"Qualm" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... both hands upon his knees and raised his eyes. "O Lord, I have sought to do according to Thy will," he whispered. He was thinking of a thing he had long hidden. Through many years he had no doubt, no qualm; but, since David had gone to Egypt, some spirit of unquiet had worked in him. He had acted against the prayer of his own wife, lying in her grave—a quiet-faced woman, who had never crossed him, who had never shown a note ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... misery of her darkness. It was only then that I realised the part the child had played in her development. Her nature had been stirred to the quick; the capacity for emotion had been awakened. She had left me without a qualm. She had given herself to Pasquale without a glimmer of passion. She had returned to me like a wounded animal seeking its home. For the child alone the passionate human love had sprung flaming from the seed hidden in her soul. And now the child ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... cling tight to the backstay, and the world turned giddily before my eyes, for though I was a good enough sailor when there was way on, this standing still and being rolled about like a bottle was a thing I never learned to stand without a qualm or so, above all in the morning, on ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... qualm—suppose there had been a bullet! It was now Saturday. His funeral would be held on Saturday. By Saturday night he would be in a grave—a lonesome, desolate grave. Nellie would have seen to that, so that she could get away on Sunday. Ugh! It was ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... short, put on blue spectacles, and call themselves Nihilists. By doing this they have been able to persuade themselves, without further trouble, that they have acquired new convictions of their own. Some men have but felt some little qualm of kindness towards their fellow-men, and the fact has been quite enough to persuade them that they stand alone in the van of enlightenment and that no one has such humanitarian feelings as they. Others have ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a flash of family pride.] — And I the son of a strong farmer (with a sudden qualm), God rest his soul, could have bought up the whole of your old house a while since, from the butt of his tailpocket, and not have missed the weight of ...
— The Playboy of the Western World • J. M. Synge
... did not wish to stay unless Margaret added her invitation to her mother's. He felt vaguely that his reluctance did him credit, and that he was improving. He could not remember a time when he had not taken without question whatever the gods sent, and this unaccustomed qualm of modesty caused him to suspect that there were depths in his nature hitherto unexplored. It always flatters a man to realize that he is deeper ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... enough to say, "Oh, he wouldn't do anything else. Any one could have waited!" But how many would have waited in that same situation, without a qualm of fear, or without doubting the simple assurance that the master of the ranch would know best ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... had no qualm of fear, no doubt, even, touching the issue. Not that I was an habitual ferrailleur. As I have indicated, I had fought but one man in all my life. Nor yet am I of those who are said to know no fear under any circumstances. ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... wuetend schier Durch das Tor, der Feuerreiter, Auf dem rippenduerren Tier, Als auf einer Feuerleiter. Querfeldein! Durch Qualm und Schwuele 15 Rennt er schon und ist am Ort! Drueben schallt es fort und fort: Hinterm Berg, Hinterm Berg Brennt ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... you some of this distilled Carduus Benedictus and lay it to your heart; it is the only thing for a qualm. ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... qualm. "If that section of land is worth close to a million dollars," he said, "is it quite fair to take advantage of the owner's absence and ignorance to buy it for a ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... rage and sorrow, which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also because the making of it "gave trouble," a deadly offence in ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... of a reversal of the everlasting fitness of things, in resurrecting a body from its mother clay. And yet that night, in the Casanova churchyard, I sat quietly by, and watched Alex and Mr. Jamieson steaming over their work, without a single qualm, ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bed, but he could not succeed in losing consciousness. He tossed and turned, remained for five minutes lying on his back, then changed to his left side, then rolled over to his right. He was thirsty again, and rose to drink. Then a qualm seized him: ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... mouldy hay across the barn the youth, heavy eyed but sleepless, watched the two through half closed lids. A qualm of disgust sent a sudden shudder through his slight frame. For the first time he almost regretted having embarked upon a life of crime. He had seen that the two men were conversing together earnestly, though he could over-hear nothing they said, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... halted and questioned. At first Rob felt a qualm of anxiety, lest the fact that they no longer had an interpreter in their company to explain things might get them into trouble. That fear soon vanished, however. In every instance it was found that some man could either talk ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... particular friend, Donald Bean Lean, the worthy person whom they supposed to be possessed of the cattle, did not much approve of strangers approaching his retreat. This seemed reasonable, and silenced a qualm of suspicion which came across Edward's mind when he saw himself, at such a place and such an hour, deprived of his only Lowland companion. And Evan immediately afterwards added,'that indeed he himself had better get forward, and announce their approach to Donald Bean Lean, as the arrival ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... chattering of teeth in a glass case on the sidewalk seemed at first to draw his attention (with a qualm), to a restaurant before which it was set; but a second glance revealed the electric letters of a dentist's sign high above the next door. A giant negro, fantastically dressed in a red embroidered coat, yellow trousers and a military cap, discreetly distributed cards to those of the passing ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... first time in his life fear swept over Terry—fear of himself compared with which the qualm he had felt after turning from Slim Dugan that morning had been nothing. For the second time in one day he was being tempted, and the certainty came to him that he would kill Larrimer. And what made that certainty more sure was the appearance of his nemesis, ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... A little qualm of remorse passed through my bosom, and then I was exceeding glad. The morning was fresh, and the air invigorating, and I determined to walk down to the beautiful minutely-sanded beach, and enjoy the refreshment of the sea-breeze just sweeping ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... "'Nary a qualm,' as our cousins, the Yankees, would say," answered Mildmay, cheerfully; "only, remember this, we must take the whole onus and responsibility of the act upon our own shoulders; we must show no colours—unless ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... winding away to Redfield. Somewhere along that road Andrew would be rolling back toward home and roast pork with apple sauce; and here was I, setting out on the first madness of my life without even a qualm. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... his fervours left them calm— Emotion they considered freakish;— He felt with many an inward qualm That he was thoroughly un-beakish; His mood perplexed them; he was half Provocative, half deferential, Too anxious to provoke a laugh, Too vague where ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... I hold so dear Should be arrayed so cheap Gives me a qualm; I sadly fear My Lamb must be ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... as he sees but wealth to win, "Hath never yet felt a qualm or doubt "What suitors for justice he'd keep in, "Or what suitors for freedom ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... take in pledge objects worth as little as a ruble. She is quite a providence to many of our fellows—but such an old hag! I tell you what I would do. I would kill that damnable old hag, and take all she is possessed of, without any qualm of conscience," exclaimed the student excitedly. The officer laughed, but Raskolnikoff shuddered. The words just uttered so strongly echoed his own thoughts. "Let me put a serious question to you," resumed the student, more and more excited. "I have ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... must not aspire To bliss, which mortals never knew before. On trembling wings let youthful fancy soar, Nor always haunt the sunny realms of joy: But now and then the shades of life explore; Though many a sound and sight of woe annoy, And many a qualm of care his rising ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... brain trying to fool my soul; but so it was. Remorse? I should have been worn with remorse, I know; but I was not. I tried to grieve for my hasty judgment of Captain Blaise: and I did. But for the Governor's son, not a qualm. I, too, like Captain Blaise, had become the creature of hereditary instincts and overpowering emotion. Never in all my life before had I thought that any sin or shortcoming of mine was ever to be anybody's business ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... money freely. Not to do so would seem like admitting a difficulty in making it. So that after he had stopped their allowances for the fourth time Sybil and Gertrude were prepared to face beggary without a qualm. It had been his pride to give them the largest allowance of any girls at the school, not even excepting the granddaughter of Fladden the Borax King, and his soul recoiled from this discipline as it had never recoiled from the ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... years old, and English—to suggest without a backward thought or a qualm that a lady whom he had known five days should come and live with him and be his love! None of his friends accustomed to his bashful habits would have believed it. Only his father perhaps might ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... "John never did that. Some qualm might come over him in the other business, but—no, no—your father knows you're innocent of robbery. Yes, John, my blood is in you, and there you're wronged, my son. I know you too well, in spite of all I've said to you, to believe that, ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... itself into intimate groups, leaving empty white spaces at the disordered tables. The attendants now served whisky, and more liqueurs and coffee. Those guests who knew no qualm lighted fresh cigars; a few produced beloved pipes; the others were content with cigarettes. Some one ordered a window to be opened, and then, when the fresh night air began to disturb the curtains and scatter the fumes of the banquet, some ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... and nearly dinner time before Dr. Hinsdale drew his horses up in front of the house around the corner, but Mary's "little friends" gave up dressing, without a qualm, and even risked missing their soup to sit, lined up in an accusing row on her bed and her window-box, ready to greet her when she stumbled into her dark ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... wastebasket of varied rubbish into the open fire, leaned a broom against the mantel, readjusted the towel that protected her gray hair from the dust—hair on week days exposed with never a qualm to all manner of dust—cursed all Chinamen on land or sea with an especial and piquant blight invoked upon the one now in hiding, then took from the back of a chair where she had hung it the moment before a riding skirt come to feebleness ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... a sudden little qualm of apprehension. It was purely selfish, as she told herself with a twinge of honest self-contempt. But what should she do without Penelope? It would create a big blank for her if her best friend left her for a home of her own. Somehow, the inevitable reaction of Penelope's marriage upon her ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... we talk Of paring, clipping, and such tedious work, Like those that hang their noses o'er a potion, And qualm, and keck, and take it down ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... 'og; still between 'em we jest slip along, But do dooty for both of 'em? Snakes! that is coming it slightly too strong. The tenants 'old on jest as long as they can, and the landlords 'old orf. A sort of a ketchy sore-throat, or a bit of a qualm or a korf, Make some idjots go fair orf their chumps on diphtheria, and typhod and such; But then others, who don't like a hupset, put up with the lot, pooty much, Jest to save topsy-turvey and 'oles in the garden, and mud on the stairs; Landlords, likeways, is dabs at postponing, and patching, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... have, I suppose, as large an experience in public speaking as any man in England. Have you any acquaintance with the old nervous tremor still?" "No," said Dawson, "or if I have, it is a mere momentary qualm which is gone before I can realise it." "Now, for my part," said the great Tribune, "I have had practice enough but I have never risen to address an audience, large or small, without experiencing a shaking at the knees and the sense of a ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... (next-day nausea), without even the exaltation of a previous orgy to ransom it,—mere spleen and sulks and naughty-childishness,—seem to me not great things at all. You may not be able to help your spleen, but you can "cook" it; you may have qualm and headache, but in work of some sort, warlike or peaceful, there is always small beer, or brandy and soda (with even, if necessary, capsicum or bromide), for the ailment. The Renes who can do nothing but ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... works in and about Denmark Hill, where he lived. He was one of those strangely constituted men—of whom there are multitudes in the world—who will earn money by the most questionable, if not absolutely dishonest, methods, without a qualm of conscience, and give liberally of that same money without recognising for a moment that what they honestly believe they are giving to God, is a portion of the Wages of Sin—which, as good Christians, they ought never ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... said P. Sybarite blankly, experiencing a qualm at the thought of a soft-nosed bullet mushrooming through ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... scattered abundantly up and down the original descriptions—inimitable touches of humour that had each of them, on the appreciative palate, the effect of that verbal bon-bon, the bon-mot—were sacrificed inexorably, apparently without a qualm, and certainly by wholesale. What the Reader looked to throughout, was the human element in his imaginings when they were ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... thud, and he fell a motionless heap on the floor. I struck straight in front of me with a rifle—and hit something—something that pushed past me. Then the front door opened and shut with a deafening clang. A sudden qualm of real fear took hold of my heart, but, mastering it as best I could, I opened the front door and tore madly down the drive. I looked down the hushed street. Past the lamp-posts, skipping from the gloom into the light and from light into shadow, with a series of bounds, sped a horrible apish ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... romancing is for you the wine of existence. Your wit's insistent and if a thing presents itself, tempting and warmly colored, you can't refuse it expression simply because it isn't true. You must make a good story. I've sometimes thought you'd have a qualm or two of conscience if you didn't, as if it's an artistic obligation you've ignored—to delight somebody's ears, even for a moment. Perhaps you don't realize how far afield you travel. But it's ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... comprehends fully now, turns pale, and shudders. A blue line marks itself about his mouth; he is conscious of a qualm of positive nausea ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... quite safe, and Nancy, with a qualm at her heart which she could not account for, allowed the little girl to ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... which the stranger uttered these words was so winning and frank, that Cuthbert placed his purse in the outstretched hand without a qualm. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... when she learns he is married. She cheerfully elopes with him—quite forgetting the money she had borrowed, and when she remembers about that abhorrent debt, expects her companion to pay it, without a qualm apparently. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... suppose I was quite so poor an impostor," I said apologetically, with a qualm at the word. "Though I did get some hint of it," I added, with a painful recollection of the candid statement of opinion I had received from the daughter of ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... temple sat Mischance, With discomfort and sorry countenance; Eke saw I Woodness* laughing in his rage, *Madness Armed Complaint, Outhees*, and fierce Outrage; *Outcry The carrain* in the bush, with throat y-corve**, *corpse **slashed A thousand slain, and not *of qualm y-storve*; *dead of sickness* The tyrant, with the prey by force y-reft; The town destroy'd, that there was nothing left. Yet saw I brent* the shippes hoppesteres, *burnt The hunter strangled with the wilde ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Household, the King will have to support it.—Write to England; Yes; but whatever the answer of England, Weissenfels never! A thousand times sooner see my child in her grave than hopelessly miserable!" Here a qualm overtook her Majesty; for in fact she is in an interesting state, third month of her time: "I am not well; You should spare me, Gentlemen, in the state I am in.—I do not accuse the King," concluded she: "I know," hurling a glance at Grumkow, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... didn't make the libel laws. They're hard enough as it is." His thought turned momentarily to Ely Ives, the journalistic sandbag, and he felt a momentary qualm. "I don't pretend to like everything about my job. One of these days I'll have a newspaper of my own, and you shall censor every word that ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... ship from Inverness, and was nine days at Sea without being sick. A little qualm now and then put me in mind of you; however, as soon as you touch the shore, all the horrors of sickness are soon forgotten, as was the case with a lady on board, who could not hold her head up all the way. We had not been in the Thames an hour before ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... said which had banished her pride and told her of his faithfulness. It was the consciousness which came from within, the consciousness which had always fought back the forces from without. She had not felt one qualm of conscience, for Freddy was understanding and approving. He would know that any doubt she had ever had had been banished the moment Michael had taken her in his arms. Freddy, who had only blamed him for his weakness, would realize ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Nay, brother, I am not too obstinate for saving Englishmen, 'twas but a qualm of conscience, which profit will dispel: I have as true a Dutch antipathy to England, as the proudest he in Amsterdam; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... Ray said coolly, "I killed him! There are insects upon which one's foot falls, reptiles which one removes from the earth without a vestige of a qualm, with a certain sense of relief. He was of ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I am prepared for any foolish freak of yours: I knew you would have a qualm, when you ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... fell. Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. Enfin, what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of conscience, for, with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and honest man. Was it right to disturb those placid depths? Was it right to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... would have been damnable of me to hint at scandal of years gone by. I received them both and gave them my paralytic blessing, and Leonard Boyce accepted it with the air of a man who might have been blessed, without a qualm of conscience, by the Third Person of ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... at the consciousness of sounding her name. He now felt a strangely distressing qualm from a new thought. The letter could of course be no other than anonymous, or the inquiry would not have ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... his alarm to sleep and had allayed the disgust and loathing of the past roused in him by the meeting with Kitty Messenger.... So rosy had the vision become under the influence of his potential wealth that he met Clara without a qualm, and forgot even that Sir Henry was like a ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... wondered, with a qualm of anxiety, if her ring was safe. She dared not even feel of her pocket under her dress. Whenever she thought of it Miss Tabitha seemed to be looking straight at her. Poor Comfort had a feeling that Miss Tabitha ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... had heard of her. "A terrible worker and driver," Mrs. Peter was said to be; and discharged servant girls told fearsome tales of her temper and stinginess, and her family of pert, quarrelsome children. Marilla felt a qualm of conscience at the thought of handing Anne over ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... well that she was armed with no parental authority. She could hold her theory, and could advise; but she could do no more. She could not even scold. And there had been some qualm of conscience on her part as to Walter Marrable, now that Walter Marrable had been taken in hand and made much of by the baronet,—and now, also, that poor Gregory had been removed from the path. No doubt she, Aunt Sarah, had done all in her power to aid the difficulties which ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... stroking him until he seemed to be asleep; then sat up, and put her feet on the floor. The folded handkerchief slipped from her forehead, and she pressed her hands against her temples. "I'm going downstairs," she said to herself; "I won't be left out!" She felt a sick qualm as she got on to her feet, and went over to look at herself in the mirror ... her face was pale, and her hair, wet with cologne, was pasted down in straggling locks on her forehead; she tried to smooth it. "Oh, I look old enough ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... no qualm, as otherwise he might have felt, at hiding there waiting for new victims. He was proud and thrilled to see his friend, secreted in his perch, keen-eyed and alert, guarding alone the crystal purity of this laughing, life-giving brook, as it hurried along its ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Herakleitos down to Fraser and his "Golden Bough," and even Freud and Frobenius. Even then I only remember hints—and I proceed by intuition. This leaves you quite free to dismiss the whole wordy mass of revolting nonsense, without a qualm. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... she spoke, and for the first time her father had a suspicion of what punishment was to this child—a thing as inevitable as disease, a continually recurring torture, but quite without effect upon her conduct—and his heart contracted with a qualm ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... could hardly have been exceeded had he been contriving a totally new Territorial Army organization. Professor Oman abandoned Wellington somewhere amidst the declivities of the sierras without one qualm, and immersed himself in computations warranted to make the plain man's hair stand on end. The enthusiasts who voluntarily undertook this onerous task arrived at results of the most encouraging kind, for one learnt that the Hun ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... welcome to share his money while it lasts; and his wife never fails, while it is in her power, to relieve the wretched; so that their generosity, even in this miserable disguise, is universally respected by their neighbours. Sometimes the recollection of their former rank comes over them like a qualm, which they dispel with brandy, and then humorously rally one another on their mutual degeneracy. She often stops me in the walk, and, pointing to the captain, says, 'My husband, though he is become a blackguard ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... vigils keep; Their eyes are fixed on heaven's starry steep; The ravening billows hunger for their lives; And oft each shivering wretch, constrained to weep, With suppliant hands to move heaven's pity strives, While many a direful qualm his very ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... bad habit for turnkeys to drink," said Latour, severely, and the red-capped bully felt a sudden qualm of nervousness in his frame as he remembered how ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... long time, as no one was seen to be searching for him, he went over into the cave, where in his hunger he ate such bread as he had never before tasted and in his thirst drank water such as he had never drunk before. This gave him such a qualm that he said: "So this is my famous frigid decocta." [Footnote: Reading [Greek: apepsthon] ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... Montague received a telephone message from Siegfried Harvey, who said that he wanted to see him about a matter of business. He asked him to lunch at the Noonday Club; and Montague went—though not without a qualm. For it was in the Fidelity Building, the enemy's bailiwick: a magnificent structure with halls of white marble, and a lavish display of bronze. It occurred to Montague that somewhere in this structure people were at work preparing an answer to his charges; he wondered ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... that he could bridge that distance, Steve set out on a train early the next evening, and soon found himself in reach of the missing member of his household. She was looking out of the freight car when he arrived, and he noted with a secret qualm that she shook her head ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... experienced a qualm of bashfulness, as if every one in the enormous gathering were looking at her, watching her. She cast down her eyes, wrapped her white robe close about her, hiding her hands under it, and shrank into her arm-chair. For a while, for a long while, she fanned ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... extortion, I take what I can get; that is my course; By cunning, if I may; if not, by force; So cometh, year by year, my salary." "Now certes," quote the Sumner, "so fare I. I lay my hands on everything, God wot, Unless it be too heavy or too hot. What I may get in counsel, privily, I feel no sort of qualm thereon, not I. Extortion or starvation;—that's my creed. Repent who list. The best of saints must feed. That's all the stomach that my conscience knoweth. Curse on the ass that to confession goeth. Well be we met, 'Od's heart! and by my dame! But tell me, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... a lie, lest you should take me for a chambermaid, or Charles Townshend. But how can I help it? Is this a consistent age? How should I know people's minds, if they don't know them themselves? In short, Charles Yorke is not attorney-general, nor Norton master of the rolls. A qualm came across the first, and my Lord lorn across the second, who would not have Norton in his court. I cannot imagine why; it is so gentle, amiable, honest a being! But I think the Chancellor says, Norton does not understand equity, so ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... pretty shade of plum. "Weener, youre a thief, a petty, cadging, sly, larcenous, pilfering, bloody thief. You take the Daily Intelligencer's honest dollars without a qualm, aye, with a smirk on your imbecile face, proposing with the cool impudence of the born embezzler to return no value for them. Weener, you forget yourself. The Intelligencer picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered and thoroughly ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... noise as she could; she was in a naughty frame of mind, and enjoyed banging the door after her. She did not greatly care about either the bad mark for conduct or the Greek chronology, though she had an uncomfortable qualm when it occurred to her that the episode might possibly come to Miss Lincoln's ears. For this once, however, she was safe. Miss Rowe was anxious to manage her troublesome class without constant reference to the headmistress, and thought it better not to report the ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... distrust in Mr. Bonnithorne's eyes openly displayed itself, and he gazed full into the face of Hugh Ritson with a searching look that made little parley with his smile. "Then one may take a man's inheritance without qualm ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... little comfort. It was, then, only a moral qualm. He had even no objection to such a keen sense of purity in her; and sooner or later she would forgive his action, or be made to see it with the eyes of the world in ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... he watched the pretty sleek head bent over the book he had supposed of course was a novel, he felt a qualm of real apprehension. Maybe there was something in what that guy said, the one who wrote a book to prove (bringing Queen Elizabeth and Catherine the Great as examples) that the real genius of women is for political life. Maybe they have ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... a title of yet more poetic and romantic associations than its fellow's, such a purchaser as I have supposed, with his mind full of the sweet rich fresh humour which he would feel a right to expect from Shakespeare, could hardly have undergone less than a qualm or a pang of strong disrelish and distaste on finding one of the two leading comic figures of the play break in upon it at his entrance not even with "a fool-born jest," but with full-mouthed and foul-mouthed effusion ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Lucas, whose temper I see overrules every good quality and every qualification he has. Not a single fact has appeared, which occasions me to doubt that I could have made a fitter appointment than General Wilkinson. One qualm of principle I acknowledge I do feel, I mean the union of the civil and military authority. You remember that when I came into office, while we were lodging together at Conrad's, he was pressed on me to be made Governor of the Mississippi territory; and that I refused ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of delirious complacency. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the wind moaning amongst the stunted yew—trees, and the rain splashing and scattering on the moss covered tombstones, and the blinding blue lightning flashing, while the. headstones glance like an array of sheeted ghosts, and the thunder is grumbling overhead, without a qualm—direness of this kind cannot once daunt me; it is here and now, when all nature sleeps in the ardent noontide, that I become superstitious, and would not willingly be left alone. Thoughts too deep for tears!—ay, indeed, and there ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... flickered ominously in the mass of blue storm-clouds that hung above the mountainous peninsula of Lower California. I had a qualm about flying into it in our untested machine. But Charlie leaned tensely forward and sent the Golden Gull on at the limit of her speed. Gray vapor swirled about us, rent with livid streaks of lightning. Thunder crashed and rumbled ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... a minor operation on his favourite Borzoi, had another aspect. He who shivered at the first chill winds of winter and wrapped himself in sables whenever he drove abroad after the last days of September, and had sent men and women to the bleakness of Alexandrowski without a qualm; he who had to fortify himself to face an American dentist (his fees for missed appointments would have kept the average middle-class family in comfort for a year), was ruthless in his dealings with the half-crazed men and women who strayed across the frontier ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... the country at the monthly cost of about ten shillings and two pounds of lump sugar. That prevents the child from hindering our work or pleasure; and, as it is the interest of the nurse to protect the child for which she receives payment, why should we disturb our consciences with qualm or fear? ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... my surprise, he made no objections. A dark pall of resignation had fallen upon him. In such a mood as his, an Indian woman would go to Suttee without a qualm. He pulled the boat to shore, placed a plank, and with a thrilling pride of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he must instantly ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... pleasure go with it hand in hand. And she allowed herself to be settled under the furs, with Jack, without going back to speak to Tamara. Indeed, Gritzko was so matter of fact she started without a qualm. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... before my arrival I felt an occasional qualm Lest the shock of the unexpected might shatter my wonted calm; But it gave me the richest rapture to find I was wholly free From the crude and vulgar emotions ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... artificial enthusiasm of the evening evaporated from my veins. Strong as that repugnance became, I had an even stronger feeling that we were embarking on an important enterprise far too much upon the spur of the moment. The latter qualm I had the temerity to confess to Raffles; nor have I often loved him more than when he freely admitted it to be the most natural feeling in the world. He assured me, however, that he had had my Lady Lochmaben and her ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... recoiled, and stepped into the roadway in order to pass him. Indignant at this attempt to ignore him, he again placed himself in her path, and was repeating his question with increased sternness, when a jerk in the pit of his stomach caused him a severe internal qualm, besides disturbing his equilibrium so rudely that he narrowly escaped a fall against the curb-stone. When he recovered himself he saw before him a showily dressed young ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... was quite settled, sailed for America, leaving me entirely unprotected, whereupon I succeeded in making my escape. Heaven knows I had no desperate longing to visit Palestine at that particular time, but I journeyed thither without a qualm of regret, and thereby avoided the surrender ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... afterward that he seemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped the Dominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rather markedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before his departure, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging your neighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... St. Alban's; and were there received by the Pope Honorius with great respect; and continued there all the winter. In this same year was so great a flood on St. Laurence's day, that many towns and men were overwhelmed, and bridges broken down, and corn and meadows spoiled withal; and hunger and qualm (153) in men and in cattle; and in all fruits such unseasonableness as was not known for many years before. And this same year died the Abbot John of Peterborough, on the second day before the ides ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... crew; For on the third day there came on a calm, And though at first their strength it might renew, And lying on their weariness like balm, Lulled them like turtles sleeping on the blue Of Ocean, when they woke they felt a qualm, And fell all ravenously on their provision, Instead of hoarding it ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... outside the door of the flat, the chimes of Trinity began to ring, sounding above the grinding of the nearest Elevated Railroad. Those clanging summons reminded Johnnie that Big Tom would surely be at home, and he suffered a sudden qualm of apprehension. He looked longingly over a shoulder, wishing he might turn back. He had a "gone" feeling under his belt, and a tickling in his throat (it was very dry), as if his heart had traveled up there and got wedged, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... time to think. As he glanced round the room, at the flushed faces of the boys, some of whom he could not recognise in the dusky atmosphere, a qualm of disgust and shame passed over him. Several of them were smoking, and, with Bull and Brigson heading the line on each, side of the table, he could not help observing what a bad set they looked. The remembrance of Russell came back to him. Oh, if Edwin could have ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... Lor. 'Tis no qualm of conscience, I'll be sworn. You see, madam, it is interest governs all the world. He preaches against sin; why? because he gets by it: He holds his tongue; why? because so much more is ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... seized by the nose and chin, as if she had been a horse, and made to distend her jaws even painfully. She experienced a qualm or two when she thought of what a story her few remaining broken teeth would tell. Still, like the world and all the "rest of mankind," she had never fully realized that she had passed ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... whose commonplace face, having yielded you information as to pay day, due day, and holiday, you obliterate at the end of each month without a qualm, oblivious to the fact that were your interests less sordid and personal it would speak to you of that order which pervades the universe; would make you realize something of the music of the spheres. For on that familiar checkerboard of the days are numerical ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... no longer, but a strong woman whose devotion to those she loved rose boundless over every other feeling. It was this very devotion that urged her and shut out every scruple, every qualm of conscience, at the manner in which she ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... the character, and was firm and strong rather than amiable or kind. Evidently a man who, should the occasion for doing so arise, would deal out the utmost rigour of the law, if not with indifference, at least without a qualm. He was the Honourable William Dummer Powell, and he occupied the high office of Chief Justice of the Province. In conjunction with the Reverend Doctor Strachan, Rector of York, he had for several years practically directed the administration of affairs ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... stand on the hustings and publish a fear that he might be boring his audience. One familiar with the trade of electioneering, as it has always been conducted by men, would strut and shout and brag, never for a moment worrying whether or not he came anywhere near the truth or feeling the slightest qualm, though he deafened his hearers with his trumpeting or bored them to complete extinction, and would refuse to be silenced even by "eggs of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... kind was, however, urgently necessary, for George did not, as formerly, show a desire to flee; his belligerent attitude suggested fight and he was a husky specimen with a handy club. Even though he might have suffered a qualm at again beholding the white apparition in the moonlight, his determination to dare the spectre was bolstered by the voice and the ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... Marys was shaping her course for the north shore, the wind had subsided, and the sea moved lazily along in unbroken swells. Supper was announced, and Major Roger Potter hastened into the cabin, saying: "It is as well that we eat, for though I feel a qualm coming over me now and then, which seriously disturbs my temper, I must not forget that food may cure the ills of my head." Having cast several scrutinizing glances over the humble fare Luke's wife had prepared, and for the quality of which she offered innumerable excuses, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... sheriff's pointing finger, and rested, without a qualm, on the evidence. The sheriff laid a trembling hand on the coiled rope. "How'd you get this in, ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... creeping fly upon its vast shoulder, she! Little cared the old mountain that she was a Royal Princess, and that the Emperor who ruled the land of which it was part, had the intention of marrying her. It would thwart that imperial intention without a qualm, nor turn a pebble if the poor little Princess toppled over its cruel shoulder and fell in a small, crushed heap, without ever having looked upon the face of ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... that Agatha leaned over, trying to see his face. The violence of the chill had passed. His eyes were wide open, his face alarmingly pale. She felt a sudden qualm of pain, lest illness and exhaustion had wrought havoc in his frame deeper than she knew. But as she bent over him, his features lighted up with his rare smile—an expression full of happiness and peace. He lifted a hand, feebly, and she took it in both ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... Governor, either by qualm of conscience or further freak of selfishness, got him the place of head of the Oomana, the three Administrators of Customs at Tangier. He held the post six months only, to the complete satisfaction of the Kaid, but ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... very much," I said at last, effusively, as I put the pipe in my pocket, not without a qualm of doubt as to whether I shouldn't find ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... serve me as a guide, struck out with a long, quiet, steady stroke that I knew from experience I could maintain for hours on end, if need were. Of course, I kept a very sharp lookout for the wreckage that I was aiming for, but saw nothing of it for a long time, and more than once a qualm of something very nearly approaching terror seized me, as the idea suggested itself that possibly I had missed my goal, and was every moment leaving it farther behind me. I was fast approaching a state of panic that might very ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... the curves of those lips so many times that he could reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an aura over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced a qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... into falsehood, but by a confusing process weaken their memories and corrupt their imaginations. They never lie of the events of the day. Rather they return to some jumbled happening of the week before and delude themselves with only a lingering qualm, until from habit they can create what is really a form of paranoia, the delusion of greatness, or the exaggerated ego. Such men, inoculated with self-deception, return to the outer world, to deceive others, lower ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... Magnificent, but the surface-ground is weedier than ever. I am not a prude (I think!), but the eternally amusement-seeking and irresponsible lives led by many of the rich, and the really appalling looseness of morals now being led by girls without a qualm, bode very seriously ill for the future of that New World which we were promised the war would make safe for—well, I believe we were told it was to be Democracy, but the Government official and the profiteer still seem the most firmly dug in of us all. I go to the fashionable West-end haunts, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... where other clerks were selling tickets to Palestine, Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and all the abodes of happiness in the world, she saw at the newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an English daily. It said: "More Suffragette Riots." She had a qualm, for her conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and its empire over her had been strengthened by the long, steady course of hard work which she had accomplished. Miss Ingate's arguments had not placated that ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... said, why did you have nothing but cruelty in your heart, and contempt for her? When you saw that she was willing, for the love of the son whom you loved, to give up all that life meant to her, how could you destroy her without a qualm? The crime you committed was that you refused to see God in that woman's soul, when he had revealed himself to you. You looked for wile, for cunning, for self-seeking,—and they were not there. Love had obliterated them. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... ashore, and, just as all the whistles of San Francisco were blowing the noon hour, we backed away from the dock, and turned our head to sea. As the little line of green water between ship and dock widened to a streamlet and then to a river, the first qualm concerning the wisdom of the expedition struck its chilly way to my heart. Probably most of the passengers were experiencing the same doubts; and the captain suspected the fact, for he gave us fire drill just to distract our attention and ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... and found it to be a daily paper which his father had been accustomed to take for years. It gave him a start, as he saw the familiar page, and he felt a qualm of homesickness. The neat house in which he had lived since he was born, his mother's gentle face, rose up before him, compared with his present friendless condition, and the tears rose to his eyes. But he was in a public restaurant, and his pride ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger |
