"Hysterics" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which he had just heard in the 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 ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... 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 ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... the shop was dark, dingy, sombre, and dirty enough to have thrown an old Flemish Interior artist into hysterics of delight. There was an olla podrida browniness about it that would have entranced a native of Seville; and a collection of dirt around, that would have elevated a Chippeway Indian to an ecstasy of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... was my mother! I knew her in spite of the blond hair and the paint, and she knew me. She gave one awful shriek, and then fell in a dead faint, and when she came to half an hour after, she went into hysterics, and screamed and raved and cried ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... in plain and fancy hysterics at this moment," he said with a memory of the last glimpse he had had of that illustrious lady's face. "And as for the author, he is dreaming chiefly of some quiet spot where one can lie stretched on the beach whenever he isn't lying in ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... on her shoulders and shook her hard. "Listen to me, Irene Welland. You're on the way to hysterics or some such foolishness. I won't have it! Do you understand? Are you listening ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the Great Elector, pukes, one afternoon; and there arises such an opening of the Nether Floodgates of this Universe; in and round your poor workshop, nothing but sudden darkness, smell of sulphur; hissing of forked serpents here, and the universal alleleu of female hysterics there;—to help a man forward with his work! O reader, we will pity the crowned head, as well as the hatted and even hatless one. Human creatures will not GO quite accurately together, any more than clocks will; and when their dissonance once rises fairly high, and they cannot ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... at this moment, and proposed taking one of the carriages, and going for a doctor for his mother, for she was now nearly ready to fall into hysterics, and Agamemnon thought to send a telegram down by the boy, for the evening papers, to announce that the Peterkins' house had not been ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... 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 ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... than any dancing I had ever seen, and to music which was a travesty of one of the most sacred of Christian compositions. I have long regarded camp-meetings as among the worst influences to which our rural youth are subjected—Joe Miller jokes in the pulpit, hysterics in the pews, with an atmosphere often blasphemous and sometimes erotic. A devoted country clergyman doing his simple duty—trying to lift his congregation to better views of life, partaking their joys and alleviating their sorrows, often a martyr to meddlesome deacons or to pompous trustees, ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... it 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 ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... chiefly from adjectives: acoustics, 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, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 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 ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... the booby will have hysterics," thought Rachel, with curling lip. "Is this the man they praised so for his heroism? Does all his manhood depend upon his health? Now he hasn't the spirit of a sick kitten." Dreading a scene, however, she took her seat at ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... me down now?" she asked. "If daddy saw you carrying me to the house he'd have a fit, and the servants would go into hysterics." So I put her tenderly on her feet, and she took my arm, and we walked slowly to the house. She could see nothing, not even in the hazy confusion of the nearly blind; yet she walked to the house with as firm a step and as natural an air as if she had nothing whatever ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... he was now willing to admit as possibly a true one, he could never without his mother feel any enthusiasm about him, even such enthusiasm as might be allowed to a man who knew money from moonshine, and common sense from hysterics. Yet once and again, about this time, the nurse coming into the room after a few minutes' absence, found him bending over the sleeping infant, and, as she described him, "looking as if he would have cried if he ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... have given the historical outline of the story; but if we look into Victor Hugo's "Histoire d'un Crime," and disentangle its facts from its hysterics, we may receive from his personal narrative a vivid idea of what passed in Paris from the night of Dec. 1, 1851, to the evening of December 4, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... to escape the darkness. It was maddening; easy enough then to comprehend the hysterics of the blind and sympathize with them. It finally reached a point where I was forced to grit my teeth to keep from breaking out into curses; I could lie still no longer, exhausted as I was, and Harry, too. I turned ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... the hero of the evening: he talked much and loudly. Cash, as well as several young ladies, went into hysterics at his wit. Mercer, as the evening wore away, grew exceedingly conceited, even for him; and he graciously asserted that the company present reminded him of his two visits to the "Capitol," and other associations ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the village ran out to look at Anna as she passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the gate, was garlanded ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... up to equine hysterics, and evidently convinced that the ordinary buggy behind him had been changed into some dangerous and appalling creation, still plunged and kicked violently to rid himself of it. The man who had stepped out of the depths of the wheat quickly crossed the road, unhitched the traces, ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... spoke, the more perfect recollection of what had passed crowded on her mind. She hid her face in her hands, and burst out into a dreadful fit of sobs, moans, and lamentations, which terminated in hysterics, violent in proportion to the uncommon strength of her body ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... explained to her very gravely that she was showing me M. Meydieu's method. My mother expostulated with me, but I would not listen to anything, as I was nearly beside myself with laughter. She then took Mlle. de Brabender away and left me alone, for she feared that I should finish with hysterics. When once I was by myself I began to calm down. I closed my eyes and thought of my convent again. The te de de got mixed up in my enervated brain with the "Our Father," which I used to have to repeat some days fifteen or twenty times as a punishment. Finally I came to myself again, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... Betty looked on in cold contempt. Lady St. Craye had counted on that: she let herself go, wholly. If it ended in hysterics so much the more impressive. She thought of Vernon, of all the hopes of these months, of the downfall of them—everything that should make it impossible ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... he settled himself down for a comfortable chat with her, after his custom, the poor lady points to the two strangers, flings up both hands, and tumbles upon him in a fit of hysterics. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she staggered backward, with her hand on her heart, till she fell against the wall. I do not know how long we remained so, but I became aware of a great confusion—cries, and exclamations; people were running in and out. Fanny rolled on the floor in hysterics. ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... reply and turned alertly to engage Mrs. Clover, who was bearing down upon them in the first stages of hysterics. But at sight of Iff she pulled up and calmed herself ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... she declares," 'till the tears literally gushed from her "blue, blue orbs," and trickled down her plump and ruddy cheeks; but scarcely had she plunged into the very depths of the pathos induced by the moving air, which threatened to throw her into a gentle swoon, or kicking hysterics, when her spirit was aroused by the sudden change of the melancholy ditty, to the rampant and lively tune, with the popular burden of, "Turn about and wheel about, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... 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 ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of dark rash broke out over Albert's chest, so that his nurses entered the room in gauze masks, and finally, in spite of Lilly's protestations and Mrs. Becker's most violent hysterics, no admittance to the sick room ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... the seat beside his driver and hurried post-haste to the Merrick residence. In a few minutes Mrs. Merrick was in violent hysterics at the disappearance of her daughter. Arthur stopped long enough to telephone for a doctor and then drove to the Doyles. He routed up Uncle John and the Major, who appeared in pajamas and bath-robes, and told them the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... She only remembered the commencement of the attack that she had had in his presence, that terrible moment which had been followed by her fall and a fit of hysterics. She had had a sensation of being suffocated by her brother's blood, and she knew that a cry had come to her lips. She did not know whether she had spoken, whether her secret had escaped her while she was unconscious. ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... and incidentally took occasion to give her a friendly warning concerning her husband's reckless talk. There was trouble coming to him, and his wife had better shut him up before it was too late. So poor Lizzie ceased being a pacifist, and went home to have more hysterics ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... relieve racking headaches by further libations. Monday 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 all began drinking again, ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... man was a harmless fool, for with a quick exclamation he strode off toward his tent, which lay at some distance from the camp. The others excitedly discussed the alarming turn events had taken, while Aunt Sally showed strong symptoms of hysterics. But Alverado, whose face had taken on a startled expression at Wandering William's quick exclamation, darted to ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... was so frightened that she was threatened with hysterics. She almost fought Elsie, who was ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... the hysterics, Mimmy! 'high strikes,' as Jenny calls them! I feel like I should have them myself sometimes! Come! cheer up, Mimmy! Your fever is off and your head is cool! Come, take this consoling cup of tea and bit of toast, and you will feel so ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... found herself obliged to give way. She had not the heart to bid her daughter go away to bed, nor, had she done so, would it have been of any avail. Katie would only have lain and sobbed in her own room, and very probably have gone into hysterics. The best thing for her was to try to turn the current of her thoughts, and thus by degrees tame down her ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... have often been told that if they go about it right they can get anything. They are encouraged to plot and scheme, and deceive, and wheedle, and coax for things. This is womanly and sweet. Of course, if this fails, they still have tears—they can always cry and have hysterics, and raise hob generally, but they must do it in a womanly way. Will the time ever come when the word "feminine" will have in it no ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... quatre [Fr.], devil to pay, all the fat in the fire. severity &c 739; ferocity, rage, fury; exacerbation, exasperation, malignity; fit, paroxysm; orgasm, climax, aphrodisia^; force, brute force; outrage; coup de main; strain, shock, shog^; spasm, convulsion, throe; hysterics, passion &c (state of excitability) 825. outbreak, outburst; debacle; burst, bounce, dissilience^, discharge, volley, explosion, blow up, blast, detonation, rush, eruption, displosion^, torrent. turmoil &c (disorder) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tense excitement. What did it all mean? If a chicken had sneezed the whole gathering would have been dissolved in hysterics, it was so keyed up with a sense of the impending disclosure of a deep mystery. As for Hepsey, she sat motionless, though Jonathan believed that he caught sight of a tear ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... 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 ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... settled. There was a fearful outcry, hysterics of an elegant order, and weepings enough to produce summer spate in the Tees. But the only result was the ordering of the tailor, the hosier, the boot-maker, and the scissors-grinder to put a new edge upon Squire Philip's razors, that Pet might practice ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... of the American Timber-ship on one of the Banks of the Solway under my window, I do not remember that you have heard a word of me. I only added that the men were all saved, and the beach all in agitation, certain women not far from hysterics;—and there ended. I did design to send you some announcement of our return hither; but fear there is no chance that I did it! About ten days ago the Signor Gambardella arrived, with a Note and Books from you: and here now is your Letter of October 30th; which, arriving at ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... me, ma'am, she was an orphan; with a guardian who was no-ways akin, and who washed his hands of her when she ran off; but Mrs Mason was sadly put out, and went into hysterics, for fear you would think she had not seen after her enough, and that she might lose your custom; she said it was no fault of hers, for the girl was always a forward creature, boasting of her beauty, and saying how pretty she was, and striving to get where her good looks could be seen ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... two in the hut, yes. But what about Eleseus? 'Twas worse with him; he found it hard to get over the shameful way Barbro had treated him. He knew nothing of hysterics, and took it as all pure cruelty on her part; that girl Barbro from Breidablik thought a deal too much of herself, even though ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... murdered? Where—what do you mean? Good Lord! young woman," cries Mr. Hooper, the butler, giving her a shake, "do come out of these hysterics if you can, and speak! ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... foe to thy rest, is the one you love best. Think not my warning wild, 'tis thy refound child. She loves a youth of the tribe I sway, and braves the world's reproof. List to the words I say, he is now beneath thy roof!" This was quite enough to drive the entire company into hysterics. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... restrained by the arms of his fragile wife who threatened hysterics if he left her. Between love and duty Mr. Scales did not hesitate with the thermometer at forty below zero, and the knowledge that loss of sleep unfitted him ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... need of telling this, for Mrs. Cameron readily saw it and went off into a fit of hysterics, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... Christmas present. I spent a lot of time and trouble getting it too, for the fellow sure was a bad hombre. It would have gotten by all right, but the Governor's wife, thinking it was a present for herself, had to go and open the package. She went into hysterics when she saw what was inside and the Governor was so mad he nearly fired me. Some people have no ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... cut you another slice of ham," rejoined I, suiting the action to the word. At length even Mr. Frampton's excellent appetite appeared exhausted, and he declared himself ready to face old Vernor if he should prove as cantankerous as a rhinoceros in hysterics; after which statement we proposed to start on our expedition. During his visit to 443 town on the previous day, Mr. Frampton had purchased a very handsome light travelling carriage, which, with post-horses, was ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... went into hysterics, and began laughing like an hyena. That started the pony off again, and, as far as I could calculate by watching the clouds, we did about another four miles at the gallop. Then he thought he'd try to jump a gate, and finding, I suppose, that the cart hampered him, he started kicking it to pieces. ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... again,—except perhaps your caricature on the back of a letter,—and never opens a piano after the honeymoon. You marry her for her sweet temper; and next year, her nerves are so shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares she hates balls and likes quiet; and ten to one but what she becomes a patroness ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... on the point of going into hysterics, recovered herself, and overcame the still lingering impulse: she felt as if she had awaked from a momentary aberration of the intellect. Mr. Arnold proceeded to light the candles, saying, ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... great many of their friends went to his performance, and Miss Laura said afterward, that when cunning little Billy came on the stage, and made his bow, and went through his antics of jumping through hoops, and catching balls, that she almost had hysterics. The Italian had made a special pet of him for the Morrises' sake, and treated him more like a human being than a dog. Billy rather put on airs when he came up to the farm to see us, but he was such a ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... while. Just a little while." Stop thinking about Susan, you biological schizo. Change the subject. You'll never get anything out of that man by having hysterics.... ...
— The Very Secret Agent • Mari Wolf
... did not know one word of what he was talking about; he did not know what Celts are, or what hysterics are, or what freedom was, or what regal was or even of what England was—in the living Europe ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... compelled to go over them finally, to see that she was suffering without making a sign. Her manner and attitude toward him in these last days were quite the same as they had always been—no more, no less. She was not indulging in private hysterics, as another woman might have done; she was not pretending a fortitude in suffering she did not feel, showing him one face while wishing him to see another behind it. She was calm, gentle, considerate—thoughtful of him—where he would go and ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Betterson, sternly; while Mrs. Betterson went into hysterics on Vinnie's shoulder, and was ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... mistress and the mother of his children. And so it proved; for when the King made an unexpected appearance he was just in time to see the lieutenant-Lothario disappearing through an open window and his inamorata on the verge of hysterics on a sofa. ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... She got mad an' gave notice on the spot. An' that made ma 'most have hysterics—she did have one of her headaches—'cause good hired girls are awful scarce, she says. But Bess says, Pooh! we'll get some from the city next time that know their business, an' we're goin' away all summer, anyway, an' won't ma please call them 'maids,' as she ought ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... her not to go; but she was almost in hysterics. I understood that it was impossible to oppose her desire, and we ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... shrieked and fled. Ruyler stood in the room with the ruby in his open hand. He saw that Helene was standing quite erect before him. She had made no attempt to leave the room, nor did she appear to be threatened with hysterics. ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... while Mrs. Berthelin scandalized Our Square by an exhibition of hysterics involving language not at all in accord with the rich respectability of her ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... when she heard the story, standing in the hall in her lovely dinner dress, with the strains of music floating from the drawing-room, and cigar smoke floating from the dining-room, she laughed. When Lily said, "And there wasn't even any chickenroast, mother," she nearly had hysterics. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... 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
... weird sight. I suppose I should have wrung my hands and had hysterics, but as a matter of fact I was almost amused, it was so silly. Thank goodness the road ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... not think that you would much like the 'Duchess May;' but among the profanum vulgus you cannot think how successful it has been. There was an account in one of the fugitive reviews of a lady falling into hysterics on the perusal of it, although that was nothing to the gush of tears of which there is a tradition, down the Plutonian cheeks of a lawyer unknown, over 'Bertha in the Lane.' But these things should not make anybody vain. It is the story that has power with people, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... it is," said Jim. "Sure, ye ain't got the cheek to call a Methody shindy hall the House of God. I think ye ought to be ashamed of yourself to give a lot of dacent farmers the hysterics like yer doin'." ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... old lady comes in. Obstinate as a mule, weak as water, with a lot of silly, old-fashioned pride, she absolutely balked, had hysterics, took to her bed, did all the possible and impossible things that women do under such circumstances, with the result that Marcia was at her wit's end. Finally, the mother capitulated up to a certain point. Marcia might go ahead and pursue her avocation in peace ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... in three sides of a square it was an order to make every one face the commandant with a martial air. The net result of this "Double Dutch" was that everyone broke into an amused smile, which increased almost to hysterics when we caught sight of the recipient of this honour. The commandant was a tall, doddery, antediluvian Prussian colonel, with long grey moustaches, the very image of the Monkey Brand advertisement, only perhaps not quite so good looking. Why he did not fall over his trailing scabbard ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... six o'clock till twelve. I trust none of my readers will be any the worse for reading it. Tom Peregrine declares that when he first gave it at a penny reading some years ago, one or two of the audience had to be carried out in hysterics—they laughed so much; and another man fell backwards off his chair, owing to the extreme comicality of it. The truth is, our versatile keeper is a wonderful reader, and speaking as he does the true Gloucestershire accent, in the same way as some of the squires ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself too much ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... Chantilly, and the ambition which Sophie had foreseen would be furthered by the marriage was realized. She was received as La Baronne de Feucheres at the Court of Louis XVIII. She was happy—up to a point. Some unpretty traits in her character began to develop: a violent temper, a tendency to hysterics if crossed, and, it is said, a leaning towards avaricious ways. At the end of four years the Baron de Feucheres woke up to the fact that Sophie was deceiving him. It does not appear, however, that ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... least idea of it, and all at once I would see her grow pale and moist, and sigh, and move round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and perhaps get up and go to her, or else have slight spasmodic movements that looked like hysterics;—do you believe in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... always, at night, lock them out of this part of the building. While the robbers were cutting our throats up-stairs, they might be stealing our silver below. We have an anxious time here, I assure you. It is as much as I can do to keep poor Jenny from going off into hysterics; she will not go to bed lest she should be robbed and murdered in her sleep. It is lucky that I, being a soldier's daughter, ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... sat down beside her, and there was nothing in the action to mark it as heroic, or to betray the fact that he yearned to stamp out of the room after Bernard and leave her severely to her hysterics. ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... through their paces where they roost under water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr. Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading Plutarch, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... little recovered herself, she ordered her attendants to drive him away, and not give him a single copper; whereupon his look of mortified discomfiture wrought her punishment and his revenge, for it sent her into violent hysterics, from which she was with ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... 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 ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... action, stepped forward, at which the nurse had sprung into the cab, to be driven away, when Miss Meakin had gone into hysterics upon Mavis' shoulder. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... 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 not so lugubrious. The nuns, all ranged around, and ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... comments on current events are preserved in the notes or in the memories of his friends. Sometimes these were characteristically cynical. He ridiculed the newspaper parade of national sympathy with the Prince of Wales's illness: "We are represented as all members of the royal family, and all in family hysterics." Dizzy's orientalization of Queen Victoria into an Empress angered him, as it angered many more. The last Empress Regnant, he said, was Catherine II. and it seems to be thought that by advising the Queen to take that great ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... give her Hysterics to see him bark at an Ear of Green Corn, at the same time making a Sound ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... life-buoy over his head and into the boat, then, by a mighty exercise of all his strength, vaulted aboard with seeming ease and sat down on a thwart. He felt a strong inclination to laughter and tears, but repressed himself; for masculine hysterics would not do before this young woman. She came aft to the next thwart, and when he felt ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... of confusion 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 morning ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... a 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
... "My dear Gustav," he laughed, "the British public, though of late they've browsed upon the hysterics of the popular Press, are already asleep again. It is not for us to arouse them. We profit by their heavy slumber, and this will be a rude ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... the spot; you certainly will." Julia felt anxious, for her mother showed signs of going into hysterics. But she put her foot out and shook her head in a way that said that all her friends might die and all the world might go to pieces before she would yield. Mrs. Anderson had one forlorn hope. She determined to order that forward. Leaving Julia ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... judged vaguely by the screaming which was still going on at a tremendous rate—evidently the girl had gone off into genuine hysterics or else she had determined not to leave her agitation at the intrusion in any manner of question. No doubt the outcries were a relief to her mingled emotions—remorse at her impetuosity and chagrin that her thwarted plans might conceivably be now among ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... now, Edward," 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
... of the mysterious door; the unexpected return of Bluebeard; the hysterics of the ill-fated sisters, with plenty of shrieking and swooning motives; and then the celebrated "Hammelfleisch" or "Mutton" motive, where Sister Anne, from her post in the high tower, observes for a long time ...
— Bluebeard • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thought the adjutant, and he greatly wanted to see the doctor and talk with him; but by the time his office-work was done the doctor had gone to town, and when he came back he was sent for to the laundress's quarters, where Mrs. Clancy was in hysterics and Michael had again ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... But his dynastic position and dislike of Henry's policy drove the Marquis into the ranks of the discontented. He had been put in the Tower, in 1531, on suspicion of treason; after his release he listened to the hysterics of Elizabeth Barton, intrigued with Chapuys, and corresponded with Reginald Pole;[1042] and in Cornwall, in 1538, men conspired to make him King.[1043] Less evidence than this would have (p. 375) convinced a jury of peers in Tudor ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... said Jack quietly, 'I am quite sane. No doubt it would simplify your course of action very much if I were not, but as a matter of fact my mind was never clearer. My father and mother will tell you that I was never given to hysterics, and I am ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... his unexpected appearance might not injuriously agitate his old friend. "I must leave it to Kezia to tell him. I can safely do that," he thought. "She is a strong-minded woman, and glad as she will be to see me, she, at all events, will not go into hysterics." ...
— Owen Hartley; or, Ups and Downs - A Tale of Land and Sea • William H. G. Kingston
... last thirty-six hours, had so departed from her curriculum of safety, and courageously met many strange appearances, now was to hear stranger facts. For Flora had let go completely, and Mrs. Herrick, without hinting at hysterics, let her laugh, let her cry, let her tell piece by piece, as she could, the story of the two men, from the night when Kerr had spoken so strangely at the club on the virtues of thieves to the moment when, in the willow walk, they discovered that the jewel ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... does not sit like this watching for something to become visible. Why? Because then there would be an air of suspense about the watcher. He would grow nervous after an hour, when the thing remained still invisible, and finally he would fall into hysterics and unquestionably shriek. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Bellews had shifted controls, they essayed to shift them back. The communicator which was Betsy's factory twin went into sine-wave standby-modulation, and suddenly smoked all over and was wrecked. The wave-generator went into hysterics and produced nothing whatever. Then there was nothing to do but pull Sergeant Bellews out of the clink and order him to do the whole business ...
— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... 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 information to the young are ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... He paid very little attention to me, and went up stairs muttering to himself about a separation. Whether Mrs. Yatman will come cleverly out of the scrape or not seems doubtful. I should say myself that she would go into screeching hysterics, and so frighten the poor man into forgiving her. But this is no business of ours. So far as we are concerned, the case is now at an end, and the present report may come to a conclusion along ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... to bully and frighten as he pleased. She would have justice done her. Have a separation, alimony, and a divorce. She might have them all if she pleased, but she should have no more money; that was certain. Then she would have a fit of hysterics. So she did, and lay the whole of the day on the sofa, expecting Mr T would pick her up. But the idea never came into Mr T's head. He went to bed; and feeling restless, he rose very early, and saw from his window a cart drive up to ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the part, the important part, played by conservatism, the conservatism that holds on to what has been gained if it is good, that insists on discipline and heed to the plain teaching of experience, that refuses to go into hysterics of enthusiasm over every flighty suggestion, or to follow every leader simply because he proposes something new and strange—I do not mean the conservatism that refuses to try anything simply because it is new, and prefers to energetic ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony, until the sacred edifice resounded with their ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... credit to herself for not going into hysterics. And I think she had some reason to; for she found the paper a duplicate of the one Billy had taken out of the secret drawer, with his name set in the place of hers. At the last Frederick R. Woods had relented ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... she almost fainted, and Celeste had to call a doctor for her and another for the dog and they sent the dog to a hospital. Then Aunt Josephine blamed Celeste and told her she must leave at once and Celeste had hysterics, for you see she'd been with my aunt since she was very young and they had to send for the doctor ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... she will think a joke," replied Catherine. "She asked me to-day what was my idea of heaven, and I said it was reading novels in church. She seemed to think this a rich bonanza of a joke, and laughed herself into hysterics, but I was as serious as ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... result of "vital fluids" drawn from a magnet or lodestone and which drew their unique qualities from the sun, moon and stars. Charcot, as well as Pierre Janet and others, was convinced that hypnosis was a form of hysteria and that only hysterics could be hypnotized. The former (Mesmer) thought further that metal became imbued by the solar qualities, and his system is also known as metalogy by which he meant the proper application of metals. Naturally, these theories have been largely abandoned today, although there are still a ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... given above, with their superlatives, their laboured philosophy, their lyrics, hysterics, and prophecies, are singularly unconvincing. The manner in which the simple question, "How do you propose to fit actual human nature into your scheme?" is answered by the Socialists, proves that they ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... was in the highest degree complex. Priam understood immediately, from the man's calm glance at the picture, and the position which he instinctively took up to see it, that he was accustomed to looking at pictures. The visitor did not start back, nor rush forward, nor dissolve into hysterics, nor behave as though confronted by the ghost of a murdered victim. He just gazed at the picture, keeping his nerve and holding his tongue. And yet it was not an easy picture to look at. It was a picture of an advanced experimentalism, and would have ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... and friendly," agreed K. Rhodes. "So glad I'm flat broke that you're having hysterics over it. Typical southern hospitality. Hearty welcome to our city, and so ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... now.' 'Give him the carriage, the coach, the chaise, what he likes, only let him be gone quickly. Oh, what eyes! Oh, what eyes he has!' and with those words she whisked out of the room and gave a maid who met her a slap in the face—and I heard her in hysterics again. ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... from the back and stood behind the tree which Duke had pointed out. A stage hand or somethin' who seemed to be sufferin' from hysterics told us not to let Duke see us till we entered the scene, because it was considered bad luck to walk before ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... 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 meet ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... out of the apartment, in a towering rage, and went up to her room and fell into hysterics and the arms of her maid ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... by his run over the bridge from New York, suddenly bounded on to the stage! The good children who were playing Princess Mary and Prince Henry didn't even smile; the audience remained solemn; but Henry and I nearly went into hysterics. Fussie knew directly that he had done wrong. He lay down on his stomach, then rolled over on his back, a whimpering apology, while carpenters kept on whistling and calling to him from the wings. The children ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... here, and a favorite with the girls, whom she would frighten half out of their senses by her wonderful stories. So great was their effect at times, that her listeners were thrown into real hysterics. After leaving this school, Charlotte returned home, and began keeping house and teaching her sisters. Here several quiet years were passed, busy but monotonous. The girls spent their time in study, in household tasks, walking, ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... not to worry. Lady Turnour behaved like a cad, as usual, but what can you expect? Sir Samuel did the best he could. He would have liked to wait, but if he'd insisted she would have had hysterics." ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... waiting for things to cool down. As soon as the muck-rakers wear out their rakes, and the great American public finds some other kind of hysterics to keep it worked up to a proper temperature, I shall mosey back and resume business at the old stand. But why tell you the story of my life? Play fair now, and tell me a lot about ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... misfortune was that when Tricotrin called victoriously upon Claudine, to clasp her in his arms, he found her in hysterics on the sofa—and it transpired that she had not represented the waiting-maid after all. On the contrary, she had at the last moment been promoted to the part of the ingenue, while the waiting-maid had been played by a little actress ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... all," Simpkins answered, relieved and grateful that she had only suspected him of being a thief, that there had been no tears, no pleadings, no hysterics; "I'm nothing of the sort. ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... woman, kept in terror from her childhood, fell into that kind of nervous disease which is most frequently found in peasant women who are said to be "possessed by devils." At times after terrible fits of hysterics she even lost her reason. Yet she bore Fyodor Pavlovitch two sons, Ivan and Alexey, the eldest in the first year of marriage and the second three years later. When she died, little Alexey was in his fourth ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... wished that our landlord, shortly after giving us the agreement, could have found some other place to hang himself in than one of our attics, for the consequence was that a housemaid left us in violent hysterics about every two months, having learned the tragedy from the tradespeople, and naturally ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... summer when I observed to Hinpoha that we were going to have such a quiet time at Onoway House, and sat up and chuckled on the knees of the gods. In the light of future events it seems to me that it couldn't have done less than kick its heels against that Knee and have hysterics. ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... could possibly be made. As to the abolitionists themselves, they seem to know no bounds in their enthusiastic admiration of this sublime effort of their champion. We should not wonder, indeed, if many a female reformer had gone into hysterics over an oration which has received such violent bursts of applause from grave and dignified Senators. "By this effort," says Mr. Hale, he has placed "himself side by side with the first orators of antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American orator ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... immediately went into hysterics, and did nothing but weep. While I waited on her hand and foot, bringing up food to her because she was sensitive about the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... the Court ladies were reduced to hysterics and despair, and forgot their jealousies in a common appeal to the Regent for clemency. Mademoiselle de Valois was driven to distraction; and when tears and pleadings failed to soften her father's heart, she ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... locked the door, I listened breathlessly, but heard no sound. This relieved me for the present; but so much had I been overcome by the agitation and annoyance attendant upon the scene which I had just gone through, that when my cousin Emily knocked at my door, I was weeping in strong hysterics. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... not unlike heart failure. I allude, of course, to Caroline, and it took Isabella and myself a good half hour to bring her back to a normal condition, and when this was done, Isabella thought it incumbent upon her to go off into hysterics, which, being but a weak simulation of the other's state, I met with severity and cured with a frown. When both were in trim again ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... acquiesced in the proposal of Mr. Morton that he should be carried before the Laird, as a justice of peace, and placed at his disposal. The rest of the assistants unanimously agreed to the measure recommended; even Mrs. Mucklewrath, who had begun to recover from her hysterics, whimpered forth, 'She wadna say naething against what the minister proposed; he was e'en ower gude for his trade, and she hoped to see him wi' a dainty decent bishop's gown on his back; a comelier sight than your Geneva cloaks and ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... children's nurse, and rather a broken reed at the best of times," said Iris ruefully. "She had hysterics all last night, but she's a bit more ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... his 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 ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... woman, her self control, her simplicity, enlisted Donaldson's interest at once. He had expected hysterics. He would have staked his last dollar that the woman came from Vermont. His observant eyes had in these few minutes covered everything in the room, including the long-handled dipper by the faucet used for dipping into pails sweating silver mist, the wooden clock upon the mantelpiece, and the Hicks ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... she to herself, "they are all so fond of Lucy, to be sure they will make no difficulty about it." And so away she went and told Mrs. Dashwood all about Lucy's engagement to Edward Ferrars; the result of which was that the married lady fell into hysterics, while the Misses Steele were hastily ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... me that is an ungenerous and superficial view, especially as we have never seen the same people courting hysterics before," she said; but she did not speak as if she cared much ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... 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
... his mother and sister would think of folks in a democratic country using chinchilla for automobile rugs; and he was sure they must be having interior hysterics over the Rolls coat of arms—a dragon holding up a spiky crown of some nondescript sort on a cushion. The dragon looked rather like a frog rampant, and the crowned cushion bore a singular resemblance to a mushroom ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... warned him not to let the princess stray beyond the walls of the fortress. That same night I sent a courier to General Vallejo—who, fortunately, was at Sonoma—bidding him watch Solano. And, sure enough—the day I left for Monterey the Princess Helene was in hysterics, Rotscheff was swearing like a madman, and a soldier was at every carronade: word had just come from General Vallejo that he had that morning intercepted Solano in his triumphant march, at the head of six tribes, upon Fort Ross, and sent ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... our two prose-poets. Carlyle is often grotesque; Macaulay can be pompous; Disraeli, Bulwer, Dickens, are often slovenly and sometimes bombastic; George Eliot is sometimes pedantic, and Ruskin has been stirred into hysterics. But Thackeray's English, from the first page of his first volume to the last page of his twenty-sixth volume, is natural, scholarly, pure, incisive, and yet gracefully and easily modulated—the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... still in hysterics, and his mother half bewildered. "It is so horribly sudden!" she cries. "Poor Marcia! ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... could the meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen "Eyes," and was in hysterics. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... rang in that abode of silence. It began to kick and squirm with determined energy. Poor Miss Letitia had the very look of panic in her face. She clung to the fierce little creature, not knowing what to do. Miss S'mantha lay back in a fit of hysterics. Tunk advanced bravely, with brows knit, and stood looking ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted. He thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit as she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone into hysterics when he merely grinned at them through the curtains on one of the spare bedrooms; of the rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he was coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the ...
— The Canterville Ghost • Oscar Wilde
... suffered simply and entirely as man, was too truly a man not to do so. (2) With regard to the Father, the key of it is here. 'God is love.' He does not need suffering to train into sympathy, because his nature is sympathy. He can afford to dispense with hysterics, because he sees ahead that his plan is working to the perfect result. I am not quite sure whether I have hit upon your difficulty here, as I have destroyed your last letter but one. But the 'Gospel of the Kingdom' is ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... might be believed, a preventive of the small-pox, and of great use in the course of the disease. It was a cure for impurities of the blood, coughs, pleurisy, peripneumony, erysipelas, asthma, indigestion, carchexia, hysterics, dropsy, mortification, scurvy, and hypochondria. It was of great use in gout and fevers, and was an excellent preservative of the teeth and gums; answered all the purpose of Elixir Proprietatis, Stoughton's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... good thing for him," Runnels ran on, evidently warmed to his subject. "She's made his reputation; he has money and position. For my part, I'd rather remain insignificant and have a real wife, even if she does have hysterics over ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... if the man were angry, the woman was incensed to the degree of fury. There was that absolutely blank composure known to suffering males; that colourless unnatural speech which shows a spirit accurately balanced between homicide and hysterics; the tone in which the best of women sometimes utter words worse than death to those most dear to them. If Abstract Bones-and-Sepulchre were to be endowed with the gift of speech, thus, and not otherwise, would it discourse. Leon was a brave man, and I fear he was somewhat sceptically given ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to make my hair stand on end. How they would laugh and wax merry at my expense! How they would draw pictures of me in the book covers with long curls and petticoats! How they would address me as "Jemima," and talk to one another about me in a high falsetto voice! How they would fall into hysterics when they met me, and weep copiously, and ask me to lend them hairpins and parasols! I knew what it would be like only too well, and I quaked ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... think of it yesterday, pray? Please let us have no heroics, no hysterics: these exhibitions of temper are so unseemly. What made ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... telling this just as she told it. How much of it is fact and how much is hysterics I can't say. She was scared half out of her wits by what happened afterward, and may have got mixed up in ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... Most Christian King fell ill; dangerously, dreadfully, just like to die. Which entirely paralyzed Noailles and Company, or reduced them to mere hysterics, and excitement of the unluminous kind. And filled France in general, Paris in particular, with terror, lamentation, prayers of forty hours; and such a paroxysm of hero-worship as was never seen for such an object before." [Espagnac, ii. 12; Adelung, iv. 180; Fastes de Louis ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... in the least trouble me. If it was somebody else's, I could understand your being in such a fearful state of mind about it; but as it's only mine, you know, I'm sure it really doesn't matter." And then they'd only go off worse than ever,—mother doing hysterics, and so forth—and say I was a wicked, bad, abominable scoffer, and that it made them horribly frightened even to listen to me. As if I wasn't more likely to know the real value of my own soul than anybody ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to break in on me for; and Madame Mauer, in spite of her squint and her smile, was both sensible and good—broke, moreover, to the ridiculous coincidences and unfathomable dramas of Naapu. Why hadn't she treated the girl for hysterics? But I gathered presently that there was one element in it that she couldn't bear. That element, it appeared, was Ching Po, perfectly motionless in the public road—no trespasser, therefore—watching. She had got Eva into the house ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... bourgeois condition in which the movement found it, to a pure and unworldly idealism. And, unlike most other religious revivals, especially in this country, it has remained remarkably free from unhealthy emotionalism and hysterics. The social atmosphere of Oxford, always alien to mawkish sentiment, penetrated the whole movement, and maintained in it for many years a certain sanity and dignity which, while they doubtless prevented it from spreading widely ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... 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
... her voice as she spoke was hardly gentle, nor was it indicative of much patience. Her hysterics also seemed for the time to have given way to her strong passionate feeling. "Aunt," she said, "I would sooner take a broom in my hand, and sweep a crossing in London, than lead such a life as that. What! make myself the slave of some old woman, who would think that she had bought ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope |
