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Prostration   Listen
noun
Prostration  n.  
1.
The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as, the prostration of the body.
2.
The act of falling down, or of bowing in humility or adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but usually applied to kneeling or bowing in reverence and worship. "A greater prostration of reason than of body."
3.
The condition of being prostrate; great depression; lowness; dejection; as, a postration of spirits. "A sudden prostration of strength."
4.
(Med.) A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor. Note: Prostration, in its medical use, is analogous to the state of a spring lying under such a weight that it is incapable of action; while exhaustion is analogous to the state of a spring deprived of its elastic powers. The word, however, is often used to denote any great depression of the vital powers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Prostration" Quotes from Famous Books



... above would land dangerously near or ineffectively far from us. The knowledge was common to all of us and all of our ears were keenly tuned for the sounds. Time after time the collective judgment and consequent prostration of the entire party was proven well timed by the arrival of a shell ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... feet, quite overwhelmed with gratitude. I embraced his elliptical legs with almost pagan idolatry, and considered myself as a man on the high-road to a very handsome fortune. "Yes, my child," resumed the archbishop, whose speech had been cut short by the rapidity of my prostration, "I mean to make you the receiver-general of all my inmost ruminations. Harken attentively to what I am going to say. I have a great pleasure in preaching. The Lord sheds a blessing on my homilies; they sink deep ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various

... this time all had been chaos and discomfort, was reduced to order, and those tender lenitives which only woman's thought and woman's sympathy can bring to the sick man's couch, were applied to solace and alleviate the agonies of pain or the torture of fever and prostration." ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... highly recommended. Frequent gargling of the throat and mouth, with a solution of lactic acid, strong enough to taste sour, will help to keep the parts clean, and correct the foul breath. If there is great prostration, with the nasal passage affected, or hoarseness and difficult breathing, a physician should ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis

... that young Gaston had received some terrible shock; for it could not have been the quarrel in the morning that had reduced him to this abject state of prostration. ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... hath cleaved to the dust," I heard With sighs so deep, they well nigh choak'd the words. "O ye elect of God, whose penal woes Both hope and justice mitigate, direct Tow'rds the steep rising our uncertain way." "If ye approach secure from this our doom, Prostration—and would urge your course with speed, See that ye still to rightward keep the brink." So them the bard besought; and such the words, Beyond us some short space, in answer came. I noted what remain'd yet hidden from them: Thence ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... of a complete prostration of mind and body, produced by three things,—the exhaustion of all his faculties, aggravated by the disheartenment of realizing the extent of an evil; the recognized impossibility of surmounting his weakness; and the aspect of difficulties so great that genius itself would dread them. The king's ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... returned to Dorothy's room in the sanitarium, after her talk over the telephone, Dorothy saw that her anxiety had reached a state of prostration. She seemed convinced that she had taken to the institution the wrong girl, and the dread of disgrace, especially as she was a new nurse in the house, seemed to weigh very heavily upon her. She would come up and look into Dorothy's face, examine the pupils of her ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... Stevens had got stampeded because his sergeant-major was assaulted and old Mr. Folsom knocked out and a drunken captain by the name of Newhall had been making trouble, and it had all told on Major Burleigh, who had taken to his bed with nervous prostration. ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King

... what personally I witnessed, this seems to have been the true nature and extent of the "tuft-hunting;" and I have noticed it at all simply because there is a habit almost national growing up amongst us of imputing to each other some mode of unmanly prostration before the aristocracy, but with as little foundation for the charge generally, I believe, as I am satisfied there ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... with a sigh. But he had little time to lament over private troubles. The king was ill; he had not rallied from the state of prostration that succeeded his outburst of passion when he found himself powerless to put down the Northern insurrection by force, and to restore his favourite Tostig to his earldom. Day succeeded day, but he did not rally. ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty

... he recollected Richard's unaccountable dejection; he had had the air of a person meditating some momentous step,—the pallor, the set face, and the introspective eyes. Then came the murder, and Richard's complete prostration. Mr. Slocum in his own excitement had noted it superficially at the time, but now he recalled the young man's inordinate sorrow, and it seemed rather like remorse. Was his present immobile serenity the natural expression of a man whose heart had suddenly ossified, and was no longer ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... bric-a-brac sitting there and sniggering out loud whenever he jumped a man, and all obnoxious with animation when he got into my king row, would have made a sheep-dog sick with mortification. Him that was once satisfied only when he was pegging six boards at keno or giving the faro dealers nervous prostration—to see him pushing them checkers about like Sally Louisa at a school-children's party—why, I was all smothered ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... course its reactions were strong; and this is the reason why in all her life she has so much to say of her fate. She was in jubilant spirits in the morning, and ended the day with nervous headache, whose spasms, my wife told me, produced total prostration. She had great energy of speech and action, and seemed ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... behind him and rustling against the pew doors, mount the pulpit like a conqueror ascending his triumphal car; then, sinking on the velvet cushion in an attitude of studied grace, remain in silent prostration for a certain time; then mutter over a Collect, and gabble through the Lord's Prayer, rise, draw off one bright lavender glove, to give the congregation the benefit of his sparkling rings, lightly pass ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... Netherlands Country, a series of successes gloriously delightful to Marechal de Saxe and the French Nation: likewise (in bar of said sieging, in futile attempt to bar it) a Battle of Roucoux, October, 1746; with victory, or quasi-victory, to Saxe, at least with prostration ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... ever to be seen in the slaughter-houses; the high-priest was never defiled on the day of atonement; no defect was ever found in the wave-sheaf, the two wave-loaves, or the shewbread; however closely crowded the people were, every one had room enough for prostration; no serpent or scorpion ever stung a person in Jerusalem; and no one had ever to pass the night without ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... them, and they have to thank you for a life of humiliation and suffering! Good enough, young man! When a body is inert, it is useless to galvanize it. Twenty years of continuous slavery, of systematic humiliation, of constant prostration, finally create in the mind a twist that cannot be straightened by the labor of a day. Good and evil instincts are inherited and transmitted from father to son. Then let your idylic ideas live, your dreams of a slave who asks only for a bandage ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... tithe payers absolutely refused to fulfil their obligations. As it happened, Jones, the man who had murdered the auctioneer, was never brought to trial. He died shortly after his arrest in a fit of delirium tremens and nervous prostration brought on by the sudden cessation of a supply of stimulants, and an example was lost, that, had he been duly hanged, might have been made of the results of defying the law. Mr. Granger was now too poor to institute any further proceedings, ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... Doctor caught Kitty Tynan's eyes by accident, and there was the same look of understanding in both. They both knew that here was the real tragedy of Crozier's life. If he had had less reverence for his wife, less of that obvious prostration of soul, he probably would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the high region to which we had ascended, the weariness and hunger arising from my having neglected to take nourishment for twenty-four hours, the vexation that embittered my spirit—all these combined produced in me a total prostration, and I fell upon the floor of the gallery in a profound sleep that was like death. 'The same misfortune overtook my companion Grassetti. Andreoli was the only one who remained awake and able for duty—no doubt because he had taken plenty of food and a large quantity ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion

... a cause of suicide among women. Such a case was reported in Massachusetts early in 1901. A girl of 21 had been tended during a period of nervous prostration, apparently of hysterical nature, by a friend and neighbor, fourteen years her senior, married and having children. An intimate friendship grew up, equally ardent on both sides. The mother of the younger ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... agitated by a passion; "but I have been fencing with Jackson an hour a day by way of exercise, so as to get matter under, and give sway to the ethereal part of my nature. The more I fatigue myself, the better my mind is for the rest of the day; and then my evenings acquire that calm, that prostration and languor, that are such a happiness to me. To-day I fenced for an hour, wrote an ode to Napoleon Bonaparte, copied it out, ate six biscuits, drank four bottles of soda-water, read the rest of the time, and then gave a load of advice to poor H—— about ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... head-board of his bedstead. On the whole, he was so overjoyed as to be led to commit all manner of eccentricities, and conducted himself generally in such a ridiculous manner, that Charlie laughed himself into a state of prostration, and Kinch was, in consequence, banished from the sick-room, to be re-admitted only on giving his promise to abstain from being as funny as he could any more. After the lapse of a short time Charlie was permitted ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... an age or a temperament to be long depressed. There was a reaction in my system that always brought me up again at every pressure; and indeed my spirits were most buoyant after a temporary prostration. I settled the concerns of the estate as soon as possible; realized my property, which was not very considerable, but which appeared a vast deal to me, having a poetical eye that magnified everything; and finding myself, at the end of a few months, free of all farther business ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... very pitiable ignorance. Conscious of superior power, we can bear to hear our Sovereign described as a tributary of the Celestial Empire. Conscious of superior knowledge we can bear to hear ourselves described as savages destitute of every useful art. When our ambassadors were required to perform a prostration, which in Europe would have been considered as degrading, we were rather amused than irritated. It would have been unworthy of us to have recourse to arms on account of an uncivil phrase, or of a dispute about a ceremony. But this ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of events was hastening her to the rupture with France and Spain that followed within a year. In this protracted contest the chief scene of naval hostilities was to be the West Indies; but beyond even the casualties of war, the baneful climate of that region insured numerous vacancies by prostration and death, with consequent chances of promotion for those who escaped the fevers, and found favor in the eyes of their commander-in-chief. The brutal levity of the old toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season," nowhere found surer fulfilment than on ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... prostration) has for its immediate exciting cause some overwork or stress of circumstance, but the sufferer not infrequently was already so far handicapped by regrets for the past, doubts for the present, and anxieties for ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... daylight when Fromont Jeune awoke. All night long, between the drama that was being enacted below him and the festivity in joyous progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of complete prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or of a defeated General on the night following his disaster; a sleep from which one would wish never to awake, and in which, in the absence of all sensation, one has ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... through the streets of a city a famous wooden Image, to be placed in one of its Temples. As he passed along, the crowd made lowly prostration before the Image. The Ass, thinking that they bowed their heads in token of respect for himself, bristled up with pride, gave himself airs, and refused to move another step. The driver, seeing him thus stop, laid his whip lustily ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... iciness that had locked Samuel Lipkind seemed suddenly to melt in a tornado of sobs that swept him, felled him into a prostration of the terrible tears that ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... to her. The miserable nervous energy that once sustained her had given place to healthy activity, to bustling, restless, overflowing gayety. She had no trace now of the weakness, the dejection, the prostration, the supineness, the sluggishness that formerly distinguished her. The heavy, drowsy feeling in the morning was a thing of the past; she awoke feeling fresh and bright, and alive in an instant to the cheer of the new day. She dressed in haste, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... them no great proof of merit to be wealthy and powerful, to wear a garter or a star, to command a regiment or a senate, to have the ear of the minister or of the king, or to possess any of those virtues and excellencies, which, among us, entitle a man to little less than worship and prostration. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... exhausted and worn out. She was a delicate woman, in no way inured to fatigue, and though she had been insensible to the overstrain of the unbroken journey as she was whirled along railways and passed from station to station, a sense of complete prostration seized upon her as soon as she found herself at home. Day after day she lay in bed, in a darkened room, unwilling to lift her voice above a whisper, waiting in a kind of torpid dread for the intelligence that ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... such a nervous tension that they are unable to take cognizance of their surroundings. Eventually this tension will manifest itself in some disorder, as headache, nervous indigestion or complete nervous prostration. In the latter case the nerves have been so abused, so strained that at last they are worn out. A rest ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry

... been there for several days. That was all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Rochelle, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancee, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame that something isn't being done. Anyway, I shall do what ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford

... contributions (save in the years 1845 and 1848) were very few. Ill health and broken spirits disabled him, and in 1852 he had to resign his professorship, dying two years later after some months of almost total prostration. Of the rest of the deeds of Christopher, and of his pugilism, and of his learning, and of his pedestrian exploits, and of his fishing, and of his cock-fighting, and of his hearty enjoyment of life generally, the books of the ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... little affected by Captain Dick's later potion, Roger Catron turned white, and lapsed against the wall. In an instant Captain Dick had caught him, as a child, lifted him in his stalwart arms, wrapped a blanket around him, and deposited him in his bunk. Yet, even in his prostration, Catron made one more despairing appeal for ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... The prostration of the country which had begun with the first wave of panic could not be allowed to continue. The government moved in and seized, first the banks and then the railroads. Abandoned realestate was declared forfeit and opened to homesteading. Prices were pegged ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... the truth that the real quality of the Renaissance was intellectual—that it was the emancipation of the reason for the modern world—we may inquire how feudalism was related to it. The mental condition of the Middle Ages was one of ignorant prostration before the idols of the Church—dogma and authority and scholasticism. Again, the nations of Europe during these centuries were bound down by the brute weight of material necessities. Without the power over the outer world which the physical sciences ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... father's advice, not only willingly, but gladly; but in the matter of school she had very strong prejudices. She had never enjoyed school life, and during her last year at Miss Oliphant's she had worked so hard that she had almost succumbed to an attack of nervous prostration. But she had persevered in her hard work because of the understanding that it was to be her last year at school; and now to have college or even a boarding-school thrown at her head was enough to rouse even her ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... our last, our best, our dearest, That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest, Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration Most humbly own—'tis dear, dear admiration! In that blest sphere alone we live and move; There taste that life of life—immortal love.— Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs, 'Gainst such an host ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... great thing is to keep the affected surface of the skin from the contact of the air. The part will shortly get well, and the skin may or may not peel off.—Constitutional Treatment. If the burn or scald is not extensive, and there is no prostration of strength, this is very simple, and consists in simply giving a little aperient medicine—pills (No. 2), as follows:—Mix 5 grains of blue pill and the same quantity of compound extract of colocynth, and make into two pills—the dose for a full-grown person. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... do any biting, but lifting the dog-catcher up with his various sets of teeth, fastened to his collar, coat-tails, and feet respectively, carried him yelling like a trooper to the end of the wharf and dropped him into the Styx. The result of this was nervous prostration for the dog-catcher, another suit for damages for the city, and a great laugh for the State authorities. In fact," Boswell added, confidentially, "I think perhaps the reason why the Prime-minister hasn't got Apollyon to hang the whole city government has been due to the fun ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs

... complaint, inhale this vapor with impunity. It stimulates the circulation of the blood and builds up the tissues. Indorsed by the highest authority in the professions, recommended in midwifery and all cases of nervous prostration. Physicians, surgeons, dentists and private families supplied with this vapor, liquefied, in cylinders of various capacities. It should be administered the same as Nitrous Oxide, but it does not produce headache and nausea ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... medical men call malignity in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The most alarming symptom was a profound prostration, which at last reached such a point that he lay utterly helpless, as unable to move without aid as the feeblest of paralytics. In this state he lay for many days, not suffering pain, but with the sense of great ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... the coldness of those seasons of exhaustion. We knew that it was not the spirit that was chilled, but only the frail mortal tabernacle. When I called on her at this time, she could not see me at first; and when, at last, she came, it was evident that she was in a state of utter prostration. Her hands were like ice; her face was deadly pale; and she conversed with a restraint and difficulty which showed what exertion it was for her to keep up at all. I left as soon as possible, with an appointment for another interview. That interview ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... been the position of the clergy in the fulness of their power, when they could speak thus on the eve of their prostration? You have only to look from a distance at any old-fashioned cathedral city, and you will see in a moment the mediaeval relations between Church and State. The cathedral is the city. The first object you catch sight of as you approach is the spire ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... Betteredge's familiar face was an inexpressible comfort to me, and that the drinking of old Betteredge's grog helped me, as I believe nothing else would have helped me, in the state of complete bodily and mental prostration into which I had fallen. I can only offer this excuse for myself; and I can only admire that invariable preservation of dignity, and that strictly logical consistency of conduct which distinguish every man and woman who may ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... gave way—but she never had any constitution—she was done up with nursing—nothing to fall back on—sudden collapse and prostration—and that poor girl, called every way at once, fancied her asleep, and took no alarm till I came in this morning and found her pulse all but gone. We have been pouring down stimulants all day, but there was no rousing her, and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and Mrs. Crawford shrank away from him an from something dangerous, and going to her room took her bed in a fit of frightful hysterics. This was followed by a state of nervous prostration, and for a few days she neither saw, nor heard of, nor inquired for Mr. Tracy. At the end of the fourth day, however, she was told by the house-maid that he had that morning packed his valise and, without a word to any ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... prostration of the man, caused by the great effusion of blood—though, strange to say, at first he said he felt no pain from the wound itself—induced the Surgeon, very reluctantly, to forego an immediate search for the ball, to extract it, as that would have involved the dilating of the wound ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... coolly, "We foresee a revolution in this country as well as Mr. Cobbett;" and, to say the truth, by degrading the person of the sovereign, exalting the power of the French armies and the wisdom of their counsels, holding forth that peace (which they allow can only be purchased by the humiliating prostration of our honour) is indispensable to the very existence of this country, I think that for these two years past they have done their utmost to hasten the fulfilment of their own prophecy.' Yet, he adds, 9,000 copies are printed quarterly, 'no genteel family can pretend to be without it,' ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... destructive is the dazzling sun. Five minutes exposure to it without a helmet means a prostration and twenty minutes spells death. Stanley called the country so inseparably associated with his name "Fatal Africa," but he did not mean the death that lay in the murderous black hand. He had in mind the thousand and one dangers that beset the stranger who does not observe the strictest rules ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... things, and making the transition with as little confusion and individual distress as may be. America he considers as the type of what Europe is to become; though he has grievous misgivings as to the final result of such a prostration of the great interests of society as has there taken place, and is too well-read a scholar not to know that it was in the institutions of the Byzantine empire that a similar levelling resulted in ancient times. But being thus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... Monny's presence in the mushrbiyeh kiosk on the roof of Mena House, on the night following the great adventure, which would have put most girls to bed with nervous prostration! ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... and fear, and the terrible fatigue of saving his robust young life. Furthermore, Doctor Bennett—telling Henry Houghton that Eleanor had done the worst possible thing, "magnificently"—told Maurice she had "nervous prostration,"—a cloaking phrase which kindly doctors often give to perplexed husbands, so that the egotism of sickly wives may be covered up! So Maurice, repeating to himself these useful words, saw only ill health, not silliness, in Eleanor's ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... most tenderly attached to him, feels her husband's sad condition of mind even more acutely than she feels the loss of the money, and is mainly stimulated to exertion by her desire to assist in raising him from the miserable state of prostration into ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins

... the man was scarcely responsible for what he did. He was beside himself with dread. The solitude was on his nerves, this haunting dog, his own reflections, all had combined to reduce him to the verge of nervous prostration. With the last dying sound his heavy revolver was levelled in the direction of the oncoming hound. There was a moment's pause, then a shot rang out and the dog stood quite still. The bullet fell short and only kicked up the snow some yards in front of the animal, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... had been great. Margaret fell into a state of prostration, which did not show itself in sobs and tears, or even find the relief of words. She lay on the sofa, with her eyes shut, never speaking but when spoken to, and then replying in whispers. Mr. Bell was perplexed. He dared not leave her; he dared not ask her to ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... many days and nights the tortured woman had not known an instant of repose; nervous dread had scourged her to the verge of frenzy, but when the flow of long-pent tears partly extinguished the fire in her brain, overtaxed Nature claimed restitution, and the prisoner yielded to overwhelming prostration. Death might be hovering near, but her twin sister sleep intervened, and compassionately laid her poppies on the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... among the celestial hosts as occasioned by the first anticipative disclosures of divine pity toward sinning man; and a greater than MILTON assures us that the transport and festival of angelic joy occurs when Pity lifts the penitent from his prostration and forgives his folly.' . . . EMBELLISHMENT would seem to be the literary order of the day, in more ways than one. It has come to be the mode to express the most simple thought in the most magniloquent phrase. This propensity to lingual Euphuism has given rise to sundry illustrations, in embellished ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... the hospital of Exeter has been filled with—teachers suffering from nervous prostration. Dr. Morgan's ebony locks have turned silver. During the holidays Miss Wilhelm, who tried to teach them classics, in a fit of desperation sought refuge in matrimony. We might speak more fully of the effects of their being among us were ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... the very first lightening of their judicial punishment would seem to them a reason for relapsing, by seeming to argue that there had been two principles. It was but a false alarm, they would say, after all. Affliction, therefore, was past all substitution or remedy. Yet even this case, this prostration to the ground, had been met for a thousand years ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... "Nervous prostration consequent upon severe mental strain," was the doctor's verdict later. "You will have to take great care of her, and keep her absolutely quiet, or I can't be answerable for the consequences. She is in a very critical state, and"—he paused a moment—"I think her ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell

... long as he is a worker, and a seer only. He has no time to philosophize—to "think about thinking," as Goethe, I have somewhere read, says that he never could do. It is too often only in sickness and prostration and sheer despair, that the fierce veracity and swift digestion of his soul can cease, and give him time to know himself and God's dealings with him; and for that reason it is good for him, too, to have ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... it was left, and for the following sad days Forrester kept his word and Faith was left in peace. There was nothing seriously the matter with her, the doctor said, but she was suffering from shock and nervous prostration, and must be ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres

... enamoured even to madness, could scarce refrain not merely from prostration to the object of his passion, but to Mr Harrel himself for permitting him to see her. Cecilia, who not without some concern perceived a fondness so fruitless, and who knew not by what arts or with what views Mr Harrel might think proper to encourage it, determined to take ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... an English lady, with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well as of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state of hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed a permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the Countess of Albany, in close friendship with whom he lived after her husband's death. The society of this lady gave him perfect ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... urged Jerry to Bob. "He'll give us nervous prostration if we listen to him any longer," but they need not have hurried, for Andy, so full of news that he could not keep still, had rushed off down the street, hopping, skipping and jumping, to spread the tidings, which nearly every Academy pupil in ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young

... know times of prostration at the outset of life. Lucien had sunk to the depths at the blow, but he struck the bottom with his feet, and rose to the surface again, vowing to subjugate this little world. He rose like a bull, stung to fury by a shower of darts, and prepared to obey Louise by declaiming ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... of his arrest is either speechless, or takes note of all he says, to be repeated to the police or to the judge. This total severance, so simply effected between the prisoner and the world, gives rise to a complete overthrow of his faculties and a terrible prostration of mind, especially when the man has not been familiarized by his antecedents with the processes of justice. The duel between the judge and the criminal is all the more appalling because justice has on its side the dumbness of blank walls and the incorruptible coldness ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... may anticipate serious trouble at this epoch in whom the change at puberty was accompanied by distressful and obstinate disorders,—those in whom the menstrual periods have usually been attended with considerable pain and prostration, and those in whose married life several abortions or several tedious and unnatural labors have occurred; also those who from some temporary cause are reduced in health and strength,—as from repeated attacks of intermittent ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... so many years of continuous and often hurried work, to be using days for walking, and little things that since I was a grown woman have been crowded into odds and ends of time, or omitted for want of enough of it. I am gaining strength, however, and realize how complete the prostration was, and how radical the reconstructive processes had to be. The seclusion in which I live, surrounded by pine woods, a mile and a half from the nearest post office (tho' a postman brings our letters) and ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... Port Phillip discovered or applied the art of boiling down the surplus stock, so as to produce the tallow of commerce; and sheep, lately 2s. 6d., became worth eight shillings. The discovery of the Burra mines raised Adelaide from deep prostration. The opening of new tracts of country offered a vast field for successful enterprise; wool once more rose in price; the banks lowered their discounts to a reasonable level; the goods saved from the general wreck appeared in the shops of those who took the tide ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... Beauchene works, came a meeting which again filled Mathieu with emotion. Morange, the accountant, was returning to his work after dejeuner, accompanied by his daughter Reine, both of them dressed in deep mourning. On the morrow of Valerie's funeral, Morange had returned to his work in a state of prostration which almost resembled forgetfulness. It was clear that he had abandoned all ambitious plans of quitting the works to seek a big fortune elsewhere. Still he could not make up his mind to leave his flat, though it was now too large for him, besides being too expensive. But then his ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... general accuracy of the above results in the cases supposed;—but some may perhaps question, whether they really do arise from the interference of these two antagonist principles during the experiment. To shew that this is the real cause of the distress felt, and the weakness and prostration of mind produced during it, we have only to institute another experiment which is exactly parallel. Let us suppose the same person, and for the same limited period, ushered into the traveller's room in a well frequented hotel, and let us also suppose, that the very same demand is made imperative, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the crumbling of all things was his lullaby. The sort of halt which the tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which suddenly comes to a ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... maid sister is in the way, and not good enough for my lady's fine friends. I know Geraldine Jerrold pretty well, and if I's Hannah I wouldn't run to every beck and call, when nothing under the sun ails her but hypo. She has had everything, I do believe—malary, cancers, spinal cords, nervous prostration, and now it's her heart. Humbug! More like hysterics. Burton Jerrold has got his hands full, and I pity him. Why, he looks like an old, broken-down man, and his hair is as white ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... instinctive; and, perhaps, unexpected even to Liubka herself. Never yet in her life had she kissed any man's hand, save a priest's. Perhaps she wanted to express through this her gratitude to Lichonin, and a prostration before him as before ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin

... nervous sufferer for nine years; had a belief of incurable disease of the heart, and was subject to severe nervous prostration if I became the least weary. I was told that if I should read your books they would cure me. I commenced reading them: in ten days I was surprised to find myself overcoming my nervous spasms without the aid of medicine; and ever since then I have been improving, and I now can walk twenty miles ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... lodging because of exorbitant charges, and on these occasions he sternly refused to discuss the matter. 'Mrs. Hawker, I am paying your account with the addition of one week's rent. Your rooms will be vacant at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning.' And until the hour of departure no entreaty, no prostration, could induce him to utter ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,

... the moral shock, was incapable of movement. Anxiety, the night walk, and the morning's news had prostrated me. My father profited by this total prostration of all my faculties to demand of me a formal promise to accompany him. I promised all that he asked, for I was incapable of sustaining a discussion, and I needed some affection to help me to live, after what had happened. I was too thankful that ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils

... from their Maker?—here is there a High Priest passed into the heavens—the only Priest whom the evangelistic Protestant recognises as really such—to whom, in his character of Mediator between God and man, all may apply, and before whom there need be felt none of that abject prostration of the spirit and understanding which man always experiences when he bends before the merely human priest. Is self-righteousness the besetting infirmity of the religious man?—in the scheme of vicarious righteousness it finds no footing. ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... help you at all through those heavy hours. [244] I am writing a lecture on "Unconscious Education;" for I want to add one to the Baltimore course. And is not a great deal of our education unconscious and mysterious? You do not know, perhaps, all that this long sickness and weariness and prostration are doing for you. I always think that the future scene will open to us the wonders of this as we ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors, which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand, had a desk to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense age, he looked, in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... drawing-room, or Maude Eliza's dressed-up self-consciousness. The experience of having the three Westerners to dinner just once would, Bennington knew, drive his lady mother to the verge of nervous prostration—he remembered his father's one and only experience in bringing business connections home to lunch—; his imagination failed to picture the effect of her having to endure them as actual members of the family! As if this were not bad enough, his restless fancy carried him a step farther. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... expression, the more she is under Irish government, the more she will be bound to English interests. ... I say, therefore, try conciliation, but do not have recourse to arms.' He warned and implored in vain. The Union had been determined on; and it was thought that it could be effected only after the prostration of civil war, into which, therefore, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... Augustine says (In Epist. Joan. Tract. v). Yet God sometimes moves the soul so vehemently that it reaches the perfection of justice at once, as took place in the conversion of Paul, which was accompanied at the same time by a miraculous external prostration. Hence the conversion of Paul is commemorated in the Church ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... this trance soon, to die almost immediately, or to pass through a fever stage that may result fatally later. Her bodily condition is one of unusual prostration from fatigue; and evidently, she has been sustaining some undue ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch

... the forms of salutation, the most respectful is the shaashtaangkum, or prostration, in which the feet, the knees, the stomach, the head, and the arms, all touch the ground. In doing this, they throw themselves at their whole length on the ground, and stretch out both arms above their heads. This is practised before priests, and in the presence ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... having the slightest idea of what materials the ensuing one is to be constructed. At times I feel so tired that I throw down the pen in despair; but t is soon taken up again, and, like a pigmy Ant, it seems to have imbibed fresh vigour from its prostration. ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... month all the year round. Now it is a drain, now hedge-cutting, now hoeing, now haymaking, and now reaping. Three or four days' work excellently performed; then a bed in a ditch and empty pockets. The man's really vast strength carries him through the prostration, and the knocks and bangs and tumbles received in a helpless state. But what a life! The worst of it is the man is not a reprobate—not a hang-dog, lounging rascal, but perfectly honest, willing to oblige, harmless and inoffensive even when intoxicated, and skilful ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... tuba in Tag., and mana, are likewise purgative in their action. Dr. Waring saw a case of poisoning with the fruit; the patient, a young man, suffered violent vomiting, intense pain in the stomach and head, and marked prostration. He recovered under the use of lime ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera

... I had now been a long time awake, and this, with the prostration of my strength from mental suffering, had at length deadened the nerve of pain; so that, despite all my ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid

... the country seemed to suffer from heat prostration, and Malone was hardly inclined to blame them. But, all the same, it took several minutes for him to get through to Dr. O'Connor's office, and a minute or so more before he could convince a security-addled secretary that, ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... of salutation we bare the head in token of respect, never thinking that in the olden time it was an act of adoration practiced before gods and rulers. Our formal bow is simply the modification of a servile prostration, and the graceful bow of a lady of society is but the last remaining trace of a genuflection. When we rise and stand as our friends enter, or leave, our reception-room, it is an act of respect, it was once an act of homage. ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... the bounder bounded into favour again, captivating eye and heart by some brilliant feat. And then his brains! He was so diabolically clever. John could always recall his face as he lay back in the chair in No. 15, sick, bruised, befuddled, and yet even in that moment of extreme prostration able to "play the game," as he put it, to defeat house-master and doctor by sheer strength of will and intellect. It was Scaife who had persuaded Desmond to smoke.... Caesar's voice ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... brings with it certain inevitable cares and disappointments. The happiness of such an one comes to depend greatly upon those fine shades of sensation that heighten and harmonise the coarser elements of beauty. And thus a degree of nervous prostration, that to other men would be hardly disagreeable, is enough to overthrow for him the whole fabric of his life, to take, except at rare moments, the edge off his pleasures, and to meet him wherever he goes with failure, and the sense of want, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... an encounter that deeply stirred his imagination. He had the habit, in these contemplations, of watching a fellow visitant, here and there, from a respectable distance, remarking some note of behaviour, of penitence, of prostration, of the absolved, relieved state; this was the manner in which his vague tenderness took its course, the degree of demonstration to which it naturally had to confine itself. It hadn't indeed so felt its responsibility as when on this occasion he suddenly measured the suggestive ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... when walking, then they become very weak and temperature elevates three or four degrees higher than normal. Prostration or extreme depression, or sometimes involuntary spasms or ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... scattered here and there throughout his numerous writings, we are able to form some idea of what he underwent during that trying ordeal. His imagination had been rendered more lively by weakness and prostration of body, and he was so stimulated by the change of air from his cell to the court-room that his sensations were chiefly those of a vague and unreasoning delight—delight at the prospect of freedom; delight at the prospect of once more enjoying ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... peppermint water 11 drachms, spirits of nutmeg 1 drachm. Administer this twice a day. It acts as a tonic and stimulant and so partially supplies the place of the accustomed liquor, and prevents that absolute physical and moral prostration that follows a sudden breaking off from the ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... while I was with him, and the doctor said that if he had such another he could not last out the night. Once, after waking from the prolonged and weary sleep of prostration which used to follow these collapses, he said to me, with a smile, ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson

... financial condition of the country, I shall not attempt an extended history of the embarrassment and prostration which we have suffered during the past three years. The depression in all our varied commercial and manufacturing interests throughout the country, which began in September, 1873, still continues. It is very gratifying, however, to be able to say that ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... hundred years ago. Her countenance disclosed all the sprightly intelligence which her great-grandmother may have possessed, but her glowing cheeks and bright blue eyes told of a constitution against which nervous prostration fulminated in vain. Nor were the bang or bangle of a former generation visible in her composition. But here a deceptive phrase deserves an explanation. "Composition" is an epithet which, least of all, is applicable. Miss Windsor's perfections of ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... malarial conditions. Renal diseases are also wanting; disorders of the liver and kidneys, and Bright's disease, gout, and rheumatism, are not native. The climate in its effect is stimulating, but at the same time soothing to the nerves, so that if "nervous prostration" is wanted, it must be brought here, and cannot be relied on to continue long. These facts are derived from medical practice with the native Indian and Mexican population. Dr. Remondino, to whom I have before referred, has made the subject a study for eighteen years, and later I shall offer some ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner

... resident at Peking, thought this a good time for bringing up the matter of an audience with the new ruler, and after a long discussion with Prince Kung and the Empress-mother, the matter was arranged without the ceremony of prostration which ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... most selfish person that ever lived. I'm not planning half so much to make you girls happy as I am to be happy myself. Every time I think that I might have gone to some other college and never have known you and Miriam and Anne, it nearly gives me nervous prostration. By the way, Grace, I have an idea Miriam is going to find her work pretty suddenly. I could see at commencement that Mr. Southard was in love with her. She didn't know it then. She knows it now though, and ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower

... as she thus gives vent to her troubled feelings. Twice, already, has her husband been seized with the drunkard's madness; and, in the nervous prostration consequent upon even a brief withdrawal of his usual strong stimulants, she sees the fearful precursor of another attack of this dreadful and dangerous malady. In the hope of supplying the needed tone she ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur

... of an impassive mutability be satisfactorily contemplated; and if, in our heterogeneous ambition, aspirant above self-capacity, we approach too near the flammiferous Titan, and so become pinionless, and reduced again to an earthly prostration, what marvel is it, that ——, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... had led in the Catacombs, the alternating hope and fear, joy and sorrow, the ever present anxiety, and the oppressive air of the place itself, had overcome both mind and body. Her delicate nature sank beneath the fury of such an ordeal, and this last heavy blow completed her prostration. She could not ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous

... the discovery, testifying to her great love. 'He will see how I love him, and he will understand how sweet it is to be brought together.' She would be wrapped for days at a time in these dreams, which were nearly always followed by a period of extreme prostration. ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... ground. When he came near his father, he prostrated himself in submission to the King, who called to him "that he was welcome;" after which the son ascended to the balcony, where he again made a prostration, when his father raised him up, and seated him near him. The peculiarly careful conduct of the son on his approach appears to have arisen from a consciousness of his father's jealous and suspicious temper, and a fear lest even a smile interchanged with a friend at the court ...
— Campaign of the Indus • T.W.E. Holdsworth

... mother of Mazin heard these words, her heart sunk within her, she trembled, but dared not refuse the command of Zobeide, and she said, "To hear is to obey!" after which she took leave, with the usual ceremony of prostration before the ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.

... "The fact is, I hate to give any further publicity to the matter. Even if I did bring the case into court and sue for libel, I've only got one witness to prove my innocence, and that's my wife. I'm not going to drag her into it. She's got nervous prostration over her position as it is, and this would make it worse. Queen Elizabeth and the rest of these snobs in society won't invite her to any of their functions because they say she hadn't any grandfather; and even if she were received ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs

... pleasant woods of Alderbury, did not pass so quickly at Number 4 Back Row. The Professor was ill. He had had a slight feverish attack to begin with, which passed off, and seemed of no importance, but it had left him in a state of nervous weakness and prostration, at which Dr Hunt looked grave. Mr Goodwin must have been over-exerting himself for some time past, he declared, and this breakdown was the result. It would probably be some time before he could do any work. Perfect rest, ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton

... unfortunately, the symptoms were, in this instance, too significant of the malady which followed them. Indeed, it would be an infliction of unnecessary pain to detail here the sufferings which this unhappy family had individually and collectively borne. Young Condy, after a fortnight's prostration from typhus fever, was again upon his legs, tottering about, as his father had been, in a state of such helplessness between want of food on the one hand, and illness on the other, as it is distressing even to contemplate. If, however, the abstract ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... muttered; and a nod of her fluffy head toward the perturbed colonel told plainly that the chief of the household really had no place in the family councils. To the sisters that alarm was a blessing in disguise. It was all sufficient to account for Nita's prostration. To the rash and reckless lad, who, claiming to be an orderly with a letter from the colonel, had been passed by the gate guard to the open stairway, it afforded ample cover for escape, when, alarmed by Nita's cry, Gray and the corporal came springing ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... the people received Mohammed with great rejoicing. He lived there the remainder of his life. A splendid church was built for him in Medina. It was called a mosque, and all Mohammedan churches, or places of worship, are called by this name. It means a place for prostration or prayer. ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren

... announcement had almost deprived me of the power of speech. A sensation of numbness seemed to creep over me—a prostration of spirit, as if some horrid danger was impending and nigh, and I without the power to ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... boughs. I was thoroughly exhausted, and flung myself on the ground, scarcely able to move. All that afternoon I lay in the shade by the side of the stream, and those bright woods and sparkling waters are associated in my mind with recollections of lassitude and utter prostration. When night came I sat down by the fire, longing, with an intensity of which at this moment I can hardly conceive, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... sup. As there are five hundred other parents on the same rock, and the eggs look to be only a couple of inches apart, the scene must be distracting, and I have no doubt we should find, if statistics were gathered, that thousands of guillemots die of nervous prostration. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... cradle was a temptation not to be withstood: and to witness this signal prostration of the human intellect before ignorant and crafty superstition, we adjourned to the Santa Maria Maggiore. For processions and shows I care very little, but not for any thing, not for all I suffered at the moment, would I have ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson

... a while, finds the leading features of most cases pretty much alike. He knows when inflammation may be expected and fever will supervene; he is not surprised if the patient's mind wanders a little at times; expects the period of prostration and the return of appetite; and has his measures and his palliatives ready for each successive phase of sickness and recovery. In like manner, too, the good and skilful parson comes by experience to know the signs and stages of the moral ailments and recoveries which some ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... remember the exquisite story of his teaching him the idea of a Creator by sowing his name in cresses in the garden. The loss of Montague, also a youth of much promise, by a rapid fever in 1796, completed the prostration of the poor father. It was the case of Burke over again, but worse, inasmuch as Beattie, a weaker nature, was sometimes driven to seek oblivion in the cup, and as sometimes his reason reeled on its throne, and he went about the house asking ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... without interruption till nothing was left for Rome except the fire and sword of barbaric invasions. She saw not only her glories but also her virtues "star by star expire." The old heroism, the old beliefs, the old manliness and simplicity, were dead and gone; they had been succeeded by prostration and superstition ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... chloral was ultimately one of the agencies of his prostration, though not of his death, but he did not have recourse to it until his power of recuperation from overwork had begun to fail; and, when he had become accustomed to the effect of the chloral, he took it as the means of a form of intoxication, a form well understood by those who have had any ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... five years of economic prostration, was only occasioned by the failure of Cooke. Its real causes lie throughout the period of Civil War expansion. Never had the daily necessities of the United States equaled its production, and the resulting ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... words, "His Majesty" left the room somewhat more hurriedly than he had entered it. His departure completed Mrs. Russell's prostration. For the remainder of the night she refused to be comforted, but remained terrified, lamenting bitterly, and exclaiming incessantly: "Oh, why did he leave me!—why, oh, why did ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille

... you the other day about this case—that there was something queer about it, that after a few treatments I was afraid to carry on any more and refused to do so? She really has dermatitis and nervous prostration, exactly as she alleges in her complaint. But, before Heaven, Kennedy, I can't see how she could possibly have been so affected by the few treatments I gave her. And to-night, just as I was leaving the office, I received a telephone call from her husband's attorney, Lawrence, ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... a varied tone, Pale Beauty mourns her spotted zone, And heads and bleeding knuckles own The glittering prostration. Behold! thou wip'st thy crimson chin, And all is discord, all is din; While scalded waiters swear thee in With many ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various

... in their degree inevitable. And by this process, humility and docile dispositions may exist towards the master, endued as he is with the power which personal presence confers; but at the same time they will be liable to overstep their due bounds, and to degenerate into passiveness and prostration of mind. This towards him; while, with respect to other living men, nay even to the mighty spirits of past times, there may be associated with such weakness a want of modesty and humility. Insensibly may steal in presumption and a habit ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... (next to the health and prosperity of your honour and family) is that Heaven would one day allow me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledgments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service be presented to my ladies, your honour's lady and sister."—Can prostration fall deeper? could a ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... Occie dear, slide it on. But remember: Phemey has got to live with us until I can pick out some victim of nervous prostration that needs a wife like her. And for goodness' sake, Occie, give that waiter an order for ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... no matter how savourless they may now seem. We speedily find that we are not isolated but units in a social order which claims us and calls on us to fulfil the duties of our place. Blessed Mary was led away from the tomb of her Son in the prostration of grief; but her very duty to Him would have forced her thought away from herself and led her to join in the preparations which were being made for the proper care of the Sacred Body. And in that sad duty she would ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... drooped on his breast; his strong hands rested listlessly on his knees: his attitude was that of utter despondency and prostration. But in the expression of his face there were the signs of some dangerous and restless thought which belied not the gloom but the stillness of the posture. His brow, which was habitually open and frank, in its defying aggressive ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... undergo a playful deprecation. Did she know the exertion required for cutting up a pipe of tobacco in a hot north wind; or the amount of perspiration and anger superinduced by knocking the head off a bottle of Bass in January; or the physical prostration caused by breaking two lumps of hard white sugar in a pawnee before a thunderstorm? The Southern gentleman undertakes to affirm ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... and with so little muscular and nervous strength, that probably there is not one chance in ten, that young women of the present day, will pass through the first years of married life without such prostration of health and spirits as makes life a burden to themselves, and, it is to be feared, such as seriously interrupts the confidence and happiness of ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... the servants at the gateway, I was surprised to find Enriquez himself lying languidly on his back in a hammock in the patio. His arms were hanging down listlessly on each side as if in the greatest prostration, yet I could not resist the impression that the rascal had only just got into the hammock when he heard of ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... nature; then he thought of the still great difference between mother and child—Mrs. Verne and the peerless Marguerite. It were well known that he knew not of the circumstances which had been the cause of the sudden prostration. ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour

... future. In Spain absolute monarchy sent forth for a time a formidable lustre, and then came suddenly a protracted period of progressive decay, which ended in the revolutions of which we have been witnesses. Barren glory, shameful prostration, interminable and possibly fruitless revolution, are ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... suddenly, the metamorphosis was effected, those scattered elements were blent, and once more the frangipane spread from the valley of Fontenay as far as the fort, assailing his exhausted nostrils, once more shattering his helpless nerves and throwing him into such a prostration that he fell unconscious on ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... news you've got to give out It's probably got a bullet in it somewhere. I'm sick of bullets. What I need is a little rest from chunks of lead. I'm coming down with nervous prostration as it is. Everything seems to happen around me. No matter what I do, I always get the worst of it. Why, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin

... working too hard, dear," she remonstrated. "You must relax a little when you are away from the office, or you'll have—oh, brain-fag, or nervous prostration, ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... in a condition of fictitious newness, displayed them in front of his establishment, marked with prices which, as he explained to those unwary enough to venture within the radius of his personality, brought him as near to nervous prostration as was possible for the parent of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... stalking; from all accounts rendered by Pee-wee that scout of scouts had hoodwinked every creature in the animal kingdom, stealing up behind them unawares, and subjecting every variety of bird to nervous prostration. ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... you will say, this counseling of restraint, calmness, and the husbanding of his powers. Yes; but I would prevent you from exhausting yourself. No nervous prostration at forty; no arrested development at fifty; no mental vacuity at fifty-five. Too many Americans cease to count after middle life. They have wasted their ammunition and are sent to the rear—there is no longer use for them on the firing-line. Youth is so strong that it wastes power like a millionaire ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... twinkles a bright "good evening" to the lonely watcher, and yet withal there is an unsatisfied longing in the lover's heart, to which neither can respond; the desire to be loved! Hence, the perfect peace of reciprocated love. If its laws are violated, nature seeks revenge in the utter depression or prostration of the vital energies. Thus has the Divine Law-giver engraven His command on our very being. To love is, therefore, a duty, the fulfillment of which should engage our ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... visited this island, he found the inhabitants clothed in blue nankin, and "the form of their dress differed but little from that of the Chinese; their pipes were Chinese, and of Tootanague; they had long nails; and they saluted by kneeling and prostration, like the Chinese. If," continues the navigator, "they have a common origin with the Tartars and Chinese their separation from these nations must be of very ancient date, for they have no resemblance to them in person, and ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... the eye next attacked him, and were treated by cupping, blistering, and colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went on preparing his lectures, which he dictated to his sister. Pain haunted him day and night, and sleep was only forced by morphia. While in this state of general prostration symptoms of pulmonary disease began to show themselves. Yet he continued to give the weekly lectures to which he stood committed to the Edinburgh School of Arts. Not one was shirked, though their delivery, before ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... grasp,—all of which she had ever dreamed! And now it was gone! Each of her three companions strove from time to time to draw her into conversation, but she seemed to be resolute in her refusal. At first, till her utter prostration had become a fact plainly recognised by them all, she made some little attempt at an answer when a direct question was asked of her; but after a while she only shook her head, and was silent, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... Howard's life. He, the helped, was now the helper; he, the defended, was now the defender. His chest could scarcely contain the mighty surge of exultation that heart and lungs together accomplished. He was far from having any rejoicings over Dick's prostration; he rejoiced instead that he was able, since the prostration had come, to care for both. He had had the forethought and courage to go forth and seek for Dick, and the strength to ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... this kind and her overwhelming anxiety whenever any strange bird came near, I began to be seriously alarmed for her. As a member of a strictly American family, she was in a fair way, I thought, to be overtaken by the "most American of diseases,"—nervous prostration. It tired me ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... scarcely recovered from the prostration of his fright, and inclined to hold the inmates of the tower accountable for it. Marie had just left Pierre Doucett, and his nurses were so busy with him that the swan was not detected until he scattered ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... way." I told him that I had "perhaps other notions of art than picture admirers have in general. I looked on pictures as things to be avoided, connoisseurs looked on them as things to be imitated; and that, too, with such a deference and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling; as must serve only to fill the world with abortions." But he was very agreeable, and I endured the visit, I trust, without the usual courtesies of life ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various

... hot, and Mrs. Diantha had not spared herself from her duty on account of the heat. She would have scorned herself if she had done so. But she could not, strong-minded as she was, avert something like a heat prostration after a long walk under a burning sun, nor weeks of confinement and idleness in her ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... loss was naturally associated in their minds with recollections of home, with melancholy remembrances of their absent kindred, and with forebodings of their own future destiny and so strong was this feeling impressed upon them that it materially contributed to that prostration of mind which made them all the more readily become the victims of disease. They well knew that it was on their account alone that he had determined to forego the comforts of a splendid fortune and high rank to encounter the privations and inconveniences of a long voyage ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... staring face to face at the mystery of human cruelty and malice. The little boy, whose fine qualities so few besides himself had discovered, was lying before him in pain and nervous prostration, solely because malignant unkindness seemed to give pleasure to two bad, brutal fellows. Walter had himself rescued Eden by his consistent kindness from being bullied, corrupted, tormented—yet apparently to little purpose. That the ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... suffered severely, not because of the recent reduction in the tariff of duties on imports, but because there was no demand at any price for their productions. The people were obliged to restrict themselves in their purchases to articles of prime necessity. In the general prostration of business the iron manufacturers in different States probably suffered more than any other class, and much destitution was the inevitable consequence among the great number of workmen who had been employed in this useful branch of industry. There could ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan

... arises from the fact that he has not at other times made use of the requisite attention to the necessary industry, and then attempts suddenly and as by a forced march to storm his way to his end. The result of such over-exertion is naturally entire prostration. The pupil is therefore to be accustomed to a generally uniform industry, which may extend itself at regular intervals without his thereby overstraining himself. What is really gained by a young man who has hitherto neglected time and opportunity, and ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz

... among the earliest who come with eager inquiries, and begs to see the sufferer. But she is confronted by the indefatigable spinster, who, cloaking her denial under ceremonious form, declares that her state of nervous prostration will not admit of it. Madame withdraws, sadly; but the visit and the claim are repeated from time to time, until the stately civility of Miss Johns arouses ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... Coach Murray said: "We'll now hear from the chap who nearly gave us nervous prostration by forgetting that Ridgley was going to play a little ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst

... presented just the symptoms you mentioned. High-school girl broken down from trying to lead her classes, lead her fraternity, lead her parents, lead society——the Lord only knows what else. Gone all to pieces! Pretty a case of nervous prostration as you ever saw in a person of fifty. I began on fractional doses with it, and at last got her where she can rest. It did precisely what you claimed it ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter

... Cadets should not appear as Cadets, but as "Social workers." Pressed hard on both right and left, the bourgeois democracy tolerated all this dickering, and thereby demonstrated its utter political prostration. ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... "The progress of intemperance among us," it runs, "outstrips all calculation, and the consequences of its becoming general I shudder to unfold. Poverty and domestic embarrassment and distress are the present effects, and prostration of morals and change of government must inevitably follow. The virtue of the citizens is the only support of a Republican Government. Destroy this and the country will become a prey to the first daring and ambitious chief which it ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track. Cauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway; they found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state of prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain promises—among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she relapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the words, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain



Words linked to "Prostration" :   heatstroke, sickness, malady, prostrate, motility, unwellness, heat hyperpyrexia, movement, illness, heat prostration, algidity, move, motion, compliance



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