"Tremulous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... decided upon, and keeping along the edge of the forest, they went cautiously on, sensible now that the tremulous motion of the earth was on the increase, while in addition there came a short ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... interior of the house came the merry voices of above a score of little boys and girls, ignorant of danger, and enjoying a high frolic. Apart, by the wall, sat a blind man, grasping his staff with a tremulous hand; and near him lay a sick woman, who had been brought in from a neighboring farm-house. All these individuals, old and young, had been driven hither for refuge ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... come as you desired," said the poor girl, in those tremulous tones which Wycherly too well understood, not to imagine the condition of Dutton. "Admiral Bluewater dozes, and mother has permitted me to ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that the pace at which she had come, and the distance (which must have been several miles), were beginning to tell—her glossy coat was stained with sweat and dust, while her breath, drawn with short and laboured sobs, her heaving flanks, and the tremulous motion of her limbs, afforded convincing proofs that the struggle could not be protracted much longer. Still she continued to hold the bit between her teeth as firmly as though it were in a vice, rendering any attempt to pull her in utterly futile. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the heart fluttered wildly and feebly in its efforts to contract upon its diminished contents, and Fournier, anxious, and pale himself almost as his victim, trembled when his finger felt in vain for the bleeding artery and caught only a faint tremulous thrill, so feeble that he scarcely knew whether the heart was beating at all or not. In terror he threw the ends of the little tent and fanned him, and moistened his lips, and gave him brandy, and hastened to begin the experiment for which he had waited ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... kisses the letters, but she does not blub over them. She strokes the dress, and waggles her head over the certificates and presses the bonnet to her cheeks, and rubs the tinsel of the cork carefully with her apron. She is a tremulous old 'un; yet she exults, for she owns all these things, and also the penny flag on her breast. She puts them away in the drawer, the scarf over them, the lavender on the scarf. Her air of triumph well becomes her. She lifts the pail and the mop, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... The woman's voice was tremulous with indignation or grief, and all at once Amy remembered. Then she sprang from her cosy nest, ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... entered; I felt rather than heard the tremulous push she gave to the door, and the quick drawing in of her breath as she put her foot across the threshold. These sapped my courage. This fear, this almost hesitation, drew me from thoughts of myself to thoughts of her, and it was in a daze of mingled purposes and regrets that ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... tablet, which consisted of two thin leaves of ivory, fitting closely together. On the inside of one leaf was written in pencil, in a tremulous hand. "Ca-ira." ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... beside him to the bank, and sat down at his bidding, and he lay at her feet, looking up into her eyes. He asked idle questions: she answered them with a conscientious tremulous truthfulness that showed to him as the most finished art. And it seemed to him a very fortunate accident that he should have found here, in this unlikely spot, so accomplished a player at his favorite game. Yet it was the variety of his game for which he cared least. He did not greatly relish ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea and cross-buns[619]; Doctor Levet, as Frank called him, making the tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat; and his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, solemnly devout[620]. I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany: 'In the hour of death, and at[621] the day of judgement, good LORD ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... said Martha, tremulous with joy, for she had been much praised, "to put the landscape ...
— If You Touch Them They Vanish • Gouverneur Morris
... that all this and more than all this were true, it does not touch that specific Virgilian charm of which these poems first disclosed the secret. Already through their immature and tremulous cadences there pierces, from time to time, that note of brooding pity which is unique in the poetry of the world. The fourth and tenth Eclogues may be singled out especially as showing the new method, which almost amounted ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... heaved a sigh, brushed his hand across his eyes, and came back to the present. He stooped and took the gift with a tremulous smile, but without a word. He did not tell the drummer boy that he had, in that instant of forgetfulness, seen his mother as she was at his age, and that his old heart now, though seemingly withered and embittered, gushed again with love so sorrowful and yearning, ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... remembered by posterity?" asked the dying Garfield. In this eager, tremulous question the renowned and the obscure alike have a pathetic interest. For the deeply reflective mind oblivion is a thought all unendurable. The tool man fashions, the structure he rears, the success he achieves, not less than his marble monument, looks down upon the ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... head clear, my heart certainly free, not even moved by pity for that castaway (she was as much of a castaway as any one ever wrecked on a desert island), but as if beguiled by some extraordinary promise. Nothing more unworthy could be imagined. The recollection of that tremulous whisper when I gripped her shoulder with one hand and held a plate of chicken with the other was enough to make me break all my ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... more surely and fully through trust in God than by any other means, on the other hand it is true that, in order to receive the full blessed effects of trust into our characters and lives, we must persistently and doggedly keep on in the attitude of confidence. If a man holds out to God a tremulous hand with a shaking cup in it, which Le sometimes presents and sometimes twitches back, it is not to be expected that God will pour the treasure of His grace into such a vessel, with the risk of most of it being spilt upon the ground. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... playing; and the low, deep, tremulous rumble that an organ gives sometimes, when it seems to creep under and vibrate all things with a strange, vital thrill, overswept their trivial chat and made Leslie almost shiver. "Oh, I wish they wouldn't do that," she said, turning to ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... for an instant. If Halder didn't make it away, she was to carry out her own escape, as planned. That was the understanding. She gave him a tremulous smile. "And I'm forgiven?" ...
— The Other Likeness • James H. Schmitz
... fulfilled—that the crisis had arrived; and that the next two or three minutes would decide whether she and Lionel Beauchamp were to be all in all to each other, or go their respective ways. Be that as it might, on one point she must absolve herself in his eyes. With somewhat tremulous tones, she hurriedly exclaimed, as she handed ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... of his familiar, mocking smile remained, but it was tremulous; it required, Howat saw, great effort. An involuntary admiration possessed him for the other's unquenchable courage. The latter protested vehemently against being led to his room by Ludowika; but she ignored ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... destruction toward which he was rushing with all the feverish haste of slavish appetite? Ah, yes, but only when it was too late. In his clenched hand, as he lay dead, was found a crumpled paper containing the following, in lines barely legible so tremulous were the nerves of the writer: "Wife, children, and over forty thousand dollars all gone! I alone am responsible. All has gone down my throat. When I was twenty-one I had a fortune. I am not yet thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart; have murdered our ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... prayer for the taking away of iniquity by the promise to heal backsliding, going beyond desires and hopes in the gift of love which asks for no recompense, is drawn forth by no desert, but wells up from the depths of God's heart, and strengthens the new, tremulous trust of the penitent by the assurance that every trace of anger is effaced ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... ridges stood out against her sickly face like the bones on the cheek of a dying man. Then came spear upon spear of light flashing far away across the boundless wilderness, piercing and firing the veils of mist, till the desert was draped in a tremulous golden ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... thin winnow through the woods With tremulous noise, that bids, at every breath, Some sickly cankered leaf Let go its hold ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... greater comfort than I can tell," said Mr. Chantrey, in a tremulous voice. "Now and then the thought crosses my mind that I might die yonder; and what would become of Sophy and Charlie, left so desolate? There's Warden; but he is too austere and harsh, good as he is. But, Ann, I ought ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... Maddy! She will tell him no for Lucy's sake, and God will bring it right at last," the old man whispered, his voice growing very faint and tremulous. "She will tell him no," he kept repeating, until, rousing up to greater consciousness, he spoke of Uncle Joseph, and asked what Maddy would do with him; would she send him back to the asylum, or care for him there? "He will be happier here," he ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... Father Mathias, checking his tremulous voice that he might not appear agitated before one whom he saw so calm and unmoved amidst the roaring of the elements—"My child, let not this hour of peril pass away. Before thou art summoned, let me receive thee into the bosom of our church—give ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... naiad-like lily of the vale. Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... snow, the Alpine giants at invaders look defiance, Gazing over nearer summits, with a fixed, mysterious stare, Down along the shaded ocean, on whose edge in tremulous motion Floats an island, half-transparent, woven out of sea and air;— For such visions, shaped of air, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... glass in gratitude to the mentor dead and buried—then close his eyelids upon the tears which would come trickling through them. Even the slightest word of encouragement from Alexander Petrovitch could throw a lad into a transport of tremulous joy, and arouse in him an honourable emulation of his fellows. Boys of small capacity he did not long retain in his establishment; whereas those who possessed exceptional talent he put through an extra course ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... words, she lifted her handkerchief to her fair eyes, and, after some pause, proceeded in a tremulous tone, "I hope, sir, —I hope you have—I should be sorry—Pardon me, sir, I cannot reflect upon such an interesting subject unmoved"—Here she fetched a deep sigh, that was accompanied by a flood of tears; while the knight ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... much, Lemuel," she said, with fervent gratitude in her voice. She fetched a tremulous sigh. "I suppose it was nothing. Yes," she added hoarsely, "it must have been nothing. Oh, let me go down first!" she cried, putting out her hand to stop him from passing her. She resumed when they reached ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... objects;—we can fancy what a scramble this of Cleve-Julich was like to be; and especially what effect this duelling attitude of Brandenburg and Neuburg had on the Protestant mind. Protestant neighbors, Landgraf Moritz of Hessen-Cassel at their head, intervene in tremulous haste, in the Cleve-Julich affair: "Peace, O friends! Some bargain; peaceable joint-possession; any temporary bargain, till we see! Can two Protestants fall to slashing one another, in such an aspect of the Reich and its Jesuitries?"—And they did agree (Dortmund, 10th May, 1609) the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... glanced at each other in amused indignation; and Mrs. Frost entered, tremulous with joy, and her bright hazel eyes lustrous with tears, as she leant on the arm of her recovered son. He was a little, spare, shrivelled man, drolly like his nephew, but with all the youthfulness dried out of him, the freckles multiplied by scores, and the keen black eyes sunken, sharpened, and ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of an old farmhouse on the western plains, where life meant struggle and bitter privation. Brothers and sisters, in the torn, faded clothes which were all they had; father's tremulous "God bless you," when someone went away. Mother's never-ending toil, and the day when her roughened hands were crossed upon her breast, at rest for the first time, while the children ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... his hand into that of the soldier, as sharing his uncompromising sentiments; but when he spoke, it was in a tremulous voice. ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... you been doing now, Johnny Trumbull?" said she. She was tremulous, white with horror, but she stood her ground. It was curious, but Johnny Trumbull, with all his bravery, was always cowed before Lily. Once she had turned and stared at him when he had emerged triumphant but with bleeding nose from a fight; then she had sniffed delicately and ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... His voice was tremulous with emotion: he took Elise's hand. Who could stand against him? Her eyes were lifted as to the hills whence help had come ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... daughter who had shown humanity at the wedding, he was impressed by her curious insensibility. It seemed to him peculiarly feminine to take an interest in such a scene, and most of the women he knew would have looked on with tremulous sympathy. Was this mere instinctive selfishness on her part? If he vaguely condemned her attitude in this matter, he appreciated her father's conduct the more by contrast. Somehow he guessed that the bishop did ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... more true had he said that he had wanted to elude his sisters, but he was glad to accept a seat on a bundle of sacks tremulous with the motion of the mill, and to enter into a conversation with the old foreman, one of those good old peasants whose integrity and skill render them privileged persons, worth their weight in gold long after their ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... play time can save you now; you two are of no age, no experience of life separates you; it is the boy's hour, and you have come up for judgment. "Have I done well to-day, my son?" You have got to say it, and nothing may you hide from him; he knows all. How like your voice has grown to his, but more tremulous, and both so solemn, so unlike the voice of either of you ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... vain the stag's retreat; his mind was fraught With gathering fear lest he should find no trace Of royal covert in that wildwood place. Erelong a sound that smote his eager ear Gave swift assurance that his prize was near. With cautious hand a skimmering dart he drew, And eager, peered the tremulous leafage through; The pattering footfalls near and nearer came, A moment paused,—then, like a flash of flame, The stag in splendor dawned upon his sight, And sniffed the crystal air with keen delight. Upon the morning breeze ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... enthusiasm when we win the match," I remarked, sententiously, though what with the general crowd and the files of students bubbling over with Rah-rah-rahs as they tore along the platform to find seats in the several trains, I was beginning to feel very tremulous about the gills, so ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... her cousin without flinching. Diana sat down again, white and tremulous, the moment of energy, of resistance, gone. In a wavering voice she began to explain that she had, in fact, been inquiring into her affairs, that the money was not actually at her disposal, that to provide it would require an arrangement with her bankers, and the depositing of some securities; ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... breath, nor sense, nor motion—she was dead! 'Twas a mournful sight! one white hand, stiffened to marble, was pressed upon her broken heart, as she had sought to stay its painful throbbings—the cold night dews hung in large drops upon her silken hair, and shed a tremulous gleam upon the diamonds that sparkled on her pale, icy forehead—the withered leaves had found a resting place upon her bosom, and her white garments were embroidered by their many colourings. The castle became hateful to Albert after this event: he removed to a distant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... thee of the girl. She loved a mean fellow that was her father's apprentice, and perspired in good behaving. A tremulous young man; with hissing red cheeks and a clump hand that looked through his fingers during evening prayers at the maid-servants, as they knelt; yet cried "Amen" with a reverence, and had the gift to find his own ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... castle unnecessarily," said Eveline, pausing, "or even break your father's needful slumbers, by a fancy of mine—But hark—I hear it again—distinct amidst the intermitting sounds of the rushing water—a low tremulous sound, mingled with a tinkling like smiths or armourers at ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... upon how little reason do we take up an opinion, and upon how much less sometimes do we lay it down again, how weak and false ground do we often walk upon with the biggest confidence and assurance, and how tremulous and doubtful are we very often where no doubt is to be made. Again; how wild and impertinent, how busy and incoherent a thing is the imagination, even in the best and wisest men; insomuch that every man may ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... passenger in the stage, to an acquaintance. The news spread rapidly, and soon reached the house of representatives, when, immediately after the journals were read, the Honorable John Marshall, of Virginia, arose, and in a voice tremulous ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... in a warm and friendly clasp. Her smiling lips were tremulous. Engagingly, shyly, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Dr. Porter notices particularly that unmeaning look which the eye "bent on vacuity" has, resembling the inexpressive glare of the glass eye of a wax figure; that indefinite sweep of the eye which ranges from one side to the other of an assembly, resting nowhere; and that tremulous, roving cast of the eye, and winking of the eyelid, which is in direct contrast to an open, collected, manly ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the larger falls, where it can wet its fingers with their dewy spray. Many of these moss-lined chambers contain thousands of these delightful ferns, clinging to mossy walls by the slightest hold, reaching out their delicate finger-fronds on dark, shining stalks, sensitive and tremulous, throbbing in unison with every movement and tone of the falling water, moving each division of the frond separately at times, ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... But there was that old man with whom she had walked hand in hand on the parade by the sea. She seemed to see him coming to meet her, pitiful, a little greyer, with an appealing look and an extended, tremulous arm. It was for her now to take the hand of that wronged man more helpless than a child. But where could she lead him? Where? And what was she to say to him? What words of cheer, of courage and of hope? There were none. Heaven and earth were mute, unconcerned at their ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... her husband's illness was very brief, and in two or three days, he returned to his duties at the court house. He was somewhat changed in looks, however, his face being haggard, his figure slightly bowed, and his hand tremulous. He seemed, more than ever before, to avoid society, and on his way to the court house, he always chose the least frequented streets. The change in his looks and manners, was noticed only by a few who had formerly been intimate with ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... secluded the garden is. High walls and fences shut out streets and contiguous things; and the shrubs and the trees, heightening and thickening toward the boundaries, conceal from view even the roofs of the neighbouring katchiu-yashiki. Softly beautiful are the tremulous shadows of leaves on the sunned sand; and the scent of flowers comes thinly sweet with every waft of tepid air; and there ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... make song, each bird has his, Across the girding city's hum. How green under the boughs it is! How thick the tremulous ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... minutes near the door, trying to convince myself by the lie of the shadows outside that he was crouched there, ready for me. But it seemed safe. I could see no shadow at all except the tremulous fern-shadows. At last I took off my coat as a blind. I flung it through the doorway, with some force, to see if it would draw him from his hiding. Nothing happened. The ruffian did not pounce upon it. I took a few long breaths to ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... impending—some happiness so strong and assured as to verge upon ecstasy. Indeed, so firmly persuaded was I that very, very soon some unexpected chance would suddenly make me the richest and most famous man in the world that I lived in constant, tremulous expectation of this magic good fortune befalling me. I was always thinking to myself that "IT is beginning," and that I should go on thereafter to attain everything that a man could wish for. Consequently, I was for ever hurrying from place to place, in the belief ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... when the still, hot air of the room began to vibrate with the tremulous thunder of the sound for which Hunnicott had been so long straining his ears. He was the first of the three to hear it, and he hurried out ahead of the others. At the foot of the stair he ran blindly against Kent, dusty, ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... Tremulous with excitement, she doled out her poor dollars to him, seized the precious elixir and hurried away home to Lucy, to whom she was carrying life and strength. The little one made a weak attempt to smile at her mother, but ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... illumination dawned upon her blindness. She stood very still and lifted up her eyes. The swamp was living, vibrant, tremulous. There where the first long note of night lay shot with burning crimson, burst in sudden radiance the wide beauty of the moon. There pulsed a glory in the air. Her little hands groped and wandered over his close-curled hair, and she sobbed, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... blue air. Against that stump—is it a real stump, or only a painted canvas affair from the property man's warehouse?—surely that is a demijohn of cider? And we can hear, presently, that most piercingly tremulous of all songs rising in rich chorus, with the plenitude of pathos that masculines best compass ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... her work, and clasped Meg strongly in her arms, pressing down Meg's head upon her breast, and crying, 'Oh, my dear little Meg! My good little Meg!' Then she put them all three gently out of her room, and bade them good-night and God bless them, in a husky and tremulous voice. ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... silence the laughter: terror subsided to a tremulous apprehension—as though he had been on the verge of something horrible sinking into it for a moment—but ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers
... fallen into their places, and stood silent and stern, with the faint light from the lamps and windows playing over their dark serried ranks. A cool, clear moon shone down upon us from amidst fleecy clouds, which drifted ever and anon across her face. Away in the north tremulous rays of light flickered up into the heavens, coming and going like long, quivering fingers. They were the northern lights, a sight rarely seen in the southland counties. It is little wonder that, coming at such a time, the fanatics should have ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crying, and found herself clasped in his arms, strained to his heart, while his lips sought and found her soft, tremulous mouth. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... unkindness; it was just that life was like that. Indeed, the bitterness festered around the thought that it was life itself—the way of life—not the brutality of any particular people. "They'll pension him—he's done a lot for the school." Even the grateful memory of Gretta's tremulous, scoffing little laugh for the way it fell short could not follow to the deep place that ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... of school that day, the Fifth passed back to their class-room. Soon after, Mr. Weevil entered. He looked cold, stern, implacable—a different man from the one Paul had seen the previous night speaking in tremulous tones about Hibbert. Those little human traits seemed to have vanished with the night. He was no longer the ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... delicate flowers, and wraps the splintered tree-trunks with her fluent drapery of tendrils. Soon the whole sharp outline of the spot is lost in unremembering grass. Where the deadly rifle-ball whistled through the foliage, the robin or the thrush pipes its tremulous note; and where the menacing shell described its curve through the air, a harmless crow flies in circles. Season after season the gentle work goes on, healing the wounds and rents made by the merciless enginery of war, until at last the once hotly contested battleground differs from ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... She had some way to go to church, and she did not always choose the same streets, so she had no special pet crossing-sweeper, and this morning it was Billy into whose hand she dropped the coin she was holding in her tremulous fingers. ...
— The Thirteen Little Black Pigs - and Other Stories • Mrs. (Mary Louisa) Molesworth
... nothing but dreaming: Let us on by this tremulous light! Let us bathe in this crystalline light! Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming With Hope and in Beauty to-night:— See!—it flickers up the sky through the night! Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, And be sure it will lead us aright— We safely may trust ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... and stood there in the sun with bare head as if rooted to the ground. I stared at him full of terror, and was like a bird which a serpent has fascinated. He himself appeared very much embarrassed. He raised not his eyes; again bowed repeatedly; drew nearer, and addressed me with a soft, tremulous voice, almost ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... warming the tints of a long, low-lying broken bank of grey cloud that stretched athwart his course into crimson, and fringing its skirts with gold as his first beams shot athwart the heaving water to the ship in a tremulous path of ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... At the hills? Or did he see instead a pair of blue eyes swimming in tears through which divinest pity shone? Did he see a saucy, piquant face framed in ringlets that escaped in bewitching wilfulness from under the dainty cap of a Quakeress? Did he see—— Harriet's voice, tremulous from a mist of tears in its laughter, broke in upon ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... accepted his part of the task. The horses and mules, alarmed perhaps by such a wild and lonely situation, and tremulous, too, from memories of that frightful climb up the cliff, crowded close about him, while he stroked their noses and manes, ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... or even of trying to ascertain its truth by means of discreet interrogation. To do so might be to provoke a scene; and a scene, in the shaken state of Mrs. Peniston's nerves, with the effects of her dinner not worn off, and her mind still tremulous with new impressions, was a risk she deemed it her duty to avoid. But there remained in her thoughts a settled deposit of resentment against her niece, all the denser because it was not to be cleared by explanation or discussion. It was horrible of a ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... voice plainly," said Caroline, in a tremulous whisper. "Do not leave me, George. Whatever happens, do not leave me." They called each other now by their Christian names, as cousins should do; and their intercourse with each other had never been other than cousinly since that parting in ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... of the organ, now tremulous and low, now strong and deep, caused a profound silence to fall upon the square; but, as the last note died away, there was a great scrambling for places to ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... the cataract seemed twice its natural height, the tops of pine trees rose against the pale green of the coming day, close above the falls the bright morning star hung, diamond-like, over the rim of the descending torrent; around the air was tremulous with the rush of water, and to the north the rose-coloured streaks of the aurora were woven into the dawn. My long solitary journey had nearly reached ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... permanent comfort is in the sense of fidelity. You are like a sailor in the storm; it is dark about you, the wind howls, the stars vanish. What gives you comfort? It is the knowledge that one thing is true. Thank God, you have your compass, and the tremulous little needle can be trusted. You bend over it with your lantern in the dark and know where you are going, and that renews your courage. You have the spirit of the truth, ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... had found for him among her poor. Mrs. Lawrence and Irene came in the promised train; and he met them with a carriage and a multiplicity of wraps, although it was a bright, pleasant day. His mother clung to him with tremulous hands: he realized more than ever how much she had broken in the past year,—very little older than Mrs. Darcy if counted by years, but whole decades if judged by every ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... mockery—how much The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer! He prayed for Israel—and his voice went up Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those Whose love had been his shield—and his deep tones Grew tremulous. But, oh! for Absalom, For his estranged, misguided Absalom— The proud, bright being who had burst away In all his princely beauty to defy The heart that cherished him—for him he prayed, In agony that would not be controll'd, Strong supplication, and forgave ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... a voice half tremulous with rage and shame together; "Waller, if this rascally trick be yours, rest assured no former term ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... said it, what would follow? Prompt and instant dismissal. And Patty? The thought of the little sister quelled the storm in Marcella's soul. For Patty's sake she must control her temper—and she did. With an effort that left her white and tremulous she crushed back the hot words and said quietly: "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Liddell. I did not mean to be inattentive. Let me show you some of our new lingerie waists, I think you will ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pay his rent," he said. "There'll be many a one on that errand along about now," he declared with satisfaction. "Cheer up," he added, turning back to the pale face and tremulous lips of the young girl. "Your father wasn't the first fine man to go wrong; but they don't all have somebody to stick by 'em and shield 'em as he did. The more you think it ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham
... Divine, as these sons and daughters turned to him, as free to ask, as confident of a reply, as all afflictions, blessings, cares, and crosses, were laid down before him, and the work of eighty years submitted to his hand. There were no sounds in the room but the one voice often tremulous with emotion and with age, the coo of some dreaming baby, or the low sob of some mother whose arms were empty, as the old man stood there, rugged and white atop as the granite hills, with the old wife ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Como lies, a swarm of lights, behind us; the hills and shadows gloom around; the lake is a sheet of tremulous silver. There is no telling how we get back to our hotel, or with what satisfied hearts we fall asleep in our room there. The steamer starts for the head of the lake at eight o'clock in the morning, and we go on board ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... were secured in a like firm manner, causing him to resemble a bundle more than anything else. He would then request the bystanders to place him in the lodge. In a few minutes after entering, the lodge would commence swaying to and fro, with a tremulous motion, accompanied with the sound of a drum and rattle. The spiritualist then commenced chanting in a low, melancholy tone, gradually raising his voice, while the lodge, as if keeping time with his chant, vibrated to and fro with ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... and, more than all, a new feeling altogether—love, and the dependence a woman feels, the longing to find rest in strong arms, which comes with the first revelation of love, had conquered what Kitty had called her "bossiness." She was now tremulous before the crisis which she must presently face. Pride in her fortune, in her independence, had died down in her. She no longer thought of herself as a woman especially endowed and privileged. She took her fortune now like a man; for she had been taught that a man could set her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... ask me, child, since thou hear'st here I've been, Why my brow is so furrowed, my locks white and thin— Why this faded eye cannot go by the line, Trace out little beauties, and sparkle like thine; Or why so unstable this tremulous knee, Who bore 'sixty years since,' such ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... one color fade. Brooks leaped in headlong chase down the furrowed sides of gray old rocks, and glided whispering beneath the sorrowful willows. Old trees renewed their youth in the slight, tenacious grasp of many a tremulous tendril, and, leaping lightly above their topmost heights, vine laughed to vine, swaying dreamily in the summer air; and not a vine nor brook nor hill nor forest but sent up a sweet-smelling incense to its Maker. Not an ox or cow or lamb or bird living its own dim ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... in a somewhat tremulous voice, which however became firmer as she proceeded, "this is the first trial that has taken place in our little colony, and as crime must be ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... Patsey began to whimper. But Polly, albeit with a tremulous lip, stepped to the side of her little Pagan friend. "Don't you dare to touch him," she said, with a shake of unexpected determination in her little curly head; "if you do, I'll tell my father, and he will slay you! ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... cherished and vanished shaving brush; what time, below, the head waiter was hastily removing from sight, though not from memory, a soup tureen whose agitated surface bore a creamy froth not of a lacteal origin. One may not with impunity balance personal implements upon the too tremulous rails ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... court is thronged—a young delinquent blinks like an owl in sunshine 'neath the mighty flashing of his bench-lit eye. His crime, ay, what's his crime? it can't be much—so pale, so thin, so woe-begone! look, too, so tremulous of knee, and redolent of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 20, 1841 • Various
... away; For over grief, and aching emptiness, And fading hopes, a higher joy arises. In cloudiest nights, one lonely spot is bright, High overhead, through folds and folds of space; It is the earnest-star of all my heavens; And tremulous in the deep well of my being Its image answers, ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... as he repeated the last lines, became a little tremulous, as if diffident how the Sovereign to whom the homage was addressed might receive it, exquisite as it was. If this diffidence was affected, it was good policy; but if real, there was little occasion for it. The verses were not probably new to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... had it to make, she paused before it an instant. Fear seemed to be feeling, and a possible sense of the absurdity of her situation made for a slightly tremulous dignity as she said: "I do love it. Love it so much it is hard to tell just how much—or why." And then it was as if she shrank back, having uncovered too much. She looked as though she might be dreaming of the Court of the Uffizi, or Santa Maria Novella, but Katie surmised that that ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... She felt as if some unseen enemy was near her, and springing to her feet, she cast a wild, troubled glance around. No living being met her eye; and, ashamed of her cowardice, she resumed her seat. The tremulous cry of her little gray squirrel, a pet which she had tamed and taught to nestle in her bosom, attracted ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... esteem than those of the doctor, lawyer, and minister. In her judgment, the kernel of the matter was not alluded to, so she arose and said: "Mr. President." She records that "at length President Davies stepped to the front and said in a tremulous, mocking tone," "What will the lady have?" "I wish, sir," she said, "to speak to the question." "What is the pleasure of the convention?" asked Mr. Davies. A gentleman moved that she be heard; another seconded the motion; whereupon, she records, "a discussion, pro and con, followed, lasting full ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... to the temple of the Shining One they stopped and listened. The air was all tremulous with the hum of the rapidly revolving dynamos, the thud of the reciprocating machinery, and the grinding of ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... a hundred years ago Those close-shut lips had answered No, When forth the tremulous question came That cost the maiden her Norman name, And under the folds that look so still The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? Should I be I, or would it be One tenth another, to nine ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... hour, it was easy to understand nearly every word he uttered. He spoke with warm feeling of Longfellow, who had been in London during that season, and had called to see his venerable friend before proceeding to the Continent. "Wasn't it good of him," said the old man, in his tremulous voice, "to think of me before he had been in town twenty-four hours?" He also spoke of his dear companion, John Kenyon, at whose house we had often met in years past, and he called to mind a breakfast party there, saying with deep feeling, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... sixteen: the river is just beginning to rise, and the thirsty land spreads wide her lap to receive him. Some miles to the north slumbers Cairo in white heat, its outline jagged with minarets and bulbous domes. Southward, the shaded Pyramids print their everlasting outlines against the tremulous distance; old as they are, it seems as though a puff of the Khamsin might dissolve them away. Near at hand is a noisy, naked crowd of men and boys, plunging and swimming in the water, or sitting and standing along the bank. They are watching and discussing the slow approach up stream ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... greatly improved, and she was patient. A tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a part of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were at a loss to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... her mind a deeper and stronger current of thought than that which had been apparent. As the duskiness increased, and as in their promenade their faces were turned away from those who might have observed them, she said a little abruptly and yet with tremulous hesitancy: ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... hill towards Santa Lucia, where, by the waterside and the crowding white yachts, the itinerant musicians took it into the keeping of their guitars, their mandolins, their squeaky fiddles, and their hot and tremulous voices. The "Valse Bleu," "Santa Lucia," "Addio, mia bella Napoli," "La Frangese," "Sole Mio," "Marechiaro," "Carolina," "La Ciociara"; with the chain of lights the chain of songs was woven round the bay; from the Eldorado, past the Hotel de Vesuve, the Hotel Royal, the Victoria, to ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... began in gentle tremulous tones, "I promise to say no more about Victor until you have overcome ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... his great satisfaction, Don Benito, as if he began to feel the weight of that treatment with which his slighted guest had, not indecorously, retaliated upon him, now supported by his servant, rose to his feet, and grasping Captain Delano's hand, stood tremulous; too much agitated to speak. But the good augury hence drawn was suddenly dashed, by his resuming all his previous reserve, with augmented gloom, as, with half-averted eyes, he silently reseated himself on his cushions. With ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... pout. His rabid opposition to those engaged in the Yazoo frauds, and his hatred for those who defended it, made him extremely obnoxious to them, and prompted Dooly to say: "Nature had formed his mouth expressly to say, 'Yazoo.'" Its play, when speaking, was tremulous, with a nervous twitching, which gave an agitated intonation to ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... was now tremulous with anxiety. Margaret spoke with a strange ring in her voice; a ring that cannot be, unless there is the consciousness of ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... in its habits and song, resembles the Bunting of Europe, rising like it from the top of one bush, with a fine full note, and descending with tremulous wing to another. Its range, as far as I can judge, is right across the continent, since we fell in with it at our most distant northern points. It is much larger than the above, has a stronger bill, and a dark breast. This bird ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... and knees at the motor-generator with a pad of sandpaper between his fingers when the tremulous voice of the junior operator sounded in the doorway. "Mr. Moore, there's some ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... all felt tired and began to unroll the beds. A screech owl made a tremulous, eerie note, but even Jesse only ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again before I understood the action, or knew how to ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... matrons then—so fast the rumour flew,— Fired like the Queen, and frenzied with despair, Rush forth, and leave their ancient homes for new, And to the breezes give their necks and hair. These with their tremulous wailings fill the air, And, girt about with fawn-skins, bear along The vine-branch javelins, and Amata there, Herself ablaze with fury, o'er the throng A blazing pine-torch waves, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil |
