"Spasmodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exultantly as his fingers extracted the hook. John brought out the fish stringer, and the unfortunate minnow, firmly tied by the gills, was lowered slowly into the water. The pair watched its spasmodic efforts at escape with a ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... child was born to Mary and Martin during the year following the change in the family, but Sandy looked upon his half-sister with little interest. That the boy was not driven entirely from the home place was due to the fact that through him came the only money available. Martin exchanged his spasmodic labour for clothing or food, but Sandy brought cash. Mary thought he gave her all, and because of that he ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... opinions. We speak of exceptional instances, not of ordinary habits. He seemed unable to persuade himself that a scheme of faith which was false to him could be true to others of equal intelligence and virtue. He fell too easily into the spasmodic vice of the day, and said striking things rather than true ones. He assumed a basis of faith every whit as dogmatic as special revelation, and sometimes grievously misrepresented the creeds which he assailed. Strangers might go to the Music Hall to breathe the free air of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... spasmodic movement of the victim, and immediately above the middle of his forehead a black hole marred the whiteness of the figure-head. A dreadful pause; then again the report, and the solid sound and jar of the bullet in the wood; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no more, but, with an effort that forced a groan, he rolled over on his face, and thence raised himself to a kneeling posture. He paused so a moment, and then, by another spasmodic movement, succeeded in gaining his feet. He had been twice kicked in his right leg, and the pain was wellnigh insupportable. He stood ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... vast party of the Insurgents, or Confederates, including the whole Roman Catholic population of the island, both the old Irish natives, who had mainly begun the Rebellion, and the Catholics of English descent who had joined in it. Gradually the mere spasmodic atrocity of the first Rebels had been changed into something like an organized warfare, commanded in chief by Generals Preston and Owen Roe O'Neile, while the political conduct of the Rebellion and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... into a counterfeit inspiration, but to alleviate bodily pain. It became, gradually and reluctantly, a necessity of his life. Like the serpents around Laocoon, it confirmed its grasp, notwithstanding the wild tossings of his arms, the spasmodic resistance of every muscle, the loud shouts of protesting agony; and, when conquered, he lay like the overpowered Hatteraick in the cave, sullen, still in despair, breathing hard, but perfectly powerless. Its effects on him, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... men set to deal with heartbreaking perplexity. All weakness comes to the surface. We are homeless in a jungle of machines and untamed powers that haunt and lure the imagination. Of course our culture is confused, our thinking spasmodic, and our emotion out of kilter. No mariner ever enters upon a more uncharted sea than does the average human being born in the twentieth century. Our ancestors thought they knew their way from birth through all eternity; ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... Spasmodic Tragedy,' written to ridicule the style of Bailey, Dobell, and Alexander Smith, and published in 1854, had so many excellent qualities that it was received as a serious production instead of a caricature. Aytoun introduced this in Blackwood's Magazine as a pretended review ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... of the preceding year the Midlands, after several spasmodic struggles, appeared prostrate and helpless at the feet of the Conqueror, who had taken advantage of the opportunity to build strong castles everywhere, and to garrison them with brave captains and trusty soldiers. Warwick Castle was given to Henry de Beaumont, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... delicate health as the reason for assuming them, as he did; though I used to think, that for a man in poor health, he was very swift on the legs; at least when a good place was to be jumped to; though that might only have been a sort of spasmodic exertion under strong inducements, which every one knows the greatest invalids will ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... instant, he was seen to turn over in the water; his limbs moved only with a spasmodic action; he gave a feeble kick or two with his long hind legs; and then his carcass floated along the surface, like a ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... gradually pressed down on my inflamed Prick. The long slow insertion into that furnace of love was delicious, and as she felt the head at last reach the very entrance to her longing womb, her sperm came in a flood. Mine also had been so put up that the spasmodic contractions of the folds of the innermost parts of her vagina at the moments of emission drew an equally copious ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... mine does," he said with a sigh, laying her little hand on his heart. He could do so in all confidence, for its spasmodic throbbing threatened to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... word for it, and munched at tongue and biscuits. As for muscle, we were both in hard condition. He was fresh, and what distress I felt was mainly due to spasmodic exertion culminating in that desperate spurt. As for the fog. it had more than once shown a faint tendency to lift, growing thinner and more luminous, in the manner of fogs, always to settle down again, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... against the black night sky, flashes of gunfire showed now and then, the following thunder establishing the fact that the front was within three or four hours' marching time. The gunfire, however, was not heavy, being merely the spasmodic firing incident to such nights as ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... existence she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up the path with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he mustered an unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and geniality so slight an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, did she perceive how time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the inmost thought and the secret sentiment had been chiselled into the face in the betrayals of the sculpture ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... disposition may change, she may want to be alone, and she may be more or less melancholy. She will be dissatisfied with the things that previously interested her. She will tire easily, and she may have many spasmodic pains from time to time. The wise mother will tactfully see that she takes plenty of nourishing food and systematic exercise, and that she gets enough sleep in a well-aired room. There are other physical changes which are observable ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... animated only by frenzied brute instinct to find the throat of his tormenter, and ever and ever failing; till at length he crumpled and lay crushed and writhing, then subsided into insensibility, was quite still but for heaving lungs and the spasmodic clutchings of his broken and ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... had them. She had arrived at no decision whatever; she had embraced in intention no particular course. She drifted on, shutting her eyes, averting her head and, as it seemed to herself, hardening her heart. This admission will doubtless suggest to the reader that she was a weak, inconsequent, spasmodic young person, with a standard not really, or at any rate not continuously, high; and I have no desire that she shall appear anything but what she was. It must even be related of her that since she could ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... a hiatus here. One cannot write of what one does not know. I lost all trace of Shelby during the intervening years, except that I saw spasmodic productions of his in various periodicals, and guessed that he must be working in those same bachelor quarters probably still surrounded with the pictures of Miss Davis. There were rumors, also, that he went frequently to the opera with very grand people, and dined and supped ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a short time and means to get animals, farm implements, etc., will end the present conditions and put the people of the island on the road to prosperity. Spasmodic issues of army rations give only temporary relief and ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... and the French Government was thus placed on its guard against the sudden explosion of Prussian wrath. Lucchesini's despatch had indeed all the importance that Talleyrand attributed to it. It brought that spasmodic access of resolution to the irresolute King which Bernadotte's violation of his territory had brought in the year before. The whole Prussian army was ordered to prepare for war; Brunswick was summoned to form plans of a campaign; and appeals for help were sent ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... good purpose and noble aspiration caused by our reticence at a time when it is of primary importance to turn to account all the forces which make for the elevation of mankind? How much intellect and zeal runs to waste in the spasmodic effort of good men to cling to the last fragments of decaying systems, to galvanize dead formulae into some dim semblance of life! Society will not improve as it might when those who should be leaders of progress are staggering backward and forward with their eyes passionately reverted ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark—this lightly-clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature—up there! He remembered her now. Ha! very well then. Hoop-la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit, ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of our age, both young and old, should know that that God-consciousness of the Jew, that wondrous sense of eternity in his mission, is not a laboriously acquired conviction, not the result of some spasmodic effort of grasping the innermost meaning of our history, but the natural pervading spirit of Jewish life, the air which the Jew breathes, when he lives with Torah as his guide and Mitzvah as his ladder ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... Every doctor will tell you that he is more afraid to give tobacco, | | even as an enema, than any other poison in the Materia Medica: he | | never gives it by the stomach. Sometimes, in violent spasmodic colic, | | or strangulation of the bowels, or spasmodic croup, tobacco is used | | externally as a poultice, and if you are not very careful, it will | | kill your patient even in this form. Many a colt and ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... the patella is a condition wherein the articular portions of the femur and patella assume abnormal relations whether such displacement of the patella be momentary and capable of spontaneous reduction, or fixed and requiring corrective manipulation. Spasmodic contraction of the crural muscles which sometimes retains the patella in such position that the leg is rigidly extended, does not in itself constitute luxation of the patella; and unless this bone becomes lodged on the upper portion of a femoral ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... see how much trouble a woman was spared when she was constructed on that system. Adeline's "affairs," as I have intimated, her social relations, her views of Newton's education, her practice and her theory (for she had plenty of that, such as it was, heaven save the mark!), her spasmodic disposition to marry again, and her still sillier retreats in the presence of danger (for she had not even the courage of her frivolity), these things had been a subject of tragic consideration to Olive ever since the return of the elder sister to America. ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... prophetess professionally, that she had witnessed a scene of consternation and unaffected maternal grief in this Hungarian lady upon the sudden seizure of her son, a child of four or five years old, by a spasmodic inflammation of the throat (since called croup), peculiar to children, and in those days not very well understood by medical men. The poor Hungarian, who had lived chiefly in warm, or at least not damp climates, and had never so much as heard of this complaint, was almost ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Galway peasants had passed away, and though she kept pictures before her mind of a redeemed district, and children brought up in health and cleanliness instead of disease and dirt, and home industries taking the place of the idleness that followed spasmodic labour, misgivings entered with them as she saw herself no longer "the lady" who stooped from a high level, but a mere doctor's wife (she would not admit even to her thoughts the undesirable title of "Mrs. Quin"), living in that ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... it; a long, loose pair of legs, with long boots on the feet, all in motion at the same time—all shining, and wriggling, and working with an indescribable vitality, a voice bubbling up from the vast depths below with cheery, spasmodic, and unintelligible words of welcome—this was the wonderful man that stood before me, the great Danish improvisator, the lover of little children, the gentle Caliban who dwells among fairies and holds sweet converse with fishes, and frogs, and beetles! I would have picked him out from among ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... A horrible spasmodic feeling thrilled through his soul; in order to conceal what he felt he became more than usually animated, yet there was a something hostile, a something sternly sarcastic in his words, which still, on account of the general gaiety, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... accept John Lambert; but what troubled him was a vague knowledge that it was not mere pique. He was used to dealing with pique in women, and had found it the most manageable of weaknesses. It was an element of spasmodic conscience than he saw ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... been steady, on every day of the 365 you would have seen more than 2,800 living beings—men, women, and children, of almost every conceivable condition except that of wealth or eminence—pass from the examination "pens" into the liberty of American opportunity. Since the stream was spasmodic, its numbers did reach as high in a single ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... is no time nor power in the instant of death, by any magical legerdemain, to turn away the impending retributions of wickedness and guilt. What is right, within the conditions of Infinite wisdom and goodness, will be done in spite of all traditional juggles and spasmodic spiritual attitudinizations. What can it avail that a most vile and hardened wretch, when dying, convulsed with fright and possessed with superstition, compels, or strives to compel, a certain sentiment into his soul, conjures, or tries to conjure, his mind into ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... evils which had always been there, had that which the others lacked, moral conviction, and Hartington was infected with moral indifferentism. The Conservatives no doubt thought that Mr. Gladstone's attitude was mere emotional facility, a mere exhibition of spasmodic power of transient enthusiasm, an effect rather of temperament than of conviction, and unlikely therefore to produce a continued consequence of action sustained at a high level. The public, however, saw more clearly. Power over the ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... when the intervals between the courses were unduly prolonged and conversation could proceed without spasmodic jerks on the part of the entertainers. Mrs. Devereaux herself, a rather slight, elderly woman with soft white hair elaborately arranged, and kind, brown eyes, responded with evident pleasure to Marcia's pretty, childlike warmth, and was politely cordial to Frank and Kitty. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... only a few days; then, like a veritable conflagration, it began to languish; and, like the reflection of a dying fire, as it sank it began to glow with the red color of embers. But its changes were spasmodic; once about every three days it flared up only to die away again. During these fluctuations its light varied alternately in the ratio of one to six. Finally it took a permanent downward course, and after a ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... story, and its magic dispelled the wrath of her much neglected, sorely aggrieved mistress. Such a pretty little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... indicates a dangerous attack, and the alae nasi (cartilages of the nose) rise spasmodically at each inspiration; the air rushes through the inflamed windpipe and bronchial tubes, so as to produce a loud, coarse respiratory murmur; and the spasmodic action of the abdominal muscles indicates the difficulty the animal also experiences in the act of expiration. Pressure over the intercostal (between the ribs) spaces, and pressing on the spine, induce the pain so characteristic ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... a spasmodic jerking of his hand toward his hip. Hare's arm moved quicker, and Chance's Colt went ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... Rouen, there probably lurks a good deal of republicanism, akin to that which exists among the workingmen of Paris. Unfortunately it is of a kind which, though capable of spasmodic attempts to revolutionize society by force, is little capable of sustained constitutional effect, and which alarms and arrays against it, not only despots, but moderate friends of liberty and progress. The outward appearances, however, at Rouen are all in favor of the Zouave and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... he had [77] always yearned to, as popular imagination just now set thither also, in a vision of French ships going forth from the mouths of the Loire and the Gironde, from Nantes, Bordeaux, and La Rochelle, to the Indies, in rivalry of Spanish adventure. The spasmodic gaiety of the time blent with that of the season of the year, of his own privileged time of life, and allowed the opulent country through which he was to pass all its advantages. Ever afterwards that ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... toll-keeper's widow behind me as I watched the spasmodic jerkings of this umbrella. "I wasn't far out in my reckon. And you, sir, make twenty-two. It niver rains but it pours, they say. Times enow I don't see a soul for days together, not to hail by name, an' now you drops in on top ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sickly, faint-hearted, lukewarm, languid, and spasmodic efforts that the cause is to be kept alive. God will have all or nothing. This is an age in which, if never before, both good men and bad men are truly in earnest. The devil is fearfully and terribly in earnest "Therefore rejoice you heavens, and you that dwell in them Woe to the inhabitants ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... the side of the boat, she made a grasp at the oar, but it was too far for her to reach it; and then, by a spasmodic movement of the other oar, the ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... to the exhibition occupies a bare, disconsolate, shabby suite of rooms. They resemble much the editorial offices of those ephemeral daily papers which, commencing with very small capital, after a spasmodic career of a few months fall despairingly into the arms of the sheriff. I had once occasion to visit the commission on a little matter of business. What that was I have forgotten: I recollect only the multiplicity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... finished their meal when the sounds lessened, dwindling to spasmodic, staggering gasps with lengthening pauses that broke suddenly in a quivering intake of breath and a vibration of the recumbent frame. The hysterical paroxysm was over. He lay limp and turned his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... their talk in the hunting-lodge of Pontesordo. What she had offered then he had refused to take: was she the woman to forget such a refusal? Was it not rather to keep its memory alive that she had married him? Or was she but the flighty girl he had once imagined her, driven hither and thither by spasmodic impulses, and incapable of consistent action, whether for good or ill? The barrier of their past—of all that lay unsaid and undone between them—so completely cut her off from him that he had, in her presence, the strange sensation of a man who believes himself to be alone ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... long enough for Joel. He swept the blanket down upon the man, smothering his cries with fold on fold; and he grappled Varde, and crushed him, and beat at his head with his fists until the mate's spasmodic struggles slackened. Priss had heard the sounds of combat, swept out of her cabin, bent above them. He looked up and saw her; ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... eyes. The driven restlessness that had made Conscience doubt her sanity was slowly yielding to a sense of repose, as the tautened anguish of a mangled body relaxes to the balm of an anesthetic. Slowly the slenderly curved and graciously proportioned modeling of her lithe figure quieted from spasmodic unrest and the wild racing measure of her heart-beat calmed. Then she turned up her face. Her eyes cleared and her lips tilted ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... not—presently the hand he clasped sank heavily from his touch. Then there was a spasmodic convulsion of the whole frame. Then there burst a piercing shriek from her lips, as she half raised herself in agony from the sofa, and then each limb was set and motionless in the stern ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... returned, at intervals, with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I suffered much less than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at every moment, with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus, and got it ready ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... habit we get of singling out some particular quality, some particular school of art for intemperate praise or, still worse, for intemperate abuse. Mr. Ruskin, I suppose, is answerable for the taste for this one-sided and spasmodic criticism; and every young gentleman who has the trick of a few adjectives will languidly vow that Marlowe is supreme, or Murillo foul. It is the mark of rational criticism as well as of healthy thought to maintain an evenness of mind in judging of great works, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... if you have any fellow-feeling, these cannot fail to produce a feeling of discomfort. The disorder is catching; and do what you will you cannot resist the general infection. You struggle against it; you make spasmodic efforts to be lively; but none of your sallies or your good stories do more than raise a simper or a forced laugh: intellect and feeling are alike asphyxiated. And when, at length, yielding to your ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... away, rather spasmodic. He had been through the very front hell of the war—and like every man who had, he had the war at the back of his mind, like an obsession. But ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... "Resign." The public officials of this favored country, Heaven be thanked, are infrequently slandered: they are, as a rule, so bad that calumniation is a compliment. Our best men, with here and there an exception, have been driven out of public life, or made afraid to enter it. Even our spasmodic efforts at reform fail ludicrously for lack of leaders unaffiliated with "the thing to be reformed." Unless attracted by the salary, why should a gentleman "aspire" to the Presidency of the United States? During his canvass (and he is expected to "run," not merely to "stand") ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... seemed to throw any light upon the case, except a condition of well-marked phimosis. Acting upon this, the Professor immediately circumcised the child, and from the very day of the operation the spasmodic action began to diminish, and in two weeks he was entirely well, without any other ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Yes, Le! With all my heart!" she impulsively answered. Then, catching her breath in a spasmodic way, as some painful thought sped like an arrow through her heart, she added, in a subdued tone: "But, Le, before anything of that sort is quite settled between us, I want you to talk ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... in which Dr. Ryerson pre-eminently excelled—that of a controversialist. There was nothing spasmodic in his method of controversy, although there might be in the times and occasions of his indulging in it. He was a well-read man and an accurate thinker. His habit, when he meditated a descent upon a foe, was to thoroughly master the subject in dispute; ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... and the sweat standing in beads upon his forehead. His own throat had tightened and he grew weak in the knees every time the rubber-soled nurse stole into sight. Every now and then he heard that gasping cough, and felt the spasmodic grip of Chic's fingers upon his arm. It was terrible; for weeks ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... of the skin as well as their own. Then, in case the lungs are the weakest organ, the mucous secretion becomes excessive; so that it would fill up the cells, and stop the breathing, were it not for the spasmodic effort called coughing, by which this substance is thrown out. In case the nerves are the weakest part of the system, such an exposure would result in pains in the head or teeth, or in some other nervous ailment. If the muscles ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... upon the body. Her mind, wandering and purposeless, yet spoke to mine, and renewed all its racking doubts, and exaggerated all its nameless fears. Her veins burned with fever. She was fitfully delirious. Words fell from her at spasmodic moments—strange, incoherent words, but all full of meaning in my ears. I sat beside the bed on one hand, while, on one occasion, her mother occupied a seat upon that opposite. The eyes of my wife opened upon both of us—turned from me, convulsively, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... nearing Trouville, the big drops fell. The grain-fields were soon bent double beneath the spasmodic shower. The poppies were drenched, so were the cobble paved courtyards; only the geese and the regiment of the ducks came abroad to revel in the downpour. The villas were hermetically sealed now—their summer finery was not made for a wetting. The landscape had no such ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... little. Marley Wood was not new to her. It had been a favourite spot of her brother Austin's, and the two had spent many a pleasant day beneath the umbrage of those old forest-trees; she, sitting and reading, neither of them talking very much, only in a spasmodic way, when Austin was suddenly moved by some caprice to pour out his thoughts into the ear of his little sister—strange bitter thoughts they were sometimes; but the girl listened as to the inspirations of genius. Here he had taught her almost all that she had ever learned of landscape art. She ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... with a straight nose, and large mouth, and high cheek-bones; but he had fine black eyes, though they were fierce, and had a look in them that suggested the woods and the wild things that live there. But Ranald, though his attendance was spasmodic, and dependent upon the suitability or otherwise of the weather for hunting, was the best ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... cuckoo, that seemed to come in whenever an interval of silence fitted. The swallows dipped and flashed and circled over the bosom of the lake. There were blackbirds eagerly but cautiously at work, with their spasmodic trippings, on the lawn. A robin perched on the iron railing eyed her curiously and seemed more disposed to approach than to retreat.—WILLIAM BLACK, in Green Pastures ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance. He had lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this morning, that Maggie told ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... U-tube depending from a vessel of water (Fig. 4) and apply the lamp to one leg a circulation is at once set up within it, and no such spasmodic action can be produced. Thus U-tube is the representative of the true method of circulation within a water-tube boiler properly constructed. We can, for the purpose of securing more heating surface, extend the heated leg into a long incline ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... and strong, Necks that to the earth-supporting Atlas might full well belong. "But our strength un-scientific strives in vain thro' stagnant water, Every day, I blush to own it, Cambridge strokes are rowing shorter. With a short spasmodic impulse see the boats a moment leap, Starting with a flying motion, soon they stop and sink to sleep. Where are Stanley, Jones, and Courage? where is 'Judas' stout and tall, Where the Stroke named ''all' by Bargemen, known to Cambridge as 'Jack Hall'? 'Twas a spectacle ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... short, sharp raid of General Early—penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them—can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... genuine aid to the actor? Bannister said of John Kemble that he was never pathetic because he had no children. Talma says that when deeply moved he found himself making a rapid and fugitive observation on the alternation of his voice, and on a certain spasmodic vibration which it contracted in tears. Has not the actor who can thus make his feelings a part of his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but who makes his observations solely from the feelings of others? It is necessary to this art that ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... the Chimpanzee the requiem rang, Now the bell tolls for the Orang-Outang. Well may spasmodic sobs choke childhood's gorge, Now they who sighed for "Sally" grieve for "George." A "wilderness of monkeys" can't console, For Anthropoids defunct. Of Apedom's whole, One little Chimpanzee, one Gibbon small, (Who ought to write his race's "Rise and Fall,") ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... days, however, we can readily believe that Charles IX. died a natural death. His excesses, his manner of life, the sudden development of his faculties, his last spasmodic attempt to recover the reins of power, his desire to live, the abuse of his vital strength, his final sufferings and last pleasures, all prove to an impartial mind that he died of consumption, a disease scarcely studied at that time, and very little understood, the symptoms of which might, ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... 'No,' she said, standing like a statue petrified with horror. 'It was my servant... she knows.' And then, after a short silence, she went on: 'I was there... by his side.' And she uttered a sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp, she wept violently, and shook with spasmodic sobs for a minute or two. Then her tears suddenly ceased, as if by an internal fire, and with an air of tragic calmness, she said: ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... years after Kossovo the Serbs resisted; but their efforts, now at Belgrade, which was made the capital and fortified by Stephen the chivalrous son of Prince Lazar, now at Smederevo on the Danube, were spasmodic. Bands of Turks and also of Magyars were terrorizing the country; and the sagacious old despot George Brankovi['c] was the last to offer opposition to the Turk at Smederevo. Meanwhile in Bosnia, the Bogomiles, driven to despair by persecution, had been calling to the Turk. Constantinople fell ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... was heard from the men. Over the high weather rail, a topping wave flung into their eyes a handful of heavy drops that stung like hail. There were low groans of indignation. A man sighed. Another emitted a spasmodic laugh through his chattering teeth. No one moved away. The little kassab wiped his face and went on in his cracked voice, to the accompaniment of the swishing sounds made by the seas that swept regularly astern ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... known to us pursued his work of sin with an absolute unconsciousness of all moral law until pain or death drew near; then the scoundrel cringed like a cur under the scourges of remorse. Thackeray, in a fit of spasmodic courage, painted the archetypal scoundrel once and for all in "Barry Lyndon," and he practically said the last word on the subject; for no grave analysis, no reasoning, can ever improve on that immortal and most moving picture of a wicked man. Observe the ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... not real opposition on the part of the Popes to science," that we owe the belief in "the supposed opposition between the Church and Science."[40] That the Popes did something to foster medical science in a spasmodic kind of way, that papal physicians were appointed and that the Church exercised control over some seats of learning may be freely admitted. That the monasteries preserved some of the Latin classics that they were not ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... firm foundation before he was conscious of a slight noise behind him. He turned, and at the same moment a form hurled itself upon him. In the frenzied movement of the hands for his throat, in the spasmodic clutch of the arms which clung animal-like about him he recognized the same mad, unreasoning passion with which young Arsdale had before attacked him. He could not see his face, and the man uttered no cry. The fellow's arms seemed stronger than before and even longer. But he himself was stronger ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... if you will give me your help, I think we can manage him. He is not very strong-willed. In a spasmodic way he can defy everyone, but the steady pressure of common sense will prevail with him, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... to mock the dreariness of their poverty with these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or rather, consistent with my idea of them. There was incongruity deeper than their bizarre externals; a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in their action, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, that rightly or wrongly impressed me. When the increasing gloom of the evening made their figures undistinguishable, I turned into the first cross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent young friend with the Pritsche, I fancied ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... expression of the Low German type, is a history of the most stubborn struggle for freedom in Europe. This legend of German docility will not bear close examination. It is true that they are not given to spasmodic outbreaks, and that they do not lend themselves readily to intrigues and pronunciamentos, but there is every reason to suppose that they have the heads to plan and the wills to carry out as sound and orderly and effective a revolution ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... up and down the thicket, Weston apparently directing his course by the spasmodic movements of the fork, which now and then would lie still altogether. At length it commenced to jerk sharply, and Devine looked at his companion in ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... hypercritical; he was largely and handsomely democratic—and slept in the deserted tan-yard with the hogs. My father tried to reform him once, but did not succeed. My father was not a professional reformer. In him the spirit of reform was spasmodic. It only broke out now and then, with considerable intervals between. Once he tried to reform Injun Joe. That also was a failure. It was a failure, and we boys were glad. For Injun Joe, drunk, was interesting and a benefaction to us, but Injun Joe, sober, was a dreary ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... being far removed from their fellow creatures, poor exiles relegated to this land of ice, poor creatures who should have been Esquimaux, since nature had condemned them to live only just outside the arctic circle! In vain did I try to detect a smile upon their lips; sometimes by a spasmodic and involuntary contraction of the muscles they seemed to laugh, but they ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... "Halt!" The recruits became rigid. "Medical inspection," cried the corporal—"Tongues out!" Three tongues were instantly thrust out. "Salute your general," was the next order. This was too much. In the middle of a spasmodic attempt at a salute a dubious look began to spread over the faces of the three victims, which broadened into certainty as with a yell they leapt upon their oppressor and made ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... new star had been accurately determined, it was found that it was identical with an insignificant looking star marked on one of the maps as of the 9-1/2 magnitude. The star exists in the same spot to this day, and it is of the same magnitude as it was prior to its spasmodic outburst in 1866. This was the first new star which was spectroscopically examined. We shall give in Chapter XXIII. a short account of the features of ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... then, we must needs act; let us do so as becomes men engaged in a great and solemn cause. Not by processions and idle parades and spasmodic enthusiasms, by shallow tricks and shows and artifices, can a cause like ours be carried onward. Leave these to parties contending for office, as the "spoils of victory." We need no disguises, nor false pretences, nor subterfuges; enough for us to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... And three cheers followed for Africa. Whether Jericho knew much about Africa, may be a question; but he understood at least that this honor was offered to himself, and accepted it accordingly. It almost overwhelmed him. A wild chuckle of spasmodic delight burst from him, which threatened to end in a convulsion. And though he rallied from this, yet he was quite demoralized, and it was a long time before he settled down into that sedate old darky which was ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... Pinaleno Indians of the San Carlos region, while inclined toward spasmodic outbreaks, were not as hostile as their western neighbors, the Mohave and Yuma Apaches. A very dangerous element was added when, in 1876, under direction of the army, Agent John P. Clum moved to San Carlos 325 Indians of the Chiricahua-Apache ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... I was compelled by the circumstances of the situation not only invariably to yield my own judgment, but many a time had to play peacemaker—smoothing down ruffled feelings, that I knew had been excited by Granger's freaky and spasmodic efforts to correct personally some trifling fault that ought to have been left to a regimental or company commander to remedy. Yet with all these small blemishes Granger had many good qualities, and his big heart was so full of generous impulses and good motives as to far ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... elderly imagined they felt young and behaved accordingly. Of course they only imagined it, they were only deceiving themselves; but how deplorable were the results. She herself had grown old as people should grow old—steadily and firmly. No interruptions, no belated after-glows and spasmodic returns. If, after all these years, she were now going to be deluded into some sort ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... writes: "My whole nature goes out so to some persons, and they thrill and stir me so that I have an emission while sitting by them with no thought of sex, only the gladness of soul found its way out thus, and a glow of health suffused the whole body. There was no spasmodic conclusion, but a pleasing gentle sensation as the few drops of semen passed." (In reality, no doubt, not semen, but urethral fluid.) This man's condition may certainly be considered somewhat morbid; he ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ceased to be a State in the Union, is not to be wondered at. The extent and determination of the secession movement were imperfectly understood, and the belief among the supporters of the government, and, perhaps, of the government itself, was, that it was a spasmodic movement for a temporary purpose, rather than a fixed determination to found an independent separate nationality; that it was and would be sustained by the real majority of the people of none of the States, with perhaps the exception of South Carolina; that the true policy of ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... had been content to leave it there! But no: with a certain spasmodic frugality which has often been my bane, I shook the saucepan vehemently, in order to dislodge some more of its contents into my already full dish. As I did so, my treacherous wrist, strained by the weight of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... her widowhood, my mother shrank from society, and afterwards had only spasmodic fits of doubt whether it were not her duty to make my sister go out more. So that now and then Emily did go to a party, or to make a visit of some days or weeks from home, and then we knew how valuable she was. It would be hard ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will now be felt to palpitate spasmodically, as if opening and closing again in the coronal region; there will be a tightening of the scalp about the base of brain, as if the floor of the cerebrum were contracting; the seer will catch his breath with a spasmodic sigh and the first vision will stand out clear and life-like against ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... of infants is spasmodic croup, and is very rarely dangerous, although the symptoms ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... with a mere shadow of an army; the efforts to create one had been too spasmodic to do anything but make confusion worse confounded by changes and experiments soon abandoned. Perseverance and intelligence now had a different result, and the little army, called into existence by the republic, proved ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... more guttural, she uttered ignoble things and silly cries which gave him pain—"My dear!—oh, hon!—oh I can't stand it!"—aroused nevertheless, he took this body which creaked as it writhed, and he experienced the extraordinary sensation of a spasmodic burning within a swaddle ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... not beautiful things in it; it shows one a wholesome nature and a grateful, kindly heart; but, in the first place, he writes a terrible style, the kind of style that imposes on simple people because it is allusive, and what is called unconventional; to me it is simply spasmodic and affected. The man seems, as a rule, utterly unable to say anything in a simple and delicate way; his one object appears to be not to use the obvious word. He has a sort of jargon of his own—a dreadful jargon. He must write "crittur" or "craythur," when he means "creature"; he says ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... disturbing; and I waked in the morning with a resentful recollection that I had received not a few hard knocks; but as everything was quiet, I dismissed the impression; for I had yet to learn that my new bed-fellow was a spasmodic kicker in his sleep of great ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... she found, on reaching her destination. The parlors were full, and the more enterprising of the guests were beginning to group themselves in twos and threes, and make spasmodic efforts at conversation. But conversation at a Bilberry assemblage was rarely a success,—it was so evident that to converse was a point of etiquette, and it was so patent that conversation was expected from everybody, whether they had ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in the sun, with a wing and a leg stretched out,—lazily picking at the gravel, or relieving their ennui from time to time with a spasmodic rustle of their feathers. An old, matronly hen stalks about the yard with a sedate step, and with quiet self-assurance she utters an occasional series of hoarse and heated clucks. A speckled turkey, with an astonished brood at her heels, is eying curiously, and with earnest variations of ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... him again," she said slowly, in a low voice. "He is in jail, to be tried for murder, and he will probably be hung—" She hesitated, her face turned white and there was a spasmodic throbbing in her throat, but she went resolutely on: "And he does not care the least thing about me. He was merely fond of my little Bye-Bye, and I am grateful to him for that. But he is nothing to me. I'll marry Mr. Wellesly—I think—but I'll wait—" And then the throbbing in ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... HELMER'S domino, throws it round her, while she says in quick, hoarse, spasmodic whispers). Never to see him again. Never! Never! (Puts her shawl over her head.) Never to see my children again either—never again. Never! Never!—Ah! the icy, black water—the unfathomable depths—If only it were over! ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... the only experience of the first few sittings, it may be that of many; but, sooner or later, there will come a moment when the milky clouds and dancing starlights will suddenly vanish—a bright azure expanse like an open summer sky will occupy the field of vision; the brain will take up a spasmodic action, as if opening and shutting in the superior coronal region; there will be a tightening of the scalp on a level with the base of the brain, as if the floor of the cerebrum were contracting; the seer ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... on the old footing, without comprehensive plan, developing only the same spasmodic encounters, barren of strategic result, that had marked the course of the earlier ten years' rebellion as well as the present insurrection from its start. No alternative save physical exhaustion of either combatant, and therewithal the practical ruin of the island, lay in sight, but how far distant ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... was only broken by the spasmodic sobs of Bigot as he leaned over the grave to look his last upon the form of the fair girl whom he had betrayed and brought to this untimely end. "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!" said he, beating his breast. "Oh, Cadet, we are burying her like a dog! I cannot, I ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... forced final spasmodic effort, he seized the arms of his chair, and rose, lifted up his right arm, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... to my wife's dinner, Lisbeth," said he, scrutinizing her, for Lisbeth was perfectly well, trying to imitate the hiccough of spasmodic indigestion as she drank ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Julia was undoubtedly very ill, so ill that even Samson Mountain forbore to force her to descend to the parlour in which Mr. Tom Raybould nervously awaited her coming, and where, on Samson's return from his daughter's chamber, the pair sat and drank their beer together in miserable silence, broken by spasmodic attempts at conversation regarding crops and politics. The doctor had been called in, and, knowing nothing of the grief which was the poor girl's only ailment, had been too puzzled by the symptoms of her malady ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... divinely-commissioned society which should declare the will and communicate the grace of God, not to one nation only but to all men who were willing to hearken and obey,—and whose action, as a channel of intercourse between God and Man, should be continuous rather than spasmodic,—began to make itself felt. A Code of Law might conceivably suffice to regulate the life of one small nation; but when we consider under what varying conditions of climate, occupation, custom, tradition, and so forth, the general life of Humanity is carried on, we see clearly that no one ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... We reverse the old transformation, butterflies into grubs!' cried Lucy, with somewhat spasmodic laughter. 'Tell me ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... promoted and, therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic. But the present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only every teacher's work could be made to project itself not only to graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. If only every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... sail set, and we were soon alongside the ocean steamer whose iron sides rose above us like a city wall. There was nothing but an iron ladder, flat against this wall, by which to ascend. The heaving of the surf-boat was great. It approached the ladder and retreated from it in the most irregularly spasmodic manner. Only active men, accustomed to such feats, could get upon it. Kafirs, although active as kittens, are not accustomed to the sea, or to the motion of ships and boats. For them to ascend was ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... for his tormented mind began to affect his actions and disorder the progress of his life. At times he worked laboriously and did much with his own hands that might have been left to others; but his energy was displayed in a manner fitful and spasmodic; occasionally he would vanish altogether for four-and-twenty hours or more; and none knew when he ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... of mind to take these precautions instantly; but he had not self-control enough to suppress the involuntary exclamation which burst from his lips, at the moment when the thin streak of candle-light first flashed into his eyes. A violent spasmodic action contracted the muscles of his throat. He clenched his fist in a fury of suppressed rage against himself, as he felt that his own voice had turned ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... gained as a house is built, brick by brick, day after day, not by spasmodic efforts one day in the week, and the destruction of that effort in the ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... before the end, pressure of the brain became apparent; severe pain, succeeded by torpor and loss of power, and, after a short time, utter unconsciousness, proved that the sands of life had nearly run down. A few hours of spasmodic suffering followed, very trying to those who watched by; but suddenly, about four on the morning of October 13th, 1845, the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the spirit returned to God ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... hastened thither in joyful surprise, a little vexed that he had not been forewarned, and especially that Frantz had defrauded him of the first evening. His regret on that account came to the surface every moment in his spasmodic attempts at conversation, in which everything that he wanted to say was left unfinished, interrupted by innumerable questions on all sorts of subjects and explosions of affection and joy. Frantz excused himself on the plea of fatigue, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... left hand to the full length of his arm; there was a soft dab, and Fred uttered a subdued "Oh!" as his companion's right hand grasped his with spasmodic violence. ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... months they are found far away in the colonies of their kinsfolk, here and there planted upon the prairie, or out in gangs where new lines of railway are in construction, the joy of the contractor's heart, glad to exchange their steady, uncomplaining toil for the uncertain, spasmodic labour of their English-speaking rivals. But winter finds them once more crowding back into the little black shacks in the foreign quarter of the city, drawn thither by their traditionary social instincts, or driven by economic necessities. ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... beating Colonel Bogey at golf is an agreeable one, but it means honest and regular work. A fact to be borne in mind always! You are certainly not going to realise your ambition—and so great, so influential an ambition!—by spasmodic and half-hearted effort. You must begin by making up your mind adequately. You must rise to the height of the affair. You must approach a grand undertaking in the grand manner. You ought to mark the day in the calendar as a solemnity. Human nature is weak, and ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... mountain of adamant, so famed in oriental fables. When he practised as a physician at Basle, he called one of his nostrums by the name of azoth—a stone or crystal, which, he said, contained magnetic properties, and cured epilepsy, hysteria, and spasmodic affections. He soon found imitators. His fame spread far and near; and thus were sown the first seeds of that error which has since taken root and flourished so widely. In spite of the denial of modern practitioners, this ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... both rooms were set low in the massive granite walls, and being always wide open, they offered, and indeed invited, easy access to—say, a grave-faced gentlemanly brown dog and a spasmodic rough-coated terrier without a tail, whenever the spirit moved them to incursion, which it invariably did at meal-times and frequently ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... old-time spirit of rebellion flared up in his passionate outburst against the King and the Loyalists. But it was only temporary, and when he learned that the girl was James Sterling's daughter, he was forced to capitulate. He made a few spasmodic efforts after that, but the gentleness of the girl, together with the fact that she knew and loved Dane, swept ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... naturally lead increasing numbers towards the entrance of the Occult Path, and will lend more and more attraction to the transcendent opportunities it offers for the continued strengthening and purification of the character—strengthening and purification no longer directed by mere spasmodic effort, and continually interrupted by misleading attractions, but guided and guarded at every step by the Masters of Wisdom, so that the upward climb when once begun should no longer be halting and uncertain, but lead direct to the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... lines and red patches; the paleness of her cheeks seemed every now and then to turn green. Hoping to hide her despair from her sisters, she would laugh as she pointed out some ridiculous dress or passer-by; but her laughter was spasmodic. She was more deeply hurt by their unspoken compassion than by any satirical comments for which she might have revenged herself. She exhausted her wit in trying to engage them in a conversation, in which she tried to ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... the waywardness of the Celt, as they met exactly the stronger nature of the Saxon. At intervals, when the government was exasperated by unusual outrages, some prince of the blood was sent across as viceroy; and half a century of acquiescence in disorder would be followed by a spasmodic severity, which irritated without subduing, and forfeited affection, while it failed to terrify. At all other times, Ireland was governed by the Norman Irish, and these, as the years went on, were tempted by their convenience to strengthen themselves by Irish alliances, to identify ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... throws off its criminals by a spasmodic effort. The gallows tree has borne its ghastly fruit. Fleeing "Roughs" are self-expatriated. Others are unceremoniously shipped abroad. The Vigilance Committee rules. This threshing out of the chaff gives the State a certain dignity. At least, an effort has been made to purge the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... his work was more or less spasmodic on account of his bitter struggle with poor health, in 1883 he achieved success by the publication of Treasure Island. Markheim appeared in 1884. Kidnapped and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... into a gentle slumber, when a chorus of pronounced grunts and a spasmodic shaking of the carriage revealed to me the fact that I was surrounded by those long-nosed black pigs, so celebrated for their courage and pertinacity. They had discovered that the iron steps of the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... his head down upon the pavement. There was a crash as the breaking of a cocoa-nut shell by a hammer; and when Rock let go, the mass of mis-shapen humanity dropped in a dollop upon the flags, arms and legs limp and motionless, in the last not even the power left for a spasmodic kick. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... child I knew that the insect in question improved each shining hour by something honey something something every something flower. I had also heard that bees could not sting you if you held your breath, a precaution which would make conversation by the herbaceous border an affair altogether too spasmodic; and, finally, that in any case the same bee could only sting you once—though, apparently, there was no similar provision of Nature's that the same person ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... began to languish. Covertly watching, I saw that Chris's head had begun to droop. His body, propped comfortably against a tree, sagged a little. The hand that held the cup was lifted, stretched out in the direction of the enticing jar, then forgetting its errand fell heavily. After a few spasmodic twitchings of the eyelids and ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... ask leave to scrutinise carefully every step of the argument which has such an ending, and demur if at any point of it we are invited to substitute unlimited hypothesis for patient observation, or the spasmodic fluttering flight of fancy for the severe conclusions to which logical accuracy of reasoning ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... had become bone. Being of an inquiring turn of mind, I listened with awe to this physiological revelation, and with chastened and depressed spirits made a mental note of our national calamity. Privately I fancied that the mottled and spasmodic legs of Achille - whom she carried in her arms - or at least so much of the infant Pelides' legs as were not enveloped in a napkin, gave every promise of refuting ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... customer to remain at the Moonbeam for the rest of his life. But it was not so. It was in Mr. Horsball's nature to be civil to a rich hunting country gentleman; and it was the fact also that Ralph had ever been popular with the world of the Moonbeam,—even at times when the spasmodic, and at length dilatory, mode of his payment must have become matter for thought to the master of the establishment. There was no doubt about the payments now, and Ralph's popularity was increased fourfold. Mrs. Horsball got out from some secluded nook a special bottle of orange-brandy ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... a table in one corner of a beer-garden, and waltzed with his wife, Constance, to keep warm when there was no fire and the weather was cold, and all the time danced attendance on the Archbishop of Salzburg. All of his feeble, spasmodic efforts at freedom came to naught, because there was no ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... concerned to hear of your indisposition, but thought the best thing I could do, was to make no formal calls when you were really ill. I have been suffering myself from another kind of malady—a severe, spasmodic, house-buying-and-repairing attack—which has left me extremely weak and all but exhausted. The seat of the ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... systematic marshalling of facts and figures and arguments. One might say of many of his speeches, as was said of Alexander Mackenzie's sentences, that he built them as he built a stone wall. His tremendous energy was not spasmodic, but was backed by solid industry, method ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... shy—much like a young colt when it is going to break out of harness. She rocked back and forth with short spasmodic jerks, and twisted her handkerchief into ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... there at eight or nine o'clock in the morning. There is very little but absolute rubbish left for the post-prandial visitor. A few inveterate book-hunters have journeyed thither at various times and in a spasmodic manner, but the hope of anything worth having has usually turned out to be a vain one: ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... forget to turn the crank. The dancers were thus obliged to pause, one foot in the air, not knowing when to put it down, and when they did put it down they did not fall in measure, and had to commence all over again. This spasmodic waltzing almost made us crazy. As for me, I could not bear it any longer. No chariot nor horses could have kept me away from that piano; to feel again (after so many years) the delight of playing it! ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... urged a reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform, together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of gold had enormously increased the supply of currency ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... grieved to hear the day before yesterday from Sommer that poor Stockmar had had a relapse, but the illness is clearly of a spasmodic nature and therefore not at all dangerous, and the pain had speedily left him, but of course left him again weaker, which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria |
