"Twitter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who had spoken, but he was now silent, and the other said, after they had listened to the twitter of a piano in the parlor under the room, "That girl's playing will be ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... did not annoy her to-day. She stepped rapidly through the expanse of it that girdled the forest, and hurried on through the firs to the cottage. The whole wood was alive with hum and cry. Wherever a group of other trees rose amid the firs, the loud chirp of the chaffinch was heard, or the eager twitter of some little newly-wedded birds, disputing about the position of their nest. The beetle in his black cuirass droned around the buds of the chestnut; at times a wild bee, newly wakened from its winter sleep, came humming by; even brown butterflies fluttered over the bushes, and, wherever ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... jungle; a steep grassy ridge springs from the blue-grey rocks to the south-east; and on the precipitous weather side grow low and open scrub and dwarf casuarina. Here is a natural aviary. Pigeons and doves coo; honey-eaters whistle; sun-birds whisper quaint, quick notes; wood swallows soar and twitter. Metallic starlings seek safe sleeping-places among the mangroves, ere they repair last year's villages, and join excitedly in the chorus; while the great osprey wheels overhead, and the grey falcon sits on a bare branch, still as a sentinel, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... tuneful, the loquacious throng Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time, And little masters make a toy of song Till grave men weary of the ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... has been good; the days are hot and summer-like. Yesterday in the press of bad smells I got a whiff of a hedgerow in bloom. The birds perch on the trees over our heads and twitter away as if there was nothing to worry about. Bonfire is still well. I do hope he ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... dawning; the birds were beginning to twitter softly and the dew was rising noticeably from the ground. Frederick had slid down the trunk and was staring, with his arms crossed back of his head, into the rosy morning light softly stealing in. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... quick, my comrades in the air; all you, who pillage the fertile lands of the husbandmen, the numberless tribes who gather and devour the barley seeds, the swift flying race who sing so sweetly. And you whose gentle twitter resounds through the fields with the little cry of tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio, tio; and you who hop about the branches of the ivy in the gardens; the mountain birds, who feed on the wild olive berries or the ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... night; and a calm and tranquil silence ensued, broken only by the gentle rustle of the fitful breeze through the foliage of some firs which were dotted here and there along the precipitous sides of the ravine, the chirping of insects, the occasional twitter of a sleeping bird, or a low murmur here and there in the serried ranks of armed men which stood awaiting the order to rush forth to death or victory. The stars flooded the scene with their subdued and mellow radiance, and, but for the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... were foreigners. Two or three Turks strolled by, holding their beads; and once some veiled women came, escorted by a eunuch, threw some petals of flowers upon the surface of the tinkling water, and walked on up the narrow valley, chattering in childish voices, and laughing with a twitter that was like the ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... and girls, with a very, very few farmer youth of marriageable age, and more rustic and seafaring elders long past it, all in the Sunday best which they had worn to the graduation exercises at the High School, where we took them mostly up. The womenkind were in a nervous twitter of talk and laughter, and the men tolerantly gay beyond their wont, "passing the time of day" with one another, and helping the more tumultuous sex to get settled in the overcrowded open car. They courteously made room for one another, and let the children stand between ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... doesn't seem to me the normal thing. Solitude is the normal thing, with a few bits of talk thrown in, like meals, for refreshment. But you can't lay down rules for people about it. Some people are simply gregarious, and twitter together like starlings in a shrubbery: that isn't talk—it's only a series of signals and exclamations. The danger of solitude is that the machinery runs just as you wish it to run—and that ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of a snow-storm, they may often be seen sporting, as it were, in the very whirlpool of the driving snows, and alighting upon the tall sedges and weeds, and eagerly gathering the produce. The Hemp-Bird often joins their parties, and his cheerful and well-known twitter may be heard, as he hurriedly flits from one bush to another, hunting for the seeds of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... that, on a winter's day, But warm and bright, and calm as May, The birds, conceiving a design To forestall sweet St. Valentine, In many an orchard, copse, and grove, Assembled on affairs of love; And with much twitter and much chatter, Began to agitate ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... dark. You did make me jump. But there," she added, repentant of her unceremonious exclamation, "I don't know what possesses us all to-night. The least thing seems to make you jump. Mrs. Cooper's all of a twitter, and Laura—silly girl—is almost as bad. I suppose it's the weather being so quiet after yesterday's gale. For my own part I always do like a wind about. It seems company, particularly these long evenings if you're called on to go round the house ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... through which a narrow rill stole silently; and as I set my first foot on it, up jumped, with his beautiful variegated back all reddened by the sunbeams, a fine and full-fed woodcock, with the peculiar twitter which he utters when surprised. He had not gone ten yards, however, before my gun was at my shoulder and the trigger drawn; before I heard the crack I saw him cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to leeward, he fell heavily, completely riddled by the shot, into ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... him was intensely still. Not even the twitter of a snow-bird marred its silence. For a long time Wabi sat as immovable as the log upon which he had seated himself, resting and listening. Such a day as this held a peculiar and unusual fascination ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... The abominable twitter of the sparrows in the hedgerows gave notice of the break of day—to travellers the most dismal of all hours, in my opinion—when I awoke from the comfortable nap into which I had fallen since the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... thee on a greater wing, Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing A pretty dalliance with grief—but try Some metre like a sky, Wherein to set Stars that may linger yet When I, thy master, shall have come to die. Twitter and tweet ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... have taken place, and that it had been going on during those months when life was apparently so peaceful and she had been living in her fool's paradise. It was not till he had lost the fight that Thor had come to her in the snow-bound woods with the twitter of birds and the deep music of the tree-tops accompanying those half-truths she had been eager to believe. She herself had been fatuous and vain in assuming that he could love her; but if there was little to say for her, there was nothing at all to be said ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... shelter she drew out a rug, spread it close to her best-loved tree, then sitting upon it leaned against the trunk, feet crossed and hands clasped loosely behind her head. The chirp of sparrows and twitter of small birds, the clear song of robin and the cat-bird's call fell after a while unheeding on her ears, and the drowsy hum of insects was lost in the dreaming that possessed her. From the garden of old-fashioned flowers some distance off the soft breeze flung fragrance ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... says she, all in a twitter, 'you're never going to leave all that money here, and you away, and the child and me all alone. Can't you—can't you leave ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... cooling song just beyond the sandpiper. On the other side the still cooler forest was a paradise of shade and contentment, astir with subdued and hidden life. It was nesting season. He heard the twitter of birds. A tiny, brown wood warbler fluttered out to the end of a silvery birch limb, and it seemed to David that its throat must surely burst with the burden of its song. The little fellow's brown body, scarcely larger than a butternut, was swelling up like a round ball ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... power! Still, still the streets, between their carcanets Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep: But see how gable ends and parapets In gradual beauty and significance Emerge! And did you hear That little twitter-and-cheep, Breaking inordinately loud and clear On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere? 'Tis a first nest at matins! And behold A rakehell cat—how furtive and acold! A spent witch homing from some infamous dance— Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade Through ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley
... grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell and burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the plums wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green; and the brooks, where you throw your worm or the minnow, float down whole fleets of the crimson blossoms of the maple. ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... story happened long before, when they weren't robin red-breasts but only robins. It is a merry, tender sort of story. They twitter it in a chuckling fashion to their children. If you prefer to hear it first-hand, creep out to the nearest holly-bush on almost any Christmas Eve when snow has made the night all pale and shadowy. If the robins have chosen ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... of his young friend rippled on. A growing gamin coarseness in her talk with a nervous, restless twitter underneath. Her dark child eyes, perverse under their touch of black paint, swung eagerly through the crowd. Her talk of Johns, of dumb times and moldy times, of classy times and classy memories varied only slightly. She liked dancing and amusement parks. Automobile riding ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... hate it all—how I hate myself! I am going mad with this life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not come to-night I could not have slept—I would have gone to the mill, and that means drink to me—drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I feared ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... Brighteye wandered, singing, singing, down the lanes and main road of the river-bank, were, however, infrequent; and the surest sign of his approach, before he came in sight, was the continuous, gossiping twitter I have already described. This habit of singing and twittering was not connected with amorous sentiments towards any sleek young female; Brighteye adopted it long before he was of an age to seek a mate, and he ceased practising his solos before the first winter set ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over, and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, sipped his tea and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely about himself, and the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how important he was, and what a lot his ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... motion] Agitation. — N. agitation, stir, tremor, shake, ripple, jog, jolt, jar, jerk, shock, succussion[obs3], trepidation, quiver, quaver, dance; jactitation|, quassation|; shuffling 7c. v.; twitter, flicker, flutter. turbulence, perturbation; commotion, turmoil, disquiet; tumult, tumultuation|; hubbub, rout, bustle, fuss, racket, subsultus[obs3], staggers, megrims, epilepsy, fits; carphology[obs3], chorea, floccillation[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... slow and dispassionate soliloquy, became half audible, and ceased. As we gave ear to the silence, we became aware that a cool stir in the darkness was growing into a breeze. After a time, the thin crowing of game-cocks in distant villages, the first twitter of birds among the highest branches, told us that night had turned to morning. A soft patter of bare feet came along the deck, a shadow stood above us, and the low voice of ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... The twitter of the birds is still heard. The sheep graze upon the brown hillside. The merry whistle of the plowboy comes up from the field, and the cow lows in the ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... as, in organisms of another sort, hunger claims satisfaction for the body. She was by nature a flame and a bird. The riddle of her existence was involved in two words: to blaze and to fly. Besides, she had impulse and caprice; she loved to twitter, and to laugh quietly in a corner. From the thoughtfulness into which she dropped oftener and oftener, she woke up as a gladsome and petted child; that room was filled with her quick speech, her thin voice, her gestures, almost theatrical, her laughing, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... let me write to you in my troubles. I am in such a twitter of mind in consequence of my various lovers that I do not know where to turn; nor do I quite know whom I am to call lover number one. Therefore, I write to you to ask advice. Dear old Frank used to be lover number one. Of course I ought to call him now Mr. Francis Jones, because ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... after the echoes of the report died away there was perfect silence in the forest: not a leaf seemed to stir or a bird to twitter; even the very insects ceased their chirring, as though they were wondering what had happened. Then, almost as though at a given signal, the forest resounded with loud trumpetings of alarm and the crashing of heavy bodies through the undergrowth, ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he thought, as he went up to his sitting-room. "I wish I wasn't all of a twitter. I wish I ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... spend in Fallkill, they were at the Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood. But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye and in her laugh. "Confound it," said Philip to himself, "she's in a perfect twitter." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... whence they were unable to ascend. A peculiarly touching little incident of bird life occurred to a caged female canary. Though unmated, it laid some eggs, and the happy bird was so carried away by her feelings that she would offer food to the eggs, and chatter and twitter, trying, as it seemed, to encourage them to eat! The incident is hardly tragic, neither is ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... grow in the meadows. The black flowers of the sedges are powdered with yellow pollen; and dark green sword-flags are beginning to spread their fans. But just across the road, on the topmost twigs of birch poles, swallows twitter in the tenderest tones to their loves. From the oaks in the meadows on that side titlarks mount above the highest bough and then descend, sing, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... sticking above the grass; and he saw deep tracks of game as well as the slow-rising blades of bluebells where some soft-footed beast had just trod. And he heard the melancholy notes of birds, the twitter of grouse, the sough of the wind, the light dropping of pine-cones, the near and distant bark of squirrels, the deep gobble of a turkey close at hand and the challenge from a rival far away, the cracking of twigs in the thickets, the murmur of running water, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... of their endeavors to lure back the dancers, determined to join the excitement, and ceased playing. The leader laid down his violin, the pianist trailed up the key- board with a departing twitter and quit his stool. They all crossed the hall, headed for the crowd, some of them making ready to bet. As they approached the Bronco Kid, his lips thinned and slid apart slightly, while out of his heavy-lidded ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... His days were full of this perpetual intercourse. So it happened that to get out alone into the absolute stillness, broken only by the rustle of the leaves, the sound of the wind as it brought them down, the twitter of the birds, the tinkle of the little stream, was a new delight to Geoff, unlike anything that had gone before. And to see miles and miles before him, to see all round, roads stretching into the unknown, houses and churches and woods, all nameless and new; was he riding ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... to Estelle's reading till the low murmur, blending with the drowsy hum of the insects, the occasional twitter of a bird, and the warm fragrance of the pines, lulled him to sleep. Estelle read on till the story was finished; then sat gazing up into the green foliage above her. She was thinking that she was not unlike the girl in the story; ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... little people will be wise in not hurrying our Father Time to open for them, if they would continue to enjoy the jewel they suppose it to contain. Finally, these energetic young ladies said their prayers by the morning twitter of the birds, and went to their beds, less from a desire for rest than because custom ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 while he sent out a thin twitter that sounded impertinent and funny in the solemn silence of the great wilderness; in the great silence ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... the grassy stretches above Iffley, and the college eights flash past among cheering and splashing? Then there is supper in the cool halls, darkling, and half-lit up; and after supper talk, till the birds twitter in the elms, and the roofs and the chapel spire look unfamiliar in the blue of dawn. How long the days were then! almost like the days of childhood; how distinct is the impression all experience used to make! In later seasons Care ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... if no one says a word; Not a twitter from a bird, Nor a chatter comes your way, Call ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... this I hear of your fine charities, master Israel?" said Ben Aboo. "Ah, do not look surprised. There are little birds enough to twitter of such follies. So you are throwing away silver like bones to the dogs! Pity you've got too much of it, Israel ben Oliel; pity you've got too much of ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... as you are feeling that you ought to ring up your lawyer and see that your affairs are in order before it is too late, the whole situation seems to clarify. The wind drops. The ears cease to ring. Birds twitter. Brass bands start playing. The sun comes up over the horizon with ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Occasionally some puff of wind more adventurous than its fellows swooped down to make the leaves quiver a moment, and then died away in awe, while here and there a bird flew in and out among the branches with strangely subdued twitter. ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... digested that, then again took off his band before he relayed it to his companions. The excited twitter of their speech ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... woodpeckers which make the Park their home. Both nest in hollows bored out by their strong beaks, but although full of splinters and sawdust, such a habitation is far superior to the sooty chimneys in which the young chimney swifts break from their snow-white eggs and twitter for food. How impatiently they must look up at the blue sky, and one would think that they must long for the time when they can spread their sickle-shaped wings and dash about from dawn to dark! Is it not wonderful that one of them should live to grow up ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... Storm called to see the old woman at Martha's Vineyard, and he saw the matron, the house doctor, and a staff nurse as well. His adventure was known to everybody at the hospital. Once or twice he caught looks of amused compassion, and heard a twitter of laughter. As he stood by the bed, the old woman muttered: "I knoo ez it wuzn't the work'us, my dear. He spoke to me friendly and squeedged ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... I suppose, the associations of sounds rather than their actual quality which make them pleasant or unpleasant. The twitter of sparrows is, in itself, as prosaic a sound as there is in nature, but I never hear it on waking without a feeling of inward peace. It seems to link me with some incredibly remote and golden morning, and with a child in a ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... blaze of splendor and the birds began to twitter. The gripsack which he carried grew strangely heavy, and he felt faint and weary. The long strain of the day before was beginning to tell upon him, and it was many hours ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... here have been a real rest, I have been so much alone. There are no women to twitter; and when Mr. Maxwell is not at work he talks of things that are worth talking about. The climate, too, is bracing and wholesome, and the boisterous afternoon wind, which sweeps letters and papers irreverently away, keeps ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... her, as he knew she would soon return, bearing with her the blue flowers he loved, and then, when she saw him coming towards her,—free, yes, free!—would not all past sorrow be forgotten in the ever-present joy? So, with a twitter of gratitude to the girl who had opened his prison door, he fluttered his wings, just to try their strength, poised a while in the air, then away he flew with unerring instinct towards his dear home in ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whir Of meadow lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take Your nooning in the shade ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... is borne to the nostrils the faint, stifling scent of burning brush, indicating that land is being cleared by the forehanded, thrifty farmer for early planting. Often at such times, before a shower, may be distinctly heard the faintest twitter and "peep, peep" of young sparrows, the harsh "caw, caw" of the crow, and the song of the bobolink, poised on the swaying branch of a tall tree, the happiest bird of Spring; the dozy, drowsy hum of bees; the answering call of lusty young chanticleers, and the satisfied ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... then I have wandered from the commonplace sweetness of the shorn fields, and I almost forgot to speak about the birds. Watch the swallows as they gather together and talk with their low pretty twitter. Their parliament has begun; and surely no one who watches their proceedings can venture to scoff at the transcendental argument which I have just now stated. Those swift, pretty darlings will soon ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... parlour. Through the window came the songs of the reapers and the twitter of birds busy among the seeds at the barn-door. Roses swinging on the porch threw a perfume into the room. Young Islay felt, for the first time in his life, a sense of placid happiness. And when Nan sang later—a newer, wider ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... get close to the heart of nature once more; and she improved every moment of the week that followed in getting acquainted with every being, beast and bird on the place, from grave-eyed Mr. Wood who was at home only in the evenings, down to Twitter, the yellow-coated, golden-throated canary, which sang all day in his cage. She romped with Billy Bolee, made pies with Kate, the cook, played checkers with their kindly host, and tried to master the art of embroidery under Mrs. Wood's instruction; but her favorite occupation was stumping about ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... there came to his office a suave gentleman in frock-coat, carrying with him a card which was inscribed "Ministry of Supplies." And the end of that conversation was that Bones, all a twitter of excitement, drove to a gloomy office in Whitehall, where he interviewed a most sacred public official, to whom members of the public were not admitted, perhaps, more than four ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... melting out of sight into the sky, and then finding it again. This you may do in Caburn's hollow as nowhere else. The song of the lark thus followed by eye and ear—for song and bird become one—passes naturally into the music of the spheres: there exist in the universe only yourself and this cosmic twitter. ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... eastern sides, while the sky behind them warmed with a faint dun glow. A cock in the Beaumanoir yard woke suddenly and crowed, and the challenge was answered from La Vauroque. Jeanne Falla's pigs grunted sleepily at the disturbance. The pigeons rumbled in their cote, and the birds began to twitter in the trees about the house. And behind the white ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... sounded by Miss Bird that there would have been no chance of their overlooking the hour. If they had been late, Miss Bird would have been spoken to, and on the distressing occasions when that had happened, it had put her, as she said, all in a twitter. ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... near the toes of one of the sparrows, and he flew. There was a twitter, then a stir all over the tree; but nothing further happening, they tucked in their heads again and went ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... them and their abuse. For my part, I hope that in this war we have merited the title of barbarians. Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease to talk of the cathedral of Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us. Our troops must achieve ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... its mass of stone and brick, rectangles, straight lines, dust, noise, and fever of activity, is penetrated by this divine suggestion of the renewal of life. You can scarcely open a window without letting in a breath of it; the south wind, the twitter of a sparrow, the rustle of leaves in the squares, the smell of the earth and of some struggling plant in the area, the note of a distant hand-organ softened by distance, are begetting a longing for youth, for green fields, for love. As Carmen walked down the avenue with Mr. Lyon on a spring ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from the eyes, dim and hollow, glare unutterable things: and the grin of the fleshless lips is the gibbering mirth of the corpse torn from its cerements, and erect, as though the last trump had sounded, and the dead had arisen. No fresh flowers bloom in these dreary spots; no merry birds twitter there; no streamlets lapse sweetly with musical murmurs beneath the waterflags or the drooping boughs of trees. See! the blighted and withered plants are like the deadly nightshade—true flowers of war, ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... began to believe that Dr. Levillier was right, and that he had somehow allowed himself to become unnaturally affected and strung up. He could believe this in the air and in the dawn. For he escaped out of prison as he walked, and heard the dirty sparrows begin to twitter as they sank to the brown puddles in the roadway, or soared to the soot that clung round ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... after the elder, and Reuben's eyes followed her with the cheerful look with which he had faced seventy years of life. On a rush mat in the sunshine the old hound flicked his long black ear at a fly of which he was dreaming, and from a bower of ivy in the eaves there came the twitter of sparrows. Beyond the orchard, the wind, blowing from the marshes, chased the thin, sketchy shadows over the lawn at ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... to twitter among the branches of the trees on every hand during their descent of the western slope. Ravens croaked and called from the heart of the forest, and the owl flitted by on silent wing. Black birds with orange heads and throats and splashed ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... would say, every one of them knew her and recognised her as a friend and fellow-comrade, for she would sing to them sometimes like a lark, which always set them all on the twitter; goldfinches, linnets, and bullfinches, of which mother kept a large stock, hopping about their cages trying by every means in their power to attract her notice on her entering the shop and coming near them; while the ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... What he would do in this galere she knew not. She leaned back in her basket-chair and enjoyed herself quietly. The green peace, after London, was absolutely delicious. She could hear a hen clucking intermittently from the farmyard hard by, the twitter of birds from the yew-trees, the chirping voices of Tommy and the curate's little boys, who had been formally introduced to each other, and had retired to play in a paddock that was part of the rector's glebe. The rector himself was ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... veil, was sitting by the bedside reading her book of hours; through the window could be seen a strip of blue sky crossed by some budding tree in the convent garden, little birds were beginning to chirp and twitter amongst the branches. The spring had come in these last days whilst Madelon had been lying there, and in the midst of the glad resurrection of all nature, she too was stirring and awakening to consciousness, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... In front of them, Doorke, like a little black shadow, danced up and down in his cart to the jolting of the wheels as he jogged quietly along. The crickets chirped in the ditch; and from high up in the trees came the dying twitter of birds about to go ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... alone, gazing idly at the summer sky, hearing the twitter of a bird, the hum of insects, whilst the scents of flower and leaf lulled them to a restful intimacy. Without a word of ceremony, Will used the matches that were brought him, and puffed a cloud into the warm air. They were ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... approached it flew on a little in front. I followed it. On seeing this, it went on and on in a wavy course, a few yards before me, alighting every now and then on a bush, and looking back to see if I was still following, all the time keeping up an incessant twitter. Though I had no idea at the time of its object, I continued following it. At length I saw a short distance ahead the huge trunk of a fallen tree. The bird appeared still more excited; and when I happened to turn aside, apparently to take ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... pick up the grain scattered there from the boats and wagons. One of the apprentices in the printing-office kept a shot-gun loaded beside the press while he was rolling, and whenever he caught the soft twitter that the doves make with their wings, he rushed out with his gun and knocked over two or three of them. He was a good shot, and could nearly always get them in range. When he brought them back, it seemed ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... each bald mountain top shone like a jewel, and far aloft in the heavens were the white streamers of morn. Moorhens were plashing at the loch's edge, and one tall heron rose from his early meal. The world was astir with life: sounds of the plonk-plonk of rising trout and the endless twitter of woodland birds mingled with the far-away barking of dogs and the lowing of the full-uddered cows in the distant meadows. Abashed and enchanted, the girl listened. It was an elfin land where the old witch voices of hill and river were ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... a whisper for fear of arousing something or somebody out of sleep, or of breaking the wonderful spell of the place. Pausing under those trees, and feasting one's eyes upon the lovely, rural scene, not a sound reaches the ear except the twitter of the birds, and perhaps the faint jingle of a cow-bell. Mrs. Pitt gave a start at the sound of John's voice, when ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... been Italy for the blue of the sky and the caressing warmth of the sun. They threw open the big window and in flooded the perfume of lilacs and the twitter of sparrows, which is the nearest to a bird song one can expect in New York. But after all, this was n't New York; nor Spain; nor even the inner woods; it was just Here. And Here is where the eyes of a man and a woman meet with spring ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... thing to love; but her I loved, my girl-mother, she whom now I saw unfolding like the glory of the morning—the transfigured woman. Through her I came to love the wee thing, as it grew strong; as its little soul unfolded itself in twitter and cry and half-formed word, and as its eyes caught the gleam and flash of life. How beautiful he was, with his olive-tinted flesh and dark gold ringlets, his eyes of mingled blue and brown, his perfect little limbs, and the soft voluptuous roll which the blood ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... in the temple this Sunday morning; the natives themselves are not allowed to come in, and visitors only on production of a ticket costing twenty-four shillings, which admits to all the temples of Egypt; and, as it happens, there is no one but ourselves. The sparrows twitter overhead in the holes and crannies of the pillars, and the great grey and black crows wheel silently against the blue sky, throwing moving shadows on ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... one sprang at their side, and followed them as far as the boundary of the country. There the first green sprouted forth, and there they took leave of the two Reindeer and the Lapland woman. "Farewell!" said all. And the first little birds began to twitter, the forest was decked with green buds, and out of it, on a beautiful horse (which Gerda knew, for it was the same that had drawn her golden coach) a young girl came riding, with a shining red cap on her head and a pair of pistols in the holsters. This was the little ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... twice during the year, and those of the most brilliant colours exchange their gaudy hues for a sober grey or brown. Several varieties sing beautifully; the swallow also sings, although in Europe I have never heard it attempt more than its well-known twitter. ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... find you're a broken-down critter, Who is all of a trimmle and twitter, With your palate unpleasantly bitter, As if you'd just bitten a pill - When your legs are as thin as dividers, And you're plagued with unruly insiders, And your spine is all creepy with spiders, And you're highly gamboge in the gill - When ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... they met zigzagging homeward much the worse for blackberry wine. She never heeded any of them, though at another time she would gladly have made friends with all, but found compensation for her discomforts in the busy twitter of sand swallows perched on the mullein-tops, the soft flight of yellow butterflies, and the rapidity with which the little canoe received its freight of "Ethiop sweets." As the last handful went in she sprung up crying "Done!" with a suddenness that broke up ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... suddenly set up a great twitter. Anybody could see that he was frightened. And one of Jolly Robin's sons, perched in an apple tree near the stone wall where Mr. Chippy lived in a wild grapevine, wondered what could be ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... for him. He found that when the first discomfort of awakening had passed off, he really was the better for his short sleep, and marched on more vigorously, presently hearing a cock begin to crow, and birds to twitter. Dawn was beginning, presently a lark sprang up and began to send down a wonderful cheerful song, that quite raised Johnnie's spirits; then over the quiet misty fields came the deep note of the great Minsterham clock pealing out, what was only a half hour, but John knew that it would ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands 130 Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry Amid their barbarous twitter! In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter! Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall 140 ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... in the shrill chatter as incessant as the twitter of the agitated birds, who found their night snatched from them and hardly knew whether to scold or join ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Brown sang, "Twirrr twitter, twirrr twee! In the rosiest rose-bush a rare nest! Twirrr twitter, twirrr twitter, twirrr twitter, twirrrrr tweeeee! In the fun he ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Tressiter's baby had died last week and now, suddenly, she burst out crying and had to leave the room. There was a little twitter of sympathy. How good they all were to one another, these people, stupid and odd perhaps in some ways, but so brave for themselves and so generous to one another. It was no mean gathering of souls that Mrs. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... escort an' the mounted p'lice're huntin' us in the ranges. I'll be—yes, I'll be Morgan. An' Ted—! What'll we make Ted? I know—I know. He'll be my faithful black boy, what'll rather die than leave me. You fellers bring a cork to-morrow, an' we'll pretty quick make a faithful black boy of Twitter.' ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... and I have no doubt that his detractors—who complain that his style is mere word-twisting, a mere inversion of the most ancient truisms—are actuated by the very basest jealousy. Let us listen, then, and be duly edified as he reads in a low, sweet voice, and the birds twitter about him ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... dim, and the birds began to twitter; day was breaking. The girl was worn out and panting, and when the sun rose in the purple sky, she stopped, for her swollen feet refused to go any further; but she saw a pond in the distance, a large pond whose stagnant water looked ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... punctually at the hour appointed, at the old lady's sanctum, and seating herself upon an old chair, beheld with astonishment quite as much as she bargained for. 'I felt myself,' said poor Martha, 'on entering the room, all of a twitter. The old woman was seated in her chair of state, and, reaching down from the mantel-piece a pack of cards, began, after muttering a few words in a language I could not understand, to lay them very carefully in her lap; she then foretold that I should ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Poetry, the feeling if not the words of poetry,—is he not dead to it, even as the pavement is dead over which his wheels trundle? Oh, my young friend! thou art ignorant in this—as in most other things. He may not twitter of sentiment, as thou doest; nor may I trundle my hoop along the high road as do the little boys. The fitness of things forbids it. But that old man's heart is as soft as thine, if thou couldst but read it. The body dries ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Voltaire too is beautiful, in this part of the Correspondence; but much in a twitter,—the Queen of Sheba, not the sedate Solomon, in prospect of what is coming. He plumes himself a little, we perceive, to his d'Argentals and French Correspondents, on this sublime intercourse he has got into with ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of sombre stain, That blacken in the last blue skies, Thou fly'st; but thou wilt come again On the gay wings of butterflies. Spring at thy approach will sprout Her new Corinthian beauties out, Leaf-woven homes, where twitter-words Will grow to songs, and eggs to birds; Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers, And April smiles to sunny hours, Bright days shall be, and gentle nights Full of soft breath and echo-lights, As if the god of sun-time kept His eyes half-open while he slept. Roses shall be where roses ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... As the moon among the planets; Drives the groom a coal-black courser, Running like a famished black-dog, Flying like the hungry raven, Graceful as the lark at morning, Golden cuckoos, six in number, Twitter on the birchen cross-bow; There are seven blue-birds singing On the racer's hame ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... ancients were not wanting in ingenuity and we have pictures of many funny-looking pipes which were intended to imitate the growling of a bear (this stop was sometimes labeled Vox Humana!), the crowing of a cock, the call of the cuckoo, the song of the nightingale, and the twitter of the canary, the ends of these pipes being bent over and inserted in water, just as the player blows into a glass of water through a quill in a toy symphony. Then there was the Hummel, a device which caused two of the largest pipes in ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... beats responsive to heart, and the poor dumb hand seeks by varied pressure to tell the emotion within. Often then the soul, with its many organs of utterance, feels itself but a songless bird, whose broken twitter hardens into a cage around it; but even with all those organs of utterance in full play, he is yet farther from his fellow-man than when he is praying to the Father in a desert place apart. The man who prays, in proportion to the purity of his prayer, ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... when the hour arrived, and seated herself in a great twitter before the machine. She began bravely enough: "My dear father," and then she paused, but slowly went on till she had completed half a page of typewritten words. Miss Dorothy did not offer any suggestions, but sat at the other side of the room before her writing-table. At ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... they have in the herd choice and particular election in their affections, and that they have amongst themselves a long commerce of good will. Even those to whom old age denies the practice of their desire, still tremble, neigh, and twitter for love; we see them, before the act, full of hope and ardour, and when the body has played its game, yet please themselves with the sweet remembrance of the past delight; some that swell with pride after they have performed, and others who, tired and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... founts, where the birds Twitter and chirp at noon from every tree; I long for blossomed leaves and lowing herds; And Nature's voices say in mystic words, "The green fields wait ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 'trampoosing' over America. It spoilt poor Hall—turned his brain. He has done little or nothing since but make-believe about criticism, talk dawdle-poetry with a lisp, write irresistible verses under the name of 'Sedley' in his own magazine, twitter sentimentally about 'little Moore,' his 'dear little Moore'—puffing himself all the time anonymously in the newspaper, while he is damning himself, with unmistakable sincerity, twelve times a year in his own magazine. We do not think very highly of the mutton-headed Athenians at Philadelphia; ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... heaving and grunting, because our hands were tied together, we contrived to struggle to our feet. The Selenites made way for our elephantine heavings, and seemed to twitter more volubly. As soon as we were on our feet the thick-set Selenite came and patted each of our faces with his tentacles, and walked towards the open doorway. That also was plain enough, and we followed him. We saw that four of the Selenites ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... thorn-tree; How gaily we live, living honest and poor, How sweet are the may-blossoms over our door." "And then our dear children," the mother replied, And she nested them close to her warm feathered side, And with a soft twitter of drowsy content, In the quiet May moonlight to ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... The wind got hold of it as if it had been a sparrow's twitter, and tossed it mockingly over their heads and far away behind them, who knows where? "It's no go," said Wraysford. "Hullo, here's the meadow ditch. Hadn't we better follow it up and down? Stephen and I will ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it, still his ear-drum rattled, as if ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... there on mountain-steep, its lofty brow Reflected calmly on the sea's bright-flowing wave. But round about, some girdle like of beauteous flow'rs, Went Balder's Dale, with all its groves' soft-murmur'd sighs, And all its birds' sweet-twitter'd songs,—the Home ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... harebells and pale bents of quiver-grass edged the path, and thistledown, drifting from the chalk uplands, lay like snow in the hollows, or danced like living things on the path before her. A brood of goldfinches, with merry twitter and flashing wings, flitted round a tall milk thistle with variegated leaves and a little farther on, just at the opening of a glade from the path, she beheld a huge dragon-fly, banded with green, black, and gold, poised on wings invisible in their rapid motion, and hawking for insects. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... digging in all my wanderings—that whenever we commenced to dig, a swarm of large and small red hornets immediately came around us, and, generally speaking, diamond birds (Amadina) would also come and twitter near, and when water was got, would drink in great numbers. With regard to the hornets, though they swarmed round our heads and faces in clouds, no one was ever stung by them, nature and instinct informing them that ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... chanced upon. Near to the pathway lay a long clump of greenery, and from behind this there stuck straight up into the air four human legs clad in parti-colored hosen, yellow and black. Strangest of all was when a brisk tune struck suddenly up and the four legs began to kick and twitter in time to the music. Walking on tiptoe round the bushes, he stood in amazement to see two men bounding about on their heads, while they played, the one a viol and the other a pipe, as merrily and as truly as though they were seated in a choir. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... supporting themselves on their palms, stretched forward, open-mouthed. There was the rippling surface, carrying the shadow of the walls. Nothing came up. A cow could be heard lowing on the bluffs to her lost calf. The morning twitter of birds became an aggressive ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... righted himself and rested his right elbow on his left fist. He puffed out the grey smoke and dozed alternately, spitting now and then into the middle of the room or shifting his hands. When the pipestem began to twitter like a young sparrow, he knocked the bowl a few times against the bench, emptied the ashes, and poked his finger down. Yawning, he got up and laid the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... the canopy of heaven; The rivulets ripple with the merry tone Of wanton waters, and the breezes given To fan the budding hills are all thine own. Returning songsters from the tropic zone Their vernal love-songs in the tree tops sing, And talk and twitter in a tongue unknown Of joys that journey on thy golden wing, And God who sends thee forth to wake ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... thatch, Shall twitter near her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... as the castle; in the long, irregular street every house is three to four hundred years old. The projecting upper stories are supported on great timber balks, often with the ends grotesquely carved. Under the projecting eaves the swallows build, and twitter about the diamond-paned windows which reflect so richly the sunset light. In the steep roofs there are dormer-windows, and the old tiles have mellowed to a deep rose-red, stained yellow with lichen, and sink into irregular planes and angles of beautiful, varied colour. There ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... the rattle of the dishes? The clink of the spoon against the cup? The moving up of the chairs? The chatter of the voices, each with its own peculiar pitch and quality? The twitter of a bird outside the window? The tinkle of a distant bell? The chirp ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... Starting on your autumn flight, Pause a moment at my window, Twitter softly your good-night; For the summer days are over, All your duties are well done, And the happy homes you builded Have grown empty, one ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott |
