"Last gasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... holy transport of zeal, that if all Japan, and all Europe, if the Father's of the Society, and the Pope himself, should renounce our Saviour Jesus Christ; yet, for his own particular, he would confess him to the last gasp; and be always ready, with God's assistance, to shed his blood, in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... troubled dreams, in which gymnoti play a conspicuous part. He imagines himself still floundering amidst these monsters, assailed from all sides by their galvanic batteries, and that they have dragged him down into the mud, where he is fast getting asphyxiated. When in his last gasp, as it were, he is relieved, by awaking from his uneasy slumbers; which he does suddenly, and ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... to the last gasp. She did not betray herself, except by the paleness, the seriousness which she could not banish from her countenance. Her guests thought that Lady Randolph must be ill, that she was disguising a bad headache, or even something more serious, under the smile with which she received ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... have made it by no means unwelcome. From Christmas 1844 he was compelled to take to his bed, and was fated never to leave his room again. The ensuing Spring, throughout which the poet lay seemingly almost at the last gasp day by day, was a lovely one. At times he was delirious; but mostly quite clear in mind, and full of gentleness and resignation. "Dying, dying," were his last words; and shortly before, "Lord, say 'Arise, take ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... literally packed throughout the convention; and, from the letters we have already received urging us to go hither and thither throughout the West, "The prairies seem to be all on fire with woman's suffrage." While politicians are trying to patch up the Republican party, now near its last gasp, the people in the West are getting ready for the new national party, to combine the best elements of both the old ones, soon to be buried forever out of sight. Woman's suffrage, greenbacks, free trade, homesteads for all, eight hours labor, and three per cent the legal interest, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of all—with what grace they deck their gallantry! A few seconds before being killed by an exploding shell, Col. Doury, ordered to resist to the last gasp, replies: "All right! We will resist. And now, boys, here is the password: Smile!" It is like a flower thrown on the scientific brutality of modern war, that memory of the days when men went to war with lace on their sleeves. There we recognize the French soldier such ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... pastimes without Pleasure, Youth without Honour, Age without respect, Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe 'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,[477] Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts, Then, in the last gasp of thine agony, Amidst thy many murders, think of mine! Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes![478] Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom![fx][479] Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods! 100 Thee and thy serpent seed! [Here the DOGE turns and addresses the Executioner. Slave, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... poor little martyr to her last gasp, he added that, while he declined to disparage the work of a late fellow-artist, he considered Pomarancio's paintings beneath criticism; he then paused and took snuff. The Queen smiled ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... us with nothing but the common bare passion, but in the imitation some dexterity and persuasiveness appears, we are naturally inclined to be disturbed at the former, whilst the latter delights us. It is unpleasant to see a sick man, or one at his last gasp; yet with content we can look upon the picture of Philoctetes, or the statue of Jocasta, in whose face it is commonly said that the workmen mixed silver, so that the brass might depict the face and color of one ready to ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... shouted his name, but no answer came. They searched about, keeping within hail of each other. At length Jumbo cried out, "Here he is, and he no speak." They hurried up, but poor Sam was apparently at the last gasp. Having poured some water, however, down his ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... well-provided foe. All was confusion and panic, when Zumalacarregui opposed his zeal and energy to the contagion of alarm that was rapidly spreading amongst his men. His precautions, his decided and inflexible character, gave life to a cause apparently at the last gasp. Encouraging some, rousing others from the lethargy into which they were sinking, he proceeded resolutely with the organization of his three battalions, introduced strict discipline and subordination, and procured five ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... humbug us by pretending they are ill. Yet, as I had told Rolf, we had one of these exceptions at the farm; it was an ox that would always lie down and sham dead, if not in the mood to work; he then stretched out his limbs and looked at his last gasp ... but no sooner did we leave him to himself than he was on his legs again and off to his stall. No amount of chastisement brought him to reason. And it was this immoral action that had jumped with Rolf's views when—without having been asked—he at once ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... in the picture house a heartrending, soul thrilling melodrama was at its last gasp. The long suffering heroine was in the arms of the long misjudged, misfortune-ridden, but ever ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... smile on if both were being birched. Was that a raven or Benson? He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like —something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's croak. The fellow'll be killing him. It's time to go to the rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he forestalled ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that Mussulman civilisation, which at its brightest periods produced the beautiful mosque of the Sultan Bayazid at Amasia, is at its last gasp; for we can, with safety, affirm that not a single grand thought, either social, religious, or political, any longer connects together the four millions of inhabitants which the Porte numbers in this part of ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... alarming commotion arose among the inhabitants of Warsaw, and nearly four thousand men of the first families in the kingdom assembled themselves in the park of Villanow, and with tumultuous eagerness declared their resolution to resist the invaders of their country to their last gasp. The Prince Sapieha, Kosciusko, and Sobieski, with the sage Dombrowski, were the first who took this oath of fidelity to Poland; and they administered it to Thaddeus, who, kneeling down, inwardly invoked Heaven to aid him, as he swore to ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... sometimes looking almost perpendicularly down upon the point which we had passed half an hour ago. Nothing can be more bare or desolate than the rocky mountain ridge in which this ascent terminates, and on which vegetation seems at its last gasp. A dance of Satyrs might be appropriately introduced to complete the wildness of a sketch from this spot, but that it does not afford a single berry or blade of grass to regale them, even if they could live ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... human was characteristic of Spartan nature, his mother, a crone of great age [161], suggested the means of punishment, by placing, with her own hand, a stone at the threshold)—and, setting a guard around, left the conqueror of Mardonius to die of famine. When he was at his last gasp, unwilling to profane the sanctuary by his actual death, they bore him out into the open air, which he only breathed to expire [162]. His corpse, which some of the fiercer Spartans at first intended to cast in the place of ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... shut in somewhere—I think it was in the catacombs, or some place like that—who went through, as he thought, days of it. He grew terribly hungry, for one thing, and ate his candle, and was released just when he believed he was at the last gasp, and after all he'd only been there three hours! It did seem absurd, but I can quite believe it. He'd lost all sense of time, you see. Well, I suppose it was rather like that with us. I know, when at last we heard the clock strike, I was sure it was going ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... bees was in a whirl of excitement. Not even in the days of the revolution had the turmoil been so great. The hive rumbled and roared. Every bee was fired by a holy wrath, a burning ardor to meet and fight the ancient enemy to the very last gasp. Yet there was no disorder or confusion. Marvelous the speed with which the regiments were mobilized, marvelous the way each soldier knew his duty and fell into his right place and ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... to be the case. On returning to the spot they found an arctic fox in his last gasp, lying flat on the snow, with the heavy log across his back, which seemed to be broken. A slight tap on the snout with the accountant's deadly ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... fight and struggle until the last gasp! The exhaustion one sees often in heat strokes and in hot climates is commonplace, but this type of exhaustion is, by itself, the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... resolved to follow his counsel. A few men, who from sickness or other causes had not gone forth to battle, and the youths who had not sufficient strength to draw their mighty bows, vowed to defend them and the chief's daughter to the last gasp. Cora deputed the old warrior to take the lead, and, as they believed the Tuparas, flushed with victory, would ere long pursue them, they immediately set out on their ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... on without it! It cannot well look absurd to us! And if you should ever find you canNOT pray any more, tell me, and I will try to help you. I don't think that time will ever come to me. I can't tell—but always hitherto, when I have seemed to be at the last gasp, things have taken a turn, and it has grown ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... unfavourably situated. I reminded him of a picture that represented wolves chasing a sledge. One by one the driver threw out fur, coat, and whatever else he had to the pack to check them and save himself—but he could not throw his own child to them: rather would he suffer to the last gasp. That was how I felt about Trieste and the German Tyrol. We were not in the position of the man in the sledge, for, thank God, we had our arms and could beat off the wolves; but even in the extremest ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... church and had blindly dashed over the cliff. Turk, with more charity than Courant had shown not many hours before, climbed down the dangerous steep, and, in horror, touched his quivering hand. Then came the last gasp. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... is like sliding sand, like sinking water; and he grasps at anything, anybody, the bedpost, the bed-curtains, the bed-clothes, his wife's hand, his son's arm, the very air sometimes. On what, on whom will you seize hold in your last gasp and death-grip? ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... indeed; it meant much, for, from the point of view of the three dingoes, Warrigal appeared at that time in the light of an exceedingly desirable mate, and one for whose favour the three of them would assuredly have fought to the last gasp that night but for the dominating presence ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the customs he hath been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere, but is forced to eat grass, and to famish his body with hunger, till he perish; for which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... therefore they will not depart. Oh, Agnes," he continued, bitterly, "my very soul is crushed beneath this weight of unexpressed anxiety and care. Had I but to contend with our English foe, but to fight a good and honorable fight, to struggle on, conscious that to the last gasp the brave inmates of this fortress would follow me, and Edward would find naught on which to wreak his vengeance but the dead bodies of his foes, my task were easy as 'twere glorious; but to be conscious of secret brooding evil each morn ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... been neglecting you! Perhaps Joanie may have told you that just at my last gasp of hand-work, I had to write quite an unexpected number of letters. But poor Joanie will think herself neglected now, for I have been stopped among the Alps by a state of their glaciers entirely unexampled, ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... the Parliaments of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had not succeeded, in the space of a century, in destroying monasticism; the Cromwellian war alone seemed to have done so, as it left the entire nation almost at the last gasp, on the verge of annihilation. Nevertheless, a few years saw the orders again revive and prepare to start their holy work anew. Henry VIII. then, and his vicar, Cromwell, deceived themselves in thinking that they had put an end to monasticism in the land which had been the cradle of ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the people on the west side of the Apalachian mountains will open their eyes to their real interests." At the same time Sevier was writing to Gardoqui, offering to put his insurrectionary State of Franklin, then at its last gasp, under the protection of Spain. [Footnote: Gardoqui MSS., Sevier ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... on every side, and feeling almost at the last gasp, the Tyrians resolved on a final desperate effort. They would make a bold attempt to recover the command of the sea. As the Macedonian fleet was divided, part watching the Sidonian and part the Egyptian harbour, they ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Barrier, was beginning to break up. Atkinson intended to leave Hut Point for the Barrier in about a week's time. At 3.30 A.M. on February 19 Crean arrived with the astounding news that Lieutenant Evans, still alive but at his last gasp, was lying out near Corner Camp, and that Lashly was nursing him; that the Last Supporting Party had consisted of three men only, a possibility which had never been considered; and that they had left Scott, travelling rapidly and making good averages, only 148 geographical miles from ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... say truth, Sir, 'twas a good-natur'd civil beast, and so she remain'd to her last gasp, for she cou'd never have left this World in a better time, as the saying is, so near ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... all the cattle fell a-dancing; and not only the cattle, but all the foxes, and the hares, and the wolves, and everything in the hedges and ditches fell a-dancing too. They danced and danced till the poor cattle were clean worn out and at the last gasp. In the evening Ivan drove them home, but they were so famished that they tugged at the dirty straw roofs of the huts they passed, and so got a chance mouthful or two. But Ivan went in and had supper and a comfortable night's rest afterward. The next day he again ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... are sacrificed to our necessities or comforts; each ingredient in the simplest vegetable fare conveys to inevitable destruction thousands of the most beautiful and harmless of created beings. From the first to the last gasp of our lives, we never inhale the air of heaven without butchering myriads of sentient and innocent creatures. Can we upbraid ourselves then for supporting our lives by the death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, when the infant who has lived for a single day has ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... Sh[o]gun of Yedo deposed, the dual system abolished, feudalism in its last gasp and Shint[o] in full political power, with the ancient council of the gods (Jin Gi Kuan) once more established, and purified Shint[o] again the religion of state, thousands of Riy[o]bu Shint[o] temples were at once purged of all their Buddhist ornaments, furniture, ritual, and everything ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... Volga in a thaw. Two and a half pages are filled with the crossing, and yet he falls through the ice. The genius is drowning—you imagine he was drowned? Not a bit of it; this was simply in order that when he was drowning and at his last gasp, he might catch sight of a bit of ice, the size of a pea, but pure and crystal "as a frozen tear," and in that tear was reflected Germany, or more accurately the sky of Germany, and its iridescent sparkle recalled to his mind the very tear which ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... But it's a loathsome job at best.... There was a woman whom my father—kept. When he died he left her two thousand pounds in his will, and he hadn't two thousand pounds to leave when his debts were cleared up. We—we had to face things. Paid everything off, and all that, and then, at the last gasp, that woman came and claimed the money. The lawyer said she was within her rights, we'd have to fork out. And I couldn't lay my hands upon the amount just then, because it had taken pretty nearly all we had to ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... reached him about this time strengthened him in this resolution: this was the death of Ferdinand. The old king had caught a severe cold and cough on his return from the hunting field, and in two days he was at his last gasp. On the 25th of January, 1494, he passed away, at the age of seventy, after a thirty-six years' reign, leaving the throne to his elder son, Alfonso, who was immediately ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the repeated buffets from the water taken aboard, seemed to come to himself suddenly as the boat approached the Breakwater. It was a vision of life that gleamed in the darkness of his despair. No! He did not want to die! He would fight and fight to the last gasp. In the alternative of certain drowning in the undertow off Nazaret or of taking a chance among the rocks on the Breakwater, he would take the chance. Hadn't he been famous as the best swimmer ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of a cruel, inexorable fate, and felt like a bunted animal driven to its last gasp and hearing the dogs and sportsmen fast coming nearer. He had a sensitive, childlike nature, which did not yet know how to meet the hard strokes of fate. His body and his physical courage had been hardened against bodily and physical ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ask her, in the first place, to send me some sempstresses, and, in the second place, to give herself the trouble of coming in person, as I am too ill to go out. Our new flat is very cold, and still in great disorder. Also, Bwikov has an aunt who is at her last gasp through old age, and may die before our departure. He himself, however, declares this to be nothing, and says that she will soon recover. He is not yet living with me, and I have to go running hither and thither to find him. Only Thedora is acting as my servant, ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... note down what I heard at Rome nine years later from the mouth of a tool of the Jesuits. The Cardinal Tamburini was at the last gasp, and the conversation turned upon him, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... an extraordinary way. Above me I noticed a broken window, through which I managed to scramble, and on finding out how things were returned to the coach to help other passengers. Underneath me seemed to be a dying man. He was in a dreadful condition and at his last gasp, etc., and he made more row than the rest put together. Reaching down and removing mattresses, he grasped my hand, jumped up and thanked me profusely for saving his life. He was not hurt a bit, indeed was the only man in the lot who escaped ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... manner. A few days ago he mesmerized it secretly, and scared me so that I am ill from the effects of it yet. I thought the dear child would sleep for ever. And in addition to this, I came in on Thursday and found that he had laid the large family Bible on the darling's stomach. It was at the last gasp. I thought ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... He wants the gloom of Haxard's death to remain in unrelieved inkiness at the end. He wants the people to go away thinking of Godolphin, and how well he did the last gasp. He wouldn't stand any love business there. He would rather not have any ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... piling, as she wept, her husband's arms Before his feet. There little children brought To a father his war-gear with eager haste; And now his heart was wrung to hear their sobs, And now he smiled on those small ministers, And stronger waxed his heart's resolve to fight To the last gasp for these, the near and dear. Yonder again, with hands that had not lost Old cunning, a grey father for the fray Girded a son, and murmured once and again: "Dear boy, yield thou to no man in the war!" And showed his ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... reveal a hell of anguish hidden in the brain or in the heart, a something ardent, concentrated, not to be expressed in words. He ended his sentence with a look that startled me. After a pause, he told me that Poland being at her last gasp he had taken refuge in Sweden. There he had sought consolation for his country's fate in the study of chemistry, for which he had always felt an irresistible vocation. 'And I see you recognize as I do,' he added, 'that gum arabic, sugar, and starch, reduced to powder, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... assassins;—but what can a helpless, feverish, toast-and-watered poor wretch do? In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanians, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... They have betrayed the Constitution and disgraced their position. Let their crime be brought home to them and to the world. All is lost for us except honor. Shall we lose that also? To the last gasp we will insist on ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... taken four cities and a dozen minor strong places, fought innumerable combats, put hors de combat numbers of the enemy, moderately estimated at fifteen times its own, and finding the rebellion vigorous, aggressive, and almost threatening the unity of the Chinese Empire, had left it at its last gasp, confined to the ruined ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... Major gave orders to withdraw his Platoon when the Company on his right should retire. This surprised him; for, knowing nothing of the general situation, he had felt that they would hang on, and fight the battle out then and there, to the last gasp. He gave orders to his section commanders, and then lay down to await the development ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... temper of the citizens at the time. Its founder, Prior Norman, built church and cloister and bought books and vestments in so liberal a fashion that no money remained to buy bread. The canons were at their last gasp when the city-folk, looking into the refectory as they passed round the cloister in their usual Sunday procession, saw the tables laid but not a single loaf on them. "Here is a fine set out," said the citizens; "but where is the ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... himself into a furious sea like that to share the death of his friend? Picture to yourself the surging billows, the roar of crashing waters, the hissing foam, the darkness, the hopeless prospect: look at Damon,—he is at his last gasp, he barely keeps himself up, he holds out his hands imploringly to his friend: and lastly look at Euthydicus, as he leaps into the water, and swims by his side, with only one thought in his mind,—Damon must not be the first ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... 7,1775, Dunmore, exercising one last gasp of royal power, declared Virginia to be in rebellion, imposed martial law, and announced that all slaves belonging to rebels were emancipated. This action cost Dunmore his creditability and destroyed ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... rigging, full of tar as usual, and dry and inflammable to the last degree. The Yarmouth, therefore, was in serious danger,—more so than in any other period of the action,—her little antagonist having inflicted the most damaging blow with the last gasp, as it were; for little columns of flame and smoke began to rise ominously in a dozen places. Then was manifested the splendid discipline for which British ships were famous the world over. Rapidly and with unerring skill and coolness the proper orders were given, and the tired men were set ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... their work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pinocchio to give his last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette's eyes were still open, his mouth still shut and his legs kicked harder ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... could not reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet anybody in argument, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... penalties inflicted upon them, but no discrimination was used, and good and bad alike experienced the vengeance of 'divine right.' The aim of the abandoned monarch and his advisers was manifestly total extermination, and journalism appeared to be at its last gasp. But though crushed and mutilated in every limb, and bleeding at every pore, faint respirations every now and then showed that the vital spark still lingered. But brighter days were at hand. That festering mass of mental and bodily corruption ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... now or never." We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at our last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer, with his shaggy coat, full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized, par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... a foul mess that we've been got into by those who should have known better—but I ain't like Fenn about it. We're in it, and we've got to get out of it, not like cowards but like Englishmen, and if fighting had been the only way through, then I should have been for fighting to the last gasp. Fortunately, we've got into touch with the sensible folk on the other side. If we hadn't—well, I'll say no more but that I've got two boys fighting and one buried at Ypres, and I've another, though he's over ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... seems that Beethoven was at his last gasp, one eye already closed. At the stroke of lightning and the thunder peal he raised his arm with a doubled-up fist; the expression of his eyes and face was that of one defying death,—a look of defiance and ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... each other's eyes. Bat Marker had only one mood to express. It was a mood that suggested determination to fight to a finish, to fight with the last ounce of strength, the last gasp of breath. He was sitting at the desk, opposite his friend and employer, Leslie Standing, and his small grey eyes were shining coldly under his shaggy, black brows. His broad ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... so great a Respect and Esteem for this young Man, and knowing him to be of Quality, that he did him the honour to bemoan him, and to send a Condoling Letter to Isabella, how much worth her Esteem he dy'd, and that he had Eterniz'd his Memory with the last Gasp of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... love with French manners; there is something charming in being young and sprightly all one's life: it would appear absurd in England to hear, what I have just heard, a fat virtuous lady of seventy toast Love and Opportunity to a young fellow; but 'tis nothing here: they dance too to the last gasp; I have seen the daughter, mother, and grand-daughter, in the ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... sued for peace, but the allies would not relax their monstrous demands. Marlborough, Eugene, and the Dutch Heinsius all found their own interest in prolonging the war. But with the Bourbon cause apparently at its last gasp in Spain, the appearance there of Vendome revived the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... the most encouragement, and if persistently bashful, are coaxed into all the intricate arts of the gentle game by the woman who is interested in them. Thus I always seemed to have the good luck of the bashful man up to the last gasp, and until I began to turn blue. She would then see that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes were forgotten when I ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... very willingly have escaped, but for love of the country and of truth, which, as far as we know, has long lain buried. The trouble and difficulty which do or will affect us, although wanting no addition, do not grieve us so much as the sorrowful condition of New Netherland, now lying at its last gasp; but we hope and trust that our afflictions and the sufferings of the inhabitants and people of the country will awaken in Their High Mightinesses a compassion which will be a cause of rejoicing ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... into the center of the room and clutched his arms. "David," she said, laughing a little nervously, "here goes the last gasp of my dear old ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... was overrun by hostile bands. Pomerania was occupied and retained by the Swedes. Poles, Russians, and Austrians in turn invaded the country. After the Battle of Kunersdorff, in 1761, Prussia was at her last gasp, and Frederick the Great found himself in so desperate a position that he had resolved on committing suicide. Again, after Jena, Berlin was occupied by the French, and for five years remained under the yoke. Insecurity has been for generations the law of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... that a man's soul should quit his body, it is not necessary that he should be asleep. It may quit him in his waking hours, and then sickness, insanity, or death will be the result. Thus a man of the Wurunjeri tribe in Australia lay at his last gasp because his spirit had departed from him. A medicine-man went in pursuit and caught the spirit by the middle just as it was about to plunge into the sunset glow, which is the light cast by the souls of the dead as they pass in ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... us have your shouts and hearty crying, "grace, grace be unto it." Time will not suffer me to speak any more, yet time shall never bereave you or me of this. Let us all resolve so long as our life is in, even to the last gasp, as God will help us, that this shall be our last cry, Grace, grace be unto this work of reformation in the kirk ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... That was clearly the last gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... scrape, me lad; but we'll get ye out av it if th' spalpanes will let yez alone ter-noight. Av they joomp yez, we'll be here ter foight ter ther last gasp." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... even tell you that. Ever since the Duke has been ill, the great gates of the Chateau have been bolted, for it seems that the poor old gentleman is at his last gasp." ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated. The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... I won't be quiet in my grave for thinking what kind of treatment it may be getting.' And what does she do but out into the barn and shoot the gun into the air, and come back and let on like the horse is gone. And her poor father lying there at his last gasp." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'—And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on—Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... into the fen; and again he turned and charged; but Idas wounded him, and with a roar he fell impaled upon the sharp spear. And the boar they left on the ground just as he had fallen there; but Idmon, now at the last gasp, his comrades bore to the ship in sorrow of heart, and he ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... blood and bodily strength, he received unexpected mercy from his enemy. For though Hogni had an easy chance of killing him, yet, pitying youth and beauty, he constrained his cruelty to give way to clemency. And so, loth to cut off a stripling who was panting at his last gasp, he refrained his sword. For of old it was accounted shameful to deprive of his life one who was ungrown or a weakling; so closely did the antique bravery of champions take heed of all that could incline them to modesty. So Hedin, with the help of his men, was taken back to his ship, saved ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... The poor woman whom you would have murdered, whom I found at her last gasp, and with difficulty restored to consciousness, that poor woman, Spicer, is your ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... there were many in various parts of the South, so long as they acted under white chiefs, were, like most colored soldiers, marvels of bravery, defying revolvers, bowie knives, and wounds, and fighting to the last gasp with no sign of flinching; but the black men who could be trusted as ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... thoroughly enjoying this opportunity of studying the features of the fine old hall, and making a note of them for future use. "What a magnificent old place!" he said to himself. "Trelawney says the man is at his last gasp, and will positively have to turn out before long. Poor beggar! I pity him. It must be heartbreaking to leave an old place like this, where one's ancestors have lived for generations, where every stone has its history, and the spirits of the departed seem still hovering ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... le comte," replied the steward. "The poor about here get more from your property than the State exacts in taxes. A little scamp like Mouche can glean his two bushels a day. Old women, whom you would really think at their last gasp, become at the harvest and vintage times as active and healthy as girls. You can witness that phenomenon very soon," said Sibilet, addressing Blondet, "for the harvest, which was put back by the rains in July will begin next week, when they cut the rye. The gleaners must have a certificate ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... forecastle," cried I, "and then train them to rake the main-deck, fore and aft. Half of you in the waist retreat to the topgallant forecastle, the other half to the poop, and defend those two positions to the last gasp. Let me know when those carronades are ready, and be careful so to depress their muzzles that none of the charge ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... about it, the poor beast was at her last gasp; and unless something were quickly done to relieve her she would assuredly die. Piet and I were both wearing soft, wide-brimmed felt hats, of sufficient capacity to contain about three pints of water and to retain it without very much leakage for several minutes, while there was a stream ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... who would have thought it possible three months ago? In mid-April the iron grip of the English lay all over the land north of the Loire, and the south lay supine and helpless, stricken with the terror of the victorious conqueror. Orleans was at its last gasp, and with its fall the last bulwark would be swept away; all France must own the sway of the conqueror. The King was powerless, indolent, ready to fly at the first approach of peril, with no hope and no desire for rule, doubtful even if he had ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... forsake us," implored Lenore, clasping her hands; "we are at the last gasp; even your help can not ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... always a devoted supporter of Handel, was pessimistic from the beginning of the season. "I doubt operas will not survive longer than this winter," she wrote on November 25; "they are now at their last gasp; the subscription is expired and nobody will renew it. The directors are always squabbling, and they have so many divisions among themselves that I wonder they have not broke up before; Senesino goes away next winter, and I believe Faustina, so you see ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... to the frightful reputation he had won as a "bell-ringer"; but the bells big Ernestine's lover was in the habit of ringing were unfortunate pedestrians whom he would rob and half murder, beating them unmercifully about the head and body. Sometimes he would beat them to within an ace of their last gasp: occasionally he would beat the life out of them altogether if they tried to resist his brutal attacks. The Beadle was an Apache[6] of the first ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... There is one specially vicious ant called the bulldog ant, because of its pluck. Try to kill the bulldog ant with a stick, and it will face you and try to bite back until the very last gasp, never thinking of running away. The bulldog ant has a liking for the careless picnicker, whom she—the male ant, like the male bee, is not a worker—bites with a fierce energy that suggests to the victim that his flesh is being torn with red-hot pincers. I have ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... we found that a third was nearly at his last gasp. Poor fellow, the look of despair and horror on his countenance I can never forget. "Harry," he exclaimed, seizing my hand as I went to him with a cup of cooling drink, "I am not fit to die, can no one do any ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... heaven's sake—for the sake of the ladies whom we have to defend, let us fight till the last gasp, and then send a few shots into the magazine. Better death than the mercy of a set ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... petty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults deserve much attention. The amorous verses have this to recommend them, that they are less hyperbolical than those of some other poets. Waller is not always at the last gasp; he does not die of a frown, nor live upon a smile. There is, however, too much love, and too many trifles. Little things are made too important; and the empire of beauty is represented as exerting its influence further than can be allowed by the multiplicity of human passions, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... in which, almost at my last gasp, I get a brief peace. The little reviving breath comes again. I have had the good luck to be appointed corporal on guard in delightful quarters, where I am in command. Perfect spring weather. And what can I say of this Nature? Never before have I so fully felt her ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... criticized the song, saying it was unnatural to sing so long before dying, adding, "I do think he will never die!" I said in return, "Have a little patience; it will soon be all over with him, for I can hear he is at the last gasp!" "And I too," said he, laughing. The second singer, Madlle. Strasserin, sang very well, and is ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... their very last gasp, and had mentally resigned themselves to death, when there came a tremendous shock, throwing the two lads off their feet only just in time to avoid the final thrusts from the two pirates, to which fortuitous circumstance they owed their lives. As they ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... already seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the scientific discoveries in question are nothing new, but have really always been known and held by the Church, and that they simply substantiate the position taken by the Church. This new contention, which always betokens the last gasp of theological resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In 1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church, Archdeacon Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent philologists who had done most to destroy the old supernatural view of language, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... time the Lutherans thought that Catholicism was at its last gasp, and they eagerly anticipated the banishment of the Jesuits. But Maximilian, in spite of his Protestant tendencies, was well disposed towards them, and their college at Vienna received many marks of his favour, to the great disgust of his Lutheran subjects. The Protestant nobles assembled ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... federal and republican parties; and the great political revolution which then took place turned upon the very questions involved in these resolutions. That question was decided by the people, and by that decision the Constitution was, in the emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, "saved at its last gasp." I should suppose, sir, it would require more self-respect than any gentleman here would be willing to assume, to treat lightly doctrines derived from such high sources. Resting on authority like this, I will ask, gentlemen, whether South Carolina has not ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... worth esteemed of clowns? 'Tis thy false glare, O Fortune! thine they see; Tis for my Delia's sake I dread thy frowns, And my last gasp shall curses ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Those who knew him not said that he was stupid. Those who knew him said that you couldn't tell old Harry much that he didn't know. Those who knew him very well said that you could depend on Trevor to his last gasp. Jim loved him—and there were ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... woman, naturally, never drank the medicine, but instead of that got a village quack to rub her stomach with some wonder-working salve so vigorously that the poor patient died in consequence; in fact she was already at the last gasp when Henrietta arrived. Henrietta was beside herself with grief and anger. She felt like a doctor whose prescriptions have been interfered with by a competitor. She could not indeed help the woman, who expired soon after her arrival, but she had at least the satisfaction of making arrangements ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... tranquillity and contentment in the last scene of his comedy, which is undoubtedly the most difficult. For himself, he adds, his chief study and desire is that he may well behave himself at his last gasp, that is quietly and constantly. It is a good saying; for life has no finer lesson to teach us than how ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever! Cancel all our vows! And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And Innocence is closing up his eyes: Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... one's eyes, the brain a-swim, A weight like lead in every limb, And a raw pit that hurts like hell Where once the light breath rose and fell: Do you but keep me, hope or none, Cheery and staunch till all is done, And, at the last gasp, quick to lend One effort more ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... if themselves conspirators, the eight men crouched in the darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the ruffians asked. The detective ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the tip of my tongue to say that I would fight to the last gasp before I would suffer myself to be tried and condemned for a crime of which I was innocent. Then the distorted sense of honor got in its work again. Agatha Geddis's visit was still recent enough to make me believe that I owed ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... had a look at him yesterday. Dearie me! one wonders his body and soul keep together. And, O Lord, the other day he seemed just at his last gasp, so that they laid him under the holy icns.[1] They started lamenting and got ready ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... cried—'a real good un. And I never thought Slynn was such a softy. Why, Slynn,' he went on, and clapped Chippy on the shoulder, 'you'll never make a fishmonger if you carry on like that. Everything's fresh to a customer. You must always tell 'em it's just done its last gasp, unless the smell's a trifle too high, and then you must be guided ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... upon a scale so grandiose within limits so precisely circumscribed, or been raised to eminence so high from such inadequate foundations of substantial wealth. Compare Ferrara in the sixteenth with Weimar in the eighteenth century, and reflect how wonderfully the Italians even at their last gasp understood the art ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... November 30th, is the anniversary at the Royal, and I fear Sir Joseph must be almost at the last gasp. I shall be glad when he is no ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... enemy somewhere among the fallen," Bivens went on musingly, "who is dying hard. With his last gasp he is trying still to reach my heart. In spite of the fact that I have unlimited resources, this man is constantly circulating reports about the soundness of my finances. He uses the telephone principally and he has ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... that, should our provisions hold out, we might make the South American coast, and fall into Christian hands. This done, I was compelled to retire below, and for a week lay in my berth as one at the last gasp. At times I repented my resolution, Fair urging me to bestir myself, as the men were not satisfied with our course. On the 21st a mutiny occurred, led by Lyons, who asserted we were heading into the Pacific, and must infallibly perish. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... spiritual, has found some of its greatest crises on this continent of Africa, from Greece to Great Britain. As Mommsen says: "It was through Africa that Christianity became the religion of the world." In Africa the last flood of Germanic invasions spent itself within hearing of the last gasp of Byzantium, and it was through Africa that Islam came to play its great role of conqueror ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... then fell headlong into the ditch at the other side, a confused mass of head, limbs, and body. His career was at an end, and he had broken his heart! Poor noble beast, noble in vain! To his very last gasp he had done his best, and had deserved that he should have been in better hands. His master's ignorance had killed him. There are men who never know how little a horse can do,—or ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... against something, and for the life of me I don't know quite what it is. Perhaps it is insincerity, which is a very good thing to be in rebellion against. There is one very amusing and delightful character, a bibulous old sinner who defied law and order and almost at the last gasp ladled out what he considered justice in a most dramatic manner. His name is William Ambrose, and it is worth your while ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... "a band of my northern archers still guard yon wood; I know them,—they will fight to the last gasp! Thither, then, with what men we may. You so marshal our soldiers, and I will make good the retreat. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strictly to the subject in hand; every portion, without any exception, furthering the process of conviction;" and I do not know a more impressive passage of sombre passion than the peroration of his first speech against the Act of Union: "For my own part, I will resist it to the last gasp of my existence, and with the last drop of my blood; and when I feel the hour of my dissolution approaching, I will, like the father of Hannibal, take my children to the altar and swear them to eternal hostility against the invaders ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... while the words so long trembling on her lips found utterance. 'Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope! O, Leonard dear! it does not hurt!' But that last word was almost lost in the gasp—the last gasp. What 'did not hurt' was death ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together in the same ship. We did our best to prevent it, but the odds are too long for us; the coal is for the Germans and we hate England, so why worry? I know Mike Murphy will not take that view of it; for my sake he'll fight to the last gasp, but he must have help, and Reardon owes me no ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... head of the anti-monarchists, had given way and had withdrawn from his post, the people would have given up in despair and the cause of liberty have been lost. By his efforts, and the aid of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, the Constitution and the Union had been saved when "at its last gasp." ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... returning life Glows here about my heart. Conduct me forward; At the last gasp preserved! Ha! dawning light! Let me behold; in faith I see thee now; I do indeed: the father ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... Lille they found, to their amazement, that this town, surrounded by forts, had been abandoned, and they had only to walk inside. This easy access to a town which should have been defended to the last gasp opened the way ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... thus, or hope that they may be so, and cannot but dread that they are otherwise. Again, the laws of Nature which have been ascertained are enough for the conduct of life, and science constantly, and with excellent reason, resists to the last gasp every attempt to recognise the existence of a new law, which, after all, can apparently do little for the benefit of mankind, and may conceivably do something by no means beneficial. Again, science is accustomed to deal with constant phenomena, which, given the conditions, will ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... there will be Whigs again.... But when these things come to pass, you will no longer be a Warden,[67] but a brown and impalpable powder in the tombs of Dulwich. In the meantime, enough of liberty will remain to make our old-age tolerably comfortable; and to your last gasp you will remain in the perennial and pleasing delusion that the Whigs are coming in, and will expire mistaking the officiating ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... followed him into the road, alongside of which the beery old sabreur was found prostrate in a pool of water, setting his face pertinaciously against that hostile element, even to what was very near being his last gasp. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... when the host spread his guest a bed and went up to his harem. The other lay down and addressed himself to sleep, when, behold, there arose a great clamour in the harem. He asked what was to do, and they said, 'A terrible thing hath befallen the sheikh, and he is at the last gasp.' 'Take me up to him,' said he. So they carried him to the schoolmaster, whom he found lying insensible, with his blood streaming down. He sprinkled water on his face and when he revived, he said to him, 'What has betided thee? When thou leftest me, thou west in all good cheer and sound of body.' ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... which spread in all directions as far as the eye could reach, I was preparing to return, when as I was striding over the dead and dying, and meditating on the horrors of war, my attention was attracted by a young Frenchman, who was lying on his back, apparently at the last gasp. There was something in his countenance which interested me, and I fancied, though I knew not when, or where, that I had seen him before. Some open letters were lying around, and one was yet grasped in his hand as though ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp, My face is ash-color'd, my sinews gnarl, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... interest. Justice will be meted out to us, and everything points to a brilliant future for all. It's true that we've just met with a slight rebuff, we students, but victory is rolling along the whole line, it is in the consciousness of all! The traitorous repulse that we have suffered indicates the last gasp, the final convulsions of the dying. Tomorrow we shall be citizens of the Philippines, whose destiny will be a glorious one, because it will be in loving hands. Ah, yes, the future is ours! I see it rose-tinted, I see the movement that stirs the life of these regions ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... ate no longer. For hours he was seen digging up with his weakened limbs the earth that separated him from his beloved master. Passion gave him strength, and at last he was near to the body. Then his faithful heart gave way, and he breathed out a last gasp, as if he knew he had found ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... the look conveyed to me. But imagine a crowd, a crazed crowd, all pushing to the center, and then in the center a face thrown back so you can see it for just an instant before it sinks to suffocation. If you can fancy that look—the last gasp for breath of one caught—squeezed—just going down—a hatred of the crowd that got her there, just to suffocate her—and perhaps one last wild look at the hills out beyond the crowd. If you can get that—that fear, suffocation, terror—and don't forget the hate—yet like the dog you've kicked ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... chair, and grasped at the green table-cover, but Meschini had got behind him and pressed his fingers tighter and tighter. His eye rested upon Faustina's handkerchief that lay on the floor at his feet. His victim was almost at the last gasp, but the handkerchief would do the job better. Meschini kept his grip with one hand and with the other snatched up the bit of linen. He drew it tight round the neck and wrenched at the knot with his yellow teeth. There was a convulsive struggle, followed by a long interval of quiet. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... carried him food, but he ate no longer. For hours he was seen employing his weakened limbs in digging up the earth that separated him from his master. Passion gave him strength, and he gradually approached the body; at last his faithful heart gave way, and he breathed out his last gasp, as if he knew that he had ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst |
