"Twinkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Half a dozen times I dislodged him and brought him up, but he was so wild and strong I did not dare to force him in. At last he made a dash for the ripple, and I gave him a quick turn, and as he struck out of it Mr. McGrath had his landing-net under him in a twinkling, and he was out kicking on the rock. He weighed four pounds six ounces, and furnished conclusive evidence that a bass of that weight can give a great deal of very agreeable trouble before he will consent to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... perseverance! Never had the world seen such energy, activity, or good fortune. Hers was a will that regarded no obstacles. Neither rivers, deserts, nor mountains far higher than those in Europe, arrested her people. They built grand cities, they drew their fleets, as in a twinkling of the eye, from the very forests. A handful of men conquered empires. They seemed a race of giants or demi-gods. One would have supposed that all the work necessary to bind together climates and oceans would have been done at the word of the Spaniards as by enchantment, and since nature had ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... supposin' that you know where this stuff is hid, Mr. von Kerber?" he asked, his small eyes twinkling under ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... beautiful new wells! This was too much for any farmer to stand; and our friend brooded over it, and brooded over it, till at last a bright idea came into his head. He seized the conch, blew it loudly, and cried out, "Oh, Ram! I wish to be blind of one eye!" And so he, was, in a twinkling, but the money-lender of course was blind of both, and in trying to steer his way between the two new wells, he fell into one, ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... as a boy's, twinkling eyes behind spectacles, he was one of the most astute, learned, and patient of the French secret police. And he did not care the flip of his strong brown fingers for the methods of Vidocq or Lecoq. ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... bit of lace at the edge, and a soft felt hat with a shady brim. It was a costume that, with all its oddity, seemed wonderfully fit and familiar. And the face? Certainly it was the face of an old friend. Never had I seen a countenance of more quietness and kindliness and twinkling good humour. ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... weak expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens, who, as a general thing—it was not a peculiarity of the land- lady's niece—are fond of besmearing themselves with flour. You soon recognise that it is not only the many-twinkling lagoon you behold from a habitation on the Riva; you see a little of everything Venetian. Straight across, before my windows, rose the great pink mass of San Giorgio Maggiore, which has for an ugly Palladian church a success beyond all reason. It is a success of position, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... wells! This was too much for any farmer to stand: and our friend brooded over it, and brooded over it, till at last a bright idea came into his head. He seized the conch, blew it loudly, and cried out, "Oh Ram! I wish to be blind of one eye!" And so he was in a twinkling, but the money lender of course was blind of both, and in trying to steer his way between the two new wells, he fell into one and ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... hollow sound in cavernous recesses cold and dark, or leaping in foam from heights with rush and swish; always bright and riotous, never pausing in still pools to rest, dashing through gates of rock, pine hung, pine bridged, pine buried; twinkling and laughing in the sunshine, or frowning in "dowie dens" in the blue pine gloom. And there, for a mile or two in a sheltered spot, owing to the more southern latitude, the everlasting northern pine met the trees of other climates. There were dwarf oaks, willows, hazel, and spruce; the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... dear fellow," cried Connal, "what savage cut your hair last?—It is a sin to trust your fine head to the barbarians—my hairdresser shall be with you in the twinkling of an eye: I will send my tailor—allow me to choose your embroidery, and see your lace, before you decide—I am said to have a tolerable taste—the ladies say so, and they are always the best judges. The French dress will become you prodigiously, I foresee—but, just ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... twinkling lights, lay beneath him. The beam from the lighthouse swept the town searchingly like the eye of some pagan god lustful for sacrifice. He imagined that he could hear the shouting of the gangs coaling the liner in the harbour; but the night was full of the remote murmuring inseparable from ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... is something you are not telling me," she said, with the ever-ready laugh twinkling beneath her ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... clear water, vague objects that looked like shadows cast by sticks. He might gaze for many minutes and see no sign of life or motion to them. Then, perchance, one of these same grey shadows might disappear in the twinkling of an eye; the observer would see the surface of the water break in a tiny whirl; the momentary flash of a silvery side, spotted with red, appear—and the trout would vanish back into the deep ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... monarch begged, thereupon, that his faithful servant might be restored to life, together with all his high-minded family; and the goddess Devi in the twinkling of an eye fetched from Patala, the regions below the earth, a vase full of Amrita, the water of immortality, sprinkled it upon the dead, and raised them all as before. After which the whole party walked leisurely home, and in due time the king divided his throne with ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... at work before the sun, Mr. Leach," said the captain, speaking clearly, but in a low tone, as they approached the camel. The head of the animal was tossed; then it seemed to snuff the air, and it gave a shriek. In the twinkling of an eye an Arab sprang from the sand, on which he had been sleeping, and was on the creature's back. He was seen to look around him, and before the startled mariners had time to decide on their course, the beast, which was a dromedary ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ranch by the time the Star Devil and Judd's accompanying ship were in the satellite's atmosphere. It was the rare, deep, moonless night of Iapetus, when the only light came from the far, cold, distant stars that hung faintly twinkling in the great void above. Occasionally, the tiny world was lit clearly at night by the rays of Saturn, reflected from one of the eight other satellites; and occasionally, too, there was no night, the central sun of the solar universe sending its ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... effort our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies," who are called porters and who are always lying in wait for travelers, pounced upon us. They took down our baggage in a twinkling, and putting it all into the street surrounded it, and chattered over it, while M. and I stood in the rain and received first lessons in Italian. How we did try to say something! but they couldn't talk anything but in "ino" as aforesaid. The doctor finally found a man who could speak a word ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... should make a great deal of difference what they would think, since they don't seem to be aware of my existence, or even of yours, Aunty," said Pauline, with twinkling eyes. She knew it was her aunt's dearest desire to get in with the Morgan Knowles' "set"—a desire that seemed as far from being realized as ever. Mrs. Wallace could never understand why the Morgan Knowles shut her from their charmed circle. They certainly ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and beautiful, and they promenaded about the balcony until the shades of night had set in. The twinkling lights of the towns and farmhouses began to appear. They were passing over the mountainous region of southeastern Pennsylvania, and the globe had ascended to the four thousand foot level. The wind had shifted ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... Guert shouting out "Jack"—"Moses," applied the whip, and the spirited animals actually went over the mound, leaping a crack three feet in width, and reaching the level ice beyond. All this was done, as it might be, in the twinkling of an eye. While the sleigh flew over this ridge, it was with difficulty I held the girls in their seats; though Guert stood nobly erect, like the pine that is too firmly rooted to yield to the tempest. No sooner was the danger passed, however, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... been able to rob of its enchantment. There, at my feet, and extending miles and miles away, lay the camps of the Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights were twinkling in every direction, some nestling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating their wings and palpitating among the trees, and others stretching in parallel lines and curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Somewhere, far off, a band was playing, at intervals it seemed; ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... Baby will do all the fussy things in travelling—taking the tickets, and counting the luggage, and all that—they're such big men, aren't they?" said Denny, with mischief in her twinkling green eyes. ...
— The Adventures of Herr Baby • Mrs. Molesworth
... the double structure and the double action of the brain of man; he did not remember that the mind may lose all recognition of the lapse of time, and, with equal facility, compress into the twinkling of an eye events so numerous that for their occurrence days and even years would seem to be required; or, conversely, that it can take a single, a simple idea, which one would suppose might be disposed of in a moment, and dwell upon it, dilating or swelling it out, until all the hours of ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... alteration of a word in Scripture. A young divine, on his first public appearance, had to read the solemn passage in 1st Corinthians, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Thomson scratched the letter c out of the word changed. The effect of the passage so mutilated can easily be tested. The person who could play such tricks was ill suited for his profession, and ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... placed One arm, which the lady most closely embraced, Of her lily-white fingers the other made capture, And he press'd his adored to his bosom with rapture, "And, oh!" he exclaim'd, "let them go catch my skiff, I'll be home in a twinkling and back in a jiffy, Nor one moment procrastinate longer my journey Than to put up the bans ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... with an Italian Battery next door commanded by a certain Captain Romano. His men helped us in putting up our huts, which were of Italian design, and we had frequent exchanges of hospitality. Romano was a Regular officer, about 28 years old, with twinkling brown eyes and a voice like a foghorn even when speaking from a short distance away, but a fine singer. He had a wonderful collection of photographs, was a good Gunner and popular with ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who he was, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... he got on his nose, Miss Locke?" he asked, in a tone of wonder, but the keen blue eyes looking at her from under bushy grey eyebrows were twinkling and her shyness was not proof ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... consent we halted, and as we did so a gust of wind extinguished our leader's candle! What was to be done? I glanced up, and saw the lights twinkling at the far distant dormitory window. Oh, whatever possessed me to ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... broke up the gathering, and sent the girls hurrying helter-skelter along the terrace in the direction of the house. Irene paused for a moment to look back at the sea and the sky, and the distant twinkling lights, and to curtsy to the crescent moon that hung like a good omen in the dome of blue. There was a scent of fragrant lemon blossoms in the air, and she trod fallen rose petals under her feet. Suddenly a remembrance of the desolation of Miss Gordon's garden in a February fog swept ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... childhood's home was lovelier far Than all the stranger homes where I have been; It seem'd as if each pale and twinkling star Loved to shine out upon so fair a scene; Never were flowers so sweet, or fields so green, As those that wont that lonely cot to grace If, as tradition tells, this earth has seen Creatures ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... and a half from Pierre Chouteau's house to Dr. Saugrain's, and it was a frosty December evening. It was only five o'clock, but the stars were out, and through the leafless trees I could see lights twinkling from the houses as I passed. Faster and faster I walked, as my thoughts grew more and more bitter toward mademoiselle, and by the time I had reached the cheery living-room, with its blazing lightwood ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... an exquisite chant. Her laugh had a ringing sweetness in it, rippling out sometimes like a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told a comic story, which she often did with infinite tact and grace, she joined in with the jollity at the end, her eyes twinkling with delight at the pleasure her narrative was always sure to bring. Her enjoyment of a joke was something delicious, and when she heard a good thing for the first time her exultant mirth was unbounded. As she sat in her easy-chair, listening to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... Chopin died at the threshold of his prime, his life, lighted at most with a little feverish twinkling of stars, one nocturne. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... then, a south-bound train, either passenger or freight. Looking south along the track, he spied a small light twinkling through the night; and now, having recovered his reckoning, he surmised it was the water-tank some ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... twinkling in the water behind, the canoe shot out to the center of the lake. Bert carefully baited his hook and cast it far out from shore. Then, with the happy optimism of the average fisherman, he settled back ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... two later that I saw a scissorstail performing his ablutions in the northwestern part of Arkansas. How do you suppose he went about it? Not in the way birds usually do, by squatting down in the shallow water, twinkling their wings and tail, and sprinkling the liquid all over their plumage. No; this bird has a reputation to maintain for originality, and therefore he took his bath in this manner: First he perched on a telegraph wire by the roadside; then he swung ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... to the right he would be speedily stopped by the Main. The race promised to reach a sudden conclusion, for Wilhelm was perceptibly gaining on his adversary, when coming to the first house by the river the latter swerved suddenly, jumped to a door, pushed it open and was inside in the twinkling of an eye, but only barely in time to miss the sword thrust that followed him. Quick as thought Wilhelm placed his foot in such a position that the door could not be closed. Then setting his shoulder to the panels, he forced it open in spite of the resistance ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... Monsieur Charlie, who, order-book in hand, with his dark-skinned, woolly—covered cranium and squat figure, resembled more a toad than a human being. "Anything, Senor Captain, you vant?—me got in my store, all so cheap and so excellent," he said, making an attempt to bow, his keen, twinkling eyes fixed on his visitors, while he waited eagerly to note down the orders he might receive. "You will take vun glass, sare, of something cool? I have Bordeaux just arrived; and de young gentlemen, dey surely like something—and ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... an empiricism of religion which is worth attention. It challenges the sceptic to explain both the conversion of the sinner and the beauty of the saint. If religion can change a man's whole character in the twinkling of an eye, if it can give a beauty of holiness to human nature such as is felt by all men to be the highest expression of man's spirit, truly it is a science of life which works, and one which its critics must explain. ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... volunteers here. Their case is little known, even by the French, yet altogether interesting and appealing. They are foreigners on whom the outbreak of war laid no formal compulsion. But they had stood on the butte in springtime perhaps, as Julian and Louise stood, and looked out over the myriad twinkling lights of the beautiful city. Paris—mystic, maternal, personified, to whom they owed the happiest moments of their lives—Paris was in peril. Were they not under a moral obligation, no less binding ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... and with last presents of flowers, fruit, chocolates and papers. We crossed first to Malmoe on the ferry, which took about an hour and a half. It was very calm and clear, and we watched the little twinkling lights of Denmark gradually disappear and the lights of Sweden gradually emerge in exchange. At Malmoe there was a customs examination which was not very severe, as our things were all marked with a huge Red Cross, and then we got ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... the baby home," said Maurice, signing to the boy. In the twinkling of an eye the human rag called Gustave was lifted into a chair, clothed in his topcoat and hat, dressed and spruced up, pushed down the spiral staircase, and landed in a cab. Then the prestidigitateur returned and performed his last trick by making ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... and the broader the better. As I sat across the table from him, at mealtimes, and looked into his amused, small twinkling eyes, I thought continually of the ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... copse, and glade, The timid deer in squadrons came, And circled round their fallen shade With all of language but its name. Astonishment and dread withheld The fawn and doe of tender years, But soon a triple circle swell'd, With rattling horns and twinkling ears. ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... which had been built by some previous traveller, and which was fortunately unoccupied for the time being. It was rather broken-down and dilapidated, not even possessing a door, and as I lay on my narrow camp bed I could see the stars twinkling through the roof. I little knew then what adventures awaited me in this neighbourhood; and if I had realised that at that very time two savage brutes were prowling round, seeking whom they might devour, ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... disturbed in her reverie by the fact that the originator of it is running toward her with one little closed fist outstretched. How he runs! His fat calves come twinkling ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... this instant Le Blanc presents himself. His sedan chair, that had been hidden, is planted before the Marechal. He cries aloud, he is shaking on his lower limbs; but he is thrust into the chair, which is closed upon him and carried away in the twinkling of an eye through one of the side windows into the garden, La Fare and Artagnan each on one side of the chair, the light horse and musketeers behind, judging only by the result what was in the wind. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... difference. Two couriers at full gallop came first to Compiegne, crying: "Place": "Place": The eight white horses and the berlin de voyage followed. Before one had hardly time to realize what was passing, Napoleon and his bride whisked by in a twinkling. ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... then in a twinkling I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came ...
— Dear Santa Claus • Various
... pleasant to his bare little feet as he crossed to the door. He had almost reached the head of the stairs when, looking up, something so pretty met his eyes that he stopped to admire. It was a star, shining against the pure sky like a twinkling silver lamp. It seemed to beckon, and the ladder to lead straight up to it. Almost without stopping to think, Dickie put his foot on the first rung and climbed nimbly to the top of the ladder. The star ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the hunters' first shots were fired into the underwood. Instantly there rose by the hundred roebucks and guanacos, like those that had swept over them that terrible night on the Cordilleras, but the timid creatures were so frightened that they were all out of gunshot in a twinkling. The hunters were obliged to content themselves with humbler game, though in an alimentary point of view nothing better could be wished. A dozen of red partridges and rays were speedily brought down, and Glenarvan also managed very cleverly to kill a TAY-TETRE, or peccary, a pachydermatous ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... establishment of a Consulate for life. The reestablishment of the throne was a most important step in favour of the Bourbons, for that was the thing most difficult to be done. But Bonaparte undertook the task; and, as if by the aid of a magic rod, the ancient order of things was restored in the twinkling of an eye. The distinctions of rank—orders—titles, the noblesse—decorations—all the baubles of vanity—in short, all the burlesque tattooing which the vulgar regard as an indispensable attribute of royalty, reappeared in an instant. The question no longer regarded the form of government, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... one another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... camera and can be mounted on a ship or airplane. It was announced that it would soon be tried on trans-Atlantic liners. For the demonstration it was mounted in the garden of Baird's cottage, overlooking the twinkling lights of Dorking. In the dark beyond those lights an automobile headlight three miles away ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... said her father, taking something from his pocket. Like light she flashed out from under the cloud and was at his side in an instant, dimpling, smiling, and twinkling with expectation, her black eyes as quick and restless as her father was deliberate and slow in undoing ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... blackness. Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was rushing on to us. It was on the break—the moon shone on its crest and tipped its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it. Suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw the black shape of the whale-boat cast high into the air on the crest of the breaking wave. Then—a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam, and I was clinging for my life to the shroud, ay, swept straight out from it like a ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... afterward, Nancy always declared that it was a positive physiological fact that at that moment her heart was located somewhere in the roof of her mouth—some one caught both her hands in his, some one's glad voice cried "Nance!" and in the twinkling of an eye the homesickness and the memory of the weeks of wretchedness had vanished, and all the misery of the past and all the uncertainty of the future were swallowed up in the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... at him with eyes of twinkling comprehension. He had plainly forgotten the despair that had so ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... of the Rundan Fjeld; but as the direction of the river changed they disappeared, the valley contracted, and its black walls, two thousand feet high, almost overhung us. Below, however, were still fresh meadows, twinkling birchen groves and comfortable farm-houses. Out of a gorge on our right, plunged a cataract from a height of eighty or ninety feet, and a little further on, high up the mountain, a gush of braided silver foam burst ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... saw his chance, and with a quick movement he leaped directly on the shoulders of one of the second-year students. As the fellow went down he caught hold of two of his chums to save himself. This loosened the hold on the cane, and in a twinkling Sam, aided by Stanley, had it in his possession. He leaped down and started on a run for ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous house and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin agin that, only he wan't a goin to give you fair play, so I came here to see you out, and now if you'll only say the word, we can flog him and his mates, in the twinkling of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... things, and by his own adventures, and by dangers so great. Being believed {by her}, he immediately received some enchanted herbs, and thoroughly learned the use of them, and went away rejoicing to his abode. The next morning had {now} dispersed the twinkling stars, {when} the people repaired to the sacred field of Mavors, and ranged themselves on the hills. In the midst of the assembly sat the king himself, arrayed in purple, and distinguished by a sceptre of ivory. Behold! the brazen-footed bulls breathe forth flames[14] ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... the notary-general, who had acted as one of the chief mourners, took a seat. He was a short, thin, middle-aged man, with a pale complexion, twinkling gray eyes, and a sharp expression of countenance. Before him lay a sealed packet, on which the eyes of Nisida darted, at short intervals, looks, the burning impatience of which were comprehended by Dr. Duras alone; for next to Signor Vivaldi, the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... that inquiry made as to the use of his name, he had believed that Maryanne would at last be true to him. Poppins, indeed, had hinted his suspicions, but in the way of prophecy Poppins was a Cassandra. Poppins saw a good deal with those twinkling eyes of his, but Robinson did not trust to the wisdom of Poppins. Up to that hour he had believed in Maryanne, and then in the short flash of an instant the truth had come upon him. She had again promised herself to Brisket, ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... told over and over again by many different people and in many different ways. But from one point of view, and that a most important point, it is newer now than ever. Look at it from the seaman's point of view, and the whole meaning changes in the twinkling of an eye, becoming new, true, and complete. Nearly all books deal with the things of the land, and of the land alone, their writers forgetting or not knowing that the things of the land could never have been what they are had it not been ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... emotions, I sank down on the carpet, and, gazing up at the idol, beheld the jewelled eyes once more twinkling at me, merrily ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... twinkling candles bright and gay, For me, the purple shadows and the grey, When Christmas comes. For thee, the friends that greet thee at the door, For me, the faces I shall see no ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... and sweet, watching the stars twinkling through the tree tops. Good-night to you, Nancy, dimpling and smiling, while Percy whispers in your ear; and Elinor, too, talking quietly and happily to Ben. And now a last good-night to Billie, best of comrades, kindest and truest ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... you don't know what a glib young chatterbox he is; and, if he has his way, he is to be our errand-boy! Yesterday he challenged Eros—tripped up his heels somehow, and had him on his back in a twinkling; before the applause was over, he had taken the opportunity of a congratulatory hug from Aphrodite to steal her girdle; Zeus had not done laughing before—the sceptre was gone. If the thunderbolt had not been too heavy, and very hot, he would have ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... brutish horns in angry search may toss The Minotaur,—but thou and I are free! See where it lies, one dark spot on the breast Of plains far-shining in the long-lost day, Thy glory and our prison! Either hand Crete, with her hoary mountains, olive-clad In twinkling silver, 'twixt the vineyard rows, Divides the glimmering seas. On Ida's top The sun, discovering first an earthly throne, Sits down in splendor: lucent vapors rise From folded glens among the awaking hills, Expand their hovering films, and touch, and spread In airy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... they saw mixed masses slowly getting into regular form. The sunlight made twinkling points of the bright steel. To the rear there was a glimpse of a distant roadway as it curved over a slope. It was crowded with retreating infantry. From all the interwoven forest arose the smoke and bluster of the battle. The air was ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... acquire wisdom, and no one grudges zeal in that pursuit. But still, the time spent upon it, especially in our own country, is what old journalists used to call "positively appalling," and in some books, perhaps, we may draw blank. Read only maxims, and in the twinkling of an eye you catch the thing that you pursue. It is not "Wisdom while you wait"; there is no waiting at all. It is a "lightning lunch," a "kill" without the risk and fatigue of hunting. The find and the death are simultaneous. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... foot-stool. The soul of man is the abiding place of the love of the Saviour, and no heart is out-landish. What you may call liberty is an education, but the soul as God's province is not made so by training, but came with the first twinkling of light, of reason, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... as we pedalled along. Life, liquor, and literature lay all before us; certes, we had no thought of ever writing a daily column! And finally, after our small lanterns were lit and cast their little fans of brightness along the flowing road, we ascended a rise and saw Buxton in the valley below, twinkling with lights— ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... your stiff-starched apoplectic cravats, but a good, easy, old-fashioned white neckcloth that a man might go to bed in and be none the worse for. But what principally attracted the attention of Nicholas was the old gentleman's eye,—never was such a clear, twinkling, honest, merry, happy eye, as that. And there he stood, looking a little upward, with one hand thrust into the breast of his coat, and the other playing with his old-fashioned gold watch-chain: his head thrown a little on one side, and his hat a little more ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... a delicate point, and with a battery of eight or ten of these he would sally forth. His bag averaged high. Often he treated me to practical demonstrations of the success of his methods. A big flathead reposed in two feet of water, half buried in the sand. George had one of his darts fast in a twinkling, and the fish flashed away, the tip indicating its movement. In a few minutes the hapless flathead was carrying no less than six darts, and as such a handicap was absurd it abandoned the race ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... by the light of the moon, which was now rising high in the heavens, and thought that it would never come to an end. Listen as I would, there was nothing to be heard, and as the mist still prevailed the only thing I could see except the heavens, was the twinkling of the fires lit by Goroko ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... hold on the staff of him that was nearest to me, I said, "Sirrah, deliver your weapon." He thereupon raised his club, which was big enough to have knocked down an ox, intending no doubt to have knocked me down with it, as probably he would have done, had I not, in the twinkling of an eye, whipped out my rapier, and made a pass upon him. I could not have failed running of him through up to the hilt had he stood his ground, but the sudden and unexpected sight of my bright ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to talk. While they chatted, Mr. Short, a little merry, red-faced man with twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth, saying ruefully to his companion, Codlin by name: "Look here, here's all this Judy's clothes falling to pieces again. You haven't got needle and ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... dusky mantle over the face of nature. The stars glistened in the sky. The breeze's rustling wing was in the tree. The "slitty sound" of the low murmuring brook, and the far off water-fall, were faintly heard. The twinkling fire-fly arose from the surrounding verdure and illuminated the air with a thousand transient gleams. The mingling discordance of curs and watch-dogs echoed in the distant village, from whence the frequent lights darted their palely lustre thro' the ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... running for shelter, and in a twinkling the doors of stores and houses were tightly closed, and windows followed. The majority of the people went to the upper floors of their dwellings and peered forth anxiously to catch sight of whatever might be roaming the streets ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... distinguished-looking man, with a finely shaped head and well-cut features. Clean shaven, as a great lawyer ought to be, with a firm and rather satirical mouth, a broad brow, and bright hazel eyes set well apart and twinkling with humour. No doubt John's appearance had been a factor in ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... gray hair; he carried it oddly, a little on one side; it was said at the time that this was due to his having once attempted suicide by cutting his throat. His visage—heavy, long, and noticeable—had the typical traits of the American politician of that epoch; his eyes were small, shrewd, and twinkling; there was a sort of professional candor in his bearing, but he looked like a sad and weary old man. He talked somewhat volubly to my father, who kept him going by a question now and then, as his way generally was with visitors. There was a flavor of rusticity ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... set!" cried the boxer, lolling in his seat with a nonchalant air; and in a twinkling a bright heap of silver lay in front of each player, the wagers made with the gaffers opposite. The spinner handed his stake of five shillings to the boxer, ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... feeling for the sublime are inclined to lofty thoughts of friendship, scorn of the world, eternity, by the quiet stillness of a summer evening, when the twinkling starlight breaks the darkness. The light of day impels to activity and cheerfulness. The sublime ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... morally, and if he had found himself inside an omnibus he would have thought he was going to die. The sun was down. A green hue rose from the horizon half-way to the zenith, but a pale yellow lingered over the vanished sun, like the gold at the bottom of a chrysolite. The stars were twinkling small and sharp in the azure overhead. A cold wind blew in little gusts, now from this side, now from that, as they went steadily along. The horses' hoofs rang loud on the hard road. The night got hold of him: it was at this season, and on nights like these, that ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... any rate," remarked the colonel to me with twinkling eyes. "I'm sorry you've had your journey for nothing. But we'll keep a look-out and send him back if he returns ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... you try to nip the bud of his talk with a frosty 'Indeed!' and edge away, calling upon your programme to cover you. You never so much as turn the sixteenth part of an eye in his direction, for even as the oyster-man, should the poor mollusc heave the faintest sigh, is inside with his knife in the twinkling of a star; even as a beetle has but to think of moving its tiniest leg for the bird to swoop upon him,—even so will the least muscular interest in your neighbour give you bound hand and ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... In letting fall the curtain of repose On bird and beast, the other charg'd for man With sweet oblivion of the cares of day: Not sumptuously adorn'd, nor needing aid, Like homely-featur'd night, of clust'ring gems; A star or two, just twinkling on thy brow, Suffices thee; save that the moon is thine No less than her's, not worn indeed on high With ostentatious pageantry, but set With modest grandeur in thy purple zone, Resplendent less, but of an ampler round. Come then, and thou shalt ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... madly through the grove, displaying two boxes and a handful of separate matches. O Lalala at first refused to play for this trifling stake, but in a storm of menacing cries consented to cut the pack for double or nothing, and in a twinkling extinguished the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... the Prophet saith [a footnote suggests the prophet Amos, vi. 5, 6] dranke his Wine in bowles of fine silver plate, had not by two a Clocke so much as a wooden dish left to eate his Meate in, nor a house to couer his sorrowfull head, neyther did thys happen to one man alone, but to many.... In a twinkling of an eye came that great griefe uppon them, which turn'd their wealth to miserable want, and their riches to unlooktfor pouertie: and how was ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Maskull with twinkling eyes. "But first of all, to dine. I can't remember having eaten all day. You seem to have been hunting to some purpose, so we ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... all right and squaire?" said the American, with his little grey eyes twinkling; and he held out ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... favorites of the Prince, each wearing full-brimmed, three-cornered hats, very flat and very wide-spreading, beneath which grinned their swarthy, tanned, and wrinkled faces, lighted by three pairs of twinkling eyes, were noticeably lean, sinewy, and vigorous, like men in whom sport had become a passion. All three were supplied with immense horns of Dampierre, wound with green worsted cords, leaving only the brass tubes visible; but they controlled their dogs by the eye and voice. Those ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... bright, as busy as the day; For swift to east, and swift to west the warning radiance spread— High on St Michael's Mount it shone—it shone on Beachy Head; Far o'er the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire, Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire. The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves, The rugged miners poured to war, from Mendip's sunless caves; O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... McGinty. The giant was in his shirt sleeves, with chains and seals gleaming athwart his ample waistcoat and a diamond twinkling through the fringe of his bristling beard. Drink and politics had made the Boss a very rich as well as powerful man. The more terrible, therefore, seemed that glimpse of the prison or the gallows which had risen before ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle
... frowning cliff reminded them of their meeting, and silently, with their hearts full, they walked along until a dilapidated box car hove into view, with one oil-lamp still burning, twinkling evidence that Carson had not retired for the night; and as they came abreast the ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... by the sea, continued imploringly to offer an utterly ridiculous carved wooden camel long after it was impossible to have completed the transaction should anybody have been moonstruck enough to have desired it. Our ship's prow swung; and just at sunset, as the lights of Suez were twinkling out one by one, we ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... been far out on the floe. It is cheerful to see the twinkling light of some worker at a water hole or hear the ring of distant ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the green window-blind, I saw all the stars twinkling; and the broad moon, a little worm-eaten about the upper edge, was flinging a pale light over the Forno glacier and the thick pines that ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... that expounds upon the planets and teaches to construe the accidents by the due joining of stars in construction. He talks with them by dumb signs, and can tell what they mean by their twinkling and squinting upon one another as well as they themselves. He is a spy upon the stars, and can tell what they are doing by the company they keep and the houses they frequent. They have no power to do anything alone until so many meet as will make a quorum. He is clerk ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... World! That blue-robed sky; These giant rocks, their forms grotesque and awful Reflected on the calm stream's lucid mirror; These reverend oaks, through which (their rustling leaves Dancing and twinkling in the sunbeams) light Now gleams, now disappears, while yon fierce torrent, Tumbling from crag to crag with measured dash, Makes to the ear strange music: World, oh! World! Who sees thee such must needs confess thee fair! Who knows thee not ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... to break up this jolly gathering," said Frank, his eyes twinkling, "but I was just going ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... the grandfather's eyes had been twinkling, and at last he said to the boy: "Now that you have been under fire, general, you need some strengthening. Come and join ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets from the press of the New World. These likewise were consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of letters,—an enviable field for the authors ...
— Earth's Holocaust (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... parlour. As he entered every face lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome greeted him. The old hard world had been shut out with the slam of the front door. I seemed to have wandered into Dickensland. The red-faced man with the small twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather loomed before me, a large, fat household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth tobacco for the old father; a huge bunch of hot-house grapes for a neighbour's sickly child, who was stopping ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... 18, had witnessed many first appearances, but never had charge of hers been borne into court on such a swelling tide of female relatives. The rather diminutive Teacher was engulfed in black-jetted capes, twinkling ear-rings, befeathered hats, warmly gleaming faces, and many flounced skirts, while the devoted eyes of the First Reader Class caught but fleeing glimpses of its sovereign between the red roses rising, quite without visible support, above ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... let the doors shut agen; I, do your heads itch? I'le scratch them for you: so now thrust and hang: again, who is't now? I cannot blame my Lord Calianax for going away; would he were here, he would run raging among them, and break a dozen wiser heads than his own in the twinkling of an eye: what's the ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... her defensive armour on in a twinkling. "Of course, you two men will be against me. When did two men ever disagree upon the subject of wifely duties? However, I shall read in spite of you. Do you know, Mr. North, that when I married I made a special ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke |
