"Blinking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the little, red, blinking creature. He could not forgive it yet for that long night of misery. He caught sight of a white face in the bed and he ran towards it with such love and pity as his speech ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exclaimed the man, who had evidently been taking his midday sleep after the labours of the morning, for he stood blinking his eyes as the bright light shone on ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... the chief objects we can distinguish are the tip of your nose and Pieter's one eye, which I see blinking away when the light of the binnacle lamp falls on it," observed the Baron. "We will follow your advice," ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... I untied the ropes that bound the sleeping Letstrayed, removed the gag from his mouth, which consisted of another piece of rope, and shook him to his feet, where he stood blinking in surprise, while Holmes leaned against the nearest wall and shook his fists in the air, while he made the air blue with variegated ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... light quit blinking without the expected electrical display. Sinuous as beheaded snakes, the wires and cables supporting the traffic signal fell into the street. The unusual man pocketed his cutting tool—a long thin tube—and lowered the stop light to the truck. He looked at Whedbee. The corner street lamp ...
— Stopover Planet • Robert E. Gilbert
... White bade the bewildered Frenchman a mocking adieu, and left him still blinking at the sunlight from which he had been ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... The sun has now disappeared behind the great barrier of ice and the colours of the scene are fast softening. All the scarlets and vermilions are gone; a luminous pink bathes the whole picture in its fairy light. The night train for Venice, leaving the town, appears as a long string of blinking lights. A chill breeze comes from the Alpine vastness to westward. The deep silence of an Alpine night settles down. The two Americans continue their talk until they are out of hearing. The breeze interrupts and obfuscates their words, but now and then ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... bracken. There was no chimney either, though there was a peat fire smouldering in what you must call the hearth. The place was dense with the fog of it; it was some time, therefore, before Prosper could leave blinking and fit his eyes to see the occupants of his lodging.... Isoult, he saw, stood in the middle of the room leaning on the table with both her hands; her bead was hanging, and her hair veiled all her face. Near her, also standing, was the old man—a sturdy ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... blinking back the tears. "I knew it would come out in the end,—I counted on that, and I shouldn't have minded Miss Stuart's rage or the committee's horror. But you're so dreadfully on the square. You make a person feel like a two-penny doll. I don't wonder that Eleanor ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... handful of wrenlings should force us over that road again. Go off this day they should, if—as my comrade remarked—"we had to raise them by hand." My first call was at the nest, indifferent whether parents were there or not, for I had become desperate. There they lay, lazily blinking at me, and filling the nest overfull. The singer came rushing down a branch, bristled up, blustering, and calling "Dear-r-r-r!" at me, and I hoped he would be induced to hurry up his very ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... What a glorious sight can be seen from Mount Lofty on a full moonlight night! Stand on Mount Lofty, look up and revel in the sight of an Australian summer night's sky, the dark but ethereally clear bluish dome overhead, myriads of little stars, blinking at the steady brilliant light of the greater constellations. Look right and left—on all sides the spurs, covered with misty haze, lose themselves as they merge into the plains. Look west towards the city and the sea. There beneath the soft and silvery rays of the ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... by packing off the younger fry, and forcing them to seek their fortune in this isle Bossart (Crooked Island). I suppose he means L'Isle Bouchart, near Chinon, cried Panurge. No, replied t'other, I mean Bossart (Crooked), for there is not one in ten among them but is either crooked, crippled, blinking, limping, ill-favoured, deformed, or an ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... later, a Chicago and Southern airliner crew saw a fast-flying disk near Stuttgart, Arkansas. The circular craft, blinking a strange blue-white light, pulled up in an arc at terrific speed. The two pilots said they glimpsed lighted ports on the lower side as the saucer zoomed above them. The lights had a soft fluorescence, unlike anything ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... but they did not make any impression on me, for I was too deeply intent upon what was taking place before me. There was the little Chinaman bent forward, blinking and apparently half asleep, and there on either side were the men, evidently about to disturb him in some ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... a stranger entered, blinking. The fringe of icicles hanging from his moustache looked like the contrivance to curtail the activities of cows given to breaking ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... know that beyond question he loved. And he stopped short and stood blinking blindly at nothing, a little frightened by the depth and strength of this passion which had come to him with such scant presage, realising for the first time that his need for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to him; ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... to the woodshed door. There, roosting on one leg and blinking at them in the lamplight, was a huge gray goose. It hissed softly at them, objecting to their presence, and they went back into ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... Europeans, is like new wine when it comes back suddenly upon him, and it is best, I think, to let a man fight out such troubles alone and in silence. 'Can words make foul things fair?'—and, however much I might sympathise with my friend, there was no blinking the fact, that he and I were then engaged in trying to do for another set of Malay rajas, all that Raja Haji Hamid so bitterly regretted that the white men had done for him, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... for Alacranes. It was a white night of the tropics, with a million stars blinking in the blue dome overhead, and the Caribbean Sea like a shadowed opal, calm and rippling and shimmering. The Xpit was not a bark of comfort. It had a bare deck and an empty hold. I could not stay below in that gloomy, ill-smelling pit, so ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... not a wife who had the heart to find fault with her husband because he had had a little drop too much. Eating and drinking went on merrily, combined with gossiping and running from house to house. The children sat up in bed, blinking at the sunlight, and stuffing themselves with sausages, still half in doubt whether it was real tangible sausage they were eating, or whether it was not one of those lovely dreams which sometimes ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... of feasting and tourneys and high mirth of every kind. Now the trumpets blared, and upon a scaffolding that was gay with pennons and smart tapestries King Gogyrvan sat nodding and blinking in his brightest raiment, to judge who did the best: and into the field came joyously a press of dukes and earls and barons and many famous knights, to contend for honor and a trumpery ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... the doorway with his great bulk and bringing with him a strong odor of garlic and Jap sake. For a moment he stood on the threshold, blinking stupidly. Then he pulled the ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... a minute before the door opened, and the priest, bare-headed and blinking in the strong light, came with a stupefied air across ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... As he sat blinking and winking by the rhubarb in his house all day long, the toad never left off thinking, thinking, thinking about the spider. And as he kept thinking, thinking, thinking, so he told Bevis, he recollected that he knew a great deal about a good many other things besides flies. So one day, after ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... came out and buzzed in the window; Japp got himself out of bed, brewed strong coffee, and went back to his slumbers. Presently it was dinner-time, and I went over to a silent meal with Wardlaw. When I returned I must have fallen asleep over a pipe, for the next thing I knew I was blinking drowsily at the patch of sun in the door, and listening for footsteps. In the dead stillness of the afternoon I thought I could discern a shuffling in the dust. I got up and looked out, and there, sure enough, was some one coming down ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... at last so far aroused that she was helped from the wagon and came shivering and dripping toward the kitchen. She stood a moment in the doorway and filled it, blinking confusedly at the light. There was an absence of celerity in all Mrs. Wiggins' movements, and she was therefore slow in the matter of waking up. Her aspect and proportions almost took away Mrs. Mumpson's breath. Here ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... a tea towel in his hands and an apron on. He heard John through in a dazed way, his hollow eyes blinking with evident uncertainty as to what was expected of him. When Barclay was through, the father looked at the mother for his cue, and did not speak for a moment. Then he faltered: "Why, yes,—yes,—I see! Well, ma, what—" And at ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... appeared in the doorway, blinking a little at the lamp-light, the five card-players stared at him ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... sense in this last remark; he stood blinking his eyes at Bill and Gus and pondering. The slim youth plucked at his sleeve and said something in a ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... mean enough—I should say you don't mean to tell her we won't take Phoebe?" gasped Harvey, blinking rapidly. "Surely you can't be ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... the ducks and turkeys were waddling in ungainly fashion alongside the wall; the fowls were quietly clucking and peaking at invisible grains on the hard ground of the stable; while the pig, the goat, and the big cow, were drowsily blinking their eyes, as though they were falling asleep. Outside it had just begun ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the other thoughtfully, "Mag would have gone to the bad anyway, soon or late.—Oh, yes, she would, Mother! No use blinking facts. As she used to say, she was 'spiled anyway.' On the whole," Jemima decided, "I think you have done the best thing possible. But I wish I had been here!—What are you going to do with Jacky ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... in Paris. You leave the train half-frozen, to find the porters red-eyed from their watch. The customs officials, in a kind of stupor, scrawl cabalistic signs upon your trunk. You get outside the station, to find a few scattered cabs, their drivers asleep inside, their lamps blinking in ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... canters across the space, With white plumes blinking under the evening grey sky. And suddenly, as if the ground moved The red range heaves in slow, ...
— Bay - A Book of Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the light, holding his father's warm slender hands in his own, and trying to assimilate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... comprehension in words alone. He winked, nodded, and screwed his face into a thousand wrinkles. De Spain, wheeling, rode away, the old man blinking first after him, and then at the money in his hand. He didn't profess to understand everything in the high country, but he could still distinguish the principal figures at the end of a bank-note. When he tramped to Calabasas the next day to interview McAlpin he received more ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... here? The portrait of a blinking idiot, Presenting me a schedule! I will read it. How much unlike art thou to Portia! How much unlike my hopes and my deservings! 'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.' Did I deserve no more than a fool's head? Is that my prize? ...
— The Merchant of Venice • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the night fell I could see the great eye of the lighthouse blinking at me on the weather side of the boat. It became necessary to go about, but I gave the order to Peter very reluctantly. He handled the head-sheets, and then, instead of settling down in his old place, leaned ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... for I saw he was so weak his thin legs were trembling. 'Neither Ed nor I are going to give you away—sit down,' and I shook Ed. He sat up blinking like an old toad in a hard shower. 'By whimey!' said Ed, staring at Bob as if he ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... sideways at the window, dreamily stroking a tabby kitten, who, purring and blinking, nestled on her lap, and with great satisfaction held up her little nose into the rather hot spring sunshine. Olga Ivanovna was wearing a white morning gown, with short sleeves; her bare, pale-pink, girlish shoulders and arms were a picture of freshness and health. A little ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... in the Moon was looking down, With winking and with blinking frown, And stars beamed out bright To look on the night; The Man in the Moon ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... in winter was only a little, hungry schoolboy, trotting to be catechised by the priest, or to bring the loaves from the bakehouse, or to carry his father's boots to the cobbler; and in summer he was only one of hundreds of cowboys, who drove the poor, half-blind, blinking, stumbling cattle, ringing their throat bells, out into the sweet intoxication of the sudden sunlight, and lived up with them in the heights among the Alpine roses, with only the clouds and the snow ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... roar of mingled astonishment and anger brought a dozen cowboys leaping out of their bunks. In the dimly lighted room their blinking eyes made out the forms of two men struggling, one in his night dress, the other in hat and boots. One was Big Bill, for his roar was an unmistakable as the roar of summer thunder. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the poor beast rises, and shambles out lurching queerly. In the daylight he stands swaying from side to side, and blinking stupidly. I look and note that the horrid wound is larger, much larger, and seems to have a whitish, fungoid appearance. My sister moves to fondle him; but I detain her, and explain that I think it will be better not to go ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... Harrigan, blinking and coughing after the strong liquor had burned its way down his throat. "The feel av your throat under me thumbs was sweeter than the touch av a colleen's hand, McTee! ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... cigar. But Billy was not interested in the new freight agent, and remained in his retreat, watching the brilliant sunshine shimmer over the blue-green haze of spruce and pine that furred the way down to the valley. He basked in it like a cat blinking its content. The rails were beginning to hum softly, and it would not be long till the ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... a streaming face over his shoulder, blinking through the water. The group he looked at was as idyllically peaceful as wayfarers might be after the heat and burden of the day. Rest, fellowship, a healthy simplicity of food and housing were all in the picture either visibly or ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the faint hope to which she had clung until now. Herbert, awakened finally by the turbulent sounds from the room he had been told must be kept perfectly quiet, jumped up, and showed himself, with disordered hair and blinking eyes, in the door of communication, just as Mabel struggled to rise, and pleaded weepingly with those who held her down that they would restore ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... declare itself. Some of the spectators back the east, others back the west. The patrons of the ring are so excited that they feel the strength tingling within them; they clench their fists, and watch their men, without so much as blinking their eyes. At last one man, east or west, gains the advantage, and the umpire lifts his fan in token of victory. The plaudits of the bystanders shake the neighbourhood, and they throw their clothes or valuables into the ring, to be ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... Claire discovered a Christianity that was not of candles and shifting lights and insinuating music, nor of carpets and large pews and sound oratory, but of hoboes blinking in rows, and girls in gospel bonnets, and little silver and crimson placards of Bible texts. They stopped on a corner to listen to a Pentecostal brother, to an I. W. W. speaker, to a magnificent negro who boomed in an operatic baritone that the Day of Judgment was coming on April 11, 1923, ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... glanced at the doorway of the nearest house he caught sight of a small head with bulging eyes, which stared at him without blinking. ...
— The Tale of Benny Badger • Arthur Scott Bailey
... governor and I brought in people on welfare from all over America who had found their way to work and a woman from my state who testified was asked this question. What's the best thing about being off welfare and in a job. And without blinking an eye, she looked at 40 governors and she said, when my boy goes to school and they say "What does your mother do for a living?" he can give an answer. These people want a better system and we ought ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... quality of her soul had responded to the horror of our situation. The fierce trials had gradually developed her, as burning sunshine opens the bud of a flower; and I beheld her now in the plenitude of her nature. From time to time Castro would raise up to her his blinking old eyes, ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... been asleep for at least two hours when a movement by my bedside and a light in my eyes awakened me. I sat bolt upright in bed, blinking at Halyard, who, clad in a dressing-gown and wearing a night-cap, had wheeled himself into my room with one hand, while with the other he solemnly waved ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... the breeze, the flying hour are all full of delight. Everything is touched with a fine savour and quality, whether it be the wide view over the dappled plain, the blue waters of the lonely dyke, the old farm-house blinking pleasantly among its barns and outbuildings, the tall church-tower that you see for miles over the flat, the busy cawing of rooks in the village grove; the very people that one meets wear a smiling and friendly air, from the old labourer trudging ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... at him, blinking stupidly. Still he did not speak, but moistened his lips with a swollen tongue. He began to sink slowly back into the blankets, supine and inert. Nicodemus sat on the edge of the bunk and passed a long gorilla arm about his shoulders. He motioned to his wife, who stood watching, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... throw ourselves into the midst of our assailants. Caterna is in front of us, his mouth open, his white teeth ready to bite, his eyes blinking, his revolver flourishing about. The actor has given place to the old sailor who has reappeared for ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... change your mind and stay on, boy?" Mr. Phillips said, blinking up at the young man. "If I talk to Mr. J.D., I think he can find a job for you ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... in order to suit it to the artificial, intellectual, and moral atmosphere which he derived from books, instead of living healthfully in the open air, and among his fellow-beings. Still he felt the pleasure of being warmed through by this natural heat, and, though blinking a little from its superfluity, could not but confess an enjoyment and cheerfulness in this flood of morning light that came aslant the hill-side. While he thus stood, he felt a friendly hand laid upon his shoulder, and, looking up, there was the minister of the village, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hatched and the grotesque caricatures which sat blinking in the sunlight were enough to cause me to doubt my sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... plan seemed to him beautifully simple and infallible. He dozed, awoke, dozed again, and the ruby light seemed to intensify each time his eyes opened. Gradually the shaft of light grew so strong that, focused on his closed eyes, it forced him to full wakefulness; and now he stared hard at it, blinking, hypnotized by the trembling radiance that seemed to shoot out from the main shaft until a great moving circle of light appeared before him. And out from the midst of the light stepped Dolores, bewitching, irresistible, smiling down upon him with a tenderness that filled ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... rendered their accustomed service, and a new soprano, on trial, exploited her skill in solo parts. She sang without Winifred's refinement of artistic sense, but sang fashionably. She sang dramatically, and cast languishing glances at the unresponsive backs of the congregation, blinking over her notes as though invisible footlights dazzled her eyes. It was not easy to find the sentiment sung in the midst of the quavering notes, so the poor worshipers below could scarcely offer "amens" ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... Frog puffed himself up until it seemed as if his white and yellow waistcoat would surely burst. He sat very still for a while and gazed straight at jolly, round, red Mr. Sun without blinking once. Then he spoke in a very ...
— The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat • Thornton W. Burgess
... Blinking away his tears, he took up the pad, and carried it down the lighted passage to his own room. There he sat down, and with a pencil stump extracted from his ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the sombre shadows of the hills, with Stanley padding along under the wagon. The Worcester girls tried to induce Hollanden to sing, and in consequence there was quarrelling until the blinking lights of the inn appeared above them as if a ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... people have all the blinking luck. I've done about twenty night patrols since I've been up here and never seen anything ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... he sat up, blinking. I saluted. "It's after four o'clock," I reported, "and I slept on guard and the flags and the burros are gone." And then I wanted ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... know that he referred to herself and the unstudied picture she made, sitting there with her hat pushed back, and the little bird blinking at her from between her cupped palms. But she looked at him curiously, with an impulse to ask questions about what he was doing with that queer-looking camera, and how he could inject motion into photography. While she watched, he drew out a narrow, ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... milk, they lifted eyes swimming with appreciative content above the grasses of their pasture. Two old peasants heard the very last of the crisp trills, before the concert ended; they were leaning forth from the narrow window-ledges of a straw-roofed cottage; the music gave to their blinking old eyes the same dreamy look we had read in the ruminating cattle orbs. For an aeronaut on his way to bed, I should have felt, had I been in that blackbird's plumed corselet, that I had had ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... his slant eyes blinking at the moon. Occasionally he raised his pointed nose and uttered a muffled whine that ended in a short, querulous yelp. . . . Hours passed. . . . The tide began to ebb, leaving a dark line of sand at the edge of the water. . . . After ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... rose, drew a deep breath and climbed the cellar stair. For a time he stood blinking, and mouthing his scattered teeth. He was trying ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... so small and incompetent and so very, very young as when the train with Car Forty-seven attached vanished from sight, and left her on the platform of the Denver station with her two companions. There they stood, Phil on one side tired and drooping, Mrs. Watson on the other blinking anxiously about, both evidently depending on her for guidance and direction. For one moment a sort of pale consternation swept over her. Then the sense of the inevitable and the nobler sense of responsibility came to her aid. She rallied herself; the color returned to her cheeks, and she said ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... Tell us all about it, Fred. When do they start? Shall I have time to get Patty some clothes? No, she'd better buy them over there. Oh, Patty, you'll have the most rapturous time! Do say something, you little goose! Don't sit there blinking as if you didn't understand what's going on. Tell us ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... off his hat with a grand bow, blinking in the blaze of the sun which turned his tan to a bronze and touched the smile, which was born as an inspiration from her ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... drawn between the mountain and the city. Then from the Temple ledges and eaves of palaces the bats fell headlong downwards, then spread their wings and floated up and down through darkening ways; lights came blinking out in golden windows, men cloaked themselves against the grey sea-mist, the sound of small songs arose, and the face of Hilnaric became a resting-place for mysteries ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... Miss Westley," Miss Gray had said, putting a book into Gyp's hands. And now, in the middle of them, Miss Gray was staring out across the snowy slopes of the school grounds, not hearing one word, and blinking real tears ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... except that there weren't any more reports that he hadn't read a dozen times or more. Nothing that made sense, nothing that offered a lead. Millions of Piper dollars sunk into this project, and every one of them sitting there blinking ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse
... was Mugambi, and just in front of him squatted Akut, while between Akut and Tarzan the twelve hairy apes sat upon their haunches, blinking dubiously this way and that, and now and then turning their eyes longingly back ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... good—that for so much time you will have had the idea before you." Fanny thought that she would have Mr. Saul himself before her, and that that would be enough. Mr. Saul, with his rusty clothes and his thick, dirty shoes, and his weak, blinking eyes, and his mind always set upon the one wish of his life, could not be made to present himself to her in the guise of a lover. He was one of those men of whom women become very fond with the fondness of friendship, but from whom young women seem to be as far ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... came slowly into the room, blinking at the light after the darkness of the woods outside. He was wet to the skin and shaking with cold. He gave a grunt of delight at the sight of the fire, then crossed and stood before it, warming his outstretched hands. As though frightened, ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... looking gravely at his company, blinking his eyes, smiling quietly, recurring now and then to the winding minor air which had been in his head all day. He was perfectly unhampered by any doubts of his welcome, and watched with serious attention the preparations for a meal in the open which Manvers was making ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... slept?" he said, blinking at the two beside the fire. "How long?" he added, with a flutter ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... your Wort from your Malt into the Underback, put to it a Handful or two of Hops, 'twill preserve it from that accident which Brewers call Blinking or Foxing. ...
— The London and Country Brewer • Anonymous
... closer, his lips were discerned to be of a peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than provincial. Mr. Bates was further distinguished from the common herd by a perpetual blinking of the eyes; and this, together with the red-rose tint of his complexion, and a way he had of hanging his head forward, and rolling it from side to side as he walked, gave him the air of a Bacchus in a blue apron, who, in the present reduced circumstances of Olympus, had taken ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... he said, blinking rapidly, "there's always something doing in that little old town." He slapped his knee: "Palla," he said, "I'm thinking of going into the ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... the room was empty, save for some pieces of poor furniture. But the visitor, blinking at the sudden transition from light to darkness, walked over to a rough couch, where lay the misshapen jockey Peacock, either asleep or deep in thought. Jasper shook him angrily by the shoulder, and a sullen scowl darkened the little monkey-like face ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... streaming and dripping beside it; Valentin's men were still seeking to recover the rest of this second corpse, which was supposed to be afloat. Father Brown, who did not seem to share O'Brien's sensibilities in the least, went up to the second head and examined it with his blinking care. It was little more than a mop of wet white hair, fringed with silver fire in the red and level morning light; the face, which seemed of an ugly, empurpled and perhaps criminal type, had been much battered against trees or stones as ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... when, in advance of him, this spectacle met his eye. A dried-up old man, with the stature of a boy of twelve, was tottering about like one out of his mind, in rumpled clothes of old moleskin, showing recent contact with bedding, his ferret eyes, blinking in the sunlight of the snowy boat, as imbecilely eager, and, at intervals, coughing, he peered hither and thither as if in alarmed search for his nurse. He presented the aspect of one who, bed-rid, has, through overruling excitement, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... across the court, and up the steps; but came back faster than he went, for the passageway there was blind and black, a place unspeakable for dirt, and filled with people past description. A woman peered out after him with red eyes blinking in the sun. "Ods bobs!" she croaked, "a pretty thing! Come hither, knave; I want the ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... answered, "Yes." And as the door swung open, in walked, not Dr. Alec, but Charlie, who immediately took one of the hall chairs and sat there with his hat on, rubbing his gloveless hands and blinking as if the light dazzled him, as he said in a rapid, abrupt sort of tone, "I told you I'd come left the fellows keeping it up gloriously going to see the old year out, you know. But I promised never break my word and here I am. Angel in blue, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... waited on her hand and foot, and walked in procession beside her, gulping hard, and blinking our eyes to keep back the tears whenever we had a quiet chance, and she laughed and admired the trees, and said really it was the quaintest sensation staring straight up at the sky; she felt just like "Johnny Head in Air" in the dear old picture-book! It ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of course, it was all 'acting,' to trick the parrot. Peterkin and I peeped out at him from behind the curtain, and we could scarcely help laughing out loud. He looked so queer—his head cocked on one side, listening, his eyes blinking; he seemed rather disgusted on the whole, ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... She came slowly up, blinking her eyes rather nervously, looked Diana over from dripping head to muddy shoes, then made ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... was opened with the soft abruptness of one who has approached it noiselessly by design. Dredlinton stood upon the threshold, blinking a little as he gazed into the room. He recognized Wingate with a start ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... feeble tears, sorrow. A gift she was, born out of emptiness, thrown up on the beach for the wornout old couple. No one had done anything to deserve her,—on the contrary, all had done their utmost to put her out of existence. Notwithstanding, there she lay one day with blinking eyes, blue and innocent as the skies of heaven. Anxiety she brought from the very beginning, many footsteps had trodden round her cradle, and questioning thoughts surrounded her sleep. It was even more exciting when ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... must take me for a brute," he stumbled on penitently. "You see—you see—er—the fact is, I'm in love myself." He did not know he could be so embarrassed. Veath actually staggered, and the girl's tear-stained face and blinking eyes were suddenly lifted from the broad breast, to be turned, in ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... him to the Princess, who examined him with her little, blinking eyes, and smiled on ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... uneasy movement in the heap that stood, or lay, for Danny. It stretched out, turned over, struggled to its hands and knees, and became an object. Then it crawled to the wall, against which it slowly and painfully up-ended itself, and stood blinking round for the water-bag, which hung from the verandah rafters in a line with its shapeless red nose. It staggered forward, held on by the cords, felt round the edge of the bag for the tot, and drank about a quart of water. Then it staggered back against the wall, stood ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... demanded North. He was blinking into the matter-of-fact daylight where Morrison stood, framed in ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... collapsed in a heap, her arms dangling limply over the side of the chair, her eyes bulging and blinking in a most grotesque manner. At first glance one would have sworn she was strangling. Afterwards the General denounced himself as an unmitigated idiot for having given her such a shock. He ought to ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... he was dirty and looked as though he had slept for many nights without taking off his clothes—unshaven, his shirt open showing his hairy chest, his eyes blinking in the light. ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... face in distilled water, to which has been added three drops of the juice of the whortleberry, one drop of the juice of the mountain ash berry, 1 oz. of lavender water, 1 oz. of nitre, and 1/2 oz. of tincture of arnica; and that, just before going to sleep, you look for three minutes, without blinking, at an equilateral triangle, transcribed in blood, on white paper, and composed of these letters and figures." And he handed Hamar a piece of paper, on which were ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... rear veranda, when old Noah had opened the hall door and shouted a hysterical "Lor' bress me!—it's Massa Phil!" after a moment's blinking inspection to make sure. From the cheered look on Mr. Faringfield's face that evening, and the revived lustre in Mrs. Faringfield's eyes, I could guess what welcome Philip had received from the ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... a few minutes after six that evening when Philip was conscious of a knock at his door. He swung around in his chair, blinking ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... blinking as the other held the lantern up the better to look into his face. Zachariah was a young negro,—as black as night, with gleaming white teeth which he revealed in a broad and friendly grin. "Had all dey could drink, Marster, back yander at ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... no blinking the inevitable conclusions. Both Huxley on the platform and Spencer in the "Nineteenth Century" had acknowledged before the whole world that they had lost faith in the idol which for thirty years they had so vociferously ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... coals, that seemed to present to his fancy an ever-shifting panorama, was soon lost in profound meditation. And the longer he thought, the harder he looked at the fire, which knowingly answered his look with a winking and blinking of its great bright eye, that seemed to say, "Well, Uncle Juvinell, what shall we do for the entertainment or instruction of these little people to-night? Shall we tell them of that crew of antic goblins we wot of, who are wont to meet by moonlight, to ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... had called him to her and led him into a room where lay his own dear mother with a little white bundle on her arm, and when the covers were turned down he had looked into a tiny, red, wrinkled face with blinking, black eyes and was told that this was a baby sister come to be a playmate for him. Then the nurse went away and left them for a little while and his mother talked to him in her soft voice that he ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... those letters were written and signed by Daddy Wright. Away up in the back corner of the attic sat an old owl. He looked down on us from his perch in a reproving manner, to think we would disturb the haunts of the past in that crude way. He was a weird looking old fellow as he sat there, blinking his big yellow eyes, and I couldn't help thinking that the owl of wisdom perhaps a good many times might be found perched in the dark attics of the past, instead of spending his time in the sunlight of the great and ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... thousand dollars a year from real estate and no ambitions to increase that income. And—she faintly hinted—she did not want much physical passion in the affair. Americans, you know, can envisage such unions without blinking. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... cropped yew-trees,—still thrive; the burn runs as it did in her time, and sings the same quiet tune,—as much the same and as different as Now and Then. The house is full of old family relics and pictures, the sun shining on them through the small deep windows with their plate-glass; and there, blinking at the sun and chattering contentedly, is a parrot, that might, for its looks of eld, have been in the ark, and domineered over and deaved the dove. Everything about the place ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and frisked about as happy as could be. The Farmer felt in his pocket, gave the Lapdog some dainty food, and sat down while he gave his orders to his servants. The Lapdog jumped into his master's lap, and lay there blinking while the Farmer stroked his ears. The Ass, seeing this, broke loose from his halter and commenced prancing about in imitation of the Lapdog. The Farmer could not hold his sides with laughter, so the Ass went up to him, and putting his feet upon the Farmer's shoulder attempted to climb into ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... struck him a public buffet before crowds. Who had called him to judge his father in these precarious and high questions? The office was usurped. It might have become a stranger; in a son - there was no blinking it - in a son, it was disloyal. And now, between these two natures so antipathetic, so hateful to each other, there was depending an unpardonable affront: and the providence of God alone might foresee the manner in which it would be resented ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sport!" tapping the parrot on the back with the perch which he used as a baton. Blinking and muttering, the bird performed his tricks, and was duly rewarded and returned to his home of iron. "She'll be wanting to take you home with her, but you're not ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... but they'd not the spunk to scoot till I Was blind and crippled. The scurvy rats skidaddled As the old barn-roof fell in. While I'd my sight, They'd scarce the nerve to look me in the eye, The blinking, slinking squealers! ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... to exclaim, "Thou almost persuadest me to be a pessimist!" It is unfortunate that our English tongue contains no word that stands somewhere between pessimism and optimism—that symbols a judicial cast of mind which sees the Truth without blinking and accepts it without complaint. The word Pessimist was first flung in contempt at those who dared to express unpalatable truth. It is now accepted by a large number of intellectuals, and if to be a pessimist is to have insight, wit, calm courage, patience, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... upon him with obvious assurance that here was every prospect of a performance that would, by comparison, lend a measure of credit to the worst preceding it. But Penrod was unaffected by the general gaze; he rose, still blinking from his lethargy, and in ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... and I can't believe it now!" he said, blinking his eyes. "I never heard such an insane combination of names in my life." He went on, "What under the sun does Molly ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... continued to watch as Shann sheathed his blade and then held out his hand. Yellow eyes, never blinking since his initial appearance, regarded him, not with any trace of fear or dismay, but with a calm measurement which was curiosity based upon a strong belief in its own superiority. He did not know how he ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... can cuddle them down in the straw in the bottom of the sled, cover them with blankets and let them go to sleep," said Grandpa Ford, as he noted the blinking eyes of the two youngest Bunkers. "They'll go to sleep and be at Great ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... finishing the puja, demanded his brother's corpse of the god. The god called his Ganas, who came to the front blinking, and fearing the anger of their master. The god was greatly enraged. The elder brother was very angry. When the corpse was not forthcoming he cuttingly remarked, "Is this, after all, the return for my deep belief ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... neighbor and comrade from Owen county who had left a wife and baby at home was called. He and Wake were standing together, Holman brushed him aside, walked out in his place and drew his bean. It turned out to be a white one. Twice within the half hour death had looked him in the eye and found no blinking there. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... thinking, doubting, wondering—and a little cold of heart like the boy who stands on the bank of the river to take the first plunge in the spring of the year. He had to set his teeth before he could summon the resolution to throw open the door. It was done; he stepped inside, and stood blinking in the sudden rush of ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... sailors, who have to see the sun reflected in the water), and for this reason one observes hardly anything but a vulgar rolling of the eyes, either sideways or upwards, toward the galleries, so that nothing but the white of the eye shows. Perhaps the same cause may account for the tedious blinking of which especially the actresses are guilty. And when anybody on the stage wants to use his eyes to speak with, no other way is left him but the poor one of staring straight at the public, with whom he or she then gets into direct communication outside of the frame provided by the setting. This ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... behind us rattled. Ev'leen Ann sprang up and turned her face toward the wall. Paul's cousin came in, shuffling a little, blinking his eyes in the light of the unshaded lamp, and looking very cross and tired. He glanced at us without comment as he went over to the sink. "Nobody offered me anything good to drink," he complained, "so I came in to get some water from the faucet ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... gone!" His hand instinctively reached toward his hip, and he cast a swift glance upon Bill, the parrot, who sat blinking at the edge ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... was about to return to my hotel, when to my utter horror I beheld Hawkins, in all his regalia, being marched down the hill between two business-like-looking persons, who were unmistakably officers of police. He walked dejectedly and had lost all his bravado. There was no blinking the fact that in my absence he had managed somehow to stumble into the hands of the guardians of the law and was now in process of being transported ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... the great oak, she turned the key and opened the door. "Come out," she said to the Echo-dwarf, who sat blinking within. "Winter is coming on, and I want the comfortable shelter of my tree for myself. The cattle have come down from the mountain for the last time this year, the pipes will no longer sound, and you can go to your rocks and have ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... was well worn he came into the hall, blinking about as a dotard, and took an outward place, pulling his hood over him to hide ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... in through the window, walking rather heavily, and halted just inside the room, blinking, as if the light dazzled him. Baring gave him a single glance that comprehended him from head to foot, and rose ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... in bed till ten or eleven in the morning, yet you are weary, exhausted, when you get up. I see you in my mind's eye as you go out into the street; the morning has dawned too early on your blinking eyes. I rise at five quite refreshed. It is still dark outdoors, yet there is enough to look at—the moon, the stars, the clouds, and the weather portents for the day. I prophesy the weather for many hours ahead. In what key ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... measures must be taken to recall him from the land of dreams. "I say! Kennan! Wake up! Breakfast has been ready this half-hour." The magic word "breakfast" appealed to a stronger feeling than drowsiness, and, thrusting my head out from beneath its covering of furs, I took a sleepy, blinking view of the situation, endeavouring in a feeble sort of way to recollect where I was and how I came there. A bright crackling fire of resinous pine boughs was burning on the square log altar in the centre of the hut, radiating a fierce heat to its remotest corner, and causing the perspiration to ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... in a smile, and she waved her hand confidingly to him as he turned away. Mrs. Caldwell seized her arm and hurried her up the steps to Aunt Victoria, who stood on the edge of the cliff blinking calmly. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... should like to beat about the bush) that I have sat down to a love-chapter. Too long has it been avoided, Albert has called Marion 'dear' only as yet (between you and me these are not their real names), but though the public will probably read the word without blinking, it went off in my hands with a bang. They tell me - the Sassenach tell me - that in time I shall be able without a blush to make Albert say 'darling,' and even gather her up in his arms, but I begin to doubt it; the moment sees me as shy as ever; I still find it advisable to ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... ragged sleeve across his eyes and nodded "Yes." Those little villages strung along the great river see strange wayfarers at times. And Hyacinthe said to himself that surely here was such a one. Blinking into the stranger's eyes, he lost for a flash the first impression of youth, and received one of incredible age or sadness. But the wanderer's eyes were only quiet, very quiet, like the little pools in the wood where the wild does went to drink. As he ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... was very kind to it, though a starling was by no means the cleanest bird that one could have. "You don't think Tom will touch it?" said Caroline, the first night the bird was there. Tom was Mrs. Trigg's favourite tabby cat; and really, to look at him lying on the rug, winking and blinking before the fire, paying more attention to the kettle hissing and boiling away than to any bird, Caroline could not help feeling a ...
— Carry's Rose - or, the Magic of Kindness. A Tale for the Young • Mrs. George Cupples
... white father's ears and nothing would do him but that the black baby must be brought to the house and be introduced to the white one. The little black fellow came in all rolled in his bundle of shawls and was laid for a few minutes beside his little lord and master. Side by side they lay blinking at the light equally strange to both, and then the master took the black child's hand and put it in that of the white's. With the convulsive gesture common to babyhood the little hands clutched ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... one must step from sleeper to sleeper over wide spaces with empty air beneath, and, as the ties are just wide enough to carry the single pair of rails, it would mean death to meet a train. Geoffrey nevertheless pressed on fast, the light of the blinking lantern dazzling his eyes and rendering it more difficult to judge the distances between the ties—until he halted for breath a moment in the center of the bridge. White mist and the roar of hurrying water rose out of the chasm beneath, but another sound broke through the noise of the swift ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... hands, and carried him into the hotel scullery, and got milk for him. He lapped it with tears running down his muddy nose; and when I had had him washed and tucked away into an old railway rug, beside a stove in the little room, he lay there winking and blinking, and licked at his own tears with an expression altogether broken-hearted. I should have liked to have known something of the history of his subterranean wanderings, but that was only to be left to conjecture. I bade him be of better cheer, and went outside to wait for the return of the ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... afraid you must find the weather chilly. Our English springs are very treacherous!" remarked Miss Rollo properly, turning her card-case round and round in her hands, and blinking rapidly with a pair of shy grey eyes, veiled by eyelashes of extraordinary length and silkiness. As the only child of distinguished parents, Miss Eunice Rollo was a personage of some importance in society; but she appeared ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... man's features, the impudence of his leering smile, and the mingled cowardice and ferocity of his eyes, which never looked another person in the face. Nor could the portrait depict the unwholesome, livid pallor of his skin, the restless blinking of his eyelids, and the constant movement of his thin lips as he drew them tightly over his short, sharp teeth. There was no mistaking his nature; one glance and he ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Who are you?" asked an owl, blinking his eyes at the brightness of her face; and a little rabbit, startled by the sound, sprang from its hiding place in the bushes and fell trembling ...
— Mother Stories • Maud Lindsay
... a cow," he said, and his lantern flashed on a big, brown cow. There she stood, a little way back from the automobile, looking at Mr. Brown and Splash, and blinking her eyes at the lantern. She could not see ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... Flitter Bill dropped his blinking eyes to the paper in his hand that bore the commission of Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of America to Mayhall Wells of Callahan, and went back into his store. He looked at it a long time and then he laughed, ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... not strong enough. It created the most excellent Kshattra, viz. those Kshattras among the Devas—Indra, Varuna, Soma, Rudra, Parjanya, Yama, Mrityu, isana' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 11); 'In the beginning all this was Self, one only; there was nothing whatsoever else blinking. He thought, shall I send forth worlds' (Ait. Ar. II, 4, 1, 1, 2); 'There was in truth Narayana only, not Brahma, not Isana, nor heaven and earth, nor the nakshatras, nor the waters, nor Agni, nor Soma, nor Surya. ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... panting, and my opponent under me—the pair of us too weary for the moment to strike a blow; and then, as breath came back, I was aware of a sudden hush in the din. A hand took me by the shirt-collar, dragged me to my feet, and swung me round, and I stared, blinking, into the face ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... next; a pony shoved his frowsy head against the window, and a patient large-eyed ox stood near the door with the obvious intention of remaining there till the master put in an appearance. All were envious of the favourite cat who was seated serenely inside the window, blinking complacently at the assemblage through a safe shield of glass, and at last her airs of superiority and content became ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... were lost in his cravat. Hair that was pepper-and-salt in color and frizzled naturally in stages like those of a judge's wig, seeming scorched by the fury of the fire which heated his brown skull and gleamed in his gray eyes surrounded by circular wrinkles (no doubt from a habit of always blinking when he looked across the country in full sunlight), completed the characteristics of his physiognomy. His lean and vigorous hands were hairy, knobbed, and claw-like, like those of men who do their share of labor. His personality was agreeable to ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Cheprakov. Meat was served very rarely; most of the dishes were made of milk, and on Wednesdays and Fridays we had Lenten fare, and the food was served in pink plates, which were called Lenten. Mrs. Cheprakov was always blinking—the habit grew on her, and I felt awkward and embarrassed ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... bear would only prove as good a Quaker as himself. He resolved to try it: indeed, all unarmed as he was, what else could he do? He might at least, by diverting the brute's attention, give Virginia time to get into a position of safety. So he stood up, and fixed his eyes on the red-blinking eyes of the ferocious beast. Something Bruin did not like: it might have been the youth's company and valiant bearing, but more probably his observation of the fire had satisfied him that he was ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... Menocal, blinking from the snow's sheen. He bade the sheriff and the engineer good day, glanced sharply at them and then at the others. When his look encountered his son, his eyebrows ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... a strange and beautiful thing to see. We did not say anything, but sat wondering and dreaming and blinking; and finally Seppi roused up ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... were freshly decked in their pale leafage. The whole scene was mantled with the exquisite radiance of the northern summer sun. Children and dogs loafed and rolled in aimless ecstasy, and the whole people sat at the teepee openings blinking comfortably. ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... the most difficult job I ever had in my life. I winked at the stars till they all seemed winking at me, I pinched myself black and blue, I rubbed my hands, I kicked my feet, but all to no purpose; I kept blinking and nodding as much as ever. I should have been off in another moment, so I jumped up and took several short turns along the shore. The thought that a jaguar might spring on Gerald prevented me from going far. As I got to the farther end of the beat I had marked out for myself I stopped, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... herself to gaze without blinking into the mirror; she put on a solemn face and sat in silence for some time, wondering what she should see. Would a coffin rise before her, or would Prince Andre presently stand revealed against the confused ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... the fame of these failures, but he was not hastened in it. He thought best to wait for some sign or leading from Hilbrook; but when none came, except the apparent attention with which Hilbrook listened to his preaching, and the sympathy which he believed he detected at times in the old eyes blinking upon him through his sermons, he felt urged to the visit which ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... fire; God men, when he with grace doth them inspire. And biggest candles give the better light, As grace on biggest sinners shines most bright. The candle shines to make another see, A saint unto his neighbour light should be. The blinking candle we do much despise, Saints dim of light are high in no man's eyes. Again, though it may seem to some a riddle, We use to light our candles at the middle.[23] True light doth at the candle's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... seemed intent not on looking at anything, but on trying to see if they could recognise any of their friends! It was a curious collection certainly! So many pictures of old disgraceful men, whose faces seemed like the faces of toads or magpies; dull, blinking, malign, or with the pert brightness of acquisition. There were pictures too of human life so-called, silly, romantic, insincerely posed; some fatuous allegorical things, like ill-staged melodramas; but the strength of English art came out for all that in the lovely landscapes, rich fields, summer ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... out, never speaking, when he was tired giving a little plaintive cry towards the servant, who was always near, who helped him to sit down, to crouch upon some step, where he would stay for hours, motionless, mute, his mouth hanging, his eyes blinking, hushed by the strident monotony of the grasshopper's cry—a blotch of humanity ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... and gestures of youth and health. But this is almost every thing:—no wonder, therefore, if that which can be put down by rule in the memory should appear to us as mere poring, maudlin, cunning,—slyness blinking through the watery eye of superannuation. So in this admirable scene, Polonius, who is throughout the skeleton of his own former skill and statecraft, hunts the trail of policy at a dead scent, supplied by the weak ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge |
