"Spasmodically" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... the expression of the two faces. We saw only that the man and the boy were talking, spasmodically ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... the room till they heard him turn on the tap in the bathroom; then Beatrice began to breathe spasmodically, catching her breath as if she would sob. But she restrained herself. The faces of the two children ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... perceived the little pier where there were, even at 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 and down. ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... down with a solid slice of my right hand to the base of his neck. I remembered to jump off the ground as the blow went home; there was a sickening crunch of bone and muscle as Thorndyke caved forward to the floor. He dropped the gun, luckily, as his body began to twitch and kick spasmodically as the life drained ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... from his patient suddenly aroused the doctor. Her face was beginning to twitch spasmodically with pain. In an instant Janet was at her side, hypodermic needle in hand, and ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... her. His face had the blunt voluptuous gravity of a young lion, a great cat. She kept him standing for some moments impassively. Then suddenly she hung her long, delicate fingers over the box, in doubt, and spasmodically jabbed at the cigarettes, clumsily raking one ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... Spasms or Crises,—desperate general European Treatyings hither and then thither, solemn Congresses two of them, with endless supplementary adhesions by the minor powers. Seven grand mother-treaties, not to mention the daughters, or supplementary adhesions they had; all Europe rising spasmodically seven times, and doing its very uttermost to quell this terrible incubus; all Europe changing color seven times, like a lobster boiling, for twenty years. Seven diplomatic Crises, we say, marked changings of color in the long-suffering lobster; and two so-called Wars,—before this enormous ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... he watched his electric power. Slowly he saw it dropping. Would he have enough left to finish out the race? He feared not. The hours were passing. Still there was a hundred miles yet to go twenty circuits of the track. Some of the spectators were getting weary and leaving. The band played spasmodically. ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... mind. Throughout the night, and in the early morning, messages went from him to various ships to take this or that step, to garner in the fruits of the victory yet unculled. The fleet responded somewhat spasmodically, if not inadequately, to these calls. Men in truth were worn out with labor and excitement. "My people were so extremely jaded," wrote Captain Miller of the "Theseus," who obeyed a summons to move, "that as soon ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... own regular rule with regard to Communion. To communicate spasmodically or upon impulse at irregular intervals is not the way to build up a stable Christian character. Where circumstances make possible the leading of a fairly regular life and give adequate opportunity for preparation beforehand, weekly ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson
... Madame De Rosa made them both turn round. She was stretching herself like a cat when it wakes, and looking about her with blinking eyes, as if trying to remember where she was. Then she saw Margaret, smiled at her spasmodically, ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... so preoccupied that he found the whole congregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing, rapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him to ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... house was on a small prairie surrounded by higher land. The sentries were ordered to watch the horizon with the greatest care for fear the skulking Indians might ambush the troops. It was a night when the rain fell spasmodically alternating with moonlight. Suddenly one of the sentries saw a figure on the horizon and watched it disappear in the grass, then appear and crawl along a fence in his direction. He called, "Who goes there?" at the same time cocking his gun ready to shoot. At the answer, "Winnebago" ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... deadly in the sound; something that tells of imminent danger and urgent haste. After David Boone's first alarm was given, other voices took it up; passers-by became suddenly wild, darted about spasmodically and shouted it; late sitters-up flung open their windows and proclaimed it; sleepers awoke crying, "What! where?" and, huddling on their clothes, rushed out to look at it; little boys yelled it; frantic females screamed it, ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... by a 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 cry died in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... which had been discarded during the day. As the gloaming deepened, the sniping ceased, but the Turks, ever mindful of the possibility of an attack, seldom throughout the night slackened their fire, which rose spasmodically to violent outbursts, probably in consequence of optical delusions on the part of a nervy follower of Mohammed, or, maybe, in response to horse-play on the part of the invaders. A Maori haka was sometimes responsible for the discharge of many cases ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... his smelly cigarette to his mouth. Midway in this slow gesture the memory of his wrongs again overpowered him. He flung his right hand back on the table, scattering cigarette ashes, jerked back his head with the irritated patience of a nervous martyr, then waved both hands about spasmodically, while he snarled, with his cheaply handsome smooth face more ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... European countries such marriages have been registered, though somewhat spasmodically and inaccurately. According to Mulhall[16] the ratio of the consanguineous among 10,000 marriages in the various countries ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... and George, walking through them, noticed that the undesirable element was largely represented. There were a number of small farmers, attracted by curiosity, or perhaps a wish to buy; but these kept to themselves, and men from the settlement of no fixed profession who worked spasmodically at different tasks, and spent the rest of their time in the Sachem, were more plentiful. Besides these, there were some strangers, and George thought the appearance of ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... supernatural sound that told her of the hopelessness of love, Aurora dropped the hollow, mocking scoffer, clutched spasmodically at her heart, and, with an agonizing shriek, fell lifeless to ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... spasmodically, a cough that seemed to be tearing him to pieces. He looked at his cigar regretfully, and laid it on the ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that whatever faculties he may acquire are definitely under his command and can be used fully and constantly when he needs them for his Theosophical work; whereas in the case of the untrained man such powers often manifest themselves only very partially and spasmodically, and appear to come and go, as it were, at their own ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... pay a pin 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
... grains were swallowed as a prophylactic against malaria every day. They were amusing affairs to watch—serried ranks with water-bottles, standing to attention while the sergeant dispenser walked with proper dignity down the line handing a pink tablet to each man, who gulped it spasmodically, took a draught of water and returned to attention. It reminded one of a religious ceremony, of some strange communion service. In giving the quinine in large doses it was essential to dissolve it, if any effect ...
— In Mesopotamia • Martin Swayne
... 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 ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... 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
... seemed to culminate all his misgivings, his suspicions, his apparent betrayals of the past. He trembled and shook like a man in a vertigo; the fingers of his upraised right hand opened and closed spasmodically; his flaccid ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... foregoing scene from a distance. Fresh and blooming as she was, he had long pursued her with attentions, but in vain; coming up at that moment, he greeted her and asked maliciously how she was? "Oh, oh," she moaned, quivering spasmodically, and springing, up she clutched at the sneering ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... [An interval. She spasmodically flings her arms over her son and daughter, lets them fall, and becomes unconscious. They fetch a looking-glass, and find that her breathing has ceased. The clock of the Chateau strikes noon. The scene ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... of the full, free, untrammeled physical life to which her economic independence opened the way. To develop the shoulders, arms, chest, loins, legs, and body generally, exercise is needed—not mild and gentle, but vigorous, continuous exertion, undertaken not spasmodically but regularly. There is no dispensation of Providence that will or ever would give a woman physical development on any other terms than those by which men have acquired their development. But your women had recourse to no such means. Their work had been confined for countless ages ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the radio spluttered spasmodically. Finding nothing of value on the persons of his captives, Billings bared the arms of the two men and scrutinized the flesh intently in the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the household, and who paid most of the bills. She worked early and late, driven always by the obligations to be met. A biographer says of her: "I have never known any other woman so systematically and persistently industrious as Alice Cary." Phoebe worked indeed, but spasmodically—she ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... his arms fell at his side. "Aye," he said, in a gasping voice, "I know thee." He swallowed spasmodically for a moment or two, and then, in the sudden revulsion of ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... looked a most repulsive brute as it lay stretched on the ground, its jaws occasionally opening and shutting spasmodically, the blood from its wounded throat spreading in a pool on the sun-baked earth. It was evidently an old beast; and skull and back were covered with thick horny plates and bosses through which no bullet could penetrate. The big teeth studded ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... embittered one, and that at times, in the heat of it, the party whose watchword was a hatred of fanaticism should have grown itself fanatical. But it was clear that the powers of reaction were steadily losing ground; they could only assert themselves spasmodically; their hold upon public opinion was slipping away. Thus the efforts of the band of writers in Paris seemed about to be crowned with success. But this result had not been achieved by their efforts alone. In the midst of the conflict ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... deal with Him there. This is the vague form in which many conceive the truth, but it is contrary to Christ's teaching and to the analogy of nature. Vegetable Life is not contained in a reservoir somewhere in the skies, and measured out spasmodically at certain seasons. The Life is in every plant and tree, inside its own substance and tissue, and continues there until it dies. This localization of Life in the individual is precisely the point where Vitality differs from the other forces of ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and come for them again when she chooses, to enjoy and gloat over them at leisure. Her nerves are hardly equal to a message; but a note feels red-hot in her bosom, and when she has one, she looks down every now and then spasmodically, as if to see whether it has singed the muslin. When the affair has been brought to a happy issue, she attends, in an official capacity, the busking of the victim; and when she sees her at length assume the (lace) veil, and prepare to go forth to be actually married—a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... the last to leave. He saw the aged legs disappear up the earth-rise as the rear door opened. The legs jerked and twitched spasmodically, as if taking an ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... seventeenth century which opened with a tremendous literary output in many lines. Cervantes was writing his various novels; the romance of roguery took on new life with Guzman de Alfarache (1599); the drama, which had been developing rather slowly and spasmodically, burst suddenly into full flower with Lope de Vega and his innumerable followers. The old meter of the romance was adopted as a favorite form by all sorts and conditions of poets and was turned from its primitive epic simplicity ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... muzzle of his weapon, and fired between the legs of Glass, who leaped into the air with all the grace of a gazelle. It was due to no conscious action on his part that the trainer leaped; his muscles were stimulated spasmodically, and propelled him from the floor. At the same time his will was so utterly paralyzed that he had no control over his movements; he did not even hear the yell that burst from his throat as his lungs contracted; he merely knew that he was in the supremest peril, and that flight was futile. Therefore ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... on 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, ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... quivered, his body moved spasmodically, and he swayed sideways off the chair on to ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... would return with you," replied Helen, regretting the next moment that she had uttered a name which seemed to have the effect of galvanism on Mittie—who started spasmodically, and lifted the screen before her face. No one had asked for Clinton, yet all had been thinking of him more ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... three hours or more. Then, though the fog-horn continued spasmodically, the whistle fell unaccountably silent. The children scarcely noted this; they were occupied with ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... straining, there is the cumbrous weight and cost of iron apparatus, while, for some reason or other, no cheap and accurate dynamometer has yet come into the market. Running and jumping, also, have as yet been too much neglected in our institutions, or practised spasmodically rather than systematically. It is singular how little pains have been taken to ascertain definitely what a man can do with his body,—far less, as Quetelet has observed, than in regard to any animal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... spasmodically to her breast and her eyes glowed with the fire of struggle. Suddenly the physical impulses, which she could not control, deserted the rallying strength of her mind, and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... no doubt, "Ah, here is another silly wild-fowl! Come, let me indulge my bloodthirstiness!" His eyes glittered as he crouched, his tail thickened and swayed, his ears were depressed, his whiskers and nose twitched, his jaws worked, his claws were unsheathed and sheathed spasmodically as he crept stealthily towards the apparently unconscious bird. After two or three preliminary feints for the perfect adjustment of his faculties and pose, he bounded into the air with distended talons well over his screeching playmate. The scene would be rehearsed several ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... he shook poor Susan Jemima till her arms and legs wiggled spasmodically and her dress seemed on the point of ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... 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
... travelling in the steerage, having given up his cabin to as many ladies as it could hold. He was admiringly mentioned, and then dismissed as a subject of conversation in favour of others more exciting to his family and closer at hand. Milly, while sewing spasmodically on a weirdly shaped shirt which could only be got on or off by a weirdly shaped man, talked about Stefan and produced a letter from him, which she cherished inside her blouse. He had been wounded, seriously ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... his bed, the bed from which he was to rise but once again in life. His thin fingers had drawn the coverlet closely under his chin, and from time to time they worked spasmodically. His head, scarce less white than the pillow beneath it, went on nodding from side to side, as if in perpetual negation to those puzzling questions which occupied his brain. His eyebrows were constantly bending, and his grey eyes ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... very inconvenient time for its spasms. It may result in spasmodically losing Billy his seat in the council in November. Nice thing if we didn't have a clear majority of aldermen next winter, wouldn't it?" Mr. Murdock was becoming finely sarcastic ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... the gold and where are your mates?" the man asked, conscious that a word from the dying bushranger would solve everything. Bradby's frame shook spasmodically, and when the other looked again there was blood on ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... 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 haunches, stiffened, and ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... 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 ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... 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 ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... broad-shouldered, with sinewy wrists and toil-distorted hands. Yet the distortion was not due to recent toil, nor were the callouses other than ancient that showed under the dirt of the one palm upturned. From time to time this hand clenched tightly and spasmodically into a fist, ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... he wondered what she was like. Her letters indicated a cultivated mind, and he knew she had a post at a Toronto school; but one could not expect much from the daughter of the broken-down prospector he had met in the North. Strange had worked spasmodically at the mine, where he was employed because labor was scarce. He was not a good workman, and when he had earned a small sum generally bought provisions and went off into the bush to re-locate a silver lode he claimed to have found when he was young. He ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... learn the multiplication table. There are things which the mind, like the stomach, spasmodically rejects without the least perceptible cause or reason. So I have found it to be with certain words which will not be remembered. There was one Arab word which I verily believe I looked out one hundred times in the dictionary, and repeated a thousand, yet never could keep it. Every teacher ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... rather tired and preoccupied man takes his wife of four years' standing out to dinner he knows that he need not exert himself to talk, to shine, to please, as with a woman who holds the piquancy of a stranger; so while Osborn spoke spasmodically, or drifted into silence, Marie could look around her and think thoughts which chilled the ardour of her soul. It seemed to her, that evening of her twenty-ninth birthday, that a door was opened to her, revealing nakedly the fears and the trepidations and the ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... Bosio's eyebrows contracted spasmodically, and his white hand stroked his silky beard, while his eyes turned quickly from his guest and looked down at the carpet. In two passes, as though they had been fencing together, this singularly direct man had thrust him to the wall, and was forcing him to make ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... stress, the paper was moved into the Clemens home, a "two-story brick"; and here for several years it managed to worry along, spasmodically hovering between life and death. Life was easy with the editors of that paper; for if they pied a form, they suspended until the next week. They always suspended anyhow, every now and then, when the fishing was good; ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... after in her memory as a hideous dream, vivid yet not wholly tangible. He laid her down upon the couch and bent over her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort of the powerless body to be free. She had a confused impression also that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall. In the end, her horror faded, and she saw him as through a mist bending above ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... in his closed spasmodically. For a long time nothing was said, and the only sound in the room was the ticking of the tin clock on the shelf busily measuring off the seconds of the old man's failing span. To Steele it was as if his father was slowly summoning the few remaining shreds ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... both 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
... all, for the rustling died out, began again more faintly, died out again, there was the sound of a pat or two as if given spasmodically by the reptile's tail, and then all was quite still, while the dust had cleared away so that the watchers could see by the lanthorn's light the inert body of a very ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... adventurous summer. It is strange to compare their doings with the elaborate exercises which were being practised at the same time by the French air corps at the Camp de Chalons. On Salisbury Plain very little effort was made to co-operate with other arms, except spasmodically. The pilots were new to their work, and the triumph was to get into the air at all. The first united effort of the battalion, says Mr. Cockburn, was to fly from Larkhill to Farnborough. 'It was a most exciting event; they went off at intervals, and every one of them ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... Darwin: "During excessive laughter the whole body is often thrown backwards and shakes, or is almost convulsed; the respiration is much disturbed; the head and face become gorged with blood, with the veins distorted; and the orbicular muscles are spasmodically contracted in order to protect the eyes. Tears are freely shed." On this one may refer to a phrase by Sir Joshua Reynolds: "It is curious to observe, and it is certainly true, that the extremes of contrary passions are, with very little variation, expressed by the same action." ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... 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, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... paralo-ray charge the body is paralyzed and there is no feeling. Tom, however, lying beside Roger but beneath Astro in the back seat of the car, began to suffer painful muscular cramps. He gritted his teeth, trying to lie rigidly still, but his arms and legs began to jerk spasmodically and he had ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... Spasmodically the 58th started forward. The copse, all dim and smoky, flowered again, three hundred red points of fire. The sound was crushing, startling, beating at the ear drum. The Bucktails were shouting, "Come on, Johnny Reb! Go back, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Buttons was fed spasmodically and clad at random, but their meals were regular and their raiment well assorted compared with Paul's. Naturally they came in for clouts and thumps like all the children in Budge Street; it was only Paul who underwent organized chastisement. The little Buttons often did wrong; ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... though muffled, had its sharpest moments during this passage, a marked drop into innocent friendly Bohemia. They then had put their elbows on the table, deploring the premature end of their two or three dishes; which they had tried to make up with another bottle while Chad joked a little spasmodically, perhaps even a little irrelevantly, with the hostess. What it all came to had been that fiction and fable WERE, inevitably, in the air, and not as a simple term of comparison, but as a result of things said; also that they were blinking it, all round, and that they yet needn't, ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... Gordon; one of his arms was around her; she felt it tighten spasmodically; felt his hand on her back with the fingers spread. Her hand holding the little lace handkerchief was ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Tiny was standing on a chair fanning Alan Rush. Fort was commanding Ila to pick up his handkerchief. The others were laughing and applauding. Lee and Coralie in their obscure corner were wide-eyed with excitement, and happy. Mr. Polk's chest heaved spasmodically. He screwed up his eyes. His face grinned. He looked like a man on the rack. He opened his eyes and glared about; but he saw nothing, for they were blind with tears. ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... it was seen that Mr Bosher had become black in the face. He was waving his arms and writhing about like one in a fit, his goggle eyes bursting from their sockets, whilst his huge stomach quivering spasmodically, alternately contracted and expanded as if it ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... but as they passed the mother, they stopped for a 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 over ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... utterance was a feeble, indistinct sound. He stood quite still; then he burst out spasmodically, "I ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... prevented the carrying out of that intensive public campaign launched by Spence and intended to be fostered by the Southern Independence Association. By the end of June, 1864, there was almost a complete cessation of Southern meetings, not thereafter renewed, except spasmodically for a brief period in the fall just before the Presidential election in America[1202]. Northern meetings were continuous throughout the whole period of the war but were less frequent in 1864 than in 1863. They ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... 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, and the deep lymphatics may sometimes be palpated as firm, tender cords. The neighbouring glands, ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the Turk heaved himself up; there was a quick movement of his arm; and Lawrence clung spasmodically to the boat, for ...
— Yussuf the Guide - The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor • George Manville Fenn
... seemed to madden him. Suddenly he threw aside the almost unnatural restraint with which he had spoken and acted since his entrance into the room. He rose to his feet. He stood before her couch with clenched hands, with features working spasmodically as the words poured from ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... single magnificent jewel, that guarded the plain circlet of gold on her fourth finger, flash in the moonlight. She held it raised so for a moment, watching the play of light from the facets. Suddenly she clinched her delicate fist spasmodically; shook it forcibly upwards towards the supreme strength of those silent hills, which, in comparison with the human three score and ten, may well be termed "everlasting", and, muttering fiercely under her breath, "You shall never have a penny of it!", turned, went swiftly ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... forgot to smile and look its best for strangers. We saw it in its brown working-dress, giving water to ugly manufactories, and floating an army of big ships, black lighters, and broadly built craft, which coughed spasmodically as they forged sturdily and swiftly through the waters. Their breath was like the whiff that comes from an automobile, and I knew that they must be motor-barges. My heart warmed to them. They seemed to have been sent out on purpose to say, "Your ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... it was noted by the defenders of the legations that Prince Ching's troops seldom took part, or only in a half-hearted way, in the fighting, which was chiefly conducted by Tung-fu-hsiang's soldiery and the Boxer levies. The modern artillery which the Chinese possessed was only spasmodically brought into play. Nor did any of the attacking parties ever show the fearlessness and determination which the Chinese had somewhat unexpectedly displayed on several occasions during the fighting at and around Tientsin. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... after all the preliminaries of a business meeting had been gone through, "I'll begin all over again, so that this whole proceeding may be thoroughly regular. I admit I went at it rather spasmodically, but you know we girls are constituted along sentimental lines, and that is one of the handicaps we are up against in our efforts to develop strong-willed characters ...
— Campfire Girls at Twin Lakes - The Quest of a Summer Vacation • Stella M. Francis
... 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 ...
— Birch Bark Legends of Niagara • Owahyah
... weapon was twitching; his lips, almost hidden by the beard, were writhing. He was like a man who had been seized by some terrible illness fighting it, resolved to conquer it through sheer effort. His voice stuck in his throat, issuing spasmodically: ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... thought in the soliloquy, where Hamlet spasmodically applies it to the stimulation of his vengeance, is certainly never given to it by Montaigne, who has left on record[49] his small approbation of revenge; but the thought itself is there, in the ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... occurrences 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 they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... most summary and unexpected manner. Her face was very white; her nails pressed into her smooth arms, her breath came thick and spasmodically, and her eyes flamed with the intense passion of a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... spasmodically and continued arranging the seat. He then came round to the front of the cart and made a sign to Hilda that she should move into the right-hand seat and drive. Signor Bruno saw the sign, and ...
— The Slave Of The Lamp • Henry Seton Merriman
... 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 ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... was approaching, at a quick stride, noted how queerly he was hung. It was like a skeleton walking, the dry joints acting spasmodically. When the man came up with him, he saw how ravaged his face was, and yet lighted by what a curious eagerness. Ready, he hoped, at all points for any possible attack involving Tira, Raven still waited, and the question Tenney shot at him could not ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the erect position by the human infant admirably repeats this long phylogenetic evolution.[4] At first the limbs are of almost no use in locomotion, but the fundamental trunk muscles with those that move the large joints are more or less spasmodically active. Then comes creeping, with use of the hip muscles, while all below the knee is useless, as also are the fingers. Slowly the leg and foot are degraded to locomotion, slowly the great toe becomes more limited in its action, the thumb increases in flexibility and strength ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... the Sunday laws, we know that they are only spasmodically enforced. Now and then a few people are arrested for selling papers or cigars. Some unfortunate barber is grabbed by a policeman because he has been caught shaving a Christian, Sunday morning. Now and then some poor fellow with a hack, ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... wounded bird appeared but a few feet off. The emergency being uncommon, it put forth all its histrionic power, and never Booth or Siddons did so well. With breast ploughing in the sand, head falling helplessly from side to side, feet kicking out spasmodically and yet feebly behind, and wings fluttering and beating brokenly on the beach, it seemed the very symbol of fear, pain, and weakness, I made a sudden spring forward,—off it went, but immediately returned when I pushed my foot again toward the grass, renewing its speaking pantomime. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... woman swaying back and forth, her lips moving spasmodically, but uttering no sound. The crowd watched her in a sort of breathless suspense. Suddenly she burst out with the hymn, "Oh, Raslin' Jacob! let me go," and the throng joined in the mighty refrain. The women swayed to and fro violently, all going together in a sort of rhythmic motion, meantime clapping ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... 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 have told ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... 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 ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... but stern warriors, the "stoics of the woods," shook with emotion, 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 tribal war-dance, going through the evolutions of battle, the scout, the ambush, the final ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... blundering, sluggish creature, this pig of the tree-tops, was going to demand the right of way? The porcupine, unhurried, continued to advance, nothing but an increased elevation of his quills betraying that he was aware of an opponent. The cat's absurd stub of a tail twitched spasmodically, and for a few seconds it seemed as if rage might get the better of discretion. But all the wild creatures know the qualities of that fine armory of quills carried by the porcupine. The big cat pulled himself ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... squeeze through: but without one secure road open behind them for supplies and recruitments, what good is it? Battles there are, behind the Alps, on what we may call the STAGE itself of this Italian War-theatre; but the grand steady battle is that of France and Don Philip, struggling spasmodically, year after year, to get a road through the COULISSES or side-scenes,—namely, those Savoy Passes. They try it by this Pass and by that; Pass of Demont, Pass of Villa-Franca or Montalban (glorious for France, but futile), Pass of Exilles or Col d'Assiette (again glorious, again futile and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... too, stood up. He was shaking, now, as in a palsy, striving to control his rage. His fingers twitched spasmodically, and his eyes burned like firecoals behind ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... had, however, been carried out spasmodically before 1918. In addition to its taste for bombing in general, the Royal Naval Air Service were keenly bent from the outset on long-range bombing in particular. The question of forming an Allied squadron ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... clutching at her throat and coughing spasmodically. In the frantic terror of the moment they had forgotten everything ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... all that's miraculous!' cried the man, pouncing upon Mr. Cupples before he could rise, and seizing his outstretched hand in a hard grip. 'My luck is serving me today,' the newcomer went on spasmodically. 'This is the second slice within an hour. How are you, my best of friends? And why are you here? Why sit'st thou by that ruined breakfast? Dost thou its former pride recall, or ponder how it passed away? I am ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... 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 convulsively. "Sir," said he at last, in a voice so hoarse, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... for breath as this flood of questions rushed upon him, and moved spasmodically in his chair at every fresh inquiry, staring at Nicholas meanwhile with a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... the wind blew across the river, striking against its bosom, and covered with troubled dark waves, the river was spasmodically rushing toward the wind with a noisy splash, and all in the froth of wrath. The willow bushes on the shore bent low to the ground—trembling, they now were about to lie down on the ground, now, frightened, they thrust themselves away from it, driven by the blows of the wind. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky |
