"Last gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... materials; and yet they seem to have been composed with the obvious purpose of surpassing them; in which attempt they succeed as much as a hollow hyperbole would in competition with a most fervent truth. Every tragical common-place is worried out to the last gasp; all is phrase; and even the most common remark is forced and stilted. A total poverty of sentiment is dressed out with wit and acuteness. There is fancy in them, or at least a phantom of it; for they ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel was going strong, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... by throwing himself into a furious sea like that to share the death of his friend? Picture to yourself the surging billows, the roar of crashing waters, the hissing foam, the darkness, the hopeless prospect: look at Damon,—he is at his last gasp, he barely keeps himself up, he holds out his hands imploringly to his friend: and lastly look at Euthydicus, as he leaps into the water, and swims by his side, with only one thought in his mind,—Damon must not be the first to perish;—and ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... our own dressings and equipment to pack, and were all just about at our last gasp from want of food and sleep, when a very kind Polish lady came and carried princess, we two Sisters, and Colonel S. off to her house, where she had prepared bedrooms for us. I never looked forward to ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... of hair were shorn, and many fine beards reaped that day, yet several still held out, and vowed to defend their sacred hair to the last gasp of their breath. These were chiefly old sailors—some of them petty officers—who, presuming upon their age or rank, doubtless thought that, after so many had complied with the Captain's commands, they, being but a handful, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... transport of zeal, that if all Japan, and all Europe, if the Father's of the Society, and the Pope himself, should renounce our Saviour Jesus Christ; yet, for his own particular, he would confess him to the last gasp; and be always ready, with God's assistance, to shed his blood, in testimony ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... carried him food, but he ate no longer. For hours he was seen employing his weakened limbs in digging up the earth that separated him from his master. Passion gave him strength, and he gradually approached the body; at last his faithful heart gave way, and he breathed out his last gasp, as if he knew that he had ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light: By which heroic Tam was able To note, upon the haly table, A murderer's banes, in gibbet-airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape— Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom, his ain son o' life bereft— The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi' ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... were many in various parts of the South, so long as they acted under white chiefs, were, like most colored soldiers, marvels of bravery, defying revolvers, bowie knives, and wounds, and fighting to the last gasp with no sign of flinching; but the black men who could be trusted ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the last energies of the once stubborn will gave way. The last gasp of the failing breath was drawn. The herald at the window announced to the waiting multitude that Louis ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... subject in hand; every portion, without any exception, furthering the process of conviction;" and I do not know a more impressive passage of sombre passion than the peroration of his first speech against the Act of Union: "For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my blood; and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... emperor send envoys to propose a peace, and offer to purchase escape by the payment of an immense sum in gold. Sapor, confident of victory, refused the overture, and, waiting patiently till his adversary was at the last gasp, invited him to a conference, and then treacherously seized his person. The army surrendered or dispersed. Macrianus, the Praetorian prefect, shortly assumed the title of emperor, and marched against ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... home from her husband's villa and went into the bedroom on tip-toe, as though nothing had happened, Groholsky, pale, with hectic flushes on his cheeks, was lying in the attitude of a man at his last gasp and moaning. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... up and said, 'Hat, shoot the horse. I won't be quiet in my grave for thinking what kind of treatment it may be getting.' And what does she do but out into the barn and shoot the gun into the air, and come back and let on like the horse is gone. And her poor father lying there at his last gasp." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... really affected with grief or anger presents us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, or the statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might depict the face and color of one ready to faint and ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... have sworn that it was a mile. Miki was past the stage of making estimates, or of caring whether it was two feet or two leagues. His paws had ceased to operate and he had given himself up entirely to his fate. But Neewa came up again, and Miki followed, like a bobber. He was about to gasp his last gasp when the force of the current, as it swung out of the whirlpool, flung Neewa upon a bit of partly submerged driftage, and in a wild and strenuous effort to make himself safe Neewa dragged Miki's head out of water so that the pup hung at the edge of the driftage like ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... revulsion. Margaret realized that, though an odious attraction bound her to the man, she loathed and feared him. The scales fell from her eyes. She remembered on a sudden Arthur's great love and all that he had done for her sake. She hated herself. Like a bird at its last gasp beating frantically against the bars of a cage, Margaret made a desperate effort to regain her freedom. ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... liberty. Should this be denied, they declared they would hang from the battlements fifteen hundred Christian captives, male and female—that they would put all their old men, their women, and children into the citadel, set fire to the city, and sally forth, sword in hand, to fight until the last gasp. "In this way," said they, "the Spanish sovereigns shall gain a bloody victory, and the fall of Malaga be renowned while the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... feel sorry for the reader who does not. You just naturally argue that the faithful Rely will surely reach him and rub him with the balsam. That balsam of Dumas! The same that D'Artagnan's mother gave him when he rode away on the yellow horse, and which cured so many heroes hurt to the last gasp. That miraculous balsam, which would make doctors and surgeons sing small today if they had not suppressed it from the materia medica. May be they can silence their consciences by the reflection that they suppressed it to enhance the value and necessity of their own ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... to render the population homogeneous and prevent religious discord, was extended to Frenchmen, whose only disability, was their faith, and who did not belong to the national Church, and though the colony, more than once was at its last gasp, for want of soldiers and colonists to defend it, it was forbidden ground to the 500,000 industrious Frenchman, whom the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1682, drove to England, Holland and Germany, and the English and Dutch colonies in America. This policy of exclusiveness, was vigorously ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... when I thought myself at my last gasp, about eleven at night, it being in that region quite dark, we reached the summit of Mount Sneffels! It was in an awful mood of mind, that despite my fatigue, before I descended into the crater which was to shelter us for the night, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... her worth, but I know my own. I trust her and her laws, but my trusty servant she shall be, and not my tyrant; and if she interfere with my ideal, even with my personal comfort, then Nature and I will fight it out to the last gasp, and Heaven defend ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... William Lewis were still unwilling to run the risk of an attack on Spinola's army in its lines, and so the two sieges went on side by side, as it were independently. Sluis fell at the end of August, and Ostend was then at its last gasp. Urged now by the deputies of the States to make a direct effort to relieve the heroic garrison, Maurice and his cousin, after wasting some precious time in protesting against the step, began to march southward. It was too late. What was left of Ostend surrendered on September 20, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... like dogs with no human help extended. The Catholic priest who had not been arrested as yet, passing among them in search of his own, bent for a moment over a dying soldier and spoke in friendly tones. The poor fellow burst into tears and with his last gasp cried: ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... themselves at Rhegium, in so cruel and treacherous a manner, nearly ten years before. Accordingly, they took the city, and killed, in the attack, the greatest part of the inhabitants, who, instigated by despair, had fought to the last gasp: three hundred only were left, who were carried to Rome, whipped, and then publicly beheaded in the forum. The view which the Romans had in making this bloody execution, was, to prove to their allies their own sincerity and innocence. Rhegium was immediately restored to its lawful possessors. The ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... insanity. The old man rocked and swayed in his chair, and grasped at the green table-cover, but Meschini had got behind him and pressed his fingers tighter and tighter. His eye rested upon Faustina's handkerchief that lay on the floor at his feet. His victim was almost at the last gasp, but the handkerchief would do the job better. Meschini kept his grip with one hand and with the other snatched up the bit of linen. He drew it tight round the neck and wrenched at the knot with his yellow teeth. There was a convulsive struggle, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... he was evidently sinking fast. Towards noon, his breathing became much oppressed and irregular, and he was evidently dying; the rattle in his throat commenced; and I watched at his bedside, waiting for his last gasp, when he again opened his eyes, and beckoning me, with an effort, to put my head close to him to hear what he had to say, he contrived, in a sort of gurgling whisper, and with much difficulty, to utter—"Peter, I'm going now—not that the rattle—in my throat—is a sign of death: ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... was charged with a message which he would gladly have died to discharge was far away, eating out his heart in silence, or vainly relieving it with unknown words. At the last gasp, or after he ceased to gasp for the time, and was drifting insensible, but happily with his honest face still upward, a Dutchman, keeping a sharp lookout for English cruisers, espied him. He was taken on board of a fine bark bound from Rotterdam for ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there;" but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... own in the other,—money to spend as he liked and no questions asked!—I began to feel dimly how great was the gulf already yawning betwixt us. Fortunately I was not old enough to realise, further, that here on this little platform the old order lay at its last gasp, and that Edward might come back to us, but it would not be the Edward of yore, nor could things ever be the ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... he was at the last gasp, he said, Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... and I will follow thee To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.— From seventeen years till now almost fourscore Here lived I, but now live here no more. At seventeen years many their fortunes seek; But at fourscore it is too late a week: Yet fortune cannot recompense me ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... a look at him yesterday. Dearie me! one wonders his body and soul keep together. And, O Lord, the other day he seemed just at his last gasp, so that they laid him under the holy icns.[1] They started lamenting and got ready ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... the science of observation and experiment, the science of nature in general, applied to the cure of the common-weal in the reign of James the First, and to that particular crisis in its disease, in which it appeared to the observers to be at its last gasp; and that, too, by the principal doctors in that profession,—men of the very largest experience in it, who felt obliged to pursue their work conscientiously, whether the patient objected or not. But are there any such books as these? Certainly. You have ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... said Mrs. Lively violently.—"How dare you speculate on our calamities?" she demanded of the baker. "You sha'n't have my forks: I'll stay here and starve first. I mean to stand this siege of extortion to the last gasp." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... babies, women and men were mixed up in an extraordinary way. Above me I noticed a broken window, through which I managed to scramble, and on finding out how things were returned to the coach to help other passengers. Underneath me seemed to be a dying man. He was in a dreadful condition and at his last gasp, etc., and he made more row than the rest put together. Reaching down and removing mattresses, he grasped my hand, jumped up and thanked me profusely for saving his life. He was not hurt a bit, indeed was the only man in the lot who escaped serious injury. The men behaved ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... inflammable to the last degree. The Yarmouth, therefore, was in serious danger,—more so than in any other period of the action,—her little antagonist having inflicted the most damaging blow with the last gasp, as it were; for little columns of flame and smoke began to rise ominously in a dozen places. Then was manifested the splendid discipline for which British ships were famous the world over. Rapidly and with unerring skill and coolness the proper ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp. ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... or laves our bodies, contains innumerable insects, which are sacrificed to our necessities or comforts; each ingredient in the simplest vegetable fare conveys to inevitable destruction thousands of the most beautiful and harmless of created beings. From the first to the last gasp of our lives, we never inhale the air of heaven without butchering myriads of sentient and innocent creatures. Can we upbraid ourselves then for supporting our lives by the death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... and gloried in it. He would complain with zest of 'larding the lean earth' as he walked along. He was as partial to whisky as his prototype to sack. He would exhaust a Johnsonian vocabulary in describing his ailments; and would appeal pathetically to Miss Bird, as though at his last gasp, for 'just a tea-spoonful' of the grateful stimulant. She served him with a liberal hand, till he cried 'Stop!' But if she then stayed, he would softly insinuate 'I didn't mean it, my dear.' Yet he was no Costigan. His brain was stronger than casks of whisky. And his powers of digestion were in ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... had other words to say, "Renty, renty, Classidas!" she cried, "you called me vile names, but I have a great pity for your soul." He on his side showered down blasphemies. He was at the last gasp; one desperate last effort he made with a handful of men to escape from the boulevard by the drawbridge to Les Tourelles, which crossed a narrow strip of the river. But the bridge had been fired by a fire-ship from Orleans and gave way under the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... but they are at their last gasp. There, Gil, I have placed myself in your hands. If you betray what I have said to-night, every one of the chiefs who now help me, and are my allies, would turn against me, ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... assailants to retreat to their boats; and, carrying the combat into those overcharged and fragile vessels, upset several, and among others that which contained Schenck himself, who, covered with wounds, and fighting to the last gasp, was drowned with the greater part of his followers. His body, when recovered, was treated with the utmost indignity, quartered, and hung in portions over the different gates of ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... what it is. Perhaps it is insincerity, which is a very good thing to be in rebellion against. There is one very amusing and delightful character, a bibulous old sinner who defied law and order and almost at the last gasp ladled out what he considered justice in a most dramatic manner. His name is William Ambrose, and it is worth your while ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... and the cause would have been lost for ever. By holding on, we obtained time for the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated resolutions, saved the constitution, at its last gasp. No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our country however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... such concessions as might satisfy you. If you try to keep the discovery to yourselves, you will continue to live a life of shifts and chicanery. You must give in, or else when you are exhausted and at the last gasp, you will end by making a bargain with some capitalist or other, and perhaps to your own detriment, whereas to-day I hope to see you make a good one with MM. Cointet. In this way you will save yourselves the hardships and the misery of the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... so suddenly. It was the doctor's doing. And, mother, I shall not stay long away from you, for I slept twelve hours at a stretch last night, and now I'm another man. But really, I think the air of that Cairnhope Peak would cure a fellow at his last gasp. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... his cigarette and inhaled a puff thoughtfully. "You don't understand. All you have to say does have some bearing upon things, but, when you get down to brass tacks, it's instinct—at the last gasp, it's instinct. You can't get away from it. Look at the difference between a thoroughbred and a cold-blooded horse! There you are! That's true. It's the fashion now to discount instinct, I know; well—but you can't get away from it. I've thought about the thing—a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the ships the sea-horse ran, until, with a last gasp, he flung himself forward and fell upon the surface ...
— Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover • George Mitchel
... that reached him about this time strengthened him in this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand. The old king had caught a severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field, and in two days he was at his last gasp. On the 25th of January, 1494, he passed away, at the age of seventy, after a thirty-six years' reign, leaving the throne to his elder son, Alfonso, who was immediately chosen ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Recourse was had to urine and salt water, which only increased the wants; half a hogshead of vinegar indeed floated up, of which each had half a wine glass; it afforded a momentary relief, but soon left us again in the same state of dreadful thirst. Almost at the last gasp, every one was dying with misery, and the ship, now one third shattered away from the stern, scarcely afforded a grasp to hold by, to the exhausted ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... For hours he was seen digging up with his weakened limbs the earth that separated him from his beloved master. Passion gave him strength, and at last he was near to the body. Then his faithful heart gave way, and he breathed out a last gasp, as if he knew ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that saved me: Why not confiscate? If their forays were bootless, in the nature of ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... my ears, and I wondered whether I had done well to tell the lie. For had I said that my master was in the Hotel St Quentin, still those fellows would have found it no easy job to take him. Vigo might not be ready to defend Mlle. de Montluc, but he would defend Monsieur's heir to the last gasp. Yet I would not yield before the choking Maitre Menard had withstood, and ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... adopted by thousands whose brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet anybody in argument, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... should both go and witness his departure. I've stood by many a dying man, Master Cap," continued Pathfinder, who had a besetting propensity to enlarge on his experience, stopping and holding his companion by a button,—"I've stood by many a dying man's side, and seen his last gasp, and heard his last breath; for, when the hurry and tumult of the battle is over, it is good to bethink us of the misfortunate, and it is remarkable to witness how differently human natur' feels at such solemn moments. Some go their ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... herself or her character. She deplored the calamity, but she now saw that it was only left to her to make the best of it. The duke had honoured her by coming to her house, and she was bound to welcome him, though in doing so she should bring Lady Lufton to her last gasp. "Duke," she said, "I am greatly honoured by this kindness on the part of your grace. I hardly expected that you would be so ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... eyes rolling hideously, and, as it seemed, sightlessly, in the pangs of death, his hand clutching the knife with which he had so often threatened, and with which he yet seemed destined to take, though in the last gasp of his own, the soldier's life. With one hand he felt along the prisoner's body, as if seeking a vital part, and sustained his own weight, while with the other he made repeated, though feeble and ineffectual, strokes with the knife, all the time rolling, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... carelessly that always seems to me to be a dreadful thing for a man to say. They say it when they talk about their lives to one another, and think about their lives to themselves, and by and by very often say it upon their death-bed with the last gasp, as though their entrance into the eternal world had brought them no deeper enlightenment. One wonders what is the revelation that comes to them when they stand upon the borders of the other side and are in the full life and eternity of God. The thing ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... me lad; but we'll get ye out av it if th' spalpanes will let yez alone ter-noight. Av they joomp yez, we'll be here ter foight ter ther last gasp." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish; for which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins they had been ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... seething waters in deadly danger. Too brave and resolute to leave their comrade-in-arms, too feeble to procure his safety, they were wearing out their strength in futile though heroic efforts, whilst the object of their solicitude was at his last gasp. ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... dead to speak unto me. He speaks to me aloud from that steeple; he whispers to me at these curtains, and he speaks thy words: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.[240] Let this prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, my dying in thee; that if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may die the death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; and if I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... almost at my last gasp, I get a brief peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature? Never before have I so fully felt ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... Mousquet on his way out. The Mousquet hadn't the ghost of a chance. But she went straight for the Emden and fought till she sank; her heroic captain, with both legs blown off, commanding her to the very last gasp. By this time, however, the net was closing in; and twelve days later the big Australian cruiser Sydney finished the Emden on ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... we make our cooking fire; or else the blaze is at the last gasp. Then, after all, we may have been a little off about that ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... glad, yea, glad with all my heart, That thus so clearly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And, when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now, at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes; Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... cities and a dozen minor strong places, fought innumerable combats, put hors de combat numbers of the enemy, moderately estimated at fifteen times its own, and finding the rebellion vigorous, aggressive, and almost threatening the unity of the Chinese Empire, had left it at its last gasp, confined to the ruined capital ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... men, who from sickness or other causes had not gone forth to battle, and the youths who had not sufficient strength to draw their mighty bows, vowed to defend them and the chief's daughter to the last gasp. Cora deputed the old warrior to take the lead, and, as they believed the Tuparas, flushed with victory, would ere long pursue them, they immediately set out on their sad journey ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... nation, I do not reckon to have begun before 1774, and the first love of that young America was Washington. The first word she lisped was his name. Her earliest breath spoke it. It still is her proud ejaculation; and it will be the last gasp of her expiring life! Yes; others of our great men have been appreciated—many admired by all—but him we love; him we all love. About and around him we call up no dissentient, discordant, and dissatisfied elements—no sectional prejudice nor bias—no party, no creed, no ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... thought it possible three months ago? In mid-April the iron grip of the English lay all over the land north of the Loire, and the south lay supine and helpless, stricken with the terror of the victorious conqueror. Orleans was at its last gasp, and with its fall the last bulwark would be swept away; all France must own the sway of the conqueror. The King was powerless, indolent, ready to fly at the first approach of peril, with no hope and no desire ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... my duty, fighting blindly, expect encouragement from her I loved, save at the last gasp and under the heel of love. Then, only, at the very last would she save me; for there was that within her which revolted at a final wrong, and I knew that not even our twin passion could prevail to stamp out the last spark of conscience and slay our ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... Major gave orders to withdraw his Platoon when the Company on his right should retire. This surprised him; for, knowing nothing of the general situation, he had felt that they would hang on, and fight the battle out then and there, to the last gasp. He gave orders to his section commanders, and then lay down to ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... Consul ... forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph—take it."—Letter to Hodgson, October 3, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... lend me also what ye have for the going up of this work: if ye have no more, let us have your shouts and hearty crying, "grace, grace be unto it." Time will not suffer me to speak any more, yet time shall never bereave you or me of this. Let us all resolve so long as our life is in, even to the last gasp, as God will help us, that this shall be our last cry, Grace, grace be unto this work of reformation in the ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... arms round my neck and began kissing me. 'I will never make you cry again, papa!' he said.—He has kept his word, and since then I have never wondered at the suffering in the world. I have puzzled my metaphysical brains to the last gasp about the origin of evil—I don't do that now, for I seem to understand it—but, since then, I have never troubled myself about the origin of suffering. I don't like pain a whit better than another, and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... morbidity. end of life &c. 67, cessation of life &c. 142, loss of life, extinction of life, ebb of life &c. 359. death warrant, death watch, death rattle, death bed; stroke of death, agonies of death, shades of death, valley of death, jaws of death, hand of death; last breath, last gasp, last agonies; dying day, dying breath, dying agonies; chant du cygne[Fr]; rigor mortis[Lat]; Stygian shore. King of terrors, King Death; Death; doom &c. (necessity) 601; "Hell's grim Tyrant" [Pope]. euthanasia; break up of the system; natural death, natural decay; sudden death, violent ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... money. The million pounds of which you speak would be a splendid contribution to what I may term our war chest. But as to my views, here they are. It is my intention, and the intention of my Party, to fight to the last gasp for the literal carrying out of the bill which is to grant us our liberty. We will not have it whittled away or weakened one iota. Our lives, and the lives of greater men, have been spent to win this measure, and now we stand at the gates of success. We should be traitors if we consented ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated. The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has long ago paid by blood for her many years of ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... long years of an exile imprisonment on the barren isle of St. Helena, I heard his last gasp, "Head of the Army!" ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... well-provided foe. All was confusion and panic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagion of alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions, his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently at the last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy into which they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organization of his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... man is apt to be too much fagged and exhausted, both in body and mind, at such a time, to be reliable; and maybe the very thing he wants to say, he cannot think of to save him; and besides there are his weeping friends bothering around; and worse than all as likely as not he may have to deliver his last gasp before he is expecting to. A man cannot always expect to think of a natty thing to say under such circumstances, and so it is pure egotistic ostentation to put it off. There is hardly a case on record where a man came to his last moment unprepared and said a good thing hardly a case where ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... into each other's eyes. Bat Marker had only one mood to express. It was a mood that suggested determination to fight to a finish, to fight with the last ounce of strength, the last gasp of breath. He was sitting at the desk, opposite his friend and employer, Leslie Standing, and his small grey eyes were shining coldly under his shaggy, black brows. His broad ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... Cambridge the spirit of the age, which is said to pervade the air like a pestilence, had infected me; and I set out on my first visit to Paris full of curiosity about what was then the contemporary movement—at its last gasp. My guide was M. Mauclair; his book it was that put me in the right way. For by bringing me acquainted with current theories and reputations, and by throwing me into a fever of expectation, he brought my aesthetic ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... sued for peace, but the allies would not relax their monstrous demands. Marlborough, Eugene, and the Dutch Heinsius all found their own interest in prolonging the war. But with the Bourbon cause apparently at its last gasp in Spain, the appearance there of Vendome ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... he mesmerized it secretly, and scared me so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dear child would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in on Thursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on the darling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... carried it about with him from town to town, a motor accessory sometimes embarrassing, but always divinely precious; how an evil day came upon him at Aix-en-Provence when, the wheezing automobile having uttered its last gasp, he found his occupation gone; how, no longer being able to care for le petit Jean, he left him with a letter and half his fortune outside the door of a couple of English maiden ladies who, staying in the same hotel, had manifested great interest in the baby and himself; ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... note down what I heard at Rome nine years later from the mouth of a tool of the Jesuits. The Cardinal Tamburini was at the last gasp, and the conversation turned upon ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... he replied, more gently than they had expected. "The people here don't understand me, nor I them. I'm laughed at and reviled, a subject for contemptuous jeers, and—and it hurts me. I don't like to be beaten. I'd fight to the last gasp, if I had any show to win. But these conditions, which I foolishly but honestly brought about myself, have defeated me so far in advance that I have absolutely no hope to redeem myself. That's all. Don't speak of it again, girls. Play me that ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... house," cried Ormiston, and both paused to take breath; "and I am about at the last gasp. I wonder if your pretty mistress would feel grateful if she knew what I have come through to-night for her ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... the deck, he held a hurried consultation with his two officers, the result of which was a determination to fight to the last gasp, if the crew were only willing to stand by them. It would be necessary to ascertain their feeling upon the subject before anything could be done; so, it being then within a quarter of an hour of noon, George and the chief mate went below for their quadrants, took the sun's meridian ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... drank the medicine, but instead of that got a village quack to rub her stomach with some wonder-working salve so vigorously that the poor patient died in consequence; in fact she was already at the last gasp when Henrietta arrived. Henrietta was beside herself with grief and anger. She felt like a doctor whose prescriptions have been interfered with by a competitor. She could not indeed help the woman, who expired soon after her arrival, but she had at least the satisfaction of making ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... up the man better than that. And now what a trick of fate it is that he has Johnston before him again, in what we hope will prove the last gasp of the war! He likes Johnston, by the way, and has ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on a plan. The fort was almost at its last gasp. All day Sumbal Khan, Humayon's famous artillery general, had been pounding away at the Iron Gate with deadly aim. A few more well-sent shots would leave the ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... yea, glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies; When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes: Now, if thou would'st, when all have given him over, From death to life thou might'st ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... thing, for bashful men always get the most encouragement, and if persistently bashful, are coaxed into all the intricate arts of the gentle game by the woman who is interested in them. Thus I always seemed to have the good luck of the bashful man up to the last gasp, and until I began to turn blue. She would then see that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes were forgotten when I sought relief by inserting the first two fingers of each hand on either side ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... damn considerate of Miss Hammond's sensitive feelin's." There was now no trace of the courteous, kindly old rancher. He looked harder than stone. "How about my feelin's? I want to know if you're goin' to let this sneakin' coyote, this last gasp of the old rum-guzzlin' frontier sheriffs, put you in irons an' hawg-tie you an' drive you ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... back, and compelled to retreat towards the wigwams. They were closely pursued by their foes; and, at length, threw themselves into the huts, which contained the terrified women and children, and resolved to defend them to the last gasp. While the murderous strife continued, the light of day began to dawn; and soon the full glow of the rising sun revealed the work that had been done in darkness. The ground was strewed with dead and ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... There is one specially vicious ant called the bulldog ant, because of its pluck. Try to kill the bulldog ant with a stick, and it will face you and try to bite back until the very last gasp, never thinking of running away. The bulldog ant has a liking for the careless picnicker, whom she—the male ant, like the male bee, is not a worker—bites with a fierce energy that suggests to the victim that his ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... poinard in her bosom, still untouched by drear adversity, and then again sheathe it in my own! But, no; in times of misery we must fight against our destinies, and strive not to be overcome by them. I would not yield, but to the last gasp resolutely defended my dear ones against sorrow and pain; and if I were vanquished at last, it should not be ingloriously. I stood in the gap, resisting the enemy—the impalpable, invisible foe, who had so long besieged us—as yet he had made no breach: it must be my care that he should ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... it was not only to save myself, but the people in the mine! They are dying, and every moment is precious. It will take a day at least to get to them, so they'll be at their last gasp. Whatever's to be done must be done ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... many a shudder of wild affright, the evil looks and fierce words and gestures of her pursuers of the morning, resolved to defend her own, her mother's, and sister's honor to the last gasp. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... expressionless grey eyes, looking out beneath a shock of flaxen hair. Those who knew him not said that he was stupid. Those who knew him said that you couldn't tell old Harry much that he didn't know. Those who knew him very well said that you could depend on Trevor to his last gasp. Jim loved him—and there were few people ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... off, then," calmly replied the Colonel; "for a few hours longer, and not all the power of Sir William Howe, nor of his master, shall cause one of these gray hairs to fall. The empire of Britain in this ancient province is at its last gasp to-night;—almost while I speak it is a dead corpse;—and methinks the shadows of the old governors are fit ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... implored Lenore, clasping her hands; "we are at the last gasp; even your help can ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'—And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on—Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... this particular case his judgment was sound. We may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but he was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto him while he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing into the shadows, he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We shall have something to say hereafter as to how the British Government dealt with their great ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... plans are maturing, and therefore they will not depart. Oh, Agnes," he continued, bitterly, "my very soul is crushed beneath this weight of unexpressed anxiety and care. Had I but to contend with our English foe, but to fight a good and honorable fight, to struggle on, conscious that to the last gasp the brave inmates of this fortress would follow me, and Edward would find naught on which to wreak his vengeance but the dead bodies of his foes, my task were easy as 'twere glorious; but to be conscious of secret brooding evil each morn that rises, each night that falls, to dread ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... to sleep in the open would be to freeze. As the night fell, our clothing, wet with perspiration, became almost as clammy as sheet iron, and we shivered with weakness as well as with frost. The world became each moment more barren, more wind-swept and Frank was almost at his last gasp. ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... had come again and missed them, and then had come and found them once more: besides letting them easily see that if it hadn't by this time been the end of everything—which they could feel in the exhausted air, that of the season at its last gasp—the places they might have liked to go to were such as they would have had only to mention. Their feeling was—or at any rate their modest general plea—that there was no place they would have liked to go to; there ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... with the Sh[o]gun of Yedo deposed, the dual system abolished, feudalism in its last gasp and Shint[o] in full political power, with the ancient council of the gods (Jin Gi Kuan) once more established, and purified Shint[o] again the religion of state, thousands of Riy[o]bu Shint[o] temples were at once purged of all their ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... famous battlefield where Kamehameha, "the Napoleon of the Pacific," had won the great victory that made him undisputed ruler of the island. They saw the steep precipice where the three thousand Aohu, fighting to the last gasp, had made their final stand, and had at last been driven over the cliff to the death ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... by the two travellers just before mid-day, and long before they reached it Manners had been despatched in great haste to hasten them forward with the news that the poor father was almost at his last gasp. ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... could only be explained—Hiram, in thinking he saw Sam's ghost, and you, Charley, in believing he dreamt it all out of his head. As for the fire burning up, I can tell you all about that, for seeing it just at the last gasp, I stuck in a bit of paper and wood to light it, so as to be more cheerful. I likewise lit my own pipe arterwards, which fully accounts for what ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... picture house a heartrending, soul thrilling melodrama was at its last gasp. The long suffering heroine was in the arms of the long misjudged, misfortune-ridden, ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... tried to maintain neutrality. He soon found out that neutrality did not pay, and his territory was overrun by hostile bands. Pomerania was occupied and retained by the Swedes. Poles, Russians, and Austrians in turn invaded the country. After the Battle of Kunersdorff, in 1761, Prussia was at her last gasp, and Frederick the Great found himself in so desperate a position that he had resolved on committing suicide. Again, after Jena, Berlin was occupied by the French, and for five years remained under ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... always a devoted supporter of Handel, was pessimistic from the beginning of the season. "I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter," she wrote on November 25; "they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it. The directors are always squabbling, and they have so many divisions among themselves that I wonder they have not broke up before; Senesino goes away next winter, and I believe Faustina, so you see harmony ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... Panky may even have deluded himself with the hope that when it came to a pinch the Germans had deemed it best to give up their desperate intention of defending the ford to the last gasp. Josh knew better, because he understood the holdfast nature of the Teutons better than did his chums. And he was mentally figuring on just when the bitter blast would break forth that was going to mow down those valiant men with the red trousers and the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... Then he pronounced the salutation which closes prayer; yet every road appeared closed to him. And while he sat turning right and left, behold, he espied a horseman making towards him with bent back and reins slack. He sat up right and after a time reached the Prince; and the stranger was at the last gasp and made sure of death, for he was grievously wounded when he came up; the tears streamed down his cheeks like water from the mouths of skins, and he said to Kanmakan, "O Chief of the Arabs, take me to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... throughout the convention; and, from the letters we have already received urging us to go hither and thither throughout the West, "The prairies seem to be all on fire with woman's suffrage." While politicians are trying to patch up the Republican party, now near its last gasp, the people in the West are getting ready for the new national party, to combine the best elements of both the old ones, soon to be buried forever out of sight. Woman's suffrage, greenbacks, free trade, homesteads for all, eight hours labor, and three per cent the legal interest, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... same, April 15.-The rebellion at its last gasp. Supplies from France taken. Hanoverian troops. Trial of Hawley. Marriage of Lord Kildare. An odd discovery. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... weight of the stones and almost on the point of death began to tremble. And beholding me, all my friends rejoiced again even as men rejoice on seeing the sun rise in the sky, dispersing the clouds. And seeing my horses almost in their last gasp for breath, afflicted with that load of stones, my charioteer said unto me in words suitable to the occasion, 'O thou of the Vrishni race, behold Salwa the owner of the car of precious metals sitting (yonder). Do not disregard him! Do thou exert thyself! Do thou abandon thy ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... charming in being young and sprightly all one's life: it would appear absurd in England to hear, what I have just heard, a fat virtuous lady of seventy toast Love and Opportunity to a young fellow; but 'tis nothing here: they dance too to the last gasp; I have seen the daughter, mother, and grand-daughter, in the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... a hundred miles away. The youngest brings three stones of a grape, one of which put into the mouth of a person who is dying restores him to life. They at once test the telescope by wishing to see the princess, and they find her dying—at the last gasp indeed. By means of the carpet they reach the palace m time to save her life with one of the grape-stones. Each claims the victory. Her father, almost at his wits' end to decide the question, decrees that ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... to us! And if you should ever find you canNOT pray any more, tell me, and I will try to help you. I don't think that time will ever come to me. I can't tell—but always hitherto, when I have seemed to be at the last gasp, things have taken a turn, and it has grown possible to go ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... we were revolving in enormous circles in the ether, and I had long since given my last gasp, when there came a great roaring wind in my ears and a range of mountains toppled upon us both; we went to ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... or never." We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at our last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer, with his shaggy coat, full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized, par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... with all sail set," Jack told him, with a smile, for it is always pleasant to have a friend hand out a meed of praise, even to the most modest boy going. "I knew Joel was at the last gasp, and even a second lost might mean he'd go down for the third time before I could get there. And yet do you know, Toby, it seemed to me right then and there as if I had a ton of lead fastened to me. Why, I felt as though something was holding me back, just as you ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... effort, and the debate, for a while revived by his interposition, continued to languish until this hour (nine o'clock), with successive relays of mediocrity, until it yielded its last gasp in the arms ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... had uttered this frightful wish, he fell back in the chair; his eyes became glazed, his limbs stiffened, but the grin and glare of mortal hatred survived even the last gasp of life. I will dwell no longer on so painful a picture, nor say any more of the death of Rashleigh, than that it gave me access to my rights of inheritance without farther challenge, and that Jobson found himself compelled to allow, that the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... mirth, and pastimes without Pleasure, Youth without Honour, Age without respect, Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe 'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,[477] Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, Then, in the last gasp of thine agony, Amidst thy many murders, think of mine! Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes![478] Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom![fx][479] Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods! 100 Thee and thy serpent seed! [Here the DOGE ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... Pondicherry. They had witnessed the rise of French power under Dupleix; rulers deposed and others set up, in the Deccan and the Carnatic, by French arms; and then, when Mahomed Ali, the rightful ruler of the Carnatic, was at his last gasp, they had seen his cause espoused by the English, and one humiliation after another inflicted on French armies, till at last the French were forced to recognize Mahomed Ali's title, while a powerful English squadron and a King's regiment had been sent out to make ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... they would feast upon me when they had taken me, than those who would perhaps glut their rage upon me by inhuman tortures and barbarities; that in the case of the savages, I always resolved to die fighting to the last gasp, and why should I not do so now? Whenever these thoughts prevailed, I was sure to put myself into a kind of fever with the agitation of a supposed fight; my blood would boil, and my eyes sparkle, as if I was engaged, and I always resolved to take no quarter at their hands; ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... interposition of heaven will bring him safety; and a confidence in this interposition takes possession of him. He does not see how deliverance can come, but it will come. His labouring breast strains, his brain whirls, he is at his last gasp: when all at once the heart leaps up in his bosom, the wheels in his head stand still, a flash of satisfaction comes over him. Once more and once more, again and again, at the last gasp of the struggle he ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death will be the result. Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in Australia lay at his last gasp because his spirit had departed from him. A medicine-man went in pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle just as it was about to plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by the souls ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... driven at last, in open day, He ran into the kitchen, Fell on the hearth, and squirming lay, In the last convulsion twitching. Then laughed the murderess in her glee: "Ha! ha! he's at his last gasp," said she, "As if he had love ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... necessary that they should have a hairdresser even to the last gasp! [A short silence.] But will ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... obliged to stop at Tocat; that he had taken up his abode at the caravanserai, where he had already spent a week, during which time he had been attended by a Frank doctor, an inhabitant of Tocat, who, instead of curing, had, in fact, brought him to his last gasp,—that having heard of my arrival from Persia, he had brightened up and requested, without loss of time, that I would call upon him, for he was sure the presence of one coming from his own country would alone restore him to health. In short, his servant, as is usual on such ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... and relief. She skipped to the tiny turret which rose above our heads, and lifted the door-latch. But, instead of disappearing within, she turned and looked at me in white dismay. The door was bolted. Her look roused what there was of manhood in me. I felt that, as it had now come to the last gasp, it ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... is at the last gasp (warlike digression). It is not surprising. I cannot build without iron. I can get it at ten francs in the world's market; but, through the law, the managers of the French forges compel me to pay them fifteen francs. Thus they take ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... vicarage, making another offer for the girl's hand, as it were, with his last gasp. But as he went, he told himself that it was impossible that it should be accepted. Every chance had now gone from him, and he must look his condition in the face as best he could. It had been bad enough with him before, when no hope had ever been held out to him; when the ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... towards the close of that century connects and supplements their stories; Claudian, the poet-historian of the 5th century, whose verses throw a lurid gleam on his own disastrous age, when Roman authority in Britain was at its last gasp; and finally the British writers, Nennius and Gildas, whose "monotonous plaint" shows that authority dead and gone, with the first stirring of our new national life ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... successful. In the midst of a half-starved, ill-equipped army, a disintegrating, bankrupt government, and a people whose fighting spirit was rapidly dwindling, it was he with his officers who had saved the Revolution at the last gasp. ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... sleight, Each in its cauld hand held a light, By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee unchristen'd bairns, A thief, new cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape: Five tomahawks, wi' blude red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter which a babe had strangled; A knife a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack to the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Each in its cauld hand held a light,— By which heroic Tam was able To note upon the haly table, A murderer's banes in gibbet airns; Twa span-lang, wee, unchristian bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape, Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o' life bereft, The grey hairs yet stack ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... credit, trade for ten thousand pounds a-year, and have not one groat of real stock of their own left in the world! Nay, I can say it of my own knowledge, that I have known a tradesman trade for ten thousand pounds a-year, and carry it on with full credit to the last gasp, then die, and break both at once; that is to say, die unsuspected, and yet, when his estate has been cast up, appear to be five thousand pounds worse than nothing in the world: how he kept up his credit, ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and, throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the water, and ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... then, Nicias, and do what you can to help your friends, who are tossing on the waves of argument, and at the last gasp: you see our extremity, and may save us and also settle your own opinion, if you will tell us what you think ...
— Laches • Plato
... reputations, an allusion to him was still the signal for universal commotion; his very name would be greeted with clouds of ecstatic adjectives, and wild interjections and enthusiatic superlatives would fly buzzing about your ears until language would seem to be at its last gasp, and for a week to come the positive and comparative degrees would be applicable only to ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Parliaments of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had not succeeded, in the space of a century, in destroying monasticism; the Cromwellian war alone seemed to have done so, as it left the entire nation almost at the last gasp, on the verge of annihilation. Nevertheless, a few years saw the orders again revive and prepare to start their holy work anew. Henry VIII. then, and his vicar, Cromwell, deceived themselves in thinking that they ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... advantage in the matter of height, and more particularly in length of arm, which enabled him to get in a blow when his opponent's fell short; though the less robust of the two he had as much pluck as pride, and would have fought on to the last gasp. ...
— With Marlborough to Malplaquet • Herbert Strang and Richard Stead
... close his ports against English ships: 600 of them are wandering about the Baltic, after being repulsed from its southern shores, in the hope of getting into Russian harbours. Let Alexander seize their cargoes, and England, now at her last gasp, must give in. Five weeks later he returns to the charge. It is not enough to seize British ships; the hated wares get in under American, Swedish, Spanish, and Portuguese, even under French flags. Of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like —something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's croak. The fellow'll be killing him. It's time to go to the rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he forestalled catastrophe.—Ho, there, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... long he was in the water, and when day dawned it seemed all over with him, so overpowering was his despair. Consciousness had quite abandoned him, and he was almost at the last gasp when he was seen and picked up by a passing ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... wildfire until the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it, flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took effect and he ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... planned! The smaller frog, knowing that he was no match for the other in strength, had waited cunningly till he was all absorbed in the red fly, and then stole upon him, intending to finish him first and the little red thing afterwards. He would have done it too; for the big frog was at his last gasp, when I interfered and put them both ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... and serenity, that were it not for some grimaces she made a quarter of an hour before she gave up the ghost, you would have thought she lay upon a bed of flowers. But her two children lay heavy at her heart, and even to her last gasp she never would forgive Camacha, such a resolute spirit she had. I closed her eyes and followed her to the grave, and there took my last look at her; though, indeed, I have not lost the hope of seeing her again before I die, for they say that several ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... its ours," retorted Harold, "and we stand ready to defend it to the last gasp. Come on; take it if you can! We dare you to ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... suffocated. What a night! I'm unable to depict it. Such sufferings are indescribable. The next day I was short-winded. Headaches and staggering fits of dizziness made me reel like a drunk. My companions were experiencing the same symptoms. Some crewmen were at their last gasp. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... which reveal a hell of anguish hidden in the brain or in the heart, a something ardent, concentrated, not to be expressed in words. He ended his sentence with a look that startled me. After a pause, he told me that Poland being at her last gasp he had taken refuge in Sweden. There he had sought consolation for his country's fate in the study of chemistry, for which he had always felt an irresistible vocation. 'And I see you recognize as I do,' he added, 'that gum arabic, sugar, and starch, reduced to powder, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... despair, au desespoir[Fr], forlorn, desolate; inconsolable &c. (dejected) 837; broken hearted. unpromising, unpropitious; inauspicious, ill-omened, threatening, clouded over. out of the question, not to be thought of; impracticable &c. 471; past hope, past cure, past mending, past recall; at one's last gasp &c. (death) 360; given up, given over. incurable, cureless, immedicable, remediless, beyond remedy; incorrigible; irreparable, irremediable, irrecoverable, irreversible, irretrievable, irreclaimable, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and five hundred men were left upon the field. Young Captain Sabbatier was in command, and when I asked him where were the five missing squadrons he pointed back and answered: "You will find them round one of those British squares." Men and horses were at their last gasp, caked with sweat and dirt, their black tongues hanging out from their lips; but it made me thrill with pride to see how that shattered remnant still rode knee to knee, with every man, from the boy trumpeter to the farrier-sergeant, in his ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... had killed a man. And yet for this killing there was not in this girl's mind one atom of regret. She was so grateful that she had been there, and had been enabled to do it. She had seen her uncle almost at his last gasp, and she had saved him from making that last gasp. Moreover, she had saved the life of the man who had saved the most important life in the land. She knew the face of the gentleman in the barouche who sat on the side nearest her; she knew ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp, My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Reardon are the wrong kind of Irish to have together in the same ship. We did our best to prevent it, but the odds are too long for us; the coal is for the Germans and we hate England, so why worry? I know Mike Murphy will not take that view of it; for my sake he'll fight to the last gasp, but he must have help, and Reardon owes me no such ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... to say truth, Sir, 'twas a good-natur'd civil beast, and so she remain'd to her last gasp, for she cou'd never have left this World in a better time, as the saying is, so ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... his last gasp, and the floor literally swam with blood. As we bent over him to catch his words he whispered, 'It was Railton—that—I saw. Good-bye, Alice,' and fell back a corpse. I carried the body to a corner of the cabin, took off my jacket and covered up his face, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he'll have himself strapped to his own kitchen table, and defend himself to the last gasp with a carving-knife. Exors says that the law is bad, and you can't touch him. As for Barnes, he has gone out of what little wits he ever had with the fright of it, and people seem to think that you couldn't touch ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... sinking away, the last gasp, and eternity opened! In the distance there dawned upon her vision the glory of the city, the golden gates, the crowns, the harps, the white-robed throng, the wonderful music thrilling her soul. As she tremblingly approached the gate, her heart gave a bound, for that kingly One could be no other ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston |
