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Paroxysm

noun
1.
A sudden uncontrollable attack.  Synonyms: convulsion, fit.  "A fit of coughing" , "Convulsions of laughter"



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"Paroxysm" Quotes from Famous Books



... everybody was rich; and everybody was growing richer. The community, however, was torn to pieces by new doctrines in religion and in political economy; there were camp meetings, and agrarian meetings; and an election was at hand, which, it was expected, would throw the whole country into a paroxysm. ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving

... it was dragged. Then, after a supreme paroxysm, the tentacle parted and the prey escaped. The tentacle disappeared into the mass of the baffled hunter. It made no attempt to follow the fleeing creature. It slowly relaxed along the bottom and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... morning, hoping that Sir Asinus will depart; but that gentleman betrays no intention of vacating the premises. Finally, in a paroxysm of internal rage, and a perfect outward calmness, the graceful Jacques retires—with a last ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous

... all their glory, ventured to intimate his opinion that they, like other idols, had a fair share of clay and rubbish in their composition, and who, after professing a kind of sham republicanism, was frightened by the French Revolution into a paroxysm of ultra-Toryism. 'You wretched fribble!' exclaims Macaulay; 'you shallow scorner of all that is noble! You are nothing but a heap of silly whims and conceited airs! Strip off one mask of affectation from your mind, and we are still as far as ever from the real man. The very highest ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... the "dear remembrance" of the splendors 'of tattoo and amocos; or that some unlucky wretch who has not mastered the hideous passions of his old paganism has almost battered out the brains of a fellow disciple in a sudden paroxysm of anger; or that some timid soul is haunted with half-subdued suspicions that some great goggle-eyed idol, with whose worship his whole existence has been associated, is not, what St Paul declares it is, absolutely ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... than one variety of the malarial organism, the different types differing in the length of time it takes for their growth and sporulation. There is one variety, the most common one, which requires two days for its growth, thus giving rise to the paroxysm of the disease about once in forty- eight hours; another variety appears to require three days for its growth; while still another variety appears to be decidedly irregular in its period of growth and sporulation. These facts readily explain some of the variations in the disease. ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn

... nothing until the car was out of earshot then he lay back on the down cushions and abandoned himself to a paroxysm of rage and blasphemy. ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace

... answered Carmichael, "who can tell the difference between a false and a true angina pectoris, except by a post-mortem? The symptoms are much alike, the result is sometimes identical, if the paroxysm is severe enough. But in this case I hope that you may be right. Your wife's illness is severe, dangerous, but not necessarily fatal. This attack has passed and may not recur for ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... The paroxysm of grief and indignation which followed my return to prison gradually subsided, and after a few days I became in some measure resigned to my fate, and determined as far as possible to make the best of it. Indeed, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous

... feeling of sea-sickness, which the excitement of the scene had kept off, increased rapidly; and they were glad to slip off their upper clothes, and to throw themselves upon their berths before the paroxysm ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... midst of the worst paroxysm Charlie came to leave a message from his mother, and was met by Phebe coming despondently downstairs with a mustard plaster that ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... and felt like Cain bringing home the news of the first crime. Her son's remorse was the first thing that Eve felt, no doubt; at least, it was the first that Mrs. Dyckman understood when the paroxysm left her. She felt so sorry for her lad that she could not blame him. She blamed the woman, of course. She cried awhile before she spoke; then she ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... melted away from Euphra's face; a sweet sleep followed; and the paroxysm was over ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... Mastakovich was seized with a paroxysm of agitation. He looked round and said in a tone faint, almost ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... turned, and made our way along the leeward quarter, to a seat by the bulwarks. I stood holding on by the railrope, and every now and then addressing a few incoherent and rather guttural, not to say pectoral, remarks to the green and gloomy sea, as I leaned over the rail. After every paroxysm of communicativeness, (for in seasickness the organ of secretiveness gives way,) I regained my perpendicular, and faced the foe, with a determination that I would stand it through—that the grinning, howling brine should get no more ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... love is no more than the deification of persons, the criminalist does not need to bother about this very rare paroxysm of the human soul. We might translate, at most, a girl's description of her lover who is possibly accused of some crime, from deified into human, but that is all. However, we do not find that sort of love in the law courts. The love we do find has to be translated into a simpler and more common ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... out, and Joy, hastening into the room, found her mother in a wild paroxysm of tears. Late that night Mrs Irving called for writing materials; and for many hours she sat propped up in bed ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to defend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he was awakened by the bombardment of the town—and Smolensk held out all day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the French artillery fire was directed against it, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... thought he soon should be rid of it. Whenever I spoke the chattering of my teeth revealed my agitation, and he expressed fear lest I should be ill from the hard chill. But little did he understand the upheavings of my troubled heart. Soon a severe paroxysm of coughing gave the opportunity to suggest the idea of sending for a physician. At length he consented, as he said, to please me, as he thought this cough would soon give way. But while I went to our boy's study room to awaken our son Harvey to go for the doctor, a severe pain in ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... glorious!" And again Marjorie was seized with a paroxysm of joy, and this time she caught Kitty, and led her off for a mad dance round the room. "Just think of it, Kit," she cried, "we'll be at Grandma Sherwood's together, and you can see the lovely room she fixed up for me, and the house in the tree, ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells

... a sorry spectacle that greeted them. The poor fellow's paroxysm had passed, and he lay still and apparently lifeless, covered with dust and grime. The minister bent over him, and, ascertaining that he was alive and conscious, lifted him up; then, with the help of the two men, took the outcast ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... to return, and said that by holding her nostrils closed and her mouth open she could, if she felt the paroxysm coming on, sneeze almost noiselessly. She said also that though not related to her by blood Charlie Sands was as dear as her own, and that if turned back she would go to V—— alone and, if captured, at least suffer imprisonment ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... uttered, when, with a fierce cry, Maltravers threw himself on the Italian;—he tore him from his footing—he grasped him in his arms as a child—he literally whirled him around and on high; and in that maddening paroxysm, it was, perhaps, but the balance of a feather, in the conflicting elements of revenge and reason, which withheld Maltravers from hurling the criminal from the fearful height on which they stood. The temptation passed—Cesarini ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... turned and ran down the stairs, her slender body trembling with the anger of a defeat born of the failure of her plan and her own betraying haste. Gaining the shelter of her dressing room, she gave herself up to a paroxysm of rage that ended in a ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... tell us,' said his mother, in a nervous paroxysm; 'for I am in such a fluster, I am sure I cannot answer for myself, and then Thomas may lose his ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... that Newman entered that fortress the triumphant cry of St. Augustine rang in his ears, Securus judicat orbis terrarum; but later came the moan Quis mihi tribuat, and later still the stolen journey to Littlemore and that paroxysm of tears as he leaned over the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... she said, Christian anxiety roused by the paroxysm which rescued him from the damning alternative. "You oughtn't to stand here perhaps, ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... short, choked by a sudden rush of tears; and Humphrey, flinging down his spade, threw himself along the ground in a paroxysm of unspeakable anguish, choking sobs breaking from him, the unaccustomed tears raining ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are more puerile now serious, than when in the long paroxysm of gay levity. Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to annihilate coats of arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and set up an Emperor! They are hastening to establish the tribunal of the praetorian guards; for the sovereignty, it seems, is ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... vascular engorgement would be equally manifest. In the lower animals I have been able to witness this extreme vascular condition in the lungs, and once I had the unusual, though unhappy opportunity of observing the same phenomenon in the brain of a man who, in a paroxysm of alcoholic delirium, cast himself under the wheels of a railway carriage. The brain, instantaneously thrown out from the skull by the crash, was before me within three minutes after the accident. It exhaled the odor of spirit most ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... ends of the line of paroxysm-stricken people—not far, not near to that hallowed group for something held them back; but inward gradually until the line, no longer straight, was half a circle, crescent shaped. Louder came that ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... In the fearful paroxysm that compressed his throat he could find no other words to assuage his rage or to pour forth his woe. His hair, which the storm had flattened, rose on his head, the marrow of his bones was chilled, and he felt his tears rush back upon his heart. It was a terrible moment; he forgot that the murderer ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... exertion precipitated spells of coughing, during which he was almost like a man in a fit. The blood congested in his eyes till they bulged, while the tears ran down his cheeks. A whiff of the smoke from frying bacon would start him off for a half-hour's paroxysm, and he kept carefully to ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... jube, and seats himself upon the throne. The religious silence, maintained to that moment, is broken by cries of "Long live the King!" which rise from all parts of the Cathedral. The ladies in the galleries wave their handkerchiefs. The enthusiasm reaches a paroxysm. Flourishes of trumpets resound. The people enter the Cathedral amid acclamations. Three salutes are fired by the infantry of the royal guard. The artillery responds from the city ramparts. The bells ring. The heralds-at-arms distribute ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... perhaps Sir Robert had foreseen, instead of answering put his hand to his side, and sank back in a paroxysm of pain, ending in another swoon. The child stood by, quiet and frightened but too much used to similar occurrences to be as much terrified as was Richard, who thought his brother dying; but calling in the serving-brother, the old Hospitalier did all that was needed, ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... house was quiet. For the first two or three nights of my visit the clock was as usual, but, the night before my friend was taken ill, its ticking became strangely irregular. At one moment it sounded faint, at the next moment, the reverse; now it was slow, now quick; until at length, in a paroxysm of curiosity and fear, I cautiously opened my door and peeped out. It was a light night, and the glass face of the clock flashed back the moonbeams with startling brilliancy. A grim and subdued hush hung over ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... a fit of coughing which shook him from head to foot, but even in the midst of the paroxysm he made shift to lay down the violin with perfect tenderness. When the fit was over he lay back in his chair with his arms depending feebly at his sides, panting a little, but smiling like a ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray

... said he, and hurried nimbly out of the room so that she would not hear the chattering of his teeth. Mrs. Single was enjoying the paroxysm of a luxurious, comfortable yawn when she heard a shout of alarm from the sitting-room. She sat straight ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... of the night our hero was wakened by a loud bellowing. It was only King Corny in a paroxysm of the gout. His majesty was naturally of a very impatient temper, and his maxims of philosophy encouraged him to the most unrestrained expression of his feelings—the maxims of his philosophy —for he had read, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... entrance doors that at this moment are both shut close, there stands beneath a brocaded canopy an ebony bed, supported on four twisted columns carved with symbolic figures. The king, after a struggle with a violent paroxysm, has fallen swooning in the arms of his confessor and his doctor, who each hold one of his dying hands, feeling his pulse anxiously and exchanging looks of intelligence. At the foot of the bed stands a woman about fifty ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... fatigued by her previous exertions, was lying upon a sofa in her private cabinet, in order to recruit her strength against the evening, which was, as we have shown, to have been one of gaiety and gala, when her affrighted attendants hastened to convey to her the fatal tidings of her widowhood. In a paroxysm of uncontrollable anguish she rushed towards the door of the closet, and was about to make her way to the chamber in which the royal body had been deposited, when she was met by the Chancellor, to whom the fearful news ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... own unuttered grief. She believes Hamlet crazed; she is repulsed, she is forsaken, she is outraged, where she had bestowed her young heart, with all its hopes and wishes; her father is slain by the hand of her lover, as it is supposed, in a paroxysm of insanity: she is entangled inextricably in a web of horrors which she cannot even comprehend, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... But the paroxysm of the Bohemian had reached its height; from an incarnate devil, in demeanour and language, he rapidly dropped into childish helplessness, and finally into a deep uncontrollable slumber. This was a state of things which, at first, threatened more danger than his open madness; but ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... ever so many times before Harry Warrington found it; but I like to fancy that he was going to keep it; that, bewailing mischance and times out of joint, she would yet have preserved her love, and fondled it in decorous celibacy. If, in some paroxysm of senile folly, I should fall in love to-morrow, I shall still try and think I have acquired the fee-simple of my charmer's heart;—not that I am only a tenant, on a short lease, of an old battered furnished apartment, where the dingy old wine-glasses have been clouded by scores of pairs ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... a gesture of refusal with his hand, and wanted to speak, but at that very moment he was attacked by a paroxysm of coughing. "You young devil!" he groaned, and leaned heavily on Pelle; his face was purple. Then came a fit of sickness, and the sweat beaded his face. He stood there for a little, gasping for ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... feet) disappeared afterwards. The shores of the stream, though crowded with those spouses of heroes, looked as broad as the ocean and presented a spectacle of sorrow and cheerlessness. Then Kunti, O king, in a sudden paroxysm of grief, weepingly addressed her sons in these soft words, 'That hero and great bowman, that leader of leaders of car-divisions, that warrior distinguished by every mark of heroism, who hath been slain by Arjuna in battle, that warrior ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... full height (it struck me at the time this was a matter of ten feet at least, but for scientific purposes allowance must be made for a lady's emotions) and looked straight towards us, or rather towards where that sound came from. Wiki went off into a paroxysm of falsetto sneezes the like of which I have never heard; nor evidently had the gorilla, who doubtless thinking, as one of his black co- relatives would have thought, that the phenomenon favoured Duppy, went off after ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... like a filthy insult to the great presence whose sacred shrine the house should have been religiously kept. But Cervantes dead was as forgotten in Valladolid as Cervantes living had been. In some paroxysm of civic pride the tablet had been set in the wall and then the house abandoned to whatever might happen. I thought foul shame of Valladolid for her neglect, and though she might have answered that her burden of memories was more than she could bear, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... murmured—an apostrophe which caused the future statesman a paroxysm of amusement—"I am exceedingly glad to see you. I hope you like London. We're great friends, aren't we? And when you grow up, we're going to be greater. I don't want you to have anything to do with machinery. It stops your heart ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... of wild beasts, I reasoned to myself, is nothing else but a paroxysm of fear why should we consider the fierceness of the savages caused by other motives? Man, however wild may be his state, has been endowed with intelligence although in some cases this intellectual faculty is possessed in the smallest possible degree. Let us then make him understand that ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... ye?—did ye? That was right," was the rejoinder. "Lor! how I wish I'd a been there to see; but I heard ye though—I heard ye a giving it to him," and again he relapsed into a paroxysm of delight. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... had suffered another paroxysm on the way, was slowly assisted to the ground by his awestruck and curious friends, and entered the house with a groan, and roared for Judy Carroll with a curse, and invoked Jerome, the cokang modate, with horrible vociferation. And as among the hushed exhortations ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... did not hesitate. She flung her arms around the neck of the man who had murdered her own husband, and yielded to a paroxysm of wild passion. ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... nudity. In a moment we were in each other's arms and the deliciousness of that moment intoxicated me. Suddenly, lying on the bed, I felt attacked, as I thought, by an imperative need to make water. I leaped up with a hurried excuse, but already the paroxysm had subsided. No discharge came to my relief, yet the need seemed to have passed. I returned to my companion, but the glamour of the meeting was already over. My companion evidently found more pleasure in my person than when I was a mere ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... utterly helpless for many a year, but war had wrought miracles for her. It had taught her once again to use her shrunken limbs, to tumble out of the bed to which she had been so long accustomed, and where she had been so lovingly nursed, and to crawl in a paroxysm of terror to the door, afraid lest she should be forgotten by her children, and left to the tender mercies of Cossack or Bashi-Bazouk. Needless fear, of course, for these children were only busy outside with a few ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne

... boy in a paroxysm of rage, as he clenched his fist and struck his captor on the chest ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne

... to expect me to write. It seemed a refinement of humiliation to have the home letters come addressed to me in a prison; and besides, I was like the sick man who turns his face to the wall, wishing neither to see nor to hear until the paroxysm has passed. I may say here that both of these good women respected my wishes and my foolish scruples. They wrote no more; and, what was still harder for my mother, I think, they made no journeys half across the State on ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde

... When the first paroxysm of pain and grief was over, the necessity of summoning some further aid, of bearing the sad news to his home, pressed itself upon the mind of Alfred, and he took his homeward road alone, as if he hardly knew what he was doing, ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... disease, par excellence, of the Gaboon is the paroxysm which is variously called Coast, African, Guinea, and Bullom fever. Dr. Ford, who has written a useful treatise upon the subject,[FN7] finds hebdomadal periodicity in the attacks, and lays great stress upon this ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... and intended to jade and infuriate). The bull had killed three horses offhand, and had received eight banderillos in his neck and shoulders, when, upon a given signal, the picadores and matadores suddenly withdrew leaving the infuriated beast alone in his wild paroxysm of wrath. Presently a soft musical note, like the piping of a lark, was heard, and directly afterwards a girl of not more than fifteen years of age, an the tasteful garb of an Andalusian peasant, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... corner seat; room for one between them. Who shall take it? Anxious time for TIM HEALY. Nothing he dreads so much as possibility of outbreak. In Committee-Room No. 15, Brer FOX snatched out of Brer RABBIT's hand a sheet of paper. Suppose now, in sudden paroxysm, he were to reach forth and taking Brer RABBIT by the beard bang his head against the back of the Bench? TIM's gentle nature shivered with apprehension; thing to do was to get a good plump gentleman set ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... returned, and, heaving himself over on his side, with an ejaculation, poor Murdock began to vomit violently, as Cunningham had done, having evidently, like him, swallowed a great quantity of salt water. For perhaps five minutes the paroxysm continued with severity; then, having rid himself of most of the salt water, the man, between groans, began to ask where he was, and then, as memory returned, informed us that he had received a violent blow on the top of the head which had knocked the senses ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... ever suffered before was mild in comparison with this dire paroxysm. Now, for the first time, was he made acquainted with his real capacity for pain, and how near he might be to madness and yet retain intellect enough to weigh every scruple, and calculate every chance and consequence, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... the horrors with which I was now impressed, this idea gave me pleasure; and I hastened to the Thames to put it in instant execution. Such was the paroxysm of my mind that my powers of vision became partially suspended. I was no longer conscious to the feebleness of disease, but rushed along with fervent impetuosity. I passed from street to street without observing what direction ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin

... forced as she said, "You have a delightfully cool way of taking things for granted. I'm no longer a little sick girl, but, to vary Peggotty's exultant statement, a young lady 'growed.' You forgot yourself, sir, in your greeting; but that was pardonable in your paroxysm of surprise. ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... alane!" said the poor young woman, as her paroxysm of sorrow began to abate—"Let me alane—it does me good to weep. I canna shed tears but maybe ance or twice a year, and I aye come to wet this turf with them, that the flowers may grow fair, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Philip to the side of the bed, and withdrew the curtain. Amine lay insensible, but breathing heavily; her eyes were closed. Philip seized her burning hand, knelt down, pressed it to his lips, and burst into a paroxysm of tears. As soon as he had become somewhat composed, Father Seysen persuaded him to rise and sit with him by the side of ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat

... tradespeople and the houses of the innkeepers were kept closed; no sort of article was offered for sale; everybody remained shut up at home. But when there is wrath at the bottom of men's souls, the silence and stupor of the first paroxysm are of short duration. Next day a rumor spread that the bishop and the grandees were busy "in calculating the fortunes of all the citizens, in order to demand that, to supply the sum promised to the king, each should pay on account of the destruction of the commune as much as each had ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... sc. febris, fever), the common name given to a form or stage of malarial disease; the ague fit is the cold, shivering stage, and hence the word is also loosely used for any such paroxysm. Simple ague is of much the same type whether in temperate or tropical climates, and may take various forms (quotidian, tertian, quartan), passing into "remittent fever.'' The symptoms are discussed, together with causation, &c., in the article MALARIA. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... Massachusetts reached white heat, and things were done which alarmed the whole country. But the course of events was different in the two states. In Rhode Island the agitators obtained control of the government, and the result was a paroxysm of tyranny. In Massachusetts the agitators failed to secure control of the government, and the result was a paroxysm ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... again when Lilly would bare her teeth and crunch them in a paroxysm of rage and tyranny over little Harry. She would delight in making herself terrible to him, pinch and tower over the huddle of him with her hands hooked inward like talons. His meekness hurt her to frenzy, and because she was ashamed of tears ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... had settled on Mr. Lyle. For years he had been an invalid, nervous, fretful and impatient. No one but Constance could suit him. Not even his wife. Her gentle hand, only, could soothe his suffering. Her soft, loving tones alone would quiet his paroxysm of nervousness. ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes

... effectually obstructed by divers strong bars of iron. Then his heart began to palpitate, his hair to bristle up, and his knees to totter; his thoughts teemed with presages of death and destruction; his conscience rose up in judgment against him, and he underwent a severe paroxysm of dismay and distraction. His spirits were agitated into a state of fermentation that produced a species of resolution akin to that which is inspired by brandy or other strong liquors, and, by an impulse that seemed supernatural, ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... his chief to ask his opinion; and on such occasions the indignant puisne seldom had the prudence and nerve to conceal his mortification. "I have not been consulted, and I will be heard!" he once shrieked forth in a paroxysm of rage caused by Mansfield's contemptuous treatment; and forty years afterwards Jeremy Bentham, who was a witness of the insult and its effect, observed: "At this distance of time—five-and-thirty or forty years—the feminine scream ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... it; trampled orthodoxy and military both under foot, in a violent and sanguinary manner; and was extremely frightened when it had done. Extremely frightened, not the Village only, but the schismatic mind generally in those parts, dreading vengeance for such a paroxysm. But the atrocious Russians whispered them, 'We are here to protect you in your religions and rights, in your poor consciences and skins.' Upon which hint of the atrocious Russians, the schismatic mind and population one and all rose; and, 'with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... paroxysm would have lasted it were hard to say, had not the impatient whinnying of his horses, still exposed to the storm, caught his attention. The lifelong habit of caring for the dumb animals in his charge asserted itself. He went out mechanically, ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... some one came to him bewailing, and weeping, and embracing his knees in a paroxysm of grief, because of all his fortune little more than 50,000l. was left! "What did Epaphroditus do?" asks Epictetus; "did he laugh at the man as we did? Not at all; on the contrary, he exclaimed, in a tone of commiseration and surprise, 'Poor fellow! how could you possibly ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... the steps, when, putting her hands over her face, she burst into tears so they ran scalding through her fingers—tears of shame and choking passion. And, to deepen the paroxysm to her even temper so strange, up with a new meaning of withering force rose her father's words—"Thy love might not have been vainly given had I kept fast hold of all I had, as ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... is the same as that by which Stephen wrought the Sanhedrim into a paroxysm of fury. To make such a charge as Jesus did, in the very Temple courts, and with the already hostile priests glaring at Him while He spoke, was a deliberate assault on them and their predecessors, whose true successors they showed themselves to be. They had just been solemnly questioning Him as to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... "and a paroxysm of fun got the better of you. Well, it's excusable on New Year's Day. But, if the firm of Murphy & Flynn expect to succeed in business, they must not mix so much play with their work." And ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... my love to madness. Again and yet again I kissed her; I pressed her lips till they were dry and burned like fire, then kissed cheek, forehead, hair, and, casting my arms about her strained her to my breast in a long, passionate embrace; then the violence of the paroxysm was over, and with a pang I released her. She trembled: her face was whiter than alabaster, and, covering it with her hands, she sank down on the sofa. I sat down beside her and drew her head down on my breast, but we remained ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... apparition of Hamlet's father the prince was mad,' said Clotilde hurriedly, and she gazed for her hostess, a paroxysm of alarm succeeding that of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... as distinct from a violent paroxysm as starvation from a mortal shot, filled him and wrung him body and soul. The discovery had not been altogether unexpected, for throughout his anxiety of the last few days since the night in the churchyard, he had been inclined to construe the uncertainty unfavourably for himself. His ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... The paroxysm passed and left its victim exhausted. With a longing for rest, he tottered out of the kitchen into the lean-to, but not to wash as its owner had suggested. He went directly to the now uncovered manhole of the cistern and slowly descended ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... the last words he said to me were words of thanks for the invariable urbanity and liberality of my conduct and the personal kindness which he had uniformly received from me. But I could not finish the sentence. Mr. Canning, in a paroxysm of extreme irritation, broke out: 'I stop you there. I will not endure a misrepresentation of what I say. I never said that Mr. Bagot took offence at anything that had passed between him and you; and nothing that I ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... killed the real Corporal Vinson but a few days ago in the rue du Cherche-Midi? I know. It was the murderer of Captain Brocq, the murderer of the singer, Nichoune—it was Vagualame ... Vagualame!" Bobinette was working herself up to a paroxysm of exasperation, shouting out her revelations like an apostle who means to convince, shouting his convictions as a martyr might at the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter. ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... they eagerly listened to the picturesque flow of profane language intermixed with a few eloquent remarks to God to forgive such irreverence, their minds were permeated with fear lest suspicion would fall on them during the paroxysm of alternate rage and godliness. Plunker was a powerful man, and when his anger was roused they knew by experience it was not safe to interject a word either of denial or assent; so they determined, when he called them to him, to pursue a policy of negativeness, ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... that fright can cause death; but that it is not possible for it to produce it at a given time, nor can he who falls into a paroxysm of grief say that he shall die at such a moment; the moment of death is not in the power of man in ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... In fact, the paroxysm had passed, and the poor fellow's brow was covered with a fine perspiration, his breathing easier, and he was evidently sinking into ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... the doctors say he would never be the man he was before he had that shot through the side. This marine would often sit making his fellows laugh, and laughing himself at his own good-humoured jokes, till so terrible a fit of coughing came on that those around him feared he would die in the paroxysm. After one of these fits he had gasped out some words, which led Philip to question him a little; and it turned out that in the quiet little village of Potterne, far inland, nestled beneath the high stretches of Salisbury Plain, he had a wife and a child, a little girl, just ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell

... may," answered Alick; "but cheer up—many have been as bad as you are, and have recovered; hold on bravely." The man seemed to grow calmer; again, however, there came over him a fearful paroxysm of pain. "Don't leave me, sir, don't leave me!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak. Alick, who was about to go on to another man, again held his hands, pouring some cordial down his mouth, which the doctor handed him. He was soon quiet, but it was the quiet of death; and the commander passed ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... their orgies, and after wild dances, some of the worshipers voluntarily wounded themselves and, becoming intoxicated with the view of the blood, with which they besprinkled their altars, they believed they were uniting themselves with their divinity. Or else, arriving at a paroxysm of frenzy, they sacrificed their virility to the gods as certain Russian dissenters still do to-day. These men became priests of Cybele and were called Galli. Violent ecstasis was always an endemic disease in Phrygia. As late as the Antonines, montanist prophets ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont

... was employed as a regimental clerk and schoolmaster. He had written spirited verses in his youth; and though his muse had become mournful, she continued to sing. His end was melancholy: the unfortunate circumstances of his life preyed upon his mind, and in a paroxysm of phrensy he committed suicide. He died in the vicinity of Portsmouth, in the beginning of April 1810, about six weeks before the similar death of his friend, Robert Tannahill. A person of much ingenuity and scholarship, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... rooms were empty, some further glimmering knowledge had stirred her benumbed consciousness. She may have flung herself on the bed in a paroxysm of weeping, heedless of the overturned night light and the havoc it caused. That, of course, is sheer guesswork, though the glass dish which held the light was found later on the charred floor, which was protected, to some extent, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy

... and manufacturers in Paris have a mysterious knack of enlarging a hole in a man's purse. They cannot give the price of anything upon inquiry; and as the paroxysm of longing cannot abide delay, orders are given by the feeble light of an approximate estimate of cost. The same people never send in the bills at once, but ply the purchaser with furniture till his head spins. Everything is so pretty, so ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac

... spooks (the monologue in Act III.); his wife insults him, and, fearfully worked up and beside himself with anger, he flings a cruel insult at her. He is called a scoundrel. This is either fatal to his tottering brain, or stimulates him to a fresh paroxysm and he pronounces sentence ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... climb trees!" And Chunky Brown went off into a paroxysm of silent mirth, his rotund ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin

... or should she not? Holding little Hans in her arms, she rose hesitatingly, and stretched out her hand toward the bolt. But all of a sudden, in a paroxysm of fear, she withdrew her hand, turned about, and fled with the child through the back door. The alder bushes grew close up to the walls of the cottage, and by stooping a little she managed to remain unobserved. Her greatest difficulty was to keep little Hans from shouting ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... not disturb the calm vision of the thinker. To Nicolai, the paroxysm he contemplates seems the last flicker of the torch. Just as, he declares, horse-racing and yachting are undergoing their fullest development in our own day, when horses and sails are ceasing to have any practical use, so likewise patriotism ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... murmur sounded through the room as each hearer drew her breath in a sob of mingled conviction and regret, and of all the number Lottie seemed the most affected. She burst into a paroxysm of tears, clasped Pixie in an hysterical embrace, then, thrusting her aside, turned eagerly towards ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... But the paroxysm passed, and just as Mortimer was on the verge of morning starvation and too polite to mention it, she grew calm by degrees and sent him down to breakfast. The emotional phase of her ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton

... words with you. Go in, you men, both of you, Tiler and Falfani, and seize the child. Force your way in, push that blackguard aside!" he roared in a perfect paroxysm of passion. ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... paroxysm, fell back upon the window seat, Faith, between laughter and dismay, tried to explain, and poor little Monsieur Siege, nearly scared out of his wits, darted from the inhospitable pocket up the chair-back, then leaped to the top of the window, where, feeling secure, he hung himself up to the curtain-rod ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... and be identified with them. They did not move, they were still and soft, with white, gentle markings of snow. He stood still, mad with suffering, his hands crisping and clutching. Then he was twisting in a paroxysm on ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence

... became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... Cerole, and two partially buried cities, the continual thunderings and growling of the craters, caused such terror, that numbers abandoned their dwellings, flying for refuge into Naples, while many Neapolitans went to Rome or other places. Fortunately, the paroxysm had now passed, the lava-streams stopped in their course, and the great torrent which passed the shoulders of the Observatory through the Fossa della Vetraria lowered the level of its surface below that of its sides, ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull

... for impression, and a sudden gust of passion, and that of the least noble kind; since there could be no opportunity of knowing the merit of the object. What woman would have herself supposed capable of such a tindery fit? In a man, it is an indelicate paroxysm: but in a woman, who expects protection and instruction from a man, much more so. Love, at first, may be only fancy. Such a young love may be easily given up, and ought, to a parent's judgment. Nor is the conquest so difficult as some young creatures think it. One thing, my good ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... to an alarming extent in the War Department, and occasionally a paroxysm of this disease would break out among some of the officers of the army, especially among the staff, "West Pointers," or officers of temporary high command—Adjutant Pope gives his experience, with one of those afflicted ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... and so like reality was it that as I fell I could see the rocky sides of the horrible shaft, where mocking, jibing, fiend-like forms were perched; and I could feel the air rushing past me, making my hair stream out by the force of the unwholesome blast. Then the paroxysm sometimes ceased for a few moments, and I would sink back on my pallet, drenched with perspiration, utterly exhausted, and feeling a dreadful certainty of ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... threw herself once more into a paroxysm of tears. 'Oh, Ernest,' she cried, 'do spare me! do spare me! This is too wicked, too unfeeling, too cruel of you altogether! I knew already you were very selfish and heartless and headstrong, but I didn't know you were quite so unmanageable and so unkind as this. I appeal ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... had hung Him, was the image of His divine and woeful face. In the flickering light, the drops of blood appeared to flow from those cruel wounds, and the thorn-crowned head seemed to droop towards her. With a shuddering cry, she fell heavily to the floor. But the paroxysm passed away—she remembered her crime, and, fearful of detection—for already had conscience begun to scourge her—she flew to her trunk, and touching a spring in the side, a secret compartment slid back, revealing a narrow interstice ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... architect flung himself upon his bed and burst into a paroxysm of weeping. The good woman who tended him observed this with great surprise, for he was not given to showing his emotions thus; and wondering what terrible sorrow had come to him, she proceeded to make kindly inquiries. At first these were met with silence, but, feeling a need for sympathy, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence

... all my limbs, and ah—ah, my God, I am a dead man! I have a burning here—a pain like hot coals in my vitals!" And, leaning against the wall, the unfortunate man clasped his arms round his body and bent himself up and down in a paroxysm ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... indescribable charm. It was a strange thing to see her there, looking out so serenely on the war of the elements; whilst others wept and raved, no sound was heard from her, and though strong men lay writhing at her feet in a paroxysm of terror, no thrill of fear shook her tender frame; calmly she stood, her white garments shining in the night, like the pure robes of some angel of peace; her sweet face shaded by the golden glory of her long flowing hair, her ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... when she heard the good news, she almost fainted with joy. It might yet be in time. Cleer might be married now before poor Michael broke forth in that inevitable paroxysm. ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen

... terrible conflict; she was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. For now the thoughts came thickly. It was not in Dorothea's nature, for longer than the duration of a paroxysm, to sit in the narrow cell of her calamity, in the besotted misery of a consciousness that only sees another's lot as ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... decks of the schooner were plainly audible. The lieutenant was rubbing his hands together, with a sort of ecstasy, that probably will not be understood by the great majority of our readers, while long Tom was actually indulging in a paroxysm of his low spiritless laughter, as these certain intimations of the safety of the Ariel, and of the vigilance of her crew, were conveyed to their ears; when the whole hull and taper spars of their floating home became unexpectedly visible, and the sky, ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... evident that were the throat of this animal similar to that of other mammals, this could not be accomplished, as the insertion of a body, such as the trunk, so far into the pharynx as to enable the constrictor muscles of that organ to grasp it, would at once give rise to a paroxysm of coughing; or, were the trunk merely inserted into the mouth, it would be requisite that this cavity be kept constantly filled with water, at the same time that the lips closely encircled the inserted trunk. The formation ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... This paroxysm of terror gradually passed away, but was succeeded by other fancies equally productive of inquietude. What if the captive, having recognized her, had whispered his story to the companions with whom he had walked! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... not hope for this temper in his age, the humour on both sides being so turgent, and extremely contrary to it, and the controversy debated on both sides by those 'who,' saith he, 'desire to eternize, and not to compose contentions,' and therefore makes his appeal to posterity, when this paroxysm ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... Don Vicente, whom a death spasm seized the same instant. Roque was in perplexity and knew not what to do; the servants ran to fetch water to sprinkle their faces, and brought some and bathed them with it. Claudia recovered from her fainting fit, but not so Don Vicente from the paroxysm that had overtaken him, for his life had come to an end. On perceiving this, Claudia, when she had convinced herself that her beloved husband was no more, rent the air with her sighs and made the heavens ring with her lamentations; she tore her hair and scattered it to the winds, she ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... strained backward in a paroxysm of rage, making fierce short jumps to the end of the tether as he snarled and growled with utmost fierceness at ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London



Words linked to "Paroxysm" :   paroxysmal, attack, fit, convulsion



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