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More "Twitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it would be all right. I should be very glad to hire you. Tex Lynch usually looks after all that, but he's away this afternoon and there's no reason why I shouldn't—" Her quaint air of dignity was marred by a sudden, amused twitch of the lips. "I'm really awfully pleased you did come to me," she smiled. "He's been telling me for over two weeks that he couldn't hire a man for love or money; it'll be amusing to show him what I've done, sitting quietly here ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... at the thought of the scoundrel calmly tying the knot to secure his noose, and then leaving his victim to twitch his life out. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... angrily rejected on the one side, the merchant felt his cloak receive an intelligent twitch upon the other, and, looking round upon the signal, he saw a dame, whose black kerchief was affectedly disposed, so as to give an appearance of solemnity to a set of light laughing features, which must have been captivating when young, since they retained so many good points when at least forty ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... combined in a single instance. An inexperienced violin soloist, such as a student playing at a conservatory recital, often exemplifies this. Nervousness and awkwardness cause him to tremble; the scratchy sound of his tones makes him twitch and start; meanwhile, the close attention paid to his fingering and bowing stiffens his arms and completes ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... always keenest when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy and went on ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... seemed to the woman as though every joy had disappeared with the emerald green meadow in the Alps, in which she had painted the lovely children. There was the same old nervous twitch in her face, the corners of her mouth drooped slightly and she cried very easily. Paul Schlieben watched his wife with positive dismay. Oh dear, had it all been in vain, the giving up of his work, all ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... more ingenious. It was on the plan of the twitch-up snare, common in New England. A young tree, very strong and flexible, is bent down till the upper end touches the ground. To this extremity is attached a stout cord, and fastened to a stake in the ground. A slip-noose is so arranged that the tiger thrusts his head through it in order ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... If ever an angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a walking-stick, that angel was his late lordship. He would stand up and look at one, and give orders in that beautiful silvery voice of his, just as if he was lying on a bed of down. And never a twitch, nor a hitch in his face, nor his words, nor any other part of him. I assure you, miss, that I have been quite amazed and overwhelmed with interest while looking at his poor legs, ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... am going to tell you? No, indeed; they can do it fast enough for themselves. Persons who take too much wine are their most constant companions; they pounce upon them and twitch and tease and torment them until the poor wine-bibber trembles from head to foot. They won't let him sleep or eat or think, and fairly drive him crazy. Oh, imps are really to be dreaded! But I must now ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... large brain space which speaks most eloquently of hot blood. As her expert eye ran over the rest of the body she sighed to think that such a creature had come to such an end. There was about him no sign of life save the twitch of his skin to shake ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... one like me aw cant tell; If tha'rt seekin better luck,—its a sell, As tha'll find; Nay, tha needn't twitch thi tail aght o' seet, Aw'll nooan hurt thi, tho' aw own tha'rt a freet. ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... "that arrangement doesn't suit; some of the stars are hidden; see them twitch it; it will be down! Now that one has it looped just to her fancy. No! I declare, there it comes down again! The other one twitched it this time; they are not of the same mind. Girls, do look! It is fun to watch them; they work as though the interests of this meeting ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... noticeable at once. Slowly the warm blood flowed back into the dusky cheeks, the limbs began to twitch, the breathing grew audible, and the wounded man began to show signs ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... They began to snarl at each other, and they also pressed their horses closer and closer before they even attempted to fire. And the result was that Andy, waving his hat, felt it twitch sharply in his hand, and then he saw a neat little hole clipped out of the very edge of the brim. It was a pretty trick to see, until Andy remembered that the thing which had nicked that hole would also cut its way through him, body and bone. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... This worthy, who in defiance of tradition is called Samuel, is sitting in his doorway watching the show, when the suffering Christ begs permission to rest a moment on his threshold. He says churlishly, Anda!—"Begone!" "I will go, but thou shalt go forever until I come." The Jew's feet begin to twitch convulsively, as if pulled from under him. He struggles for a moment, and at last is carried off by his legs, which are moved like those of the walking dolls with the Greek names. This odd tradition, so utterly in contradiction with ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... watching and listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I—I'll take him to—the person he lives with. It isn't ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... little twitch, which showed that, badly frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... end of it as I attempted to lower the rod caught in my coat collar behind, and the more I tugged the more it would not come out. I flushed and jerked, and tried to see the back of my head, while the ladies smiled encouragingly, rendering me more and more desperate, until I gave a fearful twitch, and the barb came flying out and across the porch, striking a prim maiden ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... views; Nor wash his toes but with intent To overturn the government,)— Such is our mild and tolerant way, We only curse them twice a day (According to a Form that's set), And, far from torturing, only let All orthodox believers beat 'em, And twitch their beards ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... standing a little apart to enjoy the fun, slipped unseen quite close to the prose-bush, where the Snimmy lay with his long debilitating nose on his paws, looking up at the stars. Sara waited until the nose began to quiver and twitch; and then she suddenly emptied her whole handkerchief full of dimples out ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... the skiff, in which you came off, still alongside, and your own two stout fellows will soon twitch you to yon point. A propos of those two men, are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... pouting lips of her tiny slit—all was most promising and charming. I stooped and kissed it, licking her little prominent clitoris with my tongue; it instantly hardened, and she gave a convulsive twitch ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... of the piece. First, a rope was seen to flap on the floor, to tighten with a twitch as Emil's voice was heard to say, "Heave, ahoy!" and Silas's gruff one to reply, "Stiddy, now, stiddy!" A shout of laughter followed, for four large gray rats appeared, rather shaky as to their legs, and queer as to ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... assure you, sir. A matter of years' standing. In unlacing the senor's helmet, the evening that he was taken prisoner, I was unlucky enough to twitch his mustachios. You recollect the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man's inmost thoughts. Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lamped the loot, their greedy eyes and greasy fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch out; ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... her protege in danger, Venus breaks the fastenings of his helmet, which alone remains in Menelaus' hands. Then she spirits Paris back to the Trojan palace, where she leaves him resting on a couch, and hurries off, in the guise of an old crone, to twitch Helen's veil, whispering that Paris awaits her at home. Recognizing the goddess in spite of her disguise, Helen reproaches her, declaring she has no desire ever to see Paris again, but Venus, awing Helen into ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... my face twitch at these words and the picture they evoked, and then, numbed as it were, I stood listening, slightly buoyed up by the feeling that Mercer would speak directly ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... embarrassed poor creature stood there and appealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome in any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing, meanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to twitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Reid, a sober, matter-of-fact little urchin, with not the slightest embryonic development of a sense of humour, had, acting upon the whispered suggestion of a roguish desk-mate, elected to write upon "Courting." His opening sentence made Eric's face twitch mutinously whenever he recalled it during the day. "Courting is a very pleasant thing which a great many ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole he ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... her age and size, which made it difficult for her to stoop for it herself, my sister picked it up and presented it to her, when Lady Holland, taking it from her, merely said, "Ah! I thought you'd do it." Adelaide said she felt an almost irresistible inclination to twitch it from her hand, throw it on the ground again, and say, "Did you? then ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Albeury remained quite still. His lip twitched—I had seen it twitch like that before, when he was deeply ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... answered angrily; "Patrick Henry would never do such a cowardly thing." "But this is Patrick Henry," said Mr. Tyler, pointing to him. The old woman was amazed; but after some reflection, and with a convulsive twitch or two at her apron string, she said, "Well, then, if that's Patrick Henry, it must be all right. Come in, and ye shall have the best I have ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... said them she bitterly regretted them. They were the cry of her undying vanity that must try to put itself right, to stand up for itself at whatever cost. Directly she had spoken them she saw a slight twitch pull the left side of his face upward. It had upon her a moral effect. She felt it as his irresistible comment—a comment of the body, but coming from elsewhere—on her and her nature, and her recent association with Arabian. And suddenly her hatred died, and ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the blouse collar from his neck; but he felt no bullet shock. He saw before him only the buckle of Seagrue's belt forty paces away, and sent bullet after bullet at the gleam of brass between the sights. Both men were using high-pressure guns, and the deadly shock of the slugs made Seagrue twitch and stagger. The man was dying as he walked. Smith's hand was racing with the lever, and had a cartridge jammed, the steel would ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... forbid you to do that again," and as I spoke I saw her little fingers twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise it. She laughed as a child will who knows she is at fault and is scared by her consciousness of guilt and would conceal it by a bravado of merriment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling tone that I had ever ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... classical spit, With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, But you're up on your legs, and you're in ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... squirrel? And wherein differ thy leapings from the hoppings of a frog, or the bouncings of a goat, or friskings of a dog, or gesticulations of a monkey? And cannot a palsy shake such a loose leg as that? Dost thou not twirl like a calf that hath the turn, and twitch up thy houghs just like a springhault tit?"[54] One might almost conceive the demon replying to this raillery in the words of Dr. Johnson, "This merriment of ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... politely. The sight of his bald head, his double chin, his mouth with its queer twitch, which made him seem as though perpetually about to laugh, if he had not perpetually thought better of it, filled Bessie with angry excitement. She barely nodded to him, in reply ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... day, and see what a real gratitude you will get from the waiter. It isn't infallible, but the chances are he will feel that you have treated him like a man, and will do or say something to show his feeling: he will give a twitch to your under-coat when he has helped you on with your top-coat, which will almost pull you over. We have even tried saying 'You are welcome' to a beggar. It's astonishing how they like it. By-the-way, have you the habit ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... hesitated, and I saw his underlip twitch. Nayland Smith, taking two long strides, stood immediately in front of him, glaring grimly into ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... were still upon my darling, devouring her, revelling in her, when suddenly I saw her hand twitch within her step-father's arm. It was an answering start to one on his part. The cigarette was snatched from his lips. There was a commotion forward, and a cry came aft, from mouth ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... teeth had become partially dislodged and threatened to drop upon the shirt-bosom gayly showing between the lapels of his dark-blue silk house-coat. He slowly closed his mouth, moving his teeth back into place with his tongue—a gesture that made her face twitch with rage and disgust. ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... Duff Arms, he walked straight into the yard, where the first thing he saw was a stable boy in the air, hanging on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose, and scouring the streets of Duff Harbour. When she heard Malcolm's voice and the sound ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... with the look of the trapped beast; and on these occasions I could see his lips move in prayer or cursing. The sweat poured down his face as he moved to and fro, and I, fancied that his features were beginning to twitch. Presently—I have said that the light was failing, so that it was not in my imagination only that the court was sombre—the King held his ball. "My friend, your man is not well," he ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... made a frantic grab for the stanchion, then relaxed. Cirgamesc had taken the Great Twitch. It was an illusion, a psychological quirk. One instant the planet lay ahead; then a man winked or turned away, and when he looked back, "ahead" had become "below"; the planet had swung an astonishing ninety degrees across the sky, and ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... colour milk with a tinge of lavender. Fast on the points of a spear the fish gives an occasional and violent spasmodic jerk, when the prettily tinted liquid is ejected from all the little cones. After a pause, during which it seems to concentrate its energies, there is another and another twitch, each the means of sprinkling broadcast what is said to be a corrosive liquid, almost as virulent as vitriol. From almost any part of the body this liquid exudes or can ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... took him, and when Jason looked upon boys of his own age chipping, hewing, planing lumber, and making furniture, so busy that they scarcely gave him a glance, St, Hilda saw his eyes light and his fingers twitch. ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... in the earth at equal distances from each other, which was called knucks. You could play for keeps in all these games; and in knucks, if you won, you had a shot or shots at the knuckles of the fellow who lost, and who was obliged to hold them down for you to shoot at. Fellows who were mean would twitch their knuckles away when they saw your toy coming, and run; but most of them took their punishment with the savage pluck of so many little Sioux. As the game began in the raw cold of the earliest spring, every boy had chapped hands, and nearly every one had the skin worn ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... in January to make ready for the busy spring, and every moment usefully employed will relieve the pressure later on. Survey the stock of pea-sticks, haul out all the rubbish from the yard, and make a 'smother' of waste prunings and heaps of twitch and other stuff for which there is no decided use. If properly done, the result will be a black ash of the most fertilising nature, such as a mere fire will not produce. Should the soil be frost-bound wheel out manure and lay it in heaps ready to be spread and dug ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. He turns ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... went biasing off in the other direction and left an untidy smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this would probably dry out—if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed, perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender with damp paste on it and should not be jerked about in ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... smiled again to hide a twitch of regret. "Why, I'm afraid it hardly produces a living wage; and I've got to think of that." He coloured suddenly, as if suspecting that Miss Hicks might consider the avowal an opening for he hardly knew what ponderous ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... positively did not move a limb, shut an eye or twitch a muscle during the entire hour he sat in the Senate chamber. Nor did he betray the faintest evidence of self-consciousness or emotion, and as I thought of the dingy office over the livery stable but three years before he struck me ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... meaning was plain. The Kid suddenly jerked open the drawer before him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward. The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were dancing in ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... and began to hum the air. Great heavens! There was the old woman, Aunt Rachel, with her face going twitch, twitch, the croak of her breathing keeping a sort of mad time with "On Christmas day, on Christmas day." I jumped up. She was gone. I knew in a hazy sort of way what was the matter with me, but I had still the sense to sit down and wait. ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... scarecrow," she murmured, twisting the front of her gown in her fingers. Her lips began to twitch ominously. Julian felt uncomfortable. He thought she was ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... seemed to come from her heart, and I saw the old man's face quiver and twitch; but he did not ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... harangue of the Judge, the Doctor's full lips had begun to twitch in a smile, and his eyes to ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... engine and facing Judge Sawyer. Mrs. Terry did not (at the moment) accompany him. A few minutes later she walked rapidly down the passage, and as she passed Judge Sawyer, seized hold of his hair at the back of his head, gave it a spiteful twitch and passed quickly on, before he could fully realize what had occurred. After passing she turned a vicious glance upon him, which was continued for some time after taking her seat by the side of her ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... more—half a penknife, a bunch of keys, but not a farthing. Suddenly I dive into my pocket and take the papers out again. It was a mechanical movement, an unconscious nervous twitch. I selected a white unwritten page, and—God knows where I got the notion from—but I made a cornet, closed it carefully, so that it looked as if it were filled with something, and threw it far ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... his sister the marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield's mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names unctuously ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... know it's cold," he laughed as the water stung the broken skin and made her twitch involuntarily, "but bathing will do it good. I just know it ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... a tug, a twitch, a flurry in the clear water of Eden, a pull, a splash, and the First Fish lay on the grass at Adam's foot. Can you imagine his sensations? How he yelled to Eve to come—look—see, and, how annoyed he was because she called ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the five o'clock forms, so decently and so composedly as scarcely to jar the bottle of green ink on the Austin landholder's table. All at once the door opened and in stalked M.E. Stone, silent, pallid, protentous. His wan eye comprehended the scene instantaneously, but no twitch or tremor in his lavender lips betrayed the emotions (whatever they might have been) that surged beneath ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... she saw me lying stark, Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, Cold even to her, she sighed; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said: 'He saved my life: my brother slew him for it.' No more: at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting and the tress, And held them up: she saw them, and a day Rose from ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... at Lorry, then at Estelle. In the pause, Adelaide, drawn from the library by the sound of Arden's fury, reached the front doorway, saw the three, instantly knew the whole cause of this sudden, harsh commotion. With a twitch that was like the shaking off of a detaining grasp, with a roar like a mortally wounded beast's, Arden recovered the use of limbs and voice. "You infernal lump of dirt!" he yelled. Adelaide saw his arm swing backward, then forward, and ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... which is this—that the maintenance of an unnatural polity can only be secured by means of a series of subterfuges such as these employed by Unionist Governments, both Whig and Tory, by which, while sympathy was extended to Orangemen in the open, the Ministry endeavoured to twitch the red sleeves of the Roman Curia in the ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... say so, because the dean had said it wasn't so. Somebody ought to write a book about it,—indeed they ought." Then he told the whole story of Dan Stringer, and how he had found Dan out, looking at the top of Dan's hat through the little aperture in the wall of the inn parlour. "When I saw the twitch in his hat, John, I knew he had handled the cheque himself. I don't mean to say that I'm sharper than another man, and I don't think so; but I do mean to say that when you are in any difficulty of that sort, you ought to go to a lawyer. It's his business, and a man does what is his business ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... nice-judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing games Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportion'd to their force. If yet too young, and easily deceived, A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod, Him, piteous of his youth and the short space ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... by such fantastic behavior, Harley struggled wearily to his feet. He had been a dead man as surely as though shot with a ray-gun. One twitch of those terrible rock pincers would have broken him in two pieces. It had seemed as though that deadly twitch were surely forthcoming. And then the thing had released him—and had lain down to go to sleep! ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a little ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... at him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was wont pathetically to remark, everyone bullied him because he was small and possessed only one arm, having shed the other by inadvertence somewhere on the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... bookstall, still she could see, with her very spine, she could see the clock, always the great white clock-face. In vain she fluttered the leaves of books, or made statuettes in clay. She knew she was not REALLY reading. She was not REALLY working. She was watching the fingers twitch across the eternal, mechanical, monotonous clock-face of time. She never really lived, she only watched. Indeed, she was like a little, twelve-hour clock, vis-a-vis with the enormous clock of eternity—there she ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... drawing motion, but very satisfactory when it comes; the evasive clover requiring that all its sprawling runners shall be gathered up in one gentle, tactful pull; the tender shepherd's purse coming easily on a straight twitch; the tough ragweed that yields to almost any kind of jerk. Even witch-grass, the bane of the farmer, has its rewarding side, when one really does get out its handful of ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... resent such taunts, and beyond a doubt the hot blood flushed the skin beneath the paint. Deerfoot noted the glitter of the eye, and a twitch of the muscles of the arm whose hand rested on the knife, ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... upon the ground, and his heart is much like that of the eagle in the air. He is crouched in a thicket about twenty yards away, and his lips are drawn back from his sharp fangs. His nostrils twitch with the odor of our food, and his yellow eyes are staring at us. Oh, he hates us because he hates everything except his own kind and very often he hates that. He wants our food because he's hungry—he's always hungry—and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... good," said the countess; "very good indeed. If Twitch got it, and didn't tell me, that was not my fault." Twitch was her ladyship's lady's-maid. Crosbie, seeing how the land lay, said nothing more about ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... fall of mild snow he could see her face shining out darkly, and his bare, eager fingers moved toward her arm, and except when the spasmodic twitch locked his features, his face, too, was thrust forward, keen and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... and some others of the ill-tempers, gain control of the nerves and muscles of the human countenance, they pull and twitch and knot and tie these nerves and muscles, until it is almost ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... hickory nut," said the chuckle again. But Hale had been studying that strange face. One side of it was calm, kindly, philosophic, benevolent; but, when the other was turned, a curious twitch of the muscles at the left side of the mouth showed the teeth and made a snarl there ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... he regarded Horace with a mistrustful, but attentive, eye. "If, as I imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... Joey be a letter carrier, to help give out the letters?" he said at last, in the midst of the noise. "Couldn't he, Ben?" and he ran to twitch that individual's sleeve. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... Bingham,[17] For he never fails to bring 'em; And that base apostate Vesey With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy, While Wynne sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; (Yet would gladly see the hunks, In his grave, and search his trunks,) See, they gently twitch his coat, Just to yawn and give his vote, Always firm in his vocation, For the court against the nation. Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18] First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. We must give them better quarter, For their ancestor trod mortar, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... wreath, Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and made Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon! And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens Gloom ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... his patient suddenly aroused the doctor. Her face was beginning to twitch spasmodically with pain. In an instant Janet was at her side, hypodermic needle in hand, and the opiate ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... that crucial moment in his own life, under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. Unseen by the rapt ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... down behind the back of the easy chair and a handkerchief over his face as he courted slumber. For a minute or two it would be still, then the hidden varlets would be as noisy as before. Then the pig-tail would begin to twitch, and he would mutter: 'Jim, tell those people they must be still.' Again a minute of quiet, and once more the jabbering and shouting. Now with a leap he would clutch his long walking-stick and charge the crowd in the quarter, laying about him with amazing ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... said Bill, tryin' to comfort him; 'it seemeth hard; but I'm an older man nor you be, Tom, the matter of several years;' and he gave his trowsers a twitch (you know they don't wear galluses, though a gallus holds them up sometimes), shifted his quid, gave his nor'wester a pull over his forehead, and looked solemncholly, 'and my experience, Tom, is, that this life ain't all beer ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather than see the hateful ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... hope that it might be so. The horse was going very well, and very willingly. His head was stretched out, he was pulling, not more, however, than pleasantly, and he seemed to be as anxious as his rider. But there was a little twitch about his ears which his rider did not like, and then it was impossible not to remember that awful warning given by the groom, "It's only sometimes, sir." And after what fashion should Phineas ride him at the obstacle? He did not like ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... round, and planted his little fore teeth directly upon Jonas's thumb. As might have been supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove; and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand, and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from head to tail with ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... a great lark. But somehow she couldn't get Mrs. Green's house out of her mind. Especially the thought of the kitchen, with its delicious odors of seven-layer cakes baking in the oven, and doughnuts frying on top of the range, made Miss Kitty's nose twitch. And her own particular warm spot under the range, where she basked away long hours! When she recalled that it was no wonder ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-daler note you were supposed ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... handing out the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of the table with her left foot—"that is what you call powers of observation—noticing the small things about birds and animals: the way they walk and move their heads and flip their wings; the way they sniff the air and twitch their whiskers and wiggle their tails. You have to notice all those little things if you want to learn animal language. For you see, lots of the animals hardly talk at all with their tongues; they use their breath or their tails ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... comf'ble, too; ain't too tight ner nothin'," giving her shoulders a little twitch, and moving ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... possession, flapped its way to the earth and lighted right in Piang's noose. The hablar-bird fluttered and chattered as it settled to the task of filling its craw with the good food. Cautiously Piang watched his chance and, with a deft twitch of the rope, secured the noose around the bird's foot. Such screaming and flapping! "Now you be good bird, and I no hurt you," Piang admonished. Catching hold of the creature behind the head, Piang held it firmly ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... watch the lad at moments like these, when he strode along, forgetful of her presence, oblivious of everything but his own thoughts; his face set, save for those glowing eyes, and now and then an involuntary twitch of the lips. In her own poor way she could grasp the trend of his mind, could toil ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... frightened, by these long knives. Then, descending to lesser things, the proclamation goes on to forbid the street-boys of London to play at hide-and-seek in the palace, or to perform tricks on the passers-by, such as "to twitch off their hoods" for instance, which the proclamation in parliamentary style terms improper games, "jues nient covenables." But as private liberty should be respected as much as possible, this prohibition is meant only for the duration of ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... all Exeter present at the exhibition. However, before night, I was convinced of my friend Mr. Y——'s superior prudence: the whole thing, as the carpenter said, went off pretty well; but several disasters happened which I had not foreseen. There was one stiff old fellow, whose arms, twitch them which way I would, I could never get to bend: and an obstinate old woman, who would never do any thing else but curtsy, when I wanted her to kneel down and to do her work. My children sorted their heaps of rubbish ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... pulling out a sovereign, and with a twitch of the thumb, he sent it high in the air. "Heads, you win. Tails, I win." Then catching it as it fell: "By Jove, you have it. Present my compliments to Mistress Jean," he cried, with a grandiloquent bow, "and tell her how near ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... there is no want when you are near, no mood when you are not welcome—a library indeed, and I look forward with great pleasure to many hours' communion with you on lonely seas—a lover might as well sigh for more than his affianced as I for any but you. A twitch of conscience here. You ploughman bard, who are so much to me, are you then forgotten? No, no, Robin, no need of taking you in my trunk; I have you in my heart, from "A man's a man for a that" to "My ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Paige, the state's attorney. The young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment," gave ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... people in the world who could make scenes without noise. They were like the crocodiles he had met on his visit to the Zoo, lying malignantly inert in their oily water. But one twitch of the tail, one blink of a lightless eye, was more terrifying than ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... play some games," he said; and I grasped directly what it meant, for the big fellow went quietly up behind the little Chinaman, and with a clever twitch unfastened the pin, or whatever it was which held up the coil, and the long tail untwisted and rolled down on the deck amidst a roar of laughter—one which increased as the Chinaman turned to see who had played the trick, but only to find the man standing ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... faint twinkle in Mr. Barrymore's eyes and a twitch of his lips, as he bent down over the machinery without answering a word, and I couldn't resist the temptation of letting him see that I was in his secret. There couldn't be any harm in it's coming ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... hatred and the muscles of his great arms danced in the light from the window. As he looked into the protruding eyes of the writhing German he thought of fat Reverend Minot Weeks of Coal Creek and added an extra twitch to the flesh between his fingers. When a gesture of submission came from the man against the wall he stepped back and let go his grip. The German dropped to the floor. Standing over him McGregor delivered his ultimatum. "You report this or try ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... is feelingless as the snowy ice. Chaste, beautiful, and proud, thou floatest through ether over the frozen sea, thy glittering garment, woven of aurora beams, covering the vault of heaven. But sometimes I divine a twitch of pain on thy lips, and endless sadness ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... for days. But when Tillie Bocock did catch sight of her, Pol turned off from the footpath and hurried away. Even so Tillie saw the deep gash in Pol's forehead oozing blood right between her eyes. She saw Pol Gentry's mouth widen angrily and the black hair about it twitch like that of a snarling cat, as she ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... brilliant and profound. He reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was drawn to him and held ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... puzzled him to know why she had changed so rapidly in her manner toward him. He had ridden to Millwood to bring her to the mill, himself; and he had some exquisite roses for her—clipped in the hot-house by his own hands. It was with an unmistakable twitch of jealousy that he learned that Clay Westmore had already come by and ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... last patience was reaching its limit. In the closed doorway of the town hall a tiny group of men were gathered, a group who spoke scarcely above a whisper, who kept a sharp lookout all surrounding, who stood ready at the twitch of an eyelash to disperse to the four winds. This was revolt incipient. In the single room of Bob Manning's general store was open revolt and plotting. Manning himself, grizzled, grey of hair, shaggy bearded, had ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... to me on the train, very good indeed. I can't deny that he flushed a little when I told him frankly what I wanted of him. At first I thought that he was going to be angry. Then I saw the corners of his mustache twitch. Then our sense of humor got the better of us, and then I laughed, and then he laughed, and I felt that the crisis was passed. I explained to him while we were in the Pullman car, as well as I could without being overheard by a fat lady with three chins, and a girl with a permit for a pet poodle, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... of the cost. The firm was established, but it was as heavily in debt as its credit would stand. Newmark himself, though as calm and reserved and precise as ever, seemed to have turned gray, and one of his eyelids had acquired a slight nervous twitch which persisted for some months. He took his seat at the desk, however, as calmly as ever. In three days the scandalised howls of bribery and corruption had given place in the newspapers to ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... to fire first, yet with such cool precision, that his shot took effect as he intended; O'Grady's arm was ripped up from the wrist to the elbow; but so determined was his will, and so firm his aim, that the wound, severe as it was, produced but a slight twitch in his hand, which threw it up slightly, and saved Edward's life, for the ball passed through his hat ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... his house. Then he reviled me, and told me, that he would send such a one after me, that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself. This made me cry, "O wretched man!" (Rom. 7:24). So I went on my way ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... distemper that is often fatal to young children, and frequently proceeds from the brain, originating either from the parents, or from vapours, or bad humours that twitch the membranes of the brain; it is also sometimes caused by other distempers and by bad diet; likewise, the toothache, when the brain consents, causes it, and so does a sudden fright. As to the distemper itself, it is manifest ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... sudden twitch to a delicate ruffle, which she had begun to arrange upon the corsage of a dress, to show Mona how she wanted it, she made a great rugged tear in the filmy fabric, ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... hands, idly clasped behind his back, began to twitch and finally settled into a hard grip. His shoulders heaved and when he spoke there was a queer note ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... with uneasiness, the face is pinched, the eyes sunken, the lips and tips of the fingers and toes are blue, and there is dullness and often nausea and vomiting. Then, instead of a chill, the eyelids and limbs begin to twitch, and the child goes into a convulsion. While the surface of the skin is cold and blue during a chill, yet the temperature, taken with the thermometer in the mouth or bowel, reaches 102 deg., 105 deg., or 106 deg. F., often. The chill lasts from a few minutes to an hour, and as it passes away the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... came running towards him. The youth supposed that he was advancing to kill him, and in the twinkling of an eye let fly an arrow. It passed through Curner's dress, and grazed his side; and but for the timely twitch which Lyttle gave the lad's arm, would have killed him. His other arrows were then taken away, and he ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... nevertheless look into the matter, and consider what the value of the thing promised may be. If it be trifling, I shall give it, not because you are worthy of it, but because I promised it, and I shall not give it as a present, but merely in order to make good my words and give myself a twitch of the ear. I will punish my own rashness in promising by the loss of what I gave. "See how grieved you are; mind you take more care what you say in future." As the saying is, I will take tongue money from you. If the matter be important, I will not, as ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... personal side of the question, when she was recalled to it by seeing the right hand in which the stylograph had been lying begin to twitch, the fingers to contract. There was no answering movement in the face—even when the sleeper at length firmly grasped the pen and suddenly sat up. Tims rose quickly, and then perceived, lying on the writing-board, a directed envelope and a half-finished note to herself. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... arm twitch as they issued from their gates; and, looking up to see why, she saw that his face was twitching too. She did not know how near her mother was, nor that her father and John had their ears on the ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... "We shall see. Who wins boasts. I'm not so mad, anyhow, as the marchesa, who shuts up her palace on the festival, and offends St. Nicodemus and all the saints and martyrs," and Carlotta's eyes flash, and her white eyebrows twitch. ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... what are you about?" she cried, flinging her arms about the old veteran's neck, and trying, at the same moment, to twitch the paper out ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... little land is no more than a lair That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, And no man will refuse the rapture of killing When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. So long as anyone perceives he knows A bare place for a weapon on my son His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life Because a woman is made so evil fair, Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts. I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still, For then will Kolskegg never more turn home.... If Gunnar would ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... Chills are not generally seen in children under six, but an attack begins with uneasiness, the face is pinched, the eyes sunken, the lips and tips of the fingers and toes are blue, and there is dullness and often nausea and vomiting. Then, instead of a chill, the eyelids and limbs begin to twitch, and the child goes into a convulsion. While the surface of the skin is cold and blue during a chill, yet the temperature, taken with the thermometer in the mouth or bowel, reaches 102 deg., 105 deg., or 106 ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... exact interpretation of the author's purpose. In no degree could they have succeeded more admirably than on this occasion. Never was an entire audience so completely carried beyond the borders of reality than now. From the first until the last note not a twitch of a muscle could be seen in all that mass of humanity, which now resembled a great concourse of motionless statues. The musicians themselves, with their minds and souls bent upon giving the fullest expression to their grand work, were the only evidence ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... do they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have a school-house, place of a ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... may have curried a horse, or stood by during the process, and watched him shrug and twitch with pleasure as the little iron teeth scratched his skin, and have seen his coat grow glossy and satiny as the brush was applied as soon as the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 57, December 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Captain Marsh produced worms in a can. The two sat side by side, dangling their feet over the stern, the poles slanting down toward the dark water, silent and intent. In not more than two minutes Bobby felt his pole twitch. Without much difficulty he drew to the surface a broad flat little fish that flashed as he turned in ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... and showed discomposure; for this was the only service he had been permitted to do with his own hands during the meal, and he did not doubt that he had done a most improper and unprincely thing. At that moment the muscles of his nose began to twitch, and the end of that organ to lift and wrinkle. This continued, and Tom began to evince a growing distress. He looked appealingly, first at one and then another of the lords about him, and tears came into his eyes. They sprang forward with dismay in their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... behind the tree, yonder." As I spoke, he craned his head towards me, and I saw his pale lips twitch suddenly. "And why have you dogged me; why have you followed me all ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... colored, as he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, (zygomaticus major,) and which I could not hold back from making a little movement on ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I—I'll take him to—the person he lives with. It ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... The firm was established, but it was as heavily in debt as its credit would stand. Newmark himself, though as calm and reserved and precise as ever, seemed to have turned gray, and one of his eyelids had acquired a slight nervous twitch which persisted for some months. He took his seat at the desk, however, as calmly as ever. In three days the scandalised howls of bribery and corruption had given place in the newspapers ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... ploughed field. The writer, as a boy, was somewhat of an expert in finding these nests. He has watched the birds making them, which they do by turning round and round, with the breast or belly on the ground, thus forming a saucer-shaped hollow, in which they sometimes place two or three fibres of twitch as a lining. One bird makes three or four of such nests, and finally selects the one which, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... would strike him on the shoulder with a familiar air and say to him: "Do you notice that enchanting smile? It is a grin of hatred." And then the demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and would trace on the street-wall a word which might serve ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... gave a sudden little twitch, which showed that, badly frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation had dawned ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... Chartres, Egalite that is to be; Duke de Bourbon, one day Conde too, and famous among Dotards) to wait upon the Dauphin. With another few, it is a resolution taken; jacta est alea. Old Richelieu,—when Beaumont, driven by public opinion, is at last for entering the sick-room,—will twitch him by the rochet, into a recess; and there, with his old dissipated mastiff-face, and the oiliest vehemence, be seen pleading (and even, as we judge by Beaumont's change of colour, prevailing) 'that the King be not killed by a proposition in Divinity.' Duke de Fronsac, son of Richelieu, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the lad at moments like these, when he strode along, forgetful of her presence, oblivious of everything but his own thoughts; his face set, save for those glowing eyes, and now and then an involuntary twitch of the lips. In her own poor way she could grasp the trend of his mind, could toil ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the slightest contraction of Mr. Blunt's facial muscles. Very slight; but I, staring at the narrator after the manner of all simple souls, noticed it; the twitch of a pain which surely must have been mental. There was also a suggestion of effort before he went on: "I suppose you know how he got hold of her?" in a tone of ease which was astonishingly ill-assumed for such ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... from her heart, and I saw the old man's face quiver and twitch; but he did not touch ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green
... edge of frenzy now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony—that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power—the thought of which very power, once ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... left Grand Ditch Camp and started down to Chambers Lake. I had not gone far when drops of rain began to fall from time to time, and shortly after this my muscles began to twitch occasionally under electrical ticklings. At times slight muscular rigidity was noticeable. Just before two o'clock the clouds began to burst through between the trees. I was at an altitude of about eleven thousand feet and ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... that serves not; his the crime And shame, who hails not as the crown of Time That House wherein the all-envious world acclaims Such glory that the reflex of it shames All crowns bestowed of men for prose or rhyme. The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown. Stoop, Chaucer, stoop: Keats, Shelley, Burns, bow down: These have no part with you, ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... father's hand, and putting the spur to his horse rode briskly off. Lucien saluted his father with a kiss, waved his hand gracefully to Hugot, and followed. Francois remained a moment behind the rest—rode up to Hugot—caught hold of his great moustache, gave it a twitch that caused the ex-chasseur to grin again; and then, with a loud yell of laughter, wheeled his pony, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... always near the trees, and truffle after truffle is turned up from the reddish light soil mixed with fragments of calcareous rock. The forgotten training soon comes back to our invaluable auxiliary; a mere twitch of the ear is a sufficient hint for her to retire at the right moment, and wait for the corn that is in variably given in exchange for the cryptogam. Indeed, before we leave the ground, the animal has got so well into work that when she finds a ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... first time, Innesmore Mansions figured as his abode, the correspondence which led to the dinner having centered in his club. But not a flicker of eyelid nor twitch of mobile lips showed the slightest concern on Forbes's part. Rather did he display at once a well-bred astonishment on hearing ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... a Zincala— Unmake yourself from being child of mine! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe: Unmake yourself—doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his That you should prattle ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... his face white, and eyes burning feverishly. That he had been drinking heavily was evident, but Kirby fronted him in apparent cold indifference, his feelings completely masked, with the cards he held bunched in his hands, and entirely concealed from view. No twitch of an eyelash, no quiver of a muscle revealed his knowledge; his expressionless face might have been carved out of stone. Between the two rested a stack of gold coin, a roll of crushed bills, and a legal paper of some kind, the exact nature of which ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major Dobbin), and his sister Miss B. Lord bless us, how she did use to worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with a cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny—Miss Grits that was; her pa was ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Lennon saw the reddened eyes blink and the muscles of the gray face twitch. The muzzle of the ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... the return of the blood from the head having been impeded by the violent expiratory efforts; but the redness of the stimulated eyes is chiefly due to the copious effusion of tears. The various muscles of the face which have been strongly contracted, still twitch a little, and the upper lip is still slightly drawn up or everted,[7] with the corners of the mouth still a little drawn downwards. I have myself felt, and have observed in other grown-up persons, that when tears ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... friend and I were alone to gape at them most often while, for the unfailing impression of them, on our way to watch the casting of our figure, we extended our circuit of the place. To which I may add, as another example of that tentative, that appealing twitch of the garment of Roman association of which one kept renewing one's consciousness, the half-hour at the little foundry itself was all charming—with its quite shabby and belittered and ramshackle recall of the old Roman "art-life" of one's early ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... other man would have said under similar circumstances." There was a quiet dignity about the way in which he uttered these words, although his fingers still continued to twitch. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... word or a guilty twitch of an eyelid he handed her the book, and we both stood watching while the fat, heavily ringed and rosily manicured fingers turned ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... Yokohama: down to the desert, damn it, to show the whole world what an artiste he, Clifton, he, the father, had made of his Lily! And he looked at her with loving eyes, applauded her with a smile, restored her self-possession with a twitch of the eyebrow and counted her twirls on the ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... his Thalia rais'd her bolder voice And Kings and Battles were her lofty choice, Phoebus did twitch his Ear, mean thoughts infuse, And with this whisper check't th' inspiring Muse. A Sheapard, Tityrus, his Sheep should feed, And choose a ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... him, and slipping the other hand beneath him I held him up to my face to watch him between my fingers. He made no movement to escape, but only trembled violently. His legs seemed too weak to support his weight now; he lay down; his eyes closed. One convulsive twitch and he was dead—dead of fright in a hand which had ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... hold it open for you?" She stepped to one side and waited gravely without moving a muscle till Lucine after a withering stare had stalked angrily back to her window. The corner of Berta's mouth gave a quick, queer little twitch before settling ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... was the Sanhedrim of Gaudissarts, with their chief at their head, known to make a mistake. And, moreover, they communicate their conclusions to one another with telegraphic speed, in a glance, a smile, the movement of a muscle, a twitch of the lip. If you watch them, you are reminded of the sudden outbreak of light along the Champs-Elysees at dusk; one gas-jet does not succeed another more swiftly than an idea flashes from one shopman's ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac
... purchased, in Mr. Pennyway's shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for Ruby when the happy day came for installing her. Finding he had still twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief, and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings. Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious picture ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the other to ward off or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plowmen, the servant-girls, and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... noticed was that her left arm began to twitch so that she couldn't control it. Then she took to writing with her left hand, exactly like my father's hand-writing. She could write twenty different kinds of writing before she was twelve. These messages were all signed, and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... one king is mad. Perhaps. Who knows? They say one king is doddering and grey. They say one king is slack and sick of mind, A puppet for hid strings that twitch and play. ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... I looked it up, out of curiosity. She's twenty, though she might well pass for fifteen. She is not happy; there's a deal of conflict in that little head of hers. When she stands looking out at the hills and the sea, and her mouth gives that little twitch, that little spasm of pain, then she is suffering; but she is too proud, too obstinate for tears. She is more than a bit romantic; a powerful imagination; she is waiting for a prince. What was that about a certain five-daler note ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... to ache, every nerve in her body begins to twitch, and she realizes that her tired nature has endured all it can. She must stay here, for ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn or frogs' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with pseudo-life derived ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... already stopped the horse, so, giving her aunt's shawl one last desperate twitch, she slipped out between the wagon wheels, and darted in the direction of the hated object, the loss of which had dignified it with a temporary value ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of it made Sanderson's lips twitch queerly. He saw Mary cringe from Dale and press her hands over her breast. Dale's voice carried clearly ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... glance about the room, then suddenly his eyes fell upon the butcher knife. I saw him tense, saw his lips twitch under the lash ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... a naked sword in his hand strolled away by himself along the heap of the dead. He was a humane man, and watched for any stir or twitch of limb in the merciful idea of plunging the point of his blade into any body giving the slightest sign of life. But none of the bodies afforded him an opportunity for the display of this charitable intention. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... tropical. In the middle of a bright and verdant but painfully circular lawn stood two figures. One of them was a small, sharp-looking man with black whiskers and a very polished hat (I presume Dr Colman), who was talking very quietly and clearly, yet with a nervous twitch, as it were, in his face. The other was our old friend, listening with his old forbearing expression and owlish eyes, the strong sunlight gleaming on his glasses as the lamplight had gleamed the night before, when the boisterous Basil had rallied him on his studious decorum. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... miserable condition, nauseated, green-faced, retching. The sickening odors of vomit and diarrhea hung heavily on the air. Douglas coughed and held a square of cloth to his face, and even Kennon, strong-stomached as he was, could feel his viscera twitch in sympathy with ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... after him without so much as a twitch in a single nerve of his face. He seized a glass, and holding it under one of the little casks until a few drops were collected, drank them greedily off; then throwing it down upon the floor impatiently, he took the vessel in his hands and drained it into his throat. Some scraps of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... the talkin'," returned Shanklin with a show of cold indifference, although Slavens saw that he watched every movement Boyle made, and more than once in those few seconds the doctor marked Hun's sinewy right arm twitch as if on the point ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... sun, blazing fiercely as they fell and foreboding great terrors. The weapons of Drona, O sire, seemed to blaze forth. Cars seemed to produce loud rattles, and steeds to shed tears. The mighty car-warrior, Drona, seemed to be divested of his energy. His left eye and left hand began to twitch. Beholding Prishata's son, again, before him, and bearing in mind the words of the Rishis about his leaving the world for heaven, he became cheerless. He then desired to give up life by fighting fairly. Encompassed on all sides ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... of the liquid was brought in and to the amazement of the Terrestrials, the long, delicate antennae of the Vorkul began to twitch as soon as the can was opened. Motioning hastily for silence, von Steiffel filled a bowl and placed it upon the floor beneath Kromodeor's grotesque nose. The twitching increased, until finally one dull, glazed eye brightened ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the lad at work under her window again, but as he had his wig on he was just as ugly as before. Then the Princess said to her maid, "Go down there where the gardener's lad is working and creep up behind him and twitch his ...
— Tales of Folk and Fairies • Katharine Pyle
... along, striding swiftly for his age (the drink never affected his legs), ready greaved and sometimes gauntleted as if in haste for his job, always muttering to himself; and when he passed us with just a side-glance from his red eyes, we observed that his pale face did not cease to twitch nor his lips to work. We felt something like awe for the courage of Archie Passmore, who followed twenty paces behind with his tools and a bundle of spars or straw-rope, or perhaps at the end of a ladder which the two carried between them. ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... tool room; while Bouchard, slowly turning his head like some automaton, was examining every detail of floor and wall, spades, hoes, and weeders, for a hidden significance. The lantern was still hot, and Marta's finger smarted with a burn, but she did not twitch. She was so keyed up that she felt capable of walking over red-hot coals, while she joked about ghosts. "There!" she exclaimed, after the lantern was lighted. "This is going to be great sport. Ghost hunting—think of that! We might have made a ghost party Too bad we didn't ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... they buried her: I'm certain of that. Those are stone-dead eyes in the picture...The loneliness must have been awful, if even Owen couldn't keep her from dying of it. And to feel it so she must have HAD feelings—real live ones, the kind that twitch and tug. And all she had to look at all her life was a gilt console—yes, that's it, a gilt console screwed to the wall! That's exactly and absolutely what ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... backwards in your chair while talking or sitting. Stop biting your nails, chewing your moustaches, rolling your tongue in your mouth or any other unnecessary movement such as may have become "second nature" with you while studying, reading or writing. Never twitch or jerk your body. Never wink your eyes or look blank. Train yourself to stand sudden and loud noises with equanimity and composure. Such things betray lack of control. Do not let anything outside (or even within you) disturb your composure. When engaged ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... twitch. Evidently he was getting rather homesick. Rob noticed his face, and went on: "Of course we will get out of here before long, someway," he said. "Meanwhile, we will have to make the best living here ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... laughter boisterous and irritating; if his nephew had been a canary in a cage, he would have covered him with a table-cloth. Aunt Helen, if she was caught up in one of Mark's narratives, would twitch until it was finished, when she would rub her forehead with an acorn of menthol and wrap herself more closely in a shawl of soft Shetland wool. The antipathy that formerly existed between Mark and ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... clasped behind his back, began to twitch and finally settled into a hard grip. His shoulders heaved and when he spoke there was a queer note in ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... wistfulness. He made another of those little supple bows straight at her—it seemed to Gyp—and jerked his violin up to his shoulder. "He's going to play to me," she thought absurdly. He played without accompaniment a little tune that seemed to twitch the heart. When he finished, this time she did not look up, but was conscious that he gave one impatient bow and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... she murmured, twisting the front of her gown in her fingers. Her lips began to twitch ominously. Julian felt uncomfortable. He thought ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Boyne could only twitch away in silence that he made as haughty as he could, but not so haughty that Trannel did not find it laughable, and he laughed in a teasing way that made Breckon more and more serious. He was aware of becoming even solemn with the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... as I spoke, trying to see whether he manifested any uneasiness or emotion. But he baffled me. I thought I saw his lips twitch, and his eyes contract, but I might easily have been mistaken. If he were a guilty man, then he was the greatest actor, and had the most supreme command over himself, of any one I ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... and she had worn herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him by day and by night—in her restless dreams; her whole existence was in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the merry mouth, plaintive in ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... difficulty of the conflicting doors, he had to steer sharply to the right to avoid the kitchen. Next, he sheered to the left, to escape the foot of the bed; but this sheer, if too generous, brought him against the corner of the table. With a sudden twitch and lurch, he terminated the sheer and bore off to the right along a sort of canal, one bank of which was the bed, the other the table. When the one chair in the room was at its usual place before the table, the canal was unnavigable. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... only there was a dare-devil in his eye—I should say a dare-Becket. He thought less of two kings than of one Roger the king of the occasion. Foliot is the holier man, perhaps the better. Once or twice there ran a twitch across his face as who should say what's to follow? but Salisbury was a calf cowed by Mother Church, and every now and then glancing about him like a thief at night when he hears a door open in the house ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... solitude. I shall be in London again on Thursday, and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send your letters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do you read any novels at Liverpool? I should fear that the good Quakers would twitch them out of your hands, and appoint their portion in the fire. Yet probably you have some safe place, some box, some drawer with a key, wherein a marble-covered book may lie for Nancy's Sunday reading. And, if you ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... nine salute, Should those who love them try to con thy lore. The country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... had been one of the others who had asked her to dance! It was inconceivable that she should have seen him; and yet a peculiar knowledge had enveloped her, as though she had seen obliquely through her down-dropped eyelids; and then it was well known women could see round corners! And that twitch of the arm! He did not know what to think. "Well, it's all one to me," he thought, "for I'm not going to be led ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... towards me, and wondering if I should ever be able to hold my own against him in our outdoor intercourse as easily as I certainly could hold it in our class at school. But soon I was interrupted by feeling another twitch at my line. I hauled in another sillock; and having now completed my two dozen fish, I gathered them and my lines together, thrust my fishhooks into my trousers' pocket, and went off to school, only staying a few minutes on the way to give the fish ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... surprised at the noiseless way in which Dutch laborers do their work. Even around the warehouses and docks there was no bustle, no shouting from one to another. A certain twitch of the pipe, or turn of the head, or, at most, a raising of the hand, seemed to be all the signal necessary. Entire loads of cheeses or herrings are pitched from cart or canalboat into the warehouses without a word; ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... "'tis an irreverent knave, that maketh the monk in me arise, my very toes do twitch for to kick his lewd and sacrilegious carcase—and, lord, he ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... replied Phadrig, with a little twitch of his lips which might have been a smile, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... looked up, Murphy made a frantic grab for the stanchion, then relaxed. Cirgamesc had taken the Great Twitch. It was an illusion, a psychological quirk. One instant the planet lay ahead; then a man winked or turned away, and when he looked back, "ahead" had become "below"; the planet had swung an astonishing ninety degrees across the sky, and they ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... two, before we could hope for that," Ross cut in. "Then we'll have to depend on whether the Council believes this important enough." The contrariness which spiked his tongue whenever Karara was present made him say that without thinking. Then the twitch of Ashe's lip brought home Ross's error. Gordon needed reassurance now, not a recitation of the various ways ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... again to hide a twitch of regret. "Why, I'm afraid it hardly produces a living wage; and I've got to think of that." He coloured suddenly, as if suspecting that Miss Hicks might consider the avowal an opening for he hardly knew what ponderous ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... minstrelsy of Ireland seems to have drifted into the hands of the most unpoetical people in the green isle. The poor old creature walked very, very slowly along the gutter, ever and anon giving herself a suggestive twitch, which plainly indicated some cutaneous titillation—the South is a grazing country. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Watching the little twitch of her proud and perfect upper lip, Laurie felt his heart-beats quicken. She was a wonder, this girl; and with his delight in her beauty and her pride came another feeling, almost as new as his humility—an overwhelming sympathy for and a desire ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... drawing &c. v.; draught, pull, haul; rake; "a long pull a strong pull and a pull all together"; towage[obs3], haulage. V. draw, pull, haul, lug, rake, drag, tug, tow, trail, train; take in tow. wrench, jerk, twitch, touse|; yank [U.S.]. Adj. drawing &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... her hand, and sat very straight, her face again a little turned from him. A twitch, like a shudder cut short, moved her whole body, so that the heel of her slipper ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy's heels, instantly ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... and liberal creed Of our great-hearted young Compassionates, Forgetting the Prime Mover of the gear, As puppet-watchers him who pulls the strings.— You'll mark the twitchings of this Bonaparte As he with other figures foots his reel, Until he twitch him into his lonely grave: Also regard the frail ones that his flings Have made gyrate like animalcula In tepid pools.—Hence to the precinct, then, And count as framework to the stagery Yon architraves of sunbeam-smitten cloud.— So may ye judge Earth's jackaclocks ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... glanced at Paige, the state's attorney. The young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment," gave way ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... there is no science, but only a sort of ardent ignorance; and nobody has ever been able to offer any theories of moral heredity which justified themselves in the only scientific sense; that is that one could calculate on them beforehand. There are six cases, say, of a grandson having the same twitch of mouth or vice of character as his grandfather; or perhaps there are sixteen cases, or perhaps sixty. But there are not two cases, there is not one case, there are no cases at all, of anybody betting half a crown that the grandfather will have a grandson with the twitch or the ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... made a fool of myself," he thought, as he saw the forehead tie itself up in knots, and the corners of the mouth twitch with merriment. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... regret &c. 833. self-reproach, self-reproof, self-accusation, self-condemnation, self- humiliation; stings of conscience, pangs of conscience, qualms of conscience, prickings of conscience[obs3], twinge of conscience, twitch of conscience, touch of conscience, voice of conscience; compunctious visitings of nature[obs3]. acknowledgment, confession &c. (disclosure) 529; apology &c. 952; recantation &c. 607; penance &c. 952; resipiscence|!. awakened ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... sputtering noise made by the big lamp and the tinkle of a few cinders that fell from the fire sounded painfully loud. They looked at each other, but no one spoke, till Uncle Dick had fidgeted about in his chair for some time, and then, giving his big beard a twitch, he bent forward. ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... side of the bridge. The fourth gentleman, who had forgotten his hat, and was clad in a holland smock, sandals, and no stockings, leaned over luxuriously, with his elbows on the low wall and his bare legs thrust out. He was very still, even trying not to twitch when William licked his bare legs, as he did at intervals just to show he ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... boys had succeeded in driving a little eel into a corner and in throwing it ashore; and there they were, dancing about like mad creatures, unable to hold it, more than half afraid to touch it, but always contriving to twitch the wretched wriggling thing further from the water. One brave little maid managed for a moment to catch it in her pinafore but dropped it instantly, as all the boys screamed: "Put it down! he'll bite ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... vital current was congealed. At times he strove to move, or more properly sought, in the mysterious make-up of our composition, to rouse the will from its torpor, but with the same result as follows the effort of the sufferer to use his paralyzed limb. The will seemed to make a feeble twitch or two and then subside, unable to break the fatal spell spreading over his mind and faculties. The eyes of the reptile glared upon his own, their bead-like blackness taking the form of a point of fire waving, floating, gyrating and circling in the air, ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... a left-ward twitch of his head, and a slight quiver of the lid of his left eye, brought an attentive ear close to ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... his head and laughed in his debonair fashion; but I watched him narrowly and I saw the corners of his mouth twitch for the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... perceived some black object behind one of the chairs, and, on going up to it, found Glumdalkin, with her eyes closed, her head very erect, her tail curled very tight round her toes, and her whole person apparently immovable, except, now and then, an angry twitch at ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... and was just thinking to herself, "Those girls won't get over this very soon, I fancy," when all in one moment she heard Fletcher exclaim, wrathfully, "Hang the flounces!" she saw a very glossy black hat come skipping down the steps, felt a violent twitch backward, and, to save herself from a fall, sat down on the lower step with ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... which is constitutionally sensitive to the infinite significance of minimal things. Of such, very typical in our day are Freud and the Freudians grouped around him. There is nothing so small that for Freud it is not packed with endless meaning. Every slightest twitch of the muscles, every fleeting fancy of the brain, is unconsciously designed to reveal the deepest impulse of the soul. Every detail of the wildest dream of the night is merely a hieroglyph which may be interpreted. Every symptom of disease is a symbol of the heart's desire. In every seeming ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... speck of the departed Glory of the house; and even it went flitting up and down at sudden angles, and leaving a place with a jerk, and describing an irregular circle, and returning to the same place with a twitch that startled one: as if it were looking for the rest of the Glory, and wondering (Heaven knows it might!) what had become ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her. He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Jakoff was silent. Then his fingers began to twitch with extraordinary rapidity, and, changing the expression of deferential vacancy with which he had listened to his orders for one of shrewd intelligence, he turned his tablets back ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... rendering of that small range of sensations to which both give themselves up frankly. Take Polin, who is supposed to express vulgarities with unusual success. Those automatic gestures, flapping and flopping; that dribbling voice, without intonation; that flabby droop and twitch of the face; all that soapy rubbing-in of the expressive parts of the song: I could see no skill in it all, of a sort worth having. The women here sing mainly with their shoulders, for which they seem to have been ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... smile began to twitch at the corners of Jean's mouth. Seeing it, the White Chief ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... she was sinking. The next instant his feet, still in the stirrups, were on the ground and his horse lay between them, motionless. That nervous fling of her head had saved Dave's life, for the rustler's bullet had shattered her skull in its flight, and she lay prone, with scarcely a muscular twitch, so sudden had been her end. The breath escaped slowly from her lungs; it was as if she heaved a lingering sigh; one leg contracted and ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... listened to the tirade without the twitch of a muscle—stolidity that proved him to be well used to such flaying. Three out of four boys in that family "turned out badly," and were cried down by a scandalized community for disgracing a decent and godly ancestry. ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, according to the Japanese code of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... thoughts were wandering. The twitch of Davidson's face proved that, though he spoke of scientific things, his mind was busy in the same direction. Suddenly, while the doctor was giving some experience of practice on the Flanders front, rather prosily, he sprang to ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... the truth at last. I—have gone—blind." The last word caused his lips to twitch. He knew from the sound that she was weeping bitterly. "Please don't. I've used my eyes too much, that is ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was now dreaming of paradise—listen!—and then there were audible snores ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... gone home," answered Alexia, stepping forward hastily—"Hasn't she, girls?" appealing to them. "She must have; she went out like a shot. Don't, Polly, how can you?" she begged, turning back to twitch Polly's arm, "you've done enough, ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... my feet are warmer, I by Jingo! what's that?" and again he wore that strange calculating look, as if he were being internally sounded, and guessed at his probable depth. "What a twitch! Something wrong with my stomach. But a fellow must be all right when his spirits are up. We'll be off as quick as we can. Taia—haihaia—hum. If the farce is bad, it's my last ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... scene, while the symphony of her pathetic ballads was being played, and indicating by his eyes and gestures that something was amiss with the trimming or bottom of her dress; when, as invariably as he chose to play the trick, poor Miss Stephens used to begin to twitch and catch at her petticoat, and half hysterical, between laughing and crying, would enchant and entrance her listeners with her exquisite voice and pathetic rendering of "Savourneen Deelish" or ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... Josephine. She gave the bedclothes such a twitch that both her feet became uncovered, and she had to creep up the pillows to ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into brooding. His imagination pictured how he would blow out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . . But that was not enough for his indignant soul. The picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. He must think of something ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... frantically. He stood motionless while they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes were quiet ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... said the squire, setting the child down. He had been holding him in his arms the last few minutes; but now he wanted all his eyes to look into Mr. Gibson's face. 'I say,' said he, catching hold of Mr. Gibson's arm, 'what's the matter, man? Don't twitch up your face like ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... close to me, holding me in one iron fist, and leaning almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. "Lead me straight up to him, and when I'm in view, cry out, 'Here's a friend for you, Bill.' If you don't, I'll do this," and with that he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified by the blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I opened the parlor door, cried out the words he had ordered in ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it during business hours. He'd draw his stick out from behind the next chair, plant it, and, if you hadn't quite finished your side of the conversation, stand politely waiting until you were done. Then he'd look for a suitable reply into his hat, put it on, give it a twitch to settle it on his head—as gentlemen do a "chimney-pot"—step out into the gangway, turn his face to the door, and walk slowly out on to the middle of the pavement—looking more placidly well-to-do ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... a screen of bushes I could see an eager look on the unlovely face of Moses. He stood leaning toward the water and jiggling his hook along the bottom. Suddenly I saw Mose jerk and felt the cord move. I gave it a double twitch and began to pull. He held hard for a jiffy and then stumbled and let go yelling like mad. The pole hit the water with a splash and went out of sight like a diving frog. I brought it well under the foam and driftwood. ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... conducted the Bunner sisters the way to her bedroom. Here they were invited to spread out on a mountainous white featherbed the cashmere mantles under which the solemnity of the occasion had compelled them to swelter, and when they had given their black silks the necessary twitch of readjustment, and Evelina had fluffed out her hair before a looking-glass framed in pink-shell work, their hostess led them to a stuffy parlour smelling of gingerbread. After another ceremonial pause, broken by polite enquiries and shy ejaculations, they were shown ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... intimate fellow-revolutionist. At that point I thought he was going to speak vehemently; but he only astounded me by the convulsive start of his whole body. He restrained himself, folded his loosened arms tighter across his chest, and sat back with a smile in which there was a twitch of ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... as I understand the word, is meant the repetition of certain forms of language in obedience to blind habit and without reference to their propriety in the particular case. Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency which he noticed himself, to "use too big words and too many of them." He had to explain to Miss Reynolds ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... eyes on me. Like the real princess who could feel the crumpled rose-leaf under a dozen mattresses, I can feel it in my bones when I am in the presence of a real soldier. My spinal column stiffens, and my fingers twitch to be at my visor. In spite of their borrowed titles, I had smelt out the civilian in Reeder and had detected the non-commissioned man in Heinze, and just as surely I recognized the general officer ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... and to bring as many as possible into this helpless condition appeared to be the general object as far as any purpose was manifested. The crowd seemed to regard poor, demented Hannah as inspired, for a space was kept clear before her. When she began to sway in her weird fashion, and her face to twitch, she was the priestess and the oracle. The hymn she began was taken up first by two self-appointed ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... muzzles turned to this Lady of Good Help, became silent, and agreed to let her loose upon the shrew-mouse, and in spite of the anger of certain envious mice, she was triumphantly marched around the cellar, where, seeing her walk mincingly, mechanically move her tail, shake her cunning little head, twitch her diaphanous ears, and lick with her little red tongue the hairs just sprouting on her cheeks, the old rats fell in love with her and wagged their wrinkled, white-whiskered jaws with delight at the sight of her, as did formerly the old men of Troy, admiring the lovely Helen, returning from ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... look'd cold and thin, Her lips were twitch'd, and wretched tears, Some, as she lay, roll'd past her ears, Some fell from off her ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... base apostate Vesey With Bishop's scraps grown fat and greasy, While Wynne sleeps the whole debate, They submissive round him wait; (Yet would gladly see the hunks, In his grave, and search his trunks,) See, they gently twitch his coat, Just to yawn and give his vote, Always firm in his vocation, For the court against the nation. Those are Allens Jack and Bob,[18] First in every wicked job, Son and brother to a queer Brain-sick brute, they call a peer. We must give them better quarter, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... fortitude. Rude oaths were muttered from time to time, and teeth ground together, with that strange wild look that heralds insanity. Once or twice I fancied that I observed a look of still stranger, still wilder expression, when the black ring forms around the eye—when the muscles twitch and quiver along gaunt, famished jaws—when men gaze guilty-like at each other. O God! it was fearful! The half-robber discipline, voluntary at the best, had vanished under the levelling-rod of a common suffering, and I ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... its surface like widening rings on the waters of a pool. The mountain man threw himself on the edge and looked down. The figure lay limp among the bushes thirty feet below. He watched it, his body still as a panther's crouched for a spring. He saw one of the hands twitch, a loosened sliver of slate slide from the wall, and cannoning on projections, leap down and bury itself in the outflung hair. The face looking up at him with half-shut eyes that did not wink as the rock dust sifted into ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... sitting-room, where he could look out upon the smooth waters of the pond darkening under the shade of the poplars and the bluff behind, when Evadna came out of her room. He glanced across at her, saw her hesitate, as if she were meditating a retreat, and gave his shoulders a twitch of tolerant amusement that she should be afraid of him. Then he stared out over the pond again. Evadna walked straight ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... All this was so plainly expressed in his attitude, that I burst out laughing. Rubens chose to take this as a sound to the chase, and only by the most peremptory orders could I induce him to keep quiet. As to the cat, I saw one convulsive twitch of the very tip of her tail, eloquent of wrath; ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... hand lingered there, smoothing the slender ankle. Bud's fingers felt the fine-haired tail, then gave a little twitch. He was busy for a minute, kneeling in the sand with one knee, his head bent. Then he stood up, went forward to Smoky's head, and stood rubbing ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... him. He saw he was fast goading his foe to the resistless point, the object he had in view. There was an almost insensible tightening of the muscles of the fingers closing around the handle of the knife, the faintest possible quiver passed through the thighs, or showed in a single twitch of the toes of the left foot, which inched forward. The Panther gave a quick inhalation, and while the words recorded were in the mouth ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... flesh to creep, and conjures through the brain every wild legend whispered of the "vasty deep," fascinating the eyes, and holding them with spell-like power, until—until what?—why, until a sharp twitch on the lip from the fire of the close-burned cigar we recommended awakens you to a due sense of such a "lame and most ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... helmet and drags him away, until, seeing her protege in danger, Venus breaks the fastenings of his helmet, which alone remains in Menelaus' hands. Then she spirits Paris back to the Trojan palace, where she leaves him resting on a couch, and hurries off, in the guise of an old crone, to twitch Helen's veil, whispering that Paris awaits her at home. Recognizing the goddess in spite of her disguise, Helen reproaches her, declaring she has no desire ever to see Paris again, but Venus, awing Helen into submission, leads her back to the palace. There Paris, after ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... skunks. Through it when his protectors were away he could escape the rush of pursuing coyotes, or sally forth with equal ferocity when sheep dogs were about. He peered out of his porthole for a moment, warily, then his stump tail began to twitch, he worked his hind claws into the wood, and leapt. A yelp of terror from the ramada heralded his success and Creede ran like ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... promises are commandments. If He bids us seek He binds Himself to show. His veracity, His unchangeableness, are pledged to this, that no man who yields to His invitation will be balked of his desire. He does not hold out the gift in His hand, and then twitch it away when we put out encouraged and stimulated hands to grasp it. You have seen children flashing bright reflections from a mirror on to a wall, and delighting to direct them away to another spot, when a hand has been put out to touch them. That is not how God does. The light ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wych, Sting you like scorn! You, too, brave hollies, twitch Sidelong from thorn. Even the rank poplars bear Illy a rival's air, Cankering ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... she never had to give her biggest marbles to a great lubberly boy, because he would thrash her if she didn't. I guess she never had a "hockey stick" play round her ankles in recess, because she got above a fellow in the class. I guess she never had him twitch off her best cap, and toss it in a mud-puddle. I guess she never had to give her humming-top to quiet the baby, and had the paint all sucked off. I guess she never saved up all her coppers a whole winter to buy a trumpet, and then ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... informal seances attended by Goosie and Mrs Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hands, as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Reschia, an ancient Egyptian priestess, was longing to use the Princess's hand for automatic writing. After ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... did not attempt to improve upon her advantage. A less consummate general might have tried to do so, and ruined all. She stood silent and submissive, noting the quick play of thought which peeped from his eyes and lip. There was a sparkle in the one and a twitch of amusement in the other, as he at ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... calm I am! I would never have believed it;—just tie this string for me, child, my hands twitch so strangely,—they say the British are just down in the lane here, with five thousand ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... mine. When he had his crew down there and working at their tasks, he got out the little box. He turned on the current from the small battery installed in it, then began talking at the same time he was turning a rheostat higher and higher. Finally he noticed those mobile ears began to twitch, and as he turned the tones higher and still higher, more and more of the natives stopped work and turned toward him. Finally he noticed an intenser excitement among them, and they dropped their tools and came crowding ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... had other troubles to encounter. All at once, as he rode through Boston streets, with his little charge behind him, after leaving his friend's house, he felt a vicious little twitch at his hair, which he wore in a queue tied with a black ribbon after the fashion of the period. Twitch, twitch, twitch! The water came into Samuel Wales' eyes, and the blood to his cheeks, while the passers-by began to hoot ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... times in the week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some grave owl, and sat with him side by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... sister the marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield's mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... courtyard. The Jew was bareheaded; he held his cap under his arm, and had thrust his feet into the stirrup-straps, not into the stirrups themselves; the ragged skirts of his long coat hung down on both sides of the saddle. On seeing Tchertop-hanov, he gave a smack with his lips, and ducked down with a twitch of the elbows and a bend of the legs. Tchertop-hanov, however, not only failed to respond to his greeting, but was even enraged by it; he was all on fire in a minute: a scurvy Jew dare to ride a magnificent horse like that!... It was ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... hurting him. This little land is no more than a lair That holds too many fiercenesses too straitly, And no man will refuse the rapture of killing When outlawry has made it cheap and righteous. So long as anyone perceives he knows A bare place for a weapon on my son His hand shall twitch to fit a weapon in. Indeed he shall lose nothing but his life Because a woman is made so evil fair, Wasteful and white and proud in harmful acts. I lose two sons when Gunnar's eyes are still, For then will Kolskegg never more turn home.... If Gunnar would ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... the first time, Innesmore Mansions figured as his abode, the correspondence which led to the dinner having centered in his club. But not a flicker of eyelid nor twitch of mobile lips showed the slightest concern on Forbes's part. Rather did he display at once a well-bred astonishment on ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... with a desperate wrench; but though one of her hands reached the pocket where the key lay, she could only twitch the fingers, and while he laughed softly he pulled the tie of her apron and, releasing her with a little push, snatched the apron from her, rolled it and thrust it into his pocket. She sprang at him, but he gave her another push that sent her staggering ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... shifting the angle. But I overdid the thing. This time it went biasing off in the other direction and left an untidy smudge of paste on Westbury's nice, clean strip. I reflected that this would probably dry out—if not, I would hang a picture over it. Then I gave the strip I was hanging a little twitch, being a trifle annoyed, perhaps, by this time, and was pained to see that an irregular patch of it remained on the wall, while the rest of it fell sloppily into my hands. It appeared that wall-paper became tender ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... aim. They began to snarl at each other, and they also pressed their horses closer and closer before they even attempted to fire. And the result was that Andy, waving his hat, felt it twitch sharply in his hand, and then he saw a neat little hole clipped out of the very edge of the brim. It was a pretty trick to see, until Andy remembered that the thing which had nicked that hole would also cut its way through him, body and bone. He leaned over the saddle and spurred the pinto ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... sport, gentlemen?" The big things answered by bowing and waving their flippers like the Frog Footman. When they began feeding again Kotick saw that their upper lip was split into two pieces that they could twitch apart about a foot and bring together again with a whole bushel of seaweed between the splits. They tucked the stuff into their mouths and ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... do as you have done and say what you have said, unless it was so clear that he couldn't help but know," he replied. He turned to the neighbors. "I'm afraid," he said, "I have in part spoiled your pleasure, and," he added, with a twitch of the muscles of his face, "made a fool of myself, besides. Come, Mary, we'll ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a hickory nut," said the chuckle again. But Hale had been studying that strange face. One side of it was calm, kindly, philosophic, benevolent; but, when the other was turned, a curious twitch of the muscles at the left side of the mouth showed the teeth and made a snarl ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... of that pattern, gazed blankly at it, and sank into brooding. His imagination pictured how he would blow out their brains, how blood would flow in streams over the rug and the parquet, how the traitress's legs would twitch in her last agony. . . . But that was not enough for his indignant soul. The picture of blood, wailing, and horror did not satisfy him. He must think of ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... sight of her, Pol turned off from the footpath and hurried away. Even so Tillie saw the deep gash in Pol's forehead oozing blood right between her eyes. She saw Pol Gentry's mouth widen angrily and the black hair about it twitch like that of a snarling ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... pressed his father's hand, and putting the spur to his horse rode briskly off. Lucien saluted his father with a kiss, waved his hand gracefully to Hugot, and followed. Francois remained a moment behind the rest—rode up to Hugot—caught hold of his great moustache, gave it a twitch that caused the ex-chasseur to grin again; and then, with a loud yell of laughter, wheeled his pony, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... high and mighty duchess, whose titles were being pompously enumerated by the punctilious mistress of ceremonies. As ill luck would have it, this one was older, uglier, and more strangely bedizened than all the others together. The queen felt a spasmodic twitch of her face; she colored violently, and opening her fan again, it was evident to all that assemblage of censorious dames that for the second time youth and animal spirits had prevailed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... know best; but what about Fanny? I shall not ask her again. How very forward, and indeed altogether"—Another stoppage, another twitch at her gown, with another fidget on the chair, the eyes going up to Dr. Flavel's bands as before. "In OUR house too—to put herself ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... as a handsome girl will look, in spite of a line of care upon her her head and a twitch of anxiety upon the corners of her lips, was distributing coffee, and alternating the task by cutting bread-and-butter—thin-thick for her brother Hendon, who was reading a sporting paper, and thin-thin ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... finesse in the rendering of that small range of sensations to which both give themselves up frankly. Take Polin, who is supposed to express vulgarities with unusual success. Those automatic gestures, flapping and flopping; that dribbling voice, without intonation; that flabby droop and twitch of the face; all that soapy rubbing-in of the expressive parts of the song: I could see no skill in it all, of a sort worth having. The women here sing mainly with their shoulders, for which they seem to have ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... jetting throat—"my comfort is that I could not perish slain by a braver enemy." He moaned and stumbled backward. Momentarily his knees gripped the low embrasure. Then his feet flipped upward, convulsively, so that John Bulmer saw the man's spurs glitter and twitch in the moonlight, and John Bulmer heard a snapping and crackling and swishing among the poplars, and heard the heavy, unvibrant thud of Cazaio's body ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... and intimate fellow-revolutionist. At that point I thought he was going to speak vehemently; but he only astounded me by the convulsive start of his whole body. He restrained himself, folded his loosened arms tighter across his chest, and sat back with a smile in which there was a twitch of scorn and malice. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... swift plank sting whip shad frock swing fresh whiff chub strap smith twist when shun prick string track whist trash brick smack crash whim chest crust stump stock which script scrub splash scrap whisk spend shred struck block ship cramp grunt scamp frank chill smash print shrink throb chat twitch stack thump pluck sprang spring drink thrush shrub sham switch check stretch brush chess snatch ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... supple bows straight at her—it seemed to Gyp—and jerked his violin up to his shoulder. "He's going to play to me," she thought absurdly. He played without accompaniment a little tune that seemed to twitch the heart. When he finished, this time she did not look up, but was conscious that he gave one impatient ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... pool. The mountain man threw himself on the edge and looked down. The figure lay limp among the bushes thirty feet below. He watched it, his body still as a panther's crouched for a spring. He saw one of the hands twitch, a loosened sliver of slate slide from the wall, and cannoning on projections, leap down and bury itself in the outflung hair. The face looking up at him with half-shut eyes that did not wink as the rock dust sifted into them, was terrible, but he felt no ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... four couples married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent effect. ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... onto what seemed a death struggle between one of the giant soldiers and an inoffensive-looking worker. The drab, comparatively feeble body of the worker was wriggling right in the center of the great claws which, with a twitch, could have sliced it in two endwise. Yet the jaws did not twitch; and in a few moments the worker drew ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... During these investigations he observed that when the legs of the frog were suspended from an iron railing by a hook through the spinal cord, and when this hook was of some other metal than iron, the muscles would twitch whenever the feet touched the iron railing. He tried out a number of pairs of metals, and found that when the nerve was touched by one metal and the muscle or another point on the nerve was touched by another metal and the two metals ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... well been mistaken for one. The escape of Ned was a narrow one. He felt one of the bullets pierce his clothing, and a sting in the hand told him that he had been slightly wounded. At the same moment he felt a peculiar twitch or quiver of the steed, which indicated that he also had been hit. It was like the jar of the smoothly-moving machinery when some slight obstruction gets into the works. Still there was no abatement of the tremendous speed of the magnificent little animal, and Ned concluded ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... that made themselves very useful in skipping and jumping from morning till night; and just the prettiest golden brown wig you ever saw. It was fastened on so tight, that the kitten, with all her scratchings, could never twitch it off; in fact, every single hair was fastened by a root in her dear little head, and fell in soft, natural curls ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... station, I think mistress walked from the carriage to the waiting-room. I heard her say in her own sweet voice, "Good-bye, John; God bless you." I felt the rein twitch, but John made no answer; perhaps he could not speak. As soon as Joe had taken the things out of the carriage, John called him to stand by the horses, while he went on the platform. Poor Joe! He stood close up to our heads to hide his tears. Very soon the train came puffing into the station; then ...
— Black Beauty, Young Folks' Edition • Anna Sewell
... Again that fierce twitch of the features went over the other's face; and he stared straight at her with narrowed eyes. Then a change again came over him; and he laughed, like barking, yet ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... jib flapping. With our eyes on the approaching vessel we remained motionless in the stern, our hands clasped. The flush had faded from out her cheeks, yet once she turned toward me and smiled. Forward not so much as the twitch of a muscle revealed any other presence in the boat, the only visible thing a jumble of ropes and canvas, apparently dragged hastily from the water by inexperienced hands. The waves tossed us about ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... afternoon, when it was "prime" coasting. I guess she never had to give her biggest marbles to a great lubberly boy, because he would thrash her if she didn't. I guess she never had a "hockey stick" play round her ankles in recess, because she got above a fellow in the class. I guess she never had him twitch off her best cap, and toss it in a mud-puddle. I guess she never had to give her humming-top to quiet the baby, and had the paint all sucked off. I guess she never saved up all her coppers a whole winter to buy a trumpet, and then was ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... wiry-looking sergeant sat stiffly in saddle, his fur-covered hand at salute, his long gray mustache and stubbly beard and thin hooked nose being almost all that could be seen of the face; yet the twinkle in his waiting captain's eyes and a twitch in the muscles of the veteran's lips set Geordie to staring, and presently out went his hand and up ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... to boil. But he was tired as well as hungry, and while his dinner was cooking, he thought he might as well take a nap. So he lay down in the warm sand near by, first telling his Face to be on the watch and to twitch if any one came, so as ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy and went ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... because the dean had said it wasn't so. Somebody ought to write a book about it,—indeed they ought." Then he told the whole story of Dan Stringer, and how he had found Dan out, looking at the top of Dan's hat through the little aperture in the wall of the inn parlour. "When I saw the twitch in his hat, John, I knew he had handled the cheque himself. I don't mean to say that I'm sharper than another man, and I don't think so; but I do mean to say that when you are in any difficulty of that sort, you ought to go to a lawyer. ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... sickest critter that ever ye did see; and I tell you, I didn't get no kind o' compassion. Cap'ns and mates they allers thinks boys hain't no kind o' business to have no bowels nor nothin', and they put it on 'em sick or well. It's jest a kick here, and a cuff there, and a twitch by the ear in t'other place; one a shovin' on 'em this way, and another hittin' on 'em a clip, and all growlin' from mornin' to night. I believe the way my ears got so long was bein' hauled out o' my berth by 'em: that 'are's a sailor's ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of mood is what brings the delicious quizzical twitch to the mouth of a good raconteur who begins an anecdote the hearers know will be side-splitting. It is what makes grandmother sigh gently and look far over your heads, when her soft voice commences the story of "the little girl who lived ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... who would strike him on the shoulder with a familiar air and say to him: "Do you notice that enchanting smile? It is a grin of hatred." And then the demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and would trace on the street-wall a word which ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... leading to the elevation; where, one on each side of the last step, sat for armorial supporters and sentries two of the ominous file. Gingerly enough stepped good Captain Delano between them, and in the instant of leaving them behind, like one running the gauntlet, he felt an apprehensive twitch in the calves of ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... those who love them try to con thy lore. The country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. They love not thee: of them then little seek, And wish for ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a- singing, I says, 'Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start, not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. 'I knew,' she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide. 'Where?' 'The high bank at the edge of the ice,' I whispers back. 'Jump out when I ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... drifted for five minutes I wound in the line. The barracuda was gone and the leader had been rolled up. This astounded us. That swordfish had taken my bait. I felt his first pull. Then he had come toward the boat, crushing the bait off the hook, without making even a twitch on the slack line. It was heartbreaking. But we could not have done any different. Dan decided the fish had come after the teasers. This experience taught us exceeding respect for ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... the Major, filling a cup to the brim, to show the zeal with which he drank the toast, "and victory over all our enemies, and particularly over Argyle! I hope to twitch another handful from his board myself—I have had one ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... at him steadily as I spoke, trying to see whether he manifested any uneasiness or emotion. But he baffled me. I thought I saw his lips twitch, and his eyes contract, but I might easily have been mistaken. If he were a guilty man, then he was the greatest actor, and had the most supreme command over himself, of any one I had ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... me on the train, very good indeed. I can't deny that he flushed a little when I told him frankly what I wanted of him. At first I thought that he was going to be angry. Then I saw the corners of his mustache twitch. Then our sense of humor got the better of us, and then I laughed, and then he laughed, and I felt that the crisis was passed. I explained to him while we were in the Pullman car, as well as I could without being overheard by a fat lady with three chins, and a girl with a permit for a pet poodle, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the burial of the hinder part of the Mole; they twitch and jerk it now in this direction, now in that. Nothing comes of it; the thing refuses to give. A fresh sortie is made by one of them, to find out what is happening overhead. The second strap is perceived, is severed in ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... the Mongol reached Kaydessa and stood for a moment, eying her up and down before he asked a question. She gave an impatient twitch to the rope. The coyotes snarled, but the Apache thought the animals no ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... snow he could see her face shining out darkly, and his bare, eager fingers moved toward her arm, and except when the spasmodic twitch locked his features, his face, too, was thrust forward, keen and close ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... suddenly jerked open the drawer before him, but Glenister clenched his right hand and leaned forward. The miner could have killed him with a blow, for the gambler was seated and at his mercy. The Kid checked himself, while his face began to twitch as though the nerves underlying it had broken bondage and were dancing in ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never have deceived an experienced judge, and reprobates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable brotherhood of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... business has been impeded, and the members of Parliament have been "effreietz," frightened, by these long knives. Then, descending to lesser things, the proclamation goes on to forbid the street-boys of London to play at hide-and-seek in the palace, or to perform tricks on the passers-by, such as "to twitch off their hoods" for instance, which the proclamation in parliamentary style terms improper games, "jues nient covenables." But as private liberty should be respected as much as possible, this prohibition is meant only for ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... lowest bench, the Vestals, old and young, the elder looking on with hard faces and dry eyes, the youngest with wide and startled looks, and parted lips, and quick-drawn breath that sobs and is caught at sight of each deadly stab and gash of broadsword and trident, and hands that twitch and clutch each other as a man's foot slips in a pool of blood, and the heavy harness clashes in the red, wet sand. Then grey-haired senators; then curled and perfumed knights of Rome; and then the people, countless, vast, frenzied, blood-thirsty, stretching out a hundred ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... cruelty tied the cord far tighter than might be needed for the most refractory culprit. Indeed, his arms were almost dislocated at the shoulders, and when the brutal jailer saw the corners of his mouth twitch under the torture, he said, ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... literally incapable of making one. The steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat was working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a convulsive sob, or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... being, however, all went well. In his role of lecturer he offended no one, and Phyllis and her father behaved admirably. They received his strangest theories without a twitch of the mouth. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... There was evidently in his own mind some cause for the acceptance deeper than my own knowledge. His eyes flashed, and there was an unconscious movement of the mouth—it could hardly be called a twitch—which betokened satisfaction. He was following out some train of reasoning in his own mind. Suddenly ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... Quin's foot began to twitch, and that, in spite of repeated warnings at the hospital, a blind desire seized him to dance? At the mere thought his heart gained a beat—that unruly heart, which had caused so much trouble. It had never been right since that August day in the Sevzevais sector, when, to quote his citation, ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... got no sense o' humor," remarked Mrs. Benson, with a twitch of her thread. "I notice the men that live without 'em don't seem to have any! We may not amount to much, but we're somethin' ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... attitude towards me, and wondering if I should ever be able to hold my own against him in our outdoor intercourse as easily as I certainly could hold it in our class at school. But soon I was interrupted by feeling another twitch at my line. I hauled in another sillock; and having now completed my two dozen fish, I gathered them and my lines together, thrust my fishhooks into my trousers' pocket, and went off to school, only staying a few minutes on the ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... half-way between his plate and his mouth, in order to look his amazement. A curious twitch of the lips was the only manifestation of Davenport, except that he took a long ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight—how could I tell from what vile hole ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... by so much as the twitch of an eyelid that he has heard the SUPERINTENDENT'S angry words, calls over the heads of those around him to a pretty servant girl, who has brought in the coffee and is standing open-mouthed with astonishment at the unexpected sight.] Hillo, Emmy, do you belong to this company now? The sooner ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... With a nervous twitch, Rob threw in the first speed clutch, for the engine had been kept running on her neutral speed, and was able to take up way as soon as the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... shall not go until I have done all that I have to do. Give me work, or I shall wring your neck." And his fingers began to twitch. ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... man in a huge straw hat, and a coat of green stuff. The weather being hot, he had no cravat, and wore his shirt collar wide open; so that every time he spoke something was seen to twitch and jerk up in his throat, like the little hammers in a harpsichord when the notes are struck. Perhaps it was the Truth feebly endeavouring to leap to his lips. If ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the debate in a towering rage; refuse coffee, and declare that the caravan of "Effendn" (the Viceroy) shall not be loaded. Mohammed's feet twitch more violently as the ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... delicate muzzle stole towards a fragment of the "pone." Joan watched breathlessly and then she saw that in spite of the caution of that movement her father knew all about it—just a glint of amusement in the corner of his eyes, just a slight twitch at the corners of his mouth to tell Joan that he was as delighted as a boy playing a trick. Barely in time to save the morsel of pone, he spoke and the head was dashed up. Yet Satan was not entirely discouraged. If he could not steal the bread ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... cut it out rather than pull it. There is a knack in pulling mushrooms, easily attained by practice. And even when they come up in thick bunches and it would appear impossible to pull out the full-grown ones without disturbing the others, a practiced hand will give them a twitch and a pull—they often part from the bed by the gentlest touch—and get them out without unfastening any of the multitude of small buttons that may be ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... mean," said Bartley with an ugly quiet, while his mustache began to twitch. He sprang to his feet and seized Morrison by the collar, pulling him up out of the chair till he held him clear of the floor, and opened the door with his other hand. "Don't show your face here again,—you or ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... thankful to say that I have had, ever since, the blessed and unalterable conviction that I have done right. Even the conveniences have ceased to appeal to me; they have not even, like the old Adam in the Pilgrim's Progress, pinched hold of me and given me a deadly twitch. Though the picturesque mind of one who, like myself, is very sensitive to "the attributes of awe and majesty," takes a certain peevish pleasure in continuing to depict my unworthy self clothed upon with majesty, and shaking all Olympus with ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... did not move a limb, shut an eye or twitch a muscle during the entire hour he sat in the Senate chamber. Nor did he betray the faintest evidence of self-consciousness or emotion, and as I thought of the dingy office over the livery stable but three years before he struck me as a ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... impulse it was that made me twitch Strachan's gown at this moment. It was not altogether a suspicion, but rather a presentiment of coming danger. Strachan took the hint and changed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... father's arm twitch as they issued from their gates; and, looking up to see why, she saw that his face was twitching too. She did not know how near her mother was, nor that her father and John had their ears on the stretch for a hail from the voice they dreaded above all others in the world. But nothing ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables ... but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... to me," answered Allerdyke, with a twitch of his determined jaw. "It 'ud be a clever newspaper chap that would get aught out of me. I've other fish to fry than to talk to these gentry. And what good will all this ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... repetition of certain forms of language in obedience to blind habit and without reference to their propriety in the particular case. Johnson's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency which he noticed himself, to "use too big words and too many of them." He had to explain to Miss Reynolds that ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... your own skin. The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at midnight —how could I tell from what vile hole ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... [With a little nervous twitch.] Did I? Yes, I suppose I did. [Vehemently, but not loudly.] No—I may just as well make a clean breast of it at once! For it must all come out in ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... great body slide inert to the sand. He stood, flushed and panting a little, looking down at the hulk he had so nearly annihilated. Then, as the beach comber's limbs began to twitch and his eyelids ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... ears—she hears a thud, thud, wallop, wallop; and she knows the supreme moment has come. Her sinews tighten like bowstrings, and she darts on with the lightning speed of despair. The grim pursuers near her; she almost feels the breath of the foremost. Twitch!—and with a quick convulsive effort she sheers aside, and her enemy sprawls on. But the second dog is ready to meet her, and she must swirl round again. The two serpentine savages gather themselves together and launch out ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... his classical spit, With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit, You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow, But you're up on your legs, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... whispered hoarsely, and the midshipman felt the fingers which gripped his wrist twitch and jerk as he was pulled towards the corner of the room just ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... the boys stood still. There was no use trying to hide now. Perhaps some faint hope took possession of them that they might be unnoticed if they did not move; just as the still hunter, stalking a feeding deer, will watch its short tail, and whenever he sees it twitch he stands perfectly motionless; for he knows that the animal is about to raise his head, and that he will probably be taken for a stump if he does not move hand ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... to look after the children's linen, and do other occasional work: Enquire of Mr. Twitch, broom-maker, ...
— The Academy Keeper • Anonymous
... The faults common to unpractised actors occurred: one of Osman's arms never moved, and the other sawed the air perpetually, as if in pure despite of Hamlet's prohibition. Then, in crossing over, Osman was continually entangled in Zara's robe; or, when standing still, she was obliged to twitch her train thrice before she could get it from beneath his leaden feet. When confident that he could repeat a speech fluently, he was apt to turn his back upon his mistress; or, when he felt himself called ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... bowing her head coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... bridled, so as to appear perfectly well-bred in my presence. The act of smiling caused the tuft of hair on her jaw to twitch horribly. A cold ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... got it already!" said Mr. Ringgan, with a nervous twitch at the old mare's head; "he wheedled me out of several little sums on one pretence and another,—he had a brother in New York that he wanted to send some to, and goods that he wanted to get out of pawn, and so on,—and ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... the seat opposite Marius, with a resentful glance at her father and a wrathful twitch of the hated robe. It was of faintest amethyst, with tunic embroidered in gold, fastened by many jewels. She looked like a fair young princess, a very angry young princess; and Marius, from where he reclined at ease on the opposite side of the table, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... from a Zincala— Unmake yourself from being child of mine! Take holy water, cross your dark skin white; Round your proud eyes to foolish kitten looks; Walk mincingly, and smirk, and twitch your robe: Unmake yourself—doff all the eagle plumes And be a parrot, chained to a ring that slips Upon a Spaniard's thumb, at will of his That you should ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... this equivocal personage. The stranger eyed old Jack for a moment, so portly in his dimensions, and decked out in gorgeous apparel; then cast a glance upon his own thread-bare and starveling condition, and the scanty bundle which he held in his hand; then giving his shrunk waistcoat a twitch to make it meet its receding waistband, and casting another look, half sad, half humorous, at the sturdy yeoman, "I suppose," said he, "Mr. Tibbets, you have forgot ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... said Dotty, giving a fierce twitch at her tooth, "rain can't freeze the least speck in the summer. You don't mean to tell a wrong story, ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... bored himself as usual with what interests educated people; and he signalized his stay at Madrid by a murderous outburst of one of the worst tempers in the world. One night his servant Elia, in dressing his hair, had the misfortune to twitch one of his locks in such a way as to give him a slight pain; on which Alfieri leaped to his feet, seized a heavy candlestick, and without a word struck the valet such a blow upon his temple that the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... seen such a sight. The man's face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... black visages rendered hideous by fish-bones stuck through the cartilage of the nose above their thick lips. These singular beings stamped their way backward and forward, giving vent to yells of excitement, and causing their bodies to tremble and twitch in the most surprising manner. The last act of this strange drama represented the warriors sitting cross-legged round the fire, when suddenly they simultaneously stretched out their right arms as if pointing ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... the medium of their instruments, an exact interpretation of the author's purpose. In no degree could they have succeeded more admirably than on this occasion. Never was an entire audience so completely carried beyond the borders of reality than now. From the first until the last note not a twitch of a muscle could be seen in all that mass of humanity, which now resembled a great concourse of motionless statues. The musicians themselves, with their minds and souls bent upon giving the fullest expression to their grand work, were ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... he rose in his saddle and looked around carefully. Shorland imitated his action, and, as he resumed his seat, he felt his spur-strap break. He leaned back, and drew up the foot to take off the spur. As he did so, he felt a sudden twitch at his side, and Barre swayed in his saddle with a spear in the groin. Shorland caught him and prevented him falling to the ground. A wild cry rose from the jungle behind and from the clearing ahead, and in a moment the infuriated ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a little, but managed to remain silent for several minutes. Then he gave a sudden twitch and grabbed Rob's ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... ago; but when she saw him journeying in such a leisurely way some instinct assured her of safety, and she came out of her door like a Jack-in-the-box, while old Major, only too ready for a halt, stood still in spite of a desperate twitch of the reins, which had as much effect as pulling at a fish-hook which has made fast to an anchor. Mrs. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... of her head merely, this time, but of her whole self—the Nipper went on tiptoe to Mr Dombey's door, and knocked. 'Come in!' said Mr Dombey. Susan encouraged herself with a final twitch, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... nose, she leaned over and looked closely at Henrietta Hen. Aunt Polly's gaze travelled over Henrietta from head to foot and then back again. And she took hold of one of Henrietta's feathers and gave it a gentle twitch. ...
— The Tale of Henrietta Hen • Arthur Scott Bailey
... now was every man and woman in the crowd. It was a sight, a spectacle that racked them in every fibre of their beings, that stirred them to pity, to hope, to fear, until the awful misery of this blighted and crawling thing was their own in its every twitch of agony—that struck them with a terror, the greater because it was indefinable, a prescience, a reaching out beyond human realm, the invoking of a supernal power—the thought of which very power, once loosed, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... so thin and lean, that Black Tom ventured the opinion that "that feller had better hold tight to the groun', ter keep from fallen' upards." His eyes were colorless, his nose was enormous, his mouth hung wide open and then shut with a twitch, as if its owner were eating flies, his chin seemed to have been entirely forgotten, and his thin hair was in color somewhere between sand ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... the responsibility of stopping on her way to contend with the butcher. She had however to retire without Sidney, who clung to his recovered prey, so that the rest of the episode was seasoned, to Baron's sense, by the importunate twitch of the child's little, plump, cool hand. The friends wandered together with a conjugal air and Sidney not between them, hanging wistfully, first, over the lengthened picture of the Calais boat, till they could look after it, as it moved rumbling away, in a spell of silence which seemed ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... answer at once. He stood looking at Mrs. Wayne under his lowering brows; he had stopped swinging his elbows, and was now very slightly twitching his cane, as an evilly disposed cat will twitch the end ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... bliss splin'ter twitch pin'a fore inch tin'der thick in'fa my strip wick'ed sphinx ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... Girl parried the question. "Why in blazes—should I want to sit in your lap?" she quizzed harshly. Every accent of her voice, every remotest intonation, was like the Senior Surgeon's at his worst. The suddenly forked eyebrow, the snarling twitch of the upper lip, turned the whole delicate little face into a grotesque but desperately unconscious caricature of ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... said the experienced Mullins, 'or his pulse wouldn't act. 'Tisn't a fit or he'd snort and twitch. It can't be sunstroke, this term, and he hasn't been over-training for anything.' He opened Winton's collar, packed a cushion under his head, threw a rug over him and sat down to listen to the regular breathing. Before long Stalky arrived, on pretence of borrowing a book. He looked ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... that Theseus could no longer discern the bewilderment through which he was passing. He would have left quite lost, and utterly hopeless of ever again walking in a straight path, if, every little while, he had not been conscious of a gentle twitch at the silken cord. Then he knew that the tender-hearted Ariadne was still holding the other end, and that she was fearing for him, and hoping for him, and giving him just as much of her sympathy as if she were close by his side. O, indeed, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... honour! now my feet are warmer, I by Jingo! what's that?" and again he wore that strange calculating look, as if he were being internally sounded, and guessed at his probable depth. "What a twitch! Something wrong with my stomach. But a fellow must be all right when his spirits are up. We'll be off as quick as we can. Taia—haihaia—hum. If the farce is bad, it's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he, "close by where you was a-lyin'." So Ravenslee took the button upon his palm, and, as he eyed it, the Spider saw his black brows twitch suddenly ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... attentive, eye. "If, as I imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... suddenly come down with a thump that would leave a black-and-blue mark, or his head would be thrown violently to one side, perhaps coming in contact with some adjacent hard object with equal force, or, while standing quietly, his legs would give a sudden twitch, and he would be thrown violently to the ground, and this even happened several times when he was seated on the edge of a stool. The child was under my care for two weeks, and, probably because of an intercurrent attack of diarrhea, grew steadily worse during that ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the fastenings of his helmet, which alone remains in Menelaus' hands. Then she spirits Paris back to the Trojan palace, where she leaves him resting on a couch, and hurries off, in the guise of an old crone, to twitch Helen's veil, whispering that Paris awaits her at home. Recognizing the goddess in spite of her disguise, Helen reproaches her, declaring she has no desire ever to see Paris again, but Venus, awing Helen ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... pains not to pick and choose among them. So far from doctoring or heightening any of the incidents, I have rather understated them; but I hope I have made it clear that through all the haste and fury of these multiplied actions, when life and death and destruction turned on the twitch of a finger, not one life of any non-combatant was wittingly taken. They were carefully picked up or picked out, taken below, transferred to boats, and despatched or personally conducted in the intervals of business to the ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... twinkle in Mr. Barrymore's eyes and a twitch of his lips, as he bent down over the machinery without answering a word, and I couldn't resist the temptation of letting him see that I was in his secret. There couldn't be any harm in ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... what simile will suit? Spindle-leg in great jack-boot? 20 Pismire crawling in a rut? Or a spigot in a butt? Thus I humm'd and ha'd awhile, When Madam Memory with a smile Thus twitch'd my ear—'Why sure, I ween, 25 In London streets thou oft hast seen The very image of this pair: A little Ape with huge She-Bear Link'd by hapless chain together: An unlick'd mass the one—the other 30 An ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Mrs. Harold's cryptic answer as an odd smile caused her lips to twitch. "Last year's five-striper and a good many other stripers, were with us constantly, and I miss them more than I like to dwell upon. This year's? Well—I shall ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... of her cries, the maid came running to her assistance. "Let me look," said she; and with that she gave the princess's eyelid a twitch, and out came a camel, which the maid put in her pocket—' ('Ah!' grunted the farmer)—'and then she just twisted up the corner of her headcloth and fished a hundred more of them out of the princess's eye, and popped them all into her ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... den, where Warrigal sat waiting for him, and softly growling a response to his war-cries. This defiance of the admitted lords of the range was not altogether without its ground of alarm for Warrigal; its utter recklessness made the skin over her shoulders twitch, but it was something to have a mate who could dare so much, even in ignorance. Long after Finn had closed his eyes in sleep, Warrigal lay watching him, with a queer light of pride and admiring devotion in her wild ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... up to their knees in mud and gold, when Betty Bevan awoke, sprang up, ran into the outer apartment of her tent, and gazed admiringly at Tolly's face. A band of audacious and early flies were tickling it, and causing the features to twitch, but they could not waken the sleeper. Betty gazed only for a moment with an amused expression, and then shook ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... had said them she bitterly regretted them. They were the cry of her undying vanity that must try to put itself right, to stand up for itself at whatever cost. Directly she had spoken them she saw a slight twitch pull the left side of his face upward. It had upon her a moral effect. She felt it as his irresistible comment—a comment of the body, but coming from elsewhere—on her and her nature, and her recent association with Arabian. And suddenly her hatred died, and she longed ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... was noticed that any stimulus might cause (1) a twitch in the limb stimulated, or (2) a twitch followed by a jump, or (3) a sudden jump previous to which no twitch could be detected. And it soon appeared that these types of reaction, as it seems proper to call them, would have to be considered in any determination ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... and listening, felt his face twitch; then he blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I—I'll take him to—the person he lives with. It isn't suitable for ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... sir; and that's what troubles me so." Here the good Mrs. Crull began to twitch about the mouth. But she did not cry. She had too much of the masculine element for that. Her whole life was a struggle between the weakness of her feminine body and the strong self-control of her manly soul, in which the latter, after an effort, ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... defiance of tradition is called Samuel, is sitting in his doorway watching the show, when the suffering Christ begs permission to rest a moment on his threshold. He says churlishly, Anda!—"Begone!" "I will go, but thou shalt go forever until I come." The Jew's feet begin to twitch convulsively, as if pulled from under him. He struggles for a moment, and at last is carried off by his legs, which are moved like those of the walking dolls with the Greek names. This odd tradition, so utterly in contradiction with the picture ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... futile efforts to ward off or return the blows. Then came a new pleasure—the pleasure of smacking his face. And the plough-men, the servant girls and even every passing vagabond were every moment giving him cuffs, which caused his eyelashes to twitch spasmodically. He did not know where to hide himself and remained with his arms always held out to guard against people coming too close ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... plenty crown my life's decline, A most important duty may be thine: Then, guard me from Temptation's base control, From apathy and littleness of soul The sight of thy old frame, so rough, so rode, Shall twitch the sleeve of nodding Gratitude; Shall teach me but to venerate the more Honest Oak Tables and their guests—the poor: Teach me unjust distinctions to deride, And falsehoods gender'd in the brain of Pride; Shall give to Fancy still the cheerful hour, To Intellect, its freedom and its ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... a letter carrier, to help give out the letters?" he said at last, in the midst of the noise. "Couldn't he, Ben?" and he ran to twitch that individual's sleeve. ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... her thoughts were wandering. The twitch of Davidson's face proved that, though he spoke of scientific things, his mind was busy in the same direction. Suddenly, while the doctor was giving some experience of practice on the Flanders front, rather prosily, he sprang to his ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... his temples were throbbing, harking back, with time's reversal of conditions, to a situation after the duel in the arroyo was over and he had used the right word when her temples were throbbing and her hands splashed. If retribution were her object, she had repaid in nerve-twitch of torture for nerve-twitch of torture. The picture that had been alive and out of its frame was back on cold canvas. Even the girl he had known across the barrier, even the girl in armor, seemed more kindly. But one can talk, even to a picture ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Mam'selle Pauline's delicate frame. La Petite could feel the twitch of it in the wiry fingers that were intertwined with her own. Ma'ame Pelagie remained unchanged and motionless. No human eye could penetrate so deep as to see the satisfaction which her soul felt. She said: "What do you mean, Petite? Your ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... stronger twitch than ever before; even while his ear, less delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar sound. About two minutes after Mr. Wilkins entered the room. He came up to Mr. Corbet with a warm welcome: some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked volubly to him, ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... shrew-mouse, and in spite of the anger of certain envious mice, she was triumphantly marched around the cellar, where, seeing her walk mincingly, mechanically move her tail, shake her cunning little head, twitch her diaphanous ears, and lick with her little red tongue the hairs just sprouting on her cheeks, the old rats fell in love with her and wagged their wrinkled, white-whiskered jaws with delight at the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... to drop upon the shirt-bosom gayly showing between the lapels of his dark-blue silk house-coat. He slowly closed his mouth, moving his teeth back into place with his tongue—a gesture that made her face twitch with rage ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... move at this question. They merely saw his shoulders twitch as though he didn't wish to be bothered at ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... do, do they?" inquired Jephthah with a humorous twitch of the lips. "Well, ef you're a-goin' to set up to teach, hadn't you better have a school-house, place ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... going with Mr. Grainger," said Juliette, with an unpleasant twitch of her thin lips; "the—the little cat! I'd like to see her ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... seriously; that pale ignorances, presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn or frogs' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with pseudo-life ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... turned toward the Campus Martius, and was strolling down under the long marble-paved colonnade of the Portico of Pompeius. Lost in a deep reverie, he was forgetful of all present events, until he was roused by a quick twitch at the elbow; he looked around and found ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... are formed twain, twice, twenty, twelve, twins, twine, twist, twirl, twig, twitch, twinge, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... pale little woman with a nervous twitch on one side of her face, and the excitement through which she had just passed rendered her almost speechless; but she managed to tell the jury that Busby and Watson had fought and that she had warned her son not ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... the afternoon I left Grand Ditch Camp and started down to Chambers Lake. I had not gone far when drops of rain began to fall from time to time, and shortly after this my muscles began to twitch occasionally under electrical ticklings. At times slight muscular rigidity was noticeable. Just before two o'clock the clouds began to burst through between the trees. I was at an altitude of about eleven thousand feet and a short distance from ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... who never took a back seat for anybody! What had he been doing all this time, sitting there and staring at them with those awfully brilliant eyes of his? Very likely he had seen the silly weak tears so near the surface, had caught the sentimental twitch of the mouth. Yes, quite certainly, for, now he was showing his tact by changing the subject, changing it with a vengeance. "Mrs. Crittenden," he was saying, "my curiosity has been touched by that ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... asked her to dance! It was inconceivable that she should have seen him; and yet a peculiar knowledge had enveloped her, as though she had seen obliquely through her down-dropped eyelids; and then it was well known women could see round corners! And that twitch of the arm! He did not know what to think. "Well, it's all one to me," he thought, "for I'm not going to be led ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... not permit one muscle of his face to twitch. "All right," he drawled, "I guess I won't go broke if I don't get it. You mind what your Captain tells you, Shorty! He's running this show, and what he says goes. You've got a good man over yuh, Shorty. A fine man. He'll weed out ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... and his heart is much like that of the eagle in the air. He is crouched in a thicket about twenty yards away, and his lips are drawn back from his sharp fangs. His nostrils twitch with the odor of our food, and his yellow eyes are staring at us. Oh, he hates us because he hates everything except his own kind and very often he hates that. He wants our food because he's hungry—he's always hungry—and ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... chasin' gold underground. Says he likes to see his prospects growin' up under his own eyes an' gazin' on his own land. I'm the adventurous one of the Bailey fam'ly, though you mightn't guess it to look at me," she said with a twitch of her lips. "Me an' young Ed here. He takes after me. Got the gamblin' germ in our systems. Want to git somethin' fo' nothin'," she went on with grim humor. "I reckon Ed's right but, land-sake, doin' the same thing, day in an' ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... talked fast, but even in that dim light Mr. Sabin knew quite well that she was shaking with fear. He could see the corners of her mouth twitch. Her black eyes rolled incessantly, but refused to ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... How else Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan {60} Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables. . .but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! Nay, boys, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... dumfounded, first at Lorry, then at Estelle. In the pause, Adelaide, drawn from the library by the sound of Arden's fury, reached the front doorway, saw the three, instantly knew the whole cause of this sudden, harsh commotion. With a twitch that was like the shaking off of a detaining grasp, with a roar like a mortally wounded beast's, Arden recovered the use of limbs and voice. "You infernal lump of dirt!" he yelled. Adelaide saw his arm swing backward, then ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... a cheerful and carefree expression on my face, but I have rarely met the man who could lie even in his sleep. No matter how much I would be on my guard during the day, at night I would betray myself by an involuntary moan, by a twitch of the face, by an expression of fatigue or grief, or by other manifestations of a guilty and uneasy conscience. Only very few people of unusual will power are able to lie even in their sleep, skilfully managing the features of their faces, sometimes even preserving a courteous and bright ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... a guilty twitch of an eyelid he handed her the book, and we both stood watching while the fat, heavily ringed and rosily manicured fingers ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... surface like widening rings on the waters of a pool. The mountain man threw himself on the edge and looked down. The figure lay limp among the bushes thirty feet below. He watched it, his body still as a panther's crouched for a spring. He saw one of the hands twitch, a loosened sliver of slate slide from the wall, and cannoning on projections, leap down and bury itself in the outflung hair. The face looking up at him with half-shut eyes that did not wink as the rock dust sifted into them, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the camera and looked straight at her, and Jean bit her lips sharply as tears stung her lashes for some inexplicable reason. Dear old Lite! Every line in his face she knew, every varying, vagrant expression, every little twitch of his lips and eyelids that meant so much to those who knew him well enough to read his face. Jean's eyes softened, cleared, and while she looked, her lips parted a little, and she did not know that ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... break off the debate in a towering rage; refuse coffee, and declare that the caravan of "Effendn" (the Viceroy) shall not be loaded. Mohammed's feet twitch more violently as the camels are ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... married after church to-day, Andrew and Phoebe of Pine Grove among the rest. Mr. Phillips tried to tie all four knots at one twitch, but found he had his hands full with two couples at once and concluded to take them in detail. They all behaved very well and seemed impressed with the ceremony, so it certainly has an excellent effect. We also had an address from Prince Rivers,[70] ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... gripped the quivering muscles and turned him about. Hugh had come up behind, without sound, on moccasined feet. His face was gray; his eyes were drawn into slits; his distorted mouth was trying to become a straight, hard line. The effort gave a twitch to the ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... to go to the dining car. She threw back her head and sucked her lungs full of the pure, rain-chilled air. She was accustomed to being out in storms, she liked them. One second she paused to watch the gale sweeping the fields, the next a twitch at her hair caused her to throw up her hands and clutch wildly at nothing. She sprang to the step railing and leaned out in time to see her wonderful hat whirl against the corner of the car, hold there an ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... hearth and staring abstractedly into the fire, came back with a jerk to reality. The little smile that had been in her eyes and on her lips fled back with the dreams that had brought it. She gave her shoulders an impatient twitch and got up. ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Was it in him or in her? That cursed Tartar, Mehmet Ali, with his silly offer of twenty gold pieces! He, he had done it. Marcu looked again at his daughter. Her eyelids trembled nervously and there was a little repressed twitch about her mouth. She returned his glance at first, but lowered her eyes under her father's steady gaze. "Already a shameless creature," thought the old gipsy. But he could not bear to think that way about ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... closed in, Febrer made his preparations, his face set, his mien hostile, his hands thrilling with an imperceptible homicidal twitch, like a primitive warrior starting on an expedition from the mountain top to the valley. Before throwing his haik over his shoulders, he drew his revolver from his belt, scrupulously examining the cartridges, and the working of the trigger. Everything all right! The first man to make ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of Fernando Po, imposes daily upon itself new taboos, new rituals. Yet there is the phenomenon of its tolerance toward the idol breakers. From the lowest depths of the crater of Riabba in which he sits enthroned the monarch of the Laongos condemns to death with a twitch of his brows all who seek to question the sanctity of the taboos. But this other occupant of the crater of Riabba-our Republic-raises gentle eyes to the idol wreckers, to the taboo destroyers. An occasional, "tut tut" escapes him. ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... sure, sir," with a repressed twitch of the mouth, which showed he knew only too much, as Barker was apt to do ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the night searching for the needle in this bottle of hay? Elizabeth's face began to twitch with uncomfortable merriment. Should she go and knock up the housekeeper and instal her as chaperon, or take a stand, and insist on going to bed like a ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... However, before night, I was convinced of my friend Mr. Y——'s superior prudence: the whole thing, as the carpenter said, went off pretty well; but several disasters happened which I had not foreseen. There was one stiff old fellow, whose arms, twitch them which way I would, I could never get to bend: and an obstinate old woman, who would never do any thing else but curtsy, when I wanted her to kneel down and to do her work. My children sorted their heaps of rubbish and ore very dexterously; ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... could not long be delayed. Now and again she would hold its cold form for an hour at a stretch to her heart, in the hope that the warmth of her breasts would be communicated to her child. Once, during her long watch, she fancied that she saw his lips twitch. She excitedly called to Mrs Trivett, to whom, when she came upstairs, she told the glad news. To humour the bereaved mother, Mrs Trivett waited for further signs of animation, the absence of which by no means diminished Mavis's confidence in their ultimate ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... the black frock-coat and hat was standing quite grave and dignified on the lawn, save for his slight twitch of one limb, and he did not seem by any means unworthy of the part which the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... there is nothing that happened in those ill-starred years that I cannot recreate in that chamber of the brain which is set apart for grief or for despair; every strained note of your voice, every twitch and gesture of your nervous hands, every bitter word, every poisonous phrase comes back to me: I remember the street or river down which we passed: the wall or woodland that surrounded us; at what figure on the dial stood the hands of the ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the memory of Tom Gray continue to haunt her? Grace gave her shoulders an impatient twitch. How foolish she was to allow herself to grow retrospective over Tom. She had deliberately sent him away because she did not, nor never could, love him. Still she wished that the memory of him would not intrude upon her thoughts ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... felt her noble white arm twitch convulsively, and her fingers pinch the cloth of his ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Flora murmured. A faint twitch of humor pulled her mouth, but the passionate romantic color was dying out of her face. How was it that one's romances could be so cruelly pulled down to earth? She ought to have learned by this time, she thought, never to fly her little flag of romance except to ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... feeling it gave one to see the regiment go past the saluting base on review-days, at the gallop, with lances down. One wanted to shout, to laugh—to cry. (It made one's mouth twitch and chin work.) ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... loot, their greedy eyes and greasy fingers twitched, and when a hood's eyes and fingers twitch, watch out; something ...
— Mars Confidential • Jack Lait
... among Dotards) to wait upon the Dauphin. With another few, it is a resolution taken; jacta est alea. Old Richelieu,—when Beaumont, driven by public opinion, is at last for entering the sick-room,—will twitch him by the rochet, into a recess; and there, with his old dissipated mastiff-face, and the oiliest vehemence, be seen pleading (and even, as we judge by Beaumont's change of colour, prevailing) 'that the King be not killed by a proposition in Divinity.' Duke de Fronsac, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... enough for trollin', and feelin' a little drowsy, I tied the end of the line to the cleets across the knees of the boat, and lay down in the bottom with my hand out over the side holdin' the line. I hadn't laid there long, when I felt a twitch as if something mighty big was medlin' with the other end of the string. I started up and undertook to pull in, but you might as well undertake to drag an elephant with a thread. I couldn't move him a hair. Pretty soon the boat began to move ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... his chamber placed him, fill'd With scents odorous, spirit-soothing sweets. Nor stay'd the Goddess, but at once in quest 455 Of Helen went; her on a lofty tower She found, where many a damsel stood of Troy, And twitch'd her fragrant robe. In form she seem'd An ancient matron, who, while Helen dwelt In Lacedaemon, her unsullied wool 460 Dress'd for her, faithfullest of all her train. Like her disguised the Goddess thus began. Haste—Paris ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... a seat and the pen, looked a while helplessly at the paper, then at Huish. The swing had gone the other way; there was a blur upon his eyes. 'It's a dreadful business,' he said, with a strong twitch ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... tips together with a slight twitch of her nose). If you stay with us, Eugene, I think I will hand over the ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... conversation was carried on with a greater regard to equality. They talked, as they fished, of politics, religion, philosophy, human nature, the useful arts, abolition, and most other subjects that would be likely to interest a couple of Americans who had nothing to do but to twitch, from time to time, at two lines dangling in the water. Although few people possess less of the art of conversation than our own countrymen, no other nation takes as wide a range in its discussions. He is but a very indifferent American ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... fine dramatic instinct, to watch the effect of this broadside. A faint nervous twitch of the chin and the eyelids—then absolute immobility. The Potato Baron had assumed the "poker face" of all Orientals—wherefore Bill Conway knew the man was on his guard and would admit nothing. So he decided not to make any effort ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... mad on their instruments. It is a perfect witches' Sabbath. Here, huge dolls dressed as Polichinello or Pantaloon are borne about for sale,—or over the heads of the crowd great black-faced jumping-jacks, lifted on a stick, twitch themselves in fantastic fits,—or, what is more Roman than all, men carry about long poles strung with rings of hundreds of giambelli, (a light cake, called jumble in English,) which they scream for sale at a mezzo baiocco each. There ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... gave him a mixed feeling of astonishment, envy, and vague hope that something of the sort might happen to him. He used to follow Masha with admiring eyes, and to ask me what I had for dinner nowadays, and his ugly, emaciated face used to wear a sweet, sad expression, and he used to twitch his fingers as though he could feel ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... state of great nervous excitement. The long, anxious hours of waiting had told on him. A nervous twitch convulsed his mouth. He jumped spasmodically to his feet as we entered the room. "At last," exclaimed Bonafede, with a sigh of relief on seeing us. "Now, Matthieu," he said, laying a hand encouragingly on the man's shoulder, "there is no time to be lost. Isabel ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... snatched a pistol out of his sling, and resting it for an instant across his arm, fired at the flying Spaniard, and that with so true an aim that, though the street was now full of people, the other went tumbling over and over all of a heap in the kennel, where he lay, after a twitch or two, as still ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... aloud like a dull, miserable, unconscious echo; but my brain was numb to the sense of what they said, unless I myself were named, and then, I suppose, some instinct of self-preservation stirred within me, and quickened my sense. And how I strained my ears, and nerved my hands and limbs, beginning to twitch with convulsive movements, which I feared might betray me! I gathered every word they spoke, not knowing which proposal to wish for, but feeling that whatever was finally decided upon, my only chance of escape was drawing near. I once feared lest my ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... around. There is a rise of the temperature to 103 or 104 degrees, the patient begins to vomit food and has a headache. At night the child starts from its crib and cries as if in pain. They do not always locate the pain in the ear. The face and hands may twitch. The fever may fall to normal and rise sharply again. Such symptoms should call for a ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... seances attended by Goosie and Mrs Antrobus, even stranger things had happened, for the Princess's hands, as they held a little preliminary conversation, began to tremble and twitch even more strongly than Colonel Boucher's, and Mrs Quantock hastily supplied her with a pencil and a quantity of sheets of foolscap paper, for this trembling and twitching implied that Reschia, an ancient Egyptian priestess, was ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... little fore teeth directly upon Jonas's thumb. As might have been supposed, teeth which were sharp and powerful enough to go through a walnut shell, would not he likely to be stopped by a leathern glove; and Jonas, startled by the sudden cut, gave a twitch with his hand, and, at the same instant, let go of the squirrel. Bunny grasped the edge of the howl with his paws, and leaped out, bringing the bowl itself at the same instant over upon him, spattering him all over from head to tail with ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... Irish quarrel, I assure you, sir. A matter of years' standing. In unlacing the senor's helmet, the evening that he was taken prisoner, I was unlucky enough to twitch his mustachios. You recollect ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... school was rather anomalous. A younger woman might have managed differently. There was a new scholar that rather crowded them on the bench. And the boy back of her did some sly things that annoyed her. He gave her hair a twitch now and then. One day he dropped a little toad on her book, at which she screamed, though an instant after she was not at all afraid. Of course, he was whipped for that, and for once she did not ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... ammunition. In one of the sledges a pig is carried, in charge of a servant, and there is also a rope with a bag of hay, which is dragged after the sledge. When we arrive on the ground where we expect to find the wolves, the bag of hay is thrown out, and the servant gives the pig a twitch of the tail, which makes it squeak lustily. Now, wolves are especially fond of pork, and, hearing the well-known sounds, they hurry out of their fastnesses from all quarters, in expectation of a feast. As the brutes happily hunt by sight and sound, and not by scent, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... old woman, and, with a protruding corner of the upper lip and wide-open eyes, gazed on the rolls brought by Maslova. Seeing all these compassionate faces, after what had happened, Maslova almost cried and her lips began to twitch. She tried to and did restrain herself until the old woman and the child approached. When, however, she heard the kind, compassionate exclamation of pity from the old woman, and, especially, when her eyes met the serious eyes of the boy who looked now at her, now at the rolls, she could restrain ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... at the door. "I—really, I never—investigated the matter at all." She gave a twitch of shoulders and met his eyes steadily. "The inner satisfaction of having climbed the hill, I suppose," she said, in the tone of one who has at last reached firm ground. "Will you have ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... became very busy with her breakfast. The cat beside her chair purred loudly and rose at intervals on its hind legs to twitch her dress; and Ruhannah occasionally bestowed alms and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... not always keenest when most recent. As he approached I saw he was more irritated and upset than at the moment of the accident. Above his pinched, cleanshaven chin his lips shot out with an angry twitch. The portfolio shook under his arm. He flung me a look full of tragedy ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... me come along smartly with his brother's knife in my hand—I wasn't thinking how it looked from his side of the fence, you know—and jiminy, it nearly killed him! He stared like a crazed bullock and began to sweat and twitch all over, something amazing. I was so surprised, that I stopped to look at him. The drops were pouring over his eyebrows, down his beard, off his nose—and he gurgled. Then it struck me that he couldn't see what was in my mind. By favour or by right he didn't ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... house, conducted the Bunner sisters the way to her bedroom. Here they were invited to spread out on a mountainous white featherbed the cashmere mantles under which the solemnity of the occasion had compelled them to swelter, and when they had given their black silks the necessary twitch of readjustment, and Evelina had fluffed out her hair before a looking-glass framed in pink-shell work, their hostess led them to a stuffy parlour smelling of gingerbread. After another ceremonial pause, broken by polite enquiries ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... what a real gratitude you will get from the waiter. It isn't infallible, but the chances are he will feel that you have treated him like a man, and will do or say something to show his feeling: he will give a twitch to your under-coat when he has helped you on with your top-coat, which will almost pull you over. We have even tried saying 'You are welcome' to a beggar. It's astonishing how they like it. By-the-way, have you the habit of looking at your waiter when ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... remarkably humorous person, but on this occasion the corners of her mouth were distinctly observed to twitch. She mastered the weakness ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... that of a Roman war-god, yet those perfect features seemed utterly lifeless. In the twenty minutes that he had been intently watching the stranger, Gordon would have sworn that the other's face had not moved by so much as the twitch of an eye-lash. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... you doing? get up, do, and stop your noise! [For Minnie couldn't help a long-sounding o—h! when her doll flopped down. So Maggie made the young lady catch hold of Mr. Morris's shoulder straps and help twitch him on the sofa again, to ...
— Funny Little Socks - Being the Fourth Book • Sarah. L. Barrow
... but steady pace. At their head rode a man on a sorrel horse. His shoulders were stooped a little, and he leaned forward in the saddle, gazing intently at the vast bank of smoke and flame before him. Harry noticed that the hands upon the bridle reins did not twitch nor did the horseman seem at all excited. Only his burning eyes showed that every faculty was concentrated upon the task. Harry was conscious even then that he was in the presence of ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... well. He reared and struck again—this time only empty air. Yet, as he returned to earth, almost before he touched ground, the hand was around his ear, another was around his other ear, he was feeling the dread twist again, twofold. Every twitch of muscle, every least gasp for air, sent excruciating pain throughout the ends of him. Fearing to move, yet clamoring for breath, he slowly opened ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... common to unpractised actors occurred: one of Osman's arms never moved, and the other sawed the air perpetually, as if in pure despite of Hamlet's prohibition. Then, in crossing over, Osman was continually entangled in Zara's robe; or, when standing still, she was obliged to twitch her train thrice before she could get it from beneath his leaden feet. When confident that he could repeat a speech fluently, he was apt to turn his back upon his mistress; or, when he felt himself called ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... foreman, glanced at Paige, the state's attorney. The young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment," ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... her head coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all polite questions; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a- singing, I says, 'Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start, not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. 'I knew,' she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide. 'Where?' 'The high bank at the edge of the ice,' I whispers back. 'Jump out when ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and her aunt, holding a passive character in the strange assembly. This was encouraging; and Bunce, forgetting his wonder in the satisfaction which such a prospect afforded him, endeavored to force his way forward to them, when a salutary twitch of the arm from one of the beldam troop, by tumbling him backward upon the floor of the cavern, brought him again to a consideration of his predicament. He could not be restrained from speech, however—though, as he spoke, the old women ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... lore. The country, city seek, grand thrones to boot, With gentle courtesy humbly bow before. Should nobles gallant, soldiers frank and brave Seek thy acquaintance, hail their first advance: From twitch of care thy pleasant vein may save, May laughter cause or wisdom give perchance. Some surly Cato, Senator austere, Haply may wish to peep into thy book: Seem very nothing—tremble and revere: No forceful eagles, butterflies e'er look. They love not ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... marquise—a stout lady in ruby velvet and amethysts, who invariably caused Maggie Delafield's mouth to twitch whenever she opened her own during the evening—received the guests in the drawing-room. They were standing on the white fur hearth-rug side by side, when the doors were dramatically thrown open, and the servant rolled the names ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... Sting you like scorn! You, too, brave hollies, twitch Sidelong from thorn. Even the rank poplars bear Illy a rival's air, Cankering ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... invention. coyuntura f. joint. crneo m. skull. crear create. crecer grow, rage, increase. creer believe, think. crescendo Ital. crescendo. crespn m. crape. criatura f. creature, being, man. crimen m. crime. crispante adj. shivery. crisparse twitch. cristal m. crystal, glass. cristalino, -a crystalline, transparent, bright. Cristo pr. n. m. Christ, image of Christ. crudeza f. severity, cruelty. crudo, -a raw. cruel adj. cruel, intolerable. crujido ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... he laughed as the water stung the broken skin and made her twitch involuntarily, "but bathing will do it good. I just know ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... imagine, sir," continued Horace, "you are, though temporarily deprived of speech, perfectly capable of following an argument, will you kindly signify it by raising your right ear?" The mule's right ear rose with a sharp twitch. ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... ball of a demon who would strike him on the shoulder with a familiar air and say to him: "Do you notice that enchanting smile? It is a grin of hatred." And then the demon would strut about like one of the captains in the old comedies of Hardy. He would twitch the folds of a lace mantle and endeavor to make new the fretted tinsel and spangles of its former glory. And then like Rabelais he would burst into loud and unrestrainable laughter, and would trace on the street-wall a word which might serve as a pendant ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... into my eyes, then beyond me towards the lake, all the while sniffing. I was still only part of the shore. Yet he was so near that I caught the gleam of his eyes, and saw the nostrils swell and the muzzle twitch nervously. ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... Round ears also and rare ears. So here's an ear that all eyes here Shall see no beauty in, 'tis clear. For these o' thine be such ears, Large, loose, and over-much ears, Ears that do make fingers itch, Ears to twist and ears to twitch. ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... steady behind the light tremor of their lashes, brilliant and profound. He reflected that her one weak point, the shortness of her legs, was not noticeable when she was sitting down. He also wondered how he could ever have thought her mouth hard. It moved with a little tender, sensitive twitch, like the flutter of her eyelids, and he conceived that she was drawn to him and held ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... half snake and half cat, crawled across a roof, spread leathery wings, and flapped to the ground. The sour pungent reek of incense from the open street-shrine made my nostrils twitch, and a hulked form inside, not human, cast me a surly green glare ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... of a genius not to be ill to ride with the curb. And, save perhaps in "Literature and Science" (which was not at first written for an American audience at all), the pressure of the curb—I had almost said of the twitch—is too often evident, or at least suggested. This especially applies to the first, the longest, the most ambitious, and, as its author would say, most "nobly serious" of the three. There are quite admirable ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... less strange than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons, and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures, his mutterings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of absence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He would amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit rather ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... saddle, grasped the reins, and fixed her feet in the stirrup-irons in an instant. The colt was looked upon as a champion bucker, and he deserved the honour, for rising into the air with all four feet off the ground, he gave a twitch that must have dislodged most riders, but Hil and the horse were one. After bucking and pigging all he knew, without succeeding in upsetting his rider, the wary animal tried a new dodge. He reared suddenly and fell back, trying to crush his rider, but Hil was ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... beautiful Silvestro (tanned counterpart of the Glorious Ippolita) would hang upon the melancholy noise, and observe with adoring interest every twitch and distension of the fat-cheeked hero; and at the end sigh his ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... they adjusted the rope round his bronzed throat. They had judged him for a villain; they should at least know him a man. So he stood there straight and lithe, wide-shouldered and lean-flanked, a man in a thousand. Not a twitch of the well-packed muscles, not a quiver of the eyelash nor a swelling of the throat betrayed any fear. His cool eyes were quiet ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... get out," he answered, with a humorous twitch to the lips. "I've kind of lost my way in this here shebang, and if you'll kindly show me the door I'll cause no trouble and ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... shaking with the unconscious and frightful convulsions of death. She breathed heavily and slowly and gasped with effort, catching the air with her pale lips. At moments her face would writhe and her mouth twitch with a dreadful spasm of pain and she would raise her hands as though she wanted to tear apart her throat to get more air. Her white and fever-coated tongue slipped spasmodically from her mouth and so tense did her body ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... Kate's command, and she had worn herself to a shadow with anguish, love and penitence. She watched him by day and by night—in her restless dreams; her whole existence was in the tossing victim of her folly. Every twitch of that pain-stricken body seemed to show her that he was shrinking from her in hatred. Her pretty face was white and drawn, the blue eyes dark and pitiful, the merry ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, And Moses with the tables . . . but I know Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope To revel down my villas while I gasp Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine Which Gandolf ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... the artistic temperament." Then a twitch passed over his face. "You must give me a double dose of morphia ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was wont pathetically to remark, everyone bullied him because he was small and possessed only one arm, having shed the other by inadvertence somewhere on the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... her guardian, gently, laying his hand on hers. 'I am not hurt. I understand, as I ought, having seen you twitch yourself out of leading-strings ever since you were old enough to go. It is rather hard upon you. But how came it to your knowledge, Hazel?' ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... saddest of all is an old warrior with mighty jowl and a face that bears the scars of a hundred fights. One eye has been lost in some long-forgotten encounter. Now they walk over him, kittens and all, and tread about his head, as if he were a hillock of earth, while his claws twitch resentfully with rage or pain. Too ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... wonderful member of his, and skip away to a distance from his playmate, who might attempt to retaliate. If one happened for an instant to be sitting quietly on a sipo, or gently winging backwards and forwards, another was sure to come behind him and pull his tail, or give him a twitch on the ear, and then throw himself off the sipo out of the other's reach, holding on, however, firmly enough by his long appendage. One big fellow came creeping up thus behind another, and gave him a sly pinch on ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... so nearly paralleled that crucial moment in his own life, under Joe Hilliard's roof, that the quarry owner seemed fairly to twitch his sleeve. Then, as the dead man had done before him, Shelby stayed his hand. Hilliard had respected his hearthstone because it held the ashes of a burned-out love; the governor respected his office. Unseen by the rapt pair, he left the conservatory, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... little distance ahead of them put an abrupt termination to the conversation. Gibault threw forward the muzzle of his gun, and glanced at his comrade. The glance did not tend to comfort him. The artist was pale as death. This, and an occasional twitch of the lip, were clear and unmistakable signs to the backwoodsman that fear had taken possession of his friend, and that he was not to be counted on in the moment of danger. Yet there was a stern knitting of the eyebrows, and a firm pressure ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... does," said little bustling Ruth, as she took the child, and began taking off a little blue silk hood, and various layers and wrappers of outer garments; and having given a twitch here, and a pull there, and variously adjusted and arranged him, and kissed him heartily, she set him on the floor to collect his thoughts. Baby seemed quite used to this mode of proceeding, for he put his thumb in his mouth (as if it were quite a thing of ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... for I would not come near the door of his house. Then he reviled me, and told me, that he would send such a one after me, that should make my way bitter to my soul. So I turned to go away from him; but just as I turned myself to go thence, I felt him take hold of my flesh, and give me such a deadly twitch back, that I thought he had pulled part of me after himself. This made me cry, "O wretched man!" (Rom. 7:24). So I went on my way ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
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