"Of a sudden" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whaleman's life are varied and very stirring. Sometimes he is floating on the calm ocean, idling about the deck and whistling for a breeze, when all of a sudden the loud cry is heard, "There she blows!" and in a moment the boats are in the water, and he is engaged in all the toils of an exciting chase. Then comes the battle with the great leviathan of the deep, with all its risks and dangers. Sometimes he is unfortunate, the decks are clean, ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... stiff and old and have to use a crutch. Don't try to make me grow up before my time, Meg. It's hard enough to have you change all of a sudden. Let me be a little girl as ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... him of a sudden a new and moving thought. Alfred Williams had been cheated of his boyhood. The chances were he had never gone swimming, nor to a ball game, or maybe never to a circus. It might even be that he had never owned a dog. The Senator ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... vivacious little pet had all of a sudden become so sedentary in her habits,—why she never took her customary rambles except when Mr. Fitzgerald was gone, and even then never without her sister. The conjecture she formed was not very far amiss, for Chloe's ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the hurry of a sudden departure you should yet find leisure to consult my convenience, is a degree of kindness, and an instance of regard, not only beyond my claims, but above my expectation. You are not mistaken in supposing that I set a high value on my American friends, and that you should ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... squatty cabin, and hence no place where anybody of size might lie in concealment. Still, Bandy-legs looked longingly down at his fish spear, and wished he had thought to shorten that pole, so he could always keep it handy in case of a sudden necessity. ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... trifle conceited, I grant; but Blanche is like a lamb, only what can she do? Crisp comes gammocking up, wagging his tail, seeming in the best of good humours; poor Blanche receives him kindly, and sometimes walks before him to the buttery; then, all of a sudden, just as she is thinking how very glad she is to meet Crisp—thinking, too, that notwithstanding his shaggy coat and crooked legs, he is a thousand times more to be esteemed and liked than the fine and conceited ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... delighted, delighted! Did you notice, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how young, how young Ivan Fyodorovitch was just now when he went out, when he said all that and went out? I thought he was so learned, such a savant, and all of a sudden he behaved so warmly, openly, and youthfully, with such youthful inexperience, and it was all so fine, like you.... And the way he repeated that German verse, it was just like you! But I must fly, I must ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... gripped us, Pangs as of travail. Fare not forth to the field, 25 Nor walk on the way, For the sword of a foe, Terror all round! Daughter of My people, gird on thee sackcloth 26 And wallow in ashes! Mourn as for an only-begotten, Wail of the bitterest! For of a sudden there ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... man without his being aware of their presence. The fellow climbed over and around a number of rocks, and then pursued his way past a dense clump of bushes. Then, of a sudden, he disappeared ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... concluded a treaty with the czarina, which, though seemingly defensive, implied an intention of making conquests upon this monarch; she endeavoured to engage the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, as a contracting power in this confederacy; and, if he had not been afraid of a sudden visit from his neighbour of Prussia, it cannot be supposed but he would have been pleased to contribute to the humiliation of a prince, who had once before, without the least provocation, driven him from his dominions, taken possession of his capital, routed his troops, and obliged ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... He's returned and gone away again; gone into Winnipeg. He nearly frightened poor mother Hephzy out of her wits. Came in all of a sudden and declared he must hurry off to Winnipeg at once, and he wanted Andy to drive him. You know his way. He wouldn't give any explanation. He was like a bear to his mother. My fingers were just itching to slap his face. But come along, dear, you must ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... found it difficult to see, and all of a sudden he would give a hop and a jump that nearly flung me off his shoulders. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... say, "Well, [cruel fair,] reflect a moment, that if to this unfortunate wretch there had been a desire for worldly wealth, he would not have devoted his life and property to you. Are the acknowledgments due to my services, and my having devoted my life to you, flown all of a sudden from this world, that you have shown such disfavour to a wretch like me? It is all well; to me life is no longer of any use; to the helpless, half-dead lover there is no resource against the ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... to move away from the window. But Smith held my wrist as in a vise. He was listening raptly to the torrential speech of the Chinaman who sat in the chair; and I perceived in his eyes the light of a sudden comprehension. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... pretty little place, but it takes you by surprise. The country round is, for endless leagues, so barren, a mere grassy, undulating expanse of prairie land, with a few farms at ten-mile intervals, that the appearance of a town seems incongruous. All of a sudden you come to a crowd of low bungalow-like roofs under the shadow of some flat-topped kopjes and realise the presence in this void of the Free ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... big enough to hold us both, and pushed through by-ways in the forest streams and portages. We were paddling merrily along a pretty fair stream, which ran fast, but appeared to reach many miles ahead of us; when, all of a sudden, my guide said, "Sit fast." I perceived that the water was moving much more rapidly than it had hitherto done, and that the Indian had wedged himself in the stern, and was steering only with the paddle. We swept along merrily for a mile, till "The White Horses," as the breakers are called, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... occasion—and the bluest eyes that Barnaby beheld in all of his life. A sweet, timid creature, who seemed not to dare so much as to speak a word for herself without looking to Sir John for leave to do so, and would shrink and shudder whenever he would speak of a sudden to her or direct a sudden glance upon her. When she did speak, it was in so low a voice that one had to bend his head to hear her, and even if she smiled would catch herself and look up as though to see if she had leave to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... is appealed to, and the soul stirred to heed the lessons of religion, medicine, and sociology, patients are given the work cure. Thus a branch of social service is established, where after-treatment is given to the patient whose thoughts have been turned from himself to others. All of a sudden the church finds itself in need of definite knowledge as to opportunities for altruistic work, as to definite community needs not met, as to people in distress who can be relieved by volunteers, as to agencies which can be called upon to cooeperate both in treating the individual and in utilizing ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... Of a sudden he turned from the picture, and, drawing up a low chair, sat down before her, leaning a little forward, his elbow resting on his knee. The urgency and gravity of his bearing made her at once lay ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... her veranda steps, chin in hand, gazing dolefully at the gray September sky. All day, up to half an hour before, the sky had been cloudlessly blue, the day warm and radiant. Then, all of a sudden, the sun had slunk shamefacedly behind a high rising bank of cloud, and its retiring had been accompanied by a raw, chilly wind. Cynthia scowled. Then she shivered. Then she pulled the collar of her white sweater up to her ears and buttoned it over. Then she muttered ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... First was in prison, Lord Bassett was a true friend to him," began Eph, plunging into his story without delay. "The lord had some papers that would have hung a lot of people if the king's enemies got hold of 'em, so when he heard one day, all of a sudden, that soldiers were at the castle-gate to carry him off, he had just time to call his girl to him, and say: 'I may be going to my death, but I won't betray my master. There is no time to burn the papers, and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 23, 1874, for Gondokoro, and on the 26th he writes: "Last night we were going along slowly in the moonlight, and I was thinking of you all, and the expedition, and Nubar, &c., when all of a sudden from a large bush came peals of laughter. I felt put out; but it turned out to be birds, who laughed at us from the bushes for some time in a rude way. They are a species of stork, and seemed in capital spirits, and highly amused at anybody thinking of going up ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... tables were turned of a sudden, for three stout sea-dogs from the Tiger, finishing their first opponents, dashed into the fray with a yell, and Daggs, hewing his way to the mast, turned to face the new attack with only two men left on foot ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... reminiscent at the ceilin'. I could tell by watchin' his lower jaw sort of loosen up that he was thinkin' of the old days, or something like that. It struck me as a good time to let things simmer. I drops back a step and waits. All of a sudden he turns to me ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... What? art dastardly? Thou, with full thirty lives to answer for— Thou conscientious of a sudden? ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... better so. Ah, that is good! And now you mustn't look me in the face oftener than I want to let you, because you take it too dreadfully solemnly, and I am going to tell you something foolish now.—All of a sudden it flashed across my mind: Good heavens! the woman was—, and the little hussy with the curly hair was—, and he? But Hagbart is a man of some sense: he had chosen otherwise! And I did not know; but ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow, and his spouse took good heed not to rustle her silk gown lest David should start up all of a sudden. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... All of a sudden the lines slackened, and all hands frantically hauled in slack, as the devil-fish turned and dashed toward the boat. He came up almost under the craft, one great wing actually lifting one side of the heavy launch well out of the water and giving ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... will," Malone said. He hoped that the tentative date he'd made with her for that evening wouldn't be broken up because of a sudden onslaught of work. "I'll let you ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett
... arrayed in her riding habit, her sombrero on, as she had appeared the first time he saw her. Only she was so much lovelier now, with the light of friendship and tender concern in her face, that he was gladdened by her presence in the door. It was as of a sudden burst of music, or the voice of someone for whom ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... This morning I was sitting reading Pushkin.... I remember, it happened to be The Gipsies ... all of a sudden Arkady came up to me, and, without speaking, with such a kindly compassion on his face, as gently as if I were a baby, took the book away from me, and laid another before me—a German book ... smiled, and went away, carrying Pushkin off ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... apple orchard was followed by a fishing scene on the river not far from Humpback Falls, where Sam once upon a time had had such a strenuous adventure. Then of a sudden came the quarrel in the ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... pitiable. But Countess d'Isorella mentioned once that Pericles was at the Villa Ricciardi, projecting magnificent operatic entertainments. The reviving of a passion to sing possessed Vittoria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind from the high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. She begged Countess Ammiani's permission that she might propose to Pericles to sing in his private operatic company, in any ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Of a sudden, there came from the drive the quick honking of an automobile horn, together with the soft purring of an engine. Muriel leaped to her feet; brown little legs flashed as she made ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... upon a stool; the floor was strewed with papers which had in some former period been used in the concerns of the house, but were then lying in woful confusion. I was very demurely perusing these papers, when, all of a sudden, there came such a peal of thunder from the British shipping, that I thought my head would go with the sound. I made a frog's leap for the ditch, and lay as still as I possibly could, and began to consider which part of my carcass was to go first. The British played their ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... oil to be obtained from these animals, and hoisted out my boats to attack them. We killed a large number, which we sent on board, and continued our fishery with great success, having only lost one boat, the bottom plank of which had been bitten out by the tusks of one of these unwieldy animals. Of a sudden the wind changed to the southward, and the small icebergs which were then to windward rapidly closed with the large one upon which we were fishing. The harpooners observed it, and recommended me to return to the ship, but I was so amused ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... caught red-handed—and let the boat drift me down upon retributive justice. A while ago I had been mentally composing a number of effective retorts upon Captain Branscome for his tyrannical behaviour. Now, of a sudden, all this eloquence deserted me: I felt it leaking away and knew myself for a law-breaker. One lingering hope remained—that the Captain had pushed ahead into the woods, and that, as yet, Mr. Jack Rogers (whose good nature I might almost count upon) had alone detected me and would pack me home ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... intended or remitted; si amatorius accesserit ardor, or any other violent object or perturbation of mind. This melancholy may happen to widows, with much care and sorrow, as frequently it doth, by reason of a sudden alteration of their accustomed course of life, &c. To such as lie in childbed ob suppressam purgationem; but to nuns and more ancient maids, and some barren women for the causes abovesaid, 'tis more familiar, crebrius his quam reliquis accidit, inquit Rodericus, the rest ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... did. But I guess it isn't frozen yet," answered Ted. "We were spilling pails of water down on the slide. We stood on the top platform where Trouble fell off of, and then, all of a sudden, ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... camp, de soldiers dey catch him, and dey take Sam off, and den dey jabber and laugh for all de world like great lots of monkeys. Well, for some time Sam he didn't say nothing, all de wind shook out of his body. Besides which he couldn't understand what dey say. Den all of a sudden, to Sam's surprise, up came a colored soldier, and he speak to Sam in de English tongue. 'Holla, broder, how you come here?" I ask. 'I been cook on board English merchant ship,' he say. 'Ship she taken by French privateer. When dey come to port dey say ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... she announced. "It came to me all of a sudden. Of course those babies are twins, brother and sister. Any one can tell that! Well, don't you see, one of them—the girl—was our Lovely Lady. The other was her twin brother. It's all as clear as day! The twin brother did something she didn't like, and she turned his picture to ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... curious to know the contents of the note, and why I was so very merry of a sudden. But the matter was far too intricate for me to be able to explain it to her. I merely pointed to a couple of storks that were sailing through the air far above our heads, and said that so must I go, far, far away. At this she opened her bleared eyes wide, and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... in tense tones. "When Jim went to bed, everything was perfectly quiet. And then, when he woke up, all of a sudden, there beside him was ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... Then of a sudden terror seized the wizard, and springing to his feet, he cursed his wife till she ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... John, stopping suddenly in the middle of the path and confronting her squarely, "this change of base has come on you all of a sudden. You weren't in such a state before. You've seen something or heard something that's given you a turn. Say ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... Henry's leg and drove him along the road. After while I hit this town of Riverbank. I thought maybe the police would be looking for Henry. So I took to an alley instead of a regular street, and along we came. We came down the alley, and of a sudden I began to wonder what I'd do with Henry now I'd got him into town. It would look kind of suspicious for me and Henry to go to a hotel. 'I know what I'll do,' I says to myself: 'What I want to do is to go alone and rent a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... century, through change after change, the work of preparation went on, still scarce any progress, and no apparent result, nothing that could live, or was worth keeping alive. It seemed as if no rain would ever fall, no sun ever shine, to take away the sterility of the land. Yet all of a sudden the Drama blazed up with a splendor that was to illuminate and sweeten the ages, and be at once the delight and the despair of other nations and future times. All this, too, came to pass in Shakespeare! and, which is ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... looking square at me all the time with her two eyes and moving with the music as if she didn't know it. By heavens, sir, it came over me of a sudden that she wasn't so bad-looking, after all. I guess I must have ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... came tearing through her heart, and the "no" crashed in her ears again, and all the day's struggle was for nothing. So she went to bed, resolved not to go. But she stared through the window into the night, and of a sudden a resolve came to her to go, and have one fair day with Hendricks—to talk it all out forever, and then to come home, and she rose from her bed and tiptoed through the house packing a valise. She left a note in the kitchen ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... our clothes, in the meantime, we commenced to stroll around and soon, the better to amuse ourselves, approached the circle of players; all of a sudden we caught sight of a bald-headed old fellow, rigged out in a russet colored tunic, playing ball with some long haired boys. It was not so much the boys who attracted our attention, although they might well have merited it, as it was the spectacle afforded by this beslippered paterfamilias playing ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... All of a sudden, though, things began to go badly with the farmer. His milk curdled in the dairy and his horse kicked the traces on market day, spilling the load and laming herself into the bargain. The eggs were addled, and weeds choked and overran his garden, ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... woods, which were quite thick as he went on, although there was a path through them, when his quick ear caught the sound of a sudden rustling in a clump of thick shrub oaks just in front of him, but he went on as if he had heard nothing, turning a little to one side as he ...
— The Hilltop Boys - A Story of School Life • Cyril Burleigh
... find the lower classes unable longer to bear the heavy yoke imposed upon them, revolting against a despotism which had grown insupportable, and claiming their natural rights, it was merely a surging of waves raised to mountain-height by the fury of a sudden storm, but soon allayed and subdued beneath the inflexible will of stern rulers. The people was a mere mob, whose violence, when successful, fatally carried destruction with it; and, though it is seemingly full of a terrible power ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... the lugger lay with her bows straight towards the Gap; but all of a sudden she began to change her position, the bows swinging slowly round, and I realised that the rope by which she had swung had been cast off, for the buoy was plainly to be seen ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... justice, in his Sceptical Doubts. But a miracle, in the sense of a sudden and complete change in the customary order of nature, is intelligible, can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction; and, therefore, according to Hume's own showing, cannot be proved false ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... Abraham Lincoln, while not considered a man, was able to swing an ax with full power. It was the borderer's multifarious tool and accompanied him everywhere. One time, while sauntering along Gentryville, his stepsister playfully ran at him of a sudden and leaped from behind upon him. Holding on to his shoulders, she dug her knees into his back—a rough trick called fun by these semi-savages—and brought him to the ground. Unfortunately, she caused him to release the ax in his surprise, and it cut her ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... vagabond crew, the scum of Edinburgh, that drew out of the market long ere it was dusk and took the hill-road by Hermiston, where it was not to be believed that they had lawful business. One of the country-side, one Dickieson, they took with them to be their guide, and dear he paid for it! Of a sudden in the ford of the Broken Dykes, this vermin clan fell on the laird, six to one, and him three parts asleep, having drunk hard. But it is ill to catch an Elliott. For a while, in the night and the black water that ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over yonder the lugger suddenly sailed out, and of course we were astonished, for no glass that we have on board shows the slightest sign of an opening, while before we had got over our surprise, all of a sudden the second cutter, which went up the river to follow you, popped out of the same place as the lugger. Now, sir, how do you explain? Could you come out of the mouth of the river where you went in, while the second cutter, which I sent up the river after you, came out at the same spot as the lugger? ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... of the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, Inc., had realized, late in 1917, that war-time government control of coffee trading was likely in view of the government's activities in other commodities. To guard against the danger of a sudden announcement of such action, the president of the Exchange was empowered from month to month, at each meeting of the board, to suspend trading at any time that conditions warranted; so that, when President Wilson announced, on January 31, 1918, that all dealers in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the elated pastor was saying for the third or fourth time. "I never suspicioned the first thing till Motheh Tombs and I got into ow gate comin' home fum the Graveses! All of a sudden there we ware under a perfec' demonstration o' pine an' ceda' boughs an' wreaths an' arborvitae faschoons! Evm then I never suspicioned but what that was all until Miss Fannie an' Miss Barb come in an' begin banterin' not ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... who seemed to be turning all of a sudden into a regular chatterbox, was interrupted by more huggings and squeezings, as Rough rather objected to much of this sort of thing, and Biddy had still a great deal to spare even after she had bestowed a full share upon Celestina. ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... the roots of his close-cropped hair. A tip, heretofore a gift of the gods, had suddenly become an insult. Angry, impetuous words rushed to his lips, and he took a step forward. Then he was aware of a sudden change in the girl, who had just stepped into the phaeton. She shot a quick, indignant look at her aunt, then turned around and smiled a good-by ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... probable when (as sometimes occurred with the hypocotyls of Brassica and Beta, the stems of Cucurbita, and the cotyledons of Phalaris) the part in question, after bending up in a straight course, suddenly begins to circumnutate to the full extent and in the usual manner. A fairly good instance of a sudden change of this kind—that is, from a nearly straight upward movement to one of circumnutation—is shown in Fig. 183; but more striking instances were occasionally observed with Beta, ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... this same country, something like this in their gymnosophists; for not by constraint of others nor by the impetuosity of a sudden humour, but by the express profession of their order, their custom was, as soon as they arrived at a certain age, or that they saw themselves threatened by any disease, to cause a funeral pile to be erected for them, and on the top a stately bed, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... Brendon or at Badger-worthy, or any other place; how they brushed through the narrow forest paths, where the ashes were already golden, while the oaks still kept their sombre green, and the red leaves and berries of the mountain-ash showed bright beneath the dark forest aisles; and how all of a sudden the wild outcry before them seemed to stop and concentrate, thrown back, louder and louder as they rode, off the same echoing crag; till at a sudden turn of the road there stood the stag beneath them in the stream, his back against the black rock with its green cushions of dripping ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... still mending his pace as the beast crept forward, till he came to his fore-feet; then throwing the great log before his mouth, he, by the cord in his hand, bobbed it against the creature's nose, till he gaped wide enough to have taken in the muletto; then of a sudden, jerking the wood between his jaws with all his force by the cord, he gagged the beast, with his jaws wide open up to his throat, so that he could neither make use of his teeth nor shut his mouth; he then threw one, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... father? an' we'll be so glad to welcome you to heaven. An' so will Jesus. Remember, He is the only door, father, no name but that of Jesus—' She stopped all of a sudden, and I saw that ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... beauty from the loveliest face, and her heart sank within her, because she seemed dimly to foresee the end. The little seamstress did not know the meaning of a lost ideal, the probability is that she had never heard the word, but she felt all of a sudden, standing there in the May sunshine, that something had gone out of her life for ever. That very night she spoke to Gladys, seizing a favourable opportunity, when Liz had gone to enjoy a gossip with that garrulous person, Mrs. Macintyre, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... but again I was out of reach ere he could touch me. I saw that I was making but a sorry showing, and I tried the thrust of which I had had the bad taste to boast, but he turned it aside quite easily. And then, of a sudden, I heard the beat of a horse's hoofs ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... told me once that he was resolved to go on pilgrimage, as we do now; but all of a sudden he grew acquainted with one Save-self, and then he became a stranger ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... a carriage-way right by the great door of the Queen's palace, while the other end rested on the bed where Milly was sleeping. I was standing on the window sash, just touching up the work a little, when, all of a sudden, what should I see but her Beauty Queen Mab with eleven attendants; she came out of the great door of the palace I had painted—that was ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... of her softly with lowered voices and a strange reverence. They had learnt her moods and her dangers; they knew that she could caress them, and then, of a sudden, strike ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... my sword well-nigh from its sheath; and then of a sudden I saw the matter in a truer light; knew that I was indeed the soldier, and willed to be neither coward nor deserter. The blade dropped back into the scabbard with a clang, and, straightening myself, I walked on beside the sluggish stream deep ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... Wandering, he revels, Dreaming, desiring, possessing; Till, of a sudden Tired and afraid, he beholds The sordid assemblage Just as it is; and he runs With a sob to his Nurse (Lighting at last on him), And in her motherly bosom Cries ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... the new fire, and was glad she chanced to be upon the south end of a sharp-nosed hill, so that she could see both ways. The blaze dove into a deep hollow, climbed the slope beyond, leaped exultantly and bellowed its challenge. And, of a sudden, dark forms sprang upon it and beat it cruelly, and it went black where they struck, and only thin streamers of smoke told where it had been. Still they beat, and struck, and struck again, till the fire died ingloriously and the hillside to ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... escaped himself through flush times and starvation times with a handsomely provided purse, he had so little faith in either man or master, and so profound a terror for the unerring Nemesis of mercantile affairs, that he could think of no hope for our country outside of a sudden and complete political subversion. Down must go Lords and Church and Army; and capital, by some happy direction, must change hands from worse to better, or England stood condemned. Such principles, he said, were growing "like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... though I afterwards found that they had been fileing off so very artfully and privately, by that narrow Opening of the Horse-Shoe, that when the Enemy imagin'd us past a Possibility of Escape, our little Army at once, and of a sudden, was ready to disappear. There was a large Wood on the Right of our Army, through which lay the Road to Ghent, not broader than to admit of more than Four to march a breast. Down this the Prince had slid his Forces, except to that very small Party which the Captain ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... one day that the Queen went to her bath, and having dismissed her ladies, she descended the marble steps into the water and began idly to play with some wild rose-petals which had fallen into the water. All of a sudden she heard a croaking voice that said: "O Queen, be cheerful, for the dearest wish of your heart will be ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first is this: that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death from the disposition to lay a false stress upon words or acts simply because by an accident they have become final words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... quadrilles began, the room filled; but no lion appeared. The lady of the house became inconsolable,—for it is one of the peculiar privileges of these lions to make solemn appointments and never keep them,—when all of a sudden there came a tremendous double rap at the street-door, and the master of the house, after gliding out (unobserved as he flattered himself) to peep over the banisters, came into the room, rubbing his hands together with great glee, and cried ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... managing the helm aright, the brigantine, now gliding apace through the water, only made more way toward the outlet. Seeing which, the ringleaders, six or eight in number, ran to help the old graybeard at the helm. But it was a black hour for them. Of a sudden, while they were handling the tiller, three muskets were rapidly discharged upon them from the cabin skylight. Two of the savages dropped dead. The old steersman, clutching wildly at the helm, fell over it, mortally wounded; and in a wild panic at seeing ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... All of a sudden Dan Dalzell felt his own heart going down into his shoes. One of the ship's officers had just entered the passageway, in time to ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... not exactly diplomatic to announce publicly to one's adversaries, 'To go to war now does not tempt us, but three years hence we shall let loose a world war'—No; if a war is really planned, not a word of it must be spoken; one's designs must be enveloped in profound mystery; then brusquely, all of a sudden, jump on the enemy like a robber in the darkness." The heavy footed German had difficulty in moving with the stealth of a robber, but the policy here recommended ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... you," said Miss Larolles, "he attacks one sometimes in a manner you've no idea. One day he came up to me all of a sudden, and asked me what good I thought I did by dressing so much? ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... to one of the attendants, and I heard her ask him if he knew a Mr. Augustus Howard who came there often. The man shook his head, and then she tried to describe him. It was a bit flattering, but an idea jumped into my head all of a sudden that it was ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lupin, with gentle insistence. She yielded all of a sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she was told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. In a few minutes ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... man of method, and acquainted with business, I could have liked to have given a finishing stitch to my work before descending the ladder; but, losh me! sic a whingeing, girning, greeting, and roaring, got up all of a sudden, as was never seen or heard of since bowed Joseph raised the meal-mob, and burned Johnnie Wilkes in effigy: and, looking down, I saw Benjie, the bairn of my own heart, and the callant Glen, my apprentice on trial, that had both been as sound as tops till this blessed moment, standing in their ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... than further suspense. Night came again. Again the dinner bell sounded. Choosing my opportunity I strolled across the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices. Through a chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid and obstructive. Then all of a sudden one turned and walked up to his comrade and they began to talk. Their backs were turned. Now or never. I darted out of my hiding place and ran to the wall, seized the top with my hands and drew myself up. Twice I let myself down again ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... to each other saying nothing, while the long levels of the green country flew past them, and the clang of the going swept every other sound away. They were alone in their compartment, each buried in his thoughts: the one in all the absorption of a sudden and overwhelming passion, not without a certain pride in it and in himself, although consciously thinking of nothing but of her, going over and over their last interviews, and forming visions to himself of the future; while the other, he who was so easy-going, the cheerful companion, unexpectedly ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... stepped with Bunny, her mother, Aunt Lu and Wopsie. The colored boy, who was also smiling, and showing his white teeth as Wopsie was doing, closed the iron door. Then, all of a sudden, Bunny and Sue felt ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... of a sudden, good night, the kid raised his big megaphone up to his mouth to call through it and out fell the coffee-pot and the saucepan and his pair of sneakers and a lot of other stuff. I could see the big fat ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... herself!—I'm sure that they do her no good, but a great deal of harm, especially now when her spirits should be kept up as much as possible. I am sensible, ma'am, that 'tis those books that have made my lady melancholy of a sudden. Ma'am, my lady has let drop very odd hints within these two or three days, and she speaks in a strange disconnected sort of style, and at times I do not think she is quite right ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... one little nook, for she allowed him at last to see her home. For a long while she had insisted upon going away by herself, feeling ashamed of being seen in the streets on a man's arm. Then, one day when the rain fell all of a sudden, she was obliged to let him come downstairs with an umbrella. The rain having ceased almost immediately, she sent him back when they reached the other side of the Pont Louis-Philippe. They only remained a few moments beside the parapet, looking at the Mail, and happy at being together ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... loud talking and coarse laughter of the barracks jarred on Pedro, and presently he went out again. Walking without purpose, he retraced unconsciously his steps toward the Alameda. Then, finding of a sudden an object, he walked on rapidly until the shady lanes beyond the Alameda were traversed and he stood at the gate of the Campo Santo. Reverently he entered between the stone pillars of the gate-way and stood in the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... undertook the Cyclopean task have gone in search of a stable standpoint, on which to lay the foundation of such a mass! In what subterranean layer could they have had such confidence, in this country where the earth sinks in, all of a sudden, where islands disappear without leaving a trace—that they ventured to build upon it so mighty an edifice! And observe that not only one dam is thus built; in the two islands of Zuid Beveland and ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... man be filled with serious thoughts, Molly, when a sort of Arabian Nights' affair has tumbled on him all of a sudden—took him aback like a white squall, and thrown him ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... why Featherlooms are soaring and Sans-silks are sinking. Nobody would have believed it. T. A. Junior's got a live wire looking like a stick of licorice. When they thought old T. A. was going to die, young T. A. seemed to straighten out all of a sudden and take hold. It's about time. He must be almost forty, but he don't show it. I don't know, he ain't so good-looking, but he's ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... The south "learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast problem." Bradley continued, "so any change in the Army would be a big step in the South." General Haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a sudden." As for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the Army's social status quo, Haislip, who was the Vice Chief of Staff during part of the Gillem Board period, recalled that "everybody was floundering around, trying to find the right thing to ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... the year after Waterloo when they next set foot on Scottish soil. They might have come sooner, but while Napoleon ruled communications were difficult, and now there were three of them to think about. Recently, however, Kennedy McClure had died of a sudden apoplectic seizure and had left Stair a rich man. But the estate was one which needed very constant and ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Colonel Sword, very thoughtless, and very young. She became acquainted about a year ago with Mr Chatterton of your regiment—they were engaged—all the friends on both sides approved of the match, and all of a sudden Mr Chatterton wrote a very insulting letter, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Owen;" then, of a sudden thawing into candour, he added: "that is, everything. Heaven forgive me; but I, who enjoy your hospitality, am envious of you. Don't think too hardly of me; I have a large family to support, and if only you knew what a struggle my life is, and has been for the last twenty years, you ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... when you took me out through the orchard and caught me when I jumped over the wall. Do you remember when you asked me, all of a sudden, whether I should like to be your wife? You weren't a ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Till of a sudden, Maybe killed, unknown to her mate, One forenoon the she-bird crouched not on the nest, Nor returned that afternoon, nor the next, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... like a languishing bird I was fain To the home of my fathers and my love to return, Of a sudden the fierce tempest roar'd amain; So I saw my wings shatter'd and no home remain, My trust sold to others ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... the million tiny voices of the night. The stillness of the country made her nervous after the clatter of town. Nervous? Was it the tranquil stillness of the night outside that stirred that growing apprehension in her breast till, of a sudden, her heart ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... his own character at pleasure. He lacked those views of truth, and those feelings of reverence and love to God, without which true obedience is impossible. Hence he struggled in vain. He felt his own impotency. He still yielded to the importunities of appetite and passion. Of a sudden, however, he finds his views of divine things changed, and his religious sensibilities awakened. He knows this marvellous transformation is not effected by himself. He ascribes it, and he truly ascribes it, to the power of God; by which he has been brought from a ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... cried at last, I was so tired and disappointed. And then—" the bony arms tightened—"you came up behind me, and took my hand and said, 'Why don't you kneel down and pray? It's much the quickest way.' And so I did," said Tessa simply. "And all of a sudden the steps were gone, and you and I went in together. I tried to pick up Scooter, but he ran away, and I didn't mind 'cos I knew he was safe. I was so happy, so very happy. I didn't want to wake again." A doleful note crept into Tessa's ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... have much time to study the portrait, for all of a sudden she heard footsteps in the corridor without, and in another moment Mrs. King, the housekeeper, had crossed the threshold, and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... us all! It was not so bad as that. You must understand that the blacksmith SET HIMSELF on fire—he got set on fire in his bowels through overdrinking. Yes, all of a sudden there burst from him a blue flame, and he smouldered and smouldered until he had turned as black as a piece of charcoal! Yet what a clever blacksmith he was! And now I have no horses to drive out with, for there is no one to ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... he lifted Natalie down into the launch he felt her shaking violently, and of a sudden his selfish exultation gave way to a ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... running out to prayer-meetings on a working day? Perhaps that will get us our daily bread? Now you just stay here, or, God's mercy, I'll break every bone in your body!" Then the wife chimed in, and then of a sudden all was silent. And after a while the son stole like a phantom along the wall of the opposite house, a hymn-book in his hand. He was not unlike Howling Peter. He squeezed himself against the wall, and his knees gave under him if ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... promulgate itself, and to establish itself in secret. No permission has ever been given to the people of this country to embrace it. Nay, the laws have absolutely long forbidden its adoption. And now all these criminals have had the boldness to come, all of a sudden, into our kingdom, to establish their bishops and priests in order to seduce the people! This is why it is necessary to extinguish this religion by degrees and to prevent its multiplying its votaries." The fury of the Chinese, fortunately, soon exhausted itself; and although many ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... I was driving up Broadway—the first quiet moment for thinking that had come to me since I had met Captain Luke on South Street, and we had gone into the saloon together to settle about the passage he had offered me—that all of a sudden the thought struck me that perhaps I had made the biggest kind of a fool of myself; and it struck so hard that for a minute or two I fairly was dizzy ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... to do this cruel deed, saying: 'I was born to drink the blood of warriors, but not of such a pure and lovely maid as this.' So Ilmarinen, being unable to kill her, began to weave a magic spell about her, and in a few minutes she changed all of a sudden into a seagull, and flew ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... A tale which, whether true or false, comes guarded Against all means of proof, detects itself. The Queen mew'd up—this too from anxious care 345 And love brought forth of a sudden, a twin birth With thy discovery of her plot to rob thee Of a rightful throne!—Mark how the scorpion, falsehood, Coils round in its own perplexity, and fixes Its sting in its ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... but if I would be so tender as to confess I should break my heart if you did not, then you'd consider whether you would or no; but yet you hoped you should not. I take this to be the right interpretation of—even your kindness can't destroy me of a sudden—I hope I am not in your power—I would give a good deal ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... her poem right at the top of it, and a very friendly item about her history mark of last June. It doesn't seem like Herbert to be so complimentary to Florence, all of a sudden. Just struck me as rather ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... husband; he pleading that it was unlawfully got and would not own it, she, it seems, being brought to bed of it, if not got by somebody else at Oxford, but it seems a little before his death he did own the child, and hath left him his estate, not long since. So Sir G. Carteret hath struck up of a sudden a match with him for his little daughter. He hath about L2000 per annum; and it seems Sir G. Carteret hath by this means over-reached Sir H. Bennet, who did endeavour to get this gentleman for a sister of his, but Sir G. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... before the last words, and faltered over them. It was bitter to ask only for oblivion from the woman whom he loved with all the strength of a sudden passion born in utter hopelessness; the woman whose smile, whose beauty, whose love might even possibly have been won as his own in the future, if he could have claimed his birthright. So bitter that, rather than have spoken those words of resignation, he would have been ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... of people who gave way to the most undisguised merriment, and even shouted opprobrious remarks at me, calling me spy and traitor and other unpleasant names. I could not have believed that these kind-mannered and courteous persons could have exhibited, all of a sudden, such frank brutality, and I saw many of my own acquaintance among them, who regarded me ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the sitting-room at home, blue with the rank pipe-smoke of Nahum Beals and his kind. She pictured them to herself sitting about on these warm evenings in their shirt-sleeves, and she saw the two gentlemen in their light summer clothes with their fragrant cigars at their lips, and all of a sudden she realized that between these men and the others there was a great gulf, and that she was trying to cross it. She did not realize, as later, that the gulf was one of externals, and of width rather ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman |
