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Perturbation   Listen
noun
Perturbation  n.  
1.
The act of perturbing, or the state of being perturbed; esp., agitation of mind.
2.
(Astron.) A disturbance in the regular elliptic or other motion of a heavenly body, produced by some force additional to that which causes its regular motion; as, the perturbations of the planets are caused by their attraction on each other.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Perturbation" Quotes from Famous Books



... up for the perturbation which had resulted in failure in class and two weeks of work that represented her worst appearances in high-school history, Linda, her mind freed from the worry over Marian's plans, and her heart calmer over the fiasco in trying to comfort her, devoted herself ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... my right hand as far as I could and displaying no perturbation, though I was wondering what it would be like to be caned on the hand. This was one of Radley's surprises, and he followed it with one of his ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... which, to my great relief, quitted me of the perturbation brought on by a Rash Admission, there came three knocks from above, and Mother Drum said hurriedly, "Supper, supper;" and opening a side-door, pushes me on to a staircase, and tells me to mount, and pull a reverence to the company I found ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... cigarette, and that I was at the bows of the steamer. For a million sovereigns I could not explain under what circumstances I had moved from one end of the ship to the other, nor how I had come to light that cigarette. Such is the curious effect of perturbation. ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett

... than to check a lover's eagerness. What is noteworthy in Nelson's letters at this time is the utter absence of any illusions, of any tendency to exaggerate and glorify the qualities of the woman who for the nonce possessed his heart. There is not a sign of the perturbation of feeling, of the stirring of the soul, that was afterwards so painfully elicited by another influence. "The dear object," he writes to his brother, "you must like. Her sense, polite manners, and, to you I may say, beauty, you will ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... midst of her mental perturbation, there came to her the remembrance of a conversation between Nurse Rosemary and Garth over the pictures. The former had said: "Is she a wife?" And Garth had answered: "Yes." Jane had instantly understood what that answer ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... I could see his face very plainly. He wore a peruke, and his hat upon that. He was in a dark suit, plain but rich; and had rings upon his fingers, which I could see as he spoke. He was wonderfully upright for a man of his age; and his face shewed no perturbation at all, though it was more fallen ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... by two great poets, but one describes a night of quiet, the other of perturbation. In the night of Dryden, all the disturbers of the world are laid asleep; in that of Shakespeare, nothing but sorcery, lust, and murder, is awake. He that reads Dryden, finds himself lull'd with serenity, and disposed to solitude and contemplation. He that peruses Shakspeare ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... broad ocean without chart or compass. The affair would undoubtedly have been perplexing to a man of far more experience than he; but the doctor pictured to himself a thousand difficulties and dangers, which, except in his imagination, had no existence. The perturbation of his spirit had compelled him, more than once since his departure, to regret that he had not invited Mrs. Melmoth to a share in the adventure; this being an occasion where her firmness, decision, and confident ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... clearer. I remember that the times are unsettled, that the spirit of revolution is in the air, and try to be charitable enough to suppose that it was treasure the young husband brought with him, and that all the perturbation and distress which I imagine myself to have witnessed in his behavior and that of his wife were owing to the purpose that they had formed of burying, in this spot, the silver and plate which they were perhaps unwilling to risk to the chances of war. But when I try to ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... me, in perturbation for poor William Adolphus, in I know not what for Victoria the time passed on. There is but one incident that stands out, naming against the gray of that monotony. The full meaning of it I did not understand then, but now I know ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... apartment, he found his wife in a state of perturbation, not over his tardiness, but over the extraordinary behaviour of Uncle Joe. The old man had been out most of the day and had come in at five, growling and cursing ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... of their beautiful black boats, rowing imperturbably. The water sparkled and danced in the afternoon sun. In the market-place the tanned old women chattered briskly with their customers. He wandered on and on in growing wonder and perturbation. Suddenly his trouble ceased, a burst of wonderful melody came to him; there was not only a joyful tune, but other tunes seemed to blend with it, melting his heart with unimaginable rapture; he gave chase to the strange sounds, drawing nearer and nearer, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... mine host, who, in the midst of his perturbation, saw his way to a solatium for himself; "I must detain that, and ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed

... the lawn, his nose high in the air and his countenance expressing vast perturbation and alarm. "Why, Billie forgot to whistle for his dog when he started for home," said Hollanden. "Come here, old man! Well, 'e was a nice dog!" The girl also gave invitation, but the setter would not heed them. He spun wildly about the lawn until he seemed to strike his master's trail, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... not until they descended the steps that the group had an opportunity for forming itself. Miss Loriner, recognizing the girl's perturbation of mind, took her ahead, thus foiling the intentions of Lady Douglass; they could hear her talking of literature to Clarence Mills in a patronizing way. Gertie's cousin said resolutely, "But George Meredith never wrote a poem with that title. You ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge

... region in which this is especially true—that of the religious life. There sometimes attend its beginnings in a soul a certain excitement and perturbation which disable from calm realising of the greatness of the change which has passed. And it is well when that excitement is quieted down and succeeded by meditative reflection on the treasures that have been poured ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... the normal. He rushed from his private office on various pretexts, each time lingered in the general room, talking aimlessly with Tetlow—and watching the door. When she at last appeared, he guiltily withdrew, feeling that everyone was observing his perturbation and was wondering at it and jesting about it. "And what the devil am I excited about?" he demanded of himself. What indeed? He seated himself, rang ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... the Eimuck chieftain on the Dasht-i several of these men change countenance when I favor them with a glance. Whether this peculiar reddening of the face among the Afghans comes of embarrassment, or what it is, it always impresses me as much like the "perturbation of a wild animal at finding himself suddenly ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... for that morning there arrived a letter from Mrs. Leighton written in great perturbation, to the effect that she had heard some very uncomfortable reports about Miss Leigh. Her information was derived from the captain's wife at Liverpool, to whom she had written on Bluebell's obtaining a situation, supposing that, as they had shown her so much kindness, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at her hands a little, but could not help laughing at the notion of anybody's being afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... characters. The first consists in a low estimate of mere outward circumstances, since it is convinced that a man ought to admire, desire, or court nothing but what is virtuous and becoming; and that he ought to succumb to no man, nor to any perturbation either of spirit or fortune. The other thing is that, possest of such a spirit as I have just mentioned, you should perform actions which are great and of the greatest utility, but extremely arduous, full of difficulties and danger both to life and the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various

... at his mother's complaint. Janice felt some little perturbation. It increased as Uncle Jason's absence continued. When finally he opened the door suddenly and almost staggered into the kitchen, his face blanched and his eyes expressing an emotion that she could not fathom, the girl leaped simultaneously to her ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... put down the papers in great perturbation. 'Well, thank Heaven!' said he, after a pause of some duration,—'thank Heaven for a good riddance! Ah, Mr. Barry, what a woman I MIGHT have married had these lucky papers not come in my way! I thought ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... has all the humane feelings, but they are merged into the art of healing. When he sees a patient suffering, he feels no perturbation; he feels only the desire, by means of his art, to relieve the sufferer: thus should all our humane and social sympathies be regulated, divested of their morbid sensibility, and reduced to active and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... my way soothed in my ruffled spirits. But my perturbation revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls' High School, and rang the head mistress's bell. It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the horizontal bar without the mattress ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... secret and tenebrous cloud * the watcher from the disquiet earth At momentary intervals * beholds from its ragged rifts break forth The flash of a golden perturbation, * the travelling threat of a ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... and position as to have offices in Holborn—Holborn, of all parts of London! But the awe he felt for Crewe prevented his seeking information on the point from the only person who could give it to him, so he served him and puzzled over him in silence, his inward perturbation of spirits being made manifest occasionally by a puzzled glance at his master when the latter was not looking. It was nothing to Stork that his master was a famous detective; the problem to him was why he was a detective when he had no call to be one, having more money ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson

... between the wintry leaden sky and the wintry cold-looking hills. It was the oddest conflict of seasons. A wee rabbit—this year's making, beyond question—ran out from under my feet, and was in a pretty perturbation, until he hit upon a lucky juniper and blotted himself there promptly. Evidently this gentleman had not had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the blood in his veins to stagnate around his heart. Harry opened his eyes, shuddered, and relapsed into silence. The doctor, all at sea in regard to the cause of the sudden attack, did all that he could to restore him to consciousness and quiet the perturbation of his spirit. He succeeded, but found he was strangely silent. A terrible shock had sent a tremor through every nerve, and the doctor watched with painful apprehension its effect upon his reason. Giving him an opiate and enjoining ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... ill and worried. His scraggy neck rising far above an evening collar too low for him seemed to betray by its stringy workings the perturbation of his spirit. His carroty thatch no longer crisp from the careful military cut had grown into a kind of untamable towslement. The last month or two had aged him. He was the last person one would have imagined to be a distinguished soldier in the ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke

... War Miss Betty Pink Was just an ordinary mink; Her skirt was short, her eye was glad, Her hats would almost drive you mad, She was, in fact, to many a boy A source of perturbation; At household duties she would scoff, She lived for tennis, bridge and golf, She motored, hunted, smoked and biked, Did just exactly what she liked, And took a quite ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various

... not already possessed irrefutable proofs of this, the "Indispensable Letter-writer" would have shown it. The housekeeper's perturbation when she met him at the garden gate was now explained. She was shuddering at the thought that she might be followed and watched, and that Marguerite might appear at any moment, and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... doors, and refused to open them till she satisfied herself, by surreptitious peeps through the blinds, that it was only a neighbor who was knocking for admittance. An offer of marriage from a Western ranchman and another from a Vermont farmer (both entire strangers) did not tend to lessen her perturbation ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter

... the pent-up emotions which half distracted him. Of course, their mother saw that something was amiss, but did not allude to it, hoping that the cloud would blow over as so many did if left alone. But this one did not, and when both refused cake, this sure sign of unusual perturbation made her anxious to know the cause. As soon as tea was over, Jack retired with gloomy dignity to his own room, and Frank, casting away the paper he had been pretending to read, burst out with the whole story. Mrs. Minot was as much surprised as he, but not angry, because, like ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott

... his perturbation. The others all seemed impressed. The secretary's return but increased their apprehensions: nobody had ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... a great state of perturbation; but kept my eyes fixed upon Abdul all the while, who also began to stare at me with those penetrating eyes of his, which almost turned my heart inside out. He continued looking at me like one in doubt, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man, (for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear, and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man was wholly free from all these diseases as they might ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... fitful changes of mood. It had a singular depth of significance, therefore, for him; he knew how hardly her color came. Blushing means nothing, in some persons; in others, it betrays a profound inward agitation,—a perturbation of the feelings far more trying than the passions which with many easily moved persons break forth in tears. All who have observed much are aware that some men, who have seen a good deal of life in its ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... of much perturbation. Grave questions were being discussed—indeed, there had been overt acts of rebellion. And while the Friends counseled peace and preached largely non-resistance, those in trade found they were being sadly interfered with, and this led them to look more closely into the matter and frequent some ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... the administration against papists accused of treasonable designs or practices, began about this time to excite considerable perturbation in the public mind; for though circumstances were brought to light which seemed to justify in some degree the worst suspicions entertained of this faction, a system of conduct on the part of the ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... and locked his door. He was a church member in good standing and an unmarried man, so had to lock the girl out or perhaps thought it best to lock himself in. One never knows! The porter appeared with his suit case in his hand and perturbation in his soul, the double burden sufficing to ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... which the Government of India cannot safely disregard, for we are bound not only to protect our own frontiers, but also to safeguard the interests of Nepal and Bhutan, where, as well as in Sikkim, the fate of Tibet and the flight of the Dalai Lama have caused no slight perturbation. In Nepal especially, which is one of the most valuable recruiting grounds of the Indian Army, Chinese ascendency cannot be allowed to overshadow British influence. Lord Hardinge is by profession a peacemaker, and how efficient a peacemaker he proved himself ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... indeed, a certain perturbation at the President's unexpected summons, the young Virginian rose to his feet and stood ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... fatuous. He admitted in entirety the truth of her last words. If all Israel—nay, if but part, if but its leaders were as able and determined as she, did Meneptah guess his peril? Was not Egypt most ominously menaced? He remembered that he had been amused at his father's perturbation over the Israelitish unrest, but he vindicated Mentu then and there. Furthermore, if all Israel were like unto her, what heinous injustice had been perpetrated upon an able people? He found himself hoping that ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller

... to the window in a state of great perturbation, stood pulling inward his lips and staring down into the now brilliantly lighted flow of Broadway. Turned into the room with short, hasty strides, then back ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... that she appeared to be extremely ill in consequence of the alarm she had sustained. My own health, he assured me, was considered as very precarious, and added, that Tyrrel, who was in the same house, was in the utmost perturbation on my account. The very mention of his name brought on a crisis in which I brought up much blood; and it is singular that the physician who attended me—a grave gentleman, with a wig—considered that this was of service to me. I know it ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... if half displeased already, and left the room. Daisy lay with a great flush upon her face, and in a state of perturbation. ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... He hath delivered thee to thine own care, saying, I had none more faithful than myself: keep this man for me such as Nature hath made him—modest, faithful, high-minded, a stranger to fear, to passion, to perturbation. . . . ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus

... instant the perturbation of the Grand Duchess grew. Why did the man not speak out what he had to say? Why did the landlady first strive to seize the things from his back, then suddenly shrink as if in fear, leaving the tall fellow to ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... the yet more unexpected compliment that accompanied it, in both which more seemed meant than met the ear, encreased the perturbation into which Cecilia had already been thrown. It occurred to her that under the sanction of his mother's name, he had taken an opportunity of making an apology for his own conduct; yet why avoiding her society, if to that he alluded, should be flying a dangerous ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... lady's perturbation was increasing instead of diminishing, thought it wise not to press the matter at this moment. He felt that he had been, perhaps, a little over-prompt in making his proposition. "Madam," said he, rising, "I will not ask you to give me an answer now. I will ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... papa." Sylvia's voice to-day was very sweet and high; a sign to those who knew her of some perturbation or cussedness, as Savile ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson

... disturbance, perturbation, excitement, flustration, discomposure, unrest, turmoil, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... with serenity and fortitude much greater dangers. The Hellenic people did not hesitate, when the need arose, to come into collision with four Great Powers in defence of its independence and honour. It did so without hate, without perturbation, but calmly, as one performs an imposed and unavoidable duty. It deliberately chose to risk annihilation rather than see its fatherland disarmed and enslaved. It preferred a hopeless struggle to degradation. To-day it is threatened with the spectre of famine. It will face that spectre with ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott

... of the antagonists, and make sure of the effect of his blows. But that which it behoves the physician to see, not, indeed, with his bodily eye, but with clear, intellectual vision, is a process, and the chain of causation involved in that process. Disease, as we have seen, is a perturbation of the normal activities of a living body, and it is, and must remain, unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant of the nature of these normal activities. In other words, there could be no real science of pathology until the science of physiology had reached ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley

... alarm and indignation on the knowledge of this desperate atrocity were unbounded. There seemed to be but one man in the kingdom who preserved his composure, and that one was Pombal. Exhibiting scarcely even the natural perturbation at an event which had threatened almost a national convulsion, he suffered the whole to become a matter of doubt, and allowed the king's retirement from the public eye to be considered as merely the effect of accident. The public despatch of Mr Hay, the British ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... got up more slowly, turned his head, and eyed the stealthy strangers with grave curiosity. Curiosity, however, changed into hostility as he saw by the ewe's perturbation that the strangers were foes; and a sinister glitter came into the great gold eyes which shone so brilliantly from ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts

... in at the gate of the Elms, and Geoff saw the high red brick house, surrounded with its walls, like a prison, or like the ogre's castle itself, his perturbation grew to a climax. The vague alarm which takes complete possession of a child when once aroused in him rose higher and higher in his mind. When the lady sprang lightly down, and held out her arms to receive him as he alighted, the little fellow made a nervous leap clear of her, and stood shaking ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... comparative calm; or they create so complex an agitation, that it may be next to impossible for us to discern and estimate the component forces. Hence the metropolis may not at times be sufficiently susceptible in the case either of manufacturing or agricultural distress, or of any colonial perturbation. This metropolitan insensibility has some great advantages, but it is well for us to observe the corresponding evil, and, as far as may be, to guard our own hearts from being rendered apathetic ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... the coach of his smitten opponent, turned away with a face stern and full of trouble. Many things revolved themselves in his mind as he stepped slowly towards the carriage, in which his brother still sat wringing his hands in an agony of perturbation. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... she came; and then again and again, in spite of him. And her comings now were preceded by a strange little perturbation. A strange little vague feeling of pleasantness, as if something good had happened to him would begin, and well up, and grow within him, penetrating and intensifying his sense of the summer sweetness round about, till it distracted his attention, and ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland

... and there was no one else to look after her. She brought her fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation. As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... befall thee, Painful though it be, Let not fear appall thee: To thy Saviour flee; He, ever near, thy prayer will hear, And calm thy perturbation; The waves of woe shall ne'er o'erflow The Rock ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... indeed, in memory of the minutes just gone by. For it had come at last, after all these weeks of ferment, after all this strange time of perturbation. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... disappeared behind the rocks of Holmes Island, and all was in readiness for action, the good old lady, who had hitherto been as calm and unruffled as a child, began to get red in the face and to bustle about in a manner which betrayed considerable perturbation of spirit. ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... primrose or of palest amber, pervade the whole society. It is a court of gentle and harmonious souls; and though this style of beauty might cloy, at first sight there is something ravishing in those yellow-haired, white-limbed, blooming deities. No movement of lascivious grace as in Correggio, no perturbation of the senses, as in some of the Venetians, disturbs the rhythm of their music; nor is the pleasure of the flesh, though felt by the painter and communicated to the spectator, an interruption to their divine calm. The white, saffron-haired goddesses are ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds

... of the middle class; it is interesting to philologists as containing one of the earliest known specimens of Italian dialect. An example of the Tuscan dialect is also found in the descort by Raimbaut. This is a poem in irregular metre, intended to show the perturbation of the poet's mind. Raimbaut increased this effect by writing in five different languages. He found a ready welcome from Bonifacio II. at the court of Montferrat which Peire Vidal also visited. The marquis dubbed him knight and made him his brother ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor

... the name of a brisk light dance, and is therefore properly enough used in low language for any hurry or perturbation. ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... Cousin Percy's evident perturbation caused her to forget the disclosure Captain Dan had been about to make. By the time she remembered to ask about it the captain had decided not to tell. He fabricated some excuse or other, and the excuse was accepted, to ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... now directed to the combatants, and a faint laugh ran round the table. But there was not the slightest appearance of perturbation in the manner or look of his antagonist, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... an early edition of the evening newspaper as he was stepping into his car, and now he was driving slowly through the park. He lit a cigar and gazed stolidly from the window. But his face showed no sign of mental perturbation. ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... unimportance. Successful middle-age stands between the two. Its calm is not the result either of senility or failure. It represents that solid success which enables a man to adventure into fresh spheres without any perturbation. New fields call to him—Art, or Letters, or Public Service. Success is already his, and it will be his own fault if he does not achieve ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook

... us as quickly as he could get us to go towards the tea-house he sought, and I must own that I was only too anxious about the Chinese guards to help feeling in a good deal of perturbation lest they should feel that they had been insulted, and follow us so as to take revenge. Hence I was glad enough to get within the tea-house's hospitable walls, and sat there quite content to go on sipping the ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn

... could not probably find it in his heart to treat with severity my innocent effusions. I needed but little encouragement; for the perturbation of my mind stood in want of this relief. My simplicity, arising from my being a total stranger to the intercourse of the world, was accompanied with a mind in some degree cultivated with reading, and perhaps ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... held her in his arms, her head against his bosom—and one hand lay upon her head and stroked it tenderly. But upon Madison was still turned those sightless eyes, that noble face, serene, commanding even in its perturbation, even in its alert and ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... came in greatly flurried, and, catching Eunice's arm, tried to draw her hastily out of the room. Miss Maitland herself had swiftly caught her housemate's perturbation. Indeed, she had already been perturbed when the children intruded upon her, and had, apparently, now ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... as much as you like, as long as I don't," I answered in a careless tone, but keeping an attentive eye on Jonah. His perturbation seemed strange. If Phineas' business were only the conversion of Mistress Gwyn, what reason had Jonah Wall to go white as Dover cliffs ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope

... silence! How softly the pale moonlight rested upon the water! A grand and solemn repose wrapped the heavens and the ocean—no sound beneath all that vast blue dome—no motion, but the heaving of the long sluggish swell. Gradually I became calmer; the excitement and perturbation of my mind began to subside, and at length I felt as though I could sleep. As I resumed my place by the side of Browne, he moved, as if about to awake, and murmured indistinctly some broken sentences. From the words that escaped him, he was dreaming of that far-off home which he was to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... been told, the judge walked back and forth in evident perturbation, fingering over the leaves of a little square book which he took ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... commonplace. In Longfellow, as in Irving, one is struck by that quietude, which is so prevailing a characteristic of American literature, and which proceeds from its steady and even flow from sources that never knew any disturbance or perturbation. The life, the art, the moods are all calm; deep passion is ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... was the sun, Mars, Earth, Venus; the dear old solar system was still intact, undisturbed excepting for the slight perturbation in the region of Jupiter. Blaine doubted if the influence was measurable insofar as changes in the motions of the ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... Green and the captain. The latter seemed in great perturbation; he had hoped to make his fortune, and retire from the toils and cares of a sea-life in some snug corner of the Western settlements, where he might cultivate a little farm, and lead the life of an honest man; "for this life," ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... tax upon her nerves as Mrs. Allen's unwelcome visit. Surely Phoebe had said nothing about a burglar! It was Droop that Mrs. Allen had seen—of course it was. She dared not say so in their visitor's presence, but she wondered mightily at Phoebe's apparent perturbation. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... agitation, he continued to pace the room in the utmost perturbation of spirits. His darkened countenance expressed all the rage of jealousy and revenge; and a person, who had seen his features under the smile of ineffable tenderness, which he so lately assumed, would now scarcely have believed them to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... had, namely, from Major Oakshott, who came in great perturbation to ask what was the last I had seen of his son Peregrine. It appears that the unfortunate young man never returned home after the bonfire on Portsdown Hill, where his brother Robert lost sight of him, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... face Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair; Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld. For heavenly minds from such distempers foul Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware, Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm, Artificer of fraud; and was the first That practised falsehood under saintly show, Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge: Yet not enough had practised to deceive Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... longer live at Potsdam or at Sans-Souci; even Berlin seemed dangerous: in a fit of that incurable perturbation which formed the basis of his character and made him commit so many errors, he had no longer any wish but to leave Prussia, only he wanted to go without embroiling himself with the king. "I sent the Solomon of the North," he writes to Madame Denis ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... from the morning report and surveyed the post adjutant with something of perturbation, if not annoyance, in his grim, gray eyes. For the fourth time that week had Lieutenant Field requested permission to be absent for several hours. The major knew just why the junior wished to go and where. The major knew just why he wished him not to go, but saw fit to name almost any other than ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... was dripping from the waist down! In any other surroundings or with any other company he would have wept bitterly. Even in the presence of Jimmy Powers his lower lip quivered; and his soul filled to the very throat with dismay. Jimmy Powers could not understand his very evident perturbation. If took a great deal of explanation on Bobby's part; but finally there was conveyed to the young riverman's understanding a slight notion of the situation. To the child the day seemed lost; but Jimmy Powers was more resourceful. He ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... Dunderave so long as the nut and bramble were there," said Gilian, rejoicing in her kindly perturbation. "And I could not be ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... sideways; but that is no go even for a sword-fish, for a sword is his which cannot cut cords, and he soon finds he can make nothing of it. Smaller and smaller, meanwhile, is becoming the condemned hold, and greater and greater the perturbation within. The captive fish begins to swim round and round, and to watch a new opportunity, but it is too late!—too many are on the look-out for him! Every man gets ready his hooked pole, and there is more tightening of the tackle! The terrified fish now rises to the surface, as it were to reconnoitre, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... perturbation was of course unfavorable to literary labor. No further numbers of the Thalia appeared, and 'The Misanthrope', a new play of excellent promise, made no progress. But 'Don Carlos' did at last get itself completed—after ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... Susan, and the inclosed one from Lovirrides, have flung me into such a vehement perturbation, that i hardly can tell whether I wake or dream, and it is even With difficulty that I can fetch my breath. I have ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... the recipient of a second funeral in Paris. Keeping Bean from a ball game aroused that one-time self of his as perhaps nothing else would have done. But Breede was Breede, after all, and Bean swallowed the hot words that rose to his lips. His perturbation was such, however, that Breede ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson

... perturbation followed her progress up the aisle, if she had known it. She was small and fair, very daintily and beautifully made; a pretty Marquise whose head Greuze should have painted. Mrs. Columbus Landis, wife of the proprietor of the Palace Hotel, conferring with a lady ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... past in another's arms, he waited with seeming patience. But the music buzzed in his brain and his toes tingled for it; breathing the warm, voluptuous air, he inhaled hints of a thousand agreeable and exciting scenes; watching, he perceived in perturbation the witchery of a hundred exquisite women. And a rancorous discontent gnawed at his ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... a whisper; but the girl seemed to hear it, for she left the shop with a perturbation which the dimness of the late twilight could not conceal. Robert hesitated no longer, but followed her, heedless of the louder expostulations of MacGregor. She was speeding away down the street, but he took longer strides than she, and was almost up with her, when ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... the boat standing on end! Glass Eye Maud devoured her with her one eye, screwed up her fat red cheeks in a fixed and motionless laugh, scared before Lily, who came from over the sea, from countries where savages live. Glass-Eye, in her perturbation, served Lily first. Pa made no objection, asked Lily's permission to light his pipe: was she sure she didn't mind smoke? Lord, you never knew, with those ladies! He swelled with pride. If it had been Christmas-time, he would have ordered a ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... quite safe; she told me she knew the way home from any part of this wood. Let us go on with our talk. I assure you I value this privilege of being with one I so much admire more than you imagine;' and other things of that kind. I was so foolish as to show a little perturbation—I cannot tell why I did not control myself; and I think he noticed that I was not cool. Caroline has, with her simple good faith, thought nothing of the occurrence; yet altogether ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... Bobby such perturbation came in the morning mail. His friend had laid bare some of the old stories concerning James Bansemer, and cautioned him not to become involved in transactions with the former New Yorker. Harbert's statements were ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... the chair again and mumbled something about cigars. I was only to have blank a day. In his perturbation I believe he limited me to a daily box. He was trying—and trying very badly—to conceal the emotions I ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... be an eleventh sibyl or a second Cassandra? But although she were neither, and she did not merit the name or title of any of these renowned prophetesses, what hazard, in the name of God, do you run by offering to talk and confer with her of the instant perplexity and perturbation of your thoughts? Seeing especially, and which is most of all, she is, in the estimation of those that are acquainted with her, held to know more, and to be of a deeper reach of understanding, than is either customary ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... whatever. He smoked his cigarette without a sign of perturbation. Save for a certain steeliness in his pale eyes, his habitually ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell

... big was this one, do you think?" said Rob, who was getting over the perturbation ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn

... violent knocking at my door. I sprang from bed, fully awake in a second, drew the bolt, and slipped back to bed. With a hurried "May I come in?" Aunt Janet entered. She seemed relieved when she saw me, and gave without my asking an explanation of her perturbation: ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... intimately and deeply pervaded by that feeling.... To know the power of this Sacrament, give it to him whose doom is sealed, who in a few hours will be no more. The Bread and the Wine are his immense hope! they seem to stand between him and infinite danger, to soothe pain, to calm perturbation, and to ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... almost day. The east glowed opalescent. All about him Annixter saw the land inundated with light. But there was a change. Overnight something had occurred. In his perturbation the change seemed to him, at first, elusive, almost fanciful, unreal. But now as the light spread, he looked again at the gigantic scroll of ranch lands unrolled before him from edge to edge of the horizon. The change was not fanciful. The change was real. The earth was no longer ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... affairs to notice anything unless it was brought directly to their attention, and as Von Barwig made it a rule never to burden other people with his troubles they were in blissful ignorance of his mental perturbation. So it went on till the tenth day, when Von Barwig made up his mind to go and call on his little pupil and find ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... under his cassock, a sign of perturbation; Courtlandt continued to unwind; the Barone glanced fiercely ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath

... tripped upon the tense, for her hand was on his arm, and, in consequence, a series of warm, delicious little shivers was running about his body in a fashion highly favorable to extreme perturbation of mind. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... written out his check and bade us good day I no longer made any pretence of concealing from my partner my perturbation. I had, of course, known that from time to time we had skated on thin ice; but this was the first occasion upon which Gottlieb had deliberately acknowledged to a client that he would resort to perjury to ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... impatience for the day on which the solemn feast of the sacred fire was to be celebrated, to see which sect Zadig would favor. All the world had their eyes fixed on his two feet, and the whole city was in the utmost suspense and perturbation. Zadig jumped into the temple with his feet joined together, and afterwards proved, in an eloquent discourse, that the Sovereign of heaven and earth, who accepted not the persons of men, makes no distinction between the right and left foot. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... Cardinal; and he stood frowning in a great perturbation of spirit. "This is great news," he said, but in a doubtful voice which Wogan did not understand. "This is great news, to be sure;" and he took a turn or ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... made on a sudden at a moment of extreme excitement and perturbation. No man can be for ever bound by words uttered at such a time; and, what is more, no man of honour or humanity, Mr. Lambert, would try to ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... one thing which nearly concerned that industrious and trusty monitor that he surely could not have known, or his quiet countenance would have shewn traces of perturbation. He was doing Exhibition work, but he was not keeping Exhibition time. The wonderful building in which he had taken up his temporary residence was, in fact, of too cosmopolitan a nature to have a time of its own. Its entire length measured off very nearly 1-42,000th ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers

... that when I rose on the morrow, with a slight headache and a tongue indifferently parched, I recalled to memory, not without perturbation of conscience, and some internal qualms, the conversation of the previous evening. I felt relieved, however, after two spoonfuls of carbonate of soda, and a glance at the newspaper, wherein I perceived the announcement of no less than four other schemes equally ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... dangerous swamps; yet it was dreadful to live in a state of blockade, cut off from all the important duties in which we were engaged, and shut up with our animals in the unnatural light of the cave, enduring constant anxiety and perturbation. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... with the utmost gravity and not a little perturbation in her voice, "yes, of course. When did Doctor ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess

... number of sects, and the multiplication of religious disputes, had almost banished morality. With regard to the crime for which he suffered, he declared that he had no malice against Mr. Johnson; and that the murder was owing to a perturbation of mind, occasioned by a variety of crosses and vexations. When he approached the place of execution, he expressed an earnest desire to see and take leave of a certain person who waited in the coach, a person for whom he entertained the most sincere ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... each moment, prevented them from being absorbed in a fixed idea, so much the more fatal as it is more concentrated by solitude and intimidation. Thus experience proves that solitary confinement is as fatal to lunatics as it is salutary to criminals; the mental perturbation of the former increases in solitude, while the perturbation, or, rather, moral corruption of the latter, is augmented and becomes incurable by the society of their brothers in crime. Doubtless, some years hence, the penitentiary system, with its prisons in common ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... not interested, and it was Dick who counted out two dimes and a nickel to secure peace. A supplementary procession appeared with a small, weather-beaten trunk, a folding bath-cabinet, and a huge case which, from Uncle Israel's perturbation, evidently contained numerous fragile articles of ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... the remainder of the crew on deck, noticing, as they passed the galley door, that the Irish cook was busying himself inside with his pots and pans, and it was not difficult to discern that he was in a state of extreme mental perturbation. Arriving at the forecastle hatch, they found the cover on and secured with a bar and padlock, whereupon Dick returned to the galley and, putting his head ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... had already paid two visits to the same portal—one with Oliver's shoes and one on his own account. He had seen his mistress's anxiety, and knowing that his young master had come in late the night before, had mistaken the cause, charging Mrs. Horn's perturbation to Oliver's account. The only response Oliver had made to either of his warnings had been a smothered yawn and a protest at being called at daylight. On his third visit Malachi was more insistent, the hall-clock by that ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... behind. How very devastating to the nerves that must be!" The Prince of Schnapps-Wasser wired that he could find no language to express himself, but hoped in a few weeks' time to come and show all that he felt. Max after a brief wire had flown back to town; and his obvious perturbation and demonstrative affection had ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... down to smoke. Jeff remembered it was he who had thought to give the bench a back. He had nailed the board from tree to tree. It was here now or its fellow—he liked to think it was his own board—and he leaned against it and lighted up. The day's perturbation had taken Choate in another way. He didn't want to smoke. But he rolled a cigarette with care and pretended to take much interest in it. He felt it was for Jeff to begin. Jeff sat silent a while, his eyes upon the field across the flats where the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown

... the rail contemplating the beauty of the scene before me, and inquired what I thought of pirates and their pranks. If the approaching craft was not a pirate, he said, her movements at least bespoke her bent on no good. The little craft was now seen to sheer, which caused the major's perturbation to become irresistible; and suddenly putting his hands to his lips, he shouted at the top of his voice: "Ho, strange ship! Whence come you? and what want you, that you steer right in our way? Bear ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"



Words linked to "Perturbation" :   magnetic storm, activity, surprisal, bother, physics, variation, trouble, perturb, fluster, discomposure, natural philosophy, disruption, agitation, influence, breakdown



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