"Quivering" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... come in, with the oldest at the head of them, who carries in her left hand a great piece of birch-bark of the hardest, upon which she strikes as it were a drum; and to that dull sound which the bark returns, they all dance, spinning round on their heels, quivering, with one hand lifted, the other down: other notes they have none, but a guttural loud aspiration of the word Heh! Heh! Heh! as often as the old female savage strikes her bark-drum. As soon as she ceases striking, they set up a general cry, expressed by Yah! Then, if their dance is approved, ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... I am now getting accustomed to," was the answer that came from his quivering lips. "I heard they wanted a clerk, and went to offer myself. I am looked upon as a felon ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Father's business, not lingering, yet neither making haste; and the calm and peace which the little Pilgrim had seen in the faces of the blessed were but reflections from the majestic gentleness of the countenance to which, all quivering with happiness and wonder, she lifted up her eyes. Many things there had been in her mind to say to Him. She wanted to ask for those she loved some things which perhaps He had overlooked. She wanted to say, "Send me." It seemed ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... the lights—out all! And over each quivering form The curtain, a funeral pall, 35 Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man," And its hero, the Conqueror ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... passed, and another morning came. A faint noise woke June from her uneasy sleep, when the sun was hardly up. It was Hungry, purring loudly at her ear. A plump young robin lay quivering between her paws. She was tossing it to and fro with curves and springs of delight. She laid the poor creature down by June's face, looking proudly from June to it, saying as plainly as words could say, "Here's a fine ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... interpreted the gleam in my eyes and the quivering muscles about my uncontrollable mouth, for he glanced keenly at me and made as if he would let the inquiry drop. Not so my mother. She bade Mary 'Liza run upstairs and make ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... work. Through the camera of my jealously guarded window I could catch a glimpse of the vivid, quivering blue of the sky, the glittering intensity of the ocean, the long motionless leaves of the horse-chestnut in the road,—all utterly inconsistent with anything as active as this lamentation. I stepped to the open door ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... time he would have fled in dismay from the human odor, but he was a harried and frightened black bear and that woof was the first friendly sound he had heard in a day. So he remained where he was, his figure crouched, his red eyes quivering with curiosity. Henry smiled to himself. His feeling for the animal was one of pure friendship, allied with sympathy. He knew that if the bear tried to plunge through the Indian ring in his panic they would certainly ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... quite understand if you don't come, and we shan't think the worse of you. Public opinion here is very strong. They don't want to be unkind to Jim, but they think he ought to be shut up ...Shut up!" Maggie could feel that she was quivering. "Shut up!" ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... got there, Ben Todd came rushing out of the office, his eyes jumping, his little hunched body quivering with excitement, and his long arms swinging, apelike and energetic. He mounted a chair. He could not settle himself at the start, so all he did was to wave a paper in the air and ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... with set teeth, and muscles cracking with the strain, I edged gradually along till I rounded the buttress face, and here within ten feet of the summit I found scanty foothold again. Here I stood quivering and exhausted till I had regained my breath, and then in the fast waning light I examined the few feet of rock that still stood between me and freedom. Barely two feet above my outstretched hand was the pinnacle ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... Wherefore Boanerges demanded entrance at his gates, and no man making answer, he gave it one stroke with the head of a ram, and this made the old gentleman shake, and his house to tremble and totter. Then came Mr. Recorder down to the gate, and, as he could, with quivering lips, he asked who was there. Boanerges answered, We are the captains and commanders of the great Shaddai, and of the blessed Emmanuel his Son, and we demand possession of your house for the use of our noble Prince. And with that the battering-ram gave the gate another shake; this made ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... of the donkey, and hugged him, and hustled him, and danced about him in their joy. Uncle Moses was not so quick as the others, and held back. Bat if his greeting was last, it was not least fervent, as Bob well knew by the moistened eye, the quivering lip, the tremulous voice, and the convulsive grasp of ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... scarce seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating, the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading until afterwards he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book (it was in Montaigne's Essays), and the events of the day passed ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the blow came first." Wherever the strings chanced to fall upon the bare flesh, they raised the skin, as though a hot iron had been applied to it. In some places they took off the skin entirely, and left the flesh raw, and quivering with the stinging pain. I could not think at first what I had done to deserve this severe punishment, nor did she condescend to enlighten me. But when I began to cry, and beg to go to my father, she sternly bade me ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... instinct, I am told! I wish it took such an artistic form in my beloved brothers in the Lord! There," he added, stopping and speaking in a low tone; "don't move—there's a cock-wren singing his love-song—you can see his wings quivering." There followed a little tremolo, with four or five emphatic notes for a finish. "Now, if you listen, you'll hear the next wren answer him!" said Father Payne. In a moment the same little song came like an echo from a bush a few yards away. "The wren sings in stricter time than any bird but ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... family from Ridgeley. A stare of stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and amazement—lurid flame that testified its violence in the reddening of cheeks and brow, in the dilating nostril and quivering lips. Then he passed his hand downward over his features, evidently conscious of their distortion, and striving after a semblance of equanimity, and looked again in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... was seen on a fishing boat: it might be English—it might be Shelley's; but this was denied. Nothing to do but wait, till the third day, when he returned to Pisa to tell his fears to Hunt and Byron, who could only listen with quivering lips ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... round her as if she had been a child; I held her soft, warm, quivering body close to mine; I wiped her tears away with her pocket-handkerchief. And like a child she abandoned herself to my—to my rectitude. She trusted in it utterly. I might ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... Dick husk-voiced upbraids The sway-back'd roan for stamping on his foot With sulphurous oath and kick in flank, what time The cart-chain clinks across the slanting shaft, And, kitchenward, the rattling bucket plumps Souse down the well, where quivering ducks quack loud, And Susan Cook is singing. Up the sky The hesitating moon slow trembles on, Faint as a new-washed soul but lately up From out a buried body. Far about, A hundred slopes in hundred fantasies Most ravishingly run, so smooth ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery—called by him "my quarters." Coppy came in the afternoon and ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... new that its light was very dim, but the stars were bright. Presently a long, quivering wail arose and was answered from a dozen hills. It seemed just the sound one ought to hear in such a place. When the howls ceased for a moment we could hear the subdued roar of the creek and the crooning of the wind in the pines. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Come to me still, but as a tale twice told. The throb, the quivering beat Harry my blood no longer as of old, Nor stir my ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... out of her saddle in an instant. She walked into the body of the field somewhat, her face quivering pitifully as she examined the grain for herself. It was only too true! The beautiful brown seeds carpeted the earth around the roots of the flax, but no amount of harvesting would ever gather so much as a handful. The crop was ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... out, and was instantly observed by the Danes, who of course seized the opportunity and let fly several arrows at him, which grazed him or stuck quivering in the roof close to the spot where he stood. He was not slow to reply. One of the vikings, who was approaching the house at the moment with a bundle of faggots on his back, received a shaft in his shoulder, which caused him to drop his bundle and fly to the woods, ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... with an eagerness that was almost fierce; and in spite of her steady voice, there was something throbbing and quivering, deadly and terrible, in her upturned face. The form she looked at was erect and immovable, the eyes were quietly resolved, ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... A lean hand and arm appeared, and a short, fat knife, the haft sparkling with drops that resembled blood, was projected into the room, point down, quivering, in the wood, not five feet from Romola's ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... in every part of her body. She opened her eyes wildly and looked around. There was sage-brush up above, waving over the crag down which they had fallen, its gray-greenness shimmering hotly in the sun; the sky was mercilessly blue without a cloud. The great beast, heavy and quivering, lay solidly against her, half pinning her to earth, and the helplessness of her position was like an awful nightmare from which she felt she might waken if she could only cry out. But when at last she raised her voice its ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... much. But there was a bridge there by which the army essayed to cross a river, and when half of the army had passed, that bridge fell down in irreparable ruin, nor could any one either go forward or return. For that place is said to be girt round with a whirlpool, shut in with quivering morasses, and thus by her confusion of the two elements, land and water, Nature has rendered it inaccessible. But in truth, even to this day, if you may trust the evidence of passers-by, though they go not nigh the place, the far-off voices of cattle ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... her eyes to heaven and placed one hand on her heart; her voice was not without a certain sympathetic quality, and Gervaise, already quivering with emotion caused by the knowledge of Lantier's presence, could no longer restrain her tears. It seemed to her that she was the deserted child whom le bon Dieu had taken under His care. Clemence, who was quite tipsy, burst into loud sobs. The ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... trees. On the near side of this fringe of trees and bushes and only a short distance from where our two young friends sat on the backs of their horses, crouched a huge grizzly bear over the body of a horse that was still quivering in the death agony. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... engaged, the surgeon, Dr. Van Voorhees, came up. He was badly wounded. His horse had been shot under him, and he had received a ball in his leg. Every muscle of his face was quivering with the agony of terror. He said to me, 'Do you think they will take our lives? I am badly wounded, but I think not mortally. Perhaps we might purchase our lives by promising them a large reward. Do you ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... victorious; or you might fulfil your prophecy equally well by falling dead in your first heat, with the red blood gushing from those thin nostrils. We can be sure of nothing until you are tried, but it is a quivering delight to look at you and to share your impatience and to ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... cottage was thrown suddenly open, and the tall figure of a man stood in the entrance. For one moment he hesitated. Then with a sudden passionate gesture he raised his hands high above his head, and she heard a long deep moan burst from his quivering lips. ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... covered it one had to leave the door wide open in order that one might see. And the thaw was entering the place, the melting snow was falling drop by drop, and coming over the tiled floor. After long weeks of intense cold, dark dampness rained quivering over all. And there, lacking even a chair, even a plank, Laveuve lay in a corner on a little pile of filthy rags spread upon the bare tiles; he looked like some animal ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... me he was grinning. His mouth was partially open, and the pale, writhing barbels that surrounded his mouth seemed to reach out toward me. The long and graceful antennae were bent downward inquiringly, quivering tensely, and his small eyes glowed like wind-fanned coals of fire. The brownish fins were rigid as metal, the retractile claws unsheathed and cruelly curved. He was so close that I could hear the air rushing through his ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... lights of Santa Brigida twinkled ahead, and when they steamed up to the harbor both looked about. The American collier and a big cargo-boat lay with the reflections of their anchor-lights quivering on the swell, but there was no passenger liner to be seen. A man came to moor the launch when they landed, and Jake asked if the ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... adored, the enthusiasm which it implanted in her nature wholly occupied with outside things, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which, from her thoughtful brain, full of ideas, passed into her fingers with a little quivering of the nerves, a desire of the idea accomplished, of the realized image. All day long she would work at her sculpture, giving shape to her dreams with that happiness of instinctive youth which lends so much charm to early work; this prevented her from any excessive ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... a slight quivering of the limbs told that the latter still lived. The outlaw raised his arm, but still hesitated to ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... application of harmless cosmetics could not, in any sense, deceive one as to the delicacy of her features. The mouth, red with the carmine grease, was gentle, even tremulous; her nose, though streaked with a thin, white line, was straight and pure patrician in its modeling, with fine, quivering nostrils, now gently distended by sharp exercise in the ring; her ears were small, her throat round and slim; right proudly her head rode the firm, white neck; the warm, brown hair swept down in caresses ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... tears had relieved sad Alba's heart while she held that friend in her arms, quivering with sorrow and pity; but when she was gone, and Madame Steno's daughter was alone, face to face with her thoughts, a greater distress seized her. The pity which her companion in misery had shown for her—was it not one more proof ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... could not answer. A strange shivering passed through its stem and along its boughs, which set its leaves a-quivering. It ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... and clasped in her hand a neatly bound prayer-book which had been the gift of the Reverend Orlando. For more than six months she had suffered silently under Sarah's eyes, which saw only outward and visible afflictions. Now, at the first sign of quivering flesh, the older woman was at once on ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... at their hands. Many with whom I have spoken, put on even a cheerful air as they have greeted me, and after the usual morning's salutation, have passed on as if things were in their usual train. Others with pale face and quivering lip confessed the inward tumult, and that, if they feared naught for themselves, there were those at home, helpless and exposed, for whom the heart bled, and for whom it could not ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... overhead, that rays down glorifying light, they would not be much to look at or talk about. The tree has a gnarled, grotesque trunk which divides into insignificant branches, bearing leaves mean in shape, harsh in texture, with a silvery underside. It gives but a quivering shade and has no massiveness, nor symmetry. Ay! but there are olives on the branches. And so the beauty of the humble tree is in what it grows for man's good. After all, it is the outcome in fruitfulness which is the main thing about us. God's meaning, in all His gifts of dew, and beauty, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... lips, but quivering limbs, down stairs, and into the sitting-room. Scoutbush was gone to bed. Campbell and ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... qui vive[Fr], astir, sparkling; in a quiver &c. 821, in a fever, in a ferment, in a blaze, in a state of excitement; in hysterics; black in the face, overwrought, tense, taught, on a razor's edge; hot, red-hot, flushed, feverish; all of a twitter, in a pucker; with quivering lips, with tears in one's eyes. flaming; boiling over; ebullient, seething; foaming at the mouth; fuming, raging, carried away by passion, wild, raving, frantic, mad, distracted, beside oneself, out of one's wits, ready to burst, bouleverse[obs3], demoniacal. lost, eperdu[Fr], tempest-tossed; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... silence for a few moments; for the doctor had held out his hand to Mayne, who stood looking at it with his lips quivering. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... the hunter, though there was somewhat of a quivering of the muscles of the cheek discernible amid the curls of his chestnut beard: "robbery is not the wonted service ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... you like me," Nancy said, quivering a little. "This is a rather uncommon experience to me, you know, being looked at so impersonally. Now please don't say that I'm ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... to send his arrow straight up so far out of sight that it was a long while coming down again to stick quivering in the ground near by, whence Sancho brought it in his mouth, evidently highly approving of a game in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... child, and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be great. Amaryllis is wretched—she is passionate and vivid as a humming bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and I, and if ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the long weird wailing scream pierced the night and, echoing down the canyon, was repeated a hundred times by the black rocky sides. Cameron could feel Jerry's hand still quivering on his arm. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... hymned The writhing maid, lithe-limbed, Quivering on amaranthine asphodel, How can he paint her woes, Knowing, as well he knows, That all can be set ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... more and more prominent, and his adipose jaw dropped. And he sat, quivering fatly, his gaze upon the doors of the big wardrobe which occupied the space between the windows. Distinctly he remembered that these doors had been closed. But now they ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... to save myself, I suppose, from a worse fear, the fear of life itself. And suddenly, out there, I let go. And the beauty of the place got me. I can't describe the beauty, except that there was a lot of strong blue and yellow in it, a clear gold atmosphere, positively quivering, and streaming over everything like gold water. I seemed to remember it as if I'd been here before, a long, steady memory, not just a flash. It was like finding something you'd lost, or when a musical phrase you've been looking for suddenly comes back to you. It was the ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... emptied their horns and cups to that health. Then stood up the man furthest on the left and cried out, "Drink a health to the Undying King!" And again all men rose up and shouted ere they drank. Other healths they drank, as the "Cold Keel," the "Windworn Sail," the "Quivering Ash" and the "Furrowed Beach." And the wine and mead flowed like rivers in that hall of the Wild Men. As for Hallblithe, he drank what he would but stood not up, nor raised his cup to his lips ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... under that fatal tree listening to the dreary drench of rain pouring off the leaves, quivering nerve-shaken to the thunderclaps. Lacking one another, we had gone mad; it was the beginning of a mutual dependence in the face of the unprecedented, which was to grow to something greater during ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... blood spirted around, and the Emperor opened the quivering body of the animal in order to take an augury from its entrails, a cry rose which ended in an uproar, and all fled. The word "Apostate!" for the first time struck his ear. That was the signal of his defeat, and, as the animals were released by those who held them, they fled ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... can say a great deal in that." He put one foot on a chair and held his arms over the quivering room. He seemed transfigured into a Hebrew prophet passionate for satire and the truth. "Oh, keep quiet for two minutes," he cried, "and I'll tell you something you'll be glad to hear. You're a little ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... of the clouds, and beseech caution against the treachery of the skies. I think I see her now, as she stood the moment after I had torn myself from her embrace, and had looked back, as I reached the door, for one parting glance,—her eyes all tenderness, her lips parted, and quivering with the attempt to smile, the long, glossy ringlets (through whose raven hue the purpureum lumen broke like an imprisoned sunbeam) straying in dishevelled beauty over her transparent neck; the throat bent in mute despondency; ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the eleventh hour, got all the contracts and offices! It never came into the head of any man to write a Dictionnaire des Girouettes in America. These late converts had never known what it was to be Abolitionists while it was "unfashionable," and have, as it were, live coals laid on the quivering heart—as I had a thousand times during many years—all for believing the tremendous and plain truth that slavery was a thousand times wickeder than the breach of all the commandments put together. It was so peculiar for ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Perronnette go out together. I was alone in the house. They had hardly closed the gate before I sprang from the window and ran to the well. Then, just as my governor had leaned over, so leaned I. Something white and luminous glistened in the green and quivering ripples of the water. The brilliant disk fascinated and allured me; my eyes became fixed, and I could hardly breathe. The well seemed to draw me in with its large mouth and icy breath; and I thought I read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... said, "I don't half understand what you've been talking about and I fear you don't. You've evidently been listening and watching and have got hold of something. Now, I'll be as patient as I can if you'll tell me the whole story quickly," and he turned his flushed, quivering face toward her. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... in a quivering voice. "I can't tell you. It has all come upon me as a shock. I had ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... perhaps to let loose the floods of his garrulity by making any gap in the dam of silence, Flint sat idly inspecting his fishing-tackle, shutting it up, then drawing it out, and finally topping it with the last, light, slender tip, quivering like the outmost delicate twig of an aspen as he shook it over the side of the carryall. In fancy, he saw it bending beneath the weight of a black bass such as haunted the translucent depths of a freshwater pond a mile or two away. In fancy, he could feel the twitch at the end of the line, ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... her eyes still wider, and licked the honey off one whole corner of the slice without really tasting anything. Marthy's square, uncompromising chin was actually quivering. Billy Louise was stricken dumb by the spectacle. She wanted to go and put her arms around Marthy's neck and kiss her; only Marthy's neck had a hairy mole, and there was no part of her face which looked in the least ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... should be fiercely and beautifully animal, full of laughter, of the dry good light of the intellect, of "salt and fire and the great, compelling logic, of the light feet of the south, the dance of the stars, the quivering dayshine of the Mediterranean." The other composers, the Beethovens and Brahms and Wagners, had been sad, suffering, wounded men, men who had lost their divine innocence and joy in the shambles, and whose spiritual bodies were scarred, for all the muscular strength gained during their fights, ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... inches in a hardly contested race it may make the difference of its being lost or won. Thus an easy race is no exertion to a jockey, but after a hardly contested one, he returns with his lips parched, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and every muscle quivering. ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... words out of my mouth than an arrow whistled through the air. For a moment the dreadful thought seized me that one of them had been struck; but the missile was quivering in the woodwork above their heads. They quickly retreated, and I heard the door closed behind them. I calculated the spot from which the arrow had been shot, and with the help of my companions, training my gun towards ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... shadow of trouble seemed swept away from a shining sky of peace. I threw open the lattice window of my study and stepping out on the balcony which overhung the garden, I stood there dreamily looking out upon the night. There was no moon; only a million quivering points of light flashing from the crowded stars in a heaven of dusky blue. The air was warm, and fragrant with the sweet scent of stocks and heliotrope,—there was a great silence, for it was fully midnight, and not even the ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... the rays of daylight, and the listening air is chilly; Voice of bird and forest murmur, insect hum and quivering spray Stir not in that quiet hour: through the valley, calm and stilly, All in hushed and loving silence watch ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... sharply forward, his lithe frame tense. A long drawn, quivering shriek came down-wind to him. It was repeated. Then short and sharp, piercing note on piercing note, sounded the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... expression of which Vivian was not without the eloquence that belongs to earnestness, whether in truth or falsehood. But, somehow or other, I never left the little room that contained the grand suffering in the face of the veteran soldier, whose lip, often quivering with anguish, was never heard to murmur, and the tranquil wisdom which had succeeded my father's early trials (trials like my own), and the loving smile on my mother's tender face, and the innocent childhood ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cordial pressure of the big, brown hand! how it sent warmth and cheer and courage through the little quivering frame! John was all right in his mind, as he said, but his body felt already the stinging blows of the cane, his ears rang already with the burning words of rage ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... with gold, in which there were eddies of pale mauve and distant flushes of a red that resembled the red on the wing of a flamingo. The clear and radiant sky was drowned in a quivering radiance of gold, that was like a thing alive and sensitively palpitating. The far-off palms, the lofty river banks that framed the Nile's upper reaches, the birds that flew south, following the direction of ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... and illustration of the oblations of the Christian home. The Lord does not ask the Christian parent, as he did Abraham, to build an altar upon the summit of some lofty cliff, and there to thrust a sacrificial knife to the heart of his child, and offer his quivering flesh and bleeding body a burnt offering to him; but he commands him to bring his child to the altar of baptism in his church, and there dedicate his life, his talents, his all, as a living sacrifice "holy and acceptable ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... skips on her red boots in time to the lively tooting of the boys, while the girls gazed at the lovely dolls and jabbered away with their yellow braids quivering with excitement. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... gave the order to tack; and while the frigate was in stays, plunging bows under, and quivering to her keel with the furious slatting of her canvas as she swept up into the wind, we had the satisfaction of seeing the Frenchman's mizen-topmast go over ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... gigantic brow of the apse—a religious shadow, sepulchral and pure, which had a good odour about it. In the greenish half-light of its calm freshness, the two towers let fall only the sound of their chimes. But the entire house kept the quivering therefrom, sealed as it was to these old stones, melted into them and supported by them. It trembled at the least of the ceremonies; at the High Mass, the rumbling of the organ, the voices of the choristers, even the oppressed sighs of the worshippers, murmured through each one of its rooms, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that cover the knees ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... no answer; but her pale cheek and quivering lips, evidences of feeling that her artlessness did not enable her to conceal, caused Bluewater again to regret the remark. With a view to restore the poor girl to her self-command, he changed the subject ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Morse as she spoke, head up, with that little touch of scornful defiance in the quivering nostrils that seemed to express a spirit free and unafraid. The sense of superiority is generally not a lovely manifestation in any human being, but there are moments when it tells of something fine, a disdain ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... enough, flickered through all the future; the light on her own cheeks. Her position as it faced her from various points of view acted upon her physical being—suffocated her and brought a scream to her lips. There was nobody to hear it, nobody to see the girl tear her hair, rise from her couch, fall quivering, face downward, on the little strip of carpet beside her bed. Who could know even a little of what this meant to her? Women had often lost the men they loved, but never, never like this. So she assured herself. Past ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... leap flashed up the sun, the dazzling centre of a flood of golden light. Godlike and resplendent he rode up on wreaths of twirling-mist, and with one stroke sent the shadows quivering back to the very corners of heaven. As the blazing orb topped the horizon, every head bent in worship, every hand arose in welcome, every voice broke out in trembling adoration, 'Saadoo! Saadoo!' Even I, the only European there, could not forbear from bowing my head and lifting up ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... task of a god. It never came to me in my dreams, so I wooed it by day. Above all, I wished to express truth; the sun is black. Think of an ebon sun fringed with its dazzling photosphere! I tried to paint sun-rhythms, the rhythms of the quivering sky, which is never still even when it seems most immobile; I tried to paint the rhythms of the atmosphere, shivering as it is with chords of sunlight and chromatic scales as yet unpainted. Like Oswald Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts, my last cry ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... in strong, and for the moment overpowering, emotion. The clear, rich tones had never faltered till she spoke of him beloved even in death—faltered not, even when she spoke of death as the portion of her child; it was but the quivering of lip and eye by which the anguish of that thought could have been ascertained. Lady ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... after all this,—after the affectionate surrender of herself to his wife's caprices which the woman had made,—he had turned upon her and driven her away with ignominy. That was all true. As he thought of it he became hot, and was conscious of a quivering feeling round his heart. These were bonds indeed; but they were bonds of such a nature as to be capable of being rescinded and cut away altogether by absolute bad conduct. If he could make it good to himself that in a matter of such magnitude as the charge of his daughter she had been untrue ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... upon him instantly. "You drowed the stone," she said, quivering with rage. "You dare to call mun thafe. You don't spake again till I tell 'ee—mind that. I'll tache 'ee to call my boy names." And Tommy Fry shrank back with staring eyes, appalled at her fury, while she put her arm again tighter round that of the ragged man ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... Kellton cried, quivering with excitement. "We've been hunting at random for the Brain, so it would only be an accident if we found it. We'll have to do this systematically, and with Conn to help us—Conn, why not build a computer? I don't mean another Brain; ...
— Graveyard of Dreams • Henry Beam Piper
... flaming brand. Thrilled by one impulse, all our sable band Dove through the gathering shadows of the night On wings outshaken for a headlong flight. Anger, revenge, but more than all the thirst, The glorious emulation to be first, Stung me like fire, and filled each quivering plume. With tenfold speed our sharp beaks cleft the gloom, A swarm of arrows singing to the mark, We hissed to pierce the ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... theatre had closed because of the national calamity—many a painted cheek showed runnels made by bitter tears, and one old actress, with quivering lips, exclaimed: "One woe doth tread upon another's heels, so fast they follow!" but with no thought of quoting, and God knows, the words ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... chastened loveliness; she departed like some sweet bride into her chamber, and long veil-like shadows crept up the sky through which the stars peeped shyly out. Soon, however, they too began to pale before a splendour in the east, and then the quivering footsteps of the dawn came rushing across the new-born blue, and shook the high stars from their places. Quieter and yet more quiet grew the sea, quiet as the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and covered up her troubling, as the illusive ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... cried Lyle, lifted to the seventh heaven of poetic fervour by the influence of a balmy night and a glorious harvest moon. Which said luminary, shining on Christal's face, saw there,—she only, pale Lady Moon,—an expression fine and rare; quivering lips, eyes not merely bright, but flaming, as such ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... it? I have desired the landlord will order the key to be delivered to you, and Asheton will assist you. Furniture, I find, I have in abundance, which I shall send down immediately; but shall not be able to be at Windsor at the quivering dame's before to-morrow se'nnight, as the rebel Lords are not to be executed till Monday. I shall stay till that is over, though I don't believe I shall see it. Lord Cromartie is reprieved for a pardon. If wives and children ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... lady crouched upon the floor. Dacres could no longer see her amidst that gloom; but he could hear her; and every sob, and every sigh, and every moan went straight to his heart and thrilled through every fibre of his being. He lay there listening, and quivering thus as he listened with a very intensity of sympathy that shut out from his mind every other thought except that of the mourning, stricken one ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... her; but his lips were quivering as he took again his missal and his purple bag. She watched him going on slowly down the street till he turned into the wine-shop. She wondered: Had he seen? Did he know why John was there? In another minute John came out, ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... he saw the hawk with quivering wings, and he knew that in a second it would pounce down on the frightened thrush. He jumped to his feet, fixed a stone in his sling, and before the whir of the stone shooting through the air was silent, the stricken hawk ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... distance to the far end of the little valley passed, Little Saxon was a length ahead of Lady Lightfoot, his quivering nostrils scenting danger behind, free range and freedom ahead. Thus Little Saxon first, Lady Lightfoot jealously guarding and keeping her place as second in the headlong flight, a slim barrelled sorrel close at the Lady's heels, the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... accused himself of bungling and imprudence. But how could he have suspected such a thing? He had been assured that the bust was not finished. And, indeed, it had arrived that very morning, and seemed overjoyed to be there, quivering with gratified pride, expressing contempt for its enemies with the good-natured smile of its curling lip. A veritable silent revenge for ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... her lips as she gazed at the quivering sunbeams. Was that deep instinct for perfection, the romantic vision of things as they ought to be, awaking again? Did the starry flower bloom not in the dream, but in reality? The passion to create beauty, to bring happiness, which had been extinguished ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... straight down to her. His eyes were still smiling, yet very strangely they compelled her own. He stooped unexpectedly after an instant's pause, lifted her hand with absolute gentleness away from the quivering Robin, and laid it ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... sprawling and flapping about in high boots and a red waistcoat, flourishing his arms, snapping his fingers, and now and again bursting into a stave to keep step to. When he was done, I took the floor with the hornpipe, whistling the air, and double-shuffling, toe-and-heeling, and quivering from one leg to another very briskly. He lay back against the bulkhead grasping a can half full of punch, roaring loudly at my antics; and when I sank down, breathless, would have had me go on, hiccuping that though he had known scores of ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... I sure my Dear to view, I'd climb that Pine-Trees topmost Bough, Aloft in Air that quivering plays, And round and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... garlands and dust upon the head; Oh burning sunset gone wherein was hope to quicken The surge of starry dawn rising above the dead; Oh clamor over shame, yoke of the little-wiser On the unwilling shoulders, clenched by the quivering hands; Patience and proof that were and are your still appriser Now veil her and disguise her, gone ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... seemed to shoot their pyramidal heads into the clouds. On our left was the Loire, and on our right a large rivulet, whose crystal waters every where reflected the bright beams of the sun. The birds, with their songs, celebrated the beauty of the day, whilst the dews, in the form of pearls, quivering fell from the tender boughs, fanned by the zephyrs. A thousand picturesque objects presented themselves to our view. On the one hand were delightful groves, the sweet flowers of which perfumed the air we breathed; on the other, a clear fountain ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, 10 That they might answer him.—And they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call,—with quivering peals, And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild 15 Of jocund din! [2] And, when there came a pause Of silence such as baffled his best skill: [3] Then, sometimes, in that ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... litter. "The camphor, Hagar, the camphor!" said Maggie; and the stranger did not push it aside when her hand poured it on his head, but the laughing eyes, now dim with pain, smiled gratefully upon her, and the quivering lips once murmured as she walked beside him, "Heaven bless ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... his feet, allowing her to fall from his side to the ground, where she lay, a wretched, shivering heap. With a ferocious oath he snatched the big sword from the ground and turned upon her, with eyes blazing, muscles quivering. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... chronic languor seemed to have returned as, leaning back in the deep-cushioned chair, he regarded this youthful malefactor with sleepy eyes, yet eyes that missed nothing of the boy's quivering earnestness as he ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... his hot skin quivering on his bones, and his heart like lead; then got up and flung his clothes on hastily, and asked how far ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... they needed money, which was courteously declined, Gui Camoys rode away, and sang as he went. Osmund Heleigh remained motionless. He raised quivering hands to the sky. ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... thrill as of quivering flesh exposed, was that Thomas Stevenson on one side was exactly the man to appreciate such attainments and work in another, and I often wondered how far the sense of Edinburgh propriety and worldly estimates ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... raised his baton. The orchestra ceased its tuning. The lights were lowered. Silence and stillness enwrapped the auditorium. And the quivering violins sighed out the first chords of the "Lohengrin" overture. For me, then, there existed nothing save the voluptuous music, to which I abandoned myself as to the fascination of a dream. But not for long. Just as the curtain rose, the door behind me gave a click, and Sullivan entered in all ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... Piccadilly end of the street. In those days great people went about like great people, in handsome hammer-clothed, arms-emblazoned coaches, with plethoric three-corner-hatted coachmen, and gigantic, lace-bedizened, quivering-calved Johnnies, instead of rumbling along like apothecaries in pill-boxes, with a handle inside to let themselves out. Young men, too, dressed as if they were dressed—as if they were got up with some care and attention—instead of wearing the loose, careless, flowing, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... at him; there was a telltale quivering in her face. She divided the cake carefully, and gave her husband half. David had lain back on a piny bank; and as he ate, his eyes followed the treetops, swaying a little now in a rhythmic wind. But Letty ate her piece as if ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... my house at such an hour, this matter must indeed be of singular importance," he said stiffly. Then, in a voice quivering with sarcasm, ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... were the outlet of all the joy that had been experienced on the earth since creation; and that with all its power it were besieging heaven with gratitude and love for the infinite bliss of life. Life, joy, love. The blessed, darling little bird, quivering, warbling, urging its way farther and farther; and finally swooning with excess of delight, and sinking back to earth! You see I am vainly trying to help you to an idea of it, but I cannot do it. I do not understand why the skylark should not rise from our meadows as well, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the big load stood quivering on the edge of the precipice, and then, with a crash which sounded far up and down the rugged valley, the wagon ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... coil his length around a projecting bit of rock and defy you for perhaps five or ten minutes; and then when you do succeed in tearing him away and pull him out with the hook buried deep in his loose, pendulous, wrinkled and corduroyed throat, he instantly resolves himself into a quivering Gordian knot, winding the line in and about his coils and knotting it into such knots that ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... irresistible might, it tore its way through the youth's shield, composed though it was of thick plates of brass and iron, and through his cuirass, and inflicted a ghastly wound in his breast. In vain he wrenched out the deadly missile from his body; even as he withdrew it life deserted his quivering form, and he fell to the ground. Bestriding the corpse, Turnus cried, "Ye Arcadians, faithfully report to Evander this message,—I send him back his Pallas in such a plight as he deserved. Whatever honor is in a tomb, whatever solace in the performance ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... the space ship, and insulated well; and the thin atmosphere of this wild world could cut a blast of sound to a mere fraction of its volume! But the walls were admitting a fragmental echo of what must have been a reverberating voice. They were quivering to ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... South discontinued her operations upon the quivering boughs, came out from the reclining oak, and prepared tea. When it was ready the men were called; and Fitzpiers being in a mood to join, sat ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... warhorse—who seemed to scent battle in the air, and stood perfectly still, quivering with excitement—unslung his handgun from his shoulder, and levelled it at the leader of the band. The next instant a sharp report rang through the silent forest. The robber chief flung up his hands with a stifled cry and sank down upon the ground; whilst the other men, astonished ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... anger, while his quivering lip and lurking eye made her almost repent the boldness of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child! Her Pearl—for so had Hester called her; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant "Pearl," as ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Felix was quivering with eagerness. This was like a picnic in the humdrum life of the farm hand. Except when the circus came to town, or there was a Harvest Home day, poor Felix knew little beyond the eternal grind of getting up before dawn, and working until ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... just too exciting for anything, Flo?" asked Mame Wells, putting her arm around her chum, whom she found actually quivering with nervous hope ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... different figures which they performed, I observed that they generally finished by certain numbers of their principal dancers advancing to the front, and going through that favourite part of the dance, the quivering motion of the knees; whenever this was done, the whole company faced to the front and went through the same motions; but it was noticed that some were more frequently in the front than others, and those, I concluded, were such as had great confidence in ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... morning the little steamer Speedwell made her appearance round the promontory by Knollsea Bay, to take in passengers for the transit to Cherbourg. Breezes the freshest that could blow without verging on keenness flew over the quivering deeps and shallows; and the sunbeams pierced every detail of barrow, path and rabbit-run upon the lofty convexity of down and waste which shut in Knollsea from ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... was beating double. My uncle had leant over the cradle. Babet, quite pale, with closed eyelids, seemed asleep. I forgot all about the child, and going straight to Babet, took her dear hand between mine. The tears had not dried on her checks, and her quivering lips were dripping with them. She raised her eyelids wearily. She did not speak to me, but I understood her to say: "I have suffered a great deal, my dear Jean, but I was so happy to suffer! I ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... With quivering lips she sat and wondered what she could do to hurt this man. She did not only want to inflict bodily pain, but that other gnawing pain of the heart which she herself was now feeling for the first time. And through it all there ran the one thought that he must die. It was strange ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... snow; above and behind and ahead and beneath. Sinclair coughed the flakes out of his eyes and nose and mouth like a baffled collie. He looked doubtful of the claim until the mist had blown clear and the quivering monsters were again recalled for a dash. Then it was plain that Sankey's instinct was right; ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... top of the wind screen. The propeller screw moved round with powerful rhythmic impulses—one, two, three, pause; one, two, three—which the engineer controlled very delicately. The machine began a quivering vibration that continued throughout the flight, and the roof areas seemed running away to starboard very quickly and growing rapidly smaller. He looked from the face of the engineer through the ribs of the machine. Looking sideways, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... sleep upon you now, while soft Airs circle swallow-like from hedge to croft Below your lowest naked-rooted troop. Let evening slowly droop Into the middle of your boughs and stoop Quiet breathing down to your scarce-quivering side And ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... of surf, and between us and it lurked a sand bar, against which the great rollers dashed with a bull-like roar. The wind drove us straight upon this bar. A moment of deadly peril and it had us fast, holding us for the waves to beat our life out. The boat listed, then rested, quivering through all its length. The waves pounded against its side, each watery battering-ram dissolving in foam and spray but to give place to another, and yet it held together, and yet we lived. How long it would hold we could not tell; we only knew it could not be for long. The inclination ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... they got off without him? What if the war should end before he got away? He dashed into the stable and flung the saddle upon his horse, fastening it with swift, feverish jerks, while the sympathetic animal watched him with eager eyes, quivering to be away. ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... markings so closely resemble, I was at first unable to find the nests, and discovered that the only way to locate them was to stand quietly and watch the birds. When the Tern is passing over the nest it checks its flight, and poises for a moment on quivering wings. By keeping my eyes on this spot I found the nest with very little trouble. The complement of eggs, when the bird has not been disturbed, is usually three. These are laid in a saucer shaped structure ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... watched, through the typical stages of the sport: the delicate flip of the bait into the current at just the right spot; its swift descent, imperceptibly guided by the rod's quivering tip; its slower drift toward deep water; its sudden vanishing, and the whir of the reel as the line goes out; then the pause, the critical moments of "feeling for him"; at last the strike {HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} and then, a flopping in the ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... moment, was suddenly conscious of a new horror. The woman had leaned a little forward in her easy-chair until she had attained almost a crouching position. Her eyes seemed to be measuring the distance from where she sat to that quivering ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim |
