"Spasmodically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weary street outcast in faded black rags, wide-eyed, loud-voiced, and foul-mouthed. There were sturdy workmen thrusting their way along, wretched, unkempt men, clothed like clerks or shopmen, struggling spasmodically; a wounded soldier my brother noticed, men dressed in the clothes of railway porters, one wretched creature in a nightshirt with ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... broad at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of feature—handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength—of grace and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body: then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... iron railing furnished the dissimilar metals, and the nerves and muscles of the frog's body, connecting the two metals, furnished the wire. They were as good as Franklin's wet string was. The effect of the passage of a current of electricity through a muscle is to cause it to spasmodically contract, as everyone knows who has held the metallic handles of an ordinary small battery. Many years passed before the mystery that has long been plain was solved by acute minds. Galvani thought he saw the electric quality in the tissues of the frog. Volta came to ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... ask?" she faltered, as he failed to raise his eyes or make any move or even to utter the groan she saw surging up to his lips. "Will you?" she impetuously urged, as his fingers closed spasmodically on the paper, in evidence that he understood at last the trend of ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... might be, explained his mission. He spoke the name of Cooper Edgecombe, and for the first time that queenly woman showed signs of weakness, staggering back with a faint, choking gasp, one hand clasped spasmodically above her madly throbbing heart, the other rising to her temples as though in fear ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... Dutchman. Jerking at the halter the goat bleated in agony, prancing up and down frantically. Its eyes grew horribly bloodshot and finally closed. With a feeble, choking sigh, the animal dropped over on its side, its legs still twitching spasmodically. Mirestone bent over the hairy form and examined the ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... swept out from among the trees and upon the driveway just beneath the onlookers. Then they saw. Mrs. Gersdale cried out and clung fainting to her son. Lilian, clutching the railing so spasmodically that a bruising hurt was left in her finger-ends for days, gazed horror-stricken at a yellow-haired, wild-eyed giant whom she recognized as the man who was to be her husband. He was swinging a great club, and fighting furiously and calmly with a shaggy monster that ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... and a thousand tomahawks were brandished in the air. Even the Big Warrior, who had been true to the whites, and remained faithful during the war, was for the moment visibly affected, and more than once I saw his huge hand clutch, spasmodically, the handle of his knife.... When he resumed his seat, the northern pipe was again passed round in solemn silence. The Shawnees then simultaneously leaped up with one appalling yell, and danced their ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... may afford a quiet sense of self-justification, though it makes the sinner a hypocrite. We never need despair of an honest heart, but there is little hope for those who only come spasmodically face to face with their wickedness, and then seek to hide it. Their prayers are indexes which do not correspond with their character. They hold secret fellowship with sin; and such externals are spoken of by Jesus as "like unto whited sepulchres . . ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Billy Louise lifted a hand spasmodically to her throat. This was digging deeper into the agonies of life than she had ever gone before. "What was in the paper," she whispered later, as if his eyes were drawing ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... bottle out of the boat, and they had also come upon Gard's bottle of cognac, of which quite half remained. It was a finer cordial than their own, so they sat drinking them turn about, and watching the sun set, and chatting spasmodically, till it grew too dark to do more than sit still ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... girls were travelling westwards on the outside of an omnibus, in itself to Sybil a most fascinating mode of progression, and talking a good deal spasmodically. ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... years he wrote spasmodically, eking out his income by lecturing and newspaper work. Life was hard. In 1878 he sailed for Europe, having been appointed consular agent at Crefeld, Prussia, about forty miles north of Cologne. In 1880 he was made Consul at Glasgow, where he remained five years. His home thereafter ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... this early hour, a few of those indefatigable Mediterranean Waltons who fish and fish and catch nothing, all through the sunny day. Presently Mademoiselle Brun caught sight of a small dot of colour which seemed to move spasmodically up ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... as he disappeared across the moor to eastward, Trevennack, far behind, seized his wife's arm spasmodically, and clutching it tight in his iron grip, murmured low in a voice of supreme conviction, "Do you see what that means, Lucy? I can read it all now. It was HE who rolled down that cursed stone. It was HE who killed our boy. And I can guess who he is. He must be ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... at her throat and coughing spasmodically. In the frantic terror of the moment they had forgotten everything but their ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... figures and increasing them in arithmetical progression, it is possible to calculate what a multiplicity of nerve and muscle effort is involved in a sneeze. Everything that appertains to the vocal mechanism is spasmodically involved at once, and the enormous sum total of muscle and nerve movement, individualized, is 465,120. This shows how absurd is the theory of conscious control of the machinery of voice-production. As I have frequently pointed ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... physiological and therapeutic reasons amyl nitrite should be of incalculable value, though I have no knowledge of its use in this connection, since its vapor when inhaled is a most powerful stimulator of cardiac action, and when administered by the mouth it is unapproached in its control of spasmodically contracted vessels and muscles. The relief its vapor affords in the collapse of chloroform anaesthesia, in which dissolution is imminent from paralyzed heart's action, is instantaneous, and its effect upon the spasmodic and suffocative sensations of hydrophobia are equally prompt. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... moment the Turk heaved himself up; there was a quick movement of his arm; and Lawrence clung spasmodically to the boat, ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... to lick his stiffening wounds. Then it was that his lips half writhed into a snarl, and the hair of his neck and shoulders involuntarily bristled, while he half crouched for a spring, his claws spasmodically clutching into the snow-surface for firmer footing. But it was all forgotten the next moment, as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was coyly leading him a chase through ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... been so near breaking down, and falling into sudden womanish tears and despair. She would not yield to the overpowering momentary passion. She clutched at the bundle of frocks again, and made room for them spasmodically in the box which she had already packed. Edward Rider stood silent, gazing at her as in her sudden anguish Nettie pulled down and reconstructed that curious honeycomb. But he had not come here merely to gaze, while the catastrophe was preparing. He went up and seized her busy hands, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... difficult breathing. After a few respirations it cries out and then falls asleep quietly, or the attack may last an hour or so, when the face will become pale, veins in the neck become turgid and feet and hands contract spasmodically. In mild cases the attacks will only occur once during the night, but may ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... fanatical and morbid guardians of morality who make it a life's specialty. The aroused public opinion which the Commission asks for cannot be held if all it has to fix upon is an elaborate series of taboos. Sensational disclosures will often make the public flare up spasmodically; but the mass of men is soon bored by intricate rules and tangles of red tape; the "crusade" is looked upon as a melodrama of real life—interesting, ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... having the letter. Since you are so spasmodically and exceedingly scrupulous, I will carry it immediately to her and demand a perusal of the contents, St. Elmo, I am in no mood ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the flame in the Mormon's gaze. For an instant his face worked spasmodically, only to stiffen into a stony mask. It was the old conflict once more, the never-ending war between flesh and spirit. And ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... of the partition. In the center of the rear room was another table, standing behind a screen of wire gauze, at the bottom of which was cut a small semicircle, large enough for the protrusion of a white, tense hand, whose fingers were even now spasmodically clenching in nervous indication of fury. Behind either lamp was a heavy black screen, which effectually shut off ingress to that portion ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... between Great Britain and the United States had now been going on for many a tedious month; sometimes languidly, sometimes spasmodically, never energetically. Like a slow, dull fever, it had wasted and enfeebled the two countries without redounding more to the profit of the one than to the glory of the other; and the glory being too scant to be divided between them, they wisely left the crimson fog to the humor ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the question. She swallowed once or twice spasmodically, like a hurt child trying not ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... that wide. Ah! Madame Zenobie, you did it well!" He softly smote the memorable spot, first with one hand and then with the other, shrinking forward spasmodically with each contact, and throwing utter woe into his countenance. The general company smiled. He suddenly put on ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... with his head in his hands, shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain, he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of which he greedily drank two or ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... France had been shelled spasmodically for months. Possibly there was something faintly familiar in the seated figure of that Captain of Engineers that caught my eye; one did not often come across Captains of Engineers sitting on debris in the village street. He squatted on a pile of granular masonry before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... I am going to leave a little sooner than I thought. I knew my death would be soon and sudden, but I did not expect it so soon, so awfully sudden as this!" His lips twitched spasmodically, and there was a brief pause. "I had hoped not to leave you alone and friendless in the world, penniless and unprotected. I hoped to live to see you the wife of some good man, but it is not to be. God wills for the best, my darling, and to Him ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... encountered a disagreeable thing. But the more I see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Blatchford. In it he adumbrated many of the ideas that were later developed in Orthodoxy. Of the arguments used by Blatchford and his atheist friends, G.K. wrote that the effect on his own mind was: "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." In a diary kept by Frances spasmodically during the years 1904-05, she notes that Gilbert has been asked to preach as the first of a series of lay preachers in a city ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... the paper as if he had hardly heard her; but after a pause, during which the sheets rustled spasmodically between his hands, he lifted his head to say abruptly, "Have you ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... supper the mirth, which had been frozen in each camper's breast by a sight of the drifted wreck of a human life, warmed again spasmodically. Herb did his manly best to fan its flame, though his heart was still pinched by a feeling of ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... contention towards great effects; great intrinsically, as at Marathon, or when Harmodius and Aristogeiton fell, or magnified by the force and splendour of Greek imagination with the stimulus of the national games. For the most part, indeed, it is not with youth taxed spasmodically, like that of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and the "necessity" that was upon it, that the Athenian mind and heart are now busied; but with youth [279] in its voluntary labours, its habitual and measured discipline, labour for its own sake, or in wholly friendly contest for ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... hard if I can't get five or six shies at him," said Frank, again clutching his weapon almost spasmodically. Oh, Mr Moffat! five or six shies with such a whip, and such an arm! For myself, I would sooner join in a second Balaclava gallop ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... right, still chewing the cud. Over the cliff lay the smashed remains of a cart—its owners were flaying the dead horse. A peasant with bowed head led his cart past us. Drawing it was one ox—its partner was in the cart, lifting its head spasmodically—finished. Quantities of carts passed us filled with furniture, baths, and luggage. A smartly dressed family was picnicking by the roadside, sitting on deck-chairs. Colonel P—— and Admiral T—— slipped by in a shabby little red motor. They stopped and told us they were going ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... muscles tense; but he could not. Those two eyes were holding him and he could not. All this he knew; and all the while that other was coming nearer and nearer. He began to have a horror of that coming that he could not halt. The great unshaven jaw of him worked; worked spasmodically, involuntarily. His skin, flaming hot before, of a sudden felt cool. The sweat spurted, stood damp on the hairy hands. Something he had never felt before, something he had observed in others, others like those six in the background, began to grip him; ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... white, flamed red, grew purplish. His eyes bulged up at Lee's, his deep chest contracted spasmodically. Lee, summoning the force within him, drove thumb and ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... could bend no farther now, his shoulders were imbedded in the snow and the back of his head was buried to the ears. His chest heaved spasmodically as he gasped for air, and the thin breath whined through his teeth. His lips turned greyish-blue and swelled thick, like strips of blistered rubber, and his eyes rolled upward until they looked like the sightless eyes of the blind. The blue-grey lips writhed ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... brakes, and threw out the clutch, but there was no need; for the child, with the perverseness of youth, had turned and was running back toward the gate, evidently frightened by the frantic tooting of the horn, the bulb of which Mollie pressed spasmodically. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... no help for it. They must keep cool, and reserve their fire. After each shot the weapon of each would be reloaded, so that they always had a reserve force of guns. The arrows came spasmodically, and only a few of them from the trailing members of the band came near. The danger was from those who were attempting to encircle ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... spasmodically in the Carolinas and in the West for some time. But everyone knew the war was over. The British people no longer wanted to fight what had become a world war involving the Dutch, French, and Spanish, as well as the Americans. When he heard the news from Yorktown, Lord North supposedly ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... yet. A thrill ran through every vein. A vibration quivered through the atmosphere. The montgolfier, elongated to its utmost stretch, was manifestly being sucked into a vortex. Every passenger in the quivering car involuntarily clung spasmodically to its sides, and as the two atmospheres amalgamated, clouds accumulated in heavy masses, involving all around in dense obscurity, while flashes of lurid flame threw a ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... of horrors!" murmured Joseph Poorgrass, waving his hands spasmodically. "I've had the news-bell ringing in my left ear quite bad enough for a murder, and I've seen a ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... guns cocked, ready to shoot down any one of the destined victims who should resist or fly. The surgeon, with an ax, stole toward the three sleepers, and struck a rapid blow at each in turn. Saget and Nika died with little movement; but Moranget started spasmodically into a sitting posture, gasping and unable to speak; and the murderers compelled De Marle, who was not in their plot, to compromise ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... spasmodically, the words seemed to come with gigantic effort. She bent her head in answer and passed between them through the white gate into the drive that led round to ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... the kitchen. When she came back, red-faced and still gurgling spasmodically, Pink was relating his experiences with another company. He and the Native Son and Weary, it transpired, were duly enrolled upon the extra list and were reasonably sure of a day's work now and then. Rosemary had ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... of the chair nearest to him. Half unconsciously he took it up and stroked it soothingly. The tears gushed from her eyes. At his kindly touch her over-wrought feelings gave way. Her fingers closed spasmodically upon his. ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... continued to laugh spasmodically at her husband's careless speeches, not at what he said so much as through content in his familiar way of saying things. Under their light household talk, graver, questioning looks were exchanged, the unappeased glances of friends long ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... as happening at the death of the above father, Concepcion disproves them all. The remainder of the extract has to do with the suits between the Recollects and the Dominicans in regard to the Zambal missions, which last spasmodically from the time the Recollects are compelled to abandon them until the time of their restoration in 1712. The Recollects claim throughout that they have been despoiled unjustly of the missions, and that although ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... the slope now, obliquely to the cabin, close behind the dogs, who were pulling spasmodically ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... modern would-be satirists who make society—especially French society[17]—a mere sink of nastiness, or beside the more virtuous persons whose favourite affectation is simplicity, and who labour most spasmodically to be masculine, and his native vigour, his massive common-sense, his wholesome views of men and manners, stand out in solid relief. Certainly he was limited in perception, and not so elevated in tone ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... in death as in life. Canaries gasped at the bottom of their cages, while the water in their little glass fountains ran red. The bullfinches wore an unnatural crimson on their breasts. The mocking-bird lay on his back, kicking spasmodically, in the last agonies, with a tiny sword-thrust cleaving his melodious throat in twain, so that from the instrument which used to gush with wondrous music only scarlet drops of blood now trickled. The manikins were ruthless. Their faces were ten times wickeder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... spasmodically and irregularly, and the direction and extent of its progress may be recognised by mapping out the peripheral zone of tenderness. Red streaks appear along the lines of the superficial lymph vessels, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the Stock Exchange. Some interest was selling securities. The business public was awakening to the fact that legislators, legislation, the people, and the law were hot after the business methods of many organizers. Fear, founded on a tardy awakening to facts, declared itself, but spasmodically, for now and again the great captains of finance and industry were trying to save the situation. They successfully aided whatever of momentum there was in general business. But Congressional activity as to any combinations ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... suggested by Wren after the great fire of London in 1666, and afterwards by William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, about 1694, the matter slumbered until 1767, when the Corporation of the City of London embanked one mile of the river. The question arose spasmodically until 1838, when the Corporation consulted with the Government as to the advisability of embanking the Thames all the way between London and Vauxhall Bridges, and, in Jan., 1839, the Government sanctioned surveys being made and estimates prepared; the whole correspondence concerning which ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... caravansary—low-roofed, divided into many lockable partitions, and packed tight with babbling humanity—she caught sight of a pair of long, black thigh boots, silver-spurred, and of a polished scabbard that moved spasmodically, as though its ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... clenched and unclenched spasmodically as he approached the trembling Russ, beastlike and ominous ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... such good service in his journeys to and from Washington, and which the mother had packed with so much care, never dreaming how very, very far it was behind the times, brought the hot blood in torrents to her face, and made the white hands clasp each other spasmodically, as she thought "Had I known of that hair trunk, I would certainly ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... task he most resolutely set himself. It was only by jumping that he was able to get a grip over the top of the wall; yet when this grip was gained he could get no farther on his way to deliverance, and so he hung dangling there, his face to the wall, jerking his short fat legs about spasmodically, and wasting in most piercing yells what little there ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... apart, the mist, the greyness and desolateness; the lapping of the waters, the hoarse cries of the seamen, all so full of heart-piercing associations to him, and the last vision of Rene's simple face, with tears pouring down it, and his open mouth spasmodically trying to give out a hearty cheer, despite the sobs that came heaving up to it. How little the simple fellow dreamed of what bitterness the future was yet holding for his brother and master, to end in ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... feet and spasmodically grasping the wampum, fearing Black Snake had been victorious and had come for his reward, was the impulse of the moment; but the subdued and brotherly manner assumed by Black Snake reassured as he gently ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... unit suddenly ran down like a clockwork toy. It toppled over, skidded past him under its own momentum, and lay there kicking spasmodically. Ed glared at it uncomprehendingly. It arched its neck back to almost touch its ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... eloquent than the applause. It was of such a kind that the snapping of a pipe-stem too long for him by old Solomon Longways, who was one of those gathered at the shady end of the room, seemed a harsh and irreverent act. Then the ventilator in the window-pane spasmodically started off for a new spin, and the pathos of ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... VIEWS FROM AUTHOR'S OIL-COLOR DRAWINGS FROM LIFE: 1, Epiglottis of child as seen by direct laryngoscopy in the recumbent position. 2, Normal larynx spasmodically closed, as is usual on first exposure without anesthesia. 3, Same on inspiration. 4, Supraglottic papillomata as seen on direct laryngoscopy in a child of two years. 5, Cyst of the larynx in a child of four years, seen on direct laryngoscopy without anesthesia. 6, Indirect ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... away, spasmodically tearing the twigs of spindleberry from the hedge, and fastening them, with vibrating fingers, in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... up at me with a sad, puzzled expression, dropped his prize, and resting his head on his paw laid slowly down on the straw, telling us all as plainly as could be that he was sea-sick. Such was indeed the case; but in a few hours the sea fell and he was as sprightly as ever. Monkeys move spasmodically, by jerks as it were; not so these dignified, stately creatures: they are as deliberate in all their actions as staid, sober people. One day a passenger had offered a banana to the little one, but as it put forth its paw, withdrew it. The wee thing stood this several times, and at last laid ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... must make it a real diary, writing it day by day, and making it in this way genuine reality and not an essay with dates in it. In the end he consented to try his best. He realised at once that it would be quite necessary to keep the diary as a true diary—that is, write it spasmodically. I then again enjoined the utmost secrecy upon him, saying that it was not only a case of "omne ignotum pro magnifico," but also that secrecy was the best possible advertisement. I knew that his copy would be extraordinarily attractive, and I wanted people at London dinner-parties ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... The whip descended once, and but once, upon the shoulders of the young man. His whole frame was in a convulsion. His eyes dilated with the anguish of his soul; his features worked spasmodically. There was a moment's hesitation. The arm that smote him was again uplifted—the cruel and degrading instrument of punishment a second time about to descend; when, with the strength of youth, and the determination of manhood, the son ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... from Mabel, and they scanned it together; she resting against his shoulder. She felt his chest heave twice; heard him swallow spasmodically in the suppression of some mighty emotion, and the palpable effort drew her very near to him. She never doubted from that moment, what she had more cause in after days to believe, that he loved the woman he had won with a fervor of passion that seemed foreign to his temperament as the evidence ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... Across her forehead and round her face, like a nun's wimple, lay a band of white linen which was scarcely whiter than the cheeks it encircled, such was her extreme pallor. The outer angles of her eyelids were contracted by the pain of her inflamed nerves, the lower lids quivering spasmodically from time to time, and the eyes were dewy and infinitely melting as if veiled by a mist of unshed tears ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... only in degree, not in kind, when the same influences are brought to bear on the same material in corresponding proportions. Whatever may or may not be the effects of our partial civilisation when imperfectly and spasmodically applied to the vast native population of South Africa, one thing must, in course of time, result from it. The old customs, the old forms, the old feelings, must each in turn die away. The outer expression of these will die first, and it will not be long before the very ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... had been composed, almost colourless; into it there sprang an expression of amazement, which deepened into an animal ferocity shocking to see. The mouth twitched spasmodically, the eyes caught the glare of the flame, and glowed with a catlike lustre. Surprised, Done turned in the direction of his glance, and discovered the man Stony crouching on the other side of the fire, his weak, tremulous hands stretched out before him, his face gray as ashes and convulsed ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... "Faust," as we learn from Goethe's biography, proceeded spasmodically, with many and long interruptions between the inception and conclusion. Projected in 1769 at the age of twenty, it was not completed till the year 1831, at ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... rushing sound, and the top and walls of the wigwam were whisked off like a flash, and as they staggered to their feet, buffeted by the whirling bushes, a cloud of fine alkali-dust enveloped them, blinding their eyes, penetrating their ears and noses, and setting them gasping, sneezing, and coughing spasmodically. Then, like a puff of smoke, the suffocating storm was dissipated, and when they opened their smarting eyes there was nothing but the silent, glorious desolation of the ghostly desert around them, with the snow-peaks in the distance glittering beneath the moon. A sand-spout had struck them, ...
— Deserted - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... to me that I could hear his heart beat as loudly as my own, had evidently asked himself the same question, for his hand closed spasmodically on mine, as the Colonel opened his lips, and neither of us dared so much as to breathe lest we should lose what the lovers ...
— The Old Stone House and Other Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... went pale, his heart beat spasmodically and his fingers curled and tingled. No power, no wish to pray was left in him, no sense of responsibility; he was too far gone in jealous vindictiveness to be his own judge or critic, and he stared at the guide, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye Sons of Liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in you, soul, body or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite, thou Louis Tournay, cartwright of the Marais, old-soldier of the Regiment Dauphine; smite at that Outer Drawbridge chain, though the ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... hapless youth the overpowering sweetness of his smile acted like an anesthetic; he saw things waver, even wabble; and his hidden clutch on Lissa's fingers tightened spasmodically. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... suspiciously and looked at it askance. It is to be doubted if ever before he had seen a picture, unless perchance in the primary reading-book of his callow days at the public school, spasmodically opened at intervals at the "church house" in the Cove. He continued to gravely gaze at the sketch, held sideways and almost reversed, for ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... has moved less spasmodically, but with great regularity. A hundred years ago the City of Baltimore was the center of population, and it was not until the middle of the century that Ohio boasted of owning the population center. For some twenty years it remained near Cincinnati, but during the '80s it went as far as Columbus, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... for further speech, however, for at the sound of the closing door Galen Albret's impassivity had fallen from him. He sprang to his feet. The whole aspect of the man suddenly became electric, terrible. His eyes blazed; his heavy brows drew spasmodically toward each other; his jaws worked, twisting his beard into strange contortions; his massive frame straightened formidably; and his voice rumbled from the arch of his deep chest in a torrent of ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Mountain—Black Wind Mountain, whose high top lifted, though it was almost June, a white point of snow above dark pine ridges of the hills below. The five officers talked a little as they waited, but spasmodically, absent-mindedly. A shadow blocked the light of the entrance, and in the doorway stood a young man, undersized, slight, blond. He looked ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... St. Vincent as the last of the crowd filed out. He clutched her hands spasmodically, like ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... apiece, or you can't see the show," said Stuffy, who stood by the wheelbarrow in which sat the band, consisting of a pocket-comb blown upon by Ned, and a toy drum beaten spasmodically by Rob. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Year's party. They would as soon have thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness. Violin and 'cello yawned over their bows; only spasmodically and half-heartedly the thrum and jingle of the tambourine fell ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... His cheeks were wet. His mouth was distorted, like the mouth of a woeful small boy. His throat worked spasmodically, so that the cords ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... turned white to the very lips, his eyes blazed, and his breath came thick and heavily. His nostrils twitched spasmodically, but still, with a supreme effort—a struggle so terrible that few men happily may ever know it or experience it—he once more controlled the words that sprang to his lips and struggled for utterance. He swallowed and swallowed ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... and bloody body ceased its titanic struggles. It stiffened spasmodically, twitched and was still, yet the bulls continued to lacerate it until the beautiful coat was torn to shreds. At last they desisted from sheer physical weariness, and then from the tangle of bloody bodies rose a crimson ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... moment and lowered it that she might say good-by to Ilusha. But on seeing that precious little face, which for the last three days she had only looked at from a distance, she trembled all over and her gray head began twitching spasmodically ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... be back soon," was gone. It was several minutes before she reappeared with red eyes, but smiling lips. Then a long talk ensued, during which time the art of trunk-packing languished. It was renewed with vigor that evening and continued spasmodically for the next two days. In the campus houses the real packing dragged along in most instances until within two hours of the time when the trunks were to be called for. Then a wholesale scramble ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... not make all things smooth. It does wonders, to be sure, but it does not make cross people pleasant, nor violent people calm, nor fretful people easy, nor obstinate people reasonable, nor foolish people wise,—that is, it may do so spasmodically, but it does not hold them to it and keep them at it. A great deal of beautiful moonshine is written about the sanctities of home and the sacraments of marriage and birth. I do not mean to say that there is no ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... coil, and made the rope run free, keeping spasmodically a tight hold of it the while, in case the ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... sleeping. He walked the world, either blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for views, effects, emotions, images; something striking and uncommon which would suggest a poetic figure, or help out a description, or in some way re-furnish his mind with thought. From which method it befell, that his lamp of truth was too often burnt ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... education, development, whatever it may be called, came at intervals, jerkily, in sudden leaps forward. The truth probably is that the development was constant and steady, but that its symptoms declared themselves spasmodically. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... was completely exhausted and rolled upon the ground in the death agony of thirst. It was useless to waste time over the unfortunate creature; it was quite impossible for him ever to rise again, so in mercy I fired a revolver-bullet at his forehead, as he gasped spasmodically upon the desert sand: a shiver passed through his frame, and we left him ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... La Vigne had prophesied my failure flashed over me like lightning, and my knees trembled beneath me, yet I still clung spasmodically to the cord I held, and with such desperate force that, when Gregory pushed against the door, he believed it latched within, and ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... guard than die like a rat in this unspeakable place, as he was doing, where he couldn't stand up and dared not lie down on account of the things that were forever crawling through the place! His contemplation of his plan was broken in upon by his companion clutching him spasmodically by the arm. The old man's ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... need for you to trouble, my dear; the meat is very nice." And she will say: "You always stand up for me, Nikolay Stepanovitch, and you never tell the truth. Why is Alexandr Adolfovitch eating so little?" And so on in the same style all through dinner. Liza laughs spasmodically and screws up her eyes. I watch them both, and it is only now at dinner that it becomes absolutely evident to me that the inner life of these two has slipped away out of my ken. I have a feeling as though I had once lived at home with a real wife and children and ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... David's arm, spasmodically uplifted for a second blow, was suspended in air. He did not move for a long time; and when at length his scattered senses began to return he threw down the stone, rose to his feet and exclaimed in accents of terror, "My God! ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... her cheeks coloring with embarrassment and caught at the signer's wrist as spasmodically as though it were a death warrant to which he meant to set ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... is to be expected that there should be less irregularity in a series of reactions each of which represents an attempt to produce a definite and constant rhythmical accent, than in a series in which such an accent is spasmodically given and repressed. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... our most active patrols were frequently deceived. Shots and Verey lights, which came from several directions, might be discharged by a solitary German, whose function it was to go the round of the enemy posts and fire from each spasmodically in turn. A trench entered and found empty might be a disused sap or bay habitually unoccupied. To maintain the normal semblance of trench-warfare was an easy task for the German, and one that he never failed in. Repeatedly in his retirements during the war he removed ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... eye, rolling in a fine frenzy from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven, in search of the missing edifice, found it at last in a tangled heap upon the ground. It was too dark to see anything distinctly, but he perceived that the canvas was rising and falling spasmodically like a stage sea, and for a similar reason—because there were human ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... infinite glee. A mother comes down with her baby and goes into deep water with the tiny thing clinging to her; suddenly she lets it go, and swimming with one hand holds it up with the other while it kicks spasmodically like a little frog. The babies learn to swim before ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton |
