"Breathless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not been standing, a slender green-and-white, nymph-like figure, against the background of sun-hot, shadow-flecked, lichened stone, looking at him. The rosy light bathed her in its radiance. And as she looked, it seemed to him that something was dawning in that face of hers. He watched it, breathless with the realisation of his dreams, his hopes, his desires. The prize was his. Every other baser memory was drowning within him. It seemed to him that her purity, as he bathed in it, washed him clean of stain. He forgot everything but the secret ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... it were, to their original elements. He cut away to the core of a matter, and having simple, fixed ideas, he was able to focus the talk, which had begun with hunting stories, and ended with the morality of duelling. Gaston's hunting stories had made them breathless, his views upon duelling ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... poison doth assume, And my burnt entrails with its flame consume. Crestfallen, unembraced, I now let fall Listless, those hands that lately conquer'd all; When the Nemaean lion own'd their force, And he indignant fell a breathless corse; The serpent slew, of the Lernean lake, As did the Hydra of its force partake: By this, too, fell the Erymanthian boar: E'en Cerberus did his weak strength deplore. This sinewy arm did overcome with ease That dragon, guardian of the Golden Fleece. My many conquests let some ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... bell clangs out the hour of noon. No one comes to disturb him. It seems like being in the presence of the dead, in a kind of breathless, waiting mystery. The duty is thrust upon him, if it can be done. His father seems confident, but how will liabilities and assets balance? Then he remembers the luxury at home, Eugene's fast horse, and his air of easy indifference. Certainly ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... we are hardly aware of our want of technical knowledge. Thousands read the escape of the American frigate through the British channel, and the chase and wreck of the Bristol trader in the Red Rover, and follow the minute nautical manoeuvres with breathless interest, who do not know the name of a rope in the ship; and perhaps with none the less admiration and enthusiasm for their want of acquaintance ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... creak not to-night," said Betty to herself as she gently and steadily pulled the handle of the latch and saw the dreaded door open to her hand. Inside stepped Betty, and made breathless pause while she closed it, and the amiable latch fell softly down again into its place. Swift as a flash the girlish figure flitted up the winding narrow stairs, and gasping but triumphant Betty seated herself on the lowest step ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... forgetfulness of everything but the hot game they were hunting down. There was not a man in the room, except Tom Cogit, who could have told you the name of the town in which they were living. There they sat, almost breathless, watching every turn with the fell look in their cannibal eyes which showed their total inability to sympathise with their fellow-beings. All forms of society had been long forgotten. There was no snuff-box ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... a private nature could have consoled Roland for parting with his mistress, and for the distresses of his sovereign, he received such comfort some days subsequent to the Queen's leaving Dundrennan. A breathless post—no other than Adam Woodcock—brought despatches from Sir Halbert Glendinning to the Abbot, whom he found with Roland, still residing at Dundrennan, and in vain torturing Boniface with fresh interrogations. The packet bore an earnest ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... voice roused the assembly immediately out of its torpor. The judges, no longer bored and indifferent, followed her words with breathless attention, and when she stopped a low murmur of admiration was wafted ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... putting this together with the scene of the night before, and with much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began to wonder if the poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to the mad resolve of ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I reached the village on a run, and dropped breathless into a chair before the chemist's counter. The good man, who was just taking down his shutters, stared at me so hard that it brought me ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... the road they heard the crackle of a dozen rifle shots. The Southern advance undoubtedly had come into contact with the Union sentinels and skirmishers. After the first shots there was a moment's breathless silence, and then came a scattered and rapid fire, as if at least a hundred rifles were ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fallen. I was wrong. The door flung wide. With hasty step Came one in royal robes and all the pride And pomp of majesty, and on his head A helmet with an eagle poised for flight. He stood amazed at sight of him in white, His lips apart in haughty questioning. But no words came. Breathless, he raised his hand And gave salute as to a mightier lord, And doffed his helm, and stood. And in his eyes I saw The reflex glory of his ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... Their feeble cries in vain assistance crave, And expectation 'points but to the grave.' "But lo, with hasty step a female form Glides through the wind and braves the chilling storm, With eager hand now shakes the tottering door, Now rushes breathless o'er the snow-clad floor. Her tongue soft comfort to the mourner speaks, Her silver voice with soft emotion breaks; Round the drear hovel roves her moistened eye, Her graceful bosom heaves the lengthened ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... loud and effusive, and gushing; but it didn't mean much. Tumbu, for instance, despite his display of affection, would leave his post to run after every wild thing he saw; and though he always came back to it, he was so helplessly breathless, with half a yard of red tongue hanging out, that he would have been little use had an enemy turned up and his ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... village was yet in repose; Philomel had ceased her song, and the other choristers of the grove were silently awaiting the coming of the god of day. The night breeze, in dying away, had left the trees calm and motionless; and it was in that moment of breathless nature, that the usual solemn invocation to prayer spread itself in sonorous undulations through the silent valley, chanted forth in clear distinct tones from the tapering minaret of the little mosque on the opposite side ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... Mervyn came in, flushed and breathless, and Honor kindly made an excuse for leaving him alone with Phoebe. After diligently tossing a book from one hand to the other for some minutes, he observed, sotto voce, 'That's a more decent old fellow than ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this time, the Navajo was coming up at a regular gallop. As the dialogue ended, he had got within about three hundred yards of the spring, and still pressed forward without slackening his pace. We kept our gaze fixed upon him in breathless silence, eyeing both man ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... round, served of course with carrots and potatoes, remarkable for their excellence. Midday dinner was the only meal recognized at Chaffey's; from twelve to half-past two the press of business kept everyone breathless and perspiring. Before and after these hours little if anything was looked for, and at four o'clock the establishment closed ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... called out earnestly to those above to make haste, as he could hold on no longer, and that the ground was fast slipping away from under him. Anxiously indeed throbbed every breast during the interval occupied by the miner's descent, and breathless was the suspense with which each awaited the signal to pull away again upon the rope, which had scarcely been given, when a heavy rumbling sound, followed by a whirring noise, and terminating in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... scenes of suffering! There seemed to be no end to it; and yet there was always strength for the immediate work in hand. Tending twenty-four sick, after hurrying back from burying two dear lads in one grave, or with a body lying in its white sheet in the chapel; and once, after a breathless watch of two hours, while they all slept the sleep of opium, for we dared almost anything to obtain some rest, stealing at dead of night across the room to the figure wrapped so strangely in its blanket, and finding it cold and stiff, while one dying lay close by. It ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shape," said Richard Hunt, as the bullets whistled high overhead, "if we were in the tops of these trees instead of behind them." There had been no maneuvering, no command given among the Confederates. Each man fought his own fight. In ten minutes a horse-holder ran up from the rear, breathless, and announced that the Yankees were flanking. Every man withdrew, straightway, after his own fashion, and in his own time. One man was wounded and several were ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... dropped his bowl; and, starting from his seat, stared alternately at me and at the breathless girl. My emotion, made up of joy, and sorrow, and surprise, rendered me for a moment powerless as she. At length he said, "I understand this. I know who thee is, and will tell her thee's come." So saying, he ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... awful to feel that Lady Turnour was hanging over my head like a sword. The thought of how she would look and what she would say if I kept the car waiting was a string tied to my nerves, pulling them all at once, like a jumping-jack's arms and legs, so that I positively ran back to the hotel, more breathless than Cinderella when the hour of midnight began to strike. But there was the magic glass coach, not yet become a pumpkin; there was the chauffeur, not turned into whatever animal a chauffeur does turn into in fairy stories; and there were ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... exerted to the utmost in your cause; and our lawful power is such, that when firmly exerted in your cause, it must finally prevail." This tone it is our interest and our duty to take. The circumstances admit of no delay. Is there one among us who is not looking with breathless anxiety for the next tidings which may arrive from the remote parts of the kingdom? Even while I speak, the moments are passing away, the irrevocable moments pregnant with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger: it may be saved: we can save ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at their home I did commend your highness' letters to them, Ere I was risen from the place that show'd My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post, Stew'd in his haste, half breathless, panting forth From Goneril his mistress salutations; Deliver'd letters, spite of intermission, Which presently they read: on whose contents, They summon'd up their meiny, straight took horse; Commanded me to follow and attend The ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... short in breathless dismay, for a few paces away there arose from among these untidy "humpies" some twenty natives—erect, alert, all with poised boomerangs or spears ready to fling. It was a sinister reception for one small boy on a spent horse. Of course ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... had halted, and stood in breathless silence watching the result of Shad's shot. Now with an exclamation of pleasure from Mookoomahn the two rushed forward, knives in hand, and in an incredibly short time the carcass of the wolf was quartered, a fire lighted, and some ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... only changed his position and looked at his father. Mr. Leigh had asked the question suddenly, with the first dawn of a new idea in his mind, but at his son's silent answer he shrank back in his chair breathless with dismay. So after all he had been a traitor! With his mistaken fancies about change and absence, he had been doing all he could to destroy the very scheme that was dearest to him, and which he now saw ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... elderly man in a gray coat, threading his wavering way through the noisy buffet of the streets of the city where Athalia had elected to dwell. He found her in a gaudy hotel, full of the glare of pushing, hurrying life. He sat down at her bedside, a little breathless, and looked at her with ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... these flights she came to a wide river, with trees bending over it. It was like a wide stream of greenness flowing down, and Ditte stood transfixed, in breathless wonder. The green of the river she quickly grasped, for this was the color poured down on all trees—and the river here was the end of the world. Over on the other side the Lord lived; if she looked very hard she could just catch a glimpse of his gray bearded face in a thicket of thorns. But ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the accumulating emotion of a wild rush on a toboggan. There came a point where the fact grew to be almost too big for the appreciation, just as beyond a certain point speed seems to become unbearable. It left you breathless, wonder-stricken, awed. You could do nothing but look, and look, and look again, tongue-tied by the impossibility of doing justice to what you felt. And in the far distance, finally, your soul, grown big in a moment, came to rest on the great precipices and pines of the greatest mountains of all, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... the figure and countenance of St. John, that the artist has reached all that an artist could reach in a delineation of the same subject. The beloved disciple simply looks upwards—upon the breathless corpse of his crucified master. In that look, the world appears to be for ever forgotten. His arms and hands are locked together, in the agony of his soul. There is the sublimest abstraction from every artificial and frivolous ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... arrived at this conclusion, as the port of our destination hove in sight. It was towards evening that we crept in to our anchorage, through an atmosphere scarcely sufficiently alive to give us motion, and so almost glowing that it seemed to burn us as we passed. The place was wrapped in breathless stillness: no boats came forth to try a market with us, or to gratify their curiosity; and no sounds issued from the shore, which might have been deemed almost ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... have clouded the memory of his glorious days by a succession of pitiful proceedings, now that the deliverer of his country was running for his life, he was once more the victor of Vercellae, and with breathless suspense all Italy listened to the incidents of his marvellous flight. At Ostia he had gone on board a transport with the view of sailing for Africa; but adverse winds and want of provisions compelled him to land at the Circeian ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... event to alarm us; and with the knowledge of what is now the future, and will then be the dead past; seeing that all has been for the best for us in the end; that all has come right in spite of us, we will wonder how we could ever have been foolish enough to await each hour in such breathless anxiety. We will ask ourselves if it was really true that nightly, as we lay down to sleep, we did not dare plan for the morning, feeling that we might be homeless and beggars before the dawn. How unreal it will then seem! We will say it ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... Her voice came back from the forest in strange echoing tones which made her start. At last, after winding and turning for a long time, she found herself again upon the main path, not far from the place where she had entered the wood. She was hot, tired, and breathless; her voice was hoarse with crying and calling. "I'll wait here awhile," she thought. "Perhaps the blessed little dear'll come this way; but, whether he does or not, I'm too tired to move another step till I've had some rest." She found a smooth place under an oak, sat down, and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... career. You will not fail, because you know the peril and the prize. You will not fail, because you have civilization and law and ordered freedom, the honor of your land and the happiness of a new one, in your care—because you know that, for uncounted peoples, the hopes of future years hang breathless on your fate. And so, gentlemen of ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... advertisement in the Morning Post," she said with a kind of breathless violence, "from a man who—who wanted to meet a girl with—a 'view ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... these successes, he continued his experiments with breathless expectancy, and soon made another important discovery, that of "induction," although the real significance of this discovery was not appreciated by him or, for that matter, by any one else for several generations ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... hands entangled; she tore at the cobweb, she bent her body, she slipped away; she beat with her fists, she raged, and only enmeshed herself the more tightly in the horrible skein; finally she lay fast bound. During this last phase of the dance, her artist audience stood there rigid, breathless, suffocating with a sense ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... four VEDAS comprise over 100 extant canonical books. Emerson paid the following tribute in his JOURNAL to Vedic thought: "It is sublime as heat and night and a breathless ocean. It contains every religious sentiment, all the grand ethics which visit in turn each noble poetic mind. . . . It is of no use to put away the book; if I trust myself in the woods or in a boat upon the pond, Nature makes a BRAHMIN of me presently: eternal necessity, eternal ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... cloisters, echoing shadows leered at them. The wall of the V. A green rose dark and sinister. At last breathless among the tombstones by the Abbey they slipped on their boots, turned up coat collars and drew their caps over ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, Go forth under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around— Earth and her waters, and the depths of air— Comes a still voice:—Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... breathless figure presented himself at the Beaver kitchen. He had on a clean shirt and his Sunday clothes, and while he wore no collar, a clean handkerchief was neatly pinned ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... pushed open a door and then paused on the threshold, confronting an interior that appeared black and flat like a curtain. Perhaps some girlish idea of hobgoblins assailed her then, for she called in a little breathless voice, "Daddie!" ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... was now ghastly, and was listening with breathless earnestness to his visitor. Merriman realized what he had always suspected, that the man was weak and a bit of a coward, and he began to believe his ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... The breathless intensity of the spectators had burst. They had begun to click their teeth, to mutter hoarsely, then to shout, to gesticulate, to shake their fists in each other's face, to push and scramble for a ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... thief!' There is a passion FOR hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast. One wretched breathless child, panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... alive, you are mine,' she repeated, embracing and stroking his head. He was almost swooning, breathless at such closeness, such ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... up and down stairs! Everybody so breathless! Everybody so happy! Every face wearing a smile! Every tongue rippling with laughter! The big grey mansion which used to seem so chill and cold felt for the first time like a ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the colonel, Warner and Pennington all together. Then they stood breathless, and Dick uttered ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was so dense that she could see nothing. The ground was soft, and she was beyond the sentry's earshot; she ran at full speed across the field, down the gorge, and up the steep knoll. As she reached the top, she was taken in Mikhailof's arms. For a few moments she was too breathless to speak; then ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Before an order went out to prevent him, he went through the wicket of the sliding-panel and gathered around him the four chiefs named in Cummings' ultimatum. They were more sullen, unhappy, and discouraged than ever. A few words, and he had them breathless with interest ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... would have been surprised if he had done so. There was another chair at the far end of the room, and she did not trouble to fetch it. Her heart was still further weakened by her illness, and she was breathless after climbing two long flights of stairs. She leant up against the wall, breathing quickly, and thankful for ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... expedite, put on, precipitate, urge, whip; railroad. Adj. hasty, hurried, brusque; scrambling, cursory, precipitate, headlong, furious, boisterous, impetuous, hotheaded; feverish, fussy; pushing. in haste, in a hurry &c. n.; in hot haste, in all haste; breathless, pressed for time, hard pressed, urgent. Adv. with haste, with all haste, with breathless speed; in haste &c. adj.; apace &c. (swiftly) 274; amain[obs3]; all at once &c. (instantaneously) 113; at short notice &c., immediately &c. (early) 132; posthaste; by cable, by express, by telegraph, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... camera, and hurrying forward was very difficult work, especially as I had to negotiate twisted masses of enemy barbed wire entanglements. But eventually, after much rushing, and being very nearly breathless, I got ahead, and planted my machine on the parapet of an old German trench and filmed the party as they passed. To keep ahead after filming each incident was very hard work. It meant waiting here and there, jumping trenches, scrambling through entanglements, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... the storm, came the striking of midnight by the great chimes in the market place. He stood for a space of time that seemed to him endless still as a statue, and with wide-open, horror-struck eyes, breathless. As the clock struck, so the smile of triumph on the Judge's face intensified, and at the last stroke of midnight he placed the black cap ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... play-time first, and, while the boys waited inside, they heard the shouts of the girls, the banging of the wood, and the final crash as the well-packed pile went down. Then, as the lassies came in, rosy, breathless, and triumphant, the lads rushed out to man the breach, and labor gallantly till all was as tight as hard blows ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... of Caesar the Forum was crowded to every corner with a subdued, dejected, breathless throng. People spoke in whispers—no one felt safe—the air was stifled and poisoned ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... waving his hands. The galleries went wild with noisy excitement. Men threatened each other with violence on the floor of the House, cursing and shaking their fists. Others rushed here and there trying to find some trace of the Clerk. The Speaker, breathless from calling for order and pounding with his gavel, had to sit down ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... was withdrawing in high indignation from his vantage-point when something occurred of a startling enough nature to hold him where he was in almost breathless expectation. ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... the Lillooet illihae (country) with the glad tidings, and at the close of two days a swarm of smootlatches (women), and keekas (girls), rushed into camp breathless, and began hysterically searching for their respective sweethearts or husbands among the prisoners. The scene was more than poetic; and it was pathetic in the extreme. It was a scene that had not occurred before on the broad surface of the earth—those fifty distracted squaws rushing ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... firemen had continued at their work with cool and undistracted attention. And here the value of organisation was strikingly and beautifully brought out; for, while the crowd swayed to and fro, now breathless with anxiety lest the efforts of the bold conductor of the fire-escape should fail; anon wild with excitement and loud in cheers when he succeeded, each fireman paid devoted and exclusive attention to his own prescribed piece of duty, as ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend, one Bertin, came to dine with Derues. Bertin was a short, hustling, credulous, breathless gentleman, always in a hurry, with a great belief in the abilities of M. Derues. He found the little man in excellent spirits. Bertin asked if he could see Mme. de Lamotte. Mme. Derues said that that was impossible, but that her husband had given her some medicine which ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... ram would have been sunk then and there; but as it was her shot were not quite heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around and around the two strange combatants hovered, their guns bellowing without cessation, while the men on the frigates and on shore watched the result with breathless interest. Neither the Merrimac nor the Monitor could dispose of its antagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the turret, and the Monitor was able dexterously to avoid the stroke of the formidable prow. On the other hand, the shot of the Monitor could not penetrate ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... programme left over from the St. Riquier area. The distance was two and three-quarter miles, and we felt quite pleased to finish 6th out of the 13 Battalions running, our pleasure knowing no bounds at seeing C. B. Johnstone and F. Torrance finish well within the time limit, happy if breathless. ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... hands while they stayed at Olney. It was only a moment they stopped, but to Ethie it seemed an age, and her heart almost stopped its beating when she heard the voice of Terrible Tim just outside the car. He was not coming in, as she found after a moment of breathless waiting; he was only speaking to an acquaintance, who stepped inside and took a seat by the stove, just as the train plunged again into the darkness, leaving behind a fiery track to mark its progress across ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... dictated more by a dogged will to do his utmost than by a hope of doing much. When he was out of sight, the tall and cloaked man, who had watched him, came up to the woman's door, with an appearance of being in breathless haste. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... said the count, fixing his glaring eyes upon the handsome countenance of the young man, who now awaited, in breathless suspense, a communication thus solemnly prefaced. "This key," continued the nobleman, taking one from beneath his pillow as he spoke, "belongs to the door in yonder corner of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... knocked, and each time Lennan writhed. It was so cruel! With that seeing-sense of hers she must know he was there; his very silence would be telling her—for his silence had its voice, its pitiful breathless sound. Then, quite distinctly, he heard her sigh, and her footsteps move away; and covering his face with his hands he rushed to and fro in the studio, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cloud of dust rolled up behind a hedge. It was Thorn's car; she knew its hum and as she watched the dust get nearer her face went white. Then, as the hum became loud and menacing, she clenched her hand and ran in nervous panic up the drive. She was breathless when she reached the house, but pulled herself together and went to a quiet room where ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... and left the hart, stone-dead, With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring. —Soon did the knight perform what he had said, And far and wide ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... seemed to be waiting for something, he continued with greater assurance, "I dare say they have a quality that the older generation missed. It isn't just commonness. The modern spirit means, I suppose, a breathless vitality. We are more intensely alive than our ancestors, perhaps, more restless, more inclined ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... In breathless haste she hurried on, and now quickly opened a last door, through which she entered a room furnished in the most sumptuous ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... rapid succession the music changed from the Double Jig to the Reel of Four, the Duck Dance, the Double Reel of Four, the Reel of Eight, and the Red River Jig, till the old log storehouse shook from its foundation right up to its very rafters. The breathless, perspiring, but happy couples kept at it until exhaustion fairly overtook them, and then dropping out now and then, they sat on the floor around the walls till they had rested; and then, with all their might and main, they went at it again. Among other things I noticed that the natives ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... you mean? What does SHE mean? Where is she?" Feather felt almost breathless before his unperturbed ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... he saw the strong hands reach up and clutch the jutting facets. He even opened his mouth to offer a warning as he saw the heavily-booted feet mount to their first foothold. But he refrained. He realized it might be disconcerting. A few breathless moments passed as Buck mounted foot by foot. Then came the thing the Padre dreaded. The youngster's hold broke, and a rock hurtled by him from under his hand and very nearly dislodged ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... With the money thus procured they buy beer and drink it in little free-booter's groups sitting in the alley. From beginning to end they have the excitement of knowing that they may be seen and caught by the "coppers," and are at times quite breathless with suspense. It is not the least unlike, in motive and execution, the practice of country boys who go forth in squads to set traps for rabbits or ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... been there five or six months, when he came running to this turnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... as he clung to his man, breathless, bruised, feeling as if all the world had dissolved in one vast explosion of dynamite, the door opened, banged to, and ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... story of Burk's death and mysterious disappearance, to which Bushnell listened, with breathless interest. When it was ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... William had rubbed witch-hazel into the deacon's heel-mark, the deacon in a glorious "prespiration" had gone home with his own breathless wife ditto. William dragged Serina into the bathroom, the only room where dancing was not in progress. He warned her not to forget that she had sworn to be a faithful wife. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... and after a brisk walk and a breathless climb, they found themselves on the fourth floor of a huge brick building where they had been directed by a meek-looking woman in a dust-cap. A long hall with a great many doors upon each side, all looking ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... manager, on the stand for an hour and a half, and the excitement was so breathless that you could have heard a pin drop. ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... morning of 4th September a whale-boat manned by natives dragged us down the green lane of the anchorage and round the spouting promontory. On the shore level it was a hot, breathless, and yet crystal morning; but high overhead the hills of Atuona were all cowled in cloud, and the ocean-river of the trades streamed without pause. As we crawled from under the immediate shelter of the land, we reached at last the limit of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for a ship was seen driving before the gale close in upon the land, so close that she seemed to have risen there by magic, and appeared to tower almost over the heads of the people. The moments of darkness that succeeded were spent in breathless, intense anxiety. The flashes, which had been fast enough before, seemed to have ceased altogether now; but again the lightning gleamed—bright as full moonlight, and again the ship was seen, nearer than before—close on ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... brief doze, glanced indifferently towards the spot indicated; but, in another instant, was on his knees beside the undefined object he there beheld. A keen, breathless scrutiny, a frenzied clutch with both hands, and then he was upon his feet again, holding close to the lantern the thing he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... respect to the "figure" that each, in his way, made, one the expansive, the other the contractile effect of the perfect white waistcoat. A scratch company of two innocuous youths and a pacified veteran was therefore what now offered itself to Mrs. Stringham, who rustled in a little breathless and full of the compunction of having had to come alone. Her companion, at the last moment, had been indisposed—positively not well enough, and so had packed her off, insistently, with excuses, with wild regrets. This circumstance of their charming ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... breathless interval a two-step followed, and Phil danced again, seizing a corn-stalk and holding it above her head with both hands like a wand. When the music ended she poised on tiptoe and flung the stalk far from her toward the barn as though ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... pulsed through Timokles' brain. The man behind suddenly slipped, stumbling over the stones. He fell heavily, and in that instant's time, Timokles darted forward behind one of the rocks, and, creeping underneath it, lay breathless in the darkness. ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... features of the deceased smiled sadly but tenderly; then all appeared to float once more before Edward's eyes—the form was lost in mist, the monument, the fir grove, the moonlight, disappeared: a long, gloomy, breathless pause followed. Edward lay, half sleeping, half benumbed, in a confused manner; portions of the dream returned to him—some images, some sounds—above all, the petition for the restitution of the ring. But an indescribable power bound his limbs, closed his eyelids, and silenced ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... just about to spring on its prey. It now stood, every moment its fury increasing, fancying that another of its species was there to contest the prize it had come to bear away. The major watched it with breathless anxiety; he was about to rush to the crib, at the risk of his life, to carry off the child, when the tiger sprung forward. Alas! It is too late, and the savage beast will destroy it; but no, the tiger expects to join combat with its rival, and with a loud ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... together the largest audience that has ever been assembled, that ever can by possibility be assembled for purely reading purposes, within the walls of St. James's Hall, Piccadilly. Densely packed from floor to ceiling, these audiences were habitually wont to hang in breathless expectation upon every inflection of the author-reader's voice, upon every glance of his eye,—the words he was about to speak being so thoroughly well remembered by the majority before their utterance that, often, the rippling of a smile ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... midday stillness when the blue sky arches over the place like a crystal bell which no winds may penetrate it seems as if the witchery grew. The warmth of the sun is like that of summer though without languor. The world is in a breathless swoon in the midst of which I wonder dreamily how this soft brown grass on which I lie could have been crisp and white with frost six hours ago. The morning waked all the hardier forest creatures who seemed to revel in the crisp exhilarating air. Red and ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... so widely known, and so justly appreciated, that we need not refer to it here. We will only say that he surpassed himself in this charge, which, for more than an hour, held the large assembly in anxious and breathless suspense, and caused all hearts to vibrate with the ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... breathless, so quivering in every muscle, that he did not ask her a single question, but seizing her hand, and pulling it within his arm, he led her along. To avoid meeting any possible wayfarers he left the high road and took a footpath under some fir-trees. When they were deep among the moaning ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... leaping over the cataract hurrying on through the waters below. The strong man made a desperate effort and reached the land, but the poor boy upon the raft was precipitated over the falls into the gulf below. As the agonized father stood gazing with breathless horror upon the sight, the form of his dear son arose once more, standing erect upon the bounding billows, with his arms widely extended, and his eyes glaring from their sockets. But in, a moment he was hid from view, beneath ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... sent a chill through Terry; it contained a breathless horror from which there was no appeal. In the eye of Jack Baldwin, fair-minded man though he was, Black Jack's son was judged and condemned as worthless before ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... gracefully moulded hands and arms. The queen's voice was exquisite; nor have I ever heard any spoken words more musical in their gentle distinctness, than the "My Lords and Gentlemen" which broke the breathless silence of the illustrious assembly, whose gaze was riveted upon that fair flower of royalty. The enunciation was as perfect as the intonation was melodious, and I think it is impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than that of the queen's ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... really too bad; she is never less than an hour late," said Mrs. Alcot, seating herself. "Last time she dined with us I asked her for seven-thirty. She thought something very special must be happening, and arrived—breathless—at half-past eight. Then she was furious with me because she was not the last. But one can't do it twice. Well"—addressing herself to Cliffe—"are ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... breathless messenger? Bronze—a nice clean figure and outline—chevelure rather out of date. Ah, he must be your brother, Hermes, who stands in the Market by the Poecile; I see he is all over pitch; that is what comes of having ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... the rocks and sticks was happily oblivious of his unconventionality. The beauteous evening did, in very truth, seem calm and free to him, though the party on the rock was making a little too much noise to have the holy time quiet as a nun, breathless with adoration. His mind turned to the scrap of Wordsworth he had lately memorized, and though he was a trifle annoyed to find that he couldn't, even now, perhaps when he most wanted it, remember all, the phrase "comfort and command" stayed with ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... my poppet," whispered Ann, all breathless, "and you must keep her always, and not let her work ...
— The Adventures of Ann - Stories of Colonial Times • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to the ground by a stone. Managing to raise himself from the ground where he lay, he staggered in an opposite direction from the station. In front of the house of Senor Mazzini he was again wounded, falling then senseless and breathless. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... maiden's bosom quaked a reasonless shame, an unconquerable terror. Surrounded by her whirling cloud of hair, the maiden sprang, untiring, across the wild white world. His strength failing, the youth pantingly followed. Thousands of years passed; the breathless pursuit continued; the maiden's nebulous hair became shot with streaks of golden fire, from her eyes beams of light streamed across the expanses over which she exultantly, fearfully bounded; the tremulous faltering youth's face ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... never has been, never can be surpassed. No such thoughts ever before had been put into words. She spoke on that day for all the women of the world, for the wives of the present and future generations. The audience sat breathless and, at the close of the following peroration, burst ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... he sprang into the ring with the acrobat's conventional bow and gesture. After trying his ropes carefully, he swarmed up to the trapeze; the music of the band slowed down, and became impressive. In almost breathless silence, Derrick and the audience watched the man as he went through his performance. It was an extremely clever and daring one, and he brought it to a close by turning a double somersault as he left one trapeze and caught the other, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... never be remedied." Then her voice sank so low that he could scarcely catch the breathless words. "There has ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless eagerness with which some new shore is sighted—with such incidents as these we English are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. And yet our appetite never ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... sinner," says the girl tremulously. A breathless silence seizes every one present as Anna continues, "Four years ago I had a child, in the forest yonder, and, I, poor ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... all was ready for Really-Is to ascend the throne, and the royal trumpeters had lifted their trumpets ready to proclaim him King of Allthetime, with the vast multitude breathless, ready at the signal of the trumpets to break forth in a great, glad shout, "Long live the king," and the Lord Chief High Chamberlain turned to take the Magic Crown from the hands of the High Priest of Things-That-Ought-To-Be, that even as he turned ...
— The Uncrowned King • Harold Bell Wright
... concourse of people flocked to Athens to hear the two most celebrated orators in the world. A jury of not less than five hundred, chosen from the citizens at large, was impaneled by the archon; and before a dense and breathless ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... in a strict use of the word, in the spirited and compact account of the famous contention between the Percies and the Douglases, of which Sir Philip Sidney said "that I found not my heart moved more than with a Trumpet." It is a breathless, rushing narrative of a swift succession of events, told with the most straight-forward simplicity. In the "Princess Maleine," on the other hand, the narrative is so charged with subjective feeling, the world in which the action takes place is so ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... the curtain which screened the sleeping room of the tent—but who had listened with breathless attention to every word of the foreigners, and who had never taken her eyes off the fair Praxilla—now came forward, emboldened by her agitation, into the midst of the tent, and took the jewel from the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I lifted the still flexible hand, and kissed the lips which were breathless. Her flowing drapery was discomposed. I restored it to order, and seating myself on the bed, again fixed stedfast eyes upon her countenance. I cannot distinctly recollect the ruminations of that moment. I saw confusedly, but forcibly, that every hope was extinguished with the life of ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... little soul. Sometimes he strayed along the big passage and peeped through the green baize door which led down the front stairs. He had a way of asking Jane what 'the House' was doing, 'the House' being his grandmother, and uncle and aunt, and their visitors. Occasionally he would make breathless little excursions of his own into the rooms which seemed so strange and wonderful to him. This was generally in the very early morning, or in the afternoon, when everyone was out of doors. Nurse would soon pursue him and bring him back to his proper sphere; but he would have a delightful time ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... my Wilhelm!" She had only time for one long gaze, and then the agonizing pain came again. One of the doctors tried to raise her, but she sank back. "Only death can help me;" and as all watched in breathless silence, she leaned her head against the shoulder of a faithful attendant, murmured, "Lord Jesus, shorten it!" and with one deep-drawn breath ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... horses and cattle. This must have meant serious loss to the people living on the river-bottoms above, but the boys counted it all gain. They cheered the objects as they floated by, and they were breathless with the excitement of seeing the men who caught fence-rails and cord-wood, and even saw-logs, with iron prongs at the points of long poles, as they stood on some jutting point of shore and stretched far out over ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... girls sat together, laughing and talking, under the shadow of the ancient yew-trees that guard the eastern corner of Swarthmoor Hall. The interlaced boughs of the gloomy old trees made a cool canopy of shadow above the merry maidens. It was a breathless day of late June, 1652, at the very end of the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... old Joe slept heavily, from the effects of the drugged whisky. Dick dashed out almost into the arms of Policeman X., who looked suspiciously at the breathless lad, in his stockinged feet. "Oh, please, come quick!" he cried, laying hold of the strong hand as no criminal would have done. "They're burglaring the office and stealing tracings. ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the microscope eagerly. Alas! as my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay beneath my instrument, ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... pressure of her soft, pulsing body against his own sent the blood racing through his veins. He smothered the words with his mouth on hers, kissing her breathless with a headlong passion that defied restraint—slaking his longing for her as a man denied water may at last slake his thirst at some suddenly ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... breathless interest. "A girl out in the big world? Completely civilized, I reckon! Was she ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... and stood watching Gurdon with breathless interest while the latter attacked another of the mouldings. They came away quite easily, pointing to the fact that they must have been removed before within a very short period. Once they were all cleared ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... night. This is one of my peculiarities, by the bye: a subject seizes me soul and body, which accounts for the rapidity of my execution. My muse resembles a whirlwind: she catches me up, hurries me along, and drops me all breathless at ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... seconds later, the boy was in the drawing-room. Breathless, staggering, he reeled back against the table and blurted out, ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... did he take refuge with his wife, she kicked him back again to the hounds, until at length the beggar stopped the hounds, and with a stroke of the wand, panting and breathless, the ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... the Church of God was at the foot of her insulting enemies;" he would never have ceased to reproach himself, if he had refused to employ the fruits of his studies in her behalf. He saw also that a generation inflamed by the passions of conflict, and looking in breathless suspense for the issue of battles, was not in a mood to attend to poetry. Nor, indeed, was he ready to write, "not having yet (this is in 1642) completed to my mind the full circle ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... and you have not read that breathless romance (disguised as a scientific study), Walter Bagehot's "Lombard Street"? Ah, my dear sir, if you had begun with that, and followed it up for ninety minutes every other evening, how enthralling your business would be to you, and how much more clearly ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... promise of a bottle of punch. He entered Bjoernson's den, got a long pipe which he filled with tobacco, undressed himself completely—for it was a hot day—flung himself on the bed, and began to read. Bjoernson sat in the sofa, breathless with expectation. Leaf after leaf was turned; not a smile, not a single encouraging word! The young poet had good reason to regard the battle as lost. At last the pipe, the bottle, and the book were finished. Then the merciless ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the proposal of a mercenary duke with an epic rejoinder: "Pay a man a million dollars to sleep with my daughter! Never!"... Again Saltus demonstrates how completely he is master of the story-telling gift, how surely he possesses the power to compel breathless attention. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... chance!" she said, breathless with speed and eagerness; "Sallie Calkins, there's a chance, and you'd never guess how. Dirk he wants me to go to a show with him this very night! He's got tickets. It is a big show,—where all the grand folks go. It is in the very biggest hall in this city, ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... deliver oration. Carried out this subtle fancy to such extent that, pitching voice on low conversational tone, sometimes difficult to catch full length of sentences. This added to impressiveness of scene. Crowded House sitting breathless; Members opposite leaning forward lest they might miss a phrase. Everyone conscious that at the door also listening were jealous France, the wily Turk, the interested Egyptian, the not entirely disinterested CZAR, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... cried Anna-Margaret almost breathless as she entered the big kitchen, "tell Edith I laced up my shoes, tell 'er, ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... every fawn and satyr flies For willing service; whether to surprise The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; Or upward ragged precipices flit To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; Or by mysterious enticement draw Bewildered shepherds to their path again; Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, 270 And gather up all fancifullest shells For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells, And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, The while they pelt each other on the crown With silvery oak apples, and fir ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... go in peace, doctor; farewell for the present;" and without waiting for a reply he was walking rapidly away when he was stopped by Beaumarchef, who came up breathless and ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... to be clear. The moon would rise, just beyond the full, a few hours after sunset. It was a warm and breathless night, with less wind than usual. Most of the people crowding the streets and the restaurants were in white linen—themselves suggesting the white and ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... protection, and bade them look to heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L—- was now going to speak, when his Majesty, turning to the Gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, 'Who, my lord, who, thinkest ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... heard JOHN SMITH say the same thing in an eating saloon over a month ago, and out of twenty gentlemen present, four were reporters, but they didn't take out their note books in breathless haste and put down the Hon. JOHN SMITH'S opinion, how Mr. SMITH looked when he said it, and if he said it as though he really meant it, and in a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... priests to fall on the ear. At first Berenger was scarcely able to discern the pale face that looked as if tears were all dried up, and even before his eyes had clearly perceived her in the gloom, she was standing before him with clasped hands, demanding, in a hoarse, breathless whisper, 'Had he said ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resting his hand on his wife's shoulder to keep her seated, and stood in front of her, hiding her from view, so that the sergeant should not see that tell-tale shadow behind her. Even while he held himself there in breathless silence, taking his first look at the man who had travelled all those miles only to carry him southward to his death, he smiled grimly, amused at the Homeric justice of it—that Spurling should have killed and been killed by a woman in disguise, and that on his head should rest the ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... Peter and John come breathless to the tomb. John is in the lead. Either he is younger or swifter of foot. As he comes up he stops at the opening of the tomb, and, with a bit of reverential awe, gazes within. He can see the linen cloths lying; but the body they had encased ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... the last they were breathless both, and stood leaning on their swords. Now fellow, said Sir Turquine, hold thy hand a while, and tell me what I shall ask thee. Say on. Then Turquine said, Thou art the biggest man that ever I met ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... behind him knelt his Jewish physician, who assumed that position, because, although he would not have failed, even at the hazard of his life, to be present, yet he had no strict right to be there; and, moreover, he did not particularly wish to be seen in the business. All were in breathless expectation when the Christian procession entered. The patriarch walked first, with his crosier in his hand; next came Titus, the tutor, bowed down under the huge lectionary, which he bore upon his back, secured by leathern straps over his shoulders; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... chance, his 'History of Calamities' fell into the hands of Heloise at the Paraclete, was devoured with breathless interest, and rekindled the flame that seemed to have smoldered in her bosom for thirteen long years. Overcome with compassion for her husband, for such he really was, she at once wrote to him a letter which reveals the first healthy human heart-beat that had found expression in Christendom for a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wig was torn off and the spectacles laid aside. Then Elise threw herself across her bed, laughing until she gasped for breath. Her mirth was so contagious that Mary joined in, laughing also until she was weak and breathless, and could only cling to the ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in the road, white and hot. The asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long stretch of the ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... whirling ahead at a rate that would have split the ship from her keel to her top-timbers, had we come upon a sunken rock. The chances were about even; for I regarded the pilotage as a very random sort of an affair. We glanced on in breathless expectation, therefore; not knowing but each instant would ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... Baby grabbed the oats up in great haste, but finally she stood with her nose to the ground quietly eating. Mr. Leatherbee drew away the velvet from the camera, and looked at his watch for some breathless minutes. Then he slipped the velvet on again, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... scene was so obviously beyond Miss Bretherton's resources that even the enthusiastic house, Kendal fancied, cooled down during the progress of it. There were signs of restlessness, there was even a little talking in some of the back rows, and at no time during the scene was there any of that breathless absorption in what was passing on the stage which the ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... then proceeded to relate to Wingfield the persecution which Nizza Macascree had endured from the profligate knight The farmer listened to his recital with breathless interest, and when it was ended arose, and, taking a hasty turn round the room, halted at the table and struck it ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of service arrived, Jake Benton and the evangelistic party did not arrive with it. Owing to the lateness of the train, Jake had been unable to get around at the appointed hour. Finally the familiar rattle of Jake's wagon was heard, and now all was breathless expectancy. When the party arrived at the arbor, all eyes were fastened upon the Evangelist. If he had been a ghost moving about in the twilight of that summer evening, he would have been regarded with no more superstition ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison
... Christian ought to do. His mother, his wife, his brothers, and all who were about him kept continually praying for him; his mother, beyond all others, adding to her prayers great austerities." Once he appeared motionless and breathless; and he was supposed to be dead. "One of the dames who were tending him," says Joinville, "would have drawn the sheet over his face, saying that he was dead; but another dame, who was on the other side of the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The girl lay breathless in the arms of the man, her heart beating against his, her face buried in his shoulder. She was dazed, half fainting from the reaction of her fear. The next she remembered clearly was being lowered into ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... horses, waggons, and ox-teams crowded about the hitching-posts, while excitement ran high at mail-time. The general opinion was that any post might bring the news that Congress was "sitting on" the great De Willoughby claim, and that Washington waited breathless for its decision. That all other national business should be suspended seemed inevitable. That any mail should come and go without bringing some news was not contemplated. The riders of the horses and owners of the waggons sat upon the stone porch ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the best Texan marksmen whirled and sent their bullets at the pursuing Mexicans with such good aim that a dozen saddles were emptied, and the whole force reeled back. Then all the Texans darted inside, and the great door was closed and barricaded. Many of the men sank down, breathless from their exertions, regardless of the Mexican bullets that were pattering upon the church. Ward leaned against the wall, and wiped ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hour later when Mrs. Keith, who had walked as fast as she was able, met Foster and the others coming back. She stopped, hot and breathless, with keen disappointment, for neither Colonel Challoner nor Mrs. Chudleigh were among them. Then, rousing herself, with an effort, she asked where ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss |
