"Overwrought" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... happy," says Mr. Petalengro, "in our wandering existence. We contrasted in our semi-consciousness of mind our absence from a thousand anxious cares which crowd upon the social position of those who take part in an overwrought state of extreme civilisation. How long we should have continued our half-dormant reflections which might have added a few more notes upon the philosophy of life, we knew not, but we were roused by the rumble of a ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... if you attempt to relate another reminiscence while in my employ, I shall make a deduction from your wages. I warn you—I warn you in the presence of this witness. My overwrought nerves can endure no more. Between your inexpiable English and your inopportune reminiscences, I am a nervous wreck!" The little man's voice ended ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... miserable, overwrought, and suffering as he was, sleep came to him; a deep sleep that carried him ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... come? What had happened? Had the plot failed? Was he even now lying wounded unto death as the result of his effort to escape captivity? A hundred horrid thoughts raced through her throbbing, overwrought brain. He should have been with her two hours ago—he should now be far on his way to freedom. Alas, something appalling had happened, she was sure ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... have guessed her overwrought state, and invented some excuse for her non-appearance, for no inquiries were made or calls given. At half-past six the sun settled down upon the levels with the aspect of a great forge in the heavens; and presently a monstrous pumpkin-like moon arose on the other hand. The pollard willows, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... Lucile left Matilda, she sat for long hours In her chamber, fatigued by long overwrought powers, 'Mid the signs of departure, about to turn back To her old vacant life, on her old homeless track. She felt her heart falter within her. She sat Like some poor player, gazing dejectedly at The insignia of royalty worn for a night; Exhausted, fatigued, with ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... proper means to preserve health, maintain good spirits, and to economize the energy which would undoubtedly be largely taxed in downright physical muscular work, and which now would be liable any day to yield if overwrought by long-continued anxiety, ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... influence upon her nephew. Sometimes, too, Arthur would accompany Godfrey to Hampstead and sit smoking and making furtive caricatures of him and Mrs. Parsons, while he worked and she beamed admiration. The occupation sounds dull, but somehow Arthur did not find it so; he said that it rested his overwrought brain. ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... The overwrought politeness is made very ridiculous upon the stage, and Richardson is undoubtedly hard reading for the general consumer of novels. It is true, also, that fine morals do not always go with fine manners, and that Lovelace had a fascination of address which John Knox lacked. The chaff ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... representative said coldly. "Mr. Gelsen, you are overwrought. I suggest you control yourself." He cleared his throat. "All of you are ordered by the President to carry out the plan you have submitted." He looked sharply at Gelsen. "Not to do so will ...
— Watchbird • Robert Sheckley
... his room Will fell in with several others of his classmates, and the exciting conversation was repeated in each case until at last when he joined Foster, whom he found still poring over his lesson in Greek for the morrow, his feelings were so overwrought that he was ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... in his mouth. He came out "emaciated to a skeleton, down-hearted for want of news from home, down-headed for weariness." On his voyage to Fortress Monroe an incident occurred which, although told in somewhat overwrought language, is a fitting climax to his career as ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... overwrought. I should be thankful. But—but, isn't it deception—I mean, will it be fair to conceal from Richard the real condition of affairs?" ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... not much to say, but it could be said over and over again in various ways. It was the one night of the world, and her overwrought feeling sought relief. It would not be so again. She would be more reticent and more coquettish about her lover, but now it was all ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... came home to her, her spirit began to falter for the second time. It is comparatively easy to endure while there is something to be done; but it is almost intolerable, specially to the young when life is strong in them, merely to sit by and wait. Katherine's overwrought nerves began to play cruel tricks upon her, carrying her back in imagination to that other hideous hour of waiting, in the dining-room, four evenings ago. Again she seemed to hear the short peremptory ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... rang terrible. Reb Shemuel trembled from head to foot. Hannah's cheek was drawn and white. She seemed overwrought beyond endurance. There followed a silence only less ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... at eight o'clock, cheery as ever, and had come downstairs after seeing Ruth to ask him to telephone to Mrs. Porter. In his overwrought state, this had jarred upon Kirk. Here, he felt, was somebody who could help where ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... so hurried and overwrought with the work he had been engaged on that morning (the lending of L1323 to a widow at 5 1/4 per cent., [which heaven knows is reasonable!] on security of a number of shares in the London and North-Western Railway) that ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... instances the panic still held possession of individuals to an exaggerated extent. But the number of patients in the hospital was rapidly diminishing, and, for money, those were to be found who could supply Ruth's place. But to her it was owing that the overwrought fear of the town was subdued; it was she who had gone voluntarily, and, with no thought of greed or gain, right into the very jaws of the fierce disease. She bade the inmates of the hospital farewell, and after carefully submitting herself to ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... dear. I want to explain why I asked you to come to me at this late hour—never dreaming my message would find you so overwrought.... You quite see how needless it was to permit yourself to be upset by such ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... seams of his high, wrinkled forehead, replacing the tears which might have lessened the pressure upon his overwrought nerves. His slender frame shook, as with ague, and at times was racked by a convulsive shudder. A sudden step upon the stairway leading to his workshop brought him trembling and wide eyed to his feet, staring fearfully at ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... crisis, a crisis such as I think no council of men has had to face for many centuries, perhaps not since the embassy of the Goths to the Emperor Valens—the ministry or cabinet which but dares, dares to trust this people's resolution, will find that this enthusiasm is not that of men overwrought with war-fever, but the deep-seated purpose of a people strong to defend the heritage of its fathers, and not to swerve from the path which fate itself has marked out for it amongst the empires of the earth. This, I maintain, is the verdict of ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... was a momentary silence between them. Then the emotion astir within her swept all before it. Turning suddenly, she flung both arms round his neck and hid her face upon his shoulder, her breath coming in short, dry sobs, like the breath of an overwrought child. ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... with a professional air, while I was inwardly execrating my father's negligence. I emptied the portmanteau in the hope of finding some small phial or box. Any opiate would have been welcome to me, that would have dulled the overwrought nerves of the girl in the room within. But the practice of using any thing of the kind was not in favor with us generally in the Channel Islands, and my father had probably concluded that a Sark woman would not consent to use them. At any rate, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... floor again and looked at the water. It exercised a mesmeric influence on me, soothing all care. I was quite happy to wait for death, for death had no meaning to me. My hate and fury were both lulled into a trance, since the passive is the next stage to the overwrought. ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... I had expected to see Cyril showing a few more traces of last night's battle. I was looking for a bit of the overwrought soul and the quivering ganglions, if you know what I mean. He seemed pretty ordinary and quite ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... work earnestly, doggedly, to find some way out of this great chain of circumstances that bound me. Where to find Jeanette? My brain reeled with the schemes and plans that came crowding upon me, only to be rejected one by one as improbable, fantastic, children of an overwrought imagination. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... seem to be a good deal overwrought. I will excuse you. You may retire to your room until ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... struck me. I sat up all night with that youth wrestling for his soul; and in the morning not only was he a Christian, but his hair was as white as snow. (Lentulus falls in a dead faint). There, there: take him away. The spirit has overwrought him, poor lad. Carry him gently to his house; and leave the ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... her at ten o'clock on such a night to that lonely hilltop, and on down the road into the country beyond? It was manifest that his own mind had shaped the vision from the pale vapours, and he realised how weary and overwrought he had become. His sensation was now almost one of fear, as if he had seen the ghost of a loved one rising out of the mists of a remote and passionate past. A strange impulse seized him to follow the phantom ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Oscard" was studying the labels with a feverish haste. One bottle—a blue one—bore two labels: the smaller, of brilliant orange colour, with the word "Poison" in startling simplicity. He took this up and slowly drew the cork. It was a liniment for neuralgic pains in an overwrought head—belladonna. He poured some into a medicine-glass, carefully ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... and was now much calmer. She embraced her son and wept over him in joy at this reunion. Robin could see, however, that she was indeed much overwrought by these troubles. She had not yet recovered from the loss of ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... advancing sun Into the depths of Heaven's blue heart, as words From the Poet's lips float gently, one by one, And vanish in the human heart; and then I revelled in such songs, and sorrowed when, With noon-heat overwrought, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... of those moments of strain, when even trifles can turn the overwrought attention. Glaucon knew that the stranger was looking from him to Lycon, from Lycon back to himself, measuring each with shrewd eye. Then the gaze settled on the Athenian. The ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... and overwrought mortals, he was often moody, depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of his early demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly worrying him, as did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy fortune-teller who had correctly described his career up to the year 1805, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... for that is paralyzing after a time when the freshness of energetic influence wears off; but her experience among her friends told her that in a city's social life there was an endless supply of overwrought nerves and bodies. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... loud cries and groans. "Abide with me" is a beautiful hymn, but really its beauties began to pall when it had been sung through from beginning to end nine times running. Neither my nephew nor I could get any sleep that first night owing to the blatant devotional exercises of the overwrought negroes. ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... office, went no farther, but ventured timidly into the open vestibule of Haddo's Hole. Any doubts they might have had about this being the right place were soon dispelled. Bobby heard them and darted out to investigate. And suddenly they were all inside, overwrought Ailie on the floor, clasping the little dog and ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... At this point Amabel's overwrought energies suddenly failed her, and she burst out crying. "I don't know how I shall get over the wall," ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sips, and then breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass; the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate countenance, that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drew quite near, and stood leaning with her ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I have been a little overwrought. Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a biscuit I have no doubt that I should be better. I came personally, Mr. Holmes, in order to ensure that you would return with me. I feared that no telegram would convince you of the absolute ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dear, you are ill and overwrought," cried Mrs. Colebrook, hastening to the bedside. "It is just as I said, you are not fit to get up." Then, to Susan, sharply: "You may put Master Keith's clothes back in the closet. He will not need ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... Thus life passes away in the feverish irritation of pursuit and the certainty of disappointment. By degrees, nothing but this morbid state of feeling satisfies us: and all common pleasures and cheap amusements are sacrificed to the demon of ambition, avarice, or dissipation. The machine is overwrought: the parching heat of the veins dries up and withers the flowers of Love, Hope, and Joy; and any pause, any release from the rack of ecstasy on which we are stretched, seems more insupportable than the pangs which we endure. We are suspended ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... of her overwrought feelings was so droll that Bessie with some difficulty refrained from laughing outright, but she knew how very real all this was to Hatty, so she exercised self-control, and ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Miriam. Our creed is naught but prayer-mumbling and pious mummeries. The Christian Apostles went through the world testifying. Better a brief heroism than this long ignominy." He burst into sudden tears and sank into a chair overwrought. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... to bed, he blew out his lamp, lit a cigar and walked out upon the loggia. There was a warm and fitful spring wind blowing, and the unceasing rustling of the ilex leaves seemed cool and soothing to his hot and overwrought senses. In the upper strata of the air, a stronger gale was chasing dense masses and torn shreds of cloud with a fierce speed before the lunar crescent; and the broad terrace beyond the trees was alternately illuminated ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... at her with some concern. She seemed so fatigued and overwrought after the long journey that he begged her to let him call Mrs. Middleton that she might have a cup of tea and go to her room before Elsie's return. The latter had gone into town but would be back very soon, for she went ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... your sleep, Leonie, by reason of the workings of an overwrought brain, that is all. India is the problem, and your ayah is the answer. I think she frightened you somehow, made some deep impression on you, on your baby brain, and we are going to India to find her. It's very simple, dear, once find the cause we can easily find the remedy, and ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... shone through red haze. Distances that had formerly been clearly outlined were now dim, obscured. The yawning chasm was not the same. It circled wider, redder, deeper. It was a weird, ghastly mouth of hell. Gale stood fascinated, unable to tell how much he saw was real, how much exaggeration of overwrought emotions. There was no beauty here, but an unparalleled grandeur, a sublime scene of devastation and desolation which might have had its counterpart upon the burned-out moon. The mood that gripped Gale now added to its somber portent ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... not yourself. You're overworked and overwrought, imagining things that don't exist. Instead of standing there slanging me you ought to go ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... overwrought; I must get to bed," thought he. With sensuous visions such as these before his eyes, depressed and ill at ease, Yourii went hurriedly indoors. When in bed, after vain efforts to sleep, his thoughts reverted ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... her head contract with fright. Her terror-filled gaze was frozen upon that awful figure that loomed so large and sinister above her, for the thing had moved! She had seen it with her own eyes. There could be no mistake—no hallucination of overwrought nerves about it. The Blentz Princess was ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were added to Alizon's natural dread of the elemental warfare. Again she fancied the two monkish figures, which had before excited her alarm, moved, and even shook their arms menacingly at her. At first she attributed this wild idea to her overwrought imagination, and strove to convince herself of its fallacy by keeping her eyes steadily fixed upon them. But each succeeding flash only served ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... tell you all about it, that night at Mrs. Byrd's, it seemed to me that you had brooded over the matter until you had gotten in an overwrought and—overstrung condition about it. It seemed to me the considerate thing not to force the unwelcome topic upon you, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... material. Coristine, who longed for a sight of fresh young life after the vision of death, did not know what kept that young life within, and, like an unreasonable man, was inclined to be angry. He was overwrought, poor fellow, sleepless and tired, and emotionally excited, and, therefore, ready for any folly under ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... with brede Of marble men and maidens overwrought, With forest branches and the trodden weed; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... from early morning till late at night, and they never met. Mrs Pratt in the room below, and her little dying daughter, had many a tale of kindness and devotion to tell about him; and when presently the little life fled, she heard with grateful tears of his act of mercy to the poor overwrought mother, ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... breathless hush of overwrought interest and intense (yet strange to say not unpleasing) terror lay like a mighty and awful dream ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Macrae, with paternal tenderness, 'you are overwrought. You have not slept all night. I must insist that you go to bed, and do not rise till you are called. The man is certainly guilty of conspiracy, that will be proved when the real Gianesi comes to hand. If not, I do not doubt that I can secure his silence. You forget the power of money. Make ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... replied simply, her eyes shining with devotion to him, but he was too overwrought to read them ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... skulls, smallness of teeth, ribs, and thigh-bones, not improbable that many thereof were persons of minor age, or women. Confirmable also from things contained in them. In most were found substances resembling combs, plates like boxes, fastened with iron pins, and handsomely overwrought like the necks or bridges of musical instruments, long brass plates overwrought like the handles of neat implements, brazen nippers to pull away hair, and in one a kind of opale, yet ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 • Various
... not to dine downstairs together on that evening—they were, all of them, overwrought and the situation was strained; they were wondering what he was going to do. There were, of course, a thousand things to be done, but he was glad that they had left him alone for that night at any rate. He wanted to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... hotel his eyes, searching eagerly for his employer, fell first on James Greenfield. With a movement wholly involuntary the hand of the overwrought desert man came to rest on his hip close to the heavy Colt's forty-five. Then he saw Jefferson Worth and ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... and escutcheons, and venal eulogiums of a titled multitude? What would a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, compared with this reverend pile, which seems to stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! The solicitude about the grave, may be but the offspring of an overwrought sensibility; but human nature is made up of foibles and prejudices; and its best and tenderest affections are mingled with these factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about the world, and has reaped a full harvest ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... in the life of a young inexperienced woman as that when she begins to form an attachment for one of the opposite sex—at a moment when she needs the very best advice accompanied with a considerate regard for her overwrought feelings—the very best course she can take is to confide the secret of her heart to that truest and most loving of friends—her mother. Fortunate is the daughter who has not been deprived of that wisest and tenderest of counsellors—whose ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... Then, since she was only a girl, and overwrought, having been through a severe strain, she broke down, and began ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fanatical exaltation. "He speaks again, he speaks again! Woe, woe to the city of Doom!" Once more the firmament seemed cleft in twain, and the earth trembled under the reverberations of the tremendous electrical discharges. The effect upon the overwrought nerves of the throng was instantaneous; as one man the crowd turned and made for the exits from the Citadel Square. Even the personal attendants upon Dom Gillian were affected by the panic, and leaped over the guard-rails of the platform into ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... universe in general, to which, as he lay on his back on the carpet, he presented a pair of singularly active little heels. Mrs. Luna had a way of being present at his lessons, and when they passed, as sooner or later they were sure to, into the stage I have described, she interceded for her overwrought darling, reminded Ransom that these were the signs of an exquisite sensibility, begged that the child might be allowed to rest a little, and spent the remainder of the time in conversation with the preceptor. It came to seem to him, very soon, that he was not earning his fee; besides which, it was ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... right-hand corner of the picture. See! I am on board, and I am driving her at one hundred and ten miles." And he followed with his pointer the swift course of the vessel, as it shot down the screen like a great comet, leaving a long tail of smoke behind it. To the overwrought nerves of the audience, the buzz and splutter of the moving-picture machine seemed to increase in volume, and thus lend a semblance of reality to the monster as ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... it had just appeared; it pleased all the Ministers except Stanton, to whom the frivolous reading he sometimes had to hear from Lincoln was a standing vexation; and it was precisely that sort of relief to which Lincoln's mind when overwrought could always turn. Having thus composed himself for business, he reminded his Cabinet that he had, as they were aware, thought a great deal about the relation of the war to slavery, and had a few weeks before read them a draft Proclamation on this subject. Ever since then, he ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... improvement, let him pursue it, and let no man judge him. It is difficult, with the varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or are not religious books. One man is more religiously impressed by the reading of history or astronomy than he would be by reading a sermon. There may be overwrought and wearied states of the brain and nerves which require and make proper the diversions of light literature; and if so, let it be used. The mind must have its recreations as ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... own room, Edith relieved her overwrought feelings by a burst of tears, brief, indeed, but bitter. Like her husband, she felt that this incident, although not assuming the guise of a quarrel, was an opening wedge in the unity of their affection. Unlike Arthur, however, she thought of it with self-reproach and misgiving. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... further. The plea for comprehension, for an ear that would not turn away from her plain story, never was made. In a smother of words he halted her. Affectionately, with a gentleness that achieved absolute finality. She was overwrought. She carried paradox too far. In her innocence she used a form of speech that she didn't know the meaning of, and should be careful to avoid. Her troubles, with patience, would work themselves out in the end. Meanwhile let her as far as ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... upon the year 1850; I had decided to go to Paris, if only for the sake of peace, but had to postpone my journey on account of ill-health. The reaction following upon the terrible excitement of recent times had not failed to have its effect on my overwrought nerves, and a state of complete exhaustion had followed. The continual colds, in spite of which I had been obliged to work in my very unhealthy room, had at last given rise to alarming symptoms. A certain weakness of the chest became apparent, and this the doctor (a political ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... he pleaded, his words coming quick and eager, "don't do that! Do you think I can't see that you're all overwrought? How can I let you go tramping out there in the streets again? You couldn't go—you mustn't go! Stay here with good Mrs. Trapes, I beg of you, and I swear I'll bring Arthur to you! Only you must promise me to wait here ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... overwrought, In summer time when skies are hot We seek its verdant, velvet sward, Oh may we hold in reverent thought The debt we owe, forgetting not The spirit passed to its reward Of one whose giant soul was fraught With true benignity—who sought To touch humanity's quick chord With fire from Heaven's ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... was awful good chocolate. Oh, Dolly, our cake was so beautiful!" And Dotty's overwrought nerves gave way and ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... times by desire and seven times from force of habit, but the familiar strains were greeted with the rapture due to a revelation. A murmur of much humming rose from half the tables in the room, and some of the more overwrought listeners laid down knife and fork in order to be able to burst in with loud clappings at ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... started to a sudden sound outside, a scuffling on the porch. Involuntarily Gloria, prone to nervous alarm in her overwrought condition, moved hastily back toward him from whom just now she had escaped. They glanced toward the sound; they saw at the window the puckered and perplexed face of the "judge"; they were just in time to see a big hand grasp him by the ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... there, in which the throbbing of her own frightened heart seemed to her overwrought imagination to fill the ship with its ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cold, self-contained daughter? He could not understand, as so many cannot, that such natures when aroused are tenfold more intense than those whom little things excite. A long and peculiar train of circumstances, a morbid and overwrought physical condition, led to this outburst from Christine, which was as much a cause of surprise to herself afterward as to her father. He judged correctly that a great deal had occurred between Dennis and herself of which he ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... her hand once or twice over her face, as if to brush cobwebs away; one of the women made a piteous appeal of the eyes to Richard, who took no notice of it; the monk said something to himself in a low voice, then to the Count, 'Madame is overwrought, ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... cold and clear, but the words were scarcely uttered when he fell to his knees again, with a subdued cry of overwrought feeling. ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... outside; so there was fights and accidents, and different ones tromped on, and screams of fear. And this brought a lot bigger crowd that pressed in and made the centre ones more anguished. I don't know. That poor animal had been imposed on all day and must of been overwrought. It was sore vexed by now and didn't care who knew ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... laughed, patting his hands affectionately. "But then, of course, you are a little overwrought. I am very real, I can assure you. I have been in Chicago, playing, but there hasn't been a night when I haven't thought of the times when we used to talk together in the darkness, when you let me into your life, and I made up my mind ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Meanwhile, I do hope I shall make you happy. When the time comes I shall win you bread. To do this I shall, of course, have to leave your side. But that's for after. Till then—but I fear my thoughtless reference to our parting has unnerved you. You are overwrought. Lean upon me. That's what I'm for. I am your man—your husband. Where's that ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... the first visit after several months from her friends Dora and Gerda Leach. During the summer their father's health had suffered so severely that the overwrought man found himself compelled to choose between a long holiday abroad and the certainty of complete collapse if he tried to pursue his ordinary life. The family went away, and returned in November, when it seemed probable that the money-making machine known as Mr. Leach had been put ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a laugh, which was deprecatory and metallic. He looked fairly into Jack's eyes with a kind of inquiring amazement at the boy's overwrought intensity. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... and was still overwrought and nerve-strung: for some reason she could not afterwards have explained, she felt spiteful and uncontrolled, goaded into stupid fury by the look of insolence and of triumph with which ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... to Bellingham's "frightful agitation" as he sat on the bench, and all this dreadful work was going on; and I return to it, to describe it as far as words can convey an idea of the shocking spectacle. I could only imagine something like it in the overwrought painting of a powerful romance-writer, but never before could conceive the physical suffering of a strong muscular man, under the tortures of a distracted mind. Whilst his language was cool, the agonies which shook his frame were actually ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... phrases are necessary. But when he re-reads what he has written, he sees that it fails, for some unknown reason, of the power of effect on which he had counted. His glowing description seems tawdry, or overwrought. He knows that it is not possible that the ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... strangely. He had curious blue-grey eyes that contrasted with his black hair, and he would fix Julian with these eyes just as he and Sir Charles were deep in shares and options and the scarcity of labor. Perhaps it was that Julian was overwrought with anxieties of success. The eyes seemed to him clairvoyant, he imagined that they saw more than they ought to see, when they looked him over, as he made some highly technical statement. It was extraordinary that a conventional man about town like Sir Charles ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... flute, Whose lips are dry and mute, While she who once inspired its tone Now sits despairing and alone. The very curls of smoke that rise And mingle with the morning skies, Are tokens of the duties done Beneath the red eye of the rising sun. Awhile she sits in cruel thought, Till, with her anguish overwrought, She flies to him who sweetly bears The image of her faithless god, And on each infant feature wears The smiling hopes on which he trod. Convulsively she clasps her child, Whose love, alone left undefiled, Is not enough to nerve her soul Beneath its ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... opportunities for intimacies which may or may not fall short of actual sexual relations. Attention has been called to this situation by social workers among wage-earning girls. It has been a distressingly frequent experience in my special practice to find that the young man, overwrought by the excitement of wooing, has exposed himself elsewhere to infection and unwittingly punished the trustfulness of his fiancee by infecting her with syphilis through a subsequent kiss. The publication of banns before marriage is ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... case was far different when it came to Masie. The little lady had to be coaxed into one of the easy chairs in the improvised office and comforted with an arm around her shoulder, to say nothing of having her hair smoothed back from her face, followed by a kiss on her white forehead, before her overwrought ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... laughing and, because she was overwrought and a trifle hysterical, she laughed a good deal. Galusha laughed even longer than she did, not because he was hysterical, but because laughing was very much easier and safer than answering ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... for the gamin. He was still that. He had not yet been transformed into the gentleman he aspired to become, and in a way that was more honest than courteous he forestalled another hysterical outburst on the part of his overwrought benefactress. ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... that in a few hours Dick would come and say good-bye? and here Nan broke down, and had such a fit of crying as she had not had since her father died,—nervous, uncontrollable tears, that it was useless to stem in her tired, overwrought state. ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... room. He was thankful, as he thought that sleep would bring tranquillity and relief to Margaret's overwrought brain. He went to bed and fell asleep, for he was exhausted by the fatigue of the day and the anxiety of the night. Poor Clement fell asleep, and dreamt that he met Margaret Wilmot by moonlight in the park around Maudesley Abbey, walking ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... won another case. Pauline was free. Snow outside and rows of lighted windows. She was overwrought. Let her weep for a spell. Snow outside. Three weeks and one day. Everybody seemed happy with the verdict. People were good at heart. A triumph for decency cheered them. People were not revengeful at heart, only decent. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... herself that she was overwrought, hysterical. The man was courteous. He was trying to be agreeable, to make a little expected love. He had drank a little too much—another time she might find him different. He was probably no worse than any ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... was so uncomplimentary to the gallant Captain Scott that that overwrought individual seized the sporting editor by the shoulder, and shoved him into the hands of two of ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... constable. As we passed out through the porter's lodge Parsons sat at his table, imperturbable and austere, his eagle eyes flashing from beneath his bushy brows and his venerable beard sweeping his breast. At that moment Biffin, overwrought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... was of the most formal and methodical texture. It assumed a rhetorical and poetical appearance; the people calling it the Italian style. Petrarch had given shape to Italian thought, and through his influence Germany became sated with poetic imagery and overwrought fancy. Sagittarius founded a stipend for the preaching of a yearly sermon in the University Church "which should be more a practical illustration of Christian doctrine than of lofty speech." Emblematical sermons were sometimes delivered ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... was night and the rain was falling. He was feverish and his brain was so overwrought that it was a full minute before he could call to mind where he was. His slumber had been disturbed toward the latter part by dreams as wild, vague and unimaginable as those which taunt the brain of ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... The girl's overwrought nerves gave way. She had only breath enough to say, "I said 'Good evening, Captain Farnham!' Wasn't it too perfectly ridiculous?" and then burst into a flood of mingled laughter and tears, which nothing could check, until ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... me that His Majesty is more overwrought than he has ever seen him. You are to come to the Palace at once. I have an order ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... time for angry words," said the Pastor Arentz, pushing his way through the group of bewildered men and overwrought women. "He can scarcely be dead; let me look at him, I am something of a doctor," and he knelt by the senseless and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... concentrated the entire effort of the navy upon our own coasts and inland waters, the policy of the government reverted, irreflectively perhaps, to the identical system of distribution in squadrons that had existed before. The prolonged tension of mind and effort during four years of overwrought activity was followed by a period of reaction, to which, as far as the administration of the navy was concerned, the term collapse would scarcely be misapplied. Of course, for a few years the evil effects of this would not be observable in the military resources of the government. ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... he say something?" cried the Professor, unable to restrain his impatience longer, bis overwrought nerves almost at the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... of all that he had gone through and was going through smote him, and he was resentful. By what right did this ragged beachcomber, in dungaree trousers and a cotton shirt, suggest such a thing as peace and content to him and his overwrought, exhausted soul? The captain did not reason this; it was the unconscious process of emotion that ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... us recognize the value of honest fiction for children and the overwrought brains of busy men, but the reading of novels of any kind can only be justified as a relaxation, and it is a sad fact that there is a large class of persons who will read nothing but novels and who call all other books dry reading. Upon the minds of this class ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... of my friend. It shows how even our prosaic but overwrought imagination sometimes gives to airy nothings a local habitation and a name. My own personal experience which I shall describe now will also, I ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... imagination, Mary thought. It had been an overwrought day, whose events had made inconsiderable things supreme over logic. She always slept well; she would sleep easily to-night, because it was so late. But she found herself staring blankly into the darkness and her thoughts ranging in a shuttle play ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... That it had not been a friendly conversation would have been evident to the most casual observer from the manner in which Mike stumped off, swinging his cricket-bag as if it were a weapon of offence. There are many kinds of walk. Mike's was the walk of the Overwrought Soul. ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... vengeance. He no longer had control of his overwrought senses. Like a cat he pounced onto the girl in the middle of the sleep-sofa. Now she fought him off. Ready, with anxious eyes, to give ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... Nicanor walked all that day, and at nightfall reached Corinium, five and twenty miles away. Here his overwrought strength gave out, and he slept as the dead sleep, in the fields outside the town. Hours before dawn he woke, haunted by the demon of unrest which rode him, begged food and a cup of milk at a farmhouse by the road, and started on ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... so many languages, was no doubt intelligible only in broad outline to the masses, and sometimes, when it percolated through the labyrinthine maze of such minds as that of the worthy Bishop of Mende, it appeared overwrought, full of contradictions, and of double meanings. It seems then as if the symbolist were splitting a hair with embroidery scissors. But, in spite of the extravagance it tolerated and smiled at, the Church succeeded, nevertheless, by these tactics of repetition, in saving souls and carrying ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer—all worked painfully upon the young man's already overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... not hear the order," he retorted, striking the man with his whip, "everyone on foot." Rarely did this great man mar a noble action by harsh treatment: the incident sufficiently reveals the tension of feelings, always keen, and now overwrought by physical suffering ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... and repellent, concerning which Fan had spoken in her letter, still had possession of Constance. But it was not the quietude experienced by the overwrought spirit when the struggle is over, and the reaction comes—the healing apathy which nature sometimes gives to the afflicted. It was not that, nor anything like it. The struggle had been prolonged and ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... the chase and its results, and there was an excited and dramatic recital going on in the servants' hall at that moment; but she dared not go there, though she was in an agony of anxiety to know the whole truth and the fate of her lover. Her face, her overwrought condition, would have betrayed her; so, at the least, would have caused surprise and aroused suspicion. She could not face the servants' hall, but she knew that the gentlemen would be discussing the affair in the smoking room, and that if she could listen unseen she should hear ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... reverse-wise on his head, Not on his feet, I know not what had chanced. Then to the shuddering Orient skies there rose A marvellous great shriek, the splintering noise Of shattered ash-plant and of battered shank, Mixed with a higher. For Susan, overwrought, Lost footing, and with one clear dolorous wail Fell headlong, only more so. And I saw, Clothed in black stockings, mystic, wonderful, That which I saw. The coolies yelled. The crowd Closed round, and so the ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... she's really gone," and the excited news-bringer burst into tears. The poor soul was completely overwrought; she looked tired and wan, as if she had spent her forces in sympathy as well as hard work. She felt in her great bundle for a pocket handkerchief, but was not successful in the search, and finally produced ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... immediate age in which he lived, than Louis XVI. He was the victim of natural timidity, increased by the horror of bloodshed, which the exigencies of the times rendered indispensable to his safety. He appeared weak in intellect, when he was only so from circumstances. An overwrought anxiety to be just made him hesitate about the mode of overcoming the abuses, until its procrastination had destroyed the object of his wishes. He had courage sufficient, as well as decision, where others were not menaced and the danger ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 7 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... awkward. He had a letter from Jacks, a sensible and calmly worded letter, saying that Irene was overwrought by recent agitations, that she had spoken of putting an end to their engagement, but that doubtless a few days would see all right again. Arnold must now be apprised of what had happened, and, as all consideration was due to him, the Doctor despatched a telegram asking him to call as soon as ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... throughout the night with a hacking cough? Are you—in fine, are you but a tissue of all the most painful symptoms of all the most malignant maladies ancient and modern? If so, skip this essay, and try Somebody's Elixir. The cure that I offer is but a cure for overwrought nerves—a substitute for the ordinary 'rest-cure.' Nor is it absurdly cheap. Nor is it instant. It will take a week or so of your time. But then, the 'rest-cure' takes at least a month. The scale of payment for board and lodging may be, per diem, hardly lower than ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... critic, rather than the professional scholar; while expressing a measure of admiration for the significance of Plautus in literature, he is impelled to say: "The bold, coarse style of Plautus and his famous jokes, savour of his familiarity with the vulgar ... mostly inclines to the farcical, to overwrought and often disgusting drollery." This is doubtless true, but, by making the incidental a criterion for the whole, it gives a gross misconception to one that has not ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Yoshio, capable and devoted, stood between him and the petty annoyances that inevitably occur in travelling—annoyances that in his overwrought state would have been doubly annoying—with a thoughtfulness that was silently expressed in a dozen different devices for his comfort. That the Jap knew a great deal more than he himself did of the tragedy that had happened in the little house on the hill Craven felt sure, but ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... His overwrought mind and body soon made him ill. He sought by violent emotions and excessive fatigue to escape from the thoughts which were persecuting him like spectres, and driving him to his death. In vain ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... appreciate the true meaning of the phrase about the horns of a dilemma. The horns of this dilemma occupied his attention until the end of the dinner. He shifted uneasily from one to the other and back again. He rose from the table in a thoroughly overwrought condition of mind. And then, somehow, in the course of the evening, he found himself alone in the hall, not a dozen feet ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Newfoundland pup. Any boy more "gleg at the uptak" would have met his parents half-way, and eased their burden. As it was, the matter had to be approached all over again from a fresh standpoint. And now, while Charlotte turned away sniffingly, with a hiccough that told of an overwrought soul, Edward, unconscious (like Sir Isaac's Diamond) of the mischief he had done, wheeled round ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... novels of the time, the series begun by Richardson's (1689-1761) "Pamela," "Clarissa Harlowe," and "Sir Charles Grandison" have a virtuous aim, but they err by the plainness with which they describe vice. The tediousness and overwrought sentimentality of these works go far towards disqualifying the reader from appreciating their extraordinary skill in invention and in the portraiture ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... in life than the day after a battle. The high-beating hope, the bounding spirits, have passed away, and in their stead comes the depressing reaction by which every overwrought excitement is followed. With far different eyes do we look upon the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... religion—anyway, we know that they are often fused. For a time after Liszt had parted from the Countess, fortune smiled. Then came various loans to friends, managerial experiments, the backing of an ill-starred opera, and a season of overwrought nerves. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... laid her head on his knee and burst into a passion of wild sobbing. Poor, emotional, overwrought little Toni! Why she wept she had no idea, but it was the same emotion which had made her, as a child, weep at the sight of a group of violets growing in the grass, at the sound of the shepherd's pipe, the scent of the sea-laden breeze. Although ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... look with Alma Marston when he came up the steps. Love, pity, and greeting were in his eyes. Her countenance revealed her vivid emotions; she was overwrought, unstrung, half-crazed after a night spent with her fears. When he came within her reach caution was torn from her as gossamer is flicked away by a gale. Impulse had always governed her; she gave way to ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... this circumstance from happening in the ensuing season, by cleaning with the greatest nicety not only such wheat as was intended for seed, but such as was received into the public store from settlers. It was occasioned by the ground being overwrought, from a greediness to make it produce golden harvests every season, without allowing it time to recruit itself from crop to crop, or being able to afford it manure. Had this not happened, the crops would most likely have ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Her senses, overwrought by the terrible adventure which she had just gone through, were threatening to reel; she heard the massive door close, shutting out the yells of baffled rage, the ironical laughter, the obscene words, which sounded in her ears like the shrieks ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... first to recover, and kneeling by the panting, overwrought horse he passed his hand gently over the tangled mane and down the foam-flecked face. The red eye rolled up at him; but it was wonder not hatred, a prayer and not a threat, which he could read in it. As he stroked the reeking muzzle, the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with some of the neighbors, Madge met him at the door and held up a warning finger. The overwrought woman had been soothed into the blessed oblivion of restoring sleep, the first she had for many hours. A motherly-looking woman whispered her intention of remaining with Mrs. Wendall all night. Mr. Wendall took Madge's hand in both his own, and looked at her with eyes dim with tears. Twice ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... food-supply to keep the laborers from starving. Into the city flows much of the best blood of the country, which seeks opportunity for achievement. The great city is inevitable so long as great society insists on gigantic production and as great consumption, but the city idea is overwrought beyond its natural condition. If some power could equalize the transportation question, so that a factory might be built in a smaller town, where raw material could be furnished as cheaply as in the large city, and the distribution ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... overwrought nerves, her excitement and agitation, lent beautiful Marguerite Blakeney much additional charm: escorted by a veritable bevy of men of all ages and of most nationalities, she called forth many exclamations of admiration from everyone ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... And then, being utterly overwrought, I was giving out, and I suddenly felt a queer giddiness coming over me; and if it had not been for her, I should have fallen and maybe fainted, and she saw it, and got me to a couch from which she had started when I turned the key, and was holding a glass of water to my lips that she snatched ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... a white man, and he had proved himself not a quitter. The girl had been overwrought by their terrible flight. That she should fancy herself beginning to fall in love with him was quite understandable. The discovery of the fact set his jaded nerves to tingling with a pleasant thrill even as he realized ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... and overwrought. Shall we go in and wait for father? He will be getting anxious about me." And without waiting to see if he followed her, she turned to walk ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... strange, strange fever-sleep! In which all my limbs grew stiff As if fettered, yet each sense, Overwrought, waked horribly! ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... Ryder the best service of which he was capable—his very life, if need be—but he did not question the matter, even in his own heart, and it was not till Blanket Flat lay four or five miles behind them that he sought further information from his companion. They had ridden in silence, Lucy overwrought, thinking only of the wounded man hunted like a beast, perhaps dying in the Bush, Jim endeavouring to decide upon a plan of action. The news had not greatly surprised him; ever since Ryder's declaration of his identity Done ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... him rather angrily. He was jesting, of course, and she had been dreaming, or had been so overwrought by excitement as to have been made the victim of a vivid hallucination. Nevertheless there was something disagreeable in the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... time in the ceremonial there was danger of a laugh from the aggregate, overwrought nerves when Charlotte promptly named herself without waiting for Nell's response which came late but in ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... without thy light My Paradise had still been incomplete.[288] Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30 Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the World's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18, comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half hardened, half worn-out ...
— Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... his subtle counterpoint, or in turn the brilliancy of his orchestration. The one trait that he has above his contemporaries is an inbred refinement and restraint,—a thorough-going workmanship. If he does not share a certain overwrought emotionalism that is much affected nowadays, there is here no limitation—rather a distinction. Aside from the general charm of his art, Saint-Saens found in the symphonic poem his one special form, so that ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... thirty-three, who is a gentleman by birth, and has been a court usher and provincial secretary, suffers from the mania of persecution. He either lies curled up in bed, or walks from corner to corner as though for exercise; he very rarely sits down. He is always excited, agitated, and overwrought by a sort of vague, undefined expectation. The faintest rustle in the entry or shout in the yard is enough to make him raise his head and begin listening: whether they are coming for him, whether they are looking for him. And at such times his face expresses the utmost ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... her. Her overwrought imagination made of it a sinister omen: the bough on his shoulder rested there as the old forest claim; the boughs about his feet were the ancestral forest tether. As he had stepped backward from her, Nature had asserted the earlier right to him. In strange sickness ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... you," said Elsie, "in the distance, but of course I had no idea who it was. How very kind you have been to me!" and again the tears were trembling in the nervous eyes of the poor, overwrought girl. ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... barn at nightfall," was her conclusion, "and wait his coming, to tell him of my—of my mistake, for otherwise he may bring Joggles back and be captured. If I can only do it without being discovered, for dadda—" and the anxious, overwrought, tired girl wept the rest of the sentence ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... His overwrought feelings expressed themselves in a nervously rebelling stomach, culminating in a disgraceful moment over the nearest gutter. The rest of the afternoon he spent ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... The theatre has always been the home of music, and this music must be appropriate; must, or should, express or supplement what happens on the stage; should furnish rest and balm for minds overwrought with tragic deeds. To produce a great play, and put it worthily upon the stage, involves most arts, many sciences and nearly all that is artistic, poetic and dramatic in ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... to get a referee's decision over him. The boss would go and give him a chance against the champ, but I could have told him that the legitimate contender was K-leg Binns. K-leg put Cyclone Mullins out in the fifth. Well," said the office-boy in the overwrought tone of one chafing at human folly, "if anybody thinks Bugs Butler can last six rounds with Lew Lucas, I've two bucks right here in my vest pocket that says it ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... overwrought hour he should allow himself a moment of forgetfulness drew him touchingly near ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... again, she was resolved neither to mope nor to be a burden on any one. Mr. Mills, the executor of Mr. Cherrington's estate, who believed himself to be a judge of human nature withal, had observed that she seemed a little overwrought, as though she had lived on her nerves; but, on the other hand, he had been impressed by her direct, business-like manner, which argued that she was very much in earnest. Besides, she was vouched for by the best people, and Mrs. Cyrus Bangs was moving heaven and ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... the mere derelict of so many storms, any one enough to send it to the bottom? There was little work left for Time or Calamity to do on that old face on the pillow; while even this four-and-twenty-hours of overwrought excitement had left its mark upon old Phoebe. Gwen saw that the faces were the same, past dispute, as soon as she compared them ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan |
