"All at once" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... go about to make any description of the confusion of mind he was in:—he shut himself in his closet, uncertain for some time how he should proceed; at last, as he considered there was not a possibility of reclaiming his son from whatever vice had led him thus all at once into such extravagancies, without first knowing what kind of vice it was; he resolved to talk to him, and penetrate, if possible, into the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... All at once the master of the ceremonies drew 'himself up, and wiping his forehead, gave a deep sigh, as much as to say, "I have done my best, and if I have not pleased you, the more is my loss, for I have tried hard," and ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... buried, some of his followers thought that he rose from the dead and came back to life again within three days, and showed himself to a few persons here and there,—coming suddenly and then vanishing, as a "ghost" is said to appear all at once and then vanish, or as the souls of other dead men are thought to "appear" to the spiritualists, who do not, however, see the ghosts, but only hear and feel them. Very strange stories were told about his coming to ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... it should be carried thither. The noble lord, himself, I have no doubt, a magistrate, himself at once a judge and a politician, accompanied by several gentlemen who are at once judges and politicians, will go to the bar of the Lords, who are all at once judges and politicians, will deliver the bill into the hands of the Chancellor, who is at once the chief judge of the realm and a Cabinet Minister, and will return hither proud of having purified the administration of justice ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the wood where she had been idly pacing for a few minutes, all at once she heard a crackling of twigs and dry leaves under somebody's active tread, just behind her. It did not sound like her lover's step. She looked around. The man, a stranger with strong features and thick beard, halted ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the Queen," and "The Red, White, and Blue," "Auld Lang Syne" and "Rule, Britannia," all at once and all together, and playing the tunes of them on mouth-organs and concertinas. They were shaking hands with one another and everybody else, and shedding tears of joy, and borrowing the pocket-handkerchiefs of sympathetic strangers to dry them, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... All at once the misery of his poverty arose up before him. It was not unendurable simply because he was ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... clean that I think the Dutch housewives must scour the very roofs of their houses every morning. In the midst of every village there is a jewel of a church with a shining steeple. While riding along at a height of 700 metres, we had beneath us a picture of Paul Potter's fifty leagues square. All at once the tableaux became animated. The people below had perceived the balloon. We heard cries expressive of astonishment, fright, and even of anger; but the feeling of fright seemed to predominate. We distinctly saw women in their chemises ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... passes safe through hurricanes and tempests, yet, if the pilot, even in a calm, has not a great care of it, a single wave, raised by a sudden gust, may sink her. It does not signify whether the enemy clambers in by the window, or whether all at once he shakes the foundation, if at last he destroys the house. In this life we sail, as it were, in all unknown sea. We meet with rocks, shelves, and sands; sometimes we are becalmed, and at other times we find ourselves tossed and buffeted by a storm. Thus we are never secure, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... squall is heralded by sudden gusts of wind. All at once the breeze increased into a gale. The corpse emphasized its dismal oscillations. It no longer swung, it tossed; the chain, which had been grinding, now shrieked. It appeared that its shriek was heard. If it was an appeal, it was obeyed. From the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... orchestra, "that when you look upon her your eyes shall speak devotion; that when you address her your voice shall be gentle, loving, and kind; that you shall not despise her because she cannot understand all at once your vigorous thoughts and ambitious designs; for, when misfortune and evil have defeated your greatest purposes, her love remains to console you. You look to the trees," she continued, while Hurstwood restrained his feelings only by ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... Then we must put it to a jury. May I make bold to ask whether you are going out of the country all at once?" ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... There were generally two or three priests, half a dozen merry peasants, and a sprinkling of small officers and country-townspeople, who respectively lost no time in establishing a pleasant intimacy with their neighbors. The unflagging chatter, in which all joined vivaciously, and often all at once, was in striking contrast with the silent gloom which would have enshrouded a similar party of English or American travelers. It was impossible to resist the contagion of cheerfulness or to refuse to mingle more or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... heard the horrid, sharp-faced, dark girl say that someone was stingy and deceitful and a lot of other unpleasant things. I thought the Picture Girl was going to stand up for the person, but that mean little Evil Genius wouldn't let her. Then all at once it came to me that it was this Mary girl they were talking about. It was really this one dark girl who said most of the mean things. The others just listened to her. At any rate, I'm going to find out who the Mary girl ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... European fame, and was apparently on the high road to fortune, but on the very threshold of his triumph a great sorrow and misfortune befell him, the full effect of which he did not experience all at once. In the closing days of 1546 he lost his wife. There is very scant record of her life and character in any of her husband's writings,[83] although he wrote at great length concerning her father; and the few words that are to be found here and there favour the view that she ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... Frederick of Prussia, and Napoleon Bonaparte, gained some of their most brilliant victories under the age of 30; but Caesar, from the age of 23 to 40, had seen nothing of war, and, notwithstanding, appears all at once as one of the greatest generals that the world has ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... on these coming Sabbath evenings will not understand the Holy War all at once, and many will not understand it at all. And little blame to them, and no wonder. For, fully to understand this deep and intricate book demands far more mind, far more experience, and far more specialised knowledge than the mass of men, as men are, can possibly bring ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... rigorous law, however, had one indulgent clause, that the lines exacted should not exceed two thirds of the yearly income of the person. It had been usual for Elizabeth to allow those penalties to run on for several years; and to levy them all at once, to the utter ruin of such Catholics as had incurred her displeasure. James was more humane in this, as in every other respect. The Puritans formed a sect which secretly lurked in the church, but pretended not to any separate worship or discipline. An attempt of that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... told: For many a year 't had kept its corner place; The owner said 'twas worth its weight in gold! One washing-eve, the Dame, to rise at four, Sought early rest, and, capped and gowned, did droop Fast as a church, to judge from nasal snore, That broke the silence with a hoarse hor-hoop: When all at once with fitful start she woke; For that same tinkling Dutchman on the stair Had told the hour of four with clattering stroke, And waked the sleeper ere she was aware. "Odd drat the clock!" she sighed; but, knowing well The cackling thing struck two at ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... knew perfectly well that he was not a heartless brute, but equally of course he felt that he must be a heartless brute as he stood by while Mrs. Bryant wept copiously. Of course he begged her to calm herself, and of course a long-drawn sob was her only answer. All at once there was a knock at the door. "Come in," said Percival, feeling that matters could not possibly be worse. It opened, and Lydia stood on the threshold, staring at the pair ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... by some faint but sudden recollection. All at once he looked with amazement around the room, and afterwards with a pause of inquiry, at his son. At length, a light of some forgotten memory appeared to flash at once across his brain; his countenance changed from the wild and unsettled expression which it bore, to one more stamped ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of beauty and happiness, and happy beyond question must their innocent lives have been for many pleasant months. But soon the shadows of care began to steal over their hitherto joyous faces, and traces of anxiety, perhaps of tears, to be too plainly visible on their paling cheeks. All at once I missed them in my morning's walk, and for several days—it might be weeks—saw nothing of them. I was at length startled from my forgetfulness of their very existence by the sudden apparition of both one Monday morning clad in the deepest mourning. I saw the truth ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... Yet all at once there happened something which revived much of his old zeal, and, in spite of everything, brought him once more prominently forward. A calamity had visited the town. By a great explosion in a neighbouring colliery, numbers of homes had been rendered destitute, and aid of every kind was ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... knowledge of each answer. It can't be patient, for it has to wait for nothing, having everything at once in its possession. It can't be surprised; it can't be guilty. No attribute connected with succession can be applied to it, for it is all at once and wholly what it is, 'with the unity of a single instant,' and succession is not of it but in it, for we are continually told that it ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... these were filling Jennie's mind as she stood looking out of the nursery window; but all at once she was aroused by the strong smell ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... would all have scorned to leave their shafts and drives for the sake of fossicking neighbouring streams and gullies. But—payable alluvial and plenty of it only twenty miles away! They needed time to take that in all at once. ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... one—interleaved with its details each page of the story, and made nonsense of it. I have shut the volume, therefore, and, with my hat tilted over my eyes, and my cheek on my hand, am watching the long blue dragon-flies, and the numberless small peoples that inhabit the summer air. All at once, I hear some one coming, crashing and pushing through the woody undergrowth. Perhaps it is Algy come to say that he has changed his mind, and that he will not go after all! No! it is only Mr. Musgrave. I am a little disappointed, but, as my fondness for my own company is always of the smallest, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... my face near his. I was thinking, "That's the way drowned people look," and my heart was near breaking, when all at once I saw David's lips quiver and some water flowing from them. Immediately I was shoved away and everybody crowded about him. "Swing him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... some horrible dream," she said, "and suddenly finding that everything's all right. Oh, I knew it would be in the end—I knew it the whole time—but I never dreamed it would happen all at once like this." ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... she had taken a dose of laughing-gas, at the sight of twenty boys and girls all at once, real boys, real girls! How long it was since she had seen any! She capered and jumped in a way which astonished Miss Inches, and her high spirits so infected the rest that a general romp set in, and the party grew noisy to ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... just entered the court from the great gate, when he heard all at once the hard peculiar twitter of alarm which sparrows make when a cat or a hawk invades their safety, rising all round from the thick ivy that overclimbed the wall on his left, and raising his eyes listlessly, he saw, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... six-and-seventy fighting-men. Hereupon the Miscreants and men of might hung back and would not encounter him; but Ajib cried out to his men and said, "Fie on you, O folk! if ye all go forth to him, one by one, he will not leave any of you, sitting or standing. Charge on him all at once and cleanse of them our earthly wone and strew their heads for your horses' hoofs like a plain of stone!" So they waved the ewe striking flag and host was heaped upon host; blood rained in streams upon earth and railed and the Judge of battle ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... but a school of mackerel, and the porpoises which fed on the silver fish, all made wonderful by the eerie fires of a summer sea; but I could not tell that all at once. I think that I knew what it was when the great sea pig leaped, for his shape was plain to me. The shoal went its way, and after it the harmless porpoises. But the sea was fairly alight now; all round me it shone with its soft glow, and my body was wondrous with it, and I seemed to float ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... on wondering and helpless. She had all at once grown frightened, and followed each of ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... all at once. It had been there, or at any rate the gist of it, for some time. But when it was present in full force, it had the power to make all the adulation, triumph, and hopefulness of his career seem but a small thing and of little ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... sat up in the veiled light made by a clouded moon. Rain points multiplied themselves on the window glass; I heard their sting. The impulse to go out and ride the wind, or pick the river up and empty it all at once into the bay, or tear Eagle out of the cloud, or go to France and proclaim myself with myself for follower; and other feats of like nature, being particularly strong in me, I struck the pillow beside me with my fist. Something bounced from it on the floor with a clack ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... wanderings he was almost always back in his college days, beholding them in an unhappy, distorted fashion. He would lie asprawl on the sward with the others, listening to the Seniors singing on the steps, and, all at once, the old, kindly faces would expand enormously and press over him with hideous mouthings, and an ugly Senior in cap and gown would stamp him and grind a spiked heel into his hand; then they would toss him high into air that was all flames, and he would fall and ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... the sofa and made some very sober reflections as he watched Coralie at her toilet. It would have been wiser to leave Coralie free than to start all at once with such an establishment; but Coralie was there before his eyes, and Coralie was so lovely, so graceful, so bewitching, that the more picturesque aspects of bohemia were in evidence; and he flung down the ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... bit of it," said Jucundus, confidently, "not a shadow of reproach; why should I reproach you? We can't be wise all at once; I had my follies once, as you may have had yours. It's natural you should grow more attached to things as they are,—things as they are, you know,—as time goes on. Marriage, and the preparation for marriage, sobers a man. You've been ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... wind. About eight we left the Banks. Just then we observed, that the sailor who sounded, having sung out five, then six, then in a few minutes seven, suddenly found no bottom, as if we had fallen off all at once from the brink of the Bank ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... tried to wound his trunk with their awls. The noble animal, who knew it was beneath him to crush them, did not hesitate to punish them by other means. He filled his large trunk with water, not of the cleanest quality, and advancing to them, as usual, covered them all at once with the very dirty flood. The fools were laughed ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... midst and was swallowed up. All at once. He had scarcely left the station, or set his foot on the pavement. Nothing happened; there were no words or gestures, but the serene exaltation of the flood flowed into him. The people were as yet pure from violence; they knew and believed themselves innocent, ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... An incorrect packet broadcast on a network that causes most hosts to respond all at once, typically with wrong answers that start the process over again. ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... coolness between old General Chattesworth and Devereux. He admired the young fellow, and he liked good blood in his corps, but somehow he was glad when he thought he was likely to go. When old Bligh, of the Magazine, commended the handsome young dog's good looks, the general would grow grave all at once, and sniff once or twice, and say, 'Yes, a good-looking fellow certainly, and might make a good officer, a mighty good officer, but he's wild, a troublesome dog.' And, lowering his voice, 'I tell you what, colonel, as long as a young buck sticks to his claret, it is all fair; but hang it, you see, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... says this, she glances entreatingly from one old lady to the other, with some trouble in her great eyes, and some tears. Then all at once her lips tremble to a smile, and a soft ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... into his face, with an eye in which meaning and madness seemed to struggle for the mastery. She gazed at him for a long time, put her hands upon his white hair, into which she gently twined her long white fingers; once or twice she smiled, and said something in a voice too low to be heard: but all at once she gave a convulsive start, clasped her hands wofully, and throwing herself ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... that he did not eat them all at once, but in a space of fifteen or twenty years: from that point of view the ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... the principal pilot by his advice: the directions of the subordinate pilot were conveyed to the rowers by another officer, who seems to have answered to the boatswain of our men of war. The rowers were enabled to pull all at once, or to keep time, by a person who sung and played to them while they were employed. During the night, or in difficult navigations, the charge of the sounding lead, or of the long poles, which were used ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... of light all at once broke upon the mind of the host as he was giving himself to the devil upon ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... before us, also of other birds she had never seen nor heard of, in other and distant lands that have a nobler bird life than ours; and after she had listened eagerly for some minutes, and had then been silent a little while, she all at once pressed her two hands together, and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, I do ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... to these spirits all at once, or all in one place, but in the several quarters as they went along on their progress through the domain. For each quarter the colour of the victim was different. A red victim was offered to the spirit of the south, and a black to that ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... the American, "but it had to tumble some time. You often hear that in the woods: they go on growing and growing for hundreds of years, and then they stop from old age and overgrowth, and begin to rot and rot, till all at once, night or day, the top's too heavy for the bottom, and down they come. We'll go and have a look at that one ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... in his favor. Walking at random he all at once heard a boy's whistle. He quickened his steps, and almost directly, to his great delight, he recognized, sauntering along, the very lad he had taken out in ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... that the value of a salute is very much enhanced if it cost a little trouble to obtain it, screamed and struggled, and ran into corners, and threatened and remonstrated, and did everything but leave the room, until some of the less adventurous gentlemen were on the point of desisting, when they all at once found it useless to resist any longer, and submitted to be kissed with a good grace. Mr. Winkle kissed the young lady with the black eyes, and Mr. Snodgrass kissed Emily; and Mr. Weller, not being particular ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... sweetly and played a little on the balalaeca. Hor was never weary of listening to him: all at once he would let his head drop on one side and begin to chime in, in a lugubrious voice. He was particularly fond of the song, 'Ah, my fate, my fate!' Fedya never lost an opportunity of making fun of his father, saying, 'What are you so mournful about, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... leave, therefore, she was getting ready a garment for herself to wear on the trip; and it was supposed that she sewed until midnight, or after, when she fell asleep, letting the goods fall into the candle. All at once, a little after twelve o'clock, I heard a scream, then a cry of "fire! fire!" and Boss yelling: "Louis! Louis!" I jumped up, throwing an old coat over me, and ran up stairs, in the direction of Mrs. Farrington's room, I encountered Boss in the hall; ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... you were talking to me, there in the hotel at Dubuque, telling me how horrified you were over that, it came over me all at once that I had nothing to forgive; that if the thing was a fault at all, it was mine as much as yours, and that it wasn't so much of a fault as an—accident. You couldn't help hating me, and you couldn't help loving me. And you did both at once. ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... sustain us and all at once they distress us. I have just lost my poor blind Duvernet, whom you have seen at our house. He expired very quietly without suspecting it and without suffering. There is another great void about us and my nephew, the substitute, has been nominated ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... limited to poker—friendly games an' pifflin' limit. Drinkin'—let's see, the only year since I can remember I don't drink nothin' I quit better than eight hundred dollars to the good—first time I ever had eight hundred dollars all at once in my life. What happens? Get to drinkin' for a half a day, an' Bing! Off comes a hundred, maybe two hundred to pay up for the hell I raised! Does it pay? Not for a married man! Not for me! An' besides, what was it she said when ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... "Let me get it all at once," Malone told him. "I'm strong. I can take it." He twisted his hat again and turned back to the little ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... All at once I was aroused from my apathy by a shout from the front calling out to the cavalcade to halt. I must observe a fellow on foot was leading the way in quality of guide. A pretty sort of a guide he turned out to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... with an easy, gliding motion, passing up the ascent, somewhat steeper than the roof of a house, without the slightest apparent effort. But if the going up excites tremor, much more peculiar are the feelings aroused on the down grade. The trip begins with a gentle descent, and all at once the traveler looking ahead sees the road apparently come an end. On a nearer approach he is undeceived and observes before him a long decline which appears too steep even to walk down. Involuntarily he catches ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 821, Sep. 26, 1891 • Various
... as personified by her own children, got slight consideration, and to whom literature, as embodied in a stranger, was little less than a joke. "Wouldn't it result in a good deal of a mix-up? What would have happened to you youngsters if your father and I had all at once taken it ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... for some days been brought in less quantities than usual, we enquired the reason, and were told, that there being a great shew of fruit upon the trees, they had been thinned all at once, in order to make a kind of sour paste, which the natives call Mahie, and which, in consequence of having undergone a fermentation, will keep a considerable time, and supply them with food when no ripe fruit is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... an hour, the train had gone puffing on its way, the omnibuses of the various hotels had started one after another at a good trot up the street leading to the city, and the June sun seemed to enjoy lighting up this happy group of excellent people. But Madame Renault cried out all at once that the poor child must be dying of hunger, and that it was barbarous to keep him waiting for his dinner any longer. There was no use in his protesting that he had breakfasted at Paris, and that the voice of hunger appealed to him less strongly than that of joy. They all got into two carriages, ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... Olivier's words had come true. After the death of his friend the source of his inward life had not all at once dried up: but it had become strangely intermittent: it flowed in sudden gushes, then stopped, then disappeared under the earth. Christophe had paid no heed to it: what did it matter to him? His grief and his budding passion had absorbed his mind.—But after the ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... this generator is 5.75 kilowatts, one does not have to limit the electrical conveniences in the home to this amount. True, he cannot use more electricity than his plant will produce at any one time,—but it is only by a stretch of the imagination that one may conceive the necessity of using them all at once. Ironing, baking, and the use of small power are usually limited to daylight hours when no ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... All at once the mule reared, and began to beat the air frantically with his fore-hoofs; after which he fell heavily backward into the nearest armchair (which was, fortunately, a solid and capacious piece of furniture) with his fore-legs hanging limply at his side, ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... All at once, at the base of the tall column of wood there was a rent which seemed to run to the top, like a painful shock; it bent slightly, ready to fall, but still resisting. The men, in a state of excitement, stiffened their arms, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... at. When I met you again to-night, I didn't remember your name. You didn't remember my name. What of that? We know each other pretty well—don't you think we do? The way you looked at me, when I came across to speak to you—I don't know, but it made me believe, all at once, that maybe you had been thinking of me, the same as I had been thinking of you. If I'm saying more than I have a right to say, head me off, but, for once in ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... get us, there were guys on the radio with those cool voices, and Sid was tiredly saying "Roger," to all their questions. And we didn't do any moving about. You'd be surprised how weighing four hundred pounds makes you willing to wait for the crane to lift you from your seat. All at once I almost wanted to be back in space again, where I didn't weigh anything at ...
— The Trouble with Telstar • John Berryman
... French fairy tales could quite drive away the fillagree box. Indeed it introduced its horrid face before her into the midst of a multiplication sum, and Mademoiselle thought she was bewitched to have grown so stupid over her arithmetic all at once. She spent a half hour over that one sum, and when it was done she was so much tired she gave up lessons for the day. Besides, she had to prepare for her friends. She went into her boudoir, opened her cabinets and unfolded her treasures of various sorts—oh I can't tell ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... little sister with almost a dazed feeling. How rapidly this flower she had so cherished was unfolding before her eyes! And what was its quality to be? No modest daisy or violet certainly, nor yet a gaudy, flaunting tulip, but something bright, sweet, surprising, and enticing, all at once; and she thought of a carnation-pink shooting up from amid its ragged foliage, vivid, brilliant, and of a spicy fragrance. She watched the guests, also, with a critical eye, and was much pleased to note that Molly had shown good ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... departed and rode till the hour of noon; and he met in a valley about twenty men of arms. And when they saw Sir Perceval, they asked him whence he was; and he answered: "Of the court of King Arthur." Then they cried all at once, "Slay him." But Sir Perceval smote the first to the earth, and his horse upon him. Then seven of the knights smote upon his shield all at once, and the remnant slew his horse, so that he fell to the earth. So had they slain him or taken him, had not the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... bottle-brush; or we happen to be playing amicably together and I bark behind your back—bow, wow-wow!—just for fun; then,—one doesn't know why, perhaps because my nose has grazed the long hairs on your legs you're so proud of—you become all at once a savage beast, spitting fire, and charging at me like a strange dog. Don't you think that shows ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... frantic, he stood swaying his body backward and forward, almost touching the ground in his fearful contortions, and wagging his head until it seemed as if he must dislocate it from his shoulders. All at once he drew from the fire a red-hot bar of iron, and with a yell of horror, which sent a shiver down one's back, held it up before his eyes. More violently than ever he swayed his body and wagged his head, until he had worked himself up to a climax of excitement, when he passed the glowing ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... came last into the library ; he was in high spirits, and full of mirth and sport. I had the honour of sitting next to him: and now, all at once, he flung aside his reserve, thinking, perhaps, that it was time I should fling ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... bring in the dead and wounded," he ordered, and together we, the victorious garrison, dragged the slain warrior into the shadow of the stump. All at once he became alive, jumped up ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... clean pine. We were both perfectly worn out, but we could not sleep. There seemed to be hundreds of different noises of the storm, for there are so many canons, so many crooks and turns, and the great forest too. The wind was shrieking, howling, and roaring all at once. A deep boom announced the fall of some giant of the forest. I finally dozed off even in that terrible din, but Zebbie was not so frenzied as he had been. He was playing "Annie Laurie," and that song has always been a favorite of mine. The storm began gradually to die away and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... crackers to eat. She made a perfectly splendid presidential candidate at one of the meetings. She looked ever so much like him too as she sat gravely on the platform with her hair parted on one side, and a borrowed silk hat clasped to the bosom of her brother's dress suit. When all at once her face crinkled in a sudden irresistible smile, even the seniors said she was dear. But this time she said she'd rather not be a wardheeler. She wouldn't come to a banquet of the gang the night before election day either. She said she guessed she ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... surprise of all a noise was at this moment heard in a corner of the terrace, and Hassan himself appeared surrounded by slaves, clapping his hands and shouting with joy. 'I was weeping as usual,' cried he, 'when all at once the tears refused to come to my eyes, and on looking down at my hand I saw that its blackness had vanished. And now, lovely Zelida, nothing prevents me any longer from offering you the hand, when the heart has ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... we were steaming behind the R——, when all at once she steered out and backed, amid much running around on board. At first we thought she saw a submarine and stood by our guns. Then we saw she had a man overboard. We immediately dropped our lifeboat, and I went in charge for the fun of it. Beat the R——'s boat to him. He had no life-preserver, ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... that something should bring down the price of cotton once and forever, and make the whole slave property a drug in the market, don't you think we should soon have another version of the Scripture doctrine? What a flood of light would pour into the church, all at once, and how immediately it would be discovered that everything in the Bible and ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... where that strange flower of girlhood had budded and blossomed. All at once Barrie, in her quaintness, became a readable riddle ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... niece since she had chosen to elope with the doctor's reprobate son. Now the father and mother were dead and buried, the brothers and sisters reinstated in their rights and had all grown up and become great credits to the old lady, whose heart had suddenly melted at the arrival of five orphans all at once. And there was only Jack to continue to ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... the individual, but to have been inherent in the germ. But, on the other hand, it is absolutely incapable of explaining instincts as sagacious as those of most insects. These instincts surely could not have attained, all at once, their present degree of complexity; they have probably evolved; but, in a hypothesis like that of the neo-Darwinians, the evolution of instinct could have come to pass only by the progressive addition of new pieces which, in some way, by happy accidents, came to fit into the old. Now it ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... They had not held much conference together since their first conversation, and as time goes on, Christian has no more talk but with himself, and that sometimes sighingly, and sometimes more comfortably. When, all at once, the three men come on the hill Difficulty. A severe act of self-denial has to be done at this point of their pilgrimage. A proud heart has to be humbled to the dust. A second, a third, a tenth place has to be taken in the praise of men. An outbreak of anger and wrath has to be kept under for hours ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... old rhyme of "Chitterbob," but it is usual in repeating this to say it all at once, in one round, and not prolong the task. This ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... fields Flashed all at once his eagles into sight And all his trumpets blared. But ere the sword Could win the battle, on the hostile ranks Dread panic fell; prone as in death they lay Where else upright they should withstand the foe; Nor more availed their valour, and in vain The cloud of weapons flew, with none to slay. Then ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... by saying: "Pap, I can't make them hens out. Here they are a-layin' right along, and all at once they quit layin' decent sized eggs like they ought, and begin layin' little mean things no better ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... and extended them. Compressing carbonic acid at 13 deg. C. (55 deg. Fahr.), he found that the rate of diminution in volume increased more rapidly than Mariotte's law demanded, and at a progressive rate. At fifty atmospheres the gas all at once assumed the liquid form, became very dense, and fell to the bottom of the vessel, where it remained separated from its vapor by a clearly defined surface, like that which distinguishes water in the air. Experimenting in the same way with the gas at a higher temperature (21 deg. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... the members of a society all at once, it is obvious that the group would be permanently done for. Yet the death of each of its constituent members is as certain as if an epidemic took them all at once. But the graded difference in age, the fact that some are born as some die, makes possible ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... by word, and line by line, The dead man touch'd me from the past, And all at once it seem'd at last His living soul ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes and never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose—a deliberate plan, too—sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out of ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... yard or two, his wings and ruffled crest making a ragged outline; jerk, jerk, jerk, as if it were with the utmost difficulty he could keep even at that height. He scolds, and twitters, and chirps, and all at once sinks like a stone into the hedge and out of sight as a stone into a pond. It is a whitethroat; his nest is deep in the parsley and nettles. Presently he will go out to the island apple tree and back again in a minute or two; the pair of them are so fond of each other's ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... couchant, worked in worsted by the venerable hand of the eldest matron—offered to procure her a real cat of the true Persian breed, black ears four inches long, with a tail like a squirrel's; and then slid, all at once, into the unauthorized invitation of the good ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is held, all at once this new land of their adoption begins to take an interest in them, and political heelers, well paid for the job, well armed with whiskey, cigars and money, go among them, and, in their own language, tell them ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... out from their journey, with soil'd clothes, and all bloody. I distributed these articles, gave partly to the nurses I knew, or to those in charge. As many as possible I fed myself. Then I found a lot of oyster soup handy, and bought it all at once. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of refusal to retreat. I yearned for Fred's camp-fires, and Fred's laugh, hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever the meal would be, and blankets. Will, with a ruthless murderer stalking him in the dark, yearned only for self-contentment. All at once I saw the thing to do, and thrust my ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... all at once, I did not mean," said Mrs. Gaunt; "but by little and little, you know. We must begin with the flowers: God made them; and so to be sure he will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... prospects of the turpentine crop talked over, the recent news canvassed, the usual neighborly topics touched upon, and—I hesitate to confess it—a considerable quantity of corn-whisky disposed of, before the Colonel discovered, all at once, that it was six o'clock, and we were still seventeen miles from the railway station. Arraying ourselves again in our dried garments, we bade a hasty but regretful 'good-by' to our hospitable entertainers, and once more took to ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... not thinking of marrying Mr. Dunke's millions. The only thing is that I don't have a Croesus to exhibit every day at my chariot wheels. It's horrid of course, but I have a natural feminine reluctance to surrendering him all at once. I don't object in the least to trampling on him, but somehow I don't feel ready for ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... I could give you pleasanter and more desirable news, but certain things cannot be changed or broken through all at once. From Austria you cannot expect much for the recovery of your personal liberty. It would be half a miracle if anything of the kind should happen. Even the performance of your operas at Vienna is an example of exceptional toleration, ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... wrapped in my cloak more snugly, crept out forward on the little deck, a sort of look-out. To be honest, I began to wish ourselves on our way back, as the black, angry-looking swells chased us up, and flung the foam upon the bow and stern. All at once, whole squadrons of fog swept up, and swamped the whole of us, boat and berg, in their thin, white obscurity. For a moment we thought ourselves foiled again. But still the word was, "On!" And on they pulled, the hard-handed fishermen, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... burned brightly on the counter, its rays reflected in the burnished mahogany. All at once Fergus seized it on his own initiative, and set it on the floor before his kneeling elder, going upon his own knees on the other side. And where the plain linoleum ended, but where the overlapping border covered the floor, the planks ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... All at once Badshah slackened his pace and began to advance with the caution of a tusker stalking an enemy. Confident in the animal's extraordinary intelligence Dermot cocked his rifle. The elephant suddenly turned off the path and moved noiselessly through the undergrowth for a ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... remembered the girl's telephoning to her dressmaker. And, all at once, he understood. Even before he spoke, at the very moment when he asked for an interview as M. Destange's new secretary, she had scented danger, guessed the visitor's name and object and, coolly, naturally, as though ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... long disposed myself thus, when the beat sprang into life with a suddenness and intensity which made me pretty sure that they had disturbed some animal. The shouting, cat-calling, and tom-tomming increased in violence, when all at once I heard a quick and rather hurried tread, tread, tread over the dry teak-leaves, and, looking that way, out of the dense jungle into the sunlit glade before me came a ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... All at once, he realized that, since he had wakened that morning, he had been wanting to see Audrey. He wanted to talk to her, real talk, not gossip. Not country houses. Not personalities. Not recrimination. Such talk as Audrey herself had always ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... All at once, the hunters descried four Indian warriors in the path in front. They were splendidly mounted, their hair ornamented with stained eagle feathers, their ugly countenances daubed with yellow, black and crimson paint, and they were ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis |
