"Suspense" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... summoned to appear, and I appeared. I saw M. de Sartine, 'sedentem pro tribunali'. At the end of the sitting he told me that he was obliged to remand me, and that during my remand I must not leave Paris or get married, as all my civil rights were in suspense pending the decision. I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... face, that it seemed to Sutch the lad must actually hear the drone of bullets in the air, actually resist the stunning shock of a charge, actually ride down in the thick of a squadron to where guns screeched out a tongue of flame from a fog. Once a major of artillery spoke of the suspense of the hours between the parading of the troops before a battle and the first command to advance; and Harry's shoulders worked under the intolerable strain of ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... out and took his arm. Her face was bright and smiling, and there was no suggestion of disgust in the dancing eyes she turned up to him. Evidently she had not heard, but the thought gave him no particular pleasure, as it left him in suspense as to how she would ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... Mark!" cried his sister sharply, "Myra is a sensible girl. Now, then, don't keep us in suspense. Tell me: is it all true ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... beautiful,' I exclaimed, and Miss Pollingray, seeing my curiosity, was kind enough not to keep me in suspense. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... for him to proceed to Parliament in order to give the Royal Assent to a Customs Bill which had that day passed the Legislative Council, he considered that, as this necessity had arisen, it would not be expedient to keep the public mind in suspense by omitting to dispose, at the same time, of the other Acts which still awaited his decision, among which was the 'Act to provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property was destroyed during the Rebellion in 1837 and 1838.' What followed is thus described ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... nine o'clock, ten o'clock—Molly O'Reilly couldn't endure the suspense any longer. She cunningly stacked a tray with nut- bread sandwiches and a pitcher of milk and strode bravely up the stairs ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... Father Jerome? Why don't you tell me at once—is he alive?" And then she added, almost screaming in her agitation, "For God's sake, Sir, don't keep a wretched, miserable woman in suspense!" ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... thought, we all sat down. Painful as the certainty was it was not so painful as that listening, hoping suspense. ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... midst of their suspense, one of them thought of the sledge.—Marengo's sledge. That would make a fire, but a very small one. It might do to cook a single meal. Even that was better than none. Marengo was not going to object to the arrangement. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... of suspense followed. The Spanish Cortes did not advise the King to accept the treaty until October; the Senate did not reaffirm its ratification until the following February; and it was two years to a day after the signing of the treaty that Adams and Vives exchanged formal ratifications. Again Adams confided ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... will keep the reader in a state of suspense, and he will become personally concerned from the start, as to the central character, a very real man who ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... only succeeded in uttering an inarticulate sound. The minutes dragged. The suspense was dreadful. They all realized that he was fast sinking, but in every heart was a hope that he would speak, would say one word which might give some clue ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... beating on the rocks; or the sea deep-coloured in daylight, with white gulls over it; or the sea with those sinuous paths made by the wandering currents, the subtle, smiling, silent sea, holding in suspense its unfathomable restlessness, waiting to surge and spring again. That was what she wanted from him—not his embraces, not even his adoration, his wit, or his queer, lithe comeliness touched with felinity; no, only that in his soul which escaped through his fingers into the air and dragged at her ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indolence that I have not written to you. Suspense has been the real cause of my silence. Day after day I have confidently expected some decisive letter, and as often have been disappointed. "Certainly I shall have one to-morrow noon, and then I will write." Thus I contemplated the time of my silence in its small component parts, ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... of the land. Now I think that I have demonstrated in my First Memoir, that large accumulation and minute division are the first two terms of an economical trinity,—a THESIS and an ANTITHESIS. But, while M. Wolowski says nothing of the third term, the SYNTHESIS, and thus leaves the inference in suspense, I have shown that this third term is ASSOCIATION, which is the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... cases are ever followed out," he said, "unless our people are in them. Your amateur detective neer hunts down to the death. As for ordinary people, the moment things begin to mend, and the strain of suspense is off them, they drop the matter in hand. It is like sea-sickness," he added philosophically after a pause; "the moment you touch the shore you never give it a thought, but run off to the buffet to ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... the position to relax. But those capital letters have long since called the eye of the reader to themselves, and the point the writer tries to emphasise is doubly lost. It has been forestalled, and has become an irritation. You come on it twice; you have been robbed of anticipation and suspense, which, just here, are the life and soul of art. You know before you ought to be allowed to guess; and, worst of all, perhaps, you feel that your own intelligence has been affronted. Surely you had imagination enough to feel the ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... days, after being saved—he knew not how— gazing wistfully, hopelessly at the sea which had swallowed up wife and children and fortune. He had been a "successful" gold-digger! On that patch of gravel scenes of terrible suspense had been enacted. Expectant ones had come to inquire whether those whom they sought had really embarked in that vessel, while grave and sympathetic but worn-out or weary men of the Coast-guard, stood ready to give information or to defend ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... obliged to remain behind, as I had promised my travelling companion to await his arrival. Week after week elapsed, with nothing but the fact of my staying with my relatives to lighten the dreariness of suspense; at last, about the middle of June, the Count came, and shortly afterwards we found a vessel—a Danish brig, the "Caroline," Captain ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... our claims upon France for spoliations upon our commerce; similar claims upon Spain, together with embarrassments in the commercial intercourse between the two countries which ought to be removed; the conclusion of the treaty of commerce and navigation with Mexico, which has been so long in suspense, as well as the final settlement of limits between ourselves and that Republic, and, finally, the arbitrament of the question between the United States and Great Britain in regard to the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... room, and while in that state of nervous prostration she must have become an easy dupe to that beggar, or thief, whichever her strange visitor may have been," said the duke; and while he spoke so calmly on such an anxious and exciting subject, he, too, under circumstances of extreme trial and suspense, exhibited the self-possession and self-control which is the birthright of the true gentleman no less than ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... suspense tortures. The forty odd hours which lay between the ending of the Grahams' dinner and the promised interview with Winifred Anstice stretched out into an eternity to the impatience of Flint. By turns he tried occupation and diversion; ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... was called at midnight, as two of the principals were playing in other theatres. There was an air of suspense and confusion on the stage, where the new sets were being put on, which threw Jarvis into a cold sweat of terror. It only added one degree to Bambi's mounting excitement. She and Jarvis made their way to the front of the house, where Mr. Frohman, the leader of the orchestra, ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... had been discovered, bangings of doors, shouts, bugle calls, and the clatter of horses' feet each in succession giving her fresh terror. Yet minute after minute passed without any one coming to find her, and at last the suspense became so intolerable that the girl rose and went to the head of the stairs to listen. From that point of vantage she could hear in the dining-room the voice of Harcourt sternly asking questions, the replies to which were so inarticulate and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... the shore at the very point at which I was aiming, and her course and mine must soon meet if I continued to row. After some hesitation I concluded to make signals to her, so as to attract attention; for, now that I had resolved to venture among the people here, I was anxious to end my suspense as soon as possible. So I continued rowing, and gradually drew nearer. The galley was propelled by oars, of which there were fifty on either side. The stem was raised, and covered in like a cabin. At length ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... nothing of the resources of opium nor of the expedients of advanced civilization. Nor had he at hand one of those good friends of the Parisian pattern who understand so well how to say Poete, non dolet! by producing a bottle of champagne, or alleviate the agony of suspense by carrying you off somewhere to make a night of it. Capital fellows are they, always in low water when you are in funds, always off to some watering-place when you go to look them up, always with some bad bargain in horse-flesh to sell you; it is true, that when you want to borrow ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... were, in practice, disregarded; but the nationalistic vigor of the Hungarian people invested them with unlimited power of survival, and even during the reactionary second quarter of the nineteenth century they were but held in suspense. ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... tone is that of patient resignation, which we have found characterising David now. The first words are the key-note of the whole, "Truly unto God my soul is silence"—is all one great stillness of submissive waiting upon Him. It was in the very crisis of his fate, in the suspense of the uncertain issue of the rebellion, that these words, the very sound of which has calmed many a heart since, welled to his lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... grasp of Mr. Hope. Nor is it to be imputed to him for a fault that the critical chapter xvii. reminds us in half a dozen oddly indirect ways of a certain chapter in Richard Feverel. The place, the situation, the reader's suspense, are similar; but the actors, their emotions, their purposes are vastly different. It is a fine chapter, and the page with which it opens is the worst in the book—a solitary purple patch of "fine writing." I observe ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lightning, then lowering itself, it would resume the same tactics as before. How many times it repeated this, I shall never know. No words have ever been formed that can adequately express the feeling that took possession of me. I seemed powerless to move a muscle or twitch an eye-lid. The suspense was terrible, expecting each time that the slimy body descended the viper would thrust his poisonous lance into my leg and all would be over. The horror of it all cannot be imagined, and to this day, when I recall the incident, it sends a shiver through my entire body. As the coarse ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... connection with this migration to the south, I must, however, not omit to mention certain statements of Adolph Gutmann, one of Chopin's pupils. Here is the substance of what Gutmann told me. Chopin was anxious to go to Majorca, but for some time was kept in suspense by the scantiness of his funds. This threatening obstacle, however, disappeared when his friend the pianoforte-maker and publisher, Camille Pleyel, paid him 2,000 francs for the copyright of the Preludes, Op. 28. Chopin remarked of this transaction to Gutmann, or in ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the hint and asked no more questions. No one asked a question, though every moment now was one of suspense. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... derided, it is no ground of suspense that derided systems have turned out true: if it were, you would suspend your opinion about St. John Long on account of Jenner.—Ans. You ought to do so, as to possibility; and before examination; not with the notion that J. proves St. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... which chance and sensation take place of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not sufficient ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... the first class of expositors were overthrown by rejecting the sure word, just so sure you will be overwhelmed in utter confusion that oppose God's holy Sabbath and commandments, and your case is now hanging in awful suspense. O Lord, ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... designs attributed to him. My anxiety on this subject, has, however, become too painful to be alleviated by anticipations which no events have yet tended to justify; and in this state of intolerable suspense I have determined to address myself to you, and request that you will, in my name, apply to the President for a removal of the prosecution now existing against AARON BURR. I still expect it from him as a man ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... with suspense, they had landed on the far side of the Nile, on their race with Time to ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... breakfast was over they determined to catch him in his room, and put an end to their suspense ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... was a long, hideous suspense, as the Ray held me, and the thing that I feared was not the Ray, but belonged with it. In the midst of a kind of freezing paralysis, the struggle to flee arose within me. Yet I was without means of locomotion. Through sheer intensity ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... interval of a few minutes of anxious suspense, Taki Zenzaburo, a stalwart man, thirty-two years of age, with a noble air, walked into the hall attired in his dress of ceremony, with the peculiar hempen-cloth wings which are worn on great occasions. He was ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... must tell him not to put the net near till he gets the word from you. Many a time we have suppressed an exclamation—the reverse of a blessing—when we have seen the hoop of the landing-net strike the fish, and were in suspense for a second or two as to whether he was on or off. If the gaff is necessary, it is almost as well to let your man hold the rod after you have tired the fish thoroughly, and gaff him yourself. But if you think it unadvisable to part with the rod, send the man to the other end of the boat from ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... second week of anxious waiting was drawing to a close, Peace could endure the suspense no longer, and one warm afternoon, while her sisters were occupied with their various duties, she snatched the sharp bread-knife from the pantry shelf, and with Allee in tow, stole ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... until it was past four o'clock. Iris could endure the suspense no longer. "It's a lovely afternoon," she said to Mrs. Lewson. "Let us take a walk along the road, and meet Arthur." To this proposal the housekeeper ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... With a book in her hand she had established herself in a chair not far from that which by preference he had made his own. The act roused his curiosity; but when he, too, had taken a book and strolled out to join her, she didn't keep him in suspense. ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... dreams. "But don't let us discuss that now," she added. "It would waste time, and it is you who must go away and away, Billy, if you are not to put the poor Miss Minetts into a frantic fuss by being late for tea. They will think some accident has happened to you. Don't beep them in suspense, it is simply barbarous.—Good-bye, and don't hurry back. I have heaps to amuse me. I'll not expect you ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in suspense as to what should happen, came in a good old man, and an ancient, clothed all in white, and there was no knight knew from whence he came. With him he brought a young knight in red arms, without sword ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... looking out over these waters, gazed with greater eagerness nor did his heart beat with greater anxiety of suspense, than that which Brandon felt as his vessel glided slowly through the dark waters, the same over which Columbus had passed, and moved amidst the impenetrable gloom. But the long night of suspense glided by at last; the darkness faded, and ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... that memorable day he lost himself in a monograph which he had undertaken upon the Polyphonic Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were trying—all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition. ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... farmhouse Tom and his guests waited in winelit suspense, and at last Jim Priest rode shouting out of a lane to the door. "They're coming— they're coming," he shouted, and ten minutes later and after Tom had twice lost his temper and cursed the girl waitresses from the town hotels who ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... was now arrived, and all the young competitors were in a state of the most anxious suspense. Leonora and Cecilia continued to be the foremost candidates; their quarrel had never been finally adjusted, and their different pretensions now retarded all thoughts of a reconciliation. Cecilia, though she was capable of acknowledging ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... pass the time, but Iris soon noted an air of suspense in the older woman's attitude. Though mindful of her guest's comfort, Luisa Gomez had ever a keen ear for external sounds. In all probability, she was disturbed by the distant reports of fire-arms, and it was a rare instance of innate good-breeding ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... steps were again heard. The moment of suspense was stinging. The door opened and the tything men entered. The same spokesman, perhaps the ...
— Some Three Hundred Years Ago • Edith Gilman Brewster
... were not kept long in suspense. The pack, as it chanced, was on the trail of a moose which, labouring heavily in the deep snow, had passed, at a distance of some thirty or forty yards, a few minutes before the carcajou's arrival. The wolves swept into view through the tall fir trunks—five ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... his voice. He is so loud that one cannot bear what he says. Mr. James Payn is an adept in the art of concealing what is not worth finding. He hunts down the obvious with the enthusiasm of a short-sighted detective. As one turns over the pages, the suspense of the author becomes almost unbearable. The horses of Mr. William Black's phaeton do not soar towards the sun. They merely frighten the sky at evening into violent chromolithographic effects. On seeing them approach, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... friends of Brissot, felt their power, and mounted the tribune in order to move the man who alone arrested the progress of the Gironde. "Robespierre," said he, apostrophising him directly; "Robespierre—you alone keep the public mind in suspense—doubtless this excess of glory was reserved for you. Your speeches belong to posterity, and posterity will come to judge between you and me. But you Will mar a great responsibility by persisting in your opinions; you are accountable to your contemporaries, and even ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... concentrate a terrible fire of grape, canister and short-fuse shell upon any part of the opposite woods from which the enemy might make their appearance. The infantry were ordered to lie down, and were concealed from view by clumps of trees, corn and underbrush. This repelling force was not kept long in suspense, and it was evident that the movement had not been made a moment too soon for safety. Suddenly from the shadow of the white-oaks, out came the Confederates by regiments, without tap of drum or bugle-call, pouring ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... head, for at times the reaper overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks danced and chattered on stumps and fences, in an agony of suspense, when their nests were approached, and cried pitifully if they were destroyed. The chewinks flashed from the ground to the fences and trees, and back, crying "Che-wink?" "Che-wee!" to each other, in such excitement that they appeared ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... life from four years of age was actually and potentially concentrated. My father cherished me with a great consuming love. He saw in me the representation in face and partially in temperament of his wife. He lavished on me every care. Yet because of his eager affection, and his complete suspense from social connections I was made too largely dependent on him alone. I lived in his companionship only. My conversation became prematurely advanced in terms and principles, and my childish confidence was nurtured by ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... disclosures, while it increased the sense of impending peril, did not put the government in better position to avert it. For groping in the dark still, it knew not yet where or whom to strike. But in this period of horrible suspense and uncertainty its suspicion fell on another one of Vesey's principal leaders. This time it was on Ned Bennett that the city's distrustful eye fastened. Like that game which children play where the object ...
— Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7 • Archibald H. Grimke
... beyond,—as one expressed it, when she was entering the dark valley.' The 'valley' she saw, but no darkness, neither night nor shadow; all was light and peace. On the future life she had pondered much, but ever with a trust absolute and an abounding cheer. Fear, doubt, anxiety, suspense, she knew nothing of; none of them had power to mar her peace or jostle her conviction. While she could speak, she expressed the utmost gratitude that the dear Father was loosening the cords of life so gently that she ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... not long kept in a state of suspense. In a shorter space of time than I had expected another fearful shriek rent the air, and a host of dark forms sprang into view; at the same moment a flight of arrows came whistling above our heads. The brushwood, however, deceived them, and the missiles flew over us, though we feared ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... never seemed any end, for new flocks took up the tale of the old ones, and a constant procession of fur and feather moved across our white prospect. Even the wolf—from Benderloch no doubt—came baying at night at the empty gibbets at the town-head, that spoke of the law's suspense. ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... magnificent chance. This chance presented itself to me in an image richly material. I was a screen—I was to stand before them. The more I saw, the less they would. I began to watch them in a stifled suspense, a disguised excitement that might well, had it continued too long, have turned to something like madness. What saved me, as I now see, was that it turned to something else altogether. It didn't last as suspense—it was superseded ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... a sharp, low cry of astonishment from Sam, and the armful of wood came clattering to the ground. They heard Sam run, but away from the cabin, not toward the door. Each caught his breath in suspense. They heard a thud on the ground, and a confused, scrambling sound. Then Sam's voice rose ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... radiant welcome appealed to him. No one would have thought from her appearance that she had waited for him last night hour after hour, and had at last gone to bed with a heavy heart, and not to sleep-to toss, and listen, and suffer a thousand tortures of suspense. How many tragedies of this sort are there nightly in the metropolis, none the less tragic because they are subjects of jest in the comic papers and on the stage! What would be the condition of social life if women ceased to be anxious in this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... work, but they could do nothing against such a sea. We were close to the rocks, so close that one began to make preparations for doing something—one didn't well know what—when we should strike. Two more oars were out, and for an instant we hung in suspense as to the result. How they did pull! it was the old paddle-work forcing the rapid again; and it told; in spite of wave and wind, we were round the point, but it was only by a shade. An hour later we were running through a vast expanse of marsh and reeds into the mouth of Rainy River; ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Lucy nor George should come to the Old Bailey, and they were to await the verdict at Lady Kelsey's. Dick and Robert Boulger were subpoenaed as witnesses. In order that she might be put out of her suspense quickly, Lucy asked Alec MacKenzie to go into court and bring her the result as soon as it ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... Touche was not kept long in suspense next day; he got his answer before breakfast. The morning was sunny and mild, but the snow lay piled high on all sides; and Rose, running down stairs some ten minutes before breakfast-time, found her lover in ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... yet know, Admiral, which of the submarines has gone down?" asked Jacques de Wissant in a low tone. He was full of a burning curiosity edged with a longing and a suspense into whose secret sources he had no ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... the paper was somewhat mollified, Hal reckoned that he could pull through—if it were not for the Pierce suits. There was the crux of the situation. Nothing was being done about them. They had been postponed more than once, on motion of Pierce's counsel. Now they hung over Hal's head in a suspense fast becoming unbearable. At length he decided that, in fairness to his staff, he should warn them ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... which caused many an eye to be turned after him as he passed and many a hand to be raised in salute. Sir Charles walked on, and, seating himself upon the rustic bench in front of the famous statue, which was in the very middle of the Gardens, he waited in amused suspense to see the next ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... I crouched by her side near the further side, with only unkempt grass-plot and a weedy path between us and that ponderous door, wide open still, and replaced by a section of the lighted hail within. On this we fixed our attention with mingled dread and impatience, those contending elements of suspense; but the black was slow to reappear; and my eyes stole home to my sweet girl's face, with its glory of moonlit curls, and the eager, resolute, embittered look that put the world back two whole months, and Eva Denison upon the Lady Jermyn's poop, in ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... revivified. He is at Davis's lodgings. But I advise you not, a little suspense will do ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... My nerves have quite recovered their tone. I really believe that I have conquered the creature. But I must confess to living in some suspense. She is well again, for I hear that she was driving with Mrs. Wilson in the ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in a lawsuit with each other, and finally one of them threw the whole concern into chancery; and for years that dreary chancery suit seemed to envelop us in an atmosphere of palpitating suspense or stagnant uncertainty, and to enter as an inevitable element into every hope, fear, expectation, resolution, event, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... for quite half an hour, and the suspense on the anchored steamer was vivid enough to have shaken trained men. Yet these Italian artificers and merchant seamen seemed to take it as coolly as though such sorties were an everyday occurrence. ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... dear friend, that this is a simple news item. But if you had seen the hole itself your heart would have been wrung, as mine was, at the thought of the agony of that child hanging to his brother's hands, of the long suspense of those little chaps who were accustomed only to laugh and to play, and at the simple incident of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to tell you that I'm sorry I said those dreadful words when I learned he was dead. But suspense and the doubt that had begun to work had nearly driven me crazy. I don't mind saying, though, that I wish I had kept on meaning them, that I could do what I said I'd do, for I meant them then—I reckon I did! But I haven't any backbone, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... blew from the southward, which made the night air distressingly cold; it seemed as if the wind blew through our bodies. Under all the circumstances that had happened, we passed an anxious night, in a state of most painful suspense as to the fate of our still surviving companions. Mr. Roper had received two or three spear wounds in the scalp of his head; one spear had passed through his left arm, another into his cheek below the jugal bone, and penetrated the orbit, and injured the optic ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... St. Albans, I find, sailed on the very day of my letters reaching Yarmouth, so that we must not expect an answer[184] at present; we scarcely feel, however, to be in suspense, or only enough to keep our plans to ourselves. We have been obliged to explain them to our young visitors, in consequence of Fanny's letter, but we have not yet mentioned them to Steventon. We are all quite familiarised to the idea ourselves; my mother only wants ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... minutes I could see that it was Rob, but both his hands were empty. 'If they had found it,' I said to myself, 'they would send it back first thing, and if he had it, he would swing it aloft,' Yet no, nothing but a shiny tin was in his hands and the blow had fallen. The suspense was over, anyway. I bowed my head, 'We ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... it shifted rapidly under the stress of desperation or suspense. If any spoke, it was the rough and indifferent, whose words fell like blows on the distressed silence. Many were visibly trembling, others had whitened beneath the tropical tan, and the wondering faces of children, who feared without understanding, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... guessed rightly?" cried Richard, with an eagerness that startled his sister. "Do not keep me in suspense. Speak plainly." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... prey to the Sea Beggars of Holland. The rest, much battered, turned north to sail around Scotland. In the storms nineteen ships were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland; of thirty-five ships the Spaniards themselves {343} could give no account. For two months Philip was in suspense as to the fate of his great Armada, of which at last only a riddled and battered remnant returned to ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... moment, but to the duration of each scene or act; he is confined to the stage almost as the painter is confined within his frame. But the great restriction is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his actors, and with his actors alone. Certain moments of suspense, certain significant dispositions of personages, a certain logical growth of emotion,—these are the only means at the disposal of the playwright. It is true that, with the assistance of the scene-painter, the costumier and the conductor of the orchestra, he may add to this something of pageant, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... constant whisperings and mysterious conduct of her girl friends. "I wish they felt less important and paid more attention to me. When the time comes they will only forget their lines and I shall have to be in suspense on their account and be ashamed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... flight from Athens, considered with regard to himself that he would have to suffer punishment for having persuaded the king to make an expedition against Hellas, and that it was better for him to run the risk of either subduing Hellas or ending his own life honourably, placing his safety in suspense for a great end, 63 though his opinion was rather that he would subdue Hellas;—he reckoned up these things, I say, and addressed his speech to the king as follows: "Master, be not thou grieved, nor feel great trouble on account of this thing which has come to pass; for it is not upon a contest ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... a long period of suspense. But from the cautious movements of the light far below them, the guide understood that the lad was at work carrying out his part of the task of rescue to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... see which man had received the news. All the faces were blank, and every man said he had not taken a word about the shooting. 'Look over your files,' said the boss to the man handling the press stuff. For a few moments we waited in suspense, and then the man held up a sheet of paper containing a short account of the shooting of the President. The operator had worked so mechanically that he had handled the news without the slightest knowledge of its significance." Mr. Adams says that at the time the city was en ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... cloak ordained by providence to "go" with the hat. Miss Schuler declared it would be a crime to fail to take advantage of such an opportunity but the trouble was that Lise had had to wait for two more pay-days and endure the suspense arising from the possibility that some young lady of taste and means might meanwhile become its happy proprietor. Had not the saleslady been obdurate, Lise would have had it on credit; but she did succeed, by an initial payment the ensuing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Bessie: I don't think I have felt the worst of my defeat yet," were his words when he spoke at last. She listened, still on her knees: "It is a common thing to say that suspense is worse to bear than certainty, but the certainty that destroys hope and makes the future a blank is very like a millstone hanged round a man's neck to sink him in a slough of despondency. I never really believed it until Dr. Courteney told me that if I wish to save my life it must be ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of supplication, as the two sat in the dark on the drive to the station. Of course they were too soon, but the driver manoeuvred so as to give them a full view of the exit—and then came that minute of indescribable suspense when the sounds of arrival were heard, and figures began to ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unable to bear longer suspense, with a small pack on my shoulders and a stick in my hand, I walked from Ballaarat to Melbourne, a distance of seventy-five miles, stopping for a couple of nights on the way at the house of a kind and hospitable friend, Dugald McPherson, Esquire, J.P., at Bungel-Tap. ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... raining, and the wind blowing. It was only a short walk to her own house, and she and her mother had made a rule not to take out servants and the carriage for their devotions. She would have walked on in total silence, but her mother could not bear the suspense. ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... though the man was motionless now. It changed from its melody of sheer joy to wonder, amazement, suspense. It took on soothing tones; it begged, it wheedled. So a mother would whistle, if mothers whistled, over the cradle of a crying child, but the girl did not stop. She was running up a hill, and at the top she stood, outlined ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... to repel any attack made upon him, and as he remained upon his guard the rustling noise increased, and he momentarily expected to see the leaves parted and some dark figure rush out; but still he was kept in suspense, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... would have been at no loss for a reply; but she saw the necessity of dissimulation; and after naming such of her admirers as were most indifferent to her, she declared herself quite at a loss, and begged her father to put an end to her suspense. ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... not report him, forgetting, or not realising, the great responsibility which Mr Rabbits would incur by failing to do so. Well, he would know the worst soon now at any rate, that was one consolation, for there is nothing so bad as suspense, as the man said who ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... exhibit a growing excitement as the dance progresses. At intervals, one and another of them, leaps to his feet and joins the dance. At the last, the CHISERA, whirling rapidly, falls to the ground. Instantly the rattles are stopped, and the people wait in suspense the word of the gods. The women are seen to steal up through the toyon bushes. The CHISERA lifts herself slowly on one elbow, as if waking from a drugged sleep. She stretches out her hand for the sacred sticks. She drops them with a quick turn of the wrist, gathers them ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... victory, and free from the blemish of the terrible excesses that stained the first French Revolution. As the whole of Europe, including some of the German states, was soon plunged more or less violently into rebellion, I remained for some time in a feverish state of suspense, and now first turned my attention to the causes of these upheavals, which I regarded as struggles of the young and hopeful against the old and effete portion of mankind. Saxony also did not remain ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... behind them to be confiscated by the Government. On only one point did there seem to be unanimity and accord. That was that the dogged prosecution of the war and the ultimate victory must be credited to George Washington. Others had fought valiantly and endured hardships and fatigues and gnawing suspense, but without him, who never wavered, they could not have gone on. He had among them some able lieutenants, but not one who, had he himself fallen out of the command by wound or sickness for a month, could have ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... responsible for a great share of our interest in life; it will be the same with your speech. A play or a novel is often robbed of much of its interest if you know the plot beforehand. We like to keep guessing as to the outcome. The ability to create suspense is part of woman's power to hold the other sex. The circus acrobat employs this principle when he fails purposely in several attempts to perform a feat, and then achieves it. Even the deliberate manner in which he arranges the preliminaries increases ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... closed my eyes for an instant and looked again, it was gone. Slow minute followed minute, and the hand with which I clutched the ladder began to tremble. The sight of that mysterious light had shaken me the night before, but not half so deeply as its absence shook me now. At last the suspense grew unendurable. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... fuller tide of harmony with the movement of the sentiment. It has not the bold dramatic transitions of Shakspeare's blank verse, nor the high-raised tone of Milton's; but it is the perfection of melting harmony, dissolving the soul in pleasure, or holding it captive in the chains of suspense. Spenser was the poet of our waking dreams; and he has invented not only a language, but a music of his own for them. The undulations are infinite, like those of the waves of the sea: but the effect is still the same, lulling the senses into a deep oblivion of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... to the Lateran Council, as the envoy of England, took upon himself to deliver the letter and to plead Erasmus's cause. Erasmus, having meanwhile at the end of August returned to the Netherlands, awaited the upshot of his kind offices in the greatest suspense. The matter was finally settled in January 1517. In two letters bearing the signature of Sadolet, Leo X condoned Erasmus's transgressions of ecclesiastical law, relieved him of the obligation to wear the dress of his order, allowed him to live ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... credulity, and have been, perhaps, more indebted to that resource in gaining and keeping for a time the upper hand of Truth and Common Sense, than to any half-dozen items in the whole catalogue of imposture. To awaken curiosity and to gratify it by slow degrees, yet leaving something always in suspense, is to establish the surest hold that can be had, in wrong, on the unthinking portion ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... conception. This latter system, as before said, is the most preferable, as its adoption secures for our favourite a speedy termination of his sufferings, and also relieves our own minds from a state of suspense that illustrates too forcibly the remark, "Hope ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... come from the Count's salon. Who could it possibly be? Maximilian Morrel? No, the idea was absurd, for what had the young Frenchman done to provoke arrest? Finally, unable longer to endure the uncertainty and suspense, the Viscount cautiously opened his door and glanced out into the corridor. His eyes rested upon Monte-Cristo, Peppino and Beppo. The former saw him and ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... ALMORAN, returned hastily to the chamber in which he left him, believing he had withdrawn too soon, and that the king, as he knew no other was present, was speaking to him: he soon drew near enough to hear what was said; and while he was standing torpid in suspense, dreading to be discovered, and not knowing how to retire, ALMORAN ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... narrow Loch Sheil. The valley was solitary—not a far-off bagpipe broke the silence, not a figure appeared against the skyline of the hills. With sickening anxiety the small party waited, while the minutes dragged out their weary length. At last, when suspense was strained to the utmost, about two in the afternoon, a sound of pipes was heard, and a body of Camerons under Lochiel appeared over the hill, bringing with them the prisoners made at the Bridge of Spean. ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... was managed with such eagerness, clamour, and warmth, that the two parties of books, in arms below, stood silent a while, waiting in suspense what would be the issue; which was not long undetermined: for the bee, grown impatient at so much loss of time, fled straight away to a bed of roses, without looking for a reply, and left the spider, like an orator, collected ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem; it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon's porch. The Jews therefore came round about him, and said unto him, "How long dost thou hold us in suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... in my face?" says Jack. "My dear fellow, delays are dangerous. Let us have done with suspense, and risk it, the day ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... every man seems equally to desire; to declaim against the expedients offered in the bill as pernicious, unjust, and oppressive, contributes very little to the production of better means. That our affairs will not admit of long suspense, and that the present methods of raising seamen are not effectual, is universally allowed; it, therefore, evidently follows, sir, that some other must be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... suspense. Mr. Henderson threw over the steering wheel. The Annihilator moved more slowly. Then came a gentle shock. The dishes in the galley rattled, and there was the clank of ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... tell me," continued the Marchioness, "for whom you made these ornaments." "For myself alone," replied Cardillac. "Ah! I dare say your ladyship finds that strange," he continued, since both she and De Scuderi had fixed their eyes upon him astounded, the former full of mistrust, the latter of anxious suspense as to what turn the matter would take next; "but it is so. Merely out of love for my beautiful handicraft I picked out all my best stones and gladly set to work upon them, exercising more industry and ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... on until nearly noon, and yet Andrew was still away. Mrs. Howland, whose mind was in a state of strong excitement, could bear her suspense and fear no longer, and she resolved to go out and seek for her wandering son. She had dressed herself, and was just taking up her bonnet, as the door of her room opened, and Andrew came in, looking pale and distressed. Across his forehead was a deep, ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... among the breakers, and continued to be so, until they came to a turn in their precarious path, where an intervening projection of rock hid it from their sight. Deprived of the view of the beacon on which they had relied, they now experienced the double agony of terror and suspense. They struggled forward, however; but, when they arrived at the point from which they ought to have seen the crag, it was no longer visible: the signal of safety was lost among a thousand white breakers, which, dashing upon the point of the promontory, rose in prodigious ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... came early on Monday morning. Admiral Merrifield and Harry started by the earliest train, deciding not to take the girls; whereupon their kind host, to mitigate the suspense, placed himself at the young ladies' disposal for anything in the world that they might wish to see. It was too good an opportunity of seeing the Houses of Parliament to be lost, and the spell of Westminster ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... agony was over—at least the agony of suspense. The poor misguided men knew now that all hope had died. They would be re-employed when the company needed them, but it was January—the dullest month in the year. Every railroad in the West was laying men off. Hundreds of the ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... I was yet in suspense, when Andrew, who mistook my hesitation for bashfulness, proceeded to exhort me to lay it aside. "Speak till him—speak till him, Mr. Francis—he's no provost yet, though they say he'll be my lord neist year. Speak till him, then—he'll gie ye a decent answer for as rich as he is, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the torture of suspense so worked upon her that she began to grow feverish. The afternoon was waning and still ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... me all pale and startled. I tried to speak to her; I tried to break away from Owen's arms, to throw my own arms round her, to keep her on my bosom, till he came to take her from me. But all my strength had gone in the long waiting and the long suspense. My head sank on Owen's breast—but I still heard the wheels. Morgan loosened my cravat, and sprinkled water over my face—I still heard the wheels. The poor terrified girl ran into her room, and came back with her smelling-salts—I ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... be expected, for the time being at least? For, the war over, the people naturally reacted from the dreary period of hardships and suspense to a period of luxury and enjoyment. Moreover, here was a new nation, and the citizens of the capital felt impelled to uphold the dignity of the new commonwealth by some display of riches, brilliance, and power. Then, too, the first President of the young nation was not niggardly ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... of character more severe or difficult to bear than the suspense of waiting. The man who can act eases his soul under the greatest calamities; but he who is compelled to wait, unless he be of hardy fibre, eats his heart out in a futile despair. Troops will endure losses when they are caught up in the stir of a charge ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... a long time; her suspense increased at the thought that her mother would be wondering what ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... did not allow the torturing suspense to disturb his outward composure, or lessen his kindness to those around him. On the morning after his second appearance at the bar of the Convention, the commissary Vincent, who had undertaken secretly to convey to the Queen ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... opens it, stands again for a moment with a smile on his face, then goes. MABEL crosses swiftly to the door, and shuts it as the outer door closes. Then she stands quite still, looking at her husband —her face expressing a sort of startled suspense. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Nevertheless he was not yet sleepy, and lying on his blanket, he watched the leaders confer, as they had conferred every other night since the Battle of Gettysburg. He was aware, too, that the air was heavy with suspense and anxiety. He breathed it in at every breath. Cruel doubt was not shown by words or actions, but it was an atmosphere which ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the crisis came to the crowd on the beach. At once the terrible strain of suspense tugged at their souls. Each conducted himself according to his nature. The hardy men of the river and the woods set their teeth until the cheek muscles turned white, and blasphemed softly and steadily. Two or three of the townsmen walked up and down the space of a dozen ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... partly by the urgency of the queen, to make the attempt. The circumstances of this case, so far as the action of the king was concerned in them, are fully related in the history of Charles the First. Here we have only to speak of the queen, who was left in a state of great suspense and anxiety in her palace at Whitehall while her husband was gone ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... the wall that separated them the poet walked up and down, tortured by suspense; and said to himself over and over again, "I wonder how she'll ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... keenly, and manifested the greatest uneasiness, leaving their food and acting strangely. We were making scarcely any headway, so that the storm was longer making its appearance than it would have been had we been a swift clipper ship running down the Indian Ocean. For two days we were kept in suspense; but on the second night the gloom began to deepen, the wind to moan, and a very uncomfortable "jobble" of a sea got up. Extra "gaskets" were put upon the sails, and everything movable about the decks was made as secure as it could be. Only the two close-reefed ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... grew a reproach of Arnold; every one of them increased it. His behaviour she could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty explanations, but not the futility of what she had done. Her resentment of that undermined all the fairness of her logic and even triumphed over the sword of her suspense. She never quite gave up the struggle, but in effect she passed the week that intervened pinioned in her unreason—bands that vanished as she looked at them, only to tie her thrice in ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... and stood a while waving to and froe, as in suspense; at length you fell, with a forward thrust, quite through ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... absurd, the Senate would refuse to convict him, the entire press would espouse the cause of so worthy a public servant. Certainly, everything would be done to clear his character. But what was being done? She could do nothing but wait and wait. The suspense and ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... silence the coming of the Inca. A profound stillness reigned throughout the town, broken only at intervals by the cry of the sentinel from the summit of the fortress, as he proclaimed the movements of the Indian army. Nothing, Pizarro well knew, was so trying to the soldier as prolonged suspense, in a critical situation like the present; and he feared lest his ardor might evaporate, and be succeeded by that nervous feeling natural to the bravest soul at such a crisis, and which, if not fear, is near akin to it.6 He returned an answer, therefore, to Atahuallpa, deprecating his change ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... there, Barry did not know. He remembered only the falling, dizzy moment, the second or so of horrible, racking suspense, when, breathless, unable to move, he watched the twisting rebound of the machine from which he had been thrown and sought to evade it as it settled, metal crunching against metal, for the last time. After that had come agonized hours in ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... necessary to say that they lived in a fever of excitement and suspense after that, and anxiously awaited an answer from the gentleman who wanted the quails. The mail was brought in by the carrier from the county seat, on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, and Bob and Lester made it a point to be on ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon |
