"Spasmodic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... port, they are not likely to make any organized assault. Arabi's agents will hardly precipitate matters in that way. Hard as they may work, it will take a month to get the defences into proper order, and any rising will be merely a spasmodic outbreak of fanaticism. I don't think the danger is likely to be pressing until, finding that all remonstrances are vain, the admiral begins ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... to my wife's dinner, Lisbeth," said he, scrutinizing her, for Lisbeth was perfectly well, trying to imitate the hiccough of spasmodic indigestion as she drank ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... short, sharp raid of General Early—penetrating to the gates of the Capital and with possible capabilities of even entering them—can hardly be considered an organized scheme of invasion. It was rather the spasmodic effort by a sharp, hard blow to loosen the tightening and death-dealing grip upon our throat, and give us time for one long, deep breath before the final ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... handle by a labyrinth of elastic strings. These Mary had drawn from abandoned garters, sling shots, and other mysterious sources, and they allowed the wood to jerk unsteadily up and down, and to soothe the unsuspecting Theodora with a spasmodic rhythm very like the ministrations ...
— New Faces • Myra Kelly
... of Rouen, there probably lurks a good deal of republicanism, akin to that which exists among the workingmen of Paris. Unfortunately it is of a kind which, though capable of spasmodic attempts to revolutionize society by force, is little capable of sustained constitutional effect, and which alarms and arrays against it, not only despots, but moderate friends of liberty and progress. The outward appearances, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... her fingers tighten over his in spasmodic incredulity and saw the stunned look in her eyes, but she only said steadily, "Go on ... I knows ye hed ter do hit. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Elsie Darling, and perhaps in some degree to a glass or two of champagne, having become intensified, it was a proof of its being "the real thing." He was sure now that it was not only the real thing, but that it would be lasting. This was no spasmodic breeze through his aeolian harp, but the breath and life of his being. He came to this conclusion as he packed a bag that he could send for toward evening, and made a few other preparations for a temporary absence from his father's house. Putting one thing with another, ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... finished their meal when the sounds lessened, dwindling to spasmodic, staggering gasps with lengthening pauses that broke suddenly in a quivering intake of breath and a vibration of the recumbent frame. The hysterical paroxysm was over. He lay limp and turned his head on his arms, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the cool river draught, the yellow sandstone bluffs, whimsically decorated with sparse patches of greenery, seemed to waver as though seen through shimmering silken gauze. And over it all was the hush of a dream, except when, in a spasmodic freshening of the breeze, the rude mast creaked and a sleepy watery murmur grew up for a ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... hear the day before yesterday from Sommer that poor Stockmar had had a relapse, but the illness is clearly of a spasmodic nature and therefore not at all dangerous, and the pain had speedily left him, but of course left him again weaker, which ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... yelled exultantly as his fingers extracted the hook. John brought out the fish stringer, and the unfortunate minnow, firmly tied by the gills, was lowered slowly into the water. The pair watched its spasmodic efforts at escape with ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... nerves of a gentleman. I measured the spasm with which his poor dispossessed hand closed upon the crisp paper, I observed his empurpled nostril convulsive under the other solicitation. He crushed the crackling note in his palm with a passionate pressure and jerked a spasmodic bow. "I shall not do you the wrong, sir, of anything but the best!" The next moment the ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... from a spasmodic contraction of the muscles, in consequence of his having been hanged. He will never lose it, and it has not a little contributed to give him the horrible look he has, and to invest him with some of the seeming outward ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... before the dawn of the eighteenth century, though spasmodic and on the whole infrequent, were not entirely unknown. Times of national stress were peculiarly productive of them. Thus when, in 1545, there was reason to fear a French invasion, pressing of the most violent and unprecedented character was openly resorted to in order to man the fleet. The class ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... in sympathy with the movement or the rhythm of the song. Even though the voice may flow freely on the vowels, the articulation must not be hurried, nervous or spasmodic. This style of articulation often disturbs the legato flow and spoils the general effect. While of course it is not possible to sing the consonantal sounds, a beautiful effect is often the result of playing upon the consonant rhythmically, ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... of philosophy the will can never be compelled to do wrong; at most it could be said that, in the cases just referred to, the will was not in the act. Now this, I suppose, is the case in hydrophobia or rabies, in which terrible disease the biting of the sufferer appears to be spasmodic, not voluntary. It is very doubtful whether such excuse can be substantiated in ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... self-possessed that the impediment in his speech was scarcely observable, was seized anew and cast into chains by his invisible enemy. The captive struggled in vain; the avenues of speech were barricaded; all his limbs were shackled; his movements became uncertain and spasmodic, menacing tables, chairs, vases, which, had they been gifted with consciousness, must have trembled at his approach; his nervous fingers thrust themselves into his hair, and threw it into ludicrous disorder; ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... clatter of sharp claws on the rocky floor, saw the pig-like eyes of the animals shining red under the light, heard their spasmodic breathing, and was about to make a desperate rush forward when the outer cavern was flooded with a racing light which grew and grew as Tommy looked. Then he heard the sound ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... in human beings often the effect of emotional or moral recoil; hence, the word is applied by extension to such feelings even when they have no such outward manifestation; as, one says, "I shudder at the thought." To quiver is to have slight and often spasmodic contractile motions, as the flesh under the surgeon's knife. Thrill is applied to a pervasive movement felt rather than seen; as, the nerves thrill with delight; quiver is similarly used, but suggests ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... sufficiently well for implication, yield in extent, darkness and intricacy, to the republican plot against the President's life and those of his counselors. The police operations prove that the late murder as not a spasmodic and fitful crime, but long premeditated, and carried to consummation with as much cohesion and resolution as the murder of Allessandro de Medici or ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... Kilmarnock; began life as a pattern-designer, contributed to the Glasgow Citizen, wrote a volume of poems, "A Life Drama," and produced other works in a style characterised as "spasmodic," and which, according to Tennyson, "showed fancy, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... contraction of the same muscles as with us. So does the Barbary ape (Inuus ecaudatus) to an extraordinary degree; and I observed in this monkey that the skin of the lower eyelids then became much wrinkled. At the same time it rapidly moved its lower jaw or lips in a spasmodic manner, the teeth being exposed; but the noise produced was hardly more distinct than that which we sometimes call silent laughter. Two of the keepers affirmed that this slight sound was the animal's laughter, and when I expressed some doubt on this head (being at the time quite inexperienced), ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... she descended warily, and not taking her eyes from the feeble Graham. Of course her approach always galvanized him to new and spasmodic life: the game of romps was sure to be exacted. Sometimes she would be angry; sometimes the matter was allowed to pass smoothly, and we could hear her say as she led him up-stairs: "Now, my dear boy, come and take your tea—I am sure you ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... instant all the terrible scenes she had passed through recurred to her. She was in the cab—alone! With a spasmodic gesture, she caught at her neck. Ah, Heaven! the diamond necklace, all her jewels, ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... must deplore, however, is the general mental inadequacy that is paired with this spasmodic energy of scorn. Common sense is not the highest of dramatic qualities, but a modicum of it would have made Schiller's first heroine, to say the least, more interesting. She has no power of initiative and seems ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... way. We came up at the same moment, barely in time to save Surley from some severe handling, for the puma had turned all his fury on him. We stopped and loaded, and then running on got close up to the beast, to run no risk of hitting the dog, and fired. Over he rolled, giving a few spasmodic clutches with his claws, and with a ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Miriam. Sister and Miss Isabella said I would make a better musician than she, having more patience and perseverance. However, I took hardly six months' lessons to her ever so many years; heard how well she played, got disgusted with myself, and gave up the piano at fourteen, with spasmodic fits of playing every year or so. At sixteen, Harry gave me a guitar. Here was a new field where I would have no competitors. I knew no one who played on it; so I set to work, and taught myself to manage it, mother only teaching me how to tune it. But Miriam took a fancy to it, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... grow tender with love, as his emotions moved him; but gradually, as the narrator drew near the end of his tale, he grew nervous and restless, the tense lines of pain settled again about his mouth, his eyes grew dark and moody in expression, while the spasmodic twitching of his nerves could be plainly seen by every one in ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... his pride that he was unemotional. By rigid self-discipline, he had wholly mastered himself. His detachment from his kind was at first spasmodic, then exceptionally complete. Excepting Ralph, his relation to the world was that of an unimpassioned critic. He was so sure of his own ground that he thought he considered Ralph ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... public confidence, and are fully equal to the task if they will put their hands to the work. Let them but lift the standard and sound the trumpet of reform, and the people will rally instantly at the call. It must not be a mere spasmodic effort—a public meeting with wordy resolutions and strong speeches only—but organized work based on true principles of social order and the just ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... assistant, to make pressure on the subclavian above the clavicle, is a most advisable precaution, too much must not be trusted to this pressure above, as the struggles of the patient and the spasmodic movements of the limb, which are so apt to occur under the stimulus of the knife, are apt to render futile the best ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... the outlet of the wide-mouthed bottle. The first guards against the mechanical carrying over by the air current of sulphuric acid from the acid bottle into the sample, whilst the second prevents spasmodic outbursts of water from the exhaust from reaching the sample. The method also gave satisfactory results with nitro-glycerine. The dry substance may now be wrapped in filter paper, the whole weighed, and the nitro-glycerine extracted in the Soxhlet apparatus with ether. The ether should ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... his heart again with almost a spasmodic pressure! How he kissed her as the tears fell like rain from his old eyes! How he blessed her, and called her by a hundred soft sweet names which now came new to his lips! How he chid himself for ever having been unhappy with such ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... several rods distant from him. He did not swim, but seemed to struggle with all his strength, apparently with a spasmodic effort, as though he had entirely ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... antagonists have to prove is not that its forms of expression or even of thought are adapted to such minds, but that its principles, when rationally applied to a more advanced state of society, are unsound. Rightly understood it does not seem to me to enjoin anything eccentric or spasmodic, to bid you enact primitive Orientalism in the streets of London, thrust fraternity upon writers in the Pall Mall Gazette, or behave generally as if the "Kingdom of God" were already come. Your duty as ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... as if in some long-previous existence she had seen this man as he dismounted at the gate and came up the path with his saddle-bags over his arm. But it was not until he mustered an unready, unwilling smile, that had of good-will and geniality so slight an intimation that it was like a spasmodic grimace, did she perceive how time had deepened tendencies to traits, how the inmost thought and the secret sentiment had been chiselled into the face in the betrayals of the sculpture of ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... upright as a candle, was conducting an invisible orchestra when Aline returned. The frightened maid tried to hold the lean, spasmodic arms as they traced in the air the pompous rhythm of a march that moved on silent funereal pinions through the chamber. The woman stared threateningly at the picture on the wall, the picture of the skeleton which had come from nothingness to reveal ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... pardon," began Mole, but just at this moment his right leg was taken with a spasmodic action, and began to stride along at a furious rate, creaking ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... spasmodic and intermittent. It is impossible to keep it up, so it comes in fits and starts. When the morning comes men laugh at their terrors. It leads to wild endeavours to forget God—atheism—to insensibility. He who begins by fearing ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... he was seen to turn over in the water; his limbs moved only with a spasmodic action; he gave a feeble kick or two with his long hind legs; and then his carcass floated along the surface, like a mass of ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... away, rather spasmodic. He had been through the very front hell of the war—and like every man who had, he had the war at the back of his mind, like an obsession. But in the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Chimpanzee the requiem rang, Now the bell tolls for the Orang-Outang. Well may spasmodic sobs choke childhood's gorge, Now they who sighed for "Sally" grieve for "George." A "wilderness of monkeys" can't console, For Anthropoids defunct. Of Apedom's whole, One little Chimpanzee, one Gibbon small, (Who ought to write his race's "Rise and Fall,") Alone remain to cheer the tearful ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... determination. When he had once set his mind upon a thing, he kept steadily at work till he accomplished it. This is the great secret of success. It sometimes happens that a man who has done nothing will at once accomplish a brilliant success by one spasmodic effort, but ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... petrified with horror. 'It was my servant... she knows.' And then, after a short silence, she went on: 'I was there... by his side.' And she uttered a sort of cry of horror, and after a fit of choking, which made her gasp, she wept violently, and shook with spasmodic sobs for a minute or two. Then her tears suddenly ceased, as if by an internal fire, and with an air of tragic calmness, she said: 'Let us ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the unfinished house, shirt-sleeved figures worked slowly, and sounds arose—spasmodic knockings, the scraping of metal, the sawing of wood, with the rumble of wheelbarrows along boards; now and again the foreman's dog, tethered by a string to an oaken beam, whimpered feebly, with a sound like the singing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in many ways, and for various reasons. A species of ant which makes its nest on the under side of leaves produces a noise by striking the leaf with its head in a series of spasmodic taps, and another ant is also very interesting as regards its sound-producing habit. "Individuals of this species are sometimes spread over a surface of two square yards, many out of sight of the others; yet the tapping is set up at the same moment, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... calendau—to some friend or neighbour to whom Fortune has been less kind. But, happily, this gift nowadays often is a mere friendly compliment, like the gift of fougasso; for the times are past when weak-kneed and spasmodic charity dealt with real ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... satisfactory, for neither are carried beyond the salient lines of character. Nature has gifted Mr. Sickert with a keen hatred of the commonplace; his vision of life is at once complex and fragmentary, his command on drawing slow and uncertain, his rendering therefore as spasmodic as a poem by Browning. He picks up the connecting links with difficulty, and even his most complete work is full of omissions. The defect—for it is a defect—is by no means so fatal in the art-value ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... Lea and trudged over that familiar ground, where a fortnight since had been fought out the battle of the Cup, the wind fluttered past them in spasmodic gasps. ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... all." The general, after his interview in London with the Comte de Paris, took up his residence in the island of Jersey. He cannot but have felt that his popularity had failed him, and that his enchanter's wand was broken. From time to time he made spasmodic efforts to bring himself again to the notice of the public. He offered repeatedly to return to France and stand his trial for conspiracy, provided that the trial might be conducted before a regular ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... now everything which I had heard spoken in that happy household were simple words of true meaning. If we bad aught to say, we said it; and if any one preferred silence, nay if all did so, there would have been no spasmodic, forced efforts to talk for the sake of talking, or to keep off intrusive ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Sorenson's face went red and pale by turns. His lips twitched and worked, moving his mustache in little angry lifts, while he breathed with short spasmodic intakes. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... downward, in the middle of the table; on these hands the Medium places his own and the seance begins. Before long, the presence of Spiritual power becomes manifest by raps on the table, or by vibratory movements of the table, more or less violent, and by spasmodic jerkings or twitching of the Medium's arms or body. When sufficient Spiritual power has been generated, the Medium takes up the slate, and, still controlling with his left hand the hands of his sitters, places on it a minute fragment of slate pencil. No offer is made to show both sides (the prepared ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... looked up from my work all color had faded from his cheeks, the lips seemed ready to yield the little blood left there by the clinch of the white-teeth upon them, while every muscle of the face quivered with spasmodic effort to control emotion. When the eyes were opened and fixed on the ceiling, I saw no trace in them of anger, revenge, or even of wounded pride. They were full of tears, ready to gush in one last flood-tide of feeling over a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... depths without many a bitter outcry against its wrongs. It was with no slight effort that he drowned the memory of his early home and its good influences. During the first two or three years he occasionally had periods of passionate remorse, and made spasmodic efforts toward better things. But they were made in human strength, and in view of the penalties of evil, rather than because he was enamored of the right. Some special temptation would soon sweep him away into the old life, and thus, because of his broken promises and repeated failures, ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... fierce yells rose from the Dagombas and with one accord we struggled to our feet. Each with his hand upon the shoulder of his companion in front we moved cautiously forward, shooting now and then as we went. But the reply to our fire was now spasmodic, and we were convinced that only a few ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... herself, or for her child growing up to womanhood, availed to dissipate the terrible delusion born of her hopeless illness, and growing steadily with its growth. Like all other madness, it had its ebb and flow, its time of spasmodic outburst, and its time of deceitful repose; but, active or passive, it was always in her. It had injured innocent servants, and insulted blameless strangers. It had brought the first tears of shame and sorrow into her ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... without darkness reigned. A storm arose; she heard the lake dashing and rolling from east and west, like the waves of the North Sea or the Cattegat. The monstrous snake which, it is said, surrounds the earth in the depths of the ocean, was trembling in spasmodic convulsions. The night of the fall of the gods was come, "Ragnorock," as the heathens call the judgment-day, when everything shall pass away, even the high gods themselves. The war trumpet sounded; riding upon the rainbow, came the gods, clad in steel, to fight their last battle on the last ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... however, we can readily believe that Charles IX. died a natural death. His excesses, his manner of life, the sudden development of his faculties, his last spasmodic attempt to recover the reins of power, his desire to live, the abuse of his vital strength, his final sufferings and last pleasures, all prove to an impartial mind that he died of consumption, a disease scarcely studied at that time, and very little understood, the symptoms of ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... never gathered to a public show. Though the rain had ceased, and the sun shone, those who possessed umbrellas were not to be coaxed, but held them aloft with a settled air of gloom which defied the lenitives of nature and the spasmodic cajolery of the worst band in Edinburgh. "It'll be near full, Jock?" "It wull." "He'll be startin' in a meenit?" "Aiblins he wull." "Wull this be the sixt time ye've seen him?" "I shudna wonder." It occurred to me that, had we come to bury Byfield, not to praise him, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... kinds which habitually use their voices utter various noises under any strong emotion, as when enraged and preparing to fight; but this may merely be the result of nervous excitement, which leads to the spasmodic contraction of almost all the muscles of the body, as when a man grinds his teeth and clenches his fists in rage or agony. No doubt stags challenge each other to mortal combat by bellowing; but those with the more powerful voices, unless at the same time the stronger, better-armed, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the throttle and the Richard protested at his action in a series of spasmodic coughs. Then the hood began to incline slowly and Gregory felt the hull rising. Perhaps the craft was not dead after all, but only sleeping. Watching Bronson's fingers on the spark and throttle, he noticed that the man ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... most congenial friends have nothing to say to each other. There are, as a rule, any number of things one can do while one is waiting, but unluckily there is nothing one feels inclined to do. Up till one o'clock conversation was spasmodic. For the next half hour silence reigned, and each face became expressive of a sense of injury and patient suffering. At quarter of ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... That. Mr. Blank had gone to Europe with half his family, and some of them knew why he had taken the four elder children, and others wondered why he had left the rest behind. I was talked into a sort of spasmodic interest about a certain Maria, who was at the ball the night before, but could not be at the dinner to-day. In an effort to show me why she would be especially charming to me, her personal appearance, the style of her conversation and dress, her ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... astonishing, bewildering almost. Its faults are to be found in the enormous length allowed to digressions and episodical dissertations, in the exaggeration of all the combinations and all the theses, and, finally, in something strained, spasmodic, and violent in the style, which is very different from the style of natural eloquence or of essential truth. Effect is the misfortune of Victor Hugo, because he makes it the center of his aesthetic system; and hence exaggeration, monotony ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... old country hawbuck," he said, with spasmodic jocularity; "I'm uncommon glad to see you." He came to a jerky close, with an indrawing of his breath. "I'm about done," he went on. "Same old thing—sciatica. Took me just after I got here this afternoon; sent out one of the messengers to buy me a sofa, and here I've been ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... one of their many halts Murray's heart sank very low, for generally when all was silent save for some strange cry of night bird, croak of reptile, or weird whirr of insect that seemed to be magnified in power by the heated misty air, the black's fingers would tighten upon the lad's arm with spasmodic suddenness, in company with what seemed to be the piercing humming trumpet of a mosquito. Twice over Murray as he toiled on in the black darkness took it for granted that the black had stopped short to avoid being bitten or stung, but only to find afterwards that the sound came with perfect ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... fired again, and then I became earnest to hit something, made sure of my sighting, and aimed very carefully at a blue back that was dodging about in the corn. At first I couldn't satisfy myself and didn't shoot, his movements were so spasmodic and uncertain; then I think he came to a ditch or some such obstacle and halted for a moment. "GOT you," I whispered, and ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... Government of 4,500,000 ounces of silver, enforced under that statute, were regarded by those interested in silver production as a certain guaranty of its increase in price. The result, however, has been entirely different, for immediately following a spasmodic and slight rise the price of silver began to fall after the passage of the act, and has since reached the lowest point ever known. This disappointing result has led to renewed and persistent effort in the direction ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... way, and some in another. The doctor's form of relief was an oath. "Talk about slavery!" he shouted. "Find me such a slave in all Africa as a man in my profession. There isn't an hour of the day or night that he can call his own. Here's a stupid old woman with an asthma, who has got another spasmodic attack—and I must leave my dinner-table and my friend, just as we are enjoying ourselves. I have half a mind not ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... of Berlin and the Brandenburg populations generally, who had been of a Protestant humor, hardly restrainable by Law, for some years past. By this decision Joachim held fast, with a stout, weighty grasp; nothing spasmodic in his way of handling the matter, and yet a heartiness which is agreeable to see. He could not join in the Schmalkaldic War; seeing, it is probable, small chance for such a War, of many chiefs and little counsel; nor was he willing yet to ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... and shallow, therefore, take a few, slow, deliberate, deep, and rhythmic inhalations of pure air through the nostrils, and the panting gasp of agitation will vanish. As a help toward deepening the breath and overcoming the spasmodic, clavicular habit, inhale quietly and slowly through the nose, or slowly sip the air through the nearly closed lips as if you were sipping the ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... stubble of beard made his already dark face even more sinister, his tousled hair looked as if it had never known the refining influences of a comb or brush. As Rose-Marie stared at him, half fascinated, he turned—with a spasmodic, drunken movement—and flung one heavy arm ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... farther side of a small pond; behind the round tops of the lilacs and apple-trees a wooden roof, once red, with two chimneys, comes into sight; the coachman keeps along the hedge to the left, and to the spasmodic and drowsy baying of three pug dogs he drives through the wide open gates, whisks smartly round the broad courtyard past the stable and the barn, gallantly salutes the old housekeeper, who is stepping sideways over the high lintel in the open doorway of the storehouse, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... sweet, liquid notes of passionate love, there was a spasmodic, fearful gasp succeeded by a long, deep groan. The music stopped abruptly, and the piercing cry of a woman rang out. I threw open the door and rushed headlong into the room. I heard an oath, an exclamation of surprise, and the muffled cry of the woman. I turned in the direction of that ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... few years after Kossovo the Serbs resisted; but their efforts, now at Belgrade, which was made the capital and fortified by Stephen the chivalrous son of Prince Lazar, now at Smederevo on the Danube, were spasmodic. Bands of Turks and also of Magyars were terrorizing the country; and the sagacious old despot George Brankovi['c] was the last to offer opposition to the Turk at Smederevo. Meanwhile in Bosnia, the Bogomiles, driven to despair ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... according to the opinion handed down to posterity,—but yet, performances. They were followed in 1862 by "Der Fliegende Hollaender," all worthy but inadequate efforts. Maretzek and Strakosch were the chief figures in grand opera during this period, but there were spasmodic efforts by others which ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... coffle then sprang up and set forwards, without formally bidding their friends farewell. The slaves had all heavy loads upon their heads, and many of them having been long in irons, the sudden exertion of walking quick, caused spasmodic contractions of their legs, and they had scarcely proceeded a mile, when two of them were obliged to be taken from the rope, and suffered to walk more slowly. The coffle after halting two hours at Maraboo, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... certainly not many who would be so stupid or unreasonable as to denounce any course of action on the score of one spasmodic attempt, but there are not a few who are honestly desirous to follow out what they feel to be a better mode of living, who take it up in such a hasty, ill-advised way as to ensure failure. It is not enough merely to drop meat, and to conclude that as there is plenty food of some or any ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... was long, and thin, and dark, with a straight nose, and large mouth, and high cheek-bones; but he had fine black eyes, though they were fierce, and had a look in them that suggested the woods and the wild things that live there. But Ranald, though his attendance was spasmodic, and dependent upon the suitability or otherwise of the weather for hunting, was the best speller in ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... at the doctor, silently asking him what was the matter; but he only gave me a short nod of the head, and once more directed his attention to Walters, who lay breathing slowly in a catchy, spasmodic fashion, and I was almost about to question Mr Frewen, but he once more bent over the prisoner ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... together in silence for a moment; maudlin sniffles of self-pity arose from the corner by the fire, alternating with more hysterical and more ominous sounds presaging some spasmodic crisis. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... urgency of any duty selfward, manward, or Godward, should always take precedence of routine-work however wisely planned. Obstinate adherence to system may lead to more and greater criminal omissions of duty than would be incurred, even in the spasmodic industry which takes its impulse from the passing moment. It must be remembered that timeliness is the essential element of right and obligation in many things that ought to be done, especially in all forms of charity, alike in great services, and ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... one wild roll of her eyes at him. The colour was returning to Adrianna's cheeks; her mother was drinking hot tea in spasmodic gulps. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... days before the end, pressure of the brain became apparent; severe pain, succeeded by torpor and loss of power, and, after a short time, utter unconsciousness, proved that the sands of life had nearly run down. A few hours of spasmodic suffering followed, very trying to those who watched by; but suddenly, about four on the morning of October 13th, 1845, the silver cord was loosed, the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the spirit returned to ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... his virulence boiled most hotly when he had least to fear for his personal safety. It was owing to this innate weakness that such a combination of artistic sensitiveness and spasmodic arrogance was possible. The man's excitable imagination apprehended opposition where there was none, and his timidity made him fear a struggle, and hate himself for fearing it. As soon as he was alone, however, his thoughts generally returned to his art, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... property, perform service contracts, or reap the benefits of stock ownership. * * * Moreover, many of the operating companies on the lower echelon sell and transmit electric energy or gas in interstate commerce to an extent that cannot be described as spasmodic or insignificant. * * * Congress, of course, has undoubted power under the commerce clause to impose relevant conditions and requirements on those who use the channels of interstate commerce so that those channels will not be conduits ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... with the dusk, but by degrees the conversation languished. The increasing chill, the gloom and the desolation of their surroundings affected them all; and nobody had been quite at ease since Gladwyne's arrival. He was too tired to make more than spasmodic attempts to talk, and though Millicent was sorry for him she could not help contrasting him with Lisle. She had seen the latter almost worn out with severe labor, but even then he had been cheerful, ready ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... the empty house was like a coffin. The children ran in tears through the shuttered rooms, and the servants lost their lingering shred of discipline. When the funeral was over, the general made some spasmodic show of authority, but his heart was not in it, and he wavered for lack of the sustaining hold of his wife's frail hand. He dismissed the overseer and undertook to some extent the management of the farm, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... night terrors are common. They may also sweat very much during sleep. A constant hacking or barking cough is a common symptom and this cough is often troublesome for some hours before going to bed. Troubles with the larynx and pharynx are common and spasmodic laryngitis appears to be often dependent upon adenoids. Bronchial asthma and sneezing in paroxysms are sometimes connected with them. The chest becomes deformed. The prolonged mouth-breathing imparts to ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... directly the girl was clinging to him. She was panting with sobs, but she kept her voice down to a whisper. "Speak low, speak low," she said in his ear. "I don't know where he is. Oh, speak low." She clung to him with almost a spasmodic grip of her slender arms. "If you had been ten minutes longer I think I should have died," she whispered. "Don't make a sound. I ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... force. Was this a time to play upon the high-strung sensibilities of this youthful daughter of the gods, to seek to win from her a confession of love that a few brief days or weeks might prove to be only a spasmodic, but momentarily all-powerful, gratitude for the protection he had ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Montefiore being suddenly taken seriously ill, with a numbness of her hand and arm, and a dizziness and great pain in the head, which almost deprived her of speech and motion. She was just able to ask for the Prayer Book. Gradually she recovered from the attack, which Sir Moses hoped was only spasmodic, though she ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... stair a bell jangled; round swung the pointer to "Full Ahead"; and ere the decks were cleared of their bustle the Kaiser, like a back-kicking hen, scratched up under her poop a spreading pool of spume, which tossed spasmodic spray-showers and spoutings: and she stirred, stretched like a street, churned the sea, and, wheeling to reveal her receding ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... contrast with the irregular and spasmodic action of the Excelsior, is the methodical, persevering action of Old Faithful. This is another of the great and popular geysers of Yellowstone Park. It is so uniform in its appearance that a man can ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... that should fill it existed. Through the thickest understanding will the reason throw itself instantly into relation with the truth that is its object, whenever that appears. But how seldom is the pure loadstone produced! Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best minds: Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which yet they never enter, and with their hand on the door-latch they die outside. Always excepting my wonderful Professor, who among the living has thrown any memorable truths into circulation? So ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... as a douce old man, leading a cow by a straw-rope." The master of the "gay science" gradually slipping down from the clouds, and settling quietly and doucely on the plain hard ground of ordinary life and business! Let all pale-faced and sharp-chinned youths, who are spasmodic poets, or who are in danger of becoming such, keep steadily before them the picture of minstrel Burn, "leading a cow by a straw-rope"—and go and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... book then with a spasmodic clearing of his throat, and hurriedly resumed his search. When he did find his wife, at last, he gave a cry of dismay—she was on her own bed, huddled in a little heap, and shaking ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... an old friend who had known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period—a state of affairs not conducive to ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... She could have said no more than half a dozen words, but they stupefied Barrie. She threw back her head, almost as if to avoid a blow. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she pressed her lips together in a spasmodic effort at self-control. The bright rose-red of excitement was drained from her face; but she did not draw away from her mother, who still held the girl's hands. All she did was to turn her head with a bird-like quickness and fling one ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a forced final spasmodic effort, he seized the arms of his chair, and rose, lifted up his right arm, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Kemble that he was never pathetic because he had no children. Talma says that when deeply moved he found himself making a rapid and fugitive observation on the alternation of his voice, and on a certain spasmodic vibration which it contracted in tears. Has not the actor who can thus make his feelings a part of his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but who makes his observations solely from the feelings of others? It is necessary to this art that the mind should ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... have been a good political acrobat, and was on more sides of more questions than anybody else of those times. Though connected with the White-Cap affair by which Alfred lost his eyesight and his life, he proved an alibi, or spasmodic paresis, or something, and, having stood a compurgation and "ordeal" trial, was released. The historian very truly but inelegantly says, if memory serves the writer accurately, that Godwin was such a political straddle-bug that he early ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... struggling manfully to keep up a spasmodic discussion on Scotch diminutives in names, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... famed in oriental fables. When he practised as a physician at Basle, he called one of his nostrums by the name of azoth—a stone or crystal, which, he said, contained magnetic properties, and cured epilepsy, hysteria, and spasmodic affections. He soon found imitators. His fame spread far and near; and thus were sown the first seeds of that error which has since taken root and flourished so widely. In spite of the denial of modern practitioners, this must be considered the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and pulled away at it with such good will that the bushranger was raised from the ground a few inches, and by the spasmodic movement of his feet, I saw that he was choking, and could exist but a ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... as he dropped his newspaper, in the midst of the din—noise and confusion; and with a most singular and spasmodic effort to dance a "highland fling," he hustled out of his ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley |
