"Gesticulation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you shall be an aristocratic Sicilian, they are often quite well dressed. And as for the dialect and the gesticulation, it is now the fashion among the upper classes to speak Tuscan and not to gesticulate. It is considered more—I cannot remember the word, I saw it in the Giornale di Sicilia, it ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... unless we go in together," Milton said with emphatic gesticulation. Milton was a natural politician. His words found quick response in the erratic Hobkirk, who had good ideas but whose temperament made all his words jagged shot. He irritated where ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... made up her mind that wherever he was, even were it behind the sentinels and bars of the guard-house, she would demand that she be taken to his side. He had handed out a chair, but she would not sit. They saw her looking up into his face as he talked, and noted the eager gesticulation, so characteristic of his Creole blood, that seemed to accompany his rapid words. They saw her bending towards him, looking eagerly up in his eyes, and occasionally casting indignant glances over towards the group at the office, as though she would annihilate with her wrath the persecutors of her ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a good deal of vanity and gesticulation in all this, but it is the vanity and gesticulation of a man of genius. As we cannot have the genius of Mr. Yeats without the gestures, we may as well take the gestures in ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... was uttered with rapid gesticulation such as the French use, and in the language of that nation. The Prince striding up and down the room; his face flushed, and his hands trembling with anger. He was very thin and frail from repeated illness ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... celebrated, between the great Carolinian Hayne and our own Webster was the feature of the entertainment. Behind the curtain sat Professor Khayme, prompter and general manager. A boy with mighty lungs and violent gesticulation recited an abridgment ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... them. Russian officers and high officials always expect you to tremble when they administer a rebuke. Needless to say, the reception was harsh. There was a good deal of long stride, prancing from one end of the room to the other, vehement talk in Russian, and wild gesticulation. The Maltese told the somewhat callous captains that the Admiral declared the next Englishman that attempted such a thing, if he were not blown up, would have to be shot. An example must be made. The genial intermediary interjected ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... were never for two consecutive hours of the same shade, but were more often blue than grey. People who envied her smile said that she cultivated a sense of humour in order to show her teeth. Perhaps they were right; but there was no doubt that her habit of talking with gesticulation would never have grown upon her unless she had known that her hands were not only beautiful but expressive. She dressed as skilfully as New York women do, but in growing older she began to show symptoms of dangerous unconventionality. She had been ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... stepped aside and held a long discussion about something, with considerable argument and gesticulation. Klarnood, observing Verkan Vall's impatience, leaned ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... peculiar attitudes, and the order and regularity with which these were kept, as they moved in a large semicircle, in the softening light of the fire, produced a striking effect; and in connection with the wild and inspiriting song, which gave an impulse to their gesticulation, led me almost to believe that the scene ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... interminable the sun is labouring, wan and weary, up the sky the clouds, dull and leaden, lie like a load upon the eye, and heaven and earth seem commingling into one confused mass! His human figures are sometimes 'o'erinformed' with this kind of feeling. Their actions have too much gesticulation, and the set expression of the features borders too much on the mechanical and caricatured style. In this respect they form a contrast to Raphael's, whose figures never appear to be sitting for their pictures, or to be conscious of a spectator, or to have come from the painter's ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... conventional style and deportment. No one but Andersen has ever dared to employ them. As Dr. Brandes has said in his charming essay on Andersen, no one has ever attempted, before him, to transfer the vivid mimicry and gesticulation which accompany a nursery tale to the printed page. If you tell a child about a horse, you don't say that it neighed, but you imitate the sound; and the child's laughter or fascinated attention compensates you for your loss of dignity. The more successfully ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... soul; and this by a quite intelligible transition. Gesture, of which the dance is merely a pervasive use, is an incipient action. It is conduct in the groping stage, before it has lit on its purpose, as can be seen unmistakably in all the gesticulation of love and defiance. In this way the dance is attached to life initially by its physiological origin. Being an incipient act, it naturally leads to its own completion and may arouse in others the beginnings of an appropriate response. Gesture is only less catching and less eloquent than action ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... alternative chants, such as afterwards went by the name of Fescennine songs, but also the elements of a popular comedy—which were in this instance planted in a soil admirably adapted for their growth, as an acute sense of the outward and the comic, and a delight in gesticulation and masquerade have ever been leading traits of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... another disguise (seizing the opportunity of showing his well-known versatility). I am the Doctor who is attending Madame LAROQUE! She is very ill! Believe me, Usher——(Makes a pathetic speech in a new voice with appropriate gesticulation, finishing with these words), and if he dies, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, January 25th, 1890 • Various
... showed a friendly disposition. In a short time we got near enough to ascertain without doubt that she was crowded with heathen warriors, who were indulging themselves in every conceivable variety of violent gesticulation. We had too much reason to believe that they would attack us. Our men loaded the firearms, but I hoped that we might avoid having to fight for our lives. Providentially the wind was light. Under sail the canoe could beat us hollow, but we could pull faster than she could. ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... remember it," replied the Frenchman, with a gesticulation, "if 'Amlet had put up at your inn and gone away ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... of Colonel Newcome, whose virtues he lauded outrageously, and whom he pronounced to be one of the best of mortal men. Sir Brian looked very much alarmed at the commencement of this speech, which the mate delivered with immense shrieks and gesticulation: but the Baronet recovered during the course of the rambling oration, and at its conclusion gracefully tapped the table with one of those patronising fingers; and lifting up a glass containing at least a thimbleful of claret, said, "My dear brother, I drink your health ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... simile one morning to Warrington, as the latter sate over his pipe and book, and Pen, with much gesticulation according to his wont when excited, and with a bitter laugh, thumped his manuscript down on the table, making the tea-things rattle, and, the blue milk dance in the jug. On the previous night he had taken ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with their tall hats, dress coats, and knotty shillelaghs, were the pink of propriety. Now and then a burst of wild excitement would attract the stranger, who would hurry up to see the coming homicide, but there was no manslaughter that I could see. A scene of frantic gesticulation near the Town Hall promised well, but contrary to expectation, there was no murder done. Two wild-eyed men, apparently breathing slaughter, suddenly desisted, reining in their fury and walking off amicably together. An Irish-speaking policeman explained ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... doubtless the best representative of the older school in either branch of Congress, gave a page of his diary to one of Douglas's early speeches. "His face was convulsed,"—so the merciless diary runs,—"his gesticulation frantic, and he lashed himself into such a heat that if his body had been made of combustible matter it would have burnt out. In the midst of his roaring, to save himself from choking, he stripped and cast away his cravat, ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... and then annihilate the point of it with a cutting cynicism and set the table in a roar of laughter. Among others who were seated here was a Mr. Trevor, of Cincinnati, one of the pioneers of Asquith. Mr. Trevor was a trifle bombastic, with a tendency towards gesticulation, an art which he had learned in no less a school than the Ohio State Senate. He was a self-made man,—a fact which he took good care should not escape one,—and had amassed his money, I believe, in the dry-goods business. He ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of forty dollars and a return ticket; but though I caught the words, I do not think I properly understood the sense until next morning; and I believe I replied at the time that I was very glad to hear it. What else he talked about I have no guess; I remember a gabbling sound of words, his profuse gesticulation, and his smile, which was highly explanatory: but no more. And I suppose I must have shown my confusion very plainly; for, first, I saw him knit his brows at me like one who has conceived a doubt; next, he tried me in German, supposing perhaps that ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sketchy suggestions of Mrs. Standish, the girl had prefigured Aunt Abby as a skittish female of three-score years and odd; a gabbling creature with a wealth of empty gesticulation and a parrot's vacant eye; semi-irresponsible, prone to bright colours and an overyouthful style ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... seen for years. Nature had endowed him with a good memory for names and faces, but he had learned to take advantage of all opportunities to brush up his wits before they were called into flattering, spontaneous action. When his glance, attracted by Mrs. Earle's remote gesticulation, rested on Selma's face, he began to ask himself at once where he had seen it before. In the interval vouchsafed by her approach he recalled the incident of the divorce, that her name had been Babcock, ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... History of Mankind, 44): "We cannot lay down as a rule that gesticulation decreases as civilization advances, and say, for instance, that a Southern Frenchman, because his talk is illustrated with gestures as a book with pictures, is less civilized than a German or Englishman." This is true, and yet it is almost ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... forsook the English tongue, and lapsed into a conglomeration of Polish and Yiddish made intelligible only through the plentiful interpretation of dramatic gesticulation. ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... fusillade of books, rulers and ink-wells shot at his learned head from every quarter of the room. Other professors appeared and sought to restore order. Riot followed—seats were torn up, windows broken, and there was much loud talk and gesticulation peculiarly Gallic. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upward with a gesticulation I did not understand. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... been delivering his pithy address, the officer in armour had also been haranguing his troops with much gesticulation and sword nourishing, which he had wound up with a command to charge, himself leading the attack upon the little band of English seamen wedged, so to speak, in the throat of the narrow street. At Bascomb's word to "Have at 'em" the half nearest the street faced ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the Christian faith to bless his ministry, in terms of disgusting and impious familiarity not to be described. He begins his oration in a drawling tone, and his hearers listen with silent attention. He grows warmer as he proceeds with his subject, and his gesticulation becomes proportionately violent. He clenches his fists, beats the book upon the desk before him, and swings his arms wildly about his head. The congregation murmur their acquiescence in his doctrines: and a short groan, occasionally bears testimony to the moving nature of his eloquence. ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... yet resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of itself to draw and hold each listener; while a certain extravagance of gesticulation—a fantastic movement of both form and feature—seemed very near akin to fascination. And so flowed ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... Now, when you address a foreigner in his own tongue, speak with much noise and vociferation, opening your mouth wide and using much action. The ideas you cannot convey in words, you must communicate by gesticulation, the more ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... from their waist-cloths rubies, sapphires, and emeralds for which they asked from one to four thousand rupees, and gratefully took fourpence, after a long run with the carriage, and much vociferation and gesticulation. After table-d'hote dinner at the hotel we went off to the yacht in a pilot boat; the buoys were all illuminated, and boats with four or five men in them, provided with torches, were in readiness to show us the right way out. By ten o'clock we were outside the harbour and ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... white eyelids. This was Brother Borromee, who had been for the last three weeks treasurer of the convent. The other was a young man about seventeen or eighteen, with piercing black eyes, a bold look, and whose turned-up sleeves displayed two strong arms quick in gesticulation. ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... higher the breeze died out, and perfect stillness reigned in the empty creek. A troop of long-nosed monkeys appeared, and crowding on the outer boughs, contemplated the boat and the motionless men in it with grave and sorrowful intensity, disturbed now and then by irrational outbreaks of mad gesticulation. A little bird with sapphire breast balanced a slender twig across a slanting beam of light, and flashed in it to and fro like a gem dropped from the sky. His minute round eye stared at the strange and tranquil creatures in the boat. After a ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... their feet. Thus did they go statelily, with his great black horse drawing them. It would have been equally pleasant to see him set down his charge at the door of Hans's house, and behold with wonder that merry mannikin, all smiles and gesticulation, come forth to receive them. The contrast between Hans and his brother-in-law was truly amusing. He, a shadow-like homunculus, so light and dry, that any wind threatened to blow him before it; the bergman, with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... beam fell upon them, illuminating him in a pitiless glare. Thorn waved his arms frantically. He had nothing with which to signal save his body. He flung his arms wide, and up, and wide again, in an improvised adaption of the telegraphic alphabet to gesticulation. He sent the watch call over and ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... round about, suddenly burst into roars of laughter. A monkey had got the boots, and sat pulling them on and off, making the most ridiculous gestures. The monkey busied himself, and the light-minded drunkard laughed; and at every fresh gesticulation of the new boot-wearer, the laugh grew louder and more tremendous, till at length it was found impossible to be restrained. The glutton had a laughing-fit. In vain he tried to stop himself; in vain his fingers would have loosened the buttons of his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... ill to-day, and presently unfolded to me a most distressing history of bodily afflictions. She was the mother of a very large family, and complained to me that, what with child-bearing and hard field labour, her back was almost broken in two. With an almost savage vehemence of gesticulation she suddenly tore up her scanty clothing, and exhibited a spectacle with which I was inconceivably shocked and sickened. The facts, without any of her corroborating statements, bore tolerable witness to the hardships ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of paper, or rather shouted its contents to the soldiery as they passed, while he flourished the paper above his head. Instantly the column was in an uproar. Caps were thrown into the air, voices grew hoarse with shouting; frantic gesticulation, tearful eyes and laughter, yells, inane antics, queer combinations of sacrilegious oaths and absurd embraces were everywhere to be seen ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... of young girls, all engaged in a perfect storm of conversation, of which we were of course the one only theme, whilst our recent guides were fully occupied in answering the innumerable questions which every one put to them. Nothing can exceed the fierce gesticulation of these people when animated in conversation, and on this occasion they gave loose to all their natural vivacity, shouting and dancing about in a manner that well nigh ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... questions in my life. He had been speaking smoothly, evenly, calmly, and without gesticulation. With the questions, his body was bent as though for a leap; his hands flung forward. These questions left him like bullets. It was as though that great hall had been in blackest darkness, and with a sudden movement the speaker had switched on ten thousand ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Mademoiselle Therese was enjoying herself thoroughly, recounting the adventure to her own household and to the widower and his sons whom she had called in to add to her audience. She described the whole scene most graphically and with much gesticulation, perhaps also with a ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... of Indians halted for nearly ten minutes, evidently in excited dispute, accompanying their talk with much gesticulation. I had time to notice that the details of dress were not like those of the Navajos with whom we had recently had a fight; but as the old hunter Cordova had pronounced them Navajos, I gave the matter little consideration. They did not seem ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... Her small, well-shod feet were marvellous to him; likewise her exquisite silken ankles. He observed that she walked with stiff, short, delicate steps, like a high-bred filly. He was enchanted with the slight, graceful gesticulation of her gloved hand. When he finally brought himself to look at her eyes he was not disappointed; deep blue were they, steady, benignant, and of a heart-disquieting wistfulness. Other items, by the way, were a little straight ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner
... general movement, as well as general clamour of voices and much gesticulation. All, old and young, with the exception of the girl, gather round the woman in the red cloak, and seem to be urging her to do something that she does not like to do. They point to the girl, and the appeal ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... soles of the tragic shoe, and by the length of the tragic mask, and the chest, body, legs, and arms were stuffed and padded to a corresponding size; the body thus lost much of its natural flexibility, and the gesticulation consisted of stiff, angular movements, in which little was left to the emotion or the inspiration of the moment. Masks, which had originated in the taste for mumming and disguises of all sorts, prevalent at the Bacchic festivals, were an indispensable accompaniment ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... from Siboney to the front was not known. There was no one in camp who even knew its general direction. Application was therefore made to Gen. Castillo, who was in command of a body of Cubans at Siboney, for a guide. After a great deal of gesticulation, much excited talk between the general and members of his staff, and numerous messengers had been dispatched hither and thither upon this important and very difficult business, a Cuban officer was sent with instructions to furnish a guide who could conduct the detachment to Gen. ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... story, told with much impressiveness, a fair amount of gesticulation, and one or two little profane expressions, which made the Recording Angel cough and look away to see how ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... carriages. Here they were wedged pretty tightly among native Italians, and tourists of various nations, including some voluble Swedes and a company of dapper Japanese gentlemen, who were seeing Europe. After much pushing, crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and officials, the train at last started and pursued its jolting and jerky way. It ran first through the poorer district of Naples, where dilapidated houses, whose faded walls showed traces of former gay pink, blue, or yellow ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Blue-Bell, after a momentary halt at the Customs Station, crept past the Castello a Mare, and amidst much gesticulation, accompanied by a torrent of volcanic Italian, she was tied up to a wharf in the Cala—the small inner harbour of ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... mounted skyward, climbing slowly, and the stout General tried to make his companion understand by much gesticulation that the blockhead was taking the ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... flame, and nevertheless feeling the cold very much, hold up their fore-paws, in a sitting or squatting position, in imitation of men, towards the fire, be they at ever so great a distance, and so screw up their imaginations to the belief that they are warming themselves. The language of gesticulation and signs, by the movement of different parts of the body, is quite a study in this part of the world. The most singular gesticulation, and yet the most significant, is that by which a person begs a thing. He holds the object in one hand (the left) before the owner, then gives ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... searching glance, as she stood over him, her body flung a little forward from the waist, her arms busy with their quick, angular gesticulation. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... the remainder of the night. In making an apology to her for his want of dexterity, and assuring her that he was not so awkward in handling the enemies of his country in battle as in handling friends he esteemed in a dance, he gave no quarter to an old maid aunt, whom, in the violence of his gesticulation, he knocked down with his elbow and laid sprawling on the ground. He was sober when ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... rejection of the whole notion of a world beyond our finite experience. One misunderstanding of pragmatism is to identify it with positivistic tough-mindedness, to suppose that it scorns every rationalistic notion as so much jabber and gesticulation, that it loves intellectual anarchy as such and prefers a sort of wolf-world absolutely unpent and wild and without a master or a collar to any philosophic class-room product, whatsoever. I have said so much ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... the time was exquisite, the music barbarous, but full of conscious art. I noted some devices constantly employed. A sudden change would be introduced (I think of key) with no break of the measure, but emphasised by a sudden heightening of the voice and a swinging, general gesticulation. The voices of the soloists would begin far apart in a rude discord, and gradually draw together to a unison; which, when they had reached, they were joined and drowned by the full chorus. The ordinary, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... French is the first necessity of life here. Unhappily, there is a patois in use among the creoles and other natives which is very confusing. It is made up of a strange jumble of Eastern languages, grafted on a debased kind of French, and gabbled with the rapidity of lightning and a great deal of gesticulation. At a ball you hear far more French than English spoken, and at a concert I attended lately not a single song was in English. Even in the Protestant churches there is a special service held in French ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... from any other lips,—a fine dramatic power, enough to have given him distinction as an actor, had that been the profession of his choice,—a striking dignity of presence, and an easy and appropriate gesticulation. But these, as well as his strong common sense, that balance-wheel of character, were brought into the service of his earnest convictions. What he had to say, he put into the simplest form; and if his love of art and beauty, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... conversation. Occasionally, one of the white-robed men would glance towards him. He strained his ears in vain. The gesticulation of two of the speakers became animated. He glanced from them to the passive faces of his attendants.... When he looked again Howard was extending his hands and moving his head like a man who protests. He was interrupted, it ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... as a gift of Bigot, and the deadly sudden effect which followed its joyous acceptance, the thoughts of Caroline in her white robe, stricken as by a thunderbolt, shook Angelique with terrible emotion. But when La Corriveau, coldly and with a bitter spite at her softness, described with a sudden gesticulation and eyes piercing her through and through, the strokes of the poniard upon the lifeless body of her victim, Angelique sprang up, clasped her hands together, and, with a cry of woe, fell senseless upon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... gesticulation Terence succeeded. The names of the officers were written down on a paper and it was ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... crawled out to the front, and could hear something of the shouting and talking of the Indians. He could understand few words only, though he had lived among the Cheyennes nearly five years. They can barely understand one another in the dark, and use incessant gesticulation to interpret their own speech; but the sergeant gathered that they were upbraiding somebody for not guarding a coulee, and inferred that some one had slipped past their pickets or they wouldn't be making such ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... departure, reached the street door, he stopped short, and retraced his steps. Entering the apartment for a second time, he discovered Mr Planner in his night clothes, standing before a looking glass, and repeating one of his own compositions in a voice of thunder, and with the most vehement gesticulation. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... recourse to his patience, and demanded to know what they could have for dinner; the garcon or waiter, thus questioned, vanished in a moment, and immediately they were surprised with the appearance of a strange figure, which, from the extravagance of its dress and gesticulation, Peregrine mistook for a madman of the growth of France. This phantom (which, by the bye, happened to be no other than the cook) was a tall, long-legged, meagre, swarthy fellow, that stooped very much; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... places of ceremony, where every one's countenance is so starched, where I have seen the ladies keep even their eyes so fixed, I could never order it so, that some part or other of me did not lash out; so that though I was seated, I was never settled; and as to gesticulation, I am never without a switch in my hand, walking or riding. As the philosopher Chrysippus' maid said of her master, that he was only drunk in his legs, for it was his custom to be always kicking them about in what place soever he sat; and she said it when, the wine having made all ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... profited by the discourses of Plato and Isocrates then in the height of their fame. He also was a great student of Thucydides, and copied his whole history, with his own hand, eight times. He still had to contend against a poor voice, and an ungraceful gesticulation; but by unwearied labor he overcame his natural difficulties so as to satisfy the most critical Athenian audience. But this conquest in self-education was only made by repeated trials and humiliations, and it is said he even spoke with pebbles in his mouth, and prepared himself to overcome ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... with a free gait like a man's. She was tolerably cheerful, her speech was loud, and from time to time she turned round to see if we followed, familiarly shouting and calling by name those of us she happened to know, accentuating her words by much gesticulation as she would have hailed a fishing boat on the Tiber. When we reached their house, the concierge, furious at seeing so noisy a crew at such an unearthly hour, tried to prevent our entry. The Italian and he had a fearful row on the staircase. We were all dotted about on the ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... place in which General Belch did business. It had the atmosphere of Law. But, above all, it was the spot where, with one leg swinging over the edge of the table and one hand waving in earnest gesticulation, General Belch could say to every body who came, and especially to his poorer fellow-citizens, "I ask no office; I am content with my moderate practice. It is enough for me, in this glorious country, to be ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... (memory) 505. [means of recognition: tool] diagnostic, divining rod; detector. sign, symbol; index, indice|, indicator; point, pointer; exponent, note, token, symptom; dollar sign, dollar mark. type, figure, emblem, cipher, device; representation &c. 554; epigraph, motto, posy. gesture, gesticulation; pantomime; wink, glance, leer; nod, shrug, beck; touch, nudge; dactylology[obs3], dactylonomy[obs3]; freemasonry, telegraphy, chirology[Med], byplay, dumb show; cue; hint &c. 527; clue, clew, key, scent. signal, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... him like a rippling sunlit stream; encircled him like a necklace of verbal jewels, a rosary, each word a pearl or a bead or whatever it is. With perfect articulation, enunciation and gesticulation Mr. Caput Magnus went on to inform his hearers that Mr. Higgleby was a bigamist of the deepest dye, that he had feloniously, wilfully and knowingly married two several females, and by every standard of conduct was utterly ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Sulu language is Sanscrit, mixed with Arabic. Each Friday is dedicated to public worship, and the faithful are called to the temple by the beating of a box or hollow piece of wood. All recite the Iman with a plaintive voice in honour of the Great Prophet; a slight gesticulation is then made whilst the Pandita reads a passage from the Mustah. I observed that no young women put in an appearance at the temple on the occasion of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... fluttering little figure before it, distressed her. How long were they going on putting an edge to their argument? There was continually with her the fear that it might sharpen into a quarrel; for now the goldsmith had ceased his gesticulation and became suddenly immobile, and still Harry was requiring of him the same thing. It was insisted upon, by all the lines of his stiff braced figure, and she had a fluttered expectancy that if the little man didn't do something ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... quality, the same vagueness of beauty expressing itself in purely emotional terms. Satan standing on the top of Mount Niphates, looking down on Eden spread out at his feet, and then with fierce gesticulation addressing himself to the sun at the zenith, is one of the dim solitary figures that dwell in the mind's eye. No less impressive and no less indefinite are those two monumental descriptions of the rebel leader; the first, of his going forth ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... was the last chorus, it was repeated three or four times, and with hallooing, screaming, and dancing in mad gesticulation. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... blue arch of heaven, with gestures and a countenance expressive of anxious exultation, while Varney, who remained within the darkened apartment, could (himself unnoticed), with a secret satisfaction, see his patron stretch his hands with earnest gesticulation ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... manner and style. J. Grant, in his Portraits of Public Characters, says: "At times he distorts his features as if suddenly seized by some paroxysm of pain ... he makes mouths; he has a harsh accent and graceless gesticulation." Leigh Hunt, in the Examiner, remarks on the lecturer's power of extemporising; but adds that he often touches only the mountain-tops of the subject, and that the impression left was as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberalised ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key, accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced, and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the little garden path again, and ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... accompanying the speech with his action. This I remarked more than once in a worthy old citizen, who was fearful of speaking himself, but when his neighbour spoke he accompanied every energetic sentence with a suitable gesticulation, by which means his whole body was sometimes ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... all talk together. Till far into the night the men tell endless stories, sometimes droning them out in a sort of monotonous chant, sometimes delivering them with a startling amount of emphasis and gesticulation. The boys and younger men add to the noise by marching round the houses, blowing horns and playing on flutes. There is but little rest to be obtained in an Indian settlement by night. These people sleep, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... fortified against impressions, weaned from all superstitious belief in dramatic illusions, taking so little interest in all that was interesting, disinclined to discompose their cravats or their muscles, "except when some gesticulation of Mr. Kean, or some expression of an author two hundred years old, violated the decorum of fashionable indifference." These were good reasons for his objection to the boxes. But he preferred the pit, in truth, because he could there see and hear so very much better. "We saw ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... its working. The evangelist starts in with the song "Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight," then follows the picture of mother, which is painted with sobs of blood. Then follows mother's death-bed scene until the audience is in tears. Gesticulation, mimicry, acting, sensationalism, slang and weepy stories follow, until the ferment of excitement is developed into a high state and droves flock to the altar to be made over on the instant into ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... came, and with it the savage army, hideous in war-paint, and plumed for battle. The woods rang back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulation they brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... on the other side. From there I could not hear Comrade Trotzky, but studied his movements and gesticulation, his manner of scratching his nose, of quickly turning his head in a derby, and the nervous shrugging of his shoulders. The mob applauded him after every phrase, making his speech a series of separate sentences and thus giving him the advantage of thinking of most ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... wish to the owner, one of the lowest class of villagers; he laughed at first good humouredly, but immediately afterwards seized the rake which was in my hand, and gave it a rude push towards me with a disdainful fling of the arm, accompanying this gesticulation by words, which seemed to imply a desire to give any thing upon condition of our going away. One man expressed the general wish for our departure, by holding up a piece of paper like a sail, and then blowing upon it in the direction of the wind, at the ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... exageration, (a ripple of laughter dances over the congregation), having a great meaning, however." * * * * "David gives us only his intense life." (The audience smile). (11:35). The preacher becoming dramatic in gesticulation and oratorical in delivery, walks back and forth upon the elevated platform. While describing the crosses which he saw yesterday, he becomes highly excited, swinging his arms above his head. "Crosses everywhere. All the way up ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... compiler. Very few of his sayings have ever found their way into print, and when thus presented they are of necessity shorn of much of their strength, and deprived of the impressiveness which they derive from the orator's gesticulation and delivery. We will, however, endeavor to present our readers with a few, selected at random, from discourses ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... succeed without great difficulty, since he had such power of retention, that once hearing an oration of an hour, he would repeat it exactly, and in the recital follow the speaker through all his variety of tone and gesticulation. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... of My Irish Journey, he enters, under date of July 16, 1849: "Near eleven o'clock [at night] announces himself 'Father O'Shea'! (who I thought had been dead); to my astonishment enter a little gray-haired, intelligent-and-bred-looking man, with much gesticulation, boundless loyal welcome, red with dinner and some wine, engages that we are to meet tomorrow,—and again with explosions of welcomes goes his way. This Father O'Shea, some fifteen years ago, had been, with Emerson of America, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... he barely induced to maintain silence. Roscius, seeing this, did not dare utter a word, but by a gesture of his raised hand urged them to choose two men, so that he might by so doing cut off a little of Pompey's supremacy. At this gesticulation of his the crowd gave a great threatening shout, whereat a crow flying above their heads was so startled that it fell as if smitten by lightning. After that Roscius kept not only his tongue but his hand still. Catulus ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... daintily and pledge each other in sake almost as graciously as men of a better class. Likewise they seem to treat their girls very kindly. It is quite pleasant to watch them feasting across the street. Perhaps their laughter is somewhat more boisterous and their gesticulation a little more vehement than those of the common citizens; but there is nothing resembling real roughness—much less rudeness. All become motionless and silent as statues—fifteen fine bronzes ranged along the wall of the zashiki, [2] -when some ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... but not woolly like the negroes. They appeared to be talking continually. In the forecastle there was a complete Babel. Their language is extremely guttural, and not pleasant at first, but improves as you hear it more, and is said to have great capacity. They use a good deal of gesticulation, and are exceedingly animated, saying with their might what their tongues find to say. They are complete water-dogs, therefore very good in boating. It is for this reason that there are so many of them on the coast of California; they being very good hands in the surf. They are also quick ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... given advice, and were preparing to go, when another candidate comes forward, and, with suitable gesticulation, so placed his hands that we could not help saying, "Liver, eh?" "Eccelenza, si!" "Dopo una febbre?" "Illustrissimo, si!"—Folk now beginning to wink approvingly at our sagacity, we were looking exceeding grave, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... gravity, half real, half simulated, came over Dona Felipa's face, although her vivacity of gesticulation and emphasis did not relax. She cast a hurried glance around her, and leaned a ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... into divine knowledge, and that this impediment drove a philosopher to deprive himself of his sight, I answer that the eye, as lord of the senses, performs its duty in being an impediment to the confusion and lies of that which is not science but discourse, by which with much noise and gesticulation argument is constantly conducted; and hearing should do the same, feeling, as it does, the offence more keenly, because it seeks after harmony which devolves on all the senses. And if this philosopher deprived himself ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... this practice surely arose after Plautus' lifetime. At any rate, whatever was the nature of the reward, in his day the large emoluments won by Roscius and other popular favorites were impossible.[60] The effort demanded by the elaborate education of the actor,[61] in which naturally gesticulation was the most vital element, was out of all proportion to the precarious reward. A rigid course of training was prescribed and strenuous exercises were required, for both actor and orator to keep the voice in proper form.[62] Indeed, Quintilian advises the budding orator to take instruction in ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... in the dark he could watch without being seen. His father and the hotel proprietor were again engaged in earnest colloquy. Neuman had disappeared. Kurt saw the huge shadow of a man pass across a drawn blind in a room up-stairs. Then he saw smaller shadows, and arms raised in vehement gesticulation. The very shadows were sinister. Men passed in and out of the hotel. Once old Dorn came to the door and peered all around. Kurt observed that there was a dark side entrance to this hotel. Presently Neuman returned ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... from street and lane a noisy crowd Had rolled together like a summer cloud, And told the story of the wretched beast In five-and-twenty different ways at least, With much gesticulation and appeal To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal. The Knight was called and questioned; in reply Did not confess the fact, did not deny; Treated the matter as a pleasant jest, And set at naught the Syndic and the rest, Maintaining, ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... 'Tis of the Orient, and gesticulation More happily were called; never a stillness, Never repose, but one wild whirl ...
— Nero • Stephen Phillips
... somewhat angrily, but without threat or gesticulation, in the best Italian I knew, why he had struck me, using nearly these words, "Perche m'aveti dato questo?'" While I was speaking to the officer I was suddenly interrupted by another person, dressed in the Austrian uniform, who placed himself between the officer and me, at the same time ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... exhibition. Around one of the antique columns of this basilica—which once beheld the splendors and crimes of the Caesars' palace—a staging is erected, from which little maidens are reciting, with every kind of pretty gesticulation, sermons, dialogues, and speechifications, in explanation of the Presepio opposite. Sometimes two of them are engaged in alternate question and answer about the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Sometimes the recitation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... anger. If the unpleasant subject is yet a little more irritating and personal, it will lead to a corresponding set of muscular actions, as evidenced in heightened color, loud tones, more or less violent gesticulation, with marked interruption of both mastication and the secretion of saliva and all other digestive juices. In short, fully two-thirds of the influences of emotional mental states upon the body are produced by their calling ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... appeared, making their way directly towards the army. The Prophet's chief counsellor, with two interpreters, had come to demand the reason of this warlike advance. Peace, they declared, was their one desire. With much gesticulation they explained that messages to that effect had been sent by certain chiefs, who must have taken the other trail and so missed the general of the Seventeen Fires. The governor agreed to suspend hostilities in order that terms of peace might be arranged in council ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... father and Mr. Du Pre set upon them with horsewhips, whereupon the graceless but agile youths ran to a neighbouring house and swarmed to the top of a stack of chimneys, whence partly by word and partly by gesticulation ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... moment, upon the scaffolding all was a tumult of uproar and confusion, shouting and gesticulation; only the King sat calm, sullen, impassive. The Earl wheeled his horse and sat for a moment or two as though to make quite sure that he knew the King's mind. The blow that had been given was foul, unknightly, but the King gave no sign either of acquiescence or rebuke; he had ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... Scorrier called out suddenly: "Anny that's Cornishmen here to stand by the superintendent?" A group drew together, and with murmurs and gesticulation the meeting broke up. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... will be restored." "Never!" exclaimed Napoleon, with pallid cheek and trembling lip, striding nervously too and fro, through the room, "never! I forgive! ever!" Then stopping suddenly, and gazing the interlocutor wildly in the face, he exclaimed, with passionate gesticulation, "You know me. Were I not sure of my resolution, I would tear out this heart, and ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... the ladies. Quickly the whole band about the fire appeared to bunch together preparatory to rush in the direction indicated, but before they could spring forward Trotting Wolf, speaking rapidly and with violent gesticulation, stood in their path. But his voice was unheeded. He was thrust aside and the whole band came rushing madly toward the tent lately occupied by ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... the palace a very pretty woman was speaking with the porter. She was talking vehemently and with much accompanying gesticulation. As Derby passed out, she looked up into his face. He put his hand to his hat, in a vague remembrance of her features, wondering where he had met her, and what her name might be. As he went through the archway ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... circled, and finally sank uninjured in a field behind the Burford Bridge Inn. At its descent a curious thing happened. Filmer got off his tricycle, scrambled over the intervening dyke, advanced perhaps twenty yards towards his triumph, threw out his arms in a strange gesticulation, and fell down in a dead faint. Every one could then recall the ghastliness of his features and all the evidences of extreme excitement they had observed throughout the trial, things they might otherwise have forgotten. Afterwards ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... her to the sitting-room. "Now if you feel you must collapse or cry, mama," she adjured her parent with a touch of the scorn the younger generation felt for elders accustomed, in that day, to meet all crises with tears and faints, or at the least wild gesticulation—"if you must, do it now, and here; so that when they come you can be calm ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... won!" cried O'Gree, with much gesticulation, as soon as Waymark returned. "The campaign's at an end!—I'm sorry if I've driven your friend away, but I ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down, with the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne |
