"Prostration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the little one then appeared to sink into deep prostration. Doctor Deberle was evidently ill at ease, though he had assured the mother that there was no danger. He kept his gaze fixed on the sufferer, and put some brief questions to Helene as she stood by ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... Patty had deferred to her father's advice, not only willingly, but gladly; but in the matter of school she had very strong prejudices. She had never enjoyed school life, and during her last year at Miss Oliphant's she had worked so hard that she had almost succumbed to an attack of nervous prostration. But she had persevered in her hard work because of the understanding that it was to be her last year at school; and now to have college or even a boarding-school thrown at her head was enough to rouse even her ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... The utter prostration and despair of these dastard criminals—so unlike the knightly nobles of France and England, has been painted by the historian in odious and withering colours. The old Colonna alone sustained his impetuous and imperious character. He strode to and fro the room ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... recollections of his past life could yield nothing but despondency. Driven from home when but a boy, he had become an exile, had wandered to the other side of the world, and was just beginning to attain some prospect of a fortune when this letter came. Rising up from the prostration of that blow, he had struggled against fate, but only to encounter a more over-mastering force, and this last stroke had been the worst of all. Could he rally after this? Could he now hope ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... scarcely hoped to escape an attack, he had never before realized how disastrous it would be to the very ones he had come to serve. Who was there to take care of him? Mrs. Poland was almost helpless from nervous prostration. Amy required absolute quiet to prevent the more fatal relapse, which is almost certain to follow exertion made too early in convalescence. He knew that if he were in the house she would make the attempt to do something for him, and he also knew it would be at ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... It would be very easy to connect every sort of authority used by any government with the well-being of the General Government, and with as much reason as the committee had for their opinion, to assign the power to Congress, although the consequence must be the prostration of the State governments. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... English lady, with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well as of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state of hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed a permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the Countess of Albany, in close friendship with whom he lived after her husband's death. The society of this lady gave him perfect happiness; but it ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... go, dearest," he said, "and yet I cannot deny that Randolph is very anxious about her. It is the prostration he fears; the fever has been so high ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... crucifix for the requisite three days (a rite still observed in many churches by the removal of the cross from the altar), and then restore it to its exalted position; the simple act being done with much solemn prostration and creeping on hands and knees of those whose duty it was to bear the cross to its sepulchre. This sepulchre, it may be explained, was usually a wooden structure, painted with guardian soldiers, large enough to contain a tall crucifix or a man hidden, and occupying a prominent position ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... misery as to entail a loss of rest and of appetite, but even induced such a disturbance of assimilation and nutrition that the resulting hypochondriacal condition that developed from these enervating causes ran the patient into a low condition, ending in complete prostration of all vital powers and death, without the intervention of any other disease. The subject was a timid, retiring man of about fifty-five years, and this was the first and only time that the prepuce had ever ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Majesty" left the room somewhat more hurriedly than he had entered it. His departure completed Mrs. Russell's prostration. For the remainder of the night she refused to be comforted, but remained terrified, lamenting bitterly, and exclaiming incessantly: "Oh, why did he leave me!—why, oh, why ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... gradually succeeded in teaching Lesbia to believe in the sovereign power of Heidseck as a restorative for shattered nerves. At Fellside Lesbia had drunk only water; but then at Fellside she had never known that feeling of exhaustion and prostration which follows days and nights spent in society, the wear and tear of a mind forever on the alert, and brilliant spirits which are more often forced than real. For her chief stimulant Lesbia had recourse to the teapot; but there were occasions when she found that something more than tea was needed ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... necessary to make an estimable man. But he was easily malleable, and he took at once the full impression of the stamp to which he was subjected. Had he gone into the Weights and Measures, a hypothesis which of course presumes a total prostration of the intellects and energy of Mr. Hardlines, he would have worked without a groan from ten till five, and have become as good a model as the best of them. As it was, he can be hardly said to have worked at all, soon became facile princeps ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... not the jots and tittles of formalism, nor the pretensions of those who would cast all things in one mould. From those made perfect, from the saints whose links with earth are almost severed, whose sight begins to pierce gross matter through, it may accept prostration and endless contrite tears, knowing that to these, upon the very verge of illumination, the forms of slavery have lost their vileness. But to those who are still of earth and can but conceive God's fatherhood according to earthly similitudes, it will not ordain a prone obeisance. Such it will require ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... have nervous prostration if I ride in that wagon," she said. "Every minute expecting it to collapse isn't any too good for one who has just been drowned, and whose nerves ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... with a cathedral, archbishop's palace, town hall and Papal residence (the P.Piccolomini), which are interesting if not strikingly original works. Pisa possesses few early Renaissance structures, owing to the utter prostration of her fortunes in the 15th century, and the dominance of Pisan Gothic traditions. In Lucca, besides a wealth of minor monuments (largely the work of Matteo Civitali, 1435-1501) in various churches, anumber of palaces date from this period, the most important being the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... was left, and for the following sad days Forrester kept his word and Faith was left in peace. There was nothing seriously the matter with her, the doctor said, but she was suffering from shock and nervous prostration, and must be ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... I made a mistake in permitting the conference," he said. "The young lady seems much agitated, Mr. Knowles. If she is, complete nervous prostration may follow. She may be an invalid for months or even years. I strongly recommend her being taken into the country as ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... years of discretion!" laughed Miss Craven. "But it's a difficult question, the problem of husband choosing," she went on thoughtfully. "Being a bachelor I can discuss it with perfect equanimity. But if in a moment of madness I had married and acquired a houseful of daughters, I should have nervous prostration every time a strange man showed ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... the ferry of the wood,) he suffered himself to be surprised by the English troops under Horn, and the Scotch under Robert Stuart, the unusual circumstance of the defeat of so able a general was universally attributed to prostration ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... him thy love misled! * O Branch of Bn, O star of highmost stead! To thee of pine and passion I complain, * O thou who fired me with cheeks rosyred. Did e'er such lover lose his soul for thee, * Or from prostration and from ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... beginning to recover from the prostration of the preceding day when the Prophet came into the room where she was seated with Mrs. Fancy Quinglet. She looked up at him almost brightly, but started when she saw how ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... What with his tumbling tricks, boxing, wrestling, leap-frog over chairs, and other small gaieties, he mussed up routine to a certain extent. But he was not discharged. At a point where the firm was just one jump ahead of nervous prostration, along came "Jack" Beardsley and "Little" Owen, two husky football players with a desire to see life without ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... dislodge the worms, he at last had recourse to this potent remedy, a poultice of which he applied to the region of the stomach. The worms were almost instantaneously expelled, but with very alarming symptoms, and a complete prostration of the patient. From these circumstances, we should be led to conclude, that its efficacy as a vermifuge defends either upon its narcotic properties, or upon its sudden and powerful effect ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... lung complaint, inhale this vapor with impunity. It stimulates the circulation of the blood and builds up the tissues. Indorsed by the highest authority in the professions, recommended in midwifery and all cases of nervous prostration. Physicians, surgeons, dentists and private families supplied with this vapor, liquefied, in cylinders of various capacities. It should be administered the same as Nitrous Oxide, but it does not produce headache and nausea as that sometimes does. For further ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various
... as one who gropes blindly in the dark for what he cannot find. From the various hints scattered here and there throughout his numerous writings, we are able to form some idea of what he underwent during that trying ordeal. His imagination had been rendered more lively by weakness and prostration of body, and he was so stimulated by the change of air from his cell to the court-room that his sensations were chiefly those of a vague and unreasoning delight—delight at the prospect of freedom; ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... into loud sobs. The ague-stricken men looked on with eyes full of utter prostration, while the sound of the weeping only drew an impatient movement ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... and weakness showed traces of wonderful beauty. The sharp, drawn features were as clear and fine as those of a model, and even now the sweetness and brilliancy of her dark-blue eyes were little diminished. But pain of some kind and utter prostration held her in their grip, and she made several attempts to speak before she said, in a hoarse whisper, "Thou canst help me, child. Food, Marcelline! food, for the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... of Lothair had at first seemed desperate, his youthful and vigorous frame had enabled him to rally, and, with time and the infinite solicitude which he received, his case was not without hope. But, though his physical cure was somewhat advanced, the prostration of his mind seemed susceptible of no relief. The services of the Church accorded with his depressed condition; they were the only events of his life, and he cherished them. His attendants now permitted and even encouraged him to speak; but he seemed ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... people, from an ethnological view of its details, than would be suspected at first. The story of the sacrifice and the medicine-man wrapping himself in the bloody hide of the buffalo, the use of the pine as fuel, and the prostration of the multitude, while communion is held with the Great Spirit, is the same ceremony that was observed by the Druids, and religious peoples before them. This peculiar offering of blood was common to the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... I could not do anything. We are weak, my dear friend . . . . I used to be indifferent. I reasoned boldly and soundly, but at the first coarse touch of life upon me I have lost heart. . . . Prostration. . . . . We are weak, we are poor creatures . . . and you, too, my dear friend, you are intelligent, generous, you drew in good impulses with your mother's milk, but you had hardly entered upon life when you were exhausted and fell ill. . ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... further publicity to the matter. Even if I did bring the case into court and sue for libel, I've only got one witness to prove my innocence, and that's my wife. I'm not going to drag her into it. She's got nervous prostration over her position as it is, and this would make it worse. Queen Elizabeth and the rest of these snobs in society won't invite her to any of their functions because they say she hadn't any grandfather; and even if she were received by them, she'd be uncomfortable going about. It isn't ...
— A House-Boat on the Styx • John Kendrick Bangs
... sad cyclone of fate. In the city of A.P., a resting place was found for the stranger who had suddenly dashed from their lips the scarcely tasted cup of happiness. Mr. Luzerne employed for her the best medical skill he could obtain. She was suffering from nervous prostration and brain fever. Annette was constant in her attentions to the sufferer, and day after day listened to her delirious ravings. Sometimes she would speak of a diamond necklace, and say so beseechingly, "Clarence, don't look at me so. You surely can't think ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... representations of sea-going ships that the world contains—the crews, the incense-trees, the chiefs and queen of Punt, the native dwellings, the trees and fish of the land, the arrival of the expedition at Thebes in twelve large boats, the prostration of the native chiefs before Hatasu, the festival held on the occasion, and the offerings made to the gods. It is seldom that any single event of ancient history is so profusely illustrated as this expedition of Queen Hatasu, which is placed before ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... a pretence to enable her to make, you observed, a certain excursion into the Black Forest, the object of which was unknown to himself, but which must have had something fearful in its character, since the baroness returned always in a state of physical prostration, ragged, half dead, and that weeks of rest alone could restore her after the hideous ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... them it was as the shining of Heaven's own Splendor in the waste-howling darkness; the Pillar of Fire by night, that was to guide them on their desolate perilous way. Was it not such? Can a man's soul, to this hour, get guidance by any other method than intrinsically by that same,—devout prostration of the earnest struggling soul before the Highest, the Giver of all Light; be such prayer a spoken, articulate, or be it a voiceless, inarticulate one? There is no other method. "Hypocrisy?" One begins to be weary of all that. They who ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... seemed to have condensed their horrid blackness upon Scotland and her prostrated Church. At length the storm of fire and blood exhausted itself, but not till a whole generation had wasted away in the anguish of that protracted persecution. The steps that led to the Church's prostration and decimation, we may trace with profit; but as it is crimsoned with the blood of the brave, and marked with many a martyr's grave, the eye will oft be ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... constitution of the Church, you will be convinced that the Reformation possessed the character of an insurrection. What is the meaning of this fine word, Reformation? Amelioration, doubtless. Well, then, with history before us, it is easy to show that it was only a prostration of the human mind. Glutted with the wealth of which it robbed the Catholics, and the blood which it shed, it gives us, instead of the harmony and Christian love of which it deprived our ancestors, nothing but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... singularly admired him for the dignity of this reserve, and even counted it as one of the grounds—grounds all handled and numbered—for ranking him, in the range of their acquaintance, as a success. He WAS a success, Waymarsh, in spite of overwork, or prostration, of sensible shrinkage, of his wife's letters and of his not liking Europe. Strether would have reckoned his own career less futile had he been able to put into it anything so handsome as so much fine silence. One might one's self easily have left Mrs. Waymarsh; and one would assuredly have paid ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... brilliantly purple bath towel knotted about his loins and nothing else. It was a moment before she recognized Belchik Pluly. Old Belchy! And on the floor before Belchy, motionless as if in devout prostration, Virod lay on his face. Dead, no doubt. He shouldn't have ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... the complete financial, moral and political prostration of France-a prostration from which only a Napoleon ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... admitted. "But I presume he was expectin' to get well right away, then. And I don't believe," he added, energetically, "but what he will, yet. As I undastand, there ain't anything ogganic about him. It's just this he'e nuvvous prostration, resultin' from shock, his docta tells me; and he'll wo'k out of that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... nervous prostration, was not confined to the boy alone. Every one of the passengers, most of whom had escaped without a scratch, were decidedly ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... Flint had cried, lifting herself from the lace pillows, "what do you expect me to do especially when I have nervous prostration? I've tried to do my duty by Victoria—goodness knows—to bring her up—among the sons and daughters of the people who are my friends. They tell me that she has temperament—whatever that may be. I'm sure I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... started to say, there's all kinds of women,—the old ones like me that never went to school much, and Hallie's kind, that sort o' walked through the orchard and picked the nearest peaches, and then starts in at thirty to take courses in Italian Art, and Marian, who gives her teachers nervous prostration, and Sylvia, who takes to ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... confounded at her exceeding seemliness and said to her, "O my lady, I commend thee to the safeguard of Allah, who made thee and thy lord fellows in beauty and loveliness!" Then she stood up in the prayer niche and betook herself to inclination and prostration and prayer, till day departed and night darkened and starkened, when Naomi said to her, "O my mother, rest thy legs and feet awhile." Replied the old woman "O my lady, whoso seeketh the world to come let him weary him in this world, and whoso wearieth not himself in this world shall not attain ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... trace,—my mother, to whom I could not intrust it, in all of whose nature it had no place, whose spirit mine was not formed to call out echoes from. The result of her walk to the river was a subsequent day of prostration and a nervous headache. All the morning of that November day I sat beside her in the darkened room. I bathed her head, until she said there was too much life in my hands, and sent for Abraham. Thus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the morning sermon on Sabbath, April 26th, 1874, the writer was taken violently ill. The attack proved to be the prostration of the nervous system, resulting from overworking the brain, a difficulty that had been foreshadowed by several premonitions during the preceding year. My condition at the first was perilous, but after four hours of skillful medical treatment ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... children in the charge of old women too weak for such labor as their own, that infants died like sheep. Godfrey's Cordial was the chief engine of destruction; the corps of inspectors who reported to the Government finding infants in all stages of prostration, from the overdoses of the popular specific warranted to render any attention from ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... once carried through the streets of a city a famous wooden Image, to be placed in one of its Temples. As he passed along, the crowd made lowly prostration before the Image. The Ass, thinking that they bowed their heads in token of respect for himself, bristled up with pride, gave himself airs, and refused to move another step. The driver, seeing him thus stop, laid his whip lustily about his shoulders ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... eyes, allowing him to arrange the cushions under her head with a simple acquiescence which seemed to him the sweetest thing in the world. Now that the first dread was relieved, he felt a guilty satisfaction in the knowledge of her prostration, and of the damage done to horse and cart. It was impossible that she could drive back to Norton without some hours' rest, and a special providence seemed to have arranged that the accident should take place close to his own gates. ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Dying, the doctor said; three days she might live—no more. I told her the death-sentence, but she said resolutely, "I do not feel that I am going to die just yet," and she was right. There was an attack of fearful prostration—the valves of the heart had failed—a very wrestling with Death, and then the grim shadow drew backwards. I nursed her day and night with a very desperation of tenderness, for now Fate had touched the thing dearest to me in life. A second horrible crisis came, and for ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... blisetring, and colchicum. Unable himself to write, he went on preparing his lectures, which he dictated to his sister. Pain haunted him day and night, and sleep was only forced by morphia. While in this state of general prostration, symptoms of pulmonary disease began to show themselves. Yet he continued to give the weekly lectures to which he stood committed to the Edinburgh School of Arts. Not one was shirked, though their delivery, before a large audience, was a most exhausting duty. "Well, there's another ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... bed and looked at her patient, who seemed to be passing into a state of restless prostration, more or less under the influence of morphia. Marcella fed her with strong beef tea made by herself during the night, and debated whether she should give brandy. No—either the doctor would come directly, or she would send for him. She had not seen him yet, and her lip curled at the thought ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... usual delicacy, of the cause of the Earl's illness, so that the doctor knew that it arose from mental trouble, and not from physical ailment. Yet, even under these circumstances, he was puzzled at the complete prostration of the Earl, and at the adverse symptoms which appeared ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... adduced in the book, is prompt to inform them that the learned author shows his want of respect for the Word of God. Another, in noticing the account of the last hours of Mr. Buckle, is almost ready to exult in the fact that in the wreck and prostration of his great powers he whined out piteously: 'I am going mad!' and intimates that his mental sufferings are to be attributed to the judicial visitation of God, inflicted as a punishment for the employment ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... far gone with apoplexy, heat prostration, and sunstroke to make any answer, at least one that I could ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... it up because my speech is getting worse, and I have noticed that the boss has mentioned it to me a couple of times now, and it almost breaks my heart to know that my position is going to get away from me. No one realizes how much one suffers, and I'm afraid I'm going to break down with nervous prostration soon. When one day is over with me, I wonder how I am going to get through ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... neighbourhood, the sombre presence of a woman, in mourning unrelieved, whose back was all he could see of her and who had sunk deep into prayer at no great distance from him. He wished he could sink, like her, to the very bottom, be as motionless, as rapt in prostration. After a few moments he shifted his seat; it was almost indelicate to be so aware of her. But Stransom subsequently quite lost himself, floating away on the sea of light. If occasions like this had been more frequent in his life he would ...
— The Altar of the Dead • Henry James
... scourged her to the verge of frenzy, but when the flow of long-pent tears partly extinguished the fire in her brain, overtaxed Nature claimed restitution, and the prisoner yielded to overwhelming prostration. Death might be hovering near, but her twin sister sleep intervened, and compassionately laid her ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... breakfast, for it's the King's express command that I worship on an empty stomach; some Jesuit told George my sins would never be forgiven unless the torture of the fast was added to that of early rising, travel, prostration before the altar and listening to ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... nature gave way. A cold languor came over him. He locked the door that no one might see his weakness, and then, succumbing to nature, he fell first into a sickness and then into a trembling, and more than once hysterical tears gushed from his eyes in the temporary prostration of his spirit ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... had even displayed a kindness for Kenneth; no doubt she would do so again when Joseph returned with him—unless he were among the Worcester slain, in which case, perhaps, it would prove best that his fate was not to cause her any prostration of grief. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... complaint, disorder, malady; distemper, distemperature[obs3]. visitation, attack, seizure, stroke, fit. delicacy, loss of health, invalidation, cachexy[obs3]; cachexia[Med], atrophy, marasmus[obs3]; indigestion, dyspepsia; decay &c. (deterioration) 659; decline, consumption, palsy, paralysis, prostration. taint, pollution, infection, sepsis, septicity[obs3], infestation; epidemic, pandemic, endemic, epizootic; murrain, plague, pestilence, pox. sore, ulcer, abscess, fester, boil; pimple, wen &c. (swelling) 250; carbuncle, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... from me! Not a word of thanks! And yet I ended by realizing from what terrible death you saved me and understanding the secret of that terrible business! But indeed, indeed I couldn't help it! I was in such a state of prostration after it all! I needed rest and solitude so badly! Was I to stay in Paris? Was I to continue my expeditions with you? No, no, no! I had had enough adventures! Other people's are very interesting, I admit. But when one is one's self the victim and barely escapes with one's life?... ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... more or less perfect, sleep, and, in the end, the last long sleep. Let us, instead of exhausting the force, cut it off at the sources where it is generated; let us remove the carbon or coal that should go in as fuel food, and we create prostration, and in continuance a waning animal fire, sleep, and death; or let us, instead of removing or withdrawing the supply of fuel, cut off the supply of air, as by immersion of the body in water, or by making it breathe a vapor that weakens the combination of oxygen with carbon—such ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... cause of industrial conflict was the question of wages. Forty-one per cent. of all the strikes between 1881 and 1900 were for more pay; twenty-six per cent., for shorter hours. Between the close of the war and the early nineties, industrial prosperity was widespread except for the period of prostration following 1873 and the less important depression of 1884. Not unnaturally the laborer desired to have a larger share of the product of his work. The individual, however, was impotent before a great corporation, when the wage-scale was being determined; hence ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... motion, which, if adopted, would have landed him in defeat; but through utter want of judgment and concert with his party, he does not get far enough to be defeated: he does not succeed in obtaining the prostration for which he man[oe]uvres; but is saved from a final exposure of his little statesmanship by universal mockery of his miserable partizanship. Alas for the times in which Burke and Fox wielded the forces of Parliamentary opposition, and redoubled the energies of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... exception." Lincoln generally met the objections by the placid remark, "I reckon that's so." Thus he gave up point after point, apparently giving away his case over and over again, until his associates were brought to the verge of nervous prostration. After giving away six points he would fasten upon the seventh, which was the pivotal point of the case, and would handle that so as to win. This ought to have been satisfactory, but neither Herndon nor his other associates ever ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... or Strychnine, when taken in time, there is a | | cure, but for an over dose of tobacco there is none; its effect on the | | system is Paleness, Nausea, Giddiness, Lessening of the heart's action,| | Vomiting, Purging, Cold-sweating, and utter Prostration, such as no | | other poison can induce, then death! Its evils are numerous we will | | notice a few as follows. | | | | 1. It impregnates the whole system with two of the most fatal poisons, | | NICOTINA, ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... far off for me to hope to do anything.) I then return to Kartoum, and then go to Darfur and return to Kartoum, and then go to the Lakes. Why do people die in these countries? Do not you, who are a philosopher, think it is due to moral prostration more than to the climate? I think so, and have done so for a long time. My assistant, Prout,[8] has been lingering on the grave's brink for a long time, and I doubt if he will go up again. I have no fear of dying in any climate. 'Men now seek honours, not honour.' You put ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... performed in shoes that fit, than in such as tire the feet? And this is scarcely less true of brain-work than house-work. I believe that the shoes worn by young girls and young women now, are a great cause of nervous irritability, and, joined with other causes, may be a source of disease, "nervous prostration," so called in after life. I have heard women say many times, "Nothing in the world will bring a sick-headache on so quickly as wearing a shoe that hurts my feet." The oft repeated words have led me to watch my pupils in this respect carefully, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... previous century, the nerves quiver at the least shock. For instance, recall the newspaper accounts of executions of criminals. We learn that the executioner goes about his work timidly, that he is on the point of fainting, that he has nervous prostration when he decapitates a man. Then compare this nervous wreck with the invincible torturers of the olden time. They would thrust your arm into a sleeve of moistened parchment which when set on fire would draw up and in a leisurely fashion reduce ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... suddenly. So Morrow was on the verge of nervous prostration, eh? That was bad. It had been Matt's experience that, as a usual thing, but two things conduce to bring about nervous prostration—overwork and worry; and in Morrow's case it must be worry, for Kelton did all the work! Kelton, too, looked haggard ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... work is usually thrown into a state of nervous prostration by the difficulties that beset his task. By a perusal of the following hints he may learn to acquire an invulnerable calm, and if he follows the directions given he can reckon on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... frost of misfortune with patient dignity. It is a touching thing to see the simple joys of life, in homes like these, crushed into a speechless endurance of penury, and the native spirit of self-reliance writhing in unavoidable prostration, and hoping on from day to day for better times. I have seen many such places in my wanderings during these hard days—cottages where all was so sweet and orderly, both in person and habitation, that, but for the funereal stillness which sat upon hunger-nipt faces, a stranger ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... without previous training, particularly in the young, and that peevishness is especially reserved for the old and querulous, who are to try the amiability of the heroine. To a certain degree, this is often the case; the complete prostration of strength, and the dim awe of approaching death in the acute illnesses of the young, often tame down the stubborn or petulant temper, and their patience and forbearance become the wonder and admiration of those who have seen germs of far other dispositions. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... six, Mr. Beresford," I said. "Do you think you can get to the Metropole and array yourself and return in less than an hour? Because, even if you can, remember that we ladies have elaborate toilets in prospect,—toilets intended for the complete prostration of the British gentry. Francesca has a yellow gown which will drive Bertie Godolphin to madness. Salemina has laid out a soft, dovelike grey and steel combination, directed towards the Church of England; for you may not ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... neighbors' harvest fields, and began a devastating war of Greek against Greek. Internal dissensions promised the shrewd Macedonian the conquest he sought. At length, in August, 338, came Philip's victory at Chaeronea, and the complete prostration of Greek power. Aeschines, who had hitherto disclaimed all connection with Philip, now boasted of his intimacy with the king. As Philip's friend, while yet an Athenian, he offered himself as ambassador to entreat leniency from the victor ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the man was scarcely responsible for what he did. He was beside himself with dread. The solitude was on his nerves, this haunting dog, his own reflections, all had combined to reduce him to the verge of nervous prostration. With the last dying sound his heavy revolver was levelled in the direction of the oncoming hound. There was a moment's pause, then a shot rang out and the dog stood quite still. The bullet fell short and only kicked up the snow some yards in front ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... that war between nations, as distinct from war between dynasties or royal houses, was a struggle for existence in which each adversary risked everything and in which success was to be expected only from the complete prostration of the enemy. In the long run, they said to themselves, the only defence consists in striking your adversary to the ground. That being the case, a nation must go into war, if war should become inevitable, with the maximum force which it can possibly produce, represented by its whole manhood ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... could ascertain its cause from the patient herself. Her confession of it would be half the cure. But he did not succeed in extracting this confession. Pauline did not know what ailed her. Beyond a great prostration she did not know that she was sick. She was unconscious of any cause for her present condition. This was her language, but of course the experienced old doctor did not believe a word of it. At the same time, however, ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... didn't do any biting, but lifting the dog-catcher up with his various sets of teeth, fastened to his collar, coat-tails, and feet respectively, carried him yelling like a trooper to the end of the wharf and dropped him into the Styx. The result of this was nervous prostration for the dog-catcher, another suit for damages for the city, and a great laugh for the State authorities. In fact," Boswell added, confidentially, "I think perhaps the reason why the Prime-minister hasn't got Apollyon to hang the whole ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... become of him? Horrocks gone; the troopers withdrawn, or, at least, without a guiding hand, what might Retief not be free to do while the settlement awaited the coming of a fresh detachment of police. He impotently cursed the raider. The craven weakness, induced by his condition of nervous prostration, was almost pitiable. All the selfishness which practically monopolized his entire nature displayed itself in his terror. He cared nothing for others. He believed that Retief was at war with him alone. He believed that the ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... few years after their separation she died of nervous prostration, leaving Janina, who was then ten years old. Orlowski immediately took her away from ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... secure diplomatic base at Pekin. The embassy reached Kalgan on the Great Wall in safety, but there it was detained until reference had been made to the capital. The instructions came back that the Russian envoy would only be received in audience provided he would perform the kotow, or prostration ceremony, and that if he would not promise to do this he was not to be allowed through the Wall. Count Goloyken firmly refused to give this promise, and among other arguments he cited the exemption accorded to Lord Macartney. The Chinese remained firm in their purpose, Count ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... narcotic poison of the most active class." It is not merely that a poison can by chemical process be extracted from it, but it is a poison in its simplest form. Its mere application to the skin has often produced uncontrollable nausea and prostration. Children have in several cases been killed by the mere application of tobacco ointment to the head. Soldiers have simulated sickness by placing it beneath the armpits,—though in most cases our regiments would probably consider this a mistaken application of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... quite recovered from her prostration of the first days, or nights, of marriage. He had taken her to Vienna, and she was utterly alone with him, utterly alone in another world, everything, everything foreign, even he foreign to her. Then came the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... that the real quality of the Renaissance was intellectual—that it was the emancipation of the reason for the modern world—we may inquire how feudalism was related to it. The mental condition of the Middle Ages was one of ignorant prostration before the idols of the Church—dogma and authority and scholasticism. Again, the nations of Europe during these centuries were bound down by the brute weight of material necessities. Without the power over the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... convening of Congress one year ago the nation has undergone a prostration in business and industries such as has not been witnessed with us for many years. Speculation as to the causes for this prostration might be indulged in without profit, because as many theories would be advanced as there would be independent writers—those who expressed their own views without ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... Veronica held out the cloth which took the miraculous likeness. We examined our souls before Good Friday; we went to the special yearly Holy Communion now invested with a strange and awful solemnity. There was the prostration before the Cross at Golgotha on Good Friday, the receiving of the Sacred Fire, symbol of the Resurrection, on Holy Saturday, and then the night of the year and the Great Morning. It seemed when we all kissed one ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... previous to the final one he had made fruitless efforts to escape from his tormentors in consequence of brutal treatment. Although he at last succeeded, the severe trials through which he had to pass in escaping, came very near costing him his life. The effects he will always feel; prostration and sickness had already taken hold upon him in a ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... general. I looked on pictures as things to be avoided, connoisseurs looked on them as things to be imitated; and that, too, with such a deference and humbleness of submission, amounting to a total prostration of mind and original feeling; as must serve only to fill the world with abortions." But he was very agreeable, and I endured the visit, I trust, without the usual ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the saddest. Morning—it was Sunday—brought comparative ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... war, then, would bring about the economic prostration of every nation engaged in it, and would be a cause of violent danger to ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... wrapped snugly in three or four big rugs and laid in one of the canoes, which was emptied for the purpose. This heroic treatment had a speedy effect, and the patient, much to the relief of all, recovered from his prostration ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... with that day. The next, Sunday, was spent on the sofa, in a state of utter prostration. With the necessity for exertion the power had died. Fleda could only lie upon the cushions, and sleep helplessly, while Mrs. Pritchard sat by, anxiously watching her; curiosity really swallowed up in kind feeling. Monday was little better, but towards the after part of the ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... very numerous, and they continued to arrive. The drawing-rooms filled; a crowd of men smoked in the 'library' and the billiard-room; women swarmed in passages and staircase. After welcoming Mrs. Rolfe with the ardour of a bosom friend and the prostration of a devotee, the hostess turned to the next comer with scarcely less fervency. And Alma passed on, content for the present to be lost amid ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... what hit them, of picking themselves up and piecing themselves together, and sort of taking a whirl at beginning a new life. Time, the great healer, and Nature, adjusting itself, and so on and so forth. There's a lot in it. I know, because in my own case, after a day or two of what you might call prostration, I began to recover. The frightful loss of Jeeves made any thought of pleasure more or less a mockery, but at least I found that I was able to have a dash at enjoying life again. What I mean is, I braced up to the extent of going round the cabarets once more, so ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... she had led in the Catacombs, the alternating hope and fear, joy and sorrow, the ever present anxiety, and the oppressive air of the place itself, had overcome both mind and body. Her delicate nature sank beneath the fury of such an ordeal, and this last heavy blow completed her prostration. She could not ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... heard: he bowed his head: Within the lovely town he sped Which Bali's royal will had swayed, Where thousand Vanar chiefs arrayed Gathered in order round their king, And led him on with welcoming. Low on the earth the lesser crowd Fell in prostration as they bowed. Sugriva looked with grateful eyes, Spake to them all and bade them rise. Then through the royal bowers he strode Wherein the monarch's wives abode. Soon from the inner chambers came The Vanar of exalted fame; And joyful friends drew near and shed King-making balm upon his head, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... we never would get the suit to fit her. And she changed her shoes three times," added the society matron. "Finally I told her if she was going to have nervous prostration getting ready to take physical culture, she'd better wait and take it when she ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... however, to the impressiveness of the whole scene is the same as mars all Papal pageants,—I mean the length and monotony of the performance. One chant may be fine, one prostration before the altar may be striking, one burst of the choral litany may act upon your senses; but, when you have chant after chant, prostration after prostration, chorus after chorus, each the twin brother to the other, and going ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... Fromont Jeune awoke. All night long, between the drama that was being enacted below him and the festivity in joyous progress above, he slept with clenched fists, the deep sleep of complete prostration like that of a condemned man on the eve of his execution or of a defeated General on the night following his disaster; a sleep from which one would wish never to awake, and in which, in the absence of all sensation, one ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... collapsed. An air of settled misery fell upon him, an utter hopelessness, that was almost resignation, took possession of him. There was an unwonted gentleness in his manner to his daughter; he endured the miseries of weakness and prostration with unaccustomed patience; meekness pervaded all his words and actions, but it was the meekness of despair. And so—and so—this was how the familiar domestic drama came to be acted once more—the old, old story to be repeated. It was Robin Gray over again. If the cow was not stolen, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... common cause, more often producing Impotency (loss of Sexual Desire or Power) and Sterility (inability to beget offspring), than Spermatorrhoea (loss of vital fluid, daily and nightly losses, losses in the urine, nervous prostration, debility, insanity, paralysis, &c. For full description of symptoms, see pages 12-16). Sexual desire was given to mankind, like any other power or appetite—to be enjoyed in reasonable moderation and for the purpose of insuring a continuance of our species by ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... its large towns, Philippopoli and Adrianople, is certainly not more chimerical and absurd than many that are now projected. Who can doubt of its ultimate accomplishment, in spite of the alternate precipitancy and prostration of enterprise? Meanwhile imagination loses itself in attempting to picture the altered face of affairs in these secluded regions, when subjected to the operation of a revolution, which posterity will pronounce to be greater than those which made the fifteenth ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... heat prostration, and saw that her condition was not serious, but he knew he must carry her, for to lay her in the blazing sun would ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... my never firm health; I was soon on the verge of nervous prostration, and was ordered by my physician to at once secure a change of climate to save my life. My innocent lawyer supposed that a court of justice would postpone my trial until my return; but we have now some "courts ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... he lapsed into a state of absolute prostration, which gradually slackened his legs, brought him to the ground and paralyzed him. His two efforts, following so close upon each other and ending in disasters of which he had been the immediate witness, seemed to have robbed him of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the weather was so severe that the slightest effort produced complete prostration. Still, the difficulties of the way were so great, that Hatteras, the doctor, and Bell harnessed themselves with the dogs; sudden shocks had broken the front of the sledge, and they had to stop to repair it. Such ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... rapidly to the soul again. At this time the father paid his first visit to his child. He found her weak and wasted; the violent applications which had been necessary for safety had robbed her of all strength—had effected, in fact, a prostration of power, which she never recovered, from which she never rallied. Mr Fairman was greatly shocked, and asked the physician for his opinion now. The latter declined giving it until, as he expressed himself, "the effects of the fever, and her attack, had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... me not paint it. The delirium, the fever, the self-loathing, the prostration, the despair. I view in the looking-glass a haggard face, with red eyes. I look down upon shaking hands, flaccid muscles, and shrunken limbs. I speculate if I shall ever be one of those grotesque and melancholy beings, with bleared eyes and running noses, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... as such a strain must, in the sort of break which was not yet known as nervous prostration. When I could not sleep after my studies, and the sick headaches came oftener, and then days and weeks of hypochondriacal misery, it was apparent I was not well; but that was not the day of anxiety for such things, and if it was thought best that I should leave work and study ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... colonies soon manifested themselves. A settler at Port Phillip discovered or applied the art of boiling down the surplus stock, so as to produce the tallow of commerce; and sheep, lately 2s. 6d., became worth eight shillings. The discovery of the Burra mines raised Adelaide from deep prostration. The opening of new tracts of country offered a vast field for successful enterprise; wool once more rose in price; the banks lowered their discounts to a reasonable level; the goods saved from the general wreck appeared ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... incredible efforts of intelligence, I was only able to murmur in a silly tone: "If any one asks for me, say I am not in!" Then I cleared in three jumps the stairs leading to my cell, and I sank upon my bed in a state of complete prostration. ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... time she lay in utter prostration, and only the tears that trickled at intervals down her pale cheeks showed that she was ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... as fast as his fleet feet would carry him. The doctor pronounced Mrs Cruden to be in a state of high fever, produced by nervous prostration and poor living. He advised Horace, if possible, to get a nurse to tend her while the fever lasted, especially as she would probably awake from her swoon delirious, and would for several days remain in a ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... people of Kealakeakua declined trading with him, and loaded his ship freely with the best productions of the island. The priests approached him in a crouching attitude, uttering prayers, and exhibiting all the formalities of worship. After approaching him with prostration the priests cast their red kapas over his shoulders and then receding a little, they presented hogs and a variety of other offerings, with long addresses rapidly enunciated, which were a repetition of ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... tone. "A fine future you prepare for them, and they have to thank you for a life of humiliation and suffering! Good enough, young man! When a body is inert, it is useless to galvanize it. Twenty years of continuous slavery, of systematic humiliation, of constant prostration, finally create in the mind a twist that cannot be straightened by the labor of a day. Good and evil instincts are inherited and transmitted from father to son. Then let your idylic ideas live, your dreams of a slave who asks only for a bandage to wrap the chain so that it may rattle ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... and Bagdad met half-way up the vertical face of a rock, on a path only a cubit in width. As both were in a hurry, and etiquette would allow neither to set his foot upon the other even if dignity had permitted prostration, they maintained for some time a stationary condition. After some reflection, each decided to jump round the other; but as etiquette did not warrant conversation with a stranger, neither made known his intention. ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... believing that they had caught a spy. The word 'spy' at once spread through the midst of the stragglers, and they gathered in a group round the prisoner. A voice exclaimed: 'He must be shot!' And all these soldiers who were falling from utter prostration, only holding themselves on their feet by leaning on their guns, felt all of a sudden that thrill of furious and bestial anger which urges ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... all they knew. Yes, there had been talk of giving the case to a detective agency, but they weren't sure it had been done. And here is his poor mother up in New Rochelle, almost on the verge of nervous prostration. There is his fiancee, too; little Betty Parsons, who is crying her eyes out. Nice girl, Betty. And it's a shame that something isn't being done. Anyway, I shall do what ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... Indies than to freeze like a clod, so here goes." And stepping upon the gunwale he made a spring in the dark, alighting upon a slippery rock and measuring his length upon the sand. Nothing daunted, however, he grasped a handful of sand in each fist, as if his prostration had been voluntary, and springing to his feet cried ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... tall, lank, grey-bearded, brought enough devotion for half a dozen followers. He had served with little Akbar's grandfather, Babar the brave, and when he saw the child standing so fair and square, he gave almost a sharp cry of remembrance and delight. And when he stood up after his prostration, in soldier fashion he held out the hilt of his old sword for the baby to touch in token that its service was accepted. Queen Humeeda, who stood beside her little son, guided his fat fingers to the sword; but at the very moment a vivid flash of lightning ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel |
