen's happiness he must measure not only Gerald's need of her against his own and Gerald's power against his own mere pitifulness, but he must wonder, in an agony of sudden surmise, which, in the long-run, could give her most, the loved or the unloved man. In all his life no moment had ever equalled this in its fulness, and its intensity, and its pain. It thundered, it rushed, ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... first part of the service took place; and then—Cherry could just fancy she could hear the dim echo of the Dies Irae, as it was sung on the way to the cemetery. It was a very aching heart, poor child! full of the dull agony of a longing that she knew could never be satisfied again, the ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... consent to the death of flesh, consent to the attacks of evil, consent to injustice, consent to infidelity (and straightway they all forsook Him and fled), and, finally, consent to the death of Divine Union: this not without groanings, as being the one supreme and only insupportable Agony. ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... as polite to the furious mob that tore his clothes from his back and dragged him through the streets as he could have been to a king. He was one of the serenest souls that ever lived. Christ was courteous, even to His persecutors, and in terrible agony on the cross, He cried: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." St. Paul's speech before Agrippa is a model of dignified courtesy, as well as of ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... spill supernal glow,— Which all her thought to wonder mute doth move. Then falls upon the rapture of her soul, Dimly some vision of Gethsemane, Athwart the Resurrection's shining goal, And with uplifted hand she pleads as One Shall pray in night of darkest agony, "This cup remove,—yet, ...
— The Angel of Thought and Other Poems - Impressions from Old Masters • Ethel Allen Murphy
... a nasty descent, since silence was essential—steep, slippery, and strewn with round stones. Anyhow, he could go down on his feet, which was something to be thankful for, as it was agony to put a knee or elbow to the ground. He ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... were to be given up to the Commissariat after the battery had had first pick. It was an awful pull up that spur. I suppose we went up at least two thousand feet. I was all right, as I had a pony, but it must have been agony for the laden coolies. Once up, the going was easy enough; open, grassy downs, gradually sloping down from where we stood to the junction of the Yarkhun and Turikho valleys, though the actual sides of the tableland dropped steeply down to the rivers. By our present divergence we had ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... his shadow later, moving uncertainly across the shades in the upper chamber where Sympathy Gibbs lay with her baby, his hand lifted once with the fingers crooked in mysterious agony. Some one started a hymn in the street below and people took it up, bawling desperately for comfort to their souls. Mate Snow didn't sing. He stood motionless between the box-trees, staring up at the lighted window shades, as if waiting. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... few feet away. Orme threw the stone; by good luck it struck the man in the stomach, and he dropped to the ground and rolled in silent agony. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... again—which is not to say that his brain did not work furiously at it; the search for a clue, for the hidden motive, was now his eternal occupation. But to her he was silent, sheerly from the dread of again receiving the answer: take me as I am, or leave me! In hours such as the present, or in the agony of sleepless nights, these thoughts rent his brain. The question was such an involved one, and he never seemed to come any nearer a solution of it. Sometimes, he was actually tempted to believe what her words implied: that it had been wilfully done, with a view to ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... said, grinding his teeth in agony. I raised my eyes: where was the one pass between the rim of stern rocks? Nothing: the enemy behind us- that grim wall in front: what wonder that each man looked in his fellow's face for help, and found it not. Yet I refused to ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris
... reduced almost to dust. "That nosegay," said the woman, "was brought here by the Countess of Besborough, who had intended to place it herself upon the coffin of her sister; but as she approached the steps of the vault, her agony became too great to permit her to proceed. She knelt down on the stones of the church, as nearly over the place where the coffin stood in the vault below as I could direct, and there deposited the flowers, enjoining me to perform ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... he knew that the thing of terror would leap up with resistless strength and hurl its weight upon him, and bury its jagged fangs in his throat and tear him, in an instant that would seem like an hour of agony, and that the pain and the fear would be as if he were hung up by all the nerves of his body, drawn out and twisted; for he knew everything then; and in that immeasurable time which is nothing, and yet is infinite, he ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... had spent up there, and of the terrible things that had come of it, without a shudder. If she could have cut it out of her life and memory altogether, that would have been well; but how could she forget the agony of that awful farewell; the sense of utter loneliness with which she saw the shores recede; the conviction then borne in upon her—and never wholly eradicated from her mind—that some mysterious doom had overtaken her, from which there was no escape. The influence of that time, and of the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... wordling proved, after a bitter experience—which may you be spared! It is far better to realize a truth perceptively, and thence make it a rule of action, than to prove its verity in a life of sharp agony. But how few are able to rise into such ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... that a strange feeling of compassion removed all tendency to laughter. Had he learned these reverences from an automaton or a performing dog? Is this beseeching look the look of one who is sick unto death, or does there lurk behind it the mocking cunning of a miser? Is that a mortal who in the agony of death stands before the public in the art arena, and, like a dying gladiator, bids for their applause in his last convulsions? or is it some phantom arisen from the grave, a vampire with a violin, who comes to suck, if not the blood from our hearts, at least the money from our pockets? Questions ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... roar— A mash of men's crazed cries entreating mates To run them through and end their agony; Boys calling on their mothers, veterans Blaspheming God and man. Those shady shapes Are horses, maimed in myriads, tearing round In maddening pangs, the harnessings they wear Clanking discordant ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... chill tingled at Weldon's heels and flew up to his hair. He had a sudden flashing sense of being in a net that was softly tightening. In an agony of regret he wished that he had not that sheaf of "memoranda, etc." It was suddenly clear to him that he had ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... felt the hope suddenly cease, yet never had he known till now that fulness of anguish, that dread certainty of the worst, which the calm, fair face before him struck into his soul; and mixed with this agony as he gazed was all the passion of the most ardent love. For there she lay in his arms, the gentle breath rising from lips where the rose yet lingered, and the long, rich hair, soft and silken as an infant's, stealing from its confinement: ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to conquer fame and honor. He tried himself as a dancer, singer, actor, and failed lamentably in all his debuts. He could not himself estimate the extent of his own ignorance, nor could he dream what a figure he was cutting. Undismayed by all rebuffs, though suffering agony from his wounded vanity, he wrote poems, comedies, and tragedies, in which he plagiarized, more or less unconsciously, the elder Danish poets. Mr. Jonas Collins, one of the directors of the Royal Theatre, became interested in the youth, whose unusual ambition meant ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... head, and lay gasping and insensible; another had received a musket- ball in the belly, which had pierced through and lodged in the backbone. The former appeared to suffer but little, giving no signs of life, except what a heavy breathing produced; the latter was in the most dreadful agony, screaming out, and gnawing the covering under which he lay. There were many besides these, some severely and others slightly hurt; but as I have already dwelt at sufficient length upon a painful subject, I shall only observe, that to all was afforded every assistance which circumstances would ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... Frost made a great effort to recover her self-control; but such an agony of jealousy had taken possession of the poor lady that she could scarcely bear to be in the society either of her pupil or her little sister. Irene exercised more and more influence over Agnes, and for a long time that influence was altogether for good. When the child asked simple ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... it, when suddenly far away a dog howled in a very piercing fashion. Then a cow began to bale as these beasts do when they have lost their calves. Next, quite close at hand but without the gates, there arose the ear-curdling cry of a woman in agony, which on the instant seemed to be echoed from every quarter, till the ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... roar, and something struck me down, and I found myself pinned to the ground, in darkness, with my mouth full of dust, and an immense beam on my chest. I lay for a time in agony, fighting for breath, and then my brain seemed to burst in my ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... theory that the saint exists (or does not exist and so on) after death is a jungle, a desert, a puppet show, a writhing, an entanglement and brings with it sorrow, anger, wrangling and agony. It does not conduce to distaste for the world, to the absence of passion, to the cessation of evil, to peace, to knowledge, to perfect enlightenment, to nirvana. Perceiving this objection, I have not adopted any of these theories." "Then has Gotama any theory of his own?" "Vaccha, the Tathagata ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... says Dr. Antommarchi, "and following the progress of that painful agony in the deepest distress, when Napoleon, suddenly collecting his strength, jumped on the floor, and would absolutely go down into the garden to take a walk. I ran to receive him in my arms, but his legs bent under the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... moving," I told Val. "The surest way to die out here on Mars is to give up." I reached over and turned up the pressure on her oxymask to make things a little easier for her. Through the glassite of the mask, I could see her face contorted in an agony of fatigue. ...
— The Hunted Heroes • Robert Silverberg
... which had been very pale, flushed suddenly, and a nervous trembling seized him which he sought in vain to hide. But by the time her tall and beautiful figure stood in the doorway, he was his usual self again in all but the expression of his eyes, which stared straight before him in an agony of longing only to be observed in those who have ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... too. Her compunction—'Call me anything but good'—coming after her return to the Hall beside De Craye, and after the visible passage of a secret between them in his presence, was a confession: it blew at him with the fury of a furnace-blast in his face. Egoist agony wrung the outcry from him that dupery is a more blessed condition. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Who made me what I am?" Again his bold arm encompassed her. Side by side they peered down through the gloom at the rushing waters, and he seized an image from them. "Our love is like that seething tide," he said. "To resist it is to labour in agony awhile, and ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... Another took the same road, and smashed to atoms almost at the pierhead, so near, and yet so far from human aid, that the voices of both crews could be heard by the helpless, distracted spectators—white-lipped men, wailing women, who clustered there by the rocks in impotent agony. One struggling drowning man fought hard—it is said that the outermost of a chain of rescuers once even touched his hand. But no help was possible, no human power could have drawn those helpless men from that raging cauldron; against such ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... they came home, bringing bullets inside them. They did not talk of them, and they were stout and hearty, and looked as well, perhaps, as you or I; but every change in the weather, however slight, every variation of the atmosphere, however trifling, brought back the old agony of their wounds as sharp as ever they had felt it on the battle-field. I've had my wound, Bob; I carry the bullet still, and I shall carry it into ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... the picture suddenly grew distinct on the screen of the rector's mind, the face of the banker subtly drawn with pain as he had looked down on it in compassion; the voice with its undercurrent of agony: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... it was saying that? Have you ever, Sheila, in a dream, or just as one's thoughts go sometimes, seen that door?...its ruinous stone lintel carved into lichenous stone heads...stonily silent in the last thin sunlight, hanging in peace unlatched. Heated, hunted, in agony—in that cold, green-clad shadowed porch is haven and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... himself, as the terror of this made him shudder—was there that night in all Ravenna so miserable a being as himself? And that miserable man, cowering there in the restlessness of his agony, was the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare; he whose whole life had been one placid scene of happiness, prosperity, and content. Never had he known a passion strong enough and forbidden enough to cause him a pang or a sleepless hour till now. Had not his life been happy? What did he want ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... arms—in time to hear the tender words of endearment lavished upon her by his father. Staggering backward, he caught at the banister to keep from falling, while a moan of anguish came from his ashen lips. Alone in his room, he grew calmer, though his heart still quivered with unutterable agony as he strode up and down the room, exclaiming, as he had once done before, "I would far rather see her dead than thus—my ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... is carried too far.[191] Even the agony of the Troades fails really to stir us: it depresses us without wakening our sympathy. So, too, with other scenes: in the Hercules Furens we have the virtuous Stoic—in the persons of Megara and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... marched, soon became a mass of blisters, and their sufferings from this cause alone were intense. Six of the poor fellows succumbed, unable to proceed. After a journey attended with much mental depression, and bodily agony, the former increased by the barbarous contumely flung at them by men who emerged from roadside inns, to stare at them as they passed, the prisoners, including the subject of our story, entered Richmond, and were at once introduced to the amenities ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so many assurances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... this great iniquity had come upon the Nephites, in the space of not many years; and when Nephi saw it, his heart was swollen with sorrow within his breast; and he did exclaim in the agony of ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... attention, interrupted him. "Poet," he said, "you have omitted a passage; read the poem as you have written it." Jasmin paused, and then added the omitted passage. "Can it be?" said the historian: "surely you, who can describe so vividly the agony of those who cannot see, must yourself have suffered blindness!" The words of Jasmin might have been spoken by Thierry himself, who in his hours of sadness often said, "I see nothing ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... sea, beating with the same force upon the hearts of every new generation. Carroll, as he sat there idly smoking, fell to thinking abstractedly in that vein. He had a conception of a possible ocean of elemental emotion, of joy and passion, of crime and agony and greed, ever swelling and ebbing upon the shores of humanity. He had a mind of psychological cast, although it had been turned of a necessity into other channels. Finally he turned wholly to himself and his own difficulties, which had reached ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... purchase their complexion; at the goldsmith's and the milliner's, where they get their figures. A few days ago, the father of one of these ladies had to pay a bill of forty-nine hundred dollars at the milliner's, for his daughter. The chief mental agony of the masses of the young women of the present day seems to be, who shall have the largest possible waterfall, the smallest bonnet, and make themselves the greatest fright. They do nothing from morning ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... not create. They will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek rhapsodists, according to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping-knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... he began to notice a difficulty in drawing on his boots, and it was by the greatest effort that he was able to force his feet into them. In this manner several weeks passed by, until finally one night, while in great agony, he discovered that his feet had in a short while, swollen to enormous proportions. The balance of the narrative can best be described in his ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... not make a pretty quick move yourself. And as to that acceptance, I don't think anything of it at all. I believe she was very angry at Junius because he consented to bring your messages, when he ought to have been his own messenger, and that she gave him that answer just to rack his soul with agony. I don't believe she ever dreamed that he would take it to you. And, to tell the simple truth, I believe, from what I saw of her that morning, that she was thinking very little of you, and a great deal of him. To be sure, she was fiery angry ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... do forgive you; but, oh! how shall I forgive myself? Speak to me, Harry!" And Elliot, frantic at the sight of the bloody motionless heap before him, repeated the name of his friend till his voice rose into a scream of agony that curdled the very blood of his friends, and re-echoed among the rocks above, like the voices of tortured demons. Affairs were in this situation when the young advocate came running breathless up to them, and saw, at a glance, that he was too late. "Fly, for ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm With banquet-song, and dance, and wine; And thou art terrible—the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony, ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... most terrible agony; but he resolved to bear it for the sake of the little princess. Then the fairy sat down on a rock at the edge of the sea, and, after striking a few notes, he began to play the "Strains ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... Adan, he fell into vocabulary: one serpent had darted straight down the throat of the other. For a moment there was a fearful lashing. The choking serpent, with protruding eyes, like small green coals, and jaws distended in agony, strove to dislodge his suffocating enemy, and the other humped his back and leapt backward in frantic efforts to reach the air again. But suddenly their struggles ceased; they flattened to the ground, only the ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last; and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish the twelve ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... suspense was almost an agony; nor was the after conviction that the ship was slowly but surely leaving him, as she passed on her course, much more painful by comparison. But as long as she was in ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... said to himself in dismay. Ah! M. Sarigue need have no fear, he could never have put his hand upon a more kindly-disposed judge or a more indulgent one, for the Nabob, moved to pity for his patient, knowing by experience how painful the agony of suspense is, did his work with all possible haste, and the huge portfolio that he had under his arm when he left the hotel de Mora, contained his report, all ready to be read ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... baptism, were joyful in soul, and their hearts were light that they might declare before 175 the emperor the grace of the gospel: how the Saviour of souls, revered in threefold majesty, was born; how God's own Son was hung upon the cross in bitter agony before the multitudes; how He freed 180 the children of men and souls of the careworn from the snares of devils, and gave unto them grace through the very thing that had been disclosed to his own sight as a sign of victory against the onrush of ...
— The Elene of Cynewulf • Cynewulf
... malice and of falsehood. On the contrary, he was extremely sensitive to them; but he never permitted himself, in public at least, to be carried away by his feelings, and no matter how strong his sentiments on any subject, his sense of justice was always supreme. In his agony upon the news of St. Clair's defeat, he denounced that general as worse than a murderer for having suffered his army to be taken by surprise; but when the burst of passion was over he added: "General St. Clair shall have justice. I will receive him without ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... as in the same condition with the first: but the obstinacy is not there so easy to be overcome. This contrariety and volubility of opinion so sudden, so violent, that they feign, are a kind of miracle to me: they present us with the state of an indigestible agony of mind. ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne |
