"Tremor" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exclaim'd, in awful tremor rapt, "Surely of heavenly birth This gracious form that visits the low earth!" So in oblivion lapp'd Was reason's power, by the celestial mien, The brow,—the accents mild— The angelic smile serene! That now all sense of sad reality O'erborne by transport ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... complete ascendency over every sense, and personal safety became my sole consideration. I, who had boasted so lately of my courage, felt the cold dew of cowardice bathe my brow, its tremor ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... she came, And none pronounc'd her lover's name! When wilfully she sought this spot, Shudderings prophetic mark'd his lot; She look'd! her maiden's cheek was pale! And from the hour did ne'er depart That deadly tremor from her heart. Pleasure and blandishment were vain; Deaf to persuasion's dulcet strain, It never reach'd her ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... if Liff Hyatt knows who my mother was?" she mused; and it filled her with a tremor of surprise to think that some woman who was once young and slight, with quick motions of the blood like hers, had carried her in her breast, and watched her sleeping. She had always thought of her mother as so long dead as to be no more than a nameless pinch of earth; ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... superstition. A fortune-teller had once foretold, from the lines in her palm, that she would cause the violent death of some person. "It will be he," she had thought, glancing at her husband with a horrible tremor of hope.... And now she had the proof, the indisputable proof, that her plot for vengeance was to terminate in the danger of ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself; to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these excellent old persons, that, by all established ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fell soothingly on Ellen's ear, and the slight tremor in the voice reminded her also that her mother must not be agitated. She checked herself instantly, and soon lay as before, quiet and still on her mother's bosom, with her eyes fixed on the fire; and Mrs. Montgomery did not ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... wrought up, perhaps, by the strangeness of the hour and place, and my hearing quicker than at other times, but before the tremor of the bell was quite passed away I knew there was some other sound in the air, and that the awful stillness of the vault was broken. At first I could not tell what this new sound was, nor whence it came, and now it seemed a little noise ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... minor show of resistance stirred all the primitive instincts that active or dormant lurk in every strong man. He twisted her head roughly, and as naturally as water flows down hill their lips met. He felt the girl's body nestle with a little tremor closer to his, felt with an odd exaltation the quick hammer of her heart against his breast. He held her tight, and her face slowly drew away from him, and turned ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... more than a perceptible tremor our strange vehicle came to rest upon the surface of Mercury. For a moment Miela and I stood regarding each other silently. Then she left her station at the levers of the mechanism and placed her hands gently on my shoulders. "You are welcome, my husband, ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... she managed to reply to Juliette's questions, while Henri's eyes, riveted on her own, thrilled her with a delicious languor. At last he stepped behind her with the intention of pulling up one of the blinds, and she fully divined that he had come to ask another meeting, for she noticed the tremor that seized him when he brushed ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... with an actual tremor in his excited voice—"it's him, sure enow," and sank back on his seat again as if he had found himself scarcely strong enough to stand. "I—I ha' not 'aten much fur two or three days," ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you,' cried she, in a tremor lest she should have been uncivil. 'I didn't mean—I've plenty of time. 'Tis only to my home, and they have had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A tremor runs over her and the bright eyes fill with tears. "It is his heart," she says, with her formal pronunciation. "It has been bad a long, long while, but never like this. You see he never rested here," tapping her forehead. "Day and night, day and night, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... she said, with a little suppressed tremor in her throat like the sob of a nightingale at ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... execution to-morrow at 8 o'clock. I found her much hurried, distressed and tormented in mind. Her hands were cold, and covered with something like the perspiration which precedes death, and in an universal tremor. The women who were with her said she had been so outrageous before our going, that they thought a man must be sent for to manage her. However, after a serious time with her, her troubled soul became calmed." Another entry in the same journal casts a lurid light upon the ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... yellow petticoats with black arabesques. The baskets were set down in line near the platform of the scales, each covered with a wet cloth. From underneath the strip of canvas shone the silver of a herring or the vermilion of a salmon, or the greenish blue of a lobster's claw, quivering with the tremor of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bass, their circular jaws wide open, showing the white, round tongues and the dark throats, while their bodies were stretched backward, taut ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... there was an unmistakable tremor in the voice, "one day when she was cross she asked for a drink of water; Nick was sitting in the room and jumped up and brought it to her, but she was so out of humor she shook her head and would ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... the words which commit our destiny to the will of another. If in the man's eyes love would force its way, Lily's frank, innocent gaze chilled it back again to its inward cell. Joyously as she would spring forward to meet him, there was no tell-tale blush on her cheek, no self-betraying tremor in her clear, sweet-toned voice. No; there had not yet been a moment when he could say to himself, "She loves me." Often he said to himself, "She knows not yet what ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... any share in the conversation between the two, but I recall one interesting passage of it "Tell me, friend George," said Bright, "you have, I suppose, as large an experience in public speaking as any man in England. Have you any acquaintance with the old nervous tremor still?" "No," said Dawson, "or if I have, it is a mere momentary qualm which is gone before I can realise it." "Now, for my part," said the great Tribune, "I have had practice enough but I have never risen to address an audience, large or small, without experiencing a shaking at ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... an absent, far-away look, his arms and legs seemed to stiffen, and a tremor ran through his limbs. Chris watched ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... wife's recovery there could, however, be no doubt. The crisis through which he had passed had made him, in appearance, a yet older man; when he declared his happiness tears came into his eyes, and his head shook with a senile tremor. ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... There was no tremor in her voice. There was no shame in her eyes. Alone in her chamber on the night of Maurice's confession she had flushed and trembled. Now she stood before him and made this great acknowledgement simply and fearlessly. And yet she knew that he did not love her with the desire of man to the woman ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... black waves galloped down on our vessel and crashed along our decks, I have felt my heart glow as I watched the cool seamen picking up their ropes and working deftly on amid the roaring darkness. The fishers are sober, splendid men, who face death with never a tremor, and toil on usefully day after day. Come away from their broad, sane simplicity and courage, and look upon the infamous hounds who are bred in the congested ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... threw down his glass, and, seizing his sword, sprang into his boat, which was ready manned alongside, desiring the others to follow him. For once, and the only time in his existence when approaching the enemy, did he feel his heart sink within him—a cold tremor ran through his whole frame, and as he called to mind the loose morals and desperate habits of the pirates, horrible thoughts entered his imagination. As he neared the shore, he stood up in the stern-sheets ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... A tremor went through the goatskin bag, and in a moment a head was protruded. A lithe body wriggled out. It was a snake of light grey colour, and over each eye was a horn. It ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... was silent; after which, with her back turned to him and a little tremor in her voice while she drew forth successively her brother's studies, she made answer: "For the sake of your company, Peter! Here it is, I think," she added, moving a large canvas with some effort. "No, no, I'll hold it for you. Is that ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... felt that the sooner this strong treacherous life was crushed the better; there would be one traitor less in the world at any rate. The thought of my dread but just purpose passed over me like the breath of a bitter wind—a tremor shook my nerves. My face must have betrayed some sign of my ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... not a tear or a tremor, the girl blinked and schooled her quailing heart, still under the wicked hope that the mother would not consent; in a wonderment at this lady, who was womanly, and who could hold the red iron at living flesh, to save the poor infant from a dreadful end. Her flow ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to becoming worthy of saying "such words as have never been said of any lady." The ideal woman is one and unchangeable in glory, and unchangeable is the passion of her lover; but of this sweet dead Laura, whose purity and beauty and cruelty he had sung, without a tremor of self-unworthiness all her life, of her the poor weak Petrarch begins to doubt, of her and her worthiness of all this love; and when? when she is dead and ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... make me sick!" cried Link Merwell, a certain nervous tremor in his voice. "We don't want to listen to their hot air!" And plucking his crony by the arm he hurried out of the alleyway ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... appear at their best—fleeting moments that cannot be sustained. Sometimes it is a tremor of timidity that lends a fawn-like gentleness to their movements, and a frightened wistfulness to the eye, too subtle a thing of beauty to bear analysis in words. A sudden triumph, noble or ignoble, the conquering of a rival, the sound of a lover's voice, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... immediately sent it to Queen Caroline. This involved a long correspondence between Sir Robert Walpole and Waldegrave on the subject. "Jacobitism," to borrow the language of Dr. Cox, "at this time produced a tremor through every nerve of Government; and the slightest incident that discovered any intercourse between the Pretender and France occasioned the most serious apprehensions."[19] The spirit of insurrection and discontent had long pervaded not only the capital, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... strikes the lip of a bell it produces a sound and sends a tremor out upon the air. The vibrations thus made are ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... precincts of Chad itself. The knight's generosity and love of justice were sufficiently stirred to make him willing to run some risk in the cause; he had resolved to ask no question, and to let matters take their own course. But he could not help feeling a tremor run through him as he heard the winding of the horn which bespoke the presence of the visitors at his gate, and he went forth to meet them with a sinking heart, albeit his mien was calm and untroubled and his bearing dignified ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... clattering against the wall of the casa, and a swaying of the shrubbery near the back gate of the patio. Here was his real quarry! Without hesitation he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode furiously towards it. As he approached, a long tremor seemed to pass through the shrubbery, with the retreating sound of horse hoofs. The unseen trespasser had evidently taken the alarm and was fleeing, and Clarence dashed in pursuit. Following the sound, for the shrubbery hid the fugitive from view, he passed ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... A tremor passed over the face. The lips moved. The homeless, lingering soul came back, and looked for the last time fixedly and searchingly at him out of the dying eyes, and then—seeing no help for it—went hurriedly on its way, leaving the lips parted to speak, leaving the deserted ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... at my elbow; Admiral Sir Charles Napier (in an omnibus once), the Duke of Wellington, the immortal Goethe at Weimar, the late benevolent Pope Gregory XVI., and a score more of the famous in this world—the whom whenever one looks at, one has a mild shock of awe and tremor. I like this feeling and decent fear and trembling with which a modest spirit ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... said, with a tremor in his voice. "Close your eyes and try to be quiet for a few moments, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... would not go there till next winter, would you?" said Madelon, with a tremor in her voice which she vainly tried ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,' said Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... visits to the ill appointed bank Aguirre was introduced to Zabulon's two daughters,—Sol and Estrella,—and to his wife, Thamar. On another morning Aguirre experienced a tremor of emotion upon hearing behind him the rustle of silks and noticing that the light from the entrance was obscured by the figure of a person whose identity his nerves had divined. It was Luna, who had come, with all the interest that Hebrew women feel for their domestic affairs, to ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Prophet was conscious of a tremor of discomfiture; for the first time the spectacle of his fraud, as seen from a point of view other than his own, touched him unpleasantly. He moved ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... and the chaplain were on their knees a tremor shook the floor. Slight earthquakes of this kind were not unusual. Though the walls of the house rattled, the statue remained fixed and still. Another jar was felt in the ground, and raising their hands to the saint, the petitioners begged him fervently to intercede against ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... inaudible, and then the body stiffened with a little convulsive tremor, and Henri Theriere, Count de Cadenet, passed over into the keeping ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... more respect. One or two people came up to congratulate him. The green flag waved. The train moved majestically westward, and his reign had begun. He did not feel the slightest tremor of nervousness. He remembered Hunter saying at the end of last term that it was ticklish work being captain of the House. Was it? To Gordon it seemed no more than the inevitable entrance into a kingdom which was ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... the direction indicated. A man, whose face could not be seen, lay flat on the vessel, his arms nervously clutching a package enveloped in a piece of sail-cloth. Now and then a tremor ran through his frame. He was ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... him take a great hammer, and set out up the wood. She gave him a look of love and trust as he went—though there was a secret tremor in her heart, for she knew, perhaps better than he, how strong ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... she answers, speaking with some difficulty, and with a slight but quite musical tremor in her voice—very different from the ugly gulpings and catchings of the breath which always set off my tears—"but the fact is, that I have one little one—and—and—she no longer lives with me; my husband's people have taken her; I am sure that they ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... arrow at length be hit, And Phillis, the fleet runner, be at length overtaken; When this bough of young blossoms By the rough, eager gatherers shall be shaken. Their eyes grow dim, Their hearts flutter like taken birds in their bosoms, As the light dies out of heaven, And a faint, delicious tremor runs through every limb, And faster the volatile blood through their ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... important conversation on Ashen-down, and she found herself looking with more pride than ever at his tall, noble figure, as if he was more her own; but the calmness of feeling was gone. She could not meet his eye, nor see him turn towards her without a start and tremor for which she could not render herself a reason, and her heart beat so much that it was at once a relief and a disappointment that she was obliged to accept her other cousin as her first partner. Philip had already asked Lady Eveleen, for he neither wished to appear too eager in claiming ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... student of constitutional law. The treaty fairly bristled with controversial points. The exigencies of politics played havoc with consistency. Parties seemed to have changed sides. Federalists borrowed state-rights arguments without a tremor; and Republicans employed the language of centralization with Federalist facility. Federalists from New England looked beyond the immediate issue and discerned the inevitable economic as well as political consequences of westward expansion. The men who would have naturally populated the vacant ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... manly voice growing deeper and softer. The words were indistinguishable, but there was no misjudging the tone, such was the tremor of tenderness of every syllable. Faint, far between, and monosyllabic were Nellie's replies, but soon the father knew she was answering through her tears. It did not last long. Holmes came to the hall, turned ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... as he was in his scepticism, felt a tremor as he opened the magic crystal flask. When he stood over that face, he was trembling so violently, that he was actually obliged to wait for a moment. But Don Juan had acquired an early familiarity with evil; his morals had been corrupted by a licentious court, a reflection worthy of the Duke of ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... Gladys replied, but she got up suddenly from her seat, and her voice gave a suspicious tremor. 'Money can do a great deal, Mrs. Macintyre, but it ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... seems, as you say, as if change drew near England too. She is divided by the sea from the lands where it is making thrones rock, but earthquakes roll lower than the ocean, and we know neither the day nor the hour when the tremor and heat, passing beneath our island, may unsettle and dissolve its foundations. Meantime, one thing is certain, all will in the end work together ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... character; it is temperamental. There is an impression that the man truly brave is he who can face sudden, unexpected misfortune or calamity without a tremor or a flicker to suggest his hurt. That is but a single phase and indicative of physical rather than moral qualities; or, perhaps, merely the callousness born of long exposure to danger. One of the bravest men I've ever known stood watching the ticker one day during a downward run. Suddenly I heard ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... after this he came again, and found Bassett in the same attitude, but not in the same leaden stupor. On the contrary, he was in a state of tremor; he had lost, under the late blow, the sanguine mind that used to ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... and with tears in his eyes and a tremor in his voice, "I know the horse must be paid for, because it was not Saunders's own; he borrowed it for me, and I know that he cannot afford the money. But it's an exaggeration that three hundred guineas; the horse was really worth about ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... terror among the inhabitants while they lasted. There are mines in the neighbourhood fifteen hundred and ninety-eight English feet in depth, yet neither in them nor at the surface could the least tremor be detected. ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... with a slight tremor in his voice, "you cannot nip Webb's genius in the very bud. Such an expedition as he proposes is ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... whether in populous city or lonely country, continually experience every shock that thrills the Earth's crust? At sea, where between waves or winds or paddles or screws or machinery, everything is tremor, quiver or jar? In the air, where the balloon is incessantly twirling, oscillating, on account of the ever varying strata of different densities, and even occasionally threatening to spill you out? The Projectile ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... this morning, covert mockery. The viands had no savour; only the draught of coffee that soothed his throat was good. He had a headache, and a tremor of the nerves. In any case, it would have been impossible to get through the day in the usual manner, and his relief when he found himself at the railway station was almost ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... fort for days as whetted the warriors' hunger to the appetite of ravenous wolves. Finally, one night, the trumpets blew a blare that almost burst eardrums. Fifes shrilled, and the rub-a-dub-dub of a dozen drums set the air in a tremor. A great fire had been kindled between the inner and outer walls that set shadows dancing in the forest. Then the gates were thrown open, and in trooped the feasters. All the French acting as waiters, the whites carried in the kettles—kettles of wild fowl, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... inch or two less of her now." There was a little tremor in Winterborne's voice as ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... with the utmost quietness, but Avery caught the faintest tremor in his voice that warned her that Olive ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... around a clump of little spruces, a chain rattled, and a brownish-gray creature, "'most as big as a bear," as Frank afterward said, sprang at him, with a sharp, snarling growl, and mouth wide open. The sight was too much for Frank's nerves, and set them in such a tremor that he ran away. When he came in sight of his corn he began to grow angry, and his courage came up again. He now got him a larger stick than he had first carried, and set out for the animal again. He had considered that, after all, it could be only a ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... and offered him a crisp, warn cookie with sugared top, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same tremor at his heart. He pulled himself together and smiled back at her, thanked her and went out, stumbling a little on the doorstep, the cookie untasted ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... I was ever considered a handsome man even by my friends, but I was young then, frank of face, with that about me which easily inspired confidence, and it did me good to note how her eyes softened, and to mark the perceptible tremor in her ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... you working on behalf of the Government?" asked the old man eagerly, a tremor of fear ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... This time she did not leave them alone, though she busied herself at the other side of the room, with her back to them, because she knew how shy these young things were. And this time Marie looked at Osborn with the ghost of a smile, barely more than a tremor of ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... until there is no place in the world which seems so much like a home to me as a bark camp in the Adirondack, I had come to be what most people would call morbid, but what I felt to be only sensitive to the things around, which we never see, but to which we all at times pay the deference of a tremor of inexplicable fear, a quicker and less deeply drawn breath, an involuntary turning of the head to see something which we know we shall not see, yet are glad to find that we do not,—all which things we laugh at as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... the one rope by which he could draw himself out of the depths into which he had fallen, and felt sure that he must hear from some of his manuscripts within a day or two. He went to the post-office in a tremor of anxiety only to hear the usual response, "Nothing for ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and Thevenin was just opening his mouth to claim another victory, when Montigny leaped up, swift as an adder, and stabbed him to the heart. The blow took effect before he had time to utter a cry, before he had time to move. A tremor or two convulsed his frame; his hands opened and shut, his heels rattled on the floor; then his head rolled backward over one shoulder with the eyes open, and Thevenin Pensete's spirit had returned ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Alexander perceived him appearing among the foremost warriors, he was smitten in his heart, and gave way back into the band of his companions, avoiding death. And as when any one having seen a serpent in the thickets of a mountain, has started back, and tremor has seized his limbs under him, and he has retired backwards, and paleness seizes his cheeks: thus godlike Alexander shrank back into the band of the haughty Trojans, dreading the son ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... said Miss Madigan, a tremor in her voice; she, too, knew now that Kate "had 'em." "This one is Cecilia; the twins, Bessie and ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... use bein' afraid of him," Dad went on. "We must go and bounce him, that's all." But there was a tremor in Dad's voice which ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... Worth obstinately mute; Barbara and I afraid to ask. There was a little tremor of Cummings' nostril, he couldn't keep the flicker out of his eye, as he ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... violent emotions, diversified results. The heart beats wildly, or may fail to act and faintness ensue; there is a death-like pallor; the breathing is laboured; the wings of the nostrils are wildly dilated; "there is a gasping and convulsive motion of the lips, a tremor on the hollow cheek, a gulping and catching of the throat;"[17] the uncovered and protruding eyeballs are fixed on the object of terror; or they may roll restlessly from side to side, huc illuc volvens oculos totumque pererrat.[18] The pupils are said ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet. Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight to the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked up a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison. There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... intrigues, to insure their triumph. Those men of Venice of the Queen's household, who would most strenuously have resisted them, had been quieted forever, it was true; but, as dawn lightened over the ghastly faces upturned beneath the windows of the poor young Queen, an unconfessed tremor stole into the doughty breasts of Rizzo and Fabrici, in the place where most men wear their hearts, and they got them together, in friendly converse, to ponder what should ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... up abruptly,—so abruptly that Helen, rising too, almost touched the arm that was hurriedly withdrawn. Yet in that accidental contact, which sent a vague tremor through the young girl's frame, there was still time for him to have spoken. ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... seeing her face, I knew by the tremor of the hand I clasped that she was listening with shame for the drunken snore that ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... perfection of execution and feeling that moved him now as it had moved him before. "You are a musician born," he said quietly when she had finished, and the last tremor of the music had passed away. "I knew that before I first heard ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... caught the ear of Laura Sloly in the sick-room. A strange look flashed across her face, and the depth of her eyes was troubled for a moment, as to the face of the old comes a tremor at the note of some long-forgotten song. Then she steadied herself and waited, catching bits of the loud talk which still floated toward ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... preparations of the Israelites for sacrificing the animals they worshipped. Yet they did not dare interpose an objection, and when the time came for the offering to be made, the children of Israel could perform the ceremonies without a tremor, seeing that they knew, through many days' experience, that the Egyptians feared to approach them with hostile intent. There was another practice connected with the slaughter of the paschal lamb that was to show ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... first night,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I have ever been away from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.' In Little Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor passed over her as she said ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... news," he murmured, with the shade of a tremor in his musical voice; "otherwise, that fellow could not have felt so much pity for me that it moved him to ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... still within me at this chance of enlightenment. I guessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in a tremor of excitement: ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... every gesture, every line, seemed to have gained a greater grace and richness since yesterday; and as she came up to her lover, and laid her hand in his when he rose to meet her and looked for one shy instant into his eyes, then dropped her own in shame-faced tremor at what they had seen and told, he said again to himself that he had done well. If even she should call the hounds at a hunt-dinner dogs, and say that hunting was stupid and cruel, what might not be forgiven to Such ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... was with me; I think we had gone from San Francisco to make a railway, or something. On the morning of the 'quake, Sam and I had gone down to the beach to bathe. We had shed our boots and begun to moult, when there was a slight tremor of the earth, as if the elephant who supports it were pushing upwards, or lying down and getting up again. Next, the surges, which were flattening themselves upon the sand and dragging away such small trifles as they could ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... motives that sway men and women is like the knife of the anatomist; it works on the dead. Unite sympathy to observation, and the dead spring to life." It is thus to the shy, in their moments of tremor, that we should endeavor to be calmly sympathetic; ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... may have gone before I forget now. I will not hold you to your word. You are not to have pity upon me!" cried Nettie, not well aware what she was saying. The doctor drew her arm into his; found out, sorely against her will, that she was trembling, and held her fast, not without a sympathetic tremor in the arm on which she was constrained ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These people in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heave and part; and that the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack; but they all agree that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt; only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... her sister with an air of dignity and solemnity it was not her practice to show, and, though the gleamings of anguish were still visible on her beautiful face, when she spoke it was firmly and without tremor. At that instant Hist and the Delaware withdrew, moving towards Hurry, in the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... deliberation for about two hours, Friedrich's intentions not yet known to any, but everybody, great and small, waiting eagerly for them, like greyhounds on the slip,—when Adjutant Gaudi, who had been on the House-top the while, rushes into the Dining-room faster than he ought, and, with some tremor in his voice and eyes, reports hastily: "At Schevenroda, at Pettstadt yonder! Enemy has turned to left. Clearly for the left."—"Well, and if he do? No flurry needed, Captain!" answered Friedrich,—(NOT in these precise words; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... strutting up and down the narrow chamber like a turkey cock before his hens, and turning ever, after precisely so many strides, with a grand gesture and mighty sweep, as if he too had a glorious tail to mind, and was bound to keep it ceaselessly quivering to the tremor of the reed in the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... appropriate her, as I should have done in England. "No, John," she said, with the sweetest, prettiest smile, "we don't do that here; only when people are married." And she made this allusion to married life out, openly, with no slightest tremor on her tongue. ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... to clutch-in their ecstasy of aspiration hope that they may some day arrive at. But, alas! they reach it—never. And yet the saint and the prophet do not live in vain. They send a thrill of noble emotion through the heart of their generation, and the divine tremor does not soon subside; they gather round them the pure and generous—the lofty souls which are not all of the earth earthy. In such, at any rate, a fire is kindled by the spark that has fallen from the altar. ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... motion] Agitation — N. agitation, stir, tremor, shake, ripple, jog, jolt, jar, jerk, shock, succussion^, trepidation, quiver, quaver, dance; jactitation^, quassation^; shuffling &c v.; twitter, flicker, flutter. turbulence, perturbation; commotion, turmoil, disquiet; tumult, tumultuation^; hubbub, rout, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... blenched. A life-long dungeon Hath threatened me, I have been close pursued, And yet my spirit quailed not, and by boldness I have escaped captivity. But what Is this which now constricts my breath? What means This overpowering tremor, or this quivering Of tense desire? No, this is fear. All day I have waited for this secret meeting, pondered On all that I should say to her, how best I might enmesh Marina's haughty mind, Calling her queen of Moscow. But the hour Has come—and I remember naught, I cannot ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... trust. No blood, if you please. Therefore, in Botticelli's Judith, nothing but the essentials are insisted on; the rest we instantly imagine, but it is not there to be sensed. The panel is in a tremor. So swift and secret is Judith, so furtive the maid, we need no hurrying horsemen to remind us of her oath,—"Hear me, and I will do a thing which shall go throughout all generations to the children of our nation." Sudden death ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... become in her brother's eyes a folly; that something wild had stirred in her blood, and sitting there in her shady hat at the rear of the train, her eyes pursuing the great track which her father had helped to bring into being, she shook Europe from her, and felt through her pulses the tremor of one who watches at a birth, and looks forward to a ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... make a speech at Harvard University, and shall never forget the tremor in his voice and the half-embarrassment of his manner. What could have been more complimentary to college striplings? And then, as usual, he looked helplessly about for Ellen Terry, and having located her, held out his hand toward her and led her to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... The little model had moved out of her retreat, and stood between him and the door. At this stealthy action, Hilary felt once more the tremor which had come over him when he sat beside her in the Broad Walk after the baby's funeral. Outside in the garden a pigeon was pouring forth a continuous love song; Hilary heard nothing of it, conscious only of the figure of the girl behind him—that young figure which had twined ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... light. A light fragrant wind was blowing on the hills, and a breath of it came down the funnel. I saw that my hands were all bloody with the stains on the steps, and I rubbed them on the rock to clean them. Without a tremor I crossed the stone slab over the gorge, and plunged into the dark alley which led to the ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... come. Wan and pallid is she. The spell of half memories, the touch of half tears, And the wounds of worn passions she brings to me With all the tremor of the far-off years And their ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... impulse was to visit his daughter. He found the careful nurse by her bedside. As he entered the room, Agnes raised one finger to her lips, in token of silence. The anxious father bent over his child. Her sleep was heavy, and her countenance flushed. A tremor passed over her features. A groan succeeded. Suddenly she started up. With a look of anguish he could ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... mind. She did not understand him; nor did he understand her. He gave her a sort of friendly hug as he passed, still with that laugh in which there was no doubt a great perception of something comic, yet—an enlightened observer might have thought—a little uneasiness, a tremor which was almost agitation too. Lucy too had a perception of something a little out of the way which she did not understand, but she offered to herself no explanation of it. She said to herself, when he was ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant |
