"Gesticulate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been imparted to them ages ago is exhausted. With no apparent cause, we see death busy among them. "Suddenly the wasps begin to fall as though struck by lightning; for a few moments the abdomen quivers and the legs gesticulate, then finally remain inert, like a clockwork machine whose spring has run down to the last coil." (9/10.) This law is general; "the insect is born orphaned both of mother and father, excepting the social insect, and again excepting the dung- beetle, which ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... small groups of his class, all similarly costumed in calzoneros, striped blankets, and glaze hats; all, like him, wearing uneasy looks. They gesticulate little, contrary to their usual habit, and converse only in whispers or low mutterings. Unusual circumstances ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... in the trenches. Vincent, who was sitting at a table, happened to look up, and was astonished at seeing the sergeant first put his finger on his lips, then take off his cap, put one hand on his heart, and gesticulate with the other. ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... to escape from the guards, run to her sister—even to pantomime her love, gesticulate it with funny little motions and confidential fingers on lips—forgetting that the other cannot see! And then her wild, excited cry rings ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... the fires upon spits of willow rods. We see the Indians fling the pinon nuts into the cinders, and then draw them forth again, parched and smoking. We see them light their claystone pipes, and send forth clouds of blue vapour. We see them gesticulate as they relate their red adventures to one another. We hear them shout, and chatter, and laugh like mountebanks. How ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... flushed with pleasure, and she began making a weird noise for joy. Having seized the gingerbread she began to gesticulate still more rapidly, frequently pointing in one direction and passing her thick finger over her eyebrows and her face. Lukashka understood her and kept nodding, while he smiled slightly. She was telling him to give the girls dainties, and that the girls liked him, and ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... to vent itself in action, Iorson appeared bearing a third helping of turkey. Placing it before the irate lady, he fled as though determined to debar a third repudiation. For a moment an air of triumph pervaded Madame's features. Then she began to gesticulate violently, with the evident intention of again attracting Iorson's notice. But the forbearance even of the diplomatic Iorson was at an end. Re-doubling his attentions to the diners at the farther side of the room, he remained ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... her head aloft, and her cloak trailing behind her, for, in her excitement, she had flung it away from one shoulder, that she might gesticulate with ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... circumstances and her own purposes to these, she will find it easy to secure and hold the child's attention. Without this penetration and skill, all else is unavailing. She may sing and cajole herself into hoarseness, she may smile and gesticulate herself into a mild sort of tarantism, or freeze herself at one end of the table into a statue of Suppressed Reproach,—if the instruction or dictation has no natural connection with the purposes of the children, these will remain uninterested ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the flush of a black, bilious anger mounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an inarticulate cry, leapt upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing the stone floor. At first he kept his hands behind his back in a tight knot; then he began to gesticulate as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you, therefore, plainly: do your utmost to obey my commands; for if you stick to your own fancies, you will run your head against a wall." While he was uttering these words, his lords in waiting hung upon the King's lips, seeing him shake his head, frown, and gesticulate, now with one hand and now with the other. The whole company of attendants, therefore, quaked with fear for me; but I stood firm, and let no breath of ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... persons fidget, they do not sit squarely or firmly at table, their chairs are crooked, they play or gesticulate with their knives and forks, or they beat dismal tattoos with them against their plates. These same timid minds find vent for inspiration in the crumbs of the bread, of which they involuntarily make little figures or small ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... Aleut were first to discover this, and he began to shout and gesticulate as several pairs of glasses were turned upon it. Old Captain Stephens broke out in a string of nautical ejaculations, which need not be printed in full. "Look at that!" he cried. "Talk about sailors! See ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... quite dark by this time, and Rochas continued to gesticulate and brandish his long arms in the obscurity. His historical studies had been confined to a stray volume of Napoleonic memoirs that had found its way to his knapsack from a peddler's wagon. His excitement refused to be pacified and all his book-learning burst from ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... read, rather than see them. Or he may be peculiarly dependent on motor activity, preferring to write his spelling lesson, rather than to see the words only or to spell them orally; such a person will need to gesticulate freely, to imitate movements and act out scenes, rather than see or hear only verbal descriptions. Some persons are naturally regular and systematic in their work, following a definite program each day and arranging ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... these to stand far off for a time, to shout and gesticulate joyously. One man even delivered himself of a long story. The camel-corps did not fire. They were only too glad of a little breathing-space, until some sort of square could be formed. The men on the sand-bank ran to their side; and the whale-boats, as they toiled ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... most English-speaking people. One reason for this habit of gesture is that her hands have been so long her instruments of communication that they have taken to themselves the quick shiftings of the eye, and express some of the things that we say in a glance. All deaf people naturally gesticulate. Indeed, at one time it was believed that the best way for them to communicate was through systematized gestures, the sign language invented ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Mildred Mant, linked to Mrs. Jack Hale, of the collateral branch of the family, was saying things about her father in his capacity of host and entertainer, that were making her companion feel like another woman. Farther on, stopping occasionally to gesticulate, could be seen other Emsworth relations and connections. It was a typical scene of quiet, peaceful ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Their masks and their costume must have been copied from these carnival scenes. We see their strongly-featured masks; their attitudes, pliant as those of a posture-master; the drollery of their figures; while the grotesque creatures seem to leap, and dance, and gesticulate, and move about so fantastically under his sharp graver, that they form as individualised a race as our fairies and witches; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... he doesn't know very well how to gesticulate," observed Capitan Basilio. "But there's time yet! He hasn't studied Cicero and he's ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... doorsill to gesticulate while he argued those points and others which Johnny thought of later. It was a beautiful flying machine. By every object impressive enough to make oath upon, Tomaso's brother swore that it was as he said. Look! Not one peso would ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... simple enough, and dawned upon me the moment I saw how matters stood. During the dispute between the helmsman and the deputation, the former had renounced his wheel to gesticulate, and I, thinking no harm, had amused myself, during a rather tedious debate, by revolving the thing this way and that, and had unconsciously put the ship about. By a coincidence not unusual in low latitudes, the wind had effected a corresponding transposition at the same time, ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... that they would serve me as guides if I felt at all doubtful of the trail, and in one or two instances they proved to be of decided help. They could gesticulate, if they could not speak English, and when I tried them with the one word Placide they would nod and point out which of the many side canyons I was to follow. But they always looked up as they did so, up, up, till I took to looking up, too, and ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... and lightning school of music; he neither conducts himself, nor his band, with the least grace or eclat. He does not spread out both arms like a goose that wants to fly, while hushing down a diminuendo; nor gesticulate like a madman during the fortes; in short, he only gives out the time in passages where the players threaten unsteadiness; and as that is very seldom, those amateurs who pay their money only for the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... person.—Oh, look! the little one and the proprietor are having it now.—You are in the way of becoming a most unbearable person. Presently many of your friends will not be fine enough.—In heaven's name, why don't they throw him out? Are you going to howl and gesticulate ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... Tying his feet together with plant-fibres we slung the body over a heavy pole and carried it to the maloca. All the way the two fellows disputed as to who was the owner of the hog, and from time to time they put the carcass on the ground to gesticulate and argue. I thought they would come to blows. When they appealed to me I declared that the arrows had sped so rapidly that my eyes could not follow them and therefore could not tell which arrow ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... the ivy-grown end of the stables, appeared Peter Ivanovitch and his companion. They walked very slowly, conversing with some animation. They stopped for a moment, and Peter Ivanovitch was seen to gesticulate, while the young man listened motionless, with his arms hanging down and his head bowed a little. He was dressed in a dark brown suit and a black hat. The round eyes of the dame de compagnie remained fixed on the two figures, which ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... in chairs around the bare little room were several men, squatter friends of the neighborhood. Near the stove stood Ma Brewer, white-faced and anxious. As soon as she recognized the girl, she began to weep and gesticulate hysterically. Tess went to ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... gestures and motions. Of course the people began to smile when they saw this, and the minister, thinking that they were behaving very improperly, rebuked them for their inattention, and preached away more earnestly than before. The Orang-outang, of course, followed his example, and commenced to gesticulate so earnestly and powerfully that the congregation burst into laughter, and ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... was as enthusiastic as his Anglo-Saxon standard would permit. He could not gesticulate, but he laughed in the nervous crackling way which ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and handsome personage. A face that had still a healthy natural pinkness looked out from under blond curls, and an elegant and carefully tended hand tossed back some fine old lace to gesticulate more freely. She had previously charmed her hearers by sweeping aside certain rumours that ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... those that he heard he did not like. They were very lively in the delivery of their sermons, they would run to and fro in their pulpit, bend far over toward the audience, utter violent cries, change their voice suddenly, and gesticulate like madmen. ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... drained her cup. Hsiang-yuen, Pao-ch'ai and Tai-y ue then had their drink. But about this time old goody Liu caught the strains of music, and, being already under the influence of liquor, her spirits became more and more exuberant, and she began to gesticulate and skip about. Her pranks amused Pao-yue to such a degree that leaving the table, he crossed over to where Tai-yue was seated and observed laughingly: "Just you look at the way old goody Liu is ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... as we arrived in Paris, dear Lady Elgin had another 'stroke,' and was all but gone. She rallied, however, with her wonderful vitality, and we left her sitting in her garden, fixed to the chair, of course, and not able to speak a word, nor even to gesticulate distinctly, but with the eloquent soul full and radiant, alive to both worlds. Robert and I sate there, talking politics and on other subjects, and there she sate and let no word drop unanswered by her bright eyes and smile. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... on and on till he was about fifty yards from where his brother stood, and in full view of the Emir and his men, when in obedience to a light check the horse stopped short, falling back almost upon its haunches, and as all gazed wonderingly across at where the rider sat they saw him gesticulate angrily at the waiting slave, as ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... also he scattered pamphlets, said to be seditious, because they attacked the hierarchy. The star chamber, which was sitting at that very time, ordered him immediately to be gagged. He ceased not, however, though both gagged and pilloried, to stamp with his foot and gesticulate, in order to show the people that, if he had it in his power, he would still harangue them. This behavior gave fresh provocation to the star chamber; and they condemned him to be imprisoned in a dungeon, and to be loaded with irons.[*] It was found ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... its "juste prix," which is just what it will fetch per ell; specimens of it in button-holes being as frequent as poppies amidst the corn. Pretending to hide themselves from remark, which they intend but to provoke, here public characters do private theatricals a little a l'ecart. Actors gesticulate as they rehearse their parts ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... poetry by heart, there is no power on earth to prevent her from making her de'but, somewhere, as Juliet—if she be so inclined; and such is usually her inclination. That her voice is untrained, that she cannot scan blank-verse, that she cannot gesticulate with grace and propriety, nor move with propriety and grace across the stage, matters not a little bit—to our young lady. 'Feeling,' she will say, 'is everything'; and, of course, she, at the age of eighteen, has more feeling than Juliet, that 'flapper,' ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... characters esprit at every point, poets ought to place them in such situations as will give it to them. Where in the world did men and women ever speak as we declaim? Why should princes and kings walk differently from any man who walks well? Did they then gesticulate like raving madmen? Do princesses when ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... had recovered something of his fury, damped to a certain extent by French's calm and cheerful demeanour, began to gesticulate with his stake. French turned his back upon him and proceeded to ascertain the extent of the wreck, and to advise a plan for its repair. As he stooped to examine the wagon for breakages, the wrathful Galician suddenly swung his club in the air, but before the blow fell, Kalman shrieked ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... horses stopped, looked, and began to hurry about, began to lead up their horses, to gesticulate. Then, far off upon the other side, ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... cab-driver, of both of whom he took leave when the train was about to start. It had scarcely done so, when, on putting his hand to his pocket, he called out that he had been robbed of his purse, containing 17 pounds, and at once began to shout and gesticulate in a manner which greatly alarmed his fellow-travellers, four in number, in the same compartment. He continued to roar and swear with increasing violence for some time, and then made an attempt to ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... understood, provided the object had been seen and was familiar; and in all cases the endeavor was to have the sign convey as strong a suggestion of the meaning of the word as was possible. The final step was to gesticulate these signs, thus associated with words, in the exact order in which the words were to stand in a sentence. Then the pupil would write the very words desired in the exact order desired. If the previous ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... Nativity, by Correggio, in the Tribune, where the mother is kneeling before the Child, and adoring it in an awful rapture, because she sees the eternal God in its baby face and figure. The Englishman was highly delighted with this picture, and began to gesticulate, as if dandling a baby, and to make a chirruping sound. It was to him merely a representation of a mother fondling her infant. He then said, "If I could have my choice of the pictures and statues in the Tribune, I would ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... vociferate and gesticulate violently; but seeing, as he had often seen before, that his young friend did not appear to be much enlightened, he seized her by the arm, and, as a more summary and practical way of explaining himself, dragged her towards the door ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... carefully, more scrupulously, more in private. The honourable sheriff again joins the party. He orders that every accommodation be afforded the gentlemen in their examinations of the property. Men, women, and children-sorrowing property-are made to stand erect; to gesticulate their arms; to expand their chests, to jump about like jackals, and to perform sundry antics pleasing to the gentlemen lookers-on. This is all very free, very democratic, very gentlemanly in the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... she must be dreaming. What should a white man and a waggon be doing in that place? And why had not the Matabele killed him at once? She could not tell, yet they appeared to have no murderous intentions, since they continued to gesticulate and talk whilst he stared upwards with the telescope, if it were a telescope. So things went on for a long time, for meanwhile the oxen were outspanned, until, indeed, more Matabele arrived, who led off the white man, apparently against his will, towards ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... none of them attempted to shoot at him while he presented such a splendid target. Finally one of our men, who did not want to be second in bravery, jumped out of the trench and presented himself in the full sunlight. Not one attempt was made to shoot at him either, and these two men began to gesticulate at each other, inviting each other to come nearer. All fighting had suddenly ceased, and both opposing parties were looking on, laughing like boys at play. Finally the Russian would draw a step nearer, ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... closed, and they are once more in confinement. To assist them in their deliberations a crowd of the well-disposed entered pell-mell along with them. To watch them and hurry on the matter, the sans-culottes, with fixed bayonets, gesticulate and threaten them from the galleries. Outside and inside, necessity, with its iron hand, has seized them and holds them fast. There is a dead silence. Couthon, a paralytic, tries to stand up; his friends carry him in their arms to the tribune; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... wistful man at Sally's side, removing an elbow from her ribs in order the better to gesticulate. Sally, though no French scholar, gathered that he was startled and gratified. The entire crowd seemed to be startled and gratified. There is undoubtedly a certain altruism in the make-up of the spectators at a Continental roulette-table. ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... eyebrows all seemed to gesticulate at once as madame la concierge made answer. "But he has been gone from here two—no, three months. Perhaps madame did ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... something very like a panic took possession of all hands, and everybody began to shout and gesticulate to the utmost of his ability without reference to the efforts of the rest. At length, however, Woodford and I managed between us to secure silence; upon which we directed that, whilst as many as could do so should stand up and wave jackets, shirts, or any other article most ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... couple of cavalieri erranti like Guido Santo and Argantino on their travels. But I do not think it will quite do for me to be a Sicilian. I cannot talk dialect and I cannot gesticulate. And then, am I ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... whose whole thought is to string words according to a set formula. The substance itself that he wishes to convey is of secondary importance. Orators who keep their thoughts upon the proper way to gesticulate in ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... priests behind the Idol are only too clearly distinguishable. We hear the academic voice, the showman's voice, and the voice of the ethical preacher. They are all absurd, but their different absurdities have managed to flow together into one powerful and unified convention. Our popular orators gesticulate and clamour; our professors "talk Greek;" our ethical Brutuses "explain;" and the mob "throw up their sweaty night-caps;" while our poor Caesar of Poetry sinks down out of sight, helpless ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... deck, when she suddenly dropped her apple-pie and jumped upon the railing. Through the foam of the churned brine her keen eye had espied a shoal of porpoises, and, clinging to the railing with her hind hands, she continued to gesticulate and chatter as long as our gambolling fellow-travellers remained ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... connected with it—theories which, it seems, for some make it more intelligible—I was giving his sensibility a serviceable jog. Everyone, I know, must see with his own eyes and feel through his own nerves; none can lend another eyes or emotions: nevertheless, one can point and gesticulate and in so doing excite. If I have done that I am content. Twenty years hence, it is to be presumed, those who now read my writings will be saying of them what I was saying of M. Mauclair's. The prospect does not distress me. I am not author enough to be pained by the certainty ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... honest fellow means well enough. He is saying to himself, "God bless my girls and their mother!" but, being a Briton, is too manly to speak out in a more intelligible way. Perhaps it is as well for him to be quiet, and not chatter and gesticulate like those Frenchmen a few yards from him, who are chirping ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and approach her. With the agility of a cat Zu-tag leaped completely over the protecting wall and stood before her. Valiantly she held her spear before her, pointing it at his breast. He commenced to jabber and gesticulate, and even with her scant acquaintance with the ways of the anthropoids, she realized that he was not menacing her, for there was little or no baring of fighting fangs and his whole expression and attitude was of one attempting to explain a knotty problem or plead a worthy cause. ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the very heart of the group. It was quite evident that his opening sentences were listened to impassively. Then, all at once, the natives began to gesticulate furiously and to shake their heads. Whereupon Britt pounded the palm of his left hand with an emphatic right fist, occasionally pointing over his shoulder with a stubborn thumb. At last, the argument dwindled down to a force of two—Britt and a tall, sallow Mohammedan. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... to do the same while in the pillory. As he passed along, too, he distributed copies of the pamphlets which he was prosecuted for writing. The Star Chamber, hearing that he was haranguing the mob, ordered him to be gagged. This did not subdue him. He began to stamp with his foot and gesticulate; thus continuing to express his indomitable spirit of hostility to the tyranny which he opposed. This single case would be of no great consequence alone, but it was not alone. The attempt to put Lilburne down was a symbol of the experiment of coercion which Charles in the ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... spot, score, dash, trace, chalk; print; imprint, impress; engrave, stereotype. make a sign &c n.. signalize; underscore; give a signal, hang out a signal; beckon; nod; wink, glance, leer, nudge, shrug, tip the wink; gesticulate; raise the finger, hold up the finger, raise the hand, hold up the hand; saw the air, suit the action to the word [Hamlet]. wave a banner, unfurl a banner, hoist a banner, hang out a banner &c n.; wave the hand, wave a kerchief; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to us a remarkable criticism of Buonaparte's on Talma's acting: "You don't play Nero well; you gesticulate too much; you speak with too much vehemence. A despot does not need all that; he need only pronounce. Il sait qu'il se suffit." "And," added Talma, who told this to Sir Humphry, "Buonaparte, as he said this, folded his arms in his well-known manner, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... banished from the portrait. It is interesting to compare him with Ralph Roister Doister. Nevertheless if we project Sir Tophas upon the stage, and by our imagination dress him and make him strut and gesticulate after such a fashion as the text seems to indicate, we shall probably discover ourselves smiling over puns and remarks which, on casual perusal, we might pronounce flavourless imbecilities. Indeed, ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and, placing his back to the fireplace, took up an imposing position, one hand buried in his waistcoat, and the other ready to gesticulate as occasion required. ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... he was half-way down, he caught sight of the two men coming in his direction rapidly; and as soon as they caught sight of him, they began to gesticulate, beckoning, waving their caps, and generally indicating that he was ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... of any consequence who entered was named by Massot to his companions. Mege, on being stopped by another member of the little Socialist group, began to fume and gesticulate. Then Vignon, detaching himself from a group of friends and putting on an air of smiling composure, descended the steps towards his seat. The occupants of the galleries, however, gave most attention to the accused members, those whose names figured in Sagnier's ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... is nevertheless one of the most perfect of the sanctuaries of ancient Egypt. The sands, those gentle sextons, have here succeeded miraculously in their work of preservation. They might have been carved yesterday, these innumerable people, who, everywhere—on the walls, on this forest of columns—gesticulate and, with their arms and long hands, continue with animation their eternal mute conversation. The whole temple, with the openings which give it light, is more beautiful perhaps than in the time of the Pharaohs. In place of the old-time darkness, a transparent gloom ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... I, 'I always did admire telegraphy; but astronomy was what I had took up just then.' That capitalist sure knew how to gesticulate with his hands. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... understand my murderous threats. He merely squatted down upon his heels on the snow, puffed his cheeks out with smoke, and stared at me in stupid amazement, as if I were some singular species of wild animal, which exhibited a strange propensity to jabber and gesticulate in the most ridiculous manner without any apparent cause. Then, whenever he wanted to ice his sledge-runners, which was as often as three times an hour, he coolly capsized the pavoska, propped it up with his spiked ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... wave farewells to their friends on the wharf were some who recognised Colonel Demarion, and drew the captain's attention toward him; and as he continued vehemently to gesticulate, that officer, from his post of observation, demanded the nature of the business which should require the ship's detention. Already the steamer was clear of the wharf. In another minute she might be beyond reach of the voice; therefore, failing by gestures and entreaties ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... just beyond the village, evidently in expectation of his arrival; but he wondered why the foolish people waited there, instead of hastening to meet him. They had caught sight of him, for he saw them gesticulate, and it seemed to him that they pointed toward the houses, as if to draw his attention to something. So he looked, and his eyes caught the gleam of a large yellow object, set up as if it were a shrine, ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase
... said aside, to me and Mrs Darcy. "He. is a young man of parts, and his travels have made him very conversible. Our servants find his Indian attendant, Tippoo, an endless source of surprise. He cannot speak a word of English, and to see him roll his black eyes and gesticulate causes laughter which penetrates even to our end of ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... when the champagne and the bright eyes had gone to his head, he would often be the wildest of all; he would sing loudly with his harsh voice, laugh and gesticulate so that his stiff black hair fell over his forehead; and then the merry ladies shrank from him, and called ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... shoulders and made play with his clawlike hands, as if he understood me not. It was a lie, for I knew that he and the English tongue were sufficiently acquainted. I told him as much, and he shot at me a most venomous glance, but continued to shrug, gesticulate, and jabber in Italian. At last I saw nothing better to do than to take him, still by the collar, to the edge of the garden next the churchyard, and with the toe of my boot to send him tumbling among the graves. I watched him pick himself up, set ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... every key; the arcades echo afar with the triumphal marches of military bands; the sellers of sherbet and water-melons sing out their deafening flourish from throats of copper. People form into groups; they meet, question, gesticulate; there are gleaming looks, eloquent gestures, picturesque attitudes; there is a general animation, an unknown charm, an indefinable intoxication. Earth is very near to heaven, and it is easy to understand that, if God were to banish death from ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a group of labouring, half-submerged trees remained ahead of us, drawing very slowly nearer. I steered a course to avoid them. They seemed to gesticulate a frantic despair against the black steam clouds behind. Once a great branch detached itself and tore shuddering by me. We did, on the whole, make headway. The last I saw of Vreugde bij Vrede before the night swallowed it, was almost dead ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... asks, "that every semi-delirious sectary, who pours forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look and voice of passion, should gesticulate away the congregation of the most profound and learned divine of the Established Church, and in two Sundays preach him bare to the very sexton? Why are we natural everywhere but in the pulpit? No ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... could not hear him, so he disappeared; then half a dozen got up and were so impatient that they began speaking altogether before they reached the Tribune. In vain did the President ring his bell, and stand up and gesticulate. Silence, however, was at length obtained, and he addressed them, but with little better success than the rest. One man then stept forward and did obtain a hearing, for he had good lungs and a fair ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... with more facility, small wires, fixed to their movable parts, are bent backward and made to terminate in rings, through which the fingers of the hand are put, while the figure is supported on the left by means of another iron wire. In this manner they may be made to advance or recede and to gesticulate, without the spectators observing the mechanism by which they are moved; and as the shadow of these figures is not observed on the paintings till they are opposite those parts which are not strongly shaded, they may thus be concealed and made to appear at the proper moments, ...
— Entertainments for Home, Church and School • Frederica Seeger
... Italy, in order to see a far bigger and more precipitate and disastrous retreat than Caporetto, and next time in the other direction. All this I not only said, but firmly believed (and it all came true within a year). At first he was very despondent, but he warmed up as I proceeded, and began to gesticulate again and regain animation and compliment me on my Italian. And then the current also was restored, and the tram moved on, and we came to Nervi, where I dined well and slept at the Albergo Cristoforo Colombo. I am not in general an admirer of palm trees, but they are sometimes impressive ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... in nasal expression and muffled words, spoken through half-closed teeth. We were not meant to speak in that unbeautiful manner, nor were we meant to gesticulate wildly as some of our drawing-room orators persist in doing-to the amusement of everyone else concerned. When you enter the world of good society, drop all your ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... man began to cut themselves with steel and knives, and one set fire to his jibbeh and began to chew the flames. Yet the faces of all three were turned towards the little man, who did no more than shriek and gesticulate and sway his body wildly up and down. He was tanned and ragged and bearded and thin, and there was a weird brilliance in his eyes, which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gesticulate with imploring mien, and perhaps also recognising the officer who accompanied him, his Highness ordered his ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... lifting up her head from "Fasquelle," "and—oh, dear me!" and flinging down the pile of books in her lap on a chair, she rushed across the room and flew up to the cage and began to wildly gesticulate and explain and shower down on him every endearing name she ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... other leading men to restrain the more impetuous were of little avail. When at the sittings a delegate arose to speak on some question, he was often violently pulled to his seat and then surrounded by a mob of his colleagues, who would throw off their coats and gesticulate wildly, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of the booths a man stretched on a table, flat on his back, is alone on the stage; puppets of almost human size, with horribly grinning masks, spring out of his body; they speak, gesticulate, then fall back like empty rags; with a sudden spring, they start up again, change their costumes, change their faces, tearing about in one continual frenzy. Suddenly three, even four appear at the same time; they are nothing more ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... country, and rides bareback and goes fishing and swimming in any stream or pool, and ranges the woods and cannot be restrained; but also she will indulge in the wildest pranks, the most unthinkable freaks, play rough practical jokes on anybody and everybody, laugh out loud, shout and yell, gesticulate and contort herself into undignified postures and act generally in an uproarious and uncurbed fashion. She keeps up that sort of thing even in town, and is boisterous and unexpected beyond anything ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... people turn out en masse and indulge in uproarious demonstrations at the advent of the Ferenghi and the bicycle. These people seem as incapable of controlling their emotions and their voices as so many wild animals; they shout and gesticulate excitedly, and run about like people bereft of their senses. The uncivilization crops out of these obscure Harood villagers far plainer than it does in the tents of the wandering tribes. They are noisier and more boisterous than the nomads, who, as a matter ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... on the thing that was to take him far that night, and bring about many curious things. Not far ahead of him two men were talking. They went slowly, arm in arm. One was talking loquaciously, using his free arm, on which hung a cane, to gesticulate. The other ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... himself invested with certain occult powers. His civility savours of government patronage; and his frown is inquisitorial. To his fellows, his address is abrupt and diplomatic. He seems to speak in cipher, and to gesticulate by some rule of freemasonry. But to the uninitiated he is explanatory to a scruple, as though mischief might ensue from his being misapprehended. He makes sure of your understanding by an emphasis, which reminds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 273, September 15, 1827 • Various
... again, for the world, and as to giving chase in boots (highlows) four sizes too big, and without strings, that would have been as absurd as to employ a donkey to catch a horse. Mahomet could do nothing but rush frantically to the very edge of the cliff, and scream and gesticulate to a crowd of Arab women who had passed the day beneath the shady trees by the Faky's grave, watching our passage of the Atbara. Beating his own head and tearing his hair were always the safety valves of Mahomet's rage, but as hair is not of that mushroom growth that reappears ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... of small boats, headed by the armed tender of the port-captain, puts out from the quay and swarms around the steamer. Some of the boats contain citizens who are expecting the arrival of friends, and in others are hucksters, who jabber and gesticulate in frantic recommendation of their fruits and small wares. Immediately in front is the custom-house with its colonnade of white pillars, resembling a cloister. To the left Lopez's palace rears its shattered tower, and on the right hand ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... at ninety?" or they laughed, and Carlino exclaimed: "What are you laughing at? Hush!" or stopped to gaze at an ancient church, its gables, and pinnacles looming weird in the moonlight, the cemetery nestling close by; Carlino, again interrupting, would beg them to talk, converse, gesticulate. "Don't stare into space," said he. A mutiny broke out in the vanguard, Noemi being the more petulant. She turned on the Dyver, and stamping her foot, protested that she would go home if this most tiresome novelist in a muffler did not cease ordering ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... case of a man of neurotic heredity and antecedents, in whom it occasionally happened that sexual excitement, instead of culminating in the normal orgasm, attained its climax in a fit of uncontrollable muscular excitement. He would then sing, dance, gesticulate, roughly treat his partner, break the objects around him, and finally sink down exhausted and stupefied. (Fere, L'Instinct Sexuel, Chapter X.) In such a case a diffused and general detumescence has taken the place of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lower end of a very large reach of water, and on the opposite side were numbers of native wurleys. I crossed at a neck of sand, and at a little distance again came on the track of a camel going up the creek; at the same time I found a native, who began to gesticulate in a very excited manner, and to point down the creek, bawling out, "Gow, gow!" as loud as he could. When I went towards him he ran away, and finding it impossible to get him to come to me, I turned back to follow a camel track, and ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... barn-stormer would have risen to the occasion without so much as the blinking of an eye. He would have been able to smile and gesticulate in a manner that would have deceived the most acute observer, while he—ah, he was almost certain to flounder and make a mess of the situation. He did his best, however, and, despite his eagerness, managed to come off ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... much the Art—or I may almost call it instinct—of Sight Recognition is developed by the habitual practice of it and by the avoidance of the custom of "Feeling". Just as, with you, the deaf and dumb, if once allowed to gesticulate and to use the hand-alphabet, will never acquire the more difficult but far more valuable art of lipspeech and lip-reading, so it is with us as regards "Seeing" and "Feeling". None who in early life resort to "Feeling" will ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... he could see a big yellow hand moving backwards and forwards. He went close up to it, and then he saw that it was a yellow leaf, which seemed to gesticulate with its fingers, although nobody could possibly understand what it wanted ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... moment, the better to gesticulate a frantic reverence to the ladies, now on the opposite slope, who were waving hands ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... the keepers, or me, I could not tell; but I thought that his grievances were against the large birds. Whenever I climbed over the guard rail and stooped down, he would come close up to the wire, stand in one spot, and in a quiet, confidential tone talk to me earnestly and gesticulate with his head for five minutes straight. I have heard senile old men run on in low-voiced, unintelligible clack in precisely the same way. The modulations of that bird's voice, its inflections and its vocabulary were wonderful. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... Galaxy, galleon, garrulity, gesticulate, gormand, granivorous, grandiloquent, gravamen, gratuitous, gregarious, habitue, hallucination, harbinger, hardihood, heckle, hectic, hedonist, hegemony, heinous, herbivorous, heretic, hermaphrodite, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... the trading indifferent. A gong sounded the call to trading at ten o'clock, and if there was a noticeable rise or decline in a stock or a group of stocks, you were apt to witness quite a spirited scene. Fifty to a hundred men would shout, gesticulate, shove here and there in an apparently aimless manner; endeavoring to take advantage of the ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... here, you deprive the universe of all human knowledge, which I have appropriated to myself by assimilation," said the madman, becoming animated by degrees, and commencing to gesticulate with great violence. ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... hint of the language they used, especially the elder of the three whose hollow face was blackened by time and exposure. The two golden-brown girls were so heavily intoxicated they could but stagger to and fro and mouth and gesticulate, and one held a quart from which, as she moved, she spilled ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... more pronounced still, if we find on the stage not merely two characters, as in the example from Pascal, but several, nay, as great a number as possible, the image of one another, who come and go, dance and gesticulate together, simultaneously striking the same attitudes and tossing their arms about in the same manner. This time, we distinctly think of marionettes. Invisible threads seem to us to be joining arms to ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... drunk in advance, began to cry out, to gesticulate, and, taking each other by the hand, formed an immense circle ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... The Dago paused to answer in the act of helping himself. "Ah, mooch, mooch better, yais. I tell you." He began to gesticulate as he talked, trying to make these callous, careless men see with him the images that his words ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Aunt Esther All, the gossip, and was now so strangely agitated that I stopped in sheer amazement. That the child should be abject and agonized before the grim, cynical tattler of Whisper Cove! That she should gesticulate in a way so passionate! That she should fling her arms wide, that she should cover her face with her hands, that she should in some grievous disturbance beat upon her heart! I could not make it out. 'Twas a queer way, thinks ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... his auditor, he would gesticulate fiercely, and declare that he would not stand it any longer. "Daisy McPherson," he would say, addressing himself to the chair, "I tell you what it is. I am ashamed of myself, and of you, too, and I am going to stop it, and take you home, and be master of my own house, and if we cannot live on ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... in Malay, and the woman nodded and began to gesticulate again, in company with a fresh ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... or two they discussed it calmly enough; then as the proprietor began to gesticulate and wax vehement, Rebener spoke over his shoulder ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... warmed up to his old weird manner, as he spoke these words. He did not gesticulate, neither did he elevate his voice, but the light of the camp-fire flickering upon his face revealed an expression of earnestness and conscious strength. Advancing a step or two towards the officer he ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance |
