"Flick" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he could follow if need be without a break from ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... the sound of the flick of a whip. . . . A herd of cattle, driven by Yefim, the shepherd, saunter lazily down the sloping bank to drink. The shepherd, a decrepit old man, with one eye and a crooked mouth, walks with his head bowed, looking ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... an impression as though the speed of a train were decreasing as one looks out of the window. And how one view held for several seconds, a vast and wild mountain-range with glaciers and snow peaks by moonlight. When this faded gradually, the scenes began to flick by, more and more rapidly, and grew blurred. Phil and Ione were attacked by nausea until, again, they had to lie down. After that came the familiar succession: the wooden animals, the tangle of vines, the vast sea, the spheres, and ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... Menschenkenners Benutzung einiger Schriftsteller. Basel, 1781. (Flick.) An abridged edition ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... knot Then he would throw it on top of the large log at the back of the fire. This would make a bright flick-er-ing light. ...
— Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans • Edward Eggleston
... wryly, and reached to flick off the screen. He twisted a cigarette into the small pipelike holder, lit it and waited for ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... won't take no account of you." And the lies of them which have turned into ropes of hempen shall come up and strangle they. But me and my child shall pass by all fatted up and clothed, and with the last flick, afore the eyelids of they drop, they shall behold we, and, a-clapping of the teeth of them shall they repent them of their sins. Too late, too ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... surveying their domain. There was not space in it, at this hour, for the shadow of the elm-tree in the angle of the hedge; it crossed the lawn, cut the flower-border in two, and ran up the side of the house to the nursery window. She bent to flick a caterpillar from the honey-suckle; then, as they turned indoors, "If we mean to go on the yacht next Sunday," she suggested, "oughtn't you to let Mr. ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... straighten or stir, hands were thrown up. One struck at his face, and the fingers were stiff; one arm was cast over his shoulders, and Andy heard the intake of breath which precedes a shriek. Not a long interval—no more, say, than the space required for the lash of a snapping blacksnake to flick back on itself—but in that interim the hands of Andy were buried in the throat ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... and the sound of the door opening. He swung round and steadied himself with his back against the bunk when he saw Mart and Joe lift their hands and hold them there, palms outward, a bit higher than their heads. Something in the sight enraged Casey unreasoningly. A flick of the memory may have carried him back to the old days in the mining camps when Casey drove stage and ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to accomplish a task the fellow at the garage does with one quiet quick flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum. This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was wrong of her to click ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... never forget his first wild scamper over the moorland. He would persist in riding in his best London clothes, spotless broad white collar, shining silk hat, gloves, and all. Before mounting he even bent down to flick a little tiny bit of dust off ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... was true—true as it is that Tours has always had its feet in the Loire, like a pretty girl who bathes herself and plays with the water, making a flick-flack, by beating the waves with her fair white hands; for the town is more smiling, merry, loving, fresh, flowery, and fragrant than all the other towns of the world, which are not worthy to comb her locks or to buckle ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... moment, from one of the wings, a thin curl of smoke rose and floated up alongside a painted tamarind-tree. It might at first have been only the smoke of a cigar. Next moment, however, a flick of flame stole out and moved up the tree, and a draught of air blew the smoke across the stage. There were a few excited whispers, a rush in the wings; some one in the gallery shouted "Fire!" and just then a shower of sparks from ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... With a mere flick of the sword he laid the reptile twitching on the floor—and for a few minutes was madder with Joy than ever in his life he had ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... In the flick of time that Bryce's eyes had been away from the falling one, the path of the man's leap had begun to curve strangely, until now he seemed to be floating in a curve, flying sidewise and upward, faster and faster as he approached the hull. The rule of ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... being still to come, the little lieutenant's heel caught in the edge of the carpet, as he sailed with an imaginary hoop on grandly backward, and in spite of a surprising flick-flack cut in the attempt to recover his equipoise, down came the 'orphan,' together with a table-load of spoons and plates, with a crash ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... dere, de do' wuz stan'in' open; a lighterd-knot wuz flick'rin' on de h'a'th, en de ole cunjuh man wuz settin' dere noddin' in de corner. Dan le'p' in de do' en jump' fer dis man's th'oat, en got de same grip on 'im w'at de cunjuh man had tol' 'im 'bout half ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... from a bough overhead, and stopped just in front of the place where Archie sat. Archie looked at him; he looked at Archie. The squirrel put its paws together and rubbed its nose. It chippered a minute, twinkled its bead-like eyes, then, with a final flick of its tail, it was off, and up the tree again like a flash. Archie looked after ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... rather than a filigree bow, as old romancers fabled,—no plaything, but a most business-like article, well-poised in the handle, and thence tapering into graceful, stinging nothingness; and not a scholar escapes at least a flick ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... his coat, brought out a cigarette case, opened it and slowly put a cigarette to his lips. About to flick on a lighter, he saw Ruben Jeffries watching him with an expression of disapproval from across the aisle. Jeffries shook his head, indicated the NO SMOKING sign on the wall. Cavender nodded, smiling ...
— Ham Sandwich • James H. Schmitz
... met for a moment—perplexed. My uncle bustled out and gave a few totally unnecessary directions to the cabman and got in beside her. "All right?" asked the driver. "Right," said I; and he woke up the horse with a flick of his whip. My aunt's eyes surveyed me again. "Stick to your old science and things, George, and write and tell me when they make you a Professor," she ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... one in the place they would probably recognize me at once as the missing convict. This choked me off, for though as a rule I have no objection to a slight scuffle, I felt that in my present condition the average housemaid could knock me over with the flick of a duster. ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... patience with y'r ramrod independence! Bend a stiff neck, or you'll break a sore heart! Ride ahead, I tell you, you young mule!" and he brought a smart flick across ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... to pass, but it gave the final flick to her anger. "You are the kind of person, Henry, who is so monumentally selfish that you think everybody who dares to cross you in any way is himself monumentally selfish too. Now you come to me in a protective role to save me from ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... Voor, as Shirley knew. It was closed because its master, a social acquaintance of the club man's, was at this time touring the Orient in his steam yacht. No man should have entered that doorway. So, as the horse started under the flick of the long whip, Shirley peered unobserved through the glass ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... git back airly, ef they's moer guyard mountin' to be did. So here goes, Serlizer or no Serlizer." The horses were pretty fresh, and they tore along, enjoying the fun, and answering with their heels to every playful flick of the whip. The road was rough and hilly; the jolting almost threw the occupants of the box seat off the waggon that had no springs. Old man Newcome groaned, and implored Ben, for the sake of Serlizer, to go easy or leave him on the roadside to die. "Ef you don't laike my teamin'," ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... stand. That leaves twenty-three wards that we Republicans always conceded to you people; but if we manage to carry thirteen of them along with the eight I'm talking about, we'll have a majority in council, and"—flick! he snapped his fingers—"out you go—you, McKenty, Cowperwood, and all the rest. No more franchises, no more street-paving contracts, no more gas deals. Nothing—for two years, anyhow, and maybe longer. If we win we'll take the jobs ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... vulgar theatre management; not his brother artists. Away from his imitations he tries to make the most of his grotesque figure. He invents eccentric costumes; his sleeves reach no further than just below his elbows, his trouser hems flick his calves; he wears, inveterate tradition of the circus clown, a ridiculously little hard felt hat on the top of his shock of carroty hair. He paints his nose red and extends his grin from ear to ear. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... inch the grumbling mass of irritable beasts was urged forward by the white drover and his boys. It was a ticklish job, and the whips were kept quiet at first, except to flick up one or another which tried to poke out of the mob. All went well till the leading cattle came to the wing of the yard. Those iron rails frightened them. They had only seen a yard once before in their lives, and the rails of that ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... swiftly into her satiny complexion while, with a pretty, inquisitive frown, she scrutinized him; and then, with a flick of her black eyelashes, she ran toward the arched doorway, leaving Peter to ponder, and scratch his blond head, and ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Mrs. Biggers remained with the office work and spent her money freely. Dr. Gay sacrificed time from her practice and pressed her father and mother into service so that literature might be addressed to the voters. Mrs. Woodworth, Mrs. Feuquay, Mrs. Burt, Mrs. Mattie Flick, Mrs. Dunham and her daughter Junia and Miss Mary Barber worked day and night in the office or ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... the table, where he staggered and would have fallen, had it not been for the youth who bore him up. Holtcolm, in his drunken anxiety for his neighbour's steadiness, stood near him and with tender, maudlin solicitude began to flick the grains of bergamot scented snuff from the lace of Lord Cedric's steenkirk. At the same time from the glass he held there spilled on his Lordship's brocaded coat of blue and silver a good half-pint of wine. Cedric upon being ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... never a thought for Nelson, who preserved their honest pint-pots, to be paid for in honest pence, and saved them from litres and decimal coinage. Nearer at hand, frightened rabbits popped up and vanished with a flick of white tails; scared birds fluttered among the branches, or sped across the glade to quieter sleeping-quarters; but never a bird nor a beast gave a thought to the hero to whom they owed it that each year their little homes of horsehair, wool, or moss, were safe stablished 'neath ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... arms came to his ears. Another five miles they marched and halted for tea. Then all the men became very silent—and while they rested they talked in whispers as they watched the awful sky. When it grew dark the flick-flack of lightening played across the sky and it showed the men's faces white and drawn. Presently Tim's Company lieutenant came up with the news that they would not be able to rest until morning as they had anticipated. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... mathematical prodigy what he is, Cloud knew that in exactly eight and three-tenths seconds from that observed instant the activity of the vortex would be slightly—but not too far—under the coefficient of his heaviest bomb. Another flick of his mental trigger and he knew the exact velocity he would require. His hand swept over the studs, his right foot tramped down, hard, upon the firing lever; and, even as the quivering flitter shot ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... warm bed and took them up one by one, without question or murmur. They were life. Life had no other meaning any more than it has for the omnibus hack, which cannot conceive existence outside shafts, and devoid of the intermittent flick of a whip point. The comparison is somewhat unjust; for Mary Ann did not fare nearly so well as the omnibus hack, having to make her meals off such scraps as even the lodgers sent back. Mrs. Leadbatter was extremely economical, ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... far," said he to himself, turning over on his side. "The place will suit me after all. Capital table, easy-going hostess, charming young Bohemian to amuse me, money going about, and all that. Teddy wants stirring up. I shall have to flick him a bit. He'll go well enough when he's once started, but he's wasting his time here disgracefully. Eight months since he came, and absolutely nothing done! The boy's not buried, the mother's not married, and the tutor's not had his month's notice, (Like to see this precious tutor, by ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the parcel from his son's hand, turned it round and round under the gaslight, laid it down, and dismissed it with a flick as of contempt for his incompetence. At that ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... black-and-white bird hurried here and there, its legs were nearly covered; but it seemed quite at home, and hurried away, wading easily and seldom using its wings, till all at once, as Pen watched, he saw the little creature take a step, give its tail a flick, and disappear, not diving but regularly walking into deep water, to reappear a few yards away, stepping on to another rock, running here and there for a few moments, and again disappearing in ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... Flick, flick, flick! I guess it must be going to begin now, but it's queer the people don't stop talking: how can they expect to hear the pictures if they go on talking? Now it's off. PASSED BY THE BOARD OF—. Ah, this looks interesting—passed by the board of—wait till I adjust my ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... her, the last verse of the song of Klein-Zach. When he drank too much gin or rack, You ought to have seen the two tails at his back, Like lilies in a lac, The monster made a sound of flick flack, Flic, ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach
... moment there came a gentle flick of wings, and the robin alighted on the stone coping, not three feet from ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... that it lifts the mind from the coarse and sensual to the imaginative and pure (Ep. II, i, 128). Pope illustrates by a delightful compliment to moral Addison, with just one little flick of the lash to show that he remembered ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... French for dead, drunk, or damned. Barrin' 'is paucity o' language, there wasn't a blemish on Jules. But what I wished to imply was, when we climbed into the back parts of the car, our Lootenant Morshed says to me, "I doubt if I'd flick my cigar-ends about too lavish, Mr. Pyecroft. We ought to be sitting on five pounds' worth of selected fireworks, and I think the rockets are your end." Not being able to smoke with my 'ead over the side I threw it away; and then your ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... band, on the ragged edge of threespace, a scout ship could remain concealed until a critical moment, breakout into threespace—discharge her weapons—and flick back into Cth before an enemy could get a fix on her. Scouts, with their high capacity converters, could perform this maneuver, but the ponderous battlewagons and cruisers with their tremendous weight of armor, screens, and munitions couldn't maneuver like this. They simply didn't have the agility. ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... flowered bough above, the robin, unafraid, gushed into a very madness of golden song. And now the sun, higher risen, had struck the river into a broad sheet of spun metal, over which the swallows—even as in the olden days—darted and spiraled, with now and then a flick and dash ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... hookerin' an' lunterin', an' shorin' his kokero how he could koor the puro bengis' selfus, they shooned a guro a-goorin' an' googerin', an' the first covva they jinned he prastered like divius at 'em, an' these here geeros prastered apre ye rukk, an' the boro koorin' mush that was so flick o' his wasters chury'd first o' saw (sar), an' hatched duri-dirus from the puv pre the limmers. An' he beshed adoi an' dicked ye bullus wusserin' an' chongerin' his trushnees sar aboutus, an' kellin' pre lesters covvas, an' poggerin' to cutengroes saw he ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... Always she had disdained the material of which the ladder was constructed. Now that she was successfully landed upon the desired level and needed its support no longer, would she kick it aside entirely, with one flick of her slippered foot? As for their marriage: what had it really been? A delicately hand-wrought bond? A machine-made manacle? ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Chipmunk!" Jimmy Rabbit exclaimed. He called to Sandy. But Sandy did not stop. He made no answer, either, beyond a flick of his tail. You see, his mouth was so full that he couldn't say ...
— The Tale of Sandy Chipmunk • Arthur Scott Bailey
... growing light, passing another farm-house presently and another unfriendly dog. The greyness in the east became tinged with rose. Birds sang and fluttered. A rabbit hopped nimbly across the road ahead of them and disappeared, with a taunting flick of his little white tail, in the bushes. Further on a chipmunk chattered at them from the top of the wall and then, with long leaps, raced ahead to stop and eye them inquiringly, finally disappearing with a last squeal of alarm. A second sign-post renewed their courage. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... gave back the sound of his tread as he mounted, with eerie, wandering echoes. The grey walls glimmered with a ghostly desolation around him. Halfway up, he stopped to flick the ash from his cigar, and laughed aloud. But the echoes of his laughter sounded like voices crying in the darkness. He went on more swiftly, like a phantom imprisoned and seeking escape. The echoes met him and fell away behind him. The loneliness was like ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... Brandywine!... Stripe me with pokeberry-juice!— Flick me with a pizenvine And yell "Yip!" and lem me loose! —Old now as I then wuz young, 'F I could sing as I have sung, Song 'ud surely ring dee-vine ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... fingers always stretched apart. In due course his legs followed, of like purpose and absurdity. For swimming he only used his tail, but for balancing and steering, his feet and hands. Would he rise to the surface, he must flick his tail, and turn his toes and fingers upwards. Would he seek the bottom, he must depress them. Would he lie motionless, suspended in mid-water, he must point them straight outwards ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... them on board of their several craft in a state of strict sobriety. And Gregory meant to bear a hand, and lift it pretty frequently towards the most loyal part of man, in the large festivities of that night. He smacked his lips at the thought of this, and gave a little flick to his horses. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... his kambok, or long whip, in the air, and made it crack like a pistol, and the horses reared, and the oxen started and slowly bored in between them, for they whinnied, and kicked, and spread out like a fan all over the road; but a flick or two from the terrible kambok soon sent them bleeding and trembling and rubbing shoulders, and the oxen, mildly but persistently goring their recalcitrating haunches, the intelligent animals went ahead, and revenged themselves by breaking ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Perhaps you would better tell me and let me judge for myself," she suggested; and out of the past came a flick of the memory whip to make him feel again that she was ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... see," he cried, in his high, broken treble, "there's some on you that ain't fit to flick a fly from a joint o' meat. You'd make werry good ladies' maids, the most of you, but you took the wrong turnin' ven you came ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... around this scene of gloom The flick'ring lustre of his taper throws, He says, 'Such, stranger, is my destined tomb; Here, and with these, shall ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... louder, then a door was sharply shut, and Flick, the big watch-dog, gave a low growl and the gate of the farmyard clicked again and again as it swung violently backwards and ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... her arrogantly, as if she were a straw to be drawn along in the wind of his progress. Doors flew open at a flick of ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... of the vile, the pig, into the company of which she was relegated for all eternity. She was then ordered to ground in a manner reminiscent of the tones used to bazaar dogs, which order was emphasised with a flick of the courbaash upon a part which had known the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... something and he frowned again. Dammit, why didn't the communicator flick? He should be getting some kind of inquiries. Hell, he was practically ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... in the likeness of a dog. You yourself, of course, are not a coward. You possess that cornerstone of virtue, a love for animals. If at your heels a dog sniffs and growls, you humor his mistake, you flick him off and proceed with unbroken serenity. It is scarcely an interlude to your speculation on the market. Or if you work upon a sonnet and are in the vein, your thoughts, despite the beast, run unbroken to a rhyme. But pity this other whose heart is less stoutly wrapped! ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... down from the empty tree-top with a jerk. "Hoo!" he shouted, and leaned forward suddenly to flick his off horse with the whiplash. Just then the rear wheel on that side slumped down into what ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. A man who had had years with a real, living woman like ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... a final angry flick at an imaginary crumb and flounced off in the direction of the kitchen. The next moment her shrill voice ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... mistress, and had spent the greater part of his life in the saddle. There was no more enjoyable kind of idleness possible for him than to jog along in the sunshine on one of the Captain's old hunters; called upon for no greater exertion than to flick an occasional fly off his horse's haunch, or to bend down and hook open the gate of a plantation with his stout hunting-crop. Bates had many a brief snatch of slumber in those warm enclosures, where the air was heavy with the scent of the pines, and the buzzing of summer flies made ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... electricity in that hand. When your hand moves, it'll be as fast as the jump of a spark! And when that hand moves, the gun is going to come out clean in it. It's got to come out with it! You hear? It's got to! Your fingertips catch under the butt; they flick up. They don't draw the gun; they throw it out of the holster; they pitch the muzzle up, and the butt comes smack back against the palm of your hand. And in the same part of a second you pull the trigger. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... directed, then light a brimstone match, flick it on the ground, turn your hogshead down over it, let it stand until the match quits burning, this operation is necessary once a week—a method I ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... into the cabin and go over those tally books." Which was merely a subterfuge to get Bill away from the wagon without letting the boys know something was wrong. Bill got up, brushed the dirt off his trousers with a flick of his fingers, lighted the cigarette he had just rolled and ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... favor, Johnnie would sometimes let his friends flick a few currants at his pet. And sometimes they would even pelt the old horse Ebenezer, who stood in the stall next to Twinkleheels. There was little fun in that, however. Ebenezer refused to kick. The first currant generally brought ...
— The Tale of Pony Twinkleheels • Arthur Scott Bailey
... comfortless type to be found in small towns. Bare floors, stained with tobacco juice and the dust of the street. Bare desks and tables, some of them unpainted, homemade affairs, all of them cheap and old. A stove in the larger office, a few wooden-seated armchairs. Starr took in the details with a flick here and there of his flashlight that he kept carefully turned away from ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... "We an't good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, just now—not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I'm a man as don't like young gentlemen a-poachin' on his grounds without his permission,—in special when birds is plentiful on their own. It appear he do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip—as them fellers at the races: All in this 'ere Ring's mine! as much as to say; and who's been hit, he's had fair warnin'. I'm sorry for't, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... universe!" Then he had not forgotten; she had lived in his heart; she had not for three months been the victim of her own fancies! ... She saw him put a piece of folded white paper on the top edge of the screening box and flick it down to her. She blushed scarlet, staring at it as it lay on the counter. He said nothing, and she could not speak. ... He had prepared that paper, then, beforehand, on the chance of being able to give it to her! This thought was exquisite but full of terror. "I must really go," he ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... is obtained. We were mounted on small horses active as goats. Each horse was attended by a burroquero, literally a donkey driver. They were fine athletic fellows, armed with a rabo, a cow's tail at the end of a stick, to flick off the venomous flies which worry both animals and riders. They carried also cloaks and umbrellas, to shield their masters from cold and mist. We rode out of the town between walls covered in profusion with heliotropes, roses, geraniums, fuchsias, and other sweet-smelling flowers, ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... been taken, had not a figure in a floating lilac-and-white garment, with two long braids of dark hair hanging over its shoulders, appeared upon the staircase landing. Burns looked up, saw it, and was up the stairs to the landing before Chester could flick an eyelash. ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... General, with a searching note in his voice which seemed to probe coldly and with deadly accuracy among the strenuous emotions in the young man's mind. "Harris—you are an officer of promise. Don't cut that promise short." With a flick of his ashes to one side he turned away. The cigar went back into the corner of ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... my sword, the "Rising Sun," in my hand. Three or four of my boys followed at my back, and I did not forget to take with me the bottle of the white man's perfume. I made straight for the great Klang gambling house, and when I reached the door, I halted for the space of an eye-flick, and spilled the scent over my hand and arm as far as the elbow. Then I rushed in among the gamblers, suddenly and without warning, stepping like a fencer in the sword-dance and crying "Amok! Amok!" ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... again I watched the light, to see if indeed it was going to cross my face, and then a sudden shadow flitted across it, and with a hiss and flick of feathers a long arrow fled through the window and stuck in the plaster of the wall not an inch above my chest, furrowing the fur of the white bearskin over ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... lash of scornful intolerance for all things hypocritical, the flick of which Barbara had never known before, was gone from Miriam's tongue. She moistened her lips and tried to speak, and had to try again before ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... salt. Two exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. They steal round the galley and WILL nibble the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is the most impudent gesture I ever saw. Winking is nothing to it. The ear normally hangs down behind; the goat turns sideways to her enemy - by a little knowing cock of the head flicks one ear over one eye, and squints from behind it for half ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... whispers from the wind, 'Mid glories of the hollowed night, To storm-swept vales and mounts we haste, And, in monastic halls we see, Above a greenish gyrus rind, The flick'ring flames of a light, Beneath whose subtle, shadowed waste Squat men and women that would flee The ghastly words from Vellum told, Who pluck their eyes and pull their hair,— Beneath their feet there writhes a worm! As bludgeons smite a leering ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... men; gave a hand to Blondet and Nathan and Finot, and to all the coterie with whom he had been fraternizing for a week. He was a personage, he thought, and he flattered himself that he surpassed his comrades. That little flick of the wine did him admirable service; he was witty, he showed that he could ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... and they were furnished in the most correct and trying mode of Louis XIV. The chairs were gilt and very uncomfortable. The ornaments were all straight up and down and made in such shapes that there was no place to flick off cigarette ashes anywhere. Nothing could be pulled up to anything else and there was not a single good place to rest one's elbows anywhere. The only saving grace in the situation was that after five minutes or ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped his fingers: flick went each separate ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... times and had a look at my fly. Didn't flick it, or do anything as complimentary as that. Just yawned and ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... do they come unless as harbingers of boisterous weather. On each recent occasion they had been absolutely trustworthy messengers. Watching them soaring and swooping, we said one to another: "Behold the cyclone cometh!" But it did not. With a passing flick of ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... blowing, when we ranged ourselves across the road outside the "Bold Sawyer." The coach-horn, sounding in the distance, was drawing rapidly nearer; we could hear the rhythm of the sixteen hoofs. Presently the horses swung round the corner; we saw the coachman flick his leaders so that he might dash up to the inn in style. Then as they galloped up I saw two well-known figures sitting ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... the last flick to the restive courses of the Press on both sides of the Rhine. In his Reminiscences he has described his depression of spirits on hearing the news of the withdrawal of Prince Leopold's candidature and of his nearly ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... organism, a little articulate being. There is his spine, the root; his body, the stem; his limbs and head, the formative elements, prefixes and suffixes, case-endings and what not. Let him loose in the sentence, and see how he wriggles gaily from state to state: with a flick of the tail from nominative to genitive, from singular to plural: declaring his meaning, not by means of what surroundings you put about him, but by motions, changes, volitions so to say, of his own. 'Now,' says he, 'I'm pater, and the subject; set me where ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... had been robbed and left for dead by the wayside; but he did it. As to David Claridge's work, some have said that—I've no doubt it's been said in the Cabinet, and it is the thing the Under-Secretary would say as naturally as he would flick a fly from his boots—that it's a generation too soon. Who knows that? I suppose there was those that thought John the Baptist was baptising too soon, that Luther preached too soon, and Savonarola was in too great a hurry, all because ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... it take?" inquired Cornelius, stooping to flick an imperceptible spot of dust from ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... that this little trick of having the old soldier happen in, in the flick of time, wouldn't save the prisoner at the bar from the just punishment which an outraged law visited upon such crimes as his. He regretted that his duty as a public prosecutor caused it to fall to his lot to marshal the evidence that was to blight the ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... to know how to get part of the answer. He leaned halfway across the com, and was able to flick down a lever with the very tip of his longest finger. Instantly the cabin was filled with a clicking so loud as to make an almost continuous ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... to primeval chaos rudely hurled, She journey'd on amid the gath'ring gloom, A spectre form emerging from the tomb. Earth had no resting place—no worshipper— No dove returned with olive branch to her: Her lamp burned dimly, yet its flick'ring light, Guided the wanderer thro' the lengthen'd night. Oft in her weary search, she paused the while, To catch one gleam of hope—one favour'd smile; But the dim mists of ignorance still threw, Their blighting influence o'er the famish'd few, Who deigned to look upon that lustrous ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... and listless. Through a wooden gate at one end of the village filed a string of women with their water-pots. Oxen, tethered underneath the thatched eaves or by the thirsty-looking trees, lay chewing the cud, almost too lazy to flick the flies away. Even the village goats seemed overcome with lassitude. Here and there a pariah dog sneaked in and out among the shadows or lay and licked his sores beside an offal-heap; but there seemed to be no energy in anything. The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... to flick off a speck of dust which had settled on his immaculate shirt-cuff; his ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... you go to the bacon flick, cut me a good bit; Cut, cut and low, beware of your maw. Cut, cut and round, beware of your thumb, That me and my merry men may have some: ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... How his heart was beating! With what a strange and deep emotion he found himself once more in the world! Driving in the dense and devious thoroughfares was like sailing on a cross sea outside a difficult headland. He could smell the brine and feel the flick of the foam on his lips and cheeks. It was ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... hath set, but yet I linger still, Gazing with rapture on the face of night; And mountain wild, deep vale, and heathy hill, Lay like a lovely vision, mellow, bright, Bathed in the glory of the sunset light, Whose changing hues in flick'ring radiance play, Faint and yet fainter on the outstretch'd sight, Until at length they wane and die away, And all th' horizon round fades ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... term that boy came back with a hundred of them; one expected him to be very busy. After all, if you haven't the brains or the inclination to work, it is something to have the nibs. These nibs, however, were put to better uses. There is a game you can play with them; you flick your nib against the other boy's nib, and if a lucky shot puts the head of yours under his, then a sharp tap capsizes him, and you have a hundred and one in your collection. There is a good deal of strategy in the game (whose finer points ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... high road to Ledcombe, but progressing at an extremely slow pace. Raymonde ventured to apply the whip, but on the pony's thick coat it appeared to produce as slight an impression as the tickling of a fly, and, when she endeavoured to give a more efficacious flick, she got the lash ignominiously entangled in the harness. There was nothing for it but to pull up, and for Aveline to climb laboriously from the trap, and release the much-knotted piece of string. Rendered more careful by this catastrophe, ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... came to my rescue. He had his pencil out, and contrived to flick a piece of paper into my lap unseen ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... said—eh? Looking well enough yourself, though, Miss Christian, ma'am. Getting younger every day, in fact. I'll have to be fetching that East Indee capt'n up yet. I will that. Ha! ha! Get on, Boxer!" Then, with a flick of the whip, they were off on ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... patriarch was not given to joking. I can still see his serious face, his unclipped head of hair, often brought back behind his ears with a flick of the thumb and spreading its ancient Gallic mane over his shoulders. I see his little three-cornered hat, his small clothes buckled at the knees, his wooden shoes, stuffed with straw, that echoed as he walked. Ah, no! Once childhood's games were past, it would never have done to rear the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... schematic structure. He was thrilled at sight of the selectors and analyzers of processed beryllium, the logic-and-semantic circuits in complex little bundles, the sensitized variant-tapes waiting for transferral impress, all revealed by a flick of Arnold's fingers that threw open entire sheathed sections to bare the inner secrets. The thousands of tiny transistors amazed Beardsley. The endless array of electric eyes startled him. And the spongy centers of synaptic cell-clusters horrified him, recalling too vividly to mind ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... like to jump into a boat-like "pulk" all alone—for there is only room for one—twist the rein round your wrist, give it a flick, and so away over the waste of snow, watching the great antlers of the deer in front of you, and flinging yourself from side to side to prevent capsizing. And, if you do happen to upset, you must ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... little party walked about or stood gazing up at the tall slender trees that seemed to tower to the very skies. Thomas was not fond of waiting, but he thought that he had the best of it in this case: it was more cheerful to sit in the carriage and "flick" the flies from Rex and Regina than to go poking about in the gloomy pine-woods. Yet, notwithstanding the darkness of its interior and the sombre character of its dense masses of evergreen foliage as seen from without—whence the name ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... the scarf which he had borrowed and flung it over my shoulders. He gave a flick of his fingers against my forehead and pulled down a few hairs and parted them. He whisked a little table in front of me, and thrust the bunch of roses ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... none the wiser for that; for the old doctor was of the sort who intrench themselves in a professional reserve. You might draw up beside the road to question him, but you could as well deter the course of nature. He would give the roan a flick, and ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... were jealous of his success, that a writer cannot be great without making enemies, and that perhaps he wouldn't have known how great he was if he hadn't made any. But they didn't give him much opportunity. They were too clever for that. They knew exactly how to flick him on the raw. It wasn't by the things they said so much as by the things they deliberately didn't say; and they could get at him any time, easily, by ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... some culpable oversight of Annie Trinder's, the cushions still bore the imprint of Elise. Awful realization came to him when Barbara, with a glance at the sofa, declined to sit on it. He had turned just in time to catch the flick of what in a bantering mood he had once called her "Barbaric smile." After all, she might have seen something. Not Mrs. Levitt's laughter but the thought of what Barbara might have seen was his punishment—that and being alone with her, knowing that ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... way with the ladies. Some baby, eh, boys?"—this following the flick of a skirt and a backward-tossed glance perhaps, as some noticeable beauty ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... held a picture for a second—a graceful arm upraised, and a gloved hand pressed against a blushing cheek under a hat such as is not worn in Carlow; a little figure poised apparently in air, full-length above the crowd about her; so, for the merest flick of time he had seen her, and then, to his straining eyes, it was as though she were not. She had vanished. And again, as his carriage reached the Square, a feeling had come to him that she was near him; that she ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... with a certain pride, 'is quite a distinguished person in his way. He is Professor Wilberforce P. Flick, President of the Denver and Sacramento Folk-Lore Societies. He has been travelling on the Continent for some time past for the benefit of the societies, and has now arrived in London for the purpose of making acquaintance with the members of the leading lights ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... consider the moon," says John at last, And stops, to feel his footing and take his stand; "And then there's some will say there's never a hand That made the world!" A flick, and the gates ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor. Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed knights of Brittany ...
— ...After a Few Words... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... do you get the pearls if I pour them back into her hands? Am I to slide some of them under the rugs, or flick them with my thumb-nail ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... that he had was the small table—a plain cheap table with folding legs—and three playing cards. Business was a trifle slack. I thought that his voice crisped aggressively as we elbowed through, while he sat idly skimming the three cards over the table, with a flick ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... in France; Everywhere men bang and blunder, Sweat and swear and worship Chance, Creep and blink through cannon thunder. Rifles crack and bullets flick, Sing and hum like hornet-swarms. Bones are smashed and buried quick. Yet, through stunning battle storms, All the while I watch the spark Lit to guide me; for I know Dreams will triumph, though the dark Scowls above ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... they all were, quite a little troop, arching their backs and purring, sticking their tails straight up, and every now and then giving their ends a flick. ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... flickered and ceased to be. It had gone into overdrive. Another. And another. Suddenly they began to flick out of sight ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... humorous discontent deepened into scorn as he gathered up his reins as if to charge the village and recklessly sweep it from his path, indicated a huge, rambling, obtrusively glazed, and capital-lettered building with a contemptuous flick of his whip as we passed. "Ef you're kalkilatin' we'll get our partin' drink there you're mistaken. That's wot they call a TEMPERANCE HOUSE—wot means a place where the licker ye get underhand is only a trifle worse than the hash ye get above-board. I suppose ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... of wind, wandering through the damp and sooty obscurity over the waste of roofs and chimney-pots, touched his face with a clammy flick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which stood a black jumble of walls, and, between them, the many rows of gaslights stretched far away in long lines, like strung-up beads of fire. A sinister loom as of a hidden conflagration lit up faintly ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... to strike her. No driver, ever if an angry one, would have done that. But I had the whip in my hand, around which the reins were knotted for the struggle, and when the horse broke into a gallop the jerk gave her a flick. I was not in the habit of whipping her. She felt herself insulted. It was now her turn to be angry; and an angry runaway means a bad business. Donna put down her head, struck out viciously from behind, and kicked the dasher flat. From that moment I ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... at that; an' she sez, 'Well, There ain't no cause at all for you to feel Modest about the things you 'ave to tell; An' wot yeh say sounds wonderfully reel. Your talk'—an' 'ere I seen 'er eyelids flick— 'Makes me 'omesick. ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... paid the driver, got out, and walked down the busy street. Here and there, nuaniam signs began to flick on, their garish blues, reds, and whites bathing the street in a glow of synthetic light. It was early evening, but already Spaceman's Row was getting ready ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... flick from the whip chanced to hit the bull in the eye. Quick as lightning the beast leaped to its feet, shook its head, and frantic with rage, rushed upon the horseman, and before he had had time to escape, struck him sideways, and with frightful force hurled him to the ground, horse ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... But you know I can't, you dear old thing. I'm writing this in the orchard, where the H.Q. horses live, and Jezebel is standing sleepily in the shade of her tree. She looks intensely stupid. She occasionally tries to flick away a fly with her short tail. Occasionally she sighs deeply, with that blubbery, spluttery noise that all horses ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... at, but which is so exquisite that it would be hardly polite to consider it in terms of language. Only when we come to the chin that tips the oval of the face may we descend to language, and even then we must rise and flick the red mouth with, but a passing word. But this much must be plainly spoken. The nose does turn up—not much—but a little (Bob used to say, just to be good and out of the way)! That, however, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... answer except to flick at John Henry's bay mare with his whip, she asked daringly, ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... of scareful tew watch the herd, Es the plungin' leaders squirm'd an' shrank— Es I heerd the flick of the unseen lash Hiss on the side of a steamin' flank. Guess the feller was smart at the work! We work'd them leaders round, ontil They overtook the tail of the herd, An' the hull of ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... from the stoop with a twelve-foot thong in his hand. It was, after all, the baboon that suffered most, if his yells were any index to his feelings. Frikkie could smudge a fly ten feet off with just a flick of his whip, and all the tender parts of the accomplished animal came ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... preferred them to milk, which was a much more princely diet. Once, even, the idea just crossed his mind, that, as he was so fond of mice, perhaps he wasn't a prince after all, but only an ordinary tabby cat. This thought he thrust from him with a flick of his tail. ...
— More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme • Ada M. Marzials
... hook, crouched down, and cautiously drew near the bank. A dexterous flick of his rod landed the worm fairly in the middle of the run. Hardly had it hit the water before something grabbed it, and Charley drew forth a flopping fish. But it proved to be only a fingerling. In disgust Charley wet his hand and carefully ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... soul. He saw the trolleys hurrying west, in the hot, hazy morning, full of women in light summer dresses, and white-faced straw-hatted men fresh from Boston desks; the stack of bicycles outside the post office; the come-and-go of busy officials, greeting one another; the slow flick and swash of bunting in the heavy air; and the important man with a hose sluicing the ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like the flick of a whip ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... me one, and I've had it," replied Burroughs, his eyes sparkling viciously at this flick of the whip. "What is the truth about ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly, or in plain language, the subject on which it turned. At length one of them, observing Meg was still fast asleep, or appeared to be so, desired one of the lads "to hand in the black Peter, that they might flick it open." The boy stepped to the door, and brought in a portmanteau, which Brown instantly recognised for his own. His thoughts immediately turned to the unfortunate lad he had left with the carriage. Had the ruffians ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... A queer flick of thought brought to Mayo the phrase, "Between the devil and the deep sea." That flying boom was certainly the devil, and the foaming sea ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... tear his eyes from the rocket, even to watch the last of the red lights flick out, the green glow ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Ralph his name was. He's the bank-clerk and a dude. He gives his cuffs a flick, and starts in to make things jolly all round by telling a story about a man he knows named Wotherspoon. Jerry fixes him with his eye, and, ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... sudden rush of bare feet upon the wooden floor, and Patty caught a flick of calico and a flash of bare legs as the girl disappeared around the corner of ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... horses brushed until their coats shone. The hoofs were then blacked and polished, the mouths washed, and their teeth picked. It is related that after this grooming the master of the stables was accustomed to flick over their coats a clean muslin handkerchief, and if this revealed a speck of dust the stable ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... the president of the consistory, Mahlon T. Hewitt, handed out the remaining letters of dismissal to D. W. Woodford, Robert R. Crosby, William Lain, Dr. Veranus Morse, John Van Flick, Henry Taylor and Albert I. Lyon, and made a formal closing address in which he offered "a sincere prayer that its old walls may still stand, and that it may continue to be the birthplace of souls into the kingdom of Christ." The ...
— The Kirk on Rutgers Farm • Frederick Bruckbauer
... hardly see the race, I'm so groggy from the jolt Elsy hands me. Friendless breaks in front and stays there all the way. Lou Smith just sets still 'n' lets the hoss rate hisself. That ole hound comes down the stretch a-rompin', his ears flick-flackin' 'n' a smile on his face. He wins by five len'ths 'n' busts the track record fur the distance ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... had practised the manipulation of the whip all their lives. They could flick a square inch of ice at thirty feet with its tip. It was capable of a gentle tap, or the force of a pistol shot, at its wielder's discretion. The whip was the terror of the team, for even at his distance Tinker, ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... scrambled into the seat beside the driver, settling his bag between his knees; and, with a flick of the peeled hickory whip, the carriage rolled into the branch road and disappeared, scattering a whirl of mud drops as it splashed through the shallow puddles which lingered in the dryest season beneath the heavy shade of ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... damnable naked truth won't wear ornaments The embraced respected woman The habit of the defensive paralyzes will The idol of the hour is the mob's wooden puppet Their sneer withers Tighter than ever I was tight I'll be to-night With one idea, we see nothing—nothing but itself You want me to flick your indecision ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... to that triumvirate of despots—the Butler, the Coachman and the Gardener. You hear the jingle of keys, the flick of the whip and the rattle of the lawnmower; and a cold, secret fear takes possession of you—a sort of half-frenzied impulse to flee, before smug modernity takes you captive and whisks you off to play tiddledywinks or to dance ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... minds less upright and less firm would push the system of the great philosopher. "I cannot forgive Descartes," he said; "he would have liked, throughout his philosophy, to be able to do without God, but he could not help making Him give just a flick to set the world in motion; after that he didn't know what to do with God." A severe, but a true saying; Descartes had required everything of pure reason; he had felt a foreshadowing of the infinite and the unknown without daring to venture into them. In the name of reason, others ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sink into a sleep in every way worthy of a landowner of Kherson. Meanwhile Petrushka had taken his master's coat and trousers of bilberry-coloured check into the corridor; where, spreading them over a clothes' horse, he started to flick and to brush them, and to fill the whole corridor with dust. Just as he was about to replace them in his master's room he happened to glance over the railing of the gallery, and saw Selifan returning from the stable. Glances were exchanged, and in an instant the pair had arrived ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... drawing the lash of a whip back into striking readiness ... a brutal nose broken askew, a blaster burn puckering across cheek to misshapen ear ... that, evil, gloating grin of anticipation. Flick, flick, the slight dance of the lash in a master's hand as those thick fingers tightened about the stock of the whip. In a moment it would whirl up to lay a ribbon of fire about Shann's defenceless shoulders. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... getting a little warmer and his feet were thawing. Instead of the cold he felt ants creeping under the soles of his feet. They crept in among his toes, swarmed over his injured leg, then over the other, and reached his knees. In a mysterious way one had suddenly settled on his nose; he wanted to flick it off, but a whole swarm was sitting on his arms. He decided not to drive them away, for in the first place they were keeping him awake, and then he rather liked them. He smiled, as one reached his waist, and did not ask how they came to be ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... and I stand aside and let you fight it out. You say he is indifferently skilled with the sword, and, in addition, that he has a fever. Thus you should contrive to put your steel through him, and a duel it will have been. But if by luck or skill he should have you in danger, I shall be at hand to flick in my sword at the right moment and make an opening through which ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... they were the ideal women of our country; which demands if it be but the semblance of the sureness of stationary excellence; such as we have in Sevres and Dresden, polished bright and smooth as ever by the morning's flick of a duster; perhaps in danger of accidents—accidents must be kept away; but enviable, admirable, we think, when we are not thinking of seed sown or help given to the generations to follow. Nesta both envied and admired; she revered them; yet her sharp ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... could fight, fight like a hundred devils; and—pouf!—how proud he was—very much like you altogether! Now, one day something went wrong in the exercise ground. Marquise was not to blame, but they thought he was; and an adjutant struck him—flick, flack, like that—across the face with a riding switch. Marquise had his bayonet fixed and before we knew what was up, crash the blade went through—through the breast-bone, and out at the spine—and the adjutant fell as dead as a cat, with the blood spouting out like ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... at this speech, which brought back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd self-deception. What a simpleton she had been—what a little naive, provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... he threw the sun-bit away with a flick of his wrist. His hand ached with the impossible task of steadiness he had set it, and his finger and thumb burned and smoked. But the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Precise, careful, capable, intensely respectable, none the less he could have struck him. A moment only. From the sleeve of his coat he flicked, or affected to flick, a speck. ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... sir," says Jones, "I have no reason for either; but if it preserved Miss Western, I shall always think it the happiest accident of my life."—"And to gu," said the squire, "to zet Allworthy against thee vor it! D—n un, if the parson had unt his petticuoats on, I should have lent un o flick; for I love thee dearly, my boy, and d—n me if there is anything in my power which I won't do for thee. Sha't take thy choice of all the horses in my stable to-morrow morning, except only the Chevalier and Miss Slouch." Jones thanked him, but declined accepting the offer. ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... miserable chamber, Dim with flick'ring candlelight, Lies a man on bed of sickness. Fiercely but a moment past Did he wage with Death the battle; Worn he sinks back into sleep. Save the clock's persistent ticking Not a sound invades the room, Where the gruesome quiet warns us Of the neighborhood of Death. O'er the pale, distended ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... the Murnan said. He dismounted, tossing his reins to one of the four retainers who remained on horseback. He entered the tent after Aaron; and stared about him at the animals, letting his dark eyes flick across Martha's unveiled face. At the Amishman's invitation, the visitor sat himself on a tobacco case, revealing as he crossed his legs elaborately embroidered trousers and boot tops worked with designs that ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... impossible to get up Aristotle while such a noise was being made; it was in vain that Mr. Four-in-hand Fosbrooke, whose rooms were on the other side of Verdant's, came and administered to Mop severe punishment with a tandem-whip (it was a favourite boast with Mr. Fosbrooke, that he could flick a fly from his leader's ear); it was in vain to coax Mop with chicken-bones: he would neither be bribed nor frightened, and after a deceitful lull of a few minutes, just when every one was getting to sleep again, his melancholy howl would be raised with renewed vigour, and Huz and ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the far-off figure flick across the chasm toward the jutting platform. He saw Darl strike its edge, bit his lip as his friend teetered on the rim and swayed slowly outward. Then Darl found his balance. An imperative gesture sent the watcher back to his post, ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... last while walking out of the room, with a toss of her head and a flick of her pretty skirts indicative of the independence and indifference she felt. She did not propose to be ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser |
