"Swoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... into the Mill, all for-bled; "Now are ye free, lady," he cried, and fell down in a swoon. Then the Lady and the Maid wept full sore and made great dole and unlaced his helm; and Lirette cherished him tenderly ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... elderly woman, the young lady fell to the floor in a swoon, apparently overcome by the news. The landlord ran in and lifted her up. Well, do what they would they could not for a long time bring her back to consciousness, and began to be much alarmed. "Who is she?" the innkeeper said to the other woman. "I ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... ivory horn in his hands, and went to fetch water from the brook which flows through the Vale of Thorns. Slowly and feebly he tottered onward, but not far: his strength failed and he fell to the ground. Soon Roland recovered from his swoon and looked about him. On the green grass this side of the rivulet, he saw the archbishop lying. The good ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... it gave them! Fortunately Nonna, after a lifetime spent in the care of babies, had laid aside what we call nerves, else she had certainly fallen in a swoon like her mistress; she was consequently able to support the duchess and soothe her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... longer, his voice growing weaker; but soon after I had given him his medicine, which he took like a child, with the remark, "If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it's me," he fell at last into a heavy, swoon-like sleep, in which I left him. What I should have done had all gone well I do not know. Probably I should have told the whole story to the doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent of his confessions and ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seldom swoon at such a moment! On the contrary, the brain is especially active, and works incessantly—probably hard, hard, hard—like an engine at full pressure. I imagine that various thoughts must beat loud and fast ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Then she had listened till at length a deep sigh told her of the return of her sister's consciousness. After this there was a pause, till presently Beatrice's long soft breaths showed that she had glided from swoon to sleep. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... passed away had Roland's swoon, With sense restored, he saw full soon What ruin lay beneath his view. His Franks have perished all save two— The archbishop and Walter of Hum alone. From the mountain-side hath Walter flown, Where ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... vulgarize it. But his special, constitutional, word is "fine," meaning something like dainty, as Shakespeare uses it,—"my dainty Ariel,"—"fine Ariel." It belongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong to Keats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators are easily recognized. "Melioration" is another favorite word of Emerson's. A clairvoyant could spell out some of his most characteristic traits by the aid ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... sufficient to establish the historical fact that John Fitch was the father of steam-navigation, whoever may have been its prophets. Though the infant, with the royal blood of both Neptune and Pluto in its veins, and a brand-new empire waiting to crown it, fell into a seventeen years' swoon, during which Fitch died, and the public at large forgot all that he had ever said or done, its life did not become extinct. It was not created, but revived, by Fulton, aided by the refreshing effusion of Chancellor Livingston's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... changes a' thing—the ill-natured loon! Were it ever sae rightly, he 'll no let it be; And I rubbit at my e'en, and I thought I would swoon, How the carle had come roun' about our ain Bessie Lee! The wee laughing lassie was a gudewife grown auld, Twa weans at her apron, and ane on her knee, She was douce too, and wise-like—and wisdom's sae cauld; I would rather hae the ither ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... far-off home made work impossible. He hastened out of doors and walked about all day visiting such public sights as were open to the penniless. When he returned to his garret at night, his landlady found him in a swoon, and with the compassion of a good soul she forced him to share her supper. "That day," Diderot used to tell his children in later years, "I promised myself that if ever happier times should come, and ever I should have anything, I would ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... Quixote and Sancho Panza to the ground half singed. By this time the bearded band of duennas, the Trifaldi and all, had vanished from the garden, and those that remained lay stretched on the ground as if in swoon. Don Quixote and Sancho got up rather shaken, and looking about them, were filled with amazement at finding themselves in the same garden from which they had started, and seeing such a number of people stretched on the ground; and their astonishment was increased when ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... being then situated upon his neck, in a position most convenient for being "skinned alive" by the trees, as he said, when a plunge made by the animal over a plashy pool transferred the rider to his tail, from which he "collapsed right down in a kind o' swoon, and when he come to, found himself settin' up to his elbows in muddy water, very solitary-like, and with a terrible stillness all around."—What became of "The Buffer" I forget, and also how Button got home; but he certainly did not ride. And he always wound up the narrative of his first and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... were commended and honored: the rest were both degraded and punished, so that some, when they could endure it no longer (for they were frequently expected to be on the qui vive from early morning until evening), would feign to swoon and would be carried out of the theatres ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... as bad for him as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta.'" I did n't know what that meant then; I know now, but haven't time to tell you. Besides it is n't a pleasant story. Then papa added, "Perhaps, after all, it is only a case of suspended animation. Your little frog may have only been in a swoon. If you open his grave in the morning, you may find that ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood
... cost him a swoon, but his mother's cheek was now against his own, and the sweet, dulcet Mohawk language of his boyhood returned to his tongue; he was speaking it to his mother, speaking it lovingly, rapidly. Yet, although ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of veracity Arthur would have gone I never knew, for at that moment a trampling of feet and a hoarse command outside announced the arrival of our escort, and Marko, still in a sort of walking swoon of amazement, went out to give ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... over, When ORSIN, rushing in, bestow'd On horse and man so heavy a load, The beast was startled, and begun To kick and fling like mad, and run, 650 Bearing the tough Squire like a sack, Or stout king RICHARD, on his back, 'Till stumbling, he threw him down, Sore bruis'd, and cast into a swoon. Meanwhile the Knight began to rouze 655 The sparkles of his wonted prowess. He thrust his hand into his hose, And found, both by his eyes and nose, 'Twas only choler, and not blood, That from his wounded body flow'd. 660 This, with the hazard of the ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... gone to Andrew's side, but Andrew had risen at once to the occasion. "I'm no a woman to skirl or swoon," he said, almost petulantly, "and it's right and fit the lad should gie his ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... would resuscitate her. She could not add that to her other ignominies. She clenched herself like one great fist of resolution till the swoon was frustrated. She sat still for a while—then rose, put on her hat, swathed her face in the veil, and went down the flights of stairs and out into the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... battlefield, cried, "They run! See how they run!" "Who run?" said the dying Wolfe, like a man roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," was the answer. A flash of life came back to Wolfe; the eager spirit thrust from it the swoon of death; he gave a clear, emphatic order for cutting off the enemy's retreat; then, turning on his side, he added, "Now God be ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... winter and summer. People that saw him said, "What a fine tree!" and towards Christmas he was one of the first that was cut down. The axe struck deep into the very pith; the Tree fell to the earth with a sigh; he felt a pang—it was like a swoon; he could not think of happiness, for he was sorrowful at being separated from his home, from the place where he had sprung up. He well knew that he should never see his dear old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him, anymore; perhaps not ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... remarkable, that so utter had been the absorption of Aram's mind, that he had been insensible not only to the entrance of Madeline, but even that she had thrown herself on his breast. And she, overcome by her feelings, had slid to the ground from that momentary resting-place, in a swoon which Lester, in the general tumult and confusion, was now the ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a huge, flaming-red bison bull, if it had been ordained by the Great Spirit that the soul's time was not yet come, this red bison pushed it back, and the soul was obliged to re-enter the body, which then awoke from its trance or swoon and resumed its ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... till they came to his mother's yett, So faint and feebly he rapped thereat. 'O, my son's slain, he is falling to swoon, And it's all for the sake ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... strove the more eagerly with the wind and the way and his feebleness; yet did the weakness wax on him, so that it was but a little while ere he faltered and reeled and fell down once more in a swoon. ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... started up on his knees, and looked at it as if it were an apparition, with every demonstration of terror in his countenance; his eyes glared upon the animal with horror and astonishment, and he fell down in a swoon. The whole of the ship's company were taken aback—they looked at one another and shook their heads—one only remark was made by Jansen, who muttered, "De tog ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... from his fit or swoon, he found himself being tended by Mr. and Mrs. Tope, whom his visitor had summoned for the purpose. His visitor, wooden of aspect, sat stiffly in a chair, with his hands upon his knees, watching ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... worse. Here, take this," she said aloud, lifting to his lips a wineglass containing a composing draught which the doctor had left for her patient to take as soon as he showed any signs of recovery from his swoon, and which she really ought to have given him before; "it will do you good, and make ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... his height, An' the men wer a-swingen the sneaed, Wi' their eaerms in white sleeves, left an' right; An' out there, as they rested at noon, O! they drench'd en vrom eaele-horns too deep, Till his thoughts wer a-drown'd in a swoon; Aye! his ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... this people was the terror of the world." He listened impatiently to the reply of the Duke of Richmond, and again rose to his feet. But he had hardly risen when he pressed his hand upon his heart, and falling back in a swoon was ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... made him unequal to facing trouble or anxiety. Even as he sat there, shaking and white-faced, the nerve-storm came on, and racked and knotted and tortured every fibre of his being, until a burst of tears came to his relief, and almost in a swoon he lay back limply in his chair. Graham mixed him a strong dose of valerian, felt his pulse, and made him lie down on the sofa. Also, he darkened the room, and placed a wet handkerchief on the curate's forehead. Gabriel closed his eyes, and lay ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... was more sorrowful than I could brave; for the first time since I had died I succumbed into something like a swoon, and lost my miserable consciousness in ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... times lost in a languorous swoon, "Now he cometh—he cometh," she cries; And a love-look lightens her eyes in the gloom, And the darkness ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... stones cast down, or, a running that could not be seen, of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains: these things made them to swoon for fear.'—(Wisdom of Solomon, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... bed of Minnehaha, At the feet of Laughing Water, At those willing feet, that never 140 More would lightly run to meet him, Never more would lightly follow. With both hands his face he covered, Seven long days and nights he sat there, As if in a swoon he sat there, 145 Speechless, motionless, unconscious Of the daylight or the darkness. Then they buried Minnehaha; In the snow a grave they made her, In the forest deep and darksome, 150 Underneath ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... shower of arrows fly toward the wall of shields, hitting them with a thud but seemingly doing no harm. Presently they flee in haste, thinking perhaps these are gods who cannot be harmed. Slowly the shields are lowered and Thorwald is shown to be in great distress. One sees he is in a death swoon, yet, he raises an arm and points toward the Gurnet, then reels and falls into the arms of his stalwart men. Once more that steel wall goes up, and the mysterious strangers with their curious ship move out on the sea, bearing their ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... your trance forlorn: You could not hear, I thought, the voice of any bird, The shadowy cries of bats in dim twilight Or cool voices of owls crying by night ... Hunting by night under the horned moon: Yet half I envied you your wintry swoon, Till, on this morning mild, the sun, new-risen Steals from his misty prison; The frozen fallows glow, the black trees shaken In a clear flood of sunlight vibrating awaken: And lo, your ravaged bole, beyond belief ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... fell into a kind of swoon, and nothing could be heard but the slight scratching of his finger nails on the sheet. ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... childhood swam around him At the thought of such a lot: In a swoon his Annie found him And conveyed ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... spread over his bed, to assure himself that it was the original and not a copy that had been torn. At length his eyes fell upon the fragment which bore his signature, and recognizing it, he sunk back on his bolster in a swoon. Anne of Austria, without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in a swoon upon the floor. When they picked her up, thinking, of course, that she had died from the sword thrust, they could find no blood on her body, and, on looking more closely, they saw that there was not even ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... time poor Faber, to his offer of himself to Juliet, had received no answer but a swoon—or something very near it. Every attempt he made to see her alone at the rectory had been foiled; and he almost came to the conclusion that the curate and his wife had set themselves to prejudice against himself a mind already prejudiced against his principles. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... Catherine, she was borne along as silently as though she slept, being, I doubt not, still exhausted with her swoon. When I came close to Mistress Mary's chair, forth came her little hand, shining with that preciousness of fairness beyond that of a pearl, and "Master Wingfield," said she in a whisper, lest she disturb Catherine, "what, what, I pray thee, was it ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... set the broken bones, Flaker began to moan. He opened his eyes for a moment; then he fell back in a swoon. ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... sleep or stupor into which I must have passed from that swoon, it was to find myself lying upon a bed in a room flooded with sunshine. I was alone. For a moment I lay still, staring at the blue sky without the window, and wondering where I was and how I came there. A drum beat, a dog barked, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... discovered the youth lying on his back, exhibiting a face beaming with beauty, though dead, and clad in white and clean clothing, with the knife remaining in his body. They all wept at the sight, and the father fell down in a swoon, which lasted so long that the slaves thought he was dead. At length, however, he recovered, and came out with the slaves, who had wrapped the body of the youth in his clothes. They then took back all that was in the subterranean dwelling to the ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... Destroy, then, if it were possible, this sense of touch, and our absolute perception of objects is entirely lost—the connection between the outer world and the perceptive faculties of the mind is dissolved forever. The truth of this position is seen in the fact that in a swoon, when all the senses are benumbed, the mind is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... a bank-bill, of what amount I had no patience to see, upon the table. Shame, grief, and indignation choked my utterance; unable to speak my wrongs, and unable to bear them in silence, I fell in a swoon at his feet. ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder to support her, but she smiled sadly, and pushed ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... met that glance, and he trembled like a leaf. He gazed upon the stranger like one who sees a spectre. And she met his glance, boldly at the first; then the light faded from her eyes, her head drooped, and she fell in a swoon upon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... sunset gives its freshened zest, Lean o 'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, While the shorn sun swells down the hazy west, Glow opposite;—the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade 145 Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... he would swoon for fright Upon the purple ling To know that in a decent light I'd undertake the death, at sight, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 27, 1917 - 1917 Almanack • Various
... anguished heart he raised the unconscious head which his own love had lured to destruction. To his unspeakable joy the eyes opened, and the loved voice faintly strove to bid him fly. The effort made him swoon again, and when he next revived it was to ask for water. Atma ran to a rill which he had noted before, and speedily returned with a draught. After drinking, Bertram raised himself slightly, and directing his friend's attention to the body of ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... lady, who occupied the adjoining chamber, had recovered slowly from her swoon. She put both hands to her temples, as if trying to recollect her thoughts. Hers was a fair, innocent, almost childish face; and now, as a smile shot across it, there was something so sweet and touching in the gladness it shed over that countenance, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... precious, is this the soldier? here, take my armour quickly, 'twill make him swoon, I fear; he is not fit to look on't that will ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Hunker's swoon had not surprised any one, for she was known to have been in very delicate health ever since a severe illness which she had gone through in London. She had been too weak to accompany her husband to Holland, and he had left her under ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... made her unto these things, I remember not. For scarce five days after, or not much more, she fell sick of a fever; and in that sickness one day she fell into a swoon, and was for a while withdrawn from these visible things. We hastened round her; but she was soon brought back to her senses; and looking on me and my brother standing by her, said to us enquiringly, "Where was I?" And then looking fixedly ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... that extremity. Those whom he had wronged stood over against him, and were moved to transports of rage by the sight of him. The old Earl of Berkeley poured forth reproaches and curses on the wretched Henrietta. The Countess gave evidence broken by many sobs, and at length fell down in a swoon. The jury found a verdict of Guilty. When the court rose Lord Berkeley called on all his friends to help him to seize his daughter. The partisans of Grey rallied round her. Swords were drawn on both sides; a skirmish took place in Westminster ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Awakened from a dizzy swoon, I felt appalling fears With ringings in my ears, And wondered why the glaring moon Swung round the dome of night With such stupendous might. Next came, like the sweet air of June, A treacherous calm suspense ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... any name particular, belong Vnto the Lodging, where I first did swoon'd? War. 'Tis call'd Ierusalem, my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... by the arm and dragged me violently towards him. This made me cry out for aid, because he was going to fling me under hatches in his hideous boat. On saying that last word, I fell into a terrible swoon, and seemed to be sinking down into the boat. They say that during that fainting-fit I flung myself about and cast bad words at Messer Giovanni Gaddi, to wit, that he came to rob me, and not from any motive of charity, and other insults of the kind, which caused him to be much ashamed. Later ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... radiant eyes Gleam thro' the lattice of the bower, Where nightly now they mix their sighs; And thought some spirit of the air (For what could waft a mortal there?) Was pausing on his moonlight way To listen to her lonely lay! This fancy ne'er hath left her mind: And—tho', when terror's swoon had past, She saw a youth of mortal kind Before her in obeisance cast,— Yet often since, when he hath spoken Strange, awful words,—and gleams have broken From his dark eyes, too bright to bear, Oh! she hath feared her soul was given To some unhallowed child of air, Some erring ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... so, wife? Tell me now how did a dying man in a swoon command and seal this writing?" and he touched the scroll she ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... that, at the sounds below, he had found strength to drag himself from his bed and crawl inch by inch to the room of the secret panel to mount guard there; and no sooner had he soothed Miss Falconer than he collapsed in a sort of swoon. We laid him on the chest, and I fetched a pillow for his head and stripped off my coat and spread it over him. I took out my pocket-flask, too, and forced a few drops between his teeth. In short I ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... no longer than this fire burns! Take well care of the fire, men! Where are you, my men? (Falls into a swoon. The second man tends the fire and makes it blaze up; the first man ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... revolved more slowly, and then ceased altogether. Many willing hands were laid upon the overturned machine, and it was lifted off the prostrate man just as Max's strength gave out, and he sank limply to the floor in a deep swoon. ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... growing fainter and fainter as she proceeded. She leaned against me heavily. One glance at her told me that if I let it go on any longer she would fall into a swoon. "Tell your brother that we have gone back to the rectory," I said to Nugent. He looked up at Lucilla ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... her attendants. Jenny lay upon the hall floor, fallen forward upon her face, in a deep swoon. Oliver stood out upon the lawn, his teeth chattering, and his knees knocking together with terror, yet faintly meditating a desperate onslaught to the rescue with his ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... thick darkness filled the room. By degrees he collected his senses. As he remembered what had caused the swoon, surprise was added to surprise. He had fallen senseless on the floor, then whence came the pillow on which his head was resting? Was it a pillow? or was it the lap of ...
— The Poison Tree - A Tale of Hindu Life in Bengal • Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
... Govers resumed: "She'll be an awful pirty girl, I hope. Is that her makin' all that noise? Give me a glimpse of her, will you? I got a right, I guess, to see my own baby. Oh, Goshen! Is that how she looks?" A kind of swoon; then more meditation, followed by a courageous philosophy: "Children always look funny at first. She'll outgrow it, I expect. Ellaphine is such an elegant name. It ought to be a kind of inducement to grow up to. Don't ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... and for the doctor, the chambermaid sobbed. The landlord himself hurried down into his cellar to fetch some of the oldest brandy and the best champagne. They were all so extremely sorry for the young gentleman; he seemed to be lying in a deep swoon. ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... and my surprise were so great that I fell down in a swoon, and continued insensible so long that the merchant had time to escape. When I came to myself I found my cheek covered with blood. The old woman and my slaves took care to cover it with my veil, and the people who came about us could not perceive it, but supposed ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... (for the king had reiterated his commands), he, through fear or distraction, roared like a bull, and laid so stoutly about him, that the hangman and his assistant could hardly master him. At last he fell into a swoon, and, on his recovery, charged General Dalziel and Drummond (violent tories), together with the duke of Hamilton, with being the leaders of the fanatics. It was generally thought, that he affected this extravagant behaviour, to invalidate ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... strange to say, a "Japanese" prince,—hunting far, very far, from home, is pursued, after his last arrow has been sped, by a great serpent. He flees, cries for help, and seeing himself already in the clutch of death, falls in a swoon. At the moment of his greatest danger three veiled ladies appear on the scene and melodiously and harmoniously unite in slaying the monster. They are smitten, in unison, with the beauty of the unconscious youth whom they have saved, and quarrel prettily among themselves ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... of all the citizens and magistrates would swoon with envy, and the alderman's lady would instantly die of that husky cough which has so long ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... does not shine, they suppose she it dead; and some call the three last days before the new moon, the naked days. Her first appearance after her last quarter is hailed with great joy. If either sun or moon is eclipsed, they say the sun or moon is in a swoon. I have mentioned before their opinion of the cause of shooting-stars. Adair, who was acquainted only with the Florida Indians, says that when it thundered and blew sharp for a considerable time, they believed that ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Labriche, who had recovered from his swoon, now presented themselves reluctantly at the door, and stood extending their hands supplicatingly towards their master. They were a miserable-looking set of wretches enough—very pale, fairly livid indeed, haggard, dirty and blood-stained; for although they had only contused ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... whether being very hasty at it and somewhat unhandy, or that the decree of the spiteful fairy had ordained it, is not to be certainly ascertained, but, however, it immediately ran into her hand, and she directly fell down upon the ground in a swoon. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... to judgment and to death, Received unto himself a part of blame. Being guiltless, as an innocent prisoner, Who when the woful sentence hath been past, And all the clearness of his fame hath gone Beneath the shadow of the curse of men, First falls asleep in swoon. Wherefrom awaked And looking round upon his tearful friends, Forthwith and in his agony conceives A shameful sense as of a cleaving crime— For whence without some guilt should such grief be? So died that hour, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... this girl of the effete and effeminate upper class swoon with terror before him; but to his intense astonishment she but stood erect and brave before him, her head high held, her eyes cold and level and unafraid. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the torture of the strung-up thumbs had proved too much even for the strong nerves of Widow Sprowl. She fell down in a swoon. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... him in his slumber soft, A trickling stream from high rock tumbling down And ever drizzling rain upon the loft, Mixt with the murmuring wind much like the soun Of swarming bees did cast him in a swoon. No other noise, nor peoples' troublous cries, As still are wont to annoy the walled town, Might there be heard: but careless quiet lies Wrapt in eternal silence ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... bashful that he hides himself in a corner; he hardly bears being looked at, and never quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a distance, is shocked at hearing his own voice, and would almost swoon at the repetition ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the dead infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I fell with the child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life went out during my insensibility. Of its features, like and yet unlike our boy's, no one seems to take heed. The nurse who cared for it is gone, and ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... were I in Japan today, Hiroshima should call My heart—Hiroshima built round Her ancient castle wall. By the low flowering moat where sun And silence ever fall Into a swoon, I'd build again Old ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... the rest—and then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, she knew she was forgiven. An inexpressible glory filled her soul, washed clean of sin. Love beyond words, peace and joy beyond expression, surrounded her. She stood up and lifted her face and hands to heaven and cried out like one in a swoon of triumph, ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... vinegar on another person's palate, I am ready to go the whole length of the transmigration of senses. But after all, except from hearing so much, I am as ignorant as you are, in my own experience. One of my sisters was thrown into a sort of swoon, and could not open her eyelids, though she heard what passed, once or twice or thrice; and she might have been a prophetess by this time, perhaps, if, partly from her own feeling on the subject, and partly from mine, she had ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the fire, Lennon lay in what appeared to be a swoon, with the body of the rattlesnake writhing about his head. At the angry bellow of the trader the Indians came running to slash Lennon's bonds and jerk ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... "Mountain," nothing like so high as Constitution Mountain), are cannon-batteries of devouring quality; which awaken on Winterfeld, as he rushes out double-quick on the advancing Austrians; and are fatal to Winterfeld's attempt, and nearly to Winterfeld himself. Winterfeld, heavily wounded, sank in swoon from his horse; and awakening again in a pool of blood, found his men all off, rushing back upon the main Schwerin body; "Austrian grenadiers gazing on the thing, about eighty paces off, not venturing to follow." Winterfeld, half dead, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... Mrs Sudberry, running into the room with terror on her countenance, and falling down on the sofa in a semi-swoon on being informed that he was. She was followed by Lucy and Tilly, with scent-bottles, and by nurse, who exhibited a tendency to go off into hysterics; but who, in consequence of a look from her master, postponed that luxury to a ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... was only partially relieved, for his aunt said that Grace's swoon was obstinate, and would not yield to the remedies she was using. "Come in," she cried. "This is no time for ceremony. Take brandy and chafe ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... my brother was exciting himself, and was still weak from his recent swoon. I knew, too, that any ordinary person of strong mind would say at once that his brain wandered, and yet I had a dreadful conviction all the while that what he told me was the truth. All I could do was to beg him to calm himself, and to reflect how vain such fancies must be. "We must trust, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... and despite all his resolution and indomitable will, he seemed about to swoon; I saw his knees slowly bending under him, his stately head sank, and crying out in horror, I reached out to clasp him in ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... persons remained in the bank it is impossible to tell; Miss Patton in a death-like swoon, and Mr. Pearson, in the vain endeavor to extricate himself from the bonds which held him. At length, however, the young man succeeded in freeing himself, and as he did so, the young lady also recovered her consciousness. Calling loudly ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... two oarsmen—were left in the boat to keep her from being crushed by the ship. What the others saw when they first boarded La Grace de Dieu I don't know; what I saw was the woman whom I had lost, the woman vilely stolen from me, lying in a swoon on the deck. We lowered her, insensible, into the boat. The remnant of the crew—five in number—were compelled by main force to follow her in an orderly manner, one by one, and minute by minute, as the chance offered for safely taking them in. I was the last who left; and, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... TRYGAEUS Of a swoon. He could not bear the shock of seeing one of his casks full of wine broken. Ah! what a number of other misfortunes our city has suffered! So, dearest mistress, nothing can now separate us ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... recovered from that swoon, but never from the deep, unbroken sadness caused by those last words of the maid Editha, which had overcome and nearly slain her. She now abandoned her seclusion, but the world she returned to was not the old one. The thought that every person she met was saying in his or her heart: This ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... spite and indignation which could characterize her who haunted the merchant Abudah in the Oriental tale; she rushes upon me, says something, but so hastily that I cannot discover the purport, and then strikes me a severe blow with her staff. I fall from my chair in a swoon, which is of longer or shorter endurance. To the recurrence of this apparition I am daily subjected. And such is my new and singular complaint." The doctor immediately asked whether his patient had invited any one to sit with him when ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... fence. How he ever got the almost helpless girl over into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her down in a swoon of ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... Wiglaf came again to where Beowulf sat he poured the treasure at his feet. But he found his lord in a deep swoon. Again the brave warrior bathed Beowulf's wound and laved the stricken countenance of his lord, until once more he ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... them, the bright furnishings and velvet pall of the coffin of the newcomer on which he stood—and then those faces. The priests, still crouched in corners, rolling on the ground, their white lips muttering who knows what; the sacristan in a swoon, Hague Simon hugging a coffin in a niche, as a drowning man hugs a plank, and, standing in the midst of them, calm, sardonic and watchful, a drawn rapier in his hand, ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... discomforts were increased tenfold in the day. It was the hottest season of the year; out of the clear sky the sun's rays beat down with pitiless ferocity; the whole landscape was a-quiver with heat; all things seemed to swoon under the oppression. The petalas, being cargo boats, were not provided with any accommodation or conveniences for passengers; and Desmond's thoughts as he lay panting on his mat, haggard from want of sleep, faint from want of food—for though there was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... his mind had made him utterly forget the bag containing the twelve hundred livres which he owed to the generosity of the widow. This money being necessary to him, he went back to her early next morning. He found her hardly recovered from her terrible fright. Her swoon had lasted far beyond the time when the notary had left the house; and as Angelique, not daring to enter the bewitched room, had taken refuge in the most distant corner of her apartments, the feeble call of the widow was heard by no one. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... explain such aberrations as being akin to the crowd behavior mechanism at work in the "bobby-sox craze." Teen-agers don't know why they squeal and swoon when their current fetish sways and croons. Yet everybody else is squealing, so they squeal too. Maybe that great comedian, Jimmy Durante, has the answer: "Everybody wants to get into the act." I am convinced that a certain percentage of UFO reports come ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... with the evening star—the Star of Love—glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the "coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,—and when David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her arms,—and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... rave, fly water and glasses, to look red, and swell in the face, about twenty days after (if some remedy be not taken in the meantime) to lie awake, to be pensive, sad, to see strange visions, to bark and howl, to fall into a swoon, and oftentimes fits of the falling sickness. [916] Some say, little things like whelps will be seen in their urine. If any of these signs appear, they are past recovery. Many times these symptoms will ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... the court-yard of the hospital of the Santissima Trinita di Pellegrini. The woman pointed to it, and then went away. There was only one person in the ambulance; the rest had been taken to the hospital, but he had been left because he was in a swoon, and they were trying to restore him. Those around the ambulance made room for Miss Arundel as she approached, and she beheld a young man, covered with the stains of battle, and severely wounded; but his countenance was uninjured though insensible. His eyes were ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... will, and, falling into a swoon, he lay at full length in the bed. They were all alarmed, and ran to his assistance; and for the space of three days that he lived after he had made ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... revenues. I do not know whether he knew us, or whether, on the contrary, he found this accusation, so precise, so accurate, coming from an unknown source, still more terrible than if he had known us; but on the instant he fell forward in a swoon. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... Minnehaha, At the feet of Laughing Water, At those willing feet, that never More would lightly run to meet him, Never more would lightly follow. With both hands his face he covered, Seven long days and nights he sat there, As if in a swoon he sat there, Speechless, motionless, unconscious Of the daylight or the darkness. Then they buried Minnehaha; In the snow a grave they made her, In the forest deep and darksome, Underneath the moaning hemlocks; Clothed her in her richest garments, Wrapped her ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... garments flow. And what was that very peculiar smell? Fish, or brimstone? no one could tell. Stronger and stronger the odor grew, And the stilts and the lady burned more blue; 'Round and around the long saloon, While Mackerel gazed in a partial swoon, She approached the throng, or circled from it, With a flaming train like the last great comet; Till at length the crowd All groaned aloud. For her exit she made from her own grand ball Out of ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... within the narrow slit had endured eight of these Augusts with only two casual faints and a swoon or two nipped in the bud, this ninth August came in so furiously that, sliding out of her sixth showing of a cloth-of-silver and blue-fox opera wrap, a shivering that amounted practically to chill took ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... singularly simple-minded man. Reverence for the aristocracy had become with him almost a religion. When he was brought—or believed himself to be brought—in contact with the aristocracy, his intellectual vision closed in a swoon of ecstasy. Snob? Oh, dear, no! Of course not. What can have made you think that? It was simply that the aristocracy appealed to him very much as romance did—he was outside it, but liked to get a ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of their crime is a master-stroke of ingenuity. "Who," he asks in a splendid burst of feigned horror, "can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and natural in a moment?" At the same time Lady Macbeth affects to swoon away in the presence of so awful a crime. For the time all suspicion of guilt, except in the mind of Banquo, is averted from the real murderers. But, like so many criminals, Macbeth finds it impossible ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Paganism spring forth the death-bringing branches of the Upas-tree Christianity, stunting the growth of the young civilisation of the West, and drugging, with its poisonous dew-droppings, the Europe which lay beneath its shade, swoon-slumbering in the death stupor of the Ages of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... for the arrival of our tutor is over by just a few minutes. Yet there is no certainty...! We are sitting on the verandah overlooking the lane[12] watching and watching with a piteous gaze. All of a sudden, with a great big thump, our hearts seem to fall in a swoon. The familiar black umbrella has turned the corner undefeated even by such weather! Could it not be somebody else? It certainly could not! In the wide wide world there might be found another, his equal in pertinacity, but never in this little lane ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... "lest in King's Cobb your repose should be everlasting. The air of that hamlet has matured like old port in the bin of its hills, till to drink of it is to swoon." ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... more frightened, for in sooth it was a dreary prospect before her: long and countless years must pass ere again she heard the sound of voices, again saw the light of the sun! She was half awake and half dreaming; the faintness of her swoon yet upon her, the repose following her great weariness, and the lightness of her brain from want of food, made her indifferent-almost happy. She could lie so a long time, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... her life, but she had once seen a neighbor swoon, and she realized vaguely that, as the minutes passed, her consciousness was slowly slipping from her. The air was close and heavy with strange smells. She felt as though she were swaying like a pendulum. The old, familiar objects grew grotesquely large and hazy; the deep shadows in the corners ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... a raving Beetle," explained the Prosecutor. "She wants to go out doors every Night and count the Moon and pull some of that shine Magazine Poetry. Every time she sees anybody named Eric or Geoffrey she does a Swoon, accompanied by the customary Low Cry, and later on, in her own Boudoir, which is Richly Furnished, she bursts into a Torrent of Weeping. If you start her on a Conversation about Griddle Cakes she will wind up by giving a Diagnosis of Soul-Hunger. She ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... and assisted Beatrice to recover Hero from her swoon, saying, "How does the lady?" "Dead, I think," replied Beatrice in great agony, for she loved her cousin; and knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing of what she had heard spoken against her. Not ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... her exertions, she sinks into a swoon and falls in the arms of the two men. Longueville rapidly draw her veil across to conceal her features from the Count as ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... 'perceiving or percipient powers,' 'moving agents,' 'ourselves,' in the same sense as we should employ the term soul. He dwells upon the fact that limbs may be removed, and mortal diseases assail the body, the mind, almost up to the moment of death, remaining clear. He refers to sleep and to swoon, where the 'living powers' are suspended but not destroyed. He considers it quite as easy to conceive of existence out of our bodies as in them; that we may animate a succession of bodies, the dissolution of all of them having no more tendency to dissolve our real selves, or 'deprive us ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... minutes, saying that he had knocked repeatedly at her door, but received no answer. Vaguely apprehensive of something wrong, Mr. Lee hastened himself to her chamber; but how was he shocked on entering, to find his daughter lying senseless in a swoon near an open window. Ah! what voice whispered him that she had seen and heard at that window what her delicate nerves could not endure! He raised her tenderly in his arms, and having with some difficulty restored her to consciousness, placed her on the bed. 'Good ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... seemed to have recovered from its swoon and was now swimming in slow circles round the floe, eyeing the boys malevolently, but not offering to attack them. Evidently it was wondering, in its own mind, what it had struck when it collided with the boat ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... had fainted with the pain of severe cramp combined with the shock of terror. He had never been wanting in courage, but physical agony, and the notion of falling a prey to sharks before he had time to show fight, had caused him to swoon. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... (and shall never think otherwise) that no doctor, no man living, no misfortune, no casualty, can either save or take away the life of any human being—none but God alone. These are only the instruments that He usually employs, but not always; we sometimes see people swoon, fall down, and be dead in a moment. When our time does come, all means are vain,— they rather hurry on death than retard it; this we saw in the case of our friend Hefner. I do not mean to say by this that my mother will or must die, or that all hope ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... lord, who had lain by his side, walked at his heels, sat at his knee, served at his table, put his foot to her neck (she so high in grace, he so shameless in brute strength!), bowed to a yoke, endured scorn, shame, bleeding, stripes, blindness, and the swoon like death—all this was something beyond thought: it was piercingly sweet, but it beat him down as a breath of flame. He fell flat on his face upon the black fern and blood, and so stayed crying like ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... beneath—“Senza olio, senza olio,” reversing the phrase in the Baron de Grimm's story of the Frenchman, who, having sacrificed his own goût to his guest's penchant for asparagus au naturel, on his friend's falling down in a swoon, rushed to the top of the staircase, shouting to his cook, “Tout l'huile, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... This little message you must return to me so that the secret remains in our possession, and hang me if you do not see the marchioness swoon when she reads it. Believe moreover that I profess, in common with an immense majority of Spaniards, a ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... match the state of hearts at Talbothays Dairy. The air of the place, so fresh in the spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now. Its heavy scents weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the pastures, but there was still bright herbage here where the water courses purled. And as Clare was oppressed by the outward heats, so was he burdened inwardly ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... indecision; while at other times she showed exceptional firmness. The slightest moral fatigue, any unexpected impression, though of trifling importance, whether agreeable or otherwise, reacted, although slowly and imperceptibly, upon her vaso-motor nerves, and brought on convulsive attacks and a nervous swoon. Writes Dr. Ochorowiez in his work on ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... behind, standing on Arafat one so I turned and pulled me from behind, so behold, it was Abou Jaafer. I turned and behold, it At this sight I gave a loud was my man. At this cry and fell down in a sight I cried out with a swoon; but when I came loud cry and fell down in to myself, he was gone. a fainting fit; but when I came to myself he ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... had cast seven devils is indeed the very central fact of the Resurrection. The keepers had not seen Christ; they had seen only the angel descending, whose countenance was like lightning: for fear of him they became as dead; yet this fear, though great enough to cause them to swoon, was so far conquered at the return of morning, that they were ready to take money-payment for giving a false report of the circumstances. The Magdalen, therefore, is the first witness of the Resurrection; to the love, ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin |
