"Swooning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... connects them with her, that singular being who has succoured, and perhaps saved his life. He can have no other conjecture. He remembers seeing a house as they approached its outside. It must be that he is now in; though, from the last conscious thought, as he felt himself swooning in the saddle, all has been as blank as if he had been lying lifeless in a tomb. Even yet it might appear as a dream but for the voice of Walt Wilder, who, outside, seems labouring hard to make himself intelligible to some personage with whom ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... begotten of the friction of the bench which were common to all, and which each must endure as best he could. With the slave whose disease conquered him or who, reaching the limit of his endurance, permitted himself to swoon, the boat-swains had a short way. The diseased were flung overboard; the swooning were dragged out upon the gangway or bridge and flogged there to revive them; if they did not revive they were flogged on until they were a horrid bleeding pulp, which was then heaved into ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... in sleep, and thou hast been Mine own true bride,—the swooning summer-queen Of my heart-throbs. I have been wed in jest! I have been taken wildly to thy breast, And then repell'd, and made to feel the ire Of eager eyes that have the strange desire To rack my soul, a-tremble in the dark, But not the will ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... for the first time. It was my bench which properly woke me. It fell away from me, and I, of course, went after it, and my impression is that I met it halfway on its return journey, for then there came the swooning sensation one feels in the immediate ascent of a lift. When the bench was as high as it could go it overbalanced, canting acutely, and, grabbing my blanket, I left diagonally for a corner of the saloon, ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... He and Carl carried the man whose face Cudjo had slashed. This was the only rebel who had fought obstinately: he had not given up until an arm was broken, and he was blinded by his own blood. Penn and Devitt brought up the rear with the swooning soldier. When half way over they were fired upon by the rebels rallying to the edge of the cliff. Grudd and his men responded sharply, covering their retreat. Penn felt a bullet graze his shoulder. It made but a slight flesh wound there; but, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... least hint having been given me, and grasping a backstay, waited, not knowing what was to happen next. Unless it be the heave of an earthquake, I can imagine no motion capable of giving one such a swooning, nauseating, terrifying sensation as the rending of ice under a fixed ship. In a few moments there were several sharp cracks, all on the starboard side, like a snapping of musketry, and I felt the schooner very faintly heave, but this might have been a deception of the senses, ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... chignon was loose, her dress dishevelled. On recognising Mahony, she uttered a cry and fell on his neck—he had to disengage her arms by force and speak severely to her, declaring that he would go away again, if she carried out her intention of swooning. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... by my tail,' said Snati; and in this way he pulled Ring up on the lowest shelf of the rock. The Prince began to get giddy, but up went Snati on to the second shelf. Ring was nearly swooning by this time, but Snati made a third effort and reached the top of the cliff, where the Prince fell down in a faint. After a little, however, he recovered again, and they went a short distance along a level plain, until they came to a cave. This was on ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... quoted, he relates how Trajan had five Christian women burnt alive; the emperor then mingled their ashes with the metal from which the vessels used for the baths were cast; the bathers were seized with swooning-fits in consequence; the vessels were again melted up; and out of the same metal were erected five pillars in honour of the five martyrs by the emperor's orders. These pillars, adds Malalas, stand in the bath to the present day. As if this ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the tall mountains, with their snowy crests seemed to wear silver crowns; the waters of the lake glittered with tiny rippling motions. The air was mild, with that kind of penetrating freshness which softens us till we seem to be swooning, to be deeply affected without any apparent cause. But how sensitive, how vibrating, the heart is at such moments! How quickly it leaps up, and how intense ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... and after his death, when he could not. All the time he was poignantly sensible of her grace, her elegance, her style; they seemed to intoxicate him; some tones of her voice thrilled through his nerves, and some looks turned his brain with a delicious, swooning sense of her beauty; her refinement bewildered him. But all this did not admit the idea of possession, even of aspiration. At the most his worship only set her beyond the love of other men as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which they supposed to be divine and from above, issued out of the lips of the gashed and bleeding Pythoness, the multitude that hitherto had listened in perfect silence, shouted aloud, while the girl herself, utterly exhausted, fell to the earth swooning. ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... Flora, you are unwell!" Indeed, she was pale enough, poor child, and trembling. "Major, she will be swooning in another minute. Get her to the tea-room, quick! while I fetch Miss Gilchrist. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lear had a vial of smelling salts in her hand, and this vial dropping suddenly on the floor called attention to the fact that the lady had a little swooning turn. She was herself again in a minute, and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Lake was as near fainting as ever lady was, without actually swooning. It was well they had stopped just by the stem of a great ash tree, against which Rachel leaned for some seconds, with darkness before her eyes, and the roar of a whirlpool ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to the ground, dismounted, and began to climb, leading Rubh by the bridle and seeking for a pathway. Behind him the voices of crashing trees filled the windless night. He found a ledge at length, and there the three huddled together—Niotte between swooning and sleep, Graul seated beside her, and Rubh standing patient, waiting for the day. When the crashing ceased around them, the King could hear the soft flakes of sweat dripping from the stallion's belly, and saw the stars reflected now from ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight, As he, in his swooning ears, the choir's Amen. Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when Too vehement light dilated my ideal, For my soul's eyes? Will that light come again, As now these tears come—falling hot ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... to all ranks of persons. O noblemen, who are the high mountains of this kingdom, bow your tops, and look on the kirk of Christ, lying in the vallies, sighing, groaning, swooning and looking towards you with pitiful looks: if the Sun of Righteousness hath shined on you, let her have a shadow, as ye would have God to be a shadow to you in the day of ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... most intoxicating laugh, all charged with some sweet velvety charm, put out her hands, and caught his. "Oh, Lord! I wish it would choke him, Sim," said she, fervently, then lifted up her mouth and dropped a swooning eyelash over ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... door-keeper—Capigi Bashi Otorak," he replied deprecatingly. "He is merciful and forgiving. May Allah exalt his dominion. The salary is large; he is a generous paymaster. I testify that there is no God but God. I testify that Mohammed is God's prophet." He caught the swooning Melisselda in his arms and covered her ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... had a dream, wherein being straitly enjoined to entreat the youth with kindness as the only way to save a life which would hereafter be of great service to the world, she arose and came to a bower in the garden where Guy lay swooning on the floor. Felice would not stoop to help him, but her maids having restored him to his senses, Guy fell at her feet and poured out all his love before her. Never a word answered Felice, but stood calmly regarding ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... like a madman and one devoid not only of conscience but of natural reason, for, thrusting his hand under her dress, he scratched wherever his nails could reach with such fury that the poor girl shrieked out, and fell swooning at full ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... an awkwardness in waiting, and in approaching Christ, and then an apathy which nothing could shake off. And this state was prolonged in a sort of cold, enveloping mist, or rather in a vacuum all round the soul, deserted and swooning ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... wife tottered a step or two toward her daughter's room, and fell swooning at the threshold. Mildred opened the door, and her deep pallor showed that instead of sleeping she had heard words that would leave scars on memory ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... thought he, his leaden eyes closing in an overmastering lassitude, a vast swooning weakness of blood-loss and exhaustion. Not even his parched thirst, a veritable torture now, could keep his thoughts from wandering. "If they'd tackle again, I could score with—with lead—what's that I'm thinking? I'm not delirious, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... within their scent to-day.' Then, musingly: 'I should not give much for the life of a traveler who happened to wander in these parts just now.' Here he interrupted himself hastily and went over to his wife, who had sunk back on her chair, livid, seemingly on the point of swooning. ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Frau von Kerich and the blue eyes of Minna; on his hands he felt the sweet contact of soft fingers, soft as flowers, and a subtle perfume, which he had never before breathed, enveloped him, bewildered him, brought him almost to swooning. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... that at this moment are both shut close, there stands beneath a brocaded canopy an ebony bed, supported on four twisted columns carved with symbolic figures. The king, after a struggle with a violent paroxysm, has fallen swooning in the arms of his confessor and his doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed stands a woman about fifty ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stars; his hair lengthened into sunbeams; the breath of his nostrils had the scent of roses; a cloud of incense rose from the hearth, and the waters began to murmur harmoniously; an abundance of bliss, a superhuman joy, filled the soul of the swooning Julian, while he who clasped him to his breast grew and grew until his head and his feet touched the opposite walls of the cabin. The roof flew up in the air, disclosing the heavens, and Julian ascended into ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... look at the ghastly corpse, or the swooning murderess upon the floor, he rushed from the house, and fled rapidly from it, as though it were the ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... said Charteris, "I wanted to see you. It is currently reported that you are in love. At dinner, you looked as if you had influenza. What's your trouble? For goodness' sake, bear up till the show's over. Don't go swooning on the stage, or anything. Do ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... to his hair—to all his long, pretty locks? How strange he looks with his head shaven thus! And see! what is the torturer to do with that glowing iron in his hand? Ugh!" and she fell back, near swooning. ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... those of to-day. Ladies wore the crinoline (successor to the hoop of earlier times), chignons and other absurdities, but had not ventured upon short skirts or cigarettes. They were much given to blushing, now a lost art; and to swooning, a thing of the past; the "vapours" of the eighteenth century had, happily, vanished for ever; but athletic exercises, such as girls enjoy to-day, were then undreamed of. Why has the pretty art of blushing gone? One now never sees a blush to mantle ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... transport it to Tozeur on donkeys. It undergoes no preparation whatever, but is sold as it comes out of the Chott, agreeable to the palate though rather yellowish in colour. Needless to say the Government runs no risk of the supply failing; there is salt, a swooning stretch of salt, as far as eye ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... duly took from her the paper, whilst a mist rose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs became perfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for inwardly I was swooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the same evening I remained practically in a state ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... my beloved lord, of Kuhleborn, my evil-disposed uncle, and have often felt displeasure at meeting him in the passages of this castle. Several times has he terrified Bertalda even to swooning. He does this because he possesses no soul, being a mere elemental mirror of the outward world, while of the world within he can give no reflection. Then, too, he sometimes observes that you are displeased with me, that in ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... blood and hair, to the side of the heroine, take her by the wrist with his bloody hand, and shout, "What wiltest thou, Mary Anderson de Montmorence?" Then they could sit down on a box of intestines and liver and things and talk it over, and the curtain could go down with the heroine swooning in the ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... felt came back upon it. So also the bare, miserable board which served for the bed, and its rude pillow, were glorified. A stray sunbeam, too, fluttered down on the floor like a pitying spirit, to light up that pale, thin face, whose classic outlines had now a sharp, yellow setness, like that of swooning or death; it seemed to linger compassionately on the sunken, wasted cheeks, on the long black lashes that fell over the deep hollows beneath the eyes like a funereal veil. Poor man! lying crushed and torn, like a piece of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... taking in his strong sinewy arms the fading and almost swooning form of Amy, "she is a lovely child; and tho a rough nurse, your Grace hath given her a kind one. She is safe with me as one of my own ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... at once she broke into hysterical tears. And her face had the same senseless blank expression that I had seen in the summer-house when I lighted the matches. Without asking her consent, preventing her from speaking, I dragged her forcibly towards my hotel. She seemed almost swooning and did not walk, but I took her under the arms and almost carried her. . . . I remember, as we were going up the stairs, some man with a red band in his cap looked wonderingly at me and bowed to Kisotchka. . ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... hoard which he sought to open being not to be opened save by means of Alaeddin. So noting this attempt to run away, the Magician arose and raising his hand smote Alaeddin on the head a buffet so sore that well nigh his back-teeth were knocked out, and he fell swooning to the ground. But after a time he revived by the magic of the Magician, and cried, weeping the while, "O my uncle, what have I done that deserveth from thee such a blow as this?" Hereat the Maghrabi fell ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... was playing a risky game, and that one false move might lose him his one chance. It was all the veriest guesswork; but he believed he had guessed aright. Whilst Raymond had been stretched upon the rack, swooning from extremity of pain, Sanghurst's eyes, fixed in gloating satisfaction upon the helpless victim, had been caught by the sight of this token about his neck, secured by a strong silver cord. To possess himself of the ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Mlle. Moiseney extended both arms, that she might receive into them Mlle. Moriaz, whom she believed to be already swooning. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... spoild warrior there: And the brown gipsy in the swooning air Spreads amber arms the purple glow stains red; Nor hath she seen, nor known with shuddering breath. Symbols of Doom, those Youths Divine who shed Rose-leaves on sombre deeps—Desire ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... and Sir Bedivere went to the King where he lay, swooning from the blow, and bore him to a little chapel on the seashore. As they laid him on the ground, Sir Lucan fell dead beside the King, and Arthur, coming to himself, found but Sir Bedivere alive ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... manly grief appears; Silent, he wept, ashamed to show his tears: Emilia shriek'd but once, and then, oppress'd With sorrow, sunk upon her lover's breast: Till Theseus in his arms convey'd with care, Far from so sad a sight, the swooning fair. 'Twere loss of time her sorrow to relate; 860 Ill bears the sex a youthful lover's fate, When just approaching to the nuptial state. But like a low-hung cloud, it rains so fast, That all at once it falls, and cannot ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... in her great tenderness, had put me to the torture, squeezing my hand under her arm, and stuffing my nose with spirit of hartshorn, till the whole inside was excoriated. I no sooner got home, than I sent for Doctor Ch—, who assured me I needed not be alarmed, for my swooning was entirely occasioned by an accidental impression of fetid effluvia upon nerves of uncommon sensibility. I know not how other people's nerves are constructed; but one would imagine they must be made of very coarse materials, to stand the shock ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder—my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... drawing-room scene, in its native element, the moon squinting through inky clouds at Lucy swooning on the sofa, while the lofty presence of the Polysyllable discharged ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up my heart for thy fervent lips To kiss, my sweet. I would lift up my soul, but she swooning slips Down at thy ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... night of Brittany Hear you no voice divide the night like flame? In these gray walls the inmost soul of me Is swooning with the music ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Woe!" she vanished over the side of the vessel. Her last words were, "Remain true! Woe! Woe!" Huldbrand lay swooning on the deck, and little waves seemed to be sobbing on the surface of the Danube, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... fan, such jewels—and her face! One knew at a glance how it was with her. When Armand, with the terrible words, "Look, all of you, I owe this woman nothing!" flung the gold and bank-notes at the half-swooning Marguerite, Lena cowered beside me and covered her face with ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... and no tidings of her had penetrated to him through the solitary prison walls. Did the queen still live? Or had the king in his wrath murdered her on that very night when Henry was carried to the Tower, and his last look beheld his beloved lying at her husband's feet, swooning and rigid. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... saw the spear he seized it in his hand, and turned upon King Pelles, and smote at him so fiercely and so sore that he dropped swooning ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... stood long enough to be sworn to, when her white face turned blue and she fell swooning into ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... swooning summer sun sank low, And all the dusty air Held breathlessly beneath his glow, So tir'd, so quiet and fair, I would not think that men could live In such glory a minute, To hate and grudge, to slay and reive ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... blending, 95 Yea, thou queen of Golgi, of Idaly leaf-embower'd, O'er what a fire love-lit, what billows wearily tossing, Drave ye the maid, for a guest so sunnily lock'd deep sighing. What most dismal alarms her swooning fancy did echo! Oft what a sallower hue than gold's cold glitter upon her! 100 Whiles, heart-hungry in arms that monster deadly to combat, Theseus drew towards death or victory, guerdon of honour. Yet not lost the devotion, or offer'd idly the virgin's Gifts, as her unvoic'd ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... and not amiss for any pallate neither, and I'm sure the better I feed my Pig, the better it is for me in the soucing out. And this discourse then is held up with such an earnestness, and continues so long, that the Child-bed woman almost gets an Ague with it, or at the least falls from one swooning into another, whilest there is not so much as any one that ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... offered you it kneeling: then you drank And knew no more, nor gave me one poor word; O no more thanks than might a goat have given With no more sign of reverence than a beard. And when we halted at that other well, And I was faint to swooning, and you lay Foot-gilt with all the blossom-dust of those Deep meadows we had traversed, did you know That Vivien bathed your feet before her own? And yet no thanks: and all through this wild wood And all ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... untrue; And to each other, helpless couple, moan, As the sad tortoise for the sea does groan: But most they for their darling Charles complain, And were it burned, yet less would be their pain. To see that fatal pledge of sea-command, Now in the ravisher De Ruyter's hand, The Thames roared, swooning Medway turned her tide, And were they mortal, both for grief ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... almost swooning. "It's he, mamma.... I am sure that he'll be able to tell us everything ... and that M. Morestal is ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... Wanderer was a grim and silent figure, misty and unreal when compared with those material, emotion-torn beings of the rooftop. The woman, swooning, had wilted over the rim of the bowl, and the two boys with their strange amphibious pet splashed out from the pool and came running to ...
— Wanderer of Infinity • Harl Vincent
... way she came in and the kitchen wall closed upon her. When the cook maiden recovered from her fainting fit, she saw the four fishes charred black as charcoal, and crying out, "His staff brake in his first bout,"[FN107] she again fell swooning to the ground. Whilst she was in this case the Wazir came for the fish and looking upon her as insensible she lay, not knowing Sunday from Thursday, shoved her with his foot and said, "Bring the fish for the Sultan!" Thereupon recovering ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... it will cease." When her mother went out from her, Mariyah took to chiding the damsel for that which she had done and said to her, "Verily, death were dearer to me than this; so discover thou not my affair to any and I charge thee return not to the like of this fashion." Then she fainted and lay swooning for a whole hour, and when she came to herself, she saw Shafikah weeping over her; whereupon she pluckt the necklace from her neck and the mantle from her body and said to the damsel, "Lay them in a damask napkin and bear them to Al-Abbas and acquaint him ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Highlandmen were at Derby did not prevent the Hostess of the Stone Kitchen—that famous Tavern in the Tower—from bringing in one's reckoning and insisting on payment. That there was consternation at St. James's, with the King meditating flight and the Royal Family in tears and swooning, did not save the little schoolboy a whipping if he knew not his lesson at morning call. It will be so, I suppose, until the end of the world. We must needs eat and drink, and feel heat and cold, and marry or be given in marriage, whatsoever party prevail, and whatsoever King carries ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... was really a deplorable one. They were too old to be cared for as infants, and they had been obliged, with the strength of children, to accomplish the labor of men and women. Many were crippled in their feet, others were continually on the point of swooning. ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... almost as much as among any in the land. I have seen church members so decked and bedaubed with their fangles and toys that when they have been at worship I have wondered with what faces such painted persons could sit in the place where they were without swooning. I once talked with a maid, by way of reproof for her fond and gaudy garment; she told me the tailor would make it so. Poor proud girl, she gave orders to the tailor to make ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... obstructed her gaze. She felt the swell and ripple and stretch—then the bind of his muscles, like huge coils of elastic rope. Then with savage rude force his mouth closed on hers. All Ellen's senses reeled, as if she were swooning. She was suffocating. The spasm passed, and a bursting spurt of blood revived her to acute and terrible consciousness. For the endless period of one moment he held her so that her breast seemed crushed. His kisses burned and braised her lips. And then, shifting violently to her neck, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... to droop, or the mist began to stoop, The youthful bride lay swooning in the hall; Empty saddle on his back, broken bridle hanging slack, The steed returned full gallop to ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... glance at it myself, aunty," he said. He opened it, read a line or two, and then, with a scream, fell back swooning, while it dropped ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... been observing him through the window, suppressed an incipient scream that almost escaped her lips, and rushed to her son's side. She had seen the effects of the letter, and her first act was to attempt to gain possession of it for the possible protection of her boy. But even in his swooning condition he clutched the letter with so powerful a grasp that she could not wrest it from him. She now cried aloud for help, and neighbors came ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... to save; it cast itself before its nestling ... but all its tiny body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning with fear, it offered ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... gray-bearded Americano began to beam upon her with admiring eyes and to hover over her with jerky, heavy attempts at gallantry. He asked her name, but she took sudden alarm and answered only with a shrug of her shoulders and a swooning glance of her great black eyes. He put his arm about her waist and stooped to kiss her smiling mouth. She struggled away from him with a terrified, appealing cry, "No, no, senor!" of whose meaning there could be ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... appeared at the door, suspended in mid-air by invisible agency. Mrs Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both Mrs and Mr Boffin (as the saying is) 'took it out of' the Inexhaustible in a shower of caresses. It was only this timely appearance that kept Bella from swooning. This, and her husband's earnestness in explaining further to her how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his own murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its disclosure approached, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... than the utmost East; And o'er the heart of sad Yasodhara, Sitting forlorn at Prince Siddartha's bed, Came sudden bliss, as if love should not fail Nor such vast sorrow miss to end in joy. So glad the World was—though it wist not why— That over desolate wastes went swooning songs Of mirth, the voice of bodiless Prets and Bhuts Foreseeing Buddh; and Devas in the air Cried, "It is finished, finished!" and the priests Stood with the wondering people in the streets Watching those golden splendours flood the sky And saying, "There hath happed some mighty thing." ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... indicative of either a very thick or very thin skin. Any of them will lend you a hymn book, and whilst none of them may be inclined to pay your regular pew rent, the bulk will have no objection to find you an occasional seat, and take care of you if there would be any swooning in your programme. Clear-headed and full of business, they believe with Binney in making the best of both worlds. They will never give up this for the next, nor the next for this. Into their curriculum there ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... seemed on the point of swooning. In a few moments more, his mind began evidently to wander somewhat; and just as Merle (who, with his urchin-guide, had wandered vainly over the old town in search of the pedlar, until told that he had been ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Vain the few shots aimed in haste and excitement. Vain the rallying cry of a fighting chief. A blow from the butt of Ned Connell's revolver sprawled him headlong over a prostrate form—a white man "staked out" in front of the fire, swooning from mingled misery, weakness, ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... fairies had foretold it, and he caused the Princess to be carried into the finest room in his palace, and to be laid upon a bed all embroidered with gold and silver. One would have taken her for a little angel, she was so beautiful; for her swooning had not dimmed the brightness of her complexion: her cheeks were carnation, and her lips coral. It is true her eyes were shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about her ...
— The Tales of Mother Goose - As First Collected by Charles Perrault in 1696 • Charles Perrault
... screamed with terror, but her hand was seized, and a voice cried "Hush!" The next minute a man in a mask (it was the Duke himself) rushed forward, gagged her with a handkerchief, her hands and legs were bound, and she was carried swooning with terror into a vaulted room, where she was placed by a person there waiting, and tied in an arm-chair. The same mask who had gagged her, came and bared her neck and said, "It had best be done now ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... snub-nosed girl would be better. There is scarce a week passes she does not set the country by the ears with some fury or frolic. One time 'tis clouting a Chaplain till his nose bleeds; next 'tis frightening some virtuous woman of fashion into hysteric swooning with her impudent flaming tongue. The women hate her, and she pays them out as she only can. Lady Maddon had fits for an hour, after an encounter with her, in their meeting by chance one day at a mercer's ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... swooning," said Gorju. "You'll only have me missing the coach. A glorious bit of devilment is getting ready, and I'm in the swim; so just give me ten sous to ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... between them they got the swooning Gussie to her room; Afterwards, when Cyrus tiptoed down-stairs, he found the Captain at the cabin door. The old ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... upon them with a demoniac fury. Folded in the arms of their ruthless assailants, the nymphs strove to keep up a while longer their raillery and loud laughter, but the mirth died on their lips. With heads thrown back and eyes swooning with joy and terror, they could only call upon their mother, or scream a shrill "You are killing me," ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... ghastly as scars on the face of nature. Shifting hills of treacherous sand were heaped like tombs along the horizon. By day, the fierce heat pressed its intolerable burden on the quivering air. No living creature moved on the dumb, swooning earth, but tiny jerboas scuttling through the parched bushes, or lizards vanishing in the clefts of the rock. By night the jackals prowled and barked in the distance, and the lion made the black ravines echo with his hollow roaring, while a bitter, blighting chill followed the fever of the day. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... behind the accustomed panel, and alone in the chamber was left poor Margaret: his last sneering speech, the mockery of his sarcastic pity, were still haunting her ear with echoes full of wretchedness; and she had uttered one faint cry, and sunk swooning on a ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sides with laughter. Indeed, I venture to say without fear of contradiction, that never did military hero cut so extravagant a figure before females; and as he had that scrupulous regard for their good opinion, so common with his brethren in arms, so was he only saved from swooning by the aid of a little whiskey and water. This, however, was not applied until the cause of the alarm was discovered. "Upon my life, Colonel," said the major, as the host aided him in securing his garments with a few pins, "I never was known to offer a discourtesy to ladies through the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... shadowed coolness, aching gratefully in many joints, I had plunged into the hammock's Lethe, swooning shamelessly to a benign oblivion. Dreamless it must long have been, for the shadows of ranch house, stable, hay barn, corral, and bunk house were long to the east when next I observed them. But I fought to this wakefulness through one of those dreams of a monstrous futility that sometimes madden ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... murmurs of the "Grail," the "Spear," the "Pain," the "Love and Faith" motives—hollow murmurs, confused, floating out of the depths of lonely caves. Then I have a feeling of void and darkness, and there comes a sighing as of a soul swooning away in a trance, and a vision of waste places and wild caverns; and then through the confused dream I hear the solemn boom of mighty bells, only muffled. They keep time as to some ghastly march. I strain my eyes into the thick gloom ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... heard what he said, she could no longer restrain her soul, but threw herself upon him and discovered to him her case. When he knew her, he threw himself upon her swooning awhile; after which he came to himself and cried, "Lauded be the Lord, the Bountiful, the Beneficent!" Then they plained each to other of that they had suffered from the pangs of parting, whilst Salim's wife wondered at this and Salma's patience ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... freshness of the wind with great sighs; he spread out his arms, moving his fingers that he might the better feel the cares that streamed over his body. Hopes of vengeance came back to him and transported him. He pressed his hand upon his mouth to check his sobs, and half-swooning with intoxication, let go the halter of his dromedary, which was proceeding with long, regular steps. Matho had relapsed into his former melancholy; his legs hung down to the ground, and the grass made a continuous rustling as it ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... die, say the Scriptures (Judg. xiii. 22); and may it not be that the eternal vision of God is an eternal death, a swooning away of the personality? But St. Teresa, in her description of the last state of prayer, the rapture, transport, flight, or ecstasy of the soul, tells us that the soul is borne as upon a cloud or ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... the morning, when they donned their feather-suits, and resuming dove shape flew off and went their way. But as he saw them disappearing from sight, his reason well nigh fled with them, and he gave a great cry and fell down in a fainting fit and lay a-swooning all that day. While he was in this case Shaykh Nasr returned from the Parliament of the Fowls and sought for Janshah, that he might send him with them to his native land, but found him not and knew that he had entered the forbidden room. Now he had already said to the birds, 'With ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... eyes, the full throat clasped about with a single strand of coral. Yes, it was she! He lifted himself on his elbow. He was in bed. Surely this was the room into which she had drawn him with her eyes. Did he sink on the threshold, all his senses swooning into delicious faith? Or had he, indeed, in that last moment thrown himself on his knees by her couch? He could not remember, and he ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... dead his sword she caught, And fell in trance that wist of nought, Swooning: but softly Balen sought To win from her the sword she thought To die on, dying by Launceor's side. Again her wakening wail outbroke As wildly, sword in hand, she woke And struck one swift and bitter stroke That healed her, ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... boy told the story to the poor student, who hurried into the forest, and under the inspiration of his scorned love, ran and ran until he found the swooning maiden under the snow, took her up in his arms, placed his garments upon her, and bore her through the cold and rapid stream, found a shelter under the rocks on the other side, kindled a fire, gave the maiden, proud no longer, a cordial, warmed and ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... the doctor came, I saved him a good deal of trouble by swooning away the moment he touched my wound, and remained in that condition, on and off, till I heard the anchor running out at the bows, and understood from those who lay near that we were at ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... where the Queen had suffered; and he had told the story so well that his listeners had seemed to see it for themselves—the great hall hung with black throughout; the raised scaffold at the further end beside the fire that blazed on the wide hearth; the Queen's servants being led away half-swooning as he came in; the dress of velvet, the straw and the bloody sawdust, the beads and all the other pitiful relics being heaped upon the fire as he stood there in the struggling mob; and, above all, the fallen body, in its short skirt and bodice lying ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou wast good, Nor mistook my will for fate, Pain of sin for heavenly hate,— Never dreamed the gates of pearl ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Princess to be carried into the finest apartment in his palace, and to be laid upon a bed all embroidered with gold and silver. One would have taken her for an angel, she was so very beautiful; for her swooning away had not diminished one bit of her complexion; her cheeks were carnation, and her lips like coral; indeed her eyes were shut, but she was heard to breathe softly, which satisfied those about ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... trapped—two miles below the earth. There was no hope of rescue, the hope that miners feel in deep shafts. There could be no rescue for Asher. No one could get to him. He cried out his horror, fighting to keep from swooning. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... when the air was swooning with a ghastly fear; When the Moslem swept before us, driven like a herd of deer; When our voices mocked the thunder, shouting 'England and Saint George!' And the lightning of our falchions fell like ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... things necessary to restore the swooning woman, noting with a doctor's eye the first faint flush of pink under the dead white nails, then the flutter of breath through the parted lips and the slow unclosing of the hazel eyes which, at sight of him, ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... your comrade; men," said Cuticle, turning round. "I tell you it is not an uncommon thing for the patient to betray some emotion upon these occasions—most usually manifested by swooning; it is quite natural it should be so. But we must not delay the operation. Steward, that knife—no, the next one—there, that's it. He is coming to, I think"—feeling the top-man's wrist. "Are you all ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... an exhausting talk we sat, inert, on the grass hummock beside the stream. Heavy clouds had gathered in the sky, the light had deepened to amethyst, the valley was still, swooning with expectancy, louder and louder the thunder rolled from behind the distant hills, and presently a veil descended to hide them from our view. Great drops ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... quite died away. There was not a sound,—a slight breeze blew, but there were no leaves to rustle. I put my head down on the neck of my dead horse. Extreme fatigue was benumbing the pain of my now swelling arm; perhaps sleep was near, perhaps I was swooning. ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... well—yet well—having enjoyed a great deal in spite of drawbacks. Murray, the traitor, sent us to Fano as "a delightful summer residence for an English family," and we found it uninhabitable from the heat, vegetation scorched into paleness, the very air swooning in the sun, and the gloomy looks of the inhabitants sufficiently corroborative of their words that no drop of rain or dew ever falls there during the summer. A "circulating library" which "does not give out books," ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... and in the other his horn Olifant. Under a little clump of pines were some rough steps hewn in a boulder of marble leading yet higher up the hill, and these Roland would have climbed, but his throbbing heart could no more, and again he fell swooning on the ground. A Saracen who, out of fear, had feigned death, saw him lying there and crawled out of the ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... Rheou meets them and leads them away. Satni enters with some men bearing Pakh, who is wounded. Kirjipa almost swooning follows, supported by some women who lead her into the house. The Exorcist, who with his two assistants follows Pakh, takes some clay from a coffer carried by one of his men, shapes it into a ball, and begins, then, ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... be accepted. For the term 'swoon' may be explained as denoting either deep sleep or some other acknowledged state, and there is no authority for assuming an altogether different new state.—This view the Stra sets aside. The condition of a swooning person consists in reaching half, viz. of what leads to death; for this is the only hypothesis remaining. A swoon cannot be either dreaming or being awake; for in a swoon there is no consciousness. And as it is different in character as well as in the occasions ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... lord," said Mora. "Truth to tell, it was not so. Once fairly started on the telling, she seemed lifted into a strange sublimity of utterance. I marvelled at it, and at the unearthly radiance of her face. At the end, I thought she slept; but later I heard from the Sub-Prioress that she was found swooning before the crucifix and they had much ado to ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... the farmer: "Nous vous remercions infiniment. Vous aurez mille choses a faire chez vous, je n'en doute. Nous reglerons notre compte tout-a l'heure.... Pour le moment, adieu." She clutched the handbags of valuables, slung them somehow on her left arm, while with her other she piloted the nearly swooning Mrs. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... he folded together, and stretching his hand behind him, threw them in the direction of the haunted wardrobe. His fear that, even now, he might be assassinated, grew to such dimensions that he came near to swooning. But upon no ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... virgins, Queen of all saints. Queen conceived without sin!' She, ever before him, shone in splendour; and he, on the topmost step, only reached by Mary's intimates, remained there yet another moment, swooning amidst the subtle atmosphere around him; still too far away to kiss the edge of her azure robe, already feeling that he was about to fall, but ever possessed by a desire to ascend again and again, ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... rioting over the gardens and fields and hills, rich, lush colored, radiant, redolent, gorgeous, rose-scented and pulsing with a life that made me breathless. Even the roads along the valley were bordered with flowers that the sun had wooed to the swooning point. ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... though he knew beforehand that all manner of remedies were in vain. A chirurgeon of the ship, who was awkward at his work, and of small experience in his art, bled him so unluckily, that he hurt the nerves, and the patient fell immediately into swooning convulsions; yet they drew blood from him a second time; and that operation had all the ill accidents of the former. Besides which, it was attended with a horrible nauseousness; insomuch, that he could ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden |
