"Fluttering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that he had heard it; and when, throwing aside his paper, he stepped outside on the balcony, she obeyed an impulse she could never afterward explain to herself, and followed him. Quickly putting her hand on his, she said, with a fluttering heart, ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... occupy it; but with Dic by her side that young lady was brave and did not observe her mother's mute commands. Amid the press of other matters in the kitchen, Rita had not remembered to warn Dic not to lend her father the money. When that fluttering heart of hers was in great trouble or joy, it was apt to be a forgetful little organ, and regret in this instance followed forgetfulness. The regret came after she was seated with Dic on the hearth log, and, being in her mother's ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... passion by geometrical permutations—by charts and diagrams. A seasoned widow might have broken up the icy fastness of his soul and melted his forbidding nature in the crucible of feeling, but this poor girl just wanted some one to hold her little hand and say peace to her fluttering heart. How could she go plump herself in his lap, pull his ears and tell him he was a fool? Finally, the girl's brother, seeing her distress, stole the precious warrant from Swedenborg's coat, tore it up, and Swedenborg knew his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... and unlooked-for reply there were great cheers and counter-cheers, in the midst of which the scared little Radical was hustled down from his perch and sent flying to join his friends, and calm the fluttering of his ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... additional remark or illustration, especially if no conjunction is used, the colon is generally and properly inserted: as, "Avoid evil doers: in such society, an honest man may become ashamed of himself."—"See that moth fluttering incessantly round the candle: man of pleasure, behold thy image!"—Art of Thinking, p. 94. "Some things we can, and others we cannot do: we can walk, but we cannot ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... beautiful than she; that she doubted his loyalty, his devotion? From some far off ancestor, her woman's dower of pride and silence suddenly asserted itself in Rosemary. When he wanted her, he would find her. If he missed her signal, fluttering from the birch tree in the Spring wind, he could write and say so. Meanwhile she would not seek him, though her heart should break from loneliness ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... shining victory packed into fewer or duller words? Broke's scorn of the histrionic is shown by his reply to one of his own men who, when the Chesapeake, one blaze of fluttering colours, was bearing down upon her drab-coloured opponent, said to his commander, eyeing the bleached and solitary flag at the Shannon's peak, "Mayn't we have three ensigns, sir, like she has?" "No," said Broke, "we have ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... weave, but spoiled by the design. Quite as important as intrinsic beauty is appropriateness of pattern. How often do we see woven on our curtains, carpets, and garment materials fans, bunches of roses tied with ribbons—bows with long, fluttering ends—landscapes, snow scenes, etc. Nothing is beautiful out of its place. A fan suggests coolness and grace of motion, but woven in our textiles it gives the same impression as a butterfly mounted on a pin—something perverted, imprisoned, or robbed of its natural ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... of the turret, to which they ascended by many a winding passage and uncouth staircase, they found Edith, not in the attitude of a young lady who watches with fluttering curiosity the approach of a smart regiment of dragoons, but pale, downcast, and evincing, by her countenance, that sleep had not, during the preceding night, been the companion of her pillow. The good old veteran was hurt at her appearance, which, in the hurry of preparation, her grandmother ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... produced a bundle of certificates, all printed in bright purple ink, with a picture of Washington, and a big eagle, and a flag at the top. At the bottom was a great gold seal, with two red ribbons fluttering from it. Mr. Snider filled in the names with a fountain pen, and the number of shares that ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... import, whether in the street, the house, or the temple, and again, the time of its appearance, in what month or on what day. In the same way, an endless variety of omens are derived from the appearance of certain birds, the direction of their flight, their fluttering around the head of a man or entering ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... never raided a chicken-roost again. It was against the law, and he had learned it. Then the master took him into the chicken-yards. White Fang's natural impulse, when he saw the live food fluttering about him and under his very nose, was to spring upon it. He obeyed the impulse, but was checked by the master's voice. They continued in the yards for half an hour. Time and again the impulse surged over White Fang, and each time, as he yielded ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... on Charley kept his eyes anxiously on the distant point and sapling, hoping, longing, and expecting to catch a glimpse of the fluttering square of red which would wave the welcome news that Walter had ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... road is bordered by Russian cottages; then it debouches into a wide square which loses its distinctive character and becomes an indescribable mixture of Russia, Mongolia, and China. Palisaded compounds, gay with fluttering prayer flags, ornate houses, felt-covered yurts, and Chinese shops mingle in a dizzying chaos of conflicting personalities. Three great races have met in Urga and each carries on, in this far corner of Mongolia, its own customs and way of life. The Mongol yurt has remained ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... Farfrae, who had been to Henchard's house to look for him, came out of the back gate, and saw something white fluttering in the morning gloom, which he soon perceived to be part of Abel's shirt that showed ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... upper rooms. There were a thousand pretty secrets in the ways of people to each other. Then, too, there were ideas, as thick as sparrows in an ivied wall. One had but to clap one's hands and cry out, and there was a fluttering {195} of innumerable wings; life was as full of bubbles, forming, rising into amber foam, as a glass of ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... close Adams noticed that the back of the great cow seemed alive and in motion. Half a dozen rhinoceros birds, in fact, were upon it, and almost immediately, sighting the hunters, they rose chattering and fluttering in the air. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... tell you how she first received her moral uplift—she had some nice clothes. Stealing was her only vice! At that, she only took enough to meet her needs; but one day she found some money; quite a lot, it seemed to her. Down in her little fluttering fancy she had always had longings for a white dress—a nice white dress. She had the inherent instinct for judging rightly 'what she should wear.' So, for the first time in her life she was able to be correctly ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... innocent contact and have drawn her closer towards him; yet they moved steadily on, he contenting himself from time to time with a hurried glance at the downcast fringes of the eyes beside him. Presently he stopped, his attention disturbed by what appeared to be the fluttering of a black-winged, red-crested bird, in the bushes before him. The next moment he discovered it to be the rose-covered head of Dona Isabel, who was running towards them. Eleanor withdrew her ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... in clouds of gold sweet cherry-trees upgrow, And bushes of red roses that bloomed above the snow; She smells all faint the almond-boughs that blow so wild and fair, And doves with milky eyes ascend fluttering in the air. ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... was described by the Germans as "an emptiness." The term is intended to emphasize that the old martial display and pomp has completely gone. A grand advance upon each other, with trumpets sounding, banners fluttering, brilliant uniforms, and splendid cavalry charges, was impossible with long range weapons hailing storms of bullets and shells of devastating explosive power. Cover was the all important immediate aim of both attack and defense. In this ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... up, and walked slowly away from the fire, very naturally, with a gesture, just touching her soft cheek and fluttering her fingers toward the glow, as if she were too hot. Max Elliot ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... reconstruction the same building-materials as the former edifice,—materials not likely to be improved because they may be defaced. Ascend from the working classes to all others in which civilized culture prevails, and you will find that same restless feeling,—the fluttering of untried wings against the bars between wider space and their longings. Could you poll all the educated ambitious young men in England,—perhaps in Europe,—at least half of them, divided between a reverence for the past and a ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high on vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith
... unclaimed among The countless millions of thy happy flock, Whose deepest joy is to obey, Whereby they feel the measured sway Of thy life in them, their own living part, Whether in centuried pulses of the rock By slow disintegration Ascending to its higher, Or the quick fluttering of the Storm-god's heart,— An instant's palpitation Through all its arteries of fire! One common blood runs down life's myriad veins, From Archangelic Hierarchs who float Broad-winged in the God-glory, to the mote That trembles with a braided dance In ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... so vivid a presentation of her image that it obliterated all newer visual records. What a lady she looked when bidding him farewell at the station. He had watched her till the train carried him out of sight—a slender graceful figure; pale face and sad eyes; a fluttering handkerchief and a waved parasol; then nothing at all, except a sudden sense of emptiness in ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... her fluttering figure hasted on, the outlines of her form, with its close shawl and neat bonnet, growing fainter and fainter in the now settled darkness of an April night; and still I followed, walking on the turf at the side of the road lest she should hear my footsteps and look round. At ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... concentrated calm, And in that pure concinnity of soul, And in that heart that almost fails to beat, I read a faint beatitude, and dream I walk once more upon the roof of Heaven, And feel all knowledge, all capacity For sovereign thought, all intellectual joy, Blow on me, like fluttering and like dancing winds. We are fallen, fallen!... And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my veins, And yet a sense of limpid happiness And buoyancy and anxious fond desire Quicken my being. It is much to see The perfected geography of thought Spread out before the gorged intelligence, ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... while the wind, now rising as the night progressed towards morning, rustled the myriad leaves of white paper that had escaped from out of the French staff carriages, blowing them across the valley, like a flock of sea- gulls fluttering on the bosom ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... skipped this way and that, noticing everything by the roadside. He watched the bees buzzing among the flowers, the butterflies fluttering in the sunlight and the birds building their ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... sunset of one of the longest days of the loveliest of our summer months. The roar of the evening gun had gone re-echoing through the Highlands of the Hudson. The great garrison flag was still slowly fluttering earthward, veiled partially from the view of the throng of spectators by the snowy cloud of sulphur smoke drifting lazily away upon the wing of the breeze. Afar over beyond the barren level of the cavalry plain the gilded hands of the tower-clock on "the old ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... her end, had, two years ago, been a truly magnificent dog. At all events, so said Nozdrev. Next came another bitch—also blind; then an inspection of the water-mill, which lacked the spindle-socket wherein the upper stone ought to have been revolving—"fluttering," to use the Russian peasant's quaint expression. "But never mind," said Nozdrev. "Let us proceed to the blacksmith's shop." So to the blacksmith's shop the party proceeded, and when the said shop had been viewed, Nozdrev said as he pointed ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... still down on the surface of the water, darting from point to point, fluttering and flopping, and throwing up the little clouds of spray, that, surrounding it like a nimbus, seemed to follow ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... be inquired, whether the first intention of those who are fluttering on the wing, and collecting a flock that they may take their flight, be to attain good, or to avoid evil. If they are dissatisfied with that part of the globe, which their birth has allotted them, and resolve not to live without the pleasures ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... free. Inform my judgment, regulate my will, My reason strengthen, and my passions still. To gain thy favour, be my first great end, And to that scope may every action tend. Amidst the pleasures of a prosperous state, Whose fluttering chains the untutor'd heart elate, May I reflect to whom those gifts I owe, And bless the bounteous hand from whence they flow. Or, if as adverse fortune be my share, Let not its terrors tempt me to despair; But, fix'd on thee, a steady faith maintain, And own all good, which thy ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... through the village, round the point into the French quarter, in search of a laundress. The fishermen's cottages faced the west; they were low and wide, not unlike scows drifted ashore and moored on the beach for houses. The little windows had gay curtains fluttering in the breeze, and the room within looked clean and cheery; the rough walls were adorned with the spoils of the fresh-water seas, shells, green stones, agates, spar, and curiously shaped pebbles; occasionally ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... he exclaimed; "I paid eighty-nine thousand dollars to get them, and they're worth—that," he flung them with a quick gesture into the air, and the rising wind scattered them fluttering over the sere grass. "Scrabble for ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and saw, high up among the topmost swaying branches, a sight that thrilled them with pity and distress. Dangling by a string which was tangled about one of her feet, hung a mother robin, desperately struggling to get free, fluttering, fluttering, beating the air frantically with her wings and uttering piercing cries of anguish that drove the hearers almost to desperation. Nearby was her nest, and on the edge of it sat the mate, uttering cries as shrill with anguish as those ...
— The Campfire Girls at Camp Keewaydin • Hildegard G. Frey
... steel and a chest that rang sound as a bell, yet how much nearer his purpose had he been as a little child! He remembered the day that he had hidden in the bushes with his squirrel gun and waited with fluttering breath for the sound of Fletcher's footsteps along the road. On that day it had seemed to him that the hand of the Lord was in his own Godlike vengeance nerving his little wrist. He had meant to shoot—for that ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... and let us kiss each other! But, O tell me, where shall be our meeting? In thy garden, love, or in my garden? Under thine or under mine own rose-trees? Thou, sweet soul, become thyself a rose-bud; I then to a butterfly will change me; Fluttering I will drop upon the rose-bud; Folks will think I'm hanging on a flower, While a lovely maiden ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... fluttering laugh of happiness, much more eloquent than words. "Jack," she said, "that night I stood with you on the bridge of the D'Estang—then I ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their nests at pleasure, while from twenty feet upward to the tops of the trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber, for now the axe-men were at work cutting down those trees which seemed to be most crowded with nests, and seemed to fell ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... along the mine trail, between the mud huts and low walls of Rincon, increased its pace on the camino real, mules urged to speed, escort galloping, Don Carlos riding alone ahead of a dust storm affording a vague vision of long ears of mules, of fluttering little green and white flags stuck upon each cart; of raised arms in a mob of sombreros with the white gleam of ranging eyes; and Don Pepe, hardly visible in the rear of that rattling dust trail, with ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... with the fluttering sail! And away with the bounding wave! While the musical sounds of the ocean-gale Are ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various
... show me her poultry, of which she was evidently very proud. This she accomplished by calling out in a loud voice, "Poules, poules, poules" ("chickens, chickens, chickens"), as if addressing children, whereupon they came fluttering out of the chestnut woods, fifty or more, some of fine breed. These fowls are kept for laying, and not for market, the eggs being sent daily into Nice. She then asked me indoors, the large kitchen being on one side of the door, the outhouses on the other. Beyond the ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... being noticed that if you are walking rapidly ahead they allow you to step within an inch or two of them without flinching. But if they see by your looks that you have discovered them, they leave their eggs or young, and, like a good many other birds, pretend that they are sorely wounded, fluttering and rolling over on the ground and gasping as if dying, to draw you away. When pursued we were surprised to find that just when we were on the point of overtaking them they were always able to flutter a few yards farther, until they had led ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... security in seeing them sitting together on the parapet of the garden, with the portfolio spread out between them,—the warm twilight glow of the evening sky lighting up their figures as they bent in ardent interest over its contents. The portfolio showed a fluttering collection of sketches,—fruits, flowers, animals, insects, faces, figures, shrines, buildings, trees,—all, in short, that might strike the mind of a man to whose eye nothing on the face of the earth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... been no callers, and they had not gone out. A cold north wind had shrieked around the house all day, rattling the windows, and tearing frantically through the gaunt arms of the stripped trees. The sky was like lead, the river black and turbid. As the afternoon wore on, great flakes of snow came fluttering through the opaque air, slowly at first, then faster, till all was blind, fluttering whiteness, and the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... Mr. Haggarty, that you are speaking to a Molloy?" was all the reply majestic Mrs. Gam made when, according to the usual formula, the fluttering Jemima referred her suitor to "Mamma." She left him with a look which was meant to crush the poor fellow to earth; she gathered up her cloak and bonnet, and precipitately called for her fly. She took care to tell every single soul in ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the strings and softly plucked melody from them, and all the beautiful dreams of all the world came fluttering close with wings like doves wings; and all the lovely thoughts that sometimes hover near, but not so near that you can catch them, now came home as to their nests in the hearts of those who listened. And those who listened forgot time and space, and ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit
... wild strange laugh, our guide Looked at him; and he shrunk aside, Shrivelling like a flame-touched leaf; For the red-cross blossoms of soft blue fire Were growing and fluttering higher and higher, Shaking their petals out, sheaf by sheaf, Till with disks like shields and stems like towers Burned the host of the passion-flowers ... Had the Moonshee flown like a midnight thief? ... Yet a thing like ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the last. They began to cry for Glenister, so that when he loomed in the doorway, a ragged, heroic figure, his heavy shock low over his eyes, his unshaven face aggressive even in its weariness, his corded arms and chest bare beneath the fluttering streamers, the street broke into wild cheering. Here was a man of their own, a son of the Northland who labored and loved and fought in a way they understood, and he had come into ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes. And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and then the others began to pick, pick, pick: and among them all they soon picked ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... and sweetness, two street scenes in Cairo full of rich Oriental colouring, and a wonderful work called the Afterglow in Egypt. It represents a tall swarthy Egyptian woman, in a robe of dark and light blue, carrying a green jar on her shoulder, and a sheaf of grain on her head; around her comes fluttering a flock of beautiful doves of all colours, eager to be fed. Behind is a wide flat river, and across the river a stretch of ripe corn, through which a gaunt camel is being driven; the sun has set, and from the west comes a great wave of red light like ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... and the repeated cries of "Vive la France!" From all the windows hung the French flag, fluttering in the breeze, and I felt that this was not only for me, but against Germany—I ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... pipe for every note, properly proportioned. A section of an ordinary wooden pipe is given in Fig. 138. Wind rushes up through the foot of the pipe into a little chamber, closed by a block of wood or a plate except for a narrow slit, which directs it against the sharp lip A, and causes a fluttering, the proper pulse of which is converted by the air-column ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... then," she returned, with heightened color. "We will not refer to this again;" and she brushed away a butterfly that was fluttering about her conceitedly in ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... States. The toy horses and the toy carromatas and quilices were there, and the four-horse wagons with a staring "U. S." on their blue sides. There were the same dusky crowds in transparent garments, the soldiers in khaki, the bugle calls, and the Stars and Stripes fluttering from ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... wither and decay; and flowers do fleet; they fly all o'er the skies; Their bloom wanes; their smell dies; but who is there with them to sympathise? While vagrant gossamer soft doth on fluttering spring-bowers bind its coils, And drooping catkins lightly strike and cling on the embroidered screens, A maiden in the inner rooms, I sore deplore the close of spring. Such ceaseless sorrow fills my breast, that solace nowhere can I find. Past ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... poor PATTISON CORBY TORBAY To find them "take on" in this serious way; He pitied the poor little fluttering birds, And solaced their souls with the ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... along He'll repay you with a song; Never hurt the timid hare Peeping from her green grass lair, Let her come and sport and play On the lawn at close of day; The little lark goes soaring high To the bright windows of the sky, Singing as if 'twere always spring, And fluttering on an untired wing,— Oh! let him sing his happy song, Nor do ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... clay-clad spirit? Why this fluttering of wings? Why this striving to discover Hidden and ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... about the township; and the dead leaves ran riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell swiftly; the flag of England, fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... because the tenant makes himself better off by an industry other than his farming—and that the whole machinery of Government had been put in motion to protect the land tiller from the land-owner. Yet the Pall Mall Gazette is not ashamed to lend itself to this lie on the chance of catching a few fluttering minds and nailing them to the mast of Home Rule on the false supposition that this means justice to the oppressed tenant and wholesome restraint of the brutal proprietor. Professor Mahaffy, in a long letter to ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... creases out too much," Bessie protested; and with a deft touch, the right pull here, the proper flattening there, the muslin scrap blossomed into a fluttering corolla. ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... pretty prima donna and hunted up the wardrobe woman, and told her he wanted to meet the Littlest Girl. And the wardrobe woman, who was fluttering wildly about, and as delighted as though they were all her own children, told him to come into the property-room, where the children were, and which had been changed into a dressing-room that they might be by themselves. The six little girls were in six different states of ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... booth, the same little flag fluttering on the top, and the same obliging proprietor. He recognized me at once, and looked as if he was quite sure I would be there—as if, in fact, he had been waiting for me. After a pleasant greeting and a few friendly ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... so much simpler than those of children. Play constitutes a major part of the activities of young animals; think, for instance, of a kitten playing with a hanging tassel or with a ball, of puppies chasing one another, and of young birds playing with fluttering wings. The games of young animals often exhibit the character of love-games, and are in that case sexually differentiated. Various authors, and especially Brehm, have recorded numerous examples of this; I give here a ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... wild roses planted themselves; there many a flourishing sweet-briar flaunted in native gracefulness, or climbed up and hung about an old cedar as if like a wilful child determined that only itself should be seen. Nature grew them and nature trained them; and sweet wreaths, fluttering in the wind, gently warned the passer-by that nature alone had to do there. Cedars, as soon as the bottom land was cleared, stood the denizens of the soil on every side, lifting their soft heads ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Winchester let him alone; in a sudden sickness he sprang up to see if anything hung sprawling over the stable-door, and was in time to see men in retreat to right and left, the white pugarees of the police fluttering ingloriously among them. Only one was left upon the ground, and he could sit up ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... 'war-whoop,' awakening the echoes in the encircling hills; reckless of falling, we too spur on, dash round the splintered point, and slide rather than canter down a shelving bank, to reach a second sand-beach, over which the guide is galloping and shouting. We can see the fluttering garments of a girl, who is running with all her might towards the pine trees; she disappears amongst the thick foliage of the underbrush ere the guide can come up to her, but leaping from off his horse, he follows her closely, and notes the spot wherein she has hidden herself amidst a tangle ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... infatuated boy from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering round an undesirable candle. Till now I had no idea of the extent to which his ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... of mind was, Mr. Wilmot testified great satisfaction at our rencontre; and the interest which I unfeignedly took in his welfare soon revived all his former affection for me. My veneration for his virtues, love for his genius, and pity for his misfortunes, tended to calm his still fluttering and agitated spirits. Unfortunate as he himself had been, or at least had thought himself, in his love of literature and poetry, it yet gave him pleasure to find that the same passion was far from ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a fluttering by his side, and Miss Blake's voice said to him, with sweetness and with pity: "I'm so sorry you lost your position, Mr. Skinner. ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... the angel probably her warder for many years, outside. They don't exchange a word. They are only waiting, waiting. Far within are the myriads of Holy Souls, praying, suffering, loving, hoping. There is a noise as of a million birds, fluttering their wings above the sea. But here at the gate is silence, silence. She dares not ask: When?—because the angel does not know. Now and again he looks at her and smiles, and she is praying softly to herself. Suddenly there is a great light in the darkness overhead, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... to those who do not know him intimately. It is not because he has been without ambition. On the contrary he has longed to soar like the eagle but he has the wings of the sparrow and whatever exertion he has made has ended in a feeble and futile fluttering. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... thought of mine sets flames creeping up my limbs as if I were tied to the stake. Losing a husband you love—what is that to taking a husband you hate?" Still Lena could get no plain confession from her, for Anna clung to self-justification, and felt it abandoning her, and her soul fluttering in a black gulf when she opened her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... something a little less inept in the matter of construction. As soon as we get above this level, at all events, the fostering of anticipation becomes a matter of the first importance. The problem is, not to cut short the spectator's interest, or to leave it fluttering at a loose end, but to provide it either with a clearly-foreseen point in the next act towards which it can reach onwards, or with a definite enigma, the solution of which is impatiently awaited. In general terms, a bridge should ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the summit of a hill Which overlook'd the white walls of his home, He stopp'd.—What singular emotions fill Their bosoms who have been induced to roam! With fluttering doubts if all be well or ill— With love for many, and with fears for some; All feelings which o'erleap the years long lost, And bring our ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... was roused from her midday lethargy. It was the vibrant, active hour when odors are freshest and spirits rise. The forest was noisy with the cry of birds, and flocks of shrill-voiced paroquets raised an uproar in the tallest trees. The dense canopy of green overhead was alive with fluttering wings; the groves echoed to the cries of all the loud-voiced thicket denizens. The pastured cattle, which had sauntered forth from shaded nooks, ceased their grazing to stare with gentle curiosity at the hurrying figure. Of course they recognized ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... uphill till we reached the summit of Constitution Hill, already mentioned. There our buggy and two small, well-bred ponies swept into a smartly-kept compound surrounded by a palisade, the feature of the square being a flagstaff from which the Union Jack was proudly fluttering. As a site for a residence Constitution Hill could not well be surpassed, and many a millionaire would cheerfully have given his thousands to obtain such a view as that which met our eyes from the humble huts, and held me enthralled ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... distracted in his homage by the personal luminary, to which man's manufacture of balm and incense is mainly drawn when his love is wounded. That contemplation of her incomparable beauty, with the multitude of his ideas fluttering round it, did somewhat shake the personal luminary in Redworth. He was conscious of pangs. The question bit him: How far had she been indiscreet or wilful? and the bite of it was a keen acid to his nerves. A woman doubted by her husband, is always, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... himself at a soft, purring noise, a shadowy fluttering in the air. Graylock's animal flew past him, settled on its master's shoulder, turned to stare at Dasinger and Egavine. Dasinger looked at the yellow owl-eyes, the odd little tube of a mouth, continued to Egavine, "Ask him where the haul was stored ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz
... some time. There was still no answer to their summons. The Inspector placed his ear to the keyhole. There was not a sound to be heard. He drew back, a little puzzled. At that moment his attention was caught by the fluttering of a little piece of white material caught in the door. He pulled it out. It was a fragment of white embroidery, and on it were several small stains. The Inspector looked at them and looked at his fingers. His face ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... cast my fate with love, and trust Her honeyed heart that guides the pollened bee And sets the happy wing-seeds fluttering free; ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... glitter of the Mirage was like a looking-glass, and he was only chasing his own reflection. I cannot say, but there it was, always before him, a face as of a beautiful boy, with tumbled hair and laughing lips, its figure clothed in a fluttering dress of lights and shadows. It also seemed to beckon to him with its hand, and encourage him to run on after it with its bright ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... closer and closer, her red-crossed flag fluttering bravely at the peak; and on rushed the galley, until the two were within cannon-shot. M. de la Pailletine gave the order, and sent a shot to meet her from one of the four guns in the prow. As the thunder of it died away and the smoke cleared, he waited for the Englishman's reply. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... great and stately setting at Melbourne for the functions which graced the occasion and, as the Ophir rested in the waters of the bay, surrounded by British and foreign warships, with roaring salutes and a myriad of fluttering flags, there were excellent scenic preliminaries to the impressive landing ceremonies. From the St. Kilda Pier, through miles of beautiful, decorated streets, great arches and hundreds of thousands ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... into the library with the composition, and presently, when Dick was walking around the house and saw bits of torn paper fluttering out of the open window, a light broke through his ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... menials, and sat till long after the sun had set, enjoying the frosty air. I had to drink the tea very quickly, for it showed a strong inclination to begin to freeze. After the sun had gone down the rooks came home to their nests in the garden with a great fuss and fluttering, and many hesitations and squabbles before they settled on their respective trees. They flew over my head in hundreds with a mighty swish of wings, and when they had arranged themselves comfortably, an intense hush fell upon the garden, and the house began to look like a Christmas card, with ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... in fancy alone on the river-bank, only the round moon above them and their linked shadows faintly fluttering in the stream. They have drawn so closely together now that her arm is encircling his neck, her soft eyes uplifted like the moon's reflection and drowning into his; closer and closer till their hearts stop beating and their lips have met ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... and he lavished on the rooms the fancies of an imagination that suggested the collaboration of a courtesan of high degree and a fifth-rate artist. Nevertheless, our salon was a pretty resort—English cretonne of a very happy design—vine leaves, dark green and golden, broken up by many fluttering jays. The walls were stretched with this colourful cloth, and the armchairs and the couches were to match. The drawing-room was in cardinal red, hung from the middle of the ceiling and looped up to ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... to kill a canary in a neighbouring verandah. Consider the fascination of it—the stealthy reconnaissance from the top of the fence; the care to avoid waking the house-dog, the noiseless approach and the hurried dash, and the fierce clawing at the fluttering bird till its mangled body is dragged through the bars of the cage; the exultant retreat with the spoil; the growling over the feast that follows. Not the least entertaining part of it is the demure satisfaction of arriving home ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... the "Serapis,"—a mark For her marksmen!—with a match And a hand-grenade, but lingered just a moment more to snatch One last look at sea and sky! At the lighthouse on the hill! At the harvest-moon on high! And our pine flag fluttering still! Then turned and down her yawning throat I ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... rising moon they began anew to hasten forward, calling loudly upon the unfortunate wanderer, and fluttering white handkerchiefs tied to their walking-staffs, as signal flags, but it was all in vain. The object that had disappeared remained lost to view. Only a few giraffes sprang shyly past them, and ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... month earlier; and now Fred crept up closer and closer till he stood within reach, when he dashed the net down and just missed the insect, which began to rise, when, recovering his net, Fred made another flying dash, and to his great delight he saw that the yellow treasure was fluttering about inside. ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... afflicted with thy arrows. Let his kinsmen, with cheerless faces, behold Karna today, fallen down and stretched at his length on the earth, dipped in gore and with his weapons loosened from his grasp! Let the lofty standard of Adhiratha's son, bearing the device of the elephant's rope, fall fluttering on the earth, cut off by thee with a broad-headed arrow. Let Shalya fly away in terror, abandoning the gold-decked car (he drives) upon seeing it deprived of its warrior and steeds and cut off into fragments with hundreds of shafts by thee. Let thy enemy Suyodhana ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... treated the wedded pair themselves with something like condescension; for in what other state than heathen could people, rich or poor, exist who were doomed to abide in such a world's end as Egdon? Thomasin showed no such superiority to the group at the door, fluttering her hand as quickly as a bird's wing towards them, and asking Diggory, with tears in her eyes, if they ought not to alight and speak to these kind neighbours. Venn, however, suggested that, as they were all coming to the house in the evening, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... shade, When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bay'd:— And heroes fled the Sibyl's mutter'd call, Whose elfin prowess scal'd the orchard-wall. As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew, And trac'd the line of life with searching view, How throbb'd my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears, To learn the colour of my future years! Ah, then, what honest triumph flush'd my breast! This truth once known—To bless is to be blest! We led the bending beggar on his way, (Bare were his feet, his tresses silver-gray) Sooth'd the keen pangs his aged spirit ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... chirped the Robin, From the elm tree fluttering down; "If you'll write on your leaves such a lesson, I'll distribute ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... glass periwig, and post-paper boots." So cried and chattered and sniggered the little voices, out of every corner, nay, close by the student himself, who but now observed that all sorts of party-colored birds were fluttering above him and jeering him in hearty laughter. At that moment the bush of fire-lilies advanced toward him; and he perceived that it was Archivarius Lindhorst, whose flowered nightgown, glittering in red and yellow, had so far deceived ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... old tree there was a pole. This was tall and naked. A flag was fluttering from it. The flag had on it the stars and stripes. This was strange to Rip. But Rip saw something he remembered. The tavern sign. He recognized on it the face of King George. Still the picture was changed. The red ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... thoughts keep going far away Into another country under a different sky: My thoughts are sea-foam and sand; They are apple-petals fluttering. ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... strangely, was built in a tree, With a fluttering roof of leaves, And strong, straight boughs for the walls of the house, And an apple or two in the eaves. A pair of fun-loving twins lived there, Who romped on the roof all day, And flew great kites when the weather was fair, ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner
... cast his bent pin hook, with the fluttering rag for bait. No one saw him, everyone else being at the seal-pool. Sue watched her brother eagerly. She wanted him to hurry, and catch a fish, so they could go over where their mother and Aunt ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... bird supposed to possess the power of bringing back the faithless Delphis is sitting in his wheel. Simoetha has learnt many spells and charms from an Assyrian, and she tries them all. The distant roar of the waves, the stroke rising from the fire, the dogs howling in the street, the tortured fluttering bird, the old woman, the broken-hearted girl and her awful spells, all join in forming a night scene the effect of which is heightened by the calm cold moonshine. The old woman leaves the girl, who at once ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... not expected that the first declaration she received in her life would take this mild form, but it affected her much more strongly than she could understand. Her hand tightened suddenly on the book she held, and she noticed a little fluttering at her heart and in her throat, and at the same time she was conscious of a tremendous determination not to show that she felt anything at all, but to act as if she had heard just such things ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... respective appearance of the two armies, so far, especially, as regarded the horsemen on both sides. Gay in their gilded armour and waving plumes, with silken scarves across their shoulders, and the fluttering favours of fair ladies on their arms or in their helmets, the brilliant champions of the Holy Catholic Confederacy clustered around the chieftains of the great house of Guise, impatient for the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the Master of a Family. I question not but I shall draw upon me the Raillery of the Town, and be treated to the Tune of the Marriage-Hater match'd; but I am prepared for it. I have been as witty upon others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a Tribe of Fashionable young fluttering Coxcombs shot up, that I did not think my Post of an homme de ruelle any longer tenable. I felt a certain Stiffness in my Limbs, which entirely destroyed that Jauntyness of Air I was once Master of. Besides, for I may now confess my Age to thee, I have been ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... minute before she answered. "Betty," she said at last, an uncertain little smile fluttering about her mouth, "shall you be glad when you've got me through college?" Then she straightened with sudden energy. "This is your day, Betty,"—she pointed to the pins,—"and I won't spoil another minute of it. Of course there ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... Mrs. Morton hurried in with a fluttering sheet of paper in her hand. She was a voluminous woman in a stiffly starched house dress, everything about her as clean as a new pin, and a pair of silver-bowed spectacles pushed up to her fast graying hair. She was a wholesome, hearty, motherly looking woman, and Nan Sherwood was ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... kind of dreamy feeling, looking after the departing stage-coach. In it there were three people whose faces she knew, and she could not count a fourth within many a mile. One of those was a friend, too, as the fluttering handkerchief of poor Miss Timmins gave token still. Yet Ellen did not wish herself back in the coach, although she continued to stand and gaze after it as it rattled off at a great rate down the little street, its huge body lumbering up and down every now and then, reminding her of sundry uncomfortable ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... wretched creature shrank back from her, as if in fear;—his whole body shaking with emotion; his fluttering hands raised in a gesture of imploring protest;—while the eyes that looked up at the saintly countenance of the old gentlewoman were the eyes of a soul sunken in the deepest hell of ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... twitching a battered muscle; lifting the side with its broken ribs, fluttering the lids over the fierce eyes; for this was Loup, the fiercest husky ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... be drugged or intoxicated, the different metals manifesting a different response to certain drugs, just as different men and animals manifest a varying degree of similar resistance. The response of a piece of steel subjected to the influence of a chemical poison shows a gradual fluttering and weakening until it finally dies away, just as animal matter does when similarly poisoned. When revived in time by an antidote, the recovery was similarly gradual in both metal and muscle. A remarkable fact is noted by the scientist when he tells us that the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... powerful attraction drew people to the capital; artisans and cottages, village shopkeepers, and merchants from small towns, all rushed there like the inflowing tide. It made one think of a number of moths blindly fluttering round a candle, or of the magnetic rock of Eastern fairy tales, irresistibly attracting ships to wreck themselves. It recalled to one the stories of California at the time of the gold fever. People's excited imaginations ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... sleep all night," she said, her hands fluttering nervously in her lap. "Ever since Betty told me the boys were going this morning I couldn't think of anything but just that ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... formed a little group to themselves in the center of the parlor, Lucy clinging to Jimmy's arm, Mrs. Putnam eying them both with a happy expression, and Alice fluttering from one to the other, assuring them that they were the handsomest couple she ever had seen, that they ought to be proud of each other, and that Mrs. Putnam ought to be proud of them, and that she was sure ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... to hear him, and taking aim, he fired. The bird was seen to let go its prey, and, after rising a few feet, to fall back with wings extended into the water, where it lay fluttering helplessly. The ship gliding on, soon left ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... movement which might lead his pursuers into an ambush. But he found the three columns which had been engaged so pitifully disintegrated that he gave up in despair—a feeling heightened when, for the first time, snowflakes came ominously fluttering through the frosty air. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... threw aside her magazine, took off her hat, and, lowering her window, thrust her head out. The sun turned her red hair to a golden radiance about her; the wind, catching the heavy locks, blew them out like fluttering red-gold pennons. All the Carlyles had red hair of varying shades and natures. Audrey's was long and heavy, with a pretty wave in it. Faith's was shorter, darker, and curly. Tom's curled tightly over his head, a fiery mat of curls. Deborah's, finest and silkiest of all, hung ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... waves, while the wind flings the lighter spray through the stormy air, till it resembles a dense and swathing mist. Of the ships that are therein some should be shown with rent sails and the tatters fluttering through the air, with ropes broken and masts split and fallen. And the ship itself lying in the trough of the sea and wrecked by the fury of the waves with the men shrieking and clinging to the fragments ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... contorted, mocking faces, their fierce gestures, and their fluttering garments, they would have made a study for any painter who wished to portray Milton's conception of the army of ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... destructive caterpillar is called Leucania unipuncta. It is a small rusty grayish-brown fellow, its wings peppered with black dots. It is a member of the extensive family of owlet moths, and may be seen fluttering about the lamps and gas jets any ...
— Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Gemosac with the fluttering old man and Juliette. Juliette, indeed, was in no flutter, but had carried herself through the excitement of her first evening party with a demure ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire; White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... said an old peasant, "the Mountain knows how to make himself respected. When he talks, everybody listens." The sound was the most awful that ever met my ears. It was a hard, painful moan, now and then fluttering like a suppressed sob, and had, at the same time, an expression of threatening and of agony. It did not come from Etna alone. It had no fixed location; it pervaded all space. It was in the air, in the depths of the sea, in the earth under my feet—everywhere, in fact; and as ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... him last, to be holding on as by a sheet-anchor to theatricals at Christmas. Then, O rapture! but be still, my fluttering heart. ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with sculpture of alabaster, clear as amber and delicate as ivory—sculpture fantastic and involved, of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pomegranates, and birds clinging and fluttering among the branches, all twined together into an endless network of buds and plumes; and, in the midst of it, the solemn forms of angels, sceptered and robed to the feet, and leaning to each other across the gates, their figures indistinct among ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various
... lingered as if loth to leave them. There was the fluttering of wings overhead, and sometimes the last piping of birds. The wind wandered away, and left their voices sovereign of ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... the truth, but not the whole truth. Arlington cared not so much about going to Marietta as about getting there. He had not escaped the consequences of his recent perilous exposure to the rays of bewitching eyes. As he rode along through the woods he saw flocks of paroquets fluttering their emerald wings and making love as they flew. The red birds were singing bridal songs in the sugar-trees, and the shy hermit thrush betrayed his domestic secrets by husbandly notes piped from the spice-brush thicket. The wild ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... lily by all the heaven-set marks, though small of flower and run mostly to leaves, and should have a name that gives it credit for growing up in such celestial semblance. Native to the mesa meadows is a pale iris, gardens of it acres wide, that in the spring season of full bloom make an airy fluttering as of azure wings. Single flowers are too thin and sketchy of outline to affect the imagination, but the full fields have the misty blue of mirage waters rolled across desert sand, and quicken the senses to the anticipation of things ethereal. ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... hopes fulfilled; a kingdom awaits my acceptance, my enemies are overthrown. But here," and he struck his heart with violence, "here is the rebel, here the stumbling-block; this over-ruling heart, which I may drain of its living blood; but, while one fluttering pulsation remains, I am ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Ore and copper, glass and sugar, flax and wool. But here, too, there once lived Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Rubens, the reveler Ruysbroek, and Jordeans of the avid eyes. Here there always lived—to be sure,-in twilight—Germania's little soul, fluttering imagination. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... then!" said Mr. Somerville; and the boy ran up the stairs. He went from room to room with great expressions of admiration and delight. At length, as he was examining one of the garrets, he was startled by a fluttering noise over his head; and looking up, he saw a white pigeon, who, frightened at his appearance, began to fly round and round the room, till it found its way out of the door, and flew ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... skill enough to play the part of the bush-ranger under his guidance. A sultry day had clarified and cooled down into a clear, balmy evening; the slant beam was falling red on a thousand tall trunks,—here gleaming along some bosky vista, to which the white silky wood-moths, fluttering by scores, and the midge and the mosquito dancing by myriads, imparted a motty gold-dust atmosphere; there penetrating in straggling rays far into some gloomy recess, and resting in patches of flame, amid the darkness, on gnarled stem, or moss-cushioned stump, or gray beard-like ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... There was a sheet from Miss Benson. She always wrote letters in the manner of a diary. "Monday we did so-and-so; Tuesday, so-and-so, &c." Ruth glanced rapidly down the page. Yes, here it was! Sick, fluttering heart, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... cried with fluttering heart, "I am not worthy to be your wife. I know nothing of the world where you have lived, nor whether I would fit ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... went out; he had no more matches. As he groped his way to the steps, or where he thought they were, something touched him on the shoulder. It was enough to startle any man, and he cried out in alarm. There was a faint, squeaking noise and a fluttering, then the thing touched his cheek and he smelt a deathlike odor. Thoroughly alarmed he groped out. He felt the damp wall; he had lost the steps; he must walk round, feeling until he came to them, being a circular dungeon he must come to them. It seemed ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... daughter were a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris, Paris is dirt to him, and I warrant Helen, to change, would give money to boot.' This is the language he addresses to his niece; nor is she much behindhand in coming into the plot. Her head is as light and fluttering as her heart. It is the prettiest villain, she fetches her breath so short as a new-ta'en sparrow.' Both characters are originals, and quite different from what they are in Chaucer. In Chaucer, Cressida is represented as a grave, sober, considerate ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... woman's heart 'mid manhood's guise, Threats, rude defiances on every side. At first she clomb, nigh stunn'd with wrathful cries, Now at her side, whilst she would shrink in fear To feel the sword's point pierce her fluttering heart, Now from afar, below her and above, Till she scarce breath'd, awaiting o'erturn'd rocks To crush her in their fury as she went. Yet, minding well the Dervise, still she held Her pale face forward, with eyes ever bent Towards the misty ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... over her shoulder with a look in her eyes that made me think of a wounded bird fluttering in the net ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... lighted candle; that is, all save the first two, and these bore, one a basket of fruit, the melons and grapes and pears of sunny Provence, while the other held in his hands a pair of pretty white pigeons with rose-colored eyes and soft, fluttering wings. ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... without a struggle. The prospect, sufficiently grand at any time, was rendered more than ordinarily impressive by the warlike preparations to be seen on every hand. In front, on the summit of Cape Diamond, rose the lofty citadel, with the flag of France fluttering in the breeze. Above, all the way to Cape Rouge, every landing-place bristled with well-guarded encampments. Below, on the elevated range extending from the mouth of the River St. Charles to the mouth of the Montmorenci—a ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... admiration, the big fellow rose to his feet and with a mighty tug pulled an inert body clear through the hole. One look at the face was sufficient for identification despite the blood streaming from an ugly gash over the right temple. It was the man called Mike. His eyelids were fluttering. He was ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... bold bird, a leader among his kind, an explorer and discoverer. He had never seen a crumb before, but he picked up one in his tiny bill and found it good. Then he announced the news to all the world that could hear his voice, and there was much fluttering of small wings in ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Chan to the door, and gave a wave of his hand in the direction of the sky. Instantly the sound of the fluttering and swish of wings was heard, and in a moment a splendid eagle landed gracefully at their feet. Taking their seats upon its back, they found themselves flashing at lightning speed away through the darkness of the night. Higher and higher they rose, till they had pierced the ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... to himself, when his eyes couldn't make out the fluttering of her cloak any more—'that must be Valera.' And he sat down to the hotel breakfast with a great appetite, thinking happily that by and by he would see her ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... a fluttering moth gave the excuse her heart longed for, and her fingers rested for a moment, light as the moth itself, on his hair. There was something in the touch which made him open his eyes—uncomprehending at first, and then ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... was not for long. An avalanche of Aunt Lydia entered the room, quite filling it with her fluttering presence. Tante Lydia's morning cap was quite as youthful as that of her niece, her flowered wrapper as belaced and befurbelowed as the lingiere could make it, and her high heeled mules were at least two sizes too small, and ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... subaltern jumped up and dropped straight into the fire. Grey soldiers' figures moved about in all directions like apparitions, throwing up their hands and falling and writhing on the black earth. The young officer ran past Andersen, fluttering his hands like some strange, frightened bird. Andersen, as if he were thinking of something else, raised his cane. With all his strength he hit the officer on the head, each blow descending with a dull, ugly thud. The officer reeled in a circle, struck a bush, and ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... diminished. He once lived in the Rue de la Grosse-Horloge, No. 12: but at present carries on trade in one of the out-skirting streets of the town. I was told that the premises he now occupies were once an old church or monastery, and that a thousand fluttering sheets are now suspended, where formerly was seen the solemn procession of silken banners, with religious emblems, emblazoned in colours of all hues. I called at the old shop, and supplied myself with a dingy copy of the Catalogue de la Bibliotheque Bleue—from which catalogue ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is a smooth running tale, the day's page turning gently, going on with the unfinished sentence of yesterday, the end of each little chapter guessed before it has been read. But there are times when the leaves no longer turn slowly but are caught in a sudden gust that sends them fluttering like dead leaves in a September gale; when life no longer loiters, but leaps when the unseen end of the chapter is a mystery, when the letters on the page are shining gold ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory |
