"Sleepless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sleepless night in meditating on the intelligence I had received, I was at first inclined to think that I ought, as speedily as possible, to return to London, and by my open appearance repel the calumny which had been spread against me. But I hesitated to take this course on recollection ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hour, during the night, his sleepless eyes seemed to see that loose wire which the mechanic had explained to be so vitally important. He could see in imagination the machine flying off into the clouds with Pauline in it. He could see it suddenly waver, dip and plunge to the earth. In his mind's eye he saw himself rushing to, ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... wind is raving fierce and shrill, And chides with angry moan the frosty skies; The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still. We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill, Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies, Lured by the hand of beckoning memories, Back to those summer evenings ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... wings of the dark, the night throbs with mystic presences; the hills glimmer with an inward life; whispering voices hurry through the air. Another and magical land awakes in the dark, full of a living restlessness; sleepless as the ever-moving sea. Everywhere through the night-shrouded woods, the shadowy trees seem to interrupt their secret whispers till you are gone past. There is no sense of loneliness anywhere, but rather a host of teeming lives on every hand, palpable though hidden, remote ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... management I secured the next room to his, by which arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake spending most of the wee sma' hours in pacing the floor of his room, with an unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect upon my nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting on the back seat, ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... against him. Val, sweet and calm and cool, was sitting just where the smoke-dimmed sunlight poured in through a window upon her, and a breeze came with it and stirred her hair. She had those purple shadows under her eyes which betray us after long, sleepless hours when we live with our troubles and the world dreams around us; she had no color at all in her cheeks, and she had that aloofness of manner which Manley, in his outburst, had described as being ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... groves of trees into the armed stockades. The distant glare vanished in the fading darkness and the murmurs of the invisible crowd ceased suddenly as if carried off by the retreating shadow of the night. Daylight followed swiftly, disclosing to the sleepless Jorgenson the solitude of the shore and the ghostly outlines of the familiar forms of grouped trees and scattered human habitations. He had watched the varied colours come out in the dawn, the wide cultivated Settlement of ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... and step into active control again to-morrow through some sly, subtle suggestion which it hopes may get past the vigilance of my sentinel. That word daily becomes, of necessity, my constant keynote—a daily conflict, a daily sleepless vigilance, and, ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... of the States-man that's witty, That watches and plots all the sleepless Night, For seditious Harangues to the Whigs of the City, And piously turns a Traitor in spite. Let him wrack, and torment his lean Carrion, To bring his sham-Plots about, Till Religion, King, Bishop, and Baron, For the publick ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... and signal character. In that struggle his youth of reveries and day-dreams passed away. Such furnace-blasts of proof, such pangs of transformation, seem necessary for exceptional natures. The bread eaten in tears, of which Goethe speaks, the sleepless nights of sorrow, are required for a clear vision of the celestial powers. Fortunately the same qualities that occasion the conflict insure the victory also. From days of gloom and depression, such as we have been considering, no doubt came precious results ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the lower windows; one window on the upper floor was lighted too. There, doubtless, Lady Tristram lay slowly dying; somewhere else in the house Harry was keeping his guard and perfecting his defences. The absolute peace and rest of the outward view, the sleepless vigilance and unceasing battle within, a battle that death made keener and could not lull to rest—this contrast came upon Mina with a strange painfulness; her eyes filled with tears as she ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... beautiful upon a sleepless camp that reeked and steamed with hell-hot suffering. It showed the rebels stationary, still in swarming lines, but scouts reported several thousand of them moving in a body from the flank toward ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... poor Jennie, heroic Jennie, who would follow her lover to death itself, she submitted, after a few sleepless nights, and days that for her were without a breakfast, to the mandate of the guardian, and to the philosophy of her sister. A little later, a tall, ungainly young Highlander came, offered himself, ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... and all the ills that came in its train—distracted application to his duties, and an undefined number of sleepless nights and untasted dinners, Miss Aldclyffe looked at her watch and returned to the House. She was about to keep an appointment with her solicitor, Mr. Nyttleton, who had been to Budmouth, and was coming to Knapwater on his ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... escape to the North. But, as yet, no such opportunity had presented itself; at least none that was available, and for nine long months had that poor girl been confined in the narrow limits of the cook's chamber, watched over day and night by that faithful friend with a vigilance as sleepless as it was disinterested. The time had now come, however, when something must be done. The family in whose house she is hid is about to be broken up, and the house to be vacated, and the girl must either be rescued from ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... as though a passing wind of madness were blowing ever more strongly in the shut-up bedroom. A storm of lust disordered their brains, plunged them into the delirious imaginations of the flesh. The old pious terrors of their sleepless nights were now transforming themselves into a thirst for bestiality, a furious longing to walk on all fours, to growl and to bite. One day when he was playing bear she pushed him so roughly that he fell against a piece of furniture, ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching, and watching the works of the new, busy race, with those same sad, earnest eyes, and ...
— International Finance • Hartley Withers
... Henry "that even the forfeit of her life would be too little to express the full sense she had of the respect he paid to her." But as modesty forbade not only every kind of declaration, but every insinuation purporting what she felt, she wept through sleepless nights from a load of suppressed explanation; yet still she would not have exchanged this trouble for all the ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... one half of New York is sick. Doctors are in demand. Headaches and various other ailments caused by "punch" are frequent. Business men have a weary, sleepless look, and it requires one or two nights' rest to restore mind and body to their proper condition. Should you call on a lady friend, you will probably find her indisposed—the cause of her sickness you can easily imagine. The Police Courts are ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... occurred only in the night-time, all the family hoped that soon, by some means, the mystery would be cleared away. They did not abandon this hope till Friday, the 31st of March, 1848. Wearied by a succession of sleepless nights, the family retired early, hoping for a respite from the disturbances that had harassed them. In this they were doomed to especial disappointment. We can do no better than to let Mr. Owen continue the narrative, in ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... and had not slept in a good bed under his own tent for two months; yet he was sleepless, and awoke after two hours, and could not sleep again till within an hour of the winter dawn; for he feared some evil for Beatrix if her father should claim her of the Queen and take her back from Ephesus by sea, as ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... cramped and almost sleepless night. Although in his training on Terra, on his trial trips to Mars and the harsh Lunar valleys, Raf had known weird surroundings and climates, inimical to his kind, he had always been able to rest almost by the exercise of his ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Carew was out on picket; Captain Frazer, coat off and sleeves rolled to his shoulders, was busy among the wounded, and Weldon had cared to make few other close friends in the squadron. Around him, he could hear the murmurs of other sleepless ones; but he lay silent, his arms under his head, his face turned upward to the shining perspective of the stars. In similar perspective there ranged them-selves before his mind the events of ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... far less creditable reason. After the Restoration Brodie's life, if life it could be called, was spent in a constant terror lest he should lose his estates, his liberty, and his life in the prelatic persecution; but, with his sleepless management of men, if not with the blessing of God and the peace of a good conscience, Alexander Brodie died in his own bed, in Brodie Castle, on the 17th of ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... of the plain brick house, on her hard white bed with her hard white thoughts, lay Pansy—sleepless throughout the night of Marguerite's ball. The youngest of the children slept beside her; two others lay in a trundle-bed across the room; and the three were getting out of sleep all that there is in it for tired, healthy children. In the room below, her father and the ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... promise. Soon, Ah, soon, the teeming triumph! At my feet The river with its stately sweep and wheel Moves on slow-motioned, luminous, grey like steel. From fields far off whose watery hollows gleam, Aye with blown throats that make the long hours sweet, The sleepless toads ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... length arrived; and with my enthusiasm considerably cooled by a night of sleepless excitement and the unpleasant consciousness that I was about, in an hour or two more, to bid a long farewell to home and all who loved me, I descended to the breakfast-room. My father was already there; ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... had taken all their little stock of funds. But he had left her his gun, and with this within reach of her hand in the shelter of the wagon hood, without fire and without cooked food, she kept a sleepless watch. ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... so long, so miserable a night as that. And yet it was not wholly sleepless. Towards morning my distracting thoughts began to lose all pretensions to coherency, and shape themselves into confused and feverish dreams, and, at length, there followed an interval of unconscious slumber. But then the dawn of bitter recollection ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... engaging personality, which has written itself like an indorsement across the face of a young nation's literature. It is that of a man so sensitive that the scornful finger of a child might have left him sleepless; so kindly that nobody ever applied to him in vain for sympathy; so modest that the smallest praise embarrassed him. His manner and tastes were simple and unassuming. He had no great passions; the brother was stronger in him than ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... But Laura was sleepless and deeply troubled; she had never seen a laborer—much less one of her own acquaintances—in Haldane's condition before; and to her young, innocent mind the event had almost the character of a tragedy. Although conscious of entire blamelessness, she ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... protected world with their minds trained, tamed and fed and shielded from outside impressions as royalties do. The thought of the world has washed about them; they have read and listened to the discussion of themselves for some decades; they have had sleepless nights of self-examination. To succeed in acquiring enormous wealth does not solve the problem of life; indeed, it reopens it in a new form. "What shall I do with myself?" simply recurs again. You may have decided to devote yourself to getting on, getting wealthy. Well, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... looked a little creased as if they had slept in it. The eye that has sternly reviewed the Warwickshire Yeomanry Cavalry, lacks something of its wonted brightness; whilst ROYDEN's black velvet suit sets off the added pallor of a countenance that tells of sleepless vigil. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... by the Powers, and I Full many a sleepless night have spent in anxious thought, because I'd find the tawny cock-horse out, what ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... terrible cough that racked her sleepless nights, despite her stomach's loathing for food, she passed the whole winter conquering and overcoming her own weakness and struggling with the ups and downs of ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... I cannot slumber so: Still burns that sleepless beauty on the mind; Still insupportable those visions glow; And hark! my spirit's aspirations find An answer in the leaves, ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps
... ever hammer fixed rivet," said the smith. "The town hath given the Johnstone a purse of gold, for not ridding them of a troublesome fellow called Oliver Proudfute, when he had him at his mercy; and this purse of gold buys for the provost the Sleepless Isle, which the King grants him, for the King pays all in the long run. And thus Sir Patrick gets the comely inch which is opposite to his dwelling, and all honour is saved on both sides, for what is given to the provost is given, you understand, to the town. Besides ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... richly endowed, capable of accommodating one thousand monks.[46] Its first inmates were taken from a fraternity known as the Akoimeti, 'the sleepless'; so named because in successive companies they celebrated divine service in their chapels day and night without ceasing, like the worshippers in the ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... and watch—it had lost its hope; when the doctors shook their heads and refused to meet Mrs. Holly's eyes; when the pulse in the slim wrist outside the coverlet played hide-and-seek with the cool, persistent fingers that sought so earnestly for it; when Perry Larson sat for uncounted sleepless hours by the kitchen stove, and fearfully listened for a step crossing the hallway; when Mr. Jack on his porch, and Miss Holbrook in her tower widow, went with David down into the dark valley, and came so near the rushing river that life, with its petty prides and prejudices, ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... lain so heavy on it; and I swear to you, Gonzaga, that, instead of feeling surprised to find my cheeks so lank, and my eyes so hollow, you would rather be amazed to find an ounce of flesh upon my bones, did you know how careful are my days, and how sleepless my nights, under the perpetual harassments of civil war!—The haughty burgesses of Ghent, whom I could hate from my soul but that they are townsmen of my illustrious father, the low-minded Walloons, the morose Brugeois, the artful Brabancons—all the varied tribes, in short, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... what sleepless vigilance I have watched you ever since the commencement of your affair; and although I am almost confident it is useless, I cannot forbear once more to say that I think it is even yet possible for your spirits to flag down and leave you miserable. If they should, don't fail to remember that ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... being young—and pretty; how could he help looking after her, and wanting to save her from this mess! Thus he sat wondering, dismayed by the unreasonableness of women. It did not enter his head that Mrs. Ercott had been almost as sleepless as his niece, watching through closed eyes every one of those little expeditions of his, and saying to herself: "Ah! He doesn't care ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... doing duty on the outskirts of the city, and was now participating in the nocturnal fights of the interior. It had been at San Fernando de Pampanga for a little more than a month and both officers and men showed the wear and tear of sleepless nights and tropical climate, which tested the hardihood of the stoutest constitution ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... the information she had given Hyacinth about her sleepless night, and complimented ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... Barbara spoke wearily, and Kent, giving her close attention, grew aware of dark shadows under her eyes which told plainly of a sleepless night. "I want to engage you as our counsel to help Helen find out about ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... train went through towns and cities, crawled up the sides of hills and fell down into forest-clad valleys, she got up and dressed to sit all day looking at a new kind of land. The train ran for a day and through another sleepless night in a flat land where every field was as large as a farm in her own country. Towns appeared and disappeared in a continual procession. The whole land was so unlike anything she had ever known that she began ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... said, he said "reab-reab!" it is false. From the pains taken by the natives to keep Hussey and myself apart, it was evident that they were in some measure afraid of us; but from what cause I had yet to learn. After passing a sleepless night, we again in the morning pursued our labors, but I was continually agitated by fearful apprehensions. About midnight I overheard some of the natives in the tent talking about me, and I was now convinced that some injury was contemplated. I then asked them what ...
— A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe, of Nantucket, in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 • William Lay
... the more piquant the situation for one who was in it; and there were moments of a sleepless night in which Langholm found nothing new to regret. But he was in a quandary none the less. He could scarcely meet Mrs. Steel again without a word about the prospective story, which they had so often discussed together, and upon which he was at last free to embark; nor could ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... her feet when Miss Farwell entered. The nurse greeted her, but the poor girl who had spent an almost sleepless night, stood regarding the woman before her with a kind of envying wonder. What right had this creature to be so happy while she ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... love the world too well, and have spent many wretched, sleepless nights because I was unwilling to leave it: but that time is passed. If I have any fear now, it is that my work on earth will not be well done before I am ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell
... counted. "And into which class, gentlemen, would you put the emotions that are being experienced now by the man we are trying? He, that murderer, is spending the night in a convict cell here in the court, sitting or lying down and of course not sleeping, and throughout the whole sleepless night listening to that chime. What is he thinking of? What visions ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... leave her out of anything," had been said. "He has somehow established her as if she were his mother or his aunt—or his interpreter. And such clothes, my dear, one doesn't behold. Worth and Paquin and Doucet must go sleepless for weeks to invent them. They are without a flaw in shade or line or texture." Which was true, because Mrs. Mellish of the Bond Street shop had become quite obsessed by her idea and committed extravagances Miss Alicia offered up contrite prayer to atone for, while Tembarom, simply chortling ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sensible, but helplessly benumbed, was lingering through the tedious hours, to die in the morning, knolled by the shouts of victory. All night long "the havoc did not cease." In the very noon of darkness, a sleepless rest was invaded and broken by such extraordinary efforts as those to which the Governor-General in person excited the 80th and 1st European light infantry. And it well merits remembrance, what we know from other sources, that in these midnight charges, the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... and be hoisted with cranes to their resting place within the ship. And Captain Blake, with his heart in his throat through fear of some failure, some slip in their plans—Captain Blake, of the gaunt, worn frame, and face haggard from sleepless nights—stood quietly at a control board while the great doors of the hangar ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... almost before he was conscious of it, he began by reflecting on the baseness of the part he was preparing to act; and ended, by determining not to endure the misery of privation and disappointment, if he could succeed in seducing her. Having devised, in the course of a sleepless night, as many arguments as were necessary to satisfy his own morality, and formed a plan for securing a long interview, he set off for the chase; returning after a short time, under pretence of sudden indisposition, and retiring to bed, he sent to request a visit ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... whosoever of all the ephemeral seed, Live there a life no liker to the gods But nearer than their life of terrene days. Love thou such life and look for such a death. But from the light and fiery dreams of love Spring heavy sorrows and a sleepless life, Visions not dreams, whose lids no charm shall close Nor song assuage them waking; and swift death Crushes with sterile feet the unripening ear, Treads out the timeless vintage; whom do thou Eschewing embrace the ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... could have brought herself to say so if she had been looking into Nellie Mayo's blue eyes, which looked tired and a little less blue than as I remembered them. They had pathetic purple shadows under them, which told of sleepless nights with the babies, and there were fine lines around her mouth; but her light-brown hair was as smooth and her dress as ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... my liege, Too well I know our need, and long have tossed Through sleepless nights, if haply I might find Some remedy, but that which I have found Shows ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... screen. Mark me, how still I am! But should there dart One moment through thy soul the soft surprise Of that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,— Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apart Thy visage to mine ambush at thy heart Sleepless with ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... he almost fancied that he could hear a very low murmur of voices. Telling himself that it was only his imagination, he rolled over again and tried to sleep, but the excitement and the uncertainty made him sleepless. Again he heard a low mutter of subdued voices, then he sat straight ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... large and murmurous sound, apparently from very far off, had begun to steal upon her ears, level and deep, suggestive almost of the vast slumber of a world and of the underthings that are sleepless but keep at ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... hour she sat in her close hot room, unable to think clearly on the subject, oppressed with a weak drowsy feeling she could not account for. At last she remembered that she had spent an anxious sleepless night, and had taken no refreshment during the day, and rousing herself she went downstairs to ask the landlady to give her some tea. It refreshed her, and lying down without undressing on her bed, she fell into a deep sleep, from which she did not awake until about ten o'clock. Lying there, ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... his heart, but he was not unwilling to keep his promise to steal the Apples, if only for the sake of tormenting the other gods. But how was it to be done? Idun guarded the golden fruit of immortality with sleepless watchfulness. No one ever touched it but herself, and a beautiful sight it was to see her fair hands spread it forth for the morning feasts in Asgard. The power which Loki possessed lay not so much in his own strength, although he had a smooth way of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Ford was obliged to be content, spending a sleepless night and an impatient day, waiting for the ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... arose from a sort of sense of protected danger. On that memorable night, I had been as it were naked to all the silence, alone in the vast universe, which kept looking at me full of something it knew but would not speak. Now, when wandering about sleepless, I could gaze as from a nest of safety out upon the beautiful fear. From window to window I would go in the middle of the night, now staring into a blank darkness out of which came, the only signs of its being, the ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... night was almost sleepless, for whenever the boy dropped off, with the light of the fire they kept up glancing on the canvas, he started back into wakefulness again, wondering whether the river was still going down, or some fancied sound meant a fresh accession ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... dull beer-apostle till he's hoarse Vent his small spleen and spite, Fate fill his sleepless night With nightmares of invincible remorse! We sing Champagne, the sparkling soul of mirth, That bubbling o'er with laughing gas, Flashes gay sunbeams in the glass, And like our flag goes proudly round ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... cross upon my breast. I went to suffer—to endure,—if possible, to forget. Oh, the grief of the soul which lives on in the night, and looks for no dawning! Oh, the weary weight that presses down the tired eyelids, and yet leaves them sleepless! Oh, the tide of alien faces, and the sickening remembrance of one, too dear, which may never be looked upon again! I carried with me the antidote to every pleasure. In the midst of crowds, I was alone. In the midst of novelty, the one thought came, and made all stale to me. Like Dr. ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... test with flying colors. Here a new cancer-like degenerative disease had been appearing among the natives of the planet. It had never before been noted. Initial attempts to find a causative agent had all three of the Lancet's crew spending sleepless nights for a week, but Jack's careful study of the pattern of the disease and the biochemical reactions that accompanied it brought out the answer: the disease was caused by a rare form of genetic change which made crippling alterations in an essential ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... is sleepless in the pursuit of knowledge. It is ever seeking new fields of conquest. It must advance: with it, standing still is the precursor of defeat. If necessary it invents new methods of attack, and rests not until it gains its objective point, or ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... chanted to my ear. I would not that they should perish, forgotten, by the roadside. In my turn, therefore, I have made of them a song, rhymed as well as I am able, and often has their shaping kept me sleepless in my bed. ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France
... the garden next morning at six, after a sleepless night, and she occupied herself till noon in going about among the cottagers carrying those small comforts which she had been in the habit of taking them, and listening patiently to those various distresses which they were very glad to ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... occasionally might be seen to glisten in her eye, betrayed the trouble within. A whole week elapsed, a longer period than had ever passed before without a letter from Philip Hayforth—a fortnight—a month—and the poor girl's appetite failed, her nights were sleepless, and her drooping figure and pining looks told of that anxious suffering, that weary life-gnawing suspense, which is ten times more hard to bear than any evil, however great, of which we can ascertain the nature and discern ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... occupied my thoughts during a sleepless night in the cars. My abode in New Jersey had been a pleasant one. I had a fine yard and garden, and many agreeable neighbors. I loved my garden, and cultivated my own grapes, pears, peaches, apples, raspberries, currants, ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... ran through Chilo's whole body. But he thought that in the evening he would send Euricius for news to that house in which the thing had happened. Meanwhile he needed refreshment, a bath, and rest. The sleepless night, the journey to Ostrianum, the flight from the Trans-Tiber, had wearied ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... night was entirely sleepless after such, a day. I was over-tired, and the coffee would have been fatal to rest in any case. I tossed about restlessly till three o'clock, and then fell ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... room on the Friday morning, after a sleepless night, when Barthrop came in and handed me a telegram from the doctor. "Mr. Payne never recovered consciousness, and died an hour after the operation. All details arranged. Please await letter." I raised my eyes to Barthrop's ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Abingdon again referred to that distressing body of young women of the present day—'I wonder if they have ever kissed a lover's letter, or have slept with his picture underneath their pillows at night? Or have they ever lain sleepless for an hour because of a loved one's absence, or because of a cold word from him? Do they write verses, or exchange valentines, or ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... but the death of the soul is far more dreadful; and it is better that these people should suffer than that hundreds of precious souls should be lost through their evil communication. The care of the dear souls of my flock lieth heavily upon me, as many sleepless nights and days of fasting do bear witness. I have not taken counsel of flesh and blood in this grave matter, nor yielded unto the natural weakness of my heart. And while some were for sparing these workers of iniquity, even as Saul spared Agag, I have been strengthened, as it were, to hew ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... made Frederick uneasy. The first time he had seen Mara, she seemed to him the incarnation of childish purity and innocence. But since then, rumours had reached his ears which shook his faith in her chastity and caused him many agonised hours and sleepless nights. He had even had an excellent opinion of her father, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... administration wrought a wonderful change in the city. The weary, forlorn look of those who had great interests at stake gradually wore off; business was as brisk as in the old times, and the Custom-house was being worked with a promptitude hitherto unknown in the Islands. There were no more sleepless nights, fearing an attack from the dreaded rebel or the volunteer. The large majority of foreign (including Spanish) and half-caste Manila merchants showed a higher appreciation of American protection than of the prospect of sovereign independence under a Philippine ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... being made known to Mrs. McGillavorich, she came down immediately, with a white face and tired, sleepless eyes. ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... and principles, and a whole soul warmed by a patriot's fire;—to see before your eyes the scissors of the censor ready to lop your ideas, maim your arguments, murder your thoughts, render vain your laborious days and sleepless nights;—to know that the people will judge you, not by what you have felt, thought, written, but by what the censor will let you say;—to perceive that the prohibition has no rule or limit but the arbitrary ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... water, or the sound of falling breakers fringing the rocks of perilous seas in fairy lands forlorn! But sleep would not come; the panorama of the world spun from scene to scene all the faster as he tossed limply and wearily. Custos, quid de nocte? How slowly passes the night, and night sleepless merges into sleepless day, and for a week the struggle hangs on the winning line of Disease. Each time the thermometer is drawn from his mouth an ever new-born hope which has risen dies with the whispered score, but still the heart pumps strenuously, telling ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... cries with kisses and laid them tenderly back in their bed, and they were soon happy and merrily playing together. Meanwhile the father, not even taking off his boots, threw himself on the bed with a weary air. His face was white from exhaustion and a sleepless night; he did not close his eyes but ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient. That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too, have felt the same, so that your article seemed familiar to me. It was conceived on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "And we are not all on the spot!" Lysistrata: "Oh! If it were what you have in mind, there would never be an absentee. No, no, it concerns a thing I have turned about and about, this way and that, for many sleepless nights." When the plot has been explained, viz.: that the women refuse intercourse to their husbands until after peace has been declared—Calonice: "But suppose our poor devils of husbands go away and leave us"' Lysistrata: "Then, as Pherecrates says, 'we must flay ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... review. That virgin effort of yours, I assure you, I greatly enjoyed—as an amateur, however, be it understood. It was redolent of sincere conviction, of genuine enthusiasm. The article was evidently written some sleepless night under feverish conditions. That author, I said to myself, while reading it, will do better things than that. How now, I ask you, could I avoid connecting that with what followed upon it? Such a tendency was but a natural one. Am I saying anything I should not? Am I at this moment committing ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... in protecting the railway docks and other points of landing at Brockville, besides patrolling the river banks as far east as Maitland, thus keeping up a chain of communication with the garrison at Prescott. Several "scares" occurred during the time they were on service, which caused sleepless nights, but by their vigilance the Fenians were deterred from making an attack. All were prompt, willing and eager to obey every command, and were warmly commended for the soldierly manner in ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... the beast, is bound to cry 'Yes.' So you see, their natures are different one from the other. The muzhik has his nature, and the gentleman has his. When the peasant has a full stomach, the gentleman passes sleepless nights. Of course, every fold has its black sheep, and I have no desire to defend the ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... of professional contentment can quite atone for the strain of many sleepless nights; and, more than once that summer, Doctor Keltridge had been strongly tempted to call a halt in the whole undertaking. Then, at the last minute, he had stayed his prohibition. Opdyke, in all surety, was working far beyond his strength. None the less, it seemed to the old ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... longer disguise the truth from herself—he was as truly half of her as she was of him—and she shivered at the thought of a life to be gone through in which she should never more see his face, or hear his voice. It was as sad a night, and as sleepless, as that she had spent in her cousin's house in Edinburgh, when all doors had seemed to be shut against her, except the faint chance of a sub-matronship in a lunatic asylum. Now, two doors were open to her—one to a life of toil and dependence for herself and probably a happy ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... 21st.—After passing a sleepless night, listening to the roaring of cannon, and figuring to ourselves the devastation that must have taken place, we find to our amusement that nothing decisive has occurred. The noise last night was ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... it down. Neither you nor Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army while such a Spirit prevails in it; and now beware of rashness. Beware of rashness, but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward and give ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... morning we alighted at the station, high upon a viaduct, after a sleepless night, and drove to a small commercial hotel, the Cheval Blanc, in the Place des Arenes, nearly opposite the Luxembourg where the mystery-man of Europe had appointed to meet the infamous Despujol. When I inquired for a telegram one was ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... history. Much musing upon the strange circumstances thus disclosed, and profoundly cogitative on the best mode of action to be pursued, the "small hours," the first of them at least, surprised me in my arm-chair. I started up, and hastened to bed, well knowing from experience that a sleepless vigil is a wretched preparative for a morrow of active exertion, whether of ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... of ready-made science (to use his own expression) the first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, Captain Wragge joined his small family circle at breakfast-time, inflated with information for the day. He observed that Magdalen's face showed plain signs of a sleepless night. She made no complaint: her manner was composed, and her temper perfectly under control. Mrs. Wragge—refreshed by some thirteen consecutive hours of uninterrupted repose—was in excellent spirits, and up at heel (for a wonder) with ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... bridge he fell asleep again, so tired was he with the many sleepless nights he had spent ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... The emperor took the command, and hoisting his flag, sailed to Copenhagen. Here he was entertained for two months with profuse hospitality by the King of Denmark, during which time he studied, with sleepless vigilance, the institutions and the artistic attainments of ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... would have been necessary for her to be aware of the net spread for him by Irons, the struggle in his mind as he talked with Miss Wainwright, and the effort he was now making to bring himself up to the firmness needed for the important interview with Mr. Hubbard which lay before him. In the sleepless hours of the night, Fenton had gone over the ground again and again; he had painted to himself the baseness of the thing he meant to do, and all his instincts of loyalty, of taste, of good-breeding, rose against it; but none the less did he cling doggedly ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... Norton; think what my unhappiness must be both as a wife and a mother. What restless days, what sleepless nights; yet my own rankling anguish endeavoured to be smoothed over, to soften the anguish of fiercer spirits, and to keep them from blazing out to further mischief! O this naughty, naughty girl, who knew so well what she did; and who could look so far into consequences, that we thought she ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... But the peculiar situation in which they had been placed had developed in them some qualities which, in the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which had been enabled, by superior civilisation, by close union, by sleepless vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a numerous and hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in some measure trained both to military and to political functions. Almost every one was familiar with the use of arms, and was accustomed ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... performance was at Birmingham, Sept. 23, 1840, Mendelssohn himself conducting. After this performance it was considerably changed, and the whole scene of the watchman was added. The idea occurred to him after a sleepless night, during which, as he informed a friend, the words, "Will the night soon pass?" incessantly ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... to do, and as usual in such circumstances he drowsed, making up for much sleepless time. Suddenly the horse stopped and Nikita nearly fell forward ...
— Master and Man • Leo Tolstoy
... seemed at rest. Only one light was gleaming from a long low building which had been added to the coach houses of recent years for a motor garage. That one light, the Prince knew, was on his account. There his chauffeur waited, untiring and sleepless, with his car always ready for that last rush to the coast, the advisability of which the Prince had considered more than once during the last twenty-four hours. The excitement of the evening, the excitement of his unwonted outburst, was still troubling him. It was not often that he ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... reached and I had taken my seat in such a condition of helpless terror that I could not tell one person from another. Friends and foes were as one, and vainly did I try to distinguish them. My long confinement, burdened with harrowing anxiety, the sleepless night I had just spent, the unaccountable absence of my mother, had brought me to an indescribable condition. I felt dazed, as if I were no longer myself. I seemed to be another person—an on-looker—and in my heart dwelt a pity for the poor, lonely girl, with down-cast ...
— From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom • Lucy A. Delaney
... minutes Godfrey was asleep, and the sleepless Tartlet, who had gone to bed with his clothes on as usual, only betrayed himself by distant sighs. All at once—at about one in the morning—Godfrey was awakened ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... say that," his mother answered with an impatient look of sorrow. "You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since that Fifth of November. I hope never to pass seven such weeks again. Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look anybody in the face; and now you blame ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... earth a thousand discords ring, Man's fitful uproar mingling with his toil, 10 Still do thy sleepless ministers move on, ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... next two weeks. Think of the poor fellow's eagerness to make the most of his time, drawing plans of the forts, and going rapidly from one point to another to watch the marching of troops, patrols, and guards. Think of his sleepless nights, his fearful risk, the ever-present dread of being recognized by some Tory. All this we know nothing about, but his brave and tender heart must ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... out the whole scheme," he began, as if introducing the product of many sleepless nights' cogitations. "I'm going to leave England almost immediately—go on the Continent and loaf about—I've ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... wandering hither and thither along the shore of the Wan Water, sorely troubled about Glamerton and its careless people. Towards morning he had found himself in the town again, and, crossing the Glamour, had wandered up the side of the water, and so come upon the sleepless miller contemplating his mill in the embrace ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Brother Spyke's mission must have fifty dollars; how much could she give the Tract Society? Here was a dilemma-one which might have excited the sympathy of the House of the "Foreign Missions." The dignity of the family, too, was at stake. Many sleepless nights did this difficult matter cause the august old lady. She thought of selling another cripple! Oh! that would not do. Mr. Keepum had a lien on them; Mr. Keepum was a man of iron-heart. Suddenly it flashed upon her ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... Jesus was not to be found! They searched and searched again, but in vain! The anxious father, but the still more anxious mother, flew to every friend, to every fellow traveller—no tidings were to be heard! Ah, Simeon, thy sword is beginning to pierce this maternal breast! What a night of sleepless anxiety passed, and with what haste did they retrace their steps to Jerusalem! What could they imagine, but that some evil beast had taken their Joseph! The weeping mother chides her negligence, stops every passing stranger, fancies perhaps that some emissary of persecution ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... back, endeavouring to recollect what could have given rise to this charge. One morning, after a sleepless night, when he had tossed and turned on his uneasy bed, and risen unrefreshed, he hired a horse, for he had none in town, and went for a long ride. Coming back he turned into Rotten Row. He could not tell why he did so, for such places, affected by the gay, empty-headed votaries of fashion, ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... creatures; all babies are, in fact. Do you know the average rate of infant mortality in this country? Just think of the hundreds of thousands who do not survive the teething period. Imagine the anxieties, the sleepless nights, the sad little tragedies which come to so many homes. Then the epidemic diseases—measles, scarlet fever, meningitis. Let them survive all those, and what has the parent to face but the battle with other plagues, mental ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... night alying sleepless under the excitement of the novel pleasure whilst Allwork snored, Kitty frigged herself. The next night they frigged together. Betty said, "It's poor pleasure,—I likes a man, and you'll like a chap,—some ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... pyjamas of which he was so justly proud, was lying face downwards on his bed. Time passed. When at last he looked up, the candle which he had left alight at his bedside had burned down almost to the socket. He looked at his watch; it was nearly half-past one. His head ached, his dry, sleepless eyes felt as though they had been bruised from behind, and the blood was beating within his ears a loud arterial drum. He got up, opened the door, tiptoed noiselessly along the passage, and began to mount the stairs towards the higher floors. Arrived at the servants' quarters ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... fondly before me, The recollection of the lehua blossom of Puna, Brought hither on the tip of the wind, By the light keen wind of the fiery pit. Wakeful—sleepless with heart ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... of office for a generation. If more mischief happens in Turkey it will be on you that public displeasure will fall, and you may need a bridge for yourselves and not find one. I croak like a raven. Perhaps you may set it down to an almost totally sleepless night." ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... slippery, a horrible river of water poured forth, falling straightway by a channel exceeding narrow into the unseen gulf below. And lo! creeping from the rocks on either hand, angry serpents, with their long necks and sleepless eyes. The very waters found a voice and bade her depart, in smothered cries of, Depart hence! and [86] What doest thou here? Look around thee! and Destruction is upon thee! And then sense left her, in the immensity of her peril, as one ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... owner. Thus much said Gewar; and Hother was not slow to carry out his instructions. Planting his tent in the manner aforesaid, he passed the nights in anxieties and the days in hunting. But through either season he remained very wakeful and sleepless, allotting the divisions of night and day so as to devote the one to reflection on events, and to spend the other in providing food for his body. Once as he watched all night, his spirit was drooping and dazed with anxiety, when the Satyr cast a shadow ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... paused half a minute to debate the question. If she did there would be a sleepless night of terror for her nervous father at home. And she might be able to keep the path with the "Don's" aid. Personal fear she felt none; she was a thoroughly brave little woman, and there was a spice of adventure in braving the storm and going ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... and straight up to his room, feeling it intolerable to meet his sister; and there, the first sleepless night he had ever known, convinced him that to the convalescents it would be cruelty to send his intelligence, when it amounted to no more than that their poor little boy had been made over to an unscrupulous woman ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I spent some sleepless nights in reconciling myself to all this, and perhaps wept a little, too, at the thought that after years of separation I might be a stranger to my own darling. But at length I put my faith in "the call of the blood" to tell her she was mine, and then nothing remained except ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine |
