"Gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Dunstable was by no means beneath herself or her character. She deplored the calamity, but she now saw that it was only left to her to make the best of it. The duke had honoured her by coming to her house, and she was bound to welcome him, though in doing so she should bring Lady Lufton to her last gasp. "Duke," she said, "I am greatly honoured by this kindness on the part of your grace. I hardly expected that you would be ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... diseased heart. A heart that, with proper care, might be able to do its work for years, often is suddenly snapped by the extra work put upon it by pregnancy and childbirth. Sometimes a woman with a diseased heart will keep up to the last minute of the delivery of the child and then suddenly will gasp and expire. In the first year of my practice I saw such a case, and I never have wanted to see another. Women suffering from heart disease of any serious character should not, under any circumstance, be ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... gasp of astonishment, unable to believe at first that Mrs. Blythe was serious. To be pushed forward as a magazine writer and a public speaker, both in one day, was too much ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... sense of the ludicrous, and she felt inclined to scream or do something desperate just to see what would happen. At length the dreary repast came to an end, and she had just taken up a newspaper, with a sort of gasp of relief at the thought of escaping for a moment into a larger world, when she was recalled to the narrow circle of Greyshot by a ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... the bank and looked down the hundred-and-fifty foot wall with a gasp. No need for a revolver there. With ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... and sent the call of the Canadian amateur in question. Then suddenly he gave a little gasp of surprise. Only Mr. Perry felt a curiosity as to what it meant, for the other two boys knew as soon did the boy at the transmitting key. Someone was calling them and the call he gave as his own was the Canadian V A X. Then came ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... was uttered as Rick turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. He flicked on the light, then gave a sudden gasp. ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... all covered with blotches, and preternaturally dark and discolored; it was withered away, quite shrunken and fleshless; it breathed only amid pantings and gaspings, and moaned painfully at every gasp. The only comfort in reference to it was the evident impossibility of its surviving to draw many more of those miserable, moaning breaths; and it would have been infinitely less heart-depressing to see it die, right before my eyes, than to depart and carry it alive in my remembrance, ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... single silver vase-lamp under an orange shade and by a fire of thin logs, for the April evening was damp with a hesitant rain. On the table, near the lamp, was a silver vase with three yellow tulips in it, and Cecil, wandering about, came upon a double photograph frame, back of the vase, that made her gasp. She picked it up and stared at it. Between the alligator edgings, facing each other obliquely, but with the greatest amity, were Mr. Thomas Denby in the fashion of ten years before, very handsome, very ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... and almost scrutiny. Some faces rise upon us in the tumult of life like stars from out the sea, or as if they had moved out of a picture. Our first impression is anything but fleshly. We are struck dumb, we gasp, our limbs quiver, a faintness glides over our frame, we are awed; instead of gazing upon the apparition, we avert the eyes, which yet will feed upon its beauty. A strange sort of unearthly pain mixes with the intense pleasure. And not till, with a struggle, we call back to our memory the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... in this particular case his judgment was sound. We may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but he was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto him while he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing into the shadows, he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We shall have something to say hereafter as to how the British Government dealt with ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... down the hill, dipped his cap, cup fashion, into the water of the dam and fled up with it again, brimming full and spilling over. He was able to dash a considerable quantity of reviving water into the girl's face. With a gasp and a struggle she turned over, opened her eyes, sat up,—her physical powers returning in ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... note of sternness in his voice that Milly had never heard before, and she saw a hard look come into his averted face which was new to her. When she spoke it was in a gasp. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... The colour in her cheek was like a lurid patch under the pallor of her skin. She gave a little gasp, and her hand went to her side. Then she laughed ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... said, with a gasp of consternation. She had never seen Stella before without brightness, the brightness of a bird. Now the small ivory pale face had lost the golden tints of its underlying brownness. The child was wan under the disfigurement of ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... Morning brought the 23d. Only three days more! Oh, if he could but get one word to John Tullis, the man Marlanx feared; if he could only break away from these fiends long enough to utter one cry of warning to the world, even with his dying gasp! ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn't a word to say in reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp. ...
— Through the Looking-Glass • Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll
... boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her face, and to gasp a few ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... devoted supporter of Handel, was pessimistic from the beginning of the season. "I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter," she wrote on November 25; "they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it. The directors are always squabbling, and they have so many divisions among themselves that I wonder they have not broke up before; Senesino goes away next winter, and I believe ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... reached my hand and felt for his. He was lying motionless, but moved slightly at the touch of my hand. I felt over and under his blankets. There was no warmth, no sign of fire. Yet that smoke which blinded me and made me cough and gasp must have a source. I lost my head temporarily and dashed frantically about the steerage. A collision with the table partially knocked the wind from my body and brought me to myself. I reasoned that a helpless man could start a fire only ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... his ancestors, what clouds, What waters, or what gods, from his embrace. Aroar then sudden, as though roused, renewed. "Come thou, if ardour urges thee and force Suffices—mark me, Gebir, I unfold No fable to allure thee—on! behold Thy ancestors!" and lo! with horrid gasp The panting flame above his head recoiled, And thunder through his heart and life blood throbbed. Such sound could human organs once conceive, Cold, speechless, palsied, not the soothing voice Of friendship or almost of Deity Could raise the wretched mortal from the dust; ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... me as curious was the large number of men hit in the face or below the knee,—there seemed few body wounds in comparison; but that may of course have been because those badly hit in the body were killed or unmovable. But one would see men apparently at their last gasp, with gruesome wounds on them and no more stretchers available, and yet five minutes ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... thought himself at the last gasp, and gulped down full three-quarters of the goblet which Cary ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... grandfather called him, he descended from the tall desk stool and crossed the threshold of the inner room, a trifle pale, a little shaky at the knees, but with the set chin and erect head of one who, facing almost hopeless odds, intends fighting to the last gasp. ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... received unexpected mercy from his enemy. For though Hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. And so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. For of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. So Hedin, with the help of his men, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Perhaps it is insincerity, which is a very good thing to be in rebellion against. There is one very amusing and delightful character, a bibulous old sinner who defied law and order and almost at the last gasp ladled out what he considered justice in a most dramatic manner. His name is William Ambrose, and it is worth your while ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... and a gasp he saw her shut the door, but the fright and shaking had been too much for his weakened frame. He seemed for a few moments to feel again all the dreadful pain and anguish he remembered having felt when he was very ill once long ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of relief was almost a gasp. Geoffrey looked up quickly, and saw her gentle eyes brimming ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... paper'll shock 'em, a ginger-beer bottle or "Bass," Wot 'appens to drop 'mong the lilies, or gets chucked aside on the grass, Makes 'em gasp like a frog in a frying-pan. Br-r-r-r! Wot old mivvies they are! Got nerves like a cobweb, I reckon, a smart ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... verses, frosted here and there with the old fret-work of his lovable affectations. But we pause at the 'Prometheus,' honestly believing that no poem made up of so many excellences was ever written in America. Its defects are not of conception, but in an occasional carelessness of execution—a gasp in the rhythm; and when we consider its richness and majesty, when we feel its resistless grasp upon the heart, we could pardon it if its great pearls were strung on straws or its diamonds hidden in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... slope of the basin and halted their horses on the crest. Before them stretched a plain so big and vast and inviting that it made the girl gasp ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... she said, 'but there isn't nobody'—then she gave a sort of gasp. 'Oh, if only—if Celestina could do lessons with me,' she exclaimed. 'She knows lots, mamma, all about up at the top of the world, where there isn't really that stick I thought there was, but lots of snow and always light—no, always ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... do, for God's sake tell her I'm happy... happy as a king... tell her you could see for yourself that I was...." His voice broke in a little gasp. "I... I'll be damned if... if she shall ever be unhappy about me... if I can help it...." The cigarette dropped from his fingers, and with a sob ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... Karen gave a little gasp of pleasure. "Oh, what fun!" she exclaimed. Then she stopped and looked down at her dress. "But I have nothing to wear," she said. "All my prettiest dresses went home on the ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... exceedingly long to me. I was just at the last gasp when you came in. He never went on with any subject, but gave little, short, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Aunt Janet, she had no doubt, killed by her own nephew, and she was hiding the guilty murderer. She had visions of state prison for herself. She watched fearfully while the two men bent over the prostrate woman, who very soon began to sputter and gasp and try to ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... meeting her on an upper landing, Claire discovered Sophie apparently dragging herself along with her hands, and punctuating each step with a gasp of pain. She stood still and stared, whereupon Sophie instantly straightened herself, and ascended the remaining steps in ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... water-tight compartment," he replied. "It is a process of regimentation like the old Germany that will soon merge into a new Internationalism. What seems to be at this moment an orgy of Nationalism in South Africa or elsewhere is merely its death gasp. The New World will be a world of individualism dominated ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... shocked was I that I could only gasp in amazement, but when I looked into the face of ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... his finding Marta talking to Brown headquarters. As she was in a state of astonishment, why, astonishment was her cue. She appeared positively speechless from it except for the emission of another horrified gasp. Time! time! She must hold him until Marta ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... dirty to excess, rotten as old cheeses, and as thickly peopled. All up the hills that hem the city in, these houses swarm; and the mites inside were lolling out of the windows, and drying their ragged clothes on poles, and crawling in and out at the doors, and coming out to pant and gasp upon the pavement, and creeping in and out among huge piles and bales of fusty, musty, stifling goods; and living, or rather not dying till their time should come, in an exhausted receiver. Every manufacturing town, melted into one, would hardly convey ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... noticeable is the discomfort. But I was rather pleased than otherwise to note, as I sat in the comfortable railway carriage, that when we passed 8,000 feet in elevation the old familiar giddiness, and tendency to sigh and gasp, came upon me as of yore, as I gathered was the experience of some of my fellow-passengers: and when we were returning, and had descended half-way to Lauterbruennen, I enjoyed the sense of restored ease in breathing which I well remember when the whole experience was complicated ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... lamplight in the library, but the old lady's chair was empty, and the tea table had been cleared away. Norma, supposing the room unoccupied, gave a little gasp of surprise and pleasure as Chris suddenly got to his feet among ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... wonderful thing!" said she, at last, slowly; and her breath came like a gasp with her words. "My great-uncle, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... gasp, and a low rumble broke out as all eyes fell on the camel. Betty shrank away from him quickly, her tawny eyes giving ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning, ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... last into Fleet Street, and walked to the foot of Ludgate Hill. Here the stranger stopped—glanced towards the open space on the right, where the river ran—gave a rough gasp of relief and satisfaction—and made directly for Blackfriars bridge. He led Zack, who was still thick in his utterance, and unsteady on his legs, to the parapet wall; let go of his arm there, and looking steadily in his face by the light of the gas-lamp, addressed him, for the first ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... with a gasp and poured out the story of Chippy's enormity. 'Told her no, Larry!' he said. The astounded fishmonger could not get away from this. 'Told her ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... A low gasp of relief made him glance up. Seated on her black palfrey was Lady Margaret, who had been watching the struggle ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... past, and I reached the farmhouse with my clothes wet through, and my brain in a high fever. When I made my alarm at the door, they had all gone to bed but the farmer's eldest son, who was sitting up late over his pipe and newspaper. I just mustered strength enough to gasp out a few words, telling him what was the matter, and then fell down at his feet, for the first time in my ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... made a disturbance, but their neighbours had the offenders quelled and out in a twinkling, and the room cried out for a repetition of the sentences which had been lost in the noise. When Dantes, opening his knife with his teeth, managed to cut the strings of the sack, a gasp of relief ran through the crowd; when at last he reached terra firma there ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... soul, half consciously gazing through half shut eyes at the soft river floating away in the moonlight: Christina was shivering in its grasp on her person, its omnipresence to her skin; its cold made her gasp and choke; the push and tug of it threatened to sweep her away like a whelmed log! It is when we are most aware of the FACTITUDE of things, that we are most aware of our need of God, and most able to trust in ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... minute she opened her eyes, and, with characteristic pertinacity, took up the sentence just where she had left off. She had carefully kept her place throughout the period of unconsciousness. But now she spoke, not with a gasp, but in that shrill, unnatural falsetto so characteristic of hysteria; that voice—half yell—that makes every nerve of the listener jangle with the discord. "Think, oh-h-h Samuel! why won't you think what a wife I've been to you? Here I've drudged and scrubbed and scrubbed and drudged all ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... sudden motion about Tom's jaws, as if he had gnashed his teeth, and a short gasp issued from his mouth, but that was all. The compressed steam was off; a smile wrinkled his visage immediately after, and quietly uncocking his gun he threw it over his ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... are going up next Thursday evening. They relate to the symptoms, treatment, and causes of Haemoptysis and Haematemesis; which terms respectively imply, for the benefit of the million unprofessional readers who weekly gasp for our fresh number, a spitting of blood from the lungs and a vomiting of ditto from the stomach. The song was composed of stanzas similar to those which follow, except the portion relating to Diseases of the Brain, which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... knife above my heart. I was motionless, not with terror—for his hand trembled so it could scarce have dealt a deadly blow—but with horror to find such a man at such a deed. So, though my eyes were open, he saw not that I was awake, and with a gasp brought down his hand. Mine was out in time to catch him by the wrist. "Peter Stoupe!" I ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... upon them, and all faces blank. After all, he was the King and she his wife. And then upon the silence, ominous as the very steps of doom, came a ponderous, clanking tread from the ante-room beyond. Again the curtains were thrust aside, and the Countess of Argyll uttered a gasp of sudden fear at the grim spectre she beheld there. It was a figure armed as for a tourney, in gleaming steel from head to foot, girt with a sword, the right hand resting upon the hilt of the heavy dagger in the girdle. The helmet's vizor was raised, revealing ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... one, thou dost not pause to find what 'tis which makes thy heart to beat in unison with the murmuring of the waters! perchance those restless billows are but the echoings of thy soul's desire to breathe that upper air, and breathing, gasp for more, 'Tis not for us to tell thee that bright ones came down, and bore the spirit of her who gave thee life, to that better land, from hence; nor of the dying prayer, "Lord, keep my child," which was caught up by each listening ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... The Government was, indeed, strangling the life out of it and out of slavery, its cause and mainspring. The monster had, however, a crowning horror to add to a long list of horrors before fetching its last gasp. The assassination of President Lincoln was the dying blow of slavery, aimed through him at the Union which he had maintained. Appalling as was the deed, it was vain, for the Union was saved, and liberty ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... principles of art which are illustrated in all other departments. There is nothing in Millais's or Hunt's paintings more purely pre-Raphaelite than Rachel's acting in the last scenes of "Adrienne Lecouvreur". It is the perfection of detail. It was studied, gasp by gasp, and groan by groan, in the hospital wards of Paris, where men were dying in agony. It is terrible, but it is true. We have seen a crowded theatre hanging in a suspense almost suffocating ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... partly open, and the lips are puckered and damp. Of a sudden there is a sound as of a deep and labored inspiration, suggesting the upward curve of Cheyne-Stokes breathing. Then comes silence for 40 seconds, followed by a quick relaxation of the whole body and a sharp gasp.... ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... dotting the prairie within the limits given. Mr. King was mounted on a somewhat unmanageable horse. On one occasion in following a band he wounded a large bull, and became so wedged in by the maddened animals that he was unable to avoid the charge of the bull, which was at its last gasp. Coming straight toward him it leaped into the air and struck the afterpart of the saddle full with its massive forehead. The horse was hurled to the ground with a broken back, and King's leg was likewise broken, while the bull turned ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... out of the shadows, and her heart beat unpleasantly fast as she plunged in among the trees, keeping below the narrow trail that went slanting up the side of the declivity, until she stopped, with another gasp, when she reached a spot where a ray of moonlight came filtering down. A limp figure in an old skin coat lay almost at her feet, and she dropped on her knees beside it in the snow. Hawtrey's face showed an unpleasant greyish-white in the ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... held the bill book toward him. It was empty. Bonds, securities, money were gone! A gasp of ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... was a wretched desert, trampled brown, bordered with monotonous poplars, whose leaves hung motionless in air that was still, hot smoke. The foot passengers struggled wearily along the pavements, and the reek of the summer's end mingled with the breath of the brickfields made Darnell gasp, as if he were inhaling the poison ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... and Brenda and Aelgyvarch, Gwynon and Celynin and Gwynodyl,' (p. 129.) "Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek, That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp[I]," ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... troublous nights, evil spirits settle upon the necks of men, and belabor them so that they gasp and sweat for very terror; quite another sort it was to-day which sat by the woodman: and his heart was ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... business in my room, of course; but was so deeply absorbed in his discoveries that he never noticed me in the doorway. I stepped into the room and startled him nearly into a fit. He sat down on the ground with a gasp. His eyes opened, and his mouth followed suit. I knew what was coming, and fled, followed by a long, dry howl which reached the servants' quarters far more quickly than any command of mine had ever done. In ten seconds Imam Din was in the dining-room. ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... education at the time when the occurrence took place. It was an awful blow to the venerable earl; the circumstance was never alluded to in the family: he shunned Foker whenever he came to see them in London or in the country, and could hardly be brought to gasp out a "How d'ye do?" to the young blasphemer. But he would not break his sister Agnes's heart, by banishing Harry from the family altogether; nor, indeed, could he afford to break with Mr. Foker, senior, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... little gasp; a half-stifled exclamation had crept out from between his teeth. His cheeks seemed paler than ever, and his eyes unnaturally bright. Nevertheless, he was completely master of himself. On the table was a large deed box ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... pointed his finger at him. 'Last Sunday,' he said, 'I 'eard you read those very words from the chancel steps. Go! go! I tell you, go! You are a bad man, a wolf in sheep's clothing—go!' Mr Clinton walked up to him threateningly, and the curate, with a gasp of astonishment and indignation, fled from ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... to face with Armand, and gave a sudden little gasp of terror. It was not good these days to ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... she never mentioned his name. While we played, names did not matter—his, mine, no one's." An hysterical gasp caused ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... effort to disclose what he had in the way of various balls, his sole object, apparently, being to get his arm limbered up and in condition. Still, occasionally, he would send one in that caused a gasp to arise. ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... so wildly—though I have always longed for you. I sometimes feel now as if my brain were utterly wrecked. I know not what is the matter; I gasp, when I think of you. I am convinced of heaven and hell almost in the same breath—experience each in rapid succession. One touch of your hand and one look, I think would cure me. I seem as if in a thunder-storm—pitchy blackness with ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... top of her principal jewel-case. After this, she wrote a letter to her husband—a few lines only, telling him how she had determined to take her child away with her, and how she should resist to the last gasp any attempt to ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... for a man she once cared for, and it staggered what wits I had left. I nodded like a fool, just as if I had known what she was talking about, and went on lifting the canoe ashore. Whether I really heard her give a terrified gasp I don't know; perhaps I only thought so. But as I put the canoe on the bank I heard a rustle, and when I looked up she was gone. There was nothing to tell me she had really even been there. It was just as probable that I was crazy, or walking in my sleep, as that a girl who talked like that—or ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... experiences in Central Australia. He was perishing from thirst, and, at the last gasp, he came to a clay-pan which, to his despair, was quite dry and baked hard by the sun. He gave up all hope; not so his black-boy, who, after examining the surface of the hard clay, started to dig vigorously, shouting, "No more tumble down, plenty water here!" ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... answered the gold-gatherer; "but it was so tight over my breast that my heart grew cold under it, and almost ceased to beat. Having a great quantity of gold on my back, I felt almost at the last gasp; so I threw off my girdle, and being on the bank of a river, which I knew not how to cross, I was about to fling it in, I was so vexed! 'But no,' thought I, 'there are many people waiting here to cross besides myself. I will make my ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... suppressing her gasp of sheer embarrassment, Sally admitted to herself that he was presentable, very presentable. His manner was altogether free from the self-conscious graciousness of an artist off-duty; moreover, he was very big, very comely, very much stamped with the hall-mark ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... back upon his teeth. His hands clutch me as a convulsive spasm wrenches his muscles. There is a tense, rigid silence, and then one deep-drawn groan. Nerve, limb, muscle, and flesh collapse as the Life is set loose. The damp body sinks back, leaving its death sweat on my arms, its gasp in my ears. Tomkins is dead. But the impulse is not done with me yet. I cannot get out of that hospital ward till I have done everything, passed through all the circumstances that crop up naturally from the death of Tomkins. There is no 'making up.' The scene is being enacted before ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... yet," came in a sort of gasp; "let me look at these wretches first, and understand if I can what my wife has to suffer from ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... way got upon it, scrambling as he struck it with his chest, and then fell headlong into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and body. His career was at an end, and he had broken his heart! Poor noble beast, noble in vain! To his very last gasp he had done his best, and had deserved that he should have been in better hands. His master's ignorance had killed him. There are men who never know how little a horse can ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... bottom he fell on his knees, looking over his shoulder at the Indian, who was close behind him, and now observing the bull's helpless condition, sat down a short distance off, waiting for the death-gasp. After one or two efforts to rise, the huge beast dropped his ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... people on the west side of the Apalachian mountains will open their eyes to their real interests." At the same time Sevier was writing to Gardoqui, offering to put his insurrectionary State of Franklin, then at its last gasp, under the protection of Spain. [Footnote: Gardoqui MSS., Sevier to Gardoqui, Sept. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Fred said, with a great, tremulous gasp. "She is so strange, so cold and self-contained,—so bitter against fate! Believe me, Jack, I have tried my utmost"—and the voice broke with something ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... the senses!" Jack repeated in a helpless gasp; such words, in their austere vocabulary, were hardly credible. "Do you know what you are saying, you arrogant, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... cried Penelope, with a little gasp. "Be sure you give us plenty of strawberry-jam, and make a very large custard-pudding, for there's such a lot of us to eat the things, and I generally get the ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... opened her locker and took out her wraps. A faint gasp of astonishment broke from her. Only one rain-coat, one hat and one pair of rubbers were there, where at the beginning of the morning there had been two. Mary Raymond's belongings ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea—what matters it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a sad pickle and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarticulate gasp of excitement, she stepped out into the ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... that there were other occupants of the hotel dining room. He gave a cursory glance in the direction of the three persons at the table near him. A spasm of terror crossed his face. There was a sound of grating on the tesselated floor, as he pushed his chair back. His mouth opened in an involuntary gasp. Josie noted his agitation but she could but admire his quick command of himself. In a moment his face had assumed its normal suavity. It was evident that he had decided that he had been startled with nothing but a resemblance. This man in the hotel dining room ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... brought To a father his war-gear with eager haste; And now his heart was wrung to hear their sobs, And now he smiled on those small ministers, And stronger waxed his heart's resolve to fight To the last gasp for these, the near and dear. Yonder again, with hands that had not lost Old cunning, a grey father for the fray Girded a son, and murmured once and again: "Dear boy, yield thou to no man in the war!" And showed his son ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... you make of that, Uncle Holly," said Leo, with a sort of gasp, as he replaced it on the table. "We have been looking for a mystery, and we certainly seem to ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... time for the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated resolutions, saved the constitution, at its last gasp. No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our country however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... jealousy, lest Genevra had been fairer than herself, as well as better loved. "I won't be foolish any longer," she said, and turning resolutely to the light she opened the lid again and saw Genevra Lambert, starting quickly, then looking again more closely—then, with a gasp, panting for breath, while like lightning flashes the past came rushing over her, as, with her eyes fixed upon that picture, she tried to ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... shut and opened her mouth again several times. Then she was only able to gasp out ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... I was in the palace. I got away as by a miracle, but I fell among the ruffians here, and they have done for me. Waste no more time, I implore you. Save my darling Lucile, and tell her her father——' But here, with one more gasp, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... to draw back; but it was madness to remain. Nigel looked round and saw that half his men were down. At the same moment Raoul sank with a gasp at his feet, a bolt driven to its socket through the links of the camail which guarded his neck. Some of the archers, seeing that certain death awaited them, were already running back to escape from the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the stout youth's mind was busied with these thoughts, and without the slightest warning, there came a sort of wheezing gasp from ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... before the terror-stricken wall of human beings that could not make way to let him in, without warning, without a death- gasp, the horse doubled his head under himself as he galloped his last stride, and falling in a round heap rolled over and over forwards with frightful violence, till he suddenly lay stiff and stark with twisted neck and outstretched heels, within a yard of the shrinking ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... picture of Anne on her knees beside him saying, in that sharp gasp of her sorrow, "You don't love me." This was no such thing, yet, in some phase, was life going to repeat itself over and over in the endless earth journeys he might have to make, futilities of mismated minds, the outcry of defrauded souls? But at least this wasn't his cowardly silence ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... little gasp and it was a startled little glance that she gave him. "Is—is that what you came for?" If his ears had been sharper he would have caught a tiny note of disappointment in the question as if she had expected him to ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... Cora widened still more, and all the color fled from her lips. But she made a fierce struggle and, although she could not summon up her usual insolence, she managed to gasp out, half ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... herself to be won; and at present every kind of dogma stands with sad and discouraged mien—IF, indeed, it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that it has fallen, that all dogma lies on the ground—nay more, that it is at its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there are good grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing in philosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive and decided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noble puerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at hand when it ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... With a gasp she sprang up, and the next moment was running wildly away, away, down the forest path, heedless of the rough ground, of the stones and roots that tore her bare feet, running like a mad creature, with sobbing ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... straight, shining skirt, tight bodice, pointed lace collar, and close-fitting transparent cap that covered, but could not hide, the waves of dark crisp hair. When Cecily discovered that a string of pearls was clasped round the other little girl's neck, she gave a long gasp of delight, a gasp that ended in an irrepressible sigh. For, a moment later, this dazzling vision, with its dancing eyes, delicate features, and glowing cheeks, was lost to sight. All through the remainder of the service it stayed hidden in the depths of the high old family pew, whence nothing ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... around me, increasing the number of those who suddenly halt, who collapse slowly, defiant and gesticulating, of those who dive forward solidly with all the body's burden, of the shouts, deep, furious, and desperate, and even of that hollow and terrible gasp when a man's life goes bodily forth in a breath. And we who are not yet stricken, we look ahead, we walk and we run, among the frolics of the death that strikes at ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... he hunted in vain, then the sunlight showed a golden sheen among some stones. Maynard gave a grunt of relief, but as his hand closed round it a tiny flutter passed through the fingerling; it gave a final gasp and was still. Knitting his brows in almost comical vexation, he hastened to restore it to the stream, holding it by the tail and striving to impart a life-like wriggle ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... me than any cottage," she said, recovering herself with a little gasp. "I had hoped perhaps he would have come and lived here, and let me take care of him, after all his years of hard work. But it was a selfish idea. He has told me that he cannot leave his work or his uncle, who has been so kind to him, and who ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the line. I drove forward with a mighty kick of my feet—a last gasp of strength. My fingers closed on the handle of the gully, I ripped it out of its sheath, and slashed the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster |
