"Suddenness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Then, with a suddenness that startled my composure, I heard an impatient stamp close by on my left, followed by the sound of reins jerked, and an angry adjuration growled out in Dutch between the teeth by a mounted sentry. He was invisible; and, ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... rations the wet added a severe test of physical endurance. The troops were in enemy country where they scrupulously avoided every native village, and no wall or roof stood to shelter them from wind or water. The heat of the first two weeks of November changed with a most undesirable suddenness, and though the days continued agreeably warm on the plain into December, the nights became chilly and then desperately cold. The single blanket carried in the pack—most of the infantry on the march had no blanket at all—did not give sufficient warmth to men whose blood had been thinned ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... were of necessity slowed down to a certain degree so that their chance of overtaking the two rascals grew slimmer every second. At that moment, however, their chase was given a new impetus. It came with a suddenness that was startling. From some distance ahead, it was difficult to tell how far, there came a furious chorus of yelps, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... and happy, never so bright the sun, or so balmy the breeze, or so peaceful the blue lagoon; then, with a horrid suddenness, as if sick with dissimulation and mad to show itself, something would blacken the sun, and with a yell stretch out a hand and ravage the island, churn the lagoon into foam, beat down the coconut trees, and slay the birds. And one bird would be left and another taken, ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... this moment was horribly critical: both our flanks were turned, and the troops were a good deal shaken by the suddenness and fierceness of the attack. The enemy's horsemen, however, pushing round to the left flank, were checked by the firmness of the 3rd Ghoorkhas—who stood their ground bravely—and by the fire of the batteries on that flank. On the right the 2nd Punjab Cavalry charged and ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... was not lacking in variety. From the splendors of Colorado and the luxury of private cars and palatial chambers, she now dropped, with a suddenness which should have been disconcerting, to the level of scouring pots and cooking her own meals. It was several days before we succeeded in finding a cook. "This is what it means to be the wife of an unpopular ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... his words; they came from Anne, who till that moment had been sitting as before with her hand in that of Bob, and apparently quite calm. Mrs. Loveday jumped up, but before she could say anything to soothe the agitated girl she had calmed herself with the same singular suddenness that had marked her giving way. 'I don't mind Bob's going,' she said. 'I think he ought to go. Don't suppose, Bob, that I want you ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... said, and she rolled a glass ball with the suddenness that had the appearance of magic from the dark portion of the table's surface into the oval of light. And it was so exactly spherical, and the table top was so smooth that it would not stay where it was put, and she had to hold it there ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Raoul and his companion took the alarm, and plunged their own oars again into the water. Then, indeed, the gigs might be dimly seen; though the shadows of the land deepened the obscurity of night so far, as to render objects at even a less distance quite indistinct. The suddenness and imminency of the danger appeared to arouse all there was of life in Carlo Giuntotardi. He steered, and steered well, being accustomed to the office, by living so long on the coast; and he sheered in for the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Groot, Hoogerbeets and Ledenburg met with similar treatment. After protesting the Estates adjourned on the 30th until September 12, the deputies alleging that it was necessary to consult their principals in this emergency, but in reality because the suddenness of the blow had stricken them with terror. It was a prudent step, for Maurice was resolved to purge the Estates and the town-councils of Holland, as he had already purged those of Utrecht. Attended by a strong body-guard he went from town to town, changing ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... have been more natural and frank than Dudleigh's statement. A few questions were asked, merely to satisfy public curiosity. Every one thought that a trip to Sicily was a natural enough thing for one who was on such bad terms with his wife, and the suddenness of his resolution to go there was sufficient to account for the disorder in which he had ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... mule-skinner like a panther on an unsuspecting deer. The lean mahogany-colored hands closed around the ruffian's throat, and the two bodies crashed to the floor together. O'Rourke, taken unaware by the suddenness and ferocity of the attack, was no match. for the Indian. He endeavored to free his arm and reach for his gun, but Sam Singer had anticipated him. Already the big blue gun was in the Indian's possession; he raised it, brought the butt down on O'Rourke's head, and the ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... so grand and lofty that it seems as if the faintest whisper of passion must be hushed by its holy stillness, I should have to relate the perpetration of one of those fearful deeds which, were it for no other peculiarity than its startling suddenness, so utterly at variance with all civilized law, must make our beautiful California appear to strangers rather as a hideous phantom than the ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... in the mushy drawl that he used with juries, "that's enough! Joe couldn't ask more." Then he added, eying the Doctor closely, "Though I can't say that what you tell me startles me with its suddenness." ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the powder be 1. And that the heat generated at the time of the explosion occasions the rarefied air thus produced to occupy about 1000 times the space of the gunpowder. This pressure may therefore be called equal to 1000 atmospheres or six tons upon a square inch. As the suddenness of this explosion must contribute much to its power, it would seem that the chamber of powder, to produce its greatest effect, should be lighted in the centre of it; which I believe is not attended to in the ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... to meet Feltram in a friendly way, whenever that not very comfortable interview became inevitable. But he was confused by the suddenness of Feltram's appearance; and the tone, cold and stern, in which he had last spoken to him came first, and he spoke in ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... with scarce any current; along which the canoe-man continues his course, propelling the craft up-stream. He has made way for something more than a mile, when a noise reaches his ear, causing him to suspend stroke, with a suddenness that shows alarm. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... "The suddenness of my appearance and the promptness of my action paralyzed him completely. He stared at me in abject terror and gibbered inarticulately. Only for a few moments, however. Then he turned and ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... if youth once depart from the right way, render them more vicious characters than common. This arises from the abruptness or suddenness of transition. For having been shut up within narrow boundaries for a part of their lives, they go greater lengths, when once let loose, than others, who have not been equally curbed ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... hang me for my customary disturbing suddenness, and search a time-table. This will tell you that a train from your part of the country arrives in town at 11.45 A.M. (e), which bracketed letter means Saturdays excepted. By it you will travel on Tuesday morning. Then, in the afternoon, you will seek a taxi, but either the drivers will have ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... the canoe upon the pebbly shore, and still overcome by the suddenness of all that had happened Rod went to ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... infantry, fast as they could run, rushing straight upon our line. The whole field was blue with them! When we first saw them, the foremost were already within one hundred yards of our works, and aiming for a point about two hundred yards to our right. The breath was about knocked out of us by the suddenness of the surprise! It was not Hill's men charging them, but these fellows charging us,—whose yells we had heard, and here they were, right upon us! In two jumps we were at our gun. We had to turn it more ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... of the fight and the suddenness in which the remains of the French Fleet had been forced to surrender, the captain of the Victor Hugo had forgotten to sink his Code Book. The result was that when the cruiser squadron steamed out in two divisions to meet the transports, ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... leper obliged himself to become a Christian, upon the recovery of his health; and the sign of the cross was no sooner made over him, but his whole body became as clean as if he had never been infected with leprosy. The suddenness of the cure wrought in him to believe in Christ without farther difficulty, and his lively faith brought him hastily ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... softly behind her. "Why should you cry? Why should you turn away from me? Did I frighten you with the suddenness of my words? I am not versed in the tricks of wooing. I should have been more patient. But I love you so much that I could hardly have waited. A secret hope that you loved me too emboldened me, compelled me. You DO love me. I know it. And, knowing it, I do but ask you to give yourself to me, ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... called an "occultation." It sometimes happens that the moon comes directly between the earth and a star, and the temporary extinction of the latter is an "occultation." We can observe the moment when the phenomenon takes place, and the suddenness of the disappearance of the star is generally remarked. If the moon were enveloped in a copious atmosphere, the interposition of this gaseous mass by the movement of the moon would produce a gradual ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... had smitten me with stunning suddenness. I looked at the dead child, and from her to her poor mother. Grief and pity were both swallowed up in transports of fury and detestation with which the presence in my house of the wretch who had wrought all this destruction ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the plain of Champagne rises, 300 feet, with a curious clifflike suddenness, the Plateau of Sezanne. The effect is as though a geological fault had driven the original plateau from north to south throughout its entire length, and then as though there had been a general subsidence of the plain, giving rise to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... strove to defend them by placing herself in front of the chest; she was forcibly removed by the Prussian grenadiers, and Frederick justified the suddenness of his attack upon Saxony by the publication of the plans of his enemies. He remained during the whole of the winter in Saxony, furnishing his troops from the resources of the country. It was here that his chamberlain, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... was witnessed by us standing. It came, too, with a curious suddenness. There was no more dreaming, for me at ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... which shelter them like a protecting reef. They drop equally quickly, and thus it is not uncommon for the morning to be calm, the midday raging in waves dashing resistlessly upon the beach, and the evening still again. The Irish, who are accustomed to the salt ocean, say, in the suddenness of its storms and the shifting winds, it is more dangerous than the sea itself. But then there are almost always islands, behind which a vessel ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... the honor conferred upon him in making him at once the governor of the realm, and was inclined to prefer the present certainty of governing at once in the name of others, to the remote contingency of reigning in his own. The other claimants to the inheritance were confounded by the suddenness of the emergency, and knew not what to say or do. The rest of the assembly were pleased with the romance of having the beautiful boy for their feudal sovereign. The duke saw at once that every thing was favorable to the accomplishment of his ...
— William the Conqueror - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Montreal's horse several paces: while Adrian's lance, poised with exquisite skill, striking against the Provencal's helmet, somewhat rudely diverted the Knight's attention for the moment from his rein. Montreal, drawing the curb too tightly in the suddenness of his recovery, the horse reared on end; and, receiving at that instant, full upon his breastplate, the sharp horn and mailed crest of Adrian's charger—fell back over its rider upon the sward. Montreal disencumbered ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... few seconds Myles's friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all. ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Gresham, blinking with the suddenness of it all and sweeping with a glance of gloomy dissatisfaction, Polly, the bouquet, Constance and Johnny. "I thought you were to be in the caramel ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the radiant wanderer. The inhospitable saurian dives with embarrassing suddenness and dips the airy visitor into the "rank water." The butterfly finds no charm in the gloomy place and flies away, which less ethereal wanderers might likewise be fain to do. Now and then the stillness that reigned over that home of malign things was broken ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... second communication too austere to be disregarded. She went to the president's office in considerable trepidation and emerged from it an hour later, her heavy features set in anger. Undertaking to assume her usual nonchalant pose, she had been brought with alarming suddenness to a wholesome respect for Doctor Matthews' dignity. She had also received a lecture on reckless driving which she was ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... produces it satisfies a vulgar and unprofitable taste; so does the very upright tradesman who forces insipid asparagus for the Christmas market. Sir Georgius Midas will never care for art, but he will always want a background; and, unless things are going to change with surprising suddenness, it will be some time before he is unable to get what he wants, at a price. However splendid and vital the new movement may be, it will not, I fancy, unaided, kill the business of picture-making. The trade will dwindle; ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... the Pope in 'The Ring and the Book' has come to the decision to sign the death-warrant of Guido and his accomplices, he says: "For the main criminal I have no hope except in such a SUDDENNESS OF FATE. I stood at Naples once, a night so dark I could have scarce conjectured there was earth anywhere, sky or sea or world at all: but the night's black was burst through by a blaze— thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore, through her whole length of mountain visible: ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... about himself, and he knew that these years of toil and achievement were honourable to him. He thought of all those years, and then he turned his head upon the pillow and faced through widely opened windows the misty, fragrant morning. His mind turned with suddenness to a morning two summers past. His father, who had lived to take grim pride in the son he had been used to thwart, was six months dead, and he himself was living alone, as he yet lived alone, in the small house upon the Three-Notched Road. He lived ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... is also served out, but it serves to sweeten a biscuit. There is rum once a week (in theory). Duff at midday the last few days. It is difficult to say anything general about rations, because they vary from day to day, often with startling suddenness, according to the conditions of the campaign. I was on picket this night, a duty which is far less irksome when in the field than when in a standing camp. Vigilance is of course not relaxed, but many petty ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... arrived at their place of destination. They then divided, and made a sweep of all the cattle and property they could find; committing at the same time the most horrid atrocities and destroying what they could not carry away. They trusted to the secrecy and suddenness of the irruption for avoiding those who guarded the frontiers of the countries they invaded; and before a force could be brought against them they were on their return. Their chief strength lay in their being intangible. ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... more calm. The startling suddenness of the proposition that Ralph was living had, for the time being, overmastered her. Now she sank back into her chair, with pale face, controlling her emotion with an effort, trying to give ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... inundation are the lagoons, or sea-water lakes, of the coast. Into these bayous and lagoons, as the river becomes high, the excess of water backs or flows. They are natural reservoirs, to ease the rise, and prevent the inevitable suddenness and danger which would result without them. In these reservoirs the water rises or falls with the river; and when the fall becomes permanent, the water in the bayous—the lagoons having outlet into the sea—falls with it, returning into the main stream, and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Harshaw did not arrive, we gave Mr. Cecil his opportunity, as promised, of speech with his victim and judge. He talked to her in the little sitting-room after dinner—as long as she would listen to him, apparently. We heard her come flying out with a sort of passionate suddenness, as if she had literally run away from his words. But he had followed her, and for an instant I saw them together in the hall. His poor young face was literally burning; perhaps it was only sunburn, but I fancied she had been giving him a metaphorical drubbing—"ragging," ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... protective scabs when they formed, enabled him to see the way and to point it out to others. When in 1865 he first read the papers which Pasteur had been publishing, he found the principle for which he had so long been searching. With what excitement he read them, with what suddenness of conviction he accepted the message, we do not know; he has left no record of his feelings at the time: but it was the most important moment in his career, and the rest of his life was spent in applying these principles to his ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... party do? Ratler was for opposing Mr. Daubeny with all their force, without touching the merits of the case. It was no fitting work for Mr. Daubeny, and the suddenness of the proposition coming from such a quarter would justify them now and for ever, even though they themselves should disestablish everything before the Session were over. Barrington Erle, suffering under a real political conviction for once in his life, was desirous of a positive and chivalric ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... picture; whereas one is drawn along, almost unconsciously, to see what the trouble is about. Now at the very END of this riot, within four feet of the end of the picture, and full thirty-six feet from the beginning of it, the Hair Trunk bursts with an electrifying suddenness upon the spectator, in all its matchless perfection, and the great master's triumph is sweeping and complete. From that moment no other thing in those forty feet of canvas has any charm; one sees ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... swung open with a startling suddenness, and Rose-Marie sprang forward, her hands outstretched. Framed in the battered wood stood Bennie—the tears streaking his face—and behind him was the Young Doctor. So tall he seemed, so capable, so strong, standing there, that Rose-Marie felt as if her troubles had ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... sunk, and sunk with a rapidity still more unexpected than the suddenness of its rise. The capture of its leader was a blow at the heart, and it lost all power at the instant. In the Castle all was self-congratulation, and the officials talked of the revolt with as much scorn as if there existed no elements ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... suddenness which has been generally and rightly pronounced a blot on the play; but her husband is informed by a servant and resolves to discover the pair. The action is prolonged somewhat too much, and the somewhat unmanly strain of weakness in Frankford is too perceptible; ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... she did in a way that actually alarmed her companions. At any other time Corrie would have exploded with laughter, but the poor boy was thoroughly overwhelmed by the suddenness and the extent of his misfortune. The image of Bumpus, disappearing headlong over that terrible cliff, had filled his heart with a feeling of horror which nothing could allay, and grave thoughts at ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... The suddenness of the flight of his guide, and the wild cries of the pursuers, caused Heyward to remain fixed, for a few moments, in inactive surprise. Then recollecting the importance of securing the fugitive, he dashed aside the surrounding bushes, and pressed eagerly forward ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... harness, fell shot through and through; and an arrow piercing the joint of the armor of Sir Rudolph wounded him in the shoulder. In vain the knight stormed and raged and ordered his men to advance. The suddenness of the attack seemed to his superstitious followers a direct answer from heaven to the words of the abbess. Their number was already seriously lessened, and those who were in case to do so at once took flight and scattered through the city, making for the gate, ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... surprising suddenness. "I hate it, Daddy. Such big, beautiful things, and to make them do silly tricks like these; just as you'd train ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... is a bonny kettle of fish, for Margaret was sitting with us, but for all the suddenness of it she never geed her beaver, and I kent then that she had ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... at the treachery of Celia Jane after her recent evidences of affection and at the suddenness of it all that he could not even cry out,—could do nothing but stare after Danny. He saw the precious bit of pasteboard taken from Danny's outstretched hand by the ticket-taker and dropped into a box and then saw Chris give up his ticket ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... gone indoors—they were on the forward deck upon which the captain's cabin, or "library," opened, and Hope had been watching her zig-zag progress across it, laughing merrily, when, with the suddenness of a lightning-stroke, everything grew black and began to spin around her. She looked helplessly at Dwight, whose grinning face was like that of a whirling dervish, made a little lurch forward, and would have fallen, but that watchful Mr. Malcolm caught her just in time. He ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... too cramped and miserable to take more than a querulous interest. In another half-hour the snow ceased, and as they glided down the long hill on the other side of the plateau in a bed of fresh, unruffled wool, the sun struck out with a suddenness that seemed to tear the sky in two, and turned the blue snow into a sheet of light which stretched far below them into a country of pine woods and pits of shadow. Down, down they ran, till just below lay a village—if village it was when only a house or two were gathered together ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... and January when this desert world of thistles dead and dry as tinder continued standing, a menace and danger, the one desire and hope of every one was for the pampero—the south-west wind, which in hot weather is apt to come with startling suddenness, and to blow with extraordinary violence. And it would come at last, usually in the afternoon of a close hot day, after the north wind had been blowing persistently for days with a breath as from a furnace. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... the President of this republic shook a pugnacious fist beneath the German nose. Some impression of the weird suddenness of the maneuver might have been gathered from the comment of Senator Gruff. Speaking for the Senate, that ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... pelvis, have to atone for the excesses committed by their husbands before and after marriage."[106] In the same sense does Dr. Blaschke utter himself:[107] "Epidemics like cholera and smallpox, diphtheria and typhus, whose visible effects are, by reason of their suddenness, realized by all, although hardly equal to syphilis in point of virulence, and, in point of diffusion, not to be compared therewith, yet are they the terror of the population ... while before syphilis ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... Humpo chap went on, piling it up from old Bright like that, old man; and all the time getting deeper and getting worse, of course. Sabre getting the girl into his own house after the old lady's death removes the girl from the neighbourhood; curious suddenness of the girl's dismissal during Sabre's leave; girl going straight to Sabre immediately able to walk after birth of child, and so on. Blacker and blacker, worse ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... of the decorum proper to such a book, and which, therefore, should not have been withheld. The book, too, is much too goody-goody. There is too much preaching throughout it, and in certain parts a suddenness in the kneeling down to pray that is quite startling. This stupid sort of goodness helps much to defeat the purpose of the work. Even the strong minister, although his is not the old-fashioned way, seems to have more beef on his bones than brains in his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... penetrating into the very heart of his country before he had time to mobilise or concentrate his forces. The work of subduing him was performed piecemeal; they devastated his fields, robbed his orchards, and, marching all through the night,** they would arrive with such suddenness before one or other of his towns, that he would have no time to organise a defence. Most of their campaigns were mere forced marches across plains and mountains, without regular ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... done—overcame the check from the illusion, and he started down. His knees developed a foolish way of suddenly flexing and seating him hard on the ground. At first it was annoying, but when it happened the second time the absurdity of it, and the ridiculous suddenness of the surprise that it caused, made the boy laugh aloud. It astonished him to hear himself laugh, for that was very unusual, and he wondered. But he rose, staggered on, and found himself chuckling inside,—a most astonishing thing! He could not imagine why he was ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... he heard a kind of tumult outside, in which he recognised the treble of the oily-headed clerk coming in a bad second to a deep, bass voice. Then the door opened and a big, burly man, with a red face and a jovial, rolling eye, appeared with startling suddenness and ejaculated: ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... a name for each one as he hit him. It was a game of "Tag, you're it!" that made him master, in that moment of amazement, from the mere suddenness of it. A man with less assurance and slighter knowledge of sailorman character might have been less abrupt—might have given them a moment in which to reflect. Cap'n Aaron Sproul kept them going—did their thinking for them, dizzied their brains ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... too barbarous to practice in America. The Igorrotes have a way of driving out the fever with a slow fire; but between this Spartan method and Visayan ignorance the choice is difficult. No wonder that the people drop off with surprising suddenness. Your laundryman or baker fails to come around some morning, and you ask one of your neighbors where he is. The neighbor, shifting his wad of buya to the other cheek, will gradually wake up and answer something ending in "ambut." "Ambut" ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... The suddenness of his appearance, his perfect calmness and fairness, and the knowledge that he would do what he had promised to do, quieted all disturbance, and the speaker concluded his ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... suddenness that was almost terrifying, the storm broke over them in a fury so often witnessed in wintry outbursts. The snow was blinding, and was whipped into their faces ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... a premonition of danger oppressed him with such force and suddenness that it caused him to throw himself quickly backward. At the exact instant that his back struck the lumber piled behind him he heard the sharp, vicious crack of a rifle, and a bullet thudded dully into one of the wooden stanchions of the wagon frame at the edge of the ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the fish made an end of my novitiate. After that, with a suddenness of transition which puzzled me, Agassiz became very communicative; we passed indeed into the relation of friends of like age and purpose, and he actually consulted me as to what I should like to take up as a field of study. Finding that I wished to devote myself to geology, ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... boldness, that he supposed when he united two such powerful besiegers in the person of a Baronet, he should vanquish all obstacles. By assuring you that the world thought the marriage already settled, he hoped to surprise you into believing there was no help for it, and by the suddenness and vehemence of the attack, to frighten and hurry you into compliance. His own wife, he knew, might have been managed thus with ease, and so, probably, might his sister, and his mother, and his cousin, for in love matters, or what are so called, women in general are, ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... girl replied, though somewhat taken aback by the suddenness of the encounter. The man spoke slowly and with evident refinement. His voice was the same she had heard at Nice on that memorable night of gaiety. She recognized ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... infection, New Orleans had fought it blindly, frantically, in an agony of panic, and when at last the frost put an end to the helpless city's plight, she lay spent and prostrate. The yellow fever of 1905 came with a more formidable and unexpected suddenness than that of 1897. It sprang into life like a secret and armed uprising in the midst of the city, full-fledged and terrible. But there arose against it the trained fighting line of scientific knowledge. Accepting, with a fine courage of faith that most important preventive discovery since ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... frequently the same air of innocence and surprise as Artemus Ward's, and there is a like suddenness in his turns of expression, as where he speaks of "the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces." If he did not originate, he at any rate employed very effectively that now familiar device of the newspaper "funny man," of putting a painful situation euphemistically, as when he says of a ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... Perhaps there was more suddenness and zeal in my call than was judicious, but the driver immediately said "Whoa!" to his horses, and he ran hither and thither for stones to block the wheels to keep his load from ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... yesterday Fanny and I walked to see Mrs. Napier, all in black for Lady Clare—the suddenness of whose death, scarcely a moment's interval between the bright flash of life and the dark silence of death, was most ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... some sheep-like instinct which impelled him to follow those who had gone on before. Baubie saw this, and, just waiting to let him get well under way and settle into his gait, she gathered herself up and sprang across the road upon him with the suddenness and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... not despair," responded the doctor. "In this latitude these intense heats are invariably followed by storms, and the latter come with the suddenness of lightning. Notwithstanding this disheartening clearness of the sky, great atmospheric changes may take place in less ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... Diana's mind back to Evan and two years ago, and mornings and evenings of that time which were so filled with nameless joys and hopes. Diana did not give herself to these thoughts nor encourage them; they came with the suddenness and the start of lightning. Merely the colour of a hill at sunset was enough to flash back her thoughts to an hour when she was looking for Evan; or a certain sort of starlight night would recall a particular walk along the meadow fence; or a gust and whiff of the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back completely. It all came so swiftly, so terribly, she scarcely realized what was happening before the storm was upon her. There was no time for arguments, pleas, anything. Terrified, shamed, nonplussed, she went down quite limply under this ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... happy, while the Rockland spectators melted away and disappeared from view with amazing suddenness when the last man ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... entering upon the worst phase of the living nightmare. Awake, the doubts and fears of his position tormented him; wearied, he feared to sleep, yet continually he found himself nodding only to jerk awake with that suddenness that is like a physical blow. Each one of these awakenings took away a little more of his self-control till he was reduced to near hysteria, muttering abstractly, sometimes whimpering like a lost child; now seized with a feverish concern for his air supply. He would at one instant cut it down to ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... the suddenness of it, and besides I didn't look for seeing it in the bar. There was only a glimmer of light there, and it was sitting on the floor. I nearly ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock
... prided myself in their invention, whereas it was the Captain's vanity to wear his conspicuous scarlet uniform upon all occasions, or at most to cover it with his short dark-blue riding cloak. This, while to be sure it enhanced the showiness of his exploits, obliged him to carry them through with a suddenness and dash foreign to the whole spirit of my patient work. I must always maintain that mine were the sounder methods; yet if I had no other reason for my admiration I could not withhold it from a man who, when I first met him, had been wearing a British uniform for three days and ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... exertions. Of course every day, as I drew nearer home, I ran a greater chance of being recognised. I retreated, therefore, a little way into the forest, and climbing up into a tree, secured myself as usual, and fell asleep. Those who have not toiled on, day after day, can scarcely understand the suddenness with which I could lose all consciousness in sleep, or the ease with which I could again awake at the slightest unusual sound. Those placed in the position I so long have been in, can most fully appreciate the ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... effect of the suddenness of your alarm—of the shock. You will not be hysterical again. I dare say we shall have nothing to distress us. I perfectly understand Mr Robinson's directions, and have no fears; and indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband. Nursing does not belong to ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... With the suddenness of a dropped veil, the hot, white glare of the desert noon went black before Lennon's eyes. He sank ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... by the library door, calling. He sprang to his feet, brought back to a consciousness of the present with galvanic suddenness. He turned, bewildered for an instant, and then ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... who followed his lead, should have been stretched to the utmost was quite within the possibilities when one recollects that the basis of all this wealth was crude rubber, a substance of pronounced elasticity. This, too, accounts for the vim and suddenness of the final recoil attending the final collapse—a recoil which smashed everything and everybody within ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Adams at any time during the preceding four or five seasons. But he desired her to have a better equipment, and he wanted the American theater-going public to know the woman in whose talents he felt such an extraordinary confidence. He announced with a suddenness that was startling, but which in reality conveyed no surprise to the few people who had watched Miss Adams's career up to this time, that he was going ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... against my head. A slight motion of air, sufficient to disturb my rather scanty locks, was additional proof that I was the butt of some prank that had just missed its objective. Then, with a fearful suddenness, close to my ear burst a shrill discord of laughter, so uncanny and so unlike the usual sound of student merriment that I started up, half wondering if I had heard it. Almost immediately after it the heavy darkness was torn again by a shriek so terrible in its ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... hour of the day or night in an incredibly short time. Ten minutes later and the ramble of the baggage wagons was heard along the road towards the bridge. The morning was clearing fast, the clouds lifted, and the daylight seemed to break with unusual suddenness. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... women stared at him. I have spoken of his gaze as "somewhat shifty," yet am not altogether sure that in that term I accurately describe it. What first fastened my attention was this vague, unfocussed, roving, quasi-introspective vision flashing with panther-like suddenness into a directness that seemed to burn and pierce one like the thrust of a hot stiletto, His face was clean-shaven, save for a mere thumb-mark of black hair directly under the centre of his lower lip. This Iago-like tab and the almost fierce brilliancy of his concentrated ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... well go now," she said. "Good-bye." And in another moment he found himself alone, not a little astonished at the suddenness ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... mud torrent may perhaps be overestimated, but in its awful suddenness this catastrophe was evidently one with few equals. The cone destroyed may have been largely composed of rather fine ashes and scoriae, which was almost instantaneously converted into mud by the condensing steam and ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... I believe you are a true gentleman!" he said. "I ask your pardon if I have offended you by so much as a thought. But now"—and his face grew very serious—"we must talk this matter over. I will not speak of the suddenness of your love for my child, because I know, from my own past experience, that love is a rapid impulse—a flame ignited in a moment. Yes, I know that well!" He paused, and his voice trembled a little, but he soon steadied ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... bewildered with the suddenness of the transaction. What had he been seized for? Who were the men who had got hold of him? and why were they gripping his wrists so tightly? He had heard of arbitrary treatment in the Russian army, but that a colonel should ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... struggles as I bent and strove made noise that might call attention to me, for it was my last chance. The lines bruised and cut me sorely, even through my mail, but I heeded that no more than I did the hardness of the timbers against which I rolled; and at last it did snap, with a suddenness that let my elbow fly against the iron that had been my saving, almost ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... which crossed the road in the distance, blocking the prospect ahead and on either side, as far as the eye could reach, exclaimed: "Them's the Pines!" As we approached the forest, a change, theatrical in its suddenness, took place in the scenery through which our course was taken. The rich and smiling pasture-lands, interspersed with fields of luxuriant corn, were left behind, the red clay of the road was exchanged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... The thought fell upon her new-found happiness with the suddenness of a blow. She could keep him, but had she the right to do so? She saw in him something that he did not suspect—and that something was genius. She knew he had the ability to make for himself a name that would stand among the great names of ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... limited sphere, such as we have in Lancashire, and in the course of a few months, there has been a cessation of employment at the rate of 7,000,000 pounds sterling per annum in wages. There has been nothing like it in the history of the world for its suddenness, for the impossibility of dealing with it, or managing it in the way of an ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... about to prevail. Now we are at the top of the hill, and they stood here several minutes talking and moving about, as the traces show very clearly. But look, Dagaeoga, they saw something very much closer at hand than smoke. Their talk was interrupted with great suddenness, and they took to ambush. They crouched among these bushes, and you and I know they were a very dangerous pair with their rifles ready. Still, Dagaeoga, instead of their taking the battle to the warriors the battle ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... suddenness of a shift of scenery, they topped what seemed to be a trifling rounded hill. On the other side the slope dropped sheer away. Opposite and to north and south were the ranks of great mountains, some dark with the blue of atmosphere before ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... himself forward at the sight of the steel. Grasping the uplifted arm he wrenched it inward, twisting the man half around. Surprised at the suddenness of the move, the islander gave way in a series of staggering steps which carried him to the edge of the rock ledge overlooking ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... to turn up," said Phil, producing himself with startling suddenness from nowhere. "Bet you can't ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... hands on the man mechanically, and, unnerved by the suddenness of the affair, the silence, and the presence of so many strangers,—ignorant, too, what was doing or what was meant, he went unresisting. They marched him out heavily; the door closed behind them; we stood waiting. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... would not do to go to sleep upon her back; and Master Willard Glazier no sooner found himself firmly seated than he made up his mind that for the time, at least, he had his hands full of business. As the mare had been deprived of an opportunity to kick him, by the suddenness with which he sprang upon her back, she concluded to try her next favorite line of strategy and shake him off. So down went her head and up went her heels, and, had he been less on the alert, he must have gone to ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... faded into a dark and mounting surprise. A blaze burned away the shadows. His eyes betrayed an unsupportable sense of loss and the spirit that repudiated it. For a single instant he was magnificent—and perhaps in that instant race and blood spoke; then, with bewildering suddenness, surely with the suddenness of a memory, he became a black, dripping-faced victim of unutterable and ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... night, I should fancy, the noisy minstrels appeared in the court, headed by Fenn with a lantern, and knocking together as they came. The visitors clambered noisily into the gig, one of them shook the reins, and they were snatched out of sight and hearing with a suddenness that partook of the nature of prodigy. I am well aware there is a Providence for drunken men, that holds the reins for them and presides over their troubles; doubtless he had his work cut out for him with this particular gigful! Fenn rescued his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not got to!" exploded Mr. Bennett, ceasing to be calm and reasonable with a suddenness which affected Sam much as though half a pound of gunpowder had been touched off under his chair. "For the little I have seen of you has been quite enough! Kindly understand that my daughter is engaged to be married to another man, and that I do not wish to see or hear anything of you again! ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Again the arrow failed. But the lion was by this time roused, and his eyes shot fiery glances, and the heavy roar from his throat made the woods most horribly resound. Then the devoted Hercules seized his heavy wooden club, and rushing forward drove the lion by the suddenness and fierceness of his assault into his den. But the den had two entrances. Against one Hercules rolled huge stones, and entering the cave by the other he grasped the lion's throat with both hands, and thus held him struggling and gasping ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... see the peasant through a veil of poetry and mysticism. Auerbach, I am told, is out of fashion. His stories end well mostly, his construction one must admit is childish, and his characters change their natures with the suddenness of a thunderbolt to suit his plot. Yet when I have Sehnsucht for Germany, and cannot go there in reality, I love to go in fancy where Auerbach leads. He takes you to a house in the Black Forest, and you sit at breakfast with the family eating Haferbrei out of one bowl. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... commanded; and with the suddenness of light the schooner swept around in a swift arc, the black shape of the flying sloop stood out against the angry sea crests, and the two vessels came together with a crash of timbers and a ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... on the pike just west of the fork in the roads. Under arms in an instant, when the firing was heard on the right, it was soon ordered by one of Schurz's aides to throw itself across the fork, and hold it at all hazards. But the suddenness of the attack had momentarily robbed Col. Peissner of his steadiness, for he was a good drill-master. Instead of facing to the right, counter-marching, filing to the left across the road, and coming to a front,—the simplest if longest movement being the best in ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... on and on, crampedly crawling on what I have mentioned before, and at last Oswald did not strike the next match carefully enough, and with the suddenness of a falling star his hands, which, with his knees, he was crawling on, went over the edge into infinite space, and his chest alone, catching sharply on the edge of the precipice, saved him from being hurled to the bottom ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... cat-boats and schooners and set the white sails shimmering and dipping in the changing lights. And Evelyn, drinking in the beauty and the peace of it, no doubt, was more pensive than joyous. Within the last few months life had opened to her with a suddenness ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... purity upon it, was borne to its place. The life of their brother had been a very useful, happy, and innocent life, full of quiet energies, of simple activities, of refined pleasures. There seemed no need for its suspension. The very suddenness of the summons had been a beautiful and kindly thing, attended by no fears and little suffering—but kindly, only upon the supposition that it was necessary. The holy service proceeded, the voice of old human sorrow, of tender hope, of ardent faith, thrilling through ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... time and in what manner I was forced away," said Pekuah, "your servants have told you. The suddenness of the event struck me with surprise, and I was at first rather stupefied than agitated with any passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... crushing effect of this great disaster fell heaviest. Stripped of all he had, ruined, disgraced, he stood like one amazed at the suddenness of his own fall. He had built his castles on sand, and now found them tumbling down, and crushing him under the ruin. His avaricious nature had led him, not only to wrong, but to bring distress and ruin on the unsuspecting and simple-minded Dutch settlers. ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... she dressed herself and went to call upon her friends and bid them good-bye. They were very much surprised at the suddenness of her departure; but she explained to one and all that she rather wished to avoid the crowd, bustle and confusion of Commencement week, and had therefore determined to leave town for a few days, and that her rooms with the bishop's widow ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... happened with incredible suddenness, as though he had tried to walk on space and found himself hurled into it. The ground gave way beneath him. The clods of grass separated, and ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... understanding why, and in spite of it all are absolutely frank in their feelings and sentiments, which they display by violent, unexpected, incomprehensible, foolish resolutions which overthrow our arguments, our customary poise and all our selfish plans. The unforeseenness and suddenness of their determinations will always render them undecipherable enigmas as far as we are concerned. We continually ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the time of the overthrow of the Czar in 1917, little or no training in self-government. In 1917, Russia was, moreover, in a state of political demoralization, the result of three years of war, concluded by a military debacle and a disorderly peace. The suddenness with which socialism was introduced was also a factor which handicapped ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... slowly to the ground, the adventurers left the deadlight to use the windows. For a moment the view was obscured by a swirl of dust, raised by the spurt of the current; then this cloud vanished, settling to the ground with astounding suddenness, as though jerked ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... by the suddenness with which he pounced upon it. He had turned the talk upon the subject of his new yacht, and very abruptly he announced his intention of going round the world ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... institutions; and it was also urged that to keep the balance of power between the two sections, it was necessary that slave States should be admitted equally with free. It was disclosed with startling suddenness that two systems of labor and society stood face to face, with different ideals, different interests, and in a mutual opposition to which no limits could be foreseen. It was plain that with the increase of profit from slavery all idea of its abolition had been quietly dropping from the ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... 2nd of December; all the leading men of the assembly were arrested; Paris was filled with troops. After struggles on the part of the assembly, and many casualties in the streets, the eventful day of the 2nd of December wore away. On the 3rd the people awoke from the stupefaction with which the suddenness of the coup struck them, and preparations were made by the republicans and red republicans for resistance. On the 4th that resistance was offered; barricades were erected, and every token of a fierce contest quickened into life. Whenever an opportunity occurred, the soldiery were assassinated, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Then with startling suddenness came a trumpet blast and the quick, sharp roll of drums; and from the town burst a tumult and volume of sound, and then over the walls, and peering curiously from the turrets, appeared a swarm of ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... strident hollow echoing cry, which was startling in its suddenness and resembled nothing so much as a badly-blown note upon ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... upon a chair and buried her face in her hands, quite overwhelmed by the suddenness of that discovery. She remained thus for a long time, without either sound or motion, and the woman stood watching her, knowing full well what was the matter. When Helen looked up again there was agony written upon her countenance. ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... chance of meeting her. I'm an old man; it would be too upsetting. If I talked with her, I shouldn't understand. So I must take your word for it that, however much appearances may have been against her, her motives were beyond question." He slipped forward in his chair with a disconcerting suddenness; for a moment his filmy eyes became penetrating. "She seems to have made a deep impression on you, my dear fellow. If your optimism proves correct and through your efforts Adair is free from her clutches, we all owe you a debt of gratitude. But—and I'm sure you won't take amiss what I'm ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... mean?" snapped the Terror with a disconcerting suddenness; and his eyes shone very bright and threatening in a steady glare into ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... of the downfall of Antichrist, may be considered, either with respect to the suddenness, unexpectedness, terribleness, or strangeness thereof. It may also be considered with respect to the way of God's procedure with her, as to the gradualness thereof. As to the suddenness thereof, 'tis said to be in an hour. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a sight of God and sense of sin, comes to the sinner like a flash of lightning, not for short continuance, but for suddenness, and so for surprisal; so that the sinner is struck, taken and captivated to his own amazement, with what so unexpectedly is come upon him. It is said of Paul at his conversion, that when conviction of his bad life ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... that she was obliged to give the subject up for that night, and could only comfort herself by endeavouring to believe that the suddenness of the tidings ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... people had collected around the pink racing car. Others were flocking from every direction, the group forming with a suddenness truly New Yorkese. Indifferent to all, Rose sprang out of his seat and ran through the curious men in pursuit of ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Mr. Raven expect—or, if not expect, be afraid of, any attack on himself? But before I could make any comment on my companion's information, my attention to the subject was diverted. All that afternoon the weather had been threatening to break—there was thunder about. And now, with startling suddenness, a flash of lightning was followed by a sharp crack, and that on the instant by a heavy downpour of rain. I glanced at Miss Raven's light dress—early spring though it was, the weather had been warm for more ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... opened, and, with a suddenness which no one can comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the sun now shone brightly on the flowers and garden plants which grew in a range of pots on the balcony, and lighted up the pale features of a lovely girl, lovely even in the jaws ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... Anna. Anna's face, which had been pale, suddenly went crimson. The suddenness and the violence of it was extraordinary. One moment she had been pale. In the next, she was burning red. It was exactly as if a crimson paint had suddenly been dashed over the whole of her face. It was extraordinary. Whatever was it? That nose of hers, perhaps? a sudden frightful ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... performer rose from the piano with unexpected suddenness remarking SOTTO VOCE that if he had known he was to play on a spinet he would have brought some Lulli with him. He was beaming all over, none the less, and soon making arrangements with other guests ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... suffer: this mistake has given me the happiest hours of my life, and I am better for having known so sweet and true a woman. God bless you, Christie!" and with a quick embrace that startled her by its suddenness and strength he left her, standing there alone before ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly as could be, "A boy with Somebody's else's pork pie! Stop him!" The cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, "Halloa, young thief!" One black ox, with a white cravat on,—who even had to my awakened conscience something of a clerical air,—fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... inhabitants like a wall, the night which had overtaken them increased their fears, so that they halted for a while awaiting the daylight. For they expected to be able to cross without hindrance, and then, in consequence of the suddenness of their inroad, to be able to ravage all the country around; but they had incurred ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... to death": the phrase crystallised in his brain with such suddenness that he said it aloud. Now he knew what it was that was troubling him. He had not consciously recalled the words, nor had they even made a very incisive impression on him at the time; but they had evidently lain dormant, now to return and to strike him, as if no ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... we started, one to right, the other to left, when with bewildering suddenness a huge creature charged straight at me from out of a dense clump of brushwood, so suddenly and unexpectedly that my heart seemed to leap into my mouth, and for a moment I felt unable to move from the spot to which I seemed rooted. This was not the case with ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the most sickening suddenness the aircraft came to an abrupt halt. Smith's senses swam with the jolt of it. All about him was a confused jumble of blurred figures and forms; it was infinitely worse than his first ride in a hoist. In a moment, however, he was able to examine ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... learned to make decisions with suddenness. He gave this one, however, a full five seconds' consideration. Then he reached out and possessed himself of ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... could offer to this stricken household was that HE knew how bad they felt, having had a brother who had died with equal suddenness and also without hope, as he "had suosode hisself ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... noise." These words were as low and as fine as the little whisper that you hear among the leaves of the alder when a faint wind comes out of the west on a summer's evening and moves them. And while he yet remained bewildered by the suddenness of the boy's appearance, his own deliverance, and the order that had been given to him, he perceived the lad stooping over his companion in captivity, and severing the thongs that bound him. Stephens now moved hastily away a short distance, and ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... their stride, the players laid down their cards, the noise of the room ceased with the suddenness that characterized the time and place, for Lost Valley was quick upon the trigger, tragedy often swept in ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... what the pills were when I exclaimed at their size—regular little pellets, no bigger than that," he demonstrated the size with the tip of his little finger, and would have added more but the gong over the front door rang out with such suddenness that both ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... doubt that the swiftness and suddenness of Hamilton's conversion, his abrupt descent from a background of study and alien indifference, gave him a clearer and more comprehensive view of the wrongs and needs of the colonists than they possessed themselves. They had been muttering ever since the passage ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... the minutes went slowly—laden as they were with momentous thought. She lay in a tumult of agitation, her heart beating painfully under the lawn of her nightgown. She had a sense of gasping wonderment. She felt, as Colin had felt, that something tremendous had happened—and with such bewildering suddenness—altering all the ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... whether Graham's deserts entitled him to the same attention, when he caught her up with one hand, and with that one hand held her poised aloft above his head. She saw herself thus lifted up on high, in the glass over the fireplace. The suddenness, the freedom, the disrespect of the action ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... so much filled with surprise at the suddenness of all this, that he could scarcely speak. Immediately after the departure of the old gentleman, he said, "Well, good-bye, mistress, good-bye, Bob," and throwing on his hat in a careless way, left ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... there are any circumstances of time, place, and the like, by which the principal terms of our sentence must be limited or qualified."—Blair, Jam. and Mur. cor. "Interjections are words that express emotion, affection, or passion, and that imply suddenness." Or: "Interjections express emotion, affection, or passion, and imply suddenness."—Bucke cor. "But the genitive expressing the measure of things, is used in the plural number only."—Adam and Gould cor. "The buildings of the institution have been enlarged; and ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... comfort; but she heeded me not, rocking herself to and fro as the mother who cradles a child to sleep. Soon the fast-flickering sparkles of the lost elixir died out on the grass; and with their last sportive diamond- like tremble of light, up, in all the suddenness of Australian day, rose the sun, lifting himself royally above the mountain tops, and fronting the meaner blaze of the forest as a young king fronts his rebels. And as there, where the bush fires had ravaged, all was a desert, so there, where their fury had not spread, all was a garden. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... bare, eyes wide open displaying scarcely anything but the whites, for he was squinting so horribly that his pupils had disappeared behind his thick nose, while the club he held was quivering as if he were about to strike. The suddenness of the approach startled Carey for the moment, and he leaped back, but the reaction came as quickly, and with doubled fist he rushed at the black; but the latter was too quick, leaping aside, and Carey's second attack, which took the form of a flying ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... Anna for a reply, but none came, for she was partly stunned by the force and suddenness of Mrs Winn's attack, and also filled with alarm at the idea of her going to Pynes. That would spoil everything. So she sat in silence, nervously twisting her fingers in her lap, her downcast face strangely unlike that of the usually bright, ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton |
