"Flutter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... secret none can utter? Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown? Still on the spire the pigeons flutter; Still by the gateway flits the gown; Still on the street, from corbel and gutter, ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers[obs3]; wheel of Fortune; transientness &c. 111[obs3]. V. fluctuate, vary, waver, flounder, flicker, flitter, flit, flutter, shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble[obs3], turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c. 314; vibrate ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Journalists flutter like bats about newspaper offices. The bats haunt the same eaves, but the journalist drifts from city to city, from county to county, busying himself with ideas that were not his yesterday, and will not be his to-morrow. An interview with a statesman is followed by a review of a ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... midnight when a friend came to inform Robert that the king's men had procured a warrant against him for resisting his majesty's officers, and he must fly for his life. There was a flutter of hushed excitement. Everybody was awakened. Robert hurriedly gathered up his effects, which were taken to a brigantine ready to sail for Virginia. There was a silent, tearful farewell with Ester; vows were renewed, and he swore when the clouds had rolled away to come and make ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... that time moved not with its usual swiftness,—that the old year lingered with a sad regret, as if loath to pass away and let the new come in. Even now the midnight clock is striking,—eleven,—twelve;—the last flutter of the old year's robe is out of sight, and the new year glides in with noiseless feet, like one who enters the chamber of the dead. These are but melancholy fancies;—because I am sad myself must I put all the world in mourning? The old year did not linger;—it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... model of continuance. His note will soon change. He will become hoarse and only half-articulate. He will cease to be the flying echo of the mystery of skies and wood at dawn and in the still evening. The disreputable bat, whose little wings flutter half visibly like waves of heat rising above ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... realized. When hooked, he invariably turns golden. The idea of the series of leaps is to rid himself of the hook, and the man who has made the strike must be of iron or decadent if his heart does not beat with an extra flutter when he beholds such gorgeous fish, glittering in golden mail and shaking itself like a stallion in each mid-air leap. 'Ware slack! If you don't, on one of those leaps the hook will be flung out and twenty feet away. No slack, and away he will ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... swagger—or, worse, they strut—in its lighter verse, from its first year to its last. Swinburne's anapaests are far too delicate for swagger or strut; but for all their dance, all their spring, all their flight, all their flutter, we are compelled to perceive that, as it were, they perform. I love to see English poetry move to many measures, to many numbers, but chiefly with the simple iambic and the simple trochaic foot. Those two ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... to a lawyer," she said severely: "his legal mind takes such cut-and-dried views. Granted that it is a speculation, it seems a promising one; and nothing venture, nothing have. I don't know how you feel, Die, but I am quite willing to do my share." Then Dinah, who was in quite a flutter of excitement and pleasure, looked at her adviser in a timid, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... move. He stood looking down upon the poor woman before him, a world of pity expressed in his deep-set eyes. Through the absolute silence around there came the sound as of a gentle flutter, the current of cold air, mayhap, sighing through the ill-fitting shutters, or the soft, weird soughing made by unseen things. The man's heart was full of pity, and it seemed as if the Angel of Compassion had come ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... such things as splendor, profusion, and dissipation: we will have some cows, and you shall be queen of the dairy; in a morning, while I look after my garden, you shall take a basket on your arm, and sally forth to feed your poultry; and as they flutter round you in token of humble gratitude, your father shall smoke his pipe in a woodbine alcove, and viewing the serenity of your countenance, feel such real pleasure dilate his own heart, as shall make him forget he ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... song circle, and et ceteras, and a great flutter in a row of white dresses, and many colored ribbons to my left. 'The Graduates,' Bell whispered, and the business of the day began. There were eight in all to read essays—nice looking girls, and much like the Lasells and Wellesleys we used to ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... more death the more millions. The more horror and devastation the heavier will be our coffers. The more the people groan the more we will shout. The more they die the more we will live. The more the flag is torn the more our damask curtains will flutter. The more liberty perishes and withers from the earth the more we shall plant ourselves and flourish and rule and reign over a nation that we have destroyed and a people whom we have enslaved. If Mr. Clews ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... the Marmora, and the sun sinks with a golden glow below the horizon, the spirit moves one of the Mecca pilgrims to climb on top of a chicken coop and shout "Allah-il!" for several minutes; the dangling ends of his turban flutter in the fresh evening breeze, streaming out behind him as he faces the east, and flapping in his swarthy face as he turns round facing to the opposite point of the compass. His supplications seem to be addressed to the dancing, white-capped waves, but the old Osmanlis mutter ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... A little piping of leaf-hid birds; A flutter of wings, a fitful stirring, A cloud to ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... month earlier, but it was doing a very passable business. At the close of the season the gay butterflies of the social community have a habit of hovering for a day or two in the big hotels before they flutter away to castle and country-house, meadow and moor, lake and stream. The great basket-chairs in the portico were well filled by old and middle-aged gentlemen engaged in enjoying the varied delights of liqueurs, cigars, and the full moon which floated so serenely above the Thames. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... let his paper flutter to his knee, and said, meaningly: "I hope yon chap, sir, don't think he's still firing on ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... empty. Not dead a bit, and yet not alive. It's like a seat vacant and marked 'engaged.' No feeling, no digestion, no beating of the heart—not a flutter. That doesn't make me feel as if there was a man present. In a sense it's more dead than death, for these doctors tell me that even the hair has stopped growing. Now with the proper dead, the hair will ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... the creaking of new shoes, the silken rustle of the trains, the jingling of rich bracelets pushed up the arm while gloves are being buttoned. All these people seem excited, nervous, pale beneath their paint, and under the skilfully prepared satin-like surface of the shoulders, tremors flutter like shadows. Dry-mouthed, they speak little. The least nervous, while affecting to smile, have in their eyes and voice the hesitation that marks an absent mind—that apprehension of the battle behind the foot-lights which is ever one of the most ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... understand, naturally," said the second swallow. "First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... needn't argue; I've no intention—" Once more he paused. The same shadow had flitted across the dark space outside, this time with a distinct flutter of a white dress. He could only think it was some one getting help together; and while he went on to finish his sentence in words, all his subconscious faculties were at work, seeking an escape from the trap in which ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... intense morality and importance, as the Mayor asked him how he did and expressed his gratification at seeing the honored name of Pickles—a power in the commercial world—enrolled among the friends of reform. The appearance of General Divvy put the Mayor in quite a flutter, and when the General told him that he positively must consent to run again, and that he was the only hope of the Reformers, the ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... wrong," put in the Doctor. "I think my look-out worse than yours. Sold my practice seven years ago to flutter on the Stock Exchange. Lost my money in seven minutes, and have never had a patient since. I went to West Slocum (my old home) the other day, and found the place occupied by three Doctors, and the local Undertaker told me there was not room enough ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 31, 1892 • Various
... the two sat watching the flutter of her white dress among the flower-beds. She piled her little apron as full as possible, and came back panting and delighted. Beulah looked down at the beautiful beaming face, and, twining one of the silky curls over her finger, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... outlined lips, and strong, finely moulded jaw and chin, all spoke the old Roman vigor and energy, while the flexible delicacy of all the muscles of his face and figure gave an inexpressible fascination to his appearance. Every emotion and changing thought seemed to flutter and tremble over his countenance as the shadow of leaves over sunny water. His eye had a wonderful dilating power, and when he was excited seemed to shower sparks; and his voice possessed a surprising scale of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... blow had subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glanced an eye at Mr. Canning; mystified Mr. Coleridge, and stultified Lord Liverpool in his place—in the Gallery. It was rare sport to see him, "like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli." He has found out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likely to attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again, to show that they do not mind it. It is ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the market, Brigaut, lying in wait, was able to get near her. Though he saw her tremble and turn pale, like an autumn leaf about to flutter down, he did not lose his head, but quietly bought fruit of the market-woman with whom Sylvie was bargaining. He found his chance of slipping a note to Pierrette, all the while joking the woman with the ease ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... all about the shock and nervousness the next moment, as I saw the flutter of approaching wings, and directly after my gun rang out with two reports, while as the smoke floated away, Pete triumphantly ran to where a couple of the orange birds ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... in front of the Venezia, and Uncle Dan looked up to a certain high balcony, whence his coming was hailed by a lively flutter of handkerchiefs. ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... were thus, in open sea, enclosed in a vast garden with trees, flowers, statues, and fountains. About this garden of Armida, thus radiant upon the waves, were a multitude of boats, under sail or propelled by oars, moving about, and their lights resembled the swarms of fireflies that in summer flutter above the fields of Lombardy. The mild temperature favored this joyous festival. The whole city, all the buildings, every vessel, were ablaze with a thousand lights, and the glassy sea reflected numberless flames. The darkness of night gave the signal for the illuminations. ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... released from the homely comfort of a prairie town. She was in the world of lonely things—the flutter of twilight linnets, the aching call of gulls along a shore to which the netted foam crept out of darkness, the island of Aengus and the elder gods and the eternal glories that never were, tall kings and women girdled ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... whistle, waited a moment, and repeated it, twice, thrice. At the first call there was a fluttering in the branches overhead. At the second call one saw the silhouettes of tiny bodies dropping from branch to branch ever nearer to the boy below. At the third, there was a flutter, a rush of wings, and a flock of dear little birds came flying to John's shoulder, to his out-stretched arms, to his head; so that presently he looked like a green bush which they ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... here safe and warm, but there doesn't seem to be much breath to rock me," said Do, who lay nearest the little bosom that very slowly rose and fell with the feeble flutter of ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... stood close to her, tantalizingly close. She was smiling. Her lips parted redly over white, even teeth, and as Thompson bent that moody somber gaze on her, her breath seemed to come suddenly a little faster, making her round breast flutter—and a faint tinge of pink stole up to color the soft whiteness of her neck, up into the ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... of timber From distant flats and fells, The pealing of the anvils As clear as little bells, The rattle of the cradle, The clack of windlass-boles, The flutter of the crimson ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... mischief. Well, there was to be a grand inshpection by a tremenjus brass-hat, one o' thim soort all over ribbons that rides wid a shtiff back. 'Twas the mornin' before the great day whin the O.C. comes to me all of a flutter, an' says he, 'Sergint, ye've a chanct now to do me a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156., March 5, 1919 • Various
... he is visibly stronger, and his nurse brings people into the room to see him. They look at him with wonder and admiration, while the good lady is all in a flutter of delight. He hears himself spoken of always as the "lieutenant," and hesitates to ask an explanation. The physician comes but seldom, the lady explaining that all the doctors in town are busy in the hospitals. The truth flashed upon him one morning, when his ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... said which, Nedda felt unhappy; her Dad was not old! "No, miss; but I'll find out. It'll be in the walnut wing!" But with a little flutter at the thought of thus setting people to run about wings, Nedda murmured: "Oh! thanks, no; ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his young Lord's eyes by this so easy consent to oblige. It was easy because the presence before him was from moment to moment, referring itself back to some recent observation or memory; something caught somewhere, within a few weeks or months, as he had moved about, and that seemed to flutter forth at this stir of the folded leaves of his recent experience very much as a gathered, faded flower, placed there for "pressing," might drop from between the pages of ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... low, humming song, I made the attempt to put our psychic to sleep. In a few minutes her hands became cold and began to flutter. At last she threw my fingers away as if she found them scorching hot. Miller's hand was similarly repulsed. She then seemed to pass into quiet sleep, and I said: "Withdraw a little, Miller, but keep ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... admitted the Tin Owl. "For my part, I'll have to give up the notion of marrying Nimmie Amee, but I'll try not to let that make me unhappy. If it's my duty, I'd like to do my duty, but if magic prevents my getting married I'll flutter along all by myself and be just ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... was run up—the established signal that the nation was in need. Instantly on every summit near and far was seen the flutter of an answering flag. Quickly followed the signal that commanded the ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... most animals of the deer tribe, by their fluttering; and, in want of a sufficient force of men, passes may be closed by this contrivance. The Swedes use "lappar," viz. Pieces of canvas, of half the height of a man, painted in glaring colours and left to flutter from a line. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... long before Soames's determination to build went the round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision connected with property should ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... good Duchess tells me thrice daily that Elsa is timid. Princess Heinrich has made no sign yet; when she frowns I must kiss. So stands the matter. I must go hence to pray her to walk in the woods with me. She will flush and flutter, but, poor child, she will come. What I ask she will not and must not refuse. But, deuce take it, I ask so little! There's the rub! I hear your upbraiding voice, 'Pooh, man, catch her up and kiss her!' Ah, my dear Varvilliers, you suffer under a confusion. She is a duty; ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... like swimming in ink. Rick kept his hands out in case of unexpected underwater objects, but forged ahead at a good speed. He kept track of his own rate of progress through the water by timing the number of flutter kicks per minute. At the count of fifty he turned to the left, heading directly into the creek's mouth. He could hear the steady beat of Orvil's motor. When he estimated he had covered the proper distance, he stopped and let Scotty ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... cynically. "I, the silken hawk, came not to flutter your nest of doves, senor. I came but for a little hour to meet a man who—Ah, he is coming now. Sheriff Paul, I have that to tell ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... a dish face and no figure, at whose admiration she could afford to smile; but for all that, the consciousness of his gaze (which was really fixed on Torrance and his mittens) kept her in something of a flutter till the word Amen. Even then, she was far too well-bred to gratify her curiosity with any impatience. She resumed her seat languidly - this was a Glasgow touch - she composed her dress, rearranged her nosegay of primroses, looked first in front, then behind upon the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... man—bent down and, picking it up, returned it to her, with a glance of admiring scrutiny which made her more excited than ever. She scarcely had the presence of mind to thank him, but rushed past him and out into the night in a passionate flutter of pain and sudden childish anger, ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with what Air, he approach'd the Fair, And how she could with Patience bear, All he did and utter'd; He still address'd, Still caress'd, Kiss'd and press'd, Sung, Prattl'd, Laugh'd, and Flutter'd: Well receiv'd in all, like ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... only because He intends hereafter to give you your fill of them. That pictured face on the wall is lovely, but lovelier still may the wife of thy bosom be when she meets thee on the resurrection morn! Those baby cherubs in the old Italian painting—how gracefully they flutter and sport among the soft clouds, full of rich young life and baby joy! Yes, beautiful indeed, but just such a one at this very moment is that once pining, deformed child of thine, over whose death-cradle thou wast weeping a month ago; now a child-angel, whom thou ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... flutter of perturbation at going out into the darkness and the midst of armed men had given way to a more composed feeling. No one had stopped her, or offered to, no one had shown any symptom of surprise at her presence there at that hour. She began ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Honeyman is delighted with the chantress and her mamma. He dashes the fair hair from his brow: he sits down to the piano, and plays one or two of them, warbling a faint vocal accompaniment, and looking as if he would be lifted off the screw music-stool, and flutter up to the ceiling. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... listening to his cousin with astonishment and at the same time looking at Argensola who, with a flutter of his eyes, seemed to be saying to him, "He is mad! These Germans are simply mad ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sat down and watched him, and looked off between whiles to the wonderful green walls of the glen. The summer blue was very clear overhead; the stillness of the place very deep; insects, birds, a flutter of leaves, and the grating of Dr. Sandford's boot upon a stone, all the sounds ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... led Nan out on the broad veranda of the second floor, she was in a flutter of excitement over the ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... replied Cosmo, "a little hope was beginning to flutter, that, perhaps I was called from somewhere in the unseen—like Samuel, you know; but I was too glad to see you to be much disappointed. I do sometimes wonder though, that, if there is such a world beyond as we sometime talk about, there should be so little communication ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... place such sights and sounds are most charming, but more especially are they so when one awakens to them, for the first time, in a novel and romantic situation, with the soft sweet air of a tropical climate mingling with the fresh smell of the sea, and stirring the strange leaves that flutter overhead and around one, or ruffling the plumage of the stranger birds that fly inquiringly around, as if to demand what business we have to intrude uninvited on their domains. When I awoke on the morning after the shipwreck, I found myself in this most delightful condition; and as I lay on ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... Suddenly he began betting in gold, ten dollars for each card he drew. The others were out of that hand. Andy, breathless, for he had an ace down, saw a three and a two fall—took the long chance, and, with the luck behind him, watched a five-spot flutter down to join his draw. Yet Larry, taking the same draw, was not busted. He had a pair of deuces and a four. There he stuck, and it stood to reason that he could not win. Yet he bet recklessly, raising Andy twice, until the latter had no more money on the table to call ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... Spring? Who heard her footfall, swift and light As fairy-dancing in the night? Who guessed what happy dawn would bring The flutter of her bluebird's wing, The blossom of her mayflower-face To brighten every shady place? One morning, down the village street, "Oh, here am I," we heard her sing,— And none had been awake to greet The coming of the ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then appears, and dives and appears again, and we see the silver glitter of scales from his beak; and far away in the offing the sunlight falls on a scull of seagulls, that flutter upwards, downwards, and athwart, now in the air, thick as midges over some forest-brook in an evening ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away: "Spanish ships of war at sea! ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... she answered, and her fine hands had come to Wycherley, as white birds flutter homeward. But even then she had to deliberate the matter—since the habits of many years are not put aside like outworn gloves,—and for innumerable centuries, it seemed to him, her foot ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Haven: it's so quiet here; Only the scratch of pen, the candle's flutter; Shabby and bare and small, but O how dear! Mark you—my table with my work a-clutter, My shelf of tattered books along the wall, My bed, my broken chair—that's ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... moisture is delightfully fresh and green. Palms and other trees, festooned with brilliant flowering creepers, flourish along its course; all kinds of monkeys chatter and jabber in the shade overhead as they swing themselves from branch to branch, while birds of the most gorgeous plumage flutter about, giving a very tropical aspect to the scene. On the other hand, if one is tempted to stray away from the river, be it only for a few yards, one comes immediately into the parched, thorny wilderness of stunted, leafless ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... an extraordinary feeling it is—this being hit every few minutes with the recollection that you're worth half a million. It's like being struck over the head. It knocks you down. There are such thousands of things to do—you dance about, all of a flutter. You don't know ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... during the narrative, because (so his kind friend supposed) he was jealous of the honour paid to the dictator. But his natural simplicity prevailed. He ran to Johnson, and exclaimed in 'a kind of flutter,' "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... calming frayed nerves, somebody suggested that they should all adjourn for a flutter at lansquenet, then ousting ecarte. The proposal was accepted; and, the revellers having settled down, Saint-Agnan, having the best-lined wallet, took ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception. And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail. For love, Socrates, is not as you imagine, the love of the ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... great shower of them at the creatures, and at that I had a momentary clear vision of many white, hideous faces stretched out towards me, and brown, champing mandibles which had the upper beak shutting into the lower; and the clumped, wriggling tentacles were all a-flutter. Then the gloom came again; but immediately, I switched another and yet another shower of the burning embers towards them, and so, directly, I saw them give back, and then they were gone. At this, all about the edges of the hilltop, I saw the ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... a live pigeon out of his bournous, he allowed it to flutter in the air for a moment, at the end of a string. A moment was sufficient; the clear round eye had caught sight of the flutter of wings, and soon came back, sailing past, high ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... relating to his disappearance; how their joy was moderated by the old man's absence and by the misfortunes of Florence; how they released Diogenes, whom the Captain had decoyed upstairs some time before, lest he should bark again; the Captain, though he was in one continual flutter, and made many more short plunges into the shop, fully comprehended. But he no more dreamed that Walter looked on Florence, as it were, from a new and far-off place; that while his eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom met its open glance of sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in a flutter of tender anxiety, at half-past six in the evening, to Lady Anne's garden, where Mary was sitting in her wicker chair under the mulberry tree. Lady Anne had given orders that he was to be shown out to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... heart Dick Prescott presented himself at the hotel that evening, and sent up his card to Mrs. Bentley and the girls. Greg was with his chum, of course, but Greg was not in a flutter. He was to escort Belle Meade—-an arrangement of chumship, for Belle wore the engagement ring of Dave Darrin, one of Greg's ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... was a dead body. The flutter of that heart was not the strong beating of the normal organ; the hands were cold; even the body was chilled; yet ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... had the kitchen floor, a pool of water; and the rain had put out my fires already, as effectually as if it had been an overturned broth-pot. That I never took off my clothes that night I need not say, though of what was happening in the glen I could only guess. A flutter against my window now and again, when the rain had abated, told me of another bird that had flown there to die; and with Waster Lunny, I kept up communication by waving a light, to which he replied in a similar ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... reached the first crossing of the railway line, and if he was going back to North Farthing he should turn here. He could easily make an excuse—no man really wanted to eat two Christmas dinners—but his flutter was gone, and he found an attraction in the communal meal to which she was inviting him. He would like to see the old folk at their feast, the old folk who had been born on the Marsh, who had grown wrinkled with its sun and reddened with its wind and bent with their labours ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... No man could leap it. He cast about for another way. There was none. He must run across. He scowled. Disinclination increased. He snarled: "Green ice!" He crossed then like a cat—on tiptoe and swiftly; and he came to the other side with his heart in a flutter. "Whew!" ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... absorbed in her task, she did not look up when some one came down the steps behind her. It was an adoring little freshman, who had caught the glimmer of her pink dress behind the tree. The special-delivery letter she carried was her excuse for following. She had been in a flutter of delight when Madame Chartley put it in her hand, asking her to find Elizabeth Lewis and give it to her. But now that she stood in the charmed presence, actually watching a poem in the process of construction, she paused, overwhelmed ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... breath our snowy fields of cotton melted over night brought no terror for King Cotton no longer reigns supreme. The king is dead but the people rejoice as the scepter falls from his nerveless hand and a new monarch ascends the throne. Millions of royal banners flutter in the breeze glistening green with promise for the future and hope is high, and the hearts of the people light as they gather to pay homage to the new monarch, Her Imperial Majesty the Paper ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... he would speak to me in English," said the woman, "and the thought of that horrid English puts me into such a flutter; you know I can't speak a word ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Love who had dwelt with the lovers in the court yard since first they had come there, sensing the flutter of the intruder's wings, took to his heels and slid between the bars of the great bronze ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... will see. At any rate, from my acquaintance with them, I shall not go to battle against them armed only with a broom-stick. But here we are in Melrose. Don't, for love's sake, talk of war. My heart's in a flutter. Cupid's conflict is worse than ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... Pleasant Valley could look gloomier than old Mr. Crow. And when he hinted darkly, in his hoarse way, that there was trouble ahead for the Robin family, he threw Jolly Robin's wife into a flutter. ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... fill the Cup and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-Garment of Repentance fling. The bird of time has but a little way to flutter And the bird is ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, Only whalebone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime-tree is in blossom And one small flower has dropped upon ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... Italian ladies and gentlemen knew how to sing, the virtuosoship of song (and with it also the art of melody) reached its elevation. In Germany, however (until quite recently when a kind of platform eloquence began shyly and awkwardly enough to flutter its young wings), there was properly speaking only one kind of public and APPROXIMATELY artistical discourse—that delivered from the pulpit. The preacher was the only one in Germany who knew the weight of a syllable or ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest, most piratical little place that ever was seen. Great rusty iron rings and mooring-chains, capstans, and fragments of old masts and spars, choke up the way; hardy rough-weather boats, and seamen's clothing, flutter in the little harbour or are drawn out on the sunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude pier, a few amphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs dangling over the wall, as though earth or water were all one ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... much upon the way; for Oliver was in a flutter of agitation and uncertainty which deprived him of the power of collecting his thoughts, and almost of speech, and appeared to have scarcely less effect on his companions, who shared it, in at least an equal degree. He and the two ladies had been very carefully made acquainted ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... be they could not tell—there came a sound of a key turning in a lock. The door opened, and a yellow ray from a lantern streamed into the church, making the owl in its corner flutter wildly. Billy's face showed in a frame of dull gold, as ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... him to send for the horses. His father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... There was a flutter and a scream, and Mr. Bobolink flew away, and soared high into the air, and soon joined his travelling companions on their ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... principles. Perhaps we may go on with them to principles, but we shall find them unable to get established in those along with us. Or if we may get so established along with them, we shall find them unable to weigh occurring events along with us.' CHAP. XXX. 1. How the flowers of the aspen-plum flutter and turn! Do I not think of you? But your house is distant. 2. The Master said, 'It is the want of thought about it. How ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... an old one uncomfortable to no purpose. If it were my business to sit in judgment on my neighbors, I would try to be courteous, at least, to those who had done any good service, but, above all, I would handle tenderly those young authors who are coming before the public in the flutter of their first or early appearance, and are in the trembling delirium of stage-fright already. Before you write that brilliant notice of some alliterative Angelina's book of verses, I wish you ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... I've done very wrong," she began, with a nervous little flutter of her pretty hands; "but I'm ready now to 'fess up, as the ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... woman had gone, a cock with red feathers would sometimes fly up to the window sill and looking into the room with his round inquisitive eye, would begin to crow loudly. Occasionally, too, a few hens would flutter as far as the foot of the bed, seeking crumbs on the floor. Toine's friends soon deserted the drinking room to come and chat every afternoon beside the invalid's bed. Helpless though he was, the jovial Toine still provided them with amusement. He would have ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... These fine warm afternoons. And so We went whither my soul was drawn; And her light-hearted ignorance Of interest in our discourse Fill'd me with love, and seem'd to enhance Her beauty with pathetic force, As, through the flowery mazes sweet, Fronting the wind that flutter'd blythe, And loved her shape, and kiss'd her feet, Shown to their insteps proud and lithe, She approach'd, all mildness and young trust, And ever her chaste and noble air Gave to love's feast its choicest gust, A vague, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... slipped past the end table unseen on their way out into the big atrium with its many columns—the hall in which players go out to cool themselves, or collect their determination for a final flutter—Mademoiselle had just won the maximum upon the number four, as well as the column, and the croupier was in the act of pushing towards her a big pile of counters each representing ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... into the outer air; I rushed through, and stared in the growing twilight down the black furrow of the flume. Far in the distance, and going like a streak, I spied the glittering glass windows of the little craft. Once I made out the flutter of a ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... else he could say!" and the innocence of her inquiring face proved his evil imagining a perjury. He caught his breath in a flutter of sheer heart's-ease. ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... long the sun showered its gold, sprinkling the deep shade with flowers and blossoms of light, where there was no wind but only the sighing of the woods, no sound but the whisper of the leaves or the rare flutter of a bird's wings, no thoughts but joyful thoughts filling ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... "And the little birds flutter in the sun, and eat my crumbs and the great music swells out while you ask the garcon for another bock. Do you remember, father dear, the day that she found ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... some great, some little, as we see, To show some great, some small, in glory be.[17] Their flying diversely, as we behold, Do show saints' joys will there be manifold; Some glide, some mount, some flutter, and some do, In a mix'd way of flying, glory too. And all to show each saint, to his content, Shall roll ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ideals. There was little in the lads she had met thus far to awaken her fancy, for it habitually fed on better meat. Huldah's school-girl romances, with their wealth of commonplace detail, were not the stuff her dreams were made of, when dreams did flutter across the sensitive plate of ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... local and household deity president over all Ruegen, called Rugevit. I can quite imagine a couple of Czech householders, law-abiding and good church-goers, conspiring to get away from the family for a bit and take a trip to Ruegen, just for a flutter with the old gods. What with the secrecy required, as both Ruler and Church forbade the practice of worshipping Slavonic deities, the practice must have been quite as exciting ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... bungled it, there was a chance that they might escape when the pirates made their landing on the coast to refresh themselves and refit the ship. The mate on watch greeted them good-humoredly enough and bade them enter the cabin where the captain awaited them. Jack was all a-flutter again but he managed to imitate ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... a flutter at the heart, "surely nothing will satisfy the craving of my soul save to be with thee forever. ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... of thine! Doves wing frighted from the ground At a step's too sudden sound, And her passion is a dove, Frighted by too bold a love. Mute as marble Hermes wait By the blooming hawthorn-gate. Thou shalt see her wings expand, She shall flutter to thy hand. On thy forehead thou shalt know Something like a breath of snow, Or of pinions pure that beat In a whirl of whiteness sweet. And the dove, grown venturesome, Shall upon thy shoulder come, And its rosy beak shall sip From the nectar ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... river. Its contents seemed a trifle too liquid for mud and a trifle too solid for water. On the nearer bank was a small village populated by short people and long dogs. Out in midstream, making poor headway against the semi-gelid current, was a little flutter-tailed steamboat panting and puffing violently and kicking up a lather of lacy spray with its wheelbuckets in a manner to remind you of a very warm small lady fanning herself with a very large gauze fan, and only getting ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... and agreements or disagreements, one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the agreement or disagreement of ideas themselves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians abstracting their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to set before their minds the ideas themselves that they would consider, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... as he studied me with eyes that were so quiet and kind I could feel a flutter of ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... that I separate myself from it; and the proof that I do not despise it," said the captain, filling his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health, chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n—o, no, that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid that does not suit ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... continued very high; but there was a flutter in them which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this agitation increased as the evening drew on. She could scarcely eat any dinner, and when they afterwards returned to the drawing room, seemed anxiously listening to the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... off somewhere on a false track. Not an easy trade! Besides that, I have one more line—that's false eyes and teeth. But it ain't a profitable line. I want to drop it. And besides I'm thinking of leaving all this business. I understand, it's all right for a young man, in the bloom of his powers, to flutter around like a moth, but once you have a wife, and may be a whole family even ..." he playfully patted the woman on the knee, from which she became scarlet and looked uncommonly better. "For the Lord has blessed us Jews with ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... "upstairs" is one that is heard every week-day of the year except summer Saturdays. At 26 Broadway, just before eleven o'clock each morning, there is a flutter in the offices of all the leading heads of departments from Henry H. Rogers down, for going "upstairs" to the eleven o'clock meeting is in the mind of each "Standard Oil" man the one all-important event of every ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the partial Peacock saves his egg, No sheep e'er snaps if I attempt to touch her, Lambs like it when I lead them to the butcher! Each morn I milk my rams beneath the shed, While rabbits flutter twittering round my head, And, as befits a dairy-farmer's daughter, What milk I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... horse to a slow trot and, without turning his head, searched with a sidewise glance the yard and veranda of the adobe house. When he saw a flutter of pink inside a window he stopped at the gate and called ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and at the same time there came one of those brief discharges of moonlight, which leaped into the opening thus made, and showed me three girls in the prettiest flutter and disorder. It was as though they had sprung out of the ground. I accosted them very politely in my capacity of stranger, and requested to be told the names of all manner of hills and woods and places ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... questions of the Senora's were like nothing in life so much as like that stage in a spider's processes when, withdrawing a little way from a half-entangled victim, which still supposes himself free, it rests from its weaving, and watches the victim flutter. Subtle questions like these, assuming, taking for granted as settled, much which had never been settled at all, were among the best weapons in the Senora's armory. ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... dangers it had dared. Back of the house the land climbed into a little ridge, with great, gray rocks here and there, spots of cool, restful color amid the lavish green and gold and purple of nature's carpeting. To the north swept hills clothed with the deep, rich green of hemlock, the faint green flutter of birch, the dense foliage of sugar maples. To the east, in the valley, a singing silver brook flashed in and out among somber boulders, the land ascending to sunny hilltop pastures beyond. But toward the south ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... flutter for a time. And struggle with captivity in vain; But by-and-by they rest, they smooth their plumes. And to NEW MASTERS sing their former notes. [Footnote: Agis, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... had received that very morning a letter from Mrs. Fordyce of Bellairs Crescent—a letter which had put her all in a flutter. It was a letter of warning, counsel, and reproof concerning Miss Peck's duty towards her young charge, and laying a strong injunction upon her to be exceedingly judicious in her treatment of the eccentric guests whom Gladys had again invited to Bourhill. It was not a wise epistle at all, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... to Welsh, and then added, with a flutter of caution, "I haven't made up my mind yet. There are drawbacks, as ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... so often intermixed; but these were succeeded by strange grotesque combinations, confused, and void of outline and regularity. The source of ornament was now sought in the orders and members of Grecian architecture; but the eyes which had been accustomed to the Gothic flutter of parts, were not prepared to relish the simplicity of line which is essential to the beauty of the Greek style. Columns of a small size, inaccurately and coarsely executed, with arcades and grotesque caryatids, formed the ornaments of porches and frontispieces,—as at Browseholme-house in Yorkshire, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... blooming, innocent, English loveliness. I watched her (I could not help it, when my interest was once awakened) through the whole scene. I marked her increased agitation: I saw her cheeks flush, her eyes glisten, her bosom flutter, as if with sighs I could not overhear, till at length, overpowered with emotion, she turned away her head, and covered her eyes with her hand. Mothers!—English mothers! who bring your daughters abroad to finish their education—do you well to expose them to scenes like these, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... FLUTTER.—Propeller "flutter," or vibration, may be due to faulty pitch angle, balance, camber, surface area, or to bad mounting. It causes a condition sometimes mistaken for engine trouble, and one which may easily lead to the collapse ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... those girls on the beach," laughed Walter. "Those are the lassies who have the white canoe." So saying he waved his own cap and a flutter of handkerchiefs from the beach came back ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... of the address, and I am going to criticise Paleontological doctrines in general in a way that will flutter ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... "have watched him catch a butterfly and, holding it uncrushed, walk into a wood, and have seen a woodthrush flutter down to him, take the butterfly from his fingers, speed away with it to feed its young and presently return to his empty hand, as if expecting another insect, perch on his hand, peck at it and remain some time; and there is no song-bird more fearful of mankind, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... in colour, and soft and almost woolly to the touch. They hang in clusters from the hazel twigs, and in the strong March wind which blows to-day, they shake and flutter like the tails of lambs at play. Some of them leave a dusty powder on our fingers when we handle them; that is the pollen of ...
— Wildflowers of the Farm • Arthur Owens Cooke
... himself. He drew his feet up, his head sank between his shoulders, his arms hugged his sides. Under the high and enormous tree soaring superbly out of the mist in a vigorous spread of lofty boughs, with a restless and eager flutter of its innumerable leaves in the clear sunshine, he remained motionless, huddled up on ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad |
