"Hysterics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to feel a certain resentment. The unfortunate Gretry girl had gone away in tears. What with the embarrassment of the wrong gown, the brow-beating, and the nose-bleed, she was not far from hysterics. She had retired to the dining-room with Mrs. Cressler and from time to time the sounds of her distress made themselves heard. Laura believed it quite time to interfere. After all, who was this Gerardy person, to give himself such airs? Poor Miss Gretry was to blame for nothing. She fixed ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... upright impressiveness seemed to demand some comment, but I could not manage a sound; for at her words there rushed back to me, with humiliating clearness, my own hysterics of the night before. Was it possible that Hallie thought I was in love with him, too? My cheeks burned ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... a course woollen dress on a particular day, and dine on his knees at the door of the refectory, the boy's haughty spirit swelling under this dishonour, brought on a sudden vomiting, and a strong fit of hysterics. The mathematical master passing by, said they did not understand what they were dealing with, and released him. He cared little for common pastimes; but his love for such as mimicked war was extreme; and the skill of his fortifications, reared ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... other of the deeds of Ogla-Moga—of how he imprisoned three estimable old ladies in the elevator, and before they were released had frightened them into hysterics; of how he at first took the milkman to be a brother Indian, and regularly for a time answered his morning howl with a terrifying war-whoop; of how he kept the house in turmoil by ringing an electric bell wherever he could find one, in doing which he took a childish delight—there is no need ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... caught streamers of my dress held me fast, and I sat down heavily again—plop, right on top of the poor gouty feet. The General roared more loudly than before, the two other men called out, "Oh, oh!" and I felt as if I should go into hysterics myself. It was ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... together that the first crack of thunder had sounded like shooting, and that's what started her off. She hadn't ever been in a real thunderstorm before, and she's scared of them. I know that one we had the other day like to of scared her into hysterics. I laughed at her and ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... everyone, yourself included, has become of late," said he. "I was telling you that I cannot in the least understand Lizabetha Prokofievna's ideas and agitations. She is in hysterics up there, and moans and says that we have been 'shamed and disgraced.' How? Why? When? By whom? I confess that I am very much to blame myself; I do not conceal the fact; but the conduct, the outrageous ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Patty checked her hysterics sufficiently to rescue her new treasure from the danger of being scalped. As she squeezed the doll in her arms, safe from harm's way, it opened its lips and emitted a ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... wish you would believe it and not look at me so strangely. I never had hysterics in my life, but I feel as if I might have them right ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... is funny?" he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. "This is the funniest thing I ever heard of. Excuse the hysterics, Miss Phipps, but it certainly is. For the past month Williams and I, through this fellow Pulcifer down here, have been working heaven and earth to get the six hundred and fifty shares of that stock we supposed you and Hallett owned. And all the time it was locked up in ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... before he reached her. "I was afraid you would be tired of waiting and wander about till you got frightened and lost yourself. Do you ever have hysterics?" ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... work were safely out of the way, she smashed a boxful of eight-ounce bottles I had left to drain, assaulting my uncle with a new soft broom. Sometimes she would shy things at me—but not often. There seemed always laughter round and about her—all three of us would share hysterics at times—and on one occasion the two of them came home from church shockingly ashamed of themselves, because of a storm of mirth during the sermon. The vicar, it seems, had tried to blow his nose with a black glove as well as the customary pocket-handkerchief. And afterwards she had picked up her ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... sat in—Rob's awful little room adjoining—which was awful because of what she had seen for a moment lying stiff and hard on the bed before she was taken away in hysterics—were dread enclosures of utter silence. The whole house was dumb—the very street had no sound in it. She could not endure it. How dare Tonson? She sprang up and rang the bell again and again until its sound came back to her ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the lockers and water-butt were filled, and the passengers, one by one, set into it. On the whole, at that moment for leaving the ship, their conduct left little room for criticism; one or two of the women who had appeared on the verge of hysterics now restrained audible manifestation of emotion. Sir Charles proved a monument of helpfulness; assisted in placing the women here and there, and extended a helpful hand to Lord Ronsdale, who had become somewhat dazed ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... address, delivered with a perfect shriek of rage, had the effect of sending good Madame Baumgarten flying along the passage and through the kitchen, where she locked herself up in the scullery and went into violent hysterics. In the meantime Von Hartmann strode into the room and threw himself down upon the sofa ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... could not get far enough apart. Manfred would enjoy his evenings at the ball or opera with Flossy, while Fred would entertain Maud, much to her pleasure, at home. The wife hated to see her husband come home at all, but she went into hysterics when Fred arrived. When Fred and Flossy were away, or absent, goodness knows where, the once happy home was like a lunatic asylum, in which the mania with the inmates was a total disregard of each other, and where language was unknown. The husband ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... to her senses, she dragged herself, terrified, from the room and up to the housekeeper's apartments, where, being an excitable and nervous creature, she only screamed "Murder!" and immediately fell in a fit of hysterics that lasted three-quarters of an hour. When at last she came to herself, she told her story, and, the hall-porter having been summoned, Rameau's rooms ...
— Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... door locked as usual. Then I half dressed and went out on to the landing, my hilarity better under control, and proceeded to go downstairs. I wished to record my sensations. I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth so as not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... old darling No. 6," cried Aunt Judy, covering the sobbing child quite round with both her arms, "surely YOU are not going into hysterics about the rabbits' tails too! I doubt if even their little mammas did that. Come! you must cheer up, or mamma will leave to be sent for to say that if you are so unreasonable, you must never listen to Aunt Judy's ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... this tactful epistle, Dolly, of course, immediately burst out into hysterics. These shall remain undescribed here. There is something mysterious about hysteria which paralyzes the pen. Not the least mysterious thing about it is the fact that the word, pronounced in an assembly of men and women, will simultaneously call up haggard lines on the faces ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... what's to pay now, I wonder?" exclaimed Esq. Camford, rushing pell-mell into the dining room, where his family were assembled at breakfast, and throwing his delicate wife into hysterics. ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... store. But these two subjects had been unrelated. Between the two memory compartments there had been no connection. That, in the fabric of knowledge, there should be any connection whatever between a woman with hysterics and a schooner carrying a weather-helm or heaving to in a gale, would have struck him as ridiculous and impossible. But Herbert Spencer had shown him not only that it was not ridiculous, but that it was impossible for there to be no connection. All things were related ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the kind of girl that faints or goes into hysterics. The spirit of her father was aroused to the last degree. She felt that she had been arraigned and condemned by one who had no right to do either; that all the cherished traditions of her life had been trampled upon; that her father's loved companion-in-arms, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... find out before you get through that I mean to deal with you fairly. But you cannot accomplish anything by hysterics. ...
— The Naturewoman • Upton Sinclair
... as briefly, in fragmentary sentences. "Tell me what it all means," said I, in a state bordering on hysterics. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... is growing too frightful; ladies who read it will be going into hysterics, or saying, "Well, upon my word, this is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of language. Jane, my love, you will not read that odious book—" and so I will be brief. This grinning man belabours the patient violently with the horse-brush. ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hysterics for an hour, with Anne rubbing her forehead and Aunt Selina burning a feather out of the feather duster under her nose. Only Jim and I understood, and we did not tell. Luckily, the next thing that occurred drove Bella and her nerves from ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... had put on one this day, and the effect was that she seemed to be forty years of age; but one instant after he had come in, her pale face was flooded with crimson, and her eyes were full of tears. She had hard work to keep herself from going into hysterics, but she instinctively knew how much he would hate a scene, and she ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... settled down in the chief "estaminet" of the place. The decision was a faulty one. The old woman who was hostess gave way to hysterics at the thought of having to provide for five large, hungry and nervous officers. She was a horrid old woman—mean, dirty, and if the Captain's word could be taken as strict truth, immoral. Still, a roof to cover their heads was an unusual blessing, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... this resolution. He coaxed her, but she was bitter and sullen, and not to be coaxed. Then he scolded her well; then, at that she went into hysterics. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of any kind, and after the children or others alleged to have been bewitched had performed the usual contortions, the accused were swiftly convicted. Francis Nourse and his wife, Rebecca, had a controversy about the occupation of a farm with a family named Endicott. The Endicott children went into hysterics and charged that Rebecca Nourse had bewitched them. Although as good and pure a woman as there was in the colour, Rebecca was convicted, hanged on Witches' Hill, and her body cast into a pit designed for those who should ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a prison—a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along the shaded avenues of ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... repeated Mrs. Lambert. "Yes, but if I'm not mistaken, my dear, she is doing so well that she's going to pieces. She's overstrung to-day. If it were you, you'd be in hysterics." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... glass into its leathern case and started to the gate, where the horses were standing. He did not tell Beatrice that Miss Hayes had just been carried into the house in a faint, or that her mother was behaving in an undignified fashion strongly suggesting hysterics. But Dick knew, from the look on his face, that it was serious. He hurried before them with long strides, leaving Beatrice, for the second time that morning, to the care ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... Mrs. Fishley was not getting the better of me in this argument; and I soon came to the conclusion that she thought so herself, for she settled into a chair, and began to exhibit some symptoms of hysterics. ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... dim halo playing around her head. For an instant he stood rooted to the spot, and then with a wild yell he ran across the street, darted between two houses and disappeared over the back fence. Then began a series of encounters which threw Sahwah into hysterics twenty years later when she happened to remember them. Intent only on her own liberation she was at the time unconscious of the terrifying figure she presented, and hastened along at the top of her speed. Everywhere the people fled before her in the extremity of terror. On all sides she could ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... you, to be glad and sorry at one and the same moment? No doubt a creature like you, with such a very small intellect, if indeed you have any at all, will say that it is not possible. But I know better. Why, what do you call hysterics? Ain't that laughing and crying at once— sorrow and joy mixed? I don't believe you understand a word that I say. You great puffing blockhead, ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... and male waiting-maids in Congress went into hysterics when I armed the negroes. Yet ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... so please your Majesty— (I mean your Majesty that is to be.) Your future wife's ill-temper there's no bearing; Her tantrums and hysterics are quite wearing. A hundred times I was called up last night To try and set this knotty question right. I'd scarcely time my slippers to resume, Much less to dress in proper court costume. I just popped on my crimson satin breeches,— I fear I caught a cold; (sneezes) must put on leeches, ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... was saying, "all this newspaper talk. Every nation, properly led, fights bravely. It is the male instinct. Women go into hysterics about it, because it has not been given them. I have the Croix de Guerre with all three leaves, and I haven't half the courage of my dog, who weighs twelve kilos, and would face a regiment by himself. Why, a game cock ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... all events, better than anything else she has said," Major Colquhoun observed, almost as if a weight had been removed from his mind. "And I am quite inclined to come to terms with her, for I don't care much myself for a young lady who gets into hysterics about things that ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... and asserted with vehemence his right to wed with whom he pleased, and declared that no power on earth should prevent him marrying the lady just driven ignominiously from the house if she could be brought to accept the offer of his hand and fortune! Mrs. Rushton fell into passionate hysterics; and her son, having first summoned her maid, withdrew to ruminate on Mademoiselle de Tourville's concluding sentence, which troubled him far more that what he deemed ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... been prepared for this. She knew her duty well, for her father had often told her what to do. No tears! no hysterics! She took Sam's hand without a word, and, placing her fairy foot upon his boot, vaulted up into the saddle before him.... They crossed the river, and dismounting, they led the tired horse up the steep slope of ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... bad," said Miss Prudence, half laughing and half crying, "if there were any sleeves to my dress, but, as you see, there aren't," and then Miss Prudence had something as near hysterics as a healthy young woman from the ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... window of a store for men, a set of violent purple wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the thought of Mr. Moses Feldt in such a garb. They giggled idiotically at the spectacle of a countryman fearfully making the sharp descent from the top of a lurching omnibus. And then, when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon's ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... around her, and we began to glide round and round on the deck. Her face was turned away from mine, and looked over my shoulder; if our eyes had met, I am convinced I must have laughed or wept. It was half farce, half deadly earnest, and for me as near to hysterics as a sane man can go. Tubal Cain, that inspired young Plymouth Brother, was solemn as a judge. As for Annie, I would give a considerable amount, at this moment, to know what she thought of it. But she stepped very lightly ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... female now stood erect in her night robes, screeching at the top of her voice, for she believed a madman had entered her room, and went straight into a fit of hysterics, while the watchman and numerous of the female bystanders gathered around the major, and would have torn him to pieces, but for a clergyman, who suddenly made his appearance, in his shirt and spectacles, and commenced reading them a lesson on the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... flashed over the wires that the first prize in the National Spelling Contest had been won by a Negro girl, in competition with white children from New Orleans and other Southern cities? The indignation of at least one of the leading New Orleans papers verged upon hysterics; the editor's rhetoric visited upon some foulest crime could hardly have been more inflamed than in denunciation of the fact that, on the far-away shore of Lake Erie, New Orleans white children had competed at a spelling bee with a Negro girl. The superintendent ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... Longworth left her, Jennie Brewster indulged in a brief spasm of hysterics. Her common-sense, however, speedily came to her rescue; and, as she became more calm, she began to wonder why she had not assaulted the girl who had dared to imprison her. She dimly remembered that she thought of a fierce onslaught at the time, and she also ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... to Ned, "he is in the parlor; he has just been asking for you. I am glad you have come. Your mother is in hysterics in her bedroom, and is going on like a mad woman. You must be calm, ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... her. A policeman gallantly ran up the escape, jumped into the room, gathered up the cook with great difficulty—for she was unusually fat and the smoke very suffocating— carried her down, bore her to the same house where Betty lay, and left her there in violent hysterics. ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... didn't that same moon shine on the children of Brahma as well as on the children of Christ? and were there no powers in heaven but what we confessed? How philosophical all this in a Scouring Burn weaver in hysterics! Yet there are greater men than Aminadab who could not explain such things. Ah, well; to the honour of poor Aminadab, it was for once not pork he sought at Logie House. Next night at ten he was in the parlour; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... everything he says. Though mother didn't. After he was gone, she just lay there in her bed and said over and over that it was a lie, a foolish, dangerous lie! Poor mumsie, she's so nervous that when the grocer's truck had a blow-out down in the drive, she nearly went into hysterics—cried and carried on, something about it's being 'the shot.' I suppose she meant the one when Mr. Gilbert killed himself. Wasn't that queer? Any loud noise of the sort sets her off that way. She ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... the issues, and boldly declared the real issue. And that issue was, that Mr. Gladstone wanted time to push forward his Home Rule Bill, and that the Tory party was determined to prevent him getting that time if they could manage it. Where be now the hysterics about private members and simple issues and small questions? The issue lies naked and clear before the House. But still victory isn't assured. Mr. Goschen with his thick utterance, his muffled voice, his loss of grip ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... lost and all that, and him bein' bully-ragged by the kernel, and me knowin' that but for him your sister wouldn't be between these walls here, and Oi wouldn't be talkin' to ye. And shure, sorr, ye might be tellin's the kernel as how the leddy was took by the hysterics, and was that loony that she didn't know whatever she was sayin', and so get the leftenant in ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... that followed his birthday party—the mere mention of which, after the lapse of four days, was enough to send Sissy into hysterics—that young lady was seated in the parlor, ready for her guest. She was ready for him in all the senses a Madigan knew how to infuse into that frame of mind. She intended to make him as miserable as she herself had ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... firmly, when the cook's hysterics had become quieter, and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, 'don't you begin jawing us. We aren't going to stand it. We know too much. You'll please make an extra special treacle roley for dinner, and we'll ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... grounds of respect. To come walking in in this fashion, buoyed balloon-like by the body of this loved one, and before the members of a frivolous, gaping house party—ah, even I could imagine the mingled horror and derision, the hysterics among the women, perhaps. Nor would it stop there. Rumors—and heaven only knows what distortions such rumors might undergo, having their source in the incredible—would range our social circle like wildfire. ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... chain, and Adye entered through as narrow an opening as possible. He stood in the hall, looking with infinite relief at Kemp refastening the door. "Note was snatched out of her hand. Scared her horribly. She's down at the station. Hysterics. He's close here. What ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... murdered for came from the house, an unheroic figure with suspenders dangling and a corncob pipe in his mouth, sullen, angry, and withal abjectly frightened, as mere man inevitably is when he sniffs a woman's battle in the air. The bride, at sight of her husband, took to hysterics. She wept, she laughed, and down tumbled her hair. She felt the situation demanded a scene. Rodney, with a marital brevity hardly to be expected so soon, commanded Sally to go into the ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... Then followed hysterics and agony, greedily listened to by Debby, whose ear was at the crack of the door. Captain Elkanah soothed and pleaded and tried to pacify. It ended by his promising to investigate and, ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... at least, philosophers say—some heavy burdens upon women. Do those learned persons include in their list the burden of hysterics? If so, I cordially agree with them. It is hardly worth speaking of in my case—a constitutional outbreak in the solitude of my own room, treated with eau-de-cologne and water, and quite forgotten afterward in the absorbing employment of education. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... met him at the St. Petersburg station, and hardly knew him. Taken to the nearest hotel, he went into hysterics, and was unconscious for forty-eight hours. The doctor said travel was necessary. The wife was provided for, and, leaving her forever, Tschaikovski fled to foreign countries barely in time to save his sanity. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... water, they will become habitually cold, and make one more or less delicate and nervous. On the other hand, by rubbing the feet often in cold water, they will become permanently warm. A cold foot-bath will stop a violent fit of hysterics. Cold feet ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... cried Mrs. Temple. "Oh my dear Charlotte!" and clasping her hands in an agony of distress, fell into strong hysterics. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... Anthony Van Corlear, seizing his trumpet, the only substitute for a newspaper in those primitive days, would sound the tidings from the ramparts with such doleful notes and disastrous cadence, as to throw half the old women in the city into hysterics; all which tended greatly to increase his popularity, there being nothing for which the public are more grateful than being frequently treated to a panic—a secret well known ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... nation—if (but this was doubtful) England did not help others to hammer her. Now, twenty years ago one would not have heard any of this sort of thing. If it sounds a little mad, remember that the Mother Country was throughout considered as a lady in violent hysterics. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... unprepared for the children's response. It was so unexpected, in fact, that for the moment she tottered perilously near the verge of hysterics. The children actually grinned; while Bridget remarked, with ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... been!" cried Alice, almost in hysterics, as Lydia entered. "Is he gone? What were those dreadful noises? IS anything ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... herself nearly into hysterics, and Primrose had at last to pacify her by assuring her that they were not going away from the ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... how to put this and that together, though he thinks I don't know of his doings; but I'll be even with you, Meg Partlet, yet—you trollop;' and all this was delivered in renewed floods of tears, and stentorian hysterics, while she shook her fat red fist in the air, at the presumed level of ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... terrible, at first. But they were kind to me, in their way. And I was—cured. I went into hysterics at the first mention of the whole hideous thing. They saw Roy, and they told me that I need never see him again. The papers—for it got to the papers!—said that a divorce had been arranged, but there was no need for a divorce. It was ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... acts as cruelties to peaceable Filipino citizens. I can remember when the journals of this country upheld and applauded an officer who, in the Civil War, ordered a man shot if he attempted to haul down the American flag, and cannot understand the present hysterics of some journals over the terrible violation of the laws of war in punishing a traitor, caught in the act, with the water cure only. The treatment may have been severe, but it ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... that one of the quaintest spectacles of human frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls' school. It starts without warning, generally on a hot afternoon among the elder pupils. A girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond control. Then she throws up her head, and cries, "Honk, honk, honk," like a wild goose, and tears mix with the laughter. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... narrative, told by an eye-witness, of the gruesome happenings of the past night, and the powerful suggestion of what was probably taking place at that moment away yonder in the woods, had so acted upon the vivid imaginations of the women that one or two of them were visibly upon the very verge of hysterics, while all were more or less in a state of mortal terror as to what might be their fate should the natives take it into their heads to attack the ship. For, that the presence of so many white men as they had encountered would suggest to the astute native mind the idea that ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... would do you good," said Belle; "I remembered that when the poor women in the great house were afflicted with hysterics and fearful imaginings, the surgeon, who was a good, kind man, used to say: 'Ale, give them ale, and let it ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... questions drew out the truth of the situation. Mrs. Bishop had shut herself up in a blind and incredible obstinacy, whence she sallied with floods of complaints, tears, accusations, despairs, reproaches, vows, hysterics—all the battery of the woman misunderstood, but in which she refused to listen to a consecutive conversation. If Carroll undertook to say anything, the third word would start her mother off into one of her long and hysterical tirades. It was very wearing, and there ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... Lord Betterson, sternly; while Mrs. Betterson went into hysterics on Vinnie's shoulder, and was taken into ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... may be better imagined than described. Questions in frightened voices filled the air against this background of suppressed weeping. Briefly—Joan's silk tent had been torn, and the girl was in a state bordering upon hysterics. Somewhat reassured by our noisy presence, however,—for she was plucky at heart,—she pulled herself together and tried to explain what had happened; and her broken words, told there on the edge of night and ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... TARLETON. [almost in hysterics] I used to think that this sort of thing went on in other families but that it never could happen in ours. And now— [He is broken with emotion, and continues lamentably] I cant say the right thing. I cant do the right thing. I dont know what is the right thing. I'm ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... opening was made in the crowd as they passed into the church, and the girl, kneeling down, was questioned by the bishop, but I could not make out the dialogue, which was carried on in a low voice. She then passed into the convent by a side door, and her mother, quite exhausted and nearly in hysterics, was supported through the crowd to a place beside us, in front of the grating. The music struck up; the curtain was again drawn aside. The scene was as striking here as in the convent of the Santa Teresa, but ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... confessional. But Elizabeth shook her head: it was a trick, she said, to hide from her the sorrow which had fallen upon her. Her agony, instead of calming, became more violent; her tears ceased to flow, and were followed by hysterics. The priest then made her swear to keep the secret, and the sanctity of the confession ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... for nerves and hysterics, and almost any old thing, but you're going a little bit too far, my lady. There's no excuse for your talking such stuff as that, and you're not going to do it, if I have to gag you! Now, you march to your own room and—STAY there. Do you hear? And don't you dare let another yip ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... that passage all night?' the girl asked herself tremblingly; and so cruel, so poignant had her suspense become, that had it been prolonged much further her overwrought nerves would have given way, and she would have lapsed into a fit of hysterics. But the tray-full of glasses she had heard jingling were now being washed, and the irritative butler did not stir forth again. This was Olive's opportunity. From the proximity of the drawing-room to the hall-door it was impossible for her ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... the house. Silence reigned within the walls for a week. In the interim, Mrs. Jipson and the daughters not only got over their hysterics, but ideas of gentility, as practised "above Bleecker street." It took poor Jipson an entire year to recuperate his financial "outs," while it took the whole family quite as long to get over their grand debut as followers of fashion in ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... hysterics", are merely grown-up "spoiled children", and in all cases, the basic factor is a lack of ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... quite sure that there is any possibility of this? I was told that the child's shoe has been found in the river; but almost immediately following this information came the report that there was something odd about this shoe, and that Mrs. Ocumpaugh had gone into hysterics. Do you know what they meant by that? I was just going ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... splash, and two Undines sat in the tank, gazing speechless on each other. This was too much for the composure of any one. Both Peggy and Gertrude sat helpless, shaking with laughter, and absolutely unable to move. Bertha, outside, fairly went into hysterics, and laughed and screamed in one breath; while the other girls raised such a clamour of mingled mirth and terror that Emily Cortlandt, who had just come in to take a look at the decorations, came running down-stairs, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... chair with a backward kick to give room for her ample hoops, and curtseying low to the company marched out of the room without so much as a glance at her rival who was on the verge of hysterics. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... arrival in Rome, from exposure to the sun or some such cause, and in a fit of suicidal impatience shaved away his whole beard . . . whiskers and all!! I cried when I saw him, I was so horror-struck. I might have gone into hysterics and still been reasonable—for no human being was ever so disfigured by so simple an act. Of course I said when I recovered heart and voice, that everything was at an end between him and me if he didn't let it all grow again directly, and (upon the further advice ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... good fellows were like boys. Some of them (with laughter seasoned by a few tears) read me funny bits out of their wives' letters—bits too that were not funny, about having "a pretty fit of hysterics" at reading bad news of us and "wanting to kiss the newsboy" when he brought the paper ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... and went off into hysterics. Mrs. Lascelles and Cecilia went to her assistance; but the latter had not forgotten the very different behaviour of Jack Pickersgill, and his polite manners, when he boarded the vessel. She did not, therefore, believe what the maid had reported, but still ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... or the stomach. "Unto the pure all things are pure," may have been written especially for our times, when there is such a vast amount of mock modesty; when so much pretense of virtue covers such a world of iniquity and vice. The young lady who goes into a spasm of virtuous hysterics upon hearing the word "leg," is perhaps just the one who at home riots her imagination in voluptuous French novels, if she commits no grosser breach of chastity. The parents who are the most opposed to imparting ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... and the courtier saw, with secret rage, that the country beauty was not easily appeased, even by an apology from Lord Mauleverer. "I have seen the time," thought he, "when young unmarried ladies would have deemed an affront from me an honour! They would have gone into hysterics at an apology!" Before he had time to make his peace, the squire joined them; and Lucy, taking her father's arm, expressed her wish to return home. The squire was delighted at the proposition. It ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... morning found the dissipated crew still the guests of the Sizers, and when big Bill slowly spelled out the assertion made by the Tribune that his sister had "a roughish smile" loud cries of indignation arose. Molly first cried and then had hysterics and screamed vigorously; Bill swore vengeance on the Millville Tribune and all connected with it, while the guests gravely asserted it was "a low-down, measly trick" which the Sizers ought to resent. They ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... into hysterics," he said. "Go up to your room and keep quiet. You have done mischief enough, and caused suffering enough. Don't add to it all by making a fuss and waking the house. I have got some feeling, and I can not speak ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... suspicion to public librarians; they are also a class infinitely more difficult to deal with than men, for, whilst the receptivity of their cloaks is infinite, their 'feelings' have to be considered. Whether guilty or innocent, the suspected party is bound to create a 'scene,' probably hysterics—and what is a public librarian, or, indeed, any other man, to ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... chest, which her mirror revealed to her. The period was full of woman's advancement—a peaceful revolution had triumphed around her—yet she had taken no part in it, and the knowledge left her unmoved. She had read countless novels that acclaimed hysterically the wrongs of her sex, but beneath the hysterics she had perceived the fact that the newer woman who grasped successfully the right to live, was as her elder sister who had petitioned merely for the privilege to love. The modern heroine could still charm even after she had ceased to desire to. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... evening arrived. Leisure had been allowed for fear, and every possible anticipation of the wildest character, to unfold themselves. Hope, even, amongst many, was a predominant sensation. Ladies were preparing for hysterics. Cavaliers, besides the swords which they wore as regular articles of dress, were providing themselves with stilettoes against any sudden rencontre hand to hand, or any unexpected surprise. Armorers and furbishers of weapons were as much in request as the more appropriate artists ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... laughing and then crying and then laughing again and then crying once more till six of 'em had to be led out and the rest down with hiccoughs. Napkins waving ... three tables broken ... waiters in hysterics. I tell you, I played on them as on a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... the leader of the band played it in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience and the noise of corks drawn from smelling bottles prevented the mistakes between sharps and flats being heard. One hundred and nine ladies fainted! forty-six went into fits! and ninety-five had strong hysterics. The world will scarcely credit the truth when they are told that fourteen children, five old men, one hundred tailors, and six common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that flowed from ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... life is half and half, Now bright and joyous as a song of Herrick's, Then chill and bare as funeral-minded Blair; As fickle as a female in hysterics. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... approvingly; "it tickles the audience, you know, to see a fellow looking glum while everyone else is having hysterics at the funny—at the humourist. It isn't as easy as it looks, though, Alan. I shall keep saying things to make you laugh, you know. You'll find it jolly difficult to keep looking miserable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... a breakdown of hysterics, between sobs of which were frequent admonitions to the child not to say that bad word; for Myra had caught sight of Rowland and ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... to believe it, for the sake of hushing the exhausted Paula, who almost went into hysterics, as she laughed at the notion of to-morrow's telegram that Vera was safe at Filsted; and then allowed herself to be calmed enough to sleep, while Agatha revolved the notion, but found herself unable seriously to believe, that sufficient grievance could be brought ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... landlady, screaming like a sea-gull, and bearing Jocko aloft upon her shoulders, from which "bad eminence" he was grinning and chattering with the fury of fifty devils. She ran twice round the room, and then sunk on the floor in hysterics. We lost no time in hastening to her assistance; but the warlike Jocko, still sitting upon her, refused to permit one of us to approach. There he sat, turning from side to side, showing his sharp, white teeth, and uttering from time to time the most ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... situation by laughing. She was taken with the giggles and she laughed till the tears rolled down her cheeks. The others laughed, too, even Mrs. Gray, who felt that she might give way to hysterics at any moment. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower
... dark without, and lights were burning upon the table, there was the sound of some one at the gate, and in a moment Henry stepped across the threshold, but started and turned pale when he saw his mother in violent hysterics upon the lounge, and Mary Howard bathing her head and trying to soothe her. Before he had time to ask a question, Jenny's arms were wound around his neck, and she whispered, "Rose is dead.—Why were ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... in and tell the girls to put ice on her head. She's gettin' hysterics again. And when you've told 'em, you go up to the grounds and tell Blake and Skinny to unpack the Petrified Man. Tell 'em I'm goin' to use him again to-day, and if he's lookin' shop-worn, have one of the men go over his complexion and make him look ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... a horrible German murderer who had strangled his employer's wife, while a female accomplice played the piano to divert her children's attention from her cries, swooned away at the news. O'Flynn's old mother went into hysterics and became quite uncontrollable in her grief when, a few minutes later the news, "Five years' penal servitude," ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... aeronautics, analytics, bitters, catoptrics, commons, conics, credentials, delicates, dioptrics, economics, ethics, extraordinaries, filings, fives, freshes, glanders, gnomonics, goods, hermeneutics, hustings, hydrodynamics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, hysterics, inwards, leavings, magnetics, mathematics, measles, mechanics, mnemonics, merils, metaphysics, middlings, movables, mumps, nuptials, optics, phonics, phonetics, physics,[146] pneumatics, poetics, politics, riches, rickets, settlings, shatters, skimmings, spherics, staggers, statics, statistics, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown |
